Kitabı oku: «The Bride of the Tomb, and Queenie's Terrible Secret», sayfa 22

CHAPTER XVIII

Over the broad, dark river, and the snow-covered earth the cold winter moonlight lay in great, silvery bars of light.

The terrible snowstorm of two days before was over. The sky was clear and starry, and no trace remained of the storm save the deep, white carpeting of the beautiful snow.

Midnight was tolling from the great bell in the city, but Queenie Ernscliffe sat at her window staring out at the night with wide, sleepless eyes.

On a couch at the opposite side of the room lay Mrs. Bowers snoring audibly. She had slept in Queenie's room ever since the night she had effected her escape and her constant vigilance had entirely frustrated any other attempt of the kind.

While Jennie Thorn had been dwelling in her Fool's Paradise, our heroine had been suffering all the horrors of imprisonment and despair.

She had heard very little of the farmer's pretty daughter since the day she came to live there, but she knew she had remained with them, for she had seen her a few times walking in the garden beneath her window, prettily, even richly dressed, and she knew too well what that meant. She felt very sorry for the poor girl who had been so deaf to her words of friendly warning.

Queenie was sadly altered for the worse since these long months of imprisonment and wretchedness. Her garments hung loosely about her attenuated form, her cheeks were thin and hollow, and her once bright eyes were dim with weeping, and looked too wild and large for her small, pathetic, white face. Her days and nights were passed in sleepless wretchedness, much to the annoyance of the housekeeper, who declared that she could not rest well while her refractory charge kept the light burning as she did the long nights through, for she could not bear to have darkness add its additional gloom to the horror of her thoughts.

While she sat and stared wearily out at the midnight scene, the housekeeper snored herself awake and began to complain.

"Mercy's sake, girl, go to bed, and put the light out. I declare I cannot sleep a wink with the gas shining in my eyes!"

"You have been snoring uninterruptedly for several hours!" answered Queenie, coldly. "How do you suppose I can sleep when you keep up such a noise with your breathing?"

"Well, I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowers. "This is the first time I was ever accused of snoring!"

Queenie did not speak for a moment. Presently she turned her head around and said, abruptly:

"Mrs. Bowers!"

Mrs. Bowers, who was falling asleep again, gave a grunt in token that she heard.

"What has become of that pretty girl you brought home from Farmer Thorn's?"

"She went away two days ago," was the sleepy reply.

"With Leon Vinton, I presume," said Queenie, scornfully.

"No, she went alone."

"Betrayed and abandoned, no doubt," said Queenie, bitterly.

"Something like that, certainly," answered the housekeeper, carelessly, and with that she turned over and went to sleep again, leaving Queenie to her own reflections.

They were not pleasant ones, certainly. The room was chilly, and she took up a shawl, wrapped it about her shoulders, and went back to her lonely vigil, pressing her forehead against the pane while she looked out into the cold winter night.

"Oh, to be out there in the night, and the cold, and the darkness," she murmured. "Oh, to feel the breath of freedom on my brow once more, and hope within my heart!

"How lonely, how dreary everything seems," she went on. "How dark and dreary the river looks except where the bars of moonlight touch it with brightness; how ghostly and skeleton-like the trees appear, tossing their naked arms in the breeze; how weird and melancholy the silent, deserted earth looks at midnight!"

Suddenly she started and uttered a low cry.

She fancied that she had seen a dark form darting cautiously about the garden beneath the windows.

She looked out again, and for a moment she thought herself mistaken, but directly the dark form of a man appeared from behind a tree, and skirting a strip of moonlight with cautious footsteps, disappeared in the shadows.

"What can that man be after?" she thought. "It is not Leon Vinton. Whom, then, can it be? Perhaps a burglar."

She continued to watch for him, and presently she saw him take up his station under a tree near the gate as if watching or waiting for someone.

"It must be a burglar," she said to herself. "He is waiting for his accomplice to come that they may rob the house. Shall I wake Mrs. Bowers and tell her?"

She mused a moment, still watching the dark, mysterious form lurking under the shadow of the trees near the gate.

"No, I will not tell her," she concluded. "What does it matter to me? I care not what they do. Perhaps they may enter this room, and by some means I may effect my escape."

Her heart began to beat at the thought, and the light of hope came into her beautiful eyes, brightening her whole face.

She continued to watch the mysterious figure, expecting every minute to see his accomplice appear on the scene; but the hours passed slowly by and the man still remained at his post alone.

At the first peep of dawn he went away, leaving Queenie perplexed and doubtful.

