Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1479 page)
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Authors: Wilkie Collins
He hurried me into the little parlour (always kept with a slow fire in it and no poker), where posting company waited while their horses were putting to, and, shutting the door, said:
“Charley, forgive me!”
“Edwin!” I returned. “Was this well? When I loved her so dearly! When I had garnered up my heart so long!” I could say no more.
He was shocked when he saw how moved I was, and made the cruel observation, that he had not thought I should have taken it so much to heart.
I looked at him. I reproached him no more. But I looked at him. “My dear, dear Charley,” said he, “don’t think ill of me, I beseech you! I know you have a right to my utmost confidence, and, believe me, you have ever had it until now. I abhor secrecy. Its meanness is intolerable to me. But I and my dear girl have observed it for your sake.”
He and his dear girl! It steeled me.
“You have observed it for my sake, sir?” said I, wondering how his frank face could face it out so.
“Yes! — and Angela’s,” said he.
I found the room reeling round in an uncertain way, like a labouring, humming-top. “Explain yourself,” said I, holding on by one hand to an arm-chair.
“Dear old darling Charley!” returned Edwin, in his cordial manner, “consider! When you were going on so happily with Angela, why should I compromise you with the old gentleman by making you a party to our engagement, and (after he had declined my proposals) to our secret intention? Surely it was better that you should be able honourably to say, ‘He never took counsel with me, never told me, never breathed a word of it.’ If Angela suspected it, and showed me all the favour and support she could — God bless her for a precious creature and a priceless wife! — I couldn’t help that. Neither I nor Emmeline ever told her, any more than we told you. And for the same good reason, Charley; trust me, for the same good reason, and no other upon earth!”
Emmeline was Angela’s cousin. Lived with her. Had been brought up with her. Was her father’s ward. Had property.
“Emmeline is in the chaise, my dear Edwin!” said I, embracing him with the greatest affection.
“My good fellow!” said he, “do you suppose I should be going to Gretna Green without her?”
I ran out with Edwin, I opened the chaise door, I took Emmeline in my arms, I folded her to my heart. She was wrapped in soft white fur, like the snowy landscape: but was warm, and young, and lovely. I put their leaders to with my own hands, I gave the boys a five-pound note apiece, I cheered them as they drove away, I drove the other way myself as hard as I could pelt.
I never went to Liverpool, I never went to America, I went straight back to London, and I married Angela. I have never until this time, even to her, disclosed the secret of my character, and the mistrust and the mistaken journey into which it led me. When she, and they, and our eight children and their seven — I mean Edwin and Emmeline’s, whose oldest girl is old enough now to wear white for herself, and to look very like her mother in it — come to read these pages, as of course they will, I shall hardly fail to be found out at last. Never mind! I can bear it. I began at the Holly-Tree, by idle accident, to associate the Christmas time of year with human interest, and with some inquiry into, and some care for, the lives of those by whom I find myself surrounded. I hope that I am none the worse for it, and that no one near me or afar off is the worse for it. And I say, May the green Holly-Tree flourish, striking its roots deep into our English ground, and having its germinating qualities carried by the birds of Heaven all over the world!
First published in 1856, this collection of short stories are linked by the longer story of Leah, itself a substantial work.
AFTER THE DARK
CONTENTS
THE TRAVELER’S STORY OF A TERRIBLY STRANGE BED.
THE LAWYER’S STORY OF A STOLEN LETTER.
THE FRENCH GOVERNESS’S STORY OF SISTER ROSE.
THE ANGLER’S STORY of THE LADY OF GLENWITH GRANGE.
THE NUN’S STORY OF GABRIEL’S MARRIAGE
THE PROFESSOR’S STORY OF THE YELLOW MASK.
I have taken some pains to string together the various stories contained in this Volume on a single thread of interest, which, so far as I know, has at least the merit of not having been used before.
The pages entitled “Leah’s Diary” are, however, intended to fulfill another purpose besides that of serving as the frame-work for my collection of tales. In this part of the book, and subsequently in the Prologues to the stories, it has been my object to give the reader one more glimpse at that artist-life which circumstances have afforded me peculiar opportunities of studying, and which I have already tried to represent, under another aspect, in my fiction, “Hide-and-Seek.” This time I wish to ask some sympathy for the joys and sorrows of a poor traveling portrait-painter — presented from his wife’s point of view in “Leah’s Diary,” and supposed to be briefly and simply narrated by himself in the Prologues to the stories. I have purposely kept these two portions of the book within certain limits; only giving, in the one case, as much as the wife might naturally write in her diary at intervals of household leisure; and, in the other, as much as a modest and sensible man would be likely to say about himself and about the characters he met with in his wanderings. If I have been so fortunate as to make my idea intelligible by this brief and simple mode of treatment, and if I have, at the same time, achieved the necessary object of gathering several separate stories together as neatly-fitting parts of one complete whole, I shall have succeeded in a design which I have for some time past been very anxious creditably to fulfill.
