Her Ladyship

Front matter

Google to make the world's books discoverable online.

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject

to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books

I

'^rHE road which wound along the edge of I^ake Michigan was like a band of silver by the side of the vivid blue of the inland sea, sparkling under the October sunshine.

Walking along its edge were just the two figures that a clever landscape painter would have wanted there. Their backs were turned to the sun, which made a halo around the girl's golden brown hair and glorified the edges of her large brown hat. Hair and hat just matched her brown eyes, which always had golden flecks in them, sunshine or not. Her white serge dress was too light for the crisp, cold day, and she had put around her shoulders a sealskin cape which huddled her neck, and threw out all the brilliant beauty of her sparkling face. She was a typical Yankee maiden, frank and free, full of the joy of life.

The young man with her was perhaps ten years older, but they were years you were glad he had had, for every one seemed to have printed what was coming, and she rushed in to push it aside.

*' If you are going to say that you are afraid I haven't any such gay memories as dancing * down the middle with the man that shot Sandy Mc- Gee,' you are right. I/odge City, or what we saw of it, was not gay. Mamma kept us beautifully and exclusively apart from all that sort of thing. We never knew anybody there but you. ' *

" I confess to being far from ga}' at times, but I did my best. Gaiety never was my strong point, exactly."

" It is mine. I love to be gay. I love to have a grand new house, and lots of parties, and tee-to-tum — for a while.'*

For an instant Batterman hesitated, and thought himself a selfish brute. He was going to ask her to give up the parties and the tee-to-tumming, and go away with liim. He believed that she would do it. He was a clever man, shrewd at reading faces, and he would have been a stick or a stone if he had not seen how this girl's countenance changed and glowed at his approach. But he loved her with a tenderness which had grown with the years. He had first known her as a little girl living on the hill above the dump of the Gray Colt mine, while her father was taking out the millions which had made him, for the moment at least, the richest man in Chicago.

** I wouder if, wheu I go back, you would sit up after a ball to write me a letter, as that girl in the poem did, and tell me about your proposals on the stairs, and — and all the rest of it.'*

She was new enough to Bret Harte's poetry to remember that ** all the rest of it " was the assurance that her heart was out there, and that he had struck it. She wasn't going to tell him quite that — yet. She found this playing about the subject delightful. She had always loved Chris, she thought, and she was going to tell him so — after a time.

She sighed with content as she thought of it. It was so sweet and natural that she should be in love with Chris — be going to marry him, some day ; Chris, who had always been her hero, who was bigger and braver and cleverer than anybody else. He was the one ideal she had ever had. Slie stole a glance at him sidewise, and thought that no man could look the modern girl's hero more completely. There was nothing of the carpet knight about Batterman.

'*0h, Connie does the letter writing, doesn't she?"

'* And a jolly little correspondent she is. She tells me everything, with comments. I advise your father to buy a society paper for Connie when she gets a little older. She can fill it with entertaining material."

i

S HER LADYvSHIP.

sense than to try to ride like that. Come here. He can't manage the brute."

Batterman hurried her across the road and iu the nearest gateway. The horse was plain bolting, but its rider, a rather heavily built, floi faced young man, had a set expression under 1 tall hat which made it seem likely that he wou bring his steed to terms sooner or later, and wit out leaving its back, either.

** By Jove, he can stick on, eh?'' Batterm exclaimed in admiration. He thought the m: foolhardy, too ready to **show off," but was ready to give him his due. The dri seemed to be almost deserted just here at tl hour, and he was going to tire the vicious brt out. Batterman, accustomed to seeing men dc with the wildest horses in the world, thought the expression, ** two of a kind." The Englis man and the horse seemed to have pretty mu the same disposition.

Batterman had sought shelter for Alice in t gates of a fine open garden, next to a place call ** The Cedars," whose driveway wound about an eccentric fashion and was dark with t branches of the heavy, dose trees. The hot belonged to some old ladies who had lived he long before Chicago became the great city it and w^ho clung to many of their old fashion ways. One of these was to allow the needles the trees to carpet their driveway, making it noiseless. There was no gate, but two old stone posts which guarded the way. As if unconscious of the commotion going on outside, a victoria swung out into the road just as Lord Lurgan dashed along on the infuriated horse. In another second there would have been a collision, but the rider gave a mighty tug to the bridle, and changed the direction in which his steed was going, with safety to the lady in the low victoria but disaster to himself, for the horse did not stop. There were hoarse shouts from the men, a cry from the lady in the carriage, and Alice, sickened, put her hands over her eyes, while Batterman made a dash for the wall, whose sheer side dropped down to the lake. The horse and rider had disappeared.

