Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (108 page)

VI.

It was still early in the morning, when a loud knock sounded at the house-door, and I heard the landlady calling to the servant: “A gentleman to see the gentleman who came in last night.” The moment the words reached me, my thoughts recurred to the letter of yesterday — Had Mannion found me out in my retreat? As the suspicion crossed my mind, the door opened, and the visitor entered.

I looked at him in speechless astonishment. It was my elder brother! It was Ralph himself who now walked into the room!

“Well, Basil! how are you?” he said, with his old off-hand manner and hearty voice.

“Ralph! You in England! — you here!”

“I came back from Italy last night. Basil, how awfully you’re changed! I hardly know you again.”

His manner altered as he spoke the last words. The look of sorrow and alarm which he fixed on me, went to my heart. I thought of holiday-time, when we were boys; of Ralph’s boisterous ways with me; of his good-humoured school-frolics, at my expense; of the strong bond of union between us, so strangely compounded of my weakness and his strength; of my passive and of his active nature; I saw how little
he
had changed since that time, and knew, as I never knew before, how miserably
I
was altered. All the shame and grief of my banishment from home came back on me, at sight of his friendly, familiar face. I struggled hard to keep my self-possession, and tried to bid him welcome cheerfully; but the effort was too much for me. I turned away my head, as I took his hand; for the old school-boy feeling of not letting Ralph see that I was in tears, influenced me still.

“Basil! Basil! what are you about? This won’t do. Look up, and listen to me. I have promised Clara to pull you through this wretched mess; and I’ll do it. Get a chair, and give me a light. I’m going to sit on your bed, smoke a cigar, and have a long talk with you.”

While he was lighting his cigar, I looked more closely at him than before. Though he was the same as ever in manner; though his expression still preserved its reckless levity of former days, I now detected that he had changed a little in some other respects. His features had become coarser — dissipation had begun to mark them. His spare, active, muscular figure had filled out; he was dressed rather carelessly; and of all his trinkets and chains of early times, not one appeared about him now. Ralph looked prematurely middle-aged, since I had seen him last.

“Well,” he began, “first of all, about my coming back. The fact is, the morganatic Mrs. Ralph — ” (he referred to his last mistress) “wanted to see England, and I was tired of being abroad. So I brought her back with me; and we’re going to live quietly, somewhere in the Brompton neighbourhood. That woman has been my salvation — you must come and see her. She has broke me of gaming altogether; I was going to the devil as fast as I could, when she stopped me — but you know all about it, of course. Well: we got to London yesterday afternoon; and in the evening I left her at the hotel, and went to report myself at home. There, the first thing I heard, was that you had cut me out of my old original distinction of being the family scamp. Don’t look distressed, Basil; I’m not laughing at you; I’ve come to do something better than that. Never mind my talk: nothing in the world ever was serious to
me,
and nothing ever will be.”

He stopped to knock the ash off his cigar, and settle himself more comfortably on my bed; then proceeded.

“It has been my ill-luck to see my father pretty seriously offended on more than one occasion; but I never saw him so very quiet and so very dangerous as last night when he was telling me about you. I remember well enough how he spoke and looked, when he caught me putting away my trout-flies in the pages of that family history of his; but it was nothing to see him or hear him then, to what it is now. I can tell you this, Basil — if I believed in what the poetical people call a broken heart (which I don’t), I should be almost afraid that
he
was broken-hearted. I saw it was no use to say a word for you just yet, so I sat quiet and listened to him till I got my dismissal for the evening. My next proceeding was to go up-stairs, and see Clara. Upstairs, I give you my word of honour, it was worse still. Clara was walking about the room with your letter in her hand — just reach me the matches: my cigar’s out. Some men can talk and smoke in equal proportions — I never could.

“You know as well as I do,” he continued when he had relit his cigar, “that Clara is not usually demonstrative. I always thought her rather a cold temperament — but the moment I put my head in at the door, I found I’d been just as great a fool on that point as on most others. Basil, the scream Clara gave when she first saw me, and the look in her eyes when she talked about you, positively frightened me. I can’t describe anything; and I hate descriptions by other men (most likely on that very account): so I won’t describe what she said and did. I’ll only tell you that it ended in my promising to come here the first thing this morning; promising to get you out of the scrape; promising, in short, everything she asked me. So here I am, ready for your business before my own. The fair partner of my existence is at the hotel, half-frantic because I won’t go lodging-hunting with her; but Clara is paramount, Clara is the first thought. Somebody must be a good boy at home; and now you have resigned, I’m going to try and succeed you, by way of a change!”

“Ralph! Ralph! can you mention Clara’s name, and that woman’s name, in the same breath? Did you leave Clara quieter and better! For God’s sake be serious about that, though serious about nothing else!”

“Gently, Basil!
Doucement mon ami!
I did leave her quieter: my promise made her look almost like herself again. As for what you say about mentioning Clara and Mrs. Ralph in the same breath, I’ve been talking and smoking till I have no second breaths left to devote to second-rate virtue. There is an unanswerable reason for you, if you want one! And now let us get to the business that brings me here. I don’t want to worry you by raking up this miserable mess again, from beginning to end, in your presence; but I must make sure at the same time that I have got hold of the right story, or I can’t be of any use to you. My father was a little obscure on certain points. He talked enough, and more than enough, about consequences to the family, about his own affliction, about his giving you up for ever; and, in short, about everything but the case itself as it really stands against us. Now that is just what I ought to be put up to, and must be put up to. Let me tell you in three words what I was told last night.”

“Go on, Ralph: speak as you please.”

