 CHAPTER 1 ON THE WAY TO THE RIVER For reasons of my own, I excused myself from accompanying my stepmother to a dinner party given in our neighborhood. In my present humour I preferred being alone, and as a means of getting through my idle time I was quite content to be occupied in catching insects. Provided with brush and a mixture of rum and treacle, I went into Fort Witchwood to set the snare, familiar to hunters of moths, which we call sugaring the trees. The summer evening was hot and still. The time was between dusk and dark. After ten years of absence in foreign parts, I perceived changes in the outskirts of the wood, which warned me not to enter it too confidently when I might find difficulty in seeing my way. Remaining among the outermost trees, I painted the trunks with my treacherous mixture, which allured the insects of the night, and stupefied them when they settled on its rank service. The snare being set, I waited to see the intoxication of the moths. A time passed, dull and dreary. The mysterious assemblage of trees was blacker than the blackening sky. Of millions of leaves over my head, non-pleased my ear in the airless calm with a rustling summer song. The first flying creatures, dimly visible by moments under the gloomy sky, were enemies whom I well knew by experience. Many of fine insect specimen have I lost when the bats were near me in search of the evening meal. What had happened before, in other words, happened now. The first moth that I had snare'd was a large one, and a specimen well worth securing. As I stretched out my hand to take it, the apparition of a flying shadow passed, swift and noiseless, between me and the tree. In less than an instant, the insect was snatched away when my fingers were within an inch of it. The bat had begun his samba, and the man in a mixture had provided it for him. Out of five moths' court, I became the victim of clever theft in the case of three. The other two, of no great value as specimens, I was just quick enough to secure. Under other circumstances, my patience as a collector would still have been a match for the dexterity of the bats. But on that evening, a memorable evening when I look back on it now, my spirits were depressed, and I was easily discouraged. My favourite studies of the insect world seemed to have lost their value in my estimation. In the silence and the darkness, I lay down under a tree, and let my mind dwell on myself, and on my new life to come. I am Gerard Roylake, son and only child of the late Gerard Roylake of Trimley Dean. At twenty-two years of age, my father's death had placed me in possession of his large landed property. On my arrival from Germany, only a few hours since, the servants innocently vexed me. When I drove up to the door, I heard them say to each other, Here is the young squire. My father used to be called the old squire. I shrank from being reminded of him, not as other sons in my position might have said, because it renewed my sorrow for his death. There was no sorry in me to be renewed. It is a shocking confession to make. My heart remained unmoved when I thought of the father whom I had lost. Our mothers have the most sacred of all claims on our gratitude and our love. They have nourished us with their blood. They have risked their lives in bringing us into the world. They have preserved and guided our helpless infancy with divine patience and love. What claim, equally strong and equally tender, does the other parent establish on his offspring? What motive does the instinct of his young children find for preferring the father before any other person who may be a familiar object in their daily lives? They love him, naturally and rightly love him, because he lives in their remembrance, if he is a good man, as the first, the best, the dearest of their friends. My father was a Batman. He was my mother's worst enemy. And he was never my friend. The little that I know of the world tells me that it is not the common lot in life of women to marry the object of their first love. A sense of duty had compelled my mother to part with the man who had won her heart in the first days of her maidenhood. And my father had discovered it after his marriage. His insane jealousy foully wronged the truest wife, the most long-suffering woman that ever lived. I have no patience to write of it. For ten miserable years she suffered her martyrdom. She lived through it, dear angel, sweet suffering soul, for my sake. At her death my father was able to gratify his hatred of the son whom he had never believed to be his own child. And a pretence of preferring the foreign system of teaching he sent me to a school in France. My education, having been so far completed, I was next transferred to a German university. Never again did I see the place of my birth. Never did I get a letter from home, until a family lawyer wrote from Trimley Dean, requesting me to assume possession of my house and lance under the entail. I should not even have known that my father had taken a second wife. But for some friend or enemy I never discovered a person who sent me a newspaper containing an announcement of the marriage. When we saw each other for the first time, my stepmother and I met necessarily as strangers. We were elaborately polite, and we each made a meritorious effort to appear at our ease. On her side she found herself confronted by a young man, the new master of the house, who looked more like a foreigner than an Englishman, who, when he was congratulated, in view of the approaching season, on the admirable preservation of his partridges and pheasants, betrayed an utter want of interest in the subject, and who showed no sense of shame in acknowledging that his principal amusements were derived from reading books and collecting insects. How I must have disappointed Mrs. Roy Lake, and how considerably she hit for me the effect that I had produced. Turning next to my own impressions, I discovered in my newly found relative a little, light-eyed, light-haired, elegant woman, trim and bright, and smiling, dressed to perfection, clever to her finger's ends, skilled in making herself agreeable, and yet, in spite of these undeniable fascinations, perfectly incomprehensible to me. After my experience of foreign society, I was incapable of understanding the extraordinary importance which my stepmother seemed attached to rank and riches, entirely for their own sakes. When she described my unknown neighbors from one end of the county to the other, she took it for granted that I must be interested in them on account of their titles and their fortunes. She held me up to my own face as a kind of idol to myself, without producing any better reason than might be found in my inheritance of an income of sixteen thousand pounds. And when I expressed, in excusing myself for not accompanying her, uninvited to the dinner party, a perfectly rational doubt whether I might prove to be a welcome guest, Mrs. Roy Lake held up her delicate little hands in unalterable astonishment. My dear Gerard, in your position, she appeared to think that this settled the question. I submitted in silence. The truth is, I was beginning already to despair of my prospects, kind as my stepmother was, and agreeable as she was, with chance good I see of establishing any true sympathy between us. And if my neighbors resembled her in their ways of thinking, what hope could I feel of finding new friends in England to replace the friends in Germany whom I had lost? A stranger among my own country people with the everyday habits and everyday pleasures of my youthful life left behind me, without plans or hopes to interest me in looking at the future, it is surely not wonderful that my spirits had sunk to their lowest step, and that I even failed to appreciate with sufficient gratitude the fortunate accident of my birth. Perhaps the journey to England had fatigued me, or perhaps the controlling influences of the dark and silent night proved irresistible. This only is certain, my solitary meditations under the tree ended in sleep. I was awakened by a light falling on my face. The moon had risen. In the outward part of the wood, beyond which I had not advanced, the pure and welcome light penetrated easily through the scattered trees. I got up and looked about me. A path into the wood now showed itself, broader and better kept than any path that I could remember in the days of my boyhood. The moon showed it to me plainly, and my curiosity was aroused. Following the new track, I found that it led to a little glade which I at once recognised. The place was changed in one respect only. A neglected water spring had been cleared of brambles and stones, and had been provided with a drinking-cup, a rustic seat, and a Latin motto on a marble slab. The spring at once reminded me of a greater body of water, a river at some little distance farther on, which ran between the trees on one side and the desolate open country on the other. Ascending from the glade, I found myself in one of the narrow woodland paths, familiar to me in the bygone time. Unless my memory was at fault, this was the way which led to an old watermill on the river bank. The image of the great turning wheel, which half frightened, half fascinated me when I was a child, now presented itself to my memory for the first time after an interval of many years. In my present frame of mind, the old scene appealed to me with the irresistible influence of an old friend. I said to myself, shall I walk on and try if I can find a river in the mill again? This perfectly travelling question to decide presents it to me nevertheless fantastic difficulties so absurd that they might have been difficulties encountered in a dream. To my own astonishment, I hesitated, walked back again along the path by which I had advanced, reconsidered my decision without knowing why, and turning in the opposite direction, sat my face towards the river once more. I wonder how my life would have ended if I had gone the other way. Chapter 2 of the Guilty River This is a LibriVox recording. On LibriVox recording sign the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Nadine Gertboulet, The Guilty River by Wilkie Collins. Chapter 2 The River Introduces Us I stood alone on the bank of the ugliest stream in England. The moonlight, pouring its unclouded radiance over open space, failed to throw a beauty not their own on those sluggish waters. Brood and muddy, their stealthy current flowed onward to the sea, without a rock to diversify, without a bubble to break the sullen surface. On the side from which I was looking at the river, the neglected trees grew so close together that they were undermining their own lives and poisoning each other. On the opposite bank, a rank-growth of gigantic bull rushes hit the ground beyond, except where it rose in hillocks and showed its surface of desert sand spotted here and there by mean patches of health. A repellent river in itself, a repellent river in its surroundings, a repellent river, even in its name. It was called the lock. Neither popular tradition nor antiquarian research could explain what the name meant or could tell when the name had been given. We call it the lock, they do say no fish can live in it, and it dirt is the clean salt water when it runs into the sea. Such was the character of the river in the estimation of the people who knew it best, but I was pleased to see the lock again. The ugly river, like the woodland glade, looked at me with the face of an old friend. On my right-hand side rose the venerable timbers of the water mill. The wheel was motionless at that time of night, and the whole structure looked, as remembered objects will look, when we see them again after a long interval, smaller than I had supposed it to be. Otherwise I could discover no change in the mill, but the wooden cottage attached to it had felt the devastating march of time. The portion of the decrepit building still stood revealed in its wretched old age, propped partly by beams which reached from the thatched roof to the ground, and partly by the wall of a new cottage attached, presenting in yellow brickwork a hideous modern contrast to all that was left of its ancient neighbor. Had the miller whom I remembered died, and were these changes the work of his successor? I thought of asking the question and tried the door. It was fastened. The windows were all dark, excepting one, which I discovered in the upper story, at the farther side of the new building. Here there was a dim light burning. It was impossible to disturb a person who, for all I knew to the contrary, might be going to bed. I turned back to the loke, proposing to extend my walk, by a mile or a little more, to a village that I remembered on the bank of the river. I had not advanced far, when the stillness around me was disturbed by an intermittent sound of splashing in the water. Posing to listen, I heard next the working of oars in their roll-locks. After another interval a boat appeared, turning a projection in the bank, and rode by a woman pulling steadily against the stream. As the boat approached me in the moonlight, this person corrected my first impression and revealed herself as a young girl. So far as I could perceive, she was a stranger to me. Who could the girl be, alone on the river at that time of night? I had lay curious I followed the boat, instead of pursuing my way to the village, to see whether she would stop at the mill or pass it. She stopped at the mill, secured the boat, and stepped on shore. Taking a key from her pocket, she was about to open the door of the cottage, when I advanced and spoke to her. As far from recognizing her as ever, I found myself nevertheless thinking of a not outspoken child, living at the mill in past years, who had been one of my poor mother's favorites at our village school. I ran the