Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1145 page)

“Have you not forgotten something, Penrose?”

“What have I forgotten?”

“A serious consideration, perhaps. I have a Protestant wife.”

“I have borne that in mind, Romayne, throughout our conversation.”

“And you still say — what you have just said?”

“With my whole heart, I say it! Be converted, and be happy. Be happy, and you will be a good husband. I speak in your wife ‘s interest as well as in yours. People who are happy in each other’s society, will yield a little on either side, even on questions of religious belief. And perhaps there may follow a more profitable result still. So far as I have observed, a good husband’s example is gladly followed by his wife. Don’t think that I am trying to persuade you against your will! I am only telling you, in my own justification, from what motives of love for yourself, and of true interest in your welfare, I speak. You implied just now that you had still some objections left. If I can remove them — well and good. If I fail — if you cannot act on purely conscientious conviction — I not only advise, I entreat you, to remain as you are. I shall be the first to acknowledge that you have done right.”

(This moderation of tone would appeal irresistibly, as Stella well knew, to her husband’s ready appreciation of those good qualities in others which he did not himself possess. Once more her suspicion wronged Penrose. Had he his own interested motives for pleading her cause? At the bare thought of it, she left her chair and, standing under the window, boldly interrupted the conversation by calling to Romayne.)

“Lewis!” she cried, “why do you stay indoors on this beautiful day? I am sure Mr. Penrose would like a walk in the grounds.”

Penrose appeared alone at the window. “You are quite right, Mrs. Romayne,” he said; “we will join you directly.”

In a few minutes he turned the corner of the house, and met Stella on the lawn. Romayne was not with him. “Is my husband not coming with us?” she asked. “He will follow us,” Penrose answered. “I believe he has some letters to write.”

Stella looked at him, suspecting some underhand exercise of influence on her husband.

If she had been able to estimate the noble qualities in the nature of Penrose, she might have done him the justice to arrive at a truer conclusion. It was he who had asked leave (when Stella had interrupted them) to take the opportunity of speaking alone with Mrs. Romayne. He had said to his friend, “If I am wrong in my anticipation of the effect of your change of religion on your wife, let me find it out from herself. My one object is to act justly toward you and toward her. I should never forgive myself if I made mischief between you, no matter how innocent of any evil intention I might be.” Romayne had understood him. It was Stella’s misfortune ignorantly to misinterpret everything that Penrose said or did, for the all-sufficient reason that he was a Catholic priest. She had drawn the conclusion that her husband had deliberately left her alone with Penrose, to be persuaded or deluded into giving her sanction to aid the influence of the priest. “They shall find they are mistaken,” she thought to herself.

“Have I interrupted an interesting conversation?” she inquired abruptly. “When I asked you to come out, were you talking to my husband about his historical work?”

“No, Mrs. Romayne; we were not speaking at that time of the book.”

“May I ask an odd question, Mr. Penrose?”

“Certainly!”

“Are you a very zealous Catholic?”

“Pardon me. I am a priest. Surely my profession speaks for me?”

“I hope you are not trying to convert my husband?”

Penrose stopped and looked at her attentively.

“Are you strongly opposed to your husband’s conversion?” he asked.

“As strongly,” she answered, “as a woman can be.”

“By religious conviction, Mrs. Romayne?”

“No. By experience.”

Penrose started. “Is it indiscreet,” he said gently, “to inquire what your experience may have been?”

“I will tell you what my experience has been,” Stella replied. “I am ignorant of theological subtleties, and questions of doctrine are quite beyond me. But this I do know. A well-meaning and zealous Catholic shortened my father’s life, and separated me from an only sister whom I dearly loved. I see I shock you — and I daresay you think I am exaggerating?”

“I hear what you say, Mrs. Romayne, with very great pain — I don’t presume to form any opinion thus far.”

“My sad story can be told in a few words,” Stella proceeded. “When my elder sister was still a young girl, an aunt of ours (my mother’s sister) came to stay with us. She had married abroad, and she was, as I have said, a zealous Catholic. Unknown to the rest of us, she held conversations on religion with my sister — worked on the enthusiasm which was part of the girl’s nature — and accomplished her conversion. Other influences, of which I know nothing, were afterward brought to bear on my sister. She declared her intention of entering a convent. As she was under age, my father had only to interpose his authority to prevent this. She was his favorite child. He had no heart to restrain her by force — he could only try all that the kindest and best of fathers could do to persuade her to remain at home. Even after the years that have passed, I cannot trust myself to speak of it composedly. She persisted; she was as hard as stone. My aunt, when she was entreated to interfere, called her heartless obstinacy ‘a vocation.’ My poor father’s loving resistance was worn out; he slowly drew nearer and nearer to death, from the day when she left us. Let me do her justice, if I can. She has not only never regretted entering the convent — she is so happily absorbed in her religious duties that she has not the slightest wish to see her mother or me. My mother’s patience was soon worn out. The last time I went to the convent, I went by myself. I shall never go there again. She could not conceal her sense of relief when I took my leave of her. I need say no more. Arguments are thrown away on me, Mr. Penrose, after what I have seen and felt. I have no right to expect that the consideration of my happiness will influence you — but I may perhaps ask you, as a gentleman, to tell me the truth. Do you come here with the purpose of converting my husband?”

