Countess Vera 30

Countess Vera 30

A freezingly-polite letter arrives from the master of the mansion,

desiring to know when they propose to vacate his premises. Mrs.

Cleveland and Ivy return a prompt defiance to this inquiry, stating

that they do not intend to leave at all.

 

And now the trodden worm turns with a vengeance.

 

On the following day all the servants of Darnley House leave in a

body, after informing their mistress of their discharge by Mr. Noble.

They decline to be re-engaged by Mrs. Noble, and Mrs. Cleveland hints

bitterly at bribery on the part of her whilom son-in-law.

 

On the same day arrives a concise statement from Mr. Noble to the

effect that a public sale of the house and its effects is advertised

for the third day of that week. He is outdoing even themselves in cool,

relentless malice.

 

"We shall have to go. We have been fairly whipped out by that scheming

villain," Mrs. Cleveland groans, in indescribable wrath, and bitterness

of spirit, and Ivy, throwing herself down on her satin couch, hurls

bitter maledictions on Leslie Noble's name, and wishes him dead a

hundred times.

 

But all their combined rage cannot hinder the course of events. So

on the morning of the sale, just as a few curious strangers begin to

invade the splendid drawing-rooms, Mrs. Cleveland and her daughter are

quietly driven away in a closed carriage.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXIX.

 

 

"I shall have to leave London," Lady Vera says, desperately, when rumor

has wafted to her ears the story of Leslie Noble's cavalier treatment

of Mrs. Cleveland and her daughter. "I am afraid--horribly afraid of

that man. His parting threat still rings in my ears."

 

"You need not be afraid while you are with us," Lady Clive exclaims,

vivaciously. "Do you think we would ever let the mean wretch come near

you again?"

 

But Lady Vera, coloring deeply, explains:

 

"He has other methods of annoying me besides his presence. Already I

have received several letters from him, some of a wheedling, persuasive

nature, others filled with offensive threats."

 

Sir Harry looks up from his paper.

 

"Shall I horsewhip the scoundrel for you, Lady Vera?" he asks,

indignantly. "It would give me the greatest pleasure."

 

She shrinks, sensitively, from this offered championship.

 

"No, no, for it would only make the affair more notorious. And I am

afraid it has been talked about already--has it not, Sir Harry?" she

asks, with a painful blush on her shamed face.

 

"Yes, rather," he admits, reluctantly.

 

"And I have been afraid even to look into the papers," she pursues. "I

thought it might have gotten into them. Has it, Sir Harry?"

 

He answers "yes" again with sincere reluctance, and Lady Vera hides

her face in her hands a moment, while crimson blushes of shame burn

her fair cheeks. She thinks to herself that she would gladly have died

rather than have encountered all this.

 

"But they do not say any harm of you, dear--you mustn't think _that_,"

said Lady Clive, kindly. "And they all sympathize with you. Your

friends call on you every day, only you decline to see them, you know.

But every one is so sorry for you, and has cut those people--your

enemies, I mean, Vera--quite dead."

 

"Noble has turned them out of Darnley House, bag and baggage. Had to

sell the place over their heads to oust them," says Sir Harry.

 

"Is it not strange that I should have taken such an antipathy to them

when I first met them abroad? Experience has so fully justified me that

I shall plume myself hereafter on being a person of great discernment,"

laughs Lady Clive.

 

Lady Vera sighs and is silent. Her heart is very sore over the parting

with her lover, and the notoriety that the keeping of her oath has

brought down upon her. Fain would she bow her fair head in some lone,

deserted spot, and die of the shame and misery that weighs upon her so

heavily.

 

"After all I believe I should be safer and happier at Fairvale Park,"

she says, after a moment. "I have a feeling of dread upon me here. I

am growing nervous, perhaps, but I am actually afraid of Leslie Noble.

I seem to be haunted by his baleful presence. Yesterday evening when

I went for a short walk, I fancied my footsteps were dogged by a man,

though I could not make out his identity through my thick veil. But I

was frightened homeward very fast by an apprehension that it was Mr.

Noble. I should breathe more easily out of London. Could I persuade

you, Lady Clive and Sir Harry, to forego the delights of the season,

and come down to the country with me?"

 

Sir Harry gives his wife a quick telegraphic signal of affirmation, and

she assents smilingly.

