Armadale (119 page)

‘For two reasons, Allan. I ought to have thanked you long since for the silence you have observed, for my sake, on a matter that must have seemed very strange to you. You know what the name is which appears on the register of my marriage – and yet you have forborne to speak of it, from the fear of distressing me. Before you enter on your new life, let us come to a first and last understanding about this. I ask you – as one more kindness to me – to accept my assurance (strange as the thing must seem to you) that I am blameless in this matter; and I entreat you
to believe that the reasons I have for leaving it unexplained, are reasons which, if Mr Brock was living, Mr Brock himself would approve.'

In those words, he kept the secret of the two names – and left the memory of Allan's mother, what he had found it, a sacred memory in the heart of her son.

‘One word more,' he went on – ‘a word which will take us, this time, from past to future. It has been said, and truly said, that out of Evil may come Good. Out of the horror and the misery of that night you know of, has come the silencing of a doubt which once made my life miserable with groundless anxiety about you and about myself. No clouds, raised by my superstition, will ever come between us again. I can't honestly tell you that I am more willing now than I was when we were in the Isle of Man, to take what is called the rational view of your Dream. Though I know what extraordinary coincidences are perpetually happening in the experience of all of us, still I cannot accept coincidences as explaining the fulfilment of the Visions which our own eyes have seen. All I can sincerely say for myself is, what I think it will satisfy you to know, that I have learnt to view the purpose of the Dream with a new mind. I once believed that it was sent to rouse your distrust of the friendless man whom you had taken as a brother to your heart. I now
know
that it came to you as a timely warning to take him closer still. Does this help to satisfy you that I, too, am standing hopefully on the brink of a new life, and that while we live, brother, your love and mine will never be divided again?'

They shook hands in silence. Allan was the first to recover himself. He answered in the few words of kindly assurance which were the best words that he could address to his friend.

‘I have heard all I ever want to hear about the past,' he said; ‘and I know what I most wanted to know about the future. Everybody says, Midwinter, you have a career before you – and I believe that everybody is right. Who knows what great things may happen before you and I are many years older?'

‘Who
need
know?' said Midwinter, calmly. ‘Happen what may, God is all-merciful, God is all-wise. In those words, your dear old friend once wrote to me. In that faith, I can look back without murmuring at the years that are past, and can look on without doubting to the years that are to come.'

He rose, and walked to the window. While they had been speaking together, the darkness had passed. The first light of the new day met him as he looked out, and rested tenderly on his face.

THE END

N
OTE
. – My readers will perceive that I have purposely left them, with reference to the Dream in this story, in the position which they would occupy in the case of a dream in real life – they are free to interpret it by the natural or the supernatural theory, as the bent of their own minds may incline them. Persons disposed to take the rational view may, under these circumstances, be interested in hearing of a coincidence relating to the present story, which actually happened, and which in the matter of ‘extravagant improbability', sets anything of the same kind that a novelist could imagine at flat defiance.

In November, 1865, – that is to say, when thirteen monthly parts of ‘Armadale' had been published; and, I may add, when more than a year and a half had elapsed since the end of the story, as it now appears, was first sketched in my note-book – a vessel lay in the Huskisson Dock, at Liverpool, which was looked after by one man who slept on board, in the capacity of shipkeeper. On a certain day in the week, this man was found dead in the deck-house. On the next day, a second man, who had taken his place, was carried dying to the Northern Hospital. On the third day, a third shipkeeper was appointed, and was found dead in the deck-house which had already proved fatal to the other two.
The name of that ship was
‘
The Armadale
'. And the proceedings at the Inquest proved that the three men had been all suffocated
by sleeping in poisoned air!
¹

I am indebted for these particulars to the kindness of the reporters at Liverpool, who sent me their statement of the facts. The case found its way into most of the newspapers. It was noticed – to give two instances in which I can cite the dates — in
The Times
of November 30th, 1865, and was more fully described in the
Daily News
of November 28th in the same year.

Before taking leave of ‘Armadale', I may perhaps be allowed to mention for the benefit of any readers who may be curious on such points, that the ‘Norfolk Broads' are here described after personal investigation in them. In this, as in other cases, I have spared no pains to instruct myself on matters of fact. Wherever the story touches on questions connected with Law, Medicine, or Chemistry, it has been
submitted, before publication, to the experience of professional men. The kindness of a friend
²
supplied me with a plan of the Doctor's Apparatus – and I saw the chemical ingredients at work, before I ventured on describing the action of them in the closing scenes of this book.

In these notes I make frequent use of Richard D. Altick's
The Presence of the Present
(Columbus: Ohio, 1991). References are abbreviated to the author's name. As in the Introduction I have abbreviated references to the principal biographical sources.

1
.
To John Forster
. John Forster (1812–76) was the author of a life of Goldsmith (1854) and was to be Dickens's biographer (1874). He was at this stage a friend of Collins's through Dickens and their mutual work in amateur theatricals. Forster was also a Commissioner in Lunacy (1861–72) and may well have provided Collins with some of the details for Dr Downward's sanatorium. Robinson (p.
190
) assumes this dedication was in the nature of an ‘olive branch' which Forster (who was envious of Collins's intimacy with Dickens in the 1850s) small-mindedly declined.

1
. This preface bears witness to a certain nervousness on Collins's part on the grounds of (1) hastiness of construction, and (2) immorality. The
Saturday Review
(16 June 1866) found it ‘a little alarming to find Mr Wilkie Collins employed in heaving stones at imaginary reviewers before any of them have come in sight'.

2
.
in more than one direction
. Collins first wrote, then crossed out, ‘in all directions' – which was probably too aggressive.

