_ CHAPTER VIII
For I have given you here a thread of mine own life.--SHAKESPEARE.
Floyd Grandon leans back in the carriage and opens Eugene's letter.
"What idiotic stuff have you in your head? Do you think me a baby in leading-strings, or a fool? You may work at that invention until the day of doom, and have fifty experts, and I'll back Wilmarth against you all. He has been trying it for the last six months, and he's shrewd, long-headed, something of a genius himself, and he says it never can succeed, that is, to make money. I am not in the market for matrimonial speculations, thank you, they are rather too Frenchy and quite too great a risk where the fortune is not sure. To think of tying one's self to a little fool brought up in a convent! No, no, no! There, you have my answer. The whole thing may go to the everlasting smash first!"
Grandon folds it very deliberately and puts it in his pocket. The other notes are not important; he merely glances them over. Will Eugene relent when he receives the second appeal? He is not
quite sure. But he has done a brother's full duty, and he is honestly sorry that he has failed.
Coming round the walk he sees Cecil in the hammock, and Violet is telling her a fairy story. The doll lies on her arm, and her eyes are half closed. It is such a lovely picture of content, home happiness, that he hates to break in upon it.
"Oh, here is your papa!" cries Violet, who seems to have felt the approach rather than seen it.
"O papa!" There is a long, delightsome kiss, then Cecil sits up straight, her face full of momentous import. "Papa," she says, "why can't we come here to live? I like it so much better than at grandmamma's house. Miss Violet tells prettier stories than Jane, and Denise is so good to me. She made me a little pie."
Violet gives an embarrassed laugh. "I really have not been putting treason into her head," she says, and then she retreats ignominiously to the kitchen.
Denise comes forward with an anxious face.
"The master wishes to see you. Mr. Wilmarth has been here," she adds.
Grandon goes up to the sick-room. Mr. St. Vincent is in a high state of excitement. Mr. Wilmarth has renewed his offer of marriage; nay, strongly insisted upon it, and hinted at some mysterious power that could work much harm if he chose to go out of the business.
"If your friend could have stayed until we were quite certain," St. Vincent says, weakly. "I am so torn and distracted! My poor, poor child! Have you heard from your brother?"
"I shall hear on Monday," Grandon replies, evasively.
"And if I cannot live until then?" The eyes are wild, eager; the complexion is of a gray pallor.
"Whatever happens, I will care for Violet," the visitor says, solemnly. "Trust her to me. She saved my little child yesterday, and I owe her a large debt of gratitude. I will be a father to her."
"Mr. Grandon, you are still too young, and--how did she save your child?" he asks, suddenly.
Grandon repeats the rescue, and if he makes Violet more of a heroine than madame would approve, it is a pardonable sin.
"My brave little girl! My brave little girl!" he exclaims, with tremulous delight. Then the eyes of the two men meet in a long glance. A wordless question is asked, a subtile understanding is vouchsafed. Floyd Grandon is amazed, and a curious thrill speeds through every pulse. He is too young for any fatherly relation, and yet--
"It is but fair to wait until Monday," he replies, with a strange hesitation. "And you must calm yourself."
"But nothing is done," St. Vincent cries, with gasping eagerness. "I have lain here dreaming, hoping. I never shall be any better! It is coming with a swift pace, and my darling will be left alone; my sweet, innocent Violet, who knows nothing of the world, who has not an aunt or cousin, no one but poor old Denise."
"Trust to me, command me as you would a son," says the firm, reassuring voice. "And, oh, I beseech you, calm yourself! It will all be well with her."
A change passes over the face. The hands are stretched out, there is a gasp; is he really dying? Denise is summoned.
"Oh, my poor master! Mr. Grandon, that man must not see him again! He will kill him! It was so when he came to Canada. He wants all that my poor master has, and the child, but it is like putting her in the clutch of a tiger!"
"Do not think of it, Denise; it will never be," and a shudder of disgust runs over him.
They bring Mr. St. Vincent back to consciousness, but he lies motionless, with his eyes half closed.
