the first time that the black duke saw her she was laughing—and the last time that he saw her she was laughing, too.
he and a ruddy-faced companion had fared forth doggedly into the long summer twilight in quest of some amusement to dispel the memory of the extravagantly gloomy little dinner that they had shared at the club, followed by a painful hour over admirable port and still more admirable cigars. it was august, and london was empty as a drum of the pretty faces and pretty hats and pretty voices that made it tolerable at times—it was as dry and dusty as life itself, and john saint michael beauclerc, ninth duke of bolingham, tramping along the dull street beside a dull comrade, thought to himself with a sudden alien passion that youth was a poor thing to look back on, and age an ugly thing to look forward to, and middle age worse than either. he scowled down magnificently from his great height at the once-gregarious banford, whose flushed countenance bore the consternation of one who has made a bad231 bargain and sees no way out of it—no duke lived who was worth such an evening, said gaddy banford’s hunted eyes. this particular duke eyed him sardonically.
“close on to nine,” he said. “well, then, what time does this holy paragon do her turn?”
“about nine,” replied his unhappy host. “but, i say, you know, i don’t want to drag you around if you’d rather not. she’s frightfully good in her line, but if dancing bores you——”
“you’re dashed considerate all at once,” remarked his guest. “if i haven’t cracked by now, i fancy i’ll live through the best dancing of the century. that’s what you called it, wasn’t it? here, you!”
he waved an imperious hand at a forlorn hansom clattering down the silent street, and it jolted to a halt under one of the gas lamps. for it was not in this century that the duke of bolingham met miss biddy o’rourke. no, it was in a century when hansom cabs and gas lamps were commonplaces—when ladies wore bonnets like butterflies on piled-up ringlets, and waltzed for hours in satin slippers and kid gloves two sizes too small for them—when gentlemen cursed eloquently but noiselessly because maidens whisked yards of tulle and tarlatan behind them when they danced—a century of faded flowers and fresh sentiments and232 enormous sleeves—of conservatories and cotillions and conventions—of long, long letters and little perfumed notes—of intrigues over tea tables, and coaching parties to the races, and parma violets, and pretty manners, and broken hearts. a thousand years ago, you might think, but after all it was only around the corner of the last century that the duke of bolingham stepped into the decrepit hansom closely followed by his unwilling retainer, and in no uncertain tones bade the driver proceed to the liberty music hall.
he sat cloaked in silence while they drove, his heavy shoulders hunched up, his eyes half closed, brooding like a despoiled monarch and a cheated child over the sorry trick that life had played him. he had had everything—and he had found nothing worth having. he had the greatest fortune in england—and one of the greatest names. he had beaton house, the georgian miracle that was all london’s pride—and gray courts, that dream of sombre beauty, that was all england’s pride—gray courts that even now held his three tall, black-browed sons who could shoot and hunt and swear as well as any in the country—yes, even fourteen-year roddy. that held, too, a collection of spanish and portuguese armour second to none, and a collection of van dykes first of any, and the finest clipped yew hedge in a thousand miles.233 that held the ladies pamela, clarissa, maud, and charlotte, his good sisters, too acidulous to find a husband between them, for all their great dowers and name and accomplishments. that for six long years had held the lady alicia honoria fortescue, a poor, sad, dull little creature, married in a moment of pity and illusion when they were both young enough to know better, who had gone in mortal terror of him from the night that they crossed the threshold of the damask room to the day that they laid her away under the kind marble in the little chapel.
he sat huddled in the corner of the hansom, remembering with the same shock of sick amazement his despair at the discovery of her fear of him; it still haunted every tapestried corridor of gray courts—every panelled hall in beaton house—he set his teeth and turned his head, and swore that he would take the next boat to france and drink himself to death in cannes. and the hansom cab stopped.
gaddy banford had two seats in the first row of stalls; had ’em for every night that the lady danced, he informed the duke with chastened pride. the duke, trampling over the outraged spectators with more than royal indifference, eyed him grimly.
“spend the rest of your valuable time hanging round the stage door, what?” he inquired audibly.
234 five of the outraged spectators said “sh-s-h,” and the duke, squaring about in his seat, favoured them with so black a glance that the admonitions died on their lips and apologies gathered in their eyes. banford smiled nervously and ingratiatingly.
