CHAPTER VII.
Love is forever and divinely new.—Montgomery.
Floyd Grandon, who always sleeps the sleep of the just, or the traveller who learns to sleep under all circumstances, is restless and tormented with vague dreams. Some danger or vexation seems to menace him continually. He rises unrefreshed, and Cecil holds a dainty baby grudge against him for his neglect of yesterday, and makes herself undeniably tormenting, until she is sent away in disgrace.
Madame Lepelletier rather rejoices in this sign. "You are not always to rule him, little lady," she thinks in her inmost soul. He explains briefly to his mother that Mr. St. Vincent is very ill, and that urgent business demands his attention, and is off again.
Somehow he fears Lindmeyer's verdict very much. If there should be some mistake, some weak point, the result must be failure for all concerned. Would Wilmarth still desire to marry Miss St. Vincent? he wonders.
Denise receives him with a smile in her bright eyes.
"He is very comfortable," she says, and Grandon takes heart.
Lindmeyer is waiting for him. His rather intense face is hopeful; and Grandon's spirits go up.
"The thingmustbe a success," he says. "Mr. St. Vincent has explained two or three little mistakes, or miscalculations, rather, and given me his ideas. I wish I had time to take it up thoroughly. But I have to leave town for several days. Could you wait, think? I am coming again to-night. What a pity such a brain must go back to ashes! He is not an old man, either, but he has worn hard on himself. There, my time is up," glancing at his watch.
Mr. St. Vincent receives Mr. Grandon with evident pleasure, but it seems as if he looks thinner and paler than yesterday. There is a feverish eagerness in his eyes, a tremulousness in his voice. The doctor is to be up presently, and Grandon is persuaded to wait. After the first rejoicing is over, Grandon will not allow him to talk business, but taking up Goethe reads to him. The tense, worn face softens. Now and then he drops into a little doze. He puts his hand out to Grandon with a grateful smile, and so the two sit until nearly noon, when the doctor comes.
Floyd follows him down-stairs.
"Don't ask me to reconsider my verdict," he says, in answer to the other's look. "The issues of life and death arenotin our hands. If you really understood his state, you would wonder that he is still alive. Keep all bad tidings from him," the doctor adds rather louder to Denise. "Tell him pleasurable things only; keep him cheerful. It cannot be for very long. And watch him well."
"Where is Miss St. Vincent?" asks Grandon, with a very pardonable curiosity.
"She has gone out. He will have it so. She does not dream the end is so near." And Denise wipes her old eyes. "Mr. Grandon, is it possible that dreadful man must marry her?"
"Oh, I hope not!"
"He is very determined. And ma'm'selle has been brought up to obey, not like your American girls. If her father asked her to go through fire, she would, for his sake. And in a convent they train girls to marry and to respect their husbands, not to dream about gay young lovers. But my poor lamb! to be given to such a man, and she so young!"
"No, do not think of it," Grandon says, huskily.
"You shall see her this evening, sir, if you will come. I will speak to master."
Grandon goes on to the factory. Wilmarth is away, and he rambles through the place, questioning the workmen. There are some complaints. The wool is not as good as it was formerly, and the new machinery bothers. The foreman does not seem to understand it, and is quite sure it is a failure. Mr. Wilmarth has no confidence in it, he says.
Then Grandon makes a thorough inspection of some old books. They certainlydidmake money in his father's time, but expenses of late have been much larger. Why are they piling up goods in the warehouse and not trying to sell? It seems to him as if there was no real head to the business. Can it be that he must take this place and push matters through to a successful conclusion? It seems to him that he could really do better than has been done for the last six months.
It is mid-afternoon when he starts homeward. He will take the old rambling path and rest his weary brain a little before he presents himself to madame. She has a right to feel quite neglected, and yet how can he play amiable with all this on his mind? He wipes his brow, and sits down on a mossy rock, glancing over opposite. Did any one ever paint such light and shade, such an atmosphere? How still the trees are! There is not a breath of air, the river floats lazily, undisturbed by a ripple. There is a little boat over in the shade, and the man who was fishing has fallen asleep.
