Basil

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On the eve of the great change in my life that was now to take place,
the relative positions in which I, and the different persons with whom
I was associated, stood towards each other, may be sketched thus:--

My father's coldness of manner had not altered since his return to
London. On my side, I carefully abstained from uttering a word before
him, which bore the smallest reference to my real situation. Although
when we met, we outwardly preserved the usual relations of parent and
child, the estrangement between us had now become complete.

Clara did not fail to perceive this, and grieved over it in secret.
Other and happier feelings, however, became awakened within her, when
I privately hinted that the time for disclosing my secret to my sister
was not far off. She grew almost as much agitated as I was, though by
very different expectations--she could think of nothing else but the
explanation and the surprise in store for her. Sometimes, I almost
feared to keep her any longer in suspense; and half regretted having
said anything on the subject of the new and absorbing interest of my
life, before the period when I could easily have said all.

Mr. Sherwin and I had not latterly met on the most cordial terms. He
was dissatisfied with me for not having boldly approached the subject
of my marriage in my father's presence; and considered my reasons for
still keeping it secret, as dictated by morbid apprehension, and as
showing a total want of proper firmness. On the other hand, he was
obliged to set against this omission on my part, the readiness I had
shown in meeting his wishes on all remaining points. My life was
insured in Margaret's favour; and I had arranged to be called to the
bar immediately, so as to qualify myself in good time for every
possible place within place-hunting range. My assiduity in making
these preparations for securing Margaret's prospects and mine against
any evil chances that might happen, failed in producing the favourable
effect on Mr. Sherwin, which they must assuredly have produced on a
less selfish man. But they obliged him, at least, to stop short at
occasional grumblings about my reserve with my father, and to maintain
towards me a sort of sulky politeness, which was, after all, less
offensive than the usual infliction of his cordiality, with its
unfailing accompaniment of dull stories and duller jokes.

During the spring and summer, Mrs. Sherwin appeared to grow feebler
and feebler, from continued ill-health. Occasionally, her words and
actions--especially in her intercourse with me--suggested fears that
her mind was beginning to give way, as well as her body. For instance,
on one occasion, when Margaret had left the room for a minute or two,
she suddenly hurried up to me, whispering with eager looks and anxious
tones:--"Watch over your wife--mind you watch over her, and keep all
bad people from her! _I've_ tried to do it--mind _you_ do it, too!" I
asked immediately for an explanation of this extraordinary injunction;
but she only answered by muttering something about a mother's
anxieties, and then returned hastily to her place. It was impossible
to induce her to be more explicit, try how I might.

Margaret once or twice occasioned me much perplexity and distress, by
certain inconsistencies and variations in her manner, which began to
appear shortly after my return to North Villa from the country. At one
time, she would become, on a sudden, strangely sullen and silent--at
another, irritable and capricious. Then, again, she would abruptly
change to the most affectionate warmth of speech and demeanour,
anxiously anticipating every wish I could form, eagerly showing her
gratitude for the slightest attentions I paid her. These unaccountable
alterations of manner vexed and irritated me indescribably. I loved
Margaret too well to be able to look philosophically on the
imperfections of her character; I knew of no cause given by me for the
frequent changes in her conduct, and, if they only proceeded from
coquetry, then coquetry, as I once told her, was the last female
accomplishment that could charm me in any woman whom I really loved.
However, these causes of annoyance and regret--her caprices, and my
remonstrances--all passed happily away, as the term of my engagement
with Mr. Sherwin approached its end, Margaret's better and lovelier
manner returned. Occasionally, she might betray some symptoms of
confusion, some evidences of unusual thoughtfulness--but I remembered
how near was the day of the emancipation of our love, and looked on
her embarrassment as a fresh charm, a new ornament to the beauty of my
maiden wife.

