CHAPTER LVII. HELENA’S DIARY RESUMED.
So it was all settled between them. Philip is to throw me away, like one of his bad cigars, for this unanswerable reason: “Helena disgusts me.” And he is to persuade Eunice to take my place, and be his wife. Yes! if I let him do it.
I heard no more of their talk. With that last, worst outrage burning in my memory, I left the place.
On my way back to the carriage, the dog met me. Truly, a grand creature. I called him by his name, and patted him. He licked my hand. Something made me speak to him. I said: “If I was to tell you to tear Mr. Philip Dunboyne to pieces, would you do it?” The great good-natured brute held out his paw to shake hands. Well! well! I was not an object of disgust to the dog.
But the coachman was startled, when he saw me again. He said something, I did not know what it was; and he produced a pocket-flask, containing some spirits, I suppose. Perhaps he thought I was going to faint. He little knew me. I told him to drive back to the place at which I had hired the cab, and earn his money. He earned it.
On getting home, I found Mrs. Tenbruggen walking up and down the dining-room, deep in thought. She was startled when we first confronted each other. “You look dreadfully ill,” she said.
I answered that I had been out for a little exercise, and had over-fatigued myself; and then changed the subject. “Does my father seem to improve under your treatment?” I asked.
“Very far from it, my dear. I promised that I would try what Massage would do for him, and I find myself compelled to give it up.”
“Why?”
“It excites him dreadfully.”
“In what way?”
“He has been talking wildly of events in his past life. His brain is in some condition which is beyond my powers of investigation. He pointed to a cabinet in his room, and said his past life was locked up there. I asked if I should unlock it. He shook with fear; he said I should let out the ghost of his dead brother-in-law. Have you any idea of what he meant?”
The cabinet was full of old letters. I could tell her that—and could tell her no more. I had never heard of his brother-in-law. Another of his delusions, no doubt. “Did you ever hear him speak,” Mrs. Tenbruggen went on, “of a place called Low Lanes?”
She waited for my reply to this last inquiry with an appearance of anxiety that surprised me. I had never heard him speak of Low Lanes.
“Have you any particular interest in the place?” I asked.
“None whatever.”
She went away to attend on a patient. I retired to my bedroom, and opened my Diary. Again and again, I read that remarkable story of the intended poisoning, and of the manner in which it had ended. I sat thinking over this romance in real life till I was interrupted by the announcement of dinner.
Mr. Philip Dunboyne had returned. In Miss Jillgall’s absence we were alone at the table. My appetite was gone. I made a pretense of eating, and another pretense of being glad to see my devoted lover. I talked to him in the prettiest manner. As a hypocrite, he thoroughly matched me; he was gallant, he was amusing. If baseness like ours had been punishable by the law, a prison was the right place for both of us.
Mrs. Tenbruggen came in again after dinner, still not quite easy about my health. “How flushed you are!” she said. “Let me feel your pulse.” I laughed, and left her with Mr. Philip Dunboyne.
Passing my father’s door, I looked in, anxious to see if he was in the excitable state which Mrs. Tenbruggen had described. Yes; the effect which she had produced on him—how, she knows best—had not passed away yet: he was still talking. The attendant told me it had gone on for hours together. On my approaching his chair, he called out: “Which are you? Eunice or Helena?” When I had answered him, he beckoned me to come nearer. “I am getting stronger every minute,” he said. “We will go traveling to-morrow, and see the place where you were born.”
Where had I been born? He had never told me where. Had he mentioned the place in Mrs. Tenbruggen’s hearing? I asked the attendant if he had been present while she was in the room. Yes; he had remained at his post; he had also heard the allusion to the place with the odd name. Had Mr. Gracedieu said anything more about that place? Nothing more; the poor Minister’s mind had wandered off to other things. He was wandering now. Sometimes, he was addressing his congregation; sometimes, he wondered what they would give him for supper; sometimes, he talked of the flowers in the garden. And then he looked at me, and frowned, and said I prevented him from thinking.
I went back to my bedroom, and opened my Diary, and read the story again.
Was the poison of which that resolute young wife proposed to make use something that acted slowly, and told the doctors nothing if they looked for it after death?
Would it be running too great a risk to show the story to the doctor, and try to get a little valuable information in that way? It would be useless. He would make some feeble joke; he would say, girls and poisons are not fit company for each other.
But I might discover what I want to know in another way. I might call on the doctor, after he has gone out on his afternoon round of visits, and might tell the servant I would wait for his master’s return. Nobody would be in my way; I might get at the medical literature in the consulting-room, and find the information for myself.
