When Sir Norman Kingsley entered the ancient ruin, his head was full of Leoline—when he knelt down to look through the aperture in the flagged floor, head and heart were full of her still. But the moment his eyes fell on the scene beneath, everything fled far from his thoughts, Leoline among the rest; and nothing remained but a profound and absorbing feeling of intensest amaze.
Right below him he beheld an immense room, of which the flag he had raised seemed to form part of the ceiling, in a remote corner. Evidently it was one of a range of lower vaults, and as he was at least fourteen feet above it, and his corner somewhat in shadow, there was little danger of his being seen. So, leaning far down to look at his leisure, he took the goods the gods provided him, and stared to his heart's content.
Sir Norman had seen some queer sights during the four-and-twenty years he had spent in this queer world, but never anything quite equal to this. The apartment below, though so exceedingly large, was lighted with the brilliance of noon-day; and every object it contained; from one end to the other, was distinctly revealed. The floor, from glimpses he had of it in obscure corners, was of stone; but from end to end it was covered with richest rugs and mats, and squares of velvet of as many colors as Joseph's coat. The walls were hung with splendid tapestry, gorgeous in silk and coloring, representing the wars of Troy, the exploits of Coeur de Lion among the Saracens, the death of Hercules, all on one side; and on the other, a more modern representation, the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The illumination proceeded from a range of wax tapers in silver candelabra, that encircled the whole room. The air was redolent of perfumes, and filled with strains of softest and sweetest music from unseen hands. At one extremity of the room was a huge door of glass and gilding; and opposite it, at the other extremity, was a glittering throne. It stood on a raised dais, covered with crimson velvet, reached by two or three steps carpeted with the same; the throne was as magnificent as gold, and satin, and ornamentation could make it. A great velvet canopy of the same deep, rich color, cut in antique points, and heavily hung with gold fringe, was above the seat of honor. Beside it, to the right, but a little lower down, was a similar throne, somewhat less superb, and minus a canopy. From the door to the throne was a long strip of crimson velvet, edged and embroidered with gold, and arranged in a sweeping semi-circle, on either side, were a row of great carved, gilded, and cushioned chairs, brilliant, too, with crimson and gold, and each for every-day Christians, a throne in itself. Between the blaze of illumination, the flashing of gilding and gold, the tropical flush of crimson velvet, the rainbow dyes on floor and walls, the intoxicating gushes of perfume, and the delicious strains of unseen music, it is no wonder Sir Norman Kingsley's head was spinning like a bewildered teetotum.
Was he sane—was he sleeping? Had he drank too much wine at the Golden Crown, and had it all gone to his head? Was it a scene of earnest enchantment, or were fairy-tales true? Like Abou Hasson when he awoke in the palace of the facetious Caliph of Bagdad, he had no notion of believing his own eyes and ears, and quietly concluded it was all an optical illusion, as ghosts are said to be; but he quietly resolved to stay there, nevertheless, and see how the dazzling phantasmagoria would end. The music was certainly ravishing, and it seemed to him, as he listened with enchanted ears, that he never wanted to wake up from so heavenly a dream.
One thing struck him as rather odd; strange and bewildered as everything was, it did not seem at all strange to him, on the contrary, a vague idea was floating mistily through his mind that he had beheld precisely the same thing somewhere before. Probably at some past period of his life he had beheld a similar vision, or had seen a picture somewhere like it in a tale of magic, and satisfying himself with this conclusion, he began wondering if the genii of the place were going to make their appearance at all, or if the knowledge that human eyes were upon them had scared them back to Erebus.
While still ruminating on this important question, a portion of the tapestry, almost beneath him, shriveled up and up, and out flocked a glittering throng, with a musical mingling of laughter and voices. Still they came, more and more, until the great room was almost filled, and a dazzling throng they were. Sir Norman had mingled in many a brilliant scene at Whitehall, where the gorgeous court of Charles shone in all its splendor, with the “merry monarch” at their head, but all he had ever witnessed at the king's court fell far short of this pageant. Half the brilliant flock were ladies, superb in satins, silks, velvets and jewels. And such jewels! every gem that ever flashed back the sunlight sparkled and blazed in blending array on those beautiful bosoms and arms—diamonds, pearls, opals, emeralds, rubies, garnets, sapphires, amethysts—every jewel that ever shone. But neither dresses nor gems were half so superb as the peerless forms they adorned; and such an army of perfectly beautiful faces, from purest blonde to brightest brunette, had never met and mingled together before.
Each lovely face was unmasked, but Sir Norman's dazzled eyes in vain sought among them for one he knew. All that “rosebud garden of girls” were perfect strangers to him, but not so the gallants, who fluttered among them like moths around meteors. They, too, were in gorgeous array, in purple and fine linen, which being interpreted, signifieth in silken hose of every color under the sun, spangled and embroidered slippers radiant with diamond buckles, doublets of as many different shades as their tights, slashed with satin and embroidered with gold. Most of them wore huge powdered wigs, according to the hideous fashion then in vogue, and under those same ugly scalps, laughed many a handsome face Sir Norman well knew. The majority of those richly-robed gallants were strangers to him as well as the ladies, but whoever they were, whether mortal men or “spirits from the vasty deep,” they were in the tallest sort of clover just then. Evidently they knew it, too, and seemed to be on the best of terms with themselves and all the world, and laughed, and flirted, and flattered, with as much perfection as so many ball-room Apollos of the present day.
Still no one ascended the golden and crimson throne, though many of the ladies and gentlemen fluttering about it were arrayed as royally as any common king or queen need wish to be. They promenaded up and down, arm in arm; they seated themselves in the carved and gilded chairs; they gathered in little groups to talk and laugh, did everything, in short, but ascend the throne; and the solitary spectator up above began to grow intensely curious to know who it was for. Their conversation he could plainly hear, and to say that it amazed him, would be to use a feeble expression, altogether inadequate to his feelings. Not that it was the remarks they made that gave his system each a shook, but the names by which they addressed each other. One answered to the aspiring cognomen of the Duke of Northumberland; another was the Earl of Leicester; another, the Duke of Devonshire; another, the Earl of Clarendon; another, the Duke of Buckingham; and so on, ad infinitum, dukes and earls alternately, like bricks and mortar in the wall of a house. There were other dignitaries besides, some that Sir Norman had a faint recollection of hearing were dead for some years—Cardinal Wolsey, Sir Thomas More, the Earl of Bothwell, King Henry Darnley, Sir Walter Raleigh, the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Southampton, the Duke of York, and no end of others with equally sonorous titles. As for mere lords and baronets, and such small deer, there was nothing so plebeian present, and they were evidently looked upon by the distinguished assembly, like small deer in thunder, with pity and contempt. The ladies, too, were all duchesses, marchionesses, countesses, and looked fit for princesses, Sir Norman thought, though he heard none of them styled quite so high as that. The tone of conversation was light and easy, but at the same time extremely ceremonious and courtly, and all seemed to be enjoying themselves in the most delightful sort of a way, which people of, such distinguished rank, I am told, seldom do. All went merry as a marriage-bell, and sweetly over the gay jingle of voices rose the sweet, faint strains of the unseen music.
Suddenly all was changed. The great door of glass and gilding opposite the throne was flung wide, and a grand usher in a grand court livery flourished a mighty grand wand, and shouted, in a stentorian voice,
“Back: back, ye lieges, and make way for Her Majesty, Queen Miranda!”
Instantly the unseen band thundered forth the national anthem. The splendid throng fell back on either hand in profoundest silence and expectation. The grand usher mysteriously disappeared, and in his place there stalked forward a score of soldiers, with clanking swords and fierce moustaches, in the gorgeous uniform of the king's body-guard. These showy warriors arranged themselves silently on either side of the crimson throne, and were followed by half a dozen dazzling personages, the foremost crowned with mitre, armed with crozier, and robed in the ecclesiastical glory of an archbishop, but the face underneath, to the deep surprise and scandal of Sir Norman, was that of the fastest young roue of Charles court, after him came another pompous dignitary, in such unheard of magnificence that the unseen looker-on set him down for a prime minister, or a lord high chancellor, at the very least. The somewhat gaudy-looking gentlemen who stepped after the pious prelate and peer wore the stars and garters of foreign courts, and were evidently embassadors extraordinary to that of her midnight majesty. After them came a snowy flock of fair young girls, angels all but the wings, slender as sylphs, and robed in purest white. Each bore on her arm a basket of flowers, roses and rosebuds of every tint, from snowy white to darkest crimson, and as they floated in they scattered them lightly as they went. And then after all came another vision, “the last, the brightest, the best—the Midnight Queen,” herself. One other figure followed her, and as they entered, a shout arose from the whole assemblage, “Long live Queen Miranda!” And bowing gracefully and easily to the right and left, the queen with a queenly step, trod the long crimson carpet and mounted the regal throne.
From the first moment of his looking down, Sir Norman had been staring with all the eyes in his head, undergoing one shock of surprise after another with the equanimity of a man quite new to it; but now a cry arose to his lips, and died there in voiceless consternation. For he recognized the queen—well he might!—he had seen her before, and her face was the face of Leoline!
As she mounted the stairs, she stood there for a moment crowned and sceptred, before sitting down, and in that moment he recognized the whole scene. That gorgeous room and its gorgeous inmates; that regal throne and its regal owner, all became palpable as the sun at noonday; that slender, exquisite figure, robed in royal purple and ermine; the uncovered neck and arms, snowy and perfect, ablaze with jewels; that lovely face, like snow, like marble, in its whiteness and calm, with the great, dark, earnest eyes looking out, and the waving wealth of hair falling around it. It was the very scene, and room, and vision, that La Masque had shown him in the caldron, and that face was the face of Leoline, and the earl's page.
Could he be dreaming? Was he sane or mad, or were the three really one?
