At eight o’clock the next morning, Amelius was awakened by Toff. A letter had arrived, marked “Immediate,” and the messenger was waiting for an answer.
The letter was from Mrs. Payson. She wrote briefly, and in formal terms. After referring to the matron’s fruitless visit to the cottage on the previous night, Mrs. Payson proceeded in these words:—“I request you will immediately let me know whether Sally has taken refuge with you, and has passed the night under your roof. If I am right in believing that she has done so, I have only to inform you that the doors of the Home are henceforth closed to her, in conformity with our rules. If I am wrong, it will be my painful duty to lose no time in placing the matter in the hands of the police.”
Amelius began his reply, acting on impulse as usual. He wrote, vehemently remonstrating with Mrs. Payson on the unforgiving and unchristian nature of the rules at the Home. Before he was halfway through his composition, the person who had brought the letter sent a message to say that he was expected back immediately, and that he hoped Mr. Goldenheart would not get a poor man into trouble by keeping him much longer. Checked in the full flow of his eloquence, Amelius angrily tore up the unfinished remonstrance, and matched Mrs. Payson’s briefly business-like language by an answer in one line:—“I beg to inform you that you are quite right.” On reflection, he felt that the second letter was not only discourteous as a reply to a lady, but also ungrateful as addressed to Mrs. Payson personally. At the third attempt, he wrote becomingly as well as briefly. “Sally has passed the night here, as my guest. She was suffering from severe fatigue; it would have been an act of downright inhumanity to send her away. I regret your decision, but of course I submit to it. You once said, you believed implicitly in the purity of my motives. Do me the justice, however you may blame my conduct, to believe in me still.”
Having despatched these lines, the mind of Amelius was at ease again, He went into the library, and listened to hear if Sally was moving. The perfect silence on the other side of the door informed him that the weary girl was still fast asleep. He gave directions that she was on no account to be disturbed, and sat down to breakfast by himself.
While he was still at table, Toff appeared, with profound mystery in his manner, and discreet confidence in the tones of his voice. “Here’s another one, sir!” the Frenchman announced, in his master’s ear.
“Another one?” Amelius repeated. “What do you mean?”
“She is not like the sweet little sleeping Miss.” Toff explained. “This time, sir, it’s the beauty of the devil himself, as we say in France. She refuses to confide in me; and she appears to be agitated—both bad signs. Shall I get rid of her before the other Miss wakes?”
“Hasn’t she got a name?” Amelius asked.
Toff answered, in his foreign accent, “One name only—Faybay.”
“Do you mean Phoebe?”
“Have I not said it, sir?”
“Show her in directly.”
Toff glanced at the door of Sally’s room, shrugged his shoulders, and obeyed his instructions.
Phoebe appeared, looking pale and anxious. Her customary assurance of manner had completely deserted her: she stopped in the doorway, as if she was afraid to enter the room.
“Come in, and sit down,” said Amelius. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m troubled in my mind, sir,” Phoebe answered. “I know it’s taking a liberty to come to you. But I went yesterday to ask Miss Regina’s advice, and found she had gone abroad with her uncle. I have something to say about Mrs. Farnaby, sir; and there’s no time to be lost in saying it. I know of nobody but you that I can speak to, now Miss Regina is away. The footman told me where you lived.”
She stopped, evidently in the greatest embarrassment. Amelius tried to encourage her. “If I can be of any use to Mrs. Farnaby,” he said, “tell me at once what to do.”
Phoebe’s eyes dropped before his straightforward look as he spoke to her.
“I must ask you to please excuse my mentioning names, sir,” she resumed confusedly. “There’s a person I’m interested in, whom I wouldn’t get into trouble for the whole world. He’s been misled—I’m sure he’s been misled by another person—a wicked drunken old woman, who ought to be in prison if she had her deserts. I’m not free from blame myself—I know I’m not. I listened, sir, to what I oughtn’t to have heard; and I told it again (I’m sure in the strictest confidence, and not meaning anything wrong) to the person I’ve mentioned. Not the old women—I mean the person I’m interested in. I hope you understand me, sir? I wish to speak openly, excepting the names, on account of Mrs. Farnaby.”
Amelius thought of Phoebe’s vindictive language the last time he had seen her. He looked towards a cabinet in a corner of the room, in which he had placed Mrs. Farnaby’s letter. An instinctive distrust of his visitor began to rise in his mind. His manner altered—he turned to his plate, and went on with his breakfast. “Can’t you speak to me plainly?” he said. “Is Mrs. Farnaby in any trouble?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And can I do anything to help her out of it?”
“I am sure you can, sir—if you only know where to find her.”
“I do know where to find her. She has written to tell me. The last time I saw you, you expressed yourself very improperly about Mrs. Farnaby; you spoke as if you meant some harm to her.”
