The House of Armour

“Madeleine, will you not come with me?” and the foolish old figure straightened itself. “Delavigne is dead. I have seen his ghost, and it had white hair. Now you can marry me.”

What nonsense was Colonel Armour talking? Vivienne looked in deep mortification at Lady Vaulabel, who had laid a detaining hand on her arm. Her excellency’s glance also detained two watchful military aides-de-camp, who at a sign from her would have thrust each an arm through those of the senile disturber of her conversation and walked him away. She had recognized the foolish old man. It was Colonel Armour, who was suffering from a state of collapse, both mental and physical, and horribly changed from the gallant old man who had been presented to her earlier in the evening.

“Your excellency,” murmured Vivienne, “Colonel Armour is a very old man, and lately he has been subject to strange lapses of memory. He will recover himself presently.”

The words had scarcely left her lips when the bent figure raised itself, and a voice rang like a trumpet through the ballroom:

“Delavigne is a milksop and a fool!”

A kind of petrefaction seized the large assembly. Every one stood still. The dancers about to take their places paused in astonishment, and the amazed orchestra held in embarrassment their voiceless instruments.

A black-coated waiter went gliding like a snake through the motionless groups. It was MacDaly who had managed by a stroke of diplomacy to have himself engaged as one of the servants for the evening. He had reveled in the splendor of the scene about him, and had gurgled frequently in delight as he withdrew corks from bottles or ladled ice cream from freezers, “This is auriferous; this is golden.”

Now he saw a chance to distinguish himself; now he would strike a blow for the honor and glory of MacDaly.

“Your most serene and exalted magnificence,” he cried in a shrill voice, which extended to the farthest corner of the crowded room, as he dropped on one knee before Lord Vaulabel, who had placed himself beside his wife, “the notorious gentleman known as Colonel Armour speaks the truth, for of a verity the man called Delavigne was by him befooled and gulled and ruined, and ’tis I, Derrick Edward Fitz-James O’Grady MacDaly, once humble corporal in the regiment commanded by your late most glorious and regretted parent, the right honorable the Earl of Vaulabel, that can prove—”

Greatly to MacDaly’s surprise he was obliged to rattle off the latter part of his speech on the way back to the tea room, whither he was guided by sundry constraining hands laid upon his shoulders.

Colonel Armour’s eyes followed him in bewilderment; then suddenly he drew himself up, looked about the room, and ejaculated sharply: “What have I been saying?”

No one answered him. But he caught curious glances from staring faces, wonder and incredulity from some, aversion and formless suspicion taking shape from others. He was a ruined man; he saw it, felt it. His day was over. His jaw shook; his whole frame trembled. He had said something that had put him outside the pale of honorable society and had crystallized the brilliant, glittering throng into wondering astonishment.

One parting, sweeping look he gave about the room, his eyes coming finally to Vivienne, who stood among the honored guests of the evening. The Delavignes had triumphed. His head dropped on his breast; he shuffled from the place disgraced, ruined, and undone.

One step followed him, one firm, manly step echoing down the wide stone hall. Stanton had quietly committed the half-fainting Mrs. Colonibel to the care of some friends and was on his way to overtake the lonely old figure hurrying from the building.

CHAPTER XXXIX
AT LAST

Lord and Lady Vaulabel withdrew early from the ball that evening, and accompanying them to Government House went a very white and unnaturally composed girl. Upon reaching their own apartments, the two distinguished people sat down near the young girl, whom they were treating with a kind and exquisite consideration, which at the same time consoled and surprised her in her perturbed state of mind.

Their first endeavor was to draw her thoughts away from her unhappy lover, whose pale set face they knew was haunting her.

“Lady Vaulabel tells me,” began his excellency, “that she was about to explain to you the mutual obligations that the founders of our respective families were able to render to each other.”

“Yes, your excellency, she was.”

