"I am very sorry, Aunt Julia; I hate to trouble you at such a time; but I have really no choice--I ought to have spoken sooner--I owe a great deal more than a thousand dollars.""A great deal more? Do you owe two? She must have robbed you!""I told you it was not only Celeste. I--there are other bills--more pressing--that must be settled.""What on earth have you been buying? Jewelry? You must have gone off your head," said Mrs. Peniston with asperity. "But if you have run into debt, you must suffer the consequences, and put aside your monthly income till your bills are paid. If you stay quietly here until next spring, instead of racing about all over the country, you will have no expenses at all, and surely in four or five months you can settle the rest of your bills if I pay the dress-maker now."Lily was again silent. She knew she could not hope to extract even a thousand dollars from Mrs. Peniston on the mere plea of paying Celeste's bill: Mrs. Peniston would expect to go over the dress-maker's account, and would make out the cheque to her and not to Lily. And yet the money must be obtained before the day was over!
"The debts I speak of are--different--not like tradesmen's bills," she began confusedly; but Mrs. Peniston's look made her almost afraid to continue. Could it be that her aunt suspected anything? The idea precipitated Lily's avowal.
"The fact is, I've played cards a good deal--bridge; the women all do it; girls too--it's expected. Sometimes I've won--won a good deal--but lately I've been unlucky--and of course such debts can't be paid off gradually---"She paused: Mrs. Peniston's face seemed to be petrifying as she listened.
"Cards--you've played cards for money? It's true, then: when Iwas told so I wouldn't believe it. I won't ask if the other horrors I was told were true too; I've heard enough for the state of my nerves. When I think of the example you've had in this house! But I suppose it's your foreign bringing-up--no one knew where your mother picked up her friends. And her Sundays were a scandal--that I know."Mrs. Peniston wheeled round suddenly. "You play cards on Sunday?"Lily flushed with the recollection of certain rainy Sundays at Bellomont and with the Dorsets.
"You're hard on me, Aunt Julia: I have never really cared for cards, but a girl hates to be thought priggish and superior, and one drifts into doing what the others do. I've had a dreadful lesson, and if you'll help me out this time I promise you--"Mrs. Peniston raised her hand warningly. "You needn't make any promises: it's unnecessary. When I offered you a home I didn't undertake to pay your gambling debts.""Aunt Julia! You don't mean that you won't help me?""I shall certainly not do anything to give the impression that Icountenance your behaviour. If you really owe your dress-maker, Iwill settle with her--beyond that I recognize no obligation to assume your debts."Lily had risen, and stood pale and quivering before her aunt.
Pride stormed in her, but humiliation forced the cry from her lips: "Aunt Julia, I shall be disgraced--I--" But she could go no farther. If her aunt turned such a stony ear to the fiction of the gambling debts, in what spirit would she receive the terrible avowal of the truth?
"I consider that you ARE disgraced, Lily: disgraced by your conduct far more than by its results. You say your friends have persuaded you to play cards with them; well, they may as well learn a lesson too. They can probably afford to lose a little money--and at any rate, I am not going to waste any of mine in paying them. And now I must ask you to leave me--this scene has been extremely painful, and I have my own health to consider.
Draw down the blinds, please; and tell Jennings I will see no one this afternoon but Grace Stepney."Lily went up to her own room and bolted the door. She was trembling with fear and anger--the rush of the furies' wings was in her ears. She walked up and down the room with blind irregular steps. The last door of escape was closed--she felt herself shut in with her dishonour Suddenly her wild pacing brought her before the clock on the chimney-piece. Its hands stood at half-past three, and she remembered that Selden was to come to her at four. She had meant to put him off with a word--but now her heart leaped at the thought of seeing him. Was there not a promise of rescue in his love? As she had lain at Gerty's side the night before, she had thought of his coming, and of the sweetness of weeping out her pain upon his breast. Of course she had meant to clear herself of its consequences before she met him--she had never really doubted that Mrs. Peniston would come to her aid. And she had felt, even in the full storm of her misery, that Selden's love could not be her ultimate refuge; only it would be so sweet to take a moment's shelter there, while she gathered fresh strength to go on.
But now his love was her only hope, and as she sat alone with her wretchedness the thought of confiding in him became as seductive as the river's flow to the suicide. The first plunge would be terrible--but afterward, what blessedness might come! She remembered Gerty's words: "I know him--he will help you"; and her mind clung to them as a sick person might cling to a healing relic. Oh, if he really understood--if he would help her to gather up her broken life, and put it together in some new semblance in which no trace of the past should remain! He had always made her feel that she was worthy of better things, and she had never been in greater need of such solace. Once and again she shrank at the thought of imperilling his love by her confession: for love was what she needed--it would take the glow of passion to weld together the shattered fragments of her self-esteem. But she recurred to Gerty's words and held fast to them. She was sure that Gerty knew Selden's feeling for her, and it had never dawned upon her blindness that Gerty's own judgment of him was coloured by emotions far more ardent than her own.