"Was there much talking?" Floyd asks.
"He seemed to get very angry." Then she comes nearer and says in a whisper, "He is no true friend to you, if he is fair to your face. He said that in six months you would ruin everything, and there would not be a penny left for Miss Violet. He spoke ill of your brother. I am not one to carry tales or make trouble, but----" And she wipes her furrowed face.
"I understand."
They sit and watch him, Grandon holding the feeble wrist. It will not be safe to leave him alone to-night, to leave
them. There is a duty here he cannot evade.
"I will take my little girl home," he says, presently, "and then I will come back and remain all night. Was the doctor here to-day?"
"Yes. He seemed better then. He was better until--You are a very good friend," she goes on, abruptly. "It is a trusty face--an honest voice----"
"You
can trust me," he says, much moved. He goes softly down the stairs, and with a few words to Cecil persuades her to leave this enchanted realm. Violet kisses her fondly and clings to her; they have had such a happy day, there has not been a lonely moment in it. The wistful face haunts Grandon through the homeward ride, and he hardly hears Cecil's prattle.
He makes a brief explanation to his mother and leaves excuses for madame, who is lying down in order to be fresh and enchanting for evening. His orders for Jane are rather more lengthy, and she is to comfort Cecil if he should not be home for breakfast.
He has a simple supper in the little nest among the cliffs. Violet pours the tea with a serene unconsciousness. She is nothing but a child. Her life and education have been so by rule, emotions repressed, bits of character trimmed and trained, though they have not taken all out, he is sure. She is very proper and precise now, a little afraid she shall blunder somewhere, and with a rare delicacy will not mention the child, lest its father should think she has coaxed it from some duty or love. He almost smiles to himself as he speculates upon her. Once there was just such another,--no, the other was unlike her in all but youth and beauty, with a hundred coquettish ways where this one is honest, simple, and sincere. Could
she have served a table gravely like this, and made no vain use of lovely eyes or dimpled mouth?
He goes up-stairs and takes his place as a watcher. There is nothing to do but administer a few drops of medicine every half-hour. The evening is warm and he sits by the open window, trying
not to think, telling himself that in honor he has no right to for the next forty hours, and then the decision must come. He could fight her battle so much better if--if he had the one right, but does he want it? He has counted on many other things in his life. For his dead father's sake he is willing to make some sacrifice, but why should this come to him?
The stars shine out in the wide blue heavens, the wind whispers softly among the leaves, the water ripples in the distance. The mysterious noises of night grow shriller for a while, then fainter, until at midnight there is scarcely a sound. How strangely solemn to sit here by this lapsing soul, that but a little while ago was the veriest stranger to him! He has sent Denise to bed, Violet is sleeping with childhood's ease and unconsciousness. A week hence and everything will be changed for her; she will never be a child again.
There is a pale bit of moon towards morning, then faint streaks raying up in the east, and sounds of life once more. A sacred Sunday morning. He feels unusually reverent and grave, and breathes a prayer. He wants guidance so much, and yet--does one pray about secular affairs? he wonders.
Denise taps lightly at the door. She looks refreshed, but the awe will not soon go out of her old face. Mr. St. Vincent has rested quietly, his pulse is no weaker; how could it be to live? He stirs and opens his eyes. They feed him some broth and a little wine, and he drops off drowsily again.
"You are so good," says the grateful old creature, who studies him with wistful eyes. Has she any unspoken hope?
While she waits he goes down to stretch his cramped limbs. The doctor can do no good and will not come to-day. There is no one else to call upon. He must stay; it would be brutal to leave them alone.
Denise has a lovely little breakfast spread for him, but Violet is not present. Denise, too, has her Old World ideas. He goes up again to the invalid, and after an hour or two walks down home. His mother and madame are at church, as he supposed they would be. He talks a little to Gertrude, who is nervous and shocked at the thought of any one dying, and wonders if it can make any difference to the business. He takes a walk with Cecil, who coaxes to go back with him to her dear Miss Violet, but he convinces her that it cannot be to-day; to-morrow, perhaps.
