CHAPTER XXXVIII
Ere Lady Vera fully recovers consciousness again, she has reached her destination, the ruins of a once fine old mansion in the heart of a dense wood near the sea.
She opens her eyes in a large and lofty upper chamber to find herself lying in a high, old-fashioned, four posted bed, with faded hangings of crimson velvet. Two waxen candles in silver candelabra on the tall, carved mantel shed a soft, steady light through the room, and by their aid Vera deciphers the features of a stout, middle-aged woman, in cap and apron, who is bending over her, bathing her face and hands with aromatic vinegar.
The beautiful girl springs up to a sitting posture with a cry of fear and indignation, and with outstretched hands repulses the woman.
"Do not touch me, wretch!" she cries. "How dared you bring me here, away from my home and friends? You shall suffer for this."
But the woman only smiles as if at the ravings of a spoiled child.
"My lady, you are mistaken," she answers, not unkindly. "It was your husband who brought you here. I am only your maid. I am here to wait upon you."
"I have no husband," Lady Vera answers, with a cold thrill of fear creeping around her heart.
"Oh, my lady, don't go for to say that," the woman answers, cajolingly. "Such a kind, handsome man as Mr. Noble is ought not to be denied by his wife. I'm sure it was very good in him to carry you off, and hide you from the people as wanted to put you into a lunatic asylum. The keepers would have abused you dreadfully, my poor dear, but I shall be as kind and patient with you as your own mother. Your husband is that tender-hearted he couldn't bear to see you ill-used."
"So it is Leslie Noble who has abducted me," Lady Vera thinks to herself, with a start. Up to that moment her suspicions had turned upon Marcia Cleveland. "The wretch! And he has pretended to this woman that I am crazy."
The crimson color flies into the captive's face, then retreats, leaving her deathly pale again. She rises and walks up to the woman, who retreats half-fearfully before her.
"You need not fear me," Lady Vera tells her, sadly. "I have no intention of harming you. I only wish to ask you a simple question."
Thus adjured, the woman waits respectfully, humoring the whim of her mistress.
"Look at me," says Lady Vera, lifting the dark fringe of her brilliant, star-like eyes, and fixing a calm, steady gaze on the woman's face. "Do I look like a mad person? You know that lunatics have a wild, dangerous glare in their eyes. Are not mine calm, reasonable, steady?"
"She is one of the cunning ones," the maid mutters to herself, then aloud, soothingly, she answers: "They are beautiful eyes, my lady, so bright and black! No wonder my master adores you, so lovely as you are."
"I tell you I am not mad," Vera cries impatiently, vexed at the woman's stolid persistence in her belief. "I am as sane as you are, and your master is a villain. He has abducted me from my friends and my home, but they will trace me out and punish him for his villany, be sure of that."
"Come, my dear, do not excite yourself. It will all come well. Sit down in this arm-chair, and make yourself comfortable, while I go and fetch your lunch and a cup of tea. I dare say you have had no dinner, traveling so far."
She wheels forward a large, crimson-cushioned easy-chair, but Lady Vera rejects it with a gesture of scorn.
"Where is the man you call your master?" she inquires, haughtily. "Is he in the house?"
"Yes, my lady. Should you be pleased to see him?" inquires her keeper, deferentially.
"Yes; tell him to come. I wish to know the meaning of this dastardly outrage," the countess answers, indignantly.
The woman withdraws with a bow. The click of a key in the lock informs Lady Vera that she is a prisoner. She paces up and down the floor, a storm of indignation raging in her breast, mixed with a wild hope that her friends will soon deliver her from the trap into which she had walked so unsuspectingly.
Suddenly the key clicks in the lock, and Leslie Noble walks boldly into the room.
CHAPTER XXXIX
For a moment they regard each other silently, Mr. Noble appearing handsome and elegant as usual, having removed the disfiguring toggery that had transformed him into a stooping old woman, and Lady Vera facing him with her slight form drawn haughtily erect, the scorn of an outraged queen flashing in her dark and star-like eyes.