risk of offending her by bluntly expressing the thought which was then in my mind. Is it possible that you are Crystal Tuller? I said. The question seemed to amuse her. Why shouldn't I be Crystal Tuller? She asked. You were a little girl, I explained, when I saw you last. You are so altered now, and so improved, that I should never have guessed you might be the daughter of Giles Tuller of the mill, if I had not seen you opening the cottage door. She acknowledged my compliment by a curtsy, which reminded me again of the village school. Thank you, young men, she said smartly. I wonder who you are. Try if you can recollect me, I suggested. May I take a long look at you, as long as you like? She studied my face with a mental effort to remember me, which gathered her pretty eyebrows to gather quaintly in a frown. There's something in his eyes, she remarked, not speaking to me but to herself, which doesn't seem to be quite strange. But I don't know his voice, and I don't know his beard. She considered a little, and addressed herself directly to me once more. Now I look at you again, you seem to be a gentleman. Are you one? I hope so. Then you're not making game of me. My dear, I am only trying, if you can remember, Jared Roeleg. While in charge of the boot, the miller's daughter had been ruin with bared arms, beautiful dusky arms, at once delicate and strong. Thus far she had forgotten to cover them up. The moment I mentioned my name, she started back as if I had frightened her, pulled her sleeves down in a hurry, and hid the objects of my admiration as an act of homage to myself. Her verbal apologies followed. You used to be such a sweet-spoken, pretty little boy, she said. How should I know you again with a big voice and all that hair on your face? It seemed to strike her on a sudden that she had been too familiar. Oh Lord, I heard her say to herself, have the county belongs to him. She tried another apology and hid this time on the conventional form. I beg your pardon, sir. Welcome back to your own country, sir. I wish you good night, sir. She attempted to escape into the cottage. I followed her to the threshold of the door. Surely it's not time to go to bed yet, I ventured to say. She was still on her good behaviour to her landlord. Not if you object to it, sir, she answered. This recognition of my authority was irresistible. Crystal had laid me under an obligation to her good influence, for which I felt sincerely grateful. She had made me laugh for the first time since my return to England. We didn't say good night just yet, I suggested. I want to hear a little more about you. Shall I come in? Then she stepped out of the doorway even more rapidly than she had stepped into it. I might have been mistaken, but I thought Crystal seemed to be actually alarmed by my proposal. We walked up and down the river bank. On every occasion when we approached the cottage, I detected her in stealing a look at the ugly modern part of it. There could be no mistake this time. I saw doubt, I saw anxiety in her face. What was going on at the mill? I made some domestic inquiries, beginning with her father. Was the miller alive and well? Oh, yes, sir. Father gets thinner as he gets older, that's all. Did he send you out by yourself at this late hour, in the boat? They were waiting for a sack of flour down there, she replied, pointing in the direction of the riverside village. Father isn't as quick as he used to be. He's often late over his work now. Was there no one to give Gail Stoller the help that he must need at his age? Do you and your father really live alone in this solitary place? I said. A change of expression appeared in her bright brown eyes, which roused my curiosity. I also observed that she evaded a direct reply. What makes you doubt, sir, if father and I live alone? She asked. I pointed to the new cottage. That ugly building, I answered, seems to give you more room than you want, unless there is somebody else living at the mill. I had no intention of trying to force the reply from her, which he had hitherto withheld. But she appeared to put that interpretation on what I had said. If you will have it, she burst out, there is somebody else living with us. A man who helps your father? No, a man who pays my father's rent. I was quite unprepared for such a reply as this. Crystal had surprised me. To begin with, her father was well connected, as we say in England. His younger brother had made a fortune in commerce, and had vainly offered him the means of retiring from the mill with a sufficient income. Then again Gail Stoller was known to have saved money. His domestic expenses made no heavy demand on his purse. His German wife, whose Christian name was now borne by his daughter, had died long since. His sons were no burden on him. They had never lived at the mill in my remembrance. With all these reasons against his taking a stranger into his house, he had nevertheless, if my interpretation of Crystal's answer was the right one, let his spare rooms too lodger. Mr. Toller can't possibly be in want of money, I said. The more money father has, the more he wants, that's the reason, she added bitterly, why he asked for plenty of room when the cottage was built, and why we have got a lodger. Is the lodger a gentleman? I don't know. Is a man a gentleman if he keeps a servant? Oh, don't trouble to think about it, sir. It isn't worth thinking about. This was plain speaking at last. You don't seem to like the lodger, I said. I hate him. Why? She turned on me with a look of angry amazement, not undeserved, I must own, on my part, which showed her dark beauty in the perfection of its lustre and its power. To my eyes she was at the moment irresistibly charming. I dare say I was blind to the defects in her face. My good German tutor used to lament that there was too much of my boyhood still left in me. Honestly admiring her, I let my favorable opinion express itself a little too plainly. What a splendid creature you are, I burst out. Crystal did her duty to herself and to me. She passed over my little explosion of nonsense without taking the smallest notice of it. Master Gerrard, she began and checked herself. Pleased to excuse me, sir. You have set my head running on all times. What I want to say is, you were not so inquisitive when you were a young gentleman in short jackets. Please behave as you used to behave then and don't say anything more about our lodger. I hate him because I hate him, there. Ignorant as I was of the natures of women, I understood her at last. Crystal's opinion of the lodger was evidently the exact opposite of the lodger's opinion of Crystal. When I add that this discovery did decidedly operate as a relief to my mind, the impression produced on me by the Miller's daughter is stated without exaggeration and without reserve. Good night, she repeated, for the last time. I held out my hand. Is it quite right, sir? she modestly objected, for such as me to shake hands with such as you? She did it nevertheless, and dropping my hand cast a farewell look at the mysterious object of her interest, the new cottage. Her variable humor changed on the instant. Apparently in a state of unendurable irritation she stamped on the ground. Just what I didn't want to happen, she said to herself. Chapter 3. He shows himself I too looked at the cottage and made a discovery that surprised me at one of the upper windows. If I could be sure that the moon had not deceived me, the most beautiful face that I had ever seen was looking down on us, and it was the face of a man. By the uncertain light I could discern the perfection of form in the features and the expression of power which made it impossible to mistake the stranger for a woman, although his hair grew long and he was without either moustache or beard. He was watching us intently. He neither moved nor spoke when we looked up at him. Evidently the lodger, I whispered to Crystal, what a handsome man. She tossed her head contemptuously. My expression of admiration seemed to have irritated her. I didn't want him to see you, she said. The lodger persecutes me with his attentions, his impudent enough to be jealous of me. She spoke without even attempting to lower her voice. I endeavored to warn her. He's at the window still, I said, in tones discreetly lowered. He can hear everything you are saying. Not one word of it, Mr. Gerard. What do you mean? The man is deaf. Don't look at him again. Don't speak to me again. Go home. Pray, go home. Without further explanation she abruptly entered the cottage and shut the door. As I turned into the path which led through the wood I heard a voice behind me. It said, Stop, sir. I stopped directly, standing in the shadow cast by the outermost line of the trees which I had that moment reached. In the moonlight that I had left behind me I saw again the man whom I had discovered at the window. His figure, tall and slim, his movements, graceful and easy, were in harmony with the beautiful face. He lifted his long finely shaped hands and clasped them with a frantic gesture of entreaty. For God's sake, he said, don't be offended with me. His voice startled me even more than his words. I had never heard anything like it before. Low, dull and muffled. It neither rose nor fell. It spoke slowly and deliberately, without laying the slyest emphasis on any one of the words that it uttered. In the astonishment of the moment I forgot what Crystal had told me. I answered him, as I should have answered any other unknown person who had spoken to me. What do you want? His hands dropped, his head sunk on his breast. You are speaking, sir, to a miserable creature who can't hear you. I am deaf. I stepped nearer to him, intending to raise my voice in pity for his infirmity. He shattered and signed to me to keep back. Don't come close to my ear, don't shout. As he spoke, strong excitement flashed at me in his eyes, without producing the slightest change in his voice. I don't deny, he resumed, that I can hear sometimes, when people take that way with me. They hurt when they do it. Their voices go through my nerves as a knife might go through my flesh. I live at the mill, sir. I have a great favour to ask. Will you come and speak to me in my room, for five minutes only? I hesitated. Any other man in my place would, I think, have done the same. Receiving such an invitation as this from a stranger whose pitiable infirmity seemed to place him beyond the pale of social intercourse. He must have guessed what I was passing in my mind. He tried me again in words which might have proved persuasive, had they been uttered in the customary variety of tone. I can't help being a stranger to you. I can't help being deaf. You are a young man. You look more merciful and more patient than young man in general. Won't you hear what I have to say? Won't you tell me what I want to know? How were we to communicate? Did he by any chance suppose that I learned the finger alphabet? I touched my fingers and shook my head, as a means of dissipating his delusion, if it existed. He instantly understood me. Even if you knew the finger alphabet, he said, it would be of no use. I have been too miserable to learn it. My deafness only came on me a little more than a year since. Pardon me if I am obliged to give you trouble. I ask persons to piti me to write their answers when I speak to them. Come to my room, and you will find what you want, a candle to write by. Was his will, as compared with mine, the stronger will of the two? And was it helped, insensibly to myself, by his advantages of personal appearance? I can only confess that his apology presented a picture of misery to my mind, which shook my resolution to refuse him. His ready penetration discovered his change in his favor. He at once took advantage of it. Five minutes of your time is all I ask for, he said. Won't you indulge a man who sees his fellow creatures all talking happily around him, and feels dead and buried among them? The very exaggeration of his language had its effect on my mind. It revealed to me the horrible isolation among humanity of the deaf, as I had never understood it yet. Discretion is, I am sorry to say, not one of the strong points in my character. I committed one more among the many foolish actions of my life. I signed to the stranger, to lead the way back to the mill. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Giles Taller's miserly nature had offered to his lodger shelter from wind and rain, and the furniture absolutely necessary to make a bedroom habitable, and nothing more. There was no carpet on the floor, no paper on the walls, no ceiling to hide the raptors of the roof. The chair that I sat on was the one chair in the room, the man whose guest I had rashly consented to be found a seat on his bed. Upon his table I saw pens and pencils, paper and ink, and a battered brass candlestick with a common tallow candle in it. His changes of clothing were flung on the bed. His money was left on the unpainted wooden chimney-piece. His wretched little morsel of looking glass, propped up near the money, had been turned with its face to the wall. He perceived that the odd position of this last object had attracted my notice. Vanity and I have parted company, he explained. I shrink for myself when I look at myself now. The ugliest man living, if he has got his hearing, is a more agreeable man in society than I am. Does this wretched place disgust you? He pushed the pencil and some sheets of writing paper across the table to me. I wrote my reply. The place makes me sorry for you. He shook his head. Your sympathy has thrown away on me. A man who has lost his social relations with his fellow creatures doesn't care how he lodges or where he lives. When he has found solitude he has found all he wants for the rest of his days. Shall we introduce ourselves? It won't be easy for me to set the example. I use the pencil again. Why not? Because you will expect me to give you my name. I can't do it. I have ceased to bear my family name, and, being out of society, what need have I for an assumed name? As for my Christian name, it's so detestably ugly that I hate the sight and sound of it. Here they know me as the lodger. Will you have that, or will you have an appropriate nickname? I come of a mixed breed, and I'm likely, after what has happened to me, to turn out a worthless fellow. Call me the Kerr. Oh, you needn't start. That's as accurate a description of me as any other. What's your name? I wrote it for him. His face darkened when he found out who I was. Young, personally attractive, and a great landowner, he said. I saw you just now talking familiarly with Crystal Taller. I didn't like that at the time. I like it less than ever now. My pencil asked him, without ceremony, what he meant. He was ready with his reply. I mean this. You owe something to the good luck which has placed you where you are. Keep your familiarity for ladies in your own rank of life. This, to a young man like me, was unendurable insolence. I had hitherto refrained from taking him at his own bitter word in the manner of a nickname. In the irritation of the moment, I now first resolved to adopt his suggestion seriously. The next slip of paper that I handed to him administered the smartest rebuff that my dull brains could discover on the spur of the moment. The Kerr is requested to keep his advice till he has asked for it. For the first time something like a smile showed itself faintly on his lips, and represented the only effect which my severity had produced. He still followed his own train of thought, as resolutely and as impertently as ever. I haven't seen you talking to Crystal before to-night. Have you been meeting her in secret? In justice to the girl, I felt that I ought to set him right so far. Taking up the pencil again, I told this strange man that I had just returned to England after an absence of many years in foreign countries, that I had known Crystal when we were both children, and that I had met her purely by accident when he had detected us talking outside the cottage. Seeing me pause after advancing to that point in writing of my reply, he held out his hand impatiently for the paper. I signed him to wait, and added a last sentence. Understand this. I will answer no more questions I have done with this subject. He read what I had written with the closest attention, but his inveterate suspicion of me was not set at rest, even yet. Are you likely to come this way again? he asked. I pointed to the final lines of my writing and got up to go. This assertion of my will against his roused him. He stopped me at the door. Not by a motion of his hand, but by the mastery of his look. The dim candlelight afforded me no help in determining the colour of his eyes. Dark, large, and finely set in his head. There was a sinister passion in them at that moment, which held me in spite of myself. Still as monotonous as ever, his voice in some degree expressed the frenzy that was in him, by suddenly rising in its pitch when he spoke to me next. Mr. Roylike, I love her. Mr. Roylike, I am determined to marry her. Any man who comes between me and that cruel girl? Ah, she's as hard as one of her father's millstones. It's the misery of my life. It's the joy of my life to love her. I tell you, young sir, any man who comes between Crystal and me does it at his peril. Remember that. I had no wish to give offence, but his threatening me in this manner was so absurd that I gave way to the impression of the moment and laughed. He stepped up to me with such an expression of demoniacal rage and hatred in his face that he became absolutely ugly in an instant. I amuse you, do I, he said. You don't know the man you're trifling with. You had better know me. You shall know me. He turned away and walked up and down the wretched little room, deep in thought. I don't want this matter between us to end badly, he said, interrupting his meditations, then returning to them again, and then once more addressing me. You're young, you're thoughtless. But you don't look like a bad fellow. I wonder whether I can trust you. Not one man in a thousand would do it. Never mind. I'm the one man in ten thousand who does it. Mr. Gerard Roy Lake, I'm going to trust you. With this incoherent expression of a resolution unknown to me, he unlocked a shabby trunk hidden in a corner and took it from a small portfolio. Man of your age, he resumed, seldom look below the surface. Learn that valuable habits, sir, and begin by looking below the surface of me. He forced the portfolio into my hand. Once more his beautiful eyes held me with their irresistible influence. They looked at me with an expression of sad and solemn warning. Discover for yourself, he said, what devils my deafness has set loose in me. And let no eyes but yours see that horrid sight. You will find me here tomorrow, and you will decide by that time whether you make an enemy of me or not. He threw open the door and bowed as graciously as if he had been a sovereign dismissing a subject. Was he mad? I hesitated to adopt that conclusion. There is no denying it. The deaf man had found his strange and torturous way to my interest in spite of myself. I might even have been in some danger of allowing him to make a friend of me if I had not been restrained by the fears for crystal which his language and manner amply justified to my mind. Although I was far from foreseeing the catastrophe that really did happen, I felt that I had returned to my own country at a critical time in the life of the miller's daughter. My friendly interference might be of serious importance to crystal's peace of mind, perhaps even to her personal safety as well. Eager to discover what the contents of the portfolio might tell me, I hurried back to Trimley Dean. My stepmother had not yet returned from the dinner party. As one of the results of my ten years' banishment from home, I was obliged to ask the servant to show me the way to my own room in my own house. The windows looked out on a view of Fortwich Wood. As I opened the leaves which were to reveal to me the secret soul of the man whom I had so strangely met, the fading moonlight vanished, and the distant trees were lost in the gloom of a starless night. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 OF THE GUILTY RIVER This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Steve Rausel. The Guilty River by Wilkie Collins. He Betrays Himself The confession was entitled, Memoirs of a Miserable Man. It began abruptly in these words. I acknowledge at the outset that misfortune has had an effect on me, which frail humanity is for the most part anxious to conceal. Under the influence of suffering I have become of enormous importance to myself. In this frame of mind I naturally enjoy painting my own portrait in words. Let me add that they must be written words because it is a painful effort to me, since I lost my hearing, to speak to anyone continuously for any length of time. I have also to confess that my brains are not so completely under my own command as I could wish. For instance, I possess considerable skill for an emitter as a painter in watercolors, but I can only produce a work of art when irresistible impulse urges me to express my thoughts and form and color. The same obstacle to regular exertion stands in my way if I am using my pen. I can only write when the fit takes me, sometimes at night when I ought to be asleep, sometimes at meals when I ought to be handling my knife and fork, sometimes out of doors when I meet with inquisitive strangers who stare at me. As for paper, the first stray morsel of anything that I can write upon will do, provided I snatch it up in time to catch my ideas as they fly. My method being now explained, I proceed to the deliberate act of self-betrayal which I contemplate in producing this picture of myself. 2. I divide my life into two epochs, respectively entitled Before My Deafness and After My Deafness, or suppose I define the melancholy change in my fortunes more sharply still, by contrasting with each other my days of prosperity and my days of disaster. Of these alternatives I hardly know which to choose. It doesn't matter. The one thing needful is to go on. In any case, then, I have to record that I passed a happy childhood, thanks to my good mother. Her generous nature had known adversity and had not been deteriorated by undeserved trials. Born of slave parents she had not reached her 18th year when she was sold by auction in the southern states of America. The person who bought her, she never would tell me who he was, freed her by a codicelle, added to his will on his deathbed. My father met with her a few years afterwards in American society, fell, as I have heard, madly in love with her, and married her in defiance of the wishes of his family. He was quite right. No better wife and mother ever lived. The one vestige of good feeling that I still possess lives in my empty heart when I dwell at times on the memory of my mother. My good fortune followed me when I was sent to school. Our headmaster was more nearly a perfect human being than any other man that I have ever met with. Even the worst tempered boys among us ended in loving him. Under his encouragement and especially to please him I won every prize that industry, intelligence, and good conduct could obtain, and I rose at an unusually early age, to be the head boy in the first class. When I was old enough to be removed to the university, and when the dreadful day of parting arrived, I fainted under the agony of leaving the teacher. No, the dear friend, whom I devotedly loved. There must surely have been some good in me at that time. What has become of it now? The years followed each other, and I was fortunate spoiled child still. Under adverse circumstances my sociable disposition, my delight in the society of young people my own age, might have exposed me to serious dangers in my new sphere of action. Happily for me, my father consulted a wise friend before he sent me to Cambridge. I was entered at one of the smaller colleges, and I fell at starting among the right set of men. Good examples were all around me. We formed a little club of steady students. Our pleasures were innocent. We were too proud and too poor to get into debt. I look back on my career at Cambridge as I look back on my career at school, and wonder what has become of my better self. 3. During my last year at Cambridge, my father died. The profession in which he intended that I should follow was the bar. I believed myself to be quite unfit for the sort of training imperatively required by the law. And my mother agreed with me. When I left the university, my own choice of a profession pointed to the medical art, and to that particular branch of it called surgery. After three years of unremitting study at one of the great London hospitals, I started in practice for myself. Once more, my persistent luck was faithful to me at the outset of my new career. The winter of that year was remarkable for alternate extremes of frost and thaw. Accidents to passengers in the streets were numerous, and one of them happened close to my own door. A gentleman slipped on the icy pavement and broke his leg. On sending news of the accident to his house, I found that my chance patient was a nobleman. My lord was so well satisfied with my services that he refused to be attended by any of my elders and betters in the profession. Little did I think at the time that I had received the last of the favors which fortune was to bestow on me. I enjoyed the confidence and goodwill of a man possessing boundless social influence, and I was received most kindly by the ladies of his family. In one word, at the time when my professional prospects justified the brightest hopes that I could form, sudden death deprived me of the dearest and truest of all friends. I suffered the one dreadful loss which it is impossible to replace, the loss of my mother. We had parted at night when she was, to all appearance, in the enjoyment of her customary health. The next morning she was found dead in her bed. Four. Keen observers who read these lines will remark that I have said nothing about the male members of my family, and that I have even passed over my father with the briefest possible illusion to his death. This curious reticence on my part is simply attributable to pure ignorance, until affliction lay heavy on me, my father, my uncle, and my grandfather were hardly better known to me in their true characters than if they had been strangers passing in the street. How I contrived to become more intimately acquainted with my ancestors I am now to reveal. In the absence of any instructions to guide me, after my mother's death, I was left to use my own discretion in examining the papers which she had left behind her. Reading her letters carefully, before I decided what to keep and what to destroy, I discovered a packet, protected by an unbroken seal, and bearing an inscription addressed abruptly to my mother in these words. For fear of accidents, my dear, we will mention no names in this place. The sight of my handwriting will remind you of my devotion to your interests in the past, and will satisfy you that I am to be trusted in the service that I now offer to my good sister friend. In the fewest words, let me tell you that I have heard of these circumstances under which your marriage has taken place. Your origin has unfortunately become known to the members of your husband's family. Their pride has been deeply wounded, and the women especially regard you with feelings of malignant hatred. I have good reason for fearing that they may try to excuse their inhuman way of speaking to you by making public the calamity of your slave birth. What deplorable influence might be exercised on your husband's mind by such an exposure as this, I will not stop to inquire. It will be more to the purpose to say that I am able to offer you a sure means of protecting yourself, through information which I have unexpectedly obtained, and the source of which I am obliged to keep secret. If you are ever threatened by your enemies, open the packet which I have now sealed up, and you will command the silence of the bitterest man or woman who longs to injure you. I may add that absolute proof accompanies every assertion which my packet contains. Keep it carefully as long as you live, and God grant you may never have occasion to break the seal. Such was the inscription, copied exactly, word for word. I cannot even guess who my mother's devoted friend may have been. Neither can I doubt that she would have destroyed the packet, but for the circumstance of her sudden death. After hesitating a little, I hardly know why. I summoned my resolution and broke the seal. Of the horror with which I read the contents of the packet, I shall say nothing. Whoever yet sympathized with the sorrows and suffering of strangers, let me merely announce that I knew my ancestors at last, and that I am now able to present them in their true characters as follows. 