The Gypsy Queen's Vow

CHAPTER XIV.

THE NEW HOME

With that last terrible denunciation on her lips, Ketura had fled from the room, from the house, out into the night.

Half delirious with mingled triumph, fiendish joy, and the pitch of passion into which she had wrought herself, she walked with rapid, excited strides along, heedless of whither she went, until she suddenly ran with stunning force against another pedestrian who was coming toward her.

The force of the concussion sent the unfortunate individual sprawling, with rather unpleasant suddenness, on his back; while the gipsy herself, somewhat cooled by the shock, paused for a moment and grasped a lamp-post to steady herself.

“Good gracious!” gasped a deeply aggrieved voice from the pavement, “if this ain’t too bad! To be run into this way and pitched heels over head on the broad of one’s back without a minute’s warning! Why, it’s a shame!” reiterated the voice, in a still more aggrieved cadence, as its owner, a pale young man with a carpet-bag, slowly began to pick himself up.

The gipsy, having recovered from the sudden collision, was about to hurry on without paying the slightest attention to the injured owner of the carpet-bag, when that individual, catching a full view of her face, burst out in amazement:

“Why, if it ain’t Mrs. Ketura! Well, if this isn’t real surprising! How do you do? I am glad to see you, I’m sure; and I dare say it was all an accident. I hope you have been quite well since I saw you last, ma’am,” said the pale young man, politely; “I’ve been very well myself, I’m obliged to you.”

“Who are you?” said the gipsy, impatiently, scanning his mild, freckled frontispiece with her stiletto-like eyes.

“Why, you haven’t forgotten me, have you?” said the young man, straightening out his beaver, which had got stove in during the late catastrophe; “why, I’m O. C. Toosypegs! I dare say you didn’t expect to see me here, but we haven’t left England yet, you know. We’re going the day after to-morrow, aunt Prisciller and me; and I’m glad of it, too, for this here London ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. I had my pocket picked at least twenty times since I came here. They took my watch, my pocketbook, and my jack-knife, and didn’t even leave me so much as a pocket-handkerchief to wipe my nose.” And Mr. Toosypegs, who evidently considered this the climax of human depravity, gave his hat a fierce thump, that sent that astonished head-piece away down over his eyes with rather alarming suddenness.

“I don’t know you – let me pass,” said the gipsy, harshly, trying to walk away from him; but Mr. Toosypegs quickened his pace likewise, and kept up with her.

“Why, you do know me, Mrs. Ketura, and I hope you haven’t went and forgotten me so soon,” said Mr. Toosypegs, in a deeply-injured tone. “Don’t you recollect that nasty wet night, a little over two years ago, when you was walking along the north road, and I made Mr. Harkins, who is a real nice man, only a little hasty at times, take you in and drive you to town? You didn’t seem in very good spirits that night, and I was real sorry for your trouble – I really was, Mrs. Ketura.”

The gipsy made no reply. Bitterly her thoughts went back to that night – that long, desolate, sorrowful night – when she had bidden her son a last farewell. She had had her revenge; she had wrenched cries of anguish from those who had tortured her; but oh! what revenge could remove the gnawing at her heart? what vengeance could restore her her son? With one of those hollow groans that seem rending the heart they burst from, her head dropped on her bosom. There was a world of anguish and despair in the sound, and it went right to the simple heart of the really kind Mr. Toosypegs.

“There, now, don’t take on so about it,” he began, piteously; “it’s real distressing to listen to such groans as that. Everything happens for the best, you know; and though, as I remarked at the time to my friend Mr. Harkins, it was real disagreeable of them to take and send your son away, when he didn’t want to go, still it can’t be helped now, and there’s no use whatever in making a fuss about it. As my uncle, who hadn’t the pleasure of your acquaintance, has left me two thousand pounds, I should be real glad to aid you as far as money will go, and you needn’t mind about giving me your note for it either. I ain’t particular about getting it back again, I’m very much obliged to you.”

During this well-meant attempt at consolation, not one word of which the gipsy had heard, Mr. Toosypegs had been fumbling uneasily in his pockets, and shifting his carpet-bag in a fidgety manner from one hand to the other. Having managed at last to extract a plump pocketbook from some mysterious recess inside of his coat, he held it out to his companion; but she, with her eyes gloomily fixed on the ground, seemed so totally oblivious of both himself and it, that, with a comical expression of distress, he was forced to replace it again where it came from.

“Now I wouldn’t mind it so much if I was you, you know,” he resumed, in a confidential tone. “Where’s the good of making a time when things can’t be helped? I’m going to to sail for America the day after to-morrow, in a great, nasty, tarry ship, and I would like to see you in good spirits before I go. It would make it a great deal nicer if I thought you weren’t taking on.”

