Innocent : her fancy and his fact Part 40

CHAPTER III

Some weeks later on, when the London season was at its height, and Fashion, that frilled and furbelowed G.o.ddess, sat enthroned in state, controlling the moods of the Elect and Select which she chooses to call "society," Innocent was invited to the house of a well-known d.u.c.h.ess, renowned for a handsome personality, and also for an una.s.sailable position, notwithstanding certain sinister rumours. People said--people are always saying something!--that her morals were easy-going, but everyone agreed that her taste was unimpeachable. She--this great lady whose rank permitted her to entertain the King and Queen--heard of "Ena Armitage" as the brilliant author whose books were the talk of the town, and forthwith made up her mind that she must be seen at her house as the "sensation" of at least one evening. To this end she glided in her noiseless, satin-cushioned motor brougham up to the door of Miss Leigh's modest little dwelling and left the necessary slips of pasteboard bearing her t.i.tled name, with similar slips on behalf of her husband the Duke, for Miss Armitage and Miss Leigh. The slips were followed in due course by a more imposing and formal card of invitation to a "Reception and Small Dance. R.S.V.P." On receiving this, good old Miss Lavinia was a little fluttered and excited, and turning it over and over in her hand, looked at Innocent with a kind of nervous anxiety.

"I think we ought to go, my dear," she said--"or rather--I don't know about myself--but YOU ought to go certainly. It's a great house--a great family--and she is a very great lady--a little--well!--a little 'modern' perhaps--"

Innocent lifted her eyebrows with a slight, almost weary smile. A scarcely perceptible change had come over her of late--a change too subtle to be noticed by anyone who was not as keenly observant as Miss Lavinia--but it was sufficient to give the old lady who loved her cause for a suspicion of trouble.

"What is it to be modern?" she asked--"In your sense, I mean? I know what is called 'modern' generally--bad art, bad literature, bad manners and bad taste! But what do YOU call modern?"

Miss Leigh considered--looking at the girl with steadfast, kindly eyes.

"You speak a trifle bitterly--for YOU, dear child!" she said--"These things you name as 'modern' truly are so, but they are ancient as well!

The world has altered very little, I think. What we call 'bad' has always existed as badness--it is only presented to us in different forms--"

Innocent laughed--a soft little laugh of tenderness.

"Wise G.o.dmother!" she said, playfully--"You talk like a book!"

Miss Lavinia laughed too, and a pretty pink colour came into her wan cheeks.

"Naughty child, you are making fun of me!" she said--"What I meant about the d.u.c.h.ess--"

Innocent stretched out her hand for the card of invitation and looked at it.

"Well!" she said, slowly--"What about the d.u.c.h.ess?"

Miss Leigh hesitated.

"I hardly know how to put it," she answered, at last--"She's a kind-hearted woman--very generous--and most helpful in works of charity. I never knew such energy as she shows in organising charity bails and bazaars!--perfectly wonderful!--but she likes to live her life--"

"Who would not!" murmured the girl, scarcely audibly.

"And she lives it--very much so!--rather to the dregs!" continued the old lady, with emphasis. "She has no real aim beyond the satisfaction of her own vanity and social power--and you, with your beautiful thoughts and ideals, might not like the kind of people she surrounds herself with--people, who only want amus.e.m.e.nt and 'sensation'--particularly sensation--"

Innocent said nothing for a minute or two--then she looked up, brightly.

"To go or not to go, G.o.dmother mine! Which is it to be? The decision rests with you! Yes, or no?"

"I think it must be 'yes'"--and Miss Leigh emphasised the word with a little nod of her head. "It would be unwise to refuse--especially just now when everyone is talking of you and wishing to see you. And you are quite worth seeing!"

The girl gave a slight gesture of indifference and moved away slowly and listlessly, as though fatigued by the mere effort of speech. Miss Leigh noted this with some concern, watching her as she went, and admiring the supple grace of her small figure, the well-shaped little head so proudly poised on the slim throat, and the burnished sheen of her bright hair.

"She grows prettier every day," she thought--"But not happier, I fear!--not happier, poor child!"