Men seemed to gather like flies from everywhere, all of them either climbing the wall or standing on it. Alice started toward it, when she heard a voice calling her, and turned to see her stepmother, with a white face, still sitting in the victoria. The footman had followed the rest of the men.

** Did you see it ? What will your father say ? Oh, that brave man ! He fell over the wall to keep from running into me. I thought it was death. That great black brute's eyes were like red coals. He looked like a demon ! ' ' She had lO HER IvADYSHIP.

her handkerchief to her mouth, and her eyes were stained, but her hand was not trembling. ** If he is killed I can never forgive myself for coming out today. I shall feel like a murderess. I wonder if he is killed ! ''

A shout answered her. There was a little rise here, and the wall, not very high anywhere, was much lower a few rods down. The footman came back and touched his hat.

'*He's only a bit shook up, ma'am. There was a bit of sand below, and they ain't wet to speak of."

In a few minutes Batterman came back supporting the rider, his hat not so fresh as it had been, but still on his head. He was limping painfully, with a sprained knee. Mrs. Sanderson's victoria was drawn up beside him.

* * You must come home with me, Lord I^urgan," she said quickly, for Judge Nelson, large and pompous, was coming down the road. '* Mr. Sanderson must thank you himself for what you

have done for " She put her handkerchief

to her lips again.

** I suspect Judge Nelson "

** I think we have the first claim to give you the attention you could not have at your hotel."

I/Urgan smiled a little uneasily, and then he looked at the grave, respectful face of Alice Sanderson, who stood by the victoria's side.

HBR LADYSHIP. II

**But I should be taking Miss Sanderson's place in the carriage. ' '

**Oh, no, I was walking/' she said promptly.

Judge Nelson came up, loud with self reproaches, but IvUrgan was installed against the high backed seat of the carriage by this time, and in a few minutes was being whirled toward the new Sanderson palace. Batterman watched them drive away with some of the amusement with which he had always regarded Mrs. Sanderson and her **luck,'' and turned to find Alice with a serious face.

**That was a brave thing to do,'* she said. ** He saved mamma's life."

* * By almost riding an unbroken horse over her?"

** That isn't like you. You are generally more generous."

**Am I ungenerous? I would not be that. The man seems to be courageous enough, but a trifle foolhardy. Probably he did not know the real character of the brute he attempted to ride. Nelson was responsible for that. The horse should never be put on a public road like this. ' ' The thread of their old talk was gone. *' How long have you known Lord Lurgan?"

* * A month. He brought some letters of introduction to papa. We all like him very much. He is rather like a big boy in some ways. His people are very great, they say, but lie never mentions that. * ' Batterman smiled again at the girlish idea that such reticence was remarkable. **He is so solid and fresh looking, and he has done all sorts of things — shot elephants and tigers and grizzly bears.''

**The grizzly bears should not affect a girl from I/)dge City."

* * It sounds great, doesn't it ? ' '

She laughed up in his face with the sense of humor that was one of her greatest charms to Batterman. He was on the point of telling her so, but they were almost at the house, and the atmosphere was wanting. It seemed to him that Alice hastened her steps, and he had a vague, undefined jealousy of the man who was then in her home, and who would probably stay for weeks. He would have thought it insulting to doubt Alice. He felt absolutely sure of her love for him — a love he so much respected that he wished her to have all that girlhood could give her before she realized the full force of it, and the dominating factor that it would be in her life when it was once confessed. But he did not want another man to live in the same house with her, and learn to know her sweet ways as he knew them, and perhaps to care for her. He pretended to himself that there had been no meaning in the look he had caught in I^urgan's eye as it

HKR I^ADYSHIP. 1 3

rested upon Alice before he accepted Mrs. Sanderson's invitation.

They went up the driveway and through the great front door into the hall, which had been copied after that of some renaissance palace, and contained a number of treasures culled from ruined homes abroad. As they proceeded across it, a clatter of girl and dog was heard coming down the broad staircase and almost into Batterman's arms.

