Book: Honor Edgeworth

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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 _protegee_, 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 _elite_. 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 _protegee_ 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.



CHAPTER XXX.


Oh, to be idle one spring day!
To muse in wood or meadow;
Glide down the river 'twixt the play
Of sun and trembling shadow.
I'd see all wonders neath the stream,
The pebbles and vex'd grasses;
I'd lean across the boat and dream,
As each scene slowly passes.
--A. L. B

The bright, golden summer days were growing scarcer and scarcer; band
nights experiences were fast becoming items of the past--that past which
had realized itself so strangely to poor Honor. She had hoped
sanguinely, trustingly, and now it seemed that fate would bring her
defiant proofs of its iron will in spite of herself.

She had not taken it as a sign of inconstancy, that Guy had never sent
the smallest message of encouragement to her, but rather tried to weave
it in as a sprig of the laurel crown she daily wove in silent sadness,
for her truant lover, when he would return, full of happy explanations,
to claim her all his own.

Vivian was as constant and devoted when the leaves began to turn, as
when the leaves began to bud. This was perhaps the most intricate plot
of his scheming life, but he was proving himself equal to it: he was
probing his way slowly and quietly into the well guarded sanctum of
Honor Edgeworth's heart, trying to accumulate every energy of his soul
into one eloquent appeal to her obstinate nature.

The gorgeous colors of the western sky were fading dimly one evening,
behind the misty mountain tops. It was towards the end of August, a
lovely evening, such as comes back to us before the autumn, as a
reminder of the closing season.

Vivian Standish, pausing suddenly, rested his oars on the placid water,
and contemplated in silence, the figure of Honor Edgeworth, reclining on
the cushioned seat of his handsome boat. They had rowed a long way up
the canal, and any sentimental readers who have been there, either
alone, with only the memory of some dearer one, or still better, in the
actual company of some strangely loved acquaintance, will not hesitate,
in pronouncing this still, cool, shady retreat, one of the most
suggestive spots on earth. If anyone's untiring devotion and wildest
appeals have not, up to this, made any impression upon the being one
loves, the very best remedy is to launch a cosy boat into this very
canal, and pull with a mighty strength for four or five miles up from
the "deep cut." Soon a sequestered paradise is reached, where the bended
boughs interlacing, whisper, in caressing, rustling to each other, over
the narrow stream of rippling water below, here pause and wait. There is
a hush whose voice is more eloquent than any human appeal. The low
gurgling music of the little waves that creep techily over and under the
hanging boughs that teaze and obstruct them in their onward passage, the
crowded leaves, rubbing their swaying heads affectionately together; the
gentle wind resting in sighs of relief upon the graceful tree tops, and
sending its messages of love from bough to bough, until it spends itself
upon the quiet bosom of the waters below; the love-sick birds that woo
our beauteous nature in this, her bewitching costume, with their rich
and rarest warblings, vie with one another in chanting from their
ruffled throats their little tales of ecstasy and love, all teach us
clearly, that out in the busy world there is no witchery like this.

In the open sunlight, nature dons her every day attire, but in the shady
retreat of these, her chosen spots, she coquettishly arrays herself in
most resistless costumes.

While one pauses, leaning on his oars amid such scenes as this, one
cannot but feel like flirting very earnestly with nature; the
surrounding beauty cannot help reflecting some of its liveliness upon
the admirers, and the stray, "tangled" sunbeams that lose one another in
the thick foliage cannot but give a new love-light to the eyes that
linger thoughtfully upon them. So that the first impulse to admire
nature being gratified, each finds a consequent impulse towards natural
admiration, creeping into the heart. _She_ looks questioningly into
_his_ eyes, and if _he_ knows anything he will respond appropriately,
and after that, each finds out that the other is one of the most
enhancing elements of the beautiful that they have been contemplating
all the while.

To Honor Edgeworth, it was the most delightful treat possible, to drink
in the beauty and elegance of such surroundings, to this at least, her
heart was never closed--it was easy enough to battle against the hoarse
voice of temptation in the busy world, but here, all was different, this
was a spot created, not for the art and acceptations of conventionality,
but for the freedom ahd expansion of the heart and soul.

