“The sea-breeze makes this cool,” said Erminie; “that is the reason. I am so glad you came over this afternoon, for Ray, you know, is not coming home to-night. It is really too bad, I think, that he should leave us and go back again to that tiresome New York so soon.”
“Ah! when is he going?” said Pet, still violently fanning herself, though her bright bloom of color was far less vivid then it had been a moment before.
“The day after to-morrow, he says; and not to return for perhaps a year. I will feel dreadfully lonesome, I know, and grandmother will miss him so much. But young men are so headstrong and self-willed that there is no doing anything with them – don’t you think so, Pet?” said Erminie, smiling.
“Never thought on the subject as I know of; but I dare say they are. They’re not to be blamed for it, though; it runs in man’s wretched nature. Ah! I never was properly thankful for not being a man till one day I went and dressed myself in a suit of their clothes. Such wretchedly feeling things as they were, to be sure! I’ve never been in the stock, or the pillory, or stretched on a rack, or walking through a treadmill, or any of those other disagreeable things; but even since then I’ve a pretty good notion of what they must be like. It was a regular martyrdom while I had them on, and how the mischief anybody ever can survive in them is more than I know. Think of descending to posterity in a pair of pants!”
Erminie laughed, and Pet rattled on till tea was ready. Then they drank Lucy’s fragrant black tea, and ate her delicate nice waffles, and praised her jam; and then, when the sun had long set, and the dark, cool, evening shadows began to fall, Pet got up, put on her hat, kissed Erminie, and set out on her return to Heath Hill.
“You ought to have told some of the servants to come for you,” said Erminie. “It is rather far for you to go alone.”
“Oh, there is no danger,” said Pet; “on the forest road and the shore there may be; but here on the heath all is safe enough. Good night.” And Pet started off at a brisk walk.
Two men, crouching behind a clump of stunted spruce bushes, were watching her with lynx eyes, as her slight, graceful form approached. It was not quite dark, but what the Scotch call “the gloaming,” and the bright draped figure was plainly conspicuous on the brown, bare heath.
“There she comes at last,” whispered the younger of the two, in a quick fierce tone, breathing hotly and quickly while he spoke; “I will spring out as she passes and throw this shawl over her head, while you tie her hands and feet.”
“All right,” said the other, in the same low tone. “Jupiter! how she goes it! Can’t she walk Spanish, though! I tell you, Garnet, she’s a regular stunner, and no mistake.”
The other made no reply. His lurid, burning eyes were fixed on the dark, brilliant face of Petronilla.
All unconscious she passed on. Scarcely had she done so when, with the quick, noiseless spring of a panther, Garnet darted from behind the bushes, and flung a large plaid over the head of Pet, and grasped her firmly in his arms. With equal agility the other followed; and Pet was securely bound hand and foot before she had sufficiently recovered from her surprise to make the slightest struggle.
“Mine! Mine! at last!” whispered a voice she knew too well, as his arms enfolded her in a fierce embrace. “Beautiful eaglet, caged at last!”
In vain she struggled – in vain she strove to cry out for help. Feet and hands were securely bound; the heavy shawl was half-smothering her, and her captor’s arms held her like a vise.
“Now for the cave! On! on! there’s no time to lose!” cried Garnet, with fierce impatience, starting forward as though he were carrying an infant over the heath.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE OUTLAW’S WIFE
For some moments Pet continued to struggle violently, but finding all her efforts vain – worse than vain – and being half-suffocated for want of air, she fell back in her captor’s arms, and lay perfectly still and quiet.
