Kitabı oku: «The Bride of the Tomb, and Queenie's Terrible Secret», sayfa 18

CHAPTER VI

At little Queenie's sudden and terrible appearance Mrs. Lyle and the two elder sisters screamed aloud in fright and horror, and even the agonized father recoiled a moment from the dreadful-looking creature that lay at his feet to all appearances dead.

Directly, however, with a strong revulsion of feeling from dismay and terror to pity and tenderness, he bent down and lifted the white face of his daughter on his arm.

Her head fell back helplessly, and the wet and matted locks of gold trailed over the velvet carpet, drenching it with rain-drops. The long, dark lashes lay close upon the marble-white cheeks and no breath fluttered over the pale, parted lips to show that life still dwelt in the frame of the hapless girl.

A cry of agony broke from the lips of the poor father whose fondest affections had been concentrated on the daughter now lying lifeless in his arms.

"Oh, God! oh, God! what fearful mystery is here? Queenie is dead; and oh! those horrible marks upon her throat and brow! Someone has murdered my little darling!"

Again the frightened shrieks of the women rose above the dreadful tumult of the storm outside. They huddled together by the marble hearth, shuddering as though afraid to approach that dreadful-looking object that had come upon them with the face of the little Queenie they had alternately scolded and petted in the past. Mr. Lyle looked at them with a keen reproach and pain in his heavy eyes.

"Queenie is dead," he said to them, in a hollow, broken voice. "Why do you stand aloof from her?"

His lips were white, and he trembled so that he could scarcely hold the still form that lay so helpless in his arms. But even as he spoke, her lips parted in a faint and scarce audible sigh, the eyelids fluttered slightly and grew still again.

"No, no, she lives!" he cried, rapturously. "Quick, quick! let us take her to her room and apply restoratives."

He lifted her in his arms and the women mechanically followed him as he bore her to her room and laid her down upon her little white bed. Then he turned around with the dazed look gone from his white face and a gleam of resolution there instead.

"There is some dreadful mystery here," he said, in deep, low tones. "The servants must not know of this. Let them think that she came back with you from Europe. Sydney and Georgie, you may retire to your rooms. Your mamma and I will do all that is necessary."

Frightened and weeping the girls went away to their rooms and the fearfully stricken parents went to work to restore life in the exhausted frame of poor little Queenie.

They bathed and dressed the wound upon her brow, laved the fearfully discolored throat with arnica, wrung and dried the dripping golden tresses, and lastly Mrs. Lyle removed her soiled, wet garments and robed her in a pretty nightdress. All the while the hapless girl lay still and motionless, without a sign of life save an occasional quiver of the eyelids, and a faint, scarce perceptible throbbing in her wrist.

"My dear, you are tired and overcome," Mr. Lyle said to his wife when they had done all that was possible. "Go to your room and rest. I will stay here and watch by our little girl."

Mrs. Lyle leaned her head on his shoulder and burst into hysterical weeping.

"Oh! what does it mean?" she moaned, wringing her hands. "Where, oh! where, has Queenie been this past year?"

"My dear, we shall know when she revives, if she ever does. Go now and rest," he answered, pushing her gently from the room.

He went back to his lonely vigil and watched the weary night through by that silent form upon the bed. Now and then he rose and poured a few drops of wine between the pale, unconscious lips and sat down again with his finger upon the fluttering, thread-like pulse. At length, between the dark and the dawn, Queenie opened her eyes upon his face, sighed, and murmured:

"Papa!"

He bent over her anxiously.

"You are better, darling?" he said.

"I am better," she answered faintly.

There was silence a little while after that. She lay quite still with her large, hollow eyes fixed wistfully on her father's pale and troubled face as he bent over her, holding her white and wasted hand in both his own. Everything was very still about the house. The storm outside had spent itself, and only now and then the fitful muttering of the "homeless wind" reminded one of the war of the elements that had raged so fiercely a few hours ago.

Mr. Lyle's voice, hoarse, trembling, agonized, broke strangely upon the utter stillness:

"Queenie, where have you been all this long, dreadful year?"

