Adrien Leroy Part 8

With this object in view she slowly wended her way to Jermyn Court, wherein was the room in which she had supped and slept so delightfully.

Afterwards she thought she would try to gain some work that would at least secure food and lodging, however poor, where she could be safe from the cruelty of Wilfer; surely in all London there was something she could do.

When darkness came, worn out by watching and waiting in vain for Adrien, she again found herself without a home and without shelter; so, crouching on a doorstep, as she had done the previous evening, overcome with fatigue, she fell asleep.

In the course of the night a dark-robed woman, pa.s.sing on the usual round of duty a.s.signed to her, stopped and looked at her. She was one of the band of Good Samaritan Sisters of Mercy established in some of our London suburbs, who seek out the helpless and downtrodden in the race of life--with healing in their hands and pity in their hearts--striving to raise them up from their hopeless position to something better. She stopped, bent down, and, drawing her veil aside, looked closely at the motionless face. Then she sighed and turned her head away.

"So beautiful! So young! Can it be possible? Sister, sister!"

Jessica awoke at the gentle touch, and sprang to her feet.

"Johann! Don't strike me," she exclaimed, with her eyes half closed.

"I----"

"My poor girl, no one shall beat you. Will you come with me?"

"With you?" repeated Jessica, now fully awake, but still eyeing the Sister with some suspicion. "Where? Not far?"

"No, not far. But why do you say that? Is there any one you particularly wish to be near?"

"No," replied Jessica, adding to herself, as the sister of Mercy took her hand, "but she shall not take me far away from him."

"A roof of thatch is better than that of heaven," is an old Spanish proverb, and means, doubtless, that the poorest accommodation is better than none, or that which the streets provide. Jessica, clinging to the Sister of Mercy's succouring hand, was gently led from the silence of the streets to the still greater silence of an attic in a quiet byway.

Here, seated by the remains of a small fire in a narrow grate, she watched with awkward interest, that was much like indifference, the efforts of her rescuer to revive the dying embers. Soup was warmed for her, but for a time she refused to take it.

"I am not hungry," she said. "Only tired--so tired! Why did you wake me, lady?"

"I awoke you because you were unhappy, and it was dangerous for one so young as you to lie asleep in the streets," replied the meek-eyed woman.

"But you must not call me 'lady'; I am not a lady. Call me 'Sister.'"

"But you are not my sister," said Jessica petulantly. "I haven't any sister or brother, or father or mother."

"Poor thing!" said the woman, who by this time had made up a bed, plain enough it is true, but luxurious after the cold doorsteps, and she now helped Jessica to undress. "Poor thing, you are quite cold; and what are all these bruises? Ah! why will men be so cruel, when Heaven is so kind?"

"I don't know," said Jessica, who took the question as directed to herself. "I don't know anything. Besides, all men ain't cruel. _He_ wasn't; he was kind--oh, so kind!"

"He--whom?" said the Sister. Then, as the girl did not reply, she looked hard at her and sighed again.

"Now you will sleep," she said, "Will you kiss me?"

With the impulsiveness of girlhood Jessica threw her arms round the linen-banded neck and kissed the Sister's pale face."

"Good-night," she said.

The Sister smoothed the coa.r.s.e pillow, covered her up, and went softly from the room.

When Jessica awoke the woman was again beside her with a cup of tea, and some bread-and-b.u.t.ter. But the girl refused to eat.

"I am not hungry. I am not tired now, either, and I will go."

The Sister put her hand on the girl's arm. "Not yet," she said. "Where have you to go?"

"Nowhere," Jessica answered listlessly.

"Then stay with me," said the woman kindly. "See"--she brought a basket to the bedside--"here's some work. I will teach you to do this, and we will live together. Will you not stay?"

Jessica looked at the work, and silently nodded acquiescence. But nevertheless she sighed. To a nature such as hers freedom was life itself, and she was bartering it away for mere food. Besides, how could she now follow the one who had been so kind to her?

But she stayed, and patiently worked all day, striving earnestly to catch the knack of the needle, and emulating the tireless industry of the Sister, who worked thus during daylight that she might pursue her mission of mercy and succour at night. Thus pa.s.sed some days, and then Jessica's blood grew restless; the narrow room seemed to her stifling and unendurable, and she pined for the open air, as a caged blackbird longs for its native woods.

