Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1758 page)

‘Suppose I speak to your husband?’ I suggested.

‘Oh, Mr Sheriff — !’

In Mrs Parley’s excitable Welsh nature even gratitude threatened to express itself hysterically. I checked the new outbreak by putting some necessary questions. The few facts which I succeeded in eliciting did not present my coming interview with the husband in an encouraging light.

After moving into the new house, Parley had found some difficulty (naturally enough) in reconciling himself to the change in his life. From time to time (as his wife had suggested) he looked in at the police office, and had offered the benefit of his experience to his colleagues when they were in need of advice. For a while these visits to the city produced the good results which had been anticipated. Then followed the very complete and very suspicious change in him, already related to me. While the husband and wife still occupied the same room at night, Mrs Parley discovered that Benjamin was disturbed by dreams. For the first time in all her experience, she heard him talking in his sleep. Here and there, words escaped him which seemed to allude to a woman — a woman whom he called ‘my dear’ — a woman who had apparently placed some agitating confidence in him. Sensible enough under other circumstances, Mrs Parley’s jealousy had hurried her into an act of folly. She woke her husband and insisted on an explanation. The result had been the institution of separate bedrooms — on the pretence that Parley’s sense of conjugal duty would not permit him to be the means of disturbing his wife’s rest. Arriving, correctly enough, at the conclusion that he was afraid of betraying himself, Mrs Parley had tried the desperate experiment of following him privately when he next left the house. A police-officer of forty years’ experience, with a secret to keep, sees before him and behind him, and on his right hand and his left, at one and the same time. Poor Mrs Parley, discovered as a spy, felt the look that her husband gave her (to use her own expression) ‘in the marrow of her bones.’ His language had been equally alarming. ‘Try it again,’ he said, ‘and you will have seen the last of me.’ She had naturally been afraid to try it again; and there she was, at my breakfast table, with but one hope left — the hope that the Sheriff would assist her!

I
II

Such was my interview with the wife. My interview with the husband produced one result, for which I was in some degree prepared. It satisfied me that any interference on my part would be worse than useless.

I had certain claims on Parley’s gratitude and respect, which he had hitherto recognised with heartfelt sincerity. When we now stood face to face — before a word had passed between us — I saw one ting clearly: my hold over him was lost.

For Mrs Parley’s sake I could not allow myself to be discouraged at the outset.

‘Your wife was with me yesterday,’ I said, ‘in great distress.’

His voice told me that he had suffered — and was still suffering — keenly. I also noticed that the lines marked by age in his face had deepened. He evidently felt that he stood before me a man self-degraded in his old age. On the other hand, it was just as plain that he was determined to deceive me if I attempted to penetrate his secret.

My one chance of producing the right impression was to appeal to his sense of self-respect, if any such sense was still left in him.

‘Don’t suppose that I presume to interfere between you and your wife,’ I resumed. ‘In what little I have now to say to you, I shall bear in mind the high character that you have always maintained, not only among your own friends, but among persons like myself, who are placed above you by the accidents of birth and position.’

‘You are very good, sir. I assure you I feel — ’

He paused. I waited to let him go on. His eyes dropped before mine. He seemed to be afraid to follow the good impulse that I had roused in him. I tried again.

‘Without repeating what Mrs Parley has said to me,’ I proceeded, ‘I may tell you at what conclusion I have myself arrived. It is only doing you justice to suppose that your wife has been mislaid by false appearances. Will you go back to her, and satisfy that she has been mistaken?’

‘She wouldn’t believe me, sir.’

‘Will you at least, try the experiment?’

He shook his head doggedly. ‘Quite useless,’ he answered. ‘My wife’s temper — ’

I stopped him there.

‘Make some allowance for your wife’s temper,’ I said, ‘and don’t forget that you owe some consideration to your daughters. Spare them the shame and distress of seeing their father and mother at enmity.’

His manner changed: I had said something which appeared to give him confidence.

‘Did my wife say anything to you about our girls?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She thought you neglectful of your daughters.’

‘Anything else, sir?’

‘She said you had, at one time, acknowledged that the girls ought to have a good governess; but she now finds you indifferent to the best interests of your children.’

He lifted one of his hands, with a theatrical exaggeration of gesture, quite new in my experience of him.

‘She said that, did she? Now, Mr Sheriff, judge for yourself what my wife’s complaints of me are worth! I have this day engaged a governess for my children.’

I looked at him.

Once more his eyes dropped before mine.

‘Does Mrs Parley know what you have done?’ I inquired.

‘She shall know,’ he answered loudly, almost insolently, ‘when I return home.’

‘I am obliged to you for coming here, Mr Parley. Don’t let me detain you any longer.’

‘Does that mean, sir, that you disapprove of what I have done?’

‘I pronounce no opinion.’

‘Does it mean that you doubt the governess’s character?’