"Coward, villain, how dared you perpetrate this high-handed outrage?" she demands, in a clear, high voice, that trembles with its bitter anger.
For answer he throws himself abjectly at her feet.
"Vera, my love, my darling, my wife, my passionate love must plead my excuse. I loved you and I could not live without you. So I brought you away where I might have some chance to plead my cause with you and win your heart," he answers, weakly, still kneeling there, and gazing at her with adoring eyes.
A scornful laugh ripples over the listener's beautiful lips as she retreats from him to the furthest corner of the room.
"And did you think this craven course could win my heart?" she asks, with stinging contempt. "Was it a manly, a lovable feat to don the rags of a poor and feeble old woman, that you might kidnap a weak girl who hated you? Was it to surrender my heart to the handsome and manly figure you appeared on that occasion?"
He writhes beneath the keen lash of her superb scorn.
"Edward Rochester masqueraded as an old woman, and yet Jane Eyre loved and admired him as her hero among men," he answers, sullenly, rising to his feet.
"There is no parallel between the cases," she answers, icily. "You can bring no precedent from fiction or history that could make me admire you, either in your own form or any other. I despise you, I have always despised you, and I warn you that my friends will rescue me out of your power. I left your lying note behind me with directions that I must be sought for if I failed to return. Even now they are searching for me. At any moment I expect them to rescue me."
He pales at first, then laughs easily.
"You were more crafty than I deemed you, but I am not frightened," he answers. "Do you know where you are? You are thirty miles from Fairvale Park, in the midst of a dense wood. You are occupying the only habitable chamber in a ruined and deserted old mansion, whose owner is in Egypt. The place has the name of being haunted, and no one ever ventures into the vicinity. I have hired the woman you saw just now at an extravagant bribe to remain here to guard and wait on you. I have sworn to her that you are mad, and she firmly believes me. She will regard all you say as the aimless ravings of a lunatic. Now do you believe it likely that you will soon be delivered out of my power?"
She has no answer ready for him now. Despair has stricken her dumb.
"It does not rest with your friends, it does not rest with me to say when you shall go free," he pursues, coolly. "It is all for you to say, Lady Vera. I am ready to make a treaty of peace with you at any time."
"How?" she asks, with white lips.
"You are my wife," he answers. "I love you, and if you will consent to acknowledge my claim upon you, and live with me, I will take you back to Fairvale Park to-morrow."
"And do you think I would purchase freedom upon such ignominious terms?" she asks, with a curling lip. "Live with you, coward to your first wife, traitor to your second? Not for an hour. I would pine to death in this loathsome prison first, and die thanking Heaven for my happy release from the arts of a villain."
"You forget that you are here alone, defenseless, utterly in my power," he answers, pale with anger and shame. "What is there to prevent me from forcing you to do my will?"
Crimson for a moment, then pale as death again, Countess Vera lifts her hand.
"God is here," she answers, solemnly, "God is here, and He will protect me. I tell you frankly," she goes on with vehement emphasis, "I will kill you, or I will kill myself before I will yield to your will. Do not attempt to drive me desperate."
Pale with rage, he thrusts his hand into his breast and withdraws the missing memorandum-book.
Lady Vera's face lights up at that sight.
"So you did have it," she cries out, quickly. "You are a thief as well as an abductor of helpless women! Oh, for shame, for shame!"
His face grows black as night.
"As you are in my power, you would do well to moderate your language," he answers, in the low tone of bitter rage. "Beware how you transform my love to hate!"
"I fear neither your love nor your hate," Countess Vera answers, dauntlessly.
"Perhaps you will pay a heavier ransom for this book than you would have done simply for your freedom—will you not?"
"Is the same ransom required?" she asks, regarding him steadily.
"Yes."
"I would purchase no earthly boon at so terrible a price," Countess Vera answers, shuddering.
"Not even title, wealth and power?" he asks, significantly.
"All three I can claim already," she answers, with a gesture of unconscious pride.
"But if you must lose all without this little talisman?" he inquires, in the same significant tone, and regarding her intently.
