Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1156 page)

“Do you think he showed the confession to any other person?” Stella asked. “I happen to know that he concealed it from his mother.”

“After the housekeeper’s reproof,” I replied, “he would be cunning enough, in my opinion, not to run the risk of showing it to strangers. It is far more likely that he thought he might learn English enough to read it himself.”

There the subject dropped. We were silent for a while. She was thinking, and I was looking at her. On a sudden, she raised her head. Her eyes rested on me gravely.

“It is very strange!” she said

“What is strange?”

“I have been thinking of the Lorings. They encouraged me to doubt you. They advised me to be silent about what happened at Brussels. And they too are concerned in my husband’s desertion of me. He first met Father Benwell at their house.” Her head drooped again; her next words were murmured to herself. “I am still a young woman,” she said. “Oh, God, what is my future to be?”

This morbid way of thinking distressed me. I reminded her that she had dear and devoted friends.

“Not one,” she answered, “but you.”

“Have you not seen Lady Loring?” I asked.

“She and her husband have written most kindly, inviting me to make their house my home. I have no right to blame them — they meant well. But after what has happened, I can’t go back to them.”

“I am sorry to hear it,” I said.

“Are you thinking of the Lorings?” she asked.

“I don’t even know the Lorings. I can think of nobody but you.”

I was still looking at her — and I am afraid my eyes said more than my words. If she had doubted it before, she must have now known that I was as fond of her as ever. She looked distressed rather than confused. I made an awkward attempt to set myself right.

“Surely your brother may speak plainly,” I pleaded.

She agreed to this. But nevertheless she rose to go — with a friendly word, intended (as I hoped) to show me that I had got my pardon for that time. “Will you come and see us to-morrow?” she said. “Can you forgive my mother as generously as you have forgiven me? I will take care, Bernard, that she does you justice at last.”

She held out her hand to take leave. How could I reply? If I had been a resolute man, I might have remembered that it would be best for me not to see too much of her. But I am a poor weak creature — I accepted her invitation for the next day.

January 30. — I have just returned from my visit.

My thoughts are in a state of indescribable conflict and confusion — and her mother is the cause of it. I wish I had not gone to the house. Am I a bad man, I wonder? and have I only found it out now?

Mrs. Eyrecourt was alone in the drawing-room when I went in. Judging by the easy manner in which she got up to receive me, the misfortune that has befallen her daughter seemed to have produced no sobering change in this frivolous woman.

“My dear Winterfield,” she began, “I have behaved infamously. I won’t say that appearances were against you at Brussels — I will only say I ought not to have trusted to appearances. You are the injured person; please forgive me. Shall we go on with the subject? or shall we shake hands, and say no more about it?”

I shook hands, of course. Mrs. Eyrecourt perceived that I was looking for Stella.

“Sit down,” she said; “and be good enough to put up with no more attractive society than mine. Unless I set things straight, my good friend, you and my daughter — oh, with the best intentions! — will drift into a false position. You won’t see Stella to-day. Quite impossible — and I will tell you why. I am the worldly old mother; I don’t mind what I say. My innocent daughter would die before she would confess what I am going to tell you. Can I offer you anything? Have you had lunch?”

I begged her to continue. She perplexed — I am not sure that she did not even alarm me.

“Very well,” she proceeded. “You may be surprised to hear it — but I don’t mean to allow things to go on in this way. My contemptible son-in-law shall return to his wife.”

This startled me, and I suppose I showed it.

“Wait a little,” said Mrs. Eyrecourt. “There is nothing to be alarmed about. Romayne is a weak fool; and Father Benwell’s greedy hands are (of course) in both his pockets. But he has, unless I am entirely mistaken, some small sense of shame, and some little human feeling still left. After the manner in which he has behaved, these are the merest possibilities, you will say. Very likely. I have boldly appealed to those possibilities nevertheless. He has already gone away to Rome; and I need hardly add — Father Benwell would take good care of that — he has left us no address. It doesn’t in the least matter. One of the advantages of being so much in society as I am is that I have nice acquaintances everywhere, always ready to oblige me, provided I don’t borrow money of them. I have written to Romayne, under cover to one of my friends living in Rome. Wherever he may be, there my letter will find him.”

So far, I listened quietly enough, naturally supposing that Mrs. Eyrecourt trusted to her own arguments and persuasions. I confess it even to myself, with shame. It was a relief to me to feel that the chances (with such a fanatic as Romayne) were a hundred to one against her.

This unworthy way of thinking was instantly checked by Mrs. Eyrecourt’s next words.

“Don’t suppose that I am foolish enough to attempt to reason with him,” she went on. “My letter begins and ends on the first page. His wife has a claim on him, which no newly-married man can resist. Let me do him justice. He knew nothing of it before he went away. My letter — my daughter has no suspicion that I have written it — tells him plainly what the claim is.”

She paused. Her eyes softened, her voice sank low — she became quite unlike the Mrs. Eyrecourt whom I knew.

“In a few months more, Winterfield,” she said, “my poor Stella will be a mother. My letter calls Romayne back to his wife —
and his child.”

Mrs. Eyrecourt paused, evidently expecting me to offer an opinion of some sort. For the moment I was really unable to speak. Stella’s mother never had a very high opinion of my abilities. She now appeared to consider me the stupidest person in the circle of her acquaintance.

“Are you a little deaf, Winterfield?” she asked.

“Not that I know of.”

