Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1851 page)

‘Such is the state of affairs at the opening of the Second Act.

‘The entrance of the Countess suddenly disturbs the Baron’s reflections. She is in a state bordering on frenzy. Incoherent expressions of rage burst from her lips: it is some time before she can sufficiently control herself to speak plainly. She has been doubly insulted — first, by a menial person in her employment; secondly, by her husband. Her maid, an Englishwoman, has declared that she will serve the Countess no longer. She will give up her wages, and return at once to England. Being asked her reason for this strange proceeding, she insolently hints that the Countess’s service is no service for an honest woman, since the Baron has entered the house. The Countess does, what any lady in her position would do; she indignantly dismisses the wretch on the spot.

‘My Lord, hearing his wife’s voice raised in anger, leaves the study in which he is accustomed to shut himself up over his books, and asks what this disturbance means. The Countess informs him of the outrageous language and conduct of her maid. My Lord not only declares his entire approval of the woman’s conduct, but expresses his own abominable doubts of his wife’s fidelity in language of such horrible brutality that no lady could pollute her lips by repeating it. “If I had been a man,” the Countess says, “and if I had had a weapon in my hand, I would have struck him dead at my feet!”

‘The Baron, listening silently so far, now speaks. “Permit me to finish the sentence for you,” he says. “You would have struck your husband dead at your feet; and by that rash act, you would have deprived yourself of the insurance money settled on the widow — the very money which is wanted to relieve your brother from the unendurable pecuniary position which he now occupies!”

‘The Countess gravely reminds the Baron that this is no joking matter. After what my Lord has said to her, she has little doubt that he will communicate his infamous suspicions to his lawyers in England. If nothing is done to prevent it, she may be divorced and disgraced, and thrown on the world, with no resource but the sale of her jewels to keep her from starving.

‘At this moment, the Courier who has been engaged to travel with my Lord from England crosses the stage with a letter to take to the post. The Countess stops him, and asks to look at the address on the letter. She takes it from him for a moment, and shows it to her brother. The handwriting is my Lord’s; and the letter is directed to his lawyers in London.

‘The Courier proceeds to the post-office. The Baron and the Countess look at each other in silence. No words are needed. They thoroughly understand the position in which they are placed; they clearly see the terrible remedy for it. What is the plain alternative before them? Disgrace and ruin — or, my Lord’s death and the insurance money!

‘The Baron walks backwards and forwards in great agitation, talking to himself. The Countess hears fragments of what he is saying. He speaks of my Lord’s constitution, probably weakened in India — of a cold which my Lord has caught two or three days since — of the remarkable manner in which such slight things as colds sometimes end in serious illness and death.

‘He observes that the Countess is listening to him, and asks if she has anything to propose. She is a woman who, with many defects, has the great merit of speaking out. “Is there no such thing as a serious illness,” she asks, “corked up in one of those bottles of yours in the vaults downstairs?”

‘The Baron answers by gravely shaking his head. What is he afraid of? — a possible examination of the body after death? No: he can set any post-mortem examination at defiance. It is the process of administering the poison that he dreads. A man so distinguished as my Lord cannot be taken seriously ill without medical attendance. Where there is a Doctor, there is always danger of discovery. Then, again, there is the Courier, faithful to my Lord as long as my Lord pays him. Even if the Doctor sees nothing suspicious, the Courier may discover something. The poison, to do its work with the necessary secrecy, must be repeatedly administered in graduated doses. One trifling miscalculation or mistake may rouse suspicion. The insurance offices may hear of it, and may refuse to pay the money. As things are, the Baron will not risk it, and will not allow his sister to risk it in his place.

‘My Lord himself is the next character who appears. He has repeatedly rung for the Courier, and the bell has not been answered. “What does this insolence mean?”

‘The Countess (speaking with quiet dignity — for why should her infamous husband have the satisfaction of knowing how deeply he has wounded her?) reminds my Lord that the Courier has gone to the post. My Lord asks suspiciously if she has looked at the letter. The Countess informs him coldly that she has no curiosity about his letters. Referring to the cold from which he is suffering, she inquires if he thinks of consulting a medical man. My Lord answers roughly that he is quite old enough to be capable of doctoring himself.

‘As he makes this reply, the Courier appears, returning from the post. My Lord gives him orders to go out again and buy some lemons. He proposes to try hot lemonade as a means of inducing perspiration in bed. In that way he has formerly cured colds, and in that way he will cure the cold from which he is suffering now.

‘The Courier obeys in silence. Judging by appearances, he goes very reluctantly on this second errand.

‘My Lord turns to the Baron (who has thus far taken no part in the conversation) and asks him, in a sneering tone, how much longer he proposes to prolong his stay in Venice. The Baron answers quietly, “Let us speak plainly to one another, my Lord. If you wish me to leave your house, you have only to say the word, and I go.” My Lord turns to his wife, and asks if she can support the calamity of her brother’s absence — laying a grossly insulting emphasis on the word “brother.” The Countess preserves her impenetrable composure; nothing in her betrays the deadly hatred with which she regards the titled ruffian who has insulted her. “You are master in this house, my Lord,” is all she says. “Do as you please.”

‘My Lord looks at his wife; looks at the Baron — and suddenly alters his tone. Does he perceive in the composure of the Countess and her brother something lurking under the surface that threatens him? This is at least certain, he makes a clumsy apology for the language that he has used. (Abject wretch!)

‘My Lord’s excuses are interrupted by the return of the Courier with the lemons and hot water.

