In spite of Wallace Armstrong's entreaties, Laline could not alter her
arrangement not to make the acquaintance of Alexander Wallace; for when
Mrs. Vandeleur fixed upon the following Wednesday as the afternoon
on which she would call at the bank, the young secretary had already
announced to her employer her wish to remain at home.
"You are very right," the little lady had observed, "to avoid Mr.
Armstrong if his society is uncongenial to you. Those strong instincts
of liking and of hating are given to us women as safeguards. Although
to my mind Mr. Armstrong is wholly sympathetic, if a secret voice tells
you to beware of him, it is that of some beneficent spirit of the
so-called dead, who see with fleshless eyes through the fleshly veil
into the soul, and know that this man's society would be in some way
harmful to you."
Laline was growing accustomed by this time to Mrs. Vandeleur's singular
methods of expression. A strong liking had grown up between them,
although the elder woman was hardly sufficiently human in her ways of
thought to constitute a true friend. But Laline dared not confide in
her, for many reasons, so she let her statements pass without comment.
So far from cherishing any sentiment of repulsion against Wallace
Armstrong, she could hardly keep her thoughts from dwelling on the
subject of his tender speeches and tenderer eyes; and it was only by
constantly reminding herself of the mean and cowardly trick by which he
had become her husband that she was enabled to preserve any lingering
resentment against him.
On the Tuesday evening before Mrs. Vandeleur's promised visit to Mr.
Wallace's house Laline received the first approach to a love letter she
had ever had despatched to her. Dinner was over, and she was engaged in
writing in the study at Mrs. Vandeleur's dictation, when the postman's
knock preluded the tap at the door of Susan and her entrance with a
salver, upon which were two letters, one for the mistress of the house,
and the other for Miss Lina Grahame.
"A letter for you, my child," said the elder lady, peering at the
address through her eye-glass--"the first you have received since your
arrival."
Long before Laline had opened it or even glanced at the handwriting on
the envelope, she knew that Wallace Armstrong was her correspondent,
and felt herself blushing to the roots of her hair under Mrs.
Vandeleur's critical scrutiny.
"Do you know the writing?" the latter asked; and Laline replied with
perfect truth that she had never seen it before.
"My dear Miss Grahame," the letter began--"I am writing to entreat
you to come with Mrs. Vandeleur to-morrow. Even if you don't like
me you would most certainly like my uncle, who is one of the
noblest and best of men, generous and forgiving to a fault, and
one who, in spite of his wealth, has suffered many deep and bitter
trials in what to him has been far more important than money, his
domestic affection. He is very old and very lonely, though with his
chivalrous kindness towards all women he is the very man who should
by rights be surrounded by a happy family circle. I owe everything
to him, and can hardly with a lifelong devotion repay his more than
fatherly goodness. I am sure that you are gentle and pitiful as you
are beautiful--'fair, kind, and true,' as Shakspere puts it. And,
being all these things, won't you come, Miss Grahame, and, by giving
yourself just a little trouble, and putting up for an hour or more
with the presence of some one you hate, confer a great pleasure upon
one of the best old men alive? I solemnly promise not to 'flirt,'
as you call it. If I may not talk to you, I will console myself by
talking of you to Mrs. Vandeleur, which is the next best thing.
In my dream last night you promised to come. Be as sweet as your
dream-prototype is the prayer of yours always devotedly,
"Wallace L. Armstrong."
This letter moved and interested Laline deeply. Since it was now
impossible for her to accompany Mrs. Vandeleur and her niece, she felt
that she must send a few words in answer, lest she might be thought
too unfeeling. She was also very anxious to prevent Wallace from
carrying out his threat of talking about her to Mrs. Vandeleur. The
latter had guessed already that she was a married woman; and might she
not be capable of hinting as much to Mr. Armstrong under the mistaken
impression that his attentions would be disagreeable to her secretary?
Lost in thought, Laline bent over the letter which lay on her lap,
ignoring the steady, curious gaze of Mrs. Vandeleur's keen, dark eyes.
The fact that it was absolutely the first letter she had ever received
from her husband excited her strangely, and she found herself fingering
the paper with a touch that was almost affectionate. It seemed a little
in the light of a confession that Wallace should expatiate so much upon
his uncle's generous and forgiving nature and fatherly goodness, and on
his lonely life and domestic troubles.
"I believe--I want to believe that Wallace has utterly changed,"
she said to herself, with flushed cheeks and moist eyes. "If he were
anything like the man he was four years and a half ago, when he entered
into that horrible bargain with my father, he could never have written
this letter. His uncle's goodness must have changed him by gradually
softening his heart. And then--my father was so much older that he may
have led him into things, and Wallace was penniless--perhaps I have
been too hard in my judgment on him all these years, although I am
afraid if it were all to happen again I should act in just the same
way."
"Have you any letters to write, dear child?" Mrs. Vandeleur's silvery
tones broke in. "I shall be sending Susan to the post with mine within
the next half-hour."
