Armadale
ArmadalePROLOGUE.I. THE TRAVELERS.II. THE SOLID SIDE OF THE SCOTCH CHARACTER.III. THE WRECK OF THE TIMBER SHIP.BOOK THE FIRST.I. THE MYSTERY OF OZIAS MIDWINTER.II. THE MAN REVEALED.III. DAY AND NIGHTIV. THE SHADOW OF THE PAST.V. THE SHADOW OF THE FUTURE.BOOK THE SECONDI. LURKING MISCHIEF.II. ALLAN AS A LANDED GENTLEMAN.III. THE CLAIMS OF SOCIETY.IV. THE MARCH OF EVENTS.V. MOTHER OLDERSHAW ON HER GUARD.VI. MIDWINTER IN DISGUISE.VII. THE PLOT THICKENS.VIII. THE NORFOLK BROADS.IX. FATE OR CHANCE?X. THE HOUSE-MAID'S FACE.XI. MISS GWILT AMONG THE QUICKSANDS.XII. THE CLOUDING OF THE SKY.XIII. EXIT.BOOK THE THIRD.I. MRS. MILROY.II. THE MAN IS FOUND.III. THE BRINK OF DISCOVERY.IV. ALLAN AT BAY.V. PEDGIFT'S REMEDY.VI. PEDGIFT'S POSTSCRIPT.VII. THE MARTYRDOM OF MISS GWILT.VIII. SHE COMES BETWEEN THEM.IX. SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH.X. MISS GWILT'S DIARY.XI. LOVE AND LAW.XII. A SCANDAL AT THE STATION.XIII. AN OLD MAN'S HEART.XIV. MISS GWILT'S DIARY.XV. THE WEDDING-DAY.BOOK THE FOURTH.I. MISS GWILT'S DIARY.II. THE DIARY CONTINUED.III. THE DIARY BROKEN OFF.BOOK THE LAST.I. AT THE TERMINUS.II. IN THE HOUSE.III. THE PURPLE FLASK.EPILOGUE.I. NEWS FROM NORFOLK.II. MIDWINTER.APPENDIX.Copyright
Armadale
Wilkie Collins
PROLOGUE.
I. THE TRAVELERS.
It was the opening of the season of eighteen hundred and
thirty-two, at the Baths of Wildbad.The evening shadows were beginning to gather over the quiet
little German town, and the diligence was expected every minute.
Before the door of the principal inn, waiting the arrival of the
first visitors of the year, were assembled the three notable
personages of Wildbad, accompanied by their wives—the mayor,
representing the inhabitants; the doctor, representing the waters;
the landlord, representing his own establishment. Beyond this
select circle, grouped snugly about the trim little square in front
of the inn, appeared the towns-people in general, mixed here and
there with the country people, in their quaint German costume,
placidly expectant of the diligence—the men in short black jackets,
tight black breeches, and three-cornered beaver hats; the women
with their long light hair hanging in one thickly plaited tail
behind them, and the waists of their short woolen gowns inserted
modestly in the region of their shoulder-blades. Round the outer
edge of the assemblage thus formed, flying detachments of plump
white-headed children careered in perpetual motion; while,
mysteriously apart from the rest of the inhabitants, the musicians
of the Baths stood collected in one lost corner, waiting the
appearance of the first visitors to play the first tune of the
season in the form of a serenade. The light of a May evening was
still bright on the tops of the great wooded hills watching high
over the town on the right hand and the left; and the cool breeze
that comes before sunset came keenly fragrant here with the
balsamic odor of the first of the Black Forest."Mr. Landlord," said the mayor's wife (giving the landlord
his title), "have you any foreign guests coming on this first day
of the season?""Madame Mayoress," replied the landlord (returning the
compliment), "I have two. They have written—the one by the hand of
his servant, the other by his own hand apparently—to order their
rooms; and they are from England, both, as I think by their names.
If you ask me to pronounce those names, my tongue hesitates; if you
ask me to spell them, here they are, letter by letter, first and
second in their order as they come. First, a high-born stranger (by
title Mister) who introduces himself in eight letters, A, r, m, a,
d, a, l, e—and comes ill in his own carriage. Second, a high-born
stranger (by title Mister also), who introduces himself in four
letters—N, e, a, l—and comes ill in the diligence. His excellency
of the eight letters writes to me (by his servant) in French; his
excellency of the four letters writes to me in German. The rooms of
both are ready. I know no more.""Perhaps," suggested the mayor's wife, "Mr. Doctor has heard
from one or both of these illustrious strangers?""From one only, Madam Mayoress; but not, strictly speaking,
from the person himself. I have received a medical report of his
excellency of the eight letters, and his case seems a bad one. God
help him!""The diligence!" cried a child from the outskirts of the
crowd.The musicians seized their instruments, and silence fell on
the whole community. From far away in the windings of the forest
gorge, the ring of horses' bells came faintly clear through the
evening stillness. Which carriage was approaching—the private
carriage with Mr. Armadale, or the public carriage with Mr.
Neal?"Play, my friends!" cried the mayor to the musicians. "Public
or private, here are the first sick people of the season. Let them
find us cheerful."The band played a lively dance tune, and the children in the
square footed it merrily to the music. At the same moment, their
elders near the inn door drew aside, and disclosed the first shadow
of gloom that fell over the gayety and beauty of the scene. Through
the opening made on either hand, a little procession of stout
country girls advanced, each drawing after her an empty chair on
wheels; each in waiting (and knitting while she waited) for the
paralyzed wretches who came helpless by hundreds then—who come
helpless by thousands now—to the waters of Wildbad for
relief.While the band played, while the children danced, while the
buzz of many talkers deepened, while the strong young nurses of the
coming cripples knitted impenetrably, a woman's insatiable
curiosity about other women asserted itself in the mayor's wife.
