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  CHAPTER III.

  "ONE OF THE BEST THINGS LEFT."

  The chambers in Jermyn Street occupied by Rupert Mernside, had acharacter which seemed to reflect their owner. Perhaps all rooms in amore or less degree are reflections of those who live in them: humanbeings, whether consciously or unconsciously, stamp their personalitiesupon their surroundings, and create their distinctive atmospheres, evenin hired lodgings. Rupert's rooms, filled as they were with thefurniture he had from time to time picked up, the walls hung withpictures his fastidious taste had chosen, the bookcases filled with hisown special collection of books, were, to those with eyes to see, amirror of their master's nature. Simplicity was the keynote of thewhole. There were no expensive hangings, no luxurious rugs or heavilyupholstered chairs and couches; there was nothing of what Mernsidehimself would have described as "frippery," nothing effeminate orover-dainty. Matting, with here and there a soft-coloured rug, coveredthe floor of the sitting-room; the walls, tinted a pale apricot yellow,were hung with water-colour sketches, each one of which bore the markof a master hand; the bookcases were of carved oak, as were the one ortwo tables, whilst the chairs, of a severely simple pattern, and eventhe few armchairs, spoke rather of solid comfort, than of any undueluxury. Upon the breakfast table, pushed near the window, stood a bowlof chrysanthemums, touched into jewelled beauty by a faint ray ofNovember sunlight. Seeing the sunlight on the rich coloured blossoms,Rupert smiled, as he entered the sitting-room a week after his returnfrom Bramwell Castle. It was not his habit to fill his rooms withflowers: he had a fancy that such a custom savoured of womanishness;but Cicely, his pretty little cousin, had rifled the greenhouse for himwith her own hands, and Cicely's fashion of giving would have made evena dandelion a charming and acceptable gift.

  Mernside was early that morning, and he had seated himself in front ofthe silver coffee-pot and covered dishes, before Courtfield, hisirreproachable servant, brought in the letters.

  "Good Lord, man!" his master exclaimed, as the salver was handed tohim, "those letters can't possibly all be for me," and he eyed the hugepile with the disfavour of one who regards a letter merely as a rathertiresome piece of business, which must perforce be answered.

  "Well, sir, I should gather they were all for you," Courtfield answeredrespectfully, whilst his master gathered the packet of envelopes intohis two hands. "I thought myself at first that there must be somemistake, seeing that they are only addressed in initials. But thenumber is correct, sir."

  "By Jove!" Mernside exclaimed, gazing with stupefied eyes at theunprecedented batch of correspondence, and observing that every letterbore the initials only, "R.M.," and had been forwarded to him from anewspaper office.

  Courtfield noiselessly left the room, but his master's coffee remainedin the pot, and his breakfast untasted, whilst he sat and stared with apetrified stare at the pile of unopened letters, with theirextraordinarily unfamiliar address. A dusky flush mounted to hisforehead, and he turned over one of the letters distastefully, asthough its very touch were odious to him.

  "I am not in the habit of being addressed by initials only," hemuttered, "nor of corresponding through newspapers; the wretched thingsare probably not meant for me at all--unless it's some confoundedhoax," he added, after a pause, at the same moment tearing open the topletter of the pile, one addressed in an untidy, uneducated handwriting.

  "Good heavens!" he exclaimed, pushing back his chair, and staring downat the letter he unfolded, with the disgusted stare of one who seessomething unexpectedly horrible, "is the woman mad? or am Imad?--or--what does it mean?"

  His eyes travelled quickly down the written page, the large, sprawlingwriting imprinting itself upon his brain.

  "DEAR SIR" (so the epistle ran),--

  "Having seen your advertisement in yesterday's _Sunday Recorder_, I begto say that I should be pleased to enter into correspondence withyou--with a view to meeting, etc. Am twenty-one, tall, and said to beelegant. Some call me pretty. Have large blue eyes, fair hair, and agood complexion. Am domesticated and sweet-tempered. Would sendphotograph if desired.

  "Yours truly, ROSALIE."

  "PS.--Should be pleased to cheer your loneliness."

  Mernside read this effusion to the end; then one word only, and that aforcible one, broke from his lips, and with grimly-set mouth, and eyesgrown suddenly steely, he began to open and read one after another ofthe other letters, his expression becoming sterner and more grim as helaid each one down in turn.

