Dinner had been over about half an hour one Sunday afternoon.--the only
day on which for years I had been able to enjoy a dinner--and I was
leisurely sipping a glass of wine, when a carriage drove rapidly up to
the door, a loud _rat-tat_ followed, and my friend Dr. Curteis, to my
great surprise, was announced.
"I have called," said the doctor as we shook hands, "to ask you to
accompany me to Mount Place. I have just received a hurried note from
Miss Armitage, stating that her mother, after a very brief illness, is
rapidly sinking, and requesting my attendance, as well as that of a legal
gentleman, immediately."
"Mrs. Armitage!" I exclaimed, inexpressibly shocked. "Why, it is scarcely
more than a fortnight ago that I met her at the Rochfords' in brilliant
health and spirits."
"Even so. But will you accompany me? I don't know where to find any one
else for the moment, and time presses."
"It is an attorney, probably, rather than a barrister, that is needed;
but under the circumstances, and knowing her as I do, I cannot hesitate."
We were soon bowling along at a rapid pace, and in little more than an
hour reached the dying lady's residence, situated in the county of Essex,
and distant about ten miles from London. We entered together; and Dr.
Curteis, leaving me in the library, proceeded at once to the sick
chamber. About ten minutes afterwards the housekeeper, a tall,
foreign-looking, and rather handsome woman, came into the room, and
announced that the doctor wished to see me. She was deadly pale, and, I
observed, trembled like an aspen. I motioned her to precede me; and she,
with unsteady steps, immediately led the way. So great was her agitation,
that twice, in ascending the stairs, she only saved herself from falling
by grasping the banister-rail. The presage I drew from the exhibition of
such overpowering emotion, by a person whom I knew to have been long not
only in the service, but in the confidence of Mrs. Armitage, was soon
confirmed by Dr. Curteis, whom we met coming out of the chamber of the
expiring patient.
"Step this way," said he, addressing me, and leading to an adjoining
apartment. "We do not require your attendance, Mrs. Bourdon," said he, as
soon as we reached it, to the housekeeper, who had swiftly followed us,
and now stood staring with eager eyes in the doctor's face, as if life
and death hung on his lips. "Have the goodness to leave us," he added
tartly, perceiving she did not stir, but continued her fearful,
scrutinizing glance. She started at his altered tone, flushed crimson,
then paled to a chalky whiteness, and muttering, left the apartment.
"The danger of her mistress has bewildered her," I remarked.
"Perhaps so," remarked Dr. Curteis. "Be that as it may, Mrs. Armitage is
beyond all human help. In another hour she will be, as we say, no more."
"I feared so. What is the nature of her disorder?"
"A rapid wasting away, as I am informed. The appearances presented are
those of a person expiring of atrophy, or extreme emaciation."
"Indeed. And so sudden too!"
"Yes. I am glad you are come, although your professional services will
not, it seems, be required--a neighboring attorney having performed the
necessary duty--something, I believe, relative to the will of the dying
lady. We will speak further together by and by. In the meantime,"
continued Dr. Curteis, with a perceptible tremor in his voice, "it will
do neither of us any harm to witness the closing scene of the life of
Mary Rawdon, whom you and I twenty years ago worshipped as one of the
gentlest and most beautiful of beings with which the Creator ever graced
his universe. It will be a peaceful parting. Come."
Just as, with noiseless footsteps, we entered the silent death-chamber,
the last rays of the setting sun were falling upon the figure of Ellen
Armitage--who knelt in speechless agony by the bedside of her expiring
parent--and faintly lighting up the pale, emaciated, sunken features of
the so lately brilliant, courted Mrs. Armitage! But for the ineffaceable
splendor of her deep-blue eyes, I should scarcely have recognized her.
Standing in the shadow, as thrown by the heavy bed-drapery, we gazed and
listened unperceived.
"Ellen," murmured the dying lady, "come nearer to me. It is growing
dark, and I cannot see you plainly. Now, then, read to me, beginning at
the verse you finished with, as good Dr. Curteis entered. Ay," she
faintly whispered, "it is thus, Ellen, with thy hand clasped in mine,
and with the words of the holy book sounding from thy dear lips, that I
would pass away!"
Ellen, interrupted only by her blinding tears, making sad stops,
complied. Twilight stole on, and threw its shadow over the solemn scene,
deepening its holiness of sorrow. Night came with all her train; and the
silver radiance kissed into ethereal beauty the pale face of the weeping
girl, still pursuing her sad and sacred task. We hesitated to disturb, by
the slightest movement the repose of a death-bed over which belief and
hope, those only potent ministers, shed light and calm! At length Dr.
Curteis advanced gently towards the bed, and taking the daughter's hand,
said in a low voice, "Had you not better retire, my dear young lady, for
a few moments?" She understood him, and rising from her knees, threw
herself in an ecstacy of grief upon the corpse, from which the spirit had
just passed away. Assistance was summoned, and the sobbing girl was borne
from the chamber.
I descended, full of emotion, to the library, where Dr. Curteis promised
shortly to join me. Noiselessly entering the room, I came suddenly upon
the housekeeper and a tall young man, standing with their backs towards
me in the recesses of one of the windows, and partly shrouded by the
heavy cloth curtains. They were evidently in earnest conference, and
several words, the significance of which did not at the moment strike me,
reached my ears before they perceived my approach. The instant they did
so, they turned hastily round, and eyed me with an expression of flurried
alarm, which at the time surprised me not a little. "All is over, Mrs.
