17 La Vivandier

The long veranda, which runs the whole front of the house, is one glowing mass of color–one scented wealth of roses. Up and down this veranda a lady walks, drinking in the cool sea-breeze, and gazing at the rich glow of this southern sunset. An elderly lady, upright and stately, with white hair, puffed elaborately under a cap of finest point, a severe silvery face, piercing dark eyes that have lost at sixty-seven no whit of the fire of–youth, a trained dress of dark silk, and some yellowish lace, of fabulous value, at the throat, held together by a cluster of brilliants. She supports herself on an ebony cane, mounted with gold, but carried more, it is evident, from habit, than through any real necessity. A handsome and haughty old lady, with broad, smooth brow, and thin mouth, set in a sort of hard and habitual disdain.

Up and down, up and down–it is her daily afternoon habit–thinking her thoughts alone. She is always alone, this woman; it seems to her, sometimes, she has been alone all her life. She is worse than alone now, she is forced to endure uncongenial companionship.

Her walk takes her each time past two long lighted windows; she glances through the lace draperies sometimes, and the disdainful curve of the resolute mouth intensifies into absolute aversion. Two gentlemen sit in that lighted room, playing chess; it is at the elder of these two she looks with that half-veiled glance of dislike. The lady is Madam Valentine, the gentleman, Vane Valentine, her heir.

Sovereigns, it is said, have but little love for their successors. Perhaps this inborn instinct is the reason. The servants in the house, will tell you the madam is afraid of him. And yet she does not look like a woman easily made afraid, easily cowed, easily brought into subjection to any will. Her own is very strong, and seemingly reigns paramount. But there is often a power behind the throne, which the throne fears in spite of itself. That power exists here. Mr. Vane Valentine, if not a man of powerful mind, is yet a man of profound obstinacy, whether in trifles or in matters of moment; there is a certain doggedness about him that does not know when it is beaten, and goes on, unabashed, until it has won the game. And he grows impatient, like all crown princes, to come into his kingdom. He has hopes and plans of his own, that depend for their fruition on this fortune, and the queen regnant is so long a dying! More, she looks as much like living as she did a score of years ago! He swears under his breath, sometimes over it, in the sanctuary of his chamber, but madam’s vitality is a matter in which no amount of profanity, however heartfelt and sincere, can avail.

She lives, and is likely to live; she takes excellent care of herself, and spends her money–his money rather, lavishly–with both hands, on every whim. For, close upon seventy, she still has whims. And she knows his feelings, and he knows she knows, and resents it bitterly, indignantly, silently. It seems to her basest treachery that he should wish to anticipate by one moment his succession. But then she knows nothing of those hidden plans–Vane Valentine is a secretive man by nature, even in trifles–knows nothing of the patiently waiting sister, Dorothea, who is to keep house for him at Manor Valentine when he is Sir Vane, and the American millions are his–nothing of Miss Camilla Rooth, a fair cousin, who used to be younger, and who has spent her youth, and dimmed her beauty, waiting, like Mariana in the Moated Grange, for the coming of Cousin Vane, baronet and millionaire.

Of these things she knows little–she only knows she is growing to hate him, only knows that he is miserly and mean, grasping and grudging, and longing for her death, and sees in her, not his benefactress, but an obstacle to his hopes and wishes, and her riches, by right, already his own. There is never any open rupture, there is cold civility and attention on one side, chill scorn and indifference on the other, but she draws more and more into herself, lives her own life, thinks her own thoughts. What if she should disappoint him after all!–it is in her power. There is a fierce sort of pleasure in the vindictive thought–she can leave her wealth as she pleases–to endow hospitals, build churches, found libraries! What if she does it! It would be justifiable reprisal! And yet–to let it go out of the family–to disobey her husband’s dying wish! There is no one else—- Stay! is there not? No one else? What of her son’s daughter–her only son’s only child? What of her? Nearer in blood, her very own–George’s little child!

