Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1435 page)

We took the next train to Paris, and turned our bit of paper into notes and gold. Never was there such a delightful companion as my husband, when he has got money in his pocket. After so much sorrow and anxiety, for weeks past, that memorable afternoon was like a glimpse of Paradise.

On the next morning, there was an end to my short-lived enjoyment of no more than the latter half of a day.

Watching her opportunity, Fanny Mere came to me while I was alone, carrying a thick letter in her hand. She held it before me with the address uppermost.

“Please to look at that,” she said.

The letter was directed (in Harry’s handwriting) to Mr. Vimpany, at a publishing office in London. Fanny next turned the envelope the other way.

“Look at this side,” she resumed.

The envelope was specially protected by a seal; bearing a device of my husband’s own invention; that is to say, the initials of his name (Harry Norland) surmounted by a star — his lucky star, as he paid me the compliment of calling it, on the day when he married me. I was thinking of that day now. Fanny saw me looking, with a sad heart, at the impression on the wax. She completely misinterpreted the direction taken by my thoughts.

“Tell me to do it, my lady,” she proceeded; “and I’ll open the letter.”

I looked at her. She showed no confusion. “I can seal it up again,” she coolly explained, “with a bit of fresh wax and my thimble. Perhaps Mr. Vimpany won’t be sober enough to notice it.”

“Do you know, Fanny, that you are making a dishonourable proposal to me?” I said.

“I know there’s nothing I can do to help you that I won’t do,” she answered; “and you know why. I have made a dishonourable proposal — have I? That comes quite naturally to a lost woman like me. Shall I tell you what Honour means? It means sticking at nothing, in your service. Please tell me to open the letter.”

“How did you come by the letter, Fanny?”

“My master gave it to me to put in the post.”

“Then, post it.”

The strange creature, so full of contraries — so sensitive at one time, so impenetrable at another — pointed again to the address.

“When the master writes to that man,” she went on — ”a long letter (if you will notice), and a sealed letter — your ladyship ought to see what is inside it. I haven’t a doubt myself that there’s writing under this seal which bodes trouble to you. The spare bedroom is empty. Do you want to have the doctor for your visitor again? Don’t tell me to post the letter, till I’ve opened it first.”

“I do tell you to post the letter.”

Fanny submitted, so far. But she had a new form of persuasion to try, before her reserves of resistance were exhausted. “If the doctor comes back,” she continued, “will your ladyship give me leave to go out, whenever I ask for it?”

This was surely presuming on my indulgence. “Are you not expecting a little too much?” I suggested — not unkindly.

“If you say that, my lady,” she answered, “I shall be obliged to ask you to suit yourself with another maid.”

There was a tone of dictation in this, which I found beyond endurance. In my anger, I said: “Leave me whenever you like.”

“I shall leave you when I’m dead — not before,” was the reply that I received. “But if you won’t let me have my liberty without going away from you, for a time, I must go — for your sake.”

(For my sake! Pray observe that.)

She went on:

“Try to see it, my lady, as I do! If we have the doctor with us again, I must be able to watch him.”

“Why?”

“Because he is your enemy, as I believe.”

“How can he hurt me, Fanny?”

“Through your husband, my lady, if he can do it in no other way. Mr. Vimpany shall have a spy at his heels. Dishonourable! oh, dishonourable again! Never mind. I don’t pretend to know what that villain means to do, if he and my lord get together again. But this I can tell you, if it’s in woman’s wit to circumvent him, here I am with my mind made up. With my mind, made up!” she repeated fiercely — and recovered on a sudden her customary character as a quiet well-trained servant, devoted to her duties. “I’ll take my master’s letter to the post now,” she said. “Is there anything your ladyship wants in the town?”

What do you think of Fanny Mere? Ought I to have treated this last offer of her services, as I treated her proposal to open the letter? I was not able to do it.

The truth is, I was so touched by her devotion to me, that I could not prevail on myself to mortify her by a refusal. I believe there may be a good reason for the distrust of the doctor which possesses her so strongly; and I feel the importance of having this faithful and determined woman for an ally. Let me hope that Mr. Vimpany’s return (if it is to take place) may be delayed until you can safely write, with your own hand, such a letter of wise advice as I sadly need.

In the meantime, give my love to Hugh, and say to this dear friend all that I might have said for myself, if I had been near him. But take care that his recovery is not retarded by anxiety for me. Pray keep him in ignorance of the doubts and fears with which I am now looking at the future. If I was not so fond of my husband, I should be easier in my mind. This sounds contradictory, but I believe you will understand it. For a while, my dear, good-bye.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE DOCTOR MEANS MISCHIEF

ON the day after Lord Harry’s description of the state of his mind reached London, a gentleman presented himself at the publishing office of Messrs. Boldside Brothers, and asked for the senior partner, Mr. Peter Boldside. When he sent in his card, it bore the name of “Mr. Vimpany.”

“To what fortunate circumstance am I indebted, sir, for the honour of your visit?” the senior partner inquired. His ingratiating manners, his genial smile, his roundly resonant voice, were personal advantages of which he made a merciless use. The literary customer who entered the office, hesitating before the question of publishing a work at his own expense, generally decided to pay the penalty when he encountered Mr. Peter Boldside.

