The two spoke simultaneously, and the invalid had started upright in bed.
"Mamma, what is the matter? Oh, please lie down, or you will bring on another haemorrhage," cried the startled girl; but her mother lifted her hand.
"Joy," she said in a firm, clear voice, "this lady is an old acquaintance of mine. Please go out, dear, and shut the door. I wish to see her alone."
Joy pa.s.sed out with drooping head and a sinking heart. As the door closed behind her the Baroness spoke.
"So that is Preston Cheney"s daughter," she said. "I always had my suspicions of the cause which led you to leave my house so suddenly.
Does the girl know who her father is? And does Senator Cheney know of her existence, may I ask?"
A crimson flush suffused the invalid"s face. Then a flame of fire shot into the dark eyes, and a small red spot only glowed on either pale cheek.
"I do not know by what right you ask these questions, Baroness Brown," she answered slowly; and her listener cringed under the old appellation which recalled the miserable days when she had kept a lodging-house--days she had almost forgotten during the last decade of life.
"But I can a.s.sure you, madam," continued the speaker, "that my daughter knows no father save the good man, my husband, who is dead.
I have never by word or line made my existence known to anyone I ever knew since I left Beryngford. I do not know why you should come here to insult me, madam; I have never harmed you or yours, and you have no proof of the accusation you just made, save your own evil suspicions."
The Baroness gave an unpleasant laugh.
"It is an easy matter for me to find proof of my suspicions if I choose to take the trouble," she said. "There are detectives enough to hunt up your trail, and I have money enough to pay them for their trouble. But Joy is the living evidence of the a.s.sertion. She is the image of Preston Cheney, as he was twenty-three years ago. I am ready, however, to let the matter drop on one condition; and that condition is, that you extract a promise from your daughter that she will not encourage the attentions of Arthur Emerson Stuart, the rector of St Blank"s; that she will never under any circ.u.mstances be his wife."
The red spots faded to a sickly yellow in the invalid"s cheeks. "Why should you ask this of me?" she cried. "Why should you wish to destroy the happiness of my child"s life? She loves Arthur Stuart, and I know that he loves her! It is the one thought which resigns me to death; the thought that I may leave her the beloved wife of this good man."
The Baroness leaned lower over the pillow of the invalid as she answered: "I will tell you why I ask this sacrifice of you."
"Perhaps you do not know that I married Judge Lawrence after the death of his first wife. Perhaps you do not know that Preston Cheney"s legitimate daughter is as precious to me as his illegitimate child is to you. Alice is only six months younger than Joy; she is frail, delicate, sensitive. A severe disappointment would kill her.
She, too, loves Arthur Stuart. If your daughter will let him alone, he will marry Alice. Surely the illegitimate child should give way to the legitimate.
"If you are selfish in this matter, I shall be obliged to tell your daughter the true story of her life, and let her be the judge of what is right and what is wrong. I fancy she might have a finer perception of duty than you have--she is so much like her father."
The tortured invalid fell back panting on her pillow. She put out her hands with a distracted, imploring gesture.
"Leave me to think," she gasped. "I never knew that Preston Cheney had a daughter; I did not know he lived here. My life has been so quiet, so secluded these many years. Leave me to think. I will give you my answer in a few days; I will write you after I reflect and pray."
The Baroness pa.s.sed out, and Joy, hastening into the room, found her mother in a wild paroxysm of tears. Late that night Mrs Irving called for writing materials; and for many hours she sat propped up in bed writing rapidly.
When she had completed her task she called Joy to her side.
"Darling," she said, placing a sealed ma.n.u.script in her hands, "I want you to keep this seal unbroken so long as you are happy. I know in spite of your deep sorrow at my death, which must come ere long, you will find much happiness in life. You came smiling into existence, and no common sorrow can deprive you of the joy which is your birthright. But there are numerous people in the world who may strive to wound you after I am gone. If slanderous tales or cruel reports reach your ears, and render you unhappy, break this seal, and read the story I have written here. There are some things which will deeply pain you, I know. Do not force yourself to read them until a necessity arises. I leave you this ma.n.u.script as I might leave you a weapon for self-defence. Use it only when you are in need of that defence."
The next morning Mrs Irving was weakened by another and most serious haemorrhage of the lungs. Her physician was grave, and urged the daughter to be prepared for the worst.
"I fear your mother"s life is a matter of days only," he said.
CHAPTER XIV
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 ingrat.i.tude, 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 pa.s.sed. 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 d.a.m.n 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.
CHAPTER XV