DAVID MORE THAN REGAINS LOST GROUND
Harcourt was now in the position of a man who thinks he has invented a
flying-machine--enthusiasm became stronger than knowledge, belief was
made to do service as evidence. To meet Violet, to look again into those
sweet eyes of hers, that was the great thing he promised himself next
morning. Indeed, it is to be feared he deliberately surrendered himself
to dreams of such a meeting, while he smoked pipe after pipe in his
lonesome flat, rather than set himself to an orderly review of his
forces for the approaching trial of strength with Van Hupfeldt.
No sooner was he well clear of Van Hupfeldt's house than he knew that he
was safe from active interference by the law. The man whom he now looked
on as his rival, the subtle adversary whom he had scorned to crush when
appealed to for mercy on the score of physical inferiority, would never
dare to seek the aid of authority. Nursing that fact, ready enough
to welcome the prospect of an unaided combat, David did not stop to
consider that an older head in counsel would not be a bad thing. There
was Dibbin, for instance. Dibbin, whose ideas were cramped within
ledgers and schedules, had, nevertheless, as he said himself, "been
young once." Surely David could have sufficiently oxygenized the agent's
thin blood with the story told by the hapless Gwendoline that the man
should hie with him to Rigsworth and there be confronted with the
veritable Strauss. Dibbin was a precise man. It would have been hard
for Van Hupfeldt to flout Dibbin.
But no; David smoked and dreamed, and saw a living Violet in the chalk
portrait of the dead Gwendoline, and said so many nice words to the
presentment thus created that he came to believe them; and so he
consigned Dibbin to his own musty office, nor even gave heed to the
existence of such a credible witness as Sarah Gissing, poor Gwendoline's
maid.
He left a penciled note on his table that the charwoman was to call
him when she came at eight--for in such wise does London conquer
Wyoming--and with the rattle of her knuckles on the door he was out
of bed, blithe as a lark, with his heart singing greetings to a sunny
morning.
The manner of dress, the shade of a tie, the exact degree of whiteness
of linen, were affairs of moment just then. Alack! here was our
erstwhile rounder-up of steers stopping his hansom on the way to the
station in order to buy a smart pair of doeskin gloves, while he gazed
lovingly at a boutonniere of violets, but forbore.
It was noon ere he reached Rigsworth, and inquiry showed that the
Mordaunts' house was situated at the farther end of the small village.
He walked through the street of scattered houses, and attracted some
attention by the sure fact that he was a stranger. At any rate, that was
how he regarded the discreet scrutiny to which he was subjected.
"A big house with a lodge-gate, just past the church on the left," were
the station-master's directions, and David had no difficulty in finding
his way. His heart fell a little when he saw the style of the place. The
lodge was a pretty villa in itself. Its garden would be of great worth
within the London suburban area. Behind it stretched the park of Dale
Manor, and the turrets of a mansion among many lordly elms seemed to
put Violet on a somewhat inaccessible pinnacle. David did not know that
people of moderate means can maintain a good sporting estate by letting
the shooting, but he had learned in the free air of the States to rate
a man on a different level to parks; if a half-bred rascal like Van
Hupfeldt was able to enter this citadel like a thief for one daughter
of the house, why should not an honest man storm it for the sake of
another?
At the lodge, however, he met with a decided rebuff. "No visitors
admitted," was the curt response of a gamekeeper sort of person who
was lurking in a doorway when David tried to open the locked gate.
"My business is important," urged David, quietly, though his face
flushed a little at the man's impudent manner.
"So's my orders," said velveteens.
"But I must see either Mrs. Mordaunt or Miss Violet."
"You can't see either. Absolute orders. Your name's Harcourt isn't it?"
Then David knew that Van Hupfeldt had over-reached him by the telegraph,
and the shattering of his dream-castle caused such lightnings to gleam
from within that the surly gamekeeper whistled to a retriever dog, and
ostensibly revealed a double-barreled gun which lay in the corner of the
porch.
David was likely to have his own way with clodhoppers, even in the hour
of tribulation.
"Yes," he said, "my name is Harcourt. And yours?"
"Mine is no matter."
"Very well, 'No Matter.' You are obeying orders, I have no doubt; but
you must be taught civility. I give you notice, 'No Matter,' that a
little later I shall lick you good and plenty, and if you don't take
it like a man you will probably be fired into the bargain."
