The Daughter Pays Part 57

"Well, ma'am, we always knew that a wife was what he wanted, but I never dared to hope for such a sweet young lady as he chose. They say marriages are made in heaven, don't they? There's not much doubt but what this one was, I take it upon myself to say!"

Virginia's mother finished her tea in a speculative silence. Grover left her to herself, but when she had eaten and drunk she did not seem inclined to linger. Rising, she went to the window and stood awhile gazing out upon the activities of many gardeners, hard at work below the terrace upon the beginning of the bride's rock garden. Her face seemed to grow sharp and pinched as her eyes followed the busy scene.

Turning, she contemplated the marble Love; and her pretty teeth bit into her lower lip, while her breath came hissingly.

_Made in heaven!_ A wild laugh broke from her. Its mirthless cadence fell hatefully upon the silence. Nebuchadnezzar, when he cast his victims into the burning fiery furnace, was, it is recorded, thankful to find them coming forth unscathed. This woman had cast her daughter, bound, into the h.e.l.lish gulf of a loveless marriage. Now that she saw her walking free and companied by the husband whose very soul she had redeemed, there was no joy, no relief, but a bitterness of hate which transformed the pretty features into a mask of horror.

Suddenly she s.n.a.t.c.hed her wraps, as if the scene were unbearable. She hastened into the disembowelled hall and, putting on her coat amid many apologies from Grover for enforced inhospitality, went out to the waiting car.

It was her only glimpse of her daughter's home for many years to come.

This was not from lack of invitation, for all Osbert's hatred, and every lingering grudge, vanished in the suns.h.i.+ne of his personal happiness. It was simply that her narrow soul was torn with envy.

The sound of Tony's laughter and shouting soon re-echoed through the garden and stables; the ring of his pony's hoofs could be heard along the avenue. Pansy's invalid chair set out upon the terrace the following summer, where Virgie had once lain, watched secretly by her husband from the shelter of his den. Even the Rosenbergs came for a week's motoring, when Gerald had practically recovered from his hideous accident.

Boys, girls, dogs, cats--a perpetual stream of youth ebbed and flowed about the erstwhile silent place. But Virginia the elder came not.

Even when Osbert the second made his glorious appearance--when bonfires were lit in the village, and Lord and Lady St. Aukmund stood sponsors at a stately baptismal ceremony--the mother still held aloof.

Virginia's unhappiness she could have borne. Virginia the radiant young wife and mother, central point of attention, mistress of Gaunt's heart and all that he possessed, was a perpetual reminder of what she herself had flung away. With her daughter's life as the price, she had purchased freedom from want. Yet, from the time when it dawned upon her that the girl was miraculously saved, she never knew a moment free from the gnawing tooth of jealous bitterness.

The joy which these two had so perilously s.n.a.t.c.hed from the jaws of destiny was more than she dare contemplate.

THE END