Countess Vera 2

Countess Vera 2

"Seventeen, dear. As old as I was when I married your father," Mrs.

Campbell answers with a look of heart pain flitting over the pallid

face.

 

"I have never thought of marrying," Vera goes on musingly. "He will not

be angry if I refuse, will he, mamma?"

 

"But, Vera, you must not refuse," the invalid cries out, in a sudden

spasm of feverish anxiety. "Your future will be settled if you marry

Mr. Noble. I can die in peace, leaving you in the care of a good

husband. Oh, my darling, you do not know what a cruel world this is.

I dare not leave you alone, my pure, white lamb, amid its terrible

dangers."

 

Exhausted by her eager speech she breaks into a terrible fit of

coughing. Vera bends over, penitent and loving.

 

"Cheer up, mamma," she whispers; "I am not going to refuse him. Since

he wants me, I will marry him for your sake, dear."

 

"But you like him, Vera?" the mother asks, with piteous pleading.

 

"Oh, yes," calmly. "He is very nice, isn't he? But, do you know, I

think, mamma, that Ivy intended to marry him herself. I heard her say

so."

 

"Yes, I know, but you see he preferred you, my darling," the mother

answers, with whitening lips.

 

"Then I will marry him. How angry my cousin will be," Vera answers,

with all the calmness of a heart untouched by the _grande passion_.

 

"Yes, she will be very angry, but you need not care, dear," Mrs.

Campbell answers faintly. "Leslie will take you away from here. You

will never have to slave for the Clevelands any more."

 

The door opens suddenly and softly. A tall, handsome man comes into the

room, followed by a clerical-looking individual.

 

"Oh, Leslie, you are come back again," Mrs. Campbell breathes,

joyfully. "I am glad, for I cannot last but a few minutes longer."

 

"Not so bad as that, I hope," he says, gently, advancing to the

bedside; then his hand touches lightly the golden head bowed on the

pillow. "Is my little bride ready yet?" he asks.

 

The girl starts up with a pale, bewildered face.

 

"Is it to be now?" she asks, blankly. "I thought--I thought----"

 

But Mrs. Campbell, drawing her quickly down, checks the half protest

with a feverish kiss.

 

"Yes, dear, it is to be now," she whispers, weakly. "I cannot die until

I know that you will be safe from the Clevelands. It is my dying wish,

Vera."

 

"Then I am ready," Vera answers, turning a pale and strangely-solemn

face on the waiting bridegroom.

 

The bridegroom is pale, too. His handsome face gleams out as pale as

marble in the flickering glare of the lamps, the dark hair tossed

carelessly back from the high, white brow, gleaming like ebony in the

dim light. The dark, mustached lips are set in a grave and thoughtful

line, the dark blue eyes look curiously into the bride's white face

as he takes her passive hand and draws her forward toward the waiting

minister.

 

It is a strange bridal. There are no wedding-favors, no wedding-robes,

no congratulations. The beautiful marriage words sound very solemn

there in the presence of the dying, and the girlish bride turns

silently from the side of the new-made husband to seek the arms of her

dying mother.

 

"Bless you, my Vera, my little darling," the pale lips whisper, and

then there falls a strange shadow on the room, and a strange silence,

for, with the murmured words of blessing, the chords of life have

gently parted in twain, and Mrs. Campbell's broken heart is at rest and

at peace in that Heavenly peace that "passeth all understanding."

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II.

 

 

The long, wintry night wanes slowly. Vera's own loving hands have

robed the dead for the rest of the grave. She has gone away now to

the solitude of her own little chamber under the eaves, leaving Leslie

Noble keeping watch beside the loved lost one.

 

She has forgotten for a moment the brief and solemn words that gave

her away to be a wife in her early innocent girlhood; she remembers

only that the one creature that loved her, and whom she loved, is

dead. Crushed to earth by her terrible loss, Vera flings herself

face downward on the chilly, uncarpeted floor, and lies there mute,

moveless, tearless, stricken into silence by the weight of her bitter

despair.

 

Who that has lost a mother, the one true heart that loves us truly and

unselfishly of all the world, but can sympathize with the bereaved

child in her deep despair.

