Mrs. Hazleton found the inconvenience of having a dear friend. It was
in vain that she tried to get rid of her visitor. The visitor would
not be got rid of. She was deaf to hints; she paid no attention to any
kind of inuendoes; and she looked so knowing, so full of important
secrets, so quietly mischievous, that Mrs. Hazleton was cowed by that
most unnerving of all things, the consciousness of meditated crime.
She could not help thinking that the fair widow saw into her thoughts
and purposes--she could not help doubting the impenetrability of the
veil behind which hypocrisy hides the hideout features of unruly
passion--she could not help thinking that the keen-sighted and astute
must perceive some of the movements at least of the rude movers of the
painted puppets of the face--the smile, the gay looks, the sparkling
eyes, the calm placid brow, the dignified serenity, which act their
part in the glittering scene of the world, too often worked by the
most harsh, foul, and brutal of all the motives of the human heart.
But she was irritated too, as well as fearful; and there was a sort of
combat went on between impatience and apprehension. Had she given way
to inclination she would have ordered one of her servants to take the
intruder by the shoulders and put her out of doors; but for more
than an hour after the time she had fixed for setting out, vague
fears--however groundless and absurd--were sufficiently powerful to
restrain her temper. She was not of a character, however, to be long
cowed by any thing. She had great confidence in herself--in her own
resources--in her own conduct and good fortune likewise. That
confidence might have been a little shaken indeed by events which had
lately occurred; but anger soon rallied it, and brought it back to her
aid. She asked herself if she were a fool to dread that woman--what it
was she had discovered--what it was that she could testify. She had
merely seen her doing what almost every lady did a hundred times in
the year in those day--preparing some simples in the still-room; and
gradually as she found that gentle hints proved unsuccessful, she
resumed her natural dignity of demeanor. That again gave way to a
chilling silence, and then to a somewhat irritable imperiousness, and
rising from her chair, she begged her visitor to excuse her, alleging
that she had business of importance to transact which would occupy her
during the whole day.
Not one of all the variation of conduct--not one sign, however slight,
of impatience, doubt, or anger--escaped the keen eye that was fixed
upon her. Mrs. Hazleton, under the influence of conscience, did not
exactly betray the dark secrets of her own heart, but she raised into
importance, an act in itself the most trifling, which would have
passed without any notice had she not been anxious to conceal it.
As soon as her visitor, taking a hint that could not be mistaken, had
quitted the room and the house, with an air of pique and ill-humor,
Mrs. Hazleton returned to the still-room and recommenced her
operations there; but she found her hand shaking and her whole frame
agitated.
"Am I a fool," she asked herself, "to be thus moved by an empty gossip
like that? I must conquer this, or I shall be unfit for my task."
She sat down at a table, leaned her head upon her hand, gazed forth
out of the little window, forced her mind away from the present,
thought of birds and flowers, and pictures and statues, and of the two
sunshiny worlds of art and nature--of every thing in short but the
dark, dark cares of her own passions. It was a trick she had learned
to play with herself--one of those pieces of internal policy by which
she had contrived so often and so long, to rule and master with
despotic sway the frequent rebellions of the body against the tyranny
of the mind.
She had not sat there two minutes, however, ere there was a tap at the
door, and she started with a quick and jarring thrill, as if that
knock had been a summons of fate. The next instant she looked quickly
around, however, and was satisfied that whoever entered could find no
cause for suspicion. She was there seated quietly at the table. The
vial was out of sight, the fatal powder hidden in the palm of her
hand, and she said aloud, "Come in."
The butler entered, bowing profoundly and saying, "The carriage is at
the door, madam, and Wilson has just come back from the house of Mr.
Shanks, but he could not find him."
The man hesitated a little as if he wished to add something more, and
Mrs. Hazleton replied in a somewhat sharp tone, "I told you when I
sent it away just now that I would tell you when I was ready. I shall
not be so for half an hour; but let it wait, and do not admit any one.
Mr. Shanks must be found, and informed that I want to see him early
to-morrow, as I shall go to London on the following day."
"I am sorry to say, madam," replied the butler, "that if the talk of
the town is true, he will not be able to come. They say he has been
apprehended on a charge of perjury and forgery in regard to that
business of Sir Philip Hastings, and has been sent off to the county
jail."
