"Wilkie Collins - The New Magdalen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Collins Wilkie)

Roseberry under critical circumstances, and she had done for her all that one
woman could do to help another. There was in this circumstance some little claim
to notice, perhaps, if Lady Janet had no other companion and reader in view.
Suppose she ventured to plead her own cause--what would the noble and merciful
lady do? She would write back, and say, "Send me references to your character,
and I will see what can be done." Her character! Her references! Mercy laughed
bitterly, and sat down to write in the fewest words all that was needed from
her--a plain statement of the facts.
No! Not a line could she put on the paper. That fancy of hers was not to be
dismissed at will. Her mind was perversely busy now with an imaginative picture
of the beauty of Mablethorpe House and the comfort and elegance of the life that
was led there. Once more she thought of the chance which Miss Roseberry had
lost. Unhappy creature! what a home would have been open to her if the shell had
only fallen on the side of the window, instead of on the side of the yard!
Mercy pushed the letter away from her, and walked impatiently to and fro in the
room.
The perversity in her thoughts was not to be mastered in that way. Her mind only
abandoned one useless train of reflection to occupy itself with another. She was
now looking by anticipation at her own future. What were her prospects (if she
lived through it) when the war was over? The experience of the past delineated
with pitiless fidelity the dreary scene. Go where she might, do what she might,
it would always end in the same way. Curiosity and admiration excited by her
beauty; inquiries made about her; the story of the past discovered; Society
charitably sorry for her; Society generously subscribing for her; and still,
through all the years of her life, the same result in the end--the shadow of the
old disgrace surrounding her as with a pestilence, isolating her among other
women, branding her, even when she had earned her pardon in the sight of God,
with the mark of an indelible disgrace in the sight of man: there was the
prospect! And she was only five-and-twenty last birthday; she was in the prime
of her health and her strength; she might live, in the course of nature, fifty
years more!
She stopped again at the bedside; she looked again at the face of the corpse.
To what end had the shell struck the woman who had some hope in her life, and
spared the woman who had none? The words she had herself spoken to Grace
Roseberry came back to her as she thought of it. "If I only had your chance! If
I only had your reputation and your prospects!" And there was the chance wasted!
there were the enviable prospects thrown away! It was almost maddening to
contemplate that result, feeling her own position as she felt it. In the bitter
mockery of despair she bent over the lifeless figure, and spoke to it as if it
had ears to hear her. "Oh!" she said, longingly, "if you could be Mercy Merrick,
and if I could be Grace Roseberry, now!"
The instant the words passed her lips she started into an erect position. She
stood by the bed with her eyes staring wildly into empty space; with her brain
in a flame; with her heart beating as if it would stifle her. "If you could be
Mercy Merrick, and if I could be Grace Roseberry, now!" In one breathless moment
the thought assumed a new development in her mind. In one breathless moment the
conviction struck her like an electric shock. She might be Grace Roseberry if
she dared! There was absolutely nothing to stop her from presenting herself to
Lady Janet Roy under Grace's name and in Grace's place!
What were the risks? Where was the weak point in the scheme?