Wife in Name Only - Charlotte Mary Brame (digital e reader TXT) 📗

cried. "I feel tempted to act the charade over again. Why, Norman, what likeness can you see between Philippa L'Estrange, the proud, cold woman of the world, and that sweet little Puritan maiden at her spinning wheel?"

"I should never have detected any likeness unless you yourself had first pointed it out," he said. "Tell me, Philippa, are you really going to make the duke happy at last?"

"It may be that I am going to make him profoundly miserable As punishment for your lecture, I shall refuse to tell you anything about it," she replied; and then she added: "You will ride with me this morning, Norman?"

"Yes. I will ride with you, Philippa. I cannot tell you how thankful and relieved I am."

"To find that you have not made quite so many conquests as you thought," she said. "It was a sorry jest to play after all; but you provoked me to it, Norman. I want you to make me a promise."

"That I will gladly do," he replied. Indeed he was so relieved so pleased, so thankful to be freed from the load of self-reproach that he would have promised anything.

Her face grew earnest. She held out her hand to him.

"Promise me this, Norman," she said--"that, whether I remain Philippa L'Estrange or become Duchess of Hazlewood--no matter what I am, or may be--you will always be the same to me as you are now--my brother, my truest, dearest, best friend. Promise me."

"I do promise, Philippa, with all my heart," he responded. "And I will never break my promise."

"If I marry, you will come to see me--you-will trust in me--you will be just what you are now--you will make my house your home, as you do this?"

"Yes--that is, if your husband consents," replied Lord Arleigh.

"Rely upon it, my husband--if I ever have one--will not dispute my wishes," she said. "I am not the model woman you dream of. She, of course, will be submissive in everything; I intend to have my own way."

"We are friends for life, Philippa," he declared; "and I do not think that any one who really understands me will ever cavil at our friendship."

"Then, that being settled, we will go at once for our ride. How those who know me best would laugh, Norman, if they heard of the incident of the Puritan maiden! If I go to another fancy ball this season, I shall go as _Priscilla_ of Plymouth and you had better go as _John Alden_."

He held up his hands imploringly.

"Do not tease me about it any more, Philippa," he remarked, "I cannot quite tell why, but you make me feel both insignificant and vain; yet nothing would have been further from my mind than the ideas you have filled it with."

"Own you were mistaken, and then I will be generous and forgive you," she said, laughingly.

"I was mistaken--cruelly so--weakly so--happily so," he replied. "Now you will be generous and spare me."

He did not see the bitter smile with which she turned away, nor the pallor that crept even to her lips. Once again in his life Lord Arleigh was completely deceived.

A week afterward he received "a note in Philippa's handwriting it said, simply:

"Dear Norman: You were good enough to plead the duke's cause. When
you meet him next, ask him if he has anything to tell you.

Philippa L'Estrange."

What the Duke of Hazlewood had to tell was that Miss L'Estrange had promised to be his wife, and that the marriage was to take place in August. He prayed Lord Arleigh to be present as his "best man" on the occasion.

On the same evening Lady Peters and Miss L'Estrange sat in the drawing-room at Verdun House, alone. Philippa had been very restless. She had been walking to and fro; she had opened her piano and closed it; she had taken up volume after volume and laid it down again, when suddenly her eyes fell on a book prettily bound in crimson and gold, which Lady Peters had been reading.

"What book is that?" she asked, suddenly.

"Lord Lytton's 'Lady of Lyons,'" replied Lady Peters.

Philippa raised it, looked through it, and then, with a strange smile and a deep sigh, laid it down.

"At last," she said--"I have found it at last!"

"Found what, my dear?" asked Lady Peters, looking up.

"Something I have been searching for," replied Philippa, as she quitted the room, still with the strange smile on her lips.


Chapter XV.


The great event of the year succeeding was the appearance of the Duchess of Hazlewood. Miss L'Estrange the belle and the heiress, had been very popular; her Grace of Hazlewood was more popular still. She was queen of fashionable London. At her mansion all the most exclusive met. She had resolved upon giving her life to society, upon cultivating it, upon making herself its mistress and queen. She succeeded. She became essentially a leader of society. To belong to the Duchess of Hazlewood's "set" was to be the _créme de la créme_. The beautiful young duchess had made up her mind upon two things. The first was that she would be a queen of society; the second, that she would reign over such a circle as had never been gathered together before. She would have youth, beauty, wit, genius; she would not trouble about wealth. She would admit no one who was not famous for some qualification or other--some grace of body or mind--some talent or great gift. The house should be open to talent of all kinds, but never open to anything commonplace. She would be the encourager of genius, the patroness of the fine arts, the friend of all talent.

