Marion Arleigh's Penance by Charlotte M. Braeme

C >> Charlotte M. Braeme >> Marion Arleigh\'s Penance

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

It was when the little heir of Leigh was about a year old that the blow
fell on his beautiful mother. She was seated one morning in her
luxurious dressing-room, a scene of splendid confusion and brilliant
coloring that would have enchanted an artist, herself more lovely than
ever, for the promise of her girlhood had developed into magnificent
womanhood. Jewels of great value lay on the toilet-table, costly dresses
were lying about. The nurse had just been in with baby, and nothing
would please baby but playing with his mamma's beautiful golden-brown
hair. Of course his wish must be gratified. The diamond arrow that
fastened the heavy coils was withdrawn, and the glorious wealth of hair,
in all its shining abundance, fell in picturesque disorder. Then Lord
Atherton entered to ask his wife some question about the day's
proceedings, and he told her she looked so lovely he would not let the
beautiful hair be touched. My lord withdrew, leaving his wife's face
flushed with pleasure at his praises. Then came the maid, and she
brought in her hands some letters that had just arrived. Lady Atherton
laid them down carelessly; there was nothing, she thought, that could
possibly interest her.

Presently she took up the letters, and then all her indifference
vanished, the love light died from her eyes, the smile from her lips.
She knew the handwriting. One of those notes was from Allan Lyster.

She hastily opened it, and, as she read, all the color faded from her
sweet face. The folly and sin of her ignorant girlhood were finding her
out.

"I have but just returned from abroad," he wrote, "where I have been for
more than two years, and I am completely overwhelmed by the intelligence
that awaited me. You are married, Marion! You, who promised so
faithfully to be my wife. You, whose letters to me contain that promise
given over and over again. It is too late to ask what this treachery
means. I have by me the letter you wrote, asking for your freedom, and I
have the copy of mine absolutely refusing it. I told you then that I
should hold you to your promise, and you have disregarded my words.

"Marion, I must have compensation. It is useless talking to one like you
of love. You throw aside the poor artist for the rich lord. You must pay
me in your own coin, in what you value most--money. You have wronged me
as your promised husband. I had some right to your fortune, as your
duped and deserted lover. That right still remains. I claim some portion
of what ought to have been all mine.

"I am in immediate and urgent want of a thousand pounds. That is very
little for one who ought, as your husband, to be at this moment the
master of Hanton Hall and its rich domain. However, for a time, that
will content me; when I want another I will come to you for it. I will
not call at your house; you can send me a check, bank note, or what you
will.

"I do not wish to seem harsh, but it is better to tell you at once that
if you refuse any money request of mine at any time I shall immediately
commence proceedings against you. I shall bring an action for breach of
promise of marriage, and all England will cry shame on the false,
mercenary woman who abandoned a poor lover, to whom her troth was
plighted, in order to marry a rich lord. All England shall despise you.
For your child's sake, I counsel you to avoid an exposure."

She read those terrible words over and over again. Suddenly the whole
plot grew clear to her. It was for this they had schemed and plotted.
Not for love of her, but to make money out of her, to trade upon her
weakness and folly, stain her character, her fair name, her happiness,
the love of her husband and child, the esteem of her friends. All lay in
their hands. They could, if they would, make her name, that noble name
which her husband bore so proudly, a subject of jest all over the world.

She could fancy the papers, their paragraphs, their remarks, their
comments. She could almost see the heading:

"Action for Breach of Promise against Lady Atherton." How the Radicals,
who hated her husband for his politics, would rejoice! Even in the years
to come, when her child grew to man's estate, it would be as a black
mark against him that his mother had been the subject of such vulgar
jest. Her husband would never bear it. He would leave her, she was sure.
Ah! better pay a thousand pounds over and over again than go through all
this.

Yet it seemed a large sum; not that she cared for it, but how could she
get it without her husband's knowledge? By her own wish, all money
affairs had been left in his hands; he would wonder when he looked at
her check book why she had drawn so large a sum; better write out checks
of a hundred pounds each.

She did so, and sent them. Just as she was folding the paper that
enclosed them a grand inspiration came to her--an impulse to go to her
husband and tell him all.