“I mean nothing but good to her now, sir.”
“Very well, then. Can’t you go and speak to her yourself, if I give you the address?”
Phoebe’s pale face flushed a little. “I couldn’t do that, sir,” she answered, “after the way Mrs. Farnaby has treated me. Besides, if she knew that I had listened to what passed between her and you—” She stopped again, more painfully embarrassed than ever.
Amelius laid down his knife and fork. “Look here!” he said; “this sort of thing is not in my way. If you can’t make a clean breast of it, let’s talk of something else. I’m very much afraid,” he went on, with his customary absence of all concealment, “you’re not the harmless sort of girl I once took you for. What do you mean by ‘what passed between Mrs. Farnaby and me’?”
Phoebe put her handkerchief to her eyes. “It’s very hard to speak to me so harshly,” she said, “when I’m sorry for what I’ve done, and am only anxious to prevent harm coming of it.”
“Whathave you done?” cried honest Amelius, weary of the woman’s inveterately indirect way of explaining herself to him.
The flash of his quick temper in his eyes, as he put that straightforward question, roused a responsive temper in Phoebe which stung her into speaking openly at last. She told Amelius what she had heard in the kitchen as plainly as she had told it to Jervy—with this one difference, that she spoke without insolence when she referred to Mrs. Farnaby.
Listening in silence until she had done, Amelius started to his feet, and opening the cabinet, took from it Mrs. Farnaby’s letter. He read the letter, keeping his back towards Phoebe—waited a moment thinking—and suddenly turned on the woman with a look that made her shrink in her chair. “You wretch!” he said; “you detestable wretch!”
In the terror of the moment, Phoebe attempted to leave the room. Amelius stopped her instantly. “Sit down again,” he said; “I mean to have the whole truth out of you, now.”
Phoebe recovered her courage. “You have had the whole truth, sir; I could tell you no more if I was on my deathbed.”
Amelius refused to believe her. “There is a vile conspiracy against Mrs. Farnaby,” he said. “Do you mean to tell me you are not in it?”
“So help me God, sir, I never even heard of it till yesterday!”
The tone in which she spoke shook the conviction of Amelius; the indescribable ring of truth was in it.
“There are two people who are cruelly deluding and plundering this poor lady,” he went on. “Who are they?”
“I told you, if you remember, that I couldn’t mention names, sir.”
Amelius looked again at the letter. After what he had heard, there was no difficulty in identifying the invisible “young man,” alluded to by Mrs. Farnaby, with the unnamed “person” in whom Phoebe was interested. Who was he? As the question passed through his mind, Amelius remembered the vagabond whom he had recognized with Phoebe, in the street. There was no doubt of it now—the man who was directing the conspiracy in the dark was Jervy! Amelius would unquestionably have been rash enough to reveal this discovery, if Phoebe had not stopped him. His renewed reference to Mrs. Farnaby’s letter and his sudden silence after looking at it roused the woman’s suspicions. “If you’re planning to get my friend into trouble,” she burst out, “not another word shall pass my lips!”
Even Amelius profited by the warning which that threat unintentionally conveyed to him.
“Keep your own secrets,” he said; “I only want to spare Mrs. Farnaby a dreadful disappointment. But I must know what I am talking about when I go to her. Can’t you tell me how you found out this abominable swindle?”
Phoebe was perfectly willing to tell him. Interpreting her long involved narrative into plain English, with the names added, these were the facts related:—Mrs. Sowler, bearing in mind some talk which had passed between them on the occasion of a supper, had called at Phoebe’s lodgings on the previous day, and had tried to entrap her into communicating what she knew of Mrs. Farnaby’s secrets. The trap failing, Mrs. Sowler had tried bribery next; had promised Phoebe a large sum of money, to be equally divided between them, if she would only speak; had declared that Jervy was perfectly capable of breaking his promise of marriage, and “leaving them both in the lurch, if he once got the money into his own pocket” and had thus informed Phoebe, that the conspiracy, which she supposed to have been abandoned, was really in full progress, without her knowledge. She had temporised with Mrs. Sowler, being afraid to set such a person openly at defiance; and had hurried away at once, to have an explanation with Jervy. He was reported to be “not at home.” Her fruitless visit to Regina had followed—and there, so far as facts were concerned, was an end of the story.
Amelius asked her no questions, and spoke as briefly as possible when she had done. “I will go to Mrs. Farnaby this morning,” was all he said.
“Would you please let me hear how it ends?” Phoebe asked.
Amelius pushed his pocket-book and pencil across the table to her, pointing to a blank leaf on which she could write her address. While she was thus employed the attentive Toff came in, and (with his eye on Phoebe) whispered in his master’s ear. He had heard Sally moving about. Would it be more convenient, under the circumstances, if she had her breakfast in her own room? Toff’s astonishment was a sight to see when Amelius answered, “Certainly not. Let her breakfast here.”
