Man and Wife

by Wilkie Collins

me visit them from time to time. My notion was, that it might

  soften my heart if I could see the old place, and talk the old

  talk, and look again at the well-remembered faces. I am almost

  ashamed to own it--but, if I had had any thing to give, I would

  have parted with it all, to be allowed to go back into mother's

  kitchen and cook the Sunday dinner for them once more.

  "But this was not to be. Not long before my letter was received

  mother had died. They laid it all at my door. She had been ailing

  for years past, and the doctors had said it was hopeless from the

  first--but they laid it all at my door. One of my sisters wrote

  to say that much, in as few words as could possibly suffice for

  saying it. My father never answered my letter at all.

  8.

  "Magistrates and lawyers; relations and friends; endurance of

  injuries, patience, hope, and honest work--I had tried all these,

  and tried them vainly. Look round me where I might, the prospect

  was closed on all sides.

  "At this time my husband had got a little work to do. He came

  home out of temper one night, and I gave him a warning. 'Don't

  try me too far, Joel, for your own sake,' was all I said. It was

  one of his sober days; and, for the first time, a word from me

  seemed to have an effect on him. He looked hard at me for a

  minute or so. And then he went and sat down in a corner, and held

  his peace.

  "This was on a Tuesday in the week. On the Saturday he got paid,

  and the drinking fit took him again.

  "On Friday in the next week I happened to come back late--having

  had a good stroke of work to do that day, in the way of cooking a

  public dinner for a tavern-keeper who knew me. I found my husband

  gone, and the bedroom stripped of the furniture which I had put

  into it. For the second time he had robbed me of my own property,

  and had turned it into money to be spent in drink.

  "I didn't say a word. I stood and looked round the empty room.

  What was going on in me I hardly knew myself at the time, and

  can't describe now. All I remember is, that, after a little, I

  turned about to leave the house. I knew the places where thy

  husband was likely to be found; and the devil possessed me to go

  and find him. The landlady came out into the passage and tried to

  stop me. She was a bigger and a stronger woman than I was. But I

  shook her off like a child. Thinking over it now, I believe she

  was in no condition to put out her strength. The sight of me

  frightened her.

  "I found him. I said--well, I said what a woman beside herself

  with fury would be likely to say. It's needless to tell how it

  ended. He knocked me down.

  "After that, there is a spot of darkness like in my memory. The

  next thing I can call to mind, is coming back to my senses after

  some days. Three of my teeth were knocked out--but that was not

  the worst of it. My head had struck against something in falling,

  and some part of me (a nerve, I think they said) was injured in

  such a way as to affect my speech. I don't mean that I was

  downright dumb--I only mean that, all of a sudden, it had become

  a labor to me to speak. A long word was as serious an obstacle as

  if I was a child again. They took me to the hospital. When the

  medical gentlemen heard what it was, the medical gentlemen came

  crowding round me. I appeared to lay hold of their interest, just

  as a story-book lays hold of the interest of other people. The

  upshot of it was, that I might end in being dumb, or I might get

  my speech again--the chances were about equal. Only two things

  were needful. One of them was that I should live on good

  nourishing diet. The other was, that I should keep my mind easy.

  "About the diet it was not possible to decide. My getting good

  nourishing food and drink depended on my getting money to buy the

  same. As to my mind, there was no difficulty about _that._ If my

  husband came back to me, my mind was made up to kill him.

  "Horrid--I am well aware this is horrid. Nobody else, in my

  place, would have ended as wickedly as that. All the other women

  in the world, tried as I was, would have risen superior to the

  trial.

  9.

  "I have said that people (excepting my husband and my relations)

  were almost always good to me.

  "The landlord of the house which we had taken when we were

  married heard of my sad case. He gave me one of his empty houses

  to look after, and a little weekly allowance for doing it. Some

  of the furniture in the upper rooms, not being wanted by the last

  tenant, was left to be taken at a valuation if the next tenant

  needed it. Two of the servants' bedrooms (in the attics), one

  next to the other, had all that was wanted in them. So I had a

  roof to cover me, and a choice of beds to lie on, and money to

  get me food. All well again--but all too late. If that house

  could speak, what tales that house would have to tell of me!

  "I had been told by the doctors to exercise my speech. Being all

  alone, with nobody to speak to, except when the landlord dropped

  in, or when the servant next door said, 'Nice day, ain't it?' or,

  'Don't you feel lonely?' or such like, I bought the newspaper,

  and read it out loud to myself to exercise my speech in that way.

  One day I came upon a bit about the wives of drunken husbands. It

  was a report of something said on that subject by a London

  coroner, who had held inquests on dead husbands (in the lower

  ranks of life), and who had his reasons for suspecting the wives.

  Examination of the body (he said) didn't prove it; and witnesses

  didn't prove it; but he thought it, nevertheless, quite possible,

  in some cases, that, when the woman could bear it no longer, she

  sometimes took a damp towel, and waited till the husband (drugged

  with his own liquor) was sunk in his sleep, and then put the

  towel over his nose and mouth, and ended it that way without any

  body being the wiser. I laid down the newspaper; and fell into

  thinking. My mind was, by this time, in a prophetic way. I said

  to myself 'I haven't happened on this for nothing: this means

  that I shall see my husband again.'

