Long before the next season began in London, loud-tongued Madam Rumor
was talking of the rich Americans who had bought Darnley House, that
splendid mansion, from its ruined owner, and refitted it anew with
almost princely magnificence, and filled it with troops of obsequious
servants who held it in charge while the owners courted pleasure
abroad.
The most ridiculous stories were abroad concerning these people.
They were said to possess unlimited wealth; their diamonds were
believed to equal Queen Victoria's; it was confidently reported and
universally believed that they owned mines of gold and diamonds in
Nevada and California.
If the rumors had been traced back to their source it would have been
found that the American ladies themselves had artfully promulgated
these reports, but this was not known.
The stories usually came from the servants of Darnley House, and
confidently accepted, for are not hirelings always supposed to know the
affairs of their masters and mistresses?
Society was on the _qui vive_ for the beginning of the season when,
it was said, the Americans expected to take possession of their
magnificent residence, and astonish the world with their splendor and
_eclat_.
Meanwhile the three Americans with whom gossip made so free, were
disporting themselves in the delights of leisurely travel, taking in
Germany, Italy and Switzerland, in their round of pleasure.
Lady Clive, meeting them in Switzerland, had written thus to the
Countess of Fairvale, who contrary to all persuasion had gone home
to Fairvale Park to spend the summer quietly with a prim, elderly
gentlewoman as chaperon:
"We have some Americans here. You know I usually adore everything
that hails from the land of the free, being one of them myself. But,
really, I could not fraternize with these people. The man was well
enough, but the wife and the mother-in-law--well, dearest Vera, the
English language has no term strong enough to express my antipathy.
They are abominably rich, I believe. I hear that they have bought and
refurnished Darnley House with a view to spending the season in London.
If they do you will meet them, as you have promised to come to Clive
House for the season.
"Do you care to hear about Philip, poor, dear boy? They sent him out
on the plains, poor dear, to fight the Indians, wretched creatures,
this summer. He has been wounded in the shoulder, and promoted to a
colonelcy for bravery. Lord Gordon is coming over in time for the
hunting season, I hear, but Philip will not promise to get leave and
come with him.
"Dear Vera, I wish you would have come with us. I know you are moped to
death in your grand, but lonely home, with prim old Mrs. Vance for your
duenna. As soon as we go home to Sunny Bank and rest up a little, we
mean to take you by storm, Sir Harry, and I, and all the children."
Lady Vera smiles over that last threat. The news is very welcome. She
fancies how much brighter Fairvale Park will seem with Lady Clive's
happy children chasing the deer in the wide, green park, and gathering
the lilies from the peaceful lake. She takes no interest in the story
of the rich Americans, but later on a letter comes to her from New
York, which, oddly enough, instantly recalls Lady Clive's letter to her
mind.
The letter is from the New York detective whom her father had employed
to track his enemy to her hiding-place. Lady Fairvale having retained
him in her employ, he writes, briefly and respectfully:
"I have traced the Clevelands at last only to lose them again. They
have been living in Florida all the while. The daughter has married a
rich man, and this summer they came to New York, and soon after sailed
for England. I learn that they are now traveling in Switzerland with
great _eclat_, so that your ladyship will scarcely fail to hear of
them."
Lady Vera is walking slowly by the beautiful lake, brooding deeply over
this letter. She does not see the white lilies nodding their heads
among the broad, green leaves, nor the soft breeze dimpling the placid
water into tiny laughing wavelets. She is thinking of Lady Clive's
story of the rich Americans, to whom she had conceived an antipathy.
"They must be one and the same," she tells herself, "but I cannot write
to Lady Clive and ask her, because she is traveling all the while,
and gives me no address. But I shall see them in London, as they will
be there for the season. And so Ivy has married since her old lover,
Leslie Noble, died. I wonder whom she has beguiled into taking her?
Whoever he may be, I pity him, being tied to such a shrew! Well, well,
the time for my vengeance is near at hand. What shape will it take, I
wonder?"
