"How do you feel now, sir?" asked Mrs. Lecount. "Are you warm again on your left side?"
He paid no attention to that inquiry; his eyes, wandering about the room, turned by chance toward the table. To Mrs. Lecount"s surprise, instead of answering her, he bent forward in his chair, and looked with staring eyes and pointing hand at the second bottle which she had taken from the cupboard, and which she had hastily laid aside without paying attention to it. Seeing that some new alarm possessed him, she advanced to the table, and looked where he looked. The labeled side of the bottle was full in view; and there, in the plain handwriting of the chemist at Aldborough, was the one startling word confronting them both--"Poison."
Even Mrs. Lecount"s self-possession was shaken by that discovery. She was not prepared to see her own darkest forebodings--the unacknowledged offspring of her hatred for Magdalen--realized as she saw them realized now. The suicide-despair in which the poison had been procured; the suicide-purpose for which, in distrust of the future, the poison had been kept, had brought with them their own retribution. There the bottle lay, in Magdalen"s absence, a false witness of treason which had never entered her mind--treason against her husband"s life!
With his hand still mechanically pointing at the table Noel Vanstone raised his head and looked up at Mrs. Lecount.
"I took it from the cupboard," she said, answering the look. "I took both bottles out together, not knowing which might be the bottle I wanted. I am as much shocked, as much frightened, as you are."
"Poison!" he said to himself, slowly. "Poison locked up by my wife in the cupboard in her own room." He stopped, and looked at Mrs. Lecount once more. "For _me?_" he asked, in a vacant, inquiring tone.
"We will not talk of it, sir, until your mind is more at ease," said Mrs. Lecount. "In the meantime, the danger that lies waiting in this bottle shall be instantly destroyed in your presence." She took out the cork, and threw the laudanum out of window, and the empty bottle after it. "Let us try to forget this dreadful discovery for the present," she resumed; "let us go downstairs at once. All that I have now to say to you can be said in another room."
She helped him to rise from the chair, and took his arm in her own.
"It is well for him; it is well for me," she thought, as they went downstairs together, "that I came when I did."
On crossing the pa.s.sage, she stepped to the front door, where the carriage was waiting which had brought her from Dumfries, and instructed the coachman to put up his horses at the nearest inn, and to call again for her in two hours" time. This done, she accompanied Noel Vanstone into the sitting-room, stirred up the fire, and placed him before it comfortably in an easy-chair. He sat for a few minutes, warming his hands feebly like an old man, and staring straight into the flame. Then he spoke.
"When the woman came and threatened me in Vauxhall Walk," he began, still staring into the fire, "you came back to the parlor after she was gone, and you told me--?" He stopped, shivered a little, and lost the thread of his recollections at that point.
"I told you, sir," said Mrs. Lecount, "that the woman was, in my opinion, Miss Vanstone herself. Don"t start, Mr. Noel! Your wife is away, and I am here to take care of you. Say to yourself, if you feel frightened, "Lecount is here; Lecount will take care of me." The truth must be told, sir, however hard to bear the truth may be. Miss Magdalen Vanstone was the woman who came to you in disguise; and the woman who came to you in disguise is the woman you have married. The conspiracy which she threatened you with in London is the conspiracy which has made her your wife. That is the plain truth. You have seen the dress upstairs. If that dress had been no longer in existence, I should still have had my proofs to convince you. Thanks to my interview with Mrs.
Bygrave I have discovered the house your wife lodged at in London; it was opposite our house in Vauxhall Walk. I have laid my hand on one of the landlady"s daughters, who watched your wife from an inner room, and saw her put on the disguise; who can speak to her ident.i.ty, and to the ident.i.ty of her companion, Mrs. Bygrave; and who has furnished me, at my own request, with a written statement of facts, which she is ready to affirm on oath if any person ventures to contradict her. You shall read the statement, Mr. Noel, if you like, when you are fitter to understand it. You shall also read a letter in the handwriting of Miss Garth--who will repeat to you personally every word she has written to me--a letter formally denying that she was ever in Vauxhall Walk, and formally a.s.serting that those moles on your wife"s neck are marks peculiar to Miss Magdalen Vanstone, whom she has known from childhood. I say it with a just pride--you will find no weak place anywhere in the evidence which I bring you. If Mr. Bygrave had not stolen my letter, you would have had your warning before I was cruelly deceived into going to Zurich; and the proofs which I now bring you, after your marriage, I should then have offered to you before it. Don"t hold me responsible, sir, for what has happened since I left England. Blame your uncle"s b.a.s.t.a.r.d daughter, and blame that villain with the brown eye and the green!"
