CHAPTER VI.
HER LADYSHIP’S ACCOMPLICE.
The morrow to which Lady Wynde looked forward with feverish expectation dawned at last, bright and clear, and deepened into a sultry afternoon. The baronet’s widow spent hours at her toilet, and the effect of her labors was satisfactory to her. She surveyed her reflection in a full-length mirror in her dressing-room with a smile of complacency. Her black hair was arranged in braids, curls, and finely crimpled waves, after the fashion of the day, and in the midst of its prodigal luxuriance, above her forehead, a jeweled spray flashed and glittered. Her dress, made low in the neck and short in the sleeves, to display her finely rounded shoulders and arms, was of lustrous silk of lavender hue, and was draped with a black lace overskirt. A necklace and bracelets incrusted with diamonds added brilliancy to her appearance. Her liquid black eyes shone and glittered; her cheeks were red as damask roses; she had never looked half so handsome in the days when she had fascinated Sir Harold Wynde and made him adore her.
She had dismissed her maid, and was giving a last touch to the short curls that dropped over her forehead, while she talked with Artress, when wheels were heard coming up the drive. The gray companion flitted to a shuttered window and peeped out. A cab was approaching the house, and a man’s head was protruded from the window. His face was half averted, as he apparently studied the exterior of the dwelling, but Artress knew him. She glided back to Lady Wynde with the words:
“He has come!”
A sudden agitation seemed to convulse the soul of the baronet’s widow. A sudden paleness swept over her face. She leaned heavily upon the back of a chair, and stood there motionless until a servant brought up a silver tray on which lay a large square card with the inscription, “The Honorable Craven Black,” and announced that the gentleman had been shown into the drawing-room. Then her ladyship started abruptly, the color returning to her face in ruddy waves.
“Come, Artress,” she said, “we will go below. Yet stay. You may delay your coming for half an hour. Surely no one can find fault with me for seeing him alone a little while. Since I became a widow for the second time, I have felt as if I lived in a glass lantern with the eyes of all Kent upon me. Yet there is no need of carrying my caution too far.”
She gave a last glance at her reflection in the mirror, a last deft touch to her attire, and then swept from the room down the stairs, and slowly entered the drawing-room.
A gentleman within arose from his seat, and came forward with outstretched hands and eager face. He was tall, handsome, fair-haired, with light eyes full of sinister gleams, and his full, sensual lips wore even now a cynical smile that appeared habitual to them.
He was the same man who had watched, from the pier head at Brighton, the rescue of Octavia Hathaway from the sea by Sir Harold Wynde—the same man who had witnessed the marriage of the baronet and the widow from behind a clustered pillar in the church, and whose sinister comments, as he emerged into Hanover Square, we have chronicled.
His quick glance swept the form and face of Lady Wynde; a look of admiration burned in his eyes. He held out his arms. With a joyous cry, the handsome widow sprang forward, and was clasped in his embrace.
“At last! At last!” she murmured.
“Yes, at last!” echoed Mr. Black, in tones of exultation. “Nothing stands between us now, Octavia! We have lost nothing by waiting. We have been guilty of no crime, and fate itself has played into our hands. And you, Octavia, in the prime of your beauty, are more magnificent than ever.”
He drew her to a sofa and clasped an arm around her waist. Her head drooped to his shoulder. The flush of intense joy mantled her face. With all her soul Lady Wynde loved this man, and her voice trembled as she murmured:
“Oh, Craven, I am glad that my life of hypocrisy is over at last, that there is no longer fear of discovery, and that we are free to enjoy our reward. How long ago it seems since you and I formed and entered upon our conspiracy which has placed me where I am! I was a widow with a meager income and expensive tastes. You were a widower with a son to educate, and a beggarly home and a beggarly income, so that you could not afford to marry. How well I remember that night in London, when you told me that if I had courage and boldness proportionate to my beauty, I could make our fortunes and our happiness. I eagerly asked how I could do this, and you showed me a copy of a Court Journal in which was a paragraph to the effect that ‘Sir Harold Wynde had gone down to Brighton, and that his presence there had created quite a flutter among marriageable ladies.’ And then you told me of his wealth and generosity, and urged me to try my fascinations upon him, to win him, to marry him—and to succeed in good time to a handsome fortune upon which you and I could marry. How long ago all that seems!”
“Was it not a clever idea, and cleverly executed?” said Mr. Black triumphantly. “It was a successful conspiracy, Octavia, and to you belongs the credit of its success. You went down to Brighton; you introduced yourself in a novel manner to Sir Harold Wynde; and you followed up the acquaintance with such effect that he offered you marriage. And as that was what you wanted, you married him. You would have made yourself a widow, but that fate saved you the trouble. Two years and six months ago you were a poor widow, unable to marry me because of our mutual poverty. Now you are again a widow, rich, respected, honored throughout Kent, and can marry whom you please. I am as poor as I was three years ago, and yet, Octavia, I know that you prefer me to all other men. Is it not so?”
Lady Wynde blushed as she murmured assent. She was essentially bad, being unprincipled and unscrupulous, but she loved Craven Black with her whole heart, and with a fervor that astonished herself.
After the death of her first husband, Lady Wynde had first met Craven Black. They had fallen in love with each other, as the phrase goes, at their first meeting. He was a gambler, dissolute—an adventurer, in fact, although his respectable birth and connections prevented the name from attaching to him. He was a widower, and possessed but a scanty settled income; yet, from his nefarious gains at the gambling table, and in other ways, he managed to keep up the appearance of a man of fashion, to keep a private cab and a tiger, chambers at the Albany, and to educate his only son, now a man grown. His gains were, however, precarious, and he declined entering upon marriage with a person even poorer than himself.
