The House of Armour

“Yes,” said Stargarde.

Vivienne gazed at the half-witted specimen of humanity before her in silence. Then she said, “I will not detain you any longer. Perhaps I will see you again some day.”

Without his usual politeness MacDaly darted from the room as if he had been held there a prisoner.

“I wished to talk more to him,” said Vivienne; “but I saw that you did not care for it, Stargarde.”

“Come here, darling, and sit on this stool by me,” said her friend as soothingly as if she were talking to a child; “I am so glad to find this interest in your parents in you, and yet, and yet–”

“And yet—what?” queried Vivienne.

“I wish that you had chosen to speak to me first rather than to MacDaly.”

“This was an impulse,” said Vivienne. “I have always intended to ask you some questions; but we are so seldom alone—and though my father and mother are much in my thoughts I dread to mention their names. Can you understand?”

Stargarde replied by a pressure of her hand.

“They are sacred to me,” said Vivienne dreamily. “I would not for the world have the Armours know that I often wake up sobbing because my parents have been taken from me. You know I am supposed to be a proud person,” and she looked up at Stargarde, her eyes filled with tears.

“You are not proud—that is, not too proud,” said Stargarde warmly. “You are an ardent, generous girl, with a heart full of love that will be bestowed on your fellow-creatures.”

Vivienne suddenly put her hands to her face. “O Stargarde, Stargarde,” she exclaimed, “how shall I tell Captain Macartney that I cannot marry him? And Mr. Armour, what will he say?”

“Do not afflict yourself too much. You have made a mistake, as many another girl has done. The only way to make amends is to say, I have done wrong—forgive me. Then start over again. That is all any of us can do in the perpetual error of this life.”

Vivienne looked up over her shoulder and pressed one of Stargarde’s hands adoringly to her lips. They had slipped into their usual relation. The girl was sitting at the feet of the woman she so much loved. She was curled up on the hearth rug, her red draperies wound around her, her back against Stargarde’s knees.

“Let us return to my question,” said Vivienne at length, “my parents. Will you not tell me what you know about them? Was my father,” proudly, “as became his peasant up-bringing, a boorish man, or was he a gentleman?”

“The latter, I think, from what I have heard; you know I never saw him. He is said to have been a gentle, amiable young man, a favorite with all who knew him.”

“And what made him leave the Armours? I have always fancied that it was his health.”

“No, it was not his health,” said Stargarde reluctantly.

“What was it?” asked Vivienne wistfully.

“My dear child, you have confidence in me?”

“Most implicit confidence.”

“Then take my advice; go to Stanton Armour. He knows more about your parents than any man living. He will tell you just what is good for you to know. Will you do this?”

“Yes,” said Vivienne, in a constrained voice. “But you speak as if there were some mystery. Surely there is nothing that all the world may not know?” Stargarde looked down at her compassionately. “Sometimes,” said Vivienne, struggling with an emotion that she could not altogether hide, “sometimes I fancy that there is something I do not understand. Judy once gave me a hint of it. Mammy Juniper in her ravings urges the wicked Ephraim to make restitution to some one that I think is my father. Do you know what she means, Stargarde?”

“Go to Stanton,” said her friend, with a lovely smile of pity and affection. Then leaning forward till Vivienne felt her sweet breath on her face added, “You need comforting; let me rock you.”

She held out her arms invitingly, and half laughing, half protesting Vivienne found herself, dignity and all, enwrapped in a close embrace. Stargarde had her on her lap and was rocking back and forth, soothing her as a mother would a child.

To and fro they went, the one slim and graceful, with dark skin, brilliant and questioning eyes, and black hair lying loosely on her forehead, the other a Venus of Milo, who held her burden, tall as it was, as easily as she would have held a baby.

The soreness and tightness about Vivienne’s heart gave away, and burying her face on Stargarde’s shoulder she shed a few surreptitious tears.

“That’s right; it will do you good to cry,” murmured Stargarde.

“There is some one at the door,” said Vivienne presently. “Let me get up, dear Stargarde.”

“It’s only Mary with the milk; come in, Mary.”

“It’s not Mary,” said a well-known voice. “Beg pardon for interrupting so charming a tableau. You missed that, Armour,” and Dr. Camperdown turned to his friend, who was following him.

“Not altogether,” said Mr. Armour, with a swift glance at Stargarde’s amused face and Vivienne’s flushed one.

