Dora

Chapter I

A T ten exactly a handsome carriage drew up -'--*- before Madame Bertrand's door, and Madame Bertrand herself came up with the tidings, looking both charmed and puzzled as she delivered them. " Such a pretty carriage," she said ; " such hand some horses, too !" Mrs. Courtenay smiled mysteriously ; and Dora went to the glass, tied her bonnet-strings, and, without looking; round, said : " Are you ready, aunt ?" Twenty times since the morning Mrs. Luan had declared that she would not go, and twenty times she had retracted and said she would. As her last declaration had been one of denial, her present one was naturally one of assent. Rather shortly she answered that she was quite ready. B VOL. DORA, They went down at once and entered the car riage ; whilst Madame Bertrand stood on her door step to see them drive away.

The morning was one of perfect beauty. Mrs. Courtenay's raptures were spoken ; but though Dora was mute, never, it seemed to her, had earth and sky been so full of happy promises as they were then. Through the city they went ; beyond the track of the railways, through a green and fer tile landscape, up a winding road that overlooked the silver Seine, till they came at length to a little wood, on the skirt of which they saw Doctor Richard and Eva waiting for them. " I have called her Minna !" cried Eva, darting forward to meet Dora as she alighted. " And I have already broken her nose," added Doctor Richard, completing the information. " Why did she fall V argued Eva, looking in jured. " Oh ! Doctor Richard, what a charming place !" cried Mrs. Courtenay, looking round ; " and we have a carpet too," she added, seeing one spread on the grass within the shade of the trees.

"And partridges in the hamper!" said Eva; « and " DORA, 3 " Eva !" Doctor Richard said no more ; but Eva was mute and looked abashed. The spot was pretty, sylvan and quiet. A stone cross rose at the angle of the wood ; close by it a little stream murmured through the grass; below lay a wide and rich landscape, and the winding road up which they had come passed through the wood and became an arched avenue. Dora watched the carriage, which, after bringing them thus far, now entered that shady path, and was soon hidden from her view, and she wondered whither it was going. Doctor Richard, who was reading her face very closely, was soon by her side. " Do you like this spot ?" he asked. " How could I fail liking it ?" she replied, smiling ; " it is charming !" " Yes ; and I brought Fido," said Eva, who could not bear to be silent.

" Oh ! do look at him, Miss Courtenay !" A pretty King Charles, who lay licking his paws on the carpet, now interrupted the task in order to look at the new-comers. On Mrs. Courtenay and Mrs. Luan he bestowed a lazy, good-natured look ; but Dora he eyed more shrewdly. After a few seconds given to deliberation, he rose, came up to B DORA her, sniffed her flowing skirts, then pawed her with a familiarity that looked like renognition. Dora stooped and patted his silky head, whilst Doc tor Richard smiled significantly. " Fido is a shy, reserved dog," he said ; " and yet, you see, Miss Courtenay, he acknowledges your power at once." " Oh ! but they all like Dora !" cried Mrs. Courtenay; "Madame Bertrand's cat dotes on her ; and it is a most intelligent cat, and never could endure Monsieur Theodore, who ran away without paying the poor old thing !"

" What a remarkable cat !" gravely said Doctor Richard. " I hope it clawed Monsieur Theodore and spit at him." " Yes, it did," innocently replied Mrs. Courte nay ; adding, whilst Mrs. Luan looked daggers at her, " But it loves Dora so." Doctor Richard did not answer that everything and everyone must love Dora, but his look and smile implied it so plainly, that Dora thought with secret joy, "Well, I believe it is so — I do believe that everything and almost everyone likes me." " Come and look at yourself in the water !" DORA 5 cried Eva, impatiently ; and taking hold of her hand, she led Dora away. The little stream flowed slowly, and proved a fair mirror. It gave back the grey old cross, all mossy with age, and a quivering aspen tree, and Dora's laughing face as she bent over it ; and it soon gave back Doctor Richard's face too, for Dora remembered later that he kept very close to her that morning.