“I will explain to you the way in which it came about,” said Lord Vaulabel with a lightness of manner that would seem to belong rather to the early time of the morning than to the late hours of a fatiguing day. “In 1515, at the battle of Marignan, Roland de la Vaulabelle went to the assistance of a young foot-soldier, the son of a merchant of Orléans, who was grievously wounded and was trying to escape, and rescued him at the risk of his own life. For this and other deeds of valor he was made chevalier after the battle had been renewed and won the following day.”

Lord Vaulabel paused, and Vivienne murmured with pale lips that she remembered reading of the battle in the history of France.

“Then you know all about the court of Francis I.,” pursued Lord Vaulabel, "the roi des gentilshommes, who spent the money of his subjects with a free hand. De la Vaulabelle shared in the extravagance of the court, and when King Francis, after his sojourn in Italy, became impressed by the marvels of the Renaissance, de la Vaulabelle took part in his admiration and ordered some of the Italian architects who had followed the king to France to build him a château in the new style of architecture. To do this he was obliged to raise a loan, and applied to the elder Delavigne, who had been full of gratitude for his rescue of his son. Delavigne advanced him the money, the château was built, and for more than one hundred years, until Guillaume Delavigne came out to assist in founding Montreal, there was much kindness between the two families. The Delavignes continued to lend money to the de la Vaulabelles, and the de la Vaulabelles continued to be powerful friends to the Delavignes, protecting them from the rapacity of some of the noblesse, who might have oppressed them."

There was a short pause. Vivienne had taken in the meaning of his words, but found herself unable to make any remark. Lord Vaulabel flashed a quick glance at his wife, as if he were seeking advice.

With a sweet warning smile, Lady Vaulabel slightly shook her head and looked at the girl’s pallid face.

“Miss Delavigne,” said his excellency kindly, “the Vaulabels do not forget. I often linger over the romantic records of the days of old; the chivalrous feats of the men of my family I do not consider any more self-sacrificing than the patient help that the Delavignes often gave them at great inconvenience to themselves. You will therefore understand my motive when I say that I should be very glad to do something for you—to relieve any anxiety that you may have.”

“Your excellency,” said Vivienne, clasping her gloved hands nervously, yet speaking with unexpected firmness, “I do not know where my father is—it has seemed almost a sacrilege, in view of my approaching marriage, yet we cannot find him. I have a thought now that he may be in France. In view of what has passed this evening, you can understand my unhappiness—my distress–”

The girl was suffering intensely. Lady Vaulabel’s thoughts ran away to Ottawa, to a baby girl in a cradle there. Some day her child too would have a woman’s heart. Her lips slightly moved, and her husband caught the words, “Tell her.”

“Miss Delavigne,” he said with utmost gentleness, “I can give you some news with regard to your father; but,” he added, a little startled by the sudden change in her, “you must compose yourself.”

Her breast rose and fell convulsively, she cast down her eyes, then said falteringly: “I beg your excellency’s pardon. You may tell me anything now.”

Lord Vaulabel sprang up with a nervous gesture and paced the carpet. “It was a long time ago,” he said with assumed lightness, “nearly twenty years—I was a lad traveling through Canada with my father. We were on our way west on a hunting expedition. Boylike, I restlessly wandered through the train that we were on, delighted by the freedom from constraint in railway traveling to which I had not been accustomed in our English carriages. We were on our way to Quebec, when my attention was attracted by the unhappy, dazed appearance of a young Frenchman, who remained always in one attitude. I told my father about him, and he questioned the guard, or conductor, as one calls that official here. We approached the man—found that his name was Delavigne. I think, Miss Delavigne, that you promised to be very calm,” he said, interrupting himself and gazing in pretended quiet amusement at his listener.

His excellency however was not amused, he was intensely interested and anxious.

Vivienne had fallen on her knees, and was sobbing over Lady Vaulabel’s hand. “You know all—oh, tell me more! May God bless you for your kindness to my father.”

