Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1055 page)

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, for
her.
The terrible strength of the vital organisation 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 for
now?”
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.

CHAPTER 6

Toff returned to the cottage, with the slippers and the stockings.

“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 expect
me
to 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?”