The Woman's Way Part 45

"I've got a carriage here for you, round the corner," he said; "and I've succeeded in stopping them ringing the bells."

"I'm glad," said Derrick; "but why should they want to ring the bells?"

"Well, you see," explained Reggie, as he led them to the carriage, "Lord Heyton--I mean the other man--is not a great favourite; whereas, somehow or other, you have caught the popular imagination; besides, it has leaked out that you are going to marry Miss Grant; and she is tremendously popular. She has been very kind, in the do-good-and-blush-to-find-it-known way, to the poor people about her; and Susie has told a good many of Miss Grant's angelic kindnesses to her. Hence these tears," he added, as the people crowded about them and cheered heartily. "Where shall I tell the man to drive, my lord?"

"To the Hall," replied Mr. Clendon gravely. "Yes," he said to Derrick, as the carriage drove off, "the Marquess--I mean your uncle, Talbot, wants to see you, naturally."

"You have told him?" said Derrick. "Poor man!"

"Yes, I have told him; and, strangely enough, he welcomed the news. And yet it is not strange; for, alas! he knew the character of his son, knew that he was not worthy to bear the t.i.tle. There is something more on my brother's mind than I am cognisant of. Some secret which worries him,"

he added.

Derrick remained silent. He dared not probe the mystery of the hidden jewel-case, of Heyton's sudden flight; but it was evident to him that Mr. Jacobs intended to conceal any knowledge he might have, and Derrick was only too thankful to concur in that concealment.

On their way to the Hall, Derrick and his father spoke of many things of the past and the future; and presently the old man said in a low voice,

"You will be married soon, Derrick?"

"The first moment Celia will have me," replied Derrick, promptly.

"I would like you to spend your honeymoon in South America," said his father.

Derrick understood, and he nodded and laid his hand on the old man's.

"And you, sir? Shall you go there--soon?"

Mr. Clendon shook his head. "No," he responded. "The chasm between us is too wide, has divided us for too long a time. But it shall be as your mother wishes. You will talk to her----We will leave her future and mine on the knees of the G.o.ds. But yours, thank G.o.d! is a.s.sured. How strangely Fate works! How little I thought, when I helped Celia to come to the Hall, that I was lending a guiding hand to the future of my son's wife. Derrick, that same fate has been very good to you."

"Don't I know it, sir!" said Derrick in a low voice.

They reached the Hall; and as they entered, they could not but be conscious of the stir of excitement there; the old butler and the other servants looked at them with an intense interest. As the two men stood in the hall, waiting the summons to the sick-room, Derrick looked round him eagerly; but it was not at the subdued splendour surrounding him; he scarcely noted the indications of luxury and wealth, the wealth and state to which he was heir; he was looking and listening for some sign of Celia; and he was so absorbed that he started when his father touched his arm and directed his gaze to a portrait.

"That is mine, Derrick," he said. "Do you see any resemblance to yourself?"

"Yes; I think--yes, I do," replied Derrick.

"I noticed it yesterday, directly I entered the hall, for the first time for many years."

The footman came down to say that they might go up, and they ascended the broad stairs, Derrick still looking about him and listening; but Celia did not appear. They were ushered into the sick-room, and the door closed on them; and they remained there for nearly half an hour; for the injured man had recovered something of his old strength, as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders, and he was able to hear the story of Derrick's ident.i.ty and to speak a few words of relief and satisfaction.

When they left the room both Derrick and his father were much moved, and they went down the stairs in silence. Derrick stopped as they reached the hall, and again looked round him.

"You will find her in there," said his father, nodding towards the library; and Derrick, with a sudden flush and a brightening of the eyes, knocked at the door.

The voice that said, "Come in," made his heart leap. He turned the handle of the door and entered. Celia had heard his voice in the hall, was expecting him; she was standing by the table, her hand pressed on it, her face pale but her eyes glowing with the ineffable light of love.

"Sydney!" she murmured, all her heart in her voice.

He took her in his arms and, for a moment, there was silence; then she raised her head and whispered,

"It is all right, Sydney?"

"It is all right," he responded. "I am here, as you see; I am acquitted; all is well. But, dearest," he hesitated apologetically, "you must not call me 'Sydney.'"

She looked up at him, her brows knit slightly; and he gathered her to him still more closely, as he went on.

