Man and Wife

W >> Wilkie Collins >> Man and Wife


Anne found the surgeon alone in the drawing-room. He apologized for
disturbing her at that early hour.

"It was impossible for me to get to Fulham yesterday," he said, "and
I could only make sure of complying with Lord Holchester's request by
coming here before the time at which I receive patients at home. I have
seen Mr. Delamayn, and I have requested permission to say a word to you
on the subject of his health."

Anne looked through the window, and saw Geoffrey smoking his pipe--not
in the back garden, as usual, but in front of the cottage, where he
could keep his eye on the gate.

"Is he ill?" she asked.

"He is seriously ill," answered Mr. Speedwell. "I should not otherwise
have troubled you with this interview. It is a matter of professional
duty to warn you, as his wife, that he is in danger. He may be seized at
any moment by a paralytic stroke. The only chance for him--a very poor
one, I am bound to say--is to make him alter his present mode of life
without loss of time."

"In one way he will be obliged to alter it," said Anne. "He has received
notice from the landlady to quit this cottage."

Mr. Speedwell looked surprised.

"I think you will find that the notice has been withdrawn," he said.
"I can only assure you that Mr. Delamayn distinctly informed me, when I
advised change of air, that he had decided, for reasons of his own, on
remaining here."

(Another in the series of incomprehensible domestic events! Hester
Dethridge--on all other occasions the most immovable of women--had
changed her mind!)

"Setting that aside," proceeded the surgeon, "there are two preventive
measures which I feel bound to suggest. Mr. Delamayn is evidently
suffering (though he declines to admit it himself) from mental anxiety.
If he is to have a chance for his life, that anxiety must be set at
rest. Is it in your power to relieve it?"

"It is not even in my power, Mr. Speedwell, to tell you what it is."

The surgeon bowed, and went on:

"The second caution that I have to give you," he said, "is to keep him
from drinking spirits. He admits having committed an excess in that way
the night before last. In his state of health, drinking means literally
death. If he goes back to the brandy-bottle--forgive me for saying it
plainly; the matter is too serious to be trifled with--if he goes
back to the brandy-bottle, his life, in my opinion, is not worth five
minutes' purchase. Can you keep him from drinking?"

Anne answered sadly and plainly:

"I have no influence over him. The terms we are living on here--"

Mr. Speedwell considerately stopped her.

"I understand," he said. "I will see his brother on my way home."
He looked for a moment at Anne. "You are far from well yourself," he
resumed. "Can I do any thing for you?"

"While I am living my present life, Mr. Speedwell, not even your skill
can help me."

The surgeon took his leave. Anne hurried back up stairs, before Geoffrey
could re-enter the cottage. To see the man who had laid her life
waste--to meet the vindictive hatred that looked furtively at her out
of his eyes--at the moment when sentence of death had been pronounced on
him, was an ordeal from which every finer instinct in her nature shrank
in horror.

Hour by hour, the morning wore on, and he made no attempt to communicate
with her, Stranger still, Hester Dethridge never appeared. The servant
came up stairs to say goodby; and went away for her holiday. Shortly
afterward, certain sounds reached Anne's ears from the opposite side of
the passage. She heard the strokes of a hammer, and then a noise as of
some heavy piece of furniture being moved. The mysterious repairs were
apparently being begun in the spare room.

She went to the window. The hour was approaching at which Sir Patrick
and Blanche might be expected to make the attempt to see her.

For the third time, she looked at the letter.

It suggested, on this occasion, a new consideration to her. Did the
strong measures which Sir Patrick had taken in secret indicate alarm
as well as sympathy? Did he believe she was in a position in which
the protection of the law was powerless to reach her? It seemed just
possible. Suppose she were free to consult a magistrate, and to own to
him (if words could express it) the vague presentiment of danger which
was then present in her mind--what proof could she produce to satisfy
the mind of a stranger? The proofs were all in her husband's favor.
Witnesses could testify to the conciliatory words which he had spoken to
her in their presence. The evidence of his mother and brother would show
that he had preferred to sacrifice his own pecuniary interests rather
than consent to part with her. She could furnish nobody with the
smallest excuse, in her case, for interfering between man and wife.
Did Sir Patrick see this? And did Blanche's description of what he and
Arnold Brinkworth were doing point to the conclusion that they were
taking the law into their own hands in despair? The more she thought of
it, the more likely it seemed.

