CHAPTER XVI.
THE PART OF A HYPOCRITE.
“Doris!” The cry rang through the wood and reached the spot where Doris lay full length upon the bank like a crushed flower. For a moment she thought it was an invention of her disordered mind, then she seemed to recognize Jeffrey’s voice, and, thrusting the letter in her bosom, she sprang to her feet, and, with hurried steps, made her way, half-blindly, in the direction of the sound.
A few moments brought her to the open glade, and, with a cry of terror, she was on her knees beside the still form.
She had never before been in the presence of death, and for a time she thought that he had only fainted, and she raised his head and called upon him in accents of alarm and affection; then suddenly she heard a step behind her, and, looking round, saw the smooth, bland face of the man who had stood up in the box at the theatre, the man against whom Jeffrey had warned her.
She shrank back and clasped the dead man closer to her, as if to protect him.
“Has anything happened?” asked Spenser Churchill, with tender concern. “Dear me, I am afraid there has been an accident; the gentleman is ill?”
“Yes, yes!” panted Doris. “Help me! oh, help me!”
Spenser Churchill knelt down and examined the stern face with an anxious regard.
“Why, I know him!” he said, with an air of surprise. “It is Mr. Flint—Mr. Jeffrey Flint, is it not?”
Doris made a gesture of assent without removing her eyes from the old man’s face.
“Yes. Is he—is he very ill?”
Spenser Churchill shook his head, solemnly.
“I am afraid—how did it happen, Miss Marlowe? It is Miss Marlowe, is it not?”
“I do not know,” sobbed Doris, heedless of the latter part of the question. “I—I was not here—I heard him call! Oh, Jeffrey, Jeffrey! dear Jeffrey! Is he——A doctor! oh, if I could get a doctor! Some one——”
“My dear young lady!” murmured Spenser Churchill, pityingly, “I am afraid—do not give way, bear up! In the midst of life——”
A cry rang through the wood, and a shudder shook her frame, then she looked up with a terrible calmness.
“You say that he is dead—is that it? Dead! Oh, Heaven, dead!”
Spenser Churchill shook his head.
“I fear—I very much fear——” he murmured, gravely, and he laid his hand upon the thin wrist. “And you do not know how it happened?” he asked again, his eyes scrutinizing her face with a quick keenness.
“No!” said Doris, hoarsely, and with a sob. “He was alone—I was coming to meet him—I heard him call my name, and—and I found him like this! Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?”
“Can you bear to be left alone for a little while?” said Spenser Churchill. “There is a cottage near here, on the outskirts of the wood. I will go and get some assistance. The poor fellow has died from a sudden attack of heart disease!”
“Oh, go, go!” panted Doris.
He went, after another searching glance at her white face; and she bent over the motionless form, almost as lifeless herself.
In a few minutes Spenser Churchill returned, with a couple of farm laborers carrying a hurdle, and the body was tenderly and reverently carried to the house, Doris walking beside it and still holding the cold, dead hand.
Hasty preparation had been made for the reception ofthe stricken man, and he was carried up to the best room. A messenger had been sent to Barton for the doctor, and in a short time he appeared and was received by Mr. Spenser Churchill, who awaited him at the gate.
“Mr. Jeffrey Flint!” said the doctor, as Spenser Churchill, in sympathetic accents, gave an account of the case. “Yes, yes! Ah, yes, I know something of him; he consulted me a few days ago.”
Then he passed upstairs and into the room where the dead man lay upon the bed, with Doris kneeling beside him still holding his hand.
“My dear,” said the doctor, after a short examination, “this is no place for you. No one can do anything for him; your friend has gone to his last rest,” and he motioned to the woman of the cottage, who stood crying at the door.
Slowly, reluctantly, Doris permitted them to take her away, and the doctor after a few minutes went downstairs and rejoined Spenser Churchill.
“It is only too true, I see,” said that gentleman, sadly.
The doctor nodded gravely.
“Yes,” he said; “he has been dead some time. It is very sad, very! That poor young creature—Miss Marlowe, I believe?”
Spenser Churchill nodded again.
“I believe so,” he said.
“Poor girl, poor girl!” murmured the kind-hearted doctor, turning his face away. “So suddenly.”
“My heart bleeds for her!” said Spenser Churchill, wiping away something that may have been a tear. “So young and friendless——”
“Friendless?” said the doctor.
“Well, I am given to understand she has no father or mother,” he explained. “I should not have said friendless. I trust, I humbly trust, that, seeing I was on the spot, sent, so to speak, providentially, that she will permit me to be of some service to her, poor young thing.”