“Do you understand me?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then why can’t you say something? I want a man’s opinion of our prospects. Good gracious, how you fidget! Put yourself in Romayne’s place, and tell me this. If
you
had left Stella — ”

“I should never have left her, Mrs. Eyrecourt.”

“Be quiet. You don’t know what you would have done. I insist on your supposing yourself to be a weak, superstitious, conceited, fanatical fool. You understand? Now, tell me, then. Could you keep away from your wife, when you were called back to her in the name of your firstborn child? Could you resist that?”

“Most assuredly not!”

I contrived to reply with an appearance of tranquillity. It was not very easy to speak with composure. Envious, selfish, contemptible — no language is too strong to describe the turn my thoughts now took. I never hated any human being as I hated Romayne at that moment. “Damn him, he will come back!” There was my inmost feeling expressed in words.

In the meantime, Mrs. Eyrecourt was satisfied. She dashed at the next subject as fluent and as confident as ever.

“Now, Winterfield, it is surely plain to your mind that you must not see Stella again — except when I am present to tie the tongue of scandal. My daughter’s conduct must not allow her husband — if you only knew how I detest that man! — must not, I say, allow her husband the slightest excuse for keeping away from her. If we give that odious old Jesuit the chance, he will make a priest of Romayne before we know where we are. The audacity of these Papists is really beyond belief. You remember how they made Bishops and Archbishops here, in flat defiance of our laws? Father Benwell follows that example, and sets our other laws at defiance — I mean our marriage laws. I am so indignant I can’t express myself as clearly as usual. Did Stella tell you that he actually shook Romayne’s belief in his own marriage? Ah, I understand — she kept that to herself, poor dear, and with good reason, too.”

I thought of the turned-down page in the letter. Mrs. Eyrecourt readily revealed what her daughter’s delicacy had forbidden me to read — including the monstrous assumption which connected my marriage before the registrar with her son-in-law’s scruples.

“Yes,” she proceeded, “these Catholics are all alike. My daughter — I don’t mean my sweet Stella; I mean the unnatural creature in the nunnery — sets herself above her own mother. Did I ever tell you she was impudent enough to say she would pray for me? Father Benwell and the Papal Aggression over again! Now tell me, Winterfield, don’t you think, taking the circumstances into consideration — that you will act like a thoroughly sensible man if you go back to Devonshire while we are in our present situation? What with foot-warmers in the carriage, and newspapers and magazines to amuse you, it isn’t such a very long journey. And then Beaupark — dear Beaupark — is such a remarkably comfortable house in the winter; and you, you enviable creature, are such a popular man in the neighbourhood. Oh, go back! go back!”

I got up and took my hat. She patted me on the shoulder. I could have throttled her at that moment. And yet she was right.

“You will make my excuses to Stella?” I said.

“You dear, good fellow, I will do more than make your excuses; I will sing your praises — as the poet says.” In her ungovernable exultation at having got rid of me, she burst into extravagant language. “I feel like a mother to you,” she went on, as we shook hands at parting. “I declare I could almost let you kiss me.”

There was not a single kissable place about Mrs. Eyrecourt, unpainted, undyed, or unpowdered. I resisted temptation and opened the door. There was still one last request that I could not help making.

“Will you let me know,” I said, “when you hear from Rome?”

“With the greatest pleasure,” Mrs. Eyrecourt answered, briskly. “Good-by, you best of friends — good-by.”

I write these lines while the servant is packing my portmanteau. Traveler knows what that means. My dog is glad, at any rate, to get away from London. I think I shall hire a yacht, and try what a voyage round the world will do for me. I wish to God I had never seen Stella!

Second Extract.

Beaupark, February 10. — News at last from Mrs. Eyrecourt.

Romayne has not even read the letter that she addressed to him — it has actually been returned to her by Father Benwell. Mrs. Eyrecourt writes, naturally enough, in a state of fury. Her one consolation, under this insulting treatment, is that her daughter knows nothing of the circumstances. She warns me (quite needlessly) to keep the secret — and sends me a copy of Father Benwell’s letter:

“Dear Madam — Mr. Romayne can read nothing that diverts his attention from his preparation for the priesthood, or that recalls past associations with errors which he has renounced forever. When a letter reaches him, it is his wise custom to look at the signature first. He has handed your letter to me,
unread
— with a request that I will return it to you. In his presence, I instantly sealed it up. Neither he nor I know, or wish to know, on what subject you have addressed him. We respectfully advise you not to write again.”

This is really too bad; but it has one advantage, so far as I am concerned. It sets my own unworthy doubts and jealousies before me in a baser light than ever. How honestly I defended Father Benwell! and how completely he has deceived me! I wonder whether I shall live long enough to see the Jesuit caught in one of his own traps?

11th. — I was disappointed at not hearing from Stella, yesterday. This morning has made amends; it has brought me a letter from her.

She is not well; and her mother’s conduct sadly perplexes her. At one time, Mrs. Eyrecourt’s sense of injury urges her to indulge in violent measures — she is eager to place her deserted daughter under the protection of the law; to insist on a restitution of conjugal rights or on a judicial separation. At another time she sinks into a state of abject depression; declares that it is impossible for her, in Stella’s deplorable situation, to face society; and recommends immediate retirement to some place on the Continent in which they can live cheaply. This latter suggestion Stella is not only ready, but eager, to adopt. She proves it by asking for my advice, in a postscript; no doubt remembering the happy days when I courted her in Paris, and the many foreign friends of mine who called at our hotel.