Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1144 page)

“I won’t attempt to combat your prejudices,” he said. “But one thing I must seriously ask of you. When my friend Penrose comes here to-morrow, don’t treat him as you treated Mr. Winterfield.”

There was a momentary paleness in her face which looked like fear, but it passed away again. She confronted him firmly with steady eyes.

“Why do you refer again to that?” she asked. “Is — ” (she hesitated and recovered herself) — ”Is Mr. Winterfield another devoted friend of yours?”

He walked to the door, as if he could hardly trust his temper if he answered her — stopped — and, thinking better of it, turned toward her again.

“We won’t quarrel, Stella,” he rejoined; “I will only say I am sorry you don’t appreciate my forbearance. Your reception of Mr. Winterfield has lost me the friendship of a man whom I sincerely liked, and who might have assisted my literary labours. You were ill at the time, and anxious about Mrs. Eyrecourt. I respected your devotion to your mother. I remembered your telling me, when you first went away to nurse her, that your conscience accused you of having sometimes thoughtlessly neglected your mother in her days of health and good spirits, and I admired the motive of atonement which took you to her bedside. For those reasons I shrank from saying a word that might wound you. But, because I was silent, it is not the less true that you surprised and disappointed me. Don’t do it again! Whatever you may privately think of Catholic priests, I once more seriously request you not to let Penrose see it.”

He left the room.

She stood, looking after him as he closed the door, like a woman thunderstruck. Never yet had he looked at her as he looked when he spoke his last warning words. With a heavy sigh she roused herself. The vague dread with which his tone rather than his words had inspired her, strangely associated itself with the momentary curiosity which she had felt on noticing the annotated book that lay on his desk.

She snatched up the volume and looked at the open page. It contained the closing paragraphs of an eloquent attack on Protestantism, from the Roman Catholic point of view. With trembling hands she turned back to the title-page. It presented this written inscription: “To Lewis Romayne from his attached friend and servant, Arthur Penrose.”

“God help me!” she said to herself; “the priest has got between us already!”

CHAPTER II.

A CHRISTIAN JESUIT.

ON the next day Penrose arrived on his visit to Romayne.

The affectionate meeting between the two men tested Stella’s self-control as it had never been tried yet. She submitted to the ordeal with the courage of a woman whose happiness depended on her outward graciousness of manner toward her husband’s friend. Her reception of Penrose, viewed as an act of refined courtesy, was beyond reproach. When she found her opportunity of leaving the room, Romayne gratefully opened the door for her. “Thank you!” he whispered, with a look which was intended to reward her.

She only bowed to him, and took refuge in her own room.

Even in trifles, a woman’s nature is degraded by the falsities of language and manner which the artificial condition of modern society exacts from her. When she yields herself to more serious deceptions, intended to protect her dearest domestic interests, the mischief is increased in proportion. Deceit, which is the natural weapon of defense used by the weak creature against the strong, then ceases to be confined within the limits assigned by the sense of self-respect and by the restraints of education. A woman in this position will descend, self-blinded, to acts of meanness which would be revolting to her if they were related of another person.

Stella had already begun the process of self-degradation by writing secretly to Winterfield. It was only to warn him of the danger of trusting Father Benwell — but it was a letter, claiming him as her accomplice in an act of deception. That morning she had received Penrose with the outward cordialities of welcome which are offered to an old and dear friend. And now, in the safe solitude of her room, she had fallen to a lower depth still. She was deliberately considering the safest means of acquainting herself with the confidential conversation which Romayne and Penrose would certainly hold when she left them together. “He will try to set my husband against me; and I have a right to know what means he uses, in my own defense.” With that thought she reconciled herself to an action which she would have despised if she had heard of it as the action of another woman.

It was a beautiful autumn day, brightened by clear sunshine, enlivened by crisp air. Stella put on her hat and went out for a stroll in the grounds.

While she was within view from the windows of the servants’ offices she walked away from the house. Turning the corner of a shrubbery, she entered a winding path, on the other side, which led back to the lawn under Romayne’s study window. Garden chairs were placed here and there. She took one of them, and seated herself — after a last moment of honourable hesitation — where she could hear the men’s voices through the open window above her.

Penrose was speaking at the time.

“Yes. Father Benwell has granted me a holiday,” he said; “but I don’t come here to be an idle man. You must allow me to employ my term of leave in the pleasantest of all ways. I mean to be your secretary again.”

Romayne sighed. “Ah, if you knew how I have missed you!”

(Stella waited, in breathless expectation, for what Penrose would say to this. Would he speak of
her?
No. There was a natural tact and delicacy in him which waited for the husband to introduce the subject.)

Penrose only said, “How is the great work getting on?”

The answer was sternly spoken in one word — ”Badly!”

“I am surprised to hear that, Romayne.”

“Why? Were you as innocently hopeful as I was? Did you expect my experience of married life to help me in writing my book?”

Penrose replied after a pause, speaking a little sadly. “I expected your married life to encourage you in all your highest aspirations,” he said.

(Stella turned pale with suppressed anger. He had spoken with perfect sincerity. The unhappy woman believed that he lied, for the express purpose of rousing irritation against her, in her husband’s irritable mind. She listened anxiously for Romayne’s answer.)

