CHAPTER XXXVIII.
RETRIBUTION.
Lady Despard and Lord Cecil stood beside the marquis’ bed, at which, still holding the hand now slowly growing cold, Doris knelt. Death, whom the old man, with the stubborn obstinacy of the Stoyle race, had hitherto kept at bay, was drawing near, very near. They had carried him from the adjoining room, speechless and sightless, and so he had remained through the long hours of the night. It was morning now, and white and weary with all she had undergone, Doris saw the rosy streaks faintly penetrating the window shutters.
Now and again the valet or the doctor, or perhaps Cecil, moistened the old man’s lips; and now and again Doris smoothed the pillow, which might have been of stone for all it mattered to the head that rested on it. On the bed, and clasped tightly between the rigid fingers, were the papers which proved her right to the title of a peer’s daughter, and beside them the will which might make her the mistress of the Stoyle wealth. Suddenly, quite suddenly, as if, though appearing so incapable of effort, the old man had been battling in the darknessfor consciousness and strength, the marquis opened his eyes and looked at her.
“Doris!” he said. “Mary!”
“I am here!” she said, inaudibly to all but him.
His fingers closed on her hand. “Cecil—all who are here!” They drew closer to him, and he flashed his dim eyes upon them. “Listen to me. These are my last words. I—I acknowledge this lady to be my—my daughter—the child of my wife, Lucy!” A spasm shot across his face. “My will—the will which leaves all to her—is my last. Remember—remember! My daughter—my child!” His eyes closed, and they thought he was dead, but his lips opened again, and Doris, if no other, heard the words that struggled from them. “Lucy! Lucy! forgive! I am punished—punished!”
These were the last words of the great Marquis of Stoyle, who had all his life boasted that he had earned the title of “wicked,” whose heart had never once melted until death came to turn it into the dust to which even penitence and remorse are impossible!
The wicked flourish as the bay-tree, and the truly good are unable to live through persecution. If any one imagines that Mr. Spenser Churchill was utterly annihilated by the disclosure of his pretty plot, that person is very little acquainted with the peculiar character of which Mr. Spenser Churchill was a prominent type. For a week or two the good man betook himself to Paris, and there, in that quiet and peaceful spot, soothed his troubled spirits with, doubtless, pious reflections; but shortly afterward he emerged from his retreat, and the papers of London announced that the great philanthropist would deliver a lecture at Exeter Hall to aid the funds of the Broken-winded Horses’ Society. The subject of the lecture was to be a glorious and inspiring one: “Truth.”
Punctually at the hour announced the eminent man, with placidly serene face, and softly, tenderly melting eyes, stepped on to the platform, amidst the cheering of the audience, the majority of whom were ladies, who waved their pocket handkerchiefs, which they well knew they should presently require. Mr. Spenser Churchillbegan his address. It was eloquent, touching, impressive; the handkerchiefs grew quite moist long before it was concluded, and when at last his soft and tearfully sympathetic voice died away in his final words, many a soft-hearted woman—and dare I say soft-headed man?—felt perfectly convinced that Mr. Spenser Churchill was far, far too good for this wicked world!
I am surely convinced that the hour will come in which the world will see him without his mask, and be ready to stone the hypocritical villain whom they almost worshiped as a saint; but the hour has not yet come, and the great philanthropist still flourishes as the bay-tree. Great will be the fall thereof when the truth he so loves to talk about shall prevail, and the ax lays the accomplished hypocrite low! May we be there to see!
A year passed away, and the sun, which goes on shining, though marquises die and hypocrites continue to flourish, shone through Lady Despard’s beautiful boudoir in Chester Gardens.
In her favorite attitude—half-reclining, half-sitting—her ladyship nestled among the soft cushions of her favorite couch. Near her sat Doris—who, though known to the world as Lady Mary Stoyle, shall be Doris to us till the end of this eventful history. She was sitting at a writing-table, spread with letters and volumes, some of them fearfully like pages of account books, and her beautiful face was puckered up with a charming frown.
Every now and then she consulted one of the appalling volumes, and then wrote for a few moments, after which operation she would grow more puckered and draw a series of perplexed and bothered sighs.
“How happy you look, dear!” said Lady Despard, with a smile, after watching her for some time.
Doris started slightly, and turned round to her.
“I thought you had gone away hours—days—weeks ago. Happy! I am almost driven to distraction. I wish—oh, I do wish, there were no such things as accounts! or, at any rate, that I had nothing to do with them.”
Lady Despard laughed.
“‘Muckle coin, muckle care,’ my dear. Though I sympathize with your misery, I must confess I rather enjoythe sight of it. I suffered so much when I came into my own property. Oh, the weary, weary hours I plodded through heavy columns of figures and dreary ‘statements.’ But I’ve got used to it, and that’s what you will do, in time.”
