Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1729 page)

Before long, some of the objections to taking him into our employment, which I had foreseen and had vainly mentioned to my wife, forced themselves on our attention in no very agreeable form.

Francis Raven failed (as I had feared he would) to get on smoothly with his fellow-servants. They were all French; and not one of them understood English. Francis, on his side, was equally ignorant of French. His reserved manners, his melancholy temperament, his solitary ways — all told against him. Our servants called him “the English Bear.” He grew widely known in the neighbourhood under his nick-name. Quarrels took place, ending once or twice in blows. It became plain, even to Mrs. Fairbank herself, that some wise change must be made. While we were still considering what the change was to be, the unfortunate ostler was thrown on our hands for some time to come by an accident in the stables. Still pursued by his proverbial ill-luck, the poor wretch’s leg was broken by a kick from a horse.

He was attended to by our own surgeon, in his comfortable bedroom at the stables. As the date of his birthday drew near he was still confined to his bed.

Physically speaking, he was doing very well. Morally speaking, the surgeon was not satisfied. Francis Raven was suffering under some mysterious mental disturbance, which interfered seriously with his rest at night. Hearing this, I thought it my duty to tell the medical attendant what was preying on the patient’s mind. As a practical man, he shared my opinion that the ostler was in a state of delusion on the subject of his Wife and his Dream. “Curable delusion, in my opinion,” the surgeon added, “if the experiment could be fairly tried.”

“How can it be tried?” I asked.

Instead of replying, the surgeon put a question to me, on his side.

“Do you happen to know,” he said, “that this year is Leap Year?”

“Mrs. Fairbank reminded me of it yesterday,” I answered. “Otherwise I might
not
have known it.”

“Do you think Francis Raven knows that this year is Leap Year?”

(I began to see dimly what my friend was driving at.)

“It depends,” I answered, “on whether he has got an English almanack. Suppose he has
not
got the almanack — what then?”

“In that case,” pursued the surgeon, “Francis Raven is innocent of all suspicion that there is a twenty-ninth day in February this year. As a necessary consequence — what will he do? He will anticipate the appearance of the Woman with the Knife, at two in the morning on the twenty-ninth of February, instead of the first of March. Let him suffer all his superstitious terrors on the wrong day. Leave him, on the day that is really his birthday, to pass a perfectly quiet night, and to be as sound asleep as other people at two in the morning. And then, when he wakes comfortably in time for his breakfast, shame him out of his delusion by telling him the truth.”

I agreed to try the experiment. Leaving the surgeon to caution Mrs. Fairbank on the subject of Leap Year, I went to the stables to see Francis Raven.

XV.

The poor fellow was full of forebodings of the fate in store for him on the ominous first of March. He eagerly entreated me to order one of the men-servants to sit up with him on the birthday morning. In granting his request, I asked him to tell me on which day of the week his birthday fell. He reckoned the days on his fingers; and proved his innocence of all suspicion that it was Leap Year by fixing on the twenty-ninth of February, in the full persuasion that it was the first of March. Pledged to try the surgeon’s experiment, I left his error uncorrected, of course. In so doing, I took my first step blindfold towards the last act in the drama of the Ostler’s Dream.

The next day brought with it a little domestic difficulty, which indirectly and strangely associated itself with the coming end.

My wife received a letter, inviting us to assist in celebrating the “Silver Wedding” of two worthy German neighbours of ours — Mr. and Mrs. Beldheimer. Mr. Beldheimer was a large wine-grower on the banks of the Moselle. His house was situated on the frontier-line of France and Germany; and the distance from our house was sufficiently considerable to make it necessary for us to sleep under our host’s roof. Under these circumstances, if we accepted the invitation, a comparison of dates showed that we should be away from home on the morning of the first of March. Mrs. Fairbank — holding to her absurd resolution to see with her own eyes what might, or might not, happen to Francis Raven on his birthday — flatly declined to leave Maison Rouge. “It’s easy to send an excuse,” she said, in her off-hand manner.

I failed, for my part, to see any easy way out of the difficulty. The celebration of a “Silver Wedding” in Germany, is the celebration of twenty-five years of happy married life; and the host’s claim upon the consideration of his friends on such an occasion is something in the nature of a Royal “command.” After considerable discussion, finding my wife’s obstinacy invincible, and feeling that the absence of both of us from the festival would certainly offend our friends, I left Mrs. Fairbank to make her excuses for herself, and directed her to accept the invitation so far as I was concerned. In so doing, I took my second step, blindfold, towards the last act in the drama of the Ostler’s Dream.

A week elapsed; the last days of February were at hand. Another domestic difficulty happened; and, again, this event also proved to be strangely associated with the coming end.

My head groom at the stables was one Joseph Rigobert. He was an ill-conditioned fellow, inordinately vain of his personal appearance, and by no means scrupulous in his conduct with women. His one virtue consisted in his fondness for horses, and in the care he took of the animals under his charge. In a word, he was too good a groom to be easily replaced, or he would have quitted my service long since. On the occasion of which I am now writing, he was reported to me by my steward as growing idle and disorderly in his habits. The principal offence alleged against him was, that he had been seen that day in the city of Metz, in the company of a woman (supposed to be an Englishwoman), whom he was entertaining at a tavern, when he ought to have been on his way back to Maison Rouge. The man’s defence was that “the lady” (as he called her) was an English stranger, unacquainted with the ways of the place, and that he had only shown her where she could obtain some refreshment at her own request. I administered the necessary reprimand, without troubling myself to enquire further into the matter. In failing to do this, I took my third step, blindfold, towards the last act in the drama of the Ostler’s Dream.