"Who can it be?" she asked herself. "It seems quite evident that he is not here for the purpose of robbery. What, then, is he after? Can it be some friend of mine?"

The thought overpowered her with joy.

"Oh, why did I not raise the window and give him some signal?" she thought.

Then she remembered that the windows had been tightly fastened down by Leon Vinton's orders, so that she could not raise them.

"I have suffered my hopes to lead my reason astray," she thought then, with sudden despair. "Of course it is not anyone to help me. No one knows that I am living except Leon Vinton and the wicked woman sleeping yonder. Papa, Lawrence—all of them, think my body lies at this moment moldering in the grave. Oh, Lawrence—oh, papa! what would I not give to see you again!"

She little dreamed that the father she loved so fondly had died of a broken heart over her loss.

She thought of him every day and longed to see him almost as she longed to see the husband from whose side she had been torn at the very altar by the vindictive malice of Leon Vinton.

The next day from her position at the window she saw the same dark figure of a man pass up and down before the cottage at intervals at least a dozen times. A broad, slouch hat was pulled over his brows, effectually concealing his features from Queenie's sight.

"The mystery deepens," she thought, "the man, whoever he is, evidently is watching this house. But with what object, I wonder?"

At night he appeared again, and passed the long, cold hours pacing up and down the garden until dawn.

Every day for four days the man kept up this restless espionage. It seemed to Queenie that he neither ate nor slept, so constantly did he appear at his post. She became greatly interested in the mysterious watcher.

"Mrs. Bowers," she said one night, "where is Leon Vinton?"

"In town, I suppose," said the housekeeper.

"When is he coming back?"

"To-morrow, I suppose. He has been gone a week and he said that he would return in that time. Do you want to see him?"

"No, indeed—I hope I shall never see him again!" said Queenie, shortly, turning back to the window.

The next day while she was watching the mysterious man as he paced up and down the snowy road opposite the house, she saw Leon Vinton ride up to the gate, dismount and tie up his horse.

Involuntarily she looked over at the mysterious stranger. He was rapidly crossing the road toward Leon Vinton.

A gust of wind blew off his broad, slouch hat, and a startled cry broke from Queenie's lips.

She had instantly recognized the man!

It was Farmer Thorn!

She instantly comprehended the object of his daily and nightly espionage.

He was watching for Leon Vinton that he might avenge the wrongs of his daughter.

Clasping her hands in breathless agitation, Queenie waited for the denouement.

Leon Vinton opened the gate and passed inside. Farmer Thorn, having replaced his hat, walked in behind him.

The next moment Leon Vinton felt a grasp of steel upon his arm.

He was whirled violently around face to face with the enraged man whom he had wronged, and felt the muzzle of a pistol pressed against his breast.

"Accursed villain!" shouted the farmer, in a voice of thunder, "thus do I avenge a daughter's wrongs!"

Queenie heard the terrible words, followed by a loud report, saw a wreath of blue smoke curling upward, and Leon Vinton fell like a log on the snowy path. With a terrible shudder she saw his life-blood spurting out, dyeing the pure snow with a terrible scarlet stain.

Farmer Thorn looked down at his victim, spurned him with his foot, and replacing the pistol in his breast, walked rapidly away. At the same moment the front door opened hurriedly, and Mrs. Bowers ran out, followed by a servant. Both of them ran screaming down the path to the side of their master.

CHAPTER XIX

Weakened and shocked by the terrible scene she had witnessed, Queenie hid her face in her hands and fell back on her sofa. She lay there trembling and agitated, and musing on the sudden end of the wicked Leon Vinton.

Presently the door was pushed open and Mrs. Bowers entered in such high excitement that she forgot to lock the door behind her.

"Oh!" she cried out, "did you hear the pistol shot? Leon Vinton is dead!"

A sudden impulse decided Queenie to conceal her knowledge of the fact.

She sprang up in apparent wild excitement.

"Is it possible?" she cried. "I heard a pistol-shot a moment ago. Who killed him?"

"I cannot tell you," said Mrs. Bowers. "I heard a shot, and ran to the window just in time to see a man going out of the gate. He had a wide hat on, and I couldn't make out his features."

"You shall never learn his name from me," thought Queenie to herself, for her whole sympathies were with the wronged father of the poor, betrayed Jennie.

"But there laid poor Mr. Vinton, stone dead, in the path," continued Mrs. Bowers, excitedly. "Look out of the window there, and you can see it all for yourself."

Queenie glanced out of the window and drew back with a shudder.

