Chapter III: Freedom at Last

IT was the next morning that Damaris sat at her mother's escritoire. There were some old papers in it, and the little drawers needed tidying. But she found nothing of any value—a few receipted bills, some odd bits of sealing-wax, and some old-fashioned thin envelopes and paper. Then she opened a little secret drawer, and in it she found some old letters. They had evidently lain there unnoticed for many years. The ink had turned brown. She took them tenderly into her hand; they were addressed to her mother, and were all of them dated from "The Hall, Little Marley."

Damaris had always imagined her mother was an Italian of rather humble birth, as her uncles never mentioned her, and when she asked once if she had no relations, they answered severely—

"We are your relations. Are we not enough?"

Her fingers trembled as she opened the letters and read their contents. They seemed to be all written by a sister of her mother's, evidently a much younger girl than herself, and were addressed to Villa Rosini, Florence. This was the first one she read—

"MY DARLING LILIAN,—HOW I loved getting a letter from you at last! Papa cannot prevent us writing to each other, can he? And what a heavenly life you must be leading! Miss Graves and I struggle on in the schoolroom, and mamma asks daily if I am improving in my studies. Oh, why did papa give us such a prig of a stepmother? I'm only happy when I get away into the stables, or ride off on Peter and have a good gallop over the common. Morris has just left the 'Britannia'—he's been home, and we've had fine fun together. Give my love to your Hubert. I hope I shall meet a handsome man like him when I grow up, who will marry me quickly before mamma can stop it. When I look at fat old Colonel Gascon in church, and think what Hubert saved you from, I feel I ought not to grumble at our separation. If mamma didn't keep up the bad feeling, papa would have you home again with Hubert, but she nags on about the disgrace you have been to the family, and what shocking characters all artists are! And then papa thinks he must agree with her. Did I tell you that Uncle Fred had discovered Hubert's queer old uncles in London? He said they were City people—but quite educated, and mad on collecting old furniture!

"Your loving—

"BARBIE."

The others were written in the same strain, mentioning the unhappy atmosphere at home, and breathing rebellion against the rule of the stepmother. Damaris was keenly interested in the discovery of her mother's relatives and home. It was a revelation to her that instead of her mother being socially inferior to her father—from her parents' point of view—she was his superior.

She sat for hours with these letters on her lap, reading and re-reading them, trying to fit in missing links, and picturing to herself this young aunt writing so lovingly to the absent elder sister.

"They were all written before I was born. I wonder if they ever knew of my existence. Father used to tell me how he hurried home to his uncles when my mother died. It is strange that they never made enquiries about me. I suppose they wouldn't care about a small baby. I wonder if they are still living?"

Damaris sat lost in thought, and was only roused by the luncheon gong. She said nothing to Stevens of her discovery. For the time, she kept it to herself.

Two or three days after, Dane surprised her by coming to the house about ten o'clock in the morning. He looked very alert, and informed her that two men from Christie's were coming by appointment to look over the house.

"They've heard how many treasures are in it, and are very keen to see them."

"What possible business is it of theirs?" said Damaris rather loftily. "I suppose you know that our uncles would never allow any dealer or trader in old furniture to enter the house."

"Ah well, times have changed. I wonder if you have any idea, Damaris, how much some of this old stuff would fetch at Christie's sales. They would figure in many thousands."

"But as you are not going to sell anything, it doesn't matter."

Dane looked at her.

"I am going to sell every bit of it," he said. "Why should I not? Do I want these immaculate Sheraton and Chippendale suites? I want money, and plenty of it. You shall choose any few bits for yourself, Damaris; but I am arranging with Christie for a sale as soon as possible."

Damaris drew a long breath.

"And they left everything to you because they thought you valued it all as they did!" She said no more, but walked upstairs away from him.

Dane shrugged his shoulders and went on with his arrangements.

And as Damaris in her sitting-room upstairs heard the tramp of the men's feet up and down, the stairs and in and out of the rooms, she murmured to herself—

"It is enough to make the ghosts of my uncles appear and walk through the house!"

Then she started up from her seat, for a scheme that she had been turning over in her head now seemed perfectly feasible.

"If he does it, I shall do it too. I want ready money more than he does. But I won't take one penny from him, and he might feel obliged to offer me some. Oh, I am as free as air at last! It would be bondage of the bitterest kind to live my life with him. Money is what he loves, no one or nothing else occupies his heart."

So, very quietly and determinedly, Damaris began to act for herself. She did not even take Stevens into her confidence. She went to a man who had worked for her uncles for years. He was a dealer in antique furniture and curios. And she brought him up to her sitting-room and sold him then and there everything that was of value in it.