"I can do without the talisman, as you call it," she answers, coldly. "Before I fell asleep that day, every word of my father's memorandum was fixed in my memory. I have written to Joel McPherson to come to England and establish my identity with that of the girl who was buried alive in Glenwood Cemetery."
For a moment Leslie Noble stares blankly at his beautiful opponent, dismayed at her calm declaration.
"By Jove! but you are a keen one," he mutters, unable to repress a glance of angry admiration. "You seem to anticipate everything. I did not credit you with such a ready brain. And so you have written to Joel McPherson?"
"Yes," she answers, with a little note of triumph in her voice.
"Yes, and I have written to a friend of mine in Washington to keep the sexton of Glenwood out of the way by force, or fraud, or bribe; you will never see him in England until he comes by my will," he answers, insolently.
Coldly disdainful, she makes him no reply.
"Do you know what will happen to you if you continue to defy me?" he goes on, angrily. "Raleigh Gilmore is about to begin a suit against you. His aim is to prove you an impostor. Mrs. Cleveland is aiding and abetting him in the endeavor. She hates you so bitterly that she will stop at nothing to drag you down from your high estate. They will succeed, unless Joel McPherson's evidence can be given against them. With the old sexton lies the only real knowledge of that night's mystery, when Vera Campbell was removed from the grave where I myself saw her laid. You alone can never prove that Earl Fairvale's heiress rose from that grave again."
He pauses, but her bloodless lips offer no reply.
"Admit my rights as your husband, Vera, and I will fight with you and by your side for the grand heritage your father left you. I will summon Joel McPherson to your aid and prove your identity beyond all cavil. Deny me and I swear I will be terribly revengeful for your obstinacy. I will join the ranks of your enemies. I will deny that you are my wife. Your defeat will be certain then. Think of yourself penniless, friendless, branded all over England as an adventuress and impostor."
The beautiful face is deadly pale, the hands are clenched until the pink nails cut into the delicate palms. In silent agony she admits to herself that his threats are not at all idle ones. Sir Harry Clive's reluctant communications have prepared her for all this.
"Well, what have you to say to all this?" he asks of the silent figure before him.
"Nothing. I know that of myself I am utterly powerless. I leave my cause with God," she answers, briefly.
He smothers a curse on his dark mustached lips.
"So you will lose all rather than take me for your husband?" he asks her, in unfeigned amazement.
She lifts her eyes for a moment, and surveys him with a look of steady contempt.
"Have you still any doubt on that point?" she inquires, fearlessly and defiantly. "Let me assure you then that I would rather be a homeless beggar in the streets of London than submit to your loathsome love!"
The look, the tone, the words, fill him with blind, overmastering rage.
"By Heaven, I will make you repent those words!" he exclaims, springing toward her and clasping his arm around her slender waist.
But with one piercing cry of terror Countess Vera puts her hand into her breast and withdraws a tiny, jewel-hilted dagger.
Maddened with fear, she thrusts the keen blade into the arm that holds her so tightly, and with a scream of pain the villain releases her and retreats to the door.
"Oh, Mr. Noble, your arm is all bleeding!" exclaims the woman, entering at that moment with the tea-tray.
"Yes, my wife is in one of her occasional violent fits, and has tried to murder me," he answers, shortly.
"She has a dagger which you must try to get away from her or she may hurt you too. Lock her into the room now and come down and dress my wound for me," he adds, stalking out of the room.
CHAPTER XL
The woman advanced into the room and deposited her tea-tray on the table. A tempting little lunch was arranged upon it in a pretty china service.
"Come, Mrs. Noble, and drink your tea while it is still warm," she said, coaxingly. "I know you are tired and hungry. Will you take a bit of this chicken salad and cold sliced ham? 'Twill do you good."
"I have no appetite, thank you," Vera answers, turning her head aside.
"Well, I'll leave the tray with you while I go and bind up master's wounded arm. Mayhap you'll eat by-and-bye," the woman answers kindly as she goes out, carefully locking the door behind her.
