"If it could be!" cried Sophie.
"It can be. Listen, my sweet. My dear mother, in dying, left me, among books of the craft of healing and suchlike things, an old love-charm she had had from a Wise Woman in the Highlands. It is nothing but a little white powder, yet it affects the very heart-strings of him who takes it."
"Could it turn my father"s heart towards you? Lucius, how happy we should all be. . . . But surely it might make him love some one else instead--Mr. Le Petyt, perhaps?"
"You should know better than that, my foolish Sophie. These things all depend on the intention of he who gives them. You have but to concentrate on me while you give it him, and all will be well."
"He would be furious if he guessed," objected Sophie.
"Neither he nor anyone else must guess, or the charm will fail. I will send it to you in packets with the serpentine beads, and mark it "Powder to clean the pebbles.""
"Why not give it to me?" asked Sophie.
"Because I have to go away for a time, my sweet. Not for very long--" as Sophie made a movement of distress, "but I have business I must see to in town. I will send you the beads to remember me by in my absence. Will you wear them for my sake, Sophie."
"I will wear them night and day, but I need no reminders of you, Lucius.
But you--will you forget me in London? It is so big and far away and full of great ladies who will put your poor Sophie out of remembrance.
Lucius, Lucius. . . ."
"My sweet, silly little Sophie," he whispered, soothing her as she clung to him, "how can you misjudge me so? Is not one black hair from your head, one glance from your blue eyes, dearer to me than all the women in the world? What have I done that you should think so ill of me?"
"Forgive me, dear. I know men are not like women, and I cannot see what there is in me to hold you--except my love for you. No other women could love you half so well, Lucius. It is my only gift, but it at least could not be bettered by anyone."
"I know it, my sweet," he told her, "and when your father is of a better mind towards me you shall give me your love before all the world, and then I need no longer travel alone. Would you like to see London, heart of mine?"
"Ah, with you!" breathed Sophie. "Once, before I met you, I thought of nothing but London, and how I meant some day to be a great lady there, but now I think of nothing but to be with you. Perhaps, after all, this is what the Wise Woman meant and my golden ladder is my love for you, and I"ve climbed on it from loneliness to joy."
"A Jacob"s ladder, for the feet of an angel, then, my Sophie."
"If it could only reach from here to London! Oh, Lucius, need you go?"
"I must, my sweet. Don"t make it harder for me."
That checked her plaint at once, as he knew it would.
"When do you go?" she asked quietly.
"In a day or two, sweetheart. Ah, Sophie, how shall I live without you?"
While she comforted him, forgetting self, he made a mental calculation as to how soon he could get away. He kissed Sophie"s hair somewhat absently.
"I will write to you, heart of mine," he murmured, "and I will contrive so that he finds I have gone completely away, and that will lull any suspicion he may have against us. And while I am gone you will be working for us, my Sophie. Do not be alarmed if at first the powder seems to cause an indisposition. It has to expel the evil humours from a man before it can turn his nature to good. Give it to him in a small quant.i.ty once or twice, and he will vomit and be rid of this disaffection towards me, and the rest will work beneficially. Your father will arise and call you blessed, my Sophie, for having sworn him the evil of his own heart. Do not write me word when anything definite happens--I am leaving my servant at Penzance, and he will post up to me at once when you give him news."
"And then--then you will come down again, and we shall all be able to be happy. Perhaps my father will even dismiss Lylie Ruffiniac when his heart is turned towards you. That woman frightens me, Lucius. She is always looking at me as though she wished me away. No one loves me except yourself--and poor Charles. Hester avoids me, and James never did speak a word to me that he could avoid. Lucius, sometimes it seems to me that he and Lylie and Hester have all grown to hate me, that they would harm me if they could. It frightens me--Lucius, Lucius, what shall I do when you have left me?"
Crandon fought down his boredom and gave himself over to consoling her, with now and again a surrept.i.tious glance at the watch dangling from his fob. He had another interview to go through--with Lylie Ruffiniac. She had to be fostered in the belief that he was going to take Sophie away as soon as possible, leaving the housekeeper free to influence the Squire--for Lylie"s ambition rose to being legitimate mistress of the Manor, and Sophie once gone, she saw no reason why she should not attain her end. She knew that the ten thousand pounds was a mere myth, but that she kept hidden from Crandon, even bringing forward, as women can, apparently casual little pieces of information that would all tend to fix him in his belief. Crandon had been wise to impress on Sophie the necessity for keeping the love-potion hidden from every one--Lylie, who had a fine nose for a rogue, would have been in possession of his scheme--a scheme so devastating to her own--at once. As soon as safety and decency permitted he would carry Sophie off, go through the ceremony of marriage with her in a place where he was not known, gain possession of the money--and clear out of England for good. This was his last throw of the dice in his own country--let him but win the stake and he would disappear and enjoy his fortune elsewhere.