A knock at my door interrupted me in the midst of my plans. Mrs. Tenbruggen again!—still in a fidgety state of feeling on the subject of my health. “Which is it?” she said. “Pain of body, my dear, or pain of mind? I am anxious about you.”
“My dear Elizabeth, your sympathy is thrown away on me. As I have told you already, I am over-tired—nothing more.”
She was relieved to hear that I had no mental troubles to complain of. “Fatigue,” she remarked, “sets itself right with rest. Did you take a very long walk?”
“Yes.”
“Beyond the limits of the town, of course? Philip has been taking a walk in the country, too. He doesn’t say that he met you.”
These clever people sometimes overreach themselves. How she suggested it to me, I cannot pretend to have discovered. But I did certainly suspect that she had led Philip, while they were together downstairs, into saying to her what he had already said to Miss Jillgall. I was so angry that I tried to pump my excellent friend, as she had been trying to pump me—a vulgar expression, but vulgar writing is such a convenient way of writing sometimes. My first attempt to entrap the Masseuse failed completely. She coolly changed the subject.
“Have I interrupted you in writing?” she asked, pointing to my Diary.
“No; I was idling over what I have written already—an extraordinary story which I copied from a book.”
“May I look at it?”
I pushed the open Diary across the table. If I was the object of any suspicions which she wanted to confirm, it would be curious to see if the poisoning story helped her. “It’s a piece of family history,” I said; “I think you will agree with me that it is really interesting.”
She began to read. As she went on, not all her power of controlling herself could prevent her from turning pale. This change of color (in such a woman) a little alarmed me. When a girl is devoured by deadly hatred of a man, does the feeling show itself to other persons in her face? I must practice before the glass and train my face into a trustworthy state of discipline.
“Coarse melodrama!” Mrs. Tenbruggen declared. “Mere sensation. No analysis of character. A made-up story!”
“Well made up, surely?” I answered.
“I don’t agree with you.” Her voice was not quite so steady as usual. She asked suddenly if my clock was right—and declared that she should be late for an appointment. On taking leave she pressed my hand strongly—eyed me with distrustful attention and said, very emphatically: “Take care of yourself, Helena; pray take care of yourself.”
I am afraid I did a very foolish thing when I showed her the poisoning story. Has it helped the wily old creature to look into my inmost thoughts?
Impossible!
To-day, Miss Jillgall returned, looking hideously healthy and spitefully cheerful. Although she tried to conceal it, while I was present, I could see that Philip had recovered his place in her favor. After what he had said to her behind the hedge at the farm, she would be relieved from all fear of my becoming his wife, and would joyfully anticipate his marriage to Eunice. There are thoughts in me which I don’t set down in my book. I only say: We shall see.
This afternoon, I decided on visiting the doctor. The servant was quite sorry for me when he answered the door. His master had just left the house for a round of visits. I said I would wait. The servant was afraid I should find waiting very tedious. I reminded him that I could go away if I found it tedious. At last, the polite old man left me.
I went into the consulting-room, and read the backs of the medical books ranged round the walls, and found a volume that interested me. There was such curious information in it that I amused myself by making extracts, using the first sheets of paper that I could find. They had printed directions at the top, which showed that the doctor was accustomed to write his prescriptions on them. We had many, too many, of his prescriptions in our house.
The servant’s doubts of my patience proved to have been well founded. I got tired of waiting, and went home before the doctor returned.
From morning to night, nothing has been seen of Mrs. Tenbruggen to-day. Nor has any apology for her neglect of us been received, fond as she is of writing little notes. Has that story in my Diary driven her away? Let me see what to-morrow may bring forth.
To-day has brought forth—nothing. Mrs. Tenbruggen still keeps away from us. It looks as if my Diary had something to do with the mystery of her absence.
I am not in good spirits to-day. My nerves—if I have such things, which is more than I know by my own experience—have been a little shaken by a horrid dream. The medical information, which my thirst for knowledge absorbed in the doctor’s consulting-room, turned traitor—armed itself with the grotesque horrors of nightmare—and so thoroughly frightened me that I was on the point of being foolish enough to destroy my notes. I thought better of it, and my notes are safe under lock and key.
Mr. Philip Dunboyne is trying to pave the way for his flight from this house. He speaks of friends in London, whose interest will help him to find the employment which is the object of his ambition. “In a few days more,” he said, “I shall ask for leave of absence.”
Instead of looking at me, his eyes wandered to the window; his fingers played restlessly with his watch-chain while he spoke. I thought I would give him a chance, a last chance, of making the atonement that he owes to me. This shows shameful weakness, on my part. Does my own resolution startle me? Or does the wretch appeal—to what? To my pity? It cannot be my love; I am positively sure that I hate him. Well, I am not the first girl who had been an unanswerable riddle to herself.
