"Well, my dear--"
"Victor was to see you yesterday. Did he tell you this? No need to distress yourself--I see he did. And so I am to be turned from Catheron Royals for the soap-boiler"s daughter, if I don"t stand aside and let her reign. It is well to be warned--I shall not forget it."
Lady Helena was at a loss. What could she say? What could she do?
Something in the set, intense face of the girl frightened her--absolutely frightened her. She rose hurriedly to go.
"Will you come to Powyss Place on Thursday next?" she asked. "I hardly like to press you, Inez, under the circ.u.mstances. For poor Victor"s sake I want to make the best of it. I give a dinner party, as you know; invite all our friends, and present Lady Catheron. There is no help for it. If I take her up, all the country will; but if _you_ had rather not appear, Inez--"
There was a sharp, quick, warning flash from the black eyes.
"Why should I not appear? Victor may be a coward--_I_ am not. I will go. I will face our whole visiting list, and defy them to pity me.
Take up the soap-boiler"s heiress by all means, but, powerful as you are, I doubt if even you will be able to keep her afloat. Try the experiment--give the dinner party--I will be there."
"It"s a very fine thing for a tradesman"s daughter to marry a rich baronet, no doubt," commented Lady Helena, as she was driven home; "but, with Inez for my rival, _I_ shouldn"t care to risk it. I only hope, for my sake at least, she will let the poor thing alone next Thursday."
The "poor thing" indeed! If Sir Victor"s life had been badgered during the past fortnight, his wife"s life had been rendered nearly unendurable. Inez knew so well how to stab, and she never spared a thrust. It was wonderful, the bitterest, stinging things she could say over and over again, in her slow, _legato_ tones. She never spared.
Her tongue was a two-edged sword, and the black deriding eyes looked pitilessly on her victim"s writhes and quivers. And Ethel bore it.
She loved her husband--he feared his cousin--for his sake she endured.
Only once, after some trebly cruel stab, she had cried aloud in her pa.s.sionate pain:
"I can"t endure it, Victor--I cannot! She will kill me. Take me back to London, to Russell Square, anywhere away from your dreadful cousin!"
He had soothed her as best he might, and riding over to Powyss Place, had given his aunt that warning.
"It will seem a horribly cruel and inhuman thing to turn her from the home where she has reigned mistress so long," he said to himself. "I will never be able to hold up my head in the county after--but she _must_ let Ethel alone. By fair means or foul she must."
The day of Lady Helena Powyss" party came--a terrible ordeal for Ethel.
She had grown miserably nervous under the life she had led the past two weeks--the ceaseless mockery of Miss Catheron"s soft, scornful tones, the silent contempt and derision of her hard black eyes. What should she wear? how should she act? What if she made some absurd blunder, betraying her plebeian birth and breeding? What if she mortified her thin-skinned husband? Oh! why was it necessary to go at all?
"My dear child," her husband said, kissing her good-humoredly, "it isn"t worth that despairing face. Just put on one of your pretty dinner-dresses, a flower in your hair, and your pearls. Be your own simple, natural, dear little self, and there will not be a lady at Aunt Helena"s able to shine you down."
And when an hour after, she descended, in a sweeping robe of silvery blue, white lilies in her yellow hair, and pale pearls clasping her slim throat, she looked fair as a dream.
Inez"s black eyes flashed angrily as they fell upon her. Soap-boiler"s daughter she might be, with the blood of many Dobbs in her veins, but no young peeress, born to the purple, ever looked more graceful, more refined.
For Miss Catheron herself, she was quite bewildering in a dress of dead white silk, soft laces and dashes of crimson about her as usual, and rubies flashing here and there. She swept on to the carriage with head held haughtily erect, a contemptuous smile on her lips, like anything on earth but a jilted maiden.
Lady Helena"s rooms were filled when they entered; not one invitation had been declined. Society had mustered in fullest force to see Sir Victor Catheron"s low-born wife, to see how Miss Catheron bore her humiliation. How would the one bear their scrutiny, the other their pity? But Miss Catheron, handsome, smiling, brilliant, came in among them with eyes that said: "Pity me if you dare!" And upon Sir Victor"s arm there followed the small, graceful figure, the sweet, fair face of a girl who did not look one day more than sixteen--by all odds the prettiest girl in the rooms.
Lady Helena--who, when she did that sort of thing, _did_ do it--took the little wife under her wing at once. People by the score, it seemed to the bewildered Ethel, were presented, and the stereotyped compliments of society were poured into her ear. Sir Victor was congratulated, sincerely by the men, with an under-current of pity and mockery by the women. Then they were all at dinner--the bride in the place of honor--running the gauntlet of all those eyes on the alert for any solecism of good manners.
She went through it all, her cheeks flushing, her eyes kindling with excitement growing prettier every moment. Her spirits rose--she would let 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds 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 b.u.t.ter. 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 ap.r.o.n 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 pa.s.sionate 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 G.o.ds, 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 pa.s.sionately--"I am not afraid of you, Juan Catheron!"
"And you will not give me the jewels?"