In that dreadful moment, she lost not one particle of her customary self-possession. She realized all her danger and peril vividly. She knew she was completely in the power of her worst enemy, and beyond all hope of extricating herself. Her whole appalling danger burst upon her at once; and though for one instant her very heart seemed to cease its beating, she neither fainted nor gave herself up to useless tears or hysterics, according to the usual custom of young ladies, when in real or imaginary danger. Not she, indeed! Pet’s thoughts as she lay quietly in her captive’s arms, ran somewhat after the following fashion:
“Well, Pet, child, you’ve went and put your foot in it beautifully, haven’t you? Ain’t you ashamed of yourself, to let Rozzel Garnet catch you, and lug you along like this? I wonder where they’re going to bring me to, anyway, and what they’re going to do with me next? Oh! won’t there be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and pulling off of wigs at home when they find I’ve gone, vanished, evaporated, made myself ‘thin air,’ and no clue to my whereabouts to be found? Phew! this villainous shawl is fairly smothering me. I wish I could slip it off for about five minutes; and the way I’d yell would slightly astonish Mr. Garnet. I suppose papa will have flaming posters stuck up all around Judestown, in every color of the rainbow. I fancy I’m reading one of them: ‘Lost, strayed, stolen, or run off with some deluded young man, a small, brown, yellow and black girl, not quite right in her head, wearing a red-and-green silk dress, with black eyes, a pair of gaiter boots, and black hair. Any person or persons giving information concerning the above will be liberally rewarded with from five to ten cents, and possess the everlasting gratitude of the community generally.’ That’s it! I wonder where they’re taking me to? We’re down on the beach now, for I can hear the waves on the shore. Good gracious! If they should carry me off to sea, the matter would be searious. ’Pon my word and honor! if I ever get out of this scrape, if I don’t make Mr. Rozzel Garnet mind what he’s up to, then my name’s not Pet – Ur-r-r! I’m strangling, I declare. Suffocation must be a pleasant death, if I may judge by this specimen!”
While Pet was thus cogitating, Rozzel Garnet and his companion were rapidly striding over the wet, slippery beach. A being more perfectly guileless than Pet, in some ways, never existed, and this may in some measure account for the light manner in which she treated her captivity. Saucy, spirited, daring, full of exuberant life, fun, freedom and frolic, she was; but, withal, in some matters her simplicity was perfectly wonderful. For instance, she knew now she was a prisoner; she fancied she might be taken off somewhere, or held captive for a while. But she had the most perfect faith in her own wit, cunning and courage to ultimately escape. She feared no worse fate; she knew of none; she never even dreamed of any. She knew Rozzel Garnet pretended to love her – might urge her again to marry him; but that gave her not the slightest uneasiness in the world. In fact, Pet’s love of adventure made her almost like this scrape she had got into. It would be something to talk about for the rest of her life; it made her quite a heroine, this being carried off; it was really like something she had so often read of in novels, or like a tragedy in a play.
With these sentiments, Pet lay quite still, listening intently, and wondering what was to come next. It seemed to her they must have walked nearly half an hour, when they came to a dead halt, and she heard Rozzel Garnet say:
“Now, Bart, give the signal quick!”
A low, shrill, peculiar whistle followed; and then Pet, whose ears would have run themselves into points to hear the better, if she could, heard a rustling, as if of bushes pushed aside; a heavy sound, as if of rocks removing; and then Garnet, gathering her tighter in his hated embrace, stooped down, and passed through something which she knew must be a narrow aperture, and thence, carefully guiding himself with one hand while he held her with the other, he descended a short flight of steps. Then he paused, and, to the great relief of our half-stifled heroine, removed the thick shawl in which he had enveloped her. Pet’s first use of her breath was to burst out angrily with:
“Well, it’s a wonder you took the blamed thing off until you choked me dead! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Garnet, smothering a young lady this way, in a big blanket like that. I wish you’d let me go. I don’t want to be carried like a baby any longer.”
“Not so fast, pretty one,” said Garnet, in a low tone of of mocking exultation. “Be in no haste to quit these arms, for they are to be your home for the future.”
“Humph! a pretty home they would be!” said Pet, contemptuously. “You’ll have to consult me about that, Mr. Rozzel Garnet. Let me go, I tell you! I want to walk. A body might as well let a bear carry them as you!”
“As you please, my pretty lady-love!” said Garnet. “I do not think you will escape so easily this time as you did the last! That was your hour of victory: this is mine. Then you said neither earth, air, fire, nor water could hold you. Perhaps stout walls of rock can?”
