A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette

THE COQUETTE'S BLANDISHMENTS

"Have you finished thinking yet, Doris?" asked Earle, gently.

"No," she replied. "I am getting a little clearer in my ideas, but I have by no means finished yet."

She had two plans before her. One was to wait for Lord Charles and tell him all – to trust to his generosity to keep their secret. Then she laughed bitterly as she repeated the word "generosity" – he had none. He was reckless, extravagant over money, but as for generosity, honor, or principle, she knew he had none. In trusting to that she would indeed trust to a broken reed.

Besides, if she were once established in this new sphere of life, it would be highly disagreeable and offensive to have any one near her who knew of this episode. If Lord Vivianne know, he would always have her in his power; he would hold the secret like a drawn sword over her head. No; better for her own safety to steal away from him without saying one word. Even if, in the after years, they should meet again, it was hardly possible that he would recognize her, surrounded by all the luxuries of her position, the honored daughter of noble parents. It was not likely that he would recognize in her the girl who had left Brackenside for his sake. As for leaving him – far from feeling the least regret, far from seeing that she was treating him dishonorably, she smiled to herself at his consternation when he should return to the river-side and not find her.

"He will think that I have run away with some one else," she thought; and the idea amused her so intensely that she laughed aloud.

"You are well content," said Earle, bitterly.

"Why should not I be? You have brought me wealth and fortune, title and honor – all that my soul loves best. Why should I not be content?"

She had finished her musing now, and it had brought her to two conclusions: she must leave Lord Vivianne at once, and in silence, while she must at the same time, at any price, keep her secret from Earle.

Another and very probable idea occurred to her. It was this: by Earle being sent to fetch her, it was very evident that her parents approved of him, and that she would have to marry him. Looking at him, she thought it was not such a bad alternative, after all. He was handsomer, younger, stronger than Lord Vivianne; besides, what little affection she had had to give had always been his. Then she arose from her seat with a smile.

"I have finished thinking, Earle. To make matters square, I promise myself that I will not think again for ever so many months."

"What is the result of your deliberation?" he said.

"I wish you would be a little kinder to me, Earle. You speak so gravely, you look so coldly, that you make me quite unhappy."

His face flushed slightly and his lips trembled.

"I do not wish to seem unkind, Doris, but let me ask you – what else besides coldness and gravity can you expect from me?"

"You know I always liked you, Earle."

"I know you betrayed and deceived me about as basely as it is possible to deceive any one. But we need not discuss that now."

She looked at him with a smile few men could resist, and held out her hands.

"Be friends, Earle; I like you too well, after all, to travel with you while you look so cold and stern. Give me one smile – only one – then I shall feel more at my ease."

"I do not think my smiles cheer, or the loss of them depresses you. Neither can I smile to order; still you need have no fear of traveling with me."

It was in her nature to respect him more, the more difficult he seemed to please.

"I shall manage him in time," she thought.

"I shall return with you, Earle," she said. "I have been thinking it all over, and I will go at once. I will not wait to say good-bye to the people here."

"But that seems strange – not quite right. Why not go and bid them farewell? Tell them the good fortune that has happened to you."

"No; they are very fond of me – the children especially. You do not know; they would not let me come away."

"But it does not seem right," persisted Earle.

"It is right enough; if I go back to them I shall not go with you. I can write to them as soon as I reach England, and tell them all about it."

"I know you will have your own way, Doris. It is useless for me to interfere; do as you please."

"That is like my old lover, Earle; now I begin to feel at home with you. I did use you very wickedly, but all the time I liked you."

"I know exactly the value of your liking," said Earle, who had determined to be cool and guarded.

She talked to him in the old sweet tones; she gave him the sweetest glances from her lovely eyes; she remembered all the pretty arts and graces which had attracted him most; and Earle, despite his caution, despite his resolve, knew that his heart was on fire again with the glamour and magic of her beauty; knew that every pulse was throbbing with passion; and she knew, as well as though he had put it into words, that the old charm was returning, only a thousand times stronger.

