He was a very impetuous young man, a very selfish and unstable young man, with whom, all his life, to wish was to have. He had been spoiled by a doting mother from his cradle, spoiled by obsequious servants, spoiled by Inez Catheron"s boundless worship. And he wished for this "rose of the rose-bud garden of girls" as he had never wished for anything in his two-and-twenty years of life. As a man in a dream he went through that magic ceremony, "Miss Dobb, allow me to present my friend, Sir Victor Catheron," and they were free to look at each other, talk to each other, fall in love with each other as much as they pleased. As in a dream he lingered by her side three golden hours, as in a dream he said, "Good afternoon," and walked back to his hotel smoking a cigar, the world glorified above and about him. As in a dream they told him she was the only daughter and heiress of a well-to-do London soap-boiler, and he did not wake.
She was the daughter of a soap-boiler. The paternal manufactory was in the grimiest part of the grimy metropolis; but, remarkable to say, she had as much innate pride, self-respect, and delicacy as though "all the blood of all the Howards" flowed in those blue veins.
He wasn"t a bad sort of young fellow, as young fellows go, and frantically in love. There was but one question to ask, just eight days after this--"Will you be my wife?"--but one answer, of course--"Yes."
But one answer, of course! How would it be possible for a soap-boiler"s daughter to refuse a baronet? And yet his heart had beaten with a fear that turned him dizzy and sick as he asked it; for she had shrunk away for one instant, frightened by his fiery wooing, and the sweet face had grown suddenly and startlingly pale. Is it not the rule that all maidens shall blush when their lovers ask _the_ question of questions?
The rosy brightness, the smiles, the dimples, all faded out of this face, and a white look of sudden fear crossed it. The startled eyes had shrank from his eager, flushed face and looked over the wide sea.
For fully five minutes she never spoke or stirred. To his dying day that hour was with him--his pa.s.sionate love, his sick, horrible fear, his dizzy rapture, when she spoke at last, only one word--"yes." To his dying day he saw her as he saw her then, in her summery muslin dress, her gipsy hat, the pale, troubled look chasing the color from the drooping face.
But the answer was "yes." Was he not a baronet? Was she not a well-trained English girl? And the ecstasy of pride, of joy, of that city soap-boiler"s family, who shall paint? "Awake my muse" and--but, no! it pa.s.seth all telling. They bowed down before him (figuratively), this good British tradesman and his fat wife, and worshipped him. They burned incense at his shrine; they adored the ground he walked on; they snubbed their neighbors, and held their chins at an alt.i.tude never attained by the family of Dobb before. And in six weeks Miss Ethel Dobb became Lady Catheron.
It was the quietest, the dullest, the most secret of weddings--not a soul present except Papa and Mamma Dobb, a military swell in the grenadier guards--Pythias, at present, to Sir Victor"s Damon--the parson, and the pew-opener. He was madly in love, but he was ashamed of the family soap-boiling, and he was afraid of his cousin Inez.
He told them a vague story enough of family matters, etc., that rendered secrecy for the present necessary, and n.o.body cross-questioned the baronet. That the parson was a parson, the marriage _bona fide_, his daughter "my lady," and himself the prospective grandfather of many baronets, was enough for the honest soap-boiler.
For the bride herself, she said little, in a shy, faltering little way.
She was very fond of her dashing, high-born, impulsive lover, and very well content not to come into the full blaze and dazzle of high life just yet. If any other romance had ever figured in her simple life, _the_ story was finished and done with, the book read and put away.
He took her to Switzerland, to Germany, to Southern France, keeping well out of the way of other tourists, and ten months followed--ten months of such exquisite, unalloyed bliss, as rarely falls to mortal man. Unalloyed, did I say? Well, not quite, since earth and heaven are two different places. In the dead of pale Southern nights, with the shine of the moon on his wife"s lovely sleeping face; in the hot, brilliant noontide; in the sweet, green gloaming--Inez Catheron"s black eyes came menacingly before him--the one bitter drop in his cup.
All his life he had been a little afraid of her. He was something more than a little afraid of her now.
They returned. The commodious lodgings in Russell Square awaited him, and Sir Victor "went in" for domestic felicity in the parish of Bloomsbury, "on the quiet." Very much "on the quiet" no theatre going, no opera, no visitors, and big Captain Jack Erroll, of the Second Grenadiers, his only guest. Four months of this sort of thing, and then--and then there was a son.
Lying in her lace-draped, satin-covered bed, looking at baby"s fat little, funny little face, Ethel, Lady Catheron, began to think. She had time to think in her quiet and solitude. Monthly nurses and husbands being in the very nature of things antagonistic, and nurse being reigning potentate at present, the husband was banished. And Lady Catheron grew hot and indignant that the heir of Catheron Royals should have to be born in London lodgings, and the mistress of Catheron Royals live shut up like a nun, or a fair Rosamond in a bower.
"You have no relations living but your cousin, Victor," she said to him, more coldly than she had ever spoken in her life. "Are you master in your own house, or is she? Are you afraid of this Miss Catheron, who writes you such long letters (which I never see), that you dare not take your wife home?"
