ANOTHER SCENE AT THE CRAWFORDS'--JOE HARRIS PLAYING THE DETECTIVE, WITH
MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENTS--A STRANGE CONVERSATION, AND A STRANGE VISIT TO A
STRANGE DOCTOR.
Some chapters back in this narration, we saw Colonel Egbert Crawford
playing volunteer physician to his invalid cousin Richard, and applying
a certain bandage more or less suspicious in its character, while
Josephine Harris held a very ambiguous position behind the parlor-door
and drew certain deductions not complimentary to the character or
intentions of the gallant Colonel. To take up the dropped thread of
relation at that point--the Colonel left in a few moments afterwards,
and Joe, from her position in the room up-stairs, watched his departure.
By that time, the fearful agitation which had at first oppressed her,
had somewhat moderated, and she was much more capable than before of
thinking with clearness and acting with decision. "A perfect little
fool" in many of her first confidences (as some of her friends paid her
the doubtful compliment of calling her), Josephine Harris had yet a vein
of distrust in her character, not difficult to touch; and when that
vein was touched there was not "poppy or mandragora" enough in the world
to lull to sleep her suspicions, until they were either proved true or
fairly exploded.
Frank and generous natures will sometimes discern more clearly than
subtle and designing ones, just as the naked eye will sometimes take in
particulars in any scene more readily than when assisted by the glass.
The power of discernment may be aided, in some degree, by the fact that
they are not guarded against as some are because they bear the look or
reputation of being dangerous. Many a man has taken off the outer garb
of his soul and gone in his mental shirtsleeves (so to speak) from the
impression on his mind that he was in the company of the confiding and
the unobservant; and many a bad man has found detection and ruin in the
experiment.
Josephine Harris had seen something in the eyes of Colonel Egbert
Crawford, when directed towards his invalid cousin, which said: "I hate
you, and I would put you out of the way if I could!" She had remarked
the terrible agitation of Richard Crawford when she made her random
observation to that effect. Now she had overheard enough to put her in
possession of the conflict of interests; and she had at the same time
witnessed the application to the body of the invalid, of a preparation
that was expressly ordered to be kept from the knowledge of the
physician. Taking all these things together, and jumping at a conclusion
with a rash haste which such people will sometimes exhibit--away down in
the depths of her mind she whispered the word "_poison_!" She might
never have thought of the existence of an outward poison dangerous to
human life, but she had read Mrs. Ann S. Stephens' touching story of
"The Pillow of Roses," and remembered how the life of the first lover of
Mary Stuart had been sacrificed by the introduction of a deadly bane
into the silken pillow--the very gift of love on which he so confidingly
laid his head. Might not this be something of the same kind--a murderous
practice unknown to the great body of people, and yet in the knowledge
of some peculiarly instructed? What more likely than that a lawyer whose
line of business led him into the company of criminals and made him
acquainted with their secret confessions, should have arrived at a
knowledge so dangerous and resolved to apply it for his own benefit and
the removal of a rival?
Such were the reflections of Josephine Harris, when her blood had a
little cooled down from the terrible fever of fright and anxiety into
which she had been thrown at the first discovery; and how nearly right
she was in the most important particular--the fact of an attempted
poisoning by outward application--all will recognize who remember the
interview between the lawyer and the Obi woman of Thomas Street, with
the _dark paste_ which he brought away with him as the result of that
visit.
At all events, the young girl felt that she had seen enough to remove
any doubt of the propriety of making farther researches, and to do away
with any shame that she had originally felt in playing the part of a spy
and listener. Ardent natures like hers may possibly be blamed for
adopting so readily the maxim that "the end justifies the means," and
for plunging so determinedly into what cannot be considered their own
business; but let those blame them who will, the good they accomplish
may well be made a set-off for any evil they unwittingly cause; and the
parable of the man who "fell among thieves," and the heartless wretches
who "passed by on the other side," should make us a little slow in
blaming the "good Samaritans" who work so enthusiastically even if
uninvited and unskilfully.
The plain English of all which is, that Josephine Harris had determined
to fathom the whole of the mystery lying between Richard Crawford and
his cousin, no matter what deceptions she might be called upon to pursue
in carrying out her plan, or what amount of time and trouble might be
necessary for that purpose. She might have applied the rules of Egbert
Crawford's own profession to him, in expressing this determination, and
said that enough had been proved against the suspected person, to put
him on his trial before a fair and impartial jury--that jury being
herself in the first instance. Herself and herself only. For once Joe
Harris determined to suppress her propensity for talking everywhere and
to everybody, and to admit no confidant whatever into a knowledge of
her suspicions. What else she intended to do, will in due time develop
itself in action.
