Уилки Коллинз - Basil

While he was lighting his cigar, I looked more closely at him than before. Though he was the same as ever in manner; though his expression still preserved its reckless levity of former days, I now detected that he had changed a little in some other respects. His features had become coarser—dissipation had begun to mark them. His spare, active, muscular figure had filled out; he was dressed rather carelessly; and of all his trinkets and chains of early times, not one appeared about him now. Ralph looked prematurely middle-aged, since I had seen him last.

“Well,” he began, “first of all, about my coming back. The fact is, the morganatic Mrs. Ralph—” (he referred to his last mistress) “wanted to see England, and I was tired of being abroad. So I brought her back with me; and we’re going to live quietly, somewhere in the Brompton neighbourhood. That woman has been my salvation—you must come and see her. She has broke me of gaming altogether; I was going to the devil as fast as I could, when she stopped me—but you know all about it, of course. Well: we got to London yesterday afternoon; and in the evening I left her at the hotel, and went to report myself at home. There, the first thing I heard, was that you had cut me out of my old original distinction of being the family scamp. Don’t look distressed, Basil; I’m not laughing at you; I’ve come to do something better than that. Never mind my talk: nothing in the world ever was serious to me, and nothing ever will be.”

He stopped to knock the ash off his cigar, and settle himself more comfortably on my bed; then proceeded.

“It has been my ill-luck to see my father pretty seriously offended on more than one occasion; but I never saw him so very quiet and so very dangerous as last night when he was telling me about you. I remember well enough how he spoke and looked, when he caught me putting away my trout-flies in the pages of that family history of his; but it was nothing to see him or hear him then, to what it is now. I can tell you this, Basil—if I believed in what the poetical people call a broken heart (which I don’t), I should be almost afraid that he was broken-hearted. I saw it was no use to say a word for you just yet, so I sat quiet and listened to him till I got my dismissal for the evening. My next proceeding was to go up-stairs, and see Clara. Upstairs, I give you my word of honour, it was worse still. Clara was walking about the room with your letter in her hand—just reach me the matches: my cigar’s out. Some men can talk and smoke in equal proportions—I never could.

“You know as well as I do,” he continued when he had relit his cigar, “that Clara is not usually demonstrative. I always thought her rather a cold temperament—but the moment I put my head in at the door, I found I’d been just as great a fool on that point as on most others. Basil, the scream Clara gave when she first saw me, and the look in her eyes when she talked about you, positively frightened me. I can’t describe anything; and I hate descriptions by other men (most likely on that very account): so I won’t describe what she said and did. I’ll only tell you that it ended in my promising to come here the first thing this morning; promising to get you out of the scrape; promising, in short, everything she asked me. So here I am, ready for your business before my own. The fair partner of my existence is at the hotel, half-frantic because I won’t go lodging-hunting with her; but Clara is paramount, Clara is the first thought. Somebody must be a good boy at home; and now you have resigned, I’m going to try and succeed you, by way of a change!”

“Ralph! Ralph! can you mention Clara’s name, and that woman’s name, in the same breath? Did you leave Clara quieter and better! For God’s sake be serious about that, though serious about nothing else!”

“Gently, Basil! Doucement mon ami! I did leave her quieter: my promise made her look almost like herself again. As for what you say about mentioning Clara and Mrs. Ralph in the same breath, I’ve been talking and smoking till I have no second breaths left to devote to second-rate virtue. There is an unanswerable reason for you, if you want one! And now let us get to the business that brings me here. I don’t want to worry you by raking up this miserable mess again, from beginning to end, in your presence; but I must make sure at the same time that I have got hold of the right story, or I can’t be of any use to you. My father was a little obscure on certain points. He talked enough, and more than enough, about consequences to the family, about his own affliction, about his giving you up for ever; and, in short, about everything but the case itself as it really stands against us. Now that is just what I ought to be put up to, and must be put up to. Let me tell you in three words what I was told last night.”

“Go on, Ralph: speak as you please.”

“Very good. First of all, I understand that you took a fancy to some shopkeeper’s daughter—so far, mind, I don’t blame you: I’ve spent time very pleasantly among the ladies of the counter myself. But in the second place, I’m told that you actually married the girl! I don’t wish to be hard upon you, my good fellow, but there was an unparalleled insanity about that act, worthier of a patient in Bedlam than of my brother. I am not quite sure whether I understand exactly what virtuous behaviour is; but if that was virtuous behaviour—there! there! don’t look shocked. Let’s have done with the marriage, and get on. Well, you made the girl your wife; and then innocently consented to a very queer condition of waiting a year for her (virtuous behaviour again, I suppose!) At the end of that time—don’t turn away your head, Basil! I may be a scamp; but I am not blackguard enough to make a joke—either in your presence, or out of it—of this part of the story. I will pass it over altogether, if you like; and only ask you a question or two. You see, my father either could not or would not speak plainly of the worst part of the business; and you know him well enough to know why. But somebody must be a little explicit, or I can do nothing. About that man? You found the scoundrel out? Did you get within arm’s length of him?”

I told my brother of the struggle with Mannion in the Square.

He heard me almost with his former schoolboy delight, when I had succeeded, to his satisfaction, in a feat of strength or activity. He jumped off the bed, and seized both my hands in his strong grasp; his face radiant, his eyes sparkling. “Shake hands, Basil! Shake hands, as we haven’t shaken hands yet: this makes amends for everything! One word more, though, about that fellow; where is he now?”

“In the hospital.”

Ralph laughed heartily, and jumped back on the bed. I remembered Mannion’s letter, and shuddered as I thought of it.

“The next question is about the girl,” said my brother. “What has become of her? Where was she all the time of your illness?”

“At her father’s house; she is there still.”

“Ah, yes! I see; the old story; innocent, of course. And her father backs her, doesn’t he? To be sure, that’s the old story too. I have got at our difficulty now; we are threatened with an exposure, if you don’t acknowledge her. Wait a minute! Have you any evidence against her, besides your own?”

“I have a letter, a long letter from her accomplice, containing a confession of his guilt and hers.”

“She is sure to call that confession a conspiracy. It’s of no use to us, unless we dared to go to law—and we daren’t. We must hush the thing up at any price; or it will be the death of my father. This is a case for money, just as I thought it would be. Mr. and Miss Shopkeeper have got a large assortment of silence to sell; and we must buy it of them, over the domestic counter, at so much a yard. Have you been there yet, Basil, to ask the price and strike the bargain?”