“What an unexpected honor!” said Stargarde, gayly shaking hands with them. “You,” looking at Armour, “rarely honor us with a visit.”

“And I come too often, I suppose,” said Camperdown gruffly. “Take off your coat, Armour; we’ll stay a little while.”

CHAPTER XIX

BROTHER AND SISTER

Armour, after hanging up his coat, sat down in a corner of the little room.

“You don’t often come to town in the evening, Stanton,” said Stargarde.

“No; I had to see some merchants who are going away early in the morning. The sleigh was sent in for me, so I thought I would call for you and Miss Delavigne.”

“Are you going out to Pinewood?” asked Dr. Camperdown of his hostess.

“Yes; to spend the night and a part of tomorrow.”

“It will do you good,” he returned; “I suppose you are sorry to have her go, Miss Delavigne?”

“More sorry than I can tell you,” said Vivienne.

“You saucy little girl!” and he frowned ominously at her. Then in a lower key, and making sure that Stargarde and Mr. Armour were deep in conversation, “Has she been talking to you?”

“Oh, yes, of many things.”

“Good; let her advise you. What do you think of her?”

“I—I think that she is magnificent,” said Vivienne, trying to speak calmly.

“Better still,” said the physician in deep satisfaction. “Be with her all you can; she’s a rock for strength and an angel for sweetness.”

“Vivienne,” said Stargarde, “Stanton wishes to go; are you ready?”

“Yes,” said she, rising and going for her wraps.

“Don’t drive home,” said Camperdown a few minutes later, when they stood looking at the heaped-up rugs in the sleigh standing before the door. “There’s no room for me, anyway. Let’s walk. It’s a fine night. Look at the stars and the moon,” and he pointed up to the blue vault of the sky.

“Are we not going to be rid of you yet, Brian?” said Stargarde, with a comical face.

“A medical man does not desert his patients. I’ve two to see home. Stanton, I forbid your driving. A walk will make you sleep better. Take Miss Delavigne on ahead of us. If you go too fast I’ll say that you are trying to outwit me. Now one, two, three, and away. Send your man home.”

“Not till I find out whether these ladies prefer to walk,” said Mr. Armour.

“Of course they do. I asked them.”

“Oh, well, if it is arranged”—and turning to the sleigh he said to the coachman, “We shall walk; do not wait for us.”

Vivienne glanced at Armour’s face as they went under the gateway. She wished to know if he was annoyed at Dr. Camperdown’s persistence in giving them the long walk out to Pinewood, and so coolly foisting her upon him as a companion, when he would so much rather have had Stargarde.

He did not seem annoyed. There was even, she fancied, a look of cold, placid satisfaction on his face as he walked along soberly by her side, his hands in the pockets of his coat, his head bent slightly forward. However, he did not speak to her, and seemed to be in one of his usual reveries, or listening to the conversation of Stargarde and Camperdown, who were close behind them.

Passing quietly by one door after another they came suddenly upon MacDaly, who was sneaking guiltily away from home.

Armour and Vivienne passed him, Camperdown stared at him without speaking, but Stargarde drew up before him with a pained and remonstrating, “Why, MacDaly, I thought you were in your room?”

MacDaly was too much overcome to speak, but he seemed to be touched by the distress of the only person in the world that he cared for besides his own unworthy self, and bowing low he laid a bottle at her feet.

Camperdown promptly broke the neck of the bottle and threw it in the gutter, and calling to Vivienne and Armour not to wait, he and Stargarde retraced their footsteps in order that they might see the wandering lamb safely within the shelter of the Pavilion.

Vivienne looked at Mr. Armour, who was gazing fixedly at her. “Stargarde is an ideal woman; I did not think that in real life there were any like her.”

“Her moral character is one of great beauty,” he said, “and she is utterly fearless; yet what is the use?”

“The use?” repeated Vivienne with vivacity; “has she not stopped MacDaly from spending the night in some saloon?”

“For to-night, yes; for to-morrow, no. He is an inveterate drunkard.”

“But he promises her to do better. He may reform some day.”

“How can he reform when inherited tendencies are crying out in an opposite direction?”

“Stargarde does not believe in heredity,” said Vivienne.

