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Dunstanbury smiled. "Because he's magnificent. I dare say you never heard of Lorenzo the Magnificent?"
"No. Who was he?"
"A Duke – Duke of Florence – in Italy." He had begun to watch her face, and seemed not impatient for the bone.
"Florence? Italy?" The lettuce dropped from her hands; she wiped her hands slowly on her apron.
"Do you think you could get me one?"
"Yes, I'll get it."
She went to the back of the room and chose a bone.
"Will this do?" she asked, holding it out through the window.
"Too much meat."
"Oh!" She went and got another. "This one all right?"
"Capital! Do you mind if I stay and see him eat it?"
"No."
"Here, Lorenzo! And thank the lady!"
Lorenzo directed three sharp barks at Sophy and fell to. Sophy filled and brought out a bowl of water. Lord Dunstanbury had lighted a cigar. But he was watching Sophy. A new light broke on him suddenly.
"I say, were you the other girl behind the gate?"
"I didn't mean you to see me."
"I only caught a glimpse of you. I remember your friend, though."
"She remembered you, too."
"I don't know her name, though."
"Julia Robins."
"Ah, yes – is it? He's about polished off that bone, hasn't he? Is she – er – a great friend of yours?"
His manner was perhaps a little at fault; the slightest note of chaff had crept into it; and the slightest was enough to put Sophy's quills up.
"Why not?" she asked.
"Why not? Every reason why she should be," he answered with his lips. His eyes answered more, but he refrained his tongue. He was scrupulously a gentleman – more so perhaps than, had sexes and places been reversed, Sophy herself would have been. But his eyes told her. "Only," he went on, "if so, why did you hide?"
That bit of chaff did not anger Sophy. But it went home to a different purpose – far deeper, far truer home than the young man had meant. Not the mark only reddened – even the cheeks flushed. She said no word. With a fling-out of her arms – a gesture strangely, prophetically foreign as it seemed to him in after-days – she exhibited herself – the print frock, the soiled apron, the bare arms, red hands, the ugly knot of her hair, the scrap of cap she wore. For a moment her lips quivered, while the mark – the Red Star of future days and future fame – grew redder still.
The only sound was of Lorenzo's worrying the last tough scrap of bone. The lad, gentleman as he was, was good flesh and blood, too – and the blood was moving. He felt a little tightness in his throat; he was new to it. New, too, was Sophy Grouch to what his eyes said to her, but she took it with head erect and a glance steadily levelled at his.
"Yes," he said. "But I shouldn't have looked at any of that – and I shouldn't have looked at her either."
Brightly the mark glowed; subtly the eyes glowed. There was silence again.
Almost a start marked Dunstanbury's awakening. "Come, Lorenzo!" he cried; he raised his hat and turned away, followed by his dog, Lorenzo the Magnificent.
Sophy took up her lettuces and carried them into the kitchen.
"There you are, at last! And what's put you in a temper now?" asked Mrs. Smilker. She had learned the signs of the mark.
Sophy smiled. "It's not temper this time, Mrs. Smilker. I – I'm very happy to-day," she said. "Oh, I do hope the salad will be good!"
For he who was to eat of the salad – had he not forgotten print frock and soiled apron, bare arms, red hands, ugly knot, and execrable cap? He would not have looked at them – no, nor at beautiful many-tinted Julia Robins in her pride! He had forgotten all these to look at the stained cheek and the eyes of subtle glow. She had glanced in the mirror of love and sipped from the cup of power.
Such was her first meeting with Lord Dunstanbury. If it were ever forgotten, it was not Dunstanbury who forgot.
The day had wrought much in her eyes; it had wrought more than she dreamed of. Her foot was near the ladder now, though she could not yet see the lowest rung.
IV
FATE'S WAY – OR LADY MEG'S
The scene is at Hazleby, Lord Dunstanbury's Essex seat. His lordship is striking the top off his breakfast egg.
"I say, Cousin Meg, old Brownlow's got a deuced pretty kitchen-maid."
"There you go! There you go! Just like your father, and your grandfather, and all of them! If the English people had any spirit, they'd have swept the Dunstanburys and all the wicked Whig gang into the sea long ago."
"Before you could turn round they'd have bought it up, enclosed it, and won an election by opening it to ships at a small fee on Sundays," said Mr. Pindar.
"Why are Whigs worse than Tories?" inquired Mr. Pikes, with an air of patient inquiry.
"The will of Heaven, I suppose," sniffed Lady Margaret Duddington.
"To display Divine Omnipotence in that line," suggested Mr. Pindar.
