IN STRANGE SURROUNDINGS.
Feeling as if the world were quite a new and different one, and she
equally new and strange, Doris left Barton the following morning, Mrs.
Jelf driving her to the station in a little pony-cart, and obviously
weeping as the train left the station.
It was not a particularly long journey, and the time passed very
quickly, as it seemed to Doris, for she was thinking all the time,
dwelling on the past and considering what the future would be like, and
when they reached Waterloo she was about to ask a porter for a cab,
when a footman came up to the carriage, and, touching his hat, inquired
if she were Miss Marlowe.
“The carriage is quite close, miss,” he said, with evident respect,
after a glance at the slim, graceful, black-clad figure and delicately
refined face. “She’s a lady, anyhow,” was his mental comment.
The carriage was an admirably appointed one, the horses evidently as
good as money could buy, and the get-up of the equipage quiet and
reserved, corresponding with the dark liveries of the coachman and
footman.
They went, at a smart, businesslike pace, through the crowded Strand,
and, entering the sacred regions of the upper ten, pulled up at one of
the largest houses in Chester Gardens.
Now, there is one advantage, at any rate, in being an actress: that
nothing surprises you. No grandeur can overwhelm a person who has
been nightly playing with kings and queens--perhaps enacted a queen
herself; and though the first glimpse of the interior of Lady Despard’s
town house was rather startling, Doris was capable of concealing her
surprise. The house was new, and magnificently furnished after the
latest art craze. The hall was intended to represent the outer court of
a Turkish harem, with richly chased arches, marble passages, tropical
ferns, and a plashing fountain. Brilliantly colored rugs made splashes
of color on the cool marble, and here and there a huge but graceful
vase lent variety to the decorations. It certainly rather reminded you
of one of the divisions of a Turkish bath; but Lady Despard couldn’t
help that.
As Doris passed through this oriental hall she heard the sound of an
organ, and found that one stood in a dimly-lighted recess. A young
man was playing, and he scarcely raised his eyes from the keys as he
glanced at her.
“Miss Marlowe,” said the footman, opening a door on the left of the
hall, and Doris entered a room as dimly lighted as the organ recess;
so dark, in fact, that for a moment she could distinguish nothing; the
next, however, she saw a lady rise from a low divan and approach her.
Doris could not make out her features, but she heard a very pleasant
and musical voice say:
“How do you do, Miss Marlowe? I am so glad you have come. Will you sit
down a little while, or would you rather go to your own room first?”
Doris sat down, and Lady Despard drawing aside a curtain from before
a stained-glass window, Doris saw that her ladyship was young and
remarkably pretty; she was dressed in exquisite taste, and in colors
which set off her delicate complexion and softly-languid eyes. Lady
Despard scanned Doris’ face for a second or two, and her gaze grew more
interested.
“It was very good of you to come to me, Miss Marlowe,” she said.
Of course Doris responded that it was more than good of Lady Despard to
have her.
“Not at all; the favor--if there be any--is on your side,” said her
ladyship. “I am simply bored to death and pining for a companion.
I hope we shall get on together. Mr. Spenser Churchill was quite
eloquent in your praise; and he certainly didn’t exaggerate in one
respect”--and her ladyship let her eyes wander over the pale, lovely
face meaningly--“and I am sure you look awfully lovable. By the way,
what’s your name--I mean your Christian name?”
Doris told her.
“How pretty. You must let me call you by it. ‘Miss Marlowe’ sounds so
stiff and formal, as if you were a governess, doesn’t it? Mr. Spenser
Churchill says that you are dreadfully clever; I hope you aren’t.”
Doris smiled.
“I am afraid Mr. Churchill has prepared a disappointment for you, Lady
Despard,” she said.
Her ladyship shook her head.
“I don’t think so. I only hope you won’t be disappointed in me. I am
awfully stupid; but I’m always trying to learn,” she added, with a
smile. “Do you know Mr. Churchill very well? Is he an old friend of
yours?”
“No,” said Doris, gravely; “I have known him for a few days only. He
was very kind to me; very kind, indeed.”
