her a much better idea of him than she had before. He was very tall and
certainly distinguished looking, but there was something, an intense
blackness around the eye, and a bluish tinge about the full black beard
that gave him a sinister look. As they passed through the throng of
splendid women and thorough-bred looking men, a very old man, much
braced and padded, who stood up stiffly as if he feared he could not
get up again if he sat down, and whose breast was covered by a broad
blue ribbon, touched Sir John on the arm and mumbled something in his
ear. Sir John, smiling, said to Theodora:
"That is the Marquis of Longacre. He wants to be presented to you. He
is nearly ninety, but his eye for beauty is as keen as it was fifty
years ago."
Theodora colored brilliantly. A marquis asking to be presented to
Josiah C. March's daughter was a big thing, as the defunct March would
have expressed it--and although Sir John had not said a word about his
relationship to the old gentleman, yet Theodora knew all about it,
having studied the subject thoroughly in Debrett. So, after taking
a turn about the ball-room, they returned. Sir John presented the
marquis, and then courteously stepped aside that the old gentleman
might have her all to himself.
This was the marquis's first observation: "Good Gad! are all the girls
in America as pretty as you are?"
"Most of them are a great deal prettier," laughed Theodora, with the
ready adaptability of her compatriots.
"It must be a doosid jolly place, then," chuckled the marquis.
"Why don't you come over and take a look at us?" archly remarked the
sprightly Theo, purposely oblivious of the marquis's eighty-five years.
"Because I'm eighty-five. Eighty-five's a bore, my dear young lady. You
don't believe me, eh? Women never believe a man unless he lies to 'em,"
remarked the marquis with a wheeze which was meant for a sigh. "I often
tell my nephew John--the one you're walking with--he won't have to
wait long to be Marquis of Longacre. It's a pity that none of his wives
could live to enjoy it."
"His wives!" cried Theodora, surprised into an exclamation. The marquis
seemed disposed to confidence.
"Yes, he's had three. All died like sheep. Something ailed 'em, I dare
say. I'm advising him to get another, and 'pon my soul, Americans seem
to be the fashion, he, he!"
A sudden shock not far from disgust thrilled Theodora. Three wives
already--and he not a day over forty-five, apparently. As in a dream
she heard the marquis's tremulous old voice saying something she only
half understood. But in a moment or two she pulled herself together.
After all it was an illiberal prejudice. Should a man's domestic
misfortune be made a subject of reproach to him?
In a moment Sir John came to fetch her and carried her back to Mrs.
Wodehouse. Then that lady began the same inexplicably aggressive
tactics toward him again. But it was in vain. He was not to be frozen
out or bullied, and if ever a man was winged at the first shot, it was
Sir John Blood. He hovered near Theodora, asked permission to call, and
showed in every way a passionate admiration for her.
But Sir John was not the only one who bit the dust, so to speak, in
consequence of Theodora's charms. She levied on the Church as well as
the state. An archbishop, although attended by a body guard of four
hawk-eyed single daughters, suddenly found himself deep in a roaring
flirtation with this new star of the West, and it can not be said
that his Grace did not hold up his end of the line valiantly. The
four single daughters stood like a Roman phalanx against all widows,
whom they considered their natural enemies, but it never occurred to
them to be on their guard against anything as young and apparently
as artless as Theodora--they being unfamiliar with the type of the
wily American maiden, who, under an exterior as harmless as a dove,
conceals the wisdom of the serpent. In addition to the archbishop,
a general officer, who had gone through eighteen London seasons
without a scratch, was slain at Theodora's first fire, and as for the
lieutenants, the slaughter was fearful. It was a Waterloo, and Theodora
was a she-Wellington.
At last the ball was over. Theodora and her party were rolling
homeward. A certain constraint existed among them, and Sir John Blood's
name was not once mentioned. When they reached home all the ladies
scurried into a cozy morning room, where a sleepy footman gave them
tea. A little fire crackled on the hearth, and what will not a wood
fire do toward unlocking the secret confidences of the female breast?
Therefore, as Mrs. Wodehouse saw Theodora's tiny satin slippered
feet seek hers in friendly juxtaposition on the fender, a sudden
determination seized her to make a clean breast of it all.
"Theodora," she said, "do you know anything about Sir John Blood, who
was so attentive to you to-night?"
