CHAPTER XIV.
A BROKEN TRYST.
Doris went home with her heart beating, every nerve throbbing with the thrill of a woman’s first love; and it was not until she had her hand upon the door that she fully realized the task that lay before her.
She had to tell Jeffrey. To tell him that all his lifelong plans for her were shattered and cast to the winds; that, just at the moment of success, success won by hard, persistent work and untiring effort, on his part and hers, she, Doris Marlowe, who was to have been the actress of the day, was going to retire from the stage forever.
She scarcely realized it herself yet, and yet she knew that it must be. The future wife of the heir to the marquisate of Stoyle could not be permitted to remain an actress, to be gazed at by a nightly mob, to be cheered or hissed by a public audience. She sighed as the thought came home to her, not for herself, and the sacrifice of fame, but for Jeffrey. It would be hard for him to bear, very, very hard; but she did not doubt that he would give his consent. As she had said to Lord Neville, Jeffrey could not find it in his heart to refuse her anything she wanted very much, and she did want to marry this handsomeyoung lover, whose simple touch had power to move her, very much indeed.
She opened the door. Jeffrey was seated at a small table, covered with papers and old letters. He was bending over them with an air and attitude of deep abstraction, and he did not hear her light footfall as she crossed the room, and laid her small hand rather tremulously upon his stooping shoulders.
“Doris!” he exclaimed, looking up with a start, and covering the papers before him with both his thin, gnarled hands.
“Why, Jeffrey, dear, did I frighten you?” she said gently. “What are you doing? You look as if you were trying to write a play!”
He smiled constrainedly and began collecting the papers and letters in a nervous, hurried fashion.
“I—I have been busy,” he said. “Old papers and—and letters. Where have you been, and what have you been doing?”
He did not look at her or he would have seen the color which suffused her face and noticed the suddenly downcast eyes.
“I have been to the meadows, Jeffrey. I—I want to tell you something.”
“Yes,” he said, tying the letters together in a bundle, and folding up a couple of yellow, time-stained papers. “What is it? What is the time? I—I have been sitting here so long that I’ve forgotten.” He looked at his old-fashioned watch, and rising hastily, put the bundle of letters in a box that stood on the table. “It is time for the rehearsal; are you ready? I shall not be a moment.”
“Yes, I am quite ready; but there is plenty of time, Jeffrey, and I want to tell you—have you forgotten those papers? Are you not going to lock them up with the others,” and she pointed to them.
He snatched them up almost jealously.
“No, no,” he said. “I keep them—here!” and he placed them with a nervous carefulness in a pocket within the breast of his waistcoat. “I—I meant to show you to-day, Doris. I have been going to show them to you for—” he sighed—“years. But I’ve put it off from day to day,from year to year. They belong to you, and you shall have them—to-morrow, say to-morrow.”
Doris started slightly. It was to-morrow that Lord Neville was coming to see Jeffrey; perhaps he would give them to Lord Neville!
“How well you look this morning,” he said suddenly, his eyes resting for a moment upon her lovely face with their old keenness. “Those meadows, as you call them, must be wonderfully healthy. Where is my hat?”
She got it for him, and as she gave it to him she let her hand fall lightly upon his arm.
“And don’t you want to hear what I have to tell you, Jeffrey?”
“Eh?” he said. “What is it? Nothing very important, I suppose? A new bonnet you’ve seen in the Barton milliner’s? Well, you can buy it! You can buy all the bonnets in the window now, if you like!” and he chuckled grimly. “No more pinching and scraping—though we’ll be careful still, eh, Doris? We’ll be careful! Hard-earned money’s too precious to be squandered. Buy your bonnet, Doris, by all means. Come along!” and he was across the room and out of the door before she could summon up courage to stop him.
She would tell him after rehearsal, she thought, with a sigh; but after rehearsal he came hurrying to her to tell her that he had arranged to go to the next town on important business for the manager.
“I shall be back to-night,” he said, in his quick, stern voice; “in time to take you home, as usual,” and he touched her forehead with his lips.
“You will be sure to be back to-night, Jeffrey?” she said, clinging to him for a moment.
