CHAPTER XXII
MY LORD SPEAKS
For a few moments Audley had certainly hoped that he was going to learn all that Toft knew, and to learn it for nothing. He had been baulked in this. But when he came to think over the matter he was not ill content with himself, nor with his conduct of the interview. He had dealt with the matter with presence of mind, and in the only safe way; and he had taught the man a lesson. "He knows by this time," he reflected, "that if I am a lord, I am not a fool!"
But this mood did not last long, and it was succeeded by one less cheerful. The death's-head had never been wanting at his feast. The family tradition which had come down to him with his blood had never ceased to haunt him, and in the silence of the night he had many a time heard John Audley at work seeking for the means to displace him. Even the great empty house had seemed to mock his pretensions.
But until the last month his fears had been vague and shadowy, and in his busy hours he had laughed at them. He was Lord Audley, he sat, he voted, the doors of White's, of Almack's were open to him. In town he was a personage, in the country a divinity still hedged him, no tradesman spoke to him save hat in hand. Then, lately, the traces which he had found in the Great House had given a shape to his fears; and within the last hour he had learned their solidity. Sane or mad, John Audley was upon his track, bent upon displacing him, bent upon ruining him; and this very day the man might be laying his hand upon the thing he needed.
Audley did not doubt the truth of Toft's story. It confirmed his fears only too well; and the family tradition-that too weighed with him. He sat for a long time staring before him, then, uneasy and restless, he rose and paced the floor. He went to and fro, to and fro, until by-and-by he came to a stand before one of the windows. He drummed with his fingers on the glass. There was one way, certainly. Stubbs had said so, and Stubbs was right. There was one way, if he could make up his mind to the limitations it would impose upon him. If he could make up his mind to be a poor man.
The window at which he stood looked on a road of quiet dignity, a little removed from the common traffic of the town. But the windows, looking sideways, commanded also a more frequented thoroughfare which crossed this street. His thoughts far away and sombrely engaged, the young man watched the stream of passers, as it trickled across the distant opening.
Suddenly his eyes recalled his mind to the present. He started, turned, in three strides he was beside the hearth. He rang the bell twice, the signal for his man. He waited impatiently.
"My hat and coat!" he cried to the servant. "Quick, I'm in a hurry!" Like most men who have known vicissitudes he had a superstitious side, and the figure which he had seen pass across the end of the road had appeared so aptly, so timely, had had so much the air of an answer to his doubts that he took it for an inspiration.
He ran down the stairs, but he knew that his comings and goings were marked, and once outside the house he controlled his impatience. He walked slowly, humming a tune and swaying his cane, and it was a very stately gentleman taking the air and acknowledging with courtesy the respectful salutations of the passers, who came on Mary Audley as she turned from Dr. Pepper's door in the High Street.
He stood. "Miss Audley!" he cried.
Mary was flushed with exercise, ruffled by the wind, travel-stained. But she would have cared little for these things if she could have governed the blood that rose to her cheeks at his sudden appearance. To mask her confusion she rushed into speech.
"You cannot be more surprised than I am," she said. "My uncle is not so well to-day, and in a panic about his medicine. Toft, who should have come in to town to fetch it, was not to be found, so I had to come."
"And you have walked in?"
Smiling, she showed him her boots. "And I am presently going to walk out," she said.
"You will never do it?"
"Before dark? No, perhaps not!" She raised her hand and put back a tress of hair which had strayed from its fellows. "And I shall be tired. But I shall be much surprised if I cannot walk ten miles at a pinch."
"I shall be surprised if you walk ten miles to-day," he retorted. "My plans for you are quite different. Have you got what you came to fetch?"
She had steadied herself, and was by this time at her ease. She made a little grimace. "No," she said. "It will not be ready for quarter of an hour."
He rang Dr. Pepper's bell. An awestruck apprentice, who had watched the interview through the dusty window of the surgery, showed himself.
"Be good enough to send the medicine for Miss Audley to Mrs. Jenkinson's," Audley said. "You understand?"
"Yes, my lord! Certainly, my lord!" She was going to protest. He turned to her, silenced her. "And now I take possession of you," he said, supremely careless what the lad heard. "You are coming to The Butterflies to take tea, or sherry, or whatever you take when you have walked five miles."
"Oh, Lord Audley!"
"And then I am going to drive you as far as the old Cross, and walk up the hill with you-as far as I choose."