Mrs. Hazleton looked certainly a little aghast, and merely saying
"Indeed!" she waved her hand for the man to withdraw.
She then sat silent and motionless for at least five minutes. What
passed within her I cannot tell; but when she rose, though pale as
marble, she was firm, calm, and self-possessed as ever. She turned the
key in the lock; she drew a curtain which covered the lower half of
the window, farther across, so that no eye from without, except the
eye of God, could see what she was doing there within. She then drew
forth the vial from its nook, opened out the small packet of powder,
and poured part of it into a glass. She seemed as if she were going to
pour the whole, but she paused in doing so, and folded up the rest
again, saying, "That must be fully enough; I will keep the rest; it
may be serviceable, and I can get no more."
She gazed down upon the ground near her feet with a look of cold,
stern, but awful resolution, as if there had been an open grave before
her; and then she placed the packet in her glove, poured a little
distilled water into the glass, shook it, and held the mixture up to
the light. The powder had in great part dissolved, but not entirely,
and she added a small quantity more of the distilled water, and poured
the whole into the vial, which was already about one-third full of a
dark colored liquid.
"Now I will go," she said, concealing the bottle. But when she reached
the door, and had her hand upon the lock, she paused and remained in
very deep thought for an instant, with her brow slightly contracted
and her lip quivering. Heaven knows what she thought of then,--whether
it was doubt, or fear, or pity, or remorse--but she said in a low
tone, "Down, fool! it shall be done," and she passed out of the room.
She paused suddenly in the little passage which led to the still-room,
by a pair of double doors, into the principal part of the house,
perceiving with some degree of consternation that she had been
unconsciously carrying the vial with its dark colored contents in her
hand, exposed to the view of all observers. Her eye ran round the
passage with a quick and eager glance; but there was no one in sight,
and she felt reassured. Even at that moment she could smile at her own
heedlessness, and she did smile as she placed the bottle in her
pocket, saying to herself, "How foolish! I must not suffer such fits
of absence to come upon me, or I shall spoil all."
She then walked quietly to her dressing-room, arranged her dress for
the little journey before her, and descended again to the hall, where
the servants were waiting for her corning. After she had entered the
carriage, however, she again fell into a fit of deep thought, closed
her eyes, and remained as if half asleep for nearly an hour. Perhaps
it would be too much to scrutinize the state or changes of her
feelings during that long, painful lapse of thought. That there was a
struggle--a terrible struggle--can hardly be doubted--that opportunity
was given her for repentance, for desistance, between the purpose and
the deed, we know; and there can be little doubt that the small,
still voice--which is ever the voice of God--spoke to her from the
spirit-depth within, and warned her to forbear. But she was of an
unconquerable nature; nothing could turn her; nothing could overpower
her, when she had once resolved on any act. There was no persuasion
had effect; no remonstrance was powerful. Reason, conscience, habit
itself, were but dust in the balance in the face of one of her
determinations.
She roused herself suddenly from her fit of moody abstraction, when
the carriage was still more than a mile from the house of Sir Philip
Hastings. She looked at the watch which hung by her side, and gazed at
the sky; and then she said to herself, "That woman's impertinent
intrusion was intolerable. However; I shall get there an hour before
the twenty-four hours have passed, and doubtless she will have kept
her word and refrained from speaking till she has seen me; but I am
afraid I shall find her woke up from her midday doze, and that may
make the matter somewhat difficult. Difficult! why I have seen
jugglers do tricks a thousand times to which this is a mere trifle. My
sleight of hand will not fail me, I think;" and then she set her mind
to work to plan out every step of her proceedings.
All was clearly and definitely arranged by the time she arrived at the
door of Sir Philip Hastings' house. Her face was cleared of every
cloud, her whole demeanor under perfect control. She was the Mrs.
Hazleton, the calm, dignified, graceful Mrs. Hazleton, which the world
knew; and when she descended from the carriage with a slow but easy
step, and spoke to the coachman about one of the springs which had
creaked and made a noise on the way, not one of Sir Philip Hastings'
servants could have believed that her mind was occupied with any thing
more grave than the idle frivolous thoughts of an every-day society.