The House of Armour

At that moment the conversation of some ladies standing by a raised, curtained window, opening on the veranda, became clearly audible.

“She’s not proud, neither is she consaited,” they heard in a strident undertone; “I can vouch for that.”

“Oh, no, no, my dear Mrs. Macartney, I did not mean to hint at such a thing,” interposed the low, cutting voice of a lady well-known to Mr. Armour; “I merely said that a little less haughtiness, a little more humility of deportment, would be befitting to such a very young person who has so broad a bar sinister across her escutcheon.”

“Her father was a thief, you know,” chimed in a third hard, vulgar little voice; “a low, miserable thief, who stole money just as meanly as a person taking it out of a till. I don’t believe in smoothing over big offenses and coming down so hard on little ones. The Armours are very good to want to introduce her into society; but I think a girl like that ought to be left in seclusion. I pity Mrs. Colonibel.”

“And it’s me own daughter-in-law I’d like to see her,” said Mrs. Macartney boisterously.

There was a rustling of silk, two swift “Ohs” of ejaculation, two attempted apologies, and then a subdued snorting which told them that the Irishwoman had left her opponents in possession of the field.

Vivienne sank back on her chair, and Armour turned away to hide the anger of his face. She thought that he was about to interfere, and touched him on the sleeve with a murmured, “They are your guests.”

He shook his head impatiently just as the cutting voice went on, “How exceedingly brusque that Irishwoman is; I cannot bear to have her near me.”

“She fancied that she was exploding an important family secret,” said the vulgar little voice, “when all the world knows that the French demoiselle has jilted her stepson.”

“Indeed?” eagerly. “I have not heard that.”

“I am surprised that you have not. She is said to be setting her cap for Mr. Armour. He is richer than Captain Macartney, you know. French girls are artful.”

Armour made a step forward, but Vivienne laid a hand on his arm. “There is some one coming,” she said, and putting up her fan to partly conceal the terrible pallor of her face, and seeing that he was unable to speak she said in a clear voice, “Did you fancy, Mr. Armour, that this is my first ball? I have been at one other in Orléans chez les Dalesworthys. Mrs. Dalesworthy permitted her daughters to put on white gowns and sit behind a screen of flowers for ten minutes only to observe the dancing. I accompanied them, and being anxious to see one of the English princes who was passing through Orléans and had honored the Dalesworthys by being present, I stepped aside from the screen and looked steadfastly at him, being, as I thought, unperceived. To my wonder I saw Mrs. Dalesworthy approaching, accompanied by an equerry, who informed me that it was the wish of the prince to dance with me. They were both smiling, and as you may imagine I was exceedingly embarrassed. ‘Do not speak until you are addressed,’ Mrs. Dalesworthy whispered; the prince bowed and offered his arm, murmuring, ‘Mademoiselle has not been dancing.’ I told him about our being behind the screen, and he seemed greatly amused, and later on requested to have Mrs. Dalesworthy’s daughters presented to him. I speak French, as you know, with an English accent, and the prince perceiving it, and finding that I came from Nova Scotia, said a few words about our ‘loyal Canada’ that you may be sure excessively gratified–”

The passers-by were gone, and her voice broke, “That is what I suspected—dreaded,” she said bitterly; “and it is the last humiliation to which I shall be subjected in this unhappy house. Let me go,” to Armour, who had put his arm about her, “I do not wish to hear you speak.”

“Unhappy child,” he said in a low voice, “go then, if you will, and I will come to you as soon as I can.”

Vivienne went swiftly upstairs, till she stopped in the prettily furnished hall outside her rooms, and put her hand confusedly to her forehead. Stargarde lay on a broad divan, her face as white as death, her features contracted in horrible suffering, while Judy, who was the only person with her, hung over the railing intent on the scene below.

“Judy,” cried Vivienne, springing to Stargarde’s side, “what is this?”

“Oh, what a wretch I am!” exclaimed Judy. “Stargarde, dear Stargarde, won’t you speak to me? Come, wake up, or I shall go for Brian.”

“What is it? What is wrong with her?” exclaimed Vivienne.

“The usual thing, one of her attacks. Try to rouse her and I’ll get Brian,” and slipping rapidly downstairs by means of a hand placed on the railing, Judy disappeared.

