RETRIBUTION.
Lady Despard and Lord Cecil stood beside the marquis’ bed, at which,
still holding the hand now slowly growing cold, Doris knelt. Death,
whom the old man, with the stubborn obstinacy of the Stoyle race, had
hitherto kept at bay, was drawing near, very near. They had carried
him from the adjoining room, speechless and sightless, and so he had
remained through the long hours of the night. It was morning now, and
white and weary with all she had undergone, Doris saw the rosy streaks
faintly penetrating the window shutters.
Now and again the valet or the doctor, or perhaps Cecil, moistened the
old man’s lips; and now and again Doris smoothed the pillow, which
might have been of stone for all it mattered to the head that rested
on it. On the bed, and clasped tightly between the rigid fingers, were
the papers which proved her right to the title of a peer’s daughter,
and beside them the will which might make her the mistress of the
Stoyle wealth. Suddenly, quite suddenly, as if, though appearing so
incapable of effort, the old man had been battling in the darkness for
consciousness and strength, the marquis opened his eyes and looked at
her.
“Doris!” he said. “Mary!”
“I am here!” she said, inaudibly to all but him.
His fingers closed on her hand. “Cecil--all who are here!” They
drew closer to him, and he flashed his dim eyes upon them. “Listen
to me. These are my last words. I--I acknowledge this lady to be
my--my daughter--the child of my wife, Lucy!” A spasm shot across
his face. “My will--the will which leaves all to her--is my last.
Remember--remember! My daughter--my child!” His eyes closed, and they
thought he was dead, but his lips opened again, and Doris, if no other,
heard the words that struggled from them. “Lucy! Lucy! forgive! I am
punished--punished!”
These were the last words of the great Marquis of Stoyle, who had all
his life boasted that he had earned the title of “wicked,” whose heart
had never once melted until death came to turn it into the dust to
which even penitence and remorse are impossible!
* * * * *
The wicked flourish as the bay-tree, and the truly good are unable
to live through persecution. If any one imagines that Mr. Spenser
Churchill was utterly annihilated by the disclosure of his pretty plot,
that person is very little acquainted with the peculiar character of
which Mr. Spenser Churchill was a prominent type. For a week or two the
good man betook himself to Paris, and there, in that quiet and peaceful
spot, soothed his troubled spirits with, doubtless, pious reflections;
but shortly afterward he emerged from his retreat, and the papers of
London announced that the great philanthropist would deliver a lecture
at Exeter Hall to aid the funds of the Broken-winded Horses’ Society.
The subject of the lecture was to be a glorious and inspiring one:
“Truth.”
Punctually at the hour announced the eminent man, with placidly serene
face, and softly, tenderly melting eyes, stepped on to the platform,
amidst the cheering of the audience, the majority of whom were ladies,
who waved their pocket handkerchiefs, which they well knew they should
presently require. Mr. Spenser Churchill began his address. It was
eloquent, touching, impressive; the handkerchiefs grew quite moist
long before it was concluded, and when at last his soft and tearfully
sympathetic voice died away in his final words, many a soft-hearted
woman--and dare I say soft-headed man?--felt perfectly convinced that
Mr. Spenser Churchill was far, far too good for this wicked world!
I am surely convinced that the hour will come in which the world will
see him without his mask, and be ready to stone the hypocritical
villain whom they almost worshiped as a saint; but the hour has not yet
come, and the great philanthropist still flourishes as the bay-tree.
Great will be the fall thereof when the truth he so loves to talk about
shall prevail, and the ax lays the accomplished hypocrite low! May we
be there to see!
A year passed away, and the sun, which goes on shining, though
marquises die and hypocrites continue to flourish, shone through Lady
Despard’s beautiful boudoir in Chester Gardens.
