Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (109 page)

He left the room as rapidly as he had entered it. The minute afterwards, I remembered that I ought to have warned him of the fatal illness of Mrs. Sherwin. She might be dying — dead for aught I knew — when he reached the house. I ran to the window, to call him back: it was too late. Ralph was gone.

Even if he were admitted at North Villa, would he succeed? I was little capable of estimating the chances. The unexpectedness of his visit; the strange mixture of sympathy and levity in his manner, of worldly wisdom and boyish folly in his conversation, appeared to be still confusing me in his absence, just as they had confused me in his presence. My thoughts imperceptibly wandered away from Ralph, and the mission he had undertaken on my behalf, to a subject which seemed destined, for the future, to steal on my attention, irresistibly and darkly, in all my lonely hours. Already, the fatality denounced against me in Mannion’s letter had begun to act: already, that terrible confession of past misery and crime, that monstrous declaration of enmity which was to last with the lasting of life, began to exercise its numbing influence on my faculties, to cast its blighting shadow over my heart.

I opened the letter again, and re-read the threats against me at its conclusion. One by one, the questions now arose in my mind: how can I resist, or how escape the vengeance of this evil spirit? how shun the dread deformity of that face, which is to appear before me in secret? how silence that fiend’s tongue, or make harmless the poison which it will pour drop by drop into my life? When should I first look for that avenging presence? — now, or not till months hence? Where should I first see it? in the house? — or in the street? At what time would it steal to my side? by night — or by day? Should I show the letter to Ralph? — it would be useless. What would avail any advice or assistance which his reckless courage could give, against an enemy who combined the ferocious vigilance of a savage with the far-sighted iniquity of a civilised man?

As this last thought crossed my mind, I hastily closed the letter; determining (alas! how vainly!) never to open it again. Almost at the same instant, I heard another knock at the house-door. Could Ralph have returned already? impossible! Besides, the knock was very different from his — it was only just loud enough to be audible where I now sat.

Mannion? But would he come thus? openly, fairly, in the broad daylight, through the populous street?

A light, quick step ascended the stairs — my heart bounded; I started to my feet. It was the same step which I used to listen for, and love to hear, in my illness. I ran to the door, and opened it. My instinct had not deceived me! it was my sister!

“Basil!” she exclaimed, before I could speak — ”has Ralph been here?”

“Yes, love — yes.”

“Where has he gone? what has he done for you? He promised me — ”

“And he has kept his promise nobly, Clara: he is away helping me now.”

“Thank God! thank God!”

She sank breathless into a chair, as she spoke. Oh, the pang of looking at her at that moment, and seeing how she was changed! — seeing the dimness and weariness of the gentle eyes; the fear and the sorrow that had already overshadowed the bright young face!

“I shall be better directly,” she said, guessing from my expression what I then felt — ”but, seeing you in this strange place, after what happened yesterday; and having come here so secretly, in terror of my father finding it out — I can’t help feeling your altered position and mine a little painfully at first. But we won’t complain, as long as I can get here sometimes to see you: we will only think of the future now. What a mercy, what a happiness it is that Ralph has come back! We have always done him injustice; he is far kinder and far better than we ever thought him. But, Basil, how worn and ill you are looking! Have you not told Ralph everything? Are you in any danger?”

“None, Clara — none, indeed!”

“Don’t grieve too deeply about yesterday! Try and forget that horrible parting, and all that brought it about. He has not spoken of it since, except to tell me that I must never know more of your fault and your misfortune, than the little — the very little — I know already. And I have resolved not to think about it, as well as not to ask about it, for the future. I have a hope already, Basil — very, very far off fulfilment — but still a hope. Can you not think what it is?”

“Your hope is far off fulfilment, indeed, Clara, if it is hope from my father!”

“Hush! don’t say so; I know better. Something occurred, even so soon as last night — a very trifling event — but enough to show that he thinks of you, already, in grief far more than in anger.”