Phoebe rose to go. Her parting words revealed the double-sided nature that was in her; the good and evil in perpetual conflict which should be uppermost.
“Please don’t mention me, sir, to Mrs. Farnaby,” she said. “I don’t forgive her for what she’s done to me; I don’t say I won’t be even with her yet. But not inthatway! I won’t have her death laid at my door. Oh, but I know her temper—and I say it’s as likely as not to kill her or drive her mad, if she isn’t warned about it in time. Never mind her losing her money. If it’s lost, it’s lost, and she’s got plenty more. She may be robbed a dozen times over for all I care. But don’t let her set her heart on seeing her child, and then find it’s all a swindle. I hate her; but I can’t and won’t, letthatgo on. Good-morning, sir.”
Amelius was relieved by her departure. For a minute or two, he sat absently stirring his coffee, and considering how he might most safely perform the terrible duty of putting Mrs. Farnaby on her guard. Toff interrupted his meditations by preparing the table for Sally’s breakfast; and, almost at the same moment, Sally herself, fresh and rosy, opened her door a little way, and looked in.
“You have had a fine long sleep,” said Amelius. “Have you quite got over your walk yesterday?”
“Oh yes,” she answered gaily; “I only feel my long walk now in my feet. It hurts me to put my boots on. Can you lend me a pair of slippers?”
“A pair of my slippers? Why, Sally, you would be lost in them! What’s the matter with your feet?”
“They’re both sore. And I think one of them has got a blister on it.”
“Come in, and let’s have a look at it?”
She came limping in, with her feet bare. “Don’t scold me,” she pleaded, “I couldn’t put my stockings on again, without washing them; and they’re not dry yet.”
“I’ll get you new stockings and slippers,” said Amelius. “Which is the foot with the blister?”
“The left foot,” she answered, pointing to it.
Sally looked longingly at the fire.
“May I warm my feet first?” she asked; “they are so cold.”
In those words she innocently deferred the discovery which, if it had been made at the moment, might have altered the whole after-course of events. Amelius only thought now of preventing her from catching cold. He sent Toff for a pair of the warmest socks that he possessed, and asked if he should put them on for her. She smiled, and shook her head, and put them on for herself.
When they had done laughing at the absurd appearance of the little feet in the large socks, they only drifted farther and farther away from the subject of the blistered foot. Sally remembered the terrible matron, and asked if anything had been heard of her that morning. Being told that Mrs. Payson had written, and that the doors of the institution were closed to her, she recovered her spirits, and began to wonder whether the offended authorities would let her have her clothes. Toff offered to go and make the inquiry, later in the day; suggesting the purchase of slippers and stockings, in the mean time, while Sally was having her breakfast. Amelius approved of the suggestion; and Toff set off on his errand, with one of Sally’s boots for a pattern.
The morning had, by that time, advanced to ten o’clock.
Amelius stood before the fire talking, while Sally had her breakfast. Having first explained the reasons which made it impossible that she should live at the cottage in the capacity of his servant, he astonished her by announcing that he meant to undertake the superintendence of her education himself. They were to be master and pupil, while the lessons were in progress; and brother and sister at other times—and they were to see how they got on together, on this plan, without indulging in any needless anxiety about the future. Amelius believed with perfect sincerity that he had hit on the only sensible arrangement, under the circumstances; and Sally cried joyously, “Oh, how good you are to me; the happy life has come at last!” At the hour when those words passed the daughter’s lips, the discovery of the conspiracy burst upon the mother in all its baseness and in all its horror.
The suspicion of her infamous employer, which had induced Mrs. Sowler to attempt to intrude herself into Phoebe’s confidence, led her to make a visit of investigation at Jervy’s lodgings later in the day. Informed, as Phoebe had been informed, that he was not at home, she called again some hours afterwards. By that time, the landlord had discovered that Jervy’s luggage had been secretly conveyed away, and that his tenant had left him, in debt for rent of the two best rooms in the house.
No longer in any doubt of what had happened, Mrs. Sowler employed the remaining hours of the evening in making inquiries after the missing man. Not a trace of him had been discovered up to eight o’clock on the next morning.
Shortly after nine o’clock—that is to say, towards the hour at which Phoebe paid her visit to Amelius—Mrs. Sowler, resolute to know the worst, made her appearance at the apartments occupied by Mrs. Farnaby.
“I wish to speak to you,” she began abruptly, “about that young man we both know of. Have you seen anything of him lately?”
Mrs. Farnaby, steadily on her guard, deferred answering the question. “Why do you want to know?” she said.
The reply was instantly ready. “Because I have reason to believe he has bolted, with your money in his pocket.”
