Countess Vera; or, The Oath of Vengeance

"I—I should like to know the meaning of this, Mr. Noble," she gasps at length, haughtily. "I do not allow that girl in my parlor! Let her go to the servants' room. They are good enough for the likes of her."

Mr. Leslie turns his pale, handsome face round with an air of surprise.

"She is your sister's child," he says, with reproach in every tone of his voice.

"Yes, to my sorrow," Mrs. Cleveland flashes out. "Add to that that she is a pauper and an ingrate! Vera Campbell, get up and go to your own room. You ought to know your place if Mr. Noble does not!"

Vera rises silently, and standing still a moment, looks up into Leslie Noble's face. The supreme moment of her triumph has arrived. With a nervous tremor she looks up into his face for courage to sustain her in the trying ordeal of the Clevelands' wrath before its vials are poured out upon her shrinking head.

But the expression of the handsome, troubled face does not exactly satisfy her. He is not looking at her. His eyes are fixed on Ivy Cleveland's pretty face with its pink cheeks and turquoise-blue eyes. There is tenderness, regret and trouble in the rather weak though handsome face.

"Go, Vera," Mrs. Cleveland reiterates, sternly and impatiently.

Then Leslie's eyes fall on the slight, black-robed figure standing in silent, proud humility by his side.

He stoops over her, not to caress her, as for a moment she vaguely fancied, but to whisper in her ear:

"Do as she bids you this time, Vera. Go to your room and sleep soundly to-night. I will have it out with her now, and in the morning I will take you away."

She flashes one quick glance into his troubled eyes, bows her head, and goes mutely from the room. But something in that look haunts Leslie Noble ever after. It seemed to him as if those dark eyes said to him plainer than words could speak: "You are a coward. Are you not afraid to acknowledge your wife?" He is right. The look in her eyes has been palpable contempt.

She goes from the room, but only to enter the room adjoining the parlor, and conceal herself behind the heavy, dark-green hangings. So this is the grand triumph her imagination has pictured for her. This is the weak way in which her husband takes her part against the world.

CHAPTER IV

When Vera has gone from the room, an embarrassed silence falls. Mrs. Cleveland is wondering what to say next. It is no part of her plan to offend Leslie Noble. She prefers to conciliate him. For Leslie himself, he is wondering in what terms he shall convey the truth to his arrogant relative and her haughty daughter.

"You must not take offense, Leslie, at my interference in this case," Mrs. Cleveland stammers at length. "I know your kind, easy nature, and I cannot tamely see you imposed upon by that wretched girl, who is the most ungrateful and hard-hearted creature you could imagine, and only fit to herd with the low and vulgar."

"I do not understand you," Mr. Noble answers, resting his arms on the back of the chair, and turning on her a white, perplexed face.

"She comes of bad stock," answered Mrs. Cleveland. "Her mother, my sister, married most wretchedly beneath her. The man was a low, drunken, brutal fellow, with nothing under Heaven to recommend him but a handsome face. As might have been expected, he abused and maltreated his wife, and then deserted her just before the birth of his daughter, who resembled him exceedingly in character as well as in person."

Leslie Noble winces. Pride of birth is a strong point with him. He is exceedingly well-born himself. The story of this drunken, wife-beating fellow thrills him with keenest disgust.

"Where is the fellow now—dead?" he asks anxiously.

"No, indeed; at least, not that I ever heard of," Mrs. Cleveland answers. "I have no doubt he is alive somewhere, in state prison, perhaps, and he will turn up some day to claim his daughter, and drag her down to his own vile depths of degradation."

Mr. Noble is silent from sheer inability to speak, and Mrs. Cleveland resumes, with apparent earnestness:

"I have my doubts whether I am acting right in keeping the girl here. She is a dead expense to me, and the most ungrateful and violent-tempered creature that ever lived. Would you believe that she flew at poor, dear little Ivy, and boxed her ears this morning? My pity and affection for my sister induced me to give them a home as long as she lived, but now that her influence is withdrawn from Vera, she will be perfectly unmanageable. I think I shall send her away."

"Where?" inquires Mr. Noble, trying to keep his eyes from the pink and white face of Ivy, who is listening intently to every word, without speaking herself.

"To some place where she may earn her own living, or, perhaps, to the House of Correction. She sadly needs discipline," is the instant reply.

