The House of Armour

Roused by his half-uttered words, the girl turned around. “Good-morning,” he said grimly. “Which is your pet form of lung disease? If you just mention it you’re likely to have it.”

“Ah, Dr. Camperdown, is it you?” she said. “You know that I do not love affliction in any shape. Remember how I grieved over my cold.”

“You’re on the high road to something worse than a cold now,” he said. “Have you no thicker mantle than that; no warm bonnet?”

“I wear neither mantles nor bonnets,” she replied, pressing her hands into two tiny pockets at the sides of her jacket and looking up smilingly at him. “And I was sufficiently warm in this gown in Scotland.”

“Old Scotland isn’t New Scotland,” he grumbled. “They have high winds there, high enough to take the slates off the roofs, but not piercing enough to lay your heart open, as they do here. You didn’t look out to see what sort of a day it was before you left the house; come now, did you?”

“Possibly I did not,” said Vivienne.

“You didn’t,” he said; “I know you didn’t. Come, let us walk on briskly, lest you take cold. When are you going to cease being obdurate? You needn’t stare at me, ma’m’selle, I’m not afraid of your black eyes. Look here, I’ve something to show you,” and he paused on a street corner and drew out several pieces of paper.

The first one was a ridiculous caricature of Stanton Armour standing with his hands wildly clutched in his hair, a frantic expression on his face, which was upturned to the sky.

“He’s grappling with the biggest worry of his life here,” said her companion, laying his finger on the sketch. “He thought he’d had every trouble in the world, but he hadn’t.”

Vivienne looked at him inquiringly.

“He hadn’t fulfilled his destiny by falling in love. That every man ought to marry he thought was a pernicious doctrine.”

“As it is,” she remarked with unexpected spirit.

Camperdown scowled at her. “If you don’t marry, young lady, twenty years hence you’ll be a bad-tempered, dried-up, withered dame that no man will want to look at.”

Vivienne shrugged her beautiful shoulders.

“See what a beast I am,” he went on; “all because I didn’t marry. I’m too selfish to live—come now, don’t throw me pretty glances. You can’t cajole me. I say a man or a woman who remains unmarried without just cause for doing so, is a detestable egotist.”

Vivienne bit her lip and cast a glance in the direction of Mascerene, who was patiently enduring every insult from a passing quarrelsome dog.

“Let him alone, and think about Stanton,” said Camperdown impatiently. “He fell in love, as I said. See him here overcome by the discovery: ‘Merciful heavens, haven’t I suffered enough without having a woman flung into my life, or rather, not a woman, a full-grown creature, but a slender reed of a girl?’ I am sure you are sorry for him, Miss Delavigne,” turning suddenly and subjecting her composed features to an intense scrutiny.

“I am always sorry when a person suffering happens to be one whom I esteem.”

“It is abominable that Stanton should have led so tortured a life,” continued the physician; “he has been martyrizing ever since his mother died.”

“Unfortunate man!”

“But he’s getting over it here,” unfolding another bit of paper. “He’s thinking that it isn’t such a bad thing after all that his adored one is just eighteen years younger than himself.”

Vivienne laughed despite herself at the disordered appearance of her always faultlessly attired guardian, who was caricatured as sitting at a table, his hair sticking up all over his head, his fingers tracing with furious haste across the open page of a huge account book the quotation,

This tough, impracticable heartIs governed by a dainty-fingered girl.

“Now you mustn’t laugh at this one,” he said warningly, as he turned the paper over. “It’s too tragic. ‘Will she marry me? oh, will she marry me?’ See, there is the wharf and the deep black water.”

Vivienne did laugh. A few spirited pencil marks showed a man and a maid standing beside each other at the end of a wharf, against which waves were dashing. The girl’s face was averted, the man’s attitude plainly said, “If you don’t do as I wish you to I shall throw myself into a watery grave.”

“Oh, put it away,” she said merrily, “or I shall bring disgrace upon myself. I did not know that you had so great a talent for caricature.”

He put the paper in his pocket and said gloomily: “If I had a sister and Stanton Armour asked her to marry him and she wouldn’t, I’d shut her up somewhere.”

“What a regrettable thing for Mr. Armour that this obdurate fair one is not related to you.”

