Rupert Godwin

MATERNAL MANŒUVRES.

Five minutes before the clocks in the neighbourhood struck nine, on the appointed Monday morning Violet Westford knocked at the door of the villa in the Regent’s Park. She was admitted by a maid-servant, who at once conducted her to an apartment near the top of the house—a cold, cheerless looking room, very shabbily furnished, and commanding an agreeable view of the backs of the houses in Albany-street,—altogether a very different apartment from Mrs. Montague Trevor’s silken-curtained boudoir, with its somewhat stagey decoration in modern buhl and marqueterie.

Here Violet’s duties began; and very tedious they promised to be; for one of her pupils was idle, frivolous, and flippant, and the other was naturally slow of apprehension.

Anastasia Trevor was a clever girl; but her natural idleness was excessive, and she could only be induced to study those accomplishments which could be paraded before the admiring of curious eyes of her acquaintance.

Theodosia was not a clever or brilliant girl; but she was something better, for she was truthful and conscientious. She exerted herself to the utmost under the direction of her new governess.

“I fear you’ll find me very stupid, Miss Westford,” she said; “but I hope you’ll believe that I shall do my best.”

“I am sure you will,” Violet answered gently.

From that moment it seemed as if a friendship arose between the governess and her pupil. Theodosia had been accustomed to find herself neglected by the masters and governesses whom her mother engaged, and who speedily discovered that the lively Anastasia was Mrs. Trevor’s favourite, and that attention bestowed upon her would be better rewarded than if given to the quiet Theodosia.

Theodosia and her mother were never very likely to agree, for the girl’s high sense of truth and honour was continually being wounded by the widow’s conduct; and as Theodosia was too candid to conceal her sentiments, perpetual disputes arose between them.

Anastasia, on the contrary, was the exact counterpart of her mother, and the two agreed admirably, except when their interests clashed, which was not a rare event.

Day after day Violet toiled in the dull schoolroom at Mrs. Trevor’s villa. Her duties were excessively fatiguing, but no murmur of complaint ever crossed her lips. When Saturday came she was able to carry home her hard-earned half-guinea, and that in itself was a recompense for all her trouble.

In the mean time affairs had brightened a little for Lionel, who had at last succeeded in getting some work as a copyist of legal documents.

It was very hard work, very poorly paid; but for the sake of his mother and sister the young man would even have swept a crossing.

For some little time matters went on tolerably smoothly in the humble lodging. Mrs. Westford bent over an embroidery frame with untiring patience; Lionel laboured for long hours at his wearisome penmanship; and Violet attended daily at Mrs. Trevor’s villa. So that, comforted by affection, which brightens even the dullest home, the widow and her orphans were comparatively happy.

But that period of peace was destined to be very brief. The storm was near at hand; and Violet, the gentle Violet, who until the last few months had never known sorrow, was the first to be stricken by the thunderbolt.

She had been teaching Mrs. Trevor’s daughters for nearly six weeks, when one day the widow sent her a very condescending message inviting her to a small evening-party, which was to take place during the week.

Of course Violet accepted the invitation. Painful as it would be to her to appear once more amongst careless and happy people, she feared to offend her employer by a refusal. She knew full well that she was invited to this party in order that she might be useful in showing off her pupils; and that any refusal on her part would inevitably be resented.

Anastasia sang Rossini’s and Verdi’s music very brilliantly, and Violet would be required to accompany her on the piano. Theodosia had a fine contralto voice, and sang simple ballads with a great deal of expression; but it was a question if she would be allowed to sing before company. Mrs. Trevor did not care to see her younger daughter admired. She was jealous of all praise that was not bestowed upon herself or her favourite Anastasia. But Violet was determined that, if possible, Theodosia should sing one of her simple ballads in the course of the evening. She had taken a great deal of trouble with her younger pupil’s voice, and was anxious that Mrs. Trevor should be made aware of Theodosia’s rapid improvement. But it was no pride in her own teaching that made Violet anxious for this,—it was because she had really grown attached to her pupil.

With Anastasia it was quite different. That young lady was resolved to display her accomplishments to the uttermost, and had perfect confidence in her own powers.