She drew the landlady aside, and whispered a question to her on the
spot."A word more, ma'am," said the mayor's wife, "about the two
strangers from England. Are their letters explicit? Have they got
any ladies with them?""The one by the diligence—no," replied the landlady. "But the
one by the private carriage—yes. He comes with a child; he comes
with a nurse; and," concluded the landlady, skillfully keeping the
main point of interest till the last, "he comes with a
Wife."The mayoress brightened; the doctoress (assisting at the
conference) brightened; the landlady nodded significantly. In the
minds of all three the same thought started into life at the same
moment—"We shall see the Fashions!"In a minute more, there was a sudden movement in the crowd;
and a chorus of voices proclaimed that the travelers were at
hand.By this time the coming vehicle was in sight, and all further
doubt was at an end. It was the diligence that now approached by
the long street leading into the square—the diligence (in a
dazzling new coat of yellow paint) that delivered the first
visitors of the season at the inn door. Of the ten travelers
released from the middle compartment and the back compartment of
the carriage—all from various parts of Germany—three were lifted
out helpless, and were placed in the chairs on wheels to be drawn
to their lodgings in the town. The front compartment contained two
passengers only—Mr. Neal and his traveling servant. With an arm on
either side to assist him, the stranger (whose malady appeared to
be locally confined to a lameness in one of his feet) succeeded in
descending the steps of the carriage easily enough. While he
steadied himself on the pavement by the help of his stick—looking
not over-patiently toward the musicians who were serenading him
with the waltz in "Der Freischutz"—his personal appearance rather
damped the enthusiasm of the friendly little circle assembled to
welcome him. He was a lean, tall, serious, middle-aged man, with a
cold gray eye and a long upper lip, with overhanging eyebrows and
high cheek-bones; a man who looked what he was—every inch a
Scotchman."Where is the proprietor of this hotel?" he asked, speaking
in the German language, with a fluent readiness of expression, and
an icy coldness of manner. "Fetch the doctor," he continued, when
the landlord had presented himself, "I want to see him
immediately.""I am here already, sir," said the doctor, advancing from the
circle of friends, "and my services are entirely at your
disposal.""Thank you," said Mr. Neal, looking at the doctor, as the
rest of us look at a dog when we have whistled and the dog has
come. "I shall be glad to consult you to-morrow morning, at ten
o'clock, about my own case. I only want to trouble you now with a
message which I have undertaken to deliver. We overtook a traveling
carriage on the road here with a gentleman in it—an Englishman, I
believe—who appeared to be seriously ill. A lady who was with him
begged me to see you immediately on my arrival, and to secure your
professional assistance in removing the patient from the carriage.
Their courier has met with an accident, and has been left behind on
the road, and they are obliged to travel very slowly. If you are
here in an hour, you will be here in time to receive them. That is
the message. Who is this gentleman who appears to be anxious to
speak to me? The mayor? If you wish to see my passport, sir, my
servant will show it to you. No? You wish to welcome me to the
place, and to offer your services? I am infinitely flattered. If
you have any authority to shorten the performances of your town
band, you would be doing me a kindness to exert it. My nerves are
irritable, and I dislike music. Where is the landlord? No; I want
to see my rooms. I don't want your arm; I can get upstairs with the
help of my stick. Mr. Mayor and Mr. Doctor, we need not detain one
another any longer. I wish you good-night."Both mayor and doctor looked after the Scotchman as he limped
upstairs, and shook their heads together in mute disapproval of
him. The ladies, as usual, went a step further, and expressed their
opinions openly in the plainest words. The case under consideration
(so far astheywere concerned)
was the scandalous case of a man who had passed them over entirely
without notice. Mrs. Mayor could only attribute such an outrage to
the native ferocity of a savage. Mrs. Doctor took a stronger view
still, and considered it as proceeding from the inbred brutality of
a hog.The hour of waiting for the traveling-carriage wore on, and
the creeping night stole up the hillsides softly. One by one the
stars appeared, and the first lights twinkled in the windows of the
inn. As the darkness came, the last idlers deserted the square; as
the darkness came, the mighty silence of the forest above flowed in
on the valley, and strangely and suddenly hushed the lonely little
town.The hour of waiting wore out, and the figure of the doctor,
walking backward and forward anxiously, was still the only living
figure left in the square. Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty
minutes, were counted out by the doctor's watch, before the first
sound came through the night silence to warn him of the approaching
carriage. Slowly it emerged into the square, at the walking pace of
the horses, and drew up, as a hearse might have drawn up, at the
door of the inn."Is the doctor here?" asked a woman's voice, speaking, out of
the darkness of the carriage, in the French language."I am here, madam," replied the doctor, taking a light from
the landlord's hand and opening the carriage door.The first face that the light fell on was the face of the
lady who had just spoken—a young, darkly beautiful woman, with the
tears standing thick and bright in her eager black eyes. The second
face revealed was the face of a shriveled old negress, sitting
opposite the lady on the back seat. The third was the face of a
little sleeping child in the negress's lap. With a quick gesture of
impatience, the lady signed to the nurse to leave the carriage
first with the child. "Pray take them out of the way," she said to
the landlady; "pray take them to their room." She got out herself
when her request had been complied with. Then the light fell clear
for the first time on the further side of the carriage, and the
fourth traveler was disclosed to view.He lay helpless on a mattress, supported by a stretcher; his
hair, long and disordered, under a black skull-cap; his eyes wide
open, rolling to and fro ceaselessly anxious; the rest of his face
as void of all expression of the character within him, and the
thought within him, as if he had been dead. There was no looking at
him now, and guessing what he might once have been. The leaden
blank of his face met every question as to his age, his rank, his
temper, and his looks which that face might once have answered, in
impenetrable silence. Nothing spoke for him now but the shock that
had struck him with the death-in-life of paralysis. The doctor's
eye questioned his lower limbs, and Death-in-Life answered,I am here. The doctor's eye, rising
attentively by way of his hands and arms, questioned upward and
upward to the muscles round his mouth, and Death-in-Life
answered,I am coming.In the face of a calamity so unsparing and so dreadful, there
was nothing to be said. The silent sympathy of help was all that
could be offered to the woman who stood weeping at the carriage
door.As they bore him on his bed across the hall of the hotel, his
wandering eyes encountered the face of his wife. They rested on her
for a moment, and in that moment he spoke."The child?" he said in English, with a slow, thick, laboring
articulation."The child is safe upstairs," she answered,
faintly."My desk?""It is in my hands. Look! I won't trust it to anybody; I am
taking care of it for you myself."He closed his eyes for the first time after that answer, and
said no more. Tenderly and skillfully he was carried up the stairs,
with his wife on one side of him, and the doctor (ominously silent)
on the other. The landlord and the servants following saw the door
of his room open and close on him; heard the lady burst out crying
hysterically as soon as she was alone with the doctor and the sick
man; saw the doctor come out, half an hour later, with his ruddy
face a shade paler than usual; pressed him eagerly for information,
and received but one answer to all their inquiries—"Wait till I
have seen him to-morrow. Ask me nothing to-night." They all knew
the doctor's ways, and they augured ill when he left them hurriedly
with that reply.So the two first English visitors of the year came to the
Baths of Wildbad in the season of eighteen hundred and
thirty-two.
