CHAPTER V.
NEVA AND HER ENEMIES.
Neva Wynde had arrived in London, by the morning express train from Canterbury, in the care of Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black, and from the moment in which she had emerged with them from the railway station, all clue to her movements was suddenly and mysteriously lost.
What had become of her? How had she so singularly disappeared?
These questions, which filled the souls of Neva’s lover and guardians with such unspeakable terror and anxiety and which they so signally failed in their efforts to solve, we now purpose answering for the benefit of the reader.
On alighting from the crowded morning train, Craven Black hurried his bride, her maid and Neva into a waiting cab, superintended the mounting of the luggage to the stout cab roof, and gave the order to be driven to Gravesend, adding more explicit directions in an undertone. He then entered the vehicle, and the vehicle rolled from the station.
“Where are we going, Mrs. Black?” asked Neva, looking from the cab windows. “I fancied Mr. Black said Gravesend.”
“So he did, my dear,” said Mrs. Craven Black placidly. “Didn’t I tell you that we are going to Yorkshire by water? September is such a lovely month, and this is such lovely weather, and it’s quite the thing to take a sea trip for a bridal tour, and I prevailed upon Craven to charter—is not that the word—a beautiful little yacht, which we are to have three months if we want it. We shall have a glorious voyage down the Thames and up the Channel, and through the great German ocean. The very idea stirs all my love of romance. Doesn’t it affect you in the same manner!”
“But Wynde Heights is not near the sea,” objected Neva, in surprise.
“It’s not two hours distant by rail, and it will be delightful to get up yachting parties by ourselves, and go off for a two-days’ excursion; don’t you think so? Don’t throw cold water upon my little plans for happiness, I beg of you, my dear Neva,” cried Mrs. Craven Black imploringly. “There is no reason why we shouldn’t be perfectly happy, if you won’t interpose objections, Neva.”
Thus adjured, Neva took care to “interpose” no more objections. She had no liking for nor trust in Craven Black, but Mrs. Craven Black had been her father’s beloved and honored wife, and Neva still believed in her. That the pair could mean her harm never once occurred to her. Neither did she realize how completely she was in their power. She had left her maid at home, at Mrs. Black’s solicitation, the latter declaring that one maid would suffice for both, and that she especially disliked Meggy West, the girl who attended upon Neva. Thus the young heiress of Hawkhurst was absolutely friendless and helpless, in the hands of her enemies.
They had a long drive to Gravesend. On arriving at their destination, they alighted at a pier at which a small boat with two oarsmen was lying. These men were dressed in blue sailor custom, each having an arrow embroidered on the breast of his jacket. Mr. Black went up to them, accosting them familiarly.
“What boat do you belong to?” he demanded.
“To the Arrow, sir, lying out yonder,” said one of the men, pointing to a graceful yacht lying in the stream, her sails unfurled, and looking ready for flight. “We are waiting for Mr. Craven Black.”
“I am he. It’s all right, my men. Octavia, my love, let me assist you into the boat. Miss Wynde, this way.”
The maid was left to scramble in by herself. The luggage was deposited in the boat; Mr. Black took his seat, and the rowers pulled off for the yacht.
The process of transferring passengers and luggage to the deck of the Arrow was speedily and safely accomplished. Mrs. Black was ecstatic in her commendations of the arrangements of the little vessel, and occupied the attention of Neva while Mr. Black conversed with the sailors and their captain, and the vessel was gotten under way.
The Arrow was no means a new vessel but she had been recently painted and fitted with new sails, and presented a very trim appearance. She was of about twenty tons burden. She had belonged to a member of the Royal Yacht Club, but had been advertised to be sold for a comparatively small sum, her owner having had built for him a vessel of greater size and speed. Craven Black had seen, a week before, the advertisment offering the Arrow for sale, and warranting her ready to put to sea at an hour’s notice; and a part of the business of Mrs. Artress in town had been to purchase the vessel.
