A PROSPECTIVE PLEASURE FOR DORIS.
The tenants' dinner was a great success. It was well attended, for all
were anxious to show that they appreciated and returned the duke's
kindly feeling. To Mark it was a dream of glory; he had seen nothing
like the interior of this magnificent castle. The state rooms, the
superb hall, with its blazonry of shields and armor; the banquet-room,
with its groined roof and grand pictures, puzzled him. It was something
to be a tenant of such a duke as this. As for the dinner itself, it
simply amazed him; he did not know the name of half the dishes or half
the wines; as for the fruit, the silver, the servants in attendance, he
thought of it all with bated breath.
Doris had desired him, in a whisper, to tell her all he saw, and to be
sure and not forget anything. Honest Mark tried to take an inventory,
but his mind failed him: it gave way under the strain; he could not
grasp the half what he saw and heard.
Mark's wonder was not diminished when a footman, bending very
respectfully, asked him to be kind enough to follow him. He arose
instantly, and followed through such dazzling and magnificent rooms that
he began to think of the wonders of the "Arabian Nights" he had read
when a boy. They came to a door that was covered with rich velvet
hangings; the footman pushed them aside, opened it, and Mark Brace found
himself, to his great consternation and distress, in the presence of the
duchess and her daughter, both in evening dress; and the shimmer of
silk, the sheen of jewels, were enough to bewilder the honest farmer.
Still he had a native dignity of his own of which nothing could deprive
him. Although his hands felt more stiff and red than ever, and he was
most sorely puzzled what to do with them, still he recollected himself,
and bowed to the ladies in a fashion quite his own.
The duchess received him kindly. Lady Estelle spoke no word, but her
indolent, handsome eyes, rested on his face.
"Mr. Brace," said her grace, "I am pleased to see you. We have been long
absent."
Mark muttered something to the effect: "Heaven bless them, they were
very welcome home."
The duchess smiled, and Lady Estelle thought to herself:
"What a simple, honest man he is."
Mark had disposed of his hands to his own satisfaction: one was placed
behind him, where it lay rigid and straight, the other hung down by his
side as though slightly ashamed of itself. Then he found himself in
difficulties over his feet. He had some dim idea that he had heard his
wife say it was genteel to stand with the heels together; he tried it,
and it proved a dead failure.
The duchess relieved him of all further embarrassment by pointing to a
chair. He sat down with a deep sigh that was almost a gasp--thankful to
be relieved at last.
"I wanted to see you, Mr. Brace," continued the stately lady, "to ask
how the child is whom we saw at the farm."
Mark was himself again with something to say of Doris. His face
brightened.
"She is not a child now, your grace; she has grown to be a beautiful
girl."
"Is she still beautiful?" asked her grace.
"I do not think the sun, when it rises in the morning, is brighter,"
replied Mark, with unconscious poetry.
"I am almost sorry to hear it," said her grace. "There are more
qualities than beauty for a girl in her position, Mr. Brace."
"Yes; but we can't help it."
"And," interrupted the duchess, "have you heard any more? Do you know to
whom she belongs? Have you any trace of her parentage?"
Lady Estelle shut her jeweled fan, and laid it on the table. Her eyes
were fixed on Mark's face.
"No, your grace," he replied. "We know no more than we did on the day
she first came to us. The money comes every year. It always comes from
London, generally in Bank of England notes, quite new and crisp;
sometimes gold packed in a little box. It never fails."
"It is so strange. There is never a word about the child in the parcels?
No questions? No remarks?"
"No; not one," he replied.
"And what have you done with her all these years?" asked the duchess.
"She had high spirits of her own."
"She has been to school, your grace; it was her own wish she should go.
She was away for four years without coming home."
"Then she is clever and accomplished?" said the duchess.
"Yes," replied Mark; "she is as clever as any lady in the land."
Then his face grew crimson, and he said to himself that he had made a
great blunder. Lady Estelle smiled in her usual languid fashion.
"I mean, your grace," exclaimed Mark, "that she is really very clever.
She sings like a mermaid," he added, delighted at his own figure of
speech; "she can dance, and speaks two foreign languages."
The duchess laughed. It was impossible to help it; Mark's face was such
a study as he enumerated this list of accomplishments.
"I should like to see your _protegee_, Mr. Brace," said her grace; "but
as she is inclined to be vain, it would be wise perhaps not to tell her
that I have expressed such a wish."
Mark looked very wise; he quite agreed with it.
"You might say," continued her grace, "that you are coming over to the
Castle next week on business, and bring her with you."
"I will, your grace," said Mark, proudly. "I am coming on business next
Tuesday; my lease is to be renewed. I will bring her with me. She is
engaged to be married," he added, bluntly.
"Engaged!" repeated the duchess. "Why, she cannot be more than
nineteen."
