THE WORD OF JOY
Not many guests were for the moment at No. 60A, Porchester Gardens, so
that the Mordaunts, mother and daughter, who always stopped there during
their visits to London, could almost persuade themselves that they
were in their own home. In the good old days Mr. and Mrs. Harrod, the
proprietors, had been accustomed to receive three Mordaunts to their
hospitality, when Gwen, the bright and petted, came with Violet and Mrs.
Mordaunt. Only two now visited London, a grayer mother, a dumber sister;
and though the Harrods asked no questions, made no prying into the
heart's secret, nor uttered any word of sympathy, they well divined that
the feet of the angel of sorrow had passed that way, and expressed their
pity silently by a hundred little ministries.
Violet and Mrs. Mordaunt were having tea in the drawing-room on the day
of David Harcourt's visit to Miss L'Estrange, when the postman's knock
sounded, and a minute later Mrs. Harrod herself came in, saying:
"A letter for Miss Violet, and it contains good news; for I dreamt of
soldiers last night, and so sure as I dream of soldiers, so sure are
there letters with good news."
"The good news will all be in the other people's letters, I'm afraid,"
said Mrs. Mordaunt. "Good news is like wealth, Mrs. Harrod, unequally
divided; to some of us it never comes."
"Oh, come now!" cried the hearty Mrs. Harrod. "Never say die, say I!
There's good and bad in store for everybody; and care killed a cat,
after all. Don't I tell you I dreamt of soldiers? And so sure--"
"It is that good heart of yours which makes you dream of soldiers. To
bring healing to some lots in this world, you would have need to dream
of generals and field-marshals--"
"Some more tea, mother?" interposed Violet. She shrank from the
threatened talk of human ills. Mrs. Mordaunt, most excellent woman,
was not adverse to pouring some of her grief into a sympathetic ear.
"Well, you will tell me at dinner whether I was right," cried Mrs.
Harrod, and was gone.
She had placed the letter on the tray, and there it still lay unopened.
Violet handed the tea to her mother. The room was empty, save for them,
the few other guests being out, and in the house reigned perfect
quietude, a peacefulness accentuated by the wheels and hoofs passing in
the dusk outside.
"Vi," said Mrs. Mordaunt, "those flowers at your waist are almost faded;
I think you might give up violets in London. They don't seem to me the
same thing as in the country; but at least let them be fresh. Mr. Van
Hupfeldt will be here presently--"
"How do you know, mother?"
"He mentioned, dear, that he would be coming."
"But why, after all, every day?"
"Is that displeasing to you, dear?"
"It seems superfluous."
"That compels me to suggest to you, Vi, that his coming to-day is of
some special importance."
"And why, pray?"
"Can you not guess?"
The girl stood up; she walked restlessly to the window and back before
she cried: "Mother! mother! Have you not had experience enough of the
curse of men?" Her great eyes rested gloomily on the older woman's face.
There was a beautiful heredity marked in the pair; but seldom have more
diverse souls been pent within similar tabernacles.
"Don't speak so recklessly, dear," said the old lady. "You had the best
of fathers. There are good men, too, in the world, and when a man is
good, he is better than any woman."
"It may be so. God knows. I hope it is so. But is Mr. Van Hupfeldt one
of these fabulous beings? It has not struck me--"
"Please, Violet, don't imagine that I desire to influence you in the
slightest degree," said Mrs. Mordaunt. "I merely wish to hint to
you what, in fact, you can't be blind to, that Mr. Van Hupfeldt's
inclinations are fixed on you, and that he will probably give
expression to them to-day. On Saturday he approached me on the subject,
beseeching me with great warmth to hold out to him hopes which, of
course, I could not hold out, yet which I did not feel authorized wholly
to destroy. At any rate, I was persuaded upon to promise him a fair
field for his enterprise to-day."
"Oh, mother! Really, this is irritating of you!" cried Violet, letting
fall with a clatter a spoon she had lifted off the table.
"But I don't see it. Why so?"
"It sounds so light-minded, at your years!"
"As if I was one of the two parties concerned!" laughed Mrs. Mordaunt
with a certain maternal complacency. She knew, or thought she knew, her
wayward daughter. With a little tact this most suitable marriage could
be arranged.
"No," admitted Violet, angry at the weakness of her defense, "but you
allow yourself to be drawn into having a hand in what is called a
love-affair because it is an event; and it was not fair to Mr. Van
Hupfeldt, since you knew quite well beforehand what would be the
result."
"Well, well," purred Mrs. Mordaunt good-humoredly, looking down to
stroke the toy Pom on her lap, a nervous little animal which one might
have wrapped in a handkerchief, "I will say no more. If the thought of
allowing myself to be bereft of you has occurred to me, you understand
for whose good I gave it a moment's entertainment. Marriage, of course,
is a change of life, and for girls whose minds have been overshadowed by
sorrow, it may not be altogether a bad thing."
"But there is usually some selection in the matter, I think, some
pretense of preference for one above others. Just marriage by itself
hardly seems a goal."
"Yes, love is good, dear--none knows better than I--but better marriage
without love, than love without marriage," muttered Mrs. Mordaunt,
suddenly shaken.
"And better still life with neither, it seems to me; and best of all,
the end of life, and good-by to it all, mother."
"Vi, Vi! sh-h-h, dear!" Mrs. Mordaunt was so genuinely shocked that her
daughter swung the talk back into its personal channel.
"Still, I will not see this man. Tell him when he comes that I will not
see him. He has held out to me hopes which he has done nothing to
fulfil."
"What hopes, dear?"
"You may as well know: hopes as to--Gwen, then."
"Tell me."