Mr. Mannion continued--as far as attention to my interests went--to be
the same ready and reliable friend as ever; but he was, in some other
respects, an altered man. The illness of which he had complained
months back, when I returned to London, seemed to have increased. His
face was still the same impenetrable face which had so powerfully
impressed me when I first saw him, but his manner, hitherto so quiet
and self-possessed, had now grown abrupt and variable. Sometimes, when
he joined us in the drawing-room at North Villa, he would suddenly
stop before we had exchanged more than three or four words, murmur
something, in a voice unlike his usual voice, about an attack of spasm
and giddiness, and leave the room. These fits of illness had something
in their nature of the same secrecy which distinguished everything
else connected with him: they produced no external signs of
distortion, no unusual paleness in his face--you could not guess what
pain he was suffering, or where he was suffering it. Latterly, I
abstained from ever asking him to join us; for the effect on Margaret
of his sudden attacks of illness was, naturally, such as to discompose
her seriously for the remainder of the evening. Whenever I saw him
accidentally, at later periods of the year, the influence of the
genial summer season appeared to produce no alteration for the better
in him. I remarked that his cold hand, which had chilled me when I
took it on the raw winter night of my return from the country, was as
cold as ever, on the warm summer days which preceded the close of my
engagement at North Villa.

Such was the posture of affairs at home, and at Mr. Sherwin's, when I
went to see Margaret for the last time in my old character, on the
last night which yet remained to separate us from each other.

I had been all day preparing for our reception, on the morrow, in a
cottage which I had taken for a month, in a retired part of the
country, at some distance from London. One month's unalloyed happiness
with Margaret, away from the world and all worldly considerations, was
the Eden upon earth towards which my dearest hope and anticipations
had pointed for a whole year past--and now, now at last, those
aspirations were to be realized! All my arrangements at the cottage
were completed in time to allow me to return home, just before our
usual late dinner hour. During the meal, I provided for my month's
absence from London, by informing my father that I proposed visiting
one of my country friends. He heard me as coldly and indifferently as
usual; and, as I anticipated, did not even ask to what friend's house
I was going. After dinner, I privately informed Clara that on the
morrow, before starting, I would, in accordance with my promise, make
her the depositary of my long-treasured secret--which, as yet, was not
to be divulged to any one besides. This done, I hurried away, between
nine and ten o'clock, for a last half-hour's visit to North Villa;
hardly able to realise my own situation, or to comprehend the fulness
and exaltation of my own joy.

A disappointment was in store for me. Margaret was not in the house;
she had gone out to an evening party, given by a maiden aunt of hers,
who was known to be very rich, and was, accordingly, a person to be
courted and humoured by the family.

I was angry as well as disappointed at what had taken place. To send
Margaret out, on this evening of all others, showed a want of
consideration towards both of us, which revolted me. Mr. and Mrs.
Sherwin were in the room when I entered; and to _him_ I spoke my
opinion on the subject, in no very conciliatory terms. He was
suffering from a bad attack of headache, and a worse attack of
ill-temper, and answered as irritably as he dared.

"My good Sir!" he said, in sharp, querulous tones, "do, for once,
allow me to know what's best. You'll have it all _your_ way
to-morrow--just let me have _mine,_ for the last time, to-night. I'm
sure you've been humoured often enough about keeping Margaret away
from parties--and we should have humoured you this time, too; but a
second letter came from the old lady, saying she should be affronted
if Margaret wasn't one of her guests. I couldn't go and talk her over,
because of this infernal headache of mine--Hang it! it's your interest
that Margaret should keep in with her aunt; she'll have all the old
girl's money, if she only plays her cards decently well. That's why I
sent her to the party--her going will be worth some thousands to both
of you one of these days. She'll be back by half-past twelve, or
before. Mannion was asked; and though he's all out of sorts, he's gone
to take care of her, and bring her back. I'll warrant she comes home
in good time, when _he's_ with her. So you see there's nothing to make
a fuss about, after all."

It was certainly a relief to hear that Mr. Mannion was taking care of
Margaret. He was, in my opinion, much fitter for such a trust than her
own father. Of all the good services he had done for me, I thought
this the best--but it would have been even better still, if he had
prevented Margaret from going to the party.

"I must say again," resumed Mr. Sherwin, still more irritably, finding
I did not at once answer him, "there's nothing that any reasonable
being need make a fuss about. I've been doing everything for
Margaret's interests and yours--and she'll be back by twelve--and Mr.
Mannion takes care of her--and I don't know what you would have--and
it's devilish hard, so ill as I am too, to cut up rough with me like
this--devilish hard!"

