Countess Vera 15

Countess Vera 15

"When I married you, Ivy," pursues Mr. Noble, "I desired to take you to

Europe on a bridal tour, but you and your mother, for no earthly reason

that I can imagine, declined to go. You refused my offers to take you

to my own home in Philadelphia, preferring, as you said, the sunny

south for a home. Now you have changed your minds, and declare American

life monotonous and unendurable, and fancy you would like to figure in

the courts of Europe. You had just as well cry for the moon. You have

recklessly dissipated your own property and mine, and must bear the

consequences. I cannot afford to take you abroad, and I do not desire

to be badgered about it any longer."

 

"You shall hear about it day and night until I get my wish," Ivy cries,

with passionate defiance. "Sell this house and all our fine furniture

if you choose. It will bring enough with what you have in bank to

afford us a brilliant season in London. Then by the time we return old

Noble will have died, perhaps, and left us his fortune."

 

"Did I not tell you I will not have Uncle Leslie's death counted on so

coarsely?" cries Mr. Noble, furiously. "You are a perfect harpy."

 

"And you are a brute!" Mrs. Noble retorts. "Aren't you ashamed to call

your wife such names? and you pretended to be in love with me when you

married me, you cruel, unfeeling wretch!"

 

"You dropped your mask as soon as I made you my wife, and showed me

what you really were," Leslie Noble answers, with bitter anger and

scorn. "I was only a tool for you, and a stepping-stone to power. Your

mother's money was well-nigh exhausted, and you married me so that you

could squander mine. Then, too, you have the most horrible temper in

the world. Do you think any man could continue to love such a woman?"

 

"How dare you talk to poor, dear Ivy so cruelly?" Mrs. Cleveland

exclaims, stepping back through the low, French window, and glaring at

her son-in-law with tigerish hate in her keen, black eyes. "You have

frightened her into hysterics, you unfeeling wretch!"

 

"I would thank you not to interfere between me and my wife," he

answers, stung to defiance by the insolence of both mother and

daughter. "You have always thrust yourself into my affairs. You have

been the power behind the throne and moved Ivy like a puppet at your

will. I wish to Heaven you would go away and leave us to fight our own

battles. It would be something to be rid of even one of you!"

 

A scream of rage from Ivy, who proceeds to roll on the floor in violent

hysterics. Such scenes as these are of frequent occurrence, but Mr.

Noble has seldom spoken his mind so plainly, especially on the subject

of his mother-in-law. There is no telling what might have happened,

for Mrs. Cleveland looks furious enough to spring upon the offender

and rend him limb from limb, but at this moment there appears upon the

scene a messenger with one of those yellow-covered envelopes which

carry joy or sorrow to so many hearts.

 

"A telegram," Mr. Noble exclaims, and tears it hurriedly open.

 

As he reads, a look of sorrow, strangely blended with relief, comes out

upon his features. His wife, forgetful of her sham hysterics, springs

up and regards him, intently.

 

"A telegram! From whom? And what does it mean?" she exclaims.

 

"It is from my lawyer," Mr. Noble answers, bitterly, "and it means

that the devil takes care of his own so well that you will be able to

gratify your latest whim. My uncle is dead and has left me his whole

fortune."

 

"Glorious news!" Mrs. Cleveland and her daughter echo with one accord.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XV.

 

 

Some hints of autumn are in the soft, warm airs that blow through the

smoke and heat of London. The fashionable season is over, and the gay

butterflies of fashion have begun to seek "fresh fields and pastures

new." Lady Clive begins to think of flitting with the rest.

 

It has been settled that the Countess of Fairvale shall remain with the

Clives for the autumn and winter months at least. She is in mourning

for her father, and is quite settled in her mind at first that she will

go home to her ancestral castle and spend the period of retirement in

strict seclusion with a proper chaperon. But the Clives will not hear

of it. Lady Clive is afraid that she will mope herself to death.

 

"Besides, I shall be so lonely," she declares. "Philip is going back

soon to his own home, and we shall have no young people with us at

all if Lady Vera leaves us, too. My dear, do say that you will stay.

We are not going to be very gay this season. Sir Harry and I want to

take the children down to our country home, where they may roll in

the grass to their hearts' content. Let us invite two or three sweet

young girls, and as many young men, to go down with us, and we can have

such a charming time, with picnics and lawn tennis, and simple country

pleasures. Then, after awhile, we will go to Switzerland and climb the

Alps. What say you, my little countess?"

