THE MIDNIGHT DISCOVERY.
About an hour after this I arose, bathed my forehead, and went into Mrs.
Lee's chamber, for the pain of my solitary thoughts became unendurable.
The poor lady was lying on the sofa, with her eyes closed, looking more
wan than ever. Something troubled her, I am sure; for tears were
swelling under the transparent whiteness of her eyelids, and her hands
were clasped over her bosom. This was an attitude habitual to her when
disturbed by any grief, and seeing it, I turned to go away; but she
heard my footstep and opened her eyes. There was something in her manner
that went to my heart--a sort of mournful constraint, as if she shrunk
from my presence. Still she held forth her hand.
I sat down in my old place, and she closed her eyes again, as if any
effort at speech was beyond her strength. In the broader light which
fell upon her face, I saw that she had been crying--an unusual thing
with her at any time; for all sources of trouble had been kept so
sedulously from that room, that grief amounting to tears seldom found
its way there.
After a prolonged silence that chilled me to the heart, she laid her
hand on mine, and I saw that her earnest eyes were searching my face.
"Dear Miss Hyde, we have been so happy together--I thought no family was
ever united like ours!"
I understood the pathos in her voice, the meaning of her words. Mr. Lee
had begun the subject; already they were about to prove how troublesome
and useless I had been--how much my place was wanted for another.
"You do not speak," she said, "surely, nothing has been said to wound
you?"
"No," I answered, "I only come to see if you were in want of anything."
"Ah! you have always been so attentive, so kind! How shall I get along
without you?"
So it was decided. He had spoken, and they had settled my destiny; the
gentle invalid yielding without a murmur while her best friend was
driven from under her roof. I had no heart to continue the conversation,
and she, poor lady! evidently lacked the courage to speak plainer. Thus,
with apprehensions and grief, we remained together in silence. Her eyes
were closed, but not with sleep, I am sure of that; and I felt a dead
heaviness creeping over me, which carried with it a dreary sense of
pain.
It was getting dark when I left the chamber. The depression was so heavy
upon me that I went down to the kitchen, thinking to ask the cook for a
cup of warm tea. Lottie was there busy at the range, and, singular
enough, making tea, as if my wants had been divined.
"A handful, cook," she said, holding out the silver teapot for a renewed
supply. "I want it good and strong, something that will make one's eyes
snap."
When the cook turned to put her canister in its place, Lottie went to
the closet and brought out two cups and saucers.
"Miss Hyde," she said, "you have just come in time. I knew it'd be
wanted: try a good, strong cup, it will have the ache out of your head
in no time."
I thanked her and took the cup she offered. It was strong to bitterness,
and I did not like the taste; but when I passed it back, Lottie put in
more sugar and cream, but no water. I was too weary for protest, and
drank the bitterness without further comment.
Lottie seemed pleased, and insisted earnestly that I should take a
second cup, filling her own for the third time, and draining it with
what I thought must be heroism instead of desire.
"There," she said, setting her cup down, "that will do, I reckon; it
makes my head as light as a cork. How do you feel, Miss Hyde?"
"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 passage into her own little room. As
I passed 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,
scraping 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 pass 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 glass; then a rush of feet through Lottie's room, and along the
passage. 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 glass, 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.