Floyd Grandon's Honor Part 24

Grandon, and Mr. Eugene, with his _bonhomie_, yet now the men question him in a furtive way.

"I have very little voice in the matter," explains Jasper Wilmarth, with an affected cautiousness. "I have tried to understand Mr. St.

Vincent's views about the working of his patent, but machinery is not my forte. I can only hope----"

"We did well enough before the humbugging thing was put in," says one of the workmen, sullenly. "Mr. Grandon made money. We had decent wages and decent wool, and we weren't stopping continually to get this thing changed and that thing altered. Now you're thrown out half a day here and half a day there, and the new men are nosing round as if they suspected you would make way with something and meant to catch you at it."

"We must have patience," says Wilmarth, in that extremely irritating, hopeless tone. "Mr. Grandon _is_ interested in his wife's behalf, though it is said he has a fortune of his own, and the new method must be made to pay him, if every one else suffers. I am not a rich man, and should be sorry to lose what I thought was so sure in this concern."

Rising finds his position an extremely disagreeable one. The men are not only curt, but evince a distrust of him, are unwilling to follow his suggestions, and will keep on in their old ways. Lindmeyer finds himself curiously foiled everywhere. It seems as if some unknown agency was at work. What he puts in order to-day is not quite right to-morrow.

All the nice adjustment he can theorize about will not work harmoniously, economically. So pa.s.ses away a fortnight.

"Mr. Grandon," he says, honestly, "I seldom make a decided blunder about these matters, but I can't get down to the very soul of this.

There is a little miss somewhere. I said I could tell you in a month, but I am afraid I shall have to ask a further fortnight's grace. I never was so puzzled in my life. It is making an expensive experiment for you, but I _do_ think it best to go on. I don't say this to lengthen out the job. There is plenty of work for me to go at."

Grandon sighs. He finds it very expensive. It is money on the right hand and the left, and with a costly house and large family the income that was double his bachelor wants melts away like dew. He is not parsimonious, but his instincts and habits have been prudent. He is making inroads upon his capital, and if he should never get it back?

His father, it is true, has advised against entangling his private fortune, but it cannot be helped now. To retreat with honor is impossible and would be extremely mortifying. He will not do that, he resolves. But how if he has to retreat with failure?

All these things trouble him greatly and distract his attention. He sits up far into the night poring over his own work that was such pleasure a few months ago, and he can hardly keep his mind on what so delighted him then. There is quite too much on every hand, and he must add to it family complications. His beautiful home is full of jarring elements. Even Cecil grows naughty with the superabundant vitality of childhood, and is inclined to tyrannize over Violet, who often submits for very lack of spirit, and desire of love.

They are always together, these two. They take long drives in the carriage, and Mrs. Grandon complains that everything must be given over to that silly, red-haired thing! Gertrude does battle for the hair one morning.

"I do not call it red," she says, with a decision good to hear from the languid woman. "It is a kind of bright brown, chestnut. Mrs. McLeod's is red."

"Auburn, my dear," retorts Mrs. Grandon mockingly. "If you are sensitively polite in the one instance, you might be so in the other.

One is light red, the other dark red."

"One is an ugly bricky red," persists Gertrude, "and no one would call the other red at all."

"I call it red," very positively.

"Very well," says the daughter, angrily, "you cannot make it other than the very handsome tint it is, no matter what you call it."

"There has been a very foolish enthusiasm about red hair, I know, but that has mostly died out," replies the mother, contemptuously, and keeps the last word.

Gertrude actually allows herself to be persuaded into a drive with "the children" that afternoon. She and Violet happen to stumble upon a book they have both read, a lovely and touching German story, and they discuss it thoroughly. Violet is fond of German poems.

"Then you read German?" Gertrude says. "I did a little once, but it was such a bore. I haven't the strength for anything but the very lightest amus.e.m.e.nt."

"Oh," Violet exclaims, "it must be dreadful always to be ill and weak!

Papa was ill a good deal, but he used to get well again, and he was nearly always going about!"

"I haven't the strength to go about much."

"I wonder," Violet says, "if you were to take a little drive every day; Cecil and I would be so glad."

Gertrude glances into the bright, eager face, with its velvety eyes and s.h.i.+ning hair. It _is_ beautiful hair, soft and fine as spun silk, and curling a little about the low, broad forehead, rippling on the top, and gathered into a careless coil at the back that seems almost too large for the head. Why are they all going to hate her? she wonders.