"Oh! it is horrible," she said. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to send for the coroner," said Mrs. Bowers. "That's the proper thing to do. I must go right away and do it. Dear, dear, who was that murderous man, I'd like to know? I'd have followed after him, and, mayhap, caught him, only I was so flustrated I didn't know what to do first. The mean, murderous villain!"

She bustled out so full of excitement that she forgot to lock her prisoner's door.

Queenie started up full of joyful emotion.

"Now is my chance!" she exclaimed, "Leon Vinton is dead, and Mrs. Bowers has no right to detain me. I will leave this dreadful place at once."

She opened the wardrobe and took out a long waterproof cloak and hood, putting them on with trembling hands.

Then she exchanged her thin shoes for thick walking boots, and doubled a dark-brown barege veil over her face.

Thus equipped she opened the door and ran down the steps to the hall with her heart beating almost to suffocation.

In the doorway she paused. Mrs. Bowers was standing in the path by the side of the dead man, and Queenie was afraid she would attempt to detain her.

"I must make a run for it," she thought, and suiting the action to the word, she flitted down the steps and ran at break-neck speed down the path, past her living and dead persecutors, and sprang through the gate and out into the road.

Mrs. Bowers heard the patter of her feet and the rustle of her garments as she rushed past her, and looking up she recognized the girl, and recollected instantly that she had forgotten to lock the door after her.

"Come back, you jade!" she screamed, "come back this instant!"

But the fugitive hurried on without looking back, and Mrs. Bowers in a rage set out in a headlong pace after her.

But the good lady was not as young as she had once been, and she found herself rather heavy on her feet. But panting and blowing she raced on in the useless pursuit, until suddenly both her feet slipped from under her, and she measured her length on the icy ground.

Muttering some words rather spirited in their meaning, and not often heard on feminine lips, the wicked woman rose from the cold earth, and shaking her fist after the fast retreating figure of her whilom prisoner, began to retrace her steps to the house, rubbing sundry bruises on her person as she went.

"The keen-witted little wretch!" she thought, "how quick she was to take advantage of my momentary forgetfulness. But after all, Vinton is dead, and what do I want to keep her for? I shall have to leave here, anyway. Mayhap, it's better as it is."

Thus consoling herself, she returned to her watch over the dead man who lay in a crimson pool of his life-blood across the snowy path, his eyes glaring glassily, his handsome face set in the expression of fear and horror that had settled on it when Mr. Thorn's terrible denunciation had been thundered in his ears.

Meanwhile Queenie ran on in her headlong flight until her limbs began to tremble beneath her. Throwing a glance over her shoulder, she saw that she had outrun her pursuer so far that she was no longer visible. She slackened her pace then, and began to walk at a slower and more reasonable gait.

"I may take my time now," she thought. "Mrs. Bowers is too old and slow to overtake me. Besides she can have no interest in keeping me a prisoner since Leon Vinton is dead. She will have enough to do to take care of herself."

She pushed back her veil, showing a face so bright with hope and happiness, that it was hardly recognizable for the pale and dejected countenance that had looked from the window of the river cottage an hour ago. Joy had fairly transfigured it.

She walked along unconscious of the keen, cold, wintery air in the rush of happy thoughts that crowded over her.

She would go home to her father first. She would tell him everything—he should break the news of her return to her husband.

"I cannot tell Lawrence the whole truth," she said, shuddering. "I would rather die than that he should know the terrible secret! He is so proud and he told me once he would not marry a woman with the faintest shadow of disgrace upon her name. I have deceived him, and I must never let him know now, for I love him, and it would kill me to have him put me away! I will tell him something plausible, though I will not tell a direct lie if I can help."

Poor little Queenie!—once so innocent and transparent that her very thoughts could be read in her eyes—her terrible misfortunes had taught her strange subterfuges and deceit.

"I wonder if there will be any trouble about proving my identity," she thought; "I have heard of such things, and it will appear very strange to them at first. Papa will take me for a ghost, as he did the night I went and looked at him through the window when he thought I was traveling in Europe. Poor Uncle Rob! I wonder if he was sorry much when he heard I was dead."

She passed the farm-house where the Thorns lived, but the doors and windows were both closed, and the only sign of life was a faint blue smoke curling up from the chimney.

"I should like to stop and see what has become of that poor, willful girl," she said to herself, "but I am so impatient I cannot spare the time."

She walked on faster as she neared the great city. Her impatience redoubled by the thought that every step brought her nearer to her loved ones.

"I wonder if they will be glad to see me," she thought wistfully; "I know papa will! Poor old darling, I could never doubt him! I do not know about Georgie and mamma. They, perhaps, were relieved that I and my terrible secret were buried together—they may be sorry to see me resurrected. But of one thing I am certain. Sydney was glad when she thought I was dead. She will hate me more than ever when I go back. But I shall not trouble any of them, I shall have my husband—he is all I want. He shall take me away from here to some other place where I can forget all the terrible past in my new happiness."

