Wife in Name Only by Charlotte Mary Brame (best color ebook reader .txt) 📖

her; his dignified forbearance, his simple acceptance of the wrong she had done him, she could not tolerate.

She laid down the letter. It was all over now--the love for which she would have given her life, the friendship that had once been so true, the vengeance that had been so carefully planned. She had lost his love, his friendship, his esteem. She could see him no more. He despised her. There came to her a vision of what she might have been to him had things been different--his friend, adviser, counselor--the woman upon whom he would have looked as the friend of his chosen wife--the woman whom, after all, he loved best--his sister, his truest confidante. All this she might have been but for her revenge. She had forfeited it all now. Her life would be spent as though he did not exist; and there was no one but herself to blame.

Still she had had her revenge; she smiled bitterly to herself as she thought of that. She had punished him. The beautiful face grew pale, and the dark eyes shone through a mist of tears.

"I am not hardened enough," she said to herself, mockingly, "to be quite happy over an evil deed. I want something more of wickedness in my composition."

She parried skillfully all Lady Peters' questions; she professed entire ignorance of all that had happened. People appealed to her as Lord Arleigh's friend. They asked her:

"What does this mean? Lord Arleigh was married quietly, and separated from his wife the same day. What does it mean?"

"I cannot tell, but you may rely upon it that a reasonable explanation of the circumstances will be forthcoming," she would reply. "Lord Arleigh is, as we all know, an honorable man, and I knew his wife."

"But what can it mean?" the questioners would persist.

"I cannot tell," she would answer, laughingly. "I only know we must give the matter the best interpretation we can."

So she escaped; and no one associated the Duchess of Hazlewood with Lord Arleigh's strange marriage. She knew that when her husband returned she would have to give some kind of explanation; but she was quite indifferent about that. Her life, she said to herself, was ended.

When the duke did come home, after a few pleasant weeks on the sea, the first thing he heard was the story about Lord Arleigh. It astounded him. His friend Captain Austin related it to him as soon as he had landed.

"Whom did you say he married?" inquired the duke.

"Rumor said at first that it was a distant relative of yours," replied the captain, "afterward it proved to be some young lady whom he had met at a small watering-place."

"What was her name? Who was she? It was no relative of mine; I have very few; I have no young female relative at all."

"No--that was all a mistake; I cannot tell you how it arose. He married a lady of the name of Dornham."

"Dornham!" said the puzzled nobleman. "The name is not unfamiliar to me--Dornham--ah, I remember!"

He said no more, but the captain saw a grave expression come over his handsome face, and it occurred to him that some unpleasant thought occurred to his companion's mind.


Chapter XXX.


One of the first questions, after his return, that the Duke of Hazlewood put to his wife was about Lord Arleigh. She looked at him with an uneasy smile.

"Am I my brother's keeper?" she asked.

"Certainly not, Philippa; but, considering that Arleigh has been as a brother to you all these years, you must take some interest in him. Is this story of his marriage true?"

"True?" she repeated. "Why, of course it is--perfectly true! Do you not know whom he has married?"

"I am half afraid to ask--half afraid to find that my suspicions have been realized."

"He has married my companion," said the duchess. "I have no wish to blame him; I will say nothing."

"It is a great pity that he ever saw her," observed the duke, warmly. "From all I hear, the man's life is wrecked."

"I warned him," said Philippa, eagerly. "I refused at first to introduce her to him. I told him that prudence and caution were needful."

"How came it about then, Philippa?"

The duchess shrugged her shoulders.

"There is a fate, I suppose, in these things. He saw her one day when I was out of the way, and, according to his own account, fell in love with her on the spot. Be that as it may, he was determined to marry her."

"It seems very strange," said the Duke of Hazlewood, musingly. "I have never known him to do anything 'queer' before."

"He can never say that I did not warn him," she remarked, carelessly.

"But it was such a wretched marriage for him. Who was she, Philippa? I have never made many inquiries about her."

"I would really rather not discuss the question," said the duchess; "it has no interest for me now. Norman and I have quarreled. In all probability we shall never be friends again."

"All through this marriage?" interrogated the duke.

"All through this marriage," repeated his wife--"and I know no subject that irritates me so much. Please say no more about it, Vere."

"I should like to know who the girl is," he urged. "You have never told me."

"I shall be jealous of her in a few minutes!" exclaimed Philippa "Already she has sundered an old friendship that I thought would last forever; and now, directly you return, you can talk of no one else."

"I should like to see you jealous," said the duke, who was one of the most unsuspicious of men.

She smiled; yet there came to her a sharp, bitter memory of the night on the balcony when she had been jealous of the ideal woman, the unknown love whom Norman had sketched for her.

The duke, however, was pertinacious; he could not give up the subject.

"You told me," he resumed, "that she was the daughter of an old friend of yours named Dornham--and it seems to me, Philippa, that I have some kind of remembrance of that name which is far from pleasant."

With an air of resignation the duchess rose from her seat.

"I am tired, Vere," she said, "quite tired of the subject. Yet I ought not to be selfish. Of course, the incident is all new to you--you have been away from all kinds of news; to us it is an old, worn-out story. Lord Arleigh and I quarreled and parted because of his marriage, so you may imagine it is not a very attractive subject to me."

"Well, I will say no more about it, but I am sincerely sorry, Philippa. Of all our friends, I like Lord Arleigh best; and I shall decidedly refuse to quarrel with him. His marriage is his own affair, not mine."

"Still, you cannot make a friend of the man whom I decline to know," she rejoined, hurriedly.

"Certainly not, if you place the matter in such a light," he said, gravely. "I shall always consider it my pleasure and duty to consult you on such points. I will call no man my friend whom you dislike."

So, for the time, all danger was tided over; the duke saw that the subject annoyed his wife, and did not voluntarily resume it. He was too true a gentleman to think of discussing with another lady what he did not discuss with his own wife, so that the subject was not mentioned between Lady Peters and himself.

Then for the fair young Duchess of Hazlewood began the new life which had in it no old friend. If she repented of her vengeance, she did not say so. If she would fain have undone her evil deed, she never owned it. But, as time wore on, people saw a great change in her. She gave herself more to the gayeties and follies of the world; there were few fashions which she did not lead, few gay pursuits in which she did not take an active part. The character of her beauty, too, seemed changed. She had always been brilliant, but somewhat of a strange unrest came into her face and manner; the dark eyes seemed to be always looking for something they could not find. Her mind, though charming and fascinating as ever, grew variable and unsteady. She had always been too proud for coquetry; she remained so now. But she no longer shunned and avoided all flattery and homage; it seemed rather to please her than not. And--greatest change of all--the name of Lord Arleigh never crossed her lips. He himself had retired from public life; the great hopes formed of him were all dying away. Men spoke of him with mystery, women with sad, gentle interest; those who had known him knew him no more.

He did not return to Beechgrove: it seemed to him that he could never again endure the sight of the place where he had separated from his wife--that his ancient home had been in some manner desecrated. The mansion was left in charge of Mrs. Chatterton, whose wonder at the new and strange state of things never ceased.

"Such a marriage!" She held up her hands in horror as she thought of it. Indeed, to her the event appeared like a wedding and a funeral on the same day. She had not seen Lady Arleigh since, yet she had never forgot the fair, lovely young face that had shone for so short a time in the grand old home.

Lord Arleigh saw that his wife had everything needful for her; he settled a large income on her; he sent from London horses, carriages, everything that her heart could desire; he saw that she had a proper household formed. Whatever else the world might say, it could not say that he showed her any want of respect or any want of attention. Lord Arleigh did not live with his wife, never visited her, never spoke of her; but it was quite clear that his motive for doing none of these things lay deeper than the world knew or could even guess.

The family solicitor went down to Winiston House occasionally, but Lord Arleigh never. The few who met him after his marriage found him strangely altered. Even his face had changed; the frank, honest, open look that had once seemed to defy and challenge and meet the whole world had died away; he looked now like a man with a secret to keep--a secret that had taken his youth from him, that had taken the light from his life, that hod shadowed his eyes, drawn hard lines of care round his lips, wrinkled his face, taken the music from his voice, and made of him a changed and altered, a sad, unhappy man.

There were one or two intimate friends--friends who had known him in his youth--who ventured to ask what this secret was, who appealed to him frankly to make his trouble known, telling him that sorrow shared was sorrow lightened; but with a sad smile he only raised his head and answered that his sorrow was one of which he could not speak. Sometimes a kindly woman who had known him as boy and man--one with daughters, and sons of her own--would ask him what was the nature of his sorrow. He would never tell.

"I cannot explain," he would reply.

Society tried hard to penetrate the mystery. Some said that Lady Arleigh was insane, and that