DEFEATED.
I went down to the garden for the flowers as usual next morning, as I
did not wish to make any palpable change in my arrangements; but before
leaving the room I impressed upon Susan Dodd the necessity of remaining
with her mistress during every moment of my absence, though I knew I
had little need to counsel carefulness. Nothing was more unlikely than
that Susan would neglect her duty for a moment.
Peter came again, as he had come to me on the previous morning. Again
he lingered about me, as if he had something more to say, and could not
take courage to say it. This time the strangeness of his manner aroused
my curiosity, and I asked him if he had anything particular to say to
me.
'You must be quick, Peter, whatever it is,' I said; 'for I am in a
great hurry to get back to Miss Darrell.'
'There is something I want to say, miss,' he answered, twisting his
ragged straw hat round and round in his bony hands, in a nervous
way,--'something I should like to say, but I'm naught but a poor fondy,
and don't know how to begin. Only you've been very good to Peter, you
see, miss, sending wine and such things when I was ill, and I ain't
afeard o' you, as I am o' some folks.'
'The wine was not mine, Peter. Be quick, please; tell me what you want
to say.'
'I can't come to it very easy, miss. It's something awful-like to tell
on.'
'Something awful?'
The boy had looked round him with a cautious glance, and was now
standing close to me, with his light blue eyes fixed upon my face in a
very earnest way.
'Speak out, Peter,' I said; 'you needn't be afraid of me.'
'It happened when I was ill, you see, miss, and I've sometimes thought
as it might be no more than a dream. I had a many dreams while I were
lying on that little bed in grandmother's room, wicked dreams, and this
might be one of them; and yet it's real-like, and there isn't the
muddle in it that there is in the other dreams.'
'What is it, Peter? O, pray, pray be quick!'
'I'm a-coming to it, miss. Is it wicked for folks to kill theirselves?'
'Is it wicked? Of course it is--desperately wicked; a sin that can
never be repented of.'
'Then I know one that's going to do it.'
'Who?'
'Mrs. Darrell.'
He gave a solemn nod, and stood staring at me with wide-open
awe-stricken eyes.
'How do you know that?'
'It was one dark night, when it was raining hard--I could hear it drip,
drip, drip upon the roof just over where I was lying. It was when I was
very bad, and lay still all day and couldn't speak. But I knew what
grandmother said to me, and I knew everything that was going on, though
I didn't seem to--that was the curious part of it. I had been asleep
for a bit, and I woke up all of a sudden, and heard some one talking to
grandmother in the next room--the door wasn't wide open, only ajar. I
shouldn't have known who it was, for I'm not quick at telling voices,
like other folks; but I heard grandmother call her Mrs. Darrell; and I
heard the lady say that when one was sick and tired of life, and had no
one left to live for, it was best to die; and grandmother laughed, and
says yes, there wasn't much to live for, leastways not for such as her.
And then they talked a little more; and then by and by Mrs. Darrell
asked her for some stuff--I didn't hear the name of it, for Mrs.
Darrell only whispered it. Grandmother says no, and stuck to it for a
good time; but Mrs. Darrell offered her money, and then more and more
money. She says it couldn't matter whether she got the stuff from her
or from any one else. She could get it easily enough, she says, in any
large town. And she didn't know as she should use it, she says. It was
more likely than not she never would; but she wanted to have it by her,
so as to feel she was able to put an end to her life, if ever it grew
burdensome to her. "You'll never use it against any one else?" says
grandmother; and Mrs. Darrell says who was there she could use it
against, and what harm need she wish to anybody; she was rich enough,
and had nothing to gain from anybody's death. So at last, after a deal
of talk, grandmother gave her the stuff; and I heard her counting out
money--I think it was a hundred pounds--and then she went away in the
rain.'
I remembered that night upon which Mrs. Darrell had stayed out so long
in the rain--the night that followed her stormy interview with Angus
Egerton.
I told Peter that he had done quite right in telling me this, and
begged him not to mention it to any one else until I gave him
permission to do so. I went back to Milly's room directly afterwards,
and waited there for Mr. Hale's coming.
