Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (884 page)

Grace stole one furtive glance at his steady, resolute face. She was perfectly unmoved by the manly consideration for her which Julian’s last words had expressed. All she understood was that he was not a man to be trifled with. Future opportunities would offer themselves of returning secretly to the house. She determined to yield — and deceive him.

“I am ready to go,” she said, rising with dogged submission. “Your turn now,” she muttered to herself, as she turned to the looking-glass to arrange her shawl. “My turn will come.”

Julian advanced toward her, as if to offer her his arm, and checked himself. Firmly persuaded as he was that her mind was deranged — readily as he admitted that she claimed, in virtue of her affliction, every indulgence that he could extend to her — there was something repellent to him at that moment in the bare idea of touching her. The image of the beautiful creature who was the object of her monstrous accusation — the image of Mercy as she lay helpless for a moment in his arms — was vivid in his mind while he opened the door that led into the hall, and drew back to let Grace pass out before him. He left the servant to help her into the cab. The man respectfully addressed him as he took his seat opposite to Grace.

“I am ordered to say that your room is ready, sir, and that her ladyship expects you to dinner.”

Absorbed in the events which had followed his aunt’s invitation, Julian had forgotten his engagement to stay at Mablethorpe House. Could he return, knowing his own heart as he now knew it? Could he honourably remain, perhaps for weeks together, in Mercy’s society, conscious as he now was of the impression which she had produced on him? No. The one honourable course that he could take was to find an excuse for withdrawing from his engagement. “Beg her ladyship not to wait dinner for me,” he said. “I will write and make my apologies.” The cab drove off. The wondering servant waited on the doorstep, looking after it. “I wouldn’t stand in Mr. Julian’s shoes for something,” he thought, with his mind running on the difficulties of the young clergyman’s position. “There she is along with him in the cab. What is he going to do with her after that?”

Julian himself, if it had been put to him at the moment, could not have answered the question.

Lady Janet’s anxiety was far from being relieved when Mercy had been restored to her senses and conducted to her own room.

Mercy’s mind remained in a condition of unreasoning alarm, which it was impossible to remove. Over and over again she was told that the woman who had terrified her had left the house, and would never be permitted to enter it more; over and over again she was assured that the stranger’s frantic assertions were regarded by everybody about her as unworthy of a moment’s serious attention. She persisted in doubting whether they were telling her the truth. A shocking distrust of her friends seemed to possess her. She shrunk when Lady Janet approached the bedside. She shuddered when Lady Janet kissed her. She flatly refused to let Horace see her. She asked the strangest questions about Julian Gray, and shook her head suspiciously when they told her that he was absent from the house. At intervals she hid her face in the bedclothes and murmured to herself piteously, “Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?” At other times her one petition was to be left alone. “I want nobody in my room” — that was her sullen cry — ”nobody in my room.”

The evening advanced, and brought with it no change for the better. Lady Janet, by the advice of Horace, sent for her own medical adviser.

The doctor shook his head. The symptoms, he said, indicated a serious shock to the nervous system. He wrote a sedative prescription; and he gave (with a happy choice of language) some sound and safe advice. It amounted briefly to this: “Take her away, and try the sea-side.” Lady Janet’s customary energy acted on the advice, without a moment’s needless delay. She gave the necessary directions for packing the trunks overnight, and decided on leaving Mablethorpe House with Mercy the next morning.

Shortly after the doctor had taken his departure a letter from Julian, addressed to Lady Janet, was delivered by private messenger.

Beginning with the necessary apologies for the writer’s absence, the letter proceeded in these terms:

“Before I permitted my companion to see the lawyer, I felt the necessity of consulting him as to my present position toward her first.

“I told him — what I think it only right to repeat to you — that I do not feel justified in acting on my own opinion that her mind is deranged. In the case of this friendless woman I want medical authority, and, more even than that, I want some positive proof, to satisfy my conscience as well as to confirm my view.

“Finding me obstinate on this point, the lawyer undertook to consult a physician accustomed to the treatment of the insane, on my behalf.

“After sending a message and receiving the answer, he said, ‘Bring the lady here — in half an hour; she shall tell her story to the doctor instead of telling it to me.’ The proposal rather staggered me; I asked how it was possible to induce her to do that. He laughed, and answered, ‘I shall present the doctor as my senior partner; my senior partner will be the very man to advise her.’ You know that I hate all deception, even where the end in view appears to justify it. On this occasion, however, there was no other alternative than to let the lawyer take his own course, or to run the risk of a delay which might be followed by serious results.

“I waited in a room by myself (feeling very uneasy, I own) until the doctor joined me, after the interview was over.

“His opinion is, briefly, this:

“After careful examination of the unfortunate creature, he thinks that there are unmistakably symptoms of mental aberration. But how far the mischief has gone, and whether her case is, or is not, sufficiently grave to render actual restraint necessary, he cannot positively say, in our present state of ignorance as to facts.

“‘Thus far,’ he observed, ‘we know nothing of that part of her delusion which relates to Mercy Merrick. The solution of the difficulty, in this case, is to be found there. I entirely agree with the lady that the inquiries of the consul at Mannheim are far from being conclusive. Furnish me with satisfactory evidence either that there is, or is not, such a person really in existence as Mercy Merrick, and I will give you a positive opinion on the case whenever you choose to ask for it.’

“Those words have decided me on starting for the Continent and renewing the search for Mercy Merrick.

“My friend the lawyer wonders jocosely whether
I
am in my right senses. His advice is that I should apply to the nearest magistrate, and relieve you and myself of all further trouble in that way.

“Perhaps you agree with him? My dear aunt (as you have often said), I do nothing like other people. I am interested in this case. I cannot abandon a forlorn woman who has been confided to me to the tender mercies of strangers, so long as there is any hope of my making discoveries which may be instrumental in restoring her to herself — perhaps, also, in restoring her to her friends.

“I start by the mail-train of to-night. My plan is to go first to Mannheim and consult with the consul and the hospital doctors; then to find my way to the German surgeon and to question
him
; and, that done, to make the last and hardest effort of all — the effort to trace the French ambulance and to penetrate the mystery of Mercy Merrick.

“Immediately on my return I will wait on you, and tell you what I have accomplished, or how I have failed.

“In the meanwhile, pray be under no alarm about the reappearance of this unhappy woman at your house. She is fully occupied in writing (at my suggestion) to her friends in Canada; and she is under the care of the landlady at her lodgings — an experienced and trustworthy person, who has satisfied the doctor as well as myself of her fitness for the charge that she has undertaken.

“Pray mention this to Miss Roseberry (whenever you think it desirable), with the respectful expression of my sympathy, and of my best wishes for her speedy restoration to health. And once more forgive me for failing, under stress of necessity, to enjoy the hospitality of Mablethorpe House.”

Lady Janet closed Julian’s letter, feeling far from satisfied with it. She sat for a while, pondering over what her nephew had written to her.

“One of two things,” thought the quick-witted old lady. “Either the lawyer is right, and Julian is a fit companion for the madwoman whom he has taken under his charge, or he has some second motive for this absurd journey of his which he has carefully abstained from mentioning in his letter. What can the motive be?”

At intervals during the night that question recurred to her ladyship again and again. The utmost exercise of her ingenuity failing to answer it, her one resource left was to wait patiently for Julian’s return, and, in her own favorite phrase, to “have it out of him” then.

The next morning Lady Janet and her adopted daughter left Mablethorpe House for Brighton; Horace (who had begged to be allowed to accompany them) being sentenced to remain in London by Mercy’s express desire. Why — nobody could guess; and Mercy refused to say.

CHAPTER XIII. ENTER JULIAN.

A WEEK has passed. The scene opens again in the dining-room at Mablethorpe House.

The hospitable table bears once more its burden of good things for lunch. But on this occasion Lady Janet sits alone. Her attention is divided between reading her newspaper and feeding her cat. The cat is a sleek and splendid creature. He carries an erect tail. He rolls luxuriously on the soft carpet. He approaches his mistress in a series of coquettish curves. He smells with dainty hesitation at the choicest morsels that can be offered to him. The musical monotony of his purring falls soothingly on her ladyship’s ear. She stops in the middle of a leading article and looks with a careworn face at the happy cat. “Upon my honour,” cries Lady Janet, thinking, in her inveterately ironical manner, of the cares that trouble her, “all things considered, Tom, I wish I was You!”

The cat starts — not at his mistress’s complimentary apostrophe, but at a knock at the door, which follows close upon it. Lady Janet says, carelessly enough, “Come in;” looks round listlessly to see who it is; and starts, like the cat, when the door opens and discloses — Julian Gray!

“You — or your ghost?” she exclaims.

She has noticed already that Julian is paler than usual, and that there is something in his manner at once uneasy and subdued — highly uncharacteristic of him at other times. He takes a seat by her side, and kisses her hand. But — for the first time in his aunt’s experience of him — he refuses the good things on the luncheon table, and he has nothing to say to the cat! That neglected animal takes refuge on Lady Janet’s lap. Lady Janet, with her eyes fixed expectantly on her nephew (determining to “have it out of him” at the first opportunity), waits to hear what he has to say for himself. Julian has no alternative but to break the silence, and tell his story as he best may.

“I got back from the Continent last night,” he began. “And I come here, as I promised, to report myself on my return. How does your ladyship do? How is Miss Roseberry?”

Lady Janet laid an indicative finger on the lace pelerine which ornamented the upper part of her dress. “Here is the old lady, well,” she answered — and pointed next to the room above them. “And there,” she added, “is the young lady, ill. Is anything the matter with
you
, Julian?”

“Perhaps I am a little tired after my journey. Never mind me. Is Miss Roseberry still suffering from the shock?”

“What else should she be suffering from? I will never forgive you, Julian, for bringing that crazy impostor into my house.”

“My dear aunt, when I was the innocent means of bringing her here I had no idea that such a person as Miss Roseberry was in existence. Nobody laments what has happened more sincerely than I do. Have you had medical advice?”

“I took her to the sea-side a week since by medical advice.”

“Has the change of air don e her no good?”

“None whatever. If anything, the change of air has made her worse. Sometimes she sits for hours together, as pale as death, without looking at anything, and without uttering a word. Sometimes she brightens up, and seems as if she was eager to say something; and then Heaven only knows why, checks herself suddenly as if she was afraid to speak. I could support that. But what cuts me to the heart, Julian, is, that she does not appear to trust me and to love me as she did. She seems to be doubtful of me; she seems to be frightened of me. If I did not know that it was simply impossible that such a thing could be, I should really think she suspected me of believing what that wretch said of her. In one word (and between ourselves), I begin to fear she will never get over the fright which caused that fainting-fit. There is serious mischief somewhere; and, try as I may to discover it, it is mischief beyond my finding.”