Man and Wife

by Wilkie Collins

Geoffrey who was avoiding _her._ Had he lied to Sir Patrick? When

  the next day came would he find reasons of his own for refusing

  to take her to Holchester House?

  She went up stairs. At the same moment Hester Dethridge opened

  her bedroom door to come out. Observing Anne, she closed it again

  and remained invisible in her room. Once more the inference was

  not to be mistaken. Hester Dethridge, also, had her reasons for

  avoiding Anne.

  What did it mean? What object could there be in common between

  Hester and Geoffrey?

  There was no fathoming the meaning of it. Anne's thoughts

  reverted to the communication which had been secretly made to her

  by Blanche. It was not in womanhood to be insensible to such

  devotion as Sir Patrick's conduct implied. Terrible as her

  position had become in its ever-growing uncertainty, in its

  never-ending suspense, the oppression of it yielded for the

  moment to the glow of pride and gratitude which warmed her heart,

  as she thought of the sacrifices that had been made, of the

  perils that were still to be encountered, solely for her sake. To

  shorten the period of suspense seemed to be a duty which she owed

  to Sir Patrick, as well as to herself. Why, in her situation,

  wait for what the next day might bring forth? If the opportunity

  offered, she determined to put the signal in the window that

  night.

  Toward evening she heard once more the noises which appeared to

  indicate that repairs of some sort were going on in the house.

  This time the sounds were fainter; and they came, as she fancied,

  not from the spare room, as before, but from Geoffrey's room,

  next to it.

  The dinner was later than usual that day. Hester Dethridge did

  not appear with the tray till dusk. Anne spoke to her, and

  received a mute sign in answer. Determined to see the woman's

  face plainly, she put a question which required a written answer

  on the slate; and, telling Hester to wait, went to the

  mantle-piece to light her candle. When she turned round with the

  lighted candle in her hand, Hester was gone.

  Night came. She rang her bell to have the tray taken away. The

  fall of a strange footstep startled her outside her door. She

  called out, "Who's there?" The voice of the lad whom Geoffrey

  employed to go on errands for him answered her.

  "What do you want here?" she asked, through the door.

  "Mr. Delamayn sent me up, ma'am. He wishes to speak to you

  directly."

  Anne found Geoffrey in the dining-room. His object in wishing to

  speak to her was, on the surface of it, trivial enough. He wanted

  to know how she would prefer going to Holchester House on the

  next day--by the railway, or in a carriage. "If you prefer

  driving," he said, "the boy has come here for orders, and he can

  tell them to send a carriage from the livery-stables, as he goes

  home."

  "The railway will do perfectly well for me," Anne replied.

  Instead of accepting the answer, and dropping the subject, he

  asked her to reconsider her decision. There was an absent, uneasy

  expression in his eye as he begged her not to consult economy at

  the expense of her own comfort. He appeared to have some reason

  of his own for preventing her from leaving the room. "Sit d own a

  minute, and think before you decide," he said. Having forced her

  to take a chair, he put his head outside the door and directed

  the lad to go up stairs, and see if he had left his pipe in his

  bedroom. "I want you to go in comfort, as a lady should," he

  repeated, with the uneasy look more marked than ever. Before Anne

  could reply, the lad's voice reached them from the bedroom floor,

  raised in shrill alarm, and screaming "Fire!"

  Geoffrey ran up stairs. Anne followed him. The lad met them at

  the top of the stairs. He pointed to the open door of Anne's

  room. She was absolutely certain of having left her lighted

  candle, when she went down to Geoffrey, at a safe distance from

  the bed-curtains. The bed-curtains, nevertheless, were in a blaze

  of fire.

  There was a supply of water to the cottage, on the upper floor.

  The bedroom jugs and cans usually in their places at an earlier

  hour, were standing that night at the cistern. An empty pail was

  left near them. Directing the lad to bring him water from these

  resources, Geoffrey tore down the curtains in a flaming heap,

  partly on the bed and partly on the sofa near it. Using the can

  and the pail alternately, as the boy brought them, he drenched

  the bed and the sofa. It was all over in little more than a

  minute. The cottage was saved. But the bed-furniture was

  destroyed; and the room, as a matter of course, was rendered

  uninhabitable, for that night at least, and probably for more

  nights to come.

  Geoffrey set down the empty pail; and, turning to Anne, pointed

  across the passage.

  "You won't be much inconvenienced by this," he said. "You have

  only to shift your quarters to the spare room."

  With the assistance of the lad, he moved Anne's boxes, and the

  chest of drawers, which had escaped damage, into the opposite

  room. This done, he cautioned her to be careful with her candles

  for the future--and went down stairs, without waiting to hear

  what she said in reply. The lad followed him, and was dismissed

  for the night.

  Even in the confusion which attended the extinguishing of the

  fire, the conduct of Hester Dethridge had been remarkable enough

  to force itself on the attention of Anne.

