Blind Love by Wilkie Collins (beginner reading books for adults txt) đ
- Author: Wilkie Collins
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âGood cause!â echoed Fanny. âOh! good gracious! If she only knew, thereâs cause enough to leave a hundred husbands.â
âNothing seemed to rouse her,â Mrs. Vimpany continued, without regarding the interruption. âI went with her to the farm to see her former maid, Rhoda. The girlâs health is re-established; she is engaged to marry the farmerâs brother. Lady Harry was kind, and said the most pleasant things; she even pulled off one of her prettiest rings and gave it to the girl. But I could see that it was an effort for her to appear interestedâher thoughts were with her husband all the time. I was sure it would end in this way, and I am not in the least surprised. But what will Mr. Mountjoy say when he opens the letter?â
âBack to her husband!â Fanny repeated. âOh! what shall we do?â
âTell me what you mean. What has happened?â
âI must tell you. I thought I would tell Mr. Mountjoy first: but I must tell you, althoughââ She stopped.
âAlthough it concerns my husband. Never mind that considerationâgo on.â Fanny told the story from the beginning.
When she had finished, Mrs. Vimpany looked towards the bedroom door. âThank God!â she said, âthat you told this story to me instead of to Mr. Mountjoy. At all events, it gives me time to warn you not to tell him what you have told me. We can do nothing. Meantime, there is one thing you must doâgo away. Do not let Mr. Mountjoy find you here. He must not learn your story. If he hears what has happened and reads her letter, nothing will keep him from following her to Passy. He will see that there is every prospect of her being entangled in this vile conspiracy, and he will run any risk in the useless attempt to save her. He is too weak to bear the journeyâfar too weak for the violent emotions that will follow; and, oh! how much too weak to cope with my husbandâas strong and as crafty as he is unprincipled!
âThen, what, in Heavenâs name, are we to do?â
âAnythingâanythingârather than suffer Mr. Mountjoy, in his weak state, to interfere between man and wife.â
âYesâyesâbut such a man! Mrs. Vimpany, he was present when the Dane was poisoned. He knew that the man was poisoned. He sat in the chair, his face white, and he said nothing. Oh! It was as much as I could do not to rush out and dash the glass from his hands. Lord Harry said nothing.â
âMy dear, do you not understand what you have got to do?â
Fanny made no reply.
âConsiderâmy husbandâLord Harryâneither of them knows that you were present. You can return with the greatest safety; and then whatever happens, you will be at hand to protect my lady. Consider, again, as her maid, you can be with her alwaysâin her own room; at night; everywhere and at all times; while Mr. Mountjoy could only be with her now and then, and at the price of not quarrelling with her husband.â
âYes,â said Fanny.
âAnd you are strong, and Mr. Mountjoy is weak and ill.â
âYou think that I should go back to Passy?â
âAt once, without the delay of an hour. Lady Harry started last night. Do you start this evening. She will thus have you with her twenty-four hours after her arrival.â
Fanny rose.
âI will go,â she said. âIt terrifies me even to think of going back to that awful cottage with that dreadful man. Yet I will go. Mrs. Vimpany, I know that it will be of no use. Whatever is going to happen now will happen without any power of mine to advance or to prevent. I am certain that my journey will prove useless. But I will go. Yes, I will go this evening.â
Then, with a final promise to write as soon as possibleâas soon as there should be anything to communicateâFanny went away.
Mrs. Vimpany, alone, listened. From the bedroom came no sound at all. Mr. Mountjoy slept still. When he should be strong enough it would be time to let him know what had been done. But she sat thinkingâ thinkingâeven when one has the worst husband in the world, and very well knows his character, it is disagreeable to hear such a story as Fanny had told that wife this morning.
âHE is quite dead,â said the doctor, with one finger on the manâs pulse and another lifting his eyelid. âHe is dead. I did not look for so speedy an end. It is not half an hour since I left him breathing peacefully. Did he show signs of consciousness?â
âNo, sir; I found him dead.â
âThis morning he was cheerful. It is not unusual in these complaints. I have observed it in many cases of my own experience. On the last morning of life, at the very moment when Death is standing on the threshold with uplifted dart, the patient is cheerful and even joyous: he is more hopeful than he has felt for many months: he thinksânay, he is sureâthat he is recovering: he says he shall be up and about before long: he has not felt so strong since the beginning of his illness. Then Death strikes him, and he falls.â He made this remark in a most impressive manner.
