IN THE HOUR OF NEED.
It need scarcely be remarked that it is not usual for young ladies
unattended to pay gentlemen visits at their chambers. Scandal is only
too ready to seize upon the slightest excuse for the exercise of its
malignity, and the fact, if it were known, that Lady Grace Peyton had
been seen in Cecil Neville’s rooms would be quite sufficient to set
evil tongues wagging.
All this flashed across Cecil Neville’s mind as she stood in the
doorway, a picture of queenly beauty which seemed to light up the room,
and made the sheriff’s officer stare with all his eyes.
Lord Cecil went forward, a slight flush on his face denoting his
embarrassment.
“Lady Grace!” he said.
Then he stopped suddenly, remembering that it would be well not to
mention her name before the man.
She bit her lip and looked from one to the other as she gave him her
hand.
“I--I thought you were alone!” she said, in a low voice full of
confusion and anxiety.
The officer rose and made a slight bow.
“I’ll step outside, my lord,” he said, respectfully, and he did so.
“I--I did not know,” faltered Lady Grace, looking after him. “Have I
done anything very wrong in coming? I did not stop to think. I was so
anxious that I thought I would come up to town----”
“Will you not sit down?” he said, gravely, and he placed a chair for
her.
She sank into it, and looked up at him.
“What news is there? Have you heard of her? I can’t tell you how
anxious I am! Ah! I see by your face that something has happened! What
is it?”
“Yes; I have had news,” he said, in a low voice. “My uncle was right,
and you and I were wrong, Lady Grace. Miss Marlowe”--his voice grew
grim--“has sailed for Australia.”
“Oh, no, no! But alone?” she breathed.
“No, not alone. She went with this Mr. Garland,” he said, sternly.
She held out her hand to him.
“Oh, I am so sorry! What can I say, dear Lord Neville, to comfort you?”
He smiled wearily.
“Nothing, I am afraid. There is nothing to be said--or done; I have got
to bear it, that is all! I am not the only man who has been--jilted.”
The cruel word left his lips like a note of steel. “Probably my lot is
all too common. Yes, I have got to bear it!”
“There--there is no doubt about it?” she asked.
“None, whatever,” he replied. “I have been down to the office and seen
the list of passengers, and her name is among them, together with this
man’s.”
“How bad, how heartless, she must be!” she murmured, indignantly.
He winced and looked aside; even in this, the first hour of his
trouble, he could scarcely endure to hear Doris thus spoken of.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I can scarcely believe that she has done what
she has; it seems more like a dream than sober reality. But I suppose
every man in my case feels like that.”
“If I could only do something for you!” she murmured, leaning forward,
and looking up into his face with the sympathy which, coming from a
woman, is so precious to a man, especially when the woman is young and
beautiful.
“Thanks, awfully,” he said, trying to speak in a conventional tone to
hide the acuteness of his suffering, “but, as I said, no one can do
anything, except it is our old friend, Time. I shall ‘get over it,’”
and he smiled, as the Spartan may have smiled while the fox was gnawing
at his bosom.
“You look very tired,” she said, after a moment’s pause. “What will you
do with yourself to-day? Will you--don’t think me obtrusive!--but will
you come and drive with me--come, and do something? I am so afraid that
you will sit here and mope.” She glanced round, then started and looked
up at him, as if with a sudden remembrance of the situation. “But I am
forgetting! I--I ought not to be here, ought I? Lord Neville, you don’t
think ill of me for coming?” and the color rose to her face, and she
dropped her eloquent eyes as if with a sudden shame.
“Think ill of you, Lady Grace!” he echoed, impetuously. “What, for
coming to try and help a poor fellow with your sympathy? I can’t tell
you how grateful I am! It was a kind action, which not one woman out of
a thousand would have done!”
“Ah!” she said, in a low voice; “that is it! One woman in a thousand!
Tell me, Lord Cecil, and tell me the truth! I have been foolish
and--and forward in coming here to you like this?”
If he had told to her the truth, Lord Cecil would certainly have
been obliged to admit that she had been foolish; but what man in his
position ever does make such an admission?
“I think you have done a very kind action, Lady Grace,” he said,
gravely. “And--shame to him who thinks ill of it! Besides----” He
hesitated.
She looked at him with an intelligent flash of her eyes.
“You were going to say that no one need know. You forget the cabman and
the man outside.”
Lord Cecil bit his lip.
“At any rate, no one else need know,” he said. “The cabman does not
know who you are----”
“I engaged him from just outside our own house,” she said, in a voice
of concern.
