Man and Wife

by Wilkie Collins

I am equally ignorant of what you mean when you speak of

  defending your good name. All I understand is, that we are

  separate persons in this house, and that I am to have a room of

  my own. I am grateful, whatever your motives may be, for the

  arrangement that you have proposed. Direct one of these two women

  to show me my room."

  Geoffrey turned to Hester Dethridge.

  "Take her up stairs," he said; "and let her pick which room she

  pleases. Give her what she wants to eat or drink. Bring down the

  address of the place where her luggage is. The lad here will go

  back by railway, and fetch it. That's all. Be off."

  Hester went out. Anne followed her up the stairs. In the passage

  on the upper floor she stopped. The dull light flickered again

  for a moment in her eyes. She wrote on her slate, and held it up

  to Anne, with these words on it: "I knew you would come back.

  It's not over yet between you and him." Anne made no reply. She

  went on writing, with something faintly like a smile on her thin,

  colorless lips. "I know something of bad husbands. Yours is as

  bad a one as ever stood in shoes. He'll try you." Anne made an

  effort to stop her. "Don't you see how tired I am?" she said,

  gently. Hester Dethridge dropped the slate--looked with a steady

  and uncompassionate attention in Anne's face--nodded her head, as

  much as to say, "I see it now"--and led the way into one of the

  empty rooms.

  It was the front bedroom, over the drawing-room. The first glance

  round showed it to be scrupulously clean, and solidly and

  tastelessly furnished. The hideous paper on the walls, the

  hideous carpet on the floor, were both of the best quality. The

  great heavy mahogany bedstead, with its curtains hanging from a

  hook in the ceiling, and with its clumsily carved head and foot

  on the same level, offered to the view the anomalous spectacle of

  French design overwhelmed by English execution. The most

  noticeable thing in the room was the extraordinary attention

  which had been given to the defense of the door. Besides the

  usual lock and key, it possessed two solid bolts, fastening

  inside at the top and the bottom. It had been one among the many

  eccentric sides of Reuben Limbrick's character to live in

  perpetual dread of thieves breaking into his cottage at night.

  All the outer doors and all the window shutters were solidly

  sheathed with iron, and had alarm-bells attached to them on a new

  principle. Every one of the bedrooms possessed its two bolts on

  the inner side of the door. And, to crown all, on the roof of the

  cottage was a little belfry, containing a bell large enough to

  make itself heard at the Fulham police station. In Reuben

  Limbrick's time the rope had communicated with his bedroom. It

  hung now against the wall, in the passage outside.

  Looking from one to the other of the objects around her, Anne's

  eyes rested on the partition wall which divided the room from the

  room next to it. The wall was not broken by a door of

  communication, it had nothing placed against it but a

  wash-hand-stand and two chairs.

  "Who sleeps in the next room?" said Anne.

  Hester Dethridge pointed down to the drawing-room in which they

  had left Geoffrey, Geoffrey slept in the room.

  Anne led the way out again into the passage.

  "Show me the second room," she said.

  The second room was also in front of the house. More ugliness (of

  first-rate quality) in the paper and the carpet. Another heavy

  mahogany bedstead; but, this time, a bedstead with a canopy

  attached to the head of it--supporting its own curtains.

  Anticipating Anne's inquiry, on this occasion, Hester looked

  toward the next room, at the back of the cottage, and pointed to

  herself. Anne at once decided on choosing the second room; it was

  the farthest from Geoffrey. Hester waited while she wrote the

  address at which her luggage would be found (at the house of the

  musical agent), and then, having applied for, and received her

  directions as to the evening meal which she should send up

  stairs, quitted the room.

  Left alone, Anne secured the door, and threw herself on the bed.

  Still too weary to exert her mind, still physically incapable of

  realizing the helplessness and the peril of her position, she

  opened a locket that hung from her neck, kissed the portrait of

  her mother and the portrait of Blanche placed opposite to each

  other inside it, and sank into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  Meanwhile Geoffrey repeated his final orders to the lad, at the

  cottage gate.

