The House of Armour

“I know,” wearily; “but what can a man do? I am reproached now with having thrust my father out of doors.”

“Nobody that understood the facts would blame you,” said Camperdown seriously. “But can’t you hedge him around with restrictions?”

“If I draw too sharp a line he will leave here.”

“And you don’t want him injuring the family reputation elsewhere. But isn’t there any way you can devise of keeping these silly young flies from him? Let him amuse himself with old spiders like himself.”

“He must do it in future,” said Armour.

“Who made you promise?” asked Camperdown curiously.

“Vivienne.”

“I thought so; good little girl!”

“I have decided to send Valentine away till after our marriage,” said Armour; “can you suggest any one to go with him?”

Camperdown frowned, hesitated, and muttered: “Better wait a bit.”

“You do not think that his eyes are seriously injured, do you?” said Armour quickly.

“I think nothing, and what I know I’ll keep to myself,” and Camperdown again made an attempt to leave the room, but turned on his heel to come back and say, “Your ancestors were Puritans, weren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Strictest of the strict and fastidious about Sundays, and would scarcely smile on week days?”

“Yes.”

“And they grew rich and were high in favor with God and man?”

“So the family history assures us.”

“Then they waxed self-indulgent. Your great-grandfather began a merry dance that is culminating with your father and Valentine, and you—poor, dull, and misanthropic clod—would dry up and sterilize but for that lovely little simpleton upstairs, who is probably dreaming that you are a Prince Charming.”

An indescribable air of animation took possession of Armour’s heavy, handsome features. “She probably is,” he said with a smile.

“If you‘ve any sense at all,” continued Camperdown with assumed disdain, “if you‘ve any idea of perpetuating a decent family line, agree to anything she says. In her fine-spun, aristocratic, philanthropic notions, which are strictly opposed to all that is earthly, sensual, and devilish, is your only salvation.” And with a volley of menacing glances he vanished, and shortly afterward crunched under foot the gravel below as he walked toward the cottage muttering: “Blind, blind! Poor fools, how will they stand it? Better Puritans than Sybarites!”

CHAPTER XXXIII
A WAYWORN TRAVELER

For eight weary weeks Stargarde had, in the opinion of her friends, been afflicted by the terrible being who undoubtedly was her mother. But to Stargarde it was no affliction. From the night that she had taken the miserable creature in her arms, washed and fed her and laid her on her own bed, it had seemed rather a joy and privilege than a duty, to wait upon her. Cheerfully and uncomplainingly she placed herself at the disposal of her unworthy parent, guarding and restraining her as far as she possibly could, and making no ado when she was missing, but patiently seeking her in the lowest haunts of the town as a shepherd would seek a lost sheep and return it to the sheepfold.

After Mrs. Frispi had been with Stargarde for four weeks her wanderings suddenly ceased. Her evil genius might prompt her to roam, but it was no longer in her power to do so. Her frame, strong as it had been, suddenly yielded to the effects of disease brought on by her irregular life. She lay on her back in Stargarde’s bed with no thought in her guilty soul of preparing for that longer, more mysterious flight than any she had yet taken, but raving day by day in obscene and abominable language that made Camperdown look in despair and admiration at Stargarde, who in an agony of compassion hung over the unhappy woman and urged her to repent.

Day by day he entered the sick-room, sometimes greeted sullenly by the sufferer, at others hailed by a torrent of abuse that made him turn from her with a shudder of disgust; but gradually there came a change. During the past ten days his patient had lain in a sullen, stoical silence, apparently indifferent alike to her sufferings and to Stargarde’s tender ministrations. That she used no more reckless language was something to be thankful for, and with a sense of relief to think that he was no longer in the den of a wild beast, Camperdown stepped into the room one Sunday morning.

He held his fiancée’s> hand one instant in his own, then went to the bed and glanced sharply over Mrs. Frispi’s attenuated features. She did not look at him, even when he laid his fingers on her bony wrist, for her big blue eyes, slowly revolving in their sunken sockets, were following Stargarde as she moved about the room.