“Cabmen are discreet,” he said, to reassure her.
“But the man--who is he, Lord Neville?”
He wiped his moustache, and made a great business of it.
“Oh! a man I do business with,” he said; “nobody of any consequence. He
does not know you, I’ll answer for it.”
She drew a long breath.
“Not until this moment have I realized what I have done,” she said, and
he saw her lips tremble.
“Don’t be uneasy, Lady Grace,” he said, soothingly. “Let me discharge
this cabman and call another----”
“Very well,” she said; then she added, tremulously; “but will you not
come back with me?”
“Of course I will!” he assented, promptly, and he seized his hat. “I
will come and see Lord Peyton----”
“My father is away, yachting,” she said; “but come as far as the house,
if you will.”
“Yes!” Then he stopped and turned crimson, and stared at her, the
picture of a man embarrassed beyond measure.
“Oh, what is it now?” she exclaimed, almost clasping her hands.
“Nothing, nothing,” he hastened to reassure her, though his voice
was anything but reassuring; “only that I have just remembered that
I cannot leave the--the house just at present. The fact is, I have
important business with this man, and--and--oh, Lady Grace, I am
so sorry! Don’t misunderstand! I’d give all I’m worth”--he laughed
bitterly, and corrected himself--“ten years of my life, to come with
you, but----”
He turned away, and set down his hat almost savagely.
“I don’t understand,” she murmured, anxiously, and there seemed to him
a touch of reproach in her voice, which maddened him. “But I will not
ask you to explain. Good-by,” and she turned away without offering her
hand.
He sprang forward; then pulled up, and with something between a groan
and an oath, sank into a chair.
She passed out, closing the door after her. On the bottom of the stairs
she found the man sitting with his hands in his pockets, his hat on the
back of his head; but he sprang up and removed his hat as she appeared.
She made a slight gesture with her hand, and he followed her to the
door; there she turned and, looking at him, calmly said:
“You are a sheriff’s officer?”
He looked rather surprised.
“Yes, I am, my lady,” he admitted. “I suppose his lordship told you?”
“No matter,” she said. “Do you know who I am?”
His eyes dropped before her steady gaze, and he looked rather uncertain
how to answer.
“I see you do!” she said.
“Well, yes, my lady. You see, I get about a good deal,” he added,
apologetically, “and anybody who is accustomed to seeing much of the
upper ten, knows Lady Grace Peyton.”
She looked round as he spoke her name, and bit her lip.
“Yes, I am Lady Grace Peyton,” she said; “and I have come to see Lord
Cecil Neville because he is in trouble. I am a very great friend of
his.”
The man nodded appreciatively. He took her words as meaning that she
was engaged to Lord Cecil.
“He is in great trouble, is he not?”
“Well, yes, he is,” he replied. “That is, he is in just a bit of a hole
at present! It’s not much of a hole, but he seems as if he couldn’t get
out of it.”
“You have arrested him for debt, have you not?”
“Well, yes I have,” he admitted, almost reluctantly. “I suppose he
has told you, and it’s no use my denying it, my lady, especially
if--begging your pardon for the liberty--you are going to help him; and
I suppose you are?”
“Yes,” she said, quietly. “What is the amount?”
He handed her the paper.
“Is that all?”
“All I’m concerned with,” he replied, significantly.
“I will pay it,” she said, after a moment’s reflection. “Will you come
with me to the bank?”
He hesitated a moment, then put on his hat with a certain amount of
emphasis.
“Yes, I will! It’s not usual, but I’d trust your ladyship to the
utmost.”
“Walk down the street and beckon the cab to follow, please,” she said.
“I do not wish Lord Neville to see us together. I do not wish him to
know anything of what I have done. Can I trust you?”
“You can, my lady,” he said.
They drove in silence to the West End branch of the bank, which was
only half-a-mile off, and Lady Grace drew a check for the amount and
handed it to the officer, who took it with unfeigned pleasure.
“I can’t tell you now how glad I am you came, Lady Grace,” he said.
“If ever I’ve had a disagreeable job, this one of Lord Neville’s was
one. Most of ’em treat one like dirt, and give a lot of trouble into
the bargain. I’ve met with rough usage sometimes, my lady; but Lord
Neville, though he’s young and full of go, so to speak, has behaved
like a gentleman, and treated me as if I had the feelings of a man.
Yes, he’s a nobleman, every inch of him, and--I hope you won’t laugh,
my lady!--but, I declare, if I’d had the money, I’d have lent it him
myself rather than taken him off. There’s the receipt.”