  "When you have got the luggage, you are to go to the lawyer. If

  he can come here to-night, you will show him the way. If he can't

  come, you will bring me a letter from him. Make any mistake in

  this, and it will be the worst day's work you ever did in your

  life. Away with you, and don't lose the train."

  The lad ran off. Geoffrey waited, looking after him, and turning

  over in his mind what had been done up to that time.

  "All right, so far," he said to himself. "I didn't ride in the

  cab with her. I told her before witnesses I didn't forgive her,

  and why I had her in the house. I've put her in a room by

  herself. And if I _must_ see her, I see her with Hester Dethridge

  for a witness. My part's done--let the lawyer do his."

  He strolled round into the back garden, and lit his pipe. After a

  while, as the twilight faded, he saw a light in Hester's

  sitting-room on the ground-floor. He went to the window. Hester

  and the servant-girl were both there at work. "Well?" he asked.

  "How about the woman up stairs?" Hester's slate, aided by the

  girl's tongue, told him all about "the woman" that was to be

  told. They had taken up to her room tea and an omelet; and they

  had been obliged to wake her from a sleep. She had eaten a little

  of the omelet, and had drunk eagerly of the tea. They had gone up

  again to take the tray down. She had returned to the bed. She was

  not asleep--only dull and heavy. Made no remark. Looked clean

  worn out. We left her a light; and we let her be. Such was the

  report. After listening to it, without making any remark,

  Geoffrey filled a second pipe, and resumed his walk. The time

  wore on. It began to feel chilly in the garden. The rising wind

  swept audibly over the open lands round the cottage; the stars

  twinkled their last; nothing was to be seen overhead but the

  black void of night. More rain coming. Geoffrey went indoors.

  An evening newspaper was on the dining-room table. The candles

  were lit. He sat down, and tried to read. No! There was nothing

  in the newspaper that he cared about. The time for hearing from

  the lawyer was drawing nearer and nearer. Reading was of no use.

  Sitting still was of no use. He got up, and went out in the front

  of the cottage--strolled to the gate--opened it--and looked idly

  up and down the road.

  But one living creature was visible by the light of the gas-lamp

  over the gate. The creature came nearer, and proved to be the

&nbs
p; postman going his last round, with the last delivery for the

  night. He came up to the gate with a letter in his hand.

  "The Honorable Geoffrey Delamayn?"

  "All right."

  He took the letter from the postman, and went back into the

  dining-room. Looking at the address by the light of the candles,

  he recognized the handwriting of Mrs. Glenarm. "To congratulate

  me on my marriage!" he said to himself, bitterly, and opened the

  letter.

  Mrs. Glenarm's congratulations were expressed in these terms:

  MY ADORED GEOFFREY,--I have heard all. My beloved one! my own!

  you are sacrificed to the vilest wretch that walks the earth, and

  I have lost you! How is it that I live after hearing it? How is

  it that I can think, and write, with my brain on fire, and my

  heart broken! Oh, my angel, there is a purpose that supports

  me--pure, beautiful, worthy of us both. I live, Geoffrey--I live

  to dedicate myself to the adored idea of You. My hero! my first,

  last, love! I will marry no other man. I will live and die--I vow

  it solemnly on my bended knees--I will live and die true to You.

  I am your Spiritual Wife. My beloved Geoffrey! _she_ can't come

  between us, there--_she_ can never rob you of my heart's

  unalterable fidelity, of my soul's unearthly devotion. I am your

  Spiritual Wife! Oh, the blameless luxury of writing those words!

  Write back to me, beloved one, and say you feel it too. Vow it,

  idol of my heart, as I have vowed it. Unalterable fidelity!

  unearthly devotion! Never, never will I be the wife of any other

  man! Never, never will I forgive the woman who has come between

  us! Yours ever and only; yours with the stainless passion that

  burns on the altar of the heart; yours, yours, yours--E. G."