While he looked, the beautiful queen bowed low, and amid the profoundest and most respectful silence, took her seat. In her robes of purple, wearing the glittering crown, sceptre in hand, throned and canopied, royally beautiful she looked indeed, and a most vivid contrast to the gentleman near her, seated very much at his ease, on the lower throne. The contrast was not of dress—for his outward man was resplendent to look at; but in figure and face, or grace and dignity, he was a very mean specimen of the lords of creation, indeed. In stature, he scarcely reached to the queen's royal shoulder, but made up sideways what he wanted in length—being the breadth of two common men; his head was in proportion to his width, and was decorated with a wig of long, flowing, flaxen hair, that scarcely harmonized with a profusion of the article whiskers, in hue most unmitigated black; his eyes were small, keen, bright, and piercing, and glared on the assembled company as they had done half an hour before on Sir Norman Kingsley, in the bar-room of the Golden Crown; for the royal little man was no other than Caliban, the dwarf. Behind the thrones the flock of floral angels grouped themselves; archbishop, prime minister, and embassadors, took their stand within the lines of the soldiery, and the music softly and impressively died sway in the distance; dead silence reigned.
“My lord Duke,” began the queen, in the very voice he had heard at the plague-pit, as she turned to the stylish individual next the archbishop, “come forward and read us the roll of mortality since our last meeting.”
His grace, the duke, instantly stepped forward, bowing so low that nothing was seen of him for a brief space, but the small of his back, and when he reared himself up, after this convulsion of nature, Sir Norman beheld a face not entirely new to him. At first, he could not imagine where he had seen it, but speedily she recollected it was the identical face of the highwayman who had beaten an inglorious retreat from him and Count L'Estrange, that very night. This ducat robber drew forth a roll of parchment, and began reading, in lachrymose tones, a select litany of defunct gentlemen, with hifalutin titles who had departed this life during the present week. Most of them had gone with the plague, but a few had died from natural causes, and among these were the Earls of Craven and Ashley.
“My lords Craven and Ashley dead!” exclaimed the queen, in tones of some surprise, but very little anguish; “that is singular, for we saw them not two hours ago, in excellent health and spirits.”
“True, poor majesty,” said the duke, dolefully, “and it is not an hour since they quitted this vale of tears. They and myself rode forth at nightfall, according to Custom, to lay your majesty's tax on all travelers, and soon chanced to encounter one who gave vigorous battle; still, it would have done him little service, had not another person come suddenly to his aid, and between them they clove the skulls of Ashley and Craven; and I,” said the duke, modestly, “I left.”
“Were either of the travelers young, and tall, and of courtly bearing?” exclaimed the dwarf with sharp rudeness.
“Both were, your highness,” replied the duke, bowing to the small speaker, “and uncommonly handy with their weapons.”
“I saw one of them down at the Golden Crown, not long ago,” said the dwarf; “a forward young popinjay, and mighty inquisitive about this, our royal palace. I promised him, if he came here, a warm reception—a promise I will have the greatest pleasure in fulfilling.”
“You may stand aside, my lord duke,” said the queen, with a graceful wave of her hand, “and if any new subjects have been added to our court since our last weekly meeting, let them come forward, and be sworn.”
A dozen or more courtiers immediately stepped forward, and kneeling before the queen, announced their name and rank, which were both ambitiously high. A few silvery-toned questions were put by that royal lady and satisfactorily answered, and then the archbishop, armed with a huge tome, administered a severe and searching oath, which the candidates took with a great deal of sang froid, and were then permitted to kiss the hand of the queen—a privilege worth any amount of swearing—and retire.
“Let any one who has any reports to make, make them immediately,” again commanded her majesty.
A number of gentlemen of high rank, presented themselves at this summons, and began relating, as a certain sect of Christians do in church, their experience! Many of these consisted, to the deep disapproval of Sir Norman, of accounts of daring highway robberies, one of them perpetrated on the king himself, which distinguished personage the duplicate of Leoline styled “our brother Charles,” and of the sums thereby attained. The treasurer of state was then ordered to show himself, and give an account of the said moneys, which he promptly did; and after him came a number of petitioners, praying for one thing and another, some of which the queen promised to grant, and some she didn't. These little affairs of state being over, Miranda turned to the little gentleman beside her, with the observation,
“I believe, your highness, it is on this night the Earl of Gloucester is to be tried on a charge of high treason, is it not?”
His highness growled a respectful assent.
“Then let him be brought before us,” said the queen. “Go, guards, and fetch him.”
Two of the soldiers bowed low, and backed from the royal presence, amid dead and ominous silence. At this interesting stage of the proceedings, as Sir Norman was leaning forward, breathless and excited, a footstep sounded on the flagged floor beside him, and some one suddenly grasped his shoulder with no gentle hand.
In one instant Sir Norman was on his feet and his hand on his sword. In the tarry darkness, neither the face nor figure of the intruder could be made out, but he merely saw a darker shadow beside him standing in the sea of darkness. Perhaps he might have thought it a ghost, but that the hand which grasped his shoulder was unmistakably of flesh, and blood, and muscle, and the breathing of its owner was distinctly audible by his side.
“Who are you?” demanded Sir Norman, drawing out his sword, and wrenching himself free from his unseen companion.
“Ah! it is you, is it? I thought so,” said a not unknown voice. “I have been calling you till I am hoarse, and at last gave it up, and started after you in despair. What are you doing here?”
