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AFTER DARK

W >> Wilkie Collins >> AFTER DARK



[Italics are indicated by underscores
James Rusk, jrusk@cyberramp.net.]





AFTER DARK

by Wilkie Collins




PREFACE TO "AFTER DARK."

I have taken some pains to string together the various stories
contained in this Volume on a single thread of interest, which,
so far as I know, has at least the merit of not having been used
before.

The pages entitled "Leah's Diary" are, however, intended to
fulfill another purpose besides that of serving as the frame-work
for my collection of tales. In this part of the book, and
subsequently in the Prologues to the stories, it has been my
object to give the reader one more glimpse at that artist-life
which circumstances have afforded me peculiar opportunities of
studying, and which I have already tried to represent, under
another aspect, in my fiction, "Hide-and-Seek." This time I wish
to ask some sympathy for the joys and sorrows of a poor traveling
portrait-painter--presented from his wife's point of view in
"Leah's Diary," and supposed to be briefly and simply narrated by
himself in the Prologues to the stories. I have purposely kept
these two portions of the book within certain limits; only
giving, in the one case, as much as the wife might naturally
write in her diary at intervals of household leisure; and, in the
other, as much as a modest and sensible man would be likely to
say about himself and about the characters he met with in his
wanderings. If I have been so fortunate as to make my idea
intelligible by this brief and simple mode of treatment, and if I
have, at the same time, achieved the necessary object of
gathering several separate stories together as neatly-fitting
parts of one complete whole, I shall have succeeded in a design
which I have for some time past been very anxious creditably to
fulfill.

Of the tales themselves, taken individually, I have only to say,
by way of necessary explanation, that "The Lady of Glenwith
Grange" is now offered to the reader for the first time; and that
the other stories have appeared in the columns of _Household
Words_. My best thanks are due to Mr. Charles Dickens for his
kindness in allowing me to set them in their present frame-work.

I must also gratefully acknowledge an obligation of another kind
to the accomplished artist, Mr. W. S. Herrick, to whom I am
indebted for the curious and interesting facts on which the tales
of "The Terribly Strange Bed" and "The Yellow Mask" are founded.

Although the statement may appear somewhat superfluous to those
who know me, it may not be out of place to add, in conclusion,
that these stories are entirely of my own imagining,
constructing, and writing. The fact that the events of some of my
tales occur on foreign ground, and are acted out by foreign
personages, appears to have suggested in some quarters the
inference that the stories themselves might be of foreign origin.
Let me, once for all, assure any readers who may honor me with
their attention, that in this, and in all other cases, they may
depend on the genuineness of my literary offspring. The little
children of my brain may be weakly enough, and may be sadly in
want of a helping hand to aid them in their first attempts at
walking on the stage of this great world; but, at any rate, they
are not borrowed children. The members of my own literary family
are indeed increasing so fast as to render the very idea of
borrowing quite out of the question, and to suggest serious
apprehension that I may not have done adding to the large
book-population, on my own sole responsibility, even yet.


AFTER DARK.

LEAVES FROM LEAH'S DIARY.

26th February, 1827.--The doctor has just called for the third
time to examine my husband's eyes. Thank God, there is no fear at
present of my poor William losing his sight, provided he can be
prevailed on to attend rigidly to the medical instructions for
preserving it. These instructions, which forbid him to exercise
his profession for the next six months at least, are, in our
case, very hard to follow. They will but too probably sentence us
to poverty, perhaps to actual want; but they must be borne
resignedly, and even thankfully, seeing that my husband's forced
cessation from work will save him from the dreadful affliction of
loss of sight. I think I can answer for my own cheerfulness and
endurance, now that we know the worst. Can I answer for our
children also? Surely I can, when there are only two of them. It
is a sad confession to make, but now, for the first time since my
marriage, I feel thankful that we have no more.

17th.--A dread came over me last night, after I had comforted
William as well as I could about the future, and had heard him
fall off to sleep, that the doctor had not told us the worst.
Medical men do sometimes deceive their patients, from what has
always seemed to me to be misdirected kindness of heart. The mere
suspicion that I had been trifled with on the subject of my
husband's illness, caused me such uneasiness, that I made an
excuse to get out, and went in secret to the doctor. Fortunately,
I found him at home, and in three words I confessed to him the
object of my visit.

