"Why," she answers, with airy insolence, "Floyd wished him to marry you and he declined, then Floyd married you himself. Your fortune was too valuable to go out of the family, I suppose. It was about the time your father died."
Violet pales with a mortal hurt.
"I think you are wrong there," and she summons all her strength to combat this monstrous accusation. "Mr. Grandon liked me because--because----"
"Oh, yes; saving Cecil gave color to the romance, and it is all very pretty," says Marcia, with insufferable patronage. "But there was some one else, and he could have had quite as much fortune without any trouble. He was a fool for not marrying her."
"You shall not discuss Mr. Grandon in this manner to me," declares Violet, indignant with wifely instincts.
"Oh, you asked me yourself!" retorts her antagonist. "If you were at all sharp-sighted you could have seen----"
Violet stops Marcia with a gesture of her hand. She stands there white as snow, but her eyes are larger, and gleam black, the color and tenderness have gone out of her scarlet mouth, and she seems to grow taller. Marcia is checked in her onslaught, and a half-misgiving comes to her.
"After all," she says, presently, in a more moderate tone, "I supposed you _did_ know something about it. You really ought to have been told in the beginning, as all the rest were, it seems." And she adds the last a little bitterly, remembering she has been shut out of the family conference.
"Mr. Grandon did what was right and best," Violet returns, loyally.
"I suppose we all do what we think best," comments Marcia, with an air of wisdom, and experience sits enthroned on the little strip of brow above her eyes. "Well, I"m sorry you were not at the Brades", and I do think Eugene ought to pay better attention to business, especially now that Floyd is away. And I don"t see why he should stay away from parties if you do not want to go."
"There is no reason," answers Violet, coldly.
Marcia bids her good morning, and flies down the steps with the air of one who has performed her whole duty. Now that she has attained to married respectability, she feels quite free to criticise the rest of the world, and she rejoices in the fact that she does carry more weight than a single woman.
Violet stands by the window where Marcia left her. She is very glad to be alone, and thankful that Cecil is at the Latimers" for the day, although she is due there for a kind of nursery tea-party. A whirlwind seems to have swept over her, to have lifted her up bodily and carried her out of the sphere she was in two hours ago, and in this new country all is strange; on this desolate sh.o.r.e where she is stranded the sea moans in dull lament, as if the soul had gone out of that also, and left an aching heart behind. She might dismiss Marcia"s tirade as other members of the family are wont to do, but there comes an awesome, shivering fear that it is true in some degree. How many times she has seen Gertrude check Marcia when Floyd was under discussion. She has never tried to pry into family secrets, but she knows there have been many about her; a certain kind of knowledge that all have shared, a something against her. She has fancied that she made some advances in living down the dislike; Mrs. Grandon has been kinder of late, and Marcia, since her marriage, quite confidential. Instead, she has done nothing, gained nothing.
If Gertrude were only here. She has made that one true friend, whom nothing can shake, who, knowing all, came to love her with a tender regard that was not pity. But there is no one, no one. All is a dreary waste.
A step comes up the balcony, and the mellifluous voice is whistling Schumann"s Carnival. Whither shall she fly? But even now it is too late, for he meets her in the wide doorway.
"Good heavens! what has happened? You look like a ghost," cries Eugene, in alarm. Then he stretches out his arms, for it seems as if she would fall to the floor.
Violet shrinks back into the room and drops on the divan, making a gesture as if she would send him away.
"I"m not going," he declares, "until you tell me what has happened.
Cecil is all right, and you can have had no bad news from Floyd. You were so bright and well this morning, and we are to go to the Latimers"
to-night----"
"I cannot!" It would be a shriek if it were not a hoa.r.s.e whisper, and she covers her face with her hands.
Eugene is amazed. He is not a mysterious young man. He enjoys everything on the surface, and considers it a bore to dive deep for hidden meanings. Something comes to his aid. He skulked out of the road five minutes ago to avoid Marcia, for he knew she would open upon him for his dereliction of pleasure.
"Marcia has been here," he announces. "She has said something to you, the spiteful little cat! See here, I can guess what unmitigated drivel it is. She has accused you of flirting with me, and said I stayed at home to keep you company when I should have been at the German."
The rift of color in Violet"s face answers him.
"I believe I should like to wring her neck, the little hussy! Well, you are not to mind a bit of it. In the first place you are a little innocent and do not know how to flirt, even if you have magnificent eyes. You are too honest, too true; and it"s all awful stuff, said out of pure jealousy."
He has not comforted her. The awe-stricken face is still ashen, despairing. Any other girl would almost rush to his arms, she seems to go farther and farther away. Her large eyes look him over. He has a handsome face, and now it is kindly, sympathetic.