Penrose owned the truth, without an instant’s hesitation.

“I cannot take your view of your sister’s pious devotion of herself to a religious life,” he said. “But I can, and will, answer you truly. From the time when I first knew him, my dearest object has been to convert your husband to the Catholic Faith.”

Stella drew back from him, as if he had stung her, and clasped her hands in silent despair.

“But I am bound as a Christian,” he went on, “to do to others as I would they should do to me.”

She turned on him suddenly, her beautiful face radiant with hope, her hand trembling as it caught him by the arm.

“Speak plainly!” she cried.

He obeyed her to the letter.

“The happiness of my friend’s wife, Mrs. Romayne, is sacred to me for his sake. Be the good angel of your husband’s life. I abandon the purpose of converting him.”

He lifted her hand from his arm and raised it respectfully to his lips. Then, when he had bound himself by a promise that was sacred to him, the terrible influence of the priesthood shook even that brave and lofty soul. He said to himself, as he left her, “God forgive me if I have done wrong!”

CHAPTER III.

WINTERFIELD RETURNS.

TWICE Father Benwell called at Derwent’s Hotel, and twice he was informed that no news had been received there of Mr. Winterfield. At the third attempt, his constancy was rewarded. Mr. Winterfield had written, and was expected to arrive at the hotel by five o’clock.

It was then half-past four. Father Benwell decided to await the return of his friend.

He was as anxious to deliver the papers which the proprietor of the asylum had confided to him, as if he had never broken a seal or used a counterfeit to hide the betrayal of a trust. The re-sealed packet was safe in the pocket of his long black frockcoat. His own future proceedings depended, in some degree, on the course which Winterfield might take, when he had read the confession of the unhappy woman who had once been his wife.

Would he show the letter to Stella, at a private interview, as an unanswerable proof that she had cruelly wronged him? And would it in this case be desirable — if the thing could be done — so to handle circumstances as that Romayne might be present, unseen, and might discover the truth for himself? In the other event — that is to say, if Winterfield abstained from communicating the confession to Stella — the responsibility of making the necessary disclosure must remain with the priest.

Father Benwell walked softly up and down the room, looking about him with quietly-observant eye. A side table in a corner was covered with letters, waiting Winterfield’s return. Always ready for information of any sort, he even looked at the addresses on the letters.

The handwritings presented the customary variety of character. All but three of the envelopes showed the London district postmarks. Two of the other letters (addressed to Winterfield at his club) bore foreign postmarks; and one, as the altered direction showed, had been forward from Beaupark House to the hotel.

This last letter especially attracted the priest’s attention.

The address was apparently in a woman’s handwriting. And it was worthy of remark that she appeared to be the only person among Winterfield’s correspondents who was not acquainted with the address of his hotel or of his club. Who could the person be? The subtly inquiring intellect of Father Benwell amused itself by speculating even on such a trifling problem as this. He little thought that he had a personal interest in the letter. The envelope contained Stella’s warning to Winterfield to distrust no less a person than Father Benwell himself!

It was nearly half-past five before quick footsteps were audible outside. Winterfield entered the room.

“This is friendly indeed!” he said. “I expected to return to the worst of all solitudes — solitude in a hotel. You will stay and dine with me? That’s right. You must have thought I was going to settle in Paris. Do you know what has kept me so long? The most delightful theater in the world — the Opera Comique. I am so fond of the bygone school of music, Father Benwell — the flowing graceful delicious melodies of the composers who followed Mozart. One can only enjoy that music in Paris. Would you believe that I waited a week to hear Nicolo’s delightful Joconde for the second time. I was almost the only young man in the stalls. All round me were the old men who remembered the first performances of the opera, beating time with their wrinkled hands to the tunes which were associated with the happiest days of their lives. What’s that I hear? My dog! I was obliged to leave him here, and he knows I have come back!”

He flew to the door and called down the stairs to have the dog set free. The spaniel rushed into the room and leaped into his master’s outstretched arms. Winterfield returned his caresses, and kisses him as tenderly as a woman might have kissed her pet.

“Dear old fellow! it’s a shame to have left you — I won’t do it again. Father Benwell, have you many friends who would be as glad to see you as
this
friend? I haven’t one. And there are fools who talk of a dog as an inferior being to ourselves!
This
creature’s faithful love is mine, do what I may. I might be disgraced in the estimation of every human creature I know, and he would be as true to me as ever. And look at his physical qualities. What an ugly thing, for instance — I won’t say your ear — I will say, my ear is; crumpled and wrinkled and naked. Look at the beautiful silky covering of
his
ear! What are our senses of smelling and hearing compared to his? We are proud of our reason. Could we find our way back, if they shut us up in a basket, and took us to a strange place away from home? If we both want to run downstairs in a hurry, which of us is securest against breaking his neck — I on my poor two legs, or he on his four? Who is the happy mortal who goes to bed without unbuttoning, and gets up again without buttoning? Here he is, on my lap, knowing I am talking about him, and too fond of me to say to himself, ‘What a fool my master is!’“

Father Benwell listened to this rhapsody — so characteristic of the childish simplicity of the man — with an inward sense of impatience, which never once showed itself on the smiling surface of his face.