Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1774 page)

There was a momentary pause, as Mr Streatfield sadly and calmly pronounced the last words. Mr Langley appeared to be absorbed in thought. At length he proceeded, speaking to himself:

‘It
is
strange! I remember that Clara left London on the day of the
levée,
to set out on a visit to her aunt; and only returned here two days since, to be present at her sister’s marriage. Well, sir,’ he continued, addressing Mr Streatfield, ‘granting what you say, granting that we all mentioned my absent daughter to you, as we are accustomed to mention her among ourselves, simply as “Clara,” you have still not excused your conduct in my eyes. Remarkable as the resemblance is between the sisters, more remarkable even, I am willing to admit, than the resemblance usually is between twins, there is yet a difference, which, slight, indescribable though it may be, is nevertheless discernible to all their relations and to all their friends. How is it that you, who represent yourself as so vividly impressed by your first sight of my daughter Clara, did not discover the error when you were introduced to her sister Jane, as the lady who had so much attracted you?’

‘You forget, sir,’ rejoined Mr Streatfield, ‘that I have never beheld the sisters together until to-day. Though both were in the balcony when I first looked up at it, it was Miss Clara Langley alone who attracted my attention. Had I only received the smallest hint that the absent sister of Miss Jane Langley was her
twin-sister,
I would have seen her, at any sacrifice, before making my proposals. For it is my duty to confess to you, Mr Langley (with the candour which is your undoubted due), that when I was first introduced to your daughter Jane, I felt an unaccountable impression that she was the same as, and yet different from, the lady whom I had seen in the balcony. Soon, however, this impression wore off. Under the circumstances, could I regard it as anything but a mere caprice, a lover’s wayward fancy? I dismissed it from my mind; it ceased to affect me, until to-day, when I first discovered that it was a warning which I had most unhappily disregarded; that a terrible error had been committed, for which no one of us was to blame, but which was fraught with misery, undeserved misery, to us all!’

‘These, Mr Streatfield, are explanations which may satisfy
you,
’ said Mr Langley, in a milder tone, ‘but they cannot satisfy
me
; they will not satisfy the world. You have repudiated, in the most public and most abrupt manner, an engagement, in the fulfilment of which the honour and the happiness of my family are concerned. You have given me reasons for your conduct, it is true; but will those reasons restore to my daughter the tranquility which she has lost, perhaps for ever? Will they stop the whisperings of calumny? Will they carry conviction to those strangers to me, or enemies of mine, whose pleasure it may be to disbelieve them? You have placed both yourself and me, sir, in a position of embarrassment — nay, a position of danger and disgrace, from which the strongest reasons and the best excuses cannot extricate us.’

‘I entreat you to believe,’ replied Mr Streatfield, ‘that I deplore from my heart the error — the fault, if you will — of which I have been unconsciously guilty. I implore your pardon, both for what I said and did at your table to-day; but I cannot do more. I cannot and I dare not pronounce the marriage vows to your daughter, with my lips, when I know that neither my conscience nor my heart can ratify them. The commonest justice, and the commonest respect towards a young lady who deserves both, and more than both, from every one who approaches her, strengthen me to persevere in the only course which it is consistent with honour and integrity for me to take.’

‘You appear to forget,’ said Mr Langley, ‘that it is not merely your own honour, but the honour of others, that is to be considered in the course of conduct which you are now to pursue.’

