Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1746 page)

“The vile calumny which had asserted me to be mad was now revived by the wretches who were interested in stepping between me and my inheritance. A year ago, I was sent back to the asylum in which I had been last imprisoned. The pretense for confining me was found in an ‘act of violence’ (as it was called), which I had committed in a momentary outbreak of anger, and which it was acknowledged had led to no serious results. Having got me into the asylum, the conspirators proceeded to complete their work. A Commission in Lunacy was issued against me. It was held by one Commissioner, without a jury, and without the presence of a lawyer to assert my interests. By one man’s decision I was declared to be of unsound mind. The custody of my person, as well as the management of my estates, was confided to men chosen from among the conspirators who had declared me to be mad. I am here through the favor of the proprietor of the asylum, who has given me my holiday at the seaside, and who humanely trusts me with my liberty, as you see. At barely thirty years old, I am refused the free use of my money and the free management of my affairs. At barely thirty years old, I am officially declared to be a lunatic for life!”

VI.

HE paused; his head sank on his breast; his story was told.

I have repeated his words as nearly as I can remember them; but I can give no idea of the modest and touching resignation with which he spoke. To say that I pitied him with my whole heart, is to say nothing. I loved him with my whole heart — and I may acknowledge it now!

“Oh, Mr. Cameron,” I said, as soon as I could trust myself to speak, “can nothing be done to help you? Is there no hope?”

“There is always hope,” he answered, without raising his head. “I have to thank
you
, Miss Brading, for teaching me that.”

“To thank me?” I repeated. “How have I taught you to hope?”

“You have brightened my dreary life. When I am with you, all my bitter remembrances leave me. I am a happy man again; and a happy man can always hope. I dream now of finding what I have never yet had — a dear and devoted friend, who will rouse the energy that has sunk in me under the martyrdom that I have endured. Why do I submit to the loss of my rights and my liberty, without an effort to recover them? I was alone in the world until I met with you. I had no kind hand to raise me, no kind voice to encourage me. Shall I ever find the hand? Shall I ever hear the voice? When I am with you, the hope that you have taught me answers Yes. When I am by myself, the old despair comes back, and says No.”

He lifted his head for the first time. If I had not understood what his words meant, his look would have enlightened me. The tears came into my eyes; my heart heaved and fluttered wildly; my hands mechanically tore up and scattered the grass round me. The silence became unendurable. I spoke, hardly knowing what I was saying; tearing faster and faster at the poor harmless grass, as if my whole business in life was to pull up the greatest quantity in the shortest possible space of time!

“We have only known each other a little while,” I said; “and a woman is but a weak ally in such a terrible position as yours. But useless as I may be, count on me, now and always, as your friend — ”

He moved close to me before I could say more, and took my hand. He murmured in my ear,

“May I count on you one day as the nearest and dearest friend of all? Will you forgive me, Mary, if I own that I love you? You have taught me to love, as you have taught me to hope. It is in your power to lighten my hard lot.
You
can recompense me for all that I have suffered;
you
can rouse me to struggle for my freedom and my rights. Be the good angel of my life! Forgive me, love me, rescue me — be my wife!”

I don’t know how it happened. I found myself in his arms — and I answered him in a kiss. Taking all the circumstances into consideration, I dare say I was guilty, in accepting him, of the rashest act that ever a woman committed. Very good. I didn’t care then — I don’t care now. I was then, and I am now, the happiest woman living.

VII.

IT was necessary that either he or I should tell my father of what had passed between us. On reflection, I thought it best that I should make the disclosure. The day after the picnic, I repeated to my father Roland’s melancholy narrative, as a necessary preface to the announcement that I had promised to be Roland’s wife.

My father saw the obvious objections to the marriage. He warned me of the imprudence which I had contemplated committing in the strongest terms. Our prospect of happiness, if we married, would depend entirely on our capacity to legally supersede the proceedings of the Lunacy Commission. Success in this arduous undertaking was, to say the least of it, uncertain. The commonest prudence pointed to the propriety of delaying our marriage until the doubtful experiment had been put to the proof.

This reasoning was unanswerable. It was, nevertheless, completely thrown away upon me.

When did a woman in love ever listen to reason? I believe there is no instance of it on record. My father’s wise words of caution had no chance against Roland’s fervent entreaties. The days of his residence at Eastbourne were drawing to a close. If I let him return to the asylum an unmarried man, months, years perhaps, might pass before our union could take place. Could I expect him, could I expect any man, to endure that cruel separation, that unrelieved suspense? I His mind had been sorely tried already; his mind might give way under it. These were the arguments that carried weight with them, in my judgment! I was of age, and free to act as I pleased. You are welcome, if you like, to consider me the most foolish and the most obstinate of women. In sixteen days from the date of the picnic Roland and I were privately married at Eastbourne.

My father — more grieved than angry, poor man — declined to be present at the ceremony; in justice to himself. My brother gave me away at the altar.

Roland and I spent the afternoon of the wedding-day and the earlier part of the evening together. At nine o’clock he returned to the doctor’s house, exactly as usual; having previously explained to me that he was in the power of the Court of Chancery, and that until we succeeded in setting aside the proceedings of the Lunacy Commission there was a serious necessity for keeping the marriage strictly secret. My husband and I kissed, and said good-by till tomorrow, as the clock struck the hour. I little thought, while I looked after him from the street-door, that months on months were to pass before I saw Roland again.