His excellency looked at the kneeling girl, a suspicious moisture in his eyes—the heart of a ruler is very much as the heart of another man—then lightly turning he left the room.

“Compose yourself, my poor child,” murmured Lady Vaulabel, “your father is with us. He has been one of my husband’s secretaries for years.”

“Mon cher Delavigne, how often have I told thee not to write till this hour,” said Lord Vaulabel in French, as he entered a small adjoining room, where a slender man with patient dark eyes, white hands, and a head of thick, snowy hair, sat with all the paraphernalia of a secretary about him.

The secretary pushed back his folding desk, and rose respectfully. “I could not sleep, your excellency—not if I were in bed. Not in this town,” and he looked expectantly at his patron.

“Yes, I have seen her,” said Lord Vaulabel, as if answering a question. “She is beautiful and good, and she believes in her father.”

“Dieu est tout miséricorde et tout sagesse,” and the man reverently bent his head as he thus spoke of the divine compassion and wisdom. He had suffered too long to be given to much outward emotion.

“Some strange revelations have been made to us,” pursued Lord Vaulabel; “but you will learn all from your daughter.”

“Is she here?” asked Delavigne quietly.

“Yes,” and with a face more excited than that of his secretary the nobleman led the way to the drawing room.

He threw open the door. Delavigne looked in, saw rising up before him with glad arms extended a girl even more lovely than the wife of his youth. He heard her eager cry, “My father!” made a step forward and caught her to his breast, while Lord and Lady Vaulabel softly withdrew from the room.

CHAPTER XL
THE FATE THAT PURSUES US

Joe Christmas was an unhappy Indian after the discovery of the ghost flower across the Arm.

He gazed mournfully toward the big house, shook his head, and uttered a number of times a long-drawn, musical “Ah-a-a-a,” of regret and dismay. Then as if he were forced to it by some power he could not resist, he gave most touching proof of his affection and respect for Vivienne.

He waited until he had seen her leave the house with the ill-omened flowers in her hand, then he launched his canoe on the smooth, dark waters of the Arm, and went through the blackness and softness of the August night to the tiny cove that he had visited with Vivienne and Armour through the day.

Upon arriving there he drew his canoe from the water, put his cap under his arm, dropped on the ground, and took out his beads. Over and over his prayers he went—it was not terrifying to pray with the grass under his knees and the stars overhead, but when it came to entering the spirit-haunted wood his heart misgave him. Yet he persevered, hobbling over the ground till he was under the trees and among the ferns, and finally beside the gaping rent in the leaf mould left by the abstraction of the ghost flower.

Shuddering in every limb, and beseeching the Virgin, the Saints, and the Great Spirit not to avenge the theft, he detached the cross from his rosary and dropped it into the hole as an offering to the offended spirit of the plant. Then springing to his feet he ran from out the dreadful shadows, leaped into his canoe, and paddled quickly and in a relieved manner, not to his camp among the spruces, but back to Pinewood where he purposed remaining till Vivienne’s return home should convince him that he had been successful in his effort to propitiate the spirits on her behalf.

He stationed himself among the pines in front of the house, occasionally leaving them to investigate the origin of sounds in other directions, but always coming back and waiting with the patience of a trained hunter.

Quite early in the evening two of the maids came home exchanging with accompanying admirers various confidences that he was privileged to hear. Subsequently the admirers went home, and the maids went to bed. He saw the lights extinguished in their rooms, and traced Mammy Juniper as she wandered from window to window, with a candle in her hand. At one o’clock a sound south of the house drew him to the road beyond Pinewood.

Mr. Armour was bringing home his father, not in their own carriage, but in a cab. With a stolid face, and much inward bewilderment, Joe saw the shrinking old figure assisted through the gate in the wall, and put in the cottage.

“Ole man gone crazy,” he muttered, an opinion which was confirmed when he descended to the cottage half an hour later and saw his master sitting at a table playing like a baby with an empty wineglass and some teaspoons, and Dr. Camperdown, Mr. Armour, and Mammy Juniper looking at him with facial expressions hard to describe.

