Countess Vera 9

Countess Vera 9

And Vera--so strangely rescued from the coffin and the grave--she is

very silent also, but none the less is her brain active and her mind

busy. One by one she is gathering up the links of memory.

 

Her strange marriage, her mother's death, her terrible defeat in the

triumph she had anticipated over the Clevelands--all come freshly over

her memory, with that crowning hour in which wounded to the heart and

filled with a deadly despair, she had crept away to die because she

could not endure the humiliation and shame of the knowledge she had

gained.

 

"I remember it all now; I could not decide upon the right vial, and by

chance I took the wrong one. It was the sleeping potion. How long have

I been asleep, and how came I here?"

 

Unclosing her languid eyes, she repeats the question aloud:

 

"Father, how came I here?"

 

He starts, nervously, at the unexpected question.

 

"My dear, you must not ask questions," he answers. "At least--not yet."

 

"But just this one, father. It keeps ringing itself in my head. I am

filled with wonder. I drank a vial of what I imagined contained death,

and lay down on my bed to die. But I only slept, and my dreams were

wild. Then I awoke in this strange room, and saw you looking at me so

kindly, and I knew you in my heart for my father. My wonder is so great

that I cannot rest. Suspense is worse than knowledge. Only tell me how

I came to be here?"

 

He looks at the beautiful, eloquent lips and pleading eyes, looking so

dark with the purple shadows around them, and the pale, pale face.

 

"I must not tell her the truth," he said to himself. "She looks too

slight and frail to bear the shock of hearing it. She need not ever

know that she had been buried alive, and rescued out of the blackness

of the grave. The horror of it would be enough to unhinge her reason."

 

"The last that I remember," she continues, "I was lying on my bed at

Mrs. Cleveland's, waiting for death to come. I awoke here in this

strange place. How did it happen?"

 

"I had you conveyed here in your sleep," he answers. "My dear, I see

that you have all of woman's proverbial curiosity. But there is no

mystery here. The simple truth is, that I went to Mrs. Cleveland's to

seek my wife and child. I found that your mother was dead, and you

were locked in a strange, narcotic sleep, almost as deep as death. I

had you conveyed here, and watched over you until you awakened from

your long slumber. That is all, my dear little daughter. Now, can you

rest satisfied?"

 

The dark eyes seek his, still wistfully, and with dawning tenderness.

 

"Father, you do not know how I love the sound of your voice," she

murmurs. "It does not excite nor weary me. It is full of soothing,

calming power. It falls on my thirsty, yearning heart like the dew upon

flowers. I wish that you would talk to me. Nothing you can say would

weary me so much as my own tumultuous thoughts."

 

He sighs, and smooths back the soft waves of gold that stray over the

blue-veined temples.

 

"What shall I talk of, little one?" he inquires.

 

"Tell me where you have been all these long years, father, and why you

never came for mamma and I when you were so unhappy?" she sighs.

 

Tears that do not shame his manhood crowd into his dark, sad eyes.

 

"Vera, you will hate me when I tell you that it was a mad, unreasoning

jealousy, aroused and fostered by Marcia Cleveland, that led me to

desert my innocent wife, and you, my little child, before you were

born," he answers, heavily.

 

Vera's dark eyes flash with ominous light. She lies silent a moment,

brooding over her mother's terrible wrongs.

 

"I have been a lonely wanderer from land to land ever since," he goes

on, slowly. "God only knows what I suffered, Vera, for I could never

tear the image of my wife from my breast, although I believed her false

and vile. But I was too proud to go back to her. I never knew how she

was breaking her heart in silent sorrow for me, her life made doubly

wretched by the abuses of the false sister who hated her because I

loved her. At last I was recalled from my wanderings. I had fallen heir

to a title I had never dreamed of inheriting, and which only filled me

with bitterness. I reflected that, but for Edith's falsity, she might

have been my countess; as fair a lady as ever reigned in my ancestral

halls."

 

"Poor mamma, leading her slavish life in Mrs. Cleveland's house," the

girl murmurs, in vain regret.

 

"Poor martyr to the sins of others," the man echoes, heavily.

 

"Yet you came back at last," Vera murmurs. "Had you repented of your

hasty desertion?"

 

"I had learned the truth, Vera, through the dying confession of Mrs.

Cleveland's weak tool. I had learned how terribly I had been deceived,

and that I had deserted my angel wife for naught. Vera, did she curse

my memory when she lay dying of a broken heart?"

 

"She never named you either in praise or blame, father. I had some

vague impression that you were dead. I knew no better until I overheard

Mrs. Cleveland telling some one that you had deserted my mother before

I was born, and that you were a low, drunken, brutal wretch, who had

abused and maltreated her from the first."

