Remembering is a very slow progress when your mind is confused by
serious illness, weakness, and the breaking off for a time of all
threads of meaning in the mind. Meredith took it up again in the
morning, though not with the momentary gleam of conviction which had
flashed upon him; and he worked very hard at it, as he might have worked
at a case in his practice for the Bar or a mathematical problem. But it
was harder than either of those. He made out easily enough his meeting
with Janet at Mimpriss’s, and guessed rather than remembered that he had
walked home with her, and thus exposed himself to being knocked down at
Mrs. Harwood’s door; but he did not make out until he had returned to
the question--his faculties freshened by a night’s sleep, and the new
energy of the morning--why it was that he had met Janet, or that there
was any special reason for their meeting. It flashed upon him all at
once that he had made the appointment; that he had written to her to ask
her to meet him; and then he remembered all at once the papers and the
mystery which the papers had thrown so little light upon. He half
started from his couch with excitement when it burst upon him that he
was under the same roof as the mysterious recluse in the wing: and thus
laid himself open to a grave reproof from his attendant, who called upon
him to recollect that he had been very ill, that his escape was
half-miraculous, and that to put his health in jeopardy by suffering
himself to get excited would be “more than criminal.” He believed that
she meant scarcely less than criminal, but he was humble, and expressed
the deepest penitence.
“I was only thinking,” he said, “and something suddenly flashed upon
me.”
“Thinking is the very worst thing you could do,” said the nurse,
severely, “and to have things flashing upon you is what I cannot allow.
If it occurs again I must appeal to the doctor.”
The nurse was a lady, so that he could not quench her as he would have
done had she been Mrs. Gamp, and had to apologize again. But the
compulsory pause did him good, for when he returned to the subject
without any more starts and flashes, it all became clear to him again
from the night of the ball upwards. The various events of that night
came back like a picture to his mind. It had occupied him entirely in
the short intervals that occurred between that discovery and the assault
upon him at Mrs. Harwood’s door. Since then he had remembered nothing
about it till now.
And now: he was under the same roof--he would have, as he got better and
better, unbounded opportunities of finding out what that mystery was.
The couch was now to be altogether discarded. He was to be allowed to
walk and to sit in a chair like other people. Vicars the mysterious
would be under his eye, and Mrs. Harwood--and Gussy in her present
condition, softened with anxiety for him, and joy in his recovery, would
disclose anything he might ask from her. He knew that she could not keep
any secret from him now--if it were a secret she knew.
He felt greatly elated by the idea of the discovery which was so near,
which lay under his hand, which he must be able to complete with his
present advantages, and the thought of it led him very far on. True, he
had almost forgotten Janet and the immediate yet lesser problem which he
had to solve, _i.e._, how he came to be knocked down and almost killed
at Mrs. Harwood’s, and who had done it. He left the other subject with a
sigh and came back to this again for the moment. Yes, he had received
from Janet the papers which she had put together for him--received them,
he remembered, without a word, which had piqued and made him resolve to
compromise Janet, and show her what a farce it was to be demure with
him--at least, to compromise Janet as much as he could without
compromising himself. It was for that reason, he remembered, that he
insisted upon going all the way with and talking to her as only a lover
had any right to do--for that reason, and also because she had a great
attraction for him, far more than Gussy had ever had. He began to
recollect even the things she had said--her little struggles against his
appropriation of her, her gradually yielding--all that is most
delightful for a suitor of his kind to recollect.
He liked to feel himself the cause of emotion in others--he smiled as he
thought of it. Poor little Janet; she was angry and she was horrified.
She felt probably that it was she who had brought him into the great
danger under which he had fallen, and she was desperate to see that his
illness had separated them more than ever, and made Gussy mistress of
the situation. He forgave her, therefore, for her averted looks and
unyielding face. She must know how it had all come about. He was certain
from her looks that she knew, but she would not betray herself by
telling, and he would not betray her by forcing her to tell, for in that
case he would betray himself too.
Who could it be, he again asked himself, who had fallen upon him, and
assaulted him in that terrible way? Meredith was not conscious of having
enemies of that old-fashioned kind. There might be plenty of men who did
not like him, as there were plenty of men whom he did not like; but
between that and trying to murder him there was a great difference. He
was not a man of the highest morals, perhaps, but he did not inflict
injuries which would give any man a right to fling himself upon him in
this way. It was a new idea to think that it might be a lover of
Janet’s: but what lover could Janet have--some young fellow from the
country, perhaps, driven frantic by seeing his beloved in such close
colloquy with another man.
