FATE.
The crippled young man, with the assistance of his companion, made
his way into the sitting-room of Marine Villa; an invalid's chair was
hauled from the top of the fly and carried in, and the young man sank
into it with a faint sigh.
"Leave me, Grey," he said. "When Lord Auchester arrives let him come to
me at once; and, Grey, be good enough to remember what I told you----."
"Yes, your grace," said the man; then, as his master lifted the soft
brown eyes with gentle reproach, he added, correcting himself, "yes,
sir."
The young man smiled faintly.
"That is better. Thanks."
The valet unlocked a morocco traveling case, and took out a vial and
medicine chest.
"The medicine, your gra----, sir, I mean."
"Ah, yes, I forgot. Thank you," said the young man, and he took the
draught with a weary patience. "Thanks. Let me know when his lordship
arrives. No, I want nothing more."
The valet went out, shutting the door softly after him, and his master
leaned his head upon his hand, and closed his eyes.
Fate had dealt very strangely with this young man. With one hand it
had showered upon him most of the gifts which the sons of men set high
store by; it had made him a duke, had given him palaces, vast lands,
money in such abundance as to be almost a burden; and with the other
hand, as if in scorn and derision of the thing called Man, Fate had
struck him one of those blows under which humanity is crushed and
broken.
A nurse had let him, when a child, slip from her arms, and the
great Duke of Rothbury was doomed to go through life a stunted and
crooked-back object, with the grim figure of pain always marching by
his side, with the bitter knowledge that not all his wealth could
prevent the people he met in the streets regarding him with curious and
pitying glances, with the bitter sense that the poorest of the laborers
on his estates enjoyed a better lot than his, and was more to be envied
than himself.
He sat perfectly motionless for some minutes; then he opened his eyes
and started slightly; Leslie had just begun to sing.
He wheeled his chair to the window, and set it open quietly, and,
keeping behind the curtains, listened with evident pleasure.
The song was still floating across to him when a young man came
marching up the street.
Youth is a glorious thing under any circumstances, but when it is
combined with perfect health, good temper, a handsome face, and a
stalwart form it is god-like in its force and influence.
The little narrow street of Portmaris seemed somehow to grow brighter
and wider as the young man strode up it; his well-knit form swaying a
little to right and left, his well-shaped head perfectly poised, his
bright eyes glancing here and there with intelligent interest, the
pleasure-loving lips whistling softly from sheer light-heartedness. He
stopped as he came opposite Sea View, and listened to Leslie's song,
nodding his head approvingly; then he caught sight of the "Marine
Villa" on the opposite house, and walked straight into the little hall.
"Hallo, Grey," he said, and his voice rang, not hardly and
unpleasantly, but with that clear golden timbre which only belongs to
the voice of a man in perfect health. "Here you are, then! And how
is----."
Grey smiled as he bent his head respectfully; everybody was glad to see
the young man.
"Yes, my lord. Just got down. His gra----. We are pretty well
considering the journey, my lord. He will see your lordship at once."
"All right," said the young fellow. "I rode as far as Northcliffe, but
left the horse there, as I didn't know what sort of stables they'd have
here."
"You were right, my lord," said Grey, in the approving tone of a
confidential servant. "This seems a rare out-of-the-way place. And I
should doubt there being a decent stable here."
"Ah, well, the duke will like it all the better for being quiet," the
young fellow said.
Grey put his hand to his lips, and coughed apologetically.
"Beg pardon, my lord, but his gra----, that is--well, you'll excuse me,
my lord, but we're down here quite incog., as you may say."
As Lord Auchester, staring at the man, was about to laugh, the clear,
rather shrill voice of the invalid was heard from the room.
"Is that you, Yorke? Why do you not come in?"
The young fellow entered, and took the long thin hand the duke extended
to him.
"Hallo, Dolph!" he said, lowering his voice. "How are you? What made
you think of coming to this outlandish spot?"
The duke, still holding his cousin's hand, smiled up at him with a
mixture of sadness and self raillery.
"I can't tell you, Yorke; I got tired of town, and told Grey to hunt up
some place in Bradshaw that he had never heard of, some place right out
of the beaten track, and he chose this."
"Poor unfortunate man!" said Lord Auchester, with a laugh.
"Yes, Grey suffers a great deal from my moods and humors; and so do
other persons, yourself to wit, Yorke. It was very kind of you to come
to me so soon."
"Of course I came," said Lord Auchester. "I wasn't very far off, you
see."