The last words caught her ear. She lifted her haggard face and fixed her piercing eyes so suddenly full upon him, that, with an alarmed “Lord bless me,” he sprung back and gazed upon her in evident terror.

“Going to America, are you? – to-morrow?” she asked, rapidly.

“Why – a – no, sir – that is, yes, ma’am,” stammered Mr. Toosypegs, his self-possession considerably shaken by those needle-like glances.

With lightning-like rapidity there flashed through the gipsy’s mind a scheme. London was no longer a safe place for her; she was liable to be arrested, now, at any moment, and with her half-completed revenge this was not to be thought of. She felt her best course would be, to leave England altogether for some years; and she determined to avail herself of the present opportunity.

“If I go with you to America, will you pay my passage?” she abruptly asked, transfixing Mr. Toosypegs with her lightning eyes.

“Why, of course, with a great deal of pleasure,” responded the young man, with alacrity; “it will make it real pleasant to have you with us during the passage, I’m sure,” said Mr. Toosypegs, who felt politeness required of him to say as much, though his conscience gave him a severe twinge for telling such a fib. “Perhaps, as we start the day after to-morrow, you wouldn’t mind coming and stopping with us until then, so’s to have things handy. Aunt Prisciller will be delighted to make your acquaintance, I know,” concluded Mr. Toosypegs, whose conscience, at this announcement, gave him another rebuking pinch.

“There will be two children to bring,” said the gipsy, hurriedly: “I must go for them.”

“Half price,” muttered Mr. Toosypegs, sotto voce; “what will aunt Prisciller say?”

“I will meet you here by daybreak the day after to-morrow,” said the gipsy, stopping suddenly. “Will you come?”

“Why, certainly,” responded Mr. Toosypegs, who was too much in awe of her to refuse her anything she might ask; “I’ll be in this precise spot by daybreak the day after to-morrow, though I don’t approve of early rising as a general thing; it ain’t nice at all.”

“Very well, I will be here – you need come with me no further,” said Ketura, dismissing him with a wave of her hand; and ere he could expostulate at this summary dismissal, she turned a corner and disappeared.

That night a trusty messenger was dispatched by Ketura to the gipsy camp for little Raymond, who arrived the following night. His free, gipsy life seemed to agree wonderfully well with that young gentleman, who appeared in the highest possible health and spirits; his rosy cheeks and sparkling black eyes all aglow from the woodland breezes. Five years old now, he was tall and well-grown for his age, could climb the highest trees like a squirrel, set bird-traps and rabbit-snares, and was as lithe, supple, and active as a young deer. The eyes of Ketura lit up with pride as she gazed upon him; and for the first time the idea occurred to her that he might live to avenge his father’s wrongs when she was dead. She would bring him up to hate all of the house of De Courcy; that hate should grow with his growth until it should become the one ruling passion and aim of his life, swamping, by its very intensity, every other feeling.

Master Raymond, who seemed quite as chary of caresses as his grandmother herself, met her with a good deal of indifference; but no sooner did he see little Erminie, than a rash and violent attachment was the result. Accustomed to the dirty, dusky gipsy babies, who rolled all day unheeded in the grass, this little snowy-skinned, golden-haired, blue-eyed infant seemed so wondrously lovely that he had to give her sundry pokes with his finger to convince himself she was real, and not an illusion. Miss Erminie did not seem at all displeased by these attentions, but favored him with a coquettish smile, and with her finger in her rosy mouth, gave him every encouragement he could reasonably expect on so short an acquaintance. Being left alone together, Master Raymond, who did not altogether approve of her wasting her time, lying blinking at him in her cradle, began to think it was only a common act of politeness she owed him to get up, and seeing no symptoms of any such intention on the young lady’s part, he resolved to give her a hint to that effect. Catching her, therefore, by one little plump leg and arm, he gave her a jerk that swung her completely out, and then grasping her by the waist, he dumped her down on the floor beside him, upon which she immediately clapped another finger in her mouth; and there they sat, silently staring at each other, until both were dispatched to bed.

Early in the morning Master Raymond and Miss Erminie found themselves awakened from an exceedingly sound slumber, and undergoing the unpleasant operation of dressing. The young gentleman kicked and plunged manfully for a while, but finding it all of no use, he gave up the struggle and yielded to fate in a second nap. Erminie, after crying a little, followed his example; and the gipsy, taking her in her arms, and followed by one of the tribe bearing the sleeping Raymond, hurried to the trysting-place.

There they found Mr. Toosypegs, looking green and sea-sick already, from anticipation. In a few words the gipsy gave him to understand that she wished to go on board immediately – a proposition which rather pleased Mr. Toosypegs, who was inwardly afraid she might desire to be brought to his house, where she would be confronted by Miss Toosypegs, of whom he stood in wholesome awe.