“oh, rather not—no, no, nothing of that kind whatever. she doesn’t go in for stage-door meetings, you know. i’ve had the honour of meeting the lady twice and she’s most frightfully jolly and all that, but——”
“sh-h-h,” enjoined one rebellious spirit, studiously avoiding the duke’s eye. that gentleman remarked “ha!” with derisive inflection and turned a contemptuous eye on the stage. a very large and apparently intoxicated mouse was chasing a small and agitated cat with rhythmic zest, the two having concluded the more technical portion of their programme, in which they had ably defended against all comers their engaging title of the “jolly joralomons, europe, asia, africa, and america’s most unique and mirth compelling acrobats, tumblers, and jugglers.” the jolly joralomons scampered light-heartedly off, rolling their equipment of bright balls before them with dexterous paws, and capered back even more light-heartedly to blow grateful kisses off the tips of their whiskers to an enraptured audience, with which the duke of bolingham was all too obviously not in accord.
235 “gad!” he remarked with appalled conviction. “death’s too good for them! here, let’s get out of this while i’ve got strength——”
banford lifted a pleading hand. there was a warning roll of drums, a preliminary lilt of violins, and the orchestra swung triumphantly into the “biddy waltz”—the waltz that all london had revolved to for three good months. the house sighed like a delighted child, and far up in the gallery an ecstatic voice called “ah, there, lassie!” and another echoed “come ahn, biddy—alf and me’s ’ere!”
and onto a stage that was black as night, with one great bound as though she had leapt through infinite space from a falling star into the small safe circle of the spotlight, came biddy o’rourke, straight on the tips of her silver toes, with laughter for a dark world in both her outstretched hands—and the piece of the world that faced her rose to its feet and shouted a welcome. all but one.
the black duke of bolingham sat square in the centre in the first row of seats in the liberty music hall as still as though he had been struck down by lightning, with the “biddy waltz” rising and falling about him unheeded, his eyes fixed incredulously on the vision in the spotlight. the vision had already fixed the eyes and turned the heads and broken the hearts of half the masculine population236 of london (the other half not having seen her!) but nothing that the duke had heard had prepared him for this.
who could have told him that a music hall dancer called biddy o’rourke, late of dublin, no taller than a child and seventeen years old to the day, could look like a fairy and an angel and an imp and a witch and a dream? not gaddy banford, of a certainty—not gaddy, who, in a burst of lyric enthusiasm, had confided to his duke that she was little and blonde and light on her feet. “little”—you who were more fantastically minute than any elf, biddy! blonde—oh, sacrilege, to dismiss thus that foam and froth of curls cresting and bubbling about your gay head like champagne, with the same pure glitter of pale gold—that skin of pearl beneath which danced little flames of rose fire—those eyes, bluer than anything on earth—blue as the skies and seas and flowers that haunt our dreams. light on your feet—oh, biddy, you, who soared and floated and drifted like a feather in the wind, like a butterfly gone mad—like a flying leaf and a dancing star! had he said that you had a nose tilted as a flower petal, and a mouth that tilted, too? had he said that when you blew across the dark stage that you would be arrayed in silver brighter than foam and white more airy than clouds? had he said that you would dance not237 only with those miraculous toes but with your curls and with your lashes and with your lips and with your heart? had he said that you would come laughing, little biddy?
high on the tips of those incredible toes she came—nearer and nearer, so swift and light and sure that it seemed to bolingham’s dazzled eyes that it would take less than a breath to blow her over that barrier of light straight into his arms—straight into his heart—into his tired and lonely heart. he leaned forward, and the vision of gold and silver stared back at him, faltered, tilted forward on her toes, and flung down to him the airy music of her mirth.
“oh, i couldn’t any more dance with you looking like that than i could grow feathers!” cried the vision. “no, not if saint patrick himself were to bid me. whatever in the whole world’s the matter?”
the audience stopped howling its delirious approval at their biddy’s appearance in order to revel in their biddy’s chaff. no one could chaff like biddy—no one nearer than cork, at any rate. it was better than seeing her dance to listen to her laugh, gentle as a lamb, and pert as a monkey, and gay as a bank holiday. free as air, too; if any of those johnnies in the stalls tried any of their nonsense, it was a fair treat to hear her give ’em what238 for! the audience stood on tiptoes and shoved and elbowed in riotous good humour in their efforts to locate her latest victim—that great black fellow with shoulders like a prize-fighter, likely. the great black fellow promptly gratified their fondest expectations by falling into the silver net of biddy’s laughter and answering her back.
“thanks,” he replied distinctly. “nothing in the whole world’s the matter—now.”
