Floyd Grandon's Honor Part 29

Gertrude relapses into silence and her book. Why can they not be peaceable and let each other alone? It was so pleasant before they all came home.

Marcia soon nurses up a grievance. Why is a mere child like Violet to be allowed to spend hours with this wonderful professor, pretending to translate or copy, while she, who has actually translated poems for publication, is kept outside of the charmed circle? How delightful it would be to say, "My dear, I am so busy translating with Prof.

Freilgrath for his new book that I have not a moment for calls." She does not cordially like the professor. He has very little appreciation of art, _her_ art, and when one evening she took great pains to explain an ambitious scheme, he said, "O Miss Marcia, such a thing would be quite impossible! You would want years of thorough training before you could attempt it. I should advise something less arduous and better suited to a young lady's desultory pursuits. You have no idea of intense study."

"Floyd," she says, one morning, "why cannot I help with copying or translating? I should be glad to do something."

"Oh," he answers, carelessly, "Violet is able to do all, and satisfies the professor perfectly."

The professor has come to feel the flurry of unrest in the air. These ladies of fas.h.i.+on cannot understand he is here now to work, not to be entertained.

"Mrs. Grandon," he says, one afternoon, as Violet folds the notes she has been making and puts them in their place,--she is so orderly and exact it is a pleasure to watch her,--"Mrs. Grandon, I have been thinking of a plan, and your husband allows me to consult you. I should like to take your cottage for the autumn. It is so charmingly situated, so quiet, and your old housekeeper is a treasure. The ground floor would be sufficient, and nothing would need be disturbed. Some time I might ask up a friend or two, and you could come over; the exercise would be beneficial. You grow quite too pale with so much work."

"Why, yes," replies Violet, with a rift of pleasure. She would like having him there, and it would be pleasant for Denise to prepare meals and keep house regularly. And the change for her, the absolute getting away from this unfriendly atmosphere. "You may have it, certainly."

"Thank you. Can you go over and make arrangements? We both need a little exercise, and we have been beautifully industrious. I do not know what I should do without your swift fingers. Will I order the carriage?"

As Violet is dressing herself, an uncomfortable wonder enters her mind.

She hears a good deal of talk about propriety, and she does not know whether she ought to do this alone. Even Cecil is out with Jane. She must ask Denise, but alas, she cannot get at her now. Gertrude is kind to her, and she might--

Violet runs down stairs and relates her perplexity.

"Of course you can," says Gertrude. "Married women go anywhere."

"But if you only would!" beseechingly. "And you have never seen the cottage. Oh, please do!" And she kneels down, taking the nerveless hands in hers.

Gertrude considers. She hates to be disturbed, but her book is unusually stupid, and Violet's eager, winsome face is irresistible. How can they say she is not pretty? And if there is the slightest question they will find no end of fault. She groans.

"I know it is asking a good deal, but it would make me so happy, so comfortable."

"And you are such a dear little thing!"

"Do you really think so? Oh, if you could care about me," and the entreaty in the voice touches the heart of the elder as nothing has in a long while.

"I will go," returns Gertrude, with unwonted decision. "I will be quick about changing my dress. There is the carriage."

Gertrude is not much improved by her mourning. She looks less deathly and washed out in the soft white gowns, but there is a languid grace about her that, after all, moves the professor's sympathy. "It is a better face than the other one," he thinks; "not so silly and self-sufficient." He is ever entertaining, unless deeply preoccupied, and now he addresses most of his conversation to her, and is friendly solicitous about her comfort and her health. "There are such delightful baths in Germany. Is there nothing like them in America?" he asks.

"They are really so," Gertrude answers. "We were in Germany once, when my health first began to break."

"In Germany?" With that he brightens up and questions her, and Violet is pleased that she answers with interest. She so pities poor Gertrude, with her broken-off love story, and she helps the conversation with now and then a trenchant bit of her own that does not lead it away. She is so generous in this respect. She has not come to the time of life when one wishes to ama.s.s, or is it that she has not seen anything she covets?

The professor is satisfied with every room. If they can put in a bed he will sleep here, and take this for his workroom. The parlor is still left for the entertainment of guests. Here is a porch and a rather steep flight of steps, where he can run up and down when he wants a whiff of the cool river breeze or a stroll along the sh.o.r.e. Violet explains to Denise that Prof. Freilgrath will want some meals. "You know all about those odd foreign soups and dishes," she says, with her pretty air. "And I shall come over every day to write or to read. You can't think what a business woman I have become."

Denise raises her eyebrows a little. "And Mr. Grandon?" she asks.

"Oh, I expect he will never want to come back home! Denise, wouldn't it be lovely if we lived here, with Cecil? I wish he might want to," in her incoherent eagerness. "It will be another home to us, you see, where I shall feel quite free. Why, I could even come in the kitchen and cook a dis.h.!.+"

With that she laughs delightedly, her sweet young face in a glow.

The visitors go up-stairs to see the prospect, which is lovely from the upper windows. "This is--this was papa's room," correcting herself. She does not think of him any more as in the grave, but in that other wonderful country with the one he loves so dearly.

"Denise," she says, one day, shocking the old woman, "why should I wear black clothes when papa is so happy? It is almost as if he had gone to Europe to meet mamma. Sometimes I long to have him back, then it seems as if I envied her, when she only had him three years, so long ago. Why should any one be miserable if I went to them both?"

