Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (102 page)

“I have been admitted here,” I replied, “and have neither time nor inclination to follow you from room to room, just as you like. What I have to say is not much; and, unless you give me fit reasons to the contrary, I shall say it here.”

“You will, will you? Let me tell you that’s damned like what we plain mercantile men call downright incivility. I say it again — incivility; and rudeness too, if you like it better.” He saw I was determined, and closed the door as he spoke, his face twitching and working violently, and his quick, evil eyes turned again in the direction of the screen.

“Well,” he continued, with a sulky defiance of manner and look, “do as you like; stop here — you’ll wish you hadn’t before long, I’ll be bound! You don’t seem to hurry yourself much about speaking, so
I
shall sit down.
You
can do as you please. Now then! just let’s cut it short — do you come here in a friendly way, to ask me to send for
my
girl downstairs, and to show yourself the gentleman, or do you not?”

“You have written me two letters, Mr. Sherwin — ”

“Yes: and took devilish good care you should get them — I left them myself.”

“In writing those letters, you were either grossly deceived; and, in that case, are only to be pitied, or — ”

“Pitied! what the devil do you mean by that? Nobody wants your pity here.”

“Or you have been trying to deceive me; and in that case, I have to tell you that deceit is henceforth useless. I know all — more than you suspect: more, I believe, than you would wish me to have known.”

“Oh, that’s your tack, is it? By God, I expected as much the moment you came in! What! you don’t believe
my
girl — don’t you? You’re going to fight shy, and behave like a scamp — are you? Damn your infernal coolness and your aristocratic airs and graces! You shall see I’ll be even with you — you shall. Ha! ha! look here! — here’s the marriage certificate safe in my pocket. You won’t do the honourable by my poor child — won’t you? Come out! Come away! You’d better — I’m off to your father to blow the whole business; I am, as sure as my name’s Sherwin!”

He struck his fist on the table, and started up, livid with passion. The screen trembled a little, and a slight rustling noise was audible behind it, just as he advanced towards me. He stopped instantly, with an oath, and looked back.

“I warn you to remain here,” I said. “This morning, my father has heard all from my lips. He has renounced me as his son, and I have left his house for ever.”

He turned round quickly, staring at me with a face of mingled fury and dismay.

“Then you come to me a beggar!” he burst out; “a beggar who has taken me in about his fine family, and his fine prospects; a beggar who can’t support my child — Yes! I say it again, a beggar who looks me in the face, and talks as you do. I don’t care a damn about you or your father! I know my rights; I’m an Englishman, thank God! I know my rights, and
my
Margaret’s rights; and I’ll have them in spite of you both. Yes! you may stare as angry as you like; staring don’t hurt. I’m an honest man, and
my
girl’s an honest girl!”

I was looking at him, at that moment, with the contempt that I really felt; his rage produced no other sensation in me. All higher and quicker emotions seemed to have been dried at their sources by the events of the morning.

“I say
my
girl’s an honest girl,” he repeated, sitting down again; “and I dare you, or anybody — I don’t care who — to prove the contrary. You told me you knew all, just now. What
all?
Come! we’ll have this out before we do anything else. She says she’s innocent, and I say she’s innocent: and if I could find out that damnation scoundrel Mannion, and get him here, I’d make him say it too. Now, after all that, what have you got against her? — against your lawful wife; and I’ll make you own her as such, and keep her as such, I can promise you!”

“I am not here to ask questions, or to answer them,” I replied — ”my errand in this house is simply to tell you, that the miserable falsehoods contained in your letter, will avail you as little as the foul insolence of language by which you are now endeavouring to support them. I told you before, and I now tell you again, I know all. I had been inside that house, before I saw your daughter at the door; and had heard, from
her
voice and
his
voice, what such shame and misery as you cannot comprehend forbid me to repeat. To your past duplicity, and to your present violence, I have but one answer to give: — I will never see your daughter again.”

“But you
shall
see her again — yes! and keep her too! Do you think I can’t see through you and your precious story? Your father’s cut you off with a shilling; and now you want to curry favour with him again by trumping up a case against
my
girl, and trying to get her off your hands that way. But it won’t do! You’ve married her, my fine gentleman, and you shall stick to her! Do you think I wouldn’t sooner believe her, than believe you? Do you think I’ll stand this? Here she is up-stairs, half heart-broken, on my hands; here’s my wife” — (his voice sank suddenly as he said this) — ”with her mind in such a state that I’m kept away from business, day after day, to look after her; here’s all this crying and misery and mad goings-on in my house, because you choose to behave like a scamp — and do you think I’ll put up with it quietly? I’ll make you do your duty to
my
girl, if she goes to the parish to appeal against you!
Your
story indeed! Who’ll believe that a young female, like Margaret, could have taken to a fellow like Mannion? and kept it all a secret from you? Who believes that, I should like to know?”

“I believe it!”

The third voice which pronounced those words was Mrs. Sherwin’s.

But was the figure that now came out from behind the screen, the same frail, shrinking figure which had so often moved my pity in the past time? the same wan figure of sickness and sorrow, ever watching in the background of the fatal love-scenes at North Villa; ever looking like the same spectre-shadow, when the evenings darkened in as I sat by Margaret’s side?

