6 Which Introduces Mr. Vane Valentine

SHE rouses herself at last, and goes in, shivering in the first consciousness she has yet felt of the rising wind. It is dusk already in the hall, but the sitting-room she enters is lit by a bright wood fire. The last pale primrose glitter of the western sky shows through the muslin curtains of the one bay-window—a window with no womanly litter of bird-cages and flower-pots, or fancy-work. And yet it is a cozy room, and sufficiently home-like, with an abundance of books and magazines strewn everywhere, many pictures on the papered walls, and half a dozen chairs of the order pouf.

She pulls the bell-rope in crossing to her own particular seat, and sinks wearily into its downy depths, in front of the fire. She still rests upon her cane, and droops a little forward, but the stern old face keeps its hard frigidity of look, and shows little more trace of suffering than a face cut in gray stone. “Jane,” she says, quietly, to the woman who appears, “send Mrs. Tinker to me.” Jane says ” Yes’m,” and goes. The dark, resolute eyes turn to the fire and gaze into its ruddy depths, until the door reopens, and the housekeeper, fluttered and nervous, enters. She has caught a glimpse of the visitor, and stands almost like a culprit before her mistress. Madam Valentine eyes her for a moment as she stands smoothing down her black silk apron with two restless old hands. “Susan,” she says, in the same quiet tone, “I have had a caller. You may have seen her—you may even have heard her, she spoke loudly enough. She mentioned you incidentally in something she said—spoke of your recognizing her, or something of the kind. Do you know who I mean?” “Mistress, I am afeard I do.” “You have seen this—this person, then—where?” “She lodges with my cousin in the town, ma’am—leastways she was poor, dear Tinker’s cousin, afore he departed; she keeps a boardin’-house, which her name it is Samantha Hopkins—”

Madam Valentine waves her hand impatiently—a hand that flashes in the fire-light. Samantha Hopkins is something less than nothing to her. “She lodges in Clangville, and you have seen her. Have you spoken to her?” “Oh, no, ma’am, no—not for the world! And—and I didn’t know she knew me.” How did you know her?”

“Mistress,” in a low tone, “I used to see—l often saw—her picture with—with Master——”Again the white, ringed hand flashes in the fire-light, quickly—angrily, this time.

“Stop ! I want to hear no names. Do you know who she claims to be?”

“Mistress, yes,” still very low.

“Do you believe it?” the voice this time sharp with angry pain.

“Oh, my dear mistress, I am afeard—I am afeard—I do!”

A pause. The fire leaps and sparkles, and gilds the pictures on the walls, and brings out in its vivid glow the faces of the two women, mistress and servant. The last gray light of the waning day lingers on these two gray old faces—one so agitated, so tear-wet, so stricken with sorrow and shame—one in its chill, pale pride, showing nothing of the agony within.

“You recognized her at first sight,” says Madam Valentine, mastering her voice with an effort—it is hardly as well trained as her face—”without a word—from the photographs you used to see?”

“I did, ma’am.”

“Then I suppose there can be no mistake. I would not have believed that—that person’s word. You know there is a child?” “I saw her, madam. Oh, my dear mistress, I saw her!—Master George’s own little child! Oh! my heart ! my heart!” She breaks down suddenly, and covering her old face with her old hands, sobs as if her heart would break. Madam Valentine’s face changes, works, and turns quite ghastly as she listens and looks. “Oh, forgive me!” Mrs. Tinker sobs, “my own dear mistress. I have no right to cry and distress you in your sore trouble, but I loved him so! And to see her—that pretty, pretty little one, and to know that he was dead, my bright, bonny boy, and that she was his child—-oh! my mistress, it goes near to break my heart. Don’t ‘ee be angry wi’ me, I am only an old woman, and I held him in my arms many and many a time, and my own flesh and blood could never be dearer than my dearest Master George!”

“You may go, Susan.” She speaks with measured quiet, but not coldly nor impatiently.