"A deuced pretty girl!" said Dunstanbury, in reflective tones. He was doing his best to reproduce the impression he had received at Morpingham Hall, but obviously with no great success.
"On some pretext, frivolous though it be, let us drive over and see this miracle," Pindar suggested.
"How could we better employ this last day of our visit? You'll drive us over, Percival?"
"No, thank you, Mr. Pindar," said the young man, resolute in wisdom. "I'll send you over, if you like."
"I'll come with you," said Pikes. "But how account for ourselves? Old Brownlow is unknown to us."
"If Percival had been going, I'd have had nothing to do with it, but I don't mind taking you two old sillies," said Lady Margaret. "I wanted to pay a call on Elizabeth Brownlow anyhow. We were at school together once. But I won't guarantee you a sight of the kitchen-maid."
"It's a pretty drive – for this part of the country," observed Dunstanbury.
"It may well become your favorite road," smiled Mr. Pindar, benevolently.
"And since Lady Meg goes with us, it's already ours," added Mr. Pikes, gallantly.
So they used to go on – for hours at a time, as Dunstanbury has declared – both at Hazleby when they were there, and at Lady Meg's house in Berkeley Square, where they almost always were. They were pleased to consider themselves politicians – Pikes a Whig, twenty years behind date, Pindar a Tory, two hundred. It was all an affectation – assumed for the purpose, but with the very doubtful result of amusing Lady Meg. To Dunstanbury the two old waifs – for waifs of the sea of society they were, for all that each had a sufficient income to his name and a reputable life behind him – were sheerly tiresome – and there seems little ground to differ from his opinion. But they were old family friends, and he endured with his usual graciousness.
Their patroness – they would hardly have gibed at the word – was a more notable person. Lady Meg – the world generally, and Sophy always, spoke of her by that style, and we may take the same liberty – was only child of the great Earl of Dunstanbury. The title and estates passed to his grandnephew, but half a million or so of money came to her. She took the money, but vowed, with an outspoken thankfulness, that from the Dunstanbury family she had taken nothing else. If the boast were true, there must have been a powerful strain of eccentricity and perversity derived from elsewhere. All the Dunstanbury blood was Whig; Lady Meg counted the country ruined in 1688. Even Dunstanbury had been a man of sensibility; Lady Meg declared war on emotion – especially on the greatest of all emotions. The Dunstanbury attitude in thought had always been free, even tending to the materialistic; Lady Meg would believe in anything – so long as she couldn't see it. A queer woman, choosing to go to war with the world and infinitely enjoying the gratuitous conflict which she had herself provoked! With half a million pounds and the Duddington blood one can afford these recondite luxuries – and to have a Pindar and a Pikes before whom to exhibit their rare flavor. She was aggressive, capricious, hard to live with. Fancies instead of purposes, whims instead of interests, and not, as it seems, much affection for anybody – she makes rather a melancholy picture; but in her time she made a bit of a figure, too.
The air of the household was stormy that day at Morpingham – an incentive to the expedition, not a deterrent, for Lady Meg, had she known it. Sophy was in sore disgrace – accused, tried, and convicted of insubordination and unseemly demeanor towards Mrs. Smilker. The truth seems to be that this good woman (Rest her soul! She has a neat tombstone in Morpingham church-yard) loved – like many another good creature – good ale sometimes a trifle too well; and the orders she gave when ale had been plentiful did not always consort with her less-mellow injunctions. In no vulgar directness, but with a sarcasm which Mrs. Smilker felt without understanding, Sophy would point out these inconsistencies. Angered and humiliated, fearful too, perhaps, that her subordinate would let the secret out, Mrs. Smilker made haste to have the first word with the powers; and against the word of the cook the word of the cook-maid weighed as naught. After smaller troubles of this origin there had come a sort of crisis to-day. The longest of long lectures had been read to Sophy by mistress and repeated (slightly condensed) by master; then she was sent away to think it over; an abject apology to outraged Mrs. Smilker must be forthcoming, or banishment was the decree. Informed of this ultimatum, Sophy went out and hung about the avenue, hoping for Julia to appear. Soon Julia came and heard the story. She had indignation in readiness, and – what was more to the purpose – a plan. Soon Sophy's eyes grew bright.
