"It is very, very strong, Lottie, and I fear it will keep me awake all night."
"Fear!" cried the girl, "fear! Why, of course it will! To tell you the truth," she added, bending toward me, and whispering, "I begin to think this isn"t the house where one can sleep honestly. Now just go up to your room, if you please, and don"t let them see you looking so miserable. There"s trouble enough without that."
The cook came toward us before I could answer. She was preparing to send up tea for the family, and muttered something about ladies always being in the way in a kitchen. So great was the depression of my spirits, that I allowed this to wound me, and went away in deeper dejection.
No human soul came near me during the evening. I could not sleep--the stimulus urged my brain into swift action. I reviewed all the difficulties of my position over and over again; strange projects came into my mind, ways by which my wrongs--for I had been wronged--should be redressed; speeches more eloquent than ever could reach my lips inspired me, and these were to be addressed to Mr. Lee, in the presence of that woman. A thousand wild fancies seized upon my brain and held it. I had no wish to change my position. Having thrown myself on the bed in my clothes, I remained there, thinking, thinking, thinking till my brain ached, but would not pause for rest--a terrible inspiration was upon me.
I heard a bustle in the house, as if the family were retiring; then the clock struck eleven, twelve, one. The hours did not seem long, but the stillness almost terrified me. All at once, it was after midnight some time, a sound approached my chamber like the rush of a bird through the air. I started up and listened. The door opened softly, and a figure glided in.
"Miss Hyde, are you awake? Get up this minute and come with me; if your shoes are on, take them off. Come."
I sprang up and followed Lottie swiftly and silently as she had reached my chamber. She drew me through the pa.s.sage into her own little room. As I pa.s.sed along the hall which led from the main building to the tower, it seemed to me that my dress brushed against some one crouching in a dark corner; but Lottie had not seen it, and I followed her, holding my breath. She glided through her own room into the chamber where Mrs. Lee slept. The carpets were thick as wood-moss, and our feet gave no sound.
When she was fairly in the room, Lottie paused, and I heard a slight, sc.r.a.ping noise; then the sudden flash of a match was followed by the blaze of a candle which the girl carried in her hand.
As the light broke up, a faint cry came from the bed; a figure which bent over it rose up suddenly, and I stood face to face with Mrs.
Dennison, the whitest woman that ever my eyes dwelt upon. She held a crystal toilet-bottle in one hand, and in the other a wet pocket-handkerchief.
"Stand by the door, Miss Hyde. Don"t let her move a foot. I"ll be back in a flash."
Lottie darted from the room as she spoke, leaving the candlestick on the carpet.
The woman turned upon me then with the spirit of a tigress. Her eyes flashed fire, the white teeth shone through her curved lips. She attempted to pa.s.s me, but I retreated to the door and kept the threshold. She came forward as if to force me away, still holding the bottle and handkerchief in her hands. Never in my life had I seen a face so beautiful and so fiendish. There was desperation in her eyes, violence in her action; but though weaker and smaller than her, I would have died on the threshold of that door rather than have allowed her to cross it.
All at once her face changed. She was looking, not at me, but over my shoulder; a flash of quick intelligence shot from her eyes, and the next moment she had thrown both arms about my neck and pressed my face to her bosom. I knew that some one came close up behind me, and heard the clink of gla.s.s; then a rush of feet through Lottie"s room, and along the pa.s.sage. All this could not have lasted a minute. I struggled from the woman"s embrace, and pushed her from me with a violence that made her stagger. Her face had changed to its old look of triumph. She laughed, not naturally--that was beyond even her powers of self-command--but in a way that made me shiver.
"Dear Miss Hyde, is it you?" she said, in a voice that quaked in spite of herself. "How terribly frightened I was! Poor Mrs. Lee must have been very ill. I heard her moaning and calling for help in my room, and came at once; she seems quite insensible now."
I looked toward the bed. Mrs. Lee lay upon it, white, and still as a corpse, her eyes closed, and her lips of a bluish white. Was she dead?
Had the woman killed her? A strong, pungent smell filled the room--a smell of chloroform. It was almost suffocating.
Mrs. Dennison seemed to think of this suddenly, and, darting toward the window, flung open two of the sashes before I knew what she was about. A gush of fresh air swept through the room; the pungent odor grew fainter and fainter, at which she smiled on me triumphantly.
