Countess Vera; or, The Oath of Vengeance

CHAPTER IX

No one had created such a sensation in London for several years as did Lady Vera, the Earl of Fairvale's only child, when she was presented at court. She was just nineteen, and a perfect beauty. She was more American than English in style—tall and slenderly formed, with a stately grace all her own, with large, dark eyes, and black brows and lashes, with hair of a magnificent, dark-golden shade, and well-formed, aristocratic features. Then, as the crowning charm to her brilliant loveliness, she had inherited from her English ancestry a dazzling complexion of lilies and roses.

People who studied and admired Lady Vera most, said that they could not quite understand the expression of her face. It was too intense for one so young. It was full of passion, tempered by the gravest thought.

The young English girls had dimples and smiles for everyone, but Lady Vera was different. She had the sweetest, most radiant smile in the world when you saw it, but that was so very seldom. She seemed to be thinking all the time—thinking deeply, even when she danced or sang, or conversed. And her favorite flowers were the beautiful, velvety pansies, whose very emblem is thought.

Yet when you looked into the Earl of Fairvale's face, you ceased to wonder at his daughter. The shadow on her face was reflected from the cloud on his. His dark, handsome face was a study. Where Lady Vera seemed to be thinking, his expression was that of one brooding—brooding all the while on one subject, and that not a pleasant one.

It was with some difficulty that he met the requirements of society. When spoken to suddenly sometimes, he would start and look bewildered as if his thoughts were far away. Ladies admired him immensely, although he was very inattentive to them. The dark, sad, melancholy face had a peculiar charm for them. They said he reminded them of Byron's heroes.

The earl was very fond of his daughter, and very careful of her. His eyes followed her everywhere, but their expression was always sad and melancholy. No one knew that every time he looked at her, he remembered how he had wronged her mother, and that his heart was breaking with remorse and grief, as well as with the consuming fires of a baffled revenge.

His story was not generally known. He had succeeded to the Earldom of Fairvale through a series of unexpected deaths, and though everyone knew of handsome Lawrence Campbell's accessions, little was known of him personally beyond the rumor that he had married an American lady, who had died and left him one only child, his beautiful and worshiped Vera.

Lady Vera had many admirers. Aside from her personal charms, the fact that she would succeed to the title and estates of Fairvale, cast a flattering prestige around her.

She was the same to all who came to woo—cool, courteous, gently indifferent. After awhile they began to say that the earl's daughter was very proud. Ordinary people were not to her fancy, evidently. She must be waiting for a duke or a prince. Poor Lady Vera! Who was to know the bitter secret, the ceaseless dread that ached in the fair breast, that rose and fell beneath the knots of velvety pansies that were her simple and favorite adornment?

Vera has seen and learned a great deal since that night when her father's mad frenzy had been the means of saving her from the horrors of a dreadful death.

She has traveled, she has had masters and governesses; luxuries of which she never even faintly dreamed, have surrounded her and become daily necessities. Pleasure has wooed her softly to its flowery paths, love has been lavishly laid at her feet. But through it all a loathing remembrance of Leslie Noble has poisoned her peace.

"Where is he? Does he know where I am? Will he ever come to claim me?" she often asks herself, never dreaming that he of whose coming she is so terribly afraid believes her dead, and that he has erected a costly marble monument over the spot where her remains are supposed to rest.

Her father's mistaken kindness has kept from her the knowledge of her deadly peril and her opportune rescue, little dreaming in what an untoward hour the startling truth shall come to her.

And she, in her sensitive pride, has held her peace over that ill-fated marriage by the bedside of her dying mother—the poor, heart-broken mother who had erred so fatally, when, with weak, human foresight she had tried to plan for the future well-being of her helpless child.

"Oh, mamma, dearest," she moans, when alone in her silken boudoir, she recalls the wretched past, "how terribly blind and mistaken you were. Oh, to be free from these fetters that chafe and fret and gall so terribly!"

"Shall you never marry, Vera?" her father asks her one day.

It is the day after she has refused Lord Greyhurst, one of the finest and wealthiest young noblemen in London.

