Part 34 (1/2)

The grim woman in black threw back her hood a little, and showed her pale face and thin lips, and prominent black eyes, altogether a grisly and intimidating countenance, with something wild and suspicious in it, suiting by no means ill with her supernatural and malign pretensions.

Mrs. Mack's ear was strained to catch the sound of Toole's approach, and a pause ensued, during which she got up and poured out a gla.s.s of port for the lady, and she presented it to her deferentially. She took it with a nod, and sipped it, thinking, as it seemed, uneasily. There was plainly something more than usual upon her mind. Mrs. Mack thought--indeed, she was quite sure--she heard a little fussing about the bed-room door, and concluded that the doctor was getting under cover.

When Mrs. Matchwell had set her empty gla.s.s upon the table, she glided to the window, and Mrs. Mack's guilty conscience smote her, as she saw her look towards Toole's house. It was only, however, for the coach; and having satisfied herself it was at hand, she said--

'We'll have some minutes quite private, if you please--'tisn't my affair, you know, but yours,' said the weird woman.

There had been ample time for the arrangement of Toole's ambuscade. Now was the moment. The crisis was upon her. But poor Mrs. Mack, just as she was about to say her little say about the front windows and opposite neighbours, and the privacy of the back bed-room, and to propose their retiring thither, felt a sinking of the heart--a deadly faintness, and an instinctive conviction that she was altogether overmatched, and that she could not hope to play successfully any sort of devil's game with that all-seeing sorceress. She had always thought she was a plucky woman till she met Mistress Mary. Before _her_ her spirit died within her--her blood flowed hurriedly back to her heart, leaving her body cold, pale, and damp, and her soul quailing under her gaze.

She cleared her voice twice, and faltered an enquiry, but broke down in panic; and at that moment Biddy popped in her head--

'The doctor, Ma'am, was sent for to Lucan, an' he won't be back till six o'clock, an' he left no peppermint drops for you, Ma'am, an' do you want me, if you plase, Ma'am?'

'Go down, Biddy, that'll do,' said Mrs. Mack, growing first pale, and then very red.

Mary Matchwell scented death afar off; for her the air was always tainted with ominous perfumes. Every unusual look or dubious word thrilled her with a sense of danger. Suspicion is the baleful instinct of self-preservation with which the devil gifts his children; and hers never slept.

'_What_ doctor?' said Mrs. Matchwell, turning her large, dismal, wicked gaze full on Mrs. Mack.

'Doctor Toole, Ma'am.' She dared not tell a literal lie to that piercing, prominent pair of black eyes.

'And why did you send for Doctor O'Toole, Ma'am?'

'I did not send for the doctor,' answered the fat lady, looking down, for she could not stand that glance that seemed to light up all the caverns of her poor soul, and make her lies stand forth self-confessed.

'I did not send for him, Ma'am, only for some drops he promised me. I've been very sick--I--I--I'm so miserable.'

And poor Mrs. Mack's nether lip quivered, and she burst into tears.

'You're enough to provoke a saint, Mrs. Macnamara,' said the woman in black, rather savagely, though coldly enough. 'Why you're on the point of fortune, as it seems to me.' Here poor Mrs. Mack's inarticulate lamentations waxed more vehement. 'You don't believe it--very well--but where's the use of crying over your little difficulties, Ma'am, like a great baby, instead of exerting yourself and thanking your best friend?'

And the two ladies sat down to a murmuring _tete-a-tete_ at the far end of the room; you could have heard little more than an inarticulate cooing, and poor Mrs. Mack's sobs, and the stern--

'And is that all? I've had more trouble with you than with fifty reasonable clients--you can hardly be serious--I tell you plainly, you must manage matters better, my good Madam; for, frankly, Ma'am, _this_ won't do.'

With which that part of the conference closed, and Mary Matchwell looked out of the window. The coach stood at the door, the horses dozing patiently, with their heads together, and the coachman, with a black eye, mellowing into the yellow stage, and a cut across his nose--both doing well--was marching across from the public-house over the way, wiping his mouth in the cuff of his coat.

'Put on your riding-hood, if you please, Madam, and come down with me in the coach to introduce me to Mrs. Nutter,' said Mrs. Matchwell, at the same time tapping with her long bony fingers to the driver.

'There's no need of that, Madam. I said what you desired, and I sent a note to her last night, and she expects you just now; and, indeed, I'd rather not go, Madam, if you please.'

''Tis past that now--just do as I tell you, for come you must,' answered Mrs. Matchwell.

As the old woman of Berkley obeyed, and got up and went quietly away with her visitor, though her dead flesh quivered with fear, so poor Mrs.

Mack, though loath enough, submitted in silence.

'Now, you look like a body going to be hanged--you do; what's the matter with you, Madam? I tell you, you mustn't look that way. Here, take a sup o' this;' and she presented the muzzle of a small bottle like a pistol at her mouth as she spoke--

'There's a gla.s.s on the table, if you let me, Ma'am,' said Mrs. Mack.

'Gla.s.s be----; here, take a mouthful.'