"I am sorry for your illness, Mr. Sherwin; and I don't doubt your good
intentions, or the advantage of Mr. Mannion's protection for Margaret;
but I feel disappointed, nevertheless, that she should have gone out
to-night."

"I said she oughtn't to go at all, whatever her aunt wrote--_I_ said
that."

This bold speech actually proceeded from Mrs. Sherwin! I had never
before heard her utter an opinion in her husband's presence--such an
outburst from _her,_ was perfectly inexplicable. She pronounced the
words with desperate rapidity, and unwonted power of tone, fixing her
eyes all the while on me with a very strange expression.

"Damn it, Mrs. S.!" roared her husband in a fury, "will you hold your
tongue? What the devil do you mean by giving _your_ opinion, when
nobody wants it? Upon my soul I begin to think you're getting a little
cracked. You've been meddling and bothering lately, so that I don't
know what the deuce has come to you! I'll tell you what it is, Mr.
Basil," he continued, turning snappishly round upon me, "you had
better stop that fidgetty temper of yours, by going to the party
yourself. The old lady told me she wanted gentlemen; and would be glad
to see any friends of mine I liked to send her. You have only to
mention my name: Mannion will do the civil in the way of introduction.
There! there's an envelope with the address to it--they won't know who
you are, or what you are, at Margaret's aunt's--you've got your black
dress things on, all right and ready--for Heaven's sake, go to the
party yourself, and then I hope you'll be satisfied!"

Here he stopped; and vented the rest of his ill-humour by ringing the
bell violently for "his arrow-root," and abusing the servant when she
brought it.

I hesitated about accepting his proposal. While I was in doubt, Mrs.
Sherwin took the opportunity, when her husband's eye was off her, of
nodding her head at me significantly. She evidently wished me to join
Margaret at the party--but why? What did her behaviour mean?

It was useless to inquire. Long bodily suffering and weakness had but
too palpably produced a corresponding feebleness in her intellect.
What should I do? I was resolved to see Margaret that night; but to
wait for her between two and three hours, in company with her father
and mother at North Villa, was an infliction not to be endured. I
determined to go to the party. No one there would know anything about
me. They would be all people who lived in a different world from mine;
and whose manners and habits I might find some amusement in studying.
At any rate, I should spend an hour or two with Margaret, and could
make it my own charge to see her safely home. Without further
hesitation, therefore I took up the envelope with the address on it,
and bade Mr. and Mrs. Sherwin good-night.

It struck ten as I left North Villa. The moonlight which was just
beginning to shine brilliantly on my arrival there, now appeared but
at rare intervals; for the clouds were spreading thicker and thicker
over the whole surface of the sky, as the night advanced.

VII.

The address to which I was now proceeding, led me some distance away
from Mr. Sherwin's place of abode, in the direction of the populous
neighbourhood which lies on the western side of the Edgeware Road. The
house of Margaret's aunt was plainly enough indicated to me, as soon
as I entered the street where it stood, by the glare of light from the
windows, the sound of dance music, and the nondescript group of cabmen
and linkmen, with their little train of idlers in attendance,
assembled outside the door. It was evidently a very large party. I
hesitated about going in.

My sensations were not those which fit a man for exchanging
conventional civilities with perfect strangers; I felt that I showed
outwardly the fever of joy and expectation within me. Could I preserve
my assumed character of a mere friend of the family, in Margaret's
presence?--and on this night too, of all others? It was far more
probable that my behaviour, if I went to the party, would betray
everything to everybody assembled. I determined to walk about in the
neighbourhood of the house, until twelve o'clock; and then to go into
the hall, and send up my card to Mr. Mannion, with a message on it,
intimating that I was waiting below to accompany him to North Villa
with Margaret.

I crossed the street, and looked up again at the house from the
pavement opposite. Then lingered a little, listening to the music as
it reached me through the windows, and imagining to myself Margaret's
occupation at that moment. After this, I turned away; and set forth
eastward on my walk, careless in which direction I traced my steps.

