The Duke's Sweetheart: A Romance. Dowling Richard

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СКАЧАТЬ thirty years old, and when, as I was just then trying to set up a home for myself and my poor wife, who is dead and gone, a little ready money would have been more useful than any time before or since.

      "A few months before the great temptation came in my way-I am now speaking of five-and-thirty years ago-a gentleman drove into the village one day. He had a young girl with him. I did not see him when he drove into the village; but I saw him and her often afterwards. He took the best room in The Beagle for her, and having given great instructions to the landlady, old Mrs. Timmons, dead and gone long ago, he drove away again; and we did not see him any more for a few days.

      "As I said before, I have often seen both him and her since. I've been in London in my time, and seen as handsome faces as any man alive, I'll bet my life; but never did I see anywhere such a lovely creature as that young girl the gentleman left here at The Beagle five-and-thirty years ago. He was a fine tall man, with an open free manner as you'd please to meet. Soon we got word there was going to be a marriage, and that there was some secret at the bottom of all of it. What that secret was we never found out from that day to this.

      "Mrs. Timmons noticed that the young girl often wept and cried when he was away; but when he came back she seemed ready to die of joy. I've never seen a prettier picture in all my life than when he took her on his arm and walked down the village with her. The people all came out of doors to look at her and him; for he was a fine man too, well made and shapely.

      "Well, after a little while, we heard that the wedding was to be soon, and that it wasn't to be by banns, but by license. In time it came. There was no bridesmaid or best man. They walked down to the church together, went in, were married. I gave away the bride and signed the register. Old Billy Newton, long since dead and gone, he that led the choir then, was the other witness.

      "The two left the church, and got in a chaise standing by, and drove away towards Moorfield.

      "Although I did not forget the marriage, I had other things on my mind, and I gave no thought to it. I had been married a couple of years myself, and, between my trade, and my duties at the church, and shifting to my new house and the birth of a daughter, I had my hands and my head full of my own affairs.

      "About six months after the marriage, who must ride up to the door of this very same Beagle but the gentleman who had married the lovely young girl in the church down there. They took his horse round. Those that saw him when he came said he looked excited and wild-like. He ordered them to keep a room for him, and to get him some supper, no matter what; and then he came straight on to me.

      "'Goolby,' says he as free as if he had known me all his life, 'I want to have a few words with you in private.'

      "It was to the old house he came, and we were just leaving it for good, my wife and myself, taking a last look round to see we had forgotten nothing. I beckoned to my wife to go on, and, shutting the door, I asked him to step back into one of the empty rooms.

      "'Goolby,' says he, 'I see you are house-shifting. Five hundred pounds would be very useful to you now.'

      "'It would be a small fortune to me at any time, sir,' says I.

      "'Goolby,' says he, putting one hand on my shoulder, and putting the other into my pocket, 'I've put five one-hundred-pound Bank of England notes in your pocket now.'

      "I felt all of a tremble. I put my hand in my pocket and took out what he had put in. I felt that weak then you could have knocked me down with a little push. The sweat came out on my forehead and my throat felt twisted up. Here was more money than I could hope to lay by in a lifetime in my hand-my own, he said.

      "'If you please, sir,' I says, 'I'd rather not take the money. Put it away, sir, and let me go.'

      "I felt getting weaker and weaker every minute.

      "'Nonsense!' says he. 'Put the money in your pocket, and don't be a fool.'

      "'I can't take it, sir. You're not giving it to me for nothing; and I know I cannot do for any money what you want,' says I; for I guessed at once what he wanted.

      "'What do I want?' says he, getting white and red all by turns.

      "'It's something about the register, sir; and I can't think of it any longer. I must go now,' says I, 'There's your money.' And with these words I stuffed the notes into the pocket of his riding-coat, and opened the door and ran home.

      "I did not tell the rector. I was too much afraid. But that night, and every night for a fortnight after, I slept in the vestry, with an axe and a crowbar handy, but no one ever came. I never saw the gentleman since; and the leaf is still in the book.

      "'And what are the names on that leaf?' asked Edward Graham, the young artist.

      "George Temple Cheyne and Harriet Mansfield."

      CHAPTER IV.

      A TOWN STORY

      "It is the fifty-second chapter," said the Duke of Long Acre. "You will remember, May," his grace continued, as he turned over the proof-slips in his hand, "you will remember, May, that in the chapter before this Antony Belmore had been out of employment for two months, and that he was at his wits' end to know how to get even bread."

      "Yes, and he had a broken pane of glass to let in the cold wind; and that there was a wide gaping fireplace to let down more cold; and that he had got rid of his violoncello; and that his landlord was pressing him horribly-"

      "For one pound, eighteen, and sixpence, rent."

      "But, Charlie, what is the good of writing uncomfortable stories, that have no pious object? I can understand why Sunday-school tales are dismal."

      "My dear May, the public won't have anything but groans and tears. If you can manage yells for them, all the better. Gladiators don't fight now in the arena. Gentle creatures like you, darling, have no chance of voting violent death to a man by holding down your thumbs in the Colosseum. The modern novel is the portable arena of to-day; and gentle darlings like you, May, must be permitted to view the death-agony of men and women, or you would not patronise the libraries."

      "Charlie, if you dare to say any more such horrible untruths, I'll go down to the kitchen, put on an apron, and make the pastry for to-morrow."

      "If you do that, I'll go down and eat up all the nasty indigestible dough; and then what will you say at the inquest?"

      "Take your arm away, sir; I won't stay here another minute. You have, I think, made up your mind to be disagreeable."

      "Well, run away now, if you like."

      "But you are holding me, and I can't stir."

      "And I mean to hold you if you will not sit still while I read the chapter."

      "Oh dear, you are a horrible tease! There, let me go; I promise not to run away."

      "Very well. Now don't stir."

      The Duke of Long Acre and Marion Durrant, his sweetheart, were seated in one of the smallest conservatories in London. This conservatory was situated at the back of Miss Traynor's house in Knightsbridge. The house and all that it contained, with the exception of Marion's aunt, the owner, were small. Two people could not possibly walk abreast in the hall, nor up the stairs. It was a saying of the Duke's that one of those days he should get wedged in that hall, and would have to be extracted from it by violent means. There was a tiny front drawing-room and a tiny back drawing-room, and between them a pair of folding-doors which always stood open. At the rear of the СКАЧАТЬ