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

was satisfied. He pointed next to the towels in his room.

“Take one of them,” he said, “and show me how you did it, with your own hands.”

As he said the words, Anne’s voice reached his ear from below, calling for “Mrs. Dethridge.”

It was impossible to say what might happen next. In another minute, she might go up to her room, and discover everything. Geoffrey pointed to the wall.

“Put it right again,” he said. “Instantly!”

It was soon done. All that was necessary was to let the two strips of paper drop back into their places⁠—to fasten the strip to the wall in Anne’s room, by tightening the two lower strings⁠—and then to replace the nails which held the loose strip on Geoffrey’s side. In a minute, the wall had reassumed its customary aspect.

They stole out, and looked over the stairs into the passage below. After calling uselessly for the second time, Anne appeared, crossed over to the kitchen; and, returning again with the kettle in her hand, closed the drawing-room door.

Hester Dethridge waited impenetrably to receive her next directions. There were no further directions to give. The hideous dramatic representation of the woman’s crime for which Geoffrey had asked was in no respect necessary: the means were all prepared, and the manner of using them was self-evident. Nothing but the opportunity, and the resolution to profit by it, were wanting to lead the way to the end. Geoffrey signed to Hester to go downstairs.

“Get back into the kitchen,” he said, “before she comes out again. I shall keep in the garden. When she goes up into her room for the night, show yourself at the backdoor⁠—and I shall know.”

Hester set her foot on the first stair⁠—stopped⁠—turned round⁠—and looked slowly along the two walls of the passage, from end to end⁠—shuddered⁠—shook her head⁠—and went slowly on down the stairs.

“What were you looking for?” he whispered after her.

She neither answered, nor looked back⁠—she went her way into the kitchen.

He waited a minute, and then followed her.

On his way out to the garden, he went into the dining-room. The moon had risen; and the window-shutters were not closed. It was easy to find the brandy and the jug of water on the table. He mixed the two, and emptied the tumbler at a draught. “My head’s queer,” he whispered to himself. He passed his handkerchief over his face. “How infernally hot it is tonight!” He made for the door. It was open, and plainly visible⁠—and yet, he failed to find his way to it. Twice, he found himself trying to walk through the wall, on either side. The third time, he got out, and reached the garden. A strange sensation possessed him, as he walked round and round. He had not drunk enough, or nearly enough, to intoxicate him. His mind, in a dull way, felt the same as usual; but his body was like the body of a drunken man.

The night advanced; the clock of Putney Church struck ten.

Anne appeared again from the drawing room, with her bedroom candle in her hand.

“Put out the lights,” she said to Hester, at the kitchen door; “I am going upstairs.”

She entered her room. The insupportable sense of weariness, after the sleepless night that she had passed, weighed more heavily on her than ever. She locked her door, but forbore, on this occasion, to fasten the bolts. The dread of danger was no longer present to her mind; and there was this positive objection to losing the bolts, that the unfastening of them would increase the difficulty of leaving the room noiselessly later in the night. She loosened her dress, and lifted her hair from her temples⁠—and paced to and fro in the room wearily, thinking. Geoffrey’s habits were irregular; Hester seldom went to bed early.

Two hours at least⁠—more probably three⁠—must pass, before it would be safe to communicate with Sir Patrick by means of the signal in the window. Her strength was fast failing her. If she persisted, for the next three hours, in denying herself the repose which she sorely needed, the chances were that her nerves might fail her, through sheer exhaustion, when the time came for facing the risk and making the effort to escape. Sleep was falling on her even now⁠—and sleep she must have. She had no fear of failing to wake at the needful time. Falling asleep, with a special necessity for rising at a given hour present to her mind, Anne (like most other sensitively organized people) could trust herself to wake at that given hour, instinctively. She put her lighted candle in a safe position, and laid down on the bed. In less than five minutes, she was in a deep sleep.

The church clock struck the quarter to eleven. Hester Dethridge showed herself at the back garden door. Geoffrey crossed the lawn, and joined her. The light of the lamp in the passage fell on his face. She started back from the sight of it.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She shook her head; and pointed through the dining-room door to the brandy-bottle on the table.

“I’m as sober as you are, you fool!” he said. “Whatever else it is, it’s not that.”

Hester looked at him again. He was right. However unsteady his gait might be, his speech was not the speech, his eyes were not the eyes, of a drunken man.

“Is she in her room for the night?”

Hester made the affirmative sign.

Geoffrey ascended the st airs, swaying from side to side. He stopped at the top, and beckoned to Hester to join him. He went on into his room; and, signing to her to follow him, closed the door.

He looked at the partition wall⁠—without approaching it. Hester waited, behind him.

“Is she asleep?” he asked.

Hester went to the wall; listened at it; and made the affirmative reply.

He sat down. “My head’s queer,” he said. “Give me a drink of water.” He drank part of the water, and poured the rest over his head. Hester turned toward the door to leave him. He instantly