The eventful evening arrived. Violet was dressed very simply; in deep mourning. But her fair face and golden hair were set off by her sombre dress, and she looked very lovely. Anastasia Trevor was by no means pleased to see the notice which the governess attracted as she made her way quietly and shyly through the crowd in the endeavour to reach her hostess. Miss Trevor was of the order of fast young ladies, and she had regarded Violet with a kind of benignant pity, as a creature utterly without “dash” or “style.”

To be dashing was the chief desire of Miss Trevor’s heart. She studied the Court Circular and the Parisian fashion-books; she formed herself and dressed herself after the model of the latest celebrity in the haut monde, and did not even blush to borrow a grace or a piquant eccentricity from some brilliant leader of the demi monde.

To-night she had taken more than usual pains with her costume, complaining loudly as she did so, of the extravagance and selfishness of her mother, who had ordered her own dress from a Parisian milliner in Wigmore-street, while expecting her daughters to be satisfied with the achievements of a clever young person in Somers-town.

“I hate white tarlatane!” exclaimed Miss Trevor, as she stood before her mother’s cheval glass, putting the finishing touches to her dress. “It is all very well for mamma to lay down the law about girlish elegance and simplicity when she gives twenty guineas for a moire, and wears lace worth hundreds, in order to set herself off to the best advantage.”

The young lady looked very discontentedly at the airy puffings of her dress, which was dotted all over with dew-spangled rosebuds, and which was very becoming to the dark-haired beauty, but by no means the costume she would have chosen had she been permitted to consult Madame Forchère, of Wigmore-street. Nor was her temper at all improved when she saw the glances of admiring surprise which greeted Violet Westford as she made her way through the crowded room.

Mrs. Montague Trevor’s drawing-room blazed with the light of a hundred wax candles. The elegant widow would not admit anything so vulgar and commonplace as gas into her apartments, so they were lighted entirely by wax candles, in branches of crystal and ormolu.

The rooms were crowded to suffocation when Violet arrived. When Mrs. Trevor talked of giving a small evening-party, her friends always knew very well that her rooms and staircase would be made insufferable by the crowd assembled at the villa, and that the elegant supper would be a kind of lottery in which many speculators would draw blanks.

Such a moment as this was the pride and delight of Mrs. Trevor’s life. Radiant in a train of pink moire, the rustling folds of which were almost covered with flounces of point-lace, the handsome widow smiled upon her guests.

Among them she knew that there were several eligible men in a matrimonial point of view, and two of those eligible beings she had marked as her intended victims.

One of these was Rupert Godwin the banker, whom Mrs. Trevor hoped to win as a husband for herself.

She had been to a garden-party at Wilmingdon Hall, and had been agreeably impressed by the splendour of that old mansion and its surroundings, as well as by the extravagance of the arrangements.

The other was Sir Harold Ivry, the wealthy descendant of a family of ironfounders; a young man who was the possessor of a million of money, and whom the widow fancied she might secure for her favourite daughter.

Anastasia was handsome and accomplished; Sir Harold was young and independent. Why should not a match be brought about between them?

This was what Mrs. Trevor thought; and she looked with peculiar favour on the wealthy scion of the Birmingham ironmaster.

The manœuvring mother and the husband-hunting widow had a difficult part to play this evening, but the lady proved herself quite equal to the occasion. While engaged in a sentimental flirtation with the eligible banker, Mrs. Trevor contrived to keep a watchful eye upon Anastasia and the young Baronet.

Nothing could exceed her mortification when she saw that Sir Harold paid very little attention to Anastasia, and that he seemed peculiarly attracted by the beautiful but pensive-looking governess, whose mourning dress and lovely pale face were very conspicuous amid that gaily attired crowd.

Mrs. Trevor bit her lower lip with suppressed rage and mortification, even while she appeared to be smiling her sweetest smiles at Rupert Godwin.

“It is too provoking,” she thought, as she kept a furtive watch upon the admiring glances which Sir Harold Ivry bestowed upon the governess. “I quite forgot that the creature is really remarkably pretty; and that mourning dress happens to suit her insipid complexion, and is, of course, worn on purpose to attract attention. What a fool I was to allow the artful minx to make her appearance amongst us to-night! But then I only thought of the use she would be to Anastasia, who always sings out of time when she accompanies herself.”