“You, Ormiston!” exclaimed Sir Norman, in the last degree astonished. “How—when—what are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here? that's more to the purpose. Down flat on your face, with your head stuck through that hole. What is below there, anyway?”
“Never mind,” said Sir Norman, hastily, who, for some reason quite unaccountable to himself, did not wish Ormiston to see. “There's nothing therein particular, but a lower range of vaults. Do you intend telling me what has brought you here?”
“Certainly; the very fleetest horse I could find in the city.”
“Pshaw! You don't say so?” exclaimed Sir Norman, incredulously. “But I presume you had some object in taking such a gallop? May I ask what? Your anxious solicitude on my account, very likely?”
“Not precisely. But, I say, Kingsley, what light is that shining through there? I mean to see.”
“No, you won't,” said Sir Norman, rapidly and noiselessly replacing the flag. “It's nothing, I tell you, but a number of will-o-'wisps having a ball. Finally, and for the last time, Mr. Ormiston, will you have the goodness to tell me what has sent you here?”
“Come out to the air, then. I have no fancy for talking in this place; it smells like a tomb.”
“There is nothing wrong, I hope?” inquired Sir Norman, following his friend, and threading his way gingerly through the piles of rubbish in the profound darkness.
“Nothing wrong, but everything extremely right. Confound this place! It would be easier walking on live eels than through these winding and lumbered passages. Thank the fates, we are through them, at last! for there is the daylight, or, rather the nightlight, and we have escaped without any bones broken.”
They had reached the mouldering and crumbling doorway, shown by a square of lighter darkness, and exchanged the damp, chill atmosphere of the vaults for the stagnant, sultry open air. Sir Norman, with a notion in his head that his dwarfish highness might have placed sentinels around his royal residence, endeavored to pierce the gloom in search of them. Though he could discover none, he still thought discretion the better part of valor, and stepped out into the road.
“Now, then, where are you going?” inquired Ormiston for, following him.
“I don't wish to talk here; there is no telling who may be listening. Come along.”
Ormiston glanced back at the gloomy rain looming up like a black spectre in the blackness.
“Well, they must have a strong fancy for eavesdropping, I must say, who world go to that haunted heap to listen. What have you seen there, and where have you left your horse?”
“I told you before,” said Sir Norman, rather impatiently, “that I have seen nothing—at least, nothing you would care about; and my horse is waiting me at the Golden Crown.”
“Very well, we have no time to lose; so get there as fast as you can, and mount him and ride as if the demon were after you back to London.”
“Back to London? Is the man crazy? I shall do no such thing, let me tell you, to-night.”
“Oh, just as you please,” said Ormiston, with a great deal of indifference, considering the urgent nature of his former request. “You can do as you like, you know, and so can I—which translated, means, I will go and tell her you have declined to come.”
“Tell her? Tell whom? What are you talking about? Hang it, man!” exclaimed Sir Norman, getting somewhat excited and profane, “what are you driving at? Can't you speak out and tell me at once?”
“I have told you!” said Ormiston, testily: “and I tell you again, she sent me in search of you, and if you don't choose to come, that's your own affair, and not mine.”
This was a little too much for Sir Norman's overwrought feelings, and in the last degree of exasperation, he laid violent hands on the collar of Ormiston's doublet, and shook him as if he would have shaken the name out with a jerk.
“I tell you what it is, Ormiston, you had better not aggravate me! I can stand a good deal, but I'm not exactly Moses or Job, and you had better mind what you're at. If you don't come to the point at once, and tell me who I she is, I'll throttle you where you stand; and so give you warning.”
Half-indignant, and wholly laughing, Ormiston stepped back out of the way of his excited friend.
“I cry you mercy! In one word, then, I have been dispatched by a lady in search of you, and that lady is—Leoline.”
It has always been one of the inscrutable mysteries in natural philosophy that I never could fathom, why men do not faint. Certain it is, I never yet heard of a man swooning from excess of surprise or joy, and perhaps that may account for Sir Norman's not doing so on the present occasion. But he came to an abrupt stand-still in their rapid career; and if it had not been quite so excessively dark, his friend would have beheld a countenance wonderful to look on, in its mixture of utter astonishment and sublime consternation.
“Leoline!” he faintly gasped. “Just stop a moment, Ormiston, and say that again—will you?”
“No,” said Ormiston, hurrying unconcernedly on; “I shall do no such thing, for there is no time to lose, and if there were I have no fancy for standing in this dismal road. Come on, man, and I'll tell you as we go.”
Thus abjured, and seeing there was no help for it, Sir Norman, in a dazed and bewildered state, complied; and Ormiston promptly and briskly relaxed into business.
“You see, my dear fellow, to begin at the beginning, after you left, I stood at ease at La Masque's door, awaiting that lady's return, and was presently rewarded by seeing her come up with an old woman called Prudence. Do you recollect the woman who rushed screaming out of the home of the dead bride?”
“Yes, yes!”
