The Essential Wilkie Collins Collection. Уилки Коллинз

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СКАЧАТЬ that answer they both remain silent for a little while, then rise from the bench and walk toward the house.

      "Have you thought yet about preparing your sister to hear of all that has happened?" Lomaque asks, as he sees the lamp-light glimmering in the parlor window.

      "I shall wait to prepare her till we are settled again here--till the first holiday pleasure of our return has worn off, and the quiet realities of our every-day life of old have resumed their way," answers Trudaine.

      They enter the house. Rose beckons to Lomaque to sit down near her, and places pen and ink and an open letter before him.

      "I have a last favor to ask of you," she says, smiling.

      "I hope it will not take long to grant," he rejoins; "for I have only to-night to be with you. To-morrow morning, before you are up, I must be on my way back to Chalons."

      "Will you sign that letter?" she continues, still smiling, "and then give it to me to send to the post? It was dictated by Louis, and written by me, and it will be quite complete, if you will put your name at the end of it."

      "I suppose I may read it?"

      She nods, and Lomaque reads these lines:

      "CITIZEN--I beg respectfully to apprise you that the commission you intrusted to me at Paris has been performed.

      "I have also to beg that you will accept my resignation of the place I hold in your counting-house. The kindness shown me by you and your brother before you, emboldens me to hope that you will learn with pleasure the motive of my withdrawal. Two friends of mine, who consider that they are under some obligations to me, are anxious that I should pass the rest of my days in the quiet and protection of their home. Troubles of former years have knit us together as closely as if we were all three members of one family. I need the repose of a happy fireside as much as any man, after the life I have led; and my friends assure me so earnestly that their whole hearts are set on establishing the old man's easy-chair by their hearth, that I cannot summon resolution enough to turn my back on them and their offer.

      "Accept, then, I beg of you, the resignation which this letter contains, and with it the assurance of my sincere gratitude and respect.

      "To Citizen Clairfait, Silk-mercer,

      "Chalons-sur-Marne."

      After reading these lines, Lomaque turned round to Trudaine and attempted to speak; but the words would not come at command. He looked up at Rose, and tried to smile; but his lip only trembled. She dipped the pen in the ink, and placed it in his hand. He bent his head down quickly over the paper, so that she could not see his face; but still he did not write his name. She put her hand caressingly on his shoulder, and whispered to him:

      "Come, come, humor 'Sister Rose.' She must have her own way now she is back again at home."

      He did not answer--his head sank lower--he hesitated for an instant--then signed his name in faint, trembling characters, at the end of the letter.

      She drew it away from him gently. A few tear-drops lay on the paper. As she dried them with her handkerchief she looked at her brother.

      "They are the last he shall ever shed, Louis; you and I will take care of that!"

      EPILOGUE TO THE THIRD STORY.

      I have now related all that is eventful in the history of SISTER ROSE. To the last the three friends dwelt together happily in the cottage on the river bank. Mademoiselle Clairfait was fortunate enough to know them, before Death entered the little household and took away, in the fullness of time, the eldest of its members. She describes Lomaque, in her quaint foreign English, as "a brave, big heart"; generous, affectionate, and admirably free from the small obstinacies and prejudices of old age, except on one point: he could never be induced to take his coffee, of an evening, from any other hand than the hand of Sister Rose.

      I linger over these final particulars with a strange unwillingness to separate myself from them, and give my mind to other thoughts. Perhaps the persons and events that have occupied my attention for so many nights past have some peculiar interest for me that I cannot analyze. Perhaps the labor and time which this story has cost me have especially endeared it to my sympathies, now that I have succeeded in completing it. However that may be, I have need of some resolution to part at last with Sister Rose, and return, in the interests of my next and Fourth Story, to English ground.

      I have experienced so much difficulty, let me add, in deciding on the choice of a new narrative out of my collection, that my wife has lost all patience, and has undertaken, on her own responsibility, to relieve me of my unreasonable perplexities. By her advice--given, as usual, without a moment's hesitation--I cannot do better than tell the story of

      THE LADY OF GLENWITH GRANGE.

      PROLOGUE TO THE FOURTH STORY.

      My practice in the art of portrait-painting, if it has done nothing else, has at least fitted me to turn my talents (such as they are) to a great variety of uses. I have not only taken the likenesses of men, women, and children, but have also extended the range of my brush, under stress of circumstances, to horses, dogs, houses, and in one case even to a bull--the terror and glory of his parish, and the most truculent sitter I ever had. The beast was appropriately named "Thunder and Lightning," and was the property of a gentleman-farmer named Garthwaite, a distant connection of my wife's family.

      How it was that I escaped being gored to death before I had finished my picture is more than I can explain to this day. "Thunder and Lightning" resented the very sight of me and my color-box, as if he viewed the taking of his likeness in the light of a personal insult. It required two men to coax him, while a third held him by a ring in his nostrils, before I could venture on beginning to work. Even then he always lashed his tail, and jerked his huge head, and rolled his fiery eyes with a devouring anxiety to have me on his horns for daring to sit down quietly and look at him. Never, I can honestly say, did I feel more heartily grateful for the blessings of soundness of limb and wholeness of skin, than when I had completed the picture of the bull!

      One morning, when I had but little more than half done my unwelcome task, my friend and I were met on our way to the bull's stable by the farm bailiff, who informed us gravely that "Thunder and Lightning" was just then in such an especially surly state of temper as to render it quite unsafe for me to think of painting him. I looked inquiringly at Mr. Garthwaite, who smiled with an air of comic resignation, and said, "Very well, then, we have nothing for it but to wait till to-morrow. What do you say to a morning's fishing, Mr. Kerby, now that my bull's bad temper has given us a holiday?"

      I replied, with perfect truth, that I knew nothing about fishing. But Mr. Garthwaite, who was as ardent an angler in his way as Izaak Walton himself, was not to be appeased even by the best of excuses. "It is never too late to learn," cried he. "I will make a fisherman of you in no time, if you will only attend to my directions." It was impossible for me to make any more apologies, without the risk of appealing discourteous. So I thanked my host for his friendly intentions, and, with some secret misgivings, accepted the first fishing-rod that he put into my hands.

      "We shall soon get there," said Mr. Garthwaite. "I am taking you to the best mill-stream in the neighborhood." It was all one to me whether we got there soon or late and whether the stream was good or bad. However, I did my best to conceal my unsportsman-like apathy; and tried to look quite happy and very impatient СКАЧАТЬ