My family is well known in this neighbourhood; and I live in the next
village, Little Gorton, where I am in partnership with Dr Selby. You
are well known to me by name, and for some time I have endeavoured to
contrive an interview with you, in vain. I could not come up to the
Hall,’ he added, no doubt seeing amazement written on my face. ‘The
fact is, Miss Armitage, I love Edith Thorndyke; but her step-father
considers my position inferior to hers, and refuses to allow me to see
her until she is of age. Doubtless you are aware that she will inherit
a great deal of property.’
‘I strongly disapprove of discussing these family matters with a total
stranger, sir,’ I said, trying to move away. ‘Also, Mr Foster has
absolutely forbidden it.—Good-morning.’
‘One moment!’ he pleaded. ‘Edith Thorndyke’s very life may depend upon
it! Have you heard the terms of her mother’s will?’
‘They are nothing to me, sir.’
‘Oh, but please, Miss Armitage! I entreat you! Do listen to me! When
Mrs Foster’s first husband died, he left her some thousands a year, in
addition to Gorton Hall and the estates, entirely at her own disposal.
She married again, and died last year, when it was found that she had
left her husband Edith’s sole guardian until she should be twenty-one,
when she would enter into the possession of the Thorndyke property.
In case she died before attaining her majority, one half of the
property would devolve upon Mr Foster, and half upon relatives of the
Thorndykes. Even the half is a very large sum, Miss Armitage—quite
enough to tempt a man like Mr Foster to—to—— In short, I sadly fear
Edith Thorndyke will not be allowed to live until she is twenty-one.’
‘This is downright madness!’ I exclaimed. ‘Mr Foster is the kindest
and best of men—quite incapable of harbouring designs upon his
step-daughter’s life.’
‘I know Lawrence Foster; you do not,’ he answered quietly. ‘I know him
to be bold and cunning and unscrupulous. Edith believes in him and his
sister; but she is sadly deceived. I hoped to be able to enlist you on
my side, Miss Armitage, when I heard of your arrival at the Hall. I
should be glad to feel sure that Edith has one disinterested friend in
the house.’
‘But I ought not to speak to you at all,’ I said, feeling very
uncomfortable. ‘Mr Foster has strictly forbidden me to gossip with
strangers.’
‘Because he is afraid that you might hear the truth.’
‘But if he is what you say, why does he have a companion for his
step-daughter at all? I must be a check on his movements. I see all
that goes on; he never hides anything from me.’
‘Don’t you see that your presence is an additional security for him? It
disarms suspicion. Supposing Edith—well, died suddenly; people would
say: “Miss Armitage was there; she knows all about it;” and no comment
would be excited; whereas it would probably seem suspicious, at all
events to the Thorndyke family, who are by no means satisfied with the
terms of the will, if Edith were to die whilst living alone with Mr
Foster and his sister. There can be no doubt that the money must be an
immense temptation to him. He has nothing of his own. Ten thousand a
year, and only one fragile girl’s life in the way!’
I must say the speaker’s earnestness and unmistakable sincerity began
to make an impression upon me. I had fancied once or twice that Mr
Foster exercised an unusually close surveillance over Edith and me.
Were Dr Archer’s words true, and was I merely a lay-figure at Gorton
Hall, to deceive the world? Had I been taken into society by my
employers, and my praises trumpeted forth to all their acquaintances,
merely in order that my presence should disarm suspicion? ‘You have
made me very uncomfortable,’ I candidly confessed.
‘Believe me, Miss Armitage, I would not have taken this course but that
I was compelled by necessity. Edith’s step-father has such a complete
ascendency over her, that it is difficult to know what to do. But you
are always with her, and can watch over her.’
‘But I am only a paid companion, liable to dismissal at any time.’
‘True; but I hope you will try and stay as long as you can, for Edith’s
sake.’
‘I fear she is very delicate.’
‘She is delicate; she needs care. But, as she gets older, her health
will probably improve. There is really no reason, humanly speaking, why
she should not live for many years. But I fear—I fear many things, but
chiefly poison, slow and secret. Mr Foster is an accomplished chemist;
and his antecedents—better known to me than to most people—give me
little confidence in him. If you knew as much as I do about him, Miss
Armitage, you would not wonder at my suspicions. But be sure of this:
there is danger. I have no proof against Mr Foster, and therefore
cannot interfere in any way. Promise, promise me, Miss Armitage, that
you will inform me of everything suspicious that you may see from this
time. Here is my address.’
