The Two Destinies

by Wilkie Collins

my profession,the place in which I pursued it was a matter of no importance to mymind.

  It was long before we could persuade my mother even to contemplate thenew prospect now set before me. When she did at length give way, sheyielded most unwillingly. I confess I left her with the tears in myeyes--the first I had shed for many a long year past.

  The history of our expedition is part of the history of British India.It has no place in this narrative.

  Speaking personally, I have to record that I was rendered incapable ofperforming my professional duties in less than a week from the time whenthe mission reached its destination. We were encamped outside the city;and an attack was made on us, under cover of darkness, by the fanaticalnatives. The attempt was defeated with little difficulty, and with onlya trifling loss on our side. I was among the wounded, having been struckby a javelin, or spear, while I was passing from one tent to another.

  Inflicted by a European weapon, my injury would have been of no seriousconsequence. But the tip of the Indian spear had been poisoned. Iescaped the mortal danger of lockjaw; but, through some peculiarity inthe action of the poison on my constitution (which I am quite unable toexplain), the wound obstinately refused to heal.

  I was invalided and sent to Calcutta, where the best surgical help wasat my disposal. To all appearance, the wound healed there--then brokeout again. Twice this happened; and the medical men agreed that thebest course to take would be to send me home. They calculated onthe invigorating effect of the sea voyage, and, failing this, onthe salutary influence of my native air. In the Indian climate I waspronounced incurable.

  Two days before the ship sailed a letter from my mother brought mestartling news. My life to come--if I _had_ a life to come--hadbeen turned into a new channel. Mr. Germaine had died suddenly, ofheart-disease. His will, bearing date at the time when I left England,bequeathed an income for life to my mother, and left the bulk of hisproperty to me, on the one condition that I adopted his name. I acceptedthe condition, of course, and became George Germaine.

  Three months later, my mother and I were restored to each other.

  Except that I still had some trouble with my wound, behold me now to allappearance one of the most enviable of existing mortals; promoted to theposition of a wealthy gentleman; possessor of a house in London and of acountry-seat in Perthshire; and, nevertheless, at twenty-three years ofage, one of the most miserable men living!

  And Mary?

  In the ten years that had now passed over, what had become of Mary?

  You have heard my story. Read the few pages that follow, and you willhear hers.

  CHAPTER VI. HER STORY.

  WHAT I have now to tell you of Mary is derived from information obtainedat a date in my life later by many years than any date of which I havewritten yet. Be pleased to remember this.

  Dermody, the bailiff, possessed relatives in London, of whom heoccasionally spoke, and relatives in Scotland, whom he never mentioned.My father had a strong prejudice against the Scotch nation. Dermody knewhis master well enough to be aware that the prejudice might extend to_him_, if he spoke of his Scotch kindred. He was a discreet man, and henever mentioned them.

  On leaving my father's service, he had made his way, partly by land andpartly by sea, to Glasgow--in which city his friends resided. With hischaracter and his experience, Dermody was a man in a thousand to anymaster who was lucky enough to discover him. His friends bestirredthemselves. In six weeks' time he was placed in charge of a gentleman'sestate on the eastern coast of Scotland, and was comfortably establishedwith his mother and his daughter in a new home.

  The insulting language which my father had addressed to him had sunkdeep in Dermody's mind. He wrote privately to his relatives in London,telling them that he had found a new situation which suited him, andthat he had his reasons for not at present mentioning his address. Inthis way he baffled the inquiries which my mother's lawyers (failingto discover a trace of him in other directions) addressed to hisLondon friends. Stung by his old master's reproaches, he sacrificed hisdaughter and he sacrificed me--partly to his own sense of self-respect,partly to his conviction that the difference between us in rank made ithis duty to check all further intercourse before it was too late.

  Buried in their retirement in a remote part of Scotland, the littlehousehold lived, lost to me, and lost to the world.

