The Wide House Page 12

  “Now Stuart,” he said, archly shaking a finger at him, “let us be sensible. What have you to offer my daughter, who has been brought up under the most genteel and luxurious circumstances? Your shops? I grant you they are marvelous, marvelous! I have no doubt that you will be a very rich and enterprising man, one of these days. But just at this time, eh? What have you to offer? You are in debt. I fear, at times, that you are expanding beyond your reserves. In the last analysis, my dear boy, you are only a shopkeeper. I had hoped for more for Marvina.”

  Stuart colored violently. He compressed his lips.

  “You are also Irish,” said Joshua, his voice dropping almost to a whisper. “Now, I pride myself on no prejudice, please understand. This is America, where the strangest creatures become quite powerful. You must forgive an old man, Stuart, who has only one treasure. But I find your Irish blood repugnant—”

  “My mother was a Scotswoman,” said Stuart, grimly, hating himself.

  Joshua shook his head in sad and gentle rebuke. “Well, we shall overlook your—antecedents, Stuart, for a moment. You see, I am quite tolerant? Who are you, Stuart? You have told me of exalted relatives in Scotland and England and Ireland, but I have seen none of them. Sometimes I have fancied that you were—er—elaborating. Forgive me if I wrong you unwittingly. I should, however, like some definite proof of these personages.”

  “You shall have them, sir!” said Stuart, rashly. He suddenly thought of Janie. “Why, sir, I had almost forgotten! My second cousin, Mrs. Cauder, is about to visit me in America. A lady of fortune and breeding.”

  “Indeed.” Joshua was unpleasantly surprised. “May I ask who Mrs. Cauder is?”

  “My second cousin. Her father is a gentleman of—large holdings, sir. Janie has a large fortune in her own right.” Now Stuart’s imagination came into play. “Her second cousin on her father’s side is Sir Angus Fraser. You must have heard of him, sir. His paintings hang in the Royal Academy.”

  He cursed himself that he could not remember the other illustrious forebears and relatives that he had so blithely mentioned to Joshua in the past, and which he had invented on the spur of the moment to impress the formidable old devil. But his volatile spirits only lingered momentarily on this debacle. He earnestly hoped that Joshua had also forgotten the august names he had picked out of the clean air. Janie, however, was tangible. She existed. She indeed had a fortune. Devoutly, Stuart hoped that she would fall in with his inventions, and admire them, for his sake. His confidence returned.

  Joshua was eyeing him keenly. This, then, was an unexpected and disagreeable event, if true.

  “You recall Sir Angus Fraser, sir?” urged Stuart, with rising intoxication. “His painting of her Grace, the Duchess of York, is considered one of the masterpieces in the Academy.”

  Joshua was perturbed. He coughed lightly. “Sir Angus Fraser? But, of course. I remember the painting—” He paused, frowning: “And Mrs. Cauder: she has children, I presume, who are travelling with her?”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Stuart, with enthusiasm, though he had not given Janie’s children a moment’s thought in the past. “I believe the eldest son, Angus, will inherit the title, as Sir Angus has no male issue.” He was somewhat confused about the British laws of inheritance, but he shrewdly suspected that Joshua knew as little.

  “There is no possibility, I opine, that you might inherit the title?” suggested Joshua, thereby confirming Stuart’s suspicion.

  Stuart paused. Now, there was a wondrous matter. But even his recklessness was not equal to this enormous invention. He shook his head sadly. “I am afraid not, sir. Direct lineal descendants, I believe.”

  Joshua aroused himself with sudden interest. “This son of Mrs. Cauder: what is his age?”

  “Oh, a mere lad, sir. Possibly in his early teens.”

  Joshua was profoundly disappointed. Then he brightened. After all, a few years’ difference did not matter. Marvina could wait. But, good Heavens! This was all a different matter, then. He struggled to regain his former detachment He frowned.

  “Well, then, it seems you do have exalted connections, Stuart. Let us proceed to another matter, then. You are deeply in debt, Stuart, not only to me, but to others, for certain large shipments of goods.”

