Miss Drake

“ Indeed, I was afraid of you.'
'Afraid!' Drake echoed the word with an accent of wonderment.
'Yes, yes, afraid. I believed that I should mean so little to you, that I should be of no use or help to you. And that's why—I—I—married—'
Drake straightened his shoulders with a jerk as Clarice uttered the word. He became aware of the tell-tale look in his eyes, and lowered them from the girl's face to the ground.
'You mustn't fancy,' he began in a hesitating tone. 'You mustn't misunderstand. I was thinking what men owe to women—that's all—that's all, indeed—and how vilely they repay it. ”

“ Drake felt inclined to argue the question one Sunday afternoon in London's lilac time, as he walked across the green park towards Beaufort Gardens. He found Miss Le Mesurier alone and in a melancholy mood. She was singing weariful ballads in an undertone as he entered the room, and she rose dispiritedly to welcome him.
'It's seldom one finds you alone,' he said, and his face showed his satisfaction. ”

“ Drake loved her no longer. He had never loved her. The woman he had loved was the most beautiful of God's creatures, and Drake had only turned to her—Nell—in a moment of pique. And this woman with the perfect face, and soft, lingering voice; this woman whose every movement was grace itself, who carried herself like an empress—an empress in the first flush of her beauty and power—had changed her mind and called him back to her. ”

“ Just as he was thinking this, to his intense surprise, the Drake spoke to him as follows:
"I beg of you not to kill me, my good boy," said he, "for you must know I am not in reality a Drake as I appear to be, but I am a fairy King just come from the region of the gods. It is my habit every day to descend to this lake in the form of a white Drake, and to amuse myself by swimming round and round. If you will now consent to let me go I will reward you liberally. You shall have gold and silver and jewels and coral, as much as you wish, and sumptuous food every day for the rest of your life. ”

“ Drake?' It was better surely not to learn things at all than to learn them by the butler.
'She tells him everything.'
'And he tells you—I see.' Our young lady got up; recovering her muff and her gloves, she smiled. 'Well, I haven't, unfortunately, any Mr. Drake. I congratulate you with all my heart. Even without your sort of assistance, however, there's a trifle here and there that I do pick up. I gather that if she's to marry any one, it must quite necessarily be my friend.'
Mrs. Jordan was now also on her feet. ”

“ But Dreda shook her head, and could not be shaken. Then Miss Drake turned aside and sat down, turning her chair so that her face was hidden from the audience, and two little patches of red showed themselves on Mr Rawdon’s cheek bones.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “a mistake has arisen—a most regrettable mistake. The numbers attached to two of the essays submitted to me have apparently been misplaced. It is impossible to say how this confusion has arisen. Neither Miss Drake nor I can think of any satisfactory explanation. ”

“ Drake told me that I should find you harder to [Pg 322] move than you look. And I am not sure that you are not right," she said. "When you come to stay at the Hall it will be as mistress." Nell's face crimsoned again. "But, my dear girl, we can't pass over the great event as if it were of no consequence. Drake's engagement, under any circumstances, would be of the deepest interest to all of us, to the whole country; but his engagement to you will create a profound sensation, and we must demonstrate our satisfaction in some way. I'm afraid you will have to face a big dinner party." ”

“ He wanted her, and wanting her, was committed to scrupulous frankness.
Drake looked out across the city. At his feet lay the quiet strip of garden, lawn and bush; beyond, the lamps burning on the parapets of the Embankment, and beyond them, the river shining in the starlight, polished and lucent like a slab of black marble, with broad regular rays upon it of a still deeper blackness, where the massive columns of Hungerford Bridge cast shadows on the water. An engine puffed and snorted into the station, leaving its pennant of white smoke in the air. ”

“ Drake laid down his hat and seated himself opposite to Mr. Le Mesurier.
'My daughter told me this morning, quite spontaneously, of course, that she had asked you to call in order that she might get from you a certain answer to a certain question, and I thought that I had better prepare you for what that question will be.' He hesitated in his speech, searching for the best way to begin his explanation, and he caught sight of a cigar-box on the mantelshelf above his head. ”

