THE Baroness went directly from the home which she had entered only to
blight, and sent her card marked “urgent” to Mrs Stuart.
“I have come to tell you an unpleasant story,” she said—“a painful and
revolting story, the early chapters of which were written years ago, but
the sequel has only just been made known to me. It concerns you and
yours vitally; it also concerns me and mine. I am sure, when you have
heard the story to the end, you will say that truth is stranger than
fiction, indeed: and you will more than ever realise the necessity of
preventing your son from marrying Joy Irving—a child who was born before
her mother ever met Mr Irving; and whose mother, I daresay, was no more
the actual wife of Mr Irving in the name of law and decency than she had
been the wife of his many predecessors.”
Startled and horrified at this beginning of the story, Mrs Stuart was in
a state of excited indignation at the end. The Baroness had magnified
facts and distorted truths until she represented Berene Dumont as a
monster of depravity; a vicious being who had been for a short time the
recipient of the Baroness’s mistaken charity, and who had repaid kindness
by base ingratitude, and immorality. The man implicated in the scandal
which she claimed was the cause of Berene’s flight was not named in this
recital.
Indeed the Baroness claimed that he was more sinned against than sinning,
and that it was a case of mesmeric influence, or evil eye, on the part of
the depraved woman.
Mrs Lawrence took pains to avoid any reference to Beryngford also;
speaking of these occurrences having taken place while she spent a summer
in a distant interior town, where, “after the death of the Baron, she had
rented a villa, feeling that she wanted to retire from the world.”
“My heart is always running away with my head,” she remarked, “and I
thought this poor creature, who was shunned and neglected by all, worth
saving. I tried to befriend her, and hoped to waken the better nature
which every woman possesses, I think, but she was too far gone in
iniquity.
“You cannot imagine, my dear Mrs Stuart, what a shock it was to me on
entering that sickroom to-day, my heart full of kindly sympathy, to
encounter in the invalid the ungrateful recipient of my past favours; and
to realise that her daughter was no other than the shameful offspring of
her immoral past. In spite of the girl’s beauty, there is an expression
about her face which I never liked; and I fully understand now why I did
not like it. Of course, Mrs Stuart, this story is told to you in strict
confidence. I would not for the world have dear Mrs Cheney know of it,
nor would I pollute sweet Alice with such a tale. Indeed, Alice would
not understand it if she were told, for she is as ignorant and innocent
as a child in arms of such matters. We have kept her absolutely
unspotted from the world. But I knew it was my duty to tell you the
whole shameful story. If worst comes to worst, you will be obliged to
tell your son perhaps, and if he doubts the story send him to me for its
verification.”
Worst came to the worst before twenty-four hours had passed. The rector
received word that Mrs Irving was rapidly failing, and went to act the
part of spiritual counsellor to the invalid, and sympathetic friend to
the suffering girl.
When he returned his mother watched his face with eager, anxious eyes.
He looked haggard and ill, as if he had passed through a severe ordeal.
He could talk of nothing but the beautiful and brave girl, who was about
to lose her one worshipped companion, and who ere many hours passed would
stand utterly alone in the world.
“I never saw you so affected before by the troubles and sorrows of your
parishioners,” Mrs Stuart said. “I wonder, Arthur, why you take the
sorrows of this family so keenly to heart.”
The young rector looked his mother full in the face with calm, sad eyes.
Then he said slowly:
“I suppose, mother, it is because I love Joy Irving with all my heart.
You must have suspected this for some time. I know that you have, and
that the thought has pained you. You have had other and more ambitious
aims for me. Earnest Christian and good woman that you are, you have a
worldly and conventional vein in your nature, which makes you reverence
position, wealth and family to a marked degree. You would, I know, like
to see me unite myself with some royal family, were that possible;
failing in that, you would choose the daughter of some great and
aristocratic house to be my bride. Ah, well, dear mother, you will, I
know, concede that marriage without love is unholy. I am not able to
force myself to love some great lady, even supposing I could win her if I
did love her.”
“But you might keep yourself from forming a foolish and unworthy
attachment,” Mrs Stuart interrupted. “With your will-power, your brain,
your reasoning faculties, I see no necessity for your allowing a pretty
face to run away with your heart. Nothing could be more unsuitable, more
shocking, more dreadful, than to have you make that girl your wife,
Arthur.”
Mrs Stuart’s voice rose as she spoke, from a quiet reasoning tone to a
high, excited wail. She had not meant to say so much. She had intended
merely to appeal to her son’s affection for her, without making any
unpleasant disclosures regarding Joy’s mother; she thought merely to win
a promise from him that he would not compromise himself at present with
the girl, through an excess of sympathy. But already she had said enough
to arouse the young man into a defender of the girl he loved.
“I think your language quite too strong, mother,” he said, with a
reproving tone in his voice. “Miss Irving is good, gifted, amiable,
beautiful, beside being young and full of health. I am sure there could
be nothing shocking or dreadful in any man’s uniting his destiny with
such a being, in case he was fortunate enough to win her. The fact that
she is poor, and not of illustrious lineage, is but a very worldly
consideration. Mr Irving was a most intelligent and excellent man, even
if he was a grocer. The American idea of aristocracy is grotesquely
absurd at the best. A man may spend his time and strength in buying and
selling things wherewith to clothe the body, and, if he succeeds, his
children are admitted to the intimacy of princes; but no success can open
that door to the children of a man who trades in food, wherewith to
sustain the body. We can none of us afford to put on airs here in
America, with butchers and Dutch peasant traders only three or four
generations back of our ‘best families.’ As for me, mother, remember my
loved father was a broker. That would damn him in the eyes of some
people, you know, cultured gentleman as he was.”
Mrs Stuart sat very still, breathing hard and trying to gain control of
herself for some moments after her son ceased speaking. He, too, had
said more than he intended, and he was sorry that he had hurt his
mother’s feelings as he saw her evident agitation. But as he rose to go
forward and beg her pardon, she spoke.
“The person of whom we were speaking has nothing whatever to do with Mr
Irving,” she said. “Joy Irving was born before her mother was married.
Mrs Irving has a most infamous past, and I would rather see you dead than
the husband of her child. You certainly would not want your children to
inherit the propensities of such a grandmother? And remember the curse
descends to the third and fourth generations. If you doubt my words, go
to the Baroness. She knows the whole story, but has revealed it to no
one but me.”
Mrs Stuart left the room, closing the door behind her as she went. She
did not want to be obliged to go over the details of the story which she
had heard; she had made her statement, one which she knew must startle
and horrify her son, with his high ideals of womanly purity, and she left
him to review the situation in silence. It was several hours before the
rector left his room.
When he did, he went, not to the Baroness, but directly to Mrs Irving.
They were alone for more than an hour. When he emerged from the room,
his face was as white as death, and he did not look at Joy as she
accompanied him to the door.
Two days later Mrs Irving died.