As a first step, she smoothed down her face with her hands, under some
kind of impression that she could in that way remove the redness from
her cheeks and the startled look from her eyes. Then she ran into Bell's
chamber, assuming all the nonchalance she could pick up on the way, to
ascertain whether that young lady was likely to remain away from the
parlor for a brief period longer. She found her very busy among a
miscellaneous heap of dresses and millinery (this was before the visit
to the sorceress, which gave her something else to think about--let it
be remembered,) and in that occupation she was safe to remain for an
indefinite period. No visitors coming in, then, she was likely to have
the field below-stairs to herself for a short time at least, and that
time must be used vigorously.
She ran lightly down-stairs and into the empty parlor. There was no
sound whatever coming out of the little room of the invalid--he was no
doubt still alone. With the same care which she had before taken, she
stepped to the glass doors, slid them apart as before, and looked
through. Richard Crawford was yet lying on the sofa, and he was
_buttoning up his vest_. A very simple and natural movement, and one not
at all noticeable under ordinary circumstances; but to Josephine Harris,
at that moment, it seemed very significant. There _was_ poison; that
poison lay in the bandage; he _had_ suspected his cousin, allowed him to
change and replace that bandage, and the moment he believed himself
alone and unobserved, had _taken it off_! To say that Joe Harris's eyes
sparkled at this proof of her suspicions, would be quite
insufficient--they flashed, danced and radiated with delight, in such a
manner as made it very fortunate for the peace of mind of the whole male
sex that she happened to be alone.
Richard Crawford had taken off that bandage, and that bandage must come
into her possession at once, while the preparation was fresh. But how
was it to be obtained? Where had he put it? From the fact that he had
been re-arranging his clothes while yet in a recumbent position, the
chances seemed to be that he had taken off the bandage, if at all,
without getting up, and that he then had it somewhere about him,
intending to lock it up or put it away when he rose to go to the
bed-room. He was very neat in his personal habits, as well as somewhat
nervous in disposition; and on the score of cleanliness he was not
likely to have put it into one of his pockets, while if he indeed felt
it to be poison he would have been quite as unlikely to retain it so
near his person. Joe felt that if removed, that bandage must be
somewhere about the sofa. How to get it, even then? He would not be at
all likely to go to bed, leaving it there; besides, she wanted it _at
once_! He must be got suddenly out of the room, and he was too weak and
suffering to remove often or on small provocation. The piano!--ah, yes,
she would try the piano!
Joe's musical performances were always pyrotechnic; except on particular
occasions when the sad soul that underlay the merriment came uppermost,
and then they were mournful enough to tempt suicide. To say that she
knew nothing about music, would be untrue of any one taught at the same
trouble and expense; but to say that she understood it, taking the
knowledge of other people as a standard, would be equally incorrect.
When studying music under an excellent teacher, it had been found
impossible to confine her to any set rules, and quite as impossible to
make her execute her lessons properly. When she should have been
performing that routine duty, her eolian piano at home was half the time
turned into a banjo or a harp, tinkling a serenade, or into an organ,
playing some ponderous old anthem or sobbing out some dirge of a broken
heart. These were all well enough, in their way, but they were not
studying the piano. As a result, she could produce all those effects
upon the instrument, that no one else would ever have thought of
attempting; the only penalty being, that what any one else could have
done, she could not do at all. This did not suit some people, but it
suited Miss Joe, exactly; and as she was pleased, perhaps no one else
had a right to complain. If any one _did_ complain he or she was likely
to be at once treated to one of the lugubrious compositions before
mentioned, producing the "dumps" for a month after.
On this occasion Joe threw open the lid of the piano with such dexterity
as to tangle the cover inextricably with the lid, set up the stool with
a whirl, and dashed into the midst of a composition that might have been
conceived by a mad musician and wailed out on an instrument possessed,
like Paganini's fiddle, one night when the demons of the storm were
playing at hide-and-seek among the Hartz Mountains of Germany. It went
from the top to the bottom of the scale, in such moanings, and wailings,
and sobbings, intermingled with such fiendish dashes of exultation and
laughter, that the nerves of a strong man might have been thrown into
permanent disorder by it, while those of a sick one could not do
otherwise than suffer the most exquisite torture.
