meanwhile chudleigh wilmot, bearing the secret of his great sorrow about with him, bearing with him also the dread horror and gnawing remorse which the fear that his wife had committed self-destruction had engendered in his breast, had sought safety in flight from the scene of his temptation, and oblivion in absence from his daily haunts, and to a certain extent had found both. how many of us are there who have experienced the benefit of that blessed change of climate, language, habit of life? i declare i believe that the continental boats rarely leave the dover or the folkestone pier without carrying away amongst their motley load some one or two passengers who are going, not for pleasure or profit, not with the idea of visiting foreign cities or observing foreign manners, not with the intention of gaining bodily health, or for the vain-glory of being able to say on their return that they have been abroad (which actuates not a few of them), but simply in the hope that the entire change will bring to them surcease of brain-worry and heart-despondency, calm instead of anxiety, peace in place of feverish longing, rest--no matter how dull, how stupid, how torpid--instead of brilliant, baleful, soul-harrowing excitement. after having pursued the beauty of brompton through the london season; after having spent a little fortune in anonymous bouquets for her and choice camellias for his own adornment; after having duly attended at every fête offered by the zoological and botanical societies, danced himself weary at balls, maimed his feet at croquet-parties, and ricked his neck with staring up at her box from the opera-stalls,--jones, finding all his petits soins unavailing, and learning that the rich stock-broker from surbiton has distanced him in the race, and is about to carry off the prize, flings himself and his portmanteau on board the ostend boat, and finds relief and a renewal of his former devotion to himself among the quaint old belgian cities. by the time he arrives at the rhinebord he is calmer; he has lapsed into the sentimental stage, and is enabled to appreciate and, if anybody gives him the chance, to quote all the lachrymose and all the morbid passages. he relapses dreadfully when he gets to homburg, because he then thinks it necessary to--as he phrases it in his diary--"seek the lethe of the gaming-table;" but having lost his five pounds' worth of florins, he is generally content; and when he arrives in switzerland finds himself in a proper-tempered state of mind, quite fitted to commune with nature, and to convey to the jungfrau his very low opinion of the state of humanity in general, and of the female being who has blighted his young affections in particular. and by the time that his holiday is over, and he returns to his office or his chambers, he has forgotten all the nonsense that enthralled him, and is prepared to commence a new course of idiotcy, da capo, with another enchantress.
and to chudleigh wilmot, though a sensible and thoughtful man, the change was no less serviceable. the set character of his daily duties, the absorbing nature of his studies, the devotion to his profession, which had narrowed his ideas and cramped his aspirations, once cast off and put aside, his mind became almost childishly impressionable by the new ideas which dawned upon it, the new scenes which opened upon his view. in his wonder at and admiration of the various beauties of nature and art which came before him there was something akin to the feeling which his acquaintance with madeleine kilsyth had first awakened within him. as then, he began to feel now that for the first time he lived; that his life hitherto had been a great prosaic mistake; that he had worshipped false gods, and only just arrived at the truth. to be sure, he had now the additional feeling of a lost love and an unappeasable remorse; but the sting even of these was tempered and modified by his enjoyment of the loveliness of nature by which he was surrounded.
his time was his own; and to kill it pleasantly was his greatest object. he crossed from dover to ostend, and lingered some days on the belgian seaboard. thence he pursued his way by the easiest stages through the flat low-lying country, so rich in cathedrals and pictures, in gothic architecture and sweet-toned carillons, in portly burghers and shovel-hatted priests and plump female peasants. to bruges, to ghent, and antwerp; to brussels, and thence, through the lovely country that lies round verviers and liège, to cologne and the rhine, chudleigh wilmot journeyed, stopping sometimes for days wherever he felt inclined, and almost insensibly acquiring bodily and mental strength.
