Read Complete Works of Wilkie Collins Online
Authors: Wilkie Collins
Catherine refused to drop it; Linley’s short and sharp reply had irritated her. “After my experience,” she persisted, “have I no reason to trust you?”
“It is part of your experience,” he reminded her, “that I promised not to see Miss Westerfield again.”
“Own it at once!” she broke out, provoked beyond endurance; “though I may be willing to trust you — you are afraid to trust yourself.”
Unlucky Mrs. Presty interfered again. “Don’t listen to her, Herbert. Keep out of harm’s way, and you keep right.”
She patted him on the shoulder, as if she had been giving good advice to a boy. He expressed his sense of his mother-in-law’s friendly offices in language which astonished her.
“Hold your tongue!”
“Do you hear that?” Mrs. Presty asked, appealing indignantly to her daughter.
Linley took his hat. “At what time do you expect Miss Westerfield to arrive?” he said to his wife.
She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Before the half-hour strikes. Don’t be alarmed,” she added, with an air of ironical sympathy; “you will have time to make your escape.”
He advanced to the door, and looked at her.
“One thing I beg you will remember,” he said. “Every half-hour while I am away (I am going to the farm) you are to send and let me know how Kitty is — and especially if Miss Westerfield justifies the experiment which the doctor has advised us to try.”
Having given those instructions he went out.
The sofa was near Mrs. Linley. She sank on it, overpowered by the utter destruction of the hopes that she had founded on the separation of Herbert and the governess. Sydney Westerfield was still in possession of her husband’s heart!
Her mother was surely the right person to say a word of comfort to her. Randal made the suggestion — with the worst possible result. Mrs. Presty had not forgotten that she had been told — at her age, in her position as the widow of a Cabinet Minister — to hold her tongue. “Your brother has insulted me,” she said to Randal. He was weak enough to attempt to make an explanation. “I was speaking of my brother’s wife,” he said. “Your brother’s wife has allowed me to be insulted.” Having received that reply, Randal could only wonder. This woman went to church every Sunday, and kept a New Testament, bound in excellent taste, on her toilet-table! The occasion suggested reflection on the system which produces average Christians at the present time. Nothing more was said by Mrs. Presty; Mrs. Linley remained absorbed in her own bitter thoughts. In silence they waited for the return of the carriage, and the appearance of the governess.
Pale, worn, haggard with anxiety, Sydney Westerfield entered the room, and looked once more on the faces which she had resigned herself never to see again. She appeared to be hardly conscious of the kind reception which did its best to set her at her ease.
“Am I in time?” were the first words that escaped her on entering the room. Reassured by the answer, she turned back to the door, eager to hurry upstairs to Kitty’s bedside.
Mrs. Linley’s gentle hand detained her.
The doctor had left certain instructions, warning the mother to guard against any accident that might remind Kitty of the day on which Sydney had left her. At the time of that bitter parting, the child had seen her governess in the same walking-dress which she wore now. Mrs. Linley removed the hat and cloak, and laid them on a chair.
“There is one other precaution which we must observe,” she said; “I must ask you to wait in my room until I find that you may show yourself safely. Now come with me.”
Mrs. Presty followed them, and begged earnestly for leave to wait the result of the momentous experiment, at the door of Kitty’s bedroom. Her self-asserting manner had vanished; she was quiet, she was even humble. While the last chance for the child’s life was fast becoming a matter of minutes only, the grandmother’s better nature showed itself on the surface. Randal opened the door for them as the three went out together. He was in that state of maddening anxiety about his poor little niece in which men of his imaginative temperament become morbid, and say strangely inappropriate things. In the same breath with which he implored his sister-in-law to let him hear what had happened, without an instant of delay, he startled Mrs. Presty by one of his familiar remarks on the inconsistencies in her character. “You disagreeable old woman,” he whispered, as she passed him, “you have got a heart, after all.”
Left alone, he was never for one moment in repose, while the slow minutes followed each other in the silent house.
He walked about the room, he listened at the door, he arranged and disarranged the furniture. When the nursemaid descended from the upper regions with her mistress’s message for him, he ran out to meet her; saw the good news in her smiling face; and, for the first and last time in his life kissed one of his brother’s female servants. Susan — a well-bred young person, thoroughly capable in ordinary cases of saying “For shame, sir!” and looking as if she expected to feel an arm round her waist next — trembled with terror under that astounding salute. Her master’s brother, a pattern of propriety up to that time, a man declared by her to be incapable of kissing a woman unless she had a right to insist on it in the licensed character of his wife, had evidently taken leave of his senses. Would he bite her next? No: he only looked confused, and said (how very extraordinary!) that he would never do it again. Susan gave her message gravely. Here was an unintelligible man; she felt the necessity of being careful in her choice of words.
“Miss Kitty stared at Miss Westerfield — only for a moment, sir — as if she didn’t quite understand, and then knew her again directly. The doctor had just called. He drew up the blind to let the light in, and he looked, and he says: ‘Only be careful’ — ” Tender-hearted Susan broke down, and began to cry. “I can’t help it, sir; we are all so fond of Miss Kitty, and we are so happy. ‘Only be careful’ (those were the exact words, if you please), ‘and I answer for her life.’ — Oh, dear! what have I said to make him run away from me?”