Had the grave given up its dead? I stood awe-struck, neither speaking nor moving while she walked towards me. She was clothed in the white garments of the sick-room — they looked on
her
like the raiment of the tomb. Her figure, which I only remembered as drooping with premature infirmity, was now straightened convulsively to its proper height; her arms hung close at her side, like the arms of a corpse; the natural paleness of her face had turned to an earthy hue; its natural expression, so meek, so patient, so melancholy in uncomplaining sadness, was gone; and, in its stead, was left a pining stillness that never changed; a weary repose of lifeless waking — the awful seal of Death stamped ghastly on the living face; the awful look of Death staring out from the chill, shining eyes.

Her husband kept his place, and spoke to her as she stopped opposite to me. His tones were altered, but his manner showed as little feeling as ever.

“There now!” he began, “you said you were sure he’d come here, and that you’d never take to your bed, as the Doctor wanted you, till you’d seen him and spoken to him. Well, he
has
come; there he is. He came in while you were asleep, I rather think; and I let him stop, so that if you woke up and wanted to see him, you might. You can’t say — nobody can say — I haven’t given in to your whims and fancies after that. There! you’ve had your way, and you’ve said you believe him; and now, if I ring for the nurse, you’ll go upstairs at last, and make no more worry about it — Eh?”

She moved her head slowly, and looked at him. As those dying eyes met his, as that face on which the light of life was darkening fast, turned on him, even
his
gross nature felt the shock. I saw him shrink — his sallow cheeks whitened, he moved his chair away, and said no more.

She looked back to me again, and spoke. Her voice was still the same soft, low voice as ever. It was fearful to hear how little it had altered, and then to look on the changed face.

“I am dying,” she said to me. “Many nights have passed since that night when Margaret came home by herself and I felt something moving down into my heart, when I looked at her, which I knew was death — many nights, since I have been used to say my prayers, and think I had said them for the last time, before I dared shut my eyes in the darkness and the quiet. I have lived on till to-day, very weary of my life ever since that night when Margaret came in; and yet, I could not die, because I had an atonement to make to
you,
and you never came to hear it and forgive me. I was not fit for God to take me till you came — I know that, know it to be truth from a dream.”

She paused, still looking at me, but with the same deathly blank of expression. The eye had ceased to speak already; nothing but the voice was left.

“My husband has asked, who will believe you?” she went on; her weak tones gathering strength with every fresh word she uttered. “I have answered that
I
will; for you have spoken the truth. Now, when the light of this world is fading from my eyes; here, in this earthly home of much sorrow and suffering, which I must soon quit — in the presence of my husband — under the same roof with my sinful child — I bear you witness that you have spoken the truth. I, her mother, say it of her: Margaret Sherwin is guilty; she is no more worthy to be called your wife.”

She pronounced the last words slowly, distinctly, solemnly. Till that fearful denunciation was spoken, her husband had been looking sullenly and suspiciously towards us, as we stood together; but while she uttered it, his eyes fell, and he turned away his head in silence.

He never looked up, never moved, or interrupted her, as she continued, still addressing me; but now speaking very slowly and painfully, pausing longer and longer between every sentence.

“From this room I go to my death-bed. The last words I speak in this world shall be to my husband, and shall change his heart towards you. I have been weak of purpose,” (as she said this, a strange sweetness and mournfulness began to steal over her tones,) “miserably, guiltily weak, all my life. Much sorrow and pain and heavy disappointment, when I was young, did some great harm to me which I have never recovered since. I have lived always in fear of others, and doubt of myself; and this has made me guilty of a great sin towards
you.
Forgive me before I die! I suspected the guilt that was preparing — I foreboded the shame that was to come — they hid it from others’ eyes; but, from the first, they could not hide it from mine — and yet I never warned you as I ought!
That
man had the power of Satan over me! I always shuddered before him, as I used to shudder at the darkness when I was a little child! My life has been all fear — fear of
him;
fear of my husband, and even of my daughter; fear, worse still, of my own thoughts, and of what I had discovered that should be told to
you.
When I tried to speak, you were too generous to understand me — I was afraid to think my suspicions were right, long after they should have been suspicions no longer. It was misery! — oh, what misery from then till now!”

Her voice died away for a moment, in faint, breathless murmurings. She struggled to recover it, and repeated in a whisper:

“Forgive me before I die! I have made a terrible atonement; I have borne witness against the innocence of my own child. My own child! I dare not bid God bless her, if they bring her to my bedside! — forgive me! — forgive me before I die!”

She took my hand, and pressed it to her cold lips. The tears gushed into my eyes, as I tried to speak to her.

“No tears for
me!
” she murmured gently. “Basil! — let me call you as your mother would call you if she was alive — Basil! pray that I may be forgiven in the dreadful Eternity to which I go, as
you
have forgiven me! And, for
her?
— oh! who will pray for
her
when I am gone?”

Those words were the last I heard her pronounce. Exhausted beyond the power of speaking more, though it were only in a whisper, she tried to take my hand again, and express by a gesture the irrevocable farewell. But her strength failed her even for this — failed her with awful suddenness. Her hand moved halfway towards mine; then stopped, and trembled for a moment in the air; then fell to her side, with the fingers distorted and clenched together. She reeled where she stood, and sank helplessly as I stretched out my arms to support her.

Her husband rose fretfully from his chair, and took her from me. When his eyes met mine, the look of sullen self-restraint in his countenance was crossed, in an instant, by an expression of triumphant malignity. He whispered to me: “If you don’t change your tone by to-morrow!” — paused — and then, without finishing the sentence, moved away abruptly, and supported his wife to the door.