"It must come from England, you said. It is possible to order it from thence?"
"Oh, yes," said Derrick, hesitatingly. "Of course, it would be better if one could buy it on the spot."
"That is so," she agreed. There was silence for awhile, then she said slowly, "Are you content to remain here--Mr. Dene?"
It was the first time she had addressed him by his name, and she did so with an hesitation that Derrick attributed to her uncertainty of the p.r.o.nunciation.
"Well, I am as content as I should be anywhere out of England," he said, with a candour compelled by her kindness.
She glanced at him with an earnest regard, and said softly, but suddenly,
"It means that you have left your heart there?"
Derrick coloured and lit another cigarette. Again, he felt as if he were obliged to open his heart to this sorrowful, sympathetic woman.
"That is so," he said, gravely.
"You have no father or mother," she murmured, her eyes downcast; "then it must be the girl you love--a sweetheart?"
Derrick nodded.
"Yes, it"s a girl I love," he said, with a thrill as he made the confession, and was impressed by the spoken words with the depths of his love for that girl. "Oh, don"t misunderstand! It"s true that I--love her; but she doesn"t love me; it"s all on my side, she doesn"t even know that I care for her. You"ll be surprised to hear that I saw her only once in my life, and then only for a few minutes."
"That is the Spanish way of loving, not the English," she said, with a long breath like a sigh, as she looked at him. "No; I am not surprised.
Love is a strange thing, Derrick--pardon!--Mr. Dene; and it comes sometimes, more often than not with the people of my nation, at first sight. Will you think me curious, if I ask her name?"
"Not at all. I don"t know it," said Derrick, with a grim laugh.
She looked at him with surprise in her mournful eyes.
"Oh, look here!" said Derrick, more to himself than to the listener whose sympathy affected him strangely and forced his confidence. "I"ve got to tell you everything, if you care to hear it. You are so clever, "cute--I beg your Excellency"s pardon!--that you will have guessed, as old Bloxford guessed, that I had good reason, or, rather, bad, for leaving England; besides, I hinted it the other night. I"ll tell you what that is, if you care to hear it."
"Tell me," she said, in a low voice. "I--I am a lonely woman; I have neither husband nor child; you have interested me"--her voice sank for a moment--"Yes, tell me. I--I may help you----"
"I"m afraid I"m beyond even your help," said Derrick; "but this is how it is."
He told her the story of the forged cheque, suppressing all names, and Donna Elvira listened, as immovable as a statue, looking straight before her, her brows drawn, her lips set. She sighed as he finished, and said,
"The woman you did this for--you cared for her?"
"I did, at one time--or, I thought I did," said Derrick; "but, when I met that other girl, the girl who stepped in like an angel and saved me from suicide, I cared for her no longer. It was as if she had gone out of my life, out of my heart, and another woman had stepped into her place. Do you understand, Donna Elvira?"
"It is not difficult," she said, with a faint smile. "The woman for whom you made so foolish, so wicked a sacrifice was not worthy of you. It is well that you should have forgotten her. This other girl--I do not know her; but I think she must be good and true."
"She"s all that," said Derrick, fervently. "If you had seen only just as much of her as I have, you"d know that you were right. She is not a girl who would jilt a man who cared for her, to marry another man for his rank. She"s good and true, as you say; as true as steel. Why, think of it: a slip of a girl, scarcely out of her teens, facing, alone, a madman, with a revolver! The sight of the thing gave her the horrors, I could see; but there she stood, firm as a rock, pleading, arguing, insisting, until she"d saved the silly fool. A girl like that is--oh, I can"t talk about her. And, what"s it matter? I shall never see her again. Besides, it isn"t possible that a girl so beautiful, so charming, should be free for long. I may meet her again; but it"s long odds that, when I do, it will be to find that she"s married, got children--I beg your pardon, your Excellency; you"ve been very kind to listen to all this and very patient. You see how hopeless it is. I must try to forget her. But that"s impossible." He laughed ruefully. "I think of her every day: I fall asleep thinking of her. But that"s enough! About the machinery?"
"We will talk of it some other time," she said, rising. "Good-night."
For several days Derrick saw Donna Elvira at a distance only; but, somehow, he was conscious that she was watching him; for now and again, when he was going to or from the shed, he caught sight of the pale face, with its white hair, at a window, or saw her moving across the court; but he did not venture to intrude upon her. While he was waiting for her decision, respecting the new plant, he employed himself in making a kind of survey of the house and the buildings; and he drew up a schedule of the repairs that were necessary and made some suggestions for various alterations. But though her Excellency did not grant him another interview, it was evident that she had not forgotten him, and he knew that it was to her he owed several comfortable additions in and about his rooms, and the increased respect and attention of the servants.
