Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (887 page)

“Does your ladyship mean that Miss Roseberry is in bed?” he asked.

“I mean that Miss Roseberry is in her room. I mean that I have twice tried to persuade Miss Roseberry to dress and come downstairs, and tried in vain. I mean that what Miss Roseberry refuses to do for Me, she is not likely to do for You — ”

How many more meanings of her own Lady Janet might have gone on enumerating, it is not easy to calculate. At her third sentence a sound in the library caught her ear through the incompletely closed door and suspended the next words on her lips. Horace heard it also. It was the rustling sound (traveling nearer and nearer over the library carpet) of a silken dress.

(In the interval while a coming event remains in a state of uncertainty, what is it the inevitable tendency of every Englishman under thirty to do? His inevitable tendency is to ask somebody to bet on the event. He can no more resist it than he can resist lifting his stick or his umbrella, in the absence of a gun, and pretending to shoot if a bird flies by him while he is out for a walk.)

“What will your ladyship bet that this is not Grace?” cried Horace.

Her ladyship took no notice of the proposal; her attention remained fixed on the library door. The rustling sound stopped for a moment. The door was softly pushed open. The false Grace Roseberry entered the room.

Horace advanced to meet her, opened his lips to speak, and stopped — struck dumb by the change in his affianced wife since he had seen her last. Some terrible oppression seemed to have crushed her. It was as if she had actually shrunk in height as well as in substance. She walked more slowly than usual; she spoke more rarely than usual, and in a lower tone. To those who had seen her before the fatal visit of the stranger from Mannheim, it was the wreck of the woman that now appeared instead of the woman herself. And yet there was the old charm still surviving through it all; the grandeur of the head and eyes, the delicate symmetry of the features, the unsought grace of every movement — in a word, the unconquerable beauty which suffering cannot destroy, and which time itself is powerless to wear out. Lady Janet advanced, and took her with hearty kindness by both hands.

“My dear child, welcome among us again! You have come down stairs to please me?”

She bent her head in silent acknowledgment that it was so. Lady Janet pointed to Horace: “Here is somebody who has been longing to see you, Grace.”

She never looked up; she stood submissive, her eyes fixed on a little basket of coloured wools which hung on her arm. “Thank you, Lady Janet,” she said, faintly. “Thank you, Horace.”

Horace placed her arm in his, and led her to the sofa. She shivered as she took her seat, and looked round her. It was the first time she had seen the dining-room since the day when she had found herself face to face with the dead-alive.

“Why do you come here, my love?” asked Lady Janet. “The drawing-room would have been a warmer and a pleasanter place for you.”

“I saw a carriage at the front door. I was afraid of meeting with visitors in the drawing-room.”

As she made that reply, the servant came in, and announced the visitors’ names. Lady Janet sighed wearily. “I must go and get rid of them,” she said, resigning herself to circumstances. “What will
you
do, Grace?”

“I will stay here, if you please.”

“I will keep her company,” added Horace.

Lady Janet hesitated. She had promised to see her nephew in the dining-room on his return to the house — and to see him alone. Would there be time enough to get rid of the visitors and to establish her adopted daughter in the empty drawing-room before Julian appeared? It was ten minutes’ walk to the lodge, and he had to make the gate-keeper understand his instructions. Lady Janet decided that she had time enough at her disposal. She nodded kindly to Mercy, and left her alone with her lover.

Horace seated himself in the vacant place on the sofa. So far as it was in his nature to devote himself to any one he was devoted to Mercy. “I am grieved to see how you have suffered,” he said, with honest distress in his face as he looked at her. “Try to forget what has happened.”

“I am trying to forget. Do
you
think of it much?”

“My darling, it is too contemptible to be thought of.”

She placed her work-basket on her lap. Her wasted fingers began absently sorting the wools inside.

“Have you seen Mr. Julian Gray?” she asked, suddenly.

“Yes.”

“What does
he
say about it?” She looked at Horace for the first time, steadily scrutinizing his face. Horace took refuge in prevarication.

“I really haven’t asked for Julian’s opinion,” he said.

She looked down again, with a sigh, at the basket on her lap — considered a little — and tried him once more.

“Why has Mr. Julian Gray not been here for a whole week?” she went on. “The servants say he has been abroad. Is that true?”

It was useless to deny it. Horace admitted that the servants were right.

Her fingers, suddenly stopped at their restless work among the wools; her breath quickened perceptibly. What had Julian Gray been doing abroad? Had he been making inquiries? Did he alone, of all the people who saw that terrible meeting, suspect her? Yes! His was the finer intelligence; his was a clergyman’s (a London clergyman’s) experience of frauds and deceptions, and of the women who were guilty of them. Not a doubt of it now! Julian suspected her.

“When does he come back?” she asked, in tones so low that Horace could barely hear her.

“He has come back already. He returned last night.”

A faint shade of colour stole slowly over the pallor of her face. She suddenly put her basket away, and clasped her hands together to quiet the trembling of them, before she asked her next question.

“Where is — ” She paused to steady her voice. “Where is the person,” she resumed, “who came here and frightened me?”

Horace hastened to re-assure her. “The person will not come again,” he said. “Don’t talk of her! Don’t think of her!”

