Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1901 page)

X.

THE next morning he knocked at the door of his wife’s room and asked how she had passed the night.

“I have slept badly,” she answered, “and I must beg you to excuse my absence at breakfast-time.” She called him back as he was about to withdraw. “Remember,” she said, “when you return from the gallery to-day, I expect that you will not return alone.”

Three hours later he was at home again. The young lady’s services as a copyist were at his disposal; she had returned with him to look at the drawings.

The sitting-room was empty when they entered it. He rang for his wife’s maid — and was informed that Mrs. Lismore had gone out. Refusing to believe the woman, he went to his wife’s apartments. She was not to be found.

When he returned to the sitting-room, the young lady was not unnaturally offended. He could make allowances for her being a little out of temper at the slight that had been put on her; but he was inexpressibly disconcerted by the manner — almost the coarse manner — in which she expressed herself.

“I have been talking to your wife’s maid, while you have been away,” she said. “I find you have married an old lady for her money. She is jealous of me, of course?”

“Let me beg you to alter your opinion,” he answered. “You are wronging my wife; she is incapable of any such feeling as you attribute to her.”

The young lady laughed. “At any rate you are a good husband,” she said satirically. “Suppose you own the truth? Wouldn’t you like her better if she was young and pretty like me?”

He was not merely surprised — he was disgusted. Her beauty had so completely fascinated him, when he first saw her, that the idea of associating any want of refinement and good breeding with such a charming creature never entered his mind. The disenchantment to him was already so complete that he was even disagreeably affected by the tone of her voice: it was almost as repellent to him as the exhibition of unrestrained bad temper which she seemed perfectly careless to conceal.

“I confess you surprise me,” he said, coldly.

The reply produced no effect on her. On the contrary, she became more insolent than ever.

“I have a fertile fancy,” she went on, “and your absurd way of taking a joke only encourages me! Suppose you could transform this sour old wife of yours, who has insulted me, into the sweetest young creature that ever lived, by only holding up your finger — wouldn’t you do it?”

This passed the limits of his endurance. “I have no wish,” he said, “to forget the consideration which is due to a woman. You leave me but one alternative.” He rose to go out of the room.

She ran to the door as he spoke, and placed herself in the way of his going out.

He signed to her to let him pass.

She suddenly threw her arms round his neck, kissed him passionately, and whispered, with her lips at his ear: “Oh, Ernest, forgive me! Could I have asked you to marry me for my money if I had not taken refuge in a disguise?”

XI.

WHEN he had sufficiently recovered to think, he put her back from him. “Is there an end of the deception now?” he asked, sternly. “Am I to trust you in your new character?”

“You are not to be harder on me than I deserve,” she answered, gently. “Did you ever hear of an actress named Miss Max?”

He began to understand her. “Forgive me if I spoke harshly,” he said. “You have put me to a severe trial.”

She burst into tears. “Love,” she murmured, “is my only excuse.”

From that moment she had won her pardon. He took her hand, and made her sit by him.

“Yes,” he said, “I have heard of Miss Max and of her wonderful powers of personation — and I have always regretted not having seen her while she was on the stage.”

“Did you hear anything more of her, Ernest?”

“Yes, I heard that she was a pattern of modesty and good conduct, and that she gave up her profession, at the height of her success, to marry an old man.”

“Will you come with me to my room?” she asked. “I have something there which I wish to show you.”

It was the copy of her husband’s will.

“Read the lines, Ernest, which begin at the top of the page. Let my dead husband speak for me.”

The lines ran thus:

“My motive in marrying Miss Max must be stated in this place, in justice to her — and, I will venture to add, in justice to myself. I felt the sincerest sympathy for her position. She was without father, mother, or friends; one of the poor forsaken children, whom the mercy of the Foundling Hospital provides with a home. Her after life on the stage was the life of a virtuous woman: persecuted by profligates; insulted by some of the baser creatures associated with her, to whom she was an object of envy. I offered her a home, and the protection of a father — on the only terms which the world would recognise as worthy of us. My experience of her since our marriage has been the experience of unvarying goodness, sweetness, and sound sense. She has behaved so nobly, in a trying position, that I wish her (even in this life) to have her reward. I entreat her to make a second choice in marriage, which shall not be a mere form. I firmly believe that she will choose well and wisely — that she will make the happiness of a man who is worthy of her — and that, as wife and mother, she will set an example of inestimable value in the social sphere that she occupies. In proof of the heartfelt sincerity with which I pay my tribute to her virtues, I add to this my will the clause that follows.”

With the clause that followed, Ernest was already acquainted.

