Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1026 page)

The half-told story of the past was more than half told now. The treasured relics of the infant threw their little glimmer of light on the motive which had chosen the subjects of the prints on the wall. A child deserted and lost! A child who, by bare possibility, might be living still!

She turned towards Amelius suddenly, “There is nothing to interest you on
that
side,” she said. “Look at the drawers here; open them for yourself.” She drew back as she spoke, and pointed to the uppermost of the row of drawers. A narrow slip of paper was pasted on it, bearing this inscription: —
”Dead Consolations.”

Amelius opened the drawer; it was full of books. “Look at them,” she said. Amelius, obeying her, discovered dictionaries, grammars, exercises, poems, novels, and histories — all in the German language.

“A foreign language tried as a relief,” said Mrs. Farnaby, speaking quietly behind him. “Month after month of hard study — all forgotten now. The old sorrow came back in spite of it. A dead consolation! Open the next drawer.”

The next drawer revealed water-colours and drawing materials huddled together in a corner, and a heap of poor little conventional landscapes filling up the rest of the space. As works of art, they were wretched in the last degree; monuments of industry and application miserably and completely thrown away.

“I had no talent for that pursuit, as you see,” said Mrs. Farnaby. “But I persevered with it, week after week, month after month. I thought to myself, ‘I hate it so, it costs me such dreadful trouble, it so worries and persecutes and humiliates me, that
this
surely must keep my mind occupied and my thoughts away from myself!’ No; the old sorrow stared me in the face again on the paper that I was spoiling, through the colours that I couldn’t learn to use. Another dead consolation! Shut it up.”

She herself opened a third and a fourth drawer. In one there appeared a copy of Euclid, and a slate with the problems still traced on it; the other contained a microscope, and the treatises relating to its use. “Always the same effort,” she said, shutting the door of the press as she spoke; “and always the same result. You have had enough of it, and so have I.” She turned, and pointed to the lathe in the corner, and to the clubs and dumb-bells over the mantelpiece. “I can look at
them
patiently,” she went on; “they give me bodily relief. I work at the lathe till my back aches; I swing the clubs till I’m ready to drop with fatigue. And then I lie down on the rug there, and sleep it off, and forget myself for an hour or two. Come back to the fire again. You have seen my dead consolations; you must hear about my living consolation next. In justice to Mr. Farnaby — ah, how I hate him!”

She spoke those last vehement words to herself, but with such intense bitterness of contempt that the tones were quite loud enough to be heard. Amelius looked furtively towards the door. Was there no hope that Regina and her friend might return and interrupt them? After what he had seen and heard, could
he
hope to console Mrs. Farnaby? He could only wonder what object she could possibly have in view in taking him into her confidence. “Am I always to be in a mess with women?” he thought to himself. “First poor Mellicent, and now this one. What next?” He lit his cigar again. The brotherhood of smokers, and they alone, will understand what a refuge it was to him at that moment.

“Give me a light,” said Mrs. Farnaby, recalled to the remembrance of her own cigar. “I want to know one thing before I go on. Amelius, I watched those bright eyes of yours at luncheon-time. Did they tell me the truth? You’re not in love with my niece, are you?”

Amelius took his cigar out of his mouth, and looked at her.

“Out with it boldly!” she said.

Amelius let it out, to a certain extent. “I admire her very much,” he answered.

“Ah,” Mrs. Farnaby remarked, “you don’t know her as well as I do.”

The disdainful indifference of her tone irritated Amelius. He was still young enough to believe in the existence of gratitude; and Mrs. Farnaby had spoken ungratefully. Besides, he was fond enough of Regina already to feel offended when she was referred to slightingly.

“I am surprised to hear what you say of her,” he burst out. “She is quite devoted to you.”

“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Farnaby, carelessly. “She is devoted to me, of course — she is the living consolation I told you of just now. That was Mr. Farnaby’s notion in adopting her. Mr. Farnaby thought to himself, ‘Here’s a ready-made daughter for my wife — that’s all this tiresome woman wants to comfort her: now we shall do.’ Do you know what I call that? I call it reasoning like an idiot. A man may be very clever at his business — and may be a contemptible fool in other respects. Another woman’s child a consolation to
me!
Pah! it makes me sick to think of it. I have one merit, Amelius, I don’t cant. It’s my duty to take care of my sister’s child; and I do my duty willingly. Regina’s a good sort of creature — I don’t dispute it. But she’s like all those tall darkish women: there’s no backbone in her, no dash; a kind, feeble, goody-goody, sugarish disposition; and a deal of quiet obstinacy at the bottom of it, I can tell you. Oh yes, I do her justice; I don’t deny that she’s devoted to me, as you say. But I am making a clean breast of it now. And you ought to know, and you shall know, that Mr. Farnaby’s living consolation is no more a consolation to me than the things you have seen in the drawers. There! now we’ve done with Regina. No: there’s one thing more to be cleared up. When you say you admire her, what do you mean? Do you mean to marry her?”

For once in his life Amelius stood on his dignity. “I have too much respect for the young lady to answer your question,” he said loftily.

“Because, if you do,” Mrs. Farnaby proceeded, “I mean to put every possible obstacle in your way. In short, I mean to prevent it.”

This plain declaration staggered Amelius. He confessed the truth by implication in one word.

“Why?” he asked sharply.

