The Late Tenant

“I’m sorry, since it is so mighty important, but I’m afraid not. However, I’ll do my best for you. I’ll see if I or Jenny can remember anything. When we left the flat, there was a great overflowing with my torn-up letters, and Jenny may have thrown the certificates on that grate, or the bits of them, or she may have dropped them on the floor, or, just possibly, she put them in her pocket and may have them still. She will be here in less than half an hour, so, if I may offer you a cigar, and a whisky and soda – ”

“You are very good. I won’t stay now, as I am in a hurry to do something. But, if I may come back – may I?”

“Modest request! As often as you please, and welcome. This is Liberty Hall, you know.”

“Thank you, I will, then. There is one thing I have to ask you. Could you point out to me Mr. Johann Strauss?”

“Of course, if I saw him. But I never knew where he lived, and have never seen him since the day I left the flat.”

“Well, that may come in time,” said David, putting out his hand; “and meantime you will do your best for me in finding out about the two certificates. Thank you for all your goodness, and I will be here again soon.”

“Good-by,” said Miss L’Estrange, “and I do hope you mean to give that Strauss a sound hiding some day. You look as if you could do it with one hand and pick your teeth with the other. It would be no more than he deserves.”

David ran down the flight after flight of stairs quicker than he had gone up.

“Now,” he thought to himself as he left the building with eager steps, “is my chance to give some joy!” Going into the first paper-shop, he wrote: “A well-wisher of Miss Mordaunt desires to assure her that it is a pretty certain thing that her sister Gwendoline was a duly wedded wife; the proofs of this statement may sooner or later be forthcoming.”

He put no signature to it, made haste to post it, and drove back to Eddystone Mansions. It had been wiser had he flattered Miss Ermyn L’Estrange by returning to her.

CHAPTER VI

THE WORD OF JOY

Not many guests were for the moment at No. 60A, Porchester Gardens, so that the Mordaunts, mother and daughter, who always stopped there during their visits to London, could almost persuade themselves that they were in their own home. In the good old days Mr. and Mrs. Harrod, the proprietors, had been accustomed to receive three Mordaunts to their hospitality, when Gwen, the bright and petted, came with Violet and Mrs. Mordaunt. Only two now visited London, a grayer mother, a dumber sister; and though the Harrods asked no questions, made no prying into the heart’s secret, nor uttered any word of sympathy, they well divined that the feet of the angel of sorrow had passed that way, and expressed their pity silently by a hundred little ministries.

Violet and Mrs. Mordaunt were having tea in the drawing-room on the day of David Harcourt’s visit to Miss L’Estrange, when the postman’s knock sounded, and a minute later Mrs. Harrod herself came in, saying:

“A letter for Miss Violet, and it contains good news; for I dreamt of soldiers last night, and so sure as I dream of soldiers, so sure are there letters with good news.”

“The good news will all be in the other people’s letters, I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Mordaunt. “Good news is like wealth, Mrs. Harrod, unequally divided; to some of us it never comes.”

“Oh, come now!” cried the hearty Mrs. Harrod. “Never say die, say I! There’s good and bad in store for everybody; and care killed a cat, after all. Don’t I tell you I dreamt of soldiers? And so sure – ”

“It is that good heart of yours which makes you dream of soldiers. To bring healing to some lots in this world, you would have need to dream of generals and field-marshals – ”

“Some more tea, mother?” interposed Violet. She shrank from the threatened talk of human ills. Mrs. Mordaunt, most excellent woman, was not adverse to pouring some of her grief into a sympathetic ear.

“Well, you will tell me at dinner whether I was right,” cried Mrs. Harrod, and was gone.

She had placed the letter on the tray, and there it still lay unopened. Violet handed the tea to her mother. The room was empty, save for them, the few other guests being out, and in the house reigned perfect quietude, a peacefulness accentuated by the wheels and hoofs passing in the dusk outside.

“Vi,” said Mrs. Mordaunt, “those flowers at your waist are almost faded; I think you might give up violets in London. They don’t seem to me the same thing as in the country; but at least let them be fresh. Mr. Van Hupfeldt will be here presently – ”

“How do you know, mother?”

“He mentioned, dear, that he would be coming.”

“But why, after all, every day?”

“Is that displeasing to you, dear?”

“It seems superfluous.”

“That compels me to suggest to you, Vi, that his coming to-day is of some special importance.”

“And why, pray?”

“Can you not guess?”

The girl stood up; she walked restlessly to the window and back before she cried: “Mother! mother! Have you not had experience enough of the curse of men?” Her great eyes rested gloomily on the older woman’s face. There was a beautiful heredity marked in the pair; but seldom have more diverse souls been pent within similar tabernacles.

“Don’t speak so recklessly, dear,” said the old lady. “You had the best of fathers. There are good men, too, in the world, and when a man is good, he is better than any woman.”

