CHAPTER XLIX.ENEMIES MEETING.
The young widow still remained in the breakfast-room, sitting by the little boy, who slept peacefully upon a sofa. As she looked up from the beautiful face, so warm and rosy with sleep, her eyes fell upon this singular woman, who stood within the hall, looking keenly at her from the shelter of her huge, old-fashioned bonnet.
The impression made upon this young woman was quite unlike that left upon the group in the library. A look of profound surprise, not unmingled with amusement at the strange figure which presented itself, came over her face, for she had recovered her child and was disposed to cheerful thoughts.
“The people are all in another part of the house,” she said, pleasantly, “but here is a trifle, if you require help.”
The woman came forward, with a chuckle, and seized upon the piece of silver so kindly offered.
“Ha, ha—I am rolling in gold, rolling in it, do you see. But as for help, the more one has, the more one wants help. I have a cat and three chickens at home, that’ll be the better for what you give them. As for me, I can make my bed of gold and feel it soft. Oh! ha, that’s a pretty boy you’ve got there.”
The young mother was gratified. The woman before her became less grotesque. Maternal love was beginning to soften even her evil exterior.
“Yes,” said the gentle matron, “he is a darling. If you could but see his eyes now. Wait a moment. He stirs!”
“Ah! I can wait to see his eyes, dear little rogue. How white his forehead is! What curls, brown as a chestnut,with a touch of gold in it. Ah, there lies the beauty. Gold, gold, I should like to see it everywhere.”
As she spoke, the old woman crept close to the sofa, and began to lift the curls, which lay on the child’s temple, with her claw-like fingers.
As she did this, the widow, who was looking on rather anxiously, for she recoiled from the sight of those hooked finger-nails so close to the snowy forehead of her child, saw for the first time what looked like the shadow of a ruby cross upon the boy’s temple, the top running up among the curls, which, strangely enough, did not grow upon the spot, but only sheltered it from casual scrutiny.
“It is the mark of his fingers. He always sleeps with his hand under his head,” observed the widow, with a vague feeling of awe. “His skin is so delicate, the touch of a rose-leaf makes it flush.”
“Pretty though, isn’t it?” said the old woman, with a sharp laugh.
“Everything about him is beautiful to me,” said the young woman, gazing fondly on the child.
“Eddie, my darling—has he slept enough?”
The little fellow, fully aroused at last from his sweet slumber, turned upon his cushion and began to rub both little fists into his eyes, while his lips parted like the sudden unfolding of a rose-bud.
“Mamma!”
The little fellow rose to a sitting posture and held out his arms.
“My darling!”
“Dear little fellow. Never mind, come to aunty,” interposed the strange woman, reaching forth her arms, that fell around the child like a pair of flails.
The boy struggled and wrung himself free from this unwelcome embrace.
“Let me alone,” he said, clenching his tiny fist, and stampingfiercely upon the sofa-cushion, “I don’t want beggar-women to touch me!”
“Beggar!” cried the woman, with a shrill laugh. “Ah! that’s a nice joke, my darling. Beggar! I’ve half a mind to shake you where you stand. Beggar! Oh! it’s a sweet child. Of course it’s your own, ma’am?”
This question was put with startling abruptness, accompanied by a sharp, scrutinizing glance, that drove the blood from the fair cheek it searched.
“Mine, of course. Yes, of course,” faltered the lady, drawing the boy toward her with both arms. “Mine, yes, yes, whose else? What do you mean, woman?”
Her voice was sharp with anxiety. Her soft eyes turned a startled gaze on that grim face, which looked to her like that of a fiend.
“Oh! of course, why not? he looks like you, don’t he? Of course, who doubts it?” mocked the woman.
“Go away, go away, beggar-woman,” cried the child, clinging to his mother’s neck with one arm, and clenching his right hand with puny courage. “Don’t look at my mamma so. Don’t speak to her. Go away, or I’ll, I’ll—yes, I will—so there now!”
Here the little hero burst into tears, and hid his face upon his mother’s shoulder.
“What do you want, woman?” inquired the young matron, rising with the boy in her arms. “If you wish to see the gentleman of the house, he is engaged. I do not live here. Let me pass.”
“Let me have another look at the darling, just a peep into his eyes, I’m so fond of children,” said the woman, with wheedling softness, that was far more disgusting than her rudeness had been. “I want him to know me, bless his pretty face!”
“Let me pass!” insisted the widow, beginning to feel terrified, “I do not wish him to look at you.”
“Oh! that’s cruel now, and the boy so like his father!”
“So like his father! Did you know him, then?”
“I did not know your husband; but I did know this child’s father,” was the answer.
“No! you did not—you could not. The thing is quite impossible. No one ever knew him.”
The old woman laughed. “I must have another look,” she said, attempting to seize upon the child, who uttered a sudden cry.
Presently a form came leaping through the hall, uttering a shriek with every bound. Her hair streamed backward, her eyes blazed, her arms were outstretched. She rushed forward, like a bird of prey with its spoil in sight. Her hands fell with a clutch upon that meagre woman, shaking her in every limb as they seized upon her shoulders.
“Ha! ha! I have found you at last,” cried she, “touch him, touch him, oh! touch him, and I’ll—”
Elsie paused a moment, and stealing both hands slowly from the shoulders to the throat of the old woman, clutched it, turning her head backward and saying to Catharine, “May I? shall I? She has grown into a fiend; let me choke her.”
She pleaded for permission to kill that woman as a mother pleads for the life of a child. The insane lustre of her eyes grew brighter, her pale hands quivered eagerly about the lean throat upon which they had not yet firmly closed. She was pleading for permission to kill the woman as if she had been a serpent.
Catharine came up, terrified but firm. Her clear blue eyes were fixed steadily on those of the maniac, her slender form erected itself into command.
“Come,” she said, “leave this woman; she belongs to God.”
“Why don’t he kill her then?” hissed the maniac, striving to evade Catharine’s glance.
“Because he is, perhaps, punishing her with life.”
“But it would be so pleasant to kill her!” pleaded Elsie, “and I will. Nobody gives me any happiness. I will take it for myself.”
Even in her peril, for it was imminent, the strange woman did not lose her craft. She managed to fix her eyes, cold and sharp as steel, upon the glittering orbs of her enemy.
“See, stoop down and I’ll tell you something,” she said, in a voice that gave no evidence of the terror that shook her heart.
Elsie looked down into the cold depths of her eyes, and her head bent slowly forward like a bird that is charmed to death.
“Of him? Will you tell me?” she whispered.
“He wishes to see you. He sent me to ask if he might come. Let me go, and I will bring him.”
“Where is he?” whispered Elsie. “I heard him crying in the woods last night, crying out so mournfully; but I knew the reason; he had lost the child. Oh! how one cries out who has lost a child! But I found it. Ha! ha! I found it! and let him wail on. No wonder he complained all night, it is very lonesome to be without one’s child. Do you think he will moan every night till the boy goes back?”
“He will come and ask you to stay with him,” said the crafty wretch, drawing a deep breath as she felt the pale hands unclasp from her throat.
“But you will not go—you will stay here, or sail off over the seas away, away. Yes, yes, I will go down into the woods. Turn your face to the east and I will go westward. One, two graves shall be under the setting sun, canopied with clouds of crimson and amber and pale green, all floating, floating, floating. But you—you shall die alone, alone, alone!”
Her hands dropped away from the trembling creature,and were flung triumphantly upward. Her voice rose and swelled into a sort of chant, and as she passed through the hall, the words, “Alone, alone, alone,” came back with a mournful emphasis that made even that bad woman turn pale.