The Baronet's Bride Part 7

The Reverend Cyrus Green looked with grave, suspicious eyes for a moment at the leaden face of the speaker.

"There is wrong and mystery about this," he thought--"a dark mystery of guilt. This woman is mad, but her wrongs have driven her mad, and you, Sir Jasper Kingsland, are her wronger."

"It shall be as you say, Sir Jasper," he said, aloud; "that is, if I find this poor creature has no friends. Are you aware whether she has any?"

"I tell you I know nothing of her!" the baronet cried, with fierce impatience. "What should I know of such a wretch as that?"

"More than you dare tell, Sir Jasper Kingsland!" cried a high, ringing voice, as a young woman rushed impetuously into the church and up the aisle. "Coward and liar! False, perjured wretch! You are too white-livered a hound even to tell the truth! What should you know of such a wretch as that, forsooth! Double-dyed traitor and dastard!

Look me in the face and tell me you don't know her!"

Every one shrunk in terror and dismay; Sir Jasper stood as a man might stand suddenly struck by lightning. And if looks were lightning, the blazing eyes of the young woman might have blasted him where he stood.

A tall and handsome young woman, with black eyes of fire, streaming, raven hair, and a brown gypsy face.

"Who are you, in mercy's name?" cried the Reverend Cyrus Green.

"I am the daughter of this wretch, as your baronet yonder is pleased to call my mad mother. Yes, Mr. Green, she is my mother. If you want to know who my father is, you had better ask Sir Jasper Kingsland!"

"It is false!" the baronet cried, "I know nothing of you or your father. I never set eyes on you before."

"Wait, wait, wait!" the Reverend Cyrus Green cried, imploringly. "For Heaven's sake, young woman, don't make a scene before all these listeners. We will have your mother conveyed into the vestry until she recovers; and if she ever recovers, no time is to be lost in attending to her. Sir Jasper, I think the child had better be sent home immediately. My lady will wonder at the delay."

A faint wail from the infant lying in the nurse's arms seconded the suggestion. That feeble cry and the mention of his wife acted as a magic spell upon the baronet.

"Your mad intruders have startled us into forgetting everything else.

Proceed, nurse. Lady Helen, take my arm. Mr. Carlyon, see to Mildred.

The child looks frightened to death, and little wonder!"

"Little, indeed!" sighed Lady Helen. "I shall not recover from the shock for a month. It was like a scene in a melodrama--like a chapter of a sensation novel. And you know that dreadful creature, Sir Jasper?"

"I used to know her," the baronet said, with emphasis, "so many years ago that I had almost forgotten she ever existed. She was always more or less mad, I fancy, and it seems hereditary. Her daughter--if daughter she be--seems as distraught as her mother."

"And her name, Sir Jasper? You called her by some name, I think."

"Zenith, I suppose. To tell the truth, Lady Helen, the woman is neither more nor less than a gypsy fortune-teller crazed by a villainous life and villainous liquor. But, for the sake of the days gone by, when she was young and pretty and told my fortune, I think I will go back and see what Mr. Green intends doing with her. Such crazy vagrants should not be allowed to go at large."

The light tone was a ghastly failure, and the smile but a death's-head grin. He placed Lady Helen in the carriage--Mr. Carlyon a.s.sisted the nurse and little Mildred. Then Sir Jasper gave the order, "Home," and the stately carriage of the Kingslands, with its emblazoned crest, whirled away in a cloud of dust. For an instant he stood looking after it.

"Curses on it!" he muttered between set teeth. "After all these years, are those dead doings to be flung in my face? I thought her dead and gone; and lo! in the hour of my triumph she rises as if from the grave to confound me. Her daughter, too! I never knew she had a child!

Good heavens! how these wild oats we sow in youth flourish and multiply with their bitter, bad fruit!"

He turned and strode into the vestry. On the floor the miserable woman lay, her eyes closed, her jaw fallen. By her side, supporting her head, the younger woman knelt, holding a gla.s.s of water to her lips.

The Reverend Cyrus Green stood gravely looking on.