He would find some means of saving her, she was quite sure of that. Then
the more cowardly, the weaker part of her nature, rose in rebellion. She
dared not, for, if she did, he would never love her again. So she sent
the thousand pounds, and then there was an interval of peace. Yet not
peace for her; the sword was suspended over her head, and any moment it
might fall. She grew thin, restless and nervous; her husband and all her
friends wondered what ailed her; her manner changed, even her beautiful
face seemed to grow restless and pale.

Then came the demand for a second thousand. Having tasted the luxury of
spending what he liked and living without work, Allan Lyster was
entranced with his triumph. He had taken rooms in a very expensive and
fashionable locality, he bought a horse, and set up a private cab, with
a smart little tiger. He entered one of the fashionable clubs, and
people began to say that he had had money left him. If any one of the
gentlemen who met him and touched his hand, had but known that he was
trading on a woman's secret, they would have thrashed him with less
remorse of conscience than if they were punishing a mad dog.

Then the third thousand was asked for, and Lady Atherton was at a loss
where or how to get it; her husband had already rallied her about the
large sums of money she spent, and she was obliged to have recourse to
means she disliked for procuring it.

CHAPTER XIII.

There came a day when Lady Atherton could no longer meet the demands
made upon her; the estate near Hanton was to be sold, and her husband
wished to purchase it.

"A little economy for one year," he said to his wife, "and we shall do
it easily. You will not mind being careful for one year, Marion?"

She told him, what was perfectly true, that she would deprive herself of
anything on earth for his sake. He laughed.

"There will not be much privation needed, for one who has spent three
thousand pounds in six months. I shall have to give my little wife some
lessons in economy."

It was hard, for on her own self she had not spent one shilling. Another
time she was greatly distressed what to say--her husband complained of
her dress.

"Marion," he said, "it seems absurd to say, but, my darling, you are
positively shabby--that is, for one in your position. How is it?"

She did not tell him that she could not purchase more dresses, or,
rather, would not until Madame Elise was paid. Her face flushed, and
Lord Atherton smiled.

"You need not carry economy too far," he said; "it is very good of you
to take so great an interest in me, Marion, but you must not go to these
extremes. You had five hundred pounds yesterday; go and get some pretty,
elegant dresses suitable for Lady Atherton."

She could not tell him that she had sent that all away, and had not a
shilling left. There were times when Marion, Lady Atherton, heiress of
Hanton, mistress of one of the finest fortunes in England, wife of one
of the richest men--when she hardly knew where to turn for money; the
poorest beggar in the street was more at ease.

In the meantime, Allan Lyster, by his successful trading on a woman's
secret, was leading a life of complete and perfect luxury. He spared no
expense; he gambled, betted, played at every game of chance; he was well
known at Tattersall's in all the green rooms; he played to perfection
the part of a fast man about town, while the woman he had pretended to
love was wearing her life away in mortification and suspense.

At last, what she had long foreseen came to pass. Allan wrote to her for
money when she was utterly unable to get it. She was compelled to borrow
it from Lord Ridsdale. He lent it to her with a smile, telling her at
the same time, with real gravity in his voice, that he hoped she was
keeping no secret from her husband.

So the time came when she could no longer keep pace with his
extravagance, when she was compelled to refuse his request. He had lost
some money in a bet over some horses. He told her that he must have it,
and she assured him that it was impossible. Then the blow fell. He wrote
to say that if the money were not sent him by Thursday he should at once
commence an action against her.

"The damages that I shall win," he wrote, "will be so large that I shall
not want to ask you for more."

She was terrified almost out of her senses. To many women it would have
occurred to sell or pledge their jewels, to change diamonds for paste.
She thought of none of these things. Lord Ridsdale had gone to Paris,
she could not ask him, and Lady Atherton was at her wits' end.

She learned, however, that she was too fearful, that he was trading on
her alarm, that he could not bring an action against her, because at the
time that promise had been given she was a ward and not of age. She
wrote and told him that his threat was in vain.

It was the answer to that question that drove her from home a fugitive,
that exiled her from all she loved, that drove her mad with terror.

He wrote to her and admitted that her argument was perfectly just, that
perhaps in strict legal bounds he could not maintain such an action;
but the shame and exposure for her, he told her, would be none the less.

