Louis Tracy

“ Behind it stretched the park of Dale Manor, and the turrets of a mansion among many lordly elms seemed to put Violet on a somewhat inaccessible pinnacle. David did not know that people of moderate means can maintain a good sporting estate by letting the shooting, but he had learned in the free air of the States to rate a man on a different level to parks; if a half-bred rascal like Van Hupfeldt was able to enter this citadel like a thief for one daughter of the house, why should not an honest man storm it for the sake of another? ”

“ And David smiled a different kind of smile to that which Violet was learning to like.
“But if all that you say is true, the man is a monster,” she cried in a sudden rage.
“I am coming to think that he is not in his right mind,” said David, a surprising charity springing up in him.
“And do you know what they are waiting for now?” she asked vehemently.
“I cannot tell, save that it is for you.”
“They want me to sign a marriage settlement. Oh, what a vile world!”
“Not a vile world, dear; nor are its humans altogether bad. Even this Van Hupfeldt, or Strauss, seems to have loved your sister. ”

“ Mordaunt. “Your instincts always scent out nobility where any clue to it can be found. I am glad that you take it in that way. But young people are enthusiastic and prone to jump to conclusions. As we grow older we acquire a certain habit of second thoughts. In this instance, no doubt, you are right; he could have had no other motive—unless—I suppose that there is no one else from whom the note may possibly have come?”
At this question Violet stood startled a moment, panting a little, and somehow there passed like a mist through her consciousness a memory, a half-thought, of David Harcourt. ”

“ David, with his hat rather drawn over his eyes, and with a frowning severity, said: “I want four things of you—the diary, the key of my flat which you have in your possession, those certificates, and Mrs. Mordaunt’s address.”
A scream went out from Van Hupfeldt: “Neil! the police!”
“Quite so,” said David; “but before the police come, do as I say, or I shall kill you.”
Van Hupfeldt could hardly catch his breath sufficiently to speak. A man so wholly in the grip of terror it was painful to see. David understood him to say: “Man, I warn you, my heart is weak.”
“Heart weak?” growled David. ”

“ Jenny he had left safe with Mrs. Grover; he was sure that she had the certificates with her. But when he reached the middle of Oxford-St., he saw that which made him start—Van Hupfeldt in a landau driving eastward, and, sitting beside the coachman, the valet Neil. What spurred David’s interest was the pace at which the landau’s horses were racing through the traffic, and also the face of the man in the carriage, so gaunt and wild, leaning forward with his two hands clenched on his knees, as if to press the carriage faster forward by the strain of his soul. ”

“ For London has a stony heart with wooden arteries, through which the stream of life rushes noisily. To ears tuned by the far-flung silence of the prairie this din of traffic was thunderous. To eyes trained by the smooth horizon it was bewildering to see a clear sky overhead and a sun sinking slowly, like a dim Chinese fire-balloon, into a compound of smoke and chimneys. In fact, David Harcourt came to the conclusion that Londoners, as a race, must be purblind and somewhat deaf. ”

“ I could not bring you to-day the proofs that you long for, even if I had them. It must be six months after—not less than six months after—and for then I promise, calling Heaven to witness. Believe in me! Not all things that a man says are true; but this is true. Violet, for Gwen’s sake, within a week—the sooner it’s done, the sooner you hear—within not more than two weeks—”
Violet, sore beset, shielded her eyes with a listless hand. Van Hupfeldt was pleading like a man battling for his last earthly good. ”

“ And on the instant, without hesitation, he pushed up the switch in the dining-room, and hid himself in darkness. There are wolves, too, in the London desert.
Now, like a bush-cat, he crept to the door, opened it, and peeped out. Certainly the light which he had left burning had been extinguished by some hand; the corridor was in darkness.
Nerves, as commonly understood, did not much enter into Harcourt’s scheme of things. But his heart [Pg 14] beat quicker. The speed of thought cannot be measured. Many questions, and one doubt, one question, flitted through his brain. ”

“ Violet, for shame to let such words escape your lips! Mr. Van Hupfeldt—a man of standing and position, presented to us by Lord Vanstone, and moving in the highest circles! Oh, beware, dear, lest sorrow warp the gentler instincts of your nature, and by the sadness of the countenance the heart be not made better! Grief is evil, then, indeed when it does not win us into a sweeter mood of charity. ”

“ Van Hupfeldt locked himself away from his valet—he lived in chambers near Hanover Square—and for hours sat without a movement, staring the stare of the hopeless and the lost. The fact that he had as good as won from Violet the pledging of herself to him—that fact which at another time would have filled him with elation, was now almost forgotten in the darkness of his calamity, as a star is swallowed up by clouds. ”

