Уилки Коллинз - The Fallen Leaves

“Ah! it comes back to the same thing,” she said. “You must deceive the honest people, or you can do nothing for me. Amelius had better have left me where I was! I disgraced nobody, I was a burden to nobody, there. Cold and hunger and ill-treatment can sometimes be merciful friends, in their way. If I had been left to them, they would have laid me at rest by this time.” She turned to Rufus, before he could speak to her. “I’m not ungrateful, sir; I’ll think of it, as you say; and I’ll do all that a poor foolish creature can do, to be worthy of the interest you take in me.” She lifted her hand to her head, with a momentary expression of pain. “I’ve got a dull kind of aching here,” she said; “it reminds me of my old life, when I was sometimes beaten on the head. May I go and lie down a little, by myself?”

Rufus took her hand, and pressed it in silence. She looked back at him as she opened the door of her room. “Don’t distress Amelius,” she said; “I can bear anything but that.”

Left alone in the library, Rufus walked restlessly to and fro, driven by a troubled mind. “I was bound to do it,” he thought; “and I ought to be satisfied with myself. I’m not satisfied. The world is hard on women—and the rights of property is a darned bad reason for it!”

The door from the hall was suddenly thrown open. Amelius entered the room. He looked flushed and angry—he refused to take the hand that Rufus offered to him.

“What’s this I hear from Toff? It seems that you forced your way in when Sally was here. There are limits to the liberties that a man may take in his friend’s house.”

“That’s true,” said Rufus quietly. “But when a man hasn’t taken liberties, there don’t seem much to be said. Sally was at the Home, when I last saw you—and nobody told me I should find her in this room.”

“You might have left the room, when you found her here. You have been talking to her. If you have said anything about Regina—”

“I have said nothing about Miss Regina. You have a hot temper of your own, Amelius. Wait a bit, and let it cool.”

“Never mind my temper. I want to know what you have been saying to Sally. Stop! I’ll ask Sally herself.” He crossed the room to the inner door, and knocked. “Come in here, my dear; I want to speak to you.”

The answer reached him faintly through the door. “I have got a bad headache, Amelius. Please let me rest a little.” He turned back to Rufus, and lowered his voice. But his eyes flashed; he was more angry than ever.

“You had better go,” he said. “I can guess how you have been talking to her—I know what her headache means. Any man who distresses that dear little affectionate creature is a man whom I hold as my enemy. I spit upon all the worldly considerations which pass muster with people like you! No sweeter girl than poor Sally ever breathed the breath of life. Her happiness is more precious to me than words can say. She is sacred to me! And I have just proved it—I have just come from a good woman, who will teach her an honest way of earning her bread. Not a breath of scandal shall blow on her. If you, or any people like you, think I will consent to cast her adrift on the world, or consign her to a prison under the name of a Home, you little know my nature and my principles. Here”—he snatched up the New Testament from the table, and shook it at Rufus—“here are my principles, and I’m not ashamed of them!”

Rufus took up his hat.

“There’s one thing you’ll be ashamed of, my son, when you’re cool enough to think about it,” he said; “you’ll be ashamed of the words you have spoken to a friend who loves you. I’m not a bit angry myself. You remind me of that time on board the steamer, when the quarter-master was going to shoot the bird. You made it up with him—and you’ll come to my hotel and make it up with me. And then we’ll shake hands, and talk about Sally. If it’s not taking another liberty, I’ll trouble you for a light.” He helped himself to a match from the box on the chimney-piece, lit his cigar, and left the room.

He had not been gone half an hour, before the better nature of Amelius urged him to follow Rufus and make his apologies. But he was too anxious about Sally to leave the cottage, until he had seen her first. The tone in which she had answered him, when he knocked at her door, suggested, to his sensitive apprehension, that there was something more serious the matter with her than a mere headache. For another hour, he waited patiently, on the chance that he might hear her moving in her room. Nothing happened. No sound reached his ears, except the occasional rolling of carriage-wheels on the road outside.

His patience began to fail him, as the second hour moved on. He went to the door, and listened, and still heard nothing. A sudden dread struck him that she might have fainted. He opened the door a few inches, and spoke to her. There was no answer. He looked in. The room was empty.

He ran into the hall, and called to Toff. Was she, by any chance, downstairs? No. Or out in the garden? No. Master and man looked at each other in silence. Sally was gone.

Toff was the first who recovered himself.

“Courage, sir!” he said. “With a little thinking, we shall see the way to find her. That rude American man, who talked with her this morning, may be the person who has brought this misfortune on us.”

Amelius waited to hear no more. There was the chance, at least, that something might have been said which had induced her to take refuge with Rufus. He ran back to the library to get his hat.

Toff followed his master, with another suggestion. “One word more, sir, before you go. If the American man cannot help us, we must be ready to try another way. Permit me to accompany you as far as my wife’s shop. I propose that she shall come back here with me, and examine poor little Miss’s bedroom. We will wait, of course, for your return, before anything is done. In the mean time, I entreat you not to despair. It is at least possible that the means of discovery may be found in the bedroom.”

They went out together, taking the first cab that passed them. Amelius proceeded alone to the hotel.

Rufus was in his room. “What’s gone wrong?” he asked, the moment Amelius opened the door. “Shake hands, my son, and smother up that little trouble between us in silence. Your face alarms me—it does! What of Sally?”

Amelius started at the question. “Isn’t she here?” he asked.

Rufus drew back. The mere action said, No, before he answered in words.

“Have you seen nothing of her? heard nothing of her?”

“Nothing. Steady, now! Meet it like a man; and tell me what has happened.”

Amelius told him in two words. “Don’t suppose I’m going to break out again as I did this morning,” he went on; “I’m too wretched and too anxious to be angry. Only tell me, Rufus, have you said anything to her—?”

Rufus held up his hand. “I see what you’re driving at. It will be more to the purpose to tell you what she said to me. From first to last, Amelius, I spoke kindly to her, and I did her justice. Give me a minute to rummage my memory.” After brief consideration, he carefully repeated the substance of what had passed between Sally and himself, during the latter part of the interview between them. “Have you looked about in her room?” he inquired, when he had done. “There might be a trifling something to help you, left behind her there.”

Amelius told him of Toff’s suggestion. They returned together at once to the cottage. Madame Toff was waiting to begin the search.

The first discovery was easily made. Sally had taken off one or two little trinkets—presents from Amelius, which she was in the habit of wearing—and had left them, wrapped up in paper, on the dressing-table. No such thing as a farewell letter was found near them. The examination of the wardrobe came next—and here a startling circumstance revealed itself. Every one of the dresses which Amelius had presented to her was hanging in its place. They were not many; and they had all, on previous occasions, been passed in review by Toff’s wife. She was absolutely certain that the complete number of the dresses was there in the bedroom. Sally must have worn something, in place of her new clothes. What had she put on?