*' Oh, Mr. Christopher ! '' she cried. '' We've got the live lord in the house ! Alice, mamma wants to speak to you ; ' ' and then as her sister stepped away, the child put her hand through Batterman's arm with the affectionate familiarity of fifteen. **Do 3^ou know, Chris,'* she said confidentially, '*I think I'm going to belong to the nobility ? ' '

**Why, have you designs on lyurgan ? " He lifted his eyebrows and laughed. Connie always amused him.

** Not I ! But I am sure he's going to marry Alice."

** Really?'' still laughing.

* ' Oh, I can tell the signs. He's fairly kow-towiug to mamma, and she is kow-towing back. Oh, Chris, just ^ktnk what it would be to have a countess for a sister ! I always knew that I was lueant for better things. Find out if she really

14 HKPv LADYSHIP.

is going to marry him, Chris, won*t you, and give me a quiet tip? If she is, won't I just sit on some of these Chicagoese ! Promise me you will use every effort to find out her state of mind ! ' '

" I think I can promise that,*' Batterman said gravely.

II

IVTRS. SANDERSON was trembling so that ^ her hands could hardly unclasp the elegant

little sable collar which she wore tightly about her throat. Her lips were set in a determined line, and the color on her cheek was high.

Her husband had turned around in the wheel chair before his desk and thrown his cigar in the fire, which was always a mark of extreme irritation with him. It was hard to realize that Mr. Sanderson had ever been anything but the man of position he now was. There was no suggestion of plebeian origin in his face, too delicate a face, his wife sometimes thought, when she had seen brute force conquer him even in some of his most delicately matured plans. He was a handsome man, tall, dignified, and modish. His gray hair was cut at just the proper length, and carefully parted in the middle and brushed back. His gray mustache was trimmed sharply across his fine mouth. No one would have guessed that these points were as much due to the care of his wife as the ring on his finger and the pearl in his scarf, or her own careful toilet. She dressed him to fit the part she intended he should play, and, quite unconsciously to him, she taught him most of his lines.

Unfortunately, as the years went by, Mrs. Sanderson had taken on something of the air of a general in command. She had grown a little arrogant. The delicate finesse by which she had been wont to manage her husband in earlier days had been put aside more and more, as he came to depend more and more upon her judgment. She had almost forgotten how to steer away from the danger point of irritation. But as she took time to unfasten her collar, she mentally reviewed the situation, and calmed her outward agitation, although her heart was fairly boiling. She wanted to cry out, to protest ; to tell her husband not only that he should not oppose her, but that at this time he must be a wall of support to her. In her soul she almost despised him that he was not one of those heavy, hard natures which can deal bludgeon blows, instead of the gentleman he was.

Sanderson, partly conscious of her errand, waited for the demand which he knew was coming. Instead of making it at once, she went to the window and looked out over the city. Her husband's office was in one of the tallest of the Chicago buildings, and far away up on the lake side she could see, in the brilliant sun of the morning, the gray stone towers of her new home, which had appeared, only the other day, the pinnacle of her ambition. Her great ** house warming ** ball had seemed to open every door to her. She had thought herself perfectly happy ; and yet, as it had always been since she was a country school teacher out in Nebraska, she found herself, like the fisherman's wife, begging the Genius of Fate every morning for some new honor. There was an inner social kingdom, she discovered, of whose gates she had only caught a glimpse. She might stay out of it all her life. But Mrs. Sanderson had no intention of staying out of any place to which wit and money could effect an entrance.

It was this same wit which taught her that her husband was in no mood to be bullied, and that she must take time to change her tactics. When she turned her face again, it was earnest, but calm and sweet. She walked over and put her hand around his shoulder and sat down on the arm of his chair. Mrs. Sanderson was well under forty, and her figure was as slender as it had been ten j^ears ago. Perhaps she looked younger and prettier in her husband's eyes for the moment, because she so seldom encouraged the girlish attitude in herself. She did not consider it dignified in the mother of a tall girl of fifteen and the stepmother of a beauty of twenty.

** Dick," she said caressingly, and then added rather sadly, ** I am worried.'*

*' What's wrong? Cook out of sorts? New brougham bad style ? "

His relief was so great over the change in the atmosphere that he jested foolishly, and she paid no attention.

' * I am worried over Alice. ' ' His eyebrows began to lower and his hand relaxed on hers, but she went on before he could speak. '* She is in love with lyord Lurgan."

