Читать книгу The House of Armour - Saunders Marshall - Страница 5

All of Vivienne’s unhappiness passed away with her night’s sleep. On waking up to the bright, still beauty of a clear December morning her naturally high spirits rose again.

“The Armours have really little power to afflict me,” she said, getting out of bed with a gay laugh. “My attachment to them is altogether a thing of duty, not affection. If they do not care for me I will leave them. That is a simple matter,” and going to the window she drew in a long breath of the fresh morning air and noted with delight the blueness of the sky, the whiteness of the snow, and the darkness of the sombre evergreens before the house, where a number of solemn crows sat cawing harshly as if asking for some breakfast.

“Ah, it is cold,” she exclaimed, drawing her gown about her, “and I am late. I must hurry.”

When she at last left her room the breakfast bell had long since rung. She speedily made her way down the staircase, glancing critically through open doors as she passed them.

“The furnishings are too gorgeous, too tropical,” she murmured; “and flaming colors are everywhere. Evidently the person who furnished this house had a barbaric fondness for bright shades.”

On arriving in the lower hall she paused before the dining-room door. She could hear the tinkling of china and murmur of voices within. Then with a composure not assumed but real she drew aside the curtain and entered the room.

Mrs. Colonibel, handsome and imposing in a bright blue morning gown, sat behind the silver coffee urn at the head of the table. She knew that Vivienne had entered yet she took up a cream jug and gazed as steadfastly into its depths as though she expected to find a treasure there.

The corners of Vivienne’s lips drooped mischievously. “For all exquisite torture to which one can be subjected,” she reflected, “commend me to that inflicted on woman number two who enters the house of woman number one who does not want her.”

Beside Mrs. Colonibel sat her daughter—a small misshapen girl, with peering black eyes and elfish locks that straggled down each side of her little wizened face and that she kept tossing back in a vain endeavor to make them hide the lump on her deformed back.

“What a contrast,” thought Vivienne with a shudder, “between that poor child and her blonde prosperous-looking mother.”

Colonel Armour, tall and stately, but looking not quite so young as he had in the lamplight of the night before, sat—as if in compensation for not occupying the seat at the foot of the table—on Mrs. Colonibel’s right hand. Holding himself bolt upright and stirring his coffee gently, he was addressing some suave and gracious remarks to the table in general.

Stanton Armour, who sat opposite Mrs. Colonibel, made no pretense of listening to him. Plunged in deep reflection he seemed to be eating and drinking whatever came to hand.

Valentine, gay and careless, alternately listened to his father and tried to balance a piece of toast on the edge of a fork.

“A happy family party,” murmured Vivienne; “what a pity to disturb it!”

The table maid, who was slipping noiselessly around the room, saw her but said nothing. Mr. Valentine raising his eyes caught the maid’s curious glances and turned around. Then he hurriedly got up.

“Good-morning. Flora, where is Miss Delavigne to sit?”

In some confusion she ejaculated: “I do not know; Jane bring another chair.”

“Is there no place for Miss Delavigne?” said Mr. Armour in cold displeasure. “Put the things beside me,” and he turned to the maid, who with the greatest alacrity was bringing from the cupboard plates, knives, and forks, enough for two or three people.

“What may I give you?” he went on when Vivienne was seated. “Porridge? We all eat that. No, not any? Shall I give you some steak? Flora, Miss Delavigne will have some coffee.”

Vivienne sat calmly—Mr. Armour on one side of her, his father on the other—taking her breakfast almost in silence. A few remarks were addressed to her—they evidently did not wish her to feel slighted—to which she replied sweetly, but with so much brevity that no one was encouraged to keep up a conversation with her.

There was apparently nothing in the well-bred composure of the people about her to suggest antipathy, yet her sensitiveness on being thrown into a hostile atmosphere was such that she could credit each one with just the degree of enmity that was felt toward her.

After all, what did it matter? She would soon be away; and her dark face flushed and her eyes shone, till the surreptitious observation of her that all the other people at the table—except Mr. Armour—had been carrying on bade fair to become open and unguarded.

Mrs. Colonibel’s heart stirred with rage and uneasiness within her. She hated the girl for her youth and distinction, and with bitter jealousy she noted her daughter’s admiring glances in Vivienne’s direction.

“Judy,” she said, when breakfast was over and the different members of the family were separating, “will you do something for me in my room?”

“No, mamma,” said the girl coolly, and taking up the crutch beside her chair she limped to Vivienne’s side. “Are you going to unpack your boxes, Miss Delavigne?”

“Yes, I am.”

“May I go with you? I love to see pretty things.”

“Certainly,” murmured Vivienne; and suiting her pace to that of the lame girl she went upstairs beside her.

“Bah,” said Judy, halting at the door of the pink room, “they have put you in this atrocious rose-bed.”

“Pink is a charming color,” said Vivienne.

“Yes, in moderation. Come upstairs and see my rooms,” and she slowly ascended another staircase.

Vivienne followed her to the story above, and through a third square hall to a long narrow apartment running the whole length of the northern side of the house.

Judy threw open the door. “Here,” she said, with a flourish of her hand, “having everything against me, I yet managed to arrange a sitting room where one is not in danger of being struck blind by some audacious blue or purple or red. What do you think of it?”

Vivienne glanced about the exquisitely furnished room. “It is charming.”

“Come in,” said Judy, hospitably pulling up a little white chair before the blazing fire. “We’ll have a talk.”

“Do you know,” she went on, seating herself beside Vivienne, “this used to be a lumber room? I got Stanton to come up one day and look at it—he is as artistic in his tastes as mamma is inartistic—and he suggested all this. We cleared out the old furniture and put in those yellow panes of glass to simulate sunshine, and got this satin paper because it would light up well, and he had the white and gold furniture made for me. The cream rugs were a present from Uncle Colonel. Here is my bedroom,” and she hobbled to a door at the western end of the room and threw it open for a full view of the room beyond.

