AN ART PATRON.
“Dear me, how interesting!” said Lady Despard.
It was the third day after Doris’ arrival, and they were sitting at
breakfast in a small room, beautifully cool and shady, and furnished
with an elaborate simplicity which, while it avoided all garish color,
was fresh and bright. A great bowl of roses stood in the centre of the
table, from which rose a long fountain of perfumed water. Curtains of
the faintest blush-pink threw a warm tint upon her ladyship, who, in
her morning gown of delicate chintz, looked like one of the Dresden
shepherdesses which stood on the mantel-shelf. Doris, in her white
morning frock, with its deep black sash, was the only patch of decided
color--if white can be called a color--in the room, but, beside Lady
Despard’s rather insipid prettiness, her fresh young loveliness looked
like one of the roses in the bowl.
She looked up from the coffee cup she was filling from the great silver
urn with a faint smile of curiosity. In three days she had learned all
that there was to learn of Lady Despard’s character, and had grown to
like her. As for her ladyship, she had already taken to the beautiful
girl and her quaint, graceful ways and soft, musical voice, and, twenty
times in each of the days, had congratulated herself and blessed Mr.
Spenser Churchill on having sent her such a treasure.
“Really very interesting!” she repeated, turning over the note she
was reading, and regarding it with a pensive smile. “It is from our
friend, Mr. Churchill, dear,” she said; “one of his charming little
letters. The good that man does in a quiet, unobtrusive way, is really
astounding!”
“What has he been doing now?” asked Doris, quietly.
“Why, he has written asking me to help him in assisting a young friend
of his who has had a great deal of trouble and all that. He is a great
musician--that is, he ought to be great, you know--but he is poor and
friendless, and Mr. Churchill wants me to take him by the hand. He says
that I have such immense influence in the arts and musical world that I
can do anything. Of course that’s nonsense; that is only his nice way
of putting it. But there’s the note. Just read it out, dear.”
Doris took the letter and read it. It was a charming little
composition, as Lady Despard had said, and in the pleasantest way
told the story of struggling genius, which only needed Lady Despard’s
patronage to rise to the heights of success and fame. Might he bring
his young friend to see dear Lady Despard? Perhaps, if he might
suggest, and her ladyship was disengaged, she would kindly ask them to
dinner. He was quite sure she had only to know his dear young friend,
Percy Levant, to feel an interest in him for his own sake, and the
sake of the art of which dear Lady Despard was so distinguished a
patroness.
Charmingly worded as was the epistle, Doris, as she read it, felt a
strange and vaguely indefinite want of faith in it; an incredulity for
which she at once took herself to task, as she reminded herself that
Mr. Churchill was only doing for the young man that which he had done
for her.
“It is a nice letter,” she said, handing it back. “Shall you ask him,
Lady Despard?”
“Well, yes, dear; I think so,” said her ladyship. “I don’t know that I
can do much for the young man; you see, we go to Florence in a week’s
time. I might give a concert; and so introduce him to the musical
people; but I daresay Mr. Churchill has a plan ready--he is always so
systematic. I wonder what the young man is like? Percy Levant is the
name, isn’t it? Sounds Greek, doesn’t it? I hope he isn’t a foreigner;
they generally smell so of tobacco, and it’s so dreadfully difficult
to understand them; and they are not always presentable. There was a
Signor Something-or-other, an artist they got me to patronize, and
he used to swear dreadfully in Spanish, which no one understood,
fortunately.”
“Then it did not so much matter,” said Doris.
“No,” said her ladyship, pensively. “I forget what became of him; I
think he got into debt, and went back to Spain. There is one of his
pictures in the saloon. I hope this young man is presentable. These
young geniuses are often so--so _gauche_, and wear such old clothes.”
Doris could not help laughing at her ladyship’s doubts and fears.
“But genius covers a multitude of sins, doesn’t it?” she suggested, and
Lady Despard brightened up.
“So it does; and, after all, if he should be a little rough why we can
point out that all clever people are eccentric. Didn’t Dr. Johnson eat
sweet sauce with his fish, and use his knife when he ought to have used
his fork?”
“I think he did,” said Doris.
“Very well, then,” said Lady Despard, as if that settled it. “Just
write a line and tell Mr. Churchill to bring him to dinner to-night! I
think”--doubtfully--“that we’d better not have anybody!”
“In case this genius should eat with his knife,” said Doris, with a
laugh; and presently she rose and, going to a davenport, wrote the
required note.
Lady Despard, with her head on one side, watched her with pensive
admiration.
“How lovely you look in that pose, dear,” she said. “You certainly
have the loveliest profile! And how quickly and--and easily you write!
It takes me no end of a time to get my sentences together, and the
spelling--I suppose you can spell like a dictionary?”
