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 is the 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. "He didn'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 Eleanor Dallas, 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.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
WAS YORKE HAPPY?
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 if he 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 more numerous 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!"