II. THE SOLID SIDE OF THE SCOTCH CHARACTER.
AT ten o'clock the next morning, Mr. Neal—waiting for the
medical visit which he had himself appointed for that hour—looked
at his watch, and discovered, to his amazement, that he was waiting
in vain. It was close on eleven when the door opened at last, and
the doctor entered the room."I appointed ten o'clock for your visit," said Mr. Neal. "In
my country, a medical man is a punctual man.""In my country," returned the doctor, without the least
ill-humor, "a medical man is exactly like other men—he is at the
mercy of accidents. Pray grant me your pardon, sir, for being so
long after my time; I have been detained by a very distressing
case—the case of Mr. Armadale, whose traveling-carriage you passed
on the road yesterday."Mr. Neal looked at his medical attendant with a sour
surprise. There was a latent anxiety in the doctor's eye, a latent
preoccupation in the doctor's manner, which he was at a loss to
account for. For a moment the two faces confronted each other
silently, in marked national contrast—the Scotchman's, long and
lean, hard and regular; the German's, plump and florid, soft and
shapeless. One face looked as if it had never been young; the
other, as if it would never grow old."Might I venture to remind you," said Mr. Neal, "that the
case now under consideration is MY case, and not Mr.
Armadale's?""Certainly," replied the doctor, still vacillating between
the case he had come to see and the case he had just left. "You
appear to be suffering from lameness; let me look at your
foot."Mr. Neal's malady, however serious it might be in his own
estimation, was of no extraordinary importance in a medical point
of view. He was suffering from a rheumatic affection of the
ankle-joint. The necessary questions were asked and answered and
the necessary baths were prescribed. In ten minutes the
consultation was at an end, and the patient was waiting in
significant silence for the medical adviser to take his
leave."I cannot conceal from myself," said the doctor, rising, and
hesitating a little, "that I am intruding on you. But I am
compelled to beg your indulgence if I return to the subject of Mr.
Armadale.""May I ask what compels you?""The duty which I owe as a Christian," answered the doctor,
"to a dying man."Mr. Neal started. Those who touched his sense of religious
duty touched the quickest sense in his nature."You have established your claim on my attention," he said,
gravely. "My time is yours.""I will not abuse your kindness," replied the doctor,
resuming his chair. "I will be as short as I can. Mr. Armadale's
case is briefly this: He has passed the greater part of his life in
the West Indies—a wild life, and a vicious life, by his own
confession. Shortly after his marriage—now some three years
since—the first symptoms of an approaching paralytic affection
began to show themselves, and his medical advisers ordered him away
to try the climate of Europe. Since leaving the West Indies he has
lived principally in Italy, with no benefit to his health. From
Italy, before the last seizure attacked him, he removed to
Switzerland, and from Switzerland he has been sent to this place.
So much I know from his doctor's report; the rest I can tell you
from my own personal experience. Mr. Armadale has been sent to
Wildbad too late: he is virtually a dead man. The paralysis is fast
spreading upward, and disease of the lower part of the spine has
already taken place. He can still move his hands a little, but he
can hold nothing in his fingers. He can still articulate, but he
may wake speechless to-morrow or next day. If I give him a week
more to live, I give him what I honestly believe to be the utmost
length of his span. At his own request I told him, as carefully and
as tenderly as I could, what I have just told you. The result was
very distressing; the violence of the patient's agitation was a
violence which I despair of describing to you. I took the liberty
of asking him whether his affairs were unsettled. Nothing of the
sort. His will is in the hands of his executor in London, and he
leaves his wife and child well provided for. My next question
succeeded better; it hit the mark: 'Have you something on your mind
to do before you die which is not done yet?' He gave a great gasp
of relief, which said, as no words could have said it, Yes. 'Can I
help you?' 'Yes. I have something to write that Imustwrite; can you make me hold a
pen?'"He might as well have asked me if I could perform a miracle.
I could only say No. 'If I dictate the words,' he went on, 'can you
write what I tell you to write?' Once more I could only say No I
understand a little English, but I can neither speak it nor write
it. Mr. Armadale understands French when it is spoken (as I speak
it to him) slowly, but he cannot express himself in that language;
and of German he is totally ignorant. In this difficulty, I said,
what any one else in my situation would have said: 'Why askme? there is Mrs. Armadale at your
service in the next room.' Before I could get up from my chair to
fetch her, he stopped me—not by words, but by a look of horror
which fixed me, by main force of astonishment, in my place.
'Surely,' I said, 'your wife is the fittest person to write for you
as you desire?' 'The last person under heaven!' he answered.
'What!' I said, 'you ask me, a foreigner and a stranger, to write
words at your dictation which you keep a secret from your wife!'
Conceive my astonishment when he answered me, without a moment's
hesitation, 'Yes!' I sat lost; I sat silent. 'Ifyoucan't write English,' he said,
'find somebody who can.' I tried to remonstrate. He burst into a
dreadful moaning cry—a dumb entreaty, like the entreaty of a dog.
'Hush! hush!' I said, 'I will find somebody.' 'To-day!' he broke
out, 'before my speech fails me, like my hand.' 'To-day, in an
hour's time.' He shut his eyes; he quieted himself instantly.
'While I am waiting for you,' he said, 'let me see my little boy.'
He had shown no tenderness when he spoke of his wife, but I saw the
tears on his cheeks when he asked for his child. My profession,
sir, has not made me so hard a man as you might think; and my
doctor's heart was as heavy, when I went out to fetch the child, as
if I had not been a doctor at all. I am afraid you think this
rather weak on my part?"The doctor looked appealingly at Mr. Neal. He might as well
have looked at a rock in the Black Forest. Mr. Neal entirely
declined to be drawn by any doctor in Christendom out of the
regions of plain fact."Go on," he said. "I presume you have not told me all that
you have to tell me, yet?""Surely you understand my object in coming here, now?"
