Harriet Lewis

“ THE MEETING OF NEVA AND RUFUS.
The hours of his father’s absence in London were full of an insupportable suspense to Rufus Black. He was tempted to hurry up to town by the next train, and only his weakness and cowardice prevented him from flying to the succor of his wronged young wife. His terror of his father was a lion in his way. And the act of perjury he had committed in declaring himself of age when obtaining his marriage license—an act more of thoughtlessness and boyish ardor than of deliberate lying—arose now between him and poor Lally like a wall of iron. ”

“ An answering thrill convulsed her heart, and she knew in that moment that, come what would, she loved Arthur Towyn with all her soul, even as he loved her, and that she would know perfect happiness only as his wife.
Yet the conviction came upon her as a painful shock, and in that instant the struggle between her love and her duty of obedience to the supposed wishes of her dead father began in her heart.
“You love me?” whispered the young earl ardently, and with a passionate tremor of his voice. “Neva, with all my soul I love you, and I never loved before. Do I love in vain?” ”

“ Tell the household the sad news, Artress, and tell them all that I am too overcome with grief to speak to them. Let the bell at the village be set tolling. Send a notice of the death to the Times. I am a widow, and the guardian of the heiress of Hawkhurst! You must write to my step-daughter of her bereavement, and also drop a note to Craven. A widow, and without crime. The heiress of Hawkhurst in my hands to do with as I please! Your future is to be linked with mine, my young Neva, and a fate your father never destined for you shall be yours. I stand upon the pinnacle of success at last. ”

“ Sir Harold interrupted his wife by a gesture of impatience.
“The man is a Hindoo,” he said. “What consolation can he offer George in the hour of his death, when his eyes should rest on a tender, loving face—when his dying hands should grasp the hands of a friend? My poor brave boy! How could I ever consent to his going out to India? All his bright, military genius, all his longings to distinguish himself in the army, must end in an early Indian grave! But he shall not die with not one of his kindred beside him. We must go to him, Octavia. We shall reach him in time.” ”

“ He had a frank, noble face, and his sunny eyes betrayed a generous soul. One who ran might read in his countenance a brave, dauntless soul, a grand, unselfish nature, an enlightened spirit, quick sympathies, and an honest, truthful, resolute character. Neva thought, as she shyly regarded him, that he was very like a hero of romance.
“I can hardly believe that it is Arthur,” she said, smiling, her face softly flushing. “You are not at all like the Arthur Towyn I knew, and yet I can see the old boyish gayety and brightness of spirit. Your mustache has changed your looks greatly, Lord Towyn.” ”

“ Craven Black’s fair face flushed. He tugged at his light beard with nervous fingers. An angry light glowered in his light eyes.
“I may not know the full meaning of your words, Miss Neva,” he said, forcing himself to speak calmly. “A romantic young girl like you is sure to have many fancies which time will prune. A young girl’s fancy is like the overflowing of some graceful rose-tree. When time shall have picked off a bud here, a leaf there, or a half-blown rose elsewhere, the remainder of the blossoming will be more perfect. ”

“ Now that is perjury. A marriage of minors without consent of parents is null and void, and my consent was not given. Your marriage is illegal, is no marriage at all. You are as free and Rufus is as free as if this little episode had not been.”
“Oh, Heaven!” moaned the young girl, in a wild strained voice, sinking back into a chair. “Not married—not his wife!”
“You are not his wife,” declared Craven Black mercilessly. “I cannot comprehend by what fascination you lured my son into this connection with you, but no doubt he was equally to blame. He is well born and well connected. You are neither. ”

“ The silvermounted grate was crowded thickly with choice flowers from the conservatory, whose colors of white and blue were here and there relieved with scarlet blossoms like living coals. The wide French windows, opening upon a balcony, were open.
“Ah, this is home!” said Neva, sinking down upon a silken couch, and looking out of one of the windows upon the lawn. “I am glad to be back again, Hopper, but it’s a sad home coming. Poor Papa!”
“Poor Sir Harold!” echoed the housekeeper, wiping her eyes. “If he could only have lived to see you grown up, Miss Neva. ”