"There is just one I want to write, if you please," the secretary
answered.
And Mrs. Vandeleur obligingly made room for her at the other end of her
writing-table.
Laline took a pen between her fingers; but the letter was not so easily
written. There was very much she wished to tell Wallace Armstrong, and
very much again that she did not want him to know. She wanted to tell
him that she would willingly come to see his uncle, since he so much
desired it, but that, having once refused, she did not see her way to
changing her mind without exciting comment. She would also have liked
him to know that she by no means hated him, that she might even in time
be induced to like him very much, but that if he wished to please her
he must refrain from talking about her to Mrs. Vandeleur.
But she had no idea how to word her letter, and, even before writing
it, she began to rack her brains in the vain endeavour to remember
whether her husband possessed or had ever seen any of her handwriting.
Finally, having wasted more than ten minutes, she seized her pen and
began the heading, "Dear Mr. Armstrong," hoping that other words would
come.
A little laugh, like that of a mischievous fairy, made her start and
drop the pen.
"'Dear Mr. Armstrong,' and nothing more?" Mrs. Vandeleur asked,
mockingly. "That is not a very fluent love-letter for the poor young
gentleman, is it?"
Laline looked at once astonished and confused. But Mrs. Vandeleur's
prescience in this case was easily explained. She had recognised the
writing on the envelope of Wallace's letter, and had watched Laline's
fingers tracing three words, which she guessed to be those she quoted.
"You seem in a difficulty over your letter," the little lady suggested,
in an insinuating tone. "Can I not help you in any way? I have some
judgment, and my advice may be of value to you. What is it you want to
say to Mr. Armstrong?"
Laline arose, agitated and nervous, and, tearing her letter across,
dropped it in the fire.
"It isn't a bit necessary to send it at all," she said; "and that is
what made it difficult to write. I met Mr. Armstrong in Kensington
Gardens while you were out last Saturday afternoon, and I told him I
did not wish to accompany you and Miss Gavan to tea at Mr. Alexander
Wallace's. But he took it into his head to want me to go, and wrote
to especially ask me. I wanted to write and say I couldn't change my
mind--that is all."
"You mean that is all you are going to tell me?"
"I mean that is all that happened."
"Does Clare know?"
"Clare? Oh, no! Why should she?"
Mrs. Vandeleur shook her head.
"You know what I read in the cards about you yesterday," she said,
mysteriously. "You must beware of the evil done by a red-haired woman
and a black-haired man. Lina, tell me--is Wallace Armstrong in love
with you?"
"How can he be when he has seen so little of me?" she asked, parrying
the question, and partly vexed, partly glad to talk upon the subject.
Mrs. Vandeleur studied the girl's face through her eye-glasses. There
was something about it which she did not understand and which she
mistrusted. It was not yet the tremulous softness of love she read in
the girl's lowered eyes and lips curved into a half-smile; but there
was about her a look suggesting that she was secretly happy and amused
over some knowledge she did not mean to share with others.
"You cannot love him, Lina," Mrs. Vandeleur reminded her, softly. "You
are not free."
"No," Laline repeated--and her half-smile deepened--"I am not free.
And now we won't talk about him, will we, dear Mrs. Vandeleur? And I
sha'n't write the letter; I shall just stop away."
"Do you wish to go?"
Laline's lips were framing "No," when she stopped.
"I hardly know," she said, after a pause. "But I think I should like to
go."
"I shall be strangely disappointed in you, Lina," said Mrs. Vandeleur,
coldly, "if you encourage Mr. Armstrong to love you solely for vanity's
sake."
The girl knelt down at Mrs. Vandeleur's feet and gazed earnestly up
into her face.
"Trust me, dear Mrs. Vandeleur," she said, "for I shall never do that!
But--but I heard a good deal about Mr. Armstrong before I came to your
house at all, and there is much more about him that I want to find out."
"Does he know that you had any previous acquaintance with him?"
"He has no idea of it."
"He doesn't recognise you? That's strange! Was he at all in love with
you before?"
"Oh, no!" the girl answered, with a very sad little smile. "If he had
been----"
She did not finish her speech. In her own mind she was saying that, if
Wallace Armstrong had indeed loved her at Boulogne, she would have been
living by his side as his wife all these years in that very house to
which she was hidden as a guest on the following day.
"Does Wallace Armstrong know your husband?" Mrs. Vandeleur asked,
suddenly.
The blood swept over Laline's face as she answered,--
"Yes."
"And you want to find out about him?" pursued Mrs. Vandeleur. "Surely,
if you detest and dread him so much, it would be wiser to restrain your
curiosity."
"I want also to learn, if I can, whether my father is alive."
Mrs. Vandeleur threw up her little hands and sighed.