returned the other."Your object is plain enough, at last. You invite me to
connect myself blindfold with a matter which is in the last degree
suspicious, so far. I decline giving you any answer until I know
more than I know now. Did you think it necessary to inform this
man's wife of what had passed between you, and to ask her for an
explanation?""Of course I thought it necessary!" said the doctor,
indignant at the reflection on his humanity which the question
seemed to imply. "If ever I saw a woman fond of her husband, and
sorry for her husband, it is this unhappy Mrs. Armadale. As soon as
we were left alone together, I sat down by her side, and I took her
hand in mine. Why not? I am an ugly old man, and I may allow myself
such liberties as these!""Excuse me," said the impenetrable Scotchman. "I beg to
suggest that you are losing the thread of the
narrative.""Nothing more likely," returned the doctor, recovering his
good humor. "It is in the habit of my nation to be perpetually
losing the thread; and it is evidently in the habit of yours, sir,
to be perpetually finding it. What an example here of the order of
the universe, and the everlasting fitness of things!""Will you oblige me, once for all, by confining yourself to
the facts," persisted Mr. Neal, frowning impatiently. "May I
inquire, for my own information, whether Mrs. Armadale could tell
you what it is her husband wishes me to write, and why it is that
he refuses to let her write for him?""There is my thread found—and thank you for finding it!" said
the doctor. "You shall hear what Mrs. Armadale had to tell me, in
Mrs. Armadale's own words. 'The cause that now shuts me out of his
confidence,' she said, 'is, I firmly believe, the same cause that
has always shut me out of his heart. I am the wife he has wedded,
but I am not the woman he loves. I knew when he married me that
another man had won from him the woman he loved. I thought I could
make him forget her. I hoped when I married him; I hoped again when
I bore him a son. Need I tell you the end of my hopes—you have seen
it for yourself.' (Wait, sir, I entreat you! I have not lost the
thread again; I am following it inch by inch.) 'Is this all you
know?' I asked. 'All I knew,' she said, 'till a short time since.
It was when we were in Switzerland, and when his illness was nearly
at its worst, that news came to him by accident of that other woman
who has been the shadow and the poison of my life—news that she
(like me) had borne her husband a son. On the instant of his making
that discovery—a trifling discovery, if ever there was one yet—a
mortal fear seized on him: not for me, not for himself; a fear for
his own child. The same day (without a word to me) he sent for the
doctor. I was mean, wicked, what you please—I listened at the door.
I heard him say:I have something to tell my son,
when my son grows old enough to understand me. Shall I live to tell
it? The doctor would say nothing certain. The
same night (still without a word to me) he locked himself into his
room. What would any woman, treated as I was, have done in my
place? She would have done as I did—she would have listened again.
I heard him say to himself:I shall not live to
tell it: I must; write it before I die. I heard
his pen scrape, scrape, scrape over the paper; I heard him groaning
and sobbing as he wrote; I implored him for God's sake to let me
in. The cruel pen went scrape, scrape, scrape; the cruel pen was
all the answer he gave me. I waited at the door—hours—I don't know
how long. On a sudden, the pen stopped; and I heard no more. I
whispered through the keyhole softly; I said I was cold and weary
with waiting; I said, Oh, my love, let me in! Not even the cruel
pen answered me now: silence answered me. With all the strength of
my miserable hands I beat at the door. The servants came up and
broke it in. We were too late; the harm was done. Over that fatal
letter, the stroke had struck him—over that fatal letter, we found
him paralyzed as you see him now. Those words which he wants you to
write are the words he would have written himself if the stroke had
spared him till the morning. From that time to this there has been
a blank place left in the letter; and it is that blank place which
he has just asked you to fill up.'—In those words Mrs. Armadale
spoke to me; in those words you have the sum and substance of all
the information I can give. Say, if you please, sir, have I kept
the thread at last? Have I shown you the necessity which brings me
here from your countryman's death-bed?""Thus far," said Mr. Neal, "you merely show me that you are
exciting yourself. This is too serious a matter to be treated as
you are treating it now. You have involved Me in the business, and
I insist on seeing my way plainly. Don't raise your hands; your
hands are not a part of the question. If I am to be concerned in
the completion of this mysterious letter, it is only an act of
justifiable prudence on my part to inquire what the letter is
about. Mrs. Armadale appears to have favored you with an infinite
number of domestic particulars—in return, I presume, for your
polite attention in taking her by the hand. May I ask what she
could tell you about her husband's letter, so far as her husband
has written it?""Mrs. Armadale could tell me nothing," replied the doctor,
with a sudden formality in his manner, which showed that his
forbearance was at last failing him. "Before she was composed
enough to think of the letter, her husband had asked for it, and
had caused it to be locked up in his desk. She knows that he has
since, time after time, tried to finish it, and that, time after
time, the pen has dropped from his fingers. She knows, when all
other hope of his restoration was at an end, that his medical
advisers encouraged him to hope in the famous waters of this place.
And last, she knows how that hope has ended; for she knows what I
told her husband this morning."The frown which had been gathering latterly on Mr. Neal's
face deepened and darkened. He looked at the doctor as if the
doctor had personally offended him."The more I think of the position you are asking me to take,"
he said, "the less I like it. Can you undertake to say positively
that Mr. Armadale is in his right mind?""Yes; as positively as words can say it.""Does his wife sanction your coming here to request my
interference?""His wife sends me to you—the only Englishman in Wildbad—to
write for your dying countryman what he cannot write for himself;
and what no one else in this place but you can write for
him."That answer drove Mr. Neal back to the last inch of ground
left him to stand on. Even on that inch the Scotchman resisted
still."Wait a little!" he said. "You put it strongly; let us be
quite sure you put it correctly as well. Let us be quite sure there
is nobody to take this responsibility but myself. There is a mayor
in Wildbad, to begin with—a man who possesses an official character
to justify his interference.""A man of a thousand," said the doctor. "With one fault—he
knows no language but his own.""There is an English legation at Stuttgart," persisted Mr.
Neal."And there are miles on miles of the forest between this and
Stuttgart," rejoined the doctor. "If we sent this moment, we could
get no help from the legation before to-morrow; and it is as likely
as not, in the state of this dying man's articulation, that
to-morrow may find him speechless. I don't know whether his last
wishes are wishes harmless to his child and to others, wishes
hurtful to his child and to others; but Idoknow that they must be fulfilled at
once or never, and that you are the only man that can help
him."That open declaration brought the discussion to a close. It
fixed Mr. Neal fast between the two alternatives of saying Yes, and
committing an act of imprudence, or of saying No, and committing an
act of inhumanity. There was a silence of some minutes. The
Scotchman steadily reflected; and the German steadily watched
him.The responsibility of saying the next words rested on Mr.
Neal, and in course of time Mr. Neal took it. He rose from his
chair with a sullen sense of injury lowering on his heavy eyebrows,
and working sourly in the lines at the corners of his
mouth."My position is forced on me," he said. "I have no choice but
to accept it."The doctor's impulsive nature rose in revolt against the
merciless brevity and gracelessness of that reply. "I wish to God,"
he broke out fervently, "I knew English enough to take your place
at Mr. Armadale's bedside!""Bating your taking the name of the Almighty in vain,"
answered the Scotchman, "I entirely agree with you. I wish you
did."Without another word on either side, they left the room
together—the doctor leading the way.
