FASHIONING THE WEB.
Two days later, Mrs. Jelf brought Doris a letter. The envelope bore an
elaborate crest, stamped in crimson and gold, and as she opened it, a
faint perfume emanated from it.
It was from Lady Despard, who wrote--in the delightfully-illegible
hand, all points and angles, known as “the Italian”--that her dear
friend, the well-known philanthropist, Mr. Spenser Churchill, had
recommended Miss Marlowe to Lady Despard, and, placing the greatest
reliance upon Mr. Churchill, her ladyship would be very pleased if Miss
Marlowe would come to her at number twelve Chester Gardens, as soon as
Miss Marlowe could find it convenient. Lady Despard added that she was
certain, from all Mr. Churchill had said, she and Miss Marlowe would
get on together, and that she intended starting for Italy as soon as
possible.
Doris read and re-read the elegant epistle, vainly striving, as we all
do, to form some idea of the character of the unknown writer; then she
sat down and wrote an answer, saying that she would come to Chester
Gardens the following day.
Now that she had recovered from the lethargy which had closely followed
her great trouble, she was filled with a restless desire to get away
from Barton and its painful association. She at once set to work at the
preparations for her journey, and it was not until she had packed up
her things that it occurred to her that she could not go until she had
bidden farewell to Mr. Spenser Churchill.
Doris’ feeling toward that gentleman was a peculiar one. He had
befriended her when she had been most in need of a friend; had shown an
amount of consideration and delicacy to her, a stranger, which, when
she pondered over it, amazed her; and she was grateful. But she had not
forgotten the dead man’s warning, and it still haunted her, although
Spenser Churchill had so cleverly managed to allay her suspicions by
his frank confession that, in the quarrel between him and Jeffrey, he
had been in the wrong. And yet, though her suspicions were allayed,
she was conscious of a strange feeling of disquietude while in his
presence; a feeling that was neither quite dread nor doubt, but partook
of both sentiments.
Still, he had been most kind, and her gratitude would not allow her to
go without seeing him again.
After a good deal of reflection, she wrote a couple of lines to him,
telling him that she had arranged to start on the morrow, and asking
him to call and see her; and she sent it by a lad to the Towers.
An hour or two later Mr. Spenser Churchill arrived.
“I am glad, very glad, my dear young lady,” he said, pressing the hand
which she gave him, “that you have resolved to seek change of scene so
promptly. You will find dear Lady Despard a most charming and amiable
lady, who will prove a--er--valuable friend; and I hope, I may say I
am sure, that you will be happy. You must let me have the pleasure of
seeing you off by the train to-morrow----”
Doris shook her head gently but firmly.
“I could not let you take so much trouble,” she said. “I am leaving
quite early in the morning, and----”
He nodded.
“Well, well, I understand. That shall be as you wish. And is there
anything I can do now? Your luggage----”
“It is all ready,” said Doris. “I am quite prepared.”
“Then nothing remains for me to do but to hand over to you the money I
hold for you,” he said, and he took out and counted some banknotes.
Doris colored.
“I have been thinking,” she said, “that I would ask you to be so good
as to take charge of some of it for me. It seems so large a sum--I have
never been used to having large sums of money,” her eyes filled as she
spoke. “I am ashamed to cause you any further trouble, but if you will
take charge of some of it for me, if you will give me twenty pounds,
and keep the rest in case I should want it, I shall be very grateful:
you will be adding to all your past kindness to me.”
“Yes, yes, I see. I shall be very happy,” he said, benevolently.
“Twenty pounds; that will leave eighty. And when you want it you can
write to me. Perhaps when you come to know Lady Despard you will like
her to act as your banker. By the way, I don’t think we said anything
about the remuneration?”
“No,” said Doris; “I did not think of it.”
“You left it all to me. Quite right. Well, I hope you will think I have
done the best I could. Lady Despard and I have agreed upon a hundred
pounds a year.”
“That is a great deal, I suppose,” said Doris, simply. “It is more than
enough, and once more I thank you.”
“It is not more than enough, not half enough in return for so sweet and
charming a companion, but, my dear young lady, we must be content,” he
said. “And now, is there anything else?”
