MRS. TRACY’S I. O. U.
Mrs. Tracy’s answer to Ben’s letter was as follows:--
‘MY DEAR MR. RENTON,--Millicent has placed your most kind and
generous letter in my hands. It is everything I have said, but it
is a very extraordinary letter as well; and it is impossible for a
young creature without any knowledge of the world to answer it. It
takes all my judgment,--and I have passed through a good deal,--to
decide how to do it. I would not for the world hurt your feelings,
dear Mr. Renton, and I am convinced that to act according to the
dictates of pride, and decline your most kind little loan, would be
to hurt your feelings. Therefore I make the sacrifice of my own. I
don’t replace your notes in this, as pride tempts me to do. I keep
them for your sake.
‘And, besides,--why should I hesitate to confess it?--we are poor.
I cannot do for Millicent,--I cannot do for myself, though that
matters less,--what I would. I don’t know how far my poor child
went in her confidences to you to-day. She was agitated,--and she
is still agitated,--though I have done all I could to soothe her.
She is much affected by your sympathy and generosity; and yet, with
the shrinking delicacy which characterises her, she cannot forgive
herself for telling you. “I could not help it, mamma,--he was so
feeling,” my poor darling says to me, with tears in her eyes. God
bless you, dear Mr. Renton! With this timely aid, which I accept as
a loan, my Millicent’s poor mother may still be spared to watch
over her child. It would have been impossible for me to go, and I
tried to hide from my pet the urging of my physicians. Now it is
all clear before us. I enclose a memorandum for the amount at five
per cent interest; but what interest can ever repay the kind
consideration, the ready thoughtfulness? I can never forget it, and
neither can Millicent. When I say that we shall leave almost
immediately, I but say that we are carrying out your intention. We
shall miss you in that strange land. How sweet if we could hope to
meet our benefactor among its gay groups! Millicent tells me
something about your circumstances, which it seems impossible to
believe. But if it should be true, dear Mr. Renton, how sweet it
will be to your mind to feel that your little savings, if diverted
from their original intention, will yet go to carry out one of the
most sacred offices of Christianity,--to save a mother, the sole
guide and protector of her innocence, to her only child!
‘Believe me, my dear Mr. Renton, with the sincerest kind regards
and good wishes,
‘Yours obliged and most truly,
‘MARIA TRACY.’
‘Will that do?’ she said, thrusting the paper across the table to
Millicent, who sat looking on. Her mother’s style of letter-writing was
very well known to her; but her heart was beating a little quicker than
usual, and it was not without excitement that she took it up.
Altogether, the day had been a strange one for her. It had brought her
in contact with genuine, real passion; and at the same time with a rare,
almost unknown thing to her,--a man, with all the instincts of power,
unconscious of those restraints which make I dare not wait upon I would.
There is something in wealth which now and then confers a certain moral
power and unthought-of force and energy. Millicent’s friends and lovers
had been hitherto of a class quite different from Ben. They had been men
to whom appearance was more than reality,--who were accustomed to look
richer than they were, and to own the restrictions of small means,--men
who could not, had they wished it, have cut a way for her through a
difficulty, as Ben did with sudden flash of purpose. In fact, he was
poorer than any of the half-bred men to whom Mrs. Tracy had all but
offered her daughter; but the habit of hesitation or considering
possibilities had not yet come upon him. Simply, he had not been able to
bear the thought of want or difficulty or pain for her, and had rushed
at the matter without a moment’s pause, or any consideration but that of
doing her service. It was quite new to Millicent. It dazzled her
imagination more a long way than it touched her heart. She was not
grateful to speak of, but she was profoundly impressed by the man to
whom a hundred pounds,--that mighty object of thought to herself and
everybody she had ever known,--was no more than a bouquet or a pair of
gloves. She was not, even at that moment, ashamed of having all but
asked, or of receiving, his help. She was only dazzled by the
magnificence, the sudden lavish zeal and service of her lover. She read
her mother’s letter slowly and critically. ‘As if he wanted to be paid
back, or have interest at five per cent!’ she said. The mother’s were
very different thoughts.
