AN ACCEPTED OFFER.
The effect of this retort upon the marquis was fearful! His face, pale
at all times, went livid, his eyes gleamed like ardent coals, his teeth
came together with a click, and he drooped as if he had been struck;
then in a moment or two he recovered himself and made an elaborate bow.
“Fairly hit,” he said, and his voice was very low and sharp. “Very well
done, indeed. But you forgot when you taunted me with the unhappiness
of my own married life, that you were admitting that I spoke with
experience.”
Lord Neville flushed.
“By Heaven, sir,” he said, quietly, “you drove me too hard. I know
little or nothing of your married life--I scarcely thought of it when I
spoke----”
The marquis waved his hand.
“Don’t spoil it by an apology,” he said, quietly. “You struck home and
should be satisfied. My marriage was almost as great a mistake as yours
will be. Almost, not quite. It ruined my life; if by a little trouble
I could have saved you from a like experience, I should have been glad
to have done so; but I am not prepared to take much trouble. We will,
therefore, if you please, consider that you have made up your mind to
marry this girl from the gutter--don’t look so fierce; a girl who is of
no family is from the gutter--the pavement!--that you have made up your
mind to become the laughing-stock of all your friends, old and young;
to chain yourself to a woman who will, while she lives, be pointed and
stared at as ‘the actress,’ that you are contented to leave the society
to which your birth and position entitle you, and sink into grim
solitude or the companionship of people of her class. We will take all
this for granted. And now, what do you expect me to do, if I may ask?”
“To request me to leave this house, to discontinue my allowance, and to
cut me from henceforth,” said Lord Neville, promptly but calmly.
The marquis smiled.
“Y--es,” he said, nodding, “that is my duty forcibly and concisely.
This is what I ought to do; but all my life I have never done what I
ought to have done, and have always done what I ought not. You are
welcome to remain at the Towers as long as you please.”
Lord Neville looked at him with faint surprise, and the marquis sipped
his wine slowly.
“I shall double your allowance, and, as to cutting you, that would be
inconvenient and troublesome, not to say vulgar. Of course I shall keep
to my resolve respecting the property, that will go to Lady Grace as I
said.”
Lord Neville’s face flushed.
“She is welcome to it--quite welcome to it,” he said at once; “I am
glad that it should be so. I--I think you have acted very generously to
me, and I thank you, sir.”
The marquis inclined his head, a faint smile hovering about his thin
lips.
“You might be able to marry upon your allowance doubled, as I propose,”
he said. “You would not be very rich, but it might do.”
“It will be quite sufficient,” said Lord Neville, as yet unrecovered
from his surprise.
“I shall not live very long, I hope--though, by the way, I should like
to live long enough to win that five pounds of you”--Lord Neville
smiled--“and then you will have the estates, such as they are.”
“I ask you to believe me, that I am in no hurry. I do not wish, and
never have wished for your death,” and his face flushed.
The marquis waved his hand.
“Thanks, very much! But to return: I presume that you have not the
slightest doubt of the stability of your feelings? You are sure that
you won’t change your mind--your heart, I should have said?”
“Quite certain,” replied Lord Neville, Doris’ face rising before him
as he spoke. “My happiness is bound up in Miss Marlowe; I shall never
cease to love her.”
“Very good,” said the marquis. “Of course, you want to be married at
once? Oh, I have no objection; it is a matter of perfect indifference
to me, I assure you.”
“Then your kindness and liberality are all the more marked, sir,”
said Lord Neville. “I wish I could convince you of my gratitude; it
is sufficient to make me forget--almost--all the hard things you have
said.”
“Ah,” said the marquis, “gratitude is a fine sentiment--very fine. But
rather hollow and shadowy. If I were to ask you to do something, for
instance, to prove this beautiful sentiment!” he sneered, as a finish
to the sentence.
Lord Neville looked up.
“I wish you would!” he said. “I should like to prove my sincerity, sir.”
The marquis looked round the room with a smile of idle amusement.
“Really,” he said, “there is nothing I can think of asking you to do,
excepting to pass the wine, and that does not entail much sacrifice.”
“I was not jesting, sir,” said Lord Neville, gravely. “My offer was
made in all sincerity.”