“I know. He always is,” said Lady Despard. “Such a benevolent man,
isn’t he? I always say that he reminds me of one of the patriarchs,
with his gentle smile, and long hair, and soft voice. Any one would
guess he was a philanthropist the moment they saw him, wouldn’t they?”
“I don’t know,” said Doris; “I have seen so few philanthropists.”
“No. Well, I suppose there aren’t many, are there? Oh, Mr. Spenser
Churchill is a wonderfully good man; he’s so charitable, and all
that. Why, I don’t know how many societies he is connected with. I
try and do all the good I can,” she added, looking rather bored; “but
my philanthropy is generally confined to subscribing five pounds; and
there’s not much in that, is there?”
Doris was tempted to say: “Exactly one hundred shillings,” but,
instead, remarked that if everybody gave five pounds poverty would be
very much on the decrease.
“Yes,” said her ladyship, as if the subject had exhausted itself and
her, too. “How well you look in black!--oh, forgive me!” as Doris’ lips
quivered. “How thoughtless of me!--that is always my way--I never think
until I’ve spoken! Of course, Mr. Churchill told me about your trouble.
I’m so sorry. I’ve had trouble myself.”
She glanced at a portrait which hung on the wall as she spoke, a
portrait of a very elderly gentleman, who must have been extremely
ugly, or very cruelly wronged by the artist.
“Your father?” said Doris, gently.
“No, that is the earl--my husband,” said Lady Despard, not at all
discomposed, though Doris’ face went crimson. “You think he looks
old? Well,” reflectively, “he was old. He was just sixty-eight when
we married. We were only married two years. He was very good to me,”
she went on, calmly eying the portrait as if it were that of a chance
acquaintance, “extremely so--too much so, they all said, and I dare say
they were right. He was immensely rich, and he left me everything he
could. I’m afraid I’m wickedly rich,” she added, almost plaintively;
“at any rate, I know there is so much money and houses and that kind of
thing as to be a nuisance.”
A knock was heard at the door, and a footman entered.
“A person with the tapestry, my lady,” he said.
“Oh, very well!” said her ladyship, languidly. “I’ll come and see it.
Would you like to come, or are you too tired, dear?”
“I should like to come,” said Doris.
They went into the hall, and a man displayed a length of ancient
tapestry.
Lady Despard linked her arm in Doris’, and looked at it for a moment or
two with a very small amount of interest, then asked the price.
The man mentioned a sum that rather startled Doris, but her ladyship
nodded carelessly.
“Shall I buy it?” she asked of Doris.
Doris could scarcely repress a smile.
“I--really I am no judge,” she said. “I don’t know whether it is worth
the money or not.”
Lady Despard laughed indolently.
“Oh, as to that, of course it isn’t worth it,” she said, with a candor
which must have rather discomfited the man. “Nothing one buys ever is
worth the money, you know; but one must go on buying things; there’s
nothing else to do. Yes, I’ll have it,” she added to the man, and drew
Doris away.
“Now, I’ve kept you with your things on quite long enough,” she said.
“You shall go upstairs. I’ve got some people coming to tea--it’s my
afternoon--but you needn’t come down unless you like; I dare say you’ll
be glad to rest.”
Doris was about to accept the suggestion thankfully, but, remembering
her new position, said:
“I am not tired; I shall come down, Lady Despard.”
“Very well, then,” said her ladyship, touching an electric bell. “Send
Miss Marlowe’s maid, please.”
A quiet, pleasant-looking maid came to the door, and Doris followed her
through the hall, and up a winding staircase of carved pine, and into a
daintily-furnished room.
The maid brought her a cup of tea, and leaving Doris to rest for
half-an-hour, returned to show her down to the drawing-room.
As they made their way to it, Doris heard the sound of a piano and the
hum of voices, and, a footman opening the door, she saw that the room
was full of people.
She made her way, with some little difficulty, to Lady Despard, who was
seated at a small table, evidently merely pretending to superintend
a tea-service, for the footman was handing around cups supplied from
something outside, and more capacious than the tiny kettle on the
table, and her ladyship looked up and smiled a pleasant little welcome.