“I wish I could believe it, love; but my remembrance of yesterday — ”

“Don’t trust that remembrance; don’t recall it! I will tell you what occurred. Some time after you had gone, and after I had recovered myself a little in my own room, I went downstairs again to see my father; for I was too terrified and too miserable at what had happened, to be alone. He was not in his room when I got there. As I looked round me for a moment, I saw the pieces of your page in the book about our family, scattered on the floor; and the miniature likeness of you, when you were a child, was lying among the other fragments. It had been torn out of its setting in the paper, but not injured. I picked it up, Basil, and put it on the table, at the place where he always sits; and laid my own little locket, with your hair in it, by the side, so that he might know that the miniature had not been accidentally taken up and put there by the servant. Then, I gathered together the pieces of the page and took them away with me, thinking it better that he should not see them again. Just as I had got through the door that leads into the library, and was about to close it, I heard the other door, by which you enter the study from the hall, opening; and he came in, and went directly to the table. His back was towards me, so I could look at him unperceived. He observed the miniature directly and stood quite still with it in his hand; then sighed — sighed so bitterly! — and then took the portrait of our dear mother from one of the drawers of the table, opened the case in which it is kept, and put your miniature inside, very gently and tenderly. I could not trust myself to see any more, so I went up to my room again: and shortly afterwards he came in with my locket, and gave it me back, only saying — ’You left this on my table, Clara.’ But if you had seen his face then, you would have hoped all things from him in the time to come, as I hope now.”

“And as I
will
hope, Clara, though it be from no stronger motive than gratitude to you.”

“Before I left home,” she proceeded, after a moment’s silence, “I thought of your loneliness in this strange place — knowing that I could seldom come to see you, and then only by stealth; by committing a fault which, if my father found it out — but we won’t speak of that! I thought of your lonely hours here; and I have brought with me an old, forgotten companion of yours, to bear you company, and to keep you from thinking too constantly on what you have suffered. Look, Basil! won’t you welcome this old friend again?”

She gave me a small roll of manuscript, with an effort to resume her kind smile of former days, even while the tears stood thick in her eyes. I untied the leaves, glanced at the handwriting, and saw before me, once more, the first few chapters of my unfinished romance! Again I looked on the patiently-laboured pages, familiar relics of that earliest and best ambition which I had abandoned for love; too faithful records of the tranquil, ennobling pleasures which I had lost for ever! Oh, for one Thought-Flower now, from the dream-garden of the happy Past!

“I took more care of those leaves of writing, after you had thrown them aside, than of anything else I had,” said Clara. “I always thought the time would come, when you would return again to the occupation which it was once your greatest pleasure to pursue, and my greatest pleasure to watch. And surely that time has arrived. I am certain, Basil, your book will help you to wait patiently for happier times, as nothing else can. This place must seem very strange and lonely; but the sight of those pages, and the sight of me sometimes (when I can come), may make it look almost like home to you! The room is not — not very — ”

She stopped suddenly. I saw her lip tremble, and her eyes grow dim again, as she looked round her. When I tried to speak all the gratitude I felt, she turned away quickly, and began to busy herself in re-arranging the wretched furniture; in setting in order the glaring ornaments on the chimney-piece; in hiding the holes in the ragged window-curtains; in changing, as far as she could, all the tawdry discomfort of my one miserable little room. She was still absorbed in this occupation, when the church-clocks of the neighbourhood struck the hour — the hour that warned her to stay no longer.

“I must go,” she said; “it is later than I thought. Don’t be afraid about my getting home: old Martha came here with me, and is waiting downstairs to go back (you know we can trust her). Write to me as often as you can; I shall hear about you every day, from Ralph; but I should like a letter sometimes, as well. Be as hopeful and as patient yourself, dear, under misfortune, as you wish me to be; and I shall despair of nothing. Don’t tell Ralph I have been here — he might be angry. I will come again, the first opportunity. Good-bye, Basil! Let us try and part happily, in the hope of better days. Good-bye, dear — good-bye, only for the present!”

Her self-possession nearly failed her, as she kissed me, and then turned to the door. She just signed to me not to follow her down-stairs, and, without looking round again, hurried from the room.

