Wife in Name Only - Charlotte Mary Brame (digital e reader TXT) 📗

sufficient for that large establishment--it requires more than that. She has consented to make it her home, and I must have some one to be with me."

"You have the duke," he put in, wonderingly.

"True, and a husband most, perforce, be all that is adorable; still, having been accustomed to a lady-companion, I prefer keeping one; and this girl, so beautiful, so pure, so simple, is all that I need, or could wish for."

"So I should imagine," he replied. "Will you introduce her into society, Philippa?"

"I think not; she is a simple child, yet wonderfully clever. No, society shall not have her. I will keep her for my own."

"What is her name?" asked Lord Arleigh.

The duchess laughed.

"Ah, now, man-like, you are growing curious! I shall not tell you. Yes, I will; it is the name above all others for an ideal--Madaline."

"Madaline," he repeated; "it is very musical--Madaline."

"It suits her," said the duchess; "and now, Norman, I must go. I have some pressing engagements to-day."

"You will not introduce me then, Philippa?"

"No--why should I? You would only disturb the child's dream."


Chapter XVII.


Lord Arleigh could not rest for thinking of the vision he had seen; the face of the duchess' companion haunted him as no other face had ever done. He tried hard to forget it, saying to himself that it was a fancy, a foolish imagination, a day-dream; he tried to believe that in a few days he should have forgotten it.

It was quite otherwise. He left Vere House in a fever of unrest; he went everywhere he could think of to distract his thoughts. But the fair face with its sweet, maidenly expression, the tender blue eyes with their rich poetic depths, the sweet, sensitive lips were ever present. Look where he would he saw them. He went to the opera, and they seemed to smile at him from the stage; he walked home in the starlight--they were smiling at him from the stars; he tried to sleep--they haunted him; none had followed him as those eyes did.

"I think my heart and brain are on fire," he said to himself. "I will go and look once again at the fair young face; perhaps if she smiles at me or speaks to me I shall be cured."

He went; it was noon when he reached the Duke of Hazlewood's mansion. He inquired for the duchess, and was told she had gone to Hampton Court. He repeated the words in surprise.

"Hampton Court!" he said. "Are you quite sure?"

"Yes, my lord," was the footman's reply. "Her grace has gone there, for I heard her talking about the pictures this morning."

He could hardly imagine the duchess at Hampton Court. He felt half inclined to follow, and then he thought that perhaps it would be an intrusion; if she had wanted his society, she would certainly have asked for it. No, he would not go. He stood for a few minutes irresolute, wondering if he could ask whether the duchess had taken her young companion with her, and then he remembered that he did not even know her name.

How was the day to pass? Matters were worse than ever. If he had seen her, if he could have spoken to her, he might perhaps have felt better; as it was, the fever of unrest had deepened.

He was to meet the duchess that evening at the French Embassy; he would tell her she must relax some of her rigor in his favor. She was talking to the ambassador when he entered, but with a smiling gesture she invited him to her side.

"I hear that you called to-day," she said. "I had quite forgotten to tell you that we were going to Hampton Court."

"I could hardly believe it," he replied. "What took you there?"

"You will wonder when I tell you, Norman," she replied, laughingly. "I have always thought that I have a great capacity for spoiling people. My fair Madaline, as I have told you, is both poet and artist. She begged so hard to see the pictures at Hampton Court that I could not refuse her."

"I should not think the history of the belles of the court of Charles II. would be very useful to her," he said; and she was quick to detect the jealousy in his voice.

"Norman, you are half inclined to be cross, I believe, because I did not ask you to go with us."

"I should have enjoyed it, Philippa, very much."

"It would not have been prudent," she observed, looking most bewitchingly beautiful in her effort to look matronly and wise.

He said no more; but if her grace had thought of a hundred plans for making him think of Madaline, she could not have adopted one more to the purpose.

From the moment Lord Arleigh believed that the young duchess intended to forbid all acquaintance with her fair _protégée_, he resolved to see her and to make her like him.

The day following he went again to the mansion; the duchess was at home, and wished to see him, but at that moment she was engaged. He was shown into the library, where in a few minutes she joined him.

"My dear Norman," she said, with a bright smile of greeting, "Vere told me, if you came, to keep you for luncheon; he wants to see you particularly. The horse that won the Derby, he has been told, is for sale, and he wants you to see it with him."

"I shall be very pleased," replied Lord Arleigh. "You seem hurried this morning, Philippa."

