A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette

"Oh, Earle Moray! can you imagine my distress when, one short week afterward, I heard it carelessly told that Captain Ulric Studleigh had taken a sudden whim, and had exchanged into another regiment, which had sailed for India that week, and would not in all probability return for years. The lady told the news laughingly, as though it were only a piece of amusing gossip. The comments made were of an indifferent character. Some said India was the best place for younger sons without fortune. Others said it was a thousand pities that there was no chance of the earldom of Linleigh for the gay captain.

"No one looked at me; no one thought of me; yet I was the wife of the man they were all discussing. It was many minutes before my senses returned to me; then I found myself grasping the back of a chair to keep myself from falling. Unseen and unnoticed, I contrived to quit the room. Oh, Heaven! when I recall the intolerable anguish of that hour, I wonder that I lived through it.

"I had trusted a Studleigh, and had met with the usual reward of those who place confidence in a perfidious race. I think that on the face of the earth there was none so truly desolate and lonely, so frightened, as I was during that time. Married in secret to a man whom my parents disliked, whom the world mentioned with a sneer – a man whose name was a proverb for light-heartedness, inconstancy – married and deserted!

"It would have been bad enough had he been here; it would have been a terrible ordeal even had he been by my side, to help me with love and sympathy; but now, alone, unaided – he himself thousands of miles away – what could I do?

"I did that which seemed easiest at the time – I kept silence. He had sailed away, saying nothing of the marriage, neither would I. I would take the just punishment of my folly, live single all my life, and keep my dreadful secret. There seemed to me no other plan. To tell the truth, I stood too much in awe of my father and mother to dare even to tell them. I dreaded their anger. I dreaded the cool, calm contempt in my mother's face. I dreaded the disappointment that would, I knew, be my father's greatest grief. What else could I do but keep my sad secret all to myself?

"Yes, I declare to you that the struggle in my own mind was so dreadful, the pain and sorrow so great, that I almost died of it. No one ever said anything to me about Captain Studleigh. Even those who seemed to fancy there had been a slight flirtation between us, considered his going away as a proof that there was none. I saw that my parents were greatly relieved by his absence; and after a few weeks the shock began to get less. Lady Agnes asked me once if I were unhappy over him. I made some evasive reply. Then, after a time, I began to look my life in the face, to think that the evil done was not without remedy. I could bear the penalty of my folly, if the secret of my ill-starred marriage could be kept."

CHAPTER XXXIX

A MOTHER'S CONFESSION

"I come now to a part of my story," resumed Lady Estelle, "that I would fain pass over in silence; but as it touches the matter that brought me here, I am obliged to tell you."

The proud, fair woman buried her face in her hands as she spoke, and Earle understood how terrible was the struggle between her need of help and her pride. When she raised her face again, it was ghastly white.

"Captain Studleigh had been gone four months," she gasped, "when I knew that the most terrible of all my trials had come to me – that I should be the mother of a child. For a long time – for days and weeks – I was in the most terrible despair. I often wonder," she said, musingly, "how it was that the agony of my shame did not kill me – I cannot understand it even now. I did think in those days of killing myself, but I was not brave enough – I lacked the courage. Yet I do not think any one in the wide world ever suffered so greatly. There was I – sole daughter of that ancient house; flattered, beloved, courted, feted, the envy of all who knew me – with a secret bitter as death, black as sin. At last, when I found myself obliged to seek assistance, I went to Lady Agnes Delapain, and told her all.

"Her amazement and dread of the consequences were at first appalling to me. After the first expressions of surprise and regret, she said:

"'So you were married to him – married to him all the time? I never suspected it.'

"She was very kind to me – kinder, a thousand times, than I deserved. She did not reproach me; but when she had recovered, she said:

"'Estelle, I feel that it is more than half my fault – I should never have allowed you to meet him here. I should not have dared if I had foreseen the end. I felt sorry, because you seemed to like each other; but I have done wrong.'

"I laid my head on her shoulder.

"'What am I to do?' I moaned.

"'I see no help for it now, Estelle; however averse you may be, you must tell the duchess.'

