Books: The Midnight Queen
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May Agnes Fleming >> The Midnight Queen
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CHAPTER II.
THE DEAD BRIDE
"Well," said Ormiston, drawing a long bath, "what do you think of
that?"
"Think? Don't ask me yet." said Sir Norman, looking rather
bewildered. "I'm in such a state of mystification that I don't
rightly know whether I'm standing on my head or feet. For one
thing, I have come to the conclusion that your masked ladylove
must be enchantingly beautiful."
"Have I not told you that a thousand times, O thou of little
faith? But why have you come to such a conclusion?"
"Because no woman with such a figure, such a voice and such hands
could be otherwise."
"I knew you would own it some day. Do you wonder now that I love
her?"
"Oh! as to loving her," said Sir Norman, coolly, "that's quite
another thing. I could no more love her or her hands, voice, and
shape, than I could a figure in wood or wax; but I admire her
vastly, and think her extremely clever. I will never forget that
face in the caldron. It was the most exquisitely beautiful I
ever saw."
"In love with the shadow of a face! Why, you are a thousand-fold
more absurd than I."
"No," said Sir Norman, thoughtfully, "I don't know as I'm in love
with it; but if ever I see a living face like it, I certainly
shall be. How did La Masque do it, I wonder?"
"You had better ask her," said Ormiston, bitterly. "She seems to
have taken an unusual interest in you at first sight. She would
strew your path with roses, forsooth! Nothing earthly, I
believe, would make her say anything half so tender to me."
Sir Norman laughed, and stroked his moustache complacently.
"All a matter of taste, my dear fellow: and these women are noted
for their perfection in that line. I begin to admire La Masque
more and more, and I think you had better give up the chase, and
let me take your place. I don't believe you have the ghost of a
chance, Ormiston."
"I don't believe it myself," said Ormiston, with a desperate face
"but until the plague carries me off I cannot give her up; and
the sooner that happens, the better. Ha! what is this?"
It was a piercing shriek - no unusual sound; and as he spoke, the
door of an adjoining house was flung open, a woman rushed wildly
out, fled down an adjoining street, and disappeared.
Sir Norman and his companion looked at each other, and then at
the house.
"What's all this about?" demanded Ormiston.
"That's a question I can't take it upon myself to answer," said
Sir Norman; "and the only way to solve the mystery, is to go in
and see."
"It may be the plague," said Ormiston, hesitating. "Yet the
house is not marked. There is a watchman. I will ask him."
The man with the halberd in his hand was walking up and down
before an adjoining house, bearing the ominous red cross and
piteous inscription: "Lord have mercy on us!"
"I don't know, sir," was his answer to Ormiston. "If any one
there has the plague, they must have taken it lately; for I heard
this morning there was to be a wedding there to-night."
"I never heard of any one screaming in that fashion about a
wedding," said Ormiston, doubtfully. "Do you know who lives
there?"
"No, sir. I only came here, myself, yesterday, but two or three
times to-day I have seen a very beautiful young lady looking out
of the window."
Ormiston thanked the man, and went back to report to his friend.
"A beautiful young lady!" said Sir Norman, with energy. "Then I
mean to go directly up and see about it, and you can follow or
not, just as you please."
So saying, Sir Norman entered the open doorway, and found himself
in a long hall, flanked by a couple of doors on each side. These
he opened in rapid succession, finding nothing but silence and
solitude; and Ormiston - who, upon reflection, chose to follow -
ran up a wide and sweeping staircase at the end of the hall. Sir
Norman followed him, and they came to a hall similar to the one
below. A door to the right lay open; and both entered without
ceremony, and looked around.
The room was spacious, and richly furnished. Just enough light
stole through the oriel window at the further end, draped with
crimson satin embroidered with gold, to show it. The floor was
of veined wood of many colors, arranged in fanciful mosaics, and
strewn with Turkish rugs and Persian mats of gorgeous colors.
The walls were carved, the ceiling corniced, and all fretted with
gold network and gilded mouldings. On a couch covered with
crimson satin, like the window drapery, lay a cithren and some
loose sheets of music. Near it was a small marble table, covered
with books and drawings, with a decanter of wine and an exquisite
little goblet of Bohemian glass. The marble mantel was strewn
with ornaments of porcelain and alabaster, and a
beautifully-carved vase of Parian marble stood in the centre,
filled with brilliant flowers. A great mirror reflected back the
room, and beneath it stood a toilet-table, strewn with jewels,
laces, perfume-bottles, and an array of costly little feminine
trifles such as ladies were as fond of two centuries ago as they
are to-day. Evidently it was a lady's chamber; for in a recess
near the window stood a great quaint carved bedstead, with
curtains and snowy lace, looped back with golden arrows and
scarlet ribbons. Some one lay on it, too - at least, Ormiston
thought so; and he went cautiously forward, drew the curtain, and
looked down.
