Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1296 page)

“Oh, my husband, has she taken your love from me?”

“Judge for yourself, Catherine, if there is no proof of my love for you in what I have resisted — and no remembrance of all that I owe to you in what I have confessed.”

She ventured a little nearer to him. “Can I believe you?”

“Put me to the test.”

She instantly took him at his word. “When Miss Westerfield has left us, promise not to see her again.”

“I promise.”

“And not even to write to her.”

“I promise.”

She went back to the writing-table. “My heart is easier,” she said, simply. “I can be merciful to her now.”

After writing a few lines, she rose and handed the paper to him. He looked up from it in surprise. “Addressed to Mrs. MacEdwin!” he said.

“Addressed,” she answered, “to the only person I know who feels a true interest in Miss Westerfield. Have you not heard of it?”

“I remember,” he said — and read the lines that followed:

“I recommend Miss Westerfield as a teacher of young children, having had ample proof of her capacity, industry, and good temper while she has been governess to my child. She leaves her situation in my service under circumstances which testify to her sense of duty and her sense of gratitude.”

“Have I said,” she asked, “more than I could honourably and truly say — even after what has happened?”

He could only look at her; no words could have spoken for him as his silence spoke for him at that moment. When she took back the written paper there was pardon in her eyes already.

The last worst trial remained to be undergone; she faced it resolutely. “Tell Miss Westerfield that I wish to see her.”

On the point of leaving the room, Herbert was called back. “If you happen to meet with my mother,” his wife added, “will you ask her to come to me?”

Mrs. Presty knew her daughter’s nature; Mrs. Presty had been waiting near at hand, in expectation of the message which she now received.

Tenderly and respectfully, Mrs. Linley addressed herself to her mother. “When we last met, I thought you spoke rashly and cruelly. I know now that there was truth —
some
truth, let me say — in what offended me at the time. If you felt strongly, it was for my sake. I wish to beg your pardon; I was hasty, I was wrong.”

On an occasion when she had first irritated and then surprised him, Randal Linley had said to Mrs. Presty, “You have got a heart, after all!” Her reply to her daughter showed that view of her character to be the right one. “Say no more, my dear,” she answered “
I
was hasty;
I
was wrong.”

The words had barely fallen from her lips, before Herbert returned. He was followed by Sydney Westerfield.

The governess stopped in the middle of the room. Her head sank on her breast; her quick convulsive breathing was the only sound that broke the silence. Mrs. Linley advanced to the place in which Sydney stood. There was something divine in her beauty as she looked at the shrinking girl, and held out her hand.

Sydney fell on her knees. In silence she lifted that generous hand to her lips. In silence, Mrs. Linley raised her — took the writing which testified to her character from the table — and presented it. Linley looked at his wife, looked at the governess. He waited — and still neither the one nor the other uttered a word. It was more than he could endure. He addressed himself to Sydney first.

“Try to thank Mrs. Linley,” he said.

She answered faintly: “I can’t speak!”

He appealed to his wife next. “Say a last kind word to her,” he pleaded.

She made an effort, a vain effort to obey him. A gesture of despair answered for her as Sydney had answered: “I can’t speak!”

True, nobly true, to the Christian virtue that repents, to the Christian virtue that forgives, those three persons stood together on the brink of separation, and forced their frail humanity to suffer and submit.

In mercy to the woman, Linley summoned the courage to part them. He turned to his wife first.

“I may say, Catherine, that she has your good wishes for happier days to come?”

Mrs. Linley pressed his hand.

He approached Sydney, and gave his wife’s message. It was in his heart to add something equally kind on his own part. He could only say what we have all said — how sincerely, how sorrowfully, we all know — the common word, “Good-by!” — the common wish, “God bless you!”

At that last moment the child ran into the room, in search of her mother.

There was a low murmur of horror at the sight of her. That innocent heart, they had all hoped, might have been spared the misery of the parting scene!

She saw that Sydney had her hat and cloak on. “You’re dressed to go out,” she said. Sydney turned away to hide her face. It was too late; Kitty had seen the tears. “Oh, my darling, you’re not going away!” She looked at her father and mother. “Is she going away?” They were afraid to answer her. With all her little strength, she clasped her beloved friend and play-fellow round the waist. “My own dear, you’re not going to leave me!” The dumb misery in Sydney’s face struck Linley with horror. He placed Kitty in her mother’s arms. The child’s piteous cry, “Oh, don’t let her go! don’t let her go!” followed the governess as she suffered her martyrdom, and went out. Linley’s heart ached; he watched her until she was lost to view. “Gone!” he murmured to himself — ”gone forever!”

Mrs. Presty heard him, and answered him: — ”She’ll come back again!”

SECOND BOOK

Chapter XV. The Doctor.

As the year advanced, the servants at Mount Morven remarked that the weeks seemed to follow each other more slowly than usual. In the higher regions of the house, the same impression was prevalent; but the sense of dullness among the gentlefolks submitted to circumstances in silence.