He smiled, and said I might make myself easy; he had told us the
worst.

"And that worst," I said, to make certain, "is, that for the next
six months my husband must allow his eyes to have the most
perfect repose?"

"Exactly," the doctor answered. "Mind, I don't say that he may
not dispense with his green shade, indoors, for an hour or two at
a time, as the inflammation gets subdued. But I do most
positively repeat that he must not _employ_ his eyes. He must not
touch a brush or pencil; he must not think of taking another
likeness, on any consideration whatever, for the next six months.
His persisting in finishing those two portraits, at the time when
his eyes first began to fail, was the real cause of all the bad
symptoms that we have had to combat ever since. I warned him (if
you remember, Mrs. Kerby?) when he first came to practice in our
neighborhood."

"I know you did, sir," I replied. "But what was a poor traveling
portrait-painter like my husband, who lives by taking likenesses
first in one place and then in another, to do? Our bread depended
on his using his eyes, at the very time when you warned him to
let them have a rest."

"Have you no other resources? No money but the money Mr. Kerby
can get by portrait-painting?" asked the doctor.

"None," I answered, with a sinking at my heart as I thought of
his bill for medical attendance.

"Will you pardon me?" he said, coloring and looking a little
uneasy, "or, rather, will you ascribe it to the friendly interest
I feel in you, if I ask whether Mr. Kerby realizes a comfortable
income by the practice of his profession? Don't," he went on
anxiously, before I could reply--"pray don't think I make this
inquiry from a motive of impertinent curiosity!"

I felt quite satisfied that he could have no improper motive for
asking the question, and so answered it at once plainly and
truly.

"My husband makes but a small income," I said. "Famous London
portrait-painters get great prices from their sitters; but poor
unknown artists, who only travel about the country, are obliged
to work hard and be contented with very small gains. After we
have paid all that we owe here, I am afraid we shall have little
enough left to retire on, when we take refuge in some cheaper
place."

"In that case," said the good doctor (I am so glad and proud to
remember that I always liked him from the first!), "in that case,
don't make yourself anxious about my bill when you are thinking
of clearing off your debts here. I can afford to wait till Mr.
Kerby's eyes are well again, and I shall then ask him for a
likeness of my little daughter. By that arrangement we are sure
to be both quits, and both perfectly satisfied."

He considerately shook hands and bade me farewell before I could
say half the grateful words to him that were on my lips. Never,
never shall I forget that he relieved me of my two heaviest
anxieties at the most anxious time of my life. The merciful,
warm-hearted man! I could almost have knelt down and kissed his
doorstep, as I crossed it on my way home.

18th.--If I had not resolved, after what happened yesterday, to
look only at the cheerful side of things for the future, the
events of to-day would have robbed me of all my courage, at the
very outset of our troubles. First, there was the casting up of
our bills, and the discovery, when the amount of them was
balanced against all the money we have saved up, that we shall
only have between three and four pounds left in the cash-box,
after we have got out of debt. Then there was the sad necessity
of writing letters in my husband's name to the rich people who
were ready to employ him, telling them of the affliction that had
overtaken him, and of the impossibility of his executing their
orders for portraits for the next six months to come. And,
lastly, there was the heart-breaking business for me to go
through of giving our landlord warning, just as we had got
comfortably settled in our new abode. If William could only have
gone on with his work, we might have stopped in this town, and in
these clean, comfortable lodgings for at least three or four
months. We have never had the use of a nice empty garret before,
for the children to play in; and I never met with any landlady so
pleasant to deal with in the kitchen as the landlady here. And
now we must leave all this comfort and happiness, and go--I
hardly know where. William, in his bitterness, says to the
workhouse; but that shall never be, if I have to go out to
service to prevent it. The darkness is coming on, and we must
save in candles, or I could write much more. Ah, me! what a day
this has been. I have had but one pleasant moment since it began;
and that was in the morning, when I set my little Emily to work
on a bead purse for the kind doctor's daughter. My child, young
as she is, is wonderfully neat-handed at stringing beads; and
even a poor little empty purse as a token of our gratitude, is
better than nothing at all.

