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."