Nell, of Shorne Mills Part 89

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

It was an enchanted world to these two. For some time they sat side by side, or, rather, Drake sat at Nell's feet, her hand sometimes resting, lightly as a dove's wing, with a caress in its touch, upon his head.

There were long spells of silence, for such joy as theirs is shy of words; but now and again they talked.

They had so much to tell each other, and each was greedy of even the smallest detail. Drake wanted to hear of all that had happened to her since the terrible parting on the night of the Maltbys' ball--how long ago it seemed to them as they sat there in the sunshine that flickered through the leaves and touched Nell's hair with flashes of light.

And Nell told him everything--everything excepting the episode of Lady Wolfer and Sir Archie--that was not hers to tell, but Lady Wolfer's secret, and Nell meant to carry it to the grave with her; not even to this dearly loved lover of hers could she breathe a word of that crisis in Ada Wolfer's life. And yet, if she had been free to tell him about it then and there, how much better it would have been for them both, how much difference it would have made in their lives!

"And was there no one, no other man whom you saw, who could teach you to forget me, Nell?" he asked, half fearfully.

Nell blushed and shook her head.

"Surely there was some one among all you knew who was not quite blind, who was sensible enough to fall in love with the loveliest and the sweetest girl in all London?"

Nell's blush grew warmer as she remembered some of the men who had paid court to her, who would have been her suitors if she had not kept them at arm's length.

"There was no one," she said simply.

"Falconer?" he said, in a low voice.

The color slowly ebbed from her face, and her eyes grew rather sad as she reflected that her happiness had been purchased at the cost of his pain and self-sacrifice.

"Yes," she said, in a whisper, for she could not hide the truth from him; her heart was bare to his gaze. "If--if you had not come, if he had chosen to accept me, I should have married him. But you came at the very moment, Drake; and at the sound of your voice----He saw my face, and read the truth."

"Poor Falconer," he said, very gravely. "He is a better man than I am, than I shall ever be, even under the influence of your love, and the happiness it will bring me. I owe him a big debt, Nell; and though I can't hope to pay it, I must do what I can to make his life more smooth."

"He is very proud," she said, a little proudly herself.

"I know, I know; but he must let me help him in his career. I can do something in that direction, and I will. But for him! Ah, Nell, I don't like to think of it; I don't like to contemplate what might have happened if I had lost you altogether. Yes; I owe him a debt no man could hope to repay. I wish it had been I who had lived at Beaumont Buildings and played the violin to you, instead of him. All that time I was sailing in the _Seagull_, or wandering about Asia, wondering whether there was anything on earth, or in the waters under the earth, that could bring me a moment's pleasure, a moment of forgetfulness."

"And--and--you thought of me all that time? There was no one else?"

"There was no one else," he said, as simply as she had answered his question. "Though sometimes----Do you want me to tell you the whole truth, dearest?"

"The whole truth," she responded, looking down at him with trustful eyes, and yet with a little anxious line on her brow. For what woman would not have been apprehensive? She had cast him off, and he had been wandering about the world, free to love again, to choose a wife.

"Well, sometimes I tried to efface your image from my mind, to forget Nell of Shorne Mills, in the surest and quickest way. I went to some dinners and receptions; I joined in a picnic or two, and an occasional riding party. Once I sailed in a man's yacht which had three of the local belles on board, and I tried to fall in love with one of them--any of them--but it was of no use. Now and again I endeavored to persuade myself that I was falling in love. There was one, a girl who was something like you; she had dark hair, and eyes that had a look of yours in them; and when she was silent I used to look at her and try----But when she spoke, her voice was unlike yours, and her very unlikeness recalled yours; and I saw you, even as I looked at her, as you stood on the steps at the quay, or sat in the stern of the _Annie Laurie_, and my heart grew sick with longing for you, and I'd get up and leave the girl so suddenly that she used to stare after me with mingled surprise and indignation. What charm do you exert, what black magic, Nell, that a big, strong, hulking fellow like me cannot get free from the spell you throw over him? Tell me, dearest."

Her eyes rested on him lovingly, and there was that in the half-parted lips which compelled him to rise on his elbow and kiss them.

"And yet you could have married Lady Luce," she said, not reproachfully, but very gravely. "Did you not think of her, Drake?"

"No," he replied gravely. "I gave no thought to her until I came home and saw her. And it was not for love of her that I should have married her, Nell, but in sheer desperation. You see, it did not matter to me whom I married if I could not have you."

"And yet--ah, how hard love is!--she cares for you, Drake! I have seen her--I saw her on the terrace, I saw her at the ball here."

He laughed half bitterly.

"My dear Nell, don't let that idea worry you. There is nothing in it; it is quite a mistaken one. Luce is a charming woman, the most finished product of this fin de siecle life----"

"She is very beautiful," Nell said, just even to her rival.

"I'll grant it, though compared to a certain violet-eyed girl I know----"

Nell put her hand over his lips; and he kissed it, and went on gravely.

"No, it is not given to Luce to love any one but herself. She and her kind worship the Golden Image which we set up at every street corner.

Rank, wealth, the notoriety that is paragraphed in the society papers, those are what Luce worships, and marries for. By the accident of birth I represent most of these things, and so----"

He shrugged his shoulders and laughed.

"And now chance has helped me again, for her father has inherited the Marquisate of Buckleigh, and he will be rich. It is likely enough that she would have jilted me again."

"But you were not engaged to her?" said Nell, drawing her hand from his head, where it had rested lightly.

"No," he said. "But I should have been, and she knows it. The whole truth, dearest! No, I am free, thank G.o.d! Free to win back my old love."

Nell drew a sigh of relief, and her hand stole back to him.

"She will let me go calmly and easily enough. There are at least two marriageable dukes in the market, and Luce----"

"Ah, Drake, I do not like to hear you speak so harshly--even of her."

"Forgive me, Nell. You are right," he said penitently. "But I can't forget that by her play acting on the terrace that night she nearly robbed me of you forever, and caused both of us months of misery. I can't forget that."

"But you must!" said Nell gently. "After all, it may not have been acting."

He laughed again, and drew her down to him.

"Ah, Nell, not even after the experience you had at Wolfe House, do you understand the fashionable woman, the professional beauty. It was all 'theater' on Luce's part, believe me! She would have made a magnificent actress. But do not let us talk about her any more. Tell me again how you used to live in Beaumont Buildings. Nell, we'll go there after we are married--we'll go and see the rooms in which you lived. I want to feel that I know every bit of your life since we parted."

At the "after we are married," spoken with all the confidence of the man, Nell's face grew crimson.

"And now, dearest, you will come up to the Hall?" he said, after a pause, and as if he were stating an indisputable proposition. "By George! how delighted the countess will be to hear of our reconciliation and engagement! She knows nothing of our love and our parting. I told no one; my heart was too sore; but I think I shall tell her now, and she will be simply delighted. You'll like her, Nell; she's such a dear, tender-hearted little woman. I don't wonder at my uncle falling in love with her. Poor old fellow! She has been wonderfully good to me. You'll come up to the Hall, and be treated like a princess."

"No, Drake," she said. "I must not. I must stay with--him; he needs me still."

He was silent a moment, then he kissed her hand a.s.sentingly.

"It shall be as you will, my queen!" he said quietly. "Ah, Nell, I shall make a bad husband; for I foresee that I shall spoil you by letting you have your own way too much. I wanted you at the Hall, wanted you near me. But I see--I see you are right, as always. But, Nell, there must be no delay about our marriage. Directly Falconer is well enough to----"

She drew her hand away, but he recovered it and held it against his face.

"There must be no other chance of a slip between the cup and the lip,"