"Fishing?" said the duke, with evident interest.
"Y-es; oh, yes," replied the other young man, quickly. "I rode over as
far as Northcliffe----."
The duke sighed as his eyes wandered musingly over the stalwart,
well-proportioned frame.
"You ought to have been in the army, Yorke," he said.
Lord Auchester laughed.
"So I should have been if they hadn't made the possession of brains a
_sine qua non_; it seems you want brains for pretty nearly everything
nowadays; and it's just brains I'm short of, you see, Dolph."
"You have everything else," said the duke, in a low voice.
He sighed and turned his head away; not that he envied his cousin his
handsome face and straight limbs.
"You haven't told me what you wanted me for, Dolph," said Lord
Auchester, after a pause, during which both men had been listening half
unconsciously to the sweet voice in the cottage opposite.
"I wanted--nothing," said the duke.
"There is nothing I can do for you?"
"Nothing; unless," with a sigh and a wistful smile, "unless you can by
the wave of a magician's wand change this crooked body of mine for
something like your own."
"I would if I could, Dolph," said the other, bending over him, and
laying a pair of strong hands soothingly on the invalid's bent
shoulders.
"I know that, Yorke. But you cannot, can you? I dare say you think I am
a peevish, discontented wretch, and that I ought, as the poor Emperor
of Germany said, to bear my pain without complaining----."
"No, Dolph; I think you complain very little, and face the music first
rate," put in the other.
"Thanks. I try to most times, and I could succeed better than I do if
I were always alone, but sometimes----," he sighed bitterly. "Why is it
that the world is so false, Yorke? Are there no honest men besides you
and Grey, and half a dozen others I could mention? And are there no
honest women at all?"
Yorke Auchester raised his eyebrows and laughed.
"What's wrong with the women?" he said.
The duke leaned his head upon his hand, and partially hid his face,
which had suddenly become red.
"Everything is wrong with them, Yorke," he said, gravely and in a low
voice. "You know, or perhaps you do not know, how I esteem, reverence,
respect a woman; perhaps because I dare not love them."
Yorke Auchester nodded.
"If all the men felt as you do about women there would be no bad ones
in the world, Dolph," he said.
"To me there is something sacred in the very word. My heart expands,
grows warm in the presence of a good woman. I cannot look at a
beautiful girl without thinking--don't misunderstand me, Yorke."
"No, no, old chap!"
"I love, I reverence them; and yet they have made me fly from London,
have caused me almost to vow that I will never go back; that I will
hide my misshapen self for the rest of my weary days----."
"Why Dolph----."
"Listen," said the duke. "Look at me, Yorke. Ah, it is unnecessary.
You know what I am. A thing for women to pity, to shudder at--not to
love! And yet"--he hid his face--"some of them have tried to persuade
me that I--_I_--could inspire a young girl with love; that I--_I_--oh,
think of it, Yorke!--that I had only to offer myself as a husband to
the most beautiful, the fairest, straightest, queenliest of them, to be
accepted!"
Yorke Auchester leaned over him.
"You take these things too seriously, Dolph," he said, soothingly.
"It's--it's the way of the world, and you can't better it; you must
take it as it comes."
"The way of the world! That a girl--young, beautiful, graceful--should
be sold by her mother and father, should be willing to sell
herself--ah, Yorke!--to a thing like me. Is that the way of the world?
What a wicked, heartless, vicious world, then; and what an unhappy
wretch am I! What fools they are, too, Yorke! They think it is so
fine a thing to wear a ducal coronet! Ha, ha!" He laughed with sad
bitterness. "So fine, that they would barter their souls to the evil
one to feel the pressure of that same coronet on their brows, to hear
other women call them 'Your Grace.' Oh, Yorke, what fools! How I could
open their eyes if they would let me! Look at me. I am the Duke of
Rothbury, Knight of the Garter--poor garter!" and he looked at his thin
leg--"and what else? I almost forget some of my titles; and I would
swap them all for a straight back and stalwart limbs like yours. But,
Yorke, to share those titles, how many women would let me limp to the
altar on their arms!"
He laughed again, still more bitterly.
"Sometimes, when some sweet-faced girl, with the look of an angel in
her eyes, with a voice like a heavenly harmony, is making what they
call 'a dead set' at me, I have hard work to restrain myself from
telling her what I think of her and those who set her at me. Yorke, it
is this part of the business which makes my life almost unendurable,
and it is only by running away from every one who knows, or has heard
of, the 'poor' Duke of Rothbury that I can put up with existence."
