Frances Waldeaux Part 6

CHAPTER IV

Two days later Mr. Perry met Miss Vance in Canterbury and told her of the marriage. She hurried back to London. She could not hide her distress and dismay from the two girls.

"How did she force him into it? One is almost driven to believe in hypnotism," she cried.

Lucy Dunbar had no joke to make about it to-day. The merry little girl was silent, having, she said, a headache.

"You've had too much cathedral!" said Miss Ha.s.sard. "And the whole church is wretchedly out of drawing!"

Jean Ha.s.sard had studied art at Pond City in Dakota, and her soul's hope had been to follow Marie Bashkirtseff's career in Paris. But her father had morally handcuffed her and put her into Clara's custody for a year. It was hard! To be led about to old churches, respectable as her grandmother, when she might have been studying the nude in a mixed cla.s.s! She rattled her chains disagreeably at every step.

"The mesalliance is on the other side," she told Lucy privately. "A woman of the world who knew life, to marry that bloodless, finical priest!"

"He was not bloodless. He loved her."

Mr. Perry came up with them from Canterbury, being secretly alarmed about Miss Dunbar's headache. n.o.body took proper care of that lovely child! He had attached himself to Miss Vance's party in England; he dropped in every evening to tell of his interviews with Gladstone or Mrs. Oliphant or an artist or a duke. It was delightful to the girls to come so close to these unknown great folks. They felt quite like peris, just outside the court of heaven, with the gate a little bit ajar. This evening Mr. Perry promised it should open for them. He was going to bring a real prince, whom he familiarly dubbed "a jolly fellow," to call upon Miss Vance.

"Who is the man?" said Clara irritably. "Be careful, Mr. Perry. I have had enough of foreign adventurers."

"Oh, the Hof Kalender will post you as to Prince Wolfburgh. I looked him up in it. He is head of one of the great mediatized families.

Would have been reigning now if old Kaiser Wilhelm had not played Aaron's serpent and gobbled up all the little kings. Wolfburgh has kept all his land and castles, however."

"Very well. Let us see what the man is like," Miss Vance said loftily.

Mrs. Waldeaux was not in the house when they arrived. Every day she went early in the morning to the Green Park, where she had seen George last, and wandered about until night fell. She thought that he had gone to Paris, and that she was alone in London. But somehow she came nearer to him there.

When she found that Clara had arrived, she knew that she would be full of pity for her. She came down to dinner in full dress, told some funny stories, and laughed incessantly.

No. She had not missed them. The days had gone merry as a marriage bell with her even after her son and his wife had run away to Paris.

Mr. Perry congratulated her warmly on the match. "The lady is very fetching, indeed," he said. "I remarked that the first day on s.h.i.+p-board. Oh, yes, I know a diamond when I see it. But your son picks it up. Lucky fellow! He picks it up!" He told Miss Vance that there was a curious attraction about her friend, "who, by the way, should always wear brown velvet and lace."

Miss Vance drew little Lucy aside after dinner. "Do you see," she said, "the tears in her eyes? It wrenches my heart. She has become an old woman in a day. I feel as if Frances were dead, and that was her ghost joking and laughing."

Lucy said nothing, but she went to Frances and sat beside her all evening. When the prince arrived and was presented, going on his triumphant way through the room, she nestled closer, whispering, "What do you think of him?"

"He looks very like our little fat Dutch baker in Weir--he has the same air of patronage," said Frances coldly. She was offended that Lucy should notice the man at all. Was it not she whom George should have married? How happy they would have been--her boy and this sweet, neat little girl! And already Lucy was curious about so-called princes!

When his Highness came back to them she rose hastily and went to her own room.

Late that night Miss Vance found her there in the dark, sitting bolt upright in her chair, still robed in velvet and lace. Clara regarded her sternly, feeling that it was time to take her in hand.

"You have not forgiven George?" she said abruptly.

Mrs. Waldeaux looked up, but said nothing.

"Is he coming back soon?"

"He never shall come back while that woman is with him."

Miss Vance put her lamp on the table and sat down. "Frances," she said deliberately, "I know what this is to you. It would have been better for you that George had died."

"Much better."

"But he didn't die. He married Lisa Arpent. Now it is your duty to accept it. Make the best of it."

"If a lizard crawls into my house will you tell me to accept it? Make the best of it? Oh, my G.o.d! The slimy vile creature!"

"She is not vile! I tell you there are lovable qualities in Lisa. And even if she were as wicked as her mother, what right have you---- You, too, are a sinner before G.o.d."

"No," said Mrs. Waldeaux gravely, "I am not. I have lived a good Christian life. I may have been tempted to commit sin, but I cannot remember that I ever did it."

Miss Vance looked at her aghast. "But surely your religion teaches you---- Why, you are sinning now, when you hate this girl!"

"I do not hate her. G.o.d made her as he made the lizard. I simply will not allow her to cross my path. What has religion to do with it? I am clean and she is vile. That is all there is to say."

Both women were silent. Mrs. Waldeaux got up at last and caught Clara by the arm. She was trembling violently. "No, I'm not ill. I'm well enough. But you don't understand! That woman has killed George. I spent twenty years in making him what he is. I worked--there was nothing but him for me in the world. I didn't spare myself. To make him a gentleman--a Christian. And in a month she turns him into a thing like herself. He is following her vulgar courses. I saw the difference after he had lived with her for one day. He is tainted."

She stood staring into the dull lamp. "She may not live long, though,"

she said. "She doesn't look strong----"

"Frances! For G.o.d's sake!"

"Well, what of it? Why shouldn't I wish her gone? The harm--the harm!

Do you remember that Swedish maid I had--a great fair woman? One day she was stung by a green fly, and in a week she was dead, her whole body a ma.s.s of corruption! Oh, G.o.d lets such things be done! Nothing but a green fly----" She shook off Clara's hold, drawing her breath with difficulty. "That is Lisa. It is George that is being poisoned, body and soul. It's a pity to see my boy killed by a thing like that--it's a pity----"

Miss Vance was too frightened to argue with her. She brought her wrapper, loosened her hair, soothing her in little womanish ways. But her burning curiosity drove her presently to ask one question.

"How can they live?"

"I have doubled his allowance."

"Frances! You will work harder to make money for Lisa Arpent?"

"Oh, what is money!" cried Frances, pus.h.i.+ng her away impatiently.

CHAPTER V

Miss Vance persuaded Mrs. Waldeaux to go with her to Scotland. During the weeks that followed Frances always found Lucy Dunbar at her side in the trains or on the coaches.

"She is a very companionable child," she told Clara. "I often forget that I am any older than she. She never tires of hearing stories of George's sc.r.a.pes or his queer sayings when he was a child. Such stories, I think, are usually tedious, but George was a peculiar boy."

Mr. Perry's search for notorieties took him also to Scotland, and, oddly enough, Prince Wolfburgh's search for amus.e.m.e.nt led him in the same direction. They met him and his cousin, Captain Odo Wolfburgh, at Oban, and again on the ramparts of Stirling Castle, and the very day that they arrived in Edinburgh, there, in Holyrood, in Queen Mary's chamber, stood the pursy little man, curling his mustache before her mirror.

Mr. Perry fell into the background with Miss Ha.s.sard. "His Highness is becoming monotonous!" he grumbled. "These foreigners never know when they are superfluous in society."