The mere thought, put thus, softens her heart. What if she should send for her? She breaks off–the idea comprehends so much–it overwhelms her at first. But she broods and broods upon it, until familiarity wears off the first sharp repugnance of the thought. It is the thin edge of the wedge–the”rift within the lute.” Once well in, for the rest to follow is but a matter of time. From thinking to talking is a natural sequence–Mrs. Tinker is her confidante; adroitly the topic is brought round, one on which the old housekeeper is but too ready to converse. All that she knows of the child and her mother–of that last sad interview with George, is discussed over and over again.

It is wonderful how this going backward softens the resolute old heart. George lives again, she hears his voice, sees his smile, listens to his boyish, gladsome laugh. Oh, George, George! how sharper than death is the thought of her harshness now! But his child still lives; it is in her power even yet to make compensation through that child. Why should she fear Vane Valentine? why care for his displeasure? why not assert herself as of old, and claim her grandchild as her right? She muses upon it until she is full of the thought; sleeping or waking, it is with her. It is of that she is thinking so intently now, as she paces up and down. It is past her usual hour of lingering here; a moon is lifting its shoulder over the tall date palms; the starlit southern night, full of sweetest odors of flower, and forest, and sea, lies over the land. Still she keeps on, up and down, up and down; still she thinks, and dreams, and longs. Why not–why not–why not have George’s daughter–too long banished from this her rightful home–here? why not now, at once? Thirteen years ago she sent her from her–she is sixteen now, fair beyond doubt; her mother was that, and her father—-Ah! was there ever his like in all the world? So much bright, brave beauty to lie under the merciless sea for thirteen years! Tears–very rare tears–soften the hard brilliance of those deep, dark eyes. Seventeen years since she cast him off, and only now thinking of reparation! Surely there is little time to be lost here, if she means in this life to do justice to his child!

“Is it not past your usual hour, aunt?” asks a bland voice. Mr. Vane Valentine never leaves her too long at once to melancholy retrospections. It is not good for her–or for him either. He has dismissed his friend, and appears by her side on the veranda. “Shall I assist you in?”

He presents an arm, but she declines, with an impatient gesture.

“I thought you were absorbed in chess with young Payton,” she says.

“Payton has gone. I beat him three games in succession,” responds Mr. Valentine, complacently, twisting the ends of his mustache. It has grown in thirteen years, is long and drooping, and inky black. “It grew monotonous after that.”

Thirteen years have not changed this gentleman much, except in the matter of mustache. Indeed, they have not changed him at all, have merely accented and emphasized all traits, personal and mental, existing then. He is still tall, still thin, still dark, still with scant allowance of hair, with black, restless eyes, and thin, obstinate mouth; still elaborate as to dress, fastidious in the minutest details about himself, from the glossy whiteness of his linen to the dainty-paring and purity of his nails. He looks like a man thoroughly well satisfied with himself–a man who could never, under any circumstances, imagine or own himself in the wrong.

“He walks beside her, and casts a complacent, self-satisfied, proprietor-like glance over the scene. There is the sea, bathed in a glory of moonlight; there is a mocking-bird, singing, whistling, twittering, like a whole aviary near; there is a whip-poor-will piping plaintively in the bracken; there are the roses, and the myrtle, and the orange trees, the passion-flowers, and the jessamine, scenting the night air; there is the Southern Cross, ablaze over their heads; there are warmth, and perfume, and beauty everywhere. It dawns upon Mr. Vane Valentine it is a fine night. He says so.

“Never saw such moonlight,” he remarks, still complacently, as if the scene were gotten up especially for his delectation. “And that mocking-bird-listen to the fellow. As you say, aunt, it is much too fine to go in.”

“I am not aware of having said so,” shortly; “on the contrary, I am going in almost immediately–Vane !” abruptly.

“Yes, aunt,”

“When did you hear from your friend–what is his name?–Farrar.”

