Chapter XI: A Parlour of Perfume

O magic sleep! O comfortable bird
That broodest o’er the troubled sea of the mind,
Till it is hushed and smooth!...
—KEATS (_Endymion_).

The atmosphere of Master Simon’s laboratory was much the same, winter or summer. No extreme of heat or cold could penetrate this crypt, deep set as it was in the foundations of the keep; and, though against the long narrow windows, cut into the wall on the level of the moat, one could see the slender spikes of reed and rushy grass perpetually trembling in the airs, there was but little direct sunshine. Sometimes, however, downward thrusts, like spears, when Sol was high; or again when he was about to sink a level shaft, rose-red in winter, amber glowing in summer, would come driving in through the vaulted spaces, high above Master Simon’s head and show to the eye that cared to notice, how dim and vapour-heavy was all the room below.

The two fires then came not amiss. Despite the flame on the open hearth and the glow of the little furnace, Lady Lochore, as she entered, shivered after the hot sunshine.

“How dark it is with you!” she cried. “And what strange odours! Ha! It smells of poison here!”

“To treat the unknown as unwholesome is the animal instinct,” said the chemist, didactically, with a glance of contempt. “How differently does it affect the intellectual being! Fortunately it is in man’s power to extract good or bad from everything. Listen! Every one of those little apparatus simmering over yonder is yielding up juices for healing. Did I choose, child—there might indeed be death in those retorts; just as there is death in fire and water, in air and in sun. These things are our servants, and we use them. Poison! How you women prate of poison! Timorous souls!”

“I, prate of poison?” exclaimed Lady Lochore. “I, timorous! Where is my phial, sir? Oh, I’ll show you if I am afraid!”

She advanced upon him swiftly through the half light to which her eyes had not yet become accustomed, and instantly belied her own words by a violent start and scream. Out of the recess where murmured the furnace fires, Barnaby illumined by the lurid glow, with elf locks hanging and face and hands blackened, suddenly emerged in his peculiar noiseless fashion; on his shoulder was Belphegor still all a-bristle and with phosphorescent eyes.

“Do you keep devils here, too?” she screeched.

The dumb boy made an inarticulate sound and stared at the lady. Who shall say the thoughts that revolved in that brain relentlessly shut off from communion with the rest of the world? In those beings who are deprived of certain senses the remaining wits seem often to become proportionately acute! Nobody could walk so softly, touch so gently as Barnaby; and nobody could see so swiftly, so deeply. He started back in his turn and glowered. This was the first time he had looked into the visitor’s face; her hectic cheek, her roving eyes, her eager teeth glimmering between ever parted lips—they liked him not. Or, perhaps, who can say, it was the soul behind those eyes that liked him not.

Master Simon chuckled.

“Poisons and devils!... my good Herbs! My faithful Barnaby! A deaf and dumb lad, my dear, nothing more! But we shall have these nerves of yours in vastly different trim, even before the day is out. Come here to the table and sit you down. Nay, now, if you laugh like that, how can we discuss in reason, how can I trust you with this precious stuff?”

Lady Lochore made a violent effort to repress the nervous tremor that still shook her.

“When I’ve had my first dose,” she said, artfully, “I shall be so much better that you will trust me with anything.”

This betokened so excellent a spirit that Master Simon could not be expected to show further disapproval. How could he, indeed, feeling in his own veins a new ichor of life, in his own brain an increased lucidity, in his temper so grand a mood of confidence and decision? He had seated the lady in his own chair and was seeking in the press for the new essence, when Barnaby arrested his attention by a timid hand. The lad pointed significantly to the cat which he was now nursing against his breast. Master Simon glanced at the animal’s staring coat, its protruding eye, noted the quick breathing and touched the hot ear. Belphegor growled fiercely.

The old man’s countenance became clouded for a moment; a shade as of misgiving crept into his eye.

“Come, come cousin,” rose the complaining note of his new patient’s voice; and Master Simon waved Barnaby away with peremptory gesture.

The boy slunk back with his burden and the simpler lifted the precious phial from its shelf.

“Here,” said he, bearing it over to the table with infinite care, and admiring its orange colour against the light, “here is the Elixir.”

When Ellinor came down the steps into the laboratory, she found her father still holding forth in the highest good humour, and Lady Lochore listening with bent head in an attitude of profound attention. At the sound of her step he broke off with an excited laugh.

“Aha, Ellinor, the cure has begun! She’s better, she’s better already. Look at her. Ah, you doubted, you, my daughter, you who worked with me side by side! Out on you, you of little faith! This is to be my best case. In a month’s time you will see what you will see.”

Lady Lochore had risen from her chair and, fixing Ellinor with unfathomable looks, in the same measure as she drew nearer drew slowly back herself.

“By the lord, to see her come, in her hateful youth and strength, in her pride—and I, I to have failed!” These were the words of the interior voice. With a convulsive movement she lifted her hand, pressed the little phial where it lay against the wasted bosom. And the pain of that pressure was, of a sudden, fierce joy. Failed? Not yet! Her glorious boy was not to go a beggar whilst such creatures as that rode!