Leslie Noble's face turns from white to red, and from red to white again. What he has heard has utterly dismayed him.

"I wish that I had known all this yesterday, or last night," he mutters, weakly.

"Why?" Mrs. Cleveland asks, startled by the dejected tone.

Leslie Noble looks from her to Ivy, who has started into a sitting posture, and fixed her blue eyes on his face.

"Because I have something shocking to tell you," he answers, growing very pale. "You must not be angry with me, Mrs. Cleveland, nor you, Ivy. It would not have happened if I had known all that I know now."

"Oh, what can you mean?" screams Ivy, startled into speech by her vague fear.

"You remember that I declined the Riverton's ball last night on the score of a violent headache?" he says, looking gravely at her.

"Yes, and I missed you so much. I did not enjoy the ball one bit," she murmurs, sentimentally.

Mr. Noble sighs furiously.

"I wish that I had gone, no matter how hard my head ached," he says, dejectedly. "Then Mrs. Campbell would never have sent for me to come to her room."

"To come to her room!" mother and daughter echo in breathless indignation.

"Yes," answers the young man, with another sigh.

"Impertinent! What did she wish?" Mrs. Cleveland breaks out, furiously, pale to the lips.

"She wished to tell me that she was dying, and to leave her daughter in my care," he stammers, confusedly.

"Go on," Mrs. Cleveland exclaims.

"She told me that Vera was delicate, sensitive, helpless and friendless, and so good and sweet that none could help loving her. She declared she could not die in peace without leaving her in the care of a kind protector."

"A fine protector a young man would make for a young girl," Mrs. Cleveland sneers, with cutting irony.

"You do not understand, I think," Leslie answers her, gravely. "She wished me to make her my wife."

"Your wife! Marry Vera Campbell!" Ivy shrieks out wildly.

He trembles at the passionate dismay of her voice, but answers, desperately:

"Vera Noble, now, Ivy, for her mother's grief overcame my reason, and I made her my wife last night by the side of her dying mother."

CHAPTER V

Following that desperate declaration from Leslie Noble, there is a scream of rage and anguish commingled. Ivy has fallen back on the sofa in violent hysterics. Mrs. Cleveland glares at him reproachfully.

"You have killed her, my poor Ivy!" she cries. "She loved you, and you had given her reason to think that—you meant to marry her."

"I did so intend," he answers, on the spur of the moment. "I was only waiting to be sure of my feelings before I declared myself. But now, this dreadful marriage has blighted my life and hers. Poor little Ivy."

"I could almost curse my sister in her grave!" Mrs. Cleveland wails, wringing her hands.

"Curse me rather," Leslie answers, bitterly, "that I was weak enough to be deluded into such a mesalliance. She was ill and dying, she barely knew what she did; but I was in full possession of my senses. Why did I let my weak pity overcome me, and make me false to the real desire of my heart?"

"Falsest, most deceitful of men!" sobs Ivy from her sofa, and Leslie takes her white hand a moment in his own, pressing it despairingly to his lips as he cries:

"You must forgive me, Ivy, I did not know how well I loved you until I had lost you."

Mrs. Cleveland interposes sternly.

"Come, come, I cannot allow any tender passages between you two. If Leslie intends for this nefarious marriage to stand, it will be best that he shall remain a stranger henceforth to us both."

"To stand?" Leslie repeats, looking at her like one dazed.

"Yes," she answers, meaningly. "I ask you, Leslie, if such a marriage as this can be legal and binding?"

"Oh, yes, it is perfectly so," he answers.

"Do you love her? Oh, Leslie, do you love that dreadful girl?" wails Ivy, from her sofa.

He shakes his head, Mrs. Cleveland having interdicted other intercourse.

"Do you intend to live with her?" Mrs. Cleveland queries, significantly.

"Pray, what else can I do?" Mr. Noble queries, bewildered, and Ivy groans, lugubriously.

"Oh, nothing, nothing," the lady answers, with a scornful laugh. "But if it were me who had been deluded into such a marriage with a low and mercenary girl, I am sure that nothing could induce me to live with her. I would either divorce her, or pension her off."

Mr. Noble walks up and down the floor with folded arms, in deep agitation.

"It would be quite impossible to procure a divorce," he answers, after a moment's thought. "I could assign no earthly cause for demanding one. I married her of my own free will, though I admit I was unduly persuaded."