“ Mr. Drake then verily was a person who opened the door! Before she had time, however, to recover from the effect of her evocation, she was offered a vision which quite engulfed it. It was communicated to her somehow that the face with which she had seen it rise prompted Mrs. Jordan to dash, a bit wildly, at something, at anything, that might attenuate criticism. “Lady Bradeen’s re-arranging—she’s going to be married.” ”

“ His neckcloth had a bias toward one ear. There was dust on his clothes, He bowed formally, but his whole personality seemed ablaze—seemed to shout violence, riot, and red revolution,
“I ventured to enter unannounced, duchess,” he said breathlessly. “I have just had a somewhat painful interview with Mr. Drake. I say painful, but it offered certain compensations. I had no idea that I remembered so much from my young days. Mr. Drake is a strong and fine-spirited young man, but he has no science. I doubt whether he will be able to wish you good-by as he had no doubt intended.” ”

“ But tea! Will nobody take more tea? Oh, dear! oh, dear! Why can't we have tea over again?”
“I know what you mean, sir,” said Drake. “You mean that I have brought Glory back to a life of danger and vanity, and sloth and sensuality. Very well. I deny your definition. But call it what you will, I have brought her back to the only life her talents are fit for, and if that's all——”
“Would you have done the same for your own sister?”
“How dare you introduce my sister's name in this connection?”
“And how dare you resent it? What's good for one woman is good for another.” ”

“ She wore her black hair loosely coiled like a girl, and a gay muslin dress, and carried a parasol to match over one shoulder.
Robert Drake could see that her lips moved, but the thunder of the seas drowned her voice, and he could hear nothing. He did not want to hear. He resented her presence. At the same time, it was obviously impossible to sit there in stoic indifference while a lady addressed him. To the last, one must be chivalrous even to a sex that deserves no good of anybody. ”

“ Who and what is this missionary that knows so much? asked Drake.
Oh, said Tom, he is a man; only a man, and looks just as we do.
Oh! I am glad of that, replied Drake; I thought he might be the God your mother’s book tells about.
Drake, you often speak about your squaw mother. Where is your real mother?
That I don’t know, replied Drake. I have no recollections of any mother, except the old Indian woman that I lived with, until your father captured me on the Mongaup. ”

“ Drake smoked in silence for a moment or two. Most men would have said at once that Lady Lucille Turfleigh had, on his change of prospects, jilted him; but Drake had some old-world notions of honor in respect to women, and he could not give Lady Luce away.
"I'm afraid I can't marry Luce," he said. "Our engagement is broken off." [Pg 93]
The earl swore a good old Tory oath.
"Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" he said. "One of the nicest girls I know, and—devoted to you. More devoted to you than you deserve. And you don't mean to marry her? I suppose you've seen some one else?" ”

“ One knows what men are; and poor Drake is no better than the rest. Ah, well, it does not matter to me—now. Thank goodness it is over! Though one can always count upon Drake; he is too thorough a gentleman to make a scene or bully a woman. Heaven knows I am sorry to break with him, and I wish that old stupid hadn't made such a fool of himself; for Drake and I would have got on very well. But as things are——As father says, it's impossible. I wonder whether they are coming back; I am simply dying for tea."
Before she got down to the jetty, her fellow voyagers caught her up. ”

“ I shot a quick, half frightened glance at Drake. He was crouching dangerously close to the lip of the ledge, hands clasped and knuckles white with the intensity of his grip, eyes rapt, staring—upon the verge of worship even as I had been.
“Drake!” I thrust my elbow into his side brutally. “None of that! Remember you're human! Guard yourself, man—guard yourself!”
“What?” he muttered; then, abruptly: “How did you know?”
“I felt it myself,” I answered: “For God's sake, Dick—hold fast to yourself! Remember Ruth!” ”

