Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2027 page)

Mercy
. Don’t speak of it.

Grace
. I
must
speak of it. What a situation you found me in, when the German forces were in retreat! My travelling carriage stopped; my horses seized; I myself in a strange country at nightfall, robbed of my money and my luggage, and drenched to the skin by the pouring rain! I am indebted to you for safety and for shelter. I am wearing your clothes. I should have died of the fright and the exposure, but for you. What return can I make for such services as these?

Mercy
. May I ask you a question?

Grace
. A hundred questions, if you like!

Mercy
. How came you to risk crossing the frontier in war-time?

Grace
(
seriously
). I had urgent reasons for returning to England.

Mercy
. Alone! without any one to protect you?

Grace
(
as before
). I have left my only protector — my father — in the English burial-ground at Rome. My mother died years since in Canada. (MERCY
starts.
) Do you know Canada?

Mercy
. Well.

Grace
. Were you ever at Port Logan?

Mercy
. I once lived within a few miles of Port Logan.

Grace
. Among the French settlers, or the English?

Mercy
. Among the French. (
She changes the subject.
) Let us return to your position here. Your relatives in England must be very anxious about you?

Grace
. I have no relatives in England. You can hardly imagine a person more friendless than I am. We quitted Canada, when my father’s health failed, to try the climate of Italy, by the doctor’s advice. His death has left me, not only friendless but poor. (
She produces from an inner pocket of her cloak a small leather letter-case.
) My prospects in life are all contained in this poor little case. Here is the one treasure I contrived to conceal when I was robbed of my other things.

Mercy
. Does your case contain money?

Grace
. No; only a few family papers, and a letter from my father, introducing me to an elderly lady in England — a connection of his by marriage. The lady has consented to receive me as companion and reader. If I delay my return to England some other person may get the place.

Mercy
. Surely, there can be no danger of that? The lady would prefer waiting for you to engaging a stranger.

Grace
.
I
am a stranger.

Mercy
. You have never seen the lady?

Grace
. I have never seen the lady.

Mercy
. Have you no other resource?

Grace
. None. My education has been neglected — we led a wild life in the far West. I am quite unfit to go out as a governess — I am absolutely dependent on this stranger, who receives me for my father’s sake. (
She puts back the letter-case.
) Mine is a sad story, is it not?

Mercy
(
bitterly
). There are sadder stories than yours. There are thousands of miserable women who would ask for no greater blessing than to change places with You.

Grace
(
astonished
). What can there possibly be to envy in such a lot as mine?

Mercy
(
sternly
). Your unblemished character, and your prospect of being established honourably in a respectable house.

Grace
. How strangely you say that! Is there some romance in your life? Why have you sacrificed yourself to the terrible duties which claim you here? You interest me indescribably! Let us be friends. (MERCY
roughly pushes her back.
) Ah, you are cruel!

Mercy
(
sternly
). I am kind!

Grace
. Is it kind to keep me at a distance?

Mercy
. Don’t tempt me to speak out. You will regret it.

Grace
.
I
have placed confidence in
you.
It is ungenerous to lay me under an obligation — and then to shut me out of your confidence in return.

Mercy
. You will have it? Sit down again. (GRACE
draws her chair nearer to
MERCY.) No — not near me, till you have heard what I have to say. (
She pauses — her head droops — she continues sadly, without looking at
GRACE.) In your mother’s lifetime, were you ever out with her at night, in the streets of a great city?

Grace
(
surprised
). I don’t understand you.

Mercy
(
gently
). I will put it in another way. Have you ever read in the newspapers of your unhappy fellow-creatures — the starving outcasts of the population — whom Want has driven into Sin?

Grace
(
as before
). Certainly.

Mercy
. Have you heard — when those starving and sinning fellow-creatures happened to be women — of Refuges established to protect and reclaim them?

Grace
(
startled
). These are extraordinary, questions. What do you mean?

Mercy
. Have you heard of the Refuges? Have you heard of the women?

Grace
(
unwillingly
). Yes.

Mercy
. I was once one of those women!

Grace
(
starting back with a cry of horror
). Oh!!!

Mercy
(
calmly
).
I
have been in a refuge.
I
have been in a prison. Do you still wish to be my friend? Do you still insist on sitting close by me, and taking I my hand? (
With a sad smile
) You see you were wrong when you called me cruel — and I was right when I told you I was kind.