"Poor old chap," murmured Lord Auchester.
"Just now," continued the duke, "as we drove up to the door, I caught
sight of a beautiful girl at the window opposite. I saw her face grow
soft with pity, with the angelic pity of a woman, which, though it
stings and cuts into one like a cut from a whip, I try to be grateful
for. She pitied me, not knowing who and what I am. Tell her that I am
the Duke of Rothbury, and in five minutes or less that angelic look of
compassion will be exchanged for the one which you see on the face of
the hunter as his prey comes within sight. She will think, 'He is ugly,
crooked, maimed for life; but he is a man, and I can therefore marry
him; he is a duke and I should be a duchess.' And so, like a moral
poison, like some plague, I blight the souls of the best and purest.
Listen to her now; that is the girl singing. What is it? I can hear the
words."
He held up his hand. Leslie was singing, quite unconscious of the two
listeners.
"My sweet girl love with frank blue eyes,
Though years have passed I see you still;
There, where you stood beside the mill,
Beneath the bright autumnal skies.
Though years have passed I love you yet;
Do you still remember, or do you forget?"
"A nice voice," said Yorke Auchester, approvingly.
"Yes; the voice of a girl-angel. No doubt she is one. She needs only to
be informed that an unmarried duke is within reach, and she'll be in a
hurry to drop to the earth, and in her hurry to reach and secure him
will not mind dragging her white wings in the mud."
"Women are built that way," said Yorke Auchester, concisely.
The duke sighed.
"Oh, yes, they are all alike. Yorke, what a fine duke you would have
made! What a mischievous, spiteful old cat Fate is, to make me a duke
and you only a younger son! How is it you don't hate and envy me,
Yorke?"
"Because I'm not a cad and a beast, I suppose," replied the young
fellow, pleasantly. "Why, Dolph, you have been the best friend a man
ever had----."
"Most men hate their best friends," put in the duke, with a sad smile.
"Where should I have been but for you?" continued Yorke Auchester,
ignoring the parenthesis. "You have lugged me out of Queer Street by
the scruff of my neck half a dozen times. Every penny I ever had came
from you, and I've had a mint, a complete mint--and, by the way, Dolph,
I want some more."
The duke laughed wearily.
"Take as much as you want, Yorke," he said. "But for you, the money
would grow and grow till it buried and smothered me. I cannot spend it;
you must help me."
"I will; I always have," said Yorke Auchester, laughing. "It's a pity
you haven't got some expensive fad, Dolph--pictures, or coins, or first
editions, or racing."
The duke shrugged his shoulders.
"I have only one fad," he said; "to be strong and straight, and that
not even the Rothbury money can gratify. But I do get some pleasure out
of your expenditure. I fancy you enjoy yourself."
"I do."
"Yes? That is well. Some day you will marry----."
Yorke Auchester's hand dropped from the duke's shoulder.
"Marry some young girl who loves you for yourself alone."
"She's not likely to love me for anything else."
"All the better. Oh, Heaven! What would I not give for such a love as
that?" broke out the duke.
As the passionate exclamation left his lips the door opened, and Mrs.
Whiting, the landlady, came in. Her face was flushed; she was in a
state of nervous excitement, caused by a mixture of curiosity and fear.
"I beg your pardon, your grace," she faltered, puffing timorously; "but
did you ring?"
The duke looked straight at the woman, and then up at Yorke Auchester.
"No," said Yorke.
"I beg your grace's pardon," the curious woman began, stammeringly; but
Grey coming behind her seized her by the arm, and, none too gently,
swung her into the passage and closed the door.
The duke looked down frowningly.
"They've found you out, Dolph," said Yorke.
The duke was silent for a moment, then he sighed.
"Yes, I suppose so; I do not know how. I am sorry. I had hoped to stay
here in peace for a few weeks, at any rate. But I must go now. Better
to be in London where everybody knows me, and has, to an extent, grown
accustomed to me."
He stopped short, and his face reddened.
"Yorke," he said, "do you think she knew which of us was the duke?"
"I don't know," replied Yorke; "I don't think she did."
"She would naturally think it was you if she didn't know," said the
duke, thoughtfully, his eyes resting on the tall form of his cousin,
who had gone to the window and was looking at the cottage opposite.