19th.--A visit from our best friend--our only friend here--the
doctor. After he had examined William's eyes, and had reported
that they were getting on as well as can be hoped at present, he
asked where we thought of going to live? I said in the cheapest
place we could find, and added that I was about to make inquiries
in the by-streets of the town that very day. "Put off those
inquiries," he said, "till you hear from me again. I am going now
to see a patient at a farmhouse five miles off. (You needn't look
at the children, Mrs. Kerby, it's nothing infectious--only a
clumsy lad, who has broken his collarbone by a fall from a
horse.) They receive lodgers occasionally at the farmhouse, and I
know no reason why they should not be willing to receive you. If
you want to be well housed and well fed at a cheap rate, and if
you like the society of honest, hearty people, the farm of
Appletreewick is the very place for you. Don't thank me till you
know whether I can get you these new lodgings or not. And in the
meantime settle all your business affairs here, so as to be able
to move at a moment's notice." With those words the kind-hearted
gentleman nodded and went out. Pray heaven he may succeed at the
farmhouse! We may be sure of the children's health, at least, if
we live in the country. Talking of the children, I must not omit
to record that Emily has nearly done one end of the bead purse
already.

20th.--A note from the doctor, who is too busy to call. Such good
news! They will give us two bedrooms, and board us with the
family at Appletreewick for seventeen shillings a week. By my
calculations, we shall have three pounds sixteen shillings left,
after paying what we owe here. That will be enough, at the
outset, for four weeks' living at the farmhouse, with eight
shillings to spare besides. By embroidery-work I can easily make
nine shillings more to put to that, and there is a fifth week
provided for. Surely, in five weeks' time--considering the number
of things I can turn my hand to--we may hit on some plan for
getting a little money. This is what I am always telling my
husband, and what, by dint of constantly repeating it, I am
getting to believe myself. William, as is but natural, poor
fellow, does not take so lighthearted view of the future as I do.
He says that the prospect of sitting idle and being kept by his
wife for months to come, is something more wretched and hopeless
than words can describe. I try to raise his spirits by reminding
him of his years of honest hard work for me and the children, and
of the doctor's assurance that his eyes will get the better, in
good time, of their present helpless state. But he still sighs
and murmurs--being one of the most independent and high spirited
of men--about living a burden on his wife. I can only answer,
what in my heart of hearts I feel, that I took him for Better and
for Worse; that I have had many years of the Better, and that,
even in our present trouble, the Worse shows no signs of coming
yet!

The bead purse is getting on fast. Red and blue, in a pretty
striped pattern.

21st.--A busy day. We go to Appletreewick to-morrow. Paying bills
and packing up. All poor William's new canvases and
painting-things huddled together into a packing-case. He looked
so sad, sitting silent with his green shade on, while his old
familiar working materials were disappearing around him, as if he
and they were never to come together again, that the tears would
start into my eyes, though I am sure I am not one of the crying
sort. Luckily, the green shade kept him from seeing me: and I
took good care, though the effort nearly choked me, that he
should not hear I was crying, at any rate.

The bead purse is done. How are we to get the steel rings and
tassels for it? I am not justified now in spending sixpence
unnecessarily, even for the best of purposes.

22d.-----

23d. _The Farm of Appletreewick._--Too tired, after our move
yesterday, to write a word in my diary about our journey to this
delightful place. But now that we are beginning to get settled, I
can manage to make up for past omissions.

My first occupation on the morning of the move had, oddly enough,
nothing to do with our departure for the farmhouse. The moment
breakfast was over I began the day by making Emily as smart and
nice-looking as I could, to go to the doctor's with the purse.
She had her best silk frock on, showing the mending a little in
some places, I am afraid, and her straw hat trimmed with my
bonnet ribbon. Her father's neck-scarf, turned and joined so that
nobody could see it, made a nice mantilla for her; and away she
went to the doctor's, with her little, determined step, and the
purse in her hand (such a pretty hand that it is hardly to be
regretted I had no gloves for her). They were delighted with the
purse--which I ought to mention was finished with some white
beads; we found them in rummaging among our boxes, and they made
beautiful rings and tassels, contrasting charmingly with the blue
and red of the rest of the purse. The doctor and his little girl
were, as I have said, delighted with the present; and they gave
Emily, in return, a workbox for herself, and a box of sugar-plums
for her baby sister. The child came back all flushed with the
pleasure of the visit, and quite helped to keep up her father's
spirits with talking to him about it. So much for the highly
interesting history of the bead purse.