Among his friends of high and low degree, Craven Black possessed one who was thoroughly disreputable, but who had proved useful to him at too many periods of his life to be thrown aside. This person had formerly been a lawyer, but had been stricken from the rolls for illegal or dishonorable practice, and was a needy hanger-on and parasite of Craven Black. This person had been called upon to assist Mrs. Artress in the examination of the yacht, and had purchased the boat in his own name, paying therefor a sum of money provided by Mrs. Craven Black out of the jointure acquired by her marriage with Sir Harold Wynde. This ex-lawyer had also engaged three experienced sailors, one of whom had been a mate on an India vessel, and whom he hired as captain of the Arrow, and these three men were now in charge of the little yacht.
These sailors, we may as well mention here, had been chosen for other qualifications than good seamanship. The ex-lawyer, in the days when he had been qualified to practice his profession, had been called upon to defend the three against a charge of mutiny, preferred against them by their captain. The charge had been proved, they had been convicted, and were now fresh from two years’ imprisonment. The ex-lawyer had come upon them at a drinking shop, after their release, and only a few days before, and knowing their reckless character, had engaged them for a cruise of the Arrow.
Such was the character of the seamen in charge of the yacht; and in such manner had the yacht itself been acquired by Craven Black.
As the vessel moved forward down the stream, the sails filling, Mrs. Black said to her young charge:
“Let us go below, Neva, and take a look at our quarters. The luggage and my maid have gone down.”
Neva assented, and the two went into the cabin, which was found to be newly fitted up, and smelling unpleasantly of fresh paint. The cabin was small, affording room only for the table and divans around it, but there were three neat little state-rooms, newly carpeted and newly furnished with mattresses, blankets, bed-linen, towels, camp chairs, and all toilet appurtenances. One of these state-rooms was appropriated by Mr. and Mrs. Black, the second by Neva, and the third was assigned to the maid, a French woman completely won to the interests of her mistress.
“We shall be very comfortable here, Neva,” said Mrs. Black, with gayety. “The sea air will bring the roses to your cheeks. I think you’ve not been looking well lately.”
“I wish you had told me that we were to go to Yorkshire by sea,” said Neva gravely.
“How could I suppose, my dear child, that you cared whether you went by train or by boat?” demanded Mrs. Black, in seeming surprise. “Your dear papa told me once that you were a fine sailor, and I planned this voyage as a little surprise to you—that’s the truth, Neva.”
“You are very kind,” said the young girl, “but I would have preferred to know it beforehand. My friends will be anxious about me if I do not write as soon as I promised.”
“Your friends?” and Mrs. Black arched her brows. “Are we not your friends?”
“You are, madam, I trust, but you are not my only friend. I leave those behind me who are dear to me, and who have a right to know my movements.”
Mrs. Black looked significantly down upon the great diamond that sparkled in limpid splendor upon Neva’s finger. She had noticed the jewel before, but had refrained from alluding to it.
“Is that ring the gift of one who has a right to know your movements?” she asked, smiling.
Neva blushed, but gravely assented.
“It is from Rufus Black?” asked the elder lady, well knowing to the contrary.
“No, madam,” said Neva bravely, “it is the gift of Lord Towyn, and is the emblem of our betrothal.”
Mrs. Black bit her lips fiercely, but made no response. There was a hardness in her glittering eyes, and a cruel compression of her lips, that boded ill for the engagement thus proclaimed to her.
One of the seamen was an excellent cook and steward, and presently a luncheon was spread in the cabin which proved very tempting to appetites sharpened by sea air. Mrs. Artress had provided such an abundance of delicate stores that a cook was scarcely required. There were tin boxes of assorted biscuits, jars of pickles, boxes of fruits of every kind attainable in Covent Garden market, dried and crystalized fruits, smoked salmon, jerked beef and venison, pickled reindeers’ tongues, and cheeses, cakes and fancy breads in every variety.
After the luncheon, the ladies went on deck, Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black paced to and fro, arm in arm, and Neva leaned idly upon the rail, watching the fleeting shores and the frequent sails and steamers, and tried to shake off the shadow of distrust and gloom that would creep over her soul.
