Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1305 page)

“Caused entirely by your brother — if I must tell the truth. Can’t you guess how?”

“Is it the child? You don’t mean to tell me that Herbert has taken Kitty away from her mother!”

“While I am her mother’s lawyer, my friend, your brother won’t do that. Welcome back to England in the first glass of sherry; good wine, but a little too dry for my taste. No, we won’t talk of domestic troubles just yet. You shall hear all about it after dinner. What made you go to America? You haven’t been delivering lectures, have you?”

“I have been enjoying myself among the most hospitable people in the world.”

Mr. Sarrazin shook his head; he had a case of copyright in hand just then. “A people to be pitied,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because their Government forgets what is due to the honour of the nation.”

“How?”

“In this way. The honour of a nation which confers right of property in works of art, produced by its own citizens, is surely concerned in protecting from theft works of art produced by other citizens.”

“That’s not the fault of the people.”

“Certainly not. I have already said it’s the fault of the Government. Let’s attend to the fish now.”

Randal took his friend’s advice. “Good sauce, isn’t it?” he said.

The epicure entered a protest. “Good?” he repeated. “My dear fellow, it’s absolute perfection. I don’t like to cast a slur on English cookery. But think of melted butter, and tell me if anybody but a foreigner (I don’t like foreigners, but I give them their due) could have produced this white wine sauce? So you really had no particular motive in going to America?”

“On the contrary, I had a very particular motive. Just remember what my life used to be when I was in Scotland — and look at my life now! No Mount Morven; no model farm to look after; no pleasant Highland neighbours; I can’t go to my brother while he is leading his present life; I have hurt Catherine’s feelings; I have lost dear little Kitty; I am not obliged to earn my living (more’s the pity); I don’t care about politics; I have a pleasure in eating harmless creatures, but no pleasure in shooting them. What is there left for me to do, but to try change of scene, and go roaming around the world, a restless creature without an object in life? Have I done something wrong again? It isn’t the pepper this time — and yet you’re looking at me as if I was trying your temper.”

The French side of Mr. Sarrazin’s nature had got the better of him once more. He pointed indignantly to a supreme preparation of fowl on his friend’s plate. “Do I actually see you picking out your truffles, and putting them on one side?” he asked.

“Well,” Randal acknowledged, “I don’t care about truffles.”

Mr. Sarrazin rose, with his plate in his hand and his fork ready for action. He walked round the table to his friend’s side, and reverently transferred the neglected truffles to his own plate. “Randal, you will live to repent this,” he said solemnly. “In the meantime, I am the gainer.” Until he had finished the truffles, no word fell from his lips. “I think I should have enjoyed them more,” he remarked, “if I had concentrated my attention by closing my eyes; but you would have thought I was going to sleep.” He recovered his English nationality, after this, until the dessert had been placed on the table, and the waiter was ready to leave the room. At that auspicious moment, he underwent another relapse. He insisted on sending his compliments and thanks to the cook.

“At last,” said Randal, “we are by ourselves — and now I want to know why Catherine went to Germany.”

Chapter XXIX. Mr. Sarrazin.

As a lawyer, Randal’s guest understood that a narrative of events can only produce the right effect, on one condition: it must begin at the beginning. Having related all that had been said and done during his visit to the cottage, including his first efforts in the character of an angler under Kitty’s supervision, he stopped to fill his glass again — and then astonished Randal by describing the plan that he had devised for escaping from the spies by crossing the lake in the fog.

“What did the ladies say to it?” Randal inquired. “Who spoke first?”

“Mrs. Presty, of course! She objected to risk her life on the water, in a fog. Mrs. Linley showed a resolution for which I was not prepared. She thought of Kitty, saw the value of my suggestion, and went away at once to consult with the landlady. In the meantime I sent for the gardener, and told him what I was thinking of. He was one of those stolid Englishmen, who possess resources which don’t express themselves outwardly. Judging by his face, you would have said he was subsiding into a slumber under the infliction of a sermon, instead of listening to a lawyer proposing a stratagem. When I had done, the man showed the metal he was made of. In plain English, he put three questions which gave me the highest opinion of his intelligence. ‘How much luggage, sir?’ ‘As little as they can conveniently take with them,’ I said. ‘How many persons?’ ‘The two ladies, the child, and myself.’ ‘Can you row, sir?’ ‘In any water you like, Mr. Gardener, fresh or salt’. Think of asking Me, an athletic Englishman, if I could row! In an hour more we were ready to embark, and the blessed fog was thicker than ever. Mrs. Presty yielded under protest; Kitty was wild with delight; her mother was quiet and resigned. But one circumstance occurred that I didn’t quite understand — the presence of a stranger on the pier with a gun in his hand.”

“You don’t mean one of the spies?”

“Nothing of the sort; I mean an idea of the gardener’s. He had been a sailor in his time — and that’s a trade which teaches a man (if he’s good for anything) to think, and act on his thought, at one and the same moment. He had taken a peep at the blackguards in front of the house, and had recognised the shortest of the two as a native of the place, perfectly well aware that one of the features attached to the cottage was a boathouse. ‘That chap is not such a fool as he looks,’ says the gardener. ‘If he mentions the boat-house, the other fellow from London may have his suspicions. I thought I would post my son on the pier — that quiet young man there with the gun — to keep a lookout. If he sees another boat (there are half a dozen on this side of the lake) putting off after us, he has orders to fire, on the chance of our hearing him. A little notion of mine, sir, to prevent our being surprised in the fog. Do you see any objection to it?’ Objection! In the days when diplomacy was something more than a solemn pretense, what a member of Congress that gardener would have made! Well, we shipped our oars, and away we went. Not quite haphazard — for we had a compass with us. Our course was as straight as we could go, to a village on the opposite side of the lake, called Brightfold. Nothing happened for the first quarter of an hour — and then, by the living Jingo (excuse my vulgarity), we heard the gun!”

