_ CHAPTER XXVI
"And what's the thing beneath the skies
We two would most forget?"
Lucia Brade comes over the next morning and renews her invitation to the rather impromptu lawn tennis, including Violet.
"Of course you will go," decides Miss Murray, persuasively, for she must have some one to keep her in countenance with this attractive young man.
It proves rather dull for Violet, though Eugene insists upon giving her a few lessons, and she feels really interested, but she does not want to detach him from Miss Murray. The supper is out of doors and is undeniably gay. Violet obligingly plays most of the evening, accompanied by a violin. She has discussed the German with Lucia, and that evening lays it before her husband.
"Of course," he answers, indulgently. "Let it be Tuesday evening. I wish Eugene would attend to it."
Eugene is elated at being master of ceremonies. They write invitations,--just a young people's party in honor of Miss Murray. Of course madame must be included.
"I don't see why," says Eugene.
"I think Mr. Grandon would rather," Violet replies, with a faint touch of entreaty.
Miss Murray studies on this problem, and afterwards says privately to Eugene, "If I was Mrs. Grandon I should be jealous of that superb woman. Why, she looks as if she could beguile any one."
"Floyd isn't the kind to be beguiled, you see," and he gives a short laugh, but presently admits the old fancy between them.
"Well," says Miss Murray, plaintively, "it
was something to be a countess. Still, I couldn't give up the man I loved. I wonder--if he at all resembled you when he was that young?"
"No, indeed," and Eugene assumes an air of serene audacity. "The family beauty was kept inviolate for my sister Laura and your humble servant."
The baby blue eyes have a look of admiration that is extremely gratifying to the young man's vanity.
The three are deeply engrossed day and evening with pleasures of all sorts. Pauline Murray takes them with a zest that quite repays her pretty hostess.
"Your sister-in-law is the sweetest little body in the world!" she declares, enthusiastically. "It is quite ridiculous to think of her being step-mother to that lovely Cecil. I wouldn't be called mamma! Fancy Mrs. Grandon taking her into society a few years hence. Why, they will look like sisters."
"Of course," answers Eugene, tartly. "Only an idiot would imagine it a real relationship."
"Was she very much in love with him?" Miss Murray asks, innocently.
"I don't know," returns Eugene, rather impatiently. "I was away when it happened. I think the marriage was hurried a little on account of Mr. St. Vincent's illness."
Pauline Murray speculates. Eugene is very fond of his pretty sister-in-law.
"Do you always go out together?"
"Go out together?" he repeats, with a show of anger. "Why, we never do. At least I never took her to but one party,--my sister's,--and then Floyd was in Baltimore."
"He and papa went to see Mr. Haviland, who was going to Europe." Miss Murray studies him with her innocent baby eyes. Already she is wise in the lore of women's ways, especially young married women who make a bid for the attention of gentlemen. But she has to admit that Mrs. Grandon is very generous of her brother-in-law, and the most delightful chaperone.
Marcia and Mr. Wilmarth have been to Canada for a week, and return in time to be invited to the garden party, which Floyd honestly regrets. True, no business plans have been agreed upon; when Mr. Haviland comes back, if a formal offer can be made, it will be time to explain.
Eugene and Miss Murray have made the garden party as perfect as zest and large opportunity could avail. The dancing is to be a German, principally, but here they have not madame's experience in selecting and arranging partners. Miss Murray does not mind, since she has secured Eugene. With all her watching she cannot detect any especial fondness on the part of pretty Mrs. Floyd.
Violet is oddly consequential as a chaperone. She has never taken such warm interest in pleasures, and it becomes her youth and vivacity. She is bright and charming, with a touch of authority here and there that renders her quite bewitching.
Yet she has been thinking all this time of her own lot. Had she been alone she would no doubt have brooded over it despondently; but Miss Murray's almost volatile nature kindles the philosophy of hers. She knows now that Floyd Grandon did not marry her for love, that he did not even profess to, and that in most marriages there is at least a profession of love at the beginning, and it is very sweet. Even such half-jesting love as these two young people make unblushingly before her face, in the naughty audacity of youth, is delightful. Mr. Grandon could never do or say such things; he is too grave and sensible.
The house and lawn are lighted up again. There are elegant young men and diaphanous fairies; there is music and dancing; there is nectar and ambrosia and general satisfaction. Violet is too busy to dance, although if she had but known her husband was foolish enough to long to try the seductive atmosphere with her, she would not have been so resolute. Everybody looks happy and content.
"Polly," Mr. Murray says, the next morning, at the late breakfast, "we must be considering our departure. I shall have to go to New York. What part of the earth will it be your pleasure to visit next?"