"Nothing in the world except that he is very distinguished looking,
very sensible, and lives in the next house," answered Theodora,
debonairly.
"And will be Marquis of Longacre when that old stuffed penguin dies we
saw to-night. I'd rather have a poor lieutenant with a Tel-el-Kebir
medal--" began Anne, but as usual was promptly cut short. This time it
was Mrs. Wodehouse who broke in, after putting down her cup in some
agitation.
"Theodora, do you know Sir John's domestic history?"
"I know he has had three wives," answered Theo with much indifference,
as if three wives were the usual allowance.
"But d-d-do you know _how they died?_" cried Mrs. Wodehouse, becoming
every moment more agitated; "and the terrible closet in Blood Hall?"
And beginning to wring her hands, she sobbed.
"Oh, Theo, Theo--I've introduced to you the original Bl--I can't call
the dreadful name. But he's the original B-Bluebe--"
At this Anne turned deadly pale, and running over to her sister threw
her arms about Theodora's neck.
"Oh, Theo, darling, don't--don't have anything to do with that dreadful
man! Did you notice the color of his beard--it was perfectly _blue
black! I_ understand, if Theo doesn't--"
Just then a scream resounded behind them. Mrs. March, in a costume
very like the one in which Zerlina in the opera dances before the
looking-glass, had entered unobserved, and had heard it all and being
a highly nervous and excitable person, shrieked at the terrible
insinuation which she at once comprehended. Theodora jumped up and
gazed around imperiously.
"For Heaven's sake, don't behave so! I never saw Sir John in my life
until to-night, and here you are going on as if I were to marry him
to-morrow!"
"This is the way he always does," whimpered Mrs. Wodehouse. "The poor
misguided girls fall in love with him and marry him--the last one at
Constantinople--her name was Fatima--something or other."
"I dare say," said Theodora, with wide, bright eyes and a voice full of
scorn, "he never married an American girl. He wouldn't find one of them
so easy to get rid of if he is what you intimate he is."
"Theodora," sobbed Mrs. March, "I'll never, never give my consent. I
don't care if he is Marquis of Longacre, or Duke of Longacre, or Prince
of Longacre, he shall never have my precious child."
Theodora by this time was walking up and down the room with her pretty
brows bent. Presently she came and stood in front of her mother.
"Mamma," said she, "it has just occurred to me that perhaps it is my
duty--_my duty_--to marry this misguided man. Three women have already
fallen victims to him--but not one was an American. I believe, from the
very depths of my soul, that, if a really clever American girl should
take hold of him, she could make him a model husband. Yes," cried
Theodora, warming with her own eloquence, and beginning again to march
up and down, "look at Sir Roger MacTurk. Wasn't he a perfect terror
until he got a wife from New York?--and now I believe he would play the
concertina if Lady MacTurk told him to. And Lord Cantantram--everybody
knows how that soft-voiced little thing from the South dragoons him.
Oh, I can tell you, when an Englishman marries an American he doesn't
have any bed of roses. Of course they don't let on--that's their
British pluck--and they do fib in the most manly and splendid way about
it all--but I think an Englishman married to an American girl, and who
lives and dies a Christian, ought to be painted with a nimbus around
his head. Yes, I do. Anne, don't glower at me in that way. Now, an
Englishman, for all he is so big and brave, can't resist an American
girl when she looks at him this way." Here Theodora paused, quite
breathless, threw up her head, and assumed an air that might well make
a six-footer shake in his shoes.
These observations seemed to nettle Mrs. Wodehouse somewhat.
"I remember Colonel Cairngorm telling me--" began she.
"Colonel Cairngorm!" cried Theodora, throwing up her hands in a
paroxysm of despair that would have made her fortune at the Comédie
Française.
"You needn't laugh at him," responded Mrs. Wodehouse tartly; and
then, with a slight blush, she added: "It is not impossible that--in
fact--to be very confidential--he proposed last week; I've got it under
consideration--he is certainly a very pleasant person."
"Yes," agreed Theodora candidly, "he is a nice man--but he does make
the greatest gaby of himself when he is in the act of proposing I
ever saw in my life, and I've heard half a dozen girls say the same
thing." The look in Theodora's eye said as plainly as could be, "Aha!
we are quits for what you have said of Sir John Blood"; and for Mrs.
