Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1094 page)

Madame Fontaine clasped her hands, with a fervor of feeling which was in this case, at least, perfectly sincere. A pearl necklace, the gift of an Empress, would represent in money value a little fortune in itself. “I can find no words to express my sense of gratitude,” she said; “my daughter must speak for herself and for me.”

“And your daughter must hear the good news as soon as possible,” Mr. Keller added kindly. “I won’t detain you. I know you must be anxious to see Minna. One word before you go. You will, of course, invite any relatives and friends whom you would like to see at the wedding.”

Madame Fontaine lifted her sleepy eyes by slow gradations to the ceiling, and devoutly resigned herself to mention her family circumstances.

“My parents cast me off, sir, when I married,” she said; “my other relatives here and in Brussels refused to assist me when I stood in need of help. As for friends — you, dear Mr. Keller, are our only friend. Thank you again and again.”

She lowered her eyes softly to the floor, and glided out of the room. The back view of her figure was its best view. Even Mr. Keller — constitutionally inaccessible to exhibitions of female grace — followed her with his eyes, and perceived that his housekeeper was beautifully made.

On the stairs she met with the housemaid.

“Where is Miss Minna?” she asked impatiently. “In her room?”

“In your room, madam. I saw Miss Minna go in as I passed the door.”

Madame Fontaine hurried up the next flight of stairs, and ran along the corridor as lightly as a young girl. The door of her room was ajar; she saw her daughter through the opening sitting on the sofa, with some work lying idle on her lap. Minna started up when her mother appeared.

“Am I in the way, mamma? I am so stupid, I can’t get on with this embroidery —
 
— ”

Madame Fontaine tossed the embroidery to the other end of the room, threw her arms round Minna, and lifted her joyously from the floor as if she had been a little child.

“The day is fixed, my angel!” she cried; “You are to be married on the thirtieth!”

She shifted one hand to her daughter’s head, and clasped it with a fierce fondness to her bosom. “Oh, my darling, you had lovely hair even when you were a baby! We won’t have it dressed at your wedding. It shall flow down naturally in all its beauty — and no hand shall brush it but mine.” She pressed her lips on Minna’s head, and devoured it with kisses; then, driven by some irresistible impulse, pushed the girl away from her, and threw herself on the sofa with a cry of pain.

“Why did you start up, as if you were afraid of me, when I came in?” she said wildly. “Why did you ask if you were in the way? Oh, Minna! Minna! can’t you forget the day when I locked you out of my room? My child! I was beside myself — I was mad with my troubles. Do you think I would behave harshly to you? Oh, my own love! when I came to tell you of your marriage, why did you ask me if you were in the way? My God! am I never to know a moment’s pleasure again without something to embitter it? People say you take after your father, Minna. Are you as cold-blooded as he was? There! there! I don’t mean it; I am a little hysterical, I think — don’t notice me. Come and be a child again. Sit on my knee, and let us talk of your marriage.”

Minna put her arm round her mother’s neck a little nervously. “Dear, sweet mamma, how can you think me so hard-hearted and so ungrateful? I can’t tell you how I love you! Let this tell you.”

With a tender and charming grace, she kissed her mother — then drew back a little and looked at Madame Fontaine. The subsiding conflict of emotions still showed itself with a fiery brightness in the widow’s eyes. “Do you know what I am thinking?” Minna asked, a little timidly.

“What is it, my dear?”

“I think you are almost too fond of me, mamma. I shouldn’t like to be the person who stood between me and my marriage — if
you
knew of it.”

Madame Fontaine smiled. “You foolish child, do you take me for a tigress?” she said playfully. “I must have another kiss to reconcile me to my new character.”

She bent her head to meet the caress — looked by chance at a cupboard fixed in a recess in the opposite wall of the room — and suddenly checked herself. “This is too selfish of me,” she said, rising abruptly. “All this time I am forgetting the bridegroom. His father will leave him to hear the good news from you. Do you think I don’t know what you are longing to do?” She led Minna hurriedly to the door. “Go, my dear one — go and tell Fritz!”

The instant her daughter disappeared, she rushed across the room to the cupboard. Her eyes had not deceived her. The key
was
left in the lock.

CHAPTER II

Madame Fontaine dropped into a chair, overwhelmed by the discovery.

She looked at the key left in the cupboard. It was of an old-fashioned pattern — but evidently also of the best workmanship of the time. On its flat handle it bore engraved the words, “Pink-Room Cupboard” — so called from the colour of the curtains and hangings in the bedchamber.

“Is my brain softening?” she said to herself. “What a horrible mistake! What a frightful risk to have run!”

She got on her feet again, and opened the cupboard.

The two lower shelves were occupied by her linen, neatly folded and laid out. On the higher shelf, nearly on a level with her eyes, stood a plain wooden box about two feet in height by one foot in breadth. She examined the position of this box with breathless interest and care — then gently lifted it in both hands and placed it on the floor. On a table near the window lay a half-finished watercolour drawing, with a magnifying glass by the side of it. Providing herself with the glass, she returned to the cupboard, and closely investigated the place on which the box had stood. The slight layer of dust — so slight as to be imperceptible to the unassisted eye — which had surrounded the four sides of the box, presented its four delicate edges in perfectly undisturbed straightness of line. This mute evidence conclusively proved that the box had not been moved during her quarter of an hour’s absence in Mr. Keller’s room. She put it back again, and heaved a deep breath of relief.

