Vera Nevill

“ Surely no girl ever learnt the secret of her own heart with such dire dismay as did Vera Nevill. There was neither joy nor gladness within her, only a great anger against herself and her fate, and even against him who, as he had said, had dared to love her. ”

“ For in these days Sir John Kynaston was a very unhappy man. He had received a blow such as strikes at the very root and spring of a man's life—a blow which a younger man often battles through and is none the worse in the end for, but under which a man of his age is apt to be crushed and to succumb. Within a week of his wedding-day Vera Nevill had broken her engagement to him. ”

“ Oh, how stupid I am! Perhaps I ought not to have mentioned her, Lady Kynaston, for of course she did not behave very well to Sir John, as we all know; but now that is all over, isn't it? and everybody is wild about her beauty."
"I am glad to hear that Miss Nevill is prospering in any way," said her ladyship, stiffly. "I owe her no ill-will, poor girl."
Helen Romer is looking at Maurice Kynaston; he has not said one single word, nor has he raised his eyes once from his plate; but a deep flush has overspread his handsome face at the sound of Vera's name. ”

“ Miss Nevill, will you undertake to do it for me?"
"Really, Monsieur D'Arblet, you are very mysterious; it depends, of course, upon what this duty is—if it is very difficult, or very unpleasant."
"It is neither difficult nor unpleasant. It is only to give a small parcel to a gentleman who is not now in England; to give it him yourself, with your own hands."
"That does not sound difficult, certainly," said Vera, smiling; after all, she was glad he had not asked for a photograph, or a lock of hair; "but how am I to find this friend of yours?"
"Miss Nevill, do you know a man called Kynaston? ”

“ Cissy must find something else for another year. Of course, with a husband, she could sail her own course and make her own way; but a girl can't go on attracting attention with impunity—she gets herself talked about—it is only we married women can do as we like."
"Exactly. Do you suppose that will come to anything?" casting a glance towards the further end of the lawn, where Vera Nevill sat in a low basket-chair, under the shadow of a spreading tulip-tree, whilst a slight boyish figure, stretched at her feet, alternately chewed blades of grass and looked up worshippingly into her face. ”

“ Romer was forced to call by a more formal name—all proved to that astute little woman that Vera Nevill was no ordinary antagonist, no village maiden to be snubbed or patronised at her pleasure, but a woman of the world, who understood how to fight her own battles, and was likely, as she was forced to own to herself, to "give back as good as she got." ”

“ Vera uttered a scream.
"Good gracious! What on earth are you doing? It is Mrs. Hazeldine's favourite piece of china; she values it more than anything she has got. If you were to break it, she would go half out of her mind."
"Never mind this wretched vase. Answer me, Mademoiselle Nevill, will you give that parcel to Captain Kynaston?"
"I am not at all likely to meet him; I assure you nothing is so improbable. I know him very little. Ah! what are you doing?"
The infuriated Frenchman was whirling the blue-and-white treasure madly round in the air. ”

“ Nevertheless, in this matter of Vera, he had succumbed to his fate with all the uncalculating blindness of a boy in his teens.
Vera was like no other woman he had ever seen; she was as far removed above common young-ladyhood as Raphael's Madonnas are beyond and above Greuze's simpering maidens; there could be no other like her—she was a queen, a goddess among women. ”

“ What woman would not do so in your place? and you know that they will ruin me with my husband."
"It is you yourself that tell me so!" cried Vera, impatiently, beginning to lose her temper. "I do not even know what you are talking about!"
"Miss Nevill!" cried Helen, suddenly changing her tone; "give that parcel to me, I entreat you."
"I am very sorry, Mrs. Kynaston; I cannot possibly do so."
"Oh yes, you can—you will," said Helen, imploringly. "What can it matter to you now? It is I who am his wife; you cannot get any good out of a mere empty revenge. ”

