POISON.
The Broom-Squire did not recover from his wound with the rapidity
that might have been expected. His blood was fevered, his head in
a whirl. He could not forget what his sister had said to him
relative to Mehetabel and Iver. Jealousy gnawed in his heart like
a worm. That the painter should admire her for her beauty--that
was nothing--who did not admire her? Had she not been an object
of wonder and praise ever since she had bloomed into womanhood at
the Ship? That he was envied his beautiful wife did not surprise
him. He valued her because begrudged him by others.
He looked at himself in a broken glass he had, and sneered and
laughed when he saw his own haggard face, and contrasted it with
that of the artist. It was true that he had seen nothing to render
him suspicious, when Iver came to his house, but he had not always
been present. He had actually forced his wife against her wishes
to go to the tavern where Iver was, had thrust her, so to speak,
into his arms.
He remembered her call in the Marsh to the spirits to rid her of
some one, and he could not believe her explanation. He remembered
how that to save Iver, she had thrust the muzzle of the gun against
her own side, and had done battle with him for mastery over the
weapon. Incapable of conceiving of honor, right feeling, in any
breast, he attributed the worst motives to Mehetabel--he held her
to be sly, treacherous, and false.
Jonas had never suffered from any illness, and he made a bad
patient now. He was irritable, and he spared neither his wife,
who attended to him with self-denying patience, nor his sister,
who came in occasionally. Mehetabel hoped that his pain and
dependence on her might soften his rancorous spirit, and break
down his antagonism towards her and every one. The longer his
recovery was delayed, the more unrestrained became his temper.
He spared no one. It seemed as though his wife's patience and
attention provoked into virulent activity all that was most venomous
and vicious in his nature. Possibly he was aware that he was
unworthy of her, but could not or would not admit this to himself.
His hatred of Iver grew to frenzy. He felt that he was morally the
inferior of both the artist and of his own wife. When he was at
their mercy they had spared his life, and that life of his lay
between them and happiness. Had he not sought both theirs? Would
he have scrupled to kill either had one of them been in the same
helpless position at his feet?
He had come forth in sorry plight from that struggle, and now he
was weakened by his accident, and unable to watch Mehetabel as
fully as he would have wished.
The caution spoken by the surgeon that he should not retard his
recovery by impatience and restlessness was unheeded.
He was wakeful at night, tossing on his bed from side to side. He
complained of this to the surgeon, who, on his next visit, brought
him a bottle of laudanum.
"Now look here," said he; "I will not put this in your hands. You
are too hasty and unreliable to be entrusted with it. Your wife
shall have it. It is useful, if taken in small quantities, just a
drop or two, but if too much be taken by accident, then you will
fall into a sleep from which there is no awaking. I can quite
fancy that you in your irritable mood, because you could not sleep,
would give yourself an overdose, and then--there would be the
deuce to pay."
"And suppose that my wife were to overdose me?" asked the sick man
suspiciously.
"That is not a suspicion I can entertain," said the surgeon, with
a bow of his head in the direction of Mehetabel, "I have found her
thoughtful, exact, and trustworthy. And so you have found her, I
will swear, Mr. Kink, in all your domestic life?"
The Broom-Squire muttered something unintelligible, and turned a
way.
When the laudanum arrived, he took the bottle and examined it. A
death's head and crossbones were on the label. He took out the
cork, and smelt the contents of the phial.
Though worn out with want of sleep he refused to touch any of the
sedative. He was afraid to trust Mehetabel with the bottle, and
afraid to mix his own portion lest in his nervous excitement he
might overdo the dose.
Neither would he suffer the laudanum to be administered to him by
his sister. As he said to her with a sneer, "A drop too much would
give you a chance of my farm, which you won't have so long as I
live."
"How can you talk like that?" said Sally. "Haven't you got a wife?
Wouldn't the land go to her?"
The land, the house--to Mehetabel, and with his removal, then the
way would be opened for Iver as well.
The thought was too much for Jonas. He left his bed, and carried
the phial of opium to a little cupboard he had in the wall, that
he kept constantly locked. This he now opened, and within it he
placed the bottle. "Better endure my sleepless nights than be
rocked to sleep by those who have no wish to bid me a good morrow."
Seeing that Mehetabel observed him he said, "The key I never let
from my hands."
He would not empty the phial out of the window, because--he thought
on the next visit of the surgeon he might get him to administer
the dose himself, and he would have to pay for the laudanum,
consequently to waste it would be to throw away two shillings.
It chanced one day, when the Broom-Squire was somewhat better, and
had begun to go about, that old Clutch was taken ill. The venerable
horse was off his feed, and breathed heavily. He stood with head
down, looking sulky.
Bideabout was uneasy. He was attached to the horse, even though
he beat it without mercy. Perhaps this attachment was mainly
selfish. He knew that if old Clutch died he would have to replace
him, and the purchase of a horse would be a serious expense.