"Great Heaven! what a beautiful face!" was his cry, as he bent
still further down.
"What the plague is the matter?" asked Sir Norman, coming
forward.
"You have said it," said Ormiston, recoiling. "The plague is the
matter. There lies one dead of it!"
Curiosity proving stronger than fear, Sir Norman stepped forward
to look at the corpse. It was a young girl with a face as lovely
as a poet's vision. That face was like snow, now; and, in its
calm, cold majesty, looked as exquisitely perfect as some ancient
Grecian statue. The low, pearly brow, the sweet, beautiful lips,
the delicate oval outline of countenance, were perfect. The eyes
were closed, and the long dark lashes rested on the ivory cheeks.
A profusion of shining dark hair fell in elaborate curls over her
neck and shoulders. Her dress was that of a bride; a robe of
white satin brocaded with silver, fairly dazzling in its shining
radiance, and as brief in the article of sleeves and neck as that
of any modern belle. A circlet of pearls were clasped round her
snow-white throat, and bracelets of the same jewels encircled the
snowy taper arms. On her head she wore a bridal wreath and veil
- the former of jewels, the latter falling round her like a cloud
of mist. Everything was perfect, from the wreath and veil to the
tiny sandaled feet and lying there in her mute repose she looked
more like some exquisite piece of sculpture than anything that
had ever lived and moved in this groveling world of ours. But
from one shoulder the dress had been pulled down, and there lay a
great livid purple plague-spot!
"Come away!" said Ormiston, catching his companion by the arm.
"It is death to remain here!"
Sir Norman had been standing like one in a trance, from which
this address roused him, and he grasped Ormiston's shoulder
almost frantically.
"Look there, Ormiston! There lies the very face that sorceress
showed me, fifteen minutes ago, in her infernal caldron! I would
know it at the other end of the world!";
"Are you sure?" said Ormiston, glancing again with new curiosity
at the marble face. "I never saw anything half so beautiful in
all my life; but you see she is dead of the plague."
"Dead? she cannot be! Nothing so perfect could die!"
"Look there," said Ormiston pointing to the plague-spot. "There
is the fatal token! For Heaven's sake let us get out of this, or
we will share the same fate before morning!"
But Sir Norman did not move - could not move; he stood there
rooted to the spot by the spell of that lovely, lifeless face.
Usually the plague left its victims hideous, ghastly, discolored,
and covered with blotches; but in this case then was nothing to
mar the perfect beauty of the satin-smooth skin, but that one
dreadful mark.
There Sir Norman stood in his trance, as motionless as if some
genii out of the "Arabian Nights" had suddenly turned him into
stone (a trick they were much addicted to), and destined him to
remain there an ornamental fixture for ever. Ormiston looked at
him distractedly, uncertain whether to try moral suasion or to
take him by the collar and drag him headlong down the stairs,
when a providential but rather dismal circumstance came to his
relief. A cart came rattling along the street, a bell was loudly
rang, and a hoarse voice arose with it: "Bring out your dead!
Bring out your dead!"
Ormiston rushed down stair to intercept the dead-cart, already
almost full on it way to the plague-pit. The driver stopped at
his call, and instantly followed him up stairs, and into the
room. Glancing at the body with the utmost sang-froid, he
touched the dress, and indifferently remarked:
"A bride, I should say; and an uncommonly handsome one too.
We'll just take her along as she is, and strip these nice things
off the body when we get it to the plague-pit."
So saying, he wrapped her in the sheet, and directing Ormiston to
take hold of the two lower ends, took the upper corners himself,
with the air of a man quite used to that sort of thing. Ormiston
recoiled from touching it; and Sir Norman seeing what they were
about to do, and knowing there was no help for it, made up his
mind, like a sensible young man as he was, to conceal his
feelings, and caught hold of the sheet himself. In this fashion
the dead bride was carried down stairs, and laid upon a shutter
on the top of a pile of bodies in the dead-cart.
It was now almost dark, and as the cart started, the great clock
of St. Paul's struck eight. St. Michael's, St Alban's, and the
others took up the sound; and the two young men paused to listen.
For many weeks the sky had been clear, brilliant, and blue; but
on this night dark clouds were scudding in wild unrest across it,
and the air was oppressingly close and sultry.
"Where are you going now?" said Ormiston. "Are you for
Whitehall's to night?"