“In time! Yes, when I have grown prematurely old and gray,” said Doris, with a vexed smile. “I never understood what hard work it is, this being rich.”
“I am afraid we shouldn’t like it if we were very poor. I wonder”—she paused a moment, then went on—“I wonder how a certain marquis likes poverty?”
Doris bent lower over her blundering and utterly futile arithmetic. “I don’t know,” she said, stiffly.
Lady Despard smiled. “Any one would know you were a Stoyle by your pride, my dear,” she remarked.
Doris looked up with affected indignation.
“Pride! I am the meekest and humblest——”
“Of empresses,” put in Lady Despard. “My dear girl, you may not know it, but you are as proud a minx as ever lived, and the most unforgiving.”
Doris looked over her shoulder for a moment, then turned her head away.
“I think you are unjust,” she said, in a low voice.
“Oh, no, I’m not. For instance, here are you suddenly become possessed of a grand title, large estates, and heaps of money. The title you can’t help taking, if people choose to call you by it, and the money. Well, you take as little of that as possible; but not once have you set your foot in any one of the houses that are yours, or upon a spot of the many acres which your father left you. That’s pride, though of course you’ll say it isn’t.”
“I——”
“I haven’t finished yet. Counsel for the prosecution first, if you please; afterward we shall be happy to hear what you have to say in defense——”
“And find me guilty, whatever that may be,” said Doris.
“Here, too, is a young woman with two lovers——”
“Oh, don’t,” muttered Doris, wincing; but Lady Despard declined to show mercy.
“My dear, I am going to continue. It is well thatyou should hear the truth from some one, and, as I am the only person who dares tell it to your royal highness, why, I’ll do my duty. Two lovers. One was utterly unworthy of you, poor fellow, an adventurer, who—but never mind. He repented in time, and I am not the woman to be hard upon him. The other is a young man who loved you devotedly, and is all that is honorable and lovable—and miserable! He never wronged you in any way, and, though I can understand your sending the penitent adventurer about his business, I cannot understand how you could let poor Cecil go to this beastly little war, where, as likely as not, he will either be killed by some dirty, half-naked savage, or die of the yellow, or blue, or black, fever, whichever it is they have over there. Yes, I must say I do pity Lord Cecil, who never did anything——”
“But transfer his affections to another woman,” murmured Doris, her face and neck a vivid crimson.
Lady Despard sank back onto the cushions and laughed with evident enjoyment.
“You little goose, I was leading you on to showing your hand. And you didn’t see it! Of course, that is his offense. We could forgive the adventurer-lover who would have sold us for filthy lucre, and who only repented and drew back at the last moment; oh, yes, we can forgive him; but the other—he must be sentenced to lifelong disappointment, because possibly he was caught, lured into the net of the cleverest and most unscrupulous woman in England, and the cleverest and most unscrupulous man to back her. And we are not proud, we are not unforgiving! Oh, no, certainly not!” she summed up, ironically.
Doris screened her face with her hands.
“Why does not he——?” she stopped.
“Why doesn’t he come forward and beg for forgiveness and ask you to become his own little Doris again and Mrs. Marquis?” cried Lady Despard, dryly. “Because he is as proud as you are, my dear. What! Ask a girl as rich as a female Crœsus to be his wife when he has only a few paltry thousands a year; ask the girl who would scarcely speak a word to him when he came to wish her good-by, perhaps for the last time. Why, isn’the a Stoyle, too, and haven’t all of you got, and haven’t all of you always had, the pride and stiff-neckedness of the dev—ahem! the evil one? My dear, I am the laziest soul in London, and I’ve registered a vow that I’ll never get excited and warm over anything; but really when I think of you spending your days and nights in hungering for him——”
“Oh!” murmured Doris, and she glided to her and hid her face on her shoulder.
“So you do! Do you think I can’t hear you sighing long after you ought to be asleep, you obstinate and abandoned girl,” retorted Lady Despard. “Doris, my dear, if I were only old enough, or you were young enough, it would be my pleasing duty to shut you up in your room on bread and water till you came to your senses and consented to hide your silly little head against his shirt front, spoiling his clothes instead of mine. My dear, would you mind covering my dress with your pocket-handkerchief if you are crying.”
“I’m not crying,” said Doris, indignantly, and giving her a little push, but still hiding her face. “When—when did you hear from him last?” she asked, in a whisper.
“Just two months ago,” replied Lady Despard, her voice growing suddenly serious. “You were too proud to ask for the news, or I would have told you. He was well then, but was going up the country after those miserable Decoys—Dacoits, or whatever they’re called, and from what I’ve read in the papers I’m afraid——”
Doris’ hand tightened on her shoulder spasmodically.
