CHAPTER XXIX.
"Love is a great transformer." —Shakespeare.
The reader must understand what it is to experience sensations such as flitted through Guy Elersley's breast at this period of his life's dénouement. Any of us who have fallen in with the tide of the great living world, know that the draughts of gall and the drops of nectar reach our lips from the same chalice: our noblest love has often been the parent of our most sinful hatred, and we have cursed in despairing tones the very scenes, days, persons and associations that once constituted the fondest memories of our hearts.
We have a great antithetical existence before us, but the beauty of experience can only be seen by the backward glance, 'tis when we turn our sad and tear-dimmed eyes to look over our bended shoulders at the thorny way that bears the impress of our weary feet, that we can feel what a grand and salutary prayer our lips might make by substituting the murmur and the cry of pain by a holy accent which should be a "fiat."
The strain of mournful confidence that had passed between these reunited friends brought its own bitterness to Guy Elersley's heart. How unfortunate it was that on the eve of his departure from his former home, Vivian Standish should have been the one of all others he had trusted with his little message of love!
Guy passed over in silent, painful review, the details of his recent career. How well he remembered the pain and disappointment that had driven him away from Ottawa city.
He had thought once that such a conflict of emotions would kill a stronger man than he, but
"Nothing in the world beside,
Is stronger than the heart when tried."
To begin a new life on the wreck of an old one is a very hard and painful task, and one that Guy Elersley, above every other living creature, would never have attempted unless when influenced by so strong and pushing and stimulating a power as the love of a good woman—this alone, it was that worked reformation in Guy Elersley: from contemplating her pure and noble soul, he had been seized with an ambition to grow like her, her word and example sickened him of his old pursuits until he wondered and wept over the sacrifice he had so heedlessly made of his youth and character.
He left the scene of his temptations, and in close, quiet study in the great, stirring city of New York, he slowly, but surely and steadily rebuilt the wreck and ruin of his younger days. He had devoted himself once before to the study of medicine, but had given it up in a moment of foolish frivolity for an occupation far less worthy, but now he returned to his volumes of science with a vow of perseverance on his lips and a dogged determination in his heart.
He had been fortunate enough to form the acquaintance of Dr. Belford, who, taking a fancy to the studious boy, offered to receive him under his special charge and instruct him more fully in the profession he had adopted.
Guy attributed each new phase of luck that overtook him now to the same unseen power which seemed to sway his life of late. Under Dr. Belford he worked diligently and well and finished the career in medicine he had so recklessly interrupted before for other pursuits.
Through all the trials and difficulties of his new life, Guy felt himself sustained by a lingering hope that seemed to buoy him up against every depression, and thus for many long months he toiled assiduously under the influence of that shallow hope until each day seemed to prove to him more clearly than another, that all the best endeavors of a lifetime cannot restore a trust once broken, or a confidence once shattered.
Even this bitter realization he strove to gather into his resignation; he had grown prematurely wise and learned, and had taught himself to accept in submission the apparently unjust decree of destiny.
But sometimes when he came home tired and weary at nightfall and laid his head, full of aching thoughts, on his pillow to rest, capricious fate released him from his skeptic views of life; the hard lines faded from around his handsome mouth, and a slow smile, as of old, crept back there from its exile, for when he was tired or sad, a fair vision invariably stood beside him and smoothed away the traces of care from his face. He could feel the velvety touch of her dainty hands, and see the beauty of her consoling smile whenever he closed his eyes in a weary doze on the reality of his present life, but when he raised his lids the spell broke suddenly, and New York and Ottawa were a hopeless distance of cruel miles apart.
He had never once doubted that Vivian Standish would deliver his parting message, and the only bitterness of his better life had been her silence, cold and cruel, after that appeal his heart had made, before leaving. But now the thought struck him all at once: may be she had never received this little messenger of his devotion. Could any man so base as Vivian Standish had proved himself to be, commit, by the merest chance, an honest or a just action? He doubted it; at least he gave himself the benefit of the new uncertainty, and resolved to work out this intricate problem to its bitter end or die in the attempt.
* * * * *
"Because I love you," said the low sweet voice of Vivian Standish, as he paced very slowly, with Honor Edgeworth, by his side, up and down through the crowd that had assembled on Carder's Square, to enjoy the excellent music of the Governor-General's Foot Guards' Band which was filling the evening air with its dreamy strains.