She laid her white hand on his arm, and he shrank shuddering from the touch. She only smiled – her time would come.

"I shall not return to the house where I have been living. The reason is that I wish them to forget me. I shall not like, when I am Lady Doris Studleigh, to be recognized by them."

That pride was so exactly like her, he understood it well.

"You can return to Florence, if you like," she continued, with the air of a queen; "but if you wish to please me, you will walk on with me to the nearest railway station, and let us go at once to Genoa. We can travel from Genoa to London."

"But I have left my things at the hotel," he said.

"Is there anything particular among them, Earle?"

"No," he replied.

"Then you can send for them on your arrival. Please yourself. If you do not go on my terms, I shall go alone."

Then he looked at the rippling, golden hair, that fell in such shining profusion over her shoulders, at the dress of rich velvet, silk and delicate lace.

"You are not dressed for traveling. Why be so hasty?" he said.

"I can purchase anything I want at Genoa," she replied.

Then he noticed for the first time what costly jewels she wore, and how her hands were covered with shining gems. For the first time a thrill of uneasiness, of doubt, of fear, shot through him.

"You have some beautiful jewels, Doris," he said, slowly.

Her face flushed, then she laughed carelessly.

"How easy it is to deceive a man," she said; "a lady would have known at one glance that they were not real."

He felt greatly relieved.

"They are pretty, but not very valuable," she continued – "given to me by the children I have been teaching. If you do not like them, Earle, I will throw them into the Arno one by one."

"Why do that, if the little children gave them to you? I am no judge of precious stones, but looking at the light in those, I should have thought them real."

"Do you know that if they were real they would be worth hundreds and hundreds of pounds? You must think an English governess in Italy coins money."

He looked admiringly at her handsome dress, although too inexperienced to know its real value.

"This is my best dress, too," she said. "And do you know, Earle, that as I put it on I said to myself, I do not look amiss in this; I wish Earle could see me."

"Did you really?" he asked, a flush of delight rising to his brow. It is so very easy to deceive a generous and trusting man, that one might almost be ashamed to do it. "Did you, Doris? Then, although you ran away from me so cruelly, you did like me, after all?"

"Oh, Earle, what a question! Like you? Did you not feel sure that when I had seen something of the world – had allayed the fever of excitement – that I should return to you? Did you not feel sure of it?"

No such thought or intention had ever been in her mind, still she wished to make the best of matters. It was no use for her to return to England unless she was the best of friends with him. A few untruths, more or less, did not trouble her in the least, only provided that he believed them.

"I never thought so," was his simply reply. "I believed you had left me forever, Doris."

"You must never judge me by the same rule you would apply to others, Earle. I told you so from the beginning of our acquaintance, I tell you so now."

"I believe it," he replied.

Yet, although he saw that she wished to make friends, and was flattered by the belief, he could not all at once forget the anguish and sorrow she had caused him.

Then she took out a little jeweled watch that she wore. Time was flying. In one short half-hour Lord Charles would be back with her flowers and news of the opera-box.

"How angry he will be," she said to herself, "to think that any one should thwart his sovereign will and pleasure. He will look in every pretty nook by the river-bank, then he will go into the house and ask, 'Have you seen Mrs. Conyers?' And no one will be able to answer him. I should like to be here to see the sensation. Then he will be sulky, and finally come to the conclusion that I have given him up, and have run away from him."

She was so accustomed to think of him as selfish, loving nothing but himself, that she never imagined that he had grown to love her with a madness of passion to which he would have sacrificed everything on earth. She had been so entirely wrapped up in her own pursuits, in the acquisition of numberless dresses and jewels, that she had not observed the signs of his increasing devotion. Blind to his mad passion for her, she decided upon leaving him; and of all the mistakes that she ever made in her life, none was so great as this.

Ten minutes later they were walking rapidly toward the little town of Seipia: there they could go by train to Genoa. As they walked along the high-road Doris laughed and talked gayly, as though nothing had happened since they were first betrothed.

