A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette

"I am sure, Mark," said his obedient wife, "this is a gentleman; there can be no mistake about him."

"Gentleman – oh! There, now, my dear, do not look so frightened! I never swore in my life, not even in the hottest of weather. I am not going to begin now. He may be a gentleman – he is, I do not deny that; but it has nothing to do with the matter. Why does he come here to talk about Doris? What has it to do with him? It means mischief. He shall go away from here as wise as he came – no wiser."

"You are right, Mark," said his wife.

"That is a sensible woman. Yet," added Mark, with shrewd irony, "the sight of his handsome face and the smoothness of his tongue may cause you to betray a secret you have promised to keep, so you had better keep out of the room."

"I will," said Mrs. Brace. "I have no more wish to talk than you have, Mark. Still he looks so wistful, I will stay away."

"That is the best woman in England," said Mark to himself, as Mrs. Brace closed the door after her. Then he returned to his guest. He apologized for his wife's absence, but Lord Vivianne knew just as well as though Mark had told him, that she was gone lest she should be tempted to talk to him. Mattie wisely imitated her mother's example, leaving her father alone with his guest.

"What a grand old farm this is of yours," said his lordship. "I never saw grounds in such fine condition."

Mark had made up his mind to be urbane and polite, but it was with some little difficulty he refrained from showing his contempt. What did this lord know of farming. Above all, why did he want to flatter Mark Brace?

"I am rather pleased," said the visitor, drawing his chair nearer to the farmer, "that I have a chance of talking quietly to you, without the ladies being present. I wanted that opportunity."

"You have it," said Mark, briefly.

"Yes. I have it, and will try to avail myself of it. I met, as I told you, Miss Doris Brace some time since, and I was deeply impressed by her – most deeply."

"Were you?"

"Yes; and I resolved, if possible, to see her again."

Mark sat silent.

"I quite believed at the time that she was your daughter, but I have heard a strange romance since – terribly strange. May I ask, Mr. Brace, if it be true?"

"No, my lord, you may not ask me – at least, I do not mean that – you may ask what you will, but you must excuse me if I do not reply. The fact is this – if you ask as to the state of my farm, my balance at the bank, my hopes of a crop, I will tell you; but when it comes to the ladies of my family, you must really excuse me if I distinctly and plainly refuse to answer one question concerning them. I am sorry to seem rude, my lord."

But, like every one else who saw him, Lord Vivianne admired Mark Brace. He held out his white, slim hand to touch the farmer's sunburnt one.

"There is no offense, Mr. Brace," he said. "You are an honest man, and I shall think better of all other men for having seen you. If you decline any conversation on the matter, it is, of course, useless for me to offer any explanations."

"Quite useless, my lord; a waste of time."

"Then, thanking you for your hospitality, I may as well go," said his lordship, with a smile.

To which remark the farmer, not knowing what politeness required him to answer, made no answer at all.

Although he was baffled, Lord Vivianne could not feel angry.

"It would be a straightforward world," he said to himself, laughingly, "if all the men in it were like Mark Brace." Still he felt that he had in some measure won a victory – he had found out that, in connection with Doris, there was something to conceal.

He went to Quainton and took up his abode for the night in the Castle Hotel. There he fancied he should be sure to hear something or other. Nor was he mistaken. In the billiard-room the conversation turned upon Earle Moray – they were very proud of him, they said that Lindenholm had given to England one of her finest poets – they boasted to each other of having known him, of having spoken to him; they talked of his election for Anderley; there had been no bribery – all had been open as the day. Yes, he had been returned almost without opposition. They spoke of Lord Linleigh's interest in him, and then one or two of the wisest among them told how he was to marry Lord Linleigh's daughter, the beautiful girl who, for some reason or other, had been brought up at Brackenside. It was impossible to keep such a secret quiet; some few in Quainton knew, and others guessed it.

Lord Vivianne listened without a comment, the veins in his forehead swelled, his face flushed a hot crimson flush, his hands trembled. It was a victory he had hardly expected to win.

