 Book the first Chapter 4 of the Fallen Leaves. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jennifer Painter. The Fallen Leaves by Wilkie Collins. Book the first Chapter 4. Amelia's looked at his companions in some doubt whether they would preserve their gravity at this critical point in his story. They both showed him that his apprehensions were well-founded. He was a little hurt and he instantly revealed it. I owned my shame that I burst out laughing myself, he said, but you two gentlemen are older and wiser than I am. I didn't expect to find you just as ready to laugh at four missmellicent as I was. Mr Hethcott declined to be reminded of his duties as a middle-aged gentleman in this backhanded manner. Gently, Amelia's, you can't expect to persuade us that a laughable thing is not a thing to be laughed at. A woman close on 40 who falls in love with a young fellow of 21 is a laughable circumstance, Rufus interposed. Whereas a man of 40 who fancies a young woman of 21 is all in the order of nature. The men have settled it so, but why the women are to give up so much sooner than the men is a question, sir, on which I have long wished to hear the sentiments of the women themselves. Mr Hethcott dismissed the sentiments of the women with a wave of his hand. Let us hear the rest of it, Amelia's. Of course you went on to the fishing house, and of course you found Miss Mellicent there. She came to the door to meet me, much as usual, Amelia's resumed, and suddenly checked herself in the act of shaking hands with me. I can only suppose she saw something in my face that startled her. How it happened, I can't say, but I felt my good spirit forsake me the moment I found myself in her presence. I doubt if she had ever seen me so serious before. Have I offended you? she asked. Of course I denied it, but I failed to satisfy her. She began to tremble. Has somebody said something against me? Are you weary of my company? Those were the next questions. It was useless to say no. Some perverse distrust of me, or some despair of herself, overpowered her on a sudden. She sank down on the floor of the fishing house and began to cry. Not a good hearty burst of tears. A silent, miserable, resigned sort of crying, as if she had lost all claim to be pitted and all right to feel wounded or hurt. I was so distressed that I thought of nothing but consoling her. I meant well and I acted like a fool. A sensible man would have lifted her up, I suppose, and left her to herself. I lifted her up and put my arm round her waist. She looked at me as I did it. For just a moment, I declared she became 20 years younger. She blushed as I have never seen a woman blush before or since. The colour flowed all over her neck as well as her face. Before I could say a word, she caught hold of my hand and, of all the confusing things in the world, hissed it. No, she cried. Don't despise me. Don't laugh at me. Wait and hear what my life has been. And then you will understand why a little kindness overpowers me. She looked round the corner of the fishing house suspiciously. I don't want anybody else to hear us. She said, all the pride isn't beaten out of me yet. Come to the lake and row me about in the boat. I took her out in the boat. Nobody could hear us certainly, but she forgot and I forgot that anybody might see us and that appearances on the lake might lead to false conclusions on shore. Mr Hethcott and Rufus exchanged significant looks. They had not forgotten the rules of the community when two of its members showed a preference for each other's society. Amelia's proceeded. Well, there we were on the lake. I paddled with the oars and she opened her whole heart to me. Her troubles had begun in a very common way with her mother's death and her father's second marriage. She had a brother and a sister. The sister married a German merchant, settled in New York. The brother comfortably established as a sheep farmer in Australia. So, you see, she was alone at home at the mercy of the stepmother. I don't understand these cases myself, but people who do tell me that there are generally faults on both sides. To make matters worse, they were a poor family, the one rich relative being a sister of the first wife who disapproved of the widow o marrying again and never entered the house afterwards. Well, the stepmother had a sharp tongue and Melisand was the first person to feel the sting of it. She was reproached with being an encumbrance on her father when she ought to be doing something for herself. There was no need to repeat those harsh words. The next day she answered an advertisement. Before the week was over, she was earning her bread as a daily governess. Here Rufus stopped the narrative, having an interesting question to put. Might I inquire, sir, what her salary was? £30 a year, Amelius replied. She was out teaching from nine o'clock to two and then went home again. There seems to be nothing to complain of in that as salaries go, Mr Hefcott remarked. She made no complaint, Amelius rejoined. She was satisfied with her salary, but she wasn't satisfied with her life. The meek little woman grew downright angry when she spoke of it. I had no reason to complain of my employers, she said. I was civilly treated and punctually paid, but I never made friends of them. I tried to make friends of the children. And sometimes I thought I had succeeded, but oh dear, when they were idle and I was obliged to keep them to their lessons, I soon found out how little hold I had on the love that I wanted them to give me. We see children in books who are perfect little angels, never envious or greedy or sulky or deceitful, always the same sweet, pious, tender, grateful, innocent creatures. And it has been my misfortune never to meet with them. Go where I might. It is a hard world, Amelius, the world that I have lived in. I don't think there are such miserable lives anywhere as the lives led by the poor middle classes in England. From year's end to year's end, the one dreadful struggle to keep up appearances and the heartbreaking monotony of an existence without change. We lived in the back street of a cheap suburb. I declare to you we had put one amusement in the whole long weary year. The annual concert the clergyman got up in aid of his schools. The rest of the year it was all teaching for the first half of the day and needlework for the young family for the other half. My father had religious scruples. He prohibited theatres. He prohibited dancing and light reading. He even prohibited looking in at the shop windows because we had no money to spare and they tempted us to buy. He went to business in the morning and came back at night and fell asleep after dinner and woke up and read prayers and next day to business and back and sleeping and waking and reading prayers and no break in it week after week, month after month, except on Sunday, which was always the same Sunday. The same church, the same service, the same dinner, the same book of sermons in the evening. Even when we had a fortnight once a year at the seaside we always went to the same place and lodged in the same cheap house. The few friends we had led just the same lives and were beaten down flat by just the same monotony. All the women seemed to submit to it contentedly except my miserable self. I wanted so little, only a change now and then, only a little sympathy when I was weary and sick at odd, only somebody whom I could love and serve and be rewarded with a smile and a kind word in return. Mothers shook their heads and daughters laughed at me. Have we time to be sentimental? Haven't we enough to do, darling and mending and turning our dresses and making the joint last as long as possible and keeping the children clean and doing the washing at home and tea and sugar rising and my husband grumbling every week when I have to ask him for the house money? Oh, no more of it, no more of it. People meant for better things all round down to the same sordid and selfish level. Is that a pleasant sight to contemplate? I shudder when I think of the last 20 years of my life. That's what she complained of, Mr Heffcott, in the solitary middle of the lake with nobody but me to hear her. In my country, sir, Rufus remarked, the lecture bureau would have provided for her amusement on economical terms and I reckon if a married life would fix her she might have tried it among us by the way of a change. That's the saddest part of the story, said Amelius. There came a time only two years ago when her prospects changed for the better. Her rich aunt, her mother's sister, died. And what do you think left her a legacy of £6,000? There was a gleam of sunshine in her life. The poor teacher was an heiress in a small way with her fortune at her own disposal. They had something like a festival at home for the first time, presents to everybody and kissings and congratulations and new dresses at last. And more than that, another wonderful event happened for a long. A gentleman made his appearance in the family circle with an interesting object in view. A gentleman who had called at the house in which she happened to be employed as teacher at the time and had seen her occupied with her pupils. He had kept it to himself to be sure, but he had secretly admired her from that moment and now it had come out. She had never had a lover before, mind that. And he was a remarkably handsome man, dressed beautifully and sang and played and was so humble and devoted with it all. Do you think it wonderful that she said yes when he proposed to marry her? I don't think it wonderful at all. For the first few weeks of the courtship the sunshine was brighter than ever. Then the clouds began to rise. Anonymous letters came describing the handsome gentleman seen under his fair surface as nothing less than a scoundrel. She tore up the letters indignantly. She was too delicate even to show them to him. Signed letters came next, addressed to her father by an uncle and an aunt both containing one and the same warning. If your daughter insists on having him tell her to take care of her money. A few days later a visitor arrived, a brother who spoke out more plainly still. As an honourable man he could not hear of what was going on without making the painful confession that his brother was forbidden to enter his house. That said, he washed his hands of all further responsibility. You two know the world, you will guess how it ended. Quarrels in the household, the poor middle-aged woman living in her fool's paradise blindly true to her lover convinced that he was folly wronged. Frantic when he declared that he would not connect himself with a family which suspected him. Ah, I have no patience when I think of it and I almost wish I had never begun to tell the story. Do you know what he did? She was free of course at her age to decide for himself. There was no controlling her. The wedding day was fixed. Her father had declared he would not sanction it and her stepmother kept him to his word. She went alone to the church to meet her promised husband. He never appeared. He deserted her, mercilessly deserted her after she had sacrificed her own relations to him on her wedding day. She was taken home insensible and had a brain fever. The doctors declined to answer for her life. Her father thought it time to look at her bankers passport. Out of her £6,000 she had privately given no less than £4,000 to the scoundrel who had deceived and forsaken her. Not a month afterwards he married a young girl with a fortune of course. We read of such things in newspapers and books but to have them brought home to one after living one's own life among honest people. I tell you it's stupefied me. He said no more. Below them in the cabin voices were laughing and talking to a cheerful accompaniment of clattering knives and forks. Around them spread the exultant glory of sea and sky. All that they heard, all that they saw was cruelty out of harmony with the miserable story which had just reached its end. With one accord the three men rose and pasted the deck feeling physically the same need of some movement to lighten their spirits. With one accord they waited a little before the narrative was resumed. End of book the first chapter four. Book the first chapter five of the fallen leaves. 