_ CHAPTER XII
If you observe us you will find us in our manners and way of living most like wasps.--ARISTOPHANES.
She sits on the wide, fragrant porch with her lovely stepdaughter, watching for the return of her husband and his German friend, with whom he has no end of business. Certainly Violet makes a most amiable wife. She finds no fault with the all-engrossing business, even in this honeymoon month, but contents herself with Cecil and Denise, with rides and walks, and days spent at the cottage. Denise instructs her in cookery, but she feels as if she should never need the knowledge, since Mrs. Grandon
mere is at the head of the great house, with servants to do her bidding.
Violet is musing now over a talk had with Gertrude this afternoon. She was trying to persuade her to join them for a drive. It seems such a dreary life to lie here on the sofa when there is the wide, glowing out of doors.
"Our quiet times will soon come to an end," says Gertrude, complainingly. "Marcia returns presently, and Laura will no doubt come back for a visit, but we are rid of her as a permanency," and she flavors her speech with a bitter little laugh.
"What is Laura like? She is only a year older than I," rejoins Violet.
"But ten years wiser. She has achieved the great aim of a woman's life,--a rich husband."
Violet colors delicately.
She has a rich husband, but it was no aim of her life.
"What is Marcia like?" she inquires, timidly.
"She will fret you to death in a week, a faded flirt with the air of sixteen, who sets up for a genius. Get her married if you can. It is fortunate that there is some dispensation of fate to take people out of your way."
"I never had a sister," Violet says, half regretfully.
"Well, you will have enough of us," is the rejoinder. "Though I shall try to make no trouble. A book and a sofa satisfy me."
"Were you always ill? And you must have been pretty! You would be pretty now if you had some color and clearness, such as exercise would give you."
Gertrude is comforted by the naive compliment. No one ever praises her now.
"I was pretty to some one a long while ago," she says, pathetically.
It suggests a lover. "Oh, do tell me!" cries Violet, kneeling by the sofa. Marriage is marriage, of course, and Denise has instructed her in its duties, but is not love something accidental, not always happening in the regular sequence?
"It is not much," confesses Gertrude, "but it once was a great deal to me. I was engaged, and we loved each other dearly. I was soon to be married, the very first of them all, but
he went wrong and had to go away in disgrace. It broke my heart!"
"Oh!" and Violet kisses her, with tears on her cheek. No wonder she is so sad and spiritless.
"I don't mind now. Perhaps it would have been no end of a bother, and I'm not fond of children. Cecil is the least troublesome of any I ever saw, but I couldn't have her about all the time, as you do. Yes, it seemed at first as if I must die," she says, in a curious past-despairing tone.
"He may come back," suggests Violet.
"Oh, no! And then one couldn't be disgraced, you know! But it was mean for Laura always to be flaunting her good fortune in my face. I'm glad she is married, and I only wish Marcia was going off. We could settle to comfort the rest of our lives."
Violet is thinking of this brief, blurred story, and wondering how it would seem to love anyone very much beforehand. She has been trained to believe that love follows duty as an obedient handmaid. She likes Mr. Grandon very much. He is so good and tender, but of course he loves the child the best. Violet is not a whit jealous, for she does not know what love really is in its depth and strength. But it is a mystery, a sort of forbidden fruit to her, and yet she would like one taste of what
"Some have found so sweet."
The carriage-wheels crumble her revery to fine sand. She is not sure whether it is proper to come forward, and there are two more in the carriage, a bright, beautiful woman that she fancies is Madame Lepelletier.
Mrs. Grandon does not leave her in doubt as she hastens forward with a really glad exclamation.
"My dear Laura!"
"Wasn't it odd?" says dear Laura. "We really were not meaning to come up to-day, our hands were so full, but we met Floyd on Broadway, and here we are."
She steps out, stylish, graceful, with that unmistakable society air some people never acquire. She is dressed in a soft black and white checked silk, so fine that it is gray, her chip bonnet is of the same color, with its wreath of gray flowers, and her gloves are simply exquisite. All this seems to set off her fine eyes and brilliant complexion.
