Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir Part 26

Through miles and miles of streets, as it seemed to Una, the cab made its slow, rumbling way; houses, that were palaces in her eyes, flitted past; and at last they stopped before a palace, as it seemed to Una, in a quiet square.

The door of the house opened, and a servant came out and opened the cab door.

In silent wonderment Una entered the hall, lit with its gas-lamps and lined with flowers, and followed Mrs. Davenant into what was really the drawing-room of a house in Walmington Square; but which seemed to Una to be the princ.i.p.al apartment in some enchanted castle.

But true to her resolve, she stood calm and silent, feeling, rather than seeing, that the eyes of the servant were fixed upon her with curious interest.

"Come upstairs, Una, dear," said Mrs. Davenant, and Una followed her into another fairy chamber. Flowers, of which Mrs. Davenant, like most nervous persons, was inordinately fond, seemed everywhere: they lined the staircase and the landing, and bloomed in every available corner.

Mrs. Davenant entered her own room, then opened a door into an adjoining one.

"This is your room, my dear," she said. "If--if--you like it----"

"Like it!" said Una, with open eyes and beating heart. "Is--is this really mine?" and she looked round the dainty room with incredulous admiration.

"If--if you like it, my dear," said Mrs. Davenant.

"How could I do otherwise? It is too beautiful for me----"

"I don't think anything could be too beautiful for you, Una," said Mrs.

Davenant, with a significance that was entirely lost on Una. "If there is anything you want--I can't give you any trees, you know."

"I shan't want trees while the flowers are here. It is nothing but flowers."

"I am very fond of them," said Mrs. Davenant, meekly. "You will hear a bell ring in half an hour; come to me then, I shall wait in the next room for you. I will not lock the door," and she left her.

Una felt dazed and stunned for a few minutes, then she made what preparations were possible. She chose from her box, which had been conveyed to her room by some invisible agency apparently, a plain muslin dress, and, more by instinct than any prompting of vanity, fastened a rose in her hair.

She had scarcely completed her simple toilet when the bell rang, and she went into the next room.

A maid servant--Una noticed that it was not the one who had opened the door--was in attendance upon Mrs. Davenant, and dropped a courtesy as Mrs. Davenant said, in her nervous, hesitating fas.h.i.+on:

"This is Miss Rolfe, Jane."

Una smiled, and was about to hold out her hand, but stopped, seeing no movement of a similar kind on the part of the neatly-dressed girl.

"Jane is my own maid, Una," said Mrs. Davenant. "She will attend to you when you want her."

Jane dropped another courtesy, but Una detected a glance of curiosity and scrutiny at the plain white muslin.

"Come," said Mrs. Davenant, "let us go down. Dinner is ready," and she led the way down-stairs.

Another fairy apartment broke upon Una's astonished vision as they entered the dining-room.

Small as the houses are in Walmington Square, Una, accustomed only to the small room in the hut, thought that this dining-room was large enough to be the banquet hall of princes.

But, whatever surprise Una felt, she, mindful of her resolve, concealed.

Not even the maid in waiting could find anything to condemn. When she went down-stairs her verdict was favorable.

"Whoever she is," she said, "she's a lady. But where on earth she comes from, goodness only knows. A plain muslin dress that might have come out of the ark."

Dinner was over at last. A "last" that seemed to Una an eternity. Mrs.

Davenant rose and beckoned her to follow, and they went into the drawing-room.

"Are you very tired, Una?"

"No," said Una, thinking of her long wanderings in Warden Forest, "not tired at all, but very surprised."

"Surprised?" said Mrs. Davenant, questioningly.

"Yes. Do all the people in London live like this--in such beautiful houses, with people to wait upon them, and with so many things to eat, and with such pretty things in the houses?"

"Not all," said Mrs. Davenant, watching the tall, graceful figure as it moved to and fro--"not all. But it would take too long to explain. You think these are pretty things; what will you say when you see the great sights--sights which we Londoners think nothing of?"

Una did not answer; she had been looking round the room at the pictures, mostly portraits, on the walls.

"Are these pictures of friends of yours?" she said. "Who is that?"

"That? That is the portrait of a man I was speaking of in the train.

That is Ralph--Squire Davenant--when he was a young man."

It was a portrait of Ralph Davenant in his best--and worst--days. It had been painted when men wore their hair long, and brushed from their foreheads. One hand, white as the driven snow, was thrust in his breast, the other held a riding-whip.

Una looked at it long and earnestly, and Mrs. Davenant, impressed by her long silence, rose and stood beside her.

"Yes," she said, "that is Ralph Davenant. It was painted when he was about your age, my dear. Ah----"

"What is the matter?"

Mrs. Davenant, pale and excited, took up a hand-mirror from one of the tables and held it in front of Una.

"Look!" she exclaimed.

"Well?" she said.

"Well?" echoed Mrs. Davenant. "Don't you see? Look again. The very image! It is himself come to life again; it is Ralph Davenant turned woman!" she exclaimed.

And before Una could glance at the gla.s.s a second time Mrs. Davenant threw it aside.

"Am I so like?" said Una, with a smile. "How mysterious! And that is so beautiful a face."

"Beautiful eyes, and you are----" said Mrs. Davenant, but stopped in time, warned by Una's frank, questioning gaze. "If you like to look at portraits," she said, "there is an alb.u.m there; look over that."

Una took up the alb.u.m and turned over its pages; suddenly she stopped, and the color flew to her face.

With unconcealed eagerness she came toward Mrs. Davenant with the open alb.u.m in her hand.

"Look!" she said; "who is that?"