CHAPTER XXVI
When Lady Vera has told all her story to these kind and sympathizing friends with all the fire and eloquence of passion, their indignation bursts forth unrestrainedly. Lady Clive weeps from pure sympathy.
"Now at last I understand Fairvale's strange reticence and melancholy," Sir Harry Clive exclaims. "He was indeed most cruelly wronged, and Marcia Cleveland must have been a fiend incarnate."
Colonel Lockhart alone says nothing. He sits a little apart, his arms folded over his broad breast, his blue eyes cast to the floor, a look of gloom and settled despair on his handsome, high-bred face. The bitter pain at his heart no tongue can tell.
"And all this while you were Leslie Noble's wife," Lady Clive says, with a heavy sigh for her brother's sake.
"But I believed him dead, you know," Lady Vera answers, with one swift glance at the lover she has lost.
"I wish he had been, for your sake and Phil's," pronounces Sir Harry, fervently, and a moan of pain surges over the pale lips of the beautiful girl.
"Ah, you cannot guess with what feelings of despair I learned of him living," she answers. "It seemed to me for one awful moment that a hand of ice clutched my heart, and that I should surely die. It came over me like a death-warrant, at what fearful cost to myself I should keep my oath to my father. But I had sworn to do his bidding. There was no turning back for me when the fatal moment came."
She pauses a moment, then resumes, with a mournful glance at Lady Clive:
"You will never forgive me, I know, for making myself a sensation and a town talk, Lady Clive. By to-morrow all London will ring with my secret. Oh, the pity and shame! But I will not disgrace you further. I shall not remain your guest any longer. To-morrow I am going away."
Then Colonel Lockhart speaks for the first time.
"You must not let her go, Nella," he says, firmly.
"Why?" cries out Lady Vera, startled.
He hesitates a moment. Why should he imbue her mind with the doubts and fears that fill his own? And she asks again:
"Why should I not go away, Colonel Lockhart?"
"Because you will need the protection of your friends," he answers, gravely.
"Do you think I am afraid of my enemies?" she asks, drawing her slight form proudly erect, and looking very brave and beautiful. "They may hate me as they will, but I defy them to harm me!"
"It is not their hatred but their love you have to fear," he answers, significantly.
"Love," she echoes, regarding him blankly.
"Leslie Noble's love, I mean," he answers, with an effort.
A low and mirthless laugh ripples over her lips.
"I think you have mistaken me," she answers, bitterly. "He had no love for me. Ivy Cleveland held his heart. He only married me for pity's sake."
"It may have been pity, then, but it is something deeper now," Colonel Lockhart answers, gravely. "That man means to claim you, Lady Vera. I read it in the glances he cast upon you."
"Claim me!" she repeats, bewildered.
"For his wife," he answers, bitterly, out of the pain of his heart.
She starts to her feet with a little frightened cry, and flies to Lady Clive as if for protection.
"No, no, he would not dare!" she pants, wildly. "I hate and despise him too much to speak to him, even! I defy him to claim me for his wife! I would sooner die than belong to him! And he—oh, he would not wish it! He loved Ivy, you know."
"Do not pin your faith to that fact, Lady Vera," the baronet interposes gravely. "The lady, whom he claims for his wife now is many years older than you; she is faded, simpering, ridiculous. If he ever loved her, she must have made him rue that folly long since. Besides, she is not his real wife, and you are. Do not forget your great attractions, Lady Vera. You are young, beautiful, wealthy and titled. What more natural than that Leslie Noble should be dazzled by your manifold charms, and desire to claim you?"
She regards him with absolute horror in her lovely, white face.
"I would die before I would suffer him to even touch me!" she cries, indignantly.
"Then you must not leave us, Lady Vera," Sir Harry answers, earnestly. "With all the prestige of your rank and wealth you are so utterly alone in the world that my heart yearns for you as if you were my sister or my daughter. Stay with us and let us guard you from the traps your enemies may set for you."
"Stay with us," re-echoes Lady Clive, warmly, and her brother's speaking eyes reiterate the wish.
But Lady Vera's gaze turns from those eyes, too dearly loved for her peace of mind, and her heart sinks heavily.
"I should not trouble your peace, Lady Vera," he says, hastily, as if divining the thought in her mind. "I am going away."
"I cannot drive you from your sister's house," she answers, sadly.
He comes to her side and takes her hand gently in his strong, warm clasp.
