The Baronet's Bride Part 8

A clock on the mantel chimed twelve. Ere its last chime had sounded a sleepy valet stood in the doorway.

"A messenger for you, Sir Jasper--sent by the Reverend Mr. Green.

Here--come in."

Thus invoked, Mr. Dawson entered, pulling his forelock.

"Parson, he sent me, zur. She be a-doying, she be."

He knew instantly who the man meant.

"And she wishes to see me?"

"She calls for you all the time, zur. She be a-doying uncommon hard.

Parson bid me come and tell 'ee."

"Very well, my man," the baronet said. "That will do. I will go at once. Thomas, order my horse, and fetch my riding-cloak and gloves."

The valet stared in astonishment, but went to obey. It was something altogether without precedent, this queer proceeding on the part of his master, and, taken in connection with that other odd event in church, looked remarkably suspicious.

The night was dark and starless, and the wind blew raw and bleak as the baronet dashed down the avenue and out into the high-road. He almost wondered at himself for complying with the dying woman's desire, but some inward impulse beyond his control seemed driving him on.

He rode rapidly, and a quarter of an hour brought him to the s.e.xton's cottage. A feeble light glimmered from the window out into the blackness of the night. A moment later and he stood within, in the presence of the dying.

The Reverend Cyrus Green sat by the table, a Bible in his hand.

Kneeling by the bedside, her face ghastly white, her burning black eyes dry and tearless, was the young woman. And like a dead woman already, stretched on the bed, lay Zenith.

But she was not dead. At the sound of the opening door, at the sound of his entrance, she opened her eyes, dulling fast in death, and fixed them on Sir Jasper.

"I knew you would come," she said, in a husky whisper. "You dare not stay away! The spirit of the dying Zenith drove you here in spite of yourself. Come nearer--nearer! Sir Jasper Kingsland, don't hover aloof. Once you could never be near enough. Ah, I was young and fair then! I'm old and ugly now. Come nearer, for I can not speak aloud, and listen. Do you know why I have sent for you?"

He had approached the bedside. She caught his hand and held it in a vise-like clutch.

"No," he said, recoiling.

"To give you my dying malediction--to curse you with my latest breath!

I hate you, Sir Jasper Kingsland, falsest of all mankind! and if the dead can return and torment the living, then do you beware of me!"

She spoke in panting gasps, the death-rattle sounding in her skinny throat. Shocked and scandalized, the rector interposed:

"My good woman, don't--for pity's sake, don't say such horrible things!"

But she never heeded him.

"I hate you!" she said, with a last effort. "I die hating you, and I curse you with a dying woman's curse! May your life be a life of torment and misery and remorse! May your son's life be blighted and ruined! May he become an outcast among men! May sin and shame follow him forever, and all of his abhorred race!"

Her voice died away. She glared helplessly up from the pillow. A deep, stern, terrible "Amen!" came from her daughter's lips; then, with a spasm, she half leaped from the bed, and fell back with a gurgling cry--dead!

"She is gone!" said the rector, with a shudder. "Heaven have mercy on her sinful soul!"

The baronet staggered back from the bed.

"I never saw a more horrible sight!" continued the Reverend Cyrus. "I never heard such horrible words! No wonder it has unmanned you, Sir Jasper. Pray sit down and drink this."

He held out a gla.s.s of water. Sir Jasper seized and drank it, his brain reeling.

With stoical calm, Zara had arisen and closed the dead woman's eyes, folded the hands, straightened the stiffening limbs, and composed the humble covering. She had no tears, she uttered no cry--her face was stern as stone.

"Better stay in this ghastly place no longer, Sir Jasper," the rector suggested. "You look completely overcome. I will see that everything is properly done. We will bury her to-morrow."

As a man walks in a dreadful dream, Sir Jasper arose, quitted the room, mounted his horse, and rode away.

One dark, menacing glance Zara shot after him; then she sat stonily down by her dead. All that night, all next day, Zara kept her post, neither eating, nor drinking, nor sleeping. Dry and tearless, the burning black eyes fixed themselves on the dead face, and never left it.

When they put the dead woman in the rude board coffin, she offered no resistance. Calmly she watched them screw the lid down--calmly she saw them raise it on their shoulders and bear it away. Without a word or tear she arose, folded her cloak about her, and followed them to the church-yard.

One by one the stragglers departed, and Zara was left alone by the new-made grave. No, not quite alone, for through the bleak twilight fluttered the tall, dark figure of a man toward her. She lifted her gloomy eyes and recognized him.

"You come, Sir Jasper," she said, slowly, "to see the last of your work. You come to gloat over your dead victim, and exult that she is out of your way. But I tell you to beware! Zenith in her grave will be a thousand times more terrible to you than Zenith ever was alive!"

The baronet looked at her with a darkly troubled face.

"Why do you hate me so?" he said. "Whatever wrong I did her, I never wronged you."

"You have done me deadly wrong! My mother's wrongs are mine, and here, by her grave, I vow vengeance on you and yours! Her dying legacy to me was her hatred of you, and I will pay the old debt with double interest, my n.o.ble, haughty, t.i.tled father!"

She turned with the last words and sped away like an evil spirit, vanishing in the gloom among the graves.

CHAPTER VI.

TWO DYING BEQUESTS.

This midsummer night was sultry and still. The darkness was like the darkness of Egypt, lighted every now and then by a vivid Hash of lightning, from what quarter of the heavens no man knew. The inky sky was invisible--no breath of air stirred the terrible calm. The midsummer night was full of dark and deadly menace.

Hours ago a fierce and wrathful sunset had burned itself out on a bra.s.sy sky. The sun, a lurid ball of fire, had sunk in billows of blood-red cloud, and pitch blackness had fallen upon earth and sky and sea. Everything above and below breathed of speedy tempest, but the midnight was drawing near, and the storm had not yet burst.

And on this black June night Sir Jasper Kingsland lay on his stately bed, dying.

The lofty chamber was but dimly lighted. It was a grand, vast room, paneled in black oak, hung with somber draperies, and carpeted in rich dark Brussels.

Three wax candles made white spots of light in the solemn gloom; a wood-fire burned or rather smoldered, in the wide hearth, for the vast rooms were chilly even in midsummer; but neither fire-light nor candle-light could illumine the ghostly depths of the chamber. Shadows crouched like evil things in the dusky corners, and round the bed, only darker shadows among the rest, knelt the dying man's family--wife and daughter and son. And hovering aloof, with pale, anxious faces, stood the rector, the Reverend Cyrus Green, and Doctor Parker G.o.droy.

The last hope was over, the last prayer had been said, the last faint breaths uttered between the dying lips. With the tide going out on the sh.o.r.e below, the baronet's life was ebbing.

"Olivia!"