“Will you now believe that I never loved till I saw your face for the first time?” said his wife. “I had no experience to place me on my guard against the fascination — the madness some people might call it — which possesses a woman when all her heart is given to a man. Don’t despise me, my dear! Remember that I had to save you from disgrace and ruin. Besides, my old stage remembrances tempted me. I had acted in a play in which the heroine did — what I have done! It didn’t end with me, as it did with her in the story.
She
was represented as rejoicing in the success of her disguise.
I
have known some miserable hours of doubt and shame since our marriage. When I went to meet you in my own person at the picture-gallery — oh, what relief, what joy I felt, when I saw how you admired me — it was not because I could no longer carry on the disguise. I was able to get hours of rest from the effort; not only at night, but in the daytime, when I was shut up in my retirement in the music-room; and when my maid kept watch against discovery. No, my love! I hurried on the disclosure, because I could no longer endure the hateful triumph of my own deception. Ah, look at that witness against me! I can’t bear even to see it!”

She abruptly left him. The drawer that she had opened to take out the copy of the will also contained the false gray hair which she had discarded. It had only that moment attracted her notice. She snatched it up, and turned to the fireplace.

Ernest took it from her, before she could destroy it. “Give it to me,” he said.

“Why?”

He drew her gently to his bosom, and answered: “I must not forget my old wife.”

MISS JEROMETTE AND THE CLERGYMAN.

I
.

MY brother, the clergyman, looked over my shoulder before I was aware of him, and discovered that the volume which completely absorbed my attention was a collection of famous Trials, published in a new edition and in a popular form.

He laid his finger on the Trial which I happened to be reading at the moment. I looked up at him; his face startled me. He had turned pale. His eyes were fixed on the open page of the book with an expression which puzzled and alarmed me.

“My dear fellow,” I said, “what in the world is the matter with you?”

He answered in an odd absent manner, still keeping his finger on the open page.

“I had almost forgotten,” he said. “And this reminds me.”

“Reminds you of what?” I asked. “You don’t mean to say you know anything about the Trial?”

“I know this,” he said. “The prisoner was guilty.”

“Guilty?” I repeated. “Why, the man was acquitted by the jury, with the full approval of the judge! What call you possibly mean?”

“There are circumstances connected with that Trial,” my brother answered, “which were never communicated to the judge or the jury — which were never so much as hinted or whispered in court.
I
know them — of my own knowledge, by my own personal experience. They are very sad, very strange, very terrible. I have mentioned them to no mortal creature. I have done my best to forget them. You — quite innocently — have brought them back to my mind. They oppress, they distress me. I wish I had found you reading any book in your library, except
that
book!”

My curiosity was now strongly excited. I spoke out plainly.

“Surely,” I suggested, “you might tell your brother what you are unwilling to mention to persons less nearly related to you. We have followed different professions, and have lived in different countries, since we were boys at school. But you know you can trust me.”

He considered a little with himself.

“Yes,” he said. “I know I can trust you.” He waited a moment, and then he surprised me by a strange question.

“Do you believe,” he asked, “that the spirits of the dead can return to earth, and show themselves to the living?”

I answered cautiously — adopting as my own the words of a great English writer, touching the subject of ghosts.

“You ask me a question,” I said, “which, after five thousand years, is yet undecided. On that account alone, it is a question not to be trifled with.”

My reply seemed to satisfy him.

“Promise me,” he resumed, “that you will keep what I tell you a secret as long as I live. After my death I care little what happens. Let the story of my strange experience be added to the published experience of those other men who have seen what I have seen, and who believe what I believe. The world will not be the worse, and may be the better, for knowing one day what I am now about to trust to your ear alone.”

My brother never again alluded to the narrative which he had confided to me, until the later time when I was sitting by his deathbed. He asked if I still remembered the story of Jeromette. “Tell it to others,” he said, “as I have told it to you.”

I repeat it after his death — as nearly as I can in his own words.

II.

ON a fine summer evening, many years since, I left my chambers in the Temple, to meet a fellow-student, who had proposed to me a night’s amusement in the public gardens at Cremorne.

You were then on your way to India; and I had taken my degree at Oxford. I had sadly disappointed my father by choosing the Law as my profession, in preference to the Church. At that time, to own the truth, I had no serious intention of following any special vocation. I simply wanted an excuse for enjoying the pleasures of a London life. The study of the Law supplied me with that excuse. And I chose the Law as my profession accordingly.

On reaching the place at which we had arranged to meet, I found that my friend had not kept his appointment. After waiting vainly for ten minutes, my patience gave way and I went into the Gardens by myself.

I took two or three turns round the platform devoted to the dancers without discovering my fellow-student, and without seeing any other person with whom I happened to be acquainted at that time.

For some reason which I cannot now remember, I was not in my usual good spirits that evening. The noisy music jarred on my nerves, the sight of the gaping crowd round the platform irritated me, the blandishments of the painted ladies of the profession of pleasure saddened and disgusted me. I opened my cigar-case, and turned aside into one of the quiet by-walks of the Gardens.