Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1312 page)

“If I had such a child as that,” the Captain answered, “I believe I should be the happiest man living.”

“Ah, my dear sir, all isn’t gold that glitters,” Mrs. Presty remarked. “That proverb must have been originally intended to apply to children. May I presume to make you the subject of a guess? I fancy you are not a married man.”

The Captain looked a little surprised. “You are quite right,” he said; “I have never been married.”

At a later period, Mrs. Presty owned that she felt an inclination to reward him for confessing himself to be a bachelor, by a kiss. He innocently checked that impulse by putting a question. “Had you any particular reason,” he asked, “for guessing that I was a single man?”

Mrs. Presty modestly acknowledged that she had only her own experience to help her. “You wouldn’t be quite so fond of other people’s children,” she said, “if you were a married man. Ah, your time will come yet — I mean your wife will come.”

He answered this sadly. “My time has gone by. I have never had the opportunities that have been granted to some favored men.” He thought of the favored man who had married Mrs. Norman. Was her husband worthy of his happiness? “Is Mr. Norman with you at this place?” the Captain asked.

Serious issues depended on the manner in which this question was answered. For one moment, and for one moment only, Mrs. Presty hesitated. Then (in her daughter’s interest, of course) she put Catherine in the position of a widow, in the least blamable of all possible ways, by honestly owning the truth.

“There is no Mr. Norman,” she said.

“Your daughter is a widow!” cried the Captain, perfectly unable to control his delight at that discovery.

“What else should she be?” Mrs. Presty replied, facetiously.

What else, indeed! If “no Mr. Norman” meant (as it must surely mean) that Mr. Norman was dead, and if the beautiful mother of Kitty was an honest woman, her social position was beyond a doubt. Captain Bennydeck felt a little ashamed of his own impetuosity. Before he had made up his mind what to say next, the unlucky waiter (doomed to be a cause of disturbance on that day) appeared again.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said; “the lady and gentleman who have taken these rooms have just arrived.”

Mrs. Presty got up in a hurry, and cordially shook hands with the Captain. Looking round, she took up the railway guide and her knitting left on the table. Was there anything else left about? There was nothing to be seen. Mrs. Presty crossed the passage to her daughter’s bedroom, to hurry the packing. Captain Bennydeck went downstairs, on his way back to the yacht.

In the hall of the hotel he passed the lady and gentleman — and, of course, noticed the lady. She was little and dark and would have been pretty, if she had not looked ill and out of spirits. What would he have said, what would he have done, if he had known that those two strangers were Randal Linley’s brother and Roderick Westerfield’s daughter?

Chapter XXXVI. Mr. and Mrs. Herbert.

The stealthy influence of distrust fastens its hold on the mind by slow degrees. Little by little it reaches its fatal end, and disguises delusion successfully under the garb of truth.

Day after day, the false conviction grew on Sydney’s mind that Herbert Linley was comparing the life he led now with the happier life which he remembered at Mount Morven. Day after day, her unreasoning fear contemplated the time when Herbert Linley would leave her friendless, in the world that had no place in it for women like herself. Delusion — fatal delusion that looked like truth! Morally weak as he might be, the man whom she feared to trust had not yet entirely lost the sense which birth and breeding had firmly fastened in him — the sense of honour. Acting under that influence, he was (if the expression may be permitted) consistent even in inconsistency. With equal sincerity of feeling, he reproached himself for his infidelity toward the woman whom he had deserted, and devoted himself to his duty toward the woman whom he had misled. In Sydney’s presence — suffer as he might under the struggle to maintain his resolution when he was alone — he kept his intercourse with her studiously gentle in manner, and considerate in language; his conduct offered assurances for the future which she could only see through the falsifying medium of her own distrust.

In the delusion that now possessed her she read, over and over again, the letter which Captain Bennydeck had addressed to her father; she saw, more and more clearly, the circumstances which associated her situation with the situation of the poor girl who had closed her wasted life among the nuns in a French convent.

Two results followed on this state of things.

When Herbert asked to what part of England they should go, on leaving London, she mentioned Sandyseal as a place that she had heard of, and felt some curiosity to see. The same day — bent on pleasing her, careless where he lived now, at home or abroad — he wrote to engage rooms at the hotel.

A time followed, during which they were obliged to wait until rooms were free. In this interval, brooding over the melancholy absence of a friend or relative in whom she could confide, her morbid dread of the future decided her on completing the parallel between herself and that other lost creature of whom she had read. Sydney opened communication anonymously with the Benedictine community at Sandyseal.

She addressed the Mother Superior; telling the truth about herself with but one concealment, the concealment of names. She revealed her isolated position among her fellow-creatures; she declared her fervent desire to repent of her wickedness, and to lead a religious life; she acknowledged her misfortune in having been brought up by persons careless of religion, and she confessed to having attended a Protestant place of worship, as a mere matter of form connected with the duties of a teacher at a school. “The religion of any Christian woman who will help me to be more like herself,” she wrote, “is the religion to which I am willing and eager to belong. If I come to you in my distress, will you receive me?” To that simple appeal, she added a request that an answer might be addressed to “S.W., Post-office, Sandyseal.”