Doris replied in the negative, then suddenly her face crimsoned.
“There is one thing more,” she said in a low voice. “Can you tell me
Lord Neville’s address in Ireland?”
Her voice faltered, but her clear pure eyes met his steadily. He showed
not the faintest surprise, but seemed to think for a moment or two.
“I am sorry to say I cannot,” he said. “Did you want to write to him?”
“Yes,” she said. “I wish I could tell you----” her voice broke.
He raised his hand with a soft, deprecating smile.
“My dear young lady, tell me nothing more than you wish. I am--” he
laid his hand upon his heart--“I beg you to believe that I am not
curious. Why should you not write to Lord Neville, if you choose, or to
any other person? I presume you know him?”
“Yes--I know him,” she said, turning her head aside.
“Just so,” he assented, smoothly. “And you wish to tell him where you
are going? Is it not so?”
“No!” said Doris, suddenly, and turning pale. “I do not wish him to
know--ah, I cannot tell you, you would not understand!”
“You shall tell me nothing,” he said, waving his hand. “I am sorry I
can’t give you his address. But I will tell you what we can do!” he
added as if an idea had occurred to him. “If you will write to him and
intrust the letter to me, I will see that it is forwarded--indeed, I
will get the address from the marquis and forward it to-night.”
“Thank you,” said Doris, in a low voice, and she went to the table.
Mr. Spenser Churchill, with true delicacy, slipped out, and had a few
minutes’ chat with Mrs. Jelf, who was reduced to tears at the prospect
of losing her young charge.
When he came back, Doris was standing with a note in her hand.
“There it is,” she said. “If”--she paused for a second, then went on
firmly--“if Lord Neville should ask you where I am gone, will you
promise not to tell him, please? No one knows but yourself, and--and I
do not wish him to be told.”
He inclined his head as he took the note, and with a great show of
carefulness, put it in his pocketbook.
“My lips are sealed, my dear young lady. Whatever your reasons may
be--and please understand that I do not seek to know them--your request
shall be considered sacred by me. Lord Neville shall never learn your
whereabouts from me!” and it is only fair to say, that for once, Mr.
Spenser Churchill spoke the truth!
A subdued and placid smile beamed on his benevolent countenance when,
having taken leave of Doris, he made his way across the meadows to the
Towers; and the smile grew more placid and self-complacent when, having
reached his own rooms, he took the note from his pocket, and rang for a
jug of hot water.
“Let it be quite hot, if you please,” he said to the chamber-maid, and
the girl brought it almost boiling.
Then he locked the door, and, holding the envelope over the steam until
it had become ungummed, he drew out the note, and read it.
“I was right, and you were wrong. It would have been better if we had
never met, and I hope that we may never meet again. If we should do
so, it must be as strangers. No one shall ever learn from me that we
have ever been anything else.
“DORIS MARLOWE.”
He pondered over these few lines, word by word, for some minutes, then,
with a satisfied nod, re-enclosed the note in its envelope, and neatly
re-fastened it.
“I don’t think any one, however sharp and critical his sight, would
detect that her little note had been opened,” he murmured. “The gum had
scarcely dried. Yes, that will do very well! Admirably; in fact, there
is no need for me to add a word. But all the same, my dear young lady,
we will not send it to Cecil Neville just yet! No, no, it would be so
sudden a shock. No, really, in common charity, we must give him some
slight preparation.”
Then he took from his pocket four letters, and, with a soft smile of
enjoyment, read them over.
They were in Lord Cecil’s anything but elegant handwriting, and were
addressed to Miss Marlowe at the lodgings, and had kindly been taken
charge of by Mr. Spenser Churchill.
“Youth, rash youth! How frantically he writes! Dear me, I am very glad
Providence permitted me to keep them from the dear young thing’s sight;
they would have unsettled her so sadly! Quite eloquent they are! I had
no idea Master Cecil had such a ready pen. I am afraid you are spending
anything but a pleasant time over there waiting for the answers to
these frantic epistles, the answer which will rather surprise you
when you get it. What will you do when you find the bird has flown,
I wonder? Be as mad as a March hare for a few days, and then----” He
shrugged his shoulders, and with a laugh, struck a match and made a
bonfire of the intercepted letters, and watched them until all that
remained of their imploring eloquence was a little heap of ashes in the
empty grate.