“Let me take your temperature,” he said.

Mrs. Frispi shook her head impatiently.

“Mother,” murmured Stargarde appealingly, coming to stand beside her.

At this the woman submitted, and when she turned her head toward Camperdown he noticed that a softened look had overspread her features, and that tears were stealing down her cheeks.

In order to give her time to compose herself he affected to be busy with his instrument case.

A side glance presently cast in her direction showed him that the tears were still on her cheeks and also that she was not anxious to avoid his scrutiny.

“Are you going to throw her over?” she asked quietly.

Camperdown stared at her.

“Are you going to throw her over on account of me?” asked Mrs. Frispi, again indicating Stargarde by a motion of her head.

“No, I am not,” he said decidedly.

She made a sound of satisfaction in her throat and went on coolly: “She forgives me, but you will not. You would have kicked me back in the mud. She pitied me. She reminds me of the good people that I was with in New York for a little while when I was a girl. No one has cared for me since. I couldn’t help myself. Suppose she had been brought up where I was.”

Camperdown frowned at the horrible possibilities suggested. Yet he took comfort in the sturdy character of his betrothed. “She would have been good anywhere,” he said stoutly.

“Have you lived in the slums?” said the woman with a sneer. “Could an angel be good with a thousand devils after her?”

He did not reply to her otherwise than by a shrug of his shoulders.

“And you won’t forgive me for disgracing you,” she went on in a kind of languid surprise; “and you call yourself a Christian.”

“Brian,” said Stargarde with a passion of entreaty in her voice.

“I do forgive you,” he said not unkindly, and after a short struggle with himself; “but you can’t expect me to admire you.”

“Admire me!” she exclaimed, burying her face in the pillow. “Oh, my God!”

A few minutes later he left the Pavilion and went to his home.

The next day and the next and the next Camperdown saw Mrs. Frispi, but she did not speak to him. He saw that she was becoming weaker, and also that she was in a quieter, calmer mood.

“To-night she will probably die,” he said on the evening of the third day, “and I shall take Mrs. Trotley and go to Stargarde.”

While he was at dinner a message came from the Pavilion for him and for Zilla. The end was coming sooner than they had imagined it would.

Zilla hesitated about going; not that she feared death, for she had seen many people die, but from purely selfish motives. It was a rainy evening, and she would rather stay at home and read one of her beautiful books than to go out to witness the end of a person who was utterly uninteresting to her.

“I cannot wait,” said Camperdown, “and I think that you ought to come with me. There is a cab at the door; you won’t have to walk.”

Zilla flashed him a swift glance, darted upstairs for her cloak, and went with him.

It was certainly not a hateful sight that they witnessed when they left the rain and darkness of the street and entered Stargarde’s cheerful rooms. Every light was shining brightly. Mrs. Frispi’s sight was almost gone, and to enable her to see some objects in the room that she dearly prized, Stargarde had even had additional lights brought in.

The woman lay quietly among the pillows of her snow-white bed, the gaunt framework of her bones almost piercing through the thin covering of skin. Stargarde sat by the bed and in a recess was a girl dressed in the uniform of the Salvation Army.

“It is no use,” Mrs. Frispi was uttering in short gasping breaths, as Camperdown and Zilla paused in the doorway; “I can’t see them—tell me.”

Around Stargarde’s room hung a number of paintings illustrating an old hymn that she was fond of singing. Two years before an English artist, poor and drunken and expelled from his native land, had found a shelter till his death in the Pavilion. In gratitude for Stargarde’s kindness to him, he had painted a series of pictures for her, representing the adventures of the wayworn traveler that he had so often heard her singing about to a quaint, wild tune.