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 Jennifer Painter. The Fallen Leaves by Wilkie Collins. Book one chapter five. Mr Heffcott was the first to speak again. I can understand the poor creature's motive in joining your community. He said to a person of any sensibility her position among such relatives as you described must have been simply unendurable after what had happened. How did she hear of Tadmore and the Socialists? She'd read one of our books Emilius answered and she had her married sister at New York to go to. There were moments after her recovery she confessed it to me frankly when the thought of suicide was in her mind. Her religious scrupals saved her. She was kindly received by her sister and her sister's husband. They proposed to keep her with them to teach their children. No. The new life offered to her was too like the old life. She was broken in body and mind. She had no courage to face it. We have a resident agent in New York and he arranged for her journey to Tadmore. There is a gleam of brightness at any rate in this part of her story. She blessed the day poor soul when she joined us. Never before had she found herself among such kind-hearted, unselfish, simple people. Never before he abruptly checked himself and looked a little confused. A blidging rufus finished the sentence for him. Never before had she known a young man with such natural gifts of fascination as C.A.G. Don't you be too modest, sir? It doesn't pay, I assure you, in the 19th century. Amelius was not as ready with his laugh as usual. I wish I could drop it at the point we have reached now, he said, but she has left Tadmore and injustice to her after the scandals in the newspaper. I must tell you how she left it and why. The mischief began when I was helping her out of the boat. Two of our young women met us on the bank of the lake and asked me how I got on with my fishing. They didn't mean any harm. They were only in their customary good spirits. Still, there was no mistaking their looks and tones when they put the question. Miss Mellisant, in her confusion, made matters worse. She coloured up and snatched her hand out of mine and ran back to the house by herself. The girls, enjoying their own foolish joke, congratulated me on my prospects. I must have been out of sorts in some way, upset perhaps by what I had heard in the boat. Anyhow, I lost my temper and I made matters worse next. I said some angry words and left them. The same evening, I found a letter in my room. For your sake, I must not be seen alone with you again. It is hard to lose the comfort of your sympathy, but I must submit. Think of me as kindly as I think of you. It has done me good to open my heart to you. Only those lines signed by Mellisant's initials. I was rash enough to keep the letter instead of destroying it. All might have ended well nevertheless if she had only held to her resolution. But, unluckily, my 21st birthday was close at Han and there was talk of keeping it as a festival in the community. I was up with sunrise when the day came, having some farming work to look after and wanting to get it over in good time. My shortest way back to breakfast was through a wood. In the wood I met her. Alone, Mr Heth that asked, Rufus expressed his opinion of the wisdom of putting this question with his customary plainness of language. When there's a rash thing to be done by a man and a woman together, sir, philosophers have remarked that it's always a woman who leads the way. Of course she was alone. She had a little present for me on my birthday, Mellis explained, a purse of her own making and she was afraid of the ridicule of the young women that she gave it to me openly. You have my heart's dearest wishes for your happiness. Think of me sometimes, Mellis, when you open your purse. If you had been in my place, could you have told her to go away when she said that and put her gift into your hand? Not if she had been looking at you at the moment. I swear you couldn't have done it. The lean yellow face of Rufus Dingwell relaxed for the first time into a broad grin. There are further particulars stated in the newspaper. He said slyly. Damn the newspaper, Mellis answered. Rufus bowed serenly curtius with the air of a man who accepted a British oath as an unwilling compliment paid by the old country to the American press. The newspaper report states, sir, that she kissed you. It's a lie, Mellis shouted. Perhaps it's an error of the press, Rufus persisted. Perhaps you kissed her. Never mind what I did, said Amelius savagely. Mr Heathcurt felt it necessary to interfere. He addressed Rufus in his most magnificent manner. In England, Mr Dingwell, a gentleman is not in the habit of disclosing these... These kissons in a wood, suggested Rufus. In my country, sir, we do not regard kissing in or out of a wood in the light of a shameful proceeding. Quite the contrary, I do assure you. Amelius recovered his temper. The discussion was becoming too ridiculous to be endured by the unfortunate person who was the object of it. Don't let us make mountains out of molehills, he said. I did kiss her, there. A woman pressing the prettiest little purse you ever saw into your hand and wishing you many happy returns of the day with the tears in her eyes, I should like to know what else was to be done but to kiss her. Ah yes, smooth out your newspaper report and have another look at it. She did rest her head on my shoulder, poor soul, and she did say, Oh, Amelius, I thought my heart was turned to stone. Feel how you have made it beat. When I remembered what she had told me in the boat, I declared to God I almost burst out crying myself. It was so innocent and so pitiful. Rufus held out his hand with true American cordiality. I do assure you, sir, I meant no harm, he said. The right grit is in you and no mistake. And there goes the newspaper. He rolled up the slip and flung it overboard. Mr Hefcott nodded his entire approval of this proceeding. Amelius went on with his story. I'm near the end now, he said. If I had known it would have taken so long to tell, never mind. We got out of the wood at last, Mr Rufus, and left it without a suspicion that we had been watched. I was prudent enough, when it was too late, you will say, to suggest to her that we had better be careful for the future. Instead of taking it seriously, she laughed. Have you altered your mind since you wrote to me? I asked. To be sure I have, she said. When I wrote to you, I forgot the difference between your age and mine. Nothing that we do will be taken seriously. I am afraid of their laughing at me, Amelius, but I am afraid of nothing else. I did my best to undeceive her. I told her plainly that people unequally matched in years, women older than men, as well as men older than women, were not uncommonly married among us. The council only looked to their being well suited in other ways, and declined to trouble itself about the question of age. I don't think I produced much effect. She seemed, for once in her life, poor thing, to be too happy to look beyond the passing moment. Besides, there was the birthday festival to keep her mind from dwelling on doubts and fears that were not agreeable to her. And the next day, there was another event to occupy our attention. The arrival of the lawyer's letter from London with the announcement of my inheritance on coming of age. It was settled, as you know, that I was to go out into the world and to judge for myself. But the date of my departure was not fixed. Two days later, the storm that had been gathering for weeks past burst on us. We were sighted to appear before the council to answer for an infraction of the rules. Everything that I have confessed to you, and some things besides that I have kept to myself, lay formally inscribed on a sheet of paper placed on the council table. And pinned to the sheet of paper was Melisons letter to me found in my room. I took the whole blame on myself and insisted on being confronted with the unknown person who had informed against us. The council met this via question. Is the information in any particular false? Neither of us could deny that it was, in every particular, true. Hearing this, the council decided that there was no need on our own showing to confront us with the informer. From that day to this, I have never known who the spy was. Neither Melisons nor I had an enemy in the community. The girls who had seen us on the lake and some other members who had met us together only gave their evidence on compulsion. And even then, they barricaded. They were so fond of us and so sorry for us. After waiting a day, the governing body pronounced their judgement. Their duty was prescribed to them by the rules. We were sentenced to six months absence from the community to return or not as we pleased. A hard sentence, gentlemen, whatever we may think of it, to homeless and friendless people, to the fallen leaves that had drifted to Tadmore. In my case, it had been already arranged that I was to leave. After what had happened, my departure was made compulsory in four and twenty hours and I was forbidden to return until the date of my sentence had expired. In Melisons case, they were still more strict. They would not trust her to travel by herself. A female member of the community was appointed to accompany her to the house of her married sister at New York. She was ordered to be ready for the journey by sunrise the next morning. We both understood, of course, that the object of this was to prevent our travelling together. They might have saved themselves the trouble of putting obstacles in our way. So far as you were concerned, I suppose, said Mr Hedford. So far as she was concerned also, Amelia's answered. How did she take it, sir? Rufus inquired. With a composure that astonished us all, said Amelia's, we had anticipated tears and entreaties for mercy. She stood up perfectly calm, far calmer than I was, with her head turned towards me and her eyes resting quietly on my face. If you can imagine a woman whose whole being was absorbed in looking into the future, seeing what no mortal creature about her saw, sustained by hopes that no mortal creature about her could share, you may see her as I did when she heard her sentence pronounced. The members of the community, a custom to take leave of an earring brother or sister with loving and merciful words, were all more or less distressed as they bade her farewell. Most of the women were in tears as they kissed her. They said the same kind words to her over and over again. We are heartily sorry for you, dear. We shall all be glad to welcome you back. They sang our customary hymn at parting and broke down before they got to the end. It was she who consoled them. Not once through all that melancholy ceremony did she lose her strange composure, her rapt mysterious look. I was the last to say farewell and I own I couldn't trust myself to speak. She held my hand in hers. For a moment a face lighted up softly with a radiant smile. Then the strange preoccupied expression flowed over her again like shadow over a light. Her eyes, still looking into mine, seemed to look beyond me. She spoke low in sad, steady tones. Be comforted, Emilius. The end is not yet. She put her hands on my head and drew it down to her. You will come back to me. She whispered and kissed me on the forehead before them all. When I looked up again, she was gone. I have neither seen her nor heard from her since. It's all told, gentlemen, and some of it has distressed me in the telling. Let me go away for a minute by myself and look at the sea. End of book the first, chapter five. Book the second, chapter one, of the fallen leaves. 