“Very good. First of all, I understand that you took a fancy to some shopkeeper’s daughter — so far, mind, I don’t blame you: I’ve spent time very pleasantly among the ladies of the counter myself. But in the second place, I’m told that you actually married the girl! I don’t wish to be hard upon you, my good fellow, but there was an unparalleled insanity about that act, worthier of a patient in Bedlam than of my brother. I am not quite sure whether I understand exactly what virtuous behaviour is; but if
that
was virtuous behaviour — there! there! don’t look shocked. Let’s have done with the marriage, and get on. Well, you made the girl your wife; and then innocently consented to a very queer condition of waiting a year for her (virtuous behaviour again, I suppose!) At the end of that time — don’t turn away your head, Basil! I
may
be a scamp; but I am not blackguard enough to make a joke — either in your presence, or out of it — of this part of the story. I will pass it over altogether, if you like; and only ask you a question or two. You see, my father either could not or would not speak plainly of the worst part of the business; and you know him well enough to know why. But somebody must be a little explicit, or I can do nothing. About that man? You found the scoundrel out? Did you get within arm’s length of him?”

I told my brother of the struggle with Mannion in the Square.

He heard me almost with his former schoolboy delight, when I had succeeded, to his satisfaction, in a feat of strength or activity. He jumped off the bed, and seized both my hands in his strong grasp; his face radiant, his eyes sparkling. “Shake hands, Basil! Shake hands, as we haven’t shaken hands yet: this makes amends for everything! One word more, though, about that fellow; where is he now?”

“In the hospital.”

Ralph laughed heartily, and jumped back on the bed. I remembered Mannion’s letter, and shuddered as I thought of it.

“The next question is about the girl,” said my brother. “What has become of her? Where was she all the time of your illness?”

“At her father’s house; she is there still.”

“Ah, yes! I see; the old story; innocent, of course. And her father backs her, doesn’t he? To be sure, that’s the old story too. I have got at our difficulty now; we are threatened with an exposure, if you don’t acknowledge her. Wait a minute! Have you any evidence against her, besides your own?”

“I have a letter, a long letter from her accomplice, containing a confession of his guilt and hers.”

“She is sure to call that confession a conspiracy. It’s of no use to us, unless we dared to go to law — and we daren’t. We must hush the thing up at any price; or it will be the death of my father. This is a case for money, just as I thought it would be. Mr. and Miss Shopkeeper have got a large assortment of silence to sell; and we must buy it of them, over the domestic counter, at so much a yard. Have you been there yet, Basil, to ask the price and strike the bargain?”

“I was at the house, yesterday.”

“The deuce you were! And who did you see? — The father? Did you bring him to terms? did you do business with Mr. Shopkeeper?”

“His manner was brutal: his language, the language of a bully — ?”

“So much the better. Those men are easiest dealt with: if he will only fly into a passion with me, I engage for success beforehand. But the end — how did it end?”

“As it began: — in threats on his part, in endurance on mine.”

“Ah! we’ll see how he likes my endurance next: he’ll find it rather a different sort of endurance from yours. By-the-bye, Basil, what money had you to offer him?”

“I made no offer to him then. Circumstances happened which rendered me incapable of thinking of it. I intended to go there again, to-day; and if money would bribe him to silence, and save my family from sharing the dishonour which has fallen on
me,
to abandon to him the only money I have of my own — the little income left me by our mother.”

“Do you mean to say that your only resource is in that wretched trifle, and that you ever really intend to let it go, and start in the world without a rap? Do you mean to say that my father gave you up without making the smallest provision for you, in such a mess as your’s? Hang it! do him justice. He has been hard enough on you, I know; but he can’t have coolly turned you over to ruin in that way.”

“He offered me money, at parting; but with such words of contempt and insult that I would have died rather than take it. I told him that, unaided by his purse, I would preserve him, and preserve his family from the infamous consequences of my calamity — though I sacrificed my own happiness and my own honour for ever in doing it. And I go to-day to make that sacrifice. The loss of the little I have to depend on, is the least part of it. He may not see his injustice in doubting me, till too late; but he
shall
see it.”

“I beg your pardon, Basil; but this is almost as great an insanity, as the insanity of your marriage. I honour the independence of your principle, my dear fellow; but, while I am to the fore, I’ll take good care that you don’t ruin yourself gratuitously, for the sake of any principles whatever! Just listen to me, now. In the first place, remember that what my father said to you, he said in a moment of violent exasperation. You had been trampling the pride of his life in the mud: no man likes that — my father least of any. And, as for the offer of your poor little morsel of an income to stop these people’s greedy mouths, it isn’t a quarter enough for them. They know our family is a wealthy family; and they will make their demand accordingly. Any other sacrifice, even to taking the girl back (though you never could bring yourself to do that!), would be of no earthly use. Nothing but money will do; money cunningly doled out, under the strongest possible stipulations. Now, I’m just the man to do that, and I have got the money — or, rather, my father has, which comes to the same thing. Write me the fellow’s name and address; there’s no time to be lost — I’m off to see him at once!”

“I can’t allow you, Ralph, to ask my father for what I would not ask him myself — ”

“Give me the name and address, or you will sour my excellent temper for the rest of my life. Your obstinacy won’t do with
me,
Basil — it didn’t at school, and it won’t now. I shall ask my father for money for myself; and use as much of it as I think proper for your interests. He’ll give me anything I want, now I have turned good boy. I don’t owe fifty pounds, since my last debts were paid off — thanks to Mrs. Ralph, who is the most managing woman in the world. By-the-bye, when you see her, don’t seem surprised at her being older than I am. Oh! this is the address, is it? Hollyoake Square? Where the devil’s that! Never mind, I’ll take a cab, and shift the responsibility of finding the place on the driver. Keep up your spirits, and wait here till I come back. You shall have such news of Mr. Shopkeeper and his daughter as you little expect!
Au revoir,
my dear fellow —
au revoir.
”