"Twice he has hinted to me that he knows some one who knew the man named
Strauss; that he would succeed in finding this Strauss; that all was
quite, quite well; and that he did not despair of finding some trace of
the whereabouts of the child. He had no right to say such things, if he
had not some real grounds for believing that he would do as he hinted.
It is two months ago now since he last spoke in this way down at
Rigsworth, and he has not referred to it since, though he has several
times been alone with me. I believe that he only said it because he
fancied that whatever man held out such hopes to me would be likely to
find me pliant to his wishes. I won't see him to-day."
"Oh, he said that, did he--that all was quite well, that he might be
able to find.... But he must have meant it, since he said it."
"I doubt now that he meant it. Who knows whether he is not in league
with the enemies of her who was cast helpless to the wolves--"
"Violet, for shame to let such words escape your lips! Mr. Van
Hupfeldt--a man of standing and position, presented to us by Lord
Vanstone, and moving in the highest circles! Oh, beware, dear, lest
sorrow warp the gentler instincts of your nature, and by the sadness
of the countenance the heart be not made better! Grief is evil, then,
indeed when it does not win us into a sweeter mood of charity. I fear,
Vi, that you have lost something of your old amiableness since the
blow."
"Forgive me, darling!" sobbed Violet, dropping quickly by the side of
her mother's chair, with her eyes swimming. "It has gone deep, this wild
wrong. Forgive, forgive! I wish to feel and do right; but I can't. It
is the fault of the iron world."
"No, don't cry, sweet," murmured Mrs. Mordaunt, kissing her warmly. "It
will come right. We must repress all feelings of rebellion and rancor,
and pray often, and in the end your good heart will find its way back to
its natural sweetness and peace. I myself too frequently give way, I'm
afraid; the ways of Providence are so inscrutably hard. We must bear up,
and wait, and wait, till 'harsh grief pass in time into far music.' As
for Mr. Van Hupfeldt, there seems no reason why you should see him, if
you do not wish. But you haven't opened your letter--see if it is from
Rigsworth, dear."
Violet now rose from her mother's side, and tore open the letter. She
did not know the handwriting, and as her eyes fell on the words she
started. They were these: "A well-wisher of Miss Mordaunt desires to
assure her that it is a pretty certain thing that her sister Gwendoline
was a duly wedded wife. The proofs of this statement may sooner or later
be forthcoming."
Mrs. Mordaunt's observant glance, noting the changes of color and
expression going on in her daughter's face, saw that the news was
really as Mrs. Harrod had dreamed. Violet's eyes were raised in silent
thanksgiving, and, without saying anything, she dropped the note on
her mother's lap. Going to one of the windows, she stood there with
tremulous lips. She looked into the dim street through a mist of tears.
For the moment, speech was impossible.
There was silence in the room for some minutes. Then Mrs. Mordaunt
called out: "Vi, dear, come here."
Violet ran from the window with a buoyancy of dancing in her gait.
"Heaven forgive us, mother, for having wronged Gwendoline in our
thoughts!" said she, with her cheek against her mother's.
"Heaven forgive me rather," said Mrs. Mordaunt. "You, dear, have never
for a moment lost faith and hope. But still, Vi--"
"Well?"
"Let me warn you, dear, against too much confidence in this note. The
disappointment may be all the more terrible. Why could not the sender
sign his name? Of course, we can guess from whom it comes; but does not
the fact that he does not sign his name show a lack of confidence in his
own statements?"
"Oh, I think not," cried Violet, flushed with enthusiasm, "if it is from
whom you think; but, who, then, do you think sent it?"
"It can only be from Mr. Van Hupfeldt, child, I take it."
The girl was seemingly taken aback for an instant; but her thoughts
bubbled forth again rapidly: "Well, his motive for not signing his name
may simply be a very proper reserve, not a lack of confidence in his
statements. Remember, dearest, that he is coming here to-day with a
certain purpose with regard to me, and if he had signed his name, it
would have set up a sort of claim to my favor as a reward for services
done. Oh, now I come to think of it, I call this most generous of the
man!"
"That's splendid, that's right," said Mrs. Mordaunt. "Your instincts
always scent out nobility where any clue to it can be found. I am glad
that you take it in that way. But young people are enthusiastic and
prone to jump to conclusions. As we grow older we acquire a certain
habit of second thoughts. In this instance, no doubt, you are right; he
could have had no other motive--unless--I suppose that there is no one
else from whom the note may possibly have come?"
At this question Violet stood startled a moment, panting a little, and
somehow there passed like a mist through her consciousness a memory, a
half-thought, of David Harcourt.
"From whom else could it have come?" she asked her mother breathlessly.
"The handwriting is not Mr. Van Hupfeldt's," said Mrs. Mordaunt. "This
is a less ornate hand, you notice."
Violet took the note again, and knit her pretty brows over it. "No," she
said, "this is a much stronger, cleaner hand--I don't know who else--"
"Yet, if Mr. Van Hupfeldt wished to be generous in the sense of which
you spoke," said her mother, "if it was his purpose to conceal his part
in the matter, he would naturally ask some one else to write for him.
And, since we can imagine no one but him--There! that, I think, is his
rap at the door. Tell me now, Vi, if you will see him alone?"
"Yes, mother, I will see him."
"Bless you for your good and grateful heart! Well, then, after a little
I will go out. But, oh, pray, do nothing precipitate in an impulse of
joy and mere gratitude, child! If I am bereft of my two children, I am
bereft indeed. Do find happiness, my darling. That first and above all."
At that moment Mrs. Harrod looked in, with her pleasant smile, saying:
"Mr. Van Hupfeldt is here. Well, did the letter contain good news?"
"You dear!" murmured Violet, running to kiss her, "I must wear red
before you, so that you may dream of soldiers every, every night!"
The steps of Van Hupfeldt were heard coming up the stairs.