A TRAVELLER’S TOILET.
In a little sleeping room, whitewashed till the walls looked like a snow
drift, and carpeted with thick rush matting, he found Lord Clare sitting
upon the side of a low camp bed, and looking hopelessly around for the
garments which we have seen fluttering upon the mulberry boughs, and in
the possession of Turner. A beautiful dressing-case, with its rich
apparatus of gold, lay open on a little table. Above it hung a very
small and very uncertain mirror, which gave to the beholder’s face the
effect of a slight paralytic shock, sending one corner of the mouth
shooting up toward the eyes, and another wandering off in search of the
left shoulder. Lord Clare had evidently attempted to commence his own
toilet, but one glance at the mirror, which appalled him with the
apparition of a maniac leering over a razor, which he was brandishing as
if to cut his own throat, terminated his labors at the first stage.
“Turner, take that glass away,” said the young lord, as his servant
entered, “and bring me something that will throw back the features of a
Christian. This makes me look like a fiend.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” muttered the servant, “everything is going crooked
with us; and perhaps the looking-glass gives back the truth nearer than
we calculate.”
“What are you saying, Turner?” questioned the young lord, in that quiet,
gentle tone with which very proud men are apt to address inferiors.
“A little private conversation between me and the looking-glass, my
lord; nothing else.”
“It must be a very distorted argument,” said the master, smiling; “but,
Turner, I heard voices at the door—what was it? You seemed disputing
with some one.”
“Nothing of the sort my lord. I don’t know any one in this pestilential
country worth disputing with.”
“But surely there was more than your voice; I heard another distinctly,
and it seemed like that of a woman.”
“Of a fiend, my lord—an imp of darkness—an old she-wolf. Look, here are
the marks of her claws on my arm; they bit through to the bone.”
“A gipsy woman?” asked Lord Clare, turning pale; “an old weird creature
that looks like a child withered to the bone. Was that the person who
assailed you?”
“Exactly, my lord, I couldn’t have drawn her portrait better. You may
hear her prowling about the door yet; but no fear, two bolts are drawn
between us!”
“And what does she want?” asked Lord Clare, in a low and agitated voice.
“Your lordship, nothing less,” replied Turner.
“Is she alone?”
“Visibly, yes; but heaven only knows how many of her infernal sisterhood
may swarm around her in the air.”
“Does she seem excited—unusually so?”
“Here is an endorsement for that,” replied Turner, stretching forth his
arm, and touching the sleeve of his coat, through which a drop or two of
blood had oozed.
“Bring my clothes here, and when I am dressed let her come in,” said
Lord Clare, abruptly; “I must see her—I must know what has been done,”
he added, in an under tone. “Thank heaven! the terrible suspense will be
over.”
Turner hesitated, he evidently had some dislike of encountering the
Sibyl again, valiant as he was.
“If I open the door she will rush in—the old hyena.”
“No, no, address her mildly,” answered Clare; “say that I will receive
her the moment my toilet is made. If she is restive, pacify her with a
piece of gold; but go at once, I am impatient for this scene to be
over.”
Turner looked at his coat-sleeve, shook his head, and cautiously undid
the bolt. As he had expected, the Sibyl stood outside in the passage,
her eyes blazing with fury, her whole frame quivering with impatient
wrath.
“Not yet, my diamond of Golconda,” said Turner, putting her back with
his left hand, while he locked the door and drew forth the key.
“Cultivate patience, darling, it is a Christian virtue, very respectable
and worth having; anybody’s servant in England can tell you that.”
“Your master, the Busne. Have you told him I am here?” inquired the
Sibyl, subduing her evil nature into a vicious wheedle more repulsive
than open malice.
“Yes, I have told him the honor intended.”
“What did he say?”
“That you are to take this piece of gold to gloat over while he is
dressing!”
“And then he will see me?” cried the old woman tossing the gold away as
if in contempt of a bribe. “Tell him I am the widow of a count!”
“He feels the honor, no doubt—I have had touching proofs.”
Turner glanced at his arm, and then at the old woman’s throat. The dusky
red which circled it like a collar satisfied him. He turned away
chuckling, and went forth to collect his master’s garments.
The moment he was gone the old gipsy turned her eyes upon the guinea
that she had cast aside. Her fingers began to work; a cold gloating
light came into her eyes, and creeping toward the gold as if it had been
a serpent fascinating her, she clutched it eagerly, and buried it deep
in her bosom.
When Turner came back he saw that the gold had disappeared, and, smiling
grimly, entered his lord’s chamber, satisfied that the Sibyl was quieted
for a time at least.
A less keen observer than his old valet might have seen that Lord Clare
was greatly agitated while his toilet was in progress. He moved
restlessly; his cheeks blazed and faded by turns; his voice grew sharp
and imperative, a thing which Turner scarcely ever remembered to have
witnessed before. He seemed particularly annoyed by the valet’s rather
stubborn desire to elaborate his dress, and finally ordered Turner to
bring in the Sibyl and leave him.
This injunction was anything but satisfactory to the old man. Both in
manner and substance it was annoying. He felt that the key to all the
mysterious movements of his master, during the last month, lay in the
Sibyl, who so peremptorily claimed audience of his master. Turner was
greatly puzzled and highly displeased. He felt as if his master and the
gipsy were depriving him of his just rights and natural perquisites in
thus securing a private interview. He went forth muttering his
discontent. The old woman’s inflamed throat gave him a gleam of comfort,
and satisfying himself more and more that she was a dangerous person to
be left alone with his master, he stationed himself very close to the
door after she entered, so close that a suspicious person might have
supposed him listening, especially as he had left the door very slightly
ajar.
But my great grandame outmatched him over and over again in this sort of
cunning. Before advancing into the room where the Englishman sat waiting
for her, she closed the door and drew a bolt inside, at which Turner
flung indignantly away, and took his seat on a bench beneath his lord’s
window, which was open, and the muslin curtain flowing softly over it.
But scarcely had he seated himself when the window was shut down with a
crash, and the curtains drawn close. Then Turner fell back against the
side of the house, and struggled with the Sibyl no longer, satisfied, as
most men are who essay the experiment, that in a fair struggle of wit,
tact, or management, few men ever come out successfully against a woman,
young or old, fair or otherwise.