  "It was then just after my dinner-time--two o'clock. That same

  night, at the moment when I had put out my candle, and laid me

  down in bed, I heard a knock at the street door. Before I had lit

  my candle I says to myself, 'Here he is.'

  "I huddled on a few things, and struck a light, and went down

  stairs. I called out through the door, 'Who's there?' And his

  voice answered, 'Let me in.'

  "I sat down on a chair in the passage, and shook all over like a

  person struck

  with palsy. Not from the fear of him--but from my mind being in

  the prophetic way. I knew I was going to be driven to it at last.

  Try as I might to keep from doing it, my mind told me I was to do

  it now. I sat shaking on the chair in the passage; I on one side

  of the door, and he on the other.

  "He knocked again, and again, and again. I knew it was useless

  to try-
-and yet I resolved to try. I determined not to let him in

  till I was forced to it. I determined to let him alarm the

  neighborhood, and to see if the neighborhood would step between

  us. I went up stairs and waited at the open staircase window over

  the door.

  "The policeman came up, and the neighbors came out. They were all

  for giving him into custody. The policeman laid hands on him. He

  had but one word to say; he had only to point up to me at the

  window, and to tell them I was his wife. The neighbors went

  indoors again. The policeman dropped hold of his arm. It was I

  who was in the wrong, and not he. I was bound to let my husband

  in. I went down stairs again, and let him in.

  "Nothing passed between us that night. I threw open the door of

  the bedroom next to mine, and went and locked myself into my own

  room. He was dead beat with roaming the streets, without a penny

  in his pocket, all day long. The bed to lie on was all he wanted

  for that night.

  "The next morning I tried again--tried to turn back on the way

  that I was doomed to go; knowing beforehand that it would be of

  no use. I offered him three parts of my poor weekly earnings, to

  be paid to him regularly at the landlord's office, if he would

  only keep away from me, and from the house. He laughed in my

  face. As my husband, he could take all my earnings if he chose.

  And as for leaving the house, the house offered him free quarters

  to live in as long as I was employed to look after it. The

  landlord couldn't part man and wife.

  "I said no more. Later in the day the landlord came. He said if

  we could make it out to live together peaceably he had neither

  the right nor the wish to interfere. If we made any disturbances,

  then he should be obliged to provide himself with some other

  woman to look after the house. I had nowhere else to go, and no

  other employment to undertake. If, in spite of that, I had put on

  my bonnet and walked out, my husband would have walked out after

  me. And all decent people would have patted him on the back, and

  said, 'Quite right, good man--quite right.'

  "So there he was by his own act, and with the approval of others,

  in the same house with me.

  "I made no remark to him or to the landlord. Nothing roused me

  now. I knew what was coming; I waited for the end. There was some

  change visible in me to others, as I suppose, though not

  noticeable by myself, which first surprised my husband and then

  daunted him. When the next night came I heard him lock the door

  softly in his own room. It didn't matter to me. When the time was

  ripe ten thousand locks wouldn't lock out what was to come.

  "The next day, bringing my weekly payment, brought me a step

  nearer on the way to the end. Getting the money, he could get the

  drink. This time he began cunningly--in other words, he began his

  drinking by slow degrees. The landlord (bent, honest man, on

  trying to keep the peace between us) had given him some odd jobs

  to do, in the way of small repairs, here and there about the

  house. 'You owe this,' he says, 'to my desire to do a good turn

  to your poor wife. I am helping you for her sake. Show yourself

  worthy to be helped, if you can.'

  "He said, as usual, that he was going to turn over a new leaf.

  Too late! The time had gone by. He was doomed, and I was doomed.

  It didn't matter what he said now. It didn't matter when he

  locked his door again the last thing at night.

  "The next day was Sunday. Nothing happened. I went to chapel.

  Mere habit. It did me no good. He got on a little with the

  drinking--but still cunningly, by slow degrees. I knew by

  experience that this meant a long fit, and a bad one, to come.

  "Monday, there were the odd jobs about the house to be begun. He

  was by this time just sober enough to do his work, and just tipsy

  enough to take a spiteful pleasure in persecuting his wife. He

  went out and got the things he wanted, and came back and called

  for me. A skilled workman like he was (he said) wanted a

  journeyman under him. There were things which it was beneath a

  skilled workman to do for himself. He was not going to call in a

  man or a boy, and then have to pay them. He was going to get it

  done for nothing, and he meant to make a journeyman of _me._ Half

  tipsy and half sober, he went on talking like that, and laying

  out his things, all quite right, as he wanted them. When they

  were ready he straightened himself up, and he gave me his orders

  what I was to do.

  "I obeyed him to the best of my ability. Whatever he said, and

  whatever he did, I knew he was going as straight as man could go

  to his own death by my hands.

  "The rats and mice were all over the house, and the place

  generally was out of repair. He ought to have begun on the

  kitchen-floor; but (having sentence pronounced against him) he

  began in the empty parlors on the ground-floor.

