Chapter XXXV: "Flaskets of Drugs, Full to Their Wicked Lips" edit
La Corriveau took the ebony casket from her bosom and laid it solemnly on the table. "Do not cross yourself," she exclaimed angrily as she saw Angelique mechanically make the sacred sign. "There can come no blessings here. There is death enough in that casket to kill every man and woman in New France."
Angelique fastened her gaze upon the casket as if she would have drawn out the secret of its contents by the very magnetism of her eyes. She laid her hand upon it caressingly, yet tremblingly-- eager, yet fearful, to see its contents.
"Open it!" cried La Corriveau, "press the spring, and you will see such a casket of jewels as queens might envy. It was the wedding- gift of Beatrice Spara, and once belonged to the house of Borgia-- Lucrezia Borgia had it from her terrible father; and he, from the prince of demons!"
Angelique pressed the little spring,--the lid flew open, and there flashed from it a light which for the moment dazzled her eyes with its brilliancy. She thrust the casket from her in alarm, and retreated a few steps, imagining she smelt the odor of some deadly perfume.
"I dare not approach it," said she. "Its glittering terrifies me; its odor sickens me."
"Tush! it is your weak imagination!" replied La Corriveau; "your sickly conscience frightens you! You will need to cast off both to rid Beaumanoir of the presence of your rival! The aqua tofana in the hands of a coward is a gift as fatal to its possessor as to its victim."
Angelique with a strong effort tried to master her fear, but could not. She would not again handle the casket.
La Corriveau looked at her as if suspecting this display of weakness. She then drew the casket to herself and took out a vial, gilt and chased with strange symbols. It was not larger than the little finger of a delicate girl. Its contents glittered like a diamond in the sunshine.
La Corriveau shook it up, and immediately the liquid was filled with a million sparks of fire. It was the aqua tofana undiluted by mercy, instantaneous in its effect, and not medicable by any antidote. Once administered, there was no more hope for its victim than for the souls of the damned who have received the final judgment. One drop of that bright water upon the tongue of a Titan would blast him like Jove's thunderbolt, would shrivel him up to a black, unsightly cinder!
This was the poison of anger and revenge that would not wait for time, and braved the world's justice. With that vial La Borgia killed her guests at the fatal banquet in her palace, and Beatrice Spara in her fury destroyed the fair Milanese who had stolen from her the heart of Antonio Exili.
This terrible water was rarely used alone by the poisoners; but it formed the basis of a hundred slower potions which ambition, fear, avarice, or hypocrisy mingled with the element of time, and colored with the various hues and aspects of natural disease.
Angelique sat down and leaned towards La Corriveau, supporting her chin on the palms of her hands as she bent eagerly over the table, drinking in every word as the hot sand of the desert drinks in the water poured upon it. "What is that?" said she, pointing to a vial as white as milk and seemingly as harmless.
"That," replied La Corriveau, "is the milk of mercy. It brings on painless consumption and decay. It eats the life out of a man while the moon empties and fills once or twice. His friends say he dies of quick decline, and so he does! ha! ha!--when his enemy wills it! The strong man becomes a skeleton, and blooming maidens sink into their graves blighted and bloodless, with white lips and hearts that cease gradually to beat, men know not why. Neither saint nor sacrament can arrest the doom of the milk of mercy."
"This vial," continued she, lifting up another from the casket and replacing the first, licking her thin lips with profound satisfaction as she did so,--"this contains the acrid venom that grips the heart like the claws of a tiger, and the man drops down dead at the time appointed. Fools say he died of the visitation of God. The visitation of God!" repeated she in an accent of scorn, and the foul witch spat as she pronounced the sacred name. "Leo in his sign ripens the deadly nuts of the East, which kill when God will not kill. He who has this vial for a possession is the lord of life." She replaced it tenderly. It was a favorite vial of La Corriveau.
"This one," continued she, taking up another, "strikes with the dead palsy; and this kindles the slow, inextinguishable fires of typhus. Here is one that dissolves all the juices of the body, and the blood of a man's veins runs into a lake of dropsy. "This," taking up a green vial, "contains the quintessence of mandrakes distilled in the alembic when Scorpio rules the hour. Whoever takes this liquid"--La Corriveau shook it up lovingly--"dies of torments incurable as the foul disease of lust which it simulates and provokes."
