CHAPTER XXXII.
BOUGHT AND PAID FOR
A city law court is not exactly the place in which to spend a happy day – unless you happen to be a lawyer engaged in a profitable case there – and Yorke, as he entered the stuffy, grimy, murky chamber, looked round with a feeling of surprise and grim interest.
Upon the bench sat the judge in a much-worn gown and a grubby wig. A barrister was drowsing away in the 'well' of the court, and his fellows were sleeping or stretching and yawning round him.
The public was represented by half a dozen seedy-looking individuals who all looked as if they had not been to bed for a month and had forgotten to wash themselves for a like period. There was an usher, who yawned behind his wand, one or two policemen with wooden countenances, and two or three wretched-looking individuals, who were, like Yorke, defendants in various suits.
The entrance of this stalwart, well-dressed and decidedly distinguished and aristocratic personage created a slight sensation for a moment or two; then he seemed to be forgotten, and he stood and looked on, and wondered how soon his case would be heard, and whether he would be carried away to jail forthwith.
He waited for a half hour or so, feeling that he was growing dirty and grimy like the rest of the people round him, and gradually the sense of the disgrace and humiliation of his position stole over him.
Great heavens, to what a pass he had come! He had lost Leslie. He was now to lose good name and honor – everything! Would it not be better for himself and everybody connected with him if he went outside and purchased a dose of prussic acid?
The suspense, the stuffy court, the droning voice of the counsel began to drive him mad.
He went up to the usher. "Can you tell me when my case comes on?" he said.
The man looked at him sleepily.
"Your case – what name?" he asked, without any 'sir,' and with a kind of drowsy impertinence, which seemed to be in strict harmony with the air of the place.
"Auchester!" said Yorke. "I am the – the defendant."
"Horchester? Don't know. Ask the clerk," said the man.
With a sick feeling of shame Yorke went up to the man pointed out by the usher and put the same question to him.
"Auchester? Duncombe versus Auchester; Levison versus Auchester; Arack versus Auchester?" said the clerk, in a dry, business-like way.
"Yes, I dare say that's it," said Yorke, hating the sound of his own name.
The clerk looked down a list, then raised his eyes with the faintest of smiles.
"Scratched out," he said, curtly.
"Scratched out?" echoed Yorke, blankly.
"Yes, sir – my lord," said the clerk, who, while looking at the list, had come upon Yorke's title. "The cases have been removed from the list. Settled."
"Settled? I don't understand," said Yorke, staring at him. "I've only just come down – I've paid nothing."
"Some one else has, then, my lord," said the clerk. "Wait a moment till this case is heard; it will be over directly, and I'll explain."
Yorke, feeling like a man in a dream, stepped into a corner and waited. Presently the court adjourned for luncheon, and the clerk came toward him.
"This way, my lord." He led Yorke into an office. "Now, my lord. Yes, all the cases have been discharged from the list – been settled this morning."
"This morning?" echoed Yorke, mechanically, still with a vast amazement. "But – but who – I don't know who could have done this. I have not, for the best of all reasons. I came down here prepared to go to prison, or wherever else you sent me."
The clerk raised his brows and shook his head gravely.
"Yes, you would have been committed, my lord, for a certainty," he said. "You see, you let things slide too long. But there is no fear now. The money, all of it, has been paid. You are quite free, quite. I congratulate your lordship."
"But – but" – stammered Yorke, and he put his hand to his brow – "who can have done it – paid it? Is it the Duke of Rothbury?"
Could Dolph have heard of it in some extraordinary way and sent the money?
The clerk went into the inner office for a few minutes, then he came back with a slip of paper in his hand.
"I don't know whether I am doing right, my lord," he said, gravely, and even cautiously. "Perhaps I ought not to give you this information, but I trust to your lordship's discretion. You won't get me into a scrape, my lord?"
"No, no!" said Yorke, "who is it?"
The clerk handed him the slip of paper.
It was a check on Coutts' for a large – a very large – sum, and it was signed "Eleanor Dallas."
"Eleanor!"
The name broke in a kind of sigh from Yorke's lips, and his face reddened. But it was pale again as he handed the check back to the clerk.
"Thank you," he said.
He stood and looked vacantly before him as if he had forgotten where he was; then he woke with a start.
"Then I can go?" he said.
