VIRGINIA DECIDES
"Early in the morning
When the first cock crowed his warning
Neat as bee, as sweet and busy,
Fetched in honey, milked the cows,
Aired and set to rights the house,...
Fed the poultry, sat and sewed;
Talked as modest maidens should."
—Christina Rossetti.
When Virginia went into her mother's room after breakfast that morning, she told her quietly that she had made her decision.
Mrs. Mynors gave a half-stifled, excited exclamation. For the life of her she could not have told what she hoped or desired. She stared at her composed daughter with eyes half of entreaty, half of fear.
"I shall write and tell Mr. Gaunt to come to-morrow," said Virginia with calm.
"Oh, for pity's sake, child, are you not mad?" cried the wretched woman in the bed.
"I have considered it," was the steady answer. "He is unhappy, and I am pretty sure that I could be a comfort to him. His way of doing things seems odd; but he is lonely, and I daresay he has been soured. I will do all I can to make him happy, if he on his side will perform his promises to you and the children."
"Virgie, don't!" The voice was so altered, so strange, that the girl paused, wondering.
"Don't? Why do you say so?"
"Because I——" Mrs. Mynors came to a stop. What could she say? "Because I have a lurking idea that he will not be kind to you." How ridiculous that sounded! And upon what was it based? Only upon the man's manner—his insolence, his evident desire to wound and insult her. Somehow she could not tell Virgie how his open contempt had stung.
"Because you—you don't know him—you can't love him," she stammered.
"But you knew him and loved him well enough to promise to marry him," countered Virgie instantly. "Of course, that has great weight with me. If he were a complete stranger, it would be different." She stood beside the bed, playing with one of its brass corner-knobs. "You know, mamma, I am rather an odd girl," said she with a swift blush. "I think I am attracted to what I pity. It would be waste to marry me to an adoring husband, who would give me everything I desired. I would rather give than have things given to me."
Mrs. Mynors lay back, watching her through narrowed eyes. "You are—yes, you certainly are odd," she muttered. "I own that I don't understand you in the least."
Virgie smiled. None knew better than she herself the truth of this statement.
"Of course," said she, "I am not accepting his offer definitely. I am simply saying that he may come here and see me to-morrow. I could not clinch the matter until we have some hold over him."
"What?" cried her mother sharply. "What do you mean by that?"
"Well," replied her young daughter simply, "Mr. Gaunt has made some big promises. How do we know that he means to keep them? You say he is eccentric. He may not be trustworthy. In any case, I shall not agree to do as he asks without being certain that he will do as he offers. We must go to Mr. Askew and ask him to come and meet him, so that a proper settlement may be prepared."
"Well, upon my word! Virgie, you cold-blooded little horror!" began Mrs. Mynors, almost in a scream. She broke off abruptly and rolled over, hiding her face in the pillows.
"But, mother," said Virgie wonderingly, "you don't reflect. I am promising to give all that I have or am. Suppose I did that, and found myself cheated of the price? You must know that I should not think of marrying a man I have hardly seen and do not love, except for you and the children. Do you call me cold-blooded because I am careful to assure myself that I shan't be sacrificed in vain?"
Her mother wrung her hands. "Virgie, you know that I do not demand such an unnatural bargain?"
"Of course I know that you don't demand it," was the quiet answer. "It is my own decision. I promise you one thing: if, when Mr. Gaunt comes, I feel that he is a person I never could care for, if he repels me utterly, I will draw back. But you know, mother, you have told me one or two things about him, as he was in the old days when you loved him—and they were rather fine."
"Oh, but he is so altered," sobbed Mrs. Mynors from the pillow. "You would never know him for the same man. He used to be so tender, so chivalrous, so impulsive. Now he seems so hard, so——"
She broke off. What was she doing? The affair that was to bring her comparative ease, to keep her from starvation, was well in train. Should she herself stop it? She reflected that Virginia was not accepting definitely—only promising to consider the matter. Let things take their course. She believed the girl had some sentimental school-girl fancy about Osbert! Yes, she had thought that from the first. She was wasting her compassion, her delicate feeling.
After all, considering Virgie's beauty, was it likely that Gaunt would be cruel to her? With a feeling almost like hatred she studied the pure outline of the profile, the effect of the sunlight glinting through the brown-gold hair, the curve of the chin, the slimness of the young, drooping body, veiled in its blue overall.
"Oh, do as you like!" she cried, "send your letter; but talk as little as you can to me about it! How do you suppose I like being told that you are sacrificing yourself for me? I can go to the workhouse in the last resort, like other people."
"Perhaps. But Pansy can't," said Virginia, a trifle rigidly. She took up the tray and disappeared.
