VIOLET'S CONDITIONS
Van Hupfeldt bowed himself into the drawing-room. His eyes wandering
weighingly with a quick underlook which they had from the face of Violet
to that of Mrs. Mordaunt, and back again to Violet. He saw what pleased
him, smiles on both faces, and his brow lightened. He was a man of about
forty, with a little gray in his straight hair, which, parted in the
middle, inclosed the forehead in a perfect arch. He stood upon thin legs
as straight as poles. His hands and feet were small. His features as
regular and chiseled as a statue's; he looked more Spanish than Dutch.
Mrs. Mordaunt received him with a pressure of the hand in which was
conveyed a message of sympathy and encouragement, and Van Hupfeldt bent
toward Violet with a murmur:
"I am glad to see you looking so bright to-day."
"You observe quickly," said Violet.
"Some things," answered Van Hupfeldt.
"Our good hostess has been dreaming of soldiers, Mr. Van Hupfeldt," put
in Mrs. Mordaunt, lightly, "and it seems that such a dream always brings
good news to her guests; so my daughter is feeling the effects of it."
Van Hupfeldt looked puzzled, and asked: "Has Miss Violet heard that her
orchids are flourishing in her absence, or that those two swans I
promised have arrived?"
Violet and Mrs. Mordaunt exchanged glances of approval of this speech,
the latter saying: "There are brighter things in the world than orchids,
thank Heaven! and a kind deed may be more white and graceful than all
the swans of Dale Manor."
Van Hupfeldt looked still more puzzled--a look which was noted by the
women, but was attributed by them to a wish not to seem to know anything
of the joyful note, and was put down to his credit. After some minutes'
talk of a general nature, Mrs. Mordaunt went out. Violet sat in an
easy-chair at one of the balcony windows. Van Hupfeldt leaned against
the embrasure of the window. He seemed to brace himself for an effort
before he said to her:
"This is Monday evening, and since Saturday, when I brought you from the
cemetery, I have not once closed my eyes. If you continue to manifest
this inconsolable grief for your sister's fate, I must break down in
some way. Something will happen. I shall go crazy, I think."
"You mean very kindly, I suppose," answered Violet, with lowered lids;
"though I do not see--"
"No, you cannot see, you do not know," said he, with a certain redness
and strain in the eyes which made it a credible thing that he had not
slept in some time. "But it is so. It has been the craving of my life to
save you from this grief. Let me do it; you have to let me do it!"
"How save me?" she asked, with an upward glance under her long lashes,
while she wondered at the blaze in the man's eyes. "I am not to be saved
from it by any means, though it will be lessened by the proofs of my
sister's honor and of her child's fair name, and by the discovery of the
whereabouts of the child. There are no other means."
"Yes, there are! There is the leaving of your present life, the
companionship of one who will have no care but to make you happy, to
redress a little in you the wrong done to your sister. That is my
motive--God knows!--that is my main motive--"
"Surely I do not understand you aright!" cried Violet, somewhat dismayed
by his outburst. "Your motive is to redress a wrong done by some one to
my sister by devoting yourself to make me happy? Certainly, that seems
a most nobly disinterested motive; but is philanthropy of this sort
the best basis for the kind of proposition which you are making me?
Philanthropy most certainly would wear thin in time, if it did not rest
on affection--"
"Do you doubt that I have affection?" he demanded, his voice vibrating
with ill-repressed passion.
"As an afterthought?"
"How as an afterthought, when my life itself depends upon continually
seeing you, and seeing you happy? I tell you that if you were to refuse
my prayer this evening, if anything was to happen now or in the future
to thwart my cravings with respect to you, my mind is made up, I would
not continue to face the harrowing cark of life. Say 'No' to me, and
from to-morrow evening you will be tortured by the same worm of remorse
by which the man who caused the death of your sister must be gnawed and
gnawed. You talk of affection? I have that. I do, yes, I do love you;
but that would be the flimsiest motive compared with this passion which
casts me at your feet."
"I don't understand him," sighed Violet to herself--and no wonder, for
Van Hupfeldt's words came from him in a sort of hiss; his eyes were
bloodshot; he stooped close over her, with veins standing out on his
forehead. It was clear enough that the man's soul was in this wooing,
yet he made so little pretense of the ordinary lover's love. He left her
cold, this woman made for love, and she wondered.
"Tell me quickly," he said, "I think that your mother is not unwilling.
Only let me hear the word 'Yes,' and the 'when' shall be left to you."
"Pray listen, Mr. Van Hupfeldt," said Violet, bending over her
knee, which she slung between her clasped fingers. "Let us reason
together; let us understand each other better. I am not disposed to be
unfriendly toward you--do not think that--nor even to reject your suit
unconditionally. I owe you much, and I see that you are greatly in
earnest; but I am not clear. Your motive seems to be philanthropic. You
have said as much yourself, you know. Still, philanthropy is only warm;
it is never hot to desperation; it never commits suicide in despair of
doing good. That, then, is the first thing which I fail to understand in
you. And, secondly, I do not grasp why you desire any closer relation to
be set up between us for my happiness, when I assure you that nothing
but the rehabilitation of my sister's name could lighten my unhappiness,
and that, this once done, nothing further could possibly be done by any
one to attach me more to life."
