Man and Wife

by Wilkie Collins

  "I'm not down for a half-penny in the will. I expected as much.

  Go on."

  "You are wrong--you _are_ down in it. There is liberal provision

  made for you in a codicil. Unhappily, my father died without

  signing it. It is needless to say that I consider it binding on

  me for all that. I am ready to do for you what your father would

  have done for you. And I only ask for one concession in return."

  "What may that be?"

  "You are living here very unhappily, Geoffrey, with your wife."

  "Who says so? I don't, for one."

  Julius laid his hand kindly on his brother's arm.

  "Don't trifle with such a serious matter as this," he said. "Your

  marriage is, in every sense of the word, a misfortune--not only

  to you but to your wife. It is impossible that you can live

  together. I have come here to ask you to consent to a separation.

  Do that--and the provision made for you in the unsigned codicil

  is yours. What do you say?"

  Geoffrey shook his brother's hand off his arm.

  "I say--No!" he answered.

  Lady Holchester interfered for the first time.

  "Your brother's generous offer deserves a better answer than

  that," she said.

  "My answer," reiterated Geoffrey, "is--No!"

  He sat between them with his clenched fists resting on his

  knees--absolutely impenetrable to any thing that either of them

  could say.

  "In your situation," said Julius, "a refusal is sheer madness. I

  won't accept it."

  "Do as you like about that. My mind's made up. I won't let my

  wife be taken away from me. Here she stays."

  The brutal tone in which he had made that reply roused Lady

  Holchester's indignation.

  "Take care!" she said. "You are not only behaving with the

  grossest ingratitude toward your brother--you are forcing a

  suspicion into your mother's mind. You have some motive that you

  are hiding from us."

  He turned on his mother with a sudden ferocity which made Julius

  spring to his feet. The next instant his eyes were on the ground,

  and the devil that possessed him was quiet again.

  "Some motive I'm hiding from you?" he repeated, with his head

  down, and his utterance thicker than ever. "I'm ready to have my

  motive posted all over London, if you like. I'm fond of her."

  He looked up as he said the last words. Lady Holchester turned

  away her head--recoiling from her own son. So overwhelming was

  the shock inflicted on her that even the strongly rooted

  prejudice which Mrs. Glenarm had implanted in her mind yielded to

  it. At that moment she absolutely pitied Anne!

  "Poor creature!" said Lady Holchester.

  He took instant offense at those two words. "I won't have my wife

  pitied by any body." With that reply, he dashed into the passage;

  and called out, "Anne! come down!"

  Her soft voice answered; her light footfall was heard on the

  stairs. She came into the room. Julius advanced, took her hand,

  and held it kindly in his. "We are having a little family

  discussion," he said, trying to give her confidence. "And

  Geoffrey is getting hot over it, as usual."

  Geoffrey appealed sternly to his mother.

  "Look at her!" he said. "Is she starved? Is she in rags? Is she

  covered with bruises?" He turned to Anne. "They have come here to

  propose a separation. They both believe I hate you. I don't hate

  you. I'm a good Christian. I owe it to you that I'm cut out of my

  father's will. I forgive you that. I owe it to you that I've lost

  the chance of marrying a woman with ten thousand a year. I

  forgive you _that._ I'm not a man who does things by halves. I

  said it should be my endeavor to make you a good husband. I said

  it was my wish to make it up. Well! I am as good as my word. And

  what's the consequence? I am insulted. My mother comes here, and

  my brother comes here--and they offer me money to part from you.

  Money be hanged! I'll be beholden to nobody. I'll get my own

  living. Shame on the people who interfere between man and wife!

  Shame!--that's what I say--shame!"

  Anne looked, for an explanation, from her husband to her

  husband's mother.

  "Have you proposed a separation between us?" she asked.

  "Yes--on terms of the utmost advantage to my son; arranged with

  every possible consideration toward you. Is there any objection

  on your side?"

  "Oh, Lady Holchester! is it necessary to ask me? What does he

  say?"

  "He has refused."