"Be reasonable, Vera," he says, like one speaking to a willful child. "I am a man, young and strong, and capable of facing the world. You are scarcely more than a child, and you need protection from the ills that threaten your tender life. You will stay with Sir Harry and Nella while I will go away. Of course we understand that we cannot go on meeting each other daily as we have done. It would be too hard for both. It is best that we part. That is what you wish yourself—is it not?"
"Yes, yes," she murmurs, faintly.
"That is best," he says, bravely. "I shall go, then; Nella will have my address, and if you ever need a friend you will send for me—will you not, Vera?"
She bows silently, and with sudden, irrepressible passion, he presses her hand.
"Oh, Vera, I have lost you forever, I know," he says, brokenly, "but—you will never allow Leslie Noble's claim, will you? You will never belong to him, never love him?"
"Never!" she answers, with all the pride of the Campbells flushing her face and ringing in her voice.
"Thank you a thousand times," he exclaims. "Leslie Noble is not fit to claim the treasure of your love, Vera. And now, tell me—you will stay with Nella, will you not?"
She glances doubtfully at Lady Clive.
"I could not go into society, you know," she says. "I could not face the world after—after that," and the burning crimson rushes into her face.
"It shall be just as you please about that," her friend answers. "Only say that you will remain with us, dear."
And Lady Vera answers:
"I will stay."
And then the first beams of the early summer dawn peep into the room in wonder at their sad, white faces.
It has been hours since Lady Vera began the telling of the sad story of her early life and her parents' bitter wrongs, and now, as she bids them all a sad good-night, and goes to her room to rest, her heart is breaking with the bitterness of her pain.
"Father," she murmurs, lifting her heavy eyes from her sleepless pillow, "father, I have punished them for their sins, I have shamed them in the eyes of all the world, but my own heart is broken."
CHAPTER XXVII
"Vera, darling, Mr. Noble is in the library, and desires a private interview with you. Here is his card. Shall I say that you will receive him?"
It is several days after Mrs. Vernon's party, and Lady Clive comes suddenly into the pink-hung boudoir where the young countess is listlessly reclining on a satin sofa with her white arms thrown up carelessly above her head.
She looks like some beautiful picture, though her cheek is pale, her lips sad, and slight, dark shadows are visible beneath her melancholy eyes. All her beautiful dark-golden hair is arranged in a rich, picturesque fashion on top of her head, and a few loose, curling tendrils wander lovingly over the broad, white, polished forehead, on which the slender, straight, black brows are so delicately outlined.
She wears an exquisite morning-dress of white muslin, profusely trimmed with rich lace, and a rose-colored ribbon binds her slender waist.
She starts up with a frightened cry at the words of Lady Clive.
"I will not see him! I will not exchange even one poor word with him! How dare he have the audacity to come here?" she pants, growing paler still with anger, and stamping her slippered foot on the bit of pasteboard which she has cast indignantly upon the floor.
Lady Clive waits until her wrath has somewhat spent itself on the innocent card, then argues, gently:
"I know it will be painful to you, Vera, but might it not be better, just once, to receive him, and find out his business? You will then know what course he means to adopt, and can govern yourself accordingly."
Lady Vera pauses, irresolute. Her bosom heaves with quick, indignant sighs, her dark eyes flash.
"You advise me to receive him—this man whom I hate and despise, Lady Clive?" she says, wonderingly.
"For just once, Vera. And only now that you may learn his intentions and be on your guard against his machinations. After this time my doors shall be closed against him as against a pestilence. But you need not take my advice against your will, dear; use your own pleasure."
"You do not know how I dread to enter his presence," the girl cries, with a shudder.
"Decline to see him, then," Lady Clive advises.
"No, I will bear it this once. I will receive him this time, but after this, never!" Lady Vera answers, after a moment of painful thought.
"You decide well," Lady Clive comments, approvingly.
"He is in the library, you say," Lady Vera asks, with her hand upon the door.
"Yes. Shall I accompany you, my dear, if you dread to go alone?"
"I am not afraid of Leslie Noble," the fair young countess answers, dauntlessly. "I will face him alone."
She moves along the corridor with a free, proud step, glides down the stairs, and flings open the library door with an unfaltering hand, and her beautiful head held proudly, like a queen's, with defiance in her dark and flashing eyes.
