CHAPTER XIX.
IN STRANGE SURROUNDINGS.
Feeling as if the world were quite a new and different one, and she equally new and strange, Doris left Barton the following morning, Mrs. Jelf driving her to the station in a little pony-cart, and obviously weeping as the train left the station.
It was not a particularly long journey, and the time passed very quickly, as it seemed to Doris, for she was thinking all the time, dwelling on the past and considering what the future would be like, and when they reachedWaterloo she was about to ask a porter for a cab, when a footman came up to the carriage, and, touching his hat, inquired if she were Miss Marlowe.
“The carriage is quite close, miss,” he said, with evident respect, after a glance at the slim, graceful, black-clad figure and delicately refined face. “She’s a lady, anyhow,” was his mental comment.
The carriage was an admirably appointed one, the horses evidently as good as money could buy, and the get-up of the equipage quiet and reserved, corresponding with the dark liveries of the coachman and footman.
They went, at a smart, businesslike pace, through the crowded Strand, and, entering the sacred regions of the upper ten, pulled up at one of the largest houses in Chester Gardens.
Now, there is one advantage, at any rate, in being an actress: that nothing surprises you. No grandeur can overwhelm a person who has been nightly playing with kings and queens—perhaps enacted a queen herself; and though the first glimpse of the interior of Lady Despard’s town house was rather startling, Doris was capable of concealing her surprise. The house was new, and magnificently furnished after the latest art craze. The hall was intended to represent the outer court of a Turkish harem, with richly chased arches, marble passages, tropical ferns, and a plashing fountain. Brilliantly colored rugs made splashes of color on the cool marble, and here and there a huge but graceful vase lent variety to the decorations. It certainly rather reminded you of one of the divisions of a Turkish bath; but Lady Despard couldn’t help that.
As Doris passed through this oriental hall she heard the sound of an organ, and found that one stood in a dimly-lighted recess. A young man was playing, and he scarcely raised his eyes from the keys as he glanced at her.
“Miss Marlowe,” said the footman, opening a door on the left of the hall, and Doris entered a room as dimly lighted as the organ recess; so dark, in fact, that for a moment she could distinguish nothing; the next, however, she saw a lady rise from a low divan and approach her.
Doris could not make out her features, but she heard a very pleasant and musical voice say:
“How do you do, Miss Marlowe? I am so glad youhave come. Will you sit down a little while, or would you rather go to your own room first?”
Doris sat down, and Lady Despard drawing aside a curtain from before a stained-glass window, Doris saw that her ladyship was young and remarkably pretty; she was dressed in exquisite taste, and in colors which set off her delicate complexion and softly-languid eyes. Lady Despard scanned Doris’ face for a second or two, and her gaze grew more interested.
“It was very good of you to come to me, Miss Marlowe,” she said.
Of course Doris responded that it was more than good of Lady Despard to have her.
“Not at all; the favor—if there be any—is on your side,” said her ladyship. “I am simply bored to death and pining for a companion. I hope we shall get on together. Mr. Spenser Churchill was quite eloquent in your praise; and he certainly didn’t exaggerate in one respect”—and her ladyship let her eyes wander over the pale, lovely face meaningly—“and I am sure you look awfully lovable. By the way, what’s your name—I mean your Christian name?”
Doris told her.
“How pretty. You must let me call you by it. ‘Miss Marlowe’ sounds so stiff and formal, as if you were a governess, doesn’t it? Mr. Spenser Churchill says that you are dreadfully clever; I hope you aren’t.”
Doris smiled.
“I am afraid Mr. Churchill has prepared a disappointment for you, Lady Despard,” she said.
Her ladyship shook her head.
“I don’t think so. I only hope you won’t be disappointed in me. I am awfully stupid; but I’m always trying to learn,” she added, with a smile. “Do you know Mr. Churchill very well? Is he an old friend of yours?”