“Is there any other motive for your departure?” I asked.
“What other motive can there be?” he replied. I put what I had to say to him in plainer words still. “Tell me, Philip, are you beginning to wish that you were a free man again?”
He still prevaricated. Was this because he is afraid of me, or because he is not quite brute enough to insult me to my face? I tried again for the third and last time. I almost put the words into his mouth.
“I fancy you have been out of temper lately,” I said. “You have not been your own kinder and better self. Is this the right interpretation of the change that I think I see in you?”
He answered: “I have not been very well lately.”
“And that is all?”
“Yes—that is all.”
There was no more to be said; I turned away to leave the room. He followed me to the door. After a momentary hesitation, he made the attempt to kiss me. I only looked at him—he drew back from me in silence. I left the new Judas, standing alone, while the shades of evening began to gather over the room.
Third Period (continued).
EVENTS IN THE FAMILY, RELATED BY MISS JILLGALL.
CHAPTER LVIII. DANGER.
“If anything of importance happens, I trust to you to write an account of it, and to send the writing to me. I will come to you at once, if I see reason to believe that my presence is required.” Those lines, in your last kind reply to me, rouse my courage, dear Mr. Governor, and sharpen the vigilance which has always been one of the strong points in my character. Every suspicious circumstance which occurs in this house will be (so to speak) seized on by my pen, and will find itself (so to speak again) placed on its trial, before your unerring judgment! Let the wicked tremble! I mention no names.
Taking up my narrative where it came to an end when I last wrote, I have to say a word first on the subject of my discoveries, in regard to Philip’s movements.
The advertisement of a private inquiry office, which I read in a newspaper, put the thing into my head. I provided myself with money to pay the expenses by—I blush while I write it—pawning my watch. This humiliation of my poor self has been rewarded by success. Skilled investigation has proved that our young man has come to his senses again, exactly as I supposed. On each occasion when he was suspiciously absent from the house, he has been followed to the farm. I have been staying there myself for a day or two, in the hope of persuading Eunice to relent. The hope has not yet been realized. But Philip’s devotion, assisted by my influence, will yet prevail. Let me not despair.
Whether Helena knows positively that she has lost her wicked hold on Philip I cannot say. It seems hardly possible that she could have made the discovery just yet. The one thing of which I am certain is, that she looks like a fiend.
Philip has wisely taken my advice, and employed pious fraud. He will get away from the wretch, who has tempted him once and may tempt him again, under pretense of using the interest of his friends in London to find a place under Government. He has not been very well for the last day or two, and the execution of our project is in consequence delayed.
I have news of Mrs. Tenbruggen which will, I think, surprise you.
She has kept away from us in a most unaccountable manner. I called on her at the hotel, and heard she was engaged with her lawyer. On the next day, she suddenly returned to her old habits, and paid the customary visit. I observed a similar alteration in her state of feeling. She is now coldly civil to Helena; and she asks after Eunice with a maternal interest touching to see—I said to her: “Elizabeth, you appear to have changed your opinion of the two girls, since I saw you.” She answered, with a delightful candor which reminded me of old times: “Completely!” I said: “A woman of your intellectual caliber, dear, doesn’t change her mind without a good reason for it.” Elizabeth cordially agreed with me. I ventured to be a little more explicit: “You have no doubt made some interesting discovery.” Elizabeth agreed again; and I ventured again: “I suppose I may not ask what the discovery is?” “No, Selina, you may not ask.”
This is curious; but it is nothing to what I have got to tell you next. Just as I was longing to take her to my bosom again as my friend and confidante, Elizabeth has disappeared. And, alas! alas! there is a reason for it which no sympathetic person can dispute.
I have just received some overwhelming news, in the form of a neat parcel, addressed to myself.
There has been a scandal at the hotel. That monster in human form, Elizabeth’s husband, is aware of his wife’s professional fame, has heard of the large sums of money which she earns as the greatest living professor of massage, has been long on the lookout for her, and has discovered her at last. He has not only forced his way into her sitting-room at the hotel; he insists on her living with him again; her money being the attraction, it is needless to say. If she refuses, he threatens her with the law, the barbarous law, which, to use his own coarse expression, will “restore his conjugal rights.”
All this I gather from the narrative of my unhappy friend, which forms one of the two inclosures in her parcel. She has already made her escape. Ha! the man doesn’t live who can circumvent Elizabeth. The English Court of Law isn’t built which can catch her when she roams the free and glorious Continent.