"Yes; such a _contretemps_! Just as I was anticipating a few hours with you, the Countess of Farnley came in, with the terrible announcement that she was here to spend the morning. I have to submit to fate, and listen to the account of Clara's last conquests, of the infamous behavior of her maid, of Lord Darnley's propensity for indiscreet flirtations. I tell her there is safety in number. I have to look kind and sympathetic while I am bored to death."

"Shall I accompany you and help you to amuse Lady Farnley?"

She repeated the words with a little laugh.

"Amuse Lady Farnley? I never undertake the impossible. You might as well ask me to move the monument, it would be quite as easy."

"Shall I help her to amuse you, then?" he said.

"No, I will not impose on your friendship. Make yourself as comfortable as you can, and I will try to hasten her departure."

Just as she was going away Lord Arleigh called to her.

"Philippa!" she turned her beautiful head half impatiently to him.

"What is it, Norman? Quick! The countess will think I am lost."

"May I go into your pretty rose-garden?" he asked.

She laughed.

"What a question! Certainly; you my go just where you please."

"She has forgotten her companion," he said to himself, "or she is not about."

He went into the morning-room and through the long, open French window; there were the lovely roses in bloom, and there--oh, kind, blessed fate!--there was his beautiful Madaline, seated in the pretty trellised arbor, busily working some fine point-lace, looking herself like the fairest flower that ever bloomed.

The young girl looked up at him with a startled glance--shy, sweet, hesitating--and then he went up to her.

"Do not let me disturb you," he said. "The duchess is engaged and gave me permission to wait for her here."

She bowed, and he fancied that her white fingers trembled.

"May I introduce myself to you?" he continued. "I am Lord Arleigh."

A beautiful blush, exquisite as the hue of the fairest rose, spread over her face. She looked at him with a smile.

"Lord Arleigh," she repeated--"I know the name very well."

"You know my name very well--how is that?" he asked, in surprise.

"It is a household word here," she said; "I hear it at least a hundred times a day."

"Do you? I can only hope that you are not tired of it."

"No, indeed I am not;" and then she drew back with a sudden hesitation, as though it had just occurred to her that she was talking freely to a stranger.

He saw her embarrassment, and did his best to remove it.

"How beautiful these roses are!" he said, gently. "The duchess is fortunate to have such a little paradise here."

"She ought to be surrounded by everything that is fairest and most beautiful on earth," she declared, "for there is no one like her."

"You are fond of her?" he said.

She forgot all her shyness, and raised her blue eyes to his.

"Fond of her? I love her better than any one on earth--except perhaps, my mother. I could never have dreamed of any one so fair, so bewitching, so kind as the duchess."

"And she seems attached to you," he said, earnestly.

"She is very good to me--she is goodness itself;" and the blue eyes, with their depth of poetry and passion, first gleamed with light, and then filled with tears.

"We must be friends," said Lord Arleigh, "for I, too, love the duchess. She has been like a sister to me ever since I can remember;" and he drew nearer to the beautiful girl as he spoke. "Will you include me among your friends?" he continued. "This is not the first time that I have seen you. I stood watching you yesterday; you were among the roses, and I was in the morning-room. I thought then, and I have thought ever since, that I would give anything to be included among your friends."

His handsome face flushed as he spoke, his whole soul was in his eyes.

"Will you look upon me as one of your friends?" he repeated, and his voice was full of softest music. He saw that even her white brow grew crimson.

"A friend of mine, my lord?" she exclaimed. "How can I? Surely you know I am not of your rank--I am not one of the class from which you select your friends."

"What nonsense!" he exclaimed. "If that is your only objection I can soon remove it. I grant that there may be some trifling difference. For instance, I may have a title; you--who are a thousand times more worthy of one--have none. What of that? A title does not make a man. What is the difference between us? Your beauty--nay, do not think me rude or abrupt--- my heart is in every word that I say to you--your grace would ennoble any rank, as your friendship would ennoble any man."

She looked up at him, and said, gently:

"I do not think you quite understand."

"Yes, I do," he declared, eagerly; "I asked the duchess yesterday who you were, and she told me your whole story."

It was impossible for him not to see how she shrank with unutterable pain from the words. The point-lace fell on the grass at her feet--she covered her face with her hands.

"Did she? Oh, Lord Arleigh, it was cruel to tell it!"

"It was not cruel to tell me," he returned. "She would not tell any one else, I am quite sure. But she saw that I was really anxious--that I must know it--that it was not from curiosity I asked."

"Not from curiosity!" she repeated, still hiding her burning face with her hands.

"No,