Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (252 page)

The melancholy in her face and manner, when I had last seen her, appeared no more. She was prettily dressed in maize colour, and the room was well furnished. Her father had evidently got over his difficulties. I had been inclined to laugh at his odd name, when I found it in the directory! Now I began to dislike it, because it was her name, too. It was a consolation to remember that she could change it. Would she change it for mine?

I was the first to recover; I boldly drew a chair near her and took her hand.

“You see,” I said, “it is of no use to try to avoid me. This is the third time we have met. Will you receive me as a visitor, under these extraordinary circumstances? Will you give me a little happiness to compensate for what I have suffered since you left me?”

She smiled and blushed.

“I am so surprised,” she answered, “I don’t know what to say.”

“Disagreeably surprised?” I asked.

She first went on with her work, and then replied (a little sadly, as I thought):

“No!”

I was ready enough to take advantage of my opportunities this time; but she contrived with perfect politeness to stop me. She seemed to remember with shame, poor soul, the circumstances under which I had last seen her.

“How do you come to be at Duskydale?” she inquired, abruptly changing the subject. “And how did you find us out here?”

While I was giving her the necessary explanations her father came in. I looked at him with considerable curiosity.

A tall stout gentleman with impressive respectability oozing out of him at every pore — with a swelling outline of black-waistcoated stomach, with a lofty forehead, with a smooth double chin resting pulpily on a white cravat. Everything in harmony about him except his eyes, and these were so sharp, bright and resolute that they seemed to contradict the bland conventionality which overspread all the rest of the man. Eyes with wonderful intelligence and self-dependence in them; perhaps, also, with something a little false in them, which I might have discovered immediately under ordinary circumstances: but I looked at the doctor through the medium of his daughter, and saw nothing of him at the first glance but his merits.

“We are both very much indebted to you, sir, for your politeness in calling,” he said, with excessive civility of manner. “But our stay at this place has drawn to an end. I only came here for the re-establishment of my daughter’s health. She has benefited greatly by the change of air, and we have arranged to return home to-morrow. Otherwise, we should have gladly profited by your kind offer of tickets for the ball.”

Of course I had one eye on the young lady while he was speaking. She was looking at her father, and a sudden sadness was stealing over her face. What did it mean? Disappointment at missing the ball? No, it was a much deeper feeling than that. My interest was excited. I addressed a complimentary entreaty to the doctor not to take his daughter away from us. I asked him to reflect on the irreparable eclipse that he would be casting over the Duskydale ballroom. To my amazement, she only looked down gloomily on her work while I spoke; her father laughed contemptuously.

“We are too completely strangers here,” he said, “for our loss to be felt by any one. From all that I can gather, society in Duskydale will be glad to hear of our departure. I beg your pardon, Alicia — I ought to have said
my
departure.”

Her name was Alicia! I declare it was a luxury to me to hear it — the name was so appropriate, so suggestive of the grace and dignity of her beauty.

I turned toward her when the doctor had done. She looked more gloomily than before. I protested against the doctor’s account of himself. He laughed again, with a quick distrustful lo ok, this time, at his daughter.

“If you were to mention my name among your respectable inhabitants,” he went on, with a strong, sneering emphasis on the word respectable, “they would most likely purse up their lips and look grave at it. Since I gave up practice as a physician, I have engaged in chemical investigations on a large scale, destined I hope, to lead to some important public results. Until I arrive at these, I am necessarily obliged, in my own interests, to keep my experiments secret, and to impose similar discretion on the workmen whom I employ. This unavoidable appearance of mystery, and the strictly retired life which my studies compel me to lead, offend the narrow-minded people in my part of the county, close to Barkingham; and the unpopularity of my pursuits has followed me here. The general opinion, I believe, is, that I am seeking by unholy arts for the philosopher’s stone. Plain man, as you see me, I find myself getting quite the reputation of a Doctor Faustus in the popular mind. Even educated people in this very place shake their heads and pity my daughter there for living with an alchemical parent, within easy smelling-distance of an explosive labouratory. Excessively absurd, is it not?”

It might have been excessively absurd, but the lovely Alicia sat with her eyes on her work, looking as if it were excessively sad, and not giving her father the faintest answering smile when he glanced toward her and laughed, as he said his last words. I could not at all tell what to make of it. The doctor talked of the social consequences of his chemical inquiries as if he were living in the middle ages. However, I was far too anxious to see the charming brown eyes again to ask questions which would be sure to keep them cast down. So I changed the topic to chemistry in general; and, to the doctor’s evident astonishment and pleasure, told him of my own early studies in the science.

This led to the mention of my father, whose reputation had reached the ears of Doctor Dulcifer. As he told me that, his daughter looked up — the sun of beauty shone on me again! I touched next on my high connections, and on Lady Malkinshaw; I described myself as temporarily banished from home for humorous caricaturing, and amiable youthful wildness. She was interested; she smiled — and the sun of beauty shone warmer than ever! I diverged to general topics, and got brilliant and amusing. She laughed — the nightingale notes of her merriment bubbled into my ears caressingly — why could I not shut my eyes and listen to them? Her colour rose; her face grew animated. Poor soul! A little lively company was but too evidently a rare treat to her. Under such circumstances, who would not be amusing? If she had said to me, “Mr. Softly, I like tumbling,” I should have made a clown of myself on the spot. I should have stood on my head (if I could), and been amply rewarded for the graceful exertion, if the eyes of Alicia had looked kindly on my elevated heels!