The vastness of this amazing woman’s mind is what I must pause to admire. In the frightful catastrophe that has befallen her, she can still think of Philip and Euneece. She is eager to hear of their marriage, and renounces Helena with her whole heart. “I too was deceived by that cunning young Woman,” she writes. “Beware of her, Selina. Unless I am much mistaken, she is going to end badly. Take care of Philip, take care of Euneece. If you want help, apply at once to my favorite hero in real life, The Governor.” I don’t presume to correct Elizabeth’s language. I should have called you The idol of the Women.
The second inclosure contains, as I suppose, a wedding present. It is carefully sealed—it feels no bigger than an ordinary letter—and it contains an inscription which your highly-cultivated intelligence may be able to explain. I copy it as follows:
“To be inclosed in another envelope, addressed to Mr. Dunboyne the elder, at Percy’s Private Hotel, London, and delivered by a trustworthy messenger, on the day when Mr. Philip Dunboyne is married to Miss Eunice Gracedieu. Placed meanwhile under the care of Miss Selina Jillgall.”
Why is this mysterious letter to be sent to Philip’s father? I wonder whether that circumstance will puzzle you as it has puzzled me.
I have kept my report back, so as to send you the last news relating to Philip’s state of health. To my great regret, his illness seems to have made a serious advance since yesterday. When I ask if he is in pain, he says: “It isn’t exactly pain; I feel as if I was sinking. Sometimes I am giddy; and sometimes I find myself feeling thirsty and sick.” I have no opportunity of looking after him as I could wish; for Helena insists on nursing him, assisted by the housemaid. Maria is a very good girl in her way, but too stupid to be of much use. If he is not better to-morrow, I shall insist on sending for the doctor.
He is no better; and he wishes to have medical help. Helena doesn’t seem to understand his illness. It was not until Philip had insisted on seeing him that she consented to send for the doctor.
You had some talk with this experienced physician when you were here, and you know what a clever man he is. When I tell you that he hesitates to say what is the matter with Philip, you will feel as much alarmed as I do. I will wait to send this to the post until I can write in a more definite way.
Two days more have passed. The doctor has put two very strange questions to me.
He asked, first, if there was anybody staying with us besides the regular members of the household. I said we had no visitor. He wanted to know, next, if Mr. Philip Dunboyne had made any enemies since he has been living in our town. I said none that I knew of—and I took the liberty of asking what he meant. He answered to this, that he has a few more inquiries to make, and that he will tell me what he means to-morrow.
For God’s sake come here as soon as you possibly can. The whole burden is thrown on me—and I am quite unequal to it.
I received the doctor to-day in the drawing-room. To my amazement, he begged leave to speak with me in the garden. When I asked why, he answered: “I don’t want to have a listener at the door. Come out on the lawn, where we can be sure that we are alone.”
When we were in the garden, he noticed that I was trembling.
“Rouse your courage, Miss Jillgall,” he said. “In the Minister’s helpless state there is nobody whom I can speak to but yourself.”
I ventured to remind him that he might speak to Helena as well as to myself.
He looked as black as thunder when I mentioned her name. All he said was, “No!” But, oh, if you had heard his voice—and he so gentle and sweet-tempered at other times—you would have felt, as I did, that he had Helena in his mind!
“Now, listen to this,” he went on. “Everything that my art can do for Mr. Philip Dunboyne, while I am at his bedside, is undone while I am away by some other person. He is worse to-day than I have seen him yet.”
“Oh, sir, do you think he will die?”
“He will certainly die unless the right means are taken to save him, and taken at once. It is my duty not to flinch from telling you the truth. I have made a discovery since yesterday which satisfies me that I am right. Somebody is trying to poison Mr. Dunboyne; and somebody will succeed unless he is removed from this house.”
I am a poor feeble creature. The doctor caught me, or I should have dropped on the grass. It was not a fainting-fit. I only shook and shivered so that I was too weak to stand up. Encouraged by the doctor, I recovered sufficiently to be able to ask him where Philip was to be taken to. He said: “To the hospital. No poisoner can follow my patient there. Persuade him to let me take him away, when I call again in an hour’s time.”
As soon as I could hold a pen, I sent a telegram to you. Pray, pray come by the earliest train. I also telegraphed to old Mr. Dunboyne, at the hotel in London.
It was impossible for me to face Helena; I own I was afraid. The cook kindly went upstairs to see who was in Philip’s room. It was the housemaid’s turn to look after him for a while. I went instantly to his bedside.
There was no persuading him to allow himself to be taken to the hospital. “I am dying,” he said. “If you have any pity for me, send for Euneece. Let me see her once more, let me hear her say that she forgives me, before I die.”
I hesitated. It was too terrible to think of Euneece in the same house with her sister. Her life might be in danger! Philip gave me a look, a dreadful ghastly look. “If you refuse,” he said wildly, “the grave won’t hold me. I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.”