Meredith’s reason, however, rejected this hypothesis. The young man
from the country would not be such a tragical fool as to rush upon an
unknown stranger and try to murder him solely because that stranger was
walking home with his sweetheart. No! and besides, he remembered
something--something which had been presented to his intelligence at the
very last moment before that intelligence was temporarily
quenched--something--what was it that he remembered? It was all
perfectly clear up to this point. He saw every step as distinctly as if
it were in a case he had studied from a brief, but here the evidence
broke down. And yet it was lying somewhere in a corner of his mind if he
could only get at it. He knew that it was there.
“How is our patient to-day?” said Gussy, coming in, with the privilege
of her long nursing, after Meredith had made his toilette, and was lying
on the sofa to rest after that operation.
The nurse shook her head.
“Our patient,” she said, “has been thinking. He has been using his mind
a great deal too much--he has been smiling to himself and knitting his
brows as if he were trying to remember something. You will please to
tell him, Miss Harwood, that this sort of thing will not do. I have done
so, but he does not mind me.”
“How cruel of you to say so!” said Meredith, “when you know that I mind
you in everything! I never take an invigorating glass of soda-water
without asking you if I may.”
She shook her head again.
“It is not glasses of soda-water that are in question, but using your
head, Mr. Meredith, when it’s not in a fit state.”
“With two or three holes in it,” said Meredith, ruefully.
“No; you must not,” said Gussy, soothing him. “I am glad you think you
have found a clue, but that is enough for to-day.”
Yes, it was enough for to-day; he was compelled in his weakness to
acknowledge that he could do no more.
“And you must not think. You must not even attempt to think,” said
Gussy; “thinking is not a thing for you to do. Promise me you will not
try.”
He took her hand to reassure her, but he did not promise, and even in
the act of holding Gussy’s hand and looking up tenderly into her face in
requital of her care, he glanced round to make sure that Janet saw this
little affectionate episode. He wished her to see, with a sense of pique
at the indifference she had shown, and a desire that she should be made
aware how little her indifference was shared by others. In his weak
state it was doubly necessary to him to be surrounded by care and
attention, to have love to wait upon and consider him in all things. He
was pleased for himself to caress and be caressed, but he loved to have
a spectator to whom he could make those little traitorous asides which
increased his enjoyment, or whom he could at least mortify with the
sight of his entire mastery over some one else if he had ceased to move
her.
But, though this little play with the feelings of others pleased him, he
did not give up on that account the quest upon which his mind had
entered. Meredith had no inclination to let off or pardon the offender
who had so nearly taken his life. Whoever it might be, he was determined
to hunt him out and punish him. And he only relinquished this, the
process in his mind of putting together such evidence as he had got
possession of and working it out, as he might have put aside any piece
of manual work till his fatigue had passed away and he was able to take
it up again. It would not do to throw himself back by getting a
headache, by injuring his nerves or his sleep. His mind was sufficiently
trained to enable him to do this; to put thoughts aside when they hurt
him, to take them back again when he was in a fit state to do so--which
is a capacity always very astonishing to those who have never learned to
discipline and rule their thoughts.
Janet thought with relief that whatever suspicions may have gleamed
across him, whatever half recollections might have formed in his mind,
they had passed away like clouds, when she saw him submitting to all
Gussy’s half-nurse, half-lover attentions, leaning back upon his
pillows, suffering himself to be silenced and soothed, smiling upon his
anxious ministrant, and professing to do everything she told him.
“Was there ever so docile a slave?” he said; “I have no will but my
lady’s.”
“You mean patient,” said Gussy, with the soft flush that lit up her
face, “and it is your nurse whom you obey.”
“Fortunately the two things are the same in my case,” he said.
To think that he could indulge in this badinage while his mind was still
following out the thread upon which another man’s life hung, was
incredible to Janet. She thought it had all passed from his mind, and
that she and her secret, and, still more, Dolff and his, must now be
safe. And presently she was asked to go again and play for the soothing
of the invalid, a request which she obeyed with suppressed indignation.
Why should she be made to minister to him too--she whose eyes had been
opened, who had just escaped, or hoped that she had escaped from him,
almost at the risk of her life? Janet was impatient of him, and half
disappointed after the excitement into which his tentative questions and
looks had thrown her, that he had let it drop again and float off in
nothingness. She was quieted in her fears, but she almost resented it,
and despised the man who had so little nerve and force left.
Janet was wrong, it need scarcely be said. Meredith retired a little
earlier than usual on the pretence of being tired. He lay very still in
the quiet of his room, which nobody but the nurse was now permitted to
enter, till his headache was quite gone, and then he returned to the
search of his own mind and recollections, and to the finding out of the
something which he remembered, yet for the moment had forgot.