Man and Wife by Wilkie Collins (e book reader pc .txt) 📕
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Man and Wife is the ninth novel by Wilkie Collins, and was published in serial form in 1870. Like many of his other novels it has a complex plot and tackles social issues, in this case the then-lax state of the marriage laws, particularly in Scotland and Ireland. As always, Collins deals carefully but frankly with human personal behavior. To avoid offending Victorian morals too greatly, much is implied rather than stated outright. Nevertheless, even dealing with such matters at all led to his novels being derided as “sensation fiction” by his critics. By today’s standards, of course, they wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow.
In Man and Wife, the main character Anne Silvester has fallen pregnant to a muscular and handsome, but boorish man, Geoffrey Delamayn, to whom she is not married. She is working as a governess at a house in Scotland. Anne arranges to meet Delamayn secretly at a garden party and angrily demands that he fulfill his promise to marry her, that very day. He very reluctantly agrees to a secret, private marriage, knowing that a public marriage would badly affect his inheritance prospects. How is the marriage to be arranged quickly but kept quiet? Anne has a plan based on her understanding of the looseness of the marriage laws in Scotland. Naturally, of course, things go badly wrong with this plan and many complexities arise.
Collins is deeply critical of the state of contemporary marriage laws, both in how loosely they were framed, and in how little power over their own lives they gave to women once they were married, even if married to a brutal man. He also uses this novel to denounce the worship of sporting heroes and the obsession with physical prowess rather than mental superiority as a primary indication of male virtue.
Though not as popular as his novels The Woman in White and The Moonstone, Man and Wife received a good critical reception when it was released and was a commercial success.
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- Author: Wilkie Collins
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“Did you learn this method of making love in the merchant-service?” she inquired, saucily.
Arnold persisted in contemplating his prospects from the serious point of view.
“I’ll go back to the merchant-service,” he said, “if I have made you angry with me.”
Blanche administered another dose of encouragement.
“Anger, Mr. Brinkworth, is one of the bad passions,” she answered, demurely. “A young lady who has been properly brought up has no bad passions.”
There was a sudden cry from the players on the lawn—a cry for “Mr. Brinkworth.” Blanche tried to push him out. Arnold was immovable.
“Say something to encourage me before I go,” he pleaded. “One word will do. Say, Yes.”
Blanche shook her head. Now she had got him, the temptation to tease him was irresistible.
“Quite impossible!” she rejoined. “If you want any more encouragement, you must speak to my uncle.”
“I’ll speak to him,” returned Arnold, “before I leave the house.”
There was another cry for “Mr. Brinkworth.” Blanche made another effort to push him out.
“Go!” she said. “And mind you get through the hoop!”
She had both hands on his shoulders—her face was close to his—she was simply irresistible. Arnold caught her round the waist and kissed her. Needless to tell him to get through the hoop. He had surely got through it already! Blanche was speechless. Arnold’s last effort in the art of courtship had taken away her breath. Before she could recover herself a sound of approaching footsteps became plainly audible. Arnold gave her a last squeeze, and ran out.
She sank on the nearest chair, and closed her eyes in a flutter of delicious confusion.
The footsteps ascending to the summerhouse came nearer. Blanche opened her eyes, and saw Anne Silvester, standing alone, looking at her. She sprang to her feet, and threw her arms impulsively round Anne’s neck.
“You don’t know what has happened,” she whispered. “Wish me joy, darling. He has said the words. He is mine for life!”
All the sisterly love and sisterly confidence of many years was expressed in that embrace, and in the tone in which the words were spoken. The hearts of the mothers, in the past time, could hardly have been closer to each other—as it seemed—than the hearts of the daughters were now. And yet, if Blanche had looked up in Anne’s face at that moment, she must have seen that Anne’s mind was far away from her little love-story.
“You know who it is?” she went on, after waiting for a reply.
“Mr. Brinkworth?”
“Of course! Who else should it be?”
“And you are really happy, my love?”
“Happy?” repeated Blanche. “Mind! this is strictly between ourselves. I am ready to jump out of my skin for joy. I love him! I love him! I love him!” she cried, with a childish pleasure in repeating the words. They were echoed by a heavy sigh. Blanche instantly looked up into Anne’s face. “What’s the matter?” she asked, with a sudden change of voice and manner.
“Nothing.”
Blanche’s observation saw too plainly to be blinded in that way.
“There is something the matter,” she said. “Is it money?” she added, after a moment’s consideration. “Bills to pay? I have got plenty of money, Anne. I’ll lend you what you like.”
“No, no, my dear!”
Blanche drew back, a little hurt. Anne was keeping her at a distance for the first time in Blanche’s experience of her.
“I tell you all my secrets,” she said. “Why are you keeping a secret from me? Do you know that you have been looking anxious and out of spirits for some time past? Perhaps you don’t like Mr. Brinkworth? No? you do like him? Is it my marrying, then? I believe it is! You fancy we shall be parted, you goose? As if I could do without you! Of course, when I am married to Arnold, you will come and live with us. That’s quite understood between us—isn’t it?”
Anne drew herself suddenly, almost roughly, away from Blanche, and pointed out to the steps.
“There is somebody coming,” she said. “Look!”
The person coming was Arnold. It was Blanche’s turn to play, and he had volunteered to fetch her.
Blanche’s attention—easily enough distracted on other occasions—remained steadily fixed on Anne.
“You are not yourself,” she said, “and I must know the reason of it. I will wait till tonight; and then you will tell me, when you come into my room. Don’t look like that! You shall tell me. And there’s a kiss for you in the meantime!”
She joined Arnold, and recovered her gaiety the moment she looked at him.
“Well? Have you got through the hoops?”
“Never mind the hoops. I have broken the ice with Sir Patrick.”
“What! before all the company!”
“Of course not! I have made an appointment to speak to him here.”
They went laughing down the steps, and joined the game.
Left alone, Anne Silvester walked slowly to the inner and darker part of the summerhouse. A glass, in a carved wooden frame, was fixed against one of the side walls. She stopped and looked into it—looked, shuddering, at the reflection of herself.
“Is the time coming,” she said, “when even Blanche will see what I am in my face?”
She turned aside from the glass. With a sudden cry of despair she flung up her arms and laid them heavily against the wall, and rested her head on them with her back to the light. At the same moment a man’s figure appeared—standing dark in the flood of sunshine at the entrance to the summerhouse. The man was Geoffrey Delamayn.
IV The TwoHe advanced a few steps, and stopped. Absorbed in herself, Anne failed to hear him. She never moved.
“I have come, as you made a point of it,” he said, sullenly. “But, mind you, it isn’t safe.”
At the sound of his voice, Anne turned toward him. A change of expression appeared in her face, as she slowly advanced from the back of the summerhouse, which revealed a likeness to her mother, not perceivable at other times. As the mother
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