I felt little impatience, and no sense of fatigue; for in less than
two hours more I knew that I should see my wife again. Until then, the
present had no existence for me--I lived in the past and future. I
wandered indifferently along lonely bye-streets, and crowded
thoroughfares. Of all the sights which attend a night-walk in a great
city, not one attracted my notice. Uninformed and unobservant, neither
saddened nor startled, I passed through the glittering highways of
London. All sounds were silent to me save the love-music of my own
thoughts; all sights had vanished before the bright form that moved
through my bridal dream. Where was my world, at that moment? Narrowed
to the cottage in the country which was to receive us on the morrow.
Where were the beings in the world? All merged in one--Margaret.

Sometimes, my thoughts glided back, dreamily and voluptuously, to the
day when I first met her. Sometimes, I recalled the summer evenings
when we sat and read together out of the same book; and, once more, it
was as if I breathed with the breath, and hoped with the hopes, and
longed with the old longings of those days. But oftenest it was with
the morrow that my mind was occupied. The first dream of all young
men--the dream of living rapturously with the woman they love, in a
secret retirement kept sacred from friends and from strangers alike,
was now my dream; to be realised in a few hours, to be realised with
my waking on the morning which was already at hand!

For the last quarter of an hour of my walk, I must have been
unconsciously retracing my steps towards the house of Margaret's aunt.
I came in sight of it again, just as the sound of the neighbouring
church clocks, striking eleven, roused me from my abstraction. More
cabs were in the street; more people were gathered about the door, by
this time. Was all this bustle, the bustle of arrival or of departure?
Was the party about to break up, at an hour when parties usually
begin? I determined to go nearer to the house, and ascertain whether
the music had ceased, or not.

I had approached close enough to hear the notes of the harp and
pianoforte still sounding as gaily as ever, when the house-door was
suddenly flung open for the departure of a lady and gentleman. The
light from the hall-lamps fell on their faces; and showed me Margaret
and Mr. Mannion.

Going home already! An hour and a half before it was time to return!
Why?

There could be but one reason. Margaret was thinking of me, and of
what I should feel if I called at North Villa, and had to wait for her
till past midnight. I ran forward to speak to them, as they descended
the steps; but exactly at the same moment, my voice was overpowered,
and my further progress barred, by a scuffle on the pavement among the
people who stood between us. One man said that his pocket had been
picked; others roared to him that they had caught the thief. There was
a fight--the police came up--I was surrounded on all sides by a
shouting, struggling mob that seemed to have gathered in an instant.

Before I could force myself out of the crowd, and escape into the
road, Margaret and Mr. Mannion had hurried into a cab. I just saw the
vehicle driving off rapidly, as I got free. An empty cab was standing
near me--I jumped into it directly--and told the man to overtake them.
After having waited my time so patiently, to let a mere accident stop
me from going home with them, as I had resolved, was not to be thought
of for a moment. I was hot and angry, after my contest with the crowd;
and could have flogged on the miserable cab-horse with my own hand,
rather than have failed in my purpose.

We were just getting closer behind them: I had just put my head out of
the window to call to them, and to bid the man who was driving me,
call, too--when their cab abruptly turned down a bye-street, in a
direction exactly opposite to the direction which led to North Villa.

What did this mean? Why were they not going straight home?

The cabman asked me whether he should not hail them before they got
farther away from us; frankly confessing, as he put the question, that
his horse was nothing like equal to the pace of the horse ahead.
Mechanically, without assignable purpose or motive, I declined his
offer, and told him simply to follow at any distance he could. While
the words passed my lips, a strange sensation stole over me: I seemed
to be speaking as the mere mouthpiece of some other voice. From
feeling hot, and moving about restlessly the moment before, I felt
unaccountably cold, and sat still now. What caused this?

My cab stopped. I looked out, and saw that the horse had fallen.
"We've lots of time, Sir," said the driver, as he coolly stepped off
the box, "they are just pulling up further down the road." I gave him
some money, and got out immediately--determined to overtake them on
foot.

It was a very lonely place--a colony of half-finished streets, and
half-inhabited houses, which had grown up in the neighbourhood of a
great railway station. I heard the fierce scream of the whistle, and
the heaving, heavy throb of the engine starting on its journey, as I
advanced along the gloomy Square in which I now found myself. The cab
I had been following stood at a turning which led into a long street,
occupied towards the farther end, by shops closed for the night, and
at the end nearest me, apparently by private houses only. Margaret and
Mr. Mannion hastily left the cab, and without looking either to the
right or the left, hurried down the street. They stopped at the ninth
house. I followed just in time to hear the door closed on them, and to
count the number of doors intervening between that door and the
Square.

