The Baroness went directly from the home which she had entered only
to blight, and sent her card marked "urgent" to Mrs Stuart.
"I have come to tell you an unpleasant story," she said--"a painful
and revolting story, the early Chapters of which were written years
ago, but the sequel has only just been made known to me. It concerns
you and yours vitally; it also concerns me and mine. I am sure, when
you have heard the story to the end, you will say that truth is
stranger than fiction, indeed: and you will more than ever realise
the necessity of preventing your son from marrying Joy Irving--a
child who was born before her mother ever met Mr Irving; and whose
mother, I daresay, was no more the actual wife of Mr Irving in the
name of law and decency than she had been the wife of his many
predecessors."
Startled and horrified at this beginning of the story, Mrs Stuart was
in a state of excited indignation at the end. The Baroness had
magnified facts and distorted truths until she represented Berene
Dumont as a monster of depravity; a vicious being who had been for a
short time the recipient of the Baroness's mistaken charity, and who
had repaid kindness by base ingratitude, and immorality. The man
implicated in the scandal which she claimed was the cause of Berene's
flight was not named in this recital.
Indeed the Baroness claimed that he was more sinned against than
sinning, and that it was a case of mesmeric influence, or evil eye,
on the part of the depraved woman.
Mrs Lawrence took pains to avoid any reference to Beryngford also;
speaking of these occurrences having taken place while she spent a
summer in a distant interior town, where, "after the death of the
Baron, she had rented a villa, feeling that she wanted to retire from
the world."
"My heart is always running away with my head," she remarked, "and I
thought this poor creature, who was shunned and neglected by all,
worth saving. I tried to befriend her, and hoped to waken the better
nature which every woman possesses, I think, but she was too far gone
in iniquity.
"You cannot imagine, my dear Mrs Stuart, what a shock it was to me on
entering that sickroom to-day, my heart full of kindly sympathy, to
encounter in the invalid the ungrateful recipient of my past favours;
and to realise that her daughter was no other than the shameful
offspring of her immoral past. In spite of the girl's beauty, there
is an expression about her face which I never liked; and I fully
understand now why I did not like it. Of course, Mrs Stuart, this
story is told to you in strict confidence. I would not for the world
have dear Mrs Cheney know of it, nor would I pollute sweet Alice with
such a tale. Indeed, Alice would not understand it if she were told,
for she is as ignorant and innocent as a child in arms of such
matters. We have kept her absolutely unspotted from the world. But
I knew it was my duty to tell you the whole shameful story. If worst
comes to worst, you will be obliged to tell your son perhaps, and if
he doubts the story send him to me for its verification."