The Midnight Queen [113]
another bourgeois, like herself. For his
sake she refused even the title of marchioness, offered her in
the moment of youthful and ardent passion, and clung, with
deathless truth, to her fisher-lover. The blood of the
Montmorencis is fierce and hot, and brooks no opposition" (Sir
Norman thought of Miranda, and inwardly owned that that was a
fact); "and the marquis, in his jealous wrath, both hated and
loved her at the same time, and vowed deadly vengeance against
her bourgeois lover. That vow he kept. The young fisherman was
found one morning at his lady-love's door without a head, and the
bleeding trunk told no tales.
"Of course, for a while, she was distracted and so on; but when
the first shock of her grief was over, my father carried her off,
and forcibly made her his wife. Fierce hatred, I told you, was
mingled with his fierce love, and before the honeymoon was over
it began to break out. One night, in a fit of jealous passion,
to which he was addicted, he led her into a room she had never
before been permitted to enter; showed her a grinning human
skull, and told her it was her lover's! In his cruel exultation,
he confessed all; how he had caused him to be murdered; his head
severed from the body; and brought here to punish her, some day,
for her obstinate refusal to love him.
"Up to this time she had been quiet and passive, bearing her fate
with a sort of dumb resignation; but now a spirit of vengeance,
fiercer and more terrible than his own, began to kindle within
her; and, kneeling down before the ghastly thing, she breathed a
wish - a prayer - to the avenging Jehovah, so unutterably
horrible, that even her husband had to fly with curdling blood
from the room. That dreadful prayer was heard - that wish
fulfilled in me; but long before I looked on the light of day
that frantic woman had repented of the awful deed she had done.
Repentance came too late the sin of the father was visited on the
child, and on the mother, too, for the moment her eyes fell upon
me, she became a raving maniac, and died before the first day of
my life had ended.
"Nurse and physician fled at the sight of me; but my father,
though thrilling with horror, bore the shock, and bowed to the
retributive justice of the angry Deity she had invoked. His
whole life, his whole nature, changed from that hour; and,
kneeling beside my dead mother, as he afterward told me, he vowed
before high Heaven to cherish and love me, even as though I had
not been the ghastly creature I was. The physician he bound by a
terrible oath to silence; the nurse he forced back, and, in spite
of her disgust and abhorrence, compelled her to nurse and care
for me. The dead was buried out of sight; and we had rooms in a
distant part of the house, which no one ever entered but my
father and the nurse. Though set apart from my birth as
something accursed, I had the intellect and capacity of - yes,
far greater intellect and capacity than, most children; and, as
years passed by, my father, true to his vow, became himself my
tutor and companion. He did not love me - that was an utter
impossibility; but time so blunts the edge of all things, that
even the nurse became reconciled to me, and my father could
scarcely do less than a stranger. So I was cared for, and
instructed, and educated; and, knowing not what a monstrosity I
was, I loved them both ardently, and lived on happily enough, in
my splendid prison, for my first ten years in this world.
"Then came a change. My nurse died; and it became clear that I
must quit my solitary life, and see the sort of world I lived in.
So my father, seeing all this, sat down in the twilight one night
beside me, and told me the story of my own hideousness. I was
but a child then, and it is many and many years ago; but this
gray summer morning, I feel what I felt then, as vividly as I did
at the time. I had not learned the great lesson
sake she refused even the title of marchioness, offered her in
the moment of youthful and ardent passion, and clung, with
deathless truth, to her fisher-lover. The blood of the
Montmorencis is fierce and hot, and brooks no opposition" (Sir
Norman thought of Miranda, and inwardly owned that that was a
fact); "and the marquis, in his jealous wrath, both hated and
loved her at the same time, and vowed deadly vengeance against
her bourgeois lover. That vow he kept. The young fisherman was
found one morning at his lady-love's door without a head, and the
bleeding trunk told no tales.
"Of course, for a while, she was distracted and so on; but when
the first shock of her grief was over, my father carried her off,
and forcibly made her his wife. Fierce hatred, I told you, was
mingled with his fierce love, and before the honeymoon was over
it began to break out. One night, in a fit of jealous passion,
to which he was addicted, he led her into a room she had never
before been permitted to enter; showed her a grinning human
skull, and told her it was her lover's! In his cruel exultation,
he confessed all; how he had caused him to be murdered; his head
severed from the body; and brought here to punish her, some day,
for her obstinate refusal to love him.
"Up to this time she had been quiet and passive, bearing her fate
with a sort of dumb resignation; but now a spirit of vengeance,
fiercer and more terrible than his own, began to kindle within
her; and, kneeling down before the ghastly thing, she breathed a
wish - a prayer - to the avenging Jehovah, so unutterably
horrible, that even her husband had to fly with curdling blood
from the room. That dreadful prayer was heard - that wish
fulfilled in me; but long before I looked on the light of day
that frantic woman had repented of the awful deed she had done.
Repentance came too late the sin of the father was visited on the
child, and on the mother, too, for the moment her eyes fell upon
me, she became a raving maniac, and died before the first day of
my life had ended.
"Nurse and physician fled at the sight of me; but my father,
though thrilling with horror, bore the shock, and bowed to the
retributive justice of the angry Deity she had invoked. His
whole life, his whole nature, changed from that hour; and,
kneeling beside my dead mother, as he afterward told me, he vowed
before high Heaven to cherish and love me, even as though I had
not been the ghastly creature I was. The physician he bound by a
terrible oath to silence; the nurse he forced back, and, in spite
of her disgust and abhorrence, compelled her to nurse and care
for me. The dead was buried out of sight; and we had rooms in a
distant part of the house, which no one ever entered but my
father and the nurse. Though set apart from my birth as
something accursed, I had the intellect and capacity of - yes,
far greater intellect and capacity than, most children; and, as
years passed by, my father, true to his vow, became himself my
tutor and companion. He did not love me - that was an utter
impossibility; but time so blunts the edge of all things, that
even the nurse became reconciled to me, and my father could
scarcely do less than a stranger. So I was cared for, and
instructed, and educated; and, knowing not what a monstrosity I
was, I loved them both ardently, and lived on happily enough, in
my splendid prison, for my first ten years in this world.
"Then came a change. My nurse died; and it became clear that I
must quit my solitary life, and see the sort of world I lived in.
So my father, seeing all this, sat down in the twilight one night
beside me, and told me the story of my own hideousness. I was
but a child then, and it is many and many years ago; but this
gray summer morning, I feel what I felt then, as vividly as I did
at the time. I had not learned the great lesson