"Certainly, my lord," said the clerk. "As I said, you are quite free. There are no actions against you now; everything is squared – paid."
Yorke thanked him again, wished him good-day, and got outside.
Everything paid – and by Eleanor!
He repeated this as he walked from the city to the west; as he tramped slowly, with downcast head, across Hyde Park.
He told himself that he ought to be grateful; that he could not feel too grateful to the woman who had come to his aid and saved him from ruin and disgrace.
But he knew why she had done it, and he knew what he ought to do in return. The least he could do would be to go and kneel at her feet, and ask her to accept the life which she had snatched from disgrace. And why shouldn't he? The only woman he had ever loved had proved false, and mercenary, and base, and there was nothing now to prevent him asking Lady Eleanor to be his wife; and yet, alas! he could not get that other face out of his mind or heart.
He thought of her – she haunted him as he walked along; the clear gray eyes, so tender one moment, so full of fire and humor the next; the dark hair, the graceful figure, the sweet voice. "Oh, Leslie, Leslie! if you had but been true!" was the burden of his heart's wail.
He looked up and found himself close upon Palace Gardens; unconsciously his feet had moved in that direction. He rang the bell of Lady Eleanor's door.
Yes, her ladyship was at home, the footman said, and said it in that serene, confident tone which a servant uses when he knows that his mistress will be glad to see the visitor.
Yorke followed the man to the small drawing-room.
Lady Denby was there tying up some library books.
She started slightly as she saw his altered appearance, but she was too completely a woman of the world to let him see the start.
"Why, Yorke!" she said, "what a stranger you are! We were only speaking of you this morning at breakfast, and wondering where you were. Have you been away? Sit down – or tie up those tiresome books for me, will you? They slip and slide about in the most aggravating way. I'll go and tell Eleanor; I fancy she was going out."
She met Lady Eleanor in the hall, and drew her aside.
"Yorke is in there, Eleanor," she said.
"Yorke!"
Lady Eleanor repeated the name and started almost guiltily, almost fearfully.
"Yes, I came to tell you, and – well, yes – prepare you. I don't want you to do as I did – jump as if I'd seen a bogey man. He has been ill, or up to some deviltry or other, and he looks – well, I can't tell you how he looks. It gave me a shock. I thought I'd prepare you."
Lady Eleanor touched her hand.
"Thank you, dear. No, I won't look shocked. He looks very ill?"
"Very ill, oh! worse than ill. Like a man who has robbed a church and been found out, or lost everything he held dear."
Lady Eleanor put her handkerchief to her lips. They were trembling.
"I don't mind what he has been doing," she said.
"Oh, my dear Eleanor!"
"No, I don't. I'll go in now. Don't let any one disturb us. He – he may have come to see me to talk about something."
She went into the room, and Yorke turned to meet her. It was well that she had been forewarned of the change in his appearance. As it was, she could scarcely suppress the cry that rose to her lips.
"Well, Yorke," she said, with affected lightness, "tying up aunt's books? That is so like her. No one can come near her without getting employed. What a shame to worry you!"
"It doesn't worry me," he said.
He leaned against the table and looked down at her. There is a picture of Millais's – it is called, I think, 'A Hot-house Flower' – which Lady Eleanor might have sat for that morning, so delicate, so graceful, so refined and blanche was her beauty. She wore a loose dress of soft cashmere, cream in color, almost Greek in fashion. Her hair was like gold, her eyes placid yet tender, with a touch of subdued sadness and anxiety in them. A charming, an irresistible picture, and one that appealed to this man with the storm-beaten heart aching in his bosom.
She glanced up at him, saw the haggard face, the dark rings round the eyes, that indescribable look which pain and despair and utter abandonment produce as plainly as the die stamps the hall-mark on the piece of silver, and her heart yearned for him, for his love – yearned for the right to comfort and soothe him. Ah! if he would only have it so – if he would only let her, how happy she would make him! All this, and much more, she felt; but she looked quite placid and serene – like a dainty lily unstirred by the wind – and said in her soft voice:
"We were thinking of advertising for you Yorke. Have you been away?"
He might have answered: "Yes, I have been in the Valley of Sorrow and Tribulation, on the Desert of Dead Love and Vain Hope," but instead he replied:
"No, just here in London; but I have been busy."
She looked up and smiled.
"Busy! That sounds so strange, and so comic, coming from you!"