"You talk wildly, child," answers Denise, quite at loss for an argument.

But now, when they come down, Denise has a cup of tea, some delicious bread and b.u.t.ter, cream cheese that she can make to perfection, and a dish of peaches. Violet is as surprised as they, and rejoices to play hostess. They are in the midst of this impromptu picnic when Grandon looks in the doorway, and laughs with the light heart of a boy.

"I was coming to talk with Denise," he says.

"I have made my bargain," the professor answers, in a tone of elation.

"It is delightful. I shall be so charmed that I shall lose the zest of the traveller and become a hermit. I shall invite my friends to royal feasts."

Violet has poured a cup of tea and motions to Floyd, who comes to sit beside her. She is so alluring in her youth and freshness that he sometimes wishes there was no marriage tie between them, and they could begin over again.

"Whatever happened to you, Gertrude?" he asks. "I am amazed that tea-drinking has such a tempting power."

"The fraulein is to come often," says Freilgrath, lapsing into his native idiom. "It has done her good already; her eyes have brightened.

She stays within doors too much."

Gertrude's wan face flushes delicately.

When they reach home the dinner-bell rings, and they all feel like truants who have been out feasting on forbidden fruit.

The next day the professor moves, but he promises to come down every evening. Marcia is intensely surprised, and Mrs. Grandon rather displeased. It is some plot of Violet's she is quite sure, especially as Floyd takes his wife over nearly every day. Curiously enough Gertrude rouses herself to accompany them frequently. They shall not find unnecessary fault with Violet. Denise enjoys it all wonderfully, and when the professor sits out on the kitchen porch and smokes, her cup of happiness is full.

Then he goes to the city for several days. There is the club reception to the noted traveller, and though Laura would enjoy a German much more, she does not care to miss this. Madame Lepelletier is invited also, but she is arranging her house and getting settled, and this evening has a convenient headache. There are several reasons why she does not care to go, although she is planning to make herself one of the stars for the coming winter.

She has had occasion to write two or three business notes to Floyd Grandon since she said farewell to him, and they have been models in their way. In his first reply, almost at the end, he had said, "Laura, I suppose, has informed you of my marriage. It was rather an unexpected step, and would not have occurred so suddenly but for Mr. St. Vincent's fatal illness."

In her next note she spoke of it in the same grave manner, hoping he would find it for his happiness, and since then no reference has been made to it. From Laura she has heard all the family dissatisfactions and numberless descriptions of Violet. From Eugene she has learned that Miss Violet was offered to him, and there is no doubt in her mind but that she was forced upon Floyd. She cannot forgive him for his reticence those last few days, but her patience is infinite. The wheel of fate revolves, happily; it can never remain at one event, but must go on to the next. The Ascotts' house is a perfect G.o.dsend to her, and her intimacy with Mrs. Latimer a wise dispensation. They are all charmed with her; it could not be otherwise, since she is a perfect product of society. She hires her servants and arranges her house, which is certainly a model of taste and beauty, but she wishes to give it her own individuality.

Mrs. Grandon has written to invite her up to the park, and Laura has begged her to accompany her and see the idiotic thing Floyd has made his wife. She is gratified to know they had all thought of her and feel disappointed, but she means they shall all come to her first, and this is why she will not meet Floyd Grandon at his friend's reception. There is another cause of offence in the fact that through a two months'

acquaintance he should never have mentioned his own aims and plans and achievements. If she could only have guessed this! She is mortified at her own lack of discernment.

Laura is in the next morning. Madame has chosen a gown that throws a pallid shade over her complexion, and she has just the right degree of languor.

"Oh," she declares, "you have come to make me wretched, I see it in your blooming, triumphant face! You had a positively grand evening with all your _savants_ and people of culture. Is your German a real lion in society, or only in his native wilds?"

"Well, I think he is a real lion," with a fas.h.i.+onable amount of hesitation. "You positively do look ill, you darling, and I was not at all sure about the headache last night."

"Did you suppose--why, I could have sent an excuse if I had not wanted to go," and madame opens her eyes with a tint of amaze. "Everybody else was there, of course. Did your brother bring his wife? A reception is not a party."

"He had better taste than that, my dear. He would not even bring Marcia, though she was dying to come. It was for the very _creme_, you know. I'm not frantically in love with such things, only the name of having gone. Do you know that Floyd is rather of the leonine order?

Isn't it abominable that he should have made such a social blunder? The only comfort is, she is or ought to be in deep mourning, and cannot go out anywhere. Why, we gave up all invitations last winter."

"I wonder, Laura dear, if I would dare ask a favor of your mother? It might be a little rest and change, and yet--I am just selfish enough to consider my own pleasure; I should like to invite her down for a fortnight, and give two or three little spreads, don't you young people call them? You see I am not quite up in slang. A dinner and one or two little teas, and an at home evening, something to say to people that I am really here, though there have been several cards left, and I _must_ get well for Thursday. How stupid to indulge in such an inane freak when I have uninterruptedly good health."

"Oh, I am sure mamma would be delighted! Why, it is lovely in you to think of it, instead of taking in some poky old companion."