 

Lady Vera, so ardently pressed, yields a gentle assent, and the

party of "sweet, young girls" and eligible young men is immediately

organized, Captain Lockhart promising to go down with them and remain a

week before he returns to America.

 

So in the late summer they go down to Sunny Bank, as the Clives call

the large, rambling, ornate pile of white buildings that is the

sweetest home in all Devonshire.

 

The children go mad with delight over the fragrant grass and the

autumnal flowers. The young people begin to pair off in couples, and

one day Vera goes for a walk with the American soldier.

 

She is looking her fairest and sweetest. A dress of soft, rich,

lusterless black drapes her slender figure superbly, and the round,

white column of her throat rises lily-like from the thin, soft ruche

of black around it, her face appearing like some rare flower beneath

the shade of her wide, black Gainsborough hat. No wonder that Captain

Lockhart's dark blue eyes return again and again to that delicately

lovely face.

 

"It is no wonder," said the lords,

"She is more beautiful than day."

 

They walk slowly down the green, country lane, bordered with oak and

holly. The flowers are beginning to fade, and the air is sweet with

their pungent fragrance. The sky is deeply blue, with little, white,

silvery clouds sailing softly over it. The sun is shining sweet and

warm as if it were May. Little birds are singing blithely for joy as if

the spring-time had come again.

 

"Do you know that this is the first time I have walked by your side

since that day last spring, when you were so cruel to me?" he asks,

breaking a long interval of silence that has been perilously sweet.

 

"Cruel?" she says, lifting to his the half-shy gaze of the dark and

dreamy eyes.

 

"Yes, cruel, for you forbade me even to look at you," he answers,

smiling now over that past pain in the eager elation of the present.

"Ah, Lady Vera, you did not know then, perhaps, what a cross you laid

upon me--that I loved you even then so dearly----"

 

"Hush!" she cries, in such a startled voice that he pauses and looks

around to see what has frightened her.

 

"What is it, Lady Vera? Has anything alarmed you?" he asks her,

anxiously.

 

"Nothing, but that I am tired. I will sit down here on this mossy

log, and rest a moment," she answers, sinking wearily down, a sudden

paleness chasing the roses from her cheeks. Captain Lockhart throws

himself down on the short, velvety, green turf at her feet. There

ensues a short silence, broken only by the hum of the busy insects, the

song of the birds, and the soft rustle of a passing wind in the leaves

overhead.

 

There is some embarrassment in their silence. Her cry of alarm has

been so sharp and sudden that he does not know how to return to the

interrupted subject. And yet his heart is so full of it.

 

He looks into the lovely, spirited young face, and he cannot keep the

words back any longer.

 

He turns to her suddenly, and tells her the story of his love in

burning words, whose eloquent fire brooks no check nor remonstrance.

His face glows under its soldierly brown, his blue eyes darken with

feeling, his voice trembles with passion, but when he pauses, Lady

Vera, who has heard him through with tightly clenched hands and a

strangely blanched face, can only falter:

 

"You love me, Captain Lockhart? I thought--that we were only friends."

 

The frightened, wondering voice falls like ice upon his heart.

 

"Only friends," he echoes, "when I have loved you since the first hour

I saw you. Oh, Lady Vera, do not grow so pale! Is it strange that I

should love you? Others have been as wild and presumptuous as I have.

Others have come down before the fire of those dark eyes, slain by

their beauty. I know you have been cold, indifferent to all, even to me

at first. But when you thawed to me at last, when you were kindly and

friendly----"

 

"Yes, that was all," she interrupts him, in a kind of frantic haste. "I

was kind and friendly, that was all. I meant no more, believe me."

 

The soldier's blue eyes look at her with a keen reproach before which

her own glance wavers and falls.

 

"Lady Vera, you are no coquette," he exclaims, "and yet I could swear

that you have given me encouragement to hope that you would love me.

Do you remember the beautiful poems of love I have read to you, with

my very heart on my lips? Do you remember the songs I have sung to

you, and the dreamy twilights when we sat and talked together? Do you

remember how you have worn the flowers I brought you? You have blushed

and smiled for me as you did for no other, and you are no coquette. Oh,

my darling, surely you will love me?"

 

As he talks to her, the color goes from white to red, and red to white

in her beautiful face. Her lips quiver, the tears spring into her eyes.

 

"You are blaming me," she says, incoherently, "but you have no right. I

know nothing of love. I thought we were only friends. I am so sorry."

 

"Do you mean to say you do not love me, that you did not know I loved

you, and was seeking you for my wife, Lady Vera?" he asks, with forced calmness.