"All she cares for is your money," snaps Ivy, quite ignoring the fact that this was her own motive for winning him. "It will kill me if you take her home with you, Leslie. I shall die of a broken heart."

"Poor, deceived dear," sighs her mother, while Leslie breaks out, ruefully:

"What else can I possibly do, Ivy?"

Mrs. Cleveland, who had been silently cogitating, answers with sudden blandness:

"If you want my advice, Leslie, you shall have it, unfairly as you have treated us. I say the girl is ignorant and uneducated, and quite unfit to become the mistress of your elegant home in Philadelphia. If you are compelled to stick to your unlucky bargain, you must try and make the best of it. You will have to put her into a strict convent school where her ill-nature will be tamed down, and her manners educated up to the proper standard for your wife. How do you like that plan?"

Her magnetic gaze is fixed on Ivy as she speaks, compelling her to be silent, though she was raising her shrill voice in protest.

"Would they be harsh with her?" Leslie asks anxiously, some instinct of pity for the orphan girl struggling blindly in his heart.

"Not at all. I was educated at a convent school myself. I liked it very much. But you will have to be very positive about Vera, to induce her to go. She will wheedle you out of the notion if possible. Raw, untrained girl as she is, she thinks she is quite capable of doing anything, or filling any position. But if you listen to her, you will find yourself mortified and disgraced directly," blandly insinuates the wily woman.

Leslie Noble winces as she had meant he should. He is very proud and sensitive, this rich, handsome man who finds himself placed, through his weakness, in such a sore strait.

"I think your plan is a very good one," he says, hastily. "Do you know where there is a school, such as you named just now?"

"I can give you the address of one in Maryland," Mrs. Cleveland answers, readily.

"I will go there to-morrow and make arrangements for her reception as a pupil," he replies. "Would it be better to apprise her of my intention beforehand?" he inquires with some embarrassment.

"No, decidedly not. She might find means to circumvent you. She is a very sharp witted girl. Merely tell her that you are called away unexpectedly, on business, and that you will leave her in my charge until you return."

"Would it be agreeable to you to have her stay that long?" he queries.

Mrs. Cleveland smiles a little grimly.

"Of course, as your wife, Vera may expect every courtesy from me," she answers in a strange kind of voice, and there the conference ends.

From her hiding-place in the adjoining room Vera creeps out with a white face, and takes her way up-stairs to her mother's room. Her step is slow and heavy, her eyes are dull and black, there is no single gleam of brightness in them. The last drop has been added to the already overflowing cup of misery and despair.

With an unfaltering hand she goes to a small medicine chest kept for her mother's use, and unlocking it, takes out two small vials filled with a dark-colored liquid. Each vial has a label pasted on, containing written directions for use, but without the name of the drug.

Vera knits her straight, black brows thoughtfully together as she puzzles over them. "I remember," she says, aloud, "that mamma said one would produce a long, deep sleep, the other—death! Now which is which?"

After a minute she decides to her satisfaction, and placing one vial back, goes away with the other in her bosom. In her own little room she sits down to pen a few words to Leslie, then slowly kneels by the bedside.

"I do not think anyone can blame me," she murmurs, "not even God. The world is so cold and hard I cannot live in it any longer. I am going to my mother."

Some broken, pleading words falter over the quivering, white lips, then a low amen.

She rises, puts the treasured vial to her lips, and drains the last bitter drop, throwing the empty vessel on the hearth where it cracks into a hundred fragments. Then she lies down upon the bed with her letter to Leslie clenched tightly in her slim white hand. And when they come to awake her in the morning, she is lying mute and pale, with the marble mask of death over all her beauty.

CHAPTER VI

When they tell Leslie Noble the fatal truth—when they lead him to the cold, bare chamber where his girl-wife lies dead, he is stunned by the swift and terrible blow that the hand of fate has dealt him. A quick remorse has entered his soul. He did not love her, yet he would not have the light of her young, strong life go out in darkness like that.

Though he has walked the floor of his room all night, raving, and almost cursing himself because he had married her, the sight of her now—like that—and the sad pathos of that brief letter touch him to the depths of his heart with a vain remorse and pity. With a faltering voice he reads aloud the sad and hopeless words:

"When you come to bid me good-by in the morning I shall be dead. That is best. You see, I did not know till to-night my sad story, and that—that you did not love me! Poor mamma was wrong to bind you so. I am very sorry, Leslie. There is nothing I can do but die!"

