Kitabı oku: «The Bride of the Tomb, and Queenie's Terrible Secret», sayfa 19

CHAPTER IX

No one suspected the agency of the beautiful and odorous bouquet in the sudden and tragical death of the fair young bride. It lay upon the floor where it had fallen when she fell, and in the grief and excitement of the moment no one thought of picking it up. Who would have thought that death could lurk in the fragrant breath of so beautiful an offering? So the lovely destroyer lay unheeded where it had fallen, and in the morning it was removed by the servants, who saw in it only a withered bouquet that littered the rich carpet.

But its mission was accomplished, and when Lawrence Ernscliffe lifting the drooping head of his new-made bride, he saw only the marble mask of death on that peerless face that a moment ago was wreathed in smiles. But he could not believe it, and when the physician who was hastily summoned gave the verdict so often wrongly given in cases of sudden death, that heart-disease had caused the calamity, the groan of agony that broke from the strong man's lips was heart-rending.

"She cannot be dead!" he cried, falling on his knees and clasping the beautiful form to his wildly-beating heart. "Oh! God, give her back to me, my darling, my own!"

"Queenie, my little pet, my precious child, speak to me," cried the gray-headed old father, bending over her in agony.

"My daughter, oh, my daughter!" shrieked the mother, and Georgina wailed aloud, both of them forgetting their coldness and estrangement, and remembering only the little Queenie they had loved and petted and teased so long ago, and who now was dead.

Alas! they might have stood aloof as silent and as cold as Sydney stood, for all the answer they won from those pale lips that the bridegroom kissed so passionately, as though those agonized caresses could have beguiled her back to life and love again.

One by one the bridal guests stole away and left them alone with their dead, the silent domestics crept about closing windows and doors, and dimming the brilliant lights; the banquet stood untasted under the glitter of flowers and lights and silver, the music was hushed, the garlands drooped low, and the house of feasting was turned into the house of mourning. The fairest daughter of the house of Lyle lay dead.

Mr. Lyle fell down in a fit after the dreadful certainty of his loss became manifest to him. He was removed to his chamber, attended by skillful physicians, but their potent art was of no avail. Entire consciousness never returned to him again. He lay through the long hours of the night tossing restlessly on his pillow, and babbling of the dead girl who lay in the chamber above, deaf to his agonized appeals as to those of her lover-husband. They thought he was delirious, he talked so strangely.

"I knew she would die," he said. "Her spirit face came and looked at me through the window one night—it was when she was away"—a shudder shook him from head to foot—"I knew it was a token of her death! Ah! but I forget—did she not tell me it was herself that came, full of love, and pity, and sorrow, and looked at her poor papa, sitting lonely for lack of his little girl? Queenie, Queenie, where are you? Come back, dear! Papa forgives you! He will take you home again out of the cold and wet, and the dark, stormy night."

He started up and held out his arms to clasp her to his heart, but instead he encountered the form of the bereaved bridegroom who sat by the side of his bed. They had persuaded, nay, almost forced him away from the side of the dead bride to the relief of the suffering living. He sat there half dazed with grief and horror, hearing dreamily the strange ravings of his father-in-law—ravings that he scarcely heeded then, but which burned themselves into his memory, and were recalled in after years with inexpressible pain.

"Ah, Ernscliffe, it is you," said the poor father, when the yearning arms that sought for Queenie touched him instead. "Are you waiting for her, too! You must not blame her very much. She was very young and temptation found her an innocent victim. You remember the woman in the Bible who was forgiven much—because she loved much? Ernscliffe, you will not be hard upon little Queenie—you will forgive her—for she also loved much!"

The physician tapped his forehead significantly with his forefinger.

"Do not heed him—he raves," he said.

"Queenie, Queenie," called the poor sufferer, "come back, dear, I forgive you, but you must ask God to forgive you, too. Get your Bible, pet—read what Christ said."

Sydney, standing near the foot of the bed, looked strangely at her mother. The dying man, as his restless glance roved about, saw that look, and beckoned her with a warning finger.

"Come nearer, Sydney—you were cold and hard to her when she came home—you, and mamma, and Georgie. Women are always hard to each other. How could you be so cruel to the little one?"