“He has done nothing of the sort,” Mrs. Farnaby rejoined.
“Has he got your money?” Mrs. Sowler persisted. “Tell me the truth—and I’ll do the same by you. He has cheated me. If you’re cheated too, it’s your own interest to lose no time in finding him. The police may catch him yet.Hashe got your money?”
The woman was in earnest—in terrible earnest—her eyes and her voice both bore witness to it. She stood there, the living impersonation of those doubts and fears which Mrs. Farnaby had confessed, in writing to Amelius. Her position, at that moment, was essentially a position of command. Mrs. Farnaby felt it in spite of herself. She acknowledged that Jervy had got the money.
“Did you sent it to him, or give it to him?” Mrs. Sowler asked.
“I gave it to him.”
“When?”
“Yesterday evening.”
Mrs. Sowler clenched her fists, and shook them in impotent rage. “He’s the biggest scoundrel living,” she exclaimed furiously; “and you’re the biggest fool! Put on your bonnet and come to the police. If you get your money back again before he’s spent it all, don’t forget it was through me.”
The audacity of the woman’s language roused Mrs. Farnaby. She pointed to the door. “You are an insolent creature,” she said; “I have nothing more to do with you.”
“You have nothing more to do with me?” Mrs. Sowler repeated. “You and the young man have settled it all between you, I suppose.” She laughed scornfully. “I dare say now you expect to see him again?”
Mrs. Farnaby was irritated into answering this. “I expect to see him this morning,” she said, “at ten o’clock.”
“And the lost young lady with him?”
“Say nothing about my lost daughter! I won’t even hear you speak of her.”
Mrs. Sowler sat down. “Look at your watch,” she said. “It must be nigh on ten o’clock by this time. You’ll make a disturbance in the house if you try to turn me out. I mean to wait here till ten o’clock.”
On the point of answering angrily, Mrs. Farnaby restrained herself. “You are trying to force a quarrel on me,” she said; “you shan’t spoil the happiest morning of my life. Wait here by yourself.”
She opened the door that led into her bedchamber, and shut herself in. Perfectly impenetrable to any repulse that could be offered to her, Mrs. Sowler looked at the closed door with a sardonic smile, and waited.
The clock in the hall struck ten. Mrs. Farnaby returned again to the sitting-room, walked straight to the window, and looked out.
“Any sign of him?” said Mrs. Sowler.
There were no signs of him. Mrs. Farnaby drew a chair to the window, and sat down. Her hands turned icy cold. She still looked out into the street.
“I’m going to guess what’s happened,” Mrs. Sowler resumed. “I’m a sociable creature, you know, and I must talk about something. About the money, now? Has the young man had his travelling expenses of you? To go to foreign parts, and bring your girl back with him, eh? I expect that’s how it was. You see, I know him so well. And what happened, if you please, yesterday evening? Did he tell you he’d brought her back, and got her at his own place? And did he say he wouldn’t let you see her till you paid him his reward as well as his travelling expenses? And did you forget my warning to you not to trust him? I’m a good one at guessing when I try. I see you think so yourself. Any signs of him yet?”
Mrs. Farnaby looked round from the window. Her manner was completely changed; she was nervously civil to the wretch who was torturing her. “I beg your pardon, ma’am, if I have offended you,” she said faintly. “I am a little upset—I am so anxious about my poor child. Perhaps you are a mother yourself? You oughtn’t to frighten me; you ought to feel for me.” She paused, and put her hand to her head. “He told me yesterday evening,” she went on slowly and vacantly, “that my poor darling was at his lodgings; he said she was so worn out with the long journey from abroad, that she must have a night’s rest before she could come to me. I asked him to tell me where he lived, and let me go to her. He said she was asleep and must not be disturbed. I promised to go in on tiptoe, and only look at her; I offered him more money, double the money to tell me where she was. He was very hard on me. He only said, wait till ten tomorrow morning—and wished me goodnight. I ran out to follow him, and fell on the stairs, and hurt myself. The people of the house were very kind to me.” She turned her head back towards the window, and looked out into the street again. “I must be patient,” she said; “he’s only a little late.”
Mrs. Sowler rose, and tapped her smartly on the shoulder. “Lies!” she burst out. “He knows no more where your daughter is than I do—and he’s off with your money!”
The woman’s hateful touch struck out a spark of the old fire in Mrs. Farnaby. Her natural force of character asserted itself once more.“Youlie!” she rejoined. “Leave the room!”
The door was opened, while she spoke. A respectable woman-servant came in with a letter. Mrs. Farnaby took it mechanically, and looked at the address. Jervy’s feigned handwriting was familiar to her. In the instant when she recognized it, the life seemed to go out of her like an extinguished light. She stood pale and still and silent, with the unopened letter in her hand.