Like a tingling fire the exultation of that single drop of magic cordial began to course through her. She had hated Ellinor before she knew her, with the instinctive hatred of the destined enemy. The instant she had set eyes upon the fresh face, the placid brow, the serious quiet eyes, this instinctive hatred had surged into a living passion that was like a wild beast ever ready to spring. And if now she were to slip the leash and let the leopard go, who could punish her, dying woman as she was? What evil would it bring upon her, were it ever known? Aye, who would ever be the wiser (as Margery said) in this house of craziness where people dabbled with unknown poisons at their own fantasy?

Thus the muttering voice within. Then it was hushed upon the silence of a resolution.

“Lady Lochore,” said Ellinor, “I must warn you, that drug is not safe!”

“Be silent!” exclaimed Master Simon, angrily.

Lady Lochore did not answer, for she was seized with laughter.

“Dear father,” insisted Ellinor. She had come round to the old man and had laid her hand caressingly upon his shoulder, “I have nothing but mistrust for your new Elixir. You have taught me too much for me not to realise its danger. If you were not now under its influence yourself, I know you would see it too. Even a mere infusion of the leaves has so strange an effect, that I have ceased—forgive me, dear—to let the villagers have it.”

The simpler threw off her touch in high displeasure.

“A woman all over!” he muttered. “Fool indeed that I was to think there could be an exception to the ineptitude of the sex! A pretty helpmate for a man of science! But I went myself to the village to-day. Aye!” the fanatic light once more shone under the white eyebrows. “There were many who needed it. Wait, Ellinor, wait! My discovery shall speak for itself—shall refute——”

“Good God!” cried Mrs. Marvel, aghast, and turned instinctively to Lady Lochore, “what will be the outcome of this?”

Lady Lochore laughed again.

“Mrs. Marvel,” she gibed, “has developed all of a sudden a mighty dread of scientific investigation. Out upon such paltry spirit! She should take a lesson by my valour, should she not, most wise and excellent alchemist? And if a little mistake does occur now and again, ’tis but the more instructive, all in the interest of mankind. Now, Mistress Marvel, would not that console you?”

Still clasping her hand over the phial in her breast, Lady Lochore now moved towards the door—slowly, for the little voice within was beginning to speak again, and she had to listen as she went. There was a new jingle rustling in her brain:

“Ten drops madness
Twenty stillness,
And after that ... blackness!

It should be easy!... Yes, it should be easy ... in a dish of tea! What a round throat the hussy has!”

“Well, father,” said Ellinor’s clear voice, “I must see to David’s sleeping draught.”

Lady Lochore in the doorway started and turned round. All at once a light shone into her brain as if some invisible hand had turned the lens of a lantern upon it: David’s sleeping draught—David.... Of course! How clear the whole thing lay before her! She had been about to be clumsy, stupid, inartistic. But now.... Oh, truly this one drop of the old man’s Elixir had been a drop of genius.... “The secret of genius,” had the old man said! Ellinor—what of Ellinor! Merely a thing in the way; a stone to trip up the step of her son’s fate. Throw it aside, and who shall say how soon another might not cast the beloved lad to earth? Aye, and when she would not be there to help. David—it was David!... Who could reckon on the doings of such a madman as David now this wooing mood had been started?

Presently, with slow steps, she came down the room once more.

Ellinor, bending over her fragrant infusion, felt a shadowing presence and looked round, to find Lady Lochore at her shoulder. It was in the dim and vapoury corner behind the screen lit only by the glow of the charcoal. An impression of gleaming eyes and of teeth from which the lips were drawn back for one moment troubled her vaguely; but the next she was full of pity. “Poor creature! How ill she is, and how restless!” she thought.

“Is that the stuff?” inquired Lady Lochore, laughing aimlessly like a mischievous child. And Mrs. Marvel answered her gently, as if it had been indeed a child who questioned:

“Yes, does it not smell sweet? An old recipe, ‘The Good Woman’s Brew’; Vervaine, Red Lavender and Violet, Thyme, Camphire, and a sprig of Basil.”

She now placed the vessel on a low shelf close at hand, and began deftly lifting out the sodden herbs with a glass rod. Little jets of aromatic steam rose and circled about her. Lady Lochore followed her, and once again bent over her shoulder. Barnaby seated, cross-legged, in the darkest corner near the furnace and nursing humpy Belphegor, stared at the two women with all the might of his wistful eyes.

“What are you doing?” asked Lady Lochore.

“Surely you see: clearing these grosser leaves away before finally straining.”

“Oh, let me!”

Ellinor laid down the rod and looked at the speaker with mingled surprise and anxiety. “I hope in Heaven,” she was thinking, “that my father has given her no more than the one drop.”

“Do let me,” insisted Lady Lochore and laid a burning finger on the other’s cool hand.

