Nell, of Shorne Mills Part 76

The maid did so, and Drake came in.

"I can't lock the safe, Drake," said the countess. "I am so sorry to trouble you."

"It's no trouble," he responded. "Literally none," he added, with a short laugh. "You hadn't quite closed the door. See?"

"We were stupid. How like a woman!" she said penitently.

"Take care of the key," he said. "The diamonds had better be sent to the bank the day after to-morrow, unless you want to wear them again soon."

"No," she said. "They make such a fuss about them; and--well, they are rather too much of a blaze for such a little woman as I am."

"Nonsense!" he said. "Here's the key."

He laid it on the dressing table, and she was about to take it up to replace it in her purse, and put the purse in one of the small drawers of the dressing table, when there came a knock at the door, and Burden entered.

"I--I beg your ladyship's pardon," she faltered, drawing back.

"What is it?" asked the countess.

"I wanted to borrow some eau de Cologne for my lady," said Burden. "I thought your ladyship had gone down, or I wouldn't----"

"Give her the eau de Cologne," said the countess to her maid. "Please ask Lady Luce to keep it. I shall not want it."

Burden took the bottle and went out. On the other side of the door she paused a moment and caught her breath. Chance, or the devil himself, was working on Ted's behalf, for she had happened to enter the room at the very moment the countess had put the key in the purse, and the purse in the drawer. And all day Burden had been wondering how she should get that key.

She went on after a moment or two, and Lady Luce looked up from her chair in front of the dressing table, as Burden entered.

"Where have you been?" she asked sharply.

"I went to borrow some eau de Cologne, my lady," replied Burden.

"Well, please be quick; you know we are late. I will wear----" she paused a moment. She wanted to look her best that night. The beauty which had caught Drake in the past, the beauty which was to ensnare him again, and win for her the Angleford coronet, must lack no advantage dress could lend it. "The silver gray and the pearls, please," she said, after a moment or two of consideration. "Why, what is the matter with you?" she asked sharply, as she saw the reflection of Burden's face in the gla.s.s. "Are you ill, or what?"

Burden tried to force the color to her face and keep her hands steady.

"I--I am not very well, my lady," she faltered. "I--I have had bad news."

"Bad news! What news?" asked Lady Luce coldly.

"My--mother is very ill, my lady," replied Burden, on the spur of the moment.

Lady Luce moved impatiently.

"It is a singular thing that persons of your cla.s.s are always in some trouble or other; you are either ill yourselves, or some of your relations are dying. I am very sorry and all that, Burden, but I hope you were not thinking of asking me to let you go home, because I really could not just now."

"No, my lady; perhaps a little later----"

"Well, I'll see," said Lady Luce irritably. "I don't suppose you could do any good if you were to go home; I suppose there's some one to look after your mother; and, after all, she may not be so bad as you think.

Servants always look at the worst side of things, and meet troubles halfway."

"Yes, my lady," said Burden.

"And do, for goodness' sake, try and look more cheerful, my good girl!

It's like having a ghost behind me. Besides, if you are worrying yourself about your mother you can't dress me properly; and I want you to be very careful to-night--of all nights!"

She leaned back and smiled at her face in the gla.s.s, and thought no more of the maid's pale and anxious one. Had she been not so entirely heartless, had she even only affected a little interest and expressed some sympathy, the unhappy girl might have broken down and confessed her share in the meditated crime; but Lady Luce was incapable of pretending sympathy with a servant. In her eyes servants were of quite a different order of creation to that of her own cla.s.s; hewers of wood and drawers of water, of no account beyond that which they gained from their value to their masters or mistresses. To consider the feelings of the servants who waited upon her would have seemed absurd to Lady Luce, almost, indeed, a kind of bad form.

The dinner bell had rung before she was dressed, and she hurried down to find herself the last to arrive in the drawing-room. She sought Drake's face as she entered. It still wore the expression of suppressed excitement which she had noticed when he came in from his walk, and he smiled with a kind of reluctant admiration as he noticed the magnificent dress, and the way in which it set off her beauty.

At dinner his altered mood was so marked that several persons who were near him noticed it. He, who had been so quiet and grave, almost stern in his manner and speech, to-night talked much and rapidly, and laughed freely.

The flush on his face deepened, and his eyes flashed so brightly that Wolfer, who was sitting near him, could not help noticing how often Drake permitted the butler to fill his gla.s.s, and wondered whether anything had happened, and whether he were drinking too much.

But Drake's gayety was infectious enough, and the dinner was a much livelier one than any that had preceded it.

Lady Luce was, perhaps, the most quiet and least talkative; but she sat and listened to Drake's stories and badinage, with a smile in her eyes and her lips slightly apart.

In a few hours he would speak the word which would make her the future Countess of Angleford!

The ladies lingered at the table rather longer than usual, for Drake's stories had suggested others to the other men, and his high spirits had awakened those of the persons near him. But Lady Angleford rose at last, and the ladies filed off to the drawing-room.

The men closed up their ranks, and Drake sent the wine round briskly.

There was no dance to cut short the pleasant "after-the-ladies-have-gone"

time; and they sat long over their wine, so that it was nearly ten o'clock when Drake, with his hand on the decanter near him, said:

"No more, anybody? Sure? Turfleigh, you will, surely!"

But the old man knew that he had had enough. He, too, was excited, and under a strain, and he rose rather unsteadily and shook his head.

"No, thanks. Er--er--I fancy we've rather punished that claret of yours to-night, my dear boy."

"It's a sad heart that never rejoices!" Drake retorted, with a laugh which sounded so reckless that Wolfer glanced at him with surprise.

"We'd better have a cigarette in the smoking room before we go into the drawing-room," said Drake, and he led the way.

As they went, talking and laughing, together across the hall, a white-faced woman leaned over the bal.u.s.trade above, and watched them.

The other servants were in the servants' hall, enjoying themselves; the gentlemen were in the smoking room, and the ladies in the drawing-room.

She was alone in the upper part of the house, which was so quiet and still that the sound of a clock, in one of the rooms, striking ten was like that of a church bell in her ears.

She started and pressed her hand to her heart, then stole to the window on the back staircase, and, keeping behind the curtain, listened. Her heart beat so loudly as to almost deafen her, but she heard a slight noise outside, and something fell with a soft tap against the window sill. It was the top of the ladder falling into its place.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.