Armadale

by Wilkie Collins

  You now know how the disaster happened. Let us not waste time and words in lamenting it. The evil is done – and you and I together must find the way to remedy it.

  What I have accomplished already, on my side, may be told in two words. Any hesitation I might have previously felt at trusting this delicate business in strangers’ hands, was at an end the moment I heard Robert’s news. I went back at once to the city, and placed the whole matter confidentially before my lawyers. The conference was a long one; and when I left the office it was past the post-hour, or I should have written to you on Monday instead of writing to-day. My interview with the lawyers was not very encouraging. They warn me plainly that serious difficulties stand in the way of our recovering the lost trace. But they have promised to do their best; and we have decided on the course to be taken – excepting one point on which we totally differ. I must tell you what this difference is; for while business keeps me away from Thorpe-Ambrose, you are the only person whom I can trust to put my convictions to the test.

  The lawyers are of opinion, then, that the woman has been aware from the first that I was watching her; that there is, consequently, no present hope of her being rash enough to appear personally at Thorpe-Ambrose; that any mischief she may have it in contemplation to do, will be done in the first instance by deputy; and that the only wise course for Allan’s friends and guardians to take, is to wait passively till events enlighten them. My own idea is diametrically opposed to this. After what has happened at the railway, I cannot deny that the woman must have discovered that I was watching her. But she has no reason to suppose that she has not succeeded in deceiving me; and I firmly believe she is bold enough to take us by surprise, and to win, or force her way into Allan’s confidence before we are prepared to prevent her. You and you only (while I am detained in London) can decide whether I am right or wrong – and you can do it in this way. Ascertain at once whether any woman who is a stranger in the neighbourhood has appeared since Monday last, at, or near, Thorpe-Ambrose. If any such person has been observed (and nobody escapes observation in the country), take the first opportunity you can get of seeing her, and ask yourself if her face does, or does not, answer certain plain questions which I am now about to write down for you. You may depend on my accuracy. I saw the woman unveiled on more than one occasion – and the last time through an excellent glass.

  1. Is her hair light brown, and (apparently) not very plentiful? 2. Is her forehead high, narrow, and sloping backward from the brow? 3. Are her eyebrows very faintly marked, and are her eyes small, and nearer dark than light – either grey or hazel (I have not seen her close enough to be certain which)? 4. Is her nose aquiline? 5. Are her lips thin, and is the upper lip long? 6. Does her complexion look like an originally fair complexion, which has deteriorated into a dull, sickly paleness? 7 (and lastly). Has she a retreating chin, and is there, on the left side of it, a mark of some kind – a mole or a scar, I can’t say which?

  I add nothing about her expression, for you may see her under circumstances which may partially alter it as seen by me. Test her by her features, which no circumstances can change. If there is a stranger in the neighbourhood, and if her face answers my seven questions – you have found the woman! Go instantly, in that case, to the nearest lawyer, and pledge my name and credit for whatever expenses may be incurred in keeping her under inspection night and day. Having done this, take the speediest means of communicating with me; and whether my business is finished or not, I will start for Norfolk by the first train.2

  In any event – whether you succeed or whether you fail in confirming my suspicions – write to me by return of post. If it is only to tell me that you have received my letter, write! I am suffering under anxiety and suspense, separated as I am from Allan, which you alone can relieve. Having said this, I know you well enough to feel sure that I need say no more.

  Always your friend,

  DECIMUS BROCK.

  Hardened by the fatalist conviction that now possessed him, Midwinter read the rector’s confession of defeat from the first line to the last, without the slightest betrayal either of interest or surprise. The one part of the letter at which he looked back was the closing part of it. He read the last paragraph for the second time; and then waited for a moment, reflecting on it. ‘I owe much to Mr Brock’s kindness,’ he thought; ‘and I shall never see Mr Brock again. It is useless and hopeless – but he asks me to do it, and it shall be done. A moment’s look at her will be enough – a moment’s look at her with his letter in my hand – and a line to tell him that the woman is here!’

  Again he stood hesitating at the half-opened door; again, the cruel necessity of writing his farewell to Allan stopped him, and stared him in the face.