Queenie turned her face and buried it in the pillow, and a low sob of utter agony answered him only.

Again he repeated the question, this time more firmly and resolutely.

"Oh! papa, must I tell you?" she moaned, without lifting her face from its friendly refuge.

"Yes, Queenie, I must have a full explanation of your mysterious absence, for I fear it covers wrong or guilt. Secrecy is seldom without sin," he answered, in a firm but heart-wrung voice.

His daughter wrung her white hands, moaning and weeping.

"Oh! papa, I cannot, cannot tell you," she exclaimed.

Mr. Lyle took the white hands that were wildly beating the air, and held them firmly in both his own.

"Be calm, Queenie," he said, "and listen to me. There can be no question of cannot between you and me! You have deceived us all and spent a year away from us. You return to us wretched and alone, with the marks of cruel violence upon your person. What are we to think of you, Queenie, if you refuse to explain the mystery? How can we receive you back with a secret, perhaps a shameful one, in your life? I must have your vindication from your own lips, my poor child. Answer me, Queenie, where have you spent this missing year of your life?"

She wrenched her hands away and looked about her wildly.

"Let me go—I cannot stay here! Oh! why did I ever come?" she wailed. "I was mad, mad!"

He laid her forcibly back upon the bed. She was too weak to resist him, and lay panting and moaning in wild despair.

"Queenie, you torture me," he said, hoarsely; "I must have the truth from you. Tell me, dear, has anyone wronged you? If it is so, I will have the villain's heart's blood!"

She shivered and trembled where she lay held down by his strong hands.

"Too late," she moaned, in a voice half-triumphant, half-despairing. "I have taken vengeance into my own hands—I have," she broke off shivering and sobbing, with a look of awful horror in the white face with the terrible, purple print of a boot-heel on the marble brow.

"Tell me all, dear," he said, his voice sharp with anxiety and foreboding.

She looked up, trembling and shivering, and wailed out:

"Papa, be merciful—spare me, spare me!"

He made no answer. His head was bowed on his hands, his face hidden. Queenie looked at him and saw with a sudden sharp pang how strangely his clustering locks had whitened in the past year. She raised herself up and threw her arms around him, laying her cheek against his shoulder.

"Papa," she whispered, mournfully, "look up—I will tell you all—but only to you, you alone, dearest and best of fathers—can I reveal the terrible secret that has ruined my life!"

With her cheek against his shoulder and her hand locked in his, Queenie Lyle poured forth in burning words the story of that missing year—the saddest story to which her father had ever listened—yet he made no comment, uttered no word, until she had finished and thrown herself down at his feet with the wailing cry:

"Papa, can you ever forgive me?"

He did not try to lift her up as she lay there. He only said in a deep, intense voice, with a lightning flash in his deep eyes:

"Queenie, you have forgotten to tell me one thing—his name."

She shuddered from head to foot.

"Papa, it is the only thing I must keep from you—that hated name! What matters it? Is he not beyond the reach of your vengeance?"

"True, true," he answered with a strong shudder. "Oh, Queenie, my poor child, would to God I had died before this terrible thing came upon me!"

She crept nearer him and rested her bowed head on his knee, all her glorious, golden tresses sweeping to the floor.

His heart ached as he saw that bright head lying there bowed low with shame and disgrace.

"Papa," she whispered, in a voice like saddest music, "papa, do you condemn me?"

He was silent a moment, struggling with the keenest agony he had ever known. Then he answered very gently:

"My poor Queenie, I forgive you." Then added in the words of the great Teacher of men: "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone."

And the first beams of the newly risen day shone into the room and crowned his gray head like a halo of light.

CHAPTER VII

"Yes, Queenie was quite sick for more than a month after we returned from abroad. She is not strong yet, but she has promised to come down into the drawing-room for a little while this evening."

It was Mrs. Lyle who spoke, in the calmest, most composed tone in the world. She was leaning back in her chair, richly dressed in silk and lace and fluttering her fan as she talked to Captain Ernscliffe who leaned over the back of her chair, tall, handsome and stately, the most distinguished-looking man in the room.