Wodehouse, the iron had entered her soul.
"And I think," continued Theodora, with an air of profound philosophy,
"that the art of proposing is a gift with some men, and others, like
Colonel Cairngorm, can't acquire it even after much practice. I
recollect he made me perfectly ill on the occasion."
Mrs. Wodehouse had always thought American girls too nimble of wit, and
was more than ever convinced of it then.
"Theo," began Anne, timidly, "for a woman who loves, there is a certain
glorious kind of slavery, says Wil--"
Theodora dashed at her sister and good-naturedly boxed her ears and
touzled her hair.
"Anne, if you wish to drive me wild, continue to talk about that
long-legged lieutenant. William McBean will be my death, I know he
will. Come, I'm going. Good-night, everybody. Go to bed, Anne, and
dream about the McBean person." And she was off, the silver gauze of
her train floating after her like a comet's tail.
* * * * *
All the next day gloom hung over the March household. Nobody mentioned
Sir John Blood's name. Mrs. Wodehouse left early. It was well she did,
for at precisely five o'clock, when Theodora with Mrs. March and Anne
were sitting in the drawing-room, the footman threw open the door and
announced:
"The Marquis of Longacre and Sir John Blood."
* * * * *
The object in bringing the tottering and doddering old marquis along
soon appeared. He at once engaged in a senile and simultaneous
flirtation with Mrs. March and Anne, while Sir John devoted himself
to Theodora. Anne, too, was finally drawn into conversation with the
pair, and so fascinating were Sir John's manners that she quite forgot
his character and experiences, and, strangely _maladroit_, made some
allusion to Henry the Eighth, whom she declared to be a murderous old
tyrant.
"Why?" mildly asked Sir John, and taking up the subject of Henry's
killing his wives, he elucidated it in so masterly a manner that to
Anne's amazement she found herself admitting that Henry was a much
maligned individual, and deserved all the credit which he claimed
before Parliament in being willing to assume the fetters of matrimony
a sixth time for the good of his beloved subjects, after five
successive disappointments.
But why prolong the tale? Theodora was full of enthusiasm--Sir John was
full of love--and proposed within a fortnight. Anne wept, tormented her
lover with her apprehensions for Theodora, Mrs. March implored, but
Theodora, bright and brave, would not be dissuaded.
"You'll see," she cried. "Fatima--don't talk to me about Fatima--a
great fat creature with no spirit at all. I'll charm him if he'll let
me. Don't you suppose I believe in love as much as every other woman
does? But if he undertakes to cut my throat--"
Shrieks from Mrs. March completed the sentence. But it was of no use.
Theodora's mind was made up and with that young woman, her word was law.
* * * * *
In July, Theodora March and Sir John Blood were married at St.
George's, Hanover Square. The Archbishop of Canterbury performed the
ceremony, the American minister gave the bride away, and the Prince
of Wales signed the register. The settlements were splendid. Sir
John voluntarily resigned all interest in Theodora's fortune in case
he survived her. This affair about the settlements gave Theodora, a
slight shock, as she turned it over in her mind. For the first time
she realized what it was to marry a man with such a fatal facility for
getting rid of his wives.
"Pshaw!" she said to herself, "no doubt the story books have
exaggerated very much. There can't be a whole closet full. And he is
such a delightful person, just like the charming man Heine met at the
Spanish ambassador's, who turned out to be the devil. However, I'm an
American"--and at this a mighty exultation filled her breast--"I am
from that glorious land of pink and white tyranny. Sir John Blood can't
frighten me with any children's stories of a closet full of defunct
wives." And so she went on, to Anne's and her mother's distress and
William McBean's intense amusement, who was willing to back Theodora
against Blue Beard and give long odds any day.
Immediately after the marriage they went abroad, and after some months
of travel they returned to England. Theodora had made but one request
of her husband since her marriage. It was that her sister Anne might
meet her in London and accompany her to Blood Hall. This Sir John
granted with the uniform tenderness he had shown to her. It was a
clear autumn evening when, after a rapturous meeting at the station,
the sisters had traveled down to Suffolk, and for the first time
found themselves alone in the drawing-room, while Sir John smoked his
after-dinner cigar on the terrace.
"Theo," said Anne, placing her hands on her sister's shoulders. "Tell
me, darling, are you happy?"
