"I think, father, you will admit the temptation to do so in this case."
"I do," was the answer, in tones abrupt but heartfelt. "I don"t mind owning that, during the past fortnight, while seeing whither you were drifting, I have been half-inclined to drift also in that direction.
But, my boy, it won"t do." He laid his clenched hand heavily on the desk before him. "I tell you plainly that it won"t do. The girl is beautiful, I don"t deny it. But she comes of a bad stock. Her mother is a woman whom I should describe as having no moral sense. They are beggars. You would have bound upon your back, for the term of your natural life, a ready-made family of three, none of whom, I dare swear, will ever earn a farthing as long as they live. Just run your eye over that."
With a sudden twisting gesture he pushed a note, on lavender paper with a tiny, narrow black border, and scented with orris root, towards where his son sat. Gerald read:
Laburnum Villa, Wayhurst.
_My dear, generous friend,_
_With your kindness to my Virginia already placing me under a burden of obligation to you, it must indeed seem to you that I stretch friendship to its utmost in writing to weary you with my troubles and to beseech advice. My excuses are, briefly, these: I know you to be an excellent man of business; and I know that you love my girl._
_I will try not to be tiresome, and, indeed, the story of my misfortune, though dire, will not take long to tell. My poor husband--who, alas! had not your gift for finance--mortgaged our dear home during his lifetime. At his death, the debts on the estate swallowed up almost all other available money. We were obliged to let Lissendean, and to live upon the rent paid. I am quite unused to business, having lived, till my sad widowhood, so sheltered a life, and I forgot that if the payments were not kept up--the interest on the mortgage--I should lose the house altogether. Believe me, in our straitened circ.u.mstances, it was impossible to keep up the payments.
Only yesterday have I heard from my solicitor that the mortgagee has foreclosed, and that we are left as dest.i.tute as though my husband had been a crossing-sweeper._
_Can you suggest to me any means by which this trouble could be met?
Is there any way of raising money by which I can stave off the utter ruin that threatens my helpless children? I turn to you as a last resort, and you will never know what it costs my pride to let you into the secret of our misery. Do not tell my darling child until her visit is over--let her have her happy, happy moments with you undimmed. I can break the bad news to her to-morrow, upon her return--or later, should you by any chance wish her to extend her visit.--I am, dear Mr.
Rosenberg, your sorely tried friend,_
Virginia Mynors.
The dark colour deepened upon Gerald"s face as he read this letter. He laid it down with a gesture of distaste, and made no audible comment.
His father, looking sympathetically at him, tapped the paper with his broad finger-tips. "Gerald," he said, "that woman is a humbug, through and through. It is the letter of a cadger. Look at it--written on paper that cost exactly ten times what her note-paper ought to cost. Little things like that tell one a lot. No doubt everything else is on the same scale. I expect they are up to their necks in debt. What can I do with that letter, except send the writer ten pounds and regret my inability to help her further? n.o.body could help her. But I tell you plainly, my son--if I can prevent it, as G.o.d"s above us, that woman shall never be your mother-in-law."
He did not speak violently, but judicially, as one summing up a case.
"I went down there once, you may remember, for a week-end, while they were still at Lissendean," he continued. "I took her measure then. She is a woman who would fleece any man who could be got to admire her. She is that type. You think the girl is different. I tell you that what is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh. The girl isn"t to be trusted any more than the mother. You see the position--absolutely dest.i.tute! Three of them! What is to happen? Say you marry--say you allow her two or three hundred a year--that"s going to cripple you, and it isn"t going to keep her." He spoke with ever-increasing urgency. "If you give her three, she"ll spend five. If you give her five, she"ll spend eight. Can"t you see that for yourself, Gerald? It"s all in that letter--every word of it--if you read between the lines."
"It"s a contemptible letter," said Gerald, pushing back his chair abruptly; "but I can"t believe that the girl----"
"Gerald, put it to yourself a moment. Even if the girl is the best girl in the world, are you prepared to keep the lot? Virginia"s very qualities--her love for her family, her generosity where they are concerned--would be your ruin. You couldn"t say no to her; she couldn"t say no to them. There you would all be."
Gerald"s face hardened. His likeness to his father came out clearly--breaking, as it were, through the polish of his public school and university training. He saw the case with the Rosenberg eye, and he flinched.
"But how," he stammered, and cleared his throat, "how am I to draw back with honour, father?"
"I"ve done that for you. That is, the way out is open if you will take it. The Liverpool house wrote me this morning, asking to have you sent down for a week--some bother about that inspector, Routledge; you know the man. I wired to the hotel that you might come on by the night train. It may fairly be called urgent. My counsel to you is that you just bolt--bolt and get clear away before you have committed yourself to a thing which must be hopeless."
