The announcement of the engagement between Lord Auchester and Lady Eleanor Dallas had appeared in the society papers a month ago, and the world of 'the upper ten' had expended its congratulations and began asking itself when the wedding was to take place, for it was agreed on all hands that so excellent and altogether desirable a match could not take place too soon.
"He has been dreadfully wild, I'm told, my dear," said one gossip to another, "and is as poor as a church mouse. But there is plenty of money on her side; indeed, they say that lately she has become fabulously rich, so that will be all right. Of course she might have done better; but everybody knows she was ridiculously fond of him—oh! quite too ridiculously. Gave herself away, in fact; and she goes about looking so happy and victorious that it is really quite indecent!"
"That is more than can be said of the bridegroom-elect," remarked gossip number two, "for he looks as grave as a judge and as glum as an undertaker. The mere prospect of matrimony seems to have taken all the spirits out of him. Not like the same man, I assure you, my dear."
It was autumn now. The greenery of the trees had turned to russet and gold; a mystic stillness brooded softly over the country lanes; the yellow corn waved sleepily to the soft breeze; the blackberries darkened the hedge-rows, and on the roads lay, not thickly as yet, but in twos and threes, the leaves of the oak and the chestnut. An air of repose and quietude reigned over the land, as if nature, almost tired of the sun and heat and the multitudinous noises of summer, were taking a short nap to prepare itself for the rigor and robust energy of winter.
In one of the loveliest of our country lanes stood a village school. It was a picturesque little building of white stone and red tiles. The tiny school-house adjoining it was so overgrown by ivy as to resemble a green bower. There was a window at the back, and an orchard in which the golden and ruddy appleswere almost as thick as the blackberries in the lanes. Everything in and about this school was the picture of neatness. The curtains of white and pink muslin were exquisitely clean and artistically draped behind the diamond-paned windows.
The door-sills were as white as marble; the diminutive knocker on the school-house door shone like a newly minted sovereign. Not a weed showed its head in the small garden, which literally glowed with single and double dahlias, sweet-scented stocks and many-colored chrysanthemums. There was a little gate in the closely cut hedge, which was painted a snowy white—in short, the tiny domain made a picture which Millais or Marcus Stone or Leslie would have delighted to transfer to canvas.
From the open door of the school there issued a hum and buzz which resembled that which proceeds from the door of a bee-hive, for afternoon school was still on, and the pupils were still at their lessons.
The village—it was rather more than half a mile from the school—was that of Newfold, a quiet, sleepy little place, which not even the restless tourist seems to have discovered; a small cluster of houses, with an inn, a church, and a couple of shops lying in the hollow between the two ranges of Loamshire hills. A Londoner would tell you that Newfold was at least five hundred years behind the times; but, if it be so, Newfold does not care. There is enough plowing and wood-cutting in winter, enough sowing and tilling in spring, enough harvesting in autumn to keep the kettle boiling, and Newfold is quite content. Some day one of those individuals who discover such places will happen on it, write an article about it, attract attention to it, and so ruin it; but he hasn't chanced to come upon it yet, and oh! let us pray that he may keep off it for a long while; for Newfolds are getting scarcer every year, and soon, if we do not take care, England will become one vast, hideous plain of bricks and mortar, and there will be no place in which we can take refuge from the fogs and smoke of the great towns.
In another quarter of an hour school would 'break up,' and the girls were standing up singing the evening hymn which brought the day's work to a close. In the center of the room stood a pleasant, fair-haired young lady, whose eyes, mild and gentle as they were, seemed to be looking everywhere. On a small platform stood another young lady with dark hair and gray eyes. These were the two mistresses of the Newfold village school, and their names were Leslie Lisle and Lucy Somes.
Life is not all clouds and rain, thank God; the sun shines sometimes, and the sun of good luck had shone upon Leslie and Lucy. It was good luck that they should pass the much-dreaded examination, that ordeal to which they had looked forward with such fear and trembling; it was good luck that there should be two appointments vacant; but oh! it was the superlative of luck that these appointments should be to thesame school, and that the school should be here in peaceful Newfold!
It seemed to Leslie as if misfortune had grown tired of buffeting her, and had decided to leave her alone for a time. She could scarcely believe her eyes when Lucy Somes ran into her room at Torrington Square with the news that they were to be sent to the same school, and in her beloved county. Of course influence had been used at headquarters by Lucy's people, but Lucy persisted that luck had more to do with it than anything else, and that Leslie had brought the good fortune; and it did not lessen Lucy's happiness that Leslie, having obtained the most marks at the exam., was given the post of head-mistress, and that she, Lucy, was to be her subordinate. "It is quite right, dear," she said, brightly and cheerfully. "Of course, you ought to be the first; any one could see that at half a glance. You are ten times quicker and cleverer than I, and, besides, if we are to be together—and oh! how delightful it is to think that we are!—I would a thousand times rather you were the principal!"
"We will both be head-mistress, Lucy!" Leslie had said, as, with tears in her eyes, she had put her arms round the good-natured girl, and kissed her.
They had only been four days at the school, but short as the time had been they had grown fond of it—fond of the work and the children, and who can tell how fond and proud of the little house that nestled against the school building!
Lucy was like a child in her unrestrained joy and delight, and if Leslie took their good fortune more quietly, she was not lacking in gratitude. In this new life she would not only find peace, please God, but work—work that in time might bring her forgetfulness of the past. And the forgetfulness, for which she prayed nightly, was as much of happiness as she dared hope for.
The lily that has been beaten down by the storm may live and bloom still, but the chances are that it will never again rear its stately head as of old.
The evening hymn was finished; Leslie struck the bell on the desk before her, and in her sweet voice said "Good-afternoon, children," and with an answering "Good-afternoon, teachers," the children trooped out.
Lucy went and stood beside Leslie, and watched the happy throng as it ran laughing and shouting to the meadow.
"How happy they are, Leslie, and how good, too! I am sure they are the best children in the world! And many of them are so pretty and rosy; and they are all healthy—all except two or three. I should hate to have a school full of sickly, undergrown children, all peevish and weary and discontented; but all ours are cheerful and willing."