She was still pursuing the train of thought thus suggested, when the
gate-bell rang.

The noises in the spare room suddenly stopped.

Anne looked out. The roof of a carriage was visible on the other side of
the wall. Sir Patrick and Blanche had arrived. After an interval Hester
Dethridge appeared in the garden, and went to the grating in the gate.
Anne heard Sir Patrick's voice, clear and resolute. Every word he said
reached her ears through the open window.

"Be so good as to give my card to Mr. Delamayn. Say that I bring him
a message from Holchester House, and that I can only deliver it at a
personal interview."

Hester Dethridge returned to the cottage. Another, and a longer interval
elapsed. At the end of the time, Geoffrey himself appeared in the front
garden, with the key in his hand. Anne's heart throbbed fast as she saw
him unlock the gate, and asked herself what was to follow.

To her unutterable astonishment, Geoffrey admitted Sir Patrick without
the slightest hesitation--and, more still, he invited Blanche to leave
the carriage and come in!

"Let by-gones be by-gones," Anne heard him say to Sir Patrick. "I only
want to do the right thing. If it's the right thing for visitors to come
here, so soon after my father's death, come, and welcome. My own notion
was, when you proposed it before, that it was wrong. I am not much
versed in these things. I leave it to you."

"A visitor who brings you messages from your mother and your brother,"
Sir Patrick answered gravely, "is a person whom it is your duty to
admit, Mr. Delamayn, under any circumstances."

"And he ought to be none the less welcome," added Blanche, "when he is
accompanied by your wife's oldest and dearest friend."

Geoffrey looked, in stolid submission, from one to the other.

"I am not much versed in these things," he repeated. "I have said
already, I leave it to you."

They were by this time close under Anne's window. She showed herself.
Sir Patrick took off his hat. Blanche kissed her hand with a cry of joy,
and attempted to enter the cottage. Geoffrey stopped her--and called to
his wife to come down.

"No! no!" said Blanche. "Let me go up to her in her room."

She attempted for the second time to gain the stairs. For the second
time Geoffrey stopped her. "Don't trouble yourself," he said; "she is
coming down."

Anne joined them in the front garden. Blanche flew into her arms and
devoured her with kisses. Sir Patrick took her hand in silence. For
the first time in Anne's experience of him, the bright, resolute,
self-reliant old man was, for the moment, at a loss what to say, at a
loss what to do. His eyes, resting on her in mute sympathy and interest,
said plainly, "In your husband's presence I must not trust myself to
speak."

Geoffrey broke the silence.

"Will you go into the drawing-room?" he asked, looking with steady
attention at his wife and Blanche.

Geoffrey's voice appeared to rouse Sir Patrick. He raised his head--he
looked like himself again.

"Why go indoors this lovely weather?" he said. "Suppose we take a turn
in the garden?"

Blanche pressed Anne's hand significantly. The proposal was evidently
made for a purpose. They turned the corner of the cottage and gained the
large garden at the back--the two ladies walking together, arm in arm;
Sir Patrick and Geoffrey following them. Little by little, Blanche
quickened her pace. "I have got my instructions," she whispered to Anne.
"Let's get out of his hearing."

It was more easily said than done. Geoffrey kept close behind them.

"Consider my lameness, Mr. Delamayn," said Sir Patrick. "Not quite so
fast."

It was well intended. But Geoffrey's cunning had taken the alarm.
Instead of dropping behind with Sir Patrick, he called to his wife.

"Consider Sir Patrick's lameness," he repeated. "Not quite so fast."

Sir Patrick met that check with characteristic readiness. When
Anne slackened her pace, he addressed himself to Geoffrey, stopping
deliberately in the middle of the path. "Let me give you my message from
Holchester House," he said. The two ladies were still slowly walking on.
Geoffrey was placed between the alternatives of staying with Sir Patrick
and leaving them by themselves--or of following them and leaving Sir
Patrick. Deliberately, on his side, he followed the ladies.

Sir Patrick called him back. "I told you I wished to speak to you," he
said, sharply.

Driven to bay, Geoffrey openly revealed his resolution to give Blanche
no opportunity of speaking in private to Anne. He called to Anne to
stop.

"I have no secrets from my wife," he said. "And I expect my wife to have
no secrets from me. Give me the message in her hearing."

Sir Patrick's eyes brightened with indignation. He controlled himself,
and looked for an instant significantly at his niece before he spoke to
Geoffrey.

