Leatherface by Baroness Emmuska Orczy

Author:Baroness Emmuska Orczy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charles River Editors

CHAPTER XI. UTTER LONELINESS

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I

What happened directly after that, Lenora did not know. Consciousness mercifully left her, and when she woke once more she found herself sitting in a small room which smelt of lavender and warm linen, beside a fire which burned low in a wide-open hearth.

She opened her eyes and looked enquiringly around her. The room was dark—only faintly lighted by the lamp which hung from a beam in the ceiling. A young girl was busy in a corner of the room bending over an ironing board.

“Does the noble lady feel better?” she asked kindly but with all the deference which those of the subject race were expected to show to their superiors.

She spoke in broken French—most women and men who served in the inns and taverns in the cities of the Low Countries were obliged to know some other language besides their own, seeing that the tapperijen were frequented by Spanish, French and German soldiery.

“I am quite well, I thank thee,” replied Lenora gently, “but wilt thou tell me where I am and how I came to be sitting here when...”

She paused; for with a rush the recollection of the past terrible moments came sweeping back upon her, and it seemed as if consciousness would flee from her once again.

“The noble lady must have felt dizzy,” said the girl quietly. “Aunt sent me in with the warm water for the noble seigneur’s wound, and I saw the noble lady just running out of the tapperij to the porch and then fall—in a swoon. I was frightened, but the noble seigneur ordered me quickly to tie a towel around his wounded arm and then he carried the noble lady up here to a nice warm room, where he told me that mayhap she should deign to pass the night. Oh! the noble seigneur is grievously wounded, he...”

“Silence, girl,” cried Lenora suddenly, for indeed with every word the child seemed to be touching an aching place in her heart. “No, no,” she added more gently, seeing that the girl, abashed and not a little frightened, had gone back in silence to her ironing-board, “I did not mean to be unkind ... but ... as thou seest, I am not well. Come! tell me what happened after ... after the noble seigneur carried me up here.”

“Aunt waited on him, noble lady,” said the girl, “for the wound in his arm bled grievously ... but he was impatient and soon ordered her to leave him alone ... then I came up here, and did all I could to bring the noble lady round.... I tried vinegar and burned feathers under the noble lady’s nose ... but I was not frightened ... I knew the noble lady would revive ... and the leech lives but two doors off.... We were all of us anxious about the noble seigneur ... because of his wound ... and he looked so pale and haggard ... so aunt and I soon ran down to him again.... We found him sitting by the table .

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