  "Refused!"

  "Yes," said Geoffrey. "I don't go back from my word; I stick to

  what I said this morning. It's my endeavor to make you a good

  husband. It's my wish to make it up." He paused, and then added

  his last reason: "I'm fond of you."

  Their eyes met as he said it to her. Julius felt Anne's hand

  suddenly tighten round his. The desperate grasp of the frail cold

  fingers, the imploring terror in the gentle sensitive face as it

  slowly turned his way, said to him as if in words, "Don't leave

  me friendless to-night!"

  "If you both stop here till domesday," said Geoffrey, "you'll get

  nothing more out of me. You have had my reply."

  With that, he seated himself doggedly in a corner of the room;

  waiting--ostentatiously waiting--for his mother and his brother

  to take their leave. The position was serious. To argue the

  matter with him that night was hopeless. To invite Sir Patrick's

  interference would only be to provoke his savage temper to a new

  outbreak. On the other hand, to leave the helpless woman, after

  what had passed, without another effort to befriend her, was, in

  her situation, an act of downright inhumanity, and nothing less.

  Julius took the one way out of the difficulty that was left--the

  one way worthy of him as a compassionate and an honorable man.

  "We will drop it for to-night, Geoffrey," he said. "But I am not

  the less resolved, in spite of all that you have said, to return

  to the subject to-morrow. It would save me some inconvenience--a

  second journey here from town, and then going back again to my

  engagements--if I staid with you to-night. Can you give me a

  bed?"

  A look flashed on him from Anne, which thanked him as no words

  could have thanked him.

  "Give you a bed?" repeated Geoffrey. He checked himself, on the

  point of refusing. His mother was watching him; his wife was

  watching him--and his wife knew that the room above them was a

  room to spare. "All right!" he resumed, in another tone, with his

  eye on his mother. "There's my empty room up stairs. Have it, if

  you like. You won't find I've changed my mind to-morrow--but

  that's your look-out. Stop here, if the fancy takes you. I've no

  objection. It don't matter to Me.--Will you trust his lordship

  under my roof?" he added, addressing his mother. "I might have

  some motive that I'm hiding from you, you know!" Without waiting

  for an answer, he turned to Anne. "Go and tell old Dummy to put

  the sheets on the bed. Say there's a live lord in the

  house--she's to send in something
devilish good for supper!" He

  burst fiercely into a forced laugh. Lady Holchester rose at the

  moment when Anne was leaving the room. "I shall not be here when

  you return," she said. "Let me bid you good-night."

  She shook hands with Anne--giving her Sir Patrick's note, unseen,

  at the same moment. Anne left the room. Without addressing

  another word to her second son, Lady Holchester beckoned to

  Julius to give her his arm. "You have acted nobly toward your

  brother," she said to him. "My one comfort and my one hope,

  Julius, are in you." They went out together to the gate, Geoffrey

  following them with the key in his hand. "Don't be too anxious,"

  Julius whispered to his mother. "I will keep the drink out of his

  way to-night--and I will bring you a better account of him

  to-morrow. Explain every thing to Sir Patrick as you go home."

  He handed Lady Holchester into the carriage; and re-entered,

  leaving Geoffrey to lock the gate. The brothers returned in

  silence to the cottage. Julius had concealed it from his

  mother--but he was seriously uneasy in secret. Naturally prone to

  look at all things on their brighter side, he could place no

  hopeful interpretation on what Geoffrey had said and done that

  night. The conviction that he was deliberately acting a part, in

  his present relations with his wife, for some abominable purpose

  of his own, had rooted itself firmly in Julius. For the first

  time in his experience of his brother, the pecuniary

  consideration was not the uppermost consideration in Geoffrey's

  mind. They went back into the drawing-room. "What will you have

  to drink?" said Geoffrey.

  "Nothing."

  "You won't keep me company over a drop of brandy-and-water?"

  "No. You have had enough brandy-and-water."

  After a moment of frowning self-consideration in the glass,

  Geoffrey abruptly agreed with Julius "I look like it," he said.