I hastily took the proffered card and gave the promise, anxious
to return before Mrs Morrell should be uneasy at my absence. She
laughingly remarked that the sermon must have been unusually long,
and in a casual manner asked what was the text. Luckily, I was
able to supply chapter and verse and a lengthy catalogue of my
fellow-worshippers. It then struck me for the first time that if, by
chance, I was allowed to go out alone, either Mr Foster or Mrs Morrell
might find out, by skilfully put questions, everything I had said,
seen, and done.
Now that suspicion had once entered my mind, I saw grounds for it
everywhere, as might have been expected. The most absurd fancies
entered into my head. I persuaded Edith in secret to lock her door at
night before retiring to rest, which she had never done before. I do
not know what I expected to happen. The precaution was a senseless one;
for the foes I was fighting against were far too clever and subtle to
contemplate anything so foolish as commonplace midnight murder.
I will do my employers the justice to say that with all this I spent
a delightful summer. They took Edith and me to Scotland for a two
months’ tour; and I never enjoyed a holiday so much. A more charming
cicerone than Mr Foster could not be. Then we went back to Gorton, and
settled down for the winter. For some time, absolutely nothing of any
importance occurred. I wrote occasionally a brief, reassuring, cautious
note to Dr Archer, but carefully refrained from speaking when we met,
to avert suspicion. Edith and I grew daily more attached; and nothing
could exceed my employers’ kindness.
Edith had been decidedly better in health, until she received a severe
chill in November. Mrs Morrell at once sent for the doctor, the same
old family practitioner who had attended her from her birth.
Dr Stevens was a worthy man, and once a skilful physician, no doubt;
but when I saw him, he was nearly eighty and quite past his work.
Feeble, weak in sight and hearing, the old man seemed more fit to be
in bed himself, than to be employed in his professional capacity. I
hinted as much to Edith; but she was quite indignant, and reiterated
her assurances that she had more confidence in Dr Stevens than in any
one else; so I had to rest satisfied.
Miss Thorndyke’s illness dragged on with fluctuating strength. She
was too delicate to shake off anything easily; and she had frequent
relapses, which sadly weakened her strength. Mrs Morrell nursed her
most assiduously, declining professional attendance, but permitting me
to help her to the best of my ability. But although I was allowed to
be in the invalid’s room all day, if I chose, Mrs Morrell would not
permit me to exhaust my strength in night-nursing. She had had her bed
placed in a dressing-room communicating with Edith’s room, and there
she slept, ready, at the slightest movement of the invalid, to spring
up and wait upon her. Edith spoke warmly of Mrs Morrell’s kindness and
devotion; and certainly she spared no pains to humour the fancies of
the sick girl.
About Christmas, the disease assumed a new phase. Symptoms of stomach
derangement set in, which Dr Stevens attributed to the long-continued
recumbent position and lack of exercise; and he set himself to combat
the new evil by every means in his power. This was all discussed in
my presence, for no mystery was made of the matter; and indeed I was
usually accustomed to administer Edith’s food and medicines when I
sat in her room. This, however, never occurred in the evening; for
Mr Foster so pathetically pleaded his loneliness in the deserted
drawing-room after dinner, when his sister always went to the invalid,
that in common civility I could not refuse to play chess and cribbage
with him, and occasionally accompany his violin on the piano.
But one night about nine o’clock I slipped quietly out of the
drawing-room, and went up-stairs to Edith’s room to see if she was
awake. She had been worse that day, and I was beginning to feel rather
anxious about her. For a wonder, Mrs Morrell was not on duty, and I
entered unchallenged. I had not been into Edith’s room so late as this
since the beginning of her illness, and was astonished to find it
lighted up by eight large wax candles, dispersed about the apartment,
although the glare was carefully screened from the invalid’s face. I
stooped over the thin face on the pillow, and received a faint smile.
I could not help remarking: ‘How light your room is! I wonder you can
sleep in such a blaze.’
‘Mrs Morrell likes it,’ was the languid answer. ‘She always burns eight
candles like that, all night. I don’t mind them.—O Alice dear, I am so
tired of lying here! and I’m always so thirsty, so dreadfully thirsty!
Do give me something to drink!’