"Like all women," she murmured--"hankering after chains and slavery
after being once freed from them. Our work together should absorb you,
to the exclusion of such thoughts. But you shall go with me to-morrow,
if you like. I knew that Wallace Armstrong's spirit was too fine to
assimilate with that of Clare. Her destiny will lead her, late in life,
to the arms of some stout and bald-headed stock-broker. When he is
asleep, after dinner, she will flirt with his clerks or his partner,
and be very happy; but you--life holds something very different in
store for you. I suppose you must dree your weird. But remember, once
you let love come into your life, trouble--terrible trouble--will come
too!"
Secretly, Mrs. Vandeleur was very curious to see Laline and Wallace
together. She interested herself readily in other people's affairs
when these latter attracted her in any way--she liked to constitute
herself a sort of _deus ex machina_ in the lives of her friends, to
pull the strings which moved their destinies; and the fact that both
Laline and Wallace, whom she sincerely admired, declined to confide in
her wholly, piqued her curiosity the more.
Against her niece Clare, on the other hand, Mrs. Vandeleur entertained
a sentiment which was almost dislike; and she was annoyed to notice, on
the following afternoon, when the two girls came down into the hall,
ready dressed for their drive, that Clare, in a picturesque costume of
red-brown cloth and beaver fur, appeared far more strikingly handsome
at first sight than Laline, in the quietest of blue serge gowns and
small black felt hat.
"Why have you those horrid, plain, masculine clothes on?" she inquired
crossly of her secretary.
"They are my only walking things," Laline replied. "You know, dear
Mrs. Vandeleur, I can't pay an afternoon call in those trailing white
garments I wear in your room."
"Dear Lina would look like a ghost dropping into afternoon tea!"
purred Clare, happy under the becoming framework of a red-brown velvet
'picture' hat and feathers. "I think she looks so sweet and neat in
that dear little black felt hat and black cloth jacket!"
Mrs. Vandeleur snapped her glasses to and shut her mouth very hard.
Then she ordered the girls into the brougham, and gave the coachman
some order which they did not hear, but in consequence of which he drew
up before a particularly smart millinery establishment on the way to
the Strand.
Here Mrs. Vandeleur insisted that Laline should get out with her while
Clare remained in the carriage, to which the little lady presently
returned in triumph by the side of her secretary, in whose appearance
a transformation had taken place by the substitution of a costly black
velvet "picture" hat and graceful black velvet cape, trimmed with fur
and lined with wine-coloured silk, for her former dowdy garments.
A flash of genuine anger passed into Clare's green eyes; but she was
far too much afraid of her aunt to enter a protest, and declared, with
apparent enthusiasm, that "dear Lina looked perfectly lovely; but then
she looked that before!"
Wallace's Bank was a vast gloomy-looking building, of which a
considerable frontage faced the Strand. It was built in a square, with
a paved courtyard in the middle, which led from one portion of the Bank
to the other. Alexander Wallace possessed many commodious houses in
different parts of London, and notably a charming family mansion and
estate at Hampstead. But he hated change and he hated moving a little
more every year. His father and his grandfather had lived over the
Bank, and what was good enough for them was good enough for him. His
tastes were very simple, and in his personal expenses he was economical
almost to miserliness; but his kindness of heart and generosity in
cases of real distress were well known.
A sedate elderly man-servant opened the big doors which led into the
private portion of the house, and the visitors found themselves in a
small but very lofty hall, papered in old-fashioned unæsthetic drab, in
which a fire was burning. Would the ladies mind coming up-stairs? the
man asked, and proceeded to lead the way up several short flights of
winding stairs and through a labyrinth of passages to a door, before
which he paused.
"These are Mr. Armstrong's rooms," he explained, and forthwith showed
the ladies into a good-sized apartment, distinguished by an appearance
of extreme cosiness and bachelor comfort. The cheeriest of fires burned
within the wide hearth, the furniture was of the saddle-bag order,
roomy, and easy-giving, plush curtains drawn over the windows kept out
all glimpse of the snowy night, and a multitude of clever water-colour
sketches, chiefly of picturesque foreign scenery and of pretty girls,
covered all the available wall space.
On a round table, set unfashionably in the centre of the room, a
tempting array of cakes and sweets awaited the visitors; and the two
occupants of the room--Wallace Armstrong and his uncle Alexander
Wallace--rose at the visitors' entrance and advanced to greet them.
Laline's heart beat fast as she was formally introduced to the man
who had long ago by letter welcomed her so warmly as a daughter. She
felt she hardly dared to look up into his face lest he should read
her secret in her eyes; but when she did at last summon up sufficient
courage to do so, she was struck by the extreme benevolence of the old
Scotchman's regard. Light gray eyes, at once keen and kind, looked out
from his pale and deeply-furrowed face, which possessed but little
of his nephew's beauty of outline. In spite of his great wealth, the
banker's manner towards the three ladies was constrained and even shy,
but full of a gentleness and consideration which won the heart of
Laline.
"How kind a father he might have been to me all these years!" she
thought.