“whatever were you thinkin’ to make you scowl the big black ogre himself then?”
and the black duke replied as clearly as though he were addressing the lady in the hush of the rose garden at gray courts instead of in the presence of the largest and most hilarious audience in london.
“i was wondering how in god’s name i was going to get to you quickly enough to tell you what i was thinking before i burst with it.”
the transfixed gaddy tottered where he stood, and the audience howled unqualified approval, even while they waited for her to pin him to the wall with her reply. but biddy only came a step nearer, staring down at him with the strangest look of wonder and delight and enchanted mischief.
“oh, whatever must you think of me, not knowing you at all?” she cried to him over the muted239 lilt of her waltz. “’twas the lights in my eyes, maybe—or maybe the lights in yours. it’s the foolish creature i am anyway you put it. would you be waiting for ten minutes?”
“no,” said his grace firmly.
“seven?”
“it’ll kill me,” said his grace. “where will you be?”
“there’s a wee door over beyond the red curtain,” said biddy. “you go through that, and you’re in an alley as black as a pit, and you take three steps—no, with the legs you have you can do it in two with no trouble at all—and there’ll be another door with a fine big light over it, and i’ll be under the light. don’t die.”
“no,” said his grace. “i won’t.”
“play it faster than that,” biddy cried to her stupefied musicians, once more poised high on her silver toes. “ah, it’s the poor, slow, thumb-fingered creatures you are, the lot of you! play it fast as my aunt dasheen’s spotted kitten chasin’ its tail or i’ll dance holes in your drums for you—weren’t you after hearin’ that i have five minutes to do three great dances? it’s black-hearted fiends you are, with your dawdlin’ and your ditherin’. ah, darlin’s, come on now—spin it faster than that for the poor dyin’ gentleman and the girl that’s goin’ to save him!”
240 and with a flash and a dip and a swirl she was off, and the black duke was off, too. gaddy banford put up a feeble clamour as his guest swept by him toward the aisle.
“oh, but my dear fellow—no, but i say, wait a bit—she’s simply chaffing you, you know; she’ll never in the world be there for a minute——”
“hand over my stick, will you?” inquired the duke affably. “you’ve no earthly use for two. and don’t come trotting along after me, either. she’s not expecting you, you know—rather not.” he swung buoyantly off toward the red curtain, bestowing a benign nod on the now deliriously diverted audience.
“take a chair along, matey!” “want a mornin’ paper? come in ’andy to pass away the time!” “fetch ’im ’is tea at nine, bertie—’e’ll need it bad.” “don’t you wait for her no more than twenty-four hours, ole dear—promise us that, now——”
“bolingham, i say——” panted the unfortunate gaddy. “i say, someone must have tipped her off, you know!”
“tipped her off?”
“told her who you were, you know?”
the duke laughed aloud and gaddy banford, who had never heard him do this, jumped badly.
“d’you know what i’ve been wondering,241 gaddy? i’ve been wondering how the deuce i was going to own up to her—a duke’s such a damn potty thing, when you come down to it. why the devil didn’t someone make me emperor of russia?”
he brushed aside the red curtain, grinned once more into banford’s stunned countenance, and passed with one great stride through the door into the black alley. the door swung to behind him, and he stood leaning against it for a minute, savouring the wonder and the magic that he had fallen heir to. there was a drift of music in the alley—the sky was powdered thick with stars—the air was sweet as flowers against his face. he drew a deep breath, and turned his head; and there she stood beneath the light, with a black scarf over her golden head and a black cloak over her silver dress—and it took him two strides to reach her, as she had said. she had one hand to her heart and was breathing quickly in little light gasps, as though she had come running.
“were you waitin’ long?” she asked. “i never stopped at all to change a stitch and dear knows ’twas a sin how i cheated on that last one—no more than a flout and a spin, and not that maybe; only i was afraid for my soul you’d be gone. was it long you waited?”
“forty-two years,” said his grace. “forty-two years and three days.”
242 he watched the rose flood up to her lashes at that, but the joyous eyes never swerved from his.
“ah, well,” she murmured, “i waited seventeen my own self, and i not half the size of you—no higher than your pocket, if you come to look. i can’t think at all what you’ve been doing with yourself all that time.”
“don’t think—ever,” he said. “i’ve done nothing worth a moment’s thought but miss you.”
“have you missed me then, truly?” she whispered. “oh, it’s from farther than cork i’d come to hear you say that; i’d come from heaven itself, may the saints there forgive me. say it again, quick!”
