The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 319: what you’re looking at

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THE MYSTERIES. famy greater and more terrible than what we already know—and that is exposure before the world !” “True? ejaculated the King. “These very walls may have ears I” “Silence for a moment!” said the baronet: and noiselessly opening the door, he looked forth upon the staircase and listened. “ We are safe thus far—and the dreadful secret is known but to us three,” he ob- _ served, returning into the room and shutting the door. “ All is quieé in the house—and besides, the worthy couple to whom it belongs are not eaves-droppers.” ‘The secret, then, remains with ourselves — and with our consciences,” said the Princess Amelia, the accent of despair marking the latter portion of the sentence. “But what brought you hither, father ?— and does any one suspect or know that I have been accustomed to visit this house——” « I¢ was no hint nor information of that kind which brought me here to-night,” interrupted the King. “Nature's yearnings prompted me to seek an inter- view with that son who knew not the secret of his birth, and whom perhaps I should not have acknow- ledged, had not the ecene which burst upon my eyes evoked the dread revelation from my lips. But tell me, unhappy children—tell me—are you privately married ?— has the ceremony of the church seemed to consecrate this love of yours ?” “Ah! how could a Princess of the blood-royal go through such a mock form? and who would celebrate the rite?” demanded Amelia bitterly. “No, siro— our love has been in every way unblest: and now it is positively accursed,” she added, sinking back upon the chair and giving vent to her renewed anguish in a flood of scalding tears. “ Weep not, Amelia—weep not, I conjure you!” ex- Vaimed the baronet, himself almost overcome with a fresh peroxysm of bitter feeling. “The past cannot be recalled—nor even expiated,” he continued, in a voice convulsed with anguish: “but penitence and deep contrition may atone for somewhat of its enor- mity. God knows that we sinned in ignorance of these close ties of kinship ?” “Come, my unhappy Amelia,” said the King; “ and let us retarn home. The prolongation of this wretched scene will only plunge us all into a deeper abyss of woe—if that be possible. Richard, I will eee you again shortly—when our minds shall have be- come more compoeetl.” Bat the miserable baronet heard not the words which his royal father thus addressed to him. With his head buried in his hands, he sate writhing and weep- ing upon the sofa ;—and when he raised his eyes again, at the expiration of a few minutes, he found himself alone. CHAPTER CCI. THE MILLINER AND HER MASTER. THE scene once more shifts to Mrs. Brace's elegantly furnished little parlour at her house in Pall Mall ; and between ten and eleven o'clock at night we shall find her seated in that room where she had received in her time so many distinguished visitors. She was not alone upon the present occasion. Mr. Frederick Dray, metamorphosed into a fine gentleman, was her companion ;—and having just retarned from a gambling-honse where he hati been losing a con- eiderable sum of money, he was in a particularly bad humour. Moreover, the man had felt unwell for the last two or three days;—and as it was the first time in all his life that he had suffered from indisposition, he was not very patient under the influence of the disagreeable sensations which he experienced. The milliner herself was much altered. Her coun- tenance was haggard and care-worn; and the rouge upon her cheeks only rendered her aspect the more ghastly. Her eyes, once so fine, were sunken and hol- low: their lustre had become dimmed—and the flash was blue around them. Her figure had lost much of its glorious embonpoint ; and, although still stout, it no longer wore the appearance of plumpness and firmness which formerly constituted the voluptuous richness of her contours. There was still the same elegant neatness in her apparel—still the same coguetry in her Parisian cap: but the effect was no longer what it was wont to be—and the most careless eye could now perceive that those aids of an exqui- site toilette which had recently set off the milliner’s charms to the best advantage, were now called into requisition to conoeal the decay of her fading beauty. The hue of her lips was less vivid—and although the teeth were as fine as ever, the smile that occa- sionally revealed them was sickly and wan. The motions and attitudes of the milliner had lost their baxom graces and their elasticity: they were now languid and drooping. A melancholy infiection had subdued the harmonious joyousness of her voice: care was in every look—woe upon every feature— sorrow in every accent ;—and the buxom, gay, and wanton Mrs. Brace had become changed in the course of a short time into the fading, broken-spirited, and passionless woman, The supper was spread upon the table, and two or three bottles of wine stood upon the buffet ready to be decanted if required, when Mr. Frederick Dray entered the room. Tossing down his hat in a cerner, he flung himself into an arm-chair with the unmis- takable self-abandonment of a man who is ill at ease alike in mind and body: then fixing his cyas upon Mrs. Brace, he said ina savage tone, “ Weil, always these mournful looks whenever I come home! What the devil does it mean ?” “T have told you over and over again, Frederick,” answered the milliner, in a deep, sorrowful voice, “that I am unhappy—very unhappy; and I cannot therefore control my looks.” “Then why don't you drink champagne and drown care?” demanded Dray, brutally. “Because when the effect goes of and the period of reaction comes,” replied the woman, “I feel so miserable that I am afraid to be alone, lest I sheald commit suicide. Z'his alao have I told you before a dozen times; and yet you are always putting the same question to me.” “‘ Because I hate to see you look so cursed unhappy,” rejoined Dray. “ Wretchedness is catching — and when you're in bad spirits like this I always begin to feel such dismal forebodingsa. In fact I don’t know what the devil has been the matter with me for the last three or four days: but ome thing is certain—that I am deucedly out of sorts.” “Will you not take any supper ?” asked the milliner, but only with a sort of mechanical formality and not with any manifestation of tender concern for her pa- ramour’s indisposition. “ No—I can’t eat,” he replied ; “ and what's worse, I | seem to have got a nausea for drinking also.” — LL rarer ene eee GOH GOO SS (COLUM