Left to herself, Lady Vera draws a long breath of relief, and turning to a window, draws aside the heavy velvet curtain, glancing anxiously out for any possible prospect of release.
Alas! her captor's words proved all too true. The first faint beams of dawn rising palely in the east, show her the wide, dense belt of woodland surrounding the ruined mansion in which she is imprisoned.
The wild, tangled garden beneath the window sends up gusts of rainy perfume to her eager senses. She pushes up the sash and leans out, inhaling the fresh, sweet air, and wondering if it would not be possible to escape through the window from this horrible trap into which her credulity had led her.
Alas! her eager, downward glance shows her that she is in the third story of the house.
She drops the heavy curtain and sinks shivering to a seat, worn and trembling with the terrible experiences of the night. Her thoughts fly to the home from whence she has been so rudely torn.
"Are they frightened? Are they seeking for me, I wonder?" she thinks. "Oh, may God guide them in their search!"
And then she thinks of her lost lover, handsome, manly Philip Lockhart. She knows how heavily the blow will fall on that true, manly, loving heart.
She leans her head wearily down on her arm, and gives herself up to the sad, sweet pleasure of thinking of Philip Lockhart. Gradually a weary sleep steals over her, from which she is awakened by the entrance of her keeper.
"Asleep, dear? I'm sorry I awakened ye," she says, blandly. "Do you feel better of your little fit of temper?"
Lady Vera makes no answer to this kind query.
"Mr. Noble has gone up to London," pursues the maid, glibly. "He left his love and good-bye for you. You gave him quite an ugly cut, so you did, my pretty lady. Won't you let poor old Betsy Robson see the pretty little knife you did it with?" she continues, coaxingly.
Lady Vera lifts her eyes and regards her calmly.
"Betsy Robson, if that is your name," she said, "listen to me a moment. I have a dagger concealed on my person, and Leslie Noble has set you on to take it from me. I warn you that if you make the slightest attempt to do so, it will be at the peril of your life. It is my only weapon of defense against Leslie Noble, and I will never part with it while I am in that villain's power."
"Oh, fie, my lady, why should you be so set against your loving husband?" remonstrates Mrs. Robson.
Lady Vera regards her keenly.
"Are you acting a part, or do you really believe what that man tells you?" she asks, wonderingly. "I tell you Leslie Noble has no claim on me at all. He is a villain who has stolen me away from my home and friends to try to force me to be his wife. I am Lady Fairvale, of Fairvale Park, and if you will restore me to my liberty, Mrs. Robson, I will reward you generously."
The dark eyes, full of bitter tears now, are lifted pleadingly to the woman's stolid face, but the wild appeal only elicits some words under Betsy Robson's breath:
"Poor soul! He told me she fancied she was some great, rich lady. A pity she is so wild-like. So lovely as she is, too, and might be such a pride to her handsome husband."
Countess Vera turns away her head with a heart-wrung cry.
"Oh, may God forgive you, woman, for lending yourself to this wicked conspiracy against a wronged girl! Surely He who reigns above will send me safe deliverance from my prison-house."
"Poor, pretty creature, raving mad, that she is," comments stupid, yet kind-hearted Betsy Robson.
CHAPTER XLI
The utmost dismay and horror settled down upon the household at Fairvale Park when it was found that every trace of Lady Vera's whereabouts was swallowed up in impenetrable darkness and mystery.
Sir Harry and Lady Clive believed that Mrs. Cleveland was the guilty party who had decoyed her from her home, and they foreboded that the too-confiding girl had been murdered in cold blood by her ruthless foe. Little Hal's story of the woman who had given him the note for Lady Vera in the wood confirmed them in their first suspicions, and they bitterly bewailed Lady Vera's mistaken clemency in letting her would-be murderess go free that night in London.
But when Colonel Lockhart came down from London that evening in response to their telegram, though he was almost distracted by this new and crushing blow to his happiness, the quick instinct of love turned his suspicions unerringly to the truth.