5. My grandfather was tried on a charge of committing willful murder, and was found guilty on the clearest evidence, and died on the scaffold by the hangman's hands. His two sons abandoned the family name and left the family residence. They were, nevertheless, not unworthy representatives of their atrocious father, as will presently appear. My uncle, a captain in the army, was discovered at the hazard table, playing with loaded dice. Before this abject scoundrel could be turned out of his regiment, he was killed in a duel by one of his brother officers whom he had cheated. My father, when he was little more than a lad, deserted a poor girl who had trusted him under a promise of marriage. Friendless and hopeless, she drowned herself and her child. His was the most infamous in the list of the family crimes, and he escaped without answering to a court of law or a court of honor for what he had done. Some of us come of one breed, and some of another. There is the breed from which I drew the breath of life. What do you think of me now? 6. I looked back over the years of my existence, from the time of my earliest recollections, to the miserable day when I opened the sealed packet. What wholesome influences had preserved me, so far, from moral contamination by the vile blood that ran in my veins? There were two answers to that question which, in some degree, quieted my mind. In the first place, resembling my good mother physically, I might hope to have resembled her morally. In the second place, the happy accidents of my career had preserved me from temptation, at more than one critical period of my life. On the other hand, in the ordinary course of nature, not one half of that life had yet elapsed. What trials might the future have in store for me, and what protection against them would the better part of my nature be powerful enough to afford? While I was still troubled by these doubts, the measure of my disasters was filled by an attack of illness which threatened me with death. My medical advisors succeeded in saving my life, and left me to pay the penalty of their triumph by the loss of one of my senses. At an early period of my convalescence, I noticed one day, with language surprise, that the voices of the doctors, when they asked me how I had slept and if I felt better, sounded singularly dull and distant. A few hours later, I observed that they stooped close over me when they had something important to say. On the same evening, my day nurse and my night nurse happened to be in the room together. To my surprise, they had become so wonderfully quiet in their movements, that they opened the door or stirred the fire without making the slightest noise. I intended to ask them what it meant. I had even begun to put the question, when I was startled by another discovery relating this time to myself. I was certain that I had spoken, and yet I had not heard myself speak. As well as my weakness would let me, I called to the nurses in my loudest tones. Has anything happened to my voice, I asked. The two women consulted together, looking at me with pity in their eyes. One of them took the responsibility on herself. She put her lips close to my ear. The horrid words struck me with a sense of physical pain. Your illness has left you in a sad state, sir. You are deaf. Seven. As soon as I was able to leave my bed, well-meaning people, in and out of the medical profession, combined to torment me with the best intentions. One famous oral surgeon after another came to me, and quoted his experience of cases, in which the disease that had struck me down had affected the sense of hearing in other unhappy persons. They had submitted to surgical treatment, generally with cheering results. I submitted in my turn. All that skill could do for me was done, and without effect. My deafness steadily increased. My case was pronounced to be hopeless. The great authorities retired. Judicious friends, who had been waiting for their opportunity, undertook the moral management of me next. I was advised to cultivate cheerfulness, to go into society, to encourage kind people who tried to make me hear what was going on, to be on my guard against morbid depression, to check myself when the sense of my own horrible isolation drove me away to my room, and last, but by no means least, to be aware of letting my vanity disincline me to use an ear trumpet. I did my best, honestly did my best, to profit by the suggestions that were offered to me, not because I believed in the wisdom of my friends, but because I dreaded the effect of self-imposed solitude on my nature. Since the fatal day when I had opened the sealed packet, I was on my guard against the inherited evil lying dormant, for all I knew to the contrary, and my father's son. Impelled by that horrid dread, I suffered my daily martyrdom with the courage that astonishes me when I think of it now. What the self-inflicted torture of the deaf is, none but the deaf can understand. When benevolent persons did their best to communicate to me what was clever or amusing, while conversation was going on in my presence, I was secretly angry with them for making my infirmity conspicuous, and directing the general attention to me. When other friends saw on my face that I was not grateful to them, and gave up the attempt to help me, I suspected them of talking of me contemptuously, and amusing themselves by making my misfortune the subject of course jokes. Even when I deserved encouragement by honestly trying to atone for my bad behavior, I committed mistakes arising out of my helpless position, which prejudiced people against me. Sometimes I asked questions which appeared to be so trivial to ladies and gentlemen happy in the possession of a sense of hearing that they evidently thought me imbecile as well as deaf. Sometimes, seeing the company enjoying an interesting story or a good joke, I ignorantly appealed to the most incompetent person present to tell me what had been said, with this result that he lost the thread of the story or missed the point of the joke, and blamed my unlucky interference as the cause of it. These mortifications, and many more, I suffered patiently until, little by little, my last reserves of endurance felt the cruel strain on them, and failed me. My friends detected a change in my manner which alarmed them. They took me away from London to try the renovating purity of country air. So far as any curative influence over the state of my mind was concerned, the experiment proved to be a failure. I had secretly arrived at the conclusion that my deafness was increasing, and that my friends knew it, and were concealing it from me. Determined to put my suspicions to the test, I took long, solitary walks in the neighbourhood of my country home, and tried to hear the new sounds about me. I was deaf to everything, with the one exception of the music of the birds. How long did I hear the little cheering songsters who comforted me? I am unable to measure the interval that elapsed. My memory fails me. I only know that the time came when I could see the skylark in the heavens, but could no longer hear its joyous notes. In a few weeks more the nightingale, even the loud thrush, became silent birds to my doomed ears. My last effort to resist my own deafness was made at my bedroom window. For some time I still heard, faintly and more faintly, the shrill twittering just above me, under the eaves of the house. When this last poor enjoyment came to an end, when I listened eagerly, desperately, and heard nothing—think of it, nothing— I gave up the struggle. Persuasions, arguments, and treaties were entirely without effect on me. Wreckless what became of it, I retired to the one fit place for me, to the solitude in which I have buried myself ever since. Eight. With some difficulty I discovered the lonely habitation of which was in search. No language can describe the heavenly composure of mind that came to me when I first found myself alone. Living the death in life of deafness, apart from creatures—no longer my fellow-creatures—who could hear? Apart also from those privileged victims of hysterical impulse who wrote me love-letters, and offered to console the poor, beautiful deaf man by marrying him. Through the distorting medium of such sufferings as I have described, women and men—even young women—were repellent to me alike. Ungratefully impatient of the admiration excited by my personal advantages, savagely irritated by tender looks and flattering compliments, I only consented take lodgings on condition that there should be no young women living under the same roof with me. If this confession of morbid feeling looks like vanity, I can only say that appearances lie. I write in sober sadness, determined to present my character with photographic accuracy as a true likeness. What were my habits in solitude? How did I get through the weary and wakeful hours of the day? Living by myself I became, as I have already acknowledged, important to myself. And, as a necessary consequence, I enjoyed registering my own daily doings, let passages copied from my journal reveal how I got through the day. 9. Extracts from a deaf man's diary Monday—six weeks today since I first occupied my present retreat. My landlord and landlady are too hideous old people. They look as if they dislike me on the rare occasions when we meet. So much the better. They don't remind me of my deafness by trying to talk, and they keep as much as possible out of my way. This morning, after breakfast, I altered the arrangements of my books, and then I made my fourth attempt in the last ten days to read some of my favorite authors. No, my taste has apparently changed since the time when I could hear. I closed one volume after another, carrying nothing for what used to be deeply interesting to me. Reckless and savage, with a burning head and a cold heart, I went out to look about me. After two hours of walking and thinking, I found that I had wandered to our country town. The rain began to fall heavily, just as I happened to be passing a bookseller's shop. After some hesitation, for I had exposing my deafness to strangers, I asked leave to take shelter, and looked at the books. Among them was a collection of celebrated trials. I thought of my grandfather, consulted the index, and, finding his name there, bought the work. The shopman, as I could guess from his actions and looks, proposed sending the parcel to me. I insisted on taking it away. The sky had cleared, and I was eager to read the details of my grandfather's crime. Tuesday. Sat up late last night, reading my new book. My favorite poets, novelists, and historians have failed to interest me. I devoured the trials with breathless delight. Beginning, of course, with the murder in which I felt a family interest. Prepared to find my grandfather a Ruffian, I confess I was surprised by the discovery that he was also a fool. The officers of justice had no merit in tracing the crime to him. His own stupidity delivered him into their hands. I read the evidence twice over, and put myself in his position, and saw the means plainly by which he might have said discovery at defiance. In the preface to the trials I found an allusion, in terms of praise, to a work of the same kind, published in the French language. I wrote to London at once, and ordered the book. Wednesday. Is there some mysterious influence in the silent solitude of my life that is hardening my nature? Is there something unnatural in the existence of a man who never hears a sound? Is there a moral sense that suffers when a bodily sense is lost? These questions have been suggested to me by an incident that happened this morning. Looking out of window, I saw a brutal carter on the road before the house, beating an overloaded horse. A year since I should have interfered to protect the horse without a moment's hesitation. If the wretch had been insolent, I should have seized his whip and applied the heavy handle of it to his own shoulders. In past days I have been more than once fined by a magistrate, privately in sympathy with my offence, for assaults committed by me in the interests of helpless animals. What did I feel now? Nothing but a selfish sense of uneasiness at having been accidentally witness of an act which disturbed my composure. I turned away, regretting that I had gone to the window and looked out. This was not an agreeable train of thought to follow. What could I do? I was answered by the impulse which commands me to paint. I sharpened my pencils and