On these paintings hanging around her bed Mrs. Frispi’s eyes had often rested, and Stargarde, thinking that no more applicable story could be framed to suit her mother’s circumstances, had, in talking to her, woven biblical truths with the progress of the weary traveler. The striking pictures and the graphic words had impressed themselves upon the sin-worn mind. Even now, when her earthly vision was dulled, the dying one had before her mental gaze the representations of the traveler toiling up the mountain, his garments worn and dusty, his step slow, his eyes turned resolutely from the enchanting arbors where sweet songsters invited his delay to the top of the mountain, beyond which were the heavenly vale and the golden city.

 
“While gazing on that city,”
 

repeated Stargarde gently,

 
“Just o’er the narrow flood,
A band of holy angels
Came from the throne of God.
They bore him on their pinions
Safe o’er the dashing foam,
And joined him in his triumph;
‘Deliverance will come.’”
 

Her voice died away, and Zilla sank into a chair while Camperdown stepped softly to the bedside. There was nothing that he could do for his patient; the shadow of death was already upon her face.

Yet she lay quietly, as quietly as a child about to fall asleep, and giving no sign of distress or emotion except in the hurried and labored rise and fall of her chest.

“I believe in God now,” she said solemnly, and moving her almost sightless eyes toward him. “I believe in everything. Oh,” with a sudden great and bitter cry, and straining her gaze in Stargarde’s direction, “what a wrong I have done her!”

Stargarde held one of her mother’s hands in her own. At her despairing words she seized the other and folded them both between her strong, fair palms with a consoling clasp.

“I wish to go to heaven because she will be there,” said the woman, starting up in bed with a last exertion of strength. “I cast her off when she was a baby, and she kisses me!”

Camperdown hastily pushed more pillows behind her and moistened her lips with drops of a stimulant beside him.

“I can see plainly now,” she went on, opening wide her blue eyes with their strange and touching expression. “Zeb, mind what she says and don’t vex her. Take good care of her, you,” she continued, addressing Camperdown. “I forgive you now; I could have killed you before. I hated every man. I forgive all”—brokenly—"as I hope to be forgiven—even him."

Her breath fluttered convulsively for a few minutes, then she sprang forward: “I hear them—the song of triumph they sing upon that shore. Jesus hath redeemed us—to suffer nevermore,” she added. “O Jesus, do not despise me—I am sorry.”

Her last words were spoken. She fell back in Camperdown’s arms and he laid her head on the pillows.

Stargarde’s face was shining like that of an angel. For many days he had seen her kneeling by that sick-bed, had heard her pleading voice, “O God, give me this soul; save my mother and take her to heaven.” Now her heart’s desire was gratified, and he feared that after the long weeks of watching and confinement to the house a collapse would come; but there was no sign of it yet. Very calmly she asked Zilla if she would care to stay in the room while Camperdown left it. Zilla remained; and Stargarde, while performing the last tender offices for her mother in which she would receive only a small amount of assistance from her friend of the Salvation Army, talked sweetly to the child of the triumphant entry of their mother’s spirit into heaven, and of the putting away of the deserted body under the grass and the flowers where it would lie till the joyful resurrection.

Death had before this been connected with all that was squalid and mysterious and unlovely in the child’s mind—not a thing to be feared among people who led reckless lives, but rather to be hated and shunned.

When she at last left the Pavilion and put her hand in Camperdown’s for him to take her home, she remarked sagely, “I shall not mind dying, now that I am rich.”

CHAPTER XXXIV
A FOX CHASE

It was just dinner time at Pinewood. All the house doors and windows were open, and the sound of the gong reached the ears of a man who was mincing down the avenue. “Ha,” he said stopping short, “the honorable lady will be partaking of some comestibles. It will be advisable that I dally away the time till she shall be lured without by the refreshing delightsomeness of the evening.” And skirting the edge of the lawn and perceiving Joe he made his way down to the sunny slope.

“A handsome day, Mr. Lo,” he said, saluting the Indian, who raised his head to stare at him.