"No!" said Sir Norman, rather dejectedly, turning to follow the
pest-cart. "I am for the plague-pit in Finsbury fields!"
"Nonsense, man!" exclaimed Ormiston, energetically, "what will
take you there? You surely are not mad enough to follow the body
of that dead girl?"
"I shall follow it! You can come or not, just as you please."
"Oh! if you are determined, I will go with you, of course; but it
is the craziest freak I ever heard of. After this, you need
never laugh at me."
"I never will," said Sir Norman, moodily; "for if you love a face
you have never seen, I love one I have only looked on when dead.
Does it not seem sacrilege to throw any one so like an angel into
that horrible plague-pit?"
"I never saw an angel," said Ormiston, as he and his friend
started to go after the dead-cart. "And I dare say there have
been scores as beautiful as that poor girl thrown into the
plague-pit before now. I wonder why the house has been deserted,
and if she was really a bride. The bridegroom could not have
loved her much, I fancy, or not even the pestilence could have
scared him away."
"But, Ormiston, what an extraordinary thing it is that it should
be precisely the same face that the fortune-teller showed me.
There she was alive, and here she is dead; so I've lost all faith
in La Masque for ever."
Ormiston looked doubtful.
"Are you quite sure it is the same, Kingsley?"
"Quite sure?" said Sir Norman, indignantly. "Of course I am! Do
you think I could be mistaken is such a case? I tell you I would
know that face at Kamschatka or, the North Pole; for I don't
believe there ever was such another created."
"So be it, then! Your object, of course, in following that cart
is, to take a last look at her?"
"Precisely so. Don't talk; I feel in no mood for it just at
present."
Ormiston smiled to himself, and did not talk, accordingly; and in
silence the two friends followed the gloomy dead-cart. A faint
young moon, pale and sickly, was struggling dimly through drifts
of dark clouds, and lighted the lonesome, dreary streets with a
wan, watery glimmer. For weeks, the weather had been brilliantly
fine - the days all sunshine, the nights all moonlight; but now
Ormiston, looking up at the troubled face of the sky, concluded
mentally that the Lord Mayor had selected an unpropitious night
for the grand illumination. Sir Norman, with his eyes on the
pest-cart, and the long white figure therein, took no heed of
anything in the heaven above or in the earth beneath, and strode
along in dismal silence till they reached, at last, their
journey's end.
As the cart stopped the two young men approached the edge of the
plague-pit, and looked in with a shudder. Truly it was a
horrible sight, that heaving, putrid sea of corruption; for the
bodies of the miserable victims were thrown in in cartfuls, and
only covered with a handful of earth and quicklime. Here and
there, through the cracking and sinking surface, could be seen
protruding a fair white arm, or a baby face, mingled with the
long, dark tresses of maidens, the golden curls of children, and
the white hairs of old age. The pestilential effluvia arising
from the dreadful mass was so overpowering that both shrank back,
faint and sick, after a moment's survey. It was indeed as Sir
Norman had, said, a horrible grave wherein to lie.
Meantime the driver, with an eye to business, and no time for
such nonsense as melancholy moralizing, had laid the body of the
young girl on the ground, and briskly turned his cart and dumped
the remainder of his load into the pit. Then, having flung a few
handfuls of clay over it, he unwound the sheet, and kneeling
beside the body, prepared to remove the jewels. The rays of the
moon and his dark lantern fell on the lovely, snow-white face
together, and Sir Norman groaned despairingly as he saw its
death-cold rigidity. The man had stripped the rings off the
fingers, the bracelets off the arms; but as he was about to
perform the same operation toward the necklace, he was stopped by
a startling interruption enough. In his haste, the clasp entered
the beautiful neck, inflicting a deep scratch, from which the
blood spouted; and at the same instant the dead girl opened her
eyes with a shrill cry. Uttering a yell of terror, as well he
might, the man sprang back and gazed at her with horror,
believing that his sacrilegious robbery had brought the dead to
life. Even the two young men-albeit, neither of them given to
nervousness nor cowardice - recoiled for an instant, and stared
aghast. Then, as the whole truth struck them, that the girl had
been in a deep swoon and not dead, both simultaneously darted
forward, and forgetting all fear of infection, knelt by her side.
A pair of great, lustrous black eyes were staring wildly around,
and fixed themselves first on one face and then on the other.
"Where am I?" she exclaimed, with a terrified look, as she strove
to raise herself on her elbow, and fell instantaneously back with
a cry of agony, as she felt for the first time the throbbing
anguish of the wound.
"You are with friends, dear lady!" said Sir Norman, in a voice
quite tremulous between astonishment and delight. "Fear nothing,
for you shall be saved."
