The Haunted Chamber - Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (latest books to read .TXT) 📗

bride to place here in this grand old castle, but I will frustrate that hope if I die for it."

He grinds his teeth as he says this, and looks with fierce defiant eyes at the long rows of his ancestors that line the walls.

"She would gladly see her proud fair face looking down upon me from amidst this goodly company," he goes on, apostrophizing the absent Florence. "But that shall never be. I have sworn it; unless--I am her husband--unless--I am her husband!"

More slowly, more thoughtfully he repeats this last phrase, until Dora, affrighted by the sudden change that has disfigured his face, speaks to him to distract his attention.

"You have brought me here to--" she ventures timidly.

"Ay, to tell you what is on my mind. I have said you want to marry Adrian; I mean to marry Florence Delmaine. To-day I disliked certain symptoms I saw, that led me to believe that my own machinations have not been as successful as I could have wished. Before going in for stronger measures, there is one more card that I will play. I have written you a note. Here it is, take it"--handing her a letter folded in the cocked-hat fashion.

"What am I to do with this?" asks Dora nervously.

"Read it. It is addressed to yourself. You will see I have copied Adrian's handwriting as closely as possible, and have put his initials A.D. at the end. And yet"--with a diabolical smile--"it is no forgery either, as A.D. are my initials also."

Opening the note with trembling fingers, Dora reads aloud as follows:

"Can you--will you meet me to-morrow at four o'clock in the lime-walk? I have been cold to you perhaps, but have I not had cause? You think my slight attentions to another betoken a decrease in my love for you, but in this, dearest, you are mistaken. I am yours heart and soul. For the present I dare not declare myself, for the reasons you already know, and for the same reasons am bound to keep up a seeming friendliness with some I would gladly break with altogether. But I am happy only with you, and happy too in the thought that our hearts beat as one. Yours forever, A.D."

Dora, having finished reading the letter, glances at him uneasily.

"And--what is the meaning of this letter? What is it written for? What am I to do with it?" she stammers, beating the precious missive against the palm of her hand, as though in loathing of it.

"You will show it to her. You will speak of it as a love-letter written to you by Adrian. You will consult her as to whether it be wise or prudent to accede to his proposal to meet you alone in the lime-walk. You will, in fact, put out all your powers of deception, which"--with a sneering smile--"are great, and so compel her to believe the letter is from him to you."

"But--" falters Dora.

"There shall be no 'but' in the matter. You have entered into this affair with me, and you shall pursue it to the end. If you fail me, I shall betray your share in it--more than your share--and paint you in such colors as will shut the doors of society to you. You understand now, do you?"

"Go on," says Dora, with colorless lips.

"Ah, I have touched the right chord at last, have I? Society, your idol, you dare not brave! Well, to continue, you will also tell her, in your own sweet innocent way"--with another sneer that makes her quiver with fear and rage--"to account for Adrian's decided and almost lover-like attentions to her in the room we visited, that you had had a lovers' quarrel with him some time before, earlier in the day; that, in his fit of pique, he had sought to be revenged upon you, and soothe his slighted feelings by feigning a sudden interest in her. You follow me?"

"Yes," replies the submissive Dora. Alas, how sincerely she now wishes she had never entered into this hateful intrigue!

"Then, when you have carefully sown these lies in her heart, and seen her proud face darken and quiver with pain beneath your words"--oh, how his own evil face glows with unholy satisfaction as he sees the picture he has just drawn stand out clear before his eyes!--"you will affect to be driven by compunction into granting Sir Adrian a supposed request, you will don your hat and cloak, and go down to the lime-walk to encounter--me. If I am any judge of character, that girl, so haughty to all the world, will lower her pride for her crushed love's sake, and will follow you, to madden herself with your meeting with the man she loves. To her, I shall on this occasion represent Sir Adrian. Are you listening?"

She is indeed--listening with all her might to the master mind that has her in thrall.

"You will remember not to start when you meet me," he continues, issuing his commands with insolent assumption of authority over the dainty Dora, who, up to this, has been accustomed to rule it over others in her particular sphere, and who now chafes and writhes beneath the sense of slavery that is oppressing her. "You will meet me calmly, oblivious of the fact that I shall be clad in my cousin's light overcoat, the one of which Miss Delmaine was graciously pleased to say she approved yesterday morning."

His eyes light again with a revengeful fire as he calls to mind the slight praise Florence had bestowed in a very casual fashion on this coat. Every smile, every kindly word addressed by this girl to his cousin, is treasured up by him and dwelt upon in secret, to the terrible strengthening of the purpose he has in view.

"But if you should be seen--be marked," hesitates Dora faintly.

