Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (938 page)

“The circumstances of the moment adapted themselves, with a fatal facility, to this idea. The ill-fated woman who had become attached to me (Heaven knows — without so much as the shadow of encouragement on my part!) had, just at that time, rashly placed her reputation at the mercy of the world. It rested with me to silence the scandalous tongues that reviled her. With Helena lost to me, happiness was not to be expected. All women were equally indifferent to me. A generous action would be the salvation of this woman. Why not perform it? I married her on that impulse — married her just as I might have jumped into the water and saved her if she had been drowning; just as I might have knocked a man down if I had seen him ill-treating her in the street!

“And now the woman for whom I have made this sacrifice stands between me and my Helena — my Helena, free to pour out all the treasures of her love on the man who adores the earth that she touches with her foot!

“Fool! madman! Why don’t I dash out my brains against the wall that I see opposite to me while I write these lines?

“My gun is there in the corner. I have only to tie a string to the trigger and to put the muzzle to my mouth — No! My mother is alive; my mother’s love is sacred. I have no right to take the life which she gave me. I must suffer and submit. Oh, Helena! Helena!”

The third extract — one among many similar passages — had been written about two months before the death of the prisoner’s wife.

“More reproaches addressed to me! There never was such a woman for complaining; she lives in a perfect atmosphere of ill-temper and discontent.

“My new offenses are two in number: I never ask her to play to me now; and when she puts on a new dress expressly to please me, I never notice it. Notice it! Good Heavens! The effort of my life is
not
to notice her in anything she does or says. How could I keep my temper, unless I kept as much as possible out of the way of private interviews with her? And I do keep my temper. I am never hard on her; I never use harsh language to her. She has a double claim on my forbearance — -she is a woman, and the law has made her my wife. I remember this; but I am human. The less I see of her — except when visitors are present — the more certain I can feel of preserving my self-control.

“I wonder what it is that makes her so utterly distasteful to me? She is a plain woman; but I have seen uglier women than she whose caresses I could have endured without the sense of shrinking that comes over me when I am obliged to submit to
her
caresses. I keep the feeling hidden from her. She loves me, poor thing — and I pity her. I wish I could do more; I wish I could return in the smallest degree the feeling with which she regards me. But no — I can only pity her. If she would be content to live on friendly terms with me, and never to exact demonstrations of tenderness, we might get on pretty well. But she wants love. Unfortunate creature, she wants love!

“Oh, my Helena! I have no love to give her. My heart is yours.

“I dreamed last night that this unhappy wife of mine was dead. The dream was so vivid that I actually got out of my bed and opened the door of her room and listened.

“Her calm, regular breathing was distinctly audible in the stillness of the night. She was in a deep sleep: I closed the door again and lighted my candle and read. Helena was in all my thoughts; it was hard work to fix my attention on the book. But anything was better than going to bed again, and dreaming perhaps for the second time that I too was free.

“What a life mine is! what a life my wife’s is! If the house were to take fire, I wonder whether I should make an effort to save myself or to save her?”

The last two passages read referred to later dates still.

“A gleam of brightness has shone over this dismal existence of mine at last.

“Helena is no longer condemned to the seclusion of widowhood. Time enough has passed to permit of her mixing again in society. She is paying visits to friends in our part of Scotland; and, as she and I are cousins, it is universally understood that she cannot leave the North without also spending a few days at my house. She writes me word that the visit, however embarrassing it may be to us privately, is nevertheless a visit that must be made for the sake of appearances. Blessings on appearances! I shall see this angel in my purgatory — and all because Society in Mid-Lothian would think it strange that my cousin should be visiting in my part of Scotland and not visit Me!

“But we are to be very careful. Helena says, in so many words, ‘I come to see you, Eustace, as a sister. You must receive me as a brother, or not receive me at all. I shall write to your wife to propose the day for my visit. I shall not forget — do you not forget — that it is by your wife’s permission that I enter your house.’

“Only let me see her! I will submit to anything to obtain the unutterable happiness of seeing her!”

The last extract followed, and consisted of these lines only:

“A new misfortune! My wife has fallen ill. She has taken to her bed with a bad rheumatic cold, just at the time appointed for Helena’s visit to Gleninch. But on this occasion (I gladly own it!) she has behaved charmingly. She has written to Helena to say that her illness is not serious enough to render a change necessary in the arrangements, and to make it her particular request that my cousin’s visit shall take place upon the day originally decided on.

“This is a great sacrifice made to me on my wife’s part. Jealous of every woman under forty who comes near me, she is, of course, jealous of Helena — and she controls herself, and trusts me!

“I am bound to show my gratitude for this and I will show it. From this day forth I vow to live more affectionately with my wife. I tenderly embraced her this very morning, and I hope, poor soul, she did not discover the effort that it cost me.”

There the readings from the Diary came to an end.

The most unpleasant pages in the whole Report of the Trial were — to me — the pages which contained the extracts from my husband’s Diary. There were expressions here and there which not only pained me, but which almost shook Eustace’s position in my estimation. I think I would have given everything I possessed to have had the power of annihilating certain lines in the Diary. As for his passionate expressions of love for Mrs. Beauly, every one of them went through me like a sting. He had whispered words quite as warm into my ears in the days of his courtship. I had no reason to doubt that he truly and dearly loved me. But the question was, Had he just as truly and dearly loved Mrs. Beauly before me? Had she or I — won the first love of his heart? He had declared to me over and over again that he had only fancied himself to be in love before the day when we met. I had believed him then. I determined to believe him still. I did believe him. But I hated Mrs. Beauly!