He took out his cardcase and handed a card.
The doctor glanced at it and bowed.
“Oh, Mr. Spenser Churchill? Your name is known to me, sir, of course; and I feel that I am justified in saying that this poor girl will indeed have a friend in you,if you are the Mr. Spenser Churchill, the well-known philanthropist.”
Spenser Churchill cast down his eyes and sighed.
“I have no claim to so high a title, doctor,” he said, meekly, “though I trust I may say that I take a humble interest in any good work. Poor girl, poor girl! I fear there will have to be an inquest? That will be a terrible trial for her!” and he shot a glance under his lids at the doctor’s thoughtful face.
“Well,” he replied, hesitatingly, “I don’t know. I—I really think it may be avoided.”
“If it is not quite necessary,” said Spenser Churchill, softly. “It is a trying ordeal for the survivor at any time, but with this poor child, so young and sensitive——”
“Yes, yes,” assented the doctor. “I do not think it will be necessary. Mr. Flint consulted me the day before yesterday, and I warned him then that he must be careful to avoid all excitement; indeed, I told him as plainly as I dared that any sudden shock would be fatal.”
“Dear me! Poor fellow!” murmured Spenser Churchill.
“And I think, under the circumstances, that I can give a certificate, and so avoid an inquest.”
Spenser Churchill heaved a soft sigh of relief.
“I shall be glad if you will tell me all you know respecting the case, Mr. Churchill?”
“Certainly,” assented Spenser Churchill, with a sigh. “It is soon told. I was strolling through the woods in the direction of the town—I had left the Towers half-an-hour previously—when I heard a girl’s voice—poor Miss Marlowe’s, in fact—crying piteously. I hurried up, and found her kneeling beside him. That is all, excepting that I am quite sure he was dead when I reached the spot, and I think he had been dead some time.”
The doctor smiled.
“And you met no one, saw no one excepting Miss Marlowe?”
“No, no one; I heard and saw nothing but what I have told you,” replied Spenser Churchill, quietly.
“Hem! I don’t quite see. It would appear as if there had been a shock——”
“Is that absolutely necessary?” suggested SpenserChurchill, softly. “In heart disease death may result—I speak with deference—without any shock or excitement.”
“Oh, quite so, quite so,” assented the doctor. “The deceased might have died at any moment—in his bed, or during his ordinary avocations. Oh, yes.”
“I am relieved to hear you say that,” said Spenser Churchill. “I am so anxious, on Miss Marlowe’s account, to avoid an inquest.”
“Quite so, quite so. There will be no necessity. Did you know the deceased?”
“I knew something of him some years ago,” replied Spenser Churchill; “but we have not met for a long period; indeed, it must be ten or fifteen years. I only knew him quite slightly, and had not seen him of late, even at a distance. It was quite a shock to me, recognizing him lying there on the grass, dead!”
“I dare say,” said the doctor, quite sympathetically. “And now, what is to be done?—I mean, with reference to this poor young girl.”
“If you will leave it to me,” murmured Spenser Churchill, meekly, “I will do all that lies in my power. She may have relations and friends. I will ascertain from her, and communicate with them. You may trust me to do all that I can to soften the terrible blow for the poor young creature.”
The doctor took his hand and wrung it.
“You are a good man, Mr. Churchill,” he said, “and Heaven will reward you! Pray count upon me if I can be of any assistance. I will go and make out the certificate.”
Spenser Churchill accompanied him to his gig, then lit a cigarette, and paced up and down for a few minutes, thinking intensely.
His voice and manner, while he had been talking with the simple-minded provincial doctor, had been completely under control—quiet, calm, and sadly sympathetic; but now that he was alone he felt that his hands were shaking, and that his face was white.
“My dear—Spenser—” he murmured. “Steady—steady!” and he held his hand out and regarded it clinically. “No shaking and trembling! Chance—or shallwe say Providence—has placed a great game in your hands, and you must play it properly if you mean to win, and you do mean to win! Great Heaven, what a narrow escape it was! Another minute, another half-minute, and you would have been removed from this terrestial sphere! And to think that he should have died just at the critical moment! It was a special interposition! Let me think—now, steady, my dear fellow, steady! Jeffrey dead—thank Heaven!—no one but myself knows the secret of this girl’s birth! The papers—” he took them from his pocket, and looked at them, and it may be stated, to his credit, that a shudder ran through him as he did so, for they still seemed warm by their contact with their dead owner, from whom he had stolen them—“yes, he was right. They are all here; proof incontestable, evidence that no one, not even the dear marquis, could refute! No one knows of their existence but myself! And she is alone and friendless, yes, friendless, for my letter has done its work, and Cecil Neville is too far off to undo it! We must keep you in Ireland, dear Cecil, we cannot have you back interfering in this business. No one knows that Doris Marlowe is the daughter of the Marquis of Stoyle, but me. Spenser, my dear fellow, you hold all the cards, play them carefully and properly, and——” he flung the stump of his cigarette into the hedge, and, smoothing his face into its usual bland expression, returned to the cottage.