“Don’t be too sure, Mr. Garnet. There is such a thing as blowing up rocks, or an earthquake might happen, or the sea might overflow, or you and all your brothers in villainy might get paralytic strokes, or Satan might come and carry off the whole of you bodily to your future home. I’m sure I wish he would. You’ll be an ornament to it when you get there – a ‘burning and shining light,’ in every sense of the word! Ain’t you proud of yourself to have carried off a little girl so beautifully? When you found you couldn’t do it alone you got another to help you, and so you bravely won the battle. Two great, big men to carry off one little girl! What an achievement! What a victory! You ought to have a leather medal and a service of tin plate presented to each of you! Oh my!” said Pet, in tones of withering irony.
Had it not been pitch dark where they stood, Pet would have seen his sallow face blanch with anger; but subduing his rage in the comforting thought that this little double-refined essence of audacity was completely in his power, he smiled an evil and most sinister smile, and replied:
“Jet, flash, and sparkle, little grenade! Dart fire, little stiletto, but you can do no more! Snarl and show your white teeth, little kitten; but your claws are shielded – you cannot bite now. Expand your wings, my bright little humming-bird; but you will find them clipped. Try to soar to your native heaven, my dazzling, glorious bird of paradise; and your drooping plumes will fall, fluttering and earth-stained, to the dust.”
“Well, that all sounds mighty fine, Mr. Garnet, and is a grand flourish of rhetoric on your part. I made no doubt but you’ll excuse me if I don’t understand a single blessed word of it. You’re a schoolmaster, and, of course, ought to understand what’s proper; but your grand tropes and figures of speech are all a waste of powder and shot when addressed to me. Just talk in plain English, and don’t keep calling me names, and I’ll feel greatly obliged. What a grenade and all them other things are I haven’t the remotest idea; but I expect they’re something dreadful bad, or you wouldn’t keep calling me them. It’s real impolite in you to talk so; and I wonder you ain’t ashamed of yourself, Rozzel Garnet!”
“No, you don’t understand, Miss Lawless,” he said slowly, and with the same evil smile. “Shall I tell you in plainer words my meaning?”
“No, you needn’t bother yourself,” said Pet, shortly. “The less you say to me the better I’ll like it. I’m not in the habit of talking to the offcasts of society, such as you are, Mr. Garnet; and, like frog-soup, though it does well enough for a time, one doesn’t like it as a constant thing.”
“Here, push on! push on!” said the gruff voice of Black Bart behind them. “No use standing palavering here all night. Get along, Rozzy, boy, and taking this little snapping-turtle along with you. Up with the glim, Jack, till ma’m’selle sees where she’s going.”
All this time they had been wrapped in the blackness of Tartarus, but now the two men descended the stone steps, and one of them, holding up a dark-lantern, let its rays stream round. Pet curiously cast her eyes about and saw she was in a narrow, rocky passage, with her head not more than an inch from the top. How far it led she could not tell, for the rays of light penetrated but a few feet, and beyond that stretched a black, yawning chasm that might have been the entrance into Pandemonium itself.
“Now, in we goes,” said Black Bart, giving Pet a slight push forward. “Go first, Rozzy, lad, and show little mustard-seed, here, the way. Jack and I will keep in your wake.”
“Mustard-seed and snapping-turtle,” muttered Pet, as she prepared to follow Garnet. “Pet, my dear, you will have as many aliases before long as the most notorious blackleg from here to the Cannibal Islands. Well, if I’m not in a fix to-night! What will they say at home?”
As they went on the passage grew wider and broader, until at last Pet found herself in a spacious rock-bound apartment, well lighted, rudely furnished, and occupied by some half-dozen rough, hard-looking men in the garb of sailors. They were lying in various attitudes about the floor, with the exception of two, who sat at a rough deal-table playing cards.
They turned their eyes carelessly enough as Rozzel Garnet entered; but as their eyes fell upon Pet each man sprung to his feet, and stared at her in undisguised wonder.
