Уилки Коллинз - Basil

He turned from the grave, and left me by the way that he had come; but the hideous image of him, and the remembrance of the words he had spoken, never left me. Never for a moment, while I lingered alone in the churchyard; never, when I quitted it, and walked through the crowded streets. The horror of the fiend-face was still before my eyes, the poison of the fiend-words was still in my ears, when I returned to my lodging, and found Ralph waiting to see me as soon as I entered my room.

“At last you have come back!” he said; “I was determined to stop till you did, if I stayed all day. Is anything the matter? Have you got into some worse difficulty than ever?”

“No, Ralph—no. What have you to tell me?”

“Something that will rather surprise you, Basil: I have to tell you to leave London at once! Leave it for your own interests and for everybody else’s. My father has found out that Clara has been to see you.”

“Good heavens! how?”

“He won’t tell me. But he has found it out. You know how you stand in his opinion—I leave you to imagine what he thinks of Clara’s conduct in coming here.”

“No! no! tell me yourself, Ralph—tell me how she bears his displeasure!”

“As badly as possible. After having forbidden her ever to enter this house again, he now only shows how he is offended, by his silence; and it is exactly that, of course, which distresses her. Between her notions of implicit obedience to him, and her opposite notions, just as strong, of her sisterly duties to you, she is made miserable from morning to night. What she will end in, if things go on like this, I am really afraid to think; and I’m not easily frightened, as you know. Now, Basil, listen to me: it is your business to stop this, and my business to tell you how.”

“I will do anything you wish—anything for Clara’s sake!”

“Then leave London; and so cut short the struggle between her duty and her inclination. If you don’t, my father is quite capable of taking her at once into the country, though I know he has important business to keep him in London. Write a letter to her, saying that you have gone away for your health, for change of scene and peace of mind—gone away, in short, to come back better some day. Don’t say where you’re going, and don’t tell me, for she is sure to ask, and sure to get it out of me if I know. Then she might be writing to you, and that might be found out, too. She can’t distress herself about your absence, if you account for it properly, as she distresses herself now—that is one consideration. And you will serve your own interests, as well as Clara’s, by going away—that is another.”

“Never mind my interests. Clara! I can only think of Clara!”

“But you have interests, and you must think of them. I told my father of the death of that unhappy woman, and of your noble behaviour when she was dying. Don’t interrupt me, Basil—it was noble; I couldn’t have done what you did, I can tell you! I saw he was more struck by it than he was willing to confess. An impression has been made on him by the turn circumstances have taken. Only leave that impression to strengthen, and you’re safe. But if you destroy it by staying here, after what has happened, and keeping Clara in this new dilemma—my dear fellow, you destroy your best chance! There is a sort of defiance of him in stopping; there is a downright concession to him in going away.”

“I will go, Ralph; you have more than convinced me that I ought! I will go to-morrow, though where—”

“You have the rest of the day to think where. I should go abroad and amuse myself; but your ideas of amusement are, most likely, not mine. At any rate, wherever you go, I can always supply you with money, when you want it; you can write to me, after you have been away some little time, and I can write back, as soon as I have good news to tell you. Only stick to your present determination, Basil, and, I’ll answer for it, you will be back in your own study at home, before you are many months older!”

“I will put it out of my power to fail in my resolution, by writing to Clara at once, and giving you the letter to place in her hands to-morrow evening, when I shall have left London some hours.”

“That’s right, Basil! that’s acting and speaking like a man!”

I wrote immediately, accounting for my sudden absence as Ralph had advised me—wrote, with a heavy heart, all that I thought would be most reassuring and cheering to Clara; and then, without allowing myself time to hesitate or to think, gave the letter to my brother.

“She shall have it to-morrow night,” he said, “and my father shall know why you have left town, at the same time. Depend on me in this, as in everything else. And now, Basil, I must say good bye—unless you’re in the humour for coming to look at my new house this evening. Ah! I see that won’t suit you just now, so, good bye, old fellow! Write when you are in any necessity—get back your spirits and your health—and never doubt that the step you are now taking will be the best for Clara, and the best for yourself!”

He hurried out of the room, evidently feeling more at saying farewell than he was willing to let me discover. I was left alone for the rest of the day, to think whither I should turn my steps on the morrow.

I knew that it would be best that I should leave England; but there seemed to have grown within me, suddenly, a yearning towards my own country that I had never felt before—a home-sickness for the land in which my sister lived. Not once did my thoughts wander away to foreign places, while I now tried to consider calmly in what direction I should depart when I left London.

While I was still in doubt, my earliest impressions of childhood came back to my memory; and influenced by them, I thought of Cornwall. My nurse had been a Cornish woman; my first fancies and first feelings of curiosity had been excited by her Cornish stories, by the descriptions of the scenery, the customs, and the people of her native land, with which she was ever ready to amuse me. As I grew older, it had always been one of my favourite projects to go to Cornwall, to explore the wild western land, on foot, from hill to hill throughout. And now, when no motive of pleasure could influence my choice—now, when I was going forth homeless and alone, in uncertainty, in grief, in peril—the old fancy of long-past days still kept its influence, and pointed out my new path to me among the rocky boundaries of the Cornish shore.

My last night in London was a night made terrible by Mannion’s fearful image in all my dreams—made mournful, in my waking moments, by thoughts of the morrow which was to separate me from Clara. But I never faltered in my resolution to leave London for her sake. When the morning came, I collected my few necessaries, added to them one or two books, and was ready to depart.

My way through the streets took me near my father’s house. As I passed by the well-remembered neighbourhood, my self-control so far deserted me, that I stopped and turned aside into the Square, in the hope of seeing Clara once more before I went away. Cautiously and doubtfully, as if I was a trespasser even on the public pavement, I looked up at the house which was no more my home—at the windows, side by side, of my sister’s sitting-room and bed-room. She was neither standing near them, nor passing accidentally from one room to another at that moment. Still I could not persuade myself to go on. I thought of many and many an act of kindness that she had done for me, which I seemed never to have appreciated until now—I thought of what she had suffered, and might yet suffer, for my sake—and the longing to see her once more, though only for an instant, still kept me lingering near the house and looking up vainly at the lonely windows.