III. THE WRECK OF THE TIMBER SHIP.
NO one answered the doctor's knock when he and his companion
reached the antechamber door of Mr. Armadale's apartments. They
entered unannounced; and when they looked into the sitting-room,
the sitting-room was empty."I must see Mrs. Armadale," said Mr. Neal. "I decline acting
in the matter unless Mrs. Armadale authorizes my interference with
her own lips.""Mrs. Armadale is probably with her husband," replied the
doctor. He approached a door at the inner end of the sitting-room
while he spoke—hesitated—and, turning round again, looked at his
sour companion anxiously. "I am afraid I spoke a little harshly,
sir, when we were leaving your room," he said. "I beg your pardon
for it, with all my heart. Before this poor afflicted lady comes
in, will you—will you excuse my asking your utmost gentleness and
consideration for her?""No, sir," retorted the other harshly; "I won't excuse you.
What right have I given you to think me wanting in gentleness and
consideration toward anybody?"The doctor saw it was useless. "I beg your pardon again," he
said, resignedly, and left the unapproachable stranger to
himself.Mr. Neal walked to the window, and stood there, with his eyes
mechanically fixed on the prospect, composing his mind for the
coming interview.It was midday; the sun shone bright and warm; and all the
little world of Wildbad was alive and merry in the genial
springtime. Now and again heavy wagons, with black-faced carters in
charge, rolled by the window, bearing their precious lading of
charcoal from the forest. Now and again, hurled over the headlong
current of the stream that runs through the town, great lengths of
timber, loosely strung together in interminable series—with the
booted raftsmen, pole in hand, poised watchful at either end—shot
swift and serpent-like past the houses on their course to the
distant Rhine. High and steep above the gabled wooden buildings on
the river-bank, the great hillsides, crested black with firs, shone
to the shining heavens in a glory of lustrous green. In and out,
where the forest foot-paths wound from the grass through the trees,
from the trees over the grass, the bright spring dresses of women
and children, on the search for wild flowers, traveled to and fro
in the lofty distance like spots of moving light. Below, on the
walk by the stream side, the booths of the little bazar that had
opened punctually with the opening season showed all their
glittering trinkets, and fluttered in the balmy air their splendor
of many-colored flags. Longingly, here the children looked at the
show; patiently the sunburned lasses plied their knitting as they
paced the walk; courteously the passing townspeople, by fours and
fives, and the passing visitors, by ones and twos, greeted each
other, hat in hand; and slowly, slowly, the cripple and the
helpless in their chairs on wheels came out in the cheerful
noontide with the rest, and took their share of the blessed light
that cheers, of the blessed sun that shines for all.On this scene the Scotchman looked, with eyes that never
noted its beauty, with a mind far away from every lesson that it
taught. One by one he meditated the words he should say when the
wife came in. One by one he pondered over the conditions he might
impose before he took the pen in hand at the husband's
bedside."Mrs. Armadale is here," said the doctor's voice, interposing
suddenly between his reflections and himself.He turned on the instant, and saw before him, with the pure
midday light shining full on her, a woman of the mixed blood of the
European and the African race, with the Northern delicacy in the
shape of her face, and the Southern richness in its color—a woman
in the prime of her beauty, who moved with an inbred grace, who
looked with an inbred fascination, whose large, languid black eyes
rested on him gratefully, whose little dusky hand offered itself to
him in mute expression of her thanks, with the welcome that is
given to the coming of a friend. For the first time in his life the
Scotchman was taken by surprise. Every self-preservative word that
he had been meditating but an instant since dropped out of his
memory. His thrice impenetrable armor of habitual suspicion,
habitual self-discipline, and habitual reserve, which had never
fallen from him in a woman's presence before, fell from him in this
woman's presence, and brought him to his knees, a conquered man. He
took the hand she offered him, and bowed over it his first honest
homage to the sex, in silence.She hesitated on her side. The quick feminine perception
which, in happier circumstances, would have pounced on the secret
of his embarrassment in an instant, failed her now. She attributed
his strange reception of her to pride, to reluctance—to any cause
but the unexpected revelation of her own beauty. "I have no words
to thank you," she said, faintly, trying to propitiate him. "I
should only distress you if I tried to speak." Her lip began to
tremble, she drew back a little, and turned away her head in
silence.The doctor, who had been standing apart, quietly observant in
a corner, advanced before Mr. Neal could interfere, and led Mrs.
Armadale to a chair. "Don't be afraid of him," whispered the good
man, patting her gently on the shoulder. "He was hard as iron in my
hands, but I think, by the look of him, he will be soft as wax in
yours. Say the words I told you to say, and let us take him to your
husband's room, before those sharp wits of his have time to recover
themselves."She roused her sinking resolution, and advanced half-way to
the window to meet Mr. Neal. "My kind friend, the doctor, has told
me, sir, that your only hesitation in coming here is a hesitation
on my account," she said, her head drooping a little, and her rich
color fading away while she spoke. "I am deeply grateful, but I
entreat you not to think ofme.
What my husband wishes—" Her voice faltered; she waited resolutely,
and recovered herself. "What my husband wishes in his last moments,
I wish too."This time Mr. Neal was composed enough to answer her. In low,
earnest tones, he entreated her to say no more. "I was only anxious
to show you every consideration," he said. "I am only anxious now
to spare you every distress." As he spoke, something like a glow of
color rose slowly on his sallow face. Her eyes were looking at him,
softly attentive; and he thought guiltily of his meditations at the
window before she came in.The doctor saw his opportunity. He opened the door that led
into Mr. Armadale's room, and stood by it, waiting silently. Mrs.
Armadale entered first. In a minute more the door was closed again;
and Mr. Neal stood committed to the responsibility that had been
forced on him—committed beyond recall.The room was decorated in the gaudy continental fashion, and
the warm sunlight was shining in joyously. Cupids and flowers were
painted on the ceiling; bright ribbons looped up the white
window-curtains; a smart gilt clock ticked on a velvet-covered
mantelpiece; mirrors gleamed on the walls, and flowers in all the
colors of the rainbow speckled the carpet. In the midst of the
finery, and the glitter, and the light, lay the paralyzed man, with
his wandering eyes, and his lifeless lower face—his head propped
high with many pillows; his helpless hands laid out over the
bed-clothes like the hands of a corpse. By the bed head stood,
grim, and old, and silent, the shriveled black nurse; and on the
counter-pane, between his father's outspread hands, lay the child,
in his little white frock, absorbed in the enjoyment of a new toy.