“Stargarde, my darling,” murmured Vivienne, caressing her tortured face, “look at me.”

One glance of intense affection she received from Stargarde’s deep blue eyes, then the distorted features composed themselves, and the sufferer seemed to sink into a disturbed sleep.

So quickly that Vivienne wondered how he could have gotten there, Camperdown gently thrust her aside, and knelt down by the divan. “Stargarde,” he said slightly shaking her, “Stargarde,” then bitterly, “Too late; she has gone off.”

“Come in here,” whispered Judy, drawing Vivienne into her room. “Brian is furious with me; he was afraid that one of these things was coming on, and when Val came for him to go downstairs, he told me to talk steadily to Stargarde and not let her fall into one of them; the great thing is to keep her attention.”

“What is it? Oh, what is it she has?” and Vivienne clasped her hands in distress.

“I call it ‘the misery of the world,’” said Judy, dropping her voice. “A few years ago Stargarde was in New York, visiting some philanthropic people. One evening they were going to make a round of the slums. They put on old clothes and took some policemen, and Stargarde went with them. They got into wicked places where men and women of all nations were; I don’t know what they saw, but there were some dreadful things, and ever since then, when Stargarde gets run down and has nothing to take her mind off it, she’ll sit down somewhere, and all the badness that is going on in the world comes up before her like a panorama; she thinks about the men and women in China and Japan and India, and the poor wretches in London and New York, and it almost makes her crazy. I’ve seen her throwing herself about just like an actress on a stage, only with poor Stargarde it is real. You know how big she is; her limbs get convulsed and her face looks like the Laocoön’s, and she is so beautiful; wherever she is and one of these seizures comes on, some one sends for Brian. I’ve seen him sitting by her with the perspiration dropping off his face. It gives him an awful fright, for he says she might die in one of them; he’s afraid of her heart. Sometimes blood comes on her face,” added Judy in an awestruck whisper.

Vivienne was unable to speak.

“This is not a bad one,” said Judy gazing consolingly into her terror-stricken face. “She’s in a kind of trance; I don’t think Brian will even have to give her morphine—wait till I see,” and she tip-toed to the door. “She’s lying quite still,” she reported, coming back; “only moaning occasionally. Vivienne dear, I am going to bed. I don’t dare to face Brian again; he looks so annoyed.”

When Mr. Armour mounted to the topmost hall in search of Vivienne, his eye fell on Stargarde lying in unconsciousness on the divan.

“What does this mean?” he asked of Mammy Juniper who sat by her.

“Again the Lord has laid his hand on her,” said the old woman solemnly.

Mr. Armour seated himself beside his half-sister, and affectionately drew the rug more closely about her. “Where is Camperdown?” he inquired.

“He’s gone to get some supper for Miss Judy,” and Mammy looked toward the closed doors of Vivienne’s rooms.

She rarely mentioned Vivienne’s name, but Mr. Armour knew by her expression that the two girls were together.

“Tear her out of your heart, my son,” said Mammy Juniper in a sudden vehement whisper. “’Tis not the Lord’s will.”

A terrible gloom and depression overspread the face that he held in his hands as he leaned forward supporting his elbows on his knees.

“Mammy’s boy,” said the old woman affectionately fondling his head. “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.”

“Oh this agony of indecision!” he muttered, looking about him as if for help; “if I only knew what is right–”

“Trust Mammy,” said the colored woman persuasively. “She has asked the Lord about it.”

“Hush, old woman!” interposed Camperdown coming up the steps behind her bearing a tray aloft. “Give your counsels of vengeance to the winds, and don’t stir up this family to any more wickedness. Try to soften their hearts, not harden them. And don’t be so sure that you are a messenger of the Lord. I think the devil sometimes tampers with your messages. Stanton, Miss Delavigne is in trouble about Stargarde–”

Armour immediately got up—a resolved look upon his face.

“Here, take this with you,” said Dr. Camperdown handing him the tray. “Persuade Vivienne to go downstairs. Mammy Juniper and I will look after Stargarde.”

Dr. Camperdown looked severely at Mammy Juniper after Armour had entered the room. “Don’t you see that every drop of blood in his body is crying out for that girl? You might as well try to stop Niagara with one of your fingers as to check him now. Let him alone and all will be well. Your rôle now should be that of peacemaker, and you’ll find your hands full with Valentine.”

