Countess Vera; or, The Oath of Vengeance

"Our uncle from America is coming over to visit us," they triumphantly announce to their friend.

"You seem to be glad," Lady Vera answers, kindly.

"Oh, we are," they laugh. "Aren't you glad, too, Vera?"

"I do not know. I do not like Americans much," says Lady Vera, with a distinct remembrance of the Clevelands and Leslie Noble.

"Oh, but you will be sure to like Uncle Phil. He is awfully jolly, and he is a soldier, too. He has a sword and a gun and has promised to teach me to shoot. I am going to be a soldier, too," cries out Mark, the second son.

"And when is this terrible soldier coming?" Lady Vera inquires, with languid interest.

"We do not know exactly, but very soon," they tell her. "He came about this time last year. Mamma had a letter from him this morning."

"You have not told me his name yet," Lady Vera continues.

"He is Captain Philip Lockhart, and his father, our own grandpapa, is General Lockhart," answers Hal, the heir, while little Dot claps her small hands gleefully, crying out:

"Uncle Phil will bring us lots of bu'ful playt'ings from New York. He always does."

But though "Uncle Phil" remains the favorite topic of the nursery for several days, Lady Clive quite forgets to tell her guest that she expects her brother.

Lady Vera scarcely gives it a thought. In the expected arrival of Captain Lockhart she takes not the slightest interest.

So it happened that when Vera runs into the nursery one evening—having promised the children a peep at her ball dress—she comes upon an unexpected tableau. A man on his knees, hammering at the lid of a big box, three hopefuls gathered around him, and chattering like magpies; the prim, white-aproned nurse vainly endeavoring to command silence.

Before Vera can beat her instantly-attempted retreat, the little "Philistines are upon her."

"Here she is," they cry. "This is Vera, of whom we have been telling you. Isn't she pretty, Uncle Phil?"

"But she doesn't like Americans," adds one enfant terrible.

"I am sorry for that," says Captain Lockhart, rising hastily, and giving Lady Vera a soldier's stately bow. "Cannot you persuade her that I am of some other nationality, my dears?"

The ease and lightness of his words and manner carry off some of the embarrassment of the meeting. Lady Vera gives him a bow, and a slight little smile, sweet and transient.

"I am sorry to have interrupted you," she says. "I am going now, directly."

But her swift, upward glance has given her a glimpse of a tall, soldierly form, and a handsome-featured face, with dark-blue eyes, and dark-brown mustache, while short, curling locks of deepest brown cluster about a finely-shaped head—"every inch a soldier."

Our hero, on his part, sees a vision of dazzling beauty—dark eyes, golden tresses, scarlet lips, a slim yet daintily-rounded figure in costly lace, with knots of purple, golden-hearted pansies. Around the slender, stately column of the white throat a necklace of pansies formed of dark, purple amethysts with diamond centers radiating fire—a birthday gift from her father.

"Pray do not go," Captain Lockhart says, persuasively, with the winning tongue of a soldier. "The children have been eagerly expecting you. Do not damp their pleasure. Rather let me withdraw."

"No, no," Lady Vera says, hastily, as he crosses to the door, her haughtiness melting for the moment under his chivalrous manner. "We will both stay—that is, I can only give the children a moment. I am going to a ball."

"So am I, directly, with my sister and Sir Harry. It is very strange Nella did not tell me she had a young lady guest. I am," smiling under the brown mustache, "puzzled over your name."

"It is Vera Campbell," she answers, with a slight flush.

"Lady Vera," pipes the prim nurse from her corner, obsequiously.

"Lady Vera," he says, with a bow and smile; then: "Thank you for the favor. Mine is Philip Lockhart."

"Captain Phil," shouts Mark, anxious that his uncle shall abate no jot of his soldierly dignity.

"He has brought us a great big box," Dot confides to Lady Vera, triumphantly at this moment.

"Which I will leave him to open. My maid has not finished me yet," fibs Vera, and so makes her escape, leaving Captain Phil to the tender mercies of his small relatives, who give him no peace until the heavy box is unpacked, and its contents paraded before their dazzled and rejoicing sight.

Meanwhile Vera secures her opera-cloak, and goes down to the drawing-room, where the earl and Sir Harry are waiting for the ladies.

"Nella will be here in a moment," explains Sir Harry. "She has gone to hurry up her brother, over whom the children are having no end of a jollification. Oh, I forgot, you may not know whom I am talking about. Lady Clive's brother arrived this evening, and will accompany us to Lady Ford's ball."

Vera bows silently, and presently Lady Clive sails in, proudly, with the truant in tow. Evening dress is marvelously becoming to the handsome soldier. Involuntarily Vera thinks of Sir Launcelot:

"The goodliest man that ever among ladies sat in hall,
And noblest."

"Lady Vera, this is my brother, Captain Lockhart," Lady Clive begins, with conscious pride; then pauses, disconcerted by the "still, soft smile" creeping over either face.

"We have met before," Lady Vera explains, with, for her, unusual graciousness. "Met before! Not in America?" cried Lady Clive, bewildered.

"Oh, no," her brother answers, and Lady Vera adds, smiling: "In the nursery, ten minutes ago."

So there is only the earl to introduce, and then they are whirled away to Lady Ford's, where Captain Lockhart meets a score of last season's friends, and to the surprise of Lady Vera, who is prejudiced against almost anything American, he develops some of the graces of a society man, even playing and singing superbly in a full, rich tenor voice.

"Yet, why should he have selected that old, old song: 'The Banks of Allan Water?'" Lady Vera asks herself, scornfully, "and when he sang:

"'For his bride a soldier sought her,'

why should he have looked so straight at me? It was not an impertinent look, I own, but why should he have looked at me at all?"

But even to her own heart, Lady Vera will not own that her great vexation is directed against herself because she has blushed vividly crimson under that one look from Captain Lockhart's blue eyes, while her heart has beat so strangely—with annoyance, she thinks.

"I foresee that I shall hate this American soldier," she muses, "and no wonder at all when I shall be forced to see him every day. I wish now that we had not accepted Lady Clive's invitation for the London season."

CHAPTER XI

The day after Lady Ford's ball dawns cheerlessly. It is cool, and the air is full of floating mists. The gentlemen determine to go out anyhow. The ladies elect to remain at home. The glowing fire in the library has more charms than the bleak, spring air.

"I am not surprised at Nella," says Captain Lockhart, leisurely buttoning his overcoat. "She was raised in America, and our ladies do not walk much. But I have been told that English ladies walk every morning, whether rain or shine. Are you false to the tradition, Lady Vera?"

The color flies into her cheek at his quizzical glance, but she will not tell him what she sees he does not know—that she has been raised in America, too.

"I suppose so," she says, a little shortly, in answer to his question.

"Suppose you come with us for a turn around the square, my dear?" suggests the earl.