Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (934 page)

“I had no choice but to do as I was told. To the best of my observation, there was nothing the matter with her, and nothing for the nurse to do. I put the bell-rope within reach of her hand, and I went downstairs again.

“Half an hour more, as well as I can guess it, passed. I kept within hearing of the bell; but it never rang. I was not quite at my ease — without exactly knowing why. That odd, muffled voice in which she had spoken to me hung on my mind, as it were. I was not quite satisfied about leaving her alone for too long a time together — and then, again, I was unwilling to risk throwing her into one of her fits of passion by going back before she rang for me. It ended in my venturing into the room on the ground-floor called the Morning-Room, to consult Mr. Macallan. He was usually to be found there in the forenoon of the day.

“On this occasion, however, when I looked into the Morning-Room it was empty.

“At the same moment I heard the master’s voice on the terrace outside. I went out, and found him speaking to one Mr. Dexter, an old friend of his, and (like Mrs. Beauly) a guest staying in the house. Mr. Dexter was sitting at the window of his room upstairs (he was a cripple, and could only move himself about in a chair on wheels), and Mr. Macallan was speaking to him from the terrace below.

“‘Dexter!’ I heard Mr. Macallan say. ‘Where is Mrs. Beauly? Have you seen anything of her?’

“Mr. Dexter answered, in his quick, off-hand way of speaking, ‘Not I. I know nothing about her.’

“Then I advanced, and, begging pardon for intruding, I mentioned to Mr. Macallan the difficulty I was in about going back or not to his wife’s room without waiting until she rang for me. Before he could advise me in the matter, the footman made his appearance and informed me that Mrs. Macallan’s bell was then ringing — and ringing violently.

“It was then close on eleven o’clock. As fast as I could mount the stairs I hastened back to the bedroom.

“Before I opened the door I heard Mrs. Macallan groaning. She was in dreadful pain; feeling a burning heat in the stomach and in the throat, together with the same sickness which had troubled her in the early morning. Though no doctor, I could see in her face that this second attack was of a far more serious nature than the first. After ringing the bell for a messenger to send to Mr. Macallan, I ran to the door to see if any of the servants happened to be within call.

“The only person I saw in the corridor was Mrs. Beauly. She was on her way from her own room, she said, to inquire after Mrs. Macallan’s health. I said to her, ‘Mrs. Macallan is seriously ill again, ma’am. Would you please tell Mr. Macallan, and send for the doctor?’ She ran downstairs at once to do as I told her.

“I had not been long back at the bedside when Mr. Macallan and Mrs. Beauly both came in together. Mrs. Macallan cast a strange look on them (a look I cannot at all describe), and bade them leave her. Mrs. Beauly, looking very much frightened, withdrew immediately. Mr. Macallan advanced a step or two nearer to the bed. His wife looked at him again in the same strange way, and cried out — half as if she was threatening him, half as if she was entreating him — ’Leave me with the nurse. Go!’ He only waited to say to me in a whisper, ‘The doctor is sent for,’ and then he left the room.

“Before Mr. Gale arrived Mrs. Macallan was violently sick. What came from her was muddy and frothy, and faintly streaked with blood. When Mr. Gale saw it he looked very serious. I heard him say to himself, ‘What does this mean?’ He did his best to relieve Mrs. Macallan, but with no good result that I could see. After a time she seemed to suffer less. Then more sickness came on. Then there was another intermission. Whether she was suffering or not, I observed that her hands and feet (whenever I touched them) remained equally cold. Also, the doctor’s report of her pulse was always the same — ’very small and feeble.’ I said to Mr. Gale, ‘What is to be done, sir?’ And Mr. Gale said to me, ‘I won’t take the responsibility on myself any longer; I must have a physician from Edinburgh.’

“The fastest horse in the stables at Gleninch was put into a dog-cart, and the coachman drove away full speed to Edinburgh to fetch the famous Doctor Jerome.

“While we were waiting for the physician, Mr. Macallan came into his wife’s room with Mr. Gale. Exhausted as she was, she instantly lifted her hand and signed to him to leave her. He tried by soothing words to persuade her to let him stay. No! She still insisted on sending him out of her room. He seemed to feel it — at such a time, and in the presence of the doctor. Before she was aware of him, he suddenly stepped up to the bedside and kissed her on the forehead. She shrank from him with a scream. Mr. Gale interfered, and led him out of the room.

“In the afternoon Doctor Jerome arrived.

“The great physician came just in time to see her seized with another attack of sickness. He watched her attentively, without speaking a word. In the interval when the sickness stopped, he still studied her, as it were, in perfect silence. I thought he would never have done examining her. When he was at last satisfied, he told me to leave him alone with Mr. Gale. ‘We will ring,’ he said, ‘when we want you here again.’

“It was a long time before they rang for me. The coachman was sent for before I was summoned back to the bedroom. He was dispatched to Edinburgh for the second time, with a written message from Dr. Jerome to his head servant, saying that there was no chance of his returning to the city and to his patients for some hours to come. Some of us thought this looked badly for Mrs. Macallan. Others said it might mean that the doctor had hopes of saving her, but expected to be a long time in doing it.

“At last I was sent for. On my presenting myself in the bedroom, Doctor Jerome went out to speak to Mr. Macallan, leaving Mr. Gale along with me. From that time as long as the poor lady lived I was never left alone with her. One of the two doctors was always in her room. Refreshments were prepared for them; but still they took it in turns to eat their meal, one relieving the other at the bedside. If they had administered remedies to their patient, I should not have been surprised by this proceeding. But they were at the end of their remedies; their only business the seemed to be to keep watch. I was puzzled to account for this. Keeping watch was the nurse’s business. I thought the conduct of the doctors very strange.