"Oh," ejaculates Miss Murray, with a regretful emphasis, "the mail has not come in yet?"
"It has not come down. Briggs will be here presently with all personal matters."
Even as he speaks, the supple young fellow, with his well-trained deference, comes in with a budget of letters.
"Hillo!" exclaims Murray, glancing up. "Why, Haviland will be back in about a fortnight! See here, Grandon, can you run out to Chicago with me? The word is favorable, I must go to the city to-day, Polly."
"Why not let Miss Murray remain here, if she is not homesick?" says Grandon.
Pauline Murray's eyes light up with an expression quite the reverse of homesickness.
"I am afraid we shall trespass on a most generous hospitality."
Violet seconds her husband's request. They were to take in Long Branch as they went down, but it will be out of season now, and Pauline must go to her aunt at Baltimore or remain with some friend until the business is settled. So the Grandons' invitation is cordially accepted.
Mr. Murray spends the next two days in the city, while Mr. Grandon is busy with his own affairs, as on the evening of the third they are to start for Chicago. He finds his daughter serenely happy and not yet at the end of pleasures.
"But I think you had better be careful about the young man, Polly," says her father, as they are promenading the lawn at the river's edge, in confidential chat.
"Be careful!" Miss Murray's fair face is a vivid scarlet, and she fans herself violently with her chip hat, as if overcome with the heat.
"Yes, he is a handsome young man, but----"
"And he is pleasant, he has a lovely temper, and--and--I don't know why you should find fault with him, papa," she answers, warmly.
"Why, I have not found fault with him"; and there is a funny twinkle in her father's eye.
"When people say 'but' it always seems like finding fault," says Miss Murray, resentfully.
"Well, don't
you break the young man's heart. I have a regard for him myself."
Pauline Murray laughs lightly.
"And keep your own in a good condition," advises her father.
But as they stand together on the porch bidding him good by, they appear quite to belong to each other. Mr. Murray understands him pretty well. He has no great inclination for business, but he seems to have no special vices, and can be easily governed by a liberal indulgence in money matters. There might be worse sons-in-law. The Grandons are a good old family, and carry weight, and Mr. Murray, whose taste is altogether for manufacturing, fancies he sees in this business both interest and profit. So if Polly and the young man decide to like each other--
Eugene Grandon would no doubt fly out indignantly if he fancied his matrimonial matters were being settled by older and as they think wiser heads. For once he is fortunately blind. He likes Pauline Murray because, if she is not the rose, she brings the scent of it continually within his reach. Every day Violet grows more charming and the distance between them lessens. He thinks nothing now of looking her up, of following her about, of planning drives and walks, and while the heads are away, he is cavalier to both ladies. They discuss various tender points and come to love. Eugene no longer sneers and treats it lightly. Violet is touched by the gentle lowering of tone, the faint hesitation, the softness that comes and goes over his face, the dreamy smile, the far light in his eyes, as if his brain was richly satisfied with some vision. This is love, she thinks, exultantly. Mr. and Mrs. Latimer must have had just this blessed experience, but no other marriage, not even Gertrude's, comes up to her ideal. And to think that hundreds must go through the world without this greatest, finest of all joys. She pities them, she pities herself profoundly. There are moments when it seems as if she must throw herself at her husband's feet and tell him that she is famishing for this divine food. And yet in their brief seasons together she grows cold, distant, afraid. She cannot even feel as she did when her ankle was hurt and he so tenderly indulgent. She esteemed that as love, but she knows better now, sad, sad wisdom!
Yet there is something fascinating in this double life she leads. It must be what people take when their great hopes are gone. The diversions of society, the threads of others' lives, the curious, dangerous study of the feelings and emotions of those about her. Only a year ago she was such an ignorant little body, now she is so wise, and she sighs over it.
The days are crowded full of enjoyment. Mrs. Latimer gives the loveliest tea and the most enchanting
musicale with amateurs. Violet is asked to play, and proposes that Eugene and Miss Murray distinguish themselves in a duet from "Don Pasquale," which they sing admirably. Pauline Murray has a soprano voice, with brilliant execution.
"I do believe," exclaims Mrs. Latimer, studying Violet, "that you will equal madame as a society woman. I am not sure that I shall admire the cultivated pansy as much as the shy, sweet wood violet, but perhaps it is better. We women with distinguished husbands must keep pace in attractiveness, or the world will take them from us in its sweeping admiration."