"They would find it hard to be otherwise where you are, Lucy," said Leslie, looking at the happy face with a loving smile.
"Oh, I—oh, yes; I'm cheerful enough," said Lucy, laughingand blushing. "I'm just running over with happiness and contentment; but I'm afraid that they couldn't get on very fast if I were quite alone with them. They wouldn't mind me enough. Now you—"
"Are they afraid of me?" said Leslie, smiling.
"No, no!" Lucy hastened to respond. "Afraid? no, no! But they look up to you, and think more of your good opinion already. Oh, I can see that, short as the time has been. They were quite right up in London in making you the head-mistress, dear. Are you tired, Leslie? It has been rather hot for the time of year, and the children, good as they are, make a noise. Does your head ache? I'm afraid you will find it rather trying at first."
"I am not tired, and my head doesn't ache in the least," said Leslie, "and why should I, more than you, find it trying, Lucy? and, dear, I want you to let me have the English history class. You have got more than your fair share. Did you think that I should not notice it? I believe you would take all the work if I would let you, you greedy girl."
Lucy blushed—she blushed on the slightest provocation.
"I don't want you to work too hard, Leslie," she said. "You are not strong yet, not nearly so strong as I am, and you felt the awful grinding for that exam. more than I did because you were not used to it, and had to do it in a shorter time; and so I am going to take care of you."
Leslie laughed.
"Why, I could lift you up and carry you round the room, little girl!" she said, in loving banter; "and it is I who have to take care of you. But we'll take care of each other, Lucy. And now let us go in to tea."
They went into the little house, and the small maid who was house-maid, parlor-maid, and cook rolled into one, had set out the tea in the cosy parlor, fragrant with the musk and mignonette which bloomed in the window-box. Lucy looked round with a sigh of ineffable content.
"Isn't it delicious, Leslie?" she exclaimed with bated breath. "I feel like Robinson Crusoe!"
"Robinson Crusoe with everything ready made for him and all the luxuries?" said Leslie, laughingly.
"Yes, that's what I mean," assented Lucy naively. "All through I looked forward to something like this, but my dreams never reached anything half so delightful. For one thing, I never dreamed that I should have you for a companion and friend. I thought that there would be sure to be a thorn in my bed of roses, and that that thorn would probably take the shape of a disagreeable head-mistress—some horrid, middle-aged, disagreeable person who would be always complaining and scolding. But you! Mother writes that I must have exaggerated just to please her when I described the school and told her what you were like; but I didn't exaggerate a bit. Oh, Leslie"—she stopped with a slice of bread and butter half-wayto her mouth—"do you think we are too happy—that something will happen to spoil it all?"
Leslie smiled.
"I think not," she said. "It is only those who don't deserve to be happy whose happiness doesn't last. Now you, Lucy—But give me some more tea, and don't try and croak, because you make the most awful failure of it."
Lucy's face wreathed itself in its wonted smile again.
"I wonder whether there are two happier girls in all the world than you and I, Leslie?" she said. "What shall we do this evening—go for a walk? You haven't been into the village yet. Will you come? It is such a pretty, quaint little place, with the tiniest and most delightful church you ever saw! Isn't it strange that we should be pitchforked down here into a place we know nothing about and never heard of? It is like Robinson Crusoe again. I hope the natives will not be savage!"
Leslie looked up from the copy-book she was examining.
"We shall have very little to do with the natives, savage or friendly, Lucy," she said.
"Of course not," assented Lucy, cheerfully. "I suppose the clergyman's wife will call—Oh, I forgot! He said the first morning he came to read prayers that he wasn't married. But the squire's lady will drive up in a carriage and pair, and walk through the school with her eyeglass up. But no one else will come to bother us. You see," she ran on, jumping up to water the flowers in the window, "school-teachers are supposed to be neither fish, flesh nor fowl—and not very good red herring. People don't visit them."
"That is good news for school-teachers, at any rate," said Leslie, smiling.
"Yes; we don't want anybody, do we, dear? You and I together can be quite happy without the rest of the world. And now about our walk. Shall we go, Leslie?"
"I don't think I will this evening, Lucy. I will stay and go over these books. But you shall go on a voyage of discovery, and bring back a full and particular account of your adventures."
"No, no! I'll stay," began Lucy. But Leslie looked up at her with the expression Lucy had learned to know so well. "Very well, dear," she said, gently. "I will just run into the village and order some things we want and come straight back; and mind, you are not to do all those copy-books, or I shall feel hurt and injured."
Leslie worked away at her exercise books for some little time; then she drew a chair up to the window, and, letting her hands lie in her lap, enjoyed the rest which she had earned by a day's toil, but not unexpected toil.
As she sat there, looking out dreamily at the lane, which the setting sun was filling with a golden haze, she felt very much like the Hermit of St. Martin. She had refused to go down to the village with Lucy from choice, and not from any sense ofduty toward the exercise books. She felt that she and the world had, so to speak, done with each other, and she shrunk from encountering new faces and the necessity of talking to strangers. If fate would let her live out her life in this modest cottage she would be contented to confine herself to the little garden surrounding it, and perhaps the meadows beyond.
With her children and her flowers she was convinced that she could be, if not happy, at any rate not discontented. She had lived her life, young as she was. Fate could give her no joy to equal that which Yorke's love—or fancied love—had given; nor could it deal out to her a more bitter sorrow than the loss of Yorke and her father. So let Lucy act as a go-between between her and the outer world, and she (Leslie) would work when she could, and when she could not, would live over again in her mind and memory that happy past which had been summed up in a few all too brief days.
Of Yorke she had heard nothing. She had never read a society paper in her life, and was not likely to have seen one during the last busy month, so that she knew nothing of the engagement between him and Lady Eleanor Dallas. And if she had known, if she had chanced to have read the paragraphs in which the betrothal was announced and commented on, she would not have identified Lord Auchester with Yorke, "the Duke of Rothbury," as she thought him. Sometimes, this evening, for instance, she wondered with a dull, aching pain, which always oppressed her whenever she thought of him, where he had gone, and whether he still remembered, whether he regretted the flirtation "he had carried on with the girl at Portmaris," or, whether he only laughed over it—perhaps with the dark, handsome woman, the Finetta to whom he had gone back!