“Well, that was Prudence. She and La Masque were talking so earnestly they did not perceive me, and I—well, the fact is, Kingsley, I stayed and listened. Not a very handsome thing, perhaps, but I couldn't resist it. They were talking of some one they called Leoline, and I, in a moment, knew that it was your flame, and that neither of them knew any more of her whereabouts than we did.”
“And yet La Masque told me to come here in search of her,” interrupted Sir Norman.
“Very true! That was odd—wasn't it? This Prudence, it appears, was Leoline's nurse, and La Masque, too, seemed to have a certain authority over her; and between them, I learned she was to have been married this very night, and died—or, at least, Prudence thought so—an hour or two before the time.”
“Then she was not married?” cried Sir Norman, in an ecstasy of delight.
“Not a bit of it; and what is more, didn't want to be; and judging from the remarks of Prudence, I should say, of the two, rather preferred the plague.”
“Then why was she going to do it? You don't mean to say she was forced?”
“Ah, but I do, though! Prudence owned it with the most charming candor in the world.”
“Did you hear the name of the person she was to have married?” asked Sir Norman, with kindling eyes.
“I think not; they called him the count, if my memory serves me, and Prudence intimated that he knew nothing of the melancholy fate of Mistress Leoline. Most likely it was the person in the cloak and slouched hat we saw talking to the watchman.”
Sir Norman said nothing, but he thought a good deal, and the burden of his thoughts was an ardent and heartfelt wish that the Court L'Estrange was once more under the swords of the three robbers, and waiting for him to ride to the rescue—that was all!
“La Masque urged Prudence to go back,” continued Ormiston; “but Prudence respectfully declined, and went her way bemoaning the fate of her darling. When she was gone, I stepped up to Madame Masque, and that lady's first words of greeting were an earnest hope that I had been edified and improved by what I had overheard.”
“She saw you, then?” said Sir Norman.
“See me? I believe you! She has more eyes than ever Argus had, and each one is as sharp as a cambric needle. Of course I apologized, and so on, and she forgave me handsomely, and then we fell to discoursing—need I tell you on what subject?”
“Love, of course,” said Sir Norman.
“Yes, mingled with entreaties to take off her mask that would have moved a heart of stone. It moved what was better—the heart of La Masque; and, Kingsley, she has consented to do it; and she says that if, after seeing her face, I still love her, she will be my wife.”
“Is it possible? My dear Ormiston, I congratulate you with all my heart!”
“Thank you! After that she left me, and I walked away in such a frenzy of delight that I couldn't have told whether I was treading this earth or the shining stars of the seventh heaven, when suddenly there flew past me a figure all in white—the figure of a bride, Kingsley, pursued by an excited mob. We were both near the river, and the first thing I knew, she was plump into it, with the crowd behind, yelling to stop her, that she was ill of the plague.”
“Great Heaven! and was she drowned?”
“No, though it was not her fault. The Earl of Rochester and his page—you remember that page, I fancy—were out in their barge, and the earl picked her up. Then I got a boat, set out after her, claimed her—for I recognized her, of course—brought her ashore, and deposited her safe and sound in her own house. What do you think of that?”
“Ormiston,” said Norman, catching him by the shoulder, with a very excited face, “is this true?”
“True as preaching, Kingsley, every word of it! And the most extraordinary part of the business is, that her dip in cold water has effectually cured her of the plague; not a trace of it remains.”
Sir Norman dropped his hand, and walked on, staring straight before him, perfectly speechless. In fact, no known language in the world could have done justice to his feelings at that precise period; for three times that night, in three different shapes, had he seen this same Leoline, and at the same moment he was watching her decked out in royal state in the rain, Ormiston had probably been assisting her from her cold bath in the river Thames.
Astonishment and consternation are words altogether too feeble to express his state of mind; but one idea remained clear and bright amid all his mental chaos, and that was, that the Leoline he had fallen in love with dead, was awaiting him, alive and well, in London.
“Well,” said Ormiston, “you don't speak! What do you think of all this?”
“Think! I can't think—I've got past that long ago!” replied his friend, hopelessly. “Did you really say Leoline was alive and well?”
“And waiting for you—yes, I did, and I repeat it; and the sooner you get back to town, the sooner you will see her; so don't loiter—”
“Ormiston, what do you mean! Is it possible I can see her to-night?”
“Yes, it is; the dear creature is waiting for you even now. You see, after we got to the house, and she had consented to become a little rational, mutual explanations ensued, by which it appeared she had ran away from Sir Norman Kingsley's in a state of frenzy, had jumped into the river in a similarly excited state of mind, and was most anxious to go down on her pretty knees and thank the aforesaid Sir Norman for saving her life. What could any one as gallant as myself do under these circumstances, but offer to set forth in quest of that gentleman? And she promptly consented to sit up and wait his coming, and dismissed me with her blessing. And, Kingsley, I've a private notion she is as deeply affected by you as you are by her; for, when I mentioned your name, she blushed, yea, verily to the roots of her hair; and when she spoke of you, couldn't so much as look me in the face—which is, you must own, a very bad symptom.”
“Nonsense!” said Sir Norman, energetically. And had it been daylight, his friend would have seen that he blushed almost as extensively as the lady. “She doesn't know me.”