“ Mordaunt entered. Violet, aroused by the opening door, stood up with a bent head, an averted face, and Van Hupfeldt said, with a sort of frenzied laugh, to Mrs. Mordaunt: “See how the days are lengthening out already.”
Mrs. Mordaunt looked at Violet with a query in her glance; and Violet’s great eyes dwelt on her mother without answering by any sign that question of lifted eyebrows. The girl was puzzled and overwrought. Was it so that men won women, that some man had won her sister? Surely this was a strange wooing! ”

“ From the timid, irresolute girl, who clung to unattainable ideals, she was transformed into a woman, ready to dare anything for the sake of the man she loved, while the mere notion of marriage with Van Hupfeldt was so loathsome that she was spurred into the physical need of strenuous action to counteract it.
So it was in a restrained yet business-like mood that she climbed the stairs leading to Miss L’Estrange’s flat and rang the electric bell. The door was opened by Jenny. ”

“ Van Hupfeldt,” said Violet, bending over her knee, which she slung between her clasped fingers. “Let us reason together; let us understand each other better. I am not disposed to be unfriendly toward you—do not think that—nor even to reject [Pg 74] your suit unconditionally. I owe you much, and I see that you are greatly in earnest; but I am not clear. Your motive seems to be philanthropic. You have said as much yourself, you know. Still, philanthropy is only warm; it is never hot to desperation; it never commits suicide in despair of doing good. ”

“ He is merely impudent. Where were you to see him? At the grave, I think? At the grave?”
Violet blushed and made no answer. Mrs. Mordaunt came in. “So, mother,” said Violet to her, “we go home to-morrow?”
“I have thought that it might be well, dear,” answered her mother, “in which case we shall have enough to do between now and then.”
“But why the sudden decision?”
“We are not at all moments our own masters and mistresses, dear. This at present seems the indicated course, and we must follow it.”
“May I have the pleasure to come with you, if only for a day or two?” asked Van Hupfeldt. ”

“ Van Hupfeldt. You know quite well that I am not at present disposed to worship your sex, and that is really so. Honestly, I don’t think that the human species adorns the earth on which it lives, least of all the male part of it. If I wished to marry, I believe I should choose some poor tiller of the fields, who had never seen a city, or heard of the arts of vice. You see, then, that the whole notion of marriage must be sufficiently distasteful to me. ”

“ She presently left Van Hupfeldt and her mother, and in her own room lay on a couch thinking out her problem. “To go to the grave, or not to go?”
She had promised: but how if David Harcourt was truly the thing which he was said to be? Her maiden mind shrank and shuddered. It was possibly false, but, then, it was possibly true—all men seemed to be liars. She had better wait and first hear the truth from Miss L’Estrange. If Miss L’Estrange proved him false, she, Violet, would give herself one luxury, the writing to him of one note—such a note! stinging, crushing, killing! ”

“ Mordaunt and the witnesses signed their names on various parchments at places where the lawyer had marked little crosses in pencil.
Violet, as in a dream, saw the name “Henry Van Hupfeldt” above that of “Violet Mordaunt,” just as it appeared over “Gwendoline Mordaunt” in the marriage certificate. In her eyes, the tiny crosses made the great squares of vellum look like the chart [Pg 239] of a cemetery. Yet there was something singing sweetly in her ears: “You still have a week of liberty. Use your time well. Not all the law in the land can force you to the altar unless you wish it.” ”

“ Plenty of paper, lots of ink, and a new gold pen make no Shakespeare. And it is always hard to begin, [Pg 37] even when the mind does not wander. But Violet Mordaunt had brown eyes, so soft, so grave, as those that beam with pity over the dying. She was more beautiful than her sister, whose face, too, David could see through the back of his head. Also, Van Hupfeldt was undoubtedly a more elegant object for the eye of woman to rest upon than David Harcourt. ”

“ That night, and not any other night or day, he would have it out with Van Hupfeldt.
He jumped into a cab, and drove to the flat in King-St., Chelsea.
“But what on earth can the man mean,” said Miss L’Estrange, peeping through the slit of her slightly-opened door, “coming to a lady’s flat at this hour of the morning?”
In reality it was about half-past twelve.
“No, it’s no use talking,” said David, “you must let me in. I know you have a right good heart, and I rely upon its action when I tell you that it is a matter of life and death this time.” ”