The sun had set behind the hills, and the twilight had crept over the scene before Lucy came hurrying up the path.
"Did you think I was lost, Leslie?" she said, with a laugh.
Leslie looked round, and though it was nearly dark in the room, she saw that Lucy's eyes were particularly bright, and that there was a flush on her cheeks which did not appear to have been caused by her haste.
"It sounds very unkind, but I was not thinking of you, dear," she said. "It is late, I suppose. Where have you been?"
Lucy came up to the window, tossing her straw hat and light jacket on the sofa as she passed.
"Leslie, you said something about adventures when I was starting—"
"Did I?" said Leslie. "And have you had any? Let me look at you? You look flushed and excited. What is it, Lucy?"
"Yes, I have had an adventure," she said, her soft, guileless eyes drooping for a moment, then lifting themselves candidly to Leslie's again. "But let me begin at the beginning, as children say. Leslie, you must go and see the village. It isthe dearest little place in all the world, and just like one of the pictures one sees at the Academy. You will want to sketch it the moment you see it, I know. Well, I went to the shop—oh, the funniest shop you ever saw! You go down two steps into it, and even then it is only just high enough for you to stand up in. And they sell everything—tapes, treacle, soap, snuff, laces, biscuits—everything! And the woman that keeps it is the mother of one of our girls, and she made ever so much of me, and sent her best respects to you—'the beautiful teacher,' as she said the girls all called you!"
"Is it all fiction, or only the last sentence, Lucy?" said Leslie.
"My dear Leslie, I have heard them call you so myself!" said Lucy. "I went to the butcher's—the butcher is one of nature's noblemen, and took my order for four mutton chops as if I were a princess ordering a whole sheep—and then I went out into the country beyond, and if I were to tell you what I think of it you would say I was exaggerating—"
"Which you never do, of course," put in Leslie, gravely.
"It is simply heavenly!" continued Lucy, ignoring the insinuation. "Such lovely meadows and tree-covered hills, and there is a delicious river full of trout—so a man who was working close by said. Can you throw a fly, Leslie? I can, and I will teach you. It is the jolliest fun in the world, fishing. And when I got to the opening out of the valley, I saw a tremendous house—a great white place on the brow of a hill. It took me quite by surprise, for I had no idea that there were any great people living near us—well, not exactly near, for this must be four or five miles off. I asked a man who lived there and he said that it belonged to a lady—Lady—there! I have forgotten the name after all, and I wanted to remember it to tell you."
"Never mind," said Leslie.
"She is an awfully great lady, and tremendously rich, my informant said. I wish I could remember her name! It was rather a pretty one. Well, then"—she paused a moment, and her color came and went—"I thought I would rest for a little while, and I sat down on a big stone, up a little grassy lane, and while I was sitting there quiet as a mouse, I heard the sound of a horse's hoofs on the short turf and, so suddenly it made me jump, a huge horse came galloping up. He saw me and shied—goodness, how he shied! I thought the man on his back must be thrown, but he sat there like—like a rock! But he swore—I don't think he saw me at first, Leslie; in fact, I am sure he didn't, for when he did he raised his hat as if to apologize for the bad words, and then rode on."
"Is that all?" said Leslie, with a smile. "I thought you were going to say, at the very least, that he stooped down and caught you up and you would have been carried off into captivity but for a gallant young man who ran up and seized the horse, etc., etc., etc."
"Leslie!" remonstrated Lucy, laughing and blushing. "Hedidn't stop a moment or speak, of course, but rode on straight away. But, Leslie, you never saw such a handsome man or such a sad-looking one—"
"The Knight of the Woful Countenance," said Leslie.
Lucy laughed, but rather gravely.
"Well, if you had seen him I don't think you would have laughed, Leslie; he looked so wretched and weary, and—I don't know exactly how to describe it—so reckless! He seemed as if he didn't care where he was riding or whether the horse kept straight on or fell."
"So that he kept straight on and didn't fall on or run over you, it is all right," said Leslie. "But, Lucy dear, I don't think you must be out so late and alone again, especially if there are reckless young men riding about the roads and lanes."
"Yes," said Lucy; "but I haven't come to the end of my adventures yet, Leslie."
"Not yet?"
"No," said Lucy, almost shyly. "Of course, I was rather startled by that horse thundering by—it was so very big and it passed so near, almost on to me, you know—and I suppose I must have called out." She blushed. "It was very foolish, I know, and I know you wouldn't have done so."
"Don't be too sure! Did the knight come back, Lucy?"
"No, no," and the blush grew more furious, "of course he did not. I don't suppose he heard me; but some one else did, for there came up the moment afterward a gentleman—"
"Not another on horseback, Lucy? Don't be too prodigal of your mounted heroes."
Lucy laughed.
"No, this one was not on horseback; he was walking, and was quite a different-looking man to the other, though he was nearly, yes, nearly as good looking."
"Two handsome young men in one evening; isn't that rather an unfair allowance?" said Leslie.
Lucy smiled.
"I knew you would make fun of it all, Leslie," she said, "and I don't mind in the least. I like to hear you, and, after all, there was nothing serious in it."
"I should hope not, Lucy."
"Leslie, you really don't deserve that I should tell you any more—you don't, indeed."
"Pray, don't punish me so severely," responded Leslie; "my levity only conceals an overpowering curiosity. What did the second stranger say or do?"
"Well, he said—and he couldn't say much less, could he?—'are you hurt?'"
"How you must have screamed! I suppose if I had been listening I should have heard you here."
"And of course I said no," continued Lucy, severely ignoring this remark, "and that I had only been a little startled by the horse. He asked me if I knew who it was, and when I said'no', he looked as if he were going to tell me, but instead he asked if I knew the way to the railway station."
"Now don't say that you told him and that he raised his hat and went off," said Leslie, with mock earnestness.
Lucy laughed, but said, shyly: "Well, I told him, but he didn't go—just at once. He asked me one or two other questions—which was the nearest village, and so on—and, of course, I had to answer that I was a stranger, and then we both laughed, or rather he smiled, for he seemed very grave and preoccupied. I think he was a lawyer or something of that sort. He looked like a business man; and presently he said, as if accounting for his being there, that he had walked from White Place—that was the house on the hill-side—and that he was going back to London, and—and—well, that's all!"
