Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1003 page)

I yielded — -and spoke of it no more. Every word she uttered only increased my admiration of the noble creature whom I had loved, and lost. What refuge was now left to me? But one refuge; I could still offer to her the sacrifice of myself. Bitterly as I hated the man who had parted us, I loved her dearly enough to be even capable of helping him for her sake. Hopeless infatuation! I don’t deny it; I don’t excuse it — hopeless infatuation!

“You have forgiven me,” I said. “Let me deserve to be forgiven. It is something to be your only friend. You must have plans for the future; tell me unreservedly how I can help you.”

“Complete the good work that you have begun,” she answered, gratefully. “Help me back to health. Make me strong enough to submit to a doctor’s estimate of my chances of living for some years yet.”

“A doctor’s estimate of your chances of living?” I repeated. “What do you mean?”

“I hardly know how to tell you,” she said, “without speaking again of Mr. Van Brandt.”

“Does speaking of him again mean speaking of his debts?” I asked. “Why need you hesitate? You know that there is nothing I will not do to relieve
your
anxieties.”

She looked at me for a moment, in silent distress.

“Oh! do you think I would let you give your money to Van Brandt?” she asked, as soon as she could speak. “I, who owe everything to your devotion to me? Never! Let me tell you the plain truth. There is a serious necessity for his getting out of prison. He must pay his creditors; and he has found out a way of doing it — with my help.”

“Your help?” I exclaimed.

“Yes. This is his position, in two words: A little while since, he obtained an excellent offer of employment abroad, from a rich relative of his, and he had made all his arrangements to accept it. Unhappily, he returned to tell me of his good fortune, and the same day he was arrested for debt. His relative has offered to keep the situation open for a certain time, and the time has not yet expired. If he can pay a dividend to his creditors, they will give him his freedom; and he believes he can raise the money if I consent to insure my life.”

To insure her life! The snare that had been set for her was plainly revealed in those four words.

In the eye of the law she was, of course, a single woman: she was of age; she was, to all intents and purposes, her own mistress. What was there to prevent her from insuring her life, if she pleased, and from so disposing of the insurance as to give Van Brandt a direct interest in her death? Knowing what I knew of him — believing him, as I did, to be capable of any atrocity — I trembled at the bare idea of what might have happened if I had failed to find my way back to her until a later date. Thanks to the happy accident of my position, the one certain way of protecting her lay easily within my reach. I could offer to lend the scoundrel the money that he wanted at an hour’s notice, and he was the man to accept my proposal quite as easily as I could make it.

“You don’t seem to approve of our idea,” she said, noticing, in evident perplexity, the effect which she had produced on me. “I am very unfortunate; I seem to have innocently disturbed and annoyed you for the second time.”

“You are quite mistaken,” I replied. “I am only doubting whether your plan for relieving Mr. Van Brandt of his embarrassments is quite so simple as you suppose. Are you aware of the delays that are likely to take place before it will be possible to borrow money on your policy of insurance?”

“I know nothing about it,” she said, sadly.

“Will you let me ask the advice of my lawyers? They are trustworthy and experienced men, and I am sure they can be of use to you.”

Cautiously as I had expressed myself, her delicacy took the alarm.

“Promise that you won’t ask me to borrow money of you for Mr. Van Brandt,” she rejoined, “and I will accept your help gratefully.”

I could honestly promise that. My one chance of saving her lay in keeping from her knowledge the course that I had now determined to pursue. I rose to go, while my resolution still sustained me. The sooner I made my inquiries (I reminded her) the more speedily our present doubts and difficulties would be resolved.

She rose, as I rose — with the tears in her eyes, and the blush on her cheeks.

“Kiss me,” she whispered, “before you go! And don’t mind my crying. I am quite happy now. It is only your goodness that overpowers me.”

I pressed her to my heart, with the unacknowledged tenderness of a parting embrace. It was impossible to disguise the position in which I had now placed myself. I had, so to speak, pronounced my own sentence of banishment. When my interference had restored my unworthy rival to his freedom, could I submit to the degrading necessity of seeing her in his presence, of speaking to her under his eyes?
That
sacrifice of myself was beyond me — and I knew it. “For the last time!” I thought, as I held her to me for a moment longer — ”for the last time!”

The child ran to meet me with open arms when I stepped out on the landing. My manhood had sustained me through the parting with the mother. It was only when the child’s round, innocent little face laid itself lovingly against mine that my fortitude gave way. I was past speaking; I put her down gently in silence, and waited on the lower flight of stairs until I was fit to face the world outside.

CHAPTER XXIX. OUR DESTINIES PART US.

DESCENDING to the ground-floor of the house, I sent to request a moment’s interview with the landlady. I had yet to learn in which of the London prisons Van Brandt was confined; and she was the only person to whom I could venture to address the question.

Having answered my inquiries, the woman put her own sordid construction on my motive for visiting the prisoner.

“Has the money you left upstairs gone into his greedy pockets already?” she asked. “If I was as rich as you are, I should let it go. In your place, I wouldn’t touch him with a pair of tongs!”