  She had come out from her bedroom, when the alarm was given; had

  looked at the flaming curtains; and had drawn back, stolidly

  submissive, into a corner to wait the event. There she had

  stood--to all appearance, utterly indifferent to the possible

  destruction of her own cottage. The fire extinguished, she still

  waited impenetrably in her corner, while the chest of drawers and

  the boxes were being moved--then locked the door, without even a

  passing glance at the scorched ceiling and the burned

  bed-furniture--put the key into her pocket--and went back to her

  room.

  Anne had hitherto not shared the conviction felt by most other

  persons who were brought into contact with Hester Dethridge, that

  the woman's mind was deranged. After what she had just seen,

  however, the general impression became her impression too. She

  had thought of putting certain questions to Hester, when they

  were left together, as to the origin of the fire. Reflection

  decided her on saying nothing, for that night at least. She

  crossed the passage, and entered the spare room--the room which

  she had declined to occupy on her arrival at the cottage, and

  which she was obliged to sleep in now.

  She was instantly struck by a change in the disposition of the

  furniture of the room.

  The bed had been moved. The head--set, when she had last seen it,

  against the side wall of the cottage--was placed now against the

  partition wall which separated the room from Geoffrey's room.


  This new arrangement had evidently been effected with a settled

  purpose of some sort. The hook in the ceiling which supported the

  curtains (the bed, unlike the bed in the other room, having no

  canopy attached to it) had been moved so as to adapt itself to

  the change that had been made. The chairs and the washhand-stand,

  formerly placed against the partition wall, were now, as a matter

  of necessity, shifted over to the vacant space against the side

  wall of the cottage. For the rest, no other alteration was

  visible in any part of the room.

  In Anne's situation, any event not immediately intelligible on

  the face of it, was an event to be distrusted. Was there a motive

  for the change in the position of the bed? And was it, by any

  chance, a motive in which she was concerned?

  The doubt had barely occurred to her, before a startling

  suspicion succeeded it. Was there some secret purpose to be

  answered by making her sleep in the spare room? Did the question

  which the servant had heard Geoffrey put to Hester, on the

  previous night, refer to this? Had the fire which had so

  unaccountably caught the curtains in her own room, been, by any

  possibility, a fire purposely kindled, to force her out?

  She dropped into the nearest chair, faint with horror, as those

  three questions forced themselves in rapid succession on her

  mind.

  After waiting a little, she recovered self-possession enough to

  recognize the first plain necessity of putting her suspicions to

  the test. It was possible that her excited fancy had filled her

  with a purely visionary alarm. For all she knew to the contrary,

  there might be some undeniably sufficient reason for changing the

  position of the bed. She went out, and knocked at the door of

  Hester Dethridge's room.

  "I want to speak to you," she said.

  Hester came out. Anne pointed to the spare room, and led the way

  to it. Hester followed her.

  "Why have you changed the place of the bed," she asked, "from the

  wall there, to the wall here?"

  Stolidly submissive to the question, as she had been stolidly

  submissive to the fire, Hester Dethridge wrote her reply. On all

  other occasions she was accustomed to look the persons to whom

  she offered her slate steadily in the face. Now, for the first

  time, she handed it to Anne with her eyes on the floor. The one

  line written contained no direct answer: the words were these:

  "I have meant to move it, for some time past."

  "I ask you why you have moved it."

  She wrote these four words on the slate: "The wall is damp."

  Anne looked at the wall. There was no sign of damp on the paper.

  She passed her hand over it. Feel where she might, the wall was

  dry.

  "That is not your reason," she said.

  Hester stood immovable.

  "There is no dampness in the wall."

  Hester pointed persistently with her pencil to the four words,

  still without looking up--waited a moment for Anne to read them

  again--and left the room.

  It was plainly useless to call her back. Anne's first impulse

  when she was alone again was to secure the door. She not only

  locked it, but bolted it at top and bottom. The mortise of the

  lock and the staples of the bolts, when she tried them, were

  firm. The lurking treachery--wherever else it might be--was not

  in the fastenings of the door.

  She looked all round the room; examining the fire place, the

  window and its shutters, the interior of the wardrobe, the hidden

  space under the bed. Nothing was any where to be discovered which

  could justify the most timid person living in feeling suspicion

  or alarm.

  Appearances, fair as they were, failed to convince her. The

  presentiment of some hidden treachery, steadily getting nearer

  and nearer to her in the dark, had rooted itself firmly in her

  mind. She sat down, and tried to trace her way back to the clew,

  through the earlier events of the day.

  The effort was fruitless: nothing definite, nothing tangible,

  rewarded it. Worse still, a new doubt grew out of it--a doubt

  whether the motive which Sir Patrick had avowed (through Blanche)

  was the motive for helping her which was really in his mind.

  Did he sincerely believe Geoffrey's conduct to be animated by no

  worse object than a mercenary object? and was his only purpose in

  planning to remove her out of her husband's reach, to force

  Geoffrey's consent to their separation on the terms which Julius

  had proposed? Was this really the sole end that he had in view?

  or was he secretly convinced (knowing Anne's position as he knew

  it) that she was in personal danger at the cottage? and had he

  considerately kept that conviction concealed, in the fear that he

  might otherwise e ncourage her to feel alarmed about herself? She

  looked round the strange room, in the silence of the night, and

  she felt that the latter interpretation was the likeliest

  interpretation of the two.

