Ellen Percy; or, The Memoirs of an Actress — page 117: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

or i a mm nm ree cr 9 a A a Ta a TN TT EE LE TIS TIT EE OA AC = LLL LC TCT 104 But have the kindness to inform Lord Frederick Ravenscliffe that we are here;—or suffer us to proceed to his apartment—which perhaps will be the better plan.” “T’m sure you can do as you like, ladies,” re- plied Mrs, Janson. “ Use the house just for all the world as if it was your own!” “ We will proceed alone together to Lord Fre- derick’s apartment,” I said: “ you need not attend upon us my worthy dame: but you may continue your preparations for the little festival.” I said these last words because I had a settled conviction of the necessity—or at least the pru- dence and propriety of maintaining those appear- ances which Lord Frederick had for his own ulte- rior purpose (whatever it were) already conjured up, and to which he had given a particular gloss. At the same time there was a sense—an almost awful sense of foreboding within me that there would be no dinner, nor festival, nor banquet there that day ! Juliet and I left the old couple together; and we entered into the dilapidated edifice. We as- cended the staircase—we reached the drawing- room floor—and as we began the ascent towards the next storey, that same sickly odour which had before assailed our nostrils, was experienced with additional strength and pungency. I felt myself shuddering: horrible recollections began creeping in unto my mind—recoilections of mad threats and wild menaces which the young nobleman in his frenzy had proclaimed in my hearing at River House upwards of two months back; so that it was no wonder if my heart palpitated, my frame quivered, or that my brain had confusion and hurry init. I glanced at Juliet: I saw that she likewise was considerably agitated—though her ideas (as I afterwards learnt) were very far from pointing to any such conclusion as that towards which my own thoughts were now fearfully troop- ing. We reached. the second storey landing: we passed along the corridor leading to the one apartment which on the former occasion on that same day had remained unvisited by us; and as we drew nearer and nearer towards the door, more pungent and more sickly became the odour which assailed our nostrils. It came upon the nerves with an almost overwhelming power; and the effect was all the greater on account of the other influences which were already acting upon the nervous system of each of us. I knocked at the door: there was no answer. That silence struck me as still more ominous than even the tenour of my thoughts had hitherto been. Juliet gasped, and looked up at me with an ex- pression of the most anxious inquiry. Again I knocked at the door: all continued silent; and Juliet murmured, “ Perhaps he isnot here? It may be below that he intended to meet us P” Perhaps,” I said: “but still this uncertainty is intolerable!’ I added musingly to myself. I stooped down, and peeped through the key- hole. The first glance showed me the confused paraphernalia of a laboratory, just as it is usually described in books or as imagination is in the habit of depicting it. There was some horrible reptile of the alligator species, suspended to the ceiling; there was a death’s head grinning from a little shelf of jars and phials; other shelves, as rn rr er ee ELLEN PERCY; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF AN ACTRESS, well as the table, were covered with chemical im- plements of strange shapes and names unknown to me, but suddenly conjuring up ideas of the philosopher’s stone, the elixir of life, and all the wondrous mysteries of a lost science, as alchemy was supposed to be. There was the furnace too: there was an immense arm-chair in which the aged Professor Steinbach might have appro- priately reposed his enervated form—but which scarcely seemed suitable for an individual in all the vigour of youth, as Frederick Ravenscliffe was. There were huge bottles—some green and some red—bearing upon them those cabalistic characters which may be seen on the bottles of coloured waters in chemists’ windows. I caught a glimpse likewise of a galvanic battery, and of other articles the details of which I have now for- gotten. But on the floor there seemed to be a strange confusion. I beheld a chair overturned : near 1 there was a dressing-gown, seeming to de- fine something like the shape of a human being: there was a large tub;~—while a cap and several garments lay scattered about. What did all this mean? I closed my eye, for I was wearied of concentrating its gaze through so small an aper- ture. “What do you see, Ellen?” inquired Juliet, full of anxiety and suspense. “Tt is the laboratorv—and there is the fur- nace,” I responded, again peeping through the key-hole; “and there But, good heavens! that dressing-gown must be upon a human form!— the form itself is lying along Yes, yes—I seo! I follow the outline ¥ “Ellen ?’?—and Juliet gasped vainly for the power of further utterance. “Yes—good heavens! I comprehend it all !’— and it was with a cry of affright I sprang up from my crouching posture at the door. “He is mo- tionless ! he is dead!’ My fingers seized the handle of the door: but if was fastened inside. I threw myself against it with all the impetus and energy I could possibly give to my form: the door was burst open—for it was only held by a small brass bolt at the top. Juliet and I rushed in; and Oh! what a spectacle met our view! For there, lying forward—enve- loped in a dressing-gown — his face completely immersed in a tub full of a sickly-smelling pun- gent liquid—was Lord Frederick Ravenscliffe ! ** Good God ! he has drowned himself!” shrieked Juliet, clasping her hands in horror and affright. “Unhappy man!” I exclaimed: and I also was a prey to the wildest horror, as I felt that a ghastly paleness had seized upon my countenance —my bonnet was flying off my head—and my whole aspect must have been that of one who was frenzied. oe eer « CHAPTER LXXXIV. THE VISCOUNT. NEVER, never can I forget the scene which thus burst upon my view. Though an instant back I had been more or less prepared for it, by the glimpse I bad obtained of Ravenscliffe’s posture in refer- ence to that tub—as well as by certain reminis- = Gomichboo c) SS (E(e)