Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1376 page)

I was afraid to tell him what I really did think.

He was not fifty years old yet; and he had just exhibited one of the sad symptoms which mark the broken memory of old age. Lead him back to the events of many years ago, and (as he had just proved to me) he could remember well and relate coherently. But let him attempt to recall circumstances which had only taken place a short time since, and forgetfulness and confusion presented the lamentable result, just as I have related it.

The effort that he had made, the agitation that he had undergone in talking to me, had confirmed my fears that he would overtask his wasted strength. He lay back in his chair. “Let us go on with our conversation,” he murmured. “We haven’t recovered what I had forgotten, yet.” His eyes closed, and opened again languidly. “There was something I wanted to recall — ” he resumed, “and you were helping me.” His weak voice died away; his weary eyes closed again. After waiting until there could be no doubt that he was resting peacefully in sleep, I left the room.

CHAPTER XXXIV. THE LIVELY OLD MAID.

A perfect stranger to the interior of the house (seeing that my experience began and ended with the Minister’s bedchamber), I descended the stairs, in the character of a guest in search of domestic information.

On my way down, I heard the door of a room on the ground floor opened, and a woman’ s voice below, speaking in a hurry: “My dear, I have not a moment to spare; my patients are waiting for me.” This was followed by a confidential communication, judging by the tone. “Mind! not a word about me to that old gentleman!” Her patients were waiting for her — had I discovered a female doctor? And there was some old gentleman whom she was not willing to trust — surely I was not that much-injured man?

Reaching the hall just as the lady said her last words, I caught a glimpse of her face, and discovered the middle-aged stranger who had called on “Miss Jillgall,” and had promised to repeat her visit. A second lady was at the door, with her back to me, taking leave of her friend. Having said good-by, she turned round — and we confronted each other.

I found her to be a little person, wiry and active; past the prime of life, and ugly enough to encourage prejudice, in persons who take a superficial view of their fellow-creatures. Looking impartially at the little sunken eyes which rested on me with a comical expression of embarrassment, I saw signs that said: There is some good here, under a disagreeable surface, if you can only find it.

She saluted me with a carefully-performed curtsey, and threw open the door of a room on the ground floor.

“Pray walk in, sir, and permit me to introduce myself. I am Mr. Gracedieu’s cousin — Miss Jillgall. Proud indeed to make the acquaintance of a gentleman distinguished in the service of his country — or perhaps I ought to say, in the service of the Law. The Governor offers hospitality to prisoners. And who introduces prisoners to board and lodging with the Governor? — the Law. Beautiful weather for the time of year, is it not? May I ask — have you seen your room?”

The embarrassment which I had already noticed had extended by this time to her voice and her manner. She was evidently trying to talk herself into a state of confidence. It seemed but too probable that I was indeed the person mentioned by her prudent friend at the door.

Having acknowledged that I had not seen my room yet, my politeness attempted to add that there was no hurry. The wiry little lady was of the contrary opinion; she jumped out of her chair as if she had been shot out of it. “Pray let me make myself useful. The dream of my life is to make myself useful to others; and to such a man as you — I consider myself honoured. Besides, I do enjoy running up and down stairs. This way, dear sir; this way to your room.”

She skipped up the stairs, and stopped on the first landing. “Do you know, I am a timid person, though I may not look like it. Sometimes, curiosity gets the better of me — and then I grow bold. Did you notice a lady who was taking leave of me just now at the house door?”

I replied that I had seen the lady for a moment, but not for the first time. “Just as I arrived here from the station,” I said, “I found her paying a visit when you were not at home.”

“Yes — and do tell me one thing more.” My readiness in answering seemed to have inspired Miss Jillgall with confidence. I heard no more confessions of overpowering curiosity. “Am I right,” she proceeded, “in supposing that Miss Helena accompanied you on your way here from the station?”

“Quite right.”

“Did she say anything particular, when she saw the lady asking for me at the door?”

“Miss Helena thought,” I said, “that the lady recognised me as a person whom she had seen before.”

“And what did you think yourself?”

“I thought Miss Helena was wrong.”

“Very extraordinary!” With that remark, Miss Jillgall dropped the subject. The meaning of her reiterated inquiries was now, as it seemed to me, clear enough. She was eager to discover how I could have inspired the distrust of me, expressed in the caution addressed to her by her friend.

When we reached the upper floor, she paused before the Minister’s room.

“I believe many years have passed,” she said, “since you last saw Mr. Gracedieu. I am afraid you have found him a sadly changed man? You won’t be angry with me, I hope, for asking more questions? I owe Mr. Gracedieu a debt of gratitude which no devotion, on my part, can ever repay. You don’t know what a favor I shall consider it, if you will tell me what you think of him. Did it seem to you that he was not quite himself? I don’t mean in his looks, poor dear — I mean in his mind.”

There was true sorrow and sympathy in her face. I believe I should hardly have thought her ugly, if we had first met at that moment. Thus far, she had only amused me. I began really to like Miss Jillgall now.

“I must not conceal from you,” I replied, “that the state of Mr. Gracedieu’s mind surprised and distressed me. But I ought also to tell you that I saw him perhaps at his worst. The subject on which he wished to speak with me would have agitated any man, in his state of health. He consulted me about his daughter’s marriage.”

Miss Jillgall suddenly turned pale.

