CHAPTER XXIV. MURDER, TOWARDS HIS DESIGN, MOVES LIKE A GHOST.
The reader will doubtless have observed the consummate art with whichthe poisoner had hitherto advanced upon her prey. The design conceivedfrom afar, and executed with elaborate stealth, defied every chance ofdetection against which the ingenuity of practised villany could guard.Grant even that the deadly drugs should betray the nature of the deaththey inflicted, that by some unconjectured secret in the science ofchemistry the presence of those vegetable compounds which had hithertobaffled every known and positive test in the posthumous examination ofthe most experienced surgeons, should be clearly ascertained, notone suspicion seemed likely to fall upon the ministrant of death. Themedicines were never brought to Madame Dalibard, were never given by herhand; nothing ever tasted by the victim could be tracked to her aunt.The helpless condition of the cripple, which Lucretia had assumed,forbade all notion even of her power of movement. Only in the dead ofnight when, as she believed, every human eye that could watch her wassealed in sleep, and then in those dark habiliments which (even as mightsometimes happen, if the victim herself were awake) a chance ray oflight struggling through chink or shutter could scarcely distinguishfrom the general gloom, did she steal to the chamber and infuse thecolourless and tasteless liquid [The celebrated acqua di Tufania(Tufania water) was wholly without taste or colour] in the morningdraught, meant to bring strength and healing. Grant that the draught wasuntouched, that it was examined by the surgeon, that the fell admixturecould be detected, suspicion would wander anywhere rather than to thatcrippled and helpless kinswoman who could not rise from her bed withoutaid.
But now this patience was to be abandoned, the folds of the serpent wereto coil in one fell clasp upon its prey.
Fiend as Lucretia had become, and hardened as were all her resolvesby the discovery of her son, and her impatience to endow him with herforfeited inheritance, she yet shrank from the face of Helen that day;on the excuse of illness, she kept her room, and admitted onlyVarney, who stole in from time to time, with creeping step and haggardcountenance, to sustain her courage or his own. And every time heentered, he found Lucretia sitting with Walter Ardworth's open letter inher hand, and turning with a preternatural excitement that seemedalmost like aberration of mind, from the grim and horrid topic whichhe invited, to thoughts of wealth and power and triumph and exultingprophecies of the fame her son should achieve. He looked but on theblackness of the gulf, and shuddered; her vision overleaped it, andsmiled on the misty palaces her fancy built beyond.
Late in the evening, before she retired to rest, Helen knocked gently ather aunt's door. A voice, quick and startled, bade her enter; she camein, with her sweet, caressing look, and took Lucretia's hand, whichstruggled from the clasp. Bending over that haggard brow, she saidsimply, yet to Lucretia's ear the voice seemed that of command, "Letme kiss you this night!" and her lips pressed that brow. The murderessshuddered, and closed her eyes; when she opened them, the angel visitorwas gone.
Night deepened and deepened into those hours from the first of whichwe number the morn, though night still is at her full. Moonbeam andstarbeam came through the casements shyly and fairylike as on thatnight when the murderess was young and crimeless, in deed, if not inthought,--that night when, in the book of Leechcraft, she meted out thehours in which the life of her benefactor might still interpose betweenher passion and its end. Along the stairs, through the hall, marched thearmies of light, noiseless and still and clear as the judgments ofGod amidst the darkness and shadow of mortal destinies. In one chamberalone, the folds, curtained close, forbade all but a single ray; thatray came direct as the stream from a lantern; as the beam reflected backfrom an eye,--as an eye it seemed watchful and steadfast through thedark; it shot along the floor,--it fell at the foot of the bed.
Suddenly, in the exceeding hush, there was a strange and ghastlysound,--it was the howl of a dog! Helen started from her sleep.Percival's dog had followed her into her room; it had coiled itself,grateful for the kindness, at the foot of the bed. Now it was on thepillow, she felt its heart beat against her hand,--it was trembling; itshairs bristled up, and the howl changed into a shrill bark of terror andwrath. Alarmed, she looked round; quickly between her and that rayfrom the crevice a shapeless darkness passed, and was gone, soundistinguishable, so without outline, that it had no likeness of anyliving form; like a cloud, like a thought, like an omen, it came ingloom, and it vanished.
Helen was seized with a superstitious terror; the dog continued totremble and growl low. All once more was still; the dog sighed itselfto rest. The stillness, the solitude, the glimmer of the moon,--allcontributed yet more to appall the enfeebled nerves of the listening,shrinking girl. At length she buried her face under the clothes, andtowards daybreak fell into a broken, feverish sleep, haunted withthreatening dreams.