"Then I clung to her, weeping and saying:

"'I dare not – I would rather die.'

"'But, my dear Estelle,' she interrupted, 'you must – indeed, you must. I see no help for it.'

"I remember standing up with a white, haggard face and beating heart.

"'If you will not help me, Agnes, I must tell her, but I shall do it in my own fashion. I shall write a letter to her, and kill myself before she receives it. I will never look my mother in the face again after she knows.'

"'Then what is to be done, Estelle?'

"'Be my friend, as you have always been. You have had more experience than I have had: you know the world better than I know it. You are older than I am; help me, Agnes.'

"'You mean, help you to keep the secret of your marriage?' she asked.

"'I do; and in asking you that, I ask for my life itself – the one depends upon the other.'

"Lady Agnes sat quite silent for some minutes, then she said:

"'I will do it, Estelle. Perhaps, in making this promise, I am wrong, as I am in everything else; but I will help you for the sake of the love that was between us when we were happy young girls.'

"I had no words in which to thank her; it really seemed to me as though the burden of my trouble were for the time removed from me to her.

"'How will it be?' I asked her.

"'Give me time to think, Estelle; I must arrange it all in my own mind first. Do not come near me for three days.'

"At the end of that time my mother received a letter from Lady Agnes, urging her to allow me to go with her to Switzerland; she was not strong, and required change of air. My mother had implicit faith and confidence in Lady Delapain.

"'You have not been looking well lately, Estelle,' she said to me; 'it will do you good to go.'

"Ah, me! what a weight those few words took from my mind. Then Lady Agnes called upon us, and spoke to my mother about our little tour.

"'We shall enjoy ourselves after our own fashion,' she said. 'Lord Delapain goes with us as far as Interlachen; there he will leave us for a time. You may safely trust Lady Estelle with me.'

"My mother had not the slightest idea that anything was unusual. The only thing that embarrassed me was that she insisted upon my taking my maid Leeson with me. When I told this to Lady Agnes, she was, like myself, dismayed for a few minutes, then she said, calmly;

"'It will not matter; we should have been obliged to take some one into our confidence; as well Leeson as another. We must tell her of the marriage.'

"So it was all settled; and I, taking my terrible secret with me, went abroad. There is no need to linger over the details. No suspicion of the truth was ever whispered. We took Leeson into our confidence, and my baby was born in Switzerland. Ah! you look astonished. Now you know why I am here – Doris is my child!"

Earle was too bewildered for one moment to speak. Then a low cry of wonder and dismay came from his lips.

"Doris your daughter!" he repeated. "Lady Hereford, this must be a dream!"

"Would to Heaven it were!" she cried. "It is all most fatally true. Ah! me, if I could but wake up and find it a long, dark dream! When my little daughter was some weeks old, we had a letter which caused us some agitation; my father and mother were on the road to join us, and would be with us in two days. They were then at Berne.

"What shall we do?" I asked again of my clear-headed, trustworthy friend.

"As usual, she was quite ready for the emergency.

"'We must do something decisive at once,' she replied; 'send away the child to England without an hour's delay. I will telegraph to Berne to say that we have already left Interlachen, and shall be at Berne to-morrow.'

"There could be no delay. I sat down to think where it would be possible to send the little one. It seems strange to own such a thing, but I assure you that I did not feel any overwhelming affection for the child. She was lovely as a poet's dream, the fairest little cherub that was ever seen; but already in that infantile face there was a gleam of the Studleigh beauty. 'She will be like her race,' I thought, 'faithless and debonair.' Perhaps the keen anger that I felt against her father, the sorrow and the shame that he had caused me, prevented me from loving her; therefore I did not feel any sorrow at parting with her. I might have been a better woman, Earle Moray, if I had been a happier one.

"I could think of no one. Leeson suggested that if the child be taken by some farmer's wife on the estate, it would be the best thing, as in that case I would see it sometimes, and should, at least, know its whereabouts.