The old woman groaned, shook her head, and with an appearance of the greatest dejection sat swinging herself to and fro.

CHAPTER XXVII

NOT TO BE REPEATED

Judy had gone to bed and Vivienne was pacing swiftly up and down the room.

Armour would never see her like that again. Her face was flushed and contorted, her head held high, and in all her tempers and mental disturbances she had never flung him so passionate a glance.

“Put it down,” she said with a haughty gesture in the direction of the tray.

“Will you eat nothing?” he said. “It is late.”

“No, I will not.”

He stood quietly watching her.

“Now, proud man, you see me humbled,” she exclaimed.

He smiled compassionately. There was certainly not a trace of humility either in her tone or her attitude.

“I don’t think that any one ever suffered so much,” she said suddenly stopping and clasping her hands. “I—to be so disgraced, so unspeakably debased—oh, it is hard to bear!” and dropping on one of the white couches in the room she burst into passionate crying.

“Poor little girl,” said Armour pityingly coming to stand over her.

“Go away,” she cried, flinging herself into an upright position. “Why did you come up here? I do not wish to see you. Do you forget my odious designs upon you?”

“Silly gossip,” he said, stooping down to stroke her hair.

At his touch she immediately became calm. “Mr. Armour,” she said pleadingly, “may I leave here to-morrow?”

“Yes,” he said soothingly, “any time you will.”

“I will go away with Stargarde,” she murmured. “Do not–”

“Do not what, Vivienne?”

“Do not do that,” she exclaimed pushing his face away. “How can you touch me—I the daughter of a forger and a thief?”

“Vivienne, do you love me?” he asked gently.

“You insult me deeply—deeply,” she said. “Do I love you? Is that a question for a man to ask a woman? I wish that you would leave me. I am not in a condition to talk to you.”

“I love you, then—is that better?” he asked indulgently.

“You do not!” she exclaimed wildly. “Do not perjure yourself. If you kiss me again I shall send you from the room.”

“Do you love me?” he repeated with persistence.

She sprang away from him and resumed her excited pacing to and fro.

“Do I love you? Yes—no—what does it matter? Suppose I do love a man who prizes me simply as he does his other goods and chattels. I could not be more miserable than I am now. I, who have been so proud of my unblemished name. I wish—I wish that I could die,” and she buried her face in her hands.

“I could not lash myself into such a passion as you are in if I lost everything in the world,” said Armour.

“Yet you know how to suffer,” she interposed impetuously.

“Yes; perhaps if you knew what it costs me to say to you, ‘Vivienne, love me and be my wife,’ you would not be so hard on me.”

“That is it,” she replied with a despairing gesture. “You fancy that I admire you. You wish to have me all to yourself; you are a man to be respected by women but not adored, and you are consumed with pride to find one who does adore you; I understand you.”

“Partly only,” he replied. “Vivienne, come here.”

“I will not.”

“I foresee a stormy courtship,” he said in an undertone. Then anxious to try his power over her he added aloud, “Vivienne, please come here.”

“I will not,” she said again, but in her goings to and fro her feet seemed to carry her nearer him in spite of herself.

“Come,” he said, holding out his hands.

“I will not,” she said a third time, but the words were feeble and her outstretched finger tips rested on his hands.

“Sit there now, unreasoning child,” he said, drawing her to his knee, “and let us talk this matter over. I have something to tell you that will greatly astonish you.”

Her black head drooped to his shoulder. “What is it?” she said feebly.

“I have good reason to believe that your father is not the villain he is supposed to be.”

“Is not,” she repeated keenly. “Is he not dead?”

“No,” quietly; “I do not think so.”

She made a bewildered gesture. “I am surprised at nothing now; but why do you say this?”

“I think I would have heard of it if he had died.”

The girl was too excited to sit still. She sprang up again and moved restlessly about him. “You understand him,” she said; “ah, why have you not talked to me of him before?”

“You have never asked me to do so.”

She stopped short, measured him with a quick, comprehensive glance, then resumed her restless movements. She could not understand him; it was useless to try to do so. “You liked my father,” she said impulsively.

“Yes; as a lad my father and Étienne Delavigne were my ideals; your father was very patient and kind to me. He gave me my first instruction in business principles.”

