Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1034 page)

Regina started: her eyes opened widely, and rested on Amelius with an expression of incredulous wonder. “Married in a fortnight?” she repeated. “What would my uncle and aunt say?”

“My angel, our happiness doesn’t depend on your uncle and aunt — our happiness depends on ourselves. Nobody has any power to control us. I am a man, and you are a woman; and we have a right to be married whenever we like.” Amelius pronounced this last oracular sentence with his head held high, and a pleasant inner persuasion of the convincing manner in which he had stated his case.

“Without my uncle to give me away!” Regina exclaimed. “Without my aunt! With no bridesmaids, and no friends, and no wedding-breakfast! Oh, Amelius, what
can
you be thinking of?” She drew back a step, and looked at him in helpless consternation.

For the moment, and the moment only, Amelius lost all patience with her. “If you really loved me,” he said bitterly, “you wouldn’t think of the bridesmaids and the breakfast!” Regina had her answer ready in her pocket — she took out her handkerchief. Before she could lift it to her eyes, Amelius recovered himself. “No, no,” he said, “I didn’t mean that — I am sure you love me — take my arm again. Do you know, Regina, I doubt whether your uncle has told you everything that passed between us. Are you really aware of the hard terms that he insists on? He expects me to increase my five hundred a year to two thousand, before he will sanction our marriage.”

“Yes, dear, he told me that.”

“I have as much chance of earning fifteen hundred a year, Regina, as I have of being made King of England. Did he tell you
that?”

“He doesn’t agree with you, dear — he thinks you might earn it (with your abilities) in ten years.”

This time it was the turn of Amelius to look at Regina in helpless consternation. “Ten years?” he repeated. “Do you coolly contemplate waiting ten years before we are married? Good heavens! is it possible that you are thinking of the money? that
you
can’t live without carriages and footmen, and ostentation and grandeur — ?”

He stopped. For once, even Regina showed that she had spirit enough to be angry. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself to speak to me in that way!” she broke out indignantly. “If you have no better opinion of me than that, I won’t marry you at all — no, not if you had fifty thousand a year, sir, to-morrow! Am I to have no sense of duty to my uncle — to the good man who has been a second father to me? Do you think I am ungrateful enough to set his wishes at defiance? Oh yes, I know you don’t like him! I know that a great many people don’t like him. That doesn’t make any difference to Me! But for dear uncle Farnaby, I might have gone to the workhouse, I might have been a starving needlewoman, a poor persecuted maid-of-all-work. Am I to forget that, because you have no patience, and only think of yourself? Oh, I wish I had never met with you! I wish I had never been fool enough to be as fond of you as I am!” With that confession, she turned her back on him, and took refuge in her handkerchief once more.

Amelius stood looking at her in silent despair. After the tone in which she had spoken of her obligations to her uncle, it was useless to anticipate any satisfactory result from the exertion of his influence over Regina. Recalling what he had seen and heard, in Mrs. Farnaby’s room, Amelius could not doubt that the motive of pacifying his wife was the motive which had first led Farnaby to receive Regina into his house. Was it unreasonable or unjust to infer, that the orphan child must have been mainly indebted to Mrs. Farnaby’s sense of duty to the memory of her sister for the parental protection afforded to her, from that time forth? It would have been useless, and worse than useless, to place before Regina such considerations as these. Her exaggerated idea of the gratitude that she owed to her uncle was beyond the limited reach of reason. Nothing was to be gained by opposition; and no sensible course was left but to say some peace-making words and submit.

“I beg your pardon, Regina, if I have offended you. You have sadly disappointed me. I haven’t deliberately misjudged you; I can say no more.”

She turned round quickly, and looked at him. There was an ominous change to resignation in his voice, there was a dogged submission in his manner, that alarmed her. She had never yet seen him under the perilously-patient aspect in which he now presented himself, after his apology had been made.

“I forgive you, Amelius, with all my heart,” she said — and timidly held out her hand.

He took it, raised it silently to his lips, and dropped it again.

She suddenly turned pale. All the love that she had in her to give to a man, she had given to Amelius. Her heart sank; she asked herself, in blank terror, if she had lost him.

“I am afraid it is
I
who have offended
you,”
she said. “Don’t be angry with me, Amelius! don’t make me more unhappy than I am!”

“I am not in the least angry,” he answered, still in the quiet subdued way that terrified her. “You can’t expect me, Regina, to contemplate a ten years’ engagement cheerfully.”

She took his hand, and held it in both her own hands — held it, as if his love for her was there and she was determined not to let it go.

“If you will only leave it to me,” she pleaded, “the engagement shan’t be so long as that. Try my uncle with a little kindness and respect, Amelius, instead of saying hard words to him. Or let
me
try him, if you are too proud to give way. May I say that you had no intention of offending him, and that you are willing to leave the future to me?”

“Certainly,” said Amelius, “if you think it will be of the slightest use.” His tone added plainly, “I don’t believe in your uncle, mind, as you do.”

She still persisted. “It will be of the greatest use,” she went on. “He will let me go home again, and he will not object to your coming to see me. He doesn’t like to be despised and set at defiance — who does? Be patient, Amelius; and I will persuade him to expect less money from you — only what you may earn, dear, with your talents, long before ten years have passed.” She waited for a word of reply which might show that she had encouraged him a little. He only smiled. “You talk of loving me,” she said, drawing back from him with a look of reproach; “and you don’t even believe what I say to you.” She stopped, and looked behind her with a faint cry of alarm. Hurried footsteps were audible on the other side of the evergreens that screened them. Amelius stepped back to a turn in the path, and discovered Phoebe.