"Then I bethought myself how often I had heard my father speak of honest Mark Brace. The next moment the whole plan came to me. I told Leeson, and she approved of it. You have probably heard the story of the finding of Doris; there is no need for me to repeat it. It was Leeson who left the child at the farmer's gate, and waited under the shadow of the trees until it was taken indoors; it is I who send the money; and I have seen the child twice – once when she was young, and the Studleigh look in her face frightened me, although my heart yearned to her.

"Then the sense of my unhappiness, of my false position, of my terrible secret, made me so wretched that I became seriously ill. My father took me away from England, and I was away many years. I saw her again, not so very long since, and she was one of the loveliest girls that could be imagined, yet still with the Studleigh face – 'faithless and debonair.' But this time my heart warmed to her, she was so beautiful, so graceful. I was proud of her, and she told me of you; she said she was going to marry Earle Moray, gentleman and poet."

"Heaven bless her!" interrupted Earle, with quivering lips.

"Still," continued Lady Estelle, "I was not quite satisfied: I saw in her her father's faults repeated. My heart found no rest in her, or it would have been misery to lose sight of her again. I did think that when you were married – you and she – I might see more of her. She would be the wife of a poet whom we should all be proud to know.

"Now listen to what I want from you, Earle Moray. In all the wide world; you love Doris best; I want you to find her. Yesterday I heard that her father – my husband – is no longer a penniless younger son; that he has succeeded to the earldom of Linleigh, and will return home. I should have told you that Lady Agnes Delapain died two years after our return from Switzerland, so that no person living knows our secret except Leeson and yourself. Before she died she wrote to my husband to tell him all about Doris. He seems to have extended his indifference even to her, for beyond acknowledging the letter and saying that he really sympathized in my fears, he has never taken the least notice of her. Now, all is different. He will be Earl of Linleigh, she will be Lady Doris Studleigh, and I dare not stand between my child and her rights. Do you understand?"

"No," he replied, quietly, "you could not do that; it would not be honorable."

"So that I must have her here. I will not see him until she is with me. I shall write to him, and beg of him not to come and see me until I send for him. He will do me that small grace, and I shall not send for him until you bring her to me."

"Then you will keep your secret no longer?" said Earle.

"I cannot. If my husband had remained Captain Studleigh, I might have kept it until my death; but, as Earl of Linleigh, he is sure to claim me, either as his wife to live with him, or that he may sue me for a divorce."

"Pardon the question," said Earle, "but would you live with him?"

A dull red flush covered her face.

"If ever I loved anything on earth," she cried, passionately, "it was my husband – I have known no other love."

"What is that you want me to do?" asked Earle.

"I want you to go and find her. No one loves her as you do. Love has keen instincts; you will find her because you love her. Find her – tell her she is the Earl of Linleigh's daughter – that she must come to take her proper position in the great world; but do not tell her who is her mother."

"I will obey you implicitly," he replied.

Then she raised her fair, proud face to his.

"Mine is a strange story, is it not?" she asked.

"Yes – truth is stranger than fiction," he replied.

"And it is a shameful story, is it not?" she continued.

"It is not a good one," he said, frankly.

She smiled at the honest reply.

"You do not know," she said, "how my heart has turned to you since Doris spoke of the 'gentleman and poet.' Aristocrat as I am, I do not think any man could have a grander title. To your honor, as a gentleman, I trust my secret – you will never betray it."

He bowed low.

"I would rather die," he said.

"I believe you implicitly. This time, at least, my instinct has not failed me – I am safe in trusting you. Now, tell me, have you the faintest clew as to where Doris has gone?"

"Not the smallest; she has gone abroad – that is all I know."

"Then do you also go abroad. Remember that no money, no trouble, no toil must be spared – she must be found. Go first to France – to the cities most frequented by the English – then to Italy. For Heaven's sake, find her, and bring her back to Brackenside. When she is once here I can bear the rest. You will not fail me. Write as often as you can; and Heaven speed you."

He felt his own hand clasped in hers; then she placed a roll of bank-notes in it. The next moment she was gone, and Earle sat there alone, breathless with surprise.

CHAPTER XL

A CLEW AT LAST

"I feel very much," thought Earle, "as though I had been dreaming in one of the fairy circles. That proud, fair woman with such a story; and she Doris' mother. Doris, my golden-haired love, whom I have been loving, believing her to be some helpless waif or stray. Doris, belonging to the Studleighs and the proud Duke of Downsbury – what will she say? Great heavens! what will she say when she learns this?"

