TO-MORROW.
To-morrow came, gray and overcast. The fine weather which had lasted
almost since their leaving New York showed signs of breaking up. Miss
Stuart's ankle was so much better that she was able to limp downstairs
at eleven, A. M., to breakfast, and resume her flirtation with Captain
Hammond where it had broken off last night. Miss Darrell had a headache
and did not appear. And, in the absence of his idol and day star, Sir
Victor collapsed and ate his morning meal in silence and sadness.
Breakfast over, he walked to one of the windows, looking out at the
rain, which was beginning to drift against the glass, and wondering,
drearily, how he was to drag through the long hours without Edith. He
might go and play billiards with the other fellows; but no, he was too
restless even for that. What was he to do to kill time? It was a
relief when a servant came with a message from his aunt.
"My lady's compliments, Sir Victor, and will you please step upstairs
at once."
"Now for the grand secret," he thought; "the skeleton in the family
closet--the discovery of the mysterious woman in black."
The woman in black was nowhere visible when he entered his aunt's
apartments. Lady Helena sat alone, her face pale, her eyes heavy and
red as though with weeping, but all the anger, all the excitement of
yesterday gone.
"My dear aunt," the young man said, really concerned, "I am sorry to
see you looking so ill. And--surely you have not been crying?"
"Sit down," his aunt replied. "Yes, I have been crying. I have had
good reason to cry for many years past. I have sent for you, Victor,
to tell you all--at least all it is advisable to tell you at present.
And, before I begin, let me apologize if anything I may have said
yesterday on the subject of your engagement has wounded you."
"Dear Lady Helena, between you and me there can be no talk of pardon.
It was your right to object if you saw cause, and no doubt it is
natural that Edith's want of birth and fortune would weigh with you.
But they do not weigh with me, and I know the happiness of my life to
be very near your heart. I have only to say again that that happiness
lies entirely with her--that without her I should be the most miserable
fellow alive--to hear you withdraw every objection and take my darling
to your arms as your daughter."
She sighed heavily as she listened.
"A wilful man must have his way. You are, as you told me yesterday,
your own master, free to do as you please. To Miss Darrell personally
I have no objection; she is beautiful, well-bred, and, I believe, a
noble girl. Her poverty and obscure birth _are_ drawbacks in my eyes,
but, since they are not so in yours, I will allude to them no more.
The objections I made yesterday to your marriage I would have made
had your bride been a duke's daughter. I had hoped--it was an absurd
hope--that you would not think of marriage for many years to come,
perhaps not at all."
"But, Aunt Helena--"
"Do I not say it was an absurd hope? The fact is, Victor, I have been
a coward--a nervous, wretched coward from first to last. I shut my
eyes to the truth. I feared you might fall in love with this girl, but
I put the fear away from me. The time has come when the truth must be
spoken, when my love for you can shield you no longer. Before you
marry you must know all. Do you remember, in the heat of my excitement
yesterday, telling you you had no right to the title you bear? In one
sense I spoke the truth. Your father--" she gasped and paused.
"My father?" he breathlessly repeated.
"Your father is alive."
He sat and looked at her--stunned. What was she saying? His father
alive, after all those years! and he not Sir Victor Catheron! He half
rose--ashen pale.
"Lady Helena, what is this? My father alive--my father, whom for
twenty years--since I could think at all--I have thought dead! What
vile deception is here?"
"Sit down, Victor; you shall hear all. There is no vile deception--the
deception, such as it is, has been by his own desire. Your father
lives, but he is hopelessly insane."
He sat looking at her, pale, stern, almost confounded.
"He--he never recovered from the shock of his wife's dreadful death,"
went on her ladyship, her voice trembling. "Health returned after that
terrible brain fever, but not reason. We took him away--the best
medical aid everywhere was tried--all in vain. For years he was
hopelessly, utterly insane, never violent, but mind and memory a total
blank. He was incurable--he would never reclaim his title, but his
bodily health was good, and he might live for many years. Why then
deprive you of your rights, since in no way you defrauded him? The
world was given to understand he was dead, and you, as you grew up,
took his place as though the grave had indeed closed over him. But
legally, as you see for yourself, you have no claim to it."