“i’ve missed you since the day i drew breath,” he told her, and his voice shook. “every day that i’ve lived has been black and bare and cold without you—blackest because i never knew i’d find you. biddy, is it true? things don’t happen like this, do they? no one out of a dream ever had such hair—no one out of a fairy tale such eyes! biddy, would you laugh like that if it were a dream?”
“i would that,” she remarked with decision. “it’s a fine dream and a grand fairy tale and the truest truth you ever heard in your life. i knew ’twas you even when you were scowlin’, but those243 lights were in my eyes, so i couldn’t be sure till you smiled.”
“biddy, how did you know?”
she pushed the scarf back from those golden bubbles with a gay gesture of impatience.
“well, why wouldn’t i know? that’s a queer way to talk to a bright girl! didn’t my own aunt dasheen, she that was all the family i had till i ran off and took london for one, tell me that i’d be the grandest dancer that ever leapt, and marry the finest gentleman that ever walked, as big as a giant and black as a devil and handsome as a king? and she ought to know, surely, what with reading in tea and clear water as quick as you and me in the good book. it was the wicked, cunning old thing she was, god rest her soul.”
“is she dead?”
“she is that,” replied aunt dasheen’s niece cheerfully. “or i’d never be here to tell it. she kept tight hold of me as if i were a bit of gold, for all that she sorrowed and sang how i was more trouble to her than any monkey from egypt. if tim murphy and his brothers hadn’t been coming to show the londoners how to juggle glass balls and brought me along to hold the things, i’d be in the wee room tending the fire and the kitten this minute, instead of standing under a light in a silver dress with my heart in my hands.”
244 “i wish i could thank her,” said the duke.
“it’s little enough you have to thank her for,” replied his biddy blithely. “she was crosser than most and cooler than any, god help her. ’twas that spotted kitten she loved; if she hadn’t seen the bit about me in the tea, she’d have dropped me straight out of the window. but there was my grand gentleman and the rest of it to give her patience. ‘wed at seventeen, dead at——’” she caught back the words as deftly as tim murphy’s glass balls, with a triumphant shake of her curls. “‘death to your dancing,’ she’d keep saying. you could thank her for that, maybe—or perhaps ’twas because i danced you stopped scowling, and you’ll not want me to leave off?”
“biddy, it’s true then—you’re only seventeen?” his voice was touched with a strange pain and wonder.
“hear him, now—only, indeed! i’m seventeen the day.”
“and i past forty-two!”
“are you no more than that?” she asked softly. “however in all the world could you get so great and grand and fine in that little while?”
“oh,” he cried. “does laughter take the sting from all that’s ugly? laugh again then; there’s worse still. lord help us, darling—i’m a duke!”
“is that all?” she inquired regretfully. “i’d245 have thought a king at the least. well, come, there’s no helping it—’tis not all of us get our deserts in this wicked world.”
“biddy,” he begged. “laugh at this, too, will you? try, try, dear, before it hurts us. i have three sons, biddy. i’ve been married before.”
she put her other hand to her heart at that, but she kept her lips curved.
“it’s small wonder,” she said. “why wouldn’t you have been? i’m the shameless one to say it, but if i’d been ten girls instead of one, it’s ten times you’d have been married.”
he put his arms about her then, and something broke in his heart—something cold and hard and bitter. he wanted to tell her that, but he could find no words, because he was only a duke, and not a very articulate one at that. but the small shining creature in his arms had words enough for two.
“were you thinking of wedding again, maybe?”
“oh, biddy,” he cried, “let’s hurry!”
“if you’re asking me,” she said, “i’d say we were hurrying fast and free. i can hear the air whistlin’ in my ears, i can that. was she a fine lady, darling?”
“who?” he asked—and remembered—and forgot her for all time. “oh, she was a very fine lady, and good, and gentle, too. she died long ago.”
246 “did she, poor thing?” whispered the future duchess of bolingham softly, the cloud in the blue, blue eyes gone for ever. “and me no good at all. i wonder at you! are they little young things, your sons?”
“the smallest’s big enough to put you in his pocket,” he said. “biddy, let’s hurry. i know an archbishop that we could have fix it to-night—i know two, if it comes to that. one of ’em was my godfather.”
“well, you could know six, and ’twould be all the good it would do you,” commented his biddy serenely. “i know one old priest, and his name’s father leary, and ’twill be a bitter grief to him, but he may do it, since he’s one of the saints themselves and terrible fond of a bad girl. archbishop, indeed!”
