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The Daughter Pays
By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers
New York
Published by Arrangements with George H. Doran Company
Copyright, 1915, 1916,
By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds
TO
ALICE PERRIN
PRE-EMINENT IN SYMPATHY FOR THE WORK OF HER SISTER WRITER
WITH AFFECTIONATE ADMIRATION
_Qui que tu sois, voici ton maitre!
Il l'est, le fut, ou le doit etre._
Inscription upon a statue of Love, in the Louvre.
Freely rendered--
_Whoe'er thou art, thy lord is he.
He is, or was, or he must be._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I The Man in the Gallery
II Father and Son
III Virginia at Home
IV The Two Virginias
V The Old Love
VI Gaunt's Terms
VII Virginia Decides
VIII Into the Unknown
IX In the Trap
X Andromeda
XI A First Experience
XII The Beginning of Defeat
XIII The Treatment Breaks Down
XIV Instantaneous Conversion
XV No Place of Repentance
XVI Renouncement
XVII What Comes Next?
XVIII The Final Test
XIX Absence
XX A Case for Interposition?
XXI The Last Ride Together
XXII The Roman Villa
XXIII Temptation
XXIV Escape
XXV The Return
XXVI The Difficult Path
XXVII Lunch at Perley Hatch
XXVIII The Way Back
XXIX The Mastery
XXX The Escape
THE DAUGHTER PAYS
CHAPTER I
THE MAN IN THE GALLERY
"_Yes, I have felt like some deserted world
That God hath done with, and had cast aside
Untilled, no use, no pleasure, not desired ...
Could such a world have hope that, some blest day,
God would remember her, and fashion her
Anew?_"--Jean Ingelow.
The full sunshine of late June, tempered by the medium of London
atmosphere, illumined the long extent of Gallery Number Sixteen at
Hertford House.
It was a pay-day, and there were, in consequence, but few visitors. The
expanse of polished floor glimmered with a suggestion of coolness, a
hint of ice; and the summer light touched with brilliance the rich
colour on the walls, the mellow harmonies of the bits of old furniture
ranged below.
The space and solitude, the silence and sunlight, emphasised and threw
into strong relief the figures of two girls, deep in contemplation
before the portrait of Isabella, wife of Paul de Vos.
Though these were modern, even ultra-modern, Nattier and Boucher, great
interpreters of an artificial age, might have hailed them as kindred
spirits. They seemed eloquent of all that luxury could produce in the
way of exotic perfection. But for the absence of rouge and powder, they
were as far removed from the dingy, the commonplace, or the underbred,
as any pre-Revolution marquise, smiling from the windows of her chateau
upon a world dark with misery, convulsed with pain, and all unconscious
of its very existence.
Far indeed from these hot-house blooms seemed the seamy side. They were
of those who feed on the roses and lie in the lilies of life. They
belonged to the class which a novelist of our own day has so happily
described as expensive. They were the fine flower of our epoch, and
unconscious of their own supreme selfishness.
One was of the petite type, gipsy brown and captivating, from the tip
of her plumes to the shoes and stockings which matched her gown, and
upon whose buckles the light winked. The other was taller and more
willowy. She was not big, but formed with the lithe grace of the modern
Atalanta. Something in the veiled loveliness of her soft eye suggested
a dove. Her hair was fair, and her face, wide across the brows, and
tapering at the chin, seemed designed to make an involuntary appeal to
the heartstrings of any man who looked at her. Every movement of this
girl was graceful. Yet one would have felt certain that her grace was
unstudied; she was not self-conscious; her attentions seemed entirely
absorbed by the beauty of the paintings at which she gazed.
Thus she stood, her chin uplifted; and a man who entered, with halting
step, from Gallery Fifteen, shot a keen glance and stopped short.
He was not a young man, and his dress, for London, was negligent;
whilst his long black moustache gave him a slightly out-of-date, or
provincial, aspect. His black hair showed some grey at the temples, but
he appeared to be in vigorous health.
For some long moments he stood in absorbed contemplation of the girlish
figure isolated against the dim, dignified background of the gallery:
and as he gazed there crept into his face an expression which made it
almost devilish. Every feature hardened--the mouth took on a sneer, the
eyes glowed with some concentration of feeling which altered his whole
face for the worse.
