CHAPTER XLIII.
"LESLIE, YOUR WIFE!"
Lucy stood and wrung her hands, looking round helplessly, almost terrified out of her senses by Leslie's terrible outburst of passionate grief. But her helplessness lasted only for a moment or two. She bent down and shook, literally shook, Leslie's shoulder.
"He is not dead!" she said, "but he will be if we let him lie here!"
She had hit upon the surest way of rousing Leslie. She stopped the awful wailing, held Yorke's face from her and looked at it – oh, with what a scrutiny! – then sprang to her feet.
"Help me!" she said through her clenched teeth, and she put her arms around Yorke's broad shoulders, and raised him from the ground. She felt strong enough to carry him by herself! Between them they carried him into the house and into Lucy's room.
"Now I will go for the doctor," said Leslie, with a calmness which terrified Lucy almost as much as her grief had done, but Lucy snatched up her shawl.
"No, I will go! You must stay with him! You – you will not break down, Leslie?"
A smile crossed Leslie's white face; and, sufficiently answered, Lucy sped away.
When she came back with the doctor they found that Leslie had – heaven only knows how – got off Yorke's saturated coat and waistcoat, and washed the blood from his face; and she stood outside the door holding Lucy's hand, calm and composed, while the doctor made his examination. Then he called them in.
"No bones broken, thank God!" he said; "the horse must have fallen on him, and I was afraid – . But he has struck his head, and there is mischief in a blow like this. He will want careful nursing." He looked from one to the other, and Leslie moved forward a little. The doctor nodded. "Very good," he said, as if accepting her; and he began at once to give her the necessary instructions. "When he comes to he must be kept quiet."
Ralph, who had been fetched by the doctor's man, entered the room, and the doctor sent him into the village for some things he required; on the way Ralph roused the postmaster and sent a telegram to the Duke of Rothbury.
The two girls and the doctor watched beside Yorke throughout the morning, but he still lay motionless and apparently lifeless.
The doctor's face grew graver as the hours passed, and he drew Ralph aside.
"Better send for his friends," he said; "I had hoped to bring him round before this; there is Lady Eleanor Dallas – ."
Ralph started. He and the rest of them had forgotten her.
He got on Yorke's horse, and rode full pelt for White Place.
"Their ladyships left by the first train this morning for the Continent, sir," said the butler; "Paris, I think, but I'm not sure; I was to wait till they sent their address."
Ralph rode back and whispered the result of his message to Lucy; she looked relieved.
"I – I am not sorry!" she said. "If she had come Leslie would have gone, perhaps! No, I am not sorry! Oh, Ralph, if he should die!"
In the afternoon a fly drove up to the door and Grey helped the duke out. He was as white as the face that lay on the pillow upstairs, and for a moment or two he could not speak, but sat with lightly folded hands listening as Ralph told the whole strange story.
"Take me to him," he said at last.
They took him upstairs, and he started at sight of Leslie beside the bed; then he held out his hand, and Leslie put hers into it without a word; indeed, almost indifferently and without removing her eyes from Yorke's face. For her all the world lay there, hovering between life and death!
He stood watching Yorke for some time, then he went downstairs again.
"Will he live?" he asked the doctor.
The doctor gave the usual shake of the head and shrug.
"It is a difficult case, your grace," he said vaguely.
The duke put his hand before his eyes for a moment or two. "If he should die it will kill her!" He had been watching Leslie's face as well as Yorke's.
Two days passed. A stillness like that of death itself reigned over the little house. Toward evening Lucy implored Leslie to go to her room and take some rest.
"And leave him?" was the only response, and she held the limp hand still more tightly. The night fell and Leslie had sunk on her knees with her face on the dear hand, praying silently, when she felt the hand against her cheek move. She raised her head and motioned to Lucy and the doctor and they drew back.
The hand moved again, and presently the thrill that was almost an agony in its intensity, ran warm through Leslie's heart, for she saw the eyes she had watched hour by hour open slowly.