"I never did have such a lovely time!" Pauline Murray says, after the
musicale. "And you know I never should have thought of Robin Adair for an
encore if it had not been for Eugene." She has come to the young man's Christian name. "Wasn't it a perfect success? I never sang it so well in my life. If papa could have heard it!" And she hums over a stanza,--
"After the ball was o'er
What made my heart so sore--"
Some tears fill Violet's eyes and she turns away. Then, lest her emotion shall make her appear ungracious, she praises liberally.
Days and nights seem to have wings. The travellers return, and Mr. Haviland, back from Europe, comes up to Grandon Park. The gentlemen retire to the tower and discuss business over cigars, and the result is an offer for all right and title to the interest of Grandon & Co. left by James Grandon to his family, and for Mr. St. Vincent's patent. The last is so liberal that Floyd accepts at once; the rest must be considered by the parties concerned, but it has the consent and advice of Floyd Grandon and Mr. Connery.
It is late when the conclave breaks up, but Grandon goes up-stairs with a lighter heart than he has carried in many a long day. He has hardly dared to believe in this conclusion, and there will no doubt be some hard fighting before the matter is ended, but he indulges in a long, exultant breath of freedom. His life will be his own henceforward.
Passing through Cecil's room, he finds both heads on one pillow. Violet has waked Cecil with her good-night kiss, and the exigeant child has prisoned her with two soft arms and drawn her close to her own pink cheek and rosy, fragrant lips. They seem like a picture, gold and chestnut hair intermingled, complexion of pearl, and the other of creamy tints, soft as a sun-ripe peach. She has fallen asleep there, as she so often does, for youth and health defy carking cares. How lovely they are! Floyd Grandon suddenly counts himself a happy man, and yet he does not waken her with the kisses he longs to shower on brow and cheek and lip. If he did, how brave she would be for the temptation of to-morrow.
After breakfast Floyd summons his mother and Eugene into the library. Lucia Brade calls in her pony phaeton and entices Pauline, who is always ready for a pleasure. Violet flutters about her room, sends Cecil and Jane out for a constitutional, and then picks up a book. Summer is on the wane, and the air has a fragrance of ripening grapes, sun-warmed fruit, and the luxurious sweetness of madeira-blooms. The voices from the library touch her faintly. Mrs. Grandon's has a high, aggressive swell now and then, and Eugene's drops to that sort of sullen key she knows so well in the past. What is taking place? Will there be some new trouble for Floyd?
She walks down to the summer-house from some half-defined, delicate motive. After a while the three gentlemen go away, Floyd giving a questioning glance around. She drops her book on her knee and lapses into a wondering mood, when a step breaks her revery.
Eugene is flushed and angry, yet it does not make him the less handsome, though it is very different from his usual indolent ease.
"What is the matter?" she asks, for form's sake, for she almost knows.
"Matter!" and he kicks viciously at a pebble that has dared to rear its head in the smooth walk, sending it over on the grassy lawn. "The matter is that Floyd is selling us all out with a high hand. That is what Murray's visit and all this going to and fro mean. He has had an offer, and he doesn't care for anything so long as
you come out on the topmost round."
"I?" Violet flushes and her eyes grow moist.
"Well, it isn't your fault, after all, and one need not grudge you anything," he says, strangely moved. "Yes, these men want to buy out the whole thing, and you'll have a private fortune of your own that will be stunning! Floyd isn't green at bargain-making. Now they have gone over to tackle Wilmarth, and a sweet time they will have of it. I should like to see the fun. But what am I to do afterward?" and he studies the greensward gloomily.
"You?" she repeats, and the matter settles itself beautifully to her vision. "Why, you will marry Miss Pauline Murray."
"Marry!" Eugene strides up and down with a grim sense of the irony of fate. Once he was asked to marry Miss St. Vincent to save his fortune, now it is Miss Murray. He is a part of the business, to be bandied about and knocked down to the highest bidder.
"You do love her?"
Violet says this with the rarest, tenderest entreaty.
"Love her? No, I do not." He comes nearer to Violet with his eyes aflame, his face pale, and his lips savagely compressed. "Have
you been so blind? Did that show deceive you? Why, you must guess, you must know it is you and not she whom I love."
Violet sits astounded. She is too much amazed even to resent this. Surely he cannot have been so deceitful, so false-hearted.
"You like me," she begins, tremulously, "and I am your sister, your brother's wife----"
"And you might have been mine! It maddens me when I think of it."
"And it humiliates me."
"Oh, my darling, you must forgive it!" and Eugene throws himself at her feet. "If I could have seen you, could have known you----"
"You did not like me when you first saw me," she interrupts, with quiet dignity.
"No, because I held to an obstinate, hateful prejudice! But when I came to know you----"
"And through all this time, Eugene, you have been offering a false admiration to Miss Murray," she continues, with a grave, sad demeanor, "and you have been thinking of me in a manner that will make me despise myself forever. How do you suppose I shall meet Mr. Grandon's eyes?"