On the evening of the twenty-eighth, I informed the servants at the stables that one of them must watch through the night by the Englishman’s bedside. Joseph Rigobert immediately volunteered for the duty — as a means, no doubt, of winning his way back to my favour. I accepted his proposal.

That day, the surgeon dined with us. Towards midnight he and I left the smoking-room, and repaired to Francis Raven’s bed-side. Rigobert was at his post, with no very agreeable expression on his face. The Frenchman and the Englishman had evidently not got on well together, so far. Francis Raven lay helpless on his bed, waiting silently for two in the morning, and the Dream-Woman.

“I have come, Francis, to bid you good night,” I said, cheerfully. “To-morrow morning I shall look in at breakfast time, before I leave home on a journey.”

“Thank you for all your kindness, sir. You will not see me alive to-morrow morning. She will find me this time. Mark my words — she will find me this time.”

“My good fellow! she couldn’t find you in England. How in the world is she to find you in France?”

“It’s borne in on my mind, sir, that she will find me here. At two in the morning on my birthday I shall see her again, and see her for the last time.”

“Do you mean that she will kill you?”

“I mean that, sir. She will kill me — with the knife.”

“And with Rigobert in the room to protect you?”

“I am a doomed man. Fifty Rigoberts couldn’t protect me.”

“And yet you wanted somebody to sit up with you?”

“Mere weakness, sir. I don’t like to be left alone on my death-bed.”

I looked at the surgeon. If he had encouraged me, I should certainly, out of sheer compassion, have confessed to Francis Raven the trick that we were playing him. The surgeon held to his experiment; the surgeon’s face plainly said — ”No.”

The next day (the twenty-ninth of February) was the day of the “Silver Wedding.” The first thing in the morning, I went to Francis Raven’s room. Rigobert met me at the door.

“How has he passed the night?” I asked.

“Saying his prayers, and looking for ghosts,” Rigobert answered. “A lunatic asylum is the only proper place for him.”

I approached the bedside. “Well, Francis, here you are, safe and sound, in spite of what you said to me last night.”

His eyes rested on mine with a vacant, wondering look.

“I don’t understand it,” he said.

“Did you see anything of your wife when the clock struck two?”

“No, sir.”

“Did anything happen?”

“Nothing happened, sir.”

“Doesn’t
this
satisfy you that you were wrong?”

His eyes still kept their vacant, wondering look. He only repeated the words he had spoken already:

“I don’t understand it.”

I made a last attempt to cheer him. “Come, come, Francis! keep a good heart. You will be out of bed in a fortnight.”

He shook his head on the pillow. “There’s something wrong,” he said. “I don’t expect you to believe me, sir. I only say, there’s something wrong — and time will show it.”

I left the room. Half an hour later I started for Mr. Beldheimer’s house; leaving the arrangements for the morning of the first of March in the hands of the doctor and my wife.

XVI.

The one thing which principally struck me when I joined the guests at the “Silver Wedding,” is also, the one thing which it is necessary to mention here. On this joyful occasion a noticeable lady present was out of spirits. That lady was no other than the heroine of the festival, the mistress of the house!

In the course of the evening I spoke to Mr. Beldheimer’s eldest son on the subject of his mother. As an old friend of the family, I had a claim on his confidence which the young man willingly recognised.

“We have had a very disagreeable matter to deal with,” he said; “and my mother has not recovered the painful impression left on her mind. Many years since, when my sisters were children, we had an English governess in the house. She left us, as we then understood, to be married. We heard no more of her until a week or ten days since, when my mother received a letter, in which our ex-governess described herself as being in a condition of great poverty and distress. After much hesitation she had ventured — at the suggestion of a lady who had been kind to her — to write to her former employers, and to appeal to their remembrance of old times. You know my mother: she is not only the most kind-hearted, but the most innocent of women — it is impossible to persuade her of the wickedness that there is in the world. She replied by return of post, inviting the governess to come here and see her, and enclosing the money for her travelling expenses. When my father came home, and heard what had been done, he wrote at once to his agent in London to make enquiries, enclosing the address on the governess’s letter. Before he could receive the agent’s reply the governess arrived. She produced the worst possible impression on his mind. The agent’s letter, arriving a few days later, confirmed his suspicions. Since we had lost sight of her, the woman had led a most disreputable life. My father spoke to her privately: he offered — on condition of her leaving the house — a sum of money to take her back to England. If she refused, the alternative would be an appeal to the authorities and a public scandal. She accepted the money, and left the house. On her way back to England she appears to have stopped at Metz. You will understand what sort of woman she is, when I tell you that she was seen the other day in a tavern with your handsome groom, Joseph Rigobert.”

While my informant was relating these circumstances, my memory was at work. I recalled what Francis Raven had vaguely told us of his wife’s experience in former days, as governess in a German family. A suspicion of the truth suddenly flashed across my mind.