These two, were like every other couple present, in a crowd and yet isolated: the "band night" is one, so full of generous encouragement, to the growing sentiment of our young city, that one is forced into an appreciation of its benefits, whether one is inclined or not.
Long before the appointed hour for playing, animated couples form a solemn procession, along the streets and grounds which surround our dignified "Drill Shed," but it is just as the twilight begins to draw itself into the corners of the far-off sky, and over the half distinct gables, and chimney tops of the imposing buildings that rear up their solemn spires, against the sky, that the suggestive strains of a "Blue Alsatian," or "Loved and Lost" act, powerfully as a third agent of affinity, in bringing the hitherto shy and reticent couples nearer than ever, and in linking the obstinate little hands of a moment before, firmly in that of the love-sick adorer.
Every one goes to hear the band, big and little, men and women, young, and old, though, what old people, and little brothers or sisters want there, is more than half the "grown up" sons and daughters can tell.
It is all well enough to coax your uninteresting little brother of fifteen, with a double supply of sponge cake at tea, if you have no one else in view to escort you to the "band," but why in the name of all that is provoking, does he not know, that his duty is done, when he is supplanted by some one's bigger brother, who has a moustache and smokes cigars.
Honor Edgeworth had no unsophisticated youthful kin, to try their clinging propensities on her, her "aunt Jean" brought her everywhere, and everywhere they went, they found Vivian Standish. It gratified the old lady immensely to see how Honor "took" among her friends, it gratified her, in proportion, as it stung, a great many mature young ladies, who rather disliked, in any emphatic way, to see a new source of attraction deposited in their midst.
Ottawa has come to a deplorable state of depression, with regard to "matrimonial transactions;" it is now of vital importance to young ladies, who have an ambition to distinguish themselves at the altar of Hymen, that they take "masculine tastes," as the axis around which is to revolve, in graceful motion, the actions of their daily lives; but for this no one need think of censuring Ottawa's noble women, their conduct is not so servile or dependent as the unfair critic would like to paint it. We must not forget, the truth of the little by-word, that "circumstances alter cases," what is perfectly justifiable in Ottawa would be "abominably atrocious" in many other Canadian cities.
Every one knows, that in the capital of our splendid Dominion, there is the finest collection of young men, that creation can afford—they are numerous, handsome, wealthy, sensible, specimens of what youth should be, (in their own opinion), and with the knowledge of all their qualities combined, these precious creatures, are just conceited enough, to make sure, that there will always be, at least one for each in the whole city, who will appreciate such a display of accomplishments and qualities, as they monopolize.
One can easily understand therefore, how flattered a girl must feel, even, though she is the daughter of a wealthy father, and enjoys a comfortable home, when one of these distinguished beings comes to invade her heart, with his abundance of personal charms and scarcity of personal wealth; some girls never survive it; they die of ecstatic emotion in a week, and are consigned to a premature grave; others outlive it into the practical phases of wedded life, to the intense mortification of their husbands.
We will now return to the groups of unfettered maidens, from Upper Town, Centre Town, Sandy Hill and Lower Town, that are enlivening the band scene to-night, many have given Honor Edgeworth, a pardonable word of very reserved criticism, of course they know her numerous advantages, men spoke of them right to their faces, but that never made them feel badly; who ever met a girl yet who felt the least put out, if one rival of hers, had a dozen admirers or more to her none?
But Honor was most undeserving of all the attention she received, for she neither appreciated the gallant endeavors of her male admirers to make themselves agreeable to her, nor cared an iota for the jealousies or slighting remarks that passed the lips of her girl contemporaries.
It was Jean d'Alberg who saw it all, and feasted maliciously on the "sour grapes" looks and words of Honor's less fortunate acquaintances. Honor had hoped that Vivian Standish would not join them that evening, for she amused herself as well with a great many others, and even found him uninteresting at times, but Aunt Jean would not support her at all here. She had assured herself long ago that Vivian and Honor were well made and mated, and that nothing could be more harmonious than their union. With this idea uppermost, she did everything in her power (which was a great deal) to throw them together, and she had not made any mistake, as far as her calculations of the man's character went—she was perfectly right in imagining that he was one who knew thoroughly how to "improve an opportunity."