 

In vain the kind-hearted minister whispered words of comfort, in

vain Leslie tried to soothe her, and win her to tears, in awe of her

strange, white face and dry-lidded eyes. They could not understand her,

and were fain to leave her alone, the while one quoted fearfully to the

other:

 

"The grief that does not speak,

Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break."

 

So the chilly night wanes, and at three o'clock in the morning,

carriage wheels echo loudly in the street below, and pause in front of

the house. The haughty mistress, and Ivy, her daughter, have returned

from the esthetic ball whose delights they could not forego, although

their relative lay ill unto death in the house.

 

A tap at Vera's door, and Mrs. Brown, the chamber-maid, glances in.

The worthy woman has been out at "a party" herself, and is quite

unconscious of all that has happened since she left the house. Her

stolid gaze falls curiously on the recumbent figure on the cold, hard

floor.

 

"Wake up, Miss Vera! Whatever be you a-sleeping on the cold floor this

night for? Miss Ivy says for you to come down to her room immejitly."

 

Disdaining a reply to the coarse woman, Vera drags herself up from the

hard floor, and with stiffened limbs takes her way to the luxurious

apartment of her cousin.

 

How different this large and comfortable room from Vera's bare and

fireless little den. Miss Cleveland's apartment has soft hangings

of pale-blue plush, bordered with silver, cream lace curtains, a

blue satin counterpane embroidered with silvery water-lilies. The

atmosphere is warm and dreamy, and languid with the scent of hot-house

flowers in blue and silver vases. The mistress of all this elegance

stands in the center of the room, clothed in an esthetic gown of

pale-blue, embroidered down the front with small sunflowers. She is a

pretty blonde, with straw-colored hair in loose waves, and turquoise

blue eyes, that usually wear an __EXPRESSION__ of infantine appeal and

innocence. Just now the eyes look heavy and dull, and there is a tired,

impatient look on her delicate-featured face.

 

"Here you are _at last_," she says, as Vera comes slowly in with her

white face and heavy eyes, with their look of dumb and hopeless pain.

"Hurry up now and undress me; I'm tired and sleepy, and ready to drop!"

 

Vera stands still, looking gravely at her, and making no move to obey

the cool and insolent mandate. For years her cousin has ruthlessly

trampled her under foot, and made her a despised slave.

 

It comes to the girl with a sudden thrill of triumph now that this is

the last time Ivy will ever order her about. She is Leslie Noble's

wife, and he will shield her from her cousin's abuse.

 

"Come, don't stand staring like a fool," Ivy breaks out coarsely and

impatiently. "Don't you see I'm waiting? Here, pull off these tight

slippers. I cannot stand them a minute longer!"

 

She throws herself into a blue-cushioned chair, and thrusts forward her

small feet encased in white kid slippers and blue silk hose, and Vera,

conquering her strong impulse of rebellion, kneels down to perform the

menial service.

 

After all, what does this last time matter? she asks herself, wearily.

After to-morrow she will be out of their power. Tonight, while that

dear, dead mother lies in the house, she will keep still, she will

have peace, no matter how bitter the cup of degradation pressed to her

loathing lips.

 

With steady hands she unlaces the silken cords that lace the white

slippers, draws them off the compressed feet, and unclasps the satin

garters from the blue silken hose. All the while Ivy raves angrily:

 

"I have seen for some time that you rebel against waiting on me,

ungrateful minx, as if all you could do would repay us for the

charity that has clothed and fed you all your life. To-morrow I shall

report you to your mother, and if she does not bring you into better

subjection, you shall both be driven away, do you hear?"

 

Her mother! This is the iron rod with which they have ruled poor Vera

all her life long. That poor, drooping, delicate mother, whose hold

on life had never been but half-hearted, whose only home and shelter

had been the grudging and hard-earned charity of her heartless and

parsimonious sister. Day in and day out the Clevelands had driven their

two weak slaves relentlessly, always holding over their heads the dread

of being turned out to face the cold world alone.

 

A low and bitter laugh rises to Vera's lips at the thought that that

poor, meek dependent is beyond their dominion now, and that Ivy's

threatened complaints can never rise to that high Heaven where her mother's freed spirit soars in happiness and peace.