“I want to inquire about the sale of my work,” Mr. Vimpany replied.

“Ah, doctor, you have come to the wrong man. You must go to my brother.”

Mr. Vimpany protested. “You mentioned the terms when I first applied to you,” he said, “and you signed the agreement.”

“That is in
my
department,” the senior partner gently explained. “And I shall write the cheque when, as we both hope, your large profits shall fall due. But our sales of works are in the department of my brother, Mr. Paul Boldside.” He rang a bell; a clerk appeared, and received his instructions: “Mr. Paul. Good-morning, doctor.”

Mr. Paul was, personally speaking, his brother repeated — without the deep voice, and without the genial smile. Conducted to the office of the junior partner, Mr. Vimpany found himself in the presence of a stranger, occupied in turning over the pages of a newspaper. When his name was announced, the publisher started, and handed his newspaper to the doctor.

“This is a coincidence,” he said. “I was looking, sir, for your name in the pages which I have just put into your hand. Surely the editor can’t have refused to publish your letter?”

Mr. Vimpany was sober, and therefore sad, and therefore (again) not to be trifled with by a mystifying reception. “I don’t understand you,” he answered gruffly. “What do you mean?”

“Is it possible that you have not seen last week’s number of the paper?” Mr. Paul asked. “And you a literary man!” He forthwith produced the last week’s number, and opened it at the right place. “Read that, sir,” he said, with something in his manner which looked like virtuous indignation.

Mr. Vimpany found himself confronted by a letter addressed to the editor. It was signed by an eminent physician, whose portrait had appeared in the first serial part of the new work — accompanied by a brief memoir of his life, which purported to be written by himself. Not one line of the autobiography (this celebrated person declared) had proceeded from his pen. Mr. Vimpany had impudently published an imaginary memoir, full of false reports and scandalous inventions — and this after he had been referred to a trustworthy source for the necessary particulars. Stating these facts, the indignant physician cautioned readers to beware of purchasing a work which, so far as he was concerned, was nothing less than a fraud on the public.

“If you can answer that letter, sir,” Mr. Paul Boldside resumed, “the better it will be, I can tell you, for the sale of your publication.”

Mr. Vimpany made a reckless reply: “I want to know how the thing sells. Never mind the letter.”

“Never mind the letter?” the junior partner repeated. “A positive charge of fraud is advanced by a man at the head of his profession against a work which
we
have published — and you say, Never mind the letter.”

The rough customer of the Boldsides struck his fist on the table. “Bother the letter! I insist on knowing what the sale is.”

Still preserving his dignity, Mr. Paul (like Mr. Peter) rang for the clerk, and briefly gave an order. “Mr. Vimpany’s account,” he said — and proceeded to admonish Mr. Vimpany himself.

“You appear, sir, to have no defence of your conduct to offer. Our firm has a reputation to preserve. When I have consulted with my brother, we shall be under the disagreeable necessity — ”

Here (as he afterwards told his brother) the publisher was brutally interrupted by the author:

“If you will have it,” said this rude man, “here it is in two words. The doctor’s portrait is the likeness of an ass. As he couldn’t do it himself, I wanted materials for writing his life. He referred me to the year of his birth, the year of his marriage, the year of this, that, and the other. Who cares about dates? The public likes to be tickled by personal statements. Very well — I tickled the public. There you have it in a nutshell.”

The clerk appeared at that auspicious moment, with the author’s account neatly exhibited under two sides: a Debtor side, which represented the expenditure of Hugh Mountjoy’s money; and a Creditor side, which represented (so far) Mr. Vimpany’s profits. Amount of these last: 3
l.
14
s.
10
d.

Mr. Vimpany tore up the account, threw the pieces in the face of Mr. Paul, and expressed his sentiments in one opprobrious word: “Swindlers!”

The publisher said: “You shall hear of us, sir, through our lawyer.”

And the author answered: “Go to the devil!”

Once out in the streets again, the first open door at which Mr. Vimpany stopped was the door of a tavern. He ordered a glass of brandy and water, and a cigar.

It was then the hour of the afternoon, between the time of luncheon and the time of dinner, when the business of a tavern is generally in a state of suspense. The dining-room was empty when Mr. Vimpany entered it: and the waiter’s unoccupied attention was in want of an object. Having nothing else to notice, he looked at the person who had just come in. The deluded stranger was drinking fiery potato-brandy, and smoking (at the foreign price) an English cigar. Would his taste tell him the melancholy truth? No: it seemed to matter nothing to him what he was drinking or what he was smoking. Now he looked angry, and now he looked puzzled; and now he took a long letter from his pocket, and read it in places, and marked the places with a pencil. “Up to some mischief,” was the waiter’s interpretation of these signs. The stranger ordered a second glass of grog, and drank it in gulps, and fell into such deep thought that he let his cigar go out. Evidently, a man in search of an idea. And, to all appearance, he found what he wanted on a sudden. In a hurry he paid his reckoning, and left his small change and his unfinished cigar on the table, and was off before the waiter could say, “Thank you.”

The next place at which he stopped was a fine house in a spacious square. A carriage was waiting at the door. The servant who opened the door knew him.