But it was a bad sign (she thought) that her sense of caution had been completely suspended, in the eagerness of her curiosity to know if Mr. Keller’s message of invitation referred to the wedding day. “I lose my best treasure,” she said to herself sadly, “if I am beginning to lose my steadiness of mind. If this should happen again —
 
— ”

She left the expression of the idea uncompleted; locked the door of the room; and returned to the place on which she had left the box.

Seating herself, she rested the box on her knee and opened it.

Certain tell-tale indentations, visible where the cover fitted into the lock, showed that it had once been forced open. The lock had been hampered on some former occasion; and the key remained so fast fixed in it that it could neither be turned nor drawn out. In her newly-aroused distrust of her own prudence, she was now considering the serious question of emptying the box, and sending it to be fitted with a lock and key.

“Have I anything by me,” she thought to herself, “in which I can keep the bottles?”

She emptied the box, and placed round her on the floor those terrible six bottles which had been the special subjects of her husband’s precautionary instructions on his death-bed. Some of them were smaller than others, and were manufactured in glass of different colours — the six compartments in the medicine-chest being carefully graduated in size, so as to hold them all steadily. The labels on three of the bottles were unintelligible to Madame Fontaine; the inscriptions were written in barbarously abridged Latin characters.

The bottle which was the fourth in order, as she took them out one by one, was wrapped in a sheet of thick cartridge-paper, covered on its inner side with characters written in mysterious cipher. But the label pasted on the bottle contained an inscription in good readable German, thus translated:

“The Looking-Glass Drops. Fatal dose, as discovered by experiment on animals, the same as in the case of ‘Alexander’s Wine.’ But the effect, in producing death, more rapid, and more indistinguishable, in respect of presenting traces on post-mortem examination.”

The lines thus written were partially erased by strokes of the pen — drawn through them at a later date, judging by the colour of the ink. In the last blank space left at the foot of the label, these words were added — also in ink of a fresher colour:

“After many patient trials, I can discover no trustworthy antidote to this infernal poison. Under these circumstances, I dare not attempt to modify it for medical use. I would throw it away — but I don’t like to be beaten. If I live a little longer I will try once more, with my mind refreshed by other studies.”

Madame Fontaine paused before she wrapped the bottle up again in its covering, and looked with longing eyes at the ciphers which filled the inner side of the sheet of paper. There, perhaps, was the announcement of the discovery of the antidote; or possibly, the record of some more recent experiment which placed the terrible power of the poison in a new light! And there also was the cipher defying her to discover its secret!

The fifth bottle that she took from the chest contained “Alexander’s Wine.” The sixth, and last, was of the well-remembered blue glass, which had played such an important part in the event of Mr. Keller’s recovery.

David Glenney had rightly conjectured that the label had been removed from the blue-glass bottle. Madame Fontaine shook it out of the empty compartment. The inscription (also in the German language) ran as follows: —

“Antidote to Alexander’s Wine. The fatal dose, in case of accident, is indicated by the notched slip of paper attached to the bottle. Two fluid drachms of the poison (more than enough to produce death) were accidentally taken in my experience. So gradual is the deadly effect that, after a delay of thirty-six hours before my attention was called to the case, the administration of the antidote proved successful. The doses are to be repeated every three or four hours. Any person watching the patient may know that the recovery is certain, and that the doses are therefore to be discontinued, by these signs: the cessation of the trembling in the hands; the appearance of natural perspiration; and the transition from the stillness of apathy to the repose of sleep. For at least a week or ten days afterwards a vegetable diet, with cream, is necessary as a means of completing the cure.”

She laid the label aside, and looked at the two bottles — the poison and the antidote — ranged together at her feet.

“Power!” she thought, with a superb smile of triumph. “The power that I have dreamed of all my life is mine at last! Alone among mortal creatures, I have Life and Death for my servants. You were deaf, Mr. Keller, to my reasons, and deaf to my entreaties. What wonderful influence brought you to my feet, and made you the eager benefactor of my child? My servant Death, who threatened you in the night; and my servant Life, who raised you up in the morning. What a position! I stand here, a dweller in a populous city — and every creature in it, from highest to lowest, is a creature in my power!”

She looked through the window of her room over the houses of Frankfort. At last her sleepy eyes opened wide; an infernal beauty irradiated her face. For one moment, she stood — a demon in human form. The next, she suddenly changed into a timid woman, shaken in every limb by the cold grasp of fear.

What influence had wrought the transformation?

Nothing but a knock at the door.

“Who’s there?” she cried.

The voice that answered her was the voice of Jack Straw.

“Hullo, there, Mrs. Fontaine! Let me in.”

She placed a strong constraint on herself; she spoke in friendly tones. “What do you want, Jack?”

“I want to show you my keys.”

“What do I care about the crazy wretch’s keys?” — was the thought that passed through Madame Fontaine’s mind, when Jack answered her from the outer side of the door. But she was still careful, when she spoke to him, to disguise her voice in its friendliest tones.

“Excuse me for keeping you waiting, Jack. I can’t let you in yet.”