There was no life or intelligence in them for a minute or so, but Leslie bent over him and whispered his name. They lighted up, and a smile flickered on his face and his lips moved.
She bent still lower and heard him – surely no other could have caught those faint accents! – whisper her name.
"Yes, it is – Leslie!" she said.
He smiled again, and his fingers closed over hers weakly and yet clingingly.
"That's – that's right, my darling!" he said. "I knew you'd come! I've driven Stevens at the club half wild about that telegram; but I'll – I'll give him a five-pound note. Leslie – ."
"Yes," she murmured.
"I've got the certificate, license, whatever you call it, and we'll be married to-day – ."
Her face flushed and the tears blinded her.
"I'm too busy now to tell you how I love you for trusting me, dearest, but I'll tell you after its all over. The snuggest little church! I've got everything read – Where's a cab – Where – ."
He stopped and a shudder ran through him, and the expression of his face changed swiftly.
"Leslie!" he cried, in a voice of grief and dread. "Where are you? I have lost you! Lost you; Leslie, come back to me! Oh, God, she has gone, gone forever! Come back to me, dearest, dearest!"
The doctor stepped forward hurriedly with a grave anxiety in his manner; but Leslie motioned him back.
She put her arm round Yorke and laid her face against his – her own scarlet and white by turns – and in a voice inaudible to the rest, whispered:
"I am here, dear Yorke! Don't you know – have you forgotten? It is I, Leslie – your wife!"
He looked puzzled for a moment, then a smile broke over his face and he laughed as he turned his face to her.
"I – I must have been dreaming, Leslie!" he said joyfully. "Yes, that's it! What an idiot I am! I forgot we were married yesterday! Think of it! Where are we? On the steamer – in Italy – where? My – my head feels queer, and the things work about me. Just – just tell me again, dearest."
"It is Leslie – your wife," she murmured, her love telling her what he wanted.
"Yes, yes!" he murmured, with a laugh of infinite content. "Married yesterday, of course; stupid things, dreams. Leslie! My wife! Married yesterday!"
Then with a sigh of blissful assurance and perfect peace he closed his eyes and fell asleep on her bosom.
Lucy stood crying, the tears were rolling down the duke's wan cheeks, and even the doctor found it necessary to turn his head away.
Then Lucy found herself outside the room sobbing on Ralph Duncombe's shoulder.
"Oh, I am so happy, so happy!" she sobbed. "It is all right now!"
"All right?" he said with masculine density.
"Yes, don't you see? Didn't you hear!" opening her eyes. "She is bound to marry him now! Why, it's almost as if they were married already."
CHAPTER XLIV.
HUSBAND AND – BROTHER
The great duke who built Rothbury Castle was no fool.
He chose the best of the hills, placed his house on the brow amidst a belt of oaks and elms and surrounded by park-like lawns. He made the body and the two wings in a long facade facing due south, and all along the front he ran a terrace of white stone with flights of broad steps leading down to the lawns and Italian gardens, which were then in vogue.
From this terrace a view was obtained which was almost, if not quite, as grand as that which enraptures the gaze from Richmond Hill; while looked at from below, the castle presented an appearance which might well be described as magnificent. Each succeeding duke had done what he could to improve, or at any rate maintain, the ancestral home, and all England was proud of Rothbury Castle.
On an evening in June the duke was seated in his bath-chair in a corner of the terrace looking wistfully and expectantly towards the most distant part of the drive, which wound round and about the tall elms like a yellow snake. Beside him stood Grey, also looking expectant, and every now and then covertly glancing at his watch behind his master's back.
Just below the terrace was an arch composed of laurels, studded with roses; the great flag and the Rothbury arms floated from one of the towers and other flags flapped in the soft breeze from Venetian masts, and lines stretched from point to point of the castle and grounds. Servants in their dark claret livery hurried to and fro or stood in groups looking toward the same spot on which the duke's eye was fixed. The hall door was open wide, and at the foot of the stairs stood the general servants of the household – all of them, from the stately housekeeper in satin to the scullery-maid in her black stuff dress and white apron. In fact, the whole place was in a state of pleasant excitement, and no one excepting the duke in his chair seemed able to keep still in one place for more than a minute at a time.