“ Shortly after this interview Drake was told late at night that he should have audience of Her Majesty next day. On seeing him, Elizabeth went straight to the point. 'Drake, I would gladly be revenged on the King of Spain for divers injuries that I have received.' 'And withal,' says Drake, 'craved my advice therein; who told Her Majesty the only way was to annoy him by the Indies.' On that he disclosed his whole daring scheme for raiding the Pacific. Elizabeth, who, like her father, 'loved a man' who was a man, fell in with this at once. ”

“ Drake’s position in the great world, but the temporary collapse of his prospective bride threw all further necessary light; and what our heroine saw and felt for in the whole business was the vivid reflexion of her own dreams and delusions and her own return to reality. Reality, for the poor things they both were, could only be ugliness and obscurity, could never be the escape, the rise. ”

“ Then she turned back. 'I mean,' she said, 'if two people really care for one another, their love would triumph over everything—everything. De Valréas would have killed the husband.' She spoke with an intense conviction of the truth of what she said.
'But, my dear child!' replied Drake. 'You—oh, you don't really believe that.'
'I do,' she answered. 'You see, there are so few people who really care for one another. If you find two who do, I am sure they would conquer, whatever stood in the way.'
The conversation was interrupted, to Drake's relief, by Captain Le Mesurier. ”

“ He counted out fifty credits and placed them in the old man's hand. The old man was regarding him intently. "You're the Jet-propelled Dutchman, ain't you."
"What if I am?"
"You don't look like a Dutchman. Are you?"
"No," Drake said, and re-entered the room and slammed the door.
The anti-grav trains of Worldwellost were as rundown as the towns and cities they connected. Drake rode all night and all the next morning. He didn't sleep a wink throughout the whole trip, and when he got off the train at the Storeyville station he looked even more like a ghost than he had when he had got on. ”

“ Their start had been very early; as Drake bid the school-master observe, to have nothing to detain you, nothing to eat and nothing to pack, is a great help in journeys of haste. The warming day, and Indian Creek well behind them, brought Drake to whistling again, but depression sat upon the self-accusing Bolles. Even when they sighted the Owyhee road below them, no cheerfulness waked in him; not at the nearing coffee, nor yet at the companionable tinkle of sleigh-bells dancing faintly upward through the bright, silent air. ”

“ Yes, a young lady had been there. She had gone down to the beach to look for him. Yes, she had come back and written the note. She had been crying. And then she had taken the village fly and driven to the station.
Drake slammed the door on the phlegmatic face. He went back to the table and picked up the crumpled letter. His eyelids burned. He felt as if he were being slowly choked.
“And I shall have to marry her!” he groaned. “I shall have to marry her!”
But it was not of the Lady Angela that he was thinking. ”

“ He ate next to nothing, though he was often quite vulgarly hungry, and his clothes were artistically disreputable. There was only one other cottage on the bay, a ramshackle building whose notice, “To let furnished,” had a battered, weather-beaten appearance, as if it had stood there a good many years already and expected to stand there for a good many more. Drake regarded it with gloomy satisfaction on his return from his morning's work. When it disappeared, he was thoroughly aggrieved, though also slightly excited. It is a tedious, boring business, dying of a broken heart at the twenty-three. ”

“ How am I to know that you are really a fairy? It seems to me that all you are in a position to give me is your feathers.”
“I hope you will not disbelieve my word,” replied the Drake very earnestly; “I assure you I can do all this, and even more, if you will release me.”
“Well,” said the Boy, “if that is really so I will make a bargain with you. I do not care at all for your gold or your jewels, but what I really want is a wife. If you can promise to supply me with a wife I will let you go.” ”

“ Glory reproduced a part of this love-passage in pantomime, and Drake screamed with laughter.
It was seven o'clock before they reached the outskirts of London. By that time a hamper on the coach had been emptied and the bottles thrown out; the procession had drawn up at a dozen villages on the way; the perspiring tipsters, with whom “things hadn't panned out well,” had forgotten their disappointments and “didn't care a tinker's! cuss”; every woman in a barrow had her head-gear in confusion, and she was singing in a drunken wail. ”