there is a favourite story of the practical hardheaded school of philosophers, showing how that one of their number, when overwhelmed with grief at the loss of his only son, managed to master his extreme agony, and to derive very great consolation from the study of mathematics--a branch of science with which he had not previously been familiar. it probably required a peculiar temperament to accept of and benefit by so peculiar a remedy; but undoubtedly great grief, arising from whatsoever source, is susceptible of being alleviated by mental employment. and thus, though chudleigh wilmot bore about with him the great sorrow of his life; though the sweet sad face of madeleine kilsyth was constantly before him; and though the dread suspicion regarding the manner of his wife's death haunted him perpetually, as time passed over his head, and as his mind, naturally clever, opened and expanded under the new training it was unconsciously receiving, he found the bitterness of the memory of his short love-dream fading into a settled fond regret, and the horror which he had undergone at the discovery of the seal-ring becoming less and less poignant.
not that the nature of his love far madeleine had changed in the least. he saw her sweet face in the blue eyes and fair hair of big blonde madonnas in altar-pieces in flemish cathedrals; he imagined her as the never-failing heroine of such works of poetry and fiction as now, for the first time for many years, he found leisure and inclination to read. he would sit for hours, his eyes fixed on some lovely landscape before him, but his thoughts busy with the events of the past few months--those few months into which all the important circumstances of his life were gathered. one by one he would pass in review the details of his meetings, interviews, and conversations with madeleine, from the period of his visit to kilsyth to his last sad parting from her in brook-street. and then he would go critically into an examination of his own conduct; he was calm enough to do that now; and he had the satisfaction of thinking that he had pursued the only course open to him as a gentleman and a man of honour. he had fled from the sweetest, the purest, the most unconscious temptation; and by his flight he hoped he was expiating the wrong which he had ignorantly committed by his neglect of his late wife. that must be the keynote of his future conduct--expiation. so far as the love of women or the praise of men was concerned, his future must be a blank. he had made his mind up to that, and would go through with it. of the former he had very little, but very sweet experience--just one short glimpse of what might have been, and then back again into the dull dreary life; and of the latter--well, he had prized it and cherished it at one time, had laboured to obtain and deserve it; but it was little enough to him now.
among the old rhenish towns, at that time of year almost free of english, save such as from economical motives were there resident, wilmot lingered lovingly, and spent many happy weeks. to the ordinary tourist, eager for his next meal of castles and crags, the town means simply the hotel where he feeds and rests for the night, while its inhabitants are represented by the landlord and the waiters, whose exactions hold no pleasant place in his memory. but those who stay among them will find the rhenish burghers kindly, cheery, and hospitable, with a vein of romance and an enthusiastic love for their great river strangely mixed up with their national stolidity and business-like habits. desiring to avoid even such few of his countrymen as were dotted about the enormous salons of the hotels, and yet; to a certain extent, fearing solitude, wilmot eagerly availed himself of all the chances offered him for mixing with native society, and was equally at home in the merchant's parlour, the artist's atelier, or the student's kneipe. pleasant old vaterland! how many of us have kindly memories of thee and of thy pleasures, perhaps more innocent, and certainly cheaper, than those of other countries,--memories of thy beer combats, and thy romantic sons, our confrères, and thy young women, with such abundance of hair and such large feet!
at length, when more than three months had glided away, wilmot determined upon starting at once for berlin. he had lazed away his time pleasantly enough, far more pleasantly than he had imagined would ever have been practicable, and he had laid the ghosts of his regret and his remorse more effectually than at one time he had hoped. they came to him, these spectres, yet, as spectres should come, in the dead night-season, or at that worst of all times, when the night is dead and the day is not yet born, when, if it be our curse to lie awake, all disagreeable thoughts and fancies claim us for their own. the bill which we "backed" for the friend whose solvency and whose friendship have both become equally doubtful within the last few weeks; the face of her we love, with its last-seen expression of jealousy, anger, and doubt; the pile of neatly-cut but undeniably blank half-sheets of paper which is some day to be covered with our great work--that great work which we have thought of so long, but which we are as far as ever from commencing: all these charming items present themselves to our dreary gaze at that unholy four-o'clock waking, and chase slumber from our fevered eyelids. chudleigh wilmot's ghosts came too, but less, far less frequently than at first; and he was in hopes that in process of time they would gradually forsake him altogether, and leave him to that calm unemotional existence which was henceforth to be his.