“ She entered her sitting-room, made beautiful by her husband’s taste, and going to the fire, knelt down before it on the hearth-rug. Artress and her maid were neither of them to be seen, and the baronet’s wife communed in solitude with her own deformed soul.
The winds tore through the trees in the park and on the lawn with a melancholy soughing, and the sound came to the ears of the kneeling woman. Her room was warm and bright with firelight, lamplight, and the glowing hue of crimson furniture. Every luxury was gathered within those walls dedicated to her use. ”

“ Lady Wynde slowly turned her head, recognized the intruder, and stared again with wide eyes into the flames.
“You look like a tragedy queen,” said Artress, with a soft laugh like the gurgling of waters. “You look as if you cast away all your scruples, and were ready to carry out the game.”
“I am,” said Lady Wynde, in a hard, suppressed voice.
“I thought you would come to it. Will Sir Harold make a new will?”
“No; he absolutely refuses.”
“Well, four thousand pounds a year need not be despised. And perhaps,” added Artress significantly, “we can make the sum larger. Am I to go to town to-morrow?” ”

“ He had found it hard to work, and harder to dispose of his work. All the bitterness and hardness of his lot arose [95] before him in black contrast with the brightness and beauty that would mark the destiny of the favored lover of young Neva Wynde.
He arose and walked the floor with an impetuous tread, an expression of keen anguish and keener longing in his eyes. His father watched him with a furtive gaze, as a cat watches a mouse. It was necessary to his plans that his son should marry Neva Wynde, and he was sanguine that he would be able to bring about the match. ”

“ He had thought of Neva as an insipid, affected, weak-headed young lady, who would be a mere puppet in his hands and those of Lady Wynde. His surprise may be imagined when he beheld a slender, spirited girl, with eyes of red gloom, brown hair tinted with the sunshine, scarlet lips, and a piquant face, full of an irresistible witchery and sauciness—a girl so bright and keen of intellect, so resolute and strong in herself, that he wondered that she could ever have been imposed upon by even his skilfully forged letter. ”

“ The morrow to which Lady Wynde looked forward with feverish expectation dawned at last, bright and clear, and deepened into a sultry afternoon. The baronet’s widow spent hours at her toilet, and the effect of her labors was satisfactory to her. She surveyed her reflection in a full-length mirror in her dressing-room with a smile of complacency. Her black hair was arranged in braids, curls, and finely crimpled waves, after the fashion of the day, and in the midst of its prodigal luxuriance, above her forehead, a jeweled spray flashed and glittered. ”

“ Lady Wynde looked thoughtful. Her gray companion bent over her work, embroidering a black monogram upon a black-bordered handkerchief, and did not look up. Her ashen-hued lashes lay on her ashen cheeks, and she looked dull, spiritless, a mere gray shadow, as we have called her, but Atkins, studying her face, had an uncomfortable impression that under all that coldness a fire was burning.
“She’s more than she looks to be,” he thought keenly. “I wonder Sir Harold tolerated her in his house. How singularly she resembles a cat!” ”

“ I am afraid I have not rightly treated my motherless child, Octavia. She has never seen you; never been at home since you became mistress here. I fear that the poor child will think her exile due to your influence, to speak frankly, dear, and that she will regard you with dislike and bitterness, instead of the trust and confidence I want her to feel in you. You are both so dear to me that I shall be unhappy if you do not love each other.”
[36]
“There is time enough to form the acquaintance after Neva leaves school,” said Lady Wynde. “She is but a child yet.” ”

“ The major grasped it in a mixture of bewilderment and amazement, and not without a thrill of superstitious terror.
“I—I thought you were dead, Sir Harold,” he stammered. “We all thought so, Graham and all. We thought you were killed by a tiger. I—I don’t know what to make of this!”
Sir Harold let go the major’s hand and staggered to the bamboo couch upon which he sank wearily.
“He’s not dead—but dying,” muttered the major. “Lord bless my soul! What am I to do?”
He clapped his hands vigorously. A moment later his Hindoo servant Karrah glided around upon the front veranda. ”

