Man and Wife by Wilkie Collins (easy novels to read txt) 📕

“Do you refuse to marry me?” she asked.

He saw the vile opportunity, and said the vile words.

“You’re married already to Arnold Brinkworth.”

Without a cry to warn him, without an effort to save herself, she dropped senseless at his feet; as her mother had dropped at his father’s feet in the by-gone time.

He disentangled himself from the folds of her dress. “Done!” he said, looking down at her as she lay on the floor.

As the word fell from his lips he was startled by a sound in the inner part of the house. One of the library doors had not been completely closed. Light footsteps were audible, advancing rapidly across the hall.

He turned and fled, leaving the library, as he had entered it, by the open window at the lower end of the room.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND.

GONE.

BLANCHE came in, with a glass of wine in her hand, and saw the swooning woman on the floor.

She was alarmed, but not surprised, as she knelt by Anne, and raised her head. Her own previous observation of her friend necessarily prevented her from being at any loss to account for the fainting fit. The inevitable delay in getting the wine was—naturally to her mind—alone to blame for the result which now met her view.

If she had been less ready in thus tracing the effect to the cause, she might have gone to the window to see if any thing had happened, out-of-doors, to frighten Anne—might have seen Geoffrey before he had time to turn the corner of the house—and, making that one discovery, might have altered the whole course of events, not in her coming life only, but in the coming lives of others. So do we shape our own destinies, blindfold. So do we hold our poor little tenure of happiness at the capricious mercy of Chance. It is surely a blessed delusion which persuades us that we are the highest product of the great scheme of creation, and sets us doubting whether other planets are inhabited, because other planets are not surrounded by an atmosphere which we can breathe!

After trying such simple remedies as were within her reach, and trying them without success, Blanche became seriously alarmed. Anne lay, to all outward appearance, dead in her arms. She was on the point of calling for help—come what might of the discovery which would ensue—when the door from the hall opened once more, and Hester Dethridge entered the room.

The cook had accepted the alternative which her mistress’s message had placed before her, if she insisted on having her own time at her own sole disposal for the rest of that day. Exactly as Lady Lundie had desired, she intimated her resolution to carry her point by placing her account-book on the desk in the library. It was only when this had been done that Blanche received any answer to her entreaties for help. Slowly and deliberately Hester Dethridge walked up to the spot where the young girl knelt with Anne’s head on her bosom, and looked at the two without a trace of human emotion in her stern and stony face.

“Don’t you see what’s happened?” cried Blanche. “Are you alive or dead? Oh, Hester, I can’t bring her to! Look at her! look at her!”

Hester Dethridge looked at her, and shook her head. Looked again, thought for a while and wrote on her slate. Held out the slate over Anne’s body, and showed what she had written:

“Who has done it?”

“You stupid creature!” said Blanche. “Nobody has done it.”

The eyes of Hester Dethridge steadily read the worn white face, telling its own tale of sorrow mutely on Blanche’s breast. The mind of Hester Dethridge steadily looked back at her own knowledge of her own miserable married life. She again returned to writing on her slate—again showed the written words to Blanche.

“Brought to it by a man. Let her be—and God will take her.”

“You horrid unfeeling woman! how dare you write such an abominable thing!” With this natural outburst of indignation, Blanche looked back at Anne; and, daunted by the death-like persistency of the swoon, appealed again to the mercy of the immovable woman who was looking down at her. “Oh, Hester! for Heaven’s sake help me!”

The cook dropped her slate at her side. and bent her head gravely in sign that she submitted. She motioned to Blanche to loosen Anne’s dress, and then—kneeling on one knee—took Anne to support her while it was being done.

The instant Hester Dethridge touched her, the swooning woman gave signs of life.

A faint shudder ran through her from head to foot—her eyelids trembled—half opened for a moment—and closed again. As they closed, a low sigh fluttered feebly from her lips.

Hester Dethridge put her back in Blanche’s arms—considered a little with herself—returned to writing on her slate—and held out the written words once more:

“Shivered when I touched her. That means I have been walking over her grave.”

Blanche turned from the sight of the slate, and from the sight of the woman, in horror. “You frighten me!” she said. “You will frighten _ her_ if she sees you. I don’t mean to offend you; but—leave us, please leave us.”

Hester Dethridge accepted her dismissal, as she accepted every thing else. She bowed her head in sign that she understood—looked for the last time at Anne—dropped a stiff courtesy to her young mistress—and left the room.

An hour later the butler had paid her, and she had left the house.

Blanche breathed more freely when she found herself alone. She could feel the relief now of seeing Anne revive.

“Can you hear me, darling?” she whispered. “Can you let me leave you for a moment?”

Anne’s eyes slowly opened and looked round her—in that torment and terror of reviving life which marks the awful protest of humanity against its recall to existence when mortal mercy has dared to wake it in the arms of Death.