Still he sat gazing at her--still he sat silent, his lips compressed,
waiting for the end.
"Of late years, gleams of reason have returned, fitfully and at
uncertain times. On these rare occasions he has spoken of you, has
expressed the desire that you should still be kept in ignorance, that
he shall ever be to the world dead. You perceive, therefore, though it
is my duty to tell you this, it need in no way alarm you, as he will
never interfere with your claims."
Still he sat silent--a strange, intent listening expression on his
face.
"You recollect the lady who came here yesterday," she continued.
"Victor, looking far back into the past, have you no recollection of
some one, fair and young, who used to bend over you at night, hear you
say your baby prayers, and sing you to sleep? Try and think."
He bent his head in assent.
"I remember," he answered.
"Do you recall how she looked--has her face remained in your memory?"
"She had dark eyes and hair, and was handsome. I remember no more."
She looked at him wistfully.
"Victor, have you no idea who that woman was--none?"
"None," he replied coldly. "How could I, since she was not my mother.
I never heard her name. Who was she?"
"She was the lady you saw yesterday."
"Who was the lady I saw yesterday?"
She paused a moment, then replied, still with that wistful glance on
his face:
"Inez Catheron."
"What?" Again he half-started to his feet. "The woman who was my
mother's rival and enemy, who made her life wretched, who was
concerned in her murder! Whom _you_ aided to escape from Chesholm
jail! The woman who, directly or indirectly, is guilty of her death!"
"Sir Victor Catheron, how dare you!" Lady Helen also started to her
feet, her face flushing with haughty anger. "I tell you Inez Catheron
has been a martyr--not a murderess. She was your mother's rival, as
she had a right to be--was she not your father's plighted wife, long
before he ever saw Ethel Dobb? She was your mother's rival. It was her
only fault, and her whole life has been spent in expiating it. Was it
not atonement sufficient, that for the crime of another, she should be
branded with life-long infamy, and banished forever from home and
friends?"
"If the guilt was not hers it was her brother's, and she was privy to
it," the young man retorted, with sullen coldness.
"Who are you, that you should say whether it was or not? The assassin
is known to Heaven, and Heaven has dealt with him. Accuse no
one--neither Juan Catheron nor his sister--all human judgment is
liable to err. Of your mother's death Inez Catheron is innocent--by it
her whole life has been blighted. To your father, that life has been
consecrated. She has been his nurse, his companion, his more than
sister or mother all those years. _I_ loved him, and I could not have
done what she has done. He used her brutally--brutally I say--and
her revenge has been life-long devotion and sacrifice. All those years
she has never left him. She will never leave him until he dies."
She sank back in her seat, trembling, exhausted. He listened in
growing wonder.
"You believe me?" she demanded imperiously.
"I believe you," he replied sadly. "My dear aunt, forgive me. I
believe all you have said. Can I not see her and thank her too?"
"You shall see her. It is for that she has remained. Stay here; I will
send her to you. She deserves your thanks, though all thanks are but
empty and vain for such a life-long martyrdom as hers."
She left him hastily. Profound silence fell. He turned and looked out
at the fast-falling rain, at the trees swaying in the fitful wind, at
the dull, leaden sky. Was he asleep and dreaming? His father alive! He
sat half dazed, unable to realize it.
"Victor!"
He had not heard the door open, he had not heard her approach, but she
stood beside him. All in black, soft, noiseless black, a face devoid
of all color; large, sad, soft eyes, and hair white as winter
snow--that was the woman Sir Victor Catheron saw as he turned round.
The face, with all its settled sadness and pallor, was still the face
of a beautiful woman, and in weird contradiction to its youth and
beauty, were the smooth bands of abundant hair--white as the hair of
eighty. The deep, dusk eyes, once so full of pride and fire, looked at
him with the tender, saddened light, long, patient suffering had
wrought; the lips, once curved in haughtiest disdain, had taken the
sweetness of years of hopeless pain. And so, after three-and-twenty
years, Victor Catheron saw the woman, whose life his father's falsity
and fickleness had wrecked.
