The House of Armour
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“I’m in no hurry,” he said composedly, taking off his coat and hanging it behind the door on a hook with whose location he seemed to be quite well acquainted. Then he arranged his huge limbs in an arm-chair and stared at her.
Though the time was December she had on a cotton gown that had large loose sleeves fitting tightly around her wrists. About her neck and over her breast it was laid in folds that outlined her beautiful form. At her waist it was drawn in by a ribbon, and hung from that downward in a graceful fullness utterly at variance with the sheath-like fit of the prevailing style of dress. Though the gown was cotton there was a bit of fine lace in the neck.
“Some one must have given it to her,” muttered Dr. Camperdown, whose eagle eye soon espied its quality. “She would never buy it. Flora probably, if”—with a sneer—"she could make up her mind to part with it." Then he said aloud and very humbly, “Can’t you talk to me yet?”
“Yes, yes, Brian,” and the woman laughed in her clear, bell-like tones. “I have finished,” and she stood up to put her letter on the mantelpiece.
When she was standing one saw what a superb creature she was. A goddess come down from her pedestal would not be more unlike the average woman in appearance than she. Her draperies being almost as loose and unconfined as those of the ancient Greek and Roman women she was untrammeled, and being untrammeled she was graceful in spite of her great height and comely proportions. She was like a big, beautiful child with her innocent, charming manners and blue unworldly eyes, and yet there was something about her that showed she had lived and suffered. She was a woman and into her life had been crowded the experiences of the lives of a dozen ordinary women.
“It is some time since I have seen you, Brian,” she said in a fresh, joyous voice.
“Yes,” he articulated, “I have been trying to keep away. Had to come now. I want to talk to you about the Delavigne child. She has arrived. Stanton has brought her here.”
“Has he?” and Stargarde clasped her hands. “When did she come?”
“A few days ago.”
“Have you been out to see her?”
“No, I have been busy.”
“And I have been away; but I will go as soon as I can,” and the woman absently let her eyes meet those of her guest till he was obliged to shut his own to get rid of their dazzle and glitter.
Unfortunately for him she noticed what he was doing. “Brian Camperdown,” she exclaimed, “open your eyes. I won’t talk to you if you sit there half asleep,” and she burst into a merry peal of laughter that a baby might have envied.
“I’m not sleepy,” he said hastily; “I was thinking,” and he surveyed her in unwinking attention.
“Well, do not think; listen to me. That little French girl is so often in my thoughts, and lately in particular I have not been able to get her out of my head.”
“I daresay,” he growled. “There are more people than the Delavigne child in your head—a whole colony of them. I wonder they don’t worry you to death.”
“I hope she will let me be kind to her,” said Stargarde earnestly.
“You needn’t worry,” said Dr. Camperdown. “She’s going to be well looked after. I don’t see why every one comes rushing to me. My father began it when he died with his admonition to do something for the Delavigne child if I had a chance. You have always been at me, and yesterday Macartney cornered me.”
“Macartney! not the Irish officer who used to admire Flora!”
“The same.”
“What does he want you to do?”
“To look after her in a general way. He’s in love with her.”
“Oh, Brian!”
“I suppose I’m a simpleton for telling you,” he said eyeing her reluctantly. “You women have men just like wax in your hands. You twist everything out of us.”
“I do not think you mean that,” she said quietly.
He scrambled from his chair and before she knew his intention had her shapely hands in his and was mumbling over them: “Darling, darling, I would trust you with my soul.”
She looked down at him sadly as he passionately kissed her fingers and returned them to her lap. Then she leaned over and stroked softly his tumbled head, and murmuring, “Poor boy!” pointed to the clock.
“I was going to ask you to stay to tea,” she said, “but–”
“I will be good—I will be good,” he ejaculated lifting his flushed face to hers and hurrying back into his chair. “It was a moment of madness; it won’t happen again.”
“That is what you always say, Brian.”
“I will keep my promise this time. I really will.” Then forcing his hands deep down into his pockets, he said insinuatingly: “You can so easily stop my display of devotion, it is a strange thing that you don’t do it.”
“How can I do so?” she asked with an eagerness that was not pleasing to him.
“By marrying me.”