"If you persist in your refusal," he wrote, "I shall go at once to Lord
Atherton. I will show him those letters, and ask him in justice to give
me some share of the fortune he has deprived me of. I shall read every
word to him, and tell him all that took place; he may judge between us."

The letter fell from her nerveless hands, and Marion, Lady Atherton,
fell on her knees with a cry of despair. She was powerless to help
herself, she could do nothing, she could get no more money; and even if
she could of what avail? If she sent this, in a few weeks or months at
the farthest, he would renew his demand, and she could not do more. The
sword must fall, as well now as in a year's time; besides, the suspense
was killing her. The long strain upon her nerves began to tell at last.
She was fast, losing her health and strength; she could not eat nor
sleep; she was as one beside herself; frightful dreams, dread that knew
no words, fear that could not be destroyed, pursued her. She grew so
pale, so thin, so nervous, that Lord Atherton was alarmed about her.

If she had loved her husband less her despair would not have been so
great. Sooner than he should read those ill-considered words--those
protestations of love that made her face flush with flame--sooner than
he should read those she would die any death. For it had come to that;
she looked for death to save her. She felt powerless in the hands of a
villain who would never cease to persecute her.

She sent no answer to the letter. What could she say? She made one or
two despairing efforts to get the money, found it impossible, then gave
herself up for lost.

She did not write, but there came another note from him saying that
unless he heard from her that the money was coming he would wait upon
her husband on Friday morning and tell him all.

There was no further respite for her--the sword had fallen--she could
not live and face it; she could not live knowing that her husband was to
read those words of her folly, that he was to know all the deceit, the
clandestine correspondence that weighed now so bear it.

"I shall never look in his face again," she said to herself. "I could
never bear that he should see me after he knows that."

She weighed it well in her mind. She looked at it in every way, but the
more she thought of it the more impossible it seemed. She could not
bring disgrace on her husband and live. She could not doom her only
child to sorrow and shame, yet live. She could not bear the ignominy of
the exposure. She, who had been so proud of her fair fame, of her
spotless name, her high reputation. It was not possible. She could not
bear it. Her hands trembled. All the strength seemed to leave her. She
fell half-fainting--moaning with white lips that she could not bear it
and live.

Must she die? Must she part with the sweet, warm life that filled her
veins? Must she seek death because she could no longer live?

No, she dare not.

"I cannot live and I dare not die," she moaned. "I am utterly wretched,
utterly hopeless and miserable. Life and death alike are full of terrors
for me."

What should she do? Through the long, burning hours, through the long,
dreary nights, she asked herself that question--What should she do?

Her husband, alarmed at her white face and altered manner, talked of
summoning a physician to her. Her friends advised change of air, but
there was no human help for her.

Then, when mind and brain alike were overdone, when the strained nerves
gave way, when the fever of fear and suspense rose to its height, she
thought of flight. That was the only recourse left to her--flight! Then
she would escape the terrors of death and the horror of life. Flight was
the only resource left to her. The poor, bewildered mind, groping so
darkly, fixed on this one idea. She would not kill herself. That would
deprive her of all hope in another world. She dare not live her present
life, but flight would save her.

People would only think she was mad for running away, and surely when
Allan Lyster saw what he had done he would relent and persecute her no
more.

She was not herself when she stole so quietly from home and went
disguised to the station. She was half delirious with fear and dread;
her brain whirled, her heart beat, every moment she dreaded to see Allan
Lyster pursuing her. Her only idea was to get away from him, safe in
some refuge where he could not find her.

She little dreamed that in the hurry of her flight she had dropped Allan
Lyster's letter--the letter in which he threatened to tell her
husband--the letter which drove her mad, and sent her from home. She had
intended to destroy it; she believed she had done so; but the fact was,
it had fallen from her hands on the floor, and she never thought of it
again. Her maid, thinking it might be of consequence, picked it up and
laid it on the mantelshelf. Only God knows what would have become of
Lady Atherton but for this oversight.

