Man and Wife by Wilkie Collins (easy novels to read txt) 📕

in a state of repose. “I put it to your own common-sense, ” he said, in the most reasonable manner, “what’s the good of bullying me? You don’t want them to hear you, out on the lawn there—do you? You women are all alike. There’s no beating a little prudence into your heads, try how one may.”

There he waited, expecting her to speak. She waited, on her side, and forced him to go on.

“Look here,” he said, “there’s no need to quarrel, you know. I don’t want to break my promise; but what can I do ? I’m not the eldest son. I’m dependent on my father for every farthing I have; and I’m on bad terms with him already. Can’t you see it yourself? You’re a lady, and all that, I know. But you’re only a governess. It’s your interest as well as mine to wait till my father has provided for me. Here it is in a nut-shell: if I marry you now, I’m a ruined man.”

The answer came, this time.

“You villain if you don’t marry me, I am a ruined woman!”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Don’t look at me in that way.”

“How do you expect me to look at a woman who calls me a villain to my face?”

She suddenly changed her tone. The savage element in humanity—let the modern optimists who doubt its existence look at any uncultivated man (no matter how muscular), woman (no matter how beautiful), or child (no matter how young)—began to show itself furtively in his eyes, to utter itself furtively in his voice. Was he to blame for the manner in which he looked at her and spoke to her? Not he! What had there been in the training of his life (at school or at college) to soften and subdue the savage element in him? About as much as there had been in the training of his ancestors (without the school or the college) five hundred years since.

It was plain that one of them must give way. The woman had the most at stake—and the woman set the example of submission.

“Don’t be hard on me,” she pleaded. “I don’t mean to be hard on you. My temper gets the better of me. You know my temper. I am sorry I forgot myself. Geoffrey, my whole future is in your hands. Will you do me justice?”

She came nearer, and laid her hand persuasively on his arm.

“Haven’t you a word to say to me? No answer? Not even a look?” She waited a moment more. A marked change came over her. She turned slowly to leave the summer-house. “I am sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Delamayn. I won’t detain you any longer.”

He looked at her. There was a tone in her voice that he had never heard before. There was a light in her eyes that he had never seen in them before. Suddenly and fiercely he reached out his hand, and stopped her.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

She answered, looking him straight in the face, “Where many a miserable woman has gone before me. Out of the world.”

He drew her nearer to him, and eyed her closely. Even his intelligence discovered that he had brought her to bay, and that she really meant it!

“Do you mean you will destroy yourself?” he said.

“Yes. I mean I will destroy myself.”

He dropped her arm. “By Jupiter, she does mean it!”

With that conviction in him, he pushed one of the chairs in the summer-house to her with his foot, and signed to her to take it. “Sit down!” he said, roughly. She had frightened him—and fear comes seldom to men of his type. They feel it, when it does come, with an angry distrust; they grow loud and brutal, in instinctive protest against it. “Sit down!” he repeated. She obeyed him. “Haven’t you got a word to say to me?” he asked, with an oath. No! there she sat, immovable, reckless how it ended—as only women can be, when women’s minds are made up. He took a turn in the summer-house and came back, and struck his hand angrily on the rail of her chair. “What do you want?”

“You know what I want.”

He took another turn. There was nothing for it but to give way on his side, or run the risk of something happening which might cause an awkward scandal, and come to his father’s ears.

“Look here, Anne,” he began, abruptly. “I have got something to propose.”

She looked up at him.

“What do you say to a private marriage?”

Without asking a single question, without making objections, she answered him, speaking as bluntly as he had spoken himself:

“I consent to a private marriage.”

He began to temporize directly.

“I own I don’t see how it’s to be managed—”

She stopped him there.

“I do!”

“What!” he cried out, suspiciously. “You have thought of it yourself, have you?”

“Yes.”

“And planned for it?”

“And planned for it!”

“Why didn’t you tell me so before?”

She answered haughtily; insisting on the respect which is due to women—the respect which was doubly due from him, in her position.

“Because you owed it to me, Sir, to speak first.”

“Very well. I’ve spoken first. Will you wait a little?”

“Not a day!”

The tone was positive. There was no mistaking it. Her mind was made up.

“Where’s the hurry?”