“She shall hear that you are ill,” I answered—and ran out of the room before he could speak again.
What I had promised to write, I did write. But, placed between Euneece’s danger and Philip’s danger, my heart was all for Euneece. Would Helena spare her, if she came to Philip’s bedside? In such terror as I never felt before in my life, I added a word more, entreating her not to leave the farm. I promised to keep her regularly informed on the subject of Philip’s illness; and I mentioned that I expected the Governor to return to us immediately. “Do nothing,” I wrote, “without his advice.” My letter having been completed, I sent the cook away with it, in a chaise. She belonged to the neighborhood, and she knew the farmhouse well. Nearly two hours afterward, I heard the chaise stop at the door, and ran out, impatient to hear how my sweet girl had received my letter. God help us all! When I opened the door, the first person whom I saw was Euneece herself.
CHAPTER LIX. DEFENSE.
One surprise followed another, after I had encountered Euneece at the door.
When my fondness had excused her for setting the well-meant advice in my letter at defiance, I was conscious of expecting to see her in tears; eager, distressingly eager, to hear what hope there might be of Philip’s recovery. I saw no tears, I heard no inquiries. She was pale, and quiet, and silent. Not a word fell from her when we met, not a word when she kissed me, not a word when she led the way into the nearest room—the dining-room. It was only when we were shut in together that she spoke.
“Which is Philip’s room?” she asked.
Instead of wanting to know how he was, she desired to know where he was! I pointed toward the back dining-room, which had been made into a bedroom for Philip. He had chosen it himself, when he first came to stay with us, because the window opened into the garden, and he could slip out and smoke at any hour of the day or night, when he pleased.
“Who is with him now?” was the next strange thing this sadly-changed girl said to me.
“Maria is taking her turn,” I answered; “she assists in nursing Philip.”
“Where is—?” Euneece got no further than that. Her breath quickened, her color faded away. I had seen people look as she was looking now, when they suffered under some sudden pain. Before I could offer to help her, she rallied, and went on: “Where,” she began again, “is the other nurse?”
“You mean Helena?” I said.
“I mean the Poisoner.”
When I remind you, dear Mr. Governor, that my letter had carefully concealed from her the horrible discovery made by the doctor, your imagination will picture my state of mind. She saw that I was overpowered. Her sweet nature, so strangely frozen up thus far, melted at last. “You don’t know what I have heard,” she said, “you don’t know what thoughts have been roused in me.” She left her chair, and sat on my knee with the familiarity of the dear old times, and took the letter that I had written to her from her pocket.
“Look at it yourself,” she said, “and tell me if anybody could read it, and not see that you were concealing something. My dear, I have driven round by the doctor’s house—I have seen him—I have persuaded him, or perhaps I ought to say surprised him, into telling me the truth. But the kind old man is obstinate. He wouldn’t believe me when I told him I was on my way here to save Philip’s life. He said: ‘My child, you will only put your own life in jeopardy. If I had not seen that danger, I should never have told you of the dreadful state of things at home. Go back to the good people at the farm, and leave the saving of Philip to me.’”
“He was right, Euneece, entirely right.”
“No, dear, he was wrong. I begged him to come here, and judge for himself; and I ask you to do the same.”
I was obstinate. “Go back!” I persisted. “Go back to the farm!”
“Can I see Philip?” she asked.
I have heard some insolent men say that women are like cats. If they mean that we do, figuratively speaking, scratch at times, I am afraid they are not altogether wrong. An irresistible impulse made me say to poor Euneece: “This is a change indeed, since you refused to receive Philip.”
“Is there no change in the circumstances?” she asked sadly. “Isn’t he ill and in danger?”
I begged her to forgive me; I said I meant no harm.
“I gave him up to my sister,” she continued, “when I believed that his happiness depended, not on me, but on her. I take him back to myself, when he is at the mercy of a demon who threatens his life. Come, Selina, let us go to Philip.”
She put her arm round me, and made me get up from my chair. I was so easily persuaded by her, that the fear of what Helena’s jealousy and Helena’s anger might do was scarcely present in my thoughts. The door of communication was locked on the side of the bedchamber. I went into the hall, to enter Philip’s room by the other door. She followed, waiting behind me. I heard what passed between them when Maria went out to her.
“Where is Miss Gracedieu?”
“Resting upstairs, miss, in her room.”
“Look at the clock, and tell me when you expect her to come down here.”
“I am to call her, miss, in ten minutes more.”
“Wait in the dining-room, Maria, till I come back to you.”