"I think that will do!" said Miss Joe to herself, pausing for an instant
and then going on again. She was right, for at the next partial pause
she heard the voice of Dick Crawford, from the back-room, yelling out
with more energy than the man himself had before thought that he
possessed:
"Sto-o-o-op!"
She did stop--ran to the sliding-doors and opened them at once, to find
Crawford sitting upon the sofa, with his hands to both ears.
"Eh? what's the matter, Dick? Does the music disturb you?" she asked, as
naturally as if she had not before been aware of the fact.
"Disturb me? It _murders_ me--you know it does, you torment!" was the
reply of Crawford.
"I am so sorry," said Joe, with the least perceptible pout on her lip.
"I suppose that I must go home, then, and play."
"No," said Crawford, who had no idea of being guilty of the ungallantry
of driving a lady out of his house, especially dear, delicious,
tormenting Joe. "No, don't go home. But if you must play, why not play
something Christian and respectable--something that a man can listen to
without gritting his teeth and stopping his ears more than half the
time?"
"Well, that _is_ complimentary!" sighed Josey. "Just when I was doing
the very best that I could! Besides, I wasn't playing for _you_. You
were not in the room, but stuck away off there in a corner. I'll tell
you what I will do, Mr. Dick Crawford. Let me help you out here to a
sofa in _this_ room--the air will not hurt you, but do you good,--and I
promise to play for you the very tunes you wish. If not--"
"Oh, you need not mention the alternative," said Crawford, remembering
the preceding performance and afraid of a repetition. "Come here, give
me your arm, and I _will_ come out for a few minutes."
"Bravo!" thought wild Joe, but she did not say it. Very gently and
tenderly she assisted the invalid from his sofa and to a standing
position, and then quite as tenderly through the door and to the sofa
that stood nearly opposite the piano. Then she ran back and _closed the
sliding-doors_ again, for fear, as she said, that there might be too
much draught of air on the invalid. So far, so good! Richard Crawford
had been coaxed out of his room and into the parlor that he scarcely
entered once a month. What next?
"Play me a wreath of Scottish melodies," said Crawford, with the feeling
of the old blood coming up within him. "And be sure that you throw in
'Roy's Wife' and 'Annie Laurie.' Will you?--That's a good girl?" Dick
spoke more cheerfully than had been his late habit, and settled himself
to an easy position on the sofa with more the air of a man ready to
enjoy, than he had for some time manifested.
"Has there been an incubus suddenly lifted from his breast?" Joe Harris
asked herself, noticing the change.
If there was anything that she really _could_ play on the piano, her
forte lay in those very Scottish airs, which she certainly rendered with
exquisite feeling and with skill enough for the moderate demands of that
class of music. And on this occasion she felt bound to exert herself, to
repay the obligation of Crawford's coming out to hear her, though her
brain was all in a whirl for fear something might occur to drive the
patient back into his room, and her fingers, as they touched the white
keys, itched to be busying themselves about the cushions of the
invalid's sofa. For a few moments, while "Within a Mile of Edinboro'
Town," "Roy's Wife," "Charlie is My Darling," "Bonnie Doon" and half a
dozen others of the Scottish wreath were dripping from her fingers, and
while Richard Crawford was enjoying his favorite music better than he
had before enjoyed anything for many a week,--for this few moments Joe
Harris was nonplussed. How should she get out of the room? Oh! Suddenly
she remembered that there was some music on one of the tables up-stairs,
and she acted upon that excuse for absence.
"Oh, Dick, please lie still a moment. There is a piece up-stairs that I
must bring down and play for you. I know you will like it. One of
Gottschalk's--'Las Ojos Criollos.'" She had caught sight of that
composition lying at the top of the heap of music near her, and without
being observed by Crawford she caught the sheet, rolled it up in her
hand, and was out of the room in a moment.
"Tut! tut! what a pity that that girl _never_ can be still a moment and
do exactly what any one asks her to do!" was the mental comment of that
gentleman as her flying skirts disappeared through the door.
Of course Josephine Harris did not go up stairs. She had no real errand
whatever in that direction. There was a door opening from Richard's
little bed-room, adjoining his study, into the hall; and her hope was to
find that door unlocked. If not, some other excuse must be made to get
into his room, to invent which she must play a few more tunes, and run a
little more risk of being interrupted. She stepped very lightly to the
door, with a repetition of that cat-step which seemed that day suddenly
to have come to her. She turned the knob--it _was_ unlocked--it opened.