“Wait a little, and recover your temper,” she answered.

There was a pause. They sat, on either side of the fireplace, and eyed each other attentively.

“Now are you ready?” Mrs. Farnaby resumed. “Here is my reason. If you marry Regina, or marry anybody, you will settle down somewhere, and lead a dull life.”

“Well,” said Amelius; “and why not, if I like it?”

“Because I want you to remain a roving bachelor; here today and gone tomorrow — travelling all over the world, and seeing everything and everybody.”

“What good will that do to
you,
Mrs. Farnaby?”

She rose from her own side of the fireplace, crossed to the side on which Amelius was sitting, and, standing before him, placed her hands heavily on his shoulders. Her eyes grew radiant with a sudden interest and animation as they looked down on him, riveted on his face.

“I am still waiting, my friend, for the living consolation that may yet come to me,” she said. “And, hear this, Amelius! After all the years that have passed, you may be the man who brings it to me.”

In the momentary silence that followed, they heard a double knock at the house-door.

“Regina!” said Mrs. Farnaby.

As the name passed her lips, she sprang to the door of the room, and turned the key in the lock.

CHAPTER 2

Amelius rose impulsively from his chair.

Mrs. Farnaby turned at the same moment, and signed to him to resume his seat. “You have given me your promise,” she whispered. “All I ask of you is to be silent.” She softly drew the key out of the door, and showed it to him. “You can’t get out,” she said, “unless you take the key from me by force!”

Whatever Amelius might think of the situation in which he now found himself, the one thing that he could honourably do was to say nothing, and submit to it. He remained quietly by the fire. No imaginable consideration (he mentally resolved) should induce him to consent to a second confidential interview in Mrs. Farnaby’s room.

The servant opened the house-door. Regina’s voice was heard in the hall.

“Has my aunt come in?”

“No, miss.”

“Have you heard nothing of her?”

“Nothing, miss.”

“Has Mr. Goldenheart been here?”

“No, miss.”

“Very extraordinary! What can have become of them, Cecilia?”

The voice of the other lady was heard in answer. “We have probably missed them, on leaving the concert room. Don’t alarm yourself, Regina. I must go back, under any circumstances; the carriage will be waiting for me. If I see anything of your aunt, I will say that you are expecting her at home.”

“One moment, Cecilia! (Thomas, you needn’t wait.) Is it really true that you don’t like Mr. Goldenheart?”

“What! has it come to that, already? I’ll try to like him, Regina. Goodbye again.”

The closing of the street door told that the ladies had separated. The sound was followed, in another moment, by the opening and closing of the dining-room door. Mrs. Farnaby returned to her chair at the fireplace.

“Regina has gone into the dining-room to wait for us,” she said. “I see you don’t like your position here; and I won’t keep you more than a few minutes longer. You are of course at a loss to understand what I was saying to you, when the knock at the door interrupted us. Sit down again for five minutes; it fidgets me to see you standing there, looking at your boots. I told you I had one consolation still possibly left. Judge for yourself what the hope of it is to me, when I own to you that I should long since have put an end to my life, without it. Don’t think I am talking nonsense; I mean what I say. It is one of my misfortunes that I have no religious scruples to restrain me. There was a time when I believed that religion might comfort me. I once opened my heart to a clergyman — a worthy person, who did his best to help me. All useless! My heart was too hard, I suppose. It doesn’t matter — except to give you one more proof that I am thoroughly in earnest. Patience! patience! I am coming to the point. I asked you some odd questions, on the day when you first dined here? You have forgotten all about them, of course?”

“I remember them perfectly well,” Amelius answered.

“You remember them? That looks as if you had thought about them afterwards. Come! tell me plainly what you did think?”

Amelius told her plainly. She became more and more interested, more and more excited, as he went on.

“Quite right!” she exclaimed, starting to her feet and walking swiftly backwards and forwards in the room. “There
is
a lost girl whom I want to find; and she is between sixteen and seventeen years old, as you thought. Mind! I have no reason — not the shadow of a reason — for believing that she is still a living creature. I have only my own stupid obstinate conviction; rooted here,” she pressed both hands fiercely on her heart, “so that nothing can tear it out of me! I have lived in that belief — Oh, don’t ask me how long! it is so far, so miserably far, to look back!” She stopped in the middle of the room. Her breath came and went in quick heavy gasps; the first tears that had softened the hard wretchedness in her eyes rose in them now, and transfigured them with the divine beauty of maternal love. “I won’t distress you,” she said, stamping on the floor, as she struggled with the hysterical passion that was raging in her. “Give me a minute, and I’ll force it down again.”

She dropped into a chair, threw her arms heavily on the table, and laid her head on them. Amelius thought of the child’s frock and cap hidden in the cabinet. All that was manly and noble in his nature felt for the unhappy woman, whose secret was dimly revealed to him now. The little selfish sense of annoyance at the awkward situation in which she had placed him, vanished to return no more. He approached her, and put his hand gently on her shoulder. “I am truly sorry for you,” he said. “Tell me how I can help you, and I will do it with all my heart.”

“Do you really mean that?” She roughly dashed the tears from her eyes, and rose as she put the question. Holding him with one hand, she parted the hair back from his forehead with the other. “I must see your whole face,” she said — ”your face will tell me. Yes: you do mean it. The world hasn’t spoilt you, yet. Do you believe in dreams?”