Then he muttered to himself something that sounded like a fierce oath:

"She shall pay for it," he said to himself. "Madly as I love her, I will not spare her. When I have humbled her pride, I will worship her and marry her; not until then. So it was she, all the time; she looked into my eyes without recognition; she dared me, braved me, laughed at me. She shall suffer. She is the most magnificent and dauntless creature I ever beheld; she is grand enough for a Charlotte Corday, a Joan of Arc. By Heaven! how many girls would have come to me crying, praying that I would keep their secret; she laughs at me, defies me. I will repay her!"

His whole soul was torn between passionate love and passionate anger; at one time he felt inclined to weep at her feet, to pray and beseech her to love him, to be his wife; at another time to feel that he must upbraid her with her perfidy, her falsity, her deceit. Which spirit would master him when he stood in her presence he hardly knew; it would depend upon herself. If she were defiant, so should he be; if she were gentle, he would be the same. Of one thing he was quite determined – do, say what she might, she should be his wife. It would be a most dishonorable thing to threaten to hold her secret over her; but, if she compelled him, he would do it. No thought of pity came into his mind, but he wondered much. That news – the news of her father's succession to the earldom, and his return home – must have reached her while she was in Florence with him. No one even knew where he was; how, then, could she learn it.

It struck him that was the reason she had left him; he had not thought of that before; it was because this news came to her, and she would not be found with him. But who could have told her? – that was the puzzle. Some one must have gone straight from England to Florence. The more he thought of it the more he was puzzled.

He felt quite certain that on the morning he left her to secure her opera box, and to purchase flowers for her, she knew nothing of it. He had left her by the river-side; when he returned she was gone. During that interval, short as it was, some one must have found her, have told her, and brought her to England. Who could that some one be?

Not Earle, surely not Earle, her lover – surely not he! "He would have been more likely to kill her than to bring her home if he had found her with me," he said to himself.

He was keen enough, but it never occurred to him that she had the skill to deceive Earle as well.

He returned by the early train to London; he should be in time then, he said, to give her a morning call. He smiled to himself as he thought of her confusion. He reached Hyde House when the earl and countess had just driven to a fashionable dejeuner, and Lady Doris was left alone; she desired it should be so; she wanted time to arrange her thoughts, to recover herself; and they, believing in her plea of fatigue, had been quite willing to leave her. She had made up her mind, no matter what it cost her, not to see Lord Vivianne again. It would be easy to manage it; she would decline all invitations on the plea of ill health, and she would refuse to receive visitors at home. Strict orders had been given to that effect-the servants understood that their young lady was tired, and would see no one, except, as a matter of course, Mr. Moray.

She believed herself quite safe; that morning Earle had promised to spend with her, and they would arrange about their wedding and the honeymoon that was never to end.

She had dressed herself so prettily for Earle – she went to the conservatory intending, there, to spend the morning with him. She walked among the flowers, singing in a soft, low voice to herself; it would all soon be over, she should so soon be away from London, where her terrible secret seemed to have taken bodily shape. She should so soon be safe in her own home in Linleigh; above all, she should soon be Earle's wife.

"Earle's wife – how he loves me!" thought the girl, "how true and good and noble he is, my Earle!"

Then a shadow fell over the brightness of the flowers. She raised her eyes, believing it was he, and they fell on the smiling face of Lord Vivianne.

For one instant she looked at him spell-bound, fascinated, as one sees a fluttering bird charmed by a snake. Her heart gave one great bound.

"He knows me!" she thought, "and he is come to tell me so!"

How he gained admittance matters not; how he bribed a servant, who afterward lost his place for taking the bribe, matters not.

He was there, and in the contemptuous insolence of his smile, in the expression of his face, she read that no evasion would be of service to her. Still she did not lose her self-possession.

"How did you obtain admittance, my lord?" she asked, imperiously.

"Oh, Dora, Dora! I have found you. Did you really think you would deceive me for long? I have found you; and now, if you please, we will discuss matters in a proper business-like form."

CHAPTER LXX

THE PRICE OF A SECRET

He went one step nearer to her and looked at her with an evil smile; his heart was full of passion – half intense love, half furious anger.

"You thought to deceive me," he said, and the breath came like hot flame from his lips. "You thought to blind and dupe me, but I know you now – I have known you all along, though I could not believe the evidence of my own senses."

He never forgot the regal grace with which she drew her slight frame to its utmost height, the anger, the haughty pride that flashed from her eyes.

"I do not understand you," she replied; "and I repeat my question; when I gave orders that I should be denied to all visitors, how dare you enter here?"

"It is late, Lady Doris," he said, "too late for that kind of thing now, I repeat that I know you – to the rest of the world you may be Lady Doris Studleigh, to me you are simply the girl who lived with me and ran away from me."

She looked at him; if a glance from those proud eyes could have slain him, he would have lain that instant dead at her feet. He continued:

"You may deny it, you may continue to carry on the same concealment, the same deceit, but it will be all in vain; I know you, and I know you for what you are. You can say anything you please, if you think it advisable to waste words; I repeat that it will be in vain." She grew white, even to the lips, as she listened to the insolent words. "I felt sure – convinced of your identity from the very moment I saw you at the opera," he continued. "I watched you then; I have watched you ever since."

Her white lips opened, but all sound died away from them – he heard nothing.

"I have admired your talent for acting," he continued; "it is a grand one. It is ten thousand pities that you are not upon the stage; you would be its brightest ornament. I was not wholly, but half deceived, by your superb nonchalance; then I determined to find out the truth for myself. I have done so."

He waited to see if she would utter one word of denial, one word of explanation. She stood before him – pale, beautiful, silent as a marble statue.

"I have tracked you," he said, triumphantly. "I can tell you the whole story of your life; how you lived as a child at Brackenside; how you carried on a pretty little love affair with your poet and gentleman, until I saw you; how you went to Florence with me, in total ignorance of your true origin; how on the morning I left you by the river side, some one came from England, told you the true story of your birth, and brought you back here. I have been to Brackenside; I am not speaking without proof."

If she could have spoken, she would have told him that no one at Brackenside would ever betray her; she would have liked to cast his words back in his teeth, but the strength to speak was no longer hers.

"You thought then of being very clever. If you had never heard the true story of your birth, you would have been content to abide with me all the days of your life – you would have thought your lot a brilliant one. But you were too clever, Dora; you thought to escape and to live as though you had never heard of me. It could not be done. Did you speak?"

He might as well ask the question, for a sound that resembled no ordinary, no human sound, came from her lips. He went on:

"Why were you not frank and honest with me, Dora? – why did you not await my return, and tell me? – why did you not trust me? Do you know what I should have done if you had so trusted me? I should have said that my proposition to you had been made under a great mistake, not knowing your true name; and I should have released you then and them from all ties that bound you to me."

She saw her mistake then; saw what short-sighted, miserable policy hers had been; but it was all too late.

"Surely," he continued, "you had lived with me long enough to know that I had some semblance of a gentleman, some faint notions of honor. There is no need to sneer, my lady; men do not reckon honor when they deal with what you were then."

"I know it," she cried, with sudden bitterness, in a voice that had no resemblance to her own.

"Why did you not trust me! I cannot – I shall never forgive you for the way in which you deserted me. Had you left me one line – only one line – telling me your true parents had claimed you, Doris, it would have saved all this."

"I had not time."

"Because you did not wish to make it. Even suppose that, to avoid detection, you had hurried from Florence, you might surely have sent me a line from England; even if you could not trust me with your name and address, you might have done that."

"I see it now. I might, nay, I should have done it. Will that admission satisfy you?"

"There is nothing in it to satisfy me," he said, angrily; "you had no right to desert me as you did, to treat me as you did – none in the world. Do you know what you cost me? Do you know that I went mad over losing you? that I searched for you day after day, month after month, hating my life itself because you no longer formed part of it! Do you know that the loss of you changed me from a good-tempered man into a fiend? – can you realize that, Lady Doris Studleigh?"

"No," she replied, "I cannot."

"It is true. Fair, bright, frivolous women like you cannot realize a man's love – they cannot even estimate it! And strange – oh! strange to say – women like you win strong, passionate love, for which the pure and noble of your sex seek in vain."

Alas! that she had given him the right to speak thus to her – that she had placed herself in the power of such a man! Oh! fatal, foolish, and wicked sin! Yet true to herself, true to her own light, frivolous nature, it was not the bitter sin she repented so much as its discovery.

He drew nearer to her, and placed one hand on her arm.

"Do you know, Doris," he said, "that when you left me I had begun, even then, to love you with such a passionate love that every pulse of my heart was wrapped up in it."

She shook his hand from her as though there were contamination in his touch.

"I did not know it. I do not believe it. You never loved me – you have loved nothing on earth one half so dearly as you have loved yourself!"

His face grew dark with anger.

"Remembering how entirely you are in my power," he said, "I ask you, is it wise to anger me?"

"You never loved me," she repeated; "Earle loved me, and would have died any day to save my fair name! You never loved me, you loved yourself!"

"I repeat it, I loved you with a passion so terrible, so fierce, so violent, it frightened me! I loved you so, that I would have lost wealth, fortune, position – ah! life itself – for you!"

Her white lips smiled scornfully; that calm, proud, scorn drove him beside himself.

"You have been some time in discovering it," she said.

"That is your mistake," he replied; "do you know, Doris, I swear what I am saying is true. Do you know why I was so gay, so happy, so light of heart on the day you left me? It was because my love had beaten down my pride, and on that very evening I had resolved upon asking you to be my wife."

"I do not believe it," she cried.

"It is true; I swear it on the faith and honor of a gentleman. I swear it on the word of a man."

"I should need a stronger oath than that," she said.

"I swear it then by your own falseness, and by your own deceit; can any oath be stronger than that? On that very evening I had resolved upon asking you to be my wife. I was determined to make our union legal. I loved you so that I could not live without you."

She made no reply for one minute, but looked steadily at him: then she said:

"I do thank Heaven that I have been spared the degradation of becoming your wife."

"Yet you were content to be my companion," he said.

Her face flushed hotly at the words.

"I have lost you, how long, Dora, how many months? Do you think my love has grown less in that time? Do you think it has faded or grown cold. If you imagine so, you do no justice to your own marvelous beauty; you do no justice to your own fascination; a thousand times no! It is a burning torrent now that carries all before it: it is a tempest that will know no abatement – Dora, you had lost your usual shrewdness when you thought that absence would cure such love as mine."

"My name is Lady Studleigh, not Dora," she said proudly. "Once for all, Lord Vivianne, your love does not in the least interest me."

"You will have to take an interest in it," he replied; "I swear, for the future, you shall know no other love."

"I will never know yours," she replied.

He laughed contemptuously.

"It is no use, Dora," he said; "you must really excuse me; I cannot help enjoying my triumph; I would not laugh if I could help it, but, my dear Dora, I cannot help it. Did you ever see a fly in a spider's web? Did you ever watch it struggle and fight and strive to escape, while the spider, one could fancy, was shaking his filmy sides with laughter? Have you ever seen that terrible phenomenon in natural history? You, my poor Dora, are the helpless little fly, I am the spider. It is not an elegant comparison, but it is perfectly true; you are in my power completely, thoroughly, and nothing can take you from me."

She looked at him quite calmly, her courage was rising, now that the first deadly shock had passed away.

"Perhaps," she said, "you will tell me what you want. Spare me any further conversation with you; it does not interest me. Tell me, briefly as you can, what you want."

"What do I want?" he repeated.

"Yes, just that – neither more nor less – what do you want? I own you have me in your power, I own that you hold a secret of mine. What is to be its price? I cannot buy your silence with money. You are a gentleman, a man of honor, having my fair name in your power – what shall you charge me for keeping it? I am anxious to know the price men exact for such secrets as those. You wooed me and won me, after your own honorable fashion – what are you going to exact now as the price of your love and my mad folly? I was vain, foolish, untruthful, but, after all, I was an innocent girl when you knew me first. What shall be the price of my innocence? Oh, noble descendant of noble men – oh, noble heritor of a noble race. Speak – let me hear!"

Her taunts stung him almost to fury; his face grew livid with rage; yet, the more insolent she, the more deeply he loved her; the more scornful she, the deeper and wilder grew his worship of her.

"I will tell you the price," he said; "I will make you my wife. Consent to marry me, and I will swear to you, by heaven itself, that I will keep your secret faithfully, loyally, until I die."

"I cannot marry you," she replied; "I do not love you. I cannot help it, if you are angry. I do not even like you. I should be most wretched and miserable with you, for I loathe you. I will never be your wife."

"All those," he replied, slowly, "are objections that you must try to overcome."

"What if I tell you I love some one else?" she said.

"I should pity him, really pity him, from the depths of my heart; but, all the same, I should say you must be my wife!"

She longed to tell him that she loved and meant to marry Earle, but she was afraid even to mention his name.

"I shall conquer all your objections in time," he said. "It is nothing to me that you say you dislike me; it is even less that you say you like another."

But he never even thought that she really liked Earle. Had she not run away from him?

CHAPTER LXXI

THE COWARD'S THREAT

"That is the first part of your declaration," said Lady Doris, with the calm of infinite contempt; "if I will promise to be your wife, you will promise to marry me. What if I refuse?"

"You are placing a very painful alternative before me," he replied.

"Never mind the pain, my lord; we will waive that. I wish to know the alternative."

"If you will marry me I will keep your secret, Lady Doris Studleigh, faithfully, until death."

"Then I clearly, distinctly, and firmly refuse to marry you. What then?"

"In that case I shall be compelled to take the most disagreeable measures – I shall be compelled to hold your secret as a threat over you, if you refuse to be my wife. I tell you, quite honestly, that I will make you the laughing-stock of all London. You – fair, beautiful, imperial – you shall be an object of scorn; men shall laugh at you, women turn aside as you pass by. Even the most careless and reckless shall refuse to receive you – shall consider you out of the pale. I will tell the whole world, if you compel me to do it, what you were to me in Florence; I will tell the handsome earl, your father, whose roof in that case will no longer shelter you. I will tell your proud, high-bred step-mother – the haughty duchess who presented you at court – nay, even the queen herself, she who values a woman's good name far above all worldly rank."

"You would do all that?" she said.

"Yes, just as soon as I would look at you."

"And you call that honor?"

"No; it is, on the contrary, most dishonorable. Do not imagine that I seek to deceive myself. It would be about the most dishonorable thing any person could do; in fact, nothing could be more base; I grant that. But, if you drive a man mad with love, what can he do? You compel me to take the step, or I would not take it."

She could not grow paler; her face was already ghastly white; but from her eyes there shot one glance that might, from its anger and its fire, have struck him blind.

"You would not spare me," she said, "because it was you yourself who led me to ruin."

"I love you so madly," he said, "that I cannot spare you at all."

"Have you thought," she asked, "what, if you do this deed, the world will say of you and to you? Have you weighed this well?"

"I am indifferent," he said; "I care for nothing on earth but winning you."

"Do you realize that in destroying me you destroy yourself; that you will make yourself more hated and despised than any man ever was before? Do you not see that?"

"I repeat that nothing interests me save winning you, Dora; I am quite willing to be destroyed with you."

"What will the world say to a man who deliberately destroys and ruins a girl as you did me?"

"My dearest Dora, the world hears such stories every day and, I am afraid, rather admires the heroes of them."

"What does it say, then, of cowardly men who, having won such a victory, boast of it?"

"I own that the world looks askance on such a man, and very properly too. It is a base, cowardly thing to do. What other course is left me? You drive me to it: I have no wish to play such a contemptible part; I have no wish to boast of a victory – I shall hate myself for doing it; but what else is there for it? Listen, once and for all. Dora – I cannot help calling you by the old familiar name – I will have you for my wife: I will marry you; nothing, I swear, except death, shall take you from me. I will make you happy, I will see that every desire of your heart is fulfilled; but I swear you shall be my wife. There is no escape – no alternative; either that or disgrace, degradation, and ruin. Do not think I shall hesitate from any fear of ruin to myself; I would ruin myself to-morrow to win you. You might as well try to stem the force of a tide as to alter my determination."