How long I stayed is more than I can tell. Lunch came up. I eat and drank, and grew more amusing than ever. When I at last rose to go, the brown eyes looked on me very kindly, and the doctor gave me his card.

“If you don’t mind trusting yourself in the clutches of Doctor Faustus,” he said, with a gay smile, “I shall be delighted to see you if you are ever in the neighbourhood of Barkingham.”

I wrung his hand, mentally relinquishing my secretaryship while I thanked him for the invitation. I put out my hand next to his daughter, and the dear friendly girl met the advance with the most charming readiness. She gave me a good, hearty, vigorous, uncompromising shake. O precious right hand! never did I properly appreciate your value until that moment.

Going out with my head in the air, and my senses in the seventh heaven, I jostled an elderly gentleman passing before the garden gate. I turned round to apologize; it was my brother in office, the estimable Treasurer of the Duskydale Institute.

“I have been half over the town looking after you,” he said. “The Managing Committee, on reflection, consider your plan of personally soliciting public attendance at the hall to be compromising the dignity of the Institution, and beg you, therefore, to abandon it.”

“Very well,” said I, “there is no harm done. Thus far, I have only solicited two persons, Doctor and Miss Dulcifer, in that delightful little cottage there.”

“You don’t mean to say you have asked
them
to come to the ball!”

“To be sure I have. And I am sorry to say they can’t accept the invitation. Why should they not be asked?”

“Because nobody visits them.”

“And why should nobody visit them?”

The Treasurer put his arm confidentially through mine, and walked me on a few steps.

“In the first place,” he said, “Doctor Dulcifer’s name is not down in the Medical List.”

“Some mistake,” I suggested, in my off-hand way. “Or some foreign doctor’s degree not recognised by the prejudiced people in England.”

“In the second place,” continued the Treasurer, “we have found out that he is not visited at Barkingham. Consequently, it would be the height of imprudence to visit him here.”

“Pooh! pooh! All the nonsense of narrow-minded people, because he lives a retired life, and is engaged in finding out chemical secrets which the ignorant public don’t know how to appreciate.”

“The shutters are always up in the front top windows of his house at Barkingham,” said the Treasurer, lowering his voice mysteriously. “I know it from a friend resident near him. The windows themselves are barred. It is currently reported that the top of the house, inside, is shut off by iron doors from the bottom. Workmen are employed there who don’t belong to the neighbourhood, who don’t drink at the public houses, who only associate with each other. Unfamiliar smells and noises find their way outside sometimes. Nobody in the house can be got to talk. The doctor, as he calls himself, does not even make an attempt to get into society, does not even try to see company for the sake of his poor unfortunate daughter. What do you think of all that?”

“Think!” I repeated contemptuously; “I think the inhabitants of Barkingham are the best finders of mares’ nests in all England. The doctor is making important chemical discoveries (the possible value of which I can appreciate, being chemical myself), and he is not quite fool enough to expose valuable secrets to the view of all the world. His labouratory is at the top of the house, and he wisely shuts it off from the bottom to prevent accidents. He is one of the best fellows I ever met with, and his daughter is the loveliest girl in the world. What do you all mean by making mysteries about nothing? He has given me an invitation to go and see him. I suppose the next thing you will find out is, that there is something underhand even in that?”

“You won’t accept the invitation?”

“I shall, at the very first opportunity; and if you had seen Miss Alicia, so would you.”

“Don’t go. Take my advice and don’t go,” said the Treasurer, gravely. “You are a young man. Reputable friends are of importance to you at the outset of life. I say nothing against Doctor Dulcifer — he came here as a stranger, and he goes away again as a stranger — but you can’t be sure that his purpose in asking you so readily to his house is a harmless one. Making a new acquaintance is always a doubtful speculation; but when a man is not visited by his respectable neighbours — ”

“Because he doesn’t open his shutters,” I interposed sarcastically.

“Because there are doubts about him and his house which he will not clear up,” retorted the Treasurer. “You can take your own way. You may turn out right, and we may all be wrong; I can only say again, it is rash to make doubtful acquaintances. Sooner or later you are always sure to repent it. In your place I should certainly not accept the invitation.”

“In my place, my dear sir,” I answered, “you would do exactly what I mean to do.”

The Treasurer took his arm out of mine, and without saying another word, wished me good-morning.

CHAPTER VII.

I HAD spoken confidently enough, while arguing the question of Doctor Dulcifer’s respectability with the Treasurer of the D uskydale Institution; but, if my perceptions had not been blinded by my enthusiastic admiration for Alicia, I think I should have secretly distrusted my own opinion as soon as I was left by myself. Had I been in full possession of my senses, I might have questioned, on reflection, whether the doctor’s method of accounting for the suspicions which kept his neighbours aloof from him, was quite satisfactory. Love is generally described, I believe, as the tender passion. When I remember the insidiously relaxing effect of it on all my faculties, I feel inclined to alter the popular definition, and to call it a moral vapor-bath.

What the Managing Committee of the Duskydale Institution thought of the change in me, I cannot imagine. The doctor and his daughter left the town on the day they had originally appointed, before I could make any excuse for calling again; and, as a necessary consequence of their departure, I lost all interest in the affairs of the ball, and yawned in the faces of the committee when I was obliged to be present at their deliberations in my official capacity.