CHAPTER III.
“IF I SHOULD FAIL.”
Doris sped homeward, but, fast as she walked, her thoughts seemed to outrun her. Had she fallen asleep by the brook and dreamed it all? She could almost have persuaded herself that she had, but for the handkerchief hidden in the bosom of her dress.
“Cecil Neville!” She repeated the name twenty times, and each time it sounded more pleasant and musical. There was no need to call up the remembrance of his face, for that floated before her mental vision as she hurried on with downcast, dreamy eyes.
“Am I out of my senses?” she exclaimed, at last, trying to rid herself of the spell by a light laugh. “Any one would think I was playing the part of a sentimental young lady in a three-act comedy. It was rather like a play; but it’s generally the hero who saves the life of the principal lady. I didn’t save his life, though he says I did. How he said it! Why can’t one speak like that on the stage, now? Cecil Neville!”
She took out the handkerchief and looked at it.
“And this is a coronet. What is he, I wonder? A duke, or an earl, or what? And what does it matter to me what he is?” she asked herself in the next breath. “I may never see him again, and if I did we should meet as strangers. Dukes or earls have nothing in common with actresses. I wish I could forget all about him. But I can’t—I can’t,” she murmured, almost piteously. “Oh, I wish I had stayed at home, and yet I don’t, either,” she added, slowly. “If I had not been there, perhaps he would not have come to, and might be lying there now!” she shuddered. “How brave and strong he looked riding at the hedge; it was a mad thing to do! And yet he made light of it! Ah, it is nice to be a man—and such a man! Cecil Neville! I wish he had not told me his name! I cannot get it out of my head. And he lives with his uncle at the Towers. Perhaps Jeffrey knows who the uncle is. I must tell him,” she sighed. Somehow she felt a strong reluctance to speak of the afternoon’s adventure; but she had never had any secrets from Jeffrey, and she added with another sigh: “Yes, I must tell him. He will be angry—no, he is never angry, but he will be—what? sorry. And yet I could not help it. It was not I who rode at the hedge, and—I wonder what he thought of me when he came to?” A burning blush rose to her face, and she stopped still to contemplate the new phase of the question. “I—I had his head upon my lap! Oh, what could he have thought? That I was forward and impertinent, and yet, no, he did not look as if he did, and—and he thanked me and asked me to forgive him—how many times! Cecil Neville. There”—and she laughed impatiently—“that is the last time I will think of his name—or him!”
With this prudent resolve she hurried on, and burstinto the little room out of breath, to find Jeffrey seated at the table and waiting for his supper.
He looked up with his keen glance, and nodded.
“I am so sorry I’ve kept you waiting, Jeffrey,” she said, humbly, as she threw her hat on the sofa and went to the table.
“No matter,” he said; “you have been walking up and down in the fields studying, I know,” and he nodded. “It is just the hour, the mystic gloaming, when the brain quickens and ideas are born.”
“Yes,” she said, her long lashes covering her eyes. “I have been in the fields, and, Jeffrey, I’ve had an adventure!”
“Cows?” he said, absently. “There is nothing like the open air for such work as you have in hand. Rachel, the greatest actress of her time, or any other, did most of her work in the open air——”
“It wasn’t cows,” she broke in, trying to speak in a matter-of-fact voice; “it was a horse,” and she laughed a little nervously.
“My kingdom for a horse,” he quoted, failing to see the unusual color in her face, and not observing that she was making a mere pretense of eating, just breaking a piece of toast with her fingers and sipping her coffee. “And are you more satisfied now? I have only just come from the theatre; the booking is the heaviest they have had for years. I have persuaded the manager to increase the orchestra! Have you seen your dress? It has come, and I had it sent up to your room.”
“I did not go up; I will try it on directly.”
He pushed his chair back, and began walking up and down the room, his hands crossed behind his bent back, his head drooping, his glittering eyes fixed on the floor.
Doris knew that it was hopeless to attempt to speak of anything but the play, but she made another effort, for conscience sake.
“Do you know who lives in that large place on the hill, Jeffrey, the—the Towers, it is called?”
He shook his head with distinct indifference.
“No; some marquis or other. What does it matter?” he added, impatiently.
“Well, I saw the nephew of the marquis—if he is a marquis—this afternoon. He fell off his horse——”
“Yes!” he said, with profound indifference. “I remember a manager who put horses on in the first scene of ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ It was effective—but unnecessary. By the way, take care how you arrange your train in the ballroom scene; leave Romeo room to get near you without having to draw it on one side; it attracts attention from the action of the play at a most important moment. A detail; but it is the details that, massed together, make or mar the whole.”
She made yet another effort.
“I was going to tell you about the accident, Jeffrey.”
He started, and, stopping in his walk, confronted her with alarm in his face.
“What accident? I have only just left the theatre; it was all right then! Oh, you allude to the man who tumbled off his horse? Never mind; put it out of your head; don’t think of anything but your part. Have you finished your supper?”
“Yes,” she said, with a sigh and a smile; it was, indeed, utterly useless to make any further attempt.
“Well, then, let us go over the balcony scene,” and he snatched up the book and turned to the page with nervous fingers.
