Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1676 page)

But, the simple pleasures and small jests of Cripple Corner were not destined to have a long life.  Underlying them from the first was a serious matter, which every member of the patriarchal family knew of, but which, by tacit agreement, all forbore to speak of.  Mr. Wilding’s health was in a bad way.

He might have overcome the shock he had sustained in the one great affection of his life, or he might have overcome his consciousness of being in the enjoyment of another man’s property; but the two together were too much for him.  A man haunted by twin ghosts, he became deeply depressed.  The inseparable spectres sat at the board with him, ate from his platter, drank from his cup, and stood by his bedside at night.  When he recalled his supposed mother’s love, he felt as though he had stolen it.  When he rallied a little under the respect and attachment of his dependants, he felt as though he were even fraudulent in making them happy, for that should have been the unknown man’s duty and gratification.

Gradually, under the pressure of his brooding mind, his body stooped, his step lost its elasticity, his eyes were seldom lifted from the ground.  He knew he could not help the deplorable mistake that had been made, but he knew he could not mend it; for the days and weeks went by, and no one claimed his name or his possessions.  And now there began to creep over him a cloudy consciousness of often-recurring confusion in his head.  He would unaccountably lose, sometimes whole hours, sometimes a whole day and night.  Once, his remembrance stopped as he sat at the head of the dinner-table, and was blank until daybreak.  Another time, it stopped as he was beating time to their singing, and went on again when he and his partner were walking in the court-yard by the light of the moon, half the night later.  He asked Vendale (always full of consideration, work, and help) how this was?  Vendale only replied, “You have not been quite well; that’s all.”  He looked for explanation into the faces of his people.  But they would put it off with “Glad to see you looking so much better, sir;” or “Hope you’re doing nicely now, sir;” in which was no information at all.

At length, when the partnership was but five months old, Walter Wilding took to his bed, and his housekeeper became his nurse.

“Lying here, perhaps you will not mind my calling you Sally, Mrs. Goldstraw?” said the poor wine-merchant.

“It sounds more natural to me, sir, than any other name, and I like it better.”

“Thank you, Sally.  I think, Sally, I must of late have been subject to fits.  Is that so, Sally?  Don’t mind telling me now.”

“It has happened, sir.”

“Ah!  That is the explanation!” he quietly remarked.  “Mr. Obenreizer, Sally, talks of the world being so small that it is not strange how often the same people come together, and come together at various places, and in various stages of life.  But it does seem strange, Sally, that I should, as I may say, come round to the Foundling to die.”

He extended his hand to her, and she gently took it.

“You are not going to die, dear Mr. Wilding.”

“So Mr. Bintrey said, but I think he was wrong.  The old child-feeling is coming back upon me, Sally.  The old hush and rest, as I used to fall asleep.”

After an interval he said, in a placid voice, “Please kiss me, Nurse,” and, it was evident, believed himself to be lying in the old Dormitory.

As she had been used to bend over the fatherless and motherless children, Sally bent over the fatherless and motherless man, and put her lips to his forehead, murmuring:

“God bless you!”

“God bless you!” he replied, in the same tone.

After another interval, he opened his eyes in his own character, and said: “Don’t move me, Sally, because of what I am going to say; I lie quite easily.  I think my time is come, I don’t know how it may appear to you, Sally, but — ”

Insensibility fell upon him for a few minutes; he emerged from it once more.

“ — I don’t know how it may appear to you, Sally, but so it appears to me.”

When he had thus conscientiously finished his favourite sentence, his time came, and he died.

ACT II.

VENDALE MAKES LOVE

The summer and the autumn passed.  Christmas and the New Year were at hand.

As executors honestly bent on performing their duty towards the dead, Vendale and Bintrey had held more than one anxious consultation on the subject of Wilding’s will.  The lawyer had declared, from the first, that it was simply impossible to take any useful action in the matter at all.  The only obvious inquiries to make, in relation to the lost man, had been made already by Wilding himself; with this result, that time and death together had not left a trace of him discoverable.  To advertise for the claimant to the property, it would be necessary to mention particulars — a course of proceeding which would invite half the impostors in England to present themselves in the character of the true Walter Wilding.  “If we find a chance of tracing the lost man, we will take it.  If we don’t, let us meet for another consultation on the first anniversary of Wilding’s death.”  So Bintrey advised.  And so, with the most earnest desire to fulfil his dead friend’s wishes, Vendale was fain to let the matter rest for the present.

Turning from his interest in the past to his interest in the future, Vendale still found himself confronting a doubtful prospect.  Months on months had passed since his first visit to Soho Square — and through all that time, the one language in which he had told Marguerite that he loved her was the language of the eyes, assisted, at convenient opportunities, by the language of the hand.

What was the obstacle in his way?  The one immovable obstacle which had been in his way from the first.  No matter how fairly the opportunities looked, Vendale’s efforts to speak with Marguerite alone ended invariably in one and the same result.  Under the most accidental circumstances, in the most innocent manner possible, Obenreizer was always in the way.

With the last days of the old year came an unexpected chance of spending an evening with Marguerite, which Vendale resolved should be a chance of speaking privately to her as well.  A cordial note from Obenreizer invited him, on New Year’s Day, to a little family dinner in Soho Square.  “We shall be only four,” the note said.  “We shall be only two,” Vendale determined, “before the evening is out!”