*****
The day dragged by. To Virginia it seemed as if it would never end, and yet as if it were passing like a sigh. She felt as those who have been in a sinking ship have described themselves as feeling when the wave rose above the gunwale, and seemed to hesitate—to pause awfully—before it burst.
Pansy was very insistently eager to know what had passed between mamma and Mr. Gaunt the previous day. It was hard to stave off her pertinacious inquiry, but Virgie was able to tell her that negotiations were going on which might, or might not, lead to something. To-morrow would bring more news.
Thus the dawn broke upon the fatal day—a day of persistent fine rain which did nothing to abate the heat.
At about ten o'clock the loud imperative knock of a telegraph boy sounded upon the little door. Virginia took in the message. It was from Gaunt, and ran thus—
Please reply definitely to business offer, which otherwise is off.
The girl sat down, with knees shaking, staring at the message, which was reply paid. The boy waited whistling in the little entrance passage.
Should she give the definite answer demanded? Could she face the knowledge that all hope was over? She would not show her mother the despotic telegram. She knew that she must answer it for herself.
Taking a pencil she wrote:
Definite reply impossible till after visit. May we expect you?
She prepaid the reply to this, dismissed the boy, and walked into the kitchen with limbs shaking. She felt as if she had defied the robber chief who was holding them all to ransom.
It is difficult to describe the storm of excitement in which she awaited the second message. Her mother and Pansy both demanded the meaning of the double knock. She replied tranquilly to her mother that Mr. Gaunt had tried to extort a definite answer, which she had refused to give. Mrs. Mynors' cry: "Then he won't come after all?" was so tragic that the girl's heart contracted.
Within an hour she held in her hands the following remarkable sentence:
You gain nothing by delay. Arrive about four.
Virgie could not conceal from herself that it was relief which she experienced. Putting on her hat, she went out in the rain, down to the town, to the office of Mr. Askew, the solicitor, who had helped her with the agreement for Laburnum Villa, and in one or two other small matters. She asked him to come up that afternoon, at about half-past four. Then she bought a few little cakes for tea, and returned home to arrange everything as spick and span as possible.
Her mother had insisted that the "supply" should be asked to come up for the afternoon, that their guest might not know of their servantless condition. Virginia was at first opposed to the idea, but after reflection she agreed. Mr. Gaunt must not think them too utterly in his power. She felt like the besieged citizens who threw loaves of bread over the walls, in order that the besiegers might suppose that they were living in plenty. Moreover, the presence of Mrs. Brown would ensure that Pansy and Tony were not neglected, but had tea at the proper time, Virgie being otherwise engaged.
Thus it was that Gaunt, on his arrival, was admitted by a responsible-looking middle-aged woman in a very clean apron, and shown into a room which, though tiny, was a bower of luxury.
Mrs. Mynors, beautifully gowned, rose from the downy Chesterfield to greet him. She thought he looked less vindictive, less ironical than he had seemed at their last meeting. After all, perhaps she had been fancying things!
"Well," he said, "so our young lady is considering the subject, as I foresaw she would do. She is her mother's own daughter."
Mrs. Mynors smothered her resentment at this extraordinary address. She was conscious of a hatred which was difficult to keep within bounds, but her own panic, when she knew that there was a doubt of his coming, had shown her something of what would be her frame of mind if Virginia declined to marry.
"Virginia," said she, "is by no means my own daughter. I am a wretched woman of business, whereas her head is as clear as a man's. She wishes to have all that you propose to do for us embodied in a marriage settlement."
"Ha!" said Gaunt, as if delighted. The mother could hardly have made a more misleading statement. "Sharp young woman, indeed! Well, I respect her for that. There's no reason that I know of, for her to trust me. Where is she, by the bye? Has she entrusted the preliminaries to you?"
"No, she has not. She is acting quite independently in this matter," snapped Mrs. Mynors. "She is not quite of age, but I have always left her a great liberty of action. In fact, we have been more like sisters than mother and daughter." She dabbed her eyes daintily, and her voice was fraught with pathos.
"How charming!" said Gaunt gravely. "Did she remember having met me at the Wallace Collection?"
"Oh, yes, indeed she did! She remembered very well!" cried Mrs. Mynors, and her laugh was nearly as unpleasant as his own.
"Capital," was his comment. "All should go well then. Is love at first sight the proper cue, eh? Advise me. What do you think?"
For a moment the mask dropped. The real woman looked at him through the eyes of the elder Virginia. "I think you are a devil," she said distinctly.
He seemed much amused. "Well, perhaps you are not so far out this time. I told you that you were no fool. I thought you could be trusted to prepare the way for these difficult negotiations. Now may I see the lady of my heart?"
As he spoke, the door opened softly and Virginia walked in.
