Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1136 page)

I found Father Newbliss a venerable and reticent son of the Church — with one weak point, however, to work on, which was entirely beyond the reach of the otherwise astute person charged with my inquiries. My reverend friend is a scholar, and is inordinately proud of his learning. I am a scholar too. In that capacity I first found my way to his sympathies, and then gently encouraged his pride. The result will appear in certain discoveries, which I number as follows:

1. The events which connect Mr. Winterfield with Miss Eyrecourt happened about two years since, and had their beginning at Beaupark House.

2. At this period, Miss Eyrecourt and her mother were staying at Beaupark House. The general impression in the neighbourhood was that Mr. Winterfield and Miss Eyrecourt were engaged to be married.

3. Not long afterward, Miss Eyrecourt and her mother surprised the neighbourhood by suddenly leaving Beaupark House. Their destination was supposed to be London.

4. Mr. Winterfield himself next left his country seat for the Continent. His exact destination was not mentioned to any one. The steward, soon afterward, dismissed all the servants, and the house was left empty for more than a year.

5. At the end of that time Mr. Winterfield returned alone to Beaupark House, and told nobody how, or where, he had passed the long interval of his absence.

6. Mr. Winterfield remains, to the present day, an unmarried man.

Having arrived at these preliminary discoveries, it was time to try what I could make of Mr. Winterfield next.

Among the other good things which this gentleman has inherited is a magnificent library collected by his father. That one learned man should take another learned man to see the books was a perfectly natural proceeding. My introduction to the master of the house followed my introduction to the library almost as a matter of course.

I am about to surprise you, as I was myself surprised. In all my long experience, Mr. Winterfield is, I think, the most fascinating person I ever met with. Genial, unassuming manners, a prepossessing personal appearance, a sweet temper, a quaint humour delightfully accompanied by natural refinement — such are the characteristic qualities of the man from whom I myself saw Miss Eyrecourt (accidentally meeting him in public) recoil with dismay and disgust! It is absolutely impossible to look at him, and to believe him to be capable of a cruel or dishonourable action. I never was so puzzled in my life.

You may be inclined to think that I am misled by a false impression, derived from the gratifying welcome that I received as a friend of Father Newbliss. I will not appeal to my knowledge of human nature — I will refer to the unanswerable evidence of Mr. Winterfield’s poorer neighbours. Wherever I went, in the village or out of it, if I mentioned his name, I produced a universal outburst of admiration and gratitude. “There never was such a friend to poor people, and there never can be such another to the end of the world.” Such was a fisherman’s description of him; and the one cry of all the men and women near us answered, “That’s the truth!”

And yet there is something wrong — for this plain reason, that there is something to be concealed in the past lives of Mr. Winterfield and Miss Eyrecourt.

Under these perplexing circumstances, what use have I made of my opportunities? I am going to surprise you again — I have mentioned Romayne’s name to Mr. Winterfield; and I have ascertained that they are, so far, perfect strangers to one another — and that is all.

The little incident of mentioning Romayne arose out of my examination of the library. I discovered certain old volumes, which may one day be of use to him, if he continues his contemplated work on the Origin of Religions. Hearing me express myself to this effect, Mr. Winterfield replied with the readiest kindness:

“I can’t compare myself to my excellent father,” he said; “but I have at least inherited his respect for the writers of books. My library is a treasure which I hold in trust for the interests of literature. Pray say so, from me, to your friend Mr. Romayne.”

And what does this amount to? — you will ask. My reverend friend, it offers me an opportunity, in the future, of bringing Romayne and Winterfield together. Do you see the complications which may ensue? If I can put no other difficulty in Miss Eyrecourt’s way, I think there is fruitful promise of a scandal of some kind arising out of the introduction to each other of those two men. You will agree with me that a scandal may prove a valuable obstacle in the way of a marriage.

Mr. Winterfield has kindly invited me to call on him when he is next in London. I may then have opportunities of putting questions which I could not venture to ask on a short acquaintance.

In the meantime, I have obtained another introduction since my return to town. I have been presented to Miss Eyrecourt’s mother, and I am invited to drink tea with her on Wednesday. My next letter may tell you — what Penrose ought to have discovered — whether Romayne has been already entrapped into a marriage engagement or not.

Farewell for the present. Remind the Reverend Fathers, with my respects, that I possess one of the valuable qualities of an Englishman — I never know when I am beaten.

BOOK THE THIRD.

CHAPTER I.

THE HONEYMOON.

MORE than six weeks had passed. The wedded lovers were still enjoying their honeymoon at Vange Abbey.

Some offense had been given, not only to Mrs. Eyrecourt, but to friends of her way of thinking, by the strictly private manner in which the marriage had been celebrated. The event took everybody by surprise when the customary advertisement appeared in the newspapers. Foreseeing the unfavorable impression that might be produced in some quarters, Stella had pleaded for a timely retreat to the seclusion of Romayne’s country house. The will of the bride being, as usual, the bridegroom’s law, to Vange they retired accordingly.

On one lovely moonlight night, early in July, Mrs. Romayne left her husband on the Belvidere, described in Major Hynd’s narrative, to give the housekeeper certain instructions relating to the affairs of the household. Half an hour later, as she was about to ascend again to the top of the house, one of the servants informed her that “the master had just left the Belvidere, and had gone into his study.”