“Marry you to get rid of you,” she said with incredulity. “Ah, Brian, I know you better than that. You will be a good husband to the woman you marry. I can imagine myself married to you,” she went on pensively; “we should be what is almost better than lovers, and that is companions. You would be with me as constantly as Mascerene there,” and she pointed to a huge, black dog lying with watchful head on his paws behind her davenport.
“You will marry me some day,” said the man doggedly. “If I thought you would not, I would tie a stone around my neck and drop into the harbor to-morrow. No, I would not,” he added bitterly. “We don’t do that sort of thing nowadays. I’d have the stone in my heart instead of around my neck and I’d live on, a sour, ugly old man, till God saw fit to rid the world of me. Do you know what love, even hopeless love, does for a man, Stargarde? what my love for you does for me? What have I to remember of my childhood? Painful visions; my father and mother each side of the fire like this sorrowing at the wickedness of the world. Then I met you, a bonny, light-hearted girl. I loved you the first time I saw you. You have been in my thoughts every minute of the time since. In the morning, at night in my dreams. With you I am still an ugly, cross-grained man; without you I should be a devil.”
The woman listened attentively to what he said, shading her eyes from the firelight with her hand, and looking at him compassionately. “Poor old Brian, poor old Brian,” she said when he sank back into his chair and closed his mouth with a snap. “I am so sorry for you. I should never have the heart to marry another man when you love me so much. If I ever marry it will be you. Still, you know how it is. My heart is in my work. It is not with you.”
“If you felt it going out toward me would you stop it?” he said eagerly.
“No, a thousand times no,” she said warmly. “I believe that the noblest and best thing a man or woman can do is to marry. God intended us to do so. If a man loves a woman and she loves him, they should marry if there are no obstacles in the way. Is not that what I am always glorifying, Brian, the family, the family—the noblest of all institutions upon the earth? The one upon which the special blessing of our Creator rests. But,” in a lower voice and looking earnestly at him, “I should never be guilty of that crime of crimes, namely, marrying a man whom I do not love.”
“I know you would not,” he said uneasily.
“You would not wish me to, Brian,” she continued. “You are an honest, God-fearing man. If I could put my hand in yours now and say, ‘Here I am, but I do not love you,’ you would spurn such a gift, would you not? You would say, ‘I prefer to wait till you can give me your whole self, not the least worthy part of yourself.’” He stirred about restlessly in his chair when she paused as if expecting some answer from him. “I do not know,” he murmured at last. “If you gave me the chance, I think I would embrace it. I think, Stargarde, that if you would come out of this and live with me, you would get to like me.”
“Oh, vain and stupid fallacy,” she exclaimed despairingly; “can you not see it?”
He did not answer, and there was a long silence between them, till she began to speak again, regarding him with a lovely smile of pity and affection. “You see what a terrible responsibility has been laid upon women, Brian. Men, by their long habit of indulging themselves in every impulse and giving freer rein to passion than women do, cannot so well control themselves. The woman must stand firm. I, by reason of your great affection for me, which I accept with all gratitude and humility, feel that I have a charge over you. I wish with all my heart that you could transfer your love to some other woman. If you do not and cannot, and I ever have the happiness to regard you with the same affection that you regard me, you may be sure that I shall marry you.”
The light of hope that played over his rugged features almost made them handsome, till Stargarde went on warningly: “But that day I fear will never come. Looking upon you as a dear brother, and having lived to the age of thirty years without falling in love with any man, I fear that I shall never do so.”
“Is that true?” he gasped with the famished eagerness of a dog that snatches for a whole joint and only gets a bone. “Have you never fancied any of the men that have fancied you?”
“Never,” she said with a smile and a shake of her head.
“How many proposals have you had?”
“I forget; about twenty, I think.”
His mouth worked viciously as if he would like to devour her quondam lovers.
“What a long way we have wandered from Vivienne Delavigne,” said Stargarde. “You were saying that Captain Macartney is in love with her. Does she love him?”
“No, though it will probably end in that. He’s very much in earnest, for he vowed to me that he couldn’t marry. When a man does that you may be sure he’s just about to throw everything overboard for some woman.”
“Does he know all about her?”
“Yes; but his stepmother stands behind egging him on. She’s probably promised a generous settlement on ma’m’selle if he marries her. The disgrace was the black beast in the way; but I imagine he’ll make up his mind to hang on to the old marquis and ignore the embezzlement. A decent fellow, Macartney, as those military men go,” he added in the condescending tone in which a civilian in Halifax will allow a few virtues to the military sojourners in the city.