All the while she was thinking she was walking quickly on, buoyed up by the joyous anticipations. At last, foot-sore and weary, she entered the great city and walked on until she stood in front of her father's handsome residence.

Trembling with passionate joy, and with her heart beating so that she could hear it in her ears, she went up the steps and rang the bell.

The door was opened to her by a strange man in livery instead of the female servant who had formerly answered the bell.

Her first sensation of surprise and disappointment was succeeded by an amusing thought.

"Mamma and Sydney are grander than ever. They have set up a man-servant."

"Is Mr. Lyle at home?" she timidly inquired.

The man stared at her a moment in blank surprise; then getting his wits together, replied respectfully:

"The Lyles don't live here now, miss."

"Where have they removed? Can you tell me?" she inquired, thinking that perhaps her mother's and sister's extravagance had caused her father's failure at last, and that they had taken a cheaper house.

"Mrs. Lyle and Miss Lyle, and Lady Valentine are all in Europe, ma'am," he answered, wondering what made the bright, pretty face turn so pale as he gave her the information.

"And Mr. Lyle—you can tell me where I can find him?" she inquired, eagerly.

The polite servant looked as if he thought the girl was out of her mind. After a blank stare into her lovely, eager face, he said, surprisedly:

"Mr. Lyle—why, ma'am—he's dead, you know!"

If the man had struck her the cruelest blow in the face she could not have recoiled more suddenly. She stepped backward so quickly, and with such a wild, low cry of pain that she would have fallen down the steps if the man had not thrown out his arm and caught her.

"Oh, ma'am, don't take it hard," he said, in a voice of respectful sympathy. "Was he any relation of yours?"

She turned her beautiful face toward him with the whiteness of death upon it.

"When did he die?" she asked, unheeding his question.

"The same night that his daughter died—you've heard of that, ma'am, have you?" asked the man, who seemed rather of a gossiping turn.

"Yes, I've heard of that," she said, in a hollow voice totally unlike her own.

"Well, Mr. Lyle, he died that same night of a broken heart, folk said. She was his youngest daughter, and his favorite. They were both buried the same day."

"Dead, dead!" she murmured.

"What did you say, ma'am?" asked the man, not hearing the low words.

"Nothing," she answered. "I thank you for your information," and staggered down the steps into the street again.

"Dead, dead!" she kept moaning to herself as she staggered along the street in white, tearless despair. "Papa is dead! and died of a broken heart for me. Oh, I was not worth such devotion!"

Her mind was so full of this terrible blow that had fallen upon her that she could think of nothing else, until suddenly she saw that the brief winter twilight was settling fast over everything. Then a terror of the night and cold took hold of her. She thought of her husband.

"They are all gone—papa and the rest," she murmured; "I have no one but Lawrence now. I will go to him."

The thought seemed to invest him with added tenderness and dearness. She hastened her footsteps, and before long she stood in front of the splendid mansion where Captain Ernscliffe lived, and which he had refurnished in splendid style for his fair young bride. The windows were closed as if the house was deserted, but she went up the steps and rang the bell. A woman servant answered the summons.

"Is Captain Ernscliffe at home?" asked Queenie, in a faint and trembling voice.

CHAPTER XX

The woman whom Queenie had addressed, and who had the appearance of being the housekeeper, stood still and looked at the young girl a moment without replying.

"Is Captain Ernscliffe at home?" repeated Queenie, in a tone of wistful eagerness.

"What do you want of Captain Ernscliffe?" asked the woman, rudely, as she stared suspiciously into the troubled, white face of the beautiful questioner.

Queenie drew her slight figure haughtily erect.

"My business is with Captain Ernscliffe," she said, in a cool, firm tone that rebuked the woman's impertinent curiosity. "Can I see him?"

"Oh, yes, certainly," said the housekeeper, with a palpable sneer. She was offended because Queenie had failed to gratify her curiosity.

"Show me in at once, then," said Queenie, making a motion to step across the threshold.

But the woman held the door in her hand and placed herself in front of it.

"You'll have to travel many a mile from this to see him," she said, maliciously.

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Queenie, turning pale. "Is he not at home? I will wait here until he comes then."

"You'll wait many a month then," was the grim reply of the offended woman.

"I do not understand you," Queenie answered, passing her small hand across her brow with a dim presentiment of coming evil. "Will you please tell me where I can find Captain Ernscliffe?"