If the question had been asked in past days: Who is the brightest and happiest member of the family? everybody would have said: Kitty. If the question had been asked at the present time, differences of opinion might have suggested different answers — but the whole household would have refrained without hesitation from mentioning the child’s name.

Since Sydney Westerfield’s departure Kitty had never held up her head.

Time quieted the child’s first vehement outbreak of distress under the loss of the companion whom she had so dearly loved. Delicate management, gently yet resolutely applied, held the faithful little creature in check, when she tried to discover the cause of her governess’s banishment from the house. She made no more complaints; she asked no more embarrassing questions — but it was miserably plain to everybody about her that she failed to recover her spirits. She was willing to learn her lessons (but not under another governess) when her mother was able to attend to her: she played with her toys, and went out riding on her pony. But the delightful gayety of other days was gone; the shrill laughter that once rang through the house was heard no more. Kitty had become a quiet child; and, worse still, a child who seemed to be easily tired.

The doctor was consulted.

He was a man skilled in the sound medical practice that learns its lessons without books — bedside practice. His opinion declared that the child’s vital power was seriously lowered. “Some cause is at work here,” he said to the mother, “which I don’t understand. Can you help me?” Mrs. Linley helped him without hesitation. “My little daughter dearly loved her governess; and her governess has been obliged to leave us.” That was her reply. The doctor wanted to hear no more; he at once advised that Kitty should be taken to the seaside, and that everything which might remind her of the absent friend — books, presents, even articles of clothing likely to revive old associations — should be left at home. A new life, in new air. When pen, ink, and paper were offered to him, that was the doctor’s prescription.

Mrs. Linley consulted her husband on the choice of the seaside place to which the child should be removed.

The blank which Sydney’s departure left in the life of the household was felt by the master and mistress of Mount Morven — and felt, unhappily, without any open avowal on either side of what was passing in their minds. In this way the governess became a forbidden subject between them; the husband waited for the wife to set the example of approaching it, and the wife waited for the husband. The trial of temper produced by this state of hesitation, and by the secret doubts which it encouraged, led insensibly to a certain estrangement — which Linley in particular was morbidly unwilling to acknowledge. If, when the dinner-hour brought them together, he was silent and dull in his wife’s presence, he attributed it to anxiety on the subject of his brother — then absent on a critical business errand in London. If he sometimes left the house the first thing in the morning, and only returned at night, it was because the management of the model farm had become one of his duties, in Randal’s absence. Mrs. Linley made no attempt to dispute this view of the altered circumstances in home-life — but she submitted with a mind ill at ease. Secretly fearing that Linley was suffering under Miss Westerfield’s absence, she allowed herself to hope that Kitty’s father would see a necessity, in his own case, for change of scene, and would accompany them to the seaside.

“Won’t you come with us, Herbert?” she suggested, when they had both agreed on the choice of a place.

His temper was in a state of constant irritation. Without meaning it he answered her harmless question sharply.

“How can I go away with you, when we are losing by the farm, and when there is nobody to check the ruinous expenses but myself?”

Mrs. Linley’s thoughts naturally turned to Randal’s prolonged absence. “What can be keeping him all this time in London?” she said.

Linley’s failing patience suffered a severe trial.

“Don’t you know,” he broke out, “that I have inherited my poor mother’s property in England, saddled with a lawsuit? Have you never heard of delays and disappointments, and quibbles and false pretenses, encountered by unfortunate wretches like me who are obliged to go to law? God only knows when Randal will be free to return, or what bad news he may bring with him when he does come back.”

“You have many anxieties, Herbert; and I ought to have remembered them.”

That gentle answer touched him. He made the best apology in his power: he said his nerves were out of order, and asked her to excuse him if he had spoken roughly. There was no unfriendly feeling on either side; and yet there was something wanting in the reconciliation. Mrs. Linley left her husband, shaken by a conflict of feelings. At one moment she felt angry with him; at another she felt angry with herself.

With the best intentions (as usual) Mrs. Presty made mischief, nevertheless. Observing that her daughter was in tears, and feeling sincerely distressed by the discovery, she was eager to administer consolation. “Make your mind easy, my dear, if you have any doubt about Herbert’s movements when he is away from home. I followed him myself the day before yesterday when he went out. A long walk for an old woman — but I can assure you that he does really go to the farm.”

Implicitly trusting her husband — and rightly trusting him — Linley’s wife replied by a look which Mrs. Presty received in silent indignation. She summoned her dignity and marched out of the room.

Five minutes afterward, Mrs. Linley received an intimation that her mother was seriously offended, in the form of a little note:

“I find that my maternal interest in your welfare, and my devoted efforts to serve you, are only rewarded with furious looks. The less we see of each other the better. Permit me to thank you for your invitation, and to decline accompanying you when you leave Mount Morven tomorrow.” Mrs. Linley answered the note in person. The next day Kitty’s grandmother — ripe for more mischief — altered her mind, and thoroughly enjoyed her journey to the seaside.

Chapter XVI. The Child.