CHAPTER XIII.
HOW NEVA RECEIVED THE FORGERIES.
While Craven Black was successfully pursuing his machinations to destroy the happiness of two young lives, Lady Wynde had been active in carrying out her part in the infamous plot against Neva. The little packet of forged letters which had cost Lady Wynde’s fellow-conspirator a night of toil, and which had been sent to Hawkhurst by a special messenger, had been safely delivered into the hands of Mrs. Artress, who had been waiting at the gate lodge to receive it. It had so happened that not even the lodge keeper had witnessed the reception of the packet, and she had dismissed the messenger, and carefully concealed the packet upon her person, and returned to the house and to the presence of her mistress.
Lady Wynde had not yet risen. She lay in the midst of her white bed, with her black hair tossing upon her ruffled pillow, one white and rounded arm lying upon the scarlet satin coverlet, and with a profusion of dainty frills and laces upon her person. A small inlaid table stood at her bedside, supporting a round silver tray, upon which gleamed a silver tete-a-tete set of the daintiest proportions, and at the moment of her companion’s entrance her ladyship was sipping her usual morning cup of black coffee, which was expected to tone and strengthen her nerves for the day.
She dropped her tiny gold spoon, and looked up eagerly and expectantly, and Artress, closing the door, drew forth the packet with an air of triumph.
“I have received it,” said the gray companion, “and no one is the wiser for it. The messenger thinks it a book, and the people at the lodge did not even see it. We are in the usual luck, Octavia. Everything goes well with us.”
“I am glad that Craven did not fail me,” murmured Lady Wynde. “I feared he might find the task too heavy for him. But he is always prompt. Open the packet, Artress.”
The companion obeyed, bringing to light the double letter, the one Craven Black had forged being securely lodged within the last letter Sir Harold Wynde had written to his wife from India.
Lady Wynde saw that the inner letter, addressed to Neva, was securely sealed, read the forged postscript to the letter addressed to her, and placed both under her pillow, with a complacent smile.
“Craven is a clever fellow,” she muttered. “And how much he loves me, Artress. Not many men could have seen the woman they loved marry another, but Craven and I have been worldly wise, and we shall reap the reward of our self-denial. If we had married three years ago, we should have been poor now, mere hangers on upon the outskirts of society, tolerated for the sake of our connections, but nothing more. But we determined to play a daring game, and behold our success. I am again a widow, with four thousand a year and a good house while I live, and I can lay up money if I choose while I continue the chaperon of my husband’s daughter. And if our game continues to prosper, and Neva marries Rufus Black, Craven and I will make ten thousand a year more for the remainder of our lives. Rufus will have to sign an agreement giving us that amount out of Neva’s income. Think of it Artress; fourteen thousand a year!”
“Of which if you win it, I am to have five hundred,” said Artress, her gray face flushing. “And if you do not win the ten thousand, I am to have two hundred pounds a year settled upon me for life. Is not that our bargain?”
Lady Wynde nodded assent.
“And,” continued Artress, “I am to enter society with you, to remain with you as your guest instead of companion. I have been necessary to you in playing this game. I have lived with you some three years now, and though people know that I am a lady born, no one suspects that I am own cousin to Craven Black, and soon to be your cousin by marriage. We have joined our forces and wits together in this game, and we shall enjoy our success together.”
This, then, was the secret of the connection between the two women so unlike each other, yet so in unison in their schemes. Mrs. Artress was the cousin of Craven Black, and being poor as well as unscrupulous, she was his most faithful ally in his stupendously wicked schemes. The interests of the three conspirators were indeed identical.
“I believe I will rise,” said Lady Wynde. “I am impatient to give this letter to Neva, and to see how she receives it. Do you suppose she is up?”
“She has been up these two hours,” answered Artress. “She has been all over the house, has talked with the butler and the servants, has visited the stable and gardens, and has even been into the park. She means to assert her dignity as mistress of Hawkhurst, and to win the hearts of her dependents, so that in case she disagrees with you they will support her.”
Lady Wynde frowned darkly.
“Miss Neva is not yet of age, and so, although she owns Hawkhurst, there may be a question whether she is its mistress, or whether I, who am her guardian and her father’s widow, am mistress here.”
Her ladyship pulled the bell cord at her bed head, summoning her maid. Artress retired into Lady Wynde’s sitting-room, and upon the appearance of her attendant, the widow arose and attired herself in a white morning wrapper with crimson trimmings, and put upon her head a small square of white lace adorned with crimson bows. She had some time since discarded her widow’s cap, as “too horribly unbecoming.”
She ascertained that Neva was now in her own rooms, and took her way thither, the forged letters in her hand. Neva was alone when her step-mother, after a preliminary knock upon the door, entered her sitting-room, and she greeted Lady Wynde with a smile and look of welcome.