At six o’clock, dinner was served in the cabin. This second meal resembled the one that had preceded, but there were also roast beef, roast fowls, and vegetables, and wines. The swinging lamp was lighted in the cabin, which looked as comfortable as a yacht cabin can be made to look. There is, at best, a dreariness about a ship’s cabin or state-room which no art can conquer. And this cabin was no exception to the rule. Neva was glad to throw a shawl around her and go out again upon the deck.
The moon was shining when she sat down at one side of the boat in her folding deck chair, and the pale flood of silvery light illumined the white-capped waves, and the dark abysses of the waters, the sails of vessels making into port, and the dusky little steamers, making the whole scene a picture full of glorious lights and shadows, but a scene that seemed a picture rather than a reality.
The yacht was out in the North Sea now, battling with the short, chopping waves, but impelled onward by a fine breeze. She was well ballasted, seaworthy, and a swift sailer. What more could be desired by the guilty pair whose hearts beat exultantly at their evil success, as they regarded the unconscious victim of their machinations.
“She has no suspicion,” murmured Craven Black, as he promenaded the deck, his wife leaning on his arm.
“None whatever. She is too guileless herself to suspect guile in others. And she trusts me implicitly,” laughed Octavia Black softly.
“That old dotard, her father, did you and me a good turn when he so frequently urged his daughter to obey me and love me, and try to win my love. I declare, Craven, it’s enough to make the old fellow come out of his grave, to confront us; isn’t it now?”
“If I were superstitions, I might think so,” said Black.
“If he did come out of his grave, he’d be slightly astonished at finding how I had cajoled and hoodwinked him, eh, Craven?” said the woman mockingly. “I’d like him to find out the truth where he is; I would, indeed. I hated the man; and to think you were jealous of him even when you urged me to marry him! Oh, Craven? Do you know, dear, speaking of jealousy, I was once jealous of Neva Wynde?”
“I did not know it.”
“No? Well, I was. It was absurd, of course. I fancied you fell in love with her the first time you saw her.”
Craven Black’s heart stirred guiltily, and his fair cheek flushed. His love for Neva Wynde was not altogether dead yet. It smouldered in his breast, and although at times he believed that he felt an absolute hatred for her, yet all the while a spark of the old passion remained that circumstances might again fan into a flame.
“We’re likely to have more trouble than we looked for,” said Mrs. Black, changing the subject, without awaiting a reply to her previous remark. “Neva owned to me since we came on board that she is engaged to Lord Towyn.”
“I suspected it when I saw that new ring she wears. But go to her now, Octavia. She will suspect us of plotting against her if we whisper together longer.”
Mrs. Black relinquished her husband’s arm, and went to Neva’s side, drawing a deck chair beside her.
“Enjoying the moonlight, Neva?” she asked. “And thinking of the earl, of course? I have not yet wished you joy of your future husband, and I suppose I ought to do so now. But first I would like to ask you if you have irrevocably chosen to obey your own wishes in regard to your marriage, rather than to regard the last wishes of your father?”
“I am not certain what were my father’s wishes,” said Neva, with a strange gravity, looking afar over the waters with her eyes of red gloom.
“Not certain? My dear child, you puzzle me. Did I not give into your own hands your father’s last letter to you, received by me from India in the same mail that brought me the awful news of his death?”
“You gave me a letter purporting to be from my father, Mrs. Black,” said the young girl, looking now at her companion, “but are you sure that it was not changed by any one while in your possession? Do not think I would hint one word against your watchful care of it, or—or—your good faith with me; but I am not altogether convinced that papa wrote that letter. Lord Towyn, on reading it, immediately declared it a forgery.”
Mrs. Black started.
“Did you show it to Lord Towyn?” she demanded.
“Yes, and he has it now in his possession, and will submit it to Sir John Freise and Mr. Atkins for their inspection and opinion,” answered Neva.
Octavia Black’s dark cheeks paled in the moonlight, and a sudden terror gathered in her hard black eyes.