‘It means that I regret having troubled you to come here — and that I have no more to say.’

He walked to the door — opened it — hesitated — and came back to me.

‘I ask your pardon, sir, if I have been in any way rough in speaking to you. You will understand perhaps that I am a little troubled in my mind.’ He considered with himself, and took from his pocket the snuff-box to which his wife had alluded. ‘I’ve given up the habit, sir, of taking snuff. It’s slovenly, and — and not good for the health. But I don’t feel the less honoured by your gift. I shall prize it gratefully, as long as I live.’

He turned his head away — but not quickly enough to hide the tears that filled his eyes. For a moment all that was best and truest in the nature of Benjamin Parley had forced its way to expression. But the devil in possession of him was not to be cast out. He became basely ashamed of the good impulse that did him honour. ‘The sun is very bright this morning,’ he muttered confusedly; ‘my eyes are rather weak, sir. I wish you good morning.’

I
V

Left by myself I rang the bell, and gave the servant his instructions. If Mr or Mrs Parley called again at the house they were to be told that I was not able to see them.

Was this a harsh act on my part? Let us look the matter fairly in the face and see.

It is possible that some persons, not having had my experience of the worst aspects of human nature, might have been inclined to attribute Mrs Parley’s suspicions to her jealous temper, and might have been not unwilling to believe that her husband had engaged a governess for his children in perfect good faith. No such merciful view of the matter presented itself to my mind. Nothing could be plainer to me than that Parley was an instrument in the hands of a bold and wicked woman; who had induced him, for reasons of her own, to commit an act which was nothing less than an outrage on his wife. To what purpose could I interfere? The one person who could help poor Mrs Parley must be armed with the authority of a relation. And, even in this case, what good result could be anticipated if the woman played her part as governess discreetly, and if Parley held firm? A more hopeless domestic prospect, so far, had never presented itself to my view. It vexed and humiliated me to find myself waiting helplessly for events. What else could I do?

On the next day Mrs Parley called, and the servant followed his instructions.

On the day after (with the pardonable pertinacity of a woman in despair), she wrote to me.

The letter has been long since destroyed; but the substance of it remains in my memory. It informed me that the governess was actually established in the house; and described her, it is needless to say, as the most shameless wretch that had ever breathed the breath of life. Asked if he had obtained a reference to her character, Parley had replied that he was old enough to know how to engage a governess: that he refused to answer impertinent questions; and that he had instructed ‘Miss Beaumont’ (this was the lady’s well-sounding name) to follow his example. She had already contrived to steal her way into the confidence of her two innocent pupils, and to produce a favourable impression on a visitor who had called at the house that morning. In one word, Mrs Parley’s position was, on her own showing, beyond the reach of help. As I had anticipated, the false governess played her part with discretion, and the infatuated husband asserted his authority.

Ten days later, I happened to be driving through the suburb of our city, and I discovered Mrs Parley in close conversation with one of the younger members of the detective police force, named Butler. They were walking slowly along a retired path which led out of the high-road; so interested apparently in what they had to say to each other that they failed to notice me, though I passed close by them.

The next morning Butler presented himself at my office, and asked leave to speak to me. Being busy that day, I sent a message back, inquiring if the matter was of any importance. The answer was, ‘Of most serious importance.’ He was immediately admitted to my private room.

V

The little I had heard of this young police officer represented him to be ‘a rising man,’ resolute and clever, and not very scrupulous in finding his way to his own ends. ‘Thoroughly useful, but wants looking after.’ There was the superintendent’s brief description of Mr Butler.

I warned him at the outset that I had but little time to spare. ‘Say what is necessary, but put it in few words. What is your business with me?’

‘My business relates, sir, to something that has happened in the house of Benjamin Parley. He has got himself into a serious scrape.’

I should have made a bad detective policeman. When I hear anything that interests or excites me, my face has got a habit of owning it. Butler had merely to look at me, and to see that he might pass over certain explanations which he had been prepared to offer.

‘Mrs Parley told me, sir, that you had permitted her husband to speak to you. May I take it for granted that you have heard of the governess? Parley met the woman in the street. He was struck by her personal appearance; he got into conversation with her; he took her into a restaurant, and gave her a dinner; he heard her interesting story; he fell in love with her, like an infernal old fool — oh, I beg your pardon!’

‘Quite needless to apologise, Mr Butler. When he permitted the woman to be governess to his children, he behaved like a scoundrel, as well as a fool. Go on. You have discovered, of course, what object she has in establishing herself in Parley’s house?’

‘I will ask leave to tell you first, sir, how I made the discovery.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you won’t believe who the woman really is, unless I convince you beforehand that I have committed no mistake.’

‘Is she a person of celebrity?’

‘She is known wherever there is a newspaper published.’

‘And conceals herself, of course,’ I said, ‘under an assumed name?’