“No,” said Doris, gravely; “I have known him for a few days only. He was very kind to me; very kind, indeed.”
“I know. He always is,” said Lady Despard. “Such a benevolent man, isn’t he? I always say that he reminds me of one of the patriarchs, with his gentlesmile, and long hair, and soft voice. Any one would guess he was a philanthropist the moment they saw him, wouldn’t they?”
“I don’t know,” said Doris; “I have seen so few philanthropists.”
“No. Well, I suppose there aren’t many, are there? Oh, Mr. Spenser Churchill is a wonderfully good man; he’s so charitable, and all that. Why, I don’t know how many societies he is connected with. I try and do all the good I can,” she added, looking rather bored; “but my philanthropy is generally confined to subscribing five pounds; and there’s not much in that, is there?”
Doris was tempted to say: “Exactly one hundred shillings,” but, instead, remarked that if everybody gave five pounds poverty would be very much on the decrease.
“Yes,” said her ladyship, as if the subject had exhausted itself and her, too. “How well you look in black!—oh, forgive me!” as Doris’ lips quivered. “How thoughtless of me!—that is always my way—I never think until I’ve spoken! Of course, Mr. Churchill told me about your trouble. I’m so sorry. I’ve had trouble myself.”
She glanced at a portrait which hung on the wall as she spoke, a portrait of a very elderly gentleman, who must have been extremely ugly, or very cruelly wronged by the artist.
“Your father?” said Doris, gently.
“No, that is the earl—my husband,” said Lady Despard, not at all discomposed, though Doris’ face went crimson. “You think he looks old? Well,” reflectively, “he was old. He was just sixty-eight when we married. We were only married two years. He was very good to me,” she went on, calmly eying the portrait as if it were that of a chance acquaintance, “extremely so—too much so, they all said, and I dare say they were right. He was immensely rich, and he left me everything he could. I’m afraid I’m wickedly rich,” she added, almost plaintively; “at any rate, I know there is so much money and houses and that kind of thing as to be a nuisance.”
A knock was heard at the door, and a footman entered.
“A person with the tapestry, my lady,” he said.
“Oh, very well!” said her ladyship, languidly. “I’ll come and see it. Would you like to come, or are you too tired, dear?”
“I should like to come,” said Doris.
They went into the hall, and a man displayed a length of ancient tapestry.
Lady Despard linked her arm in Doris’, and looked at it for a moment or two with a very small amount of interest, then asked the price.
The man mentioned a sum that rather startled Doris, but her ladyship nodded carelessly.
“Shall I buy it?” she asked of Doris.
Doris could scarcely repress a smile.
“I—really I am no judge,” she said. “I don’t know whether it is worth the money or not.”
Lady Despard laughed indolently.
“Oh, as to that, of course it isn’t worth it,” she said, with a candor which must have rather discomfited the man. “Nothing one buys ever is worth the money, you know; but one must go on buying things; there’s nothing else to do. Yes, I’ll have it,” she added to the man, and drew Doris away.
“Now, I’ve kept you with your things on quite long enough,” she said. “You shall go upstairs. I’ve got some people coming to tea—it’s my afternoon—but you needn’t come down unless you like; I dare say you’ll be glad to rest.”
Doris was about to accept the suggestion thankfully, but, remembering her new position, said:
“I am not tired; I shall come down, Lady Despard.”
“Very well, then,” said her ladyship, touching an electric bell. “Send Miss Marlowe’s maid, please.”
A quiet, pleasant-looking maid came to the door, and Doris followed her through the hall, and up a winding staircase of carved pine, and into a daintily-furnished room.
The maid brought her a cup of tea, and leaving Doris to rest for half-an-hour, returned to show her down to the drawing-room.
As they made their way to it, Doris heard the soundof a piano and the hum of voices, and, a footman opening the door, she saw that the room was full of people.