In her favorite attitude--half-reclining, half-sitting--her ladyship
nestled among the soft cushions of her favorite couch. Near her sat
Doris--who, though known to the world as Lady Mary Stoyle, shall be
Doris to us till the end of this eventful history. She was sitting at a
writing-table, spread with letters and volumes, some of them fearfully
like pages of account books, and her beautiful face was puckered up
with a charming frown.
Every now and then she consulted one of the appalling volumes, and then
wrote for a few moments, after which operation she would grow more
puckered and draw a series of perplexed and bothered sighs.
“How happy you look, dear!” said Lady Despard, with a smile, after
watching her for some time.
Doris started slightly, and turned round to her.
“I thought you had gone away hours--days--weeks ago. Happy! I am almost
driven to distraction. I wish--oh, I do wish, there were no such things
as accounts! or, at any rate, that I had nothing to do with them.”
Lady Despard laughed.
“‘Muckle coin, muckle care,’ my dear. Though I sympathize with your
misery, I must confess I rather enjoy the sight of it. I suffered so
much when I came into my own property. Oh, the weary, weary hours I
plodded through heavy columns of figures and dreary ‘statements.’ But
I’ve got used to it, and that’s what you will do, in time.”
“In time! Yes, when I have grown prematurely old and gray,” said Doris,
with a vexed smile. “I never understood what hard work it is, this
being rich.”
“I am afraid we shouldn’t like it if we were very poor. I wonder”--she
paused a moment, then went on--“I wonder how a certain marquis likes
poverty?”
Doris bent lower over her blundering and utterly futile arithmetic. “I
don’t know,” she said, stiffly.
Lady Despard smiled. “Any one would know you were a Stoyle by your
pride, my dear,” she remarked.
Doris looked up with affected indignation.
“Pride! I am the meekest and humblest----”
“Of empresses,” put in Lady Despard. “My dear girl, you may not
know it, but you are as proud a minx as ever lived, and the most
unforgiving.”
Doris looked over her shoulder for a moment, then turned her head away.
“I think you are unjust,” she said, in a low voice.
“Oh, no, I’m not. For instance, here are you suddenly become possessed
of a grand title, large estates, and heaps of money. The title you
can’t help taking, if people choose to call you by it, and the money.
Well, you take as little of that as possible; but not once have you
set your foot in any one of the houses that are yours, or upon a spot
of the many acres which your father left you. That’s pride, though of
course you’ll say it isn’t.”
“I----”
“I haven’t finished yet. Counsel for the prosecution first, if you
please; afterward we shall be happy to hear what you have to say in
defense----”
“And find me guilty, whatever that may be,” said Doris.
“Here, too, is a young woman with two lovers----”
“Oh, don’t,” muttered Doris, wincing; but Lady Despard declined to show
mercy.
“My dear, I am going to continue. It is well that you should hear the
truth from some one, and, as I am the only person who dares tell it to
your royal highness, why, I’ll do my duty. Two lovers. One was utterly
unworthy of you, poor fellow, an adventurer, who--but never mind. He
repented in time, and I am not the woman to be hard upon him. The other
is a young man who loved you devotedly, and is all that is honorable
and lovable--and miserable! He never wronged you in any way, and,
though I can understand your sending the penitent adventurer about his
business, I cannot understand how you could let poor Cecil go to this
beastly little war, where, as likely as not, he will either be killed
by some dirty, half-naked savage, or die of the yellow, or blue, or
black, fever, whichever it is they have over there. Yes, I must say I
do pity Lord Cecil, who never did anything----”
“But transfer his affections to another woman,” murmured Doris, her
face and neck a vivid crimson.
Lady Despard sank back onto the cushions and laughed with evident
enjoyment.
“You little goose, I was leading you on to showing your hand. And you
didn’t see it! Of course, that is his offense. We could forgive the
adventurer-lover who would have sold us for filthy lucre, and who only
repented and drew back at the last moment; oh, yes, we can forgive him;
but the other--he must be sentenced to lifelong disappointment, because
possibly he was caught, lured into the net of the cleverest and most
unscrupulous woman in England, and the cleverest and most unscrupulous
man to back her. And we are not proud, we are not unforgiving! Oh, no,
certainly not!” she summed up, ironically.
