Jezebel's Daughter

by Wilkie Collins

  "Entirely through your kind sympathy, my friend," was the cool reply.

  "My sympathy? What do you mean?"

  "Was it not you, David, who considerately thought of Minna when the post

  came in? And did you not send the man-servant to us, with her letter from

  Fritz?"

  The blubbering voice of Joseph, trembling for his situation, on the

  landing outside, interrupted me before I could speak again.

  "I'm sure I meant no harm, sir. I only said I was in a hurry to get back,

  because you had all gone to the theater, and I was left (with nobody but

  the kitchen girl) to take care of the house. When the lady came, and

  showed me her drawing-book----"

  "That will do, friend Joseph," said the widow, signing to him to go

  downstairs in her easy self-possessed way. "Mr. David is too sensible to

  take notice of trifles. There! there! go down," She turned to me, with an

  expression of playful surprise. "How very serious you look!" she said

  gaily.

  "It might have been serious for _you,_ Madame Fontaine, if Mr. Keller had

  returned to the house to fetch his opera-glass himself."

  "Ah! he has left his opera-glass behind him? Let me help you to look for

  it. I have done my sketch; I am quite at your service." She forestalled

  me in finding the opera-glass. "I really had no other chance of making a

  study of the chimney-piece," she went on, as she handed the glass to me.

  "Impossible to ask Mr. Engelman to let me in again, after what happened

  on the last occasion. And, if I must confess it, there is another motive

  besides my admiration for the chimney-piece. You know how poor we are.

  The man who keeps the picture-shop in the Zeil is willing to employ me.

  He can always sell these memorials of old Frankfort to English travelers.

  Even the few forms he gives me will find two half-starved women in

  housekeeping money for a week."

  It was all very plausible; and perhaps (in my innocent days before I met

  with Frau Meyer) I might have thought it quite likely to be true. In my

  present frame of mind, I only asked the widow if I might see her sketch.

  She shook her head, and sheltered the drawing-book again under her shawl.

  "It is little better than a memorandum at present," she explained. "Wait

  till I have touched it up, and made it saleable--and I will show it to

  you with pleasure. You will not make mischief, Mr. David, by mentioning

  my act of artistic invasion to either of the old gentlemen? It shall not

  be repeated--I give you my word of honor. There is poor Joseph, too. You

  don't want to ruin a well-meaning lad, by getting him turned out of his

  place? Of course not! We part as friends who understand each other, don't

  we? Minna would have sent her love and thanks, if she had known I was to

  meet you. Good-night."

  She ran downstairs, humming a little tune to herself, as blithe as a

  young girl. I heard a momentary whispering with Joseph in the hall. Then

  the house-door closed--and there was an end of Madame Fontaine for that

  time.

  After no very long reflection, I decided that my best course would be to

  severely caution Joseph, and to say nothing to the partners of what had

  happened--for the present, at least. I should certainly do mischief, by

  setting the two old friends at variance again on the subject of the

  widow, if I spoke; to say nothing (as another result) of the likelihood

  of Joseph's dismissal by Mr. Keller. Actuated by these reasonable

  considerations, I am bound frankly to add that I must have felt some

  vague misgivings as well. Otherwise, why did I carefully examine Mr.

  Keller's room (before I returned to the theater), without any distinct

  idea of any conceivable discovery that I might make? Not the vestige of a

  suspicious appearance rewarded my search. The room was in its customary

  state of order, from the razors and brushes on the toilet-table to the

  regular night-drink of barley-water, ready as usual in the jug by the

  bedside.

  I left the bedchamber at last. Why was I still not at my ease? Why was I

  rude enough, when I thought of the widow, to say to myself, "Damn her!"

  Why did I find Gluck's magnificent music grow wearisome from want of

  melody as it went on? Let the learned in such things realize my position,

  and honor me by answering those questions for themselves.