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 Linda Andrews, Wachishaw, Wisconsin. The Fallen Leaves by Wilkie Collins. Book the second, chapter one. Oh, Rufus Stingwell. It is such a rainy day. And the London Street, which I look out on from my hotel window, presents such a dirty and such a miserable view. Do you know, I hardly feel like the same Emilias who promised to write to you when we left the steamer at Queenstown. My spirits are sinking. I begin to feel old. Am I in the right state of mind to tell you what are my first impressions of London? Perhaps I may alter my opinion. At present, and this is between ourselves, I don't like London or London people accepting two ladies who in very different ways have interested and charmed me. Who are the ladies? I must tell you what I heard about them from Mr Huthcote before I present them to you on my own responsibility. After you left us, I found the last day of the voyage to Liverpool dull enough. Mr Huthcote did not seem to feel it in the same way. On the contrary, he grew more familiar and confidential in his talk with me. He has some of the English stiffness, you see, and your American pace was a little too fast for him. On our last night on board, we had some more conversation about the Farnabee's. You were not interested enough in the subject to attend to what he said about them while you were with us. But if you are to be introduced to the ladies, you must be interested now. Let me first inform you that Mr and Mrs Farnabee have no children. And let me add that they have adopted the daughter and orphan child of Mrs Farnabee's sister. This sister, it seems, died many years ago, surviving her husband for a few months only. To complete the story of the past, death has also taken old Mr Ronald, the founder of the stationer's business, and his wife, Mrs Farnabee's mother. Dry facts, these, I don't deny it, but there is something more interesting to follow. I have next to tell you how Mr Hathcote first became acquainted with Mrs Farnabee. Now, Rufus, we are coming to something romantic at last. It is some time since Mr Hathcote ceased to perform his clerical duties, owing to a malady in the throat, which made it painful for him to take his place in the reading desk or the pulpit. His last curacy attached him to a church at the west end of London, and here, one Sunday evening, after he had preached the sermon, a lady in trouble came to him in the vestry for spiritual advice and consolation. She was a regular attendant at the church and something which he had said in that evening sermon had deeply affected her. Mr Hathcote spoke with her afterwards on many occasions at home. He felt a sincere interest in her, but he disliked her husband, and when he gave up his curacy, he ceased to pay visits to the house. As to what Mrs Farnabee's troubles were, I can tell you nothing. Mr Hathcote spoke very gravely and sadly when he told me that the subject of his conversations with her must be kept a secret. I doubt whether you and Mr Farnabee will get on well together, he said to me, but I shall be astonished if you are not favorably impressed by his wife and her niece. This was all I knew when I presented my letter of introduction to Mr Farnabee at his place of business. It was a grand stone building with great plate glass windows, all renewed and improved, they told me since old Mr Ronald's time. My letter and my card went into an office at the back, and I followed them after a while. A lean, hard, middle-aged man, buttoned up tight in a black frock coat, received me holding my written introduction open in his hand. He had a ruddy complexion not commonly seen in Londoners, so far as my experience goes. His iron grey hair and whiskers, especially the whiskers, were in wonderfully fine order, as carefully oiled and combed as if he had just come out of a barbershop. I had been in the morning to the zoological gardens. His eyes, when he lifted them from the letter to me, reminded me of the eyes of the eagles, glassy and cruel. I have a fault that I can't cure myself of. I like people or I dislike them at first sight, without knowing in either case, whether they deserve it or not. In the one moment when our eyes met, I felt the devil in me. In plain English I hated Mr Farnaby. Good morning, sir, he began in a loud, harsh, rasping voice. The letter you bring me takes me by surprise. I thought the writer was an old friend of yours, I said. An old friend of mine, Mr Farnaby answered, whose errors I deplore. When he joined your community, I looked upon him as a lost man. I am surprised at his writing to me. It is quite likely I was wrong, knowing nothing of the usage of society in England. I thought this reception of me downright rude. I had laid my hat on a chair. I took it up in my hand again, and delivered a parting shot at the brute with the oily whiskers. If I had known what you now tell me, I said, I should not have troubled you by presenting that letter. Good morning. This didn't in the least offend him. A curious smile broke out on his face. It widened his eyes, and it twitched up his mouth at one corner. He had held out his hand to stop me. I waited, in case he felt bound to make an apology. He did nothing of the sort. He only made a remark. You are young and hasty, you said. I may lament my friend's extravagances without failing on that account in what is due to an old friendship. You are probably not aware that we have no sympathy in England with socialists. I hid him back again. In that case, sir, a little socialism in England would do you no harm. We consider it a part of our duty as Christians to feel sympathy with all men who are honest in their convictions. No matter how mistaken, in our opinion, the convictions may be. I rather thought I had him there, and I took up my hat again to get off with the honours of victory while I had the chance. I am sincerely ashamed of myself, Rufus, in telling you all this. I ought to have given him back the soft answer that turned away wrath. My conduct was a disgrace to my community. What evil influence was at work in me? Was it the air of London? Or was it a possession of the devil? He stopped me for the second time, not in the least disconcerted by what I had said to him. His inbred conviction of his own superiority to a young adventurer like me was really something magnificent to witness. He did me justice. The Philistine Pharisee did me justice. Will you believe it? He made his remarks next on my good points as if I had been a young bull at a prize cattle show. Excuse me for noticing it, he said. Your manners are perfectly gentlemanlike and you speak English without any accent and yet you have been brought up in America. What does it mean? I grew worse and worse. I got downright sulky now. I suppose it means, I answered, that some of us in America cultivate ourselves as well as our land. We have our books and music, though you seem to think we only have our axes and spades. Englishmen don't claim a monopoly on good manners at Tadmore. We see no difference between an American gentleman and an English gentleman and as for speaking English with an accent, the Americans accuse us of doing that. He smiled again. How very absurd, he said, with a superb compassion for the benighted Americans. By this time, I suspect he began to feel that he had had enough of me. He got rid of me with an invitation. I shall be glad to receive you at my private residence and introduce you to my wife and her niece, our adopted daughter. There is the address. We have a few friends to dinner on Saturday next at 7. Will you give us the pleasure of your company? We are all aware that there is a distinction between civility and cordiality, but I myself never knew how wide that distinction might be until Mr Farnaby invited me to dinner. If I had not been curious, after what Mr Hethcote had told me, to see Mrs Farnaby and her niece, I should certainly have slipped out of the engagement. As it was, I promised to dine with oily whiskers. He put his hand into mine at parting. It felt as moistly cold as a dead fish. After getting out again into the street, I turned into the first tavern I passed and ordered a drink. Shall I tell you what else I did? I went into the lavatory and washed Mr Farnaby off my hand. NB If I had behaved in this way at Tadmore, I should have been punished with the lighter penalty, taking my meals by myself and being forbidden to enter the common room for eight and forty hours. I feel I am getting wickeder and wickeder in London. I have half my mind to join you in Ireland. What does Tom Moore say of his countrymen? He ought to know, I suppose. For though they love women and golden store, Sir Knight, they love honour and virtue more. They must have been all socialists in Tom Moore's time. Just the place for me. I have been obliged to wait a little. A dense fog has descended on us by way of variety, with a stinking coal fire, with the gas lit and the curtains drawn at half past eleven in the forenoon. I feel that I am in my own country again at last. Patience, my friend, patience. I am coming to the ladies. Entering Mr Farnaby's private residence on the appointed day, I became acquainted with one more of the innumerable insincerities of modern English life. When a man asks you to dine with him at seven o'clock in other countries, he means what he says. In England he means half past seven and sometimes a quarter to eight. At seven o'clock I was the only person in Mr Farnaby's drawing room. At ten minutes past seven, Mr Farnaby made his appearance. I had a good mind to take his place in the middle of the hearth rug and say, Farnaby, I am glad to see you. But I looked at his whiskers and they said to me as plainly as words could speak, better not. In five minutes more Mrs Farnaby joined us. I wish I was a practiced author or know I would rather for the moment be a competent portrait painter and send you Mrs Farnaby's likeness enclosed. How I am to describe her in words I really don't know. My dear fellow, she almost frightened me. I never before saw such a woman. I never