“Really? Dear me, I wish I could think of something, Ah!” he stopped
and looked at Lord Neville’s attentive face keenly, sarcastically.
“What do you say if I ask you to go over to Ireland for me?”
Lord Neville’s face grew grave, and the marquis leaned back and laughed
with grim satisfaction.
“You see! Gratitude’s a very fine thing--to talk about!”
Lord Neville flushed.
“You misunderstand my silence,” he said, quietly. “If you mean by going
to Ireland for you, I’m to take side with the landlords”--stopped--“I
could not join in the oppression of those poor people, my lord, even to
prove my own sincerity.”
The marquis toyed with his fruit knife.
“Charmingly put, my dear Cecil; quite fit for a political platform. But
you misunderstand me. I know nothing of the question, and care less; I
hate and detest politics; they bore me, they always did. All I want is
this: I am told that my agent is a rogue, who has made himself rich by
grinding down the tenants; I am also told that he is the most merciful
and upright of men. I’m rather curious to know--well, scarcely curious,
perhaps--which account is true. Will you go and find out? I don’t think
you can call that oppressing the people.”
Lord Neville looked up with quiet eagerness.
“Certainly, I will go, sir,” he said.
The marquis inclined his head.
“Mind, I don’t care a brass farthing whether you go or refuse; I don’t
care about anything; and it is very likely that after you are gone
to-morrow morning I shall have ceased to remember what you have gone
about.”
“To-morrow morning?” said Lord Neville, almost inaudibly. To-morrow
morning! and his appointment with Doris, his interview with her
guardian!
“Yes,” said the marquis, carelessly, but shooting a glance,
half-scornful, half-amused, at the grave face. “If you go at all it
must be at once! Some one should have started to-night! The man will
collect the rents in a day or two; he should be stopped--or the other
thing.”
“Yes,” said Lord Neville, absently.
Go without seeing Doris! Without gaining her guardian’s consent. His
heart throbbed with a dull ache.
“Yes, of course you see that! The early train would enable you to catch
the Irish mail at Sandstone Junction----Ah, I see,” and he laughed
mockingly.
Lord Neville looked up inquiringly.
“You want to see Miss Barlow----”
“Marlowe,” said Lord Neville.
“Pardon. Marlowe. To tell her that the wicked uncle has proved less
black than he is painted----”
Lord Neville smiled.
“Is that unnatural?”
“By no means; but permit me to suggest that you can write to her. I
merely suggest it.”
Lord Neville rose with a quiet air of determination.
“What time does the early train start, sir?” he said.
The marquis shrugged his shoulders.
“Parkins will tell you,” he said, carelessly. “You mean to go, then?”
“Yes,” said Lord Cecil.
The marquis laughed.
“Will you kindly give me that despatch box?” he said.
Lord Cecil brought it to him, and the marquis took out some papers.
“Here are the papers,” he said, languidly. “I haven’t read them all;
you can bore yourself over them in the train. And will you favor me by
accepting this toward the expenses,” and he laid a roll of uncounted
notes on the table.
Cecil took them up and examined them.
“There is more than enough here,” he said, quietly.
“There is never more than enough money,” said the marquis. “If you
think there is too much, you can distribute the surplus among the poor
people with whom you sympathize.”
“Yes, I can do that--and will!”
“As you like. I will say ‘good-night;’ by the way, I should say
‘good-by,’ for you may be shot!” he added, as calmly as if he were
saying, “It may rain.”
“I am not coward enough to be afraid of that, or fool enough to think
it likely!” said Lord Cecil, as carelessly. “Good-night, sir,” and he
held the door open for him.
As he did so the marquis raised his eyelids and shot a glance at the
handsome face; then, with a bow and a cold smile, passed out.
Lord Cecil went up to his own room, and, lighting a cigar, paced up and
down, thinking deeply.
It was marvelous that the marquis should have acted as he had done!
Double his allowance! He would be able to marry at once, instead of
waiting. Marry Doris at once! The blood beat in a tumult at his heart;
then a dull weight seemed to fall upon him as he remembered his debts.