He had told her something of that other story necessarily--his former engagement to his cousin, Inez. Only something--not the bare ugly truth of his own treachery. The soap-boiler"s daughter was more n.o.ble of soul than the baronet. Gentle as she was, she would have despised him thoroughly had she known the truth.
"This secrecy has lasted long enough," Lady Catheron said, a resolute-looking expression crossing her pretty, soft-cut mouth. "The time has come when you must speak. Don"t make me think you are ashamed of me, or afraid of her. Take me home--it is my right; acknowledge your son--it is _his_. When there was only I, it did not so much matter--it is different now."
She lifted one of baby"s dots of hands, and kissed it. And Sir Victor, his face hidden in the shadow of the curtains, his voice husky, made answer:
"You are right, Ethel--you always are. As soon as you both can travel, my wife and child shall come home with me to Catheron Royals."
Just three weeks later, as the August days were ending, came that last letter from Inez, commanding his return. His hour had come. He took the next morning train, and went forth to meet the woman he feared and had wronged.
The afternoon sun drops lower. If Sir Victor returns from Cheshire to-day, Lady Catheron knows he will be here in a few minutes. She looked at her watch a little wearily. The days are very long and lonely without him. Looks up again, her eyes alight. A hansom has dashed up to the door, and it is her husband who leaps out. Half a minute and he is in the room, and she is clasped in his arms.
"My darling!" he exclaims, and you need only hear the two words to tell how rapturously he loves his wife. "Let me look at you. Oh! as pale as ever, I see. Never mind! Cheshire air, sunshine, green fields, and new milk shall bring back your roses. And your son and heir, my lady, how is he?"
He bends over the pretty ba.s.sinet, with that absurd paternal look all _very_ new fathers regard the first blessing, and his mustache tickles baby"s innocent nose.
A flush comes into her face. She looks at him eagerly.
"At last! Oh, Victor, when do we go?"
"To-morrow, if you are able. The sooner the better."
He says it with rather a forced laugh. Her face clouds a little.
"And your cousin? Was she _very_ angry!" she asked, wistfully; "_very_ much surprised?"
"Well--yes--naturally, I am afraid she was both. We must make the best of that, however. To tell the truth, I had only one interview with her, and that of so particularly unpleasant a nature, that I left next morning. So then we start to-morrow? I"ll just drop a line to Erroll to apprise him."
He catches hold of his wife"s writing-table to wheel it near. By some clumsiness his foot catches in one of its spidery claws, and with a crash it topples over. Away goes the writing case, flying open and scattering the contents far and wide. The crash shocks baby"s nerves, baby begins to cry, and the new-made mamma flies to her angel"s side.
"I say!" Sir Victor cries. "Look here! Awkward thing of me to do, eh, Ethel? Writing case broken too. Never mind, I"ll pick "em up."
He goes down on his knees boyishly, and begins gathering them up.
Letters, envelopes, wax, seals, pens and pencils. He flings all in a heap in the broken case. Lady Catheron cooing to baby, looks smilingly on. Suddenly he comes to a full stop.
Comes to a full stop, and holds something before him as though it were a snake. A very harmless snake apparently--the photograph of a young and handsome man. For fully a minute he gazes at it utterly aghast.
"Good Heaven!" his wife hears him say.
Holding baby in her arms she glances at him. The back of the picture is toward her, but she recognizes it. Her face turns ashen gray--she moves round and bends it over baby.
"Ethel!" Sir Victor says, his voice stern, "what does this mean?"
"What does what mean? Hush-h-h baby, darling. Not so loud, Victor, please. I want to get babe asleep."
"How comes Juan Catheron"s picture here?"
She catches her breath--the tone, in which Sir Victor speaks, is a tone not pleasant to hear. She is a thoroughly good little thing, but the best of little things (being women) are _ergo_ dissemblers. For a second she dares not face him; then she comes bravely up to time and looks at him over her shoulder.
"Juan Catheron! Oh, to be sure. Is that picture here yet?" with a little laugh. "I thought I had lost it centuries ago." "Good Heaven!"
she exclaims inwardly; "how _could_ I have been such a fool!"
Sir Victor rises to his feet--a curious pa.s.sing likeness to his dark cousin, Inez, on his fair blonde face. "Then you know Juan Catheron.
_You_! And you never told me."
"My dear Sir Victor," with a little pout, "don"t be unreasonable. I should have something to do, if I put you _au courant_ of all my acquaintances. I knew Mr. Catheron--slightly," with a gasp. "Is there any crime in that?"
"Yes!" Sir Victor answers, in a voice that makes his wife jump and his son cry. "Yes--there is. I wouldn"t own a dog--if Juan Catheron had owned him before me. To look at him, is pollution enough--to know him--disgrace!"
"Victor! Disgrace!"
"Disgrace, Ethel! He is one of the vilest, most profligate, most lost wretches that ever disgraced a good name. Ethel, I command you to tell me--was this man ever anything to you--friend--lover--what?"
"And if he has been--what then?" She rises and faces him proudly. "Am I to answer for his sins?"
"Yes--we all must answer more or less for those who are our friends.
How come you to have his picture? What has he been to you? Not your lover--for Heaven"s sake, Ethel, never _that_!"
"And why not? Mind!" she says, still facing him, her blue eyes aglitter, "I don"t say that he was, but _if_ he was--what then?"