Читать книгу A Terrible Secret - May Agnes Fleming - Страница 14

"No words can be strong enough to reprehend your conduct, Victor. You have acted disgracefully; you are listening, sir—disgracefully, I say, to your cousin Inez. And you are the first of your line who has blurred the family escutcheon. Dukes' daughters have entered Catheron Royals as brides. It was left for you to wed a soap-boiler's daughter!"

Thus Lady Helena Powyss, of Powyss Place, to her nephew, Sir Victor Catheron, just one fortnight after that memorable night of his wife and heir's coming home. The young man stood listening in sullen anger, the red blood mounting to his very temples. His Cousin Inez had managed during the past two weeks to make his existence as thoroughly uncomfortable as a thoroughly jealous and spiteful woman can. He had flown at last to his aunt for comfort, and this is how he got it.

"Lady Helena," he burst forth, "this is too much! Not even from you will I bear it. A soap-boiler's daughter my wife may be—it is the only charge that can be brought against her. I have married to please myself, and it does please me enormously. Inez, confound her! badgers me enough. I didn't expect, Aunt Helena, to be badgered by you."

"I have no wish to badger you. I bring no charge against your wife. I have seen her but once, and personally I like her excessively. I believe her to be as good as she is pretty. But again your conduct I do and will protest. You have cruelly, shamefully wronged your cousin—humiliated her beyond all telling. I can only wonder—yes, Victor, wonder—that with her fiery nature she takes it as quietly as she does."

"As quietly as she does! Good Heavens!" burst forth this "badgered" baronet. "You should live in the same house with her to find out how quietly she takes it. Women understand how to torture—they should have been grand inquisitors of a Spanish inquisition, if such a thing ever existed. I am afraid to face her. She stabs my wife in fifty different ways fifty times a day, and I—my guilty conscience won't let me silence her. Ethel has not known a happy hour since she entered Catheron Royals, and all through her infernal serpent tongue. Let her take care—if she were ten times my cousin, even she may go one step too far."

"Does that mean, Victor, you will turn her from Catheron Royals?"

"It means that, if you like. Inez is my cousin, Ethel is my wife. You are her friend, Aunt Helena; you will be doing a friendly action if you drop her a hint. I wish you good-morning."

He took his hat and turned to go, his handsome blonde face sullen and set.

"Very well," Lady Helena answered; "I will. You are to blame—not that poor fair-haired child. I will speak to Inez; and, Victor, I will try to forgive you for your mother's sake. Though you broke her heart she would have forgiven you. I will try to do as she would have done—and I like the little thing. You will not fail me on Thursday next? If I take up your wife all the neighborhood will, you may depend."

"We are not likely to fail. The invitation is like your kindness, Aunt

Helena. Thanks very much!"

His short-lived anger died away; he gave his hand frankly to his aunt. She was his wife's friend—the only one who had taken the slightest notice of her since her arrival. For the resident gentry had decided that they couldn't—really couldn't—call upon the soap-boiler's daughter.

Sir Victor Catheron had shocked and scandalized his order as it had not been shocked and scandalized for half a century. A banker's daughter, a brewer's daughter, they were prepared to accept—banking and brewing are genteel sort of things. But a soap-boiler!—and married in secret!—and a baby born in lodgings!—and Miss Catheron jilted in cold blood!—Oh it was shameful!—shameful! No, they could not call upon the new Lady Catheron—well, at least until they saw whether the Lady Helena Powyss meant to take her up.

Lady Helena was the only sister of the young baronet's late mother, with no children of her own, and very strongly attached to both Sir Victor and Inez. His mother's dying desire had been that he should marry his cousin. He had promised, and Lady Helena's strongest hope in life had been to see that promise fulfilled. The news of his low marriage fell upon her like a thunderbolt. She was the proudest of dowagers—when had a Catheron made a mesalliance before? No; she could not forgive him—could never receive his wife.