“Obdurate? She’s not obdurate,” said the physician, surveying Vivienne half in affection, half in irritation. “I don’t understand some men. They beat about the bush and examine their motives, and shilly-shally till it makes one wild to see them. Why don’t they say to the women they love, ‘I’m going mad for love of you; you must marry me. I’ll wait and watch, but I must have you. You shall not marry another man‘?”

“Mr. Armour is of a different nature,” said Vivienne.

“No, he isn’t,” with a suppressed laugh; “only it takes him longer to wake up. I don’t know what was the matter with him, unless he was thinking of the girl rather than of himself. Perhaps he thought that she didn’t care for him. Now he’s got a hint to the contrary, and all the power on earth won’t keep him from urging his suit. I suppose you didn’t know that he nearly went to the West Indies in one of his ships two weeks ago?”

“No; I did not.”

“He has some trouble that I don’t understand,” said Camperdown. “Anyway, I told him that if he didn’t do something to stop his fretting, he’d be in an insane asylum within a year.”

“But he did not go away.”

“No; something happened to prevent. He ought to go somewhere though. Miss Delavigne, have you not been hasty?”

“I think, Dr. Camperdown, that without being a brother, you exercise the privileges of one,” she said gravely.

“Then adopt me,” he said; “let me be your brother. If Heaven had vouchsafed me a sister, I should have prayed that she might be like you.”

Her eyes grew moist as she looked into his wistful face. She just touched the large hand extended to her, but her fingers were immediately seized in a warm grasp.

“You don’t understand,” she said, with a catch in her voice. “He really does not care. He does not come to see me.”

“Overtures will be made you in the course of time; will you receive them?”

“Yes,” she replied breathlessly, then she fairly ran away from him.

The overtures came sooner than she had expected. That afternoon as she sat alone over the fire an urgent message came over the telephone from Judy.

“Vivienne, is that you?” called the lame girl in an anxious voice.

“Yes; it is I.”

“Can you come quickly to Pinewood? No one is ill, but you must come. I cannot explain.”

Vivienne hurried to the veranda, where she found MacDaly lounging about. “Will you get me a carriage as quickly as possible?” she asked.

“Yes, revered and honored lady of transcendent charms,” he replied; then with considerable alacrity he gave direction to his long legs to carry him as speedily as possible to the nearest cabstand.

Vivienne, with a wildly-beating heart and eyes that went roving affectionately over every object on the well-known road to Pinewood, soon found herself before the hall door and in Judy’s embrace.

“Come in, come in,” was her hurried greeting. “Mamma asked me to send for you. I don’t know what is going to happen, but I think there is something wrong with her accounts. Stanton asked her to bring her housekeeping books to him this afternoon. He examines them about once a year. I fancy that she has been misappropriating.”

Vivienne shrank from her. “Judy, what are you saying?”

“The truth, I fear,” and Judy made a detestable face. “Do you think mamma would hesitate to steal if she thought she wouldn’t be found out? No, indeed; but Stanton will be too sharp for her, and he is so particular that if he finds her out he will be in a terrible rage.”

“This is a shocking thing that you are saying; surely you have made a mistake.”

“No, I have not,” said Judy stubbornly. “I wish I had. Where did mamma get that last set of jewelry? where those English dresses? She must have squeezed the money out of her housekeeping.”

“Judy, I feel very much in the way; you should not have brought me here.”

“Are you not willing to do this much for me?” said the girl. “Do you want to see my mother turned out of doors?”

“No,” said Vivienne, throwing her arm around her neck; “but what can I do, dear?”

“You can do more with Stanton than any one. He has been hateful lately. A bear with two sore paws would be an angel compared with him. I cannot hear mamma saying a word. She must be terribly disturbed. She always begins to shriek over a slight thing. Will you not go in?”

“Judy, I cannot,” and Vivienne drew away from her.

“Stanton is raising his voice; he must be furious,” said Judy, placing an ear at the door. “What is he saying? ‘Leave here at once.’ Oh, Vivienne, go in, go in! Tell him that she cannot. What will people say?”

Vivienne was standing at a little distance from her, and she did not move till Judy threw herself upon her with a frantic, “Vivienne, she is my mother; I do not love her, yet—yet–”

“Do not cry, darling,” said Vivienne, kissing her impulsively. “I will do as you wish,” and she knocked at the door.