expect to see such a woman again. There was nothing in her figure or in her way of moving that produced this impression on me. She is little and fat and walks with a firm heavy step like the step of a man. Her face is what I want to make you see as plainly as I thought myself. It was her face that startled me. So far as I can pretend to judge she must have been pretty in a healthy way when she was young. I declare I hardly know whether she is not pretty now. She certainly has no marks or wrinkles. Her hair either has no gray in it or is too light to show the gray. She has preserved her fair complexion perhaps with art to assist it. I can't say. As for her lips, I am not speaking disrespectfully. I am only describing them truly when I say that they invite kisses in spite of her. In two words, though she has been married, as I know from what one of the guests told me after dinner for 16 years, she would still be an irresistible little woman, but for the one startling drawback of her eyes. Don't mistake me in themselves. They are large, well-opened blue eyes and may at one time have been the chief attraction in her faith. And there is an expression of suffering in them. Long, unsolest suffering as I believe. So despairing and so dreadful that she really made my heart ache when I looked at her. I will swear to it that woman lives in some secret hell of her own making. And longs for the release of death and is so inveterately full of bodily life and strength that she may carry her burden with her to the utmost verge of life. I am digging the pen into the paper. I feel this so strongly and I am so wretchedly incompetent as to express my feeling. Can you imagine a diseased mind imprisoned in a healthy body? I don't care what the doctors or books may say. It is that and nothing else. Nothing else will solve the mystery of the smooth face, the fleshy figure, the firm step, the muscular grip of her hand when she gives it to you, and the soul in torment that looks at you all the while out of her eyes. It is useless to tell me that such a contradiction as this cannot exist. I have seen the woman and she does exist. Oh yes, I can fancy you grinning over my letter. I can hear you saying to yourself. Where did he pick up his experience, I wonder? I have no experience. I have only something that serves me instead of it. And I don't know what. The elder brother at Admore used to say it was sympathy, but he is a sentimentalist. Well, Mr Farnaby presented me to his wife and then walked away as if he was sick of both of us and looked out of the window. For some reason or other, Mrs Farnaby seemed to be surprised for the moment by my personal appearance. Her husband had, very likely, not told her how young I was. She got over her momentary astonishment and, signing to me to sit by her on the sofa, said the necessary words of welcome, evidently thinking something else all the time. The strange, miserable eyes looked over my shoulder instead of looking at me. Mr Farnaby tells me you have been living in America. The tone in which she spoke was curiously quiet and monotonous. I have heard such tones in the far west from lonely settlers without a neighbouring soul to speak to. Has Mrs Farnaby no neighbouring soul to speak to except at dinner parties? You are an Englishman. Are you not? She went on. I said yes and cast about my mind for something to say to her. She saved me the trouble by making me the victim of a complete series of questions. This, as I afterwards discovered, was her way of finding conversation for strangers. Have you ever met with absent-minded people to whom it is a relief to ask questions mechanically without feeling the slightest interest in the answers? She began, where did you live in America? At Tadmore in the state of Illinois. What sort of place is Tadmore? I described the place as well as I could under the circumstances. What made you go to Tadmore? It was impossible to reply to this without speaking of the community, feeling that the subject was not in the least likely to interest her. I spoke as briefly as I could. To my astonishment, I evidently began to interest her from that moment. Her series of questions went on, but now she not only listened, she was eager for the answers. Are there women among you? Nearly as many women as men. Another change, over the weary misery of her eyes, there flashed a bright look of interest which completely transformed them. Her articulation even quickened when she put her next question. Are any of the women friendless creatures who came to you from England? Yes, some of them. I thought of Melisand as I spoke. Was this new interest that I had so innocently aroused an interest in Melisand? Her next question only added to my perplexity. Her next question proved that my guess had completely failed to hit the mark. Are there any young women among them? Mr Farnaby, standing with his back to us thus far, suddenly turned and looked at her when she inquired if there were young women among us. Oh yes, I said, mere girls. She pressed so near to me that her knees touched mine. How old, she asked eagerly. Mr Farnaby left the window, walked close up to the surface and deliberately interrupted us. Nasty muggy weather isn't it, he said. I suppose the climate of America. Mrs Farnaby deliberately interrupted her husband. How old, she repeated in a louder town. I was bound, of course, to answer the lady of the house. Some girls from 18 to 20 and some younger. How much younger? Oh, from 16 to 17. She grew more and more excited. She positively laid her hand on my arm in her eagerness to secure my attention all to herself. American girls or English, she resumed, her fat, firm fingers closing on me with a tremulous grasp. Shall you be in town in November? said Mr Farnaby, purposely interrupting us again. If you would like to see the Lord Mayor's show, Mrs Farnaby impatiently shook me by the arm. American girls or English, she reiterated, more obstinately than ever. Mr Farnaby gave her one look. If he could have put her on the blazing fire and have burned her up in an instant by an effort of will, I believe he would have made the effort. He saw that I was observing him and turned quickly from his wife to me. His ready face was pale with suppressed rage. My early arrival had given Mrs Farnaby an opportunity of speaking to me, which he had not anticipated in inviting me to dinner. Come and see my pictures, he said. His wife still held me fast. Whether he liked it or not, I had again no choice but to answer her. Some American girls and some English, I said. Her eyes opened wider and wider in unutterable expectation. She suddenly advanced her face so close to mine that I felt her hot breath on my cheeks as the next words burst their way through her lips. Born in England? No. Born at Admore. She dropped my arm. The light died out of her eyes in an instant. In some inconceivable way I had utterly destroyed some secret expectation that she had fixed on me. She actually left me on the sofa and took a chair on the opposite side of the fireplace. Mr Farnaby, turning paler and paler, stepped up to her as she changed her place. I rose to look at the pictures on the wall nearest to me. You remarked the extraordinary keenness of my sense of hearing while we were fellow passengers on the steamship. When he stooped over her and whispered in her ear, I heard him, though nearly the whole breadth of the room was between us. You hellcat! That was what Mr Farnaby said to his wife. The clock on the mantelpiece struck the half hour after seven. In quick succession, the guests at the dinner now entered the room. I was so staggered by the extraordinary scene of married life which I had just witnessed that the guests produced only a very faint impression upon me. My mind was absorbed in trying to find the true meaning of what I had seen and heard. Was Mrs Farnaby a little mad? I dismissed that idea as soon as it occurred to me. Nothing that I had observed in her justified it. The truer conclusion appeared to be that she was deeply interested in some absent and possibly lost young creature whose age, judging by the actions and tones which had sufficiently revealed that part of the secret to me, could not be more than sixteen or seventeen years. How long had she cherished the hope of seeing the girl or hearing of her? It must have been, anyhow, a hope very deeply rooted, for she had been perfectly incapable of controlling herself when I had accidentally roused it. As for her husband, there could be no doubt that the subject was not merely distasteful to him, but so absolutely infuriating that he could not even keep his temper in the presence of a third person invited to his house. Had he injured the girl in any way? Was he responsible for her disappearance? Did his wife know it or only suspect it? Who was the girl? What was the secret of Mrs Farnaby's extraordinary interest in her? Mrs Farnaby, whose marriage was childless, whose interest one would have thought would be naturally concentrated on her adopted daughter, her sister's orphan child. In conjectures, such as these, I completely lost myself. Let me hear what your ingenuity can make of the puzzle and let me return to Mr Farnaby's dinner waiting on Mr Farnaby's table. The servant threw open the drawing room door and the most honoured guest present led Mrs Farnaby to the dining room. I roused myself to some observation of what was going on about me. No ladies had been invited and the men were all of a certain age. I looked in vain for the charming niece. Was she not well enough to appear at the dinner party? I ventured on putting the question to Mr Farnaby. You will find her at the tea table when we return to the drawing room. Girls are out of place at dinner parties. So he answered me, not very graciously. As I stepped out on the landing I looked up, I don't know why, unless I was the unconscious object of magnetic attraction. Anyhow, I had my reward. A bright young face peeped over the balusters of the upper staircase and modestly withdrew itself again in a violent hurry. Everybody but Mr Farnaby and myself had disappeared in the dining room. Was she having a peep at the young socialist? Another interruption to my letter caused by another change in the weather. The fog had vanished. The waiter is turning off the gas and letting in the drab-colored daylight. I ask him if it is still raining. He smiles and rubs his hands and says, It looks like clearing up soon, sir. This man's head is grey. He has been all his life a waiter in London. And he can still see the cheerful side of things. What native strength of mind cast away on a vocation that is unworthy of it? Well, and now about the Farnaby dinner. I feel a tightness in the lower part of my waist-coast, Rufus, when I think of the dinner. There was such a quantity of it, and Mr Farnaby was so tyrannically resolute in forcing his luxuries down the throats of his guests. His eye was on me if I let my plate go away before it was empty. As I said, I have paid for this magnificent dinner and I mean to see you eat it. I were printed a list of the dishes as they succeeded each other, also informed us of the varieties of the wine, which it was imperatively necessary to drink with each dish. I got into difficulties early in the proceedings. A taste of sherry, for instance, is absolutely nauseous to me. And