Man and Wife

by Wilkie Collins

confidence, and respect every where--when she sank suddenly at

  the opening of her new life. Nobody could account for it. The

  doctors themselves were divided in opinion. Scientifically

  speaking, there was no reason why she should die. It was a mere

  figure of speech--in no degree satisfactory to any reasonable

  mind--to say, as Lady Lundie said, that she had got her

  death-blow on the day when her husband deserted her. The one

  thing certain was the fact--account for it as you might. In spite

  of science (which meant little), in spite of her own courage

  (which meant much), the woman dropped at her post and died.

  In the latter part of her illness her mind gave way. The friend

  of her old school-days, sitting at the bedside, heard her talking

  as if she thought herself back again in the cabin of the ship.

  The poor soul found the tone, almost the look, that had been lost

  for so many years--the tone of the past time when the two girls

  had gone their different ways in the world. She said, "we will

  meet, darling, with all the old love between us," just as she had

  said almost a lifetime since. Before the end her mind rallied.

  She surprised the doctor and the nurse by begging them gently to

  leave the room. When they had gone she looked at Lady Lundie, and

  woke, as it seemed, to consciousness from a dream.

  "Blanche," she said, "you will take care of my child?"

  "She shall be _my_ child, Anne, when you are gone."

  The dying woman paused, and thought for a little. A sudden

  trembling seized her.

  "Keep it a secret!" she said. "I am afraid for my child."

  "Afraid? After what I have promised you?"

  She solemnly repeated the words, "I am afraid for my child."

  "Why?"

  "My Anne is my second self--isn't she?"

  "Yes."

  "She is as fond of your child as I was of you?"

  "Yes."

  "She is not called by her father's name--she is called by mine.

  She is Anne Silvester as I was. Blanche! _Will she end like Me?_"

  The question was put with the laboring breath, with the heavy

  accents which tell that death is near. It chilled the living

  woman who heard it to the marrow of her bones.

  "Don't think that!" she cried, horror-struck. "For God's sake,

  don't think that!"

  The wildness began to appear again in Anne Silvester's eyes. She

  made feebly impatient signs with her hands. Lady Lundie bent over

  her, and heard her whisper, "Lift me up."

  She lay in her friend's arms; she looked up in her friend's face;

  she went back wildly to her fear for her child.

  "Don't bring her up like Me! She must be a governess--she must

  get her bread. Don't let her act! don't let her sing! don't let

  her go on the stage!" She stopped--her voice suddenly recovered

  its sweetness of tone--she smiled faintly--she said the old

  girlish words once more, in the old girlish way, "Vow it,

  Blanche!" Lady Lundie kissed her, and answered, as she had

  answered when they parted in the ship, "I vow it, Anne!"

  The head sank, never to be lifted more. The last look of life

  flickered in the filmy eyes and went out. For a moment afterward

  her lips moved. Lady Lundie put her ear close to them, and heard

  the dreadful question reiterated, in the same dreadful words:

  "She is Anne Silvester--as I was. _Will she end like Me?_"

  VI.

  Five years passed--and the lives of the three men who had sat at

  the dinner-table in the Hampstead villa began, in their altered

  aspects, to reveal the progress of time and change.

  Mr. Kendrew; Mr. Delamayn; Mr. Vanborough. Let the order in which

  they are here named be the order in which their lives are

  reviewed, as seen once more after a lapse of five years.

  How the husband's friend marked his sense of the husband's

  treachery has been told already. How he felt the death of the

  deserted wife is still left to tell. Report, which sees the

  inmost hearts of men, and delights in turning them outward to the

  public view, had always declared that Mr. Kendrew's life had its

  secret, and that the secret was a hopeless passion for the

  beautiful woman who had married his friend. Not a hint ever

  dropped to any living soul, not a word ever spoken to the woman

  herself, could be produced in proof of the assertion while the

  woman lived. When she died Report started up again more

  confidently than ever, and appealed to the man's own conduct as

  proof against the man himself.