Innocent meanwhile, upstairs in her own little study, was reading and re-reading a brief letter which had come for her by the same post that had delivered the d.u.c.h.ess's invitation.

"I hear you are among the guests invited to the d.u.c.h.ess of Deanshire's party," it ran--"I hope you will go--for the purely selfish reason that I want to meet you there. Hers is a great house with plenty of room, and a fine garden--for London. People crowd to her 'crushes', but one can always escape the mob. I have seen so little of you lately, and you are now so famous that I shall think myself lucky if I may touch the hem of your garment. Will you encourage me thus far? Like Hamlet, 'I lack advancement'! When will you take me to Briar Farm? I should like to see the tomb of my very ancestral uncle--could we not arrange a day's outing in the country while the weather is fine? I throw myself on your consideration and clemency for this--and for many other unwritten things!

Yours,

AMADIS DE JOCELYN."

There was nothing in this easily worded scrawl to make an ordinarily normal heart beat faster, yet the heart of this simple child of the G.o.ds, gifted with genius and deprived of worldly wisdom as all such divine children are, throbbed uneasily, and her eyes were wet. More than this, she touched the signature,--the long-familiar name--with her soft lips,--and as though afraid of what she had done, hurriedly folded the letter and locked it away.

Then she sat down and thought. Nearly two years had elapsed since she had left Briar Farm, and in that short time she had made the name she had adopted famous. She could not call it her own name; born out of wedlock, she had no right, by the stupid law, to the name of her father. She could, legally, have worn the maiden name of her mother had she known it--but she did not know it. And what she was thinking of now, was this: Should she tell her lately discovered second "Amadis de Jocelyn" the true story of her birth and parentage at this, the outset of their friendship, before--well, before it went any further? She could not consult Miss Leigh on the point, without smirching the reputation of Pierce Armitage, the man whose memory was enshrined in that dear lady's heart as a thing of unsullied honour. She puzzled herself over the question for a long time, and then decided to keep her own counsel.

"After all, why should I tell him?" she asked herself. "It might make trouble--he is so proud of his lineage, and I too am proud of it for him! ... why should I let him know that I inherit nothing but my mother's shame!"

Her heart grew heavy as her position was thus forced back upon her by her own thoughts. Up to the present no one had asked who she was, or where she came from--she was understood to be an orphan, left alone in the world, who by her own genius and unaided effort had lifted herself into the front rank among the "shining lights" of the day. This, so far, had been sufficient information for all with whom she had come in contact--but as time went on, would not people ask more about her?--who were her father and mother?--where she was born?--how she had been educated? These inquisitorial demands were surely among the penalties of fame! And, if she told the truth, would she not, despite the renown she had won, be lightly, even scornfully esteemed by conventional society as a "b.a.s.t.a.r.d" and interloper, though the manner of her birth was no fault of her own, and she was unjustly punishable for the sins of her parents, such being the wicked law!

The night of the d.u.c.h.ess's reception was one of those close sultry nights of June in London when the atmosphere is well-nigh as suffocating as that of some foetid prison where criminals have been pacing their dreary round all day. Royal Ascot was just over, and s.p.a.ce and opportunity were given for several social entertainments to be conveniently checked off before Henley. Outside the Duke's great house there was a constant stream of motor-cars and taxi-cabs; a pa.s.sing stranger might have imagined all the world and his wife were going to the d.u.c.h.ess's "At Home." It was difficult to effect an entrance, but once inside, the scene was one of veritable enchantment. The lovely hues and odours of flowers, the softened glitter of thousands of electric lamps shaded with rose-colour, the bewildering brilliancy of women's clothes and jewels, the exquisite music pouring like a rippling stream through the magnificent reception-rooms, all combined to create a magical effect of sensuous beauty and luxury; and as Innocent, accompanied by the sweet-faced old-fashioned lady who played the part of chaperone with such gentle dignity, approached her hostess, she was a little dazzled and nervous. Her timidity made her look all the more charming--she had the air of a wondering child called up to receive an unexpected prize at school. She shrank visibly when her name was shouted out in a stentorian voice by the gorgeously liveried major-domo in attendance, quite unaware that it created a thrill throughout the fashionable a.s.semblage, and that all eyes were instantly upon her. The d.u.c.h.ess, diamond-crowned and glorious in gold-embroidered tissue, kept back by a slight gesture the pressing crowd of guests, and extended her hand with marked graciousness and a delightful smile.

