The Fallen Leaves. Wilkie Collins
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to her; I have got the confession of the servant-girl. Such a confession! Emma is his victim, body and soul. I know it! I know that she sent him money (my money) from this place. I know that the servant (at her instigation) informed him by telegraph of the birth of the child. Oh, Benjamin, don’t curse the poor helpless infant—such a sweet little girl! don’t think of it! I don’t think of it! Show me the letter that brought you here; I want to see the letter. Ah, I can tell you who wrote it! He wrote it. In his own interests; always with his own interests in view. Don’t you see it for yourself? If I succeed in keeping this shame and misery a secret from everybody—if I take Emma away, to some place abroad, on pretence of her health—there is an end of his hope of becoming your son-in-law; there is an end of his being taken into the business. Yes! he, the low-lived vagabond who puts up the shop-shutters, he looks forward to being taken into partnership, and succeeding you when you die! Isn’t his object in writing that letter as plain to you now as the heaven above us? His one chance is to set your temper in a flame, to provoke the scandal of a discovery—and to force the marriage on us as the only remedy left. Am I wrong in making any sacrifice, rather than bind our girl for life, our own flesh and blood, to such a man as that? Surely you can feel for me, and forgive me, now. How could I own the truth to you, before I left London, knowing you as I do? How could I expect you to be patient, to go into hiding, to pass under a false name—to do all the degrading things that must be done, if we are to keep Emma out of this man’s way? No! I know no more than you do where Farnaby is to be found. Hush! there is the door-bell. It’s the doctor’s time for his visit. I tell you again I don’t know—on my sacred word of honour, I don’t know where Farnaby is. Oh, be quiet! be quiet! there’s the doctor going upstairs! don’t let the doctor hear you!”
So far, she had succeeded in composing her husband. But the fury which she had innocently roused in him, in her eagerness to justify herself, now broke beyond all control. “You lie!” he cried furiously. “If you know everything else about it, you know where Farnaby is. I’ll be the death of him, if I swing for it on the gallows! Where is he? Where is he?”
A shriek from the upper room silenced him before Mrs. Ronald could speak again. His daughter had heard him; his daughter had recognized his voice.
A cry of terror from her mother echoed the cry from above; the sound of the opening and closing of the door followed instantly. Then there was a momentary silence. Then Mrs. Ronald’s voice was heard from the upper room calling to the nurse, asleep in the front parlour. The nurse’s gruff tones were just audible, answering from the parlour door. There was another interval of silence; broken by another voice—a stranger’s voice—speaking at the open window, close by.
“Follow me upstairs, sir, directly,” the voice said in peremptory tones. “As your daughter’s medical attendant, I tell you in the plainest terms that you have seriously frightened her. In her critical condition, I decline to answer for her life, unless you make the attempt at least to undo the mischief you have done. Whether you mean it or not, soothe her with kind words; say you have forgiven her. No! I have nothing to do with your domestic troubles; I have only my patient to think of. I don’t care what she asks of you, you must give way to her now. If she falls into convulsions, she will die—and her death will be at your door.”
So, with feebler and feebler interruptions from Mr. Ronald, the doctor spoke. It ended plainly in his being obeyed. The departing footsteps of the men were the next sounds to be heard. After that, there was a pause of silence—a long pause, broken by Mrs. Ronald, calling again from the upper regions. “Take the child into the back parlour, nurse, and wait till I come to you. It’s cooler there, at this time of the day.”
The wailing of an infant, and the gruff complaining of the nurse, were the next sounds that reached Farnaby in his hiding place. The nurse was grumbling to herself over the grievance of having been awakened from her sleep. “After being up all night, a person wants rest. There’s no rest for anybody in this house. My head’s as heavy as lead, and every bone in me has got an ache in it.”
Before long, the renewed silence indicated that she had succeeded in hushing the child to sleep. Farnaby forgot the restraints of caution for the first time. His face flushed with excitement; he ventured nearer to the window, in his eagerness to find out what might happen next. After no long interval, the next sound came—a sound of heavy breathing, which told him that the drowsy nurse was falling asleep again. The window-sill was within reach of his hands. He waited until the heavy breathing deepened to snoring. Then he drew himself up by the window-sill, and looked into the room.
The nurse was fast asleep in an armchair; and the child was fast asleep on her lap.
He dropped softly to the ground again. Taking off his shoes, and putting them in his pockets, he ascended the two or three steps which led to the half-open back garden door. Arrived in the passage, he could just hear them talking upstairs. They were no doubt still absorbed in their troubles; he had only the servant to dread. The splashing of water in the kitchen informed him that she was safely occupied in washing. Slowly and softly he opened the back parlour door, and stole across the room to the nurse’s chair.
One of her hands still rested on the child. The serious risk was the risk of waking her, if he lost his presence of mind and hurried it!
He glanced at the American clock on the mantelpiece. The result relieved him; it was not so late as he had feared. He knelt down, to steady himself, as nearly as possible on a level with the nurse’s knees. By a hair’s breadth at a time, he got both hands under the child. By a hair’s breadth at a time, he drew the child away from her; leaving her hand resting on her lap by degrees so gradual that the lightest sleeper could not have felt the change. That done (barring accidents), all was done. Keeping the child resting easily on his left arm, he had his right hand free to shut the door again. Arrived at the garden steps, a slight change passed over the sleeping infant’s face—the delicate little creature shivered as it felt the full flow of the open air. He softly laid over its face a corner of the woollen shawl in which it was wrapped. The child reposed as quietly on his arm as if it had still been on the nurse’s lap.
In a minute more he was at the paling. The woman rose to receive him, with the first smile that had crossed her face since they had left London.
“So you’ve got the baby,” she said, “Well, you are a deep one!”
“Take it,” he answered irritably. “We haven’t a moment to lose.”
Only stopping to put on his shoes, he led the way towards the more central part of the town. The first person he met directed him to the railway station. It was close by. In five minutes more the woman and the baby were safe in the train to London.
“There’s the other half of the money,” he said, handing it to her through the carriage window.
The woman eyed the child in her arms with a frowning expression of doubt. “All very well as long as it lasts,” she said. “And what after that?”
“Of course, I shall call and see you,” he answered.
She looked hard at him, and expressed the whole value she set on that assurance in four words. “Of course you will!”
The train started for London. Farnaby watched it, as it left the platform, with a look of unfeigned relief. “There!” he thought to himself. “Emma’s reputation is safe enough now! When we are married, we mustn’t have a love-child in the way of our prospects in life.”
Leaving the station, he stopped at the refreshment room, and drank a glass of brandy-and-water. “Something to screw me up,” he thought, “for what is to come.” What was to come (after he had got rid of the child) had been carefully considered by him, on the journey to Ramsgate. “Emma’s husband-that-is-to-be”—he had reasoned it out—“will naturally be the first person Emma wants to see, when the loss of the baby has upset the house. If Old Ronald has a grain of affection left in him, he must let her marry me after that!”
Acting on this view of his position, he took the way that led back to Slains Row, and rang the door-bell as became a visitor who had no reasons for concealment now.
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