Her Mother's Secret Part 43

"You bet! I know a housekeeper has got to look after her help, I reckon, or there'd be fine doings. We weren't plagued with help at Wild Cats'--not much we weren't! But go along with you now!" said Mrs. Anglesea.

"Is it a bill? I hate bills! 'Specially when I haven't got the money to pay 'em, though I am descended from the Duke of----"

But Mrs. Force had gone to the door, pa.s.sed out, closed it behind her, and was speaking to the man who had brought the note.

"Where is the gentleman who gave you this?"

"It was the colonel, ma'am," replied the man, in a low voice, as if conscious of naming an objectionable visitor; "and he is standing at the front door."

"Then bring him into the drawing room," she said, as she pa.s.sed on and entered the place first.

She threw herself into a deep-cushioned chair by the fire, and covered her pale and quivering face with her hands.

A few moments pa.s.sed, and Anglesea entered, closing the door behind him.

"Well, Friday!" he said, as he advanced and threw himself into a chair opposite to her at the fireside. "I have been watching the house, from the top of the hill, with a telescope in my hand, from morning until night for two days, waiting for a chance to speak to you alone."

"That must have been a great trial for a man of your good appet.i.te and love of ease," replied the lady, with a curl of her lip.

"Not at all! I came out in a comfortable top buggy, which I drove myself, and brought a luncheon of cold ham and canvas-back duck and a flask of brandy. Tied the horse under a tree out of sight of the house, and stood where I could command a full view of the premises without being seen. All day yesterday, as long as it was light enough to see, I watched in vain.

No one left the house, except the gallant, gay, young midshipman--the walking gentleman of this light comedy. So I went back to mine inn late at night, and much disappointed. This morning I was here very early, but waited until near noon before anything happened! Then I saw the squire and the rector ride forth together and take the road to Benedict. Then I made a descent upon the fort. So you have my Californian sweetheart staying with you?" he exclaimed, in a light and taunting manner.

"Sir!" said Elfrida Force, in a tone of haughty indignation.

"Oh, come now, Friday, you never really supposed that woman from Wild Cats' to be my wife! And, as for the lighter relationship, I need have no qualms in confessing it to you. A confidence of that kind could not shock you."

A crimson tide of shame and wrath swept over the lady's cheeks and brow, but she controlled her indignation, and kept silence.

"You have no idea how free and easy I feel in your society, Friday. With everybody I feel ill at ease, because I must play a part and seem other than I am. But with you I can be myself. With you I can speak of my _bonnes fortunes_ as to a confidential friend."

"Col. Anglesea, if you are trying to cast reflection upon the good name of the worthy woman from California who is our guest, your labor is in vain.

We know that she is your lawful wife," said Mrs. Force.

"You do! Then, by Jove, you know more than anybody else does!" he replied, with a laugh.

"We have received a telegram from the Rev. Dr. Minitree, of St. Sebastian, confirming the fact of your marriage with Mrs. Wright."

"Oh, you have? But suppose at the time of that frolicsome wedding with the Wild Cat widow I had a living wife in London?"

"Man!" cried Elfrida Force, in horror and amazement.

"Yet such was the fact. My wife, Lady Mary Anglesea, was living in London at the time of my marriage with Ann Maria, or Mary Ann Wright, or whoever she was. I have actually forgotten her true name."

"Oh, villain! villain! Your deviltry is unmatched in all the world!"

"Thanks. You do me no more than justice. And you must see by that I am quite worthy to be--your son-in-law; for, my dear Friday, that is what I am. I received the news of the death of my wife, Lady Mary Anglesea, while I was staying at Niagara, and just one week before the most auspicious day on which I met again my old 'pal' and her new family. So, when I married Odalite Force, I was perfectly free to contract lawful marriage, and so the same Odalite is now my lawful wife. 'Read, learn, ponder and inwardly digest' that fact, my lady, if you please."

"You make these statements in reckless bravado. I do not believe one word you say. Why should I believe anything merely upon your authority, when I know, from all experience, that you have not the slightest respect for the truth? You told a falsehood in the church. You said you had never been in California in all your life, and had never before set eyes on the woman who claimed to be your wife. Now, then!"