He paused a moment, as if for reply, but Sydney turned her pale, changeless face aside, and Mrs. Lyle was sobbing too wildly for words. He went on babbling to himself on the one theme that held his thoughts:

"She was such a sweet child—was she not, mamma? So lovely, and so loving! I can see her now with her golden curls flying on the breeze and her light feet dancing over the turf! Little Goldilocks, we used to call her sometimes. Goldilocks, Goldilocks, come, and kiss me. Papa forgives you!"

Georgina, who had stood apart weeping against Lord Valentine's shoulder, came forward and fell on her knees by the bed, thrilled to the heart by the tender recollections his words awoke.

"Oh, papa, papa," she sobbed, "poor, little Queenie!"

He reached out and laid one trembling hand on the fair head still crowned with the orange wreath. His words, though they seemed to the physicians but the purposeless ravings of a disordered fancy, burnt themselves upon her memory as if written in fire.

"Georgie, forgive her—she was more sinned against than sinning—and she went mad and avenged the wrongs—remember that when she comes back."

"Queenie is dead, papa," sobbed Lady Valentine.

"Dead—who said that Queenie is dead?" he asked, looking vacantly about him.

The physician came forward and forced a composing draught upon him.

"Do the vagaries of illness often assume such forms as this?" inquired Sydney's clear voice from the foot of the bed, where she stood supporting the form of her hysterical mother.

"As what, miss?" inquired the physician, politely.

"These strange and dreadful fancies about—about my sister," she answered, flushing slightly. "His words, if rational, would imply so much."

"But taken as the ravings of a disordered fancy they imply nothing," answered he, quickly. "He is not conscious of what he says. The shock of your sister's sudden death has simply assumed some other form to his delirious brain. Who can fathom the mysterious workings of a mind diseased?"

Sydney glanced furtively across at Captain Ernscliffe. He was listening, and his heavy, grief-filled gaze met her strange, inscrutable one.

"Do not distress yourself, Sydney," he said, very gently, "it is only the raving of a mind distraught. Of course we know that our lost darling"—his voice broke and quivered over the words and he paused a moment and repeated them—"of course we know that our lost darling was as pure as the snow. She never could have sinned."

"Who says that she sinned?" exclaimed Mr. Lyle, rousing slightly from the stupor stealing over him. "Who says that she sinned? Let him among you that is without sin, cast the first stone!"

He fell back exhausted on his pillow, and never spoke again. With the first faint glimmer of the dawn the flickering spark of his life went out—went out so gently that they could scarcely tell what moment the soul was released from its earthly tabernacle.

His heart had been a tender one, more tender than is often found in man, and his youngest daughter had been his idol all her life long. Her protracted absence and her terrible return had strained the chords of his heart almost to breaking—her sudden death had snapped them asunder. Two days later they buried the two who had been so fondly united in life, side by side, in a green and quiet graveyard, away from the noise and tumult of the great, crowded city, and Lawrence Ernscliffe, as he stood by the grave, calm to all outward appearance, though pale as sculptured marble, when he turned away left all the heart he ever had to give buried in the low mound that held his lost little Queenie.

And night fell, chilly, moonless and starless. The "homeless winds" sighed over the two graves new-made in the green churchyard, and the summer rain wept over them in the darkness, as though

 
"The heart of Heaven were breaking
In tears o'er the fallen earth."
 

CHAPTER X

But, hark! who are those that disturb the peace that broods like the wing of an angel over the city of the dead?

Under cover of the darkness and the rain, two dark, cloaked forms steal along the graveled walk and pause beside the spot where the dark, fresh-smelling earth is heaped in swelling mounds over the hapless father and daughter.

The light of a bull's-eye lantern, flashing transiently over the form and face of one, shows a tall, straight form, and features as handsome as those of a Greek god. He speaks:

"To your work, Perkins! They were so cursed long putting her into the ground that I feared my plot would fail! Hasten now. There is not a minute to lose. As it is, we may be too late!"

The man called Perkins produced a spade from under his cloak, and set to work, cautiously but rapidly throwing the earth off of one of the new graves.

