The Midnight Queen by May Agnes Fleming (best books under 200 pages txt) 📖

Sir Norman, I am afraid your case is of the most desperate; royal rivals are dangerous things!"

"Yet Charles has kind impulses, and has been known to do generous acts."

"Has he? You expect him, beyond doubt, to do precisely as he said; and if Leoline, different from all the rest of her sex, prefers the knight to the king, he will yield her unresistingly to you."

"I have nothing but his word for it!" said Sir Norman, in a distracted tone, "and, at present, can do nothing but bide my time."

"I have been thinking of that, too! I promised, you know, when I left her, last night, that we would return before day-dawn, and rescue her. The unhappy little beauty will doubtless think I have fallen into the tiger's jaws myself, and has half wept her bright eyes out by this time!"

"My poor Leoline! And O Hubert, if you only knew what she is to you!"

"I do know! She told me she was my sister!"

Sir Norman looked at him in amazement.

"She told you, and you take it like this?"

"Certainly, I take it like this. How would you have me take it? It is nothing to go into hysterics about, after all!"

"Of all the cold-blooded young reptiles I ever saw," exclaimed Sir Norman, with infinite disgust, "you are the worst! If you were told you were to receive the crown of France to-morrow, you would probably open your eyes a trifle, and take it as you would a new cap!"

"Of course I would. I haven't lived in courts half my life to get up a scene for a small matter! Besides, I had an idea from the first moment I saw Leoline that she must be my sister, or something of that sort."

"And so you felt no emotion whatever on hearing it?"

"I don't know as I properly understand what you mean by emotion," said Herbert, reflectively. "But ye-e-s, I did feel somewhat pleased--she is so like me, and so uncommonly handsome!"

"Humph! there's a reason! Did she tell you how she discovered it herself?"

"Let me see--no--I think not--she simply mentioned the fact."

"She did not tell you either, I suppose, that you had more sisters than herself?"

"More than herself! No. That would be a little too much of a good thing! One sister is quite enough for any reasonable mortal."

"But there were two more, my good young friend!"

"Is it possible?" said Hubert, in a tone that betrayed not the slightest symptom of emotion. "Who are they?"

Sir Norman paused one instant, combating a strong temptation to seize the phlegmatic page by the collar, and give him such another shaking as he would not get over for a week to come; but suddenly recollecting he was Leoline's brother, and by the same token a marquis or thereabouts, he merely paused to cast a withering look upon him, and walked on.

"Well," said Hubert, "I am waiting to be told."

"You may wait, then!" said Sir Norman, with a smothered growl; "and I give you joy when I tell you. Such extra communicativeness to one so stolid could do no good!"

"But I am not stolid! I am in a perfect agony of anxiety," said Hubert.

"You young jackanapes!" said Sir Norman, half-laughing, half-incensed. "It were a wise deed and a godly one to take you by the hind-leg and nape of the neck, and pitch you over yonder wall; but for your mister's sake I will desist."

"Which of them?" inquired Hubert, with provoking gravity.

"It would be more to the point if you asked me who the others were, I think."

"So I have, and you merely abused me for it. But I think I know one of them without being told. It is that other fac-simile of Leoline and myself who died in the robber's ruin!"

"Exactly. You and she, and Leoline, were triplets!"

"And who is the other?"

"Her name is La Masque. Have you ever heard it?"

"La Masque! Nonsense!" exclaimed Hubert, with some energy in his voice at last. "You but jest, Sir Norman Kingsley!"

"No such thing! It is a positive fact! She told me the whole story herself!"

"And what is the whole story; and why did she not tell it to me instead of you."

"She told it to Leoline, thinking, probably, she had the most sense; and she told it to me, as Leoline's future husband. It is somewhat long to relate, but it will help to beguile the time while we are waiting for the royal summons."

And hereupon Sir Norman, without farther preface, launched into a rapid resume of La Masque's story, feeling the cold chill with which he had witnessed it creep over him as he narrated her fearful end.

"It struck me," concluded Sir Norman, "that it would be better to procure any papers she might possess at once, lest, by accident, they should fall into other hands; so I rode there directly, and, in spite of the cantankerous old porter, searched diligently, until I found them. Here they are," said Sir Norman, drawing forth the roll.

"And what do you intend doing with them?" inquired Hubert, glancing at the papers with an unmoved countenance.

"Show them to the king, and, though his mediation with Louis, obtain for you the restoration of your rights."

"And do you think his majesty will give himself so much trouble for the Earl of Rochester's page?"

"I think he will take the trouble to see justice done, or at least he ought to. If he declines, we will take the matter in our own hands, my Hubert; and you and I will seek Louis ourselves. Please God, the Earl of Rochester's page will yet wear the coronet of the De Montmorencis!"