Mrs. Lyle was giving a small reception after her return, and had bidden the creme de la creme of society only, to welcome her home.

There were beautiful women in plenty present, and none but had a flattering smile for Captain Ernscliffe, but though he smiled and chatted with all, he still kept looking over even the fairest heads toward the door for one absent face while his heart thrilled with anxiety and expectation.

She came at last, and though he had been watching for her so long he scarcely knew her when she entered. He had expected to see a little, fairy-like creature, with a sunny smile and falling ringlets, and cheeks like pinkest rose leaves. Instead, there entered a tall, pale, graceful girl, clad in a dress of white lace ornamented with knots of purple, golden-hearted pansies. The crimson lips were set in a proud curve instead of a smile, and the dark fringe of her lashes swept so low that they almost shadowed her cheeks. Her golden hair was confined in a thick braid and wound about her head like a coronet, making her seem as stately as a young princess.

She was changed, greatly changed, from a year ago, and yet none who looked at the fair, calm face, with pride sitting regnant on the broad, white brow, would have dreamed that the pathos and pain of a terrible tragedy had been wrought into her life and had seared her heart and soul as with fire.

Friends and acquaintances crowded around her and it was many minutes before she found her way to her mother's chair where Captain Ernscliffe still stood with his heart beating so fast that he thought she must have heard it. It seemed to him as if everyone in the room must read in his face the secret of his love for Queenie Lyle who had rejected him a year ago with all the thoughtless lightness of girlhood. But no, his face was perfectly calm to all appearance, and as the girl gave one timid, upward glance at him she thought he had forgotten or outlived the pain of his rejection.

"I scarcely dared hope that you would return home as you went," he said after the first formal greeting. "I feared some French count or English lord would claim you as his own."

She blushed, and her eyes fell until the dark lashes rested on her burning cheeks.

"I was not so fortunate as to claim the admiration of any of the nobility," she answered carelessly. "Georgie outshone us all. She is to be married to an English lord in a month from now."

"I am very glad it is not you who are to be married to him," he answered laughing, but with an undertone of sincerity.

Other friends claimed her for awhile, but by-and-bye his restless glance found her out sitting by a window alone for the moment, and looking tired and a little sad.

"You are not strong enough to stand the heat of the rooms," he said kindly. "Come out in the garden and walk in the moonlight with me."

She took his arm and they went out in the garden. It was summer, and the flowers were blooming in profuse sweetness. The air was heavy with the odor of the roses and honeysuckle. They sat down upon a rustic seat with the full flood of brilliant moonlight falling on Queenie's uncovered head and lovely white face.

"You have grown more beautiful than ever, Queenie," said her companion admiringly.

She did not answer, but he fancied that he heard a faint, quickly smothered sigh.

Impulsively he took into his own the small hand lying cold and listless in her lap.

"It has been a year since I saw you, Queenie," he exclaimed, "but I find the old love rising in my heart as passionately as if we had only parted yesterday. Dearest, have you ever repented of your cruelty to me?"

She looked up at him, and her eyes were full of a fathomless sadness and vague regret.

"Ah! yes," she said, and her voice was almost a wail of pain. "I have repented, Captain Ernscliffe, I have been sorry often and often for my blind mistake!"

He held out his arms, drawing he scarcely knew what hope from her agitated words.

"Queenie, come to me," he cried. "Let atonement follow repentance."

But she drew back, trembling and frightened.

"I—oh, I did not mean that," she said, "I cannot—it is too late!"

"Queenie, do not be cruel to me again," he pleaded, carried away by the rush of his wild passion. "If you knew how I have wearied for you since you went away, how blank my life has been, you could not be so cruel! You would give yourself to me out of sheer pity and tenderness."

"But I do not love you," she said.

"I will teach you to love me, Queenie. I love you so well that I could not help winning your love in return if you only gave me the privilege to try. Say yes, my beautiful darling, and make me the happiest of men!"