“His daughter’s marriage?” she repeated. “Oh, you frighten me!”

“Why should I frighten you?”

She seemed to find some difficulty in expressing herself. “I hardly know how to put it, sir. You will excuse me (won’t you?) if I say what I feel. You have influence — not the sort of influence that finds places for people who don’t deserve them, and gets mentioned in the newspapers — I only mean influence over Mr. Gracedieu. That’s what frightens me. How do I know — ? Oh, dear, I’m asking another question! Allow me, for once, to be plain and positive. I’m afraid, sir, you have encouraged the Minister to consent to Helena’s marriage.”

“Pardon me,” I answered, “you mean Eunice’s marriage.”

“No, sir! Helena.”

“No, madam!
Eunice.”

“What does he mean?” said Miss Jillgall to herself.

I heard her. “This is what I mean,” I asserted, in my most positive manner. “The only subject on which the Minister has consulted me is Miss Eunice’s marriage.”

My tone left her no alternative but to believe me. She looked not only bewildered, but alarmed. “Oh, poor man, has he lost himself in such a dreadful way as that?” she said to herself. “I daren’t believe it!” She turned to me. “You have been talking with him for some time. Please try to remember. While Mr. Gracedieu was speaking of Euneece, did he say nothing of Helena’s infamous conduct to her sister?”

Not the slightest hint of any such thing, I assured her, had reached my ears.

“Then,” she cried, “I can tell you what he has forgotten! We kept as much of that miserable story to ourselves as we could, in mercy to him. Besides, he was always fondest of Euneece; she would live in his memory when he had forgotten the other — the wretch, the traitress, the plotter, the fiend!” Miss Jillgall’s good manners slipped, as it were, from under her; she clinched her fists as a final means of expressing her sentiments. “The wretched English language isn’t half strong enough for me,” she declared with a look of fury.

I took a liberty. “May I ask what Miss Helena has done?” I said.

“
May
you ask? Oh, Heavens! you must ask, you shall ask. Mr. Governor, if your eyes are not opened to Helena’s true character, I can tell you what she will do; she will deceive you into taking her part. Do you think she went to the station out of regard for the great man? Pooh! she went with an eye to her own interests; and she means to make the great man useful. Thank God, I can stop that!”

She checked herself there, and looked suspiciously at the door of Mr. Gracedieu’s room.

“In the interest of our conversation,” she whispered, “we have not given a thought to the place we have been talking in. Do you think the Minister has heard us?”

“Not if he is asleep — as I left him.”

Miss Jillgall shook her head ominously. “The safe way is this way,” she said. “Come with me.”

CHAPTER XXXV. THE FUTURE LOOKS GLOOMY.

My ever-helpful guide led me to my room — well out of Mr. Gracedieu’s hearing, if he happened to be awake — at the other end of the passage. Having opened the door, she paused on the threshold. The decrees of that merciless English despot, Propriety, claimed her for their own. “Oh, dear!” she said to herself, “ought I to go in?”

My interest as a man (and, what is more, an old man) in the coming disclosure was too serious to be trifled with in this way. I took her arm, and led her into my room as if I was at a dinner-party, leading her to the table. Is it the good or the evil fortune of mortals that the comic side of life, and the serious side of life, are perpetually in collision with each other? We burst out laughing, at a moment of grave importance to us both. Perfectly inappropriate, and perfectly natural. But we were neither of us philosophers, and we were ashamed of our own merriment the moment it had ceased.

“When you hear what I have to tell you,” Miss Jillgall began, “I hope you will think as I do. What has slipped Mr. Gracedieu’s memory, it may be safer to say — for he is sometimes irritable, poor dear — where he won’t know anything about it.”

With that she told the lamentable story of the desertion of Eunice.

In silence I listened, from first to last. How could I trust myself to speak, as I must have spoken, in the presence of a woman? The cruel injury inflicted on the poor girl, who had interested and touched me in the first innocent year of her life — who had grown to womanhood to be the victim of two wretches, both trusted by her, both bound to her by the sacred debt of love — so fired my temper that I longed to be within reach of the man, with a horsewhip in my hand. Seeing in my face, as I suppose, what was passing in my mind, Miss Jillgall expressed sympathy and admiration in her own quaint way: “Ah, I like to see you so angry! It’s grand to know that a man who has governed prisoners has got such a pitying heart. Let me tell you one thing, sir. You will be more angry than ever, when you see my sweet girl to-morrow. And mind this — it is Helena’s devouring vanity, Helena’s wicked jealousy of her sister’s good fortune, that has done the mischief. Don’t be too hard on Philip? I do believe, if the truth was told, he is ashamed of himself.”

I felt inclined to be harder on Philip than ever. “Where is he?” I asked.

Miss Jillgall started. “Oh, Mr. Governor, don’t show the severe side of yourself, after the pretty compliment I have just paid to you! What a masterful voice! and what eyes, dear sir; what terrifying eyes! I feel as if I was one of your prisoners, and had misbehaved myself.”

I repeated my question with improvement, I hope, in my looks and tones: “Don’t think me obstinate, my dear lady. I only want to know if he is in this town.”

Miss Jillgall seemed to take a curious pleasure in disappointing me; she had not forgotten my unfortunate abruptness of look and manner. “You won’t find him here,” she said.

“Perhaps he has left England?”

“If you must know, sir, he is in London — with Mr. Dunboyne.”