"Well," said Pansy, "did Gerald send me his love or anything?"

Virginia started. Gerald at the moment filled her thoughts. She had missed him when he went away--went away without a word! She had not expected to miss him so much. Yet, with the lack of perception of her youth, she failed to connect her present formless dejection with the thought of his departure.

Pulling herself together with a determined effort, she turned from the window, explained to Pansy the fact that Gerald had been obliged to rush off to Liverpool for his father, and thus had naturally not had time for any special message or present. "But I have got something for you, sweetums," she murmured caressingly. "You wait until the outside porter condescends to deliver my boxes! You only wait!"

The colour flooded the cripple's transparent skin. "Oh, Virgie, Virgie, what is it? Tell me what it is!"

"We'll make it a guessing game," replied Virgie. "I will just go and get on some old things, and we will play it properly. Where's Tony, by the way?"

"Gone with the eleven to play Balchurch. Did you know they have made him twelfth man? He's awfully bucked," said Pansy, with satisfaction.

"I don't expect he'll be back yet."

"Oh! Pansy! but how splendid! He's very young, isn't he?"

"Two years younger than the youngest man in the eleven," announced Pansy, with satisfaction. "I'm making him a tie in the school colours."

She took up her knitting with pride.

A sound in the hall below struck Virginia's ear. "There's mamma," she said; "I must go and greet her."

Slipping out of the room, she descended the stairs, and entering the tiny drawing-room on the right of the entrance pa.s.sage, stood face to face with Mrs. Mynors.

It was hard to believe that these were mother and daughter; they looked more like sisters. The elder woman, in coquettish slight mourning, had the same face, broad at the brow, tapering at the chin, the same long lovely eyes, deep-lashed, the same poise of the head and wavy golden-brown hair. A close observer alone would mark differences. The elder woman's eyes were blue, like forget-me-nots--the hard blue that looks so soft, that never varies. Her daughter's were less easy to describe. They were changeful as the sea, responsive to varying skies; and just now, in the waning light, they seemed dark grey.

"Well, my chick, how are you? I was having tea with the Simpsons and forgot the time, or I should have been back before this. You are looking better for your change! I'm glad I persuaded you to go, though we get on pretty badly without you." Pa.s.sing keen eyes over her daughter's face she seated herself, slightly drawing up her skirt with a motion which intimated that she expected to have her shoes untied.

Unhesitatingly Virginia knelt upon the ground and performed this service. The little room in which they were was a bower of luxury. In it were collected all the relics of their vanished past which Mrs.

Mynors had thought herself unable to do without. Silver, miniatures, cushions, foot-stools, a soft couch, an empire writing-table. It was like the tiny boudoir of a rich woman. Its owner cast a disgusted glance about her, as she remarked: "Charwomen never will dust, will they?"

"Oh, I hoped you would have dusted this room yourself, just while I was away," replied Virginia, with a sigh, casting her housewifely eye upon the tarnished silver. It was a room which would take a good hour a day to keep in proper order.

"Well, Virgie, have you any news for me?" asked Mrs. Mynors presently, in her voice of tantalising sweetness.

Virginia raised her eyes, puzzled by something in the voice. "News?"

she answered wonderingly. "Nothing very special. I told you most of it in my letters. The flying yesterday was most interesting--quite worth staying for."

Mrs. Mynors sat meditatively, while her daughter left the room, went upstairs, found indoor shoes and brought them down. She then carefully pulled the pins from the becoming hat and removed it, her mother sitting in calm acquiescence the while. Mrs. Mynors was uneasy. Her reading between the lines in Virginia's innocent letters had certainly led her to conclude that Gerald Rosenberg meant to marry the girl. Had she herself made a fatal mistake in sending that letter to Gerald's father before the matter had been clinched? She had felt doubts, but her dire need had driven her on. Now she was wondering how to find words in which to convey to Virginia the blow which had descended.

Virginia always divided the money. Each quarter she had apportioned to her mother the sum for the interest on the mortgage. There had always been something else on which that money must be spent.

What would Virgie say when she knew that Lissendean had gone, vanished; that they would never revisit it; that Tony could never come into his inheritance?

Far though she was from any feeling of self-blame, she yet was conscious of discomfort as she looked at her daughter's unsuspecting face.

It was easy to decide not to spoil Virgie's first evening at home by bad news. Leaving her daughter to carry her hat, gloves and sunshade to the room above, she settled herself luxuriously by the open window, with her feet up, and plunged into temporary forgetfulness in the pages of a very exciting novel.

Meanwhile--the outside porter proving better than his word--the trunk arrived and was unpacked. The enraptured Pansy found herself mistress of a doll of almost inconceivable beauty, with jointed limbs, and a body that could be washed in real water. Mims had added a chest of drawers, and various articles of costume. The dressing and undressing of dolls had always been the little cripple's one joy. And never had she hoped to possess such a doll as this.

Then Tony came home, hot and exultant, looking such a fine boy in his flannels and blazer. His team had beaten the other after a hard fight, during which, of course, the umpire had given an l.b.w., grossly unfair and in favour of the rival eleven.

He received his own present very graciously--a curious collection of oddments it seemed to the unlearned; but he had marked what he wanted in a catalogue, and his sister had obediently bought as directed.

Contrite wheels, eccentrics, female screws, and so on, were darkness to her mind, but pure joy to the recipient.

Her gift to her mother--a pair of really nice gloves--was also accepted graciously, though with an absence of enthusiasm which led Virginia to suspect that other things, besides the winter coat, had been purchased that morning at Baxter's sale. Who could have sent money to her mother?

She could think of n.o.body; for the men friends who had hovered continually about Lissendean had never penetrated to Laburnum Villa.

Mamma, however, made no confidence, and could not, of course, be questioned.