meantime he began to hunger for news of home and home's doings. for the first few weeks of his absence he had regularly abstained even from reading the newspapers, and up to the then time he had sent no address to his servants, choosing to remain in absolute ignorance of all that was passing in london. this was in contradiction to his original intention, but, on carefully thinking it over, he decided that it would be better that he should know nothing. he apprehended no immediate danger to madeleine, and he knew that she could not be better than under old sir saville rowe's friendly care. he knew that there was no human probability of anything more decisive leaking out of the circumstances of his wife's death. for any other matter he had no concern. his position in london society, his practice, what people said about him, were now all things of the past, which troubled him not; and hitherto he had looked on his complete isolation from his former world as a great ingredient in his composure and his better being. but as his mind became less anxious and his health more vigorous, he began to hunger for news of what was going on in that world from which he had exiled himself; and he hurried off to berlin, anxious to secure some pied-à-terre which he could make at least a temporary home; and he had no sooner arrived at the h?tel de russie than he wrote at once to sir saville, begging for fall and particular accounts of madeleine kilsyth's illness, and to his awn servant, desiring that all letters which had been accumulating in charles-street should be forwarded to him directly.
knowing that several days must elapse before his much-longed-for news could arrive, wilmot amused himself as best he might to the man who has been accustomed to dwell in capitals, and who has been spending some months in provincial towns, there is a something exhilarating in returning to any place where the business and pleasure of life are at their focus, even though it be in so tranquil a city as berlin. the resident in capitals has a keen appreciation of many of those inexplicable nothingnesses which never are to be found elsewhere; the best provincial town is to him but a bad imitation, a poor parody on his own loved home; and in the same way, though the chief city of another country may be far beneath that to which he is accustomed, nay, even in grandeur and architectural magnificence may not be comparable to some of the provincial towns of his native land, he at once falls into its ways, and is infinitely more at home in it, because those ways and customs remind him of what he has left behind. amidst the bustle and the excitement--mild though it was--of berlin, wilmot's desire for perpetual wandering began to ebb. a man who has nearly reached forty years of age in a fixed and settled routine of life makes a bad bedouin; and when the sting which first started him--be it of disappointment, remorse, or ennui, and the last worst of all--loses its venom, he will probably be glad enough to join the first caravan of jovial travellers which he may come across, so long as they are bound for the nearest habitable and inhabitable city. chudleigh wilmot knew that a return to england and his former life was, under existing circumstances, impossible; he felt that he could not take up his residence in paris, where he would be constantly meeting old english mends, to whom he could give no valid reason for his self-imposed exile; but at berlin it would be different. very few english people, at least english people of his acquaintance, came to the prussian capital; and to those whose path he might happen to cross he might, for the present at all events, plead his studies in a peculiar branch of his profession in which the german doctors had long been unrivalled; while as for the future--the future might take care of itself!
wandering unter den linden, pausing in mute admiration before the brandenburger thor, or the numerous statues with which the patriotism of the inhabitants and the sublime skill of the sculptor rauch has decorated the city, loitering in the kunst kammer of the palace, spending hour after hour in the museum, reviving old recollections, tinged now with such mournfulness as accrues to anything which has been put by for ever, in visiting the great anatomical collection, dropping into the opera or the theatre, and walking out to charlottenburg or other of the pleasant villages on the spree, chudleigh wilmot found life easier to him in berlin than it had been for many previous months. there, for the first time since he left england, he availed himself of the fame which his talent had created for him, and found himself heartily welcome among the leading scientific men of the city, to all of whom he was well known by repute. to them, inquiring the cause of his visit, he gave the prepared answer, that he had come in person to study their mode of procedure, which had so impressed him in their books; end this did not tend to make his welcome less warm. so that, all things taken into consideration, wilmot had almost made up his mind to remain in berlin, at least for several months. he could attend the medical schools--it would afford him amusement; and if in the future he ever resumed the practice of his profession, it could do him no harm; his life, such as it was, were as well passed in berlin as anywhere else; and meanwhile time would be fleeting on, and the gulf between him and madeleine kilsyth, would be gradually widening. it must widen! no matter to what width it now attained, he could never hope to span it again.