Hark! There is a sudden cry and a splash. Has some one fallen in the river, or is it boys on a bathing frolic? He leans over the edge of the cliff, where he can command a sight of the river, but there is nothing save one eddy on the shore where no one could drown. And yet there are voices, a sound of distress, it seems to him, so he begins to scramble down. A craggy point jutting out shuts off the view of a little cove, and he turns his steps thitherward. Just as he gains the point he catches sight of a figure threading its way up among the rocks.
"Keep perfectly still." The wind wafts the sound up to him, and there is something in the fresh young voice that attracts him. "I am coming. Don't stir or you will fall again. Wait, wait, wait!" She almost sings the last words with a lingering cadence.
He is coming so much nearer that he understands her emprise. A child has fallen and has slipped a little way down the bank, where a slender birch sapling has caught her, and she is quite wedged in. The tree sways and bends, the child begins to cry. The roots surely are giving way, and if the child should fall again she will go over the rocks, down on the stony shore. Floyd Grandon watches in a spell-bound way, coming nearer, and suddenly realizes that the tree will give way before he can reach her. But the girl climbs up from rock to rock, until she is almost underneath, then stretches out her arms.
"I shall pull you down here," she says. "There is a place to stand. Let go of everything and come."
The tree itself lets go, but it still forms a sort of bridge, over which the child comes down, caught in the other's arms. She utters a little shriek, but she is quite safe. Her hat has fallen off, and goes tumbling over the rocks. He catches a glint of fair hair, of a sweet face he knows so well, and his heart for a moment stops its wonted beating.
He strides over to them as if on the wings of the wind. They go down a little way, when they pause for strength. Cecil is crying now.
"Cecil," he cries in a sharp tone,—"Cecil, how came you here?"
Cecil buries her face in her companion's dress and clings passionately to her. The girl, who is not Jane, covers her with a defiant impulse of protection, and confronts the intruder with a brave, proud face of gypsy brilliance, warm, subtile, flushing, spirited, as if she questioned his right to so much as look at the child.
"Cecil, answer me! How came you here?" The tone of authority is deepened by the horrible fear speeding through his veins of what might have happened.
"You shall not scold her!" She looks like some wild, shy animal protecting its young, as she waves him away imperiously with her little hand. "How could she know that the treacherous top of the cliff would give way? She was a good, obedient child to do just what I told her, and it saved her. See how her pretty hands are all scratched, and her arm is bleeding."
He kneels at the feet of his child's brave savior, and clasps his arms around Cecil. "My darling," and there is almost a sob in his voice, "my little darling, do not be afraid. Look at papa. He is so glad to find you safe."
"Is she your child,—your little girl?" And the other peers into his face with incredulous curiosity.
Cecil answers by throwing herself into his arms.
"She is my one treasure in this world," Floyd Grandon exclaims with deep fervor.
He holds her very tight. She is sobbing hysterically now, but he kisses her with such passionate tenderness, that though her heart still beats with terror, she is not afraid of his anger.
The young girl stands in wondering amaze, her velvety brown eyes lustrous with emotion. Lithe, graceful, with a supple strength in every rounded limb, in the slightly compressed red lips, the broad, dimpled chin, and the straight, resolute brows. The quaint gray costume, nun-like in its plainness, cannot make a nun of her.
"You have saved my child!" and there is a great tremble in his voice. "I do not know how to thank you. I never can."
The statue moves a little, and the red lips swell, quiver, and yet she does not speak.
"I saw you from the cliff. I hardly know how you had the self-command, the forethought to do it."
"You will not scold her!" she entreats.
"My darling, no. For your sake, not a word shall be said."
"But I was naughty!" cries Cecil, in an agony of penitence. "I ran away from Jane."
Grandon sits down on the stump of a tree, and takes Cecil on his lap. Her little hands are scratched and soiled by the gravel, and her arm has quite a wound.
"Oh!" the young girl cries, "will you bring her up to the little cottage over yonder? You can just see the pointed roof. It is my home."