“She does, but to a limited degree only. That is where she makes a mistake. Yet in her case every theory with regard to heredity has been thrown to the winds. One might almost say she was born damned.” Vivienne looked him severely in the face. “I have shocked you,” he said irritably. “Yet if you knew everything–”

“Stargarde says,” began Vivienne, “that one should look after little children, give them good food and wholesome surroundings, and God will take care of the rest.”

“What about the ancestors?” he said. “Children are helpless there, and that is where the mischief comes in. I wish I had had the choosing of mine,” he added under his breath. “I should have been a happier man.”

A swift and intense compassion took possession of Vivienne, which, though she gave no expression to it, he seemed to understand perfectly and to slightly resent.

“I am not so unhappy as you imagine,” he observed, “and I beg your pardon for talking to you so freely; I don’t know why I do it.”

His tone was as sulky as that of a boy, and Vivienne wisely forebore to answer him. For a long time they walked on without speaking; then to break the awkward silence she said, “Stargarde has saved many children.”

Mr. Armour smiled faintly. “You are coming under her influence; if it weren’t for your engagement I daresay you would make a Stargarde the second.”

“I am going to break my engagement,” said Vivienne quickly. “Mr. Armour, I cannot–”

He stopped short and looked down at her. “What is this?”

“Stargarde has been talking to me—she told me to explain to you. There were some things that I did not understand; and I think with her that one should love deeply the person that one marries.”

Mr. Armour concealed his astonishment. There was about the girl at his side a gentleness and frankness that always enveloped her like an atmosphere when she was fresh from Stargarde’s influence. He could not speak harshly to her, yet he was annoyed.

“I think,” he said gravely, “that you had better give this matter some further thought. There is a precipitancy about your entering into engagements and breaking them that I do not like.”

“Don’t you understand?” she said, with an eager little gesture. “It is this way: You have a calm and clear judgment, and much experience. You form your opinions slowly. I am young and rash, and, as Stargarde says, I have made a mistake that many another woman has made. It is a good thing to be married, but I did not think long enough about the suitability of, of–”

“Of Captain Macartney, I suppose,” said Mr. Armour dryly. “What will he say to this abrupt dismissal?”

“He will understand,” said Vivienne; “he is good and kind. I do not dread telling him half as much as, as—you might fancy I would.”

Mr. Armour noted her confusion of thought. “Or half as much as you dreaded telling me,” he said; “am I right?”

“You are,” said Vivienne vivaciously; “yet, if I may say a word in my own defense, it is that my haste in entering into this engagement was to please you.”

“Indeed,” curtly; “then I am to be made the scapegoat?”

Vivienne was wounded by his tone, and made no reply to him.

“And what are your plans for the future, may I ask?”

“Stargarde wishes me to live with her.”

“You will get tired of that life in a week.”

“Then I will do something else,” bravely; “but I really think that you are mistaken in me.”

“I am not mistaken in thinking you are an irrepressible worry,” he communed with himself, just as Vivienne said,

“May I ask just how much control you exercise over my movements?”

Armour stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“When shall I become mistress of my own affairs?”

“Your own affairs,” he said, with an involuntary smile. “Well, I should say that you were managing them yourself just now.”

“I do not think that you understand me. You or your father was legally appointed my guardian.”

“There was no legal appointment,” he said, pushing his fur cap farther back on his head. “We took charge of you on our own responsibility.”

“But my father—when he died did he not ask you to take charge of my money and educate me?”

“What money?” and Mr. Armour’s eyes grew colder as he fixed them on her.

“Whatever my father left me,” said Vivienne patiently. “I don’t know anything about it, except that it is safe in your hands, and that I want to give some of it to Stargarde if I go to live with her.”

Mr. Armour’s gaze wandered all about him before he answered her. Then he said quietly: “Where would your father—a clerk on a salary—accumulate money to leave you?”

“But what have I been living on?” said Vivienne in surprise.

“I leave that to your imagination.”

“Have you been supporting me all these years?” she asked, her face suffused with color.

“Again I reply that I leave that to your imagination,” he said, twisting an icicle off a window that they were passing.

She stopped suddenly and covered her eyes with her hands. Mr. Armour scanned her narrowly. Was she trying to impress him? No; her emotion was genuine. Her gloved fingers, held like bars over her crimson, almost purple cheeks, were outward and mute signs of inward suffering.

“I would have undeceived you if I had known of this delusion of yours,” he said kindly.