A little later the two gentlemen ascended to the house, where Camperdown left Mr. Armour and drove back to the town.

At two o’clock Joe, standing opposite the windows of the library, was keenly watching Mr. Armour, who was quietly pacing up and down the room.

There was something wrong. Mr. Armour’s face was too white and stern for an ordinary occasion, and where was Miss Debbiline? Joe was uneasy, yet true to his natural instincts he waited on, for he would not ask questions so long as he hoped to gain the information he wished by ocular demonstration.

Three o’clock came, and Joe was just about creeping to the library window to address Mr. Armour, when his practised ear told him that two carriages were coming down the avenue. He drew behind a tree trunk and watched until he saw the cabs stop before the door, and five people leaving them and entering the house.

Ah! here at last was his worshiped Miss Debbiline, safe and well, her eyes only a trifle heavy from her night’s dissipation. The spirits had spared her, and he could now go happily to his camp, but first he would take a final view of what was transpiring in the library, for to that room would Miss Debbiline probably repair.

The delicate rose curtains waving to and fro in the night wind afforded him a sufficient screen, and bending his supple body he lingered on, observing what appeared even to his untutored mind to be a succession of strange and unusual scenes.

Away at the other end of the room, with his back against the bookshelves, stood Mr. Armour, rigid and motionless, his eyes glued to the face of the peaceful, white-haired stranger whom Dr. Camperdown was ushering into the room.

“Stanton, you know this man,” Joe heard Dr. Camperdown say in a harsh, resonant voice—then his attention was distracted by a rustling near him.

Vivienne, with her finger on her lips, and holding up the train of her white dress, was gliding like a fairy to his side. “I saw you from the window above, Joe,” she murmured. “Let me stand beside you. Mr. Armour,” with a catching of her breath, “will not allow me to enter the room, but I shall go in this way presently. Do not go,” and she made a commanding gesture as the Indian was about to creep away, “I may want you.”

“Me no stan’ beside ghos’ flower,” said Joe, gazing at the darkened blossoms across her breast.

The agitated girl looked down at the flowers, whose dainty heads, as if weary of asking fruitless questions, had—unperceived by her—drooped and blackened till they were uncanny and repulsive in their appearance.

With something like a sob she caught them in her hand and threw them far away.

“Ghos’ flower always turnum black,” said Joe, “when pickum,” then immensely flattered at being told to remain, he stepped a little nearer to her, and resumed his scrutiny of the room.

Mr. Armour had become disturbed. His face was no longer resolved and apathetic, but alternately became crimson and deathly pale, and his attention was still fixed on the undemonstrative gentleman with the white hair, then on Dr. Camperdown, who was hurling impetuous sentences at him.

“Suppose your fabric of respectability has fallen down—rear another about yourself. No one blames you for this catastrophe. Can you not accept the assurance of this man who offers your family a pardon that is almost divine? Has he not suffered? Aye, more than you.”

“I have been stunned,” said Armour in a hollow, far-away voice. “I am going away.”

“Coward!” exclaimed Camperdown with assumed anger. “Moral coward!”

Armour’s face brightened. Instead of resenting the offensive epithet, he turned to his friend with a smile so humble, so touching, that Camperdown swung himself away, muttering discomposedly, “I can make nothing of this fellow.”

Mr. Delavigne looked compassionately at Armour. “I should have known you anywhere,” he said in a dreamy voice; “you are like the little lad whom I loved so much as he sat beside me at my desk, and yet you have changed. Your expression–”

“Yes,” interrupted Camperdown furiously, “we all know why the boyish expression went. His father—that gibbering idiot down yonder—was the one to frighten it away. Tell us, Stanton, you suspected this bad business from the first.”