“ Nature, to compel man to admire her dainty contrivances, was shutting in the vistas. Already trees and hedge-rows flung their leafy screens across the landscape. So David wandered on, promising himself many such mornings with Violet; for it passed his wit to see how Van Hupfeldt could wriggle out of the testimony of his own picture and his own handwriting. ”

“ A woman disillusioned about a man rushes to the opposite pole. Let him but be detected to be not the hero which she had thought him, and steep is his fall. Henceforth he is not only not a hero but less than nothing in her eyes. Violet paced aimlessly through the room, then went to the window farthest from that at which Van Hupfeldt stood, and the unspoken words on her lips were: “The miserable man.” ”

“ Whiffs of violets in a lonely flat, for which one can’t account, are not altogether pleasant things. David had therefore surrounded himself with violets, in order, when he was greeted with a scent of violets, to be able to say to himself that the scent came from those which he had bought. He had not admitted even to himself what his motive was in buying; nor would he admit it to Mr. Dibbin. There, however, the violets were in several pots, and their fragrance at once drew the notice of a visitor, for the London florist has an art to heighten dull nature in violets and much else. ”

“ When David drew up at Eddystone Mansions, there was no sign of the landau. He ran up the stairs three at a time. He would not await the tardy elevator. In moments of stress we return to nature and cast off the artificial. Opening his door with his key, he made straight into the drawing-room where he had left Jenny. Then his heart sank miserably, for she was not there.
“Mrs. Grover!” he called, and when Mrs. Grover hurried from the kitchen, her hands leprous with pastry-dough, David looked at her so thunderously that she drew back. ”

“ No sooner was he well clear of Van Hupfeldt’s house than he knew that he was safe from active interference by the law. The man whom he now looked on as his rival, the subtle adversary whom he had scorned to crush when appealed to for mercy on the score of physical inferiority, would never dare to seek the aid of authority. Nursing that fact, ready enough to welcome the prospect of an unaided combat, David did not stop to consider that an older head in counsel would not be a bad thing. There was Dibbin, for instance. ”

“ As for Henry Van Hupfeldt, he, too, at that morning hour lay awake in his bed. If ever man knew panic, it was he all that night. He had gone home from his interview with Violet, cringing in his carriage even from the glance of the passers in the streets, stricken to the heart by that unsigned note of David’s to Violet: “A pretty certain thing that your sister was a duly wedded wife” ... “the proofs of it will be forthcoming.” ”

“ My nature is akin with the grave, and has no appetite but for that with which it is akin. Well, I will soon come. It shall be to-morrow night, just after Sarah is gone. But I must rouse myself first to do that which is my duty. I ought, as a friend, to cover up poor Hal’s traces, and yet I must be just to the boy, too. He ought to know when he grows up that, if his mother was unfortunate, she was not abandoned, and it is my duty to leave for him the proofs of it. But how to do that, and at the same time protect Harry, is the question, for I suppose that the police will search the flat. ”

“ You dear David! Mouth all ‘No,’ eyes all ‘Yes.’ [Pg 249] That’s it. Treat me like an old shoe. Bless you! we women worship that sort of thing, until, all at once, we blaze up. Well, you will give Strauss a drubbing one of these days, and I shan’t be sorry. I hate pretty men. They are all affectation, and waxy like a barber’s doll. Well, ta-ta! You’re going to have a nice, pleasant day, I can see. But, fair play, mind. No telling tales about your little Ermyn. I have done more for you to-day than I would do for any other man in creation. And some day you must bring your Violet to tea ”

“ Your name’s Harcourt isn’t it?”
Then David knew that Van Hupfeldt had over-reached him by the telegraph, and the shattering of his dream-castle caused such lightnings to gleam from within that the surly gamekeeper whistled to a retriever dog, and ostensibly revealed a double-barreled gun which lay in the corner of the porch.
David was likely to have his own way with clodhoppers, even in the hour of tribulation.
“Yes,” he said, “my name is Harcourt. And yours?”
“Mine is no matter.”
“Very well, ‘No Matter.’ You are obeying orders, I have no doubt; but you must be taught civility. ”

“ Mordaunt a good many times, for one reason or another. I can tell how she feels, and I’m afraid that she not only guesses what the world thinks, but agrees with the world’s view. On the other hand, I have reason to think that Miss Mordaunt has an obstinate faith in her sister, and neither believes that she died unmarried, nor even that she committed suicide. Well, well, you can’t expect much clear reasoning from a poor sister with a head half turned with grief.”
Dibbin tossed off his brandy, while David paced the room, his hands behind him, with a clouded brow. ”