“You have come down, after all?” she said, making room on the settee
beside her. “This is my new friend, Miss Marlowe, your grace,” she
added, addressing a stout and dignified-looking lady near her, the
Duchess of Grantham.
Her grace surveyed Doris through a pair of gold eye-glasses, and
inclined her head with ducal condescension, and Lady Despard introduced
several other persons in the circle.
“We are going to Florence together,” said Lady Despard, “though why
Florence I haven’t the slightest idea; it’s a whim of my doctor’s. I
don’t feel the slightest bit ill, but he says I am, and he ought to
know, I suppose.”
The room, which had seemed to Doris quite full when she entered,
appeared to get still fuller. People came, exchanged a few words
with Lady Despard, took a cup of tea, strolled about and talked with
one or the other, or listened to some one who sang or played, and
then wandered out. Everybody appeared either languidly indifferent
or horribly bored. Doris, as she leaned back, half-hidden by Lady
Despard’s elaborate tea-gown on one side and the voluminous folds of a
plush curtain on the other, looked on at the crowd, and listened to the
hum and buzz of voices, half in a dream.
Every now and then she heard some well-known name mentioned, and
discovered that the people around her were not only persons of rank,
but men and women famous in the world of music and letters.
Suddenly she heard a name spoken that made her heart leap, and caused
her to shrink still further back.
“What has become of Cecil Neville?” asked the duchess.
Lady Despard shrugged her shoulders.
“I’m sure I don’t know. Oh, yes, I do. I had forgotten. He has gone
down to stay with his uncle, the Marquis of Stoyle, you know.”
“Poor Cecil,” commiserated the duchess, with a faint smile. “How he
must suffer!”
“I heard that he’d been obliged to leave England,” remarked another
lady in a subdued voice. “Up to his ears in debt, poor fellow!”
“Well, he has had a very long rope,” said the duchess. “It is time he
married and settled down.”
“That is just what he is going to do,” said Lady Despard, laughing. “I
heard from Mr. Spenser Churchill--he is stopping at Barton Towers, you
know--that Lord Cecil is engaged to Grace Peyton.”
The duchess raised her eyebrows.
“At last! Well, it is a good match, and I’m sure she’ll be happy.”
“Oh, how severe!” said the other lady. “You mean that he won’t be, your
grace?”
“I mean that if I were a man I should think twice before----” She
stopped, as if she had suddenly remembered the number and mixed
character of her audience.
“Oh, she is a charming girl--and so very beautiful, you know,” said
Lady Despard.
“Yes, very,” said her grace, dryly, and changed the subject.
Doris sat perfectly motionless, and very pale, fighting against the
dizziness which assailed her.
“What is that the senor is playing?” asked the duchess presently.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” replied Lady Despard, helplessly.
Doris rose.
“I will go and inquire,” she said, feeling that she had better seize
the opportunity of making herself useful.
Her grace looked after her.
“That’s a very beautiful girl, my dear,” she said, slowly.
“Isn’t she!” responded Lady Despard. “I call her lovely--simply lovely.
I’m awfully obliged to Mr. Spenser Churchill.”
“Who is she?--where does she come from?”
“Oh, it’s quite a long story!” said her ladyship, who was not so simple
as to throw down Doris’ history for her aristocratic friends to worry.
“The poor child has just lost her father.”
“She will create a sensation,” said the duchess, calmly and
emphatically. “I don’t think I ever saw a more lovely face, or a more
graceful figure--excepting yours, my dear.”
“Oh, you can leave mine out, too!” said Lady Despard, good-naturedly.
Meanwhile, Doris made her way through the crowd, and the duchess’
prophecy was speedily fulfilled. Men and women, as they made room for
the slight, girlish figure to pass, looked after her with a startled
curiosity, and turned to each other, asking eager questions, some of
which were pitched in a quite high enough key for Doris to hear. But,
with the modest self-possession which her training had bestowed upon
her, she reached the piano, learned the name of the piece, and returned
to the duchess.
