"Luce!"
It was a strange name--the name of a woman, of course. Nell wondered
whether it was his sister--or sweetheart? Perhaps it was his wife?
She waited for some minutes; then she woke Molly, and returned to her
own room.
Drake Vernon was unconscious for some days, and Nell often stole in and
stood beside the bed; sometimes she changed the ice bandages, or gave
him something to drink. He wandered and talked a great deal, but it was
incoherent talk, in which the names of the persons he whispered or
shouted were indistinguishable. On the fourth day he recovered
consciousness, but was terribly weak, and the doctor would not permit
Mrs. Lorton to enter the room.
He put his objection very cleverly.
"I have to think of you, my dear madame," he said. "I don't want two
patients on my hands in the same house. Talk him back into delirium!" he
added to himself.
All these days Mrs. Lorton continued to "hush," Nell went about with a
grave air of suspense, and Dick--it is not given to this historian to
describe the state of mind into which incessant repression drove that
youth.
On the sixth day, bored to death, and somewhat curious, he strolled into
the sick room. Drake Vernon, propped up by pillows, was partaking of
beef tea with every sign of distaste.
"How are you getting on, sir?" asked Dick.
The sick man looked at the boy, and nodded with a faint smile.
"I'm better, thanks; nearly well, I devoutly trust."
"That's all right," commented Dick cheerfully. "Thought I'd just look
in. Shan't upset you, or disturb you, shall I, sir?"
"Not in the very least," was the reply. "I'm very glad to see you. Won't
you sit down? Not there, but some place where I can see you."
Dick sat on the end of the bed and leaned against the rail, with his
hands in his pockets.
"I ought to introduce myself, I suppose. I'm what is called in the
novels 'the son of the house'; I'm Nell's brother, you know."
Mr. Vernon nodded.
"So I see, by the likeness."
"Rather rough on Nell, that, isn't it? I'll tell her," said Dick, with a
spark of mischief in his eye. "Why, she's as black as a coal, and I'm
fair."
"You are alike, all the same," said the invalid, rather indifferently.
"My name is Dick--Dick, as a rule; Richard, when my stepmother is more
than usually riled with me."
"Permit me to call you by the shorter name," said Mr. Vernon. "I'm
afraid I've been a terrible nuisance, and must continue to be for some
days. The doctor tells me that I can't venture to move yet."
"That's all right," responded Dick cheerfully. "We shall be glad to see
you about again, of course; but don't worry yourself on our account,
sir. To tell you the truth, we rather enjoy--that is, some of us"--he
corrected--"having 'an accident case' in the house. Mamma, for instance,
hasn't been so happy for a long while."
"Mrs. Lorton must be extremely good-natured and charitable," commented
Mr. Vernon.
Dick looked rather doubtful.
"Er--ye-s. You see, it's a little change and excitement, and we don't
get much of that commodity in Shorne Mills. So we're rather grateful to
you than otherwise for pitching yourself at our front gate. If you could
have managed to break both arms and a leg, I verily believe that mamma
would have wept tears of joy."
"I'm afraid I can't say I'm sorry I did not gratify her to that extent,"
said Mr. Vernon, with a grim smile; but it was a smile, and his dark
eyes were scanning the boy's handsome face with something approaching
interest. "Mrs. Lorton is your stepmother? Did I hear her say so, or did
I dream it?"
"It's no dream; it's real enough," said Dick, with intense gravity. "My
father"--he seated himself more comfortably--"was Lorton & Lorton, the
Patent Coffee Roaster, you know--perhaps you've heard of it?"
Mr. Vernon shook his head.
"Ah, well! a great many other people must have done so; for the roaster
made a pile of money, and my father was a rich man. Molly, you can take
that beef tea downstairs and give it to Snaps. He won't eat it, because
he's a most intelligent dog. Thought I'd get her out of the room, sir.
Molly's a good girl, but she's got ears and a tongue."
"So have I," said Drake Vernon, with a faint smile.
"Oh, I don't mind you. It's only right that you should know something
about the people in whose house you are staying."
Drake Vernon frowned slightly, for there was the other side of the
medal: surely, it was only right that the people in whose house he was
staying should know something about himself.
"Father made a lot of money over a roaster; then my mother died. I was
quite a kid when it happened; but Nell just remembers her. Then father
married again; and, being rich, I suppose, wanted a fashionable wife. So
he married mamma. I dare say that she's told you she's a Wolfer?"
Mr. Vernon nodded.
"There's not much in it," said Dick, with charming candor. "We've never
set eyes on any of her swell connections, and I don't think she's ever
heard from them since the smash."
"What smash?" asked Mr. Vernon, with only faint interest.
"Didn't I tell you? Left the part of _Hamlet_ out of the play! Why,
father added a patent coffeepot to the roaster, and lost all his
money--or nearly all. Then he died. And we came here, and----There you
are, sir; that's the story; and the moral is, 'Let well alone'; or 'Be
content with your roaster, and touch not the pot.' Sounds like the title
of a teetotal tract, doesn't it?"
"And you are at school, I suppose? No, you are too old for that."
"Thanks. I was trying not to feel offended," said Dick. "Nothing hurts a
boy of my age like telling him he isn't a man. No; I've left school, and
I'm supposed to be educated; but it's the thinnest kind of supposition.
I don't fancy they teach you much at most schools. They didn't teach me
anything at mine except cricket and football."
"Oxford, Cambridge?" suggested the invalid, leaning on his elbow, and
looking at the boy absently.
