Dainty's Cruel Rivals; Or, The Fatal Birthday
Page 22
CHAPTER XXII.
UNMASKED.
Dainty fell back, sobbing, on her hard couch, her frame shaking as withan ague chill.
The horror of her position was enough to drive her mad.
It seemed to her that she was entombed alive, and left to her fate--leftto die of darkness, terror, grief, and starvation, the wretched victimof a most cruel persecution; she who had so much to live for; youth,health, beauty, and a loving young husband!
Her faltering voice rang out in a despairing prayer:
"Oh, God, have mercy on me, and on my poor unhappy husband and mother,whose hearts I know are aching with grief over my mysterious absence!Oh, send some pitying angel to guide them to my dreary prison!"
As if in answer to the wild aspiration, a key suddenly clicked in thelock outside, and she sprang upright on the cot with a strangling gaspof fear and hope commingled.
Slowly the heavy oaken door swung outward wide enough to admit a tall,dark-gowned figure, then shut inward again, locking Dainty in with thefeared and abhorred ghost of the old monk.
In the dim, flickering light of the cell, the horrible figure toweredabove the girl, who crouched low in breathless fear at the dreadedapparition, speech frozen on her lips, her heart sinking till the bloodseemed freezing in her veins, not observing in her alarm that the ghosthad a rather prosaic air by reason of carrying a large basket on onearm.
Suddenly the ghastly creature spoke: the first time it had ever openedits lips in all its visitations to Dainty.
"You don't seem glad to see me," it observed, in hoarse, mocking accentsthat somehow had a familiar ring in her ears.
There flashed over her mind some words that Lovelace Ellsworth had saidto her lately:
"I am convinced that the pretended monk is a creature of flesh andblood, and if you could only summon courage to tear away its mask whenit calls on you again, you would most likely find beneath it the coarseSheila Kelly, or very probably one of your malicious cousins. Try itnext time, and you will see that I am right, darling."
At sound of that gibing voice, with its oddly familiar ring, a desperatecourage came to poor Dainty, and suddenly springing erect on her bed,she made a fierce onslaught on her foe, tearing away in one franticclutch the ghastly mask, skull-cap, wig, and all, and leaving exposedthe astonished features of the coarse Irish woman, Sheila Kelly.
The woman uttered a fierce imprecation in her surprise, recoiling astep, then laughing coarsely:
"What a little wild-cat, to be sure! But why didn't you do it long ago?"
"I never thought of it being you, Sheila Kelly! How could I, when I'veseen you lying asleep in my room and the old monk standing by my bed?"faltered Dainty in surprise and bewilderment.
"Och, thin it was Miss Peyton playing the part. Shure, she's as tall asmesilf, and I don't mind satisfyin' yer cur'osity now, seein' as yer'llnever git out o' this alive to blow on us!" returned the woman, withcool effrontery.
"What do you mean, Sheila?" cried the young girl in alarm.
"Shure, I mane what I say! Ye're a pris'ner fer life, Miss Dainty Chase,sintenced by yer aunt and cousins to solitary confinement on bread andwater till you die--and the sooner you do that last the better they willbe pleased!" returned the coarse woman letting down her basket andtaking out a glass tumbler, two large bottles of water, some loaves ofstale bread, and some of Dainty's clothes, saying, facetiously: "Here'syer duds and yer grub--enough o' both ter last yer a week--and at theend of a week I'll call again with more provisions, miss--and likewise,if you get tired of living in such luxury, here's a bottle of laudanumto pass yer into purgatory," coolly putting it on the only chair theroom contained, while Dainty's blue eyes dilated in horror at herfiendish brutality.
"Sheila, Sheila, surely this is some cruel jest! You can not mean toleave me here alone as you say! Oh, what harm have I ever done to youthat you treat me so cruelly?" she cried in anguish.
"As for the harrum, none; but I always hated ye from the first time Ilooked on yer bonny face. As for the raison, 'tis soon towld. I fell inlove with the young masther soon's ever he kem home from Yurrup, and Idid me best ter make up ter him; but he would none of me. And I seenstraight away his heart was wid you, and I hated yer ever since, andforby yer two cousins and t' ould Leddy Ellsworth turned against yer forthe same raison, because yer won the masther's heart. So whin theyoffered ter make me fortune for scaring yer ter death, I was ready andglad ter take the job ter pay off me own score agin ye! So there now,ye see it's small good luck yer pritty face got ye!" concluded the cruelIrish woman, exultantly.
Poor Dainty, gazing into that hard face, felt the utter uselessness ofall appeals for mercy. The woman had the heart of a fiend, and wasopenly glad of her victim's misery.
She determined to appeal to her cupidity, and ventured, timidly:
"If you will only give me my liberty, Sheila, I give you my word ofhonor Mr. Ellsworth will make you rich."
"Rich, is it? and him a-dying!" grunted Sheila Kelly, indifferently.
"Dying! Oh, what mean you, Sheila? Speak! What has happened to mydarling?" shrieked poor Dainty, in wild alarm.
Sheila Kelly shrugged her shoulders, and proceeded to fill the dyinglamp with fresh oil from a tin can she had brought in her capaciousbasket. Then sitting down on the foot of the narrow cot, she began andrecounted the events of the morning to her anxious listener, endingwith:
"Shure, the mane, murtherin' Ashley is safe in jail, t' ould LeddyEllsworth, going from one fainting fit ter another, and Masther Lovelacea-laying with ter bullet in his head, niver spakin' a worrud since hewas shot, niver opening his eyes, jist a-dying by inches, sez all thedocthers."
Oh, the shrieks of despair that filled the gloomy cell! They were enoughto move a heart of stone; but Dainty's tormentor was cruel as a fiend.
She listened unmoved to the expressions of despair and the prayers forliberty, and laughed incredulously, when the girl cried, desperately:
"Oh, Sheila! for God's sake, let me go to the side of my dying husband!Yes, he is my own dear husband, and my place is by him now, to soothehis last hours. We were married secretly two weeks ago, because hefeared our cruel enemies would devise some scheme to tear us from eachother, as indeed they have done. But now that you know the truth, youwould not keep a young wife from the side of her dying husband, wouldyou? You will set me free, to go to him?"
But the wretch shook her head, with a mocking laugh.
"You will never see the light of day again!" she said, calmly.
"Oh, Sheila, do you forget that I have a mother to mourn me as well as ahusband? A poor widowed mother, who has no one but me in the wide, wideworld! I am the light of her eyes and her heart. She will die of abroken heart at my mysterious fate! For her sake, Sheila, if not for myown and my husband's, I beg you for my liberty!" prayed the wretchedprisoner, kneeling on the cold floor at her tormentor's feet.
But she might as well have prayed to the cold stone wall as to such afiend in human form.
"Ye're wastin' worruds, Dainty Chase!" she said, mockingly, as she roseto go. "Ye'll niver come out of this cell alive, I tell you; so thesooner yer make up yer mind ter die, the better; and I'll kem ag'in thisday week, hoping ter find yer cold corp on the bed!"
"One word!" implored the wretched girl, detaining her. "Where am I,Sheila Kelly? Is this, as I suspect, a dungeon beneath the ruined wingof Ellsworth?"
"Yes, ye're right; 'tis the underground chambers, where t' ouldEllsworths hid from the Indians and kept their prisoners, and this willbe yer tomb, Dainty Chase. Better try the laudanum, and put yersilf outof misery at once!" flashing out, and locking the door on the outside asbefore.