She joined me. I held the door open for her to go into Philip’s room. It was not out of curiosity; the feeling that urged me was sympathy, when I waited a moment to see their first meeting. She bent over the poor, pallid, trembling, suffering man, and raised him in her arms, and laid his head on her bosom. “My Philip!” She murmured those words in a kiss. I closed the door, I had a good cry; and, oh, how it comforted me!
There was only a minute to spare when she came out of the room. Maria was waiting for her. Euneece said, as quietly as ever: “Go and call Miss Gracedieu.”
The girl looked at her, and saw—I don’t know what. Maria became alarmed. But she went up the stairs, and returned in haste to tell us that her young mistress was coming down.
The faint rustling of Helena’s dress as she left her room reached us in the silence. I remained at the open door of the dining-room, and Maria approached and stood near me. We were both frightened. Euneece stepped forward, and stood on the mat at the foot of the stairs, waiting. Her back was toward me; I could only see that she was as still as a statue. The rustling of the dress came nearer. Oh, heavens! what was going to happen? My teeth chattered in my head; I held by Maria’s shoulder. Drops of perspiration showed themselves on the girl’s forehead; she stared in vacant terror at the slim little figure, posted firm and still on the mat.
Helena turned the corner of the stairs, and waited a moment on the last landing, and saw her sister.
“You here?” she said. “What do you want?”
There was no reply. Helena descended, until she reached the last stair but one. There, she stopped. Her staring eyes grew large and wild; her hand shook as she stretched it out, feeling for the banister; she staggered as she caught at it, and held herself up. The silence was still unbroken. Something in me, stronger than myself, drew my steps along the hall nearer and nearer to the stair, till I could see the face which had struck that murderous wretch with terror.
I looked.
No! it was not my sweet girl; it was a horrid transformation of her. I saw a fearful creature, with glittering eyes that threatened some unimaginable vengeance. Her lips were drawn back; they showed her clinched teeth. A burning red flush dyed her face. The hair of her head rose, little by little, slowly. And, most dreadful sight of all, she seemed, in the stillness of the house, to be listening to something. If I could have moved, I should have fled to the first place of refuge I could find. If I could have raised my voice, I should have cried for help. I could do neither the one nor the other. I could only look, look, look; held by the horror of it with a hand of iron.
Helena must have roused her courage, and resisted her terror. I heard her speak:
“Let me by!”
“No.”
Slowly, steadily, in a whisper, Euneece made that reply.
Helena tried once more—still fighting against her own terror: I knew it by the trembling of her voice.
“Let me by,” she repeated; “I am on my way to Philip’s room.”
“You will never enter Philip’s room again.”
“Who will stop me?”
“I will.”
She had spoken in the same steady whisper throughout—but now she moved. I saw her set her foot on the first stair. I saw the horrid glitter in her eyes flash close into Helena’s face. I heard her say:
“Poisoner, go back to your room.”
Silent and shuddering, Helena shrank away from her—daunted by her glittering eyes; mastered by her lifted hand pointing up the stairs.
Helena slowly ascended till she reached the landing. She turned and looked down; she tried to speak. The pointing hand struck her dumb, and drove her up the next flight of stairs. She was lost to view. Only the small rustling sound of the dress was to be heard, growing fainter and fainter; then an interval of stillness; then the noise of a door opened and closed again; then no sound more—but a change to be seen: the transformed creature was crouching on her knees, still and silent, her face covered by her hands. I was afraid to approach her; I was afraid to speak to her. After a time, she rose. Suddenly, swiftly, with her head turned away from me, she opened the door of Philip’s room—and was gone.
I looked round. There was only Maria in the lonely hall. Shall I try to tell you what my sensations were? It may sound strangely, but it is true—I felt like a sleeper, who has half-awakened from a dream.
CHAPTER LX. DISCOVERY.
A little later, on that eventful day, when I was most in need of all that your wisdom and kindness could do to guide me, came the telegram which announced that you were helpless under an attack of gout. As soon as I had in some degree got over my disappointment, I remembered having told Euneece in my letter that I expected her kind old friend to come to us. With the telegram in my hand I knocked softly at Philip’s door.
The voice that bade me come in was the gentle voice that I knew so well. Philip was sleeping. There, by his bedside, with his hand resting in her hand, was Euneece, so completely restored to her own sweet self that I could hardly believe what I had seen, not an hour since. She talked of you, when I showed her your message, with affectionate interest and regret. Look back, my admirable friend, at what I have written on the two or three pages which precede this, and explain the astounding contrast if you can.
I was left alone to watch by Philip, while Euneece went away to see her father. Soon afterward, Maria took my place; I had been sent for to the next room to receive the doctor.
He looked care-worn and grieved. I said I was afraid he had brought bad news with him.
“The worst possible news,” he answered. “A terrible exposure threatens this family, and I am powerless to prevent it.”