"You are Miss St. Vincent?" Grandon exclaims in surprise. He does not know quite what he has expected, but she is very different from any thought of his concerning her.
"Yes." She utters this with a simple, fearless dignity that would do credit to a woman of fashion. "Her hands had better be washed and her arm wrapped up. They will feel more comfortable."
"Thank you." Then he rises with Cecil in his arms, and makes a gesture to Miss St. Vincent, who settles her wide-brimmed hat that has slipped back, and goes on as a leader. She is so light, supple, and graceful! Her plain, loosely fitting dress allows the slim figure the utmost freedom. She is really taller than she looks, though she would be petite beside his sisters. Her foot and ankle are perfect, and the springy step is light as a fawn's.
This, then, is the girl whose future they have been discussing, whose hand has been disposed of in marriage as arbitrarily as if she were a princess of royal blood. If Eugene onlywouldmarry her! Fortune seems quite sure now, and he is not the man ever to work for it. It must come to him.
Once or twice Miss St. Vincent looks back, blushing brightly. She has a natural soft pink in her cheeks that seems like the heart of a rose, and the blush deepens the exquisite tint. They enter the shaded path, and she goes around to the side porch, where the boards have been scrubbed white as snow.
"O Denise," she exclaims, "will you get a basin of water and some old linen? This little girl has fallen and scratched her arms badly." Then, with a sudden accession of memory, she continues, "I believe it is the gentleman who has been to see papa."
"Mr. Grandon!" Denise says in amaze.
"Yes. Your young mistress has saved my little girl from what might have been a sad accident." And he stands Cecil on the speckless floor.
Miss St. Vincent throws off her hat. Denise brings some water in a small, old silver basin, and rummages for the linen. Grandon turns up the sleeve of his daughter's dress, and now Cecil begins to cry and shrink away from Denise.
"Let me," says the young girl, with that unconscious self-possession so becoming to her, and yet so far removed from boldness. "Now you are going to be very brave," she says to the child. "You know how you held on by the tree and did just as I told you, and now, after your hands are washed, they will feel so much better. It will hurt only a little, and you will be white and clean again."
She proceeds with her work as she talks. Cecil winces a little, and her eyes overflow with tears, but beyond an occasional convulsive sob she does not give way. The arm is bandaged with some cooling lotion, and Denise brings her mistress a little cream to anoint the scratched hands. Floyd Grandon has been watching the deft motions of the soft, swift fingers, that make a sort of dazzle of dimples. It certainly is a lovely hand.
"Now, does it not feel nice?" Then she washes the tears from the face, and wipes it with a soft towel that is like silk. "You were very good and brave."
Cecil, moved by some inward emotion, throws her arms around Miss St. Vincent's neck and kisses her. From a strange impulse the young girl blushes deeply and turns her face away from Grandon.
He has asked after Mr. St. Vincent, who is now asleep. He is no worse. Denise thinks him better. He has not fainted since morning.
"Cecil," her father says, "will you stay here and let me go home for the carriage? I am afraid I cannot carry you quite so far, and I dare say Jane is half crazy with alarm."
Cecil looks very much as if she could not consent to the brief separation. The young girl glances from one face to the other.
"Yes, you will stay," she answers, with cheerful decision. "Papa will soon return for you. Would you mind if I gave her some berries and milk?" she asks, rather timidly, of Mr. Grandon.
"Oh, no! I will soon come back." He stoops and kisses Cecil, and makes a slight signal to Denise, who follows him.
"She saved my darling from a great peril," he says, with deep emotion, "perhaps her very life. What can I do for her?"
"Keep her from that terrible marriage," returns Denise. "She is too sweet, too pretty for such an ogre."
"She shall not marry him, whatever comes," he says, decisively.
Walking rapidly homeward, he resolves to write again to Eugene. Miss St. Vincent is pretty, winsome, refined, spirited, too; quite capable of matching Eugene in dignity or pride, which would be so much the better. She is no "meke mayd" to be ground into a spiritless slave. They would have youth, beauty, wealth, be well dowered. He feels as anxious now as he has been disinclined before. A strange interest pervades him, and the rescue of the child brings her so near; it seems as if he could clasp her to his heart as an elder daughter or a little sister.
