The Wooing of Doris

Front matter

BY MRS. J. K. SPENDER AUTHOR OF "THIRTEEN DOCTORS," " RECOLLECTIONS OF A COUNTRY DOCTOR," "PARTED LIVES," ETC, ETC. LONDON A. D. INNES AND CO. BEDFORD STREET 1895 [All rights reserveti} Richard Clay & Sons Limited, London & I!ungav. CONTENTS CHAl'. PAGE I. SENT FOR IN HASTE ... ... ... Q II. AN ECCENTRIC WILL ... ... ... 21 III. SIX YEARS AFTERWARDS ... ... 35 IV. MEASURING THE WATER ... ... 47 V. TAKING THEM EY SURPRISE ... ... 56 VI. AT TABLE D'HOTE ... ... ... 69 VII. ROGER OVERHEARS GOSSIP ... ... 81 VIII. AT THE BULL-FIGHT ... ... ... 93 IX. JOSEPHINE ... ... 104 X. A PICNIC TO CROIX DE MUGERRE "7 XI. A SPRING IDYLL ... ... ... 1 30 XII. FIRST SUSPICIONS ... ... ... 145 XIII. A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY 1 64 XIV. A CRISIS ... ... ... ... iSl XV. 'YOU ARE BETTER FREE' 1 96 XVI. AT GAVERNIE CONTENTS TAGE XVII.

A FRIEND IN NEED ... ... ••• 225 XVIII. TRACKED ... ... ... ■•• 235 XIX. DAYS OF DARKNESS ... ... ... 246 XX. A DIFFICULT POSITION ... ... 255 XXI. AT PARIS ... ... ... ... 268 XXII. MARRIED LIFE .. ... ... ... 281 XXIII. A FALSE REPORT ... 296 XXIV. AT REST ... ... ... ... 3I2 XXV. ALONE ONCE MORE ... ... ... 323 XXVI. A WONDERFUL ESCAPE ... ... chapter i SENT FOR IN HASTE It was a brilliant summer day. The sun was beating down on the London pavements, and clouds like doves' feathers were floating across the pale bluish-grey sky, with the same benign impartiality as they floated over woods, fields, moorlands. The horses as well as the foot passengers were suffering from the heat, and more than one " cabby " was meditating the desirability of demanding a double fare, as with face aglow he sat grumbling on his box, whisk ing with perilous irritability round the sharpest corners, and now and again wreaking his discomfort on the horse.

An occupant of one of these cabs was la scarcely aware that the day was hot. He felt nothing and saw nothing. All his faculties were absorbed in breathless expectation. Yet no one would have suspected that his heart was beating more violently than usual as the hansom drew up at the door of one of the houses in Chester Square. He was a tall man, pale of face, and with head erect, and as the door opened he passed into the entrance-hall as imperturbably and quietly as if it were the commonest thing in the world for him, a country solicitor, to be summoned to London by telegram to come at once and draw out the will of a dying woman — a woman from whom he had parted under painful circumstances in the heyday of her youth, and whom he had never expected to meet again in this life. The expression of his face was calm and controlled, as if this hasty, romantic summons had been an every-day experience in his somewhat hum drum life.

Chapter II An Eccentric Will

If Mrs. Fenimore thought to find a trace of the man from whom she had parted in the altered man to whom she appealed, such a thought had been vain. Whether or not there were any depths in Brendon's nature which she had not succeeded in fathoming, he was one who rarely yielded to impulses. And yet the impulse to justify himself at that moment was irresistible. "If I worked myself to the bone with the idea of getting on — once," he said icily, "it was because the girl who had plighted her troth to me was extravagant. You had expensive tastes, and for your sake I wished for abundance of money. If I have toiled since, it is because work has become a habit. The man who loves money for its own sake is a miser — a monstrosity. He who loves it because it gives him power stands on a higher level, has some meaning in his pursuit.

But the slave who toils like a convict at the wheel, who hates his work, and yet feels that it will help him to drown thought, is the most wretched of all. Why taunt me with my failure ? " " Oh," she said, with a wave of her transparent hand, "don't misunderstand me. I have not sent for you to insult you, but to try and put you in a better position. Whatever mistakes I have made in my life, intentional cruelty to you was not one of them. It was my fate to love you when you were different from what you are now, and it will be my fate to love you to the end." Again he stood speechless, while she continued — " I too have failed. No one can tell what I have gone through in my married life ! It has been a Purgatory in which I could never com plain of my woes. I lived with the mask up. He always expected me to amuse him.