While I was taking my breakfast, Mrs. Darrell came to make her usual
inquiries. I ran into the dressing-room to meet her. While she was
questioning me about the invalid, I saw her look at the table where the
medicine had always been until that morning, and I knew that she missed
the bottle.
After she had made her inquiries, she stood for a few moments
hesitating, and then said abruptly,
'I should like to see Mr. Hale when he comes this morning. I want to
hear what he says about his patient. He will be here almost
immediately, I suppose; so I will stay in Milly's room till he comes.'
She went into the bedroom, bent over the invalid for a few minutes,
talking in a gentle sympathetic voice, and then took her place by the
bedside. It was evident to me that she had suspected something from the
removal of the medicine, and that she intended to prevent my seeing Mr.
Hale alone.
'You took your medicine regularly last night, I suppose, Milly?' she
inquired presently, when I had seated myself at a little table by the
window and was sipping my tea.
'I don't think you gave me quite so many doses last night, did you,
Mary?' said the invalid, in her feeble voice. 'I fancy you were more
merciful than usual.'
'It was very wrong of Miss Crofton to neglect your medicine. Mr. Hale
will be extremely angry when he hears of it.'
'I do not think Milly will be much worse for the omission,' I answered
quietly.
After this we sat silently waiting for the doctor's appearance. He came
in about a quarter of an hour, and pronounced himself better pleased
with his patient than he had been the night before. There had been a
modification of the more troublesome symptoms of the fever towards
morning.
I told him of my omission to give the medicine.
'That was very wrong,' he said.
'Yet you see she had a better night, Mr. Hale. I suppose that medicine
was intended to modify those attacks of sickness from which she has
suffered so much?'
'To prevent them altogether, if possible.'
'That is very strange. It really appears to me that the medicine always
increases the tendency to sickness.'
Mr. Hale shook his head impatiently.
'You don't know what you are talking about, Miss Crofton,' he said.
'May I say a few words to you alone, if you please?'
Mrs. Darrell rose, with a hurried anxious look.
'What can you have to say to Mr. Hale alone, Miss Crofton?' she asked.
'It is about herself, perhaps,' said the doctor kindly. 'I have told
her all along that she would be knocked up by this nursing; and now I
daresay she begins to find I am right.'
'Yes,' I said, 'it is about myself I want to speak.'
Mrs. Darrell went to one of the windows, and stood with her face turned
away from us, looking out. I followed Mr. Hale into the dressing-room.
I unlocked the wardrobe, took out the medicine-bottle, and told the
doctor my suspicions of the previous night. He listened to me with
grave attention, but with an utterly incredulous look.
'A nervous fancy of yours, no doubt, Miss Crofton,' he said; 'however,
I'll take the medicine back to my surgery and analyse it.'
'I have something more to tell you, Mr. Hale.'
'Indeed!'
I repeated, word for word, what Peter had told me about Mrs. Darrell's
visit to his grandmother.
'It is a very extraordinary business,' he said; 'but I cannot imagine
that Mrs. Darrell would be capable of such a hideous crime. What motive
could she have for such an act?'
'I do not feel justified in speaking quite plainly upon that subject,
Mr. Hale; but I have reason to know that Mrs. Darrell has a very bitter
feeling about her stepdaughter.'
'I cannot think the thing you suspect possible. However, the medicine
shall be analysed; and we will take all precautions for the future. I
will send you another bottle immediately, in a sealed packet. You will
take notice that the seal is unbroken before you use the medicine.'
He showed me his crest on a seal at the end of his pencil-case, and
then departed. The medicine came a quarter of an hour later in a sealed
packet. This time I brought the bottle into the sick-room, and placed
it on the mantelpiece, where it was impossible for any one to touch it.
When Mr. Hale came for his second visit, there was a grave and anxious
look in his face. He was very well satisfied with the appearance of the
patient, however, and pronounced that there was a change for the
better--slight, of course, but quite as much as could be expected in so
short a time. He beckoned me out of the room, and I went down-stairs
with him, leaving Susan Dodd with Milly.
'I am going to speak to Mrs. Darrell, and you had better come with me,'
he said.
She was in the library. Mr. Hale went in, and I followed him. She was
sitting at the table, with writing materials scattered before her; but
she was not writing. She had a strange preoccupied air; but at the
sight of Mr. Hale she rose suddenly, and looked at him with a deadly
white face.
'Is she worse?' she asked.
'No, Mrs. Darrell; she is better,' he answered sternly. 'I find that we
have been the dupes of some secret enemy of this dear child's. There
has been an attempt at murder going on under our very eyes. Poison has
been mixed with the medicine sent by me--a slow poison. Happily for us
the poisoner has been a little too cautious for the success of the
crime. The doses administered have been small enough to leave the
chance of recovery. An accident awakened Miss Crofton's suspicions last
night, and she very wisely discontinued the medicine. I have analysed
it since she gave it me, and find that a certain portion of irritant
poison has been mixed with it.'
For some moments after he had finished speaking Mrs. Darrell remained
silent, looking at him fixedly with that awful death-like face.
'Who can have done such a thing?' she asked at last, in a
half-mechanical way.
'You must be a better judge of that question than I,' answered Mr.
Hale. 'Is there any one in this house inimical to your stepdaughter?'
'No one, that I know of.'
'We have two duties before us, Mrs. Darrell: the first, to protect our
patient from the possibility of any farther attempt of this kind; the
second, to trace the hand that has done this work. I shall telegraph to
Leeds immediately for a professional nurse, to relieve Miss Crofton in
the care of the sick-room; and I shall communicate at once with the
police, in order that this house may be placed under surveillance.'
Mrs. Darrell said not a word, either in objection or assent, to this.
She seated herself by the table again, and began trifling idly with the
writing materials before her.
'You will do what is best, of course, Mr. Hale,' she said, after a long
pause; 'you are quite at liberty to act in this matter according to
your own discretion.'
'Thanks; it is a matter in which my responsibility entitles me to a
certain amount of power. I shall telegraph to Dr. Lomond, asking him to
come down to-morrow. Whatever doubt you may entertain of my judgment
will be dispelled when I am supported by his opinion.'
'Of course; but I have not expressed any doubt of your judgment.'
We left her immediately after this--left her sitting before the table,
with her restless hands turning over the papers.
The servant who went in search of her at seven o'clock that evening,
when dinner was served, found her sitting there still, with a sealed
letter lying on the table before her; but her head had fallen across
the cushioned arm of the chair--she had been dead some hours.
There was a post-mortem examination and an inquest. Mrs. Darrell had
taken poison. The jury brought in a verdict of suicide while in a state
of unsound mind. The act seemed too causeless for sanity. Her strange
absent ways had attracted the attention of the servants for some time
past, and the evidence of her own maid respecting her restlessness and
irritability for the last few months influenced the minds of coroner
and jury.
The letter found lying on the table before her was addressed to Angus
Egerton. He declined to communicate its contents when questioned about
it at the inquest. Milly progressed towards recovery slowly but surely
from the hour in which I stopped the suspected medicine. The time came
when we were obliged to tell her of her stepmother's awful death; but
she never knew the attempt that had been made on her own life, or the
atmosphere of hatred in which she had lived.
We left Thornleigh for Scarborough as soon as she was well enough to be
moved, and only returned in the early spring, in time for my darling's
wedding.
She has now been married nearly seven years, during which time her life
has been very bright and happy--a life of almost uncheckered sunshine.
She has carried out her idea of our friendship to the very letter; and
we have never been separated, except during her honeymoon and my own
visits home. Happily for my sense of independence, there are now plenty
of duties for me to perform at Cumber Priory, where I am governess to a
brood of pretty children, who call me auntie, and hold me scarcely
second to their mother in their warm young hearts. Angus Egerton is a
model country squire and master of the hounds; and he and his wife
enjoy an unbroken popularity among rich and poor. Peter is
under-gardener at the Priory, and no longer lives with his grandmother,
who left her cottage soon after Mrs. Darrell's suicide, and is supposed
to have gone to London.
End of Project Gutenberg's Milly Darrell and Other Tales, by M. E. Braddon