Countess Vera; or, The Oath of Vengeance

"Oh, Philip," she cries, in a voice of the bitterest pain, "I wish you had not asked me that question yet. Believe me, you will know too soon."

"Then there is a story!" he exclaims.

"Yes," she answers, wearily. "But, Philip, let me go now. I am very tired. You do not know all that I have borne to-night."

He folds the beautiful figure closely in his arms, and kisses the white eyelids that droop so wearily over the sad, dark eyes.

"Forgive me for troubling you, darling," he says, tenderly. "I do not wish to force your confidence, Vera. Only believe me, my own one, every sorrow that rends your heart causes me unhappiness, too."

She lies still against that loyal heart one moment—oh, happy haven of rest, never to be hers! then struggles from him with one last, lingering kiss, and goes to her room and her sleepless couch to brood alone in that dark, dark hour that comes before the dawn, over the terrible discovery she has made.

For Colonel Lockhart the hours pass sleeplessly, too. The shadow of Vera's unknown sorrow lies heavily upon his heart.

He rises early, and long before the late breakfast hour Lady Vera's maid brings him a sealed note. He tears it hastily open, and her betrothal ring falls sparkling into his hand.

"Dear Philip," she writes, "I return your ring. A terrible barrier has risen between us that all our love can never bridge over. So we must part. And, oh! believe me, dearest, it breaks my heart to write it. One thing I would ask you, Philip—will you go away from here and save me the sorrow of meeting you again? I can bear my misery and my impending shame far better if I cannot see you whom I have so fondly loved, and must so fatefully resign.

"Your Wretched Vera."

"Has my darling grown mad?" the handsome soldier asks himself, staring almost stupidly at the note and the ring in his hand. "What shame can touch her, my beautiful, pure-hearted one? She is going to be ill, perhaps, and this is but the vagary of a mind diseased."

So he writes back impulsively:

"Vera, let me see you for even ten minutes. Surely, my darling, you do not mean what you say. What shame can touch you, my innocent love? And why should you wish to send me away? Is it not my right and duty and desire to stand by your side through all the trials of life?

"'Oh! what was love made for if 'tis not the same,Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame?'

"Do not ask me to leave you, darling. If indeed sorrow and trouble are near you, my place is by your side. I will wait for you half an hour in the library. Do not fail me, dear. I want to put your ring back upon your finger.

"Your Own Philip."

Lady Vera weeps bitterly over her lover's note.

"Ah, he does not know, he does not dream of the fatal truth," she moans, wildly. "And what can I say to him? I cannot, I will not tell him. I could not do it. I should die of the shame. He will know too soon as it is. And yet I must go to him. He will not be denied. Oh! what shall I say to him, my poor boy?"

Weeping and lingering, dreading to go, the half-hour is almost up before she drags herself to the library where Philip is pacing up and down the floor in a fever of doubt and suspense.

"Vera, my darling," he cries. "Oh, how could you treat me so cruelly?"

She pauses with her arms folded over the back of a chair, and regards him sorrowfully. Colonel Lockhart can see that she has been weeping bitterly. Her tremulous lips part to answer him, then close without a sound.

He goes up to her and takes one white, jeweled hand fondly into his own.

"Tell me what troubles you, Vera," he whispers gently.

"Can you not guess, Philip? It is because I must part from you," she answers sadly.

"But why must you do so, Vera?" he asks, gravely, touched to the heart by her drooping and despondent attitude.

"I cannot tell you," she answers sadly, with a heavy sigh.

"Perhaps you have ceased to love me," her lover exclaims, almost sternly.

She starts and fixes her dark eyes reproachfully on his face.

"Oh, would that I had!" she exclaims. "This parting would then be easier to bear!"

They regard each other a moment with painful intentness. The marks of misery on her face are too plain to be mistaken, and the wonder deepens on his own.

"Vera, why are you so mysterious?" he asks, anxiously. "If you throw me over like this, I have at least a right to know the reason why."

"You shall know—soon," she answers, almost bitterly.

Then she lifts her eyes to his face pleadingly.

"Oh, Philip, do not torture me," she cries wildly. "We must part! There is no help nor hope for us! A terrible barrier has risen between us! I have a terrible duty to perform, and there is no turning back for me. But, oh, Philip, if I could persuade you to go away now—at once—where you might never hear or know the fatal secret that has come between us! Darling, let me beg you," she falls suddenly on her knees before him, "to take me at my word and put the whole width of the world between us!"