He walks back, rambling down to the spot where Cecil came so near destruction. The land-slide is clearly visible, the young tree, torn up by the roots, is a ghost, with brown, withered leaves, and there are the jagged rocks going steeply down to the shore. If no hand had been there to save! If no steady foot had dared climb from point to point! He wonders now how she did it! It seems a greater miracle than before. And how strange that Cecil should evince such an unwonted partiality for Miss St. Vincent! Does it all point one way to a certain ending?
It is well that Floyd Grandon has taken this path. He goes up through the garden and hears a voice at the hall door.
"You cannot see him," Denise is saying. "He is scarcely conscious, and cannot be disturbed. Your call of yesterday made him much worse."
"But I must see him, my good woman!" in an imperative tone. "If he is going to die, it is so much the more necessary."
"It is Sunday," she replies. "You can talk no business, you can do him no good."
"Who is here with him?"
"No one," she answers, "but his daughter and myself. Go away and leave us to our quiet. If you must see him, come to-morrow."
He takes out a pencil and writes a rather lengthy message. "Give this to him, and to no one else," he says, sharply, turning away with evident reluctance.
"Oh!" Denise cries as she espies Mr. Grandon, "if I had known you were here; I was afraid he would force his way in."
"I am glad you did not: I shall see that there is some one here all the time now."
"He is much better. He has asked for you, and eaten a little."
A white figure like a ghost stands beside them. Every bit of color has gone out of the blossom-tinted face, and the eyes look large and desperate in their frightened depths.
"What is it?" she says. "Mr. Grandon, Denise, what is it the man said about papa? Is he--dying? Oh, it cannot be! Is this why you do not want me to see him?"
They start like a couple of conspirators, speechless.
"Oh!" with a wild, piercing cry. "Will he die? And I have just come home to stay, to comfort him, to make him happy. Oh, what shall I do? To be left all alone! Let me go to him."
Denise catches her in the fond old arms, where she sobs as if her heart would break. Grandon turns away, then says brokenly, "I will go up to him. Some one must tell him. She ought to be with him."
St. Vincent is awake and quite revived. Grandon touches carefully on this little scene, and proposes that Violet shall be allowed in the sick-room, since the sad secret has been betrayed.
"Oh, how can I leave her?" he groans, in anguish, "alone, unprotected, to fight her way through strife and turmoil, to learn the world's coldness and cruelty! or perhaps be made a prey through her very innocence that has been so sedulously guarded. Heaven help us both!"
"It will all be right, believe me," says the strong, firm voice. "And the shock would be terrible to her if there were no sweet last words to remember afterward. Comfort her a little with your dying love."
He signs with his hand. Grandon goes down-stairs again.
"Violet, my child," he says, with a tenderness no one but Cecil has ever heard in his voice, "listen to me. You must control your grief a little or it will be so much harder for your father. You know the sad secret now. Can you comfort him these few days, and trust to God for your solace afterward? Nothing can so soothe these hours as a daughter's love,--if you can trust yourself not to add to his pangs."
The sobs shake her slender figure as she lies on Denise's sorrowing heart. Oh, what can he say to lighten her grief? His inmost soul aches for her.
"Violet!" He takes her hand in his.
"I will try," she responds, brokenly. "But he is all I have; all," drearily.
"Do you want to see him?"
She makes an effort to repress her sobs. "Denise," she says, "walk in the garden awhile with me. It was so sudden. I shall always shudder at the sound of that man's voice, as if he had indeed announced papa's death warrant."
If Floyd Grandon had not resolved before, he resolves now. He goes back, taking with him the scrap of paper. After reading it, St. Vincent hands it to him. The gist of it all is that to-morrow at ten Wilmarth will come with a lawyer to sign the contracts he spoke of yesterday, and hopes to find Miss Violet prepared.
"There was no agreement," says St. Vincent, feebly. "I cannot give him my darling unless she consents. It is not that we love our children less, Mr. Grandon, that we endeavor to establish their future, but because we know how hard the world is. And of the two, I will trust you."