  He attended the funeral--though he was no relation. He took a few

  blades of grass from the turf with which they covered her

  grave--when he thought that nobody was looking at him. He

  disappeared from his club. He traveled. He came back. He admitted

  that he was weary of England. He applied for, and obtained, an

  appointment in one of the colonies. To what conclusion did all

  this point? Was it not plain that his usual course of life had

  lost its attraction for him, when the object of his infatuation

  had ceased to exist? It might have been so--guesses less likely

  have been made at the truth, and have hit the mark. It is, at any

  rate, certain that he left England, never to return again.

  Another man lost, Report said. Add to that, a man in ten

  thousand--and, for once, Report might claim to be right.

  Mr. Delamayn comes next.

  The rising solicitor was struck off the roll, at his own

  request--and entered himself as a student at one of the Inns of

  Court. For three years nothing was known of him but that he was

  reading hard and keeping his terms. He was called to the Bar. His

  late partners in the firm knew they could trust him, and put

  business into his hands. In two years he made himself a position

  in Court. At the end of the two years he made himself a position

  out of Court. He appeared as "Junior" in "a famous case," in

  which the honor of a great family, and the title to a great

  estate were concerned. His "Senior" fell ill on the eve of the

  trial. He conducted the case for the defendant and won it. The

  defendant said, "What can I do for you?" Mr. Delamayn answered,

  "Put me into Parliament." Being a landed gentleman, the defendant

  had only to issue the necessary orders--and behold, Mr. Delamayn

  was in Parliament!

  In the House of Commons the new member and Mr. Vanborough met

  again.

  They sat on the same bench, and sided with the same party. Mr.

  Delamayn noticed that Mr. Vanborough was looking old and worn and

  gray. He put a few questions to a well-informed person. The

  well-informed person shook his head. Mr. Vanborough was rich; Mr.

  Vanborough was well-connected (through his wife); Mr. Van borough

  was a sound man in every sense of the word; _but_--nobody liked

  him. He had done very well the first year, and there it had

  ended. He was undeniably clever, but he produced a disagreeable

  impression in the House. He gave splendid entertainments, but he

  wasn't popular in society. His party respected him, but when they

  had any thing to give they passed him over. He had a temper of

  his
own, if the truth must be told; and with nothing against

  him--on the contrary, with every thing in his favor--he didn't

  make friends. A soured man. At home and abroad, a soured man.

  VII.

  Five years more passed, dating from the day when the deserted

  wife was laid in her grave. It was now the year eighteen hundred

  and sixty six.

  On a certain day in that year two special items of news appeared

  in the papers--the news of an elevation to the peerage, and the

  news of a suicide.

  Getting on well at the Bar, Mr. Delamayn got on better still in

  Parliament. He became one of the prominent men in the House.

  Spoke clearly, sensibly, and modestly, and was never too long.

