Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1954 page)

[
Exit with
MRS. WRAGGE, D.
in
F.

NORAH. And now, dearest, we are alone, tell me of him of whom I most wish to hear, and of whom as yet you have said so little — this stranger who has preserved you; whom accident brought to your door as you were about to be carried from it insensible, and who at once took upon himself the charge of every expense till your recovery.

MAG. Yes, dear.

NORAH. And, as your recovery was proceeding, who crowned this kindness by instituting inquiries about your friends, which, after months of separation, brought me again, darling, to your side.

MAG. I can only repeat, that our dear father and his own were brother officers, and —
 
—

NORAH. And is a mere paternal intimacy to account for all this kindness? Where had this person known you?

MAG. He had seen me when I was at Aldborough.

NORAH. But that’s a year ago, and you have told me he has only recently returned from a voyage to China. To have remembered you so well, and to have shown you all this sympathy? Ah, Magdalen, there is but one explanation of this man’s conduct — he loves you.

MAG. (
drooping her head
). Norah!

NORAH. I should have judged so by even the minor attentions he has paid you. He was not content to provide you with a doctor and a nurse, he takes apartments in the house in order that he may be near you; he passes hours by your side when you are able to sit up; he brings you books and fruit and pictures?

MAG. I — I own it.

NORAH. And has all this devotion had no effect? Ah, dearest, your letter betrayed something more than the state of
his
feelings, they exhibited an undisguised admiration of this man.

MAG. And is it to wondered at? Ah, Norah, if you but knew him — a man so unlike all the men I had ever met; so true an instance of a sailor; so simple and yet so intelligent; so child-like in his tastes and feelings, and yet so manful in his sense of duty. At first it was with mere curiosity that I used to listen to his history, which, out of respect to him, I asked him to relate — the detail of his strange adventures in all parts of the world; his escape from mutiny and shipwreck, and all the terrors of the deep, made doubly vivid by the simple and earnest way in which he told them. I could not help looking at his hand and thinking, that hand that has rescued the drowning, and seized men mad with mutiny, to force them back to duty, now can shift the pillows of the sick so tenderly she hardly knows they have been moved, and mix her lemonade, and peel her fruit, more delicately and neatly than she could do it for herself.

NORAH. Well, love?

MAG. But if curiosity was the first feeling, it soon gave place to a worthier one. This entire unconsciousness in all his details of his own heroism throughout his dangers, the artless modesty, with which he described act after act in his life of dauntless endurance and devoted courage, without an idea that they were anything more than the plainest acts of duty, to which he was bound by the pursuit he followed, raised him to a place in my estimation, man had never held till then? Ah, Norah, it did more, his life became a mirror to me, in which I saw, and shrunk whilst seeing, the selfish littleness of my own.

NORAH. You loved him, Magdalen?

MAG. Such was my punishment, I loved him, only to feel how wholly unworthy I was of him.

NORAH. Nay!

MAG. I said — did he know my history, were he told my story in return, would he not shrink from its sad selfishness, almost as much as I do now myself?

NORAH. And what did you then?

MAG. I saw there was but one course; but one repayment I could offer him for the worthier feelings he had aroused, and that was to tell him everything. It might cost me his respect; but at least it would ensure my own.

NORAH. And you did so?

MAG. Yes! I told him that before we parted. He had a claim, the strongest claim of any one, to know how I came in this house, unknown to all my friends, and how it was I had fallen so low, and as I could not tell him that without the entire story of my life —
 
—

NORAH. He wished to hear it?

MAG. No, no! ever generous, he refused; he wished to know nothing which would pain me to tell; but I besought him to hear me; I even begged him to give me courage for the task. I said, “You have always done your duty; help me now to imitate you, to be worthy of your kindness and do mine. Do not encourage me,” I cried, “in any miserable weakness, any false shame, any unjust reserve; help me rather to tell the truth, force me to tell it, and for my own sake, if I may not for yours.”

NORAH. Well; and he consented?

MAG. Yes; kindly suggesting that I should do so on paper, which I eagerly consented to, for then I could be sure of myself, sure of concealing nothing. I requesting only one favor, that he would not write in return; that he would tell me with his own lips what he thought, and tell me here, under this roof, where he discovered, and where he preserved me.

NORAH. And he agreed to this?

MAG. Yes; and that he would call on me to-day; some time to-day; before I said farewell to him in your presence.

NORAH. And he has not arrived?

MAG. He has been here, and will return in a few minutes.

NORAH. Then I must not delay my own disclosure; I revealed to you, darling, everything that had occurred to me in my last letter.