"As if he cared! Oh, you know he doesn't, Violet. That is the wretched part of it all."
She turns so pale and sways to and fro in her willow chair, like a lily, when something has struck the stem but not broken it off, her lips and pretty dimpled chin quivering, as if in an ague, her eyes strained, imploring. To be told of that. To have no power to deny it.
"I am his wife," she says, and she tries to rise but falls back.
"Oh, my poor girl, my miserable little darling, don't I know that! But, see here, Violet, I'm not a villain if I am an unfortunate wretch. I never thought of any wrong or harm; you are too dear to me, you are like some sweet little baby that a man wants to take in his arms and kiss and comfort and hold forever. That is how you ought to be loved. But I know a good deal better than you that going off and setting one's self up against the law and society and respect, kills a woman. There isn't any love worth such a sacrifice; only--I wish I had come to know you well before you belonged to any one. And you ought to give me some credit that I never made a fool of myself or did a single act that Floyd mightn't see. You've been to me like a little angel. See here, you are worth ten of Madame Lepelletier, with all her beauty. Why didn't Floyd marry
her? She has about as much real soul as he."
"Oh, don't!" she cries, in the depths of her anguish. "You wrong him. You can never know how gentle and kind he was when papa died, and how good he has always been to me. I am not so beautiful and fascinating, or learned like Mrs. Latimer, but Cecil loves me."
She is crying now, not in any great sobs, but her eyes are wind-blown lakes of crystal tears whose tide overflows. She has fallen back on the one great comfort, the one pearl saved from the wrecked argosy.
"A man who could be cruel to you ought to be hanged!" he says, passionately, and her tears move him beyond description. "Floyd isn't cruel; he is simply cold, indifferent. Oh, my poor little girl, how can I comfort you?"
"You cannot comfort me," she says, drearily. "I read a long while ago, in the convent,--I think it was,--that it is not given to every one to be happy, that one can be upright and honest and pure, and do one's duty, but that happiness is a blessing of God that is given or withheld, and we must not waver on that account. Now let me go, and you must never again say any of these things to me."
She rises feebly, but he is still on the floor of the summer-house at her feet. Something about her awes him; he is vain and weak and fond of trying on emotions, he has little sense of present responsibility, but, as he has said, he does love her, and it is perhaps the best experience of his whole life. A weak or silly woman would have dragged him down in spite of his worldly common-sense, but she seems to stir the manliness within him. At this instant he could really lay down his life for her; it is the one supreme moment of his indolent, vacillating manhood.
"I have made you still more miserable," he cries, remorsefully. "Oh, what shall I do! Why is it that you may know a thing in secret all your life, and yet the moment you speak of it, it is all wrong? I oughtn't have said a word, and yet it doesn't really make anything different. See, I haven't so much as touched your hand; you
are different from other women, you are like a pure little angel shut in a niche. And I mean to do whatever will make you happiest. If you would like me to marry Miss Murray----"
"Oh," she sighs with a great gasp, "don't marry any woman unless you love her!"
He rises then, though he still stands in the doorway. "Forgive me for being such a brute," he implores. "I shall never hurt or offend you again. I would give my right hand to see you happy. You must, you do believe this!"
"I believe it," she says, and they look into each other's eyes. A great crisis has come and gone, they both think, a lightning flash that has revealed so much, and then shut again in blackness. Could she have loved him? she wonders.
She walks slowly towards the house, and going to her room throws herself on the lounge, pressing her throbbing temple upon the pillow. All the wretchedness of her life seems to have culminated, the little doubts she has thrust out or tried to overlive. Somehow she appears to have worked a great and unwitting change in the Grandon family. Once, when Denise was in a discursive mood, she told Violet of Mr. Wilmarth's proposal of marriage. What if she had married
him? Violet thinks now. Marcia talks about her "Vulcan" with a curious pride, and he certainly is indulgent. In that case Violet would have marred no lives.
A soft rustle comes up the stairs, and she knows who stands in the doorway.
"Oh, are you ill?" Miss Murray kneels by the couch and tosses her hat aside. "How pale and wretched you look! Does your head ache?"
"Yes," Violet admits.
"And you were so well this morning! Where is everybody? What has become of Eugene?"
"They have all been talking business," says Violet, "and have gone----"
"I suppose Mr. Grandon told you long ago, like a good husband, but you have been very discreet. Papa and Mr. Haviland are to take the business, and I suppose I shall come to live at Grandon Park. I just adore it! I never had so nice a time anywhere. Did Eugene go with them?" abruptly flying round to the subject of most importance to her.