  He looked aside doubtingly at the rector’s letter. ‘I will write the two together,’ he said. ‘One may help the other.’ His face flushed deep as the words escaped him. He was conscious of doing, what he had not done yet – of voluntarily putting off the evil hour; of making Mr Brock the pretext for gaining the last respite left, the respite of time.

  The only sound that reached him through the open door was the sound of Allan stirring noisily in the next room. He stepped at once into the empty corridor; and, meeting no one on the stairs, made his way out of the house. The dread that his resolution to leave Allan might fail him, if he saw Allan again, was as vividly present to his mind in the morning as it had been all through the night. He drew a deep breath of relief as he descended the house steps – relief at having escaped the friendly greeting of the morning from the one human creature whom he loved!

  He entered the shrubbery with Mr Brock’s letter in his hand, and took the nearest way that led to the major’s cottage. Not the slightest recollection was in his mind of the talk which had found its way to his ears during the night. His one reason for determining to see the woman, was the reason which the rector had put in his mind. The one remembrance that now guided him to the place in which she lived, was the remembrance of Allan’s exclamation when he first identified the governess with the figure at the pool.

  Arrived at the gate of the cottage, he stopped. The thought struck him that he might defeat his own object if he looked at the rector’s questions in the woman’s presence. Her suspicions would be probably roused, in the first instance, by his asking to see her (as he had determined to ask, with or without an excuse); and the appearance of the letter in his hand might confirm them. She might defeat him by instantly leaving the room. Determined to fix the description in his mind first, and then to confront her, he opened the letter; and, turning away slowly by the side of the house, read the seven questions which he felt absolutely assured beforehand the woman’s face would answer.

  In the morning quiet of the park, slight noises travelled far. A slight noise disturbed Midwinter over the letter.

  He looked up and found himself on the brink of a broad grassy trench, having the park on one side and the high laurel hedge of an enclosure on the other. The enclosure evidently surrounded the back garden of the cottage; and the trench was intended to protect it from being damaged by the cattle grazing in the park. Listening carefully as the slight sound which had disturbed him grew fainter, he recognized in it the rustling of women’s dresses. A few paces ahead, the trench was crossed by a bridge (closed by a wicket-gate) which connected the garden with the park. He passed through the gate, crossed the bridge, and, opening a door at the other end, found himself in a summer-house, thickly covered with creepers, and commanding a full view of the garden from end to end.

  He looked, and saw the figures of two ladies walking slowly away from him towards the cottage. The shorter of the two failed to occupy his attention for an instant – he never stopped to think whether she was, or was not, the major’s daughter. His eyes were riveted on the other figure; the figure that moved over the garden walk with the long lightly-falling dress, and the easy seductive grace. There, presented exactly as he had seen her once already – there, with her back again turned on him, was the Woma
n at the pool!

  There was a chance that they might take another turn in the garden – a turn back towards the summer-house. On that chance Midwinter waited. No consciousness of the intrusion that he was committing had stopped him at the door of the summer-house; and no consciousness of it troubled him even now. Every finer sensibility in his nature, sinking under the cruel laceration of the past night, had ceased to feel. The dogged resolution to do what he had come to do, was the one animating influence left alive in him. He acted, he even looked, as the most stolid man living might have acted and looked in his place. He was self-possessed enough, in the interval of expectation, before governess and pupil reached the end of the walk, to open Mr Brock’s letter, and to fortify his memory by a last look at the paragraph which described her face.

  He was still absorbed over the description, when he heard the smooth rustle of the dresses travelling towards him again. Standing in the shadow of the summer-house, he waited while she lessened the distance between them. With her written portrait vividly impressed on his mind, and with the clear light of the morning to help him, his eyes questioned her as she came on; and these were the answers that her face gave him back.