The woman’s coarse warning actually proved useful to me; it started a new idea in my mind! Before she spoke, I had been too dull or too preoccupied to see that it was quite needless to degrade myself by personally communicating with Van Brandt in his prison. It only now occurred to me that my legal advisers were, as a matter of course, the proper persons to represent me in the matter — with this additional advantage, that they could keep my share in the transaction a secret even from Van Brandt himself.

I drove at once to the office of my lawyers. The senior partner — the tried friend and adviser of our family — received me.

My instructions, naturally enough, astonished him. He was immediately to satisfy the prisoner’s creditors, on my behalf, without mentioning my name to any one. And he was gravely to accept as security for repayment — Mr. Van Brandt’s note of hand!

“I thought I was well acquainted with the various methods by which a gentleman can throw away his money,” the senior partner remarked. “I congratulate you, Mr. Germaine, on having discovered an entirely new way of effectually emptying your purse. Founding a newspaper, taking a theater, keeping race-horses, gambling at Monaco, are highly efficient as modes of losing money. But they all yield, sir, to paying the debts of Mr. Van Brandt!”

I left him, and went home.

The servant who opened the door had a message for me from my mother. She wished to see me as soon as I was at leisure to speak to her.

I presented myself at once in my mother’s sitting-room.

“Well, George?” she said, without a word to prepare me for what was coming. “How have you left Mrs. Van Brandt?”

I was completely thrown off my guard.

“Who has told you that I have seen Mrs. Van Brandt?” I asked.

“My dear, your face has told me. Don’t I know by this time how you look and how you speak when Mrs. Van Brandt is in your mind. Sit down by me. I have something to say to you which I wanted to say this morning; but, I hardly know why, my heart failed me. I am bolder now, and I can say it. My son, you still love Mrs. Van Brandt. You have my permission to marry her.”

Those were the words! Hardly an hour had elapsed since Mrs. Van Brandt’s own lips had told me that our union was impossible. Not even half an hour had passed since I had given the directions which would restore to liberty the man who was the one obstacle to my marriage. And this was the time that my mother had innocently chosen for consenting to receive as her daughter-in-law Mrs. Van Brandt!

“I see that I surprise you,” she resumed. “Let me explain my motive as plainly as I can. I should not be speaking the truth, George, if I told you that I have ceased to feel the serious objections that there are to your marrying this lady. The only difference in my way of thinking is, that I am now willing to set my objections aside, out of regard for your happiness. I am an old woman, my dear. In the course of nature, I cannot hope to be with you much longer. When I am gone, who will be left to care for you and love you, in the place of your mother? No one will be left, unless you marry Mrs. Van Brandt. Your happiness is my first consideration, and the woman you love (sadly as she has been led astray) is a woman worthy of a better fate. Marry her.”

I could not trust myself to speak. I could only kneel at my mother’s feet, and hide my face on her knees, as if I had been a boy again.

“Think of it, George,” she said. “And come back to me when you are composed enough to speak as quietly of the future as I do.”

She lifted my head and kissed me. As I rose to leave her, I saw something in the dear old eyes that met mine so tenderly, which struck a sudden fear through me, keen and cutting, like a stroke from a knife.

The moment I had closed the door, I went downstairs to the porter in the hall.

“Has my mother left the house,” I asked, “while I have been away?”

“No, sir.”

“Have any visitors called?”

“One visitor has called, sir.”

“Do you know who it was?”

The porter mentioned the name of a celebrated physician — a man at the head of his profession in those days. I instantly took my hat and went to his house.

He had just returned from his round of visits. My card was taken to him, and was followed at once by my admission to his consulting-room.

“You have seen my mother,” I said. “Is she seriously ill? and have you not concealed it from her? For God’s sake, tell me the truth; I can bear it.”

The great man took me kindly by the hand.

“Your mother stands in no need of any warning; she is herself aware of the critical state of her health,” he said. “She sent for me to confirm her own conviction. I could not conceal from her — I must not conceal from you — that the vital energies are sinking. She may live for some months longer in a milder air than the air of London. That is all I can say. At her age, her days are numbered.”

He gave me time to steady myself under the blow; and then he placed his vast experience, his matured and consummate knowledge, at my disposal. From his dictation, I committed to writing the necessary instructions for watching over the frail tenure of my mother’s life.

“Let me give you one word of warning,” he said, as we parted. “Your mother is especially desirous that you should know nothing of the precarious condition of her health. Her one anxiety is to see you happy. If she discovers your visit to me, I will not answer for the consequences. Make the best excuse you can think of for at once taking her away from London, and, whatever you may feel in secret, keep up an appearance of good spirits in her presence.”

That evening I made my excuse. It was easily found. I had only to tell my poor mother of Mrs. Van Brandt’s refusal to marry me, and there was an intelligible motive assigned for my proposing to leave London. The same night I wrote to inform Mrs. Van Brandt of the sad event which was the cause of my sudden departure, and to warn her that there no longer existed the slightest necessity for insuring her life. “My lawyers” (I wrote) “have undertaken to arrange Mr. Van Brandt’s affairs immediately. In a few hours he will be at liberty to accept the situation that has been offered to him.” The last lines of the letter assured her of my unalterable love, and entreated her to write to me before she left England.