  In dreams, I had seen and heard Mary. In dreams, Mary saw and heard me.The innocent longings and wishes which filled my heart while I was stilla boy were revealed to her in the mystery of sleep. Her grandmother,holding firmly to her faith in the predestined union between us,sustained the girl's courage and cheered her heart. She could hear herfather say (as my father had said) that we were parted to meet no more,and could privately think of her happy dreams as the sufficient promiseof another future than the future which Dermody contemplated. So shestill lived with me in the spirit--and lived in hope.

  The first affliction that befell the little household was the deathof the grandmother, by the exhaustion of extreme old age. In her lastconscious moments, she said to Mary, "Never forget that you and Georgeare spirits consecrated to each other. Wait--in the certain knowledgethat no human power can hinder your union in the time to come."

  While those words were still vividly present to Mary's mind, ourvisionary union by dreams was abruptly broken on her side, as it hadbeen abruptly broken on mine. In the first days of my self-degradation,I had ceased to see Mary. Exactly at the same period Mary ceased to seeme.

  The girl's sensitive nature sunk under the shock. She had now no elderwoman to comfort and advise her; she lived alone with her father, whoinvariably changed the subject whenever she spoke of the old times. Thesecret sorrow that preys on body and mind alike preyed on _her_. A cold,caught at the inclement season, turned to fever. For weeks she was indanger of death. When she recovered, her head had been stripped of itsbeautiful hair by the doctor's order. The sacrifice had beennecessary to save her life. It proved to be, in one respect, a cruelsacrifice--her hair never grew plentifully again. When it did reappear,it had completely lost its charming mingled hues of deep red and brown;it was now of one monotonous light-brown color throughout. At firstsight, Mary's Scotch friends hardly knew her again.

  But Nature made amends for what the head had lost by what the face andthe figure gained.

  In a year from the date of her illness, the frail little child of theold days at Greenwater Broad had ripened, in the bracing Scotch air andthe healthy mode of life, into a comely young woman. Her features werestill, as in her early years, not regularly beautiful; but the changein her was not the less marked on that account. The wan face had filledout, and the pale complexion had found its color. As to her figure, itsremarkable development was perceived even by the rough people about her.Promising nothing when she was a child, it had now sprung into womanlyfullness, symmetry, and grace. It was a strikingly beautiful figure, inthe strictest sense of the word.

  Morally as well as physically, there were moments, at this period oftheir lives, when even her own father hardly recognized his daughter offormer days. She had lost her childish vivacity--her sweet, equableflow of good humor. Silent and self-absorbed, she went through the dailyroutine of her duties enduringly. The hope of meeting me again had sunkto a dead hope in her by this time. She made no complaint. The bodilystrength that she had gained in these later days had its sympatheticinfluence in steadying her mind. When her father once or twice venturedto ask if she was still thinking of me, she answered quietly that shehad brought herself to share his opinions. She could not doubt that Ihad long since ceased to think of her. Even if I had remained faithfulto her, she was old enough now to know that the difference between us inrank made our union by marriage an impossibility. It would be best (shethought) not to refer any more to the past, best to forget me, as I hadforgotten her. So she spoke now. So, tried by the test of appearances,Dame Dermody's confident forecast of our destinies had failed to justifyitself, and had taken its place among the predictions that are neverfulfill
ed.

  The next notable event in the family annals which followed Mary'sillness happened when she had attained the age of nineteen years. Evenat this distance of time my heart sinks, my courage fails me, at thecritical stage in my narrative which I have now reached.

  A storm of unusual severity burst over the eastern coast of Scotland.Among the ships that were lost in the tempest was a vessel bound fromHolland, which was wrecked on the rocky shore near Dermody's place ofabode. Leading the way in all good actions, the bailiff led the way inrescuing the passengers and crew of the lost ship. He had brought oneman alive to land, and was on his way back to the vessel, when two heavyseas, following in close succession, dashed him against the rocks.He was rescued, at the risk of their own lives, by his neighbors. Themedical examination disclosed a broken bone and severe bruises andlacerations. So far, Dermody's sufferings were easy of relief. But,after a lapse of time, symptoms appeared in the patient which revealedto his