He meets Briggs on horseback, a short distance from the house. "O Mr. Grandon," the man exclaims, "the maid has just come in and Miss Cecil is lost!"
"Miss Cecil is safe. Get me the buggy at once. She is all right," as the man looks bewildered.
Just at the gate he meets the weeping and alarmed Jane and sends her back with a few words of comfort. The house is in a great commotion, which he quiets as speedily as possible. When Mrs. Grandon finds there is no real danger, she turns upon Floyd.
"You spoil the child with your foolish indulgence," she declares. "She pays no attention to any one, she does not even obey Jane."
Grandon cannot pause to argue, for the wagon comes around. He is in no mood, either. He cannot tell why, but he feels intuitively that Miss St. Vincent is quite different from the women in his family.
He finds everything quite delightful at the eyrie. Cecil and Miss Violet have made fast friends, and Duke, the greyhound, looks on approvingly, though with an amusing tint of jealousy. The child has forgotten her wounds, has had some berries, cake, and milk, and is chattering wonderfully.
"What magic have you used?" asks Grandon in surprise.
Miss St. Vincent laughs. She hardly looks a day over fifteen, though she is two years older.
"Will you not let her come for a whole day?" she entreats. "I get so lonesome. I can only see papa a little while, and he cannot talk to me. I get tired of reading and rambling about, and Denise is worried when I stay out any length of time."
"Yes, if you can persuade her," and Grandon smiles down into the bright, eager face. "In England she was with a family of children, and she misses them."
"Oh, are you English?" Violet asks, with a naive curiosity.
"My little girl was born there, but I always lived here until I went abroad, ten years ago."
"And I was born in France," she says, with a bright, piquant smile, "though that doesn't make me quite thoroughly French." Then, as by this time they have reached Cecil, she kneels down and puts her arm around her. "He says you may come for a whole long day. We will have tea out on the porch, and you shall play with my pretty china dishes and my great doll, and when you are tired we will swing in the hammock. Shall it be to-morrow?"
"I think she must rest to-morrow," Grandon replies, gravely.
"Oh, but the next day will be Sunday!"
"If she is well enough I will bring her in the morning," he answers, indulgently.
Violet kisses her and bundles her up in a white fleecy shawl. The sun has gone down and the air has cooled perceptibly. Cecil talks a while enthusiastically, as she snuggles close to her father in the wagon; then there is a sudden silence. She is so soundly asleep that her father carries her up and lays her on her pretty white cot without awaking her. Dinner has been kept waiting, and Mrs. Grandon is not in an angelic temper, but madame's exquisite suavity smooths over the rough places. Floyd feels extremely obliged for this little attention. He makes no demur when she claims him for the evening, and discusses the future,herfuture, with him. To-morrow she must go to the city.
"I have an errand down, too," he says, "and can introduce you at a banking house. They could tell you better about investments than I."
She is delighted with the result of the evening, and fancies that he is beginning to find the child something of a bore. It was a pretty plaything at first, but it can be naughty and troublesome. Ah, Madame Lepelletier, fascinating as you are, if you could see how his thoughts have been wandering, and witness the passion with which he kisses his sleeping child and caresses the bandaged arm, you would not be quite so certain of your triumph.
He does not write to Eugene, it is so late, and he has a curious disinclination. By this time he has surely decided. A letter may come to-morrow, and it may be better to wait until he hears.
When he wakes in the morning, Cecil is entertaining Jane with a history of her adventures wherein all things are mingled.
"A doll!" exclaims Jane. "Why, is she a little girl?"
"She isn'tverybig," says Cecil; "not like Aunt Gertrude or madame; and the most beautiful dishes that came from Paris! That's where madame was. And she laughs so and makes such dimples in her face, such sweet dimples,—just a little place where I could put my finger, and she let me. It was so soft and pink," with a lingering cadence. "I like her next best to papa."
"And you've only seen her once!" says Jane, reproachfully.
