Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (925 page)

“I have had this wine bottled expressly for the ladies,” said the Major. “The biscuits came to me direct from Paris. As a favor to
me,
you must take some refreshment. And then — ” He stopped and looked at me very attentively. “And then,” he resumed, “shall I go to my young prima donna upstairs and leave you here alone?”

It was impossible to hint more delicately at the one request which I now had it in my mind to make to him. I took his hand and pressed it gratefully.

“The tranquillity of my whole life to come is at stake,” I said. “When I am left here by myself, does your generous sympathy permit me to examine everything in the room?”

He signed to me to drink the champagne and eat a biscuit before he gave his answer.

“This is serious,” he said. “I wish you to be in perfect possession of yourself. Restore your strength — and then I will speak to you.”

I did as he bade me. In a minute from the time when I drank it the delicious sparkling wine had begun to revive me.

“Is it your express wish,” he resumed, “that I should leave you here by yourself to search the room?”

“It is my express wish,” I answered.

“I take a heavy responsibility on myself in granting your request. But I grant it for all that, because I sincerely believe — as you believe — that the tranquillity of your life to come depends on your discovering the truth.” Saying those words, he took two keys from his pocket. “You will naturally feel a suspicion,” he went on, “of any locked doors that you may find here. The only locked places in the room are the doors of the cupboards under the long book-case, and the door of the Italian cabinet in that corner. The small key opens the book-case cupboards; the long key opens the cabinet door.”

With that explanation, he laid the keys before me on the table.

“Thus far,” he said, “I have rigidly respected the promise which I made to your husband. I shall continue to be faithful to my promise, whatever may be the result of your examination of the room. I am bound in honour not to assist you by word or deed. I am not even at liberty to offer you the slightest hint. Is that understood?”

“Certainly!”

“Very good. I have now a last word of warning to give you — and then I have done. If you do by any chance succeed in laying your hand on the clew, remember this —
the discovery which follows will be a terrible one.
If you have any doubt about your capacity to sustain a shock which will strike you to the soul, for God’s sake give up the idea of finding out your husband’s secret at once and forever!”

“I thank you for your warning, Major. I must face the consequences of making the discovery, whatever they may be.”

“You are positively resolved?”

“Positively.”

“Very well. Take any time you please. The house, and every person in it, are at your disposal. Ring the bell once if you want the man-servant. Ring twice if you wish the housemaid to wait on you. From time to time I shall just look in myself to see how you are going on. I am responsible for your comfort and security, you know, while you honour me by remaining under my roof.”

He lifted my hand to his lips, and fixed a last attentive look on me.

“I hope I am not running too great a risk,” he said — more to himself than to me. “The women have led me into many a rash action in my time. Have
you
led me, I wonder, into the rashest action of all?”

With those ominous last words he bowed gravely and left me alone in the room.

CHAPTER X. THE SEARCH.

THE fire burning in the grate was not a very large one; and the outer air (as I had noticed on my way to the house) had something of a wintry sharpness in it that day.

Still, my first feeling, when Major Fitz-David left me, was a feeling of heat and oppression, with its natural result, a difficulty in breathing freely. The nervous agitation of the time was, I suppose, answerable for these sensations. I took off my bonnet and mantle and gloves, and opened the window for a little while. Nothing was to be seen outside but a paved courtyard, with a skylight in the middle, closed at the further end by the wall of the Major’s stables. A few minutes at the window cooled and refreshed me. I shut it down again, and took my first step on the way of discovery. In other words, I began my first examination of the four walls around me, and of all that they inclosed.

I was amazed at my own calmness. My interview with Major Fitz-David had, perhaps, exhausted my capacity for feeling any strong emotion, for the time at least. It was a relief to me to be alone; it was a relief to me to begin the search. Those were my only sensations so far.

The shape of the room was oblong. Of the two shorter walls, one contained the door in grooves which I have already mentioned as communicating with the front room; the other was almost entirely occupied by the broad window which looked out on the courtyard.

Taking the doorway wall first, what was there, in the shape of furniture, on either side of it? There was a card-table on either side. Above each card-table stood a magnificent china bowl placed on a gilt and carved bracket fixed to the wall.

I opened the card-tables. The drawers beneath contained nothing but cards, and the usual counters and markers. With the exception of one pack, the cards in both tables were still wrapped in their paper covers exactly as they had come from the shop. I examined the loose pack, card by card. No writing, no mark of any kind, was visible on any one of them. Assisted by a library ladder which stood against the book-case, I looked next into the two china bowls. Both were perfectly empty. Was there anything more to examine on that side of the room? In the two corners there were two little chairs of inlaid wood, with red silk cushions. I turned them up and looked under the cushions, and still I made no discoveries. When I had put the chairs back in their places my search on one side of the room was complete. So far I had found nothing.

I crossed to the opposite wall, the wall which contained the window.