One dart through the other door and to the sofa. The cushion was a
moveable one, as she knew, and very likely to be made a temporary
hiding-place for any small article, by one lying upon it. She lifted the
edge of the cushion, her heart beating at trip-hammers again, and her
whole being almost as much excited as it had been half an hour before.
Human life is full of blunders, but happily there are some movements
that are _not_ blunders; and this was one of them. A small, round roll
of linen, three or four inches wide, was stuck a little distance under
the edge. She drew it out, hastily unrolled it until she saw that a dark
plaster lay in the middle, then, with a "Whew!" of triumph, quite as
hastily rolled it up again and thrust it into her pocket. Half a minute
more, and she had softly ascended a dozen steps of the stairs, and
descended again with plenty of noise, springing down with a decided bump
on the landing. Then she burst into the parlor with her _piece of
music_, and sat down once more to the piano.
"Excuse my running away, Dick. Haven't been long--have I?"
"No, not very long," answered Crawford, whose impressions of Joe's
steadiness were not enthusiastic. "You know I should not have been
surprised if you had not come back in a week."
"Fie! fie! Dick Crawford! I have half a mind not to play for you at all,
after that insult." But she did attempt to play, and to play "Las Ojos
Criollos." If she ever could have played that most brilliant and
difficult of all Gottschalk's pieces, which was very doubtful, she
certainly was not capable of doing it when her fingers were in such a
tremor, and with the mysterious package in her pocket; and though it may
be an ungallant and improper thing to say of a lady's performance, she
"made a mess of it."
"Pshaw!" she said, as naturally as if really vexed. "That piece is very
difficult. I thought that I had mastered it, a dozen times, yet here it
is bothering me again. Never mind!--I know what I _can_ play--something
that you like, or if you do not, you should!" And very much to
Crawford's delight, for she did not often sing, though she frequently
_hummed_,--she broke out with voice and instrument into that finest,
though worst-hackneyed, of modern love-ballads--"Ever of Thee." There
are unaccountable fancies, in music as well as in personal regard, and
one piece will sometimes make itself the very key-note of a human heart,
without being in itself so pre-eminently beautiful as to command that
distinction. Crawford had before many times heard Josephine Harris
humming that air, or touching it lightly on the keys of the piano, but
he had never before heard her _sing_ it. Before half of the first stanza
was finished, he knew that it supplied to her a need in music that all
the compositions of all the great masters would fail to fill; and before
she had finished the last, he believed that some painful secret of her
young life must be bound up in it. He was the more painfully confirmed
in that belief, when he saw her rise from the piano the moment after she
had concluded the song, and dash her hand to her eyes with the
unmistakeable gesture of wiping away a tear.
"Joe--dear Joe," he said, "come here a moment."
She crossed the room at once and stood beside him. He held out his hand
to her, and she took it as a sister might have taken that of a dearly
beloved brother. There was nothing of heat or tremor in the touch,
though there was everything of kindness. Absorbed in something else,
both had for the moment forgotten the feeling before predominant--Crawford
his sickness and crippled condition, and Joe Harris her anxieties and
her plans with reference to him.
"Josephine Harris," he said, very kindly, almost tenderly, "answer me
one question, as candidly as it is asked. Will you?"
"You could not ask me an improper question," she replied, "and so I
could have no reason for refusing to answer you. I will."
"You have been singing 'Ever of Thee,'" he went on. "Your whole heart
was in it when you sung, and when you stopped your voice was broken and
your eyes were full of tears. Tell me--is there a sad secret of your
life connected with that song? Consider me your brother, and do not be
afraid or ashamed to answer me."
"Richard Crawford, I _do_ consider you as a brother," the young girl
replied--"a _dear_ brother, in whom I would confide as in one of my own
blood. I mean to prove to you, some day, what a true sister I am. I am
neither afraid or ashamed to answer your question. I have no grief or
sad memory connected with 'Ever of Thee,' any more than with any other
sadly beautiful piece of music with words of the same character."
"Indeed!--I thought otherwise!" said Crawford, with something of
disappointment in his tone. "And yet it moves your light heart very
strangely."
"It does," said Josephine Harris. "I never sing it or hear it sung
without the tears gathering in my eyes, even if they do not fall."
"And you can give no reason for this peculiar feeling?"
"Oh yes," answered the young girl, "though no doubt you will laugh at my
reason when you hear it."
"I think not," said Crawford. "Tell me."