"Victor!"
She held out her hand to him shyly, wistfully. The ban of murder had
been upon her all these years. Who was to tell that in his inmost
heart he too might not brand her as a murderess? But she need not have
doubted. If any suspicion yet lingered in his mind, it vanished as he
looked at her.
"Miss Catheron!" He grasped her hand, and held it between both his own.
"I have but just heard all, for the first time, as you know. That my
father lives--that to him you have nobly consecrated your life. He has
not deserved it at your hands; let my father's son thank you with all
his soul!"
"Ah, hush," she said softly. "I want no thanks. Your poor father! Aunt
Helena has told you how miserably all _his_ life has been wrecked--a
life once so full of promise."
"She has told me all, Miss Catheron."
"Not Miss Catheron," she interposed, with a smile that lit her worn
face into youth and beauty; "not Miss Catheron, surely--Inez, Cousin
Inez, if you will. It is twenty-three years--do you know it?--since
any one has called me Miss Catheron before. You can't fancy how oddly
it sounds."
He looked at her in surprise.
"You do not bear your own name? And yet I might have known it, lying
as you still do--"
"Under the ban of murder." She shuddered slightly as she said it. "Yes,
when I fled that dreadful night from Chesholm prison, and made my way
to London, I left my name behind me. I took at first the name of Miss
Black. I lived in dingy lodgings in that crowded part of London,
Lambeth; and for the look of the thing, took in sewing. It was of all
those years the most dreary, the most miserable and lonely time of my
probation. I lived there four months; then came the time of your
father's complete restoration to bodily health, and confirmation of
the fear that his mind was entirely gone. What was to be done with him?
Lady Helena was at a loss to know. There were private asylums, but she
disliked the idea of shutting him up in one. He was perfectly gentle,
perfectly harmless, perfectly insane. Lady Helena came to see me, and
I, pining for the sight of a familiar face, sick and weary to death of
the wretched neighborhood in which I lived, proposed the plan that has
ever since been the plan of my life. Let Lady Helena take a house,
retired enough to be safe, sufficiently suburban to be healthy; let
her place Victor there with me; let Mrs. Marsh, my old friend and
housekeeper at Catheron Royals, become my housekeeper once more; let
Hooper the butler take charge of us, and let us all live together. I
thought then, and I think still, it was the best thing for him and for
me that could have been suggested. Aunt Helena acted upon it at once;
she found a house, on the outskirts of St. John's Wood--a large house,
set in spacious grounds, and inclosed by a high wall, called 'Poplar
Lodge.' It suited us in every way; it combined all the advantages of
town and country. She leased it from the agent for a long term of
years, for a 'Mr. and Mrs. Victor,' Mr. Victor being in very poor
health. Secretly and by night we removed your father there, and since
the night of his entrance he has never passed the gates. From the
first--in the days of my youth and my happiness--my life belonged to
him; it will belong to him to the end. Hooper and Marsh are with me
still, old and feeble now; and of late years I don't think I have been
unhappy."
She sighed and looked out at the dull, rain-beaten day. The young man
listened in profound pity and admiration. Not unhappy! Branded with
the deadliest crime man can commit or the law punish--an exile, a
recluse, the life-long companion of an insane man and two old servants!
No wonder that at forty her hair was gray--no wonder all life and
color had died out of that hopeless face years ago. Perhaps his eyes
told her what was passing in his mind; she smiled and answered that
look.
"I have not been unhappy, Victor; I want you to believe it. Your
father was always more to me than all the world beside--he is so still.
He is but the wreck of the Victor I loved, and yet I would rather
spend my life by his side than elsewhere on earth. And I was not quite
forsaken. Aunt Helena often came and brought you. It seems but
yesterday since I had you in my arms rocking you asleep, and now--and
now they tell me you are going to be married."
The sensitive color rose over his face for a second, then faded,
leaving him very pale.
"I was going to be married," he answered slowly, "but she does not
know this. My father lives--the title and inheritance are his, not
mine. Who is to tell what she may say now?"
