The Woman's Way Part 24

With a feeling of bewilderment, of unreality, Derrick changed into the fresh clothes slowly, eyeing and touching them as if he suspected something of magic in them.

A little while afterwards the major-domo appeared and led him into a luxuriously-furnished room. Donna Elvira was reclining in a chair; she inclined her head slightly and motioned him to be seated opposite her.

At his entrance she had shot one swift glance at him, her brows had drawn together, and her lips had quivered; but now she sat calmly, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Derrick was the first to speak.

"I want to thank you, senora, for your great kindness to me," he said, with all a man's awkwardness. "It is all the greater because I am a stranger, a man you know nothing about----"

He paused at this, and his face grew red, for the story of the forged cheque flashed across his mind.

She raised her eyes and looked at him.

"It is nothing," she said, in a low voice. "One in my position learns to judge men and women by their faces, their voices. Besides, I have told you that I have been in England, and I know when one is a gentleman.

But, if you wish, if you think you would like me to know more, you may tell me--just what you please." There was a slight pause. "For instance, your father--was he an engineer, like yourself?"

Derrick leant back and crossed his legs, and looked, not at the pale face before him, but at the floor, and his brows were knit.

"It will sound strange to you, senora," he said, slowly, "but I don't know what my father was--not even what kind of a man he was. I never saw him--to remember him."

"He died--when you were young?" asked Donna Elvira.

"Yes," a.s.sented Derrick, "and my mother, too. They must have been fairly well off--not poor, I mean--for they left me, or, rather, the people in whose charge they placed me, sufficient money to bring me up and educate me, and enable me to gain a profession."

A shaded lamp stood on a table at the side of Donna Elvira's chair. As if she found the light oppressive, she moved the lamp farther back, so that her face was completely in the shade.

"You lived in England; you were brought up there?" she said, still in the same impa.s.sive voice.

"Yes," said Derrick. "I lived in London, with my guardian--with the people who took care of me--until they died. Then I went to a place in the country, a quiet place where I could study with less interruption than one gets in London."

"You were all alone--I mean, you had no relatives?" asked Donna Elvira.

"No," said Derrick, gravely; and, after a pause, he added: "You will think this strange, too, senora--I know nothing, literally nothing, of my family. It is just possible that I have no relations. There are such cases. Anyway, though of course I asked the usual questions of my guardians, they could, or would, tell me nothing. Perhaps they didn't know. All I could learn was that they had known my mother quite slightly--and that they had been much surprised when I was brought to them with the request that they would adopt me."

"Do you desire to tell me, senor, why you left England?" asked Donna Elvira.

"Yes; I want to," said Derrick, after a moment or two's silence. "I feel as if I wanted to confide in someone. Perhaps it's because you've been so kind to me, have--well, taken me on trust. But I'm afraid I can't tell you, senora. You see, other persons are mixed up with the affair.

Let it go at this--I beg your pardon, I mean I hope you will be satisfied if I confine myself to saying that I got into trouble over there in England."

"Trouble?" She knitted her brows. "You mean--what do you mean?"

"There you are!" said Derrick, with a shrug of despair. "I was accused of--well, something that I didn't do, but to which I couldn't plead innocence."

Donna Elvira regarded him closely.

"You shall tell me no more," she said, "but this: You have no other name than the one you have given me?"

Derrick's thoughts had wandered to the little room at Brown's Buildings, and he answered, absently:--

"No; just Derrick Dene."

The stately figure leant forward swiftly, almost as if it had been pulled towards him by an unseen hand. Then Donna Elvira rose, and, in rising, her hand struck and overturned the light table; the lamp fell, the room was plunged in darkness. She uttered a cry; Derrick sprang towards her and caught her in his arms, for he feared that the falling lamp might have set fire to the dress of lace and muslin. He swung the slight figure away from the point of danger, and she seemed to collapse in his arms and cling to him.

"It's all right," said Derrick, in the tone he would have used to an Englishwoman of his acquaintance. "Don't be frightened. You're not alight; you're all right."

As he spoke, still holding her, he reached forward and caught hold of the old-fashioned bell-rope; the major-domo rushed in, calling for lights. When they were brought by the startled servants, Donna Elvira was standing away from him, gripping the back of the chair. Her face was as white as the driven snow, her lids drooped as if she had recovered from a swoon, her lips were quivering. As Derrick, horribly frightened by her death-like pallor, made a movement towards her, she stretched out her hand and her lips formed, rather than spoke, the words, "Go! Go!"

Her woman in attendance hurried towards her mistress; and Derrick, seeing that he could be of no further use, obeyed the command and left the room.

CHAPTER XIX

Derrick was awakened the next morning by a servant-man who brought him a cup of fragrant coffee and the accompanying cigarette. Derrick dressed quickly and went in search of Don Jose, to get some information which would enable the newly-appointed engineer to set about his duties; on the way, he met the major-domo, and inquired after Donna Elvira. The man said that her Excellency's maid had told him that her mistress had spent a bad night and was now trying to get some sleep. The major-domo was extremely respectful in his manner towards Derrick, and Don Jose, when Derrick met him in the patio, greeted him with marked consideration.