“ I wonder if she remembers our childish betrothal? I don’t like that Artress, and I do not quite like Lady Wynde. I hardly think Neva will be happy with her, their natures being so dissimilar. I must go out to Hawkhurst to-morrow, and judge whether they are likely to get on together. If Neva does not like her step-mother, she has but one avenue of escape from her dominion before she becomes of age, and that avenue is marriage. If she would only marry me. I love her already. Love her! ”

“ Both park and fields belonged to the domain of Hawkhurst, but Rufus Black was unconscious of the fact until he came out in full view of the great gray stone house throned upon the broad ridge of ground, and set in its parks and gardens like some rare jewel in its setting.
Then he recognized the place, and muttered moodily:
“So, this is what I am to sell my soul for? A goodly price, no doubt, and more than it is worth. The owner of all this wealth cannot go begging for a husband, be she ugly as Medusa. ”

“ Our love is too sacred to be proclaimed on the instant we acknowledge it ourselves. We will keep it secret until after Lady Wynde’s marriage; but we are promised, darling! Our happiness would be complete if we could know beyond all doubt that Sir Harold smiles upon our union. And why should he not smile upon our marriage from his home in Heaven? He loved me, Neva, and he desired our marriage. ”

“ We have narrated how she staggered away in the night gloom, after seeing Rufus and Neva together in the square of light from the home windows upon the marble terrace, not knowing whither she went, but hurrying as swiftly as she might from her young husband, from happiness, and from hope itself.
She had no thought of suicide. She had learned many lessons by the bedside of her old friend the seamstress, whose dying hours she had cheered. She had learned that life may be very bitter and hard to bear, but that it may not be thrown aside, or flung back in anger or despair to the Giver. ”

“ I have a question to ask you, Octavia, before [30] I show the letter to you. Sir Harold Wynde adores you. He loads you with gifts. He lays his heart under your feet. You are his world, his life, his very soul. And now I want to ask you—do you love him?”
The ashen eyes shot a piercing glance into the handsome brunette face, but the black eyes met hers boldly and the full lips curled in a contemptuous smile.
“Love him?” repeated Lady Wynde. “You know I do not. Love him? You know that I love another even as Sir Harold loves me! Love him? ”

“ Two years and six months ago you were a poor widow, unable to marry me because of our mutual poverty. Now you are again a widow, rich, respected, honored throughout Kent, and can marry whom you please. I am as poor as I was three years ago, and yet, Octavia, I know that you prefer me to all other men. Is it not so?”
Lady Wynde blushed as she murmured assent. She was essentially bad, being unprincipled and unscrupulous, but she loved Craven Black with her whole heart, and with a fervor that astonished herself.
After the death of her first husband, Lady Wynde had first met Craven Black. ”

“ If I do not die, this letter will never be delivered to you. I shall send it to the care of Octavia, to be given to you in the case of my death. I know not why this strange gloom has come upon me, but I have a premonition that my death is near. I shall not see you again in life, my child, my poor little Neva, but if you obey my last request I shall know it in heaven.
“My request is this. I have long taken a keen interest in the character and career of a young man now at Oxford. His talents are good, his character noble and elevated, his principles excellent. His name is Rufus Black. ”

“ There was dancing until a late hour that night in the old baronial hall that traversed the centre of the great mansion, and there was dancing outside upon the terrace and lawn to the music of a brass band. Mrs. Craven Black—Lady Wynde no longer—was the belle of the occasion, full of gayety and brightness. Mrs. Artress, to the amazement of everybody who had known her as the gray companion of Lady Wynde, flashed forth in the sudden splendor of jewels and a trained dress of crimson silk, and Craven Black danced one set with her, and saw her supplied with numerous partners. ”