"That train's late, Grey," said the duke with a painfully poor attempt at indifference. "It always is late. See that I write to the Traffic Director about it, will you? It is something shameful the way this line is mismanaged. It must be twenty minutes late, I know!"
"Not quite, your grace; about a quarter, I should say," said Grey, pulling out his watch.
"Oh, put that watch away!" said the duke. "You have lugged it out twenty times during the last half hour. Do you think I haven't seen you? I wish to heaven you'd go away if you must fidget."
"Beg pardon, your grace," said Grey from behind, and hiding a smile. "Shall I wheel your grace in, the air is rather – ."
"Nonsense! It's as hot as – as a furnace. Are they coming yet? They seem to forget that I'm a director of this beastly line! By George, I'll go down to their next board meeting and make it hot for them! More accidents occur from the unpunctuality of trains than anything else. Ah, what's that?"
"They're coming, your grace!" exclaimed Grey.
The duke made a movement as if he were about to rise, then he sank back with a sigh.
"Go and tell them; they can't see as well as we can. See that everything is ready."
"Yes, your grace; but there's no need, they've seen the carriage," he added, as the servants began to move about like a hive of bees, and then, as if by mutual consent, swarmed upon the principal flight of steps from the terrace.
The carriage, with its four white horses, swept along the avenue, the postilions cracking their whips and keeping their steeds at a smart gallop; and presently Yorke, who had been leaning forward, said:
"The first view of the castle, Leslie!"
Leslie bent forward eagerly and a faint cry of amazement and delight escaped her.
"Oh, Yorke, how lovely, how lovely!" she murmured. "I had no idea it was so large or so beautiful. It is an Aladdin's palace! And look, Yorke, there is an arch of flowers! How kind of them! Oh – ," she drew a long breath and sank back. "I think I am a little frightened by it all!"
He leant his arm on the side of the carriage and looked at her with a smile on his lips, and the light of a passionate love in his eyes.
The view before them was beautiful enough in all conscience, but the loveliness beside him transcended it! Six months of such happiness as falls to few mortals had done wonders for Leslie. It had brought back the color to her face, the light to her eyes, the music of youth's joy and love's ecstasy to her voice. It was the Leslie of Portmaris with something added, a something too delicately intangible for words, but the charm of which all felt who met and talked with her.
If it was possible Yorke had grown to love her with a deeper and more passionate love since their marriage, and his pride in her beauty had verged on the ridiculous; and sometimes Leslie, made to blush under his gaze, would put her hands over her eyes. The intensity of his love almost frightened her; and she was as one who fears for the safety of a precious vase which fate may overturn or some malignant wand cast from its pedestal and shatter.
The six months of happiness had wrought wonders for Yorke also. The wan and haggard, the hopeless, listless expression had vanished from his face, and in its place was a look of contentment and youthful energy which gave him back all the brightness that had helped to win Leslie's heart.
It was, indeed, the old Yorke with his ready laugh and jest who sat beside his sweetheart-wife, as they bowled toward their future home.
"There you are!" he said presently. "You can see the terrace now. By George, what a mob! It's a regular reception! There'll be a speech for certain! Do you think you are equal to returning thanks, my lady? Just think over a few 'graceful phrases,' as the newspapers put it – something neat and short."
"Oh, don't Yorke!" she pleaded. "If you knew how my heart was beating – ."
"Let me feel it," he said promptly, seizing upon the excuse.
"No, no, sir! You mustn't! Fleming may look round any moment," and she cast a glance of mock warning at that important individual seated on the box. "But you may hold my hand, if you like. Isn't it trembling?" and she turned her eyes upon him piteously, though a soft smile played upon her parted lips. "Oh, Yorke, I feel so – so small before all this. I ought to have been six feet high, and very, very stately! And instead I feel so tiny and insignificant! There is one good thing. I shall be able to get behind you and hide myself. Do you know that you have grown dreadfully big, Yorke?"