When Captain Bennydeck and Sydney Westerfield passed each other as strangers, in the hall of the hotel, that letter had been posted in London a week since.

The servant showed “Mr. and Mrs. Herbert” into their sitting-room, and begged that they would be so good as to wait for a few minutes, while the other rooms were being prepared for them.

Sydney seated herself in silence. She was thinking of her letter, and wondering whether a reply was waiting for her at the post-office.

Moving toward the window to look at the view, Herbert paused to examine some prints hanging on the walls, which were superior as works of art to the customary decorations of a room at a hotel. If he had gone straight to the window he might have seen his divorced wife, his child, and his wife’s mother, getting into the carriage which took them to the railway station.

“Come, Sydney,” he said, “and look at the sea.”

She joined him wearily, with a faint smile. It was a calm, sunny day. Bathing machines were on the beach; children were playing here and there; and white sails of pleasure boats were visible in the offing. The dullness of Sandyseal wore a quiet homely aspect which was pleasant to the eyes of strangers. Sydney said, absently, “I think I shall like the place.” And Herbert added: “Let us hope that the air will make you feel stronger.” He meant it and said it kindly — but, instead of looking at her while he spoke, he continued to look at the view. A woman sure of her position would not have allowed this trifling circumstance, even if she had observed it, to disturb her. Sydney thought of the day in London when he had persisted in looking out at the street, and returned in silence to her chair.

Had he been so unfortunate as to offend her? And in what way? As that doubt occurred to Herbert his mind turned to Catherine.
She
never took offense at trifles; a word of kindness from him, no matter how unimportant it might be, always claimed affectionate acknowledgment in the days when he was living with his wife. In another moment he had dismissed that remembrance, and could trust himself to return to Sydney.

“If you find that Sandyseal confirms your first impression,” he said, “let me know it in time, so that I may make arrangements for a longer stay. I have only taken the rooms here for a fortnight.”

“Thank you, Herbert; I think a fortnight will be long enough.”

“Long enough for you?” he asked.

Her morbid sensitiveness mistook him again; she fancied there was an undernote of irony in his tone.

“Long enough for both of us,” she replied.

He drew a chair to her side. “Do you take it for granted,” he said, smiling, “that I shall get tired of the place first?”

She shrank, poor creature, even from his smile. There was, as she thought, something contemptuous in the good-humour of it.

“We have been to many places,” she reminded him, “and we have got tired of them together.”

“Is that my fault?”

“I didn’t say it was.”

He got up and approached the bell. “I think the journey has a little over-tired you,” he resumed. “Would you like to go to your room?”

“I will go to my room, if you wish it.”

He waited a little, and answered her as quietly as ever. “What I really wish,” he said, “is that we had consulted a doctor while we were in London. You seem to be very easily irritated of late. I observe a change in you, which I willingly attribute to the state of your health — ”

She interrupted him. “What change do you mean?”

“It’s quite possible I may be mistaken, Sydney. But I have more than once, as I think, seen something in your manner which suggests that you distrust me.”

“I distrust the evil life we are leading,” she burst out, “and I see the end of it coming. Oh, I don’t blame you! You are kind and considerate, you do your best to hide it; but you have lived long enough with me to regret the woman whom you have lost. You begin to feel the sacrifice you have made — and no wonder. Say the word, Herbert, and I release you.”

“I will never say the word!”

She hesitated — first inclined, then afraid, to believe him. “I have grace enough left in me,” she went on, “to feel the bitterest repentance for the wrong that I have done to Mrs. Linley. When it ends, as it must end, in our parting, will you ask your wife — ?”

Even his patience began to fail him; he refused — firmly, not angrily — to hear more. “She is no longer my wife,” he said.

Sydney’s bitterness and Sydney’s penitence were mingled, as opposite emotions only
can
be mingled in a woman’s breast. “Will you ask your wife to forgive you?” she persisted.

“After we have been divorced at her petition?” He pointed to the window as he said it. “Look at the sea. If I was drowning out yonder, I might as well ask the sea to forgive me.”

He produced no effect on her. She ignored the Divorce; her passionate remorse asserted itself as obstinately as ever. “Mrs. Linley is a good woman,” she insisted; “Mrs. Linley is a Christian woman.”

“I have lost all claim on her — even the claim to remember her virtues,” he answered, sternly. “No more of it, Sydney! I am sorry I have disappointed you; I am sorry if you are weary of me.”

At those last words her manner changed. “Wound me as cruelly as you please,” she said, humbly. “I will try to bear it.”

“I wouldn’t wound you for the world! Why do you persist in distressing me? Why do you feel suspicion of me which I have not deserved?” He stopped, and held out his hand. “Don’t let us quarrel, Sydney. Which will you do? Keep your bad opinion of me, or give me a fair trial?”

She loved him dearly; she was so young — and the young are so ready to hope! Still, she struggled against herself. “Herbert! is it your pity for me that is speaking now?”

He left her in despair. “It’s useless!” he said, sadly. “Nothing will conquer your inveterate distrust.”

She followed him. With a faint cry of entreaty she made him turn to her, and held him in a trembling embrace, and rested her head on his bosom. “Forgive me — be patient with me — love me.” That was all she could say.