Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1699 page)

Her sisters agreed with her. The first chance their clever stepmother had given them of asserting their importance against hers was now in their hands. Their jealous hatred of Lady Winwood assumed the mask of Duty — duty toward an outraged and deceived fellow-creature. Could any earthly motive be purer than that? “Tell him, Amelia!” cried the two young ladies, with the headlong recklessness of the sex which only stops to think when the time for reflection has gone by.

A vague sense of something wrong began to stir uneasily in Turlington’s mind.

“Don’t let me hurry you,” he said, “but if you really have anything to tell me — ”

Miss Amelia summoned her courage, and began.

“We have something very dreadful to tell you,” she said, interrupting him. “You have been presented in this house, Mr. Turlington, as a gentleman engaged to marry Lady Winwood’s cousin. Miss Natalie Graybrooke.” She paused there — at the outset of the disclosure. A sudden change of expression passed over Turlington’s face, which daunted her for the moment. “We have hitherto understood,” she went on, “that you were to be married to that young lady early in next month.”

“Well?”

He could say that one word. Looking at their pale faces, and their eager eyes, he could say no more.

“Take care!” whispered Dorothea, in her sister’s ear. “Look at him, Amelia! Not too soon.”

Amelia went on more carefully.

“We have just returned from a musical meeting,” she said. “One of the ladies there was an acquaintance, a former school-fellow of ours. She is the wife of the rector of St. Columb Major — a large church, far from this — at the East End of London.”

“I know nothing about the woman or the church,” interposed Turlington, sternly.

“I must beg you to wait a little. I can’t tell you what I want to tell you unless I refer to the rector’s wife. She knows Lady Winwood by name. And she heard of Lady Winwood recently under very strange circumstances — circumstances connected with a signature in one of the books of the church.”

Turlington lost his self-control. “You have got something against my Natalie,” he burst out; “I know it by your whispering, I see it in your looks! Say it at once in plain words.”

There was no trifling with him now. In plain words Amelia said it.

There was silence in the room. They could hear the sound of passing footsteps in the street. He stood perfectly still on the spot where they had struck him dumb by the disclosure, supporting himself with his right hand laid on the head of a sofa near him. The sisters drew back horror-struck into the furthest corner of the room. His face turned them cold. Through the mute misery which it had expressed at first, there appeared, slowly forcing its way to view, a look of deadly vengeance which froze them to the soul. They whispered feverishly one to the other, without knowing what they were talking of, without hearing their own voices. One of them said, “Ring the bell!” Another said, “Offer him something, he will faint.” The third shuddered, and repeated, over and over again, “Why did we do it? Why did we do it?”

He silenced them on the instant by speaking on his side. He came on slowly, by a step at a time, with the big drops of agony falling slowly over his rugged face. He said, in a hoarse whisper, “Write me down the name of the church — there.” He held out his open pocketbook to Amelia while he spoke. She steadied herself, and wrote the address. She tried to say a word to soften him. The word died on her lips. There was a light in his eyes as they looked at her which transfigured his face to something superhuman and devilish. She turned away from him, shuddering.

He put the book back in his pocket, and passed his handkerchief over his face. After a moment of indecision, he suddenly and swiftly stole out of the room, as if he was afraid of their calling somebody in, and stopping him. At the door he turned round for a moment, and said, “You will hear how this ends. I wish you good-morning.”

The door closed on him. Left by themselves, they began to realize it. They thought of the consequences when his back was turned and it was too late.

The Graybrookes! Now he knew it, what would become of the Graybrookes? What would he do when he got back? Even at ordinary times — when he was on his best behavior — he was a rough man. What would happen? Oh, good God! what would happen when he and Natalie next stood face to face? It was a lonely house — Natalie had told them about it — no neighbours near; nobody by to interfere but the weak old father and the maiden aunt. Something ought to be done. Some steps ought to be taken to warn them. Advice — who could give advice? Who was the first person who ought to be told of what had happened? Lady Winwood? No! even at that crisis the sisters still shrank from their stepmother — still hated her with the old hatred! Not a word to
her!
They owed no duty to
her!
Who else could they appeal to? To their father? Yes! There was the person to advise them. In the meanwhile, silence toward their stepmother — silence toward every one till their father came back!

They waited and waited. One after another the precious hours, pregnant with the issues of life and death, followed each other on the dial. Lady Winwood returned alone. She had left her husband at the House of Lords. Dinner-time came, and brought with it a note from his lordship. There was a debate at the House. Lady Winwood and his daughters were not to wait dinner for him.

TENTH SCENE.

Green Anchor Lane.

An hour later than the time at which he had been expected, Richard Turlington appeared at his office in the city.

He met beforehand all the inquiries which the marked change in him must otherwise have provoked, by announcing that he was ill. Before he proceeded to business, he asked if anybody was waiting to see him. One of the servants from Muswell Hill was waiting with another parcel for Miss Lavinia, ordered by telegram from the country that morning. Turlington (after ascertaining the servant’s name) received the man in his private room. He there heard, for the first time, that Launcelot Linzie had been lurking in the grounds (exactly as he had supposed) on the day when the lawyer took his instructions for the Settlement and the Will.

