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diff --git a/1438-h/1438-h.htm b/1438-h/1438-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..85697c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/1438-h/1438-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,36430 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>No Name, by Wilkie Collins</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { background:#faebd0; + margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 175%; 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text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1438 ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:60%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="cover " /><br/><br/> +</div> + +<h1>No Name</h1> + +<h3>by Wilkie Collins</h3> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#pref01">PREFACE.</a><br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part01"><b>THE FIRST SCENE.</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">BETWEEN THE SCENES.</a><br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part02"><b>THE SECOND SCENE.</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER I.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER II.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER III.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">BETWEEN THE SCENES.</a><br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part03"><b>THE THIRD SCENE.</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER I.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER II.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER III.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">CHAPTER IV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">BETWEEN THE SCENES.</a><br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part04"><b>THE FOURTH SCENE.</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">CHAPTER I.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">CHAPTER II.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">CHAPTER III.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29">CHAPTER IV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap30">CHAPTER V.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap31">CHAPTER VI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap32">CHAPTER VII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap33">CHAPTER VIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap34">CHAPTER IX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap35">CHAPTER X.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap36">CHAPTER XI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap37">CHAPTER XII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap38">CHAPTER XIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap39">CHAPTER XIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap40">BETWEEN THE SCENES.</a><br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part05"><b>THE FIFTH SCENE.</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap41">CHAPTER I.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap42">CHAPTER II.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap43">CHAPTER III.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap44">BETWEEN THE SCENES.</a><br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part06"><b>THE SIXTH SCENE.</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap45">CHAPTER I.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap46">CHAPTER II.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap47">BETWEEN THE SCENES.</a><br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part07"><b>THE SEVENTH SCENE.</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap48">CHAPTER I.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap49">CHAPTER II.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap50">CHAPTER III.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap51">CHAPTER IV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap52">BETWEEN THE SCENES.</a><br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part08"><b>THE LAST SCENE.</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap53">CHAPTER I.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap54">CHAPTER II.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap55">CHAPTER III.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap56">CHAPTER IV.</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"> +TO<br/><br/> +FRANCIS CARR BEARD;<br/> +(FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND)<br/><br/> +IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE TIME<br/> +WHEN THE CLOSING SCENES OF THIS STORY WERE WRITTEN. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="pref01"></a>PREFACE.