Marshall Saunders - The House of Armour

“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.”