ZENITH'S MALEDICTION.
A dead pause of blank consternation; the faces around a sight to see;
horror and wonder in every countenance--most of all in the countenance
of Sir Jasper Kingsland.
The clergyman was the first to speak.
"The woman is stark mad," he said. "We must see about this. Such
violent lunatics must not be allowed to go at large. Here, Humphreys,
do you and Dawson lift her up and carry her to my house. It is the
nearest, and she can be properly attended to there."
"You know her, Sir Jasper, do you not?" asked Lady Helen, with quick
womanly intuition.
"Know her?" Sir Jasper replied, "know Zenith? Great Heaven! I thought
she was dead."
The Reverend Cyrus Green and Lady Helen exchanged glances. Mr. Carlyon
looked in sharp surprise at the speaker.
"Then she is not mad, after all! I thought she mistook you for some
one else. If you know her, you have the best right to deal with her.
Shall these men take her to Kingsland Court?"
"Not for ten thousand worlds!" Sir Jasper cried, impetuously. "The
woman is nothing--less than nothing--to me. I knew her once, years
ago. I thought her dead and buried; hence the shock her sudden
entrance gave me. A lunatic asylum is the proper place for such as
she. Let Mr. Green send her there, and the sooner the better."
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 assisted 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 glass 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 sexton'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 ladyship 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
sexton'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.
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 sexton'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 glass 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 noble, haughty, titled father!"
She turned with the last words and sped away like an evil spirit,
vanishing in the gloom among the graves.