rhaen wine turns into vinegar ten minutes after it has passed my lips. I asked for the wine that I could drink out of its turn. You should have seen Mr Farnaby's face when I violated the rules of his dinner table. It was the one amusing incident of the feast. The one thing that alleviated the dreary and mysterious spectacle of Mrs Farnaby. There she sat with her mind hundreds of miles away from everything that was going on about her. Entangling the two guests on her right hand and on her left in a network of vacant questions, just as she had entangled me. I discovered that one of these gentlemen was the barrister and the other a shipowner by the answers which Mrs Farnaby absently extracted from them on the subject of their respective vocations in life. And while she questioned incessantly, she ate incessantly. Her vigorous body insisted on being fed. She would have emptied her wine glass, I suspect, as readily as she plied her knife and fork. But I discovered that a certain system of restraint was established in the matter of wine. At intervals, Mr Farnaby just looked at the butler and the butler and his bottle on those occasions to liberally pass her by. Not the slightest visible change was produced in her by the eating and drinking. She was equal to any demands that any dinner could make on her. There was no flush in her face, no change in her spirits when she rose in obedience to English custom and retired to the drawing room. Left together over their wine, the men began to talk politics. I listened at the outset, expecting to get some information. Our readings in modern history at Tadmore had informed us of the dominant political position of the middle classes in England since the time of the first reform bill. Mr Farnaby's guests represented the respectable mediocrity of social position, the professional and commercial average of the nation. They all talked glibly enough, I and an old gentleman who sat next to me being the only listeners. I had spent the morning lazily in the smoking room of the hotel reading the day's newspapers. And what did I hear now when the politicians sat in for their discussion? I heard the leading articles of the day's newspapers translated into bald chat and coolly addressed by one man to another, as if they were his own individual views on public affairs. This absurd imposter positively went the round of the table, received and respected by everybody with a stolid solemnity of make-believe, which was downright shameful to see. Not a man present said, I saw that today in the times, or the telegraph. Not a man present had an opinion of his own, or if he had an opinion ventured to express it, or if he knew nothing of the subject was honest enough to say so. One enormous sham, and everybody in a conspiracy to take it for the real thing. That is an accurate description of the state of political feeling among the representative men at Mr Farnaby's dinner. I am not judging rashly by one example only. I have been taken to clubs and public festivals only to hear over and over again what I heard in Mr Farnaby's dining room. Does it need any great foresight to see that such a state of things as this cannot last much longer in a country which is not done with reform itself yet? The time is coming in England when the people who have opinions of their own will be heard and when Parliament will be forced to open the door to them. This is a nice outbreak of Republican freedom. What does my long-suffering friend think of it, waiting all the time to be presented to Mr Farnaby's niece? Everything in its place, Rufus, the niece followed the politics at the time and she shall follow them now. He shall hear first what my next neighbor said of her, a quaint old fellow, a retired doctor if I remember correctly. He seemed to be as weary of the second-hand newspaper talk as I was. He quite sparkled and cheered up when I introduced the subject of Miss Regina. Have I mentioned her name yet? If not, here it is for you in full. Miss Regina smiled me. I call her the brown girl, said the old gentleman, brown hair, brown eyes and a brown skin. No, not a brunette, not dark enough for that. A warm, delicate brown. Wait till you see it. Takes after her father, I should tell you. He was a fine-looking man in his time. Foreign blood in his veins by his mother's side, Miss Regina gets her queer name by being Christian after his mother. Never mind her name, she's a charming person. Let's drink to her health. We drank her health, remembering that he had called her the brown girl. I said I supposed she was still quite young. Better than young, the doctor answered, in the prime of life. I call her a girl by habit. Wait till you see her. Has she a good figure, sir? Ha! Sure like the Turks, are you? A nice-looking woman doesn't content you. You must have her well-made, too. We can accommodate you, sir. We are slim and tall, with the swing of our hips, and we walk like a goddess. Wait and see how her head is put on her shoulders. I say no more. Proud, not she. A simple, unaffected, kind-hearted creature. Always the same. I never saw her out of temper in my life. I never heard her speak ill of anybody. The man who gets her will be a man to be envied, I can tell you. Is she engaged to be married? No, she has had plenty of offers, but she doesn't seem to care for anything of that sort so far. Devotes herself to Mrs Farnaby and keeps up her school friendships. A splendid creature with the vital thermometer at temperature heart. A calm, meditative, equitable person. Pass me the olives. Only think the man who discovered olives is unknown. No statute of him erected in any part of the civilized earth. I know a few more remarkable instances of human ingratitude. I risked a bold question, but not on the subject of olives. Isn't Mrs Regina's life rather a dull one in this house? The doctor cautiously lowered his voice. It would be dull enough to some women. Regina's early life has been a hard one. Her mother was Mr Ronald's eldest daughter. The old brute never forgave her for marrying against his wishes. Mrs Ronald did all she could secretly to help the young wife in disgrace. But old Ronald had so command of the money and kept it to himself. From Regina's earliest childhood there was always distress at home. Her father harassed by creditors, trying one scheme after another and failing in all. Her mother and herself half starved with their very bedclothes sometimes at the pawnbrokers. I attended them in their illnesses and though they hid their wretchedness from everybody else, proud is Lucifer. Both of them. They couldn't hide it from me. Fancy the change to this house. I don't say that living here in Clover is enough for such a person. As Regina, I only say it has its influence. She is one of those young women, sir, who delight in sacrificing themselves to others. She is devoted, for instance, to Mrs Farnaby. I only hope Mrs Farnaby is worthy of it. Not that it matters to Regina. What she does, she does out of her own sweetness of disposition. She brightens this household, I can tell you, Farnaby did a wise thing. In his own domestic interests when he adopted her as his daughter. She thinks she can never be grateful enough to him, to good creature, though she has repaid him a hundredfold. He'll find that out one of these days when a husband takes her away. Don't suppose that I want to disparage our host. He's an old friend of mine. But he's a little too apt to take the good things that fall to his lot as if they were nothing but a just recognition of his own merits. I have told that to his face often enough to have a right to say it of him when he doesn't hear me. Do you smoke? I wish they would drop their politics and take the tobacco. I say, Farnaby, I want a cigar. This broad hint produced an adjournment to the smoking room, the doctor leading the way. I began to wonder how much longer my introduction to Mrs Regina was to be delayed. It was not to come until I had seen a new side of my host's character and had found myself promoted to a place of my own in Mr Farnaby's estimation. As we rose from the table, one of the guests spoke to me of a visit that he had recently paid to the part of Buckinghamshire which I come from. I was shown a remarkably picturesque old house on the Heath, he said. They told me it had been inhabited for centuries by the family of the Golden Hearts. Are you in any way related to them? I answered that I was, very nearly related, having been born in the house, and there, as I suppose, the matter ended. Being the youngest man of the party, I waited, of course, until the rest of the gentlemen had passed out to the smoking room. Mr Farnaby and I were left together. To my astonishment, he put his arm cordially into mine and led me out of the dining room with the genial familiarity of an old friend. I'll give you such a cigar, he said, as you can't buy for money in all London. You have enjoyed yourself, I hope. Now we know what wine you like, you won't have to ask the butler for it next time. Drop in any day and take pot luck with us. He came to a standstill in the hall. His brassy, rasping voice assumed a new tone, a sort of parody of respect. Have you been to your family place, he asked, since your return to England? He had evidently heard the few words exchanged between his friend and myself. It seemed odd that he should take any interest in a place belonging to people who were strangers to him. However, his question was easily answered. I had only to inform him that my father had sold the house when he left England. Oh dear, I'm sorry to hear that, he said. Those old family places ought to be kept up. The greatness of England, sir, strikes its roots in the old families of England. They may be rich or they may be poor. That doesn't matter. An old family is an old family. It's sad to see their hearths and homes sold to wealthy manufacturers who don't know who their own grandfathers were. Would you allow me to ask what is the family motto of the Golden Hearts? Shall I own the truth? The bottles circulated freely at Mr Farnaby's table. I began to wonder whether he was quite sober. I said I was sorry to disappoint him, but I really did not know what my family motto was. He was unaffectedly shocked. I think I saw a ring on your finger, he said, as soon as he recovered himself. He lifted my left hand in his own cold fishy paw. The one ring I wear is of plain gold. It belonged to my father and it has his initials inscribed on the signet. Could gracious, you haven't got your coat of arms on your seal? cried Mr Farnaby. My dear sir, I am old enough to be your father and I must take the freedom of remonstrating with you. Your coat of arms and your motto are no doubt at the Herald's office. Why don't you apply for them? Shall I go there for you? I will do it with pleasure. You shouldn't be careless about these things. You shouldn't indeed. I listened in speechless astonishment. Was he ironically expressing his contempt for old families? We got into the smoking room at last, and my friend the doctor enlightened me privately in a corner. Every word Mr Farnaby had said had been spoken in earnest. This man, who owes his rise from the lowest social position entirely to himself, who, judging by his own experience, has every reason to despise the poor pride of ancestry, actually feels a sincerely