The Law and the Lady

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER XXI. I SEE MY WAY.

  IN the gray light of the new morning I closed the Report of my husband'sTrial for the Murder of his first Wife.

  No sense of fatigue overpowered me. I had no wish, after my long hoursof reading and thinking, to lie down and sleep. It was strange, but itwas so. I felt as if I _had_ slept, and had now just awakened--a newwoman, with a new mind.

  I could now at last understand Eustace's desertion of me. To a man ofhis refinement it would have been a martyrdom to meet his wife after shehad read the things published of him to all the world in the Report. Ifelt that as he would have felt it. At the same time I thought he mighthave trusted Me to make amends to him for the martyrdom, and mighthave come back. Perhaps it might yet end in his coming back. In themeanwhile, and in that expectation, I pitied and forgave him with mywhole heart.

  One little matter only dwelt on my mind disagreeably, in spite ofmy philosophy. Did Eustace still secretly love Mrs. Beauly? or had Iextinguished that passion in him? To what order of beauty did this ladybelong? Were we by any chance, the least in the world like one another?

  The window of my room looked to the east. I drew up the blind, and sawthe sun rising grandly in a clear sky. The temptation to go out andbreathe the fresh morning air was irresistible. I put on my hat andshawl, and took the Report of the Trial under my arm. The bolts of theback door were easily drawn. In another minute I was out in Benjamin'spretty little garden.

  Composed and strengthened by the inviting solitude and the deliciousair, I found courage enough to face the serious question that nowconfronted me--the question of the future.

  I had read the Trial. I had vowed to devote my life to the sacred objectof vindicating my husband's innocence. A solitary, defenseless woman, Istood pledged to myself to carry that desperate resolution through to anend. How was I to begin?

  The bold way of beginning was surely the wise way in such a position asmine. I had good reasons (founded, as I have already mentioned, on theimportant part played by this witness at the Trial) for believing thatthe fittest person to advise and assist me was--Miserrimus Dexter. Hemight disappoint the expectations that I had fixed on him, or he mightrefuse to help me, or (like my uncle Starkweather) he might think I hadtaken leave of my senses. All these events were possible. Nevertheless,I held to my resolution to try the experiment. If he were in the land ofthe living, I decided that my first step at starting should take me tothe deformed man with the strange name.

  Supposing he received me, sympathized with me, understood me? What wouldhe say? The nurse, in her evidence, had reported him as speaking in anoff-hand manner. He would say, in all probability, "What do you mean todo? And how can I help you to do it?"

  Had I answers ready if those two plain questions were put to me? Yes! ifI dared own to any human creature what was at that very moment secretlyfermenting in my mind. Yes! if I could confide to a stranger a suspicionroused in me by the Trial which I have been thus far afraid to mentioneven in these pages!

  It must, nevertheless, be mentioned now. My suspicion led to resultswhich are part of my story and part of my life.

  Let me own, then, to begin with, that I closed the record of the Trialactually agreeing in one important particular with the opinion of myenemy and my husband's enemy--the Lord Advocate! He had characterizedthe explanation of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death offered by the defenseas a "clumsy subterfuge, in which no reasonable being could discern thesmallest fragment of probability." Without going quite so far as this,I, too, could see no reason whatever in the evidence for assumingthat the poor woman had taken an overdose of the poison by mistake. Ibelieved that she had the arsenic secretly in her possession, and thatshe had tried, or intended to try, the use of it internally, for thepurpose of improving her complexion. But further than this I couldnot advance. The more I thought of it, the more plainly justified thelawyers for the prosecution seemed to me to be in declaring that Mrs.Eustace Macallan had died by the hand of a poisoner--although they wereentirely and certainly mistaken in charging my husband with the crime.

  My husband being innocent, somebody else, on my own showing, must beguilty. Who among the persons inhabiting the house at the time hadpoisoned Mrs. Eustace Macallan? My suspicion in answering that questionpointed straight to a woman. And the name of that woman was--Mrs.Beauly!

  Yes! To that startling conclusion I had arrived. It was, to my mind, theinevitable result of reading the evidence.

  Look back for a moment to the letter produced in court, signed "Helena,"and addressed to Mr. Macallan. No reasonable person can doubt (thoughthe Judges excused her from answering the question) that Mrs. Beaulywas the writer. Very well. The letter offers, as I think, trustworthyevidence to show the state of the woman's mind when she paid her visitto Gleninch.

  Writing to Mr. Macallan, at a time when she was married to anotherman--a man to whom she had engaged herself before she met with Mr.Macallan what does she say? She says, "When I think of your lifesacrificed to that wretched woman, my heart bleeds for you." And, again,she says, "If it had been my unutterable happiness to love and cherishthe best, the dearest of men, what a paradise of our own we might havelived in, what delicious hours we might have known!"

  If this is not the language of a woman shamelessly and furiously in lovewith a man--not her husband--what is? She is so full of him that evenher idea of another world (see the letter) is the idea of "embracing"Mr. Macallan's "soul." In this condition of mind and morals, the ladyone day finds herself and her embraces free, through the death of herhusband. As soon as she can decently visit she goes visiting; and indue course of time she becomes the guest of the man whom she adores. Hiswife is ill in her bed. The one other visitor at Gleninch is a cripple,who can only move in his chair on wheels. The lady has the house and theone beloved object in it all to herself. No obstacle stands between herand "the unutterable happiness of loving and cherishing the best, thedearest of men" but a poor, sick, ugly wife, for whom Mr. Macallan neverhas felt, and never can feel, the smallest particle of love.