  The sounds caused by the closing of the doors and windows reached

  her from the ground-floor. What was to be done?

  It was impossible, to show the signal which had been agreed on to

  Sir Patrick and Arnold. The window in which they expected to see

  it was the window of the room in which the fire had broken

  out--the room which Hester Dethridge had locked up for the night.

  It was equally hopeless to wait until the policeman passed on his

  beat, and to call for help. Even if she could prevail upon

  herself to make that open acknowledgment of distrust under her

  husband's roof, and even if help was near, what valid reason

  could she give for raising an alarm? There was not the shadow of

  a reason to justify any one in placing her under the protection

  of the law.

  As a last resource, impelled by her blind distrust of the change

  in the position of the bed, she attempted to move it. The utmost

  exertion of her strength did not suffice to stir the heavy piece

  of furniture out of its place, by so much as a hair's breadth.

  There was no alternative but to trust to the security of the

  locked and bolted door, and to keep watch through the

  night--certain that Sir Patrick and Arnold were, on their part,

  also keeping watch in the near neighborhood of the cottage. She

  took out her work and her books; and returned to her chair,

  placing it near the table, in the middle of the room.

  The last noises which told of life and movement about her died

  away. The breathless stillness of the night closed round her.

  CHAPTER THE FIFTY-SIXTH.

  THE MEANS.

  THE new day dawned; the sun rose; the household was astir again.

  Inside the spare room, and outside the spare room, nothing had

  happened.

  At the hour appointed for leaving the cottage to pay the promised

  visit to Holchester House, Hester Dethridge and Geoffrey were

  alone together in the bedroom in which Anne had passed the night.

  "She's dressed, and waiting for me in the front garden," said

  Geoffrey. "You wanted to see me here alone. What
is it?"

  Hester pointed to the bed.

  "You want it moved from the wall?"

  Hester nodded her head.

  They moved the bed some feet away from the partition wall. After

  a momentary pause, Geoffrey spoke again.

  "It must be done to-night," he said. "Her friends may interfere;

  the girl may come back. It must be done to-night."

  Hester bowed her head slowly.

  "How long do you want to be left by yourself in the house?"

  She held up three of her fingers.

  "Does that mean three hours?"

  She nodded her head.

  "Will it be done in that time?"

  She made the affirmative sign once more.

  Thus far, she had never lifted her eyes to his. In her manner of

  listening to him when he spoke, in the slightest movement that

  she made when necessity required it, the same lifeless submission

  to him, the same mute horror of him, was expressed. He had, thus

  far, silently resented this, on his side. On the point of leaving

  the room the restraint which he had laid on himself gave way. For

  the first time, he resented it in words.

  "Why the devil can't you look at me?" he asked

  She let the question pass, without a sign to show that she had

  heard him. He angrily repeated it. She wrote on her slate, and

  held it out to him--still without raising her eyes to his face.

  "You know you can speak," he said. "You know I have found you

  out. What's the use of playing the fool with _me?_"

  She persisted in holding the slate before him. He read these

  words:

  " I am dumb to you, and blind to you. Let me be."

  "Let you be!" he repeated. "It's a little late in the day to be

  scrupulous, after what you have done. Do you want your Confession

  back, or not?"

  As the reference to the Confession passed his lips, she raised

  her head. A faint tinge of color showed itself on her livid

  cheeks; a momentary spasm of pain stirred her deathlike face. The

  one last interest left in the woman's life was the interest of

  recovering the manuscript which had been taken from her. To

  _that_ appeal the stunned intelligence still faintly

  answered--and to no other.

  "Remember the bargain on your side," Geoffrey went on, "and I'll

  remember the bargain on mine. This is how it stands, you know. I

  have read your Confession; and I find one thing wanting. You

  don't tell how it was done. I know you smothered him--but I don't

  know how. I want to know. You're dumb; and you can't tell me. You

  must do to the wall here what you did in the other house. You run

  no risks. There isn't a soul to see you. You have got the place

  to yourself. When I come back let me find this wall like the

  other wall--at that small hour of the morning you know, when you

  were waiting, with the towel in your hand, for the first stroke

  of the clock. Let me find that; and to-morrow you shall have your

  Confession back again."

  As the reference to the Confession passed his lips for the second

  time, the sinking energy in the woman leaped up in her once more.

  She snatched her slate from her side; and, writing on it rapidly,

  held it, with both hands, close under his eyes. He read these

  words:

  "I won't wait. I must have it to-night."

  "Do you think I keep your Confession about me?" said Geoffrey. "I

  haven't even got it in the house."

  She staggered back; and looked up for the first time.

  "Don't alarm yourself," he went on. "It's sealed up with my seal;

  and it's safe in my bankers' keeping. I posted it to them myself.

  You don't stick at a trifle, Mrs. Dethridge. If I had kept it

  locked up in the house, you might have forced the lock when my

  back was turned. If I had kept it about me--I might have had that

  towel over my face, in the small hours of the morning! The

  bankers will give you back your Confession--just as they have

  received it from me--on receipt of an order in my handwriting. Do