"Are you sure you are right now, Perkins? I believe I should kill you if you made a mistake!" said the handsome man with the lantern, grinding a terrible oath between his white teeth.

"You'll not have the chance to wreak your dev'lish temper on me," said Perkins, in a familiar tone, as if addressing one with whom he was thoroughly acquainted. "I'm sure of what I'm doing. I saw them put her into this very hole this evening."

"Hurry up, then. What do you stop to talk for? Make your strokes as light as possible. You might be heard!" said the lantern-bearer, irascibly.

Perkins redoubled his exertions, but it seemed an age to his impatient employer before the dull, horrible thud of the spade announced that the coffin was reached.

"You'll have to help me git the coffin out," said Perkins. "It will be no easy job in this darkness and the pouring rain."

It was no easy job, as he had said, but their united efforts, with the usual appliances for such work, at length enabled them to raise it out of the grave and set it on the ground beside them. Even as they did so, a dreadful sound mingled with the sob of the wind and the putter of the rain. It was a low and smothered moan from within the coffin!

"Great God, Perkins, wrench the lid off!" exclaimed the other, excitedly. "She revives!"

Again and again the low moan echoed within the coffin, having a horrible sound from within that prison-house of death, and fevering the blood of the waiting man who swore audibly at Perkins, whose swiftest efforts seemed like the progress of a snail to his impatient mood.

"Now, sir," said Perkins, at last, as panting, and perspiring, he threw off the lid of the elegant casket, "now, sir, there's your game!"

The man flashed the lantern light forward. It shone on a beautiful white face, fixed in unconsciousness, now, the dews of horror standing thick and wet on the brow, the lips bleeding where the pearly teeth had bitten them in anguish, the small, dimpled white hands clenched in the lace upon her breast that was frayed and torn with her frantic struggles at finding herself in that awful prison. But blessed unconsciousness had supervened, and she looked death-like indeed to the eyes that beheld her.

"Looks like she might be gone, sure enough, this time sir," said Perkins, uneasily.

"If she is, I'll kill you, d—n you!" cried the man. "I'll not be balked of my revenge like that. I'll glut it on somebody!"

Even while speaking he bent down and laid his hand upon her heart.

"No, she lives; I feel her heart beat faintly," he said. "Quick, Perkins, the cloak! It rains on her."

"The rain will revive her," said Perkins, as he unfolded a long, dark waterproof cloak and handed it to his companion.

The man lifted Queenie's slight form, and wrapped the long cloak over the bridal robe in which she had been buried.

"Now, then," he said, putting a thick roll of bank-notes into the man's hand, "cover up the grave, and remove every trace of this night's work. And—remember, one word of this to a living soul, and I'll send your black soul to the devil!"

"Mum's the word, sir!" answered the man, beginning to lower the empty coffin back into the grave.

His employer turned without another word and passed swiftly away through the rain and the darkness to the carriage that waited for him near the gates, bearing the unconscious girl in his arms.

He entered the carriage, deposited the still unconscious Queenie on a seat in a recumbent attitude, and holding her head in his arms, was whirled rapidly away through the murky night. For an hour or more he rode thus, and the carriage stopped at length before a cottage embowered in trees on the banks of a broad, dark river. He lifted his burden, stepped through the gate, and the carriage whirled away.

Hurrying up the steps, he paused on the low, ornate piazza that ran around the house, and rang the bell.

The door was opened by a neat-looking woman of middle age, who held a lamp above her head.

"Ah! it is you," was all she said.

"Yes, it is I; and I have brought back your mistress, Mrs. Bowers, as I said I would, though you did have the impudence to insinuate that I had made way with her," he answered, in a tone of rough pleasantry.

"You are none too good to have done it," she answered, with a certain cool and familiar impertinence.

"Confound your impudence—lead the way to her room," he said, carelessly. "She is ill and needs attention."

Mrs. Bowers went up the stairway and opened the door into a large, airy room, exquisitely furnished and draped with hangings of white lace over rose-colored silk. Costly pictures and statuettes adorned the walls, and all the appointments were of elegant design, and evidently selected regardless of expense.

Mrs. Bowers held back the sweeping lace canopy of the low French bed, and the man laid his fair burden down upon it, after removing the dark cloak.

