Blind Love

by Wilkie Collins

  "Yes," said Fanny.

  "And you are strong, and Mr. Mountjoy is weak and ill."

  "You think that I should go back to Passy?"

  "At once, without the delay of an hour. Lady Harry started last night. Do you start this evening. She will thus have you with her twenty-four hours after her arrival."

  Fanny rose.

  "I will go," she said. "It terrifies me even to think of going back to that awful cottage with that dreadful man. Yet I will go. Mrs. Vimpany, I know that it will be of no use. Whatever is going to happen now will happen without any power of mine to advance or to prevent. I am certain that my journey will prove useless. But I will go. Yes, I will go this evening."

  Then, with a final promise to write as soon as possible—as soon as there should be anything to communicate—Fanny went away.

  Mrs. Vimpany, alone, listened. From the bedroom came no sound at all. Mr. Mountjoy slept still. When he should be strong enough it would be time to let him know what had been done. But she sat thinking—thinking—even when one has the worst husband in the world, and very well knows his character, it is disagreeable to hear such a story as Fanny had told that wife this morning.

  CHAPTER LII

  THE DEAD MAN'S PHOTOGRAPH

  "HE is quite dead," said the doctor, with one finger on the man's pulse and another lifting his eyelid. "He is dead. I did not look for so speedy an end. It is not half an hour since I left him breathing peacefully. Did he show signs of consciousness?"

  "No, sir; I found him dead."

  "This morning he was cheerful. It is not unusual in these complaints. I have observed it in many cases of my own experience. On the last morning of life, at the very moment when Death is standing on the threshold with uplifted dart, the patient is cheerful and even joyous: he is more hopeful than he has felt for many months: he thinks—nay, he is sure—that he is recovering: he says he shall be up and about before long: he has not felt so strong since the beginning of his illness. Then Death strikes him, and he falls." He made this remark in a most impressive manner.

  "Nothing remains," he said, "but to certify the cause of death and to satisfy the proper forms and authorities. I charge myself with this duty. The unfortunate young man belonged to a highly distinguished family. I will communicate with his friends and forward his papers. One last office I can do for him. For the sake of his family, nurse, I will take a last photograph of him as he lies upon his death-bed." Lord Harry stood in the doorway, listening with an aching and a fearful heart. He dared not enter the chamber. It was the Chamber of Death. What was his own part in calling the Destroying Angel who is at the beck and summons of every man—even the meanest? Call him and he comes. Order him to strike—and he obeys. But under penalties.

  The doctor's prophecy, then, had come true. But in what way and by what agency? The man was dead. What was his own share in the man's death? He knew when the Dane was brought into the house that he was brought there to die. As the man did not die, but began to recover fast, he had seen in the doctor's face that the man would have to die. He had heard the doctor prophesy out of his medical knowledge that the man would surely die; and then, after the nurse had been sent away because her patient required her services no longer, he had seen the doctor give the medicine which burned the patient's throat. What was that medicine? Not only had it burned his throat, but it caused him to fall into a deep sleep, in which his heart ceased to beat and his blood ceased to flow.

  He turned away and walked out of the cottage. For an hour he walked along the road. Then he stopped and walked back. Ropes drew him; he could no longer keep away. He felt as if something must have happened. Possibly he would find the doctor arrested and the police waiting for himself, to be charged as an accomplice or a principal.

  He found no such thing. The doctor was in the salon, with letters and official forms before him. He looked up cheerfully.

  "My English friend," he said, "the unexpected end of this young Irish gentleman is a very melancholy affair. I have ascertained the name of the family solicitors and have written to them. I have also written to his brother as the head of the house. I find also, by examination of his papers, that his life is insured—the amount is not stated, but I have communicated the fact of the death. The authorities—they are, very properly, careful in such matters—have received the necessary notices and forms: to-morrow, all legal forms having been gone through, we bury the deceased."

  "So soon?"

  "So soon? In these eases of advanced pulmonary disease the sooner the better. The French custom of speedy interment may be defended as more wholesome than our own. On the other hand, I admit that it has its weak points. Cremation is, perhaps, the best and only method of removing the dead which is open to no objections except one. I mean, of course, the chance that the deceased may have met with his death by means of poison. But such cases are rare, and, in most instances, would be detected by the medical man in attendance before or at the time of death. I think we need not——My dear friend, you look ill. Are you upset by such a simple thing as the death of a sick man? Let me prescribe for you. A glass of brandy neat. So," he went into the salle 'a manger and returned with his medicine. "Take that. Now let us talk." The doctor continued his conversation in a cheerfully scientific strain, never alluding to the conspiracy or to the consequences which might follow. He told hospital stories bearing on deaths sudden and unexpected; some of them he treated in a jocular vein. The dead man in the next room was a Case: he knew of many similar and equally interesting Cases. When one has arrived at looking upon a dead man as a Case, there is little fear of the ordinary human weakness which makes us tremble in the awful presence of death.

  Presently steps were heard outside. The doctor rose and left the room—but returned in a few minutes.