“And you are not angry wi’ me? Oh! Mistress, don’t ‘ee angry—don’t ‘ee, now! Indeed, and in very deed, I—”

“I am not angry. You are a good soul, Tinker. I have a great respect for you. When Mr. Vane comes in send him to me at once.”

“He is here now, ma’am. I hear his steps in the ‘all.”

A slow, rather heavy step, is indeed audible, and a man’s voice calls through the utter dusk for somebody to show a light.

“Yes,” says madam, listening, “tell him to come in here, before he goes to his room to dress for dinner.”

“Shall I send in lamps, ma’am?”

“No—not until I ring. The twilight is enough.”

Mrs. Tinker, wiping her eyes, departs, and her mistress turns her brooding gaze once again upon the fire. A very somber gaze. All her life of fifty years and more, this woman has been trained to self-repression, and in this supreme hour she is true to her training and traditions. He would be a keen observer, who, at this moment, could read what she is enduring in her still face. And yet she has been a mother, a passionately loving mother, and all the martyrdom of maternity is rending her heart in this hour. But of all the men in the world, the man who enters now, is the very last to whom she will show it. He is Vane Valentine, a young Englishman, a nephew of her late husband, and the last male of the Valentine race, heir-at-law to a baronetcy, and heir presumptive of Catherine Valentine’s millions, vice George Hamilton Valentine, cashiered and deceased.

He is a slim, dark young man, not much over twenty, with a sallow, thin face, a thin aquiline nose, a thin, rather womanish mouth, a thin, black mustache, and thin black hair, parted down the middle.

Thinness and blackness, indeed, at the present stage of his existence, are the most salient points about him, if you except a certain expression of obstinacy about the whole face, and an air of hauteur, amounting almost to insolence in everything he says and does.

The pride of these Valentines, for that matter, is quite out of proportion to their purse, if not to their pedigree, madam being the only member of the family out of the absolute reach of poverty—but pride and poverty run in harness together often enough.

He comes in quickly, surprised at Mrs. Tinker’s message, for madam, in a general way, is not over fond of him, does not greatly affect his society, and never sends for him.

“You are not ill, aunt?” he inquires.

He speaks with something of a drawl, but not an affected one. He never has much to say for himself, so perhaps is wise to make the most of the little he has.

“Ill? No,” she answers, contemptuously. “I am never ill. You should know that. I have sent for you to discuss a very serious matter. I consider you have a right to know, and perhaps—to decide. You may be my heir; the honor of the Valentine name is in your keeping and she threatens—Vane!” abruptly, “you know the story of—my son?”

“Unfortunately, yes. A very sad and shocking story, “he answers, gravely.

He is standing by the mantel, leaning his elbow on it, facing her. She, too, steadfastly regards him.

“You were told as a matter of course when you first came. Not many people know it—it is a disgrace that has been well hidden. But it is a disgrace that all the world may soon know. That woman is here.”

“Aunt!” he cries. “You do not mean to say—not the woman he—”

“Married. Yes. Once his wife, now his widow. And her little girl—his child.”

“Good Heaven!” exclaims Vane Valentine.

Then there is silence. They look at one another across the red light of the fire, two proud, dark faces, confronting, with the same fear and pain in both.

“She is a circus performer—bare-back rider—trapezist—so she tells me. She dances on a tight-rope. She is everything that is brazen and bad, and vulgar and horrible. And she is extremely pretty. She is here with the circus in the town. She called at this house not more than two hours ago. And she threatens to proclaim to the whole country—in posters, in papers; in every way, that she is—has been—George Valentine’s wife.”

“Good Heaven!” says Mr. Vane Valentine.

It seems the only thing left him to say. He stands absolutely stunned by the tremendousness of the catastrophe. He stares at his aunt with dilating eyes, from which a very real horror looks.

“She calls herself Mimi Trillon at present. She lodges with Mrs. Tinker’s cousin, in Clangville, and will remain until Saturday. After Saturday the whole world is to know who she is.”

“Good Heaven!” repeats, blankly, Mr. Vane Valentine. It has been said his command of language is not great. ”Can—can nothing be done, you know?” he asks in blankest accents. “I—I wouldn’t for anything, by Jove!”