"She is nineteen," said Mark; "and, of course, I shall not allow her to
be married for a year."
"You are quite right," interrupted the duchess.
Lady Estelle had opened her fan, and she stirred it gently, as she
asked:
"To whom is she engaged?"
Mark declared, in reporting the conversation, that it was the grammar
that destroyed him. It made him feel unequal to giving any answer. He
turned uneasily in his chair.
"To whom is she engaged?" repeated the clear, musical voice.
"Why, my lady, he is a poet and a gentleman."
"A poet and a gentleman!" repeated the duchess. "That is high praise."
"He deserves it, your grace. He has written a book--I cannot say whether
it has been read among the great people; but, with such as us, the
verses are on the lips of every man, woman and child."
"What is the poet's name?" asked Lady Estelle.
"Earle Moray, my lady. He lives near us, and his father was a clergyman.
His mother is a very quiet, grave lady. She always thought that Doris
was my daughter, and when she heard the truth she was quite unwilling
for her son to make such a marriage. But he talked her over."
Lady Estelle used her fan vigorously; her face had suddenly grown
burning red.
"They are very much attached to each other," continued Mark. "I never
saw anything like the way in which he worships her. I am sure that if he
lost her he would go mad."
"Let us hope not," said the duchess, with a smile. "Going mad is a very
serious matter."
"Then," said the low, sweet voice of Lady Estelle, "your _protegee_ is
provided for, Mr. Brace? Her future is safe?"
"I hope so, my lady," said cautious Mark. "But as the wedding does not
take place for a year, much may happen in that time."
"We will hope it will all end happily," said her grace, kindly.
Then Mark understood that his interview had ended. Lady Estelle murmured
a careless adieu: the duchess spoke kindly of Patty, and Mark went home
that night a proud and happy man.
He was greeted with innumerable questions; his wife seemed to think that
Mark had been the principal person present: that except for the fact of
his presence, the dinner-party would have been insignificant. Doris
positively bewildered him with questions. Mrs. Brace and Mattie sat with
awe and wonder on their faces.
"I cannot answer so many questions, Doris," said Mark, at last. "I tell
you what--I am going to the Castle again on Tuesday to renew my lease;
will you go with me?"
Her beautiful face flushed crimson.
"Will I? Of course I will," Doris said.
"What would they say?" asked Mattie.
"They would not say anything," said Mark. "I should tell them that my
daughter Doris had a great fancy for seeing the inside of a castle; and
you may take my word they will be kind enough."
"Let Mattie go," suggested Mrs. Brace.
But Mattie shrank back.
"Oh, no!" she said, "I should not care for it, I would rather not."
"And I would give a year of my life," said Doris.
"You need not give anything," said Mark. "Dress yourself tidily, not
finely," he added, with a touch of natural shrewdness. "One does not
require finery in going to see a duchess."
"Shall I see the duchess?" asked Doris, opening her eyes wide with
surprise.
Then Mark Brace perceived his error.
"I am a poor hand at keeping a secret," he thought. "If you go to the
Castle," he replied, "it is very probable you will see the Duchess of
Downsbury."
"I shall not be able to sleep from this moment till then," cried Doris.
And when Earle Moray came she could talk to him about nothing but the
intensity of the pleasure in store for her. A hundred times and more did
Mark repent giving the invitation; he had no peace, no rest; even Earle
himself could not persuade her to talk about anything except the
grandeur of Downsbury Castle.
"I am quite sorry I cannot go back to school for a few days," she said,
"just to make all my school-fellows mad with jealousy."
"Why should they be mad?" asked Mattie.
"You do not know how much they talk about Downsbury Castle," she
replied. "My dear, they call England a Christian land, and they pray for
the conversion of all pagans and idolaters. There are no such idolaters
as these same English, who worship rank, title, and wealth, as they
never worshiped Heaven."
"You are one of them, Doris," said Mattie.
"Not altogether. Underneath my worship there is a vein of cynicism, but
no one suspects it. If you want to learn a few lessons of that kind,
Mattie, you should go to a fashionable boarding-school. I declare that I
never heard any one quoted for being good or virtuous; it was always for
being nobly born, rich, titled. I learned my lesson quickly, Mattie."
"You did, indeed," was the brief reply, "and it is a lesson that I am
sorry Earle's wife should ever have taken to heart."
The only reply was a careless laugh. Doris did not even care to quarrel
with her sister, so highly delighted was she at the prospect of going to
the Castle.
At length, to the intense delight and the relief of every one, Tuesday
came, and it was time to go.
Doris did not love nature. She had no appreciation of its beauties; but
in after years she did remember how the sun had shone on this day, and
how blithely the little birds had sung in the trees; how sweet was the
perfume of the flowers and the fragrance of the hedges as they drove to
Downsbury Castle.