"Wouldn't run to it," said Dick. "Mamma said I must begin the
world--sounds as if it were a loaf of bread or an orange. I should have
'begun it' long ago if it were. The difficulty seems to be where to
begin. I'm supposed to have a taste for engineering--once made a steam
engine out of an empty meat tin. It didn't work very well, and it blew
up and burst the kitchen window; but that's a detail. So I'm waiting,
like Mr. Micawber, for 'something to turn up' in the engineering line. I
take in the engineering paper, and answer all the advertisements; but
nothing comes of it. Quite comfortable? Shall I shake up the pillow,
sir? I know how to do it, for I've seen Nell do 'em for mamma."
"No; thanks, very much. I'm quite comfortable. If you really are
desirous of taking any trouble, you might get me a sheet of note paper
and an envelope."
"To say nothing of a pen, some ink, and blotting paper," said Dick,
rising leisurely.
He brought them and set them on the bed, and Mr. Drake Vernon wrote a
letter.
"I'm sending for some clothes," he explained. "May I trouble you to post
it? Any time will do."
"Post doesn't go out till five," said Dick. "And we've only one post in
and out a day. This is the last place Providence thought of, and I don't
think it would have mattered much if it had been forgotten altogether."
"It's pretty enough, too, what I saw of it," said Mr. Vernon.
"Oh, it's pretty enough," assented Dick casually; "but it's precious
dull."
"What do you find to do?" asked the sick man, with an attempt at
interest.
"Oh, I ride--when I can borrow a horse--and boat and fish--and fish and
boat."
At that moment a girl's voice, singing in a soft and subdued tone, rose
from below the window.
Mr. Drake Vernon listened for a moment or two, then he asked:
"Who is that?"
"That's Nell, caterwauling."
"Your sister has a good voice," remarked Mr. Vernon.
"Oh, yes; Nell sings very well," assented Dick, with a brother's
indifferent patronage.
"And what does your sister find to do?" asked Mr. Vernon.
"Oh, she does ditto to me," said Dick. "Fish, boat--boat, fish; but
since you've been here, of course----"
He stopped awkwardly.
"Yes, I understand. I must have been a terrible bore to you--to you
all," said Mr. Drake Vernon, gravely and regretfully. "I'm very sorry."
"No man can say more; and there's no need for you to say as much, sir,"
remarked Dick philosophically. "As I said, you have been a boon and a
blessing to the women--and I don't mind, now you're getting better and
can stand a little noise."
Mr. Vernon smiled.
"My dear fellow, you can make all the row you like," he said earnestly.
"I'm very much obliged to you for looking in--come in when you care to."
"Thanks," said Dick. "Oh! about the horse. I've had him turned out. I
don't think he's hurt much; only the hair cut; and he'll be all right
again presently."
"I'm glad to hear it. I needn't say that directly he's well enough, you
can----Will you give me that letter again?" he broke off, as if
something had occurred to him.
Dick complied, and Drake Vernon opened it, added a line or two, and
placed it in a fresh envelope.
"There was a message I had to give you, but I've forgotten it," said
Dick, as he took the letter again. "Oh, ah, yes! It was from my sister.
She asked me to ask you if you'd care to have some books. She didn't
quite know whether you ought to read yet?"
"I should. Please thank your sister," said Vernon.
"Anything you fancy? Don't suppose you'll find Nell's books very lively.
She's rather strong on poetry and the 'Heir of Redclyffe' kind of
literature. I'll bring you some of my own with them. Mamma, being a
Wolfer, goes in for the _Fashion Gazette_ and the _Court Circular_,
which won't be much in your line, I expect."
"Not in the least," Mr. Vernon admitted.
"So long, then, till I come back. Sure there's nothing else I can do for
you, sir?"
He went downstairs--availing himself of the invalid's permission to make
a noise by whistling "Tommy Atkins"--and Nell looked in at the French
window, as he swept a row of books from the shelf of the sideboard.
"Dick, what an awful noise!" she said reproachfully, and in the subdued
voice which had become natural with all of them.
"Shut up, Nell; the 'silent period' has now passed. The interesting
invalid has lifted the ban, which was crushing one of us, at least. He
thanks you for your offer of literature, and he has recovered
sufficiently to write a note."
As he spoke he chucked the letter on the table, and Nell took it up and
absently read the address.
"Mr. Sparling, 101 St. James' Place," she read aloud.
"Rather a swell address, isn't it?" he asked. "Interesting invalid looks
rather a swell himself, too. I did him an injustice; there's nothing of
the commercial traveler about him, thank goodness! And he's decidedly
good-looking, too. But isn't he white and shaky! I wonder who and what
he is? Now I come to think of it, he was about as communicative as an
oyster, and left me to do all the palaver. You'll be glad to hear that
he admired your voice, and that he inquired how you passed your time;
also, that he was shocked when I told him that you whiled the dragging
hours away by dancing the cancan, and playing pitch and toss with a
devoted brother."
Nell laughed, and blushed faintly.
"What books are you taking, Dick? Let me see."
"No, you don't! I know the kind of thing you'd send--'The Lessons of
Sickness; or, Blessings in Disguise,' and the 'Pilgrim's Progress.'"
"Don't be an ass, Dick!"
"I'm taking some of my own. Nell, you can post this letter. Yes,
I'll--I'll trust you with it. You'll be a good girl, and not open it, or
drop it on the way," he adjured her, as he climbed upstairs with the
books.
"Here you are, sir. Hope you'll like the selection; there's any amount
of poetry and goody-goody of Nell's; but I fancy you'll catch onto some
of mine. Try 'Hawkshead, the Sioux Chief,' to begin with. It's a
stunner, especially if you skip all the descriptions of scenery. As if
anybody wanted scenery in a story!"
"Thanks," said Mr. Vernon gravely. "I've no doubt I shall enjoy it." But
he took up one of Nell's books and absently looked at her name written
on the flyleaf--"Eleanor Lorton." The first name struck him as stiff and
ill-suited to the slim and graceful girl whose face he only dimly
remembered; "Nell" was better.