Then the task before him might well have dismayed a braver man. He had to find her. The whole world lay before him, and he had to search all over it. Was she in Italy, Spain, or France? or had she even gone further away? He thought of the proud lady's words – "love has keen instincts; you will find her because you love her." He would certainly do his best, nor would he delay – that day should see the commencement of his labor. Then he began to think. Surely an ignorant, inexperienced girl could not have left home – have found herself a situation as governess without some one to help her. Who would that some one be? One of her old school-fellows? She had made no more recent acquaintances. He bethought himself of Mattie, always so quick, so bright, so intelligent, so ready to solve all difficulties. He would go to her.

He went, and Mattie wondered at the unusual gravity of his face.

"I have been thinking of Doris," he said, in answer to her mute, reproachful glance.

"I wonder, Earle," she said, "when you will think of anything else?"

"I want to ask you something, Mattie. Sit down here; spare me two or three minutes. Tell me, has it ever seemed to you that some one must have helped Doris, or she could not have found a situation as she did?"

For one moment the kindly brown eyes rested with a troubled glance on his face.

"It has occurred to me often," she replied, "but I cannot imagine who would do it."

"Did she ever talk to you about any of her school-fellows?" he asked.

"No, none in particular. Why, Earle, tell me what you are thinking about?"

"I should have some clew to her whereabouts, I am convinced, if I could but discover that."

She looked steadily at him.

"Earle," she asked, in a low pained voice, "are you still thinking of going in search of her?"

He remembered the morning's interview, and would have felt some little relief if he could have shared the secret with Mattie; but he said:

"Yes, I am still determined, and, to tell you a secret that I do not intend telling any one else. I intend to go this very day."

He saw her lips whiten and quiver as though from some sudden, sharp pain, but it never struck him that this quiet, kindly girl had enshrined him in her heart of hearts. She was quicker of instinct when any wish of his was in question than at any other time. Suddenly she raised her eyes to his face, and he saw in them the dawn of a new idea.

"There is one person," she said, "whom we have quite overlooked, and who is very likely to have helped Doris."

"Who is that?" he asked quickly.

"The artist, Gregory Leslie."

And they looked at each other in silence, each feeling sure that the right chord had been struck. Then Earle said, gravely:

"Strange! but I never once thought of him."

"Doris talked so much to him while he was here," said Mattie, "and from his half-bantering remarks, I think he understood thoroughly how much she disliked the monotony of home. He has very probably found the situation for her."

"I should think so too, but for one thing – he was an honorable man, and he would not have helped her run away from me."

"Perhaps she deceived him. In any case, I think it worth trying," she replied.

"Heaven bless you, Mattie," said Earle. "You are always right. Do not tell any one where I have gone. I shall go to London at once. I will send a note to my mother by one of the men. Good-bye! Heaven bless you, my dear sister who was to have been – "

"Who will be," cried Mattie, "whether you marry Doris or not!"

He wrote a few simple words to his mother, saying merely:

"Do not be alarmed at my absence. I cannot rest – I have gone to find Doris. I shall write often, and return when I have found her."

"Poor mother," he said to himself with a sigh, "I have given her nothing but sorrow of late."

Then he went quietly to Quainton railway station, and was just in time to catch the train for London.

Gregory Leslie was astonished that evening at seeing Earle suddenly enter his studio, and held out his hand to him in warmest welcome.

Earle looked first at the artist, then at his hand.

"Can I take it?" he asked. "Is it a loyal hand?"

Gregory Leslie laughed aloud.

"Bless the boy – the poet, I ought to say; what does he mean?"

"I mean, in all simplicity, just what I say," said Earle. "Is it the hand of a loyal man?"

"I have never been anything save loyal to you," replied the artist, wondering more and more at Earle's strange manner. "I shall understand you better in a short time," he said. "How ill you look – your face is quite changed."

"I have been ill for some weeks," said Earle. "I am well now."