“ I do not think, however, that it can be what I feel."
"My child, no union can be hallowed without love. Vera, you will not run into so great a danger?" he said anxiously.
She looked up at him smiling.
"I like him better than any one else, at all events. Better than Mr. Gisburne, for instance. And I think, I do really think, Eustace, it will be for my happiness."
The vicar looked grave. "If Sir John Kynaston were a poor man, would you marry him?"
And Vera answered bravely, though with a heightened colour—
"No; but it is not only for the money, Eustace; indeed it is not. ”

“ Very well, then, it is by them that I will do what I want. A great genius can bend to small things as well as soar to large ones—Voyons done, ma belle, which of us will be the victor!"
All this time he was gazing at her fixedly and dejectedly.
"Miss Nevill," he said, gloomily, "I will accept your rejection; to-morrow I will say good-bye to this country for ever!"
"We are all going away this week," said Vera, cheerfully: "this is the end of July. You will come back again next year, and enjoy your season as much as ever."
"Never—never. Lucien D'Arblet will visit this country no more. ”

“ Once at least in a man's life, if only for a brief space, he reverences
the saint in the woman he desires. He may love and pursue again and again,
but she who has power to hold him back, who can make him tremble instead
of woo, who can make him silent when he feels eloquent, and restrained when
most impassioned, has won from him what never again can be given.
It was an easier matter to win him than Vera thought.
A week later Sir John Kynaston sat alone by his library fire, after breakfast, and owned to himself that he had fallen hopelessly and helplessly in love with Vera Nevill. ”

“ He had evidently no intention of being driven off the field.
"I had something of great importance to say to you this evening," murmured Monsieur D'Arblet, at length, looking fixedly at his enemy's upturned face.
"All right, go ahead, don't mind me," says the young gentleman, amiably. "I'm never in the way, am I, Miss Nevill?"
"Never, Mr. Wilde," answers Vera, sweetly. Like a true woman, she quite appreciates the fun of the situation, and thoroughly enjoys it; "pray tell me what you have to say, monsieur." ”

“ And was it likely that Vera, with such a weapon in her hands, would spare her? What woman, with so signal a revenge in her power, would forego the delight of wreaking it upon the woman who had taken from her the man she loved? Helen knew that in Vera's place she would show no mercy to her rival.
It was all clear as daylight to her now; the appointment at the vicarage gate, the something which she had said in her note she had for him; the whole mystery of the secret meeting between them—it was Vera's revenge. Vera, whom Maurice loved, and whom she, Helen, hated with such a deadly hatred! ”

“ But now she had learnt her lesson; there were to be no more dreams of pure and unsullied happiness for her,—no more cravings after what was good and true and lovely; henceforth she would go back to the teachings of her youth, to the experience which had told her that a handsome woman can always command her life as she pleases, and that wealth, which is a tangible reality, is better worth striving after than the vain shadow called love, which all talk about and so few make any practical sacrifices for. Well, she, Vera Nevill, had tried it, and had made her sacrifices ”

“ Vera has never loved. No one spark of divine fire has ever touched her soul or warmed the latent energies of her being. She has lived in the thick of the world, but love has passed her scatheless. Her mind, her intellect, her brain, are all alive, and sharpened acutely; her heart slumbers still. Happier for her, perhaps, had it never awakened.
She leant upon the stone parapet, supporting her chin upon her hand, dreaming her dreams. ”

“ Life is an unsolvable problem. Shall we ever, in some other world, I wonder, read its riddles aright?
All these moral dissertations have been called forth because Vera Nevill went to stay for a week at Shadonake. If she had known—what we none of us know—the future, she doubtless would have stayed away. Fate—a beneficent fate, indeed—made, I am bound to confess, a valiant effort in her behalf. Little Minnie fell ill the day before her departure ”

“ In the vicarage drawing-room the afternoon tea-table has just been set out, and the fire just lit, for it is chilly; but one of the long French windows leading into the garden is still open, and through it Vera steps into the room.
There is a background of brown and yellow foliage behind her, across the garden, all aglow with the crimson light of the western sky, against which the outlines of her figure, in its close-fitting dark dress, stand out clearly and distinctly. Vera has the figure, not of a sylph, but of a goddess; it is the absolute perfection of the female form. ”