  "The croque-morts have come," he said. "They are with the nurse engaged upon their business. It seems revolting to the outside world. To them it is nothing but the daily routine of work. By-the-way, I took a photograph of his lordship in the presence of the nurse. Unfortunately—but look at it——"

  "It is the face of the dead man"—Lord Harry turned away. "I don't want to see it. I cannot bear to see it. You forget—I was actually present when—"

  "Not when he died. Come, don't be a fool. What I was going to say was this: The face is no longer in the least like you. Nobody who ever saw you once even would believe that this is your face. The creature—he has given us an unconscionable quantity of trouble—was a little like you when he first came. I was wrong in supposing that this likeness was permanent. Now he is dead, he is not in the least like you. I ought to have remembered that the resemblance would fade away and disappear in death. Come and look at him."

  "No, no."

  "Weakness! Death restores to every man his individuality. No two men are like in death, though they may be like in life. Well. It comes to this. We are going to bury Lord Harry Norland to-morrow, and we must have a photograph of him as he lay on his deathbed."

  "Well?"

  "Well, my friend, go upstairs to your own room, and I will follow with the camera."

  In a quarter of an hour he was holding the glass against his sleeve.

  "Admirable!" he said. "The cheek a little sunken—that was the effect of the chalk and the adjustment of the shadows—the eyes closed, the face white, the hands composed. It is admirable! Who says that we cannot make the sun tell lies?"

  As soon as he could get a print of the portrait, he gave it to Lord Harry.

  "There," he said, "we shall get a better print to-morrow. This is the first copy."

  He had mounted it on a frame of card, and had written under it the name once borne by the dead man, with the date of his death. The picture seemed indeed that of a dead man. Lord Harry shuddered.

  "There," he said, "everything else has been of no use to us—the presence of the sick man—the suspicions of the nurse—his death—even his death—has been of no use to us. We might have been spared the memory—the awful memory—of this de
ath!"

  "You forget, my English friend, that a dead body was necessary for us. We had to bury somebody. Why not the man Oxbye?"

  CHAPTER LIII

  THE WIFE'S RETURN

  OF course Mrs. Vimpany was quite right. Iris had gone back to her husband. She arrived, in fact, at the cottage in the evening just before dark—in the falling day, when some people are more than commonly sensitive to sights and sounds, and when the eyes are more apt than at other times to be deceived by strange appearances. Iris walked into the garden, finding no one there. She opened the door with her own key and let herself in. The house struck her as strangely empty and silent. She opened the dining-room door: no one was there. Like all French dining-rooms, it was used for no other purpose than for eating, and furnished with little more than the barest necessaries. She closed the door and opened that of the salon: that also was empty. She called her husband: there was no answer. She called the name of the cook: there was no answer. It was fortunate that she did not open the door of the spare room, for there lay the body of the dead man. She went upstairs to her husband's room. That too was empty. But there was something lying on the table—a photograph. She took it up. Her face became white suddenly and swiftly. She shrieked aloud, then drooped the picture and fell fainting to the ground. For the photograph was nothing less than that of her husband, dead in his white graveclothes, his hands composed, his eyes closed, his cheek waxen.

  The cry fell upon the ears of Lord Harry, who was in the garden below. He rushed into the house and lifted his wife upon the bed. The photograph showed him plainly what had happened.

  She came to her senses again, but seeing her husband alive before her, and remembering what she had seen, she shrieked again, and fell into another swoon.

  "What is to be done now?" asked the husband. "What shall I tell her? How shall I make her understand? What can I do for her?"

  As for help, there was none: the nurse was gone on some errand; the doctor was arranging for the funeral of Oxbye under the name of Lord Harry Norland; the cottage was empty.

  Such a fainting fit does not last for ever. Iris came round, and sat up, looking wildly around.

  "What is it?" she cried. "What does it mean?"

  "It means, my love, that you have returned to your husband." He laid an arm round her, and kissed her again and again.

  "You are my Harry!—living!—my own Harry?"

  "Your own Harry, my darling. What else should I be?"

  "Tell me then, what does it mean—that picture—that horrid photograph?"

  "That means nothing—nothing—a freak—a joke of the doctor's. What could it mean?" He took it up. "Why, my dear, I am living—living and well. What should this mean but a joke?"

  He laid it on the table again, face downwards. But her eyes showed that she was not satisfied. Men do not make jokes on death; it is a sorry jest indeed to dress up a man in grave-clothes, and make a photograph of him as of one dead.

  "But you—you, my Iris; you are here—tell me how and why—and when, and everything? Never mind that stupid picture: tell me."

  "I got your letter, Harry," she replied.

  "My letter?" he repeated. "Oh! my dear, you got my letter, and you saw that your husband loved you still."

  "I could not keep away from you, Harry, whatever had happened. I stayed as long as I could. I thought about you day and night. And at last I—I—I came back. Are you angry with me, Harry?"

  "Angry? Good God! my dearest, angry?" He kissed her passionately—not the less passionately that she had returned at a time so terrible. What was he to say to her? How was he to tell her? While he showered kisses on her he was asking himself these questions. When she found out—when he should confess to her the whole truth—she would leave him again. Yet he did not understand the nature of the woman who loves. He held her in his arms; his kisses pleaded for him; they mastered her—she was ready to believe, to accept, to surrender even her truth and honesty; and she was ready, though she knew it not, to become the accomplice of a crime. Rather than leave her husband again, she would do everything.