“What a dainty place!” said Vivienne.

“An idea strikes me,” exclaimed Judy, hurrying to the other end of the apartment. “Look here,” and she opened a second door.

Vivienne surveyed a small empty room.

“Wouldn’t you like this for a bedroom?” said Judy excitedly. “We can share this big room in common. You can read and work here, for I am sure you and I would pull well together, and like me you will just hate sitting downstairs all the time.”

Vivienne smiled at her. “I should disturb you—and besides I have been put in the room below.”

“You needn’t mind leaving it,” said Judy. “Mamma will be delighted to get you out of it; it is one of the guest rooms.”

“Oh, in that case,” said Vivienne, “I will accept your invitation. You will speak to Mrs. Colonibel?”

“I will go now,” said Judy, hurrying from the room. Vivienne sat down by the fire and dropped her head upon her hands. “I am not likely to be here long,” she said, “so it doesn’t matter.”

“Mamma is delighted,” she heard presently in a shrill voice. “I knew she would be. There is some furniture that can be put in the room, and when the servants finish their work below they will come up and arrange it. What fun we shall have–”

Vivienne looked kindly at the little cynical face.

“’Till our first row,” said Judy, letting her crutch slip to the floor. “I suppose I shall hate you as I do every other body who has a straight back.”

Vivienne did not reply to her, and she went on peering restlessly into her face. “Well, what do you think of us?”

“This is not my first acquaintance with the Armours,” said Vivienne evasively.

“Ah, you were once here as a little child; but you don’t remember much about them, do you?”

“I remember Mammy Juniper,” said Vivienne, with a laugh, “and that she hated me and my father’s memory. I see that she still keeps up her old-womanish habit of prowling about the house at night.”

“Yes,” said Judy peevishly; “and if we forget to lock our doors we find her praying over us at unearthly hours.”

“She has been a faithful servant to the family, hasn’t she?” said Vivienne.

“And she has a diabolical temper,” said Judy.

“Don’t you think that she is crazy?”

“A little perhaps, though I think that she pretends to be more so to cover her inconsistencies. She belongs to the Armours, body and soul, and prides herself on being a model Christian. I say the two things don’t go together. The Armours haven’t been famed for devotion to the cause of religion for some years.”

“She talks about Ephraim,” said Vivienne; “who is he?”

“Ephraim is Uncle Colonel,” said Judy, with a chuckle. “Did she mention his having made a covenant with the Egyptians?”

“No.”

“He has; and the Assyrians are the people of Halifax. If you can get her started on that you’ll be entertained,” and Judy began a low, intensely amused laugh, which waxed louder till Vivienne at last joined her in it.

“It’s too funny,” said Judy, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I can even make Stanton laugh telling him about it, and he’s about the glummest man I know.”

“Is he always as, as–”

“As hateful?” suggested Judy cheerfully.

“As reserved,” went on Vivienne, “as he is now?”

“Always for the last few years. He gets too much of his own way and he worries over things. I asked him the other day if he had committed a murder. My, how he glowered at me! He’s the worst-tempered man I know.”

“He looks as if he had plenty of self-control,” said Vivienne.

“Wait till you see him in one of his rages—not a black one, but a white, silent Armour rage. He’s master absolute here, and if any one opposes him—well, it’s a bad thing for the family. You know, I suppose, that he has pushed Uncle Colonel out of the business?”

“Has he?” said Vivienne. “I didn’t know it.”

“Didn’t he write you while you were away?”

“Business letters only,” said the girl, “and they were always written by Mr. Stanton, even when I first went.”

“Well, Uncle Colonel is out,” said Judy. “Stanton won’t even let him live in the house.”

“Why he was here last evening and this morning.”

“Oh yes, he gets his meals here. He and Val live down in the cottage; look, down there among the trees,” and she pointed to the gabled roof of a handsome colonial building some distance below the house.

Vivienne got up and went to the window.

“It’s a great surprise to us all to have you come home so unexpectedly,” said Judy; “to mamma, especially, though she has always dreaded it. Did you know you were coming?”

“No,” said Vivienne, in a low voice.

“I thought that you were to be kept abroad now that you have grown up. I don’t know why Stanton brought you back. Does he mean to keep you here?”

“I do not know.”

“It would be a great deal pleasanter for you to live abroad,” said Judy, “and for us too. Your coming is sure to revive unpleasant memories.”

Vivienne turned around swiftly. “What do you mean by unpleasant memories?”

Judy stared at her. “Don’t you know all about yourself—about your father?”

“I know that my father was obliged to work for his living,” said Vivienne proudly, “and that he served Colonel Armour long and faithfully. I see nothing unpleasant about that.”

“No, that is not unpleasant,” said Judy. “But on your word of honor, do you know nothing more?”

“I am at a loss to understand your meaning,” said Vivienne coldly.

“And you will continue at a loss,” replied her new friend doggedly, “for I shall tell you nothing further. I am usually fond of gossip; now I shall hold my tongue.”

Vivienne looked into the little, shrewd, not unkindly face and smiled. “You are an odd girl. How old are you?”

“Sixteen when I’m not sixty,” said the younger girl wearily. “I hate to live and I hate to die; and I hate everything and everybody.”

“Why do you talk like that?” asked Vivienne caressingly.

“Suppose instead of being straight and tall and distinguished-looking, you were an ugly little toad like me—how would you talk?”

“You have beautiful eyes,” said Vivienne, touching Judy’s cheek softly with her fingers.

“Don’t you pity me,” said Judy threateningly. “Don’t you pity me or I shall cry,” and slipping on her knees beside Vivienne she burst into tears.