The Two Destinies

by Wilkie Collins

schools, who headed their classes andwon their prizes, like me. Personally speaking, I was in no wayremarkable--except for being, in the ordinary phrase, "tall for my age."On her side, Mary displayed no striking attractions. She was afragile child, with mild gray eyes and a pale complexion; singularlyundemonstrative, singularly shy and silent, except when she was alonewith me. Such beauty as she had, in those early days, lay in a certainartless purity and tenderness of expression, and in the charmingreddish-brown color of her hair, varying quaintly and prettily indifferent lights. To all outward appearance two perfectly commonplacechildren, we were mysteriously united by some kindred association of thespirit in her and the spirit in me, which not only defied discovery byour young selves, but which lay too deep for investigation by far olderand far wiser heads than ours.

  You will naturally wonder whether anything was done by our elders tocheck our precocious attachment, while it was still an innocent loveunion between a boy and a girl.

  Nothing was done by my father, for the simple reason that he was awayfrom home.

  He was a man of a restless and speculative turn of mind. Inheriting hisestate burdened with debt, his grand ambition was to increase his smallavailable income by his own exertions; to set up an establishmentin London; and to climb to political distinction by the ladder ofParliament. An old friend, who had emigrated to America, had proposedto him a speculation in agriculture, in one of the Western States, whichwas to make both their fortunes. My father's eccentric fancy was struckby the idea. For more than a year past he had been away from us in theUnited States; and all we knew of him (instructed by his letters)was, that he might be shortly expected to return to us in the enviablecharacter of one of the richest men in England.

  As for my poor mother--the sweetest and softest-hearted of women--to seeme happy was all that she desired.

  The quaint little love romance of the two children amused and interestedher. She jested with Mary's father about the coming union between thetwo families, without one serious thought of the future--without even aforeboding of what might happen when my father returned. "Sufficient forthe day is the evil (or the good) thereof," had been my mother's mottoall her life. She agreed with the easy philosophy of the bailiff,already recorded in these pages: "They're only children. There's nocall, poor things, to part them yet a while."

  There was one member of the family, however, who took a sensible andserious view of the matter.

  My father's brother paid us a visit in our solitude; discovered whatwas going on between Mary and me; and was, at first, naturally enough,inclined to laugh at us. Closer investigation altered his way ofthinking. He became convinced that my mother was acting like a fool;that the bailiff (a faithful servant, if ever there was one yet) wascunningly advancing his own interests by means of his daughter; and thatI was a young idiot, who had developed his native reserves of imbecilityat an unusually early period of life. Speaking to my mother under theinfluence of these strong impressions, my uncle offered to take me backwith him to London, and keep me there until I had been brought tomy senses by association with his own children, and by carefulsuperintendence under his own roof.

  My mother hesitated about accepting this proposal; she had the advantageover my uncle of understanding my disposition. While she was stilldoubting, while my uncle was still impatiently waiting for her decision,I settled the question for my elders by running away.

  I left a letter to represent me in my absence; declaring that no mortalpower should part me from Mary, and promising to return and ask mymother's pardon as soon as my uncle had left the house. The strictestsearch was made for me without discovering a trace of my place ofrefuge. My uncle departed for London, predicting that I should live tobe a disgrace to the family, and announcing that he should transmit hisopinion of me to my father in America by the next mail.

  The secret of the hiding-place in which I contrived to defy discovery issoon told. I was hidden (without the bailiff's knowledge) in the bedroomof the bailiff's mother. And did the bailiff's mother know it? you willask. To which I answer: the bailiff's mother did it. And, what ismore, gloried in doing it--not, observe, as an act of hostility to myrelatives, but simply as a duty that lay on her conscience.

  What sort of old woman, in the name of all that is wonderful, was this?Let her appear, and speak for herself--the wild and weird grandmother ofgentle little Mary; the Sibyl of modern times, known, far and wide, inour part of Suffolk, as Dame Dermody.

