Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1850 page)

Henry advised her to wait till the next day. ‘Go to bed,’ he suggested; and try to sleep.’

She waved her hand impatiently. ‘I must finish the play,’ she answered. ‘I only want a hint from you. You must know something about plays. Your brother has got a theatre. You must often have heard him talk about fourth and fifth acts — you must have seen rehearsals, and all the rest of it.’ She abruptly thrust the manuscript into Henry’s hand. ‘I can’t read it to you,’ she said; ‘I feel giddy when I look at my own writing. Just run your eye over it, there’s a good fellow — and give me a hint.’

Henry glanced at the manuscript. He happened to look at the list of the persons of the drama. As he read the list he started and turned abruptly to the Countess, intending to ask her for some explanation. The words were suspended on his lips. It was but too plainly useless to speak to her. Her head lay back on the rail of the chair. She seemed to be half asleep already. The flush on her face had deepened: she looked like a woman who was in danger of having a fit.

He rang the bell, and directed the man who answered it to send one of the chambermaids upstairs. His voice seemed to partially rouse the Countess; she opened her eyes in a slow drowsy way. ‘Have you read it?’ she asked.

It was necessary as a mere act of humanity to humour her. ‘I will read it willingly,’ said Henry, ‘if you will go upstairs to bed. You shall hear what I think of it to-morrow morning. Our heads will be clearer, we shall be better able to make the fourth act in the morning.’

The chambermaid came in while he was speaking. ‘I am afraid the lady is ill,’ Henry whispered. ‘Take her up to her room.’ The woman looked at the Countess and whispered back, ‘Shall we send for a doctor, sir?’

Henry advised taking her upstairs first, and then asking the manager’s opinion. There was great difficulty in persuading her to rise, and accept the support of the chambermaid’s arm. It was only by reiterated promises to read the play that night, and to make the fourth act in the morning, that Henry prevailed on the Countess to return to her room.

Left to himself, he began to feel a certain languid curiosity in relation to the manuscript. He looked over the pages, reading a line here and a line there. Suddenly he changed colour as he read — and looked up from the manuscript like a man bewildered. ‘Good God! what does this mean?’ he said to himself.

His eyes turned nervously to the door by which Agnes had left him. She might return to the drawing-room, she might want to see what the Countess had written. He looked back again at the passage which had startled him — considered with himself for a moment — and, snatching up the unfinished play, suddenly and softly left the room.

CHAPTER XXVI

Entering his own room on the upper floor, Henry placed the manuscript on his table, open at the first leaf. His nerves were unquestionably shaken; his hand trembled as he turned the pages, he started at chance noises on the staircase of the hotel.

The scenario, or outline, of the Countess’s play began with no formal prefatory phrases. She presented herself and her work with the easy familiarity of an old friend.

‘Allow me, dear Mr. Francis Westwick, to introduce to you the persons in my proposed Play. Behold them, arranged symmetrically in a line.

‘My Lord. The Baron. The Courier. The Doctor. The Countess.

‘I don’t trouble myself, you see, to invest fictitious family names. My characters are sufficiently distinguished by their social titles, and by the striking contrast which they present one with another.

The First Act opens —

‘No! Before I open the First Act, I must announce, injustice to myself, that this Play is entirely the work of my own invention. I scorn to borrow from actual events; and, what is more extraordinary still, I have not stolen one of my ideas from the Modern French drama. As the manager of an English theatre, you will naturally refuse to believe this. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters — except the opening of my first act.

‘We are at Homburg, in the famous Salon d’Or, at the height of the season. The Countess (exquisitely dressed) is seated at the green table. Strangers of all nations are standing behind the players, venturing their money or only looking on. My Lord is among the strangers. He is struck by the Countess’s personal appearance, in which beauties and defects are fantastically mingled in the most attractive manner. He watches the Countess’s game, and places his money where he sees her deposit her own little stake. She looks round at him, and says, “Don’t trust to my colour; I have been unlucky the whole evening. Place your stake on the other colour, and you may have a chance of winning.” My Lord (a true Englishman) blushes, bows, and obeys. The Countess proves to be a prophet. She loses again. My Lord wins twice the sum that he has risked.

‘The Countess rises from the table. She has no more money, and she offers my Lord her chair.

‘Instead of taking it, he politely places his winnings in her hand, and begs her to accept the loan as a favour to himself. The Countess stakes again, and loses again. My Lord smiles superbly, and presses a second loan on her. From that moment her luck turns. She wins, and wins largely. Her brother, the Baron, trying his fortune in another room, hears of what is going on, and joins my Lord and the Countess.

‘Pay attention, if you please, to the Baron. He is delineated as a remarkable and interesting character.

‘This noble person has begun life with a single-minded devotion to the science of experimental chemistry, very surprising in a young and handsome man with a brilliant future before him. A profound knowledge of the occult sciences has persuaded the Baron that it is possible to solve the famous problem called the “Philosopher’s Stone.” His own pecuniary resources have long since been exhausted by his costly experiments. His sister has next supplied him with the small fortune at her disposal: reserving only the family jewels, placed in the charge of her banker and friend at Frankfort. The Countess’s fortune also being swallowed up, the Baron has in a fatal moment sought for new supplies at the gaming table. He proves, at starting on his perilous career, to be a favourite of fortune; wins largely, and, alas! profanes his noble enthusiasm for science by yielding his soul to the all-debasing passion of the gamester.

‘At the period of the Play, the Baron’s good fortune has deserted him. He sees his way to a crowning experiment in the fatal search after the secret of transmuting the baser elements into gold. But how is he to pay the preliminary expenses? Destiny, like a mocking echo, answers, How?