When the door opened, and Mrs. Armadale led the way in, the boy was
tossing his plaything—a soldier on horseback—backward and forward
over the helpless hands on either side of him; and the father's
wandering eyes were following the toy to and fro, with a stealthy
and ceaseless vigilance—a vigilance as of a wild animal, terrible
to see.The moment Mr. Neal appeared in the doorway, those restless
eyes stopped, looked up, and fastened on the stranger with a fierce
eagerness of inquiry. Slowly the motionless lips struggled into
movement. With thick, hesitating articulation, they put the
question which the eyes asked mutely, into words: "Are you the
man?"Mr. Neal advanced to the bedside, Mrs. Armadale drawing back
from it as he approached, and waiting with the doctor at the
further end of the room. The child looked up, toy in hand, as the
stranger came near, opened his bright brown eyes in momentary
astonishment, and then went on with his game."I have been made acquainted with your sad situation, sir,"
said Mr. Neal; "and I have come here to place my services at your
disposal—services which no one but myself, as your medical
attendant informs me, is in a position to render you in this
strange place. My name is Neal. I am a writer to the signet in
Edinburgh; and I may presume to say for myself that any confidence
you wish to place in me will be confidence not improperly
bestowed."The eyes of the beautiful wife were not confusing him now. He
spoke to the helpless husband quietly and seriously, without his
customary harshness, and with a grave compassion in his manner
which presented him at his best. The sight of the death-bed had
steadied him."You wish me to write something for you?" he resumed, after
waiting for a reply, and waiting in vain."Yes!" said the dying man, with the all-mastering impatience
which his tongue was powerless to express, glittering angrily in
his eye. "My hand is gone, and my speech is going.
Write!"Before there was time to speak again, Mr. Neal heard the
rustling of a woman's dress, and the quick creaking of casters on
the carpet behind him. Mrs. Armadale was moving the writing-table
across the room to the foot of the bed. If he was to set up those
safeguards of his own devising that were to bear him harmless
through all results to come, now was the time, or never. He, kept
his back turned on Mrs. Armadale, and put his precautionary
question at once in the plainest terms."May I ask, sir, before I take the pen in hand, what it is
you wish me to write?"The angry eyes of the paralyzed man glittered brighter and
brighter. His lips opened and closed again. He made no
reply.Mr. Neal tried another precautionary question, in a new
direction."When I have written what you wish me to write," he asked,
"what is to be done with it?"This time the answer came:"Seal it up in my presence, and post it to my
ex—"His laboring articulation suddenly stopped and he looked
piteously in the questioner's face for the next word."Do you mean your executor?""Yes.""It is a letter, I suppose, that I am to post?" There was no
answer. "May I ask if it is a letter altering your
will?""Nothing of the sort."Mr. Neal considered a little. The mystery was thickening. The
one way out of it, so far, was the way traced faintly through that
strange story of the unfinished letter which the doctor had
repeated to him in Mrs. Armadale's words. The nearer he approached
his unknown responsibility, the more ominous it seemed of something
serious to come. Should he risk another question before he pledged
himself irrevocably? As the doubt crossed his mind, he felt Mrs.
Armadale's silk dress touch him on the side furthest from her
husband. Her delicate dark hand was laid gently on his arm; her
full deep African eyes looked at him in submissive entreaty. "My
husband is very anxious," she whispered. "Will you quiet his
anxiety, sir, by taking your place at the
writing-table?"It was fromherlips that
the request came—from the lips of the person who had the best right
to hesitate, the wife who was excluded from the secret! Most men in
Mr. Neal's position would have given up all their safeguards on the
spot. The Scotchman gave them all up but one."I will write what you wish me to write," he said, addressing
Mr. Armadale. "I will seal it in your presence; and I will post it
to your executor myself. But, in engaging to do this, I must beg
you to remember that I am acting entirely in the dark; and I must
ask you to excuse me, if I reserve my own entire freedom of action,
when your wishes in relation to the writing and the posting of the
letter have been fulfilled.""Do you give me your promise?""If you want my promise, sir, I will give it—subject to the
condition I have just named.""Take your condition, and keep your promise. My desk," he
added, looking at his wife for the first time.She crossed the room eagerly to fetch the desk from a chair
in a corner. Returning with it, she made a passing sign to the
negress, who still stood, grim and silent, in the place that she
had occupied from the first. The woman advanced, obedient to the
sign, to take the child from the bed. At the instant when she
touched him, the father's eyes—fixed previously on the desk—turned
on her with the stealthy quickness of a cat. "No!" he said. "No!"