There was one vial which contained a black liquid like oil. "It is a relic of the past," said she, "an heir-loom from the Untori, the ointers of Milan. With that oil they spread death through the doomed city, anointing its doors and thresholds with the plague until the people died."
The terrible tale of the anointers of Milan has, since the days of La Corriveau, been written in choice Italian by Manzoni, in whose wonderful book he that will may read it.
"This vial," continued the witch, "contains innumerable griefs, that wait upon the pillows of rejected and heartbroken lovers, and the wisest physician is mocked with lying appearances of disease that defy his skill and make a fool of his wisdom."
"Oh, say no more!" exclaimed Angelique, shocked and terrified. However inordinate in her desires, she was dainty in her ways. "It is like a Sabbat of witches to hear you talk, La Corriveau!" cried she, "I will have none of those foul things which you propose. My rival shall die like a lady! I will not feast like a vampire on her dead body, nor shall you. You have other vials in the casket of better hue and flavor. What is this?" continued Angelique, taking out a rose-tinted and curiously-twisted bottle sealed on the top with the mystic pentagon. "This looks prettier, and may be not less sure than the milk of mercy in its effect. What is it?"
"Ha! ha!" laughed the woman with her weirdest laugh. "Your wisdom is but folly, Angelique des Meloises! You would kill, and still spare your enemy! That was the smelling-bottle of La Brinvilliers, who took it with her to the great ball at the Hotel de Ville, where she secretly sprinkled a few drops of it upon the handkerchief of the fair Louise Gauthier, who, the moment she put it to her nostrils, fell dead upon the floor. She died and gave no sign, and no man knew how or why! But she was the rival of Brinvilliers for the love of Gaudin de St. Croix, and in that she resembles the lady of Beaumanoir, as you do La Brinvilliers!"
"And she got her reward! I would have done the same thing for the same reason! What more have you to relate of this most precious vial of your casket?" asked Angelique.
"That its virtue is unimpaired. Three drops sprinkled upon a bouquet of flowers, and its odor breathed by man or woman, causes a sudden swoon from which there is no awakening more in this world. People feel no pain, but die smiling as if angels had kissed away their breath. Is it not a precious toy, Mademoiselle?"
"Oh, blessed vial!" exclaimed Angelique, pressing it to her lips, "thou art my good angel to kiss away the breath of the lady of Beaumanoir! She shall sleep on roses, La Corriveau, and you shall make her bed!"
"It is a sweet death, befitting one who dies for love, or is killed by the jealousy of a dainty rival," replied the witch; "but I like best those draughts which are most bitter and not less sure."
"The lady of Beaumanoir will not be harder to kill than Louise Gauthier," replied Angelique, watching the glitter of the vial in the lamplight. "She is unknown even to the servants of the Chateau; nor will the Intendant himself dare to make public either her life or death in his house."
"Are you sure, Mademoiselle, that the Intendant will not dare to make public the death of that woman in the Chateau?" asked La Corriveau, with intense eagerness; that consideration was an important link of the chain which she was forging.
"Sure? yes, I am sure by a hundred tokens!" said Angelique, with an air of triumph. "He dare not even banish her for my sake, lest the secret of her concealment at Beaumanoir become known. We can safely risk his displeasure, even should he suspect that I have cut the knot he knew not how to untie."
"You are a bold girl!" exclaimed La Corriveau, looking on her admiringly, "you are worthy to wear the crown of Cleopatra, the queen of all the gypsies and enchantresses. I shall have less fear now to do your bidding, for you have a stronger spirit than mine to support you."
"'Tis well, La Corriveau! Let this vial of Brinvilliers bring me the good fortune I crave, and I will fill your lap with gold. If the lady of Beaumanoir shall find death in a bouquet of flowers, let them be roses!"
"But how and where to find roses? they have ceased blooming," said La Corriveau, hating Angelique's sentiment, and glad to find an objection to it.
