THE PAVILION
Dr. Camperdown lived in a large, bare stone house a few blocks distant
from his office. Late one afternoon he stood at one of the back windows
from which he commanded a magnificent view of the harbor.
“Bah! it’s going to be cold to-night,” he said, suddenly banging down
the window; “the snow clouds have blown away.”
He looked about his lonely room, where the furniture was ugly and scanty
and the general aspect of things cheerless. “Desolate, eh,” he muttered
thoughtfully fixing his eyes on the expiring embers of the fire. “I’ll
go and see Stargarde. How long since I’ve seen the——?” and some
endearing epithet lost itself between his lips and his moustache.
“It is twelve days—nearly a fortnight,” he went on after a pause. “Time
for another spree,” and with grim cheerfulness he lighted the gas and
seizing a brush and comb began briskly to smooth his towzled head.
After his refractory locks were in order he went to his wardrobe where
with many head shakings he turned over his whole stock of coats before
he could find one to suit him."
“I guess this will do,” he said at last, shaking out one which was minus
one button only. “She’ll be sure to spy that vacant spot,” he went on
dubiously. “Where’s that old beldame to sew it on? Hannah! fairy, sylph,
beauty, come up here!”
There was no sound from the rooms below. With a quick ejaculation he
threw the coat over his arm and went down the staircase two steps at a
time. Opening the doors of a dull dining room and a still more dull and
comfortless drawing room he looked in to find them tenantless.
“Must be in her lowest den,” he said, vaulting like a boy down a
narrower flight of stairs leading to a kitchen. There indeed he found an
old woman groveling over a fire.
“Hannah,” he shouted, holding his coat toward her. “There’s a button
gone, will you sew on another?”
“Eh, what’s that ye said, Mr. Brian?” queried the old woman. “A button?
Yes indeed, ye shall have it; just ye wait till I get my workbasket,”
and she started to leave the kitchen, but he restrained her with an
impatient, “Where is it?”
“In the right top-hand corner of my second drawer, me boy, if ye’ll be
so kind. Hannah’s limbs is gettin’ old.”
He shook off the affectionate hand she laid on his shoulder and leaped
upstairs again. When he returned with her basket the old woman slowly
lifted the cover. “Did ye no bring the thimble?” she asked in surprise.
“No—confound the thimble! Why don’t you keep it in your basket?”
“Because I always keeps it in the left-hand corner of the window,” she
answered mildly, “behind the picture of your sainted father——” but Dr.
Camperdown was gone, springing up the steps again in a state of
desperate hurry.
“If you don’t sew that button on in five minutes,” he vociferated in her
ear when he came back, “I’ll turn you out of the house to-morrow.”
“Sure, Mr. Brian, ye know ye’d do no such thing,” said the old woman
throwing him a remonstrating glance. “Ye’d go yourself first.”
He laughed shortly, then exclaimed: “Oh, sew it on—sew it on and don’t
talk. I’ll give you a dollar if you’ll have it on in two minutes.”
At this the old woman’s fingers flew, and in a short time the button was
in place, the coat on Dr. Camperdown’s back, and with a hasty “I’ll not
be back to dinner,” he had hurried out of the kitchen to the floor
above, where he rapidly donned a cap and coat and went out into the
street.
The air was keen and frosty and he drew great breaths of it into his
capacious lungs.
“I could walk twenty miles,” he muttered as he swung himself along by
lighted shops and houses.
As he went on the streets became more and more shabby. The gutters about
him were dirty and many of the houses were mere wooden shells and a most
insufficient protection against the winter winds.
Midway on the dirtiest and least respectable of the streets he stopped
in front of a long, clean brick building erected by the charitable
people of the town for the better housing of the poor. To the street it
presented high walls pierced by windows of good size. Inside was a large
yard overlooked by a double row of verandas that ran along the building.
Passing through an archway he entered this yard, looked across it at the
washhouses, storerooms, and a little eating house with gayly flaunting
lights, then turning to his left stepped on a veranda and knocked
lightly at a door.
“Come in,” said a voice like a bell, and softly turning the handle he
entered a little plainly furnished room where a bright fire blazed
merrily.
There was one elegant bit of furniture in the room, an elaborately
carved davenport, where sat a tall, magnificently proportioned woman
with a white, firm, smooth skin like a baby’s, a pair of deep blue eyes,
and a crown of pale golden hair that lay in coils on the top of her head
and waved down in little ringlets and circlets over her neck.
Ah, that neck—he would give worlds to touch it; and Brian Camperdown
stood trembling like a boy as he looked at it. The woman had her back to
him and was writing busily. Presently the pen stopped running over the
paper and she thoughtfully leaned her head on a shapely white hand.
“It is cold,” she said suddenly. “Close the door, my friend—ah, Brian,
is it you?” turning around and giving him a hand over the back of her
chair. “I thought it was one of the people. Wait an instant, won’t you,
till I finish my letter? It is so important,” and with an angelic smile
and a womanly dimple she turned back to her desk.