opened my box of colors, and determined to produce a work of art. To my astonishment, the brutal figure of the carter forced its way into my memory again and again. It, without in the least knowing why, as if the one chance of getting rid of this curious incubus was to put the persistent image of the man on paper. It was done mechanically, and yet done so well, that I was encouraged to add to the picture. I put in next the poor beaten horse, another good likeness, and then I introduced a lifelike portrait of myself, giving the man the sound thrashing that he had deserved. Strange to say, this representation of what I ought to have done relieved my mind as if I had actually done it. I looked at the preeminent figure of myself, and felt good, and turned to my trials, and read them over again, and liked them better than ever. Thursday. The bookseller has found a second-hand copy of the French trials, and has sent them to me, as he expresses it, on approval. I more than approve, I admire, and I more than admire. I imitate. These criminal stories are told with a dramatic power which has impelled me to try if I can rival the clever French narrative. I found a promising subject by putting myself in my grandfather's place, and tracing the means by which it had occurred to me that he might have escaped the discovery of his crime. I cannot remember having read any novel with a tenth part of the interest that absorbed me in constructing my imaginary train of circumstances, so completely did the reality of the narrative impress itself upon my mind, that I felt as if the murder that I was relating had been the crime committed by myself. It was my own ingenuity that hid the dead body and removed the traces of blood, and my own self-control that presented me as an innocent person when the victim was missing, and I was asked, among other respectable people, to say whether I thought he was living or dead. A whole week has passed, and has been occupied by my new literary pursuit. My inexhaustible imagination invents plots and conspiracies of which I am the happy hero. I set traps which invariably catch my enemies. I place myself in positions which are entirely new to me. Yesterday, for instance, I invented a method of spearing away a young person whose disappearance was of considerable importance under the circumstances, and succeeded in completely bewildering her father, her friends, and the police. Not a trace of her could they find. If I ever have occasion to do, in reality, what I only suppose myself to do in these exercises of ingenuity, what a dangerous man I may yet prove to be. This morning I rose, planning to amuse myself with a new narrative, when the ideal world in which I am now living became a world annihilated by collision with the sordid interests of real life. In plainer words I received a written message from my landlord which has annoyed me, and not without good cause. This tiresome person finds himself unexpectedly obliged to give up possession of his house. The circumstances are not worth relating. The result is important. I am compelled to find new lodgings. Where am I to go? I left it to chance. That is to say, I looked at the railway timetable and took a ticket for the first place, of which the name happened to catch my eye. Arrived at my destination, I found myself in a dirty manufacturing town, with an ugly river running through it. After a little reflection I turned my back on the town, and followed the course of the river, in search of shelter and solitude on one or the other of its banks. An hour of walking brought me to an odd-looking cottage, half old and half new, attached to a water mill. A bill in one of the windows announced that rooms were to be lent. And a look round revealed a thick wood on my left hand, and a wilderness of sand and heath on my right. So far as appearances went, here was the very place for me. I knocked at the door and was admitted by a little lean, sly-looking old man. He showed me the rooms, one for myself and one for my servant. Wretched as they were, the loneliness of the situation recommended them to me. I made no objections, and I consented to pay the rent that was asked. The one thing that remained to be done, in the interests of my tranquillity, was to ascertain if any other persons lived in the cottage besides my new landlord. He wrote his answer to the question, nobody but my daughter. With serious misgivings I inquired if his daughter was young. He wrote two fatal figures. 18. Here was a discovery which disarranged all my plans, just as I had formed them. The prospect of having a girl in the house, at the age associated with my late disagreeable experience of the sensitive sex, was more than my irritable temper could endure. I saw the old man going to the window to take down the bill. Turning in a rage to stop him, I was suddenly brought to a standstill by the appearance of a person who had just entered the room. Was this the formidable obstacle to my tranquillity, which had prevented me from taking the rooms that I had chosen? Yes, I knew the miller's daughter intuitively. Delirium possessed me. My eyes devoured her. My heart beat as if it would burst out of my bosom. The old man approached me. He nodded and grinned, and pointed to her. Did he claim his parental interest in her? Did he mean that she belonged to him? No, she belonged to me. She might be his daughter. She was my fate. I don't know what it was in the girl that took me by storm. Nothing in her look or her manner expressed the slightest interest in me. That famous beauty of mine, which had worked such ravages in the hearts of other young women, seemed not even to attract her notice. When her father put his hand to his ear, and told her, as I guessed, that I was deaf, there was no pity in her splendid brown eyes. They expressed a momentary curiosity, and nothing more. Possibly she had a hard heart. Or perhaps she took a dislike to me at first sight. It made no difference to my mind, either way. Was she the most beautiful creature I had ever seen? Not even that excuse was to be made for me. I have met with women of her dark complexion who were, beyond dispute, her superiors in beauty, and have looked at them with indifference. Add to this that I am one of the men whom women offend if they are not perfectly well dressed. The miller's daughter was badly dressed. Her magnificent figure was profaned by the wretchedly made gown that she wore. I forgave the profanation. In spite of the protest of my own better taste, I resigned myself to her gown. Is it possible adequately to describe such infatuation as this? Quite possible. I have only to acknowledge that I took the rooms at the cottage, and there is the state of my mind, exposed without mercy. How will it end? End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of The Guilty River With that serious question, the last of the leaves entrusted to me by the lodger at the mill came to an end. I betray no confidence in presenting this copy of his confession. Time has passed since I first read it, and changes have occurred in the interval which leave me free to exercise my own discretion and to let the autobiography speak for itself. If I am asked what impression of the writer those extraordinary pages produced on me, I feel at a loss how to reply. Not one impression, but many impressions troubled and confused my mind. Certain passages in the confession inclined me to believe that the writer was mad. But I altered my opinion at the next leaf, and set him down as a man with a bitter humor, disposed to make merry of his own bad qualities. At one time his tone and writing of this early life, and his allusions to his mother, won my sympathy and respect. At another time, the picture of himself in his later years, and the defiant manner in which he presented it, almost made me regret that he had not died of the illness which had struck him death. In his state of uncertainty, I may claim the merit of having arrived so far as my own future conduct was concerned, at one positive conclusion. As strangers he and I had first met. As strangers I was determined we should remain. Having made up my mind so far, the next thing to do with the clock on the mantelpiece striking midnight, was to go to bed. I slept badly. The event that had happened since my arrival in England had excited me, I suppose. Now and then in the wakeful hour of the night I thought of crystal with some anxiety. Taking the lodgers exaggerated language for what it was really worth, the poor girl, as I was still inclined to fear, might have serious reason to regret that he had ever entered her father's cottage. At the breakfast table my stepmother and I met again. Mrs. Roylake, in an exquisite morning dress with her smile and perfect order, informed me that she was dying with curiosity. She had heard from the servants that I had not returned to the house until past ten o'clock on the previous night, and she was absolutely bewildered by the discovery. What could her dear Gerard have been doing, out in the dark by himself, for all that time? For some part of the time I answered I was catching moths and ford which would. What an extraordinary occupation for a young man! Well, and what did you do after that? I walked on through the wood and renewed my associations with the river and the mill. Mrs. Roylake's fascinating smile disappeared when I mentioned the mill. She suddenly became a cold lady. I might even say a stiff lady. I can't congratulate you on the first visit you have paid in our neighbourhood, she said. Of course the bald girl contrived to attract your notice. I replied that I had met with the bald girl, purely by accident, on her side as well as on mine, and then I started a new topic. Was it a pleasant dinner-party last night, I asked, as if the subject really interested me. I had not been quite four and twenty hours in England yet, and I was becoming a humbug already. My stepmother was her charming self again the moment my question had passed my lips. Society, provided it was not society at the mill, was always attractive as a topic of conversation. Your absence was the only drawback, she answered. I have asked the two ladies, my lord has an engagement, to dine here to-day without ceremony. They are most anxious to meet you, my dear Gerard. You look surprised. Surely you know who the ladies are. I was obliged to acknowledge my ignorance. Mrs. Roylake was shocked. At any rate, she resumed, you have heard of their father, Lord Uppercliff. I made another shameful confession. Either I had forgotten Lord Uppercliff during my long absence abroad, or I had never heard of him. Mrs. Roylake was disgusted. And this is a foreign education, she exclaimed. Thank heaven you have returned to your own country. We will drive out after lunch-in and pay a round of visits. When this prospect was placed before me, I remembered having read in books of sensitive persons receiving impressions which made their blood run cold. I now found myself one of those persons for the first time in my life. In the meanwhile, Mrs. Roylake continued, I must tell you, excuse me for laughing, it seems so very absurd that you should not know who Lord Uppercliff's daughters are. I must tell you that Lady Rachel is the eldest. She is married to the honourable Captain Mill Bay of the Navy, now away in his ship. A person of extraordinary strength of mind. I don't mean the Captain, I mean Lady Rachel. I admire her intellect, but her political and social opinions I must always view with regret. Her young sister Lady Lena, not Mary and Gerard, remember that, is simply the most charming girl in England. If you don't fall in love with her, you will be the only young man in the country who has resisted Lady Lena. Poor Sir George, she refused him last week. You really must have heard of Sir George, a Member of Parliament? Conservative, of course, quite broken hearted about Lady Lena. Gone away to America to shoot bears. You seem to be restless. What are you fidgeting about? I know, you want to smoke after breakfast. Well, I won't be in your way. Go out on the terrace. Your poor father always took his cigar on the terrace. They say smoking leads to meditation. I leave you to meditate on Lady Lena. Don't forget, luncheon at one o'clock, and the carriage at two. She smiled and kissed her hand, and flooded out of the room. Charming. Perfectly charming. And yet I was ungrateful enough to wish myself back in Germany again. I lit my cigar, but not on the terrace. Leaving the house, I took the way once more that led to Fordwich Wood. What would Mrs. Roylake have said if she had discovered that I was going back to the mill? There was no other alternative. The portfolio was a trust convited to me. The sooner I returned it to the rider of the confession—the sooner I told him plainly the conclusion at which I had arrived—the more at ease my mind would be. The sluggish river looked muddier than ever. The new cottage looked uglier than ever, exposed to the searching ordeal of the sunlight. I knocked at the door on the ancient side of the building. Crystal's father, shall I confess, I had hoped it might be Crystal herself? Let me in. In bygone days I read dimly remembered him as old and small and withered. Advancing years had wasted him away in the interval until his white miller's clothes hung about him in empty folds. His fleshless face would have looked like the face of a mummy, but for the restless brightness of his little watchful black eyes. He stared at me in momentary perplexity, and suddenly recovering himself asked me to walk in. Are you the young master, sir? Ah, yes, yes, I thought so. My girl Christie said she saw the young master last night. Thank you kindly, sir. I'm pretty well, considering I've fallen away in my flesh. I've got a fine appetite, but somehow or other my meals don't show on