  "These parlors were separated by what is called a

  'lath-and-plaster wall.' The rats had damaged it. At one part

  they had gnawed through and spoiled the paper, at another part

  they had not got so far. The landlord's orders were to spare the

  paper, because he had some by him to match it. My husband began

  at a place where the paper was whole. Under his directions I

  mixed up--I won't say what. With the help of it he got the paper

  loose from the wall, without injuring it in any way, in a long

  hanging strip. Under it was the plaster and the laths, gnawed

  away in places by the rats. Though strictly a paperhanger by

  trade, he could be plasterer too when he liked. I saw how he cut

  away the rotten laths and ripped off the plaster; and (under his

  directions again) I mixed up the new plaster he wanted, and

  handed him the new laths, and saw how he set them. I won't say a

  word about how this was done either.

  "I have a reason for keeping silence here, which is, to my mind,

  a very dreadful one. In every thing that my husband made me do

  that day he was showing me (blindfold) the way to kill him, so

  that no living soul, in the police or out of it, could suspect me

  of the deed.

  "We finished the job on the wall just before dark. I went to my

  cup of tea, and he went to his bottle of gin.

  "I left him, drinking hard, to put our two bedrooms tidy for the

  night. The place that his bed happened to be set in (which I had

  never remarked particularly before) seemed, in a manner of

  speaking, to force itself on my notice now.

  "The head of the bedstead was set against the wall which divided

  his room from mine. From looking at the bedstead I got to looking

  at the wall next. Then to wondering what it was made of. Then to

  rapping against it with my knuckles. The sound told me there was

  nothing but lath and plaster under the paper. It was the same as

  the wall we had been at work on down stairs. We had cleared our

  way so far through this last--in certain places where the repairs

  were most needed--that we had to be careful not to burst through

&n
bsp; the paper in the room on the other side. I found myself calling

  to mind the caution my husband had given me while we were at this

  part of the work, word for word as he had spoken it. _'Take care

  you don't find your hands in the next room.'_ That was what he

  had said down in the parlor. Up in his bedroom I kept on

  repeating it in my own mind--with my eyes all the while on the

  key, which he had moved to the inner side of the door to lock

  himself in--till the knowledge of what it meant burst on me like

  a flash of light. I looked at the wall, at the bedhead, at my own

  two hands--and I shivered as if it was winter time.

  "Hours must have passed like minutes while I was up stairs that

  night. I lost all count of time. When my husband came up from his

  drinking, he found me in his room.

  10.

  "I leave the rest untold, and pass on purposely to the next

  morning.

  "No mortal eyes but mine will ever see these lines. Still, there

  are things a woman can't write of even to herself. I shal l only

  say this. I suffered the last and worst of many indignities at my

  husband's hands--at the very time when I first saw, set plainly

  before me, the way to take his life. He went out toward noon next

  day, to go his rounds among the public houses; my mind being then

  strung up to deliver myself from him, for good and all, when he

  came back at night.

  "The things we had used on the previous day were left in the

  parlor. I was all by myself in the house, free to put in practice

  the lesson he had taught me. I proved myself an apt scholar.

  Before the lamps were lit in the street I had my own way prepared

  (in my bedroom and in his) for laying my own hands on him--after

  he had locked himself up for the night.

  "I don't remember feeling either fear or doubt through all those

  hours. I sat down to my bit of supper with no better and no worse

  an appetite than usual. The only change in me that I can call to

  mind was that I felt a singular longing to have somebody with me

  to keep me company. Having no friend to ask in, I went to the

  street door and stood looking at the people passing this way and

  that.

  "A stray dog, sniffing about, came up to me. Generally I dislike

  dogs and beasts of all kinds. I called this one in and gave him

  his supper. He had been taught (I suppose) to sit up on his

  hind-legs and beg for food; at any rate, that was his way of

  asking me for more. I laughed--it seems impossible when I look

  back at it now, but for all that it's true--I laughed till the

  tears ran down my cheeks, at the little beast on his haunches,

  with his ears pricked up and his head on one side and his mouth

  watering for the victuals. I wonder whether I was in my right

  senses? I don't know.

  "When the dog had got all he could get he whined to be let out to

  roam the streets again.

  "As I opened the door to let the creature go his ways, I saw my

  husband crossing the road to come in. 'Keep out' (I says to him);

  'to-night, of all nights, keep out.' He was too drunk to heed me;

  he passed by, and blundered his way up stairs. I followed and

  listened. I heard him open his door, and bang it to, and lock it.

  I waited a bit, and went up another stair or two. I heard him

  drop down on to his bed. In a minute more he was fast asleep and

  snoring.

  "It had all happened as it was wanted to happen. In two

  minutes--without doing one single thing to bring suspicion on

  myself--I could have smothered him. I went into my own room. I

  took up the towel that I had laid ready. I was within an inch of

  it--when there came a rush of something up into my head. I can't

  say what it was. I can only say the horrors laid hold of me and

  hunted me then and there out of the house.

  "I put on my bonnet, and slipped the key of the street door into

  my pocket. It was only half past nine--or maybe a quarter to ten.

  If I had any one clear notion in my head, it was the notion of

  running away, and never allowing myself to set eyes on the house