“Not quite so well,” said Doris, with a smile; “but fortunately, there
aren’t many words of ten syllables required for this note,” and she
handed it for Lady Despard’s inspection, but her ladyship extended both
hands with a gesture of refusal.
“No, dear; I don’t want to see it, and won’t! I can trust to your taste
and discretion, and shouldn’t think of being so rude and presuming as
to read it! I’m sure it’s everything that’s nice!”
Doris laughed again.
“You are not very hard to please, Lady Despard,” she said, with a
little flush.
“I should be, if I were not pleased with you, you little snake
charmer,” responded her ladyship, leaning over her and gently pulling
the tiny, shell-like ear. “And now let’s go for a drive! I want you to
get some roses in those pale cheeks of yours. I think you are looking
better already, do you know?”
“I should be very ungrateful if I were not,” said Doris. “But hadn’t I
better tell the butler that these two gentlemen are coming to dinner?”
“I declare you think of everything!” exclaimed her ladyship. “You must
have been wonderfully trained, Doris!”
A faint flush rose to the pale cheeks, and then left it all the paler
for the swiftly passing color.
“Poor people learn to be thoughtful. The dear friend to whom I owe
everything, Lady Despard, spent all his life in tender devotion to me!”
“There, I’ve made you nearly cry!” exclaimed her ladyship, putting her
arm round her. “What an awkward idiot I am! But I’ll be more careful,
dear; I will, indeed. And now go and put on that pretty bonnet of
yours, and we’ll go and work havoc with the hearts of those foolish
young men who hang on the rails in the park.”
Doris gave the butler the necessary information. Although she had only
been three days in the house, Lady Despard had almost handed over the
management of it to her, and the servants had commenced to look to
her for their orders. It was a strange change from her old life of
dependence and excitement, but it was a change which Doris found very
grateful; the quiet of the magnificently-appointed house gave her a
sense of repose which she needed greatly, and but for the memory of her
loss of Jeffrey, but for the dull, aching pain which smote her heart
whenever she thought of the man who had stolen her heart in Barton
meadows, and tossed it almost contemptuously back to her, she could
have been happy.
All day long she strove to put the memory of Cecil Neville away from
her, but it haunted her sleeping and waking, and a great dread assailed
her that all her life she should strive for forgetfulness and find it
not.
As they drove in the park she leaned back in the carriage, and--lost
to all sense of the crowded drive and the long lines of pedestrians,
nearly all of whom plucked off their hats to the well-known Lady
Despard--let her mind wander back to Barton meadows. She did not
observe that she attracted as much attention as pretty Lady Despard
herself, and woke with a start when her ladyship, with an arch little
laugh, said:
“I never got so much notice before! I wonder why it is. Can you guess,
Doris?”
“I? No,” said Doris, innocently.
“Really no? Well, for a really pretty girl I think you are the most
modest I have ever met, my dear.”
Doris laughed and drew farther back.
“There!” exclaimed her ladyship. “I’ve put my foot in it again! Never
mind, dear, we’ll go home now; I’m tired of bowing; besides it’s
scarcely fair to me to do all, when half ought to be your share.”
Long before the evening Lady Despard had forgotten about the invited
guests; but Doris dressed early and arranged some flowers in the small
dining-room in which the meal was to be served; and thinking that it
would be required, arranged as well as she could the music which lay
in a confused heap in the rare Chippendale canterbury. Presently Lady
Despard came down, fresh from the hands of her maid, in a costume of
Worth’s, with which she had been entirely satisfied until she saw
Doris’ simple frock of black lace with a yellow rose nestling in its
bosom for her only ornament.
“How nice you look, dear!” she exclaimed, taking her by the shoulders
and holding her at arms’ length. “Now I wonder why it is that you
always seem just perfectly dressed. That neat little frock of yours is
simply exquisite, while mine looks all furbelows and fuss. Where did
you learn to dress like that?”
Doris could have answered, “At the best of all schools, the theatre;”
but instead, she smilingly put the question by and praised the other’s
handsome costume.
They were still talking when a footman announced Mr. Spenser Churchill
and Mr. Percy Levant. Lady Despard gave a little start.
“Bless me!” she exclaimed, “I had forgotten them!” and she glided
forward to receive them. Doris turned aside for a moment to pick up
a flower which had fallen from a vase, then looking round, found Mr.
Spenser Churchill waiting with extended hand.
“My dear Miss Marlowe!” he purred, pressing her hand and smiling down
upon her with a perfect wealth of benevolence; “I’m so glad, so glad to
see you again. Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Percy Levant. May I?”
He stepped on one side, and Doris, looking up, saw a tall, graceful
young man, with a face almost perfectly handsome; and as she noticed
the well-cut and carefully severe style of his evening dress, she felt
surprised and amused. This aristocratic gentleman, with the face of a
Greek god, must have startled Lady Despard, with her doubts and fears.
