A Terrible Secret, May Agnes Fleming [best book clubs .TXT] 📗

to be your wife--your true and faithful wife from the first--your loving wife, I hope, in the end."

They said no more. He led her back to the house, then left her. He hastened to Miss Catheron, more sombre even than when he had quitted her.

"Well," he said briefly, "you saw her?"

"I saw her. It is a beautiful face, a proud face, a truthful face, and yet--"

"Go on," he said impatiently. "Don't try to spare me. I am growing accustomed to unpleasant truths."

"I may be wrong, but something in her face tells me she does not love you, and," under her breath, "never will."

"It will come in time. With or without love, she is willing to be my wife--that is happiness enough for the present."

"You told her all?"

"I told her my father was alive and insane--no more. It will make no difference in our plans--none. We are to be married the first of September. The secret is safe with her."

The door opened, and Lady Helena came hastily in.

"If you wish to catch the 12.50 train, Inez," she said, "you must go at once. It is a long drive from this to the station. The brougham is waiting--shall I accompany you?"

"I will accompany her," said Sir Victor. "You had better return to our guests. They will begin to feel themselves neglected."

Miss Catheron left the room. In five minutes she reappeared, closely veiled, as when he had met her on the stairs. The adieux were hastily made. He gave her his arm and led her down to the close brougham. As they passed before the drawing-room windows, Miss Stuart uttered an exclamation:

"Oh! I say! where is Sir Victor going in the rain, and who is the dismal-looking lady in black? Edith, who is it? _You_ ought to know."

"I don't know," Edith answered briefly, not looking up from her book.

"Hasn't Sir Victor told you?"

"I haven't asked Sir Victor."

"Oh, you haven't, and he hasn't told? Well, all I have to say is, that when _I'm_ engaged I hope the object of my affections will keep no secrets from me."

"As if he could!" murmurs Captain Hammond.

"I declare, he is going off with her. Edith, do come and look. There! they are driving away together, as fast as they can go."

But Edith never stirred. If she felt the slightest curiosity on the subject, her face did not show it.

They drove rapidly through the rain, and barely caught the train at that. He placed her hurriedly in an empty carriage, a moment before it started. As it flew by he caught one last glimpse of a veiled face, and a hand waving farewell. Then the train and the woman were out of sight.

Like a man who walks in his sleep, Sir Victor Catheron turned, re-entered the brougham, and was driven home.


CHAPTER XV.

LADY HELENA'S BALL.

Three days after, on Thursday, the fifth of June, Lady Helena Powyss gave a very large dinner-party, followed by a ball in honor of her American guests. When it is your good fortune to number half a county among your friends, relatives, and acquaintances, it is possible to be at once numerous and select. The creme de la creme of Cheshire assembled in Lady Helena's halls of dazzling light, to do honor to Sir Victor Catheron's bride-elect.

For the engagement had been formally announced, and was the choice bit of gossip, with which the shire regaled itself. Sir Victor Catheron was following in the footsteps of his father, and was about to bring to Catheron Royals one of the lower orders as its mistress. It was the Dobb blood no doubt cropping up--these sort of mesalliances _will_ tell. An American, too--a governess, a poor relation of some common rich people from the States. The best county families, with daughters to marry, shook their heads. It was very sad--_very_ sad, to see a good old name and a good old family degenerate in this way. But there was always a taint of madness in the Catheron blood--that accounted for a good deal. Poor Sir Victor--and poor Lady Helena.

But everybody came. They might be deeply shocked and sorry, but still Sir Victor Catheron _was_ Sir Victor Catheron, the richest baronet in the county, and Catheron Royals always a pleasant house to visit--the reigning Lady Catheron always a desirable acquaintance on one's visiting-list. Nobody acknowledged, of course, they went from pure, downright curiosity, to see this manoeuvring American girl, who had taken Sir Victor Catheron captive under the aristocratic noses of the best-born, best-bred, best-blooded young ladies in a circuit of twenty miles.

The eventful night came--the night of Edith's ordeal. Even Trix was a little nervous--only a little--is not perfect self-possession the normal state of American young ladydom? Lady Helena was quite pale in her anxiety. The girl was handsome beyond dispute, thoroughbred as a young countess, despite her birth and bringing up in a New England town and Yankee boarding-house, with pride enough for a princess of forty quarterings, _but_ how would she come forth from the fiery furnace of all those pitiless eyes, sharpened to points to watch for gaucheries and solecisms of good breeding--from the merciless tongues that would hang, draw, and quarter her, the instant their owners were out of the house.

"_Don't_ you feel nervous, Dithy?" asked Trix, almost out of patience at last with Edith's serene calm. "I do--horribly. And Lady Helena has got a fit of the fidgets that will bring her gray hairs to an early grave, if this day lasts much longer. Ain't you afraid--honor bright?"

Edith Darrell lifted her dark, disdainful eyes. She sat reading, while the afternoon wore on, and Trixy fussed and fluttered about the room.