"You think me very gay and merry," said Josephine. "So I am, but I
suppose that I have something deeper in my nature, that 'crops out'
occasionally, as the geologists say. I suppose that I am a visionary in
some respects and among my visions is a love worthily fixed and fully
returned. So few seem to find this, that I fear I shall miss it--either
miss it altogether or find it too late. The thought is a sad one, and
that song seems insensibly to blend with it. When I am singing 'Ever of
Thee,' I am singing to my ideal love that may be escaping beyond the
reach of my fingers forever."
True woman of the golden heart!--God in heaven grant that to you and
such as you this vision may be no dim unreality! God grant you true
hearts against which your own may beat, and faithful arms upon which you
may lean when the day of your probation is accomplished I And failing
this fruition, the same God of love and peace grant you a truer and more
enduring union with hearts that pulsate truly to your own, in that land
where the sad wail of "Too Late!" is never heard and where no binding
link fetters the limbs or galls the spirit!
"I understand you now," said Richard Crawford. "And yet yours is a
strange fancy and would be a dangerous one in many minds. But you are a
brave girl, I believe, and that makes all the difference. Besides, you
have health and strength, and most of the time high spirits. An
invalid--a miserable cripple like myself, housed and shut away, can
scarcely hope to understand or appreciate anything that comes freshly in
out of God's sunshine!" The old sad and repining spirit had once more
come over Richard Crawford, perhaps invoked by something in the young
girl's words; and she saw the shadow almost as soon as he felt it. From
that moment she was the rattle-pate again, and he caught no more
glimpses into the sanctuary of her inner heart. He was to catch no more,
forever; for the next time they spoke together in private was after
certain events already related had occurred--after her hand had lain in
another, in so significant a pressure that no time or change could ever
take away the tingle of the blood which it communicated--after her eyes
began to open on a new phase of destiny--and after "Ever of Thee" ceased
to be a sad abstraction.
Just now she rattled on, as she assisted the invalid back to his room,
endeavoring to rouse his once-more sinking spirits, with all her old
gayety and abandon.
"You call me brave, do you?" she said. "Dick Crawford, if I was not a
little ashamed of you for allowing yourself to have these fits of low
spirits, I would tell you something to prove how 'brave' I am! Well, I
_will_ tell you, because I know that it is exceedingly improper and I
ought not to do so. Two or three weeks ago, spending an evening at Mrs.
R----'s, her daughters showed me a suit of clothes belonging to a
stripling brother, just gone away to the war. One of them bantered me to
put on the suit and go down-stairs among the gentlemen. I thought it
would be a good joke, and I tried it. The girls said that I made a very
handsome boy--hem! and I suppose that I did. At all events, I went
down-stairs and opened the parlor-door, bold as a sheep, when--what do
you think happened? Why, I thought, all at once, that all the clothes
were sticking tight to my limbs; and when one of the gentlemen came
towards me, I grabbed the cloth from the centre-table for a cloak, and
played hob with some Bohemian glassware and a few Parisian ornaments,
finishing by skedaddling up-stairs a good deal more rapidly than I came
down. Was not _there_ 'courage' for you?"
"No want of it, certainly," said Crawford, who had been laughing a
little, spite of his low spirits, at the naivete of the relation. "It
was modesty and not want of personal courage that drove you out of that
very funny position."
"Think so?" said the wild girl. "Then as I _am_ a coward and mean to be
known for what I am, I must tell you another story. A few weeks ago I
went into a menagerie, and one of the lions made a rush at the bars of
his cage--probably because he saw _me_. There was about as much danger
of his getting out, I suppose, as there would have been of _my_ doing so
in the same circumstances; but of course I made a fool of myself, got
frightened, yelled, and had all the visitors in the menagerie looking at
me. How was _that_? No want of courage? Eh?"
"That," said Richard Crawford, sententiously, "that was the _woman_."
"Humph!" said Joe, as she once more assisted the invalid to dispose
himself comfortably on his usual couch. "Now you will not agree to my
estimate of _myself_, perhaps you will think better of my estimate of
_you_."
"Perhaps so," said Crawford. "Try me."
"Well, then, I have been watching you half the afternoon, and I have
made up my mind about you more nearly than ever before."
"And what am I?" asked Crawford, with just a dash of impatience in his
tone.
"A hypochondriac!" said Joe. "You are a little sick, and you think
yourself much worse. You look better and feel better within the last
hour--"
"Eh, what?" said the invalid, startled apparently by some sudden thought
connected with the words.