“They do not hear you,” said Judy, turning the handle; “go in and do what you can,” and she ushered her champion into the room.

A very quiet and unobtrusive champion she had introduced, who stopped short in acute distress. Armour was standing with his back to the door, yet Vivienne could see that he was in one of the terrible rages of which Judy had told her. Mrs. Colonibel sat at a table, staring with wide-open, glassy eyes at some account books before her.

“Speak for me, Miss Delavigne,” she said with a gasp of relief. “I have offended Stanton mortally. You can feel for me on account of your father.”

Armour turned on his heel and his face underwent an immediate change; Vivienne stretched out her hand to him. Though he were a prey to ten-fold more evil passions than the ones which possessed him, he yet was the man that she loved. He took her hand silently, then he said sternly to his cousin: “Go; you make me forget you are a woman. Let me be rid of you to-night. I hope that I shall never see your face again.”

Mrs. Colonibel burst into a violent fit of weeping. “Oh, Stanton, give me a little chance,” she sobbed; “a month longer, even a week, to prepare for this. You will ruin my prospects.”

“You have heard what I said,” he replied, walking away from her to a window. “You can’t change my resolve.”

“Intercede for me,” whispered Mrs. Colonibel as she passed Vivienne; “he will listen to you.”

Armour stood with his hands behind his back till the door closed. Then he looked around to see if he were alone.

Vivienne still remained—sorrowful, grieving, and saying not a word.

“How did you come here?” he asked.

“Judy sent for me.”

“Ah,” he replied significantly.

He resumed his scrutiny of the outdoor world and for a long time made no further remark. Vivienne slipped to a corner of a sofa. After a time he began to pace up and down the room talking bitterly, half to himself, half to her.

“Always the same—trust and deceit, honor and lies. They are all in league against me. They deceive me in one direction and I am on my guard there; then there is a change of position and I am attacked in some other place. Vivienne,” abruptly, “I would rather see you dead than deceitful.”

He had paused close to her, and as he spoke he gazed into her face with piercing scrutiny.

“You do not flinch,” he said; “yet you too may be acting a part. Have you lured me on with shy defiance and pretty girlish conceits in order that you may count another victim?”

“I am profoundly sorry for you,” said the girl. “Your faith in human nature has received another shock.”

“Which does not add to my charms,” he said harshly, unhappily, and with some resentfulness. “You need not shrink from me. I’m not going to sit down beside you.”

“Which does add to your charms for me,” said the girl with great firmness; “and I am not shrinking from you but making a place for you.”

His expression brightened, and he dropped on the sofa beside her and laid his head on her shoulder like a tired child, murmuring: “You have come back to me, dear little girl. Smooth those ugly wrinkles from my face. I have longed to feel your hands wandering over my head again.”

“I first loved you because you were unhappy,” said Vivienne composedly; “but it breaks my heart to see you like this.”

“This is a moment of weakness,” he said languidly, “of mental relaxation. This stirring of one’s emotions is a detestable thing; and I have it all the time, I who was born for a tranquil life.”

“Tell me all your troubles,” whispered Vivienne in his ear, “everything, everything.”

“No,” he said unexpectedly. “No,” and suddenly straightening himself he took her in his arms. He was a strong man again, and Vivienne fluttered a little in his grasp, blushing in deep perplexity and wonder.

“Do you wish to go away?” he asked.

“No,” she said; “not if you will do as I wish.”

“And you wish to be mother confessor?”

“Yes; give me the history of your life, your inner life.”

“Well—I love you,” he said.

With an intense passionate gesture the girl held her head well back, her burning dark eyes staring hard into his flashing blue ones. Yes, there was a strength and fervor of devotion there that she could not doubt. She dropped the arms that she had outstretched to keep him from her with an unutterably satisfied “Oh!” of surprise.

“A curious exclamation that,” he said teasingly; “have you nothing more to say to me?”

She would not speak for a long time, but remained with her face hidden in his shoulder. Finally she said: “When did you find this out?”

“It has been true all along,” he said; “only you would not believe me.”

“Who is deceitful now?” she cried.

“I am not; I really have loved you for weeks, only I have been a stupid, blundering fool about expressing myself. When will you marry me?”

“I do not know. You will not send Mrs. Colonibel away, Stanton?”