Toward the afternoon the light cart from the farmhouse came to
fetch us and our things to Appletreewick. It was quite a warm
spring day, and I had another pang to bear as I saw poor William
helped into the cart, looking so sickly and sad, with his
miserable green shade, in the cheerful sunlight. "God only knows,
Leah, how this will succeed with us," he said, as we started;
then sighed, and fell silent again.

Just outside the town the doctor met us. "Good luck go with you!"
he cried, swinging his stick in his usual hasty way; "I shall
come and see you as soon as you are all settled at the
farmhouse." "Good-by, sir," says Emily, struggling up with all
her might among the bundles in the bottom of the cart; "good-by,
and thank you again for the work-box and the sugar-plums." That
was my child all over! she never wants telling. The doctor kissed
his hand, and gave another flourish with
his stick. So we parted.

How I should have enjoyed the drive if William could only have
looked, as I did, at the young firs on the heath bending beneath
the steady breeze; at the shadows flying over the smooth fields;
at the high white clouds moving on and on, in their grand airy
procession over the gladsome blue sky! It was a hilly road, and I
begged the lad who drove us not to press the horse; so we were
nearly an hour, at our slow rate of going, before we drew up at
the gate of Appletreewick.

24th February to 2d March.--We have now been here long enough to
know something of the place and the people. First, as to the
place: Where the farmhouse now is, there was once a famous
priory. The tower is still standing, and the great room where the
monks ate and drank--used at present as a granary. The house
itself seems to have been tacked on to the ruins anyhow. No two
rooms in it are on the same level. The children do nothing but
tumble about the passages, because there always happens to be a
step up or down, just at the darkest part of every one of them.
As for staircases, there seems to me to be one for each bedroom.
I do nothing but lose my way--and the farmer says, drolling, that
he must have sign-posts put up for me in every corner of the
house from top to bottom. On the ground-floor, besides the usual
domestic offices, we have the best parlor--a dark, airless,
expensively furnished solitude, never invaded by anybody; the
kitchen, and a kind of hall, with a fireplace as big as the
drawing-room at our town lodgings. Here we live and take our
meals; here the children can racket about to their hearts'
content; here the dogs come lumbering in, whenever they can get
loose; here wages are paid, visitors are received, bacon is
cured, cheese is tasted, pipes are smoked, and naps are taken
every evening by the male members of the family. Never was such a
comfortable, friendly dwelling-place devised as this hall; I feel
already as if half my life had been passed in it.

Out-of-doors, looking beyond the flower-garden, lawn, back yards,
pigeon-houses, and kitchen-gardens, we are surrounded by a
network of smooth grazing-fields, each shut off from the other by
its neat hedgerow and its sturdy gate. Beyond the fields the
hills seem to flow away gently from us into the far blue
distance, till they are lost in the bright softness of the sky.
At one point, which we can see from our bedroom windows, they dip
suddenly into the plain, and show, over the rich marshy flat, a
strip of distant sea--a strip sometimes blue, sometimes gray;
sometimes, when the sun sets, a streak of fire; sometimes, on
showery days, a flash of silver light.

The inhabitants of the farmhouse have one great and rare
merit--they are people whom you can make friends with at once.
Between not knowing them at all, and knowing them well enough to
shake hands at first sight, there is no ceremonious interval or
formal gradation whatever. They received us, on our arrival,
exactly as if we were old friends returned from some long
traveling expedition. Before we had been ten minutes in the hall,
William had the easiest chair and the snuggest corner; the
children were eating bread-and-jam on the window-seat; and I was
talking to the farmer's wife, with the cat on my lap, of the time
when Emily had the measles.

The family numbers seven, exclusive of the indoor servants, of
course. First came the farmer and his wife--he is a tall, sturdy,
loud-voiced, active old man--she the easiest, plumpest and gayest
woman of sixty I ever met with. They have three sons and two
daughters. The two eldest of the young men are employed on the
farm; the third is a sailor, and is making holiday-time of it
just now at Appletreewick. The daughters are pictures of health
and freshness. I have but one complaint to make against
them--they are beginning to spoil the children already.