Honor had to acknowledge that in no way did Vivian Standish offend or displease her, but still his manner fatigued and worried her—everyone else admired and appreciated him more than she did, and yet he faithfully and persistently thrust himself upon her, always polished, amiable and pleasant, but still, painfully eccentric in some way she could not fully define nor analyze.
To-night, as usual, just as an old friend had coaxed Jean d'Alberg into a lively conversation, Vivian Standish came quietly through the crowd, scenting the air with his fine cigar, which he smoked with a sleepy sort of relish, and stood beside Honor.
She knew perfectly well he was beside her, she felt him before he advanced at all, but when she turned suddenly to look at him, her face wore as blank an expression of astonishment as if he had been a ghost.
"You?" she exclaimed; "how is it that we seem to be travelling invariably towards the same point?" she asked then, in the strangest tone possible—but he was equal to her. He removed his cigar from between his handsome lips, and with a lazy sort of determination in his action and words, he slid his arm into hers, and bending down close to her ear, asked—
"Do you really ask me why I am constantly travelling to the spot where you are?"
"That is something like what I did ask, if I remember well," the girl answered with provoking indifference.
"Then it is—because—I love you!" he whispered, almost huskily.
The band continued to fill the balmy air with its sweet, suggestive strains. Sounds of laughter and mirth reached them from all sides; Vivian was less of his well-controlled self than ever to-night, but Honor was just as cold and indifferent as if the handsomest and most popular young man in Ottawa had slighted her instead of avowing his unsought love for her.
"Do you hear?" he asked, on seeing her remain persistently indifferent.
"I am not at all hard of hearing, Mr Standish, I assure you," was the cruel answer.
"And is that all the word you have to say in return?" he asked in a tone of wretched surprise.
"You are toying with very serious words," she answered earnestly, "and this is neither time nor place for it. Let us speak of something else."
"May I continue smoking?" he then asked, as coolly as if they had been his first words to her. "If you object, Honor, don't mind saying so. May I at least call you Honor?"
"You overpower me and yourself with such a multitude of questions," the girl answered languidly, "but since you ask me permissions which I grant a great many others, I will not refuse you.."
"Thank you," he said almost sarcastically, "when we are hungry we take the crust that is flung to us, though the dainty morsel served on a crystal plate satisfies us best. What is the matter to-night, Honor, you seem worried and peevish?"
The sudden change of tone, from the moralizing to that of anxious enquiry, amused Honor.
"I generally seem in that way until I have been in your company for a while," she answered with such a careless, meaningless tone, that he pronounced her a hopeless little sans coeur with a sigh, and dropped the subject.
Vivian Standish was plainly courting Mr. Rayne's protégée, and a great deal had to be said in consequence. With his carefully learned manners, Standish had worked a successful conspiracy against retribution. He had coolly stowed away any disagreeable souvenirs of his past life, and troubled no more about them. He veneered his whole character with such an engaging mansuetude as served to deceive the most penetrative of those he met, and not even the most suspicious of his Ottawa acquaintances had ever insinuated that a surface so calm and unruffled as his could ever cover a phase of character which could be nocent or even objectionable in the least degree. Some disliked him for reasons they could not define, and had in consequence to refrain from expressing their antipathy. Many were jealous of him, and the majority admired him freely.
He was one of those "clever" men who had taken the trouble to analyze and solve the intricate though simple problem of existence, and to adapt this precious knowledge wisely and carefully to his own especial selfish benefit.
It takes a rogue to understand a rogue, and the reason of Vivian Standish's complete success in playing off his counterfeit manners, was because he had chosen to display them within a circle where shrewd or suspecting observation never found its way. He saw clearly what a field lay open to him in the drawing-room, and the delightful company of Ottawa's élite. All he had to do was to introduce himself to this "tony" little city fashionably dressed, and with that self-sufficient reserve that characterizes the "high toned." He registered at the "Russell," and walked Sparks street every afternoon with a haughty step, looking as conceited and interesting as possible. He drank in the local chat with eyes and ears open, before making any uncertain move; then he sought the acquaintance of the fashionable young men of the city—they are easily traced. One has but to run over the list of their aristocratic names on the pages of the visitors' register at Government House, or they are the noted presidents, patrons or members of some "awfully nice" club, "you know!" or they are very well represented in the business books of certain well known tailoring establishments; and if none of these are sufficient, the Court register has a voice now and then whose suasory accents could convince anyone.