As yet unconscious of his presence, the girl gazed on; and after a
minute her smaller, darker friend strolled up and joined her. She said
something that made the other laugh. The chime of their mirth sounded
sweetly through the empty space, but brought to the lips of the watcher
a curl of contempt. He began to move forward slowly, seemingly intent
upon the pictures, but always coming nearer, until he stood where he
could hear the girls' light, careless talk.
"My dear," said the smaller girl, "I am thinking all the time what a
fancy dress this would make, for anybody that could wear it." They were
standing before Mierevelt's lovely portrait of the young nameless lady
in the ruff.
As her companion did not immediately reply, she added insistently:
"Virginia! Did you hear?"
The lame man started, or, as it were, winced at the sound of the name;
yet a certain satisfaction crept into his eyes, as of one who inly
reflects: "I thought so! I was not mistaken."
Virginia, thus appealed to, brought her dreamy gaze from the portrait
of the burgomaster who sits with his small son. "What? A fancy dress?
Oh, Mims, yes! That little bit of stiffened lace round the back of her
hair is an inspiration. I could make it, too--I see just how it's done."
The two proceeded to examine the head-dress in detail, with girlish
talk about the way to copy it. "Gold embroidery all down the front of
her gown. How sweet!" sighed Virginia admiringly. "But that ruff--would
it do?"
"For you? Of course! You could wear it, for you have a throat. But what
_did_ little people like me do, when they had all that between
their chin and their chest?"
Virginia was much amused. "No, Mims, you were not made for a ruff! But
then, _en revanche,_ you can wear all those lovely Venetian reds
and ambers that I can't touch!"
Childish talk, but with no suspicion of a critical listener! The lame
man heard every word. As the eager girl turned to point across the
gallery to a picture exemplifying the colours she meant, she slightly
brushed against him, for he was standing within a few feet of her. He
stepped back, raising his hat in acknowledgment of her gentle apology;
and his eyes, full of something between hostility and contempt, met
hers hardly, as if in a challenge, for a puzzling instant before he
turned away and limped to another place.
Virginia's colour rose and her lips set, as if an unspoken insult had
reached her. She was not used to read hostility in the eyes of men. She
recovered, however, in a moment, and continued her study of the
pictures, moving round for some minutes longer, until Miriam, leaning
near her, murmured:
"Shall we go into the next room? There is a custodian there, and that
man keeps on staring odiously."
"Yes; let us go and look at the Greuzes," replied Virginia.
It was not long before the unknown man followed them. He was now more
careful, however, and kept his eyes for the beauties of the catalogue
instead of allowing them to roam towards the beauties of his own day.
"I don't think he meant to be rude," presently said Virginia
doubtfully. "He looked at me almost as though he thought he knew me--as
if he expected me to speak to him."
"My dear, it is evident that you must never be allowed to go about
London alone," laughed Mims. "As if he knew you, indeed! That's the
commonest dodge of all. I am sure he is trying to be rude--he is edging
round here now----"
"Oh, nonsense! Let us think about the pictures and take no notice. He
could not be rude in a public place like this--he cannot think we are
girls of that sort."
"There's the portrait of you," said Mims mischievously, pausing before
Greuze's picture entitled "Innocence"--the picture with the lamb.
It was true, the likeness was striking. Virginia even coloured slightly
as she gazed. "Chocolate box!" said she disdainfully. "Greuze is only
pretty-pretty! I would far rather be like Isabella de Vos!"
As she spoke she moved away with her undulating grace, the lame man
having again approached nearer than was quite consistent with good
manners.
"That's the worst of you, Virginia--you can't go about without dragging
backwards the heads of all the men that pass," said Mims in injured
tones.
"Talk about glass-houses!" was her friend's sarcastic response, adding
with a little sigh: "Well, you won't long be troubled. Cinderella's
clock strikes to-morrow, and I go back to Wayhurst and my native
obscurity."
Miriam's soft, dark eyes clouded.