Violet catches her husband's eye and joins them, with Cecil by the hand. Floyd looks her over. He has allowed himself an uneasy misgiving for the last half-hour, for Violet's dress is usually so unconventional. But she is in one of her new toilets, a soft, clinging material, with the least touch of tulle at the throat and wrist, and a cluster of white roses at her belt; simple, yet refined, with a delicate grace that savors of Paris.
The introductions follow. There is Prof. Freilgrath, quite different from their old, round, bald German teacher. He is tall and martial-looking, with a fine head, and hair on the auburn tint, a little curling and thin at the edge of the high forehead. His eyes are light blue, keen, good-humored, and he wears glasses; his nose is large, his mouth rather wide, but his teeth are perfect. His English has a very slight accent, and he impresses one with scholarly ways at once. Arthur Delancy, a very good-looking young man, seems rather insignificant beside him. Violet experiences a thrill of negative preference; she is glad it was not her fate to become Mrs. Delancy.
Some one invites them within.
"Oh, no," responds the professor. "Mrs. Grandon knows what is delightful; let us follow her example and sit here on the porch. You Americans are indoors quite too much. And I want to see the child, Mr. Grandon's pretty daughter."
"I must be excused then," declares Laura. "They may entertain you, Arthur, but I must see mamma and take off my bonnet."
The others seat themselves in the bamboo veranda chairs. Cecil is seized with a fit of shyness, which proves coaxable, however. Violet feels compelled, as sole lady, to be entertaining, and acquits herself so well that in a few moments her husband forgets his recent anxiety about her.
Laura follows her mother up-stairs.
"What did possess Floyd to make such an utter fool of himself?" she asks. "When you wrote, I was struck dumb! That little--ninny!"
"You have just hit it. A girl who still plays with dolls, and who learned nothing in a convent but to count beads and embroider trumpery lace," says the mother, contemptuously.
"And he might have had Madame Lepelletier! She has been
such a success at Newport, and she will be just the envy of New York this winter! She is going to take a furnished house,--the Ascotts'. They are to spend the winter in Paris, and Mrs. Latimer says the house is lovely as an Eastern dream. I never
can forgive him. And he offered her to Eugene."
"Offered her to Eugene!" repeats the mother.
"Yes. He had hardly reached Lake George when the Grand Seigneur insisted upon his coming back and espousing Miss St. Vincent,--very Frenchy, was it not? But Eugene did not mean to be burdened with a dead weight all his life. We have had enough botherment with that miserable patent, not to have a beggarly girl thrust upon us!"
Mrs. Grandon is struck dumb now. Eugene has missed a fortune. Why does everything drop into Floyd's hands?
"I don't know about that," she answers. "It is a wretched choice for Floyd; she is a mere child compared to him, and she would have done better for Eugene. The patent is likely to prove a success; in that case the St. Vincent fortune is not to be despised."
"O mamma, Mr. Wilmarth assured Eugene that Floyd never
could get back the money he was sinking in it. He
must know. You do not suppose Floyd was counting on
that chance, do you?"
"I don't know what he was counting on," says the mother, angrily; "only he seems to take the best of everything."
"But fancy Eugene marrying to order!" and Laura laughs lightly. "I believe it was a plan of Mr. St. Vincent's in the first place. Well, the silly little thing is not much to look at! Mamma, do you know this Prof. Freilgrath is a great German
savant and traveller? He and Floyd have been writing a book together about Egypt or Africa or the Nile. Mr. Latimer's club is to give him an elegant reception. Mrs. Latimer met him while they were at Berlin three years ago, when he had just come from some wonderful explorations. Oh, if Madame Lepelletier were only here, she would make Floyd one of the lions of the day! What an awful pity he is tied to that child! And it was so mean of him not to come to Newport, as he promised! The whole thing is inscrutable!"
"It was a hurried, tangled-up mess! I don't pretend to understand it. I don't believe he cares for her, but the thing is done," the mother says, desperately.
"I
was curious to see her, and when Floyd asked us so cordially to come I would have put off everything. We are to go back again to-morrow, and I am delighted to meet the professor, not that I care much for the Nile or the ruins of buried cities, unless some rare and beautiful jewelry comes to light," and she laughs. "My bracelets have been the envy of half Newport. I wonder---- But I suppose Floyd will save the rest of his 'trumpery' for her! You have not been deposed,
ma mere!"