âNothing remains,â he said, âbut to certify the cause of death and to satisfy the proper forms and authorities. I charge myself with this duty. The unfortunate young man belonged to a highly distinguished family. I will communicate with his friends and forward his papers. One last office I can do for him. For the sake of his family, nurse, I will take a last photograph of him as he lies upon his deathbed.â Lord Harry stood in the doorway, listening with an aching and a fearful heart. He dared not enter the chamber. It was the Chamber of Death. What was his own part in calling the Destroying Angel who is at the beck and summons of every manâeven the meanest? Call him and he comes. Order him to strikeâand he obeys. But under penalties.
The doctorâs prophecy, then, had come true. But in what way and by what agency? The man was dead. What was his own share in the manâs death? He knew when the Dane was brought into the house that he was brought there to die. As the man did not die, but began to recover fast, he had seen in the doctorâs face that the man would have to die. He had heard the doctor prophesy out of his medical knowledge that the man would surely die; and then, after the nurse had been sent away because her patient required her services no longer, he had seen the doctor give the medicine which burned the patientâs throat. What was that medicine? Not only had it burned his throat, but it caused him to fall into a deep sleep, in which his heart ceased to beat and his blood ceased to flow.
He turned away and walked out of the cottage. For an hour he walked along the road. Then he stopped and walked back. Ropes drew him; he could no longer keep away. He felt as if something must have happened. Possibly he would find the doctor arrested and the police waiting for himself, to be charged as an accomplice or a principal.
He found no such thing. The doctor was in the salon, with letters and official forms before him. He looked up cheerfully.
âMy English friend,â he said, âthe unexpected end of this young Irish gentleman is a very melancholy affair. I have ascertained the name of the family solicitors and have written to them. I have also written to his brother as the head of the house. I find also, by examination of his papers, that his life is insuredâthe amount is not stated, but I have communicated the fact of the death. The authoritiesâthey are, very properly, careful in such mattersâhave received the necessary notices and forms: to-morrow, all legal forms having been gone through, we bury the deceased.â
âSo soon?â
âSo soon? In these eases of advanced pulmonary disease the sooner the better. The French custom of speedy interment may be defended as more wholesome than our own. On the other hand, I admit that it has its weak points. Cremation is, perhaps, the best and only method of removing the dead which is open to no objections except one. I mean, of course, the chance that the deceased may have met with his death by means of poison. But such cases are rare, and, in most instances, would be detected by the medical man in attendance before or at the time of death. I think we need notâ-My dear friend, you look ill. Are you upset by such a simple thing as the death of a sick man? Let me prescribe for you. A glass of brandy neat. So,â he went into the salle âa manger and returned with his medicine. âTake that. Now let us talk.â The doctor continued his conversation in a cheerfully scientific strain, never alluding to the conspiracy or to the consequences which might follow, He told hospital stories bearing on deaths sudden and unexpected; some of them he treated in a jocular vein. The dead man in the next room was a Case: he knew of many similar and equally interesting Cases. When one has arrived at looking upon a dead man as a Case, there is little fear of the ordinary human weakness which makes us tremble in the awful presence of death.
Presently steps were heard outside. The doctor rose and left the roomâbut returned in a few minutes.
âThe croque-morts have come,â he said. âThey are with the nurse engaged upon their business. It seems revolting to the outside world. To them it is nothing but the daily routine of work. By-the-way, I took a photograph of his lordship in the presence of the nurse. Unfortunatelyâbut look at itâ-â
âIt is the face of the dead manââLord Harry turned away. âI donât want to see it. I cannot bear to see it. You forgetâI was actually present whenââ
âNot when he died. Come, donât be a fool. What I was going to say was this: The face is no longer in the least like you. Nobody who ever saw you once even would believe that this is your face. The creatureâhe has given us an unconscionable quantity of troubleâwas a little like you when he first came. I was wrong in supposing that this likeness was permanent. Now he is dead, he is not in the least like you. I ought to have remembered that the resemblance would fade away and disappear in death. Come and look at him.â
âNo, no.â
âWeakness! Death restores to every man his individuality. No two men are like in death, though they may be like in life. Well. It comes to this. We are going to bury Lord
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