It was well for the preservation of our secret, that she had so resolutely refrained from delaying her departure. She had been gone but for a few minutes — the lovely and consoling influence of her presence was still fresh in my heart — I was still looking sadly over the once precious pages of manuscript which she had restored to me — when Ralph returned from North Villa. I heard him leaping, rather than running, up the ricketty wooden stairs. He burst into my room more impetuously than ever.

“All right!” he said, jumping back to his former place on the bed. “We can buy Mr. Shopkeeper for anything we like — for nothing at all, if we choose to be stingy. His innocent daughter has made the best of all confessions, just at the right time. Basil, my boy, she has left her father’s house!”

“What do you mean?”

“She has eloped to the hospital!”

“Mannion!”

“Yes, Mannion: I have got his letter to her. She is criminated by it, even past her father’s contradiction — and he doesn’t stick at a trifle! But I’ll begin at the beginning, and tell you everything. Hang it, Basil, you look as if I’d brought you bad news instead of good!”

“Never mind how I look, Ralph — pray go on!”

“Well: the first thing I heard, on getting to the house, was that Sherwin’s wife was dying. The servant took in my name: but I thought of course I shouldn’t be admitted. No such thing! I was let in at once, and the first words this fellow, Sherwin, said to me, were, that his wife was only ill, that the servants were exaggerating, and that he was quite ready to hear what Mr. Basil’s ‘highly-respected’ brother (fancy calling
me
‘highly-respected!’) had to say to him. The fool, however, as you see, was cunning enough to try civility to begin with. A more ill-looking human mongrel I never set eyes on! I took the measure of my man directly, and in two minutes told him exactly what I came for, without softening a single word.”

“And how did he answer you?”

“As I anticipated, by beginning to bluster immediately. I took him down, just as he swore his second oath. ‘Sir,’ I said very politely, ‘if you mean to make a cursing and a swearing conference of this, I think it only fair to inform you before-hand that you are likely to get the worst of it. When the whole collection of British oaths is exhausted, I can swear fluently in five foreign languages: I have always made it a principle to pay back abuse at compound interest, and I don’t exaggerate in saying, that I am quite capable of swearing you out of your senses, if you persist in setting me the example. And now, if you like to go on, pray do — I’m ready to hear you.’ While I was speaking, he stared at me in a state of helpless astonishment; when I had done, he began to bluster again — but it was a pompous, dignified, parliamentary sort of bluster, now, ending in his pulling your unlucky marriage-certificate out of his pocket, asserting for the fiftieth time, that the girl was innocent, and declaring that he’d make you acknowledge her, if he went before a magistrate to do it. That’s what he said when you saw him, I suppose?”

“Yes: almost word for word.”

“I had my answer ready for him, before he could put the certificate back in his pocket. ‘Now, Mr. Sherwin,’ I said, ‘have the goodness to listen to me. My father has certain family prejudices and nervous delicacies, which I do not inherit from him, and which I mean to take good care to prevent you from working on. At the same time, I beg you to understand that I have come here without his knowledge. I am not my father’s ambassador, but my brother’s — who is unfit to deal with you, himself; because he is not half hard-hearted, or half worldly enough. As my brother’s envoy, therefore, and out of consideration for my father’s peculiar feelings, I now offer you, from my own resources, a certain annual sum of money, far more than sufficient for all your daughter’s expenses — a sum payable quarterly, on condition that neither you nor she shall molest us; that you shall never make use of our name anywhere; and that the fact of my brother’s marriage (hitherto preserved a secret) shall for the future be consigned to oblivion.
We
keep our opinion of your daughter’s guilt —
you
keep your opinion of her innocence.
We
have silence to buy, and
you
have silence to sell, once a quarter; and if either of us break our conditions, we both have our remedy —
your’s
the easy remedy,
our’s
the difficult. This arrangement — a very unfair and dangerous for us; a very advantageous and safe one for you — I understand that you finally refuse?’ ‘Sir,’ says he, solemnly, ‘I should be unworthy the name of a father — ’ ‘Thank you’ — I remarked, feeling that he was falling back on paternal sentiment — ’thank you; I quite understand. We will get on, if you please, to the reverse side of the question.’“