CHAPTER XXXII.
“I LOVE HIM STILL.”
“Really, that was a very good idea of Mr. Spenser Churchill’s,” said Lady Despard, looking round her, as she leaned over the bridge which spans the river running sleepily down to the sea. “I should never have thought of coming to Pescia, but, then, I never have any ideas of any sort, and Mr. Spenser Churchill is so clever, isn’t he, Mr. Levant?” she added, turning her head lazily to where Percy Levant sat upon the stone coping of the bridge, looking down at the river, and now and again glancing at the face of Doris, who stood with her eyes fixed dreamily upon the perfect blue of the skies.
“Oh, yes, he is very clever,” he assented, quietly; “very.”
“And I really think the change is doing Doris good,” continued her ladyship, looking admiringly at the ivory pale face and dark blue eyes; “I think she is better. Not much to boast of in the way of color, perhaps, but we have only been here ten days, and you never do run to color, do you, Doris?”
Doris started.
“I—I beg your pardon,” she said. “I am afraid I was not listening——”
Lady Despard laughed.
“What a dreamer you are, dear,” she said, banteringly. “I often wish you would sell me your thoughts for the proverbial penny; they should be worth it, judging by your face. Does she sell them—or give them to you, Mr. Levant?”
He shrugged his shoulders, and pushed a loose pebble from the coping of the bridge into the water.
“‘My thoughts are all I have, but they’re my own,’” he quoted. “Will you tell me what you were thinking of, Doris?” he added, in a low voice.
A dash of color came into the pale face.
“They were not worth telling,” she said, with a little twinge in her voice. “I—I scarcely know what I was thinking about!”
“Just dreaming, dreaming,” said her ladyship.
“Well, you couldn’t have come to a more suitable place than sleepy, old Pescia, where nothing happens, or has happened since the Ghibellines and the Florentines used to squabble and fight,” said Percy Levant. “By the way, though, something has happened; there has been a new arrival lately. I met a handsome carriage in the Via Grandia, and was told that it belonged to some great English milord, who had come for the benefit of his health.”
Lady Despard yawned.
“I do hope it’s no one we know, and that we sha’n’t be compelled to call,” she said. “Did they tell you his name?”
“No,” replied Percy Levant, “for a very good reason—no native of Pescia could possibly pronounce an English name. They make something awful out of Smith, even.”
Lady Despard laughed.
“I think I shall go in,” she said. “This sun is making me feel drowsy, and, as when I dream I fall asleep, it would be awkward tumbling into the water. You need not come, Doris,” she added, as Doris made a movement to follow her, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Doris remained.
It was seldom that she was alone with Percy Levant, though they were engaged, and his manner toward her was as full of respect, almost as full, indeed, of reserve, as it had been before the night she had promised to be his wife. Not once had he ventured to kiss her, and when his lips touched her hand it was with a reverence which was almost that of a subject for a monarch. And certainly no monarch ever had a more devoted servant. As Lady Despard said, Percy Levant was a model lover, and she declared that his devotion almost made her wish that he had proposed to her instead of Doris.
“I wish he had,” Doris had retorted, with a smile that was rather too grave to accompany a jest.
They stood now in silence for a moment or two, then he turned his head and looked at her.
“I am glad you stayed, Doris,” he said. “I have something to tell you, to show you.”
“Yes?” she said, leaning on the bridge, and shading her eyes with her hands, that she might the more easily watch the upward flight of a hawk which had been hovering over the plain.
“It is some news I have had,” he said, and he drew a letter from his pocket and held it out to her, but kept his fingers closed on it, as he added, quietly: “Before you read it, let me tell you that I shall accept the offer it contains. Now will you read it, Doris?”
She took it.
“It is from Mr. Churchill,” she said; “I know the writing.”
He nodded, and she read the letter, and as she read her face grew pale.
“To Australia?” she said, in a low voice; “and you are going?”
“Yes,” he said. “And now the question I am going to ask you, Doris, is—am I to go alone?”
“Are you to go alone?” she repeated, as if she did not understand him; then, reading his meaning in his eyes, she shrank back a little, and her face grew crimson, and then white. “You mean that—that——”
“That you should come with me,” he said, in a grave voice.
“But—but——” she glanced at the letter again, “he says that you must start in a fortnight!”
“We could be married in less than that, Doris,” he said, gently.
She clasped her hands tightly, as they rested on the bridge.
“In a fortnight—in two weeks!” she said, with a little catch in her breath.
“Is the idea terrible?” he murmured, with a touch of sadness in his voice.
“No—oh, no!” she made haste to answer. “But it is so—so sudden! Two weeks——!”
He watched her anxiously, with a strange and curious watchfulness.
“Yes, it is a short notice, but, you see, it is Hobson’s choice with me. Poor men must take what is offered them, and I, as you know, Doris, am very poor, and this—well, it is a wonderful offer!”
“It comes through Mr. Spenser Churchill,” she said, as if speaking to herself.
His lips twitched, and he looked quickly at her.