  "I'll soon put that right." He disappeared, and returned with a

  wet towel tied round his head. "What will you do while the women

  are getting your bed ready? Liberty Hall here. I've taken to

  cultivating my mind---I'm a reformed character, you know, now I'm

  a married man. You do what you like. I shall read."

  He turned to the side-table, and, producing the volumes of the

  Newgate Calendar, gave one to his brother. Julius handed it back

  again.

  "You won't cultivate your mind," he said, "with such a book as

  that. Vile actions recorded in vile English, make vile reading,

  Geoffrey, in every sense of the word."

  "It will do for me. I don't know good English when I see it."

  With that frank acknowledgment--to which the great majority of

  his companions at school and college might have subscribed

  without doing the slightest injustice to the present state of

  English education--Geoffrey drew his chair to the table, and

  opened one of the volumes of his record of crime.

  The evening newspaper was lying on the sofa. Julius took it up,

  and seated himself opposite to his brother. He noticed, with some

  surprise, that Geoffrey appeared to have a special object in

  consulting his book. Instead of beginning at the first page, he

  ran the leaves through his fingers, and turned them down at

  certain places, before he entered on his reading. If Julius had

  looked over his brother's shoulder, instead of only looking at

  him across the table, he would have seen that Geoffrey passed by

  all the lighter crimes reported in the Calendar, and marked for

  his own private reading the cases of murder only.

  CHAPTER THE FIFTY-SECOND.

  THE APPARITION.

  THE night had advanced. It was close on twelve o'clock when Anne

  heard the servant's voice, outside her bedroom door, asking leave

  to speak with her for a moment.

  "What is it?"

  "The gentleman down stairs wishes to see you, ma'am."

  "Do you mean Mr. Delamayn's brother?"

  "Yes."

  "Where is Mr. Delamayn?"

  "Out in the garden, ma'am."

  Anne went down stairs, and found Julius alone in

  the drawing-room.

  "I am sorry to disturb you," he said. "I am afraid Geoffrey is

  ill. The landlady has gone to bed, I am told--and I don't know

  where to apply for medical assistance. Do you know of any doctor

  in the neighborhood?"

  Anne, like Julius, was a perfect stranger to the neighborhood.

  She suggested making inquiry of the servant. On speaking to the

  girl, it turned out that she knew of a medical man, living within

  ten minutes' walk of the cottage. She could give plain directions

  enabling any person to find the place--but she was afraid, at

  that hour of the night and in that lonely neighborhood, to go out

  by herself.

  "Is he seriously ill?" Anne asked.

  "He is in such a state of nervous irritability," said Julius,

  "that he can't remain still for two moments together in the same

  place. It began with incessant restlessness while he was reading

  here. I persuaded him to go to bed. He couldn't lie still for an

  instant--he came down again, burning with fever, and more

  restless than ever. He is out in the garden in spite of every

  thing I could do to prevent him; trying, as he says, to 'run it

  off.' It appears to be serious to _me._. Come and judge for

  yourself."

  He led Anne into the next room; and, opening the shutter, pointed

  to the garden.

  The clouds had cleared off; the night was fine. The clear

  starlight showed Geoffrey, stripped to his shirt and drawers,

  running round and round the garden. He apparently believed

  himself to be contending at the Fulham foot-race. At times, as

  the white figure circled round and round in the star-light, they

  heard him cheering for "the South." The slackening thump of his

  feet on the ground, the heavier and heavier gasps in which he

  drew his breath, as he passed the window, gave warning that his

  strength was failing him. Exhaustion, if it led to no worse

  consequences, would force him to return to the house. In the

  state of his brain at that moment who could say what the result

  might be, if medical help was not called in?

  "I will go for the doctor," said Julius, "if you don't mind my

  leaving you."

  It was impossible for Anne to set any apprehensions of her own

  against the plain necessity for summoning assistance. They found

  the key of the gate in the pocket of Geoffrey's coat up stairs.