In such excellent spirits was Mr. Spenser Churchill, so full of the
peace which flows from the possession of a good conscience, that, as
he entered the drawing-room a few minutes before dinner that evening,
he hummed a few bars from the “Lost Chord,” that cheerful melody being
the nearest approach to profane music which he permitted himself; and,
going up to the sofa upon which Lady Grace was reclining, raised her
white hand to his lips and kissed it with playfully solemn gallantry.
She snatched her hand away impatiently, and drawing her handkerchief
over the spot his lips had touched, said:
“You appear conspicuously cheerful to-night. May one inquire the
reason? Don’t trouble to tell me if you are not sure it will be
interesting. I am quite bored enough already,” and she moved her fan
with a weary gesture.
“Bored, dear lady!” he murmured, smoothing his long, yellow hair from
his forehead. “Now, really! And I am never bored! But then I am always
busy; I never permit my mind to be unoccupied. Surely one can always
find some pleasant and congenial task to lighten the lengthy hours----”
She flashed a scornful look at him from her keen eyes.
“Please don’t treat me as if I were the audience at a charity meeting.”
“Alas!” he murmured softly. “Charity-meeting ladies do not wear such
charming toilettes as this; would that they did!” and he beamed down
admiringly at the magnificent evening dress. “What a pity it is that it
should be wasted--no, I will not say that!--but it is a pity there are
not younger eyes to see and admire it than mine and the dear marquis’.
Now, if Cecil were here--he has so keen an appreciation for all that is
beautiful!”
She looked up at him sharply.
“What do you want to tell me about him?” she demanded quickly, a faint
color coming into her face. “Is--is he coming back?”
“Is Cecil coming back, dear marquis?” he asked, turning as the door
opened and the marquis entered.
The marquis stopped and looked from one to the other under his brows.
“You should know best. The person who sent him to Ireland probably
knows when he can come back,” he said, with cold contempt.
“Now, now, really I must protest!” said Spenser Churchill, wagging
his forefinger playfully. “I know nothing about it, nothing whatever.
It was on your business he went, dear lord, not mine. No, come now,
really!”
The marquis smiled grimly.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “She”--and he indicated Lady Grace with a
slight motion of his hand--“knows, or guesses, all about it. We neither
of us have any desire to rob you of the credit of the plot, eh, Grace?”
She shrugged her snowy shoulders with an air of indifference, but she
could not keep her eagerness from flashing in her eyes, which were
fixed on Spenser Churchill’s smooth, smiling face.
“Well, if you ask my advice, I should say dear Cecil might as well come
back; not quite directly, but say--yes--say, in a week.”
The marquis raised his eyebrows with haughty indifference.
“When you like! There is a letter from him to-night.” and he flung
it on the table. “He seems to have unmasked the agent, and made
himself quite popular with his dear friends, the great unwashed! I
suppose”--with a sneer--“he will want to go into Parliament next, on
the Radical side, no doubt.”
“Y--es,” murmured Spenser Churchill, as he read the letter; “I always
said dear Cecil was clever.”
“Really?” said the marquis, in a tone of calm and indifferent
surprise. “The problem with me has always been whether he was a greater
fool than he looked, or looked a greater fool than he is.”
Mr. Spenser Churchill chuckled oilily, but Lady Grace half rose, and
shut her fan with a snap.
“He who buys Cecil for a fool will lose his money,” she said.
The marquis made her an elaborate bow, and Spenser Churchill clapped
his fat hands softly.
“Good--very good, dear lady! I must remember that; I must, indeed! So
truly witty.”
“So truly vulgar, you mean,” she said; “but I was following the
marquis’ suit.”
The marquis made her another bow.
“This is quite refreshing,” he said, his thin upper lip curling
scornfully. “And now that we have exchanged civilities, perhaps
Churchill will tell us what is to happen. Is Cecil to come back and
marry this pure and innocent ballet girl?”