“It may be so. God knows. I hope it is so. But is Mr. Van Hupfeldt one of these fabulous beings? It has not struck me – ”

“Please, Violet, don’t imagine that I desire to influence you in the slightest degree,” said Mrs. Mordaunt. “I merely wish to hint to you what, in fact, you can’t be blind to, that Mr. Van Hupfeldt’s inclinations are fixed on you, and that he will probably give expression to them to-day. On Saturday he approached me on the subject, beseeching me with great warmth to hold out to him hopes which, of course, I could not hold out, yet which I did not feel authorized wholly to destroy. At any rate, I was persuaded upon to promise him a fair field for his enterprise to-day.”

“Oh, mother! Really, this is irritating of you!” cried Violet, letting fall with a clatter a spoon she had lifted off the table.

“But I don’t see it. Why so?”

“It sounds so light-minded, at your years!”

“As if I was one of the two parties concerned!” laughed Mrs. Mordaunt with a certain maternal complacency. She knew, or thought she knew, her wayward daughter. With a little tact this most suitable marriage could be arranged.

“No,” admitted Violet, angry at the weakness of her defense, “but you allow yourself to be drawn into having a hand in what is called a love-affair because it is an event; and it was not fair to Mr. Van Hupfeldt, since you knew quite well beforehand what would be the result.”

“Well, well,” purred Mrs. Mordaunt good-humoredly, looking down to stroke the toy Pom on her lap, a nervous little animal which one might have wrapped in a handkerchief, “I will say no more. If the thought of allowing myself to be bereft of you has occurred to me, you understand for whose good I gave it a moment’s entertainment. Marriage, of course, is a change of life, and for girls whose minds have been overshadowed by sorrow, it may not be altogether a bad thing.”

“But there is usually some selection in the matter, I think, some pretense of preference for one above others. Just marriage by itself hardly seems a goal.”

“Yes, love is good, dear – none knows better than I – but better marriage without love, than love without marriage,” muttered Mrs. Mordaunt, suddenly shaken.

“And better still life with neither, it seems to me; and best of all, the end of life, and good-by to it all, mother.”

“Vi, Vi! sh-h-h, dear!” Mrs. Mordaunt was so genuinely shocked that her daughter swung the talk back into its personal channel.

“Still, I will not see this man. Tell him when he comes that I will not see him. He has held out to me hopes which he has done nothing to fulfil.”

“What hopes, dear?”

“You may as well know: hopes as to – Gwen, then.”

“Tell me.”

“Twice he has hinted to me that he knows some one who knew the man named Strauss; that he would succeed in finding this Strauss; that all was quite, quite well; and that he did not despair of finding some trace of the whereabouts of the child. He had no right to say such things, if he had not some real grounds for believing that he would do as he hinted. It is two months ago now since he last spoke in this way down at Rigsworth, and he has not referred to it since, though he has several times been alone with me. I believe that he only said it because he fancied that whatever man held out such hopes to me would be likely to find me pliant to his wishes. I won’t see him to-day.”

“Oh, he said that, did he – that all was quite well, that he might be able to find… But he must have meant it, since he said it.”

“I doubt now that he meant it. Who knows whether he is not in league with the enemies of her who was cast helpless to the wolves – ”

“Violet, for shame to let such words escape your lips! Mr. Van Hupfeldt – a man of standing and position, presented to us by Lord Vanstone, and moving in the highest circles! Oh, beware, dear, lest sorrow warp the gentler instincts of your nature, and by the sadness of the countenance the heart be not made better! Grief is evil, then, indeed when it does not win us into a sweeter mood of charity. I fear, Vi, that you have lost something of your old amiableness since the blow.”

“Forgive me, darling!” sobbed Violet, dropping quickly by the side of her mother’s chair, with her eyes swimming. “It has gone deep, this wild wrong. Forgive, forgive! I wish to feel and do right; but I can’t. It is the fault of the iron world.”

“No, don’t cry, sweet,” murmured Mrs. Mordaunt, kissing her warmly. “It will come right. We must repress all feelings of rebellion and rancor, and pray often, and in the end your good heart will find its way back to its natural sweetness and peace. I myself too frequently give way, I’m afraid; the ways of Providence are so inscrutably hard. We must bear up, and wait, and wait, till ‘harsh grief pass in time into far music.’ As for Mr. Van Hupfeldt, there seems no reason why you should see him, if you do not wish. But you haven’t opened your letter – see if it is from Rigsworth, dear.”

Violet now rose from her mother’s side, and tore open the letter. She did not know the handwriting, and as her eyes fell on the words she started. They were these: “A well-wisher of Miss Mordaunt desires to assure her that it is a pretty certain thing that her sister Gwendoline was a duly wedded wife. The proofs of this statement may sooner or later be forthcoming.”

Mrs. Mordaunt’s observant glance, noting the changes of color and expression going on in her daughter’s face, saw that the news was really as Mrs. Harrod had dreamed. Violet’s eyes were raised in silent thanksgiving, and, without saying anything, she dropped the note on her mother’s lap. Going to one of the windows, she stood there with tremulous lips. She looked into the dim street through a mist of tears. For the moment, speech was impossible.

