That was a gala day in Laline's life, a day towards which, in after
years, she often looked back with a swift pain at her heart.
How kind they had all seemed! Wallace Armstrong was gentleness itself,
and there was in his manner towards her a blending of protecting care
with playful admiration peculiarly flattering to a girl in her early
teens. Her father, too, was unusually indulgent; and, when he got into
the _fiacre_ at Wallace's invitation, and drove back with them to
the High Town and the Rue Planché, it was quite a triumphal journey,
and the arrival at number seven created considerable sensation. Even
Bénoîte was almost civil. Decidedly, she told herself, _Monsieur le
Capitaine_ had got hold of a rich and foolish young man, to whom gold
was as dross--a _riche Anglais eccentrique_, who might very possibly
be coaxed into paying the arrears of monsieur's rent. So that Bénoîte,
like every one else, saw everything _couleur de rose_ that evening. And
when Laline at last went to bed, after a dinner--a real substantial
dinner, with good red wine--her first dinner at a restaurant--and in
her new hat, too, with her father and his friend--she laid her head
upon her pillow, convinced of her mistake in supposing that Wallace
Armstrong was a Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a morose and evil-minded
Templar, when in reality he was a Prince Charming!
And, while Laline slept peacefully above, dreaming of triumphal drives,
of marvellous new hats, and unlimited bonbons and toys for her friends
the children, Mr. Wallace Armstrong and her father, in the shabby
smoke-laden _salon_ below, concocted between them the following letter
for the delectation of Mr. Alexander Wallace in London,--
"My Dear Uncle Alec,--I can't tell you how grateful I felt at
receiving your letter and enclosure. Things were at a pretty bad
pass for me and my poor Laline when your unexpected help arrived.
I say unexpected, because I know quite well I didn't deserve it;
but you have given me another chance, and I mean to profit by it.
Unfortunately, I fear that it will be quite a fortnight before my
wife is fit to travel. You see, owing to my ill-luck, she has had
a rough time of it lately, and she is young--very little more than
a child, in fact--and un-used to privations. Happily the doctor,
whom I at once fetched in on receiving your kindly help, declares
her constitution to be so good that with rest and nourishing food
she will be herself again in a very short time. But he strongly
recommends me to defer our journey for a fortnight or ten days, at
the least. My wife's maiden name was Laline Garth; her mother was a
country rector's daughter, and she has been most carefully trained
in all womanly virtues, besides being an excellent little cook and
housekeeper. She is wonderfully pretty, although very thin, poor
child! She is not yet eighteen, and knows next to nothing of the
world. In short, she is much, very much too good for me! I am not
sending you the receipts you ask for, as at every moment I find some
new thing we are in need of. Poor Laline and I haven't even decent
clothing yet. You may well say that under the circumstances it was
madness to marry. I admit that perhaps it was; but such madness might
well be inspired by such a girl as Laline. However, you must see her
yourself and judge whether I have over-praised her, and whether among
my many faults there may not be counted unto me the saving virtue of
knowing and loving a good women when I see one.
"Always your affectionate nephew,
"Wallace Armstrong."
"The difficulty now is," observed Wallace, as he fastened the letter
and addressed the envelope, after studying the contents with his mentor
and friend, "to coach Miss Laline up in her part of the business. She
seems somehow or other to possess a good deal of the awkward George
Washington faculty. It will be a delicate matter to make her understand
that you were an estimable clergyman, and that you are slumbering
peaceful within the tomb."
"The best plan," advised the Captain, thoughtfully sipping at his
cognac, "is to warn her that your uncle disapproves of all men
connected with the turf, and to beg her to think of me as dead. Of
course it is not a particularly pleasant experience for an affectionate
father----"
"You are going to be paid for it!" Wallace interrupted, with his usual
brutal directness. "It is not as though you were being asked to do
anything for nothing!"
"And, by-the-bye, the sum was never fixed," said Garth, resting his
elbows on the table and scanning his prospective son-in-law sharply. "I
must have all that clearly settled before I make that call with you on
the Consul to-morrow morning."
And here a difference of opinion was made manifest which seemed to
threaten a serious breach between the worthy pair. Wallace Armstrong
was inclined to dismiss his future father-in-law's pretensions with
the offer of a pound a week for life, or so long as he should retain
his uncle's favour. But Laline's father had prepared a fixed scale
of charges, from which nothing would induce him to depart. He was
making a great sacrifice, he declared; he was relinquishing the love,
companionship, and services of his only living relative, the pride of
his heart, the legacy of his lost wife, and, out of sheer kindness
and compassion for an old friend in difficulties, he was giving her
in marriage to a man who he greatly feared would never make her truly
happy.
"And if you should grow tired of her or become unkind to her, where
would the poor child fly but to me, her old father, whom she has been
forced to consider dead, but who, in his old age, must at least be
sufficiently well off to provide her with a home when all else fails
her!"