"Tell me," he says, peremptorily. "You know you"ve never flirted. Why, you might make yourself more attractive than ten Marcias could possibly be; and, see here, I"ve never kissed you, though you have been my brother"s wife for more than a year, and--bosh!" with the utmost contempt. "Oh, does it trouble you so?" After a moment, "My dear, dear girl, don"t worry about it," and his face is full of genuine distress.
The common comfort of life will not apply to this case.
"It was wrong," she says, tremulously. "You have stayed home from business, and----"
He laughs, it seems so utterly absurd. Many a day has he been away from the factory and perhaps not half so innocently employed.
"See here," he begins, "we will let Floyd settle it when he comes home.
Good heavens, won"t he make it hot for Marcia! I shall tell him myself."
"No, no!" and Violet starts up in anguish. "You must not utter a word!"
"Well, why?" asks Eugene, with a kind of obstinate candor. "I"m sure--flirting, indeed! Why, Marcia couldn"t be an hour in the room with any fellow, young or old, that she wouldn"t make big eyes at him.
I like to see people turn saints at short notice. I"ll go off and have it out with her myself, and make her keep a civil tongue in the future."
"Eugene!" Violet cries, in distress, as he is half-way through the hall. Oh, what shall she do? Must she go wild with all this pain and shame?
"Well," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es, again standing indecisively.
"She said other things," and the dry lips move convulsively. "I must know; I cannot live with this horrible shadow over everything. There is no one else to ask."
He comes and seats himself on the divan beside her, and there is a glimpse of Floyd in his face. His voice falls to a most persuasive inflection as he rejoins, "Tell me, ask me anything, and I will answer you truly. There has never been any horrible thing since you came here, or ever that I can remember. What did Marcia say?"
Perhaps, after all, Marcia did not tell the exact truth, and Violet"s despairing face lightens. Marcia may have Charles Lamb"s way of thinking the truth too precious to be wasted upon everybody, for she is sometimes extremely economizing. And Violet _must_ know.
"You will tell me if--if Mr. Grandon asked you to marry me--before----"
Eugene springs up and utters a low, angry e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, strides across the floor and then back again. Violet"s face is crimsoned to its utmost capacity, and her eyes have that awful beseechingness that cuts him to the soul. If he could, if he dared deny it! but even as this flashes through his brain a stony kind of certainty settles in every line, and he gathers that denial would be useless.
"See here, my dear little sister," and sitting down he takes the small, cold hand in his. "I will tell you the truth. There is nothing horrible or disgraceful in it! Your father proposed that instead of having any business trouble to be years in the course of settlement, I should marry you, as the patent was in such an uncertain state and he had invested everything in it. It simply joined the fortunes, don"t you see? Well, I was a dumb, blundering idiot, head over heels in an infatuation, and knew nothing about you, but it will be the regret of my whole life that I did _not_ come when Floyd sent for me. And I suppose he fell in love with you himself; he could not have cared for the fortune, he had enough of his own."
Violet draws a long, shivering breath, but her very soul seems icy cold with doubt.
"You did not--despise me?" she cries, with pa.s.sionate entreaty.
"Despise you? Why, I didn"t know anything about you." The young man"s lethargic conscience gives him a severe p.r.i.c.k. He should not have made light of it to Laura and madame, but he _did_ bind them to inviolate secrecy. "If I had seen you I should not have despised you, I should have married you," he says, triumphantly. "If you were free to-day, I should ask you to marry me. I think you the sweetest and most rarely honest girl I have ever met, and you _are_ beautiful, though I wouldn"t own that at first. Despise you? Why, I would fight the whole world for you, and I will, if----"
"No," she interrupts. Even his spirited defence cannot restore what has been so rudely wrenched away. She feels so old, so weary, so desolate, that nothing matters. "It is not so bad----" and she looks up with piteous eyes.
"Why, there is nothing bad about it at all," he declares, impatiently.
"Don"t the English and the French plan marriages, and there are people here whose parents join fortunes, lots of them! Marcia was angry and wanted to mortify you. The idea of marrying Jasper Wilmarth and then lording it over everybody, is too good! And as for flirting--well, I wouldn"t dare flirt with you," he says, laughingly. "Floyd would soon settle me. I like you too well, I honor you too much," he continues.
"There, will you not be comforted with something? Oh, I have a letter from Floyd, and he will be home to-morrow night! I came to bring it to you."
He takes it from his pocket and hands it to her, but her fingers tremble, and no joy lights up her pale face. Eugene is so sincerely sorry that he holds himself in thorough contempt for his part in the early history of the affair, and he is very angry as well.
"Now," he says, "I am going away, and I shall not be home to luncheon, but I will meet you at the Latimers". If Marcia dares to make another comment, it will be the worse for her, that"s all. My poor child, are you going to keep that dreary face and those despairing eyes for Floyd to see?"
He has a very strong inclination to take her in his arms and shower tenderness upon her; but if he has been drifting that way for the past week, he is rudely awakened now. He looks at her helplessly. If she would only cry; the girls he has seen have been ready enough with their tears.