"This reminds me of old times, Earle," she said. "How goes the poetry, dear? I expect to hear that you have performed miracles by this time."

"You destroyed my poetry, Doris, when you marred my genius and blighted my life!"

She laid her hand caressingly on his.

"Did I? Then I must make amends for it now," she said.

And he was almost vexed to find how the words thrilled him with a keen, passionate delight. Suddenly she raised a laughing face to his.

"Was there a very dreadful sensation, Earle, when they found out I was gone?"

The smiling face, the laughing voice, smote him like a sharp sword. He remembered the pain and the anguish, the torture he had suffered, the long hours when he had lain between life and death; he remembered the fame he had lost, the sweet gift of genius, all destroyed; his heart broken, his life rendered stale and profitless, while she could smile and ask with laughing eyes if there had been much sensation.

"I believe," he cried, with a sudden flame of passion, "women are nerved with heartlessness!"

She was scared by his manner. Deep feeling and earnestness were quite out of her line; her bright, shallow nature did not understand it, but she saw that for the future it would be better to say nothing to him about such matters as her running away from home.

CHAPTER XLIV

THE NOBLEMAN'S OATH

It was a strange journey home, and during its course Earle often wondered why, at intervals, Doris laughed, as though she found the keenest enjoyment in her own thoughts.

He little imagined that she was reveling in the disappointment Lord Vivianne would feel; and she had enough of the woman in her to rejoice in his pain, and to feel pleased that she could deal him some little blow in return for the blow he had dealt her. In her heart she had never forgiven him that he had not found her beauty and her grace inducement sufficient to make him marry her. She could not pardon him that, and she liked to think that he would be annoyed and vexed by her absence.

She little dreamed of the storm of passion in that heart of his. If she had had any inkling of it, she would most assuredly have done the wisest and most straightforward thing – told him her story, trusted him, and confided in what he called his honor – it would have been by far the safest.

As it was, his love became a fury of rage. He had gone into the city of Florence, thinking of her, anxious to gratify every whim, desirous of pleasing her. It had been her whim to sit by the river-side and read, while he went to purchase flowers and to engage an opera-box. She had plenty of flowers in the luxurious house where he had placed her – she was surrounded by them – but they did not please her; she wanted some from a celebrated florist who supplied – so she had been told – the most fashionable ladies in Florence. Then, too, she had a great desire to hear "Satanella," and knowing that it would be really impossible, unless Lord Vivianne went himself, to secure a box, she had taken the pretty caprice of sitting by the river until his return.

He returned in the highest spirits, having succeeded in all that she most desired. He brought with him some magnificent flowers, beautiful in color, rich in perfume; and he hastened back to the pretty nook where he had left her. The river ran rippling by, the branches waved in the wind, the birds sang on the boughs, but there was no Doris. Thinking that she had gone some few steps further down, he called her by her name, "Dora! Dora!" It seemed as though the wavelets ran away laughing at the sound, and the birds repeated it with mocking charms. Then he saw upon the ground the book she had taken out with her, and smiled to himself as he picked it up. It was a prurient French romance, and a cynical laugh came from his lips.

"I consider myself, to say the least of it, no saint; but it would never have occurred to me to bring such a book as that out into the sunshine to read."

From the river-bank he could see the pretty villa, with its terrace and balconies. He thought it possible that Doris had gone home in search of something, and he sat down under the trees where that most momentous interview had taken place, and sang to himself an opera song. Still, though the time passed pleasantly, she was long in coming. He occupied himself in thinking of her – of the wondrous grace and beauty of her face, of the smile that dazzled him, of the glory of her golden hair, of her wit, her repartee, her piquant words. He owned to himself that she made the charm of his life – that without her it would have neither salt nor savor. Indeed, he had only been absent from her an hour or two, and he felt dull and wearied. Life without Doris – why it would not be worth having!

Then he wished that she had belonged to some station of life so refined that he could have married her; but he checked the thought with a sigh. She was beautiful with a rare loveliness, but hardly the one that any man would choose to be the mother of his children.

Then the sunbeams fell slanting, and his lordship remembered that lunch would be waiting. He felt sure that she must be at home. He walked quickly toward the villa, still carrying the magnificent flowers, but Mrs. Conyers was not there. He went into her room; it was just as she had left it – a scene of elegant confusion – dresses, jewels, laces, all in the most picturesque disorder. The dress she was to have worn at the opera lay there ready, the jewels with it. Evidently she had not gone far. He learned from her maid and other servants that she had not returned to the house since she left with him in the morning. Then Lord Charles became angry; he was not accustomed to this kind of treatment.

"She is hiding, I suppose," he said to himself, sullenly; "but if she expects me to make any fuss about finding her, she is mistaken. She can do as she likes."

He slept away the sunshiny afternoon, and awoke to the fact that dinner was ready, but that Doris had not returned; yet it was not until the shades of night had fallen that he began to feel any fear; then, slowly enough, it dawned upon him that she had left him. At first he was incredulous, and feared some accident had happened: he dreaded lest she should have fallen into the river, and made an active search for her. When he felt sure that she was gone, that she had in real truth abandoned him, his rage was terrible; he could not imagine how or why it was.

"She had everything here," he said to himself, "that any woman's heart could desire. Can she have met any one whom she liked better than me?"

He judged her quite correctly in thinking that nothing but superior wealth would have tempted her from him; but no one was missing from Florence, neither Italian nor English. As for suspecting that Earle had followed and claimed her, such an idea never entered his mind; he would have laughed at it.

When there was no longer any doubt – when long days and longer nights had passed, and there was no sign of her return – when she never wrote to him or gave him the least sign of her existence, he was in a fury of rage and passion. He paid the servants and sent them away. He flung her dresses and pretty ornaments into the river; he would have none of them. Then he swore to himself an oath that, let him find her again, as he would – wherever he would – he would take his revenge.

It would have been a thousand times better for her had she told him the truth and trusted him. Then he went away from Florence, but he swore to himself that he would find her, and when she was found she should suffer.

But of this, Doris, triumphant and happy, knew nothing. That journey home was delightful to her. She gloried in seeing Earle lose the dignity, the stern self-control, the coldness that had been so distasteful to her; she delighted in making his face flush, in saying words to him that made his strong hands tremble and his lips quiver; she delighted in these evidences of her power. Gradually he became the warm, impassioned lover that he had been once, and Doris was happy. While Earle was her friend all was safe.

"I hope," she said to him one day, "that they will not tease me at home with tiresome questions; I am so impatient, I should never answer or hear them."

"If by home you mean Brackenside," said Earle, "it is not very probable; you will not be there long."

"You had better give them a caution, Earle. I know my own failings so well. Tell them that you met me in Florence. Mind, if you use the word found I shall never forgive you. You met me in Florence, and hearing that they were in trouble over me, I returned; that is what you have to say, Earle, neither more nor less."

He smiled at her vehemence.

"I will do all I can to please you, Doris," he said.

"That is well; if you do so, Earle, we shall be all right together. I like to be obeyed."

"It suits you," said Earle; "you were born to be a queen."

"Do they know anything at Brackenside of this wonderful story, Earle?" she asked, after a time.

"No, not yet – not one word; no one knows it but myself and you."

Yet he could see that, as they drew nearer home, she was nervous and ill at ease. Once he asked her why it was, and she half laughed as she said:

"Mattie is so tiresome; I shall have no peace with her."

And again he repeated his formula of comfort, "It is not for long."

On the evening they reached Brackenside it was cold and windy.

Rain had fallen during the day, but the rain-clouds had all disappeared; the sky was clear and blue, the moon shone, but the cold was great. The scene in England was quite wintry; there was no Italian sun to warm it; the flowers and leaves were all dead; the fields looked gray, not green, and the wind wailed with a sound so mournful that it made one shudder to listen to it.

As they walked up the fields together, Earle said to his beautiful companion:

"According to Mark Brace's story, it was on such a night as this that you were brought to Brackenside."

She laughed.

"Do you know, Earle," she said, "I am quite ashamed of it, but I have a very uncomfortable sensation that I am returning home very much after the style of the prodigal son."

"Nothing of the kind," said generous Earle. He would not allow her to depreciate herself.

The wind was fearful; it bent the tall trees, and swayed them to and fro as though they were reeds. It moaned and wailed round the house with long-drawn, terrible cries.

"One would think the wind had a voice, and was foretelling evil," said Doris, with a shudder. "Listen, Earle!"

But the attention of the young poet was drawn to a pretty scene. Through the window of the farm-house a ruddy light came like a beam of welcome.

"They are sitting there," said Earle – "the farmer and his wife, with Mattie. Let us go to the window, Doris; we shall see them, but they will not see us."

They drew near to the window. It was the prettiest home scene that was ever imagined. The ruddy light of the fire was reflected in the shining cupboard, in Mark's honest face – it played over the bent head of his wife, and on Mattie's brown hair.

Tears came into the young poet's eyes as he stood and watched; for Mark had taken the great Bible down from the shelf, and was reading aloud to his wife and child. They could not distinguish what he was reading, but they heard the deep reverence of his voice, and how it faltered when he came to any words that touched him. They could see the look of reverence on Mattie's face, and the picture was a pleasing one – it touched all that was most noble in the heart of the young poet.

"I have seen just such a look as Mattie wears on the pictured faces of the saints," he said; and although Doris affected to laugh at his enthusiasm, she was half jealous of the girl who excited it.

Suddenly an idea seemed to occur to Earle; he turned quickly to her.

"Doris," he said, "raise your face to the quiet skies; let me look into the depths of your eyes. Tell me, before Heaven, are you worthy to return and take your place as sister by the side of that girl, whose every thought is pure, and every word devout?"

"I understand you," she said, coldly. "Yes, I am quite worthy to stand by her side."

"Swear it, before Heaven!" he cried.

And the unhappy girl swore it!

CHAPTER XLV

AN APPEAL FOR FORGIVENESS

The same wind that wailed so mournfully round the farm made sad music round the Castle walls. Lady Estelle shuddered as she listened to it; it seemed so full of prophecy, and the prophecy was so full of evil. It moaned and sobbed, then went off into wild cries, then into fitful wails.

A scene was passing just then in the drawing-room of the Castle, such as the dead and gone Herefords had never seen. A group of four people were assembled there, the duke looking older by twenty years than when we saw him last, his head bent, his stately figure drooping, as a man droops who has just met the most terrible blow of his lifetime. All the pride and the dignity seemed to have died away from the face of the duchess, his wife; her eyes were swollen with weeping.

"I shall never feel myself again," she said to her husband; "it is my death-blow."

Two others were in that group – Lady Estelle, whose face was ghastly pale; and standing near her, a tall, handsome man, fair of face, frank, careless and debonair. He was evidently trying to look sorry for something, but had not been able to succeed.

"It is so long since," he was saying, in a tone of apology; "but really I fear there can be no excuse offered."

"No," replied the duke, in a stern voice, "that is certain – none."

Two days before this two events had happened at the Castle. One was that Lady Estelle received a note from Earle, brief enough in itself, but full of import to her. It simply said:

"I have found her. She is now at home, awaiting your summons. I am thankful not to have failed."

Lady Estelle grew white to the lips as she read those lines. Then she wrote a second letter. It was just as brief, and was addressed to the Earl of Linleigh. It said:

"There is no use in further delay; come to the Castle whenever you like, only give me twelve hour's notice."

Then came a letter which sorely puzzled the duke. It was from the Earl of Linleigh, saying that he should be happy to pay the duke a visit if it were quite convenient, and that he would be at the Castle on Wednesday, when he would have something particular to say to him. The duke read the letter, then passed it over to his wife with a very anxious look.