“Do I owe you everything—everything?” said the girl, dropping her hands and fixing her glittering eyes on him.

He bowed gravely.

“And you have thought me extravagant, I dare say.”

“That is hardly a fair question,” he said, with an approving glance at her fur-lined jacket and richly trimmed gown. “I wished you to dress like a lady.”

“A lady!” repeated the girl bitterly, “yes; a fine lady. Now I shall have to support myself.”

“Why so?”

“I am grown up now. You have given me a good education. I shall take no more favors from you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I am too proud to be dependent.”

“That is exactly why you should go on with your dependence. What can you do to support yourself?”

“If I cannot support myself by assisting Stargarde, I will teach.”

“What can you teach?”

“Everything that I have been taught.”

“Pardon me—a smattering of everything. You have received an ordinary boarding-school education, which is about the worst possible preparation for a teaching career. If I had intended you to teach I would have put you in a public school or a college.”

Vivienne looked steadfastly at him without speaking.

“Be content to do as I tell you,” he said, walking on and clasping his hands behind his back. “Your father served us well. As a lad I worshiped him. I plan to support you until the day of your death. If I die first, suitable provision will be made for you. As I told you I want you to remain at Pinewood for a time. Then you may go where you will. You are getting on well now. I detest those scenes that Flora delights in; you women know how to put a stop to such things, and I am glad that you have done so. I am glad too that Judy likes you—she leads a lonely life.”

Vivienne was not listening to him. To his surprise he found that she had dropped behind him and had struck an attitude of distress against a snowbank.

“She looks like the picture of her ancestress, Madame La Tour, defending her husband’s fort,” he muttered, hastening back to her.

“I am not faint,” said Vivienne feebly. “I am coming right on; but I have had a blow—such a blow, but”—proudly—"you will not see me break down again."

She spoke with a remnant of her old spirit, and Armour smiled encouragingly at her. “Take my arm, you foolish child. You have not broken down. Now let us set out again, and have no further interruptions. See, there are some people coming—friends of ours too, I believe. Try to get some color in your face.”

Vivienne held her head well up till they had passed, then it sank on her breast again. Armour glanced at the little, clenched hand that lay on his arm and said gently and yet a trifle disdainfully:

“Do not imagine that you are suffering.”

“I do not imagine it. I know that I am.”

“Your disturbance is purely a thing of sentiment,” he said. “I do not say that you are not troubled—I dare say you are; but you will get over it. You are young; you do not know the meaning of the word sorrow.”

“What is it then to suffer?” she asked.

“To suffer”—and he drew a long breath and cast a glance about him like one taking his last look on earth and sky—"ah, I will not tell you."

Vivienne shuddered; in the midst of her own preoccupation she realized that there were depths in the unhappy nature of the man beside her that she could not fathom, even if she were allowed to look into them.

“Do you know anything of astronomy?” asked Mr. Armour suddenly.

“No, nothing,” she replied; “we did not have it in any of the schools that you sent me to.”

He paid no attention to the sob in her voice, and in tones as cool and passionless as if there were no such things as sorrow and unhappiness in the world, he pointed out some of the constellations to her. In a short time they were beyond the outlying houses of the city, and with lagging steps and upturned faces passed slowly along a snowy road, from which they had an extended and uninterrupted view of the blue sky spread above them, where countless stars shone and sparkled like priceless jewels, set far above the unworthy earth below.

“I used to devote a good deal of my time to the study of the heavens,” said Mr. Armour, when they stepped slowly under the murmuring pines of the avenue, and their view of the sky was shut off. “I still have a telescope in the cupola, and occasionally I go up. Do you ever hear me?”

Yes; she had heard his heavy step passing her door, often late at night, and had surmised that the strange, self-contained man, who was such an enigma himself, was about to engage in a study of the mysteries of the celestial bodies.

“Star-gazing ruined Palinurus,” interposed Camperdown, who came rolling up to the broad stone doorstep, looking like one of the good-natured men-of-war sailors who are so frequently seen about the streets of Halifax.

He had evidently caught some scraps of their conversation, for he went on: “See the Æneid, Book V., line something or other. Palinurus directed his eyes to the stars; the god shook over him a branch dripping with Lethean dew; and rendered sleepy by Stygian power, over he went into the clear waters. Poor Palinurus.”