“Neva,” she exclaimed harshly, “I am astonished at the singular want of delicacy that prompted your display of your father’s last letter to Lord Towyn. Of course the earl believes the letter a forgery, since he purposes marrying you himself. He believes whatever it is to his interest to believe.”
“Lord Towyn is the soul of honor,” asserted Neva, her cheeks flushing hotly. “He would tell the truth, whether it might be for or against his interests.”
“What simple, childlike faith!” murmured Octavia Black, in affected admiration. “But, my dear child, Lord Towyn is no better than other men. Did—did he think that I forged Sir Harold’s letter?”
“No, he has too high an opinion of the lady who has been my father’s wife,” returned Neva proudly, “to think such evil of her. But he fancied the true letter might have been replaced with a forged one. Mrs. Artress—Mr. Black—”
She paused abruptly, having been urged into saying more than she had intended.
“Ah, Lord Towyn thinks them capable of the forgery. Let me tell you, Neva Wynde, that your father told me with his own lips that he had once hoped for your marriage with Lord Towyn, but that he desired in his later days with all his mind and heart that you should marry Rufus Black.”
“Papa said that—to you?”
“He did. I swear it,” cried the woman, perjuring herself, in her eagerness to produce the desired impression upon Neva’s mind.
“But Rufus said he did not know papa?”
“That does not affect the fact that Sir Harold knew him,” said Octavia Black firmly. “Rufus did some brave deed at Oxford—saved a comrade’s life, or some such thing—and that first fixed Sir Harold’s eyes upon him. From that moment Sir Harold watched the young fellow’s progress. He saw him frequently, himself unseen. He studied his character, and he became resolved upon your marriage to Rufus.”
“But, Mrs. Black, this is incredible!” exclaimed Neva, utterly refusing to believe the preposterous story, although until this moment her faith in her companion had remained unshaken. “Papa could not have wished me to marry a man he did not know personally. He would not have laid upon me the burden of a command—for that solemnly expressed desire was little less than a command—to marry a man whom he admired for a single act of personal courage, but of whose character he was ignorant. I know papa too well to believe anything like this, Mrs. Black.”
“You accuse me of falsehood then. I say such was his wish!” declared Octavia, doggedly and sullenly.
Neva looked pained, perplexed, and deeply troubled.
“If this indeed be so,” she murmured, “then he could not have been in his right mind, terrible as it seems to utter the words. For there never was a truer, kinder father, or a more noble man, than papa. He thought my happiness of so much moment that he never would have dictated my course in such a vital matter as the acceptance or rejection of a lover, so long as the lover was worthy. I am sorry you have told me this, Mrs. Black. I am compelled to doubt papa’s complete sanity, or—or—”
“Or me?” said the handsome Octavia, with an ugly frown. “You ought to know me too well by this time to doubt me. Old gentlemen frequently get odd ideas, which seem at variance with their usual character, but the having them does not prove them insane, only crotchety. As for me, knowing Sir Harold’s wishes, I did not doubt that you would act upon them as upon his actual command. Your father told you to obey me in all things. Is that command to be as lightly set aside?”
“Have I failed to consider your wishes, madam?” asked Neva sorrowfully.
“Not until now. But it is my wish that you should marry Rufus Black. Nay it is my command.”
Neva’s pure proud face looked very white in the moonlight, as she answered:
“Then I must fail in my obedience to you now, Mrs. Black. Papa did not desire me to obey unreasonable commands, to the destruction of my own happiness. He would consider you unfaithful to the charge he gave you, could he know that you are urging me to marry Rufus Black. My rejection of Rufus was final.”
“We will see,” said Mrs. Black, compressing her lips.
In an angry mood, Octavia walked away, joining her husband on the opposite side of the deck. Neva leaned over the low railing, her face upturned to the stars, and murmured:
“Perhaps—perhaps, after all, she forged the letter. How strange she seems to-night. I fear her. I wish I had not come with her. A terrible gloom is on my soul to-night!”
That gloom grew heavier and darker, and the pure face grew whiter and more sorrowful as the time went on, and the yacht bowled on toward the northward, bound—ah whither?