"You'll find him across the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere in Europe, ma'am!"

She fired the words off like a final shot and looked at Queenie, prepared to enjoy her chagrin and amazement, but she was almost frightened by the expression of terrible despair that came over the beautiful, young face.

"In Europe," she said in a voice so low and heart-broken the woman could scarcely hear it. "Are you quite sure?"

"Quite sure, ma'am. He went away to travel a week after his wife's death, and may not return for years."

She made a motion to shut the door, intimating that the conference was ended, but Queenie leaned up against it so that she was compelled to desist.

"Can you give me his address that I may write to him?" she said.

"Well, I never!" ejaculated the housekeeper, staring at her in amazement.

Queenie only repeated her words more plainly.

"I know no more of his whereabouts than the dead!" was the answer. "He expected to be traveling all the time."

A smothered moan of pain came from the white lips of the listener.

"Have you done with me?" asked the woman, impatiently.

Queenie looked out into the street. It was almost dark, and a sleety mist was beginning to fall. The lamp-lighters were going their rounds lighting up the gas-lamps at the corners of the streets, and belated pedestrians were hurrying homeward.

With a shiver she turned back to the portly, comfortable figure of the woman rustling on the door-sill in her black silk dress, quite unconscious that she was holding the door against her mistress, and the mistress of that elegant brown stone mansion on whose threshold she stood.

"You are Captain Ernscliffe's housekeeper?" said Queenie.

"Yes, and I am left in charge of the house during his absence," answered the woman, bridling with a sense of her importance.

"I am a friend of Captain Ernscliffe," said Queenie, timidly. "Will you let me stay here to-night? I am homeless and penniless!"

The housekeeper favored her with a stare of scornful incredulity.

"Captain Ernscliffe's friends are all rich people," she said, with a toss of the head. "He don't have any acquaintance with tramps!"

"I assure you that I am not a tramp," answered the young girl, quickly. "I have been very unfortunate in arriving in this city and finding my friends all dead or away. If your master were here he would certainly give me shelter this wintery night."

"It's more than I'll do, then," said the housekeeper sharply; "come, young woman, don't tell no more lies! Captain Ernscliffe don't know you, but I do! You're a burglar's accomplice, and you want to get into the house that you may open it to your friends in the night and rob the house."

"Indeed you are mistaken," said Queenie earnestly. "Oh! do let me stay! If you don't I shall perish of cold in the streets to-night and my death will be on your hands. You may lock me into a room if you are afraid of me—only give me shelter."

It had been on her mind to declare herself the wife of Captain Ernscliffe, and force the woman to admit her into the house that was virtually her own. But a moment's reflection showed the utter futility of such a course. No one except those who loved her would give credence to such a wild, improbable tale; no one would believe that the grave had given back its dead unless she could offer more substantial proof than she had at command. This woman before her would have laughed such an assertion to scorn.

"Come, move on," she said roughly, at the same time seizing the girl by the shoulder and pushing her from her position against the door. "I can't shelter the likes of you, and I won't stand here in the cold wasting breath on you a minute longer."

Queenie turned as the woman pushed her toward the steps and looked her in the eyes.

"You may be sorry for this some day," she said.

"Ha, ha," laughed the heartless housekeeper, "sorry indeed! Sorry that I didn't take a tramp into the house to rob my master."

"Will you let me stay?" said Queenie, once more looking over her shoulder as she was wearily descending the marble steps.

If the woman's heart had not been made of stone it must have melted at the anguish in that sweet, white face, but she only reiterated her refusal more angrily.

"I am friendless and penniless," pleaded Queenie, still hoping to melt that icy heart. "Think what may happen to me in the streets at night!"

"Go! go!" exclaimed the hard-hearted creature, fiercely.

"I will go," said Queenie, drawing her cloak about her, and preparing to breast the wintery storm. "I will go, but remember, madam, that you may one day repent this! It is quite, quite possible that I may one day turn you from these doors as you have turned me to-night."

For all answer the woman slammed the door in her face, and fiercely locked it.

Queenie was left alone standing on the wet pavement in the wintery night, locked out of her husband's house like a thief, a waif and a stray by night, while over her loomed the great brown-stone palace that a few months ago had been splendidly refitted and furnished in velvets, tapestries, gildings and bronzes, for her pleasure. It was hers—her husband's—therefore her own. Yet she turned away from its inhospitable doors, homeless, friendless, penniless—worse than all, hopeless!

 
"Where the lamps quiver
So far in the river,
With many a light
From window and casement,
From garret to basement,
She stood with amazement
Houseless by night."