Watching her with malicious curiosity, Mrs. Sowler coolly possessed herself of the letter, looked at it, and recognized the writing in her turn. “Stop!” she cried, as the servant was on the point of going out. “There’s no stamp on this letter. Was it brought by hand? Is the messenger waiting?”
The respectable servant showed her opinion of Mrs. Sowler plainly in her face. She replied as briefly and as ungraciously as possible:—“No.”
“Man or woman?” was the next question.
“Am I to answer this person, ma’am?” said the servant, looking at Mrs. Farnaby.
“Answer me instantly,” Mrs. Sowler interposed—“in Mrs. Farnaby’s own interests. Don’t you see she can’t speak to you herself?”
“Well, then,” said the servant, “it was a man.”
“A man with a squint?”
“Yes.”
“Which way did he go?”
“Towards the square.”
Mrs. Sowler tossed the letter on the table, and hurried out of the room. The servant approached Mrs. Farnaby. “You haven’t opened your letter yet, ma’am,” she said.
“No,” said Mrs. Farnaby vacantly, “I haven’t opened it yet.”
“I’m afraid it’s bad news, ma’am?”
“Yes. I think it’s bad news.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“No, thank you. Yes; one thing. Open my letter for me, please.”
It was a strange request to make. The servant wondered, and obeyed. She was a kind-hearted woman; she really felt for the poor lady. But the familiar household devil, whose name is Curiosity, and whose opportunities are innumerable, prompted her next words when she had taken the letter out of the envelope:—“Shall I read it to you, ma’am?”
“No. Put it down on the table, please. I’ll ring when I want you.”
The mother was alone—alone, with her death-warrant waiting for her on the table.
The clock downstairs struck the half hour after ten. She moved, for the first time since she had received the letter. Once more she went to the window, and looked out. It was only for a moment. She turned away again, with a sudden contempt for herself. “What a fool I am!” she said—and took up the open letter.
She looked at it, and put it down again. “Why should I read it,” she asked herself, “when I know what is in it, without reading?”
Some framed woodcuts from the illustrated newspapers were hung on the walls. One of them represented a scene of rescue from shipwreck. A mother embracing her daughter, saved by the lifeboat, was among the foreground groups. The print was entitled, “The Mercy of Providence.” Mrs. Farnaby looked at it with a moment’s steady attention. “Providence has its favourites,” she said; “I am not one of them.”
After thinking a little, she went into her bedroom, and took two papers out of her dressing-case. They were medical prescriptions.
She turned next to the chimneypiece. Two medicine-bottles were placed on it. She took one of them down—a bottle of the ordinary size, known among chemists as a six-ounce bottle. It contained a colourless liquid. The label stated the dose to be “two table-spoonfuls,” and bore, as usual, a number corresponding with a number placed on the prescription. She took up the prescription. It was a mixture of bi-carbonate of soda and prussic acid, intended for the relief of indigestion. She looked at the date, and was at once reminded of one of the very rare occasions on which she had required the services of a medical man. There had been a serious accident at a dinner-party, given by some friends. She had eaten sparingly of a certain dish, from which some of the other guests had suffered severely. It was discovered that the food had been cooked in an old copper saucepan. In her case, the trifling result had been a disturbance of digestion, and nothing more. The doctor had prescribed accordingly. She had taken but one dose: with her healthy constitution she despised physic. The remainder of the mixture was still in the bottle.
She considered again with herself—then went back to the chimneypiece, and took down the second bottle.
It contained a colourless liquid also; but it was only half the size of the first bottle, and not a drop had been taken. She waited, observing the difference between the two bottles with extraordinary attention. In this case also, the prescription was in her possession—but it was not the original. A line at the top stated that it was a copy made by the chemist, at the request of a customer. It bore the date of more than three years since. A morsel of paper was pinned to the prescription, containing some lines in a woman’s handwriting:—“With your enviable health and strength, my dear, I should have thought you were the last person in the world to want a tonic. However, here is my prescription, if you must have it. Be very careful to take the right dose, because there’s poison in it.” The prescription contained three ingredients, strychnine, quinine, and nitro-hydrochloric acid; and the dose was fifteen drops in water. Mrs. Farnaby lit a match, and burnt the lines of her friend’s writing. “As long ago as that,” she reflected, “I thought of killing myself. Why didn’t I do it?”
The paper having been destroyed, she put back the prescription for indigestion in her dressing-case; hesitated for a moment; and opened the bedroom window. It looked into a lonely little courtyard. She threw the dangerous contents of the second and smaller bottle out into the yard—and then put it back empty on the chimneypiece. After another moment of hesitation, she returned to the sitting-room, with the bottle of mixture, and the copied prescription for the tonic strychnine drops, in her hand.