“I’m in no hurry,” he said composedly, taking off his coat and hanging
it behind the door on a hook with whose location he seemed to be quite
well acquainted. Then he arranged his huge limbs in an arm-chair and
stared at her.
Though the time was December she had on a cotton gown that had large
loose sleeves fitting tightly around her wrists. About her neck and over
her breast it was laid in folds that outlined her beautiful form. At her
waist it was drawn in by a ribbon, and hung from that downward in a
graceful fullness utterly at variance with the sheath-like fit of the
prevailing style of dress. Though the gown was cotton there was a bit of
fine lace in the neck.
“Some one must have given it to her,” muttered Dr. Camperdown, whose
eagle eye soon espied its quality. “She would never buy it. Flora
probably, if”—with a sneer—"she could make up her mind to part with it."
Then he said aloud and very humbly, “Can’t you talk to me yet?”
“Yes, yes, Brian,” and the woman laughed in her clear, bell-like tones.
“I have finished,” and she stood up to put her letter on the
mantelpiece.
When she was standing one saw what a superb creature she was. A goddess
come down from her pedestal would not be more unlike the average woman
in appearance than she. Her draperies being almost as loose and
unconfined as those of the ancient Greek and Roman women she was
untrammeled, and being untrammeled she was graceful in spite of her
great height and comely proportions. She was like a big, beautiful child
with her innocent, charming manners and blue unworldly eyes, and yet
there was something about her that showed she had lived and suffered.
She was a woman and into her life had been crowded the experiences of
the lives of a dozen ordinary women.
“It is some time since I have seen you, Brian,” she said in a fresh,
joyous voice.
“Yes,” he articulated, “I have been trying to keep away. Had to come
now. I want to talk to you about the Delavigne child. She has arrived.
Stanton has brought her here.”
“Has he?” and Stargarde clasped her hands. “When did she come?”
“A few days ago.”
“Have you been out to see her?”
“No, I have been busy.”
“And I have been away; but I will go as soon as I can,” and the woman
absently let her eyes meet those of her guest till he was obliged to
shut his own to get rid of their dazzle and glitter.
Unfortunately for him she noticed what he was doing. “Brian Camperdown,”
she exclaimed, “open your eyes. I won’t talk to you if you sit there
half asleep,” and she burst into a merry peal of laughter that a baby
might have envied.
“I’m not sleepy,” he said hastily; “I was thinking,” and he surveyed her
in unwinking attention.
“Well, do not think; listen to me. That little French girl is so often
in my thoughts, and lately in particular I have not been able to get her
out of my head.”
“I daresay,” he growled. “There are more people than the Delavigne child
in your head—a whole colony of them. I wonder they don’t worry you to
death.”
“I hope she will let me be kind to her,” said Stargarde earnestly.
“You needn’t worry,” said Dr. Camperdown. “She’s going to be well looked
after. I don’t see why every one comes rushing to me. My father began it
when he died with his admonition to do something for the Delavigne child
if I had a chance. You have always been at me, and yesterday Macartney
cornered me.”
“Macartney! not the Irish officer who used to admire Flora!”
“The same.”
“What does he want you to do?”
“To look after her in a general way. He’s in love with her.”
“Oh, Brian!”
“I suppose I’m a simpleton for telling you,” he said eyeing her
reluctantly. “You women have men just like wax in your hands. You twist
everything out of us.”
“I do not think you mean that,” she said quietly.
He scrambled from his chair and before she knew his intention had her
shapely hands in his and was mumbling over them: “Darling, darling, I
would trust you with my soul.”
She looked down at him sadly as he passionately kissed her fingers and
returned them to her lap. Then she leaned over and stroked softly his
tumbled head, and murmuring, “Poor boy!” pointed to the clock.
“I was going to ask you to stay to tea,” she said, “but——”
“I will be good—I will be good,” he ejaculated lifting his flushed face
to hers and hurrying back into his chair. “It was a moment of madness;
it won’t happen again.”
“That is what you always say, Brian.”
“I will keep my promise this time. I really will.” Then forcing his
hands deep down into his pockets, he said insinuatingly: “You can so
easily stop my display of devotion, it is a strange thing that you don’t
do it.”
“How can I do so?” she asked with an eagerness that was not pleasing to
him.
“By marrying me.”
“Marry you to get rid of you,” she said with incredulity. “Ah, Brian, I
know you better than that. You will be a good husband to the woman you
marry. I can imagine myself married to you,” she went on pensively; “we
should be what is almost better than lovers, and that is companions. You
would be with me as constantly as Mascerene there,” and she pointed to a
huge, black dog lying with watchful head on his paws behind her
davenport.
