Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (791 page)

The right interpretation was not easy to discover.

Some of the events pointed apparently toward coming repairs or alterations in the cottage. But what Geoffrey could have to do with them (being at the time served with a notice to quit), and why Hester Dethridge should have shown the violent agitation which had been described, were mysteries which it was impossible to penetrate.

Anne dismissed the girl with a little present and a few kind words. Under other circumstances, the incomprehensible proceedings in the house might have made her seriously uneasy. But her mind was now occupied by more pressing anxieties. Blanche’s second letter (received from Hester Dethridge on the previous evening) informed her that Sir Patrick persisted in his resolution, and that he and his niece might be expected, come what might of it, to present themselves at the cottage on that day.

Anne opened the letter, and looked at it for the second time. The passages relating to Sir Patrick were expressed in these terms:

“I don’t think, darling, you have any idea of the interest that you have roused in my uncle. Although he has not to reproach himself, as I have, with being the miserable cause of the sacrifice that you have made, he is quite as wretched and quite as anxious about you as I am. We talk of nobody else. He said last night that he did not believe there was your equal in the world. Think of that from a man who has such terribly sharp eyes for the faults of women in general, and such a terribly sharp tongue in talking of them! I am pledged to secrecy; but I must tell you one other thing, between ourselves. Lord Holchester’s announcement that his brother refuses to consent to a separation put my uncle almost beside himself. If there is not some change for the better in your life in a few days’ time, Sir Patrick will find out a way of his own — lawful or not, he doesn’t care — for rescuing you from the dreadful position in which you are placed, and Arnold (with my full approval) will help him. As we understand it, you are, under one pretense or another, kept a close prisoner. Sir Patrick has already secured a post of observation near you. He and Arnold went all round the cottage last night, and examined a door in your back garden wall, with a locksmith to help them. You will no doubt hear further about this from Sir Patrick himself. Pray don’t appear to know any thing of it when you see him! I am not in his confidence — but Arnold is, which comes to the same thing exactly. You will see us (I mean you will see my uncle and me) to-morrow, in spite of the brute who keeps you under lock and key. Arnold will not accompany us; he is not to be trusted (he owns it himself) to control his indignation. Courage, dearest! There are two people in the world to whom you are inestimably precious, and who are determined not to let your happiness be sacrificed. I am one of them, and (for Heaven’s sake keep this a secret also!) Sir Patrick is the other.”

Absorbed in the letter, and in the conflict of opposite feelings which it roused — her colour rising when it turned her thoughts inward on herself, and fading again when she was reminded by it of the coming visit — Anne was called back to a sense of present events by the reappearance of the servant, charged with a message. Mr. Speedwell had been for some time in the cottage, and he was now waiting to see her down stairs.

Anne found the surgeon alone in the drawing-room. He apologized for disturbing her at that early hour.

“It was impossible for me to get to Fulham yesterday,” he said, “and I could only make sure of complying with Lord Holchester’s request by coming here before the time at which I receive patients at home. I have seen Mr. Delamayn, and I have requested permission to say a word to you on the subject of his health.”

Anne looked through the window, and saw Geoffrey smoking his pipe — not in the back garden, as usual, but in front of the cottage, where he could keep his eye on the gate.

“Is he ill?” she asked.

“He is seriously ill,” answered Mr. Speedwell. “I should not otherwise have troubled you with this interview. It is a matter of professional duty to warn you, as his wife, that he is in danger. He may be seized at any moment by a paralytic stroke. The only chance for him — a very poor one, I am bound to say — is to make him alter his present mode of life without loss of time.”

“In one way he will be obliged to alter it,” said Anne. “He has received notice from the landlady to quit this cottage.”

Mr. Speedwell looked surprised.

“I think you will find that the notice has been withdrawn,” he said. “I can only assure you that Mr. Delamayn distinctly informed me, when I advised change of air, that he had decided, for reasons of his own, on remaining here.”

(Another in the series of incomprehensible domestic events! Hester Dethridge — on all other occasions the most immovable of women — had changed her mind!)

“Setting that aside,” proceeded the surgeon, “there are two preventive measures which I feel bound to suggest. Mr. Delamayn is evidently suffering (though he declines to admit it himself) from mental anxiety. If he is to have a chance for his life, that anxiety must be set at rest. Is it in your power to relieve it?”

“It is not even in my power, Mr. Speedwell, to tell you what it is.”

The surgeon bowed, and went on:

“The second caution that I have to give you,” he said, “is to keep him from drinking spirits. He admits having committed an excess in that way the night before last. In his state of health, drinking means literally death. If he goes back to the brandy-bottle — forgive me for saying it plainly; the matter is too serious to be trifled with — if he goes back to the brandy-bottle, his life, in my opinion, is not worth five minutes’ purchase. Can you keep him from drinking?”

Anne answered sadly and plainly:

“I have no influence over him. The terms we are living on here — ”

Mr. Speedwell considerately stopped her.

“I understand,” he said. “I will see his brother on my way home.” He looked for a moment at Anne. “You are far from well yourself,” he resumed. “Can I do any thing for you?”

“While I am living my present life, Mr. Speedwell, not even your skill can help me.”

The surgeon took his leave. Anne hurried back up stairs, before Geoffrey could re-enter the cottage. To see the man who had laid her life waste — to meet the vindictive hatred that looked furtively at her out of his eyes — at the moment when sentence of death had been pronounced on him, was an ordeal from which every finer instinct in her nature shrank in horror.

