CHAPTER XXIV.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 283, 21 July 1888, Page 4

CHAPTER XXIV.

IN WHICH LADY DRt'-MMOXD MARLS A SIXi.r.STIOX. The London season set in, and Lady Cecilia Drumniond and her circle of gay admirers took flight from Cavendish Mano r and opened the baronel's town house in Grosven or Square. The br.ionet was guit c bountifully supplied with wealth ; other wise, he never would have been my Lady Cecilia's husband ; and the appointments of his town house were very magnificent. Lady Drummond and Lady Neville were the best of friends. Their elegant mansions were in the same locality, and th9y met continually at the fashionable assemblies which both frequented. It was at Lady DrummoncVs first ball of the season that their first meeting, after the separation of the earl and his wife, took place. A very charming affair was this ball, got up on the very grandest scale, and attended by the very treme. de la ci'ame of West End society. Lady Drummond was the queen ot host. 1 -, and her entertainments were always largely attended. The spacious drawing-rooms were tilled with beauty and splendour on this her first night ; costly silks, and priceless jewels, and sweet-.scented blossoms, glittered and glowed in the light of the swinging chandeliers ; and over all throbbe J the bewildering sound of exquisite music. My lady, in superb Lyons velvet, with rubies in the laces at her throat and amid her black hair, looked more entrancing than ever, and her dear five hundred friends welcomed her back with the most flattering assurances of delight. She did the honours in the most approved manner. She seemed übiquitous in her graceful attentions ; smiling radiantly to one, speaking a pleasant word to another, and breaking hearts at random with the glances of her glorious eyes. She danced and sang, and fairly outdid herself in the way of being charming ; and yet, never perhaps in her life before had the fair Cecilia felt more despondent. When the ball was fairly under way, and every one was being amused and entertained, she stole out from, the crowded drawing-rooms into the dim, cool silence of the conservatory. One little compartment, filled with rare foreign plants, and shut off from the whole by glass doors, was secure from intrusion. This she entered, and closing the door after her, she threw herself into the rustic seat with a foigh of relief. Lady Drumraond had looked for the Earl of Strathspey at her ball that night. 4 He can come in a quiet way, with you and Sir Harry,' she wrote in her note of invitation to Lady Neville ; "it will do the poor man good to minglB with his friends, and where is the impropriety V But instead of availing himself of her invitation, and attending the ball in a quiet way, this provoking peer had taken himself off to Sicily for the winter. Lady Cecilia safe down, and pushed back the heavy braids from her forehead, her dark brows corrugated with vexation. ' Gone to Sicily !' she soliloquised ; ' gone, and I counted so much on having him here ! Of all provoking men, Angus, Earl of Strathspey, is most provoking ! But I'll have my revenge yet ! I will !' Sh« set her white teeth, and locked her jewelled hands in fierce determination. The music throbbed upon the perfumed air ; the rythmic murmur of dancing feet sounded faint and far away. She forgot herself and her duties in the maddening i memories thab crowded on her. She seemed to be back again in that faraway morning of youth and hope. How happy she was ! How beautiful she was, and how she loved him ! This very provoking man, Angus, Earl of Strathspey, fcow she loved him in his manly, Saxon '

