Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (99 page)

“All? your tones mean more than your words —
they
are candid, at least! Have I feared the worst, and yet not feared as I ought? Basil! — do you hear me, Basil? You are trembling very strangely; you are growing pale!”

“I shall be better directly, Sir. I am afraid I am not quite so strong yet as I thought myself. Father! I am heart-broken and spirit-broken: be patient and kind to me, or I cannot speak to you.”

I thought I saw his eyes moisten. He shaded them a moment with his hand, and sighed again — the same long, trembling sigh that I had heard before. I tried to rise from my chair, and throw myself on my knees at his feet. He mistook the action, and caught me by the arm, believing that I was fainting.

“No more to-night, Basil,” he said, hurriedly, but very gently; “no more on this subject till to-morrow.”

“I can speak now, Sir; it is better to speak at once.”

“No: you are too much agitated; you are weaker than I thought. To-morrow, in the morning, when you are stronger after a night’s rest. No! I will hear nothing more. Go to bed now; I will tell your sister not to disturb you to-night. To-morrow, you shall speak to me; and speak in your own way, without interruption. Good-night, Basil, good-night.”

Without waiting to shake hands with me, he hastened to the door, as if anxious to hide from my observation the grief and apprehension which had evidently overcome him. But, just at the moment when he was leaving the room, he hesitated, turned round, looked sorrowfully at me for an instant, and then, retracing his steps, gave me his hand, pressed mine for a moment in silence, and left me.

After the morrow was over, would he ever give me that hand again?

III.

The morning which was to decide all between my father and me, the morning on whose event hung the future of my home life, was the brightest and loveliest that my eyes ever looked on. A cloudless sky, a soft air, sunshine so joyous and dazzling that the commonest objects looked beautiful in its light, seemed to be mocking at me for my heavy heart, as I stood at my window, and thought of the hard duty to be fulfilled, on the harder judgment that might be pronounced, before the dawning of another day.

During the night, I had arranged no plan on which to conduct the terrible disclosure which I was now bound to make — the greatness of the emergency deprived me of all power of preparing myself for it. I thought on my father’s character, on the inbred principles of honour which ruled him with the stern influence of a fanaticism: I thought on his pride of caste, so unobtrusive, so rarely hinted at in words, and yet so firmly rooted in his nature, so intricately entwined with every one of his emotions, his aspirations, his simplest feelings and ideas: I thought on his almost feminine delicacy in shrinking from the barest mention of impurities which other men could carelessly discuss, or could laugh over as good material for an after-dinner jest. I thought over all this, and when I remembered that it was to such a man that I must confess the infamous marriage which I had contracted in secret, all hope from his fatherly affection deserted me; all idea of appealing to his chivalrous generosity became a delusion in which it was madness to put a moment’s trust.

The faculties of observation are generally sharpened, in proportion as the faculties of reflection are dulled, under the influence of an absorbing suspense. While I now waited alone in my room, the most ordinary sounds and events in the house, which I never remembered noticing before, absolutely enthralled me. It seemed as if the noise of a footstep, the echo of a voice, the shutting or opening of doors down stairs, must, on this momentous day, presage some mysterious calamity, some strange discovery, some secret project formed against me, I knew not how, or by whom. Two or three times I found myself listening intently on the staircase, with what object I could hardly tell. It was always, however, on those occasions, that a dread, significant quiet appeared to have fallen suddenly on the house. Clara never came to me, no message arrived from my father; the door-bell seemed strangely silent, the servants strangely neglectful of their duties above stairs. I caught myself returning to my own room softly, as if I expected that some hidden catastrophe might break forth, if sound of my footsteps were heard.

Would my father seek me again in my own room, or would he send for me down stairs? It was not long before the doubt was decided. One of the servants knocked at my door — the servant whose special duty it had been to wait on me in my illness. I longed to take the man’s hand, and implore his sympathy and encouragement while he addressed me.

“My master, Sir, desires me to say that, if you feel well enough, he wishes to see you in his own room.”

I rose, and immediately followed the servant. On our way, we passed the door of Clara’s private sitting-room — it opened, and my sister came out and laid her hand on my arm. She smiled as I looked at her; but the tears stood thick in her eyes, and her face was deadly pale.

“Think of what I said last night, Basil,” she whispered, “and, if hard words are spoken to you, think of
me.
All that our mother would have done for you, if she had been still among us,
I
will do. Remember that, and keep heart and hope to the very last.”

She hastily returned to her room, and I went on down stairs. In the hall, the servant was waiting for me, with a letter in his hand.

“This was left for you, Sir, a little while ago. The messenger who brought it said he was not to wait for an answer.”

It was no time for reading letters — the interview with my father was too close at hand. I hastily put the letter into my pocket, barely noticing, as I did so, that the handwriting on the address was very irregular, and quite unknown to me.

I went at once into my father’s room.

He was sitting at his table, cutting the leaves of some new books that lay on it. Pointing to a chair placed opposite to him, he briefly inquired after my health; and then added, in a lower tone —

“Take any time you like, Basil, to compose and collect yourself. This morning my time is yours.”

He turned a little away from me, and went on cutting the leaves of the books placed before him. Still utterly incapable of preparing myself in any way for the disclosure expected from me; without thought or hope, or feeling of any kind, except a vague sense of thankfulness for the reprieve granted me before I was called on to speak — I mechanically looked round and round the room, as if I expected to see the sentence to be pronounced against me, already written on the walls, or grimly foreshadowed in the faces of the old family portraits which hung above the fireplace.