“Miss Doris Marlowe, Percy,” said Mr. Spenser Churchill, glancing at
him sideways and with keen watchfulness.
Percy Levant did not start, but the quick flash of his eyes and a
certain quiver of the delicately-formed lips, sufficiently indicated
the surprise which fell to his share.
He had imagined a girl, plain almost to ugliness; not only plain, but
shy and diffident, and--as he would have put it--bad form; a dark,
colorless, governess kind of creature; and this vision of perfect
grace and youthful loveliness startled him almost to bewilderment. He
bowed low to hide the faint signs of his discomfiture, and Doris, just
inclining her head, at once moved away.
Dinner was announced, and Lady Despard, talking in her
languidly-glowing style, gave her arm to Spenser Churchill, leaving
Percy to escort Doris.
The dinner was served on the oval table, and the little party--which
would have seemed cold and formal in the larger apartment, with its
huge table and splendid furniture--was made to appear pleasant and
homelike. Spenser Churchill and Lady Despard did all the talking for
some time, and Percy Levant only joined in occasionally; but his
silence was perfectly self-possessed, and without a touch of the
_gaucherie_ or awkwardness and want of breeding Lady Despard had so
much dreaded.
Every now and then he let his splendid eyes wander to the lovely face
beside him, and each time the amazement overwhelmed him, although he
sat apparently so calm. This exquisite creature had been sold to him
by Spenser Churchill! This beautiful girl to be his wife! He caught
himself once or twice looking round the room with a close scrutiny, as
if to convince himself that he was awake and not dreaming. But he could
not sit there silent all through the dinner, and at last he forced
himself to address her.
It was only some trivial remark about the weather, but it seemed to him
that his voice trembled with the emotion with which his heart literally
throbbed.
Doris responded in her soft, quiet voice, and the sound of it somehow
lulled the storm within him and gave him confidence. He found
himself talking to her more freely, and each moment the spell her
unexpected beauty and grace cast upon him grew stronger. To listen to
a commonplace from Doris was delightful enough, but she could talk
something better than commonplace; and Percy Levant, the adventurer,
the man who “knew the world,” was again startled to find that Mr.
Spenser Churchill’s ward was, young as she looked, well read in
subjects of which most women were utterly and sublimely ignorant. And
yet she talked so modestly, so diffidently that her knowledge was an
added charm.
He started when Lady Despard, rising, said:
“The butler knows the claret you like, Mr. Churchill; I shall leave you
to his tender mercies. Mr. Levant, we will have some tea for you when
you come into the drawing-room, so don’t expect any to be sent in.”
He opened the door for them, and then sank into his chair, let his head
fall upon his bosom, his lips tightly compressed.
Spenser Churchill filled his glass and remained silent until the butler
had left the room, then he said, with a smile:
“Well, my dear Percy, what do you think of my dear young ward?”
Percy Levant raised his head and looked at him with a curious
expression.
“Give me some wine,” he said; then, after he had drank a glass, he
demanded, almost sternly: “Why did you not tell me?”
“Tell you what?” asked Mr. Spenser Churchill, with a chuckle. “I told
you she was a charming young lady----”
“And you wished me to think that you lied in saying so,” retorted the
other. “Why did you not tell me that she was as beautiful as--she is?”
Spenser Churchill chuckled again.
“My dear Percy, I thought that a little surprise would not come amiss.
If I had told you that she was pretty----”
“Pretty!”
“Well, beautiful--lovely--you would not have believed me!”
“No, I should not,” he said, curtly. “Don’t say any more. I want to
think! Great Heaven, she is like a dream! Stop! Don’t talk, I say; I’m
not equal to any of your smooth platitudes at present. Let me be in
peace!”
Mr. Spenser Churchill laughed softly.
“Certainly, certainly, my dear Percy,” he said. “Yes, I can understand
your astonishment. This claret is very fine----”
“No more!” said Percy, rising and taking a step or two across the room,
with his arms behind him, his head bent upon his breast again. “Let us
go to them.”
“I’m quite ready,” said Spenser Churchill, smiling with intense
enjoyment.
They went into the drawing-room. Lady Despard was turning over the
music, Doris was seated at the tea-table.
“I am trying to find something for you to play, Mr. Levant,” she said.
“We are so eager to hear you play, Miss Marlowe and I.”
He bowed, and his glance caught Doris’; but she only smiled.
“Will you not play or sing?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” she said; “I should be afraid.”
“Of me? It is I who should fear, for I know from your conversation that
I shall have a musician for a critic.”
“No,” she said, quietly; “I am not a musician. You will have some tea
presently?” and she raised her eyes to his with the calm politeness of
perfect self-possession and good breeding.