A hurried note from my husband reached me the next morning. Our marriage had been discovered (we never could tell by whom), and we had been betrayed to the doctor. Roland was then on his way back to the asylum. He had been warned that force would be used if he resisted. Knowing that resistance would be interpreted, in his case, as a new outbreak of madness, he had wisely submitted. “I have made the sacrifice,” the letter concluded; “it is now for you to help me. Attack the Commission in Lunacy, and be quick about it!”

We lost no time in preparing for the attack. On the day when I received the news of our misfortune we left Eastbourne for London, and at once took measures to obtain the best legal advice.

My dear father — though I was far from deserving his kindness — entered into the matter heart and soul. In due course of time, we presented a petition to the Lord Chancellor, praying that the decision of the Lunacy Commission might be set aside.

We supported our petition by quoting the evidence of Roland’s friends and neighbours, during his three years’ residence in the Lake country, as a free man. These worthy people (being summoned before the Lunacy Commission) had one and all agreed that he was, as to their judgment and experience, perfectly quiet, harmless, and sane. Many of them had gone out shooting with him. Others had often accompanied him in sailing excursions on the lake. Do people trust a madman with a gun, and with the management of a boat? As to the “act of violence,” which the heirs at law and the next of kin had made the means of imprisoning Roland in the mad-house, it amounted to this: he had lost his temper, and had knocked a man down who had offended him. Very wrong, no doubt; but if that is a proof of madness, what thousands of lunatics are still at large! Another instance produced to prove his insanity was still more absurd. It was solemnly declared that he put an image of the Virgin Mary in his boat, when he went out on his sailing excursions! I have seen the image — it was a very beautiful work of art. Was Roland mad to admire it, and take it with him? His religious convictions leaned toward Catholicism. If he betrayed insanity in adorning his boat with an image of the Virgin Mary, what is the mental condition of most of the ladies in Christendom who wear the cross as an ornament round their necks? We advanced these arguments in our petition, after quoting the evidence of the witnesses. And more than this, we even went the length of admitting, as an act of respect toward the Court, that my poor husband might be eccentric in some of his opinions and habits. But we put it to the authorities, whether better results might not be expected from placing him under the care of a wife who loved him, and whom he loved, than from shutting him up in an asylum, among incurable madmen as his companions for life.

Such was our petition, so far as I am able to describe it.

The decision rested with the Lords Justices. They decided against us.

Turning a deaf ear to our witnesses and our arguments, these merciless lawyers declared that the doctor’s individual assertion of my husband’s insanity was enough for them. They considered Roland’s comfort to be sufficiently provided for in the asylum, with an allowance of seven hundred pounds a year — and to the asylum they consigned him for the rest of his days.

So far as I was concerned, the result of this infamous judgment was to deprive me of the position of Roland’s wife; no lunatic being capable of contracting marriage by law. So far as my husband was concerned, the result may be best stated in the language of a popular newspaper, which published an article on the case. “It is possible” (said the article — I wish I could personally thank the man who wrote it!) “for the Court of Chancery to take a man who has a large fortune, and is in the prime of life, but is a little touched in the head, and make a monk of him, and then report to itself that the comfort and happiness of the lunatic have been effectually provided for at the expenditure of seven hundred pounds a year.”

Roland was determined however, that they should
not
make a monk of him — and, you may rely upon it, so was I!

But one alternative was left to us. The authority of the Court of Chancery (within its jurisdiction) is the most despotic authority on the face of the earth. Our one hope was in taking to flight. The price of our liberty, as citizens of England, was exile from our native country, and the entire abandonment of Roland’s fortune. We accepted those hard conditions. Hospitable America offered us a refuge, beyond the reach of mad-doctors and Lords Justices. To hospitable America our hearts turned, as to our second country. The serious question was, How were we to get there?

We had attempted to correspond, and had failed. Our letters had been discovered and seized by the proprietor of the asylum. Fortunately we had taken the precaution of writing in a “cipher” of Roland’s invention, which he had taught me before our marriage. Though our letters were illegible, our purpose was suspected, as a matter of course; and a watch was kept on my husband night and day.

Foiled in our first effort at making arrangements secretly for our flight, we continued our correspondence (still in cipher) by means of advertisement in the newspapers. This second attempt was discovered in its turn. Roland was refused permission to subscribe to the newspapers, and was forbidden to enter the reading-room at the asylum. These tyrannical prohibitions came too late. Our plans had already been communicated; we understood each other, and we had now only to bide our time. We had arranged that my brother and a friend of his, on whose discretion we could thoroughly rely, should take it in turns to watch every evening, for a given time, at an appointed meeting-place, three miles distant from the asylum. The spot had been carefully chosen. It was on the bank of a lonely stream, and close to the outskirts of a thick wood. A water-proof knapsack, containing a change of clothes, a false beard and wig, and some biscuits and preserved meat, was hidden in a hollow tree. My brother and his friend always took their fishing-rods with them, and presented themselves, as engaged in the innocent occupation of angling, to any chance strangers who might pass within sight of them. On one occasion the proprietor of the asylum himself rode by my brother, on the opposite bank of the stream, and asked politely if he had had good sport!

For a fortnight these stanch allies of ours relieved each other regularly on their watch — and no signs of the fugitive appeared. On the fifteenth evening, just as the twilight was changing into night, and just as my brother (whose turn it was) had decided on leaving the place, Roland suddenly joined him on the bank of the stream.