  Held the House, where men of higher abilities "bored" it. The

  chiefs of his party said openly, "We must do something for

  Delamayn," The opportunity offered, and the chiefs kept their

  word. Their Solicitor-General was advanced a step, and they put

  Delamayn in his place. There was an outcry on the part of the

  older members of the Bar. The Ministry answered, "We want a man

  who is listened to in the House, and we have got him." The papers

  supported the new nomination. A great debate came off, and the

  new Solicitor-General justified the Ministry and the papers. His

  enemies said, derisively, "He will be Lord Chancellor in a year

  or two!" His friends made genial jokes in his domestic circle,

  which pointed to the same conclusion. They warned his two sons,

  Julius and Geoffrey (then at college), to be careful what

  acquaintances they made, as they might find themselves the sons

  of a lord at a moment's notice. It really began to look like

  something of the sort. Always rising, Mr. Delamayn rose next to

  be Attorney-General. About the same time--so true it is that

  "nothing succeeds like success"--a childless relative died and

  left him a fortune. In the summer of 'sixty-six a Chief Judgeship

  fell vacant. The Ministry had made a previous appointment which

  had been universally unpopular. They saw their way to supplying

  the place of their Attorney-General, and they offered the

  judicial appointment to Mr. Delamayn. He preferred remaining in

  the House of Commons, and refused to accept it. The Ministry

  declined to take No for an answer. They whispered confidentially,

  " Will you take it with a peerage?" Mr. Delamayn consulted his

  wife, and took it with a peerage. The London _ Gazette_ announced

  him to the world as Baron Holchester of Holchester. And the

  friends of the family rubbed their hands and said, "What did we

  tell you? Here are our two young friends, Julius and Geoffrey,

  the sons of a lord!"

  And where was Mr. Vanborough all this time? Exactly where we left

  him five years since.

  He was as rich, or richer, than ever. He was as well-connected as

  ever. He was as ambitious as ever. But there it ended. He stood

  still in the House; he stood still in society; nobody liked him;

  he made no friends. It was all the old story over again, with

  this difference, that the soured man was sourer; the gray head,

  grayer; and the irritable temper more unendurable than ever. His

  wife had her rooms in the house and he had his, and the

  confidential servants took care that they never met on the

  stairs. They had no children. They only saw each other at their

  grand dinners and balls. People ate at their table, and danced on

  their floor, and compared notes afterward, and said how dull it

  was. Step by step the man who had once been Mr. Vanborough's

  lawyer rose, till the peerage received him, and he could rise no

  longer; while Mr. Vanborough, on the lower round of the ladder,

  looked up, and noted it, with no more chance (rich as he was and

  well-connected as he was) of climbing to the House of Lords than

  your chance or mine.

  The man's career was ended; and on the day when the nomination of

  the new peer was announced, the man ended with it.

  He laid the newspaper aside without making any remark, and went

  out. His carriage set him down, where the green fields still

  remain, on the northwest of London, near the foot-path which

  leads to Hampstead. He walked alone to the villa where he had

  once lived with the woman whom he had so cruelly wronged. New

  houses had risen round it, part of the old garden had been sold

  and built on. After a moment's hesitation he went to the gate and

  rang the bell. He gave the servant his card. The servant's master

  knew the name as the name of a man of great wealth, and of a

  Member of Parliament. He asked politely to what fortunate

  circumstance he owed the honor of that visit. Mr. Vanborough

  answered, briefly and simply, "I once lived here; I have

  associations with the place with which it is not necessary for me

  to trouble you. Will you excuse what must seem to you a very

  strange request? I should like to see the dining-room again, if

  there is no objection, and if I am disturbing nobody."

  The "strange requests" of rich men are of the nature of

  "privileged communications," for this excellent reason, that they

  are sure not to be requests for money. Mr. Vanborough was shown

  into the dining-room. The master of the house, secretly

  wondering, watched him.

  He walked straight to a certain spot on the carpet, not far from

  the window that led into the garden, and nearly opposite the

  door. On that spot he stood silently, with his head on his

  breast--thinking. Was it _there_ he had seen her for the last

  time, on the day when he left the room forever? Yes; it was

  there. After a minute or so he roused himself, but in a dreamy,

  absent manner. He said it was a pretty place, and expressed his

  thanks, and looked back before the door closed, and then went his

  way again. His carriage picked him up where it had set him down.

  He drove to the residence of the new Lord Holchester, and left a

  card for him. Then he went home. Arrived at his house, his

  secretary reminded him that he had an appointment in ten minutes'

  time. He thanked the secretary in the same dreamy, absent manner

  in which he had thanked the owner of the villa, and went into his

  dressing-room. The person with whom he had made the appointment

  came, and the secretary sent the valet up stairs to knock at the

  door. There was no answer. On trying the lock it proved to be

  turned inside. They broke open the door, and saw him lying on the

  sofa. They went close to look--and found him dead by his own

  hand.

  VIII.

  Drawing fast to its close, the Prologue reverts to the two

  girls--and tells, in a few words, how the years passed with Anne

  and Blanche.

