Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1304 page)

Mr. Sarrazin led her gently back to her chair.

The sad change in her startled and distressed him. Sincerely, solemnly even, he declared that the one alternative before her was the alternative that he had mentioned. He entreated her to control herself. It was useless, she still held him as if she was holding to her last hope.

“Listen to me!” she cried. “There’s something more; there’s another chance for me. I must, and will, know what you think of it.”

“Wait a little. Pray wait a little!”

“No! not a moment. Is there any hope in appealing to the lawyer whom Mr. Linley has employed? Let me go back with you to London. I will persuade him to exert his influence — I will go down on my knees to him — I will never leave him till I have won him over to my side — I will take Kitty with me; he shall see us both, and pity us, and help us!”

“Hopeless. Quite hopeless, Mrs. Linley.”

“Oh, don’t say that!”

“My dear lady, my poor dear lady, I must say it. The man you are talking of is the last man in the world to be influenced as you suppose. He is notoriously a lawyer, and nothing but a lawyer. If you tried to move him to pity you, he would say, ‘Madam, I am doing my duty to my client’; and he would ring his bell and have you shown out. Yes! even if he saw you crushed and crying at his feet.”

Mrs. Presty interfered for the first time.

“In your place, Catherine,” she said, “I would put my foot down on that man and crush
him
. Consent to the Divorce, and you may do it.”

Mrs. Linley lay prostrate in her chair. The excitement which had sustained her thus far seemed to have sunk with the sinking of her last hope. Pale, exhausted, yielding to hard necessity, she looked up when her mother said, “Consent to the Divorce,” and answered, “I have consented.”

“And trust me,” Mr. Sarrazin said fervently, “to see that Justice is done, and to protect you in the meanwhile.”

Mrs. Presty added her tribute of consolation.

“After all,” she asked, “what is there to terrify you in the prospect of a Divorce? You won’t hear what people say about it — for we see no society now. And, as for the newspapers, keep them out of the house.”

Mrs. Linley answered with a momentary revival of energy:

“It is not the fear of exposure that has tortured me,” she said. “When I was left in the solitude of the night, my heart turned to Kitty; I felt that any sacrifice of myself might be endured for her sake. It’s the remembrance of my marriage, Mr. Sarrazin, that is the terrible trial to me. Those whom God has joined together, let no man put asunder. Is there nothing to terrify me in setting that solemn command at defiance? I do it — oh, I do it — in consenting to the Divorce! I renounce the vows which I bound myself to respect in the presence of God; I profane the remembrance of eight happy years, hallowed by true love. Ah, you needn’t remind me of what my husband has done. I don’t forget how cruelly he has wronged me; I don’t forget that his own act has cast me from him. But whose act destroys our marriage? Mine, mine! Forgive me, mamma; forgive me, my kind friend — the horror that I have of myself forces its way to my lips. No more of it! My child is my one treasure left. What must I do next? What must I sign? What must I sacrifice? Tell me — and it shall be done. I submit! I submit!”

Delicately and mercifully Mr. Sarrazin answered that sad appeal.

All that his knowledge, experience and resolution could suggest he addressed to Mrs. Presty. Mrs. Linley could listen or not listen, as her own wishes inclined. In the one case or in the other, her interests would be equally well served. The good lawyer kissed her hand. “Rest, and recover,” he whispered. And then he turned to her mother — and became a man of business once more.

“The first thing I shall do, ma’am, is to telegraph to my agent in Edinburgh. He will arrange for the speediest possible hearing of our case in the Court of Session. Make your mind easy so far.”

Mrs. Presty’s mind was by this time equally inaccessible to information and advice. “I want to know what is to be done with those two men who are watching the gate,” was all she said in the way of reply.

Mrs. Linley raised her head in alarm.

“Two!” she exclaimed — and looked at Mr. Sarrazin. “You only spoke of one last night.”

“And I add another this morning. Rest your poor head, Mrs. Linley, I know how it aches; I know how it burns.” He still persisted in speaking to Mrs. Presty. “One of those two men will follow me to the station, and see me off on my way to London. The other will look after you, or your daughter, or the maid, or any other person who may try to get away into hiding with Kitty. And they are both keeping close to the gate, in the fear of losing sight of us in the fog.”

“I wish we lived in the Middle Ages!” said Mrs. Presty.

“What would be the use of that, ma’am?”

“Good heavens, Mr. Sarrazin, don’t you see? In those grand old days you would have taken a dagger, and the gardener would have taken a dagger, and you would have stolen out, and stabbed those two villains as a matter of course. And this is the age of progress! The vilest rogue in existence is a sacred person whose life we are bound to respect. Ah, what good that national hero would have done who put his barrels of gunpowder in the right place on the Fifth of November! I have always said it, and I stick to it, Guy Fawkes was a great statesman.”

In the meanwhile Mrs. Linley was not resting, and not listening to the expression of her mother’s political sentiments. She was intently watching Mr. Sarrazin’s face.

“There is danger threatening us,” she said. “Do you see a way out of it?”

To persist in trying to spare her was plainly useless; Mr. Sarrazin answered her directly.

