A BROKEN TRYST.
Doris went home with her heart beating, every nerve throbbing with the
thrill of a woman’s first love; and it was not until she had her hand
upon the door that she fully realized the task that lay before her.
She had to tell Jeffrey. To tell him that all his lifelong plans for
her were shattered and cast to the winds; that, just at the moment of
success, success won by hard, persistent work and untiring effort, on
his part and hers, she, Doris Marlowe, who was to have been the actress
of the day, was going to retire from the stage forever.
She scarcely realized it herself yet, and yet she knew that it must
be. The future wife of the heir to the marquisate of Stoyle could not
be permitted to remain an actress, to be gazed at by a nightly mob, to
be cheered or hissed by a public audience. She sighed as the thought
came home to her, not for herself, and the sacrifice of fame, but for
Jeffrey. It would be hard for him to bear, very, very hard; but she
did not doubt that he would give his consent. As she had said to Lord
Neville, Jeffrey could not find it in his heart to refuse her anything
she wanted very much, and she did want to marry this handsome young
lover, whose simple touch had power to move her, very much indeed.
She opened the door. Jeffrey was seated at a small table, covered
with papers and old letters. He was bending over them with an air and
attitude of deep abstraction, and he did not hear her light footfall as
she crossed the room, and laid her small hand rather tremulously upon
his stooping shoulders.
“Doris!” he exclaimed, looking up with a start, and covering the papers
before him with both his thin, gnarled hands.
“Why, Jeffrey, dear, did I frighten you?” she said gently. “What are
you doing? You look as if you were trying to write a play!”
He smiled constrainedly and began collecting the papers and letters in
a nervous, hurried fashion.
“I--I have been busy,” he said. “Old papers and--and letters. Where
have you been, and what have you been doing?”
He did not look at her or he would have seen the color which suffused
her face and noticed the suddenly downcast eyes.
“I have been to the meadows, Jeffrey. I--I want to tell you something.”
“Yes,” he said, tying the letters together in a bundle, and folding up
a couple of yellow, time-stained papers. “What is it? What is the time?
I--I have been sitting here so long that I’ve forgotten.” He looked at
his old-fashioned watch, and rising hastily, put the bundle of letters
in a box that stood on the table. “It is time for the rehearsal; are
you ready? I shall not be a moment.”
“Yes, I am quite ready; but there is plenty of time, Jeffrey, and I
want to tell you--have you forgotten those papers? Are you not going to
lock them up with the others,” and she pointed to them.
He snatched them up almost jealously.
“No, no,” he said. “I keep them--here!” and he placed them with a
nervous carefulness in a pocket within the breast of his waistcoat.
“I--I meant to show you to-day, Doris. I have been going to show
them to you for--” he sighed--“years. But I’ve put it off from day
to day, from year to year. They belong to you, and you shall have
them--to-morrow, say to-morrow.”
Doris started slightly. It was to-morrow that Lord Neville was coming
to see Jeffrey; perhaps he would give them to Lord Neville!
“How well you look this morning,” he said suddenly, his eyes resting
for a moment upon her lovely face with their old keenness. “Those
meadows, as you call them, must be wonderfully healthy. Where is my
hat?”
She got it for him, and as she gave it to him she let her hand fall
lightly upon his arm.
“And don’t you want to hear what I have to tell you, Jeffrey?”
“Eh?” he said. “What is it? Nothing very important, I suppose? A new
bonnet you’ve seen in the Barton milliner’s? Well, you can buy it!
You can buy all the bonnets in the window now, if you like!” and he
chuckled grimly. “No more pinching and scraping--though we’ll be
careful still, eh, Doris? We’ll be careful! Hard-earned money’s too
precious to be squandered. Buy your bonnet, Doris, by all means. Come
along!” and he was across the room and out of the door before she could
summon up courage to stop him.
She would tell him after rehearsal, she thought, with a sigh; but after
rehearsal he came hurrying to her to tell her that he had arranged to
go to the next town on important business for the manager.
