Countess Vera; or, The Oath of Vengeance

"Bless you, my Vera, my little darling," the pale lips whisper, and then there falls a strange shadow on the room, and a strange silence, for, with the murmured words of blessing, the chords of life have gently parted in twain, and Mrs. Campbell's broken heart is at rest and at peace in that Heavenly peace that "passeth all understanding."

CHAPTER II

The long, wintry night wanes slowly. Vera's own loving hands have robed the dead for the rest of the grave. She has gone away now to the solitude of her own little chamber under the eaves, leaving Leslie Noble keeping watch beside the loved lost one.

She has forgotten for a moment the brief and solemn words that gave her away to be a wife in her early innocent girlhood; she remembers only that the one creature that loved her, and whom she loved, is dead. Crushed to earth by her terrible loss, Vera flings herself face downward on the chilly, uncarpeted floor, and lies there mute, moveless, tearless, stricken into silence by the weight of her bitter despair.

Who that has lost a mother, the one true heart that loves us truly and unselfishly of all the world, but can sympathize with the bereaved child in her deep despair.

In vain the kind-hearted minister whispered words of comfort, in vain Leslie tried to soothe her, and win her to tears, in awe of her strange, white face and dry-lidded eyes. They could not understand her, and were fain to leave her alone, the while one quoted fearfully to the other:

"The grief that does not speak,
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break."

So the chilly night wanes, and at three o'clock in the morning, carriage wheels echo loudly in the street below, and pause in front of the house. The haughty mistress, and Ivy, her daughter, have returned from the esthetic ball whose delights they could not forego, although their relative lay ill unto death in the house.

A tap at Vera's door, and Mrs. Brown, the chamber-maid, glances in. The worthy woman has been out at "a party" herself, and is quite unconscious of all that has happened since she left the house. Her stolid gaze falls curiously on the recumbent figure on the cold, hard floor.

"Wake up, Miss Vera! Whatever be you a-sleeping on the cold floor this night for? Miss Ivy says for you to come down to her room immejitly."

Disdaining a reply to the coarse woman, Vera drags herself up from the hard floor, and with stiffened limbs takes her way to the luxurious apartment of her cousin.

How different this large and comfortable room from Vera's bare and fireless little den. Miss Cleveland's apartment has soft hangings of pale-blue plush, bordered with silver, cream lace curtains, a blue satin counterpane embroidered with silvery water-lilies. The atmosphere is warm and dreamy, and languid with the scent of hot-house flowers in blue and silver vases. The mistress of all this elegance stands in the center of the room, clothed in an esthetic gown of pale-blue, embroidered down the front with small sunflowers. She is a pretty blonde, with straw-colored hair in loose waves, and turquoise blue eyes, that usually wear an expression of infantine appeal and innocence. Just now the eyes look heavy and dull, and there is a tired, impatient look on her delicate-featured face.

"Here you are at last," she says, as Vera comes slowly in with her white face and heavy eyes, with their look of dumb and hopeless pain. "Hurry up now and undress me; I'm tired and sleepy, and ready to drop!"

Vera stands still, looking gravely at her, and making no move to obey the cool and insolent mandate. For years her cousin has ruthlessly trampled her under foot, and made her a despised slave.

It comes to the girl with a sudden thrill of triumph now that this is the last time Ivy will ever order her about. She is Leslie Noble's wife, and he will shield her from her cousin's abuse.

"Come, don't stand staring like a fool," Ivy breaks out coarsely and impatiently. "Don't you see I'm waiting? Here, pull off these tight slippers. I cannot stand them a minute longer!"

She throws herself into a blue-cushioned chair, and thrusts forward her small feet encased in white kid slippers and blue silk hose, and Vera, conquering her strong impulse of rebellion, kneels down to perform the menial service.

After all, what does this last time matter? she asks herself, wearily. After to-morrow she will be out of their power. Tonight, while that dear, dead mother lies in the house, she will keep still, she will have peace, no matter how bitter the cup of degradation pressed to her loathing lips.

With steady hands she unlaces the silken cords that lace the white slippers, draws them off the compressed feet, and unclasps the satin garters from the blue silken hose. All the while Ivy raves angrily:

"I have seen for some time that you rebel against waiting on me, ungrateful minx, as if all you could do would repay us for the charity that has clothed and fed you all your life. To-morrow I shall report you to your mother, and if she does not bring you into better subjection, you shall both be driven away, do you hear?"

Her mother! This is the iron rod with which they have ruled poor Vera all her life long. That poor, drooping, delicate mother, whose hold on life had never been but half-hearted, whose only home and shelter had been the grudging and hard-earned charity of her heartless and parsimonious sister. Day in and day out the Clevelands had driven their two weak slaves relentlessly, always holding over their heads the dread of being turned out to face the cold world alone.