‘I have by no means forgotten what is due to
you,
’ continued Mr Streatfield, ‘or what responsibilities I have incurred from the nature of my intercourse with your family. Do I put too much trust in your forbearance, if I now assure you, candidly and unreservedly, that I still place all my hopes of happiness in the prospect of becoming connected by marriage with a daughter of yours? Miss Clara Langley — ’

Here the speaker paused. His position was becoming a delicate and a dangerous one; but he made no effort to withdraw from it. Almost bewildered by the pressing and perilous emergency of the moment, harassed by such a tumult of conflicting emotions within him as he had never known before, he risked the worst, with all the blind-fold desperation of love. The angry flush was rising on Mr Langley’s cheek; it was evidently costing him a severs struggle to retain his assumed self-possession; but he did not speak. After an interval, Mr Streatfield proceeded thus:

‘However unfortunately I may express myself, I am sure you will do me the justice to believe that I am now speaking from my heart on a subject (to
me
) of the most vital importance. Place yourself in my situation, consider all that has happened, consider that this may be, for aught I know to the contrary, the last opportunity I may have of pleading my cause; and then say whether it is possible for me to conceal from you that I can only look to your forbearance and sympathy for permission to retrieve my error, to — to — Mr Langley! I cannot choose expressions at such a moment as this. I can only tell you that the feeling with which I regarded your daughter Clara, when I first saw her, still remains what it was. I cannot analyse it; I cannot reconcile its apparent inconsistencies and contradictions; I cannot explain how, while I may seem to you and to every one to have varied and vacillated with insolent caprice, I have really remained, in my own heart and to my own conscience, true to my first sensations and my first convictions. I can only implore you not to condemn me to a life of disappointment and misery, by judging me with hasty irritation. Favour me, so far at least, as to relate the conversation which has passed between us to your two daughters. Let me hear how it affects each of them towards me. Let me know what they are willing to think and ready to do under such unparalleled circumstances as have now occurred. I will wait
your
time, and
their
time; I will abide by
your
decision and
their
decision, pronounced after the first poignant distress and irritation of this day’s events have passed over.’

Still Mr Langley remained silent; the angry word was on his tongue; the contemptuous rejection of what he regarded for the moment as a proposition equally ill-timed and insolent, seemed bursting to his lips; but once more he restrained himself. He rose from his seat, and walked slowly backwards and forwards, deep in thought. Mr Streatfield was too much overcome by his own agitation to plead his cause further by another word. There was a silence in the room now, which lasted for some time.

We have said that Mr Langley was a man of the world. He was strongly attached to his children; but he had a little of the selfishness and much of the reverence for wealth of a man of the world. As he now endeavoured to determine mentally on his proper course of action — to disentangle the whole case from all its mysterious intricacies — to view it, extraordinary as it was, in its proper bearings, his thoughts began gradually to assume what is called, ‘a practical turn.’ He reflected that he had another daughter, besides the twin-sisters, to provide for; and that he had two sons to settle in life. He was not rich enough to portion three daughters; and he had not interest enough to start his sons favourably in a career of eminence. Mr Streatfield, on the contrary, was a man of great wealth, and of great ‘connections’ among people in power. Was such a son-in-law to be rejected, even after all that had happened, without at least consulting his wife and daughters first? He thought not. Had not Mr Streatfield, in truth, been the victim of a remarkable fatality, of an incredible accident, and were no allowances, under such circumstances, to be made for him? He began to think there were. Reflecting thus, he determined at length to proceed with moderation and caution at all hazards; and regained composure enough to continue the conversation in a cold, but still in a polite tone.

‘I will commit myself, sir, to no agreement or promise whatever,’ he began, ‘nor will I consider this interview in any respect as a conclusive one, either on your side or mine; but if I think, on consideration, that it is desirable that our conversation should be repeated to my wife and daughters, I will make them acquainted with it, and will let you know the result. In the meantime, I think you will agree with me, that it is most fit that the next communications between us should take place by letter alone.’

Mr Streatfield was not slow in taking the hint conveyed by Mr Langley’s last words. After what had occurred, and until something was definitely settled, he felt that the suffering and suspense which he was already enduring would be increased tenfold if he remained longer in the same house with the twin-sisters — the betrothed of one, the lover of the other! Murmuring a few inaudible words of acquiescence in the arrangements which had just been proposed to him, he left the room. The same evening he quitted Langley Hall.