There was silence in the room for some minutes. Then Mrs. Mordaunt called out: “Vi, dear, come here.”

Violet ran from the window with a buoyancy of dancing in her gait. “Heaven forgive us, mother, for having wronged Gwendoline in our thoughts!” said she, with her cheek against her mother’s.

“Heaven forgive me rather,” said Mrs. Mordaunt. “You, dear, have never for a moment lost faith and hope. But still, Vi – ”

“Well?”

“Let me warn you, dear, against too much confidence in this note. The disappointment may be all the more terrible. Why could not the sender sign his name? Of course, we can guess from whom it comes; but does not the fact that he does not sign his name show a lack of confidence in his own statements?”

“Oh, I think not,” cried Violet, flushed with enthusiasm, “if it is from whom you think; but, who, then, do you think sent it?”

“It can only be from Mr. Van Hupfeldt, child, I take it.”

The girl was seemingly taken aback for an instant; but her thoughts bubbled forth again rapidly: “Well, his motive for not signing his name may simply be a very proper reserve, not a lack of confidence in his statements. Remember, dearest, that he is coming here to-day with a certain purpose with regard to me, and if he had signed his name, it would have set up a sort of claim to my favor as a reward for services done. Oh, now I come to think of it, I call this most generous of the man!”

“That’s splendid, that’s right,” said Mrs. Mordaunt. “Your instincts always scent out nobility where any clue to it can be found. I am glad that you take it in that way. But young people are enthusiastic and prone to jump to conclusions. As we grow older we acquire a certain habit of second thoughts. In this instance, no doubt, you are right; he could have had no other motive – unless – I suppose that there is no one else from whom the note may possibly have come?”

At this question Violet stood startled a moment, panting a little, and somehow there passed like a mist through her consciousness a memory, a half-thought, of David Harcourt.

“From whom else could it have come?” she asked her mother breathlessly.

“The handwriting is not Mr. Van Hupfeldt’s,” said Mrs. Mordaunt. “This is a less ornate hand, you notice.”

Violet took the note again, and knit her pretty brows over it. “No,” she said, “this is a much stronger, cleaner hand – I don’t know who else – ”

“Yet, if Mr. Van Hupfeldt wished to be generous in the sense of which you spoke,” said her mother, “if it was his purpose to conceal his part in the matter, he would naturally ask some one else to write for him. And, since we can imagine no one but him – There! that, I think, is his rap at the door. Tell me now, Vi, if you will see him alone?”

“Yes, mother, I will see him.”

“Bless you for your good and grateful heart! Well, then, after a little I will go out. But, oh, pray, do nothing precipitate in an impulse of joy and mere gratitude, child! If I am bereft of my two children, I am bereft indeed. Do find happiness, my darling. That first and above all.”

At that moment Mrs. Harrod looked in, with her pleasant smile, saying: “Mr. Van Hupfeldt is here. Well, did the letter contain good news?”

“You dear!” murmured Violet, running to kiss her, “I must wear red before you, so that you may dream of soldiers every, every night!”

The steps of Van Hupfeldt were heard coming up the stairs.

CHAPTER VII

VIOLET’S CONDITIONS

Van Hupfeldt bowed himself into the drawing-room. His eyes wandering weighingly with a quick underlook which they had from the face of Violet to that of Mrs. Mordaunt, and back again to Violet. He saw what pleased him, smiles on both faces, and his brow lightened. He was a man of about forty, with a little gray in his straight hair, which, parted in the middle, inclosed the forehead in a perfect arch. He stood upon thin legs as straight as poles. His hands and feet were small. His features as regular and chiseled as a statue’s; he looked more Spanish than Dutch.

Mrs. Mordaunt received him with a pressure of the hand in which was conveyed a message of sympathy and encouragement, and Van Hupfeldt bent toward Violet with a murmur:

“I am glad to see you looking so bright to-day.”

“You observe quickly,” said Violet.

“Some things,” answered Van Hupfeldt.

“Our good hostess has been dreaming of soldiers, Mr. Van Hupfeldt,” put in Mrs. Mordaunt, lightly, “and it seems that such a dream always brings good news to her guests; so my daughter is feeling the effects of it.”

Van Hupfeldt looked puzzled, and asked: “Has Miss Violet heard that her orchids are flourishing in her absence, or that those two swans I promised have arrived?”

Violet and Mrs. Mordaunt exchanged glances of approval of this speech, the latter saying: “There are brighter things in the world than orchids, thank Heaven! and a kind deed may be more white and graceful than all the swans of Dale Manor.”

Van Hupfeldt looked still more puzzled – a look which was noted by the women, but was attributed by them to a wish not to seem to know anything of the joyful note, and was put down to his credit. After some minutes’ talk of a general nature, Mrs. Mordaunt went out. Violet sat in an easy-chair at one of the balcony windows. Van Hupfeldt leaned against the embrasure of the window. He seemed to brace himself for an effort before he said to her:

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