"I say that you look better and feel better, within the last hour, than
you have done for weeks. You are getting better, and you have neither
the honesty to acknowledge it or the grace to thank God for it! Dick
Crawford, if you ever die--and I suppose you will, some time--you will
commit suicide by taking an over-dose of low spirits!"
How flippantly the wild girl spoke!--and yet she was right, and Dick
Crawford felt that she was right. The supplying cause of his malady
removed, such a lecture, from such ready lips, was precisely the thing
that he needed, to break up the habit of despondency--the habit of
_enjoying and nursing suffering_ (that phrase may express the fact as
well as another) which settles so often like a murky cloud upon the
minds of those who have been kept for weeks or months as confirmed
invalids, after lives of previous activity. She was right, too, as to
the suicide of low spirits. The red devils of Pandemonium may be
terrible, fresh from the flames of the pit; but they are nothing to
their brothers in blue, who people the air, overcloud the eyes and set
up torture-chambers in the brain. Bunyan, in that ever-living "Pilgrim's
Progress," paints no tyrant so terrible as "Giant Despair," and no
obstruction to the way so fatally impassable as the "Slough of Despond."
And we have never read over the sorrowful conclusion of the "Bride of
Lammermoor" without believing that the young master of Ravenswood, on
that sombre November morning, sunk the sooner and the more fatally in
the quicksands of the Kelpie's Flow, from the weight of the leaden heart
he carried in his bosom.
Suddenly, and before Richard Crawford had quite decided how to answer
her last remark, Josephine Harris said, as if the thought had only that
instant come to her:
"Oh, Dick, I am going to ask a favor, in return for my good opinion. The
carriage is in, I believe. May I ring for it, for an hour?"
"Certainly," said Crawford. Josephine rung the bell, and the order was
given.
"It is dusk, you see," said the young girl, apologetically, "and I
_must_ go down the Avenue before I go home. Many thanks. Be a good boy
and take care of yourself, till I see you again. John will set me down
at home when my little errand is over. Good night!" and her kiss fell
warm and soft upon his forehead--a sister's kiss, pure and
unimpassioned, even if there was no tie of blood between them.
Bell Crawford came down stairs and sat by her brother's side when she
heard the carriage roll away with her friend. And whither did that
carriage roll? Richard Crawford had no idea that Joe's "little errand"
could possibly have any connection with himself; and yet it had--a most
intimate and important connection, as will be perceived.
The coachman, at her request, drove out to Fifth Avenue, then down that
avenue to Tenth Street, where he opened the door and set her down,
receiving orders to wait there for her return. The young girl tripped up
from the corner, a few doors on the left hand side, past a church, and
entered the front-yard railing of one of two or three unpretending
three-story brick-houses standing together. It was now past dusk and the
street-lamps were lighted; and looking in at the basement windows of
this house, Joe saw that no curtains were drawn, that the gas was
burning within, over a table and under a shade; and that at the table
sat a man with head bent down and fingers busy at some kind of
mechanical contrivance.
"That will do," she muttered to herself. "The Doctor _is_ in, as I
believed he might be at this hour, and I shall have no occasion to
disturb the people up-stairs."
Passing under the steps she reached the closed door, and instead of
ringing, banged half a dozen times against the panels with her hand,
very slowly and tragically, as the ghost in "Don Giovanni" might ask to
be admitted, provided it had any occasion for using the door.
Immediately there was a shuffle inside, and directly the door opened and
a tall figure stood in the doorway. There was enough light from the
street-lamp to make the young girl's face and figure pretty plainly
visible, and the moment he saw her the occupant said:
"I thought so--mischief! I thought I knew that knock! No one else ever
takes such liberties with my office-door. What do you want now? But come
in, before you forget it!" and seizing both her hands with a playful
gesture, he dragged her within the door, closed it, pulled her through
the side-door into the front basement which formed the office, drew up a
clumsy cushioned operating-chair near the table, sat her down in it,
then cast himself into a chair immediately in front of her, threw one
leg over the other and his hands behind his head, and said:
"Now I am resigned and prepared. Out with it!"