  "My opinion of women is not enhanced by my morning's correspondence,"he reflected cynically, during the course of his reading; "could onehave believed there were so many silly women in the world--or so manyplain ones?" and with a short laugh he picked up two photographs, andlooked with scornful scrutiny at the wholly unattractive features ofthe ladies of uncertain age, and quite certain lack of beauty. Beforehe had waded half through the packet of letters, his table was strewnwith his correspondence, and the look on his face was one, which, ashis best friends would have known, indicated no amiable frame of mind.

  "Domesticated." "Would make a lonely man intensely happy." "Only longfor a quiet home such as you suggest."

  "Such as I suggest--_I_!" Mernside looked wildly round him. "Do Iappear to be in search of a quiet home?" he exclaimed, apostrophisingthe pictures on the walls; "do I want a domesticated female? 'Amconsidered pretty'--oh, are you, my good young woman? You can't writea civilised letter, that's certain. 'I have a slender income of myown--amply sufficient for my modest wants--but I gather you do notrequire a fortune with the lady--only a companion for your loneliness.'

  "A fortune with the lady? I don't require the lady, thank you," Rupertsoliloquised, picking, out sentences from the letters as he read them,and flung them one by one upon the pile. "'I have been lonely for so_long_ myself, that I can _fully_ understand what a lonely man feels.I am no longer in my first youth, but I have a heart _overflowing_ withtenderness. Your happiness would be my first, my only care, etc., etc.'

  "Pshaw--what tommy rot!

  "'All my friends say I am cheerful. I have often been called a littleray of sunshine'"--Rupert lay back in his chair, and shouted withsudden laughter. "'I would make your home a heaven of bliss.'"

  "Oh! Good lord! Good lord!" quoth the unhappy reader, "who inheaven's name has played this confounded practical joke upon me? Andwhat am I to do with these abominable letters and photographs? Ishould like to burn the lot!--but oh! hang it all, the silly women havetaken some rotten hoax for earnest, and"--he paused, as though struckby a sudden recollection, then bounced out of his chair with a goodround expletive.

  "That young ass, Jack Layton! I'll take my oath he was at the bottomof this tomfoolery. Wasn't he reading some matrimonial humbug outof--wait!--by Jove! it was the _Sunday Recorder_," and without moreado, Mernside strode across the room and rang the bell.

  "Get me a copy of the _Sunday Recorder_ of the day before yesterday, atonce," he said curtly, when Courtfield appeared. As soon as the manhad vanished, he returned to the table, gathered up the letters he hadread, and thrust them into the bureau near the fireplace; and by thetime Courtfield came back with the paper in his hand, his master wasdecorously eating a poached egg, and deliberately opening thenineteenth or twentieth letter of his morning mail.

  There was little deliberation in his movements when, alone once more,he feverishly turned the pages of the _Sunday Recorder_, until his eyesfell on the words, "Matrimonial Bureau." Yes--there it was. Thewretched thing seemed to leap into sight as though it were alive, andto his disordered vision the lines appeared to be twice the size of theordinary print.

  "Quiet and cultivated gentleman of means, who is very lonely, isanxious to meet a young lady of good birth who needs a home. Nofortune is necessary, but marriage may be agreed upon, if both partiesare mutually satisfied."

  "Oh! may it indeed?" Mernside said scathingly, flinging the paper uponthe floor. "A young lady of good birth!" His thoughts went back tothe letters he had
just been perusing, most of them ill-written, manymis-spelt, some genteel, some sentimental--but all bearing theunmistakable stamp of having been penned by the underbred and thevulgar.

  "A young lady of good birth." Again he reflected grimly, continuing toeat his breakfast, and to open letter after letter mechanically,expending over their contents a force of language which would greatlyhave surprised the writers, could they have heard it. "Not one ofthese good women has the most elementary conception what the word'lady' means. No lady would be likely to answer such anadvertisement," his thoughts continued contemptuously, as he picked upthe last letter of the pile, and glanced idly at the writing of theaddress. That writing held his attention; it was different from theothers; yes, it was certainly different. It did not sprawl; it was notexaggerated or affected; it was merely a round, simple, girlish hand,with unmistakable character in the well-formed letters and cleanstrokes. And when he had drawn out the contents of the envelope, andread them slowly, some of the grim lines about his mouth faded away, asofter look came into his eyes.

  "This is different," he said, "very different," and for the second timehe read the terse phrases.

  "c/o Mrs. Cole, Newsagent, "100, Cartney Street, S.W.

  "DEAR SIR,--

  "I should not have answered your advertisement, but that I cannot findwork. I need a home very much. If I could make things better forsomebody else who is lonely, I should be very pleased. I am not at allpretty or clever, but I can cook a little, and I can sew.