What man has ever felt that all his thinking powers were absorbed, even by the most poignant mental misery that could occupy them? In moments of imminent danger, the mind can still travel of its own accord over the past, in spite of the present — in moments of bitter affliction, it can still recur to every-day trifles, in spite of ourselves. While I now sat silent in my father’s room, long-forgotten associations of childhood connected with different parts of it, began to rise on my memory in the strangest and most startling independence of any influence or control, which my present agitation and suspense might be supposed to exercise over them. The remembrances that should have been the last to be awakened at this time of heavy trial, were the very remembrances which now moved within me.

With burdened heart and aching eyes I looked over the walls around me. There, in that corner, was the red cloth door which led to the library. As children, how often Ralph and I had peeped curiously through that very door, to see what my father was about in his study, to wonder why he had so many letters to write, and so many books to read. How frightened we both were, when he discovered us one day, and reproved us severely! How happy the moment afterwards, when we had begged him to pardon us, and were sent back to the library again with a great picture-book to look at, as a token that we were both forgiven! Then, again, there was the high, old-fashioned, mahogany press before the window, with the same large illustrated folio about Jewish antiquities lying on it, which, years and years ago, Clara and I were sometimes allowed to look at, as a special treat, on Sunday afternoons; and which we always examined and re-examined with never-ending delight — standing together on two chairs to reach up to the thick, yellow-looking leaves, and turn them over with our own hands. And there, in the recess between two bookcases, still stood the ancient desk-table, with its rows of little inlaid drawers; and on the bracket above it the old French clock, which had once belonged to my mother, and which always chimed the hours so sweetly and merrily. It was at that table that Ralph and I always bade my father farewell, when we were going back to school after the holidays, and were receiving our allowance of pocket-money, given to us out of one of the tiny inlaid drawers, just before we started. Near that spot, too, Clara — then a little rosy child — used to wait gravely and anxiously, with her doll in her arms, to say good-bye for the last time, and to bid us come back soon, and then never go away again. I turned, and looked abruptly towards the window; for such memories as the room suggested were more than I could bear.

Outside, in the dreary strip of garden, the few stunted, dusky trees were now rustling as pleasantly in the air, as if the breeze that stirred them came serenely over an open meadow, or swept freshly under their branches from the rippling surface of a brook. Distant, but yet well within hearing, the mighty murmur from a large thoroughfare — the great mid-day voice of London — swelled grandly and joyously on the ear. While, nearer still, in a street that ran past the side of the house, the notes of an organ rang out shrill and fast; the instrument was playing its liveliest waltz tune — a tune which I had danced to in the ball-room over and over again. What mocking memories within, what mocking sounds without, to herald and accompany such a confession as I had now to make!

Minute after minute glided on, inexorably fast; and yet I never broke silence. My eyes turned anxiously and slowly on my father.

He was still looking away from me, still cutting the leaves of the books before him. Even in that trifling action, the strong emotions which he was trying to conceal, were plainly and terribly betrayed. His hand, usually so steady and careful, trembled perceptibly; and the paper-knife tore through the leaves faster and faster — cutting them awry, rending them one from another, so as to spoil the appearance of every page. I believe he
felt
that I was looking at him; for he suddenly discontinued his employment, turned round towards me, and spoke —

“I have resolved to give you your own time,” he said, “and from that resolve I have no wish to depart — I only ask you to remember that every minute of delay adds to the suffering and suspense which I am enduring on your account.” He opened the books before him again, adding in lower and colder tones, as he did so — ”In
your
place, Ralph would have spoken before this.”

Ralph, and Ralph’s example quoted to me again! — I could remain silent no longer.

“My brother’s faults towards you, and towards his family, are not such faults as mine, Sir,” I began. “I have
not
imitated his vices; I have acted as he would
not
have acted. And yet, the result of my error will appear far more humiliating, and even disgraceful, in your eyes, than the results of any errors of Ralph’s.”

As I pronounced the word “disgraceful,” he suddenly looked me full in the face. His eyes lightened up sternly, and the warning red spot rose on his pale cheeks.

“What do you mean by ‘disgraceful?’“ he asked abruptly; “what do you mean by associating such a word as
disgrace
with your conduct — with the conduct of a son of mine?”

“I must reply to your question indirectly, Sir,” I continued. “You asked me last night who the Mr. Sherwin was who has called here so often — ”

“And this morning I ask it again. I have other questions to put to you, besides — you called constantly on a woman’s name in your delirium. But I will repeat last night’s question first — who
is
Mr. Sherwin?”

“He lives — ”

“I don’t ask where he lives. Who is he? What is he?”

“Mr. Sherwin is a linen-draper — ”

“You owe him money? — you have borrowed money of him? Why did you not tell me this before? You have degraded my house by letting a man call at the door — I know it! — in the character of a dun. He has inquired about you as his ‘friend,’ — the servants told me of it. This money-lending tradesman, your
‘friend!’
If I had heard that the poorest labourer on my land called you ‘friend,’ I should have held you honoured by the attachment and gratitude of an honest man. When I hear that name given to you by a tradesman and money-lender, I hold you contaminated by connection with a cheat. You were right, Sir! — this
is
disgrace; how much do you owe? Where are your dishonoured acceptances? Where have you used
my
name and
my
credit? Tell me at once — I insist on it!”