  Yet, Lord Harry felt there was one reservation: he might confess everything, except the murder of the Dane. No word of confession had passed the doctor's lips, yet he knew too well that the man had been murdered; and, so far as the man had been chosen for his resemblance to himself, that was perfectly useless, because the resemblance, though striking at the first, had been gradually disappearing as the man Oxbye grew better; and was now, as we have seen, wholly lost after death.

  "I have a great deal—a great deal—to tell you, dear," said the husband, holding both her hands tenderly. "You will have to be very patient with me. You must make up your mind to be shocked at first, though I shall be able to convince you that there was really nothing else to be done—nothing else at all."

  "Oh! go on, Harry. Tell me all. Hide nothing."

  "I will tell you all," he replied.

  "First, where is that poor man whom the doctor brought here and Fanny nursed? And where is Fanny?"

  "The poor man," he replied carelessly, "made so rapid a recovery that he has got on his legs and gone away—I believe, to report himself to the hospital whence he came. It is a great triumph for the doctor, whose new treatment is now proved to be successful. He will make a grand flourish of trumpets about it. I dare say, if all he claims for it is true, he has taken a great step in the treatment of lung diseases."

  Iris had no disease of the lungs, and consequently cared very little for the scientific aspect of the question.

  "Where is my maid, then?"

  "Fanny? She went away—let me see: to-day is Friday—on Wednesday morning. It was no use keeping her here. The man was well, and she was anxious to get back to you. So she started on Wednesday morning, proposing to take the night boat from Dieppe. She must have stopped somewhere on the way."

  "I suppose she will go to see Mrs. Vimpany. I will send her a line there."

  "Certainly. That will be sure to find her."

  "Well, Harry, is there anything else to tell me?

  "A great deal," he repeated. "That photograph, Iris, which frightened you so much, has been very carefully taken by Vimpany for a certain reason."

  "What reason?"

  "There are occasions," he replied, "when the very best thing that can happen to a man is the belief that he is dead. Such a juncture of affairs has happened to myself—and to you—at this moment. It is convenient—even necessary—for me that the world should believe me dead. In point of fact, I must be dead henceforth. Not for anything that I have done, or that I am afraid of—don't think that. No; it is for the simple reason that I have no longer any money or any resources whatever. That is why I must be dead. Had you not returned in this unexpected manner, my dear, you would have heard of my death from the doctor, and he would have left it to chance to find a convenient opportunity of letting you know the truth. I am, however, deeply grieved that I was so careless as to leave that photograph upon the table."

  "I do not understand," she said. "You pretend to be dead?"

  "Yes. I must have money. I have some left—a very little. I must have money; and, in order to get it, I must be dead."

  "How will that help?"

  "Why, my dear, I am insured, and my insurances will be paid after my death; but not before."

  "Oh! must you get money—even by a——" She hesitated.

  "Call it a conspiracy, my dear, if you please. As there is no other way whatever left, I must get money that way."

  "Oh, this is dreadful! A conspiracy, Harry? a—a—fraud?"

  "If you please. That is the name which lawyers give to it."

  "But oh, Harry!—it is a crime. It is a thing for which men are tried and found guilty and sentenced."

  "Certainly; if they are found out. Meantime, it is only the poor, ignorant, clumsy fool who gets found out. In the City these things are done every day. Quite as a matter of course," he added carelessly. "It is not usual for men to take their wives into confid
ence, but in this case I must take you into confidence: I have no choice, as you will understand directly."

  "Tell me, Harry, who first thought of this way?"

  "Vimpany, of course. Oh! give him the credit where real cleverness is concerned. Vimpany suggested the thing. He found me well-nigh as desperately hard up as he is himself. He suggested it. At first, I confess, I did not like it. I refused to listen to any more talk about it. But, you see, when one meets destitution face to face, one will do anything—everything. Besides, as I will show you, this is not really a fraud. It is only an anticipation of a few years. However, there was another reason."

  "Was it to find the money to meet the promissory note?"

  "My dear, you may forget—you may resolve never to throw the thing in my teeth; but my love for you will never suffer me to forget that I have lost your little fortune in a doubtful speculation. It is all gone, never to be recovered again; and this after I had sworn never to touch a farthing of it. Iris!"—he started to his feet and walked about the room as one who is agitated by emotion—"Iris! I could face imprisonment for debt, I could submit to pecuniary ruin, for that matter; the loss of money would not cause me the least trouble, but I cannot endure to have ruined you."

  "Oh! Harry, as if I mind. Everything that I have is yours. When I gave you myself I gave all. Take—use—lose it all. As you think, I should never feel reproach, far less utter a word of blame. Dearest Harry, if that is all—"

  "No; it is the knowledge that you will not even feel reproach that is my constant accuser. At my death you will get all back again. But I am not old; I may live for many, many years to come. How can I wait for my own death when I can repair this wickedness by a single stroke?"