Her absence was not discovered until evening, when it was time to dress
for dinner; then the maid could not find her. No notice was taken of her
absence at first; they thought she had gone out and had been detained;
but when midnight arrived, and there was still no news of her, Lord
Atherton became alarmed. He went into her dressing-room, and there his
eyes fell upon the letter. He opened and read it, bewildered by its
contents. At first he did not understand it, then he began to see what
it meant.

Gradually the meaning grew clear to him. This villain was trading upon
some secret of poor Marion, and she in fear and trembling had fled. He
felt sure of it, and from that conviction he took his precautions.

He said nothing to the servants, except that Lady Atherton had gone away
for a few days and would not return just yet. "I shall find her," he
thought, "before the scandal gets known." Seeing their lord perfectly
cool and unconcerned, the servants made sure all was right. No one in
the wide world knew the true story of Lady Atherton's flight except her
husband.

"I will find her," he said to himself; "but before I even begin to look
for her I will settle my account with the sneaking villain known as
Allan Lyster."

CHAPTER XIV.

In his luxurious drawing-room Allan Lyster sat alone. He was engaged to
dine with a party of guardsmen at Richmond, but he hardly felt in
spirits to go. This was Thursday; never dreaming that Lady Atherton
would fail him, he had faithfully promised to pay his bet on Friday. It
was now Thursday evening, and he had heard nothing from her. He had not
the least intention of really betraying her to her husband--he knew the
character of an English gentleman too well for that. He knew that if
Lord Atherton had but the least suspicion of the vilely treacherous way
in which he had preyed upon his innocent wife, he would, in all
probability, thrash him within an inch of his life.

He was far from being comfortable, and wished that he had taken
Adelaide's advice and had gone less rashly to work--had been content
with less. After all, he felt compelled to own that he had been rather
hard upon her.

"Let her send this time," he said to himself, "and I will not trouble
her again just yet."

He was seated in a luxurious lounging chair, on the table by his side
was a bottle of finest Cognac, and he was enjoying the flavor of a very
fine cigar. Notwithstanding all these comforts, Allan Lyster was not
happy.

"I cannot think," he said to himself, "why she does not send."

At that moment he heard a sharp ring at the door bell.

"That is the messenger," he said to himself, triumphantly, "and it is
quite time, too."

But it was a man's heavy footstep that mounted the stairs, and when
Allan Lyster looked anxiously at the door, he was astonished to see Lord
Atherton enter, carrying a thick riding whip in his hand.

He sprang obsequiously from his chair.

"I am delighted to see you, my lord," he began, but one look at that
white, stern face froze the words on his lips. Lord Atherton waved his
hand.

"I want those letters, sir!" he cried, in a voice of thunder--"those
letters that you have, holding as a sword over the head of my wife!"

"What if I refuse to give them?" replied Allan.

"Then I shall take them from you. I have read this precious epistle, in
which you threaten to show them to me. Now bring them here."

"I am not accustomed, my lord, to this treatment."

Lord Atherton's face flushed, his eyes seemed to flame fire.

"Not a word; bring them to me! You have traded for the last time upon a
woman's weakness and fears. I will read the letters, then I will tell
you what I think of you."

"Better tell your wife," sneered the other, "what you think of her."

"My wife is a lady," was the quiet reply--"a lady for whom I have the
greatest honor, respect and esteem. Your lips simply sully her name, and
I refuse to hear it from you."

"She did not always think so," was the sullen reply. "If you had not
stepped in and robbed me, she would have been my wife now."

The white anger of that face, and the convulsive movement of the hand
that held the heavy whip, might have warned him.

"I want those letters," repeated Lord Atherton; "bring them to me at
once. Remember, they are useless to you; you will never force one mere
farthing from Lady Atherton--your keeping them will be useless."

"It will be more to my interest to keep them," sneered Allan Lyster;
"they are interesting documents, and I can show them to those who will
not judge the matter in so onesided a manner as your lordship."

"You may publish them, if you please," said Lord Atherton, "but I will
take care that every line in them brands you with red hot shame. You
shall publish them, and I will make all England ring with the story of
your infamy. I will make every honest man loathe you."

"You cannot," said Allan Lyster.