"Are you quite sure that was all?" asked Leslie, with burlesque severity.
Lucy's fair face flushed.
"Y-yes. Oh!—I'd got a fern-root in my hand; I meant to put in the garden below the window—and he noticed it, and said that he wished they had them in London, and—well, I offered it to him—"
"Lucy!"
Lucy jumped up.
"Really—really and honestly, Leslie, I did it without thinking! and he took it at once without any fuss or nonsense. You see, he was a gentleman," she added, with delicious simplicity.
Leslie shook her head with a smile.
"It is all too evident that you are not to be trusted out alone, my dear," she said. "Why, Lucy!"—for something like tears had began to glitter in Lucy's gentle eyes—"why, you silly girl, I am only in fun! Why should you not direct a stranger to the railway station, and why shouldn't you give him the fern he coveted, poor, smoke-dried Londoner. There was nothing wrong in it."
"You are quite sure, Leslie? Afterward—afterward, as I was walking home, it seemed to me that I had perhaps, been—unladylike." The awful word left her lips in a horrified whisper.
"My dear, you couldn't be if you tried," said Leslie, with quiet decision. "Now run and put your things away and we will talk it all over again while we are having supper. 'Unladylike!'" She took the gentle, 'good'-looking face in her hands and kissed it. "You are very clever, Lucy, but that is the one thing you could never attain to."
They sat for a long time over their simple meal, talking of their school, discussing the various capacities of the pupils, arranging classes, and so on; and once or twice Leslie referred to Lucy's 'adventures,' and declared that she did not believe a word of them, and that Lucy had invented the whole to amuse her, little suspecting that the big house Lucy had seen was the famous White Place belonging to Lady EleanorDallas, that the horseman was Lord Yorke Auchester, and that the stranger who "looked like a lawyer" and who had walked off with Lucy's fern was Ralph Duncombe.
Lady Eleanor was happy, and, unlike a great many persons, was not ashamed to admit that she was.
"Why should I be ashamed or try to hide my joy?" she said to Lady Denby, who remarked her niece's high spirits, and her evident satisfaction with her own condition and the world in general. "I am happy! happy! happy! and every one may know it."
"They do know it, my dear," said Lady Denby, dryly.
"And they are welcome to!" retorted Lady Eleanor, laughingly. "I count myself the luckiest girl in the world! I am young, not hideously plain, rich—very rich, Mr. Duncombe says—by the way, aunt, you will be very careful not to mention his name in Yorke's hearing—and I am going to marry the man I have been in love with ever since I was so high. I wake in the middle of the night—and I am glad to wake—and I tell myself all this over and over again. It seems too good to be true, sometimes; but I know it is all true when the morning comes. Oh, yes, I am happy at last!"
"And Yorke is very happy, too?" said Lady Denby. And the moment after the question had left her lips she was sorry she had asked it, and she hastened to add: "But of course he is. Men generally look poorly when they are particularly happy, I've noticed, just as they invariably blow their noses when they want to cry!"
"Why shouldn't he be happy?" said Lady Eleanor, after a pause; but her face had grown almost grave and almost troubled. "As you say, men don't go about as if they were dancing to music, as we women do, and they don't sing as we do. And—and if Yorke is not boisterous—Why did you say that?" she demanded, suddenly changing her tone and turning upon Lady Denby anxiously and nearly angrily. "Do you think he looks dissatisfied—as if—as if he were sorry?"
"My dear child, your love for that young fellow is softening your brain," responded Lady Denby, quietly. "Of course, I have noticed nothing. He is quiet; but I suppose most men who are on the brink of matrimony are quiet. They hear the clanking of their chains as they are being forged, and are thinking of the time when they will be riveted upon them. No man really likes being married."
"There shall be no chains for Yorke!" said Lady Eleanor, softly; "or, if there must be, then I will cover them with velvet. You shall see—you shall see!"
Certainly, Yorke did not go about as if to invisible music, or sing as he went; and he was, as Lady Denby put it, quiet—very quiet. But ifhe was not boisterous, he was everything else that a woman could desire in a betrothed. He spent a portion of each day at Kensington Palace Gardens. He was always ready to accompany Lady Eleanor to the park, the theater, concerts, balls, and even shopping. Indeed, the patience with which he would stroll up and down Bond Street or Oxford Street, smoking cigarette after cigarette, while Lady Eleanor was shopping, was worthy of the highest commendation, and immensely calculated to astonish his wild bachelor friends. What he thought about as he paced slowly up and down the hot pavements of those fashionable thoroughfares heaven only knows! At any rate, it is well that Lady Eleanor didn't.
Every morning he rode with her in the park—there was no need to sell his horse now or to sack Fleming—and the loungers on the rails as they raised their hats to his beautiful companion growled enviously: "Lucky beggar! going to marry the prettiest and richest girl of the season! Some men get all the plums in this world's pudding!" Altogether he spent a great deal of his time in the society of his betrothed; but there were still some hours of the day in which he was free to amuse himself after his own devices, and he might have passed a very pleasant time, for there was still a large contingent of his friends in town, and there were outings at the Riverside Club, drives to Richmond, and so on. But Yorke was seen in none of the places where the youth of his sex most do congregate; and he spent the hours of his freedom in long walks into the country around London, or in the smoking-room of the quietest of the clubs. And he was always alone—alone, with that strange, absent look in his eyes—that far-away look which lets out the secret, and tells all who see it that a man's mind is wandering either backward or forward; generally backward.
All the world knew of his engagement, and every man who met him congratulated him—all the world except the Duke of Rothbury, from whom no word of congratulation had come.
"Have you written to Godolphin?" Lady Eleanor had asked, shyly, and Yorke, with a little start, had said "no;" that there was no occasion. He would see it in the papers. "But he may not. They only get Galignani in Switzerland; at least, I never could get anything else," said Lady Eleanor. But Yorke had put off writing. He would not have admitted it to himself, but he shrunk from writing to Dolph and telling him that he, the duke, was right, and that Leslie was forgotten. Forgotten! Of what was he thinking as he strode through the country lanes, as he sat in a corner of the smoking-room, silent and moody, but of Leslie? Always Leslie!