“Don’t pinch me, my dear. I didn’t send him there. Catch me! I only wish he’d ask me to be his wife. I’d have married either of the two men you sent to Jericho; but that’s the way with the gods, they always shower their gifts on the unworthy and ungrateful, and deserving people can go starving.”
“I wish he had,” murmured Doris; “you would both have been happy then.”
“No, you don’t wish anything of the kind,” retorted Lady Despard, indolently. “You would be ready to tear my eyes out if there had ever been the slightest chance of such a thing. Oh, you can’t delude me into thinkingyou the gentle dove most people imagine you, you little scorpion.”
“And that is all you know about—about him?” said Doris, timidly.
“Nearly all. I wish I knew more. I did mention the matter to his grace at the reception the other night, and he looked rather grim and solemn, as if the whole expedition was sentenced——No, no, Doris, I don’t mean that!” she added, hastily, as Doris’ hand relaxed its hold, and she drew herself up, white and shuddering. “No, it ain’t so bad as that; but—but——Well—Ah, my dear, you ought not to have let him go.”
Doris threw herself down again. “It was not my fault; if—if he had said—if he had asked——”
“Give me no ifs!” retorted Lady Despard. “My dear child, no man could have asked you anything while you treated him as you treated Lord Cecil after the marquis’ death. You were not a live, breathing woman, but a marble effigy, a block of ice, and you froze him—you froze him—and sent him to Burmah to thaw himself. Now, I’m not going to talk any more about him. Get on your habit, and let us go for a ride. Thank Heaven, I love no man, and no man loves me! Heigh-ho!”
The footman brought in the evening papers as she spoke, and she took one and glanced at it languidly; then suddenly she sat up, and uttered a low cry.
Doris, who had gone to the door, but who had not left the room, went back to her swiftly.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
Lady Despard closed the paper. “I—thought you had gone,” she said. “Matters?—nothing. The pins and needles in my feet——”
“There is something in that paper,” said Doris, in her low voice, her eyes fixed on it. “Tell me what it is!”
Lady Despard hesitated a moment, then she shrugged her shoulders.
“Well, you’d buy one and see for yourself, so I may as well show it to you; but—but don’t imagine the worst at once.”
She handed her the paper, and pointed to a letter from the seat of war.
In a few—but, alas, how pregnant! words the correspondenttold the story of the disaster which had befallen a detachment sent into the interior. Surrounded and outnumbered by the enemy, savages in nothing more than their mode of conducting warfare, the handful of English soldiers had fallen, as so many thousands of their fellows in the glorious years of the past have done, fighting to the last. There were only the few details which can be crammed into a column of newspaper type, but one line stabbed Doris to the heart.
“I am sorry to say that an aide-de-camp, the Marquis of Stoyle, better known as Lord Cecil, accompanied the detachment. Throughout the campaign Lord Cecil has distinguished himself by his bravery and devotion to duty, and by his genial and modest disposition had won the hearts of both officers and men. If, as there is too much reason to fear, his lordship has fallen with his ill-fated comrades, his loss will be sorely felt, and he can never be replaced. It will be remembered that he succeeded to the historic title just twelve months ago, and very shortly before joining the regiment.”
Doris said not a word, but stood staring at the paper, with dry eyes, and that awful feeling of benumbing anguish which crushes pain for a time but to lend it additional force afterward.
Lady Despard put her arm round her.
“Doris, Doris! my dear, my dear!” she murmured. “Don’t give way! While there’s life there’s hope; we can’t tell what may have happened; I have reason to hope, to think——” She stopped and sprang—actually sprang—to the door, and throwing it open, said, hurriedly, “Come in; oh, come in!”
The next moment a tall figure, with a sunburned face and one arm in a sling, entered, and after a glance, one anxious glance, at the white face, rushed forward and caught Doris to him with his sound arm. Lady Despard waited until this happened, then glided out.
They sat up very late that night, and Lady Despard’s boudoir was so dimly lighted that as she reclined on her couch she could not see, or pretended not to see, that Doris, as she sat at the marquis’ feet, had got his handfast locked in hers, almost as if she dreaded lest he should vanish as suddenly as he had come. And every now and then she, glancing fearfully at Lady Despard, laid the brown hand against her cheeks, and near, very near, to her lips.
There was not much talking, for Lady Despard was merciful, but at last she looked up.
“And now, my dear Othello, if you can and will deign to recount some of your adventures, Desdemona and your humble servant will be gratified. Though I have known since yesterday that you had escaped, I haven’t any of the details, and I will confess to a faint and lazy kind of curiosity. Touching that interesting wound now, which I do trust will soon be all right, for it must be so awkward——” she stopped and glanced at Doris, with provoking archness.
“Yes, tell us!” murmured Doris.
Lord Cecil—he shall be Cecil for us to the end—looked suddenly grave, and hesitated.
“Yes, I want to tell you, and I must,” he said. “Not about myself so much as——” He stopped. “Did you see the list of the killed? Did they give a list of names?”