  "Yours truly, C.M.

  "I am twenty."

  "Poor little girl," Rupert murmured, "if this is genuine, I am sorryfor C.M. She is the only one of the lot who writes like a lady, andthe only one who does not suggest a meeting, or actually appoint ameeting place. Those are points in her favour. But, had I ever anyintention of marrying, I should not make my matrimonial arrangementsthrough the medium of a newspaper!"

  Each writer of the letters which had so disturbed Mernside at breakfasttime, received a few hours later a short note, and the wording of allthe notes was identical.

  "DEAR MADAM,--

  "I regret that both you and I should have been the victims of a hoax.The advertisement in the _Sunday Recorder_ was inserted without myknowledge or consent. Regretting any annoyance this may cause you.

  "Yours faithfully, R.M."

  But when, having laboured through the mass of "Rosalies," "Violets,""Lilians," and "Hildas," he finally reached the little note signed"C.M.," Mernside paused.

  "I--don't think I can let this little girl know she has been the victimof a hoax," he mused, a pitiful tenderness creeping about his heart ashe thought of the girl who was without work or home; "the others arefairly tough-skinned, I am ready to swear. This one"--he looked againat the round, characteristic handwriting, the simple phrases--"thisone--did not make up her mind to write such a letter, excepting understress of circumstances, I am sure of that. This one--is different.And if that incorrigible young ass, Jack Layton, hadn't started on ayachting cruise last week, I--should jolly well like to give him athrashing."

  Feeling the need, as he himself expressed it, of a balloon full offresh air after his distasteful occupation of the morning, Rupert wentout at about eleven o'clock, taking with him the pile of letters he hadto post.

  "Can't leave them for Courtfield's inquisitive eyes," he muttered."Good chap as he is, Courtfield would think I had gone raving mad, ifhe saw all these things addressed to Christian names and initials.I'll get rid of the horrors, and then see if Margaret can take thetaste of them away from me."

  The letters posted, he made his way briskly along Piccadilly, andacross the Park, to a quiet road in Bayswater, where he stopped beforea small detached house, standing a little back from the pavement, inits own garden. His ring at the bell brought to the door a middle-agedservant, whose plain but kindly face expanded into a smile when she sawhim. He was evidently a frequent and welcome visitor, for to hischeery "Well, Elizabeth, how are things this morning?" she answeredwith another smile--

  "We've had a bad two days, sir, but Mrs. Stanforth is better now. Sheis downstairs, sir," and, opening a door on the right of the tiny hall,she ushered Rupert into a long narrow room, whose windows at either endgave it an unusual look of brightness and sunshine. A piano took up alarge share of one wall, and over the piano hung some fine photographsof Old Masters, chiefly of the Italian school. The fireplace wasflanked by bookshelves, and drawn close to one of these was a couch, onwhich lay a woman of such rare and startling beauty, that Mernside,familiar as her face was to him, caught his breath as he entered, andfor a moment stood still, looking silently down at her.

  Her cheeks were very white, but it was the whiteness of a pure whiterose, and gave one no sense of ill-health, although there was about hera certain air of fragility. Her hair, soft and dark, waved back fromher forehead in dusky masses, that made just the right background forher exquisitely chiselled features, and for the eyes, that seemed toconcentrate in themselves all the loveliness of her face. They werewonderful eyes--dark, deep, unfathomable--with a mystery in theirdepths that enhanced their strange fascination. Those dark eyes withtheir sweeping lashes, and the crimson line of her beautiful mouth,were the only points of colour in her face, and as she turned her headto greet the visitor, the gleam of light that shot into those eyes,might well have turned a stronger head than Rupert's. Meeting herglance, his pulses quickened, and his own eyes grew bright; but hisvoice was very quiet, very self-contained, as he said--

  "I am three days too soon--I know it, you need not tell me. But--I hadto come to-day."

  She put one of her hands into his, but she did not move from herprostrate position on the couch, and her visitor seated himself on alow chair by her side, whilst she gently withdrew the hand he stillheld, and said softly--

  "Why especially to-day? You must not break through the stipulation,Rupert. If there is a particular reason now--I--will forgiveyou--but--we must keep to our bargain."

  Gentle as was the voice, gentle as was the look in her eyes, a look ofalmost maternal tenderness, there was evidence that behind thetenderness, lay a most unusual strength of character. The woman withthe beautiful face, although she lay prone upon a sofa, and wasobviously an invalid, showed in her personality no trace of weakness.Her eyes met the eyes of her visitor squarely and straightly, there wasalmost a hint of severity in the set of her lips.

