The Adventures of an Ugly Girl

by Mrs. George Corbett

Nearly all the world accepted this explanation of the tragic event which had, at one blow, deprived me of husband, wealth, title, position and influence, and had converted Lord Egreville into the peer he longed to be.

But not for one moment did I believe that the doctors had given anything like a true diagnosis of the cause of the late earl’s death. There is a fashion in everything, even in matters of life and death, and nowadays it seems to be an epidemical fashion with medical men to ascribe every sudden death of which they do not understand the cause to unsuspected heart disease. The explanation is plausible, and, in all likelihood, more often than not correct, although there is a strong element of guess-work about it. Post mortem examinations are horrible and unpleasant contingencies to contemplate, and the feelings of relatives and friends are apt to be cruelly wounded by the bare mention of such a dernier resort.

Of course it would have been extremely painful for all parties concerned if an inquest over the remains of the Earl of Greatlands had been suggested; but I never doubted for one instant that such a course would have resulted in the discovery of foul play, such as only I—and one other, as subsequent events proved—suspected.

Suspected! do I say? It was no mere suspicion with me. It was a firm and rooted conviction, that nothing but absolute proof to the contrary could ever dispel. And that proof, since no one broached the advisability of an inquest, was not likely to be afforded me. No doubt there was considerable marvel in some people’s minds concerning my manner of bearing the sudden reverse of fortune which had befallen me, but their opinion troubled me little, and it was not likely that I would occupy the minds of sensation-mongers long after I had been relegated to my former status of insignificant obscurity. Tears did not often come to relieve the aching weight which oppressed me, as I pondered in what perhaps struck those who were unable to gauge my real feelings as a hard and defiant mood.

How could they tell, however, that the grief I felt for the loss of the man who had loved me outweighed my regret for my lost glories, since I let very few words of sorrow escape me? Indeed, I dared not indulge in comments with any one, for I feared lest the horror and loathing which I now felt for my sister and her fiancé should break the bounds in which I had resolved for the time being to entrammel them, and overflow in a torrent of bitter denunciation and invective. I should imagine that there are few girls of stronger passions for love or for hatred than myself, and I sometimes caught myself wondering how I managed to refrain from publicly denouncing those whom I firmly believed to be the deliberate murderers of my dear old earl; for I hated them with a hatred that was consuming in its wild intensity. Yes, my hatred was of fearful force. But I was swayed by an even stronger passion, which held it at bay.

This was my love for Lady Elizabeth, the first being who, since my mother died, had opened her heart to me, and who was now prostrated by a nervous attack, due to grief at the loss of her father, between whom and herself the strongest sympathy had always existed. She had of late admitted me largely into her confidence, and I had gained so much knowledge of her nature that I knew what a bitter blow such family disgrace would be to her as would overtake us all were my convictions shared by others. For my father’s sake I would not have repressed my wild longing for vengeance. For Lady Elizabeth’s sake I could have submitted to make an even greater sacrifice.

But even my great love for her could not induce me to hold friendly intercourse with Belle, or to withhold the fierce glances of accusation under which the new Earl of Greatlands writhed in impotent rage. He saw that I suspected evil-doing of some sort on his part, and he resented my glances at first by frowns of defiance. But somehow, when I continued to maintain steadfastly the antagonistic attitude I had assumed, he grew manifestly uneasy, and even went so far as to presume to address words of sympathy to me, which implied that he imagined me to cherish animosity against him merely because he was occupying the place of the man who was to have been my husband, and suggested that he hoped I would no longer hold aloof from him and Belle as if I thought they had done me an injury.

To this misjudged attempt to induce me to bury the hatchet I vouchsafed no response but a cold stare of contempt and a curl of the lip which spoke volumes. Indeed, so potent was this mute answer of mine that the earl almost ceased to visit our house, and my father was informed by Belle that my violence and ill manners had succeeded in depriving her to a great extent of her lover’s society.

“Dora,” said my affectionate parent to me one morning after breakfast, “I am sorry to observe that you have lapsed into your former ill-conditioned state of selfish ill-breeding. I have made all due allowance for the disappointment you must have felt at being prevented from becoming the great lady you expected to be. But I have noticed with growing displeasure that you are venting your spleen in an unjustifiable manner upon Belle. Certainly, she is going to occupy the position you thought would be yours, but she is doing you no personal injury thereby, for your chances are irrevocably gone, and she was engaged to the present Earl of Greatlands before the marriage between yourself and his father was arranged. It is therefore abominable that you should try to make her life miserable by driving her lover from the house, and doing your best to produce an estrangement between them; and if you continue your present behavior, I shall insist upon your going to live at the Grange until we are ready to leave London.”

Lady Elizabeth was too ill to come downstairs, and was, therefore, not present during this harangue. Otherwise it would probably not have been made; for, even in things that wholly and solely concerned me, my father was wont to show that consideration for his wife, who loved me, that he would never have displayed toward me for my own sake, and he treated me with tolerable politeness when in her presence. But when she was not there, he showed the same unbounded partiality for Belle and the same lack of sympathy for me which had always distinguished our intercourse in the past; and it is not surprising that my lately acquired self-reliance prompted me to retort that I was best aware of the motives of my conduct, and that Belle was not likely to lose her lover through me, since their destiny would henceforth be ruled by the promptings of an evil conscience.