"Afraid of the people who are coming here to-night--is that what you mean? Not a whit! I know as well as you do, they are coming to inspect and find fault with Sir Victor Catheron's choice, to pity him, and call me an adventuress. I know also that any one of these young ladies would have married him, and said 'Thank you for asking,' if he had seen fit to choose them. I have my own pride and Sir Victor's good taste to uphold to-night, and I will uphold them. I think"--she lifted her haughty, dark head, and glanced, with a half-conscious smile, in the pier-glass opposite--"I think I can bear comparison by lamplight with any of these 'daughters of a hundred earls,' such as--Lady Gwendoline Drexel for instance."

"By lamplight," Trix said, ignoring the rest of her speech. "Ah, yes, that's the worst of it, Edith; you dark people always light up well. And Lady Gwendoline Drexel--I wonder what Lady Gwendoline will wear to-night? I should like to be the best-dressed young lady at the ball. Do you know, Dith," spitefully this, "I think Charley is quite struck with Lady Gwendoline. You noticed, I suppose, the attention he paid her the evening we met, and then he has been to Drexel Court by invitation. Pa is most anxious, I know. Money will be no object, you know, with Charley, and really it would be nice to have a titled sister-in-law. 'My sister, Lady Gwendoline Stuart,' will sound very well in New York, won't it? It would be a very suitable match for Charley."

"A most suitable match," Miss Darrell repeated; "age included. She is ten years his senior if a day; but where true love exists, what does a trifle of years on either side signify? He has money--she has rank. He has youth and good looks--she has high birth and a handle to her name. As you say, Trixy, a most suitable match!"

And then Miss Darrell went back to her book, but the slender, black brows were meeting in a steady frown, that quite spoiled her beauty--no doubt at something displeasing in the pages.

"But you mustn't sit here all day," broke in Trix again; "it's high time you were up in your dressing-room. What are you going to wear, Dith?"

"I have not decided yet. I don't much care; it doesn't much matter. I have decided to look my best in anything."

She arose and sauntered out of the room, and was seen no more, until the waxlights blazed from end to end of the great mansion and the June dusk had deepened into dewy night. Then, as the roll of carriages came without ceasing along the drive, she descended, arrayed for battle, to find her impatient slave and adorer awaiting her at the foot of the grand stairway. She smiled upon him her brightest, most beaming smile, a smile that intoxicated him at sight.

"Will I do, Sir Victor?" she asked.

Would she do? He looked at her as a man may look half dazzled, at the sun. He could not have told you what she wore, pink and white clouds it seemed to him--he only knew two brown, luminous, laughing eyes were looking straight into his, and turning his brain with their spell.

"You are sure I will do? You are sure you will not be ashamed of me to-night?" her laughing voice asked again.

Ashamed of her--ashamed! He laughed aloud at the stupendous joke, as he drew her arm within his, and led her into the thronged rooms, as some favored subject may once in his life lead in a queen.

Perhaps there was excuse for him. "I shall look my best in anything," she had said, in her disdain, and she had kept her word. She wore a dress that seemed alternately composed of white tulle and blush-roses; she had roses in her rich, dark hair, hair always beautifully worn; Sir Victor's diamond-betrothal ring shone on her finger; round her arching throat she wore a slender line of yellow gold, a locket set with brilliants attached. The locket had been Lady Helena's gift, and held Sir Victor's portrait. That was her ball array, and she looked as though she were floating in her fleecy white draperies, her perfumery, roses, and sparkling diamonds. The dark eyes outshone the diamonds, a soft flush warmed either cheek. Yes, she was beautiful; so beautiful that saner men than her accepted lover, might have been pardoned if for a moment they lost their heads.

Lady Helena Powyss, in sweeping moire and jewels, receiving her guests, looked at her and drew one long breath of great relief. She might have spared herself all her anxious doubts and fears--low-born and penniless as she was, Sir Victor Catheron's bride would do Sir Victor Catheron honor to-night.

Trix was there--Trix resplendent in pearl silk with a train half the length of the room, pearl silk, point lace, white-camelias, and Neapolitan corals and cameos, incrusted with diamonds--Trix, in all the finery six thousand dollars can buy, drew a long breath of great and bitter envy.

"If one wore the Koh-i-noor and Coronation Robes," thought Miss Stuart sadly, "she would shine one down. She is dazzling to-night. Captain Hammond," tapping that young warrior with her point-lace fan, "_don't_ you think Edith is without exception the most beautiful and elegant girl in the rooms?"

And the gallant captain bows profoundly, and answers with a look that points the speech:

"With _one_ exception, Miss Beatrix, only one."

Charley is there, and perhaps there can be no doubt about it, that Charley is, without exception, far and away, the best looking man. Charley gazes at his cousin for an instant on the arm of her proud and happy lover, radiant and smiling, the centre of all that is best in the room. She lifts her dark, laughing eyes