But nothing in these discoveries would surprise Vivian Standish, for there was little left savouring of "hard experience" that he had not passed through at one time or other of his agitated career. He was no stranger to the secrets of a little city like Ottawa. They are good enough to frighten small boys and women. He, who had plunged into the very heart of the mysteries of life as they are found in the grand metropolises of the whole world, rather interested the comparatively innocent and unsophisticated youth of the Canadian capital, who recognized in him a graduate of that school of experience whose dangerous knowledge was being tasted, as a novelty, yet by them. Inwardly he smiled at the susceptibilities of the youths he came across; he saw mirrored in them the youth of every other corner and nationality of the globe. Worldling though he was, he was capable of very wise reflections, and was given to moralizing in a sort of way. He never made it a premeditated point to draw any unschooled youth into wrong; he did not seek to make any innocent one the victim of an evil influence, as many do who seem to be very active agents of the Author of Evil himself,—young people who cannot gloat over their own spiritual ruin until they have dragged the foolish, weak souls of unsuspecting victims into the wreck they covet for themselves. He was satisfied to be virtuously discreet among the unsuspecting, and be highly companionable among those who were wiser in folly. He was glad to recognize Elersley in a strange city, and Guy, friendly and hospitable ever, took him into his charge until he had him thoroughly initiated into the ways of his adopted life.
Guy's room was the scene of many a jovial merry-making for successive nights after Vivian's arrival, and if cigar stumps and empty bottles were ever indicative of rollicking bachelor hospitality, they surely told the tale emphatically of Guy, for a very respectable heap of such restants generally made one conspicuous feature of next morning's "cleaning up"
Standish was a jolly fellow, and the others took to him readily; he smoked, drank, jested, or indulged in any other imaginable pastime that was proposed, thus showing himself a complete sympathizer with his new-made friends.
When he stepped into the "feminine" circle, he was equally well received, he was so entirely different in his attractions from the stale beaux that had introduced him to their lady friends. His first words invariably made impression, and everything he said or did was stamped with the quietest, most languid, and yet most thoroughly fascinating style, that victims were ready to fall unsought before him. There was a resistless power in the deep, dreamy look his beautiful eyes constantly affected, and in the unsteady strength of his shapely hand, as it happened, no matter how inadvertently, to touch the dainty fingers of some susceptible belle; and even if his personal advantages failed him completely, there yet remained his most powerful attraction—his voice. Ottawa girls had never heard such original and such pleasant little nothings as Vivian Standish told them at every moment of his conversation, and the perfect cultivation of the voice that thrilled their blessed little hearts with its resistless accents, induced many a fair and blushing maiden to hand him over her conquered heart, as a pitiable trophy that he had so fairly and yet so mercilessly won.
But Vivian Standish, in coming among the Ottawaites, had not been attracted for the purpose of making such havoc among feminine hearts. Any man can do that, in any place, and under any circumstances, if he has a mind to. A woman to him, was a useless and troublesome appendage, after he had kissed the dainty hand that had emptied its substantial treasure into his roomy pockets. Courtesy, like every other quality he had taken the trouble to acquire, had its matter-of-fact mission to perform, towards accomplishing a great part of his mercenary purposes, and hence the sacrifices he so often made cheerfully and admirably for the gratification of some idolized daughter who was sole heiress to a comfortable dozen of thousands.
His lucky genius had not driven him on to Ottawa for nothing, of this he assured himself emphatically when he found out that Honor Edgeworth was likely to substitute Guy Elersley in his uncle's favor, and find herself, some day, rolling in wealth that had been scraped together by the hands of those who had not owed her a single debt of gratitude; to his reason such unfair freaks of destiny called loudly for resentment; he claimed a right of monopoly as well as this more fortunate girl, and he meant to exercise it too, though as quietly and noiselessly as possible, he flattered himself, and encouraged his project with the universal male belief, that a few little wild words of sentiment, and marked attentions, suffice to level the trivial fortifications of any woman's heart; his study was to make the right impression on the responsible guardians of his choice, that his appeal, when made, should be encouraged by these all-important voices. In this he attained a splendid success, but his plots and plans were too clever for his own management, and entrapped him in that very place, where he considered himself most strongly fortified.
