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

man who claimed her as his wife. What if she _were_ his wife? What if that plight pledged in the Scotch kirk were binding? She had loved Juan Catheron then. What if she loved him still? She had hidden it from him, until it could be hidden no longer--she had deceived him in the past, she was deceiving him in the present. So fair and so false, so innocent to all outward seeming. Yet so lost to all truth and honor.

He turned sick and giddy; he leaned against a tree, feeling as though he could never look upon her false face again. Yet the next moment he started passionately up.

"I will go to her," he thought; "I will hear what she has to say. If she voluntarily tells me, I must, I will believe her. If she is silent, I will take it as proof of her guilt."

He strode away to the house. As he entered, his man Edwards met him, and presented him a note.

"Brought by a groom from Powyss Place, Sir Victor," he said. "Squire Powyss has had a stroke."

The baronet tore it open--it was an impetuous summons from Lady Helena.

"The squire has had an attack of apoplexy. For Heaven's sake come at once."

He crushed it in his hand, and went into the dining-room. His wife was not there. He turned to the nursery; he was pretty sure of always finding her _there_.

She was there, bending over her baby, looking fair and sweet as the babe itself. Fair and sweet surely. Yet why, if innocent, that nervous start at sight of him--that frightened look in the blue eyes. The nurse stood at a distance, but he did not heed her.

"A summons from Powyss Place," he said; "the poor old squire has had a fit of apoplexy. This is the second within the year, and may prove fatal. I must go at once. It is not likely I shall return to-night."

She looked at him, startled by his deadly paleness; but then, perhaps, the summons accounted for that. She murmured her regrets, then bent again over her baby.

"You have nothing to say to me, Ethel, before I go?" he said, looking at her steadily.

She half-lifted her head, the words half-rose to her lips. She glanced at the distant nurse, who was still busy in the room, glanced at her husband's pale set face, and they died away again. Why detain him now in his haste and trouble? Why rouse his rage against Juan Catheron at this inopportune time? No, she would wait until to-morrow--nothing could be done now; then she would reveal that intrusion in the grounds.

"I have nothing to say, except good-by. I hope poor Mr. Powyss may not be so ill as you fear."

He turned away--a tumult of jealous rage within him. A deliberate lie he thought it; there could be no doubt of her guilt now. And yet, insanely inconsistent as it seems, he had never loved her more passionately than in that hour.

He turned to go without a word. He had reached the door. All at once he turned back, caught her in his arms almost fiercely, and kissed her again and again.

"Good-by," he said, "my wife, my love--good-by."

His vehemence frightened her. She released herself and looked at him, her heart fluttering. A second time he walked to the door--a second time he paused. Something seemed to stay his feet on the threshold.

"You will think me foolish, Ethel," he said, with a forced laugh; "but I seem afraid to leave you to-night. Nervous folly, I suppose; but take care of yourself, my darling, until I return. I shall be back at the earliest possible moment."

Then he was gone.

She crossed over to the low French window, standing wide open, and looked after him wistfully.

"Dear Victor," she thought, "how fond he is of me, after all."

The moon was shining brightly now, though the day still lingered. She stood and watched him out of sight. Once, as he rode away, he turned back--she kissed and waved her hand to him with a smile.

"Poor Victor!" she thought again, "he loves me so dearly that I ought to forgive him everything. How happy we might be here together, if it were not for that horrible brother and sister. I wish--I wish he would send her away."

She lingered by the window, fascinated by the brilliancy of the rising September moon. As she stood there, the nursery door opened, and Miss Catheron entered.

"You here," she said, coolly; "I didn't know it. I wanted Victor. I thought I heard his voice. And how is the heir of Catheron Royals?"

She bent, with her usual slight, chill smile over the crib of that young gentleman, and regarded him in his sleep. The nurse, listening in the dusk, she did not perceive.

"By the bye, I wonder if he _is_ the heir of Catheron Royals though? I am reading up the Scottish Law of Marriage, and really I have my doubts. If you are Juan's wife, you can't be Sir Victor's, consequently the legitimacy of his son may yet be--"

She never finished the sentence. It was the last drop in the brimming cup--the straw that broke the camel's back--the one insult of all others not to be borne. With eyes afire in the dusk, Sir Victor's wife confronted her.

"You have uttered your last affront, Inez Catheron," she exclaimed. "You will never utter another beneath this roof. To-morrow you leave it! I am Sir Victor Catheron's wife, the mistress of Catheron Royals, and this is the last night it shall ever shelter you. Go!" She threw open the nursery door. "When my husband returns either you or I leave this house forever!"

The nurse was absolutely forgotten. For a second even Inez Catheron quailed before the storm she had raised; then black eyes met blue, with defiant scorn.