The great black eyes turned wildly upon him, while a fierce spasm
convulsed the beautiful face.
"O, my God, I remember! I have the plague!" And, with a
prolonged shriek of anguish, that thrilled even to the hardened
heart of the dead-cart driver, the girl fell back senseless
again. Sir Norman Kingsley sprang to his feet, and with more the
air of a frantic lunatic than a responsible young English knight,
caught the cold form in his arms, laid it in the dead-cart, and
was about springing into the driver's seat, when that individual
indignantly interposed.
"Come, now; none of that! If you were the king himself, you
shouldn't run away with my cart in that fashion; so you just get
out of my place as fast as you can!"
"My dear Kingsley, what are you about to do?" asked Ormiston,
catching his excited friend by the arm.
"Do!" exclaimed Sir Norman, in a high key. "Can't you see that
for yourself! And I'm going to have that girl cured of the
plague, if there is such a thing as a doctor to be had for love
or money in London."
"You had better have her taken to the pest house at once, then;
there are chirurgeons and nurses enough there."
"To the pest-house! Why man, I might as well have her thrown
into the plague-pit there, at once! Not I! I shall have her
taken to my own house, and there properly cared for, and this
good fellow will drive her there instantly."
Sir Norman backed this insinuation by putting a broad gold-piece
into the driver's hand, which instantly produced a magical effect
on his rather surly countenance.
"Certainly, sir," he began, springing into his seat with
alacrity. "Where shall I drive the young lady to?"
"Follow me," said Sir Norman. "Come along, Ormiston." And
seizing his friend by the arm, he hurried along with a velocity
rather uncomfortable, considering they both wore cloaks, and the
night was excessively sultry. The gloomy vehicle and its
fainting burden followed close behind.
"What do you mean to do with her?" asked Ormiston, as soon as he
found breath enough to speak.
"Haven't I told you?" said Sir Norman, impatiently. Take her
home, of course."
"And after that?"
"Go for a doctor."
"And after that?"
"Take care of her till she gets well."
"And after that?"
"Why - find out her history, and all about her."
"And after that?"
"After that! After that! How do I know what after that!"
exclaimed Sir Norman, rather fiercely. "Ormiston, what do you
mean?"
Ormiston laughed.
"And after that you'll marry her, I suppose!"
"Perhaps I may, if she will have me. And what if I do?"
"Oh, nothing! Only it struck me you may be saving another man's
wife."
"That's true!" said Sir Norman, in a subdued tone, "and if such
should unhappily be the case, nothing will remain but to live in
hopes that he may be carried off by the plague."
"Pray Heaven that we may not be carried off by it ourselves!"
said Ormiston, with a slight shudder. "I shall dream of nothing
but that horrible plague-pit for a week. If it were not for La
Masque, I would not stay another hour in this pest-stricken
city."
"Here we are," was Sir Norman's rather inapposite answer, as they
entered Piccadilly, and stopped before a large and handsome
house, whose gloomy portal was faintly illuminated by a large
lamp. "Here, my man just carry the lady in."
He unlocked the door as he spoke, and led the way across a long
hall to a sleeping chamber, elegantly fitter up. The man placed
the body on the bed and departed while Sir Norman, seizing a
handbell, rang a peal that brought a staid-looking housekeeper to
the scene directly. Seeing a lady, young and beautiful, in bride
robes, lying apparently dead on her young master's bed at that
hour of the night, the discreet matron, over whose virtuous head
fifty years and a snow-white cap had passed, started back with a
slight scream.
"Gracious me, Sir Norman! What on earth is the meaning of this?"
"My dear Mrs. Preston," began Sir Norman blandly, "this young lady
is ill of the plague, and - "
But all further explanation was cut short by a horrified shriek
from the old lady, and a precipitate rush from the room. Down
stairs she flew, informing the other servants as she went,
between her screams, and when Sir Norman, in a violent rage, went
in search of her five minutes after, he found not only the
kitchen, but the whole house deserted.
"Well," said Ormiston, as Sir Norman strode back, looking fiery
hot and savagely angry.
"Well, they have all fled, every man and woman of them, the - "
Sir Norman ground out something not quite proper, behind his
moustache. "I shall have to go for the doctor, myself. Doctor
Forbes is a friend of mine, and lives near; and you," looking at
him rather doubtfully, "would you mind staying here, lest she
should recover consciousness before I return?"
"To tell you the truth," said Ormiston, with charming frankness,
"I should! The lady is extremely beautiful, I must own; but she
looks uncomfortably corpse-like at this present moment. I do not
wish to die of the plague, either, until I see La Masque once
more; and so if it is all the same to you, my dear friend, I will
have the greatest pleasure in stepping round with you to the
doctor's."