“Yes, yes,” he said, hurriedly. “If anything should prevent me——” He put his hand to his breast thoughtfully, and his heavy brows knitted with a troubled expression; then he seemed to shake it off. “But I shall be back. If by any chance I should lose the train——”
“Jeffrey!”
“I said by any chance only, and it is not likely; but if I should I will come by the first in the morning. Mrs. Parkhouse, the dresser, will see you home if I am not here. Good-by, my child! Play your best to-night! Iam working for you; stone by stone I am building up the edifice of your fame——” He stopped, pressed her shoulder with his thin hand, and was gone.
Doris felt a strange sense of loneliness fall upon her. It was the first time he had left her for so many hours that his absence oppressed her for a moment or two with a sense of helplessness. Then suddenly there flashed upon her the remembrance of Cecil and his love, and the oppression vanished. How could she be helpless while he was so near to love and protect her?
Was it strange that her feet should wander from the straight road home, to the brook in the meadows? Was it strange that she should linger on the spot made sacred to her by her love until the last moment, so that she left herself barely time to dress and reach the theatre?
“Perhaps I shall see him to-night,” she thought; “perhaps he will come to the cab and say one word, just one word!” And when she came on, her beautiful eyes wandered over the crowded house with an eagerness which she could scarcely conceal.
But he was not there: and he did not come during the whole evening. She felt that she should know if he were in the theatre, though she should not be able to see him, and she knew even before she left the stage door to go to the cab that she should not see him, and Jeffrey had not come back!
“You feel tired to-night, Miss Marlowe,” said Mrs. Parkhouse, as Doris leaned back in the cab, and drew her cloak round her. “Shall I come home and stay with you to-night? I dare say you feel lonely without Mr. Jeffrey.”
But Doris would not let her do that.
“I am tired,” she said, “and I feel rather lonely, but Mr. Jeffrey would laugh at me for being so nervous. No, you shall not stay.”
She sat up into the night looking at the stars from the window, which she threw open, for the air was balmy with the breath of the coming summer; and she tried to realize all that had happened to her, all that was going to happen to her.
It was not of the title and rank that were to be hers she thought, but of Cecil’s love, and she stretched herlong white arms out toward Barton Towers with a yearning gesture, murmuring, “My love, my love!”
The morning broke, not brightly and sunnily, but in fitful gleams glancing through shower clouds; and when she came downstairs she found a yellow telegram envelope beside her plate.
It was from Jeffrey, saying that the merest chance he had spoken of had occurred, and that he had been detained the night, but that he would catch the eleven o’clock train, and asking her to meet him.
Her face brightened as she read it. Yes, she would meet him, and as they walked through the woods from the station, she would tell him of her strange meeting with Lord Neville and all that had sprung from it, and then they both could go and meet Cecil by the brook.
She hurried through a mere pretense of a breakfast, and putting on her hat and jacket, set out.
The sky had cleared somewhat, and the sun, shining through the spaces of blue, touched the green leaves with a dazzling sheen.
As she went toward the meadows, her heart beating with an anticipatory joy, her mind was hard at work.
Perhaps, after all, Jeffrey would not so much mind her giving up the stage and the career for which he had so carefully prepared her. It was her happiness he had been seeking—only her happiness, and when he learned that it was bound up in her love for Cecil Neville, he would not refuse his consent or throw any obstacle in the way.
Looking at it in this hopeful fashion, she reached a spot where the footpath branched in two directions—one led to the brook, the other to the railway station.
She stopped and glanced at the path to the brook wistfully; perhaps Cecil was already waiting for her. Consulting her tiny watch—a present from Jeffrey—she saw that there was just time to go round by way of the brook, and, with a heightened color and eager eyes, she took the path that led thither.
“After all,” she murmured, when she reached the bank, and looked round upon the unbroken solitude; “I might have waited! He is not here! I dare say he has not finished his breakfast yet; and yet, if he knew that I was here——”
She sat down on the bank, and gazed dreamily about her. The brook babbling at her feet; the branches of the trees waving solemnly above her head; the very air seemed eloquent of the lover who had stolen her heart and absorbed her life, and she fell into a delicious reverie. Then, suddenly, her eyes fell upon the big round stone at the foot of the tree, and a smile broke over her face.