  The hair in the rector’s description was light brown and not plentiful. This woman’s hair, superbly luxuriant in its growth, was of the one unpardonably remarkable shade of colour which the prejudice of the Northern nations never entirely forgives – it was red!3 The forehead in the rector’s description was high, narrow, and sloping backward from the brow; the eyebrows were faintly marked, and the eyes small, and in colour either grey or hazel. This woman’s forehead was low, upright, and broad towards the temples; her eyebrows, at once strongly and delicately marked, were a shade darker than her hair; her eyes, large, bright, and well-opened, were of that purely blue colour, without a tinge in it of grey or green, so often presented to our admiration in pictures and books, so rarely met with in the living face. The nose in the rector’s description was aquiline. The line of this woman’s nose bent neither outward nor inward: it was the straight delicately-moulded nose (with the short upper lip beneath) of the ancient statues and busts. The lips in the rector’s description were thin, and the upper lip long; the complexion was of a dull sickly paleness; the chin retreating, and the mark of a mole or a scar on the left side of it. This woman’s lips were full, rich, and sensual. Her complexion was the lovely complexion which accompanies such hair as hers – so delicately bright in its rosier tints, so warmly and softly white in its gentler gradations of colour on the forehead and the neck. Her chin, round and dimpled, was pure of the slightest blemish in every part of it, and perfectly in line with her forehead to the end. Nearer and nearer, and fairer and fairer she came, in the glow of the morning light – the most startling, the most unanswerable contradiction that eye could see, or mind conceive, to the description in the rector’s letter.

  Both governess and pupil were close to the summer-house before they looked that way, and noticed Midwinter standing inside. The governess saw him first.

  ‘A friend of yours, Miss Milroy?’ she asked quietly, without starting, or betraying any sign of surprise.

  Neelie recognized him instantly. Prejudiced against Midwinter by his conduct when his friend had introduced him at the cottage, she now fairly detested him as the unlucky first cause of her misunderstanding with Allan at the picnic. Her face flushed, and she drew back from the summer-house with an expression of merciless surprise.

  ‘He is a friend of Mr Armadale’s,’ she replied sharply. ‘I don’t know what he wants, or why he is here.’

  ‘A friend of Mr Armadale’s!’ The governess’s face lit up with a suddenly-roused interest as she repeated the words. She returned Midwinter’s look, still steadily fixed on her, with equal steadiness on her side.

  ‘For my part,’ pursued Neelie, resenting Midwinter’s insensibility to her presence on the scene, ‘I think it a great liberty to treat papa’s garden as if it was the open park!’

  The governess turned round, and gently interposed.

  ‘My dear Miss Milroy,’ she remonstrated, ‘there are certain distinctions to be observed. This gentleman is a friend of Mr Armadale’s. You could hardly express yourself more strongly, if he was a perfect stranger.’

  ‘I express my opinion,’ retorted Neelie, chafing under the satirically indulgent tone in which the governess addressed her. ‘It’s a matter of taste, Miss Gwilt; and tastes differ.’ She turned away petulantly, and walked back by herself to the cottage.

  ‘She is very young,’ said Miss Gwilt, appealing with a smile to Midwinter’s forbearance; ‘and, as you must see for yourself, sir, she is a spoilt child.’ She paused – showed, for an instant only, her surprise at Midwinter’s strange silence and strange persistency in keeping his eyes still fixed on her – then set herself, with a charming grace and readiness, to help him out of the false position in which he stood. ‘As you have extended your walk thus far,’ she resumed, ‘perhaps you will kindly favour me, on your return, by taking a message to your friend? Mr Armadale has been so good as to invite me to see the Thorpe-Ambrose gardens this morning. Will you say that Major Milroy permits me to accept the invitation (in company with Miss Milroy) between ten and eleven o’clock?’ For a moment her eyes rested, with a renewed look of interest, on Midwinter’s face. She waited, still in vain, for an answering word from him – smiled, as if his extraordinary silence amused rather than angered her – and followed her pupil back to the cottage.

  It was only when the last trace of her had disappeared that Midwinter roused himself, and attempted to realize the position in which he stood. The revelation of her beauty was in no respect answerable for the breathless astonishment which had held him spell-bound up to this moment. The one clear impression she had produced on him thus far, began and ended with his discovery of the astounding contradiction that her face offered, in one feature after another, to the description in Mr Brock’s letter. All beyond this was vague and misty – a dim consciousness of a tall, elegant woman, and of kind words, modestly and gracefully spoken to him, and nothing more.