I looked at her, as she stood in the light; a toilet-bottle was still in her hand, but it was of crimson gla.s.s, spotted with gold; that which she held, when I came in, was white and pure as water. How had she managed to change the crystal flask? What had become of the handkerchief?
Still smiling on me, she approached the bed and scattered fragrant drops from the crimson flask over the pillows and the deathly face of my poor friend. How still she lay! The whiteness of her face was terrible, but I dared not approach her; my post was by the door till Lottie came; but it made my blood run cold to see that woman bending over her, smoothing the pillows with her hand, and filling the room with that lying fragrance.
CHAPTER XLV.
BAFFLED AND DEFEATED.
It seemed an eternity before Lottie came back, yet she had not been absent three minutes. She came alone, and stood by me at the door, regarding Mrs. Dennison"s movements with the keen vigilance of a fox.
But a glimpse of Mrs. Lee"s face made her start forward with a cry of dismay.
"My mistress, she is dead! They have killed her!"
She would have fallen upon her knees by the bed, but Mrs. Dennison put her aside. It was an easy thing, for Lottie had lost all her strength in that terrible fear.
"Foolish child! she has only fainted," said Mrs. Dennison, holding her back; "the air will bring her to."
Lottie"s courage returned with these words, and struggling from Mrs.
Dennison"s hold, she sat down upon the bed, chafing Mrs. Lee"s cold hands and kissing them with loving tenderness.
"Is she really and truly alive?" said the poor girl, appealing to me.
I could not resist the wistful anxiety of that look, but came forward, holding my breath, with a dread that her fears might be true.
That moment Mr. Lee entered the room, and directly came Jessie, with a look of terror on her face. She trembled like a leaf at the sight of her mother, and turned to me, looking the question which she could not frame in speech.
"It is not death! I hope and believe that it is not death!" I said.
Jessie fell upon a chair and burst into tears.
"Hush, child!" said her father; "let us learn what has happened. Mrs.
Dennison, can you tell me?"
"I hardly know myself," answered the widow, innocently. "I heard moans and a cry for help coming from this room, and, springing up from my sleep, ran to see what it meant. There was no light in the room, but I felt that Mrs. Lee was cold and still as she lies now--alive, but motionless. I had s.n.a.t.c.hed a bottle from my toilet, and was bathing her head with its contents, when Miss Hyde and the servant came in. They were very much terrified, and alarmed the house, I hope unnecessarily.
It is a deep fainting fit. I am sure she will come out safely in time."
As the woman said this, Lottie stood looking in her face, dumb with astonishment. She saw the red flask in Mrs. Dennison"s hand, felt the changed atmosphere of the room, and, for once, her presence of mind gave way.
"Poor thing! she was half frightened to death," said Mrs. Dennison, casting a patronizing glance at the crestfallen girl, "I never saw anything so wild in my life."
"And I never saw anything so wicked!" Lottie burst forth, clinching her hands and almost shaking them at the woman.
"Wicked! Oh, not so bad as that, my good girl," said the woman, gently.
"One can be frightened, you know, without being wicked."
"Yes," said Lottie, with a sob, "and a person can be wicked without being frightened, I know that well enough."
"Lottie!" exclaimed Mr. Lee.
Lottie stood for one instant like a wild animal at bay; but directly her eyes fell upon her mistress, her form relaxed, and, creeping to the bedside, she began to cry.
"Oh, bring her to! bring her to! and I won"t say another word," she pleaded, looking piteously at the widow.
"I am not omnipotent, poor child!" was the sweet reply. "But see! I think there is a movement of her eyelids."
Lottie rose from her knees and looked eagerly in that worn face. "Yes, yes, she is alive; she is coming to herself. Oh, my mistress! my mistress! I will never, never leave you again. I"ll sleep on the floor at the foot of your bed, like a dog, before anybody reaches you!"
Tears rained down poor Lottie"s face, and her voice was so full of grief that no one had the heart to chide her, though it seemed to disturb the invalid, who was slowly recovering consciousness.
Mrs. Lee at last opened her eyes, and looked vaguely around at the people near her bed, without seeming to recognize them; when Lottie caught her vacant gaze, she burst forth,--
"Oh, ma"am, don"t you know me? It"s Lottie--it"s Lottie!"