The woman, the wife of the woodman, stood waiting for him.
“How is poor Miss Marlowe, Mrs. Jelf?” he said.
Mrs. Jelf dropped a curtsey.
“Ah, poor young thing, sir!” she said, wiping her eyes with her apron. “She’s lying down, sir, quite worn out and looking like a corpse herself! It don’t seem as if she had strength to speak or move! I was thinking, sir, that we’d better send for her friends——”
“Not at present, I think, Mrs. Jelf,” he said, gently. “I think she had better be left to herself for a while. I have promised the doctor to do all I can in my poor way——”
“Oh, sir, I know you’ve a kind heart,” murmured Mrs. Jelf.
“We must all do our simple best, Mrs. Jelf,” he replied, lifting up his eyes. “I happen to know something of the poor fellow who lies upstairs, and, for the sake of old times, you understand, and for the sake of the poor young lady——”
“And she such a sweet young thing!” said Mrs. Jelf, beginning to cry again.
“I will do my best for her. I am now going to the town, and I think, Mrs. Jelf, it would be as well, if any one inquires for Miss Marlowe, if you told them that she is not well enough to see anybody. And if there should be any letters, perhaps you will give them to me; I will keep them until poor Miss Marlowe is strong enough to see them. At such times as these, in moments of such deep sorrow as this, Mrs. Jelf, the human heart must not be harassed by contact with the outer world.”
“No, indeed, sir,” assented Mrs. Jelf, quite touched by such sympathetic consideration. “I won’t let any one see her, and she shan’t be worried by anything. I’ll keep people from her, and I’ll give you any letters.”
“Thank you, I think it will be better,” said Spenser Churchill. “Perhaps you might tell Miss Marlowe that a friend—you need not mention my name; you might say the doctor—has gone to the theatre and will make all arrangements. All she has to do is to try and remain quiet. Rest, rest, my dear Mrs. Jelf, is the great soother for the—er—tortured breast,” and leaving this sublime piece of sentiment to do its work in honest Mrs. Jelf’s mind, he went off to Barton.
Ill news travels apace, and the tidings of Jeffrey’s sudden death had reached the theatre even before Spenser Churchill arrived there.
His manner with the manager was simply perfection.
“I came on at once, my dear sir,” he said, “because I felt that you should be the first to know of this—er—dreadful calamity. I am fully sensible of the responsible position you occupy, and that your relations as a manager with the public entitle you to every consideration. Of course, Miss Marlowe will not act for some time—if ever she acts again.”
“Of course, of course!” said the manager, rather blankly. “Poor Jeffrey! An admirable man, sir; admirable!Might have been a great actor himself, but contented himself with presenting an ornament to the stage in his adopted daughter. A great genius Miss Marlowe, Mr. Churchill! Splendid! magnificent! A wonderful career before her! Of course, she can’t be expected to act at present, certainly not; but in time—ahem!—in time.”
“We shall see,” said Spenser Churchill. “In time, perhaps; but I cannot say. I am not authorized to speak for Miss Marlowe; but this I will say, that if she should resume her professional career, you—you will have the first claim upon her!” and he shook the manager’s hand in so emphatic and impressive a manner that the manager was quite touched.
Two hours afterward all Barton was placarded with the announcement that, in consequence of sudden domestic bereavement, Miss Doris Marlowe would not appear that evening, and that in place of “Romeo and Juliet,” would be performed the famous drama, “The Corsican Brothers.”
Mr. Spenser Churchill was as good as his word. If he had been a near and dear relative of the bereaved girl, he could not more completely have taken the whole arrangements into his own hands. He saw to the funeral, examined the dead man’s papers and effects; even carried his thoughtful consideration so far as to ask Mrs. Jelf to order mourning for Miss Marlowe and herself. In fact he did all that was necessary on such mournful occasions—all except one thing. By a strange oversight, Mr. Spenser Churchill omitted to send notice of the death to the newspapers, so that there was nothing to tell Lord Cecil Neville, away in Ireland, that the girl he loved had suddenly been left alone in the world!