He lifts her up and wipes the streaming tears from her beautiful eyes.

"My darling, you make it hard for me to refuse you," he answers, in sorrow and perplexity, "but do you think I could be coward enough to desert you when trouble and sorrow hung over your head? I am a soldier, Vera. I cannot show the white feather. If sorrow comes I will be by your side and help you to bear it."

"You, of all others, could help me the least," she answers, brokenly.

And again his noble, handsome face clouds over with wonder and sorrow.

"I will try, at least," he answers, with sad firmness. "Do not ask me to leave you, Vera, I cannot do it. Oh, darling, are you sure, quite sure, that we need really part? That you cannot be my wife?"

"I am as sure of it as if one or the other of us lay at this moment in the coffin," she answers, drearily.

"And that barrier, Vera, will it always stand?" he asks.

"Always, unless death should remove it," she answers, with a shudder; and with a moan, she continues: "Once I believed that death had already stricken it from my path, and I was so happy, Philip—happy in your love and mine. But the grim specter of the past has risen to haunt me. I can never be your wife. I can never know one moment's happiness in life again."

"She is ill and desperate," Colonel Lockhart tells himself, uneasily. "Surely things cannot be so bad as she represents. She exaggerates her trouble. When I come to know the truth I shall find that it is some simple thing that her girlish fears have magnified a hundredfold. I must not let her drive me away from her. I may be of service to her in her trouble."

Aloud he says, gently:

"Since I may no longer be your lover, Vera, you will let me be your friend?"

"Since you wish it, but you will change your mind soon," she answers, hopelessly.

"I think not," he answers, lifting her hand gently to his lips, and then she turns away, meeting Lady Clive upon the threshold coming in.

"Vera, my dear, how ill you look," she exclaims. "Has anything happened? Ah, Phil, are you there? What have you said to Vera? You are not having a lover's quarrel, I hope?"

He makes her no answer, but Vera, turning back, throws her arms around her friend's neck, and lifts her pale, beseeching face.

"I will tell you what has happened, Lady Clive," she answers. "I have broken my engagement with Philip."

"Broken your engagement with Philip? Why, what has he done?" Lady Clive exclaims.

"Nothing," Lady Vera answers, meekly as a child.

"Nothing?" the lady repeats, half-angrily. "Nothing? Then why have you thrown him over, Lady Vera? Did you tire of him so soon? I did not know that you were a flirt."

"Hush, Nella, you shall not blame her," her brother exclaims, sternly.

"You see Philip is not angry with me, Lady Clive," Vera says, entreatingly. "Indeed I am not a flirt. I love him dearly, but I cannot be his wife. There are reasons," she almost chokes over the word, "that—that you will know soon. You will see I was not to blame. Oh, Lady Clive, do not be angry with me."

"I will not, dear," answers the gentle-hearted lady, kissing the sweet, quivering lips of the wretched girl. "I do not understand you, but if Philip is not angry with you, neither can I be. Yet I am very sorry that I shall not have you for my sister."

With a stifled sob Lady Vera breaks from her clasp and flies up to her own room. She does not appear at breakfast.

At luncheon she is so pale and sad and wretched-looking that it makes one's heart ache to see her.

At night they attend a ball, from which Colonel Lockhart excuses himself on the plea of indisposition, and at which the rich Americans also fail to put in an appearance.

CHAPTER XXIV

The invitations for Mrs. Vernon's lawn-party had been issued at least a fortnight, and but few people had declined them.

It was well known that she gave charming entertainments, and people were always eager to attend. A lawn-party, too, was so romantic, "too sweet for anything," declared the young women who adored those out-of-door entertainments where the most flagrant flirtations were possible, and where the plainest faces acquired a certain beauty from the blended light of lamp-light and moonlight, and the flickering leaf-shadows cast by the over-arching trees.

Older people dreaded the night-air and the dew, but to these the drawing-rooms were always open, so that no one dreamed of declining Mrs. Vernon's elegant cards.

Lady Clive was present that evening, her fair and stately beauty, so like her brother's, thrown into perfect relief by a robe of blue and silver, with pale, gleaming pearls around her graceful throat and white arms.