“By the time that the lamp was lighted in the sick-room I could see that the end was near. Excepting an occasional feeling of cramp in her legs, she seemed to suffer less. But her eyes looked sunk in her head; her skin was cold and clammy; her lips had turned to a bluish paleness. Nothing roused her now — excepting the last attempt made by her husband to see her. He came in with Doctor Jerome, looking like a man terror-struck. She was past speaking; but the moment she saw him she feebly made signs and sounds which showed that she was just as resolved as ever not to let him come near her. He was so overwhelmed that Mr. Gale was obliged to help him out of the room. No other person was allowed to see the patient. Mr. Dexter and Mrs. Beauly made their inquiries outside the door, and were not invited in. As the evening drew on the doctors sat on either side of the bed, silently watching her, silently waiting for her death.

“Toward eight o’clock she seemed to have lost the use of her hands and arms: they lay helpless outside the bed-clothes. A little later she sank into a sort of dull sleep. Little by little the sound of her heavy breathing grew fainter. At twenty minutes past nine Doctor Jerome told me to bring the lamp to the bedside. He looked at her, and put his hand on her heart. Then he said to me, ‘You can go downstairs, nurse: it is all over.’ He turned to Mr. Gale. ‘Will you inquire if Mr. Macallan can see us?’ he said. I opened the door for Mr. Gale, and followed him out. Doctor Jerome called me back for a moment, and told me to give him the key of the door. I did so, of course; but I thought this also very strange. When I got down to the servants’ hall I found there was a general feeling that something was wrong. We were all uneasy — without knowing why.

“A little later the two doctors left the house. Mr. Macallan had been quite incapable of receiving them and hearing what they had to say. In this difficulty they had spoken privately with Mr. Dexter, as Mr. Macallan’s old friend, and the only gentleman then staying at Gleninch.

“Before bed-time I went upstairs to prepare the remains of the deceased lady for the coffin. The room in which she lay was locked, the door leading into Mr. Macallan’s room being secured, as well as the door leading into the corridor. The keys had been taken away by Mr. Gale. Two of the men-servants were posted outside the bedroom to keep watch. They were to be relieved at four in the morning — that was all they could tell me.

“In the absence of any explanations or directions, I took the liberty of knocking at the door of Mr. Dexter’s room. From his lips I first heard the startling news. Both the doctors had refused to give the usual certificate of death! There was to be a medical examination of the body the next morning.”

There the examination of the nurse, Christina Ormsay, came to an end.

Ignorant as I was of the law, I could see what impression the evidence (so far) was intended to produce on the minds of the jury. After first showing that my husband had had two opportunities of administering the poison — once in the medicine and once in the tea — the counsel for the Crown led the jury to infer that the prisoner had taken those opportunities to rid himself of an ugly and jealous wife, whose detestable temper he could no longer endure.

Having directed his examination to the attainment of this object, the Lord Advocate had done with the witness. The Dean of Faculty — acting in the prisoner’s interests — then rose to bring out the favorable side of the wife’s character by cross-examining the nurse. If he succeeded in this attempt, the jury might reconsider their conclusion that the wife was a person who had exasperated her husband beyond endurance. In that case, where (so far) was the husband’s motive for poisoning her? and where was the presumption of the prisoner’s guilt?

Pressed by this skillful lawyer, the nurse was obliged to exhibit my husband’s first wife under an entirely new aspect. Here is the substance of what the Dean of Faculty extracted from Christina Ormsay:

“I persist in declaring that Mrs. Macallan had a most violent temper. But she was certainly in the habit of making amends for the offense that she gave by her violence. When she was quiet again she always made her excuses to me, and she made them with a good grace. Her manners were engaging at such times as these. She spoke and acted like a well-bred lady. Then, again, as to her personal appearance. Plain as she was in face, she had a good figure; her hands and feet, I was told, had been modeled by a sculptor. She had a very pleasant voice, and she was reported when in health to sing beautifully. She was also (if her maid’s account was to be trusted) a pattern in the matter of dressing for the other ladies in the neighbourhood. Then, as to Mrs. Beauly, though she was certainly jealous of the beautiful young widow, she had shown at the same time that she was capable of controlling that feeling. It was through Mrs. Macallan that Mrs. Beauly was in the house. Mrs. Beauly had wished to postpone her visit on account of the state of Mrs. Macallan’s health. It was Mrs. Macallan herself — not her husband — who decided that Mrs. Beauly should not be disappointed, and should pay her visit to Gleninch then and there. Further, Mrs. Macallan (in spite of her temper) was popular with her friends and popular with her servants. There was hardly a dry eye in the house when it was known she was dying. And, further still, in those little domestic disagreements at which the nurse had been present, Mr. Macallan had never lost his temper, and had never used harsh language: he seemed to be more sorry than angry when the quarrels took place.” — Moral for the jury: Was this the sort of woman who would exasperate a man into poisoning her? And was this the sort of man who would be capable of poisoning his wife?

Having produced this salutary counter-impression, the Dean of Faculty sat down; and the medical witnesses were called next.

Here the evidence was simply irresistible.

Dr. Jerome and Mr. Gale positively swore that the symptoms of the illness were the symptoms of poisoning by arsenic. The surgeon who had performed the post-mortem examination followed. He positively swore that the appearance of the internal organs proved Doctor Jerome and Mr. Gale to be right in declaring that their patient had died poisoned. Lastly, to complete this overwhelming testimony, two analytical chemists actually produced in Court the arsenic which they had found in the body, in a quantity admittedly sufficient to have killed two persons instead of one. In the face of such evidence as this, cross-examination was a mere form. The first Question raised by the Trial — Did the Woman Die Poisoned? — was answered in the affirmative, and answered beyond the possibility of doubt.

The next witnesses called were witnesses concerned with the question that now followed — the obscure and terrible question, Who Poisoned Her?