Man and Wife

by Wilkie Collins

repose which she sorely needed, the chances were that her nerves

  might fail her, through sheer exhaustion, when the time came for

  facing the risk and making the effort to escape. Sleep was

  falling on her even now--and sleep she must have. She had no fear

  of failing to wake at the needful time. Falling asleep, with a

  special necessity for rising at a given hour present to her mind,

  Anne (like most other sensitively organized people) could trust

  herself to wake at that given hour, instinctively. She put her

  lighted candle in a safe position, and laid down on the bed. In

  less than five minutes, she was in a deep sleep.

  * * * * * *

  The church clock struck the quarter to eleven. Hester Dethridge

  showed herself at the back garden door. Geoffrey crossed the

  lawn, and joined her. The light of the lamp in the passage fell

  on his face. She started back from the sight of it.

  "What's wrong?" he asked.

  She shook her head; and pointed through the dining-room door to

  the brandy-bottle on the table.

  "I'm as sober as you are, you fool!" he said. "Whatever else it

  is, it's not that."

  Hester looked at him again. He was right. However unsteady his

  gait might be, his speech was not the speech, his eyes were not

  the eyes, of a drunken man.

  "Is she in her room for the night?"

  Hester made the affirmative sign.

  Geoffrey ascended the st airs, swaying from side to side. He

  stopped at the top, and beckoned to Hester to join him. He went

  on into his room; and, signing to her to follow him, closed the

  door.

  He looked at the partition wall--without approaching it. Hester

  waited, behind him

  "Is she asleep?" he asked.

  Hester went to the wall; listened at it; and made the affirmative

  reply.

  He sat down. "My head's queer," he said. "Give me a drink of

  water." He drank part of the water, and poured the rest over his

  head. Hester turned toward the door to leave him. He instantly

  stopped her. "_I_ can't unwind the strings. _I_ can't lift up the

  paper. Do it."

  She sternly made the sign of refusal: she resolutely opened the

  door to leave him. "Do you want your Confession back?" he asked.

  She closed the door, stolidly submissive in an instant; and

  crossed to the partition wall.

  She lifted the loose strips of paper on either side of the

  wall--pointed through the hollowed place--and drew back again to

  the other end of the room.

  He rose and walked unsteadily from the chair to the foot of his

  bed. Holding by the wood-work of the bed; he waited a little.

  While he waited, he became conscious of a change in the strange

  sensations that possessed him. A feeling as of a breath of cold

  air passed over the right side of his head. He became steady

  again: he could calculate his distances: he could put his hands

  through the hollowed place, and draw aside the light curtains,

  hanging from the hook in the ceiling over the head of her bed. He

  could look at his sleeping wife.

  She was dimly visible, by the light of the candle placed at the

  other end of her room. The worn and weary look had disappeared

  from her face. All that had been purest and sweetest in it, in

  the by-gone time, seemed to be renewed by the deep sleep that

  held her gently. She was young again in the dim light: she was

  beautiful in her calm repose. Her head lay back on the pillow.

  Her upturned face was in a position which placed her completely

  at the mercy of the man under whose eyes she was sleeping--the

  man who was looking at her, with the merciless resolution in him

  to take her life.

  After waiting a while, he drew back. "She's more like a child

  than a woman to-night," he muttered to himself under his breath.

  He glanced across the room at Hester Dethridge. The lighted

  candle which she had brought up stairs with her was burning near

  the place where she stood. "Blow it out," he whispered. She never

  moved. He repeated the direction. There she stood, deaf to him.

  What was she doing? She was looking fixedly into one of the

  corners of the room.

  He turned his head again toward the hollowed place in the wall.

  He looked at the peaceful face on the pillow once more. He

  deliberately revived his own vindictive sense of the debt that he

  owed her. "But for you," he whispered to himself, "I should have

  won the race: but for you, I should have been friends with my

  father: but for you, I might marry Mrs. Glenarm." He turned back

  again into the room while the sense of it was at its fiercest in

  him. He looked round and round him. He took up a towel;

  considered for a moment; and threw it down again.