She made her way, with some little difficulty, to Lady Despard, who was seated at a small table, evidently merely pretending to superintend a tea-service, for the footman was handing around cups supplied from something outside, and more capacious than the tiny kettle on the table, and her ladyship looked up and smiled a pleasant little welcome.
“You have come down, after all?” she said, making room on the settee beside her. “This is my new friend, Miss Marlowe, your grace,” she added, addressing a stout and dignified-looking lady near her, the Duchess of Grantham.
Her grace surveyed Doris through a pair of gold eye-glasses, and inclined her head with ducal condescension, and Lady Despard introduced several other persons in the circle.
“We are going to Florence together,” said Lady Despard, “though why Florence I haven’t the slightest idea; it’s a whim of my doctor’s. I don’t feel the slightest bit ill, but he says I am, and he ought to know, I suppose.”
The room, which had seemed to Doris quite full when she entered, appeared to get still fuller. People came, exchanged a few words with Lady Despard, took a cup of tea, strolled about and talked with one or the other, or listened to some one who sang or played, and then wandered out. Everybody appeared either languidly indifferent or horribly bored. Doris, as she leaned back, half-hidden by Lady Despard’s elaborate tea-gown on one side and the voluminous folds of a plush curtain on the other, looked on at the crowd, and listened to the hum and buzz of voices, half in a dream.
Every now and then she heard some well-known name mentioned, and discovered that the people around her were not only persons of rank, but men and women famous in the world of music and letters.
Suddenly she heard a name spoken that made her heart leap, and caused her to shrink still further back.
“What has become of Cecil Neville?” asked the duchess.
Lady Despard shrugged her shoulders.
“I’m sure I don’t know. Oh, yes, I do. I had forgotten. He has gone down to stay with his uncle, the Marquis of Stoyle, you know.”
“Poor Cecil,” commiserated the duchess, with a faint smile. “How he must suffer!”
“I heard that he’d been obliged to leave England,” remarked another lady in a subdued voice. “Up to his ears in debt, poor fellow!”
“Well, he has had a very long rope,” said the duchess. “It is time he married and settled down.”
“That is just what he is going to do,” said Lady Despard, laughing. “I heard from Mr. Spenser Churchill—he is stopping at Barton Towers, you know—that Lord Cecil is engaged to Grace Peyton.”
The duchess raised her eyebrows.
“At last! Well, it is a good match, and I’m sure she’ll be happy.”
“Oh, how severe!” said the other lady. “You mean that he won’t be, your grace?”
“I mean that if I were a man I should think twice before——” She stopped, as if she had suddenly remembered the number and mixed character of her audience.
“Oh, she is a charming girl—and so very beautiful, you know,” said Lady Despard.
“Yes, very,” said her grace, dryly, and changed the subject.
Doris sat perfectly motionless, and very pale, fighting against the dizziness which assailed her.
“What is that the senor is playing?” asked the duchess presently.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” replied Lady Despard, helplessly.
Doris rose.
“I will go and inquire,” she said, feeling that she had better seize the opportunity of making herself useful.
Her grace looked after her.
“That’s a very beautiful girl, my dear,” she said, slowly.
“Isn’t she!” responded Lady Despard. “I call her lovely—simply lovely. I’m awfully obliged to Mr. Spenser Churchill.”
“Who is she?—where does she come from?”
“Oh, it’s quite a long story!” said her ladyship, who was not so simple as to throw down Doris’ history for her aristocratic friends to worry. “The poor child has just lost her father.”
“She will create a sensation,” said the duchess, calmly and emphatically. “I don’t think I ever saw a more lovely face, or a more graceful figure—excepting yours, my dear.”
“Oh, you can leave mine out, too!” said Lady Despard, good-naturedly.
Meanwhile, Doris made her way through the crowd, and the duchess’ prophecy was speedily fulfilled. Men and women, as they made room for the slight, girlish figure to pass, looked after her with a startled curiosity, and turned to each other, asking eager questions, some of which were pitched in a quite high enough key for Doris to hear. But, with the modest self-possession which her training had bestowed upon her, she reached the piano, learned the name of the piece, and returned to the duchess.