  "Why did you come to-day?" she repeated, when he stirred uneasily inhis chair, and kicked away a footstool in front of him, with a touch ofirritability.

  "When I begin to put it into words, it sounds a babyish reason; butthat jackanapes, Layton, has been playing an idiotic practical jokeupon me, and I--was fool enough to mind it. I wanted soothing down;and--I wanted your advice about a girl."

  "About--a girl--you!" A note of excitement was apparent in heraccents; she looked at him narrowly. "Has it--come--at last, Rupert?"she questioned, and her quiet voice shook just a little.

  "No--no--my God--_no_!" he exclaimed, "nothing of that sort is everlikely to come into my life--again"--he uttered the last words underhis breath, and his eyes rested hungrily on her beautiful face--"thereis no question of--my caring for any girl--only--young Jack Layton hasmade me responsible for what may make a perfectly innocent girlunhappy." And forthwith he plunged into a full description of thesheaf of letters received that morning, winding up with a mention ofthe terse little letter signed "C.M." His listener's eyes twinkledmischievously as he told the first part of his story in wrathfulaccents, and over some of his quotations from the letters that hadreached him she laughed--a frank, delicious laugh that seemed oddly outof keeping with the tragic mystery of her eyes. But as he describedthat last letter, with its simple wording, her face grew grave again,and when his voice ceased, she uttered the precise words that hadfallen from his own lips three hours earlier.

  "Poor little girl--oh! poor little girl!"

  "I am sorry for her," Mernside said impetuously, "and it doesn't seemfair that
she should perhaps suffer for that idiotic young fool's loveof practical jokes. Goodness knows what hopes she may have built uponthis letter, and upon me. Of course, I can't give her a home, and Idon't want to meet her--with a view to--anything. There is no place inmy life for women, even as friends. There is no place in my life formore than--one woman," he ended vehemently.

  "Hush!" she said softly. "Remember--you promised; and--if you breakyour promise, I can't ever let you come here again."

  "I know--I know!" he cried, with an impetuosity very foreign to hisusual self-control; "but, Margaret, is it to be like this always? Willa time never come when you--when I----"

  She put out her hand and laid it over one of his, with a firm touchthat had a curiously quieting effect upon him.

  "You and I are great friends, as we have been for--longer than we careto think. But--there could not ever be an idea between us of anythingelse, not even the thought of such a thing. It is out of the question.It always has been out of the question. You know that as well as I do,and you must not come here at all, unless you can keep to our agreementin spirit as well as in letter."

  "Is our friendship nothing to you?" he asked sullenly.

  "It is--so much to me--that I will not risk spoiling it for ever," shesaid firmly; "but if you talk as you are talking now, I shall tellElizabeth I cannot see you."

  "And you are putting up this fence between us, when--I might be somecomfort to you," he exclaimed, almost roughly, getting up as he spoketo lean against the mantelpiece, and glower threateningly down at her,"when every reasonable being would tell you that he----"

  "Ah! hush!" she cried, and the sudden sharp anguish in her tones gavehim pause; "don't let us go into it all over again. Whilst I feel--asI do feel--I must go on in the way I have marked out for myself, onecan only follow the right as one sees it. Besides which----"

  "Besides which--his little finger is more to you than----"

  "Ah! don't--_don't_!" she interrupted him again, her eyes darkening anddeepening with agony. "Rupert, I can't bear it; there are some thingsI am not strong enough to bear."

  "I was a brute," he said, his rough tone changing all at once intocaressing tenderness; "I let myself go--I was an utter brute. Forgiveme, dear--and--try to forget."

  He sat down beside her again, and his face, which had shown the samestrong emotion that had rang in his words, resumed its quiet look ofstrength. A great relief swept over the woman's beautiful features,but she was shivering from head to foot, and in her eyes there stilllay a haunting anguish. With an effort--how great an effort only sheherself knew--she regained her self-control, and her voice, thoughstill shaken, was very gentle again.

  "Tell me now about the poor little girl, and the matrimonial letter.Can we put our heads together to devise any way of helping her?"

  "I might conceivably get her some work," Rupert answered, "but peopleare a little chary of engaging employees recommended by bachelors likemyself. Cicely might help her, but, first of all, I must find out ifshe is genuine. I couldn't impose a stranger, even on Cicely,good-natured, easy-going little soul that she is. And to find outanything about this girl will entail--meeting her!"

  Margaret Stanforth smiled.

  "Poor Rupert!"

