The House of Armour

“Draw the curtain behind granny,” said Stargarde, motioning one of the children to a window. “She doesn’t feel well. What can we do to cheer her?”

“Make some sweet stuff,” said Judy, who was philosophically inspecting the drawn and crabbed face. “That will tickle her palate—and her vanity too," in a lower key.

“Happy thought!” said Stargarde. “Dick and Mary, will you go to my rooms and get a saucepan?”

Ten minutes later a pot of candy simmered on the coals sending out a fragrant cloud of steam that the old woman sniffed appreciatively.

Soon other people began to come in—more soldiers and more girls, happy in the knowledge that they might carry on legitimate love-making in shadowy corners under Stargarde’s vigilant but sympathetic eye.

The boys of the Pavilion took turns at doorkeeping, for the kitchen was kept open at all hours. This evening a small red-eyed lad officiated, and to his shrill remarks Vivienne and Judy listened in concealed amusement.

“You can’t come in,” he said abruptly to a lad of his own size who was shouldering his way past him.

“Why not?” fiercely; “you ain’t Miss Turner.”

“I’m her doorkeeper, and she’ll not have you.”

“Why not?”

“Cause you’re dirty.”

“Yer lie.”

“Can’t I smell?” said the other indignantly. “If you don’t go and take a warm bath, which you can have for nuthin’,” pointing to the courtyard, “you can’t come in here. Now get.”

“I sha’n’t; I’m comin’ in.”

The doorkeeper stood his ground. “You don’t need fine duds to come here,” he said eloquently; “Miss Turner’ll stand rags or anythin’, but you’ve got to be clean. She hates dirt.”

The boy silently withdrew, but presently came back his face shining with a cleanliness that was evidently unusual and painful to him.

Just as the door closed behind him Dr. Camperdown and Mr. Armour entered, both irresistibly drawn thither by the presence of the women they loved.

Camperdown stepped in boldly and confidently. He was a frequent visitor to the place. Armour came in more quietly and looked about him with some curiosity.

It was an interesting scene. The flames of the enormous fire brightly illumined the faces and figures of Stargarde, Vivienne, Judy, granny, and the children, who were in the foreground, and the groups at the various tables in the middle of the room. The retiring few who had withdrawn to the window seats and corner benches were not so plainly to be observed.

All were on an equality. There was no sharp drawing of class lines possible in Stargarde’s vicinity, and every face in the room was for the time a contented face.

Armour and Camperdown sat down near Stargarde and looked about them while listening to the overpowering strains of a melancholy swan song that came sobbing and crying from the fiddle of a blind man who sat in a corner of the room.

A club-footed boy, hitching himself over the shining floor, occasionally stirred the molasses in the pot on the stove, and after a time, to the great delight of the children, poured it out in a number of shallow buttered plates and took it out to the veranda to cool.

Shortly after the exit of the taffy plates, the doorkeeper, who was a lad not deficient in a sense of humor, caught sight of a new guest, and with an exaggerated flourish announced in his shrillest tones, “Lord Skitanglebags!”

MacDaly stepped gallantly forward, smirking and bowing to the assembled company and taking in good part their subdued laughter and humorous salutations.

He had arrayed himself in white stockings and tan shoes, a faded red military jacket, a parti-colored sash and a pair of shiny black trousers. In one hand he carried a sword, and in the other a black silk hat. This hat he adroitly turned upside down, thereby allowing to fall upon the floor in front of Stargarde a small roll of manuscript.

“MacDaly,” she exclaimed, surveying in amusement his beaming face and the gray locks brushed smoothly upon each side of his gleaming bald pate, “You don’t mean to say that you wish to give us another lecture?”

“A topical lecture, lady,” meekly.

“It is better to be frank, isn’t it?” she continued.

“Yes, lady; oh, yes. Frankness is the privilege of great minds.”

“Your last lecture was too long,” she said. “Two mortal hours we had to sit here and listen to you. It wasn’t fair, MacDaly, for we are all tired people and come to the kitchen for relaxation. We don’t want a formal programme, and though it is very interesting to hear about Napoleon and St. Helena, you shouldn’t entrap us into listening to you when our minds aren’t in a receptive condition.”