"I can. Englishmen like fair play. I will tell all England how you took
advantage of a girl's youth and inexperience, above all, of the fact of
her being an orphan, to beguile her into making you a promise of
marriage, and how since you have traded, you coward, on her weakness, on
her love for her husband, on the best part of her nature; and I will
tell my story so honestly, so well, that every honest man shall hate
you. You may have frightened my poor wife with shadows, you cannot so
frighten me. I tell you, and I am speaking truthfully, that I do not
care if you print her letters and every man, woman and child read them;
they shall read my vindication of her and my denunciation of you."

"You see, Lord Atherton, she did promise to marry me, and I did reckon
upon her fortune. What will you give me for the letters?"

"Nothing. If, after reading them, I find you really received, from the
pure and noble lady who is now my wife, a promise of marriage, I will
give you some compensation. I will give you two thousand pounds,
although I know that promise to have been drawn from her by fraud,
treachery and cunning."

Allan Lyster began to see, in his own phrase, that the game was up. He
unlocked the door of a little cabinet, and took from it a bundle of
papers. He gave them to Lord Atherton, who, still standing, read them
word for word.

"It is as I thought," he said, when he came to the last. "It is the
worst case of fraud, deception and cowardice I have ever met. Nothing
could be more mean, more dishonorable, more revolting. Still, as the
promise is true, I will give you a check for two thousand pounds when
you have destroyed them."

Very slowly and deliberately Allan Lyster tore the letters into the
smallest shreds, until they all were destroyed, then Lord Atherton,
taking a check book from his pocket, wrote him out a check for two
thousand pounds.

Allan took it sullenly enough.

"If I had my rights," he said, "I should have more than that every
quarter."

"That is as it may be," said Lord Atherton, quietly. "You may have
deceived a very young and inexperienced girl; but you would not,
perhaps, have been so successful when that same girl was able to compare
you with others. Now I have paid you; remember, I do not seek to
purchase your silence. I leave it entirely to your own option whether
you tell your story or not. I know that you cannot brand yourself with
deeper disgrace and shame than by making public your share in this
transaction."

Allan Lyster murmured some insolent words which his lordship did not
choose to hear. He straightened the lash of his whip.

"Now," he continued, blandly, "I am going to give you a lesson. I am
going to teach you several things. The first is to respect the trusts
that parents and governesses place in you when they confide young girls
to you for lessons; the second, is to respect women, and not, like a
vile, mean coward, to trade upon their secrets; and the third lesson I
wish to give you is to make you an honest man, to teach you to live on
your own earnings, and not on the price of a woman's tears. This is how
I would enforce my lesson."

He raised that strong right arm of his and rained down heavy blows on
the cowardly traitor who had taken a woman's money as the price of his
honor and manhood. His face never for one moment lost its calm; but the
strong arm did its work, until the coward whined for pity. Then Lord
Atherton broke his whip in two and flung it on the floor.

"I should not like to touch even a dog with it," he said, "after it has
touched you."

He stood still for some moments to see if the coward would make any
effort to rise and revenge himself; but the man who had been content to
live on a woman's misery thought the safest plan was to lie still on the
floor.

"I shall be happy to repeat my lesson," said his lordship, calmly, "if
you require it again."

Allan Lyster made no reply, and Lord Atherton walked away. When he was
quite gone, and the last sound of his footsteps died away, he rose--he
shook his fist in impotent wrath:

"Curse him!" he cried. "It shall go hard with me but I will be equal
with him yet!"

He had played his last card and lost; henceforward there was nothing for
him but hard work and dishonor. He knew that what Lord Atherton had said
was true; if any one knew what he had done, nothing but hatred and
disgust would be his portion.

Lord Atherton went at once to Scotland Yard and asked for a detective.
He showed him the portrait of his wife, told him she had left home under
a false impression, and that he would give him fifty pounds if he could
trace her.

For a week all effort was in vain, they could hear nothing of her; then
one morning Lord Atherton saw an advertisement in the "Times," and he
said to himself that the lost was found.

CHAPTER XV.

ADVERTISEMENT.--On Thursday evening last a lady arrived at the little
village of Redcliffe, and took lodgings there. The same evening she fell
ill of brain fever, and now is in danger of death. She is a stranger to
all in the village, and no clue as to her name or friends can be found.
Any one who has a missing relative or friend is requested to attend to
this advertisement.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6