  I see her again, as I write, sitting in her son's pretty cottage parlor,hard by the window, so that the light fell over her shoulder while sheknitted or read. A little, lean, wiry old woman was Dame Dermody--withfierce black eyes, surmounted by bushy white eyebrows, by a highwrinkled forehead, and by thick white hair gathered neatly under herold-fashioned "mob-cap." Report whispered (and whispered truly) thatshe had been a lady by birth and breeding, and that she had deliberatelyclosed her prospects in life by marrying a man greatly her inferiorin social rank. Whatever her family might think of her marriage, sheherself never regretted it. In her estimation her husband's memory wasa sacred memory; his spirit was a guardian spirit, watching over her,waking or sleeping, morning or night.

  Holding this faith, she was in no respect influenced by those grosslymaterial ideas of modern growth which associate the presence ofspiritual beings with clumsy conjuring tricks and monkey anticsperformed on tables and chairs. Dame Dermody's nobler superstitionformed an integral part of her religious convictions--convictions whichhad long since found their chosen resting-place in the mystic doctrinesof Emanuel Swedenborg. The only books which she read were the worksof the Swedish Seer. She mixed up Swedenborg's teachings on angels anddeparted spirits, on love to one's neighbor and purity of life, withwild fancies, and kindred beliefs of her own; and preached the visionaryreligious doctrines thus derived, not only in the bailiff's household,but also on proselytizing expeditions to the households of her humbleneighbors, far and near.

  Under her son's roof--after the death of his wife--she reigned a supremepower; priding herself alike on her close attention to her domesticduties, and on her privileged communications with angels and spirits.She would hold long colloquys with the spirit of her dead husband beforeanybody who happened to be present--colloquys which struck the simplespectators mute with terror. To her mystic view, the love union betweenMary and me was something too sacred and too beautiful to be tried bythe mean and matter-of-fact tests set up by society. She wrote for uslittle formulas of prayer and praise, which we were to use when we metand when we parted, day by day. She solemnly warned her son to lookupon us as two young consecrated creatures, walking unconsciously ona heavenly path of their own, whose beginning was on earth, but whosebright end was among the angels in a better state of being. Imagine myappearing before such a woman as this, and telling her with tears ofdespair that I was determined to die, rather than let my uncle partme from little Mary, and you will no longer be astonished at thehospitality which threw open to me the sanctuary of Dame Dermody's ownroom.

  When the safe time came for leaving my hiding-place, I committed aserious mistake. In thanking the old woman at parting, I said to her(with a boy's sense of honor), "I won't tell upon you, Dame. My mothershan't know that you hid me in your bedroom."

  The Sibyl laid her dry, fleshless hand on my shoulder, and forced meroughly back into the chair from which I had just risen.

  "Boy!" she said, looking through and through me with her fierce blackeyes. "Do you dare suppose that I ever did anything that I was ashamedof? Do you think I am ashamed of what I have done now? Wait there. Yourmother may mistake me too. I shall write to your mother."

  She put on her great round spectacles with tortoise-shell rims and satdown to her letter. Whenever her thoughts flagged, whenever she was at aloss for an expression, she looked over her shoulder, as if some visiblecreature were stationed behind her, watching what she wrote; consultedthe spirit of her husband, exactly as she might have consulted a livingman; smiled softly to herself, and went on with her writing. />
  "There!" she said, handing me the completed letter with an imperialgesture of indulgence. "_His_ mind and _my_ mind are written there. Go,boy. I pardon you. Give my letter to your mother."

  So she always spoke, with the same formal and measured dignity of mannerand language.

  I gave the letter to my mother. We read it, and marveled over ittogether. Thus, counseled by the ever-present spirit of her husband,Dame Dermody wrote:

  "MADAM--I have taken what you may be inclined to think a great liberty.I have assisted your son George in setting his uncle's authority atdefiance. I have encouraged your son George in his resolution to betrue, in time and in eternity, to my grandchild, Mary Dermody.

  "It is due to you and to me that I should tell you with what motive Ihave acted in doing these things.

  "I hold the