“I shall be back to-night,” he said, in his quick, stern voice; “in
time to take you home, as usual,” and he touched her forehead with his
lips.
“You will be sure to be back to-night, Jeffrey?” she said, clinging to
him for a moment.
“Yes, yes,” he said, hurriedly. “If anything should prevent me----” He
put his hand to his breast thoughtfully, and his heavy brows knitted
with a troubled expression; then he seemed to shake it off. “But I
shall be back. If by any chance I should lose the train----”
“Jeffrey!”
“I said by any chance only, and it is not likely; but if I should I
will come by the first in the morning. Mrs. Parkhouse, the dresser,
will see you home if I am not here. Good-by, my child! Play your best
to-night! I am working for you; stone by stone I am building up the
edifice of your fame----” He stopped, pressed her shoulder with his
thin hand, and was gone.
Doris felt a strange sense of loneliness fall upon her. It was the
first time he had left her for so many hours that his absence oppressed
her for a moment or two with a sense of helplessness. Then suddenly
there flashed upon her the remembrance of Cecil and his love, and the
oppression vanished. How could she be helpless while he was so near to
love and protect her?
Was it strange that her feet should wander from the straight road home,
to the brook in the meadows? Was it strange that she should linger on
the spot made sacred to her by her love until the last moment, so that
she left herself barely time to dress and reach the theatre?
“Perhaps I shall see him to-night,” she thought; “perhaps he will come
to the cab and say one word, just one word!” And when she came on, her
beautiful eyes wandered over the crowded house with an eagerness which
she could scarcely conceal.
But he was not there: and he did not come during the whole evening. She
felt that she should know if he were in the theatre, though she should
not be able to see him, and she knew even before she left the stage
door to go to the cab that she should not see him, and Jeffrey had not
come back!
“You feel tired to-night, Miss Marlowe,” said Mrs. Parkhouse, as Doris
leaned back in the cab, and drew her cloak round her. “Shall I come
home and stay with you to-night? I dare say you feel lonely without Mr.
Jeffrey.”
But Doris would not let her do that.
“I am tired,” she said, “and I feel rather lonely, but Mr. Jeffrey
would laugh at me for being so nervous. No, you shall not stay.”
She sat up into the night looking at the stars from the window, which
she threw open, for the air was balmy with the breath of the coming
summer; and she tried to realize all that had happened to her, all that
was going to happen to her.
It was not of the title and rank that were to be hers she thought, but
of Cecil’s love, and she stretched her long white arms out toward
Barton Towers with a yearning gesture, murmuring, “My love, my love!”
The morning broke, not brightly and sunnily, but in fitful gleams
glancing through shower clouds; and when she came downstairs she found
a yellow telegram envelope beside her plate.
It was from Jeffrey, saying that the merest chance he had spoken of had
occurred, and that he had been detained the night, but that he would
catch the eleven o’clock train, and asking her to meet him.
Her face brightened as she read it. Yes, she would meet him, and as
they walked through the woods from the station, she would tell him of
her strange meeting with Lord Neville and all that had sprung from it,
and then they both could go and meet Cecil by the brook.
She hurried through a mere pretense of a breakfast, and putting on her
hat and jacket, set out.
The sky had cleared somewhat, and the sun, shining through the spaces
of blue, touched the green leaves with a dazzling sheen.
As she went toward the meadows, her heart beating with an anticipatory
joy, her mind was hard at work.
Perhaps, after all, Jeffrey would not so much mind her giving up the
stage and the career for which he had so carefully prepared her. It
was her happiness he had been seeking--only her happiness, and when he
learned that it was bound up in her love for Cecil Neville, he would
not refuse his consent or throw any obstacle in the way.
Looking at it in this hopeful fashion, she reached a spot where the
footpath branched in two directions--one led to the brook, the other to
the railway station.