She sat still with her head bowed and her hands locked together in her lap like one thinking intently. At length she said, without lifting her head to look at him:

"I do not believe I can make you happy, Captain Ernscliffe, but I will be your wife if you want me."

When the reception was over and the guests all gone, Queenie sought her father and found him alone in the library.

"Papa," she said, abruptly, laying her hand on his arm. "Captain Ernscliffe has proposed to me again!"

"You refused him, of course, Queenie," he answered, looking at her with the grave sadness that always rested on his features now.

Her eyes fell, and a crimson flush crept slowly over her features, but she answered steadily:

"Au contraire, papa, I have accepted him."

"Queenie!"

"Papa!"

"Why have you acted thus? You do not love him?"

"No, papa, but it will be a fine match for me!" she answered, with a hard little laugh, and a slight ring of sarcasm in her voice.

He looked at her almost angrily.

"Queenie, I have never intended—never contemplated the possibility of a marriage for you—since—since you came back home. I took you back and forgave you, kept your secret, and forced your mother and sisters to receive you and overlook that dreadful blank year whose secret I would not reveal to them. But I cannot—you must not expect it—allow you to deceive an honest man."

"Oh, papa! papa!" she fell on her knees and looked up at him imploringly, "for sweet pity's sake, have mercy on me! Keep my secret and let me marry Captain Ernscliffe! I need another home—mamma and the girls are so cold and hard to me—I will be a good wife to him—I will indeed! He shall never know."

"Ah, Queenie, if your sin should find you out!" he said.

"It will not, it cannot," she said, with a shudder; "it is buried too deep. And I have prayed—oh, how I have prayed, papa—and God has forgiven me!"

"God has forgiven you, but men would not," he said.

"You forgave me, papa."

"Because you had been sinned against, and because I love you so dearly, and pitied you also. But, Queenie, Captain Ernscliffe would recoil from you in horror if he knew what I know."

"Papa, he shall never know," she cried, clasping his knees with her round, white arms, and lifting her wild, streaming eyes to his face. "I will try to make him happy; and he wants me so very much. You will only make him unhappy if you come between us."

A gleam of relenting came into his eyes. He had loved her so dearly even since her innocent babyhood, and now, despite her fault, despite the hidden tragedy in her young life, the father's heart bled for her, and sweet pity stood sentinel over her past.

"Queenie, do you think you are doing right?" he said, appealing to her honor.

Alas! her terrible wrongs and deep despair had steeled her heart against all appeals.

"Right or wrong," she said, almost defiantly, "I shall marry him, unless you tell him my secret, papa. And if you do, what good will you accomplish! You will only break his heart."

"Go, then, unhappy, willful child," he answered, sternly, "go; but if shame and sorrow come of your folly, remember the fault is on your own head."

"I accept the responsibility," she answered, with a hard, steely ring in her voice.

He turned away with a groan and went abruptly out of the room.

"She is changed almost beyond belief," he said to himself. "That dreadful tragedy has warped her whole nature and made her reckless and heartless. Unless some softening influence is brought to bear upon her she will be lost forever!"

Queenie was about to leave the library, when a rustling noise made her look around, and the next moment Sydney Lyle stepped from behind the heavy curtains at the window, where she had been an unsuspected listener to the conversation.

Sydney looked brilliantly beautiful in a ruby-colored satin, trimmed with Spanish lace. A cluster of rich, scarlet roses were fastened in the dark braids of her hair, and diamonds blazed on her neck and arms, but they were scarcely brighter than the fire in her dark eyes as she seized Queenie by the white shoulder and shook her roughly.

"Queenie Lyle, you little wretch!" she exclaimed, in a low voice of concentrated rage and passion, "how dare you promise to marry Captain Ernscliffe?"

Queenie shook herself loose from the cruel grasp that had left ugly red marks on her smooth, white shoulder, and answered defiantly:

"What business is that of yours, Sydney?"

"You shall not marry him!" Sydney continued, passionately. "You are not fit to marry any man; but I care not whom you wed so that it be not Captain Ernscliffe."