“ I am fully sensible of your affection, and am very grateful for it. I fear you think too highly of me; but I will endeavour to prove myself worthy of your good opinion, and to make you as good a wife as you deserve.
"Yours,
"Vera Nevill."
She was conscious herself of the excessive coldness of her note, but she could not help it. She could not, for the life of her, have made it warmer. Nothing, indeed, is so difficult as to write down feelings that do not exist; it is easier to simulate with our spoken words and our looks ”

“ I wouldn't have missed seeing that lovely lavender satin the bride wore for worlds; did you notice the cut of the jacket front, Vera; it was something new; she looked as happy as possible too. I daresay her first marriage was a coup manqué; they generally are when women marry again."
"Suppose we take these three chairs in the shade," suggested Monsieur D'Arblet, cutting short, unceremoniously the string of her remarks, which apparently were no more soothing to himself than to Miss Nevill. ”

“ Forgive me, John," turning to him with a sudden penitence, "I should not have pained you by saying these things; you who have been so infinitely good to me. Go your way across the world, and forget me. Ah! have I not been a curse to every one who bears the name of Kynaston?"
He was silent from very pity. Vera was no longer to him the goddess of his imagination; the one pure and peerless woman, above all other women, such as he had once fancied her to be. ”

“ Eustace Daintree would say heartily, as his wife, with a little natural flush of pride, handed some picture of her young sister across the breakfast-table to him. "How I wish we could see her, she must be worth looking at, indeed. Mother, have you seen this last one of Vera?"
"Beauty is a snare," the old lady would answer viciously, hardly deigning to glance at the lovely face; "and your sister seems to me, Marion, to be dressed up like an actress, most unlike my idea of a modest English girl." ”

“ Other women lay themselves out to attract and to be admired; Vera only sits still, and waits with a certain queenliness of manner for the worship that is laid at her feet, and which she receives as her due.
Behind her, with his hand on the back of her chair, stands a young fellow of about two or three and twenty; he does not speak to her much, nor join in the merry, empty chatter that is going on around her; but it is easy to see by the way he looks down at her, by the fashion in which he watches her slightest movement, that Vera exercises no ordinary influence over him. ”

“ I took up my life bravely, and I married a most estimable man; I lived an active and healthy life, so that by degrees it became a happy one. Now, Vera, why should you not do the same? Your people have a right to expect that you should marry; they cannot afford to support you for always. Because you are disappointed in one thing, why are you not to make the best you can of your life?"
"I do mean to marry—in time," said Vera, brokenly, with tears in her eyes.
"Then why not marry John?"
There was a minute's silence. Was it possible that Lady Kynaston did not know? Vera asked herself. ”

“ Daintree, I am sure Vera never meant——" cried Marion, trembling for fear of a fresh battle.
"Don't interrupt me, Marion; you ought to have more proper pride than to stand by and hear the Church reviled."
"Vera only said she did not like them."
"No more I do, Marion," said Vera, stifling a yawn—"not when they are young; when they are old, like Eustace, they are far better; but when they are young they are all exactly alike—equally harmless when out of the pulpit, and equally wearisome when in it!" ”

“ CHAPTER XV. VERA'S MESSAGE.
Alas! how easily things go wrong,
A word too much, or a sigh too long;
And there comes a mist and a driving rain,
And life is never the same again.
The library at Kynaston was the room which Sir John had used as his only sitting-room since he had come down to stay in his own house. When his wedding with Miss Nevill had been definitely fixed, there had come down from town a whole army of decorators and painters and upholsterers, who had set to work to renovate and adorn the rest of the house for the advent of the bride, who was so soon to be brought home to it. ”

“ Vera smiles, and does not answer.
Mrs. Hazeldine goes on with her task.
"There! that's done!" she cries, at last, getting up from the table, and piling her notes up in a heap on one side of it. "Now, I am at your orders."
She comes forward into the room—a pretty, dark-eyed, oval-faced woman, with a figure in which her dressmaker has understood how to supplement all that nature has but imperfectly carried out. A woman with restless movements and an ever-ready tongue—a thorough daughter of the London world she lives in.
Vera leans her head back in her chair, and looks at her. ”