He laughed.
"Have I? I dare say. Happiness, like laughter, makes one grow fat. I shouldn't be surprised if I developed into a kind of Daniel Lambert. There was one fat Rothbury. I'll show you his portrait, and if you like it I'll try and live up to it. Oh, what lots I have to show you! But, I forgot, I must leave that to Dolph! The dear old chap will love to trot you around the place, for he's proud of it, though he is always growling and calling it a barracks, and an overgrown show. Dear old Dolph! Now – oh, you are not going to cry!"
"No, no!" Leslie responded, wiping her eyes stealthily. "It – it was only the sun in my eyes. Oh, Yorke, how good Heaven has been to us in every way! Think how sad it would have been to have come home and found him gone from us!"
Yorke nodded with momentary gravity.
"Yes, Heaven has been very good to us, dearest," he said in a low, fervent voice. "In that as in all things."
The horses tore along as if they knew they were being eagerly waited for, and presently the sound of cheering rose and swelled into a volume as the carriage passed under the arch. As it passed Leslie looked up and uttered an exclamation of delight.
"Oh, look, Yorke!" she cried. "Yorke, look!"
Half a dozen of the prettiest of the village school-girls stood on a bower on top of the arch, and the moment the carriage was underneath they began to sing and throw roses into it.
"Stop, stop for one moment!" pleaded Leslie. "I – I want to speak to them. Oh, I can't, I can't!" she cried. "You speak, Yorke! Thank them, oh, thank them!"
They could not stop, and in despair Leslie snatched up one of the roses and kissed it at the children, and waved her hand.
"That's better than a speech," said Yorke delightedly. "Look at them clapping their hands, and hear them shouting. Commend me to Lady Auchester for doing the right thing in an emergency. Here we are!" he exclaimed, as the carriage drew up at the steps, and four grooms ran forward to the horses' heads, and he got out and held his hand to her.
As they passed up the steps, lined on either side by the servants, the cheers were redoubled, mingled with shouts:
"Welcome home, my lord! Welcome home, my lady!"
At the top of the steps stood the gray-haired butler. Yorke nearly spoiled his short speech by shaking hands with him, but the old fellow stammered it out, and Yorke, with his wife on his arm, looked round with his bright smile, and opened his lips.
But, as he said afterward, a lump came into his throat, and for a moment or two he could not utter a word, and even then he found himself stammering as the butler had done, as he said:
"Thank you, thank you! I should like to tell you how deeply I feel your kindness, but I can't, somehow! But I do feel it very much, and so does my wife, my dear wife – ," he stopped suddenly, and in the unexpected silence, a voice – it was that of the little scullery-maid, who had edged forward – was heard distinctly – "Oh, isn't she lovely!"
A proud light flashed into Yorke's eyes, and he held his head high.
"Yes," he said, "she is lovely! But she is something better than that; she is good – good!"
One touch of nature like this makes the whole world kin, and a shout went up which echoed and re-echoed round the old walls.
Leslie stood 'covered with blushes,' but her hand closed on her husband's, and with a loving, grateful pressure, as she looked up at him with a pride which equaled his own.
Then Yorke went quickly across the terrace – the servants drawing back with true delicacy – to where the bath-chair stood, and in another instant the duke's hand was grasped in his. But after an affectionate glance at his happy face the duke motioned him aside, and held out both hands towards Leslie.
"My welcome comes last, but it's not the least, my dear," he said.
Leslie stood for a second hesitating, her color coming and going, then she bent down and kissed him on the forehead.
His thin face flushed, and he held her a moment, patting her arm in the way a man does when he is having a hard fight with his emotion.
"You're both looking very well, young people," he said, but without removing his eyes from Leslie's face. "Very well – and absurdly happy."
Leslie laughed, and her eyes dwelt on him with an expression of satisfaction and rejoicing, which he did not understand until she said:
"And you – oh, how well you look, how different."