‘It looks better,’ she said. ‘And if we ever are able to pay him back,
Millicent,--besides, it is putting it in a business way. Every man likes
to see things put in a business way; though this is such a young
fool----’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘I never met with such a fool in my life.’
‘He is not a fool,’ said Millicent, angrily. ‘It is the way he has been
brought up. He has not been taught to consider money as we have. Oh,
me! should we all be like that if we were all rich?’ she asked herself
with a thrill of wonder. Mrs. Tracy smiled grimly as she put poor Ben’s
bank-notes,--everything the foolish youth had possessed in the
world,--into an old pocket-book, which she took out of her desk.
‘No, indeed,’ she said, ‘not such fools as to give solid good for
nonsense. Why, only fancy what he might have had for his hundred pounds!
He might have gone to Homburg himself, and got a great deal of amusement
out of it. He might have gone to Switzerland. With all his friends and
good introductions, he might have got through the season with it,’--this
was all Mrs. Tracy knew,--‘with his club and dining out, and so forth.
And because you cry a little he gives it to you! No, if I were made of
money, I never could be so foolish as that.’
‘Nobody ever minded my crying much before,’ said Millicent, with a touch
of sullenness; and then she threw the letter on the table. ‘Certainly,’
she said, ‘a hundred pounds is a high price for that.’
‘I accept it as a loan,’ said Mrs. Tracy, wrapping herself once more in
the appearances she loved. Of course I should never think of taking
money from Mr. Renton in any other way. And I wish you would see to your
packing at once. We never had such a chance before. Oh, Millicent, if
you don’t make something of it this time, how can I ever have any heart
again? There are all sorts of people at Homburg; and you look very nice
in your mourning. One does when one has a nice complexion. What will
become of us if I have to bring you back here again?’
‘I have no desire to be brought back,’ said Millicent, sharply. ‘I am
ready to do whatever I can;--you may see that. But fate seems against me
somehow,’ she added, putting up her hand to her eyes. ‘One had every
reason to think it was settled and done with without any more trouble;
and here is the treadmill just beginning again. You are pleased because
you have got your money; but it is hard upon me all the same.’
‘I believe you are in love with him, after all,’ said the mother with
profound scorn. Millicent did not make any direct answer; but she turned
away indignantly, with a frown on her face. In love with him!--no, not
so foolish as that; but still it was hard when you come to think of
it,--never to be any nearer the end,--just to have to begin again. And
when everything seemed so clear and easy! A hundred pounds was very
nice, but it was not equal to Renton Manor and a house in Berkeley
Square, and everything that heart could desire. Poor Millicent
sighed,--she could not help it. And he was so fond of her too, poor
fellow! It seemed breaking faith with him to take his money and go off
to Germany to marry somebody else on the strength of it. And it was
nice to have him always there,--ready, on the shortest notice, to come
and worship. ‘All because I am rather pretty,’ Millicent said to
herself, with that half scorn with which a woman recognises that it is
the least part of her that is loved. Her beauty was everything she had
in the world, and yet it was a little strange that that was all Ben
Renton could see in her. Her transparent scheming,--her hungry
poverty,--her readiness to marry him or any man who had money enough,
and asked her,--that all this should be glozed over and hidden by a pair
of pretty eyes! This is a weakness of which a great many women take
advantage, but which always fills them with a certain contempt.
Millicent, who might have had something better in her, and who could
have been fond of Ben had he not have been disinherited, saw his folly
with a half-disdain. No woman would have been such a fool as that! And
yet she could not bear to hear her mother call him a fool.
She got up immediately, however, to begin her packing; and then she took
into very serious consideration the question whether a new dress was not
absolutely necessary for the new campaign,--a thin dress which she could
wear over her old black silk, and which would looked ‘dressed’ at a
table-d’hôte or other public place. ‘Don’t you think grenadine would be
best?’ she asked her mother, anxiously,--‘or perhaps my white with black
ribbons?’ Whatever might be her feelings towards Ben Renton, it was
evident there was no time to be lost.