One evening, about a week later, his servant came to him with a message: he was to attend her Excellency in the salon. With a sense of relief, and of pleasure, Derrick hastened to obey the summons. The frail, yet proudly-erect figure was seated in the big chair; she looked thinner and more haggard; and Derrick, as he stood before her, feared that she was still suffering from the shock of the overturned lamp. She held out her hand, for the first time; and as Derrick took it, he felt it tremble under the pressure of his.
"You sent for me, your Excellency?" he said.
"Yes," she answered in a low voice, as she waved him to a chair which had been placed, either accidentally or by her orders, near her. "I have arrived at a decision--about--the machinery. I wish you to go to England for it."
Derrick could not repress a start, and he stared at her, somewhat aghast.
"Want me to go----?" he said, changing colour. "But I"m afraid--have you forgotten what I told you about--about the trouble of the cheque?"
"No, I have not forgotten," she said, in the same low voice. "I do not think you have any need to fear. I think that you were unwise to fly England. And yet I am glad; for--for, if you had not done so, I should not--you would not have come here."
"I"m glad enough that I did come here, your Excellency," said Derrick, warmly. "And I shall be very sorry to leave you, putting aside this question of my safety."
"You will be quite safe, or I would not ask you to go. I have been thinking over your story. I have not always lived in this out-of-the-way part of the world. I have had experience; and I see more clearly than you. I do not think you would have been prosecuted. They are clever, these lawyers, and they would have got the truth out of you. A word or a look on your part would have given them the clue. Besides, this other man; they would have questioned him, and he would have exposed himself."
"That"s true enough; that"s what I told Heyton----" began Derrick; in his eagerness, unwittingly letting slip Heyton"s name, as he had the other evening let slip his own. He broke off and looked down, biting his lip. If he had still kept his eyes on the face of the woman beside him, he could not have failed to see the sudden change which came to that face, the expression of amazement, of fear, of intense excitement. She did not speak, she did not utter a word, but her lips writhed and her thin, long white hands closed and opened spasmodically.
"I"m sorry," muttered Derrick, regretfully, and frowning at his boots.
"The name slipped out before I knew it." He laughed ruefully. "It seems as if I were unable to conceal anything from you."
"There is no cause for fear," she said in a tremulous voice. "You may speak to me as you would to a father confessor; as you would to a--mother."
"Oh, I know that," said Derrick, and his own voice shook a little.
"Strangely enough--I"m afraid you"ll think I"m pretty impudent--but ever since I saw you I have felt----Oh, well, I can"t explain." He leant forward with profound respect and a warmer feeling he could not understand. "I suppose it was because you were so good to me; perhaps because you were so lonely, here amongst all these people----Oh, I _can"t_ explain, and I"m afraid I"m distressing you," he went on remorsefully; for the frail figure was trembling, and the tears had gathered in the dark eyes. "I"m a blundering kind of idiot, and I"m worrying you with my tuppenny-ha"penny affairs. Forgive me!"
She drew her hand across her eyes; then slowly, hesitatingly, laid the hand on his arm.
"There is nothing to forgive," she murmured. "But tell me. I too have felt--I am a lonely woman; you--you are young enough--you might be--shall we say that I have been drawn to you as you say you have been drawn to me--you said so, did you not?--that I have felt as if I were--your mother."
"I wish to G.o.d you were!" said Derrick, huskily, and feeling, with amazement, and an Englishman"s annoyance, that his own eyes were moist.
"Let us pretend that we are--mother and son," she said, in so low a voice as to be almost inaudible. "Therefore, as a son, you need conceal nothing from me. Tell me, who is this man whose name escaped you?"
As she asked the question, she made an evident effort to control her agitation, and her voice and manner were well-nigh calm, and infinitely tender and persuasive.
"Oh, Heyton!" said Derrick, feeling that he would be quite safe to tell her everything. "He is the eldest, the only, son of the Marquess of Sutcombe; and, of course, he will be the next Marquess; and, of course, that"s the reason why Miriam--Miriam Ainsley--chucked me and married him."
"This Lord Heyton, what manner of man is he?" she said.
"Oh, I"m afraid he"s a bad lot; you"ll see that, or he wouldn"t have played this low down trick on me. He"s a weak sort of fellow who has played the fool pretty thoroughly. I met him at the place where the Ainsleys lived, a little village called Bridgeford; and though--it"s easy to be wise after the event--I didn"t like him much, we got to be kind of friends. He"s full of low cunning and I"d no idea he was after Miriam until it was too late. You see the sort of man he is."
"And he will be the Marquess," she said, musingly.
"Oh, yes, nothing can prevent that," a.s.sented Derrick, with a short laugh.
"It is a pity," she said.
"A thousand pities," agreed Derrick; "but there you are! It"s our system of primogeniture, eldest son, you know."