  He advanced a few steps into the garden, without knowing why – stopped, glancing hither and thither like a man lost – recognized the summer-house by an effort, as if years had elapsed since he had seen it –and made his way out again, at last, into the park. Even here, he wandered first in one direction, then in another. His mind was still reeling under the shock that had fallen on it; his perceptions were all confused. Something kept him mechanically in action, walking eagerly without a motive, walking he knew not where.

  A far less sensitively organized man might have been overwhelmed, as he was overwhelmed now, by the immense, the instantaneous revulsion of feeling which the event of the last few minutes had wrought in his mind.

  At the memorable instant when he had opened the door of the summer-house, no confusing influence troubled his faculties. Right or wrong, in all that related to his position towards his friend, he had reached an absolutely definite conclusion, by an absolutely definite process of thought. The whole strength of the motive which had driven him into the resolution to part from Allan, rooted itself in the belief that he had seen at Hurle Mere the fatal fulfilment of the first Vision of the Dream. And this belief, in its turn, rested, necessarily, on the conviction that the woman who was the one survivor of the tragedy in Madeira, must be also inevitably the woman whom he had seen standing in the Shadow’s place at the pool. Firm in that persuasion, he had himself compared the object of his distrust and of the rector’s distrust with the description written by the rector himself – a description, carefully minute, by a man entirely trustworthy – and his own eyes had informed him that the woman whom he had seen at the Mere, and the woman whom Mr Brock had identified in London, were not one, but Two. In the place of the Dream-Shadow, there had stood, on the evidence of the rector’s letter, not the instrument of the Fatality – but a stranger!

  No such doubts as might have troubled a less superstitious man, were s
tarted in his mind by the discovery that had now opened on him.

  It never occurred to him to ask himself, whether a stranger might not be the appointed instrument of the Fatality, now when the letter had persuaded him that a stranger had been revealed as the figure in the dream-landscape. No such idea entered, or could enter, his mind. The one woman, whom his superstition dreaded, was the woman who had entwined herself with the lives of the two Armadales in the first generation, and with the fortunes of the two Armadales in the second – who was at once the marked object of his father’s death-bed warning, and the first cause of the family calamities which had opened Allan’s way to the Thorpe-Ambrose estate4 – the woman, in a word, whom he would have known instinctively, but for Mr Brock’s letter, to be the woman whom he had now actually seen.

  Looking at events as they had just happened, under the influence of the misapprehension into which the rector had innocently misled him, his mind saw and seized its new conclusion instantaneously; acting precisely as it had acted in the past time of his interview with Mr Brock at the Isle of Man.

  Exactly as he had once declared it to be an all-sufficient refutation of the idea of the Fatality; that he had never met with the timber-ship in any of his voyages at sea – so he now seized on the similarly derived conclusion, that the whole claim of the Dream to a supernatural origin stood self-refuted by the disclosure of a stranger in the Shadow’s place. Once started from this point – once encouraged to let his love for Allan influence him undividedly again – his mind hurried along the whole resulting chain of thought at lightning speed. If the Dream was proved to be no longer a warning from the other world, it followed, inevitably, that accident and not fate had led the way to the night on the Wreck, and that all the events which had happened since Allan and he had parted from Mr Brock, were events in themselves harmless, which his superstition had distorted from their proper shape. In less than a moment, his mobile imagination had taken him back to the morning at Castletown when he had revealed to the rector the secret of his name; when he had declared to the rector, with his father’s letter before his eyes, the better faith that was in him. Now once more, he felt his heart holding firmly by the bond of brotherhood between Allan and himself; now once more he could say with the eager sincerity of the old time, ‘If the thought of leaving him breaks my heart, the thought of leaving him is wrong!’ As that nobler conviction possessed itself again of his mind – quieting the tumult, clearing the confusion within him – the house at Thorpe-Ambrose, with Allan on the steps, waiting and looking for him, opened on his eyes through the trees. A sense of illimitable relief lifted his eager spirit high above the cares, and doubts, and fears that had oppressed it so long; and showed him once more the better and brighter future of his early dreams. His eyes filled with tears, and he pressed the rector’s letter, in his wild passionate way to his lips, as he looked at Allan through the vista of the trees. ‘But for this morsel of paper,’ he thought, ‘my life might have been one long sorrow to me, and my father’s crime might have parted us for ever!’