"And the sister of a marquis will be no unworthy mate even for a Kingsley," said Hubert. "Has La Masque left nothing for her?"

"Do you see this casket?" tapping the one of cared brass dangling from his belt; "well, it is full of jewels worth a king's ransom. I found them in a drawer of La Masque's house, with directions that they were to be given to her sisters at her death. Miranda being dead, I presume they are all Leoline's now."

"This is a queer business altogether!" said Hubert, musingly; "and I am greatly mistaken if King Louie will not regard it as a very pretty little work of fiction."

"But I have proofs, lad! The authenticity of these papers cannot be doubted."

"With all my heart. I have no objections to be made a marquis of, and go back to la belle France, out of this land of plague and fog. Won't some of my friends here be astonished when they hear it, particularly the Earl of Rochester, when he finds out that he has had a marquis for a page? Ah, here comes George, and bearing a summons from Count L'Estrange at last."

George approached, and intimated that Sir Norman was to follow him to the presence of his master.

"Au revoir, then," said Hubert. "You will find me here when you come back."

Sir Norman, with a slight tremor of the nerves at what was to come, followed the king's page through halls and anterooms, full of loiterers, courtiers, and their attendants. Once a hand was laid on his shoulder, a laughing voice met his ear, and the Earl of Rochester stood beside him!

"Good-morning, Sir Norman; you are abroad betimes. How have you left your friend, the Count L'Estrange?"

"Your lordship has probably seen him since I have, and should be able to answer that question best."

"And how does his suit progress with the pretty Leoline?" went on the gay earl. "In faith, Kingsley, I never saw such a charming little beauty; and I shall do combat with you yet--with both the count and yourself, and outwit the pair of you!"

"Permit me to differ from your lordship. Leoline would not touch you with a pair of tongs!"

"Ah! she has better taste than you give her credit for; but if I should fail, I know what to do to console myself."

"May I ask what?"

"Yes! there is Hubert, as like her an two peas in a pod. I shall dress him up in lace and silks, and gewgaws, and have a Leoline of my own already made its order."

"Permit me to doubt that, too! Hubert is as much lost to you as Leoline!"

Leaving the volatile earl to put what construction pleased him best on this last sententious remark, he resumed his march after George, and was ushered, at last, into an ante-room near the audience-chamber. Count L'Estrange, still attired as Count L'Estrange, stood near a window overlooking the court-yard, and as the page salaamed and withdrew, he turned round, and greeted Sir Norman with his suavest air.

"The appointed hour is passed, Sir Norman Kingsley, but that is partly your own fault. Your guide hither tells me that you stopped for some time at the house of a fortune-teller, known as La Masque. Why was this!"

"I was forced to stop on most important business," answered the knight, still resolved to treat him as the count, until it should please him to doff his incognito, "of which you shall hear anon. Just now, our business is with Leoline."

"True! And as in a short time I start with yonder cavalcade, there is but little time to lose. Apropos, Kingsley, who is that mysterious woman, La Masque?"

"She is, or was (for she is dead sow) a French lady, of noble birth, and the sister of Leoline!"

"Her sister! And have you discovered Leoline's history?"

"I have."

"And her name!"

"And her name. She is Leoline De Montmorenci! And with the proudest blood of France in her veins, living obscure and unknown--a stranger in a strange land since childhood; but, with God's grace and your help, I hope to see her restored to all she has lost, before long."

"You know me, then?" said his companion, half-smiling.

"Yes, your majesty," answered Sir Norman, bowing low before the king.


CHAPTER XXIII. FINIS

As the last glimpse of moonlight and of Hubert's bright face vanished, Leoline took to pacing up and down the room in a most conflicting and excited state of mind. So many things had happened during the past night; so rapid and unprecedented had been the course of events; so changed had her whole life become within the last twelve hours, that when she came to think it all over, it fairly made her giddy. Dressing for her bridal; the terrible announcement of Prudence; the death-like swoon; the awakening at the plague-pit; the maniac flight through the streets; the cold plunge in the river; her rescue; her interview with Sir Norman, and her promise; the visit of La Masque; the appearance of the count; her abduction; her journey here; the coming of Hubert, and their suddenly-discovered relationship. It was enough to stun any one; and the end was not yet. Would Hubert effect his escape? Would they be able to free her? What place was this, and who was Count L'Estrange? It was a great deal easier to propound this catechism to herself than to find answers to her own questions; and so she walked up and down, worrying her pretty little head with all sorts of anxieties, until it was a perfect miracle that softening of the brain did not ensue.

Her