The time comes when everybody—excepting a few millions—leaves London.
"Shall you go to Scotland, Yorke?" Lady Eleanor asked. She knew he had half a dozen invitations this year. He was never without them any autumn, but this year they were morenumerous than usual. Yorke Auchester running loose and up to his ears in debt, and Yorke Auchester engaged to Lady Eleanor Dallas were two very different persons and by a singular coincidence everybody who had a house and a moor in the Highlands invited him. But he said he would not go to Scotland.
"I'm tired of it!" he said. "The place is eaten up by tourists at this time of the year. I'd rather stay in London!"
"Well, then, I will not go. I was going to the Casaubon's, but I will send an excuse—"
"Oh, no, don't do that!" he said, with the most unselfish alacrity. "Don't you stay up in town for my sake; it's beastly dull now, I know."
Lady Eleanor thought a moment.
"I will tell you what I will do," she said. "Aunt and I will go to White Place. It is just a nice distance from town, and—and if you should ever think of running down, why—aunt will be glad to see you, sir."
The ladies went to White Place, and Yorke stayed in town. But, of course, he ran down to the big house very frequently, and when he went he was made much of, as was only right and natural. Would not the place be his own some day, or at any rate would he not be the lord and master of the mistress of it? Indeed, the servants received him as if he were already master, and understood that their quickest and shortest way of pleasing their mistress was by winning the favor of this handsome lover of hers. Everything was done that man—ah! and woman; and how much quicker is woman—could do to amuse and please him. A stud of horses filled the stables—his own being the most honorably housed—the keepers received carte blanche as to the game; a suite of rooms in the best position, and so luxuriously furnished that poor Yorke laughed grimly when he first entered them—was set apart for him. Lady Eleanor would have filled the house with guests, but it seemed that Yorke was not in the humor for company. "Which is so nice and sweet of him!" murmured Lady Eleanor. His favorite wine had been brought down from London, and the cook had a list of the dishes to which his lordship was most partial. Happy! If he was not happy he was the most ungrateful man among the sons of them.
"You are spoiling him, my dear," Lady Denby ventured to remonstrate gently. It was the morning that Lady Eleanor had given orders for a special wire from the station to the house, so that his highness might let them know when he was coming. "You are spoiling him all you know how, and that's always a bad thing for a man, especially before marriage; because, you see, when he is married he will expect to be spoiled a great deal more—and you haven't left yourself any room."
"I dare say," Lady Eleanor retorted. "I don't care. Besides, it isn't true. You can't spoil Yorke."
"Do you mean that nature has done it for you already?" said Lady Denby, sweetly.
"Nature!" flashed Lady Eleanor, her face flushing proudly; "nature spoiled him! Oh, where is there a handsomer man, a stronger, a finer than my Yorke?"
"My dear, you are a raving lunatic," remarked Lady Denby, in despair.
Certainly if he were being spoiled Yorke did not grow less careful in his devoirs. He was as ready, as on the day of his engagement, to attend his betrothed; and when they walked and drove together he was always close at her side, and never wanting in those attentions which the woman finds so precious when they are paid by the man she loves. And with it all she watched him so closely, was so careful not to bore him. In the matter of business, for instance, most women having so much money would have wanted to talk over with her future husband this investment and the other; but Lady Eleanor knew Yorke better than to attempt anything of the kind. Ralph Duncombe still remained her guide, philosopher, and friend in business matters, and it was understood between Ralph Duncombe and her—without a word having passed—that his name was never to be mentioned in Lord Auchester's hearing, and that they were never to meet.
One day, however—the day Yorke had galloped past Lucy in the lane, they had very nearly met face to face, for Ralph Duncombe had left the house only a few moments before Yorke had entered. Yorke had come down from London for a few hours, and had ridden with Lady Eleanor, and she had thought that he was going to remain for dinner; but quite suddenly he had announced that he must get back to town; once or twice lately he had had similar fits of restlessness, and had come and gone unexpectedly. Lady Eleanor did not press him to stay; his chains, even now, should be covered with velvet; and he had ridden off, having arranged to leave his horse at the station, to be fetched by a groom.
He trotted down the drive quietly enough, looking back once or twice to smile and wave his hand at Lady Eleanor, who stood on the steps watching him; but once out of sight he stuck the spurs into the horse, and the high-spirited animal bounded off like a shot from a gun.
And as he tore across the lawns and down the road, the devil that sat behind Yorke Auchester taunted and upbraided him after the manner of devils.
"You ungrateful hound! why can't you be happy? Why can't you rest and be content? You are going to marry one of the loveliest women in England; you are going to be rich—rich! you, who hadn't a penny—haven't a penny of your own; you are envied by every man who knows you, and thousands who don't, but have only read of you in the papers! What do you want, man—what do you want?"
And all Yorke could answer with a groan was, "One more moonlit night at Portmaris with Leslie by my side. Leslie, Leslie!"
The horse was in a lather when they reached the station;but his master was not tired—that was one of his troubles, the difficulty of getting tired enough to be sleepy—and directly he got to town he set off walking, and the devil of unrest trudged behind him, as he had sat behind him on the horse.
He, Yorke, and the demon with him, turned into the club at last, and Yorke ordered some dinner. The footman brought him the carte de jour, but Yorke flicked it from him.
"Bring me what you like," he said indifferently, and he was eating it as indifferently when Lord Vinson sauntered up.
"Halloo, Auchester!" he said. Yorke nodded absently, not to say, surlily. "All alone? I'll join you."
He sat down, and after studying the carte with devout attention, ordered his dinner, and then, having disposed of his soup, wanted to talk.
"Just seen Finetta," he said. Yorke looked up swiftly, but said nothing; and Vinson went on, as he picked the bones from his red mullet. "'Pon my soul, I think all women are mad—I do, indeed!"
"Why?" said Yorke. He was bound to say something.