She wore her deceptive air of extreme elegance, and her prettiest frock. It was a costume grossly unsuited to the tiny villa, and she had hitherto worn it only in London. Any man beholding her might have been pardoned for supposing her to be a luxury-loving idler, a girl who thought of little else but appearances.
Gaunt stood up. She approached him with a mingling of shyness and welcome; her manner seemed to trust him completely—to say that she knew herself safe in his hands. It might have made appeal to the veriest ruffian, had not his eye been jaundiced by his knowledge of her mother, and of their penniless circumstances. Her virginal modesty was to him merely consummate hypocrisy.
"Well," he said, "so I hear that you are not going to commit yourself until I stand committed too? Is that so?"
She laughed a little breathlessly. His non-smiling, dark face and big, rather hulking person were formidable, and she was conscious of fear.
"You said it was a business transaction, and business transactions ought to be business-like, ought they not?" she asked. She was speaking playfully, while her eyes sought his, as wanting to understand, to obtain some key to his curious behaviour. "It was kind of you to come, nevertheless," she added, with a hesitation born of his lack of response.
"I am a non-social, boorish kind of person," he said abruptly, after a pause, during which she withdrew herself and sat down. "I suppose I ought to begin with some kind of apology for such a blunt offer, hey? But I am told that young ladies nowadays like something out of the way; and you could fill in the details for yourself, I expect. You saw me admiring you that day in the Gallery, did you not?"
Again the eyes, so like, so unlike, her mother's, were lifted to those of the man who remembered each look and smile of twenty years back as if it had been yesterday.
"I noticed something special—something I could not interpret—in your manner," was her gentle reply. "I told my friend that I thought you must imagine that you knew me. I was interested when mamma said that it was my likeness to her which drew your attention. I was glad to have it so well explained."
He leaned forward, intent upon her face and her down-bent gaze. "Well," he said, in a voice which thrilled her curiously, "perhaps you think that my suggestion is not quite so surprising, after all?"
Virginia made no reply. Her mother clenched her hands in rage, made some small movement, enough to attract his attention, and caught a ray of what was undoubtedly malice directed at her from under his heavy lids.
"Well," he went on, turning again to the girl, his tone subdued and almost gentle, "what do you say?"
She wavered—her colour came. Innocent and ignorant of life though she was, she yet felt the immensity of the step she was taking; but, strangely enough, the fact that the man gave her no help counted in his favour with her. His manner suggested some tremendous feeling, out of sight. His aloofness was like a fine and delicate consideration. The mocking quality in his address, so obvious to her mother, passed her by.
"Do you really think," she asked, her gaze still upon the ground, "that I am an adequate exchange for all the things you promise to do for—them?"
"Tell me now—enumerate—what have I promised to do for them?"
She lifted her eyes then. He was not looking at her, but brushing the sleeve of his coat where a crumb had fallen upon it. This avoidance gave her courage. "To educate Tony," said her voice, so fatally like her mother's in its cadenced sweetness, "to allow mother three hundred pounds a year, and to let Pansy have the best advice and treatment for her lameness."
"I admit all that, right enough. Anything more?"
"To settle five thousand pounds on me——"
He looked in triumph at Mrs. Mynors. "Admirable!" he said, with a sarcasm which penetrated to the girl's intelligence with a shock. She broke off, startled.
"All right," he told her soothingly. "I agree to that too. Anything more?"
"Our solicitor, Mr. Askew, said there was another thing that I ought to ask," she replied, quite tranquilly. "It is that you should make a will in my favour, so that if anything happened to you, we should not be left destitute."
He once more let his mocking glance lash Mrs. Mynors. "I appreciate my future wife's business capacity," said he, "but I warn you that I am horribly healthy. Except for the accident which lamed me, I have not had a day's illness in my life. I fear I shan't oblige you by dying just yet."
Virgie grew pink. "Oh, I beg your pardon! That must have sounded very cold-blooded," she apologised. "But you said it was a business offer, did you not?"
He smiled for the first time. Dropping his voice to a low persuasiveness: "Did you quite believe that?" he asked.
Thus challenged, the truth in Virginia spoke. "No," she told him; "I thought it too extraordinary to be true."
"Besides," he persisted, still in that wooing undertone, "with a man who had seen you, it could hardly be, eh?"
Virgie held her breath. Something was here which was utterly beyond her. She was half terrified, half fascinated.
"Do you remember the statue on the landing at Hertford House?" he asked. The blood rushed to her cheeks now in headlong tide. He knew what brought it; her mother misinterpreted.
"When you had gone, I went and read the inscription," he pursued. "I told myself how true it was. Do you remember it? Voici ton maître?"
He sat and watched the memory, the pang that rent her. The sight of it seemed to give him real pleasure. He could trace the regret, the quiver of feeling, and he could say to himself: "She loves young Rosenberg, but she will marry me for my money. She deserves the punishment which I am going to inflict."