  We were quite gay at supper; the visit to the theater had roused the

  spirits of the two partners, by means of a wholesome break in the

  monotony of their lives. I had seldom seen Mr. Keller so easy and so

  cheerful. Always an abstemious man, he exercised his usual moderation in

  eating and drinking; and he was the first to go to bed. But, while he was

  with us, he was, in the best sense of the word, a delightful companion;

  and he looked forward to the next opera night with the glee of a

  schoolboy looking forward to a holiday.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  The breakfast-room proved to be empty when I entered it the next morning.

  It was the first time in my experience that I had failed to find Mr.

  Keller established at the table. He had hitherto set the example of early

  rising to his partner and to myself. I had barely noticed his absence,

  when Mr. Engelman followed me into the room with a grave and anxious

  face, which proclaimed that something was amiss.

  "Where is Mr. Keller?" I asked.

  "In bed, David."

  "Not ill, I hope?"

  "I don't know what is the matter with him, my dear boy. He says he has

  passed a bad night, and he can't leave his bed and attend to business as

  usual. Is it the close air of the theater, do you think?"

  "Suppose I make him a comfortable English cup of tea?" I suggested.

  "Yes, yes! And take it up yourself. I should like to know what you think

  of him."

  Mr. Keller alarmed me in the first moment when I looked at him. A

  dreadful apathy had possessed itself of this naturally restless and

  energetic man. He lay quite motionless, except an intermittent trembling

  of his hands as they rested on the counterpane. His eyes opened for a

  moment when I spoke to him--then closed again as if the effort of looking

  at anything wearied him. He feebly shook his head when I offered him the

  cup of tea, and said in a fretful whisper, "Let me be!" I looked at his

  night-drink. The jug and glass were both completely empty. "Were you

  thirsty in the night?" In the same fretful whisper he answered,

  "Horribly!" "Are you not thirsty now?" He only repeated the words he had

  first spoken--"Let me be!" There he lay, wanting nothing, caring for

  nothing; his face looking pinched and wan already, and the intermittent

  trembling still at regular intervals shaking his helpless hands.

  We sent at once for the physician who had attended him in trifling

  illnesses at former dates.

  The doctor who is not honest enough to confess it when he is puzzled, is

  a well-known member of the medical profession in all countries. Our

  present physician was one of that sort. He pronounced the patient to be

  suffering from low (or nervous) fever--but it struck Mr. Engelman, as it

  struck me, that he found himself obliged to say something, and said it />
  without feeling sure of the correctness of his own statement. He

  prescribed, and promised to pay us a second visit later in the day.

  Mother Barbara, the housekeeper, was already installed as nurse. Always a

  domestic despot, she made her tyranny felt even in the sick-room. She

  declared that she would leave the house if any other woman presumed to

  enter it as nurse. "When my master is ill," said Mother Barbara, "my

  master is my property." It was plainly impossible that a woman, at her

  advanced age, could keep watch at the bedside by day and night together.

  In the interests of peace we decided on waiting until the next day. If

  Mr. Keller showed no signs of improvement by that time, I undertook to

  inquire at the hospital for a properly qualified nurse.

  Later in the day, our doubts of the doctor were confirmed. He betrayed

  his own perplexity in arriving at a true "diagnosis" of the patient's

  case, by bringing with him, at his second visit, a brother-physician,

  whom he introduced as Doctor Dormann, and with whom he asked leave to

  consult at the bedside.

  The new doctor was the younger, and evidently the firmer person of the

  two.

  His examination of the sick man was patient and careful in the extreme.

  He questioned us minutely about the period at which the illness had

  begun; the state of Mr. Keller's health immediately before it; the first

  symptoms noticed; what he had eaten, and what he had drunk; and so on.

  Next, he desired to see all the inmates of the house who had access to

  the bed-chamber; looking with steady scrutiny at the housekeeper, the

  footman, and the maid, as they followed each other into the room--and

  dismissing them again without remark. Lastly, he astounded his old

  colleague by proposing to administer an emetic. There was no prevailing

  on him to give his reasons. "If I prove to be right, you shall hear my

  reasons. If I prove to be wrong, I have only to say so, and no reasons

  will be required. Clear the room, administer the emetic, and keep the

  door locked till I come back."