echoed the fresh voice of the boy, still charmed with his
plaything, and still liking his place on the bed. The negress left
the room, and the child, in high triumph, trotted his toy soldier
up and down on the bedclothes that lay rumpled over his father's
breast. His mother's lovely face contracted with a pang of jealousy
as she looked at him."Shall I open your desk?" she asked, pushing back the child's
plaything sharply while she spoke. An answering look from her
husband guided her hand to the place under his pillow where the key
was hidden. She opened the desk, and disclosed inside some small
sheets of manuscript pinned together. "These?" she inquired,
producing them."Yes," he said. "You can go now."The Scotchman sitting at the writing-table, the doctor
stirring a stimulant mixture in a corner, looked at each other with
an anxiety in both their faces which they could neither of them
control. The words that banished the wife from the room were
spoken. The moment had come."You can go now," said Mr. Armadale, for the second
time.She looked at the child, established comfortably on the bed,
and an ashy paleness spread slowly over her face. She looked at the
fatal letter which was a sealed secret to her, and a torture of
jealous suspicion—suspicion of that other woman who had been the
shadow and the poison of her life—wrung her to the heart. After
moving a few steps from the bedside, she stopped, and came back
again. Armed with the double courage of her love and her despair,
she pressed her lips on her dying husband's cheek, and pleaded with
him for the last time. Her burning tears dropped on his face as she
whispered to him: "Oh, Allan, think how I have loved you! think how
hard I have tried to make you happy! think how soon I shall lose
you! Oh, my own love! don't, don't send me away!"The words pleaded for her; the kiss pleaded for her; the
recollection of the love that had been given to him, and never
returned, touched the heart of the fast-sinking man as nothing had
touched it since the day of his marriage. A heavy sigh broke from
him. He looked at her, and hesitated."Let me stay," she whispered, pressing her face closer to
his."It will only distress you," he whispered back."Nothing distresses me, but being sent away fromyou!"He waited. She saw that he was thinking, and waited
too."If I let you stay a little—?""Yes! yes!""Will you go when I tell you?""I will.""On your oath?"The fetters that bound his tongue seemed to be loosened for a
moment in the great outburst of anxiety which forced that question
to his lips. He spoke those startling words as he had spoken no
words yet."On my oath!" she repeated, and, dropping on her knees at the
bedside, passionately kissed his hand. The two strangers in the
room turned their heads away by common consent. In the silence that
followed, the one sound stirring was the small sound of the child's
toy, as he moved it hither and thither on the bed.The doctor was the first who broke the spell of stillness
which had fallen on all the persons present. He approached the
patient, and examined him anxiously. Mrs. Armadale rose from her
knees; and, first waiting for her husband's permission, carried the
sheets of manuscript which she had taken out of the desk to the
table at which Mr. Neal was waiting. Flushed and eager, more
beautiful than ever in the vehement agitation which still possessed
her, she stooped over him as she put the letter into his hands,
and, seizing on the means to her end with a woman's headlong
self-abandonment to her own impulses, whispered to him, "Read it
out from the beginning. I must and will hear it!" Her eyes flashed
their burning light into his; her breath beat on his cheek. Before
he could answer, before he could think, she was back with her
husband. In an instant she had spoken, and in that instant her
beauty had bent the Scotchman to her will. Frowning in reluctant
acknowledgment of his own inability to resist her, he turned over
the leaves of the letter; looked at the blank place where the pen
had dropped from the writer's hand and had left a blot on the
paper; turned back again to the beginning, and said the words, in
the wife's interest, which the wife herself had put into his
lips."Perhaps, sir, you may wish to make some corrections," he
began, with all his attention apparently fixed on the letter, and
with every outward appearance of letting his sour temper again get
the better of him. "Shall I read over to you what you have already
written?"Mrs. Armadale, sitting at the bed head on one side, and the
doctor, with his fingers on the patient's pulse, sitting on the
other, waited with widely different anxieties for the answer to Mr.
Neal's question. Mr. Armadale's eyes turned searchingly from his
child to his wife."Youwillhear it?" he
said. Her breath came and went quickly; her hand stole up and took
his; she bowed her head in silence. Her husband paused, taking
secret counsel with his thoughts, and keeping his eyes fixed on his
wife. At last he decided, and gave the answer. "Read it," he said,
"and stop when I tell you."It was close on one o'clock, and the bell was ringing which
summoned the visitors to their early dinner at the inn. The quick
beat of footsteps, and the gathering hum of voices outside,
penetrated gayly into the room, as Mr. Neal spread the manuscript
before him on the table, and read the opening sentences in these
words:"I address this letter to my son, when my son is of an age to
understand it. Having lost all hope of living to see my boy grow up
to manhood, I have no choice but to write here what I would fain
have said to him at a future time with my own lips."I have three objects in writing. First, to reveal the
circumstances which attended the marriage of an English lady of my
acquaintance, in the island of Madeira. Secondly, to throw the true
light on the death of her husband a short time afterward, on board
the French timber shipLa Grace de
Dieu. Thirdly, to warn my son of a danger that
lies in wait for him—a danger that will rise from his father's
grave when the earth has closed over his father's
ashes."The story of the English lady's marriage begins with my
inheriting the great Armadale property, and my taking the fatal
Armadale name."I am the only surviving son of the late Mathew Wrentmore, of
Barbadoes. I was born on our family estate in that island, and I
lost my father when I was still a child. My mother was blindly fond
of me; she denied me nothing, she let me live as I pleased. My
boyhood and youth were passed in idleness and self-indulgence,
among people—slaves and half-castes mostly—to whom my will was law.
I doubt if there is a gentleman of my birth and station in all
England as ignorant as I am at this moment. I doubt if there was
ever a young man in this world whose passions were left so entirely
without control of any kind as mine were in those early
days."My mother had a woman's romantic objection to my father's
homely Christian name. I was christened Allan, after the name of a
wealthy cousin of my father's—the late Allan Armadale—who possessed
estates in our neighborhood, the largest and most productive in the
island, and who consented to be my godfather by proxy. Mr. Armadale
had never seen his West Indian property. He lived in England; and,
after sending me the customary godfather's present, he held no
further communication with my parents for years afterward. I was
just twenty-one before we heard again from Mr. Armadale. On that
occasion my mother received a letter from him asking if I was still
alive, and offering no less (if I was) than to make me the heir to
his West Indian property."This piece of good fortune fell to me entirely through the
misconduct of Mr. Armadale's son, an only child. The young man had
disgraced himself beyond all redemption; had left his home an
outlaw; and had been thereupon renounced by his father at once and
forever. Having no other near male relative to succeed him, Mr.
Armadale thought of his cousin's son and his own godson; and he
offered the West Indian estate to me, and my heirs after me, on one
condition—that I and my heirs should take his name. The proposal
was gratefully accepted, and the proper legal measures were adopted
for changing my name in the colony and in the mother country. By
the next mail information reached Mr. Armadale that his condition
had been complied with. The return mail brought news from the
lawyers. The will had been altered in my favor, and in a week
afterward the death of my benefactor had made me the largest
proprietor and the richest man in Barbadoes."This was the first event in the chain. The second event
followed it six weeks afterward."At that time there happened to be a vacancy in the clerk's
office on the estate, and there came to fill it a young man about
my own age who had recently arrived in the island. He announced
himself by the name of Fergus Ingleby. My impulses governed me in
everything; I knew no law but the law of my own caprice, and I took
a fancy to the stranger the moment I set eyes on him. He had the
manners of a gentleman, and he possessed the most attractive social
qualities which, in my small experience, I had ever met with. When
I heard that the written references to character which he had
brought with him were pronounced to be unsatisfactory, I
interfered, and insisted that he should have the place. My will was
law, and he had it."My mother disliked and distrusted Ingleby from the first.
When she found the intimacy between us rapidly ripening; when she
found me admitting this inferior to the closest companionship and
confidence (I had lived with my inferiors all my life, and I liked
it), she made effort after effort to part us, and failed in one and
all. Driven to her last resources, she resolved to try the one
chance left—the chance of persuading me to take a voyage which I
had often thought of—a voyage to England."Before she spoke to me on the subject, she resolved to
interest me in the idea of seeing England, as I had never been
interested yet. She wrote to an old friend and an old admirer of
hers, the late Stephen Blanchard, of Thorpe Ambrose, in Norfolk—a
gentleman of landed estate, and a widower with a grown-up family.