"I shall marry no other," answered Queenie, stung into defiance by Sydney's overbearing look and manner. "I shall marry Captain Ernscliffe as surely as I live, Sydney, and you cannot prevent it."

"Can I not?" hissed Sydney, furiously. "What if I tell him to ask you for the secret of that missing year of your life?"

Queenie looked back at her calmly and quietly.

"You will not dare to do it," she said. "If you did I would tell him that you wanted him for yourself."

"He would not believe you," flashed Sydney.

"You dare not risk it, Sydney," said Queenie, defiantly. "As for me, I have promised to marry Captain Ernscliffe at the same hour that Georgina marries Lord Valentine, and I shall surely keep my word."

She swept from the room without pausing to listen to the reply of her infuriated sister.

CHAPTER VIII

Whether Sydney Lyle was frightened or not by her sister's threat she made no effort to interfere with the marriage, whose appointed day was swiftly approaching. Captain Ernscliffe was a daily visitor at Mr. Lyle's, but Sydney kept her room, or was constantly absorbed in fashionable gayeties, so that she saw but little of Queenie and her lover.

But though Sydney had apparently given up the contest, she still preserved a tacit feud with Queenie, refusing to speak to or notice her in any way, and haughtily repelling the questions and remonstrances of the family on the subject.

Lord Valentine, the lover of the fair Georgina, at length arrived, and the cards of invitation were issued for the double wedding, which Mrs. Lyle had determined should be quite a brilliant affair.

Mrs. Lyle was jubilant over the prospect of marrying off two of her girls so advantageously; and Mr. Lyle, in the midst of his trouble and anxiety over Queenie, was still conscious of a certain sense of relief, for there had been a coldness and estrangement between Queenie and the other members of the family ever since her return, and the atmosphere of home had seemed charged with electricity that threatened at any moment to burst into storm. So that none, except, perhaps, Sydney, were sorry when the eventful night arrived, and the two brides were dressing in their respective rooms, Georgina attended by her mother and Sydney, and the single maid employed by the family waiting on Queenie.

The unhappy girl was keenly conscious of the tacit slight, but she did not seem to notice it by word or sign, and after her toilet was completed she sent the maid away, saying that she wished to be alone a little while.

"Everything is perfect," she said, surveying herself critically in the mirror. "I am a shade too pale, but then they allow that to brides, I believe. Ah, me!"

She walked up and down the room, her small hands locked before her, her beautiful face as white as death, a look of deep unrest in her large, violet eyes.

There was a slight tap at the door. She knew it at once for her father's familiar knock.

"Enter, papa," she said.

He turned the door-handle softly and came in.

"I have come to see if the bride looks pretty," he said, veiling his emotion under an affectation of lightness.

"You are the only one who cares to know," she answered, with a ring of bitterness in her sweet voice.

He stood silent, surveying her with sad yet admiring eyes.

She wore the rich brocaded silk that her uncle had sent her a year ago from Paris, and which she had laughingly declared then should be her wedding-dress. Its rich shining folds trailed far behind her, and the soft folds of the bridal veil fell over it like a mist. Her wreath and the knots of flowers that looped up her dress were of natural orange blossoms, the gift of her lover. Their fragrance pervaded the room deliciously. She wore a magnificent set of diamonds, the bridal gift of Captain Ernscliffe.

Young, beautiful, elegantly attired, she made a picture on which the eyes might feast and never grow weary, and none would have guessed how heavy was the heart beating under the satin corsage, or that the fearful elements of a tragedy had been woven into that life that seemed yet in its earliest spring.

Her father looked at her a moment, then silently opened his arms, and she as silently glided into them, heedless that the bridal veil was disarranged as she laid her fair head down upon his breast.

"Papa," she murmured, with quivering lips, "you love me, you are kind to me in spite of—of—all."

"God bless you, my little daughter," he said, solemnly, and touched his lips lightly to her brow.

It was the first time he had kissed her since she had come back. He had forgiven her, and been kind to her, but the loving caresses that had been showered on the little Queenie who went away had never been given to the Queenie who returned. This silent, gentle kiss seemed to have all the solemnity of a farewell.