Mrs. Sanderson grew cold about the heart as she said the words. They had come on the inspiration of the moment, and while she shivered at her own temerity, she exulted at the audacity of the lie.

Sanderson pushed her away from him, and stood up before her.

/ * What are you saying, Julia ? You are crazy. You have been worrying yourself to death for two months because you said that you were sure Alice had some sort of an understanding with Chris Batterman."

She stood up, too, and looked at him with an expression he could never resist. Richard Sandersou had thought himself in love with his first wife when he married her ; they had been boy and girl together, and had been engaged when they were sixteen, living on adjoining farms. She had died before he was old enough, or had lived by her side long enough, to realize anything of the depth and strength of the nature which she had possessed, and which she had bequeathed to her infant daughter. He had never learned it in his daughter. The second wife was the dominating passion of his life. She obscured his vision. He was a just man, a good man, a kind man, but more and more, as j^ears went by, he allowed his impulses to be strained through her reason. Now, as he looked at her, he found himself thinking that his wife was clever and frank, and that he was unjust and vulgar to think that her first care was not for his daughter's happiness. Women understood women, according to Mr. Sanderson's creed — a mistaken one which most men share.

'* But that was before she saw Lurgan. Today — '* she hesitated — ** today she saw him save my life at the peril of his own, at the risk of almost certain death.'*

Sanderson's face had grown white, and he took her almost roughly by the shoulder.

** What do you mean ? "

*' He was trying that dreadful horse of Judge Nelson's, the one that killed his groom, and I came into the way in my victoria when it was running away. He pulled it over the lake wall to save me, and only escaped death by a miracle.

I took him home with me, and I shall keep him there. Alice saw it all, and in an instant I knew what was in her mind. Young Battermau was never the man for her. After all, he is of no family, no position, no anything, but Alice has flirted with him innocently. She does not know what to do. She thinks you want her to marry him, and that you have a contempt for foreign noblemen ' *

** Generally I have.''

** But you know I^urgan is not just a fortune hunter. He belongs to one of the oldest and best families in the world, and they have enormous estates."

* ' Which need money. * '

** I tell you Alice is in love with him.*'

*' If she is, I suppose that settles it, but she doesn't act much like it."

'* That is because she is afraid of you."

** What must I do? " he inquired meekly.

** The first thing might be to send Christopher Batterman to the Sandwich Islands or some place, quite comfortably, so that Alice can have some decent pretext for breaking off with him. Girls have such soft consciences. Poor child ! She would probably sacrifice her life and her happiness, and a great future" — Mrs. Sanderson had almost added, ** for all of us," but she broke off in time — ** on account of some light word spoken in a flirtation with a boy she has known all of herUfe."

** I'd rather see her marry Chris. He is a splendid young fellow. I have had him right under my own eye for ten years. He is as good as gold, and as clever as daylight. I wouldn't ask a better son in law, if the girls must marry."

** But I tell you she has fallen head over ears in love with Lurgan. Don^t you know what it is to fall in love with anybody ? " She laughed up in his face. She had the game in her own hands now, and she truly thought her husband the dearest man in the world. She kept down the subconsciousness that he was not very clever or quick.

''Yes, I do," he said.

A quarter of an hour later, when Mrs. Sanderson stepped into her brougham at the door of the building, her face was flushed and her eyes were bright with a triumph which she only dared show to strangers. The plans were hers to make. She would be a fool indeed if she could not carry the game now. Lord Lurgan's mother in law could do almost anything. She forgot all about Alice. Her stepdaughter was merely a pawn on her chessboard. She dreamed day dreams as the carriage jolted its way toward the North Side, caught here and there in blockades. She looked out on the rushing thousands of the grimy city, but she saw only a grand house for herself in London, where she entertained the great of the earth. She saw her own daughter, Constance, being presented at court by her sister, the Countess of Lurgan. Perliaps — who knows? — she might herself be the grandmother of a prince. She hid awny in the corner of her brain the knowledge that Sanderson had heart disease. It was a painful thought ; he was so dear, so good, he let her have her own way entirely, but if — there was a black space beyond that "if,*' and on the other side of it, a vision of herself, Julia Sanderson, who used to teach Nebraska farmers' children to read, wearing a coronet. Stranger things had happened.