"Happy!" echoed Theodora brightly. "I am the happiest girl in the
world, and Sir John is the best and kindest of men."
"Except Wil--"
"No, I don't except anybody. To think you and mamma should have
disliked him so much. Anne, he's so changed sometimes I doubt if he is
the real Bl--you know what. But if he is, he'll find out what kindness
and firmness together can do--and American pluck and the habit of
command."
"Dear, happy, sweet Theo!"
"And that horrid Mrs. Wodehouse--Anne, he has told me all about his
wives. They all died perfectly natural deaths. When his last wife died
he wanted to throw himself in the grave."
"Theo, please don't talk that way--I wouldn't say such a thing about
William for--"
"And he says if I die he means to marry another American girl."
"Oh, please, please, Theo," cried Anne in a distressed voice.
Just then Sir John sauntered in, smiling and bland, with a request for
some music.
Although Theodora had told Anne the truth about some things, she had
not told her the whole truth. She saw very plainly that Sir John kept
back more than he told about her predecessors. But this story has been
a total failure if its readers do not yet know that Theodora possessed
a superb and matchless courage that might well make Sir John tremble.
Nor had Sir John been married to this dauntless creature five months
without seeing that the was made of sterner stuff than poor Fatima and
the rest. Each had felt, in golden days by Como's lake and in starlit
Venetian nights, that sometime or other there would come a tussle for
ascendency, and by a sort of tacit arrangement it was postponed until
their arrival at Blood Hall. When Theodora had asked for her sister
Anne's company, Sir John had taken it as a confession of weakness.
Theodora, on the contrary, when she had carried her point, felt flushed
with victory. Naturally she kept a sharp lookout for the closet which
Mrs. Wodehouse had dwelt upon; and in forty-eight hours after her
arrival she had pitched upon it. It opened into a pleasant room which
Sir John called his study, and where he usually spent his mornings.
The door was of black Spanish oak, beautifully carved in early English
designs. Theodora had mapped out a campaign in which that closet
figured, and about two weeks after her arrival she opened hostilities.
* * * * *
One stormy December night, Theodora, leaving Anne cowering over the
drawing-room fire, sauntered off into Sir John's study, carrying her
favorite poodle in her arms.
"Come in," said he in response to her knock, and rising with ready
courtesy. "You'll excuse my continuing my paper," he remarked, wheeling
a comfortable chair to the sparkling wood fire for her.
"Indeed I will not!" cried Theodora playfully, still holding on to the
poodle, and taking the paper out of his hands almost before he knew it.
Sir John frowned and then smiled. His American wife had certain ways
that baffled him. She was always amiable, gay, and affectionate, but
she took a tone toward him which startled while it amused him; and
then her surprising glibness, her humor, her propensity to make small,
though admirable jokes, her way of looking at life from the comic side,
was astonishing, not to say appalling. Sir John wondered sometimes if
American men were subject to much of this sort of thing.
"No," kept on Theodora, with a pretty grimace, and pinching the poodle,
"you positively shan't read the paper. I want you to talk to me and
Hector."
"What about?" asked Sir John, still half frowning. Theodora went up
close to him and standing on tip-toe, with one arm yet around the
poodle, leaned forward and putting two rosy fingers under her husband's
chin said coquettishly:
"About that closet over yonder, where people say you keep your murdered
wives. Don't we, Hector?"
"Yap! yap!" went the poodle.
The change that came over Sir John's face at these words was
indescribable. He started to his feet, his face black with rage, his
eyes flaming as he seized Theodora violently by the arm.
"How dare you?" he yelled, almost frothing at the mouth.
"How dare I?" asked Theodora, carefully putting the poodle in Sir
John's vacant chair. "Now, keep quiet, Hector. Because I want to know
and I'm going to find out."
"Very well," answered Sir John, recovering his self-possession. But
his cold fury was worse than his hot anger. A woman less intrepid than
Theodora would have sunk under the appalling glare of his eye. "Listen,
then, and I will tell you. But first put down that infernal dog."
Theodora had seated herself with Hector in her lap, but she thought it
wisest to let him go, as it was a case where force could be used to
her disadvantage. "Just wait a minute," she said briskly. "It's his
bed-time, anyway. I'll ring for James," and suiting the action to the
words, she went forward and rung the bell like a church warden.