His breath is all gone. Floyd fans him and gives him the drops again.
Half an hour afterward Violet comes into the room, so wan and changed that yesterday seems a month ago. It is a scene of heart-breaking pathos at first, but she nerves herself and summons all her fortitude. It must be so, if she is to stay there.
St. Vincent dozes off again when the passion is a little spent. He grows frailer, the skin is waxen white, and the eyes more deeply sunken. All that is to be of any avail must be done quickly, if St. Vincent is to die in peace as regards his child.
What if he and Cecil were at just this pass! What if he lay dying and her future not assured? These people are not kith and kin of his that he need feel so anxious, neither are they friends of long standing. Then he sees the lithe figure again, stepping from crag to crag, holding out its girlish arms, with a brave, undoubting faith, and clasping Cecil. Yes, it is through her endeavor that his child is not marred and crushed, even if the great question of life is put aside. Does he not owe
her something?
She raises her head presently. Denise is sitting over by the window, Grandon nearer. "Is it true?" she asks, tearless now and sadly bewildered, all the pathos of desolation in her young voice,--"is it true? He has always been so pale and thin, and how could I dream--oh, he
will get well again! He was so ill in Canada, you know, Denise?"
And yet she realizes now that he has never recovered since that time. How can they answer her? Grandon is moved with infinite pity, yet words are utterly futile. Nothing can comfort her with this awful reality staring her in the face.
She buries her woe-stricken face in the pillow again. There is a long, long silence. Then Denise bethinks herself of some homely household duties. It is not right to leave her young mistress alone with this gentleman, and yet,--but etiquette is so different here. Ah, if the other one was like this, if she could go to such a husband; and Denise's old heart swells at the thought of what cannot be, but is tempting, nevertheless.
Towards evening Grandon feels that he must return for a brief while. St. Vincent has rallied wonderfully again, and the pulse has gained strength that is deceptive to all but Grandon.
"I will come back for the night," he says. "You must not be alone any more. There ought to be some good woman to call upon."
Denise knows of none save the washerwoman, who will be here Tuesday morning, but she is not certain such a body would be either comfort or help. "And he could not bear strange faces about him; he is peculiar, I think you call it. But it is hardly right to take all your time."
"Do not think of that for a moment," he returns, with hearty sympathy.
At home he finds Cecil asleep. "She was so lonely," explains Jane. "I read to her and took her walking, but I never let her go out of my sight an instant now," the girl says with a tremble in her voice. "She talked of Miss Violet constantly, and her beautiful doll, and the tea they had together, but she wouldn't go to madame nor to her Aunt Gertrude."
Floyd kisses the sweet rosy mouth, and his first desire is to awaken her, but he sits on the side of the bed and thinks if Violet were here what happy days the child would have. She is still so near to her own childhood; the secret is that so far she has never been considered anything but a child. Her womanly life is all to come at its proper time. There is everything for her to learn. The selfishness, the deceit, the wretched hollowness and satiety of life,--will it ever be hers, or is there a spring of perennial freshness in her soul? She might as well come here as his ward. In time Eugene might fancy her. There would be his mother and the two girls. Why does he shrink a little and understand at once that they are not the kind of women to train Violet? Better a hundred times honest, old-fashioned, formal Denise.
An accident has made dinner an hour late, so he is in abundant time. Mrs. Grandon has been dull all day. Laura and Marcia had this excellent effect, they kept the mental atmosphere of the house astir, and now it is stagnant. She complains of headache.