But a sudden breeze rippled the water, and every image within it was broken. " A pretty looking-glass, forsooth !" said Doctor Richard — " is it an image of life, Miss Cour tenay !" " I hope not," she replied, quickly. " You prefer a smooth, unruffled surface 1 — so do I ; but who has it ? So let us make the best of the present time." " It is time for luncheon," said Eva. " Well, I believe it is, you little torment ! " Mrs. Luan and her sister-in-law were already seated on the carpet. Dora and Eva joined them — Minna was by Eva's side, and Fido nestled on Dora's skirts — and Doctor Richard unpacked the hamper, and laid the cloth. Alas ! how extrava gant that Doctor Richard was ! This was not a DORA, sumptuous repast, indeed, but it was far too luxu rious for a man in his circumstances. Dora did not dare to say a word, but Mrs. Courtenay assumed the privilege of her years, and lectured this prodigal entertainer.

He heard her with his usual good-humour, but attempted no justification. " Life is brief," was all he said, " let us enjoy its happy hours whilst we may, Mrs. Courtenay. This delightful morning required cold partridges, a melon, champagne, and a few et-ceteras. I con tend that we could not enjoy the landscape upon less." Mrs. Courtenay tried to find an answer to this argument, but failed. Doctor Richard's geniality was communicative this morning. Even Mrs. Luan, perhaps under the influence of such un wonted good cheer, relaxed from the usual seve rity of her demeanour. Dora did not care to hide her happiness. When the meal was over, she went with Eva to sit by the stream, and she there enjoyed herself silently. The sweet autumn breath from the little wood filled her with a vasue delight. There was music in the soft rustling of the trees, and to sit thus, forgetting the world, and looking at the dark though clear water rip- DORA 7 pling along, and seeming to carry away in its waves the woodland green and the blue sky, was enchanting.

This little bit of Norman landscape was Eden to her, and everything in her aspect said so. Doctor Richard looked at her even whilst he talked with Mrs. Courtenay, and as he looked he thought, " If ever a girl was made for happiness, this is she. Happiness is her calling, her vocation, just as ill-temper is her precious aunt's." Unconscious of this severe sentence, Mrs. Luan, who could enjoy the good things of this world when she had not to pay for them, was wondering whether she had really done justice to Doctor Richard's luxurious cheer, when a fit of drowsiness that came upon her seemed to answer the question satisfactorily. Doctor Richard, who saw her struggling against sleep, smiled and walked away to smoke a cigar, whilst Dora rose and went away with Eva to wander in the wood. " I shall stay and mind Mrs. Luan," whispered Mrs. Courtenay to her daughter.

" I do believe she is overpowered with the champagne ; you know how I was for just one glass of cider." Dora laughed, but willingly enough left Mrs. DORA Luan to her mother's care, and walked away, as we said, with Eva, leisurely followed by Fido. They went along a narrow winding path, where the shade was thick, and where a sunbeam could scarcely pierce the heavy boughs. Many yellow and withered leaves already strewed the grass, and crackled under their feet ; but the air was warm, and a gentle breeze scarcely moved Dora's muslin dress. She felt vaguely happy, and holding the child's hand, hearing her chattering without listening to it, she * felt as if she could walk on thus nor think of stopping, when she suddenly stood still on seeing Doctor Richard. He was leaning against a tree smoking, and throwing away his cigar, he came towards them.

" Eva," he said, without preamble, " go and put on your hat." " There is no sun." " Do as I bid you." Eva pouted, but obeyed. Dora and Doctor Richard remained alone. Dora felt tongue-tied ; sudden shyness came over her, and kept her mute. Doctor Richard did not appear to see her embar rassment. He only smiled as he saw Fido standing in the path looking after Eva, but remaining, DORA 9 after evident consideration of the matter, with Dora. " Fido has decidedly given you his heart!" he said. " Does he not stay with you, Doctor Richard ?" " No. I have the slightest share of Fido's regard. Yet he owes me much. A poor English lady died here, and this little fellow was her great trouble during her last illness, for, as she said to me, ' No one will have him for his own sake, he is too old, and no one here can value him for mine.' I set her mind at rest by promising to take him; so when the poor thing died, I put Fido in my pocket and brought him to Eva.