Crossing the inner hall, on her way to the study, Stella noticed an unopened letter, addressed to Romayne, lying on a table in a corner. He had probably laid it aside and forgotten it. She entered his room with the letter in her hand.

The only light was a reading lamp, with the shade so lowered that the corners of the study were left in obscurity. In one of these corners Romayne was dimly visible, sitting with his head sunk on his breast. He never moved when Stella opened the door. At first she thought he might be asleep.

“Do I disturb you, Lewis?” she asked softly.

“No, my dear.”

There was a change in the tone of his voice, which his wife’s quick ear detected. “I am afraid you are not well,” she said anxiously.

“I am a little tired after our long ride to-day. Do you want to go back to the Belvidere?”

“Not without you. Shall I leave you to rest here?”

He seemed not to hear the question. There he sat, with his head hanging down, the shadowy counterfeit of an old man. In her anxiety, Stella approached him, and put her hand caressingly on his head. It was burning hot. “O!” she cried, “you
are
ill, and you are trying to hide it from me.”

He put his arm round her waist and made her sit on his knee. “Nothing is the matter with me,” he said, with an uneasy laugh. “What have you got in your hand? A letter?”

“Yes. Addressed to you and not opened yet.” He took it out of her hand, and threw it carelessly on a sofa near him. “Never mind that now! Let us talk.” He paused, and kissed her, before he went on. “My darling, I think you must be getting tired of Vange?”

“Oh, no! I can be happy anywhere with you — and especially at Vange. You don’t how this noble old house interests me, and how I admire the glorious country all round it.”

He was not convinced. “Vange is very dull,” he said, obstinately; “and your friends will be wanting to see you. Have you heard from your mother lately?”

“No. I am surprised she has not written.”

“She has not forgiven us for getting married so quietly,” he went on. “We had better go back to London and make our peace with her. Don’t you want to see the house my aunt left me at Highgate?”

Stella sighed. The society of the man she loved was society enough for her. Was he getting tired of his wife already? “I will go with you wherever you like.” She said those words in tones of sad submission, and gently got up from his knee.

He rose also, and took from the sofa the letter which he had thrown on it. “Let us see what our friends say,” he resumed. “The address is in Loring’s handwriting.”

As he approached the table on which the lamp was burning, she noticed that he moved with a languor that was new in her experience of him. He sat down and opened the letter. She watched him with an anxiety which had now become intensified to suspicion. The shade of the lamp still prevented her from seeing his face plainly. “Just what I told you,” he said; “the Lorings want to know when they are to see us in London; and your mother says she ‘feels like that character in Shakespeare who was cut by his own daughters.’ Read it.”

He handed her the letter. In taking it, she contrived to touch the lamp shade, as if by accident, and tilted it so that the full flow of the light fell on him. He started back — but not before she had seen the ghastly pallor on his face. She had not only heard it from Lady Loring, she knew from his own unreserved confession to her what that startling change really meant. In an instant she was on her knees at his feet. “Oh, my darling,” she cried, “it was cruel to keep
that
secret from your wife! You have heard it again!”

She was too irresistibly beautiful, at that moment, to be reproved. He gently raised her from the floor — and owned the truth.

“Yes,” he said; “I heard it after you left me on the Belvidere — just as I heard it on another moonlight night, when Major Hynd was here with me. Our return to this house is perhaps the cause. I don’t complain; I have had a long release.”

She threw her arms round his neck. “We will leave Vange to-morrow,” she said.

It was firmly spoken. But her heart sank as the words passed her lips. Vange Abbey had been the scene of the most unalloyed happiness in her life. What destiny was waiting for her when she returned to London?

CHAPTER II.

EVENTS AT TEN ACRES.

THERE was no obstacle to the speedy departure of Romayne and his wife from Vange Abbey. The villa at Highgate — called Ten Acres Lodge, in allusion to the measurement of the grounds surrounding the house — had been kept in perfect order by the servants of the late Lady Berrick, now in the employment of her nephew.

On the morning after their arrival at the villa, Stella sent a note to her mother. The same afternoon, Mrs. Eyrecourt arrived at Ten Acres — on her way to a garden-party. Finding the house, to her great relief, a modern building, supplied with all the newest comforts and luxuries, she at once began to plan a grand party, in celebration of the return of the bride and bridegroom.

“I don’t wish to praise myself,” Mrs. Eyrecourt said; “but if ever there was a forgiving woman, I am that person. We will say no more, Stella, about your truly contemptible wedding — five people altogether, including ourselves and the Lorings. A grand ball will set you right with society, and that is the one thing needful. Tea and coffee, my dear Romayne, in your study; Coote’s quadrille band; the supper from Gunter’s, the grounds illuminated with coloured lamps; Tyrolese singers among the trees, relieved by military music — and, if there
are
any African or other savages now in London, there is room enough in these charming grounds for encampments, dances, squaws, scalps, and all the rest of it, to end in a blaze of fireworks.”

A sudden fit of coughing seized her, and stopped the further enumeration of attractions at the contemplated ball. Stella had observed that her mother looked unusually worn and haggard, through the disguises of paint and powder. This was not an uncommon result of Mrs. Eyrecourt’s devotion to the demands of society; but the cough was something new, as a symptom of exhaustion.