She thought a moment, holding the paper in her hand; then she said:
“Take it to Lord Neville, and put an end to his anxiety; but, remember
your promise, and do not tell him from whom you got the money.”
Then she lowered her veil, and left him.
He walked back to Clarges street--almost ran, indeed--and, opening
the door in response to Lord Cecil’s gloomy “Come in,” entered, and
pantingly surveyed him with a smile.
“Well?” said Lord Cecil, grimly. “You are agreeably surprised at
finding me here still! Most jailbirds would have taken advantage of
your absence and flown, would they not?”
“Yes, they would,” assented the man, emphatically. “But I spoke the
truth when I said you were a real nobleman. And I didn’t hurry back
because I was afraid. No!--I knew you’d wait! You are the right sort,
you are, my lord!”
“Thanks,” said Lord Cecil, curtly; “and where have you been?”
“Begging your pardon, my lord, that’s a secret; but I’ve been on
business, and there it is!” and he laid the discharge on the table.
Lord Cecil took it up indifferently; then, when he had realized its
purport, he started and flushed.
“Why!--what does this mean?” he demanded.
“It means that the claim is settled, and that you are a free man, my
lord,” said the officer, warmly; “and if you’ll allow me to offer my
respectful congratulations and a word of warning----”
“A word of warning?” said Lord Cecil, confusedly.
“Yes, my lord. This business--though it’s all right in a legal way--has
had a curious feature or two about it. I mean that there’s been some
underhand work going on: Jews, I expect. You see, though the amounts
were owing to several persons originally, they’ve been bought up by
some one--some one who’s got a grudge against you! Can you guess who it
is?”
Lord Cecil shook his head.
“I know no one who has any grudge against me,” he said, still
bewildered.
“Very well, my lord, all the more reason that you should keep your eyes
open. At any rate, you’re clear of ’em now, and I wish you good-day.
You won’t be sorry to see the back of me, I daresay.”
“Stop!” exclaimed Lord Cecil; and the man turned, with his hand on the
door. “Some one has paid this money. Who was it?”
The man shook his head.
“A friend who wishes to remain unknown, my lord,” he said.
Lord Cecil stared at him.
“A friend who--nonsense, man! I must know! Who was it? The marquis?”
The man shook his head again.
“I’m pledged, my lord,” he said. “But it wasn’t the marquis--confound
him!” he added, under his breath.
“Not the marquis? I know of no one else--stop!” His face went crimson.
“The lady who was here”--he sprang forward and seized the man’s arm in
a grip like that of a vice--“was it she?”
“I’m pledged, my lord. I’ve given my word. I have, indeed!”
Lord Cecil dropped his arm.
“You have answered,” he said, in a low voice, and the officer, after a
moment’s hesitation, nodded ruefully and went out.
Lord Cecil paced up and down the room with the discharge in his hand.
The excitement of the last twenty-four hours, the suspense respecting
Doris, the arrest, and now this sudden release, added to his physical
exhaustion, told upon him fearfully.
That he owed his escape from the disgrace of imprisonment to Lady
Grace he could not doubt. Doris, on whose truth he would have staked
his life, had jilted him; his uncle, the marquis, had, in his hour of
trouble, disdainfully deserted him and cast him aside and this woman,
whom he had regarded as a perfect type of worldliness, had come to his
aid and freed him.
She had done more than that, for she had risked her reputation in her
desire to show him her sympathy with him. She had done that which only
one woman in a thousand would have dared to do: come to his room alone
and unprotected.
A man is never so tender as regards his heart as in the moment when
he has been betrayed by one woman and succored by another; and Lord
Cecil’s heart throbbed with a painful sense of admiration and gratitude
toward this woman of the world, the girl whom he had always regarded as
just a society beauty, who had, at such fearful risks to her own name,
come to his side in his dark hour.
“May Heaven forget me if ever I forget it!” he said to himself, not
once nor twice only. “What shall I say to her? What am I to do to show
her how I feel about it? And where shall I get the money to repay her?
I can’t let her be the loser; I must pay her; but how--but how?”
Meanwhile, Lady Grace had reached her house in Grosvenor Square, and,
going to the drawing-room, found Mr. Spenser Churchill seated in an
easy-chair, reading the last annual report of the Sweeps’ Orphan Home.
“Well?” he said, looking up with a bland smile.
She sank into a chair, and began pulling off her gloves, her eyes
downcast, her face pale and thoughtful.