"She would never imagine me, the cripple. Don't some of these simple
folk think that a king is always at least six feet and a half, and that
he lives and sleeps in a crown? Yes, you look more like a duke than I
do, Yorke; and I wish to Heaven you were!"
"Thanks," said Yorke Auchester, not too attentively. "What a pretty
little scrap of a place this is, Dolph, and--ah----." He stopped short.
"By Jove! Dolph, what a lovely girl! Is that the one of whom you were
speaking just now?"
The duke put the plain muslin curtain aside and looked.
Leslie had come to the window, and stood, all unconscious of being
watched, with her arms raised above her head, in the act of putting a
lump of sugar between the bars of the parrot's cage.
The duke gazed at her, at first with an expression of reverent
admiration.
"Ah, yes, beautiful!" he murmured; then his face hardened and darkened.
"How good, how sweet, how innocent she looks! And yet I'll wager all
I own that she is no better than the rest. That with all her angelic
eyes and sweet childlike lips, she will be ready to barter her beauty,
her youth, her soul, for rank and wealth." He groaned, and clutched
his chair with his long, thin, and, alas! claw-like hands. "I cannot
bear it. Yorke, I meant to conceal my title, and while I staid down
here pretend to be just a poor man, an ordinary commoner, one who would
not tempt any girl to play fast and loose with her soul. I should have
liked to have made a friend of that girl; to have seen her, talked with
her every day, without the perpetual, ever-present dread that she would
try and make me marry her. But it is too late, it seems. This woman
here knows, everybody in the place knows, or will know. It is too late,
unless----."
He stopped and looked up.
"Yorke!"
"Hallo!" said that young fellow, scarcely turning his head.
"Will you--do you mind--you say you owe me something?" faltered the
duke, eagerly.
"Why, of course," assented Yorke Auchester, and he came and bent over
him. "What's the matter, Dolph? What is it you want me to do?"
"Just this," said the duke, laying his hand--it trembled--on the strong
arm; "be the Duke of Rothbury for a time, and let this miserable
cripple sink into the background. You will not refuse? Say it is a
whim; a mere fad. Sick people," he smiled, bitterly, "are entitled to
these whims and fads, you know, and I've not had many. Humor this one;
be the duke, and save me for once from the humiliation which every
young girl inflicts upon me."
Yorke Auchester's brow darkened, and he bit his lip.
"Rather a rum idea, old chap, isn't it?" he said, with an uneasy laugh.
"Call it so if you like," responded the duke, with, if possible,
increased eagerness. "Are you going to refuse me, Yorke? By
Heaven!"--his thin face flushed--"it is the first, the only thing I
have ever asked of you----."
"Hold on!" interrupted Yorke Auchester, almost sternly. "I did not
say I would refuse; you know that I cannot. You have been the best
friend----."
The duke raised his hand.
"I knew you would not. Ring the bell, will you?" His voice, his hand,
as he pointed to the bell, trembled.
Yorke Auchester strode across the room and rang the bell.
Grey entered.
"Grey," said the duke, in a low voice, "how came this woman to know my
name?"
"It was a mistake, your grace," said Grey, troubled and remorseful. "I
let it slip when I was wiring, and the idiot at the telegraph station
in London must have wired it down to the people on his own account.
But--but, your grace, she doesn't know much after all, for she didn't
know which is the dook, as she calls it, beggin' your pardon, your
grace."
The duke nodded, clasping his hands impatiently and eagerly.
"Ring the bell. Stand aside, and say nothing," he said, in a tone of
stern command which he seldom used.
The landlady, who, like Hamlet, was fat and scant of breath, was heard
panting up the stairs, knocked timidly, and, in response to the duke's
"Come in," entered, and looked from one to the other, in a fearsome,
curious fashion.
"Did you ring?"
She would not venture to say "Your grace" this time.
The duke smiled at her.
"Yes," he said, gravely but pleasantly. "His Grace the Duke of
Rothbury will stay with me for a few days if you can give him a room,
Mrs.--Mrs.----."
"Whiting, sir, if you please. Oh, certainly, sir," and she dropped a
courtesy to Yorke Auchester. "Certainly your grace. It's humble and
homely like, but----."
Grey edged her gently and persuasively out of the room, and when he
had followed her the duke leaned back his chair, and looking up at the
handsome face of his cousin, laughed.
"It's like a scene in one of the new farces, isn't it, Yorke--I beg
your pardon, Godolphin, Duke of Rothbury?"
Farce? Yes. But at that moment began the tragedy of Leslie Lisle's life.