But he thrust the incubus from him; something might be done respecting
them, some arrangement made. At any rate, he would have an income large
enough to marry on, and Doris----! He puffed at his cigar fiercely,
and called up a vision of the lovely face, and tried to imagine the
expression the deep, dark, melting orbs would wear when he told her.
Then, as he reflected that he should not see her on the morrow, he
sighed.
“It almost seems as if my darling had some presentiment that we should
not meet,” he said to himself. “What will she say when she finds that I
am not there and goes to the stone for the letter?”
Then he sat down to the table to write it. It was not easy, for he
wanted to say enough to cover ten pages; but at last he wrote a few
lines only:
MY DARLING:--While you are reading this I shall be on my way to
Ireland--with my heart in Barton meadows. I can’t tell you in a letter
all that has happened; only this, that, as he himself put it, the
wicked marquis is not so bad as he is painted! Doris, when I come
back, it will be to ask you to be my wife--not in a year or two, but
soon, soon! I’m a bad hand at writing letters, and I could not, if I
tried, tell you how I love you, or how I wish I were near you, to see
and hear you, my beautiful angel! Ever yours,
CECIL.
P. S.--I owe my uncle something, for he has behaved with unusual
kindness, and this journey to Ireland is the only way in which he will
let me pay him. I will tell you all about it when I come back.
He sighed over the unsatisfactory epistle and closed it; then reopened
the letter and caught up his pen to tell her of the loss of the ring
and ask her to look for it; but he hesitated, and put the letter back
in the envelope with the sentence unwritten. Then he put on his coat
and walked to the meadows. The night was dark, and he had to light a
match to enable him to find the stone beneath the trees, but he found
it and concealed his letter, and then, after standing for a few moments
and looking round him dreamily, casting up the vision of Doris, he
turned and made his way back to the Towers.
The marquis had gone to his room, as was customary with him; his valet
exchanged his master’s dress coat for a velvet dressing-gown, and the
old man lay back in the chair looking at the fire with half-closed eyes.
The room was magnificently furnished, but in rather a subdued tone,
which was rendered almost sombre by the heavy curtains that screened
the window and a greater portion of the walls.
Against the deep purple of the hangings the clear, sharp-cut face with
its distinct pallor looked almost like that of a dead man’s, and only
the steel-like glitter of the eyes spoke of the vitality which lingered
in the body, and burned in the spirit of the most honorable, the
Marquis of Stoyle.
Presently there came a soft tap at the door, and in response to the
marquis’ “come in,” Spenser Churchill entered.
If anything his smooth, innocent face looked more benevolent and
charitable than usual, and the smile he bent upon the hard, cold face
upturned to him was like that of a man whose sole delight is in doing
good to his fellowmen.
“Well?” he said--or rather purred.
The marquis waved his hand to a chair, and Spenser Churchill dropped
softly into it, and leaned back, his eyes on the ceiling, his fat hands
clasped on his knee.
“You were right, you spoke nothing but the truth; the fool is in
earnest.”
“Dear Cecil,” purred Spenser Churchill.
“He is so much in love that he bore all the insults that I could heap
upon him--no! I wrong him. He struck home once!” and he smiled a
strange smile.
“And he means to marry her?”
“Yes,” said the marquis, with a cruel sneer; “he is even fool enough
for that.”
“Dear Cecil!” murmured Spenser Churchill again. “How delightful, how
refreshing it is, in this practical, stupid life, to find----”
“And he will marry her, unless this scheme of yours answers,” said the
marquis, breaking in upon the smooth voice.
“And you doubled his income?”
“I did,” said the marquis.
“And he will go to Ireland? To-morrow?”
“He will, to-morrow,” said the marquis, watching the sleek, false face.
“Now, that’s very good of him,” murmured Spenser Churchill; “very
good, most charming and nice. To go to Ireland on the very day he has
arranged a meeting with that beautiful girl. Now----”
“Is she so beautiful?” asked the marquis, who seemed to take the
unctuous words as meaningless and not worth listening to. “I suppose
she must be. He has seen many pretty women, many clever ones. What has
caught him? What is she like?”
Spenser Churchill shot a sidelong glance at him.
“The usual thing, my dear marquis,” he said, softly. “Just the usual
thing! They make those face powders wonderfully well now--wonderfully!”