Joe responded by an “Ugh!” and bent again over a small rent in his upturned canoe. After a short silence his curiosity got the better of his reserve, and he said, “Why you call me Lo? I Joe.”

“‘Lo, the poor Indian,’ don’t you know the poetry?” asked MacDaly. “With me it is the generic and epidemic name for the aborigines of this province.”

Joe gave him a sleepy look from his dark eyes in which there was no hint of displeasure. “What you want?” he asked bluntly.

“I am about to enter upon, or in some way engage in a private interview with a certain favorably disposed personage distinguished by many gifts and graces, but whose name I will not take upon my unworthy lips,” said MacDaly; “but what have we here? The honorable Lady Stargarde must be in the vicinity, judging by the appearance of her scout.”

Mascarene, delighted as only a city dog who is kept in a close street can be when removed to open fields, came frisking and jumping down the incline. His frolic over, he fawned on Joe, who was intensely fond of him but scarcely glanced at him, and sniffed in a friendly manner around MacDaly who, while lauding him to the skies as a captivating canine, cared for him not at all.

“What you gottum for Miss Debbiline?” asked Joe of MacDaly, who was pirouetting to and fro to keep out of the way of the dog.

MacDaly, rather taken aback, mumbled that in the event of not seeing the young demoiselle he had a small communication addressed to her that he would be obliged to have some one deliver, and he twirled between his thumb and finger a soiled three-cornered note.

He did not offer it to Joe, nor did Joe take it from him, yet in a somewhat bewildered fashion he saw that the sly Christmas had it, and was transferring it to his pocket.

“Ah, well-a-day, it is of small import,” he muttered, while watching the Micmac draw his canoe up on the grass.

“Me hot,” said Joe; “workum no more till morning. You want money?” he added inquiringly.

MacDaly’s eyes brightened. Money! was he not always wanting it?

“You come with me,” said the Indian mysteriously, and MacDaly fearing no treachery followed him.

If he had heard an order that the Indian had received from Mr. Armour a few days previously his heart would not have been so light as it was. “Joe,” Armour had said, “that man MacDaly is troubling Miss Delavigne. If you see him about here send him away.” And Joe, who in his heart despised MacDaly, had grunted acquiescence.

Trippingly MacDaly stepped after him to the shore immediately behind the cottage, where a long black rock ran out so far that if the cottage were dropped off the end of it the tops of the chimneys would not be seen above the water.

“You come here,” said Joe, going to the end of the rock and kneeling down.

“Buried treasure, eh?” said MacDaly gloatingly, “or perchance something sunken in the rock and the savage unaware of its value wishes to receive the opinion of an expert and—what are you doing, you rascal?” he spluttered as he felt the Micmac’s hand on his collar.

“You dirty, me washum,” said Joe playfully, and still gripping the astonished Irish-Canadian by the back of the neck he swung him off the end of the rock and soused him up and down in the water.

“I’m not dirty,” pleaded MacDaly piteously, “and for the love of mercy do not let go your hold of me or I shall sink like a stone.”

“You bad man,” said Joe; “you teaseum Miss Debbiline. You say, me don’t speakum her more.”

“I promise; ye gods and little fishes hear my vow!” cried MacDaly, when Joe allowed him to come far enough out of the water to clasp his hands. “Oh, let me out, let me out!”

“You been bery bad,” said Joe seriously. “Me priest now. You sayum sins quick.”

MacDaly with alarming rapidity rattled off a number of venial transgressions. He had recovered from his first alarm and was reflecting that the Indian did not wish to hurt him but only to frighten him, that the water was agreeably cool, and that he had on his second-best suit of clothes.

“You done worse than that,” said Joe. “Tellum worse thing you done,” and he let MacDaly down in the water till his ears and eyes were covered.

“Oh, mermaids and cuttle fish, I can‘t!” his victim gurgled and spluttered.

