Another man's wife.

402 Pages·2013·15.72 MB·English

50
MROSE EDITION. PRICE, CENTS.

\nother Man's

WIFE.

BY
Bertha M. Clayo
NEW YORK:

STREET & S~IIT1-I, Publishers,

31 Rose Street.

"MY LADY! FLY! FLY HOMEr MY LORD HAS COME! YOU MUST HAVE BEEN WATCHED!"
EDI'T'ION.
PRI~lROSE
ISSUED Ql1ARTlmLY. N 1 JANUARY 1890
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, $2.00 PER YEAR. O. .- ,.

CopY"ighted, 1890, by Street & Smith.

Entered at the Post-Office, New York, as Second-Class Mal~r.

ANOTHER MAN'S WIFE.

BY

BERTHA M. CLAY

AUTHOR OF
"IN LOVE'S CRUCIBLE," "ONLY ONE SIN," "A 'HEART'/> BITTI~RNE~S,"
"THROWN ON THE WORLD,'; "FOR ANOTHER'S SIN," ETC•
...
... .' .
'
NEW YORK:
STREET & SMITH, Publishers,
31 ROlle SU·eet.

ANOTHER MAN'S WIFE.
CHAPTER I.
" MARRIED-BUT NOT MINE I "
"BERYL! darlillg! my one only love, unsay those
words! You cannot cast me off; you cannot be false to
this love we own for each other-to all our vows. Tell
me this is an evil dream, and you will yet be mine ! "
The roses, and the myrtles, and the trailing vines in the
warm, still air and dim light of the conservatory had
listened in happier hours to this young pair's vows of con­
stancy. Now they heard the desolate, heartbroken sobs
of Beryl Heath, as her golden head lay on the dark plush
cover of the chair-arm, and her slender, white-draped form
was shaken by the storm of her woe.
"Jerome, I cannot help it. They have forced me. I
owe so much to my grandmother. My father threatens
to curse me. They have made me promise-they have
promised for me. Oh, love, we must endure it I "
" But you have promised me, and a promise is sacred."
"They say you will weary of me, as you have of
others; that you will hate me when, with my idle, expen­
sive, helpless ways, I am a burden on your hands."
, " It is a hideous 'matter of barter; it is buying and sell­
.ing your flesh and blood, You have been hawked around
the marriage markets of high Iife~ as a lovely slave in an
oriental bazaar. Such a marriage is degradation to you."
" But, Jerome, they say I must and shall marry. They
are poor. My father, you know, has wasted all my dead
mother's fortune and his own, and we depend on the
Dowager Lady Heath and she says I shall and must take
6 ANOTHER MAN'S WIFE.
this offer. You know we cannot marry. You have only
the little your uncle gives you. The marquis will give
my father a place in some legation."
"I said it was sale-barter! Oh, shame, shame! IfI
were heir of Sothron wold, they would throw you into my
arms gladly enough."
"But, Jerome," said Beryl, with a fresh burst of tears
at her lover's wrath, "I would not love you any better
than I do, now that three lives stand between you and
Sothronwold."
"You love me. Be this your dower, and my fortune­
our mutual love."
"And beggary and a parent's curse I I cannot-I can­
not!"
"And you will marry the Marquis of Medford-more
than twenty years older than you are-who buys you as
he would a statue to ornament his castle! Shame on
you! "
"Jerome, I must do my duty in obeying my parents.
You know you are fond of gay life, and never would settle
to anything; and I have nothing to plead with them but
that I love you, and they laugh that to scorn. Jerome,
we must part forever; let it be in peace, not hate."
"Peace! You have ruined my life. You destroy all
my faith in woman. Agree that another shall have your
caresses! Never! What aim is left me? I called your
love my blessing; instead, it is my curse."
"Oh, Jerome, Jerome. how can you! "
"Ifyou do this thing, Beryl, I warn you, my ruin is at
your door-my death, my dishonor. I will throw myself
away."
"Jerome, this is madness. You have no right to speak
so."
"The day that you make a marriage so shamefully un­
fitting, I will do as much. I, too, will marry without
heart or fitness; and in the disgraceful spectacle you shall
have a true view of yourself-Beryl Heath."
"Oh, Jerome! for my sake, be a good, brave l!lan."
"For your sake-yours! You deceive me-cast me
off. Who else has loved me, or have I loved? I have
even no kin, but an old great-uncle, with son and grand­
sons. I am an Ishmael-an outcast in all the world."
ANOTHER MAN'S WIFE. 7
"Jerome, only this one word. My heart is broken. I
love you. Good-by forever! "
"Forever, indeed I "