Lady Vera wore white satin and tulle, with water-lilies here and there, a beautiful dress that was most becoming to her, and made her look regal as a young princess.

A flush of excitement glowed upon her cheeks, and her eyes were bright and restless with a strange look of expectancy and almost dread in their beautiful depths.

The constant thought in her mind was:

"I shall see my enemies to-night. What will be the result? They pretend to regard me as a perfect stranger. What shameless audacity. I cannot understand how they can carry it out so boldly. And yet God knows that but for my oath of vengeance I would never speak. Ivy might have my husband and welcome. Yet I would give much to know whose death it was I read in that American paper. Leslie Noble's father, perhaps, though I had some vague idea that he was dead long ago."

Colonel Lockhart is present too, this evening, ever watchful, ever near his darling, though without the least appearance of intrusiveness.

Other lovers take his place by her side, but as usual she is calm and cold to all.

She is done with love and lovers, she tells herself with sad self-pity.

All her future life will lie in the dun, gray twilight of sorrow.

"As the blade wears the scabbard,The billow the shore;So sorrow doth fret meForevermore!"

It is late in the evening before Colonel Lockhart ventures to address her.

Then something in her glance has drawn him to her side, in spite of his determination not to intrude upon her.

Lady Eva Clarendon and Miss Montgomery are present, and both have laid some claims to his attention. In spite of herself, Lady Vera cannot keep the pain out of her eyes, and Philip, watching her with the keenness of love, is quick to see it. In a moment he is by her side.

"Will you promenade with me?" he asks, deferentially.

A sudden smile of irrepressible pleasure lights the beautiful face. She loves him dearly, and it is so hard to give him up.

Rising, she lays her white hand on his arm, and they move away together down a quiet path under the shade of the leafy trees hung with gayly-colored lamps, whose checkered light throws their faces now in brightness, now in shadow.

The scene, the hour, is full of romance. Tall marble vases here and there are crowded with fragrant flowers, whose sweetness makes breathing a perfect delight. The moon is at its full, pouring down a flood of pure white radiance that makes the glimmering light of the lamps seem garish and unnecessary. Soft music rises, blent with the sound of happy voices, and a nightingale has perched itself on a rose tree near by, and is

"Pouring his full heartIn profuse strains of unpremeditated art."

They walk slowly on, speaking little, but with hearts that tremble with mingled pain and pleasure. The presence of each to the other is perilously sweet. In his mind runs the refrain of a song she had sung that evening:

"Beloved eye! beloved star,Thou art so near and yet so far."

Suddenly, in turning a curve in the path, they come face to face with a couple walking from the opposite direction—Leslie Noble and his wife.

The small blonde is attired in an elaborate costume of white and green, and the snaky fire of emeralds blaze round her throat and wrists. Her pale eyes glare with a snaky anger, too, as they light upon the beautiful young countess, looking bride-like in her rich, white dress, and the white lace scarf that she has carelessly thrown over her golden hair.

With an impulsive movement Ivy disengages her hand from her husband's arm, and places herself directly in Vera's way, her pale eyes flashing with rage, her head held high, her slight figure drawn erect, making the most of her insignificant stature.

"Lady Fairvale," she exclaims, insolently, "they tell me you refuse to know me or my husband, or my mother. Will you tell me the reason why?"

There is a dead pause, and Leslie Noble tries to drag his wife away, but she defies him.

"I shall not go!" she answers, sharply. "I told you I would do it. I have asked this proud lady the reason of her scorn, and I am waiting for an answer."

Lady Vera faces her a moment in scornful silence, but her pallid cheeks, her intense gaze, and her curling lips, all betray the tumult in her breast. She turns to Captain Lockhart, with a soul's despair in her lovely eyes.

"Philip, will you go away, and leave me alone with this woman?" she asks, pleadingly.

It seems to him that Vera does not know what is best for herself. How can he go away, and leave her to bear the brunt of this coarse woman's fury alone?

"Forgive me for refusing you, dear," he whispers back, "but it is better that I should stay. I cannot leave you without a friend by your side."

A look of futile despair flashes over the lovely face, but she urges him no more. Her eyes turn from his handsome, tender face to meet Ivy's angry, insolent gaze.

"I ask you again, Lady Fairvale," exclaims the small fury, "why do you refuse to speak to us?"