‘It must be black,’ said Mrs. Tracy, decisively, ‘when you can have so
few dresses. White is always the next step to colours, and we can’t
afford that,--not to speak of washing. Black grenadine wears very well,
and looks very nice,--on you, at least,’ Mrs. Tracy added, with a
stifled sigh. She was too old for grenadine herself. To play her part
aright, she wanted a rich black silk becoming her years. But it would
make such a hole in the hundred pounds! She was compelled to give that
up. They spent the evening with the room littered all over with
‘things,’ examining into their deficiencies,--two warriors setting out
for the battle, and looking to all the crevices of their armour. And Ben
down-stairs heard their soft, womanly footsteps thrill the floor over
his head, and strained his ears to catch every moment they made. They
seemed to have accepted his offering;--what were they going to do with
himself? He sat, sick at heart, and listened while they went to and fro
up-stairs to their sleeping-rooms, down again to the drawing-room. He
had put his door ajar, and heard everything. Sometimes her mother called
‘Millicent!’ from below; sometimes it was the sweeter voice of the
daughter that replied; and every word rang through his heart, poor
fellow! as he sat and listened. That there was a commotion of some sort
going on up-stairs was certain; and it was he who was the cause of it;
and yet they did not call him to share the excitement. Or were they,
perhaps, preparing to go away, to punish him for his presumption,--to
return him his impudent gift of money, and reject his friendship? Poor
Ben sat trembling, absorbed in a cruel fever of suspense all the
evening. Perhaps they had meant him to be so,--perhaps it was only
carelessness, their own suspense being over; but certain it is that Mrs.
Tracy’s answer to his letter was not put into Ben’s hands till the
movement up-stairs was quieted, and the ladies preparing to go to bed.
Then Mrs. Tracy rang the bell. ‘That poor boy has not got his answer
yet,--how careless, Millicent!’ she said; and Millicent half smiled as
she went and sought it on the writing-table, underneath a heap of
muslin. ‘It can’t matter much,’ she said, with a slight shrug of her
graceful shoulders, and yet gave it with her own hands to the maid.
‘Tell Mr. Renton you forgot it,’ said Mrs. Tracy; ‘it should have gone
to him some time ago.’ And this was how the evening ended for the
adventurers on the eve of their campaign.
It had been a trying day for Millicent. Thinking it over when she
finally retired to the little dressing-room she occupied, this was the
conclusion she came to,--a very trying day. Neither her education nor
her experience, such as it was, had at all prepared her for such trials.
She knew how to deal with the ordinary young man who was to be met with
in Guildford Street; and as she sat with her hair hanging about her
shoulders, in the thoughtfulness of the moment a whole array rose up
before her of men who had admired her, followed her about, and satisfied
her vanity to the fullest extent, but who were not to be compared to Ben
Renton in any particular. Millicent, knowing no better, would have
married young Mr. Cholmley, of the firm of Cholmley and Territ, if he
could have settled anything on her; or young Hurlstone, the solicitor,
if he had been in better practice; or the engineer, who everybody said
was likely to make so much money, had he not been so impudent about
mothers-in-law, and so determined that Mrs. Tracy should have nothing to
do in his house. She would have taken any of them, and thought it her
duty. She had been even--must it be confessed?--a quarter part engaged
to all of them before their shortcomings were apparent. And each in
succession was eager to have purchased her and her beauty, though they
all haggled about the price. But to have betrayed her poverty to them,
or her mother’s difficulties, was the last thing in the world that
Millicent would have dreamed of doing. Had she done so her lovers would
have regarded her,--she knew it,--with a certain contempt. Her beauty
was much, and that she was an officer’s daughter, and supposed to have
high connexions, was much too,--enough to cover the want of fortune
which she never attempted to conceal; but penniless, struggling with
poverty, in debt--oh, words of fear!--Millicent would have starved