But there was grief and trouble in Fido's litttle heart, and he never could take kindly to us. He lies on his cushion licking his paws, and sometimes seeming to wait and listen for a footstep that comes not, and will never come again ; and he lives a good deal within himself, like a philosopher. Poor old Fido! There is something pathetic to me in the old age of animals. We are still in all the early exuber ance of our youth when decrepitude steals upon them. But all this Eva does not suspect, and she petulantly wonders that Fido will not play with DORA, her, and murmurs because he walks instead of running along the avenues." " What avenues !" thought Dora. " How do you like this little wood ?" suddenly asked Doctor Richard, changing the subject rather abruptly. " Very much indeed !" " Yes, it is pretty enough ; but you and I, Miss Courtenay, have seen spots more beautiful by far in another land than this !"

" You mean in Ireland?" replied Dora. "I do. We had not there indeed that clear brightness, the attribute of the Continent ; but there is a western softness which has its charm, sometimes mysterious and sweet, like what we imagine of fairy-land. If there be a country in the landscape of which poetry has chosen to become visible, it is surely Ireland. In other lands — I speak of the most favoured — climate, ruins and famous old names lend their beauty to spots which otherwise might not be much heeded ; but in Ire land it is not so. There the spell is unalloyed. We need no heathen temple to grace the waterfall. We do not ask what poet's villa once stood by the lake— what battle was fought on its banks. We DORA have a sad story which we would rather forget than remember, so we look at this beautiful Ire land, and think her a free virgin still, for though many have been her masters, she has preserved the grace and wildness of liberty through all the bitterness of her servitude."

He spoke with some emotion, and tears rushed to Dora's eyes as she heard him. A vision of the past — not of her lost home, but of Deenah as she imagined it, with its shining lake, its white waterfall, and its sweet sylvan landscape — rose before her as he spoke. " I have pained you," he said. " Yes," she answered, " for your words made me think of places which I shall never see." " Oh ! how can you tell t" " I do not wish it," she very sadly said. " Oh ! but I do," he ejaculated, with sudden fer vour. "God forbid that I should stay for ever in this pretty Normandy — so pretty, but so homely." "He does not mean to stay in Rouen," thought Dora, with a pang. "I might have known it. What brought him here ?" Doctor Richard unconsciously answered that question by saying, DORA "I came for Eva's health.

She required this keen air — for a time, at least. This is a very ele vated spot." They had reached a narrow platform beyond the wood. On their left stood a little brick chateau, of gay and cheerful aspect. Its high slate roof and tall chimney-stacks were cut sharply in the blue air. Its many windows were framed by white stone carvings. Behind it spread a green mass of trees, with many an autumn tint softening their verdure. In front a blooming flower-garden sloped from the flight of stone steps that led to the porch down to the handsome iron gates that closed the entrance to the pleasant domain. The flowers, stirred by a soft breeze, were danc ing in the sun, the window-panes shone again in its western glow ; the whole place looked so gay, so airy, so cheerful, that a smile broke over Dora's face as she went up to the gates, and stood still to look at it through the iron bars.

"Oh! what a place to live in!" she exclaimed. " What sunny rooms those must be within it, rooms in which it is delightful to sit and read by the open window, and alternate every page with a look." DORA 13 " Say but sesame, and the gates shall open, and the whole place bid you welcome," gaily exclaimed Doctor Richard. Dora turned round with a startled look. " It is mine," he said quietly. " Yours !" " Mine, at least, on a long lease." Dora's blooming face grew ashy pale, and her hand grasped one of the bars of the iron gate with unconscious force. Who's — what was Doctor Richard ? He answered the question she was un able to put, and said gravely : " My name is Templemore — Doctor Richard Templemore." If he had led her mind back to Ireland, that this revelation might prove less startling, Mr. Tem plemore failed in his object.