“True, lady, true, most unfortunately true; but yet,” depositing his tall hat and his sword on the table, and tentatively unfolding his manuscript with a roguish gleam in the tail of his eye, “yet if I might be graciously vouchsafed just one humble corner wherein to amble away in figures of speech those listening who felt in that manner disposed, those not attending who felt in any way so inclined, I might, could, would, and should–”

“Go on, man,” said Camperdown with an imperious gesture, “and don’t bore people to death.”

MacDaly blinked maliciously at him, stationed himself against the wall at a short distance from the fire, and drawing a reading desk toward him placed his manuscript on it.

“Does the time serve my presumption?” he asked presently, peering about the room through a pair of spectacles.

No one heard him. The soldiers were playing games at the tables with their sweethearts, and the other men and women were engaged in conversation. Stargarde, Vivienne, and Dr. Camperdown were talking to a sad-faced girl who had just come in; Judy had slipped to a cushion on the floor and was being initiated into the mysteries of jackstones; and Mr. Armour was absently stroking his mustache and looking into the fire.

Nothing daunted MacDaly cleared his throat and began, “Be it known to all men that somebody said something about Lady Stargarde Turner and her systematic family–”

“Hear him,” said Dr. Camperdown; “he’s talking about you, Miss Turner.”

“MacDaly,” called Stargarde in her clear sweet voice, “you mustn’t be personal.”

“Oh, no, lady, no, not for worlds.”

“It is better not to mention names,” she went on.

“To hear is to obey, lady, as the Turks say when their wives talk to them. We’ll conclude that the subject of this brief discourse is a person called Nameless, otherwise Bombo Elephanto.”

“Very well,” she replied turning back to the girl.

MacDaly, sighing heavily, ran his finger down his manuscript, obliged by Stargarde’s dictum to skip a paragraph of proper names. “Well, time rolled on,” he said at last, “and as it is customary in the finishing-up dance, be it as it may, war dance or otherwise, some one has to pay the piper, this great Mohawk or Mogul as I may call him, Bombo Elephanto, ferociously sets to work teeth and toenails to kill a crow for himself.”

“What under the sun is he at?” growled Camperdown.

“Hush,” whispered Stargarde; “I fear he is on the subject of Colonel Armour. MacDaly has a grudge against him because he sneers at this establishment of the Pavilion, and this is the way he has of settling it. If he is too explicit I shall have to stop him.”

“Bombo Elephanto,” resumed MacDaly, “being aroused into some of the mental affections to which he is recently subject, professionally entitled to be periodical hemidemicrania–”

“H’m; this sounds interesting,” muttered Camperdown.

MacDaly eyed him cunningly. “Ha, the gentleman with the beetling brows is more interested now than he was at first.”

“Does he mean me, the rascal?” growled Camperdown.

Stargarde, suppressing a smile, laid a finger on his arm, and MacDaly in high glee that he had begun to attract the attention of the people in the room, hitched his desk a little nearer to the fire and continued rapidly. “This is firmly believed on account of his many times talking aloud incoherently to himself, and showing a triumph by swaying his hand with great violence as he walks along in company with some unsightly sprite or other in commune with him. Shame, shame, I say, as all do say, upon him who would foully and peevishly urge wrong from his rancoured breast to falsely gratify his own appetite and earthly wicked desires by such assiduous passions.”

“Oh, oh,” groaned Dr. Camperdown; “said the pot to the kettle, thou art blacker than I.”

“Such a being,” pursued MacDaly with uplifted voice, “cannot expect much else than to meet a bad end. Yea, melt like butter before the sun. Only picture the awful end of such a man and in comparison with the terrific state of Turkey, where there is to come an overpowering smashup and the dethroning of the sultan. How will this country be governed? I prophesy that on account of the graceful form, figure, and noble bearing of Lady Stargarde Turner,” he felt himself now far enough in the favor of his awakened audience to disregard the command about proper names, “her chances are many of being made sultana.”

The habitués of the kitchen highly approving of the honor proposed for their patroness interrupted MacDaly by such a clapping of hands that he paused for an instant to mop his gratified face.

“Anticipating her ruling such a barbarous, uncouthed people with a steady rod,” he hurried on, “and reducing the price of raisins and figs, I would cast a prophetic glance into that future and prophesy again that Mr. Stanton Armour–”

Armour withdrew his eyes from the fire and cast a haughty glance at the speaker, which was totally disregarded.

