Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir Part 39

CHAPTER XX.

At nine o'clock the next evening the quiet-looking green brougham came round to the door, and took them rapidly to Park Lane.

Una had already grown almost weary of staring out of the carriage window, but her wonder and interest revived as she saw in the dusky twilight the green trees and flowers in the most beautiful park in the world, and amazed at the magnificent buildings past which they rolled.

Presently the brougham drew up at a corner house facing the park; an awning was suspended from the gateway to the pavement, and three footmen in splendid liveries, which she recognized as those she had seen worn by the servants attending Lady Bell's carriage, were standing to receive the guests; one of them opened the brougham door and escorted them into the hall, which seemed to Una, with its flowers and mirrors, its rich hangings and statues, a fairy palace, and was about to usher them into the drawing-room, when, upon hearing Mrs. Davenant's name, he bowed, and took them into a small room at the side, which was Lady Bell's boudoir.

"I will tell her ladys.h.i.+p," he said.

Una had scarcely time to take in the exquisite beauty of the room, with its antique furniture and costly knicknacks, when the door opened and Lady Bell entered. She was exquisitely dressed; diamonds--the diamonds Una had seen at the jeweler's--glittering in her hair and on her neck and on her arms, and seemed to Una like some vision which at a breath would vanish and leave the room to its subdued twilight again.

With outstretched hands she came toward them, with her eyes dancing and her cheeks flushed.

"You have kept your word and brought my wild bird! I knew you would come," and she took a hand of each, but suddenly reached up and kissed Una. "Yes, I felt that you would come, but it is good of you all the same, and to show you that I am grateful, I will let you go at once, this minute, dear Mrs. Davenant!"

Mrs. Davenant looked relieved.

"Thank you! thank you, Lady Bell!" she said. "You--you----"

"Will take care of your bird? Yes, that I will. You may trust her to me; not a feather shall be ruffled."

Mrs. Davenant murmured something about the time she would come for her, and then with a timid look from one to the other was gone.

"And now," said Lady Bell, "let me look at you," as if she had not been doing so ever since she entered the room. "My dear, my dear, you are----" she stopped short. "No, I'll not be the first to teach you vanity. But tell me, do you ever look in your gla.s.s, Miss Rolfe--Miss Rolfe, I don't like that name, I mean between you and me. My name is Bell, and yours is----"

"Mine is Una."

"Una! That is delightful! And have you your lion? Where is he?"

Una had never read the story of "Una and the Lion," and looked calmly puzzled.

"Well, if you have not one already, you soon will have. You don't understand me. I am glad of that. But will you come now? This is a very, very quiet little party, but you may be amused. And I will keep you by my side all the evening. Come," and she drew Una's arm through her own white one and led her through the corridor into the ball-room.

It was not a large room. Lady Bell detested huge and crowded a.s.semblies too much to permit them at her own house, but it was, as a ball-room, perfect. There was light, and just enough light, to show the tasteful magnificence of the decorations, and nothing of that fearful glare from innumerable lights, and their reflections in huge mirrors, which make most ball-rooms so trying and unbearable. The band had just commenced as they entered, and the whole scene, the beautiful room with its soft draperies of Persian damask, the Venetian mirrors, the rich dresses of the ladies, and the soul-moving strains of the best band in London, for the moment overawed and startled the girl fresh from the primeval forest.

For a moment her eyes dilated almost with fear, and she unconsciously drew back, but Lady Bell, with a gentle pressure of the arm, drew her forward, and skillfully avoiding the dancers, took her to the further end of the room, where, in a recess lined with ferns and tropical plants, were arranged some seats so placed as to be almost hidden from the room, while they allowed the sitter a full view of it.

Lady Bell drew a fauteuil still further into the recess, and playfully forced Una into it.

"There, my wild bird, is your cage. You can see all the world without being seen, and here you and I will take a peep at it. Now, don't you want to know all their names and all about them?"

Una smiled. She was a little pale and was trembling slightly.

"No; I am too surprised and astonished at present. How beautiful it is, and how lovely they are."

"The women?" said Lady Bell, with a laugh, and a glance at the unconscious face beside her, which she knew outshone all others there.

"You think so! Well, there are some pretty women here. There is Lady Clarence--the one in light blue and swansdown--and Mrs. Cantrip--she was the beauty last season. You don't understand?"

"Last season!" said Una. "Who is the beauty this?"

Lady Bell laughed and flushed a little.

"Never mind, child," she said. "One who doesn't care a farthing about it, at any rate. But look, do you see that tall lady there, dancing with the short man with whiskers? She is the Countess of Pierrepoint, and he is the Duke of Garnum----"

"A duke?" said Una, surprised.

"You expected to see a man seven feet high in his ducal robes?" she said. "See those two men who have just come in? The dark one is Sir Arkroyd Hetley, the other, the boy--the baby they call him--is a marquis, the Marquis of Dalrymple. They are always together. They are coming to shake hands with me."

Una drew further into the shade as the two men, after hunting about the room, came up to the recess, and listened as they paid their compliments and seemed anxious to remain, but Lady Bell sent them off quite plainly and distinctly, and sat looking toward the door, and presently she ceased talking, and her bright, beautiful face grew quiet and almost sad, certainly wistful, and at last she sighed and murmured:

"No, he will not come."

"Who will not come?" said Una. "Are you expecting any one?"

"Did I speak?" she said. "Yes, I am expecting someone, but he will not come. People one expects and wants never do--never do. You will find that out in time, wild bird; you will find--ah!" and she started and turned pale, and her hand, which had been laid on Una's arm, closed over it with a sudden grip and flutter.

Una looked up, and her face went deadly white.

The room seemed to spin round with her, and the lights to flood her brain and paralyze her, for there, towering above the throng, stood Jack Newcombe.

Jack Newcombe--not in his rough tweed suit, but in evening dress; Jack, not with the frank, tender, pleasant smile which always rested upon his face as it appeared in her dreams, but with a cold, half-irritable, and wholly bored expression.

Slowly she rose and glided into the shadow of the recess and hid herself, her heart beating wildly, her whole form trembling with a strange ecstasy of mingled fear and delight.

At last she saw him again.

CHAPTER XXI.

Poor Jack! How came he to be in Lady Bell's ball-room?

The morning after she had nearly driven over him he woke to find Leonard Dagle, his friend and fellow lodger, standing beside his bed and looking down at him with a grave smile on his intellectual face.

"Hallo!" said Jack, "the house on fire?"

"Not at present," said Leonard, "though it would soon be if you lived in it alone. Why don't you blow your candle out, and not chuck your slippers at it? How are you this morning?"

"How am I?" said Jack, staring. "How should I be? Quite well of course,"

which was quite true, for Jack and the headache had not been introduced to each other.

"That's all right," said Leonard, with a smile. "Perhaps you remember last night's tragic occurrence, then?"

Jack thought for a moment, then shook his head gravely.