“What is the matter with Camperdown this evening,” said Armour, addressing Stargarde, who at that moment came sauntering out from under the pines.

“I don’t know,” she returned, glancing uneasily at the subject of their remarks. “I never saw him like this before. His tongue rattled so fast that I had to send him on ahead in order that I might enjoy the quiet beauty of this evening.”

“Hear a parable, O friends,” said Camperdown, without raising his eyes, and scraping the snow about with his foot. “Once a certain man sat under a plum tree, where he looked and longed exceedingly for a beautiful young plum that hung just over him. The plum grew and ripened, but being the most obstinate plum that ever lived, would not fall into the man’s mouth. One day being weak with impatience and with waiting for the plum, he opened his mouth to yawn, when straightway the plum fell into his mouth and choked him–”

“So that he never spoke again,” said Stargarde, with a stifled laugh.

“No,” said Camperdown, lifting his eyes and surveying her with preternatural gravity; “loosened his tongue and gave him an unwonted flow of language.”

“Good-night, Camperdown,” said Armour; “I’m going in.”

“So am I,” said Dr. Camperdown agreeably, “as far as the pantry. I’m ravenous, Stanton. Stargarde offered me no supper this evening. Pity a poor, starving man.”

“Come in,” said Armour shortly, unlocking the door and ushering his guests into the hall, which was dimly lighted. “Now, Camperdown, don’t make a noise, or you’ll have Flora down upon us.”

“That isn’t the way to the pantry, man,” said Camperdown, pushing him aside. “That’s the china closet. It’s too hot there to keep food. Here, follow me,” and taking a box of matches from his pocket he led the small party—for he insisted upon bringing Stargarde and Vivienne along—into a room whose shelves were lined with a goodly supply of tempting meats and dainties.

“Cold goose and apple sauce!” he ejaculated, setting aside a large dish. “You mustn’t touch that, ladies, nor you, Stanton. ’Twill give you indigestion. Mayonnaise of celery—I’ll have some of that with it. Here is some jelly for you, Miss Delavigne—lemon, I think, and custard, and cake. Stargarde, you may have those mashed chestnuts. Stanton, you’d better try a soda biscuit. Now ‘fall to,’ as old Hannah says, and don’t make a noise.”

Vivienne was not in a humor for frolicking, and excusing herself went upstairs, her hands full of pieces of sponge cake that Dr. Camperdown had bidden her take with her. When she reached the staircase leading to the upper flat, she found that Mammy Juniper was, as Judy graphically expressed it, “on a prowl,” and had started it by one of her favorite occupations, laying a curse on Vivienne.

The old woman’s face was terribly distorted, and she had pushed her white nightcap far on the back of her grizzled wool. Her candlestick she held in her hand, waving it back and forth across Vivienne’s door panels as if she were making mystic signs.

Vivienne listened for a few instants to the anathemas called down upon her innocent head, which this evening seemed to take the form of bodily afflictions. “Make her like Job, Lord,” the old woman was praying; “give her boils and no potsherd to scrape them. Cover her with sores. Let her be racked with pain–”

Such expressions were not pleasant to listen to, and too weary and disheartened this evening to disturb the old woman, who was apt to become belligerent if interrupted in her ravings, Vivienne retreated noiselessly to the hall below. There she sat down on the top step of the staircase and watched for Stargarde to come from the pantry.

In a few minutes Camperdown, chuckling amiably to himself, came through the lower hall and passed out of the house. Some time elapsed before the other two appeared. Then they came sauntering along together, Stargarde with her hand on Mr. Armour’s shoulder, and looking fondly into his eyes. When they reached the middle of the hall, she drew his head to her and kissed his forehead repeatedly: “Good-night, my dear boy. May all good angels guard your sleep.”

Vivienne in her bewilderment and distress almost cried out. She had become very much attached to the eccentric physician, whom Stargarde tolerated so good-naturedly, and she fondly hoped that some day Stargarde would marry him. And now she was bestowing caresses on another man, which from a woman such as she was, could mean only one thing, that she loved Mr. Armour and would marry him.

Some movement that Vivienne involuntarily made, attracted the attention of the two people below; Stargarde looked up hastily and on seeing the disturbed face peering down at her, grew first pale and then red, but did not release her hold on Mr. Armour. “Vivienne,” she said quietly, “come here, dear child.”