"I was taken utterly by surprise, as you know--shocked out of my usual self-possession. It was a false move to have denied all knowledge of the Wild Cat. I am ashamed of the false move, but not of the falsehood, in your presence. By the powers, madam! why should I be? I only tell a falsehood. You live one! But come. Don't let us go on complimenting each other in this absurd style. It is so very unprofitable. You do not believe the statement that I have made to you?"

"Why should I believe it merely upon your word?"

"You want proof?"

"I want nothing from you, Angus Anglesea, but your adieus. I should very much like to receive them."

"Really, Friday, you are very reckless. You are playing with edge tools, if you did but know it. Ah, well! I have only to give you proof of the power that I possess over your daughter Odalite to bring you to your knees, madam."

With these insolent words, the man drew a portmonnaie from his pocket, opened it, took out a slip cut from an English newspaper and handed it to her.

With a proud, disdainful smile she took it and read:

"Died.

"Suddenly, at Anglewood Manor, on August twenty-fifth, in the forty-ninth year of her age, Lady Mary, eldest daughter of the late and sister of the present Earl of Middlemoor, and wife of Col. the Hon. Angus Anglesea, H.E.I.C.S."

She returned the slip to the man without a comment.

"Well, madam, what do you think of that?" he inquired.

"I think the poor lady most fortunate in her death, since it freed her from you."

"Thanks, very many. I have kept this little slip, not with the least idea, not with the faintest prevision, that I should ever have this need of it.

Nor have I cherished it in tender memory of the dear departed. By no means. I have kept it to gloat over it, as a slave might over his 'free papers.' And I have gloated over the words that gave me liberty.

'Died'--'Lady Mary Anglesea.' What a pleasure it is to read over these words!"

"Oh! Oh!" groaned Elfrida Force, wringing her hands. "I think the worst punishment in h.e.l.l must be the society of devils!"

"Ten thousand thanks, if that compliment is intended for me. It seems higher than my merits, but it shall be the aspiration of my life to live up to it," said the colonel, with a very low bow.

"Why have you demanded this interview with me? Why have you come here to torment me?" demanded the lady, wringing her hands.

"First of all, to show you, and to prove to you, the true relations in which I stand to your daughter."

"And of what avail will that be to you? You cannot claim our daughter as your wife without an open confession of having married the Widow Wright during the lifetime of your first wife, and thereby exposing yourself to prosecution for more than one crime, the least of which would send you to State prison--for bigamy, for forgery, for robbery. And do you think your California victim is of a temper and disposition to spare you, when she finds out that she has been so criminally deceived--when she knows that you are not her husband? No! She will prosecute you to the utmost extent of the law. And, even if it were possible to suppose that she could forgive your black villainy, forget her own deep wrongs, and forego vengeance, do you suppose it possible that Abel Force would ever be brought to recognize your claim to his daughter? Never, you may depend on it! He will repudiate your claim as the most shameful insult to his family. He will protect his daughter against you with his life. If needful, he will seek a dissolution of this merely nominal ceremony of marriage in the proper courts of law. Why, Abel Force would see his daughter in her grave before he would see her sacrificed to a man publicly disgraced as you have been!"

"Quite so. I perfectly understand that. The situation would be exceedingly awkward in any light. So, my lady, I am not so mad as to come here to claim immediate possession of my wife. I came, as I said, to prove to you that I have a legal claim upon her; that I am her lawfully wedded husband; that she is my lawful wife. All this seems tautological, vainly repet.i.tive; but, then, repet.i.tions are really necessary to make an impression on some people--on yourself, as a matter of detail."

"Be as brief as possible, if you please," said the lady, much relieved by what he had just told her of his non-intention to put in any present claim to the possession of Odalite.

"I will. I shall leave this part of the country in a few hours, and depart for England within a few days. I really think it is the best course for me to pursue at present."

"I really think it is," put in the lady.

"Thanks. You really deserve my forbearance, and I shall spare you for the present, upon certain conditions. If these conditions be fulfilled, you are safe. If they be not, you are lost."

"Let me hear them. I am not at all sure that I shall not prefer to be lost," said the lady, whose spirits had risen under the prospect of her enemy's retreat from the neighborhood.