Into this storm-tossed house came Lady Meg and her spaniels. This unkind name, derived at first from the size and shape of Mr. Pindar's ears (they were large, and hung over at the top), had been stretched to include Mr. Pikes also, with small loss of propriety. Both gentlemen were low of stature, plump of figure, hairy on the face; both followed obediently at the heels of commanding Lady Meg. The amenities of the luncheon-table opened hearts. Very soon the tale of Sophy's iniquities was revealed; incidentally, and unavoidably if Sophy's heinous fault were to appear in its true measure, the tally of the Brownlows' benevolence was reckoned. But Mrs. Brownlow won small comfort from Lady Meg: she got a stiff touch of the truth.
"Ran in and out of the drawing-room!" she said. "Did she? The truth is, Lizzie, you've spoiled her, and now you're angry with her for being spoiled."
"What is she now, Mrs. Brownlow?" asked Pindar, with a sly intention. Was this Percival's deuced pretty girl?
"She works in the kitchen, Mr. Pindar."
"The girl!" his eyes signalled to Mr. Pikes. "Let Lady Meg see her," he urged, insinuatingly. "She has a wonderful way with girls."
"I don't want to see her; and I know your game, Pindar," said Lady Meg.
"I'm afraid she must go," sighed Mrs. Brownlow. Her husband said, more robustly, that such an event would be a good riddance – a saying repeated, with the rest of the conversation, by the butler (one William Byles, still living) to the gratified ears of Mrs. Smilker in the kitchen.
"But I'm not easy about her future. She's an odd child, and looks it."
"Pretty?" This from Mr. Pindar.
"Well, I don't know. Striking-looking, you'd rather say, perhaps, Mr. Pindar."
"Let her go her own way. We've talked quite enough about her." Lady Meg sounded decisive – and not a little bored.
"And then" – Mrs. Brownlow made bold to go on for a moment – "such a funny mark! Many people wouldn't like it, I'm sure."
Lady Meg turned sharply on her. "Mark? What do you mean? What mark?"
"A mark on her face, you know. A round, red mark – "
"Big as a threepenny bit, pretty nearly," said the Squire.
"Where?"
"On her cheek."
"Where is the girl?" asked Lady Meg. Her whole demeanor had changed, her bored air had vanished. "She seemed fair excited," Mr. Byles reports. Then she turned to the said Byles: "Find out where that girl is, and let me know. Don't tell her anything about it. I'll go to her."
"But let me send for her – " began the Squire, courteously.
"No, give me my own way. I don't want her frightened."
The Squire gave the orders she desired, and the last Mr. Byles heard as he left the room was from Lady Meg:
"Marks like that always mean something – eh, Pindar?"
No doubt Mr. Pindar agreed, but his reply is lost.
The girls in the avenue had made their plan. Sophy would not bow her head to Mrs. Smilker, nor longer eat the bread of benevolence embittered by servitude. She would go with Julia; she, too, would tread the boards – if only she could get her feet on them; and when did any girl seriously doubt her ability to do that? The pair were gay and laughing, when suddenly through the gate came Lady Meg and the spaniels – Lady Meg ahead as usual, and with a purposeful air.
"Who are they?" cried Sophy.
Hazleby is but twelve miles from Morpingham. Julia had been over to see the big house, and had sighted Lady Meg in the garden.
"It's Lady Margaret Duddington," she whispered, rather in a fright. There was time for no more. Lady Meg was upon them. Sophy was identified by her dress, and, to Lady Meg's devouring eyes, by the mark.
"You're the girl who's been behaving so badly?" she said.
Seeing no profit in arguing the merits, Sophy answered "Yes."
At this point Julia observed one old gentleman nudge the other and whisper something; it is morally certain that Pindar whispered to Pikes: "Percival's girl!"
"You seem to like your own way. What are you going to do? Say you're sorry?"
"No. I'm not sorry. I'm going away."
"Come here, girl, let me look at you."
Sophy obeyed, walking up to Lady Meg and fixing her eyes on her face. She was interested, not frightened, as it seemed. Lady Meg looked long at her.
"Going away? Where to?"
Julia spoke up. "She's coming with me, please, Lady Margaret." Julia, it would seem, was a little frightened.
"Who are you?"
"Julia Robins. My mother lives there." She pointed to Woodbine Cottage. "I – I'm on the stage – "
"Lord help you!" remarked Lady Meg, disconcertingly.
"Not at all!" protested Julia, her meaning plain, her expression of it faulty. "And I – I'm going to help her to – to get an engagement. We're friends."
"What's she going to do with that on the stage?" Lady Meg's forefinger almost touched the mark.
"Oh, that's all right, Lady Margaret. Just a little cold cream and powder – "
"Nasty stuff!" said Lady Meg.
A pause followed, Lady Meg still studying Sophy's face. Then, without turning round, she made a remark obviously addressed to the gentlemen behind her:
