Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (911 page)

Her voice failed her; sobs choked her utterance. He sprang to her and took her in his arms. She was incapable of resisting him; but there was no yielding in her. Her head lay on his bosom, passive — horribly passive, like the head of a corpse.

“Mercy! My darling! We will go away — we will leave England — we will take refuge among new people in a new world — I will change my name — I will break with relatives, friends, everybody. Anything, anything, rather than lose you!”

She lifted her head slowly and looked at him.

He suddenly released her; he reeled back like a man staggered by a blow, and dropped into a chair. Before she had uttered a word he saw the terrible resolution in her face — Death, rather than yield to her own weakness and disgrace him.

She stood with her hands lightly clasped in front of her. Her grand head was raised; her soft gray eyes shone again undimmed by tears. The storm of emotion had swept over her and had passed away A sad tranquillity was in her face; a gentle resignation was in her voice. The calm of a martyr was the calm that confronted him as she spoke her last words.

“A woman who has lived my life, a woman who has suffered what I have suffered, may love you — as
I
love you — but she must not be your wife.
That
place is too high above her. Any other place is too far below her and below you.” She paused, and advancing to the bell, gave the signal for her departure. That done, she slowly retraced her steps until she stood at Julian’s side.

Tenderly she lifted his head and laid it for a moment on her bosom. Silently she stooped and touched his forehead with her lips. All the gratitude that filled her heart and all the sacrifice that rent it were in those two actions — so modestly, so tenderly performed! As the last lingering pressure of her fingers left him, Julian burst into tears.

The servant answered the bell. At the moment he opened the door a woman’s voice was audible in the hall speaking to him.

“Let the child go in,” the voice said. “I will wait here.”

The child appeared — the same forlorn little creature who had reminded Mercy of her own early years on the day when she and Horace Holmcroft had been out for their walk.

There was no beauty in this child; no halo of romance brightened the commonplace horror of her story. She came cringing into the room, staring stupidly at the magnificence all round her — the daughter of the London streets! the pet creation of the laws of political economy! the savage and terrible product of a worn-out system of government and of a civilisation rotten to its core! Cleaned for the first time in her life, fed sufficiently for the first time in her life, dressed in clothes instead of rags for the first time in her life, Mercy’s sister in adversity crept fearfully over the beautiful carpet, and stopped wonder-struck before the marbles of an inlaid table — a blot of mud on the splendor of the room.

Mercy turned from Julian to meet the child. The woman’s heart, hungering in its horrible isolation for something that it might harmlessly love, welcomed the rescued waif of the streets as a consolation sent from God. She caught the stupefied little creature up in her arms. “Kiss me!” she whispered, in the reckless agony of the moment. “Call me sister!” The child stared, vacantly. Sister meant nothing to her mind but an older girl who was strong enough to beat her.

She put the child down again, and turned for a last look at the man whose happiness she had wrecked — in pity to
him
.

He had never moved. His head was down; his face was hidden. She went back to hi m a few steps.

“The others have gone from me without one kind word. Can
you
forgive me?”

He held out his hand to her without looking up. Sorely as she had wounded him, his generous nature understood her. True to her from the first,
he
was true to her still.

“God bless and comfort you,” he said, in broken tones. “The earth holds no nobler woman than you.”

She knelt and kissed the kind hand that pressed hers for the last time. “It doesn’t end with this world,” she whispered: “there is a better world to come!” Then she rose, and went back to the child. Hand in hand the two citizens of the Government of God — outcasts of the government of Man — passed slowly down the length of the room. Then out into the hall. Then out into the night. The heavy clang of the closing door tolled the knell of their departure. They were gone.

But the orderly routine of the house — inexorable as death — pursued its appointed course. As the clock struck the hour the dinner-bell rang. An interval of a minute passed, and marked the limit of delay. The butler appeared at the dining-room door.

“Dinner is served, sir.”

Julian looked up. The empty room met his eyes. Something white lay on the carpet close by him. It was her handkerchief — wet with her tears. He took it up and pressed it to his lips. Was that to be the last of her? Had she left him forever?

The native energy of the man, arming itself with all the might of his love, kindled in him again. No! While life was in him, while time was before him, there was the hope of winning her yet!

He turned to the servant, reckless of what his face might betray.

“Where is Lady Janet?”

“In the dining-room, sir.”

He reflected for a moment. His own influence had failed. Through what other influence could he now hope to reach her? As the question crossed his mind the light broke on him. He saw the way back to her — through the influence of Lady Janet.

“Her ladyship is waiting, sir.”

Julian entered the dining-room.

EPILOGUE:

CONTAINING SELECTIONS FROM THE CORRESPONDENCE OF MISS GRACE ROSEBERRY AND MR. HORACE HOLMCROFT; TO WHICH ARE ADDED EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF THE REVEREND JULIAN GRAY.

I.

From MR. HORACE HOLMCROFT to MISS GRACE ROSEBERRY.

“I HASTEN to thank you, dear Miss Roseberry, for your last kind letter, received by yesterday’s mail from Canada. Believe me, I appreciate your generous readiness to pardon and forget what I so rudely said to you at a time when the arts of an adventuress had blinded me to the truth. In the grace which has forgiven me I recognise the inbred sense of justice of a true lady. Birth and breeding can never fail to assert themselves: I believe in them, thank God, more firmly than ever.

“You ask me to keep you informed of the progress of Julian Gray’s infatuation, and of the course of conduct pursued toward him by Mercy Merrick.