“Ah, doesn't she, though? That shows all you know about it! She has seen you go past the window many and many a time; and to see you,” said Ormiston, making a grimace undercover of the darkness, “is to love! She told me so herself.”
“What! That she loved me!” exclaimed Sir Norman, his notions of propriety to the last degree shocked by such a revelation.
“Not altogether, she only looked that; but she said she knew you well by sight, and by heart, too, as I inferred from her countenance when she said it. There now, don't make me talk any more, for I have told you everything I know, and am about hoarse with my exertions.”
“One thing only—did she tell you who she was?”
“No, except that her name was Leoline, and nothing else—which struck me as being slightly improbable. Doubtless, she will tell you everything, and one piece of advice I may venture to give you, which is, you may propose as soon as you like without fear of rejection. Here we are at the Golden Crown, so go in and get your horse, and let us be off.”
All this time Ormiston had been leading his own horse by the bridle, and as Sir Norman silently complied with this suggestion, in five minutes more they were in their saddles, and galloping at break-neck speed toward the city. To tell the truth, one was not more inclined for silence than the other, and the profoundest and thoughtfulest silence was maintained till they reached it. One was thinking of Leoline, the other of La Masque, and both were badly in love, and just at that particular moment very happy. Of course the happiness of people in that state never lasts longer than half an hour at a stretch, and then they are plunged back again into misery and distraction; but while it does last, it in, very intense and delightful indeed.
Our two friends having drained the bitten, had got to the bottom of the cup, and neither knew that no sooner were the sweets swallowed, than it was to be replenished with a doubly-bitter dose. Neither of them dismounted till they reached the house of Leoline, and there Sir Norman secured his horse, and looked up at it with a beating heart. Not that it was very unusual for his heart to beat, seeing it never did anything else; but on that occasion its motion was so much accelerated, that any doctor feeling his pulse might have justly set him down as a bad case of heart-disease. A small, bright ray of light streamed like a beacon of hope from an upper window, and the lover looked at it as a clouded mariner might at the shining of the North Star.
“Are you coming in, Ormiston?” he inquired, feeling, for the first time in his life, almost bashful. “It seems to me it would only be right, you know.”
“I don't mind going in and introducing` you,” said Ormiston; “but after you have been delivered over, you may fight your own battles, and take care of yourself. Come on.”
The door was unfastened, and Ormiston sprang upstairs with the air of a man—quite at home, followed more decorously by Sir Norman. The door of the lady's room stood ajar, as he had left it, and in answer to his “tapping at the chamber-door,” a sweet feminine voice called “come in.”
Ormiston promptly obeyed, and the next instant they were in the room, and in the presence of the dead bride. Certainly she did not look dead, but very much alive, just then, as she sat in an easy-chair, drawn up before the dressing-table, on which stood the solitary lamp that illumed the chamber. In one hand she held a small mirror, or, as it was then called, a “sprunking-glass,” in which she was contemplating her own beauty, with as much satisfaction as any other pretty girl might justly do. She had changed her drenched dress during Ormiston's absence, and now sat arrayed in a swelling amplitude of rose-colored satin, her dark hair clasped and bound by a circle of milk-white pearls, and her pale, beautiful face looking ten degrees more beautiful than ever, in contrast with the bright rose-silk, shining dark hair, and rich white jewels. She rose up as they entered, and came forward with the same glow on her face and the same light in her eyes that one of them had seen before, and stood with drooping eyelashes, lovely as a vision in the centre of the room.
“You see I have lost no time in obeying your ladyship's commands,” began Ormiston, bowing low. “Mistress Leoline, allow me to present Sir Norman Kingsley.”
Sir Norman Kingsley bent almost as profoundly before the lady as the lord high chancellor had done before Queen Miranda; and the lady courtesied, in return, until her pink-satin skirt ballooned out all over the floor. It was quite an affecting tableau. And so Ormiston felt, as he stood eyeing it with preternatural gravity.
“I owe my life to Sir Norman Kingsley,” murmured the faint, sweet voice of the lady, “and could not rest until I had thanked him. I have no words to say how deeply thankful and grateful I am.”
“Fairest Leoline! one word from such lips would be enough to repay me, had I done a thousandfold more,” responded Norman, laying his hand on his heart, with another deep genuflection.
“Very pretty indeed!” remarked Ormiston to himself, with a little approving nod; “but I'm afraid they won't be able to keep it up, and go on talking on stilts like that, till they have finished. Perhaps they may get on all the better if I take myself off, there being always one too many in a case like this.” Then aloud: “Madame, I regret that I am obliged to depart, having a most particular appointment; but, doubtless, my friend will be able to express himself without my assistance. I have the honor to wish you both good-night.”
With which neat and appropriate speech, Ormiston bowed himself out, and was gone before Leoline could detain him, even if she wished to do so. Probably, however, she thought the care of one gentleman sufficient responsibility at once; and she did not look very seriously distressed by his departure; and, the moment he disappeared, Sir Norman brightened up wonderfully.
