Lillian's vow or, The mystery of Raleigh House
ill it would be different; but as it is I demand obedience, and I shall
exact it hereafter!”
She shut her white teeth hard together, and the white hand that poured
the steaming coffee from the silver urn shook a little. But she
compressed her lips over the sharp retort which trembled for utterance,
and went on with her occupation. At last:
“Here is a letter that came for you this morning,” he snarled, as he
tossed a square white envelope across the table, where it fell beside
her plate. “By the way,” he demanded, harshly, his small eyes upon her
face with a look of menace, “who is ‘C. F.’?”
“‘C. F.’?” And the blood forsook her white face; the cup of delicate
egg-shell china which she was about lifting to her lips fell from her
grasp and was shivered into fragments. “You startled me, Van,” she
observed, apologetically.
His eyes snapped.
“But that is not answering my question,” he persisted. “There’s no use
in your trying to keep all your past to yourself, Lenore Van Alstyne.
When I married you, you acknowledged that there was something in your
past of which I was in ignorance--deuced disagreeable to have a wife
with secrets in her life--and I agreed to ask no questions; and it was
also settled upon the day”--emphatically, with his ugly eyes staring
full into her own--“that I honored you with my name, my hand and
fortune, that all your past was to be dropped forever with the name of
Vane. You remember that that was the agreement, Lenore?”
She bowed coldly.
“Heaven knows I have small chance to forget,” she returned, wearily,
“since you remind me of it every day of my life--every weary, endless
day of my wretched life!” she moaned, stopping short in a spasm of
terror at sight of the thunder-cloud upon his face.
“See here, madame”--he brought his big, fat hand down upon the table
with a force which made the china jump--“if all these heroics are
intended to act as a means of diverting me from getting at the truth,
let me tell you, my lady, that you are failing in your attempt. Once
more I ask--nay, demand of you, Mrs. Van Alstyne--_who is ‘C. F.’?_”
“I do not know what you mean,” she faltered.
“Well, are you never going to open that letter? You will see by
glancing at it that it is sealed with the monogram ‘C. F.’”
For the first time she glanced at the letter. It was lying face
uppermost, addressed in a bold, legible hand to Mrs. Lenore Van
Alstyne. Surely that handwriting was familiar to her? A strange pang
shot through her heart, an awful pallor overspread her cheek; she
crushed her teeth into her under lip with savage ferocity as she took
the letter from the table and turned it over. It was sealed with a drop
of wax, red and glistening, which bore the monogram “C. F.” She knew
then why her husband had awaited her appearance at the breakfast-table.
He was afraid to open the letter and seal it again, as he had been
guilty of doing before now, for the wax could not be broken and
resealed without betraying the truth. Her lip curled with disdain as
she slowly opened the letter. One glance--one swift, eager glance--and
she started to her feet with a low moan. One hand was pressed against
her heart as though to still its awful tumult, the other clutched the
letter in a most despairing grasp.
“Heaven help me!” she whispered low under her breath. And all the time
those basilisk eyes were upon her with an eager, devouring gaze, and
Senator Van Alstyne watched his wife as a cat watches the mouse upon
which it is about to spring. At last:
“Well, Mrs. Van Alstyne, you seem inclined to be tragical this
morning!” he sneered. “Here, give me the letter.”
She drew back with a gesture of horror in her beautiful dark eyes--a
look that was bad to see.
“No! no! no!” she panted, hoarsely; “you must not! I--I mean that it is
nothing. My heart hurts me this morning, and I was a little startled! I
shall be all right soon, and--”
“Mrs. Van Alstyne!”
He darted forward and clutched her white arm in a grasp of steel.
“Give me that letter, I say!” he panted, glaring down into her
terrified face with his cruel eyes. “How dare you have secrets from
me--I, your husband, your lord and master? Give me that letter at once,
I command you, or by the Heaven above us I will force it from you!”
Her head was crested like the head of some beautiful wild creature
brought to bay by the cruel hounds, and her starry eyes flashed fire.
“Unhand me, sir!” she commanded, in a low, ominous voice. “Let go my
arm, Van Van Alstyne, or I will ring for the servants, and throw myself
upon their protection!”
“Will you give me that letter?” he hissed once more.
“No! I will not! You have no more right to demand my letters of me in
this brutal way than I have to see yours--if I care to--from the pretty
ballet-dancer who wrote to you yesterday!”
He fell back a little, and his ruddy face grew pale.
“Nonsense! A man and a woman are different in the eyes of society. It
would be a pretty thing if a woman were allowed the same privileges
that a man is permitted.”
Her lip curled with haughty scorn.
“We agree to disagree upon that subject, Senator Van Alstyne,” she
returned, quietly; “and now I will finish my breakfast.”
“You will do nothing of the sort! By Jove! madame, I will have you to
know that I am master of this house, and that you--curse you!--are my
wife! You belong to me, just the same as my horses and dogs, my plate
and furniture! Give me that letter or I will take it.”
She flashed him one look--a look of mingled scorn and defiance--then,
with a swift gesture, she wheeled about and tossed the letter into the
fire. It flamed up red and glowing--flared and flickered and died down
into a heap of feathery ashes. Whatever secret the letter contained, it
was safe from Van Van Alstyne.