"Oh, but I cannot!" Mary cried, coloring charmingly, but whether with pleasure or embarrassment she could not tell. She only knew that his ridiculous way of taking possession of her, the very masterfulness of it, moved her strangely. "I cannot indeed. What would my uncle say?"
"I don't know, and I don't care!" he replied, swinging his walking cane, and smiling as he towered above her.
"He may go hang-for once!"
She hesitated. "It is very good of you," she said. "I confess I did not look forward to the walk back. But-"
"There is no-but," he replied. "And no walk back! It is arranged. It is time-" his eyes dwelt kindly on her as she turned with him-"it is time that some one took it in hand to arrange things for you. Five miles in and five miles out over dirty roads on a winter afternoon-and Miss Audley! No, no! And now-this way, please!"
She yielded, she could not tell why, except that it was difficult to resist him, and not unpleasant to obey him. And after all, why should she not go with him? She had been feeling fagged and tired, depressed, moreover, by her uncle's fears. The low-lying fields, the town, the streets, all dingy under a gray autumn sky, had given her no welcome.
And her thoughts, too, had been dun-colored. She had felt very lonely the last few days, doubtful of the future, without aim, hipped. And now in a moment all seemed changed. She was no longer alone, nor fearful. The streets were no longer dingy nor dreary. There were still pleasant things in the world, kindness, and thought for others, and friendship and-and tea and cake! Was it wonderful that as she walked along beside my lord her spirits rose? That she felt an unaccountable relief, and in the reaction of the moment smiled and sparkled more than her wont? That the muddy brick pavement, the low-browed shops, the leafless trees all seemed brighter than before, and that even the butcher's stall became almost a thing of beauty?
And he responded famously. He swung his stick, he laughed, he was gay. "Don't pretend!" he said. "I see that you were glad enough to meet me!"
"And the tea and cake!" she replied. "After five miles who would not be glad to meet them?"
"Exactly! It is my belief that if I had not met you, you would have fallen by the way. You want some one to look after you, Miss Audley." The name was a caress.
Nor was the pleasure all their own. Great was the excitement of the townsfolk as they passed. "His lordship and a young lady?" cried half Riddsley, running to the windows. "Quick, or you will miss them!" Some wondered who she could be; more had seen her at church and could answer. "Miss Audley? The young lady who had come to live at the Gatehouse? Indeed! You don't say so?" For every soul in Riddsley, over twelve years old, was versed in the Audley history, knew all about the suit, and could tell off the degrees of kindred as easily as they could tell the distance from the Audley Arms to the Portcullis. "Mr. Peter Audley's daughter who lived in Paris? Lady-in-waiting to a Princess. And now walking with his lordship as if she had known him all her life! What would Mr. John say? D'you see how gay he looks! Not a bit what he is when he speaks to us! Wonder whether there's anything in it!" And so on, and so on, with tit-bits from the history of Mary's father, and choice eccentricities from the life of John Audley.
Mrs. Jenkinson's amazement, as she espied them coming up the path to the house, was a thing by itself. It was such that she set her door ajar that she might see them pass through the hall. She was all of a twitter, she said afterwards. And poor Jane and poor Sarah-who were out! What a miss they were having! It was not thrice in the twelve months that his lordship brought a lady to the house.
A greater miss, indeed, it turned out, than she thought. For to her gratification Lord Audley tapped at her door. He pushed it open. "Mrs. Jenkinson," he said pleasantly, "this is my cousin, Miss Audley, who is good enough to take a cup of your excellent tea with me, if you will make it. She has walked in from the Gatehouse."
Mrs. Jenkinson was a combination of an eager, bright-eyed bird and a stout, short lady in dove-colored silk-if such a thing can be imagined; and the soul of good-nature. She took Mary by both hands, beamed upon her, and figuratively took her to her bosom. "A little cake and wine, my dear," she chirruped. "After a long walk! And then tea. To be sure, my dear! I knew your father, Mr. Peter Audley, a dear, good gentleman. You would like to wash your hands? Yes, my dear! Not that you are not-and his lordship will wait for us upstairs. Yes, there's a step. I knew your father, to be sure, to be sure. A new brush, my dear. And now will you let me-not that your sweet face needs any ornament! Yes, I talk too much-but, there, my love, when you are as old-"
She was a simple soul, and because her tongue rarely stopped she might have been thought to see nothing. But women, unlike men, can do two things at once, and little escaped her twinkling spectacles. As she told her sister later, "My dear, I saw it was spoons from the first. She sparkled all over, bless her innocent heart! And he, if she had been a duchess, could not have waited on her more elegant-well, elegantly, Sally, if you like, but we can't all talk like you. They thought, the dear creatures, that I saw nothing; but once he said something too low for me to hear and she looked up at him, and her pretty eyes were like stars. And he looked-well, Sally, I could not tell you how he looked!"