“Paul Farrar?” surprised. “Oh, not for ages. Not since that time, years ago, when he wrote to know—-”

Mr. Vane Valentine pulls himself up short. “If that girl might be christened,” is what he was going to say. But madam knows nothing of that, and it is one of the cases where ignorance is bliss.

“Well?” she says, sharply; “finish your sentence since when?”

“Not for years. He is in Russia–got an appointment of some kind in St. Petersburg, and naturally moving about as we always are,” in a slight tone of grievance, for Mr. Valentine does not like a nomadic existence–“it is not likely we should keep up a very brisk correspondence. Besides, I hate letter-writing.”

“Indeed!” sarcastically; “since when? I should never imagine it, seeing the voluminous epistles that go to England by every mail.”

“I write to my sister Dorothea and my cousin Camilla, of course,” rather stiffly.

A pause. What is coming? Something out of the common, he sees, in the furtive glance he casts at her absorbed face. She breaks the pause abruptly.

“How often do you hear from that girl?”

“That girl?” bewildered. “Do you mean my cousin Camilla—-”

“I mean,” striking her stick sharply on the ground, and pausing in her walk, “I mean that girl you sent to Canada with the man Farrar, thirteen years ago.”

“Oh!” Mr. Vane Valentine catches his breath. The bursting of a bomb at his feet could hardly have startled him more. “That girl! Snowball Trillon.”

“If that is what she is called. I mean,” with icy distinctness, “my granddaughter.”

Mr. Vane Valentine whitens under his lemon-hued skin–turns the livid hue of the moonlight on the white washed house-front.

“Your granddaughter!” with equal iciness. “Who is to tell if she is your granddaughter? The word of the woman who called herself her mother was not worth much, I fancy. The girl, Snowball Trillon, is in Canada still.”

A frigid stare follows his answer, and Madam Valentine’s “stony stares” are things not pleasant to meet. Then she laughs contemptuously.

“This is your latest metier, is it, to doubt her identity? Well, I am not disposed to doubt it, and that I take it is the main point. I mean Snowball Trillon, if you like. Where is she in Canada? Be more definite, my good Vane, if you please.”

“The place is called St. Gildas. She lives, I believe, on an island near that town, in the family of one Dr. Macdonald.”

He is recovering. The shock has been so utterly unexpected that he has been stunned for a moment, but his customary cold caution is returning. He draws a long breath, and his pulse quickens a little its methodical beat. What–what does this mean?

“Do you ever hear from her ?”

“Never directly. The money you allotted for her maintenance is drawn semi-annually by Dr. Macdonald–was drawn two months ago, and she was then reported in the doctor’s letter as alive and well. That is all I know.”

“Alive and well,” slowly, gladly, thoughtfully, “and sixteen years old, is she not? I wonder–I wonder,” dreamily, “what she is like?”

“She is sixteen years old,” coldly; “of her looks I know nothing–nor of her.”

“It is my wish then,” says madam, asserting herself suddenly and heartily, “that you should know something. It is my own intention to know a great deal. I have been culpably ignorant too long. Write to this Dr. Macdonald,” bringing down the ebony cane with an authoritative bang–“ask him for all information regarding this young lady, my grandchild,” loftily, and looking him full in the face with her dark piercing eyes, “her health, habits, education, and so on. Tell him to inclose a photograph of her in his reply.”

“Yes, madam. Anything else? Shall I write to-night ?”

“To-night or to-morrow, as you please. Tell him to send the photograph without fail. I am curious to see what she is like. Tell him to answer at once–at once!”

“You shall be obeyed. Now, what the devil,” says Mr. Vane Valentine to himself, “does this mean?”

It means no good to him–that at least is certain. For a very long time, hour after hour, that night, he sits smoking cigars at his open window, and gazing blankly at the fair southern moon. He must obey; there is no help for that. If balked in the slightest, this headstrong, foolish, ridiculous old kinswoman of his is capable of going in person, before another month is over her venerable head, straight to St. Gildas, and seeing for herself. The only wonder is, being curious on the subject at all, that she has not done so already.