“Yes I will; do not speak of her,” and his face darkened.

“Let her remain for a time.”

“Not a day.”

“Not to please me?”

“Let me tell you what she has done,” and somewhat grimly he related the history of his cousin’s thefts.

“Why does not your face change?” he asked when he finished his story; “why do you not look scornful and shrink from me?”

“Why should I, Stanton?”

“I come of the same stock. Flora was an Armour before she married old Julius Colonibel for his money. This family is like a blasted tree, whose branches drop off one by one.”

“But the trunk remains; it will be sound till it falls,” said Vivienne, trying to enclose his unhappy figure in her arms; “and I know an ivy that will cling to it.”

“God bless the ivy, the confiding ivy,” he muttered with a clearing of face.

“And you will forgive Flora, Stanton?”

“Forgive, forgive,” he repeated; “what an easy word to say and what a hard thing to do. Shall one word be the end of her sin against me for months?”

“You have nothing to do with her punishment,” said Vivienne softly. “God takes care of us when we sin. Flora has already suffered. Put that thought aside and go to make your toilet for dinner.”

“I do not wish any dinner,” he said.

Vivienne looked at him mournfully. “And I am so hungry!”

He smiled. “Well, my child, I hope for your sake that the bill of fare is all you can desire.”

“It will not be if you are not there. The daintiest dishes will turn to dust and ashes in my mouth.”

“How she loves me—this little girl,” he said, holding her at arms’ length and fondly inspecting her.

“It grieves me when you brood over troubles,” she continued, with a contraction of her dark brows. “You are a true Anglo-Saxon. Try to be light-hearted.”

“I place myself at your disposal,” he said. “Tell me what to do.”

“Ah, you have spoken; now do not retract. Go immediately to unhappy Flora. Try to make her comprehend that you forgive her, that she shall never be forced to leave Pinewood, that I and you also wish her to stay.”

“No, no,” he interrupted, “I cannot agree to that.”

“Do you think I could be contented in a paradise even with you from which unhappy souls have been expelled?” she exclaimed.

“I think that I could make you so.”

“You could not, for you would not be happy yourself. You too have a conscience, and you know that if we are selfish we shall be miserable. Also there may be a change in Flora, and though I shall be fond of assuring you that our interests are identical, may I not ask whether you will not promise me the supreme control of our ménage?”

“I will.”

“And who always keeps his promise? You are silent, therefore I proceed. After visiting Flora, go to your room and practise a contented smile before your glass, then descend to the dining room fully prepared to welcome our adored Stargarde, who will probably come out to dinner. Will you do this?”

He hesitated.

“Then all is at an end between us,” she said tragically. “I can have nothing more to do with a man as doleful as yourself.”

“You dear little witch,” and he put out a hand to detain her, but her laughing face looked at him from a door across the hall, and he was obliged to walk across to her.

“This thing has cut me deeply,” he said, “more deeply than you can understand. If you will consent to remain here till we are married, Flora may also stay till then—that is if she will keep out of my sight for a day or two.”

“Would you make a business transaction of it?”

“I lay no claim to perfection.”

“Very well,” said Vivienne with a wise shake of her head, and she went upstairs to Judy who was hanging over the railing above.

“It is shocking about Flora,” she murmured; “but if I allow him to meditate so much on these family problems he will become distracted.”

CHAPTER XXIX

THE MICMAC KEEPS HIS CHARGE

February passed away, and March came—"March that blusters and March that blows, March the pathway that leads to the rose"—the month hailed with delight because it breaks the back of the Nova Scotian winter.

In a lamblike and gentle manner it succeeded snowy February, with a brilliant sun, not too high winds, and thawing, melting rivulets in every direction running from rapidly-melting snow-banks. But after the first of the month there was a change. Jack Frost again clouded the windows, an icy hand was laid on the rivulets, the snow-banks no longer decreased in size, and there were two whole weeks of outdoor skating.

Lent had begun and the winter gayeties had ceased. Mrs. Colonibel, missing the stimulus of a constant round of excitement and forced to think constantly of her changed position in the household, was a different woman.