Tears stood in Captain Garth's eyes at his own eloquence, to which the
younger man listened quite unmoved.
Two pounds a week, to be paid quarterly from the date of the marriage,
three pounds a week when the income allowed by Alexander Wallace should
be raised to five hundred a year; and in the event of the banker dying
and leaving a will favourable to Armstrong, an income for Garth of two
hundred and fifty a year for the remainder of his life.
Until fully three o'clock the two men sat smoking and drinking cognac,
while they quarrelled and haggled and finally out cards over the
settlement of the elder man's allowance in the event of his giving his
daughter in marriage to the ex-forger and family scapegrace before him.
Not until the early sunrise forced its rays through the green shutters
did they part, Randolph Garth having won all he demanded, and retiring
to bed in high good humour; while Wallace, disdainfully refusing the
offer of a "shake-up" in the _salle-à-manger_, took his way down to the
town and his hotel, cursing his future father-in-law for a swindling
old reprobate, and his uncle for a narrow-minded old skinflint and
imbecile.
The bargain was effected, a bargain which was to transfer the charge
of a girl--young, beautiful, innocent, and friendless--from an old
scamp to a young one. Garth and Armstrong had arranged their visit to
the English Consul after they had renovated their toilets with the
remainder of Alexander Wallace's gift; and at the Consul's office due
notice was given of the marriage between Laline Garth, aged seventeen,
daughter of Randolph Garth, an English subject residing in Boulogne,
and Wallace Armstrong, aged twenty-six, of no occupation, whose present
address was the Hôtel Mendon, Boulogne.
The one part of the affair which both men appeared to shirk was
breaking to Laline the news that she was to be married in three
weeks' time. Captain Garth in some measure paved the way for the
announcement by taking her into his confidence concerning his state
of hopeless insolvency, a thing he had never before done. Laline sat
on the window-sill opposite to him in the little _salle-à-manger_,
listening very quietly to the tale of his embarrassments, her soft dark
eyes fixed intently on his face. She knew quite well, to her bitter
mortification, the ever-increasing amounts they owed to Bénoîte and
to the tradespeople, whose patience was in several cases altogether
exhausted. She herself ate little but bread and butter, and drank
nothing but water; but her father was extremely fond of the pleasures
of the table, and invariably spent his last franc on wine or tempting
_charcuterie_ for his own delectation.
At the end of his recital of his debts and difficulties, which were
real enough, Laline looked up suddenly.
"Papa," she said, "I have an idea. It's not the first time it has come
into my mind, but I didn't like to speak of it to you before! Why
shouldn't I go out and earn some money as a nursery governess? I speak
French as well as English, and I'm very fond of children. Then the
money I earned would help to pay the bills."
"My dear child," her father began, rather nonplussed by her offer and
by the earnestness of her tone, which taught him that this plan had
become fixed in her mind, "do you look like a nursery governess? No one
would engage you!"
"But Mr. Armstrong took me to Madame Caillard's shop yesterday and
made me order a gray cashmere dress and be measured for it--a proper
grown-up dress, touching the ground all around; he said he owed
you money, and you had told him to buy me what I liked. You can't
think how grown-up I shall look in it. And he told me to look in the
hair-dresser's shops and notice how hair was dressed now, because I am
growing too tall to wear my hair tied back with a ribbon. And I thought
all the time of this nursery-governess idea, and was delighted, for I
am longing to pay off the bills!"
"My dear little girl," put in her father, who had been listening
with ill-concealed impatience, "if you had the least idea of a
nursery-governess's duties and salary, you wouldn't entertain such
a project for a moment. Nursery governesses are treated much worse
than nursemaids, are worked about thirteen hours a day, and paid
from fifteen to twenty pounds a year. You, at your age, and without
experience, could not hope to receive more than about twelve or
fourteen pounds a year to start with, and you would be simply a
nurse-girl, a servant, to take your orders from some vulgar and
domineering nurse. Even if by a miracle you received the highest
possible salary for such a situation, of what use would twenty pounds
a year be to me? Five hundred francs, out of which your washing and
clothes must come--and we owe about eight thousand francs, at least.
No, no, my dear, it's not to be thought of! They must come and carry
off our poor little sticks, I suppose, as they have done before; and,
if the very worst comes, they can put me in prison."
This conversation impressed and pained Laline deeply. She was greatly
disappointed at the manner in which her father disparaged the possible
help she was capable of affording him, and fell to wondering if there
was no other way out of their difficulties. Down to the pier she
wandered, late on a hot afternoon, to think over the subject that was
troubling her. In appearance she was a little more sedate than she had
been on her first introduction to Wallace Armstrong twelve days before.
Her abundant hair was looped up, and her pink cotton frock, fashioned
by her own hands, made some attempt to follow the lines of her slim
figure. Wallace Armstrong had bought her a pair of long Suède gloves,
of which she was extremely proud; so that, with these additions to her
toilet, and her new black-lace hat with the rosebuds, she looked a very
different being to "_la p'tite Gart_," with the flying hair and blue
cotton blouse of a few days ago.