  Is it perfectly absurd to believe that such a woman as this, impelled bythese motives, and surrounded by these circumstances, would be capableof committing a crime--if the safe opportunity offered itself?

  What does her own evidence say?

  She admits that she had a conversation with Mrs. Eustace Macallan, inwhich that lady questioned her on the subject of cosmetic applicationsto the complexion. Did nothing else take place at that interview? DidMrs. Beauly make no discoveries (afterward turned to fatal account) ofthe dangerous experiment which her hostess was then trying to improveher ugly complexion? All we know is that Mrs. Beauly said nothing aboutit.

  What does the under-gardener say?

  He heard a conversation between Mr. Macallan and Mrs. Beauly, whichshows that the possibility of Mrs. Beauly becoming Mrs. Eustace Macallanhad certainly presented itself to that lady's mind, and was certainlyconsidered by her to be too dangerous a topic of discourse to bepursued. Innocent Mr. Macallan would have gone on talking. Mrs. Beaulyis discreet and stops him.

  And what does the nurse (Christina Ormsay) tell us?

  On the day of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death, the nurse is dismissed fromattendance, and is sent downstairs. She leaves the sick woman, recoveredfrom her first attack of illness, and able to amuse herself withwriting. The nurse remains away for half an hour, and then gets uneasyat not hearing the invalid's bell. She goes to the Morning-Room toconsult Mr. Macallan, and there she hears that Mrs. Beauly is missing.Mr. Macallan doesn't know where she is, and asks Mr. Dexter if he hasseen her. Mr. Dexter had not set eyes on her. At what time does thedisappearance of Mrs. Beauly take place? At the very time when ChristinaOrmsay had left Mrs. Eustace Macallan alone in her room!

  Meanwhile the bell rings at last--rings violently. The nurse goes backto the sick-room at five minutes to eleven, or thereabouts, andfinds that the bad symptoms of the morning have returned in a gravelyaggravated form. A second dose of poison--larger than the doseadministered in the
early morning--has been given during the absence ofthe nurse, and (observe) during the disappearance also of Mrs. Beauly.The nurse looking out into the corridor for help, encounters Mrs. Beaulyherself, innocently on her way from her own room--just up, we are tosuppose, at eleven in the morning!--to inquire after the sick woman.

  A little later Mrs. Beauly accompanies Mr. Macallan to visit theinvalid. The dying woman casts a strange look at both of them, and tellsthem to leave her. Mr. Macallan understands this as the fretful outbreakof a person in pain, and waits in the room to tell the nurse that thedoctor is sent for. What does Mrs. Beauly do?

  She runs out panic-stricken the instant Mrs. Eustace Macallan looks ather. Even Mrs. Beauly, it seems, has a conscience!

  Is there nothing to justify suspicion in such circumstances asthese--circumstances sworn to on the oaths of the witnesses?

  To me the conclusion is plain. Mrs. Beauly's hand gave that second doseof poison. Admit this; and the inference follows that she also gave thefirst dose in the early morning. How could she do it? Look again atthe evidence. The nurse admits that she was asleep from past two in themorning to six. She also speaks of a locked door of communication withthe sickroom, the key of which had been removed, nobody knew by whom.Some person must have stolen that key. Why not Mrs. Beauly?

  One word more, and all that I had in my mind at that time will behonestly revealed.

  Miserrimus Dexter, under cross-examination, had indirectly admitted thathe had ideas of his own on the subject of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death.At the same time he had spoken of Mrs. Beauly in a tone which plainlybetrayed that he was no friend to that lady. Did _he_ suspect her too?My chief motive in deciding to ask his advice before I applied to anyone else was to find an opportunity of putting that question to him. Ifhe really thought of her as I did, my course was clear before me. Thenext step to take would be carefully to conceal my identity--and then topresent myself, in the character of a harmless stranger, to Mrs. Beauly.

  There were difficulties, of course, in my way. The first and greatestdifficulty was to obtain an introduction to Miserrimus Dexter.

  The composing influence of the fresh air in the garden had by thistime made me readier to lie down and rest than to occupy my mind inreflecting on my difficulties. Little by little I grew too drowsyto think--then too lazy to go on walking. My bed looked wonderfullyinviting as I passed by the open window of my room.

  In five minutes more I had accepted the invitation of the bed, and hadsaid farewell to my anxieties and my troubles. In five minutes more Iwas fast asleep.

  A discreetly gentle knock at my door was the first sound that arousedme. I heard the voice of my good old Benjamin speaking outside.

  "My dear! I am afraid you will be starved if I let you sleep any longer.It is half-past one o'clock; and a friend of yours has come to lunchwith us."

  A friend of mine? What friends had I? My husband was far away; and myuncle Starkweather had given me up in despair.

  "Who is it?" I cried out from my bed, through the door.

  "Major Fitz-David," Benjamin answered, by the same medium.

  I sprang out of bed. The very man I wanted was waiting to see me! MajorFitz-David, as the phrase is, knew everybody. Intimate with my husband,he would certainly know my husband's old friend--Miserrimus Dexter.

  Shall I confess that I took particular pains with my toilet, and thatI kept the luncheon waiting? The woman doesn't live who would have doneotherwise--when she had a particular favor to ask of Major Fitz-David.