"Native obscurity! No, my dear, that's the tragedy! You were _not_
born to it, and you will never thrive in it! Oh, the pity! I could cry
when I think of you, mewed up in that wee brick-box of a villa, and
when I remember that it's not much more than two years ago since we
were staying with you at Lissendean--riding, hunting, motoring!"
"Don't talk of it, Mimsie, for pity's sake! It can't be helped, you
know; and, of course, it isn't half as bad for me as for poor mother."
Mims made a grumpy sound. She was depressed, not only by her friend's
impending departure, but by the thought of that friend's destiny.
Virginia Mynors, in the days when she and Miriam Rosenberg were at
school together, had been queen of everything. She was the elder
daughter of a county gentleman, her clothes came from the best places,
she took all the extras, rode, swam, hunted--with no more thought of
ways and means than her present appearance led one to suppose.
During the weary days of her father's long illness--a kind of creeping
paralysis which lasted for two years--Virginia had known that he had
money troubles. But though she had been his devoted nurse and trusted
secretary, she was no more prepared than was her butterfly mother for
the state of financial catastrophe revealed at his death. The solid
ground had failed beneath her feet. Everything was gone. Even
Lissendean, the home in which she had been born, was mortgaged. They
all moved out, the house was let, and upon the few hundreds a year
received as rent her mother, herself, her brother Antony, and her
little sister Pansy, were to live.
Virginia had to be the moving spirit in it all. She elected to settle
at Wayhurst, because there is an excellent public school there, and, as
a day boy, Antony, who was nearly fourteen, might obtain the education
of a gentleman. For nearly two years now such had been the girl's life.
Yet even Miriam did not guess the truth--did not guess the drudgery and
devotion of Virginia's daily round.
Mr. Rosenberg was what is described as rolling in money. He had social
ambitions, and was very well pleased when his daughter made friends at
school with the daughter of Bernard Mynors. The Rosenbergs, brother and
sister, had more than once accepted the whole-hearted hospitality of
Lissendean. Their father could not, therefore, with any good grace,
make objections to Miriam's pleading when she begged to have Virginia
to stay with her.
Miriam had a great deal too much pocket-money. She sent a substantial
cheque to Virginia, that she might provide herself with an outfit and
railway fares for the projected visit. Virginia was able to devote part
of this cheque to the providing of what was locally known as a "supply"
to do the housework while she herself was away. She belonged, indeed,
to that wonderful type of woman who can make a pound, expended upon
clothes, go as far as another woman makes five, or even ten. She
arrived in Bryanston Square for her visit with exactly the right
frocks, with her spirits high, and her bloom unimpaired, in spite of
the hard life she led. Youth and high spirit will carry all before
them. Mr. Rosenberg, when his astute eye rested upon the charming
creature, became suddenly aware of her as an incarnate temptation to
his son Gerald, upon whom all his hopes were concentrated.
Mr. Rosenberg was not without good impulses. He desired to befriend
this beautiful girl to whom Fate had shown herself so cruel. It was,
however, more than could be demanded of human nature that he should be
ready to console her for her misfortunes with the gift of all his
wealth and all his social ambition. As a man of business, he divined
her mother to have been the ruin of the family. He knew Mrs. Mynors as
a lovely, vain, shallow and selfish person, who all her life had lived
for her own amusement. Such a mother-in-law would be a burden that
Gerald could never carry. Moreover, there were two younger children, of
whom one, the little girl, was badly crippled--a permanent invalid.
Had Virginia, being her father's daughter, stood alone, it is just
possible that her extreme beauty would have brought Mr. Rosenberg to
the point of allowing the match. With her encumbrances he felt it to be
impossible. He did not know that it was at Gerald's instigation that
Mims had gone to the length of actually financing the scheme of the
visit. Yet his shrewdness rather suspected something of the sort.
During the whole fortnight of Virginia's sojourn he had been on
tenter-hooks--manoeuvring to keep his son out of the way without
seeming to do so.
They had--thanks, he felt sure, to his policy--arrived safely at the
last day of Miss Mynors' stay. Last moments, however, are fraught with
particular danger. Mr. Rosenberg could not feel that he was as yet "out
of the wood," and would probably have undergone even worse
apprehensions had he known of Gerald's appointment to meet the two
girls at Hertford House and give them tea.
