Milly Darrell

by M. E. Braddon

he wanted to say something else; but I was toofull of my own thoughts and cares to pay much attention to him.

  The next day, and the next, brought no change in my darling, and I wasgrowing every hour more anxious. I could see that Mr. Hale was puzzledand uneasy, though he said he saw no reason for telegraphing toManchester, yet awhile. He was very attentive, and was reputed to bevery clever; and I knew that he was really attached to Milly, whom hehad attended from her infancy.

  Angus Egerton saw me twice every day; and these brief interviews hadnow become very painful to me. I found it so difficult to cheer himwith hopeful words, when my own heart was hourly growing heavier, andthe fears that had been vague and shadowy were gathering strength andshape. I was very tired, but I held out resolutely; and I had neveronce slept for so much as a quarter of an hour upon my watch, until thesecond night after that meeting with Mrs. Darrell at the door of thedressing-room.

  That night I was seized with an unconquerable sleepiness, about an hourafter I had dismissed Susan Dodd. The room was very quiet, not a soundexcept the ticking of the pretty little clock upon the mantelpiece.Milly was fast asleep, and I was sitting on a low chair by the firetrying to read, when my drowsiness overcame me, my heavy eyelids fell,and I went off into a feverish kind of slumber, in which I was troubledwith an uneasy consciousness that I ought to be awake.

  I had slept in this way for a little more than an hour, when I suddenlystarted up broad awake. [missing from source: In?] the intense quiet ofthe room I had heard a sound like the chinking of glass, and I fanciedthat Milly had stirred.

  There was a table near her bed, with a glass of cooling drink and abottle of water upon it. I thought she must have stretched out her handfor this glass, and that in so doing she had pushed the glass againstthe bottle; but to my surprise I found her lying quite still, and fastasleep. The sound must have come from some other direction--from thedressing-room, perhaps.

  I went into the dressing-room. There was no one there. No trace of thesmallest disturbance among the things. The medicine-bottles and themedicine-glass stood on the little table exactly as I had left them. Iwas very careful and precise in my arrangement of these things, and itwould have been difficult for the slightest interference with them tohave escaped me. What could that sound have been--some accidentalshiver of the glass, stirred by a breath of wind, one of thosemysterious movements of inanimate objects which are so apt to occur inthe dead hours of the night, and which seem always more or less ghostlyto a nervous watcher? Could it have been only accidental? or had Mrs.Darrell been prowling stealthily in and out of that room again?

  Why should she have been there? What could her secret coming and goingmean? What purpose could she have in hovering about the sick girl? whatcould her hatred profit itself by such uneasy watchfulness, unless--Unless what? An icy coldness came over me, and I shook like a leaf, asa dreadful thought took shape in my mind. What if that desperatewoman's hatred took the most awful form? what if her secret presence inthat room meant murder?

  I took up the medicine-bottle and examined it minutely. In colour, inodour, in taste, the medicine seemed to me exactly what it had beenfrom the time it had been altered, in accordance with the Manchesterdoctor's second prescription. Mr. Hale's label was on the bottle, andthe quantity of the contents was exactly what it had been after I gaveMilly her last dose--one dose gone out of the full bottle.

  'O, no, no, no,' I thought to myself; 'I must be mad to imagineanything so awful. A woman may be weak, and wicked, and jealous, whenshe has loved as intensely as this woman seems to have loved AngusEgerton; but that is no reason she should become a murderess.'

  I stood with the medicine-bottle in my hand sorely perplexed. Whatcould I do? Should I suspend the medicine for to-night, at the risk ofretarding the cure? or should I give it in spite of that half suspicionthat it had been tampered with?

  What ground had I for such a suspicion? At that moment nothing but thesound that had awakened me, the chinking sound of one glass knockedagainst another.

  Had I really heard any such sound, or had it only been a delusion of myhalf sleeping brain? While I stood weighing this question, a suddenrecollection flashed across my mind, and I had no longer ground fordoubt.

  The cork of the medicine-bottle, when I gave Milly her last dose, hadbeen too large for the bottle; so much so, that I had found itdifficult to put it in again after giving the medicine. The cork of thebottle which I now held in my hand went in loosely enough. It was asmaller and an older-looking cork. This decided me. I placed the bottleunder lock and key in Milly's wardrobe, and I gave her no more medicinethat night.

  There was no fear of my sleeping at my post after this. My thoughts forthe rest of that night were full of horror and bewilderment. My courseseemed clear enough, in one respect. The proper person to confide inwould be Mr. Hale. He would be able to discover whether the medicinehad been tampered with, and it would be his business to protect hispatient.

  CHAPTER XII.

  DEFEATED.

  I went down to the garden for the flowers as usual next morning, as Idid not wish to make any palpable change in my arrangements; but beforeleaving the room I impressed upon Susan Dodd the necessity of remainingwith her mistress during every moment of my absence, though I knew Ihad little need to counsel carefulness. Nothing was more unlikely thanthat Susan would neglect her duty for a moment.

  Peter came again, as he had come to me on the previous morning. Againhe lingered about me, as if he had something more to say, and could nottake courage to say it. This time the strangeness of his manner arousedmy curiosity, and I asked him if he had anything particular to say tome.

  'You must be quick, Peter, whatever it is,' I said; 'for I am in agreat hurry to get back to Miss Darrell.'

  'There is something I want to say, miss,' he answered, twisting hisragged straw hat round and round in his bony hands, in a nervousway,--'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, yousee, miss, sending wine and such things when I was ill, and I ain'tafeard o' you, as I am o' some folks.'

  'The wine was not mine, Peter. Be quick, please; tell me what you wantto say.'

  'I can't come to it very easy, miss. It's something awful-like to tellon.'

  'Something awful?'

  The boy had looked round him with a cautious glance, and was nowstanding close to me, with his light blue eyes fixed upon my face in avery 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 thoughtas it might be no more than a dream. I had a many dreams while I werelying on that little bed in grandmother's room, wicked dreams, and thismight be one of them; and yet it's real-like, and there isn't themuddle 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 cannever 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-openawe-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 wasvery bad, and lay still all day and couldn't speak. But I knew whatgrandmother said to me, and I knew everything that was going on, thoughI didn't seem to--that was the curious part of it. I had been asleepfor a bit, and I woke up all of a sudden, and heard some one talking tograndmother in the next room--the door wasn't wide open, only ajar. Ishouldn'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 Iheard the lady say that when one was sick and tired of life, and had noone left to live for, it was best to die; and grandmother laughed, andsays yes, there w
asn't much to live for, leastways not for such as her.And then they talked a little more; and then by and by Mrs. Darrellasked 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 agood time; but Mrs. Darrell offered her money, and then more and moremoney. She says it couldn't matter whether she got the stuff from heror from any one else. She could get it easily enough, she says, in anylarge town. And she didn't know as she should use it, she says. It wasmore 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 grewburdensome to her. "You'll never use it against any one else?" saysgrandmother; and Mrs. Darrell says who was there she could use itagainst, and what harm need she wish to anybody; she was