The next morning the remainder of the guests departed, their curiosity to know all the particulars of what had happened remaining ungratified. They were simply informed that an extraordinary and unexpected obstacle had arisen to delay the wedding; that no blame attached to any one in the matter; and that as soon as everything had been finally determined, everything would be explained. Until then, it was not considered necessary to enter in any way into particulars. By the middle of the day every visitor had left the house; and a strange and melancholy spectacle it presented when they were all gone. Rooms were now empty and silent, which the day before had been filled with animated groups, and had echoed with merry laughter. In one apartment, the fittings for the series of ‘Tableaux’ which had been proposed, remained half completed: the dresses that were to have been worn, lay scattered on the floor; the carpenter who had come to proceed with his work, gathered up his tools in ominous silence, and departed as quickly as he could. Here lay books still open at the last page read; there was an album, with the drawing of the day before unfinished, and the colour-box unclosed by its side. On the deserted billiard-table, the positions of the ‘cues’ and balls showed traces of an interrupted game. Flowers were scattered on the rustic tables in the garden, half-made into nosegays, and beginning to wither already. The very dogs wandered in a moody, unsettled way about the house, missing the friendly hands that had fondled and fed them for so many days past, and whining impatiently in the deserted drawing-rooms. The social desolation of the scene was miserably complete in all its aspects.

Immediately after the departure of his guests, Mr Langley had a long interview with his wife. He repeated to her the conversation which had taken place between Mr Streatfield and himself, and received from her in return such an account of the conduct of his daughter, under the trial that had befallen her, as filled him with equal astonishment and admiration. It was a new revelation to him of the character of his own child.

‘As soon as the violent symptoms had subsided,’ said Mrs Langley, in answer to her husband’s first inquiries, ‘as soon as the hysterical fit was subdued, Jane seemed suddenly to assume a new character, to become another person. She begged that the doctor might be released from his attendance, and that she might be left alone with me and with her sister Clara. When every one else had quitted the room, she continued to sit in the easy chair where we had at first placed her, covering her face with her hands. She entreated us not to speak to her for a short time, and, except that she shuddered occasionally, sat quite still and silent. When she at last looked up, we were shocked to see the deadly paleness of her face, and the strange alteration that had come over her expression; but she spoke to us so coherently, so solemnly even, that we were amazed; we knew not what to think or what to do; it hardly seemed to be
our
Jane who was now speaking to us.’

‘What did she say?’ asked Mr Langley, eagerly.

‘She said that the first feeling of her heart, at that moment, was gratitude on her own account. She thanked God that the terrible discovery had not been made too late, when her married life might have been a life of estrangement and misery. Up to the moment when Mr Streatfield had uttered that one fatal exclamation, she had loved him, she told us, fondly and fervently;
now,
no explanation, no repentance (if either were tendered), no earthly persuasion or command (in case Mr Streatfield should think himself bound, as a matter of atonement, to hold to his rash engagement), could ever induce her to become his wife.’

‘Mr Streatfield will not test her resolution,’ said Mr Langley, bitterly; ‘he deliberately repeated his repudiation of his engagement in this room; nay, more, he — ’

‘I have something important to say to you from Jane on this point,’ interrupted Mrs Langley. ‘After she had spoken the first few words which I have already repeated to you, she told us that she had been thinking — thinking more calmly perhaps than we could imagine — on all that had happened; on what Mr Streatfield had said at the dinner-table; on the momentary glance of recognition which she had seen pass between him and her sister Clara, whose accidental absence, during the whole period of Mr Streatfield’s intercourse with us in London, she now remembered and reminded me of. The cause of the fatal error, and the manner in which it had occurred, seemed to be already known to her, as if by intuition. We entreated her to refrain from speaking on the subject for the present; but she answered that it was her duty to speak on it — her duty to propose something which should alleviate the suspense and distress we were all enduring on her account. No words can describe to you her fortitude, her noble endurance — ’ Mrs Langley’s voice faltered as she pronounced the last words. It was some minutes ere she became sufficiently composed to proceed thus: