The Man with the Double Heart Part 40

One definite thought held her now--this must be stopped--at any cost!

But where was she to find the money? She crossed to the table by the window, unlocked a drawer and drew out her pa.s.s-book, turning the pages feverishly.

There was Roddy, clamouring for clothes, household bills in abeyance, Jill's music lessons to pay ... Then, like a flash, it came to her.

Her diamond star! Yes--that must go.

Anything--to keep Stephen!

She felt like a man who for many months has moved on crutches and finds himself suddenly bereft of them, helpless, without support ...

But was it fair?--fair to Jill. The star had been her husband's gift--she had meant to leave it to her child.

The fight began. In reality, it resolved itself into a choice between the pair--Stephen, her friend, and Jill ... that "independent" daughter.

The adjective betrayed her mood.

For, proud as she was in her mother's heart of the bright young girl with her clever brain, the rankling fact was hidden there--her offspring had outgrown the nest.

She could not realize that the age was mainly responsible for the lack of what she called "proper respect"--that mid-Victorian subservience.

She held that what _she_ considered fit was the natural guidance for the girl; that the latter should shape her every thought in the mould of the past generation.

Yet she, herself, had broken loose. It did not occur to her to weigh the question of militant suffrage in the same scales her own mother had used...

Marriage had given her the right to an independent judgment, she thought--the full authority of the woman.

She did not see that life had changed. That the youth of to-day a.s.serted their claim to a freedom of thought unknown in her time, upheld by a sounder education.

She hated in secret the very word. It had been sufficient in her day for a girl to possess a smattering of surface knowledge from old-fashioned primers. A little French, history, grammar, needlework and "good manners": of music enough to produce "pieces" when required for home consumption. But no training for the brain--little logic or reasoning power--the arts neglected for fear they should bring an alarming hint of Bohemianism. And "what mother says is right." This was an axiom, weighty, approved; stifling all further argument, the Alpha and Omega of the question.

Jill's intensely modern att.i.tude, fostered by her college life, her alarming tendency to revoke old standards of convention--even her religious doubts, honestly faced, shocked her mother and threatened her authority. She mourned in secret over her child.

Stephen, now--her face relaxed--was always attentive, glad to learn ...

With a charming courtesy he bent to her will, respecting her every opinion.

With her delicate purity of intention it never occurred to her to see that the fact of s.e.x was involved here, Nature at work in her hidden ways.

She would have shrunk from the suggestion that it flattered her woman's heart to find that a man, much younger than herself, could turn to her for inspiration.

And then there was the link between them--'the Cause'--daily growing stronger, and Jill's open scepticism, that cut her mother to the quick.

Roddy, of course, was only a boy! Mrs. Uniacke smiled faintly. You expected your son to break away early or later from "home" opinions.

Never once in this tangled maze did she see the weakness of her position: a champion of woman's rights--refusing the same to her only daughter.

Again she read Stephen's letter. Then, with a determined hand, she drew her cheque book nearer to her. The parasite had gained the day.

She told herself it was for the Cause. The faint suspicion of dishonesty she thrust rigidly from her mind, realizing subconsciously that to place her action on other grounds was to open up a dangerous question.

But, for the first time in her life, sentiment stole into the friendship. The fault--if it were--was an error of love; she could not bear to part from Stephen.

Then she raised her head and listened, hearing the front door open and shut, and Jill's voice, happy, young:

"Mother!--Mother ... Where are you, Mother?"

She slipped the cheque book in the drawer with the open letter and turned the key, her cheeks flushed, her head high. She did not need Jill's advice!

"Here I am----" she went to the stairs and the girl raced up, two steps at a time.

"Oh, Mother--I've got such a lot to tell you--it's been such a lovely day!"

Impulsively her arms went out, seizing the slight, waiting figure in a childish hug, her fresh mouth pressed upon her mother's cheek.

"There!--I'm feeling so happy. I got 'Excellent' for Ancient History and I'm top at Algebra this week. And Judy Severn's giving a party--and she wants me to come and bring a man. Peter's away, but I thought, perhaps, I'd ask Mr. Bethune--what do you think? It's on the 9th. A real dance." Madly she waltzed her mother round.

"Stop, Jill!" Mrs. Uniacke laughed--the girl's gaiety was infectious.

She dropped breathless into a chair, Jill on her knees by her side.

"Isn't it ripping?" She pulled off her cap and threw it neatly on the bed, her dark, ruffled hair like a cloud round her excited, pretty face.

"Jill--your hat!" Her mother frowned.

"Well, it's so old--it can't hurt--and rabbit skin!"

Her happy laugh took the sting out of the words.

"But that reminds me--about my frock...? I've not a single thing to wear."

"And what about your white muslin?" An anxious look crept into Jill's eyes at the note in Mrs. Uniacke's voice.

"Oh--Mother--I _can't_ ... not to Judy's party! And it's _so_ short--up to my knees." She sighed. "I wish I'd stop growing. I let it down, with a false hem, you remember--when Aunt Elizabeth came here?"

"It will have to do." Unconsciously, her mother glanced across the room to the locked drawer where the cheque lay, signed and payable to Stephen.

Jill drew away slightly. She clasped her hands round her knees, with a sombre face, staring down at her mended shoes and a darn in her stocking.

"Then I can't go." Her voice was hard. "I won't wear that old frock.

It's so tight over the chest I can hardly breathe." She bit her lips.

Mrs. Uniacke, watching her, wavered. "You could make a fichu, couldn't you? I could find you a piece of lace, perhaps--and add a frill?"

Jill scowled.

"Sounds like an early Victorian picture." She rose to her feet. "With a crinoline and black mittens--thanks, awfully. I'll tell Judy the party's off."

This was the mood her mother disliked--slangy and impertinent. So she summed it up to herself, resenting her daughter's manner.

"It's entirely your own fault if you do. I am quite prepared to help you, Jill. We could easily alter the frock between us. It isn't as if you were really 'out.'"

Jill gave her a quick glance.