“let’s find him, then, and tell him. i’ll——”
“we’ll not, then. he’s a poor old man that needs his sleep, and we’re two mad things that should know better. see the stars, darlin’; they’re the cool little things. we must do nothing in haste, except leave this door, maybe. the whole lot of them will be out on us like a lot of ravening wolves any minute. wherever can we go?”
“we can go and get married,” said the duke of bolingham, who was a simple and determined individual. “i’ll get——”
247 “you might get a hansom——” biddy danced in rapture on the tips of her toes. “you might get that one there, and we could ride a hundred miles or so, and watch how cool the stars are. i never was long enough in one in my life to get over feeling sad that soon it would stop, an’ i’d have to be off and out. would you get one—would you?”
the duke raised his hand to the hansom, and it crawled toward them dubiously. the small dancing creature on the pavement looked frankly incredible, both to the horse and the driver, but the large black one looked as though it knew its mind. the two of them got in quickly, and the small one tilted back her shining head against the great one’s shoulder, sighing rapturously, while the black cloak fell open, and her skirts frothed about her in a manner scandalous to behold.
“where to?” inquired the cabby with severity.
“oh, what matter at all where to?” cried the incredible small one. “a hundred miles or so any way at all, just so we can see those stars go out; they’re that cool and calm it’s an aggravation.”
“drive straight ahead—a hundred miles,” said the great one in so terrifying a tone that the cabby gave one sharp pant and started on his pilgrimage. roaring drunk or plain barmy, the large occupant of the cab was all too plainly one to be humoured.
“would a hundred miles bring us to dawn?”248 inquired the smaller lunatic. “oh, i’d rather a dawn than a parade any day there is, though sleeping’s a grand thing, too.”
“when will you marry me?” demanded the duke.
“we must be that wise and cool we’ll put the stars to shame,” she said dreamily. “how many days would there be in a year? i’ve no head for figures at all.”
“a year?” protested the stricken duke fiercely. “three hundred and sixty-five days? you couldn’t—you couldn’t——”
biddy raised her hand to the silver laces above her heart with the strangest little look of wonder.
“three hundred and sixty-five?” she whispered. “no more than that? no more than that—for sure?”
“no more?” he cried. “why, it’s a lifetime—it’s eternity——”
“ah, and so it is,” said his biddy. “well, then, let’s be wise as the stars—and wait till morning. father leary, he’s an old man, and he wakes at dawn; ’tis himself that says so. he’ll marry us then if i have to do penance for the rest of my days. three hundred and sixty-five, you say? you’re right—oh, you’re right. ’tis a lifetime!”
and so at dawn biddy o’rourke became the duchess of bolingham, and the greatest scandal of249 the century broke over a waking city. things like that don’t happen, you say—no, things like that don’t happen, except in real life or in fairy tales. but if you had asked the duke or his duchess, they could have told you that this was real life—and a fairy tale.
they drove down to gray courts behind a pair of bright bays called castor and pollux that same day, in a high trap of black and scarlet, with fawn-coloured cushions. the duke drove, and the duchess sat perched beside him in a great red postillion’s coat from redfern with a ruby ring as big as the pope’s on her finger and a hat no larger than a poppy tilted over one eye. it had a little red feather in it that wagged violently every time the bays lifted a foot, and her grace’s tongue wagged more violently than the feather.
“is it a castle you live in, darlin’?”
“it’ll be a castle once you’re in it. who ever heard of a princess that didn’t live in a castle?”
“is it terrible big and black and grand, like you?”
“terrible—you couldn’t tell us apart.”
“do your great sons live there all by themselves?”
“oh, rather not. they live there with two tutors and a trainer and an old nurse and four aunts, besides all the hounds and horses and grooms250 and jockeys and farriers that they can wedge into the stables.”
“the saints keep us!” invoked biddy with heartfelt piety. “was it four aunts you said?”
“oh, god forgive me, i clean forgot ’em!” the duke’s cry was quite as heartfelt, but it lacked piety. “no, i swear that’s the truth. i sent a messenger down this morning with a letter for noll, but not one of the lot of them entered my head—biddy, biddy, if i’d remembered, i’d have taken you somewhere else.”
“ah, well, it can’t be helped, darlin’. it’s glad news and golden that i’ve driven the thought of four grand ladies clear out of your head, and it’s small fault of yours that so much as a whisper of the word aunt makes the soles of my feet grow cold and the hairs of my head rise up on end. if you’d known my father’s sister dasheen you’d never wonder! maybe the four of these are nice old bodies?”