  Stuart glared. His debts were a delicate subject. He said proudly: “I have never defaulted on payments of principal or interest. I am doing amazingly well. I hope to be completely out of debt within a year, your debt, also, Mr. Allstairs. I only owe you six thousand dollars on the original loan, and ten thousand on the house. The ten thousand I regard as a private matter, not connected with the shops, of course.”

  Joshua meditated. The fool Stuart had signed an agreement that a single default on the ten thousand dollars would make Joshua the owner of his house. He eyed Stuart absently. “Of course, of course,” he murmured.

  Now, if this Mrs. Cauder should make Stuart free and dear of this ten thousand dollars, it would be very disagreeable indeed, and very unfortunate. Nevertheless, there was no doubt that she could do this. Joshua’s face became a mask of frustrated evil, webbed and cracked and grimacing.

  However, a relative who had for a cousin the illustrious Sir Angus Fraser, portrait-painter to the kings of England and other noble personages, was not to be ignored, particularly if she had a son a year or two younger than Miss Marvina.

  “Wait a moment, wait a moment,” said Joshua, frowning. He sucked in his lips, and fixed his ophidian eyes intently upon Stuart. It would not do to antagonize this lofty Mrs. Cauder. One must wait and see, however.

  Joshua tapped his lips thoughtfully with the head of his cane. He had had to revise many things in his mind. His eyes narrowed and glinted with a vicious light. Then he said: “Stuart, my boy, I cannot give you an answer about my daughter at this time. She is still very young, in experience, if not in years. Shall I merely say this: That I do not frown upon your suit?”

  Stuart’s exultation was hardly to be contained. His sanguine mind bounded over any disquietude. He would manage everything!

  He sprang to his feet, his face glowing. “I have your permission to speak to Miss Marvina, then?”

  “Not so fast, not so fast,” rebuked Joshua, shaking his head, but smiling. (He must have hours alone, to think.) “I did not say that. I merely said I do not, as of this instant, frown on your suit. But there are many things to consider.”

  “I built my house for her!” lied Stuart, with magnificent dash and fire.

  Joshua grinned. But he made no comment on this.

  I have said there are many things to consider. You must allow an old man time to make up his mind to relinquish his darling”

  When Stuart departed, in a blaze of rapture and intoxication, Joshua sat alone for a long time, until his meager fire died down. Then he rose, groaning, and went up to his daughter’s apartments.

  CHAPTER 14

  Marvina was sitting before her own fire in her own small sitting room. She was attired in a loose robe of crimson velvet, bordered with fur. Her black hair lay on her shoulders. When her father entered she was looking at the fire, as motionless as a painted statue. She turned to him with a lovely smile, and lifted her face for his kiss. Her manner was tranquil, serene and without interest.

  Joshua sat near her, and regarded her with passionate intensity. The firelight flicked over her perfect features, which were entirely without any expression at all.

  “Thinking, my darling?” he asked, gently.

  “Yes, Papa,” she replied, obediently, in her rich slow voice.

  “Pleasant thoughts, I hope?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “You are quite contented, my love?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “I did not disturb you?”

  “No, Papa.”

  Joshua was silent. The words had come from his daughter with docility and calm, like unhurried echoes. For the first time since she had been born, Joshua felt a vague chill. The eyes, gazing at him almost unblinkingly, were co
mpletely empty, if radiant. He thought for the very first time: What is there behind that face? She was like a large and beautiful doll, mindlessly waiting to be taken and manipulated.

  Almost with irritation, he said abruptly: “What were you thinking of, my love?”

  She stared at him without expression, but there was not the slightest surprise in her regard. “Thinking, Papa? Of many things. How pleasant it is that spring is coming. Of my new sable pelisse which you bought me a week ago. Of the party next week. Are these thoughts wrong on Sunday, Papa?”

  She said this, placidly, and turned back to the fire.

  “Frivolous thoughts, I believe, my love,” said Joshua, with stern fondness. But Marvina did not reply. She looked at the fire, and smiled emptily, with infinite sweetness. He had the sudden unpleasant thought that she had forgotten he was there. When he cleared his throat, however, she turned her eyes obediently to him again.

  “Mr. Coleman has just left, my love. He sends you his regards.”

  “Yes, Papa.” Was there a quickening of that exquisite face, a brighter tint on the lips? But the girl’s manner was undisturbed.