  This outbreak of hysterical nonsense--in itself simply

  ridiculous--assumed a serious importance in its effect on

  Geoffrey. It associated the direct attainment of his own

  interests with the gratification of his vengeance on Anne. Ten

  thousand a year self-dedicated to him--and nothing to prevent his

  putting out his hand and taking it but the woman who had caught

  him in her trap, the woman up stairs who had fastened herself on

  him for life!

  He put the letter into his pocket. "Wait till I hear from the

  lawyer," he said to himself. "The easiest way out of it is _that_

  way. And it's the law."

  He looked impatiently at his watch. As he put it back again in

  his pocket there was a ring at the bell. Was it the lad bringing

  the luggage? Yes. And, with it, the lawyer's report? No. Better

  than that--the lawyer himself.

  "Come in!" cried Geoffrey, meeting his visitor at the door.

  The lawyer entered the dining-room. The candle-light revealed to

  view a corpulent, full-lipped, bright-eyed man--with a strain of

  negro blood in his yellow face, and with unmistakable traces in

  his look and manner of walking habitually in the dirtiest

  professional by-ways of the law.

  "I've got a little place of my own in your neighborhood," he

  said. "And I thought I would look in myself, Mr. Delamayn, on my

  way home."

  "Have you seen the witnesses?"

  "I have examined them both, Sir. First, Mrs. Inchbare and Mr.

  Bishopriggs together. Next, Mrs. Inchbare and Mr. Bishopriggs

  separately."

  "Well?"

  "Well, Sir, the result is unfavorable, I am sorry to say."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Neither the one nor the other of them, Mr. Delamayn, can give

  the evidence we want. I have made sure of that."

  "Made sure of that? You have made an infernal mess of it! You

  don't understand the case!"

  The mulatto lawyer smiled. The rudeness of his client appeared

  only to amuse him.

  "Don't I?" he said. "Suppose you tell me where I am wrong about

  it? Here it is in outline only. On the fourteenth of August last

  your wife was at an inn in Scotland. A gentleman named Arnold

  Brinkworth joined her there. He represented himself to be her

  husband, and he staid with her till the next morning. Starting

  from those facts, the object you have in view is to sue for a

  Divorce from your wife. You make Mr. Arnold Brinkworth the

  co-respondent. And you produce in evidence the waiter and the

  landlady of the inn. Any thing wrong, Sir, so far?"

  Nothing wrong. At one cowardly stroke to cast Anne disgraced on

  the world, and to set himself free--there, plainly and truly

  stated, was the scheme which he had devised, when he had turned

  back on the way to Fulham to consult Mr. Moy.

  "So much for the case," resumed the lawyer. "Now for what I have

  done on receiving your instructions. I have examined the

  witnesses; and I have had an interview (not a very pleasant one)

  with Mr. Moy. The result of those two proceedings is briefly

  this. First discovery: In assuming the character of the lady's

  husband Mr. Brinkworth was acting under your directions--which

  tells dead against _you._ Second discovery: Not the slightest

  impropriety of conduct, not an approach even to harmless

  familiarity, was detected by either of the witnesses, while the

  lady and gentleman were together at the inn. There is literally

  no evidence to produce against them, except that they _were_

  together--in two rooms. How are you to assume a guilty purpose,

  when you can't prove an approach to a guilty act? You can no more

  take such a case as that into Court than you can jump over the

  roof of this cottage."

  He looked hard at his client, expecting to receive a violent

  reply. His client agreeably disappointed him. A very strange

  impression appeared to have been produced on th is reckless and

  headstrong man. He got up quietly; he spoke with perfect outward

  composure of face and manner when he said his next words.

  "Have you given up the case?"

  "As things are at present, Mr. Delamayn, there is no case."

  "And no hope of my getting divorced from her?"

  "Wait a moment. Have your wife and Mr. Brinkworth met nowhere

  since they were together at the Scotch inn?"

  "Nowhere."

  "As to the future, of course I can't say. As to the past, there

  is no hope of your getting divorced from her."

  "Thank you. Good-night."

  "Good-night, Mr. Delamayn."