"As you please," he said. "Your brother requests me to tell you that
the duties of the new position in which he is placed occupy the whole
of his time, and will prevent him from returning to Fulham, as he had
proposed, for some days to come. Lady Holchester, hearing that I was
likely to see you, has charged me with another message, from herself.
She is not well enough to leave home; and she wishes to see you at
Holchester House to-morrow--accompanied (as she specially desires) by
Mrs. Delamayn."

In giving the two messages, he gradually raised his voice to a louder
tone than usual. While he was speaking, Blanche (warned to follow her
instructions by the glance her uncle had cast at her) lowered her voice,
and said to Anne:

"He won't consent to the separation as long as he has got you here. He
is trying for higher terms. Leave him, and he must submit. Put a candle
in your window, if you can get into the garden to-night. If not, any
other night. Make for the back gate in the wall. Sir Patrick and Arnold
will manage the rest."

She slipped those words into Anne's ears--swinging her parasol to
and fro, and looking as if the merest gossip was dropping from her
lips--with the dexterity which rarely fails a woman when she is called
on to assist a deception in which her own interests are concerned.
Cleverly as it had been done, however, Geoffrey's inveterate distrust
was stirred into action by it. Blanche had got to her last sentence
before he was able to turn his attention from what Sir Patrick was
saying to what his niece was saying. A quicker man would have heard
more. Geoffrey had only distinctly heard the first half of the last
sentence.

"What's that," he asked, "about Sir Patrick and Arnold?"

"Nothing very interesting to you," Blanche answered, readily. "I will
repeat it if you like. I was telling Anne about my step-mother,
Lady Lundie. After what happened that day in Portland Place, she has
requested Sir Patrick and Arnold to consider themselves, for the future,
as total strangers to her. That's all."

"Oh!" said Geoffrey, eying her narrowly.

"Ask my uncle," returned Blanche, "if you don't believe that I have
reported her correctly. She gave us all our dismissal, in her most
magnificent manner, and in those very words. Didn't she, Sir Patrick?"

It was perfectly true. Blanche's readiness of resource had met the
emergency of the moment by describing something, in connection with Sir
Patrick and Arnold, which had really happened. Silenced on one side, in
spite of himself, Geoffrey was at the same moment pressed on the other
for an answer to his mother's message.

"I must take your reply to Lady Holchester," said Sir Patrick. "What is
it to be?"

Geoffrey looked hard at him, without making any reply.

Sir Patrick repeated the message--with a special emphasis on that part
of it which related to Anne. The emphasis roused Geoffrey's temper.

"You and my mother have made that message up between you, to try me!" he
burst out. "Damn all underhand work is what _I_ say!"

"I am waiting for your answer," persisted Sir Patrick, steadily ignoring
the words which had just been addressed to him.

Geoffrey glanced at Anne, and suddenly recovered himself.

"My love to my mother," he said. "I'll go to her to-morrow--and take
my wife with me, with the greatest pleasure. Do you hear that? With the
greatest pleasure." He stopped to observe the effect of his reply. Sir
Patrick waited impenetrably to hear more--if he had more to say. "I'm
sorry I lost my temper just now," he resumed "I am badly treated--I'm
distrusted without a cause. I ask you to bear witness," he added, his
voice getting louder again, while his eyes moved uneasily backward and
forward between Sir Patrick and Anne, "that I treat my wife as becomes a
lady. Her friend calls on her--and she's free to receive her friend. My
mother wants to see her--and I promise to take her to my mother's. At
two o'clock to-morrow. Where am I to blame? You stand there looking at
me, and saying nothing. Where am I to blame?"

"If a man's own conscience justifies him, Mr. Delamayn," said Sir
Patrick, "the opinions of others are of very little importance. My
errand here is performed."

As he turned to bid Anne farewell, the uneasiness that he felt at
leaving her forced its way to view. The color faded out of his face. His
hand trembled as it closed tenderly and firmly on hers. "I shall see you
to-morrow, at Holchester House," he said; giving his arm while he spoke
to Blanche. He took leave of Geoffrey, without looking at him again, and
without seeing his offered hand. In another minute they were gone.