The keeper was for abusing him, but David turned away. And now he was
not the well-dressed, gloved, spick-and-span Londoner, but the Indian
of the prairie, with a heart from which the glow had gone, with eyes
that saw and ears that heard and a brain that recorded everything.
He was instantly aware that the country policeman who had lolled
through the village behind him was a forewarned spy. He knew that this
functionary watched his return to the railway station, from which, as
David happened to remember, the time-table had shown a train
London-wards at one o'clock.
The station-master was affable enough, gave him some bread and meat and
a glass of milk, and refused any payment. When the train came in, David,
sourly smiling, saw the constable loll onto the platform. He could not
resist the temptation to lean out of the carriage window.
"Good-by, P. C. 198," he said.
Now, he was traveling first-class, and, in England, even a villain
demands respect under that circumstance.
"Good-by, sir," said the man, surprised.
"You will know me again, eh?"
"Oh yes, sir."
"I am glad of that. Tell that chap at the gate of Dale Manor that I
shall keep my fixture with him soon."
P. C. 198 scratched his head. "Funny affair," he muttered as the train
moved off. "Looks an' talks more of a gentleman than van Wot's-his-name,
any day."
At the next station, four miles away, David slipped out of his carriage
quickly and waited in a shed until the train had gone again. Then he
interviewed the station-master, and somewhat astonished the official by
tendering a return ticket from Rigsworth to London.
"Can't break your journey," said the regulations.
"But I've done it," said David.
"It's irregular," complained the other.
"And the train is half a mile distant."
"Well, if you pay the fare--"
David meant to forfeit his ticket. This was a new light. He paid a few
pence, took a receipt, and promised himself some fun at Rigsworth.
He asked for no information. From the train he had noted a line of
telegraph posts in the distance, and he stepped out smartly along a
by-road until he gained the main thoroughfare. Then, being alone, he
ran, and the newly bought gloves burst their seams, so he flung them
off.
When less than a mile from Rigsworth he heard the whistle of a train.
Springing to a high bank, he made out the sinuous, snake-like curling of
an engine and coaches beyond the hedge-rows--a train coming from London.
"Van Hupfeldt is in it, of course," he decided. "I must make sure."
It needed a fine sprint, aided by the exercise of quick judgment when he
neared Dale Manor; but he was hidden in a brake of brambles in the park
as Van Hupfeldt, exceedingly pallid this glorious day of spring, walked
up the drive, accompanied by the gamekeeper, dog and gun. The dog came
near to undoing David; but a rabbit, already disturbed, ran out of the
thicket, and a sharp command from the keeper brought the retriever to
heel.
Van Hupfeldt entered the gardens; the keeper made off across the park.
Green and brown buds, almost bursting into leaf, were already enriching
the shrubs and trees of Dale Manor, especially in a sheltered hollow on
the left front of the house where nestled a pretty lake. There the cover
was good. The hunter instinct sent him that way.
"That Dutchman will make Violet bolt just as the dog started the
rabbit," thought David, and he took a circuitous route to reach a
summer-house on the most distant side of the ornamental water, whence,
he fancied, he could command a fair view of the house and grounds. He
waited with stubborn patience two long hours. At last he saw a man
arrive in a dog-cart, and it was the coming of this person which
apparently drove Violet forth, as, five minutes after the newcomer was
admitted, a tall graceful figure in black, a girl wearing a large black
hat and draping a white shawl elegantly round her shoulders, stepped out
of a French window to the smooth lawn, and looked straight at the sheet
of water beyond which David lay ensconced.
No need to tell him who this was. His heart did not beat now. He was
glad, and something warmed his whole body, for it was chill waiting
there in the shade after his run, but neither man nor water could
interpose further barrier between him and his Violet, so he was calm
and confident.
The girl glanced back once toward the room she had quitted, and
then strolled on, ever coming nearer the glistening lake and the
summer-house. She crossed the fine stretch of turf and stood for an
instant near a marble statue which guarded a fountain. The distance was
not great, and David thought his eyes were deceiving him when he saw
that the white marble and the black-garbed girl were singularly alike in
feature. It was not surprising, since the sculptor had taken Violet's
great-grandmother, a noted beauty of early Georgian days, as his model
for the face of the dryad, and it was one of the honored traditions of
Dale Manor that this figure should be promptly shielded from inclement
weather, even from the dew. Just then David was not inclined to cavil at
any discovery of fresh charms in Violet, but he set aside this fanciful
idea, as he deemed it, and bent his mind on attracting her attention
without causing a flutter either to her or to the other occupants of the
house.