He is waiting for her there in the soft, semi-twilight of the luxurious room, tall, and dark, and handsome, with eager admiration in his eyes as they fall upon the lovely, queenly girl crowned with the dusky gold of her luxuriant tresses.
She comes into the room, and he bows low and courteously before the fair girl, who, but a few nights ago claimed him as her husband, but she does not even bend that haughty head.
"Why are you here?" she asks, with scant courtesy and freezing contempt.
"To claim my wife," is the answer that rises impetuously to his lips, but he restrains himself, feeling that so abrupt an avowal would be poor policy in the face of her raging scorn.
"Lady Fairvale, surely you expected me to call after all that passed that night," he answers, in a low, smooth, deprecating voice, fixing his soft, dark eyes pleadingly on her proud face.
"No, I did not expect you to call," she flashes back scornfully. "What can you possibly want of me? Did you not hear me say that night that I scorned and hated you? Why, then, do you presume to intrude yourself upon me?"
"I bring you news, my fair lady," he answers, still calmly and gently, as if not resenting her scorn. "I have cabled to Washington, and yesterday I received a reply."
"A reply," she echoes, faintly, and for a moment there is silence, while he regards her with eager admiration, noting every graceful, womanly charm so becomingly enhanced by the beautiful, white morning-dress. After that interval he speaks.
"Yes, I have received my reply," he answers; "you were right, Lady Fairvale, though God knows what strange mystery lies around your supposed death and your rescue from the grave. But they have opened the coffin in which I swear I beheld Vera Campbell Noble buried, and—it is empty. I can no longer doubt that you are, indeed, my wife."
She stares at him with whitened lips, and a shudder of horror chills her heart. Such truth is stamped upon his face that it seems impossible to doubt. Yet she asks herself, with little, awsome chills creeping over all her frame, is it possible that she, Vera, has actually lain in the gloom and darkness of the grave? Has that warm, throbbing flesh, instinct with life and vitality, been closed around with the blackness of the coffin? Has the black earth been heaped upon her living form? What fearful mystery is this?
"Tell me," she says, almost piteously, "is it true that Vera Campbell died and was buried? Will you answer it?"
His face expresses the most honest surprise.
"Are you Vera Campbell, and pretend to doubt it?" he answers. "This is a mystery I cannot fathom. The girl, Vera, whom I made my wife by her mother's wish, committed suicide, and was buried in Glenwood. This I swear by this holy book," lifting a Bible lying on the table beside him, and pressing his lips upon it. "If you would go to America, Lady Fairvale, you would see the monument I erected in Glenwood to the memory of my wife!"
And again there is silence while Lady Vera, standing silently with little thrills of icy coldness creeping over her frame, shudders to herself. So they had buried her while she lay in that trance-like slumber. How had her father resurrected her, and why had he held it a secret?
Wondering at her silence, he speaks again.
"I have answered your question truly and fairly, Lady Vera. Let me ask you one in turn. Are you really ignorant of the fact that you have undoubtedly been buried alive?"
She shivers, palpably. All the warmth of the summer sunshine cannot keep back the icy winds that seem to blow over her like arctic waves.
"I never even imagined anything so horrible," she answers. "I distinctly remember my maddened attempt at suicide. There were two small vials in my mother's medicine chest. One meant death, the other sleep. I chose the poison, as I thought; drank it, and lay down to die. But I had made a mistake. I fell into a deep, narcotic sleep. I awakened in the dawn of another day and found myself in a small, humble room, watched over by a man who declared himself to be my father. I know no more than this."
"Yet he, undoubtedly, rescued you from the grave and concealed the fact from some motive of his own," Leslie Noble answers. "It was a mistaken kindness on his part. There are those who are ready to doubt your identity on the score of your ignorance of that strange event in your life, Lady Vera—some who would insinuate that you are an impostor and have no right to the title you bear. But I am not one of those carping disbelievers. I am quite convinced that you are really the Vera we believed to be dead so long, and I am ready to acknowledge you and to make reparation and atonement for the unconscious wrong I have done you."
"To make atonement—how?" Lady Vera asks him, with a curling lip and scornful eye.
Her scorn disconcerts him for a moment. His face flushes and his eyes fall, then he rallies, facing her with assumed calmness and humility that but poorly hide the eagerness of his heart.
"In the only way possible, of course," he answers. "By repudiating and putting aside the lady whom I married after your supposed death, and by installing you in your rightful place. Will you come home to me, Vera, my beautiful wife? Darnley House shall open wide its door to receive you, and there is no more beautiful home in London. It is elegant enough for you, even, my haughty princess."