rather than have breathed such damning syllables in the ears of Cholmley
or Hurlstone. But she had told Ben all, ‘as if he were a friend,’ she
said to herself in amazement. And Ben, still as if he were a friend, had
rushed forth and found what she wanted, letting no grass grow under his
feet. What a curious, bewildering, unaccountable business it was! Poor
fellow! Could he be a fool, as Mrs. Tracy thought? or was he more
infatuated, more wild about her than any of them had been? or was it a
new species she had to deal with,--a being of a different kind? She was
so puzzled that she let her hair stray all over her shoulders and get
into hopeless tangles. Poor Ben! And after all it was out of the
question that she should marry him. This hundred pounds which he had
thrust upon her,--and surely, surely, if he were not a fool he must be a
very indiscreet, prodigal sort of young man, throwing his money about in
such a wild way,--must be the end, as it was the beginning, of anything
between them. It was very hard, Millicent thought; but for that horrid
old Mr. Renton and his ridiculous will, instead of setting out on her
adventures to Homburg, in the hope of finding somebody to marry her, she
might have had Ben and the Manor and excellent settlements, and no more
trouble. Old men should not be allowed to be so wicked, she said to
herself. She would have made Ben a very good wife; she would even have
grown fond of him. A sigh trembled out of Millicent’s rose lips as these
thoughts filled her soul. What a hair’s breadth it was that divided this
shifty, tricky, sordid life, with its most miserable aim, from an
existence so different! Berkeley Square,--that was, alas! the foremost
thing in her thoughts. Her mind strayed off to caress the idea for a
moment. She saw herself in the great old-fashioned, splendid
rooms,--splendid to Mrs. Tracy’s daughter, and not old-fashioned, you
may be sure of that, from the moment Mrs. Benedict Renton had got
possession of them. She saw herself getting into her carriage at the
door, with such horses, such footmen, such a glimmer and sheen of
luxury, and sighed again very heavily. Last night it seemed so near, so
certain; and now, the old treadmill to begin again, the old game to be
played, the old risks to be run! It had not occurred to Millicent even
now how humiliating was that game. It was natural to her;--she had been
brought up to it. But she doubled the beautiful, soft, white hand which
Ben had kissed, and shook it figuratively at his horrid old father.
‘Wretched old miser!’ said Millicent, setting her pearly teeth together.
And she could have made a good wife, and even grown fond of Ben.
Mrs. Tracy, on the other side of the partition, was not half so much
disturbed. She had a hundred pounds in her pocket, as good as a gift,
she said to herself; for, of course, he would never ask either interest
or principal. What a fool the young man must be! or did he, could he,
think that she was such a fool as to throw away her beautiful daughter
upon him because of his hundred pounds? Not quite so silly as that, Mrs.
Tracy said to herself. It was the first real bit of good fortune her
beautiful daughter had brought her. For husband-hunting, adopted as a
profession in the very serious way in which Mrs. Tracy had entered into
it, is a dangerous and difficult trade. Perhaps it would be safe to say
there is no work in the world more hazardous, dreary, and
unremunerative. Millicent’s dresses had cost a great deal, and it had
been very expensive taking her ‘out,’ before poor Fitzgerald’s downfall
and death made that impossible, and on the whole she had lost a great
deal more than she had gained up to this moment. Now, here was the first
earnest of coming fortune. With her looks Millicent might marry
anybody;--a Russian prince rolling in money, most likely; or a
millionnaire with more than he could count. The world was at her feet.
Notwithstanding the small results her beauty had produced in the past,
Mrs. Tracy jumped to the highest heights of hope. And as for Ben Renton
and his hundred pounds! instead of regretting, like her daughter, she
was rather glad that the game was still all to play. The excitement had
its charm for her. She was a gambler going about the world with one
piece to stake; and, like most gamblers, could not divest herself of the
idea that if she could but wait and hold on, she must win.