servile admiration for the accident of birth. Oh poor human nature, as somebody says, how cordially I agree with somebody. We went up to the drawing room and I was introduced to the brown girl at last. What impression did she produce on me? Do you know, Rufus, that there is some perverse reluctance in me to go on with this inordinately long letter just when I have arrived at the most interesting part of it? I can't account for my own state of mind. I only know that it is so. The difficulty of describing the young lady doesn't perplex me like the difficulty of describing Mrs Farnaby. I can see her now as vividly as if she was present in the room. I even remember, and this is astonishing in a man, the dress that she wore. And yet, I shrink from writing about her as if there was something wrong in it. Do me a kindness, good friend, and let me send off all these sheets of paper, the idle work of an idle morning, just as they are, when I write next I promise to be ashamed of my own capricious state of mind and to paint the portrait of Miss Regina at full length. In the meanwhile, don't run away with the idea that she has made a disagreeable impression upon me. Good heavens, it is far from that. You have had the old doctor's opinion of her. Very well, multiply this opinion by ten, and you have mine. Note, a strange endorsement appears on this letter dated several months after the period at which it was received. Ah, poor Emilius, he had better have gone back to Miss Melisand and put up with the little drawbacks of her age, what a bright, lovable fellow he was. Goodbye to Goldenheart. These lines are not signed. They are known, however, to be in the handwriting of Rufus Dingwell. End of Book II, Chapter 1 Recording by Linda Andrews The Fallen Leaves by Wilkie Collins Book II, Chapter 2 I particularly want you to come and lunch with us, dearest Cecilia, the day after tomorrow. Don't say to yourself the Farnabee's house is dull and Regina is too slow for me. Don't think about the long drive for the horses from your place to London. This letter has an interest of its own, my dear. I have got something new for you. What do you think of a young man who is clever and handsome and agreeable and wonder of wonders quite unlike any other young Englishman you ever saw in your life? You are to meet him at luncheon, and you are to get used to his strange name beforehand, for which purpose I enclose his card. He made his first appearance at our house at dinner yesterday evening. When he was presented to me at the tea table, he was not to be put off with a bow. He insisted unshaking hands. Where I have been, he explained, we help a first introduction with a little cordiality. He looked into his teacup after he said that with an air of a man who could say something more if he had a little encouragement. Of course I encouraged him. I suppose shaking hands is much the same form in America that bowing is in England? I said as suggestively as I could. He looked up directly and shook his head. We have too many forms in this country, he said. The virtue of hospitality, for instance, seems to have become a form in England. In America, when a new acquaintance says, come and see me, he means it. When he says it here, in nine cases out of ten, he looks unaffectedly astonished if you are full enough to take him out his word. I hate insincerity, Miss Regina, and now I have returned to my own country. I find insincerity one of the established institutions of English society. Can we do anything for you? Ask them to do anything for you and you will see what it means. Thank you for such a pleasant evening. Get into the carriage with them when they go home and you will find that it means what a bore. Ah, Mr So-and-So. Allow me to congratulate you on your new appointment. Mr So-and-So passes out of hearing and you discover what the congratulations mean. Corrupt old brute, he has got the price of his vote at the last division. Oh, Mr Blank, what a charming book you have written. Mr Blank passes out of hearing and you ask what his book is about. To tell you the truth, I haven't read it. Hush, he's received it court. One must say these things. The other day a friend took me to a grand dinner at the Lord Mayor's. I accompanied him first to his club. Many distinguished guests met there before going on to the dinner. Heavens, how they spoke of the Lord Mayor. One of them didn't know his name and didn't want to know it. Another wasn't certain whether he was a tallow, chandler, or a button maker. A third, who had met with him somewhere, described him as a damned ass. A fourth said, oh, don't be hard on him. He's only a vulgar old cockney without an H in his whole composition. A chorus of general agreement followed as the dinner hour approached. What a bore, I whispered to my friend. Why do they go? He answered, you see, one must do this sort of thing. And when we got to the mansion house, they did that sort of thing with a vengeance. When the speechmaking said in, these very men who had all expressed their profound contempt for the Lord Mayor behind his back, now flattered him to his face in such a shamelessly servile way, with such a meanly, complete insensibility to their own baseness that I did really and literally turn sick. I slipped out into the fresh air and fumigated myself after the company I had kept with a cigar. No, no, it's useless to excuse these things. I could quote dozens of other instances that have come under my own observation by saying that they are trifles. When trifles make themselves habits of yours or mine, they become a part of your character or mine. We have an inveterately false and vicious system of society in England. If you want to trace one of the causes, look back to the little organized insensurities of English life. Of course you understand Cecilia, that this was not all said at one burst as I have written it here. Some of it came out in the way of answers to my inquiries, and some of it was spoken in the intervals of laughing, talking, and tea drinking. But I want to show you how very different this young man is from the young man whom we are in the habit of meeting, and so I huddle this talk together in one sample, as Papa Farnaby would call it. My dear, he is decidedly handsome. I mean our delightful Amelias. His face has a bright, eager look, indescribably refreshing as a contrast to the stolid composure of the ordinary young Englishman. His smile is charming. He moves his gracefully with his little self-consciousness as my Italian greyhound. He has been brought up among the strangest people in America, and, would you believe it, he is actually a socialist. Don't be alarmed. He shocked us all dreadfully by declaring that his socialism was entirely learnt out of the New Testament. I have looked at the New Testament since he mentioned some of his principles to me, and do you know, I declare it is true. Oh, I forgot. The young socialist plays and sings. When we asked him to go to the piano, he got up and began directly. I don't do it well enough, he said, to want a great deal of pressing. He sang old English songs with great taste and sweetness. One of the gentlemen of our party, evidently disliking him, spoke rather rudely. I thought. A socialist who sings and plays, he said, is a harmless socialist indeed. I begin to feel that my balance is safe at my bankers, and that London won't be set on fire with petroleum this time. He got his answer, I can tell you. Why should we set London on fire? London takes a regular percentage of your income from you, sir, whether you like it or not, unsound socialist principles. You are the man who has got the money, and socialism says you must and shall help the man who has got none. That is exactly what your own poor law says to you every time the collector leaves the paper at your house. Wasn't it clever? And it was doubly severe, because it was good humoredly said. Between ourselves, Cecilia, I think he is struck with me. When I walked about the room, his bright eyes followed me everywhere. And when I took a chair by somebody else, not feeling it quite right to keep him all to myself, he invariably contrived to find a seat on the other side of me. His voice, too, had a certain tone, addressed to me and to know other person in the room. Judge for yourself when you come here. But don't jump to conclusions, if you please. Oh no, I am not going to fall in love with him. It isn't in me to fall in love with anybody. Do you remember what the last man whom I refused said of me? She has a machine on the left side of her that pumps blood through her body. But she has no heart. I pity the woman who marries that man. One thing more, my dear. This curious Amelius seems to notice trifles which escape men in general, just as we do. Towards the close of the evening poor Mama Farnaby fell into one of her vacant states half asleep and half awake on the sofa in the back drawing room. Your aunt interests me, he whispered. She must have suffered some terrible sorrow at some past time in her life. Fancy a man seeing that. He dropped some hints which showed that he was puzzling his brains to discover how I got on with her and whether I was in her confidence or not. He even went to the length of asking what sort of life I had led with Uncle and Aunt, who have adopted me. My dear, it was done so delicately with such irresistible sympathy and such a charming air of respect that I was quite startled when I remembered in the wakeful hours of the night how freely I had spoken to him. Not that I have betrayed any secrets, for, as you know, I am as ignorant as everybody else of what the early troubles of my poor dear aunt may have been. But I did tell him how I came into the house a helpless little orphan girl, how generously these two good relatives adopted me, and how happy it made me to find that I could really do something to cheer their sad, childless lives. I wish I was half as good as you are, he said. I can't understand how you became fond of Mrs Farnaby. Perhaps it began in sympathy and compassion. Just think of that from a young Englishman. He went on confessing his perplexities as if we had known one another from childhood. I am a little surprised to see Mrs Farnaby present at parties of this sort. I should have thought she would have stayed in her own room. That's just what she objects to do, I answered. She says people will report that her husband is ashamed of her, or that she is not fit to be seen in society if she doesn't appear at the parties, and she is determined not to be misrepresented that way. Can you understand my talking to him with so little reserve? It is a specimen, Cecilia, of the odd manner in which my impulses carry me away in this man's company. He is so nice and gentle and yet so manly. I shall be curious to see if you can resist him with your superior firmness and knowledge of the world. But the strangest incident of all I have not told you yet, feeling some hesitation about the best way of describing it, so as to interest you in what is deeply interested me. I must tell it as plainly as I can and leave it to speak for itself. Who do you think has invited Amelia's golden heart to luncheon? Not to Papa Farnaby, who only invites him to dinner. Not I, it is as needless to say. Who is it then? Mama Farnaby herself. He is actually so interested her that she has been