‘Will his sister’s winnings (with my Lord’s money) prove large enough to help him? Eager for this result, he gives the Countess his advice how to play. From that disastrous moment the infection of his own adverse fortune spreads to his sister. She loses again, and again — loses to the last farthing.

‘The amiable and wealthy Lord offers a third loan; but the scrupulous Countess positively refuses to take it. On leaving the table, she presents her brother to my Lord. The gentlemen fall into pleasant talk. My Lord asks leave to pay his respects to the Countess, the next morning, at her hotel. The Baron hospitably invites him to breakfast. My Lord accepts, with a last admiring glance at the Countess which does not escape her brother’s observation, and takes his leave for the night.

‘Alone with his sister, the Baron speaks out plainly. “Our affairs,” he says, “are in a desperate condition, and must find a desperate remedy. Wait for me here, while I make inquiries about my Lord. You have evidently produced a strong impression on him. If we can turn that impression into money, no matter at what sacrifice, the thing must be done.”

‘The Countess now occupies the stage alone, and indulges in a soliloquy which develops her character.

‘It is at once a dangerous and attractive character. Immense capacities for good are implanted in her nature, side by side with equally remarkable capacities for evil. It rests with circumstances to develop either the one or the other. Being a person who produces a sensation wherever she goes, this noble lady is naturally made the subject of all sorts of scandalous reports. To one of these reports (which falsely and abominably points to the Baron as her lover instead of her brother) she now refers with just indignation. She has just expressed her desire to leave Homburg, as the place in which the vile calumny first took its rise, when the Baron returns, overhears her last words, and says to her, “Yes, leave Homburg by all means; provided you leave it in the character of my Lord’s betrothed wife!”

‘The Countess is startled and shocked. She protests that she does not reciprocate my Lord’s admiration for her. She even goes the length of refusing to see him again. The Baron answers, “I must positively have command of money. Take your choice, between marrying my Lord’s income, in the interest of my grand discovery — or leave me to sell myself and my title to the first rich woman of low degree who is ready to buy me.”

‘The Countess listens in surprise and dismay. Is it possible that the Baron is in earnest? He is horribly in earnest. “The woman who will buy me,” he says, “is in the next room to us at this moment. She is the wealthy widow of a Jewish usurer. She has the money I want to reach the solution of the great problem. I have only to be that woman’s husband, and to make myself master of untold millions of gold. Take five minutes to consider what I have said to you, and tell me on my return which of us is to marry for the money I want, you or I.”

‘As he turns away, the Countess stops him.

‘All the noblest sentiments in her nature are exalted to the highest pitch. “Where is the true woman,” she exclaims, “who wants time to consummate the sacrifice of herself, when the man to whom she is devoted demands it? She does not want five minutes — she does not want five seconds — she holds out her hand to him, and she says, Sacrifice me on the altar of your glory! Take as stepping-stones on the way to your triumph, my love, my liberty, and my life!”

‘On this grand situation the curtain falls. Judging by my first act, Mr. Westwick, tell me truly, and don’t be afraid of turning my head: — Am I not capable of writing a good play?’

Henry paused between the First and Second Acts; reflecting, not on the merits of the play, but on the strange resemblance which the incidents so far presented to the incidents that had attended the disastrous marriage of the first Lord Montbarry.

Was it possible that the Countess, in the present condition of her mind, supposed herself to be exercising her invention when she was only exercising her memory?

The question involved considerations too serious to be made the subject of a hasty decision. Reserving his opinion, Henry turned the page, and devoted himself to the reading of the next act. The manuscript proceeded as follows: —

‘The Second Act opens at Venice. An interval of four months has elapsed since the date of the scene at the gambling table. The action now takes place in the reception-room of one of the Venetian palaces.

‘The Baron is discovered, alone, on the stage. He reverts to the events which have happened since the close of the First Act. The Countess has sacrificed herself; the mercenary marriage has taken place — but not without obstacles, caused by difference of opinion on the question of marriage settlements.

‘Private inquiries, instituted in England, have informed the Baron that my Lord’s income is derived chiefly from what is called entailed property. In case of accidents, he is surely bound to do something for his bride? Let him, for example, insure his life, for a sum proposed by the Baron, and let him so settle the money that his widow shall have it, if he dies first.

‘My Lord hesitates. The Baron wastes no time in useless discussion. “Let us by all means” (he says) “consider the marriage as broken off.” My Lord shifts his ground, and pleads for a smaller sum than the sum proposed. The Baron briefly replies, “I never bargain.” My lord is in love; the natural result follows — he gives way.

‘So far, the Baron has no cause to complain. But my Lord’s turn comes, when the marriage has been celebrated, and when the honeymoon is over. The Baron has joined the married pair at a palace which they have hired in Venice. He is still bent on solving the problem of the “Philosopher’s Stone.” His labouratory is set up in the vaults beneath the palace — so that smells from chemical experiments may not incommode the Countess, in the higher regions of the house. The one obstacle in the way of his grand discovery is, as usual, the want of money. His position at the present time has become truly critical. He owes debts of honour to gentlemen in his own rank of life, which must positively be paid; and he proposes, in his own friendly manner, to borrow the money of my Lord. My Lord positively refuses, in the rudest terms. The Baron applies to his sister to exercise her conjugal influence. She can only answer that her noble husband (being no longer distractedly in love with her) now appears in his true character, as one of the meanest men living. The sacrifice of the marriage has been made, and has already proved useless.