“And were they all they ought to be?” asked the girl passionately. “Did he teach you anything dishonorable?”

“No; he did not.”

“Then why did he change?” she asked with one of her eloquent gestures.

“I have told you already that I do not think he did. I do not know, but I have a clue. Some day I may clear him. I have been looking for him for years.”

Vivienne gazed at him with a swift-flushing face. “Oh, how grateful I am to you! Where do you think he is?”

“In some of the large cities of the States.”

“Why would he not stay in Canada?”

“He would be afraid of meeting some one who knew him.”

“You know everything,” she said vivaciously, “and I know nothing. Tell me more—more.”

“Come and sit beside me then,” he said; “you disturb me with your uneasiness. There, that is better. When your mother died, your father, I think, resolved to go to some large city, change his name, and work quietly at something till he died. It is very hard to find him among millions of men; but he can be found, and for this purpose I have employed different means.”

He paused for a few instants, but Vivienne, who was listening with eager, breathless interest urged him on.

“I employ detectives, advertise–” and he stopped again.

“It must cost a great deal of money,” she said. “But why did my father go away? What was it that he did?”

“I will not explain the whole thing to you to-night, you are too much wrought up already. I will simply say that your father was accused of forgery. I believe he found himself in the position of an innocent man who cannot prove that he is not guilty. Being of a timid disposition he ran away.”

“And left me.”

“And left you,” repeated Armour, “to me. He knew that I would take care of you; and in his fatherly affection he would not have your name coupled with his dishonored one. He wishes to be considered dead, and so he is by every one here but myself and one or two others.”

“There is an immense load off my mind,” said Vivienne, laying a hand on her breast; “but I am not happy yet.”

“You will not be happy till you give up your will to mine,” said Armour persuasively. “You will marry me?”

“No, no; never,” she said, with eyes devouring every line of his face. “I will never marry a man who does not love me as I love him. Yet—yet just for to-night let me imagine that you love me, that you worship me. Let me draw your dear head on my shoulder like this,” and suddenly going behind his chair she flung her arms around his neck. “Let me smooth back your hair and tell you that I love you, love you, and yet I can never marry you. For the last time I will kiss you–”

“There never was a first time,” murmured Armour, who, nevertheless, was deeply moved by her emotion.

“And I will tell you,” she continued, “that you have won what many another man has tried to get and never will get at all, the affection and adoration and sympathy of one foolish woman’s heart.”

“Why foolish?” he asked, putting up a hand to try to induce her to come from behind him so that he might see her face.

She clung the closer to his neck. “Because,” she said, “you have found out that I love you. I should never have allowed you to know it. I have fretted over it and worried and cried till I was ill, but it was of no use.”

“It was fate,” he said; “you will marry me?”

“Good-night,” she murmured; “good-night, good-night. You will never see me like this again.”

He felt her warm lips on his ear and cheek, then she was gone. He hastily got up and had one glimpse of her before she disappeared into her room, one hand clasping the train of her white gown, her head carried well in the air.

“Not to be repeated, eh?” he muttered disapprovingly. “Well, we’ll see about that,” and with eyes bent thoughtfully on the floor he too left the room. In the hall he ran against Camperdown. “How is Stargarde?” he asked.

“All right; how is ma’m’selle?”

“All wrong,” and Armour’s strong white teeth gleamed for an instant through his heavy mustache. Then he went on his way downstairs, trying to recall to his mind a gipsy prophecy uttered about him when he was a lad, strolling one day about the environs of Halifax with Étienne Delavigne. Ah, this was it; the old woman, thrusting her wedge-shaped face close to his, had muttered it twice: “Self first, wife second, friends a matter of indifference, reputation dearer than life.”

“A part of it has come true,” said Armour heavily; “I wonder what about the rest?”

CHAPTER XXVIII

MISKEPT ACCOUNTS

Vivienne kept her word. When Armour got up the next morning he found that she had already gone to the Pavilion with Stargarde.

With much inward chafing and impatience he listened to Judy, who prattled of her speedy return, and to Mrs. Colonibel who over their late breakfast table talked with languid irritability of several occurrences that had displeased her during the course of the ball.

During the day he called at the Pavilion. Vivienne was out and Stargarde received him.