"Not for her, La Corriveau; fate is kinder than you think!" Angelique threw back a rich curtain and disclosed a recess filled with pots of blooming roses and flowers of various hues. "The roses are blooming here which will form the bouquet of Beaumanoir."
"You are of rare ingenuity, Mademoiselle," replied La Corriveau, admiringly. "If Satan prompts you not, it is because he can teach you nothing either in love or stratagem."
"Love!" replied Angelique quickly, "do not name that! No! I have sacrificed all love, or I should not be taking counsel of La Corriveau!"
Angelique's thoughts flashed back upon Le Gardeur for one regretful moment. "No, it is not love," continued she, "but the duplicity of a man before whom I have lowered my pride. It is the vengeance I have vowed upon a woman for whose sake I am trifled with! It is that prompts me to this deed! But no matter, shut up the casket, La Corriveau; we will talk now of how and when this thing is to be done."
The witch shut up her infernal casket of ebony, leaving the vial of Brinvilliers shining like a ruby in the lamplight upon the polished table.
The two women sat down, their foreheads almost touching together, with their eyes flashing in lurid sympathy as they eagerly discussed the position of things in the Chateau. The apartments of Caroline, the hours of rest and activity, were all well known to Angelique, who had adroitly fished out every fact from the unsuspecting Fanchon Dodier, as had also La Corriveau.
It was known to Angelique that the Intendant would be absent from the city for some days, in consequence of the news from France. The unfortunate Caroline would be deprived of the protection of his vigilant eye.
The two women sat long arranging and planning their diabolical scheme. There was no smile upon the cheek of Angelique now. Her dimples, which drove men mad, had disappeared. Her lips, made to distil words sweeter than honey of Hybla, were now drawn together in hard lines like La Corriveau's,--they were cruel and untouched by a single trace of mercy.
The hours struck unheeded on the clock in the room, as it ticked louder and louder like a conscious monitor beside them. Its slow finger had marked each wicked thought, and recorded for all time each murderous word as it passed their cruel lips.
La Corriveau held the casket in her lap with an air of satisfaction, and sat with eyes fixed on Angelique, who was now silent.
"Water the roses well, Mademoiselle," said she; "in three days I shall be here for a bouquet, and in less than thrice three days I promise you there shall be a dirge sung for the lady of Beaumanoir."
"Only let it be done soon and surely," replied Angelique,--her very tone grew harsh,--"but talk no more of it; your voice sounds like a cry from a dark gallery that leads to hell. Would it were done! I could then shut up the memory of it in a tomb of silence, forever, forever, and wash my hands of a deed done by you, not me!"
"A deed done by you, not me!" She repeated the words, as if repeating them made them true. She would shut up the memory of her crime forever; she reflected not that the guilt is in the evil intent, and the sin the same before God even if the deed be never done.
Angelique was already an eager sophist. She knew better than the wretched creature whom she had bribed with money, how intensely wicked was the thing she was tempting her to do; but her jealousy maddened her, and her ambition could not let her halt in her course.
There was one thought which still tormented her "What would the Intendant think? What would he say should he suspect her of the murder of Caroline?" She feared his scrutinizing investigation; but, trusting in her power, she risked his suspicions, nay, remembering his words, made him in her own mind an accessory in the murder.
If she remembered Le Gardeur de Repentigny at all at this moment, it was only to strangle the thought of him. She shied like a horse on the brink of a precipice when the thought of Le Gardeur intruded itself. Rising suddenly, she bade La Corriveau be gone about her business, lest she should be tempted to change her mind.
La Corriveau laughed at the last struggle of dying conscience, and bade Angelique go to bed. It was two hours past midnight, and she would bid Fanchon let her depart to the house of an old crone in the city who would give her a bed and a blessing in the devil's name.
Angelique, weary and agitated, bade her be gone in the devil's name, if she preferred a curse to a blessing. The witch, with a mocking laugh, rose and took her departure for the night.
Fanchon, weary of waiting, had fallen asleep. She roused herself, offering to accompany her aunt in hopes of learning something of her interview with her mistress. All she got was a whisper that the jewels were found. La Corriveau passed out into the darkness, and plodded her way to the house of her friend, where she resolved to stay until she accomplished the secret and cruel deed she had undertaken to perform.