After-discoveries informed me that she must have alluded to their
former attachment (which was checked, I believe, by the parents on
either side); and that, in asking Mr. Blanchard's welcome for her
son when he came to England, she made inquiries about his daughter,
which hinted at the chance of a marriage uniting the two families,
if the young lady and I met and liked one another. We were equally
matched in every respect, and my mother's recollection of her
girlish attachment to Mr. Blanchard made the prospect of my
marrying her old admirer's daughter the brightest and happiest
prospect that her eyes could see. Of all this I knew nothing until
Mr. Blanchard's answer arrived at Barbadoes. Then my mother showed
me the letter, and put the temptation which was to separate me from
Fergus Ingleby openly in my way."Mr. Blanchard's letter was dated from the Island of Madeira.
He was out of health, and he had been ordered there by the doctors
to try the climate. His daughter was with him. After heartily
reciprocating all my mother's hopes and wishes, he proposed (if I
intended leaving Barbadoes shortly) that I should take Madeira on
my way to England, and pay him a visit at his temporary residence
in the island. If this could not be, he mentioned the time at which
he expected to be back in England, when I might be sure of finding
a welcome at his own house of Thorpe Ambrose. In conclusion, he
apologized for not writing at greater length; explaining that his
sight was affected, and that he had disobeyed the doctor's orders
by yielding to the temptation of writing to his old friend with his
own hand."Kindly as it was expressed, the letter itself might have had
little influence on me. But there was something else besides the
letter; there was inclosed in it a miniature portrait of Miss
Blanchard. At the back of the portrait, her father had written,
half-jestingly, half-tenderly, 'I can't ask my daughter to spare my
eyes as usual, without telling her of your inquiries, and putting a
young lady's diffidence to the blush. So I send her in effigy
(without her knowledge) to answer for herself. It is a good
likeness of a good girl. If she likes your son—and if I like him,
which I am sure I shall—we may yet live, my good friend, to see our
children what we might once have been ourselves—man and wife.' My
mother gave me the miniature with the letter. The portrait at once
struck me—I can't say why, I can't say how—as nothing of the kind
had ever struck me before."Harder intellects than mine might have attributed the
extraordinary impression produced on me to the disordered condition
of my mind at that time; to the weariness of my own base pleasures
which had been gaining on me for months past, to the undefined
longing which that weariness implied for newer interests and
fresher hopes than any that had possessed me yet. I attempted no
such sober self-examination as this: I believed in destiny then, I
believe in destiny now. It was enough for me to know—as I did
know—that the first sense I had ever felt of something better in my
nature than my animal self was roused by that girl's face looking
at me from her picture as no woman's face had ever looked at me
yet. In those tender eyes—in the chance of making that gentle
creature my wife—I saw my destiny written. The portrait which had
come into my hands so strangely and so unexpectedly was the silent
messenger of happiness close at hand, sent to warn, to encourage,
to rouse me before it was too late. I put the miniature under my
pillow at night; I looked at it again the next morning. My
conviction of the day before remained as strong as ever; my
superstition (if you please to call it so) pointed out to me
irresistibly the way on which I should go. There was a ship in port
which was to sail for England in a fortnight, touching at Madeira.
In that ship I took my passage."Thus far the reader had advanced with no interruption to
disturb him. But at the last words the tones of another voice, low
and broken, mingled with his own."Was she a fair woman," asked the voice, "or dark, like
me?"Mr. Neal paused, and looked up. The doctor was still at the
bed head, with his fingers mechanically on the patient's pulse. The
child, missing his midday sleep, was beginning to play languidly
with his new toy. The father's eyes were watching him with a rapt
and ceaseless attention. But one great change was visible in the
listeners since the narrative had begun. Mrs. Armadale had dropped
her hold of her husband's hand, and sat with her face steadily
turned away from him The hot African blood burned red in her dusky
cheeks as she obstinately repeated the question: "Was she a fair
woman, or dark, like me?""Fair," said her husband, without looking at
her.Her hands, lying clasped together in her lap, wrung each
other hard—she said no more. Mr. Neal's overhanging eyebrows
lowered ominously as he returned to the narrative. He had incurred
his own severe displeasure—he had caught himself in the act of
secretly pitying her."I have said"—the letter proceeded—"that Ingleby was admitted
to my closest confidence. I was sorry to leave him; and I was
distressed by his evident surprise and mortification when he heard
that I was going away. In my own justification, I showed him the
letter and the likeness, and told him the truth. His interest in
the portrait seemed to be hardly inferior to my own. He asked me
about Miss Blanchard's family and Miss Blanchard's fortune with the
sympathy of a true friend; and he strengthened my regard for him,
and my belief in him, by putting himself out of the question, and
by generously encouraging me to persist in my new purpose. When we
parted, I was in high health and spirits. Before we met again the
next day, I was suddenly struck by an illness which threatened both
my reason and my life."I have no proof against Ingleby. There was more than one
woman on the island whom I had wronged beyond all forgiveness, and
whose vengeance might well have reached me at that time. I can
accuse nobody. I can only say that my life was saved by my old
black nurse; and that the woman afterward acknowledged having used
the known negro antidote to a known negro poison in those parts.
When my first days of convalescence came, the ship in which my
passage had been taken had long since sailed. When I asked for
Ingleby, he was gone. Proofs of his unpardonable misconduct in his
situation were placed before me, which not even my partiality for
him could resist. He had been turned out of the office in the first
days of my illness, and nothing more was known of him but that he
had left the island."All through my sufferings the portrait had been under my
pillow. All through my convalescence it was my one consolation when
I remembered the past, and my one encouragement when I thought of
the future. No words can describe the hold that first fancy had now
taken of me—with time and solitude and suffering to help it. My
mother, with all her interest in the match, was startled by the
unexpected success of her own project. She had written to tell Mr.
Blanchard of my illness, but had received no reply. She now offered
to write again, if I would promise not to leave her before my
recovery was complete. My impatience acknowledged no restraint.
Another ship in port gave me another chance of leaving for Madeira.
Another examination of Mr. Blanchard's letter of invitation assured
me that I should find him still in the island, if I seized my
opportunity on the spot. In defiance of my mother's entreaties, I
insisted on taking my passage in the second ship—and this time,
when the ship sailed, I was on board.