  “A fascinating young man, eh?”

  “I believe that is the general opinion, Papa.”

  “But what do you think?” he demanded, abruptly.

  “Mr. Coleman is very genteel, Papa. Quite a gentleman. His conversation is very clever.”

  “Umph,” muttered Joshua. His eye-sockets stretched with the intensity of his study of his daughter.

  “You do not find him repellent, then?”

  “No, Papa.” She was looking at him with her golden eyes quite wide, and waiting.

  “You like him?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “You find his conversation agreeable, Marvina?” His voice was strangely hoarse.

  Her head was still bowed. A coil of her hair hid her profile.

  “He is very civil, Papa,” she whispered.

  Ah, it was only a reticent young girl, then! Joshua sighed again, as if released from an unbearable pressure.

  “Marvina, my love, he asked for my permission to press his suit with you.”

  He saw that she was trembling. Her head bowed lower. “Yes, Papa?” she said, almost inaudibly.

  “You would not refuse him, then, I presume?” His voice was loud and harsh.

  She lifted her head. Her eyes were actually filled with tears.

  “Not if it was agreeable to you, Papa.”

  Joshua was silent, filled with black chaos. Only a few hours ago he had intended to dismiss Stuart with harsh laughter and mockery, and then to come to his daughter to renew his laughter with her at the presumption of that contemptible and nameless Irishman. He had even heard her sweet laughter in advance.

  But now he could only crouch there, in silence. Many things had changed. A few moments ago he had felt the horrible presence of an incubus. He had been released from the ghastly visitation by the sight of Marvina’s blushes and tears and agitation. He simply did not know where he was!

  Certainly, he had not even dreamed of Stuart as a husband for Marvina. Yet here he was, now, almost urging him upon his daughter. He felt suddenly ill and devastated, and very old.

  He stood up, and began to tap his way to the door. On the threshold he paused, and looked back. His daughter was regarding him with quiet breathlessness.

  He cried out, in the strangest of voices: “We shall see! We shall see! But, in the meantime, Marvina, you are not to give him the slightest encouragement!”

  He waited. If she had said: “No, Papa,” he might have broken out into incoherent exclamations, and left her abruptly. But, to his most appalling relief, she only smiled, and the firelight showed her blushing face.

  CHAPTER 15

  Now Janie had come, Janie with her many trunks, her fortune, and her brats.

  During the journey to Grandeville, Stuart had thought more strongly and consistently than he had ever done in his life. It had become more and more obvious that Janie was hardly the “grand” relative expected by Joshua Allstairs and the others to whom Stuart had ebulliently announced her coming. She was raucous and coarse; she was boisterous and ribald. She was noisy. She had a hoarse voice, which she used roundly, with no regard for the decencies. Moreover, she was flamboyant. But—she had a fortune. She had the most astounding wardrobe, far surpassing, in quality and variety, even the exquisite wardrobe of Miss Marvina.

  Nevertheless, Stuart had the gravest doubts that the prim and rigid ladies of Grandeville would approve of Janie Cauder. Janie, who hated the strait-laced and the pious and the affected, could be relied upon to shock and horrify them, to give them the “vapors.” She swore like an artilleryman, and her opinions of the sacred things would have turned even a tolerant gentleman like Father Houlihan gray with terror. Let them once know that Janie was no stranger to whiskey, but would pull up her skirts before a fire to warm her legs and drink her grog, straight, and Stuart would be completely ruined.

  Yet, he remembered, brightening, his father had told him tales of the British aristocracy. Duchesses who swore, who rode like men, who loved their beer and their whiskey and their dogs, were quite common. Perhaps he could pass Janie off as one of these. Who the hell were these American “aristocrats,” anyway? he thought.

  The picture, in his mind, became more subdued of tint, fading from the frightful scarlets of its original tone. He could hear himself saying, with high and amused indulgence, to certain ladies: “You must meet my dear cousin, Mrs. Cauder. Quite a character. A true type of the British aristocracy. They have no need to fear that someone might look askance at their family, or their titles, or their positions, so they can be entirely natural, you know. No affectations or simperings. Haven’t you, my dear Mrs. So-and-so, observed that when a lady or gentleman is of the most elegant and irreproachable family, she or he need pretend to nothing, and does not fear the opinion of the more vulgar classes? Or even of their own?”

