Лучшие романы Уилки Коллинза / The Best of Wilkie Collins. Уилки Коллинз

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СКАЧАТЬ He was not aware, it is true, of my having been a witness of that scene. But he knew, on the other hand, that my attendances at the Mothers’ Small-Clothes, and my relations with friends attached to other charities, must have informed me of his shameless neglect of his Ladies and of his Poor. And yet there he was before me, in full possession of his charming voice and his irresistible smile!

      “Have you seen Rachel yet?” I asked.

      He sighed gently, and took me by the hand. I should certainly have snatched my hand away, if the manner in which he gave his answer had not paralysed me with astonishment.

      “I have seen Rachel,” he said with perfect tranquillity. “You are aware, dear friend, that she was engaged to me? Well, she has taken a sudden resolution to break the engagement. Reflection has convinced her that she will best consult her welfare and mine by retracting a rash promise, and leaving me free to make some happier choice elsewhere. That is the only reason she will give, and the only answer she will make to every question that I can ask of her.”

      “What have you done on your side?” I inquired. “Have you submitted.”

      “Yes,” he said with the most unruffled composure, “I have submitted.”

      His conduct, under the circumstances, was so utterly inconceivable, that I stood bewildered with my hand in his. It is a piece of rudeness to stare at anybody, and it is an act of indelicacy to stare at a gentleman. I committed both those improprieties. And I said, as if in a dream, “What does it mean?”

      “Permit me to tell you,” he replied. “And suppose we sit down?”

      He led me to a chair. I have an indistinct remembrance that he was very affectionate. I don’t think he put his arm round my waist to support me – but I am not sure. I was quite helpless, and his ways with ladies were very endearing. At any rate, we sat down. I can answer for that, if I can answer for nothing more.

      Chapter VIII

      “I have lost a beautiful girl, an excellent social position, and a handsome income,” Mr. Godfrey began; “and I have submitted to it without a struggle. What can be the motive for such extraordinary conduct as that? My precious friend, there is no motive.”

      “No motive?” I repeated.

      “Let me appeal, my dear Miss Clack, to your experience of children,” he went on. “A child pursues a certain course of conduct. You are greatly struck by it, and you attempt to get at the motive. The dear little thing is incapable of telling you its motive. You might as well ask the grass why it grows, or the birds why they sing. Well! in this matter, I am like the dear little thing – like the grass – like the birds. I don’t know why I made a proposal of marriage to Miss Verinder. I don’t know why I have shamefully neglected my dear Ladies. I don’t know why I have apostatised from the Mothers’ Small-Clothes. You say to the child, Why have you been naughty? And the little angel puts its finger into its mouth, and doesn’t know. My case exactly, Miss Clack! I couldn’t confess it to anybody else. I feel impelled to confess it to YOU!”

      I began to recover myself. A mental problem was involved here. I am deeply interested in mental problems – and I am not, it is thought, without some skill in solving them.

      “Best of friends, exert your intellect, and help me,” he proceeded. “Tell me – why does a time come when these matrimonial proceedings of mine begin to look like something done in a dream? Why does it suddenly occur to me that my true happiness is in helping my dear Ladies, in going my modest round of useful work, in saying my few earnest words when called on by my Chairman? What do I want with a position? I have got a position! What do I want with an income? I can pay for my bread and cheese, and my nice little lodging, and my two coats a year. What do I want with Miss Verinder? She has told me with her own lips (this, dear lady, is between ourselves) that she loves another man, and that her only idea in marrying me is to try and put that other man out of her head. What a horrid union is this! Oh, dear me, what a horrid union is this! Such are my reflections, Miss Clack, on my way to Brighton. I approach Rachel with the feeling of a criminal who is going to receive his sentence. When I find that she has changed her mind too – when I hear her propose to break the engagement – I experience (there is no sort of doubt about it) a most overpowering sense of relief. A month ago I was pressing her rapturously to my bosom. An hour ago, the happiness of knowing that I shall never press her again, intoxicates me like strong liquor. The thing seems impossible – the thing can’t be. And yet there are the facts, as I had the honour of stating them when we first sat down together in these two chairs. I have lost a beautiful girl, an excellent social position, and a handsome income; and I have submitted to it without a struggle. Can you account for it, dear friend? It’s quite beyond ME.”

      His magnificent head sank on his breast, and he gave up his own mental problem in despair.

      I was deeply touched. The case (if I may speak as a spiritual physician) was now quite plain to me. It is no uncommon event, in the experience of us all, to see the possessors of exalted ability occasionally humbled to the level of the most poorly-gifted people about them. The object, no doubt, in the wise economy of Providence, is to remind greatness that it is mortal and that the power which has conferred it can also take it away. It was now – to my mind – easy to discern one of these salutary humiliations in the deplorable proceedings on dear Mr. Godfrey’s part, of which I had been the unseen witness. And it was equally easy to recognise the welcome reappearance of his own finer nature in the horror with which he recoiled from the idea of a marriage with Rachel, and in the charming eagerness which he showed to return to his Ladies and his Poor.

      I put this view before him in a few simple and sisterly words. His joy was beautiful to see. He compared himself, as I went on, to a lost man emerging from the darkness into the light. When I answered for a loving reception of him at the Mothers’ Small-Clothes, the grateful heart of our Christian Hero overflowed. He pressed my hands alternately to his lips. Overwhelmed by the exquisite triumph of having got him back among us, I let him do what he liked with my hands. I closed my eyes. I felt my head, in an ecstasy of spiritual self-forgetfulness, sinking on his shoulder. In a moment more I should certainly have swooned away in his arms, but for an interruption from the outer world, which brought me to myself again. A horrid rattling of knives and forks sounded outside the door, and the footman came in to lay the table for luncheon.

      Mr. Godfrey started up, and looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.

      “How time flies with YOU!” he exclaimed. “I shall barely catch the train.”

      I ventured on asking why he was in such a hurry to get back to town. His answer reminded me of family difficulties that were still to be reconciled, and of family disagreements that were yet to come.

      “I have heard from my father,” he said. “Business obliges him to leave Frizinghall for London to-day, and he proposes coming on here, either this evening or to-morrow. I must tell him what has happened between Rachel and me. His heart is set on our marriage – there will be great difficulty, I fear, in reconciling him to the breaking-off of the engagement. I must stop him, for all our sakes, from coming here till he IS reconciled. Best and dearest of friends, we shall meet again!”

      With those words he hurried out. In equal haste on my side, I ran upstairs to compose myself in my own room before meeting Aunt Ablewhite and Rachel at the luncheon-table.

      I am well aware – to dwell for a moment yet on the subject of Mr. Godfrey – that the all-profaning opinion of the world has charged him with having his own private reasons for releasing Rachel from her engagement, at the first opportunity she gave him. It has also reached my ears, that his anxiety to recover his place in my estimation has been attributed in certain quarters, to a mercenary eagerness to make his peace (through me) with a venerable committee-woman at СКАЧАТЬ