This was her father's angry voice in the doorway, look­
ing in fury on this unhappy pair.
Lord Alfred Heath had been a spendthrift and a man of
fashion [rom his youth. His own and his wife's property
being exhansteJ, he lived on a limited income, begrudged
by his brother, the Earl of Lancaster, and the aid of his
mother, the dowager Lady Heath. On the beauty, grace,
and winning charms of Beryl Heath, father and grand­
mother had openly speculated. Lady Heath had secured
for her grandchild all fashionable accomplishments, and
had strained every nerve to keep her the best dressed girl
in London,
This was the close of Beryl's second season. She was
twenty. One love her heart had owned, Jerome Sothron ;
and between Jerome, in his absolute poverty, and the
magnificent estates and immense income of Sothron three
good lives intervened. In the eyes of the family, Beryl's
love for handsome, hasty, spoiled, popular, passionate
Jerome Sothron was a real madness. And Lord Alfred
and his mother had accepted for Beryl a suitor of forty­
five, the Marquis of Medford, unimpeachable, cold, rich,
high in title, influence, and position. \Vhat nonsense was
this about the girl's love for Jerome and her breaking
heart? Folly I "A coronet would cure her heart-break,
and Jerome was an indisputable ne'er-do-well."
Beryl Heath was her dead mother's own child. Lovely,
graceful, shrinking, tenderly and ardently loving, but
timid, weak, easily dominated by stronger wills, and held
in deep subordination by her unscrupulous father, and tl].e
high-tempered, Roman-nosed, resolute dowager Lady
Heath.
Beryl's extreme beauty and submissiveness commended
her to the middle-aged bachelor marquis as the very wife
he had sought for years. It never entered his mind that
such a shy girl could passionately love a suitor rejected by
her family. Young girls, in his creed, accepted whom
their families chose, and therefore loved their husbands.
The preparations for Beryl's marriage to the marquis
went briskly on. Her father and grandmother felt that
nothing would be absolutely safe until the fatal words had
ANOTHER MAN'S WIFE.
been spoken at the ~ltar, that should bind her to Lord
Medford and part her from Jerome forever.
One friend in her own circle she had who gave her warm
sympathy in her contemned 10ve, and often bade her end
her troubles by eloping with Jerome. Beryl could not
know that this friend, a brilliant young widow, 1\1rs. Ran­
leigh, had for the three years since her return to society
been laboring to secure the addresses of the Marquis of
Medford.
" Don't be intimate with Mrs. Ranleigh," said the shrewd
old dowager. "She cannot be your friend, as she has
openly tried to win the marquis for herself."
They watched her closely; she was a prisoner under
their keen eyes-a prisoner, if her shackles were covered
with velvet and gold. Her father filled her ears with tales
about Jerome-tales that he knew were false, and which
old Lady Heath wrathfully said were not fit for a young
maiden's ears.
"Anything is better than her eloping with Sothron,17
Heath said.
Was that true? That remains to be seen.
Another friend, and, indeed, confidante, Beryl had-one
who could only weep with her, and lavish humble caresses
on her, and give a girl's sympathy to this miserable
course of true love-Fanny Hume, her maid. Fanny had
been brought up as Beryl's attendant, and twelve years of
daily intercourse, and poor Beryl's desolation' in her love­
less home, had made them not merely mistress and maid,
but friends.
Such a friend as Fanny was one danger more for Beryl;
Fanny was an honest girl, but weak and giddy. It was
Fanny who brought Beryl a note from Jerome. One half
of the note was a wild prayer to her to fly with him as his
wife; the other half, mad, reckless threats of defying her,
and destroying himself by a miserable marriage. Beryl
thought herself the most unhappy of girls.
There was another girl who fancied herself happy.
Celia 1\1orris, niece of the gate-keeper of Sothron Abbey.
"Come back to your sewing, Celia," said heraunt. "I
know what you are lookinO' for-a glance at Mr. Jerome.
He is no game for you, 'n~: you fo~ hi.rn." If you don't
mind, you'll go on as your SIster Della dld.. .
Celia crimsoned with pain and rage, for Della, her tWIn