Blind Love by Wilkie Collins (beginner reading books for adults txt) đ
- Author: Wilkie Collins
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She counted her money. There was exactly twenty-eight shillings and tenpence in her purse.
She went back to the cheapest (and dirtiest) of the pensions she had visited. She stated her caseâshe had missed milady her mistressâshe must stay until she should receive orders to go on, and moneyâwould they take her in until one or the other arrived? Certainly. They would take her in, at five francs a day, payable every morning in advance.
She made a little calculationâshe had twenty-eight and tenpence; exactly thirty-five francsâenough for seven days. If she wrote to Mrs. Vimpany at once she could get an answer in five days.
She accepted the offer, paid her five shillings, was shown into a room, and was informed that the dinner was served at six oâclock.
Very good. Here she could rest, at any rate, and think what was to be done. And first she wrote two lettersâone to Mrs. Vimpany and one to Mr. Mountjoy.
In both of these letters she told exactly what she had found: neither Lord Harry nor his wife at the cottage, the place vacated, and the doctor on the point of going away. In both letters she told how she had been sent all the way into Switzerland on a foolâs errand, and now found herself planted there without the means of getting home. In the letter to Mrs. Vimpany she added the remarkable detail that the man whom she had seen on the Thursday morning apparently dead, whose actual poisoning she thought she had witnessed, was reported on the Saturday to have walked out of the cottage, carrying his things, if he had any, and proposing to make his way to London in order to find out his old nurse. âMake what you can out of that,â she said. âFor my own part, I understand nothing.â
In the letter which she wrote to Mr. Mountjoy she added a petition that he would send her money to bring her home. This, she said, her mistress she knew would willingly defray.
She posted these letters on Tuesday, and waited for the answers.
Mrs. Vimpany wrote back by return post.
âMy dear Fanny,â she said, âI have read your letter with the greatest interest. I am not only afraid that some villainy is afloat, but I am perfectly sure of it. One can only hope and pray that her ladyship may be kept out of its influence. You will be pleased to hear that Mr. Mountjoy is better. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered to stand the shock of violent emotion, I put Lady Harryâs letter into his hands. It was well that I had kept it from him, for he fell into such a violence of grief and indignation that I thought he would have had a serious relapse. âCan any woman,â he cried, âbe justified in going back to an utterly unworthy husband until he has proved a complete change? What if she had received a thousand letters of penitence? Penitence should be shown by acts, not words: she should have waited.â He wrote her a letter, which he showed me. âIs there,â he asked, âanything in the letter which could justly offend her?â I could find nothing. He told her, but I fear too late, that she risks degradationâperhaps worse, if there is anything worseâif she persists in returning to her unworthy husband. If she refuses to be guided by his advice, on the last occasion on which he would presume to offer any device, he begged that she would not answer. Let her silence sayâNo. That was the substance of his letter. Up to the present moment no answer has been received from Lady Harry. Nor has he received so much as an acknowledgment of the letter. What can be understood by this silence? Clearly, refusal.
âYou must return by way of Paris, though it is longer than by Basle and Laon. Mr. Mountjoy, I know, will send you the money you want. He has told me as much. âI have done with Lady Harry,â he said. âHer movements no longer concern me, though I can never want interest in what she does. But since the girl is right to stick to her mistress, I will send her the moneyânot as a loan to be paid back by Iris, but as a gift from myself.â
âTherefore, my dear Fanny, stop in Paris for one night at least, and learn what has been done if you can. Find out the nurse, and ask her what really happened. With the knowledge that you already possess, it will be hard, indeed, if we cannot arrive at the truth. There must be people who supplied things to the cottageâthe restaurant, the pharmacien, the laundress. See them allâyou know them already, and we will put the facts together. As for finding her ladyship, that will depend entirely upon herself. I shall expect you back in about a week. If anything happens here I shall be able to tell you when you arrive.
âYours affectionately,
L. Vimpany.â
This letter exactly coincided with Fannyâs own views. The doctor was now gone. She was pretty certain that he was not going to remain alone in the cottage; and the suburb of Passy, though charming in many ways, is not exactly the place for a man of Dr. Vimpanyâs temperament. She would stay a day, or even two days or more, if necessary, at Passy. She would make those inquiries.
The second letter, which reached her the same day, was from Mr. Mountjoy. He told her what he had told Mrs. Vimpany: he would give her the money, because he recognised the spirit of fidelity which caused Fanny to go first to Paris and then to Berne.
But he could not pretend to any right to interference in the affairs of Lord and Lady Harry Norland. He enclosed a mandat postal for a hundred and twenty-five francs, which he hoped would be sufficient for her immediate wants.