“No,” said Lady Despard, “it was all surmise. Why do you ask that?”
“Because——” he stopped again. “Doris,” and he laid his hand on her head, soothingly, “there was another person whom you know in this awful business, besides myself. Cam you guess his name?”
Doris shook her head apprehensively. Lady Despard leaned forward.
“He was—he became a fast and devoted friend of mine, Doris. But for him I should not be here, dearest. He came out with the hospital, and I saw him first beside my bed. He pulled me through the fever.” He stopped again, and Doris held her face low down, out of the lamplight. “We were great friends after that, and when our detachment was ordered to the interior he volunteered. I tried to dissuade him. There was no reason that he should go, but he insisted, and——On the evening of the fight he stood by the guns with the rest, and with the rest fought like a lion. Once or twice Ifound a moment to speak to him, for he was always near me. When the fast struggle came, I joined in the rush—that’s the only word for it—and saw a couple of the Dacoits making for me. One I cut down, the other gave me this,” he pointed to his arm, “and would have settled me—hush, dearest, don’t cry—but this friend was near me still, and he threw himself between us.”
He stopped and drew a long breath. “I don’t remember any more till I came to, and, crawling about, came upon him. He was alive, just alive, but he knew me. I—I took his head on my knee, and bent down. Doris, my darling, Doris, my dearest. Hush, hush! ‘Tell her that her love saved me from worse than this, Cecil,’ he said. ‘Tell her that I died with her name on my lips. Be good to her, Cecil; be good to—Doris!’”
Lady Despard was crying audibly.
“You know, dear, who it was that saved my life,” said Cecil, in a low voice. “It was Percy Levant.” And he drew her head upon his breast, and kissed her with protecting tenderness, as if he were responding to the dead man’s solemn injunction.
When the marquis and marchioness returned from their long—but for them not too long—honeymoon, society, deeming it incumbent upon itself to bestow an impressive welcome on two of its most distinguished members, gave a ball in honor of the young, and, as the journals put it, “romantic couple.”
It was a very grand affair, and theMorning Postnext morning devoted a column and a half to its description and a list of the high and mighty and famous guests, and stated, rather emphatically, that the most beautiful woman in the room was the young lady in whose honor the entertainment was given. It went into newspaper raptures over her manner, her smile, her dress, and, lastly, her jewels, which, as it said, consisted of asuiteof magnificent diamonds—the Stoyle diamonds—and poetically declared that their brilliance was only outshone by the wearer’s eyes.
They were very beautiful, as a matter of fact, and no other jewels in the magnificent assemblage could comparewith them, excepting, perhaps, asuiteof pearls set in antique silver, which was worn by—Lady Grace Peyton.
Twice in the course of the evening Doris and she met each other, and on both occasions, while Doris, with the meekness which, somehow, always distinguishes the injured innocents, turned her head aside, Lady Grace stared at her rival with a bold, defiant flash of her handsome eyes.
“I think,” said Lady Despard, as she stood for a moment in a corner with Doris, “I think that for cool, unbrazen impudence, Grace Peyton excels all the world. Most women, all other women—having done what she has done, and knowing that we know what she has done—would have buried themselves in some German watering-place for the rest of their lives. But, oh no! she not only thinks fit to put in an appearance here to-night, but actually—actually flaunts that set of pearls which she got by fraud—stole, if any one ever stole anything in this world—from your husband. The whole set!”
“No, not the whole set,” murmured Doris, softly, as she looked at Lady Grace gliding through a waltz. “I have the ring.”
“You have! Why, I have never seen it. The ‘ring!’”
“No, you never saw it,” said Doris, a warm flush rising to her lovely face. “I don’t wear it on my finger, dear, but—here,” and she touched her heart. “She is welcome to all the rest while I have that and—him!” she added, turning to her husband as he came up to them.
THE END.
Only One Bestis possible so far as paper-covered novels are concerned. It is only natural that the novels for which there is the greatest demand should be consideredBEST.This fits theS. & S.NOVELSto perfection. Thousands are sold to hundreds of all others combined.There are reasons and you don’t have to search very far for them after you become familiar with the S. & S. kind. Better stories, better authors, better value, place our books in a class by themselves.A catalogue, arranged alphabetically by authors, sent free upon request.Street & Smith, PublishersNew York
Only One Best
is possible so far as paper-covered novels are concerned. It is only natural that the novels for which there is the greatest demand should be consideredBEST.
This fits the
S. & S.NOVELS
to perfection. Thousands are sold to hundreds of all others combined.
There are reasons and you don’t have to search very far for them after you become familiar with the S. & S. kind. Better stories, better authors, better value, place our books in a class by themselves.
A catalogue, arranged alphabetically by authors, sent free upon request.
Street & Smith, PublishersNew York