"If we hadn't arranged to meet Gerald here, I would just walk right
away, out of the place," muttered Mims presently. "I wish that man
would not dog us like this."
"Let us leave off looking at the pictures," suggested Virginia, "and go
and sit at the top of the staircase, in that recess. Then we shall see
Mr. Rosenberg as he comes up--and the man could hardly pursue us there
without being openly offensive."
"Good!" replied Mims with satisfaction. They left the Boucher room, in
which the stranger seemed to be absorbed in contemplation, and seated
themselves in the alcove, behind the statue of "Triumphant Love."
They made a dainty picture in the fuller light which fell upon them
there; and they sat on undisturbed until they saw the head of their
escort appearing above the edge of the staircase.
Mims stood up and called to him, and in a moment he had joined them.
"Tired of the pictures already?" he asked, glancing at his watch. "I am
not late, am I?"
"Oh, no, not a bit. We have only been here a very few minutes," replied
his sister, noting that the lame man was now standing in the doorway,
and that his eyes were fixed on Gerald.
"Read what is written round the pedestal of this statue, boy," she went
on mischievously. "Is it true, or is it not?"
Gerald stooped over the words cut upon the circular base of the figure.
He was not actually a handsome man, but he was, without doubt,
distinguished-looking. Mr. Rosenberg senior prided himself upon the
fact that his son's face showed no racial characteristics. His features
were clean-cut, he was well-shaved and well-groomed, carried himself
with dignity, and was usually self-possessed. He stood before the
marble cupid, conscious in every nerve of the close proximity of his
sister's beautiful friend, and read aloud the couplet:
_Qui que tu sois, voici ton maitre!
Il l'est, le fut, ou le doit etre._
"Is it true, Gerald?" asked Mims naughtily. He looked at Virginia.
"Is it true, Miss Mynors?"
Virginia hesitated. "Well, I think it is, but not in the sense in which
this inscription means it," she ventured timidly. "I mean--there is a
love which is stronger than anything or anybody--but not _that_
love--not that silly winged boy." She blushed a little as she spoke,
and looked so divinely pretty, her small teeth just showing between the
parted lips, her shadowy, Greuze eyes uplifted, that Gerald felt his
head swim.
"I think you are right," he said, speaking with extra gravity to hide
his emotion.
"Virgie is simply ridiculous about love," grumbled Mims. "She would
give away her head, her heart, her hand, anything she had, for those
she loves--her mother and her little sister----"
"And Tony," reprovingly put in Virginia.
"And Tony," teased her friend. "Isn't she a baby, Gerald?"
The young man considered her. "Or an angel?" he suggested. There was,
to him, something awe-inspiring in the simplicity of this girl. With a
face that might have brought the world to her feet, she was absorbed in
the domestic affections, untouched, as it would seem, by the admiration
she excited.
"Well, as the car is down there waiting, we had better be off,"
remarked Mims, after a short interval in which she had left the two to
talk together. "Are you going to take us to Fuller's, Gerald? If so, we
ought to move on. You know we must dine early; we are going to the
theatre for Virgie's last night."
The eyes of the man and the girl met, upon that, with mutual regret.
Her last night! Cinderella must put off her dainty raiment and return
to her saucepan-scouring, bed-making, account-keeping, making-ends-meet
existence. The pang that shot through Gerald's heart was so like
physical pain that he had a fanciful idea of the marble boy--the
"Triumphant Love" who looked smiling down upon them--having shot his
dart and reached the mark of his innermost feeling.
Could he let her go?
Like his father, he was a man of the world. Like his father, he had
planned the alliance with birth and money which was to establish his
position among English gentry. There was a sharp struggle in his mind.
Had Virginia had one ounce of the coquette in her, she could have
clinched the matter in five minutes.
The lame man, who had watched the whole colloquy, descended the stairs
behind them in time to see the perfectly appointed motor in waiting,
with its two men in livery. As he turned about and reascended to enter
the galleries once more, there was a bitter sneer on his mouth, a look
of active malevolence, as of one who deliberately turns his back upon
his better feelings.