The awful thrill of a suspicion which I hardly knew yet for what it
really was, began to creep over me--to creep like a dead-cold touch
crawling through and through me to the heart. I looked up at the
house. It was an hotel--a neglected, deserted, dreary-looking
building. Still acting mechanically; still with no definite impulse
that I could recognise, even if I felt it, except the instinctive
resolution to follow them into the house, as I had already followed
them through the street--I walked up to the door, and rang the bell.

It was answered by a waiter--a mere lad. As the light in the passage
fell on my face, he paused in the act of addressing me, and drew back
a few steps. Without stopping for any explanations, I closed the door
behind me, and said to him at once:

"A lady and gentleman came into this hotel a little while ago."

"What may your business be?"--He hesitated, and added in an altered
tone, "I mean, what may you want with them, Sir?"

"I want you to take me where I can hear their voices, and I want
nothing more. Here's a sovereign for you, if you do what I ask."

His eyes fastened covetously on the gold, as I held it before them. He
retired a few steps on tiptoe, and listened at the end of the passage.
I heard nothing but the thick, rapid beating of my own heart. He came
back, muttering to himself: "Master's safe at supper down stairs--I'll
risk it! You'll promise to go away directly," he added, whispering to
me, "and not disturb the house? We are quiet people here, and can't
have anything like a disturbance. Just say at once, will you promise
to step soft, and not speak a word?"

"I promise."

"This way then, Sir--and mind you don't forget to step soft."

A strange coldness and stillness, an icy insensibility, a
dream-sensation of being impelled by some hidden, irresistible agency,
possessed me, as I followed him upstairs. He showed me softly into an
empty room; pointed to one of the walls, whispering, "It's only boards
papered over--" and then waited, keeping his eyes anxiously and
steadily fixed upon all my movements.

I listened; and through the thin partition, I heard voices--_her_
voice, and _his_ voice. _I heard and I knew_--knew my degradation in
all its infamy, knew my wrongs in all their nameless horror. He was
exulting in the patience and secrecy which had brought success to the
foul plot, foully hidden for months on months; foully hidden until the
very day before I was to have claimed as my wife, a wretch as guilty
as himself!

I could neither move nor breathe. The blood surged and heaved upward
to my brain; my heart strained and writhed in anguish; the life within
me raged and tore to get free. Whole years of the direst mental and
bodily agony were concentrated in that one moment of helpless,
motionless torment. I never lost the consciousness of suffering. I
heard the waiter say, under his breath, "My God! he's dying." I felt
him loosen my cravat--I knew that he dashed cold water over me;
dragged me out of the room; and, opening a window on the landing, held
me firmly where the night-air blew upon my face. I knew all this; and
knew when the paroxysm passed, and nothing remained of it, but a
shivering helplessness in every limb.

Erelong, the power of thinking began to return to me by degrees.

Misery, and shame, and horror, and a vain yearning to hide myself from
all human eyes, and weep out my life in secret, overcame me. Then,
these subsided; and ONE THOUGHT slowly arose in their stead--arose,
and cast down before it every obstacle of conscience, every principle
of education, every care for the future, every remembrance of the
past, every weakening influence of present misery, every repressing
tie of family and home, every anxiety for good fame in this life, and
every idea of the next that was to come. Before the fell poison of
that Thought, all other thoughts--good or evil--died. As it spoke
secretly within me, I felt my bodily strength coming back; a quick
vigour leapt hotly through my frame. I turned, and looked round
towards the room we had just left--my mind was looking at the room
beyond it, the room they were in.

The waiter was still standing by my side, watching me intently. He
suddenly started back; and, with pale face and staring eyes, pointed
down the stairs.

"You go," he whispered, "go directly! You're well now--I'm afraid to
have you here any longer. I saw your look, your horrid look at that
room! You've heard what you wanted for your money--go at once; or, if
I lose my place for it, I'll call out Murder, and raise the house. And
mind this: as true as God's in heaven, I'll warn them both before they
go outside our door!"

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