The name he uttered seemed to tear her heart asunder. This man who stood by her side was her lost brother's happy rival. His success had been Paul Courtenay's death ; his triumph had helped to fill the lonely grave in Glasnevin. She clasped her hands toge ther in a mute agony, and looked at him with such passionate reproach in her eyes, that Mr. Temple more coloured deeply. His lips parted to say DORA, something, but Dora did not give him time to speak. "You are Mr. Templemore!" she cried, step ping back from him ; " you are Richard Temple more !" And she uttered the name as if it were of itself sufficient denunciation. "I am," was his brief reply. " What had I done to you that you should in flict this upon me I" vehemently exclaimed Dora, speaking with mingled sorrow and amazement; "could you not be satisfied with your triumph over mybrother ?

Is he not dead, and for ever out of your way ? What had I done to you to deserve this?" Her passion confounded him. He looked at her pale, troubled face, and vainly attempted to fathom its meaning. Was this anger caused by his long concealment of his identity ? " Believe me," he said vehemently, " I never meant to deceive you — never ! I have long known what your feelings towards me were, and if you had not sought me as Doctor Richard, I would never have intruded myself upon you. This mis take was involuntary on my part ; and since I have seen how painful it would be to you, it has become insufferable to me !" DORA, 15 Dora grew more calm as he spoke. But she turned her head away, for her heart was full — full almost to breaking. This man, this Richard Tem plemore, her brother's successful competitor, was also a wealthy man, who had practised on her cre dulity.

She had been his toy, his plaything, and when she remembered the fond dreams into which her ignorance had led her, dreams which had haunted her this very morning, and given com mon pleasures the sweetness of Paradise, she could almost have wished to die, so keen was the sorrow of that moment. " Ah ! you are angry — very angry indeed," said Mr. Templemore, in a tone full of concern. " And yet you must hear me — you must indeed ! I could not bear to relinquish your regard !" " There is nothing to be heard or spoken," sadly answered Dora, walking away from the gates of the chateau ; " nothing, Mr. Templemore — you succeeded, my brother failed, and failure was death ! You were called Doctor Richard by people who seemed to know you, and you never said, 'I am that Mr. Templemore to whom you owe a bitter grief.' " " Will you hear me ?" persisted Mr. Temple- DORA more, walking by her side, and entering the w-ood with her ; " surely in justice you must."

She was silent — he continued : "Allow me to ask if you considered Mr. Courte nay's decision an unjust one?" Dora coloured, and turned upon him almost angrily. " I consider the competition to have been an un just one," she said, with ill-repressed indignation ; " I consider that my brother having done nothing to forfeit, but everything to deserve his uncle's good opinion, ought not to have had this stigma thrown upon him." Mr. Templemore looked at her keenly. " And perhaps you think," he remarked, " that I, a stranger as it were to Mr. Courtenay, took ad vantage of an old man's weakness to deprive the lawful heir ?" " Mr. Courtenay's legal right to give away his fortune, and yours to accept it, I do not question," replied Dora, with a touch of bitterness in her tone, and without looking at Mr. Templemore as she spoke.

" Then that was your impression of the case," he said, very gravely ; " a severe one, Miss Courte- DORA, 17 i nay, but which I can bear, for I do not deserve it. You knew that I was the nephew of Mr. Courtenay's wife ; but are you aware that his for tune — all his fortune," he added, emphatically, "was derived from that wife?" Dora turned upon him with a startled, amazed look. " No," she said quickly ; " he made it in the Funds. He told Paul so." " He may have increased it by lucky hits," com posedly replied Mr. Templemore ; " but I say it again — he derived it from my aunt." " Then it was yours, after all !" exclaimed Dora confounded. " It should have been mine," he corrected, " but my grandfather's caprice bestowed it on my aunt, in preference to my father. She promised to make amends to me, and I was brought up in that belief.