She spoke her last venomous words as slowly and distinctly as she had spoken all the rest. Noel Vanstone made no answer--he still sat cowering over the fire. She looked round into his face. He was crying silently.
"I was so fond of her!" said the miserable little creature; "and I thought she was so fond of Me!"
Mrs. Lecount turned her back on him in disdainful silence. "Fond of her!" As she repeated those words to herself, her haggard face became almost handsome again in the magnificent intensity of its contempt.
She walked to a book-case at the lower end of the room, and began examining the volumes in it. Before she had been long engaged in this way, she was startled by the sound of his voice, affrightedly calling her back. The tears were gone from his face; it was blank again with terror when he now turned it toward her.
"Lecount!" he said, holding to her with both hands. "Can an egg be poisoned? I had an egg for breakfast this morning, and a little toast."
"Make your mind easy, sir," said Mrs. Lecount. "The poison of your wife"s deceit is the only poison you have taken yet. If she had resolved already on making you pay the price of your folly with your life, she would not be absent from the house while you were left living in it.
Dismiss the thought from your mind. It is the middle of the day; you want refreshment. I have more to say to you in the interests of your own safety--I have something for you to do, which must be done at once.
Recruit your strength, and you will do it. I will set you the example of eating, if you still distrust the food in this house. Are you composed enough to give the servant her orders, if I ring the bell? It is necessary to the object I have in view for you, that n.o.body should think you ill in body or troubled in mind. Try first with me before the servant comes in. Let us see how you look and speak when you say, "Bring up the lunch.""
After two rehearsals, Mrs. Lecount considered him fit to give the order, without betraying himself.
The bell was answered by Louisa--Louisa looked hard at Mrs. Lecount. The luncheon was brought up by the house-maid--the house-maid looked hard at Mrs. Lecount. When luncheon was over, the table was cleared by the cook--the cook looked hard at Mrs. Lecount. The three servants were plainly suspicious that something extraordinary was going on in the house. It was hardly possible to doubt that they had arranged to share among themselves the three opportunities which the service of the table afforded them of entering the room.
The curiosity of which she was the object did not escape the penetration of Mrs. Lecount. "I did well," she thought, "to arm myself in good time with the means of reaching my end. If I let the gra.s.s grow under my feet, one or the other of those women might get in my way." Roused by this consideration, she produced her traveling-bag from a corner, as soon as the last of the servants had entered the room; and seating herself at the end of the table opposite Noel Vanstone, looked at him for a moment, with a steady, investigating attention. She had carefully regulated the quant.i.ty of wine which he had taken at luncheon--she had let him drink exactly enough to fortify, without confusing him; and she now examined his face critically, like an artist examining his picture at the end of the day"s work. The result appeared to satisfy her, and she opened the serious business of the interview on the spot.
"Will you look at the written evidence I have mentioned to you, Mr.
Noel, before I say any more?" she inquired. "Or are you sufficiently persuaded of the truth to proceed at once to the suggestion which I have now to make to you?"
"Let me hear your suggestion," he said, sullenly resting his elbows on the table, and leaning his head on his hands.
Mrs. Lecount took from her traveling-bag the written evidence to which she had just alluded, and carefully placed the papers on one side of him, within easy reach, if he wished to refer to them. Far from being daunted, she was visibly encouraged by the ungraciousness of his manner.
Her experience of him informed her that the sign was a promising one.
On those rare occasions when the little resolution that he possessed was roused in him, it invariably a.s.serted itself--like the resolution of most other weak men--aggressively. At such times, in proportion as he was outwardly sullen and discourteous to those about him, his resolution rose; and in proportion as he was considerate and polite, it fell. The tone of the answer he had just given, and the att.i.tude he a.s.sumed at the table, convinced Mrs. Lecount that Spanish wine and Scotch mutton had done their duty, and had rallied his sinking courage.
"I will put the question to you for form"s sake, sir, if you wish it,"
she proceeded. "But I am already certain, without any question at all, that you have made your will?"
He nodded his head without looking at her.
"You have made it in your wife"s favor?"
He nodded again.
"You have left her everything you possess?"
"No."
Mrs. Lecount looked surprised.
"Did you exercise a reserve toward her, Mr. Noel, of your own accord?"
she inquired; "or is it possible that your wife put her own limits to her interest in your will?"
He was uneasily silent--he was plainly ashamed to answer the question.
Mrs. Lecount repeated it in a less direct form.
"How much have you left your widow, Mr. Noel, in the event of your death?"