Anne waited on the lower floor of the cottage while Geoffrey closed
and locked the gate. She had no wish to appear to avoid him, after the
answer that he had sent to his mother's message. He returned slowly
half-way across the front garden, looked toward the passage in which she
was standing, passed before the door, and disappeared round the corner
of the cottage on his way to the back garden. The inference was not to
be mistaken. It was Geoffrey who was avoiding _her._ Had he lied to Sir
Patrick? When the next day came would he find reasons of his own for
refusing to take her to Holchester House?

She went up stairs. At the same moment Hester Dethridge opened her
bedroom door to come out. Observing Anne, she closed it again and
remained invisible in her room. Once more the inference was not to be
mistaken. Hester Dethridge, also, had her reasons for avoiding Anne.

What did it mean? What object could there be in common between Hester
and Geoffrey?

There was no fathoming the meaning of it. Anne's thoughts reverted to
the communication which had been secretly made to her by Blanche. It
was not in womanhood to be insensible to such devotion as Sir Patrick's
conduct implied. Terrible as her position had become in its ever-growing
uncertainty, in its never-ending suspense, the oppression of it yielded
for the moment to the glow of pride and gratitude which warmed her
heart, as she thought of the sacrifices that had been made, of the
perils that were still to be encountered, solely for her sake. To
shorten the period of suspense seemed to be a duty which she owed to Sir
Patrick, as well as to herself. Why, in her situation, wait for what the
next day might bring forth? If the opportunity offered, she determined
to put the signal in the window that night.

Toward evening she heard once more the noises which appeared to indicate
that repairs of some sort were going on in the house. This time the
sounds were fainter; and they came, as she fancied, not from the spare
room, as before, but from Geoffrey's room, next to it.

The dinner was later than usual that day. Hester Dethridge did not
appear with the tray till dusk. Anne spoke to her, and received a mute
sign in answer. Determined to see the woman's face plainly, she put
a question which required a written answer on the slate; and, telling
Hester to wait, went to the mantle-piece to light her candle. When she
turned round with the lighted candle in her hand, Hester was gone.

Night came. She rang her bell to have the tray taken away. The fall of
a strange footstep startled her outside her door. She called out, "Who's
there?" The voice of the lad whom Geoffrey employed to go on errands for
him answered her.

"What do you want here?" she asked, through the door.

"Mr. Delamayn sent me up, ma'am. He wishes to speak to you directly."

Anne found Geoffrey in the dining-room. His object in wishing to speak
to her was, on the surface of it, trivial enough. He wanted to know
how she would prefer going to Holchester House on the next day--by the
railway, or in a carriage. "If you prefer driving," he said, "the boy
has come here for orders, and he can tell them to send a carriage from
the livery-stables, as he goes home."

"The railway will do perfectly well for me," Anne replied.

Instead of accepting the answer, and dropping the subject, he asked her
to reconsider her decision. There was an absent, uneasy expression in
his eye as he begged her not to consult economy at the expense of her
own comfort. He appeared to have some reason of his own for preventing
her from leaving the room. "Sit d own a minute, and think before you
decide," he said. Having forced her to take a chair, he put his head
outside the door and directed the lad to go up stairs, and see if he had
left his pipe in his bedroom. "I want you to go in comfort, as a lady
should," he repeated, with the uneasy look more marked than ever. Before
Anne could reply, the lad's voice reached them from the bedroom floor,
raised in shrill alarm, and screaming "Fire!"

Geoffrey ran up stairs. Anne followed him. The lad met them at the
top of the stairs. He pointed to the open door of Anne's room. She was
absolutely certain of having left her lighted candle, when she went down
to Geoffrey, at a safe distance from the bed-curtains. The bed-curtains,
nevertheless, were in a blaze of fire.

There was a supply of water to the cottage, on the upper floor. The
bedroom jugs and cans usually in their places at an earlier hour, were
standing that night at the cistern. An empty pail was left near them.
Directing the lad to bring him water from these resources, Geoffrey tore
down the curtains in a flaming heap, partly on the bed and partly on the
sofa near it. Using the can and the pail alternately, as the boy brought
them, he drenched the bed and the sofa. It was all over in little
more than a minute. The cottage was saved. But the bed-furniture
was destroyed; and the room, as a matter of course, was rendered
uninhabitable, for that night at least, and probably for more nights to
come.

Geoffrey set down the empty pail; and, turning to Anne, pointed across
the passage.

"You won't be much inconvenienced by this," he said. "You have only to
shift your quarters to the spare room."

