XXIII
It was just and proper. But only Orpha had the courage to speak—to seek to probe his mind—to sound the depths of this household’s misery. Orpha! whom to guard from the mere disagreeabilities of life were a man’s coveted delight! She our leader? The one to take her stand in the breach yawning between the old life and the new?
“You mean,” she forced herself to say, “that what had happened to Martha’s brother may have happened to my beloved father?”
“I doubt it, but we must make sure. A poison capable of producing death was in this house. You know that; others knew it. I had warned you all concerning it. I made it plain, I thought, that small doses taken according to prescription were helpful, but that increased beyond a certain point, they meant death. You remember, Orpha?”
She bowed her head.
“And you, Edgar and Quenton?”
We did, alas!
“And his nurses, and the man Clarke, all who were at liberty to enter his room?”
“They knew.” It was Orpha who spoke. “I called their attention to what you had said more than once.”
“Is the phial containing that poison still in the house? I have not ordered it lately.”
“It is. Edgar and I have just been up to see. We found it among the other bottles in the medicine cabinet.”
“When did he receive the last dose of it under my instructions?”
“Wealthy can tell you. She kept very close watch of that bottle.”
“Wealthy,” he called, with a glance towards the gallery, “come down. I have a question or two to put to you.”
She obeyed him quickly, almost eagerly.
The other servants, Clarke alone excepted, came creeping from their corner as they saw her enter amongst us and stand in her quiet respectful way before the doctor.
He greeted her kindly; she had always been a favorite of his; then spoke up quickly:
“Mr. Bartholomew died too soon, Wealthy. We should have had him with us for another fortnight. What was the cause of it, do you know? A wrong dose? A repeated dose? One bottle mistaken for another?”
Her eyes, filled with tears, rose slowly to his face.
“I cannot say. The last time I saw that bottle it was at the very back of the shelf where I had pushed it after you had said he was to have no more of it at present. It was in the same place when we went up just now to see if it had been taken from the cabinet. It did not look as though it had been moved.”
“Holding the same amount as when you saw it last?”
“To all appearance, yes, sir.”
What was there in her tone or in the little choke which followed these few words which made the doctor stare a moment, then open his lips to speak and then desist with a hasty glance at Edgar? I had myself felt the shiver of some new fear at her manner and the unconscious emphasis she had given to that word appearance. But was it the same fear which held him back from pursuing his inquiries, and led him to say instead:
“I should like to see that bottle. No,” he remonstrated, as Orpha started to accompany him. “You are a brave girl, but it is not for your physician to abuse that bravery. Wealthy will go up with me. Meantime, let Edgar take you away to some spot where you can rest till I come back.”
It was kindly meant but oh, how hard I felt it to see these two draw off like accepted lovers; and with what joy I beheld them stop, evidently at a word from her, and seat themselves on one of the leather-covered lounges drawn up against the wall well within the sight of every one there.
I could rest, with these two sitting thus in full view—rest in the present; the future must take care of itself.
The result of the doctor’s visit to the room above was evident in the increased gravity he showed on his return. He had little to say beyond enjoining upon Edgar and Orpha the necessity for a delay in the funeral services and a suggestion that we separate at once for the night and get what sleep we could. He would send a man to sit by the dead and if we would control ourselves sufficiently not to discuss this unhappy event all might yet be well.
The picture he made with Orpha as he took his leave of her at the door remains warm in my memory. She had begun to droop and he saw it. To comfort her he took her two hands in his and drew them to his breast while he talked to her, softly but firmly. As I saw the confidence with which she finally received his admonitions, I blessed him in my heart; though with a man’s knowledge of men I perceived that his endeavor to give comfort sprang from sympathy rather than conviction. Tragedy was in the house, veiled and partially hidden, but waiting—waiting for the full recognition which the morrow must bring. A shadow with a monstrous substance behind it we would be called upon to face!
For one wild instant I wished that I had never left my native land; never seen the great Bartholomew; never felt the welcoming touch of Orpha’s little hand on mine. As I knelt again in my open window a half hour later, the star which had shone in upon me two hours before had vanished in clouds.
Darkness was in the sky, darkness was in the house, darkness was in my own soul, and saddest of all, darkness was in that of our lovely and innocent Orpha.