  Anne went with Julius to let him out. "How can I thank you!" she

  said, gratefully. "What should I have done without _you!_"

  "I won't be a moment longer than I can help," he answered, and

  left her.

  She secured the gate again, and went back to the cottage. The

  servant met her at the door, and proposed calling up Hester

  Dethridge.

  "We don't know what the master may do while his brother's away,"

  said the girl. "And one more of us isn't one too many, when we

  are only women in the house."

  "You are quite right," said Anne. "Wake your mistress."

  After ascendi
ng the stairs, they looked out into the garden,

  through the window at the end of the passage on the upper floor.

  He was still going round and round, but very slowly: his pace was

  fast slackening to a walk.

  Anne went back to her room, and waited near the open door--ready

  to close and fasten it instantly if any thing occurred to alarm

  her. "How changed I am!" she thought to herself. "Every thing

  frightens me, now."

  The inference was the natural one--but not the true one. The

  change was not in herself, but in the situation in which she was

  placed. Her position during the investigation at Lady Lundie's

  house had tried her moral courage only. It had exacted from her

  one of those noble efforts of self-sacrifice which the hidden

  forces in a woman's nature are essentially capable of making. Her

  position at the cottage tried her physical courage: it called on

  her to rise superior to the sense of actual bodily danger--while

  that danger was lurking in the dark. There, the woman's nature

  sank under the stress laid on it--there, her courage could strike

  no root in the strength of her love--there, the animal instincts

  were the instincts appealed to; and the firmness wanted was the

  firmness of a man.

  Hester Dethridge's door opened. She walked straight into Anne's

  room.

  The yellow clay-cold color of her face showed a faint flush of

  warmth; its deathlike stillness was stirred by a touch of life.

  The stony eyes, fixed as ever in their gaze, shone strangely with

  a dim inner lustre. Her gray hair, so neatly arranged at other

  times, was in disorder under her cap. All her movements were

  quicker than usual. Something had roused the stagnant vitality in

  the woman--it was working in her mind; it was forcing itself

  outward into her face. The servants at Windygates, in past times,

  had seen these signs, and had known them for a warning to leave

  Hester Dethridge to herself.

  Anne asked her if she had heard what had happened.

  She bowed her head.

  "I hope you don't mind being disturbed?"

  She wrote on her slate: "I'm glad to be disturbed. I have been

  dreaming bad dreams. It's good for me to be wakened, when sleep

  takes me backward in my life. What's wrong with you? Frightened?"

  "Yes."

  She wrote again, and pointed toward the garden with one hand,

  while she held the slate up with the other: "Frightened of

  _him?_"

  "Terribly frightened."

  She wrote for the third time, and offered the slate to Anne with

  a ghastly smile: "I have been through it all. I know. You're only

  at the beginning now. He'll put the wrinkles in your face, and

  the gray in your hair. There will come a time when you'll wish

  yourself dead and buried. You will live through it, for all that.

  Look at Me."

  As she read the last three words, Anne heard the garden door

  below opened and banged to again. She caught Hester Dethridge by

  the arm, and listened. The tramp of Geoffrey's feet, staggering

  heavily in the passage, gave token of his approach to the stairs.

  He was talking to himself, still possessed by the delusion that

  he was at the foot-race. "Five to four on Delamayn. Delamayn's

  won. Three cheers for the South, and one cheer more. Devilish

  long race. Night already! Perry! where's Perry?"

  He advanced, staggering from side to side of the passage. The

  stairs below creaked as he set his foot on them. Hester Dethridge

  dragged herself free from Anne, advanced, with her candle in her

  hand, and threw open Geoffrey's bedroom door; returned to the

  head of the stairs; and stood there, firm as a rock, waiting for

  him. He looked up, as he set his foot on the next stair, and met

  the view of Hester's face, brightly illuminated by the candle,

  looking down at him. On the instant he stopped, rooted to the

  place on which he stood. "Ghost! witch! devil!" he cried out,

  "take your eyes off me!" He shook his fist at her furiously, with