“What a foolish, romantic girl he must have thought me,” she murmured; “as if he would let anything prevent him coming.”
As she spoke she rose, and, almost mechanically, knelt down and turned the stone over.
Then, with a start, she woke, for there lay a white envelope.
She took it up and gazed at it, turning it over and over, a dull, heavy disappointment weighing upon her, and examined the address, and the elaborate crest stamped on the back.
“Then it was not so romantic or foolish,” she murmured, sorrowfully. “He is not coming!”
She sank down upon the bank, and looked before her with a vacant air, the envelope still unopened. “Not coming! Not coming!” It was like the announcement of some terrible calamity.
Then, suddenly, hope sprang into her bosom.
“He has written to tell me why he cannot come,” she said to herself, and the color rushed back into her face. “Yes, that is it! He has been prevented—his uncle, the marquis! Something has prevented him, and he has just written to tell me when he can come, and when I shall see him.”
She tore the envelope open, and something fell upon the grass. She leaned forward and picked it up; it was the old pearl-silver ring she had given to him.
She looked at it, turning it over with a vague aching sense of disappointment and trouble.
“My ring!” she murmured, “my ring! Now, what does this mean?” then her face brightened. “Ah, yes, he has sent it to remind me of yesterday!”
Eagerly she opened the letter, and her lovely eyes seemed to devour it; but as she read they grew dim andhazy, and she swept her hand across them with an impatient gesture.
“I—I can’t read!” she murmured piteously. “I can’t read it!” Her hands closed tightly on the thick, smooth sheet of notepaper, and she set her teeth hard. “I must be mad—yes, that is it! Let me wait a moment. Now!” and she bent forward, and, with knitted brows, read it out word by word, slowly, painfully, like a child reading a repugnant task.
Dear Miss Marlowe—for I feel that I dare not call you by the name engraven on my heart, and yet I must, though it is for the last time! Dear, dear Doris! I am the most wretched and miserable of men! And yesterday I was the happiest! Doris, I have seen my uncle and told him all, and he has proved to me, beyond all question, that it is impossible for me to make you mine. I can’t tell you all that passed between us; I scarcely know what I am writing, but the dreadful fact remains that by making you my wife I should work you nothing but wretchedness and misery. Don’t ask me to tell you anything more; I cannot! Try and forget me, Doris! I am not, and never can be, worth a single thought of yours! I know what you will think, and the knowledge only adds to my misery. You will think that I value my worldly prosperity above your love; but I swear it is not so! I would willingly resign everything—rank, money, position—for your sake; but there are other reasons. Forgive and forget me, Doris, or if you still think of me, remember me as one who wishes himself dead! Good-by—and forever!Cecil Neville.I return your ring. I dare not keep it, having lost you!
Dear Miss Marlowe—for I feel that I dare not call you by the name engraven on my heart, and yet I must, though it is for the last time! Dear, dear Doris! I am the most wretched and miserable of men! And yesterday I was the happiest! Doris, I have seen my uncle and told him all, and he has proved to me, beyond all question, that it is impossible for me to make you mine. I can’t tell you all that passed between us; I scarcely know what I am writing, but the dreadful fact remains that by making you my wife I should work you nothing but wretchedness and misery. Don’t ask me to tell you anything more; I cannot! Try and forget me, Doris! I am not, and never can be, worth a single thought of yours! I know what you will think, and the knowledge only adds to my misery. You will think that I value my worldly prosperity above your love; but I swear it is not so! I would willingly resign everything—rank, money, position—for your sake; but there are other reasons. Forgive and forget me, Doris, or if you still think of me, remember me as one who wishes himself dead! Good-by—and forever!
Cecil Neville.
I return your ring. I dare not keep it, having lost you!
Thrice she read it slowly, carefully, as if she were trying to learn it by heart; then she rose, and, white as the stones washed by the brook stood gazing at the broken and hastily scrawled lines.
“Good-by—and forever!” she murmured. “Good-by—and forever!”
A wild laugh forced itself from her lips, and she dropped down on the bank as if she had been felled by a blow.