But she came on again, reached the lake-side path, and made him hope for
a moment that she would pass by the door of his retreat. If that was so,
he would reveal himself to her soon enough to save her from being unduly
alarmed by the unexpected apparition of a man in that secluded place.
Now she actually passed abreast of him, with the lake between, and soon
she would round the curve of the water and face him again. Her figure
was mirrored in the silver and blue of the reflected sky. So light was
her step that the living, moving body seemed to be as impalpable as its
spirit image.
Then David's heart did jump of a sudden, for a faint hail of "Vi!" twice
repeated, caught his ears, and he saw Mrs. Mordaunt, outside the French
window, calling to her daughter.
The girl turned, facing David, almost. He made up his mind without a
moment's hesitation.
"Violet," he said, softly but clearly, "Violet, don't go! Come here. It
is I, David." The cheek of him! as Miss Ermyn L'Estrange would have put
it. Violet! David! What next?
Violet was bewitched for a second or two. She looked wildly toward the
house, and at him; for he stood so that she might see him plainly,
though to her mother he was invisible.
"Please come!" he pleaded. "I am here for your sake, for Gwen's sake,
too, and they have kept us apart so long by lies!"
That the girl was greatly excited was obvious. She pressed her hands
together on her bosom, though the action might pass as a simple
adjustment of her shawl.
"I must go," she murmured brokenly. "They want me there to--to sign some
documents. And I cannot meet you."
"Violet, sign nothing until you have heard my story. I appeal to you for
a hearing. If you refuse I shall come with you to the house. But hear me
first. Make some excuse."
There was ever that in David's voice which won belief. Some men ring
true, some false. David had in him the clear sound of metal without
flaw.
And no woman is worth her salt who cannot act more than a little. "Give
me ten minutes, mother," shrilled Violet, excitedly. "Only ten minutes;
then I shall be with you."
David, peeping through the rustic timber-work, noted with satisfaction
that Mrs. Mordaunt waved a hand of agreement and reentered the
house. What then, of devil's work was Van Hupfeldt plotting in that
drawing-room that Violet should be wanted to sign documents, and that
the girl's mother should recognize the need of her daughter being
allowed some few minutes of grace if she so desired?
But here came Violet, all rosy now with wonder, for her blood was
racing, though in her eyes, which reflected her thoughts, was an anger
which David missed in his joy. She stood framed in the narrow doorway of
the summer-house, and half turned as though to leave it quickly. "Now,
what have you to say to me?" she breathed hurriedly.
David, who thought he was shy with women, soon found winged words to
pierce the armor of a disdain he did not yet understand. "If I obeyed my
heart, Violet," he said, and she thrilled a little under the shock of
hearing her Christian name so glib on his lips, "I would begin by
telling you that I love you, and so throw to the winds all other
considerations."
She turned and faced him, palpitating, with a certain deer-like
readiness to fly. "How dare you?"
"I am not daring. Daring springs from the heart, you know. Moreover,
though the knowledge of my love is old to me, old as weary days and
sleepless nights can make it, it may be new to you, unless, somehow, my
love has bridged the void, and made you responsive to my passion. Ah,
don't be afraid, now," for David thought she shrank from him--though in
very truth this maiden's soul was all a-quiver with the conviction that
not so had Van Hupfeldt spoken, not so had his ardor shaken her. "I am
not here to-day as your lover, as your avowed lover I would rather say,
but only as your self-appointed guardian, as one who would save you from
a fate worse than death. Listen now, and believe me, for I can prove the
truth. Van Hupfeldt, who would marry you, is none other than Strauss,
the man who married your sister."
Violet's eyes dilated. Her lips parted as if to utter a shriek. David
caught her by the wrist and drew her gently toward him. Before either of
them knew what was happening, his arms were about her.
"Be brave, there's a dear girl!" he whispered. "Be brave and silent! Can
you listen? Tell me you are not afraid to listen."
Again Violet was conscious that the touch of David Harcourt's arms was
a different thing to the impetuous embrace of Van Hupfeldt. A sob came
from her. She seemed to lose a little of her fine stature. She was
becoming smaller, more timidly womanlike, so near this masterful man.