</h3> + +<p> +The main purpose of this story is to appeal to the reader’s interest in a +subject which has been the theme of some of the greatest writers, living and +dead—but which has never been, and can never be, exhausted, because it is +a subject eternally interesting to all mankind. Here is one more book that +depicts the struggle of a human creature, under those opposing influences of +Good and Evil, which we have all felt, which we have all known. It has been my +aim to make the character of “Magdalen,” which personifies this +struggle, a pathetic character even in its perversity and its error; and I have +tried hard to attain this result by the least obtrusive and the least +artificial of all means—by a resolute adherence throughout to the truth +as it is in Nature. This design was no easy one to accomplish; and it has been +a great encouragement to me (during the publication of my story in its +periodical form) to know, on the authority of many readers, that the object +which I had proposed to myself, I might, in some degree, consider as an object +achieved. +</p> + +<p> +Round the central figure in the narrative other characters will be found +grouped, in sharp contrast—contrast, for the most part, in which I have +endeavored to make the element of humor mainly predominant. I have sought to +impart this relief to the more serious passages in the book, not only because I +believe myself to be justified in doing so by the laws of Art—but because +experience has taught me (what the experience of my readers will doubtless +confirm) that there is no such moral phenomenon as unmixed tragedy to be found +in the world around us. Look where we may, the dark threads and the light cross +each other perpetually in the texture of human life. +</p> + +<p> +To pass from the Characters to the Story, it will be seen that the narrative +related in these pages has been constructed on a plan which differs from the +plan followed in my last novel, and in some other of my works published at an +earlier date. The only Secret contained in this book is revealed midway in the +first volume. From that point, all the main events of the story are purposely +foreshadowed before they take place—my present design being to rouse the +reader’s interest in following the train of circumstances by which these +foreseen events are brought about. In trying this new ground, I am not turning +my back in doubt on the ground which I have passed over already. My one object +in following a new course is to enlarge the range of my studies in the art of +writing fiction, and to vary the form in which I make my appeal to the reader, +as attractively as I can. +</p> + +<p> +There is no need for me to add more to these few prefatory words than is here +written. What I might otherwise have wished to say in this place, I have +endeavored to make the book itself say for me. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>Harley Street,<br/> + November</i>, 1862 +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h1>NO NAME.</h1> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="part01"></a>THE FIRST SCENE.<br/> +<small>COMBE-RAVEN, SOMERSETSHIRE.</small></h3> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<p> +The hands on the hall-clock pointed to half-past six in the morning. The house +was a country residence in West Somersetshire, called Combe-Raven. The day was +the fourth of March, and the year was eighteen hundred and forty-six. +</p> + +<p> +No sounds but the steady ticking of the clock, and the lumpish snoring of a +large dog stretched on a mat outside the dining-room door, disturbed the +mysterious morning stillness of hall and staircase. Who were the sleepers +hidden in the upper regions? Let the house reveal its own secrets; and, one by +one, as they descend the stairs from their beds, let the sleepers disclose +themselves. +</p> + +<p> +As the clock pointed to a quarter to seven, the dog woke and shook himself. +After waiting in vain for the footman, who was accustomed to let him out, the +animal wandered restlessly from one closed door to another on the ground-floor; +and, returning to his mat in great perplexity, appealed to the sleeping family +with a long and melancholy howl. +</p> + +<p> +Before the last notes of the dog’s remonstrance had died away, the oaken +stairs in the higher regions of the house creaked under slowly-descending +footsteps. In a minute more the first of the female servants made her +appearance, with a dingy woolen shawl over her shoulders—for the March +morning was bleak; and rheumatism and the cook were old acquaintances. +</p> + +<p> +Receiving the dog’s first cordial advances with the worst possible grace, +the cook slowly opened the hall door and let the animal out. It was a wild +morning. Over a spacious lawn, and behind a black plantation of firs, the +rising sun rent its way upward through piles of ragged gray cloud; heavy drops +of rain fell few and far between; the March wind shuddered round the corners of +the house, and the wet trees swayed wearily. +</p> + +<p> +Seven o’clock struck; and the signs of domestic life began to show +themselves in more rapid succession. +</p> + +<p> +The housemaid came down—tall and slim, with the state of the spring +temperature written redly on her nose. The lady’s-maid +followed—young, smart, plump, and sleepy. The kitchen-maid came +next—afflicted with the face-ache, and making no secret of her +sufferings. Last of all, the footman appeared, yawning disconsolately; the +living picture of a man who felt that he had been defrauded of his fair +night’s rest. +</p> + +<p> +The conversation of the servants, when they assembled before the slowly +lighting kitchen fire, referred to a recent family event, and turned at +starting on this question: Had Thomas, the footman, seen anything of the +concert at Clifton, at which his master and the two young ladies had been +present on