A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette

by Charlotte M. Brame

When he found that she had left him, many long months did he spend in searching for her. He had quite decided what to do when he did find her. If any one had bribed her to leave him, the crime should be most dearly avenged. He would tell her that he was willing to make her his wife, and then he would marry her.

"Marry her!" he repeated the words to himself, with a bitter laugh. He would have done anything, have slain her and killed himself, rather than leave her again, or let her go out of his life. She would, of course, be delighted to be Lady Vivianne; it was not likely that she would refuse such an offer. He sneered at himself for being willing to make it; he sneered at himself for his own great, overweening love. He hated himself because it had won such power over him—because it had humbled him even to the yoke of marriage.

"I shall be the first Vivianne who has ever done anything of this kind," he said to himself, yet all the same he resolved to do it. Having wrought himself up to this height of heroism, it was humiliating in the extreme to find it all in vain—he could find no trace of the girl he intended to marry. Whether she had left him in a fit of pique because he had not married her, whether she had gone away in a sudden access of sorrow and regret, he did not know. He was only sure of one thing—she was gone.

Had she left him for any one else, or in one of her sudden caprices? She was capricious enough for anything—it was just one of the things that she was likely to do. For all he knew, she had been near him all the time; she was quite capable of that. He knew that to her his long search, his fever of anxiety, his despair, would only be a comic entertainment; yet, knowing all this, judging her as he did, believing her to be capable of almost anything, still he could not help loving her with the whole force and power of his soul; it was the influence that a wicked woman does obtain at times over a wicked man, and it is stronger than any other.

He came to England at last, despairing to hear any news of her abroad. He argued to himself that if she were still in Italy he should certainly have heard of it; a face like hers could be remarked anywhere; he should have heard of this golden-haired beauty, whose style of loveliness was one so rarely seen in sunny Italy.

He had been in London now for some weeks, but he had heard nothing, and was puzzled what to do next. He never dreamed of looking for her there, in the upper world of fashion; he had no idea, not even the faintest, of ever seeing her. If she were the reigning star in any other world, he would have heard of her before this. With his mind so perplexed and agitated, his soul tossed on a tempest of love, he had no thought to spare for any one else. Let people rave about Lady Studleigh, let her be as beautiful as she would, she could not surpass Doris.

In the meantime Lady Studleigh was creating a sensation to which the fashionable world had long been a stranger. She was the queen of the season. Hyde House was the most popular resort in London; to be admitted there was to have the entree to the most exclusive circle; to be unknown there was to be unknown to fame.

It was not often that one house held two such women as the Countess of Linleigh and Lady Studleigh. The countess was all grace, and suavity, and high breeding; Lady Studleigh all brilliancy, beauty, and wit. Even old courtiers, who had seen some of the first beauties of both empires, declared there was nothing to equal her. Another great attraction to all clever people was the constant presence of the now famous poet, Earle Moray, at Hyde House. His conversation was a great charm, although some, wiser and more thoughtful than others, said it was hardly right to expose a young and talented man like Earle Moray to the constant fascinations of Lady Doris Studleigh.

She bore her triumph with a certain grand calm that impressed her parents wonderfully.

"Race does tell, after all," said the duchess, as she watched the young beauty. "Any other girl would have shown some elation at the great amount of admiration offered—Lady Studleigh shows none. After all, race will tell."