“Will be prime minister,” continued MacDaly. “And Dr. Brian Camperdown,” he pronounced the words with a mischievous relish and a gasping emphasis, “will be chosen by the sultana as her sultan.”

Deafening and violent applause broke out, for the news of Stargarde’s engagement to Dr. Camperdown had spread through the city with almost incredible rapidity.

Blushing slightly she noted the grim, contented pride displayed on Camperdown’s face, then listened to MacDaly, who was hastening on.

“Oh, what a mighty change will be in that realm! I may say that cruel Turkey will be divided and subdivided into a large number of provinces and that a parliament will be produced by the brilliant ascendency of its future sultana.”

“Stick to your text, man,” interpolated Camperdown. “We don’t want to hear nonsense about Turkey. Keep to Halifax.”

“Now, my most noble and illustrious audience,” uttered MacDaly suavely, “before I close, may I express the humble hope that as in the contingency of future events we may not all of us ever meet again under this ardent and hospitable roof, yet we may confront each other where high and low society are also not visibly recognized, but where all who are immaculate enough to get there get into good society, where, to use a homely and worldly phrase, Jack is as good as his master, oftentimes better, my friends, that is, if poor Jack has got a depraved individual for his master, as many of us have. Here, in this most noteworthy family, where again to use a domestic and wooden proverb as I may call it, signifying that every tub must stand on its own bottom, poor Jack can never hope to be as good as his master, for he has been felicitous enough to have for master the Lady Stargarde Turner, who always speaks in the most amply persuasive and gentle tones to her inferiors at all times and who is bountiful in the largeness of her heart and the wonderful magnificence of her nature.”

MacDaly paused here to bow profoundly to Stargarde, then casting an observing glance upon his amused audience, decided that a further dose of her praises would be acceptable.

“Before exclaiming farewell,” he said, again lashing himself into a state of ardor, “let me ask what further thing I can say of this noble lady who has ever wielded the battle-axe of moral suasion on behalf of helpless and attenuated humanity. Perhaps I should not use the word battle-axe in connection with a lady of such refinement who has so long protected the weak, fed the hungry” (here he looked over his manuscript with a grin and said, “I can prove that”), “clothed the naked” (he grinned again and said, “I can prove that too”), “and magnificently struck out for the right. Therefore trusting that she may pardon her humble and obsequious servant when he says that the mighty things she has accomplished have struck terror into the hearts of evil-doers, comparatively speaking, and can only properly be compared to work done with an axe—yea, and a mighty work at that. In conclusion, I may say that I hope we shall meet many times more in health and wealth, happiness and abundance of affectionate recollections of our past and present meetings. So farewell for the present; and believe me to be, ladies and gentlemen, your very well-wishing and obliged servant, Derrick Edward Fitz-James O’Grady MacDaly. Thanks, very much.”

The lecturer bowed, put his manuscript in his pocket, and mingling affably with his hearers received with modesty the joking compliments showered upon him.

Stargarde watched him in intense amusement.

“Why is he fiddling with that sword?” asked Camperdown, sauntering up to her.

“Oh the entertainment is only half over,” and she framed an announcement that she wished him to make.

Camperdown rose and proclaimed in a stentorian voice, “The future sultana of Turkey orders an exhibition of sword exercise by Professor MacDaly.”

Everybody sat down, and the Irish Nova Scotian modestly retiring behind the reading desk from which a perfectly clear view could be had of his proceedings, stripped off his red jacket and drew his sword from its scabbard. Striding to the middle of the room he looked in Stargarde’s direction, and began prancing on one foot and then on the other ejaculating, “Right guard, left guard, cut, thrust, parry,” etc., and swinging himself backward and forward with such startling rapidity that the lookers-on were obliged to tumble into corners and nearly fall over each other into the fire to avoid what seemed to be an avenging weapon.

It was a frolic for MacDaly, and the fun grew fast and furious, till Stargarde, noticing Armour sheltering Vivienne and Judy behind a heap of chairs, and looking as if he thought the performance a trifle undignified, gave the signal to stop.

The children present were shrieking with laughter, but their faces were sobered when the doorkeeper flung the startling announcement into the room that the candy had been stolen from the veranda.