“Have you eyes?” she asked, vehemently. “Have you ears? Do you see how Lady Lundie looks at me? Do you hear how Lady Lundie speaks to me? I am suspected by that woman. My shameful dismissal from this house may be a question of a few hours.” Her head sunk on her bosom; she wrung her clasped hands as they rested on her lap. “And, oh, Blanche!” she moaned to herself, the tears gathering again, and falling, this time, unchecked. “Blanche, who looks up to me! Blanche, who loves me! Blanche, who told me, in this very place, that I was to live with her when she was married!” She started up from the chair; the tears dried suddenly; the hard despair settled again, wan and white, on her face. “Let me go! What is death, compared to such a life as is waiting for me?” She looked him over, in one disdainful glance from head to foot; her voice rose to its loudest and firmest tones.” Why, even you; would have the courage to die if you were in my place!”

Geoffrey glanced round toward the lawn.

“Hush!” he said. “They will hear you!”

“Let them hear me! When I am past hearing them, what does it matter?”

He put her back by main force on the chair. In another moment they must have heard her, through all the noise and laughter of the game.

“Say what you want,” he resumed, “and I’ll do it. Only be reasonable. I can’t marry you to-day.”

“You can!”

“What nonsense you talk! The house and grounds are swarming with company. It can’t be!”

“It can! I have been thinking about it ever since we came to this house. I have got something to propose to you. Will you hear it, or not?”

“Speak lower!”

“Will you hear it, or not?”

“There’s somebody coming!”

“Will you hear it, or not?”

“The devil take your obstinacy! Yes!”

The answer had been wrung from him. Still, it was the answer she wanted—it opened the door to hope. The instant he had consented to hear her her mind awakened to the serious necessity of averting discovery by any third person who might stray idly into the summer-house. She held up her hand for silence, and listened to what was going forward on the lawn.

The dull thump of the croquet-mallet against the ball was no longer to be heard. The game had stopped.

In a moment more she heard her own name called. An interval of another instant passed, and a familiar voice said, “I know where she is. I’ll fetch her.”

She turned to Geoffrey, and pointed to the back of the summer-house.

“It’s my turn to play,” she said. “And Blanche is coming here to look for me. Wait there, and I’ll stop her on the steps.”

She went out at once. It was a critical moment. Discovery, which meant moral-ruin to the woman, meant money-ruin to the man. Geoffrey had not exaggerated his position with his father. Lord Holchester had twice paid his debts, and had declined to see him since. One more outrage on his father’s rigid sense of propriety, and he would be left out of the will as well as kept out of the house. He looked for a means of retreat, in case there was no escaping unperceived by the front entrance. A door—intended for the use of servants, when picnics and gipsy tea-parties were given in the summer-house—had been made in the back wall. It opened outward, and it was locked. With his strength it was easy to remove that obstacle. He put his shoulder to the door. At the moment when he burst it open he felt a hand on his arm. Anne was behind him, alone.

“You may want it before long,” she said, observing the open door, without expressing any surprise, “You don’t want it now. Another person will play for me—I have told Blanche I am not well. Sit down. I have secured a respite of five minutes, and I must make the most of it. In that time, or less, Lady Lundie’s suspicions will bring her here—to see how I am. For the present, shut the door.”

She seated herself, and pointed to a second chair. He took it—with his eye on the closed door.

“Come to the point!” he said, impatiently. “What is it?”

“You can marry me privately to-day,” she answered. “Lis ten—and I will tell you how!”

CHAPTER THE FIFTH.

THE PLAN.

SHE took his hand, and began with all the art of persuasion that she possessed.

“One question, Geoffrey, before I say what I want to say. Lady Lundie has invited you to stay at Windygates. Do you accept her invitation? or do you go back to your brother’s in the evening?”

“I can’t go back in the evening—they’ve put a visitor into my room. I’m obliged to stay here. My brother has done it on purpose. Julius helps me when I’m hard up—and bullies me afterward. He has sent me here, on duty for the family. Somebody must be civil to Lady Lundie—and I’m the sacrifice.”

She took him up at his last word. “Don’t make the sacrifice,” she said. “Apologize to Lady Lundie, and say you are obliged to go back.”

“Why?”

“Because we must both leave this place to-day.”

There was a double objection to that. If he left Lady Lundie’s, he would fail to establish a future pecuniary claim on his brother’s indulgence. And if he left with Anne, the eyes of the world would see them, and the whispers of the world might come to his father’s ears.

“If we go away together,” he said, “good-by to my prospects, and yours too.”

“I don’t mean that we shall leave together,” she explained. “We will leave separately—and I will go first.”

“There will be a hue and cry after you, when you are missed.”

“There will be a dance when the croquet is over. I don’t dance—and I shall not be missed. There will be time, and opportunity to get