She started on her return-journey on the same dayânamely, Saturday. On Sunday evening she was in a pension at Passy, ready to make those inquiries. The first person whom she sought out was the rentierâthe landlord of the cottage. He was a retired tradesmanâone who had made his modest fortune in a charcuterie and had invested it in house property. Fanny told him that she had been ladyâs-maid to Lady Harry Norland, in the recent occupancy of the cottage, and that she was anxious to know her present address.
âMerci, mon Dieu! que sais-je? What do I know about it?â he replied. âThe wife of the English milord is so much attached to her husband that she leaves him in his long illnessââ
âHis long illness?â
âCertainlyâMademoiselle is not, perhaps, acquainted with the circumstancesâhis long illness; and does not come even to see his dead body after he is dead. There is a wife for youâa wife of the English fashion!â
Fanny gasped.
âAfter he is dead! Is Lord Harry dead? When did he die?â
âBut, assuredly, Mademoiselle has not heard? The English milord died on Thursday morning, a week and more ago, of consumption, and was buried in the cemetery of Auteuil last Saturday. Mademoiselle appears astonished.â
âEn effet, Monsieur, I am astonished.â
âAlready the tombstone is erected to the memory of the unhappy young man, who is said to belong to a most distinguished family of Ireland. Mademoiselle can see it with her own eyes in the cemetery.â
âOne word more, Monsieur. If Monsieur would have the kindness to tell her who was the nurse of milord in his last seizure?â
âBut certainly. All the world knows the widow La Chaise. It was the widow La Chaise who was called in by the doctor. Ah! there is a manâwhat a man! What a miracle of science! What devotion to his friend! What admirable sentiments! Truly, the English are great in sentiments when their insular coldness allows them to speak. This widow can be foundâeasily found.â
He gave Fanny, in fact, the nurseâs address. Armed with this, and having got out of the landlord the cardinal fact of Lord Harryâs alleged death, the ladyâs-maid went in search of this respectable widow.
She found her, in her own apartments, a respectable woman indeed, perfectly ready to tell everything that she knew, and evidently quite unsuspicious of anything wrong. She was invited to take charge of a sick man on the morning of Thursday: she was told that he was a young Irish lord, dangerously ill of a pulmonary disorder; the doctor, in fact, informed her that his life hung by a thread, and might drop at any moment, though on the other hand he had known such cases linger on for many months. She arrived as she had been ordered, at midday: she was taken into the sick-room by the doctor, who showed her the patient placidly sleeping on a sofa: the bed had been slept in, and was not yet made. After explaining the medicines which she was to administer, and the times when they were to be given, and telling her something about his diet, the doctor left her alone with the patient.
âHe was still sleeping profoundly,â said the nurse.
âYou are sure that he was sleeping, and not dead?â asked Fanny, sharply.
âMademoiselle, I have been a nurse for many years. I know my duties. The moment the doctor left me I verified his statements. I proved that the patient was sleeping by feeling his pulse and observing his breath.â
Fanny made no reply. She could hardly remind this respectable person that after the doctor left her she employed herself first in examining the cupboards, drawers, armoire, and other things; that she then found a book with pictures, in which she read for a quarter of an hour or so; that she then grew sleepy and dropped the bookâ
âI then,â continued the widow, âmade arrangements against his wakingâthat is to say, I drew back the curtains and turned over the sheet to air the bedââO Madame! Madame! Surely this was needless!ââshook up the pillows, and occupied myself in the cares of a conscientious nurse until the time came to administer the first dose of medicine. Then I proceeded to awaken my patient. Figure to yourself! He whom I had left tranquilly breathing, with the regularity of a convalescent rather than a dying man, was dead! He was dead!â
âYou are sure he was dead?â
âAs if I had never seen a dead body before! I called the doctor, but it was for duty only, for I knew that he was dead.â
âAnd then?â
âThen the doctorâwho must also have known that he was deadâfelt his pulse and his heart, and looked at his eyes, and declared that he was dead.â
âAnd then?â
âWhat then? If a man is dead he is dead. You cannot restore him to life. Yet one thing the doctor did. He brought a camera and took a photograph of the dead man for the sake of his friends.â
âOh! he took a photograph ofâof Lord Harry Norland. What did he do that for?â
âI tell you: for the sake of his friends.â
Fanny was more bewildered than ever. Why on earth should the doctor want a photograph of the Dane Oxbye to show the friends of Lord Harry? Could he have made a blunder as stupid as it was uncalled for? No one could possibly mistake the dead face of that poor Dane for the dead face of Lord Harry.
She had got all the information she wantedâall, in fact, that was of any use to her. One thing remained. She would see the grave.
The cemetery of Auteuil is not so
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