Half an hour brought them to the pier where the vessel lay, and consigning little Raymond to the care of one of the female passengers, she sought her berth with Erminie. Until England was out of sight she still dreaded detection; and, therefore, she sat with feverish impatience, longing to catch the last glimpse of the land wherein she was born. She watched every passing face with suspicion, and in every out-stretched hand she saw some one about to snatch her prize from her; and involuntarily her teeth set, and she held the sleeping child in a fiercer clasp.

Once she caught a passing glimpse of Mr. Toosypegs, a victim to “green and yellow melancholy” in its most aggravated form, as he walked toward his berth in an exceedingly limp state of mind and shirt-collar. Mr. Toosypegs knew what sea-sickness was from experience; he had a distinct and sad recollection of what he endured the last time he crossed the Atlantic; and with many an ominous foreboding, he ensconced himself in an arm-chair in the cabin, while the vessel rose and fell as she danced over the waves. Silently he sat, as men sit who await the heaviest blow Fate has in store for them. Suddenly a stentorian voice from the deck rose high above the creaking and straining of ropes and trampling of feet, with the words, “Heave ahead.” Mr. Toosypegs gave a convulsive start, an expression of intensest anguish passed over his face, and suddenly clapping his handkerchief to his mouth, he fled into the silent depths of the state-room, where, hidden from human view, what passed was never known.

“Well, I never!” ejaculated a tall, thin, sharp female, with a sour face, and a cantankerous expression of countenance generally, who sat with her hands folded over a shiny-brown Holland gown, as upright as a church-steeple and about as grim. “Well, I never! going hand being sea-sick hafore he’s ten minutes hon board, which his something none of the family hever ’ad before, hand I’ve been hover to Hireland without hever thinking of such a thing; lying there on the broad hof his back, leaving me a poor, lone woman, and groanin’ hevery time this dratted hold ship gives a plunge, which is something that’s not pleasant for a hun-protected female to be, having a lot hof disagreeable sailors, smefling of oakum and tar and sich, has hif he couldn’t wait to be sea-sick hafter we’d land. Ugh!” And Miss Priscilla Dorothea Toosypegs – for she it was – knit up her face in a bristle of the sourest kinks, and punctuated her rather rambling speech by sundry frowns of the most intensely acid character.

To describe that voyage is not my intention; suffice it to say, that it was an unusually speedy one. On the following morning, the gipsy had appeared on deck with little Erminie, whose gentle beauty attracted universal attention, as her nurse’s dark, stern, moody face did fear and dread. Many hands were held out for her, and Ketura willingly gave her up, and consented to the request of a pleasant-faced young girl who offered to take charge of her until they should land. Master Raymond had already become prime favorite with all on board, more particularly with the sailors; and could soon run like a monkey up the shrouds into the rigging. At first he condescended to patronize Erminie occasionally; but on discovering she could not climb – in fact, could not even stand on her feet properly – he began to look down on her with a sort of lofty contempt. On the fifth day, Mr. Toosypegs made his appearance on deck, a walking skeleton. Everybody laughed at his wobegone looks; and so deeply disgusted was Miss Priscilla by his sea-green visage, that it seemed doubtful whether she would ever acknowledge the relationship again.

As every one but Miss Priscilla laughed at him, and she scolded him unmercifully, the unhappy young man was forced to fly for relief to Ketura, whose silent grimness was quite delightful compared with either of the others. Feeling that she owed him something for his kindness, she listened in silence to all his doleful complaints; and this so won upon the susceptible heart of that unfortunate youth, that he contracted quite an affection for her – just as a lap-dog has been known to make friends with a tiger before now.

“What do you intend to do when you get to America, Mrs. Ketura?” he asked one day as they sat together on the deck.

“I have not thought about it,” she answered indifferently.

“You’ll have to do something, you know,” insinuated Mr. Toosypegs. “People always do something in America. They’re real smart people there. I’m an American, Mrs. Ketura,” added Mr. Toosypegs, complacently.

A grim sort of smile, haft contempt, half pity, passed over the face of the gipsy.

“Telling fortunes pays pretty well, I guess, but then it isn’t a nice way to make a living; and besides that little baby would be real inconvenient to lug round with you, not to speak of that dreadful little boy who climbs up that main-topgallant bowsprit – or whatever the nasty steep thing’s name is. No; I don’t think telling fortunes would be exactly the thing.”

“I shall manage some way; don’t bother me about it,” said gipsy, impatiently.

“What do you say to coming with us to Dismal Hollow? There’s plenty of room around there for you; and I should be real glad to have you near, so that I could drop in to see you now and then.”