For just a moment he stood there, glaring down into her face, his
own so distorted by rage that it had lost all semblance to a human
countenance. His eyes scintillated, his burly form shook with wordless
wrath. He wheeled about, and lifting his hand, brought it down--oh,
shame to his manhood!--upon the white face of the woman before him.
No sound escaped her--no cry, no moan. Awful silence fell over the
room; she neither spoke nor moved. The clock ticked away. One, two,
three, four moments had come and gone; then, with a swift gesture
of unutterable contempt, she lifted her scornful eyes to his face
and--laughed. It was a bad thing to hear--that laugh. He grew pale, and
shivered slightly as he heard it.
“Ah, what a glorious country this must be!” she sneered, in a low,
cutting voice, “whose senate is honored by such creatures as you!
Wife-beater, falsifier, base, perjured villain! How I loathe the name I
bear!”
“Take care that you do not dishonor it!” he sneered.
She lifted her cold eyes to his face.
“Dishonor?”--she laughed once more. “Look to yourself, Van Van Alstyne.”
She swept past him from the room up to her own chamber ere he could
detain her.
Once alone in her room, with the door locked securely, she threw
herself face downward upon the floor with a storm of bitter sobs.
“He lives! he lives!” she murmured; “after all these years he lives
and is true! How horribly I have suffered, how bitter my punishment,
how fearfully I must atone! Yet it was an unintentional sin--it was
my mistake; this is my punishment! God pity me and let me die, for my
heart is broken.”
CHAPTER IX.
DECEIVED.
“LENORE,--Must see you. Failing in that, I will write you to-morrow.
CYRIL.”
Those were the words written upon the scrap of paper which Mrs. Raleigh
eagerly displayed to her daughter. Rosamond glanced the note over, and,
crumpling it fiercely in her hand, she lifted her eyes to her mother’s
face.
“Well, it is evident that she has a secret with a vengeance!” sneered
Rosamond, “for there is something behind all this, I am sure. And it
is no ordinary flirtation or escapade, for Lenore never flirts, and
is scrupulously exact in her behavior. Mamma, this is a clew to the
mystery which hangs around Lenore Van Alstyne; I am sure of it! Let me
keep this paper. I will watch her closely and wait in patience, and if
I am not greatly mistaken there will be developments before long. I
never did fancy Lenore’s reticence in regard to the early part of her
life. You know she lived in Europe with a relative of her father’s, who
afterward died, leaving her alone and dependent upon us. But she never
speaks of her girlhood’s days or her life in Europe. If I chance to
refer to that time she changes the subject as hastily as possible; and
I have seen her grow pale and shudder perceptibly when I happened to
mention the subject. I should say that whatever her secret may be, it
must have occurred some time early in her life, about her sixteenth or
seventeenth year.”
Mrs. Raleigh nodded.
“I believe you are right,” she said; “and now, Rosamond, you had better
retire. These continued late hours are wearing upon you, and you are
beginning to look jaded and--and--old! I will stay with you to-night;
you are lonely and afraid.”
“Do,” in a tone of relief. And so at last Rosamond Raleigh’s head
rested upon her pillow, but the wide-open eyes staring into the
darkness found no sleep. They saw ever before them that pathetic
little figure, the shadowy hands working ever on, so patient--so
piteously patient--even like the fates weaving away at their
never-to-be-completed web. The memory of the vision in the round room
haunted Rosamond Raleigh sleeping or waking, and when morning came she
arose pale and unrefreshed, feeling as though life were a veritable
burden. As soon as breakfast was over she summoned Lillian.
“I want you to go down-town on an errand for me, Lillian,” she began.
“Here is a note to Madame Dupont, my milliner. She has removed to a
place quite out of the world, I should say. Take the note and bring me
a reply. If she is not in wait for her return.”
Lillian was more than willing to go. It was a crisp, wintery morning,
and a walk--even so long a walk--would do her good. So she hurriedly
prepared herself and was soon in the street, her face turned in the
direction indicated. She had not been gone a quarter of an hour when
the door-bell rang and Jack Lyndon made his appearance. Although his
call was intended for Lillian, prudence warned him that it would be
more discreet to inquire for Miss Raleigh. He was shown into the pretty
red-and-gold reception-room, and a little later he was holding Miss
Raleigh’s hand in his, gazing down into a pair of frank, innocent blue
eyes; just as frank and innocent as though she had not sent Lillian
away purposely, and as though she were not playing a game--a desperate
game--which must either be won or lost.
“Oh, Mr. Lyndon, I’m so glad to see you!” lifting the frank blue eyes
for an instant to his, then letting the gold-brown lashes droop over
them once more. “I was feeling really blue and lonely, and wishing that
my good fairy would send some congenial spirit to me; and, lo! you have
come.”
She looked fair and sweet as a picture, in a dainty house-dress of
pale-blue surah shrouded in white lace, fastened at the throat with a
quaint pearl brooch. But Jack was full of the object which had brought
him thither, and felt possessed with the spirit of unrest. Rosamond
talked on gayly, cheerily, trying to divert his mind from the subject
with which it was engaged. At last:
“Miss Raleigh, I have called this morning hoping to obtain an interview
with Miss Leigh. I have something of real importance to say to her, and
trust that you will permit me to infringe upon her time for a brief
space.”
Rosamond’s face was like a marble mask. She arose and rang the bell. A
servant appeared.