Part 81 (1/2)
”I desire you will come to me at once. Do not disobey me, Harold. I am very seriously displeased, and will only consent to forgive the past when I find you ready to bend your stubborn heart to obey my will.”
Harold started at once for home. He hoped rather against hope that he might talk his mother over; but her aspect was not encouraging when he met her face to face.
No tragedy-queen could have a.s.sumed more scorn. Mrs. Purling, having thrown herself into several att.i.tudes, fell at length into a chair.
”I never thought it,” she said; ”not from my own and only child. The serpent's tooth hath not such fangs, such power to sting, as the base ingrat.i.tude of one undutiful boy. But this fills the cup. I have done with you--for ever, unless you give me your sacred word of honour now, at this minute, never to speak to Dolly Driver again.”
”Such a promise would be quite impossible under any circ.u.mstances, but I distinctly refuse to give it--upon compulsion.”
”Then you have fair warning. Not one penny of my money shall you ever possess. I will never see you again.”
”I sincerely trust the last is only an empty threat, my dearest mother.”
She made a gesture as though she were not to be beguiled by soft words.
”As for the money, it matters little. Thank G.o.d, I have my profession.”
”At which you will starve.”
”By which I shall earn my bread as my father did. Besides, I can fall back upon the reputation of the Family Pills.”
”I see you wish to goad me beyond endurance, Harold. Go!”
”For good and all?”
”Yes; except on the one alternative. Will you give up this idiotic pa.s.sion? You refuse. It is on your own head, then. Go--go till I send for you, which will be never!”
Harold went without another word--to Harbridge, overcame Dolly's scruples, secured the practice, and within a month was married and settled.
Mrs. Purling, in Phillipa's presence, made a great parade of burning her will.
”He has brought it all on himself, unnatural boy! But you, darling Phillipa, will never treat me thus. _n.o.blesse oblige._ The bright blue blood that fills your veins would curdle at a _mesalliance_, I know.”
Mrs. Purling was quite calm and self-possessed, while Miss Fanshawe, strange to say, seemed agitated enough for both. Her hands trembled, she looked away; only with positive repugnance she submitted to her new mother's affectionate embrace. A woman who is capable of the most cold-blooded calculating intrigue may yet have an access of remorse.
Phillipa's heart was heavy now at the moment of her triumph. It cost her more than a pa.s.sing pang to remember that she had robbed Harold Purling of his birthright, and had turned to her own base purpose the foolish cravings of the silly mother's heart.
But she had put aside self-upbraiding when she met her lover in town.
”Faith, you are a trump, Phillipa; but it's not much too soon. When will you take your reward?”
”Meaning Mr. Jillingham? Is the reward worth taking, I wonder?” For a moment she held him at bay. ”Suppose I were to refuse you now at the eleventh hour? It is for you to sue. I am not what I was. Mrs. Purling calls me the heiress of the Purlings, and we may not consider Mr.
Gilbert Jillingham a very eligible _parti_.”
”You dare not refuse me, Phillipa,” said Gilly very seriously. ”I should expose your schemes, and we should go to the wall together. No, there is no escape for you now; our interests are identical.”
”How am I to introduce you upon the scene?”
”Quite naturally; I shall go and stay at Compton Revel. They will have me, for your sake, if not for my own. I shall begin _de novo_--at the very beginning: be smitten, pay you court, win over the heiress, and propose.”