There is still one hope. The girl may not in any way–supposing her even to be his daughter–resemble the late George Valentine. Like mother like son, thinks Mr. Valentine, savagely biting the top off a fresh cigar, as if he thought it were madam’s head–a precious pair of fools both! In point of fact, he is certain, although he has never seen George Valentine, nor even a picture of him, that she does not resemble him. But if this old lady–falling into her dotage, no doubt–should fancy a resemblance, and be besotted enough to send for her, and try to put her in his place–Mr. Valentine expresses his feelings just here by a deep oath, ground out between fiercely closed teeth. When it comes to that–let them look to it! He is not to be whistled down the wind, after all these years, as his idiotic old relative shall find to her cost!

But he writes the letter–a slow and labored bit of composition; and as he writes, a cold, cruel, crafty smile dawns, in a diabolical fashion, around his hard, thin lips.

“If they answer this–if they send the photograph after this, then”–the smile intensifies as he folds and seals the epistle–“if that girl has the spirit of a worm, she will fling this letter into the fire, and send an answer, per return post, that will effectually cure madam of her folly!”

Now, Mistress Snowball Trillon, or Dolores Macdonald, as you please, has, as we know, the spirit of many worms–has a pride and a temper, alas! fully equal to Mr. Vane Valentine’s own.

Dr. Macdonald, profoundly surprised, deeply hurt, and a little disgusted with the writer, puts the precious epistle, without a word, into her hands, and the blue eyes flash lightning fires of wrath as she reads.

“It is rather–rather offensive,” the gentle old doctor says. “You need not send the photograph if you like, Snowball, my dear.”

For a moment a storm seems imminent in the flushed cheeks and flashing eyes, then a wicked smile dawns on the rosy young mouth, a sparkle that forebodes badness to come creeps into the azure orbs, and quite quenches the fires of wrath.

“Oh! I don’t mind,” she says, cheerfully. “A little impertinence more or less, what does it signify? Beggars mustn’t be choosers. I’ll send it. Write the letter, and when it is ready I’ll slip the photo in, and row myself over to St. Gildas this very afternoon and post it. By return mail, don’t you see,” he says.

“And I hope he’ll like me when he sees me,” thinks Miss Trillon, going up to her maiden bower under the eaves; “but I am harassed by doubts.”

She takes from a drawer a couple of photographs, tinted, and, as works of art, worthy of commendation. They represent a young person in the striking, not to say startling, dress of a vivandiere–a short petticoat of brilliant dye, baggy trousers, a blue blouse, a red cap set rakishly on one side of the head, a little wine barrel slung over the shoulder, pistols in the belt, two little hands thrust there also, a smile of unutterable sauciness on the face. And the young person is Snowball! As a picture nothing can be more effective–as a portrait of a stately old lady’s granddaughter, nothing could well be more reprehensible. Last winter some charades were acted at the house of Mlle. Innocente Desereaux; Snowball appeared in one of them as a vivandiere, and the brother of Mlle. Innocente, a photograph artist, had been charmed, and insisted on immortalizing her in the dress next day. The photographs have since lain here, too outre to be shown; and it is one of these under which she pertly writes, “a votre service, monsieur,” and dispatches to Mr. Vane Valentine.

The interval between sending and receiving is about eight days, and eight more anxious and uncomfortable days Mr. Valentine never remembers to have spent. What is in madam’s mind?–what does she mean?–why does she want the photograph?–what change of dynasty does this forebode? Does she–can she–mean for one moment to throw him overboard for this upstart? Does she dream he will permit it? Is he a puppet, to be taken up and played with awhile, and then thrown aside, as the whim seizes her? He will show her whether he is or not. Let her expose her hand, and then he will balk her new game.

