MOVE THE FIRST.
After the lapse of a few days, during which Victor Carrington carefully
matured his plans, while apparently only pursuing his ordinary
business, and leading his ordinary life of dutiful attention to his
mother and quiet domestic routine, he received a letter in a
handwriting which was unfamiliar to him. It contained the following
words:
"_In accordance with your desire, and my promise, I write to inform you
that, D. D. has notified his return to London and his intention to
visit P. He did not know whether she was in town, and, therefore, wrote
before coming. She seemed much affected by his letter, and has replied
to it, appointing Wednesday after-noon for receiving him, and inviting
him to luncheon. No communication has been received from R. E., and she
takes the fact easily. If you have any advice, or I suppose I should
say instructions, to give me, you had better come here to-morrow
(Tuesday), when I can see you alone.--C. B._"
Victor Carrington read this note with a smile of satisfaction, which
faithfully interpreted the feelings it produced. There was a
business-like tone in his correspondent's letter which exactly suited
his ideas of what it was advisable his agent should be.
"She is really admirable," he said, as he destroyed Miss Brewer's note;
"just clever enough to be useful, just shrewd enough to understand the
precise force and weight of an argument, but not clever enough, or
shrewd enough, to find out that she is used for any purpose but the one
for which she has bargained."
And then Victor Carrington wrote a few lines to Miss Brewer, in which
he thanked her for her note, and prepared her to receive a visit from
him on the following day. This written and posted, he walked up and
down his laboratory, in deep thought for some time, and then once more
seated himself at his desk. This time his communication was addressed
to Sir Reginald Eversleigh, and merely consisted of a request that that
gentleman should call upon him--Victor Carrington--on a certain day, at
a week's distance from the present date.
"I shall have more trouble with this shallow fool than with all the
rest of them," said Victor to himself, as he sealed his letter; and, as
he said it, he permitted his countenance to assume a very unusual
expression of vexation; "his vanity will make him kick against letting
Paulina turn him off; and he will run the risk of destroying the game
sooner than suffer that mortification. But I will take care he _shall_
suffer it, and _not_ destroy the game.
"No, no, Sir Reginald Eversleigh, _you_ shall not be my stumbling-block
in this instance. How horribly afraid he is of me," thought Victor
Carrington, and a smile of cruel satisfaction, which might have become
a demon, lighted his pale face at the reflection; "he is dying to know
exactly how that business of Dale the elder was managed; he has the
haziest notions in connection with it, and, by Jove, he dare not ask
me. And yet, I am only his agent,--his _to be paid_ agent,--and he
shakes in his shoes before me. Yes, and I will be paid too, richly
paid, Sir Reginald, not only in money, but in power. In power--the best
and most enjoyable thing that money has to buy."
Victor Carrington sent his letter to the post, and joined his mother in
her sitting-room, where her life passed placidly away, among her birds
and her flowers. Mrs. Carrington had none of the vivacity about her
which is so general an attribute of French women. She liked her quiet
life, and had little sympathy with her son's restless ambition and
devouring discontent. A cold, silent, self-contained woman, she shut
herself up in her own occupations, and cared for nothing beyond them.
She had the French national taste and talent for needlework, and
generally listened to her son, as he talked or read to her, with a
piece of elaborate embroidery in her hand. On the present occasion, she
was engaged as usual, and Victor looked at her work and praised it,
according to his custom.
"What is it for, mother?" he asked.
"An altar-cloth," she replied. "I cannot give money, you know, Victor,
and so I am glad to give my work."
The young man's dark eyes flashed, as he replied;--
"True, mother, but the time will come--it is not far off now--when you
and I shall both be set free from poverty, when we shall once more take
our place in our own rank--when we shall be what the Champfontaines
were, and do as the Champfontaines did--when this hateful English name
shall be thrown aside, and this squalid English home abandoned, and the
past restored to us, we to the past." He rose as he spoke, and walked
about the room. A faint flush brightened his sallow face, an unwonted
light glittered in his deep-set eyes. His mother continued to ply her
needle, with downcast eyes, and a face which showed no sign of sympathy
with her son's enthusiasm.
"Industry and talent are good, my Victor," she said, "and they bring
comfort, they bring _le bienêtre_ in their train; but I do not think
all the industry and talent you can display as a surgeon in London will
ever enable you to restore the dignity and emulate the wealth of the
old Champfontaines."
Victor Carrington glanced at his mother almost angrily, and for an
instant felt the impulse rise within him which prompted him to tell her
that it was not only by the employment of means so tame and
common-place that he designed to realize the cherished vision of his
ambition. But he checked it instantly, and only said, with the
reverential inflection which his voice never failed to take when he
addressed his mother, "What, then, would you advise me to try, in
addition?"
"Marry a rich woman, my Victor; marry one of these moneyed English
girls, who are, for the most part, permitted to follow their
inclinations--inclinations which would surely, if encouraged, lead many
of them your way." Mrs. Carrington spoke in the calmest tone possible.
"Marry--I marry?" said Victor, in a tone of surprise, in which a quick
ear would have noticed something also of disappointment. "I thought you
would never like that, mother. It would part us, you know, and then
what would you do?"
"There is always the convent for me, Victor," said his mother, "if you
no longer needed me." And she composedly threaded her needle, and began
a very minute leaf in the pattern of her embroidery.
Victor Carrington looked at his mother with surprise, and some vague
sense of pain. She _could_ make up her mind to part with him--she had
thought of the possibility, and with complacence. He muttered something
about having something to do, and left her, strangely moved, while she
calmly worked in at her embroidery.