The set expression in Mrs. Grandon's face indicates that deposing her would be a rather difficult matter.
Laura meanwhile has washed her face and done her hair. She rummages in a drawer for some fresh laces she remembers to have left behind, and makes herself quite elegant. As they go down-stairs Mrs. Grandon slips the key in the piano, and then makes inquiries concerning the dinner.
The "foolish little thing" in her pretty willow rocker has made herself entertaining to the German professor, who is not long in finding that she is quite well read in orthodox German literature, except the poets, and there her teacher has allowed a wide range. She is yet too young for it to have touched her soul, but her eyes promise a good deal when the soul shall be really awakened. And he thinks of the story his friend has told, of her saving his little girl, and pays her a true, fervent admiration that puzzles Laura extremely. Violet does not get on so well with Mr. Delancy, for she knows nothing of society life.
But Laura can "shine her down," and does it speedily. Cecil is sitting on her papa's knee, and he is very content until he finds presently that Violet has lapsed into silence. Laura has the talk with both gentlemen, and is bringing them together in the clever way known to a society woman. Then they are summoned to dinner. Arthur takes Violet; the professor, Laura; and here Gertrude makes a sort of diversion and has the sympathy of both gentlemen.
The evening is very pleasant. Grandon will not have his shy Violet quite ignored, and yet he feels that she is not able to make much headway against the assumptions of society. He realizes that his place will be considerably in the world of letters, and that has come to be a world of fashion. Wealth and culture are being bridged over by so many things, artistic, aesthetic, and in a certain degree intellectual, one has to hold fast to one's footing not to be swept over. If there was some one to train Violet a little! He cannot understand why the family will not take to her cordially.
Laura is thinking of this handsome house and the really superior man at its head, for she has to admit that Floyd has dignity, ability, character, and if he is coming out as a genius he will be quite the style. There is one woman who could do the honors perfectly,--madame,--and she feels as if she could almost wring the life out of the small nonentity who has usurped her place, for of course Floyd would soon have cared for madame if she had not come between.
"It was brought about by a silly romance," she tells madame afterward. "The child had run away from her nurse and was scrambling down some rocks when she caught her, it seems, and Floyd, coming up just that moment, insisted she had saved Cecil's life. Very dramatic, wasn't it? And Cecil is quite idiotic over her. I think she would make an excellent nursery governess. She is just out of a convent, and has no manners, really, but is passable as to looks. Mamma insists that her hair is red, but it is just the color the Ascotts rave over. Mrs. Ascott would be wild to paint her, so I am glad they will be off to Paris without seeing her. She is in deep mourning and can't go into society. I shall make Floyd understand that. But to think of her having that splendid place in her hands!"
To do Madame Lepelletier justice, she thinks more of the master than of the place, and hates Violet without seeing her, because she has won Cecil's love.
In the morning Mr. and Mrs. Delancy are compelled to make their adieus. Laura goes off with an airiness that would do Marcia credit, and avoids any special farewell with her new sister-in-law. The professor remains, and spying out the piano asks leave to open it.
"It is locked, I believe," says Violet, hesitatingly.
Floyd lifts the cover and looks at his wife in astonishment.
"It was locked," she says, defending herself from the incredulous expression, "the morning after I came here,--and--I thought--the piano is Laura's," she concludes.
"Did you try it more than once?" he asks.
"Yes." She blushes pitifully, but her honesty will not allow her to screen herself to him. "You must never let him think a wrong thing about you," says Denise, in her code of instructions.
It is not at all as she imagines. He is amazed that any member of his family would do so small a thing as to exclude her from the use of the piano.
"Well," he says, "you shall have one of your own as soon as Laura can take hers away."
"Oh!" Her sweet face is suddenly illumined. How delightful it will be through the long days when papa is away! She can begin to give Cecil lessons.
"I suppose you are all for Beethoven," the professor is saying. "Young people find such melody in 'Songs without Words.' But I want you to listen to this nocturne of Chopin's, though it is not a morning song."