Oh, the interminable evenings when I was in the very prime of my beauty — when men should have seen me and admired me — which I have wasted shut up alone with one irritable old man, playing backgammon. And then the cookery ! My time had to be spent in devising fresh dishes for him when he returned home from his hunting. What good did my riches do for me ? Sometimes he would bring other men home with him who were half drunk, in what they considered to be a pleasant, jovial way. I hated it all. And my Purgatory was the worse because he was easily offended and intolerably jealous, and sometimes these men would pay their odious compliments to me. I had to assume caressing ways — I had to cajole and wheedle. And then he died — suddenly died — a fall from his horse when he was too old to get over it !

And it turned out, he had left all his money to me, with only the usual precaution that I should not marry again. I deserved the money. I had worked for it like a slave. And there was not much temptation for him to leave it to any one else. He had quarrelled with all his relatives, and he had no philanthropic schemes. We had been married for ten years, and we were childless. He did not trouble much about that — all the attention had to be concentrated on himself — he was too thoroughly selfish to care for being bothered with children. And then he had gambled and lost a good part of the money. It was the old story. First of all he made it in betting and gambling, and then he lost it. If he had lived longer he might have left me penniless." The lawyer had nothing to say. He could not remind her that she had brought the ordeal on herself.

His silence seemed to mock her. She had played almost her last card, and as yet there was no discernible change in his face. It was almost impossible to believe that this could be the same man who had once had a subtle power over women. The charm of his person ality had fled, and was as difficult to recall as the fascination of her own once bright, magnetic, mischievous nature. She began to fear that she had subjected herself to unnecessary humiliation, and to battle against the idea, as she had battled against hindrances all her life. So she continued, unhindered by the expression of his face, but quivering with a reckless excitement and impatience — " And when at last I was free, you — the only man I had ever cared for — were married. Lord, what fools we women are! Sometimes in my dreams I thought of you when you were young, and we were all the world to each other.

I forgot that you had grown into a hard, un forgiving, solitary kind of man— a bear to all women, because one woman had injured you. I knew that if that woman had married you, you would probably have succeeded. I remembered how you used to say to her that you and she together could defy the world. You used to say that you were one of those who could never forget or forgive. And it took away my enjoyment in existence to be pursued by the thought of how you hated me." She waited for him to contradict her, pushing back her hair with an impetuous nervous movement, but no contradiction came. Again and again she had rehearsed to herself this scene of reconciliation which was to take place on her death-bed. Had he held out the slightest en couragement she would have caught at it and held to it, as if it had been a sheet anchor.

She felt as if a word of sympathy would have eased her physical sufferings. Anything would have been more tolerable to her than the actual fact that the man who was so perfectly re strained, had thought little enough for years of that episode of his early youth ; though it had hardened him and destroyed the good in him, simmering away the tenderness of his conscience, and wrecking his faith in women. Mrs. Fenimore struggling with her emotion C was a pitiable spectacle to him, but nearly all emotion had been killed in him years before. In her girlhood she had pretended to love him, and had jilted him at the eleventh hour for a more mercenary marriage. Had she any con ception of the earthquake which had reduced everything worth living for to ruins, making his heart and brain reel with the shock ?

He had been seriously ill for months, and when he emerged from his sick-room his world was still in chaos. He had never been the same man again. He could not tell her that ever since she had torn the heart out of his bosom, he had felt as if a stone had been there instead, and that he had not only been set against all women, but even against his own little woman child. He had taken refuge in philosophical phlegm, and was generally happiest when he was alone. Often when his little daughter prattled to him, and tried to put her arms round his neck, he had been aware of being irritated by her em braces, and of longing painfully for solitude. The sullen flush was still on his brow, as he watched the thin hands clasping and unclasping themselves in nervous irritation. He had no words with which to comfort her.

He had loved her to madness once, but nothing now remained of the flame except the dead ashes which were loathsome to him. He had suffered too much at her hands for any sentimental regrets to have a particle of influence over him. He pitied her, but he also despised her as she continued — " Was I one to bemoan my fate, or to let any mortal creature but you hear of the long agony I have suffered ? " Her eyes were no longer fixed on his ; they too were gazing far away at the clouds, which were slowly changing to pearly white, heralding the twilight. She seemed to be looking back upon a past peopled with ghosts. The pet bullfinch twittered in its cage, rousing her from her reverie, as she continued in a dull, level voice — "Ah, you will hate me more than ever if I confess to you that I was ready enough to see you married to an uninteresting woman who could not really be a companion to you.