The deep color flows into the girl's fair cheeks.

"I think not, father," she answers, gravely. "I have no wish to marry. I have never met anyone that I could love."

Earl Fairvale is well pleased.

"I am glad to hear you say that, my dear," he answers. "I have no wish to lose my daughter. And, after all, so much sorrow comes from love, one is best without it."

Lady Vera is very glad to hear him talk so. He will never urge her to marry, and she may keep her secret always—always, unless—dreaded possibility—Leslie Noble should return to claim her.

"But he will not. Why should he? He never cared for me. Yet how strange that he should have let my father take me away without one word. He must indeed have been glad to be rid of me," she muses.

The earl and his daughter are staying with Lady Clive for the "season." She is an American, and the daughter of a famous American general. She is very happily married to Sir Harry Clive, baronet. Loving everything American with intensest love, she falls an instant victim to Lady Vera's charms.

"Your mother was an American—so am I," she says, vivaciously; "so I claim you on that score. Do you like England, Lady Vera, and English people?"

"Yes," Vera answers, in her grave way.

"And," Lady Clive goes on, in her bright, airy fashion, "do you intend to marry an Englishman or an American?"

"I shall never marry at all," Lady Vera says, with a face of extreme disgust.

"Never! Ah, my dear, you are too young to decide such a momentous question. Only wait and see," cries Lady Clive, who has a match laid out in her mind for Vera, but who is far too wise to give her a hint of it.

"I shall never marry," Vera repeats, calmly. "I do not even like to think of such things as love and marriage. Dear Lady Clive, let us talk of something more interesting. You promised to take me into the nursery, and show me your little children—did you not?"

"Yes, and we will go now," her friend answers, leading the way; but to herself she says, wonderingly: "What a strange girl. At her age I did not think a set of noisy children more interesting than love and marriage."

The grave young face grows brighter than Lady Clive has ever seen it as Vera watches the beautiful little children at their playful sports. She even smiles when they caress her, and gives them the flowers from her bosom in payment for kisses.

"She loves children dearly," Lady Clive says to herself, well pleased. "How strange that she should be so set against marriage. She is an odd girl, but I think I shall live to see her change her mind."

CHAPTER X

Lady Vera having gained the entree to the nursery, pays it daily visits, always finding herself vociferously welcomed by the three small dwellers therein.

And one day she finds the youthful trio in a hubbub of excitement.

"Our uncle from America is coming over to visit us," they triumphantly announce to their friend.

"You seem to be glad," Lady Vera answers, kindly.

"Oh, we are," they laugh. "Aren't you glad, too, Vera?"

"I do not know. I do not like Americans much," says Lady Vera, with a distinct remembrance of the Clevelands and Leslie Noble.

"Oh, but you will be sure to like Uncle Phil. He is awfully jolly, and he is a soldier, too. He has a sword and a gun and has promised to teach me to shoot. I am going to be a soldier, too," cries out Mark, the second son.

"And when is this terrible soldier coming?" Lady Vera inquires, with languid interest.

"We do not know exactly, but very soon," they tell her. "He came about this time last year. Mamma had a letter from him this morning."

"You have not told me his name yet," Lady Vera continues.

"He is Captain Philip Lockhart, and his father, our own grandpapa, is General Lockhart," answers Hal, the heir, while little Dot claps her small hands gleefully, crying out:

"Uncle Phil will bring us lots of bu'ful playt'ings from New York. He always does."

But though "Uncle Phil" remains the favorite topic of the nursery for several days, Lady Clive quite forgets to tell her guest that she expects her brother.

Lady Vera scarcely gives it a thought. In the expected arrival of Captain Lockhart she takes not the slightest interest.

So it happened that when Vera runs into the nursery one evening—having promised the children a peep at her ball dress—she comes upon an unexpected tableau. A man on his knees, hammering at the lid of a big box, three hopefuls gathered around him, and chattering like magpies; the prim, white-aproned nurse vainly endeavoring to command silence.

Before Vera can beat her instantly-attempted retreat, the little "Philistines are upon her."