"What ails her?" asked the woman, starting as a low moan broke from the lips of the only half-conscious girl.

"I told you she was ill," he said, curtly. "She has been in a swoon. Get restoratives."

Mrs. Bowers obeyed him, and was soon bathing the pale face and limp, nerveless hands, with refreshing perfume.

Directly Queenie started up, passed her hand across her brow and looked about her. An expression of loathing swept across her face.

"Are you glad to find yourself in your old quarters, my dear?" asked the man, sardonically, from the window to which he had retreated.

She started as if someone had struck her a terrible blow, and looked across the room. Fear, horror, despair, were all blended in the look she cast upon his handsome, satanically smiling face.

CHAPTER XI

Mrs. Bowers, seeing that her mistress had revived, lighted a brilliant jet of gas and went out. Queenie did not even notice her departure so intently was her gaze fixed on the man at the window, who stood there calm, nonchalant, even smiling, standing the scathing fire of her beautiful eyes like a soldier.

"So," she said, at last, and there was surprise and regret both commingled in her tone, "so you are not dead!"

"No thanks to you, little tigress," he answered, with a fierce, yellow light flaring into his black eyes. "You did your best to further that end."

"I might have forseen how vain was the endeavor," she retorted, in passionate anger, and quoted an old saying: "They cannot be drowned who are born to be hung."

He laughed in mockery at the bitter insinuation, but years after, when the light of Heaven shone on him through the grated bars of a prison cell, and he heard outside the horrible sound of the hammers driving the nails into his scaffold, he remembered the words with wonder, and thought she must have been gifted with "second-sight," as the Scotch called the gift of prophecy.

"Now I know it was you that sent me the flowers," she said. "Why did you do it? They were poisoned!"

"No, only drugged! It was a subtle drug I bought in the east long ago—a drug warranted to produce a long and sudden sleep perfectly resembling death."

"Again I ask you, why did you do it?" she said, and her voice was full of wonder.

"I wanted to get you into my power once more. That was the safest plan to effect it. I let them bury you, and then I resurrected you."

"What did you want of me? You wearied of me before. Why not have let me go in peace?"

She tried to speak calmly, but her voice trembled with some inward resentment, and there was a passion of hatred in her dusky eyes that might have killed him where he stood. A rage as deadly as hers leaped up in his eyes in answer.

"Because I hate you!" he said, wickedly.

"We always hate those whom we have wronged," she replied, and her whole form trembled with her passionate indignation.

"I hate you because of that cowardly blow in the dark," he said angrily. "But for that I might have let you go free, though I pitied Captain Ernscliffe for being deceived by you."

"Villain!" she exclaimed, "I have not deceived him!"

"You have not?" he sneered. "Did you not withhold from him the story of that year which he supposed you to have spent in Europe? Did you not allow him to think you an innocent woman?"

She sprang to her feet and stood facing him, her dark-blue eyes dilating, her cheeks flushing, her small hands clenched tightly in her breathless anger. An artist's pencil might have handed his name down to immortal fame could he have put on canvas that striking scene—the beautiful room, and the man in his splendid, insolent, satanic beauty, standing before that lovely incarnation of pride and passion, with her glorious veil of golden hair falling loosely about her superb form, and the shining folds of her costly bridal robe sweeping far behind her on the rich velvet carpet.

"I am an innocent woman," she said, proudly, and the light shone on her lifted face and the earnest fire in her eyes. "I am an innocent woman! I have done no wrong, though I am a betrayed, unhappy, and insulted victim! I have been sinned against, but I have not sinned!"

He laughed, cruelly, mockingly, insultingly.

"Why do you laugh?" she said. "You know that it is true. You deceived me and betrayed me, but was I to blame? I carried the marriage certificate in my breast as a precious thing! I thought it was true as Heaven, I thought I was pure as the snow! And I am! How could your sin touch me?"

Again he laughed mockingly.

"Your mind is strangely warped," he said. "But if you were innocent in the one thing, how about the blow in the dark? Was there no sin in that?"

"I deny that there was sin!" she said, with passionate defiance in her look and tone. "It was simple justice—'a blow for a blow.' You drove me mad with the horror and cruelty of all I learned! It seemed to me that I was given back from the grave to rid the world of a monster!"