In two hours more Turlington’s work was completed. On leaving the office — as soon as he was out of sight of the door — he turned eastward, instead of taking the way that led to his own house in town. Pursuing his course, he entered the labyrinth of streets which led, in that quarter of East London, to the unsavory neighbourhood of the river-side.

By this time his mind was made up. The forecast shadow of meditated crime traveled before him already, as he threaded his way among his fellow-men.

He had been to the vestry of St. Columb Major, and had satisfied himself that he was misled by no false report. There was the entry in the Marriage Register. The one unexplained mystery was the mystery of Launce’s conduct in permitting his wife to return to her father’s house. Utterly unable to account for this proceeding, Turlington could only accept facts as they were, and determine to make the most of his time, while the woman who had deceived him was still under his roof. A hideous expression crossed his face as he realized the idea that he had got her (unprotected by her husband) in his house. “When Launcelot Linzie
does
come to claim her,” he said to himself, “he shall find I have been even with him.” He looked at his watch. Was it possible to save the last train and get back that night? No — the last train had gone. Would she take advantage of his absence to escape? He had little fear of it. She would never have allowed her aunt to send him to Lord Winwood’s house, if she had felt the slightest suspicion of his discovering the truth in that quarter. Returning by the first train the next morning, he might feel sure of getting back in time. Meanwhile he had the hours of the night before him. He could give his mind to the serious question that must be settled before he left London — the question of repaying the forty thousand pounds. There was but one way of getting the money now. Sir Joseph had executed his Will; Sir Joseph’s death would leave his sole executor and trustee (the lawyer had said it!) master of his fortune. Turlington determined to be master of it in four-and-twenty hours — striking the blow, without risk to himself, by means of another hand. In the face of the probabilities, in the face of the facts, he had now firmly persuaded himself that Sir Joseph was privy to the fraud that had been practiced on him. The Marriage-Settlement, the Will, the presence of the family at his country house — all these he believed to be so many stratagems invented to keep him deceived until the last moment. The truth was in those words which he had overheard between Sir Joseph and Launce — and in Launce’s presence (privately encouraged, no doubt) at Muswell Hill. “Her father shall pay me for it doubly: with his purse and with his life.” With that thought in his heart, Richard Turlington wound his way through the streets by the river-side, and stopped at a blind alley called Green Anchor Lane, infamous to this day as the chosen resort of the most abandoned wretches whom London can produce.

The policeman at the corner cautioned him as he turned into the alley. “They won’t hurt
me!
” he answered, and walked on to a public-house at the bottom of the lane.

The landlord at the door silently recognised him, and led the way in. They crossed a room filled with sailors of all nations drinking; ascended a staircase at the back of the house, and stopped at the door of the room on the second floor. There the landlord spoke for the first time. “He has outrun his allowance, sir, as usual. You will find him with hardly a rag on his back. I doubt if he will last much longer. He had another fit of the horrors last night, and the doctor thinks badly of him.” With that introduction he opened the door, and Turlington entered the room.

On the miserable bed lay a gray-headed old man of gigantic stature, with nothing on him but a ragged shirt and a pair of patched, filthy trousers. At the side of the bed, with a bottle of gin on the rickety table between them, sat two hideous leering, painted monsters, wearing the dress of women. The smell of opium was in the room, as well as the smell of spirits. At Turlington’s appearance, the old man rose on the bed and welcomed him with greedy eyes and outstretched hand.

“Money, master!” he called out hoarsely. “A crown piece in advance, for the sake of old times!”

Turlington turned to the women without answering, purse in hand.

“His clothes are at the pawnbroker’s, of course. How much?”

“Thirty shillings.”

“Bring them here, and be quick about it. You will find it worth your while when you come back.”

The women took the pawnbroker’s tickets from the pockets of the man’s trousers and hurried out.

Turlington closed the door, and seated himself by the bedside. He laid his hand familiarly on the giant’s mighty shoulder, looked him full in the face, and said, in a whisper,

“Thomas Wildfang!”

The man started, and drew his huge hairy hand across his eyes, as if in doubt whether he was waking or sleeping. “It’s better than ten years, master, since you called me by my name. If I am Thomas Wildfang, what are you?”

“Your captain, once more.”

Thomas Wildfang sat up on the side of the bed, and spoke his next words cautiously in Turlington’s ear.

“Another man in the way?”

“Yes.”

The giant shook his bald, bestial head dolefully. “Too late. I’m past the job. Look here.”

He held up his hand, and showed it trembling incessantly. “I’m an old man,” he said, and let his hand drop heavily again on the bed beside him.

Turlington looked at the door, and whispered back,

“The man is as old as you are. And the money is worth having.”

“How much?”

“A hundred pounds.”

The eyes of Thomas Wildfang fastened greedily on Turlington’s face. “Let’s hear,” he said. “Softly, captain. Let’s hear.”