"I've got the strangest news to tell you, Celia. You will think that you are dreaming, as I have been dreaming ever since I myself heard it."

"They have been talking, saying strange things--the servants, I mean--and Mrs. Dexter came in just now and tried to tell me--something; but she was too excited and checked herself; she said I should hear it from you! What is it, Syd----But I'm not to call you that? What am I to call you?"

"Derrick," he said; "it is the name that you shall always call me by; but the world will know me as Lord Heyton."

She started in his arms and, drawing back her head, gazed up at him in amazement; and she listened as he told her the wonderful news; at first with bewilderment and then with a gravity and a lack of enthusiasm which surprised him.

"You are glad, dearest?" he asked. "You are surprised, astonished, of course? It takes some time to realize. You are glad?"

"Are you?" she asked in a low voice.

Derrick shrugged his shoulders; then, as if he were ashamed of the gesture, he said quickly,

"That I have found a father--and such a father--yes. And I have found a mother too. Have you guessed that it is the Donna Elvira I have told you so much about? You are surprised; and no wonder. It is part of the strange story. I will tell you all about her presently. Of course, I am glad. I was all alone in the world--but for you--but for you, Celia! and the loneliness was hard sometimes to bear. But for the rest, the t.i.tle and the estates and the other things, I welcome them only because you will share them with me. Celia, I'm not such an idiot as not to realize that I am coming to you as something more than a penniless adventurer, well-nigh nameless, a man of no account. If I had all the world at my command, the highest t.i.tle a man could bear, I should only value them because I could lay them at your feet."

The tears welled to her eyes and, of her own accord, she drew his head down to her and laid her sweet lips on his.

"You are too good to me; I am not worth it," she said, brokenly. Then, with something like a start, she whispered, with a dawning fear and horror in her eyes, "And the other--Lord Heyton? And his wife! Oh, poor, poor woman! And she has borne so much already! She is lying there, upstairs, prostrated. Who is to tell her? Oh, Derrick, dearest, who is to tell her?"

"You," he said, gently. "No one can break it to her better than you can."

"Oh, must I? Oh, it will be hard for her."

"It will be hard, Celia; but no one can do it better than you. You will soften the blow. She will realise her debt to you, through me. Tell her that her future shall be cared for--but you know that I shall look after that. Celia, you, who are so quick, so acute, have divined the truth. It was for Miriam that I took on myself the forged cheque. I--cared for her once; I thought I was in love with her. I thought so until that night you came to me and stood like an angel of rescue between me and a shameful death. As to Miriam's husband----"

Derrick paused and, looking down at her steadily, laid his hand on her shoulder with an almost masterful pressure.

"--There must be nothing more said about him between us two, Celia," he continued, with solemnity in his voice and manner. "He is gone; let him go and take the past with him. But one word: Celia, it was Heyton who wronged Susie, it was Heyton who forged the cheque; it was because Lady Gridborough thought me guilty of wrecking Susie's life, that she cut me that morning when she pa.s.sed us at the gate by the wood. She knows the truth now; for Reggie has got Susie to reveal it----"

"Reggie!" murmured Celia.

"Yes; he fell in love with Susie the first time he saw her; he has been telling me all about it."

"And Susie yielded! I can scarcely believe it," said Celia, with a note of delight in her voice.

"She yielded," said Derrick, with a smile. "Reggie is a wonderful young man; and has a way with him, as the saying is. He must have laid hard siege to Susie's heart--perhaps he won her through the child. Anyway, he has done so; and, in doing so, has cleared my name."

"I am glad, glad!" Celia murmured, giving him a little hug. "Yes; he is a wonderful young man; I saw that the first time I met him." She told him of that meeting in the British Museum Reading Room. "Oh, I can quite understand, now I come to think of it; with all her seeming coldness, Susie has a tender heart. I've found that out----"

"By the surest way, the revelation of your own," said Derrick. He looked round the room, as if everything in it were precious to him. "And this is where you have worked," he said.

"Yes," she nodded, also looking round; "and I have been very happy here--or should have been," she went on softly, her eyes on his, "if I had been able to keep a certain man out of my thoughts. But he was there all the time; I could close my eyes and be back at 'The Jail,' looking over the rails at his upturned face and hearing his voice. What a wonderful thing love is!"