Neva was looking very lovely this morning, flushed with her early exercise, her red-brown eyes strangely brilliant, her red-brown hair arranged in crimps and braids. She wore a simple dress of white lawn, made short to escape the ground, and her ribbons and ornaments were of black. Lady Wynde fancied that Neva’s half-mourning attire was a reproach to her, and this fancied reproach, coupled with Neva’s bright, spirited beauty, gave an impulse to her incipient dislike to the girl.
A vague jealousy of Neva’s youth and loveliness had found place in her heart on the previous evening. Now that faint spark became fanned into a burning flame. She aspired to be a social queen, and here under her very roof, and under her chaperonage, was a girl whom she felt sure would eclipse her. She would not be known in society as the handsome Mrs. Black, but as the chaperon of the beautiful Miss Wynde.
But, despite her anger and jealousy, nothing could have been more bland and affectionate than the greeting of Lady Wynde to her step-daughter. She kissed her with seeming tenderness, and caressed her bright hair as she said:
“How animated you look, my dear—fairly sparkling! I should fancy that you have an electric sort of temperament—all fire and glow. Is it not so? You remind me of your father, Neva. It will be very sweet to have you with me, but my grief at my husband’s awful death has been so great that until now I could never bear to look upon his daughter’s face. I fancied you would look even more like him, and I could not have borne the resemblance in my first grief.”
Lady Wynde sighed deeply, and sat down upon the blue silken couch, drawing Neva to a seat beside her.
“I have come in to have a long confidential talk with you, my child,” resumed her ladyship. “There should be between you and me strangely tender relations. Your poor dear father desired us to be all the world to each other, and for his sake, as well as your own, I intend to be a true and good mother to you.”
“Thank you, madam,” said Neva, gravely, yet gratefully. “I will try to deserve your kindness, and to be a daughter to you.”
“You do not call me mother,” suggested Lady Wynde, reproachfully.
The young girl colored, and her brilliant eyes were suddenly shadowed. Her scarlet lips quivered an instant, as she said gently:
“Pardon me, dear Lady Wynde, but one has but one mother. I love my dead mother as if she were living, even though I know her only through my dear father’s description of her. I cannot give you her name, and I think it would hardly be appropriate. You are too young to be called mother by a grown-up girl. Does it not seem so to you?”
“Possibly you are right. Suit yourself, my dear. I seek only your happiness. I can be a mother to you, even if you decline to give me the name.”
“And I can equally be a daughter to you, dear Lady Wynde,” said Neva. “We shall be like sisters, I trust. And I desire to say that I hope you will consider yourself as fully mistress of Hawkhurst as when poor papa was here. I shall not interfere with your rule here, even if I may, until I attain my majority. While I live, my home shall be a home to my father’s widow.”
“You are very kind, my dear. All these things will settle themselves hereafter. I have now to deliver to you a last message from your dear father—a message, as I might say, from the grave. Your father’s voice speaks to you from the other world, my dear Neva, and I know that you will heed its call.”
Her ladyship drew forth the packet of letters, and laid them on Neva’s knee.
“You have there,” continued Lady Wynde, putting her handkerchief to her eyes, “the last letter I ever received from my dear husband. You may read it. You will see that he had a presentiment of his approaching death; that a gloom hung upon him that he could not shake off. That letter was written the night before his tragic death.”
Neva opened the letter with trembling hands and read it, even to the postscript upon the last page which had been forged by the cunning hand of Craven Black. Her tears fell as she read it.
“The inclosure—ah, you have not seen it,” said Lady Wynde—“is the letter alluded to in that last page of the letter to me. You see that it has never been opened. It is a sealed document to me in every sense, although, as poor Sir Harold often told me of his secret wishes in regard to your future, I have some suspicion of its contents. Your father requested me should he die in India, to give you this letter one year after his death. The appointed time has now arrived, and I deliver into your hands the last letter your father ever wrote, and which contains his last sacred wishes in regard to you. You are to receive it as an addendum to his will, as a sacred charge, as if his voice were speaking to you from his home in Heaven!”
She lifted the sealed letter, laying it in Neva’s hands.
The young girl received it with an uncontrollable agitation.
“I—I must read it alone,” she said brokenly.
“Very well, dear. Go into your dressing-room with it, and when you have finished reading it come back to me. I have more to say to you.”
Neva departed without a word, and went into the adjoining room. As the door closed behind her, Lady Wynde softly arose, crossed the floor, and peeped in upon the young girl’s privacy through the key-hole of the door.
Neva was alone in her dressing-room, and was kneeling down before a low chair upon which she had laid the forged letter, as yet unopened. The baronet’s widow watched the girl as she examined the address and the seal, and then cut open the top of the letter with a pocket-knife. Neva unfolded the closely written sheet, all stamped with her father’s monogram, and with low sobs and tear-blinded eyes began to read the letter, accepting it without doubt or question as her father’s last letter to her.