There she stood, in the full glare of the light; her slender, girlish form drawn up to its full height; her brilliant silk dress flashing and glittering in the light; her short, dancing, flashing curls of jet falling around her crimson cheeks; her bright, undaunted black eyes wide open, and returning every stare as composedly as though she were sitting in her father’s hall, and these men were her servants. Very much out of place looked Pet, in her rich, sheeny robes and dazzling beauty, amid those roughly-clad, savage-looking men, and in that dismal under-ground apartment.
“Where is she?” asked Rozzel Garnet, unheeding their blank stare of surprise.
“Who? – the missis?” asked one of the men, without removing his eyes from Pet.
“Yes – of course.”
The man pointed to the remote end of the room; and Pet, turning her eyes in that direction saw a sort of opening in the wall, serving evidently for a door, and covered by a screen of thick, dark baize.
Garnet went toward it and called:
“Madame Marguerite.”
“Well,” said a woman’s voice from within, with a strong foreign accent.
“Can I see you a moment, on business?”
“Yes – enter.” And Pet saw a small, delicate-looking hand push aside the screen, and Garnet disappeared within.
“Here, little nettle, sit down,” said Black Bart, pushing a stool toward Pet, gallantly, with his foot. “How do you like the looks of this here place, young woman?”
“Well,” said Pet, “I should say there was no danger of thieves breaking in at night; and by the look of things, I don’t expect they would find much for their pains, if they did break in. There’s no danger of its blowing down windy nights – is there?”
“Well, no, I reckon there isn’t,” said Black Bart with a grin, “seeing it’s right under a hill, and nothing but solid rocks above and below.”
“A strong foundation,” said Pet; “Like the true Church it’s built on a rock. I should think it would be damp, though, when the tide rises and fills it; and I am subject to rheumatism – ”
“No danger,” said Bart. “I’ll risk your drowning. There! Garnet’s calling you. Go in there.”
Pet arose, and Garnet, holding back the baize screen, motioned her to enter. She obeyed and looked curiously around.
The room was smaller than the one she had left and better furnished. The rocky floor was covered with India matting, and chairs, couches, and tables were strewn indiscriminately around. A bed with heavy curtains stood in one corner, and a stand containing books, writing materials, and drawing utensils stood opposite. Pet gave all these but a fleeting glance, and then her whole attention was caught and occupied by the person who stood between them, with one hand resting on the back of a chair, and her eyes fixed with a sort of stem, haughty scrutiny on Pet.
It was a woman of some five-and-thirty years of age, of middle size, and dressed in a solid and frayed black satin dress. Her face had evidently once been very handsome; for it still bore traces of former beauty; but now it was thin, sallow, and faded – looking still more faded in contrast with the unnaturally large, lustrous black eyes by which it was lit up. Her hair, thick and black, hung disordered and uncombed far over her shoulders, while jewels flashed from the pendants in her ears, and sparkled on the small, beautiful hands. Something in that face moved Pet as nothing had ever done before – there was such a look of proud, sullen despair in the wild, black eyes; a sort of fierce haughtiness in the dark, weird face; a look of passionate impatience, hidden anguish, undying woe, in the slumbering depths of those gloomy, haunting eyes, that Pet wondered who she could be, or what great sorrow she had ever endured. There was an air of refinement about her, too – a lofty, commanding hauteur that showed she was queen and mistress here, and as far above the brutal men surrounding her as heaven is above the earth.
“This is the girl, Madame Marguerite,” said Garnet, respectfully, “I entrust her to your care until the captain comes.”
“She shall be cared for. That will do,” said the woman, waving her hand until all its burning rubies and blazing diamonds seemed to encircle it with sparks of fire.
Garnet bowed low, cast a triumphant glance on Pet as he passed, and hissed softly in her ear: “Mine own – mine own, at last.” And then he raised the screen and disappeared.
The cold, proud, black eyes were fixed piercingly on Pet; but that young lady bore it as she had done many another stare, without flinching.
“Sit down,” said the woman, with her strong foreign intonation, pointing to a seat.
Pet obeyed, saying, as she did so:
“I may as well, I suppose. Am I expected to stay here all night?”
“Yes,” said the woman, curtly, “and many more nights after that. You can occupy my bed; I will sleep on one of these lounges while you remain.”