Doris screened her face with her hands.
“Why does not he----?” she stopped.
“Why doesn’t he come forward and beg for forgiveness and ask you
to become his own little Doris again and Mrs. Marquis?” cried Lady
Despard, dryly. “Because he is as proud as you are, my dear. What!
Ask a girl as rich as a female Crœsus to be his wife when he has only
a few paltry thousands a year; ask the girl who would scarcely speak
a word to him when he came to wish her good-by, perhaps for the last
time. Why, isn’t he a Stoyle, too, and haven’t all of you got, and
haven’t all of you always had, the pride and stiff-neckedness of the
dev--ahem! the evil one? My dear, I am the laziest soul in London,
and I’ve registered a vow that I’ll never get excited and warm over
anything; but really when I think of you spending your days and nights
in hungering for him----”
“Oh!” murmured Doris, and she glided to her and hid her face on her
shoulder.
“So you do! Do you think I can’t hear you sighing long after you
ought to be asleep, you obstinate and abandoned girl,” retorted Lady
Despard. “Doris, my dear, if I were only old enough, or you were young
enough, it would be my pleasing duty to shut you up in your room on
bread and water till you came to your senses and consented to hide
your silly little head against his shirt front, spoiling his clothes
instead of mine. My dear, would you mind covering my dress with your
pocket-handkerchief if you are crying.”
“I’m not crying,” said Doris, indignantly, and giving her a little
push, but still hiding her face. “When--when did you hear from him
last?” she asked, in a whisper.
“Just two months ago,” replied Lady Despard, her voice growing suddenly
serious. “You were too proud to ask for the news, or I would have
told you. He was well then, but was going up the country after those
miserable Decoys--Dacoits, or whatever they’re called, and from what
I’ve read in the papers I’m afraid----”
Doris’ hand tightened on her shoulder spasmodically.
“Don’t pinch me, my dear. I didn’t send him there. Catch me! I only
wish he’d ask me to be his wife. I’d have married either of the two
men you sent to Jericho; but that’s the way with the gods, they always
shower their gifts on the unworthy and ungrateful, and deserving people
can go starving.”
“I wish he had,” murmured Doris; “you would both have been happy then.”
“No, you don’t wish anything of the kind,” retorted Lady Despard,
indolently. “You would be ready to tear my eyes out if there had ever
been the slightest chance of such a thing. Oh, you can’t delude me
into thinking you the gentle dove most people imagine you, you little
scorpion.”
“And that is all you know about--about him?” said Doris, timidly.
“Nearly all. I wish I knew more. I did mention the matter to his grace
at the reception the other night, and he looked rather grim and solemn,
as if the whole expedition was sentenced----No, no, Doris, I don’t mean
that!” she added, hastily, as Doris’ hand relaxed its hold, and she
drew herself up, white and shuddering. “No, it ain’t so bad as that;
but--but----Well--Ah, my dear, you ought not to have let him go.”
Doris threw herself down again. “It was not my fault; if--if he had
said--if he had asked----”
“Give me no ifs!” retorted Lady Despard. “My dear child, no man could
have asked you anything while you treated him as you treated Lord Cecil
after the marquis’ death. You were not a live, breathing woman, but a
marble effigy, a block of ice, and you froze him--you froze him--and
sent him to Burmah to thaw himself. Now, I’m not going to talk any more
about him. Get on your habit, and let us go for a ride. Thank Heaven, I
love no man, and no man loves me! Heigh-ho!”
The footman brought in the evening papers as she spoke, and she took
one and glanced at it languidly; then suddenly she sat up, and uttered
a low cry.
Doris, who had gone to the door, but who had not left the room, went
back to her swiftly.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
Lady Despard closed the paper. “I--thought you had gone,” she said.