one day, on his return to his hotel after a long ramble, the waiter who was specially devoted to his service received him with a pleasant grin, and told him that a "post packet" of an enormous size awaited him. the parcel which wilmot found on his table was certainly large enough to have created astonishment in the mind of anyone, more especially a german waiter, accustomed only to the small square thin letters of his nation. there was but one huge packet; no letter from sir saville rowe, nor from mr. foljambe, to whom wilmot had also written specially. wilmot opened the envelope with an amount of nervousness which was altogether foreign to his nature; his hand trembled unaccountably; and he had to clear his eyes before he could set to work to glance over the addresses of the score of letters which it contained. he ran them over hurriedly; nothing from sir saville rowe, nothing from mr. foljambe, no line--but he had expected none from any of the kilsyths. he threw aside unopened a letter in whittaker's bold hand, a dozen others whose superscriptions were familiar to him, and paused before one, the mere sight of which gave him an inexplicable thrill. it was a long, broad, blue-papered envelope, addressed in a formal legal hand to him at his house in charles-street, and marked "immediate." there are few men but in their time have had an uneasy sensation caused by the perusal of their own name in that never-varying copying-clerk's caligraphy, with its thin upstrokes and thick downstrokes, its carefully crossed t's and infallibly dotted i's. few but know the "further proceedings" which, unless a settlement be made on or before wednesday next, the writers are "desired to inform" us, they will be "compelled to take." but chudleigh wilmot was among those few. during the whole of his career he had never owed a shilling which he could not have paid on demand, and his experience of law in any way had been nil. and yet the sight of this grim document had an extraordinarily terrifying effect upon him. he turned it backwards and forwards, took it up and laid it down several times, before he could persuade himself to break its seal, a great splodge of red wax impressed with the letters "l. & l." deeply cut. at length he broke it open. an enclosure fell from it to the ground; but not heeding that, wilmot held up the letter to the fast-fading light, and read as follows:
"lincoln's-inn.
"sir,--in accordance with instructions received from the late mr. foljambe of portland-place--"
the late mr. foljambe! he must be dreaming! he rubbed his eyes, walked a little nearer to the window, and reperused the letter. no; there the sentence stood.
"in accordance with instructions received from the late mr. foljambe of portland-place, we forward to you the enclosed letter. as it appeared that in consequence of your absence from england you could not be immediately communicated with, and in pursuance of the instructions more recently verbally communicated to us by our late client in the event of such a contingency arising, we have taken upon ourselves to make the necessary arrangements for the funeral, as laid down in a memorandum written by the deceased; and the interment will take place to-morrow morning at kensal-green cemetery. we trust you will approve of our proceedings in this matter, and that you will make it convenient to return to london as soon as possible after the receipt of this letter, as there are pressing matters awaiting your directions.
"your obedient servants,
"lambert & lee.
"dr. wilmot."
the late mr. foljambe! his kind old friend, then, was dead! again and again he read the letter before he realised to himself the information conveyed in that one sentence: the late mr. foljambe--pressing matters awaiting his directions. wilmot could not make out what it meant. that mr. foljambe was dead he understood perfectly; but why the death should be thus officially communicated to him, why the old gentleman's lawyers should express a hope that he would approve of their proceedings, and a desire that he should at once return to london, was to him perfectly inexplicable, unless--but the idea which arose in his mind was too preposterous, and he dismissed it at once.
in the course of his reflections his eyes fell upon the enclosure which had fallen from the letter to the ground. he picked it up, and at a glance saw that it was a note addressed to him in his friend's well-known clear handwriting--clearer indeed and firmer than it had been of late. he opened it at once; and on opening it the first thing which struck him was, that it was dated more than twelve months previously. it ran thus:
"portland-place.