“Only suspected,” said Armour in a firm tone. “Had I known surely–”

“But you had no proofs—we all know that,” interposed Camperdown; “and you,” turning to Mr. Delavigne, “why did you not put yourself in communication with Stanton through all these years?”

“Because of the unnaturalness and the uselessness of such a course,” said Mr. Delavigne mildly.

“But he has been looking for you—has spent money. You might at least have told him that you were alive.”

“I regret the expense; but my child—you forget her. I did not know that she longed for her father, yet I remembered her mother’s nature. Had she had a hint of my existence a search might have been instituted. Better for her to think that I was dead than to link herself with one who would disgrace her. To you,” and the elder man turned impulsively to Armour, “my intensely grateful acknowledgments are due for your care of my child. By the kindness of one of the most noble and admirable of men, I have been enabled to receive accounts of her safe-keeping; occasionally, with a heart wrung with thankfulness, to see her. Your vigilance, your loyalty, I knew I could trust; for this latter expression, this love for my beloved daughter, I was unprepared. I felt that I must hasten here, yet always with the feeling that the boy of my earlier recollections would not prove unworthy of the highest mark of my confidence. At the moment of finding my child I am willing to lose her again for her sake and yours.”

While Mr. Delavigne was speaking Mr. Armour’s expression had again become one of insensibility to either pleasure or pain, and Camperdown closely observing him went to the door and sharply ejaculated: “I can make nothing of this Obstinacy the Second. I would give a thousand dollars if my wife had not chosen to go orphan-hunting in the country at this time.” Then he turned on his heel and came back into the room. “What about Vivienne?”

“It would be a crime to link her life with my disgraced one,” said Armour heavily. “She must forget me.”

“Is she a girl to do that?”

“To forget is the privilege of youth,” said Armour drearily. “You may fancy that I am doing a cruel thing; ten years hence Vivienne will be happily married to another man. You cannot tempt me,” he said with sudden energy. “I have weighed the matter. The pang will be sharp and short for Vivienne–”

“And for you?” said Camperdown eagerly.

“For me—it does not matter. I am going away.”

“Going to blow your brains out,” muttered Camperdown. Then he exclaimed with increased energy: “Think of your God, your country, your promised wife. You have been living for the good opinion of your fellow-men. Your god Respectability is a poor, rotten thing.”

“Stanton!” exclaimed a voice from the doorway.

They all looked in that direction and saw Mrs. Colonibel, white and haggard. “What is this I hear?” she went on, advancing into the room. “Is your marriage broken off?”

“Yes,” he returned shortly.

“This is your doing,” she said affixing accusing eyes on Mr. Delavigne.

A smile passed over his calm face. “No, it is not; but all will be well yet, I hope.”

Behind Mrs. Colonibel, and pushing her aside, came Judy. “What is all this fuss about?” she cried in a peevish way; “the house in commotion and everybody out of bed! Where is Vivienne, and who is that gentleman?”

“Judy,” said her mother, turning sharply to her, “this is Vivienne’s father.”

“Her father!” shrieked the girl. “What does he do—where has he come from? Stanton, you won’t give up Vivienne to him?”

“He came with Lord Vaulabel,” said Mrs. Colonibel in a high-pitched, wrought-up voice, “who has had him ever since he left here, and Lord Vaulabel has suspected all the time that he had been wrongly treated. He intended to make inquiries while here. Mr. Delavigne would not allow him to do so before now.”

“How extraordinary!” gasped Judy.

“And Vivienne has met her father,” pursued Mrs. Colonibel, “and it has been discovered that Uncle Colonel trumped up a charge of stealing against Mr. Delavigne because he wished to get rid of him.”

“I can well believe it,” said Judy contemptuously. “I have never had a great opinion of Uncle Colonel.”

“And in spite of this, Mr. Delavigne says he will allow his daughter to marry Stanton, and yet Brian sends me word that the whole thing is at an end. Who has done it? What does it mean?”