"Why, take Fin, for instance. There she is at the top of the tree, earning thousands a year, a regular popular favorite; and, hang me, if she doesn't shirk her work at the theater three days out of six, and actually talk about cutting the shop altogether! Seems to have lost her senses lately. And she used to be so cute at one time, eh?"
Yorke said nothing, but bowed at his plate.
"By the way, you and she have had a row, haven't you?" said Vinson, after a moment or two.
"A row? No. Why?"
"Oh, well, I didn't know. But when I mentioned your name the other day, she just flared up in a way to make a man see stars. Awful! I don't know what she isn't going to do to you!"
"She's welcome to do all she likes, when she likes, and how she likes," said Yorke, fiercely. "For God's sake talk of something else!"
Now, when a man is told to "talk of something else," he usually obeys by talking of nothing; and Vinson made haste with his dinner, and left the table, muttering something about wanting to see the evening papers.
"Seems to me that Auchester is going out of his mind," he said to a friend; and he nodded behind the paper toward Yorke. "Snapped me up just now as if he meant to knock my head off. Too much luck, that's what's the matter! Who's the favorite for the sweepstakes, eh?"
He unfolded the paper as he spoke, and glanced down the columns, and as he did so he uttered an exclamation.
"What's the matter with you?" demanded his friend.
"Hush!" whispered Vinson; and he clutched the man's arm and led him to a part of the room out of reach of Yorke's glowering eyes. "By great goodness! talk of luck! Look here! Oh, Moses! did you ever?"
"Let me see!" said his friend impatiently. "You clutch that paper as if—What is it? Eh? Oh!"
They both stared at the paragraph to which Vinson pointed in silence for a moment or two. Then Vinson said in a whisper:
"Do you think he has seen it?"
"Not he! Do you think he would sit like that?" retorted the other man.
"Then—then we ought to break it to him, eh?" said Vinson. "By George! I don't half like the job. Here, you come with me!"
They both approached the table, and Yorke nodded to the other man, but did not extend a warmer greeting.
"Not in Scotland, old man?" said Vinson, quaking a little.
"What do you mean?" demanded Yorke, glaring at him. "I'm here, as you see."
"Not even yachting? Er—er—when did you see Lord Eustace last—your uncle, you know?"
Yorke looked from one to the other as if he thought they had lost their senses.
"What?" he said, impatiently. "When did I see—Why do you ask?"
"Oh, show it to him!" said Vinson, desperately. "I told you I should mull it!"
The other man held the paper to Yorke and pointed to a paragraph, and Yorke taking it—and not too courteously—out of his hand, read this:
"We regret to announce the death of Lord Eustace Auchester and his two sons. His lordship was yachting in the Mediterranean, and the vessel, being overtaken by a sudden squall, capsized. Their lordships and the crew, four in number, were all lost. Lord Eustace Auchester was the heir to the Dukedom of Rothbury, which will now descend to his nephew, Lord Yorke Auchester."
Yorke gazed at the printed words for a time as if he failed to grasp their significance. Then his face paled—paled slowly till it was white as death.
"Hold up, old man!" said Vinson. "Dash it all, I wish I'd broken it better! Here, take some wine!"
But Yorke, pushing the wine from him, rose, the paper still in his hand, and, as if he had forgotten the presence of the two men, stared wildly before him. Then, to their horror, he broke into a hoarse laugh.
"Why, she should have waited!" he exclaimed, bitterly, and as if he were speaking to himself. "Yes, if she had waited she would have been a duchess, after all!"
Yorke walked straight out of the club, leaving the two men staring at each other in amazement.
"Good Lord! poor Auchester is clean off his balance. Do you think it is the shock—that it was because we did not break it gently enough?"
The other man shook his head.
"N-o, I don't think so. He's been very queer in his manner lately, and—But who the devil did he mean when he said, 'She might have been a duchess?'"
Yorke strode along Pall Mall bewildered and stunned. At first he was too confused to feel anything; then regret and grief came uppermost. He was genuinely sorry. You may dislike your uncle and cousins, and yet be far from wishing them dead; and Yorke's eyes were moist, and there was a lump in his throat as he thought of his three kinsmen lying at the bottom of the Mediterranean.
Then he began to realize what their unexpected and tragic death meant to him. There was only Dolph between him and the dukedom, and poor Dolph could not make old bones, and as it bore down upon him with its full significance, the terrible bitterness which had overwhelmed him at the club recurred. The turn of the wheel of fortune had come too late. If it had happened a month—five weeks earlier, he would not have been driven into a corner, the only way out of which was by a marriage with Eleanor Dallas.
"Too late!" he muttered. "Yes! if it had come sooner I might have kept Leslie;" but his heart revolted against his thought, and he swore under his breath, "No, no! It was the title she wanted, not me. It is better that she has gone!"
He went home and saw by Fleming's face that he had heard the sad news. Poor Fleming tried to look cut up, but it was hard work, seeing that he had been saying to himself since the moment he had read the paragraph, "My master will be a duke!"
"Dreadful news, my lord," he said, in the tone proper to the occasion.
"Yes, yes, Fleming," said Yorke, gravely.
"Your lordship will go over, I suppose?"
Yorke started slightly. He had not as yet thought of this, his obvious duty.
"Yes," he said. "Get some things ready and look out the time-table."
"Yes, my lord. Your lordship will go down to White Place first?" suggested Fleming, respectfully.
Yorke hesitated, but he assented.
"I'm to go abroad with you, my lord?" said Fleming tentatively, and Yorke nodded.
"You can if you like—just as you like," he said.
"Thank you, my Lord, I will go," said Fleming. "Your lordship may want things done, and I may be useful."
"You are always that," Yorke said; and it was just such simple expressions of appreciation as this that won the regard and devotion of Fleming and his kind.
Yorke went off to White Place that night. He was tired, but he could not sleep in the train, though he tried. His mind was too overburdened with thought. Late as it was, the ladies were up, and they had heard the news from a servant who had brought an evening paper from town.
Its effect upon Lady Eleanor was strange, and puzzled Lady Denby at first, for Lady Eleanor let the paper drop from her hand, and stood staring before her with an expression in her eyes which was rather that of some vague dread than sorrow.
Lady Denby went to her and drew her to a couch.