“Yes, she has told me everything,” she said sympathetically; “and Stanton, you must have patience with her. She is in a terribly disturbed state of mind. You are so different from her and she is so young and does not altogether understand that your temperament is a total contrast to hers.”

“I have great respect for your judgment,” said Armour quietly. “I shall do as you say. Do you think that she will make a suitable wife for me?”

“Yes, oh yes,” said Stargarde enthusiastically; “but do not forget that it is not the master of Pinewood with whom she has fallen in love—it is the man. Your social position and wealth are small matters to her. It is your undivided attention that she craves.”

“She has it,” he said heartily, “as far as any woman can.”

“She will realize that in time; in the meantime one must give her a chance for reflection.”

“There is some difference between our ages,” said Armour uneasily. “I wish for her sake that I were a younger man.”

Stargarde smiled languidly. “I referred to that and she said she would not care if you were a hundred.”

“That sounds like her,” he said with satisfaction. “I will go now lest I should meet her.”

“Yes, do so,” said Stargarde with sweet inhospitality; “and try to keep away from here for a time.”

“I will,” he said, and after a little further conversation he left her and went back to what he speedily found to be a very lonely house. There was no more cheerful girlish chatter about the halls and in the rooms of his dwelling, for as the days went by, Judy with her usual shrewdness discovered the situation of affairs, and calmly absented herself from home and presented herself at the Pavilion at all manner of unseasonable hours.

“If you have a pretty flower,” she said coolly, “and some one else picks it, you can at least go and sit down beside it and enjoy its perfume, though why this particular hothouse bloom should choose to transplant itself among weeds and stubble is more than I can imagine—making petticoats and aprons for old women too. Stuff and nonsense! She’ll soon get over it.”

Weeks passed away and Armour in a kind of dull resignation continued his solitary life. Judy was rarely at home and Mrs. Colonibel had grown strangely quiet and haggard. She was also losing her flesh. Armour did not know what was the matter with her, though he knew quite well what ailed his brother, who at home was always dull now, never merry, and who so often returned from the town with a bright red spot in each cheek.

At such times Armour eyed him keenly and suspiciously, for he knew that the red spots betokened a visit to the Pavilion.

“Valentine has developed quite a fondness for Stargarde’s society,” said Judy one day in a vexed way. “I wish that he would stay at home. No one is happy when he is about, for he teases unmercifully, from the dog up to the human beings.”

Camperdown disapproved hugely of the situation of affairs. “It is always the unexpected that occurs,” he said one day to Stargarde; “but I didn’t expect such a block as this. I’m going to interfere. That girl is worrying you to death.”

“No, she is not,” said Stargarde; “she really is not, Brian.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said stoutly. “Anyway, she’s worrying me, and her mission in the world is to keep that family together. I’m going to talk to her.”

“Don’t offend her, Brian.”

“There now—she is coming between us,” he growled. “I’ll not have it.”

A day or two later came his chance for a conversation with Vivienne. Accompanied by Stargarde’s dog she had left the Pavilion immediately after breakfast, and had gone for an early constitutional. She liked to saunter along the streets and look in the shop windows before the rosy-cheeked matrons and maids came trooping from north, south, and west to do their shopping in the business quarter of the town, which lies along the water’s edge.

As she stood examining with a critical and approving eye the many soft fur garments hung up in a shop window, Dr. Camperdown came suddenly around the corner of the street, swinging himself carelessly along, his hands in the pockets of his huge raccoon coat, in which he looked like a grizzly bear—amiable or unamiable as his humor happened to be.

Catching sight of Vivienne he moderated his pace, and came to a stop without being perceived by her. As the girl examined a waxen lady who was enveloped in a complete suit of sealskin, Dr. Camperdown examined her.

“Wax doll better equipped for a walk than girl is,” he soliloquized. “Girl’s dress might do for Parisian boulevards—too thin for Halifax winter,” and he surveyed disapprovingly the quiet elegance of Vivienne’s brown cloth costume.

Her attire was certainly better suited for a summer or autumn day than one in February, and she shivered slightly as she stood before him.

“French shoes too,” he muttered, looking down at her feet. “No overshoes or rubbers.” And as if unwilling to be protected from the cold while she was suffering from it, he angrily swung off his bulky coat, and threw it over his shoulder, saying as he did so, “Little simpleton, her mind is so preoccupied that she doesn’t know what she puts on.”