While Mrs. Montague Trevor was enduring all these secret tortures, poor Violet Westford was quite unconscious of the Baronet’s admiring glances. She had seated herself in the quietest corner of the back drawing-room, in a sheltered little nook between the grand-piano and a stand of hot-house flowers, and she was waiting patiently until her services should be required.

Sir Harold had approached her, and had made an attempt to enter into conversation with her, of course trying to break ground with some of the usual feeble truisms about the weather; but her brief and timid answers gave him little encouragement.

Violet Westford could not be at her ease in this crowded assemblage, where she felt instinctively that she was looked down upon as a poor dependant—a well-bred and accomplished drudge, whose very presence was forgotten, except at the moment when her services were required. She could not help thinking a little sadly of the last party at which she had been a guest,—a carpet-dance at the house of some old friends in Hampshire, people considerably above Mrs. Trevor in position. She remembered the attention, the kindness, the praises that had been lavished upon her; and now she sat alone amongst a crowd, in which there was not one familiar face, except those of her employer and her two pupils.

At last, the eventful moment of the evening arrived for the manœuvring mother and her favourite daughter.

Violet took her place at the piano, and Anastasia prepared to commence an Italian bravura.

Miss Trevor cast a glance of triumph round the room. She was the heroine of the moment, and she knew that she was looking very handsome. Sir Harold was standing near the piano, and he was watching her with a thoughtful look in his candid eyes.

Anastasia fancied that thoughtful gaze could not be other than an admiring one; but she did not know very much of Sir Harold Ivry, who was a very peculiar young man, naturally reserved, and not given to displaying his real feelings.

A murmur of admiration ran through the crowded drawing-rooms as Violet finished the symphony, so crisp and brilliant was her touch, and so correct her expression; and then Anastasia began her scena. Her voice was a soprano, very brilliant in quality, and highly cultivated; but though she sang well, the charm of feeling was wanting, and her singing seemed cold and colourless.

Mrs. Trevor had been seated in the front drawing-room, talking to the banker; but she rose as Anastasia’s voice rang out in the opening notes of the scena.

“You must hear my daughter sing, Mr. Godwin,” she said. “I think you will acknowledge that her voice is fine, and her style perfection.”

She led Rupert Godwin towards the archway between the two drawing-rooms. There were no folding-doors, and only curtains of the airiest lace divided the two apartments.

Mrs. Trevor and the banker stood in the archway between the festoons of drooping lace.

The piano was at the other end of the room, and the faces of the singer and the accompanist were turned towards the archway.

Rupert Godwin’s cheek grew paler than usual as he looked at the pensive face of the young governess. He had started at the first sight of that beautiful but melancholy countenance; but the gesture of surprise had been so slight as to escape the attention of Mrs. Trevor, who was gazing admiringly at her handsome daughter.

“Who is that young lady?” whispered the banker; “the young lady at the piano—the young lady in deep mourning?”

He asked the question with an eagerness that startled Mrs. Trevor, who was not a little offended at his inattention to her daughter’s singing.

“That young lady who absorbs your attention so entirely is my daughters’ morning governess,” answered the widow, with considerable asperity of tone.

“And her name?” demanded the banker.

“Her name is Westford—Violet Westford. She is in mourning for her father, a merchant captain, who was lost at sea.”

A slight shudder stirred Rupert Godwin’s frame, but it passed as quickly as the transient breath that ruffles the forest-leaves on a calm summer day.

Then a dark frown obscured his face.

“No child of Clara Westford’s shall succeed where I have power to hinder her success. When I bear a grudge, it is the great vendetta—war to the death against body and soul.”

This was the gist of Mr. Godwin’s thoughts as he looked with a strange, menacing gaze at the fair face of the girl at the piano.

“Westford!” he exclaimed. “And so your daughters’ governess is the daughter of Captain Westford. I am sorry for it.”

“Why so?” asked Mrs. Trevor, with a look of alarm.

“Because I am sincerely interested in the welfare and happiness of you and your daughters, my dear Mrs. Trevor; and I am sorry that the education of those charming girls should be intrusted to such a person as the daughter of Mrs. Westford.”

All this was said in the blandest tone. Mr. Godwin could appear the best and most benevolent of men when it suited his purpose to do so.