"Not all the soap-boiler's daughters in London or England shall send me from Catheron Royals! Not all the Miss Dobbs that ever bore that distinguished appellation shall drive me forth. _You_ may go to-morrow if you will. I shall not."

She swept from the room, with eyes that blazed, and voice that rang. And Jane Pool, the nurse, thinking she had heard a little too much, softly opened an opposite door and stole out.

"Good Lor'!" she thought, "_here_ be a pretty flare up! Ain't Miss Inez just got a temper though. I wouldn't stand in my lady's shoes, and her a-hating me so; no, not for all her money. I'll go down and get my supper, and call for Master Baby by and by."

Mrs. Pool descended to the servants' hall, to narrate, of course in confidence, to her most particular friends, the scene she had just overheard. There was Welsh rabbits for supper--nurse was particularly fond of Welsh rabbits--and in discussing it and Miss Inez's awful temper half an hour slipped away. Then she arose again to see after her charge.

"Which he should have been undressed and tucked away for the night half an hour ago, bless him," she remarked; "but I could not make up my mind to face my lady after _that_ row. Poor thing! It does seem hard now she can't be mistress in her own 'ouse. It's a pity Sir Victor can't turn Turk and marry 'em both, since he can't abear to part with neither."

Mrs. Pool made her exit and wended her way to the nursery. She tapped at the door--there was no reply--she opened it and went in--my lady had quitted it, no doubt.

No--to her surprise my lady was still there. The window still stood wide open, the white, piercing moonlight streamed in. An arm-chair stood near this window, and lying back in the arm-chair was my lady, fast asleep.

Fast asleep. Jane Pool tiptoed over to make sure. She was pale as the moonlight itself. Her lips quivered as she slept like the lips of a hurt child, her eyelashes were yet wet with tears. Sitting there alone she had cried herself to sleep.

"Poor thing!" Jane Pool said again. She was so young, so pretty, so gentle, that all the household loved her. "Poor dear thing! I say it's a burning shame for Sir Victor, so fond as he is of her too, to let Miss Inez torment her. _I_ wouldn't stand her hairs and her 'aughtiness, her temper and her tongue; no, not to be ten baronets' ladies, ten times hover!"

In his pretty blue silk, white lace, and carved rosewood nest, Master Victor lay still, sleeping also. Mrs. Pool softly folded a shawl around her lady's shoulder, lifted babe without awakening him, and stole softly out. The night nursery was an upper room. Jane Pool carried him up, disrobed him, fed him, and tucked him up for the night. He fell again asleep almost instantly. She summoned the under nurse-maid to remain with him, and went back to the lower regions. Half an hour had passed since she left; it struck the half hour after eight as she descended the stairs.

"I'm sore afraid my lady will catch cold sleeping in the night air. I do think now I ought to go in and wake her."

While she stood hesitating before it, the door opened suddenly and Miss Catheron came out. She was very pale. Jane Pool was struck by it, and the scarlet shawl she wore twisted about her, made her face look almost ghastly in the lamplight.

"_You_ here?" she said, in her haughty way. "What do you want? Where is baby?"

"Baby's asleep, miss, for the night," Jane answered, with a stiff little curtsey; "and what I'm here for, is to wake my lady. Sleeping in a draught cannot be good for anybody. But perhaps she is awake."

"You will let my lady alone," said Miss Catheron sharply, "and attend to your nursery. She is asleep still. It is not _your_ place to disturb her. Go!"

"Drat her!" Nurse Pool exclaimed inwardly, obeying, however; "she's that 'aughty and that stuck up, that she thinks we're the dirt under her feet. I only hope she'll be sent packing to-morrow, but I has my doubts. Sir Victor's afraid of her--anybody can see that with half an eye."

She descended to the servants' regions again, and encountered Ellen, Lady Catheron's smart maid, sociably drinking tea with the housekeeper. And once more into their attentive ears she poured forth this addenda to her previous narrative.

"What was Miss Inez doing in there?" demanded the maid; "no, good, I'll be bound. She hates my lady like poison; Sir Victor jilted her, you know, and she's in love with him yet. My lady _shall_ be woke up in spite of her; she'd like her to get her death in the night air, I dare say. I've an easy missis and a good place, and I mean to keep 'em. I ain't afraid of Miss Inez's black eyes and sharp tongue; _I'll_ go and wake my lady up."

She finished her tea and left. She reached the nursery door and rapped as Nurse Pool had done. There was no reply. She turned the handle softly and went in.

The large, crystal, clear moon was high in the sky now; its chill brightness filled the room. The arm-chair still stood under the window; the small figure of my lady still lay motionless in it.

"My lady," Ellen said gently, advancing, "please wake up."

There was no reply, no stir. She bent closer over her.

"Please, my lady, wake up;