Or, in plain writing:
“I do not want to die, but I surely will if--”
Finish the sentence for me. That is the problem I offer you. It is not a
case for the police but one well worth your attention, if you succeed in
reaching the heart of this mystery and saving this young girl.
Only, let no delay occur. The doom, if doom it is, is immanent. Remember
that the will is signed.
“She is too small; I did not ask you to send me a midget.”
Thus spoke Mrs. Postlethwaite to her doctor, as he introduced into her
presence a little figure in nurse’s cap and apron. “You said I needed
care,--more care than I was receiving. I answered that my old nurse
could give it, and you objected that she or someone else must look after
Miss Postlethwaite. I did not see the necessity, but I never contradict
a doctor. So I yielded to your wishes, but not without the proviso (you
remember that I made a proviso) that whatever sort of young woman you
chose to introduce into this room, she should not be fresh from the
training schools, and that she should be strong, silent, and capable.
And you bring me this mite of a woman--is she a woman? she looks more
like a child, of pleasing countenance enough, but who can no more lift
me--”
“Pardon me!” Little Miss Strange had advanced. “I think, if you will
allow me the privilege, madam, that I can shift you into a much more
comfortable position.” And with a deftness and ease certainly not to
be expected from one of her slight physique, Violet raised the helpless
invalid a trifle more upon her pillow.
The act, its manner, and the smile accompanying it, could not fail to
please, and undoubtedly did, though no word rewarded her from lips not
much given to speech save when the occasion was imperative. But Mrs.
Postlethwaite made no further objection to her presence, and, seeing
this, the doctor’s countenance relaxed and he left the room with a much
lighter step than that with which he had entered it.
And thus it was that Violet Strange--an adept in more ways than
one--became installed at the bedside of this mysterious woman, whose
days, if numbered, still held possibilities of action which those
interested in young Helena Postlethwaite’s fate would do well to
recognize.
Miss Strange had been at her post for two days, and had gathered up the
following:
That Mrs. Postlethwaite must be obeyed.
That her step-daughter (who did not wish to die) would die if she knew
it to be the wish of this domineering but apparently idolized woman.
That the old man of the clocks, while senile in some regards, was very
alert and quite youthful in others. If a century old--which she began
greatly to doubt--he had the language and manner of one in his prime,
when unaffected by the neighbourhood of the clocks, which seemed in
some non-understandable way to exercise an occult influence over him. At
table he was an entertaining host; but neither there nor elsewhere would
he discuss the family, or dilate in any way upon the peculiarities of a
household of which he manifestly regarded himself as the least important
member. Yet no one knew them better, and when Violet became quite
assured of this, as well as of the futility of looking for explanation
of any kind from either of her two patients, she resolved upon an effort
to surprise one from him.
She went about it in this way. Noting his custom of making a complete
round of the clocks each night after dinner, she took advantage of Mrs.
Postlethwaite’s inclination to sleep at this hour, to follow him from
clock to clock in the hope of overhearing some portion of the monologue
with which he bent his head to the swinging pendulum, or put his ear
to the hidden works. Soft-footed and discreet, she tripped along at his
back, and at each pause he made, paused herself and turned her ear his
way. The extreme darkness of the halls, which were more sombre by night
than by day, favoured this attempt, and she was able, after a failure
or two, to catch the No! no! no! no! which fell from his lips in seeming
repetition of what he heard the most of them say.
The satisfaction in his tone proved that the denial to which he
listened, chimed in with his hopes and gave ease to his mind. But
he looked his oldest when, after pausing at another of the many
time-pieces, he echoed in answer to its special refrain, Yes! yes! yes!
yes! and fled the spot with shaking body and a distracted air.
The same fear and the same shrinking were observable in him as he
returned from listening to the least conspicuous one, standing in a
short corridor, where Violet could not follow him. But when, after
a hesitation which enabled her to slip behind the curtain hiding the
drawing-room door, he approached and laid his ear against the great
one standing, as if on guard, at the foot of the stairs, she saw by
the renewed vigour he displayed that there was comfort for him in its
message, even before she caught the whisper with which he left it and
proceeded to mount the stairs:
“It says No! It always says No! I will heed it as the voice of Heaven.”
But one conclusion could be the result of such an experiment to a mind
like Violet’s. This partly touched old man not only held the key to the
secret of this house, but was in a mood to divulge it if once he could
be induced to hear command instead of dissuasion in the tick of this
one large clock. But how could he be induced? Violet returned to Mrs.
Postlethwaite’s bedside in a mood of extreme thoughtfulness.
Another day passed, and she had not yet seen Miss Postlethwaite. She was
hoping each hour to be sent on some errand to that young lady’s room,
but no such opportunity was granted her. Once she ventured to ask the
doctor, whose visits were now very frequent, what he thought of the
young lady’s condition. But as this question was necessarily put in Mrs.
Postlethwaite’s presence, the answer was naturally guarded, and possibly
not altogether frank.
“Our young lady is weaker,” he acknowledged. “Much weaker,” he added
with marked emphasis and his most professional air, “or she would be
here instead of in her own room. It grieves her not to be able to wait
upon her generous benefactress.”
The word fell heavily. Had it been used as a test? Violet gave him a
look, though she had much rather have turned her discriminating eye upon
the face staring up at them from the pillow. Had the alarm expressed by
others communicated itself at last to the physician? Was the charm which
had held him subservient to the mother, dissolving under the pitiable
state of the child, and was he trying to aid the little detective-nurse
in her effort to sound the mystery of her condition?
His look expressed benevolence, but he took care not to meet the gaze of
the woman he had just lauded, possibly because that gaze was fixed upon
him in a way to tax his moral courage. The silence which ensued was
broken by Mrs. Postlethwaite:
“She will live--this poor Helena--how long?” she asked, with no break in
her voice’s wonted music.
The doctor hesitated, then with a candour hardly to be expected from
him, answered:
“I do not understand Miss Postlethwaite’s case. I should like, with your
permission, to consult some New York physician.”
“Indeed!”
A single word, but as it left this woman’s thin lips Violet recoiled,
and, perhaps, the doctor did. Rage can speak in one word as well as in
a dozen, and the rage which spoke in this one was of no common order,
though it was quickly suppressed, as was all other show of feeling when
she added, with a touch of her old charm:
“Of course you will do what you think best, as you know I never
interfere with a doctor’s decisions. But” and here her natural
ascendancy of tone and manner returned in all its potency, “it would
kill me to know that a stranger was approaching Helena’s bedside. It
would kill her. She’s too sensitive to survive such a shock.”
Violet recalled the words worked with so much care by this young girl on
a minute piece of linen, I do not want to die, and watched the doctor’s
face for some sign of resolution. But embarrassment was all she saw
there, and all she heard him say was the conventional reply:
“I am doing all I can for her. We will wait another day and note the
effect of my latest prescription.”
Another day!
The deathly calm which overspread Mrs. Postlethwaite’s features as this
word left the physician’s lips warned Violet not to let another day go
by without some action. But she made no remark, and, indeed, betrayed
but little interest in anything beyond her own patient’s condition. That
seemed to occupy her wholly. With consummate art she gave the appearance
of being under Mrs. Postlethwaite’s complete thrall, and watched with
fascinated eyes every movement of the one unstricken finger which could
do so much.
This little detective of ours could be an excellent actor when she
chose.