  Lady Lundie more than redeemed the solemn pledge that she had

  given to her friend. Preserved from every temptation which might

  lure her into a longing to follow her mother's career; trained

  for a teacher's life, with all the arts and all the advantages

  that money could procure, Anne's first and only essays as a

  governess were made, under Lady Lundie's own roof, on Lady

 
Lundie's own child. The difference in the ages of the

  girls--seven years--the love between them, which seemed, as time

  went on, to grow with their growth, favored the trial of the

  experiment. In the double relation of teacher and friend to

  little Blanche, the girlhood of Anne Silvester the younger passed

  safely, happily, uneventfully, in the modest sanctuary of home.

  Who could imagine a contrast more complete than the contrast

  between her early life and her mother's? Who could see any thing

  but a death-bed delusion in the terrible question which had

  tortured the mother's last moments: "Will she end like Me?"

  But two events of importance occurred in the quiet family circle

  during the lapse of years which is now under review. In eighteen

  hundred and fifty-eight the household was enlivened by the

  arrival of Sir Thomas Lundie. In eighteen hundred and sixty-five

  the household was broken up by the return of Sir Thomas to India,

  accompanied by his wife.

  Lady Lundie's health had b een failing for some time previously.

  The medical men, consulted on the case, agreed that a sea-voyage

  was the one change needful to restore their patient's wasted

  strength--exactly at the time, as it happened, when Sir Thomas

  was due again in India. For his wife's sake, he agreed to defer

  his return, by taking the sea-voyage with her. The one difficulty

  to get over was the difficulty of leaving Blanche and Anne behind

  in England.

  Appealed to on this point, the doctors had declared that at

  Blanche's critical time of life they could not sanction her going

  to India with her mother. At the same time, near and dear

  relatives came forward, who were ready and anxious to give

  Blanche and her governess a home--Sir Thomas, on his side,

  engaging to bring his wife back in a year and a half, or, at

  most, in two years' time. Assailed in all directions, Lady

  Lundie's natural unwillingness to leave the girls was overruled.

  She consented to the parting--with a mind secretly depressed, and

  secretly doubtful of the future.

  At the last moment she drew Anne Silvester on one side, out of

  hearing of the rest. Anne was then a young woman of twenty-two,

  and Blanche a girl of fifteen.

  "My dear," she said, simply, "I must tell _you_ what I can not

  tell Sir Thomas, and what I am afraid to tell Blanche. I am going

  away, with a mind that misgives me. I am persuaded I shall not

  live to return to England; and, when I am dead, I believe my

  husband will marry again. Years ago your mother was uneasy, on

  her death-bed, about _your_ future. I am uneasy, now, about

  Blanche's future. I promised my dear dead friend that you should

  be like my own child to me--and it quieted her mind. Quiet my

  mind, Anne, before I go. Whatever happens in years to

  come--promise me to be always, what you are now, a sister to

  Blanche."

  She held out her hand for the last time. With a full heart Anne

  Silvester kissed it, and gave the promise.

  IX.

  In two months from that time one of the forebodings which had

  weighed on Lady Lundie's mind was fulfilled. She died on the

  voyage, and was buried at sea.

  In a year more the second misgiving was confirmed. Sir Thomas

  Lundie married again. He brought his second wife to England

  toward the close of eighteen hundred and sixty six.

  Time, in the new household, promised to pass as quietly as in the

  old. Sir Thomas remembered and respected the trust which his

  first wife had placed in Anne. The second Lady Lundie, wisely

  guiding her conduct in this matter by the conduct of her husband,

  left things as she found them in the new house. At the opening of

  eighteen hundred and sixty-seven the relations between Anne and

  Blanche were relations of sisterly sympathy and sisterly love.

  The prospect in the future was as fair as a prospect could be.

  At this date, of the persons concerned in the tragedy of twelve

  years since at the Hampstead villa, three were dead; and one was

  self-exiled in a foreign land. There now remained living Anne and