He took a last glance at his watch, a last kiss of Sophie"s mouth, and scrambled to his feet. He walked back with Sophie as near Troon as was safe, then took an affectionate good-night of her, and started off for the cove to meet Lylie Ruffiniac.
"Thank the G.o.ds, that hard-headed vixen of a Lylie won"t want me to kiss her!" he reflected as he went. "Ah, there"s a woman might have been some help to me if I"d met her in the shoes of Isabel or of this Sophie.
Lucius, my son, you are playing a very risky game, but the stakes are worth it. Ten thousand pounds, a fresh country--and entirely new women!"
V
THE LOVE-POTION
Two weeks after Crandon"s departure the first instalment of serpentine beads arrived for Sophie. There was no concealing the fact, and Sophie replied to her father"s suave inquiries that the beads were a keepsake from a friend. Enclosed with them was a tiny packet of white powder, on which was written "Powder to clean the pebbles," and this Sophie secreted at once.
A few days later the Squire was unwell with a violent headache and bilious attack resulting from too much port and smuggled brandy the night before--Sophie suggested that she should make him a dish of tea.
In the night he was taken with violent sickness, but by the next day he had not only recovered from that but apparently actually benefited by it, as it had cured him of the result of his orgy. Next day, to continue the cure, Sophie again sent him up some tea, but this time the Squire thought it tasted odd, and Hester, on bearing away the dish, finding that the rare beverage was left untouched, hid it in the scullery and drank it that evening. She was soon taken with violent pains and sickness and a raging thirst, and it was in this condition that Lylie found her.
"My life, Hester, what have "ee got?" asked Lylie.
"The pains of death, I do think," gasped Hester. "Oh, oh!"
Lylie looked at her unsympathetically.
"Simme you"m whist wi" en," she observed, "scrawlen" like that. Some bad you do look, though, there"s no denyen"."
"I"m dyen"!" wailed Hester.
Sophie, who had come into the kitchen, heard the commotion, and went into the scullery.
"Why, Hester, what ails you?" she exclaimed. "Lylie, what has happened?"
""Tes the pains o" death, she do say," replied Lylie, "but "tes nawthen but to be in the bed and somethen" hot that she needs."
"She must get to bed at once. Here, Lylie, you take her arm that side and I"ll take this. She"s getting quieter."
Indeed, the worst spasms were over: Hester, weak and exhausted, was put to bed, and Sophie, her dislike of the girl forgotten in compa.s.sion, sent up weak broth and white wine whey. Late that evening as Lylie sat with the Squire, he asked her what all the noise had been about.
""Tes that maid Hester," said Lylie indifferently, "she"d taken somethen" that went agen her and was vomiten" all evenin". Some bad she did vomit, and Miss and I had to get her overstairs to the bed."
The Squire stirred in his chair and very slowly brought his eyes round to Lylie.
"What time did the sickness take her?" he asked.
"Soon after she"d put your tray to the kitchen, measter. Look "ee, now, at this lutestring piece I got to Penzance church-town. It do sore need a ribbon to go wi" en. What do "ee say to given" I a crown to buy et with, eh, measter?"
"Shalt have thy crown, woman," said the Squire shortly, "but leave me be now. I want no more for the night. And tell Miss I wish to speak with her to-morrow forenoon."
Lylie, somewhat offended, but mollified by the unexpectedly easy capture of the crown, withdrew, and next morning, as Sophie was busier than usual in household tasks--Hester still being confined to her bed--she delivered the Squire"s message. It was with a heart fluttering with hope that Sophie went to his room. He was not yet out of bed, and, wrapped in a dingy dressing-gown, much stained with snuff and wine, his big jowl unshaven and his bald head innocent of wig (that ornament hung rakishly askew on a chair-back) he looked anything but a pleasant object. Sophie stopped short on the threshold.
"You sent for me, sir?" she asked.
""Tis nothing of any importance, my dear," said the Squire smoothly, "merely to tell you how recovered I am. How blooming you look, my Sophie--more like my own daughter than you have since this shadow fell between us."
Indeed, Sophie, in her flutter of hope and excitement, showed a glowing face. Her heart softened at the kindliness of her father"s tone.