  He rehearsed this, sweating. However, his apprehensions did not decrease. Janie had been with him a week. He could no longer keep her immured. One of these days, the ladies, in a body, would call upon her. She would be his dreadful secret no longer.

  Nature came to his rescue, or, rather, bronchitis and rheumy colds.

  On the seventh day, Janie obligingly had a “chill,” and Robbie and Bertie followed suit. On the eighth day they were confined to their beds. The doctor expressed his anxiety. Stuart breathed easier. A reprieve had been granted him. Now his spirits soared again, and as he was safe for at least two weeks more, he thought nothing of the time beyond them.

  He could even visit his shops and chat gaily with the customers without watching closely to see if one of them had heard some ghastly tale of Janie, through the medium of servants. He could even visit Joshua and Marvina with a free mind, shaking his head dolorously over Janie’s sufferings, and expressing his regret that the party he had been arranging for her must be postponed. He could even be kind to Janie’s other children, Angus and Laurie.

  These two, he observed, were having a hard time of it. The servants resented them. Janie loathed them. They would drift about the grounds of the house, and through its forbidden rooms, like miserable little ghosts. Even Stuart, the careless, was not insensible of their wretchedness.

  It was early April, now. The river was choked with drifting cakes of ice, which had made their way from the Lakes. The floes crashed and crunched against their shores, sparkling in the new sunlight. Between them the water was blue-black and foaming. From them came a wall of cold bright air, penetrating even the warm garments proof against winter blizzards. Endlessly, the floes extended back-and-forwards, hoary and broken, moving like an avalanche to the Falls. But the trees were showing the first swelling buds, and when the wind was still the air had a softness and freshness that lifted the heart. The sky, a clear and brilliant blue, stood over the earth like a pure arch of light. The ground was still barren and brown, oozing with moisture, but there was an odor to it at
once strong and fecund. The first Canal barges and the first Lake steamers had not yet been able to penetrate the ice-floes, but rumors of them were rife. The first Canal barge had been sighted at Utica, a traveller announced. Within two or three weeks, it ought to arrive in Grandeville. Throughout the North country there was a murmur of high activity and hope, and one forgot the ice-floes thundering on their way to Niagara, and the wall of icy air that flowed almost constantly from them.

  Now the sunsets were rarely cold scarlet. Instead, purest lakes of pale green stood in the west at twilight, and the last sunlight that fell on the black waters and cakes of ice was warm and crimson, though lonely still, and enormously silent. Some children had found crocuses in the woods, and the robins had returned, filling the quiet evening air with notes of melancholy silver which dropped as from a far height like rounded drops of pure water. It is true that the edges of ponds and puddles were rimmed with ice at night, and that sometimes flurries of snow whirled across the brown landscape and over the ice-floes. But noonday was almost gentle and festive, and the dull fire had gone from the sunset. At night, the stars were less sharp and blazing, and the moon had a soft look.

  One evening, sweeter and balmier than the last evenings, Stuart returned from his shops, dutifully inquired, not too hopefully, about Janie’s miserable state, and discovered Angus and Laurie standing in the brown wet garden listening to the robins. Stuart sauntered up to them, and when they turned their faces to him, and he saw their timid shrinking from his, his heart smote him.

  “Well, well,” he said, with uneasy heartiness. “Aren’t you afraid of the night air, you two?”

  Angus muttered something, Laurie curtseyed. Stuart looked with unwilling intentness at the little girl. All her bright color was gone. It was a small pale face there, framed in her golden locks and her big bonnet. She was shivering visibly in her small brown coat with its fur collar. Ah, the poor little love! She had heard nothing from Stuart since her arrival but reproaches when she ran through his precious house, or left her fingermarks on his balustrades. No wonder her eyes were so big, and so deeply sunken in mauve shadows. He recalled his first touching encounters with her in the coach. He had loved the poor wee creature then. He could not endure her expression: timid, sorrowful and afraid, nor the way she moved closer to the pale Angus and clutched his hand. They knew themselves unwanted and disliked and resented, these two poor children, and they could only look out upon the world in sad bewilderment.