The dark, thoughtful eyes looked at him earnestly.
"Does she love you?" she asked; "this Miss Darrell? I need hardly
inquire whether _you_ love her."
"I love her so dearly that if I lose her--" He paused and turned his
face away from her in the gray light. "I wish I had known this from
the first; I ought to have known. It may have been meant in kindness,
but I believe it was a mistake. Heaven knows how it will end now."
"You mean to say, then, that in the hour you lose your title and
inheritance you also lose Miss Darrell? Is that it?"
"I have said nothing of the kind. Edith is one of the noblest, the
truest of women; but can't you see--it looks as though she had been
deceived, imposed upon. The loss of title and wealth would make a
difference to any woman on earth."
"Very little to a woman who loves, Victor. I hope--I hope--this young
girl loves you?"
Again the color rose over his face--again he turned impatiently away.
"She _will_ love me," he answered; "she has promised it, and Edith
Darrell is a girl to keep her word."
"So," Miss Catheron said, softly and sadly, "it is the old French
proverb over again, 'There is always one who loves, and one who is
loved.' She has owned to you that she is not in love with you, then?
Pardon me, Victor, but your happiness is very near to me."
"She has owned it," he answered, "with the rare nobility and candor
that belongs to her. Such affection as mine will win its return--'love
begets love,' they say. It _must_."
"Not always, Victor--ah, not always, else what a happy woman _I_ had
been! But surely she cares for no one else?"
"She cares for no one else," he answered, doggedly enough, but in his
inmost heart that never-dying jealousy of Charley Stuart rankled. "She
cares for no one else--she has told me so, and she is pride, and truth,
and purity itself. If I lose her through this, then this secret of
insanity will have wrecked forever still another life."
"If she is what you picture her," Inez said steadily, "no loss of rank
or fortune would ever make her give you up. But you are not to lose
either--you need not even tell her, if you choose."
"I can have no secrets from my plighted wife--Edith must know all. But
the secret will be as safe with her as with me."
"Very well," she said quietly; "you know what the result will be if by
any chance 'Mrs. Victor' and Inez Catheron are discovered to be one.
But it shall be exactly as you please. Your father is as dead to you,
to all the world, as though he lay in the vaults of Chesholm church,
by your mother's side."
"My poor mother! my poor, murdered, unavenged mother! Inez Catheron,
you are a noble woman--a brave woman; was it well to aid your brother
to escape?--was it well, for the sake of saving the Catheron honor and
the Catheron name, to permit a most cruel and cowardly murder to go
unavenged?"
What was it that looked up at him out of her eyes? Infinite pity,
infinite sorrow, infinite pain.
"My brother," she repeated softly, as if to herself; "poor Juan! he
was the scapegoat of the family always. Yes, Sir Victor, it was a
cruel and cowardly murder, and yet I believe in my soul we did right
to screen the murderer from the world. It is in the hands of the
Almighty--there let it rest."
There was a pause--then:
"I shall return with you to London and see my father," he said, as one
who claims a right.
"No," she answered firmly; "it is impossible. Stay! Hear me out--it is
your father's own wish."
"My father's wish! But--"
"He cannot express a wish, you would say. Of late years, Victor, at
wide intervals, his reason has returned for a brief space--all the
worse for him."
"The worse for him!" The young man looked at her blankly. "Miss
Catheron, do you mean to say it is better for him to be mad?"
"Much better--such madness as his. He does not think--he does not
suffer. Memory to him is torture; he loved your mother, Victor--and he
lost her--terribly lost her. With memory returns the anguish and
despair of that loss as though it were but yesterday. If you saw him
as I see him, you would pray as I do, that his mind might be blotted
out forever."
"Good Heaven! this is terrible."
"Life is full of terrible things--tragedies, secrets--this is one of
them. In these rare intervals of sanity he speaks of you--it is he who
directed, in case of your marriage, that you should be told this
much--that you are not to be brought to see him, until--"
She paused.
"Until--"
"Until he lies upon his death-bed. That day will be soon, Victor--soon,
soon. Those brief glimpses of reason and memory have shortened life.
