Man and Wife, Wilkie Collins [best ebook reader android .TXT] 📗

went on, and stood before Geoffrey.

“I am here,” she said to him. “What do you wish me to do?”

A hideous smile parted his heavy lips. He offered her his arm.

“Mrs. Geoffrey Delamayn,” he said. “Come home.”

The picture of the lonely house, isolated amidst its high walls; the ill-omened figure of the dumb woman with the stony eyes and the savage ways⁠—the whole scene, as Anne had pictured it to him but two days since, rose vivid as reality before Sir Patrick’s mind. “No!” he cried out, carried away by the generous impulse of the moment. “It shall not be!”

Geoffrey stood impenetrable⁠—waiting with his offered arm. Pale and resolute, she lifted her noble head⁠—called back the courage which had faltered for a moment⁠—and took his arm. He led her to the door. “Don’t let Blanche fret about me,” she said, simply, to Arnold as they went by. They passed Sir Patrick next. Once more his sympathy for her set every other consideration at defiance. He started up to bar the way to Geoffrey. Geoffrey paused, and looked at Sir Patrick for the first time.

“The law tells her to go with her husband,” he said. “The law forbids you to part man and wife.”

True. Absolutely, undeniably true. The law sanctioned the sacrifice of her as unanswerably as it had sanctioned the sacrifice of her mother before her. In the name of morality, let him take her! In the interests of virtue, let her get out of it if she can!

Her husband opened the door. Mr. Moy laid his hand on Sir Patrick’s arm. Lady Lundie, Captain Newenden, the London lawyer, all left their places, influenced, for once, by the same interest; feeling, for once, the same suspense. Arnold followed them, supporting his wife. For one memorable instant Anne looked back at them all. Then she and her husband crossed the threshold. They descended the stairs together. The opening and closing of the house door was heard. They were gone.

Done, in the name of morality. Done, in the interests of virtue. Done, in an age of progress, and under the most perfect government on the face of the earth.

Fifteenth Scene Holchester House XLVII The Last Chance

“His lordship is dangerously ill, Sir. Her ladyship can receive no visitors.”

“Be so good as to take that card to Lady Holchester. It is absolutely necessary that your mistress should be made acquainted⁠—in the interests of her younger son⁠—with something which I can only mention to her ladyship herself.”

The two persons speaking were Lord Holchester’s head servant and Sir Patrick Lundie. At that time barely half an hour had passed since the close of the proceedings at Portland Place.

The servant still hesitated with the card in his hand. “I shall forfeit my situation,” he said, “if I do it.”

“You will most assuredly forfeit your situation if you don’t do it,” returned Sir Patrick. “I warn you plainly, this is too serious a matter to be trifled with.”

The tone in which those words were spoken had its effect. The man went upstairs with his message.

Sir Patrick waited in the hall. Even the momentary delay of entering one of the reception-rooms was more than he could endure at that moment. Anne’s happiness was hopelessly sacrificed already. The preservation of her personal safety⁠—which Sir Patrick firmly believed to be in danger⁠—was the one service which it was possible to render to her now. The perilous position in which she stood toward her husband⁠—as an immovable obstacle, while she lived, between Geoffrey and Mrs. Glenarm⁠—was beyond the reach of remedy. But it was still possible to prevent her from becoming the innocent cause of Geoffrey’s pecuniary ruin, by standing in the way of a reconciliation between father and son.

Resolute to leave no means untried of serving Anne’s interests, Sir Patrick had allowed Arnold and Blanche to go to his own residence in London, alone, and had not even waited to say a farewell word to any of the persons who had taken part in the inquiry. “Her life may depend on what I can do for her at Holchester House!” With that conviction in him, he had left Portland Place. With that conviction in him, he had sent his message to Lady Holchester, and was now waiting for the reply.

The servant appeared again on the stairs. Sir Patrick went up to meet him.

“Her ladyship will see you, Sir, for a few minutes.”

The door of an upper room was opened; and Sir Patrick found himself in the presence of Geoffrey’s mother. There was only time to observe that she possessed the remains of rare personal beauty, and that she received her visitor with a grace and courtesy which implied (under the circumstances) a considerate regard for his position at the expense of her own.

“You have something to say to me, Sir Patrick, on the subject of my second son. I am in great affliction. If you bring me bad news, I will do my best to bear it. May I trust to your kindness not to keep me in suspense?”

“It will help me to make my intrusion as little painful as possible to your ladyship,” replied Sir Patrick, “if I am permitted to ask a question. Have you heard of any obstacle to the contemplated marriage of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn and Mrs. Glenarm?”

Even that distant reference to Anne produced an ominous change for the worse in Lady Holchester’s manner.

“I have heard of the obstacle to which you allude,” she said. “Mrs. Glenarm is an intimate friend of mine. She has informed me that a person named Silvester, an impudent adventuress⁠—”

“I beg your ladyship’s pardon. You are doing a cruel wrong to the noblest woman I have ever met with.”

“I cannot undertake, Sir Patrick, to enter into your reasons for admiring her. Her conduct toward my son has, I repeat, been the conduct of an impudent adventuress.”

Those words showed Sir Patrick the utter hopelessness of shaking her prejudice against Anne. He decided on proceeding at once to the disclosure of the truth.

“I entreat you