Уилки Коллинз - The Guilty River

Driven by strong impulse, she ran to the place in which I had left my hat, and brought it to me, and opened the door with a look of entreaty which it was impossible to resist. It would have been an act of downright cruelty to persist in opposing her. "I wouldn't distress you, Cristel, for the whole world," I said—and left her to conclude that I had felt the influence of her entreaties in the right way. She tried to thank me; the tears rose in her eyes—she signed to me to leave her, poor soul, as if she felt ashamed of herself. I was shocked; I was grieved; I was more than ever secretly resolved to go back to her. When we said good-bye—I have been told that I did wrong; I meant no harm—I kissed her.

Having traversed the short distance between the cottage and the wood, I remembered that I had left my walking-stick behind me, and returned to get it.

Cristel was leaving the kitchen; I saw her at the door which communicated with the Lodger's side of the cottage. Her back was turned towards me; astonishment held me silent. She opened the door, passed through it, and closed it behind her.

Going to that man, after she had repelled his advances, in my presence! Going to the enemy against whom she had warned me, after I had first been persuaded to leave her! Angry thoughts these—and surely thoughts unworthy of me? If it had been the case of another man I should have said he was jealous. Jealous of the miller's daughter—in my position? Absurd! contemptible! But I was still in such a vile temper that I determined to let Cristel know she had been discovered. Taking one of my visiting cards, I wrote on it: "I came back for my stick, and saw you go to him." After I had pinned this spiteful little message to the door, so that she might see it when she returned, I suffered a disappointment. I was not half so well satisfied with myself as I had anticipated.

Leaving the cottage for the second time, I was met at the door by a fat man of solemn appearance dressed in black, who respectfully touched his hat. My angry humor acknowledged the harmless stranger's salute by a rude inquiry: "What the devil do you want?" Instead of resenting this uncivil language, he indirectly reproved me by becoming more respectful than ever.

"My mistress desires me to tell you, sir, that luncheon is waiting." I was in the presence of a thoroughbred English servant—and I had failed to discover it until he spoke of his mistress! I had also, by keeping luncheon waiting, treated an English institution with contempt. And, worse even than this, as a misfortune which personally affected me, my stepmother evidently knew that I had paid another visit to the mill.

I hurried along the woodland path, followed by the fat domestic in black. Not used apparently to force his legs into rapid motion, he articulated with the greatest difficulty in answering my next question: "How did you know where to find me?"

"Mrs. Roylake ordered inquiries to be made, sir. The head gardener—" There his small reserves of breath failed him.

"The head gardener saw me?"

"Yes, sir."

"When?"

"Hours ago, sir—when you went into Toller's cottage."

I troubled my fat friend with no more questions.

Returning to the house, and making polite apologies, I discovered one more among Mrs. Roylake's many accomplishments. She possessed two smiles—a sugary smile (with which I was already acquainted), and an acid smile which she apparently reserved for special occasions. It made its appearance when I led her to the luncheon table.

"Don't let me detain you," my stepmother began.

"Won't you give me some luncheon?" I inquired.

"Dear me! hav'n't you lunched already?"

"Where should I lunch, my dear lady?" I thought this would induce the sugary smile to show itself. I was wrong.

"Where?" Mrs. Roylake repeated. "With your friends at the mill of course. Very inhospitable not to offer you lunch. When are we to have flour cheaper?"

I began to get sulky. All I said was: "I don't know."

"Curious!" Mrs. Roylake observed. "You not only don't get luncheon among your friends: you don't even get information. To know a miller, and not to know the price of flour, is ignorance presented in one of its most pitiable aspects. And how is Miss Toller looking? Perfectly charming?"

I was angry by this time. "You have exactly described her," I said. Mrs. Roylake began to get angry, on her side.

"Surely a little coarse and vulgar?" she suggested, reverting to poor Cristel.

"Would you like to judge for yourself?" I asked. "I shall be happy, Mrs. Roylake, to take you to the mill."

My stepmother's knowledge of the world implied considerable acquaintance—how obtained I do not pretend to know—with the characters of men. Discovering that she was in danger of overstepping the limits of my patience, she drew back with a skill which performed the retrograde movement without permitting it to betray itself.

"We have carried our little joke, my dear Gerard, far enough," she said.

"I fancy your residence in Germany has rather blunted your native English sense of humor. You don't suppose, I hope and trust, that I am so insensible to our relative positions as to think of interfering in your choice of friends or associates. If you are not aware of it already, let me remind you that this house is now yours; not mine. I live here—gladly live here, my dear boy—by your indulgence; fortified (I am sure) by your regard for your excellent father's wishes as expressed in his will—"

I stopped her there. She had got the better of me with a dexterity which I see now, but which I was not clever enough to appreciate at time. In a burst of generosity, I entreated her to consider Trimley Deen as her house, and never to mention such a shocking subject as my authority again.

After this, need I say that the most amiable of women took me out in her carriage, and introduced me to some of the best society in England?

If I could only remember all the new friends to whom I made my bow, as well as the conversation in which we indulged, I might write a few pages here, interesting in a high degree to persons with well-balanced minds. Unhappily, so far as my own impressions were concerned, the best society proved to be always the same society. Every house that we entered was in the same beautiful order; every mistress of the house was dressed in the best taste; every master of the house had the same sensible remarks to make on conservative prospects at the coming election; every young gentleman wanted to know how my game preserves had been looked after in my absence; every young lady said: "How nice it must have been, Mr. Roylake, to find yourself again at Trimley Deen." Has anybody ever suffered as I suffered, during that round of visits, under the desire to yawn and the effort to suppress it? Is there any sympathetic soul who can understand me, when I say that I would have given a hundred pounds for a gag, and for the privilege of using it to stop my stepmother's pleasant chat in the carriage, following on our friends' pleasant chat in the drawing-room? Finally, when we got home, and when Mrs. Roylake kindly promised me another round of visits, and more charming people in the neighborhood to see, will any good Christian forgive me, if I own that I took advantage of being alone to damn the neighborhood, and to feel relieved by it?

Now that I was no longer obliged to listen to polite strangers, my thoughts reverted to Cristel, and to the suspicions that she had roused in me.

Recovering its influence, in the interval that had passed, my better nature sharply reproached me. I had presumed to blame Cristel, with nothing to justify me but my own perverted view of her motives. How did I know that she had not opened that door, and gone to that side of the cottage, with a perfectly harmless object in view? I was really anxious, if I could find the right way to do it, to make amends for an act of injustice of which I felt ashamed. If I am asked why I was as eager to set myself right with a miller's daughter, as if she had been a young lady in the higher ranks of life, I can only reply that no such view of our relative positions as this ever occurred to me. A strange state of mind, no doubt. What was the right explanation of it?