me. You will excuse my receiving you in the kitchen, sir. It's the best room we have. Did Christie tell you how badly we are off here for repairs? You being our landlord, we looked to you to help us. We have fallen to pieces, as it were, on this old side of the house, those first drains. He proceeded to reckon up the repairs, counting with his fleshless thumb on his skinny fingers, when he was interrupted by a curious accession of sounds which began with whining and ended with scratching at the cottage door. In a minute after the door was opened from without, a brown dog of the companionable retriever-breed ran in and fond upon old Toller. Crystal followed from the kitchen garden with a basket of vegetables on her arm. Unlike the river and the cottage, she gained by being revealed in the brilliant sunlight. I now saw in their full beauty the luster of her brown eyes, the warm rosiness of her dark complexion, the delightful vivacity of expression which was the crowning charm of her face. She paused confusedly in the doorway, and tried to resist me when I insisted on relieving her of the basket. Mr. Girard, she protested, you're treating me as if I was a young lady. What would they say at the great house if they knew what you'd done that? My answer would no doubt have assumed the form of a foolish compliment. If her father had not spared her that infliction, he returned to all the important questions, the question of repairs. You see, sir, it's no you speaking to the bailiff. Saving not your presence, he's a miser with his master's money. He says all right, and he does nothing. There's first, as I told you just now, the truly dreadful state of the drains. I tried to stop him by promising to speak to the bailiff myself. On hearing this good news, Mr. Toler's gratitude became ungovernable. He was more eager than ever, and more eloquent than ever in returning to the repairs. And then, sir, there's the oven. They do call bread the staff of life. It's a burnt staff at one time, and a clammy staff at another, if our domestic experience. Satisfy yourself, sir. Do please cross the kitchen and look with your own eyes at the state that scandalous state of the oven. His daughter interfered and stopped him at the critical moment when he was actually offering his arm to conduct me in state across the kitchen. Crystal had just put her pretty brown hand over his mouth and said, Oh, father, do pray be quiet. When we were all three disturbed by another interruption, a second door communicating, as I concluded from its position, with the new cottage, was suddenly opened. In the instant before the person behind it appeared, the dog looked that way, started up frightened, and took refuge under the table. At the next moment the deaf lodger walked into the room. It was he beyond all doubt who had frightened the dog, forewarned by instinct of his appearance. What I had read of his writing disposed me now that I saw the man by daylight to find something devilish in the expression of his face. No. Strong as it was, my prejudice failed to make any discoveries that presented him at a disadvantage. His personal attractions triumphed in the clear searching light. I now perceived that his eyes were of that deeply dark blue, which is commonly and falsely described as resembling the color of the violet. To my thinking they were so entirely beautiful that they had no right to be in a man's face. I might have felt the same objection to the pale delicacies of his complexion, to the soft profusion of his reddish-brown hair, to his finely shaped sensitive lips, but for two marked peculiarities in him which would have shown me to be wrong. That is to say, the expression of power about his head, and the signs of masculine resolution presented by his mouth and chin. On entering the room the first person and the only person who attracted his attention was Crystal. He bowed, smiled, possessed himself abruptly of her hand, and kissed it. She tried to withdraw it from his grasp and met with an obstinate resistance. His gallantry addressed her in sweet words, and his voice destroyed their charm by the dreary monotony of the tone in which he spoke. On this lovely day, Crystal, nature pleads for me. Your heart feels the sunshine and softens towards the poor deaf man who worships you. Ah, my dear, it's useless to say no. My affliction is my happiness. When you say cruel things to me, I live in my fool's paradise. I don't hear you. He tried to draw her nearer to him. Come, my angel, let me kiss you. She made a second attempt to release herself, and this time she wrenched her hand out of his grasp with the strength for which she was not prepared. That fiercest anger which turns the face pale was the anger that had possession of Crystal as she took refuge with her father. You asked me to bear with that man, she said, because he paid you a good rent. I tell you this, Father, my patience has come into an end. Either he must go or I must go. Make up your mind to choose between your money and me. Old Talor astonished me. He seemed to have caught the infection of his daughter's anger. Placed between Crystal and his money, he really acted as if he preferred Crystal. He harboured up to his lodger and shook his infirm fists, and screamed at the highest pitch of his old cracked voice. Let her be, or I won't have you here no longer. You deaf adder, let her be. The sensitive nerves of the deaf man shrank as those shrill tones pierced him. If you want to speak to me, write it, he said, with rage and suffering in every line of his face. He tore from his pocket his little book, filled with blank leaves and threw it at Talor's head. Right, he repeated, if you murder me with your screeching again, look out for your skinny throat, I'll throttle you. Crystal picked up the book. She was gratefully sensible of her father's interference. He shall know what you said to him, she promised the old man, I'll write it myself. She took the pencil from his sheath in the leather binding of the book, controlling himself the lover whom she hated advanced towards her with a persuasive smile. Have you forgiven me? he asked. Have you been speaking kindly of me? I think I see it in your face. There are some deaf people who can tell what is said by looking at the speaker's lips. I am too stupid, or too impatient or too wicked to be able to do that. Write it for me, dear, and make me happy for the day. Crystal was not attending to him. She was speaking to me. I hope, sir, you don't think that father and I are to blame for what has happened this morning, she said. He looked where she was looking, and discovered for the first time that I was in the room. He had alluded to his wickedness a moment since, when his face turned my way, I thought it bore witness to his knowledge of his own character. Why didn't you come to my side of the house, he said to me? What am I to understand, sir, by seeing you here? Crystal dropped his book on the table and hurried to me in breathless surprise. He speaks as if he knew you, she cried. What does it mean? Only that I met him last night, I explained, after leaving you. Did you know him before that? No. He was a perfect stranger to me. He picked up his book from the table and took his pencil out of Crystal's hand while we were speaking. I want my answer, he said, handing me the book and the pencil. I gave him my answer. You find me here, because I don't wish to return to your side of the house. Is that the impression, he asked, produced by what I allowed you to read? I replied by a sign in the affirmative. He inquired next if I had brought his portfolio with me. I put it at once into his hand. In some way unknown to me, I had apparently roused his suspicions. He opened the portfolio and counted the loose leaves of writing in it carefully. While he was absorbed in his occupation, Old Tallor's eccentricity assumed a new form. His little restless black eyes followed the movements of his lodger's fingers, as they turned over leaf after leaf of the manuscript, with such eager curiosity and interest that I looked at him in surprise. Finding that he had attracted my notice, he showed no signs of embarrassment. He seized the opportunity of asking for information. To my gentleman trust you, sir, with all that writing, he began. Yes. Did he want you to read it? He did. What's it all about, sir? Confronted by his cool inquiry, I informed Mr. Tallor that the demands of curiosity had their limits, and that he had reached them. On this ground I declined to answer any more questions. Mr. Tallor went on with his questions immediately. Do you notice, sir, that he seems to set a deal of store by his writings? Perhaps you can say what the value of them may be. I shook my head. It won't do, Mr. Tallor. He tried again. I declare it positively. He tried again. You'll excuse me, sir. I've never seen his portfolio before. Am I right if I think you know where he keeps it? Spare your breath, Mr. Tallor. Once more, it won't do. Crystal joined us, amazed at his pertinacity. Why are you so anxious, Father, to know about that portfolio, she asked? Her father seemed to have reasons of his own, for following my example and declining to answer questions. More polite, however, than I had been, he left his resolution to be inferred. His daughter was answered by a few general remarks, setting forth the advantage to the landlord of having a lodger who had lost one of his senses. You see, there's something convenient, my dear, in the circumstance of that nice-looking gentleman over there, being deaf. We can talk about him before his face, just as comfortably as if it were behind his back. Isn't that so, Mr. Girard? Do you see it yourself, Christie? For instance, I say it without fear in his presence, to see the act of a fool to be fumbling over writings, when there's nothing in them that's not well known to himself already. Unless, indeed, they are worth money. Which I don't doubt is no secret to you, Mr. Girard, eh? I beg your pardon, sir. Did you speak? No. I beg your pardon again. Yes, yes, Christie. I'm noticing him. He's done with his writings. Suppose I ought to offer to put them away for him? You can see in his face he finds the tale of them correct. He's coming this way. What's he going to do next? He was going to establish a claim on my gratitude, by relieving me of Giles Taller. I have something to say to Mr. Roy Lake, he announced, with a hearty look at his landlord. Mind! I don't forget your screaming at me just now, and I intend to know what you meant by it. That will do. Get out of the way. The old fellow received his dismissal with a low bow, and left the kitchen with a look at the larger, which revealed, unless I was entirely mistaken, a sly sense of triumph. What did it mean? The deaf men addressed me with a cold and distant manner. We must understand each other, he said. Will you follow me to my side of the cottage? I shook my head. Very well, he resumed. We will have it out here. When I trusted you with my confession last night, I left you to decide, after reading it, whether you would make an enemy of me or not. You remember that? I nodded my head. Then I now ask you, Mr. Roy Lake, which are we? Enemies? Or friends? I took the pencil and wrote my reply. Neither enemies, nor friends. We are strangers for this time forth. Some internal struggle produced a change in his face, visible for one moment, hidden from me in a moment more. I think you will regret the decision at which you have arrived, he said, and saluted me with his grandly gracious bow. As he turned away, he perceived crystal at the other end of the room, and eagerly joined her. The only happy moments I have are my moments past in your presence, he said. I shall trouble you no more for to-day. Give me a little comfort to take back with me to my solitude. I didn't notice that there were other persons present when I asked leave to kiss you. May I hope that you forgive me? He held out his hand. It was not taken. He waited a little, in the vain hope that she would relent. She turned away from him. As spasm of pain distorted his handsome face, he opened the door that led to his side of the cottage, paused, and looked back at crystal. She took no notice of him. As he moved again to the door and left us, the hysterical passion in him forced its way outward. He burst into tears. The dog sprang up from his refuge under the table, and shook himself joyfully. Crystal breathed again freely, and joined me at my end of the room. Shall I make another acknowledgement of weakness? I began to fear that we might all of us, even including the dog, have been a little hard on the poor deference who had gone away in such bitter distress. I communicated this view of the matter to Crystal. She failed to see it, as I did. The dog laid his head on her lap, asking to be caressed. She padded him while she answered me. I agree with this old friend, Mr. Girard. We were both of us frightened on the very first day when the person you are pitying came to lodge with us. I have got to hate him. Since that time, perhaps to despise him, but the dog has never changed. He feels and knows there is something dreadful in that man. One of these days, poor Ponto, may turn out to be right. May I ask you something, sir? Of course. You won't think I am presuming on your kindness. You ought to know me better than that, Crystal. The truth is, sir, I have been a little startled by what I saw on our larger's face, when he asked if you were his enemy or his friend. I know he is thought to be handsome, but Mr. Girard, those beautiful eyes of his, sometimes tales tales, and I have seen his pretty complexion change to a colour that turned him into an ugly man. Will you tell me what you wrote when you answered him? I repeated what I had written, word for word. It failed to satisfy her. He is very vain, she said, and you may