“I like him,” said Stargarde emphatically, “yet Vivienne Delavigne may not. I wish, Brian, that she was a little older, and you a little fickle.”
“Why do you wish that?”
“Because, what a charming wife she would make for you. I am sure she is good and gentle, and she is alone in the world.”
“And you?” he said coolly.
“Oh, I have enough here,” she said, stretching out her arms lovingly as if she could take in her embrace the whole of the large brick building. “My work is my husband.”
He was about to reply to her but was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Brian,” said Stargarde hurriedly, “I forgot to say that I have other company to tea. I hope you won’t object, and do try not to notice her. She is one of my charges, and oftentimes a troublesome one.” Then turning toward the door she said: “Come in; come in, dear.”
CHAPTER X
ZEB AND A TEA PARTY
The door swung slowly open and a small, miserably thin child stood narrowly inspecting them through black, curly wisps of hair that hung down over her forehead and made her look like a terrier. She had on a ragged, dirty frock, and a dingy plaid shawl covered her shoulders.
“I am glad to see you, dear child,” said Stargarde, going to meet her and taking her warmly by the hand. “Come into the bedroom and take off your things.”
The child picked off the back of her black head a tiny boy’s cap that lay there like an ugly patch, and plucking impatiently at her shawl to draw it from her shoulders, flashed Stargarde an adoring glance and followed her into an inner room.
“Will you wash your face, dear?” said Stargarde, pouring some water from a ewer to a little basin that she placed on a chair. “Here is a clean towel and some of the nicest soap. Just smell it. Somebody sent it to me from Paris.”
The girl tossed back her hair from her dirty face and dabbled her hands in the water. “Who’s that cove out there?” she said with an ugly scowl and jerking her head in the direction of the other room.
“A friend of mine, Dr. Camperdown. He is a nice man, Zeb. I hope you will like him.”
“Them dirty swells, I hate ’em,” returned the child.
Stargarde was silent. To try at the outset to reform the vocabulary of a child of the gutter was, she knew, a mistake. The girl had been brought up in an evil atmosphere, and her little perverted mind was crammed with bitter prejudices against all who were better off in regard to this world’s goods than she was herself. Stargarde watched pityingly the sullen face bending over the basin.
“He wants yer,” said the child suddenly, and with an acute spasm of jealousy contracting her brows. “I seed it in him. He’ll take yer away from the Pav.”
Stargarde blushed a little. Just for one instant she was tempted by a natural disinclination not to discuss her love affairs with such an uncongenial being as the one before her. Then she remembered her invariable maxim, “No prevarication. Perfect frankness in my dealings with my fellow-men,” and said gently: “I am not willing to go, Zeb, I shall stay here.”
“Not if he coaxes yer?” said the child eagerly.
“No, Zeb.”
The little renegade scrubbed vigorously at her face without making reply. Then polishing her hands with a towel she approached Stargarde. “Will yer kiss me now?” she said humbly.
“Yes, darling,” and the beautiful woman took the dirty child to her breast in a warm embrace.
The child’s clothes were not clean. In fact months had passed over her head since her dress had made acquaintance with the wash tub. “Zeb,” said Stargarde hesitatingly, “I have a little cotton frock here”—the child frowned angrily and regarded her with a glance as proud as Lucifer’s. “It is just like mine,” went on Stargarde. “Look, Zeb.”
She took a small garment from a closet and showed the child the coquettish frills adorning the skirt and neck. “Seeing it’s you,” said the child graciously, “I’ll take it. But we’s no beggars, mind that! Mam and pap’ll kill me, likely, but I don’t care,” and with a fine assumption of indifference she pulled off her ragged gown, kicked it contemptuously aside, and allowed Stargarde to slip over her head the new and pretty dress which tortures would not have forced her to don, if it had not been for the fortunate occurrence that it was made from a similar piece of material to that clothing the woman she so passionately admired.
“I will speak to your mother about it,” said Stargarde reassuringly, as she buttoned her visitor up. “I don’t think she will mind.” Zeb thrust a hand into hers without speaking and walked silently out to Dr. Camperdown with her. When Stargarde introduced her to him she put out her tongue, stuck up her shoulder at him, and half turning her back drew up a little footstool to the grate, to which she sat so close that Stargarde was in momentary fear lest she should catch fire.