It seemed less like giving you up." The man of business, who prided himself on the correctness of his behaviour in all the con ventionalities of life, and who had kept his head down for the last few minutes, so that he might not have to show any sympathy with this out break, — it was after all the only one in her life, — glanced up at her at last. The lines on his face had deepened till it looked as hard as adamant, and his lips had tightened. Love was dead — it had been dead years before. There could be no resurrection for the dead thing which had long ago been buried out of view, and it horrified him that she should allude to his own short married life all the more because he had never cared for his wife. He asked himself again how she dared ? " We had better not speak of that," he said hoarsely.

" Don't rake up the past. Let by gones be bygones. Did you send for me to make this useless talk ? " He could not have told her in plainer words that she degraded herself as well as him by alluding to these tender memories. Had she been as weak in spirit as she was weak in body her voice would have broken into a sob. But it had never been her fashion to shed tears, and she had still her last card to play. It was her trump card. There was a ring in her voice in spite of the quiver in it as she rejoined — " No, you know I sent for you to make my will. You alone must draw it out. Ah, I think you will forgive me when you hear what I intend to do for you, while at the same time I may be doing the best for my son. I don't know why I confided anything else to you. It is not because you are too sweet-tempered — you were always keen and strong — perhaps that is why I was once so powerfully attracted to you.

My friends said you were too self-sure — Oh, no ! don't be afraid, I'm not going to re vive old memories any more. I can see that you are quite unaffected by my presence — I am not blinded. I sinned, and I am properly punished. Conventionalities were never any thing to me — that is why I want you to take care of my only child, and to promise to be my sole trustee." His eyes, which had been cold, stern, and rather indifferent, were now merely surprised. " I knew you were such a thorough man of business that I could not have a better adviser. And the facts are so unusual that I should not like to explain them to any one else. My husband, as I told you, died rather suddenly. He had his lawyer with him one day before the end, but he never spoke to me about his money. I imagined that his will had been made years before, and supposed that there would be the usual reference to the possibility of issue.

Well, I did not willingly deceive him, but he was not in a fit state for me to make a confidence that would have excited him. I — I could not possibly tell him that after ten years I was with child. I should have been horrified at the thought of mentioning such a thing to him before it was necessary. And so you see it happens that I have been left with a posthumous child — a son — born without any mention of his existence in his father's will, and I have power to make such conditions as I choose with the money that was left absolutely to me, but which of course would go down to our boy. Did you not remember that I had a child?" " Why should I remember it ? " he asked, with a composure that stabbed her. And then, after a pause—" Have you not other solicitors ? " " No," she said, raising herself on her elbow, and looking steadily at him.

" Because when I knew that I was left with an impaired constitu tion — the result of my untiring devotion — ah, and of my prudence and discretion," she added, with a laugh that jarred on him, " I determined to keep these things to myself, and to send for you when the end came— to make you guardian of my child with such a sum left for his education and maintenance as should amply repay you for the charge. Do you not understand that I foresaw in that way some means of making reparation?" He frowned and bit his lips, — his steely eyes, glancing at her, gave no clue to his thoughts ; but she would have triumphed could she have known that the organ which he called his heart, and which he himself had compared to stone but a few minutes before, was beating for the first time for many years in a way that he did not like to acknowledge.

"The course you are adopting is an unusual one," he said, after considering for a minute. " If I object to it " Perhaps for the first time he was not sorry when she interrupted him, clasping her hands convulsively. " You will humour a dying woman — you " It would be in every way more comfortable for me if you were to appoint a second trustee." " It would not be comfortable for me," she said passionately. " I could not tell that strange story to any one else " " But anyhow you cannot be ignorant, that if you died intestate there would be no one to dispute the succession — your son would still inherit." " That also I want to prevent, — not of course altogether, but in the ordinary way. You are a stern man, but you are a just one. If my son comes into his property too soon he may gamble it away.