"It is terribly sudden, and I am not surprised at your being upset, dear," she said. "But—What is it, Eleanor? You are not going to faint?" for Lady Eleanor had swayed and fallen back with the look of dread still in her eyes.
She recovered after a moment, and the tears came.
"Oh, poor things, poor things! Oh, it is dreadful; but God forgive me, it was not of them I was thinking but of—of Yorke and myself!"
"Of Yorke?" said Lady Denby, puzzled still.
"Yes," said Lady Eleanor, in a low and half-shamed voice. "Don't you see the—the wedding must be put off now!"
Lady Denby stroked her hand soothingly.
"Yes, of course, dear; but there is nothing in that to frighten you; for you look frightened, Eleanor."
"Seems like—like a judgment on me; as if heaven were angry and meant to throw obstacles in the way——."
"Oh, my dear Eleanor!"
"Yes! You don't know—you don't understand what I feel! And I felt so happy, so safe! and now—How long do you think it will be necessary to put it off?"
Lady Denby was very nearly shocked.
"The suddenness of this terrible news has upset you, Eleanor," she said, gravely; "but for heaven's sake don't talk so—so callously."
"You do not know!" repeated Lady Eleanor, with a deep sigh. "It is not that I do not feel for them. Ah, yes, I do, keenly; as keenly as you can; but—but it is as if it were fated that something should occur to prevent our marriage." She was silent for a moment; and then she said, as if to herself: "He will be the duke. I am sorry."
"Sorry!" Lady Denby stared at her.
"Yes," said Lady Eleanor, in the same low, reflective voice. "Yes; I would rather he was what he is, and—and poor. I would rather that he owed everything to me. Now—now it will be I who will owe much to him."
"That is as fine a sample of pride as I have ever met with," said Lady Denby.
"Is it?" said Lady Eleanor. "You do not know or understand. Do you think"—she looked up with a look of pain in her beautiful eyes—"do you think that if he were free he would wish me now to be his wife?"
"Eleanor, I have often said, in jest, that your affection for Yorke was undermining your reason; but in solemn truth I begin to think that there is some truth in my assertion. Dry your eyes and compose yourself. He will be here presently; he is sure to come the moment he hears the news. He will have to go over and see about the funeral."
"No, no; why should he?" said Lady Eleanor, then she flushed as if with shame. "Yes, yes, of course! and you think he will come?"
"There he is!" said Lady Denby, as they heard Yorke's step in the hall. "For heaven's sake don't breathe to him the charming sentiments you have favored me with."
Lady Eleanor shook her head and bit her lips to bring the color into them.
"Do not fear," she said. "It is only when I am alone or with you that I show my doubts and fears."
Yorke came in and took her in his arms and kissed her.
"You have heard the news, Eleanor, I see," he said gravely.
"Yes, it is dreadful, dreadful! To think that all three should be gone—those two poor boys! You are going over, Yorke?" for he had got on his traveling ulster.
"Yes; I am going to meet Fleming at Charing Cross to-morrow morning. I shall have to go back at once."
"At once! It was good of you to come so far just to say good-by; but you are always good to me, Yorke," and she laid her head on his shoulder. "This—this will make a difference to you, dearest?"
He did not affect not to understand her.
"Yes," he said, simply. "Two days ago there seemed little chance of my being the Duke of Rothbury. Now—but I hope and trust dear old Dolph will live to be a hundred."
"And I, and I!" she responded fervently. "I would rather have you as you are, Yorke; far, far rather."
"I'm afraid that this sad affair will delay our marriage, Eleanor," he said, and he said it as regretfully as he could.
"Yes," she whispered, her face still hidden on his shoulder—"Yes, it must, I suppose; but"—he could almost feel her blush—"but not for long?" she asked, nearly inaudibly.
"I don't know," he stammered. "I—we shall see. I must find Dolph. He was in Switzerland, but I think it is very likely that he has moved down south with the cooler weather. He will be cut up. He liked poor Eustace better than any of us did. I must go now, dear," he said, presently.
"So soon?"
"Yes, I am afraid so. Is there anything you want me to do—anything I can tell Dolph?"
She shook her head.
"There is only one thing I want," she said, in a low voice,"and that is—you! Come back as soon—the first moment you can, Yorke, and—and don't forget me!"
He would have been a far worse man than he was if he had not been touched by the depth of her love, and he kissed her with greater warmth than he had ever before shown her.
When he had gone Lady Eleanor threw herself down on the sofa and hid her face in her hands, and Lady Denby, when she came in an hour later, found her thus.
Do it as luxuriously as you may, the journey from England to the south of Italy is a tiresome and aggravating one, and Yorke reached Policastro—the place at which the bodies were lying—worn out mentally and physically. It was fortunate that the devoted Fleming had accompanied him, and never did his devotion display itself more plainly or to better advantage. There were a number of persons, busybodies, there, who would have surrounded Lord Auchester at once—the whole coast was in a state of excitement over the catastrophe—but Fleming kept them at bay, and insisted upon his master taking some rest before he commenced the painful duties necessitated by the circumstances.
"His lordship isn't going to see any one to-night," he assured the landlord of the hotel. "Not if it was the King of Italy himself. If anybody wants to know anything, let them come to me."
The landlord only half understood, but he was considerably awed by Fleming's tone, and departed shrugging his shoulders and spreading out his hands after the manner of his nation.
In the morning Yorke went and identified the bodies and arranged for the funeral, and was returning to the hotel when he met Grey, the duke's valet.
"His grace has just arrived, my lord. I came to meet you," he said. "I hope your lordship is well?" he added, respectfully, and with rather a serious glance at Yorke's face.
Yorke nodded.
"All right, thank you, Grey," he said. "And the duke?"
Grey hesitated.
"About as well as usual, I hope, my lord," he said, quietly. "This sad affair has upset him, of course, and—and he hasn't been very strong lately—not since we left England, indeed, my lord. Your lordship will find him looking thinner," he added, as if to warn Yorke.
Yorke quickened his pace, and Grey led him to the duke's room.
The room was darkened by the drawn blinds, and Yorke, coming out of the sunlight saw but indistinctly for a moment; then, as the duke raised himself on the couch, he started and found speech difficult. The duke was but a shadow of even his former self, and the hand which he extended was so thin that Yorke was afraid to press it.