 

"I am sure I shall be delighted," she declares. "And Sir Harry is

usually of the same mind as I am. It must be perfectly lovely now down

at Fairvale. And the children would be delighted, I know."

 

"I am all the more willing to accept Lady Vera's invitation to

Fairvale, because I think it necessary that she should examine her

father's letters and papers if he has left any," declares Sir Harry,

diffidently. "If he has left any confession bearing on the subject of

her supposed death and burial, it is most important that she should be

in possession of it."

 

"Why?" asks the young countess, looking at him with a slightly startled

air.

 

"For this reason," he answers. "In the face of your enemies' confident

assertion of Vera Noble's death and burial, and your own denial of it,

matters have assumed a strange aspect! Mrs. Cleveland and her daughter

declare you to be an impostor whom the Earl of Fairvale has palmed

off as his child. There are some who could very easily be brought to

believe that story."

 

"Whom?" Lady Vera asks, wonderingly.

 

"The person who would be most benefited if such a charge could be

proven true--the next heir to the title and estates of Fairvale," Sir

Harry answers, gravely.

 

"Oh, dear!" cries Lady Clive, anxiously, and Vera says, with paling

lips:

 

"You do not mean that--that----"

 

"I ought to tell you, Lady Vera, what I have heard," he answers,

interrupting her incoherent question. "Shall I do so?"

 

"Yes, pray do," she answers.

 

"Briefly, then, Raleigh Gilmore, the next heir, has come up to

London, summoned doubtless by the vindictive Clevelands, and has been

interviewing some eminent lawyers. Seeing that he has lived for ten

years or more on his small estate in the country without ever setting

foot in London, this present move on his part has a suspicious look.

You may apprehend a suit against you at any time, so it behooves you to

muster all the evidence you can on this weak point in your history."

 

Lady Vera sits silent before this new, impending calamity with folded

hands, her color coming and going fitfully, her dark eyes fixed

steadfastly on the floor. Perhaps she does not realize in all its

intensity this new horror. The pain she has already endured has numbed

her feelings, or rendered her impervious to future sufferings.

 

"You understand, do you not, Lady Vera," Sir Harry pursues, calling her

attention reluctantly, "that your denial of ever having been buried

makes a fearfully weak point in your case, should it ever be contested?

All the evidence adduced goes to prove that Vera Campbell Noble really

died to all appearance, and was buried. If you are compelled by law to

prove your identity with that Vera, you will have to admit that burial,

and prove your resurrection. Otherwise--I am telling you this in the

greatest kindness, remember, dear Lady Vera--you may be branded as an

adventuress and impostor, and ruthlessly bereft of the goodly heritage

of Fairvale."

 

She lifts her heavy eyes from the blank contemplation of the carpet,

and looks at him thoughtfully.

 

"You do not believe me an impostor, do you, Sir Harry?" she asks, sadly.

 

"Not for an instant," replies the baronet, warmly.

 

"Do you, Lady Clive?"

 

"No, indeed, my dearest girl," replies her friend, with an emphatic

caress.

 

"Did Colonel Lockhart, before he went away?" she asks, with blushing

hesitation.

 

"Not at all," Sir Harry answers, decidedly.

 

"Then surely no one will believe it," she says, thoughtfully. "You

remember Vera Campbell's grave has been found empty."

 

"Yes, but you remember you may be called on to prove your identity with

Vera Campbell," he answers, gravely.

 

"Leslie Noble unhesitatingly acknowledges me as his wife," she argues.

 

"I do not know whether that fact would weigh strongly with a jury,"

he answers, thoughtfully. "To claim you, Lady Vera, so young, so

lovely, above all, so wealthy, as his wife, cannot be without its

subtle temptation to such a man as Leslie Noble. Rumor says that

the Clevelands have almost beggared him by their lavish and ruinous

extravagance, and that he hated the woman who bore his name. What

more natural than that he should jump at the choice of exchanging his

crumbling fortunes and despised partner for rank and wealth, and beauty

and youth? Though I do not doubt your identity for one moment, Lady

Vera, I am convinced that it could scarcely be proved in a court of law

by the oath of Leslie Noble."

 

As he pauses, coloring, and deeply sorry that it has seemed necessary

to speak so plainly to her whom fate has already so rudely buffeted,

she looks up at him with forced calmness and self-restraint.

 

"What, then, do you deem it necessary that I should do in my own defense, Sir Harry?" she inquires.