Grace
(
confusedly
). I don’t wish to offend you —
 
—

Mercy
(
as quietly as before
). You don’t offend me. I am accustomed to stand in the pillory of my past life. I sometimes ask myself if it was all my fault. I sometimes wonder if Society had no duty towards me when I was a child selling matches in the street — when I was a hard-working girl, fainting at my needle for want of food. It is too late to dwell on these things now. Society can subscribe to reclaim me; but Society can’t take me back. You see me here in a place of trust; patiently, humbly, doing all the good I can. It doesn’t matter! Once let my past story be known, and the shadow of it covers me, the kindest people shrink.

Grace
(
at a loss what to say
). I am very sorry for you.

Mercy
. Everybody is sorry for me. But the lost place is not to be regained. I can’t get back! I can’t get back! Shall I tell you what my experience has been? Will you hear the story of Magdalen, in modern times?

Grace
(
aside, distrustfully
). What is she going to tell me?

Mercy
(
overhearing her
). Nothing that a young lady may not hear. My story shall begin in the Refuge. The matron sent me out to service, with the character that I had honestly earned — the character of a reclaimed woman. I justified the confidence placed in me; I was a faithful servant. One day my mistress sent for me — a kind mistress, if ever there was one yet. “Mercy, I am sorry for you; it has come out that I took you from a Refuge; I shall lose every servant in the house; you must go.” I went back to the matron — another kind woman. She received me like a mother. “We will try again, Mercy: don’t be cast down.” I told you that I had been in Canada?

Grace
. Yes.

Mercy
. My next place was in that colony, with an officer’s wife. Gentlefolks who had emigrated. More kindness; and, this time, a pleasant, peaceful life for me. I said to myself, “
Is
the lost place regained?
Have
l got back?” My mistress died. New people came into our neighbourhood. There was a young lady among them. My master began to think of another wife. I have the misfortune (in my situation) of being what is called handsome; I excite the curiosity of strangers. The new people asked questions about me. My master’s answers did not satisfy them. In a word, they found me out. The old story again! “Mercy, I am very sorry; scandal is busy with you and with me; we are innocent; but there is no help for it, we must part.” I went back again to the matron. Sickness had broken out in the Refuge. I made myself useful as a nurse. One of the doctors was struck with me — fell in love with me, as the phrase is. He would have married me. The matron, as an honest woman, was bound to tell him the truth. He never appeared again. The old story! I began to weary of saying to myself, “I can’t get back! I can’t get back!” Despair got hold of me — the despair that hardens the heart. I might have committed suicide. I might even have drifted back into the darkness of my old life, but for one man.

Grace
. A man who befriended you?

Mercy
. A man who doesn’t know that such a person as I am is in existence.

Grace
. And yet —
 
— ?

Mercy
. And yet he saved me. One Sunday our regular clergymen at the Refuge was not able to officiate. His place in the pulpit was taken by a stranger — quite a young man: the matron told us his name was Julian Gray. I sat under the shadow of the gallery where I could see
him,
without his seeing
me.
His text was from the words, “Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth — ” you know the rest. What happier women might have thought of his sermon I cannot say. There was not a dry eye among
us
at the Refuge. As for me, the hard despair melted in me at the sound of his voice. He touched my heart as no man has touched it before or since. From that time I have been a patient woman. I might have been a happy woman, if I had had courage enough to speak to Julian Gray.

Grace
. What were you afraid of?

Mercy
. I was afraid of making my hard life harder still. Must I tell it in plain words? (
Her voice falters.
) I was afraid I might interest him in my sorrows, and might set my heart on him in return.

Grace
(
astonished
). You!

Mercy
. I surprise you? Ah, my young lady, you don’t know what rough usage a woman’s heart can bear, and still beat truly! Before I saw Julian Gray, I only knew men as objects of horror to me. Let us drop the subject! The preacher at the Refuge is nothing but a remembrance now — the one welcome remembrance of my life. (
She rises.
) You have heard my story. Society — thanks to my friend the matron — has found a use for me here. My hand is as light, my words of comfort are as welcome, among these suffering men (
she points to the outer room
) as if I was the most reputable woman breathing. And if a stray shot comes my way before the war is over — well! Society will be rid of me on easy terms.