"And how are they all at Brackenside – the honest farmer and his kindly wife; bright, intelligent Miss Mattie; and last, though by no means least, my lovely model, Miss Innocence?"

"They are all well at Brackenside," said Earle, evasively.

But the artist looked keenly at him, and from the tone of his voice he felt sure that all was not well.

Then Earle sat down, and there was a few minutes silence. At length he roused himself with a sigh.

"Mr. Leslie," he said, "when you were leaving Brackenside you called me friend, and said that you would do anything to help me. I have come to prove if your words are true."

"I am sure they are," replied Mr. Leslie, as he looked pityingly on the worn, haggard face. "You may prove them in any way you will." Then he smiled. "Has Miss Innocence been unkind to you, that you look so dull?"

"That does not sound as though he knew anything about her going," thought Earle; "and if he does not, I am indeed at sea."

Then he looked at the artist. It was an honest face, although the lips curled satirically, and there was a gleam of mischief in the keen eyes.

"Is it a lover's quarrel, Earle?" he asked.

"No, it is more than that," replied Earle. "Tell me, Mr. Leslie, has Doris written to you since you left Brackenside?"

An expression of blank wonder came into the artist's face.

"Yes," he replied, "she wrote to me twice; each time it was to thank me for papers and critics that I had sent her."

"That is all?" said Earle.

"That is all, indeed. I did not preserve the letters. I have a fatal habit of making pipe-lights of them."

"Did she tell you, in those letters, that she was tired of Brackenside, Mr. Leslie?"

"No, they were both written in excellent spirits, I thought. I do not remember that there was any mention of home or any one; in fact, I am sure there was not."

"Did she ask you to help her to find a situation?" said Earle.

"No, indeed, she never did. At Brackenside she pretended often enough to be tired of the place, and to want to go elsewhere, but I never paid any serious attention to it. You see, Earle, if you will love a woman who has all the beauty of the rainbow, you must be content to abide by all her caprices. I am sure she has done something to pain you, Earle – tell me what it is?"

"I will tell you," said Earle. "At first I thought that you had helped her, but now I believe I am mistaken. She has left home unknown to any of us. She has gone abroad as governess."

Gregory Leslie gave a little start of incredulity and surprise.

"Gone abroad," he repeated; "I can believe that easily; but as governess, I can never imagine that."

"She says so. She left two letters, and they both tell the same story."

"If I should believe it," said Gregory Leslie, "I should most certainly say, Heaven help the children taught by the fair Doris. Candidly speaking, I should not like to be one of them."

"You do not believe it then, Mr. Leslie?"

"If you will have me speak frankly, I do not. Of all the young ladies I have ever met, I think her the least likely to become a governess – by choice, that is."

Earle looked at him blankly. It had never entered his mind to disbelieve what she had written. That threw a fresh light upon the matter.

"Tell me all about it," the artist said, after a few minutes.

And Earle did as he was requested. Gregory Leslie listened in silence.

"I know nothing about it," he said, after a time. "It is quite natural that you should imagine that I did, but I do not. She has never mentioned it to me. I understand now what you meant by being loyal. Let me say that, for your sake, if she had asked me to help her in any such scheme, I should have refused."

"I believe it. There is one thing," said Earle, "I have sworn to find her, and find her I will. Can you suggest to me any feasible or sensible plan of search?"

Then he uttered a little cry of amaze, for Gregory Leslie was looking at him with a startled expression in his face.

"Strange!" he said. "I have only just thought of it. You remember my picture of 'Innocence?'"

"Yes," said Earle.

"Well, there was a great deal of jealousy among my comrades over that face. They all wanted to know where I had found it, who was my model, where she lived. One wanted just such a face for his grand picture of Juliet, another thought it the very thing for his Marie Antoinette, in the zenith of her glory and beauty. Another declared that if he could but paint it as Cleopatra, his fortune would be made. Of course I would not, and did not dream for one moment of gratifying their curiosity. Perhaps the most curious among them was Ross Glynlyn. He prayed me to tell him, and was offended when I refused. Now I remember that a few days ago he called upon me in a state of great triumph; he had just returned from Italy.