Henry Rayne, now growing weaker and older, had been as easily influenced by the assumed manners of this adventurer as was any indiscreet woman; the glitter, to his eyes, now dimmed and obscured by age, was that of the solid metal, and the well-studied phrases and words that came so blandly from the deceptive lips duped the old man pitifully.
Jean d'Alberg herself had caught the contagion, and smiled pleasant greetings to him when he visited at Mr. Rayne's house; there was only Honor who evaded the cunning trap, but even she was blinded a good deal. Although the eternal fitness of things made it impossible that such antithetical natures should ever blend in a harmony of any sort, he was still fortunate enough not to produce the discord that would seem to arise very naturally from such an unsympathetic contact.
Honor, without liking Vivian Standish, endured him well enough, and enjoyed his clever conversations very well; she could not guess the fierceness of the moral struggle that was taking place, as he calmly and calculatingly planned her doom. She only felt a little of that repulsion that purity and innocence naturally feel when brought into contact with vice and guilt, for our moral natures have a special instinct of their own, which attracts or repels characters whose influence upon them may be beneficial or injurious, thus often causing us to dislike or distrust persons without any apparent cause.
There was only one extra reason why Honor Edgeworth, above so many others, failed to yield herself a ready victim to the wiles of this fascinating man, and that was because her heart, unlike the generality of those tiresome appendages, was closed to petition. She had learned to love once, truly and warmly, and the gay, young, reckless hero whom she had silently but devotedly honored at the secret shrine of her unsullied heart, had suddenly passed out of her life, without a sign, or a token, or a word, leaving her to weep over the wasted treasure of sentiment she had so greedily hoarded up for him alone; not that this caused her to lose her faith in man or vow to live a life of solitary sceptic amendment for having indulged a foolish passion in her early days, but because she firmly believed the object of her fond regard to be at heart a worthy one, and because she felt that her happy lively sentiment, becoming spent and weary, had only laid itself obscurely away, to taste the hopeful sweetness of a "love's young dream,"—by and bye, she promised herself, when her "fairy prince" came back, and woke up the sleeping cupid from his bed of sighs, the world would be happier and brighter, and full of pleasure unalloyed forevermore. So in the lonely meanwhile, little words of kind regard, and little deeds of gallant courtesy, seemed to her as only forerunners or harbingers of what was coming to her out of the "to be" from the lips and hands of her absent lover.
Such a way of viewing things naturally influenced this girl's character and brought her back to that distracted existence, that contact with practical life had almost annihilated. Her old meditative propensities stole upon her again, it was nothing new now to see her with folded hands and dreamy eyes that looked vacantly into the space before them.
A wonderful change was also coming over Henry Rayne; he who had spent a good fifty years of his life in active service for society, now began to feel, like countless others who had gone before him, that after all, the most he could claim as the wages of honest fame and honor, were the cushioned depths of an invalid chair, the first grade, to the narrow bed where he would sleep his eternal sleep.
The old man was growing daily weaker and more childish, having never known any of those influences through life, which become identical with the very existence of those who have tasted them in wedded life, Henry Rayne found himself in the sunset of his years with scarcely a tie to bind him to the world for which he had done so much. There was only Honor, who stood out in relief from the monotonous experience of his life, and invited him to tarry a little longer on the border-line of time; every moment that passed into eternity now seemed to bring this girl nearer and nearer to his heart, for it was necessary, that at least in death, he should learn the lesson of sacrifice, that had been so well-spared him through life.
With the first warnings of his decline, Henry Rayne had learned to realize how cold and bitter and cruel a world this world would be to his little protégée when he had left her, and for that reason he occupied himself altogether, in the latter years of his life, in studying and promoting a welfare for this precious charge, that would survive himself for, may be long years of a lonesome life.
With this intimate knowledge of the old man's heart, one can perhaps understand the partiality with which Vivian Standish was received into the home of Henry Rayne, as a constant visitor.