Countess Vera 29

Countess Vera 29

"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.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXVIII.

 

 

Previous to Leslie Noble's visit to Countess Vera he has been the hero

of an excited scene at Darnley House.

 

Since the night of Mrs. Vernon's party, Ivy has been, for the most

part of the time, raving in angry hysterics, which Mr. Noble makes no

smallest attempt to soothe or soften. In fact, he spends almost all

of his time away from home, and a quiet as of the tomb seems to have

fallen over the magnificent mansion with its splendid furniture and

large retinue of servants. No one calls, no further invitations pour in

upon them. Society seems to have tacitly turned the cold shoulder to

them in their defeat and disgrace.

 

The rage, the shame, the humiliation of Mrs. Cleveland's mind no tongue

can tell.

 

From the grave in which he lies moldering back to his kindred clay, her

enemy has reached out an icy, skeleton hand, and struck the brimming

cup of pride and triumph ruthlessly from her lips.

 

Through the agency of his child, the beautiful daughter she had hated

so bitterly, he had avenged his terrible wrongs. There is murder in

Marcia Cleveland's heart as she writhes under the retributive hand of

justice. Fain would she grip her strong, white fingers around Vera's

delicate throat, and press the life out, or plunge a dagger in her

tender breast, or press a poisoned cup to those beautiful lips that had

condemned her in such scornful phrases.

 

On the morning of that day when Leslie Noble has his interview with

Lady Vera, Mrs. Cleveland is sitting alone with Ivy in a small,

daintily-furnished morning-room that opens from the library.

 

They are anxiously discussing their situation and prospects, for it is

impossible to conceal from themselves that Mr. Noble is dazzled by the

prospect opening before him, and that the severance of the tie that

has bound him to the shrewish Ivy is more agreeable to his mind than

otherwise.

 

"Will he desert me, do you think, mamma? He used to love me, you

remember," exclaims the fair termagant, trying to whisper comfort to

her foreboding heart.

 

Mrs. Cleveland laughs, a low, bitter, sarcastic laugh.

 

"You do well to say _once_," she answers, "for whatever love he might

have had for you in the past, you have killed it long ago by your

foolish extravagance, your violent temper and self-will."

 

"Who incited me to it all, I wonder?" her daughter cries, turning her

head angrily. "Who was it that told me to have my own way and defy him,

since being my husband, he was perforce compelled to bear with me? Who

but _you_, who now turn around and taunt me with the result of your

teachings?"

 

"Well, well, and I was right enough." Mrs. Cleveland replies, coolly,

justifying herself. "Of course I could not foresee how things would

fall out, or I should have counselled you to keep your husband's love

at all events. He might then have made some fight against this Countess

Vera's claim. As it is----"

 

She pauses with a hateful, significant "hem."

 

"As it is," Ivy repeats after her, shortly. "Well, go on. Let us have

the benefit of your opinion."

 

"He will be glad of any excuse to shake you off," finishes her mother.

 

"But he shall not do it," Ivy cries out, furiously, and brandishing her

small fist as if at some imaginary foe. "I will stick to him like a

burr. I am his wife. The woman that claims him is a hateful impostor.

No one will make me believe that Vera Campbell's bones are not lying in

the grave where we saw her buried three years ago."

 

"Perhaps this will convince you," exclaims a loud, triumphant voice,

and Leslie Noble, striding suddenly into the room, holds an open paper

before her eyes. It is the cablegram from Washington, telling him that

the coffin beneath the marble monument is empty--that the bride he

buried three years ago has escaped from her darksome prison house of

clay.

 

"Do you believe now?" Leslie Noble demands, with something of insolent

triumph in his voice and bearing as the two women crowd nearer and scan

the fatal cablegram with dilated eyes and working faces.

 

Mrs. Cleveland answers, stormily:

 

"No, we do not believe such a trumped-up falsehood--not for an instant.

I see how it is. You have lent yourself to a wicked plan in order to

free yourself from poor innocent Ivy, whose greatest weakness has ever

been her fondness for you, wicked and treacherous deceiver that you

are! You strive for a high prize, in unlimited wealth and the greatest

beauty in England. But you will see whether Ivy will tamely endure

desertion and disgrace. She declares that she will not give you up, and

I shall uphold her in that resolution!"

 

He stares at her a moment with an __EXPRESSION__ of fiery scorn and anger,

then answers scathingly:

 

"I am sorry to hear that Ivy is so lost to self-respect as to wish to

still live with a man who is bound to her only by a tie of the deepest

dishonor and disgrace. But her intentions or yours can make not the

slightest difference in what I am going to do. For more than two years

I have been the meek slave of you and of Ivy--driven as bond slave

was never driven before the triumphal car of your imperious will! You

have recklessly dissipated my fortune, defied my warnings, trampled

my wishes under foot, shown me all too plainly for mistake that I was

married for my money, not at all for myself. The hour of my release has

come at last, and with unfeigned gladness I throw off the yoke that has

long been too heavy for endurance!"

 

They stare at him mutely--Mrs. Cleveland purple with rage, Ivy gasping

for breath, and preparing to go off into furious hysterics. He takes

advantage of the momentary lull in their wrath to proceed, determinedly:

 

"You must understand by this, Ivy, that as you are no longer my wife,

indeed, never have been, that I will not again recognize you as such,

and that an immediate separation is desirable. You have so beggared

me by your extravagance that it is impossible for me to follow the

generous dictates of my heart which would prompt me to bestow a goodly

sum upon you. But I shall give you a check for a thousand dollars,

and you may retain your dresses and jewels, by the sale of which you

may realize a very neat little fortune. I have no more to say beyond

expressing the hope that you will leave Darnley House by to-morrow and

seek other quarters. I shall not return until you are gone."

 

While speaking he has laid with elaborate politeness a folded check by

Ivy's elbow, and with a formal bow which includes both ladies in its

mocking complaisance, he quits the room and the house, to seek that

interview with Lady Vera which we have recorded in our last chapter.

 

"Deserted! Repudiated! Driven from home!" shrieks out Ivy, finding

voice at last, and springing tragically to her feet. "Mamma, what shall

we do now? Where shall we go?"

 

"We will go nowhere," Mrs. Cleveland answers, determinedly. "This is

your home, and here we shall stay! I defy Leslie Noble to oust us from

Darnley House. It will take something more than a cablegram and the

oath of a countess to prove that you are not Leslie Noble's wife. Why,

her own denial that she was ever buried proves that she is not Vera

Campbell. How could she be ignorant of such a tragic event in her own

life? No, no, Ivy, we will not quit Darnley House yet. Leslie Noble is

not so easily rid of us as he fondly thinks. Darnley House is not ready

to receive Countess Vera as its mistress yet. We will hold the fort."

 

Mrs. Cleveland is equal to most emergencies.

 

Confident in this knowledge she settles herself to abide by her

decision. But in this case it turns out that she has reckoned without

her host.

 

A week passes. Such a week as Mrs. Cleveland and Ivy have seldom spent,

so quiet, so void of callers and excitement as it is. They have

commenced by taking their usual daily drive, but before the week is out

they discontinue it. Such curious, insolent glances follow them, such

cold, averted looks meet them.

 

The fickle world that smiled on them its sweetest so lately, has only

frowns and shrugs, and whispered detractions now.

 

Even Mrs. Cleveland's iron assurance quails before the storm of public

disapproval, and she decides to hide her diminished head in the

luxurious shades of Darnley House. Of even this solace she is soon bereft.