It is very discomposing to the feelings to make love in the presence of a third party; and Sir Norman had no intention of wasting his time on anything, and went at it immediately. Taking her hand, with a grace that would have beaten Sir Charles Grandison or Lord Chesterfield all to nothing, he led her to a couch, and took a seat as near her as was at all polite or proper, considering the brief nature of their acquaintance. The curtains were drawn; the lamp shed a faint light; the house was still, and there was no intrusive papa to pounce down upon them; the lady was looking down, and seemed in no way haughty or discouraging, and Sir Norman's spirits went up with a jump to boiling-point.
Yet the lady, with all her pretty bashfulness, was the first to speak.
“I'm afraid, Sir Norman, you must think this a singular hour to come here; but, in these dreadful times, we cannot tell if we may live from one moment to another; and I should not like to die, or have you die, without my telling, and you hearing, all my gratitude. For I do assure you, Sir Norman,” said the lady, lifting her dark eyes with the prettiest and most bewitching earnestness, “that I am grateful, though I cannot find words to express it.”
“Madame, I would not listen to you if you would; for I have done nothing to deserve thanks. I wish I could tell you what I felt when Ormiston told me you were alive and safe.”
“You are very kind, but pray do not call me madame. Say Leoline!”
“A thousand thanks, dear Leoline!” exclaimed Sir Norman, raising her hand to his lips, and quite beside himself with ecstasy.
“Ah, I did not tell you to say that!” she cried, with a gay laugh and vivid blush. “I never said you were to call me dear.”
“It arose from my heart to my lips,” said Sir Norman, with thrilling earnestness and fervid glance; “for you are dear to me—dearer than all the world beside!”
The flush grew a deeper glow on the lady's face; but, singular to relate, she did not look the least surprised or displeased; and the hand he had feloniously purloined lay passive and quite contented in his.
“Sir Norman Kingsley is pleased to jest,” said the lady, in a subdued tone, and with her eyes fixed pertinaciously on her shining dress; “for he has never spoken to me before in his life!”
“That has nothing to do with it, Leoline. I love you as devotedly as if I had known you from your birthday; and, strange to say, I feel as if we had been friends for years instead of minutes. I cannot realize at all that you are a stranger to me!”
Leoline laughed:
“Nor I; though, for that matter, you are not a stranger to me, Sir Norman!”
“Am I not? How is that!”
“I have seen you go past so often, you know; and Prudence told me who you were; and so I need—I used—” hesitating and glowing to a degree before which her dress paled.
“Well, dearest,” said Sir Norman, getting from the positive to the superlative at a jump, and diminishing the distance between them, “you need to—what?”
“To watch for you!” said Leoline, in a sly whisper. “And so I have got to know you very well!”
“My own darling! And, O Leoline! may I hope—dare I hope—that you do not altogether hate me?”
Leoline looked reflective; though her bleak eyes were sparkling under their sweeping lashes.
“Why, no,” she said, demurely, “I don't know as I do. It's very sinful and improper to hate one's fellow-creatures, you know, Sir Norman, and therefore I don't indulge in it.”
“Ah! you are given to piety, I see. In that case, perhaps you are aware of a precept commanding us to love our neighbors. Now, I'm your nearest neighbor at present; so, to keep up a consistent Christian spirit, just be good enough to say you love me!”
Again Leoline laughed; and this time the bright, dancing eyes beamed in their sparkling darkness full upon him.
“I am afraid your theology is not very sound, my friend, and I have a dislike to extremes. There is a middle course, between hating and loving. Suppose I take that?”
“I will have no middle courses—either hating or loving it must be! Leoline! Leoline!” (bending over her, and imprisoning both hands this time) “do say you love me!”
“I am captive in your hands, so I must, I suppose. Yes, Sir Norman, I do love you!”
Every man hearing that for the first time from a pair of loved lips is privileged to go mad for a brief season, and to go through certain manoeuvers much more delectable to the enjoyers than to society at large. For fully ten minutes after Leoline's last speech, there was profound silence. But actions sometimes speak louder than words; and Leoline was perfectly convinced that her declaration had not fallen on insensible ears. At the end of that period, the space between them on the couch had so greatly diminished, that the ghost of a zephyr would have been crushed to death trying to get between them; and Sir Norman's face was fairly radiant. Leoline herself looked rather beaming; and she suddenly, and without provocation, burst into a merry little peal of laughter.
“Well, for two people who were perfect strangers to each other half an hour ago, I think we have gone on remarkably well. What will Mr. Ormiston and Prudence say, I wonder, when they hear this?”
“They will say what is the truth—that I am the luckiest man in England. O Leoline! I never thought it was in me to love any one as I do you.”'
“I am very glad to hear it; but I knew that it was in me long before I ever dreamed of knowing you. Are you not anxious to know something about the future Lady Kingsley's past history?”
“It will all come in good time; it is not well to have a surfeit of joy in one night.
“I do not know that this will add to your joy; but it had better be told and be done with, at once and forever. In the first place, I presume I am an orphan, for I have never known father or mother, and I have never had any other name but Leoline.”
“So Ormiston told me.”
