Mrs. Fenton, whose eyes all the while had been gloating over the gold on the table now swept it into her pocket. It was a windfall which had come at the right moment. She was tired of Bedfordbury. She aimed at a step higher. There was a coffee house business in the Old Bailey going cheap, the twenty pounds would enable her to buy it.
As for her daughter, she had no scruple about letting her go with a man who was quite a stranger. The girl's future didn't trouble her. Since Lavinia had entered her teens, mother and daughter had wrangled incessantly. Lavinia was amiable enough, but constant snubbing had roused a spirit which guided her according to her moods. Sometimes she was full of defiance, at others she would run out of the house, and ramble about the streets until she was dead tired.
Lavinia was shrewd enough to discover why her mother did not want her at home. Mrs. Fenton, still good-looking, was not averse to flirting with the more presentable of her customers, and as Lavinia developed into womanhood she became a serious rival to her mother, so on the whole, Gay's proposition suited Mrs. Fenton admirably, and she certainly never bothered to find out if he spoke the truth. She was not inclined to accept his story of the boarding school as a stepping-stone to the stage, but to pretend to believe it in a way quieted what little conscience she possessed. If the scheme turned out badly, why, no one could say she was to blame.
Lavinia, tremulous with excitement and looking prettier than ever, came into the room where the poet was awaiting her. Her face fell when Gay talked about the boarding school and of the possibility of her having to remain there a long time, but she brightened up on his going on to say that the period might be considerably shortened if she made a rapid improvement.
"And do you really think, sir, I shall ever be good enough to act in a theatre like Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Oldfield, and—oh, and Mrs. Bracegurdle?" cried the girl, her eyes blazing with anxious ambition.
"I don't say you'll act like them. You'll act in your own way, and if you work hard your own way will be good enough. If you succeed the friends who are now helping you will be more than rewarded."
"Ah, I will do anything to please you, sir."
She caught his hand and impulsively raised it to her lips.
Gay was a little embarrassed at this outburst. Did it mean that the girl had fallen in love with him? He checked the rising thought. Yet there was nothing outrageous in such a possibility. Lavinia was only sixteen, it is true, and romantic sixteen might see nothing incongruous in thirty-seven, which was Gay's age.
"What pleases me, child, doesn't matter," he returned hastily. "I want to see you please others—in the play house I mean."