She stopped and glanced at the path to the brook wistfully; perhaps
Cecil was already waiting for her. Consulting her tiny watch--a present
from Jeffrey--she saw that there was just time to go round by way of
the brook, and, with a heightened color and eager eyes, she took the
path that led thither.
“After all,” she murmured, when she reached the bank, and looked round
upon the unbroken solitude; “I might have waited! He is not here! I
dare say he has not finished his breakfast yet; and yet, if he knew
that I was here----”
She sat down on the bank, and gazed dreamily about her. The brook
babbling at her feet; the branches of the trees waving solemnly above
her head; the very air seemed eloquent of the lover who had stolen her
heart and absorbed her life, and she fell into a delicious reverie.
Then, suddenly, her eyes fell upon the big round stone at the foot of
the tree, and a smile broke over her face.
“What a foolish, romantic girl he must have thought me,” she murmured;
“as if he would let anything prevent him coming.”
As she spoke she rose, and, almost mechanically, knelt down and turned
the stone over.
Then, with a start, she woke, for there lay a white envelope.
She took it up and gazed at it, turning it over and over, a dull, heavy
disappointment weighing upon her, and examined the address, and the
elaborate crest stamped on the back.
“Then it was not so romantic or foolish,” she murmured, sorrowfully.
“He is not coming!”
She sank down upon the bank, and looked before her with a vacant air,
the envelope still unopened. “Not coming! Not coming!” It was like the
announcement of some terrible calamity.
Then, suddenly, hope sprang into her bosom.
“He has written to tell me why he cannot come,” she said to herself,
and the color rushed back into her face. “Yes, that is it! He has been
prevented--his uncle, the marquis! Something has prevented him, and he
has just written to tell me when he can come, and when I shall see him.”
She tore the envelope open, and something fell upon the grass. She
leaned forward and picked it up; it was the old pearl-silver ring she
had given to him.
She looked at it, turning it over with a vague aching sense of
disappointment and trouble.
“My ring!” she murmured, “my ring! Now, what does this mean?” then her
face brightened. “Ah, yes, he has sent it to remind me of yesterday!”
Eagerly she opened the letter, and her lovely eyes seemed to devour it;
but as she read they grew dim and hazy, and she swept her hand across
them with an impatient gesture.
“I--I can’t read!” she murmured piteously. “I can’t read it!” Her hands
closed tightly on the thick, smooth sheet of notepaper, and she set
her teeth hard. “I must be mad--yes, that is it! Let me wait a moment.
Now!” and she bent forward, and, with knitted brows, read it out word
by word, slowly, painfully, like a child reading a repugnant task.
DEAR MISS MARLOWE--for I feel that I dare not call you by the name
engraven on my heart, and yet I must, though it is for the last time!
Dear, dear Doris! I am the most wretched and miserable of men! And
yesterday I was the happiest! Doris, I have seen my uncle and told
him all, and he has proved to me, beyond all question, that it is
impossible for me to make you mine. I can’t tell you all that passed
between us; I scarcely know what I am writing, but the dreadful fact
remains that by making you my wife I should work you nothing but
wretchedness and misery. Don’t ask me to tell you anything more; I
cannot! Try and forget me, Doris! I am not, and never can be, worth
a single thought of yours! I know what you will think, and the
knowledge only adds to my misery. You will think that I value my
worldly prosperity above your love; but I swear it is not so! I would
willingly resign everything--rank, money, position--for your sake; but
there are other reasons. Forgive and forget me, Doris, or if you still
think of me, remember me as one who wishes himself dead! Good-by--and
forever!
CECIL NEVILLE.
I return your ring. I dare not keep it, having lost you!
Thrice she read it slowly, carefully, as if she were trying to learn it
by heart; then she rose, and, white as the stones washed by the brook
stood gazing at the broken and hastily scrawled lines.
“Good-by--and forever!” she murmured. “Good-by--and forever!”
A wild laugh forced itself from her lips, and she dropped down on the
bank as if she had been felled by a blow.