Mr. Courtenay himself helped to deceive me. The catalogue, the competition were there fore an injustice to me, which I felt and resented. I won the race, indeed, but I only won back what I should never have risked to lose." Dora heard him with mingled mortification and shame. So her long resentment was groundless. There was no foundation for that passionate disl VOL. II. C DORA like which she had nursed up against Mr. Temple more. Her past disappointment rested on an error, and was both futile and childish. Neither she nor Paul was the wronged one, as far as money went, since that which they had received at Mr. Courtenay's death had been actually taken from Mr. Templemore's legitimate inheritance. There was something in the thought which Dora could not endure. She turned upon Mr. Temple more, and exclaimed in the bitterness of her heart — " If Paul and I had known this, we would not have accepted Mr. Courtenay's legacy.

Paul would never have competed with you, Mr. Tem plemore, and 1 should have him still." She could not utter the last words without a quivering of the lip, which betrayed the keenness of her sorrow. He took her hand and pressed it between both his own with mingled tenderness and respect. " Heaven alone knows how much I feel for your grief," he said with much emotion, " but surely you must see now that I am guiltless of it ? Surely Mr. Templemore may hope to be as much your friend as was Doctor Richard ?" DORA 19 But the question awoke a new storm in Dora's heart. Let it be that her resentment had been groundless, that Mr. Templemore was innocent of all wrong to her dead brother, that Paul had been the victim of an old man's whim and a selfish girl's ambition ; let all this be — and Mr. Temple more spoke with a manly frankness which her own integrity forbade her to doubt — let all this be, we say, still something was left — something that made her snatch her hand from his, and turn ing upon him with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, exclaim almost passionately, "Mr. Templemore, who bought my drawings from Monsieur Merand ?"

He blushed, but he was too honest to deny. "I did," he said. That, too, was gone — that dear illusion of her little pride in her own worth ! That, too, was gone that fond belief in her little skill — that in nocent joy over gold won by labour both pleasant and beloved. She had been living on Mr. Tem plemore's bounty all the time ! She, Paul Courte nay's sister, had been eating Mr. Templemore's bread ! The bitterness, the humiliation were both C DORA, too much for her pride. She buried her face in her hands, and even through her slender fingers her tears fell fast. Mr. Templemore was dread fully shocked. " My dear Miss Courtenay," he said eagerly, " do not wrong us both — do not !" By a strong effort Dora compelled her tears to cease flowing. " I beg your pardon," she said, looking up again, and trying to speak calmly, " but that was too much for me."

" Indeed — indeed !" said Mr. Templemore earnestly, "if you think that I bought your drawings simply to oblige you, you wrong me. I value them highly — more than I can tell. Their merit is of the highest order. I hope you believe me ?" Dora was silent, but she did not believe him. She had some talent, of course she had, but her drawings had found but one purchaser, and he was Mr. Templemore ! Oh ! bitterness — bitterness that could not be put into words ! " Mr. Templemore, you meant well," she said at length, " but you are a rich man, and you can not understand how your kindness has given my poverty a bitter and needless sting." DORA, 21 " Miss Courtenay, do not upbraid me with my money. It is not so long ago since I was a strug gling man, with a sickly child, in London — it is not so long ago. since I had to see her wasting away before my eyes for the need of that pure air which I was too poor to purchase for her.

It is not so long ago since I lost her two little sisters, and felt as I buried them on one day, ' May God give me the grace not to hate the rich !' Ah ! you have never known what it is to see a loved creature die, and to lack the means that could save it. These means have come, indeed, but, Miss Courte nay, I often fear that even for my last child they have come too late. Pity me ! — spite all my money, pity me !" The sorrow in his looks, the pathos in his voice, went to Dora's heart. Amazement had given place to resentment, that had yielded to wounded pride, and now this melted away as she heard him remind her of his past poverty — that poverty which seemed to make him Doctor Richard once more. It vanished as he bade her pity him, spite the wealth which had come too late. She forgave him freely, fully, the past and the present all in one moment.

