Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1447 page)

“You will tell me why it is now so much more terrible. Meantime, I find that the cabman was told to drive to Victoria. That is all I know. I have no doubt, however, but that she has gone back to her husband. She has been in a disturbed, despondent condition ever since she arrived in London. Mr. Mountjoy has been as kind as usual: but he has not been able to chase away her sadness. Whether she was fretting after her husband, or whether — but this I hardly think — she was comparing the man she had lost with the man she had taken — but I do not know. All I do know is that she has been uneasy ever since she came from France, and what I believe is that she has been reproaching herself with leaving her husband without good cause.”

“Good cause!” echoed Fanny. “Oh! good gracious! If she only knew, there’s cause enough to leave a hundred husbands.”

“Nothing seemed to rouse her,” Mrs. Vimpany continued, without regarding the interruption. “I went with her to the farm to see her former maid, Rhoda. The girl’s health is re-established; she is engaged to marry the farmer’s brother. Lady Harry was kind, and said the most pleasant things; she even pulled off one of her prettiest rings and gave it to the girl. But I could see that it was an effort for her to appear interested — her thoughts were with her husband all the time. I was sure it would end in this way, and I am not in the least surprised. But what will Mr. Mountjoy say when he opens the letter?”

“Back to her husband!” Fanny repeated. “Oh! what shall we do?”

“Tell me what you mean. What has happened?”

“I must tell you. I thought I would tell Mr. Mountjoy first: but I must tell you, although — ” She stopped.

“Although it concerns my husband. Never mind that consideration — go on.” Fanny told the story from the beginning.

When she had finished, Mrs. Vimpany looked towards the bedroom door. “Thank God!” she said, “that you told this story to me instead of to Mr. Mountjoy. At all events, it gives me time to warn you not to tell him what you have told me. We can do nothing. Meantime, there is one thing you must do — go away. Do not let Mr. Mountjoy find you here. He must not learn your story. If he hears what has happened and reads her letter, nothing will keep him from following her to Passy. He will see that there is every prospect of her being entangled in this vile conspiracy, and he will run any risk in the useless attempt to save her. He is too weak to bear the journey — far too weak for the violent emotions that will follow; and, oh! how much too weak to cope with my husband — as strong and as crafty as he is unprincipled!

“Then, what, in Heaven’s name, are we to do?”

“Anything — anything — rather than suffer Mr. Mountjoy, in his weak state, to interfere between man and wife.”

“Yes — yes — but such a man! Mrs. Vimpany, he was present when the Dane was poisoned. He
knew
that the man was poisoned. He sat in the chair, his face white, and he said nothing. Oh! It was as much as I could do not to rush out and dash the glass from his hands. Lord Harry said nothing.”

“My dear, do you not understand what you have got to do?”

Fanny made no reply.

“Consider — my husband — -Lord Harry — neither of them knows that you were present. You can return with the greatest safety; and then whatever happens, you will be at hand to protect my lady. Consider, again, as her maid, you can be with her always — in her own room; at night; everywhere and at all times; while Mr. Mountjoy could only be with her now and then, and at the price of not quarrelling with her husband.”

“Yes,” said Fanny.

“And you are strong, and Mr. Mountjoy is weak and ill.”

“You think that I should go back to Passy?”

“At once, without the delay of an hour. Lady Harry started last night. Do you start this evening. She will thus have you with her twenty-four hours after her arrival.”

Fanny rose.

“I will go,” she said. “It terrifies me even to think of going back to that awful cottage with that dreadful man. Yet I will go. Mrs. Vimpany, I know that it will be of no use. Whatever is going to happen now will happen without any power of mine to advance or to prevent. I am certain that my journey will prove useless. But I will go. Yes, I will go this evening.”

Then, with a final promise to write as soon as possible — as soon as there should be anything to communicate — Fanny went away.

Mrs. Vimpany, alone, listened. From the bedroom came no sound at all. Mr. Mountjoy slept still. When he should be strong enough it would be time to let him know what had been done. But she sat thinking — thinking — even when one has the worst husband in the world, and very well knows his character, it is disagreeable to hear such a story as Fanny had told that wife this morning.

CHAPTER LII

THE DEAD MAN’S PHOTOGRAPH

“HE is quite dead,” said the doctor, with one finger on the man’s pulse and another lifting his eyelid. “He is dead. I did not look for so speedy an end. It is not half an hour since I left him breathing peacefully. Did he show signs of consciousness?”

“No, sir; I found him dead.”

“This morning he was cheerful. It is not unusual in these complaints. I have observed it in many cases of my own experience. On the last morning of life, at the very moment when Death is standing on the threshold with uplifted dart, the patient is cheerful and even joyous: he is more hopeful than he has felt for many months: he thinks — nay, he is sure — that he is recovering: he says he shall be up and about before long: he has not felt so strong since the beginning of his illness. Then Death strikes him, and he falls.” He made this remark in a most impressive manner.

“Nothing remains,” he said, “but to certify the cause of death and to satisfy the proper forms and authorities. I charge myself with this duty. The unfortunate young man belonged to a highly distinguished family. I will communicate with his friends and forward his papers. One last office I can do for him. For the sake of his family, nurse, I will take a last photograph of him as he lies upon his death-bed.” Lord Harry stood in the doorway, listening with an aching and a fearful heart. He dared not enter the chamber. It was the Chamber of Death. What was his own part in calling the Destroying Angel who is at the beck and summons of every man — even the meanest? Call him and he comes. Order him to strike — and he obeys. But under penalties.