“Now, what shall we have for tea?” said Stargarde cheerily. “Let every one choose what he would like. What are you for, Brian?”
“Anything you choose to give me,” he said agreeably, “provided there is enough of it. I’m as hungry as a hunter this evening. Good breakfast, but patients were dogging me all lunch time, and I haven’t broken my fast yet.”
“Well, we’ll give you something substantial,” replied his hostess. “What will you have, Zeb?”
“Something in the line o’ birds,” said the child, a hard and hungry look coming into her eyes. “I sees ’em hangin’ up in the shops, I smells ’em and sees the dogs lickin’ the bones, but never a taste gets I. Say turkey, missis, or goose.”
“They have some turkeys over at the restaurant, I saw them to-day,” said Stargarde clapping her hands like a child. “We’ll have one, and stuffing, Zeb, and hot potato. Come, let us go and get it.”
The child sprang up, and clasping her hand Stargarde hurried out of the room and across the yard to the gay little eating house, going with the utmost speed so that they might not take cold. Breathless and laughing they pulled up outside the door, and opening it, walked soberly in. The child squeezed her patron’s hand with delight. The large, bright room before her, with its light walls adorned with pictures and its floor covered with little tables where people were eating and drinking, was like a glimpse of heaven to her. Stargarde went up to the counter.
“Good-evening, Mary,” she said to a pretty young girl there; “can you let me have a basket to put some purchases in? Ah, that is just what I want,” as the girl, diving behind the counter brought up one of the light flexible things made by the Indians of Nova Scotia. “Now first of all we want a turkey, a small one—no, a large one,” in response to a warning pressure from Zeb’s fingers. “See, there is one coming from the kitchen on a platter. Isn’t he a monster! Put him in a covered dish, Mary, and pop him into the basket with a dish of potatoes and—what vegetables have you?”
“Turnips, beets, parsnips, carrots, squash–”
“Well, give us some of each, but we’ll have to get the boy to help us carry them. We never can take all these things. And cranberry sauce, don’t forget that. Pickles, Zeb? Do you want some of them? Very good, we’ll have a bottle. Have you made your mince pies yet? No. Well, we’ll have a lemon one and a strawberry tart and some fruit. Will you have grapes or oranges, Zeb?”
“Dates, and figs, and nuts,” gurgled the child in almost speechless delight.
Stargarde stifled a laugh. “So be it Mary, and cheese and crackers for Dr. Camperdown. Now Zeb let us take this basket and run home and Mary will send the rest.”
Camperdown looked up in amazement as the two burst into the room. “What’s the excitement?” he said, getting up and standing with his back to the fire. “Here, let me put your basket on the table. What’s all this?”
“Dear Brian,” said Stargarde breathlessly, “you must not talk. Only help us. Set all these dishes on the hearth to keep hot. I should have set my table before we went to the restaurant. Alas, I am a poor housekeeper. Zeb dear, here is the cloth; spread it on the table; and Brian do help her to put the knives and forks and plates around. I will make the tea or coffee—which would you rather have?”
“Coffee for me, if it’s dinner,” said Camperdown. “I smell meat, don’t I? What do you call this meal, anyway?”
“I call it anything,” said Stargarde, “only it must be eaten hot. Cold things are detestable.”
“Tea for me,” piped up Zeb shrilly; “I hates coffee.”
Stargarde uncomplainingly searched in her cupboard for two vessels instead of one—brought out a small earthenware teapot and a tin coffeepot, and set them on a trivet which she fastened to the grate. Then finding a small kettle, she filled it with water and put it on the glowing coals.
“I call this pleasant!” exclaimed Dr. Camperdown a few minutes later. The dishes were all nicely arranged on a cloth as white as snow. He had a spotlessly clean but coarse serviette spread across his knees, and was flashing glances of admiration across the mammoth turkey before him at Stargarde, seated at the other end of the board. “I call this pleasant!” he repeated, picking up his knife and fork, “and a woman who serves a dinner smoking hot deserves a medal. My old dame thinks it a crime to put things before me more than lukewarm. I hear her coming up stairs with my dinner. Tramp, tramp—down on a step to rest. Tramp, hobble, up again—down on another, just to aggravate me—bah, I’ll dismiss her to-morrow!”