“You really terrify me out of my senses!” exclaimed Mrs. Trevor. “What can you mean? I had excellent references with Miss Westford. Pray explain yourself.”

“Not now; there are people about who may overhear what we say. To-morrow, my dear Mrs. Trevor, or to-night even, if I find an opportunity, I will explain myself more fully.”

Anastasia’s Italian scena wound up with a brilliant cadence, whereupon her mother’s guests fell into the usual ecstasies. And yet there were very few present who cared for showy Italian music except at an opera-house.

Some one asked Theodosia to sing. The girl would have refused; but before she could do so Violet whispered to her, “I know you will consent, dear, to please me;” and in the next moment the brilliant fingers flew over the keys in the sparkling symphony of an old English ballad.

Theodosia was truly attached to her new friend, and she drew near the piano, determined to do her best, however painful the task might be.

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Mrs. Trevor; “can I believe my eyes? Theodosia going to sing! She has a decent voice, poor child; but no style—no style whatever.”

Nothing could be more contemptuous than the tone in which the mother said this. She did not like that Theodosia should attract attention which might have been bestowed upon Anastasia.

The first notes of the rich contralto voice were low and tremulous, but they swelled out presently in a burst of melody. The song was a very simple one—an old familiar ballad, “Auld Robin Gray;” but before Theodosia had finished the last verse, tears had bedewed the eyes of many listeners.

Anastasia’s brief triumph was entirely eclipsed. The praises which had been bestowed upon her had sounded cold and unreal compared to those now lavished on her sister. The vain girl could scarcely conceal her mortification, and her mother seemed almost equally annoyed.

“I should have been glad if you had asked my permission before you allowed Theodosia to sing, Miss Westford,” she said to Violet, in her sharpest tones. “I consider her too young to display her accomplishments in a crowded room; and that old-fashioned ballad is better suited for a nursery ditty than for a drawing-room.”

Sir Harold Ivry overheard this speech, and replied to it eagerly.

“Pray do not say that, my dear Mrs. Trevor!” he exclaimed. “Your youngest daughter’s singing has drawn tears from our eyes, and has made us forget what hardened worldly creatures we are!”

He glanced admiringly at Theodosia as he spoke; but the next moment his eyes wandered to the beautiful face of Violet Westford, and with a still more admiring gaze.

“I am sure that Miss Theodosia Trevor owes a great deal to her governess,” he said. And then in a lower voice he added to Violet, “Pray let us hear you sing.”

Mrs. Trevor’s brow darkened: but she could not oppose the wishes of the Baronet, who was a privileged person in that house.

“Will you persuade her, Mrs. Trevor?” he said. “I feel that my entreaties will be useless. Pray ask Miss Westford to sing.”

The widow complied, and resumed all her accustomed sweetness of manner, as she requested Violet to grant the Baronet’s request.

Poor Violet was much too single-hearted to understand the sudden anger raging in Mrs. Trevor’s breast. She was entirely without affectation, and she consented to sing directly she was asked.

She sang one of Thomas Moore’s sweetest and most pensive ballads, “Oft in the stilly night;” and again the eyes of almost every listener were wet with tears.

Her own eyes filled, as she remembered how often she had sung that ballad in her happy home, in the pleasant summer twilight, after dinner, or in the winter dusk, when her lost father was near to listen and admire. Sir Harold Ivry saw those dark blue eyes fill with tears, and he saw that it was only with a struggle that Violet could control her emotion.

He bent over her chair to thank her at the conclusion of the song.

“But I fear the ballad has melancholy associations,” he added in a lower voice.

“It has indeed; for it recalls the dear father I have lost, and the memory of a home that is deserted.”

“It is for your father, then, you wear that mourning dress? O, forgive me, if I appear inquisitive. I am so deeply interested in all that concerns you.”

Violet looked up at the Baronet with a glance of innocent surprise. She was entirely without vanity, and she could not imagine why Sir Harold should be interested about her.

“Yes,” she answered sadly; “I am in mourning for my father—the best father who ever made his children’s life happy.”

No more was said; for Anastasia was about to sing again, and Violet was required at the piano.

Half an hour afterwards the crowd began to grow thin, and Violet obtained permission to retire. It was already past two o’clock; for Mrs. Trevor’s little party had not begun until eleven, and the poor girl was anxious to return to the cheerless lodging where her mother was doubtless waiting up to receive her.