Meantime there is nothing to be done but wait, and waiting is, he finds, the hardest work in the world.

She, too, is waiting. The subject is never resumed–it is the “lull before the storm.” Is it to be a drawn battle between these two proud, unbending people from thenceforth? It all depends on this girl–this gaucke, unformed girl of sixteen. If the photograph should by any chance resemble ever so little that dead George well, if it does, and she takes the girl up, she shall see!

It comes–the letter with the Canadian postmark, and something hard within.

His hand shakes as he opens it, and the carte drops out.

It is a moment before he can summon resolution enough to take it up, but he does at last, and then—-!

The letter is from Dr. Macdonald, it is brief, civil, but cool. Mlle. Trillon is well, is quite happy, has been well and carefully educated, and has no desire whatever to change her home.

He incloses her photograph, by which Mr. Valentine will see she is also extremely pretty; and he is his respectfully, Angus Macdonald.

Madam Valentine is in her sitting-room. A storm of wind and rain is sweeping over the fair landscape, and blotting it out.

She sits watching it drearily, when Mr. Vane Valentine, with a more assured look and step than he has used of late, comes into the room, an open letter in his hand.

“It is the letter from Canada, and the picture,” he says.

He lays both in her lap.

His face is in good order, but there is an imperceptible thrill of triumph in his tone. He does not go–he stands and waits. A slight flush rises to her face, but she meets his look with one of frigid reserve.

“Well?” she says, inquiringly.

“Will you be good enough to open the letter? The photograph is inside.”

“At my leisure. I will retain the picture. You need not take the trouble to wait!”

It is a curt dismissal; a flush of anger rises over his sallow face.

He has hoped to see her face when first she glances at the audacious photograph. He is destined to be disappointed. But he knows the look of angry surprise and disappointment that will follow, all the same. Without a word he goes.

Then, with fingers that shake with eagerness, she snatches the picture out, looks at it, drops it with an exclamation of anger, amaze, dismay.

What! another dancing girl! A juvenile copy of the bold, blue-eyed circus woman, who had confronted her that September afternoon, thirteen years ago.

And what outrageous costume is this? what defiant smile? what pert words written underneath?

Is this, indeed, her grandchild?—hers? Does the proud Valentine blood flow in the heart of such a frivolous creature as this?

What insolence to send it–it is a direct affront. And yet–what a pretty face! What a brightly pretty, piquant face. Not a bold one, either–only saucy, girlish, full of fun and healthful glee.

She looks at it again, reluctantly at first, relentingly after a little–then, long and earnestly.

No, there is no look of George–none whatever; it is a youthful repetition of that other face she remembers so well–only with the brazen recklessness left out.

She must be very pretty; she might, with proper training, become a lovely girl. What a wealth of rippling ringlets; what charming features; what an exquisite dimpled mouth! Only the dress–and yet–that might be only a girl’s thoughtless joke.

The letter is all that can be desired, formal if you will–a trifle cold, but perfectly respectful. What if Vane Valentine has couched his request in impertinent words–he is quite capable of it, and this defiant picture is sent in reprisal? She hits the truth, and suspects that she hits it ; she guesses, quite accurately, what her heir is feeling on this subject.

“I will disappoint him yet,” she thinks, vindictively,” in spite of the picture.”

She meets him at dinner, some hours later, without a trace of any emotion, except her usual severe reserve of manner, and hands him back the letter.

“Well?” he asks, with rather a grim smile. “And the picture–how do you find that?”

“I find it a trifle eccentric,” she returns. “No, James no soup. Taken in a fancy dress, I imagine. A pretty girl, and very like her mother. Yes, James, the rock fish,” to the man-servant. “If you please, my good Vane, I will keep it.”

No more is said. But the edge of the wedge is well in, and, with a feeling akin to despair, Vane Valentine realizes that his letter and fatal photograph are but the beginning of the end.