Camperdown pointed a finger at Armour’s unhappy figure.

“The family will be broken up,” exclaimed Mrs. Colonibel, sinking into a chair and putting up her hands to hide her miserable face.

“Stanton, old man, where are you?” and gropingly feeling his way into the room came Valentine, exquisitely dressed and unruffled in appearance. “I hear flying rumors, that knowing you as well as I do, I cannot believe. The happiness that you have so long deserved is now within your grasp. You are not going to ruin your chances?” and he threw his arm over his brother’s shoulder.

Armour, like a hunted animal brought to bay, looked desperately at the faces round about him. “I have a conscience,” he said brokenly; “I cannot do this thing.”

“What thing?” said Judy cuttingly. “Do you mean that you cannot give up your iron will, that you will thrust out the angel of the house? I tell you for one that I sha’n’t live here if she goes. Who is going to support us in our disgrace? Who will comfort us I would like to know? I shall never go out; I will starve myself; I will die”; and giving way to a fit of angry sullenness the girl threw herself down beside her mother.

“Joe,” said Vivienne softly, “my time has come. Help me in through this window.”

Armour had watched the door, but he had not thought of the window, and yet he did not really fancy that Vivienne would transgress his strict command that she should not seek an interview with him but should wait for a letter that he would write to her.

When he saw her coming toward him he retreated against the wall, and averted his eyes from the mingled love and compassion of her glance.

“Stanton,” she murmured, stretching out her hand to take his shrinking one.

“Do not touch me,” he said hoarsely.

She turned her back on him and faced the other people present. There was no mistaking the joy and triumph of her glance.

“Come,” exclaimed Camperdown, “she will manage him. Let us all get out of this,” and he began to hurry the other spectators from the room.

However, impetuous as he was, he found himself suddenly brought to a standstill by the entrance of Mammy Juniper, who swept upon him like a whirlwind, candlestick in hand, her black eyes almost starting from her night-capped head, her padded dressing gown flying back from her excited figure. “Praise the Lord! Rejoice greatly! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem, salvation has come to the house. The iniquity of Ephraim is discovered that he may repent.... How great is the goodness of the Lord! How great is his beauty! Corn shall make the young men cheerful and new wine the maids. The prisoners of hope are released. I took unto me two staves, the one I called Beauty and the other I called Bands, and fed the flock–”

“And we’ll hear the rest of your rhapsody in the hall,” said Camperdown seizing the old woman kindly but forcibly by the shoulders. “You’re very eloquent but slightly discomposing. Come now, give us a stave about the poor Assyrians. Some of them are out of bondage too, now that your worthy master is laid low,” and he politely invited Mammy Juniper to the back hall, where he listened for a few minutes to her trumpetings, and then went home without addressing another word to the other members of the excited family.

The fascinated Joe could not make up his mind to leave the window even when Armour and Vivienne were left alone. In intense interest he listened to Vivienne’s caressing accents as she addressed the unhappy, agitated man before her.

“So you wish me to go away?” she said.

“Yes,” he muttered, “I do. Go now while I have the strength to say it. I am a ruined man.”

“Dearer to me in your ruin than in your prosperity,” she murmured; “will you, can you drive me from you?”

“Yes,” he ejaculated with white lips, and leaning one hand against the wall to steady himself, “I can. Go.”

“Good-bye, then,” she said softly. “I am too proud a woman to force a man to keep his promise. Good-bye,” and she sauntered slowly away.

But that glance over her shoulder! The Indian choked back a barbaric explosion of laughter as he saw it and watched Armour hurrying after her so quickly, that he caught his foot in the silken train of her gown, with a cry of irrepressible love and despair, “I cannot let you go.”

Then there was a long silence. “All right now,” muttered Joe gleefully. “He much huggum and kissum. He no go crazy like ole man. He marryum in church with flowers and girls to wearum white,” and quietly obliterating himself among the shadows of the house, he went in peace and contentment to his camp.