Had Josephine Harris not been familiar with the place and its occupant,
as it was quite evident that she _was_, she would have looked twice at
the one and several times at the other. That little basement-room was
not only the office in which Doctor LaTurque received professional
calls, but it was also the sanctum in which were prepared most of the
oddly-trenchant articles in the _Scimetar_, a quarterly medical and
critical publication with a habit cutting as its name and a reputation
dangerous enough to suit the most sensational fancy. Few persons
connected with the practice of medicine in or about the great city, who
had not first or last suffered some incision from the trenchant blade of
the _Scimetar_, wielded by the wiry arm of the Doctor; and few humbugs
but he had pricked and exposed, by the same means or in personal
conversation, while he was himself the greatest humbug of all. Others
habitually humbugged others: he humbugged himself, or tried to do so,
insisting to himself that he was a hard man, an iron man, a brute, a
skeptic, and everything that was ugly and detestable; while in fact he
had the warm heart of an unspoiled child, and a faith in everything
good, that was really part of his being--all combined with the vigor of
the experienced surgeon and the close study of the untiring student. He
used hard words--rough ones, sometimes, and tried to make himself
believe that they were the emanations of a hard disposition; while every
rough word was really made under protest from his nature, and few men on
the whole earth were more ready to do an act of genuine kindness. It is
not for us to say that there was not some intentional affectation of
singularity underlying his manner; for he evidently loved notice if not
notoriety; and other means than the white coat and disarranged trowsers
of the Tribune Philosopher have sometimes been adopted to secure the
same end.
Certainly Dr. LaTurque was not remarkably choice in the style of his
"den," if he _had_ handsomely furnished apartments in the house above,
and if his windows _did_ look out on Fifth Avenue. The ceilings were
low, the walls plain, the furniture was very common, and yet a little
odd, as became the place. The floor was oil-clothed; a table covered
with dark cloth stood in the middle of the room; an old-fashioned
secretary, with books piled on either end, stood against the wall on the
right as the visitor entered, with a globe half hidden behind it; on the
wall opposite hung the print of a muscular Apollo (muscular, because it
was drawn anatomically, with no flesh covering the integuments); on
either end of the mantel stood a small statue; in the centre was an
impudent placard of bronze on japanned tin, announcing that no
complimentary visits could possibly be received in that room, while the
occupant, if there, was ready to falsify the announcement at any moment;
on a small table between the windows, under a glass globe, lay the cast
in plaster of a marvellously handsome male Italian face; two or three
small pictures, commonly framed, hung over secretary and mantel; in the
corner between the mantel and the window stood a stuffed eagle on a low
table covered with the suggestive appliances of a fractured leg; and
just behind it, on a bit of rug, nestled a disabled pigeon from his pet
flock on the roof, that had come down, with excellent judgment, to be
nursed and tended by the surgeon.
In the midst of this odd assemblage Dr. LaTurque was himself not by any
means the least remarkable object. He was certainly a singular-looking
man, and had a fancy (or pretended to have a fancy) that he was a very
homely one. He was not so, however, to any eye of taste--only striking.
In figure he was tall and rather thin, but the same epithet we have
applied to his arm may be used for the whole man--_wiry_. He seemed
capable of strong nervous effort and of great endurance; and one could
see that something more than fifty years had not diminished the
locomotive will or power. In the too large and too aquiline nose
(literally a beak)--in the iron-gray moustache, imperial, and heavy
brown hair--in the thin cheeks and keen gray eye,--there was a
marvellous reminder of the portraits of Louis Napoleon, and at the same
time another and a stronger suggestion. There is no close observer of
physiognomy but has remarked bird, beast and even reptile reproduced in
the faces of different men--one being a human lion, another a human
bear, a third a human hyena, and still a fourth a human serpent. It
scarcely seemed that it could have been by chance that the gray eagle
stood stuffed in the corner; for the observer just as naturally detected
the eagle in that human face, as he could ever have detected either of
the others named, in different physiognomies, and the dead bird seemed
the _totem_ of the living man.
"Well, battle and murder and sudden death!" said the medical Laurence
Boythorn, when he had forced the young girl down into a seat. "What is
it you want? Who is married or dead, or whom do you intend to kill, or
what is it?"
"Are you sober?" asked the young girl, looking into his eyes very
gravely.
"Why, you impudent demon in petticoats!" said the Doctor, with a great
appearance of indignation. "What do you mean? You know that I am never
otherwise than sober."
"From the effects of liquor, of course not," was the reply. "But your
hot head, like mine, has the capacity of becoming intoxicated sometimes
without any thanks to liquor; and I want to know whether you are cool
and clear, or whether you have been puzzling over some bad case, or
talking with some man with a stupid skull, until your head is all
muddled?"
"Clear as one of the mountain springs that you are some day going with
me to see," said the Doctor. "Now out with it."