"SUCH a pleasure and honour!" she said, sweetly--"So good of you to come! You will give me a few words with you later on? Yes? Everybody will want to speak to you!--but you must let me have a chance too!"

Innocent murmured something gently deprecatory as a palliative to this sort of society "gush" which always troubled her--and moved on.

Everybody gazed, whispered and wondered, astonished at the youth and evident unworldliness of the "author of those marvellous books!"--so the commentary ran;--the women criticised her gown, which was one of pale blue silken stuff caught at the waist and shoulders by quaint clasps of dull gold--a gown with nothing remarkable about it save its cut and fit--melting itself, as it were, around her in harmonious folds of fine azure which suggested without emphasising the graceful lines of her form. The men looked, and said nothing much except "A pity she's a writing woman! Mucking about Fleet Street!"--mere senseless talk which they knew to be senseless, inasmuch as "mucking" about Fleet Street is no part of any writer's business save that of the professional journalist. Happily ignorant of comment, the girl made her way quietly and un.o.btrusively through the splendid throng, till she was presently addressed by a stoutish, pleasant-featured man, with small twinkling eyes and an agreeable surface manner.

"I missed you just now when my wife received you," he said--"May I present myself? I am your host--proud of the privilege!"

Innocent smiled as she bowed and held out her hand; she was amused, and taken a little by surprise. This was the Duke of Deanshire--this quite insignificant-looking personage--he was the owner of the great house and the husband of the great lady,--and yet he had the appearance of a very ordinary n.o.body. But that he was a "somebody" of paramount importance there was no doubt; and when he said, "May I give you my arm and take you through the rooms? There are one or two pictures you may like to see," she was a little startled. She looked round for Miss Leigh, but that tactful lady, seeing the position, had disappeared. So she laid her little cream-gloved hand on the Duke's arm and went with him, shyly at first, yet with a pretty stateliness which was all her own, and moving slowly among the crowd of guests, gradually recovered her ease and self-possession, and began to talk to him with a delightful naturalness and candour which fairly captivated His Grace, in fact, "bowled him over," as he afterwards declared. She was blissfully unaware that his manner of escorting her on his arm through the long vista of the magnificent rooms had been commanded and arranged by the d.u.c.h.ess, in order that she should be well looked at and criticised by all a.s.sembled as the "show" person of the evening. She was so unconscious of the ordeal to which she was being subjected that she bore it with the perfect indifference which such unconsciousness gives. All at once the Duke came to a standstill.

"Here is a great friend of mine--one of the best I have in the world,"

he said--"I want to introduce him to you,"--this, as a tall old man paused near them with a smile and enquiring glance, "Lord Blythe--Miss Armitage."

Innocent's heart gave a wild bound; for a moment she felt a struggling sensation in her throat moving her to cry out, and it was only with a violent effort that she repressed herself.

"You've heard of Miss Armitage--Ena Armitage,--haven't you, Blythe?"

went on the Duke, garrulously. "Of course! all the world has heard of her!"

"Indeed it has!" and Lord Blythe bowed ceremoniously. "May I congratulate you on winning your laurels while you are young enough to enjoy them! One moment!--my wife is most anxious to meet you--"

He turned to look for her, while Innocent, trembling violently, wondered desperately whether it would be possible for her to run away!--anywhere--anywhere, rather than endure what she knew must come!

The Duke noticed her sudden pallor with concern.

"Are you cold?" he asked--"I hope there is no draught---"

"Oh no--no!" she murmured--"It is nothing--"

Then she braced herself up in every nerve--drawing her little body erect, as though a lily should lift itself to the sun--she saw Lord Blythe approaching with a handsome woman dressed in silvery grey and wearing a coronet of emeralds--and in one more moment looked full in the face--of her mother!

"Lady Blythe--Miss Armitage."

Lady Blythe turned white to the lips. Her dark eyes opened widely in amazement and fear--she put out a hand as though to steady herself. Her husband caught it, alarmed.

"Maude! Are you ill?"