The Duke of Stockbridge: A Romance of Shays' Rebellion by Edward Bellamy (diy ebook reader TXT) 📗

on her bedroom curtain with which his long night watches were sometimes rewarded, he saw nothing of Desire. She never went on the street, and for two Sundays had stayed at home from meeting. He could not muster courage to ask Edwards about her, feeling that it must be that she kept within doors merely to avoid him. One evening, however, late in October, as he was sitting over some rum with the storekeeper, the latter remarked, in a casual way, that the doctor had advised that his daughter Desire, who had not been well of late, should take a trip to Pittsfield for her health, and as if it were something quite casual, asked Perez to have the kindness to make out a pass for her to go the next day. As the Squire made this request, speaking as if it were a mere matter of course, Perez was in the act of raising a glass of liquor to his lips. He gave Edwards one glance, very slowly set down the untasted beverage, and without a word of reply or of parting salutation, got up and went out. The moment he was gone the door connecting the living-rooms with the back of the store, softly opened, and Mrs. Edwards and Desire entered.

“Did you get it?” asked the latter.

“Get it,” replied Edwards in disgust, “I should think not. He looked at me like a wolf when I spoke of it. I had some notion that he would stick his hanger through my stomach, but he thought better of that and got up and stalked out without so much as winking at me. He's a terrible fellow. I doubt if he does not some outrage to us for this.”

“Dear! Dear! What shall I do?” cried Desire, wringing her hands. “I must go. I can't stay here, shut up like a prisoner, I shall be sick and die.”

“Who knows,” said Mrs. Edwards, “what this ruffian may do next? He will stop at nothing. He will not much longer respect our house. He may force himself in any day. She is not safe here. I dare not have her stay another day.”

“I don't know what can be done, she can't get away without a pass,” replied Edwards. “It would do no good for me to ask him again. Perhaps the girl herself might coax a pass out of him. It's the only chance.”

“I coax him! I see him again! Oh I can't, I can't do that,” cried Desire with an air of overwhelming repugnance.

“I could leave the door ajar you know, Desire, and be ready to come into the room if he were unmannerly,” said her mother. “I think he's rather afraid of me. I'm afraid it's the only chance, as your father says, if you could but bring yourself to it.”

“Oh it doesn't seem as if I could. It doesn't seem as if I could,” cried the girl.

Perez did not come near the store for some days and it was on the street that Edwards next met him. The storekeeper was very cordial and made no further allusion to the pass. In the course of conversation he managed to make some reference to Desire's piano, and the curiosity the people seemed to feel about the novel instrument. He asked Perez if he had ever seen it, and Perez saying no, invited him to drop in that evening and hear Desire play a little. It is needless to say that the young man's surprise at the invitation did not prevent his accepting it. It would have melted the heart of his worst enemy to have seen how long he toiled that afternoon trying to refurbish his threadbare coat so white in the seams, and the rueful face with which he contemplated the result. On presenting himself at the store soon after dusk, Edwards at once ushered him into the parlor, and withdrew, saying that he must see to his business.

Desire sat at the piano, no one else being in the room. She looked rather pallid and thinner than when he had seen her last, but all the more interesting for this delicacy. There was, however, a far more striking alteration in her manner, for to his surprise she rose at his entrance, and came forward with a smile to greet him. He was delightfully bewildered.

“I scarcely know how to greet a Duke, for such I hear you are become,” said Desire with a profound curtsy and a bewitching tone of badinage.

Entirely taken aback, he murmured something inarticulate, about her piano.

“Would your grace like to have me play a little?” she asked, gaily.

He intimated that he would, and she at once sat down before the little instrument. It was scarcely more to be compared with the magnificent machines of our day than the flageolets of Virgil's shepherds with the cornet-a-piston of the modern star performer, but Mozart, Haydn, Handel, or Beethoven never lived to see a better. It was only about two feet across by four and a half in width, with a small square sounding board at the end. The almost threadlike wires, strung on a wooden frame, gave forth a thin and tinny sound which would instantaneously bring the hands of a modern audience to its ears. But to Perez it seemed divine, and when, too, Desire opened her mouth and sang, tears of genuine emotion filled his eyes. She was more richly dressed than he had ever seen her before, wearing a cherry colored silk bodice, low necked, and with bell mouthed sleeves reaching to her elbows only, while the rounded white arms were set off with coral bracelets, a necklace of the same material encircling her throat. Upon one cheek, a little below the outside corner of the eye she wore a small black patch, according to a fashion of the time, by way of heightening by contrast the delicacy of her complexion. The faint perfume with which she had completed her toilet, seemed less a perfume than the very breath of her beauty, the voluptuous effluence which it exhaled. Having played and sung for some time she let her hands drop by her side and raising her eyes to meet Perez' fascinated gaze, said lightly:

“Do you like it?” The most exacting performer would have been satisfied with the manner in which after a husky attempt to say something in reply, he bowed his head in silence.

“I'm glad you came in tonight,” she said, “for I want to ask something of you. Since you are Duke of Stockbridge we all have to ask favors of you, you see.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“Oh, dear me,” she said, laughing. “That's not the way people ask favors of kings and dukes. They make em promise to grant the favor first, and then tell em what it is. This is the way,” and with the words she dropped lightly on one knee before Perez, and with her clasped hands pressed against her bosom, raised her face up toward his, her eyes eloquent, of intoxicating submissiveness.

“If thine handmaiden has found grace in the sight of my lord, the duke, let my request be done even according to the prayer of my lips.”

Perez leaned forward toward the beautiful upward turning face.

“Whatever you want,” he murmured.

“To the half of my dukedom, you must say.”

“To the half of my dukedom,” he repeated, in a mechanical voice, not removing his eyes from hers.

“Do you pledge your honor?” she demanded, still retaining her position.

If he