  A new idea struck him. In two steps he was at the side of his

  bed. He seized on one of the pillows, and looked suddenly at

  Hester. "It's not a drunken brute, this time," he said to her.

  "It's a woman who will fight for her life. The pillow's the

  safest of the two." She never answered him, and never looked

  toward him. He made once more for the place in the wall; and

  stopped midway between it and his bed--stopped, and cast a

  backward glance over his shoulder.

  Hester Dethridge was stirring at last.

  With no third person in the room, she was looking, and moving,

  nevertheless, as if she was following a third person along the

  wall, from the corner. Her lips were parted in horror; her eyes,

  opening wider and wider, stared rigid and glittering at the empty

  wall. Step by step she stole nearer and nearer to Geoffrey, still

  following some visionary Thing, which was stealing nearer and

  nearer, too. He asked himself what it meant. Was the terror of

  the deed that he was about to do more than the woman's brain

  could bear? Would she burst out screaming, and wake his wife?

  He hurried to the place in the wall--to seize the chance, while

  the chance was his.

  He steadied his strong hold on the pillow.

  He stooped to pass it through the opening.

  He poised it over Anne's sleeping face.

  At the same moment he felt Hester Dethridge's hand laid on him

  from behind. The touch ran through him, from head to foot, like a

  touch of ice. He drew back with a start, and faced her. Her eyes

  were staring straight over his shoulder at something behind

  him--looking as they had looked in the garden at Windygates.

  Before he could speak he felt the flash of her eyes in _his_

  eyes. For the third time, she had seen the Apparition behind him.

  The homicidal frenzy possessed her. She flew at his throat like a

  wild beast. The feeble old woman attacked the athlete!

  He dropped the pillow, and lifted his terrible right arm to brush

  her from him, as he might have brushed an insect from him.

  Even as he raised the arm a frightful distortion seized on his

  face. As if with an invisible hand, it dragged down the brow and

  the eyelid on the right; it dragged down the mouth on the same

  side. His arm fell helpless; his whole body, on the side under

  t
he arm, gave way. He dropped on the floor, like a man shot dead.

  Hester Dethridge pounced on his prostrate body--knelt on his

  broad breast--and fastened her ten fingers on his throat.

  * * * * * *

  The shock of the fall woke Anne on the instant. She started

  up--looked round--and saw a gap in the wall at the head of her

  bed, and the candle-light glimmering in the next room.

  Panic-stricken; doubting, for the moment, if she were in her

  right mind, she drew back, waiting--listening--looking. She saw

  nothing but the glimmering light in the room; she heard nothing

  but a hoarse gasping, as of some person laboring for breath. The

  sound ceased. There was an interval of silence. Then the head of

  Hester Dethridge rose slowly into sight through the gap in the

  wall--rose with the glittering light of madness in the eyes, and

  looked at her.

  She flew to the open window, and screamed for help.

  Sir Patrick's voice answered her, from the road in front of the

  cottage.

  "Wait for me, for God's sake!" she cried.

  She fled from the room, and rushed down the stairs. In another

  moment, she had opened the door, and was out in the front garden.

  As she ran to the gate, she heard the voice of a strange man on

  the other side of it. Sir Patrick called to her encouragingly.

  "The police man is with us," he said. "He patrols the garden at

  night--he has a key." As he spoke the gate was opened from the

  outside. She saw Sir Patrick, Arnold, and the policeman. She

  staggered toward them as they came in--she was just able to say,

  "Up stairs!" before her senses failed her. Sir Patrick saved her

  from falling. He placed her on the bench in the garden, and

  waited by her, while Arnold and the policeman hurried into the

  cottage.

  "Where first?" asked Arnold.

  "The room the lady called from," said the policeman

  They mounted the stairs, and entered Anne's room. The gap in the

  wall was instantly observed by both of them. They looked through

  it.

