Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1295 page)

On that fine morning her daughter might remain in the garden until the luncheon-bell rang. Linley had only to say that he wished to speak with his wife; and the private interview which he had so rudely insisted on as his sole privilege, would assuredly take place. The one chance left of still defeating him on his own ground was to force Randal to interfere by convincing him of his brother’s guilt. Moderation of language and composure of manner offered the only hopeful prospect of reaching this end. Mrs. Presty assumed the disguise of patient submission, and used the irresistible influence of good humour and good sense.

“I don’t complain, dear Randal, of what you have said to me,” she replied. “My indiscretion has deserved it. I ought to have produced my proofs, and have left it to you to draw the conclusion. Sit down, if you please. I won’t detain you for more than a few minutes.”

Randal had not anticipated such moderation as this; he took the chair that was nearest to Mrs. Presty. They were both now sitting with their backs turned to the entrance from the library to the drawing-room.

“I won’t trouble you with my own impressions,” Mrs. Presty went on. “I will be careful only to mention what I have seen and heard. If you refuse to believe me, I refer you to the guilty persons themselves.”

She had just got to the end of those introductory words when Mrs. Linley returned, by way of the library, to fetch the forgotten parasol.

Randal insisted on making Mrs. Presty express herself plainly. “You speak of guilty persons,” he said. “Am I to understand that one of those guilty persons is my brother?”

Mrs. Linley advanced a step and took the parasol from the table. Hearing what Randal said, she paused, wondering at the strange allusion to her husband. In the meanwhile, Mrs. Presty answered the question that had been addressed to her.

“Yes,” she said to Randal; “I mean your brother, and your brother’s mistress — Sydney Westerfield.”

Mrs. Linley laid the parasol back on the table, and approached them.

She never once looked at her mother; her face, white and rigid, was turned toward Randal. To him, and to him only, she spoke.

“What does my mother’s horrible language mean?” she asked.

Mrs. Presty triumphed inwardly; chance had decided in her favor, after all! “Don’t you see,” she said to her daughter, “that I am here to answer for myself?”

Mrs. Linley still looked at Randal, and still spoke to him. “It is impossible for me to insist on an explanation from my mother,” she proceeded. “No matter what I may feel, I must remember that she
is
my mother. I ask you again — you who have been listening to her — what does she mean?”

Mrs. Presty’s sense of her own importance refused to submit to being passed over in this way.

“However insolently you may behave, Catherine, you will not succeed in provoking me. Your mother is bound to open your eyes to the truth. You have a rival in your husband’s affections; and that rival is your governess. Take your own course now; I have no more to say.” With her head high in the air — looking the picture of conscious virtue — the old lady walked out.

At the same moment Randal seized his first opportunity of speaking.

He addressed himself gently and respectfully to his sister-in-law. She refused to hear him. The indignation which Mrs. Presty had roused in her made no allowances, and was blind to all sense of right.

“Don’t trouble yourself to account for your silence,” she said, most unjustly. “You were listening to my mother without a word of remonstrance when I came into the room. You are concerned in this vile slander, too.”

Randal considerately refrained from provoking her by attempting to defend himself, while she was incapable of understanding him. “You will be sorry when you find that you have misjudged me,” he said, and sighed, and left her.

She dropped into a chair. If there was any one distinct thought in her at that moment, it was the thought of her husband. She was eager to see him; she longed to say to him: “My love, I don’t believe a word of it!” He was not in the garden when she had returned for the parasol; and Sydney was not in the garden. Wondering what had become of her father and her governess, Kitty had asked the nursemaid to look for them. What had happened since? Where had they been found? After some hesitation, Mrs. Linley sent for the nursemaid. She felt the strongest reluctance, when the girl appeared, to approach the very inquiries which she was interested in making.

“Have you found Mr. Linley?” she said — with an effort.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Where did you find him?”

“In the shrubbery.”

“Did your master say anything?”

“I slipped away, ma’am, before he saw me.”

“Why?”

“Miss Westerfield was in the shrubbery, with my master. I might have been mistaken — ” The girl paused, and looked confused.

Mrs. Linley tried to tell her to go on. The words were in her mind; but the capacity of giving expression to them failed her. She impatiently made a sign. The sign was understood.

“I might have been mistaken,” the maid repeated — ”but I thought Miss Westerfield was crying.”

Having replied in those terms, she seemed to be anxious to get away. The parasol caught her eye. “Miss Kitty wants this,” she said, “and wonders why you have not gone back to her in the garden. May I take the parasol?”

“Take it.”

The tone of the mistress’s voice was completely changed. The servant looked at her with vague misgivings. “Are you not well, ma’am?”

“Quite well.”

The servant withdrew.