"Papa, I feel strangely," she said, putting her hands to her brow; "my head whirls, my—oh! oh! God, oh, God, what is that?"

With a wild and ringing shriek of horror she tore herself from his arms, and stood pointing at the window with one jeweled finger, her blue eyes dark and dilated, her face transfigured with terror.

That frightened shriek penetrated to Georgina's room across the hall. The bride and her mother and sister all made a rush for Queenie's room, apprehending some dire calamity.

They found her standing in the centre of the floor, her face transfigured with terror, her shaking finger pointed at the window, while she wailed aloud in accents of remorse and despair:

"The dead! The dead!"

"Queenie, Queenie, you rave!" her father exclaimed, catching her arm as she held it forward, still pointing at the window.

She turned around and clung to him, sobbing wildly:

"A ghost was there, papa—a horrible ghost!"

"No, no, dear, there was nothing—I saw nothing. Queenie. There is no one at the window," he answered soothingly.

She gave a fearful, shuddering look at the window.

"It is gone, now, papa; but I tell you I saw a ghost at the window—one from the dead came and looked at me—his ghost, papa," she moaned, hiding her face on his shoulder.

"Whose ghost was it, Queenie?" asked Georgina, curiously, as she stepped forward in her elegant bridal robe. "Whom did you see?"

"Do not tease her, Georgie—stand back and give her air—see, she is about to faint!" exclaimed her father, a little shortly.

The bride stepped back with a murmur of discontent. She thought it exceedingly rude in her father to snub the prospective Lady Valentine.

"Oh! for mercy's sake, Queenie," exclaimed Mrs. Lyle, rushing forward with a bottle of eau de cologne, "don't give way to hysterical fancies now when it is almost time for the ceremony to begin! You saw nothing at the window but the moonlight; come, come, compose yourself! Your toilet will be totally disarranged!"

She fell to work bathing the limp, nerveless hands and cold brow of the girl, while Sydney and Georgina stood coldly aloof—the bride because she was afraid of ruffling her delicate plumage, and Sydney because she would not have lifted a finger to save Queenie if she had lain dying before her.

In the midst of the tumult the maid rushed in.

"Oh! Mrs. Lyle," she exclaimed, "the company is arriving. Mrs. Preston's carriage is at the door, and Mrs. Alden's and Mrs. Howe's."

"Oh! dear," exclaimed Mrs. Lyle, "was there ever such a contre temps? Not a soul in the drawing-room to receive them! Sydney, you must go down, I cannot leave Queenie in this state."

Sydney curled her lip in a disdainful smile and went.

The marriage was to take place at home, and the drawing-room was profusely decorated with flowers. A beautiful arch of white flowers was arranged where the bridal couples were to stand, and wreaths and bouquets were variously disposed about the room.

Sydney in the white heat of anger that filled her heart felt sick and faint as the overpowering fragrance pervaded her senses.

Yet she had to stand up and receive the guests and smile and talk as if it were the happiest evening she had ever known.

She had refused to become one of the bridesmaids, so when the bridal party with their long string of lovely attendants entered the room and stood before the bishop, she drew back into an obscure corner that no one might see the jealous pain and hatred in her heart disfiguring her handsome face.

Georgina was married first, taking precedence of Queenie by virtue of her own four years seniority, and her betrothed's superior rank. Then the newly-wedded couple stepped quietly back, and Captain Ernscliffe and his radiantly-beautiful bride took their place; the solemn words were spoken, the ring slipped over her slim finger, and they turned to receive the congratulations of their friends.

One of the servants came bowing and smiling into the group carrying a magnificent bouquet of white flowers.

"For Mrs. Ernscliffe," he said, presenting it, "with the compliments of a friend."

She took it into her white hand with a faint smile.

"It is rarely beautiful," she said, and lifted it to her face and inhaled the strong, sweet odor of the costly flowers.

Something more pungent than the innocent breath of the flowers entered into her brain as she inhaled the fragrant incense. She threw up her hands, and without a word or cry, the smiling bride fell lifeless at her husband's feet.