"Suppose we go to drive," he proposes, and the two ladies agree. Madame is in something white and soft, a mass of lace and a marvel of fineness. She has the rare art of harmonious adjustment, of being used to her clothes. She is never afraid to crumple them, to trail them over floors, to
use them, and yet she is always dainty, delicate, never rough or prodigal. She is superlatively lovely to-night. As she sits in the carriage, with just the right poise of languor, just the faint tints of enthusiasm that seem a part of twilight, she is a very dangerous siren, in that, without the definite purpose being at all tangible, she impresses herself upon him with that delicious sense of being something that his whole life would be the poorer without. A subtile knowledge steals over him that he cannot analyze or define, but in his soul he knows this magnificent woman could love him now with a passion that would almost sweep the very soul out of him. He has no grudge against her that she did not love him before,--it was not her time any more than his; neither is he affronted at the French marriage,--it was what she desired then. But now she has come to something else. Of what use would life be if one had always to keep to sweet cake and marmalade? There are fruits and flavors and wines, there is knowledge sweet and bitter.
Very little is said. He glances at her now and then, and she reads in his face that the tide is coming in. She has seen this questioning softness in other eyes. If she could have him an hour or two on the porch after their return!
That is the bitter of it. He feels that he has stayed away from sorrow too long. His mother makes some fretful comment, she gives him a glance that he carries with him in the darkness.
A quiet night follows. The doctor is up in the morning. "Comfortable," he says. "You may as well go on with the anodynes. There will be great restlessness at the last, no doubt, unless some mood of excitement should carry him off. Three days will be the utmost."
Briggs comes with Mr. Grandon's mail. There is a postal from Eugene, who considers the subject unworthy of the compliment of a sealed letter.
"No, a thousand times
no! Bore me no more with the folly!"
Floyd's face burns as he thrusts it in Denise's stove to consume.
"Have you heard?" St. Vincent asks, as he enters the room.
"Yes." The tone acknowledges the rest.
"It is all vain, useless, then! Young people are not trained to pay heed to the advice of their elders. My poor, poor Violet!"
The utter despair touches Grandon. He has ceased to fight even for his child.
What impulse governs Grandon he cannot tell then or ever. It may be pity, sympathy, the knowledge that he can fight Violet's battle, insure her prosperity in any case, protect her, and give her happiness, and smooth the way for the dying. Of himself he does not think at all, strangely enough, and he forgets madame as entirely as if she never existed.
"Will you give her to me as my wife?" he asks, in a slow, distinct tone. "I am older, graver, and have a child."
The light that overflows the dying eyes is his reward. It is something greater than joy; it is trust, relief, satisfaction, gratitude intense and heartfelt. Then it slowly changes.
"It is taking an advantage of your generosity," he answers, with a voice in which the anguish cannot be hidden. "No, I will not be so selfish when you have been all that is manly, a friend since the first moment----"
A light tap is heard and the door opens. Violet comes in, dressed in clinging white, her eyes heavy, her sweet face filled with awe.
Grandon takes her cold hand in his and leads her to the bed. "Violet," he begins, with unsmiling tenderness, "will you take me for your husband, your friend, your protector?"
Violet has been instructed in some of the duties of womanhood. Marriage is a holy sacrament to be entered into with her father's consent and approval. She looks at him gravely, questioningly.
"I am much older than you, I have many cares and duties to occupy and perplex me, and I have a little girl----"
Violet's face blooms with a sudden radiance as she lifts her innocent eyes, lovely with hope.
"I like her so much," she says. "I am not very wise, but I could train her and take care of her if you would trust me."
He smiles then. "I trust you in that and in all things," he makes answer. It is as if he were adopting her.
She carries his hand gravely to her lips without considering the propriety. She feels so peaceful, so entirely at rest.
"Heaven will bless you," St. Vincent cries. "It must, it must! Violet, all your life long you must honor and obey this man. There are few like him."
Grandon kisses the flushed forehead. It is a very simple betrothal. He has given away his manhood's freedom without a thought of what it may be worth to him, she has signed away her girlhood's soul. Secretly, she feels proud of such a master; that is what her training bids her accept in him. She is to learn the lessons of honor and obedience. No one has ever told her about love, except that it is the natural outcome of the other duties.
"I think," Mr. Grandon says, "you must see a lawyer now, and have all your business properly attended to. There will be nothing to discuss when Mr. Wilmarth comes."
St. Vincent bows feebly. He, Grandon, must go and put these matters in train. _