“and maybe they’re not!” remarked the duke. “gad, but i’d give a thousand pound to have them hear you calling them nice old bodies. clarissa, now——”
he gave such a shout of laughter that the off bay swerved and biddy had to clutch at his sleeve to keep from falling.
“are they just young aunts then?” she inquired hopefully.
251 the duke let the bays fend for themselves while he kissed the ridiculous hand and the dancing feather and both of the small corners of her smile.
“beautiful, wait till you see them! they’re not aunts at all, heaven help us—they’re sisters! one of their noses would make four of yours, and every last one of them is more like queen elizabeth in her prime than any one going around england these days. they have fine bones and high heads and eyes like ripe hearts of icicles and tongues like serpents’ tails dipped in vinegar.”
“have they now!” remarked her grace pensively. “well, ’twill not be dull at gray courts, i can tell that from here. was elizabeth the cross heathen that snipped the head off the pretty light one home from france?”
“i wish i’d had your history teacher,” said the duke with emphasis. “i spent years on end learning less about the ladies that you’ve put in a dozen words. i shouldn’t wonder if cross heathens described the lot as well as anything else. i was a cross heathen myself till half-past nine last night.”
“never say it!” cried his biddy. “you’ve a heart of gold and a tongue of silver, and i’m the girl that knows. ’tis likely they’ll love me no better than the cross one loved the pretty one, then?”
“’tis likely they’ll love you less,” prophesied the252 duke accurately, “since they can’t snip off your head!”
biddy’s laughter was a flight of silver birds.
“then since it’s sorrow we’re goin’ to,” she begged, “let’s go easy. make the horses step soft and slow, darlin’; ’tis the prettiest evening in all the world, and i’m that high up i can see clear over the great green hedges into the wee green gardens. i doubt if it’ll smell any better in heaven!”
“i doubt if it’ll smell half as sweet,” he said. “if we go slow we’ll miss our dinner.”
“ah, let’s miss our dinner!” she begged. “did we not eat all those little fat quail and those great fat peaches for our lunch? i’d rather sup on the lights that’ll be coming out behind the window-panes while we pass, and the stars that’ll slip through the sky while we’re not looking, and the smell of gilly-flowers and lavender warm against the walls. maybe if we go slow, we might have a slip of new moon for dessert—maybe if we go slower than that, the horses will know what it’s all about, and let you hold one of my hands.”
and so the horses did, and so he did, and it was long past dinner when the duke and his duchess drove through the gates of gray courts, and swept proudly up the long alley with its great beech trees to the door where grooms and butlers and housekeepers and maids and men enough to start a253 republic came running sedately to greet them. the duke stood them off with a gesture and held out both his hands to help his duchess down from her throne, and she laid her finger-tips in his and reached the threshold high on her toes.
“this,” said the duke with a pride that made his former arrogance seem humility, “is her grace.”
he swung her through the carved doors before the most skillful of them could do more than gape or sketch a curtsey—in the great stone hall with the flagged floor and the two fireplaces built by giants to burn oak trees she looked smaller than a child and brighter than a candle. she stood smiling as warmly at the cold and hollow suits of armour, with their chilled gleam of steel and gold and silver and the jaded plumes drooping in their helmets, as though they were her brothers, and the dun-coloured hound lying with his nose on his paws blinked twice, and rose slowly, in his huge grace, and strolled to where she stood gleaming, thrusting his great head beneath her hand.
“oh, the wonder he is!” she cried. “what will i call him?”
“his name’s merlin,” the duke told her, and he put his arm about her in full sight of the stunned household. “he knows a witch as well as the one he was named for. layton, where are my sisters?”
254 “their ladyships have retired to their rooms, your grace.”
“good!” replied his grace distinctly. “where are my sons?”
“their lordships drove over late this afternoon for a dinner and theatricals at the marquis of dene’s, your grace.”
“better!” said his grace. “then shall we go to our room, biddy? we’ve not eaten; send some claret and fruit and cold fowl—what else, biddy?”
“some little cakes stuffed full with raisins, if there’re any about,” suggested her grace hopefully.
“cakes,” commanded the duke of bolingham in a voice that would have raised cakes from the stone flags. “will you have a maid, biddy?”