“Oh, certainly if it pleases you. Meanwhile I will get the cup,” said Ellinor and turned away.

She had hardly had time to take down the chosen goblet from a cupboard, when there came a strange and sudden uproar from behind the screen.—A growl like that of a wild beast from Barnaby, a snarl from Belphegor, a wild shriek from Lady Lochore.

“Help, help!”

Ellinor sprang to the rescue. But her father had already forestalled her. When she reached the spot he was in the act of plucking the dumb boy’s great hands from Lady Lochore’s throat. Lady Lochore was talking volubly, in a high hysterical voice, between laughing and crying:

“He’s mad, I think! These afflicted creatures are never safe! He wants to murder me. I was just stirring David’s potion, as she told me, and he sprang on me like an ape. Ah, God! I am nearly strangled! Fortunately,” she added, with a shrieking laugh, “David’s precious potion is safe!”

She had been clasping both hands over her breast, and now rapidly passing one hand over the other, drew the folds of her kerchief closer about her throat; for glancing down, she had seen a small yellow stain upon the lace, and quickly covered it.

“But what can have happened?” exclaimed Ellinor, “Barnaby is the gentlest creature....”

Gentle, however, seemed hardly a word to apply to the lad at the moment. Struggling in Master Simon’s grasp, mouthing, gesticulating, uttering ghastly sounds, Barnaby seemed indeed to justify Lady Lochore’s epithet—mad.

“He must be shut up!” cried Master Simon, and, with unwonted harshness, shook the boy as he led him away by the collar.

Now Barnaby crouched down and whimpered. The old man paused:

“It’s possible he may have been at my drugs,” said he, looking at his servant curiously. “So—it will be interesting to watch. I will make the rogue show me by and by which it is he has been after. Strange! That would be the first time!”

“For God’s sake, lock him up, lock him up!” screamed Lady Lochore, suddenly breaking into fury. “One’s life’s not safe in this lunatic asylum, between your potions and your idiots. Lock him up, I say, or I’ll not dare trust myself alone another minute. I ought to be thankful, surely,” she turned sneering upon Ellinor, “that David’s hospitality ends for us to-morrow.”

“Come, come,” said Master Simon, as if the afflicted creature could hear him. So deep engrained was the habit of submissiveness, that it needed but the pressure of the old man’s finger to lead the culprit to the little room off the laboratory. Master Simon pointed with his finger and Barnaby crawled in, much as a dog retires to his kennel against his will, pausing to cast imploring glances back. But as the chemist closed the door and turned the key, there came a fresh outburst from within, followed by a muffled sound of sobs and cries.

Master Simon stood a moment with reflective eye, muttering to himself: he had an unwilling notion that the famous Euphrosinum Elixir might have something to say to these unpleasant symptoms.

Sir David came into the laboratory. He was seeking Ellinor; he looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor seemed aware of any other presence.

“Dear Ellinor,” said he, taking both her hands in his, “I feel more and more weary—and sleep would be most blessed. Give me the promised cup.”

“Dear David,” said Ellinor, starting from him, “it is ready.”

Lady Lochore watched them a moment, darkly intent. Then she came striding down the length of the room with great steps, her silken skirts swishing from side to side. She halted before the simpler:

“Good evening and good-bye, cousin!”

“Stay a moment,” said he perturbedly. “That phial——”

“What of it?” she cried, and her eyes shot defiance.

“I have been thinking, my child—not that I have any doubt of it, for it is a grand drug—but I have been thinking it might be better, perhaps, if I prepared a more diluted solution. Give me back that bottle.”

“Not for the world!” said she harshly, and fingered the empty bottle in her bosom. “What, can you not trust me? Oh, it’s precious, precious!” Her voice rang again with wild note. “It has given me back my life.”

She turned to gaze once more, with chin bent down and half-closed eyes, at the figures of Ellinor and David at the distant end of the room. “Look, look! She pours his draught into the cup. From her hand he takes it! ‘Dear Ellinor, sleep would be most blessed to-night.’ He drinks! He will sleep——” So the interior voice, shrill in the silence of her soul. Then aloud:

“Good evening, cousin Simon, and good-bye!” she repeated.

She again took up her interrupted way. As she drew nearer to the door:

“And good-bye to you, David, sleep well!” she called from the threshold upon a strange high pitch.

Master Simon looked after her, shook his head, drew a deep breath of doubt through his nostrils and ran his hand distractedly through his beard. He was very tired, and felt a certain confusion in his head, succeeding the exhilaration of an hour ago. Belphegor was humped in a corner. Nothing seemed to be going quite according to calculations. David passed him with a quick step. “I am going to sleep,” said he, in a curious still voice, as he went by.

Sleep! It was a pleasing suggestion.

“Ellinor,” said the old man plaintively, “if there is any of that calming decoction left, I think I might do well to partake of it myself to-night.”

“There is a whole cup still,” said Ellinor, and turned back to the shelf.