"Here she is," they cry. "This is Vera, of whom we have been telling you. Isn't she pretty, Uncle Phil?"

"But she doesn't like Americans," adds one enfant terrible.

"I am sorry for that," says Captain Lockhart, rising hastily, and giving Lady Vera a soldier's stately bow. "Cannot you persuade her that I am of some other nationality, my dears?"

The ease and lightness of his words and manner carry off some of the embarrassment of the meeting. Lady Vera gives him a bow, and a slight little smile, sweet and transient.

"I am sorry to have interrupted you," she says. "I am going now, directly."

But her swift, upward glance has given her a glimpse of a tall, soldierly form, and a handsome-featured face, with dark-blue eyes, and dark-brown mustache, while short, curling locks of deepest brown cluster about a finely-shaped head—"every inch a soldier."

Our hero, on his part, sees a vision of dazzling beauty—dark eyes, golden tresses, scarlet lips, a slim yet daintily-rounded figure in costly lace, with knots of purple, golden-hearted pansies. Around the slender, stately column of the white throat a necklace of pansies formed of dark, purple amethysts with diamond centers radiating fire—a birthday gift from her father.

"Pray do not go," Captain Lockhart says, persuasively, with the winning tongue of a soldier. "The children have been eagerly expecting you. Do not damp their pleasure. Rather let me withdraw."

"No, no," Lady Vera says, hastily, as he crosses to the door, her haughtiness melting for the moment under his chivalrous manner. "We will both stay—that is, I can only give the children a moment. I am going to a ball."

"So am I, directly, with my sister and Sir Harry. It is very strange Nella did not tell me she had a young lady guest. I am," smiling under the brown mustache, "puzzled over your name."

"It is Vera Campbell," she answers, with a slight flush.

"Lady Vera," pipes the prim nurse from her corner, obsequiously.

"Lady Vera," he says, with a bow and smile; then: "Thank you for the favor. Mine is Philip Lockhart."

"Captain Phil," shouts Mark, anxious that his uncle shall abate no jot of his soldierly dignity.

"He has brought us a great big box," Dot confides to Lady Vera, triumphantly at this moment.

"Which I will leave him to open. My maid has not finished me yet," fibs Vera, and so makes her escape, leaving Captain Phil to the tender mercies of his small relatives, who give him no peace until the heavy box is unpacked, and its contents paraded before their dazzled and rejoicing sight.

Meanwhile Vera secures her opera-cloak, and goes down to the drawing-room, where the earl and Sir Harry are waiting for the ladies.

"Nella will be here in a moment," explains Sir Harry. "She has gone to hurry up her brother, over whom the children are having no end of a jollification. Oh, I forgot, you may not know whom I am talking about. Lady Clive's brother arrived this evening, and will accompany us to Lady Ford's ball."

Vera bows silently, and presently Lady Clive sails in, proudly, with the truant in tow. Evening dress is marvelously becoming to the handsome soldier. Involuntarily Vera thinks of Sir Launcelot:

"Lady Vera, this is my brother, Captain Lockhart," Lady Clive begins, with conscious pride; then pauses, disconcerted by the "still, soft smile" creeping over either face.

"We have met before," Lady Vera explains, with, for her, unusual graciousness. "Met before! Not in America?" cried Lady Clive, bewildered.

"Oh, no," her brother answers, and Lady Vera adds, smiling: "In the nursery, ten minutes ago."

So there is only the earl to introduce, and then they are whirled away to Lady Ford's, where Captain Lockhart meets a score of last season's friends, and to the surprise of Lady Vera, who is prejudiced against almost anything American, he develops some of the graces of a society man, even playing and singing superbly in a full, rich tenor voice.

"Yet, why should he have selected that old, old song: 'The Banks of Allan Water?'" Lady Vera asks herself, scornfully, "and when he sang:

why should he have looked so straight at me? It was not an impertinent look, I own, but why should he have looked at me at all?"

But even to her own heart, Lady Vera will not own that her great vexation is directed against herself because she has blushed vividly crimson under that one look from Captain Lockhart's blue eyes, while her heart has beat so strangely—with annoyance, she thinks.

