第54章

"No thanks to him for that! He would make me a slave now, as he did then, if he dared, but he has found that, poor, trodden worm as I was, I had life enough left to turn and sting.""Which you do with a vengeance! Oh I you're a Tartar!" remarked Sir Norman to himself."The saints forefend that Leoline should be like you in temper, as she is in history and face; for if she is, my life promises to be a pleasant one.""This rascally crew of cut-throats, whom his villainous highness headed," said Miranda, "were an almost immense number then, being divided in three bodies - London cut-purses, Hounslow Heath highwaymen, and assistant-coiners, but all owning him for their lord and master.He told me all this himself, one day when, in an after-dinner and most gracious mood, he made a boasting display of his wealth and greatness; told me I was growing up very pretty indeed, and that I was shortly to be raised to the honor and dignity, and bliss of being his wife.

"I fancy I must have had a very vague idea of what that one small word meant, and was besides in an unusually contented and peaceful state of mind, or I should, undoubtedly, have raised one of his cut-glass decanters and smashed in his head with it.Iknow how I should receive such an assertion from him now, but Ithink I took it then with a resignation, he must have found mighty edifying; and when he went on to tell me that all this richness and greatness were to be shared by me when that celestial time came, I think I rather liked the idea than otherwise.The horrible creature seemed to have woke up that day, for the first time, and all of a sudden, to a conviction that I was in a fair way to become a woman, and rather a handsome one, and that he had better make sure of me before any accident interfered to take me from him.Full of this laudable notion, he became a daily visitor of mine from thenceforth, and made the discovery, simultaneously with myself, that the oftener he came the less favor he found in my sight.I had, before, tacitly disliked him, and shrank with a natural repulsion from his dreadful ugliness ness; but now, from negative dislike, I grew to positive hate.The utter loathing and abhorrence I have had for him ever since, began then - I grew dimly and intuitively conscious of what he would make me, and shrank from my fate with a vague horror not to be told in words.I became strong in my fearful dread of it.I told him I detested, abhorred, loathed, hated him; that he might keep his riches, greatness, and ungainly self for those who wanted him; they were temptations too weak to move me.

"Of course, there was raving, and storming, threatening, terrible looks and denunciations, and I quailed and shrank like a coward, but was obstinate still.Then as a dernier resort, he tried another bribe - the glorious one of liberty, the one he knew would conquer me, and it did.He promised me freedom - if Imarried him, I might go out into the great unknown world, fetterless and free; and I, O! fool that I was! consented.Not that my object was to stay with him one instant longer her my prison doors were opened; no, I was not quite so besotted as that - once out, and the little demon might look for me with last year's partridges.Of course, those demoniac eyes read my heart like an open book; and when I pronounced the fatal 'yes,' he laughed in that delightful way of his own, which will probably be the last thing you will hear when you lay your head under the axe.

"I don't know who the clergyman who married us was; but he was a clergyman: there can be no doubt about that.It was three days after, and for the first time in my fifteen years of life, Istood in sunshine, and daylight, and open air.We drove to the cathedral - for it was in St.Paul's the sacrilege was committed.

I never could have walked there, I was so stunned, and giddy, and bewildered.I never thought of the marriage - I could think of nothing but the bright, crashing, sun-shiny world without, till Iwas led up before the clergyman, with much the air, I suppose, of one walking in her sleep.He was a very young man, I remember, and looked from the dwarf to me, and from me to the dwarf, in a great state of fear and uncertainty, but evidently not daring to refuse.Margery and one of his gang were our only attendants, and there, in God's temple, the deed was done, and I was made the miserable thing I am to-day."The suppressed passion, rising and throbbing like a white flame in her face and eyes, made her stop for a moment, breathing hard.

Looking up she met Sir Norman's gaze, and as if there was something in its quiet, pitying tenderness that mesmerized her into calm, she steadily and rapidly went on.

"I awoke to a new life, after that; but not to one of freedom and happiness.I was as closely, even more closely, guarded than ever; and I found, when too late, that I had bartered myself, soul and body, for an empty promise.The only difference was, that I saw more new faces; for the dwarf began to bring his confederates and subordinates to the house, and would have me dressed up and displayed to them, with a demoniac pride that revolted me beyond everything else, if I were a painted puppet or an overgrown wax doll.Most of the precious crew of scoundrels had wives of their own and these began to be brought with them of an evening; and then, what with dancing, and music, and cards, and feasting, we had quite a carnival of it til] morning.