CHAPTER LVII.
Finette Du Val did not take kindly to the command of her mistress that she should leave the room. She had counted on the rare treat to her malicious mind of seeing Norman de Vere’s two wives pitted against each other in deadly warfare.
So when Camille bid her go and prepare her rooms, she stood silently and pretended not to hear.
Camille waited a moment, then turned on her furiously and repeated the command, adding, stormily:
“How dare you pretend not to hear? Go this instant!”
Finette frowned, but she went—went outside the door at least, and leaving it just the least bit ajar, knelt down and peeped through the crevice she had thus made.
Then Camille turned back to the girl she hated, crying, with blazing eyes:
“Perhaps you think my husband married you for love, girl?”
Thea had sunk helplessly into a low chair beside the baby. She did not know whether the woman before her was Norman’s first wife or not, and she did not know how to get rid of her, but she hoped that the nurse would come in at any minute and then she could send for her mother-in-law. She determined not to bandy words with the angry creature.
Lifting her golden head with a proud air that belied the terrible sinking at her heart, she said, defiantly:
“Madame, you have forced yourself into Verelands without an invitation, and you persist in remaining against my command that you go. Therefore you can not expect to be treated with the courtesy due to a welcome guest. I decline, therefore, to reply to any questions you may impertinently ask, and from this moment ignore your undesired presence.”
“Ma foi!but that was queenly,” muttered the eavesdropper at the door, forced into unwilling recognition of the young wife’s dignity.
Camille drew her breath hard. She realized, too, that Thea had the advantage of her; but after a moment she gave vent to a forced laugh.
“Oh, very well; sit there dumb, if you choose,” she said, airily. “Your silence will in nowise alter the unpleasant facts I am here to tell you.”
Thea did not answer—did not deign to look at her. She sat silent and pale, her blue eyes resting on Alan’s lovely,sleeping face, one slender hand—the one that wore the wedding-ring—wandering softly through the golden rings of baby’s hair. She was saying to herself over and over that it was all a lie—the woman was an impostor, bent most probably on blackmail. She had read of such things in sensational newspapers.
Camille resumed, angrily:
“As I was saying, you imagine that my husband married you for love. You never made a worse mistake in your life. He gave you the shelter of his name to save you from disgrace, because that old scandal of long ago had cropped up and was in everybody’s mouth. If he had not married you when he did, and so given the lie to that report, the people who had been kind enough to notice you at first would have given you the cold shoulder very soon, because it had come to be believed that you were Norman de Vere’s illegitimate child.”
She saw Thea start as if she had stabbed her to the heart; but the pale, tightly shut lips did not open to utter a word. The girl was proud enough, if need be, to die of her inward wound in silence.
Camille laughed mockingly as she saw what a wound she had given her foe, and resumed:
“He did not tell you the truth, of course; he pitied you too much; but it was hard for him to give up his attitude of brother and guardian to you and make you his wife to satisfy a carping world. It would have pleased him better if you had married Cameron Bentley. But the Bentleys were too proud; they informed him frankly that their son could never address you on that subject until he brought proof of your parentage and refuted the slander against you. Already it was working in people’s minds. Miss Faris and many others sent regrets for your coming-out ball, because they did not choose to associate with you. The suspicion that had caused Norman de Vere’s wife to leave him had taken root in the minds of others, too. To save himself he would not have made the sacrifice he did; but to save you, feeling that you had a claim on his pity, he married you. But he never loved you—never—save as one loves a pretty child or a favorite sister. All the love he was capable of he lavished on me. When I left him, I believe his heart died.”
She stopped with a sort of hysteric gasp; but the silent, statue-like form before her made no sign, although every bitter word had sunk into her heart.
Camille could not tell how deeply she had hurt her victim,so quiet was Thea under the rain of bitter words, but she went on angrily, scathingly:
“Perhaps you do not believe me. Very well, ask others. Ask Mrs. Bentley if she ever heard a word of Norman’s marrying you until immediately after the embarrassing affair of her son. Ask your mother-in-law the same. Ask Norman himself. Why, if he ever had a thought of courting any one after my supposed death, it was Diana Bentley, who is much more suitable to him than a girl like you, young enough to be his daughter.”
“While you, madame,” muttered the unsuspected listener at the door, “are almost old enough to be his mother.”
Camille remembered it but too well, and the sting of her deadly hate went all the deeper for that.
How dared the girl yonder be so young, so happy, filling her old place in Norman’s heart, the mother of his beautiful child, while she, growing old ungracefully, painted, made up by art, was remembered only with scorn and loathing.
“Well, I have come to take my revenge at last,” she went on. “I knew when he married you, but I also knew he did not love you. I waited my time to strike. I thought he might learn to love you a little, especially if you bore him a child. Perhaps he did, men are such fools. So now I can wound him worse by the child’s illegitimacy than by your dishonor.”
How gloatingly the words rolled off the painted lips, how exultantly the hazel eyes flashed! But Thea did not look at her, although her heart quailed before the horror of what she had heard.
“My God, can this horrible thing be true?” she asked herself, in dumb agony; and the heavy eyes fixed on the child’s sleeping face seemed to see in fancy on the smooth white brow the dark brand of a terrible dishonor.
It was too much. She could not maintain the icy front of scorn and incredulity she was trying to wear before her bitter foe. She knew that her lips were writhing with pain, and suddenly dropped her face down upon the arm that was outstretched toward the child. The quick movement sent all her beautiful veil of golden hair like a mantle over the graceful, slender form, as if trying to hide her from the angry, burning gaze of Camille, who laughed in insolent triumph when she realized her victory.
“You begin to realize the truth—ha! ha!” she cried. “Ah! now I am repaid for all my scheming and plotting. You are in my power at last. Do you know what pains Itook to get you there? I sent a fraudulent telegram to Norman de Vere, and got him out of the way. I sent that message to Mrs. de Vere from Nance, who is no more dying than you are, but your credulous mother-in-law is locked up tight and fast in a negro cabin, from which she will not escape while you remain at Verelands. Of course that will not be long. Your pride will not permit you to remain here to meet my husband when he returns to find that I am alive. Were I in your place, I would take my child in my arms and seek refuge from my deep disgrace in the river.”
She hoped that Thea would take her at her word. It would be a glorious revenge upon the man who had put her away from him with such scathing scorn, but Thea did not answer her. She remained silent, with her convulsed face hidden on her arm.
“You have no right in this house—neither you nor the child—and I command you to go away at once—at once! You hear? I have come to stay, and it would not be pleasant to my husband to return and find his two wives under the same roof. I am going to my rooms now. When I come down-stairs in the morning, I hope that I shall find you gone peaceably away. If you are still here, I shall thrust you forth with my own hands!” stormed the heartless woman; but as she elicited no answer from Thea she turned away after one scathing look of unquenchable hate, and left the room, stumbling over Finette in the hall, and immediately flying into a gust of passion at her disobedience.
“Miladi, I think you ought to try to keep the one friend you have left,” the woman answered, sullenly. “You need not think you will conquer that young girl easily. She has ten times the dignity that you have. She heard all those cruel things with the silence and dignity of a dethroned queen. It is no wonder Mr. de Vere loves her. I think if her parentage could be traced it would be found she had descended from noble blood. I dare say she is kinder to her servants than you to yours. Oh, you don’t like for me to praise her? Well, then, don’t be so ready with your ill words if you don’t want me to turn traitor.”