Wife in Name Only, Charlotte Mary Brame [carter reed txt] 📗

fair face framed in golden hair, with dark blue eyes, full of passion, poetry, and sorrow, sweet crimson lips, sensitive, and delicate, a face so lovely that its pure, saint-like expression almost frightened him. He looked at it in a passion of wonder and grief of love and longing; and then he saw a shadow of fear gradually darken the beautiful eyes.

"Madaline," he said gently; and she looked at him in wonder "Madaline," he repeated.

"I--I--do not know you," she replied, surprised.

She was lying, when he entered the room, on a little couch drawn close to the window, the sunlight, which fell full upon her, lighting up the golden hair and refined face with unearthly beauty. When he uttered her name, she stood up, and so like her mother did she appear that it was with difficulty he could refrain from clasping her in his arms. But he must not startle her, he reflected--he saw how fragile she was.

"You call me Madaline," she said again--"but I do not know you."

Before answering her, Lord Mountdean turned to Margaret.

"Will you leave us alone?" he requested, but Lady Arleigh stretched out her hand.

"That is my mother," she said--"she must not be sent away from me."

"I will not be long away, Madaline. You must listen to what this gentleman says--and, my dear, do not let it upset you."

Mrs. Dornham retired, closing the door carefully behind her, and Lady Arleigh and the earl stood looking at each Other.

"You call we Madaline," she said, "and you send my mother from me. What can you have to say?" A sudden thought occurred to her. "Has Lord Arleigh sent you to me?" she asked.

"Lord Arleigh!" he repeated, in wonder. "No, he has nothing to do with what I have to say. Sit down--you do not look strong--and I will tell you why I am here."

It never occurred to him to ask why she had named Lord Arleigh. He saw her sink, half exhausted, half frightened, upon the couch, and he sat down by her side.

"Madaline," he began, "will you look at me, and see if my face brings back no dream, no memory to you? Yet how foolish I am to think of such a thing! How can you remember me when your baby-eyes rested on me for only a few minutes?"

"I do not remember you," she said, gently--"I have never seen you before."

"My poor child," he returned, in a tone so full of tenderness and pain that she was startled by it, "this is hard!"

"You cannot be the gentleman I used to see sometimes in the early home that I only just remember, who used to amuse me by showing me his watch and take me out for drives?"

"No. I never saw you. Madeline as a child--I left you when you were three or four days old. I have never seen you since, although I have spent a fortune almost in searching for you."

"You have?" she said, wonderingly. "Who then are yon?"

"That is what I want to tell you without startling you, Madaline--dear Heaven, how strange it seems to utter that name again! You have always believed that good woman who has just quitted the room to be your mother?"

"Yes, always," she repeated, wonderingly.

"And that wretched man, the convict, you have always believed to be your father?"

"Always," she repeated.

"Will it pain or startle you very much to hear that they are not even distantly related to you--that the woman was simply chosen as your foster mother because she had just lost her own child?"

"I cannot believe it," she cried, trembling violently. "Who are you who tells me this?"

"I am Hubert, Earl of Mountdean," he replied, "and, if you will allow me, I will tell you what else I am."

"Tell me," she said, gently.

"I am your father, Madaline--and the best part of my life has been spent in looking for you."

"My father," she said, faintly. "Then I am not the daughter of a convict--my father is an earl?"

"I am your father," he repeated, "and you, child, have you, child, have your mother's face."

"And she--who has just left us--is nothing to me?"

"Nothing. Do not tremble, my dear child. Listen--try to be brave. Let me hold your hands in mine while I tell you a true story."

He held her trembling hands while he told her the story of his life, of his marriage, of the sudden and fatal journey, and her mother's death--told it in brief, clear words that left no shadow of doubt on her mind as to its perfect truth.

"Of your nurse's conduct," he said, "I forbear to speak--it was cruel, wicked; but, as love for you dictated it, I will say no more. My dear child, you must try to forget this unhappy past, and let me atone to you for it. I cannot endure to think that my daughter and heiress, Lady Madaline Charlewood, should have spent her youth under so terrible a cloud."

There came no answer, and, looking at her, he saw that the color had left her face, that the white eyelids had fallen over the blue eyes, that the white lips were parted and cold--she had fainted, fallen into a dead swoon.

He knelt by her side and called to her with passionate cries, he kissed the white face and tried to 'recall the wandering senses, and then he rang the bell with a heavy peal. Mrs. Dornham came hurrying in.