But when he came to her, pale, sad, appealing for pardon, she relented. It was a very tender and womanly heart, despite its pride of birth, that beat in Lady Helena's bosom; and jolly Squire Powyss, who had seen the little wife at the Royals, took sides with his nephew.

"It's done, and can't be undone, my dear," the squire said, philosophically; "and it's always wise to make the best of a bad bargain; and 'pon my life, my love, it's the sweetest little face the sun ever shone on! Gad! I'd have done it myself. Forgive him, my dear—boys will be boys—and go and see his wife."

Lady Helena yielded—love for her boy stronger than pride or anger. She went; and there came into one of the dusk drawing-rooms of the Royals, a little white vision, with fair, floating hair, and pathetic blue eyes—a little creature, so like a child, that the tender, motherly heart of the great lady went out to her at once.

"You pretty little thing!" she said, taking her in her arms and kissing her as though she had been eight rather than eighteen. "You're nothing but a baby yourself and you have got a baby they tell me. Take me to see him, my dear."

They were friends from that hour. Ethel, with grateful tears in her eyes, led her up to the dainty berceaunette where the heir of Catheron Royals slept, and as she kissed his velvet cheek and looked pityingly from babe to mother, the last remains of anger died out of her heart. Lady Helena Powyss would "take Lady Catheron up."

"She's pretty, and gentle, and good, and a lady if ever I saw one," she said to Inez Catheron; "and she doesn't look too happy. Don't be too hard on her, my dear—it isn't her fault. Victor is to blame. No one feels that more than I. But not that blue-eyed child—try to forgive her Inez, my love. A little kindness will go a long way there."

Inez Catheron sitting in the sunlit window of her own luxurious room, turned her face from the rosy sunset sky full upon her aunt.

"I know what I owe my cousin Victor and his wife," she answered steadily, "and one day I shall pay my debt."

The large, lustrous Spanish eyes turned once more to the crimson light in the western sky. Some of that lurid splendor lit her dark, colorless face with a vivid glow. Lady Helena looked at her uneasily—there was a depth here she could not fathom. Was Inez "taking it quietly" after all?

"I—I don't ask you to forgive him, my dear," she said, nervously—"at least, just yet. I don't think I could do it myself. And of course you can't be expected to feel very kindly to her who has usurped your place. But I would let her alone if I were you. Victor is master here, and his wife must be mistress, and naturally he doesn't like it. You might go too far, and then—"

"He might turn me out of Catheron Royals—is that what you are trying to say, Aunt Helena?"

"Well, my dear—"

"Victor was to see you yesterday. Did he tell you this? No need to distress yourself—I see he did. And so I am to be turned from Catheron Royals for the soap-boiler's daughter, if I don't stand aside and let her reign. It is well to be warned—I shall not forget it."

Lady Helena was at a loss. What could she say? What could she do? Something in the set, intense face of the girl frightened her—absolutely frightened her. She rose hurriedly to go.

"Will you come to Powyss Place on Thursday next?" she asked. "I hardly like to press you, Inez, under the circumstances. For poor Victor's sake I want to make the best of it. I give a dinner party, as you know; invite all our friends, and present Lady Catheron. There is no help for it. If I take her up, all the country will; but if you had rather not appear, Inez—"

There was a sharp, quick, warning flash from the black eyes.

"Why should I not appear? Victor may be a coward—I am not. I will go. I will face our whole visiting list, and defy them to pity me. Take up the soap-boiler's heiress by all means, but, powerful as you are, I doubt if even you will be able to keep her afloat. Try the experiment—give the dinner party—I will be there."

"It's a very fine thing for a tradesman's daughter to marry a rich baronet, no doubt," commented Lady Helena, as she was driven home; "but, with Inez for my rival, I shouldn't care to risk it. I only hope, for my sake at least, she will let the poor thing alone next Thursday."

