Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1277 page)

“I assured her, with perfect sincerity, that I had drawn no such conclusion. Encouraged by my reply, Miss Jethro proceeded as follows.”

3.
She Speaks of Mirabel
.

“‘Four years ago, I was living near Cowes, in the Isle of Wight — in a cottage which had been taken for me by a gentleman who was the owner of a yacht. We had just returned from a short cruise, and the vessel was under orders to sail for Cherbourg with the next tide.

“‘While I was walking in my garden, I was startled by the sudden appearance Of a man (evidently a gentleman) who was a perfect stranger to me. He was in a pitiable state of terror, and he implored my protection. In reply to my first inquiries, he mentioned the inn at Zeeland, and the dreadful death of a person unknown to him; whom I recognised (partly by the description given, and partly by comparison of dates) as Mr. James Brown. I shall say nothing of the shock inflicted on me: you don’t want to know what I felt. What I did (having literally only a minute left for decision) was to hide the fugitive from discovery, and to exert my influence in his favor with the owner of the yacht. I saw nothing more of him. He was put on board, as soon as the police were out of sight, and was safely landed at Cherbourg.’

“I asked what induced her to run the risk of protecting a stranger, who was under suspicion of having committed a murder.

“She said, ‘You shall hear my explanation directly. Let us have done with Mr. Mirabel first. We occasionally corresponded, during the long absence on the continent; never alluding, at his express request, to the horrible event at the inn. His last letter reached me, after he had established himself at Vale Regis. Writing of the society in the neighbourhood, he informed me of his introduction to Miss Wyvil, and of the invitation that he had received to meet her friend and schoolfellow at Monksmoor. I knew that Miss Emily possessed a Handbill describing personal peculiarities in Mr. Mirabel, not hidden under the changed appearance of his head and face. If she remembered or happened to refer to that description, while she was living in the same house with him, there was a possibility at least of her suspicion being excited. The fear of this took me to you. It was a morbid fear, and, as events turned out, an unfounded fear: but I was unable to control it. Failing to produce any effect on you, I went to Vale Regis, and tried (vainly again) to induce Mr. Mirabel to send an excuse to Monksmoor. He, like you, wanted to know what my motive was. When I tell you that I acted solely in Miss Emily’s interests, and that I knew how she had been deceived about her father’s death, need I say why I was afraid to acknowledge my motive?’

“I understood that Miss Jethro might well be afraid of the consequences, if she risked any allusion to Mr. Brown’s horrible death, and if it afterward chanced to reach his daughter’s ears. But this state of feeling implied an extraordinary interest in the preservation of Emily’s peace of mind. I asked Miss Jethro how that interest had been excited?

“She answered, ‘I can only satisfy you in one way. I must speak of her father now.’“

Emily looked up from the manuscript. She felt Cecilia’s arm tenderly caressing her. She heard Cecilia say, “My poor dear, there is one last trial of your courage still to come. I am afraid of what you are going to read, when you turn to the next page. And yet — ”

“And yet,” Emily replied gently, “it must be done. I have learned my hard lesson of endurance, Cecilia, don’t be afraid.”

Emily turned to the next page.

4.
She Speaks of the Dead
.

“For the first time, Miss Jethro appeared to be at a loss how to proceed. I could see that she was suffering. She rose, and opening a drawer in her writing table, took a letter from it.

“She said, ‘Will you read this? It was written by Miss Emily’s father. Perhaps it may say more for me than I can say for myself?’

“I copy the letter. It was thus expressed:

“‘You have declared that our farewell to-day is our farewell forever. For the second time, you have refused to be my wife; and you have done this, to use your own words, in mercy to Me.

“‘In mercy to Me, I implore you to reconsider your decision.

“‘If you condemn me to live without you — I feel it, I know it — you condemn me to despair which I have not fortitude enough to endure. Look at the passages which I have marked for you in the New Testament. Again and again, I say it; your true repentance has made you worthy of the pardon of God. Are you not worthy of the love, admiration, and respect of man? Think! oh, Sara, think of what our lives might be, and let them be united for time and for eternity.

“‘I can write no more. A deadly faintness oppresses me. My mind is in a state unknown to me in past years. I am in such confusion that I sometimes think I hate you. And then I recover from my delusion, and know that man never loved woman as I love you.

“‘You will have time to write to me by this evening’s post. I shall stop at Zeeland to-morrow, on my way back, and ask for a letter at the post office. I forbid explanations and excuses. I forbid heartless allusions to your duty. Let me have an answer which does not keep me for a moment in suspense.

“‘For the last time, I ask you: Do you consent to be my wife? Say, Yes — or say, No.’

“I gave her back the letter — with the one comment on it, which the circumstances permitted me to make:

“‘You said No?’

“She bent her head in silence.

“I went on — not willingly, for I would have spared her if it had been possible. I said, ‘He died, despairing, by his own hand — and you knew it?’

“She looked up. ‘No! To say that I knew it is too much. To say that I feared it is the truth.’

“‘Did you love him?’

“She eyed me in stern surprise. ‘Have
I
any right to love? Could I disgrace an honourable man by allowing him to marry me? You look as if you held me responsible for his death.’

“‘Innocently responsible,’ I said.