“Well,” said Pet, “I would like to know what I am brought here for anyway. Some of Rozzel Garnet’s capers, I suppose. He had better look out; for when I get free, if the gallows don’t get their due it won’t be my fault.”
“Rozzel Garnet had nothing to do with it; he was but acting for another in bringing you here.”
“For another?” said Pet, with the utmost surprise; “who the mischief is it?”
“That you are not to know at present. When the proper time comes, that, what many other things, will be revealed.”
“So I’m like a bundle of goods, ‘left till called for,’” said Pet; “now, who could have put themselves to so much unnecessary trouble to have me carried off, I want to know? I thought I hadn’t an enemy in the world, but his excellency, the right worshipful Rozzel Garnet. It can’t be Orlando Toosypegs, surely – hum-m-m. I do wonder who can it be,” said Pet, musingly.
While Pet was holding converse with herself, the woman, Marguerite, had gone out. Pet waited for her return until, in spite of her strange situation, her eyes began to drop heavily. A little clock on a shelf struck the hour of midnight, and still she came not. Pet was sleepy, awfully sleepy; and, rubbing her eyes and yawning, she got up, and holding her eyes open with her fingers, knelt down and said her usual night-prayers, and then jumped into bed, and fell into a sound sleep, in which Rozzel Garnet, and Marguerite, and the under-ground cave, and her previous night’s adventure, were one and all forgotten.
When Pet awoke she found herself alone, and the apartment lit up by a swinging-lamp, exactly as it had been the night before. She glanced at the clock and saw the hands pointed to half-past ten. A little round stand had been placed close to her bed, on which all the paraphernalia of a breakfast for one was placed. On a chair at the foot of the bed was a basin and ewer, with water, combs, brushes, and a small looking-glass.
Pet, with an appetite not at all diminished, sprung out of bed, hastily washed her face and hands, brushed out her silken curls, said her morning-prayers, and then, sitting down at the table, fell to with a zest and eagerness that would have horrified Miss Priscilla Toosypegs. The coffee was excellent, the rolls incomparable, the eggs cooked to a turn, and Miss Pet did ample justice to all.
As she completed her meal, the screen was pushed aside, and the woman Marguerite entered.
“Good-morning,” said Pet.
The woman bent her head in a slight acknowledgment.
“I suppose it’s daylight outside by this time?” said Pet.
“Yes, it was daylight five hours ago,” was the reply.
“Well, it’s pleasant to know even that. What am I to do for the rest of the day, I want to know?”
“Whatever you please.”
“A wide margin; the only thing I would please to do, if I could, would be to go out and walk home. That, I suppose, is against the rules?”
“Yes; but there are books and drawing materials; you can amuse yourself with them.”
“Thankee; poor amusement, but better than none, I expect Who is commander here, the captain I heard them speak of?”
“My husband,” said the woman, proudly.
“And where is he now? I should like to have a talk with him, and have things straightened out a little if possible.”
“He is absent, and will not be back for some days.”
“Hum! this is, then, the hiding-place of the smugglers they make such a fuss about – eh?” said Pet.
“Yes, they are smugglers – worse, perhaps,” said the woman, sullenly.
“There! I knew I’d find it; I always said so!” exclaimed Pet, exultantly. “Oh, if I could only get out! See here, I wish you would let me escape!”
The woman looked at her with her wild, black eyes for a moment, and then went on with her occupation of cleaning off the table, as if she had not heard her.
“Because,” persisted Pet, “I’m of no use to any one here, and they’ll be anxious about me up home. They don’t know I’m out, you know.”
The woman went calmly on with her work without replying, and Pet, seeing it was all a waste of breath, pleading, got up and went over to the shelf where the books were, in search of something to read. A number of pencil-drawings lay scattered about. Pet took them, and little as she knew of art, she saw they had been sketched by a master-hand.
“Oh, how pretty!” she exclaimed; “was it you drew these?”
“No; my husband,” answered the woman. “They are all fancy sketches, he says.”