Lady Wynde’s eyes gleamed, and a mocking smile played about her full, sensual lips, as Neva read slowly page after page, still upon her knees, now and then pausing to kiss the handwriting she believed to be her father’s. The forger’s work had been well done. The tender pet names by which Sir Harold had loved to call his daughter were often repeated, with such protestations of affection as would most stir a loving daughter’s heart when receiving them long after the death of her father, and believing them to have been written by that father’s hand.
“Oh, papa! poor, poor, papa!” the girl sobbed. “He foresaw my loneliness and desolation, and left these last words to cheer me. I will remember your wishes so often expressed in this and other letters. I will be kind and gentle and obedient to Lady Wynde. I will try to love her for your sake.”
When she had grown calmer, Neva read on. As she read that her father had a last request to make of her, she smiled through her tears, and murmured:
“I am glad that he has left me something to do—whatever it may be. I should like to feel that I am obeying him still, although he is in Heaven. Dear papa!—your ‘request’ is to me a sacred command, and I shall so consider it.”
Lady Wynde’s eyes glittered like balls of jet. She had estimated rightly the childlike trust of Neva in her father’s love and devotion to her.
“She accepts the whole thing as gospel!” thought the delighted schemer. “Our success is certain. But let me see how she takes it, when she finds what the ‘request’ is.”
Neva perused the letter slowly, and again and again, with careful deliberation. Her surprise became apparent on her features, but there was no disbelief, no distrust, betrayed on her truthful face. But a wan whiteness overspread her cheeks and lips, and a weary look came into her eyes, as she folded the letter at last and hid it in her bosom. She bent her head as if in prayer, and murmured words which Lady Wynde tried in vain to hear. They were simple—only these:
“It is very strange—very strange; but papa meant it for the best. He feared to leave me unprotected, and a prey to fortune-hunters. Who is this Rufus Black? Oh, if papa had only mentioned Lord—Lord Towyn!”
The very thought brought a vivid scarlet to Neva’s face in place of her strange pallor, and as if frightened at her own thought, she arose and went to the open window, and leaned upon the casement.
Lady Wynde stole back to her couch, and she was sitting upon it the picture of languor when Neva returned, very pale now and subdued, and with a shadow of trouble in her eyes.
“Have you finished your letter so soon, dear?” asked the step-mother, sweetly. “I believe I can guess what were the last injunctions to you of your dear father. He often told me of his plans for you. Shall you do as he desired?”
Again the glowing scarlet flush covered Neva’s cheeks, lips, even her slender throat.
“My father’s last wishes are a command to me,” she said, slowly, yet as if her mind were quite made up to obey the supposed wishes of her father.
“It was Sir Harold’s request that you should marry a young man in whom he took considerable interest—one Rufus Black, was it not?” asked Lady Wynde.
Neva uttered a low assent.
“And you will marry this young fellow?”
“My father liked him well enough to make him my—my husband,” said Neva. “I can trust my father’s judgment in all things. I never disobeyed papa in his life, and I cannot disobey him now that he seems to speak to me from Heaven. If—if Rufus Black ever proposes marriage to me, and if he is still worthy of the good opinion papa formed of him, I—I—”
Her voice broke down, as she remembered the fair, boyish face, the warm blue eyes, the tawny hair and noble air of Lord Towyn, and again with inward shame the question framed itself in her mind—why could not her father have recommended to her affection young Arthur Towyn, whom her father had loved next to his own son? Why must he desire her to marry a man she had never seen?
“You will marry Rufus!” demanded Lady Wynde, as the girl’s pause became protracted.
Neva bowed her head—she could not speak.
Lady Wynde’s face glowed, and an evil light gleamed in her eyes. Her heart throbbed wildly with her evil triumph.
“You are indeed a good and faithful daughter, Neva,” she said caressingly. “In accordance with your father’s wishes, I must give Mr. Black every chance to woo you. I believe he knows something of what Sir Harold designed for you and him, and he is at this moment at Wyndham village. He is staying at the inn with his father, and both will call upon you this evening.”
“So soon?”
“The sooner the better. I have not seen Rufus Black, but his father called here last evening. The father knew poor Sir Harold intimately. And, Neva, dear, in honor of your guests, and in deference to my wishes, you ought to lay aside all vestige of your mourning to-day. You have worn black a year, and that is all that modern society demands.”
“The outward garb does not always indicate the feelings of the heart,” said Neva. “I will change my manner of dress, since you desire it, but I shall mourn for papa all my days.”
As Neva became thoughtful and abstracted, Lady Wynde soon took her leave. She found Artress in her sitting-room and the gray companion had no need to ask of her success.
“Our silly little fish has swallowed the bait,” said Lady Wynde. “She is ready to immolate herself ‘for dear papa’s sake,’ although I could see that she is already interested in Lord Towyn. I am impatient for evening. I want to see how young Rufus Black will proceed in his task of winning the heiress of Hawkhurst.”