"my dear chudleigh,--a smart young gentleman, with mock-diamond studs in his rather dirty shirt, and a large signet-ring on his very dirty hand, has just been witnessing my signature to the last important document which i shall ever sign--my will--and has borne that document away with him in triumph, and a hansom cab, which his masters will duly charge to my account. i shall send this letter humbly by the penny post, to be put aside with that great parchment, and to be delivered to you after my death. in all human probability you will be by my bedside when that event occurs, but i may not have either the opportunity or the strength to say to you what i should wish you to know from myself; so i write it here. my dear boy, chudleigh--boy to me, son of my old friend--when i told your father i would look after your future, i made up my mind to do exactly what i have done by my signature ten minutes ago. i knew i should never marry, and i determined that all my fortune should go to you. by the document (the young man in the jewelry would call it a document)--by the document just executed, you inherit everything i have in the world, and are only asked to pay some legacies to a few old servants. take it, my dear chudleigh, and enjoy it. that you will make a good use of it, i am sure. i leave you entirely free and unfettered as to its disposal, and i have only two suggestions to make--mind, they are suggestions, and not requirements. in the first place, i should be glad if you would keep on and live in my house in portland-place--it has been a pleasant home to me for many years; and i do not think my ghost would rest easily if, on a revisit to the glimpses of the moon, he should find the old place peopled with strangers. it has never known a lady's care--at least during my tenure--but under mrs. wilmot's doubtless good taste, and the aptitude which all women have for making the best of things, i feel assured that the rooms will present a sufficiently brave appearance. the other request is, that you should retire from the active practice of your profession. there! i intended to arrive at this horrible announcement after a long round of set phrases and subtle argument; but i have come upon it at once. i do not want you, my dear chudleigh, entirely to renounce those studies or the exercise of that talent in which i know you take the greatest delight; on the contrary, my idea in this suggestion is, that your brains and experience should be even more valuable to your fellow-creatures than they are bow. i want you to be what the young men of the present day call a 'swell' in your line. i don't want you to refuse to give the benefit of your experience in consultation; what i wish is to think that you will be free--be your own master--and no longer be at the beck and call of everyone; and if any lady has the finger-ache, or m. le nouveau riche has overeaten himself, and sends for you, that you will be in a position to say you are engaged, and cannot come.
"if some of our friends could see this letter, they would laugh, and say that old foljambe was selfish and eccentric to the last; he has had the advantage of this man's abilities throughout his own illnesses, and now he leaves him his money on condition that he sha'n't cure anyone else! but you know me too well, my dear chudleigh, to impute anything of this kind to me. the fact is, i think you're doing too much, working too hard, giving up too much time and labour and life to your profession. you cannot carry on at the pace you've been going; and believe an old fellow who has enjoyed every hour of his existence, life has something better than the renom gained from attending crabbed valetudinarians. what that something is, my dear boy, is for you now to find out. i have done my possible towards realising it for you.
"and now, god bless you, my dear chudleigh! i have no other request to make. to any other man i should have said, 'don't let the tombstone-men outside the cemetery persuade you into any elaborate inscription in commemoration of my virtues.' 'here lies john foljambe, aged 72,' is all i require. but i know your good sense too well to suspect you of any such iniquity. again, god bless you!
"your affectionate old friend,
"john foljambe."
tears stood in wilmot's eyes as he laid aside the old gentleman's characteristic epistle. he took it up again after a pause and looked at the date. twelve months ago! what a change in his life during that twelve months! two allusions in the letter had made him wince deeply--the mention of his wife, the suggestion that undoubtedly he would be at the deathbed of his benefactor. twelve months ago! he did not know the kilsyths then, was unaware of their very existence. if he had never made that acquaintance; if he had never seen madeleine kilsyth, might, not mabel have been alive now? might he not--whittaker was a fool in such matters--might he not have been able once more to carry his old friend successfully through the attack to which he now had succumbed? were they all right--his dead wife, henrietta prendergast, the still small voice that spoke to him in the dead watches of the night? had that memorable visit had such a baleful effect on his career? was it from his introduction to madeleine kilsyth that he was to date all his troubles?
his introduction to madeleine kilsyth! ah, under what a new aspect she now appeared! chudleigh wilmot knew the london world sufficiently to be aware of the very different reception which he would get from it now, how inconvenient matters would be forgotten or hushed over, and how the heir of the rich and eccentric mr. foljambe would begin life anew; the doctrine of metempsychosis having been thoroughly carried out, and the body of the physician from which the new soul had sprung having been conveyed into the outer darkness of forgetfulness. true, some might remember how mr. wilmot, when he was in practice--so honourable of him to maintain himself by his talents, you know, and really considerable talents, and all that kind of thing--and before he succeeded to his present large fortune, had attended miss kilsyth up at their place in the highlands, and brought her through a dangerous illness, don't you know, and that made the affair positively romantic, you see!--bah! to ronald kilsyth himself the proposition would be sufficiently acceptable now. the captain had stood out, intelligibly enough, fearing the misunderstanding of the world; but all that misunderstanding would be set aside when the world saw that an eligible suitor had proposed for one of its marriageable girls, more especially when the eligible couple kept a good house and a liberal table, and entertained as befitted their position in society.