When she came to her mother's secretaire, she hesitated. The dealer seemed keenly anxious to buy it. It had been given to her mother, she knew, by her uncles as a wedding present. Her Uncle Ambrose had been travelling through Italy, had come across it in Florence, and had despatched it to the young couple's villa there. Her father had brought it home with him, as his young wife had loved it.

After some discussion, Damaris agreed to let the dealer have it for a certain sum of money considerably under its value. She would let him know in three months' time if she wished to have it again. In fact, as she acknowledged to herself, she pawned it for some ready money. He asked when he might fetch the things away, and she told him in two days' time.

Then quietly and expeditiously, she began to pack some of her clothes in a light suit-case. All this was done in secrecy. Stevens wondered at her young mistress's silence, but there was something in the sparkle of her eyes, and in the animation of her voice, that made her hope she was recovering her health and spirits.

And then Damaris suggested to Stevens to take her usual monthly holiday. At first she had difficulty in making her do it.

"I don't like leaving you, Miss Damaris, my dear."

"But I want to be left. I am not at all lonely, and I mean to go out to-morrow myself."

"With Mr. Dane?"

"No; not with him. I am all right, Stevens. I do assure you I shall be. And I am happier than I have been for a long time. The future seems full of possibilities to me."

Stevens looked at her and smiled.

"You are young, and the world is before you, miss. I am glad you are happy. Mr. Dane will settle down soon, I hope. I shall be at ease when you are married. You are so lonely now."

No more was said.

Stevens departed for her home in the country at ten o'clock.

At eleven, Damaris ordered a taxi, and with her suit-case and her dressing-bag in her hand, went off to Paddington Station. There was a flush on her cheeks and a light in her eyes that had not been there for many a long day.

That afternoon Dane called to see her. He was handed a note by the housemaid, and this was the contents of it—

"MY DEAR DANE,—I have slipped away from you for good and all. Our engagement was a farce. I don't know how we have managed to persist in it these last few weeks. I do appreciate your goodness in not having told me of the alteration of the will, but I am perfectly certain that you will be relieved than otherwise at my decision. We are not suited to each other, Dane. I think we have both realised this lately. I felt I could not stay to argue the point with you, and I am in a hurry to get away, so forgive my hasty departure. Now I know why you are loth to make yourself known to your sister, I feel the sooner I make room for her the better. You will do something for her, will you not? I shall like to think that you will. I am leaving no address, but I have made my own plans, and am very happy about my future. Perhaps one day we may meet again. The house is now your home, and not mine, and so you cannot expect me to stay in it.

"Your affectionate cousin,—

"DAMARIS."

Dane swore when he read this, and then, pacing the loom in his usual restless way, he came to the conclusion that Damaris was right, and they really had nothing in common, nor were in the slightest way suited to become husband and wife.

"She's pretty and well-bred, and isn't a fool, but she's so prudish!" he said to himself.

Selfishly, he never gave her future a thought.

But when he met Stevens the next day, the vials of that good woman's wrath were let loose upon him.

She made him read the letter Damaris had left for her—

"MY DEAR OLD STEVENS,—I can see how round your eyes will get when you come back and find me gone! I had to run away from you, for you would have cried and remonstrated and refused to let me go, and there was really nothing else for me to do. I have discovered that I am left absolutely penniless, and the house is Mr. Dane's, and I will not be dependent on him for charity. For, Stevens, dear, after fighting against it for some weeks, I know for certain now that I made a great mistake in becoming engaged to him. He and I are absolutely unsuited to each other, and the more I see of him, the more convinced I am of it.

"Don't fret for a moment about me. I have money, for I have sold the contents of my room, and I have a small balance of my dress allowance in the bank. I know exactly what I mean to do. I am out on an adventure, and I thrill when I think of it. I shall be perfectly wise and prudent and proper. I shall get into no scrape at all. And, later on, I may write to you and tell you where I am. But not just yet. I know you would have liked to come away with me, but I'm afraid I could not have afforded to keep you with me. And you might not have approved of my intentions. Stay with Mr. Dane if you can. But I have your home address, and I can always write to you there.

"Mr. Dane is selling all our uncles' treasures. How it would break their hearts if they were alive! I felt I wanted to get out of the house before Christie's vans came to remove it all. No more for now. I feel like a bird flying out of his cage. Good-bye, and a thousand thanks for all your kindness and devotedness.

"Yours always affectionately,

"DAMARIS."

"Now, sir, what are you going to do? The poor child casting herself out in the streets with hardly a penny in her purse! And I don't wonder at it; for you, who said you were going to wed her, leaving her alone day after day to her sorrow, and she knowing you were off to enjoy yourself with your fine London ladies! 'Tis enough to make her march off in disgust of heart; but where she is and what she is doing is past my understanding! Oh, it was a sorry day when your foot crossed our threshold!