She put the bottle on the table, and advanced to the fireplace to ring the bell. Warm as the room was, she began to shiver. Did the eager life in her feel the fatal purpose that she was meditating, and shrink from it? Instead of ringing the bell, she bent over the fire, trying to warm herself.
“Other women would get relief in crying,” she thought. “I wish I was like other women!”
The whole sad truth about herself was in that melancholy aspiration. No relief in tears, no merciful oblivion in a fainting-fit, forher.The terrible strength of the vital organization in this woman knew no yielding to the unutterable misery that wrung her to the soul. It roused its glorious forces to resist: it held her in a stony quiet, with a grip of iron.
She turned away from the fire wondering at herself. “What baseness is there in me that fears death? What have I got to live fornow?”The open letter on the table caught her eye. “This will do it!” she said—and snatched it up, and read it at last.
“The least I can do for you is to act like a gentleman, and spare you unnecessary suspense. You will not see me this morning at ten, for the simple reason that I really don’t know, and never did know, where to find your daughter. I wish I was rich enough to return the money. Not being able to do that, I will give you a word of advice instead. The next time you confide any secrets of yours to Mr. Goldenheart, take better care that no third person hears you.”
She read those atrocious lines, without any visible disturbance of the dreadful composure that possessed her. Her mind made no effort to discover the person who had listened and betrayed her. To all ordinary curiosities, to all ordinary emotions, she was morally dead already.
The one thought in her was a thought that might have occurred to a man. “If I only had my hands on his throat, how I could wring the life out of him! As it is—” Instead of pursuing the reflection, she threw the letter into the fire, and rang the bell.
“Take this at once to the nearest chemist’s,” she said, giving the strychnine prescription to the servant; “and wait, please, and bring it back with you.”
She opened her desk, when she was alone, and tore up the letters and papers in it. This done, she took her pen, and wrote a letter. It was addressed to Amelius.
When the servant entered the room again, bringing with her the prescription made up, the clock downstairs struck eleven.
“What a time you have been gone!” said Amelius.
“It is not my fault, sir,” Toff explained. “The stockings I obtained without difficulty. But the nearest shoe shop in this neighbourhood sold only coarse manufactures, and all too large. I had to go to my wife, and get her to take me to the right place. See!” he exclaimed, producing a pair of quilted silk slippers with blue rosettes, “here is a design, that is really worthy of pretty feet. Try them on, Miss.”
Sally’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the slippers. She rose at once, and limped away to her room. Amelius, observing that she still walked in pain, called her back. “I had forgotten the blister,” he said. “Before you put on the new stockings, Sally, let me see your foot.” He turned to Toff. “You’re always ready with everything,” he went on; “I wonder whether you have got a needle and a bit of worsted thread?”
The old Frenchman answered, with an air of respectful reproach. “Knowing me, sir, as you do,” he said, “could you doubt for a moment that I mend my own clothes and darn my own stockings?” He withdrew to his bedroom below, and returned with a leather roll. “When you are ready, sir?” he said, opening the roll at the table, and threading the needle, while Sally removed the sock from her left foot.
She took a chair near the window, at the suggestion of Amelius. He knelt down so as to raise her foot to his knee. “Turn a little more towards the light,” he said. He took the foot in his hand, lifted it, looked at it—and suddenly let it drop back on the floor.
A cry of alarm from Sally instantly brought Toff to the window. “Oh, look!” she cried; “he’s ill!” Toff lifted Amelius to a chair. “For God’s sake, sir,” cried the terrified old man, “what’s the matter?” Amelius had turned to the strange ashy paleness which is only seen in men of his florid complexion, overwhelmed by sudden emotion. He stammered when he tried to speak. “Fetch the brandy!” said Toff, pointing to the liqueur-case on the sideboard. Sally brought it at once; the strong stimulant steadied Amelius.
“I’m sorry to have frightened you,” he said faintly. “Sally!—Dear, dear little Sally, go in, and get your things on directly. You must come out with me; I’ll tell you why afterwards. My God! why didn’t I find this out before?” He noticed Toff, wondering and trembling. “Good old fellow! don’t alarm yourself—you shall know about it, too. Go! run! get the first cab you can find!”
Left alone for a few minutes, he had time to compose himself. He did his best to take advantage of the time; he tried to prepare his mind for the coming interview with Mrs. Farnaby. “I must be careful of what I do,” he thought, conscious of the overwhelming effect of the discovery on himself; “She doesn’t expectmeto bring her daughter to her.”
Sally returned to him, ready to go out. She seemed to be afraid of him, when he approached her, and took her hand. “Have I done anything wrong?” she asked, in her childish way. “Are you going to take me to some other Home?” The tone and look with which she put the question burst through the restraints which Amelius had imposed on himself for her sake. “My dear child!” he said, “can you bear a great surprise? I’m dying to tell you the truth—and I hardly dare do it.” He took her in his arms. She trembled piteously. Instead of answering him, she reiterated her question, “Are you going to take me to some other Home?” He could endure it no longer. “This is the happiest day of your life, Sally!” he cried; “I am going to take you to your mother.”