Bourdon," said I, finding she did not speak; "and your presence is
probably needed by Miss Armitage." A flash of intelligence, as I spoke,
passed between the pair; but whether indicative of grief or joy, so
momentary was the glance, I should have been puzzled to determine. The
housekeeper immediately left the room, keeping her eyes, as she passed,
fixed upon me with the same nervous apprehensive look which had before
irritated Dr. Curteis. The young man followed more slowly. He was a tall
and rather handsome youth, apparently about one or two-and-twenty years
of age. His hair was black as jet, and his dark eyes were of singular
brilliancy; but the expression, I thought, was scarcely a refined or
highly-intellectual one. His resemblance to Mrs. Bourdon, whose son
indeed he was, was very striking. He bowed slightly, but courteously, as
to an equal, as he closed the door, and I was left to the undisturbed
enjoyment of my own reflections, which, ill-defined and indistinct as
they were, were anything but pleasant company. My reverie was at length
interrupted by the entrance of the doctor, with the announcement that the
carriage was in waiting to re-convey us to town.
We had journeyed several miles on our return before a word was spoken by
either of us. My companion was apparently even more painfully
pre-occupied than myself. He was, however, the first to break silence.
"The emaciated corpse we have just left little resembles the gay,
beautiful girl, for whose smiles you and I were once disposed to shoot
each other!" The doctor's voice trembled with emotion, and his face, I
perceived, was pale as marble.
"Mary Rawdon," I remarked, "lives again in her daughter."
"Yes; her very image. Do you know," continued he, speaking with rapid
energy, "I suspect Mary Rawdon--Mrs. Armitage, I would say--has been
foully, treacherously dealt with!"
I started with amazement; and yet the announcement but embodied and gave
form and color to my own ill-defined and shadowy suspicions.
"Good heavens! How? By whom?"
"Unless I am greatly mistaken, she has been poisoned by an adept in the
use of such destructive agents."
"Mrs. Bourdon?"
"No; by her son. At least my suspicions point that way. She is probably
cognizant of the crime. But in order that you should understand the
grounds upon which my conjectures are principally founded, I must enter
into a short explanation. Mrs. Bourdon, a woman of Spanish extraction,
and who formerly occupied a much higher position than she does now, has
lived with Mrs. Armitage from the period of her husband's death, now
about sixteen years ago. Mrs. Bourdon has a son, a tall, good-looking
fellow enough, whom you may have seen."
"He was with his mother in the library as I entered it after
leaving you."
"Ah! well, hem! This boy, in his mother's opinion--but that perhaps is
somewhat excusable--exhibited early indications of having been born a
"genius." Mrs. Armitage, who had been first struck by the beauty of the
child, gradually acquired the same notion; and the result was, that he
was little by little invested--with at least her tacit approval--with the
privileges supposed to be the lawful inheritance of such gifted spirits;
namely, the right to be as idle as he pleased--geniuses, you know, can,
according to the popular notion, attain any conceivable amount of
knowledge _per saltum_ at a bound--and to exalt himself in the stilts of
his own conceit above the useful and honorable pursuits suited to the
station in life in which Providence had cast his lot. The fruit of such
training soon showed itself. Young Bourdon grew up a conceited and
essentially-ignorant puppy, capable of nothing but bad verses, and
thoroughly impressed with but one important fact, which was, that he,
Alfred Bourdon, was the most gifted and the most ill-used of all God's
creatures. To genius, in any intelligible sense of the term, he has in
truth no pretension. He is endowed, however, with a kind of reflective
talent, which is often mistaken by fools for _creative_ power. The morbid
fancies and melancholy scorn of a Byron, for instance, such gentry
reflect back from their foggy imaginations in exaggerated and distorted
feebleness of whining versicles, and so on with other lights celestial
or infernal. This, however, by the way. The only rational pursuit he ever
followed, and that only by fits and starts, and to gratify his faculty of
"wonder," I fancy, was chemistry. A small laboratory was fitted up for
him in the little summer-house you may have observed at the further
corner of the lawn. This study of his, if study such desultory snatches
at science may be called, led him, in his examination of vegetable
bodies, to a smattering acquaintance with botany, a science of which
Ellen Armitage is an enthusiastic student. They were foolishly permitted
to _botanize_ together, and the result was, that Alfred Bourdon, acting
upon the principle that genius--whether sham or real--levels all merely
mundane distinctions, had the impudence to aspire to the hand of Miss
Armitage. His passion, sincere or simulated, has never been, I have
reason to know, in the slightest degree reciprocated by its object; but
so blind is vanity, that when, about six weeks ago, an _éclaircissement_
took place, and the fellow's dream was somewhat rudely dissipated, the
untoward rejection of his preposterous suit was, there is every reason to
believe, attributed by both mother and son to the repugnance of Mrs.
Armitage alone; and to this idiotic hallucination she has, I fear, fallen
a sacrifice. Judging from the emaciated appearance of the body, and other
phenomena communicated to me by her ordinary medical attendant--a
blundering ignoramus, who ought to have called in assistance long
before--she has been poisoned with _iodine_, which, administered in
certain quantities, would produce precisely the same symptoms. Happily
there is no mode of destroying human life which so surely leads to the
detection of the murderer as the use of such agents; and of this truth
the post mortem examination of the body, which takes place to-morrow
morning, will, if I am not grossly mistaken, supply another vivid
illustration. Legal assistance will no doubt be necessary, and I am sure
I do not err in expecting that _you_ will aid me in bringing to justice
the murderer of Mary Rawdon?"
A pressure of his hand was my only answer. "I shall call for you at ten
o'clock" said he, as he put me down at my own door. I bowed, and the
carriage drove off.
"Well!" said I, as Dr. Curteis and Mr. ---- the eminent surgeon entered
the library at Mount Place the following morning after a long absence.
"As I anticipated," replied the doctor with a choking voice: "she has
been poisoned!"