The House of Armour

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.

CHAPTER XLI

IN DEEP DESPAIR

Judy was curled up like a dog on the library door mat. “I will not get up—I will not get up,” she cried, groveling at Vivienne’s feet, as she came out, “till you tell me that you are not going to leave us.”

“I am,” said Vivienne; “but you are to go with me.”

“With you, my precious?” cried the girl springing to her feet. “Where are you going?”

“To England.”

“When?” almost screamed the excited girl.

“To-morrow.”

“And Stanton—what is he going to do?”

“Marry me and go too.”

“Oh this is delicious,” said Judy clasping her around the waist. “I never dreamed of this. Oh I will be good. I shall never get out of temper now,” and she sidled in ecstasy up and down the hall.

“My father will accompany us, I hope,” said Vivienne. “I wish never to separate from him again. I must go to see him now, the beloved martyr. I can scarcely believe that he is here; so many wonderful things have happened to-night. My head is in a whirl.”

“Don’t go,” said Judy detaining her. "Mamma gave him the best room in the house, where he has, I hope, quietly gone to sleep. You will see him in a few hours; let us talk some more about England and your marriage. I don’t understand perfectly yet. Things have been so rushed that I am confused. Will you explain to me about your father? I thought Uncle Colonel liked him. Why did he wish to get rid of him?”

“Dear Judy,” and Vivienne drew the girl to a seat beside her, “it seems to me that all the trouble and all the comfort in the world comes through women. You know sometimes men love the women they should not. It is a shocking thing to say, but my father tells me that Colonel Armour loved my mother better than he has ever loved any person in the world.”

“Shocking indeed,” said Judy, “in plain English, brutal; for I suppose in liking her, his first thought was to get rid of your father.”

“Yes, he wished to ruin him, to bring about a separation between him and my mother, and he hoped that my father, being of a sensitive nature, would take his own life, and my mother being proud and hating treachery, would despise his memory and marry him.”

“The old wretch!”

“But my mother was more clever than he thought her. She understood his wiles, and though she could prove nothing, she told him that he himself had falsified the books that he accused my father of doing, and that she loved her husband more than ever when he became an unhappy victim.”

“And where does MacDaly come in?”

“He overheard a conversation in which my father rebuked Colonel Armour for his obsequious attentions paid to my mother during the absence of her husband. Colonel Armour lost his temper and in a fury dismissed him from his service, declaring that he would ruin him.”

“Which he certainly did,” interrupted Judy. “It is a strange thing that all this has not been found out before. That creature MacDaly ought to be horsewhipped.”

“He was afraid for himself,” said Vivivenne, “for it was he that set the warehouse on fire.”

“What, MacDaly?”

“Yes, but without an intention of doing it. It happened in this way: he listened to the altercation between my father and Colonel Armour, then went into a place of hiding. No stir was made with regard to the affair, so he issued from his place and loitered about to hear later on a conversation between Colonel Armour and Stanton. Colonel Armour said that he was coming back that evening to write in the office. This was unusual; MacDaly suspected that it bore on my father’s case and resolved to watch. Therefore returning stealthily at an earlier hour than his customary one to the warehouse, he saw Colonel Armour enter and leave his office. MacDaly then crept to the room. He found the safes closed, but he guessed shrewdly that his master had been tampering with the accounts of his clerk. While shuffling over loose papers on the table he mistakenly thought he heard Colonel Armour’s returning step. He ran, forgetting a lighted cigar or pipe he had laid down. It set fire to the papers. MacDaly, watching from the wharf, saw the windows bright with flames. He rushed to the spot but he could not extinguish the fire. He feared to call for help, and not till the passers-by saw the blazing building, was an alarm sounded. Then unfortunately, it was too late. The cunning MacDaly hid himself till the fire was over; but Colonel Armour suspected his connection with it, and taxed him with it, only sparing him from exposure because his purpose was to have my father blamed. This is a whip that he has held over MacDaly’s head to keep him from making any revelations about my father.”

“That if he did he would be punished for setting fire to the building?” said Judy inquiringly.

“Yes, Colonel Armour frightened him by saying that he would prove that he had done it intentionally, which by the common law is felony. The simple MacDaly knew that his master was rich and powerful, and he did not dare to brave him.”

“And how do you feel about it all?”

“It is horrible,” whispered Vivienne raising her hands as if to lift some heavy weight from her shoulders. “To think of all these years of agony, my mother’s death, my father’s martyrdom, Stanton’s slow misery, my unhappiness, and all through the sin of one man. Now all seems brightness except the living death that has come upon the one who has caused all this trouble. If he never comes out of it, Judy, if he has no chance for repentance!”