"Pshaw--am I one to lay my plans so clumsily as to court discovery on even the minutest point?" he interrupts impatiently. "When you meet me you will--but enough of this; I shall be there to meet you in the lime-walk, and after that you will take your cue from me."

"That is all you have to say?" asks Dora, anxious to quit his hated presence.

"For the present--yes. Follow my instructions to the letter, or dread the consequences. Any blunder in the performance of this arrangement I shall lay to your charge."

"You threaten, sir!" she exclaims angrily, though she trembles.

"Let it be your care to see that I do not carry out my threats," he retorts, with an insolent shrug.

The next day, directly after luncheon, as Florence is sitting in her own room, touching up an unfinished water-color sketch of part of the grounds round the castle--which have, alas, grown only too dear to her!--Dora enters her room. It is an embarrassed and significantly smiling Dora that trips up to her, and says with pretty hesitation in her tone--

"Dearest Florence, I want your advice about something."

"Mine?" exclaims Florence, laying down her brush, and looking, as she feels, astonished. As a rule, the gentle Dora does not seek for wisdom from her friends.

"Yes, dear, if you can spare me the time. Just five minutes will do, and then you can return to your charming sketch. Oh"--glancing at it--"how exactly like it is--so perfect; what a sunset, and what firs! One could imagine one's self in the Fairies' Glen by just looking at it."

"It is not the Fairies' Glen at all; it is that bit down by Gough's farm," says Florence coldly. Of late she has not been so blind to Dora's artificialness as she used to be.

"Ah, so it is!" agrees Dora airily, not in the least discomposed at her mistake. "And so like it too. You are a genius, dearest, you are really, and might make your fortune, only that you have one made already for you, fortunate girl!"

"You want my advice," suggests Florence quietly.

"Ah, true; and about something important too!" She throws into her whole air so much coquetry mingled with assumed bashfulness that Florence knows by instinct that the "something" has Sir Adrian for its theme, and she grows pale and miserable accordingly.

"Let me hear it then," she urges, leaning back with a weary sigh.

"I have just received this letter," says Mrs. Talbot, taking from her pocket the letter Arthur had given her, and holding it out to Florence, "and I want to know how I shall answer it. Would you--would you honestly advise me, Flo, to go and meet him as he desires?"

"As who desires?"

"Ah, true; you do not know, of course! I am so selfishly full of myself and my own concerns, that I seem to think every one else must be full of them too. Forgive me, dearest, and read his sweet little letter, will you?"

"Of whom are you speaking--to whose letter do you refer?" asks Florence, a little sharply, in the agony of her heart.

"Florence! Whose letter would I call 'sweet' except Sir Adrian's?" answers her cousin, with gentle reproach.

"But it is meant for you, not for me," says Miss Delmaine, holding the letter in her hand, and glancing at it with great distaste. "He probably intended no other eyes but yours to look upon it."

"But I must obtain advice from some one, and who so natural to expect it from as you, my nearest relative? If, however"--putting her handkerchief to her eyes--"you object to help me, Florence, or if it distresses you to read--"

"Distresses me?" interrupts Florence haughtily. "Why should it distress me? If you have no objection to my reading your--lover's--letter, why should I hesitate about doing so? Pray sit down while I run through it."

Dora having seated herself, Florence hastily reads the false note from beginning to end. Her heart beats furiously as she does so, and her color comes and goes; but her voice is quite steady when she speaks again.

"Well," she says, putting the paper from her as though heartily glad to be rid of it, "it seems that Sir Adrian wishes to speak to you on some subject interesting to you and him alone, and that he has chosen the privacy of the lime-walk as the spot in which to hold your _tete-a-tete_. It is quite a simple affair, is it not? Though really, why he could not arrange to talk privately to you in some room in the castle, which is surely large enough for the purpose, I can not understand."

"Dear Sir Adrian is so romantic," says Dora coyly.

"Is he?" responds her cousin dryly. "He has always seemed to me the sanest of men. Well, on what matter do you wish to consult me?"

"Dear Florence, how terribly prosaic and unsympathetic you are to-day," says Dora reproachfully; "and I came to you so sure of offers of love and friendship! I want you to tell me if you think I ought to meet him or not."

"Why not?"

"I don't know"--with a little simper. "Is it perhaps humoring him too much? I have always dreaded letting a man imagine I cared for him, unless fully, utterly, assured of his affection for me."

Florence colors again, and then grows deadly pale, as this poisoned barb pierces her bosom.

"I should think," she says slowly, "after reading the letter you have just shown me, you ought to feel assured."

"You believe I ought, really?"--with a fine show of eagerness. "Now, you are not saying this to please me--to gratify me?"

"I