Violet listens entranced. Floyd watches her face, where the soft lights come and go. If she could always look like that!
But Freilgrath cannot spend the whole morning at the piano. They are to drive around, to see the place and the factory, to arrange some plans for work.
"Cannot the pretty mother and child go?" he asks.
"Why, yes," Floyd answers, pleased with the notion.
They stop at the cottage, which the German thinks a charming nook, then drive on to the factory. Violet and Cecil remain within while the two men make a tour of inspection. Floyd's spirits have risen many degrees in the past week. The machinery has worked to a charm, and demonstrated much that St. Vincent claimed for it. There seems no reasonable doubt of its success. Rising will be retained, and is empowered to hire any of the old hands who will come back and obey orders. Several have given in their allegiance, and some others are halting through a feeling of indignation at being falsely accused. But the fact is patent now that all along there has been a traitor or traitors in the camp.
Violet sits there in the carriage talking to Cecil, half wrapped in a fluffy white shawl. She is just in range of a window, and the man watching her feels that Floyd Grandon has more than his share of this world's favors. What has life done for
him? asks Jasper Wilmarth with bitter scorn. Given him a crooked, unhandsome body, a lowering face, with its heavy brows and square, rugged features. No woman has ever cared for him, no woman would ever worship him, while dozens no doubt would allow Grandon to ride rough-shod over them if he only smiled afterward. He has come to hate the man so that if he could ordain any evil upon him he would gladly.
He has dreamed of being master here, and yet in the beginning it was not all treachery. Eugene Grandon was taking it rapidly to ruin, and he raised no hand to stay. From the first he has had a secret hope in St. Vincent's plans, but there was no one to carry them out. When the elder son came home the probability was, seeing the dubious state of affairs, he would wash his hands of the whole matter, and it would go, as many a man's life work had before, for a mere song. In this collapse he would take it with doubt and feigned unwillingness, and calling in the best talent to be had, would do his utmost to make it a success. But all this had been traversed by the vigilant brain of another.
If that were all! He had also dreamed of the fair girl sitting yonder. A mere child, trained to respect and belief in her elders, and obedience of the Old World order, secluded from society, from young men, her gratitude might be worked upon as well as her father's fears for her future. Once his wife, he would move heaven and earth for her love. She should be kept in luxury, surrounded by everything that could rouse tenderness and delight; she should be the star of his life, and he would be her very slave. There were instances of Proserpine loving her dark-browed Pluto, and sharing his world. Wilmarth had brooded over this until it seemed more than probable,--certain.
And here his antagonist has come with his inexorable "check!" A perfect stranger, with no hatred in his soul, only set upon by fate to play strange havoc with another's plans, to circumvent without even knowing what he did. If the place had to pass into other hands, as well his as a stranger's, he has reasoned.
He was as well off as if Mr. James Grandon were alive, and he had not railed at fate then. It was because he had seen possibilities, the awful temptations of human souls. It is when the weak place is touched as by a galvanic shock that in the glare of the light we see what might be done, and yield, fearing that another walking over the same road will pause and gather the price of some betrayal of honor, while we look back with envy, the envy of the tempted, not the unassailable.
And because Violet St. Vincent sits there in another man's carriage, this other man's wife, he feels that he has been defrauded of something he might have won with the better side of his nature, which will never be called out now. They will go on prospering; there is no further reason why he should bend a wire, slip a cog, or delay the hurrying wheels. Since Grandon has achieved all, then let them make money, money for which he has little use.
Cecil gets tired, and Violet tells her a story. They are almost to the end when the gentlemen come, but Cecil is exigeant, and the professor politely insists. He is fond of even the fag-end of a story, so that it turns out well; and then he will entertain the little miss. Violet finishes with blushes that make her more charming every moment; and Grandon finds a strange stirring in his soul as he watches this pretty girl. He is glad she is his. Some time, when the cares of life press less heavily, they two will take a holiday and learn to know each other better than mere surface friends.