His glance falls on Mrs. Cleveland, who is standing in the room with a strange expression upon her face. He does not like to think it is relief and satisfaction, and yet it is marvelously like it.

"Who has told her the truth? How has she learned it?" he asks. "I never meant that she should know. I meant to do my duty by the poor, friendless girl."

"No one told her. She must have listened at the door last night. It was like her low, mean disposition to be peeping, and prying, and listening to what did not concern her," Mrs. Cleveland bursts out, scornfully.

"Pardon me, but our conversation did concern her," he answers, gravely.

"At least, it was not intended for her hearing," she replies, shortly.

Mr. Noble is silent a moment, gazing earnestly at the pale, dead face, from which the woman's eyes turn in fear and aversion.

"Perhaps we have wronged her," he says, slowly. "If she had been what you believed her—coarse and low, and violent like her father—would she have been driven," shudderingly, "to this!"

"You are allowing a maudlin sentimentality to run away with your reason, Leslie," the woman answers, coldly. "Do you suppose I have lied to you? The girl has lived here since infancy. I knew her temper well, and I repeat that she was unbearable. I only endured her for her mother's sake. This is very sad. Of course, you feel badly over it. And yet, common sense whispers that this is a most fortunate thing for you. You are freed from a galling bond. Had she lived, she would almost inevitably have become a sorrow and a disgrace to you."

"We should not speak ill of the dead," he answers, a little sternly.

"Pardon me; I know there are some truths which we innately feel, but should not give expression to," she answers, with keen irony.

"Does Ivy know?" he asks her.

"Not yet; poor dear, I have been watching by her bedside all night. She is ill and almost heart-broken. I must go and break the news to her now."

She moves to the door, but, seeing him standing irresolute in the center of the floor, looks back over her shoulder to say, anxiously:

"Will you come away now, Leslie? The women would like to come in to prepare the body for the grave."

He shivers, and turns to follow her, casting one long, lingering look at the fair, immobile face upon the pillow.

"I did not know she was so beautiful," he murmurs to himself as he passes out.

"Have you no message to send Ivy?" Mrs. Cleveland asks him, as they pass along the hall. "She would be so glad of even one kind word from you."

"I thought you interdicted all intercourse between us last night," he answers, blankly.

"Yes; but the obstacle no longer remains," she replies, significantly, and, with a violent start, Leslie realizes the truth of her words. In his horror and surprise he had not thought of it before. Yes, Vera's death has set him free—free to marry Ivy when he will.

"Tell her that I am very sorry she is ill. I hope she will soon be better," he answers, gravely and courteously. He will not say more now out of respect to the dead, and Mrs. Cleveland is wise enough not to press him.

Ivy, whose pretended illness is altogether a sham, is jubilant over the news.

"Was there ever anything more fortunate?" she exclaims. "Lucky for us that she listened, and found out the truth."

"Yes, indeed, she saved me a vast deal of plotting and planning, for I was determined that she should be put out of the way somehow, and that soon," Mrs. Cleveland answers, heartlessly. "The little fool! I did not think she had the courage to kill herself, but I am very much obliged to her."

"'Nothing in her life became her like the leaving it,'" Ivy quotes, heartlessly.

"Remember, Ivy, you must not allow Leslie to perceive your joy. He is very peculiar—weak-minded, indeed," scornfully. "And he might be offended. Just now he is carried away by a maudlin sentimentality over her tragic death."

"Never fear for me. I shall be discretion itself," laughs Ivy. "But, of course, I shall make no display of grief. That could not be expected."

"Of course not. But it will be a mark of respect to Leslie if you will attend the funeral to-morrow."

"Then I will do so, with a proper show of decorum. I am determined that he shall not slip through my fingers again."

So the two cruel and wicked women plot and plan, while the poor victim of their heartlessness lies up-stairs dead, in all her young, winsome beauty, with her small hands folded on her quiet heart, and the black-fringed lashes lying heavily against the marble-white cheeks. They have robed her for the grave, and left her there alone, with no one "to come in and kiss her to lighten the gloom."

So the day wanes and the night, and Vera lies still and white in the long black casket to which they have consigned her. They have left the cover off, and only a transparent veil lies lightly across her face, through which her delicate features show clearly. How wonderfully the look of life lingers still; how the pink lips retain the warm, pink coloring of life. But there is no one to note how wonderfully death has spared her fairness; no one to exclaim, with the power of affection:

"She looks too sweet and life-like for us to bury her out of our sight."