“If you had not favored me by explaining your object, I might have felt some surprise at receiving from a lady in your position such a request as this. But the motives by which you describe yourself as being actuated are beyond dispute. The existence of Society, as you truly say, is threatened by the present lamentable prevalence of Liberal ideas throughout the length and breadth of the land. We can only hope to protect ourselves against impostors interested in gaining a position among persons of our rank by becoming in some sort (unpleasant as it may be) familiar with the arts by which imposture too frequently succeeds. If we wish to know to what daring lengths cunning can go, to what pitiable self-delusion credulity can consent, we must watch the proceedings — even while we shrink from them — of a Mercy Merrick and a Julian Gray.

“In taking up my narrative again where my last letter left off, I must venture to set you right on one point.

“Certain expressions which have escaped your pen suggest to me that you blame Julian Gray as the cause of Lady Janet’s regrettable visit to the Refuge the day after Mercy Merrick had left her house. This is not quite correct. Julian, as you will presently see, has enough to answer for without being held responsible for errors of judgment in which he has had no share. Lady Janet (as she herself told me) went to the Refuge of her own free-will to ask Mercy Merrick’s pardon for the language which she had used on the previous day. ‘I passed a night of such misery as no words can describe’ — this, I assure you, is what her ladyship really said to me — ’thinking over what my vile pride and selfishness and obstinacy had made me say and do. I would have gone down on my knees to beg her pardon if she would have let me. My first happy moment was when I won her consent to come and visit me sometimes at Mablethorpe House.’

“You will, I am sure, agree with me that such extravagance as this is to be pitied rather than blamed. How sad to see the decay of the faculties with advancing age! It is a matter of grave anxiety to consider how much longer poor Lady Janet can be trusted to manage her own affairs. I shall take an opportunity of touching on the matter delicately when I next see her lawyer.

“I am straying from my subject. And — is it not strange? — I am writing to you as confidentially as if we were old friends.

“To return to Julian Gray. Innocent of instigating his aunt’s first visit to the Refuge, he is guilty of having induced her to go there for the second time the day after I had dispatched my last letter to you. Lady Janet’s object on this occasion was neither more nor less than to plead her nephew’s cause as humble suitor for the hand of Mercy Merrick. Imagine the descent of one of the oldest families in England inviting an adventuress in a Refuge to honour a clergyman of the Church of England by becoming his wife! In what times do we live! My dear mother shed tears of shame when she heard of it. How you would love and admire my mother!

“I dined at Mablethorpe House, by previous appointment, on the day when Lady Janet returned from her degrading errand.

“‘Well?’ I said, waiting, of course, until the servant was out of the room.

“‘Well,’ Lady Janet answered, ‘Julian was quite right.’

“‘Quite right in what?’

“‘In saying that the earth holds no nobler woman than Mercy Merrick.’

“‘Has she refused him again?’

“‘She has refused him again.’

“‘Thank God!’ I felt it fervently, and I said it fervently. Lady Janet laid down her knife and fork, and fixed one of her fierce looks on me.

“‘It may not be your fault, Horace,’ she said, ‘if your nature is incapable of comprehending what is great and generous in other natures higher than yours. But the least you can do is to distrust your own capacity of appreciation. For the future keep your opinions (on questions which you don’t understand) modestly to yourself. I have a tenderness for you for your father’s sake; and I take the most favorable view of your conduct toward Mercy Merrick. I humanely consider it the conduct of a fool.’ (Her own words, Miss Roseberry. I assure you once more, her own words.) ‘But don’t trespass too far on my indulgence — don’t insinuate again that a woman who is good enough (if she died this night) to go to heaven, is
not
good enough to be my nephew’s wife.’

“I expressed to you my conviction a little way back that it was doubtful whether poor Lady Janet would be much longer competent to manage her own affairs. Perhaps you thought me hasty then? What do you think now?

“It was, of course, useless to reply seriously to the extraordinary reprimand that I had received. Besides, I was really shocked by a decay of principle which proceeded but too plainly from decay of the mental powers. I made a soothing and respectful reply, and I was favored in return with some account of what had really happened at the Refuge. My mother and my sisters were disgusted when I repeated the particulars to them. You will be disgusted too.

“The interesting penitent (expecting Lady Janet’s visit) was, of course, discovered in a touching domestic position! She had a foundling baby asleep on her lap; and she was teaching the alphabet to an ugly little vagabond girl whose acquaintance she had first made in the street. Just the sort of artful
tableau vivant
to impose on an old lady — was it not?

“You will understand what followed, when Lady Janet opened her matrimonial negotiation. Having perfected herself in her part, Mercy Merrick, to do her justice, was not the woman to play it badly. The most magnanimous sentiments flowed from her lips. She declared that her future life was devoted to acts of charity, typified, of course, by the foundling infant and the ugly little girl. However she might personally suffer, whatever might be the sacrifice of her own feelings — observe how artfully this was put, to insinuate that she was herself in love with him! — she could not accept from Mr. Julian Gray an honour of which she was unworthy. Her gratitude to him and her interest in him alike forbade her to compromise his brilliant future by consenting to a marriage which would degrade him in the estimation of all his friends. She thanked him (with tears); she thanked Lady Janet (with more tears); but she dare not, in the interests of
his
honour and
his
happiness, accept the hand that he offered to her. God bless and comfort him; and God help her to bear with her hard lot!