The longing grew so irresistible that at last she succ.u.mbed to it; and one day, finding herself alone, she threw down the piece of work on which she was employed, and rising, s.n.a.t.c.hed up her weather-stained hat.

"I can't stay," she sobbed; "I can't breathe here! I must go, or I shall die. I'll leave before she comes back. Oh! I wish she had not been so kind to me. I feel a worthless, miserable, ungrateful creature!"

Then she stole down the stairs, very much as she had slipped away from Adrien's residence, and gained the streets anew.

CHAPTER VII

It was the night of the great ball at Lady Merivale's town house. A Blue Hungarian Band was playing dreamily the waltz of the season, to the accompaniment of light laughter and gaily tripping feet. The scent of roses filled the air. Ma.s.ses of their great pink blooms lurked in every small nook and corner; while in the centre of the room, half-hidden by them, a fountain sent its silver spray into the heated air.

If wealth and luxury alone could bring happiness, then surely Eveline Merivale should have been the most envied woman in the world. A renowned beauty, a leader of fas.h.i.+on, with every wish and ambition gratified--save the one which, at present, the chief object of her life--to enslave and retain, as her exclusive property, Adrien Leroy.

Her husband, the Earl of Merivale, she regarded as a necessary enc.u.mbrance, inevitable to the possession of the famous Merivale diamonds. His hobby was farming, and he detested Society; though quite content that his wife should be made queen so long as he was left in peace with his shorthorns.

Certainly Eveline Merivale was not in love with her husband; but, on the other hand, neither was she in love with Adrien Leroy. It simply added a zest to her otherwise monotonous round of amus.e.m.e.nts to imagine that she was; and it pleased her vanity to correspond in cypher, through the medium of the Morning Post, though every member of her set might have read the flippant messages if put in an open letter. There was a spice of intrigue, too, in the way in which she planned meetings at their mutual friends' houses, or beneath the trees of Brierly Park, or at Richmond.

Not for worlds would her ladys.h.i.+p have risked a scandal. She prized her position, and loved her diamonds far better than she was ever likely to love any human being under the sun. Still, it was the fas.h.i.+on to have one special favourite; and it was a great thing to have conquered the handsome and popular Adrien Leroy. It was little wonder, therefore, that, when midnight had struck and still Leroy was absent from her side, Eveline Merivale beneath the calm conventional smile, was secretly anxious and inclined to be angry.

She was looking her best to-night; and although she had already been surfeited with compliments from duke to subaltern, she yet longed to hear one other voice praise her appearance. There was, indeed, every reason why Lady Merivale should be lauded as the greatest beauty of her time, for she carried all before her by the sheer force of her personality. Dazzlingly fair, with hair of a bronze t.i.tian hue, which cl.u.s.tered in great waves about her forehead; her eyes of a deep, l.u.s.trous blue, shading almost to violet. To-night she would have borne off the palm of beauty from any Court in the world, for her dress was a creation of Paquin, and enhanced to perfection her delicate colouring, which needed no artificial aids.

Diamonds glistened round her perfect throat, upon her head rested a magnificent tiara of the same stones, her hands flashed as if touched with living fire. She might have stood as a figure of Undine--as beautiful and as soulless.

All around her the little band of courtiers thronged ever-changing, and pa.s.sing on to the ball-room as others eagerly took their place.

Half-past twelve struck, and she grew more impatient; the blue eyes sparkled frostily, the red lips became more tightly set.

"Lady Merivale looks riled," Mortimer Shelton said to his partner as they pa.s.sed her. "You can see that by the sweetness of the smile with which she has just favoured Hadley. She wishes him anywhere--I know.

Funny thing about you ladies! the madder you are with one poor dev--fellow, the sweeter and deadlier you are to the rest of us."

His partner laughed; she was a bright little brunette, flushed with the dance, and thoroughly happy.

"Why should we wear our hearts upon our sleeves for cynics such as you to peck at?" she replied. "The art of dissembling is one of our few privileges. But do you think the Countess is angry? She is so beautiful."

"Marvellous!" exclaimed the cynic, raising his eyebrows. "Dear Lady Chetwold, is it possible that I hear one beautiful woman praise another's looks?"