Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1639 page)

I have a mania. Is it saving money? No. Good living? No. Music? Smoking? Angling? Pottery? Pictures? No, no, no — nothing of the selfish sort. My mania is as amiable as myself: it contemplates nothing less than the future happiness of all the single ladies of my acquaintance. I call them My Spinsters; and the one industrious object of my idle existence is to help them to a matrimonial settlement in life. In my own youth I missed the chance of getting a wife, as I have always firmly believed, for want of meeting with a tender-hearted old gentleman like myself to help me to the necessary spinster.

It is possibly this reflection which originally led to the formation of the benevolent mania that now possesses me. Perhaps sheer idleness, a gallant turn of mind, and living in a small country town, have had something to do with it also. You see I shirk nothing. I do not attempt any deception as to the motive which induces me to call you together. I appear before you in the character of an amateur matrimonial agent having a few choice spinsters to dispose of; and I can wait patiently, my brisk young bachelor friends, until I find that you are ready to make me a bid.

Shall we proceed at once to business? Shall we try some soft and sentimental spinsters to begin with? I am anxious to avoid mistakes at the outset, and I think softness and sentiment are perhaps the safest attractions to start upon. Let us begin with the six unmarried sisters of my friend Mr. Bettifer.

I became acquainted, gentlemen, with Mr. Bettifer in our local reading-rooms, immediately after he came to settle in my neighbourhood. He was then a very young man, in delicate health, with a tendency to melancholy and a turn for metaphysics. I profited by his invitation as soon as he was kind enough to ask me to call on him; and I found that he lived with his six sisters, under the following agreeable circumstances.

On the morning of my visit I was shown into a very long room, with a piano at one end of it and an easel at another. Mr. Bettifer was alone at his writing-desk when I came in. I apologized for interrupting him, but he very politely assured me that my presence acted as an inestimable relief to his mind, which had been stretched — to use his own strong language — on the metaphysical rack all the morning. He gave his forehead a violent rub as he mentioned this circumstance, and we sat down and looked seriously at one another in silence. Though not at all a bashful old man, I began, nevertheless, to feel a little confused at this period of the interview.

“I know no question so embarrassing,” began Mr. Bettifer, by way of starting the talk pleasantly, “as the question on which I have been engaged this morning — I refer to the subject of our own Personality. Here am I, and there are you — let us say two Personalities. Are we a permanent, or are we a transient thing? There is the problem, my dear sir, which I have been vainly trying to solve since breakfast-time. Can you (metaphysically speaking) be one and the same person, for example, for two moments together, any more than two successive moments can be one and the same moment? — My sister Kitty.”

The door opened as my host propounded this alarming dilemma, and a tall young lady glided serenely into the room. I rose and bowed. The tall young lady sank softly into a chair opposite me. Mr. Bettifer went on:

“You may tell me that our substance is constantly changing. I grant you that; but do you get me out of the difficulty? Not the least in the world. For it is not substance, but — My sister Maria.”

The door opened again. A second tall young lady glided in, and sank into a chair by her sister’s side. Mr. Bettifer went on:

“As I was about to remark, it is not substance, but consciousness, which constitutes Personality. Now, what is the nature of consciousness? — My sisters Emily and Jane.”

The door opened for the third time, and two tall young ladies glided in, and sank into two chairs by the sides of their two sisters. Mr. Bettifer went on:

“The nature of consciousness I take to be that it cannot be the same in any two moments, nor, consequently, the personality constituted by it. Do you grant me that?”

Lost in metaphysical bewilderment, I granted it directly. Just as I said yes, the door opened again; a fifth tall young lady glided in, and assisted in lengthening the charming row formed by her sisters. Mr. Bettifer murmured indicatively, “My sister Elizabeth,” and made a note of what I had granted him on the manuscript by his side.

“What lovely weather,” I remarked, to change the conversation.

“Beautiful!” answered five melodious voices.

The door opened again.

“Beautiful, indeed!” said a sixth melodious voice.

“My sister Harriet,” said Mr. Bettifer, finishing his note of my metaphysical admission.

They all sat in one fascinating row. It was like being at a party. I felt uncomfortable in my coloured trousers — more uncomfortable still, when Mr. Bettifer’s sixth sister begged that she might not interrupt our previous conversation.

“We are so fond of metaphysical subjects,” said Miss Elizabeth.

“Except that we think them rather exhausting for dear Alfred,” said Miss Jane.

“Dear Alfred!” repeated the Misses Emily, Maria and Kitty, in mellifluous chorus.

Not having a heart of stone, I was so profoundly touched that I would have tried to resume the subject. But Mr. Bettifer waved his hand impatiently, and declared that my admission had increased the difficulties of the original question until they had become quite insuperable. I had, it appeared, innocently driven him to the conclusion that our present self was not our yesterday’s self, but another self mistaken for it, which, in its turn, had no connection with the self of to-morrow. As this certainly sounded rather unsatisfactory, I agreed with Mr. Bettifer that we had exhausted that particular view of the subject, and that we had better defer starting another until a future opportunity. An embarrassing pause followed our renunciation of metaphysics for the day. Miss Elizabeth broke the silence by asking me if I was fond of pictures; and before I could say Yes, Miss Harriet followed her by asking me if I was fond of music. “Will you show your picture, dear?” said Miss Elizabeth to Miss Harriet.

“Will you sing, dear?” said Miss Harriet to Miss Elizabeth.

“Do, dear!” said the Misses Jane and Emily to Miss Elizabeth.

“Do, dear!” said the Misses Maria and Kitty to Miss Harriet.