“Matters?--nothing. The pins and needles in my feet----”
“There is something in that paper,” said Doris, in her low voice, her
eyes fixed on it. “Tell me what it is!”
Lady Despard hesitated a moment, then she shrugged her shoulders.
“Well, you’d buy one and see for yourself, so I may as well show it to
you; but--but don’t imagine the worst at once.”
She handed her the paper, and pointed to a letter from the seat of war.
In a few--but, alas, how pregnant! words the correspondent told the
story of the disaster which had befallen a detachment sent into the
interior. Surrounded and outnumbered by the enemy, savages in nothing
more than their mode of conducting warfare, the handful of English
soldiers had fallen, as so many thousands of their fellows in the
glorious years of the past have done, fighting to the last. There were
only the few details which can be crammed into a column of newspaper
type, but one line stabbed Doris to the heart.
“I am sorry to say that an aide-de-camp, the Marquis of Stoyle,
better known as Lord Cecil, accompanied the detachment. Throughout
the campaign Lord Cecil has distinguished himself by his bravery and
devotion to duty, and by his genial and modest disposition had won
the hearts of both officers and men. If, as there is too much reason
to fear, his lordship has fallen with his ill-fated comrades, his
loss will be sorely felt, and he can never be replaced. It will be
remembered that he succeeded to the historic title just twelve months
ago, and very shortly before joining the regiment.”
Doris said not a word, but stood staring at the paper, with dry eyes,
and that awful feeling of benumbing anguish which crushes pain for a
time but to lend it additional force afterward.
Lady Despard put her arm round her.
“Doris, Doris! my dear, my dear!” she murmured. “Don’t give way! While
there’s life there’s hope; we can’t tell what may have happened; I
have reason to hope, to think----” She stopped and sprang--actually
sprang--to the door, and throwing it open, said, hurriedly, “Come in;
oh, come in!”
The next moment a tall figure, with a sunburned face and one arm in a
sling, entered, and after a glance, one anxious glance, at the white
face, rushed forward and caught Doris to him with his sound arm. Lady
Despard waited until this happened, then glided out.
* * * * *
They sat up very late that night, and Lady Despard’s boudoir was so
dimly lighted that as she reclined on her couch she could not see, or
pretended not to see, that Doris, as she sat at the marquis’ feet, had
got his hand fast locked in hers, almost as if she dreaded lest he
should vanish as suddenly as he had come. And every now and then she,
glancing fearfully at Lady Despard, laid the brown hand against her
cheeks, and near, very near, to her lips.
There was not much talking, for Lady Despard was merciful, but at last
she looked up.
“And now, my dear Othello, if you can and will deign to recount some of
your adventures, Desdemona and your humble servant will be gratified.
Though I have known since yesterday that you had escaped, I haven’t
any of the details, and I will confess to a faint and lazy kind of
curiosity. Touching that interesting wound now, which I do trust will
soon be all right, for it must be so awkward----” she stopped and
glanced at Doris, with provoking archness.
“Yes, tell us!” murmured Doris.
Lord Cecil--he shall be Cecil for us to the end--looked suddenly grave,
and hesitated.
“Yes, I want to tell you, and I must,” he said. “Not about myself so
much as----” He stopped. “Did you see the list of the killed? Did they
give a list of names?”
“No,” said Lady Despard, “it was all surmise. Why do you ask that?”
“Because----” he stopped again. “Doris,” and he laid his hand on her
head, soothingly, “there was another person whom you know in this awful
business, besides myself. Cam you guess his name?”
Doris shook her head apprehensively. Lady Despard leaned forward.
“He was--he became a fast and devoted friend of mine, Doris. But for
him I should not be here, dearest. He came out with the hospital, and
I saw him first beside my bed. He pulled me through the fever.” He
stopped again, and Doris held her face low down, out of the lamplight.
