The Triumph of Jill

by F. E. Mills Young

“Until you met Jill you were not a fool,” snapped his father.

“We won’t discuss that point further,” St. John rejoined; “it is one on which we are never likely to agree. You wanted, your note said, to see Jill. I can’t imagine why, but if you still wish to see her we will go upstairs at once.”

Mr St. John having intimated that a two minutes’ uncomfortable conversation with his son had not altered his intention in coming, the latter turned impatiently upon his heel and led the way to the sitting-room where Jill was waiting with her little boy, striving, in her efforts to amuse him, to stifle her own nervousness and vague misgivings.

The child was simply and daintily dressed in white, and had grown from a puny infant into a sturdy, healthy little man, with more than an ordinary share of good looks and good spirits, and a very charming and lovable disposition. Jill idolised him, but she was wise in her love, and the spoiling—if spoiling it could be called—was of a very judicious kind, tending chiefly to bring out the best qualities in the impressionable baby-nature, so that surrounded, as this baby was, with love and care and tenderness, he bade fair to turn out a generous, affectionate, happy little fellow; and if he were not as well off as some babies, at least he had been born without the silver spoon, and so was not likely to feel the deprivation.

Jill had been playing with him on the floor, doing her best to keep him good-tempered before his grandfather’s arrival; for with her mother-instinct she associated this visit with the child, and was naturally anxious that he should appear at his best. When she heard their steps upon the stairs she scrambled hastily to a more dignified position, and stood with bright eyes, and flushed cheeks waiting to receive her former enemy. She had not forgotten his first and only other visit to her; she was not likely to forget it, nor to forgive him the pain he made her suffer then, and the insult which he had offered her. But she was content to ignore the past for her husband’s sake more than her own, and equally ready to treat her father-in-law with a politeness and consideration that he had no right to expect at her hands. Doubtless he remembered the incident also; he certainly did not anticipate a welcome, for he returned her cool little bow with equal distance—indeed hardly appeared to notice her at all. It was evident that if she had not forgiven him neither had he forgiven her; to her he owed the upsetting of all his plans, and his present lonely, childless condition, and he was not the sort of man who easily forgot an injury, nor readily pardoned the offender. His supercilious gaze rested for an instant on the mother’s face, and then wandered away to the child’s, taking in every detail of the baby-features from the wide, curious eyes, so absurdly like Jill’s both in expression and colouring, to the pretty curved lips, and rounded chin which even then gave promise of being as square and obstinate as his father’s. What he saw apparently pleased him; his features relaxed a little, Jill even fancied that he smiled back when the child in his friendly, confiding fashion smiled up at him, though if such were the case, which was doubtful, he made no further advance. He had never cared for children, and he did not now pretend to feel any interest in this one more than another. He had not come to see his grandson, but merely to make a proposal concerning him, and this proposal he forthwith expounded to the baby’s parents to their no small astonishment and dismay. His offer—and it was a good one from a worldly point of view—was to adopt the child altogether; to take him at the age of seven from his present surroundings and bring him up as he had brought up the father, bequeathing, at his death, his entire fortune to him unconditionally. He made no stipulation against the child seeing his parents as often as the latter wished, but he was not to live with them, nor to stay beneath their roof for any length of time.

When he had finished speaking he looked towards his son, but St. John shook his head decisively, and turned abruptly away; he could not answer such a question; he felt that he had not the right to do so.

“Ask his mother,” was all he said.

“Petticoat government, eh?” sneered the old man. “I appealed to you because I hoped that you would have profited by your own experience and been glad of the opportunity of giving your son a chance. With women it is different; they are so beastly selfish in their love; they always want the object of their affection near them.”

“Ask his mother,” St. John repeated in a hard voice. “A mother has more right than anyone else to decide the future of her child.”

Jill, who had remained till now impassive, listening open-eyed to all she heard, came forward as her husband finished speaking and stood between the old man and the baby on the floor as though she would protect the child from his grandfather’s designs. She was quite calm and collected; St. John wondered rather at her evident self-control.