  Fastened to her for life--and the law powerless to cut the knot.

  He pondered over that result until he had thoroughly realized it

  and fixed it in his mind. Then he took out Mrs. Glenarm's letter,

  and read it through again, attentively, from beginning to end.

  Nothing could shake her devotion to him. Nothing would induce her

  to marry another man. There she was--in her own words--dedicated

  to him: waiting, with her fortune at her own disposal, to be his

  wife. There also was his father, waiting (so far as _he_ knew, in

  the absence of any tidings from Holchester House) to welcome Mrs.

  Glenarm as a daughter-in-law, and to give Mrs. Glenarm's husband

  an income of his own. As fair a prospect, on all sides, as man

  could desire. And nothing in the way of it but the woman
who had

  caught him in her trap--the woman up stairs who had fastened

  herself on him for life.

  He went out in the garden in the darkness of the night.

  There was open communication, on all sides, between the back

  garden and the front. He walked round and round the cottage--now

  appearing in a stream of light from a window; now disappearing

  again in the darkness. The wind blew refreshingly over his bare

  head. For some minutes he went round and round, faster and

  faster, without a pause. When he stopped at last, it was in front

  of the cottage. He lifted his head slowly, and looked up at the

  dim light in the window of Anne's room.

  "How?" he said to himself. "That's the question. How?"

  He went indoors again, and rang the bell. The servant-girl who

  answered it started back at the sight of him. His florid color

  was all gone. His eyes looked at her without appearing to see

  her. The perspiration was standing on his forehead in great heavy

  drops.

  "Are you ill, Sir?" said the girl.

  He told her, with an oath, to hold her tongue and bring the

  brandy. When she entered the room for the second time, he was

  standing with his back to her, looking out at the night. He never

  moved when she put the bottle on the table. She heard him

  muttering as if he was talking to himself.

  The same difficulty which had been present to his mind in secret

  under Anne's window was present to his mind still.

  How? That was the problem to solve. How?

  He turned to the brandy, and took counsel of that.

  CHAPTER THE FIFTIETH.

  THE MORNING.

  WHEN does the vain regret find its keenest sting? When is the

  doubtful future blackened by its darkest cloud? When is life

  least worth having. and death oftenest at the bedside? In the

  terrible morning hours, when the sun is rising in its glory, and

  the birds are singing in the stillness of the new-born day.

  Anne woke in the strange bed, and looked round her, by the light

  of the new morning, at the strange room.

  The rain had all fallen in the night. The sun was master in the

  clear autumn sky. She rose, and opened the window. The fresh

  morning air, keen and fragrant, filled the room. Far and near,

  the same bright stillness possessed the view. She stood at the

  window looking out. Her mind was clear again--she could think,

  she could feel; she could face the one last question which the

  merciless morning now forced on her--How will it end?

  Was there any hope?--hope for instance, in what she might do for

  herself. What can a married woman do for herself? She can make

  her misery public--provided it be misery of a certain kind--and

  can reckon single-handed with Society when she has done it.

  Nothing more.

  Was there hope in what others might do for her? Blanche might

  write to her--might even come and see her--if her husband allowed

  it; and that was all. Sir Patrick had pressed her hand at

  parting, and had told her to rely on him. He was the firmest, the

  truest of friends. But what could he do? There were outrages

  which her husband was privileged to commit, under the sanction of

  marriage, at the bare thought of which her blood ran cold. Could

  Sir Patrick protect her? Absurd! Law and Society armed her

  husband with his conjugal rights. Law and Society had but one

  answer to give, if she appealed to them--You are his wife.

  No hope in herself; no hope in her friends; no hope any where on

  earth. Nothing to be done but to wait for the end--with faith in

  the Divine Mercy; with faith in the better world.

  She took out of her trunk a little book of Prayers and

  Meditations--worn with much use--which had once belonged to her

  mother. She sat by the window reading it. Now and then she looked

  up from it--thinking. The parallel between her mother's position

  and her own position was now complete. Both married to husbands