It came to be time for Mrs. Brown to depart. Mamma had no silver, and asked Virgie to pay her off. The young housekeeper then felt at liberty to go and survey her kitchen premises, and to heave deep sighs at the sight of so many dirty pots and pans, and the inevitable brown patch burnt upon the enamel of her favourite milk-saucepan.

CHAPTER IV

THE TWO VIRGINIAS

"_But hadst thou--Oh, with that same perfect face, And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, And that same voice my soul hears, as a bird The fowler's note, and follows to the snare!-- Hadst thou, with these the same, but brought a mind!_"

--R. Browning.

n.o.body who saw Virginia next morning, in her blue linen overall, bringing up her mother's early morning tea, would have recognised the dainty flower of luxury who had moved over the polished floors of the galleries of Hertford House. She put the tray beside the bed, drew back the curtains, and brought in the hot water, just as a housemaid might have done. Mrs. Mynors, rosy and beautiful among her pillows, rubbed her sleepy eyes, and murmured "Thank you, dear one!" in a perfunctory manner, stretching her white arms luxuriously, and adding fretfully: "Another grilling day!"

Virginia returned no answer to this comment, but withdrew to the kitchen, where Tony sat munching his fried bread and bacon and drinking his coffee with a schoolboy's appet.i.te. When he had been despatched, clean and ready for his day's work, there was Pansy's breakfast to be thought of. Dainty toast, fresh tea, a spoonful of jam, were arranged on a pretty tray and carried upstairs. Then Virginia was at leisure to sit down for a few minutes, drink what was left of the coffee in Tony's pot, and eat some bread-and-b.u.t.ter. In truth she had little appet.i.te.

The heat sapped her strength, and she reflected sadly that it was a mistake to go away.

A holiday made it harder to begin again.

From the moment of finishing her breakfast till the moment of laying lunch, she never ceased from her labours. The kitchen had to be thoroughly scrubbed before its dainty mistress could be friends with it again. Then there were beds to make, a room to sweep, three rooms to dust. Then her mother came down, drank a cup of Bovril, and settled herself in the garden with some embroidery, while Virginia went up to make her bed and do her room.

When lunch had been cleared and washed up, the drudge had an hour's breathing s.p.a.ce. She spent it lying upon the bed in Pansy's room, the little cripple having been moved as usual to her invalid couch by the window. Virginia was so tired that she herself felt alarmed. What was to become of them all if her health were to give way? The thought was too horrible to be dwelt upon.

Her mother, remarking the depression of her spirits, was vexed. She could not help wishing that Virginia were not quite such a simpleton.

If she had had an ounce of the coquette in her, she could have secured Gerald Rosenberg, and all would have been well. Mrs. Mynors had refrained from any kind of hint when the girl went to London in response to Miriam's urgent invitation. She thought her hint might defeat itself. Now she was wondering whether, in view of her daughter's obtuseness, she would not have done well to let her know what was expected of her. She could see that the girl was out of heart, and she shrank, partly from cowardice, partly from affection, from dealing the final blow. Yes, her utter selfishness notwithstanding, Mrs. Mynors had some affection for Virginia. She misunderstood the girl, and undervalued her; she accepted all her burnt offerings and sacrifices as manifestly her own due; yet she trusted and leaned upon her with all the weight of her own empty egotism.

Next morning, when the little figure in its blue overall brought in the tea, there was a business-like letter lying upon the tray.

Mrs. Mynors did not open it until she had enjoyed her tea, for it was from the solicitors who had foreclosed the mortgage, and well she knew that it was not likely to contain anything that would please her.

She lay for some time--after she had eaten and drunk--glancing at the morning paper, and trying to determine to face the necessary unpleasantness. At last, heaving a sigh of boundless self-pity, she took the envelope in her pretty white hands and opened it.

As she read a sudden flush mounted to her very brow. A smothered exclamation broke from her. She was seized with trembling, her heart beat suffocatingly, and with a bound she sprang from bed, rushed to her mirror, and stood there, surveying with sparkling eyes the image of Virginia Mynors at the age of forty-one.

Oh, did the mirror lie, or was it true that she was very nearly as pretty as ever? Hardly a silver thread in the beautiful ripe gold hair that had no slightest hint of red in it! The teeth still perfect within the pretty lips, barely discernible crows' feet at the corners of the brilliant, expressive eyes! Plumper she was no doubt, but to be plump prevents wrinkles. As she stood there, even in her disarray, she knew that she did not deceive herself. She was still a most attractive woman.

... And fate had sent her a chance like this! With pulses racing she crept back to her bed and curled up there, trying to decide how best to take advantage of this marvellous coincidence, this strange turn of fortune's wheel. What a good thing that she was a woman of experience, no longer a shy girl. She must not lose this chance, as silly Virginia had lost hers! No, no! She was too clever for that. How well the French wit had said: "_Si la jeunesse savait! Si la vieillesse pouvait!_"

In herself, the two states of youth and age were met felicitously. She was old enough to know, young enough to enjoy! If she could not now take hold on circ.u.mstance, and wrest her defeat into pure victory, then she was no better than a fool--and she had never thought herself that.

All the time she was dressing her lips would part in a smile that revealed those pretty teeth, and a dimple which still lurked in a fold of her smooth cheek. She pa.s.sed her own plans in review before her mind, pondering--pondering as to how much she would have to tell Virgie. Her excitement was so great that she felt sure she would have to tell most of it. Thrills of antic.i.p.ation coursed most agreeably through her being. How had she been able to bear it so far--this crushing, stifling existence in an odious little box in a horrid third-rate town? How patient she had been! What a martyrdom she had borne! For the children it was of course different. For her it had been a living burial. Now that it was over--now that she saw a shining gateway admitting her back to the world she loved so well, it seemed incredible that she could have stood it so long.