"I think not," Violet says, slowly.
"Let me bathe your forehead"; and the soft fingers touch her gently. "Now, if I shut out the sun you may fall asleep. Don't get really ill!"
"I shall soon be better," Violet returns, faintly.
Miss Murray glides down-stairs, searches the porch, the summer-house, and the shady clump of trees. There is no Eugene visible. None of the gentlemen are home to lunch, but there are some calls to break the afternoon silence. Mrs. Grandon drives out. Violet has dressed herself and comes down, wan and white, making a pretext with some embroidery. Cecil is to take tea with Elsie Latimer, a regular weekly invitation.
Pauline Murray fidgets. Her father has imparted some other knowledge, confidentially, that he shall not object to the young man for a son-in-law if his daughter so wills. She has stoutly declared that she does not mean to marry anybody, and her father has laughed, but a whole day without Eugene seems interminable. She has asked about him at least a dozen times. An awful fear fills Violet's soul. Is it right that Eugene should marry her with no real love in his heart for her? and if he does not--how will she take it? He
has been tender and lover-like, but how much of it was meant? Oh, why is the world all in a tangle? Her heart beats and her pulses throb, her lips are dry and feverish, and she has a presentiment of some ill or trouble to come. How will she meet Mr. Grandon? When she thinks of him she feels like a traitor.
The three return together, but Floyd goes to the stable to see about one of the carriage-horses slightly lamed, and when he comes Mr. Haviland sits talking to Violet. Mr. Haviland is older than Mr. Murray, a tall, rather spare man, with gray hair and close-cropped gray beard, that give him a military air. A little color comes into her face, and Grandon remarks nothing amiss; indeed, she looks very pretty and interesting, as she sits talking of her father.
"Where is Eugene?" he asks presently, as he sees Mr. Murray and his daughter walking in the grounds.
It seems to Violet as if she must scream. Is
she his brother's keeper? Oh, what if--and it seems as if she must faint dead away at the horrible suspicion that he may never come back. No wonder her voice is tremulous. But even as she gasps for breath Eugene appears around the winding walk, and she is reprieved.
"What is the matter?" Floyd Grandon asks, startled by all these changes.
"My head aches."
"I thought Mrs. Grandon looked pale," says Mr. Haviland.
Miss Murray has caught sight of Eugene and waves a square of lace sewn around a centre of puzzling monogram. He has been desperate, moody, savage, and repentant by turns. He has meant to kneel at Violet's feet and confess his sins, and never love any other woman while the breath of life is in his handsome body. But the first is utterly impracticable, and after having been Miss Murray's devoted cavalier he cannot snub her in the face of all these eyes. He waves his hand and turns toward them, feeling that Violet is watching him and positively impelling him to this step; so he goes on and on to meet his fate. The cordial greeting of Mr. Murray, who thinks none the worse of him for his outburst of the morning, in a few words restores the easy footing of yesterday. Pauline smiles with winning tenderness; it does almost seem as if he was being crowded out of his rights, and there is enough to make amends. He sees it all; what does it matter? One never comes up to any high ideals, and ideals are for the most part tiresome, unattainable.
When the first bell rings they saunter up the path, Miss Murray on Eugene's arm. Her eyes have a kind of exultant softness; she has misread the pain and pallor of his face and her power of bringing back its warm, joyous tints, but ignorance is bliss. Violet looks up and meets the dark, questioning eyes, with their half-resolve, and Floyd Grandon intercepts it all. Why does she turn so deadly pale?
He says something about making ready for dinner, and they all go up-stairs, leaving her with Cecil. She has that curious, transfixed feeling, as though when she moved she was in a dream. Floyd Grandon has seen her sad, shy, quiet, gay, joyous, and in almost every mood but this. What is it? he wonders. Eugene's eyes wander stealthily now and then, and when she catches them a shiver goes over her.
To-night Cecil is unusually wakeful and very amusing to Mr. Murray. They all sit on the porch and discuss business. Mr. Wilmarth is likely to make a good deal of trouble. To-morrow, it seems, they are to meet at the lawyer's and the matter is to be put in process of settlement. The new partners are in haste to get to work.
At last Violet is glad to rise and bid them good evening. Mr. Murray finally obtains a kiss from Cecil, and is triumphant over so rare a victory.
At the top of the stairs a hand is laid on Violet's arm.
"It was fate," pleads Eugene, weakly, "and your wish. I saw it in your eyes."
"Love her," she answers, with a convulsive shiver,--"love her with your whole soul."
Floyd Grandon knows who entered the hall a moment ago and who now emerges in the soft light. _