"Miss Damaris gave up her young life and spent all her beauty and freshness in pleasing two old men, who always told her they would leave her their all. And then you come along and you made my poor masters believe in you; and you vowed to them how you adored their treasures, and they thought and said to me how much more you cared for it all than dear Miss Damaris, and you all the time laughing in your sleeve at them. And no sooner do they lie under the ground than you set to work to sell what they have spent their lives in collecting.

"But I would forgive you that treachery; yes, I would, with all my heart, if you had the least bit of love for my sweet young lady. You professed that you cared for her; you led my masters to believe you did. Do you think they meant her, poor child, to be turned out of her old home penniless? If any harm comes to her, you will be the cause of it. You've treated her as no gentleman would treat a dog. You forced yourself upon her when you thought she had the money, and when you found the money would be yours without her, you turned the cold shoulder and despised and neglected her. And you've driven her away—she, a poor innocent girl who knows nothing of the world's wicked ways—out now without a soul to protect or care for her. Are you going to sit here doing nothing? Isn't there ways of tracing and finding the lost? Don't you mean to do it?"

Stevens gasped for breath.

Dane had listened to her tirade with amused indifference; but once or twice he felt the sting of her tongue. But he was not going to be browbeat by a woman. He answered her very sternly—

"If you weren't in a very hysterical state, Stevens, I should give it to you well for your impertinence and foolishness. I am as vexed as you are at Miss Hartbrook's disappearance. She is behaving like a silly foolish child. We shall doubtless hear from her in a day or two, or from the friends to whom she has gone. Of course, I shall make immediate inquiries for her. Her nerves must be much upset to make her behave so. But as her affianced husband, I consider she has treated me extremely badly. She certainly does want to see more of the world and have her mind broadened. She has secluded herself in this gloomy old house and refused to come about with me till she has got all kinds of delusions and false fancies into her head. I am not going to be cast on one side in such a manner. And when I find her and bring her back here, I shall show her that it is she who has behaved badly and in a most dishonourable and treacherous manner!"

He walked out of the room, leaving a tearful Stevens gazing after him in a dumbfounded fashion. He did in his own way try to trace Damaris, but days passed, and he was entirely unsuccessful.

He thought that she was swallowed up in the great metropolis. Neither he nor Stevens had any idea that she had gone out of London.

Stevens knew that she had no friends, and every day she would roam up and down the streets and parks, hoping to come across her.

Then Dane suddenly paid off all the servants, Stevens amongst them, emptied the house of all that was in it and shut it up, went to Paris with Mrs. Welbeck and her daughters, and never mentioned Damaris by name.

Stevens went home, comforting herself with Damaris's promise to write to her there.

Six weeks afterwards, Dane's approaching marriage with the youngest Miss Welbeck was announced in the "Morning Post."

Meanwhile, Damaris was pursuing her own plans with much deliberation of purpose.

As her train steamed out of Paddington station, she felt she was on the threshold of a new life. She was thrilled to her finger tips with the excitement of the moment.

"Now I know what a runaway feels like," she said to herself, as she gazed out at the country to which she was so swiftly passing. "I ought to feel frightened and depressed at my uncertain future. I don't even know where I am going to sleep to-night. But there are inns in every village, I know, and there must be one in Marley. How little I thought I should be so delighted to get away from Dane! When first he came, I admired him so much; but lately he has felt like a regular old man of the sea on my shoulders. He looks as handsome as ever he did, but it's his mind that is so sordid and mean. I felt contaminated by it when I talked to him."

Then she began to muse upon her plans.

Damaris had determined to seek out her relatives. She had made a note of the address on the old letters she had found in her mother's desk, and she was going down to the village of Marley to see if any of the family were still left in the neighbourhood. She did not intend to make herself known to them directly. She hoped, if her grandfather were dead, that her mother's young sister might be still living. She was her hope, for Damaris felt that she would be received by her for her mother's sake.

In a little bag tied round her neck and secreted under her dress was the whole of her property in bank notes. She was not an inefficient housekeeper, and she calculated that she could live for many months in a quiet way upon what she possessed. Not a shade of anxiety for the future dimmed her outlook.

As she sat back in a third-class railway carriage, her grey eyes were full of dreams: her lips closed with determined resolve. And her heart was beating unevenly, for the spirit of adventure had seized hold of her, and there was the excitement of a strange unknown future before her. The realisation that for the first time in her life she was her own mistress, and a free agent, brought a wonderful rest and relief to her soul.

"I may make mistakes," she was assuring herself; "but I shall have no one to scold me if I do. I am responsible to none. It is new life to me; and how exquisite it will be to wander through the country at my own free will, to have turned my back for once and all upon London's grimy stuffy streets and houses! I will never go back there again if I can help it!"