“whatever for?” inquired biddy with candid interest. “i’ve still the use of all ten of my fingers, and you’d be there to help if i broke one, wouldn’t you?”
“yes,” said the duke, his arm closing faster about her, his voice shaken. “no maid. is the room ready, layton?”
“quite ready, your grace.” layton seized the great black dressing-case with the gold locks and the little snakeskin jewel case that biddy had pounced on in bond street that morning, and james swung up the huge pigskin bags of his255 grace, and potter appeared from somewhere with fruit and wine, and durkin from nowhere with a silver basket of small cakes, and a very young gentleman called tunbridge appeared with candles that were larger than he. the duke and the duchess followed this procession up the dark splendour of the stairs, with merlin padding superbly behind his witch. when they reached the landing the procession swung to the right.
“here!” called bolingham. “which room?”
“the damask room, your grace.”
“no,” said his grace. “no.” he did not raise his voice, but his fingers crushed down desperately on the light ones lying in his. “we’ll use the blue room.”
the agitated voice of the housekeeper cried, “oh, your grace, it’s not ready!”
“make it ready—flowers, candles, linen. be quick.”
they were quick. feet ran, hands flew, while the duke and his duchess stood waiting in the room in which a king had slept and a prince had died, and which for a hundred years had stood empty of life, save when some awed visitor tiptoed across the threshold, marvelling at its more than royal beauty—its walls stretched with velvet blue and deep as night, its painted beams, its hooded fireplace, its great bed around which the velvet curtains swept,256 brave with their golden tudor roses; quick hands now brought other roses, wine-red in silver bowls, to sweeten the air, and sticks of wood to light a fire to warm it, for even august turned chilly in that magnificence; they spread a gay feast before the flames and fine linen on the bed; they brought high candelabra wrought of silver, more of them and more of them, until the shadows wavered and danced, and the new duchess clapped her hands and danced, too.
“that enough?” the duke asked her.
“oh, ’tis enough to light the way from here to the pole! i’d not have said there were so many candles in all the world.”
“right,” said the duke to his servitors briefly. “that’s all, then. good-night.”
and the quick hands and the quick feet were gone, and the duke was left alone with his duchess.
“it’s not too cold?” he asked.
“no, no!” she said. “it’s fine and warm.”
“it’s not too dark?”
“no, no—it’s fine and bright!”
“my little heart, you don’t hate it? you’re not afraid?”
“afraid?” cried his heart, alight with laughter. “afraid with you by me? am i mad?”
he knelt at that and put his arms about her.257 even kneeling his black head was higher than her bright one.
“it’s i who am afraid. biddy, what if i made you stop smiling? biddy, biddy, don’t ever stop smiling!”
“never fear!” she cried. “never fear, my dear love. i’ll never in this world stop smiling——” she caught her breath, and shook her curls, and laid her laughing lips gayly and bravely against his. “nor in the next one, either!” said her grace.
she kept her word. that shining mischief of hers never wavered—nothing touched it, not the frozen hatred of the four outraged ladies or the surly insolence of the three dark boys, or the indifferent disdain of the county neighbours, or the blank indignation of the court. he watched over her with terror and rage in his heart; they, they to scorn his miracle!
that first dinner, with the ladies pamela, clarissa, maude, and charlotte, looking down their high noses at the radiant intruder, pouring out venom, poison, and vinegar as freely as wine——
“say the word,” he told her through his teeth, safe in the sanctuary of their dark and beautiful room, “and the four of them shall walk to london!”
“well, if they crawled there, ’twould be no more than they deserve!” said her grace with decision.258 “the cross faces they have, and the mean tongues! they’d wear the patience out of a saint.”
“they can start packing now!” he cried, and made for the door.
“no, no!” her laughter checked him like a hand. “what does it matter at all, since i’m no saint? i’ll not need patience; all i’ll need is grace to keep a straight face and a civil tongue. let them be, darlin’; ’tis a thousand pities my aunt dasheen died without laying eyes on them. they’re like her own sisters. did no one ever give that fine roddy of yours a good cuff?”
“i’ll give him two and a strapping,” said the duke. “the glowering young cub!”