"But I am older than you, and know better," answered Van Hupfeldt,
seating himself beside her, speaking now more calmly. "You know nothing
of the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Travel alone would
give you a new outlook. I should ever be inventing new pleasures and
excitements for you. Sometimes, already, I lie awake at night, thinking
them out. I am very rich, and all my wealth should be turned into one
channel, to delight you. You know nothing of society in the States, of
the brilliance and abandon of life across the Atlantic. And the Paris
_beau monde_, with its charm and wit and easy joyousness, you know
nothing yet of that. I should find the means to keep you constantly gay,
to watch you in ever new phases, costumes, jewels--"
The thought passed through Violet's mind: "He has distinguished manners,
but a vulgar mind," and she said aloud: "So that is how you would wean
me from sorrow, Mr. Van Hupfeldt? I should prefer a week of Dale Manor
with my birds and flowers to a cycle of all that."
"Then it shall be Dale Manor rather than 'all that,'" he agreed. "It
shall be just as you would have it, if only you will be happy, and will
give me a glance one day which means 'My happiness is due to you.' May I
have another peep at the locket?"
Violet took a locket from her neck, pressed a spring, and showed within
a miniature in water-colors of the dead Gwen. She shivered a little.
Though she was speaking of her sister, the man's sudden request jarred
on her.
"I like to look at it," said Van Hupfeldt, bending closer. "It reminds
me of you--chiefly about the mouth and chin, about the dear little chin.
She suffered, yes, she tasted sorrow, and since she suffered, you must
not suffer, too. I kiss her instead of you, because she was like you."
This, certainly, was an odd reason for Van Hupfeldt's tenderness to the
miniature, but Violet's heart instantly warmed toward him for his pity
of her beloved; and when he replaced the locket round her neck, saying:
"So, then, do we understand each other now?" she found it hard to
answer: "I'm afraid that I am as far from understanding as ever."
"That will come in time, trust me," said he; "but as to that little word
'Yes,' is it to be taken as uttered now?"
"No, not now," she said gently, "though do not go away thinking it may
never be. Let me be frank, Mr. Van Hupfeldt. You know quite well that I
am not at present disposed to worship your sex, and that is really so.
Honestly, I don't think that the human species adorns the earth on which
it lives, least of all the male part of it. If I wished to marry, I
believe I should choose some poor tiller of the fields, who had never
seen a city, or heard of the arts of vice. You see, then, that the whole
notion of marriage must be sufficiently distasteful to me. I wouldn't
and couldn't give myself; but I am quite willing to--to make a bargain."
"A bargain?" He started, and his dark eyes stared at her blankly.
"Yes, it is better to be candid. When you have cleared my sister's name,
or found the child, as you hope to be able to do, then, if you desire me
still the same, you will again speak to me. I cannot definitely part
from my freedom without a certainty that you will be able to do what you
hope; and it is only fair to you to let you know that I should probably
consent to give the same promise to any other man who would and could do
this much for me."
Upon this Van Hupfeldt's brow flushed angrily, and he leaped to his
feet, crying: "But that will never be! Clear your sister's name? You
still talk like a child--"
Now it was Violet's turn to stand up in astonishment, as she saw her
castle in the clouds diminishing. She stared in her turn, with open
lips, crying: "Do you say this? that it will never be?"
"How can you set a man's life on the chance of the realization of such a
mere dream?" asked Van Hupfeldt, irritated, saying more than was wise.
"A dream?" murmured Violet, as if in a dream herself. "Then, who is it
that has sent me this?"
Thereupon she drew from her pocket David Harcourt's unsigned note. She
held it out to Van Hupfeldt, and he, without touching, leaned over and
read it; apparently slowly; more than once, so Violet thought. He stood
there looking at the letter an unconscionable time, she holding it out
for him to read, while the man's face bled away inwardly, as it were to
death, and some power seemed to rivet his eyes, some power stronger than
his effort to withdraw them.
The thought passing through Van Hupfeldt's soul was this: "Some one
knows that she was a 'duly wedded wife.' But who? And how? To him it is
somehow 'a pretty certain thing'; and the proofs of it 'may sooner or
later be forthcoming'; and then he will give these proofs to Violet."
"I see, then, that it was not you who sent it to me," said Violet at
last, and, as she said it, a certain gladness, a little thrill of
relief, occurred somewhere within her.
Van Hupfeldt straightened himself. His lips were white, but they smiled
dreadfully, though for some part of a second he hesitated before he
said: "Now, who told you that?"
"I do not, of course, know the facts," said Violet; "but I should like
to."
"You may as well know," said Van Hupfeldt, turning away from her. "Yes,
I sent it."
Violet flushed. His manner did not carry conviction even to a mind not
used to doubt the spoken word. It was horrid to think he was lying. Yet
an odd sheepishness was visible in his face; his voice was not strong
and brave.
