Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1899 page)

“It is enough for to-day that we understand each other,” she said. “Have you any engagement to-morrow, after the hours of business?”

“None.”

She pointed to her card on the writing-table. “Will you come to me to-morrow evening at that address? I am like the gentleman who has just called; I, too, have my reason for wishing to see you.”

He gladly accepted the invitation. Mrs. Callender stopped him as he opened the door for her.

“Shall I offend you,” she said, “if I ask a strange question before I go? I have a better motive, mind, than mere curiosity. Are you married?”

“No.”

“Forgive me again,” she resumed. “At my age, you cannot possibly misunderstand me; and yet — ”

She hesitated. Mr. Lismore tried to give her confidence. “Pray don’t stand on ceremony, Mrs. Callender. Nothing that
you
can ask me need be prefaced by an apology.”

Thus encouraged, she ventured to proceed.

“You may be engaged to be married?” she suggested. “Or you may be in love?”

He found it impossible to conceal his surprise. But he answered without hesitation.

“There is no such bright prospect in
my
life,” he said. “I am not even in love.”

She left him with a little sigh. It sounded like a sigh of relief.

Ernest Lismore was thoroughly puzzled. What could be the old lady’s object in ascertaining that he was still free from a matrimonial engagement? If the idea had occurred to him in time, he might have alluded to her domestic life, and might have asked if she had children? With a little tact he might have discovered more than this. She had described her feeling toward him as passing the ordinary limits of gratitude; and she was evidently rich enough to be above the imputation of a mercenary motive. Did she propose to brighten those dreary prospects to which he had alluded in speaking of his own life? When he presented himself at her house the next evening, would she introduce him to a charming daughter?

He smiled as the idea occurred to him. “An appropriate time to be thinking of my chances of marriage!” he said to himself. “In another month I may be a ruined man.”

III.

THE gentleman who had so urgently requested an interview was a devoted friend — who had obtained a means of helping Ernest at a serious crisis in his affairs.

It had been truly reported that he was in a position of pecuniary embarrassment, owing to the failure of a mercantile house with which he had been intimately connected. Whispers affecting his own solvency had followed on the bankruptcy of the firm. He had already endeavored to obtain advances of money on the usual conditions, and had been met by excuses for delay. His friend had now arrived with a letter of introduction to a capitalist, well known in commercial circles for his daring speculations and for his great wealth.

Looking at the letter, Ernest observed that the envelope was sealed. In spite of that ominous innovation on established usage, in cases of personal introduction, he presented the letter. On this occasion, he was not put off with excuses. The capitalist flatly declined to discount Mr. Lismore’s bills, unless they were backed by responsible names.

Ernest made a last effort.

He applied for help to two mercantile men whom he had assisted in
their
difficulties, and whose names would have satisfied the money-lender. They were most sincerely sorry — but they, too, refused.

The one security that he could offer was open, it must be owned, to serious objections on the score of risk. He wanted an advance of twenty thousand pounds, secured on a homeward-bound ship and cargo. But the vessel was not insured; and, at that stormy season, she was already more than a month overdue. Could grateful colleagues be blamed if they forgot their obligations when they were asked to offer pecuniary help to a merchant in this situation? Ernest returned to his office, without money and without credit.

A man threatened by ruin is in no state of mind to keep an engagement at a lady’s tea-table. Ernest sent a letter of apology to Mrs. Call ender, alleging extreme pressure of business as the excuse for breaking his engagement.

“Am I to wait for an answer, sir?” the messenger asked.

“No; you are merely to leave the letter.”

IV.

IN an hour’s time — to Ernest’s astonishment — the messenger returned with a reply.

“The lady was just going out, sir, when I rang at the door,” he explained, “and she took the letter from me herself. She didn’t appear to know your handwriting, and she asked me who I came from. When I mentioned your name, I was ordered to wait.”

Ernest opened the letter.

“DEAR MR. LISMORE — One of us must speak out, and your letter of apology forces me to be that one. If you are really so proud and so distrustfull as you seem to be, I shall offend you. If not, I shall prove myself to be your friend.

“Your excuse is ‘pressure of business.’ The truth (as I have good reason to believe) is ‘want of money.’ I heard a stranger, at that public meeting, say that you were seriously embarrassed by some failure in the City.

“Let me tell you what my own pecuniary position is in two words. I am the childless widow of a rich man — ”

Ernest paused. His anticipated discovery of Mrs. Callender’s “charming daughter” was in his mind for the moment. “That little romance must return to the world of dreams,” he thought — and went on with the letter.

“After what I owe to you, I don’t regard it as repaying an obligation — I consider myself as merely performing a duty when I offer to assist you by a loan of money.

“Wait a little before you throw my letter into the wastepaper basket.