“you’d never steal such pleasure for yourself,” she implored. “in no time at all they’ll be gone to their schools and colleges, and i’ll set what mind i have to growing tall enough to reach their ears if i stand on my toes. would you like me better if i reached up higher?”
their world was in that room—its four blue walls held all their heaven and earth. from its windows they saw dawns break and nights fall; when they crossed its threshold they stepped under a spell that held them safe from all disaster. no one had ever loved any one as he loved his little golden duchess; sometimes he smiled gravely and indulgently when he thought of the poor travesties that259 passed in the world for adoration. dante and the girl that crossed the bridge in her wine-coloured gown—tragic and absurd to call that love, which was not strong enough to win a kiss! paolo and francesca stealing hot glances over a closed book in a garden—blasphemous to think that love could come clothed in secrecy and guilt. and those frantic, desperate children of the capulets and montagues—was love, then, something shot with blood and tears? no, no, love was shot with beauty and with mirth—love was his biddy, dancing through darkness to his arms.
when some unshirkable duty called him from her to the london that they had forgotten he would possess his soul with what patience he might until the doors of gray courts opened once more, and before the doors had swung to behind his voice would ring out—
“where is her grace?”
they never had need to tell him; before the words were off his lips he would hear her light feet, running to reach him across the long halls, the dark stairs.
when winter hung the world in silver frost they piled the fire higher and drew the curtains closer and sat wrapped warm in dreaming happiness while the winds roared and lashed over the world.
260 “shall i take you to london?” he asked her.
“london?” she cried in wonder. “oh, whatever for?”
“you’re not dull here? you’re not lonely?”
“dull? with you? lonely—lonely with you?”
after awhile she lifted her head and locked her fingers fast in his, and asked,
“when is your birthday?”
“in july—the twenty-fifth. why?”
“i’ll have a grand present for you,” said her grace. “a baby. a baby that’ll have a yellow head and a twinkle in both his eyes. a baby that’ll grow tall enough to thrash the wickedness out of his black brothers and have sense enough to laugh instead of doing it.”
he bowed his head over the linked fingers.
“biddy, what more will you give me, you who have given me all the world?”
“’tis a small thing,” she whispered. “july. that will be a year since you came to see me dance?”
“a year, my heart.”
“how many days are there in a year, did you say?”
“three hundred and sixty-five.”
“a day—a day is a poor short thing,” said her grace. “if i had a wish, i’d wish them longer.261 ’tis cold in here, with the wind roaring down the chimney. hold me closer—hold me fast.”
and with spring her wish was granted, and the days were longer; not long enough to hold the joy they poured into them—but filled to the brim with pale sunlight and primroses and hawthorn hedges. and it was june, and they were longer still, flooded with golden warmth and the smell of yellow roses and life and magic, and the taste of honey. and it was july, and it was his birthday—and the world stood still.
her grace gave him the yellow-headed baby for a birthday present. when they brought him his son he looked at him with strange eyes and turned his face away and asked them in a voice that none would have known,
“how is she now?”
the great doctors who had come hurrying from london shook their heads, and were grave and pompous and learned.
“bad. her heart was in a shocking condition—she had not told you?”
no—no, she had not told him.
“well, we must hope; we must hope.”
but soon they could no longer hope; soon hope was gone. for all their dignity, for all their learning, they could only give her drugs to make it easier to die; they could only prop her up against262 the pillows in the great tudor bed, and smooth the dark coverlet, and tiptoe from the room, leaving her to her duke. she sat there still and small, her hands on his black head where he knelt beside her, with so little breath left to tell him of her love that she sought the shortest words, she who had been a spendthrift of them.
“darlin’.” he did not stir, even at that. “never grieve. i’ve known it a great while; they told me in london before you came that ’twould be no more than a year. and my aunt dasheen, she was wise before they. ‘wed at seventeen, dead at eighteen’——”
“biddy,” he whispered, “i’ve killed you—i’ve killed you.”
“oh, what talk is this? you, who gave me my life? i never minded the dying—’twas only when i thought how lonely it would be, with no one caring whether i came or went. i’ve forgotten what loneliness is with you by me. look up at me.”
he raised his head—and her eyes were dancing.
“has it yellow hair?”
“yes.”
“will you teach it to laugh?”
“biddy—biddy——”
“’twill be dull in heaven without you,” she said. “but ’twill be gay when you come.” she263 leaned toward him, her lips curved to mischief. “wait till they tell my aunt dasheen—saint peter himself will have to laugh. ‘woman, there’s someone just come asking after you—a little one, even on her toes. she says her name is biddy and she’s duchess of bolingham——’”
the faint voice trailed to airy mirth, and with that music echoing still about her her grace closed her dancing eyes, and closed her laughing lips, and turned her bright head away and was gone, as lightly and swiftly as she had come.