He then asked me to remember the day when I had been surprised by the singular questions which he had put to me, and when he had engaged to explain himself after he had made some inquiries. Why, and how, he had set those inquiries on foot was what he had now to tell. I will repeat what he said, in his own words, as nearly as I can remember them. While he was in attendance on Philip, he had observed symptoms which made him suspect that Digitalis had been given to the young man, in doses often repeated. Cases of attempted poisoning by this medicine were so rare, that he felt bound to put his suspicions to the test by going round among the chemists’s shops—excepting of course the shop at which his own prescriptions were made up—and asking if they had lately dispensed any preparation of Digitalis, ordered perhaps in a larger quantity than usual. At the second shop he visited, the chemist laughed. “Why, doctor,” he said, “have you forgotten your own prescription?” After this, the prescription was asked for, and produced. It was on the paper used by the doctor—paper which had his address printed at the top, and a notice added, telling patients who came to consult him for the second time to bring their prescriptions with them. Then, there followed in writing: “Tincture of Digitalis, one ounce”—with his signature at the end, not badly imitated, but a forgery nevertheless. The chemist noticed the effect which this discovery had produced on the doctor, and asked if that was his signature. He could hardly, as an honest man, have asserted that a forgery was a signature of his own writing. So he made the true reply, and asked who had presented the prescription. The chemist called to his assistant to come forward. “Did you tell me that you knew, by sight, the young lady who brought this prescription?” The assistant admitted it. “Did you tell me she was Miss Helena Gracedieu?” “I did.” “Are you sure of not having made any mistake?” “Quite sure.” The chemist then said: “I myself supplied the Tincture of Digitalis, and the young lady paid for it, and took it away with her. You have had all the information that I can give you, sir; and I may now ask, if you can throw any light on the matter.” Our good friend thought of the poor Minister, so sorely afflicted, and of the famous name so sincerely respected in the town and in the country round, and said he could not undertake to give an immediate answer. The chemist was excessively angry. “You know as well as I do,” he said, “that Digitalis, given in certain doses, is a poison, and you cannot deny that I honestly believed myself to be dispensing your prescription. While you are hesitating to give me an answer, my character may suffer; I may be suspected myself.” He ended in declaring he should consult his lawyer. The doctor went home, and questioned his servant. The man remembered the day of Miss Helena’s visit in the afternoon, and the intention that she expressed of waiting for his master’s return. He had shown her into the parlor which opened into the consulting-room. No other visitor was in the house at that time, or had arrived during the rest of the day. The doctor’s own experience, when he got home, led him to conclude that Helena had gone into the consulting-room. He had entered that room, for the purpose of writing some prescriptions, and had found the leaves of paper that he used diminished in number. After what he had heard, and what he had discovered (to say nothing of what he suspected), it occurred to him to look along the shelves of his medical library. He found a volume (treating of Poisons) with a slip of paper left between the leaves; the poison described at the place so marked being Digitalis, and the paper used being one of his own prescription-papers. “If, as I fear, a legal investigation into Helena’s conduct is a possible event,” the doctor concluded, “there is the evidence that I shall be obliged to give, when I am called as a witness.”
It is my belief that I could have felt no greater dismay, if the long arm of the Law had laid its hold on me while he was speaking. I asked what was to be done.
“If she leaves the house at once,” the doctor replied, “she may escape the infamy of being charged with an attempt at murder by poison; and, in her absence, I can answer for Philip’s life. I don’t urge you to warn her, because that might be a dangerous thing to do. It is for you to decide, as a member of the family, whether you will run the risk.”
I tried to speak to him of Euneece, and to tell him what I had already related to yourself. He was in no humor to listen to me. “Keep it for a fitter time,” he answered; “and think of what I have just said to you.” With that, he left me, on his way to Philip’s room.
Mental exertion was completely beyond me. Can you understand a poor middle-aged spinster being frightened into doing a dangerous thing? That may seem to be nonsense. But if you ask why I took a morsel of paper, and wrote the warning which I was afraid to communicate by word of mouth—why I went upstairs with my knees knocking together, and opened the door of Helena’s room just wide enough to let my hand pass through—why I threw the paper in, and banged the door to again, and ran downstairs as I have never run since I was a little girl—I can only say, in the way of explanation, what I have said already: I was frightened into doing it.
What I have written, thus far, I shall send to you by to-night’s post.
The doctor came back to me, after he had seen Philip, and spoken with Euneece. He was very angry; and, I must own, not without reason. Philip had flatly refused to let himself be removed to the hospital; and Euneece—“a mere girl”—had declared that she would be answerable for consequences! The doctor warned me that he meant to withdraw from the case, and to make his declaration before the magistrates. At my entreaties he consented to return in the evening, and to judge by results before taking the terrible step that he had threatened.