"Look!" said Lord Mountdean. "I have been as careful as I could, but that is your work."

Margaret Dornham knelt by the side of the senseless girl.

"I would give my life to undo my past folly," she said. "Oh, my lord, can you ever forgive me?"

He saw the passionate love that she had for her foster-child; he saw that it was a mother's love, tender, true, devoted and self-sacrificing, though mistaken. He could not be angry, for he saw that her sorrow even exceeded his own.

To his infinite joy, Madaline presently opened her dark eyes and looked up at him. She stretched out her hands to him.

"My father," she said--"you are really my father?"

He kissed her face.

"Madaline," he replied, "my heart is too full for words. I have spent seventeen years in looking for you, and have found you at last. My dear child, we have seventeen years of love and happiness to make up."

"It seems like an exquisite dream," she said. "Can it be true?"

He saw her lovely face grow crimson, and bending her fair, shapely head, she whispered:

"Papa, does Lord Arleigh know?"

"Lord Arleigh!" he repeated. "My dear child, this is the second time you have mentioned him. What has he to do with you?"

She looked up at him in wonder.

"Do you not know?" she asked. "Have they not told you I am Lord Arleigh's wife?"

* * * * *


Lord Arleigh felt very disconsolate that June morning. The world was so beautiful, so bright, so fair, it seemed hard that he should have no pleasure in it. If fate had but been kinder to him! To increase his dullness, Lord Mountdean, who had been staying with him some days, had suddenly disappeared. He had gone out early in the morning, saying that he would have a long ramble in the woods, and would probably not return until noon for luncheon. Noon had come and passed, luncheon was served, yet there was no sign of the earl, Lord Arleigh was not uneasy, but he longed for his friend's society.

At last he decided upon going in search of him. He had perhaps lost his way in the woods, or he had mistaken some road. It was high time that they looked after him--he had been so many hours absent without apparent cause. Lord Arleigh whistled for his two favorite dogs, Nero and Venus, and started out in search of his friend.

He went through the woods and down the high-road, but there was no sign of the earl. "He must have walked home by another route," thought Lord Arleigh; and he went back to Beechgrove. He did not find the earl there, but the groom, who had evidently been riding fast, was waiting for him in the hall.

"My lord," he said, "I was directed to give you this at once, and beg of you not to lose a moment's time."

Wondering what had happened, Lord Arleigh opened the note and read:

"My Dear Lord Arleigh: Something too wonderful for me to set down
in words has happened. I am at the Dower House, Winiston. Come at
once, and lose no time.

Mountdean."

"At the Dower House?" mused Lord Arleigh. "What can it mean?"

"Did the Earl of Mountdean send this himself?" he said to the man.

"Yes, my lord. He bade me ride as though for life, and ask your lordship to hurry in the same way."

"Is he hurt? Has there been any accident?"

"I have heard of no accident, my lord; but, when the earl came to give me the note, he looked wild and unsettled."

Lord Arleigh gave orders that his fleetest horse should be saddled at once, and then he rode away.

He was so absorbed in thought that more than once he had a narrow escape, almost striking his head against the overhanging boughs of the trees. What could it possibly mean? Lord Mountdean at the Dower House! He fancied some accident must have happened to him.

He had never been to the Dower House since the night when he took his young wife thither, and as he rode along his thoughts recurred to that terrible evening. Would he see her now, he wondered, and would she, in her shy, pretty way, advance to meet him? It could not surely be that she was ill, and that the earl, having heard of it, had sent for him. No, that could not be--for the note said that something wonderful had occurred.

Speculation was evidently useless--the only thing to be done was to hasten as quickly as he could, and learn for himself what it all meant. He rode perhaps faster than he had ever ridden in his life before. When he reached the Dower House the horse was bathed in foam. He thought to himself, as he rang the bell at the outer gate, how strange it was that he--the husband--should be standing there ringing for admittance.

A servant opened the gate, and Lord Arleigh asked if the Earl of Mountdean was within, and was told that he was.

"There is nothing the matter, I hope," said Lord Arleigh--"nothing wrong?"

The servant replied that something strange had happened, but he could not tell what it was. He did not think there was anything seriously wrong. And then Lord Arleigh entered the house where the years of his young wife's life had drifted away so sadly.


Chapter XXXIX.


Lord Arleigh was shown into the dining-room at Winiston House, and stood there impatiently awaiting the Earl of Mountdean. He came in at last, but the master of Beechgrove barely recognized him, he was so completely changed. Years