With the assistance of the lad, he moved Anne's boxes, and the chest of
drawers, which had escaped damage, into the opposite room. This done,
he cautioned her to be careful with her candles for the future--and went
down stairs, without waiting to hear what she said in reply. The lad
followed him, and was dismissed for the night.

Even in the confusion which attended the extinguishing of the fire, the
conduct of Hester Dethridge had been remarkable enough to force itself
on the attention of Anne.

She had come out from her bedroom, when the alarm was given; had looked
at the flaming curtains; and had drawn back, stolidly submissive, into
a corner to wait the event. There she had stood--to all appearance,
utterly indifferent to the possible destruction of her own cottage. The
fire extinguished, she still waited impenetrably in her corner, while
the chest of drawers and the boxes were being moved--then locked the
door, without even a passing glance at the scorched ceiling and the
burned bed-furniture--put the key into her pocket--and went back to her
room.

Anne had hitherto not shared the conviction felt by most other persons
who were brought into contact with Hester Dethridge, that the woman's
mind was deranged. After what she had just seen, however, the general
impression became her impression too. She had thought of putting certain
questions to Hester, when they were left together, as to the origin of
the fire. Reflection decided her on saying nothing, for that night at
least. She crossed the passage, and entered the spare room--the room
which she had declined to occupy on her arrival at the cottage, and
which she was obliged to sleep in now.

She was instantly struck by a change in the disposition of the furniture
of the room.

The bed had been moved. The head--set, when she had last seen it,
against the side wall of the cottage--was placed now against the
partition wall which separated the room from Geoffrey's room. This new
arrangement had evidently been effected with a settled purpose of some
sort. The hook in the ceiling which supported the curtains (the bed,
unlike the bed in the other room, having no canopy attached to it) had
been moved so as to adapt itself to the change that had been made. The
chairs and the washhand-stand, formerly placed against the partition
wall, were now, as a matter of necessity, shifted over to the vacant
space against the side wall of the cottage. For the rest, no other
alteration was visible in any part of the room.

In Anne's situation, any event not immediately intelligible on the face
of it, was an event to be distrusted. Was there a motive for the change
in the position of the bed? And was it, by any chance, a motive in which
she was concerned?

The doubt had barely occurred to her, before a startling suspicion
succeeded it. Was there some secret purpose to be answered by making her
sleep in the spare room? Did the question which the servant had heard
Geoffrey put to Hester, on the previous night, refer to this? Had the
fire which had so unaccountably caught the curtains in her own room,
been, by any possibility, a fire purposely kindled, to force her out?

She dropped into the nearest chair, faint with horror, as those three
questions forced themselves in rapid succession on her mind.

After waiting a little, she recovered self-possession enough to
recognize the first plain necessity of putting her suspicions to the
test. It was possible that her excited fancy had filled her with a
purely visionary alarm. For all she knew to the contrary, there might be
some undeniably sufficient reason for changing the position of the bed.
She went out, and knocked at the door of Hester Dethridge's room.

"I want to speak to you," she said.

Hester came out. Anne pointed to the spare room, and led the way to it.
Hester followed her.

"Why have you changed the place of the bed," she asked, "from the wall
there, to the wall here?"

Stolidly submissive to the question, as she had been stolidly submissive
to the fire, Hester Dethridge wrote her reply. On all other occasions
she was accustomed to look the persons to whom she offered her slate
steadily in the face. Now, for the first time, she handed it to Anne
with her eyes on the floor. The one line written contained no direct
answer: the words were these:

"I have meant to move it, for some time past."

"I ask you why you have moved it."

She wrote these four words on the slate: "The wall is damp."

Anne looked at the wall. There was no sign of damp on the paper. She
passed her hand over it. Feel where she might, the wall was dry.

"That is not your reason," she said.

Hester stood immovable.

"There is no dampness in the wall."

Hester pointed persistently with her pencil to the four words, still
without looking up--waited a moment for Anne to read them again--and
left the room.

It was plainly useless to call her back. Anne's first impulse when she
was alone again was to secure the door. She not only locked it, but
bolted it at top and bottom. The mortise of the lock and the staples
of the bolts, when she tried them, were firm. The lurking
treachery--wherever else it might be--was not in the fastenings of the
door.

She looked all round the room; examining the fire place, the window and
its shutters, the interior of the wardrobe, the hidden space under the
bed. Nothing was any where to be discovered which could justify the most
timid person living in feeling suspicion or alarm.