"Why, Dolph," he said, with forced cheerfulness, "this is a surprise! How did you come here?"
"We have been traveling night and day, as you have nodoubt," said the duke, and his voice sounded much thinner and more feeble than when Yorke had last heard it. "Pull up an inch or two of one of the blinds and let me look at you."
Yorke did so, and came back to the couch, and the duke, after scanning his face, fell back with a faint sigh.
"And so you are going to be the next duke, after all. How you and I have fretted—No, I don't know that you ever cared much, but I did—and it has all come right at last! The Providence that 'shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will,' has decreed that poor Eustace and his boys should go down there in the bay and that you should reign in his place!"
"I wish they were all alive still," said Yorke, with sincerity.
"I know you do," responded the duke. "But I can't help thinking, as I have always thought, that you will make a good duke, Yorke. You have the presence and the moral strength, and a better temper than poor Eustace. He was too fond of his money. But of the dead let us speak nothing but good. And now about yourself. Why did you not write and tell me of your engagement? Never mind; I understand. And if I did not write and tell you I was glad, you knew it without any epistolatory assurance from me. You have done wisely, Yorke, very wisely. Eleanor has everything that a man wants in a wife—youth, beauty, wealth and station. She will make a splendid duchess, Yorke."
"Yes," said Yorke, staring at the carpet moodily.
"I suppose I must hang on until you are married," said the duke, as cheerfully and coolly as if he were talking of somebody else. "Once or twice lately I have been inclined to throw up the sponge, but somehow I've got a hankering to see you settled; and then I suppose I shall want to live long enough to take the next heir on my knee. Men are never satisfied. But I don't suppose I shall be able to hold out till then."
"For heaven's sake, don't talk such arrant nonsense!" Yorke said, emphatically. "You are no worse than you were."
The duke smiled at him calmly but significantly.
"My dear fellow, I am hanging on to life by my eyelashes," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone.
"You must get back to England as quickly as possible," said Yorke, trying to speak in an assured and perfectly confident voice. "There is nothing like England in the winter, after all. Come back and let Eleanor nurse you."
"That's an inducement, certainly," said the duke. "Eleanor and I were always good friends."
There was silence for a few moments; then the duke, after glancing once or twice at Yorke's grave face, said, in a low voice that faltered:
"There—there is no news of—of—"
He stopped.
"Of whom?" said Yorke, with a frown, though he knew well enough.
"Of Leslie," said the duke, and a faint flush passed over his emaciated face.
Yorke shook his head.
"No," he replied, clearing his throat. "No, I have seen nothing and heard nothing of her since I left Portmaris."
"She must have gone out of England," said the duke, knitting his brows. "Her father being an artist—as he thinks himself, poor fellow—would be ready enough to come abroad here on the Continent. It is strange that I have not run across them."
Yorke said nothing, but the frown on his forehead deepened and darkened.
"When I shuffle off this mortal coil you will find in my will that I have mentioned—Leslie." He paused before the name. "You won't mind, Yorke? She wouldn't take any money from me alive, but she may not mind when I'm gone. After all, it was a cruel trick we—no, I—played her, Yorke," he said, in a remorseful tone.
"It was!" said Yorke, curtly. "But it was a test, and she failed in it."
The duke sighed. Silence again for a moment or two; then, as if he were giving speech to a thought that had occurred to him before, and often before, this he said, hesitatingly:
"Do you think—mind, I only ask you the question for the sake of asking it; I have no reason for doing so—but do you think that there was the slightest chance of our having made a mistake?"
"What do you mean?" demanded Yorke.
"I mean—well, it is difficult to say exactly what I mean. But you know—or perhaps you don't know—how sick men brood and brood over a thing. You see, we have so much time on our hands lying on our backs and counting the flies on the ceiling, that we think over things a great deal more closely than men in sound health. And—and at times a doubt has crossed my mind." He stopped. "There is no ground for it. I am sure I could not have been mistaken; she spoke only too plainly the morning we parted. Besides, there is the fact of her breaking her appointment with you; of leaving you without a word beyond the message she sent by me."
"And the message she sent by Arnheim. I met him the other day and he gave it to me; I went off too quickly on the other occasion for him to do so. It was like that she sent by you; she wished to see me no more," said Yorke, grimly.
"Yes, yes! There could be no mistake, and yet—well, I have lain and thought of her as she was when we first met her, do you remember?"
Yorke smiled grimly. Did he remember?
"So girlish and innocent; so quick to be pleased, and so grateful," he sighed.
"Yes; sometimes it has seemed impossible to me that she should have been so base and mercenary. But there could beno mistake, as you say. And, mind, I should not have said this if you had still been unsettled and hankering after her; but now——."
"Don't say it now, either!" broke out Yorke, springing to his feet and pacing up and down. "For God's sake, don't talk of—of that time or of her. I—I can't bear it! I beg your pardon, Dolph; but don't you see—don't you understand that though a man may cover up his wound and cease to complain, the heart may sting and ache still? I want to forget—to forget! and—and if there is any doubt—but there can't be—I've got to shut my eyes and ears to it—to put it away from me. If I did not—if I entertained it for a moment—well—" He stopped and laughed bitterly. "That way madness lies! You and I had better agree to taboo the subject. The sound of her name—How soon can we leave this place?" he broke off.
The duke sighed.
"You must get back as quickly as possible," he said. "Eleanor will miss you. The wedding need not be put off very long. You are already practically the duke. I shall pass over all the business of the estate to you at once, and it is right and fitting that you should be married. The world will see that. Three months, too, will be long enough to wait; the wedding can be a perfectly quiet one."
"Very well," said Yorke, dully. "Settle it as you like."
"Yes! it can't be too soon," said the duke, thoughtfully. "You've got to consider me, you know," and he laughed. "Look here, my lord, you may as well begin to take the burden on your shoulders. Give me that dispatch-box; there are some letters Grey has been bothering me about. It is something about the trees in the Home park at Rothbury. Cut 'em down or let 'em stand, just as you think proper. They will be yours, you know, very shortly, thank God!"