"It is not Mrs. Cleveland who has abducted Lady Vera. I cannot believe it for an instant. She would not have ventured on such a course," he says, decidedly; "Leslie Noble is the guilty party."
"Then what are we to do, Philip?" Lady Clive asks, piteously.
"We must oppose cunning to cunning," he answers, thoughtfully. "I shall return to London to-night and employ a skillful detective to shadow Leslie Noble's every footstep. You may be sure that the wretch has shut Lady Vera up in some obscure place in the hope of coercing her to yield to his wishes. Oh, Heaven, what anguish may not my darling be suffering now while I am powerless to rescue her!"
He walks distractedly up and down the floor, while tears of not unmanly grief gather in his troubled blue eyes.
"But, Philip, you forget that it was a woman who gave little Hal the note for Lady Vera," exclaims Sir Harry, unwilling to give up his theory of Mrs. Cleveland's handiwork in the abduction.
"Leslie Noble may have employed a woman as his tool in the affair, or he may have masqueraded in female attire himself, but I am sure that he is the guilty party," Colonel Lockhart answers, unshaken in his conviction, "But to satisfy your doubts, Sir Harry, we will have a watch set upon Mrs. Cleveland also. Nothing shall be left undone that can possibly tend to the rescue of Lady Vera from the power of her enemies."
He goes back to London that night.
Sir Harry Clive and his family follow him the next day. Two of the most skillful detectives in London are quietly set on the track of the supposed guilty parties. All London rings with the story of the daring abduction of the beautiful Countess of Fairvale.
At first public opinion was strong against the Clevelands and Mr. Noble, but when it is discovered that all three are living quietly but openly in London, a doubt falls on the first suspicions. An inexplicable mystery centers around that strange disappearance.
The sensation grows all the greater because, simultaneously with her disappearance, Raleigh Gilmore had entered suit against her for the title and estates of Fairvale, alleging that the true heiress had died in her early girlhood, and that the late earl had foisted an impostor on the public as his daughter.
But pending the return of the missing countess, the lawsuit lay in abeyance. Nothing could be done in her absence, and conjecture became rife over the strange circumstances of her abduction. Various opinions were advanced.
Raleigh Gilmore did not hesitate to assert his conviction that there had been no abduction in the case. Lady Vera had simply run away from fear of the threatened suit against her, knowing that she could not defend herself against the prosecution, and ashamed to stay and face the trial where she would be branded as a beautiful and lying impostor whom the late earl had adopted as his daughter.
There was not the slightest likelihood that she would ever return, he asserted, vehemently, and he would have liked to take possession of Fairvale at once, but the strong arm of the law held him back, and meanwhile, Sir Harry Clive engaged the most eminent lawyers to defend the missing heiress.
A man was sent to America to collect information at Washington. No pains nor expense was spared on either side to make the contest a close and exciting one. Raleigh Gilmore found few believers in his cause, and few friends.
But amid all the storm of wonder and conjecture in London, there was one woman whose suspicions had pointed, like Philip Lockhart's, unerringly to the truth. This was Ivy Cleveland. Her jealous instincts had at once settled upon her whilom husband as the abductor of Lady Vera.
Meanwhile the weeks wane slowly with no tidings of the lost one. The blackest mystery enshrouds her fate. The keen detectives are baffled and thrown off the scent by Leslie Noble's inimitable sang froid. He leads the careless life of a man about town, never leaving the city, his slightest actions open to scrutiny, no mystery seeming to be hidden under his comings and goings.
But though the detectives begin to hint that they are beating about the wrong bush, Colonel Lockhart's firm convictions are in no wise altered.
He holds them closely to their duty, though they find nothing suspicious either in the movements of Mr. Noble or Mrs. Cleveland.
But though Colonel Lockhart is outwardly so calm and firm, his noble heart is wrung with despair over the fate of his lost Vera.
"My poor Phil, this terrible sorrow is making an old man of you," his sister sighs, sorrowfully, as she threads her jeweled fingers softly through his hair.
"It is hard lines upon me, that is true, Nella," he answers, with a repressed sigh, as he draws his arm around her waist.