  "I am not by way of making rendezvous with young women," he said withsarcasm; "it is not a pastime in which I have ever indulged. At thesame time, I don't want to let a fellow creature go empty away, if Icould really help her."

  "How would it be if you suggested her coming here? I could see hertoo, and--two heads being better than one--we might be able to dosomething really helpful. If the letter is sincere, it is obvious thegirl is not a mere husband hunter; she is at her wits' end, and--Ican't bear to think of any girl stranded in this great hungry London.I myself"--she pulled herself up short, leaving her sentenceunfinished, then went on more quietly: "Write to C.M. and appoint ameeting here. Say this is the house of a lady of your acquaintance,ask her to come and see me--and incidentally to see you."

  "It is like you to make such a suggestion about a total stranger,"Rupert exclaimed, "but--she may turn out an entire fraud--an arrantadventuress--and I could not be responsible for bringing such a personhere."

  "Such a person! My dear Rupert, even if she were all the terriblethings you describe, I don't think she could hurt me. I have seen--somuch of the seamy side of life." For a moment Rupert looked at hersilently. Long as he had known her, Margaret Stanforth was stilllargely an enigma to him, and it often seemed to him that themysterious depths of her eyes veiled mysteries of her life which he hadnever fathomed.

  "For my own sake, for this girl's sake, I should like to jump at youroffer," he said, after that long, searching look into her face,"but----"

  "There is no 'but,'" she put in gaily, a sudden smile momentarilychasing away the sadness of her face. "Write a civil, non-committalletter to C.M., and ask her, as I say, to come here. Surely, betweenus, we can do something for this poor little waif and stray. Why notfix to-morrow afternoon, at five o'clock? If the poor girl's need isurgent, we ought not to delay."

  "And--you forgive me for all I ought not to have said this morning,"Rupert said when, ten minutes later, he rose to depart. "I--have nothurt you?"

  "No, you have not hurt me; but in future, you will remember--ourbargain? And there are some things--I can't bear."

  Rupert Mernside walked slowly away from the house, his brain and heartfull of the woman he had just left, who, after his departure, lay backamongst the silken cushions on her sofa, with a look of profoundexhaustion.

  "There now, my dearie, you didn't ought to let him come and tire youthis way; you get worn out with him coming worrying." The faithfulElizabeth had entered the room with a salver in her hand, and stoodlooking into her mistress's white face, with distress written all overher plain kindly features. Margaret opened her eyes, and smiled upinto the loving ones fixed upon her.

  "No, he doesn't worry me; he is--a comfort, he helps me. Don't scold,nursie dear; his friendship is one of the best things I have inlife--one of the best things I have left out of all the wreckage; butto-day--he brought back some of the old memories, and--I--am so sillystill. They hurt; sometimes it all feels--unbearable."

  The ring of almost uncontrollable pain in her voice, brought a spasm ofanswering pain into the other's face, and she laid a work-roughenedhand tenderly upon the dusky head against the cushions. "There, mydearie, there--there," she murmured, speaking as if her beautiful,stately mistress were a little child; "there's nothing so hard in thisworld but what it can be borne, if we look at it in the right way. Thestrength comes along with the sorrow, and 'tis all for the best."

  "Is it?" Into the dark eyes there flashed for a second a look ofbitterness, and then Margaret drew the other woman's hand down to herlips, and kissed it. "I wish I had your simple straightforward faith,dear old nurse of mine," she said wearily; "you are so sure things willcome right, and that what hurts us is for our good. And I--I can'tsay, 'Thy will be done'; at least, I can't say it as if I meant it.But what did you bring in on that salver?" she asked, after a moment ofsilence, and with an effort at brightness.

  "There, my pretty; I nearly forgot it after all. It came when I wasspeaking to the butcher on the doorstep, and Mr. Mernside was here, soI waited to bring it in till he was gone."

  She had a purpose in lengthening her story, and chatting on garrulouslywhilst Margaret opened the orange envelope, for the faithful creaturehad seen the sudden dilation of her mistress's dark eyes, the whiteningof her lips; had seen, too, how her hands shook as they unfolded thetelegram.

  "I don't understand it," Mrs. Stanforth whispered shakily, when hereyes had scanned the few words before her. "I don't know what itmeans--Elizabeth--but--I must go--I must go--at once."

  The servant drew the flimsy paper from her trembling hands and read themessage, shaking her head in bewilderment, as the sense of itpenetrated to her brain.

  "I'm sure I don't know what it means no more than you d
o, dearie," shesaid.

  "Graystone.

  "Come at once; prepare for surprise.

  "MARION."