Hour by hour, the morning wore on, and he made no attempt to communicate with her, Stranger still, Hester Dethridge never appeared. The servant came up stairs to say goodby; and went away for her holiday. Shortly afterward, certain sounds reached Anne’s ears from the opposite side of the passage. She heard the strokes of a hammer, and then a noise as of some heavy piece of furniture being moved. The mysterious repairs were apparently being begun in the spare room.

She went to the window. The hour was approaching at which Sir Patrick and Blanche might be expected to make the attempt to see her.

For the third time, she looked at the letter.

It suggested, on this occasion, a new consideration to her. Did the strong measures which Sir Patrick had taken in secret indicate alarm as well as sympathy? Did he believe she was in a position in which the protection of the law was powerless to reach her? It seemed just possible. Suppose she were free to consult a magistrate, and to own to him (if words could express it) the vague presentiment of danger which was then present in her mind — what proof could she produce to satisfy the mind of a stranger? The proofs were all in her husband’s favor. Witnesses could testify to the conciliatory words which he had spoken to her in their presence. The evidence of his mother and brother would show that he had preferred to sacrifice his own pecuniary interests rather than consent to part with her. She could furnish nobody with the smallest excuse, in her case, for interfering between man and wife. Did Sir Patrick see this? And did Blanche’s description of what he and Arnold Brinkworth were doing point to the conclusion that they were taking the law into their own hands in despair? The more she thought of it, the more likely it seemed.

She was still pursuing the train of thought thus suggested, when the gate-bell rang.

The noises in the spare room suddenly stopped.

Anne looked out. The roof of a carriage was visible on the other side of the wall. Sir Patrick and Blanche had arrived. After an interval Hester Dethridge appeared in the garden, and went to the grating in the gate. Anne heard Sir Patrick’s voice, clear and resolute. Every word he said reached her ears through the open window.

“Be so good as to give my card to Mr. Delamayn. Say that I bring him a message from Holchester House, and that I can only deliver it at a personal interview.”

Hester Dethridge returned to the cottage. Another, and a longer interval elapsed. At the end of the time, Geoffrey himself appeared in the front garden, with the key in his hand. Anne’s heart throbbed fast as she saw him unlock the gate, and asked herself what was to follow.

To her unutterable astonishment, Geoffrey admitted Sir Patrick without the slightest hesitation — and, more still, he invited Blanche to leave the carriage and come in!

“Let by-gones be by-gones,” Anne heard him say to Sir Patrick. “I only want to do the right thing. If it’s the right thing for visitors to come here, so soon after my father’s death, come, and welcome. My own notion was, when you proposed it before, that it was wrong. I am not much versed in these things. I leave it to you.”

“A visitor who brings you messages from your mother and your brother,” Sir Patrick answered gravely, “is a person whom it is your duty to admit, Mr. Delamayn, under any circumstances.”

“And he ought to be none the less welcome,” added Blanche, “when he is accompanied by your wife’s oldest and dearest friend.”

Geoffrey looked, in stolid submission, from one to the other.

“I am not much versed in these things,” he repeated. “I have said already, I leave it to you.”

They were by this time close under Anne’s window. She showed herself. Sir Patrick took off his hat. Blanche kissed her hand with a cry of joy, and attempted to enter the cottage. Geoffrey stopped her — and called to his wife to come down.

“No! no!” said Blanche. “Let me go up to her in her room.”

She attempted for the second time to gain the stairs. For the second time Geoffrey stopped her. “Don’t trouble yourself,” he said; “she is coming down.”

Anne joined them in the front garden. Blanche flew into her arms and devoured her with kisses. Sir Patrick took her hand in silence. For the first time in Anne’s experience of him, the bright, resolute, self-reliant old man was, for the moment, at a loss what to say, at a loss what to do. His eyes, resting on her in mute sympathy and interest, said plainly, “In your husband’s presence I must not trust myself to speak.”

Geoffrey broke the silence.

“Will you go into the drawing-room?” he asked, looking with steady attention at his wife and Blanche.

Geoffrey’s voice appeared to rouse Sir Patrick. He raised his head — he looked like himself again.

“Why go indoors this lovely weather?” he said. “Suppose we take a turn in the garden?”

Blanche pressed Anne’s hand significantly. The proposal was evidently made for a purpose. They turned the corner of the cottage and gained the large garden at the back — the two ladies walking together, arm in arm; Sir Patrick and Geoffrey following them. Little by little, Blanche quickened her pace. “I have got my instructions,” she whispered to Anne. “Let’s get out of his hearing.”

It was more easily said than done. Geoffrey kept close behind them.

“Consider my lameness, Mr. Delamayn,” said Sir Patrick. “Not quite so fast.”

It was well intended. But Geoffrey’s cunning had taken the alarm. Instead of dropping behind with Sir Patrick, he called to his wife.

“Consider Sir Patrick’s lameness,” he repeated. “Not quite so fast.”

Sir Patrick met that check with characteristic readiness. When Anne slackened her pace, he addressed himself to Geoffrey, stopping deliberately in the middle of the path. “Let me give you my message from Holchester House,” he said. The two ladies were still slowly walking on. Geoffrey was placed between the alternatives of staying with Sir Patrick and leaving them by themselves — or of following them and leaving Sir Patrick. Deliberately, on his side, he followed the ladies.