Doris rose and opened her lips; then, with a sudden blush, that was as quickly followed by a strange pallor, she went to him and gently took the book from his hand.
“Not to-night, not again, Jeffrey,” she said, with a nervousness that was strange in her. “I—I could not! Don’t be angry, but”—she looked from side to side with a strangely troubled air—“I—I don’t think I could do it to-night! Don’t ask me!”
He nodded once or twice, looking at her meditatively.
“I think I understand,” he said, as if to himself. “You are afraid of getting hackneyed? Perhaps you are right. Yes, you are right,” he added, quietly; “there is such a thing as over-training. Yes, I know what you mean. Better let it rest for to-night, after the rehearsal this morning and the study this afternoon.”
Doris turned her head away with a guilty sense of having deceived him.
“It is not that,” she faltered, “but——” She stopped, and going to him suddenly, hid her face on his shoulder. “Oh, Jeffrey, if I should fail to-morrow!”
He patted her arm soothingly.
“There’s no such word for us, Doris,” he said, with grim confidence. “Don’t speak of failing. Fail! What, after all these years!”—his voice grew hoarse. “Why, child, what is the matter with you to-night?” he broke off in alarm, for he could feel that she was crying softly, and crying was by no means one of Doris’ customary habits.
She raised her head, and hastily wiping her eyes, laughed.
“What is the matter with me, Jeffrey? I wish I knew. Perhaps it’s the excitement! There, I’m all right now,” and she slid away from him.
The old man seized her arm, and looked into her face intently.
“Doris!” he said, in a husky voice; “you—you are not unhappy?”
“Unhappy!” and she laughed again. “Why should I be unhappy? Perhaps I cried because I’m too happy! Grief and joy are next of kin, you know. And oughtn’t I to be filled with joy, I, the Doris Marlowe, who is to play Juliet to-morrow night?”
His hand dropped from her arm, but he was only half-satisfied.
“If I thought——” he muttered. “Doris, you are all the world to me! Before Heaven I have had no thought but for you since”—he stopped abruptly—“since you became my care; day and night, early and late, I have worked to one end—to make you great and famous and happy! If I thought——” he wiped the perspiration from his brow, and looked at her almost wildly.
“I know, I know! Dear, dear old Jeffrey!” she murmured, soothing him with touch and voice. “No, I don’t know, but I can guess all you have been to me, all you have done for me. And I am happy, very, very happy! And I will be great and famous if you wish it! You shall see!” she said, nodding, and smiling through the tears that veiled her lovely eyes. “Wait till to-morrow night. There, it is you who are excited now! And now I’m going to try my dress on. We must look the Julietif we cannot act her,” and she stooped and kissed his forehead and ran from the room.
The old man stood where she had left him, his hands working behind his back, his brows knotted into thick cords, his eyes fixed on the ground.
Doubt, almost remorse, were depicted on his countenance with an intensity almost terrible. He sank into a chair, and, covering his face with his hands, seemed lost in a dream. Presently the door opened, and Doris, like a vision of loveliness, stood in her white satin dress before him.
She held the long train in one hand, and in the other a candle above her head, and stood with a grave smile upon her beautiful face, waiting. He looked up, then with a sudden cry threw out his arms.
“Lucy, Lucy, I did it for the best, for the best!”
“Jeffrey!” exclaimed Doris, “Jeffrey!” and she hastened toward him in alarm; but the sound of her voice had recalled him to himself, and, passing his hand across his forehead he rose and looked at her.
“Yes, yes!” he said, still in a half-dazed manner. “Yes, it will do. Doris, you are very beautiful.”
She colored and shook her head.
“What a wicked thing to say, you flatterer! But, Jeffrey, why did you call me Lucy?” she asked, bending over him, her brows drawn together anxiously.
“Did I?” he replied, evasively. “I—I must have been dreaming. There—ask me no more questions. The dress is perfect. Perfect!” he repeated, emphatically, but looking at her face and not the dress. “Walk across the room.” She did so. “Now, stand as I showed you. So! Yes, yes,” he murmured with a sigh of satisfaction; “perfect! You look the part, Doris; not one of them could look it better—no! And to-morrow”—he stopped and regarded her with an earnestness that was almost fierce. “Child, if you fail to-morrow, you will kill me! Go now; go to bed and rest. Go!” he repeated, still looking at her, but waving her away with his hand as if she recalled some memory too painful to be borne; and Doris, stooping and kissing him, went up to her own room again. There she stood before the glass and looked at herself with a scrutiny that she had never used before.
Jeffrey had called her beautiful. Was she really beautiful? Did others think her so?—did he? She took up the handkerchief and looked at it dreamily; then, still in her Juliet dress, she joined her hands together as she had done when she had made a cup for him; and as she did so, the warm blood rushed to her face, for she could almost fancy that even now she could feel the touch of his lips and the golden moustache upon the soft, pink palms.
Rest! If to lie awake until the clock struck midnight, and then to fall asleep and dream that she was still bending over the handsome face, all pale but for the thin streak of red; to hear in her sleep the strong, musical voice murmuring, “Will you forgive me?” was rest—then Doris was resting, indeed!