In this tranquil place, and among these genial, natural people,
how happily my time might be passed, were it not for the
saddening sight of William's affliction, and the wearing
uncertainty of how we are to provide for future necessities! It
is a hard thing for my husband and me, after having had the day
made pleasant by kind words and friendly offices, to feel this
one anxious thought always forcing itself on us at night: Shall
we have the means of stopping in our new home in a month's time?

3d.--A rainy day; the children difficult to manage; William
miserably despondent. Perhaps he influenced me, or perhaps I felt
my little troubles with the children more than usual: but,
however it was, I have not been so heavy-hearted since the day
when my husband first put on the green shade. A listless,
hopeless sensation would steal over me; but why write about it?
Better to try and forget it. There is always to-morrow to look to
when to-day is at the worst.

4th.--To-morrow has proved worthy of the faith I put in it.
Sunshine again out-of-doors; and as clear and true a reflection
of it in my own heart as I can hope to have just at this time.
Oh! that month, that one poor month of respite! What are we to do
at the end of the month?

5th.--I made my short entry for yesterday in the afternoon just
before tea-time, little thinking of events destined to happen
with the evening that would be really worth chronicling, for the
sake of the excellent results to which they are sure to lead. My
tendency is to be too sanguine about everything, I know; but I
am, nevertheless, firmly persuaded that I can see a new way out
of our present difficulties--a way of getting money enough to
keep us all in comfort at the farmhouse until William's eyes are
well again.

The new project which is to relieve us from all uncertainties for
the next six months actually originated with _me!_ It has raised
me many inches higher in my own estimation already. If the doctor
only agrees with my view of the case when he comes to-morrow,
William will allow himself to be persuaded, I know; and then let
them say what they please, I will answer for the rest.

This is how the new idea first found its way into my head:

We had just done tea. William, in much better spirits than usual,
was talking with the young sailor, who is jocosely called here by
the very ugly name of "Foul-weather Dick." The farmer and his two
eldest sons were composing themselves on the oaken settles for
their usual nap. The dame was knitting, the two girls were
beginning to clear the tea-table, and I was darning the
children's socks. To all appearance, this was not a very
propitious state of things for the creation of new ideas, and yet
my idea grew out of it, for all that. Talking with my husband on
various subjects connected with life in ships, the young sailor
began giving us a description of his hammock; telling us how it
was slung; how it was impossible to get into it any other way
than "stern foremost" (whatever that may mean); how the rolling
of the ship made it rock like a cradle; and how, on rough nights,
it sometimes swayed to and fro at such a rate as to bump bodily
against the ship's side and wake him up with the sensation of
having just received a punch on the head from a remarkably hard
fist. Hearing all this, I ventured to suggest that it must be an
immense relief to him to sleep on shore in a good, motionless,
solid four-post bed. But, to my surprise, he scoffed at the idea;
said he never slept comfortably out of his hammock; declared that
he quite missed his occasional punch on the head from the ship's
side; and ended by giving a most comical account of all the
uncomfortable sensations he felt when he slept in a four-post
bed. The odd nature of one of the young sailor's objections to
sleeping on shore reminded my husband (as indeed it did me too)
of the terrible story of a bed in a French gambling-house, which
he once heard from a gentleman whose likeness he took.

"You're laughing at me," says honest Foul-weather Dick, seeing
William turn toward me and smile.--"No, indeed," says my husband;
"that last objection of yours to the four-post beds on shore
seems by no means ridiculous to _me,_ at any rate. I once knew a
gentleman, Dick, who practically realized your objection."

"Excuse me, sir," says Dick, after a pause, and with an
appearance of great bewilderment and curiosity; "but could you
put 'practically realized' into plain English, so that a poor man
like me might have a chance of understanding you?"--"Certainly!"
says my husband, laughing. "I mean that I once knew a gentleman
who actually saw and felt what you say in jest you are afraid of
seeing and feeling whenever you sleep in a four-post bed. Do you
understand that?" Foul-weather Dick understood it perfectly, and
begged with great eagerness to hear what the gentleman's
adventure really was. The dame, who had been listening to our
talk, backed her son's petition; the two girls sat down expectant
at the half-cleared tea-table; even the farmer and his drowsy
sons roused themselves lazily on the settle--my husband saw that
he stood fairly committed to the relation of the story, so he
told it without more ado.

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