A low and bitter laugh rises to Vera's lips at the thought that that poor, meek dependent is beyond their dominion now, and that Ivy's threatened complaints can never rise to that high Heaven where her mother's freed spirit soars in happiness and peace.

"Not that you are of much account, anyway," pursues the heartless girl, angrily. "You can never be trained into a proper maid, you stiff-necked little pauper. If mamma were not so mean and stingy she would let me have a real French maid like other girls. Never mind, when once I am Mrs. Leslie Noble I'll show her how I will spend money!"

Vera shivers, and her heart thumps heavily against her side. The one idea of Ivy's life is to marry Leslie Noble. He is handsome, fascinating, wealthy, in short, her beau ideal of perfection. He has come on a month's visit to her mother from a distant city, and both mater and daughter are sure, quite sure, that the object for which he was invited is accomplished; they have hooked the golden fish, they have no doubt. What will Ivy say when she knows that she, the despised Vera, is Leslie Noble's chosen bride?

"She will kill me, just that!" the girl murmurs to herself in terror, while a second terror shakes her slight frame.

"What are you trembling for?" Ivy demands, shortly. "Are you afraid I will slap you as I did last night? Well, you richly deserve it, and I don't know but that I may. Hurry, now, and fix my hair and bring my robe de nuit. It will be broad daylight before I get into bed. And I want to rise early to find out why Leslie did not come to the ball."

Vera moves about mechanically, obeying orders, but answering never a word.

A golden gleam has come into the eyes beneath the drooping lashes, a heavy, deep red spot glows in the center of her death-white cheeks. Half-frightened as she is at the thought of Ivy's rage when she learns the truth, she is yet filled with triumph at the thought of her own vengeance on her enemies, this glorious vengeance that has come to her unsought.

She will be Leslie Noble's wife, she will queen it over Ivy and her mother. She will wear satin and laces and diamonds, she will have French maids to wait on her, and then a sudden anguished recollection drives the blood from her heart and forces a moan of despair from her white lips—what is all her triumph since it cannot bring back the dead?

She is moving to the door, having tucked the blue satin counterpane about Ivy's small figure, when the straw-gold head pops up, and the frivolous beauty recalls her.

"I say, Vera, is the embroidery finished on my Surah polonaise? Because I shall want it to-morrow night to wear to Mrs. Montague's german. Tell your mother I shall want it without fail. I am tired of this shamming sickness. It's nothing but laziness—just that. Did you say it was finished?"

"No," Vera answers her, through her white lips. Ivy springs up tumultuously in the bed.

"Not finished!" she screams, shrilly.

"Scandalous! I tell you I want it to-morrow night! I will have it—you hear! Go and tell your mother to get up this instant and go to work at it. Go and tell her—you hear?"

Vera, with her hands on the latch, and that crimson spot burning dully on her cheeks, answers with sudden, passionate defiance:

"I will not!"

All in a moment Ivy is out of bed, and her small, claw-like fingers clutch Vera's arm, the other hand comes down in a ringing slap on Vera's cheek.

"Take that, little vixen!" she hisses, furiously, "and that, and that! How dare you defy me?"

Vera pushes her off with a sudden passionate defiance.

"Because I am not afraid of you any longer," she says, sharply. "Because poor mamma has escaped you. She is free—she is dead!"

"Dead!" Ivy screams in passionate wrath. "Dead—and the embroidery not finished on my Surah polonaise! It is just like her—the lazy, ungrateful thing! To go and die just when I needed–"

But Vera slams the door between her and the rest of the heartless lament, and flies along the hall laughing like some mad thing. In truth the horrors of this dreadful night have almost unseated her reason. She shuts and bolts herself into her room, her young heart filled with wild hatred for her heartless cousin.

"To-morrow I shall have my revenge upon her," she cries, with clenched hands. "I would not tell her to-night. My triumph would not have been complete. I will wait—wait until to-morrow, when Leslie Noble will take me by the hand and tell her to her face that he loves me, and that I am his wife!"

And her strange, half-maddened laugh filled the little room with weird echoes.

CHAPTER III

To-morrow, Vera's to-morrow—dawns, rainy, chilly, cheerless, as only a rainy autumn day can be. The wild winds sigh eerily around the house. The autumn leaves are beaten from the trees and swirl through the air, falling in dank, sodden masses on the soaked grass of the lawn. The sun refuses to shine. No more dreary and desolate day could be imagined.

With the earliest peep of dawn Vera makes her way to her mother's room.

It is lonely and deserted save for the sheeted presence of the quiet dead. The lamps burn dimly, and there is a silence in the room so deep it may be felt.

With a trembling hand Vera turns down the cold linen cover for one long, lingering look at the beloved face—the strangely-beautiful marble-white face, on which the story of a life-long sorrow has carved its mournful record in the subtle tracery of grief.