“You will marry me some day,” said the man doggedly. “If I thought you
would not, I would tie a stone around my neck and drop into the harbor
to-morrow. No, I would not,” he added bitterly. “We don’t do that sort
of thing nowadays. I’d have the stone in my heart instead of around my
neck and I’d live on, a sour, ugly old man, till God saw fit to rid the
world of me. Do you know what love, even hopeless love, does for a man,
Stargarde? what my love for you does for me? What have I to remember of
my childhood? Painful visions; my father and mother each side of the
fire like this sorrowing at the wickedness of the world. Then I met you,
a bonny, light-hearted girl. I loved you the first time I saw you. You
have been in my thoughts every minute of the time since. In the morning,
at night in my dreams. With you I am still an ugly, cross-grained man;
without you I should be a devil.”
The woman listened attentively to what he said, shading her eyes from
the firelight with her hand, and looking at him compassionately. “Poor
old Brian, poor old Brian,” she said when he sank back into his chair
and closed his mouth with a snap. “I am so sorry for you. I should never
have the heart to marry another man when you love me so much. If I ever
marry it will be you. Still, you know how it is. My heart is in my work.
It is not with you.”
“If you felt it going out toward me would you stop it?” he said eagerly.
“No, a thousand times no,” she said warmly. “I believe that the noblest
and best thing a man or woman can do is to marry. God intended us to do
so. If a man loves a woman and she loves him, they should marry if there
are no obstacles in the way. Is not that what I am always glorifying,
Brian, the family, the family—the noblest of all institutions upon the
earth? The one upon which the special blessing of our Creator rests.
But,” in a lower voice and looking earnestly at him, “I should never be
guilty of that crime of crimes, namely, marrying a man whom I do not
love.”
“I know you would not,” he said uneasily.
“You would not wish me to, Brian,” she continued. “You are an honest,
God-fearing man. If I could put my hand in yours now and say, ‘Here I
am, but I do not love you,’ you would spurn such a gift, would you not?
You would say, ‘I prefer to wait till you can give me your whole self,
not the least worthy part of yourself.’” He stirred about restlessly in
his chair when she paused as if expecting some answer from him. “I do
not know,” he murmured at last. “If you gave me the chance, I think I
would embrace it. I think, Stargarde, that if you would come out of this
and live with me, you would get to like me.”
“Oh, vain and stupid fallacy,” she exclaimed despairingly; “can you not
see it?”
He did not answer, and there was a long silence between them, till she
began to speak again, regarding him with a lovely smile of pity and
affection. “You see what a terrible responsibility has been laid upon
women, Brian. Men, by their long habit of indulging themselves in every
impulse and giving freer rein to passion than women do, cannot so well
control themselves. The woman must stand firm. I, by reason of your
great affection for me, which I accept with all gratitude and humility,
feel that I have a charge over you. I wish with all my heart that you
could transfer your love to some other woman. If you do not and cannot,
and I ever have the happiness to regard you with the same affection that
you regard me, you may be sure that I shall marry you.”
The light of hope that played over his rugged features almost made them
handsome, till Stargarde went on warningly: “But that day I fear will
never come. Looking upon you as a dear brother, and having lived to the
age of thirty years without falling in love with any man, I fear that I
shall never do so.”
“Is that true?” he gasped with the famished eagerness of a dog that
snatches for a whole joint and only gets a bone. “Have you never fancied
any of the men that have fancied you?”
“Never,” she said with a smile and a shake of her head.
“How many proposals have you had?”
“I forget; about twenty, I think.”
His mouth worked viciously as if he would like to devour her quondam
lovers.
“What a long way we have wandered from Vivienne Delavigne,” said
Stargarde. “You were saying that Captain Macartney is in love with her.
Does she love him?”
“No, though it will probably end in that. He’s very much in earnest, for
he vowed to me that he couldn’t marry. When a man does that you may be
sure he’s just about to throw everything overboard for some woman.”
“Does he know all about her?”
“Yes; but his stepmother stands behind egging him on. She’s probably
promised a generous settlement on ma’m’selle if he marries her. The
disgrace was the black beast in the way; but I imagine he’ll make up his
mind to hang on to the old marquis and ignore the embezzlement. A decent
fellow, Macartney, as those military men go,” he added in the
condescending tone in which a civilian in Halifax will allow a few
virtues to the military sojourners in the city.
“I like him,” said Stargarde emphatically, “yet Vivienne Delavigne may
not. I wish, Brian, that she was a little older, and you a little
fickle.”
“Why do you wish that?”
“Because, what a charming wife she would make for you. I am sure she is
good and gentle, and she is alone in the world.”
“And you?” he said coolly.
“Oh, I have enough here,” she said, stretching out her arms lovingly as
if she could take in her embrace the whole of the large brick building.
“My work is my husband.”
He was about to reply to her but was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Brian,” said Stargarde hurriedly, “I forgot to say that I have other
company to tea. I hope you won’t object, and do try not to notice her.
She is one of my charges, and oftentimes a troublesome one.” Then
turning toward the door she said: “Come in; come in, dear.”