“It is Beethoven’s sonata in G, your grace,” she said in her low, musical voice.
“Thank you, my dear,” said the duchess. “It was very good-natured of you to take so much trouble. Good-by, Lady Despard,” and as she shook hands with her hostess she bestowed a smile and a nod on Doris.
Lady Despard laughed.
“My dear,” she said, “you are going to be a success. It isn’t often the duchess is so amiable.”
Two hours later, Mr. Spenser Churchill, with a smile that seemed to cast a benediction on everything it lighted on, was slowly walking down the still warm pavement of Bentham street, Soho.
Bentham street, Soho, is by no means an aristocratic thoroughfare, and the eminent philanthropist had to meander in and out of a crowd of dirty children, who shouted and sprawled over the curb and pavement, much to their own delight and the peril of the foot passengers; but Mr. Churchill seemed quite familiar with the street and its humors, and, stopping at a house half-way down, knocked at the door as if he had done it before.
A young and overgrown girl shuffled along the passage,and answering an inquiry of Mr. Churchill’s as to whether Mr. Perry Levant was in, nodded an affirmative, and requested Mr. Churchill to follow her. She knocked at a door on the first floor, and receiving a peculiarly clear-voiced “Come in,” opened the door, and jerked her finger by way of invitation to Mr. Churchill to enter.
Notwithstanding the neighborhood in which it was situated, and the dingy condition of the rest of the house, this room was comfortably furnished, and indicated the possession of some amount of taste by its occupant. There was a fair-sized table, with a large bowl of flowers in the center, some pictures rather good than bad, a Collard & Collard piano stood on one side of the small room, with a guitar leaning against it. Besides the pictures, there hung on the walls a pair of fencing foils and masks, and a set of boxing-gloves.
The room was full of the smoke which emanates from a good Havana, and the smoker was reclining in a comfortable chair, with his feet on another, and a glass of, apparently, soda and brandy by his elbow.
He was a young man, who if he possessed no other qualities, had been remarkably favored by the gods in one particular; he was perhaps as singularly handsome a specimen of the human race as it is possible to conceive. So finely cut and delicately molded was his face that it would have been considered effeminate but for the mustache which, like his hair and eyebrows, and the long lashes that swept the clear olive cheek, was a silky, lustrous black. It was a face which Van Dyke would have loved to paint, a face which, once seen, lingered in one’s memory, and it wore an added charm, a certain devil-may-care,debonnaireexpression which at once attracted attention and lent it impressiveness.
“Hallo, Spenser, is that you?” he exclaimed, with a laugh, as he rose and held out his hand, as white—though not so soft and fat—as the philanthropist’s own. “An unexpected honor! Sit down! You don’t mind the smoke, do you?” he asked, as Mr. Spenser Churchill coughed two or three “wow, wows” behind his handkerchief. “Rather thick, isn’t it? The room’s small, you see, and I’ve been smoking for—oh, Lord knows how long! Have anything? Brandy and soda, eh? All right!” and, going tothe window, he leaned out, and called some instructions to an urchin below.
“My dear Percy, isn’t that—er—rather a public way of procuring refreshments?” said Mr. Churchill.
The young fellow laughed.
“Well, perhaps it is,” he admitted. “But it saves trouble, and they’re used to it! There are always some youngsters outside glad to earn a penny, and the ‘Pig and Whistle’ keeps a very good article, so they say! Have a cigar?” and he pushed a box toward him. “You’ll find them all right, I think. And now, what brings you to the aristocratic regions of Soho?”
Mr. Spenser Churchill lit his cigar and took two or three preliminary puffs before answering, the young man leaning against the mantel-shelf in graceful abandon, and watching him with a faintly-amused curiosity; then the great philanthropist said, in his soft, dulcet voice:
“I have come to make your fortune, Percy!”