 

"Oh, my God, my God! that such demons should walk the earth!" the man

groans through his clenched teeth.

 

He rises and walks up and down the floor, struggling with his strong,

overmastering agitation.

 

"Vera, we three--you and I, and our lost loved one--have been wronged

as, it seems to me, never mortals were before. My heart is on fire with

rage and hate for the devil who has so blasted our lives. It seems to

me that I can never rest until I strike back. Vera, shall we not avenge

ourselves?"

 

His dark, passionate eyes fill with the fire that rages in his soul.

Vera looks up at him, half-fearfully.

 

"How, father?" she queries, slowly.

 

The heavy gloom deepens in his night-black eyes.

 

"How--I cannot tell!" he says, hoarsely. "But I will bide my time. I

will wait and watch. Edith's wrongs shall not go unavenged."

 

The beautiful young face on the pillow softens and saddens.

 

"Mother was very gentle and forgiving," she murmurs. "_She_ would have

said, leave it to Heaven."

 

"She was an angel--I am but human," he answers. "Vera, we must work

together for vengeance. The time will come when we will make Marcia

Cleveland bite the dust--when she shall curse the stars that shone over

her ill-fated birth."

 

So the wronged man raves, and Vera's passionate heart is kindled into

flames by his burning eloquence. She is with him heart and soul, loyal

to the core of her woman's heart.

 

Strange, that when she tells him the story of her short, sad life she

should hold one secret back. The words die on her white lips when she

tries to tell him. A passionate shame fills her heart. Oh, the bitter

pain, the deep humiliation of the thought that she is Leslie Noble's

wife. Leslie Noble whom she scorns and despises. Have they told her

father the truth? she wonders.

 

No, for presently he says, tenderly:

 

"Do not think that all my thoughts are given up to vengeance, Vera.

I shall care for you very tenderly, darling. And if you should ever

marry, I pray God that your wedded happiness may not be blighted by

such a terrible wrong as mine."

 

Her heart gives a great throb of relief. He does not know. He never

shall know by her telling, she resolves.

 

The day comes soon when they kneel hand in hand by Edith's grave to bid

her good-bye before departing for England's shore.

 

"Edith, my darling," he whispers to the dead heart below, "the human

vampire has escaped me this time. She has fled from my vengeance, and

left no trace behind her. But let her beware, for I but bide my time.

The bloodhounds of hate are howling behind her, and sooner or later she

will be brought to bay. Farewell, my murdered darling. Remember that I

only live to avenge your wrongs, and to protect your child!"

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER IX.

 

 

No one had created such a sensation in London for several years as did

Lady Vera, the Earl of Fairvale's only child, when she was presented

at court. She was just nineteen, and a perfect beauty. She was more

American than English in style--tall and slenderly formed, with a

stately grace all her own, with large, dark eyes, and black brows and

lashes, with hair of a magnificent, dark-golden shade, and well-formed,

aristocratic features. Then, as the crowning charm to her brilliant

loveliness, she had inherited from her English ancestry a dazzling

complexion of lilies and roses.

 

People who studied and admired Lady Vera most, said that they could not

quite understand the __EXPRESSION__ of her face. It was too intense for one

so young. It was full of passion, tempered by the gravest thought.

 

The young English girls had dimples and smiles for everyone, but Lady

Vera was different. She had the sweetest, most radiant smile in the

world when you saw it, but that was so very seldom. She seemed to be

thinking all the time--thinking deeply, even when she danced or sang,

or conversed. And her favorite flowers were the beautiful, velvety

pansies, whose very emblem is thought.

 

Yet when you looked into the Earl of Fairvale's face, you ceased

to wonder at his daughter. The shadow on her face was reflected

from the cloud on his. His dark, handsome face was a study. Where

Lady Vera seemed to be thinking, his __EXPRESSION__ was that of one

brooding--brooding all the while on one subject, and that not a

pleasant one.

 

It was with some difficulty that he met the requirements of society.

When spoken to suddenly sometimes, he would start and look bewildered

as if his thoughts were far away. Ladies admired him immensely,

although he was very inattentive to them. The dark, sad, melancholy

face had a peculiar charm for them. They said he reminded them of

Byron's heroes.

 

The earl was very fond of his daughter, and very careful of her. His

eyes followed her everywhere, but their __EXPRESSION__ was always sad and

melancholy. No one knew that every time he looked at her, he remembered

how he had wronged her mother, and that his heart was breaking with

remorse and grief, as well as with the consuming fires of a baffled revenge.