She shook her head. “There is something I want to know,” she persisted. “How did Mr. Julian Gray become acquainted with her?”

This was easily answered. Horace mentioned the consul at Mannheim, and the letter of introduction. She listened eagerly, and said her next words in a louder, firmer tone.

“She was quite a stranger, then, to Mr. Julian Gray — before that?”

“Quite a stranger,” Horace replied. “No more questions — not another word about her, Grace! I forbid the subject. Come, my own love!” he said, taking her hand and bending over her tenderly, “rally your spirits! We are young — we love each other — now is our time to be happy!”

Her hand turned suddenly cold, and trembled in his. Her head sank with a helpless weariness on her breast. Horace rose in alarm.

“You are cold — you are faint,” he said. “Let me get you a glass of wine! — let me mend the fire!”

The decanters were still on the luncheon-table. Horace insisted on her drinking some port-wine. She barely took half the contents of the wine-glass. Even that little told on her sensitive organisation; it roused her sinking energies of body and mind. After watching her anxiously, without attracting her notice, Horace left her again to attend to the fire at the other end of the room. Her eyes followed him slowly with a hard and tearless despair. “Rally your spirits,” she repeated to herself in a whisper. “My spirits! O God!” She looked round her at the luxury and beauty of the room, as those look who take their leave of familiar scenes. The moment after, her eyes sank, and rested on the rich dress that she wore a gift from Lady Janet. She thought of the past; she thought of the future. Was the time near when she would be back again in the Refuge, or back again in the streets? — she who had been Lady Janet’s adopted daughter, and Horace Holmcroft’s betrothed wife! A sudden frenzy of recklessness seized on her as she thought of the coming end. Horace was right! Why not rally her spirits? Why not make the most of her time? The last hours of her life in that house were at hand. Why not enjoy her stolen position while she could? “Adventuress!” whispered the mocking spirit within her, “be true to your character. Away with your remorse! Remorse is the luxury of an honest woman.” She caught up her basket of wools, inspired by a new idea. “Ring the bell!” she cried out to Horace at the fire-place.

He looked round in wonder. The sound of her voice was so completely altered that he almost fancied there must have been another woman in the room.

“Ring the bell!” she repeated. “I have left my work upstairs. If you want me to be in good spirits, I must have my work.”

Still looking at her, Horace put his hand mechanically to the bell and rang. One of the men-servants came in.

“Go upstairs and ask my maid for my work,” she said, sharply. Even the man was taken by surprise: it was her habit to speak to the servants with a gentleness and consideration which had long since won all their hearts. “Do you hear me?” she asked, impatiently. The servant bowed, and went out on his errand. She turned to Horace with flashing eyes and fevered cheeks.

“What a comfort it is,” she said, “to belong to the upper classes! A poor woman has no maid to dress her, and no footman to send upstairs. Is life worth having, Horace, on less than five thousand a year?”

The servant returned with a strip of embroidery. She took it with an insolent grace, and told him to bring her a footstool. The man obeyed. She tossed the embroidery away from her on the sofa. “On second thoughts, I don’t care about my work,” she said. “Take it upstairs again.” The perfectly trained servant, marveling privately, obeyed once more. Horace, in silent astonishment, advanced to the sofa to observe her more nearly. “How grave you look!” she exclaimed, with an air of flippant unconcern. “You don’t approve of my sitting idle, perhaps? Anything to please you!
I
haven’t got to go up and downstairs. Ring the bell again.”

“My dear Grace,” Horace remonstrated, gravely, “you are quite mistaken. I never even thought of your work.”

“Never mind; it’s inconsistent to send for my work, and then send it away again. Ring the bell.”

Horace looked at her without moving. “Grace,” he said, “what has come to you?”

“How should I know?” she retorted, carelessly. “Didn’t you tell me to rally my spirits? Will you ring the bell, or must I?”

Horace submitted. He frowned as he walked back to the bell. He was one of the many people who instinctively resent anything that is new to them. This strange outbreak was quite new to him. For the first time in his life he felt sympathy for a servant, when the much-enduring man appeared once more.

“Bring my work back; I have changed my mind.” With that brief explanation she reclined luxuriously on the soft sofa-cushions, swinging one of her balls of wool to and fro above her head, and looking at it lazily as she lay back. “I have a remark to make, Horace,” she went on, when the door had closed on her messenger. “It is only people in our rank of life who get good servants. Did you notice? Nothing upsets that man’s temper. A servant in a poor family should have been impudent; a maid-of-all-work would have wondered when I was going to know my own mind.” The man returned with the embroidery. This time she received him graciously; she dismissed him with her thanks. “Have you seen your mother lately, Horace?” she asked, suddenly sitting up and busying herself with her work.

“I saw her yesterday,” Horace answered.

“She understands, I hope, that I am not well enough to call on her? She is not offended with me?”

Horace recovered his serenity. The deference to his mother implied in Mercy’s questions gently flattered his self-esteem. He resumed his place on the sofa.

“Offended with you!” he answered, smiling. “My dear Grace, she sends you her love. And, more than that, she has a wedding present for you.”

Mercy became absorbed in her work; she stooped close over the embroidery — so close that Horace could not see her face. “Do you know what the present is?” she asked, in lowered tones, speaking absently.