"So, you see, I am a wise man; I know when I am beaten," he went on smoothly. "I acknowledged my master when I found him."
The struggle in Virginia was keen. She was telling herself that this was Mr. Gaunt's highly unusual way of confessing himself attracted. If it were true that he already felt this strong inclination, then she must satisfy him; the marriage ought to be a success, since he had the desire to love, and she the will to please, to serve, to cherish. Yet there was an undernote, like the boom of the far-away storm in the voice of a calm sea. This alarmed her, for she did not understand it.
To steady herself and hide her embarrassment she rose and went to the tea-table, at which she seated herself, pouring the tea and dispensing it with the noticeable grace which characterised her least important actions.
She noticed that her mother was shedding tears, and the sight caused her to make a great effort and launch into small talk—of the late heat, and the rain, and the climate of Wayhurst. Small support did she receive from either of her companions; and by the time that Gaunt had eaten a slice of cake and drunk two cups of tea, his patience seemed suddenly to give out.
"Come, then," he asked suddenly, "have we arranged matters, subject to your finding the business side of the transaction in good order?"
Thus confronted with the bald issue, Virgie felt as if he had slapped her in the face; but in a moment she had rallied. He had promised to give her all she asked. Could she, logically, do aught else but accept? She clasped her hands tightly in her lap, hesitated, rose, and went to the window, gazing forth upon the little wet street. Over the way, at Alpine Cottage, the pug had managed to get shut out in the rain. It was astonishing how often he did this. It was the one thing that seriously displeased his prim and elderly mistress. Virgie's mind caught at the trifling fact, the little bit of her daily life, as if its consideration could protect her against the awful decision which loomed ahead.
"If you want to stipulate for other things, now is your time," said Gaunt, rising and coming towards her. It was but a step, for the room was tiny. "For instance, don't you want it put in the settlements that you should have so many months in town every year, or that I should give you a motor? I haven't got a motor, I must warn you."
Here was something that she could answer without hesitation. She turned to him her lovely, tender smile. "Oh, all that! Why, I shall be your wife," she sweetly answered him.
There was a tingling silence after this artless speech. Gaunt's face fell. He looked as though a momentary doubt assailed him. Then he realised that he must seize the chance she thus unwittingly gave him of assuming her consent.
"Ah! then you can think of yourself as my wife?" He turned his face to where Mrs. Mynors sat like a woman hypnotised. "Then we are engaged!" he cried. "I am such a crusted old provincial bachelor that I did not provide for this occasion before I left town by the purchase of a ring. But I see upon your mother's finger a jewel which, if I mistake not, belongs to me." He approached the sofa with hand outstretched. "Thank you, madam. It seems to me a most touching idea that the mother and daughter should wear the same betrothal ring." He held it out to Virginia.
"Put it on," he said.
Virginia wavered. She looked from the man to the woman, bewildered with the invisible clash of feelings which she could not interpret. Mrs. Mynors hid her face behind her perfumed wisp of lawn; but, then, she would have done that in any case at such a moment as her daughter's betrothal. Gaunt's eyes were alight, but, as it were, a-smoulder; there was no flame in their glance.
Turning very white, the girl took the ring from him and obediently slipped it upon her finger.
"Done!" he said, in tones of boundless satisfaction. "Now we come to definite arrangements." He seated himself again, but Virginia remained standing as if something had turned her to stone. "I live a very busy life at Omberleigh," he told her briskly, "farming my own land; and my estate is a big one. I must go down there to-night to superintend the end of the hay harvest, and I must stay there a few days in order to prepare the house for your reception. I should like to be married this day week if that will suit you. As we both live in our own parishes, there will be no difficulty about a licence. It is not possible for me to take a honeymoon at this time of year, so I shall carry you straight back to Derbyshire after the ceremony."
"Wait—wait. No, no, Osbert, this is preposterous!" broke in Mrs. Mynors. "This cannot be. Virginia does not know you; she is all unprepared. Such haste is—improper! I will not have it."
He looked as obstinate as a mule with its ears laid back. "Sorry," he said. "On this matter I shall be obliged to insist. I must be married before we begin to reap, and it is going to be a very early harvest this year. Don't make difficulties. Remember that you profess to be very hard up, and I don't begin to make you any allowance until your daughter is my wife."
Virginia was reflecting. "If they told me I was to have an operation I would rather have it at once, than be left to think about it."
She spoke suddenly. "Mother, I can be ready," she said gently. "Let it be as Mr. Gaunt thinks best."
"Excellent!" said the bridegroom. "Your mother tells me that she allows you complete independence of action, so we will take this as settled. Is that your solicitor now entering the gate? I will give him my instructions at once with your permission, for I must go back to London by the six train to catch the express to Ashbourne."