"I foresee that I shall hate this American soldier," she muses, "and no wonder at all when I shall be forced to see him every day. I wish now that we had not accepted Lady Clive's invitation for the London season."

CHAPTER XI

The day after Lady Ford's ball dawns cheerlessly. It is cool, and the air is full of floating mists. The gentlemen determine to go out anyhow. The ladies elect to remain at home. The glowing fire in the library has more charms than the bleak, spring air.

"I am not surprised at Nella," says Captain Lockhart, leisurely buttoning his overcoat. "She was raised in America, and our ladies do not walk much. But I have been told that English ladies walk every morning, whether rain or shine. Are you false to the tradition, Lady Vera?"

The color flies into her cheek at his quizzical glance, but she will not tell him what she sees he does not know—that she has been raised in America, too.

"I suppose so," she says, a little shortly, in answer to his question.

"Suppose you come with us for a turn around the square, my dear?" suggests the earl.

"So I will," answers Lady Vera, determined to have Captain Lockhart see that she is quite English in her habits.

She comes down in a moment covered almost to the pink tips of her ears in rich velvet. To her dismay Earl Fairvale strolls forward in a fit of absent-mindedness with Sir Harry, leaving her to be accompanied by the American soldier. She sees no other course but to accept the situation.

"It is only for a few minutes at the worst," she thinks to herself.

So she walks on by his side, looking so pretty with the nipping wind kissing her cheeks into a scarlet glow, that Captain Lockhart can scarcely keep the admiration out of his eyes.

"The loveliest girl I have ever seen in my life," he mentally decides. "But, by Jove! as cold and proud as an iceberg!"

"So you do not like Americans?" he says to her, regretfully, as they turn a corner.

"No," curtly.

"Ah, but, Lady Vera, is that fair?" plaintively. "You do not know us, yet you condemn us without a hearing. Mere English prejudice—is it not?"

She looks around at the handsome face, full of fire and life, and the sparkling blue eyes. The thoughtful gravity on the lovely face grows deeper. The dark eyes flash.

"Captain Lockhart, you are talking of what you do not understand," she says, impatiently.

"I beg your pardon, Lady Vera," he answers, flushing, "I spoke from the merest impulse. I thought—since you are so very young—you could not know my country well."

Lady Vera blushes, but holds her peace. Of course, somebody will tell him her story soon—tell him that her mother was American, and that she herself had spent seventeen years in his own native land. At least he shall not hear it from her. She has a vague notion that it would please him to know it, that the blue eyes whose sparkle she has already learned to know, would light with pleasure at the knowledge.

Those eyes, how bright and keen they are. They seem to read one's thoughts. Lady Vera finds her gaze drooping from them as they never drooped before mortal man's before. Why? she asks herself.

"It is because he is so bold," she decides, vexedly. "He seems to be trying to read one's inmost thoughts. I will show him that I am not afraid of him."

Thereupon she lifts the dark eyes bravely to give him a cool society stare, but in an instant they waver and fall before the glance they have surprised in his. Just so the blue eyes had turned on her last night, when he sang:

"Why do you stare at me so?" she breaks out, angry with herself, and with him.

He flushes, startled by her brusquerie.

"I beg your pardon—I did not mean to be rude," he answers, quietly. "But, Lady Vera, a man must be blind not to look at you."

"Why?" she asks, still sharply.

"Because I think God made all beautiful things for the pleasure of men's eyes," he answers, firmly, yet respectfully.

"Impertinent!" Vera says to herself, indignantly, and looks another way.

"Do you lay an embargo on my eye-sight as far as you are concerned, Lady Vera?" he continues, after a moment.

"Yes," she replies, with her head still turned away.

"Then I shall try to obey you," he answers, calmly. "I will not even see you when I can help it, but you must forgive me for saying that if I should never see you again I shall never forget a single line of your face."

"I hope he is not making love to me," Lady Vera says to herself, uneasily, then laughing at herself. "Of course not; I dare say he has a sweetheart in his own land, some dear, sweet, angelic creature, like Ivy Cleveland, perhaps."