“Circumstances (which it is impossible for me to mention before we meet) put it out of my power to help you — unless I attach to my most sincere offer of service a very unusual and very embarrassing condition. If you are on the brink of ruin, that misfortune will plead my excuse — and your excuse, too, if you accept the loan on my terms. In any case, I rely on the sympathy and forbearance of the man to whom I owe my life.

“After what I have now written, there is only one thing to add. I beg to decline accepting your excuses; and I shall expect to see you tomorrow evening, as we arranged. I am an obstinate old woman — but I am also your faithful friend and servant,

“MARY CALLENDER.”

Ernest looked up from the letter. “What can this possibly mean?” he wondered.

But he was too sensible a man to be content with wondering — he decided on keeping his engagement.

V.

WHAT Doctor Johnson called “the insolence of wealth” appears far more frequently in the houses of the rich than in the manners of the rich. The reason is plain enough. Personal ostentation is, in the very nature of it, ridiculous. But the ostentation which exhibits magnificent pictures, priceless china, and splendid furniture, can purchase good taste to guide it, and can assert itself without affording the smallest opening for a word of depreciation, or a look of contempt. If I am worth a million of money, and if I am dying to show it, I don’t ask you to look at me — I ask you to look at my house.

Keeping his engagement with Mrs. Callender, Ernest discovered that riches might be lavishly and yet modestly used.

In crossing the hall and ascending the stairs, look where he might, his notice was insensibly won by proofs of the taste which is not to be purchased, and the wealth which uses but never exhibits its purse. Conducted by a man-servant to the landing on the first floor, he found a maid at the door of the boudoir waiting to announce him. Mrs. Callender advanced to welcome her guest, in a simple evening dress perfectly suited to her age. All that had looked worn and faded in her fine face, by daylight, was now softly obscured by shaded lamps. Objects of beauty surrounded her, which glowed with subdued radiance from their background of sober colour. The influence of appearances is the strongest of all outward influences, while it lasts. For the moment, the scene produced its impression on Ernest, in spite of the terrible anxieties which consumed him. Mrs. Callender, in his office, was a woman who had stepped out of her appropriate sphere. Mrs. Callender, in her own house, was a woman who had risen to a new place in his estimation.

“I am afraid you don’t thank me for forcing you to keep your engagement,” she said, with her friendly tones and her pleasant smile.

“Indeed I do thank you,” he replied. “Your beautiful house and your gracious welcome have persuaded me into forgetting my troubles — for a while.”

The smile passed away from her face. “Then it is true,” she said gravely.

“Only too true.”

She led him to a seat beside her, and waited to speak again until her maid had brought in the tea.

“Have you read my letter in the same friendly spirit in which I wrote it?” she asked, when they were alone again.

“I have read your letter gratefully, but — ”

“But you don’t know yet what I have to say. Let us understand each other before we make any objections on either side. Will you tell me what your present position is — at its worst? I can and will speak plainly when my turn comes, if you will honour me with your confidence. Not if it distresses you,” she added, observing him attentively.

He was ashamed of his hesitation — and he made amends for it.

“Do you thoroughly understand me?” he asked, when the whole truth had been laid before her without reserve.

She summed up the result in her own words.

“If your overdue ship returns safely, within a month from this time, you can borrow the money you want, without difficulty. If the ship is lost, you have no alternative (when the end of the month comes) but to accept a loan from me or to suspend payment. Is that the hard truth?”

“It is.”

“And the sum you require is — twenty thousand pounds?”

“Yes.”

“I have twenty times as much money as that, Mr. Lismore, at my sole disposal — on one condition.”

“The condition alluded to in your letter?”

“Yes.”

“Does the fulfillment of the condition depend in some way on any decision of mine?”

“It depends entirely on you.”

That answer closed his lips.

With a composed manner and a steady hand she poured herself out a cup of tea.

“I conceal it from you,” she said; “but I want confidence. Here” (she pointed to the cup) “is the friend of women, rich or poor, when they are in trouble. What I have now to say obliges me to speak in praise of myself. I don’t like it — let me get it over as soon as I can. My husband was very fond of me: he had the most absolute confidence in my discretion, and in my sense of duty to him and to myself. His last words, before he died, were words that thanked me for making the happiness of his life. As soon as I had in some degree recovered, after the affliction that had fallen on me, his lawyer and executor produced a copy of his will, and said there were two clauses in it which my husband had expressed a wish that I should read. It is needless to say that I obeyed.”

She still controlled her agitation — but she was now unable to conceal it. Ernest made an attempt to spare her.

“Am I concerned in this?” he asked.

“Yes. Before I tell you why, I want to know what you would do — in a certain case which I am unwilling even to suppose. I have heard of men, unable to pay the demands made on them, who began business again, and succeeded, and in course of time paid their creditors.”

“And you want to know if there is any likelihood of my following their example?” he said. “Have you also heard of men who have made that second effort — who have failed again — and who have doubled the debts they owed to their brethren in business who trusted them? I knew one of those men myself. He committed suicide.”