“It is Beethoven’s sonata in G, your grace,” she said in her low,
musical voice.
“Thank you, my dear,” said the duchess. “It was very good-natured of
you to take so much trouble. Good-by, Lady Despard,” and as she shook
hands with her hostess she bestowed a smile and a nod on Doris.
Lady Despard laughed.
“My dear,” she said, “you are going to be a success. It isn’t often the
duchess is so amiable.”
Two hours later, Mr. Spenser Churchill, with a smile that seemed to
cast a benediction on everything it lighted on, was slowly walking down
the still warm pavement of Bentham street, Soho.
Bentham street, Soho, is by no means an aristocratic thoroughfare, and
the eminent philanthropist had to meander in and out of a crowd of
dirty children, who shouted and sprawled over the curb and pavement,
much to their own delight and the peril of the foot passengers; but Mr.
Churchill seemed quite familiar with the street and its humors, and,
stopping at a house half-way down, knocked at the door as if he had
done it before.
A young and overgrown girl shuffled along the passage, and answering
an inquiry of Mr. Churchill’s as to whether Mr. Perry Levant was in,
nodded an affirmative, and requested Mr. Churchill to follow her.
She knocked at a door on the first floor, and receiving a peculiarly
clear-voiced “Come in,” opened the door, and jerked her finger by way
of invitation to Mr. Churchill to enter.
Notwithstanding the neighborhood in which it was situated, and the
dingy condition of the rest of the house, this room was comfortably
furnished, and indicated the possession of some amount of taste by its
occupant. There was a fair-sized table, with a large bowl of flowers
in the center, some pictures rather good than bad, a Collard & Collard
piano stood on one side of the small room, with a guitar leaning
against it. Besides the pictures, there hung on the walls a pair of
fencing foils and masks, and a set of boxing-gloves.
The room was full of the smoke which emanates from a good Havana, and
the smoker was reclining in a comfortable chair, with his feet on
another, and a glass of, apparently, soda and brandy by his elbow.
He was a young man, who if he possessed no other qualities, had been
remarkably favored by the gods in one particular; he was perhaps as
singularly handsome a specimen of the human race as it is possible to
conceive. So finely cut and delicately molded was his face that it
would have been considered effeminate but for the mustache which, like
his hair and eyebrows, and the long lashes that swept the clear olive
cheek, was a silky, lustrous black. It was a face which Van Dyke would
have loved to paint, a face which, once seen, lingered in one’s memory,
and it wore an added charm, a certain devil-may-care, _debonnaire_
expression which at once attracted attention and lent it impressiveness.
“Hallo, Spenser, is that you?” he exclaimed, with a laugh, as he rose
and held out his hand, as white--though not so soft and fat--as the
philanthropist’s own. “An unexpected honor! Sit down! You don’t mind
the smoke, do you?” he asked, as Mr. Spenser Churchill coughed two or
three “wow, wows” behind his handkerchief. “Rather thick, isn’t it? The
room’s small, you see, and I’ve been smoking for--oh, Lord knows how
long! Have anything? Brandy and soda, eh? All right!” and, going to
the window, he leaned out, and called some instructions to an urchin
below.
“My dear Percy, isn’t that--er--rather a public way of procuring
refreshments?” said Mr. Churchill.
The young fellow laughed.
“Well, perhaps it is,” he admitted. “But it saves trouble, and they’re
used to it! There are always some youngsters outside glad to earn a
penny, and the ‘Pig and Whistle’ keeps a very good article, so they
say! Have a cigar?” and he pushed a box toward him. “You’ll find them
all right, I think. And now, what brings you to the aristocratic
regions of Soho?”
Mr. Spenser Churchill lit his cigar and took two or three preliminary
puffs before answering, the young man leaning against the mantel-shelf
in graceful abandon, and watching him with a faintly-amused curiosity;
then the great philanthropist said, in his soft, dulcet voice:
“I have come to make your fortune, Percy!”