They speak no more, and when they have gone once around the square, Captain Lockhart leaves the earl's daughter at the door with a low bow. She goes into the house, her cheeks tingling with an odd kind of shame.

"I was rude, perhaps," she thinks, a little uneasily. "What must he think of English manners? But then why did he look at me so? I felt so—so strangely."

To Lady Clive, who is trifling over a bit of fancy work, she says, presently:

"Why did you not tell me you expected your brother?"

Lady Clive glances up under her long lashes at the flushed face, a gleam of mischief in the blue eyes so much like her brother's.

"It was just like me—to forget it," she exclaims. "But then I knew you would not be interested. And, besides, I knew he would not be in your way. Phil is only a plain, blunt soldier—not at all a ladies' man."

"I thought he seemed like that last night," Lady Vera answers, turning the leaves of a book very fast, and not knowing how ambiguous is her answer.

"Like what?" her friend inquires.

"A ladies' man," Vera answers.

"Did you? Oh, yes, when he is thrown among them he tries to make himself agreeable, but he does not fall in love, he does not run after them. When he was with us last season, Lady Eva Clarendon made a dead set at him. Phil was very civil at first—sang with her, danced with her, played the agreeable in his careless way, you know. But when he found she was losing her heart to him, he drew off, terrified—seemed to think she would marry him, willy-nilly—and went away to Italy, then back home."

"I should have thought it would have been a grand match for him," Lady Vera answers, with unconscious emphasis of the pronoun.

Lady Clive's head goes up, slightly.

"For my brother? Not at all, Lady Vera," she answers, with a slight touch of stiffness in her voice. "Philip met the Clarendons on equal ground. He is wealthy—that is the first and greatest thing with people, you know—our great-uncle left him a fortune. Next, he is well-born, and the general, our father, is famous over two continents. As for Lady Eva's title, that would not weigh a feather with my brother. He comes from a land, you know, where native worth and nobility take precedence over all."

And having thus blandly squelched Lady Vera's arrogance, the American lady bends smilingly to her lace work again. Lady Vera only smiles. She cannot feel offended.

"I deserved it all," she thinks, soberly to herself. "Oh! why do I suffer my hatred of the Clevelands and Leslie Noble to make me venomous and unjust to every American I meet? I have offended this kind friend of mine, and been rude to her brother all through my spite against those wicked people. I wish he would forgive those ridiculous words I said to him. Not look at me, indeed. How silly! He will think me wondrous vain."

But Captain Lockhart does not forget. When they meet at dinner again Vera glances at him shyly several times across the silver and crystal and flowers, but the blue eyes are always on his plate, or on someone else's face—never on hers. What though she is lovely as a dream in pale-blue satin and gleaming pearls? Captain Lockhart is serenely unconscious of the color of her robe, or the half-repentance in her starry eyes.

"I cannot blame him," she admits to herself, "I acted like a silly child."

The days go by, Captain Lockhart and the earl's daughter are merely civil—they seldom seem to see each other. Each absorbed in the engagements of the gay season, each drifting further apart in the whirl, there is no time for pardon or reconciliation. Lady Vera finds no time for the nursery now save when the soldier is out. Yet she is ever listening for one step, and the color flies into her cheek when she hears it.

Lady Clive is perplexed and sorry because her brother and her favorite do not take to each other.

"I thought they seemed made for each other," she complains, to Sir Harry. "And I thought I had managed them so cleverly. But they scarcely seem conscious of each other's existence."

"I hope you are not turning match-maker, Nella," Sir Harry Clive replies, laughing.

Earl Fairvale sees nothing. Day by day he grows more gloomy, more self-absorbed, and goes less into society. The only interest in his life outside of his adored daughter, centers in the occasional letters that reach him from America. But after each one he grows more sad and gloomy, losing flesh and color daily. Only Vera knows that the vengeance that is the object of his life is so long delayed that the strain on his mind is killing him. For though the most skilled detectives in the world are watching and working, they can find no trace of the secure hiding-place where Marcia Cleveland dwells untroubled by the vengeance from which she has fled.