Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1726 page)

I remained in my situation (at the West-end of London) until the spring of the New Year.

About that time, my master’s health failed. The doctors ordered him away to foreign parts, and the establishment was broken up. But the turn in my luck still held good. When I left my place, I left it — thanks to the generosity of my kind master — with a yearly allowance granted to me, in remembrance of the day when I had saved my mistress’s life. For the future, I could go back to service or not, as I pleased; my little income was enough to support my mother and myself.

My master and mistress left England towards the end of February. Certain matters of business to do for them, detained me in London until the last day of the month. I was only able to leave for our village by the evening train, to keep my birthday with my mother as usual. It was bedtime when I got to the cottage; and I was sorry to find that she was far from well. To make matters worse, she had finished her bottle of medicine on the previous day, and had omitted to get it replenished, as the doctor had strictly directed. He dispensed his own medicines, and I offered to go and knock him up. She refused to let me do this; and, after giving me my supper, sent me away to my bed.

I fell asleep for a little, and woke again. My mother’s bedchamber was next to mine. I heard my aunt Chance’s heavy footsteps going to and fro in the room, and, suspecting something wrong, knocked at the door. My mother’s pains had returned upon her; there was a serious necessity for relieving her sufferings as speedily as possible. I put on my clothes, and ran off, with the medicine-bottle in my hand, to the other end of the village, where the doctor lived. The church clock chimed the quarter to two on my birthday just as I reached his house. One ring at the night-bell brought him to his bedroom window to speak to me. He told me to wait, and he would let me in at the surgery door. I noticed, while I was waiting, that the night was wonderfully fair and warm for the time of year. The old stone-quarry where the carriage accident had happened was within view. The moon in the clear heavens lit it up almost as bright as day.

In a minute or two, the doctor let me into the surgery. I closed the door, noticing that he had left his room very lightly clad. He kindly pardoned my mother’s neglect of his directions and set to work at once at compounding the medicine. We were both intent on the bottle; he filling it, and I holding the light — when we heard the surgery door suddenly opened from the street.

VIII.

Who could possibly be up and about in our quiet village at the second hour of the morning?

The person who had opened the door appeared within range of the light of the candle. To complete our amazement, the person proved to be a woman!

She walked up to the counter, and standing side-by-side with me, lifted her veil. At the moment when she showed her face, I heard the church clock strike two. She was a stranger to me, and a stranger to the doctor. She was also, beyond all comparison, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life.

“I saw the light under the door,” she said. “I want some medicine.”

She spoke quite composedly, as if there was nothing at all extraordinary in her being out in the village at two in the morning, and following me into the surgery to ask for medicine! The doctor stared at her as if he suspected his own eyes of deceiving him. “Who are you?” he asked. “How do you come to be wandering about at this time in the morning?”

She paid no heed to his questions. She only told him coolly what she wanted.

“I have got a bad toothache. I want a bottle of laudanum.”

The doctor recovered himself when she asked for the laudanum. He was on his own ground, you know, when it came to a matter of laudanum; and he spoke to her smartly enough this time.

“Oh, you have got the toothache, have you? Let me look at the tooth.”

She shook her head, and laid a two shilling piece on the counter.

“I won’t trouble you to look at the tooth,” she said. “There is the money. Let me have the laudanum, if you please.”

The doctor put the two-shilling piece back again in her hand.

“I don’t sell laudanum to strangers,” he answered. “If you are in any distress of body or mind, that is another matter. I shall be glad to help you.”

She put the money back in her pocket. “You can’t help me,” she said, as quietly as ever. “Good morning.”

With that, she opened the surgery door to go out again into the street.

So far, I had not spoken a word on my side. I had stood with the candle in my hand (not knowing I was holding it) — with my eyes fixed on her, with my mind fixed on her — like a man bewitched.

Her looks betrayed, even more plainly than her words, her resolution, in one way or another, to destroy herself. When she opened the door, in my alarm at what might happen I found the use of my tongue.

“Stop?” I cried out. “Wait for me. I want to speak to you before you go away.”

She lifted her eyes with a look of careless surprise, and a mocking smile on her lips.

“What can
you
have to say to me?” She stopped, and laughed to herself. “Why not?” she said. “I have got nothing to do, and nowhere to go.” She turned back a step, and nodded to me. “You’re a strange man — I think I’ll humour you — I’ll wait outside.” The door of the surgery closed on her. She was gone.

I am ashamed to own what happened next. The only excuse for me is that I was really and truly a man bewitched. I turned me round to follow her out, without once thinking of my mother. The doctor stopped me.

“Don’t forget the medicine,” he said. “And if you will take my advice, don’t trouble yourself about that woman. Rouse up the constable. It’s his business to look after her — not yours.”

I held out my hand for the medicine in silence: I was afraid I should fail in respect if I trusted myself to answer him. He must have seen, as I saw, that she wanted the laudanum to poison herself. He had, to my mind, taken a very heartless view of the matter. I just thanked him when he gave me the medicine — and went out.

She was waiting for me as she had promised; walking slowly to and fro — a tall, graceful, solitary figure in the bright moonbeams. They shed over her fair complexion, her bright golden hair, her large grey eyes, just the light that suited them best. She looked hardly mortal when she first turned to speak to me.

“Well?” she said. “And what do you want?” In spite of my pride, or my shyness, or my better sense — whichever it might be — all my heart went out to her in a moment. I caught hold of her by the hands, and owned what was in my thoughts, as freely as if I had known her for half a lifetime.