"I am not sure that it would be proper," the spinster demurred.
"Ah, well, it was as pretty a thing as you'd wish to see," the good creature ran on, drumming with her fingers on the lap of her silk gown. "And she, bless her, I dare say she was all of a twitter, but she didn't show it. No airs or graces either-but there, an Audley has no need! Why, God bless me, I said something about the Princess and what company she must have seen, and what a change for her, and she up and said-I am sure I loved her for it! – that she had been no more than a governess! My dear, an Audley a governess! I fancied my lord wasn't quite pleased, and very natural! But when a man is spoons-"
"My dear sister!"
"Vulgar? Well, perhaps so, I know I run on, but gentle or simple, they're the same when they're in love! And Jane will be glad to hear that she took two pieces of the sultana and two cups of tea, and he watching every piece she put in her mouth, and she coloring up, once or twice, so that it did my heart good to see them, the pretty dears. Jane will be pleased. And there might have been nothing but seed cake in the house. I shall remember more presently, but I was in such a twitter!"
"What did she call him?" Miss Sarah asked.
"To be sure, my dear, that was what I was going to tell you! I listened, and not a single thing did she call him. But once, when he gave her some cake, I heard him call her Mary, for all the world as if it was a bit of sugar in his mouth. And there came a kind of quiver over her pretty face, and she looked at her plate as much as to say it was a new thing. And I said to myself 'Philip and Mary'-out of the old school-books you know, but who they were I don't remember. But it's my opinion," Mrs. Jenkinson continued, rubbing her nose with the end of her spectacles, "that he had spoken just before they came in, Sally."
"You don't say so?" Sarah cried.
"If you ask me, there was a kind of softness about them both! Law, when I think what you and Jane missed through going to that stupid Institute! I am sure you'll never forgive yourselves!"
The good lady had not missed much herself, but she was mistaken in thinking that the two had come to an understanding. Indeed when, leaving the warmth of her presence behind them, they drove out of town, with the servant seated with folded arms behind them and Mary snugly tucked in beside my lord, a new constraint began to separate them. The excitement of the meeting had waned, the fillip of the unwonted treat had lost its power. A depression for which she could not account beset Mary as they rolled through the dull outskirts and faced the flat mistridden pastures and the long lines of willows. On his side doubt held him silent. He had found it pleasant to come to the brink, he had not been blind to Mary's smiles and her rare blushes. But the one step farther-that could not be re-trodden, and it was in the nature of the man to hesitate at the last, and to consider if he were getting full value.
So, as they drove through the dusk, now noiselessly over sodden leaves, now drumming along the hard road, the hint of a chill fell between them. Mary's thoughts went forward to the silent house and the lonely rooms, and she chid herself for ingratitude. She had had her pleasure, she had had an unwonted treat. What was wrong with her? What more did she want?
It was nearly dark, and not many words had passed when Lord Audley pulled up the horses at the old Cross. The man leapt down and was going to help Mary to alight, when his master bade him take the box-seat and the reins.
Mary remonstrated. "Oh, don't get down, please!" she cried. "Please! It is nothing to the house from here."
"It is half a mile if it is a yard," he said. "And it is nearly dark. I am going with you." He bade the man walk the horses up and down.
She ventured another protest, but he put it aside. He threw back the rug and lifted her down. For a moment he stamped about and stretched himself. Then "Come, Mary," he said. It was an order.
She knew then what was at hand. And though she had a minute before looked forward with regret to the parting, all her thought now was how she might escape to the Gatehouse. It became a refuge. Her heart, as she started to walk beside him, beat so quickly that she could not speak. She was thankful that it was dark, and that he could not read her agitation in her face.