"You failed," he said, derisively.

"Yes, to my sorrow," she answered. "But, ah! Leon Vinton, surely a day of reckoning will come to you. The justice of God will not always sleep. I was not permitted to take your punishment out of His hands who has said 'Vengeance is mine; I will repay.' It will come, it will come!"

"You prate of God's vengeance," he said, sneeringly, "but it suits you to forget that the preachers call him also a God of mercy, and love, and forgiveness!"

"Forgiveness!" she echoed, wildly. "Neither God nor man could forgive you, Leon Vinton! You have committed an unpardonable sin. You have broken my heart, you have tried to kill my soul, you murdered me! Can I ever forgive this?"

She swept back the golden waves of hair that shaded her white brow and showed him the livid scar of a deep wound beneath them.

"It is your hellish work!" she said. "You ground your cruel boot-heel into the brow your false lips had kissed a thousand times; you strangled my life out with the hands that had caressed me uncounted times! Oh, my God, can I ever forgive or forget my wrongs?"

"I will kill you the next time more surely, curse you!" he hissed, in ungovernable rage, and striding forward, he caught her white arm rudely, almost crushing it in his iron grasp. "Cease, girl, not another word!"

She wrenched herself out of his grasp and answered, defiantly:

"Let me go, then, if you cannot bear my reproaches. Let me return to my husband."

A sneer curled his thin lips as she spoke with an unconscious accent of tenderness on the words "my husband."

"Your husband, as you call him, shall never know that you are not mouldering yonder in Rose Hill Cemetery. You shall never look upon his face again, Queenie Lyle."

"Mrs. Ernscliffe, if you please," she said, drawing her graceful form erect with a defiant dignity.

"Mrs. Ernscliffe, then, if it pleases you better," he answered, mockingly. "Though why you care for the name I do not know. You do not love the man."

"I do love him," she answered, firmly, her fair head slightly drooped, and a burning blush crimsoning her cheeks.

"Since when?" he queried, sneeringly. "You did not love him when he asked you to marry him. I heard you tell him so."

"You heard me!" she exclaimed, in surprise.

"Yes, I was a witness to that moonlight wooing. I have seldom lost sight of you since you returned to your father's house, and resumed the role of innocent maidenhood."

"A spy!" she said, scornfully.

"Yes, if you put it so," he answered, coolly. "We need not be particular about terms."

She looked at him as if he were something wonderful. The effrontery of his wickedness almost paralyzed her. She clasped her hands and lifted her blue eyes.

"Oh, just Heaven," she said, "why does thy vengeance tarry in smiting this monster?"

"Permit me to commend your dramatic ability," he said, with a mock-courtly bow. "Your tones and gestures would make your fortune on the tragic stage."

She sank into a chair and dropped her face into her hands. She was very weary and physically exhausted, having eaten nothing since the day of her supposed death, but she felt no hunger now, though she was faint and thirsty.

"Your tirade appears to be over," he remarked, with his evil sneer.

She looked up.

"Tell me one thing," she said, trying to speak calmly. "What do you want of me? Why did you care to get me back, when we both hate each other?"

The glare of that hatred of which she spoke flamed luridly up in his dark eyes.

"That is the very reason that I brought you back," he answered; "because I hated you, and because I intended to make your life one long, insufferable weariness to you until you die."

Again she looked at him with wonder. Her gentler nature could not fathom the cruel vindictiveness of his.

"Oh, Leon," she gasped, "you would not be so cruel? Think of all that I have suffered at your hands already. Let me go, I beg you! I am so young, I may make something of my life yet, if I can only go back to the good, true man I have already learned to love and honor."

The words seemed to madden him.

"Never!" he shouted, hoarsely, with a terrible oath. "Never! I hate Lawrence Ernscliffe—I have an old grudge against him. I will have my revenge on you both. You shall stay here, locked in these four walls, a hated prisoner, as long as you live. Mrs. Bowers shall be your jailer, and here you shall dwell, eating your heart out in abject wretchedness and misery unutterable. Do you like the picture? Au revoir, Mrs. Ernscliffe!"