Stargarde looked at him without a shadow on her resplendent face. “You are like the dogs, Brian,” she said gayly; “your bark is worse than your bite. You love that old woman, you know you do.”
“I don’t love any one,” he growled. “You’re not eating anything there. Stop fanning yourself and attend to your plate—have some more turkey. This is a beauty. Where did he come from? The country, I’ll wager. This isn’t city flesh on his bones.”
“Cornwallis,” said Stargarde thoughtfully. “Unfortunate creature—I wish we did not have to eat him.”
“Now Stargarde,” said the man warmly, “for one meal, no hobbies. Let the S. P. C. and the G. H. A. and the L. M. S. alone for once. Talk nonsense to me and this young lady here,” turning politely to his fellow-guest.
His term was inadvisedly chosen, and Zeb flashed him a wicked glance over the bone that her little, sharp teeth were gnawing. Stargarde to her dismay saw that there was a smouldering fire of distrust and dislike between her two guests, that at any moment might break into open flame. Zeb was jealous of Dr. Camperdown. With ready, quick suspicion, she divined the fact that his sympathies were not with her kind. He would take away from her and her fellow-paupers the beautiful woman who at present lived only for them, and she hated him accordingly.
She had only recently come to Halifax. She had experienced different and worse degrees of misery in other cities, and now that a new, bright world was dawning upon her, it was not pleasant to know that her benefactor might be snatched at any moment from her. So she hated him, and he almost hated her as a representative of a class that absorbed the attention of the only woman in the world that he cared for, and who, but for them, would, he knew, devote herself to the endeavor of making more human and more happy his present aching, lonely, miserable heart.
Aware of all this, Stargarde kept the conversation flowing smoothly in channels apart from personal concerns. She talked continuously herself, and laughed like a girl full of glee when the moment for changing the plates having arrived, Dr. Camperdown and Zeb politely rising to assist her, left the table deserted.
When they reseated themselves she drew Zeb’s chair closer to her own, for she saw that the child had satisfied her hunger and at any moment might commence hostilities.
“Will you have some tart, Zeb?” she asked kindly.
“Oh, land, no!” said the child; “I’m stuffed. Give it to piggy there. He’s good for an hour yet,” and she pointed a disdainful finger to the other end of the table.
Dr. Camperdown had a large appetite—an appetite that was, in fact, immense, but he did not like to be reminded of it, and looked with considerable animosity at the small child.
“Do not pay any attention to her, Brian,” said Stargarde rapidly in German, then she turned to Zeb. “Dr. Camperdown had no dinner. He is hungry. Won’t you go and look at those picture books till we finish?”
“I don’t want ter,” said the child, as she nestled closer to her, “I likes to be with yer.”
What could Stargarde do in the face of such devotion? She left Dr. Camperdown to his own devices, and cracking nuts for the child searched diligently for a philopena. Having found one she shared it with her, related the pretty German custom concerning it, and promised Zeb a present if she would first surprise her the next day.
Zeb listened in fascinated attention, only throwing Dr. Camperdown a glance occasionally, as much as to say, “You see, she is giving me her undivided attention now.”
And he was foolish enough to be restive. “If he would only be sensible—two children together,” murmured Stargarde, as she got up to pour him out his coffee. As a student of human nature, she was amused at the attitude of the professional man toward the outcast; as a philanthropist, she was fearful lest there should be driven away from her the little bit of vicious childhood that she had charmed to her side.
“If he would only be sensible and think of something else!” she went on to herself. “They’ll come to an open rupture soon. I must try to restrain Zeb, for she, alas, is capable of anything. I won’t look at him as I give him his coffee.”
Unfortunately she was obliged to do so, for as she set it before him, he said childishly, “Do you put the sugar in,” thereby obliging her to give him a remonstrating glance.
Zeb saw the blue eyes meet the admiring gray ones and immediately issued an order in her shrill voice, “Gimme a cupper tea.”
Stargarde could not scold people. She was a born mother—loving and patient and humoring weaknesses perhaps to a greater degree than was always wise. She patiently waited upon her second troublesome guest, and sat down beside her without saying a word, but in an unlucky instant when she was obliged to go to the cupboard for an additional supply of cream, the war broke out—the deluge arrived.