He probably inherits his father's tastes. I have seen such horrors that I want to avert them. I want him to be under your guardianship till he is twenty-five — I believe I have power to fix that age. It will not be necessary for him to know that he inherits money. I have lived quietly, and kept my affairs to myself. I should like him to be brought up to work for his own living — just as if he had not a penny. After all, the property is not large, and it will be better for him in every way not to know about it." " All this is also unusual." " Do I care a fig whether it is unusual or not ? You ought to know by this time that I am the last woman to care. I must add that I should like him by and by to be told of the wish of his dying mother, that he should choose, if possible, the profession of a doctor, and do what little he can to assuage such suffering as mine.

I feel sure that they may discover more remedies in the future. And then there is another dream of mine. You are a widower, and have a little daughter two years younger than my boy. If — by and by — those two should care for each other, as we once did — don't look so strangely at me — let them marry." He made an involuntary gesture of annoy ance — a shrug that she could hardly see. But when she continued in the same tone, that she did not wish him to invest the money in too profitable a way, and that it was essential that her boy should never hear of that inherited tendency to gambling of which she was afraid, a sudden flash came into his. It disappeared as quickly as it had come, but meanwhile it had been there — a sudden dropping of his mask — a look almost of greed, though she had been too occupied with her own thoughts and plans to notice it.

" If I undertake the trust at all," he answered her, "you must allow me to be the judge of that. You must trust me entirely to do the best for your son. Money has always done well in my hands — it is the one thing which is likely to prosper with me, though I have never had an opportunity of displaying my talent in that line." His mouth curved into a cynical smile. " Still, there may be circumstances under which it may be wise to let it lie fallow." It was well perhaps for the sick woman that she did not see the smile or the look that accompanied this speech. A few minutes after wards, the nurse's knock at the door told them that the time allowed by the doctor for the interview had elapsed, and with the same cold formality that he had shown throughout, Mr. Brendon took his leave of the dying woman — the sole trustee and guardian of her boy.

Chapter III Six Years Afterwards

" Try a little harder, women can never climb," piped the boy, improvising a tube with one of his sturdy brown hands. The wind was high enough to rock the branches of the good-sized walnut-tree, on the topmost fork of which he was perched like a squirrel. It was difficult to make the girl hear, who was tearing her frock and barking her shins on one of the lowest branches, but not troubling about the pain in the defiant and frantic efforts she was making to reach her playmate. The branches had scratched her hands as she put caressing arms round them, and tried to lift herself up by them. At last, tingling with the smart, she gave up the futile effort, subsiding on the grass beneath, and retorting in her shrillest head register — " Father says the reason boys can climb is because they are descended from monkeys."

" If boys are descended from monkeys, girls are too, you silly, and a male monkey is better than a female one any day," sung the boy. But she shrilled in return, " Women are better than men — they are to rejuvenate men. Miss Dolman told me so — she said it is the only hope of the world." " Oh — ho ! Regenerate you mean, Mrs. Malaprop," jeered Roger. " That's a good one, Miss Dolman is only an old maid. All old maids like to talk like that because they know that women are so inferior." And after he had shouted this piece of cheering information, he took refuge in noisy laughter, which was echoed by the cry of a water-fowl from a lustreless pond with sedgy banks close by. The girl heard the screams of laughter with some alarm, fearing lest the soft furry and feathery things— the rabbits and burnished pheasants which made their home in the "Wilderness" at the end of the garden— might be startled by the hubbub.

She had been accustomed to seek this spot where the morning sun could not reach her, or disturb these furry friends, ever since she could remember. She had generally been careful to crawl to it with furtive steps and bated breath, that she might listen to the songs of the finches and the fluting of the missel thrush, and she had all the feelings of a queen who had introduced an outsider to the domain in which" she reigned. For though she adored the boy, and her life had been different from what it had ever been before since he had come to share it, she considered it an unfortunate attribute of his sex to bring noise if not destruction in his wake. She was a striking contrast to the handsome fair-haired boy — a whimsical little elf, looking as if she were a sprite rather than a girl, with her spindly legs, unkempt brown hair, a silky but somewhat sallow skin, and short faded serge petticoats.

It was her usual fashion to dispense with her hat, leaving the most remarkable feature in her face unshaded — grey-blue eyes which were like flowers with irises deepening here and there into so dark a shade that they seemed to match the darkness of the pupils. The black pupils were dilated now with anger, but her policy was one of silence, and she was too disgusted to think of altering her position, even when she heard the boy descend ing, as she had said, with the agility of a monkey. If he had intended to frighten her, he admired her for her pluck and kept a wary eye on her, taking care not to touch her with his thick nailed boots when he alighted with a bound at her side. She had her father's expression of face at that moment when she tried to preserve her unruffled calm, and contented herself with remarking, as if it were a simple statement of some very unimportant fact — " You're a pig.