“Must,” said the Micmac, dipping him again till the crown of his head was immersed.

“I burnt a building,” gasped MacDaly in real fright. “Now let me out,” and for the first time making resistance he clung to the rock with his hands.

Joe allowed him to clamber up beside him. “What you burnum?” he asked.

“A building,” groaned MacDaly, patting his dripping sides. “Alack, alack, I’m very wet.”

“You ever hunt fox?”

“No.”

“Great sport; you be fox, me hunter. This be dog,” pointing to the bewildered Mascarene, who had been in the water swimming around MacDaly waiting for a chance to rescue him, and who was now sitting staring at him. “Run,” added Joe.

“But there would be no confidence existing,” said MacDaly protestingly.

“Run,” said Joe, who had not the slightest idea of his meaning, and MacDaly with a sigh skipped nimbly over the wall. Away up at the top of the hill he looked back and fancied that he was to be allowed to escape, for Joe stood motionless with the dog beside him. MacDaly could not resist making a derisive motion of his hand, but repented immediately and bitterly, and with a plaintive squeal of dismay fled in the direction of the town, for hunter and dog bounding like two stealthy panthers were after him.

A few minutes later Joe was shaking his small remaining amount of breath from him. “What you burnum?”

Still MacDaly would not tell him, again Joe let him off, but only to resume his chase, till at last the unfortunate fox, bedraggled, exhausted, and overcome, told him the secret of his life.

Joe with a noiseless step returned to the cottage, and lay in wait under a larch for Mr. Armour, who always came down to see his brother some time during the evening.

“Mr. Val sleepum,” he said an hour later when Mr. Armour was about to pass him, “and cunnel away. This for Miss Debbiline, from Daly,” and he held out the three-cornered note. “Daly say,” he went on, “that he burnum warehouse. Miss Debbiline’s father not do it. Daly happen go early to warehouse. He go in office, find cigar, he smokeum. He no business there, hearum noise, run out. He ‘fraid some one catchum. He drop cigar—must sparks fall, he not know. Not do on purpose. He ‘fraid tellum.”

“Where is MacDaly?” asked Mr. Armour sternly.

“Gone home. I tell him go see you in morning.”

“Do you think that he will do so?”

“He sartin come,” and Joe, laughing musically, withdrew and left his master standing as if spellbound under the trees.

Stargarde and Vivienne walking to and fro on the lawn waited a long time for Armour to return. Finally he came slowly toward them. “Here is a note for you, Vivienne, from MacDaly,” he said.

The girl took it from him. “It is too dark here to read it. Let us go into the house. His productions are so amusing. ‘Miss Delavigne!’” she read when they three stood beside a lamp in the drawing room; “‘if it had pleased an all-wise Providence to place me in a different walk of life and I saw a black man—a thoroughly black man—at any period of time I should really consider him worthy of the intrinsic offering of one solitary lucifer match for a slight midsummer present. Though simple as it may appear, it would be as truly acceptable by my honorable self as it would by the black man, and it would by all means show you a lady undoubted. With a profundity of respect, Derrick Edward Fitz-James O’Grady MacDaly. P. S. This wonderful match would be to illuminate a fellow’s pipe.’”

Vivienne turned the paper over with a bewildered face. “It is enigmatical. Does he wish matches, Stargarde?”

Stargarde clad in a long black gown that made her seem paler than usual and her hair brighter, softly drew her fingers across Vivienne’s cheek. “He wishes a dollar, my child.”

“You have given this man a good deal of money, have you not?” asked Armour.

Vivienne blushed. “Not very much. He talks to me of my father.”

“Will you not leave him to me? I promise not to hurt his feelings. I will give him some work.”

“Yes, I will,” said Vivienne; “but why do you look at me so peculiarly. He has something to tell me,” turning vivaciously to Stargarde, “and he won’t say it.”

“Not to-night,” he replied with a sigh and a smile and a look of inexpressible affection.