“Don’t stay a moment longer, sir!” cried the girl. “I’ve been to the house — and Mrs. Ormond isn’t there — and nobody knows where she is. Get out by the gate, sir, while you have the chance.”

Amelius returned to Regina. “I mustn’t get the girl into a scrape,” he said. “You know where to write to me. Good-bye.”

Regina made a sign to the maid to retire. Amelius had never taken leave of her as he was taking leave of her now. She forgot the fervent embrace and the daring kisses — she was desperate at the bare idea of losing him. “Oh, Amelius, don’t doubt that I love you! Say you believe I love you! Kiss me before you go!”

He kissed her — but, ah, not as he had kissed her before. He said the words she wanted him to say — but only to please her, not with all his heart. She let him go; reproaches would be wasted at that moment.

Phoebe found her pale and immovable, rooted to the spot on which they had parted. “Dear, dear me, miss, what’s gone wrong?”

And her mistress answered wildly, in words that had never before passed her placid lips, “O Phoebe, I wish I was dead!”

Such was the impression left on the mind of Regina by the interview in the shrubbery.

The impression left on the mind of Amelius was stated in equally strong language, later in the day. His American friend asked innocently for news, and was answered in these terms:

“Find something to occupy my mind, Rufus, or I shall throw the whole thing over and go to the devil.”

The wise man from New England was too wise to trouble Amelius with questions, under these circumstances. “Is that so?” was all he said. Then he put his hand in his pocket, and, producing a letter, laid it quietly on the table.

“For me?” Amelius asked.

“You wanted something to occupy your mind,” the wily Rufus answered. “There ‘tis.”

Amelius read the letter. It was dated, “Hampden Institution.” The secretary invited Amelius, in highly complimentary terms, to lecture, in the hall of the Institution, on Christian Socialism as taught and practised in the Community at Tadmor. He was offered two-thirds of the profits derived from the sale of places, and was left free to appoint his own evening (at a week’s notice) and to issue his own advertisements. Minor details were reserved to be discussed with the secretary, when the lecturer had consented to the arrangement proposed to him.

Having finished the letter, Amelius looked at his friend. “This is your doing,” he said.

Rufus admitted it, with his customary candour. He had a letter of introduction to the secretary, and he had called by appointment that morning. The Institution wanted something new to attract the members and the public. Having no present intention of lecturing himself, he had thought of Amelius, and had spoken his thought. “I mentioned,” Rufus added slyly, “that I didn’t reckon you would mount the platform. But he’s a sanguine creature, that secretary — and he said he’d try.”

“Why should I say No?” Amelius asked, a little irritably. “The secretary pays me a compliment, and offers me an opportunity of spreading our principles. Perhaps,” he added, more quietly, after a moment’s reflection, “you thought I might not be equal to the occasion — and, in that case, I don’t say you were wrong.”

Rufus shook his head. “If you had passed your life in this decrepit little island,” he replied, “I might have doubted you, likely enough. But Tadmor’s situated in the United States. If they don’t practise the boys in the art of orating, don’t you tell me there’s an American citizen with a voice in
that
society. Guess again, my son. You won’t? Well, then, ‘twas uncle Farnaby I had in my mind. I said to myself — not to the secretary — Amelius is bound to consider uncle Farnaby. Oh, my! what would uncle Farnaby say?”

The hot temper of Amelius took fire instantly. “What the devil do I care for Farnaby’s opinions?” he burst out. “If there’s a man in England who wants the principles of Christian Socialism beaten into his thick head, it’s Farnaby. Are you going to see the secretary again?”

“I might look in,” Rufus answered, “in the course of the evening.”

“Tell him I’ll give the lecture — with my compliments and thanks. If I can only succeed,” pursued Amelius, hearing himself with the new idea, “I may make a name as a lecturer, and a name means money, and money means beating Farnaby with his own weapons. It’s an opening for me, Rufus, at the crisis of my life.”

“That is so,” Rufus admitted. “I may as well look up the secretary.”

“Why shouldn’t I go with you?” Amelius suggested.

“Why not?” Rufus agreed.

They left the house together.

BOOK THE FIFTH. THE FATAL LECTURE

CHAPTER 1

Late that night Amelius sat alone in his room, making notes for the lecture which he had now formally engaged himself to deliver in a week’s time.

Thanks to his American education (as Rufus had supposed), he had not been without practice in the art of public speaking. He had learnt to face his fellow-creatures in the act of oratory, and to hear the sound of his own voice in a silent assembly, without trembling from head to foot. English newspapers were regularly sent to Tadmor, and English politics were frequently discussed in the little parliament of the Community. The prospect of addressing a new audience, with their sympathies probably against him at the outset, had its terrors undoubtedly. But the more formidable consideration, to the mind of Amelius, was presented by the limits imposed on him in the matter of time. The lecture was to be succeeded (at the request of a clerical member of the Institution) by a public discussion; and the secretary’s experience suggested that the lecturer would do well to reduce his address within the compass of an hour. “Socialism is a large subject to be squeezed into that small space,” Amelius had objected. And the secretary sighed, and answered, “They won’t listen any longer.”