James appeared in a twinkling, and Theodora confided the poodle to his
care with many injunctions. Then she returned to her seat.
"Now, madam, I will begin."
"Do," said Theodora pleasantly. "I'm dying to hear."
"You shall be gratified," answered Sir John darkly. "My first wife was
thought to be a very amiable and attractive woman. We lived happily
together until her indiscreet curiosity--mark well my words--about that
closet, caused her to try the lock with a chisel. The chisel slipped
and cut an artery. She was found weltering in her blood."
"How awkward!" exclaimed Theodora, spreading her handkerchief out in
her lap, and examining it as if she had never seen it before. "Of
course I mean how awkward for you."
"It was a great deal more awkward for her," gloomily remarked Sir
John--and continued:
"My second, was a gifted creature, but she, too, got the devil in her."
"She must have caught it from--hem--!--hem!" replied Theodora, coughing
gently.
Sir John glowered at her and kept on. "She, too, longed to see the
inside of the closet. Her curiosity--do you hear me, madam?--kept her
awake, and she spent her nights wandering about the house. One night
she missed a step at the top of the stairs and broke her neck. There
was no one but myself in the house except the servants."
"Good gracious!" cried Theodora. "How frightened you must have been!"
"My third--"
"Oh, yes--Fatima--my latest predecessor--"
"Well, there was an absurd rumor at the time of Fatima's death--she,
too, died of curiosity--that I had been killed by her brothers. Of
course the truth came out after a number of unpleasant things had been
printed about me. My Uncle Longacre advised me to sue the papers for
libel. And now, madam," he said with a malignant smile, "do you still
wish to see the closet?"
"Of course I do!" cried Theodora jumping up with the greatest alacrity.
"Now more than ever, since it is the remote cause that I am Lady Blood
and will one day be Marchioness of Longacre. Come, hurry up with the
key."
Sir John gazed at her with a sort of stupefied amazement.
"Rash girl!" he cried. "Do you know what you ask?"
"Perfectly," answered Theodora, coming up to him and holding out a
little jeweled hand, "Give me the key."
"Great Heavens!" shouted Sir John, "this is intolerable. God forgive me
for marrying an American! I will never marry another. I shall have to
silence her as I did Fatima."
"Give me the key, _you old goose_!" screamed Theodora in his face, and
shaking his arm violently.
At that instant their eyes met. Sir John's were blazing with anger,
while in Theodora's there shone a fire that--no, it could not
be--yes, yes, it was--that made something like fear come into Sir
John's handsome devilish face. She tightened her grip on his arm, and
occasionally jerked it up and down to emphasize her remarks, while she
cried:
"I want that key. You may well say" (shaking his arm furiously) "that
you'll never marry another American girl. You'll never have the chance"
(shake, shake). "When I married you I was willing to love you, just
as Anne does that Scotch angel of hers, but I am not going to put up
with your hectoring ways like poor Fatima." (Shake.) "You thought
I'd be afraid of you--ha! ha! I'm an American girl, you great booby.
Don't look at me in that way" (shake, shake, shake), "but give me the
key this instant, or I'll order the carriage and drive to the nearest
magistrate and denounce you on your own confession!" (Shake, with
variations.)
Sir John's countenance during this tirade was a study. At first a
furious, helpless rage, then over-powering amazement, followed by a
hideous fear, and at last an abject, helpless, hysterical breaking
down. He fell on his knees at Theodora's feet, clutching her gown, and
bursting out into wild lamentations, he screamed:
"Spare me! Spare me!"
"The key," panted Theodora, with a relentless smile on her beautiful
sensitive mouth. The miserable man feeling in his trousers' pocket
produced a key--with the identical blood stain on it left by poor
Fatima.
"Now," said Theodora, letting him go and transferring the key to her
pocket, "I don't want to see in the closet--no doubt it is a horrid
place--but I shall keep hold of this and see that you don't get it
again."
Her contemptuous tone aroused a faint spark of the spirit that made the
worm turn. He called up all his coward's courage, and, rising to his
feet, said sullenly:
"All is not yet over between us."
"Do go away," replied Theodora scornfully. "You bore me to death with
your heroics. But I think you've found out now what it is to be married
to an American girl. It's like a mustard plaster--wholesome, if not
pleasant, and not to be ignored."
* * * * *