“She still followed her own train of thought. ‘Do you suppose I could for a moment anticipate that he would destroy himself, when I wrote my reply? He was a truly religious man. If he had been in his right mind, he would have shrunk from the idea of suicide as from the idea of a crime.’

“On reflection, I was inclined to agree with her. In his terrible position, it was at least possible that the sight of the razor (placed ready, with the other appliances of the toilet, for his fellow-traveler’s use) might have fatally tempted a man whose last hope was crushed, whose mind was tortured by despair. I should have been merciless indeed, if I had held Miss Jethro accountable thus far. But I found it hard to sympathize with the course which she had pursued, in permitting Mr. Brown’s death to be attributed to murder without a word of protest. ‘Why were you silent?’ I said.

“She smiled bitterly.

“‘A woman would have known why, without asking,’ she replied. ‘A woman would have understood that I shrank from a public confession of my shameful past life. A woman would have remembered what reasons I had for pitying the man who loved me, and for accepting any responsibility rather than associate his memory, before the world, with an unworthy passion for a degraded creature, ending in an act of suicide. Even if I had made that cruel sacrifice, would public opinion have believed such a person as I am — against the evidence of a medical man, and the verdict of a jury? No, Mr. Morris! I said nothing, and I was resolved to say nothing, so long as the choice of alternatives was left to me. On the day when Mr. Mirabel implored me to save him, that choice was no longer mine — and you know what I did. And now again when suspicion (after all the long interval that had passed) has followed and found that innocent man, you know what I have done. What more do you ask of me?’

“‘Your pardon,’ I said, ‘for not having understood you — and a last favor. May I repeat what I have heard to the one person of all others who ought to know, and who must know, what you have told me?’

“It was needless to hint more plainly that I was speaking of Emily. Miss Jethro granted my request.

“‘It shall be as you please,’ she answered. ‘Say for me to
his
daughter, that the grateful remembrance of her is my one refuge from the thoughts that tortured me, when we spoke together on her last night at school. She has made this dead heart of mine feel a reviving breath of life, when I think of her. Never, in our earthly pilgrimage, shall we meet again — I implore her to pity and forget me. Farewell, Mr. Morris; farewell forever.’

“I confess that the tears came into my eyes. When I could see clearly again, I was alone in the room.”

CHAPTER LXVII. THE TRUE CONSOLATION.

Emily closed the pages which told her that her father had died by his own hand.

Cecilia still held her tenderly embraced. By slow degrees, her head dropped until it rested on her friend’s bosom. Silently she suffered. Silently Cecilia bent forward, and kissed her forehead. The sounds that penetrated to the room were not out of harmony with the time. From a distant house the voices of children were just audible, singing the plaintive melody of a hymn; and, now and then, the breeze blew the first faded leaves of autumn against the window. Neither of the girls knew how long the minutes followed each other uneventfully, before there was a change. Emily raised her head, and looked at Cecilia.

“I have one friend left,” she said.

“Not only me, love — oh, I hope not only me!”

“Yes. Only you.”

“I want to say something, Emily; but I am afraid of hurting you.”

“My dear, do you remember what we once read in a book of history at school? It told of the death of a tortured man, in the old time, who was broken on the wheel. He lived through it long enough to say that the agony, after the first stroke of the club, dulled his capacity for feeling pain when the next blows fell. I fancy pain of the mind must follow the same rule. Nothing you can say will hurt me now.”

“I only wanted to ask, Emily, if you were engaged — at one time — to marry Mr. Mirabel. Is it true?”

“False! He pressed me to consent to an engagement — and I said he must not hurry me.”

“What made you say that?”

“I thought of Alban Morris.”

Vainly Cecilia tried to restrain herself. A cry of joy escaped her.

“Are you glad?” Emily asked. “Why?”

Cecilia made no direct reply. “May I tell you what you wanted to know, a little while since?” she said. “You asked why Mr. Morris left it all to me, instead of speaking to you himself. When I put the same question to him, he told me to read what he had written. ‘Not a shadow of suspicion rests on Mr. Mirabel,’ he said. ‘Emily is free to marry him — and free through Me. Can
I
tell her that? For her sake, and for mine, it must not be. All that I can do is to leave old remembrances to plead for me. If they fail, I shall know that she will be happier with Mr. Mirabel than with me.’ ‘And you will submit?’ I asked. ‘Because I love her,’ he answered, ‘I must submit.’ Oh, how pale you are! Have I distressed you?”

“You have done me good.”

“Will you see him?”

Emily pointed to the manuscript. “At such a time as this?” she said.

Cecilia still held to her resolution. “Such a time as this is the right time,” she answered. “It is now, when you most want to be comforted, that you ought to see him. Who can quiet your poor aching heart as
he
can quiet it?” She impulsively snatched at the manuscript and threw it out of sight. “I can’t bear to look at it,” she said. “Emily! if I have done wrong, will you forgive me? I saw him this morning before I came here. I was afraid of what might happen — I refused to break the dreadful news to you, unless he was somewhere near us. Your good old servant knows where to go. Let me send her — ”

Mrs. Ellmother herself opened the door, and stood doubtful on the threshold, hysterically sobbing and laughing at the same time. “I’m everything that’s bad!” the good old creature burst out. “I’ve been listening — I’ve been lying — I said you wanted him. Turn me out of my situation, if you like. I’ve got him! Here he is!”