Vera Nevill Part 60

Before he left England Maurice told her the story of his love for Vera, and the whole truth about her death. The old lady knows that Vera and her fatal beauty has wrecked the lives of both her sons. There will be no tender filial hands to close her dying eyes, no troops of merry grandchildren to cheer and brighten her closing years. They will live away from her, and she will die alone. She knows it--and she is very, very sad.

In South Kensington there lives a gay, world-loving woman who keeps open house, and entertains perpetually. She has horses and carriages, and a box at the opera, and is always to be seen faultlessly dressed and the gayest of the gay at every race meeting, and at every scene of pleasure.

People admire her and flatter her, and speak lightly of her too, sometimes, for it is generally known that Mrs. Kynaston is "separated"

from her husband; and though a separation is a perfectly respectable thing, and has no possible connection with a divorce, yet there are ugly whispers in this case as to what is the cause of the dissension between the husband in Australia and the wife in London; whispers that often do not fall very far short of the truth. And, gay as she is, and light-hearted as she seems to be, there are times when pretty Mrs.

Kynaston is more to be pitied than any wretched beggar who toils along the streets, for always there is the terror of detection at her heart, and the fear that her dreadful secret, known as it is to at least two persons on earth, may ooze out--be guessed by others.

There are things Mrs. Kynaston can never do: to read of some dreadful murder such as occasionally fills all the papers for days with its sickening details makes her shut herself in her own room till the horrible tragedy is over and forgotten; to hear of such things spoken of in society causes her to faint away with terror. To walk by a pond, or even to speak of being rowed upon a lake or river, fills her with such horror of soul that none of her friends ever care to suggest a water-party of any kind to her.

"She saw that poor Miss Nevill drowned," say her compa.s.sionate acquaintances; "it has upset her nerves, poor dear; she cannot bear the sight of water." And there are a few who think, and who are not ashamed to whisper their thoughts with bated breath, that she saw Miss Nevill's sad death too near and too well to be utterly spotless in the matter.

That she allowed her to perish without attempting to save her, because she was jealous of her, is the generally received impression; but there is no one who has quite realized that she was actually guilty of her death.

Did they think so, they could not eat her dinners with decency. And they do eat her dinners, which are uncommonly good ones; and they flock to her house, and they sit in her carriage and her opera-box, and they take all they can get from her, although at their hearts they do not care to be intimate with her. But then money covers a mult.i.tude of sins. And a great many crimes may be glossed over if we are only rich enough and popular enough, and sufficiently the fas.h.i.+on.

As to Denis Wilde, he was young, and in time he got over it and married an amiable young lady who bore him three children and loved him devotedly, so that after a while he forgot his first love.

Shadonake Bath has been drained. Mr. Miller has at last been allowed to have his own way about it. It is an ill wind that blows n.o.body any good, and there could be found no voice to plead for its preservation after that terrible tragedy of which it was the scene.

So the old steps have all been cleared away, and brick walls line the straight deep sides, whereon grow the finest peaches and nectarines in the county, whilst a parterre of British Queens and Hautboys cover the spot where Vera died with their rich red fruit and their luxuriant foliage.

And at Sutton things go on much the same as of old. Old Mrs. Daintree is dead, and no one sorrowed much for her loss, whilst the domestic harmony is decidedly enhanced by her absence. Tommy and Minnie are growing big and lanky, and the subject of schools and education is beginning to occupy the minds of Marion and her husband.

But the vicar has grown grey and old; his back is more bent and his face more careworn than it used to be. He has never been quite the same since Vera's death.

There is a white marble monument in the middle of the chancel, raised by the loving hands of two brothers far away in Australia. It is by the best sculptor of the day, and on it lies a pale white figure, with a pure delicate profile, and hands always meekly crossed upon the bosom.

Every Sunday, as Eustace Daintree pa.s.ses from his place at the reading-desk up to the altar to read the Communion Service, there falls upon it a streak of suns.h.i.+ne from the painted window above, which he himself and his wife had put up to her memory, lighting up the pale marble image with a chequered glory of gold and crimson. And the vicar's eye as he pa.s.ses alights for a moment with a never-dying sadness upon the simple words carved at the foot of her tomb--

Vera Nevill, aged 23.

AT PEACE.

MRS. CAMERON'S NOVELS.

Jack's Secret.

A Sister's Sin.

A Lost Wife.

The Cost of a Lie.

This Wicked World.

A Devout Lover.

A Life's Mistake.

Worth Winning.

Vera Neville.

Pure Gold.

In a Gra.s.s Country.

"Mrs. Cameron's numerous efforts in the line of fiction have won for her a wide circle of admirers. Her experience in novel writing, as well as her skill in inventing and delineating characters, enables her to put before the reading public stories that are full of interest and pure in tone."--_Harrisburg Telegraph_.