Gerald leaned forward, covering his face with his hands. It was a very rare sign of feeling with him.
"You haven"t committed yourself--you haven"t said or done anything that makes it impossible to draw back?" asked the elder man in deep anxiety.
"You said you hadn"t."
"That is true. I have said nothing. I am not even certain what her answer would be. I could not say that she had given me any reason to hope. She is so serene, so impartially sweet, one cannot tell--like my "Last d.u.c.h.ess," you know--"who pa.s.sed without much the same smile"?"
Mr. Rosenberg did not read Browning. The allusion pa.s.sed him by.
"Then take your courage in your two hands, boy, and do as I tell you.
In a month or two you"ll be thanking me on your knees. Bolt, I tell you, bolt. Don"t see her again. Leave a message by me--catch the restaurant-train. I told Brown to pack your valise, and the car is waiting."
Gerald was pale now. "She"ll think me a cur."
"No such thing. I shall make good your case. Urgency. She will think you could not help yourself. She will look upon the affair as hung up, not ended. After a while she will forget it."
"But--but what are they to do?" stammered Gerald. "The mother may deserve this, but she doesn"t. It is she who will have to suffer."
"She shall not suffer. I will send them enough to carry on, and I will recommend that wax doll of a mother to take a situation--to go as companion to some heiress or something--to put her shoulder to the wheel and help to keep her children. She has had a good run for her money, now let her taste the rough side of things for a while. Do her no harm. Do her good."
Gerald rose and went to the window, gazing out with unseeing eyes at the busy welter of society traffic--the swift cars, laden with well-dressed occupants, which flashed by in the summer evening.
His father watched him anxiously.
"Gerald," he said at last, "listen to me. If you go now--if you do as I tell you--there need be nothing final about it. The girl will be at Wayhurst--you will know where to find her. Suitors are not likely to be as common as blackberries, even with her looks. Take this chance to think things over more coolly than is possible when she is in the same house with you. I don"t want to demand too great a sacrifice, boy----"
The last words were husky and wistful. He loved his son sincerely.
Gerald swung round. "You have me beat, as the Irish say," he muttered abruptly. "I know I"m not master of myself. If I speak to her, it might be against my better judgment; I might regret it. You are right--it is better to temporise, to postpone a decision. Yes, it is better--I am almost sure."
He spoke absently, jerkily. In his mind was one of those pictures which rise unbidden--and apparently without reason--to the memory. It was the picture of the face of a man he had remarked that afternoon at the Wallace collection, standing in the doorway of the Boucher room, as the Rosenberg party went downstairs. The man had a noticeable face--dark, with an expression in the eyes which brought to mind the word "smouldering."
He had watched the gay little party of three with an air that was like Mephistopheles sneering at Faust. "So! You are snared--snared like other men, by a pretty face and luminous eyes----"
That was what the silent watcher had conveyed to the prosperous young suitor.
Oddly, the recollection of his face, swimming all unaware into the field of memory, turned the scale.
"Yes, father, I shall go," said Gerald.
"Why, where"s Jerry?" demanded Mims, as she and Virginia entered the drawing-room, and proceeded to greet a couple of young men, who stood there with the before-I-have-dined expression upon their clean faces.
"How do you do, Lawrence? How do you do, Mr. Bent? I expect our box will hold five."
"I telephoned Bent an hour ago, Mims," said Mr. Rosenberg. "Poor old Gerald has had a stroke of bad luck. I have been obliged to send him away."
Mims paused in consternation, and, as though she could not help it, her glance flew to Virginia. "To send him away? Why, where?" she cried blankly.
Virginia, more in reply to the glance than as a result of the news, coloured divinely. She had put on her very sweetest gown. It was a survival of Lissendean days, carefully altered by the finger of genius, so that it looked to be the very latest. It was pale blue, with touches of faint periwinkle mauve: and young Bent, as he gazed, was trying to decide which colour matched her eyes more nearly.
She was hurt. The news wounded. She had spent this fairy fortnight in luxury and also in a dream of happiness. She had not singled out Gerald as anything more than one factor in her bliss. He was just a part of a scheme of things which must be injured by any interference.
So unconscious was she of any deeper significance, that she turned at once to Mr. Rosenberg, lifting to him the eyes that even he found a difficulty in resisting, and cried impulsively:
"Do you mean that Gerald is gone--that I shall not see him again before I leave?"
"Why, if you are leaving in course of the next few days, I fear not,"