He did not speak himself for some minutes. Then "Mary," he said abruptly, looking straight before him, "I am rather one for taking than asking, and that stands in my way now. When I've wanted a thing I've generally taken it. Now I want a thing I can't take-without asking. And I feel that I'm not good at the asking. But I want it badly, and I must do the best I can. I love you, Mary. I love you, and I want you for my wife."
She could not find a word. When he went on his tone was lower.
"I'm rather a lonely man," he said. "You didn't know that, or think it? But it is true. And such an hour as we have spent to-day is not mine often. It lies with you to say if I am going to have more of them. I might tell you with truth that I haven't much to offer my wife. That if I am Audley of Beaudelays, I am the poorest Audley that ever was. That my wife will be no great lady, and will step into no golden shoes. The butterflies are moths, Mary, nowadays, and if I am ever to be much she will have to help me. But I will tell no lies, my dear!" He turned to her then and stopped; and perforce, though her knees trembled, she had to stand also, and face him as he looked down at her. "I am not going to pretend that what I have to offer isn't enough. For you are lonely like me; you have no one but John Audley to look to, and I am big enough and strong enough to take care of you. And I will take care of you-if you will let me. If you will say the word, Mary?"
He loomed above her in the darkness. He seemed already to possess her. She tried to think, tried to ask herself if she loved him, if she loved him enough; but the fancy for him which she had had from the beginning, that and his masterfulness swept her irresistibly towards him. She was lonely-more lonely than ever of late, and to whom was she to look? Who else had been as good to her, as kind to her, as thoughtful for her, as he who now wooed her so honestly, who offered her all he had to offer? She hesitated, and he saw that she hesitated.
"Come, we've got to have this out," he said bluntly. And he put his hand on her shoulder. "We stand alone, both of us, you and I. We're the last of the old line, and I want you for my wife, Mary! With you I can do something, with you I believe that I can make something of my life! Without you-but there, if you say no, I won't take it! I won't take it, and I am going to have you, if not to-day, to-morrow, and if not to-morrow, the next day! Make no mistake about that!"
She tried to fence with him. "I have not a penny," she faltered.
"I don't ask you for a penny."
Her instinct was still to escape. "You are Lord Audley," she said, "and I am a poor relation. Won't you-don't you think that you will repent presently!"
"That's my business! If that be all-if there's no one else-"
"No, there's no one else," she admitted. "But-"
"But be hanged!" he cried. "If there's no one else you are mine." And he passed his arm round her.
For a moment she stepped back. "No!" she protested, raising her hands to push him off. "Please-please let me think."
He let her be, for already he knew that he had won; and perhaps in his own mind he was beginning to doubt the wisdom of the step. "My uncle? Have you thought of him?" she asked. "What will he say?"
"I have not thought of him," he cried grandly, "and I am not going to think of him. I am thinking, my dear, only of you. Do you love me?"
She stood silent, gazing at him.
"Don't play with me!" he said. "I've a right to an answer."
"I think I do," she said softly. "Yes-I think-no, wait; that is not all."
"It is all."
"No," between laughing and crying. "You are not giving me time. I want to think. You are carrying me by storm, sir."
"And a good way, too!" he rejoined. Then she did let him take her, and for a few seconds she was in his arms. He crushed her to him, she felt all the world turning. But before he found her lips, the crack of a whip startled them, the creak of a wheel sliding round the corner warned them, she slipped from his arms.
"You little wretch!" he said.
Breathless, hardly knowing what she felt, or what storm shook her, she could not speak. The wagon came creaking past them, the driver clinging to the chain of the slipper. When it was gone by she found her voice. "It shall be as you will," she said, and her tone thrilled him. "But I want to think. It has been so sudden, I am frightened. I am frightened, and-yes, I think I am happy. But please to let me go now. I am safe here-in two minutes I shall be at home."
He tried to keep her, but "Let me go now," she pleaded. "Later it shall be as you wish-always as you wish. But let me go now."
He gave way then. He said a few words while he held her hands, and he said them very well. Then he let her go. Before the dusk hid her she turned and waved her hand, and he waved his. He stood, listening. He heard the sound of her footsteps grow fainter and fainter as she climbed the hill, until they were lost in the rustle of the wind through the undergrowth. At last he turned and trudged down the hill.
"Well, I've done it," he muttered presently. "And Uncle John may find what he likes, damn him! After all, she's handsome enough to turn any man's head, and it makes me safe! But I'll go slow. I'll go slow now. There's no hurry."