"But—she kept me from falling on the rocks, you know. I might have been hurt ever so much more; why maybe I might have been killed!"
"You were a naughty little girl to run away," interpolates Jane, with some severity.
"I shall never run away again, Jane," Cecil promises, with solemnity. "But I didn't mean to slip. Something spilled out below and the tree went down, and Miss Violet was there. Maybe I should not have found her if I hadn't fallen."
"Is she pretty?" inquires Jane.
"Oh, she is beautiful! ever so much handsomer than madame."
"I don't think any one can be handsomer than madame," says Jane.
"Now I can go to papa." And Cecil opens his door softly. "O papa, my hair is all curled," she cries, eagerly, "and——"
Has he a rival already in the child's heart? the child so hard to win! A curious pang pierces him for a moment. If Miss St. Vincent can gain hearts so easily, Eugene had better see her, he decides.
The affair is talked of somewhat at the breakfast-table. Floyd Grandon takes it quietly. Mrs. Grandon reads Cecil a rather sharp lecture, and the child relapses into silence. Madame Lepelletier considers it injudicious to make a heroine of Cecil, and seconds her father's efforts to pass lightly over it. A girl who plays with a doll need fill no one with anxiety.
So Mr. Grandon drives his little daughter over to the eyrie just in time to catch Lindmeyer, who is still positive and deeply interested.
"I shall get back as soon as I can next week," he says, "and then I want to go in the factory at once. I shall be tremendously mistaken if I do not make it work."
There is a curious touch of shyness about Violet this morning that is enchanting. She carries off Cecil at once. There sits the lovely doll in a rocking-chair, and a trunk of elegant clothes that would win any little girl's heart. Cecil utters an exclamation of joy.
Mr. St. Vincent is very feeble, yet the fire of enthusiasm burns in his eyes.
"You have the right man," he says, in a tremulous voice that certainly has lost strength since yesterday; "if he was not compelled to go away; but he has promised to hurry back."
Grandon chats as long as his time will allow, then he goes to say good by to Cecil.
"You think you will not tire of her?" and he questions the bright, soft eyes, the blooming, eager face.
"Oh, no, indeed!"
"Then I will come this evening. Oh," with intense feeling, "you must know, you do know, how grateful I am!"
Her eyes are full of tears, then she smiles. What a bewitching, radiant face! He is quite sure it would capture Eugene, and he resolves to write at once.
"God must have sent you there," he says; then, obeying a strong impulse, he kisses the white, warm brow, while she bends her head reverently.
It is a busy and not an unpleasant day to Floyd Grandon. Minton & Co., the bankers, greet him quite like an old friend, though they find him much changed, and are most courteous to Madame Lepelletier; extremely pleased with so rich and elegant a client, believing they see in her the future Mrs. Grandon. There is a dinner at a hotel, a little shopping, and the delightful day is gone. She has had him all to herself, though now and then he has lapsed into abstraction, but there is enough with all the perplexing business to render him a trifle grave.
She is due at Newport next week. She is almost sorry that it is so soon, but if heshouldmiss her,—and then he has promised a few days as soon as he can get away. If that tiresome St. Vincent would only die and be done with it! If he was not mixed up with all these family affairs,—but they will be settled by midwinter. He is not thinking of marriage for himself, that she can plainly see, and it makes her cause all the more secure. She feels, sitting beside him in the palace car, quite as if she had the sole claim, and she really loves him, needs him. It is different from any feeling of mere admiration, though he is a man of whom any woman might be justly proud. She has learned a little of his own aims to-day: he is to make a literary venture presently that will give him an undeniable position.
But the child is the Mordecai at the gate. He must go for her, so he merely picks up the mail that has come and steps back into the carriage. If she could have dared a little more and gone with him, but Floyd Grandon is the kind of man with whom liberties are not easily taken. And perhaps she has won enough for one day. Sometimes in attempting too much one loses all.
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 notquitesure. 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 leavethem. 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——"
"Youcantrust 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. Couldshehave 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, tryingnotto 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 owehersomething?
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, hewillget 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, tousethem, 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 timesno! 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.