“She offers one alternative. I mentioned the child—a little girl. She may be bought off. Her price is the adoption, education, care of the child, and an annuity a tolerably large one, I fancy, for herself. She is tired of her present life—so she says; she will leave it, give up the little girl, retain her incognito, and live on the annuity—if it is provided. Otherwise, she will proclaim her wrongs and her identity to all who choose to listen. That is her offer.”

“By Jove!” says, still more blankly, Mr. Vane Valentine,” she is a cool hand. Mlle. Mimi Trillon—yes, I saw her name blazing all over the town, and her picture, too, by Jove! All bare neck and arms, like a grisette of Mabille. And that is George’s widow? Good Heaven!”

“You have made that remark a number of times already,” says, disdainfully, his aunt.

“There is no use in standing there and saying, ‘Good Heaven!’ I fancy Heaven has very little to do with Mlle. Mimi Trillon. But she is the person she claims to be; there is no doubt of that. Tinker recognized her in a moment from the photograph she used to see. She has been good enough to give me until Saturday to come to a decision. I waive my right to decide, and place the matter in your hands. You have your full share of the Valentine pride, and you are the last of the name. You will bear it—with honor. I trust-when I am dead. Decide—do we agree or refuse?”

Mr. Vane Valentine is not a fool; very far from it where a point of family honor is concerned. He decides with a promptitude his somewhat weak-looking mouth would not seem to promise.

“We agree, of course. We must agree. Good Heaven! there is no other course. If she is the person she professes to be, and has a right to the name—good God! only to think of that—a circus rider! She must be bought off at any price. Think of the publicity! Think of your feelings! think of mine! of my sister’s—of Camilla’s—of—of everybody’s—of Sir Rupert’s! Good Heaven! it’s awful, don’t you know. She must be bought off at any price, and at once—at once !”

“Very well,” responds the chilly voice of the lady.” Do not excite yourself; there is no haste. We have until Saturday, remember—two days. Do nothing tonight; sleep upon it. At the same time, I may say, I think with you. Money is nothing in a case like this. She must be bought off; and at her own price.”

“Of course,” says, promptly, Vane Valentine; “but I will make the best terms I can. The best will be bad, no doubt. She must be a dused sharper all through! It is well she will give up the child. A little girl, you say? Aw, that is best, certainly,” says Mr. Valentine, stroking his thin, black mustache, and reflecting it might have been ” dused unpleasant and that” if George’s child had been a son. Inconceivable ass, George Valentine—doing the all for love and the world well lost business in the nineteenth century, when passions and emotions, and—aw—that sort of thing, are extinct.”

But the ill-wind has blown him (Vane) into a prospective fortune and title, so he is not disposed to quarrel with the shade of his late idiotic cousin, nor even with his rascally relict, if he can buy that lady off at a fair price.

“I’ll go to the circus this evening,” he says, after that ruminative pause, ” and take a look at her. Pretty, is she, you say? But of course; that was the reason—confound her!—that she fooled your—him! Yes, it is well she will resign the child. She, of course, is not a proper person to bring up a little girl, and, aw, a relative of ours. Good Heaven! to think of it! I will see her, and settle this, aw, dused unpleasant business, you know, for good and all.”

“Very well,” madam says, wearily ; “and I think, if you will excuse me, I will not dine this evening. I will have a cup of tea here, and retire early. I over-fatigued myself this afternoon, I fancy.”

It is a tired and aching heart that weighs down Madam Valentine, not her afternoon constitutional in the sunshine, up and down the stoop. Perhaps Vane Valentine guesses—he has more penetration than he looks to have. He murmurs a few appropriate words of regret, and, a little later, goes to the dining-room, and eats his dinner in solitary state, somewhat gloomy and preoccupied, but with a very good appetite. Then, as the starry October night falls mistily over the world, puts on his light overcoat, and sets out at a brisk walk for the town, the circus, and his first sight of Mlle. Mimi Trillon.