“Yes—why?”
“Nothing—nothing,” she murmured, thoughtfully, and with her brows knit; “but—it is so strange!”
“What is strange, dear Doris?” he asked.
“Ever since I have known him, Mr. Churchill seems bound up and connected in some way or other with my life!” and she sighed.
He leaned forward and averted his face, as she turned her eyes toward him.
“It—it is strange, coincidental,” he said, in a dry voice. “But—what is your answer, Doris? Stop! Don’t think of me, think of yourself——”
She shook her head.
“I—I will go if you wish me,” she said, almost inaudibly.
He took her hand—it was as cold as if she had been bathing it in the river beneath them—and pressed it to his lips.
“Thanks, dearest,” he said, and his voice trembled. “You shall never regret your choice—never. I will say no more,” and he let her hand fall, and moved away, as if he could not trust himself to speak further.
A moment or two after he came close to her, and laid his hand, with an almost imploring gesture, upon her arm.
“Doris,” he said, and his voice rang solemnly, “you think me selfish and exacting, I know——”
“You are always all that is good and kind to me!” she broke in, her lips quivering, her eyes growing moist with tears. “Am I to do nothing—give nothing—in return?”
“Oh, yes, I understand!” he said. “I understand more clearly than you guess, dearest. Try not to think too hardly of me. Some day—before long, perhaps—you will know how deeply and truly I love you!” and he turned and left her.
Doris remained standing on the bridge, looking at the sleepy river, with a dull pain in her heart and her eyes half-blinded with the rush of emotion that seemed to overwhelm her.
In a fortnight! In two short weeks! Not until this moment had she fully realized what she had done in promising to be Percy Levant’s wife; but now——! She leaned her head upon her hands, and tried to crush down the rebellious thoughts that rose within her. Tried to wipe out, as it were, the remembrance of Cecil Neville, which haunted and tortured her.
“I love him still!” she moaned. “I love him still, and I am to be another man’s wife in a fortnight! Oh, if I were only dead—if I were only lying at rest at the bottom of the river here! In a fortnight! Oh, what have I done, what have I done?” and she wrung her hands, wildly.
Then suddenly, with an effort, she fought down the mad remorse and misery, and, in a dull despair, murmured:
“What does it matter? Why should I not marry him—or any one else? What can Cecil Neville ever be to me, even if I were free? He will be the husband of Lady Grace; he has forgotten that such a person as Doris Marlowe ever existed; or, if he remembers me, recalls me as the girl who served to amuse him for a few days in the country. What a shame it is that I should give a thought to him who has been so base and mean, while this other, to whom I have pledged my word, is all that is good and true! Marry Percy Levant! Yes, I would marry him to-morrow if he asked me!” and, setting her teeth hard, she turned to leave the bridge.
As she did so, a tall, thin old man, with a white, wasted face, from which a pair of sharp gray eyes gleamed like cold steel, came onto the bridge, and she made way for him.
He was leaning on a stick, and, as he raised his hat in courtly acknowledgment, he let the stick slip from his thin, clawlike hands.
Doris stooped and picked it up, and, as she gave it to him and he was thanking her in Italian, his piercing eyes scanned her face with a cold earnestness.
Doris bowed and went on, but some impulse moved her to look back after she had gone a few yards, and she saw him leaning against the bridge, with his hands pressed to his heart, and his face deathly white.
She was at his side in an instant, and had drawn his wasted arm within her firm, strong one almost before he knew of it.
“I am afraid you are ill,” she said.
He started as her sweet, musical voice sounded in his ears, and raised his eyes to her face.
“No, no,” he said, evidently with an effort. “But I have been ill, and—and I am a little weak, which,” he added, with all the old courtesy, “is my good fortune, seeing that it has procured me the—the happiness of your assistance. You are English. I took you for an Italian. My eyes are not so strong”—he stopped, from sheer weakness, and leaned upon her arm heavily, if the word can be used in connection with the lightness of his frail form—“not so strong as they were. I have the misfortune to be old, you see,” and he forced a smile.
“Let me help you to the seat there,” said Doris, gently.
“Thank you, thank you; but I could not think of troubling a lady——”
Disregarding his apologies, she led him carefully to the seat, into which he sank with a sigh of weary relief. Doris looked at him anxiously. It was a striking face, and a vague kind of idea crossed her mind that she had seen it somewhere before to-day, but she could not fix the time or place, and presently she found the keen, glittering eyes fixed in a meditative scrutiny upon herself.
“You have been very kind to me, my dear young lady,” he said, in a voice that still trembled a little; “very kind. And you are English? Will you tell me your name? I am an old man, and claim an old man’s privilege—inquisitiveness—you see.”
“My name is Doris—Doris Marlowe,” said Doris, seating herself beside him, and looking down the road in the hope that a carriage might come up in which she could place him.
“Doris Marlowe? No,” he shook his head; “I never heard it before; and yet I fancied your face awakenedsome dim memories. Do you know me, Miss Marlowe?”