“Actress, actress, dear marquis,” cooed Spenser Churchill, folding his
hands, and smiling with his head on one side. “If you appeal to me, I
am afraid I must be the bearer of bad news.”
“Bad news! He is married already?” exclaimed Lady Grace, rising and
confronting him with white face and furious eyes.
Spenser Churchill chuckled at her alarm, then, with his head a little
more on one side, murmured:
“No, no! I am sorry to say there is a little hitch--ahem--the fact is
the engagement is broken off.”
“Broken off?” exclaimed Lady Grace, and her face crimsoned as she
leaned forward, with scarcely repressed eagerness.
The marquis toyed with the diamond stud at his wrist, and maintained
his accustomed air of cold and haughty indifference; but Spenser
Churchill’s keen eyes detected a slight tremor of the thin, white
fingers.
“Y--es! It is very sad, and my heart bleeds for poor Cecil----” Lady
Grace tapped her hand with her fan with impatience, and seeing and
recognizing it, he went on with still more exasperating slowness. “Only
they who have suffered as he will and must suffer can sympathize with
him. To have one’s tenderest affections nipped in the bud, to find that
one’s true and devoted love has been misplaced, and--er--betrayed; ah,
how cruel and sharp a torture it is! Poor Cecil, poor Cecil!”
The fan snapped loudly, its delicate ivory leaves broken in the
restless, impatient fingers.
“Can you not tell us what has occurred--the truth, without this--this
sermon?” she exclaimed, almost fiercely.
“Yes, pray spare us, if you can, Spenser,” said the marquis, with a
cold smile. “I gather from what you say, that this miserable business
has come to an end. Is that so?”
“Yes! Is that so?” demanded Lady Grace.
Spenser Churchill heaved a deep sigh, but a faint smile of satisfaction
lurked in his half-closed eyes.
“I regret to say that it is,” he said. “Poor Cecil’s affections have
been wasted! The tenderest emotions of his heart betrayed! The young
lady has--discarded him!”
The marquis raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders, but
Lady Grace rose and laid her hand--with no gentle grasp--on Spenser
Churchill’s arm.
“Is this true?” she asked, almost in a whisper.
“Yes,” he said; “I have his dismissal in my hand,” and he held up
Doris’ note.
Lady Grace drew a long breath.
“You--you are very clever!” she said.
He looked at her with an affectation of surprise.
“I--I!” he murmured; “I know nothing about it! I happen to know the
young lady slightly, and she, not knowing Lord Cecil’s address----”
“He must have written to her!” broke in Lady Grace.
“Has he, do you think?” responded Spenser Churchill, opening his eyes
with a childlike innocence.
Lady Grace smiled.
“I see! I see! You intercepted the letters?”
“I beg your pardon! What did you say? Not knowing Lord Cecil’s address,
Miss Marlowe committed this letter to my care. Now the question is,
shall we send it on to him, or wait till he comes back? I think you
said he would be back in a week, dear marquis?”
“You said so,” said the marquis, coldly.
“Well, in that case, don’t you think it would be better to wait until
he comes back? Letters do miscarry so, don’t they?”
The marquis smiled sardonically.
“I agree with Lady Grace,” he said. “You are a clever fellow, Spenser.”
“They do miscarry so often,” continued Spenser Churchill. “So I think,
if you ask me, it will be better to keep it till he returns. That is my
humble advice.”
The marquis nodded.
“And my humble advice is that you are not here when it is delivered,”
he said, with a grim smile. “I have no doubt you have taken every
precaution, but if Cecil should get an inkling----” He stopped, and
smiled again significantly.
“Dear Cecil,” murmured Spenser Churchill; “I should so like to have
stayed till he came back, and attempted to soothe and comfort him”--the
marquis smiled more sardonically than before--“but,” continued Spenser
Churchill, “I am sorry to say important business compels me to return
to London to-morrow, so I must leave the letter in your charge. You
will take every care of it? Poor Cecil! And you must be very kind and
gentle with him, dear Lady Grace!”
“We will take every care of it, and Lady Grace will be very kind and
gentle, no doubt,” retorted the marquis, with a sneer.