I poured out a tumblerful of a cooling drink from a handsome red glass
jug on the table near me. She drank it eagerly, and sank back on her
pillow as Mrs Morrell came into the room.
I fancied that an angry gleam shot at me from under the widow’s black
eyebrows; but if so, she smoothed away her irritation before she
addressed me. ‘Alice, my dear, it is most kind of you to be here, but I
left my darling girl, as I hoped, to sleep. She is more likely to get a
good night’s rest, if she is not disturbed by late visitors. After nine
o’clock, please, I must request you for the present, dear, not to come
here again.’
I apologised, and said good-night, turning, however, at the door to
ask if Mrs Morrell did not think so much light might have a disturbing
effect upon the invalid.
‘Now, my dear Miss Armitage, that is not like your usual common-sense,’
answered the widow sweetly. ‘Above all things, plenty of light is
essential in a sickroom, where medicines have to be accurately measured
out, and where at any moment the nurse may be summoned to her patient’s
side. I should be tumbling over the furniture in the dark, if the
candles were not kept burning. And now, my dear girl, I must really
request that you go; Edith is nearly asleep. Good-night.’ So I ran
down-stairs, to be gently scolded by Mr Foster for my long absence.
When a week went by and Edith grew worse every day, I became seriously
alarmed, and expressed my uneasiness in a letter to Dr Archer, which
I posted myself, for fear of accidents. He sent me a brief note by a
trusty messenger, in reply, which did not tend to allay my fears:
‘Your account of her symptoms was most alarming. You say she is wasted
and prostrate, and suffers from painful cramps and insatiable thirst.
These are the symptoms of arsenical poisoning. You must contrive to
secure portions of all her food and medicine, and bottle them securely,
and bring them to me. Be in the fir plantation at four o’clock
to-morrow to meet me; it is a matter of life and death.’
You may imagine how terrified I was; but luckily I had nerve enough
to hide it. I looked out all the small bottles I could find, washed
them out carefully, and determined to put them into my pocket one at a
time, to fill as occasion should serve. At the same time I could hardly
believe that Dr Archer was right in his suspicions. I believed they
could not poison Edith without my knowledge. I was in and out of the
sickroom all day, from about ten o’clock in the morning, until I was
dismissed at five to dress for dinner; and at least half of her food
and medicine I administered with my own hands. The medicine bottles
I frequently opened fresh from Dr Stevens’ wrappings; and it was
difficult to imagine that poison could get into puddings and jellies
brought straight from the kitchen to the bedside. I could only conclude
that at night must occur Mrs Morrell’s opportunity—if at all.
I felt like a conspirator, as I contrived to secrete small portions
of everything of which Edith partook. I secured the last drops
remaining of the cooling drink which Mrs Morrell had had to administer
to the invalid during the night; also a portion of the farinaceous
pudding which Miss Thorndyke had had for her dinner, a part of her
sleeping-draught, a wine-glassful of the mixture she was taking every
two hours, and some of the beef-tea which Dr Stevens had ordered for
her. If poison were really being administered, it must be present
in one or other of these. I chiefly suspected the remains of the
cooling drink. I was young and unsophisticated, and my experience as a
novel-reader made me believe it quite possible that Mrs Morrell should
carry small packets of arsenic about in her pocket, to mix in Edith’s
medicines and food, as occasion should serve. I can only smile at my
credulity now.
It was a difficult matter to meet Dr Archer in the fir plantation
unobserved. Mrs Morrell had first to be evaded, and then Mr Foster, who
manifested a most amiable and pressing desire to accompany me in my
walk. I dared not linger, but hastily thrust the phials into the young
doctor’s hands, telling him I particularly suspected the cooling drink.
He informed me that he was going to send them at once to an eminent
analyst at one of the London hospitals; and that, if they proved to
contain poison, he should instantly apply to a magistrate for a warrant.
I could not control my feelings that evening sufficiently well to
prevent Mr Foster remarking, as we sat at chess: ‘Your walk to-day did
not do you much good, Miss Armitage.’
‘I have rather a headache,’ I hastily answered. It was perfectly true.
‘I sat with Edith all the morning, and her room seemed to me very
stuffy.’ Indeed, I had frequently noticed a strange closeness pervading
it, especially when I first entered it in the morning; and I very often
found my head the worse for a prolonged sojourn in it.