New Year’s Day, among the English, is associated with the giving and receiving of dinners, and with nothing more.  New Year’s Day, among the foreigners, is the grand opportunity of the year for the giving and receiving of presents.  It is occasionally possible to acclimatise a foreign custom.  In this instance Vendale felt no hesitation about making the attempt.  His one difficulty was to decide what his New Year’s gift to Marguerite should be.  The defensive pride of the peasant’s daughter — morbidly sensitive to the inequality between her social position and his — would be secretly roused against him if he ventured on a rich offering.  A gift, which a poor man’s purse might purchase, was the one gift that could be trusted to find its way to her heart, for the giver’s sake.  Stoutly resisting temptation, in the form of diamonds and rubies, Vendale bought a brooch of the filagree-work of Genoa — the simplest and most unpretending ornament that he could find in the jeweller’s shop.

He slipped his gift into Marguerite’s hand as she held it out to welcome him on the day of the dinner.

“This is your first New Year’s Day in England,” he said.  “Will you let me help to make it like a New Year’s Day at home?”

She thanked him, a little constrainedly, as she looked at the jeweller’s box, uncertain what it might contain.  Opening the box, and discovering the studiously simple form under which Vendale’s little keepsake offered itself to her, she penetrated his motive on the spot.  Her face turned on him brightly, with a look which said, “I own you have pleased and flattered me.”  Never had she been so charming, in Vendale’s eyes, as she was at that moment.  Her winter dress — a petticoat of dark silk, with a bodice of black velvet rising to her neck, and enclosing it softly in a little circle of swansdown — heightened, by all the force of contrast, the dazzling fairness of her hair and her complexion.  It was only when she turned aside from him to the glass, and, taking out the brooch that she wore, put his New Year’s gift in its place, that Vendale’s attention wandered far enough away from her to discover the presence of other persons in the room.  He now became conscious that the hands of Obenreizer were affectionately in possession of his elbows.  He now heard the voice of Obenreizer thanking him for his attention to Marguerite, with the faintest possible ring of mockery in its tone.  (“Such a simple present, dear sir! and showing such nice tact!”)  He now discovered, for the first time, that there was one other guest, and but one, besides himself, whom Obenreizer presented as a compatriot and friend.  The friend’s face was mouldy, and the friend’s figure was fat.  His age was suggestive of the autumnal period of human life.  In the course of the evening he developed two extraordinary capacities.  One was a capacity for silence; the other was a capacity for emptying bottles.

Madame Dor was not in the room.  Neither was there any visible place reserved for her when they sat down to table.  Obenreizer explained that it was “the good Dor’s simple habit to dine always in the middle of the day.  She would make her excuses later in the evening.”  Vendale wondered whether the good Dor had, on this occasion, varied her domestic employment from cleaning Obenreizer’s gloves to cooking Obenreizer’s dinner.  This at least was certain — the dishes served were, one and all, as achievements in cookery, high above the reach of the rude elementary art of England.  The dinner was unobtrusively perfect.  As for the wine, the eyes of the speechless friend rolled over it, as in solemn ecstasy.  Sometimes he said “Good!” when a bottle came in full; and sometimes he said “Ah!” when a bottle went out empty — and there his contributions to the gaiety of the evening ended.

Silence is occasionally infectious.  Oppressed by private anxieties of their own, Marguerite and Vendale appeared to feel the influence of the speechless friend.  The whole responsibility of keeping the talk going rested on Obenreizer’s shoulders, and manfully did Obenreizer sustain it.  He opened his heart in the character of an enlightened foreigner, and sang the praises of England.  When other topics ran dry, he returned to this inexhaustible source, and always set the stream running again as copiously as ever.  Obenreizer would have given an arm, an eye, or a leg to have been born an Englishman.  Out of England there was no such institution as a home, no such thing as a fireside, no such object as a beautiful woman.  His dear Miss Marguerite would excuse him, if he accounted for
her
attractions on the theory that English blood must have mixed at some former time with their obscure and unknown ancestry.  Survey this English nation, and behold a tall, clean, plump, and solid people!  Look at their cities!  What magnificence in their public buildings!  What admirable order and propriety in their streets!  Admire their laws, combining the eternal principle of justice with the other eternal principle of pounds, shillings, and pence; and applying the product to all civil injuries, from an injury to a man’s honour, to an injury to a man’s nose!  You have ruined my daughter — pounds, shillings, and pence!  You have knocked me down with a blow in my face — pounds, shillings, and pence!  Where was the material prosperity of such a country as
that
to stop?  Obenreizer, projecting himself into the future, failed to see the end of it.  Obenreizer’s enthusiasm entreated permission to exhale itself, English fashion, in a toast.  Here is our modest little dinner over, here is our frugal dessert on the table, and here is the admirer of England conforming to national customs, and making a speech!  A toast to your white cliffs of Albion, Mr. Vendale! to your national virtues, your charming climate, and your fascinating women! to your Hearths, to your Homes, to your Habeas Corpus, and to all your other institutions!  In one word — to England!  Heep-heep-heep! hooray!

Obenreizer’s voice had barely chanted the last note of the English cheer, the speechless friend had barely drained the last drop out of his glass, when the festive proceedings were interrupted by a modest tap at the door.  A woman-servant came in, and approached her master with a little note in her hand.  Obenreizer opened the note with a frown; and, after reading it with an expression of genuine annoyance, passed it on to his compatriot and friend.  Vendale’s spirits rose as he watched these proceedings.  Had he found an ally in the annoying little note?  Was the long-looked-for chance actually coming at last?