"Well," said Joe, "I know that you hate chemistry, but in spite of that
you _must_ give me a little chemical judgment. I want you to tell me,"
and she took out the surreptitiously-obtained roll of linen, unrolled it
and laid it upon the table, under the full light of the burner--"I want
you to tell me what is that dark substance which looks like black paste,
whether it is animal, vegetable, or mineral, and what you think its
properties."
"And after I _do_ tell you, if I can," said the Doctor, eyeing the
suspicious-looking mass, "I suppose that I am to be told why you wish to
know?"
"Not one word," said Joe. "At least, not at present. All your reward is
to be the honor of conversing with _me_ on the subject."
"Bravo, Empress; I rather like _that_!" said the Doctor, who _did_ like
it, nevertheless, to judge by the jolly expression of his face. "You are
a refreshing young woman, and some day I expect to see you stretch out
your arm with imperial dignity and clear off all the pigmies from the
face of the earth with a 'Go away, small people! I have had enough of
you! You may leave!'"
"Very likely," said Joe. "But meanwhile I have not quite done with
_you_. Please examine that stuff, for I am in a hurry."
"As usual!" commented the Doctor, going on to smell, inspect, and even
taste the dark compound on the cloth.
"Take care!" cried the young girl, in alarm, when she saw him apply his
tongue to the substance.
"Pshaw!" said the Doctor. "Don't be alarmed. I am so full of dangerous
ingredients myself, that the most virulent of poisons could not produce
any effect on me."
"I should not like to see you trust it too far--that is, not if I cared
for you!" said the lady, as if _she_ had been the chemist and he the
neophyte.
"Well," said the Doctor, after a moment's pause and a still closer
inspection, "you will give me no particulars, and so I shall give _you_
none. I suppose the main fact is what you want to know. The substance is
a little dried, and consequently it has lost some of its aroma. But my
impression is that it is a very powerful vegetable poison, compounded
from certain simples that grow along running streams in the tropics, and
especially in some of the West Indies."
"I thought so!" said Joe, almost involuntarily, and an unmistakeable
gleam of pleasure lighting up her face. "But would that poison produce
any effect if applied outwardly?"
"I should think so," replied the Doctor, "though, as you say, I hate
chemistry. I should think that substance, applied to any vital part of
the body, and kept there continuously, would produce racking pains and
weakness, and be very likely to result in a disease resembling
inflammatory rheumatism, or possibly paralysis, and death."
"Thank you--thank you a dozen times," said Joe, springing up and
grasping the Doctor very warmly by the hand. "You do not know how much
good you may be doing by this examination; but you _shall_ know,
sometime--I will tell you all about it. And now good-night!" rolling up
the package and putting it back into her pocket. "My time is up, Mother
will be worried about me, and I have a borrowed carriage waiting at the
corner."
"Allow me to see you to it," said the Doctor, rising with quick
courtesy.
"No farther than the gate, for the world," said the young girl. "For
certain reasons, which you shall know some time, I must not be seen in
your company to-night, even by the coachman."
She tripped away instantly, the Doctor accompanying her to the
gate,--and rolled away homeward at once. What a day that had been to
her! And in what a whirl was her brain when she reflected on all she had
discovered and tried to arrange in her own mind the details of what she
yet felt it necessary to do! It was within forty-eight hours after, and
when her mind had not become at all calmed from the thoughts of the
crime surrounding her and those she loved, that the visit to the
sorceress was made, as before recorded. How much of additional
information she may really have expected to gain from the sorceress, it
is impossible to say,--or whether this matter of the attempted poisoning
was really the matter which sent her to that questionable fountain of
intelligence; but it is not at all strange that she should have blended
the terrors of the real and the imaginary together, and been powerfully
impressed by the events of that day which marked so important an era in
her existence.
It may be said here, that two days after the events just narrated, when
Bell accompanied her to the sorceress, she did not see Richard Crawford.
Thereafter, for many days, she did not visit the house at all, for
reasons that will soon make themselves manifest; and consequently the
awkwardness of any meeting with the invalid, which might have involved
questions she did not care to answer at that moment, was avoided. Joe
Harris felt that for once in her life she had a "mission"--something to
do, and to do in her own way; and until that work was done, or she had
utterly failed in the attempt, she did not mean to let that chattering
tongue of hers say one word that could give a clue to her thoughts or
intentions. We shall see, presently, how nearly and in what manner her
plans were carried out.