Frances Waldeaux Part 5

"Yes, I know. I am to remain----" Frances pa.s.sed her hand once or twice over her mouth irresolutely. "But Oxford, George?" she said.

"You forget your examinations?"

George took off his spectacles and wiped them.

"Speak! Have you no mind of your own?" his wife whispered. "I will tell you, then, madam. He has done with that silly whim! A priest, indeed! I am Catholic, and priests do not marry. He goes to Paris to study art. I see a great future for him, in art."

Frances stared at him, and then sat down, dully. What did it matter?

Paris or Oxford? She would not be there. What did it matter?

Lisa waited a moment for some comment, and then began sharply, "Now, we come to affaires! Listen, if you please. I am a woman of business.

Plain speaking is always best, to my idea."

Mrs. Waldeaux drew herself together and turned her eyes on her with sudden apprehension, as she would on a snapping dog. The woman's tones threatened attack.

"To live in Paris, to work effectively, your son must have money. I brought him no dot, alas! Except"--with a burlesque courtesy--"my beauty and my blood. I must know how much money we shall have before I design the menage."

"George has his income," said his mother hastily.

"Ah! You are alarmed, madam! You do not like plain words about the affaires? George tells me that although he is long ago of age, he has as yet received no portion of his father's estates."

"Lisa! You do not understand! Mother, I did not complain. You have always given me my share of the income from the property. I have no doubt it was a fair share--as much as if my father had left me my portion, according to custom."

"Yes, it was a fair share," said Frances.

"Ah! you smile, madam!" interrupted Lisa. "I am told it is a vast property, a grand chateau--many securities! M. Waldeaux pere made a will, on dit, incredibly foolish, with no mention of his son. But now that this son comes to marry, to become the head of the house, if you were a French mother, if you were just, you would---- You appear to be amused, madam?"

For Mrs. Waldeaux was laughing. She could not speak for a moment. The tears stood in her eyes.

"The matter has somewhat of droll to you?"

"It has its humorous side," said Frances. "I quite understand, George, that you will need more money to support a wife. I will double your allowance. It shall be paid quarterly."

"You would prefer to do that?" hesitated George. "Rather than to make over a son's share of the property to me absolutely? Some of the landed estate or securities? I have probably a shrewder business talent than yours, and if I had control could make my property more profitable."

"I should prefer to pay your income as before--yes," said Frances quietly.

"Well, as you choose. It is yours to give, of course." George coughed and shuffled to conquer his disappointment. Then he said, "Have it your own way." He put his hand affectionately on her shoulder. "And when you have had your little outing and go home to Weir, you will be glad to have us come to you, for a visit--won't you, mother? You haven't said so."

"Why should I say so? It is your home, George, yours and your wife's."

She caught his hand and held it to her lips.

But Lisa had not so easily conquered her disappointment. This woman was coolly robbing George of his rights and was going instead to kill for him a miserable little fatted calf! Bah! This woman, who had maligned her dead mother!

She should have her punishment now. In one blow, straight from the shoulder.

"But you should know, madam," she said gently, "who it is your son has married before you take her home. I a.s.sure you that you can present me to the society in Weir with pride. I have royal blood----" "Lisa!"

George caught her arm. "It is not necessary. You forget----"

"Oh, I forget nothing! I said royal blood. My father, madam, was the brother of the Czar, and my mother was Pauline Felix. You don't seem to understand----" after a moment's pause. "It was my mother whose name you said should not cross any decent woman's lips--my mother----"

She broke down into wild sobs.

"When I said it I did not know that you---- I am sorry." Frances suddenly walked away, pulling open her collar. It seemed to her that there was no breath in the world. George followed her. "Did you know this?" she said at last, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "And you are--married to her? There is no way of being rid of her?"

"No, there is no way," said Waldeaux stoutly. "And if there were, I should not look for it. I am sorry that there is any smirch on Lisa's birth. But even her mother, I fancy, was not altogether a bad lot.

Bygones must be bygones. I love my wife, mother. She's worth loving, as you'd find if you would take the trouble to know her. Her dead mother shall not come between her and me."

"She's like her, George!" said Mrs. Waldeaux, with white, trembling lips. "I ought to have seen it at first. Those luring, terrible eyes.

It is Pauline Felix's heart that is in her. Rotten to the core--rotten----"

"I don't care. I'll stand by her." But George's face, too, began to lose its color. He shook himself uncomfortably. "The thing's done now," he muttered.

"Certainly, certainly," Frances repeated mechanically. "Tell her that I am sorry I spoke of her mother before her. It was rude--brutal. I ask her pardon."

"Oh, she'll soon forget that! Lisa has a warm heart, if you take her right. There's lots of hearty fun in her too. You'll like that. Are you going now? Good-by, dear. We will come and see you in the morning. The thing will not seem half so bad when you have slept on it."

He paused uncertainly, as she still stood motionless. She was facing the grim walls of Stafford House, looming dimly through the mist, her eyes fixed as if she were studying the sky line.

"George," she said. "You don't understand. You will come to me always.

But that woman never shall cross my threshold." "Mother! Do you mean what you say?"

It was a man, not a shuffling boy that spoke now. "Do you mean that we are not to go to you to-morrow? Not to go home in October? Never----"

"Your home is open to you. But Pauline Felix's child is no more to me than a wild beast--or a snake in the gra.s.s, and never can be." She faced him steadily now.

"There she is," said Frances, looking at the little black figure under the trees, "and here am I. You can choose between us."

"Those whom G.o.d hath joined together," muttered George. "You know that."

"You have known her for three weeks," cried Frances vehemently. "I gave you life. I have been your slave every hour since you were born.

I have lived but for you. Which of us has G.o.d joined together?"

"Mother, you're d.a.m.nably unreasonable! It is the course of nature for a man to leave his parents and cleave to his wife."

"Yes, I know," she said slowly. "You can keep that foul thing in your life, but it never shall come into mine."

"Then neither will I. I will stand by my wife."

"That is the end, then?"

She waited, her eyes on his.

He did not speak.

She turned and left him, disappearing slowly in the rain and mist.