"And yet it is true," he said. "I have been busy thinking." If there was a touch of bitterness in his voice she did not notice it. "And that's hard work for me – it's so new, you see."
There was silence for a moment. He held the string with which he had been tying up the books in his hands, and fidgeted with it restlessly. Lady Eleanor dropped into small-talk. Had he been to the chrysanthemum show at the Temple? Had he noticed that the Duchess of Orloffe was not going to give her autumn ball? Did he —
He broke in suddenly as if he had not been listening, his voice hoarse and thick:
"Eleanor, why did you do it?"
"Why did I – do what, Yorke?" she said.
"Why did you fling so much money away upon a worthless scamp?" His face went white, then red.
"Who told you?" she breathed.
"They told me down at the court where I had gone to be disgraced," he said, "and you saved me! How can I thank you, Eleanor? How can I? And you would have done it in secret, would have kept it from me?"
"Yes, oh, yes," she murmured, her head drooping. "Don't – don't say anything about it. It was nothing – nothing!" She looked up at him eagerly, pleadingly. "Yorke, you will not think badly of me because I did it? Why shouldn't I? I am rich – you don't know how rich – and what better could I do with the stupid money than give it to a – a friend who needed it more – ten thousand times more – than I do or ever shall! Don't be angry with me, Yorke."
"Angry!" The blood flew to his face and his eyes flashed. He drew nearer to the chair in which she sat, he knelt on one knee beside her.
"Eleanor, I am utterly worthless – you know that quite well. I was not worth the saving, but as you have saved me, will you accept me? Eleanor, will you be my wife?"
Her face went white with the ecstasy which shot through her heart. Ah, for how long had she thirsted, hungered for these words from his lips! And they had come at last!
"Will you be my wife, Eleanor? I will try to make you happy. I will do my best, Heaven helping, to be a good husband to you! Stop, dear! If you act wisely you will send me about my business! There are fifty – a hundred better men who love you; you could scarcely have a worse than I, but if you will say 'yes,' I will try and be less unworthy of you. All my life I will never forget all that I owe you – never forget that you saved me from ruin and disgrace. Now, dear, I – "
She put out her hand to him without a word; then as he took it her passion burst through the bonds in which she thought to bind it, and she swayed forward and dropped upon his breast.
"Yorke, Yorke, you know" – came through her parted lips – "you know I love you – have always loved you!"
"My poor Eleanor!" he said, almost indeed, quite pityingly. "Such a bad, worthless lot as I am!"
"No, no!" she panted. "No, no; the best, the highest to me! And – and if you were not, it – it would be all the same. Oh, Yorke, be good, be kind to me, for you are all the world to me!"
They sat and talked hand in hand for some time, and once during that talk he said:
"By the way, Eleanor, how did you hear I was in such a mess – how did you come to know?"
It was a very natural question under the circumstances; but Lady Eleanor started and turned white, absolutely white with fear.
"No, no; not one word will I ever say or let you say about this stupid money business!" she exclaimed. Then she took his hand and pressed it against her cheek. "Why, sir, what does it matter? It was only – only lending it to you for a little time, you see. It will all be yours soon."
Lady Denby came in after a discreet cough outside; but Lady Eleanor did not move or take her hand from Yorke's.
"Oh!" said Lady Denby.
"Eleanor has made me very happy, Lady Denby," he said, rising, but still holding Lady Eleanor's hand.
"Oh!" said Lady Denby again. "What do you want me to say? That you deserve her? No, thank you, I couldn't tell such an obvious fib. What I'm going to say in the shape of congratulation is that she is much too good for you."
"That is so," he said with a grim smile.
"You'll stay to dinner?" murmured Lady Eleanor. "You will stay, Yorke?"
"Yes," he said, bending down and kissing her – "yes, thanks. But I must go and change my things. I'm awfully dirty and seedy."
She went with him to the door, as if she begrudged every moment that he should be out of her sight, and still smiled after he had left her and had got half-way down the Gardens. Then suddenly he stopped and looked round him with a ghostly look.
And yet it was only the face of Leslie that had flashed across his mental vision. Only the face of the girl who had jilted him!
"My God! shall I never forget her?" he muttered, hoarsely. "Not even now!"
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A LITTLE SUNSHINE
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 apples were 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 the same 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, laughing and 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-way to 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 of duty 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?"