Herr Freilgrath certainly makes an unwonted interest in the great house. He is so genial, he has that overflowing, tolerant nature belonging to an ample frame and good digestion, he has inexhaustible sympathy, and an unfailing love of nature. The two men settle themselves to work in the tower room, and for hours are left undisturbed, but the early evenings are devoted to social purposes. Even Gertrude is compelled to join the circle, and Violet, whose tender heart is brooding over the lost and slain love, is so glad to see her roused a little.
Freilgrath discovers one day that Violet is a really admirable German scholar. There are some translations to make, and she is so glad to be of service. Cecil objects and pouts a little in her pretty child's fashion. At this her father speaks sharply, and Violet turns, with the same look she wore on her face the day of the accident. It is almost as if she said, "You shall not scold her." Is he losing then the right in his own child? And yet she looks so seductively daring that he smiles, softens, and kisses Cecil in a passion of tenderness.
"You will spoil her," he says, in a low tone.
If they could go on this way forever! But one morning brings Marcia, and the same evening Eugene, who is jaunty, handsome, and with a careless fascination that seems his most liberal inheritance. It is a very warm September evening, and Violet has put on one of her pretty white gowns that has a train, and has a knot of purple pansies at her throat. The elbow sleeves show her pretty dimpled arm and slender wrist, and her hair is a little blown about as he comes up the steps and sees her leaning on the balcony rail. What a pretty vision! Have they guests at the house?
She knows him from his picture and comes forward. He guesses then who it is, but certainly Laura has not done her half justice.
"Mrs. Floyd Grandon!" bowing with infinite grace.
She smiles at the odd sound of the name she so seldom hears.
"Yes."
He takes the soft, warm hand in his and is tempted to press it to his lips, but wisely refrains.
His mother has seen this little tableau from the window and comes out. Even now, if Violet were Eugene's wife, she could forgive her, quite forgetting that it is not so much her fault or her election.
The delightful harmony comes to a sudden end. That very evening another spirit reigns, a something intangible that makes Violet shrink into silence, and Floyd uneasy. Even Gertrude is less social. Marcia has a curious faculty of making people uncomfortable, of saying wrong things, of being obtrusive. She quite takes possession of the professor, and he hardly knows how to understand her small vanities and delusions, and is glad when the dainty French clock tolls nine, as that is their hour for working. Cecil has been remaining up, much against her grandmamma's wishes, who would have an argument every evening on the subject if she could. So Violet takes the child by the hand and wishes them good night, the gentlemen go to their study, Marcia flits away, and Eugene is left with his mother.
"Upon my word," he says, "I had no idea the St. Vincent was such good form. Floyd has the lucky card everywhere. Is it really true the patent is a success and that there are fortunes in it?"
"Eugene," his mother begins, severely, "it would have been much better for you to have stayed at home instead of wasting time and money as you have done this summer! The lucky card, as you call it, is only taking advantage of circumstances, and if you are going to let Floyd rule everything----"
"Well, what can I help? I had no money to bolster up affairs! Wilmarth was awfully blue. I didn't suppose anything could be made of the business, it was in such a muddle. And it couldn't now, mother, if Floyd had not sunk thousands; I don't see how he expects to get it back if
we have anything."
"You threw away your chance!" She must say this, much as she loves him.
"But how could I know that she was pretty and lady-like, and would not mortify a man with her blunders? You do not suppose Floyd is really in love with her?"
"He had the wisdom to marry her," she responds, tartly, loath even now to hear her praised. "It gives him as much interest in the business as--well, more than
you take."
"I should like to take his money and let him manage it all, since he has turned into such a splendid hand."
"And what would you do?"
"Why, live on my money." And the young man laughs lightly.
His mother feels at that instant as if her whole life was wasted, her affection despoiled. Eugene is careless, heartless, and yet she cannot in a moment change the habit of her motherhood and unlove him. She feels that he cares very little for their welfare, that for everything she must depend upon her eldest son, and the dependence is bitter. It should not be so, and yet she has been curiously jealous of Floyd since the day Aunt Marcia took him under her wing. He has so much, the rest will have such a trifle in comparison! Yet she feels sure it would slip through Eugene's fingers in no time and leave him a poor man again. But our inclination does not always follow our judgment. _