To lie in a recumbent attitude and feel the gentle breath of the breeze,
playing among her yielding curls, or listen to it, whispering its
effective lullaby into her ears, to drink such a long draught of
nature's own narcotic, as would steal her away from the world of
reality, closing her drowsy lids upon the actual, and unfolding to her
in tempting dreams, the realizations of all her exaggerated, but
cherished ideals, this was the luxury of living, this made life worth
prizing, worth striving for in Honor Edgeworth's eyes.

There are many beside her, who are fond of being nursed into this drowsy
state by some such delightful influence. People, there are, who without
ever acknowledging their weakness, for such a thing, are often seized
with the strangest moods and cravings, a longing for sweet words, or
tender caresses, or something correspondingly emotional in the abstract
fills them up, they would like to lie lazily by some smouldering fire,
on an easy couch, and have some gentle hand to smoothe away the wrinkles
from their brows, or some loving voice to whisper suggestive little
trifles, into their willing ears: when they see a flood of moonlight
filling the earth with its soft stillness, they immediately long to
animate the scene by their own presence, but, with some treasured
beauty, leaning on one arm, and looking bewitchingly into their love-lit
eyes, every emotional sight, sound or feeling, brings to them the
possible intensity of a gratified love, the fruits, they _might_ gather
from their own sentiment, if they had power to indulge it. This is why
we meet so many dreamy, romantic girls, who are ever on the _qui vive_,
expecting the hero, with deep eyes and heavy moustaches, that never
comes. Girls who see more beauty, and poetry, and romance, in the
distant "red light of a cigar" twinkling through the darkness, on some
quiet night, than in all the stars of heaven combined; girls who expect
that every silent, handsome man, who gives them a passing glance (of
aimless curiosity) is a wonderful character, just stepped over the
threshold of some of Ouida's or The Duchess' volumes, ready to seize
them in his steady arms, if they sprain an ankle, or faint over some
fright; ready to rescue them from some terrible accident, and then fall
violently in love, marry them, but, unlike the book, in reality, "live
in miserable wretchedness for ever after."

Such also are those _yearning_ men, who are ever taking flights into the
delightful world of the ideal--men, who try, with a pair of plentiful
eyes, to conquer "female heartdom," who think to find the "open sesame"
to that valuable depository, by knocking the practical element out of
life, and by grasping at chance, in the dim, soulful, dreamy, intense,
abstract world of thought. Men, who the punster would say in the dewy
twilight or still moonlight, are _pie_ously all for _soul_, but who in
the raw early afternoon are _sole_ly all for _pie_.

But from a suspicion of an inclination to such influence, I must surely
except Vivian Standish, he could neither see, hear or feel any
fascination in those things, and yet, he was not without knowing, that
herein lay the weak point of souls more susceptible than his own; he was
cunning enough to know, that a young lady is at the limit of all her
reason and control, when ushered into such a spot, as that which he had
chosen as a resting-place during their row, on this eventful evening.

But with all his precious knowledge, there were a few very simple
things, which Vivian Standish had never learned; he understood other
people perfectly, it is true, human nature, was as legible to him, as
the plainest book, as a rule, he read faces, as he would the morning-
paper, and yet, strange to say, he knew less of his own self than he did
of any one--he was clever enough to veneer his character well, that
others might not know him, but apart from that he was a mystery to
himself--he had certain instinctive ideas of his own bias and
inclinations; he knew every positive quality or defect he had, and in
that same he had plenty to remember, but he never asked himself, whether
he was proof against every passing circumstance or not; he met them
generally, with an admirable collectedness and _sang-froid_, but,
depending on the spur of the moment is not the safest thing in a person
of his pursuits. The cleverest diplomatists and adventurers have been
betrayed by themselves and so was he.

While he sat, watching the contemplative features of the girl in the
boat before him, something, in the clear depths of the admiring eyes,
struck him; there was an expression of infinite longing over her face,
her mouth was drawn into a sad smile, and her hands were folded
listlessly on her lap: a few withering daisies and butter-cups, that she
had snatched an hour before as they skimmed along the shore, lay
carelessly between her fingers, and the loose ties of her broad hat were
fluttering on the breeze, under her pretty, upturned chin. If ever
repentance could have worked its influence over a guilty soul, it could
not have found a moment more propitious than this, wherein to accomplish
its task, the very last susceptibility of a heart, hardened and inured
to sin was struggling to assert itself, a long, unheeded impulse, was
trying to shake away the fetters of vice and crime, and free itself to
noble action.

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