“It is done,” she said.
“Ah!” he said, with a nod of satisfaction. “You have seen him, then?”
“Yes, I have seen him,” she said, in a low voice. “I was only just in
time.”
He smiled with an air of complacency.
“Oh, I think I timed it carefully,” he said. “I knew he would be at
the office the moment they opened it; I calculated that he would be
arrested shortly after, and that he would go to his rooms and telegraph
to the marquis, allowing a little over an hour--say two--for the
answer, a refusal, as the dear marquis and I arranged; and there you
are, you see!” and he laughed, softly.
“Yes,” she said; “you arranged it very well.”
“Ye--s! And the news at the office. Is he satisfied?”
“Yes, he is satisfied. He saw her name. It did not occur to him
to ascertain if she had really sailed; if it had----” She paused,
significantly.
The philanthropist laughed with unctuous enjoyment.
“But he didn’t, you see, my dear young lady. That is just the little
risk one has to run; but, after all, it isn’t much risk. Why should he
suspect that any one should go to the trouble and expense of booking a
passage for Miss Marlowe? And you found him in bonds--just starting for
prison?” And he rubbed his hands together with renewed enjoyment. “Poor
Cecil! Really, it is very sad that one should be compelled to take such
strong measures. And yet, after all, will not the lesson be a salutary
one? Pride must have a fall, dear lady; pride must have a fall! And
our dear Cecil”--his small eyes glinted maliciously for a moment--“was
very, very proud! And you paid the money?”
She looked up with a little start.
“Yes, I paid the money. In fact, I have carried out your instructions
to the letter.”
“Yes, yes; you are a courageous girl, dear lady. It is not every one so
well known as you who would so far brave the consequences as to go to a
gentleman’s rooms----”
She looked at him, with a flash in her eyes and with a tight
compression of the lips, but he pretended not to notice the warning
signs.
“Our dear Cecil ought to be very grateful to you; very! And, if I know
his generous nature--and I fancy I do--I think he must be. Oh, yes, he
will never forget it--never! Why, bless me, if it were known--if, for
instance, any acquaintance had seen you going or departing--what would
not be said?” And he held up his fat hands.
She sprang to her feet, and stood with her hand pressed against the
chair, her bosom heaving, her magnificent eyes fixed upon him with
suppressed fury.
“A word, a hint, just a whisper, is enough nowadays for the
scandal-loving world; and I can just fancy how delighted the society
papers would be with such a dainty morsel as the incident of a visit to
Lord C----l N----l from Lady G----e P----n. They never print the name
in full; oh, no; but everybody understands----”
“Take care!” she breathed. “Do not drive me too far!”
“Oh, yes, yes; we must take care!” he assented, feigning to
misunderstand her. “We must not breathe a word of it, of course; must
flatly contradict it, if we hear a hint dropped. But there, dear Cecil
would rather die than admit it!”
“Yes,” she said, between her teeth; “yes, you speak the truth there; he
would rather die than harm should come to me--to any one--for his sake!”
“Y-e-s, he is so high-minded, isn’t he? And how does the dear fellow
bear this blow? It isn’t pleasant to be jilted, is it? Is he resigned?
I am curious now to hear how he takes it!”
“Go to him and ask him!” she said, with fine scorn. “Take care, Spenser
Churchill! Up to the present your schemes have succeeded. You know
best how far they will carry you. To me it seems that you--and I are
walking on a volcano. What if he should find this--this girl?”
“Miss Marlowe, do you mean?” he said. “My dear lady, you forget; she is
in Australia!” he said.
“Is she in London?” she asked, in a lower voice, and looking away from
him. “If so, and he finds her----” She stopped, significantly.
He smiled blandly.
“Let me beg of you not to be uneasy, dear lady,” he said, seriously.
“The young lady in question left England nearly a week ago, and there
is no chance of our friend Cecil meeting her until it is too late.”
“Too late?” she echoed, raising her eyes to his face.
“Yes,” he smiled. “Until he is married.”
She let her hand fall from the mantel shelf, and a warm crimson flooded
her face, and he chuckled, unctuously.
“I am quite sure it is time dear Cecil ‘ranged himself,’ as the French
say; it really is time he was married and settled down. Don’t you agree
with me? Ah, I see it is too delicate a subject. Well, good-morning,
dear lady. Accept my profound homage and admiration for your courage
and generosity in our dear young friend’s behalf,” and with another
chuckle he smiled himself out of the room.