“The danger of legal proceedings to obtain possession of the child,” he said, “is more near and more serious than I thought it right to acknowledge, while you were in doubt which way to decide. I was careful — too careful, perhaps — not to unduly influence you in a matter of the utmost importance to your future life. But you have made up your mind. I don’t scruple now to remind you that an interval of time must pass before the decree for your Divorce can be pronounced, and the care of the child be legally secured to the mother. The only doubt and the only danger are there. If you are not frightened by the prospect of a desperate venture which some women would shrink from, I believe I see a way of baffling the spies.”

Mrs. Linley started to her feet. “Say what I am to do,” she cried, “and judge for yourself if I am as easily frightened as some women.”

The lawyer pointed with a persuasive smile to her empty chair. “If you allow yourself to be excited,” he said, “you will frighten me. Please — oh, please sit down again!”

Mrs. Linley felt the strong will, asserting itself in terms of courteous entreaty. She obeyed. Mrs. Presty had never admired the lawyer as she admired him now. “Is that how you manage your wife?” she asked.

Mr. Sarrazin was equal to the occasion, whatever it might be. “In your time, ma’am,” he said, “did you reveal the mysteries of conjugal life?” He turned to Mrs. Linley. “I have something to ask first,” he resumed, “and then you shall hear what I propose. How many people serve you in this cottage?”

“Three. Our landlady, who is housekeeper and cook. Our own maid. And the landlady’s daughter, who does the housework.”

“Any out-of-door servants?”

“Only the gardener.”

“Can you trust these people?”

“In what way, Mr. Sarrazin?”

“Can you trust them with a secret which only concerns yourself?”

“Certainly! The maid has been with us for years; no truer woman ever lived. The good old landlady often drinks tea with us. Her daughter is going to be married; and I have given the wedding-dress. As for the gardener, let Kitty settle the matter with him, and I answer for the rest. Why are you pointing to the window?”

“Look out, and tell me what you see.”

“I see the fog.”

“And I, Mrs. Linley, have seen the boathouse. While the spies are watching your gate, what do you say to crossing the lake, under cover of the fog?”

FOURTH BOOK.

Chapter XXVIII. Mr. Randal Linley.

Winter had come and gone; spring was nearing its end, and London still suffered under the rigid regularity of easterly winds. Although in less than a week summer would begin with the first of June, Mr. Sarrazin was glad to find his office warmed by a fire, when he arrived to open the letters of the day.

The correspondence in general related exclusively to proceedings connected with the law. Two letters only presented an exception to the general rule. The first was addressed in Mrs. Linley’s handwriting, and bore the postmark of Hanover. Kitty’s mother had not only succeeded in getting to the safe side of the lake — she and her child had crossed the German Ocean as well. In one respect her letter was a remarkable composition. Although it was written by a lady, it was short enough to be read in less than a minute:

“MY DEAR MR. SARRAZIN — I have just time to write by this evening’s post. Our excellent courier has satisfied himself that the danger of discovery has passed away. The wretches have been so completely deceived that they are already on their way back to England, to lie in wait for us at Folkestone and Dover. To-morrow morning we leave this charming place — oh, how unwillingly! — for Bremen, to catch the steamer to Hull. You shall hear from me again on our arrival. Gratefully yours,

“CATHERINE LINLEY.”

Mr. Sarrazin put this letter into a private drawer and smiled as he turned the key. “Has she made up her mind at last?” he asked himself. “But for the courier, I shouldn’t feel sure of her even now.”

The second letter agreeably surprised him. It was announced that the writer had just returned from the United States; it invited him to dinner that evening; and it was signed “Randal Linley.” In Mr. Sarrazin’s estimation, Randal had always occupied a higher place than his brother. The lawyer had known Mrs. Linley before her marriage, and had been inclined to think that she would have done wisely if she had given her hand to the younger brother instead of the elder. His acquaintance with Randal ripened rapidly into friendship. But his relations with Herbert made no advance toward intimacy: there was a gentlemanlike cordiality between them, and nothing more.

At seven o’clock the two friends sat at a snug little table, in the private room of a hotel, with an infinite number of questions to ask of each other, and with nothing to interrupt them but a dinner of such extraordinary merit that it insisted on being noticed, from the first course to the last.

Randal began. “Before we talk of anything else,” he said, “tell me about Catherine and the child. Where are they?”

“On their way to England, after a residence in Germany.”

“And the old lady?”

“Mrs. Presty has been staying with friends in London.”

“What! have they parted company? Has there been a quarrel?”

“Nothing of the sort; a friendly separation, in the strictest sense of the word. Oh, Randal, what are you about? Don’t put pepper into this perfect soup. It’s as good as the
gras double
at the Cafe Anglais in Paris.”

“So it is; I wasn’t paying proper attention to it. But I am anxious about Catherine. Why did she go abroad?”

“Haven’t you heard from her?”

“Not for six months or more. I innocently vexed her by writing a little too hopefully about Herbert. Mrs. Presty answered my letter, and recommended me not to write again. It isn’t like Catherine to bear malice.”

“Don’t even think such a thing possible!” the lawyer answered, earnestly. “Attribute her silence to the right cause. Terrible anxieties have been weighing on her mind since you went to America.”

“Anxieties caused by my brother? Oh, I hope not!”