“My first recollection is of Prudence; she was my nurse and governess, both in one; and we lived in a cottage by the sea—I don't know where, but a long way from this. When I was about ten years old, we left it, and came to London, and lived in a house in Cheapside, for five or six years; and then we moved here. And all this time, Sir Norman you will think it strange—but I never made any friends or acquaintances, and knew no one but Prudence and an old Italian professor, who came to our lodgings in Cheapside, every week, to give me lessons. It was not because I disliked society, you must know; but Prudence, with all her kindness and goodness—and I believe she truly loves me—has been nothing more or less all my life than my jailer.”
She paused to clasp a belt of silver brocade, fastened by a pearl buckle, close around her little waist, and Sir Norman fixed his eyes upon her beautiful face, with a powerful glance.
“Knew no one—that is strange, Leoline! Not even the Count L'Estrange?”
“Ah! you know him?” she cried eagerly, lifting her eyes with a bright look; “do—do tell me who he is?”
“Upon my honor, my dear,” said Sir Norman, considerably taken aback, “it strikes me you are the person to answer that question. If I don't greatly mistake, somebody told me you were going to marry him.”
“Oh, so I was,” said Leoline, with the utmost simplicity. “But I don't know him, for all that; and more than that, Sir Norman, I do not believe his name is Count L'Estrange, any more than mine is!”
“Precisely my opinion; but why, in the name of—no, I'll not swear; but why were you going to marry him, Leoline?”
Leoline half pouted, and shrugged her pretty pink satin shoulders.
“Because I couldn't help it—that's why. He coaxed, and coaxed; and I said no, and no, and no, until I got tired of it. Prudence, too, was as bad as he was, until between them I got about distracted, and at last consented to marry him to get rid of him.”
“My poor, persecuted little darling! Oh,” cried Sir Norman, with a burst of enthusiasm, “how I should admire to have Count L'Estrange here for about ten minutes, just now! I would spoil his next wooing for him, or I am mistaken!”
“No, no!” said Leoline, looking rather alarmed; “you must not fight, you know. I shouldn't at all like either of you to get killed. Besides, he has not married me; and so there's no harm done.”
Sir Norman seemed rather struck by that view of the case, and after a few moments reflection on it, came to the conclusion that she knew best, and settled down peaceably again.
“Why do you suppose his name is not Count L'Estrange?” he asked.
“For many reasons. First—he is disguised; wears false whiskers, moustache, and wig, and even the voice he uses appears assumed. Then Prudence seems in the greatest awe of him, and she is not one to be easily awed. I never knew her to be in the slightest degree intimidated by any human being but himself and that mysterious woman, La Masque.
“Ah! you know La Masque, then?”
“Not personally; but I have seen her as I did you, you remember,” with an arch glance; “and, like you, being once seen, is not to be forgotten.”
Sir Norman promptly paid her for the compliment in Cupid's own coin:
“Little flatterer! I can almost forgive Count L'Estrange for wanting to marry you; for I presume he it only a man, and not quite equal to impossibilities. How long is it since you knew him first?”
“Not two months. My courtships,” said Leoline, with a gay laugh, “seem destined to be of the shortest. He saw me one evening in the window, and immediately insisted on being admitted; and after that, he continued coming until I had to promise, as I have told you, to be Countess L'Estrange.”
“He cannot be much of a gentleman, or he would not attempt to force a lady against her will. And so, when you were dressed for your bridal, you found you had the plague?”
“Yes, Sir Norman; and horrible as that was I do assure you I almost preferred it to marrying him.”
“Leoline, tell me how long it is since you've known me?”
“Nearly three months,” said Leoline, blushing again celestial rosy red.
“And how long have you loved me?”
“Nonsense. What a question! I shall not tell you.”
“You shall—you must—I insist upon it. Did you love me before you met the count? Out with it.”
“Well, then—yes!” cried Leoline desperately.
Sir Norman raised the hand he held, in rapture to his lips:
“My darling! But I will reserve my raptures, for it is growing late, and I know you must want to go to rest. I have a thousand things to tell you, but they must wait for daylight; only I will promise, before parting, that this is the last night you must spend here.”
Leoline opened her bright eyes very wide.
“To-morrow morning,” went on Sir Norman, impressively, and with dignity, “you will be up and dressed by sunrise, and shortly after that radiant period, I will make my appearance with two horses—one of which I shall ride, and the other I shall lead: the one I lead you shall mount, and we will ride to the nearest church, and be married without any pomp or pageant; and then Sir Norman and Lady Kingsley will immediately leave London, and in Kingsley Castle, Devonshire, will enjoy the honeymoon and blissful repose till the plague is over. Do you understand that?”
“Perfectly,” she answered, with a radiant face.
“And agree to it?”
“You know I do, Sir Norman; only—”
“Well, my pet, only what?”
“Sir Norman, I should like to see Prudence. I want Prudence. How can I leave her behind?”
“My dear child, she made nothing of leaving you when she thought you were dying; so never mind Prudence, but say, will you be ready?”
“I will.”
“That is my good little Leoline. Now give me a kiss, Lady Kingsley, and good-night.”
Lady Kingsley dutifully obeyed; and Sir Norman went out with a glow at his heart, like a halo round a full moon.