"Oh, God, give me strength," Lady Vera prays, silently, "to keep the oath of vengeance made to my dying father!"

The memory of her parent's cruel wrongs flashes into her mind and steels her heart. She remembers her mother's broken heart, her father's ruined life, her own joyless, slavish girlhood, driven by these two women who now stand glaring stonily upon her, for Mrs. Cleveland, coming in search of her daughter, has become a sudden and amazed spectator of the curious scene.

"I will tell why I hold myself above you," Lady Vera answers, in a voice that quivers with scornful indignation. "It is because you are false and vile—a guilty woman, and a shameless sinner!"

"How dare you traduce me thus?" Mrs. Noble shrieks, in anger and amazement.

"I dare, because I speak the truth before God," her enemy answers, fearlessly. "How dare you claim to be Leslie Noble's wife, when you know that I, his first wife, Vera Campbell, am living?"

CHAPTER XXV

It was a striking tableau, there beneath the over-arching trees that fair, calm, summer night. Lady Vera's beautiful face was all pale with passionate scorn and indignation as she leaned upon her lover's arm. Her enemies had started back as her scathing accusation fell upon them, and they now regarded her with looks of wrath, blent with honest astonishment. Colonel Lockhart's face had turned to a dull, ashen gray, like the pallor of death, but he stood his ground bravely, like the soldier that he was. Lady Vera did not dare to look at him, but beyond one swift, convulsive start, as though a sword had pierced his heart, the arm that supported her did not even tremble. He had steeled himself to bear his pain and make no sign.

"Colonel Lockhart," Mrs. Cleveland exclaims, starting boldly to the front, "I would advise you to take Lady Fairvale home to her friends. She must surely be raving mad. I know not how she came into possession of any facts concerning us, but I swear to you, and can prove my assertion, that Vera Campbell, the first wife of my son-in-law, Leslie Noble, has been dead and buried three years. Is it not so, Leslie?"

"It is perfectly true," he answers, gazing curiously at the beautiful girl who has claimed him as her husband. "If Lady Fairvale be Vera Campbell Noble, then she has risen from the grave itself to claim me, for I saw her buried three years ago, and I erected a costly marble monument to her memory."

"She committed suicide!" Ivy screams out, spitefully. "She died in my mother's house. I saw her lying dead, and I saw her buried."

"Oh, shameless falsehood!" Vera breaks out, warmly. "I did not die, and you know it. The bitter drug with which I thought to end my wretched life, turned out to be only a sleeping potion after all. Will you deny, Marcia Cleveland, that Lawrence Campbell came to you that night to denounce you for the falsehood with which you had betrayed him, and to ask, at your hands, his wronged wife and child?"

Livid with rage and fear, the wicked woman stares at her fearless accuser. How has this beautiful countess, with Vera Campbell's face, learned the secret of her past life?

"Lady Fairvale," she answers, "I do not know how you, a stranger, have learned the secrets of my past life, but I will answer your questions fairly and truthfully. Lawrence Campbell did indeed come to me as you assert, but his daughter had been buried that very day in Glenwood. I bade him seek his wife and child in the grave, and he fell down like one dead at my feet. I caused my servants to throw him into the street like a dog, and I know not, to this day, if he be living or dead."

"He is dead," Lady Vera answers, with blazing eyes. "He has been dead almost a year. He lived but for vengeance on you, Marcia Cleveland, and when he died, he bade me swear an oath of vengeance on you. He bade me avenge my martyred mother's bitter wrongs. It is for this I have spoken. Do you think I did not shrink from claiming that craven coward there," pointing a scornful finger, "as my husband?"

Flushing scarlet under her lightning scorn, Leslie Noble advances.

"Lady Fairvale, if indeed you are my wife," he says, "and," insolently, "no man could have a wife more beautiful, will you tell me by what strange chance you were rescued from the grave where I, myself, saw you laid?"

"I deny that I was ever buried," Vera flashes out angrily. "My father told me nothing of that. He declared that he had me carried away from Mrs. Cleveland's in a deep narcotic sleep."

"Is it true that Lawrence Campbell was the Earl of Fairvale?" Mrs. Cleveland demands, looking at Colonel Lockhart.

"It is perfectly true, madam," he answered, coldly.