What he suffers in these intervals no words of mine can tell. On his
death-bed you are to see him--not before; and then you shall be told
the story of your mother's death. No, Victor, spare me now--all I can
tell you I have told. I return home by the noon-day train; and, before
I go, I should like to see this girl who is to be your wife. See, I
will remain by this window, screened by the curtain. Can you not fetch
her by some pretence or other beneath it, that I may look and judge
for myself?"
"I can try," he said, turning to go. "I have your consent to tell her
my father is alive? I will tell her no more--it is not necessary she
should know _you_ are his keeper."
"That much you may tell her--it is her right. When I have seen her,
come to me and say good-by."
"I shall not say good-by until I say it at Chester Station. Of course,
I shall see you off. Wait here; if Edith is able to come out you shall
see her. She kept her room this morning with headache."
He left her, half-dazed with what he had heard. He went to the
drawing-room--the Stuarts and Captain Hammond were there--not Edith.
"Has Edith come down?" he asked. "I wish to speak to her for a moment."
"Edith is prowling about in the rain, somewhere, like an uneasy ghost,"
answered Trixy; "no doubt wet feet, and discomfort, and dampness
generally are cures for headache; or, perhaps, she's looking for
_you_."
He hardly waited to hear her out before he started in pursuit. As if
favored by fortune, he caught a glimpse of Edith's purple dress among
the trees in the distance. She had no umbrella, and was wandering
about pale and listless in the rain.
"Edith," Sir Victor exclaimed, "out in all this downpour without an
umbrella? You will get your death of cold."
"I never take cold," she answered indifferently. "I always liked to
run out in the rain ever since I was a child. I must be an amphibious
sort of animal, I think. Besides, the damp air helps my headache."
He drew her hand within his arm and led her slowly in the direction of
the window where the watcher stood.
"Edith," he began abruptly, "I have news for you. To call it bad news
would sound inhuman, and yet it has half-stunned me. It is this--my
father is alive."
"Sir Victor!"
"Alive, Edith--hopelessly insane, but alive. That is the news Lady
Helena and one other, have told me this morning. It has stunned me; I
repeat--is it any wonder? All those years I have thought him dead, and
to-day I discover that from first to last I have been deceived."
She stood mute with surprise. His father alive--madness in the family.
Truly it would have been difficult for Sir Victor or any one else to
call this good news. They were directly beneath the window. He glanced
up--yes, a pale face gleamed from behind the curtain, gazing down at
that other pale face by Sir Victor's side. Very pale, very set just
now.
"Then if your father is alive, _he_ is Sir Victor and not you?"
Those were the first words she spoke; her tone cold, her glance
unsympathetic.
His heart contracted.
"He will never interfere with my claim--they assure me of that. Alive
in reality, he is dead, to the world. Edith, would it make any
difference--if I lost title and estate, would I also lose _you_?"
The beseeching love in his eyes might have moved her, but just at
present she felt as though a stone lay in her bosom instead of a heart.
"I am not a sentimental sort of girl, Sir Victor," she answered
steadily. "I am almost too practical and worldly, perhaps. And I must
own it would make a difference. I have told you I am not in love with
you--as yet--you have elected to take me and wait for that. I tell you
now truthfully, if you were not Sir Victor Catheron, I would not marry
you. It is best I should be honest, best I should not deceive you. You
are a thousand times too good for so mercenary a creature as I am, and
if you leave me it will only be serving me right. I don't want to
break my promise, to draw back, but I feel in the mood for plain
speaking this morning. If you feel that you can't marry me on those
terms--and I don't deserve that you should--now is the time to speak.
No one will be readier than I to own that it serves me right."
He looked and listened, pale to the lips.
"Edith, in Heaven's name, do you _wish_ me to give you up?"
"No, I wish nothing of the sort. I have promised to marry you, and I
am ready to keep that promise; but if you expect love or devotion from
me, I tell you frankly I have neither to give. If you are willing
still to take me, and"--smiling--"I see you are--I am still ready 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.