A wind, colder than that which ruffles the lilies on the lake, seems to
chill her graceful form, as she recalls the words of her vow:
"I swear, by all my hopes of happiness, that I will punish that woman
through her dearest affections--that, at any cost to myself, I will
avenge my mother's wrongs! They are rich, arrogant, prosperous. How
can I hurt them?" she muses. "What blow can I strike at their stony
hearts that will avenge the wrongs of the dead? Shall I tell the
world the story of my mother's wrongs and mine? Marcia Cleveland and
her cruel daughter would only laugh me to scorn if I did. Yet I must
think of some plan to humble them. I am bound by my oath to the dead.
All is blank before me yet; I cannot see one step before me to the
accomplishment of my task. Would it be wrong to ask God to help me to
punish those wicked and cruel women?"
What form will her vengeance take? Day and night the lonely young
countess broods over that puzzling question. She forms a hundred
schemes and abandons them all. Some of them are too dreadful. Her pure,
delicate nature recoils from them. She grows pale and thin brooding
over this vexing question. It banishes for a time even the remembrance
of Captain Lockhart from her mind. She scarcely eats or sleeps. Long
hours she wanders by the quiet lake, up and down, up and down, like a
sentry on his post, heedless of Mrs. Vance's remonstrances on her pale
and altered looks.
"You live too much alone, I fear," the kind chaperon remonstrates. "It
is not well for the young to live so quiet and isolated a life as you
are doing, my dear. You should accept the invitations of the county
families, and entertain them in return."
"I am in mourning," Lady Vera objects, wearily.
"But I do not mean for you to be very gay, my dear Lady Vera. If you
would even invite some young lady of your own age to come and visit you
it would be so much livelier for you. There is Miss Montgomery, for
instance. She is at Sir William Spencer's. I dare say she would come if
you invited her."
"I detest Miss Montgomery," Lady Vera replies, with unusual pettishness.
"Someone else, then; anyone whom you could like," Mrs. Vance suggests.
"There is no one," Lady Vera answers. "I expect Lady Clive soon. We
shall have a little gaiety then. I will have no one else before that."
"I do not think you are well, Lady Vera. You have lost your color,
you are growing thin, your eyes look large in your face. Will you not
consult a physician?" Mrs. Vance goes on, resolutely.
"No; for I am perfectly well," Lady Vera answers, impatiently. "Pray do
not take up idle fancies about me, Mrs. Vance."
So the good lady, sighing, desists, and Countess Fairvale "gaes her ain
gait."
The bright days of September wane and fade, and October comes in bright
and sunny.
Every day now Lady Vera looks for Lady Clive to come. Her spirits grow
brighter at the thought.
Sitting in the grand drawing-room one pleasant evening, with Mrs. Vance
nodding placidly in a corner, and the soft breeze fluttering the lace
draperies at the open windows, she touches the keys of the grand piano,
pouring out her sad young soul in plaintive melodies. Song after song
thrills out upon the air, each one sadder and sweeter than the last, as
though
"The anguish of the singer made the sweetness of the strain."
Very beautiful looks Lady Vera in her thin, black robe, with knots of
pure white pansies at her throat and waist, very beautiful and girlish
still, though she is almost twenty, and a woman's sorrow is written all
over her lovely, mobile face, that rises like some fair, white lily
above her somber robe.
Memory is busy at her heart to-night. She has forgotten the Clevelands
for a little while, and is thinking of her princely-looking soldier
lover far away beneath those American skies where her own young life
was passed.
She loves him still. In vain the nobles of her father's land sue for
her favor.
All her heart is given to that untitled lover who comes of a land
"Where they bow not the knee,
Save to One unto whom monarchs bow down."
Almost unconsciously she touches the keys and sings one of our best
loved songs:
"On the banks of Allan Water
When the sweet spring-tide did fall,
There I saw the miller's daughter,
Fairest of them all!
For his bride a soldier sought her,
And a winning tongue had he;
On the banks of Allan Water,
None so gay as she!
"On the banks of Allan Water,
When brown autumn spread his store,
There I saw the miller's daughter,
But she smiled no more!
For the summer grief had brought her,
And the soldier false was he;
On the banks of Allan Water,
None so sad as she!"
"Nay, nay, Lady Vera, a libel on the soldier," a voice cries over her
shoulder.
She springs up wildly, with a startled cry:
"Captain Lockhart!"