Mrs. Linley’s chair happened to be near one of the windows, which commanded a view of the drive leading to the main entrance of the house. A carriage had just arrived bringing holiday travelers to visit that part of Mount Morven which was open to strangers. She watched them as they got out, talking and laughing, and looking about them. Still shrinking instinctively from the first doubt of Herbert that had ever entered her mind, she found a refuge from herself in watching the ordinary events of the day. One by one the tourists disappeared under the portico of the front door. The empty carriage was driven away next, to water the horses at the village inn. Solitude was all she could see from the windows; silence, horrible silence, surrounded her out of doors and in. The thoughts from which she recoiled forced their way back into her mind; the narrative of the nursemaid’s discovery became a burden on her memory once more. She considered the circumstances. In spite of herself, she considered the circumstances again. Her husband and Sydney Westerfield together in the shrubbery — and Sydney crying. Had Mrs. Presty’s abominable suspicion of them reached their ears? or? — No! that second possibility might be estimated at its right value by any other woman; not by Herbert Linley’s wife.

She snatched up the newspaper, and fixed her eyes on it in the hope of fixing her mind on it next. Obstinately, desperately, she read without knowing what she was reading. The lines of print were beginning to mingle and grow dim, when she was startled by the sudden opening of the door. She looked round.

Her husband entered the room.

Chapter XIV. Kitty Feels the Heartache.

Linley advanced a few steps — and stopped.

His wife, hurrying eagerly to meet him, checked herself. It might have been distrust, or it might have been unreasoning fear — she hesitated on the point of approaching him.

“I have something to say, Catherine, which I’m afraid will distress you.”

His voice faltered, his eyes rested on her — then looked away again. He said no more.

He had spoken a few commonplace words — and yet he had said enough. She saw the truth in his eyes, heard the truth in his voice. A fit of trembling seized her. Linley stepped forward, in the fear that she might fall. She instantly controlled herself, and signed to him to keep back. “Don’t touch me!” she said. “You come from Miss Westerfield!”

That reproach roused him.

“I own that I come from Miss Westerfield,” he answered. “She addresses a request to you through me.”

“I refuse to grant it.”

“Hear it first.”

“No!”

“Hear it — in your own interest. She asks permission to leave the house, never to return again. While she is still innocent — ”

His wife eyed him with a look of unutterable contempt. He submitted to it, but not in silence.

“A man doesn’t lie, Catherine, who makes such a confession as I am making now. Miss Westerfield offers the one atonement in her power, while she is still innocent of having wronged you — except in thought.”

“Is that all?” Mrs. Linley asked.

“It rests with you,” he replied, “to say if there is any other sacrifice of herself which will be more acceptable to you.”

“Let me understand first what the sacrifice means. Does Miss Westerfield make any conditions?”

“She has positively forbidden me to make conditions.”

“And goes out into the world, helpless and friendless?”

“Yes.”

Even under the terrible trial that wrung her, the nobility of the woman’s nature spoke in her next words.

“Give me time to think of what you have said,” she pleaded. “I have led a happy life; I am not used to suffer as I am suffering now.”

They were both silent. Kitty’s voice was audible on the stairs that led to the picture-gallery, disputing with the maid. Neither her father nor her mother heard her.

“Miss Westerfield is innocent of having wronged me, except in thought,” Mrs. Linley resumed. “Do you tell me that on your word of honour?”

“On my word of honour.”

So far his wife was satisfied. “My governess,” she said, “might have deceived me — she has not deceived me. I owe it to her to remember that. She shall go, but not helpless and not friendless.”

Her husband forgot the restraints he had imposed on himself.

“Is there another woman in the world like you!” he exclaimed.

“Many other women,” she answered, firmly. “A vulgar termagant, feeling a sense of injury, finds relief in an outburst of jealousy and a furious quarrel. You have always lived among ladies. Surely you ought to know that a wife in my position, who respects herself, restrains herself. I try to remember what I owe to others as well as what they owe to me.”

She approached the writing table, and took up a pen.

Feeling his position acutely, Linley refrained from openly admiring her generosity. Until he had deserved to be forgiven, he had forfeited the right to express an opinion on her conduct. She misinterpreted his silence. As she understood it, he appreciated an act of self-sacrifice on Miss Westerfield’s side — but he had no word of encouragement for an act of self-sacrifice on his wife’s side. She threw down the pen, with the first outbreak of anger that had escaped her yet.

“You have spoken for the governess,” she said to him. “I haven’t heard yet, sir, what you have to say for yourself. Is it you who tempted her? You know how gratefully she feels toward you — have you perverted her gratitude, and led her blindfold to love? Cruel, cruel, cruel! Defend yourself if you can.”

He made no reply.

“Is it not worth your while to defend yourself?” she burst out, passionately. “Your silence is an insult!”

“My silence is a confession,” he answered, sadly. “
She
may accept your mercy — I may not even hope for it.”

Something in the tone of his voice reminded her of past days — the days of perfect love and perfect confidence, when she had been the one woman in the world to him. Dearly treasured remembrances of her married life filled her heart with tenderness, and dimmed with tears the angry light that had risen in her eyes. There was no pride, no anger, in his wife when she spoke to him now.