He held her close to him, and looked at her in dread of having spoken too plainly.
She slowly lifted her eyes to him in vacant fear and surprise; she burst into no expression of delight; no overwhelming emotion made her sink fainting in his arms. The sacred associations which gather round the mere name of Mother were associations unknown to her; the man who held her to him so tenderly, the hero who had pitied and saved her, was father and mother both to her simple mind. She dropped her head on his breast; her faltering voice told him that she was crying. “Will my mother take me away from you?” she asked. “Oh, do promise to bring me back with you to the cottage!”
For the moment, and the moment only, Amelius was disappointed in her. The generous sympathies in his nature guided him unerringly to the truer view. He remembered what her life had been. Inexpressible pity for her filled his heart. “Oh, my poor Sally, the time is coming when you will not think as you think now! I will do nothing to distress you. You mustn’t cry—you must be happy, and loving and true to your mother.” She dried her eyes, “I’ll do anything you tell me,” she said, “as long as you bring me back with you.”
Amelius sighed, and said no more. He took her out with him gravely and silently, when the cab was announced to be ready. “Double your fare,” he said, when he gave the driver his instructions, “if you get there in a quarter of an hour.” It wanted twenty-five minutes to twelve when the cab left the cottage.
At that moment, the contrast of feeling between the two could hardly have been more strongly marked. In proportion as Amelius became more and more agitated, so Sally recovered the composure and confidence that she had lost. The first question she put to him related, not to her mother, but to his strange behaviour when he had knelt down to look at her foot. He answered, explaining to her briefly and plainly what his conduct meant. The description of what had passed between her mother and Amelius interested and yet perplexed her. “How can she be so fond of me, without knowing anything about me for all those years?” she asked. “Is my mother a lady? Don’t tell her where you found me; she might be ashamed of me.” She paused, and looked at Amelius anxiously. “Are you vexed about something? May I take hold of your hand?” Amelius gave her his hand; and Sally was satisfied.
As the cab drew up at the house, the door was opened from within. A gentleman, dressed in black, hurriedly came out; looked at Amelius; and spoke to him as he stepped from the cab to the pavement.
“I beg your pardon, sir. May I ask if you are any relative of the lady who lives in this house?”
“No relative,” Amelius answered. “Only a friend, who brings good news to her.”
The stranger’s grave face suddenly became compassionate as well as grave. “I must speak with you before you go upstairs,” he said, lowering his voice as he looked at Sally, still seated in the cab. “You will perhaps excuse the liberty I am taking, when I tell you that I am a medical man. Come into the hall for a moment—and don’t bring the young lady with you.”
Amelius told Sally to wait in the cab. She saw his altered looks, and entreated him not to leave her. He promised to keep the house door open so that she could see him while he was away from her, and hastened into the hall.
“I am sorry to say I have bad, very bad, news for you,” the doctor began. “Time is of serious importance—I must speak plainly. You have heard of mistakes made by taking the wrong bottle of medicine? The poor lady upstairs is, I fear, in a dying state, from an accident of that sort. Try to compose yourself. You may really be of use to me, if you are firm enough to take my place while I am away.”
Amelius steadied himself instantly. “What I can do, I will do,” he answered.
The doctor looked at him. “I believe you,” he said. “Now listen. In this case, a dose limited to fifteen drops has been confounded with a dose of two table-spoonsful; and the drug taken by mistake is strychnine. One grain of the poison has been known to prove fatal—she has taken three. The convulsion fits have begun. Antidotes are out of the question—the poor creature can swallow nothing. I have heard of opium as a possible means of relief; and I am going to get the instrument for injecting it under the skin. Not that I have much belief in the remedy; but I must try something. Have you courage enough to hold her, if another of the convulsions comes on in my absence?”
“Will it relieve her, if I hold her?” Amelius, asked.
“Certainly.”
“Then I promise to do it.”
“Mind! you must do it thoroughly. There are only two women upstairs; both perfectly useless in this emergency. If she shrieks to you to be held, exert your strength—take her with a firm grasp. If you only touch her (I can’t explain it, but it is so), you will make matters worse.”
The servant ran downstairs, while he was speaking. “Don’t leave us, sir—I’m afraid it’s coming on again.”
“This gentleman will help you, while I am away,” said the doctor. “One word more,” he went on, addressing Amelius. “In the intervals between the fits, she is perfectly conscious; able to listen, and even to speak. If she has any last wishes to communicate, make good use of the time. She may die of exhaustion, at any moment. I will be back directly.”
He hurried to the door.
“Take my cab,” said Amelius, “and save time.”