The window (occupying, as I have said, almost the entire length and height of the wall) was divided into three compartments, and was adorned at their extremity by handsome curtains of dark red velvet. The ample heavy folds of the velvet left just room at the two corners of the wall for two little upright cabinets in buhl, containing rows of drawers, and supporting two fine bronze productions (reduced in size) of the Venus Milo and the Venus Callipyge. I had Major Fitz-David’s permission to do just what I pleased. I opened the six drawers in each cabinet, and examined their contents without hesitation.

Beginning with the cabinet in the right-hand corner, my investigations were soon completed. All the six drawers were alike occupied by a collection of fossils, which (judging by the curious paper inscriptions fixed on some of them) were associated with a past period of the Major’s life when he had speculated, not very successfully in mines. After satisfying myself that the drawers contained nothing but the fossils and their inscriptions, I turned to the cabinet in the left-hand corner next.

Here a variety of objects was revealed to view, and the examination accordingly occupied a much longer time.

The top drawer contained a complete collection of carpenter’s tools in miniature, relics probably of the far-distant time when the Major was a boy, and when parents or friends had made him a present of a set of toy tools. The second drawer was filled with toys of another sort — presents made to Major Fitz-David by his fair friends. Embroidered braces, smart smoking-caps, quaint pincushions, gorgeous slippers, glittering purses, all bore witness to the popularity of the friend of the women. The contents of the third drawer were of a less interesting sort: the entire space was filled with old account-books, ranging over a period of many years. After looking into each book, and opening and shaking it uselessly, in search of any loose papers which might be hidden between the leaves, I came to the fourth drawer, and found more relics of past pecuniary transactions in the shape of receipted bills, neatly tied together, and each inscribed at the back. Among the bills I found nearly a dozen loose papers, all equally unimportant. The fifth drawer was in sad confusion. I took out first a loose bundle of ornamental cards, each containing the list of dishes at past banquets given or attended by the Major in London or Paris; next, a box full of delicately tinted quill pens (evidently a lady’s gift); next, a quantity of old invitation cards; next, some dog’s-eared French plays and books of the opera; next, a pocket-corkscrew, a bundle of cigarettes, and a bunch of rusty keys; lastly, a passport, a set of luggage labels, a broken silver snuff-box, two cigar-cases, and a torn map of Rome. “Nothing anywhere to interest me,” I thought, as I closed the fifth, and opened the sixth and last drawer.

The sixth drawer was at once a surprise and a disappointment. It literally contained nothing but the fragments of a broken vase.

I was sitting, at the time, opposite to the cabinet, in a low chair. In the momentary irritation caused by my discovery of the emptiness of the last drawer, I had just lifted my foot to push it back into its place, when the door communicating with the hall opened, and Major Fitz-David stood before me.

His eyes, after first meeting mine, traveled downward to my foot. The instant he noticed the open drawer I saw a change in his face. It was only for a moment; but in that moment he looked at me with a sudden suspicion and surprise — looked as if he had caught me with my hand on the clew.

“Pray don’t let me disturb you,” said Major Fitz-David. “I have only come here to ask you a question.”

“What is it, Major?”

“Have you met with any letters of mine in the course of your investigations?”

“I have found none yet,” I answered. “If I do discover any letters, I shall, of course, not take the liberty of examining them.”

“I wanted to speak to you about that,” he rejoined. “It only struck me a moment since, upstairs, that my letters might embarrass you. In your place I should feel some distrust of anything which I was not at liberty to examine. I think I can set this matter right, however, with very little trouble to either of us. It is no violation of any promises or pledges on my part if I simply tell you that my letters will not assist the discovery which you are trying to make. You can safely pass them over as objects that are not worth examining from your point of view. You understand me, I am sure?”

“I am much obliged to you, Major — I quite understand.”

“Are you feeling any fatigue?”

“None whatever, thank you.”

“And you still hope to succeed? You are not beginning to be discouraged already?”

“I am not in the least discouraged. With your kind leave, I mean to persevere for some time yet.”

I had not closed the drawer of the cabinet while we were talking, and I glanced carelessly, as I answered him, at the fragments of the broken vase. By this time he had got his feelings under perfect command. He, too, glanced at the fragments of the vase with an appearance of perfect indifference. I remembered the look of suspicion and surprise that had escaped him on entering the room, and I thought his indifference a little overacted.

“
That
doesn’t look very encouraging,” he said, with a smile, pointing to the shattered pieces of china in the drawer.

“Appearances are not always to be trusted,” I replied. “The wisest thing I can do in my present situation is to suspect everything, even down to a broken vase.”

I looked hard at him as I spoke. He changed the subject.

“Does the music upstairs annoy you?” he asked.

“Not in the least, Major.”

“It will soon be over now. The singing-master is going, and the Italian master has just arrived. I am sparing no pains to make my young prima donna a most accomplished person. In learning to sing she must also learn the language which is especially the language of music. I shall perfect her in the accent when I take her to Italy. It is the height of my ambition to have her mistaken for an Italian when she sings in public. Is there anything I can do before I leave you again? May I send you some more champagne? Please say yes!”

“A thousand thanks, Major. No more champagne for the present.”