She is more comfortable in the house than madame would be as a mistress, and she will never object to anything Floyd chooses to do for his mother and sisters. One couldn't feel dependent on Violet, but dependence on madame might be made a bitter draught. And if the business goes to ruin, there will be no one save Floyd.

Violet reaches over and takes Gertrude's hand. She feels as well as sees a certain delicate sympathy in the faded face.

"If you would let me do anything for you," she entreats, in that persuasive tone. "I seem of so little use. You know I was kept so busy at school."

Gertrude feels that, fascinating as Cecil is with her bright, enchanting ways, Violet may be capable of higher enjoyments. For a moment she wishes she had some strength and energy, that she might join hands with her in the coming struggle.

Indeed, now, the child and Denise are Violet's only companions. Floyd is away nearly all day, and writes, it would seem, pretty nearly all night. His mind is on other matters, she sees plainly. She has been used to her father's abstraction, and does not construe it into any slight. But in the great house, large as it is, Mrs. Grandon seems to trench everywhere, except in their own apartments. Floyd installed Violet in the elegant guest-chamber, but Mrs. Grandon always speaks of it as the spare room, or madame's room.

Violet's heart had thrilled at the thought of the exquisite-toned piano. She had tried it a day or two after her advent and found it locked.

"Do you know who keeps the key?" she had asked timidly of Jane.

"It is Miss Laura's piano," is the concise answer, and no more is said.

But one morning Mr. Grandon asks if Violet can go over to the cottage with him. Her lovely eyes are all alight.

"Get your hat, then," he says, as if he were speaking to the child.

Violet starts eagerly. Cecil rises and follows.

"Oh, she may go, too?" the pretty mamma asks.

Floyd nods over his paper. Mrs. Grandon bridles her head loftily.

"Denise has something for us, I know," cries Violet. "We were not there yesterday. Poor Denise, she must have missed us, but I did want to finish Maysie's dress." Maysie is Cecil's doll, and has had numerous accessions to her wardrobe of late.

Grandon has an odd little smile on his face as he looks up. Violet and he are friends again when they are not Mr. and Mrs. Grandon. The little episode of the wedding journey has faded, or at least has borne no further fruit. Yet as the days go on she feels more at home in the friends.h.i.+p.

"Oh," she begins, in joyous accents, "you have a surprise for us!" She has such a pretty way of bringing in Cecil.

"Perhaps it is Denise."

"It is cream, I know," announces Cecil. Denise's variety of creams is inexhaustible.

Grandon smiles again, a sort of good-humored, noncommittal smile.

It is something that pleases him very much, Violet decides, and a delicious interest brightens every feature.

Denise welcomes them gladly. Lindmeyer has taken up his lodgings at the cottage, but the upper rooms are kept just the same. Grandon leads the way and Violet stares at the boxes in the hall. Her room is in a lovely tumult of disorder. Bed and chairs are strewn with feminine belongings.

"Oh," she says, uttering a soft, grateful cry. "They have come!

But--there is so much!" And she looks at him in amazement.

"It is not so bad, after all," he answers, touching the soft garments with his fingers, and studying her. There is a lovely dead silk, with only a very slight garniture of c.r.a.pe; there is the tenderest gray, that looks like a pathetic sigh, and two or three in black, that have the air of youth, an indescribable style that only an artist could give. But the white ones are marvels. One has deep heliotrope ribbons, and another c.r.a.py material seems almost alive. There are plain mulls, with wide hems, there are gloves and sashes and wraith-like plaitings of tulle; a pretty, dainty bonnet and a black chip hat, simple and graceful. Madame Vauban has certainly taken into account youth, bridehood, and the husband's wishes. Plain they are, perhaps their chief beauty lies in their not being overloaded with tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and ornament.

"Oh," she says, "whenever am I to wear them all?" Her black dress has done mourning duty so far, but the summer heats have rendered white much more comfortable. "They are so very, very lovely!"

Her eyes glisten and her breath comes rapidly. He can see her very heart beat, and a faint scarlet flies up in her face, growing deeper and deeper, as the sweet red lips tremble.

"You bought them?" she falters, in an agony of shame.