"Because no woman with such a figure, such a voice and such hands could be otherwise."
"I knew you would own it some day. Do you wonder now that I love her?"
"Oh! as to loving her," said Sir Norman, coolly, "that"s quite another thing. I could no more love her or her hands, voice, and shape, than I could a figure in wood or wax; but I admire her vastly, and think her extremely clever. I will never forget that face in the caldron. It was the most exquisitely beautiful I ever saw."
"In love with the shadow of a face! Why, you are a thousand-fold more absurd than I."
"No," said Sir Norman, thoughtfully, "I don"t know as I"m in love with it; but if ever I see a living face like it, I certainly shall be. How did La Masque do it, I wonder?"
"You had better ask her," said Ormiston, bitterly. "She seems to have taken an unusual interest in you at first sight. She would strew your path with roses, forsooth! Nothing earthly, I believe, would make her say anything half so tender to me."
Sir Norman laughed, and stroked his moustache complacently.
"All a matter of taste, my dear fellow: and these women are noted for their perfection in that line. I begin to admire La Masque more and more, and I think you had better give up the chase, and let me take your place. I don"t believe you have the ghost of a chance, Ormiston."
"I don"t believe it myself," said Ormiston, with a desperate face "but until the plague carries me off I cannot give her up; and the sooner that happens, the better. Ha! what is this?"
It was a piercing shriek--no unusual sound; and as he spoke, the door of an adjoining house was flung open, a woman rushed wildly out, fled down an adjoining street, and disappeared.
Sir Norman and his companion looked at each other, and then at the house.
"What"s all this about?" demanded Ormiston.
"That"s a question I can"t take it upon myself to answer," said Sir Norman; "and the only way to solve the mystery, is to go in and see."
"It may be the plague," said Ormiston, hesitating. "Yet the house is not marked. There is a watchman. I will ask him."
The man with the halberd in his hand was walking up and down before an adjoining house, bearing the ominous red cross and piteous inscription: "Lord have mercy on us!"
"I don"t know, sir," was his answer to Ormiston. "If any one there has the plague, they must have taken it lately; for I heard this morning there was to be a wedding there to-night."
"I never heard of any one screaming in that fashion about a wedding,"
said Ormiston, doubtfully. "Do you know who lives there?"
"No, sir. I only came here, myself, yesterday, but two or three times to-day I have seen a very beautiful young lady looking out of the window."
Ormiston thanked the man, and went back to report to his friend.
"A beautiful young lady!" said Sir Norman, with energy. "Then I mean to go directly up and see about it, and you can follow or not, just as you please."
So saying, Sir Norman entered the open doorway, and found himself in a long hall, flanked by a couple of doors on each side. These he opened in rapid succession, finding nothing but silence and solitude; and Ormiston--who, upon reflection, chose to follow--ran up a wide and sweeping staircase at the end of the hall. Sir Norman followed him, and they came to a hall similar to the one below. A door to the right lay open; and both entered without ceremony, and looked around.
The room was s.p.a.cious, and richly furnished. Just enough light stole through the oriel window at the further end, draped with crimson satin embroidered with gold, to show it. The floor was of veined wood of many colors, arranged in fanciful mosaics, and strewn with Turkish rugs and Persian mats of gorgeous colors. The walls were carved, the ceiling corniced, and all fretted with gold network and gilded mouldings. On a couch covered with crimson satin, like the window drapery, lay a cithren and some loose sheets of music. Near it was a small marble table, covered with books and drawings, with a decanter of wine and an exquisite little goblet of Bohemian gla.s.s. The marble mantel was strewn with ornaments of porcelain and alabaster, and a beautifully-carved vase of Parian marble stood in the centre, filled with brilliant flowers.
A great mirror reflected back the room, and beneath it stood a toilet-table, strewn with jewels, laces, perfume-bottles, and an array of costly little feminine trifles such as ladies were as fond of two centuries ago as they are to-day. Evidently it was a lady"s chamber; for in a recess near the window stood a great quaint carved bedstead, with curtains and snowy lace, looped back with golden arrows and scarlet ribbons. Some one lay on it, too--at least, Ormiston thought so; and he went cautiously forward, drew the curtain, and looked down.
"Great Heaven! what a beautiful face!" was his cry, as he bent still further down.
"What the plague is the matter?" asked Sir Norman, coming forward.
"You have said it," said Ormiston, recoiling. "The plague is the matter.
There lies one dead of it!"