There was a sort of bitterness in the last words, unnoticed by Pet, who was eagerly and admiringly examining the drawings. One, in particular, struck her; it represented a large, shadowy church, buried in mingled lights and shades, that gave a gloomy, spectral, weird appearance to the scene. At the upper end, near the grand altar, stood a youth and a maiden, while near a white-robed clergyman, book in hand. A dying bird seemed fluttering over their heads, and ready to drop at their feet. The face of the youth could not be seen, but the lovely, childlike face of the girl was the chief attraction of the drawing. Its look of unutterable love, mingled with a strange, nameless terror; its rare loveliness, and the passionate worship in the eyes upturned to him who stood beside her, sent a strange thrill to the very heart of Pet. A vague idea that she had seen a face bearing a shadowy resemblance to the beautiful one in the picture somewhere before, struck her. The face was familiar, just as those we see in dreams are; but whether she had dreamed of one like this, or had really seen it, she could not tell. She gazed and gazed; and the longer she gazed, the surer she was that she had really and certainly seen, if not that face, some one very like it, before.
“Can you tell me if this is a fancy sketch?” said Pet, holding it up.
“My husband says so. Why?” asked the woman, fixing her eyes, with a keen, suspicious glance, on Pet.
“Oh, nothing; only it seems to me as if I had seen that face before. It is very strange; I cannot recollect when or where; but I know I have seen it.”
“You only imagine so.”
“No, I don’t. I never imagine anything. Oh, here’s another; what a pretty child! why – why, she looks like you!”
It represented a beautiful, dark little girl, a mere infant, but resplendently beautiful.
“She was my child,” said the woman, in a low, hard, despairing voice, as she looked straight before her.
“And where is she?” asked Pet, softly.
“I don’t know – dead, I expect,” said the woman, in that same tone of deep, steady despair, far sadder than any tears or wild sobs could have been.
Pet’s eyes softened with deep sympathy; and coming over, she said, earnestly: “I am so sorry for you. How long is it since she died?”
“It is seven years since we lost her; she was two years old then. I do not know whether she is living or dead. Oh, Rita! Rita!” cried the woman, passionately, while her whole frame shook with the violence of emotion.
No tear fell, no sob shook her breast, but words can never describe the utter agony of that despairing cry.
There were tears in Pet’s eyes now – in those flashing, mocking, defying eyes; and in silent sympathy she took the woman’s hand in her own little brown fingers, and softly began caressing it.
“It was in London we lost her – in the great, vast city of London. I was out with her, one day, and seeing a vast crowd at the corner of the street, I went over, holding my little Marguerite by the hand, to see what was the matter. The crowd increased; we were wedged in, and could not extricate ourselves. Suddenly some one gave her a pull; her little hand relaxed its hold; I heard her cry out; and shrieking madly, I burst from the crowd in search of her; but she was gone. I rushed shrieking through the streets until they arrested me as a lunatic, and carried me off. For a long, long time after, I remember nothing. My husband found me out, and took charge of me; but we never heard of our child after that. I nearly went mad. I was mad for a time; but it has passed. Since that day, we never heard of Rita. I heard them say she was stolen for her extraordinary beauty; but, living or dead, I feel she is forever lost to me – forever lost – forever lost!”
She struck her bosom with her hand, and rocked back and forward, while her wild, black eyes gazed steadily before her with that same rigid look of changeless despair.
“I loved her better than anything in earth or heaven, except her father – my heart was wrapped up in hers – she was the dearest part of myself; and, since I lost her, life has been a mockery – worse than a mockery to me. Girl!” she said, looking up suddenly and fiercely, “never love! Try to escape woman’s doom of loving and losing, and of living on, when death is the greatest blessing God can send you. Never love! Tear your heart out and throw it in the flames sooner than love and live to know your golden idol is an image of worthless clay. Girl, remember!” and she sprung to her feet, her eyes blazing with a maniac light, and grasped Pet so fiercely by the arm that she was forced to stifle a cry of pain, “never love – never love! Take a dagger and send your soul to eternity sooner!”
She flung Pet from her with a violence that sent her reeling against the wall, and darted from the room.