Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (729 page)

“There you are!” he said, and handed his note to the man.

“All right, Geoffrey?” asked a friendly voice behind him.

He turned — and saw Arnold, anxious for news of the consultation with Sir Patrick.

“Yes,” he said. “All right.”

   
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— NOTE. — There are certain readers who feel a

    
disposition to doubt Facts, when they meet with them in a work of

    
fiction. Persons of this way of thinking may be profitably

    
referred to the book which first suggested to me the idea of

  
  
writing the present Novel. The book is the Report of the Royal

    
Commissioners on The Laws of Marriage. Published by the Queen’s

    
Printers For her Majesty’s Stationery Office. (London, 1868.)

    
What Sir Patrick says professionally of Scotch Marriages in this

    
chapter is taken from this high authority. What the lawyer (in

    
the Prologue) says professionally of Irish Marriages is also

    
derived from the same source. It is needless to encumber these

    
pages with quotations. But as a means of satisfying my readers

    
that they may depend on me, I subjoin an extract from my list of

    
references to the Report of the Marriage Commission, which any

    
persons who may be so inclined can verify for themselves.

    
Irish Marriages
(In the Prologue). — See Report, pages XII.,

    
XIII., XXIV.

    
Irregular Marriages in Scotland.
— Statement of the law by Lord

    
Deas. Report, page XVI. — Marriages of children of tender years.

    
Examination of Mr. Muirhead by Lord Chelmsford (Question

    
689). — Interchange of consent, established by inference.

    
Examination of Mr. Muirhead by the Lord Justice Clerk (Question

    
654) — Marriage where consent has never been interchanged.

    
Observations of Lord Deas. Report, page XIX. — Contradiction of

    
opinions between authorities. Report, pages XIX., XX. — Legal

    
provision for the sale of horses and dogs. No legal provision for

    
the marriage of men and women. Mr. Seeton’s Remarks. Report, page

    
XXX. — Conclusion of the Commissioners. In spite of the arguments

    
advanced before them in favor of not interfering with Irregular

    
Marriages in Scotland, the Commissioners declare their opinion

    
that “Such marriages ought not to continue.” (Report, page

    
XXXIV.)

  
  
In reference to the arguments (alluded to above) in favor of

    
allowing the present disgraceful state of things to continue, I

    
find them resting mainly on these grounds: That Scotland doesn’t

    
like being interfered with by England (!). That Irregular

    
Marriages cost nothing (!!). That they are diminishing in number,

    
and may therefore be trusted, in course of time, to exhaust

    
themselves (!!!). That they act, on certain occasions, in the

    
capacity of a moral trap to catch a profligate man (!!!!). Such

    
is the elevated point of view from which the Institution of

    
Marriage is regarded by some of the most pious and learned men in

    
Scotland. A legal enactment providing for the sale of your wife,

    
when you have done with her, or of your husband; when you “really

    
can’t put up with him any longer,” appears to be all that is

    
wanting to render this North British estimate of the “Estate of

    
Matrimony” practically complete. It is only fair to add that, of

    
the witnesses giving evidence — oral and written — before the

    
Commissioners, fully one-half regard the Irregular Marriages of

    
Scotland from the Christian and the civilized point of view, and

    
entirely agree with the authoritative conclusion already

    
cited — that such marriages ought to be abolished.

    
W. C.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.

DONE!

ARNOLD was a little surprised by the curt manner in which Geoffrey answered him.

“Has Sir Patrick said any thing unpleasant?” he asked.

“Sir Patrick has said just what I wanted him to say.”

“No difficulty about the marriage?”

“None.”

“No fear of Blanche — ”

“She won’t ask you to go to Craig Fernie — I’ll answer for that!” He said the words with a strong emphasis on them, took his brother’s letter from the table, snatched up his hat, and went out.