Afternoon comes, and they carry the casket down into the parlor where a little group are waiting to hear the brief service of the black-robed minister. Then they gather around in the gloomy, darkened room, glance shudderingly at the beautiful white face, and turn away, while the stolid undertaker screws down the coffin-lid over the desperate young suicide. After that the solemn, black-plumed hearse is waiting to bear her away to her rest, by her mother's side. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." "Resquiescat in pace."

Leslie Noble goes home that night. In his character of a widower, he must wait a little space before he renews his suit to the impatient Ivy.

"You will come back to me soon, Leslie dear?" she sighs, sentimentally, as she clings to his arm.

"As soon as decorum permits me," he replies. "Will you wait for me patiently, Ivy?"

"Yes, only do not stay too long," she answers, and he presses a light kiss on her powdered forehead, which Ivy takes in good faith as the solemn seal of their betrothal.

"Oh, dear, it is very lonely," Ivy sighs, that evening, as she and her mother sit alone in the luxurious parlor, where so late the presence of death cast its pall of gloom. "I miss Leslie very much. Shall we be obliged to seclude ourselves from all gaiety, mamma, just because those two people—the plague of our lives—are dead?"

"I am afraid so—for awhile, at least, dear. People would think it strange, you know, my dear Ivy, if we did not make some outward show of grief," Mrs. Cleveland answers, thoughtfully, for she has been turning the matter over in her own mind, and, like her daughter, she cannot endure the thought of foregoing the daily round of fashionable pleasures that are "meat and drink to her."

"How horrid!" complains Ivy. "I should die of the dismals! Listen, mamma, I have a plan."

"Really?" Mrs. Cleveland asks, with faint sarcasm, for her daughter is not at all clever.

"Yes, although you think I am so stupid," Ivy answers, vivaciously. "It is this, mamma. Let us leave Washington and go south this winter to one of the gayest, most fashionable cities, and have a real good time where nobody can expect us to be snivelling several long months over two deaths that give us unqualified pleasure."

"Vera and her mother were very useful to us, after all," Mrs. Cleveland answers, with a sigh to the memory of her purse. "They saved me a good deal of money in dressmaking bills and the like. They more than paid for their keeping."

"What a stingy, craving soul you have, mother," Ivy exclaims, impatiently. "But what do you think of my plan?"

"It is capital and quite original. I did not give you credit for so much invention," Mrs. Cleveland answers, smiling at her daughter.

"Shall we go, then?" Ivy inquires.

"Yes, if–" Mrs. Cleveland is beginning to say, when she is interrupted by the swift unclosing of the door, and a man comes into the room, pausing abruptly in the center of the apartment, and fixing his burning black eyes on the face of Mrs. Cleveland.

He is tall, dark, princely handsome, with a face full of fire and passion, blent with "cureless melancholy." His dark hair, thickly streaked with gray, is tossed carelessly back from his broad, white brow, and an air of nobility is indelibly stamped on every straight, aristocratic feature. Mrs. Cleveland springs to her feet with a cry of surprise and terror:

"Lawrence Campbell!"

CHAPTER VII

After that one shriek of surprise and almost terror, Mrs. Cleveland remains silent, devouring the man's face with a gaze as fixed and burning as his own. Ivy, in her corner, is forgotten by her mother, and unnoticed by the stranger.

"Yes, Lawrence Campbell," he answers her in a deep, hoarse voice, that thrills to the hearts of the listeners. "Are you glad to see me, Mrs. Cleveland?"

"Glad!" she shudders, in an indescribable voice.

"After these long years," he pursues, speaking under the spur of some deep, overmastering agitation, "I have come back to curse you, traitorous, false-hearted woman, and to make atonement."

"Atonement!" she falters, with a start of fear.

"Yes, Marcia Cleveland, atonement," he bursts out passionately. "Tell me, where is the dear, true angel-wife whom I was led to believe false and unfaithful to me, through your heartless machinations. At last I know the truth, at last I know you, devil that you are! You maligned the truest, purest, gentlest woman that ever lived! Your own sister, too—the beautiful, innocent child that was left to your charge by her dying parents. God only knows what motive you had for your terrible sin."