"And it is true that I am his daughter, whom you and your daughter so shamefully abused and maltreated?" Vera cries. "Do you remember, Ivy Cleveland, how you abused and insulted me? How you struck me in the face that night when my mother lay dead in the house? Do you recall your anger because she had died before the embroidery was finished on your Surah polonaise? Do you remember, Leslie Noble, how you stood by the bedside of that dying saint, and swore to protect and love the unconscious child you married! Ah, well you kept your vow when you plotted with that wicked woman yonder to send me from you to a convent school where I should be tortured to death, so that you should go free. That was her wicked scheme, I know, for she had planned to marry you to Ivy. Now you know why I tried to escape from you into the merciful land of death. But Heaven spared me the commission of that sin. It was not poison I took. I made a mistake in the drug. I lived to drag you down to the dust, Marcia Cleveland; to punish you through your daughter's shame for my parents' wrongs and mine! You understand now why I would not speak to you, Ivy Cleveland! That man there whom I utterly loathe and despise, is my husband, although I would not bear his name for wealth untold. You are a false and sinful woman unfit to mate with the pure and true, knowing yourself to be only the reputed wife of a bigamist!"

The torrent of passionate accusation comes to a sudden end, and Lady Vera, with heaving breast and dilated eyes, looks contempt upon her foes. They stand before her awed and silent for a moment. Her scathing words have carried conviction to their hearts. They know her in truth to be that Vera whom for three long years they have believed to be sleeping under the costly marble that bears her name in Glenwood Cemetery. But they will never admit it. To do that would be to throw up the game and own themselves beaten and vanquished.

A curious crowd of ladies and gentlemen have gathered around attracted by the sound of excited voices. With wonder and dismay they listen to the scathing denunciations that fall from the lips of the beautiful countess. Mrs. Cleveland, fully conscious of the curious eyes, turns around and makes reply to them—not Lady Vera.

"My friends," she cries, with uplifted hands and a face of horror, "surely this beautiful lady has lost her mind. She is stark, staring mad, and for this I can forgive her the insults she has heaped upon my daughter. I believe she is a clever adventuress whom Lawrence Campbell has foisted on the world as his heiress. Vera, the real daughter of the Earl of Fairvale, died three years ago in Washington. She is buried at Glenwood beneath a marble monument that bears her name and age. I swear before God that this is true. This girl here, this pretended Countess of Fairvale, is, without doubt, a clever impostor, who is keeping the Earl's true heir out of his own. Let her disprove this charge if she can. If she be truly Vera Campbell, let her prove that she was resurrected from the grave in Glenwood where my own eyes saw her laid."

A moment of perfect silence follows Mrs. Cleveland's venomous words. Her daughter, who is a coward at heart in spite of all her bravado, has fallen back a pace, allowing her mother to be spokesman, well knowing that not even herself could so valiantly defend her cause.

There is a look of fear and dread on Ivy's face that gives her a ghastly look in spite of her paint and powder.

Lady Vera's words have carried conviction to her heart, and in fancy she sees herself deserted and abandoned by the man whom she believed her husband, and whom she has relentlessly tyrannized over, recklessly dissipating his fortune, and trampling on his heart.

She well knows that every spark of love he ever entertained for her had died long ago, murdered by her own heartless, unloving course toward him. What more natural than that he should rejoice if his bonds fell from him and left him free from her mother and herself, who had been fastened upon him like human vampires, draining his very heart's blood.

She glances at him, and that glance does not reassure her. There is a strange expression on his face, and he is not looking at her, but at the beautiful, high-born girl who has just claimed him as her husband, albeit with words of scorn.

Even while she gazes at him in fear and terror he steps forward with a certain craftiness in his eyes, and answers Mrs. Cleveland's angry words.

"You speak too harshly, perhaps, Mrs. Cleveland. I have been impressed, even against my will, by Lady Fairvale's words. She is certainly possessed of knowledge that no one but Vera Campbell could have known. Then, too, she is startlingly like my dead wife, both in voice and person. Although I certainly buried my first wife and raised a costly monument over her grave, I am still willing to investigate the strange charges of Lady Fairvale. Strange things have happened sometimes. The dead have come to life, the lost have been found. 'Let justice be done though the heavens fall.'"

"Wretch! Would you turn traitor to me?" screams Ivy, clutching him violently by the arm, forgetful of all but her fear of losing him.