"Eighty thousand pounds."
That reply answered the question. Eighty thousand pounds was exactly the fortune which Michael Vanstone had taken from his brother"s orphan children at his brother"s death--exactly the fortune of which Michael Vanstone"s son had kept possession, in his turn, as pitilessly as his father before him. Noel Vanstone"s silence was eloquent of the confession which he was ashamed to make. His doting weakness had, beyond all doubt, placed his whole property at the feet of his wife. And thi s girl, whose vindictive daring had defied all restraints--this girl, who had not shrunk from her desperate determination even at the church door--had, in the very hour of her triumph, taken part only from the man who would willingly have given all!--had rigorously exacted her father"s fortune from him to the last farthing; and had then turned her back on the hand that was tempting her with tens of thousands more! For the moment, Mrs. Lecount was fairly silenced by her own surprise; Magdalen had forced the astonishment from her which is akin to admiration, the astonishment which her enmity would fain have refused. She hated Magdalen with a tenfold hatred from that time.
"I have no doubt, sir," she resumed, after a momentary silence, "that Mrs. Noel gave you excellent reasons why the provision for her at your death should be no more, and no less, than eighty thousand pounds. And, on the other hand, I am equally sure that you, in your innocence of all suspicion, found those reasons conclusive at the time. That time has now gone by. Your eyes are opened, sir; and you will not fail to remark (as I remark) that the Combe-Raven property happens to reach the same sum exactly, as the legacy which your wife"s own instructions directed you to leave her. If you are still in any doubt of the motive for which she married you, look in your own will--and there the motive is!"
He raised his head from his hands, and became closely attentive to what she was saying to him, for the first time since they had faced each other at the table. The Combe-Raven property had never been cla.s.sed by itself in his estimation. It had come to him merged in his father"s other possessions, at his father"s death. The discovery which had now opened before him was one to which his ordinary habits of thought, as well as his innocence of suspicion, had hitherto closed his eyes. He said nothing; but he looked less sullenly at Mrs. Lecount. His manner was more ingratiating; the high tide of his courage was already on the ebb.
"Your position, sir, must be as plain by this time to you as it is to me," said Mrs. Lecount. "There is only one obstacle now left between this woman and the attainment of her end. _That obstacle is your life._ After the discovery we have made upstairs, I leave you to consider for yourself what your life is worth."
At those terrible words, the ebbing resolution in him ran out to the last drop. "Don"t frighten me!" he pleaded; "I have been frightened enough already." He rose, and dragged his chair after him, round the table to Mrs. Lecount"s side. He sat down and caressingly kissed her hand. "You good creature!" he said, in a sinking voice. "You excellent Lecount! Tell me what to do. I"m full of resolution--I"ll do anything to save my life!"
"Have you got writing materials in the room, sir?" asked Mrs. Lecount.
"Will you put them on the table, if you please?"
While the writing materials were in process of collection, Mrs. Lecount made a new demand on the resources of her traveling-bag. She took two papers from it, each indorsed in the same neat commercial handwriting.
One was described as "Draft for proposed Will," and the other as "Draft for proposed Letter." When she placed them before her on the table, her hand shook a little; and she applied the smelling-salts, which she had brought with her in Noel Vanstone"s interests, to her own nostrils.
"I had hoped, when I came here, Mr. Noel," she proceeded, "to have given you more time for consideration than it seems safe to give you now.
When you first told me of your wife"s absence in London, I thought it probable that the object of her journey was to see her sister and Miss Garth. Since the horrible discovery we have made upstairs, I am inclined to alter that opinion. Your wife"s determination not to tell you who the friends are whom she has gone to see, fills me with alarm. She may have accomplices in London--accomplices, for anything we know to the contrary, in this house. All three of your servants, sir, have taken the opportunity, in turn, of coming into the room and looking at me. I don"t like their looks! Neither you nor I know what may happen from day to day, or even from hour to hour. If you take my advice, you will get the start at once of all possible accidents; and, when the carriage comes back, you will leave this house with me!"
"Yes, yes!" he said, eagerly; "I"ll leave the house with you. I wouldn"t stop here by myself for any sum of money that could be offered me. What do we want the pen and ink for? Are you to write, or am I?"
"You are to write, sir," said Mrs. Lecount. "The means taken for promoting your own safety are to be means set in motion, from beginning to end, by yourself. I suggest, Mr. Noel--and you decide. Recognize your own position, sir. What is your first and foremost necessity? It is plainly this. You must destroy your wife"s interest in your death by making another will."