have wounded his vanity by treating him like a stranger, after he had given you his writings to read and invited you to his room. But I thought I saw something much worse that modification in his face. Shall I be taking a liberty if I ask how it was you got acquainted with him last night? She was evidently an earnest. I saw that I must answer her without reserve, and I was a little afraid of being myself open to a suspicion of vanity, if I mentioned the distrust which I had innocently excited in the mind of the new acquaintance. In this state of embarrassment I took a young man's way out of the difficulty, and spoke lightly of a serious thing. I became acquainted with your death-larger crystal under ridiculous circumstances. He saw us talking last night, and did me the honour to be jealous of me. I had expected to see her blush. To my surprise she turned pale and vehemently remonstrated. Don't laugh, sir. There's nothing to be amused at in what you have just told me. You didn't go into his room last night. Oh, what made you do that? I described his successful appeal to my compassion, not very willingly, for it made me look as I thought like a weak person. Little by little she extracted from me the rest, how he objected to find a young man, especially in my social position, talking to crystal, how he insisted on my respecting his claims and engaging not to see her again, how when I refused to do this he gave me his confession to read so that I might find out what a formidable man I was setting at defiance, how I had not been in the least alarmed and had treated him as crystal had just heard on the footing of a perfect stranger. There's the whole story, I concluded, like a scene in a play, isn't it? She protested once more against the light tone that I persisted in assuming. I tell you again, sir, this is no laughing matter. You have roused his jealousy. You had better have roused the fury of a wild beast. Knowing what you know of him, why did you stay here when he came in? And, oh, why did I humiliate him in your presence? Leave us, Mr. Girard. Pray, pray leave us, and don't come near this place again till Father has got rid of him. Did she think I was to be so easily frightened as that? My sense of my own importance was up in arms at the bare suspicion of it. My dear child, I said grandly, do you really suppose I am afraid of that poor wretch? It might give up the pleasure of seeing you, because a mad fellow is simple enough to think you will marry him. Absurd, crystal! Absurd! The poor girl wrung her hands in despair. Oh, sir, don't distress me by talking in that way. Do please remember who you are and who I am. If I am the miserable means of your coming to any harm, I can't bear to even speak of it. Pray don't think me bold. I don't know how to express myself. You ought never to have come here. You ought to go. You must go! 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, crystal, 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 goodbye, 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. Crystal 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 Crystal 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 head. 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 reproofed 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 and 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 taller'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 lunch, and I acquired? Dear me, haven'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 selky. 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 know the price of flour is ignorance presented in one of its most pitiable aspects. And how is Miss Taller 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 course in vulgar, she suggested, reverting to poor crystal. Would you like to judge her 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 a 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 the dexterity which I see now, but which I was not clever enough to appreciate at the time. In a burst of generosity, I entreated her to consider Trimley Dean 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 vow, 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 always be 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. Roylike, to find yourself again at Trimley Dean. 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 friend's pleasant chat in the drawing room? Finally, when we got home, and when Mrs. Roylike 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 dam the neighborhood and to feel relieved by it? Now that I was no longer obliged to listen to polite strangers, my thoughts reverted to Crystal 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 Crystal, 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 at 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? The right explanation presented itself at a later time, when troubles had quickened my intellect, and when I could estimate the powerful influence of circumstances at its true value. I had returned to England to fill a prominent place in my own little world, without relations whom I loved, without friends whose society I could enjoy. Hopeful, ardent, eager for the enjoyment of life, I had brought with me to my own country the social habits and the free range of thought of a foreign university, and, as a matter of course, I failed to feel any sympathy with the society, new to me, in which my lot had been cast. Be set by these disadvantages, I had met with a girl, possessed of remarkable personal attractions, and associated with my earliest remembrances of my own happy life and of my mother's kindness, a girl at once simple and spirited, unspoiled by the world and the world's ways, and placed in a position of peril due to the power of her own beauty, which added to the interest that she naturally inspired. Estimating these circumstances at their true value, did a state of mind which rendered me insensible to the distinctions that separate the classes in England stand in any need of explanation? As I thought, and think still, it explained itself. My stepmother and I parted on the garden terrace, which ran along the pleasant southern side of the house. The habits that I had contracted among my student friends in Germany made tobacco and beer necessary accompaniments to the process of thinking. I had nearly exhausted my cigar, my jog, and my thoughts, when I saw two men approaching me from the end of the terrace. As they came nearer, I recognized in one of the men my fat domestic and black. He stopped the person who was accompanying him and came on to me by himself. Will you see that man, sir, waiting behind me? Who is he? I don't know, sir. He says he has got a letter to give you, and he must put it in your own hands. I think myself he's a beggar. He's excessively insolent. He insists on seeing you. Shall I tell him to go? The servant evidently expected me to say yes. He was disappointed. My curiosity was roused. I said I would see the insolent stranger. As he approached me, the man certainly did not look like a beggar. Poor he might be, judging by his dress. The upper part of him was clothed in an old shooting jacket of velveteen. His legs presented a pair of trousers, once black, now turning brown with age. Both garments were too long for him, and both were kept scrupulously clean. He was a short man, thickly and strongly made. Impenetrable composure appeared on his ugly face. His eyes were sunk deep in his head. His nose had evidently been broken and not successfully mended. His gray hair, when he took off his hat on a dress of me, was cut short and showed his low forehead and his bull neck. An Englishman of the last generation would, as I have since been informed, have set him down as a retired prize-fighter. Thanks to my ignorance of the pugilistic glories of my native country, I was totally at a loss with to make of him. Have I the honour of speaking to Mr. Roylake, he asked. His quiet, steady manner prepossessed me in his favour. It showed no servile reverence for the accident of birth, on the one hand, and no insolent assertion of independence on the other. When I had told him that my name was Roylake, he searched one of the large pockets of his shooting jacket, produced a letter, and silently offered it to me. Before I took the letter, seeing that he was a stranger and that he mentioned no name known to me, I thought it desirable to make some inquiry. Is it a letter of your own writing, I asked. No, sir. Who sends you with it? He was apparently a man of few words. My master was the guarded answer that this odd servant returned. I became as inquisitive as Old Toller himself. Who is your master, I went on. The reply staggered me. Speaking as quietly and respectfully as ever, he said, I can't tell you, sir. Do you mean that you are forbidden to tell me? No, sir. Then what do you mean? I mean that I don't know my master's name. I instantly took the letter from him and looked at the address. For once in a way I had jumped at a conclusion and I had proved to be right. The handwriting on the letter and the handwriting of the confession which I had read overnight were one and the same. Are you to wait for an answer, I asked, as I opened the envelope. I am to wait, sir, if you tell me to do so. The letter was a long one. After running my eye over the first sentences, I surprised myself by acting discreetly. You needn't wait, I said. I will send a reply. The man of few words raised his shabby head, turned about in silence, and left me. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of The Guilty River This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Steve Rausel. The Guilty River by Wilkie Collins. Chapter 8 The Deaf Lodger The letter was superscribed, private and confidential. It was written in these words. Sir, you will do me grievous wrong if you suppose that I am trying to force myself on your acquaintance. My object in writing is to prevent you, if I can, from misinterpreting my language and my conduct, on the only two occasions when we happened to have met. I am conscious that you must have thought me rude and ungrateful, perhaps even a little mad, when I returned your kindness last night in honoring me with a visit, by using language which has justified you in treating me as a stranger. Fortunately for myself, I gave you my autobiography to read. After what you now know of me, I may hope that your sense of justice will make some allowance for a man tried. I had almost written, Cursed, by such suffering as mine. There are other deaf persons, as I have heard, who set me a good example. They feel the consolations of religion. Their sweet tempers find relief, even under the loss of the most precious of all the senses. They mix with society, submitting to their dreadful isolation, and preserving unimpaired sympathy with their happier fellow-creatures who can hear. I am not one of those persons. With sorrow I say it. I have never submitted. I never can submit to my hard fate. Let me not omit to ask your indulgence for my behavior when we met at the cottage this morning. What unfavorable impression I may have produced on you, I dare not inquire. So little capable am I of concealing the vile feelings which sometimes get the better of me that Miss Crystal, observed that I mention her with respect, appears to have felt positive alarm on your account when she looked at me. I may tell you, in confidence, that this charming person came to my side of the cottage as soon as you had taken your departure to intercede with me in your favor. If your wicked mind is planning to do evil to Mr. Roy Lake, she wrote in my book, either you will promise to give it up, or I will never allow you to see me again. I will even leave home secretly to be out of your way. In that strong language she expressed, how shall I refer to it? Shall I say the sisterly interest that she felt in your welfare? I laid down the letter for a moment. If I had not already reproached myself for having misjudged Crystal, and if I had not in that way done her some little justice in my own better thoughts, I should never have recovered my self-respect after reading the deaf man's letter. The good girl. The dear good girl. Yes, that was how I thought of her under the windows of my stepmother's boudoir, while Mrs. Roy Lake, for all I knew to the contrary, might be looking down at me. And when Lady Lena, the noble and beautiful, was coming to dinner, the letter concluded as follows. To return to myself, I gave Miss Crystal the promise on which she had insisted, and then, naturally enough, I inquired into her motive for interfering in your favour. She frankly admitted that she was interested in you. First, in grateful remembrance of old times, when you and your mother had been always good to her. Secondly, because she found you as kind and as friendly as ever, now that you were a man that had become the greatest landowner in the county. There was the explanation I had asked for at my service. And on that, she left me. Did I believe her when I was meditating on our interview alone in my room? Or did I suspect you of having robbed me of the only consolation that makes my life indurable? No such unworthy suspicion as this was admitted to my mind. With all my heart, I believe her. And with perfect sincerity, I trust you. If your knowledge of me has failed to convince you that there is any such thing as a better side to my nature, you will no doubt conclude that this letter is a trick of mine to throw you off your guard, and you will continue to distrust me as obstinately as ever. In that case, I will merely remind you that my letter is private and confidential, and I will not ask you to send me your reply. I remain, sir, yours, as you may receive me, the deaf lodger. I wonder what another man in my position would have done when he had read this