Blanche rested Anne’s head against the nearest chair, and ran to the table upon which she had placed the wine on entering the room.

After swallowing the first few drops Anne begun to feel the effect of the stimulant. Blanche persisted in making her empty the glass, and refrained from asking or answering questions until her recovery under the influence of the wine was complete.

“You have overexerted yourself this morning,” she said, as soon as it seemed safe to speak. “Nobody has seen you, darling—nothing has happened. Do you feel like yourself again?”

Anne made an attempt to rise and leave the library; Blanche placed her gently in the chair, and went on:

“There is not the least need to stir. We have another quarter of an hour to ourselves before any body is at all likely to disturb us. I have something to say, Anne—a little proposal to make. Will you listen to me?”

Anne took Blanche’s hand, and p ressed it gratefully to her lips. She made no other reply. Blanche proceeded:

“I won’t ask any questions, my dear—I won’t attempt to keep you here against your will—I won’t even remind you of my letter yesterday. But I can’t let you go, Anne, without having my mind made easy about you in some way. You will relieve all my anxiety, if you will do one thing—one easy thing for my sake.”

“What is it, Blanche?”

She put that question with her mind far away from the subject before her. Blanche was too eager in pursuit of her object to notice the absent tone, the purely mechanical manner, in which Anne had spoken to her.

“I want you to consult my uncle,” she answered. “Sir Patrick is interested in you; Sir Patrick proposed to me this very day to go and see you at the inn. He is the wisest, the kindest, the dearest old man living—and you can trust him as you could trust nobody else. Will you take my uncle into your confidence, and be guided by his advice?”

With her mind still far away from the subject, Anne looked out absently at the lawn, and made no answer.

“Come!” said Blanche. “One word isn’t much to say. Is it Yes or No?”

Still looking out on the lawn—still thinking of something else—Anne yielded, and said “Yes.”

Blanche was enchanted. “How well I must have managed it!” she thought. “This is what my uncle means, when my uncle talks of ‘putting it strongly.’ ”

She bent down over Anne, and gayly patted her on the shoulder.

“That’s the wisest ‘Yes,’ darling, you ever said in your life. Wait here—and I’ll go in to luncheon, or they will be sending to know what has become of me. Sir Patrick has kept my place for me, next to himself. I shall contrive to tell him what I want; and he will contrive (oh, the blessing of having to do with a clever man; these are so few of them!)—he will contrive to leave the table before the rest, without exciting any body’s suspicions. Go away with him at once to the summer-house (we have been at the summer-house all the morning; nobody will go back to it now), and I will follow you as soon as I have satisfied Lady Lundie by eating some lunch. Nobody will be any the wiser but our three selves. In five minutes or less you may expect Sir Patrick. Let me go! We haven’t a moment to lose!”

Anne held her back. Anne’s attention was concentrated on her now.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Are you going on happily with Arnold, Blanche?”

“Arnold is nicer than ever, my dear.”

“Is the day fixed for your marriage?”

“The day will be ages hence. Not till we are back in town, at the end of the autumn. Let me go, Anne!”

“Give me a kiss, Blanche.”

Blanche kissed her, and tried to release her hand. Anne held it as if she was drowning, as if her life depended on not letting it go.

“Will you always love me, Blanche, as you love me now?”

“How can you ask me!”

“I said Yes just now. You say Yes too.”

Blanche said it. Anne’s eyes fastened on her face, with one long, yearning look, and then Anne’s hand suddenly dropped hers.

She ran out of the room, more agitated, more uneasy, than she liked to confess to herself. Never had she felt so certain of the urgent necessity of appealing to Sir Patrick’s advice as she felt at that moment.

The guests were still safe at the luncheon-table when Blanche entered the dining-room.

Lady Lundie expressed the necessary surprise, in the properly graduated tone of reproof, at her step-daughter’s want of punctuality. Blanche made her apologies with the most exemplary humility. She glided into her chair by her uncle’s side, and took the first thing that was offered to her. Sir Patrick looked at his niece, and found himself in the company of a model young English Miss—and marveled inwardly what it might mean.

The talk, interrupted for the moment (topics, Politics and Sport—and then, when a change was wanted, Sport and Politics), was resumed again all round the table. Under cover of the conversation, and in the intervals of receiving the attentions of the gentlemen, Blanche whispered to Sir Patrick, “Don’t start, uncle. Anne is in the library.” (Polite Mr. Smith offered some ham. Gratefully declined.) “Pray, pray, pray go to her; she is waiting to see you—she is in dreadful trouble.” (Gallant Mr. Jones proposed fruit tart and cream. Accepted with thanks.) “Take her to the summer-house: I’ll follow you when I get the chance. And manage it at once,