“But the young lady—”
“Leave her to me.” He opened the cab door, and gave his hand to Sally. It was done in a moment. The doctor drove off.
Amelius saw the servant waiting for them in the hall. He spoke to Sally, telling her, considerately and gently, what he had heard, before he took her into the house. “I had such good hopes for you,” he said; “and it has come to this dreadful end! Have you courage to go through with it, if I take you to her bedside? You will be glad one day, my dear, to remember that you cheered your mother’s last moments on earth.”
Sally put her hand in his. “I will go anywhere,” she said softly, “with You.”
Amelius led her into the house. The servant, in pity for her youth, ventured on a word of remonstrance. “Oh, sir, you’re not going to let the poor young lady see that dreadful sight upstairs!”
“You mean well,” Amelius answered; “and I thank you. If you knew what I know, you would take her upstairs, too. Show the way.”
Sally looked at him in silent awe as they followed the servant together. He was not like the same man. His brows were knit; his lips were fast set; he held the girl’s hand in a grip that hurt her. The latent strength of will in him—that reserved resolution, so finely and firmly entwined in the natures of sensitively organized men—was rousing itself to meet the coming trial. The doctor would have doubly believed in him, if the doctor had seen him at that moment.
They reached the first-floor landing.
Before the servant could open the drawing-room door, a shriek rang frightfully through the silence of the house. The servant drew back, and crouched trembling on the upper stairs. At the same moment, the door was flung open, and another woman ran out, wild with terror. “I can’t bear it!” she cried, and rushed up the stairs, blind to the presence of strangers in the panic that possessed her. Amelius entered the drawing-room, with his arm round Sally, holding her up. As he placed her in a chair, the dreadful cry was renewed. He only waited to rouse and encourage her by a word and a look—and ran into the bedroom.
For an instant, and an instant only, he stood horror-struck in the presence of the poisoned woman.
The fell action of the strychnine wrung every muscle in her with the torture of convulsion. Her hands were fast clenched; her head was bent back: her body, rigid as a bar of iron, was arched upwards from the bed, resting on the two extremities of the head and the heels: the staring eyes, the dusky face, the twisted lips, the clenched teeth, were frightful to see. He faced it. After the one instant of hesitation, he faced it.
Before she could cry out again, his hands were on her. The whole exertion of his strength was barely enough to keep the frenzied throbs of the convulsion, as it reached its climax, from throwing her off the bed. Through the worst of it, he was still equal to the trust that had been placed in him, still faithful to the work of mercy. Little by little, he felt the lessening resistance of the rigid body, as the paroxysm began to subside. He saw the ghastly stare die out of her eyes, and the twisted lips relax from their dreadful grin. The tortured body sank, and rested; the perspiration broke out on her face; her languid hands fell gently over on the bed. For a while, the heavy eyelids closed—then opened again feebly. She looked at him. “Do you know me?” he asked, bending over her. And she answered in a faint whisper, “Amelius!”
He knelt down by her, and kissed her hand. “Can you listen, if I tell you something?”
She breathed heavily; her bosom heaved under the suffocating oppression that weighed upon it. As he took her in his arms to raise her in the bed, Sally’s voice reached him, in low imploring tones, from the next room. “Oh, let me come to you! I’m so frightened here by myself.”
He waited, before he told her to come in, looking for a moment at the face that was resting on his breast. A gray shadow was stealing over it; a cold and clammy moisture struck a chill through him as he put his hand on her forehead. He turned towards the next room. The girl had ventured as far as the door; he beckoned to her. She came in timidly, and stood by him, and looked at her mother. Amelius signed to her to take his place. “Put your arms round her,” he whispered. “Oh, Sally, tell her who you are in a kiss!” The girl’s tears fell fast as she pressed her lips on her mother’s cheek. The dying woman looked at her, with a glance of helpless inquiry—then looked at Amelius. The doubt in her eyes was too dreadful to be endured. Arranging the pillows so that she could keep her raised position in the bed, he signed to Sally to approach him, and removed the slipper from her left foot. As he took it off, he looked again at the bed—looked and shuddered. In a moment more, it might be too late. With his knife he ripped up the stocking, and, lifting her on the bed, put her bare foot on her mother’s lap. “Your child! your child!” he cried; “I’ve found your own darling! For God’s sake, rouse yourself! Look!”
She heard him. She lifted her feebly declining head. She looked. She knew.
For one awful moment, the sinking vital forces rallied, and hurled back the hold of Death. Her eyes shone radiant with the divine light of maternal love; an exulting cry of rapture burst from her. Slowly, very slowly, she bent forward, until her face rested on her daughter’s foot. With a faint sigh of ecstasy she kissed it. The moments passed—and the bent head was raised no more. The last beat of the heart was a beat of joy.