Curiosity proving stronger than fear, Sir Norman stepped forward to look at the corpse. It was a young girl with a face as lovely as a poet"s vision. That face was like snow, now; and, in its calm, cold majesty, looked as exquisitely perfect as some ancient Grecian statue. The low, pearly brow, the sweet, beautiful lips, the delicate oval outline of countenance, were perfect. The eyes were closed, and the long dark lashes rested on the ivory cheeks. A profusion of shining dark hair fell in elaborate curls over her neck and shoulders. Her dress was that of a bride; a robe of white satin brocaded with silver, fairly dazzling in its shining radiance, and as brief in the article of sleeves and neck as that of any modern belle. A circlet of pearls were clasped round her snow-white throat, and bracelets of the same jewels encircled the snowy taper arms. On her head she wore a bridal wreath and veil--the former of jewels, the latter falling round her like a cloud of mist. Everything was perfect, from the wreath and veil to the tiny sandaled feet and lying there in her mute repose she looked more like some exquisite piece of sculpture than anything that had ever lived and moved in this groveling world of ours. But from one shoulder the dress had been pulled down, and there lay a great livid purple plague-spot!
"Come away!" said Ormiston, catching his companion by the arm. "It is death to remain here!"
Sir Norman had been standing like one in a trance, from which this address roused him, and he grasped Ormiston"s shoulder almost frantically.
"Look there, Ormiston! There lies the very face that sorceress showed me, fifteen minutes ago, in her infernal caldron! I would know it at the other end of the world!"
"Are you sure?" said Ormiston, glancing again with new curiosity at the marble face. "I never saw anything half so beautiful in all my life; but you see she is dead of the plague."
"Dead? she cannot be! Nothing so perfect could die!"
"Look there," said Ormiston pointing to the plague-spot. "There is the fatal token! For Heaven"s sake let us get out of this, or we will share the same fate before morning!"
But Sir Norman did not move--could not move; he stood there rooted to the spot by the spell of that lovely, lifeless face.
Usually the plague left its victims hideous, ghastly, discolored, and covered with blotches; but in this case then was nothing to mar the perfect beauty of the satin-smooth skin, but that one dreadful mark.
There Sir Norman stood in his trance, as motionless as if some genie out of the "Arabian Nights" had suddenly turned him into stone (a trick they were much addicted to), and destined him to remain there an ornamental fixture for ever. Ormiston looked at him distractedly, uncertain whether to try moral suasion or to take him by the collar and drag him headlong down the stairs, when a providential but rather dismal circ.u.mstance came to his relief. A cart came rattling along the street, a bell was loudly rang, and a hoa.r.s.e voice arose with it: "Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!"
Ormiston rushed down stair to intercept the dead-cart, already almost full on it way to the plague-pit. The driver stopped at his call, and instantly followed him up stairs, and into the room. Glancing at the body with the utmost sang-froid, he touched the dress, and indifferently remarked:
"A bride, I should say; and an uncommonly handsome one too. We"ll just take her along as she is, and strip these nice things off the body when we get it to the plague-pit."
So saying, he wrapped her in the sheet, and directing Ormiston to take hold of the two lower ends, took the upper corners himself, with the air of a man quite used to that sort of thing. Ormiston recoiled from touching it; and Sir Norman seeing what they were about to do, and knowing there was no help for it, made up his mind, like a sensible young man as he was, to conceal his feelings, and caught hold of the sheet himself. In this fashion the dead bride was carried down stairs, and laid upon a shutter on the top of a pile of bodies in the dead-cart.
It was now almost dark, and as the cart started, the great clock of St.
Paul"s struck eight. St. Michael"s, St Alban"s, and the others took up the sound; and the two young men paused to listen. For many weeks the sky had been clear, brilliant, and blue; but on this night dark clouds were scudding in wild unrest across it, and the air was oppressingly close and sultry.
"Where are you going now?" said Ormiston. "Are you for Whitehall"s to night?"
"No!" said Sir Norman, rather dejectedly, turning to follow the pest-cart. "I am for the plague-pit in Finsbury fields!"
"Nonsense, man!" exclaimed Ormiston, energetically, "what will take you there? You surely are not mad enough to follow the body of that dead girl?"
"I shall follow it! You can come or not, just as you please."
"Oh! if you are determined, I will go with you, of course; but it is the craziest freak I ever heard of. After this, you need never laugh at me."
"I never will," said Sir Norman, moodily; "for if you love a face you have never seen, I love one I have only looked on when dead. Does it not seem sacrilege to throw any one so like an angel into that horrible plague-pit?"
"I never saw an angel," said Ormiston, as he and his friend started to go after the dead-cart. "And I dare say there have been scores as beautiful as that poor girl thrown into the plague-pit before now. I wonder why the house has been deserted, and if she was really a bride.
The bridegroom could not have loved her much, I fancy, or not even the pestilence could have scared him away."
"But, Ormiston, what an extraordinary thing it is that it should be precisely the same face that the fortune-teller showed me. There she was alive, and here she is dead; so I"ve lost all faith in La Masque for ever."
Ormiston looked doubtful.