"Well, I am still in a maze," she murmured. "Since it was you who sent
it, and since you say in it that my sister's honor is now 'a pretty
certain thing,' and that 'the proofs will be forthcoming,' why did you
say a moment ago that it is 'a mere dream' to look forward to their
forthcoming?"
Van Hupfeldt was looking out of the window. He did not answer at once;
only after a minute he replied without looking round: "It was I who sent
you the note. Yes, it was I; and what I say in it is true--somehow--true
in some way; but I did not wish you to make the realization of those
hopes a condition of your giving yourself to me. Hence I said that your
stipulation was 'a mere dream.' Now, you understand; now, I think, all
is clear to your mind."
Violet sighed, and made no answer. All was not so very clear to her
mind. One thing only was clear, that the nobility with which she and her
mother had credited Van Hupfeldt in sending the note anonymously, so
that he might not claim a reward from her, was not a deep nobility; for
he had promptly volunteered the information that it was he who had sent
it. She felt some disgust. A woman disillusioned about a man rushes to
the opposite pole. Let him but be detected to be not the hero which she
had thought him, and steep is his fall. Henceforth he is not only not a
hero but less than nothing in her eyes. Violet paced aimlessly through
the room, then went to the window farthest from that at which Van
Hupfeldt stood, and the unspoken words on her lips were: "The miserable
man."
At last Van Hupfeldt almost rushed at her, with the cry: "The promise on
that sheet of paper in your hand shall be fulfilled, and fulfilled by
me, I vow, I swear it to you! But the fulfilment of it must not be made
a condition of our union. The union must come first, and then the
fulfilment; and the quicker the union the sooner the fulfilment."
"No, I will not have it so."
"You must!"
"You are to release my wrist, Mr. Van Hupfeldt!"
"You must!"
"But why hold me?"
"Listen--your sister was a wedded wife. I know it, I have reason to
know it, and I am certain that, if you marry me, within six months
after the marriage I shall be in a position to hand you the proofs of
everything--to tell you truly the whole history from beginning to end--"
"But why six months after? Why not six months before?"
"I have reasons--there are reasons. What I shall have to tell will be a
pain to you, I foresee, a pain; but perhaps not a pain which you will
be unable to outlive. Nevertheless, from what I already know of your
sister's history, I see that it must be told you after, not before, our
union. It is a terrible history, I--gather, a harrowing tale. You don't
even guess, you are far from being able to hear it now, even if I could
tell you now. Violet! say 'Yes' to me!"
"What? Without understanding anything?"
"Yes, Violet, turn to me! Violet, say 'Yes' to me!"
"But what guaranty--"
"My pledged word, nothing else; that is enough. I say that within six
months, not more, from the day of our marriage you shall have all that
you desire to know, even the child shall have been found, for already I
am on its track. But unless you consent, you will never know, the child
will never be found; for I shall be dead, and the knowledge which I am
in course of gathering shall die with me. If you will not give yourself,
then, agree to that bargain you spoke of."
"One gives, in a bargain, for something one receives."
"It is the only condition on which we can come together. I could not
bring you to-day the proofs that you long for, even if I had them. It
must be six months after--not less than six months after--and for then I
promise, calling Heaven to witness. Believe in me! Not all things that a
man says are true; but this is true. Violet, for Gwen's sake, within a
week--the sooner it's done, the sooner you hear--within not more than
two weeks--"
Violet, sore beset, shielded her eyes with a listless hand. Van Hupfeldt
was pleading like a man battling for his last earthly good. And yet, and
yet, he left her cold.
"I don't doubt your promise," she said with a charming shyness; "but it
is a great matter, you give me no guaranties, you may fail, and then all
will have been in vain."
"I won't fail. I shall so manage that there will be no chance of
failure. And to prove my faith, if you say 'Yes,' I think I can
undertake that within only two months after the marriage the child shall
be unearthed, and within six the proofs of his legitimacy shall be
handed you. That's fair--that seems fairer--come, now. Only the marriage
must be prompt in that case, without a fortnight's delay. I can't offer
better terms. What do you say to it?"
Violet, without answering, suddenly cast herself upon the sofa-head,
burying her face in it. A bitter lamentation came from her, so thin and
low that Van Hupfeldt could scarce hear it. He stood over her, looking
at her, his heart in his mouth; and presently, bending to her, he
whispered: "Tell me!"
"God knows!" came from her brokenly.
He put his lips on her hair, and she shivered. "It is 'Yes,' then," said
he; "but pity me still more, and say that it shall be at once."
"No," she sobbed, "I must have time to think. It is too much, after
all--"
At that moment Mrs. Mordaunt entered. Violet, aroused by the opening
door, stood up with a bent head, an averted face, and Van Hupfeldt said,
with a sort of frenzied laugh, to Mrs. Mordaunt: "See how the days are
lengthening out already."
Mrs. Mordaunt looked at Violet with a query in her glance; and Violet's
great eyes dwelt on her mother without answering by any sign that
question of lifted eyebrows. The girl was puzzled and overwrought. Was
it so that men won women, that some man had won her sister? Surely this
was a strange wooing!