  With those parting directions he hurried out of the house.

  "What _can_ he mean?" said Mr. Engelman, leading the way out of the

  bedchamber.

  The elder doctor left in charge heard the words, and answered them,

  addressing himself, not to Mr. Engelman, but to me. He caught me by the

  arm, as I was leaving the room in my turn.

  "Poison!" the doctor whispered in my ear. "Keep it a secret; that's what

  he means."

  I ran to my own bedchamber and bolted myself in. At that one word,

  "Poison," the atrocious suggestion of Frau Meyer, when she had referred

  to Doctor Fontaine's lost medicine-chest, instantly associated itself in

  my memory with Madame Fontaine's suspicious intrusion into Mr. Keller's

  room. Good God! had I not surprised her standing close by the table on

  which the night-drink was set? and had I not heard Doctor Dormann say,

  "That's unlucky," when he was told that the barley-water had been all

  drunk by the patient, and the jug and glass washed as usual? For the

  first few moments, I really think I must have been beside myself, so

  completely was I overpowered by the horror of my own suspicions. I had

  just sense enough to keep out of Mr. Engelman's way until I felt my mind

  restored in some degree to its customary balance.

  Recovering the power of thinking connectedly, I began to feel ashamed of

  the panic which had seized on me.

  What conceivable object had the widow to gain by Mr. Keller's death? Her

  whole interest in her daughter's future centered, on the contrary, in his

  living long enough to be made ashamed of his prejudices, and to give his

  consent to the marriage. To kill him for the purpose of removing Fritz

  from the influence of his father's authority would be so atrocious an act

  in itself, and would so certainly separate Minna and Fritz for ever, in

  the perfectly possible event of a discovery, that I really recoiled from

  the contemplation of this contingency as I might have recoiled from

  deliberately disgracing myself. Doctor Dormann had rashly rushed at a

  false conclusion--that was the one comforting reflection that occurred to

  me. I threw open my door again in a frenzy of impatience to hear the

  decision, whichever way it might turn.

  The experiment had been tried in my absence. Mr. Keller had fallen into a

  broken slumber. Doctor Dormann was just closing the little bag in which

  he had brought his testing apparatus from his own house. Even now there

  was no prevailing on him to state his suspicions plainly.

  "It's curious," he said, "to see how all mortal speculations on events,

  generally resolve themselves into threes. Have we given the emetic too

  late? Are my tests insufficient? Or have I made a complete mistake?" He

  turned to his elder colleague. "My dear doctor, I see you want a positive

  answer. No need to leave the room, Mr. Engelman! You and the young

  English gentleman, your friend, must not be deceived for a single moment

  so far as I am concerned. I see in the patient a mysterious wasting of

  the vital powers, which is not accompanied by the symptoms of any disease

  known to me to which I can point as a cause. In plain words, I tell you,

  I don't understand Mr. Keller's illness."

  It was perhaps through a motive of delicacy that he persisted in making a

  needless mystery of his suspicions. In any case he was evidently a man

  who despised all quackery from the bottom of his heart. The old doctor

  looked at him with a frown of disapproval, as if his frank confession had

  violated the unwritten laws of medical etiquette.

  "If you will allow me to watch the case," he resumed, "under the

  superintendence of my respected colleague, I shall be happy to submit to

  approval any palliative treatment which may occur to me. My respected

  colleague knows that I am always ready to learn."

  His respected colleague made a formal bow, looked at his watch, and

  hastened away to another patient. Doctor Dormann, taking up his hat,

  stopped to look at Mother Barbara, fast asleep in her easy chair by the

  bedside.

  "I must find you a competent nurse to-morrow," he said. "No, not one of

  the hospital women--we want someone with finer feelings and tenderer

  hands than theirs. In the meantime, one of you must sit up with Mr.

  Keller to-night. If I am not wanted before, I will be with you to-morrow

  morning."

