The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Queen of Hearts, by Wilkie Collins
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Title: The Queen of Hearts
Author: Wilkie Collins
Last Updated: January 3, 2009
Release Date: November 6, 2008 [EBook #1917]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE QUEEN OF HEARTS ***
Produced by James Rusk, and David Widger
THE QUEEN OF HEARTS
By Wilkie Collins
Contents
LETTER OF DEDICATION.
THE QUEEN OF HEARTS.
CHAPTER I. OURSELVES.
CHAPTER II. OUR DILEMMA.
CHAPTER III. OUR QUEEN OF' HEARTS.
CHAPTER IV. OUR GRAND PROJECT.
BROTHER GRIFFITH'S STORY of THE FAMILY SECRET.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
BROTHER MORGAN'S STORY of THE DREAM-WOMAN.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
BROTHER GRIFFITH'S STORY of MAD MONKTON
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
BROTHER MORGAN'S STORY of THE DEAD HAND
BROTHER GRIFFITH'S STORY of THE BITER BIT.
BROTHER OWEN'S STORY of THE PARSON'S SCRUPLE.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
BROTHER GRIFFITH'S STORY of A PLOT IN PRIVATE LIFE.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
BROTHER MORGAN'S STORY of FAUNTLEROY.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
BROTHER OWEN'S STORY of ANNE RODWAY.
LETTER OF DEDICATION.
TO
EMILE FORGUES.
AT a time when French readers were altogether unaware of the existence of any books of my writing, a critical examination of my novels appeared under your signature in the Revue des Deux Mondes. I read that article, at the time of its appearance, with sincere pleasure and sincere gratitude to the writer, and I have honestly done my best to profit by it ever since.
At a later period, when arrangements were made for the publication of my novels in Paris, you kindly undertook, at some sacrifice of your own convenience, to give the first of the series—"The Dead Secret"—the great advantage of being rendered into French by your pen. Your excellent translation of "The Lighthouse" had already taught me how to appreciate the value of your assistance; and when "The Dead Secret" appeared in its French form, although I was sensibly gratified, I was by no means surprised to find my fortunate work of fiction, not translated, in the mechanical sense of the word, but transformed from a novel that I had written in my language to a novel that you might have written in yours.
I am now about to ask you to confer one more literary obligation on me by accepting the dedication of this book, as the earliest acknowledgment which it has been in my power to make of the debt I owe to my critic, to my translator, and to my friend.
The stories which form the principal contents of the following pages are all, more or less, exercises in that art which I have now studied anxiously for some years, and which I still hope to cultivate, to better and better purpose, for many more. Allow me, by inscribing the collection to you, to secure one reader for it at the outset of its progress through the world of letters whose capacity for seeing all a writer's defects may be matched by many other critics, but whose rarer faculty of seeing all a writer's merits is equaled by very few.
WILKIE COLLINS.
THE QUEEN OF HEARTS.
CHAPTER I. OURSELVES.
WE were three quiet, lonely old men, and SHE was a lively, handsome young woman, and we were at our wits' end what to do with her.
A word about ourselves, first of all—a necessary word, to explain the singular situation of our fair young guest.
We are three brothers; and we live in a barbarous, dismal old house called The Glen Tower. Our place of abode stands in a hilly, lonesome district of South Wales. No such thing as a line of railway runs anywhere near us. No gentleman's seat is within an easy drive of us. We are at an unspeakably inconvenient distance from a town, and the village to which we send for our letters is three miles off.
My eldest brother, Owen, was brought up to the Church. All the prime of his life was passed in a populous London parish. For more years than I now like to reckon up, he worked unremittingly, in defiance of failing health and adverse fortune, amid the multitudinous misery of the London poor; and he would, in all probability, have sacrificed his life to his duty long before the present time if The Glen Tower had not come into his possession through two unexpected deaths in the elder and richer branch of our family. This opening to him of a place of rest and refuge saved his life. No man ever drew breath who better deserved the gifts of fortune; for no man, I sincerely believe, more tender of others, more diffident of himself, more gentle, more generous, and more simple-hearted than Owen, ever walked this earth.
My second brother, Morgan, started in life as a doctor, and learned all that his profession could teach him at home and abroad. He realized a moderate independence by his practice, beginning in one of our large northern towns and ending as a physician in London; but, although he was well known and appreciated among his brethren, he failed to gain that sort of reputation with the public which elevates a man into the position of a great doctor. The ladies never liked him. In the first place, he was ugly (Morgan will excuse me for mentioning this); in the second place, he was an inveterate smoker, and he smelled of tobacco when he felt languid pulses in elegant bedrooms; in the third place, he was the most formidably outspoken teller of the truth as regarded himself, his profession, and his patients, that ever imperiled the social standing of the science of medicine. For these reasons, and for others which it is not necessary to mention, he never pushed his way, as a doctor, into the front ranks, and he never cared to do so. About a year after Owen came into possession of The Glen Tower, Morgan discovered that he had saved as much money for his old age as a sensible man could want; that he was tired of the active pursuit—or, as he termed it, of the dignified quackery of his profession; and that it was only common charity to give his invalid brother a companion who could physic him for nothing, and so prevent him from getting rid of his money in the worst of all possible ways, by wasting it on doctors' bills. In a week after Morgan had arrived at these conclusions, he was settled at The Glen Tower; and from that time, opposite as their characters were, my two elder brothers lived together in their lonely retreat, thoroughly understanding, and, in their very different ways, heartily loving one another.
Many years passed before I, the youngest of the three—christened by the unmelodious name of Griffith—found my way, in my turn, to the dreary old house, and the sheltering quiet of the Welsh hills. My career in life had led me away from my brothers; and even now, when we are all united, I have still ties and interests to connect me with the outer world which neither Owen nor Morgan possess.