It was of Wallace the girl was thinking as she sat at the end of the
pier, looking down into the shining green water. He seemed so rich
and so kind; would he not help her father out of his difficulties,
especially as he owed him money, on his own confession? She grew
suddenly hot and unhappy when she thought of the many francs she had
allowed Mr. Armstrong to waste over sweets and trifles to herself,
while all the time there was such desperate need of money at home. Was
it possible that her father was too proud to ask for help from his
friend? But no; she at once dismissed that idea as unlikely. From her
knowledge of her father she was not inclined to think that motives
of delicacy would ever restrain him from borrowing money wherever he
could. Laline was not in the least suspicious, but in her dreamy,
half-childish, half-womanly nature there lurked a strange intuition,
which illuminated more than any reasoning powers could the natures of
those around her.
Of the mercenary plot by which she was to be made the means of
supplying her father and Wallace Armstrong with money for their vices
and extravagances by her marriage with the latter, she had not the
slightest suspicion. More than once she had been startled by the
troubled and remorseful expression which crept into Mr. Armstrong's
face when she raised her clear eyes to his. The young man had the
saving grace to realise the paltry part he was playing, and for three
days now he had avoided Laline, and had spent his time in bars and
billiard-rooms of the town. He was fully determined to marry her, and
to play the part of a kindly and affectionate brother until she could
grow to love him. That she would do this sooner or later he took as a
foregone conclusion, sharing, as he did with most men, the idea that
any woman married to him was bound in time to love him. But meanwhile
he did not care to meet the long trustful gaze of her soft dark eyes;
and it was almost with a feeling of vexation that this afternoon, as he
strolled down the pier, smoking a cigar, with his hands in his pockets
and his straw hat tilted over his eyes to protect them from the sun, he
found himself face to face with Laline, and saw the look of pleasure on
her face as she recognised him.
"We haven't seen you for three days," she said, as he took a seat by
her side. "I began to think you must have left Boulogne."
"Without saying 'Good-bye' to you? Was that likely?"
He was to be married to this girl in ten days--they were to pass
their future lives together. And yet, seated here by her side in the
sunshine, Wallace Armstrong, ordinarily the most self-possessed of
men, felt tongue-tied and abashed before her.
She was wonderfully pretty, but her very freshness and fairness became
a reproach. He knew that he did not love her--knew, too, that her
attraction for him lay chiefly in the utter dissimilarity between her
and such women as he had heretofore chiefly noticed. The thought of his
own unworthiness, while it failed to turn him from his purpose, served
to render him morose and discontented. Laline saw his heavy black
eyebrows contract into an ugly frown, and involuntarily drew back from
him.
"Are you vexed with us in any way?" she asked, timidly. "With my father
or myself, I mean?"
"Don't talk of your father in the same breath with yourself!" he said,
harshly. "I never think of you as in any way akin."
Laline flushed painfully.
"Please remember," she said, in a low voice, "that he is my father."
"Do you love him for that, simply because you are told it is your duty?"
"I hope I do," she answered very low. "But I cannot love him as I loved
her--my mother."
"Well, you will leave him some day, of course, and will find some one
who will appreciate you better. Tell me, Miss Laline--have you any
sweethearts in the town?"
She opened her dark eyes wide and laughed.
"Dear, no!" she answered, without the least hesitation. "How should I
have time for such things? I am always busy, you know."
"Spoiling your pretty hands with rough housework!"
"Ah, but I remember what you said the other day, and am going to take
great care of my nails. And mother always taught me to wear gloves in
housework."
"Don't you sometimes want to go back to England?"
Such a transfiguration took place in her face at the words! Her eyes
shone, her cheeks flushed, her lips quivered.
"Ah!" she whispered, "I try not to think how much I want to go back
there!"
"Would you thank any one who would take you?"
"As a governess, do you mean? But it would put papa to such expense if
I were to leave him. And I think--I think there is something or some
one that prevents his ever going back there at all."
"But if, for your sake, some one came forward and paid all your
father's debts, and provided for him comfortably, and then sailed away
with you in one of those nice white-funnelled steamers, and gave you
a beautiful home in England, and surrounded you with everything that
money and forethought could provide, and all for love of you, what
would you say?"
"Why, who would do such a thing?"
"Some one who is very fond of you. Some one not very good, but who
believes you could make him better by your sweet influence. Some one
whose home is very lonely without a bright-faced Laline to look after
things, and to sing about the house as I have heard you sing at the Rue
Planché. Some one who loves you, Laline."
She stared into his face with wondering eyes which betrayed no
self-consciousness.
"It sounds like a fairy-tale," she said.
"It is true, all the same. You are Cinderella, and I am a degenerate
Fairy Prince, Laline!"