The Gypsy Queen's Vow. May Agnes Fleming

Чтение книги онлайн.

      “Oh, she is the most charming little ducks o’ diamonds I ever beheld in my life! Such a beautiful skin, just like white satin!” reiterated the duchess, punctuating her remarks by a series of short, sharp little kisses, that made sweet Erminie open her large blue eyes in subdued wonder. “Oh, Maude! I don’t wonder you are so saintly, with this little beautiful seraph ever with you! Sweet little angel Erminie! thou almost persuadest me to be a Christian!”

      There was a soft tap at the door, and the nurse, who had hitherto remained in the back-ground, and listened with professional stoicism to these raptures, went and opened it; and Lord Villiers entered.

      He started in some surprise, as he beheld how the room was tenanted, and then advanced with a smile. Lady Maude, with more than the adoring love of two years before, went over, and, laying her hand on his shoulder, said:

      “Clara wanted to see Erminie before we descended to the drawing-room, dearest Ernest, and has fallen even more deeply in love with her than she has with the Turkish ambassador, the fortunate possessor of the interestingly melancholy dark eyes.”

      Lord Villiers smiled, and looked, with eyes full of love, on sweet Erminie, who sprung up, crowing gleefully, and crying, “Papa!”

      “Wait one moment, till I see. Why, she’s the very picture of your lordship! Keep still, little girl, till I compare you with your papa. There’s the same large, blue, Saxon eyes; the same fair, curling hair; the same high, princely forehead; the same handsome mouth (no harm to compliment a married man – eh, Maude); the same long, aristocratic, white fingers – your very image, my lord!”

      “I had rather she looked like Maude,” said the young husband, encircling his wife’s small waist fondly with his arm.

      “Well, so she does when she smiles. Don’t you perceive the resemblance now? Miss Erminie, will you be still? What a restless little creature it is.”

      “Papa, papa, tate Minnie,” crowed that small individual, holding out her little arms, and looking pathetic and imploring.

      “Here, papa, take the young lady,” said the duchess, depositing her in the young man’s arms, and shaking out her glittering plumage, slightly discomposed by the frantic exertions of the “young lady” in question. “She is fonder of gentlemen than ladies, I perceive. She wouldn’t be a true female, though, if she wasn’t.”

      Miss Erminie, in a paroxysm of delight, immediately buried her “long, aristocratic, white fingers” in papa’s thick burnished locks, with variations of pulling his whiskers and mustache and then tenderly kissing the above hirsute appendages to make them well again. And papa, like all other young papas, looked, as if he thought her the most wonderful baby that ever lived, and danced her up and down until she forgot all sense of etiquette and propriety, and fairly screamed with delight.

      “Now, nurse, take Miss Minnie,” he said, rising at last, and laughingly shaking back his thick, fair hair. “Come, Minnie, be good now; papa must go.”

      Still crowing as if she considered she had done something rather extraordinary than otherwise, Miss Minnie allowed herself to be taken by the nurse, and saw papa and mamma, and the little lady in velvet and diamonds, smile a good-bye, and turn to leave the room.

      “Foolish little wife,” said Lord Villiers, laughing, as he saw Lady Maude cast a “longing, lingering look behind” at her heart’s treasure, “can you not even tear yourself away from your darling for a few hours, without straining your eyes to catch a last glimpse?”

      “I know it is foolish,” said Lady Maude, half-apologetically, yet still keeping her yearning eyes fixed on little Erminie; “but I feel so strangely about leaving her tonight. You will be sure to take good care of her, Martha?”

      “Sartin, my lady,” responded Martha, rather offended at their want of trust in her care.

      “Now, Maude,” said Lord Villiers, amused at her still-apparent anxiety.

      Half-laughing, half-reluctant, she allowed herself to be drawn from the room, and saw the door close between her and her child.

      Down in the spacious drawing-room, Lady Maude soon found herself fully occupied in receiving the guests, who began to arrive thick and fast. But this did not remove her strange anxiety concerning Erminie; and about an hour after, she stole away for a moment to pay a hurried visit to the nursery.

      All was calm and peaceful there. Little Erminie lay asleep once more in her crib, and Martha sat dozing in her rocking-chair. Half ashamed of her groundless fears, Lady Maude lightly kissed her sleeping infant and hurried away. Little did she dream how many suns would rise and set – how many years would come and go – before they two should meet again.

      The night in mirth and music was passing on, and the hour of midnight approached.

      The Duchess of B., Earl De Courcy, and Lady Maude were standing conversing together, when, as if struck by a sudden thought, the duchess exclaimed:

      “Oh! by the way, Lady Maude, do you recollect the strange voice that interrupted the ceremony the night you were married? Have you ever discovered who that was?”

      Both Lady Maude and the earl grew pale.

      “Never! The whole affair has been wrapped in mystery ever since,” said Lady Maude, with a slight shudder.

      “Dear me, how frightened I was that night!” said the duchess, arranging her bracelets. “It was quite dreadful; the most mysterious thing – just like a ghost, or something in a play.”

      The duchess broke off suddenly and listened, as the great hall-clock tolled the hour of twelve.

      And just as the last stroke died away, that same terrific voice they had heard years before pealed through the spacious room like the deep tolling of a death-bell.

      “Two years ago this night a legal murder was committed, and now the hour of retribution is at hand. The sins of the father shall be visited upon the children, and the children’s children, even to the third and fourth generations. Woe to all the house of De Courcy.”

      As if the angel of death had suddenly descended in their midst, every face blanched, and every heart stood still with nameless horror. For one moment the silence of the grave reigned, then a wild, piercing shriek was heard through the house, and the nurse Martha, with terror-blanched face, and uplifted arms, rushed into the midst of the assembled guests, screaming:

      “Oh, Miss Minnie! Miss Minnie! Miss Minnie!”

      “Oh, God! my child!” came from the white lips of Lady Maude, in a voice that those who heard never forgot, as she fled from the room, up the long staircase, and into the nursery.

      But the crib was empty; the babe was gone.

      The wild, wild shriek of a mother’s woe resounded through the house, and Lady Maude fell in a deadly swoon on the floor.

      And when Lord Villiers – his own noble face white and set with unutterable anguish – burst into the room, he found her lying cold and lifeless on the floor.

      Meantime, some of the most self-possessed of the guests had assembled round Martha, in order to extract from her, if possible, what had happened.

      But half insane with terror already, the continuous screaming of the frightened ladies completely drove every remaining gleam of sense out of her head, and her words were so wild and incoherent, that but СКАЧАТЬ