CHAPTER XIII.
AN ILL-FATED GIRL.
The merry actors and actresses all began to chaff Berry on her pale face and frightened eyes.
“She is actually scared!” “What did the old hag tell you, dear?” “She gave all of us fine fortunes!” they chimed in together. But Berry put them aside with a trembling hand, and sank, half fainting, into the nearest seat.
Mrs. Hopson, the housekeeper, came to her rescue.
“Don’t pester the poor child till she gets over her scare. Land sakes, miss, don’t take that nonsense to heart, please. Them old Indian squaws don’t know the future any better than you do!” she said kindly, but Berry did not hear the well-meant words. She had fainted.
When she came to herself she was lying on a cot in Mrs. Hopson’s room, and all the others were gone.
“You were so long coming around I told them I’d keep you all night, or send you back in a carriage when you felt better,” she explained.
“Oh, you are very kind. I—I think that I will go presently, when I am a little stronger. But do not let me, dear Mrs. Hopson, keep you from your duties. I can lie here alone, please,” faltered Berry eagerly.
“Very good, my dear miss, for I have many things to see to to-night, and I’ll be very glad to have you for my guest till morning,” returned the good woman, pressing a glass of wine on the young girl, and then going out with a promise to be back in an hour.
Left alone, Berry lifted her head and glanced eagerly at the clock.
“Midnight—it lacks half an hour to it yet. Oh, must I keep that strange tryst or not? Am I indeed menaced by so terrible a fate, and can this old Indian really prevent the doom by the loan of so singular a charm as she offers? It seems very foolish, but I have heard my dear mother and her cronies often reiterate the same thing—that a person born with a caul over the face—that is to say, a thin membrane of skin that may be dried and preserved—is the fortunate possessor of a charm against drowning—that such a charm may be bought or loaned, and always proves a safeguard. How very strange; but there are many things we cannot understand! And what was it the old fortune teller said of me? I was fated to die a terrible death by water in twenty-four hours, unless I could procure such a charm. She possessed one herself that she would lend me for one week, when the risk would be over, but she must first go home and procure it, and she would meet me in the grounds on the northern walk going to the private zoo at the stroke of twelve. Shall I go? Is it worth while living when one is alone in the world as I am, for all my kindred now living are uncongenial to me, and there can never be any love story for poor, deceived Berry, who gave her heart too easily at first, but can never take it back again?”
With a bursting sob, the girl pushed back the heavy locks from her forehead, murmuring on:
“Can it be true, as that old hag assured me, that my dear, dear mother is dead? But she read my palm like an open book. I can see her yet peering into my palm, hear her cracked, sepulchral voice mouthing such dreadful words: ‘Little girl, your rosy palm has all the secrets of your life clearly written there. You have drunk deep of the cup of love, but the dregs were bitter; you looked above you for a lover, but you had a beautiful rival, a high-born lady, who held his heart and his hand. Hopeless of ever winning your heart’s idol, and destined by your mother to a marriage for money, you deserted your home, and fled far away with new friends. Is it not so?’”
“You have spoken the truth,” sobbed hapless Berry. “Oh, I did not dream you could find all that in the palm of my hand. But now you have told me of the past, read me the story of my future. Tell me what awaits the most ill-fated girl in the world.”
“You may well say ill-fated,” croaked the hag, still clutching the little white hand, and peering into its lines as one reads an open book; “I read horror upon horror here, and—it is better not to know.”
“Yes, tell me all,” cried Berry recklessly; “go on, go on!”
With a heartless chuckle the seeress muttered:
“Before I touch on the impending tragedy of your future I must return to the past. The old mother who loved you so dearly, whom you deserted so cruelly in her old age—that old mother lies dead!”
“Oh, no, no, no!” sobbed Berry, sinking to her knees in despair.
“It is true,” croaked the sibyl. “She lies dead, and her last word was a curse upon your wicked head.”
“Not wicked; oh, no—only weak and suffering,” moaned the girl. “Oh, mother, now I have indeed nothing to live for, nothing to love.”
“That is just as well, girl, for fate hangs heavy over your head,” croaked the hag.
“What fate could be more cruel than mine?” sobbed Berry wildly.
The old Indian wagged her turbaned head, muttering low:
“Death is the most cruel fate of all when it overtakes the young, the beautiful, the loving. It is death that menaces you, girl—death in a horrible form by drowning!”
“Why should I tremble at death? I have nothing but toil and sorrow in my life,” cried Berry wearily, with the tears running down her face.
Again the woman peered into her hand, replying:
“The doom is not a certainty, only a risk. It may be averted, and if you escape it, there will come a wondrous change in your life. There will be years of love and happiness and wealth before you.”
“You are sure, quite sure?” the girl cried piteously.
“It is written, and nothing can alter it,” cried the seeress, and Berry thought of some words she had read in a book of Eastern verses:
The moving finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all your piety, nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.
She knelt there sobbing piteously, as a beaten child, and that cracked voice went on, and on:
“I can save your life, girl, and I will do it, because you are so young and so fair that I pity you. If you will meet me on the stroke of twelve down in the Bonair grounds in the northern walk leading to the private zoo, I will lend you for a week a charm against drowning—for nothing, because I pity you so. When the week is ended the danger will be past, and a long and happy life lies before you. Is it worth the trouble? Will you come?”
“I—I—yes, I will come!” faltered Berry wildly; then she fled from the hag’s presence, followed by a low, exultant laugh, and in the hall she fainted with the horror of all she had heard, believing that the woman must indeed be gifted with supernatural powers.
Now that she was alone, it all rushed wildly over her, and she knew that she must go to receive the mysterious charm that could avert her impending doom of death.
“I can go and be back again before the kind housekeeper returns,” she thought, slipping out of the room and stealing like a shadow along the dim corridors till she reached a door that led out upon the beautiful grounds into the calm, sweet night.