“We were great friends after that, and when our detachment was ordered
to the interior he volunteered. I tried to dissuade him. There was
no reason that he should go, but he insisted, and----On the evening
of the fight he stood by the guns with the rest, and with the rest
fought like a lion. Once or twice I found a moment to speak to him,
for he was always near me. When the fast struggle came, I joined in
the rush--that’s the only word for it--and saw a couple of the Dacoits
making for me. One I cut down, the other gave me this,” he pointed to
his arm, “and would have settled me--hush, dearest, don’t cry--but this
friend was near me still, and he threw himself between us.”
He stopped and drew a long breath. “I don’t remember any more till I
came to, and, crawling about, came upon him. He was alive, just alive,
but he knew me. I--I took his head on my knee, and bent down. Doris, my
darling, Doris, my dearest. Hush, hush! ‘Tell her that her love saved
me from worse than this, Cecil,’ he said. ‘Tell her that I died with
her name on my lips. Be good to her, Cecil; be good to--Doris!’”
Lady Despard was crying audibly.
“You know, dear, who it was that saved my life,” said Cecil, in a low
voice. “It was Percy Levant.” And he drew her head upon his breast, and
kissed her with protecting tenderness, as if he were responding to the
dead man’s solemn injunction.
* * * * *
When the marquis and marchioness returned from their long--but for them
not too long--honeymoon, society, deeming it incumbent upon itself to
bestow an impressive welcome on two of its most distinguished members,
gave a ball in honor of the young, and, as the journals put it,
“romantic couple.”
It was a very grand affair, and the _Morning Post_ next morning devoted
a column and a half to its description and a list of the high and
mighty and famous guests, and stated, rather emphatically, that the
most beautiful woman in the room was the young lady in whose honor
the entertainment was given. It went into newspaper raptures over
her manner, her smile, her dress, and, lastly, her jewels, which, as
it said, consisted of a _suite_ of magnificent diamonds--the Stoyle
diamonds--and poetically declared that their brilliance was only
outshone by the wearer’s eyes.
They were very beautiful, as a matter of fact, and no other jewels
in the magnificent assemblage could compare with them, excepting,
perhaps, a _suite_ of pearls set in antique silver, which was worn
by--Lady Grace Peyton.
Twice in the course of the evening Doris and she met each other, and on
both occasions, while Doris, with the meekness which, somehow, always
distinguishes the injured innocents, turned her head aside, Lady Grace
stared at her rival with a bold, defiant flash of her handsome eyes.
“I think,” said Lady Despard, as she stood for a moment in a corner
with Doris, “I think that for cool, unbrazen impudence, Grace Peyton
excels all the world. Most women, all other women--having done what
she has done, and knowing that we know what she has done--would have
buried themselves in some German watering-place for the rest of their
lives. But, oh no! she not only thinks fit to put in an appearance here
to-night, but actually--actually flaunts that set of pearls which she
got by fraud--stole, if any one ever stole anything in this world--from
your husband. The whole set!”
“No, not the whole set,” murmured Doris, softly, as she looked at Lady
Grace gliding through a waltz. “I have the ring.”
“You have! Why, I have never seen it. The ‘ring!’”
“No, you never saw it,” said Doris, a warm flush rising to her lovely
face. “I don’t wear it on my finger, dear, but--here,” and she touched
her heart. “She is welcome to all the rest while I have that and--him!”
she added, turning to her husband as he came up to them.
THE END.
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Transcriber’s Notes
A table of contents has been added by the transcriber and placed in the
public domain.
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
The last sentence of page 201 is unclear in the source printing and the
words “be in” may be an incorrect transcription.
Some inconsistent hyphenation has been retained from the original.
This book has been published under a variety of other titles,
including: _A Woman’s Soul: Behind the Footlights_, _A Woman’s Soul;
or, Doris_ and _Doris Marlowe; or, A Woman’s Soul_.