"He married your sister," went on David. "He married Gwen in his own
name of Van Hupfeldt, and the birth of their child is registered in that
name. I wrote and told you of the certificates being in existence. He
obtained them by bribery and a trick. That is nothing. Even if they are
destroyed, they can be replaced by the proper authorities. I know where
the child is living. I can take you to it. I can bring Dibbin, the
agent, here, to face Van Hupfeldt and prove that he is none other than
Strauss, your sister's husband and slayer. I can bring Sarah Gissing,
your sister's servant, to identify him as the man whom poor Gwen loved
as her husband and the father of her child. Were it not for my own
folly, I could have brought you her diary--"
"Her diary! Has it been found?" gasped Violet, lifting up her eyes to
his in sheer amazement.
"Yes. I found it."
"But where, and how?"
"It was fastened into the back of a picture, a mezzotint of Turner's."
"In the back of a picture!" she murmured, with a certain strange
dejection which David found adorable; nor should it be forgotten that
the only time David possessed absolute and undeniable evidence of the
presence of some unseen person in his flat, he had shot at and wounded
a man.
"Yes, dear--may I call you dear?"
"And you have it?"
"No."
"No!" He felt a spasm of doubt in her very shoulders, a slight
withdrawing from him, for Violet was ever being denied proof, the
actual, tangible proof which alone can banish suspicion from a
sorely-tried nature.
"Van Hupfeldt stole it from the flat during my absence."
"How could that be?"
"He has duplicate keys, I suppose. Once before I have reason to believe
he was there. We struggled together, one on each side of a door. It was
in the dark, and he managed to dodge past me, but I fired at him and
drew blood, I think."
"When was that?" she demanded with a quickness which did not escape him.
"On the morning of the day you were to have met me at the cemetery, but
sent such a bitter little note instead."
"A bitter little note!"
And thus were the words said which, pursued for another sentence, must
have unmasked Van Hupfeldt wholly; but they were both so excited, so
carried out of all bounds of reasoned thought, that Violet flew off at a
tangent, and David doubled after her, so delightful was it to hear the
words coming from her lips, to watch her eyes telegraph their secret
meanings.
"He was lame that day," she whispered. "He is not quite free from
stiffness in his walk yet."
"Ah! I hit him then?" And David smiled a different kind of smile to that
which Violet was learning to like.
"But if all that you say is true, the man is a monster," she cried in a
sudden rage.
"I am coming to think that he is not in his right mind," said David, a
surprising charity springing up in him.
"And do you know what they are waiting for now?" she asked vehemently.
"I cannot tell, save that it is for you."
"They want me to sign a marriage settlement. Oh, what a vile world!"
"Not a vile world, dear; nor are its humans altogether bad. Even this
Van Hupfeldt, or Strauss, seems to have loved your sister. And she did
love him. Poor girl! She meant to kill herself on his account, owing to
some secret he revealed to her, something about another woman who had
adopted him as her son. That was not clear in her story. She purposely
kept the definite things out of her diary."
The girl's mind was driven back, with quick rebound, to the memory of
her sister's fate. The mere mention of the name of Strauss touched a
poignant chord. Strauss was a blacker, more Satanic creature in her
imagination than Van Hupfeldt. She wrenched herself free and sprang
toward the door.
"Do you swear that you are telling me the truth?" she cried.
"I swear it."
"Then I go now to meet him, and his lawyer, and my mother. Poor mother!
How she will suffer!"
"Shall I come with you?"
She blushed. She began to remember, more vividly each instant, how long
she had been there in his arms, almost clinging to him.
"Better not," she said. "I shall drive him away, and when mother and I
have cried together we shall see you. Are you staying in the village?"
"Yes. At the inn, the Feathers I think it is called."
"Then I shall send for you to-night, or perhaps to-morrow morning."
"Make it to-night, if possible. Tell your mother I will not add to her
sorrows, and it is best she should know all.
"Good-by, then, Violet."
"Good-by, David."
He held out his hand, so frankly that she placed her white fingers
within the grasp of his strong ones. He was tempted to draw her nearer,
but her color rose again, her eyes dropped, and she tore herself away,
breaking almost into a run.
David, careless whether he was seen or not, walked off towards the
lodge, glancing every now and then over his shoulder to watch Violet
hastening to the house. Once, when crossing the lawn, she looked around
and waved a hand to him. He replied. Then she vanished, and David
walked on, the happiest man in England.
What a pity it is that ignorance should so often be an essential part
of bliss. David should either have gone with Violet, or, failing that,
he should have let Van Hupfeldt believe that he was well on his way to
London. As it was, Van Hupfeldt saw him crossing the park, and such a
man forewarned is forearmed.