strength, with the honours of all his race descending to him alone. How he thrilled her with the glances of his handsome eyes, and won her with the flatteries of his honeyed tongue ! How he called her his own, his bride, his countess ; and then, at the very last, when she almost felt the coronet upon her brow, cast her off, and at his father's bidding wedded another ! And that other, the one woman in all the world she most hated — Marguerite, daughter of Sir Roland Aukland, heiress of Aukland Oaks. And but for this Marguerite, this blue- ! eyed Pearl of Kent, as she was called, through some kindredship on the father's side, the baronetcy of Aukland, together with the old chateau in France, and all the Aukland moneys, would have descended to Cecilia Cavendish, of Cavendish Manor. But the blue-eyed Pearl of Kent lived and thrived, and the Lord of. Strathspey Towers wont down and wedded her. And she, grand-niece of a duke, with all her haughty pride and queenly beauty, was left" forsaken in hcv dreary old manor house, with scarcely a pound of ready cash. Thinking it all over, her dark cheeks fl»med, and a baleful light blazed in her black eyes. Nothing short ol a complete revenge would ever cancel that bitter wrong, that terrible humiliation. Angus of Strathspey had blighted her life, and left her to marry an imbecile old baronet for the sake of his gold and title ; and as surely would she blight his, and bring his pioud head down in the dust at her feet. Sitting in the dim light of the conservatory, with the gorgeous blooms around her, this woman looked the impersonation of a beautiful fiend in her costly robes and jewels, her rare face distorted by the most malignant passions the human heart ever knows. A rustle of silken drapery in the adjoining apartment startled her. It was Lady Neville, who came in co look at the flowers and get a breath of fiesh air. A proud and regal woman, very like the carl, her brother. She picked a cluster of heliotrope, and tat down, inhaling its fragrance. Lady Drummond arose on the instant, and hurried out. 1 .My dear Lady Neville,' she said, sinking down on an opposite seat, ' I beg your pardon. I was choking with the heat, and ran in here. I hope it is not growing tedious in the drawing-rooms?' ' Oh, dear, no,' replied Lady Neville, a she fastened the heliotrope in the lace on her bosom ; ' 1 never saw a more successful ball. Your balls are always successful, Lady "Prummond !' ' Are they, my dear Lady Neville '! If you say so, I'm content. But I beg your pardon ; I fancy you look a trifle paler than usual. Are you quite well ?' * 'No, not entirely well; I felt just the least faint when I left the ball-room.' Lady Drummond caught up her little silver bell, and tinkled it. In an instant a page stood before hei . ' A bottle of port,' she said, ' and glasses. ' 'Delightful old port, Lady Neville,' she explained, as the page returned with the requisite articles on a silver tray ; ' Sir Veiney pronounces it unsurpassed. Just one glass ; 'twill run through your brains like lire.' She poured out a couple of glasses, drinking one herself, while Lady Neville sipped the othei. 'I've not been myself,' said the latter, ' for a week or two, indeed not sinee — that bad affair — of the earl's ' Lady Diummond nodded sympathetically. ' Tis a terrible affliction,' continued Lady Neville, putting down her glass, her blonde cheek flushing from the effects of the wine. ' I can'r bear to think of it. Poor Angus is humiliated ! But he deserves \t. He should never have married an Aukland !' ' I beg your pardon. Lady Neville,' smoothly put in Lady Cecilia, ' but the faint of insanity is no l in the Aukland blood, it comes from the mothei's side; your brother's wife's mother was a Rowland, and the taint comes from the Rowland blood.' ' Does it indeed ? Oh, dear me, I really beg your pardon, my dear, dear Lady Drummond , I did not think — you are connected with the Auklands, are you not ?' ' Remotely,' replied Lady Drummond, with a repressed flash in her eye?. ' Don't distress yourself, my dear friend, I'm not a bit offended. I'm quite sure 3 do not inherit the family taint.' MY ell, the Auklands are a fine farnilv,' continued Lady Neville, ' and poor, dear papa was eager for the match. Indeed, he commanded it, I believe. Angus had got into some entanglement, and poor papa wanted him to many. But dear mamma and I warned them of this "*ffy thing. And now it has broken out. So sad for a man like Angus, .so young, and with such a career before him. He's completely broken down; no heail or spirit for anything.' ' Does he contemplate getting a divorce '!' asked Lady Cecilia, pressing one hand against her heart to still its tierce throbbin gs. ' He did, at first — or rather we persuaded him to do so. But he has changed his mind again — he says he won't suffer the disgraceful affair to be dragged before the public. You see,' continued her ladyship, ' he believes his wife to be guilty of criminal conduct. I don't speak of it, but you are a dear friend. All that story of the child, you know, which the countess fancied was her own, and insisted that the earl should acknowledge — I believe it all to be nonsense, the vagaries of a maniac's brain ; but Angus,' lowering her voice, and speaking confidentially, ' believes the boy is her own, born before her marriage. ' ' Really ! And where is the boy V questioned Lady Drummond, eagerly. ' I scarcely know — somewhere in the Tyrol though, I think. Oh, 'tis just the most absurd thing. A poor peasant's child, that the chanced to fancy.' Lady Cecilia's eyes gleamed like those of a panther about to spring. ' I wonder,' she suggested, cautiously, lif she, the countess I mean, could have connived ett the abduction of her own babe, in order that this child might supplant him ?' • 'Tis horrible to think of, but Angus believes it. ' 'He does, poor man; how I pity him,' Lady Drummond said, her eyes gleaming with a wicked triumph ; 'it will be bad to have it all dragged before the public, for her children's sake. If l were concerned, I should stop it.' 'We are trying. Sir Marshall has seen Galbraith, and requested him not to take her case in hand. She is taking steps to have the child's rights, as she fancies them, established.' Lady Drummond laughed, a peculiar, rippling peal. ' Dear me,' she said, ' if I 'were the Earl of Strathspey, and that woman's husband, though she's my cousin in a remote degree, how effectually I would atop all this scandal.' 1 How ?' questioned Lady Neville. ' How ? Simply enough. I would exercise a husband's anthority, and shut her up in a mad house, where she could nob harm herself and others

Lady Nevilie started. Clever as she was, she had never dreamed of this, and it> appeared so easy, and not at all wrong or cruel. She was an intensely proud woman, and this was such an effectual way of hushing up the scandal. If the earl were only in England. Lady Drummond watched her keenly, and saw that her arrow had struck homo, as she intended it should. ' And the dear little children ?' she asked, ' how are they ?' ' Oh, quite well ; only Lady Pearl grieves for her mother. Angus is a perfect stoic' ' He's like the Strathspeys, isn't ho V ' Well, yes, I suppose so ; at least he will be as he matures. ' ' I thought the likeness very striking, ms I remember him,' said Lady Drummond, with a most wicked smile. ' Poor little things, it is so sad. But tho very besb have their troubles ; it will all blow over in a little while. Don't worry yourself ill, dear Lady Neville. ' 'I'll try not,' replied her ladyship, as sho arose ; ' and now 1 suppose it is our duty, or your duty rather, to return to the drawing-rooms. But really I am in no mood for gayety ; and, deavest Lady Drummond, if you'll allow me I think I'll order my carriage and drive home.' Lady Drummond was deeply grieved, of course, yet she yielded her consent, and the sister of Lord Strathspey departed, her brain tilled with the new purpose that her j friend's words had suggested.