There was an artless symmetry and balance of affection in all that these six sensitive creatures said and did. The fair Elizabeth was followed to the end of the room where the piano was, by Jane and Emily. The lovely Harriet was attended in the direction of the easel by Maria and Kitty. I went to see the picture first.

The scene was the bottom of the sea; and the subject, “A Forsaken Mermaid.” The unsentimental, or fishy lower half of the sea-nymph was dexterously hidden in a coral grove before which she was sitting, in an atmosphere of limpid blue water. She had beautiful long green hair, and was shedding those solid tears which we always see in pictures and never in real life. Groups of pet fishes circled around her with their eyes fixed mournfully on their forlorn mistress. A line at the top of the picture, and a strip of blue above it, represented the surface of the ocean and the sky; the monotony of this part of the composition being artfully broken by a receding golden galley with a purple sail, containing the fickle fisher-youth who had forsaken the mermaid. I had hardly had time to say what a beautiful picture it was, before Miss Maria put her handkerchief to her eyes, and, overcome by the pathetic nature of the scene portrayed, hurriedly left the room. Miss Kitty followed, to attend on and console her; and Miss Harriet, after covering up her picture with a sigh, followed to assist Miss Kitty. I began to doubt whether I ought not to have gone out next, to support all three; but Mr. Bettifer, who had hitherto remained in the background, lost in metaphysical speculation, came forward to remind me that the music was waiting to claim my admiration next.

“Excuse their excessive sensibility,” he said. “I have done my best to harden them and make them worldly; but it is not of the slightest use. Will you come to the piano?”

Miss Elizabeth began to sing immediately, with the attendant sylphs, Jane and Emily, on either side of her, to turn over the music.

The song was a ballad composition — music and words by the lovely singer herself. A lady was dreaming in an ancient castle; a dog was howling in a ruined courtyard; an owl was hooting in a neighbouring forest; a tyrant was striding in an echoing hall; and a page was singing among moonlit flowers. First five verses. Pause — and mournful symphony on the piano, in the minor key. Ballad resumed: The lady wakes with a scream. The tyrant loads his arquebus. The faithful page, hearing the scream among the moonlit flowers, advances to the castle. The dog gives a warning bark. The tyrant fires a chance shot in the darkness. The page welters in his blood. The lady dies of a broken heart. Miss Jane is so affected by the catastrophe that Miss Emily is obliged to lead her from the room; and Miss Elizabeth is so anxious about them both as to be forced to shut up the piano, and hasten after them, with a smelling bottle in her hand. Conclusion of the performance, and final exit of the six Miss Bettifers.

Tell yourselves off, my fortunate young bachelor friends, to the corresponding number of half a dozen, with your offers ready on your tongues, and your hearts thrown open to tender investigation, while favorable circumstances yet give you a chance. My boys, my eager boys, do you want pale cheeks, limpid eyes, swan-like necks, low waists, tall forms, and no money? You do — I know you do. Go, then, enviable youths — go tenderly — go immediately — go by sixes at a time, and try your luck with the Misses Bettifer!

Let me now appeal to other, and possibly to fewer tastes, by trying a sample of a new kind. It shall be something neither soft, yielding, nor hysterical this time. You who agree with the poet that

“Discourse may want an animated No,
To brush the surface and to make it flow — ”

you who like girls to have opinions of their own, and to play their parts spiritedly in the give and take of conversation, do me the favor to approach, and permit me to introduce you to the three Misses Cruttwell. At the same time, gentlemen, I must inform you, with my usual candor, that these spinsters are short, sharp, and on occasion, shrill. You must have a talent for arguing, and a knack at instantaneous definition, or you will find the Misses Cruttwell too much for you, and had better wait for my next sample. And yet for a certain peculiar class of customer these are really very choice spinsters. For instance, any unmarried legal gentleman, who would like to have his wits kept sharp for his profession by constant disputation, could not do better than address himself (as logically as possible) to one of the Misses Cruttwell. Perhaps my legal bachelor will be so obliging as to accompany me on a morning call?

It is a fine spring day, with a light air and plenty of round white clouds flying over the blue sky, when we pay our visit. We find the three young ladies in the morning-room. Miss Martha Cruttwell is fond of statistical subjects, and is annotating a pamphlet. Miss Barbara Cruttwell likes geology, and is filling a cabinet with ticketed bits of stone. Miss Charlotte Cruttwell has a manly taste for dogs, and is nursing two fat puppies on her lap. All three have florid complexions; all three have a habit of winking both eyes incessantly, and a way of wearing their hair very tight, and very far off their faces. All three acknowledge my young legal friend’s bow in — what may seem to him — a very short, sharp manner; and modestly refrain from helping him by saying a word to begin the conversation. He is, perhaps, unreasonably disconcerted by this, and therefore starts the talk weakly by saying that it is a fine day.

“Fine!” exclaims Miss Martha, with a look of amazement at her sister. “Fine!” with a stare of perplexity at my young legal friend. “Dear me! what do you mean, now, by a fine day?”

“We were just saying how cold it was,” says Miss Barbara.

“And how very like rain,” says Miss Charlotte, with a look at the white clouds outside, which happen to be obscuring the sun for a few minutes.

“But what do you mean, now, by a fine day?” persists Miss Martha.

My young legal friend is put on his mettle by this time, and answers with professional readiness:

“At this uncertain spring season, my definition of a fine day is a day on which you do not feel the want of your great-coat, your galoches, or your umbrella.”

“Oh, no,” says Miss Martha, “surely not! At least, that does not appear to me to be at all a definition of a fine day. Barbara? Charlotte?”