“Buy more,” exclaimed Camperdown. “Off to the restaurant with you! Here’s money—and order cake and coffee for the grown-ups.”

MacDaly approached Stargarde with a mincing step and murmured something about his confident audacity that would seize the passing moment.

“Certainly,” she replied, “but coppers only. I’ll take the silver away from you.”

The delighted man accordingly made a circuit of the room, his heart gladdened by the clash of Canadian cents descending into the capacious receptacle of his tall hat.

Upon the arrival of the refreshments a time of feasting began in the kitchen. The soldiers, with the efficiency of trained waiters, took charge of the coffee and cake. The children revolved huge lumps of taffy in their mouths, and Armour with something like dismay watched the alarming disposition of sweets by the aged granny.

Stargarde was just about to send the rioting children bedward, when her attention was attracted by a commotion at the door.

Camperdown sprang up, but he was too late. What he had dreaded for weeks, with an agony of shame and dread, had come to pass. Of no avail now his lavish bribes and ceaseless supervision.

The astonished doorkeeper had received a blow on the chest, and had gone spinning into a corner of the fireplace, whence he skipped nimbly and stared at his assailant; tattered, unspeakably dirty, Mrs. Frispi, who towered in the doorway wrathful and menacing, mumbling something in a drunken fury at him, which no one understood.

With a low, joyful cry Stargarde sprang up and went to her. At last the woman had come to the Pavilion of her own accord.

“You be a beauty, bain’t you?” said the woman thickly, “barrin’ the door to yer own mother.”

Stargarde did not quite catch her words. Camperdown did, and tried to draw his fiancée back.

“No, Brian,” she said firmly. “I have waited a long time for this. Let us get her in by the fire.”

Close at the woman’s heels, like a cowed, sulky dog, walked the small man, her husband. “Come in too,” said Stargarde, extending a hand to him.

“We be turned out,” he said, with a covert glance about the room, and hanging his head as if the bright light hurt his eyes. “No money; big man say, ‘You go to de streeta.‘”

The woman in exasperation at the withdrawal of attention from her, seized Stargarde by the shoulder. “Don’t you hear?” she gasped hoarsely. “I—be—your—mother.”

The words were audible, though indistinct. A surprised, incredulous look overspread Stargarde’s beautiful face. “Brian,” she said, turning to him as if she could not trust the evidence of her own sense of hearing, “what does she say?”

He would not repeat the words, but in his ashamed, mortified face she received confirmation of her own half-born idea.

“My mother!” she exclaimed, still in a dazed state of semi-belief; “my mother that I have searched for so long!”

“Yes; you be my daughter, and what be daughters for but to work for their mothers?” snarled Mrs. Frispi, suddenly collapsing and sinking into a chair. “And—who’s that?” she stammered, turning her swollen, distorted face toward Stanton Armour, who stood in handsome, deathly pallor, and as motionless as a statue beyond her.

“Oh, my God!” and mouthing, swearing, unutterably foul and repulsive, she groveled from her chair to the floor.

“Oh, tell me, some one,” cried Stargarde wildly, “what is it she says? Is it true?”

“It be true,” said Frispi eagerly. Then stepping forward he plunged his hand among the rags over his wife’s broad chest and withdrew a filthy envelope, out of which he drew a photograph that he handed to Stargarde.

It was a picture of Mrs. Frispi, taken in her palmy days. Stargarde laid a hand on her own fluttering breast. There was a counterpart of this florid, sensuous face that she had treasured for years.

She drew out her own photograph. It was exactly like the other; her intense blue eyes darted to the floor. There in that tall form, in the evil face, she could see a faint, disfigured likeness to herself.

“O God, I thank thee!” she said, and fell on her knees to put her arms about the degraded creature before her.

Where was the terror, the repulsion, the anguish that the sight was to cause her? Camperdown gazed at her in distracted astonishment, then hopelessly surveyed the hushed, motionless ring of people beyond them.

“Brian,” said Stargarde, in tones of ineffable love, “we must take her home.”

At the first shock of her words, he started back with a gesture of utter detestation. He loved her, but he could not touch her mother.

Then he sprang forward, but he was too late. Neither disappointed nor surprised by his refusal, Stargarde gathered the loathsome and disgraceful specimen of fallen womanhood to her own tender bosom, and lovingly enwrapping it in her arms went out in the night.