Randal had left her abruptly, and had shut himself into the drawing-room. Susan’s experience of men had not yet informed her that a true Englishman is ashamed to be seen (especially by his inferiors) with the tears in his eyes.
He had barely succeeded in composing himself, when another servant appeared — this time a man — with something to say to him.
“I don’t know whether I have done right, sir,” Malcolm began. “There’s a stranger downstairs among the tourists who are looking at the rooms and the pictures. He said he knew you. And he asked if you were not related to the gentleman who allowed travelers to see his interesting old house.”
“Well?”
“Well, sir, I said Yes. And then he wanted to know if you happened to be here at the present time.”
Randal cut the man’s story short. “And you said Yes again, and he gave you his card. Let me look at it.”
Malcolm produced the card, and instantly received instructions to show the gentleman up. The name recalled the dinner at the London club — Captain Bennydeck.
The fair complexion of the Captain’s youthful days had been darkened by exposure to hard weather and extreme climates. His smooth face of twenty years since was scored by the telltale marks of care; his dark beard was beginning to present variety of colour by means of streaks of gray; and his hair was in course of undisguised retreat from his strong broad forehead. Not rising above the middle height, the Captain’s spare figure was well preserved. It revealed power and activity, severely tested perhaps at some former time, but capable even yet of endurance under trial. Although he looked older than his age, he was still, personally speaking, an attractive man. In repose, his eyes were by habit sad and a little weary in their expression. They only caught a brighter light when he smiled. At such times, helped by this change and by his simple, earnest manner, they recommended him to his fellow-creatures before he opened his lips. Men and women taking shelter with him, for instance, from the rain, found the temptation to talk with Captain Bennydeck irresistible; and, when the weather cleared, they mostly carried away with them the same favorable impression: “One would like to meet with that gentleman again.”
Randal’s first words of welcome relieved the Captain of certain modest doubts of his reception, which appeared to trouble him when he entered the room. “I am glad to find you remember me as kindly as I remember you.” Those were his first words when he and Randal shook hands.
“You might have felt sure of that,” Randal said.
The Captain’s modesty still doubted.
“You see, the circumstances were a little against me. We met at a dull dinner, among wearisome worldly men, full of boastful talk about themselves. It was all ‘I did this,’ and ‘I said that’ — and the gentlemen who were present had always been right; and the gentlemen who were absent had always been wrong. And, oh, dear, when they came to politics, how they bragged about what they would have done if they had only been at the head of the Government; and how cruelly hard to please they were in the matter of wine! Do you remember recommending me to spend my next holiday in Scotland?”
“Perfectly. My advice was selfish — it really meant that I wanted to see you again.”
“And you have your wish, at your brother’s house! The guide book did it. First, I saw your family name. Then, I read on and discovered that there were pictures at Mount Morven and that strangers were allowed to see them. I like pictures. And here I am.”
This allusion to the house naturally reminded Randal of the master. “I wish I could introduce you to my brother and his wife,” he said. “Unhappily their only child is ill — ”
Captain Bennydeck started to his feet. “I am ashamed of having intruded on you,” he began. His new friend pressed him back into his chair without ceremony. “On the contrary, you have arrived at the best of all possible times — the time when our suspense is at an end. The doctor has just told us that his poor little patient is out of danger. You may imagine how happy we are.”
“And how grateful to God!” The Captain said those words in tones that trembled — speaking to himself.
Randal was conscious of feeling a momentary embarrassment. The character of his visitor had presented itself in a new light. Captain Bennydeck looked at him — understood him — and returned to the subject of his travels.
“Do you remember your holiday-time when you were a boy, and when you had to go back to school?” he asked with a smile. “My mind is in much the same state at leaving Scotland, and going back to my work in London. I hardly know which I admire most — your beautiful country or the people who inhabit it. I have had some pleasant talk with your poorer neighbours; the one improvement I could wish for among them is a keener sense of their religious duties.”
This was an objection new in Randal’s experience of travelers in general.
“Our Highlanders have noble qualities,” he said. “If you knew them as well as I do, you would find a true sense of religion among them; not presenting itself, however, to strangers as strongly — I had almost said as aggressively — as the devotional feeling of the Lowland Scotch. Different races, different temperaments.”
“And all,” the Captain added, gravely and gently, “with souls to be saved. If I sent to these poor people some copies of the New Testament, translated into their own language, would my gift be accepted?”
Strongly interested by this time, in studying Captain Bennydeck’s character on the side of it which was new to him, Randal owned that he observed with surprise the interest which his friend felt in perfect strangers. The Captain seemed to wonder why this impression should have been produced by what he had just said.
“I only try,” he answered, “to do what good I can, wherever I go.”
“Your life must be a happy one,” Randal said.
Captain Bennydeck’s head drooped. The shadows that attend on the gloom of melancholy remembrance showed their darkening presence on his face. Briefly, almost sternly, he set Randal right.
“No, sir.”
“Forgive me,” the younger man pleaded, “if I have spoken thoughtlessly.”