She forgave him, and forgot, for a DORA while, at least, that she loved him, and what she had felt keenly in the first moment of the disco very — that since Doctor Richard had not wooed the poor girl, Mr. Templemore surely never would. " God save you from such a sorrow !" she said, fervently. " Amen !" he no less fervently replied ; then, with his serene, genial smile, he added : " I knew you could not cherish resentment against me, and of Mrs. Courtenay, I believe, I am sure." Dora was silent ; she felt languid and depressed. It seemed to her as if Mr. Templemore had given her a chance of liberty, and as if she had volunta rily cast it away. " Doctor Richard," she began — " Mr. Temple more, I mean." " No, do call me Doctor Richard," he interrupt ed — " I like it dearly. I was forced into my pro fession by a severe father ; I hated it years, and now that I have relinquished it, I love it, and I regret it.

Often, when I am seated in a warm room, with every comfort around me, I remember some of the scenes I witnessed in London when I was obliged to reside in the neighbourhood of St. DORA, 23 Giles's, and I feel a longing upon me to go back amongst those starved, squalid wretches who are the pariahs of civilization. There are plenty of them in yonder old Gothic city down below us. Vice, woe, disease are there, asking for mercy, and getting it, and, alas ! deserving it very rarely. There, I am Doctor Richard, Miss Courtenay ; and do you wonder that, having been a poor man almost all my life, I like a name which helps to remind me of a port safely reached after a long, bitter journey." Dora did not answer. They had reached the end of the path, and they stood once more within view of the spot where they had spent the morn ing.

Eva was there, between Mrs. Courtenay and Mrs. Luan, talking volubly ; and Mr. Tem plemore, seeing the amazed faces of the two ladies, had no difficulty in guessing that the little chatterer had been unable any longer to keep his secret. " Are you, too, a true woman, Eva ?" he said. " Well, it does not matter now. I have been making my peace with Miss Courtenay, and I trust Mrs. Courtenay will likewise be good enough to forgive my unintentional cheating." DORA Mrs. Luan's forgiveness Mr. Templemore did not solicit. Mrs. Courtenay looked at her daugh ter's face, and seeing peace and good-will there, though with the traces of recent tears, she frankly accepted Mr. Templemore's extended hand. In deed, she looked delighted with the change in his circumstances, for if he was Dora's admirer, was it not all the better that he should be a wealthy man, and not a poor doctor ?

Mr. Templemore promptly followed up his advantage with a re quest that the ladies would spend the rest of the day at Les Roches ; and Mrs. Courtenay, under standing this was his abode, candidly expressed her willingness to see it, for, as she innocently added, " I am so glad you do not live in that dreadful tumble-down old place in our street, Doctor Richard." " I keep it as a storehouse for my purchases, Mrs. Courtenay, but I seldom sleep there. I re side here with Eva and my sister-in-law, Miss Moore. Eva, go first and tell your aunt we are coming." Eva, who looked much happier since she was no longer bound to secresy, obeyed gladly, aud DORA, 25 vanished down the path. In a few minutes they had all reached the chateau ; the gates were open, and a lady with a green parasol, who was walking in the flower-garden, came forward to receive them.

Some secret apprehensions which Mrs. Cour tenay had conceived on hearing of a sister-in-law vanished as she saw that lady. None save a strictly Platonic friendship could exist between this homely-looking, middle-aged woman and the genial, imaginative Mr. Templemore. " I am so glad the sun is shining," was her wel come, " because Les Roches wants sun, you know. Which will you see first, the house or the grounds ? Is it not a hot day ?" Her face was plump and foolish, and her manners were awkward. She blundered through speech in a silly fashion, very like the flight of a reckless butterfly, so heedlessly were the words uttered and constructed into sentences. Mrs. Courtenay, who longed to scrutinize Mr. Templemore's domestic arrangements, asked to see the house first. Dora felt no such curiosity.