The doctor’s prophecy, then, had come true. But in what way and by what agency? The man was dead. What was his own share in the man’s death? He knew when the Dane was brought into the house that he was brought there to die. As the man did not die, but began to recover fast, he had seen in the doctor’s face that the man would have to die. He had heard the doctor prophesy out of his medical knowledge that the man would surely die; and then, after the nurse had been sent away because her patient required her services no longer, he had seen the doctor give the medicine which burned the patient’s throat. What was that medicine? Not only had it burned his throat, but it caused him to fall into a deep sleep, in which his heart ceased to beat and his blood ceased to flow.

He turned away and walked out of the cottage. For an hour he walked along the road. Then he stopped and walked back. Ropes drew him; he could no longer keep away. He felt as if something must have happened. Possibly he would find the doctor arrested and the police waiting for himself, to be charged as an accomplice or a principal.

He found no such thing. The doctor was in the salon, with letters and official forms before him. He looked up cheerfully.

“My English friend,” he said, “the unexpected end of this young Irish gentleman is a very melancholy affair. I have ascertained the name of the family solicitors and have written to them. I have also written to his brother as the head of the house. I find also, by examination of his papers, that his life is insured — the amount is not stated, but I have communicated the fact of the death. The authorities — they are, very properly, careful in such matters — have received the necessary notices and forms: to-morrow, all legal forms having been gone through, we bury the deceased.”

“So soon?”

“So soon? In these eases of advanced pulmonary disease the sooner the better. The French custom of speedy interment may be defended as more wholesome than our own. On the other hand, I admit that it has its weak points. Cremation is, perhaps, the best and only method of removing the dead which is open to no objections except one. I mean, of course, the chance that the deceased may have met with his death by means of poison. But such cases are rare, and, in most instances, would be detected by the medical man in attendance before or at the time of death. I think we need not —
 
— My dear friend, you look ill. Are you upset by such a simple thing as the death of a sick man? Let me prescribe for you. A glass of brandy neat. So,” he went into the
salle ‘a manger
and returned with his medicine. “Take that. Now let us talk.” The doctor continued his conversation in a cheerfully scientific strain, never alluding to the conspiracy or to the consequences which might follow. He told hospital stories bearing on deaths sudden and unexpected; some of them he treated in a jocular vein. The dead man in the next room was a Case: he knew of many similar and equally interesting Cases. When one has arrived at looking upon a dead man as a Case, there is little fear of the ordinary human weakness which makes us tremble in the awful presence of death.

Presently steps were heard outside. The doctor rose and left the room — but returned in a few minutes.

“The
croque-morts
have come,” he said. “They are with the nurse engaged upon their business. It seems revolting to the outside world. To them it is nothing but the daily routine of work. By-the-way, I took a photograph of his lordship in the presence of the nurse. Unfortunately — but look at it —
 
— ”

“It is the face of the dead man” — Lord Harry turned away. “I don’t want to see it. I cannot bear to see it. You forget — I was actually present when — ”

“Not when he died. Come, don’t be a fool. What I was going to say was this: The face is no longer in the least like you. Nobody who ever saw you once even would believe that this is your face. The creature — he has given us an unconscionable quantity of trouble — was a little like you when he first came. I was wrong in supposing that this likeness was permanent. Now he is dead, he is not in the least like you. I ought to have remembered that the resemblance would fade away and disappear in death. Come and look at him.”

“No, no.”

“Weakness! Death restores to every man his individuality. No two men are like in death, though they may be like in life. Well. It comes to this. We are going to bury Lord Harry Norland to-morrow, and we must have a photograph of him as he lay on his deathbed.”

“Well?”

“Well, my friend, go upstairs to your own room, and I will follow with the camera.”

In a quarter of an hour he was holding the glass against his sleeve.

“Admirable!” he said. “The cheek a little sunken — that was the effect of the chalk and the adjustment of the shadows — the eyes closed, the face white, the hands composed. It is admirable! Who says that we cannot make the sun tell lies?”

As soon as he could get a print of the portrait, he gave it to Lord Harry.

“There,” he said, “we shall get a better print to-morrow. This is the first copy.”

He had mounted it on a frame of card, and had written under it the name once borne by the dead man, with the date of his death. The picture seemed indeed that of a dead man. Lord Harry shuddered.

“There,” he said, “everything else has been of no use to us — the presence of the sick man — the suspicions of the nurse — his death — even his death — has been of no use to us. We might have been spared the memory — the awful memory — of this death!”

“You forget, my English friend, that a dead body was necessary for us. We had to bury somebody. Why not the man Oxbye?”

CHAPTER LIII

THE WIFE’S RETURN

OF course Mrs. Vimpany was quite right. Iris had gone back to her husband. She arrived, in fact, at the cottage in the evening just before dark — in the falling day, when some people are more than commonly sensitive to sights and sounds, and when the eyes are more apt than at other times to be deceived by strange appearances. Iris walked into the garden, finding no one there. She opened the door with her own key and let herself in. The house struck her as strangely empty and silent. She opened the dining-room door: no one was there. Like all French dining-rooms, it was used for no other purpose than for eating, and furnished with little more than the barest necessaries. She closed the door and opened that of the salon: that also was empty. She called her husband: there was no answer. She called the name of the cook: there was no answer. It was fortunate that she did not open the door of the spare room, for there lay the body of the dead man. She went upstairs to her husband’s room. That too was empty. But there was something lying on the table — a photograph. She took it up. Her face became white suddenly and swiftly. She shrieked aloud, then drooped the picture and fell fainting to the ground. For the photograph was nothing less than that of her husband, dead in his white graveclothes, his hands composed, his eyes closed, his cheek waxen.