Sir Norman, though he did not much approve of this, could not
very well object, and the two sallied forth together. Walking a
short distance up Piccadilly, they struck off into a bye street,
and soon reached the house they were in search of. Sir Norman
knocked loudly at the door, which was opened by the doctor
himself. Briefly and rapidly Sir Norman informed him how and
where his services were required; and the doctor being always
provided with everything necessary for such cases, set out with
him immediately. Fifteen minutes after leaving his own house,
Sir Norman was back there again, and standing in his own chamber.
But a simultaneous exclamation of amazement and consternation
broke from him and Ormiston, as on entering the room they found
the bed empty, and the lady gone!
A dead pause followed, during which the three looked blankly at
the bed, and then at each other. The scene, no doubt, would have
been ludicrous enough to a third party; but neither of our trio
could saw anything whatever to laugh at. Ormiston was the first
to speak.
"What in Heaven's name has happened!" he wonderingly exclaimed.
"Some one has been here," said Sir Norman, turning very pale,
"and carried her off while we were gone."
"Let us search the house," said the doctor; "you should have
locked your door, Sir Norman; but it may not be too late yet."
Acting on the hint, Sir Norman seized the lamp burning on the
table, and started on the search. His two friends followed him,
and
"The highest, the lowest, the loveliest spot,
They searched for the lady, and found her not."
No, though there was not the slightest trace of robbers or
intruders, neither was there the slightest trace of the beautiful
plague-patient. Everything in the house was precisely as it
always was, but the silver shining vision was gone.
CHAPTER III.
THE COURT PAGE
The search was given over at last in despair, and the doctor took
his hat and disappeared. Sir Norman and Ormiston stopped in the
lower hall and looked at each other in mute amaze.
"What can it all mean?" asked Ormiston, appealing more to society
at large than to his bewildered companion.
"I haven't the faintest idea," said Sir Norman, distractedly;
"only I am pretty certain, if I don't find her, I shall do
something so desperate that the plague will be a trifle compared
to it!"
"It seems almost impossible that she can have been carried off -
doesn't it?"
"If she has!" exclaimed Sir Norman, "and I find out the abductor,
he won't have a whole bone in his body two minutes after!"
"And yet more impossible that she can have gone off herself,"
pursued Ormiston with the air of one entering upon an abstruse
subject, and taking no heed whatever of his companion's marginal
notes.
"Gone off herself! Is the man crazy?" inquired Sir Norman, with
a stare. "Fifteen minutes before we left her dead, or in a dead
swoon, which is all the same in Greek, and yet he talks of her
getting up and going off herself!"
"In fact, the only way to get at the bottom of the mystery," said
Ormiston, "is to go in search of her. Sleeping, I suppose, is
out of the question."
"Of course it is! I shall never sleep again till I find her!"
They passed out, and Sir Norman this time took the precaution of
turning the key, thereby fulfilling the adage of locking the
stable-door when the steed was stolen. The night had grown
darker and hotter; and as they walked along, the clock of St.
Paul's tolled nine.
"And now, where shall we go?" inquired Sir Norman, as they
rapidly hurried on.
"I should recommend visiting the house we found her first; if not
there, then we can try the pest-house."
Sir Norman shuddered.
"Heaven forefend she should be there! It is the most mysterious
thing ever I heard of!"
"What do you think now of La Masque's prediction - dare you doubt
still?"
"Ormiston, I don't know what to think. It is the same face I
saw, and yet - "
"Well - and yet - "
"I can't tell you - I am fairly bewildered. If we don't find the
lady st her own house, I have half a mind to apply to your
friend, La Masque, again."
"The wisest thing you could do, my dear fellow. If any one knows
your unfortunate beloved's whereabouts, it is La Masque, depend
upon it."
"That's settled then; and now, don't talk, for conversation at
this smart pace I don't admire."
Ormiston, like the amiable, obedient young man that he was,
instantly held his tongue, and they strode along at a breathless
pace. There was an unusual concourse of men abroad that night,
watching the gloomy face of the sky, and waiting the hour of
midnight to kindle the myriad of fires; and as the two tall, dark
figures went rapidly by, all supposed it to be a case of life or
death. In the eyes of one of the party, perhaps it was; and
neither halted till they came once more in sight of the house,
whence a short time previously they had carried the death-cold
bride. A row of lamps over the door-portals shed a yellow,
uncertain light around, while the lights of barges and wherries
were sown like stars along the river.
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