‘As soon as Dr Stevens will allow it, she shall be moved into a larger
room,’ he answered, as if he wished to evade a discussion of the
subject.
SOME ANECDOTES OF AMERICAN CHILDREN.
The subject of children is one in which every one is more or less
interested; for even those who have none of their own were babies
themselves in some dim period of the past, and probably most of us
have wondered at times what sort of babies we were. Happy they who
have it on the authority of those who ought to know, that they were
‘well-behaved children’—lumps of good-nature, and never addicted
to crying. How kindly does Charles Lamb revert to the days of his
childhood, dwelling with something of reverence on the image of that
‘young master’ whom he could scarcely believe to have been indeed
himself, and whose pure memory he cherished as tenderly ‘as if it had
been a child of some other house,’ and not of his parents. So perhaps
some of us also have yearned over those little phantoms of the past,
our own child-selves.
But it is of American children that we have now a few words to say.
Perhaps, however, we make a mistake at the outset in calling them
_children_ at all, for many of them seem to belong to some species of
fairy changelings, so remarkable and almost uncanny is their precocity,
and that, too, from the earliest infancy, while they are still in their
nurses’ arms, or at the bottle. Gilbert’s little urchin of the _Bab
Ballads_ who chucked his nurse under the chin when she fed him, and
vowed by the rap it was excellent pap, was nothing to them. They would
be too _blasé_ for such infantine manifestations as these. We have one
of them before our ‘mind’s eye’ now, an ideal-looking little maid,
with sunny hair, blue eyes, and rosy cheeks, the youngest darling of
a happy household. Being of a wakeful disposition, she was indulged
with her bottle at night up to the mature age of nearly two years. Her
mother, waking once at midnight, was aware of some disturbance in the
cot beside her, where baby seemed to be searching vigorously in the
moonlight for something. Hoping the little one might forego her search
and drop to sleep, the mother lay quiet, when suddenly baby raised her
soft fair head, and with the startling question, ‘Where de debil is
my mouf-piece?’ fairly banished all slumber from her fond parent. It
must be explained that this occurred in a part of the country where
children were liable to overhear the talk of negroes, both indoor
and outdoor servants; and this race, as represented in the States of
America, are evidently of the opinion of the old sea-captain’s Scotch
wife who, while agreeing with her minister as to the advisability of
her husband’s giving up the habit of swearing, was yet constrained
to acknowledge that ‘nae doubt it was still a great set-off to
conversation.’ Baby’s grandmamma, however, on being informed of this
last addition to her darling’s vocabulary, remarked somewhat grimly
that it was about time the bottle should be given up.
The foregoing was scarcely so bad as what a little two-year-old
neighbour was guilty of; for on this young scapegrace being mildly
remonstrated with for some misdemeanour by his grandfather—a venerable
old doctor, of much repute with all who knew him—he retorted, in his
half-articulate baby speech, ‘Gan-pa, you’se a old fool!’—waking a
burst of unhallowed merriment from all within hearing distance.
The propensity on the part of their children to use profane language
is a source of great uneasiness to American mothers. One lady,
the daughter of a clergyman, who had brought her up on strictly
old-fashioned principles, was much distressed to note the habit growing
on her only child, a fine manly little boy of four years. At her wits’
end for a timely cure, she at last resorted to the expedient of a
whipping, threatening, with the most unmistakable air of sincerity,
that it would be repeated if ever a certain word were used by him
again. The morning after this occurrence, Georgie was, as usual, at
his spelling lesson with his mother, the task for the day consisting
of a string of words all rhyming with ‘am.’ The first few of them
had been accomplished with praiseworthy accuracy, when suddenly the
young student came to a dead-stop. ‘Go on, sonny,’ said his mother
encouragingly, not seeing for the moment where the difficulty lay.
‘C-a-m—cam,’ repeated Georgie in evident embarrassment, the next word
apparently presenting some insurmountable obstacle. ‘Go on!’ insisted
his mother—when, with a sudden blurt, out came the monosyllable
‘D-a-m—_dam_, a millpond dam,’ added Georgie, the threatened punishment
being uppermost in his mind.
The same little boy had a cousin, a year older than himself, and ages
ahead of him in knowledge of the world, so much so, that he would
sometimes assume the part of mentor towards his more unsophisticated
junior. When the two were together one day, the elder announced his
intention of paying a visit to a family living near them. ‘But I won’t
take you with me,’ said he. ‘Why not?’ asked Georgie, disconcerted.