thinking of him, dreaming of him in his absence. I heard her last night, poor thing, talking and grinding her teeth and her sleep, and I went into her room to try if I could quiet her in the usual way by putting my cool hand on her forehead and pressing it gently. The old doctor says it's magnetism, which is ridiculous. Well, it didn't succeed this time. She went on muttering and making the dreadful sound with her teeth. Occasionally, a word was spoken clearly enough to be intelligible. I could make no connected sense of what I heard, but I could positively discover this, that she was dreaming of our guest from America. I said nothing about it, of course, when I went upstairs with her cup of tea this morning. What do you think was her first thing she asked for? Pen, ink and paper. Her next request was that I would write Mr. Goldenheart's address on the envelope. Are you going to write to him? I asked. Yes, she said. I want to speak to him while John is out of the way at business. Secrets, I said, turning it off with a laugh. She answered speaking gravely and earnestly. Yes, secrets. The letter was written and sent to his hotel, inviting him to lunch with us on the first day when he was disengaged. He has replied, appointed the day after tomorrow. By way of trying to penetrate the mystery, I inquired if she wished me to appear at the luncheon. She considered with herself before she answered that, I want him to be amused and put in a good humour, she said, before I speak to him. You must lunch with us, and ask Cecilia. She stopped and considered once more. Mind one thing she went on. Your uncle is to know nothing about it. If you tell him, I will never speak to you again. Is this not extraordinary? Whatever her dream may have been, it has evidently produced a strong impression on her. I firmly believe she means to take him away with her to her own room when the luncheon is over. Dearest Cecilia, you must help me to stop this. I have never been trusted with her secrets. They may, for all I know, be innocent secrets enough, poor soul, but it is surely of the highest degree undesirable that she should take into her confidence a young man who is only an acquaintance of ours. She will either make herself ridiculous or do something worse. If Mr Farnaby finds out, I really tremble for what may happen. For the sake of old friendship, don't leave me to face this difficulty by myself. Align only one line, dearest, to say that you will not fail me. End of book two, chapter two. Book three, chapter one of The Fallen Leaves. 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 Paul Thomas. The Fallen Leaves by Wilkie Collins. Book three, chapter one. It is an afternoon concert, and modern German music was largely represented on the program. The patient English people sat in closely packed rows listening to the pretentious instrumental noises which were impudently offered to them as a substitute for melody. While these docile victims of the worst of all quackeries, musical quackery, were still toiling through their first hour of endurance. A passing ripple of interest stirred the stagnant surface of the audience, caused by the sudden rising of a lady overcome by the heat. She was quickly let out of the concert room after whispering a word of explanation to two young ladies seated at her side by a gentleman who made a fourth member of the party. Left by themselves, the young ladies looked at each other, whispered to each other. Half rows from their places became confusedly conscious that the wandering attention of the audience was fixed on them and decided at last on following their companions out of the hall. But the lady who had proceeded them had some reason of her own for not waiting to recover herself in the vestibule. When the gentleman in charge of her asked if he should get a glass of water, she answered sharply, get a cab and be quick about it. The cab was found in a moment. The gentleman got in after her by the lady's invitation. Are you better now? he asked. I have never had anything to matter with me. She replied quietly. Tell the man to drive faster. Having obeyed his instructions, the gentleman, otherwise Amelius, began to look a little puzzled. The lady, Mrs Farnaby herself, perceived his condition of mind and favored him with an explanation. I had my own motive for asking you to luncheon today, she said, in that steady downright way of speaking that was peculiar to her. I wanted to have a word with you privately. My niece Regina, don't be surprised at my calling her my niece when you have heard Mr Farnaby call her his daughter. She is my niece. Adopting her is a mere phrase. It doesn't alter facts. It doesn't make her Mr Farnaby's child or mine, does it? She had ended with a question, but she seemed to want no answer to it. Her face was turned toward the cab window instead of towards Amelius. He was one of those rare people who are capable of remaining silent when they have nothing to say. Mrs Farnaby went on. My niece Regina is a good creature in her way, but she suspects people. She has some reason of her own for trying to prevent me from taking you into my confidence. And her friend Cecilia is helping her. Yes, yes, the concert was the obstacle which they had arranged to put in my way. You were obliged to go after telling them you wanted to hear the music, and I couldn't complain, because they had got a fourth ticket for me. I made up my mind what to do, and I have done it. Nothing wonderful in my taking ill with the heat. Nothing wonderful in your doing your duty as a gentleman and looking after me. And what is the consequence? Here we are together, on our way to my room, in spite of them. Not so bad for a poor helpless creature like me, is it? Inwardly wandering what it all meant, and what she could possibly want with him, Amelius suggested that the young ladies might leave the concert room, and, not finding them in the vestibule, might follow them back to the house. Mrs Farnaby turned her head from the window, and looked him in the face for the first time. I have been a match for them so far, she said. Leave it to me, and you will find I can be a match for them still. After saying this, she watched the puzzled face of Amelius with a moment's steady scrutiny. Her full lips relaxed into a faint smile. Her head sank slowly in her bosom. I wonder whether he thinks I'm a little crazy, she said quietly to herself. Some women in my place would have gone mad years ago. Perhaps it might have been better for me. She looked up again at Amelius. I believe you are a good temperate fellow, she went on. Are you in your usual temper now? Did you enjoy your lunch? Has the lively company of the young ladies put you in a good humor with women generally? I want you to be in a particularly good humor with me. She spoke quite gravely. Amelius, a little to his own astonishment, found himself answering gravely on his side, assuring her, in the most conventional terms, that he was entirely at her service. Something in her manner affected him disagreeably. If he had followed his impulse, he would have jumped out of the cab, and have recovered his liberty and his lightheartedness at one and the same moment by running away at the top of his speed. The driver turned into the street in which Mr Farnaby's house was situated. Mrs Farnaby stopped him and got out at some little distance from the door. You think the young ones will follow us back, she said to Amelius. It doesn't matter. The servants will have nothing to tell them if they do. She checked him in the act of knocking when they reached the house door. It's tea time downstairs, she whispered, looking at her watch. You and I are going into the house without letting the servants know anything about it. Now do you understand? She produced from her pocket a steel ring, with several keys attached to it. A duplicate of Mr Farnaby's key. She explained as she chose one and opened the street door. Sometimes when I find myself waking in the small hours of the morning, I can't endure my bed. I must go out and walk. My key lets me in again, just as it lets us in now, without disturbing anybody. You had better say nothing about it to Mr Farnaby. Not that it matters much, for I should refuse to give up my key if he asked me. But you're a good natured fellow, and you don't want to make bad blood between man and wife, do you? Step softly and follow me. Emilius hesitated. There was something repellent to him in entering another man's house under these clandestine conditions. All right, whispered Mrs Farnaby, perfectly understanding him. Consult your dignity. Go out again and knock at the door, and ask if I am home. I only wanted to prevent a fuss and an interruption when Regina comes back. If the servants don't know we are here, they will tell her we haven't returned. Don't you see? It would have been absurd to contest the matter after this. Emilius followed her submissively to the farther end of the hall. There she opened the door of a long narrow room, built out at the back of the house. This is my den, she said, signing to Emilius to pass in. While we are here nobody will disturb us. She laid aside her bonnet and shawl and pointed to a box of cigars on the table. Take one, she resumed. I smoke too, when nobody sees me. That's one of the reasons I dare say why Regina wished to keep you out of my room. I find smoking composes me. What do you say? She lit a cigar and handed the matches to Emilius. Finding that he stood fairly committed to the adventure, he resigned himself to circumstances with his customary facility. He too lit a cigar and took a chair by the fire and looked about him with an impenitorable composure worthy of Rufus Dingwell himself. The room bore no sort of resemblance to a boudoir. A faded old turkey carpet was spread on the floor. The common mahogany table had no covering. The chins on the chairs was of truly venerable age. Some of the furniture made the place look like a room occupied by a man. Dumbbells and clubs of the sort used in athletic exercises hung over the bare mantelpiece. A large ugly oakon structure with closed doors, something between a cabinet and a wardrobe, rose on one side to the ceiling. A turning lathe stood against the opposite wall. Above the lathe were hung in a row four prints in dingy old frames of black wood, which especially attracted the attention of Emilius. Mostly foreign prints. They were all discolored by time and they all strangely represented different aspects of the same subject. Infants parted from their parents by desertion or robbery. The young Moses was there. In his Ark of Bullrushes on the riverbank, Good Saint Francis appeared next, roaming the streets and rescuing forsaken children in the wintery night. A third print showed the Foundling Hospital of Old Paris with the turning cage in the wall and the bell to ring when the infant was placed in it. The next and last subject was the stealing of a child from the lap of his slumbering nurse by a gypsy woman. These sadly suggestive subjects were the only ornaments on the walls. No traces of books or music were visible. No needlework of any sort was to be seen. No elegant trifles, no china or flowers, or delicate lacework or sparkling jewellery, nothing, absolutely nothing, suggestive of a woman's presence, appeared in any part of the room. I have got several