1
. At the head of the first page of the manuscript is the note: ‘First monthly part of Wilkie Collins's new story. No title decided on as yet.' The title was not in fact decided on until the third monthly part. Armadale is the name of a village in the Shetlands and, as Catherine Peters points out, the name was
probably put in Collins's mind by a visit there which he made in 1842 (Peters, p.
59
).

2
.
the Baths of W
ILDBAD
. Collins visited this spa in summer 1863 for relief from his ‘rheumatic gout'. As Robinson records:

After a month [at Aix], though somewhat better in health, Wilkie was far from cured, and decided to move on to Wildbad. Situated by a mountain stream in the heart of the Black Forest, this little town, hardly more than a village, was dominated by palatial hotels and ‘a Bath House as big as Buckingham Palace, and infinitely superior to it in architectural beauty'. It was strange, he reflected, to see all this magnificence, ‘and stranger still to think that some of the acutest forms of human misery represent the dismal foundation on which the luxury and grandeur are built. Paralysis comes here and pays the bills… Here he underwent a month's course of a bath a day, which roused every lurking ache and pain… He left for home about the middle of June 1863, unquestionably better and on the road, I hope, to recovery at last'. It was a vain hope. (Robinson, pp.
177
–8)

3
.
Der Freischutz
. The opera by Carl Maria von Weber (1821). Altick notes this as a precise [1832] dating reference, culturally (Altick, p.
471
).

4
.
Death-in-Life
. An allusion to Coleridge's
Ancient Mariner
, Part Three, ‘The Nightmare, Life-in-Death was she/ Who thicks man's blood with cold'. As Catherine Peters notes, the clear inference is that Armadale is dying of tertiary syphilis.

1
.
replied the doctor, still vacillating between
. The manuscript has ‘still preoccupied; still vacillating between' – probably a printer's error.

2
.
rheumatic affection of the ankle-joint
. Collins's own affliction in Wildbad in 1863 (see Davis, p.
239
).

3
.
my own personal experience
. The manuscript continues:

‘It may save your time and mine,' interrupted Mr Neal, ‘if I remind you that I am quite ignorant of medical matters. Don't suppose I am at all importunate. I am only anxious to spare you unnecessary trouble.' With that explanation of his motive he sighed and resigned himself into his visitor's hands. ‘I propose not to trouble you with professional mysteries,' said the doctor, ‘I only wish to tell you what it is necessary to my purpose in coming here that you should know. In plain words Mr Armadale has been sent to Wildbad too late…

This was cut in proof, presumably, with the intention of making Neal's character less garrulous. Originally, the Scottish lawyer was evidently intended to have a much larger role in the novel as Ozias's wicked, Calvinistic stepfather. Collins
may have been induced to close this line of development by George Smith's Scottish evangelical susceptibilities. As revised, Neal is a much more sympathetic character.

4
.
and disease of the lower part of the spine has already taken place
. The manuscript reads, ‘and congestion of the vessels about the lower part of the spine has already set in'. This was presumably changed in proof. Collins records that he corroborated medical and legal references with professional friends.

5
.
which I despair of describing to you
. The manuscript continues:

The Scotchman's cold grey eyes began to brighten with a growing interest. ‘The scriptures have described it,' he broke out, warming to the subject for the first time. ‘A man's terror may well overpower him, when he feels a taste of the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched! I am not a minister of the gospel, sir, as you appear to suppose. But I am an Elder of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and I can well understand that spiritual help for a foreigner may be hard of attainment here. If there is no-one else to warn this dying sinner that his soul is in danger—.' ‘You entirely mistake the nature of the request which I am making on Mr Armadale's behalf,' interposed the doctor more resolutely and more seriously than he had spoken yet. ‘If you allow me to proceed I should have shown you that the fever of anxiety which is consuming this unhappy man in his last moments is not anxiety which the ministrations of a clergyman can allay. Give me one other minute of your patience, sir, and you will discover what the serious emergency that brings us here really is.'

The ice reappeared in Mr Neal's face and manner more obstructively than ever. He objected to being put in the wrong by anybody; and he resented the absence of a strictly religious interest from a case which had been brought under his notice on strictly religious grounds. At the very point of the doctor's disclosures which would have stimulated all imaginative hearers to listen with the closest attention, the Scotchman's interest in the narrative began to ebb again steadily. He sighed in sullen protest, and resigned himself for the second time.

‘You shall have the very words that passed between us,' said the doctor – ‘I can hardly expect you to believe me, unless I report the words themselves. I took the liberty of asking Mr Armadale whether his affairs were unsettled…

This was deleted in proof, presumably. Kenneth Robinson notes (p.
180
) that in 1863 Collins was invited to edit the new Scottish Evangelical magazine,
Good Words
. On the evidence of the above passage he would have been extremely unsuitable, had he been unwise enough to accept.

1
.
a Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh
. The highest branch of the Scottish solicitors' profession.

2
.
the marriage of an English lady of my acquaintance
,
in the island of Madeira
. The manuscript reads ‘of Miss Jane Blanchard of Thorpe-Ambrose in Yorkshire'. This was presumably changed in proof, to fit in with changes made while writing the later part of the chapter (in which the wedding is made to take place in Madeira). One can plausibly speculate what put Yorkshire (rather than Norfolk) in Collins's mind as the county in which the ‘great house' of Thorpe-Ambrose is located. As W. M. Clarke records: ‘Wilkie's exploration of the Broads [in summer 1864, as research for
Armadale
] was interrupted by a brief trip to the Monckton-Milnes at Fryston hall in Yorkshire. Wilkie had known them for some years and was occasionally invited up for the weekend. He later described his host's house as “delightfully comfortable, with palatial rooms, a fine park, and perpetual company”' (Clarke, p.
111
).