While I remained at home on the watch, keeping the doors of both rooms locked, Eunice went out to get Philip’s medicine. She came back, followed by a boy carrying a portable apparatus for cooking. “All that Philip wants, and all that we want,” she explained, “we can provide for ourselves. Give me a morsel of paper to write on.”
Unhooking the little pencil attached to her watch-chain, she paused and looked toward the door. “Somebody listening,” she whispered. “Let them listen.” She wrote a list of necessaries, in the way of things to eat and things to drink, and asked me to go out and get them myself. “I don’t doubt the servants,” she said, speaking distinctly enough to be heard outside; “but I am afraid of what a Poisoner’s cunning and a Poisoner’s desperation may do, in a kitchen which is open to her.” I went away on my errand—discovering no listener outside, I need hardly say. On my return, I found the door of communication with Philip’s room closed, but no longer locked. “We can now attend on him in turn,” she said, “without opening either of the doors which lead into the hall. At night we can relieve each other, and each of us can get sleep as we want it in the large armchair in the dining-room. Philip must be safe under our charge, or the doctor will insist on taking him to the hospital. When we want Maria’s help, from time to time, we can employ her under our own superintendence. Have you anything else, Selina, to suggest?”
There was nothing left to suggest. Young and inexperienced as she was, how (I asked) had she contrived to think of all this? She answered, simply “I’m sure I don’t know; my thoughts came to me while I was looking at Philip.”
Soon afterward I found an opportunity of inquiring if Helena had left the house. She had just rung her bell; and Maria had found her, quietly reading, in her room. Hours afterward, when I was on the watch at night, I heard Philip’s door softly tried from the outside. Her dreadful purpose had not been given up, even yet.
The doctor came in the evening, as he had promised, and found an improvement in Philip’s health. I mentioned what precautions we had taken, and that they had been devised by Euneece. “Are you going to withdraw from the case?” I asked. “I am coming back to the case,” he answered, “to-morrow morning.”
It had been a disappointment to me to receive no answer to the telegram which I had sent to Mr. Dunboyne the elder. The next day’s post brought the explanation in a letter to Philip from his father, directed to him at the hotel here. This showed that my telegram, giving my address at this house, had not been received. Mr. Dunboyne announced that he had returned to Ireland, finding the air of London unendurable, after the sea-breezes at home. If Philip had already married, his father would leave him to a life of genteel poverty with Helena Gracedieu. If he had thought better of it, his welcome was waiting for him.
Little did Mr. Dunboyne know what changes had taken place since he and his son had last met, and what hope might yet present itself of brighter days for poor Euneece! I thought of writing to him. But how would that crabbed old man receive a confidential letter from a lady who was a stranger?
My doubts were set at rest by Philip himself. He asked me to write a few lines of reply to his father; declaring that his marriage with Helena was broken off—that he had not given up all hope of being permitted to offer the sincere expression of his penitence to Euneece—and that he would gladly claim his welcome, as soon as he was well enough to undertake the journey to Ireland. When he had signed the letter, I was so pleased that I made a smart remark. I said: “This is a treaty of peace between father and son.”
When the doctor arrived in the morning, and found the change for the better in his patient confirmed, he did justice to us at last. He spoke kindly, and even gratefully, to Euneece. No more allusions to the hospital as a place of safety escaped him. He asked me cautiously for news of Helena. I could only tell him that she had gone out at her customary time, and had returned at her customary time. He did not attempt to conceal that my reply had made him uneasy.
“Are you still afraid that she may succeed in poisoning Philip?” I asked.
“I am afraid of her cunning,” he said. “If she is charged with attempting to poison young Dunboyne, she has some system of defense, you may rely on it, for which we are not prepared. There, in my opinion, is the true reason for her extraordinary insensibility to her own danger.”
Two more days passed, and we were still safe under the protection of lock and key.
On the evening of the second day (which was a Monday) Maria came to me in great tribulation. On inquiring what was the matter, I received a disquieting reply: “Miss Helena is tempting me. She is so miserable at being prevented from seeing Mr. Philip, and helping to nurse him, that it is quite distressing to see her. At the same time, miss, it’s hard on a poor servant. She asks me to take the key secretly out of the door, and lend it to her at night for a few minutes only. I’m really afraid I shall be led into doing it, if she goes on persuading me much longer.”
I commended Maria for feeling scruples which proved her to be the best of good girls, and promised to relieve her from all fear of future temptation. This was easily done. Euneece kept the key of Philip’s door in her pocket; and I kept the key of the dining-room door in mine.