The marquis smiled grimly.
“The fool, to be caught by a painted vixen, old enough----I suppose she
is old, eh?”
Spenser Churchill shrugged his shoulders.
“Ah, yes, of course! A young girl wouldn’t have had the tact to catch
him so easily. And he has written to her, I suppose?”
“Yes,” said Spenser Churchill; “and gone to post his letter under the
stone. The romance is simply charming! Charming!”
The marquis eyed the fire thoughtfully.
“I am almost inclined to let him marry her,” he said, in a low
voice. “I should enjoy the misery that would follow! Yes, I’m half
inclined----” and an evil light flashed from his eyes.
Spenser Churchill watched him behind the mask of a benevolent smile.
“Oh, no, no,” he murmured; “we really must not, we really must not let
dear Cecil ruin himself. My dear marquis, we should not sleep; our
consciences----”
The marquis broke in with a cold, sardonic laugh.
“Yes, you are right! After all, it will be more amusing to thwart
him--if we can.”
“If we can,” echoed Spenser Churchill with a smile.
“Oh, I don’t doubt your ability,” said the marquis with a sneer; “the
devil himself could not be a fitter person for such work. What do you
mean to do?” he added, with a half-contemptuous, half-weary gesture.
“Have you a letter of dear Cecil’s?” said Spenser Churchill. “I really
am half ashamed! It is only the conviction that I am acting for the
dear fellow’s ultimate good that gives me courage----”
The marquis pointed to a cabinet.
“You will find some letters of his there,” he said.
“Thanks,” murmured Spenser Churchill, and he rose and opened the
cabinet.
Then he selected two or three letters, and, smiling and nodding at the
marquis as if they were conspiring to do some good deed in secret, he
went to a davenport and wrote.
After a few moments he came across the room, and with his head on one
side, a benevolent smile on his innocent face, he dropped a letter on
the marquis’ knee.
The marquis took it up and looked at it with a careless air, then
started.
“Forgery must be very easy,” he said, with a sneer, “or you must have
had a great deal of practice, Spenser.”
“You really think it is like--just a little like?” said Spenser
Churchill, as if he had received high praise for a virtuous action.
“Now, really, you think it is something of a resemblance?”
“It is so close a forgery that Cecil himself might almost be persuaded
that it is his own.”
“No! Really! But read it, dear marquis! The handwriting is only of
secondary importance; the style of the letter--eh? What do you say?”
The marquis read the note, and a smile of sardonic amusement lit up his
pallid face.
“Now, please don’t flatter me, tell me your true opinion, marquis!”
purred Spenser Churchill, leaning forward, and rubbing his hands
together.
The marquis tossed the letter to him.
“It is a very good counterfeit,” he said.
Spenser Churchill laughed softly.
“I tried to imagine the way in which our dear Cecil would write, and
you think I have succeeded? Poor Cecil, poor girl! What a hard world
it is! Now, why can’t these interesting young things be permitted to
be happy in their own charming, unsophisticated way? What a pity it is
that one feels bound, in the cause of humanity and society, to--er--so
to speak--put a spoke in their wheel!” and he stood up and began
buttoning his coat.
“You yourself are going to take that letter?” asked the marquis.
“Oh, yes!” purred Spenser Churchill. “We mustn’t confide our nice
little plot to a servant.”
“You are taking a great deal of trouble; why?” said the marquis, eyeing
him keenly.
Spenser Churchill’s eyes dropped, and a benevolent smile shone on his
smooth face.
“Simply out of regard and affection for you, marquis, and our dear
Cecil, and the house of Stoyle, to which I am so much attached. Yes, I
shall take the letter myself.”
“Ah!” said the marquis, slowly. Then he looked up. “I should recommend
you to keep clear of Cecil,” he said, with a sneer. “He’s as strong as
an ox and--a Neville. Seriously, Spenser, if he should get an inkling,
and catch you, I fear you would come off badly. Unless you are tired of
life, you had better keep out of his way.”
“No, I am not tired of life,” said Spenser Churchill. “But I shall
take my pretty little letter myself. Adieu!” and he nodded, and smiled
himself out of the room.