  Geoffrey Delamayn's dead body lay on the floor. Hester Dethridge

  was kneeling at his head, praying.

  EPILOGUE.

  A MORNING CALL.

  I.

  THE newspapers have announced the return of Lord and Lady

  Holchester to their residence in London, after an absence on the

  continent of more than six months.

  It is the height of the season. All day long, within the

  canonical hours, the door of Holchester House is perpetually

  opening to receive visitors. The vast majority leave their cards,

  and go away again. Certain privileged individuals only, get out

  of their carriages, and enter the house.

  Among these last, arriving at an earlier hour than is customary,

  is a person of distinction who is positively bent on seeing

  either the master or the mistress of the house, and who will take

  no denial. While this person is parleying with the chief of the

  servants , Lord Holchester, passing from one room to another,

  happens to cross the inner end of the hall. The person instantly

  darts at him with a cry of "Dear Lord Holchester!" Julius turns,

  and sees--Lady Lundie!

  He is fairly caught, and he gives way with his best grace. As he

  opens the door of the nearest room for her ladyship, he furtively

  consults his watch, and says in his inmost soul, "How am I to get

  rid of her before the others come?"

  Lady Lundie settles down on a sofa in a whirlwind of silk and

  lace, and becomes, in her own majestic way, "perfectly charming."

  She makes the most affectionate inquiries about Lady Holchester,

  about the Dowager Lady Holchester, about Julius himself. Where

  have they been? what have they seen? have time and change helped

  them to recover the shock of that dreadful event, to which Lady

  Lundie dare not more particularly allude? Julius answers

  resignedly, and a little absently. He makes polite inquiries, on

  his side, as to her ladyship's plans and proceedings--with a mind

  uneasily conscious of the inexorable lapse of time, and of

  certain probabilities which that lapse may bring with it. Lady

  Lundie has very little to say about herself. She is only in town

  for a few weeks. Her life is a life of retirement. "My modest

  round of duties at Windygates, Lord Holchester; occasionally

  relieved, when my mind is overworked, by the society of a few

  earnest friends whose views harmonize with my own--my existence

  passes (not quite uselessly, I hope) in that way. I have no news;

  I see nothing--except, indeed, yesterday, a sight of the saddest

  kind." She pauses there. Julius observes that he is expected to

  make inquiries, and makes them accordingly.

  Lady Lundie hesitates; announces that her news refers to that

  painful past event which she has already touched on; acknowledges

  that she could not find herself in London without feeling an act

  of duty involved in making inquiries at the asylum in which

  Hester Dethridge is confined for life; announces that she has not

  only made the inquiries, but has seen the unhappy woman herself;

  has spoken to her, has found her unconscious of her dreadful

  position, incapable of the smallest exertion of memory, resigned

  to the existence that she leads, and likely (in the opinion of

  the medical superintendent) to live for some years to come.

  Having stated these facts, her ladyship is about to make a few of

  those "remarks appropriate to the occasion," in which she excels,

  when the door opens; and Lady Holchester, in search of her

  missing husband, enters the room.

  II.

  There is a new outburst of affectionate interest on Lady Lundie's

  part--met civilly, but not cordially, by Lady Holchester.

  Julius's wife seems, like Julius, to be uneasily conscious of the

  lapse of time. Like Julius again, she privately wonders how long

  Lady Lundie is going to stay.

  Lady Lundie shows no signs of leaving the sofa. She has evidently

  come to Holchester House to say something--and she has not said

  it yet. Is she going to say it? Yes. She is going to get, by a

  roundabout way, to the object in view. She has another inquiry of

  the affectionate sort to make. May she be permitted to resume the

  subject of Lord and Lady Holchester's travels? They have been at

  Rome. Can they confirm the shocking intelligence which has

  reached her of the "apostasy" of Mrs. Glenarm?

  Lady Holchester can confirm it, by personal xexperience. Mrs.