III

" I ^HE next morning, when Batterman went to ^ the oiB&ce, he found Mr. Sanderson rather nervously walking the floor. As his lieutenant came in, the mine owner looked at him with something like an appeal in his deep set brown eyes. Batterman loved Mr. Sanderson as he would have loved his father if he had lived ; and it is probable that. he saw the older man's faults more leniently than he would have looked upon those of a parent. There are no sins that we so entirely condemn, of which we are so impatient, as those we ourselves poSvSess, and a parent's foibles are likely to take on the air of direct and personal insults.

Batterman was clever enough to see that Mrs. Sanderson's dominion over her husband was but the result of a tenderness of nature which had been used to. her own advantage by a very clever and very selfish woman, who still kept his love by appearing to be always gentle and thoughtful. It is only your honest woman who can afford to quarrel and to get into irritating rages.

Time had taught Batterman to expect something in the way of a change at any moment. Mrs. Sanderson had been making plans, and her husband was hesitating about carrying them out. The young man hung up his coat and hat, and came back to his desk and sat down. He found the whole top of it covered with papers and maps. They appeared to be the prospectus of a mining company in New Mexico.

** What is this, Mr. Sanderson? ''

*' That ? Oh, yes, Chris. I wanted to ask you about that. Do you think that you could go down to New Mexico and look into that property — see if it is worth what they say it is ? "

' ' I know the history of this property, sir. It belongs to the OUa Smelter people. It was sold to them by sharp practice. The owner made them think that two other parties wanted it, and traveled about the country on false telegrams, until the Olla people thought that if it was so much in demand it ought to be theirs. Oh, yes, I know the concern. Why should you waste time on it ? You have no other properties down there. The Olla people would have to smelt the ore.''

** I — ah — thought of enlarging my field."

* * And you want me to take my time away from the matters that brought me to Chicago to look into this hole in the ground ? "

** I should like you to report upon this mine."

** My report is made. I know its history, and seriously advise against it. It certainly would not be profitable to you if the OUa people give it up.''

Mr. Sanderson hesitated for a moment, and then he said :

**I am not in the habit of neglecting your advice, Batterman, but I have a reason for sending you to look at the mine. I wish you to

go."

Batterman stood up and looked the older man fairly in the eyes. They were honest, good eyes, and the two men loved each other.

''When, sir?''

''Today."

There was silence for a moment, and then Batterman drew a long breath.

"Mr. Sanderson," he said steadily, "I will be perfectly frank with you, and I ask the same treatment from you. We have been together too long for one to finesse with the other. I only know the direct path, and I am accustomed to the direct word from you. I cannot think that this mine's future is the cause of my being asked to leave Chicago just now."

' * I think I have the right to ask you to go where I choose, at any time. Those have been the relations that have long existed between us hitherto."

**The business relations, yes. But I am not sure that it is a business reason that causes j'ou to send me awaj-. Until this moment I did not believe that words were necessar}' between you and me upon a certain subject, but I fear now that it was a mistake upon my part to neglect to speak them long ago. You knew — you have known, or I believed that you knew — that I 'love your daughter, and wish more than anything else in the world to ask her to marry me.*'

'*DonH, Chris.'*

Sanderson spoke as if it hurt him.

* * I must speak now, sir. I suppose some men in my position might have thought twice before they spoke of marrying the daughter of as rich a man as you are, but I know that you do me the justice to recognize that I never thought of that. I am able to give the w^oman I marry comforts, and I have every prospect of being able to give her much more. You know me for all I am, and I believe I may say that I am not now mistaken in thinking that you have not wished to discourage me.**

" No, Chris, never ! *' Sanderson put out his hand. *' If Alice were to marry j^ou, I should give her to you with every hope for her happiness and yours.*'

* * Then, Mr. Sanderson, what is the matter now?** asking. My daughter's happiness must be the first consideration to me. I cannot influence her in such a matter.*'

** But surely, Alice '*

** I fear you have taken her too seriously. You have lived out of the world a great deal, and you may have made an ideal of womanhood, of girlhood, which is too high. They sometimes trifle.*'

"Not Alice," Batterman said very proudly. '* Alice does not trifle.**

**She may not have intended to. I maybe mistaken.** There was relief in his voice. '* Tell me, Chris, has she ever told you that she — cared for you — in that way ? * '