‘Because they’ll teach you to swear,’ returned the other gravely. ‘But
you go there yourself,’ argued little George. ‘O yes,’ rejoined his
senior with a world-worn air; ‘I swear already.’
Young America does not take kindly to correction in any form, probably
resenting it as an infringement of natural liberties. One little boy
having been punished for some childish transgression, astonished his
family by coming down suddenly from his room up-stairs with a small
bundle under his arm, saying, ‘I’m going to leave this blessed house.’
American children are, as a rule, more practical and less imaginative
than those of the old country—inclined from the very beginning to
look on life as a struggle, though a pleasant one on the whole, and
on the world as their oyster, which they, with their sharp-set wits,
must open. They bring this matter-of-fact element even into their
devotions. A little girl was promised by her father, on his leaving
home for a few days, that he would bring dolls for her and her sister
when he came back. That night, when at her prayers, she put in the very
laudable petition, ‘Pray God, bring papa home safely;’ but somewhat
compromised the effect by adding with great emphasis, after a moment’s
rapt reflection—‘with the dolls.’ But this was devotion itself compared
with the following. A little mite of a creature running out of her room
one morning was called back by her mother: ‘Dolly, you haven’t said
your prayers.’ ‘I dess Dod tan wait,’ returned little Miss Irreverence;
‘I’se in a hurry.’ In both these cases, the utter unconsciousness of
presumption on the part of the tiny speakers took away the effect of
profanity from their words.
Reverence is certainly not the strong point of our small kinsfolk
across the water. Almost from their entrance into the world, they begin
to assume airs of equality with all around them. One sweet little
damsel, who was of peculiarly small and fairy-like proportions, could
with difficulty be prevailed upon to call her parents otherwise than
by their Christian names; and the effect was quaint to hear her, when
offered candy or such-like forbidden dainties, refuse them with a
wistful look and the words: ‘Willie not likes it’ (Willie being her
father); or, ‘Annie’ (her mother) ‘said no.’ Nay, she did not scruple
even to call her grandmother by _her_ name, as far as she could
pronounce it, for ‘Margaret’ offered some obstacles to the baby lips.
You would have fancied this same little maiden too soft and gentle
to brush the down from a butterfly’s wing; but on one occasion she
shocked the sensibilities of her young cousin, fresh from England, by
exclaiming, on an innocent, newly fledged chicken being brought in for
the inspection of the family: ‘Me have dat pitty bird for my dinner!’
From the youngest age, American children are ready to share—as
Wordsworth once expressed it—‘in anything going.’ A visitor
injudiciously offering a little boy some wine at dinner, was requested
by his watchful mother not to give him ‘too much;’ when young Hopeful
took the words out of her mouth by protesting with vehement eagerness:
‘I _like_ too much!’
It is no easy task to impose any restrictions, even of time or place,
on one of these little free-born Americans, or to impress them with any
sense of restraint or regard of persons. One little daughter of Eve,
brought up for baptism at the ripe age of two—episcopal visits being
rare in the part of the country where she lived—somewhat scandalised
the bishop by calling his attention, just before the ceremony, to her
attire, thus: ‘Look at my new dess;’ and drawing it back to display
her dainty feet—‘Look, bissop, at my pitty new boots!’ The good father
took it all in very amiable part, though he remarked to her mother
afterwards, that the little one had evidently no intention of giving up
the vanities of the world just yet.
But we must say good-bye for the present to our little American
cousins, on whom we must not be understood to have cast the shadow of
an aspersion. Their intelligence and quickness, indeed, combined with
the other charms of infancy—of which they have their full share—make
them as attractive, to say the least, as any of their kind. We can
assert, moreover, from our own knowledge, that some of these tiny
gentry, with whose scarce-conscious childish profanity we have dallied
for a while, are growing up at this present moment into decent and in
every way excellent members of society.
A STRANGE LOVE AFFAIR.
Hector Mackinnon, the hero of the strange story we are about to unfold,
a story perhaps unequalled for uniqueness in the annals of love, was a
divinity student. He had just completed his fourth year of the Hall,
and expected soon to be licensed as a probationer. He was the only son
of a wealthy merchant, and had been destined for the ministry from his
birth.