He shook his head with one of his quaintly grim smiles.
"Yes. I'm very sorry, and I hope you'll both forgive me for being so inconsiderate, but I was never half so well in my life. I'm afraid I'm going to be a nuisance, and keep poor Yorke waiting for the title for a year or two."
"All right, Dolph," said Yorke in his old breezy voice. "We'll tell you when we're tired of waiting."
"Do, do!" he said. "Mind, that's a promise! Now you are tired, and you want to rest before dinner. Yorke, you'll have to do the honors of the house; Leslie won't care to wait while I limp along."
Leslie drew his arm through hers and looked down at him with the smile which a sister bestows upon a beloved and afflicted brother, and with an added tenderness too subtle for analysis.
"I will not go without you," she said. "Lean upon me, or rather I will lean upon you, for I am a little tired, and you are quite strong."
The duke's face flushed with pleasure and satisfaction as he got up.
"Very well," he said.
They entered the vast hall, and he pointed out the great staircase upon which Royalist and Roundhead had fought till the stairs ran with blood – the stains were there still, under the carpet; the old oak carving; the tattered banners which the Rothburys of old had borne in many a fight for king and country; the tapestry hangings, which not even Windsor could match; the oriel window of stained glass, brought piece by piece from Flanders; the long line of family portraits. Then he took her through the state apartments, with their gilded carvings and priceless furniture, grand lofty rooms, as splendid as anything she had seen, even in palatial Venice; to the library, which a studious, book-loving duke had constructed with infinite care and pains, and filled with rare and choice editions; to the smaller rooms in which he and she and Yorke would live, and which with their modern decorations and furniture were the epitome of elegance and comfort. Then they went up the great staircase and along the broad corridors, lined with pictures and statuary.
"These are your rooms," he said, opening a door, and smiling as Leslie uttered a cry of amazement and delight. "You like them?" he said quietly, but evidently delighted at her delight. "I'm glad of that. It has been an amusement for me while you have been away getting them ready. I hope you'll find all you want, but you must remember that I'm only a miserable bachelor, and make allowances if you miss anything."
"What shall I say to him, Yorke?" she said, appealing to Yorke helplessly.
The duke drew her on as if to escape her thanks.
"You shan't be bothered with more rooms now," he said. "To-morrow you shall see it all. You must get acquainted with your own house, you know, as soon as possible."
As he spoke Yorke, who had walked beside them too moved for speech, stopped before the half opened door and pushed it open.
It was a plainly furnished room – very plainly, no silks or satins or inlaid furniture here, but an ordinary iron bedstead, and dressing table and washstand of plain deal.
"My room," said the duke simply.
Leslie stopped and peeped in, then she stood still, surprised and touched at its simplicity.
"Why have you given us all the beautiful things, and left none for yourself, duke?" she said reproachfully.
He laughed.
"Oh, I'm simple in my tastes," he said. "But I half thought of furnishing this room as a boudoir for you, there is such a pretty view. Come in!"
She went in and to the window, but she did not look at the view, for her eye was caught by a picture hanging on the wall at the foot of the bed.
It was the picture her father had painted, and "Mr. Temple" had bought.
She looked at it in silence and the tears filled her eyes; then she turned her lovely face to the duke and tried to speak.
"All right, my dear," he said in a low voice. "I like to have it there. It reminds me of old times. Reminds me of the Portmaris days, when, blinded by my own conceit, I thought all women were false and worthless. You have opened my eyes, my dear, and I see more clearly now! There! There!" for her tears fell fast. "That is all past now."
He paused for a moment, then lifted his eyes to her face with a tender regard, and murmured:
Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all its chords with might,
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight —
"I suppose he has told you how it was with me, my dear?"
Leslie's eyes dropped for an instant, then she raised them and looked into his, and her hand closed tightly on his thin one.
"Well," he said with a smile, "you must cut your heart in two, and give one-half to your husband, and the other to – your brother!"