“You mean to destroy yourself,” I said. “And I mean to prevent you from doing it. If I follow you about all night, I’ll prevent you from doing it.”

She laughed. “You saw yourself that he wouldn’t sell me the laudanum. Do you really care whether I live or die?” She squeezed my hands gently as she put the question: her eyes searched mine with a languid, lingering look in them that ran through me like fire. My voice died away on my lips; I couldn’t answer her.

She understood, without my answering. “You have given me a fancy for living, by speaking kindly to me,” she said. “Kindness has a wonderful effect on women, and dogs, and other domestic animals. It is only men who are superior to kindness. Make your mind easy — I promise to take as much care of myself as if I was the happiest woman living! Don’t let me keep you here, out of your bed. Which way are you going?”

Miserable wretch that I was, I had forgotten my mother — with the medicine in my hand!

“I am going home,” I said. “Where are you staying? At the inn?”

She laughed her bitter laugh, and pointed to the stone-quarry. “There is my inn for to-night,” she said. “When I got tired of walking about, I rested there.”

We walked on together, on my way home. I took the liberty of asking her if she had any friends.

“I thought I had one friend left,” she said, “or you would never have met me in this place. It turns out I was wrong. My friend’s door was closed in my face some hours since: my friend’s servants threatened me with the police. I had nowhere else to go, after trying my luck in your neighbourhood; and nothing left but my two-shilling piece and these rags on my back. What respectable innkeeper would take me into his house? I walked about, wondering how I could find my way out of the world without disfiguring myself, and without suffering much pain. You have no river in these parts. I didn’t see my way out of the world, till I heard you ringing at the doctor’s house. I got a glimpse at the bottles in the surgery, when he let you in, and I thought of the laudanum directly. What were you doing there? Who is that medicine for? Your wife?”

“I am not married.”

She laughed again. “Not married! If I was a little better dressed there might be a chance for ME. Where do you live? Here?”

We had arrived, by this time, at my mother’s door. She held out her hand to say good-bye. Houseless and homeless as she was, she never asked me to give her a shelter for the night. It was
my
proposal that she should rest under my roof, unknown to my mother and my aunt. Our kitchen was built out at the back of the cottage: she might remain there unseen and unheard until the household was astir in the morning. I led her into the kitchen, and set a chair for her by the dying embers of the fire. I dare say I was to blame — shamefully to blame, if you like. I only wonder what
you
would have done in my place. On your word of honour as a man, would
you
have let that beautiful creature wander back to the shelter of the stone-quarry like a stray dog? God help the woman who is foolish enough to trust and love you, if you would have done that!

I left her by the fire and went to my mother’s room.

IX.

If you have ever felt the heart-ache, you will know what I suffered in secret when my mother took my hand, and said, “I am sorry, Francis, that your night’s rest has been disturbed through
me.”
I gave her the medicine; and I waited by her till the pains abated. My aunt Chance went back to her bed; and my mother and I were left alone. I noticed that her writing-desk, moved from its customary place, was on the bed by her side. She saw me looking at it. “This is your birthday, Francis,” she said. “Have you anything to tell me?” I had so completely forgotten my Dream, that I had no notion of what was passing in her mind when she said those words. For a moment there was a guilty fear in me that she suspected something. I turned away my face, and said, “No, mother; I have nothing to tell.” She signed to me to stoop down over the pillow and kiss her. “God bless you, my love!” she said; “and many happy returns of the day.” She patted my hand, and closed her weary eyes, and, little by little, fell off peaceably into sleep.

I stole downstairs again. I think the good influence of my mother must have followed me down. At any rate, this is true: I stopped with my hand on the closed kitchen door, and said to myself. “Suppose I leave the house, and leave the village, without seeing her or speaking to her more?”

Should I really have fled from temptation in this way, if I had been left to myself to decide? Who can tell? As things were, I was not left to decide. While my doubt was in my mind, she heard me, and opened the kitchen door. My eyes and her eyes met. That ended it.

We were together, unsuspected and undisturbed, for the next two hours. Time enough for her to reveal the secret of her wasted life. Time enough for her to take possession of me as her own, to do with me as she liked. It is needless to dwell here on the misfortunes which had brought her low: they are misfortunes too common to interest anybody.

Her name was Alicia Warlock. She had been born and bred a lady. She had lost her station, her character, and her friends. Virtue shuddered at the sight of her; and Vice had got her for the rest of her days. Shocking and common, as I told you. It made no difference to
me.
I have said it already — I say it again — I was a man bewitched. Is there anything so very wonderful in that? Just remember who I was. Among the honest women in my own station in life, where could I have found the like of
her?
Could
they
walk as she walked? and look as she looked? When
they
gave me a kiss, did their lips linger over it as hers did? Had
they
her skin, her laugh, her foot, her hand, her touch?
She
never had a speck of dirt on her: I tell you her flesh was a perfume. When she embraced me, her arms folded round me like the wings of angels; and her smile covered me softly with its light like the sun in heaven. I leave you to laugh at me, or to cry over me, just as your temper may incline. I am not trying to excuse myself — I am trying to explain. You are gentlefolks; what dazzled and maddened
me,
is everyday experience to
you.
Fallen or not, angel or devil, it came to this — she was a lady; and I was a groom.