" I'd find something new to say, stoopid.' " It was you who taught me to say it," she retorted. "You're a termagant," he shouted. " I'd rather be one— girls are obliged to look out for themselves now-a-days — Miss Dolman says so. I'm going to be a termagant even when I'm grown up— it means never to let men tread on you." " Yah, Miss Sincerity !— you are an acute young person, but girls can't look out for themselves when they go peacocking about." " I wasn't peacocking about," she stamped. She certainly did not look much like "peacocking " in that rustic costume, in which elegance had been the last thing studied. It was decidedly economical, a short serge dress, stained and ragged from constant steeple chasing over hedges and ditches, and roughly darned in several places, woollen stockings, and stout boots.

But the boy was in a prophetic mood. " You'll peacock by and by," he said, " when you are spick and span like the rest of them. You'll get fat, and then if you lace tight you'll bust. Perhaps you'll powder your nose." " Never ! " she cried indignantly. " Yes, you will. When you get fat of course you'll get red too, and then you will be glad to powder it. Girls are all alike. What they have to do in life is to grin and look pretty." " I mean to be clever." " I should hate book-clever women. " That's because you are selfish and want to keep all the cleverness to yourself. I mean to learn what you are learning." " The more foolish you ! " he retorted, watching her changes of colour and expression, and delighting to take a rise out of her. " / should have my good times. All girls have good times.

They have only to hop about and sing, and be fed like dicky birds with seed and lumps of sugar, while the men have to toil and slave." " That's all rot ! " she cried, with indignant flags of distress flaming in her cheeks. " Women work harder than men any day. And I mean to learn Latin as well as you. You shan't call me stoopid when you are grown up." " You'll have to learn racing first, Doll — you'd better make the most of your time. You'll never be able to go in for steeple chasing in horrid long dresses, you know — so you must practise now. You are not half so bad as you were," he continued patronizingly, patting her on the back. For all his sharp speeches he looked at her tenderly, and had evident enjoyment in her society. Her eyes glistened with pleasure at his appreciation. They were too accustomed to these word skirmishes — in which each had to be careful to see that every shot told — to cherish animosity on either side.

On the contrary this sort of a warfare gave a keener zest to their sense of comradeship. Doris Brendon had been a dull and lonely child till Roger Fenimore took her into close companionship, and since then she had expanded sympathetically and seemed to thrive upon his rough training. " One, two, three, and away ! " They started for the race, emerging from the Wilderness, and encountering the full glare of the mid-day sun. Dolly was far in advance at first — her sticks of legs flying, her nostrils dilated, and her chest heaving with delight. Her vanity helped her to fly the faster. To think that site, who had only just attained her fourteenth year, should have left the sixteen year-old Roger far behind ! She looked back at him with her glistening eyes, waving one of her skinny hands in token of triumph.

The gesture was eloquent — nothing less than the superiority of women even in sports was supposed to be conveyed by it. But alas ! it was the failure of Atalanta over again. For at that very moment the boy began to gain upon her, and reached the goal a good half-yard before her, while she, panting and disheartened, came up slowly behind him. " You lose your first wind and don't look out for your second," he said disdainfully ; " that's because you aren't trained — girls never are," he added, with his favourite habit of D generalizing wherever the other sex was con cerned. He was mopping his brow, but his companion sank down on the grass at the foot of the oak-tree which had been chosen for a goal, still drawing her breath with pain ful effort, and putting up her hands to keep the wisps of disordered hair out of her eyes.

" You ought to have it all cut short if you want to be comfortable. And I won't race you again — you must leave it off — it's not your fault — it's because you're a girl," he said. " No, no, I mustn't— it's — it's ecstatic ! " she panted. " At any rate steeplechases are," she tried to explain as soon as she could get her breath. " Oh, what fun it was when we scrambled through that hedge, and Farmer Lee stood at the other side of the field where he couldn't reach us hallooing at us till his face was as red as a peony. He said he'd tell father, but I don't suppose he did. I don't know what's come to father lately — he's graver than ever, and more down in the dumps, and doesn't talk to me about anything. Oh, I do love steeplechases, and it's such fun being with you — that's the reason I don't want them to lengthen my frocks— I couldn't steeplechase in horrid tails."