It was a splendid career that she marked out for herself, and she was the one woman in England especially adapted for it The only objection to it was that while she gave every scope to imagination--while she provided for all intellectual wants and needs--she made no allowance for the affections; they never entered into her calculations.

In a few weeks half London was talking about the beautiful Duchess of Hazlewood. In all the "Fashionable Intelligence" of the day she had a long paragraph to herself. The duchess had given a ball, had had a grand _réunion_, a _soirée_, a garden-party; the duchess had been at such an entertainment; when a long description of her dress or costume would follow. Nor was it only among the upper ten thousand that she was so pre-eminently popular. If a bazar, a fancy fair, a ball, were needed to aid some charitable cause, she was always chosen as patroness; her vote, her interest, one word from her, was all-sufficient.

Her wedding had been a scene of the most gorgeous magnificence. She had been married from her house at Verdun Royal, and half the county had been present at what was certainly the most magnificent ceremonial of the year. The leading journal, the _Illustrated Intelligence_, produced a supplement on the occasion, which was very much admired. The duke gave the celebrated artist, M. Delorme, a commission to paint the interior of the church at Verdun Royal as it appeared while the ceremony was proceeding. That picture forms the chief ornament now of the grand gallery at the Court.

The wedding presents were something wonderful to behold; it was considered that the duchess had one of the largest fortunes in England in jewels alone. The wedding-day was the fourth of August, and it had seemed as though nature herself had done her utmost to make the day most brilliant.

It was not often that so beautiful a bride was seen as the young duchess. She bore her part in the scene very bravely. The papers toll how Lord Arleigh was "best man" on the occasion but no one guessed even ever so faintly of the tragedy that came that morning to a crisis. The happy pair went off to Vere Court, the duke's favorite residence, and there for a short time the public lost sight of them.

If the duke had been asked to continue the history of his wedding-day, he would have told a strange story--how, when they were in the railway-carriage together, he had turned to his beautiful young wife with some loving words on his lips, and she had cried out that she wanted air, to let no one come near her--that she had stretched out her hands wildly, as though beating off something terrible.

He believed that she was overcome by excitement or the heat of the day; he soothed her as he would have soothed a child; and when they readied Vere Court he insisted that they should rest. She did so. Her dark hair fell round her white neck and shoulders, her beautiful face was flushed, the scarlet lips trembled as though she were a grieving child; and the young duke stood watching her, thinking how fair she was and what a treasure he had won. Then he heard her murmur some words in her sleep--what were they? He could not quite distinguish them; it was something about a Puritan maiden _Priscilla_ and _John_--he could not catch the name--something that did not concern him, and in which he had no part. Suddenly she held out her arms, and, in a voice he never forgot, cried, "Oh, my love, my love!" That of course meant himself. Down on his knees by her side went the young duke--he covered her hands with kisses.

"My darling," he said, "you are better now, I have been alarmed about you, Philippa; I feared that you were ill. My darling, give me a word and a smile."

She had quite recovered herself then; she remembered that she was Duchess of Hazlewood--wife of the generous nobleman who was at her side. She was mistress of herself in a moment.

"Have I alarmed you?" she said. "I did feel ill; but I am better now--quite well, in fact."

She said to herself that she had her new life to begin, and the sooner she began it the better; so she made herself very charming to the young duke, and he was in ecstasies over the prize he had won.

Thenceforward[3] they lived happily enough. If the young duke found his wife less loving, less tender of heart, than he had believed her to be, he had no complaint.

"She is so beautiful and gifted," he would say to himself. "I cannot expect everything. I know that she loves me, although she does not say much about it. I know that I can trust her in all things, even though she makes no protestations."

They fell into the general routine of life. One loved--the other allowed herself to be loved. The duke adored his wife, and she accepted his adoration.

They were never spoken of as a model couple, although every one agreed that it was an excellent match--that they were very happy. The duke looked up with wondering admiration to the beautiful stately lady who bore his name. She could not do wrong in his eyes, everything she said was right, all she did was perfect. He never dreamed of opposing her wishes. There was no lady in England so completely her own mistress, so completely mistress of every one and everything around her, as her Grace of Hazlewood.

When the season came around again, and the brilliant life which she had laid out for herself was hers, she might have been the happiest of women but for the cloud which darkened, her whole existence. Lord Arleigh had