things to say to you, she began, but one thing must be settled first. Give me your sacred word of honour that you will not repeat to any mortal creature what I am about to tell you. She reclined in her chair and drew a mouthful of smoke and puffed it out again and waited for his reply. Young and unsuspicious as he was, this unscrupulous method of taking his confidence by storm startled Amelius. His natural tact and good sense told him plainly that Mrs Farnaby was asking too much. Don't be angry with me, ma'am, he said. I must remind you that you are going to tell me your secrets, without any wish to intrude on them on my part. She interrupted him there. What does that matter? she asked coolly. Amelius was obstinate. He went on with what he had to say. I should like to know, he proceeded, that I am doing no wrong to anybody before I give you my promise. You will be doing a kindness to a miserable creature, she answered, as quietly as ever, and you will be doing no wrong to yourself or to anybody else if you promise. That is all I can say. Your cigar is out. Take a light. Amelius took a light with the dog-like desility of a man in a state of blank amazement. She waited, watching him composedly until his cigar was in working order again. Well, she asked, will you promise me now? Amelius gave her his promise. On your sacred word of honour, she persisted. Amelius repeated the formula. She reclined in her chair once more. I want to speak to you as if I was speaking to an old friend, she explained. I suppose I may call you Amelius? Certainly. Well, Amelius, I must tell you first that I committed a sin many years ago. I have suffered the punishment. I am suffering it still. Ever since I was a young woman I have had a heavy burden of misery on my heart. I am not reconciled to it. I cannot submit to it. I shall never be reconciled to it. I never shall submit to it, if I live to be a hundred. Do you wish me to enter into particulars? Or will you have mercy on me and be satisfied with what I have told you so far? It was not said in treatingly or tenderly or humbly. She spoke with a savage, self-contained resignation in her manner and in her voice. Amelius forgot his cigar again, and again she reminded him of it. He answered as his own generous impulsive temperament urged him. He said, Tell me nothing that causes you a moment's pain. Tell me only how I can help you. She handed him the box of matches and said, Your cigar is out again. He laid down his cigar. In his brief span of life he had seen no human misery that expressed itself in this way. Excuse me, he answered. I won't smoke just now. She laid her cigar aside like Amelius and crossed her arms over her bosom and looked at him with the first softening gleam of tenderness that he had seen on her face. My friend, she said, Yours will be a sad life. I pity you. The world will wound that sensitive heart of yours. The world will trample on that generous nature. One of these days, perhaps, you will be a wretch like me. No more of that. Get up. I have something to show you. Rising herself, she led the way to a large oak and press and took her bunch of keys out of her pocket again. About this old sorrow of mine, she resumed. Do me justice, Amelius, at the outset. I haven't treated it as some women treat their sorrows. I haven't nursed it and petted it and made the most of it to myself and to others. No. I have tried every means of relief, every possible pursuit that could occupy my mind. One example of what I say will do as well as a hundred. See it for yourself. She put the key in the lock. It resisted her first efforts to open it. With a contemptuous burst of impatience and a sudden exertion of her rare strength, she tore open the two doors of the press. Behind the door on the left appeared a row of open shelves. The opposite compartment, behind the door on the right, was filled by drawers with brass handles. She shut the left door, angrily banging to it as if the opening of it had disclosed something which she did not wish to be seen. By the nearest chance, Amelius had looked that way first. In the one instant in which it was possible to see anything he had noticed, carefully laid out on one of the shelves a baby's long linen frock and cap turned yellow by the lapse of time. The half-told story of the past was more than half-told now. The treasured relics of the infant threw their little glimmer of light on the motive which had chosen the subjects of the prints on the wall. A child deserted and lost. A child who, by bare possibility, might be living still. She turned towards Amelius suddenly. There's nothing to interest you on that side, she said. Look at the drawers here. Open them for yourself. She drew back as she spoke and pointed to the uppermost of the row of drawers. A narrow slip of paper was pasted on it, bearing this inscription. Dead consolations. Amelius opened the drawer. It was full of books. Look at them, she said. Amelius, obeying her, discovered dictionaries, grammars, exercises, poems, novels, and histories, all in the German language. A foreign language tried as a relief, said Mrs Farnaby, speaking quietly behind him, month after month of hard study, all forgotten now. The old sorrow came back in spite of it. A dead consolation. Open the next drawer. The next drawer revealed watercolours and drawing materials, huddled together in a corner, and a heap of poor little conventional landscapes filling up the rest of the space. As works of art they were wretched in the last degree, monuments of industry and application miserably and completely thrown away. I had no talent for that pursuit, as you see, said Mrs Farnaby, but I persevered with it, week after week, month after month. I thought to myself, I hate it so. It costs me such dreadful trouble. It so worries and persecutes and humiliates me that this surely must keep my mind occupied and my thoughts away from myself. No, the old sorrow stared me in the face again on the paper that I was spoiling through the colours that I couldn't learn to use. Another dead consolation. Shut it up. She herself opened a third and a fourth drawer. In one there appeared a copy of Euclid and a slate with the problems still traced on it. The other contained a microscope and the treatises relating to its use. Always the same effort, she said, shutting the door of the press as she spoke, and always the same result. You've had enough of it and so have I. She turned and pointed to the lathe in the corner and to the clubs and dumbbells over the mantelpiece. I can look at them patiently, she went on. They give me bodily relief. I work at the lathe till my back aches. I swing the clubs till I'm ready to drop with fatigue. And then I lie down on the rug there and sleep it off and forget myself for an hour or two. Come back to the fire again. You have seen my dead consolations. You must hear about my living consolation next. In justice to Mr Farnaby. Ah, how I hate him. She spoke those last vehement words to herself, but with such intense bitterness of contempt that the tones were quite loud enough to be heard. Amelia's looked furtively towards the door. Was there no hope that Regina and her friend might return and interrupt them? After what he had seen and heard, could he hope to console Mrs Farnaby? He could only wonder what object she could possibly have in view in taking him into her confidence. Am I always to be in a mess with women, he thought to himself? First poor Millicent and now this one? What next? He lit his cigar again. The brotherhood of smokers and they alone will understand what a refuge it was to him at that moment. Give me a light, said Mrs Farnaby, recalled to the remembrance of her own cigar. I want to know one thing before I go on. Amelius, I watched those bright eyes of yours at luncheon time. Did they tell me the truth? You're not in love with my niece, are you? Amelius took his cigar out of his mouth and looked at her. Out with it boldly, she said. Amelius let it out to a certain extent. I admire her very much, he answered. Ah, Mrs Farnaby remarked, you don't know her as well as I do. The disdainful indifference of her tone irritated Amelius. He was still young enough to believe in the existence of gratitude and Mrs Farnaby had spoken ungratefully. Besides, he was fond enough of Regina already to feel offended when she was referred to slightingly. I'm surprised to hear what you say of her, he burst out. She's quite devoted to you. Oh yes, said Mrs Farnaby carelessly, she is devoted to me of course. She is the living consolation I told you of just now. That was Mr Farnaby's notion in adopting her. Mr Farnaby thought to himself, here's a ready-made daughter for my wife. That's all this tiresome woman wants to comfort her. Now we shall do. Do you know what I call that? I call it reasoning like an idiot. A man may be very clever at his business and may be a contemptible fool in other respects. Another woman's child, a consolation to me, pa, it makes me sick to think of it. I have one merit, Amelius. I don't can't. It's my duty to take care of my sister's child, and I do my duty willingly. Regina's a good sort of creature, I don't dispute it. But she's like all those tall, darkish women. There's no backbone in her. No dash, a kind, feeble, goody-goody, sugarish disposition, and a deal of quiet obstancy at the bottom of it, I can tell you. O, yes, I do her justice. I don't deny that she's devoted to me, as you say, but I'm making a clean breast of it now, and you ought to know, and you shall know, that Mr Farnaby's living consolation is no more consolation to me than the things you have seen in the drawers. There, now we've done with Regina. No, there's one thing more to be cleared up. When you say you admire her, what do you mean? Do you mean marry her? For once in his life Amelius stood on his dignity. I have too much respect for the young lady to answer your question, he said loftily. Because if you do, Mrs Farnaby proceeded, I mean to put every obstacle in your way. In short, I mean to prevent it. This plain declaration staggered Amelius. He confessed the truth by implication in one word. Why? he asked sharply. Wait a little and recover your temper, she answered. There was a pause. They sat on either side of the fireplace and eyed each other attentively. Now are you ready? Mrs Farnaby resumed. Here is my reason. If you marry Regina or marry anybody, you will settle down somewhere and lead a dull life. Well, said Amelius, and why not if I like it? Because I want you to remain a roving bachelor here today and gone tomorrow, travelling all over the world and seeing everything and everybody. What good will that do to you, Mrs Farnaby? She rose from her own side of the fireplace, crossed to the side on which Amelius was sitting and, standing before him, placed her hands heavily on his shoulders. Her eyes grew radiant with a sudden interest and animation as they looked down on him, riveted on his face. I am still waiting, my friend, for the living consolation that may yet come to me, she said, and hear this, Amelius, after all the years that have passed, you may be the man who brings it to me. In the momentary silence that followed they heard a double knock at the house door. Regina, said Mrs Farnaby, as the name passed her lips, she sprang to the door of the room and turned the key in the lock.