  Glenarm has renounced the world, and has taken refuge in the

  bosom of the Holy Catholic Church. Lady Holchester has seen her

  in a convent at Rome. She is passing through the period of her

  probation; and she is resolved to take the veil. Lady Lundie, as

  a good Protestant, lifts her hands in horror--declares the topic

  to be too painful to dwell on--and, by way of varying it, goes

  straight to the point at last. Has Lady I Holchester, in the

  course of her continental experience, happened to meet with, or

  to hear of--Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth?

  "I have ceased, a
s you know, to hold any communication with my

  relatives," Lady Lundie explains. "The course they took at the

  time of our family trial--the sympathy they felt with a Person

  whom I can not even now trust myself to name more

  particularly--alienated us from each other. I may be grieved,

  dear Lady Holchester; but I bear no malice. And I shall always

  feel a motherly interest in hearing of Blanche's welfare. I have

  been told that she and her husband were traveling, at the time

  when you and Lord Holchester were traveling. Did you meet with

  them?"

  Julius and his wife looked at each other. Lord Holchester is

  dumb. Lady Holchester replies:

  "We saw Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth at Florence, and afterward

  at Naples, Lady Lundie. They returned to England a week since, in

  anticipation of a certain happy event, which will possibly

  increase the members of your family circle. They are now in

  London. Indeed, I may tell you that we expect them here to lunch

  to-day."

  Having made this plain statement, Lady Holchester looks at Lady

  Lundie. (If _that_ doesn't hasten her departure, nothing will!)

  Quite useless! Lady Lundie holds her ground. Having heard

  absolutely nothing of her relatives for the last six months, she

  is burning with curiosity to hear more. There is a name she has

  not mentioned yet. She places a certain constraint upon herself,

  and mentions it now.

  "And Sir Patrick?" says her ladyship, subsiding into a gentle

  melancholy, suggestive of past injuries condoned by Christian

  forgiveness. "I only know what report tells me. Did you meet with

  Sir Patrick at Florence and Naples, also?"

  Julius and his wife look at each other again. The clock in the

  hall strikes. Julius shudders. Lady Holchester's patience begins

  to give way. There is an awkward pause. Somebody must say

  something. As before, Lady Holchester replies "Sir Patrick went

  abroad, Lady Lundie, with his niece and her husband; and Sir

  Patrick has come back with them."

  "In good health?" her ladyship inquires.

  "Younger than ever," Lady Holchester rejoins.

  Lady Lundie smiles satirically. Lady Holchester notices the

  smile; decides that mercy shown to _this_ woman is mercy

  misplaced; and announces (to her husband's horror) that she has

  news to tell of Sir Patrick, which will probably take his

  sister-in-law by surprise.

  Lady Lundie waits eagerly to hear what the news is.

  "It is no secret," Lady Holchester proceeds--"though it is only

  known, as yet to a few intimate friends. Sir Patrick has made an

  important change in his life."

  Lady Lundie's charming smile suddenly dies out.

  "Sir Patrick is not only a very clever and a very agreeable man,"

  Lady Holchester resumes a little maliciously; "he is also, in all

  his habits and ways (as you well know), a man younger than his

  years--who still possesses many of the qualities which seldom

  fail to attract women."

  Lady Lundie starts to her feet.

  "You don't mean to tell me, Lady Holchester, that Sir Patrick is

  married?"

  "I do."

  Her ladyship drops back on the sofa; helpless really and truly

  helpless, under the double blow that has fallen on her. She is

  not only struck out of her place as the chief woman of the

  family, but (still on the right side of forty) she is socially

  superannuated, as The Dowager Lady Lundie, for the rest of her

  life!

  "At his age!" she exclaims, as soon as she can speak.

  "Pardon me for reminding you," Lady Holchester answers, "that

  plenty of men marry at Sir Patrick's age. In his case, it is only

  due to him to say that his motive raises him beyond the reach of

  ridicule or reproach. His marriage is a good action, in the

  highest sense of the word. It does honor to _him,_ as well as to

  the lady who shares his position and his name."

  "A young girl, of course!" is Lady Lundie's next remark.