wilmot had pondered over this new position with a curled lip; but his feelings softened marvellously, and his heart bounded within him, as his thoughts turned towards madeleine herself. ah, if he had only rightly interpreted that dropped glance, that heightened colour, that confused yet trusting manner in the interview in the drawing-room! ah, if he had but read aright the secret of that childish trusting heart! madeleine, his love, his life, his wife! madeleine, with all the advantages of her own birth, the wealth which had now accrued to him, and the respect which his position had gained for him!--could anything be better? he had seen how men in society were courted, and flattered and made much of for their wealth alone,--dolts, coarse, ignorant, brainless, mannerless savages; and he--now he could rival them in wealth, and excel them--ah, how far excel them!--in all other desirable qualities!
madeleine his own, his wife! the dark cloud which had settled down upon him for so long a time rolled away like a mist and vanished from his sight. once more his pulse bounded freely within him; once more he looked with keen clear eyes upon life, and owned the sweet aptitude of being. he laughed aloud and scornfully as he remembered how recently he had pictured to himself as pleasant, as endurable, a future which was now naught but the merest vegetation. to live abroad! yes, but not solitary and self-contained; not pottering on in a miserable german town, droning through existence in the company of a few old savans! life abroad with madeleine for a few months in the year perhaps--the wretched winter months, when england was detestable, and when he would take her to brighter climes--to the mediterranean, to cannes, naples, algiers it may be, where the soft climate and his ever-watchful attention and skill would enable her to shake off the spell of the disease which then oppressed her.
he would return at once--to madeleine! those dull lawyers in their foggy den in lincoln's-inn little knew how soon he would obey their mandate, or what was the motive-power which induced his obedience. in his life he had never felt so happy. he laughed aloud. he clapped the astonished waiter, who had hitherto looked upon the herr englander as the most miserable of his melancholy nation, on the shoulder, and bade him send his passport to the embassy to be viséd, and prepare for his departure. no; he would go himself to the embassy. he was so full of radiant happiness that he must find some outlet for it; and he remembered that he had made the acquaintance of a young gentleman, son of one of his aristocratic london patients, who was an attaché to our minister. he would himself go to the embassy, see the boy, and offer to do any mission for him in england, to convey anything to his mother. the waiter smiled, foreseeing in his guest's happiness a good trinkgeld for himself; gentlemen usually sent their passports by the hausknecht, but the herr could go if he wished it--of course he could go!
so wilmot started off with his passport in his pocket. the sober-going citizens stared as they met, and turned round to stare after the eager rushing englishman. he never heeded them; he pushed on; he reached the embassy, and asked for his young friend mr. walsingham, and chafed and fumed and stamped about the room in which he was left while mr. walsingham was being sought for. at length mr. walsingham arrived. he was glad to see dr. wilmot; thanks for his offer! he would intrude upon him so far as to ask him to convey a parcel to lady caroline. visa? o, ah! that wasn't in his department; but if dr. wilmot would give him the passport, he'd see it put all right. would dr. wilmot excuse him for a few moments while he did so, and would he like to look at last monday's post, which had just arrived?
wilmot sat himself down and took up the paper. he turned it vaguely to and fro, glancing rapidly and uninterestedly at its news. at length his eye hit upon a paragraph headed "marriage in high life." he passed it, but finding nothing to interest him, turned back to it again, and there he read:
"on the 13th instant, at st. george's, hanover-square, by the lord bishop of boscastle, madeleine, eldest daughter of kilsyth of kilsyth, to ramsay caird, esq., of dunnsloggan, n.b."
when mr. walsingham returned with the passport he found his visitor had fainted.