"Is she dead?" Sir Jasper asked, in a hard voice.

It was to the clergyman he spoke, but the girl looked fiercely up, her tones like a serpent's hiss.

"Not dead, Sir Jasper Kingsland! No thanks to you for it!

Murderer--as much a murderer as if you had cut her throat--look on her, and be proud of the ruin you have wrought!"

"Silence, woman!" Mr. Green ordered, imperiously. "We will have none of your mad recriminations here. She is not dead, Sir Jasper, but she is dying, I think. This young woman wishes to remove her--whither, I know not--but it is simply impossible. That unfortunate creature will not be alive when to-morrow dawns."

"What do you propose doing with her?" the baronet asked, steadily.

"We will convey her to the s.e.xton's house--it is very near. I have sent Dawson for a stretcher; he and Humphreys will carry her. This young woman declines to give her name, or tell who she is, or where she lives."

"Where I live is no affair of yours, if I can not take my mother there," the young woman answered, sullenly. "Who I am, you know. I told you I am this woman's daughter."

"And a gypsy, I take it?" said Mr. Green.

"You guess well, sir, but only half the truth. Half gypsy I am, and half gentlewoman. A mongrel, I suppose, that makes; and yet it is well to have good blood in one's veins, even on the father's side."

There was a sneering emphasis in her words, and the snaky black eyes gleamed like daggers on the baronet.

But that proud face was set and rigid as stone now. He returned her look with a haughty stare.

"It is a pity the whipping-post has been abolished," he said, harshly.

"Your impertinence makes you a fit subject for it, mistress! Take care we don't commit you to prison as a public vagrant, and teach that tongue of yours a little civility when addressing your betters."

"My betters!" the girl hissed, in a fierce, sibilant whisper. "Why, yes, I suppose a daughter should look upon a father in that light. As to the whipping-post and prison, try it at your peril! Try it, if you dare, Sir Jasper."

Before he could speak the door opened, and Dawson entered with the stretcher.

"Lay her upon it and remove her at once," the rector said. "Here, Humphreys, this side. Gently, my men--gently. Be very careful on the way."

The two men placed the seemingly lifeless form of Zenith on the stretcher and bore her carefully away.

The daughter Zara followed.

"She will not live until to-morrow morning," the rector said; "and it is better so, poor soul! She is evidently hopelessly insane."

"And the daughter appears but little better. By the way, Mr. Green, Lady Kingsland desires me to fetch you back to dinner."

The rector bowed.

"Her ladys.h.i.+p is very good. Has your carriage gone? I will order out the pony-phaeton, if you like."

Ten minutes later the two gentlemen were bowling along the pleasant country road leading to the Court. It was a very silent drive, for the baronet sat moodily staring at vacancy, his mouth set in hard, wordless pain.

"They will tell Olivia," he was thinking, gloomily. "What will she say to all this?"

But his fears seemed groundless. Lady Kingsland treated the matter with cool indifference. To be sure, she had not heard quite all. A madwoman had burst into the church, had terrified Lady Helen pretty nearly to death with her crazy language, and had tried to tear away the baby. That was the discreet story my lady heard, and which she was disposed to treat with calm surprise. Baby was safe, and it had ended in nothing; the madwoman was being properly cared for. Lady Kingsland quietly dismissed the incident altogether before the end of dinner.

The hours of the evening wore on--very long hours to the lord of Kingsland Court, seated at the head of his table, dispensing his hospitalities and trying to listen to the long stories of Mr. Carlyon and the rector.

It was worse in the drawing-room, with the lights and the music, and his stately wife at the piano, and Lady Helen at his side, prattling with little Mildred over a pile of engravings. All the time, in a half-distracted sort of way, his thoughts were wandering to the s.e.xton's cottage and the woman dying therein--the woman he had thought dead years ago--dying there in desolation and misery--and here the hours seemed strung on roses.

It was all over at last. The guests were gone, the baby baronet slept in his crib, and Lady Kingsland had gone to her chamber. But Sir Jasper lingered still--wandering up and down the long drawing-room like a restless ghost.