‘The Countess observes for the first time that the man looks ill. His hands tremble as he places the tray on the table. My Lord orders his Courier to follow him, and make the lemonade in the bedroom. The Countess remarks that the Courier seems hardly capable of obeying his orders. Hearing this, the man admits that he is ill. He, too, is suffering from a cold; he has been kept waiting in a draught at the shop where he bought the lemons; he feels alternately hot and cold, and he begs permission to lie down for a little while on his bed.

‘Feeling her humanity appealed to, the Countess volunteers to make the lemonade herself. My Lord takes the Courier by the arm, leads him aside, and whispers these words to him: “Watch her, and see that she puts nothing into the lemonade; then bring it to me with your own hands; and, then, go to bed, if you like.”

‘Without a word more to his wife, or to the Baron, my Lord leaves the room.

‘The Countess makes the lemonade, and the Courier takes it to his master.

‘Returning, on the way to his own room, he is so weak, and feels, he says, so giddy, that he is obliged to support himself by the backs of the chairs as he passes them. The Baron, always considerate to persons of low degree, offers his arm. “I am afraid, my poor fellow,” he says, “that you are really ill.” The Courier makes this extraordinary answer: “It’s all over with me, Sir: I have caught my death.”

‘The Countess is naturally startled. “You are not an old man,” she says, trying to rouse the Courier’s spirits. “At your age, catching cold doesn’t surely mean catching your death?” The Courier fixes his eyes despairingly on the Countess.

“My lungs are weak, my Lady,” he says; “I have already had two attacks of bronchitis. The second time, a great physician joined my own doctor in attendance on me. He considered my recovery almost in the light of a miracle. Take care of yourself,” he said. “If you have a third attack of bronchitis, as certainly as two and two make four, you will be a dead man. I feel the same inward shivering, my Lady, that I felt on those two former occasions — and I tell you again, I have caught my death in Venice.”

‘Speaking some comforting words, the Baron leads him to his room. The Countess is left alone on the stage.

‘She seats herself, and looks towards the door by which the Courier has been led out. “Ah! my poor fellow,” she says, “if you could only change constitutions with my Lord, what a happy result would follow for the Baron and for me! If you could only get cured of a trumpery cold with a little hot lemonade, and if he could only catch his death in your place — !”

‘She suddenly pauses — considers for a while — and springs to her feet, with a cry of triumphant surprise: the wonderful, the unparalleled idea has crossed her mind like a flash of lightning. Make the two men change names and places — and the deed is done! Where are the obstacles? Remove my Lord (by fair means or foul) from his room; and keep him secretly prisoner in the palace, to live or die as future necessity may determine. Place the Courier in the vacant bed, and call in the doctor to see him — ill, in my Lord’s character, and (if he dies) dying under my Lord’s name!’

The manuscript dropped from Henry’s hands. A sickening sense of horror overpowered him. The question which had occurred to his mind at the close of the First Act of the Play assumed a new and terrible interest now. As far as the scene of the Countess’s soliloquy, the incidents of the Second Act had reflected the events of his late brother’s life as faithfully as the incidents of the First Act. Was the monstrous plot, revealed in the lines which he had just read, the offspring of the Countess’s morbid imagination? or had she, in this case also, deluded herself with the idea that she was inventing when she was really writing under the influence of her own guilty remembrances of the past? If the latter interpretation were the true one, he had just read the narrative of the contemplated murder of his brother, planned in cold blood by a woman who was at that moment inhabiting the same house with him. While, to make the fatality complete, Agnes herself had innocently provided the conspirators with the one man who was fitted to be the passive agent of their crime.

Even the bare doubt that it might be so was more than he could endure. He left his room; resolved to force the truth out of the Countess, or to denounce her before the authorities as a murderess at large.

Arrived at her door, he was met by a person just leaving the room. The person was the manager. He was hardly recognisable; he looked and spoke like a man in a state of desperation.

‘Oh, go in, if you like!’ he said to Henry. ‘Mark this, sir! I am not a superstitious man; but I do begin to believe that crimes carry their own curse with them. This hotel is under a curse. What happens in the morning? We discover a crime committed in the old days of the palace. The night comes, and brings another dreadful event with it — a death; a sudden and shocking death, in the house. Go in, and see for yourself! I shall resign my situation, Mr. Westwick: I can’t contend with the fatalities that pursue me here!’

Henry entered the room.

The Countess was stretched on her bed. The doctor on one side, and the chambermaid on the other, were standing looking at her. From time to time, she drew a heavy stertorous breath, like a person oppressed in sleeping. ‘Is she likely to die?’ Henry asked.

‘She is dead,’ the doctor answered. ‘Dead of the rupture of a blood-vessel on the brain. Those sounds that you hear are purely mechanical — they may go on for hours.’

Henry looked at the chambermaid. She had little to tell. The Countess had refused to go to bed, and had placed herself at her desk to proceed with her writing. Finding it useless to remonstrate with her, the maid had left the room to speak to the manager. In the shortest possible time, the doctor was summoned to the hotel, and found the Countess dead on the floor. There was this to tell — and no more.

Looking at the writing-table as he went out, Henry saw the sheet of paper on which the Countess had traced her last lines of writing. The characters were almost illegible. Henry could just distinguish the words, ‘First Act,’ and ‘Persons of the Drama.’ The lost wretch had been thinking of her Play to the last, and had begun it all over again!

CHAPTER XXVII

Henry returned to his room.