He made no answer. Penrose changed the subject. “You are not looking very well,” he gently resumed. “I am afraid your health has interfered with your work. Have you had any return — ?”

It was still one of the characteristics of Romayne’s nervous irritability that he disliked to hear the terrible delusion of the Voice referred to in words. “Yes,” he interposed bitterly, “I have heard it again and again. My right hand is as red as ever, Penrose, with the blood of a fellow-creature. Another destruction of my illusions when I married!”

“Romayne! I don’t like to hear you speak of your marriage in that way.”

“Oh, very well. Let us go back to my book. Perhaps I shall get on better with it now you are here to help me. My ambition to make a name in the world has never taken so strong a hold on me (I don’t know why, unless other disappointments have had something to do with it) as at this time, when I find I can’t give my mind to my work. We will make a last effort together, my friend! If it fails, we will put my manuscripts into the fire, and I will try some other career. Politics are open to me. Through politics, I might make my mark in diplomacy. There is something in directing the destinies of nations wonderfully attractive to me in my present state of feeling. I hate the idea of being indebted for my position in the world, like the veriest fool living, to the accidents of birth and fortune. Are
you
content with the obscure life that you lead? Did you not envy that priest (he is no older than I am) who was sent the other day as the Pope’s ambassador to Portugal?”

Penrose spoke out at last without hesitation. “You are in a thoroughly unwholesome state of mind,” he said.

Romayne laughed recklessly. “When was I ever in a healthy state of mind?” he asked.

Penrose passed the interruption over without notice. “If I am to do you any good,” he resumed, “I must know what is really the matter with you. The very last question that I ought to put, and that I wish to put, is the question which you force me to ask.”

“What is it?”

“When you speak of your married life,” said Penrose, “your tone is the tone of a disappointed man. Have you any serious reason to complain of Mrs. Romayne?”

(Stella rose to her feet, in her eagerness to hear what her husband’s answer would be.)

“Serious reason?” Romayne repeated. “How can such an idea have entered your head? I only complain of irritating trifles now and then. Even the best of women is not perfect. It’s hard to expect it from any of them.”

(The interpretation of this reply depended entirely on the tone in which it was spoken. What was the animating spirit in this case? Irony or Indulgence? Stella was ignorant of the indirect methods of irritation, by means of which Father Benwell had encouraged Romayne’s doubts of his wife’s motive for the reception of Winterfield. Her husband’s tone, expressing this state of mind, was new to her. She sat down again, divided between hope and fear, waiting to hear more. The next words, spoken by Penrose, astounded her. The priest, the Jesuit, the wily spiritual intruder between man and wife, actually took the wife’s side!)

“Romayne,” he proceeded quietly, “I want you to be happy.”

“How am I to be happy?”

“I will try and tell you. I believe your wife to be a good woman. I believe she loves you. There is something in her face that speaks for her — even to an inexperienced person like myself. Don’t be impatient with her! Put away from you that besetting temptation to speak in irony — it is so easy to take that tone, and sometimes so cruel. I am only a looker-on, I know. Domestic happiness can never be the happiness of
my
life. But I have observed my fellow-creatures of all degrees — and this, I tell you, is the result. The largest number of happy men are the husbands and fathers. Yes; I admit that they have terrible anxieties — but they are fortified by unfailing compensations and encouragements. Only the other day I met with a man who had suffered the loss of fortune and, worse still, the loss of health. He endured those afflictions so calmly that he surprised me. ‘What is the secret of your philosophy?’ I asked. He answered, ‘I can bear anything while I have my wife and my children.’ Think of that, and judge for yourself how much happiness you may have left yet ungathered in your married life.”

(Those words touched Stella’s higher nature, as the dew touches the thirsty ground. Surely they were nobly spoken! How would her husband receive them?)

“I must think with your mind, Penrose, before I can do what you ask of me. Is there any method of transformation by which I can change natures with you?” That was all he said — and he said it despondingly.

Penrose understood, and felt for him.

“If there is anything in my nature, worthy to be set as an example to you,” he replied, “you know to what blessed influence I owe self-discipline and serenity of mind. Remember what I said when I left you in London, to go back to my friendless life. I told you that I found, in the Faith I held, the one sufficient consolation which helped me to bear my lot. And — if there came a time of sorrow in the future — I entreated you to remember what I had said. Have you remembered it?”

“Look at the book here on my desk — look at the other books, within easy reach, on that table — are you satisfied?”

“More than satisfied. Tell me — do you feel nearer to an understanding of the Faith to which I have tried to convert you?”

There was a pause. “Say that I do feel nearer,” Romayne resumed — ”say that some of my objections are removed — are you really as eager as ever to make a Catholic of me, now that I am a married man?”

“I am even more eager,” Penrose answered. “I have always believed that your one sure way to happiness lay through your conversion. Now, when I know, from what I have seen and heard in this room, that you are not reconciled, as you should be, to your new life, I am doubly confined in my belief. As God is my witness, I speak sincerely. Hesitate no longer! Be converted, and be happy.”