A Terrible Secret by May Agnes Fleming (world of reading txt) 📖

these peoples and Inez Catheron see, she was their equal in all things save birth. She talked, she laughed, she took captive half the male hearts, and when the ladies at length sailed away to the drawing-room, Lady Helena stooped and kissed her, almost with motherly pride.

"My dear," she whispered, "let me congratulate you. Nothing could be a greater success. All the men are in love with you--all the women jealous. A most excellent beginning indeed!"

She laughed pleasantly, this kindly dowager, and passed on. It was, an unspeakable relief to her to see her nephew's low-born wife face society so bravely and well. And better still, Inez had not launched one single poisoned dart. But the evening was not ended yet. Inez's time was to come. Enter the gentlemen presently, and flirtations are resumed, _tete-a-tetes_ in quiet comers recommenced, conversation becomes general. There is music. A certain Lord Verriker, the youngest man present, and the greatest in social status, monopolizes Lady Catheron. He leads her to the piano, and she sings. She is on trial still, and does her best, and her best is very good--a sweet Scotch ballad. There is quite a murmur of applause as she rises, and through it there breaks Miss Catheron's soft, sarcastic laugh. The flush deepens in Ethel's cheek--the laugh is at her performance she feels.

And now the hour of Inez's vengeance comes. Young Captain Varden is leaning over her chair; he is in love with Miss Catheron, and hovers about her unceasingly. He talks a great deal, though not very brilliantly. He is telling her in an audible undertone how Jack Singleton of "Ours" has lately made an object of himself before gods and men, and irretrievably ruined himself for life by marrying the youngest Miss Potter, of Potter's Park.

"Indeed!" Miss Catheron responds, with her light laugh, and her low, clear voice perfectly distinct to all; "the youngest Miss Potter. Ah, yes! I've heard of them. The paternal Potter kept a shop in Chester, didn't he--a grocer, or something of the sort, and having made money enough behind the counter, has retired. And poor Lieutenant Singleton has married the youngest Miss Potter! 'Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.' A very charming girl no doubt, as sweet as the paternal treacle, and as melting as her father's butter. It's an old custom in some families--my own for instance--to quarter the arms of the bride on the family shield. Now what do you suppose the arms of the Potter family may be--a white apron and a pair of scales?"

And then, all through the room, there is a horrible suppressed laugh. The blood rushes in a fiery tide to the face of Sir Victor, and Lady Helena outglows her crimson velvet gown. Ethel, with the youthful Lord Verriker still hovering around her, has but one wild instinct, that of flight. Oh! to be away, from these merciless people--from that bitter, dagger-tongued Inez Catheron! She looks wildly at her husband. Must she bear this? But his back is to her--he is wilfully blind and deaf. The courage to take up the gauntlet for his wife, to make a scene, to silence his cousin, is a courage he does not possess.

Under the midnight stars Lady Helena's guests drive home. In the carriage of Sir Victor Catheron there is dead silence. Ethel, shrinking from her husband almost as much as from his cousin, lies back in a corner, pale and mute. Inez Catheron's dauntless black eyes look up at the white, countless stars as she softly hums a tune. Sir Victor sits with his eyes shut, but he is not asleep. He is in a rage with himself, he hates his cousin, he is afraid to look at his wife. One way or other he feels there must be an immediate end of this.

The first estrangement that has parted him and Ethel has come. He hardly knows her to-night--her cold, brief words, her averted face, her palpable shrinking as he approaches. She despises him, and with reason, a man who has not the courage to protect his wife from insult.

Next day Lady Catheron declines to appear at either breakfast or luncheon, and when, five minutes before dinner, Sir Victor and Miss Catheron meet in the dining-room, she is absent still. He rings the bell angrily and demands where she is.

"My lady has gone out," the footman answers. "She went half an hour ago. She had a book with her, and she went in the direction of the laurel walk."

"I will go in search of her," Sir Victor says, taking his hat; "let dinner wait until our return."

Ethel has gone, because she cannot meet Inez Catheron again, never again break bread at the same board with her pitiless enemy. She cried herself quietly to sleep last night; her head aches with a dull, sickening pain to-day. To be home once more--to be back in the cosy, common-place Russell square lodgings! If it were not for baby she feels as though she would like to run away, from Sir Victor and all, anywhere that Inez Catheron's black eyes and derisive smile could never come.

The September twilight, sparkling with frosty-looking stars, is settling down over the trees. The great house looms up, big, sombre, stately, a home to be proud of, yet Ethel shudders as she looks at it. The only miserable days of her life have been spent beneath its roof; she will hate it before long. Her very love for her husband seems to die out in bitter contempt, as she thinks of last night, when he stood by and heard his cousin's sneering insult. The gloaming is chilly, she draws her shawl closer around her, and walks slowly up and down. Slow, miserable tears trickle down her cheeks as she walks. She feels so utterly alone, so utterly forlorn, so utterly at the mercy of this merciless woman.