In response to Derrick's inquiries, Don Jose shrugged his shoulders and, twisting his lips into a smile, intimated that, so far as he was concerned, Derrick was free to do, or not to do, anything he pleased; but he led the young man to a shed which he designated as the machine room, and opening the door, with a wave of his hand, presented to Derrick's view a ma.s.s of machinery very much out of date and in exceedingly bad order, and intimating, with another shrug and wave, that Derrick was free of the concern, walked off. Derrick strolled round the antiquated engine and rusty pump and chaff-cutters, then took off his coat, turned up his sleeves and proceeded to make a detailed examination; wondering why the worn boiler had not burst and blown the whole kit, and anyone who happened to be near, into smithereens.

It was some time since he had had the handling of machinery, and, for several hours, he enjoyed himself thoroughly, emerging at lunch-time, very hot, and as grimy and soot-laden as a chimney sweep. On his way towards the house he looked up at the windows, and at one of them he saw, or fancied he saw, through a partially-drawn curtain, the face of Donna Elvira; but the curtain was drawn so swiftly that he could not be sure that it was the Donna who had been looking down at him.

She did not appear that day, and Derrick went about his work with a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment which he had not experienced during the execution of his duties at the circus: to the engineer the handling of machinery is as sweet as is the touch of a brush to an artist, the pen to an author. He was interested not only in his work, but in the strange and novel life going on around him. It was unlike anything with which he had come in contact hitherto; not only was the place overrun with servants, but, on every side, were evidences of a wealth and state which were almost regal and yet barbaric; the magnificent mansion itself was at some distance from the farm building, and the serenity of the house and its surroundings was not intruded upon by the business of which Donna Elvira was the head.

Derrick could not help being struck by the fact that his favourable reception and appointment had aroused no surprise and very little curiosity on the part of the household; and he concluded that Donna Elvira's rule was so despotic that her law pa.s.sed unquestioned, and that no action of hers was received with astonishment. His position was accepted by everyone without question or remark; the man who had brought him his coffee had evidently been told off as his body-servant, and he served Derrick's meals in a little room adjoining the bedroom, or on the verandah; as the young fellow showed some intelligence, Derrick took him on as an a.s.sistant, much to the peon's delight and pride, and initiated him into the elementary mysteries of machinery.

Long before his examination had finished, Derrick had come to the conclusion that it would be necessary to sc.r.a.p the existing machinery and set up new in its place; and he was anxious to consult Donna Elvira; but though he learnt that she had sustained no injury from the accident in the salon, she did not make her appearance until three days had elapsed. On the evening of the third, as he was sitting on the verandah, smoking a cigarette after an excellent dinner, and dreaming, as the exile must dream, however flourishing his position, of the land he had left, he saw her coming towards the verandah. He sprang to his feet, and, bare-headed, hastened to meet her and give her his hand to ascend the steps. She was dressed in black, and her lace mantilla, worn in Spanish fashion, half-shrouded her face, which was paler and even more worn than when he had first seen it.

"I hope your Excellency has quite recovered?" he said, as he led her to a chair and set a cushion for her feet; and he performed the little act with a courtesy which was as genuine as strange in Derrick, who, like most men of his cla.s.s, was not given to knightly attentions; but, every time he had seen this proud and sorrowful woman, some tender chord had been touched in his heart and given forth a note of pity and respect. "I can't blame myself enough for not keeping an eye on that lamp. I hope you were not burned?"

"No, it was nothing," she said in a low voice, her eyes covered by their lids, her lips set. "It was the shock, nothing more. I came to speak to you here because it is cooler, and I wished to see that you were--comfortable; that is the English word, is it not?"

"Yes," rejoined Derrick, with a laugh. "And it's the most important one in the language nowadays. Comfort is the one thing everybody goes for; we've made it our tin G.o.d, and we worship it all the time; it's because money means comfort that we're all out for it."

"And yet you are poor," said her Excellency, musingly. "And you are happy?"

There was a note of interrogation in her voice, and Derrick checked a sigh as he shrugged his shoulders, a trick which everybody about the place possessed, and he was acquiring unconsciously; he was dreading that, in time, he should come to spread out his hands and gesticulate like the rest of them.

"Count no man happy till he's dead," he said, a trifle wistfully; and, at that moment, the scene before him, fair as it was, a.s.sumed a dreary aspect, and he longed for the grimy London streets, the hustle of the crowd, the smell of the asphalt; and, above all, the stone staircase and the gaol-like corridors of Brown's Buildings. "At any rate, if I'm not happy, it is not your fault, Donna Elvira. Owing to your kindness, I have fallen on clover--pardon! I mean that I've got an excellent situation. And, speaking of that, I'm very glad to see you. I'm afraid you'll think I'm a nuisance, and that, like a new broom, I want to sweep everything clean; but I'm obliged to tell you that the machinery you've got out there is played out, and that it is absolutely necessary to have a new plant. It will cost you a great deal of money, and I don't know where it is to come from--straight from England, I suppose."

She made a movement of her hand, indicating what seemed to Derrick sublime indifference.

"It shall be as you say," she said. "You have been working very hard, is it not? Oh, I have seen you coming from the shed; you looked tired and so----Is it necessary, senor, to get so dirty?"

"'Fraid it is," said Derrick, with a laugh; "the worst of it is, the machinery is even dirtier than I am. 'Pon my word, I don't believe it's had a good over-haul for years."

"Possibly," said Donna Elvira, absently. "The last man who had charge of it was too fond of the wine."

"I can believe it," said Derrick; "anyway, he kept his machinery thirsty enough. What shall I do about it?"

She pondered for a moment or two; then, with a sudden raising of her sad eyes, she said, slowly,