As for the painful impression produced in Court by the readings from the letters and the Diary, it seemed to be impossible to increase it. Nevertheless it
was
perceptibly increased. In other words, it was rendered more unfavorable still toward the prisoner by the evidence of the next and last witness called on the part of the prosecution.

William Enzie, under-gardener at Gleninch, was sworn, and deposed as follows:

On the twentieth of October, at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, I was sent to work in the shrubbery, on the side next to the garden called the Dutch Garden. There was a summer-house in the Dutch Garden, having its back set toward the shrubbery. The day was wonderfully fine and — warm for the time of year.

“Passing to my work, I passed the back of the summer-house. I heard voices inside — a man’s voice and a lady’s voice. The lady’s voice was strange to me. The man’s voice I recognised as the voice of my master. The ground in the shrubbery was soft, and my curiosity was excited. I stepped up to the back of the summer-house without being heard, and I listened to what was going on inside.

“The first words I could distinguish were spoken in my master’s voice. He said, ‘If I could only have foreseen that you might one day be free, what a happy man I might have been!’ The lady’s voice answered, ‘Hush! you must not talk so.’ My master said upon that, ‘I must talk of what is in my mind; it is always in my mind that I have lost you.’ He stopped a bit there, and then he said on a sudden, ‘Do me one favor, my angel! Promise me not to marry again.’ The lady’s voice spoke out thereupon sharply enough, ‘What do you mean?’ My master said, ‘I wish no harm to the unhappy creature who is a burden on my life; but suppose — ’ ‘Suppose nothing,’ the lady said; ‘come back to the house.’

“She led the way into the garden, and turned round, beckoning my master to join her. In that position I saw her face plainly, and I knew it for the face of the young widow lady who was visiting at the house. She was pointed out to me by the head-gardener when she first arrived, for the purpose of warning me that I was not to interfere if I found her picking the flowers. The gardens at Gleninch were shown to tourists on certain days, and we made a difference, of course, in the matter of the flowers between strangers and guests staying in the house. I am quite certain of the identity of the lady who was talking with my master. Mrs. Beauly was a comely person — and there was no mistaking her for any other than herself. She and my master withdrew together on the way to the house. I heard nothing more of what passed between them.”

This witness was severely cross-examined as to the correctness of his recollection of the talk in the summer-house, and as to his capacity for identifying both the speakers. On certain minor points he was shaken. But he firmly asserted his accurate remembrance of the last words exchanged between his master and Mrs. Beauly; and he personally described the lady in terms which proved that he had corruptly identified her.

With this the answer to the third question raised by the Trial — the question of the prisoner’s motive for poisoning his wife — came to an end.

The story for the prosecution was now a story told. The staunchest friends of the prisoner in Court were compelled to acknowledge that the evidence thus far pointed clearly and conclusively against him. He seemed to feel this himself. When he withdrew at the close of the third day of the Trial he was so depressed and exhausted that he was obliged to lean on the arm of the governor of the jail.

CHAPTER XIX. THE EVIDENCE FOR THE DEFENSE.

THE feeling of interest excited by the Trial was prodigiously increased on the fourth day. The witnesses for the defense were now to be heard, and first and foremost among them appeared the prisoner’s mother. She looked at her son as she lifted her veil to take the oath. He burst into tears. At that moment the sympathy felt for the mother was generally extended to the unhappy son.

Examined by the Dean of Faculty, Mrs. Macallan the elder gave her answers with remarkable dignity and self-control.

Questioned as to certain private conversations which had passed between her late daughter-in-law and herself, she declared that Mrs. Eustace Macallan was morbidly sensitive on the subject of her personal appearance. She was devotedly attached to her husband; the great anxiety of her life was to make herself as attractive to him as possible. The imperfections in her personal appearance — and especially in her complexion — were subjects to her of the bitterest regret. The witness had heard her say, over and over again (referring to her complexion), that there was no risk she would not run, and no pain she would not suffer, to improve it. “Men” (she had said) “are all caught by outward appearances: my husband might love me better if I had a better colour.”

Being asked next if the passages from her son’s Diary were to be depended on as evidence — that is to say, if they fairly represented the peculiarities in his character, and his true sentiments toward his wife — Mrs. Macallan denied it in the plainest and strongest terms.

“The extracts from my son’s Diary are a libel on his character,” she said. “And not the less a libel because they happen to be written by himself. Speaking from a mother’s experience of him, I know that he must have written the passages produced in moments of uncontrollable depression and despair. No just person judges hastily of a man by the rash words which may escape him in his moody and miserable moments. Is my son to be so judged because he happens to have written
his
rash words, instead of speaking them? His pen has been his most deadly enemy, in this case — it has presented him at his very worst. He was not happy in his marriage — I admit that. But I say at the same time that he was invariably considerate toward his wife. I was implicitly trusted by both of them; I saw them in their most private moments. I declare — in the face of what she appears to have written to her friends and correspondents — that my son never gave his wife any just cause to assert that he treated her with cruelty or neglect.”