MAG. Everything?

NORAH. My strange meeting with Mr. Bartram, our attachment — opposed by the wishes of his uncle; at length his uncle’s death; our marriage, and our happiness.

MAG. And my condemnation. You, whose courage under calamity had been the courage of resignation; who had patiently accepted your hard lot; who from the first to last had meditated no vengeance, and had stooped to no deceit; you had reached the end which all my dissimulation and all my daring had failed to achieve. Openly and honourably, with love on both sides, you had married him who inherited the prize for which I struggled — our dear father’s legacy — the wealth unjustly taken from us, but which Heaven would not permit me unjustly to regain.

NORAH. Say not unjustly, and reserve your opinion till you have heard all I have to say. You had reason to believe when Mr. Noel Vanstone revoked the will he made in your favor, and left all his property to my future husband, he accompanied his bequest with certain conditions — such as my husband’s marriage within six months of Mr. Vanstone’s death — which conditions converted the bequest into the nature of a trust, a trust which he secretly deposited in the hands of Admiral Bartram.

MAG. It was so.

NORAH. And your suspicions were well founded; such a trust was executed, and deposited with my husband’s uncle, and on the recent investigation of his papers, consequent on his decease, the document was found!

MAG. Was found! (NORAH
produces paper,
MAGDALEN
seizes and reads it eagerly.
)

NORAH. Read it, and you will see that you were not destined by fate to be the victim your husband intended. Mr. Bartram failed to fulfill the condition on which he inherited your husband’s property — he was not married within the term assigned — and the result is, that the wealth transferred to him reverts to its proper owner.

MAG. To me, Norah?

NORAH. To you! You are its sole claimant, and my husband bids me tell you that no one rejoices at your good fortune more sincerely than himself.

MAG. And all this I owe to this small piece of paper?

NORAH. You do.

MAG. This document, which repays me for my long struggle, and which accomplishes my scheme — and now — does so no longer. (
she tears it up
)

NORAH. Oh, Magdalen! what have you done?

MAG. I have parted with my past life, I will owe nothing to it but the memory of its errors and its miseries. All the thoughts and all the hopes belonging to it are put away from me forever.

NORAH. My own dear sister!

MAG. I can seen the truth at last; from the ashes of dead passions, from the grave of buried hopes, I can see it rise in the light of its own immortal life.

NORAH. And rise to be the source of every possible reward —
 
—

VOICE OF KIRKE (
at back
). Mrs. Bartram, you say, is with her?

NORAH. Next to that of your own peace, the love of a good man. He is here, Magdalen, to tell you, you are now dearer to him than ever. Let me not delay the arrival of a happiness which has been so abundantly deserved.

[
Exit,
L. D.

KIRKE
enters
D.
in
F.

KIRKE. Have I driven your sister from the room? (
music to end.
)

MAG. Oh, no! she only left me, because —
 
—

KIRKE. She knows I have something to say, which would be best told to you, alone?

MAG. Exactly.

KIRKE. Well, shall I say it at once? I have read your letter, Magdalen; read it quietly and calmly, and shall tell you what I think of it?

MAG. Not yet; not just yet — I — I shall be stronger in an instant — and — till I am — tell me where you have been; to the city, I presume, to your employers about your ship?

KIRKE. You are right. I have been to them.

MAG. Do they want you to sail again?

KIRKE. They do.

MAG. And to sail at once?

KIRKE. At once.

MAG. And have you decided?

KIRKE. No; I am still doubting — doubting whether I should say yes or no.

MAG. Oh, be frank with me. Let me know all; In a word, were you doubting for my sake?

KIRKE. Yes, Magdalen, take my confession in return for yours. For your sake, for yours only.

MAG. I am pardoned, then?

KIRKE. Pardoned! do l look as if I had condemned?

MAG. Dearest and best of men! (
throws herself on his bosom.
)

KIRKE. Let my heart answer you Magdalen — that heart on which you rest

MAG. And yet, do I deserve my happiness? Oh, I know how the poor, narrow people would reply, who have never felt, and never suffered; how they would forget all my provocation, and only remember my offence; how they would fasten on my sin, and pass all my sufferings by; but you are not one of them. Tell me if you have even the shadow of a misgiving left. Tell me if you doubt that the one dear object of my life is to live worthy of you! I asked you to wait and see me — I asked you — if there was any hard truth to be told — to tell it here — with your own lips — tell it — my love — my husband — tell it now!

KIRKE. In this way — in this only. (
he kisses her fondly.)

NORAH enters, L. D.

CURTAIN.