Accordingly he did all in his power to recover his steed, short
of sending for a veterinary surgeon. He hastened to his cupboard
in the upper chamber, and unlocked it, to find a draught that he
might administer. When he had got the bottle, in his haste, being
one-handed, he forgot to re-lock and remove the key. Possibly he
did not observe that his wife was seated in the window, engaged in
needlework. Indeed, for some time she had been very busily engaged
in the making of certain garments, not intended for herself nor
for her husband. She worked at these in the upper chamber, where
there was more light than below in the kitchen, where, owing to
the shade of the trees, the room was somewhat dark, and where,
moreover, she was open to interruption.
When Bideabout left the room, Mehetabel looked up, and saw that he
had not fastened the cupboard. The door swung open, and exposed
the contents. She rose, laid the linen she was hemming on the
chair, and went to the open press, not out of inquisitiveness,
but in order to fasten the door.
She stood before the place where he kept his articles of value,
and mustered them, without much interest. There were bottles of
drenches for cattle, and pots of ointment for rubbing on sprains,
and some account books. That was all.
But among the bottles was one that was small, of dark color, with
an orange label on it marked with a boldly drawn skull and
crossbones, and the letters printed on it, "Poison."
This was the phial containing the medicine, the name of which she
could not recall, that the doctor had given to her husband to take
in the event of his sleeplessness continuing to trouble him. The
word "poison" was frightening, and the death's head still more so.
But she recalled what the surgeon had said, that the result of
taking a small dose would be to encourage sleep, and of an overdose
to send into a sleep from which there would be no awaking.
Mehetabel could hardly repress a smile, though it was a sad one,
as she thought of her husband's suspicions lest she should misuse
the draught on him. But her bosom heaved, and her heart beat as
she continued to look at it.
She needed but to extend her hand and she had the means whereby
all her sorrows and aches of heart would be brought to an end.
It was not as if there were any prospect before her of better
times. If sickness had failed to soften and sweeten the temper of
the Broom-Squire, then nothing would do it. Before her lay a hideous
future of self-abnegation, or daily, hourly misery, under his
ill-nature; of continuous torture caused by his cruel tongue. And
her heart was not whole. She still thought of Iver, recalled his
words, his look, the clasp of his arm, his kiss on her lips.
Would the time ever arrive when she could think of him without her
pulse bounding, and a film forming over her eyes?
Would it not be well to end this now? She had but to sip a few
drops from this bottle and then lay her weary head, and still more
weary heart, on the bed, and sleep away into the vast oblivion!
She uncorked the bottle and smelt the laudanum. The odor was
peculiar, it was unlike any other with which she was acquainted.
She even touched the cork with her tongue. The taste was not
unpleasant.
Not a single drop had been taken from the phial. It was precisely
in the condition in which it had arrived.
If she did not yield to the temptation, what was it that stayed
her? Not the knowledge that the country of the Gergesenes lay
southeast of the Lake of Tiberias, otherwise called the Sea of
Galilee; nor that the "lily of the field" was the Scarlet Martagon;
nor that the latitude and longitude of Jerusalem were 31 deg. 47
min. by 53 deg. 15 min., all which facts had been acquired by her
in the Sunday-school; but that which arrested her hand and made
her replace the cork and bottle was the sight of a little white
garment lying on the chair from which she had risen.
Just then she heard her husband's voice, and startled and confused
by what had passed through her mind, she locked the cupboard, and
without consideration slipped the key into her pocket. Then
gathering up the little garment she went into another room.
Bideabout did not miss the key, or remember that he had not locked
up the cupboard, for three days. The bottle with drench he had
retained in the stable.
When the old horse recovered, or showed signs of convalescence,
then Bideabout took the bottle, went to his room, and thrust his
hand into his pocket for the key that he might open the closet and
replace the drench.
Then, for the first time, did he discover his loss. He made no
great disturbance about it when he found out that the key was gone,
as he took for granted that it had slipped from his pocket in the
stable, or on his way through the yard to it. In fact, he discovered
that there was a hole in his pocket, through which it might easily
have worked its way.
As he was unable to find any other key that would fit the lock, he
set to work to file an odd key down and adapt it to his purpose.
Living as did the squatters, away from a town, or even a large
village, they had learned to be independent of tradesmen, and to
do most things for themselves.
Nor did Mehetabel discover that she was in possession of the key
till after her husband had made another that would fit. She had
entirely forgotten having pocketed the original key. Indeed she
never was conscious that she had done it. It was only when she
saw him unlock the closet to put away the bottle of horse medicine
that she asked herself what had been done with the key. Then she
hastily put her hand into her pocket and found it.
As Jonas had another, she did not think it necessary for her to
produce the original and call down thereby on herself a torrent
of abuse.
She retained it, and thus access to the poison was possible to
those two individuals under one roof.