  I volunteered to keep watch; promising to call Mr. Engelman if any

  alarming symptoms showed themselves. The old housekeeper, waking after

  her first sleep, characteristically insisted on sending me to bed, and

  taking my place. I was too anxious and uneasy (if I may say it of myself)

  to be as compliant as usual. Mother Barbara, for once, found that she had

  a resolute person to deal with. At a less distressing time, there would

  have been something irresistibly comical in her rage and astonishment,

  when I settled the dispute by locking her out of the room.

  Soon afterwards Joseph came in with a message. If there was no immediate

  necessity for his presence in the bedchamber, Mr. Engelman would go out
>
  to get a breath of fresh air, before he retired for the night. There was

  no necessity for his presence; and I sent a message downstairs to that

  effect.

  An hour later Mr. Engelman came in to see his old friend, and to say

  good-night. After an interval of restlessness, the sufferer had become

  composed, and was dozing again under the influence of his medicine.

  Making all allowances for the sorrow and anxiety which Mr. Engelman must

  necessarily feel under the circumstances, I thought his manner strangely

  absent and confused. He looked like a man with some burden on his mind

  which he was afraid to reveal and unable to throw off.

  "Somebody must be found, David, who does understand the case," he said,

  looking at the helpless figure on the bed.

  "Who can we find?" I asked.

  He bade me good-night without answering. It is no exaggeration to say

  that I passed my night at the bedside in a miserable state of indecision

  and suspense. The doctor's experiment had failed to prove absolutely that

  the doctor's doubts were without foundation. In this state of things, was

  it my bounden duty to tell the medical men what I had seen, when I went

  back to the house to look for Mr. Keller's opera-glass? The more I

  thought of it, the more I recoiled from the idea of throwing a frightful

  suspicion on Minna's mother which would overshadow an innocent woman for

  the rest of her life. What proof had I that she had lied to me about the

  sketch and the mantlepiece? And, without proof, how could I, how dare I,

  open my lips? I succeeded in deciding firmly enough for the alternative

  of silence, during the intervals when my attendance on the sick man was

  not required. But, when he wanted his medicine, when his pillows needed a

  little arrangement, when I saw his poor eyes open, and look at me

  vacantly--then my resolution failed me; my indecision returned; the

  horrid necessity of speaking showed itself again, and shook me to the

  soul. Never in the trials of later life have I passed such a night as

  that night at Mr. Keller's bedside.

  When the light of the new day shone in at the window, it was but too

  plainly visible that the symptoms had altered for the worse.

  The apathy was more profound, the wan pinched look of the face had

  increased, the intervals between the attacks of nervous trembling had

  grown shorter and shorter. Come what might of it, when Dr. Dormann paid

  his promised visit, I felt I was now bound to inform him that another

  person besides the servants and ourselves had obtained access secretly to

  Mr. Keller's room.

  I was so completely worn out by agitation and want of sleep--and I showed

  it, I suppose, so plainly--that good Mr. Engelman insisted on my leaving

  him in charge, and retiring to rest. I lay down on my bed, with the door

  of my room ajar, resolved to listen for the doctor's footsteps on the

  stairs, and to speak to him privately after he had seen the patient.

  If I had been twenty years older, I might have succeeded in carrying out

  my intention. But, with the young, sleep is a paramount necessity, and

  nature insists on obedience to its merciful law. I remember feeling

  drowsy; starting up from the bed, and walking about my room, to keep

  myself awake; then lying down again from sheer fatigue; and after

  that--total oblivion! When I woke, and looked at my watch, I found that I

  had been fast asleep for no less than six hours!

  Bewildered and ashamed of myself--afraid to think of what might have

  happened in that long interval--I hurried to Mr. Keller's room, and

  softly knocked at the door.

  A woman's voice answered me, "Come in!"

  I paused with my hand on the door--the voice was familiar to me. I had a

  moment's doubt whether I was mad or dreaming. The voice softly repeated,