Countess Vera 26

Countess Vera 26

The torrent of passionate accusation comes to a sudden end, and Lady

Vera, with heaving breast and dilated eyes, looks contempt upon her

foes. They stand before her awed and silent for a moment. Her scathing

words have carried conviction to their hearts. They know her in truth

to be that Vera whom for three long years they have believed to be

sleeping under the costly marble that bears her name in Glenwood

Cemetery. But they will never admit it. To do that would be to throw up

the game and own themselves beaten and vanquished.

 

A curious crowd of ladies and gentlemen have gathered around attracted

by the sound of excited voices. With wonder and dismay they listen to

the scathing denunciations that fall from the lips of the beautiful

countess. Mrs. Cleveland, fully conscious of the curious eyes, turns

around and makes reply to them--not Lady Vera.

 

"My friends," she cries, with uplifted hands and a face of horror,

"surely this beautiful lady has lost her mind. She is stark, staring

mad, and for this I can forgive her the insults she has heaped upon my

daughter. I believe she is a clever adventuress whom Lawrence Campbell

has foisted on the world as his heiress. Vera, the real daughter of the

Earl of Fairvale, died three years ago in Washington. She is buried at

Glenwood beneath a marble monument that bears her name and age. I swear

before God that this is true. This girl here, this pretended Countess

of Fairvale, is, without doubt, a clever impostor, who is keeping

the Earl's true heir out of his own. Let her disprove this charge if

she can. If she be truly Vera Campbell, let her prove that she was

resurrected from the grave in Glenwood where my own eyes saw her laid."

 

A moment of perfect silence follows Mrs. Cleveland's venomous words.

Her daughter, who is a coward at heart in spite of all her bravado, has

fallen back a pace, allowing her mother to be spokesman, well knowing

that not even herself could so valiantly defend her cause.

 

There is a look of fear and dread on Ivy's face that gives her a

ghastly look in spite of her paint and powder.

 

Lady Vera's words have carried conviction to her heart, and in fancy

she sees herself deserted and abandoned by the man whom she believed

her husband, and whom she has relentlessly tyrannized over, recklessly

dissipating his fortune, and trampling on his heart.

 

She well knows that every spark of love he ever entertained for her had

died long ago, murdered by her own heartless, unloving course toward

him. What more natural than that he should rejoice if his bonds fell

from him and left him free from her mother and herself, who had been

fastened upon him like human vampires, draining his very heart's blood.

 

She glances at him, and that glance does not reassure her. There is a

strange __EXPRESSION__ on his face, and he is not looking at her, but at

the beautiful, high-born girl who has just claimed him as her husband,

albeit with words of scorn.

 

Even while she gazes at him in fear and terror he steps forward with

a certain craftiness in his eyes, and answers Mrs. Cleveland's angry

words.

 

"You speak too harshly, perhaps, Mrs. Cleveland. I have been impressed,

even against my will, by Lady Fairvale's words. She is certainly

possessed of knowledge that no one but Vera Campbell could have known.

Then, too, she is startlingly like my dead wife, both in voice and

person. Although I certainly buried my first wife and raised a costly

monument over her grave, I am still willing to investigate the strange

charges of Lady Fairvale. Strange things have happened sometimes. The

dead have come to life, the lost have been found. 'Let justice be done

though the heavens fall.'"

 

"Wretch! Would you turn traitor to me?" screams Ivy, clutching him

violently by the arm, forgetful of all but her fear of losing him.

 

He gazes down at her in a feigned sympathy and sorrow.

 

"My poor Ivy. Could you think so meanly of me?" he exclaims. "But

think, dear. How could we rest secure with this terrible charge hanging

over us? Were it not better that I should take steps to prove the truth

or falsity of this fair lady's bold accusation?"

 

"Take steps--how?" the bejeweled little woman falters confusedly.

 

"Nothing easier," he answers. "I shall cable to Washington to have my

first wife's grave opened. If her remains are found undisturbed, then

you are still my wife, Ivy, and this lady's story is an imposture.