"Oh!" she says, with a passionate sob, and unconsciously aloud, "_why_ did I ever marry him?"

"If you mean Sir Victor Catheron," answers a voice, "I think I can tell you. You married Sir Victor Catheron because he _was_ Sir Victor Catheron. But it isn't a marriage, my dear--you know that. A young lady can't have two husbands, and I'm your legal, lawful-wedded spouse."

She utters a cry--she recoils with a face of terror, for there in the twilight before her, tall, black, sinister, stands Juan Catheron.

"_You_!" she gasps.

"I, my dear--I, in the flesh. Did you think I had gone? My dear Ethel, so I would have gone, if Inez had come down in the sisterly way she should. But she hasn't. I give you my word of honor her conduct has been shabby in the extreme. A few hundreds--I asked no more--and she wouldn't. What was a miserly fifty pun' note to a man like me, with expensive tastes, and who has not set foot on British soil for two years? Not a jewel would she part with--all Sir Victor's presents, forsooth! And she's in love with Sir Victor, you know. Perhaps you _don't_ know, though. 'Pon my life, she is, Ethel, and means to have him yet, too. That's what she says, and she is a girl to do as she says, is Inez. That's why I'm here to-night, my dear. I can't go to Sir Victor, you understand--motives of delicacy, and all that--so I waited my chance, and have come to you. You may be fickle, but I don't think you're stingy. And something is due to my outraged feelings, blighted affections, and all that. Give me five hundred pounds, Ethel, and let us call it square."

He came nearer, his big, brown hand outstretched. She shrank away, hatred and repulsion in her face.

"Stand back!" she said. "Don't come near me, Juan Catheron! How dare you intrude here! How dare you speak to me!"

"How dare I? Oh, come now, I say, I like that. If a man may not speak to his own wife, to whom _may_ he speak? If it comes to that, how dare you throw me over, and commit bigamy, and marry Sir Victor Catheron? It's of no use your riding the high horse with me, Ethel; you had better give me the five hundred--I'm sure I'm moderate enough--and let me go."

"I will not give you a farthing; and if you do not leave this place instantly, I will call my husband. Oh!" she burst forth, frantically, "between you and your sister you will drive me mad!"

"Will you give me the money?" asked Juan Catheron, folding his arms and turning sullen.

"I have not got it. What money have I?--and if I had, I say I would not give you a farthing. Begone! or--"

"You have diamonds." He pointed to her hands. "They will do--easily convertible in London. Hand them here, or, by all the gods, I'll blow the story of your bigamy all over England!"

"You will not!" she cried, her eyes flashing in the twilight--"you coward! you dare not! Sir Victor has _you_ in his power, and he will keep his threat. Speak one word of that vile lie, and your tongue will be silenced in Chesholm jail. Leave me, I say!"--she stamped her foot passionately--"I am not afraid of you, Juan Catheron!"

"And you will not give me the jewels?"

"Not one--not to keep you from spreading your slander from end to end of England! Do your worst!--you cannot make me more wretched than I am. And go, or I will call for help, and see whether my husband has not courage to keep his word."

"You will not give me the rings?"

"Not to save your life! Hark! some one is coming! Now you will see which of us is afraid of the other!"

He stood looking at her, a dangerous gleam in his black eyes.

"Very well!" he said; "so be it! Don't trouble yourself to call your hero of a husband--I'm going. You're a plucky little thing after all, Ethel. I don't know but that I rather admire your spirit. Adieu, my dear, until we meet again."

He swung round, and vanished among the trees. He was actually singing as he went,

"To-day for me. To-morrow for thee-- But will that to-morrow ever be?"

The last rustle of the laurels died away; all was still; the twilight was closing darkness, and, with a shudder, Ethel turned to go.

"But will that to-morrow ever be?"--the refrain of the doggerel rung in her ears. "Am I never to be free from this brother and sister?" she cried to herself, desperately, as she advanced to the house. "Am I never to be free from this bondage?"

As the last flutter of her white dress disappeared, Sir Victor Catheron emerged from the shadow of the trees, and the face, on which the rising moon shone, was white as the face of death.


CHAPTER VI.

IN THE MOONLIGHT.

He had not overheard a word, he had not tried to overhear; but he had seen them together--that was enough. He had reached the spot only a moment before their parting, and had stood confounded at sight of his wife alone here in the dusk with Juan Catheron.

He saw them part--saw him dash through the woodland, singing as he went--saw her turn away and walk rapidly to the house. She had come here to meet him, then, her former lover. He had not left Chesholm; he was lurking in the neighborhood of the Royals, and she knew it. She knew it. How many times had they met before--his wife and the man he abhorred--the