Violet noticed a peculiar stateliness in Mrs. Trevor’s manner as that lady wished her good-night; but she was too tired even to wonder about that altered manner. She left the room very quietly, and went down to the hall, where she had left her cloak and bonnet in the care of one of the servants. She had refused to incur even the expense of a cab to bring her to Mrs. Trevor’s house, for the luxury of that plebeian vehicle would have cost half a week’s salary. She had preferred to hide her simple evening toilette under a heavy black cloak, and to make her way to the villa on foot.

She had just put on her bonnet and cloak when a light footstep sounded on the stairs, and in the next moment Sir Harold Ivry stood before her.

“I hope you will allow me to see you safely home, Miss Westford,” he said, with profound respect in his tone and manner. “I know you are alone here, and it will give me unbounded pleasure to conduct you safely to your home.”

Violet blushed; for in the happy days that were gone she had been accustomed to be handed to her carriage after a party or a ball.

She could not help feeling some touch of shame—false shame, if you will; but after that one instant of confusion, she answered boldly, “You are very kind, Sir Harold; but I am going to walk home, and I believe my brother will be waiting outside to take care of me.”

“Your brother!” exclaimed the Baronet, who was unable to conceal his disappointment. “Then in that case I must surrender you to one who has the best possible right to protect you. But at least you will allow me to conduct you to your brother.”

He offered Violet his arm as he spoke, and she felt that she could not refuse to take it.

Sir Harold did not escort her very far, for Lionel was waiting at the end of the terrace, and to his care the Baronet was compelled to resign his precious charge.

We often hear and read of love at first sight, and certainly Sir Harold Ivry seemed to have fallen a victim to that sudden fever.

Violet could not do less than introduce him to her brother: and for some little way they all three walked on together, Sir Harold doing his best to make himself agreeable to Lionel.

It was a bright summer night, and a full moon was shining high in the cloudless heaven. Even London, so dingy in its usual aspect, looked romantic when seen by that soft silvery light.

But as Violet looked at her brother, a pang shot through her heart as she compared his worn and shabby attire with the costume of the rich young Baronet.

Lionel Westford still retained his gentlemanly bearing, but the awful stamp of poverty was upon him; and Violet’s heart was wrung as she remembered the gay, dashing young Oxonian, to whom life had been one long summer holiday, disturbed by no harder toil than the study of an obscure passage in Euripides, or a week’s training for the University boat race.

It seemed as if that moonlight walk through the streets of London was a most delightful thing to Sir Harold, for he went on, and on, until they were drawing near to Waterloo Bridge, when he stopped to say good-night, feeling that his companions might not wish him to know the humble quarter of the town in which they lived.

He had seen enough to understand that Violet and her brother had sunk from prosperity to poverty—poverty of the sharpest and bitterest kind, the poverty that must conceal itself under the mask of gentility.

He lingered, as he wished Violet good-night. It seemed as if he could scarcely tear himself away from her.

“I shall never forget your song,” he said; “it is ringing in my ears still—I shall never forget it; but I hope to hear you soon again.”

And then he was compelled to say good-night, for Lionel Westford’s manner repelled any approach to intimacy. Poverty had made the young man proud. He, to whom pride had once been an unknown sentiment, was now almost haughty in his manner to strangers.

“How lovely she is!” thought Sir Harold, as he walked through the moonlit streets towards his chambers in the Albany. “How lovely she is! And what an air of high breeding there is in her every tone and gesture! And to think that such a woman should be poor, compelled to walk through the streets at three o’clock in the morning—compelled to put on her cloak at the bottom of a staircase, with half-a-dozen grinning flunkeys staring at her while she does it. It’s too bad—it’s shameful.”

Then, after a pause, the Baronet murmured, “While I am so rich; while I have thousands lying idle at my banker’s, and half-a-million in the public funds! But I will call on Mrs. Trevor to-morrow, and find out Miss Westford’s address. I will send her a thousand pounds anonymously. I will do something, no matter how desperate, even at the risk of being kicked as an intrusive snob by that priggish young brother of hers, who was very stand-offish just now as he bade me good-night.”