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

make you comfortable, I am sure. Stay here for a few days until you are quite well."

So Lord Arleigh allowed himself to be persuaded, saying, with a smile, that he had come to Glaburn purposely for solitude.

"It was for the same thing that I came here," said the earl. "I have had a great sorrow in my life, and I like sometimes to be alone to think about it."

The two men looked at each other, but they liked each other all the better for such open confession.

When a few days had passed, it was Lord Arleigh who felt unwilling to leave his companion. He had never felt more at home than he did with Lord Mountdean. He had met no one so simple, so manly, so intelligent, and at the same time such a good fellow. There were little peculiarities in the earl, too, that struck him very forcibly; they seemed to recall some faint, vague memory, a something that he could never grasp, that was always eluding him, yet that was perfectly clear; and he was completely puzzled.

"Have I ever met you before?" he asked the earl one day.

"I do not think so. I have no remembrance of ever having sees you."

"Your voice and face are familiar to me," the younger man continued. "One or two of your gestures are as well known to me as though I had lived with you for years."

"Remembrances of that kind sometimes strike me," said the earl--"a mannerism, a something that one cannot explain. I should say that you have seen some one like me, perhaps."

It was probable enough, but Lord Arleigh was not quite satisfied. The earl and his guest parted in the most friendly manner.

"I shall never be quite so much in love with solitude again," said Lord Arleigh, as they were parting; "you have taught me that there is something better."

"I have learned the same lesson from you," responded the earl, with a sigh. "You talk about solitude. I had not been at Rosorton ten days before a party of four, all friends of mine, proposed to visit me. I could not refuse. They left the day after you came."

"I did not see them," said Lord Arleigh.

"No, I did not ask them to prolong their stay, fearing that after all those hours on the moors, you might have a serious illness; but now, Lord Arleigh, you will promise me that we shall be friends."

"Yes," he replied, "we will be friends."

So it was agreed that they should be strangers no longer--that they should visit and exchange neighborly courtesies and civilities.


Chapter XXXIII.


The Earl of Mountdean and Lord Arleigh were walking up a steep hill one day together, when the former feeling tired, they both sat down among the heather to rest. There was a warm sun shining, a pleasant wind blowing, and the purple heather seemed literally to dance around them. They remained for some time in silence; it was the earl who broke it by saying:

"How beautiful the heather is! And here indeed on this hill-top is solitude! We might fancy ourselves quite alone in the world. By the way, you have never told me, Arleigh, what it is that makes you so fond of solitude."

"I have had a great trouble," he replied, briefly.

"A trouble! But one suffers a great deal before losing all interest in life. You are so young, you cannot have suffered much."

"I know no other life so utterly helpless as my own."

The earl looked at him thoughtfully.

"I should like to know what your trouble is?" he said gently.

"I can tell you only one half of it," was the reply. "I fell in love with one of the sweetest, fairest, purest of girls. How I loved her is only known to myself. I suppose every man thinks his own love the greatest and the best. My whole heart went out to this girl--with my whole soul I loved her! She was below me in the one matter of worldly wealth and position--above me in all other. When I first asked her to marry me, she refused. She told me that the difference in our rank was too great. She was most noble, most self-sacrificing; she loved me, I know, most dearly, but she refused me. I was for some time unable to overcome her opposition; at last I succeeded. I tell you no details either of her name or where she lived, nor any other circumstances connected with her--I tell you only this, that, once having won her consent to our marriage, I seemed to have exchanged earth for Elysium. Then we were married, not publicly and with great pomp, but as my darling wished--privately and quietly. On the same day--my wedding-day--I took her home. I cannot tell how great was my happiness--no one could realize it. Believe me, Lord Mountdean, that she herself is as pure as a saint, that I know no other woman at once so meek and so lofty, so noble and so humble. Looking at her, one feels how true and sweet a woman's soul can be. Yet--oh, that I should live to say it!--on my wedding-day I discovered something--it was no fault of hers, I swear--that parted us. Loving her blindly, madly, with my whole heart and soul, I was still compelled to leave her. She is my wife in name only, and can never be more to me, yet, you understand, without any fault of hers."

"What a strange story!" said the earl, thoughtfully. "But this barrier, this obstacle--can it never be removed?"

"No," answered Lord Arleigh, "never!"

"I assure you of my deepest sympathy," said the earl. "It is a strange history."

"Yes, and a sad fate," sighed Lord Arleigh. "You cannot understand my story entirely. Wanting a full explanation, you might fairly ask me why I married with this drawback. I did not know of it, but my wife believed I did. We were both most cruelly deceived, it does not matter now. She is condemned to a loveless, joyless life; so am I. With a wife beautiful loving, young, I must lead a most solitary existence--I must see my name die out for want of heirs--I must see my race almost extinct, my life passed in repining and misery, my heart broken, my days without sunshine. I repeat that it is a sad fate."

"It is indeed," agreed the earl--"and such a strange one. Are you quite sure that nothing can be done to remedy it?"

"Quite sure," was the hopeless reply.

"I can hardly understand the need for separation, seeing that the wife herself is blameless."

"In this case it is unavoidable."

"May I, without seeming curious, ask you a question?" said the earl.

"Certainly--as many as you like."

"You can please yourself about answering it," observed the earl; and then he added: "Tell me, is it a case of insanity? Has your wife any hereditary tendency to anything of that kind?"

"No," replied Lord Arleigh; "it is nothing of that description. My wife is to me perfect in body and mind; I can add nothing to that."

"Then your story is a marvel; I do not--I cannot understand it. Still I must say that, unless there is something far deeper and more terrible than I can imagine, you have done wrong to part from your wife."

"I wish I could think so. But my doom is fixed, and no matter how long I live, or she lives, it can never be altered."

"My story is a sad one," observed Lord Mountdean, "but it is not so sad as yours. I married when I was quite young--married against my father's wish, and without his consent. The lady I loved was like your own; she was below me in position, but in nothing else. She was the daughter of a clergyman, a lady of striking beauty, good education and manners. I need not trouble you by telling you how it came about. I married her against my father's wish; he was in Italy at the time for his health--he had been there indeed for some years. I married her privately; our secret was well kept. Some time after our marriage I received a telegram stating that my father was dying and wished to see me. At that very time we were expecting the birth of what we hoped would be a son and heir. But I was anxious that my father should see and bless my wife before he died. She assured me that the journey would not hurt her, that no evil consequences would ensue; and, as I longed intensely for my father to see her, it was arranged that we should go together. A few hours of the journey passed happily enough, and then my poor wife was taken ill. Heaven pardon me because of my youth, my ignorance, my inexperience! I think sometimes that I might have saved her--but it is impossible to tell. We stopped at a little town called Castledene, and I drove to the hotel. There were races, or something of the kind, going on in the neighborhood, and the proprietors could not accommodate us. I drove to the doctor, who was a good Samaritan; he took us into his house--my child was born, and my wife died there. It was not a son and heir, as we had hoped it might be, but a little daughter, as fair as her mother. Ah, Lord Arleigh, you have had your troubles, I have had mine. My wife was buried at Castledene--my beautiful young wife, whom I loved so dearly. I left my child, under the doctor's care, with a nurse, having arranged to pay so much per annum for her, and intending when I returned to England to take her home to Wood Lynton as my heiress. My father, contrary to the verdict of the physicians, lingered about three years. Then he died, and I became Earl of Mountdean. The first thing I did was to hurry to Castledene. Can you imagine my horror when I found that all trace of my child was lost? The poor doctor had met with some terrible death, and the woman who had charge of my little one had left the neighborhood. Can you imagine what this blow was to me? Since then my life has been spent in one unceasing effort to find my daughter."

"How strange!" said Lord Arleigh. "Did you not know the name of the nurse?"

"Yes, she lived at a little place called Ashwood. I advertised for her, I offered large rewards, but I have never gleaned the least news of her; no one could ever find her. Her husband, it appeared, had been guilty of crime. My opinion is that the poor woman fled in shame from the neighborhood where she was known, and that both she and my dear child are dead."

"It seems most probable," observed Lord Arleigh.

"If I could arrive at any certainty as to her fate," said the earl, "I should be a happier man. I have been engaged to my cousin Lady Lily Gordon for four years, but I cannot make up my mind to marry until I hear something certain about my daughter."


Chapter XXXIV.


Winiston House was prettily situated. The house stood in the midst of charming grounds. There was a magnificent garden, full of flowers, full of fragrance and bloom; there was an orchard filled with rich, ripe fruit, broad meadow-land where the cattle grazed, where daisies and oxlips grew. To the left of the house was a large