But if Vera's grave be found empty, I shall be forced to believe that

Lady Fairvale is in sober reality the Vera whom, for three years, we

believed dead and buried."

 

He speaks to Ivy, but he looks at Vera. Something in that glance makes

her turn pale and flash a glance of silent scorn upon him.

 

"She is not Vera. She is an impostor whom Lawrence Campbell put into

the place of his dead daughter," Ivy screams, impetuously, clinging to

him with both hands. "Come away from her, Leslie. She is a false and

wicked woman, and we will yet prove her so--will we not, mamma?"

 

"Yes, it shall be war to the knife between us," Mrs. Cleveland mutters,

menacingly, flinging a glance of deadly hatred upon Lady Vera's pale

and lovely face. "Come away now, Leslie, and bring Ivy home. She is too

slight and frail to bear all this excitement."

 

Silently obeying the imperious will that has ruled him for almost three

years, Leslie Noble moves away with Ivy on his arm, after a courteous

bow to Vera, which she returns with a cold stare of contempt.

 

"Lady Vera, shall I take you away also? You look weary and

exhausted," says Colonel Lockhart, in a low voice that shows intense

self-repression and emotion.

 

She starts and shivers at the sound of his voice.

 

"If you will be so kind," she answers, sadly, and moving away on his

supporting arm she meets Lady Clive and Mrs. Vernon coming toward her.

Their grave faces show instantly that they know all. Lady Vera pauses,

with a strange, cold smile.

 

"Mrs. Vernon, I am sure you will never forgive me for my undignified

act in creating an excitement and a sensation at your party. I was

compelled to keep my oath to the dead. Yet _she_ forced it on me. I

did not mean to speak--just yet," she falters, incoherently, and Mrs.

Vernon, who is the kindest woman alive, presses her hand, and murmurs

gently, "Poor darling," while Lady Clive murmurs tenderest words of

sympathy and love.

 

It is too much for Lady Vera--this gentleness and love after the

exciting scene through which she has passed. Her forced calmness and

self-control give way beneath its softening spell.

 

She reels dizzily, and only Colonel Lockhart's support prevents her

from falling. In a moment he says to his sister, anxiously:

 

"She has fainted, Nella. What shall we do?"

 

"Bring her up-stairs into my _boudoir_," replies Mrs. Vernon, promptly

and kindly. "We will revive her directly."

 

But Lady Clive negatives the proposal, decidedly.

 

"No, we will put her into the carriage and take her home," she says.

"She will come to herself, directly. It is a blessed unconsciousness

for her, poor girl. Why should we call her back to remembrance too

soon?"

 

So the soldier lifts her in his strong and tender arms, and bears her

to the carriage. Lady Clive receives the drooping head upon her lap,

and they roll homeward, Lady Vera lying pale and mute between them

like some pure, white lily, broken and beaten down by the force of the

pitiless storm.

 

"This is hard lines upon you, Phil," Sir Harry Clive says, from his

corner.

 

"Yes," his brother-in-law answers, in a low voice, and they speak no

more until low sighs, rippling over Lady Vera's lips, presage her

return to consciousness.

 

She lifts her head and looks at them, then drops her face in her hands,

and bursts into passionate sobs and tears.

 

Lady Clive folds her white arms fondly around the heaving form.

 

"Do not weep so wildly, darling Vera," she whispers, gently.

 

But the heavy sobs only break forth more tumultuously.

 

"Do not check me," she whispers, "let me weep. Perhaps these tears may

save my heart from breaking. There is such a terrible weight on heart

and brain, and has been for weary, weary days. Let me weep until I can

weep no more, and then I may be calm enough to tell you all my wretched

story. Then you may know how to pardon my act of to-night."

 

So Lady Clive expostulates no more, only holds the slight form closer

in her tender arms, reckless of the raining tears that spot and stain

her azure satin robe as the burning drops fall on it from Vera's eyes.

 

 

 

 

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: