Ethel Churchill/Chapter 76
CHAPTER XLI.
THE LABORATORY.
'Tis a fair tree, the almond tree: there Spring
Shows the first promise of her rosy wreath;
Or ere the green leaves venture from the bud,
These fragile blossoms light the winter bough
With delicate colours, heralding the rose,
Whose own Aurora they might seem to be.
What links beneath their faint and lovely red?
What the dark spirit in those fairy flowers?
'Tis death!
The night was unusually dreary as, for the last time, Henrietta sat listening to the wind that moaned, in fitful intervals, round the ancient house. There was not another sound; she seemed the only creature alive in the world, so profound was the quiet, and so dreary. The red gleams of the wood fire flickered over the black wainscot in fantastic combinations; the long shadows from the lamp fell dark upon the floor; and the window, whose curtains were still undrawn, looked out upon a sky covered with heavy clouds, from whence the wan and misty moon sometimes emerged, but oftener only indicated her presence by a dim white ring, amid the dusky vapours.
Henrietta kept wandering to and fro like a disturbed spirit; now watching the shelves, covered with dusty volumes, now gazing on the different articles, scattered in the same confusion as when Sir Jasper last used his laboratory. On a small table, drawn close to his arm-chair, lay opened a large book, which Henrietta stopped, every now and then, in her troubled walk, to read.
"It may easily be done!" muttered she; and her fine features set with an expression of stern determination. Again she read the passage that had riveted her attention; and, rising from her seat, carried the still open volume, and laid it on a slab by the furnace in the laboratory: it was a celebrated treatise on poisons, written in the fifteenth century. The grate was laid with charcoal, to that she put a light, and then, as if she had forgotten something, hurried to the library, and carefully locked the door. First returning to see that the fire had kindled, she then went to the window, which, with the first gleam of moonlight, she cautiously unclosed, and stepped into the shrubbery. A small drizzling rain was beginning to fall, but she heeded it not; and, approaching a tree that stood near, began to gather the green fruit, with which its branches were thickly covered. Any one who had seen her, might have been pardoned for believing, from that hour, in supernatural appearances. Her tall figure was wrapped in a loose white robe, and her long black hair hung down to her waist, already glistening with the raindrops. The moonlight fell directly on her face, whose features seemed rigid as those of a statue, while the paleness was that of a corpse; but the large gleaming eyes, so passionate and so wild, be longed to life—life, racked by that mental agony, life, and human life, only knows.
It was an almond-tree beneath whose boughs she stood. A few weeks since they had been luxuriant with rosy blossom—fragile and delicate flowers, heralds most unsuited to the bitter fruit. The almond was now just formed in its green shell, and of these Henrietta gathered a quantity, and bore them into the library in the skirt of her dress. She then sat down by the fire, and carefully separated the stone from the pulp, which she burnt; and her next task was to extract the kernel, which she did by means of a heavy pestle and the hearth. The kernels were next crushed together, and placed to simmer over the furnace.
From her childhood she had been accustomed to watch, and often to aid, in her uncle's chemical experiments; she was, therefore, not at a loss, as a complete novice in the science would have been. More than once she referred to the huge volume that lay unclasped before her; and, at a certain point, she approached a curiously wrought old cabinet; from one of its recesses she took a glass mask, and some strongly aromatic vinegar. With a steady hand she fixed the mask on her face, and again approached the furnace. The strange-looking chamber, the red glare of the charcoal, her tall form, and long black hair loose, realised the wildest dream of one of the sorceresses of old, bending over herb and drug, to form their potent spells. Once she grew faint; and, springing to the outer room, she hastily undid the mask, and gasped for breath at the open window. She was deadly pale; but the exquisite features were even stern in their expression of unconquerable will.
Again she resumed her fearful task, and hours passed by; and she started as a red glimmer fell on the open page—it was the crimson coming of daybreak that gleamed through a crevice in the closed shutters. But her task was done! She snatched up two tiny vials, and poured into each a few drops, like singularly clear water; but in each of those drops was—death! The glass stoppers were inserted; the bottles hermetically sealed; and, depositing them in a secret drawer of a small casket, she locked it, put the little key on a chain that she always wore of her uncle's hair; and, pressing it to her heart, exclaimed, "Now I am mistress of my fate in this world!" Her rapid movement made her long, loose sleeve, catch in the glass mask, which fell to the ground, and was shivered in a thousand fragments.
"It matters not," exclaimed she: "I need its services no more!" Hastily she glanced around; and, returning to the laboratory, cleared away all traces of the night's work, and extinguished the charcoal. She then flung open the windows, for the atmosphere was heavy and oppressive; but she started back as the fresh air blew upon her throbbing temples, but brought no colour to her wan lip and cheek. Heavily her eyes closed before the cheerful light, and she turned away with a sick shudder. The closed curtains made the bedroom still dark; and, extinguishing the lamp, she flung herself on the bed. Over tired and excited, it was long before she slept; sleep came at last, but it was broken and feverish; and the interrupted breath, and the red spot that soon burned on the cheek, told that the dream was one of pain and fear, and that slumber was not rest.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY JAMES MOYES, CASTLE STREET,
LEICESTER SQUARE.