His friends, idling on the lawn, hailed him. He passed by them quickly without answering, without so much as a glance at them over his shoulder. Arriving at the rose-garden, he stopped and took out his pipe; then suddenly changed his mind, and turned back again by another path. There was no certainty, at that hour of the day, of his being left alone in the rose-garden. He had a fierce and hungry longing to be by himself; he felt as if he could have been the death of any body who came and spoke to him at that moment. With his head down and his brows knit heavily, he followed the path to see what it ended in. It ended in a wicket-gate which led into a kitchen-garden. Here he was well out of the way of interruption: there was nothing to attract visitors in the kitchen-garden. He went on to a walnut-tree planted in the middle of the inclosure, with a wooden bench and a broad strip of turf running round it. After first looking about him, he seated himself and lit his pipe.

“I wish it was done!” he said.

He sat, with his elbows on his knees, smoking and thinking. Before long the restlessness that had got possession of him forced him to his feet again. He rose, and paced round and round the strip of greensward under the walnut-tree, like a wild beast in a cage.

What was the meaning of this disturbance in the inner man? Now that he had committed himself to the betrayal of the friend who had trusted and served him, was he torn by remorse?

He was no more torn by remorse than you are while your eye is passing over this sentence. He was simply in a raging fever of impatience to see himself safely la nded at the end which he had in view.

Why should he feel remorse? All remorse springs, more or less directly, from the action of two sentiments, which are neither of them inbred in the natural man. The first of these sentiments is the product of the respect which we learn to feel for ourselves. The second is the product of the respect which we learn to feel for others. In their highest manifestations, these two feelings exalt themselves, until the first he comes the love of God, and the second the love of Man. I have injured you, and I repent of it when it is done. Why should I repent of it if I have gained something by it for my own self and if you can’t make me feel it by injuring Me? I repent of it because there has been a sense put into me which tells me that I have sinned against Myself, and sinned against You. No such sense as that exists among the instincts of the natural man. And no such feelings as these troubled Geoffrey Delamayn; for Geoffrey Delamayn was the natural man.

When the idea of his scheme had sprung to life in his mind, the novelty of it had startled him — the enormous daring of it, suddenly self-revealed, had daunted him. The signs of emotion which he had betrayed at the writing-table in the library were the signs of mere mental perturbation, and of nothing more.

That first vivid impression past, the idea had made itself familiar to him. He had become composed enough to see such difficulties as it involved, and such consequences as it implied. These had fretted him with a passing trouble; for these he plainly discerned. As for the cruelty and the treachery of the thing he meditated doing — that consideration never crossed the limits of his mental view. His position toward the man whose life he had preserved was the position of a dog. The “noble animal” who has saved you or me from drowning will fly at your throat or mine, under certain conditions, ten minutes afterward. Add to the dog’s unreasoning instinct the calculating cunning of a man; suppose yourself to be in a position to say of some trifling thing, “Curious! at such and such a time I happened to pick up such and such an object; and now it turns out to be of some use to me!” — and there you have an index to the state of Geoffrey’s feeling toward his friend when he recalled the past or when he contemplated the future. When Arnold had spoken to him at the critical moment, Arnold had violently irritated him; and that was all.

The same impenetrable insensibility, the same primitively natural condition of the moral being, prevented him from being troubled by the slightest sense of pity for Anne. “She’s out of my way!” was his first thought. “She’s provided for, without any trouble to Me!” was his second. He was not in the least uneasy about her. Not the slightest doubt crossed his mind that, when once she had realized her own situation, when once she saw herself placed between the two alternatives of facing her own ruin or of claiming Arnold as a last resource, she would claim Arnold. She would do it as a matter of course; because
he
would have done it in her place.

But he wanted it over. He was wild, as he paced round and round the walnut-tree, to hurry on the crisis and be done with it. Give me my freedom to go to the other woman, and to train for the foot-race — that’s what I want.
They
injured? Confusion to them both! It’s I who am injured by them. They are the worst enemies I have! They stand in my way.

How to be rid of them? There was the difficulty. He had made up his mind to be rid of them that day. How was he to begin?

There was no picking a quarrel with Arnold, and so beginning with
him.
This course of proceeding, in Arnold’s position toward Blanche, would lead to a scandal at the outset — a scandal which would stand in the way of his making the right impression on Mrs. Glenarm. The woman — lonely and friendless, with her sex and her position both against her if
she
tried to make a scandal of it — the woman was the one to begin with. Settle it at once and forever with Anne; and leave Arnold to hear of it and deal with it, sooner or later, no matter which.