Lady Wynde, in the days of her first widowhood, had been but little better than an adventuress. It is true that she had a respectable name, high connections, and a home in her aunt’s house in Bloomsbury Square; but she was ambitious of social position, she chafed at her poverty, and had too much worldly wisdom to marry Craven Black in the then state of their fortunes, even had he desired it.
When his fertile brain, therefore, formed a scheme by which she could enrich them both by imposing upon a high-minded gentleman, marrying, and then putting him out of her way as if his life were valueless, she hesitated, and finally consented. How she had carried out her share in the foul conspiracy against Sir Harold, the reader knows.
“Four thousand pounds a year and a good house are worth serving for,” said Mr. Black meditatively. “I think, however, that we have waited long enough, Octavia. When are you going to marry me?”
“Not before September,” declared Lady Wynde decisively. “I must have a magnificent wardrobe. I am so tired of dowdy black. And as I shall have to give up the Wynde family diamonds to the heiress, I must order some jewels for myself. Let us appoint our marriage to take place in October. People will talk if it occurs sooner.”
Craven Black smiled cynically.
“Shall you care what people say?” he inquired. “I thought you were a law unto yourself.”
“Indeed I am not. No woman in the world has a greater regard for ‘they say’ than I have,” returned Lady Wynde emphatically. “You see I cannot afford to turn my back upon Mrs. Grundy. I am ambitious to be a social leader, and to become so, I must give people faith in my knowledge of the proprieties of life. I occupy a high position here as the widow of Sir Harold Wynde, and he was a sort of idol here, so that, I dare say, people will be jealous of my marrying at all. And then, again, I desire to gain the love and confidence of my step-daughter before I remarry. Her guardianship is worth three thousand a year to me. I shall have that sum annually as a recompense for chaperoning her.”
“I would be willing to chaperon several young ladies on such terms,” said Mr. Black. “How old is she?”
“About eighteen.”
“And how large an income has she?”
“Seventy thousand a year.”
An eager light came into Craven Black’s eyes, and an eager glow mounted to his fair face.
“A handsome sum,” he ejaculated. “She has a glorious inheritance. What sort of girl is she?”
“A bread-and-butter school-girl, I suppose. I have never met her. She was Sir Harold’s idol, and he was always wanting her to come home, but I did not want her jealous eyes spying on me, so I contrived to keep her away. She has not been at Hawkhurst since my coming.”
“You correspond with her?”
“I write to her now and then, and she sends me a duty letter, as I call it, once a month. I generally read a line or two and throw them aside.”
“Has she any love affair?” inquired Mr. Black thoughtfully.
“Of course not. A girl in a French boarding-school might as well be in a convent, as far as love affairs are concerned. What are you thinking of, Craven?” and Lady Wynde looked at him jealously.
The glow on Craven Black’s face deepened, as he hastened to answer:
“I was thinking what if this girl were to take a liking to my son Rufus? If we could bring about a marriage between her and Rufus, we should retain her fortune in the family, and Rufus should agree to allow us ten thousand a year for using our influence with her. What do you think?”
Lady Wynde looked startled—pleased.
“The very thing!” she exclaimed. “I have been thinking that I should not long be allowed to remain mistress of Hawkhurst after Neva’s return. An heiress like her will not want for suitors, and she will marry, and I cannot prevent it. The proper way is to direct her marriage for our own benefit. Is Rufus likely to please a romantic school-girl?”
“I think he cannot fail to please her. He is not yet one and twenty, well-looking, accomplished, well educated, rather weak-willed and easily governed, and like clay in my hands. He has romantic notions about love and marriage, and if he is on the ground first I am sure he will win the girl’s heart. I had a quarrel with him some weeks ago, and he went away from me at my command, and has taken cheap rooms somewhere and is trying to live by painting cheap pictures, or some such thing. I’ll send for him, and have him up at Wyndham directly.”
“Why did you quarrel with him, Craven? I thought you were so fond of him.”
“I was—I am. But he dared oppose his will to mine, and I turned him adrift, to let him try how he could get along without me. He is not long out of his university, and is perfectly helpless about earning money, but he has some high-flown notions which hardship will cure. To be frank, our quarrel was about a little music teacher that the boy thought himself in love with. He has given her up, and will be glad enough to be summoned to me. When will Miss Wynde be here?”
“I had a letter to-day from Madame Dalaut, Neva’s preceptress, inquiring my wishes in regard to the girl. Neva has completed her studies, and Madame Dalaut insinuates that she ought to be removed from school and be allowed to enter society. Moreover, the midsummer holidays have commenced, and the other pupils are gone to their homes. I have concluded to send Artress over to Paris to-night to bring Neva home.”
“Do so. My son shall also be at Wyndham to-morrow, and shall be introduced to the heiress the day after her return. I will engage rooms for Rufus and myself at the Wyndham inn, so that I can be near you until our marriage. Is this plan agreeable to you?”
“Perfectly. We must be prompt in our actions. Neva must become engaged to Rufus before she actually enters society here. Her marriage can take place at the same time with our own in October. Elise can do the two trousseaux at the same time. It is an admirable plan, and a worthy continuation of our little game.”
They talked further, disclosing to each other their nefarious plans of self-aggrandizement. Craven Black talked in lover-like fashion, and even the exacting Lady Wynde was persuaded that his passion for her had received a new impulse, and that he loved her as she loved him—with an utter devotion.
As the dinner hour drew near Mr. Black took his departure, not caring to excite the gossip of the household upon his first visit to Lady Wynde. Directly after dinner, Artress, attired in gray travelling suit, set out in a carriage for Canterbury, on her way to Paris, whence she was to bring to her own home the heiress of Hawkhurst.