“What did you do?”

“Went on rowing, and held a council. This time I came out as the clever one of the party. The men were following us in the dark; they would have to guess at the direction we had taken, and they would most likely assume (in such weather as we had) that we should choose the shortest way across the lake. At my suggestion we changed our course, and made for a large town, higher up on the shore, called Tawley. We landed, and waited for events, and made no discovery of another boat behind us. The fools had justified my confidence in them — they had gone to Brightfold. There was half-an-hour to spare before the next train came to Tawley; and the fog was beginning to lift on that side of the lake. We looked at the shops; and I made a purchase in the town.”

“Stop a minute,” said Randal. “Is Brightfold on the railway?”

“No.”

“Is there an electric telegraph at the place?”

“Yes.”

“That was awkward, wasn’t it? The first thing those men would do would be to telegraph to Tawley.”

“Not a doubt of it. How would they describe us, do you think?”

Randal answered. “A middle-aged gentleman — two ladies, one of them elderly — and a little girl. Quite enough to identify you at Tawley, if the station-master understood the message.”

“Shall I tell you what the station-master discovered, with the message in his hand? No elderly lady, no middle-aged gentleman; nothing more remarkable than
one
lady — and a little boy.”

Randal’s face brightened. “You parted company, of course,” he said; “and you disguised Kitty! How did you manage it?”

“Didn’t I say just now that we looked at the shops, and that I made a purchase in the town? A boy’s ready-made suit — not at all a bad fit for Kitty! Mrs. Linley put on the suit, and tucked up the child’s hair under a straw hat, in an empty yard — no idlers about in that bad weather. We said good-by, and parted, with grievous misgivings on my side, which proved (thank God!) to have been quite needless. Kitty and her mother went to the station, and Mrs. Presty and I hired a carriage, and drove away to the head of the lake, to catch the train to London. Do you know, Randal, I have altered my opinion of Mrs. Presty?”

Randal smiled. “You too have found something in that old woman,” he said, “which doesn’t appear on the surface.”

“The occasion seems to bring that something out,” the lawyer remarked. “When I proposed the separation, and mentioned my reasons, I expected to find some difficulty in persuading Mrs. Presty to give up the adventurous journey with her daughter and her grandchild. I reminded her that she had friends in London who would receive her, and got snubbed for taking the liberty. ‘I know that as well as you do. Come along — I’m ready to go with you.’ It isn’t agreeable to my self-esteem to own it, but I expected to hear her say that she would consent to any sacrifice for the sake of her dear daughter. No such clap-trap as that passed her lips. She owned the true motive with a superiority to cant which won my sincerest respect. ‘I’ll do anything,’ she said, ‘to baffle Herbert Linley and the spies he has set to watch us.’ I can’t tell you how glad I was that she had her reward on the same day. We were too late at the station, and we had to wait for the next train. And what do you think happened? The two scoundrels followed us instead of following Mrs. Linley! They had inquired no doubt at the livery stables where we hired the carriage — had recognised the description of us — and had taken the long journey to London for nothing. Mrs. Presty and I shook hands at the terminus the best friends that ever traveled together with the best of motives. After that, I think I deserve another glass of wine.”

“Go on with your story, and you shall have another bottle!” cried Randal. “What did Catherine and the child do after they left you?”

“They did the safest thing — they left England. Mrs. Linley distinguished herself on this occasion. It was her excellent idea to avoid popular ports of departure, like Folkestone and Dover, which were sure to be watched, and to get away (if the thing could be done) from some place on the east coast. We consulted our guide and found that a line of steamers sailed from Hull to Bremen once a week. A tedious journey from our part of Cumberland, with some troublesome changing of trains, but they got there in time to embark. My first news of them reached me in a telegram from Bremen. There they waited for further instructions. I sent the instructions by a thoroughly capable and trustworthy man — an Italian courier, known to me by an experience of twenty years. Shall I confess it? I thought I had done rather a clever thing in providing Mrs. Linley with a friend in need while I was away from her.”

“I think so, too,” said Randal.

“Wrong, completely wrong. I had made a mistake — I had been too clever, and I got my reward accordingly. You know how I advised Mrs. Linley?”

“Yes. You persuaded her, with the greatest difficulty, to apply for a Divorce.”

“Very well. I had made all the necessary arrangements for the trial, when I received a letter from Germany. My charming client had changed her mind, and declined to apply for the Divorce. There was my reward for having been too clever!”

“I don’t understand you.”

“My dear fellow, you are dull to-night. I had been so successful in protecting Mrs. Linley and the child, and my excellent courier had found such a charming place of retreat for them in one of the suburbs of Hanover, that ‘she saw no reason now for taking the shocking course that I had recommended to her — so repugnant to all her most cherished convictions; so sinful and so shameful in its doing of evil that good might come. Experience had convinced her that (thanks to me) there was no fear of Kitty being discovered and taken from her. She therefore begged me to write to my agent in Edinburgh, and tell him that her application to the court was withdrawn.’ Ah, you understand my position at last. The headstrong woman was running a risk which renewed all my anxieties. By every day’s post I expected to hear that she had paid the penalty of her folly, and that your brother had succeeded in getting possession of the child. Wait a little before you laugh at me. But for the courier, the thing would have really happened a week since.”