Nominally she still retained her old place; in reality it was the young French girl who was the mistress, who was consulted on all possible occasions while she was ignored. She accepted the situation with rather more grace than might have been expected and only on rare occasions offered a protest. A kind of reluctant admiration for Vivienne had sprung up in her breast. She knew that the girl on one pretext and another was delaying her marriage because she feared that Armour, though willing to indulge her on every other point would probably be firm with regard to this one; his cousin would not be allowed to remain in his house nor to retain the slightest authority in household affairs—she must make room for the young wife.

At the close of one sunny Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Colonibel approaching her glass with a kind of horror at her altered appearance, carefully applied some rouge to her cheeks and then went drearily downstairs.

It was nearly dinner time, but Valentine was the only person in the drawing room. Judy and Vivienne were with Stargarde, with whom they spent the greater part of their time. Stanton had not yet come and Colonel Armour was dining in town.

Valentine stood by the window, his hands behind his back, his eyes bent on the long, glassy expanse of the Arm, where a number of boys were skimming to and fro like swallows. He looked around as Mrs. Colonibel entered the room. His face too, was restless and unhappy, and to conceal it he turned his back on her and moved toward the open conservatory door.

She took his place at the window. The huge, yellow ball of the sun was just dropping behind the fir-topped hills on the other side of the Arm. The spiked tree points stood out against the clear blue sky like the jagged edges of some rude fortifications. Below the forest, where stood fishermen’s houses and the summer cottages of Halifax citizens among gray fields, a shadow had fallen, but a golden glow yet lingered on the frozen Arm and along the eastern shore where Pinewood was situated.

Mrs. Colonibel’s glance wandered aimlessly to and fro, from a few belated crows that had been to the seashore to look for fish, and with hoarse and contented croaks were sailing to their haunts in the old pine trees at the head of the Arm, to the small boys who seemed loth to leave the ice.

“Those lads have it all to themselves,” she said spiritlessly.

“Yes,” muttered Valentine; “magnificent ice too.”

“Val,” suddenly, “why couldn’t we have a skating party this evening? I know Miss Delavigne would like it, for she won’t go to the rink now.”

His eyes glittered, but he said nothing.

“There’s been steady frost for a week,” she went on earnestly; “it’s perfectly safe, and the evening bids fair to be lovely. What do you say? is there a moon?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll have a bonfire anyway, and tea at the cottage.”

“All right,” he said.

“Then come to the telephone with me, and let us decide whom to ask. There’s nothing going on, and everybody will come.”

Mrs. Colonibel felt better. With considerable energy, after a sufficient number of guests had been invited, she, seconded by Valentine, who began to show some interest in the matter, made arrangements for the evening and then went to the dining room.

An unusual air of animation pervaded the table when Armour came in and found Valentine carving in his stead. He glanced about inquiringly while his brother was surrendering his seat.

“We‘re going to have a small skating party, Stanton,” said Judy. “There’s no harm in that, if it is Lent, and everybody is tired of the rink. Will you come?”

“I am sorry to say that I have to return to the office.”

Vivienne’s face clouded slightly, and his glance rested on her in almost idolatrous affection. “You wish to go, do you not?” he said.

“What a question!” snapped Judy. “You know she’s an enthusiastic skater, and you sha‘n’t deprive her of it, Stanton. Besides, I’m going to venture on the ice this evening. You know I don’t skate in the rink.”

“Very well,” he said; “Vivienne shall do as she chooses. Perhaps I may get out before your party breaks up. What have you been doing this afternoon, Judy?”

Between the intervals of satisfying the demands of a wonderfully good appetite, Judy gave him a humorous description of some hours spent at the Pavilion, and set everybody laughing at her account of the mingled ingenuousness and shrewdness with which Stargarde dealt with some of her troublesome protégés.

Apparently they were a very happy family. Vivienne and Judy were as lighthearted as two children; Armour’s coldness and sternness were almost lost in the grave happiness that had seemed to envelope him since his engagement to Vivienne; Mrs. Colonibel’s private worries had for some time kept her from afflicting the household with outbursts of impatience; and Valentine for once lost his sullen and reserved demeanor, and the two angry red spots that had so frequently showed themselves in his cheeks died away.

The dinner was somewhat hurried, and at its close the different members of the family scattered in various directions, all with some commission from Mrs. Colonibel to execute, except Armour, who went immediately to the library after requesting that the Micmac should be sent up to him.