letter. Would he have seen in it nothing to justify some respect and some kindly feeling towards the writer? Could he have reconciled it to his conscience to leave the afflicted man who had trusted him without a word of reply? For my part, do not forget what a young man I was in those days. I made up my mind to reply in the friendliest manner, that is to say, in person. After consulting my watch, I satisfied myself that I could go to the mill and get back again before the hour fixed for our late dinner, supper we should have called it in Germany. For the second time that day, and without any hesitation, I took the road that led to Fort Witchwood. Crossing the glade, I encountered a stout young woman, filling a can with water from the spring. She curtsied on seeing me. I asked if she belonged to the village. The reply informed me that I had taken another of my servants for a stranger. The stout nymph of the spring was my kitchenmaid, and she was fetching the water which we drank at the house. And there's no water, sir, like yours for all the country round. Furnished with these stores of information, I went my way, and the kitchenmaid went hers. She spoke, of course, of having seen her new master on returning to the servant's hall. In this manner, as I afterwards heard, the discovery of me at the spring, and my departure by the path that led to the mill, reached Mrs. Royleg's ears, the medium of information being the lady's own maid. So far, Fort Witchwood seemed to be a place to avoid, in the interests of my domestic tranquillity. Arriving at the cottage, I found the lodger standing by the open window at which I had first seen him. But on this occasion, his personal appearance had undergone a singular process of transformation. The lower part of his face, from his nostrils to his chin, was hidden by a white handkerchief tied around it. He had removed the stopper from a strangely shaped bottle, and was absorbed in watching some interesting condition in a dusky liquid that it contained. To attract his attention by speaking was, of course, out of the question. I could only wait until he happened to look my way. My patience was not severely tried. He soon replaced the stopper in the bottle, and, looking up from it, saw me. With his free hand, he quickly removed the handkerchief and spoke. Let me ask you to wait in the boathouse, he said. I will come to you directly. He pointed round the corner of the new cottage, indicating, of course, the side of it that was farthest from the old building. Following his directions, I first passed the door that he used in leaving or returning to his room, and then gained the bank of the river. On my right hand rose the mill building, with its big water-wheel. And above it, a little higher up the stream, I recognized the boathouse, built out in the water on piles, and approached by a wooden pier. No structure of this elaborate and expensive sort would have been set up by my father for the miller's convenience. The boathouse had been built many years since, by a rich retired tradesman with a mania for aquatic pursuits. Our ugly river had not answered his expectations, and our neighborhood had abstained from returning his visits. When he left us, with his wearies, and canoes, and outriggers, the miller took possession of the abandoned boathouse. It's the sort of fixture that don't pay know-how, old, taller remarked. Suppose you remove it. There's a waste of money. Suppose you knock it to pieces. Is it worth a rich gentleman's while to sell a cartload of firewood? Neither of these alternatives having been adopted, and nobody wanting an empty boathouse. The clumsy mill boat, hitherto tied to a stake, and exposed to the worst that the weather could do to injure it, was now snugly sheltered under a roof, with empty lockers, once occupied by aquatic luxuries, gaping on either side of it. I was looking out on the river, and thinking of all that had happened since my first meeting with Crystal by moonlight, when the voice of the deaf man made itself discordantly heard behind me. Let me apologize for receiving you here, he said, and let me trouble you with one more of my confessions. Like other unfortunate deaf people, I suffer from nervous irritability. Sometimes we restlessly change our places of abode, and sometimes, as in my case, we take refuge in variety of occupation. You remember the ideal narratives of crime which I was so fond of writing at one time? I gave the affirmative answer, in the usual way. Well, he went on, my literary inventions have ceased to interest me. I have laterally resumed the chemical studies, associated with that happy time in my life when I was entering on the medical profession. Unluckily for you, I have been trying an experiment today, which makes such an abominable smell in my room that I dare not ask you to enter it. The fumes are not only disagreeable, but in some degree dangerous. You saw me at the open window, perhaps, with my nose and mouth protected before I opened the bottle? I repeated the affirmative sign. He produced his little book of blank leaves and opened it ready for use. May I hope, he said, that your visit is intended as a favorable reply to my letter. I took the pencil and answered him in these terms. Your letter has satisfied me that I was mistaken in treating you like a stranger. I have come here to express my regret at having failed to do you justice. Pray be assured that I believe in your better nature, and that I accept your letter in the spirit in which you have written it. He read my reply and suddenly looked at me. Never had I seen his beautiful eyes so brightly soft, so irresistibly tender, as they appeared now. He held out his hand to me. It is one of my small merits to be, in the popular phrase, as good as my word. I took his hand, well knowing that the action committed me to accepting his friendship. In relating the events which formed this narrative, I look back at the chain, as I add to it, link by link. Sometimes with surprise, sometimes with interest, and sometimes with the discovery that I have omitted a circumstance which it is necessary to replace. But I search my memory in vain, while I dwell on the lines that I have just written, for a recollection of some attendant event which might have warned me of the peril towards which I was advancing blindfold. My remembrance presents us as standing together with clasped hands. But nothing in the slightest degree ominous is associated with the picture. There was no sinister chill communicated from his hand to mine. No shocking accident happened close by us in the river. Not even a passing cloud obscured the sunlight, shining in its gayest glory over our heads. After having shaken hands, neither he nor I had apparently anything more to say. A little embarrassed, I turned to the boathouse window and looked out. Trifling as the action was, my companion noticed it. Do you like that muddy river, he asked. I took the pencil again. Old associations make even the ugly loke interesting to me. He sighed as he read those words. I wish, Mr. Roylike, I could say the same. Your interesting river frightens me. It was needless to ask for the pencil again. My puzzled face begged for an explanation. When you are in my room, he said, you may have noticed a second window which looks out on the loke. I have got into a bad habit of sitting by that window on moonlight nights. I watched the flow of the stream, and it seems to associate itself with the flow of my thoughts. Nothing remarkable so far, while I am awake. But later, when I get to sleep, dreams come to me. All of them, sir, without exception, connect crystal with the river. Look at the stealthy current that makes no sound. In my last night's sleep, it made itself heard. It was flowing in my ears with the water music of its own. No longer my deaf ears, I heard in my dream, as well as you can hear. Yes, the same water music, singing over and over again the same horrid song. Fool, fool, no crystal for you. Bitter goodbye, bitter goodbye. I saw her floating away from me on those hideous waters. The cruel current held me back when I tried to follow her. I struggled and screamed and shivered and cried. I woke up with a start that shook me to pieces and cursed your interesting river. Don't write to me about it again. Don't look at it again. Why did you bring up the subject? I beg your pardon. I had no right to say that. Let me be polite. Let me be hospitable. I beg to invite you to come and see me when my room is purified from its pestilent smell. I can only offer you a cup of tea. Oh, that river, that river, what devil set me talking about it. I'm not mad, Mr. Roylake, only wretched. When may I expect you? Choose your own evening next week. Who could help pitying him? Compared with my sound, sweet, dreamless sleep, what dreadful nights were his? I accepted his invitation as a matter of course. When we had completed our arrangements, it was time for me to think of returning to Trimley Dean. Moving towards the door, I accidentally directed his attention to the pier by which the boathouse was approached. His face instantly reminded me of Crystal's description of him, when he was strongly and evilly moved. I too saw his beautiful eyes tell tales, and his pretty complexion changed to a color which turned him into an ugly man. He seized my arm and pointed to the pier, at the end of it which joined the riverbank. Pray accept my excuses. I can't answer for my temper if that wretch comes near me. With this apology he hurried away, and sly Giles taller, having patiently waited until the coast was clear, accosted me with his best bow, and said, Beautiful weather, isn't it, sir? I had no remarks to make on the weather, but I was interested in discovering what had happened at the cottage. You have mortally offended the gentleman who has just left me, I said. What have you done? Mr. Taller had purposes of his own to serve, and kept those purposes, as usual, exclusively in view. He presented deaf ears to me now. I don't think I ever remember such wonderful weather, sir, in my time, and I'm an old fellow, as I needn't tell you. Being at the mill just now, I saw you in the boathouse, and came to pay my respects. Would you be so good as to look at the slip of paper, Mr. Gerard? If you will kindly ask what it is, you will, in a manner, help me. I knew but too well what it was. The repairs again, I said, residedly. Hand it over, you obstinate old man. Mr. Taller was so tickled by my discovery, and by the cheering prospect consequent on seeing his list of repairs safe in my pocket, that he laughed until I really thought he would shake his lean little body to pieces. By way of bringing his merriment to an end, I assumed a look of severity, and insisted on knowing how he had offended the lodger. My venerable tenant, trembling for his repairs, drifted into a question of personal experience, and seemed to anticipate that it might improve my temper. When you have a woman about the house, Mr. Gerard, you may have noticed that she's a never-lasting expense to you, especially when she's a young one. Isn't that so? I inquired if he applied this remark to his daughter. That's it, sir. I'm talking of Christie. When her backs up, there isn't her equal in England for strong language. My gentleman has misbehaved himself in some way, since you were with us this morning, sir. How I don't quite understand. All I can tell you is, I've given him notice to quit. A clear loss of money to me every week, and Christie's responsible for it. Yes, sir. I've been worked up to it by my girl. If Christie's mother had asked me to get rid of a paying lodger, I should have told her to go. We won't say where, sir. You'll know where when you're married yourself. The upshot of it is that I have offended my gentleman for the sake of my girl, which last is a luxury I can't afford unless I let the rooms again. If you hear of a tenant, say what a good landlord I am, and what sweet, pretty rooms I've got to let. I led the way to the bank of the river before Mr. Taller could make any more requests. We passed the side of the old cottage. The door was open, and I saw Crystal employed in the kitchen. My watch told me that I still had two or three minutes to spare, and my guilty remembrance of the message that I had pinned to the door suggested an immediate expression of regret. I approached Crystal with a petition for pardon on my lips. She looked distrustfully at the door of communication with the new cottage, as if she expected to see it opened from the other side. Not now, she said, and went on sadly with her household work. May I see you tomorrow, I asked. It had better not be here, sir, was the only reply she made. I offered to meet her at any other place which she might appoint. Crystal persisted in leaving it to me. She spoke absently, as if she was thinking all the time of something else. I could propose no better place at the moment than the spring in Fortwich Wood. She consented to meet me there on the next day, if seven o'clock in the morning would not be too early for me. My German habits had accustomed me to early rising. She heard me tell her this, and looked again at the lodger's door, and abruptly wished me good evening. Her polite father was shocked at this unceremonious method of dismissing the great man, who had only to say the word and stop the repairs. Where are your manners, Christie? he asked indignantly. Before he could say another word, I was out of the cottage. As I passed the spring on my way home, I thought of my two appointments. On that evening, my meeting with the daughter of the Lord. On the next morning, my meeting with the daughter of the miller. Lady Lena had dinner. Crystal before breakfast. If Mrs. Roylake found out that social contrast, what would she say? I was a merry young fool. I burst out laughing. End of chapter 8