The "poor thing" indeed! If Sir Victor's life had been badgered during the past fortnight, his wife's life had been rendered nearly unendurable. Inez knew so well how to stab, and she never spared a thrust. It was wonderful, the bitterest, stinging things she could say over and over again, in her slow, legato tones. She never spared. Her tongue was a two-edged sword, and the black deriding eyes looked pitilessly on her victim's writhes and quivers. And Ethel bore it. She loved her husband—he feared his cousin—for his sake she endured. Only once, after some trebly cruel stab, she had cried aloud in her passionate pain:

"I can't endure it, Victor—I cannot! She will kill me. Take me back to London, to Russell Square, anywhere away from your dreadful cousin!"

He had soothed her as best he might, and riding over to Powyss Place, had given his aunt that warning.

"It will seem a horribly cruel and inhuman thing to turn her from the home where she has reigned mistress so long," he said to himself. "I will never be able to hold up my head in the county after—but she must let Ethel alone. By fair means or foul she must."

The day of Lady Helena Powyss' party came—a terrible ordeal for Ethel. She had grown miserably nervous under the life she had led the past two weeks—the ceaseless mockery of Miss Catheron's soft, scornful tones, the silent contempt and derision of her hard black eyes. What should she wear? how should she act? What if she made some absurd blunder, betraying her plebeian birth and breeding? What if she mortified her thin-skinned husband? Oh! why was it necessary to go at all?

"My dear child," her husband said, kissing her good-humoredly, "it isn't worth that despairing face. Just put on one of your pretty dinner-dresses, a flower in your hair, and your pearls. Be your own simple, natural, dear little self, and there will not be a lady at Aunt Helena's able to shine you down."

And when an hour after, she descended, in a sweeping robe of silvery blue, white lilies in her yellow hair, and pale pearls clasping her slim throat, she looked fair as a dream.

Inez's black eyes flashed angrily as they fell upon her. Soap-boiler's daughter she might be, with the blood of many Dobbs in her veins, but no young peeress, born to the purple, ever looked more graceful, more refined.

For Miss Catheron herself, she was quite bewildering in a dress of dead white silk, soft laces and dashes of crimson about her as usual, and rubies flashing here and there. She swept on to the carriage with head held haughtily erect, a contemptuous smile on her lips, like anything on earth but a jilted maiden.

Lady Helena's rooms were filled when they entered; not one invitation had been declined. Society had mustered in fullest force to see Sir Victor Catheron's low-born wife, to see how Miss Catheron bore her humiliation. How would the one bear their scrutiny, the other their pity? But Miss Catheron, handsome, smiling, brilliant, came in among them with eyes that said: "Pity me if you dare!" And upon Sir Victor's arm there followed the small, graceful figure, the sweet, fair face of a girl who did not look one day more than sixteen—by all odds the prettiest girl in the rooms.

Lady Helena—who, when she did that sort of thing, did do it—took the little wife under her wing at once. People by the score, it seemed to the bewildered Ethel, were presented, and the stereotyped compliments of society were poured into her ear. Sir Victor was congratulated, sincerely by the men, with an under-current of pity and mockery by the women. Then they were all at dinner—the bride in the place of honor—running the gauntlet of all those eyes on the alert for any solecism of good manners.

She went through it all, her cheeks flushing, her eyes kindling with excitement growing prettier every moment. Her spirits rose—she would let these peoples and Inez Catheron see, she was their equal in all things save birth. She talked, she laughed, she took captive half the male hearts, and when the ladies at length sailed away to the drawing-room, Lady Helena stooped and kissed her, almost with motherly pride.

"My dear," she whispered, "let me congratulate you. Nothing could be a greater success. All the men are in love with you—all the women jealous. A most excellent beginning indeed!"

She laughed pleasantly, this kindly dowager, and passed on. It was, an unspeakable relief to her to see her nephew's low-born wife face society so bravely and well. And better still, Inez had not launched one single poisoned dart. But the evening was not ended yet. Inez's time was to come. Enter the gentlemen presently, and flirtations are resumed, tete-a-tetes in quiet comers recommenced, conversation becomes general. There is music. A certain Lord Verriker, the youngest man present, and the greatest in social status, monopolizes Lady Catheron. He leads her to the piano, and she sings. She is on trial still, and does her best, and her best is very good—a sweet Scotch ballad. There is quite a murmur of applause as she rises, and through it there breaks Miss Catheron's soft, sarcastic laugh. The flush deepens in Ethel's cheek—the laugh is at her performance she feels.

And now the hour of Inez's vengeance comes. Young Captain Varden is leaning over her chair; he is in love with Miss Catheron, and hovers about her unceasingly. He talks a great deal, though not very brilliantly. He is telling her in an audible undertone how Jack Singleton of "Ours" has lately made an object of himself before gods and men, and irretrievably ruined himself for life by marrying the youngest Miss Potter, of Potter's Park.

"Indeed!" Miss Catheron responds, with her light laugh, and her low, clear voice perfectly distinct to all; "the youngest Miss Potter. Ah, yes! I've heard of them. The paternal Potter kept a shop in Chester, didn't he—a grocer, or something of the sort, and having made money enough behind the counter, has retired. And poor Lieutenant Singleton has married the youngest Miss Potter! 'Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.' A very charming girl no doubt, as sweet as the paternal treacle, and as melting as her father's butter. It's an old custom in some families—my own for instance—to quarter the arms of the bride on the family shield. Now what do you suppose the arms of the Potter family may be—a white apron and a pair of scales?"

And then, all through the room, there is a horrible suppressed laugh. The blood rushes in a fiery tide to the face of Sir Victor, and Lady Helena outglows her crimson velvet gown. Ethel, with the youthful Lord Verriker still hovering around her, has but one wild instinct, that of flight. Oh! to be away, from these merciless people—from that bitter, dagger-tongued Inez Catheron! She looks wildly at her husband. Must she bear this? But his back is to her—he is wilfully blind and deaf. The courage to take up the gauntlet for his wife, to make a scene, to silence his cousin, is a courage he does not possess.

Under the midnight stars Lady Helena's guests drive home. In the carriage of Sir Victor Catheron there is dead silence. Ethel, shrinking from her husband almost as much as from his cousin, lies back in a corner, pale and mute. Inez Catheron's dauntless black eyes look up at the white, countless stars as she softly hums a tune. Sir Victor sits with his eyes shut, but he is not asleep. He is in a rage with himself, he hates his cousin, he is afraid to look at his wife. One way or other he feels there must be an immediate end of this.

The first estrangement that has parted him and Ethel has come. He hardly knows her to-night—her cold, brief words, her averted face, her palpable shrinking as he approaches. She despises him, and with reason, a man who has not the courage to protect his wife from insult.

Next day Lady Catheron declines to appear at either breakfast or luncheon, and when, five minutes before dinner, Sir Victor and Miss Catheron meet in the dining-room, she is absent still. He rings the bell angrily and demands where she is.

"My lady has gone out," the footman answers. "She went half an hour ago. She had a book with her, and she went in the direction of the laurel walk."

"I will go in search of her," Sir Victor says, taking his hat; "let dinner wait until our return."

Ethel has gone, because she cannot meet Inez Catheron again, never again break bread at the same board with her pitiless enemy. She cried herself quietly to sleep last night; her head aches with a dull, sickening pain to-day. To be home once more—to be back in the cosy, common-place Russell square lodgings! If it were not for baby she feels as though she would like to run away, from Sir Victor and all, anywhere that Inez Catheron's black eyes and derisive smile could never come.

The September twilight, sparkling with frosty-looking stars, is settling down over the trees. The great house looms up, big, sombre, stately, a home to be proud of, yet Ethel shudders as she looks at it. The only miserable days of her life have been spent beneath its roof; she will hate it before long. Her very love for her husband seems to die out in bitter contempt, as she thinks of last night, when he stood by and heard his cousin's sneering insult. The gloaming is chilly, she draws her shawl closer around her, and walks slowly up and down. Slow, miserable tears trickle down her cheeks as she walks. She feels so utterly alone, so utterly forlorn, so utterly at the mercy of this merciless woman.

"Oh!" she says, with a passionate sob, and unconsciously aloud, "why did I ever marry him?"

"If you mean Sir Victor Catheron," answers a voice, "I think I can tell you. You married Sir Victor Catheron because he was Sir Victor Catheron. But it isn't a marriage, my dear—you know that. A young lady can't have two husbands, and I'm your legal, lawful-wedded spouse."

She utters a cry—she recoils with a face of terror, for there in the twilight before her, tall, black, sinister, stands Juan Catheron.

"You!" she gasps.

"I, my dear—I, in the flesh. Did you think I had gone? My dear Ethel, so I would have gone, if Inez had come down in the sisterly way she should. But she hasn't. I give you my word of honor her conduct has been shabby in the extreme. A few hundreds—I asked no more—and she wouldn't. What was a miserly fifty pun' note to a man like me, with expensive tastes, and who has not set foot on British soil for two years? Not a jewel would she part with—all Sir Victor's presents, forsooth! And she's in love with Sir Victor, you know. Perhaps you don't know, though. 'Pon my life, she is, Ethel, and means to have him yet, too. That's what she says, and she is a girl to do as she says, is Inez. That's why I'm here to-night, my dear. I can't go to Sir Victor, you understand—motives of delicacy, and all that—so I waited my chance, and have come to you. You may be fickle, but I don't think you're stingy. And something is due to my outraged feelings, blighted affections, and all that. Give me five hundred pounds, Ethel, and let us call it square."

He came nearer, his big, brown hand outstretched. She shrank away, hatred and repulsion in her face.

"Stand back!" she said. "Don't come near me, Juan Catheron! How dare you intrude here! How dare you speak to me!"

"How dare I? Oh, come now, I say, I like that. If a man may not speak to his own wife, to whom may he speak? If it comes to that, how dare you throw me over, and commit bigamy, and marry Sir Victor Catheron? It's of no use your riding the high horse with me, Ethel; you had better give me the five hundred—I'm sure I'm moderate enough—and let me go."

"I will not give you a farthing; and if you do not leave this place instantly, I will call my husband. Oh!" she burst forth, frantically, "between you and your sister you will drive me mad!"

"Will you give me the money?" asked Juan Catheron, folding his arms and turning sullen.

"I have not got it. What money have I?—and if I had, I say I would not give you a farthing. Begone! or—"

"You have diamonds." He pointed to her hands. "They will do—easily convertible in London. Hand them here, or, by all the gods, I'll blow the story of your bigamy all over England!"

"You will not!" she cried, her eyes flashing in the twilight—"you coward! you dare not! Sir Victor has you in his power, and he will keep his threat. Speak one word of that vile lie, and your tongue will be silenced in Chesholm jail. Leave me, I say!"—she stamped her foot passionately—"I am not afraid of you, Juan Catheron!"

"And you will not give me the jewels?"

"Not one—not to keep you from spreading your slander from end to end of England! Do your worst!—you cannot make me more wretched than I am. And go, or I will call for help, and see whether my husband has not courage to keep his word."

"You will not give me the rings?"

"Not to save your life! Hark! some one is coming! Now you will see which of us is afraid of the other!"

He stood looking at her, a dangerous gleam in his black eyes.

"Very well!" he said; "so be it! Don't trouble yourself to call your hero of a husband—I'm going. You're a plucky little thing after all, Ethel. I don't know but that I rather admire your spirit. Adieu, my dear, until we meet again."

He swung round, and vanished among the trees. He was actually singing as he went,

"To-day for me.

To-morrow for thee—

But will that to-morrow ever be?"

The last rustle of the laurels died away; all was still; the twilight was closing darkness, and, with a shudder, Ethel turned to go.

"But will that to-morrow ever be?"—the refrain of the doggerel rung in her ears. "Am I never to be free from this brother and sister?" she cried to herself, desperately, as she advanced to the house. "Am I never to be free from this bondage?"

As the last flutter of her white dress disappeared, Sir Victor Catheron emerged from the shadow of the trees, and the face, on which the rising moon shone, was white as the face of death.