She stares at him speechless with anger and amazement.
"Will you come to me, Vera?" he repeats, half opening his arms and speaking very tenderly.
She retreats before him as he advances. Her face flames with anger.
"How dare you—how dare you?" she pants, brokenly. "I scorn you, Leslie Noble! Surely you know that. Why, you are less to me than the dust beneath my feet."
"I am your husband by your own confession," he answers, sullenly, and with the fire of baffled purpose blazing in his eyes.
"Yes, you are my husband," she answers, with a scorn intense enough to blight him where he stands. "You are my husband, but you have no rights over me that I shall acknowledge, be sure of that. You forfeited all claim on my respect in that hour when you stood tamely by and suffered my enemies to insult and revile me, while you, my husband, uttered no word to defend me from their wicked abuse."
"I was a fool, and blind then," he answers. "I was weakly dominated and ruled by a passion for Ivy Cleveland, which, God knows, I have rued and repented long ago. I know her now for what she is, a selfish, heartless woman, and her mother, a devil incarnate. I have told them that there is no bond between us, and that they must go. If you will forgive me and come home to me, Vera, I will devote my life to your happiness."
"If that is all you came for, you may go," she answers, icily. "I shall never be nearer to you than I am at this moment. I should never have confessed my secret, I should never have claimed you, whom I hate and scorn, for my husband, but that it was the only way to keep my oath of vengeance to my dying father. But I have done with you now. The greatest kindness you can show me, Leslie Noble, is never to let me see your hated face again on earth."
Leslie Noble's face grows dark with passion and shame. To be defied and scorned by this beautiful girl is something that would make most men cower and feel humiliated, and though this man has had the most of his finer feelings dulled and blunted by his life with the Clevelands, still some faint instinct of shame stirs in him at her words and looks. But rage overpowers it.
"In your supreme scorn for me, Lady Fairvale, you seem to lose sight of one stubborn fact," he answers, in low, menacing tones. "I have been humbly pleading with you for what I may lawfully claim as my right."
"Your right!" she echoes, retreating toward the door as if she could not bear another word.
"Yes, my right," he answers, following and placing himself between her and the door. "Do not go, Lady Fairvale; stay and hear me out. You are my wife; your place is in my home and by my side. What is there to hinder me from taking possession of you?"
There is a dull menace in his look and tone, but Lady Vera's high courage does not falter.
"Would you attempt such a thing against my will?" she inquires, fixing on him the scornful gaze of her proud, dark eyes.
"I have fallen in love with you, Vera, I would dare much before I would give up the hope of winning your heart in return," he answers, doggedly.
The angry color flames into her cheeks.
"Then you are simply mad," she answers. "Have I not told you that I hate and despise you, and that I hope never to see your face again after this hour? Were you the last man on earth, I should never give you even one kind thought."
"Perhaps you have given your love elsewhere," he sneers. "Rumor assigns Colonel Lockhart the highest place in your favor."
"Rumor is right," Lady Vera answers, with calm defiance. "I love Colonel Lockhart, and I should have been his wife had not you reappeared upon the scene. I believed you dead. Tell me who was it that died last year in your native city, having the same name as your own?"
"It was my uncle, Leslie Noble, for whom I was named," he answers, sullenly, and then, quite suddenly, he falls down on his knees before her, and tries to take her hand, but she draws it haughtily away.
"Oh, Vera," he exclaims, in abject despair, "you drive me mad when you so heartlessly declare your love for another man. You have no right to love any other man than me; I am the lord of your heart and person, yet once more I plead with you, humbly, because I love you, come home with me, Vera, my darling. Be my wife in truth. Let me claim what already belongs to me in the eyes of the law."
"Never!" she answers, decisively. "Rise, Leslie Noble, do not kneel to me. I will have naught to do with you now or ever. I would die before I would recognize your claim upon me. You have my answer now and for all time. Go, and do not trouble me again."
She moves to the door and holds it open, pointing to it with one white, taper finger. She looks so proud, so imperious, so commanding, that against his will he is compelled to obedience.
He moves to the door, but looks back to say with a dark, menacing frown:
"I am going, but do not please yourself with the fancy that you have seen the last of me, Lady Fairvale. You belong to me, and I swear that I will have my own."
With that ominous threat he goes.