Doris looked at him, and shook her head.
“No,” she replied. She did not like to ask his name.
“Ah, perhaps that is as well,” he said, with a faintly cynical smile; “I mean that I am not worth knowing. And are you living here, Miss Marlowe? Your mother must be a very happy woman, having so sweet a daughter,” and he drooped his head toward her, with the old, graceful salute.
A deep red stained Doris’ pale face.
“My mother is dead,” she said.
He put up his white hand, with a pleading gesture.
“Forgive me, my dear! Your father——”
“I have no father,” said Doris, almost inaudibly, and with a strange pang shooting through her heart. “There was one who was father and mother to me, but—he is dead, too,” and her voice quivered.
“You are young to have seen so much trouble,” he said, pityingly. “But you are living here with some relative, is it not so?”
Doris shook her head.
“I have not a relative in the world,” she replied. “I am living with Lady Despard. I am her companion.”
“Lady Despard?” he put his white hand to his head. “Lady Despard? I—I think I know her. And you are living with her? I envy her her companion, my dear. I will do myself the honor of calling upon her. Tell me your name again. I—I forget, sometimes. I am very old, older than you think, because you see I am so strong still. You smile?” sharply.
“No, no, I did not smile, indeed!” said Doris, quickly. “But I do not think you are strong enough—you have told me that you have been ill, you know—to walk about alone.”
He sighed, and shrugged his shoulders, with a mirthless smile.
“Alone. I have only a valet, and I hate to have him with me. I had a wife once”—he stopped, and looked darkly before him—“she left me—she died, I mean, of course and I’ve no one else. I had a child, a little girl, but she died, too. You see, I am like you somewhat,though I have other relations who, doubtless, wish that I would die also,” and he smiled, cynically.
Doris shrank a little, then, ashamed of the momentary repugnance, said, gently:
“That is not true, I am sure. And now, will you tell me where you live? I will come with you if you will let me. Or will you come with me to Lady Despard’s, and have her carriage?”
He shook his head and straightened himself.
“I have the Villa Vittoria,” he said.
Doris knew it. It was the largest, and, after Lady Despard’s, the handsomest in Pescia.
“Yes, I know it,” she said. “It is too far for you to go alone. When you are rested—but there is no hurry, we will stay as long as you like—I will go with you.”
“You are very kind, my dear,” he said, looking at her with a gentleness which assuredly was an unfamiliar expression on that cold, haughty face. “Very! I will rest a little longer, if I may.”
He sat silent for a short time, and Doris heard him murmuring her name several times, and then he looked up and sighed.
“No, I don’t remember, and yet——” he passed his hand over his forehead with a wistful, puzzled look in his keen eyes. “I am ready now, my dear young lady,” he said, presently. “You see, I accept your kind offer,” as he placed his hand upon the arm Doris offered him. “Not so long ago, fair ladies were wont to rest upon my arm; now the order is changed. One gets old suddenly!” he added, with a grim smile. “And I have been ill. I think I told you. Yes, very ill. They thought I was dead; but”—with a gesture of defiance—“my race die hard—-die hard! And you have no father or mother? That is sad! Did I tell you I had a little girl once? She died! Yes, she died!” His head drooped for a moment. “If she had lived and stayed with me, I should have had her arm to lean upon. By Heaven, I never thought of that before!” he exclaimed, in a suppressed voice, and his head sank lower.
They crossed the bridge in silence, and reached the Via Grandia, where Doris saw a man, whom she tookfor a servant, hurriedly cross the road and approach them.
“I am afraid you are ill, my lord,” he said, touching his hat. “I missed you on leaving the chemist’s——”
The old gentleman drew his hand slowly from Doris’ arm, and took the servant’s.
“This is my man, Miss Marlowe,” he said, “and I shall not need to tax your kindness and patience any longer. How deeply grateful I am for that kindness and patience I cannot tell you. But for you——” He stopped expressively. “Will you tell Lady Despard that I shall have the honor of calling upon her to-morrow, to congratulate her upon having so sweet and beautiful a friend?”
“Yes,” replied Doris, allowing her soft, warm hand to remain in his, which seemed to cling to it confidingly. “But you have not told me your name yet?” she added, with a smile.
“Have I not?” he said; “I am the Marquis of Stoyle, my dear.”
Doris recoiled, and drew her hand away so suddenly that his thin, feeble one fell abruptly to his side.
“The Marquis of Stoyle!” she echoed, every vestige of color leaving her face. “Yes, I will tell her, my lord,” and she turned and walked quickly away.
The marquis looked after her with knitted brows—looked so long that the valet gently pressed his arm as a reminder.
“Yes, yes—I am coming!” exclaimed the old man, impatiently. Then he said, “Do I know that young lady? You saw her—do I know her? She has been very kind to me—very!”
“No, my lord, she is a stranger to me,” replied the man.
“A stranger. Yes, yes. And yet——”
And, with knitted brows and troubled look in his eyes he permitted his man to lead him away.