the previous night? Yes; Thomas had heard the concert; he had been +paid for to go in at the back; it was a loud concert; it was a hot concert; it +was described at the top of the bills as Grand; whether it was worth traveling +sixteen miles to hear by railway, with the additional hardship of going back +nineteen miles by road, at half-past one in the morning—was a question +which he would leave his master and the young ladies to decide; his own +opinion, in the meantime, being unhesitatingly, No. Further inquiries, on the +part of all the female servants in succession, elicited no additional +information of any sort. Thomas could hum none of the songs, and could describe +none of the ladies’ dresses. His audience, accordingly, gave him up in +despair; and the kitchen small-talk flowed back into its ordinary channels, +until the clock struck eight and startled the assembled servants into +separating for their morning’s work. +</p> + +<p> +A quarter past eight, and nothing happened. Half-past—and more signs of +life appeared from the bedroom regions. The next member of the family who came +downstairs was Mr. Andrew Vanstone, the master of the house. +</p> + +<p> +Tall, stout, and upright—with bright blue eyes, and healthy, florid +complexion—his brown plush shooting-jacket carelessly buttoned awry; his +vixenish little Scotch terrier barking unrebuked at his heels; one hand thrust +into his waistcoat pocket, and the other smacking the banisters cheerfully as +he came downstairs humming a tune—Mr. Vanstone showed his character on +the surface of him freely to all men. An easy, hearty, handsome, good-humored +gentleman, who walked on the sunny side of the way of life, and who asked +nothing better than to meet all his fellow-passengers in this world on the +sunny side, too. Estimating him by years, he had turned fifty. Judging him by +lightness of heart, strength of constitution, and capacity for enjoyment, he +was no older than most men who have only turned thirty. +</p> + +<p> +“Thomas!” cried Mr. Vanstone, taking up his old felt hat and his +thick walking stick from the hall table. “Breakfast, this morning, at +ten. The young ladies are not likely to be down earlier after the concert last +night.—By-the-by, how did you like the concert yourself, eh? You thought +it was grand? Quite right; so it was. Nothing but crash-bang, varied now and +then by bang-crash; all the women dressed within an inch of their lives; +smothering heat, blazing gas, and no room for anybody—yes, yes, Thomas; +grand’s the word for it, and comfortable isn’t.” With that +expression of opinion, Mr. Vanstone whistled to his vixenish terrier; +flourished his stick at the hall door in cheerful defiance of the rain; and set +off through wind and weather for his morning walk. +</p> + +<p> +The hands, stealing their steady way round the dial of the clock, pointed to +ten minutes to nine. Another member of the family appeared on the +stairs—Miss Garth, the governess. +</p> + +<p> +No observant eyes could have surveyed Miss Garth without seeing at once that +she was a north-countrywoman. Her hard featured face; her masculine readiness +and decision of movement; her obstinate honesty of look and manner, all +proclaimed her border birth and border training. Though little more than forty +years of age, her hair was quite gray; and she wore over it the plain cap of an +old woman. Neither hair nor head-dress was out of harmony with her +face—it looked older than her years: the hard handwriting of trouble had +scored it heavily at some past time. The self-possession of her progress +downstairs, and the air of habitual authority with which she looked about her, +spoke well for her position in Mr. Vanstone’s family. This was evidently +not one of the forlorn, persecuted, pitiably dependent order of governesses. +Here was a woman who lived on ascertained and honorable terms with her +employers—a woman who looked capable of sending any parents in England to +the right-about, if they failed to rate her at her proper value. +</p> + +<p> +“Breakfast at ten?” repeated Miss Garth, when the footman had +answered the bell, and had mentioned his master’s orders. “Ha! I +thought what would come of that concert last night. When people who live in the +country patronize public amusements, public amusements return the compliment by +upsetting the family afterward for days together. <i>You’re</i> upset, +Thomas, I can see your eyes are as red as a ferret’s, and your cravat +looks as if you had slept in it. Bring the kettle at a quarter to ten—and +if you don’t get better in the course of the day, come to me, and +I’ll give you a dose of physic. That’s a well-meaning lad, if you +only let him alone,” continued Miss Garth, in soliloquy, when Thomas had +retired; “but he’s not strong enough for concerts twenty miles off. +They wanted <i>me</i> to go with them last night. Yes: catch me!” +</p> + +<p> +Nine o’clock struck; and the minute-hand stole on to twenty minutes past +the hour, before any more footsteps were heard on the stairs. At the end of +that time, two ladies appeared, descending to the breakfast-room +together—Mrs. Vanstone and her eldest daughter. +</p> + +<p> +If the personal attractions of Mrs. Vanstone, at an earlier period of life, had +depended solely on her native English charms of complexion and freshness, she +must have long since lost the last relics of her fairer self. But her beauty as +a young woman had passed beyond the average national limits; and she still +preserved the advantage of her more exceptional personal gifts. Although she +was now in her forty-fourth year; although she had been tried, in bygone times, +by the premature loss of more than one of her children, and by long attacks of +illness which had followed those bereavements of former years—she still +preserved the fair proportion and subtle delicacy of feature, once associated +with the all-adorning brightness and freshness of beauty, which had left her +never to return. Her eldest child, now descending the stairs by her side, was +the mirror in which she could look back and see again the reflection of her own +youth. There, folded thick on the daughter’s head, lay the massive dark +hair, which, on the mother’s, was fast turning gray. There, in the +daughter’s cheek, glowed the lovely dusky red which had faded from the +mother’s to bloom again no more. Miss Vanstone had already reached the +first maturity of womanhood; she had completed her six-and-twentieth year. +Inheriting the dark majestic character of her mother’s beauty, she had +yet hardly inherited all its charms. Though the shape of her face was the same, +the features were scarcely so delicate, their proportion was scarcely so true. +She was not so tall. She had the dark-brown eyes of her mother—full and +soft, with the steady luster in them which Mrs. Vanstone’s eyes had +lost—and yet there was less interest, less refinement and depth of +feeling in her expression: it was gentle and feminine, but clouded by a certain +quiet reserve, from which her mother’s face was free. If we dare to look +closely enough, may we not observe that the moral force of character and the +higher intellectual capacities in parents seem often to wear out mysteriously +in the course of transmission to children? In these days of insidious nervous +exhaustion and subtly-spreading nervous malady, is it not possible that the +same rule may apply, less rarely than we are willing to admit, to the bodily +gifts as well? +</p> + +<p> +The mother and daughter slowly descended the stairs together—the first +dressed in dark brown, with an Indian shawl thrown over her shoulders; the +second more simply attired in black, with a plain collar and cuffs, and a dark +orange-colored ribbon over the bosom of her dress. As they crossed the hall and +entered the breakfast-room, Miss Vanstone was full of the all-absorbing subject +of the last night’s concert. +</p> + +<p> +“I am so sorry, mamma, you were not with us,” she said. “You +have been so strong and so well ever since last summer—you have felt so +many years younger, as you said yourself—that I am sure the exertion +would not have been too much for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps not, my love—but it was as well to keep on the safe +side.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite as well,” remarked Miss Garth, appearing at the +breakfast-room door. “Look at Norah (good-morning, my dear)—look, I +say, at Norah. A perfect wreck; a living proof of your wisdom and mine in +staying at home. The vile gas, the foul air, the late hours—what can you +expect? She’s not made of iron, and she suffers accordingly. No, my dear, +you needn’t deny it. I see you’ve got a headache.” +</p> + +<p> +Norah’s dark, handsome face brightened into a smile—then lightly +clouded again with its accustomed quiet reserve. +</p> + +<p> +“A very little headache; not half enough to make me regret the +concert,” she said, and walked away by herself to the window. +</p> + +<p> +On the far side of a garden and paddock the view overlooked a stream, some farm +buildings which lay beyond, and the opening of a wooded, rocky pass (called, in +Somersetshire, a Combe), which here cleft its way through the hills that closed +the prospect. A winding strip of road was visible, at no great distance, amid +the undulations of the open ground; and along this strip the stalwart figure of +Mr. Vanstone was now easily recognizable, returning to the house from his +morning walk. He flourished his stick gayly, as he observed his eldest daughter +at the window. She nodded and waved her hand in return, very gracefully and +prettily—but with something of old-fashioned formality in her manner, +which looked strangely in so young a woman, and which seemed out of harmony +with a salutation addressed to her father. +</p> + +<p> +The hall-clock struck the adjourned breakfast-hour. When the minute hand had +recorded the lapse of five minutes more a door banged in the bedroom +regions—a clear young voice was heard singing blithely—light, rapid +footsteps pattered on the upper stairs, descended with a jump to the landing, +and pattered again, faster than ever, down the lower flight. In another moment +the youngest of Mr. Vanstone’s two daughters (and two only surviving +children) dashed into view on the dingy old oaken stairs, with the suddenness +of a flash of light; and clearing the last three steps into the hall at a jump, +presented herself breathless in the breakfast-room to make the family circle +complete. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +By one of those strange caprices of Nature, which science leaves still +unexplained, the youngest of Mr. Vanstone’s children presented no +recognizable resemblance to either of her parents. How had she come by her +hair? how had she come by her eyes? Even her father and mother had asked +themselves those questions, as she grew up to girlhood, and had been sorely +perplexed to answer them. Her hair was of that purely light-brown hue, unmixed +with flaxen, or yellow, or red—which is oftener seen on the plumage of a +bird than on the head of a human being. It was soft and plentiful, and waved +downward from her low forehead in regular folds—but, to some tastes, it +was dull and dead, in its absolute want of glossiness, in its monotonous purity +of plain light color. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were just a shade darker than +her hair, and seemed made expressly for those violet-blue eyes, which assert +their most irresistible charm when associated with a fair complexion. But it +was here exactly that the promise of her face failed of performance in the most +startling manner. The eyes, which should have been dark, were incomprehensibly +and discordantly light; they were of that nearly colorless gray which, though +little attractive in itself, possesses the rare compensating merit of +interpreting the finest gradations of thought, the gentlest changes of feeling, +the deepest trouble of passion, with a subtle transparency of expression which +no darker eyes can rival. Thus quaintly self-contradictory in the upper part of +her face, she was hardly less at variance with established ideas of harmony in +the lower. Her lips had the true feminine delicacy of form, her cheeks the +lovely roundness and smoothness of youth—but the mouth was too large and +firm, the chin too square and massive for her sex and age. Her complexion +partook of the pure monotony of tint which characterized her hair—it was +of the same soft, warm, creamy fairness all over, without a tinge of color in +the cheeks, except on occasions of unusual bodily exertion or sudden mental +disturbance. The whole countenance—so remarkable in its strongly opposed +characteristics—was rendered additionally striking by its extraordinary +mobility. The large, electric, light-gray eyes were hardly ever in repose; all +varieties of expression followed each other over the plastic, ever-changing +face, with a giddy rapidity which left sober analysis far behind in the race. +The girl’s exuberant vitality asserted itself all over her, from head to +foot. Her figure—taller than her sister’s, taller than the average +of woman’s height; instinct with such a seductive, serpentine suppleness, +so lightly and playfully graceful, that its movements suggested, not +unnaturally, the movements of a young cat—her figure was so perfectly +developed already that no one who saw her could have supposed that she was only +eighteen. She bloomed in the full physical maturity of twenty years or +more—bloomed naturally and irresistibly, in right of her matchless health +and strength. Here, in truth, lay the mainspring of this strangely-constituted +organization. Her headlong course down the house stairs; the brisk activity of +all her movements; the incessant sparkle of expression in her face; the +enticing gayety which took the hearts of the quietest people by +storm—even the reckless delight in bright colors which showed itself in +her brilliantly-striped morning dress, in her fluttering ribbons, in the large +scarlet rosettes on her smart little shoes—all sprang alike from the same +source; from the overflowing physical health which strengthened every muscle, +braced every nerve, and set the warm young blood tingling through her veins, +like the blood of a growing child. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +On her entry into the breakfast-room, she was saluted with the customary +remonstrance which her flighty disregard of all punctuality habitually provoked +from the long-suffering household authorities. In Miss Garth’s favorite +phrase, “Magdalen was born with all the senses—except a sense of +order.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen! It was a strange name to have given her? Strange, indeed; and yet, +chosen under no extraordinary circumstances. The name had been borne by one of +Mr. Vanstone’s sisters, who had died in early youth; and, in affectionate +remembrance of her, he had called his second daughter by it—just as he +had called his eldest daughter Norah, for his wife’s sake. Magdalen! +Surely, the grand old Bible name—suggestive of a sad and somber dignity; +recalling, in its first association, mournful ideas of penitence and +seclusion—had been here, as events had turned out, inappropriately +bestowed? Surely, this self-contradictory girl had perversely accomplished one +contradiction more, by developing into a character which was out of all harmony +with her own Christian name! +</p> + +<p> +“Late again!” said Mrs. Vanstone, as Magdalen breathlessly kissed +her. +</p> + +<p> +“Late again!” chimed in Miss Garth, when Magdalen came her way +next. “Well?” she went on, taking the girl’s chin familiarly +in her hand, with a half-satirical, half-fond attention which betrayed that the +youngest daughter, with all her faults, was the governess’s +favorite—“Well? and what has the concert done for <i>you?</i> What +form of suffering has dissipation inflicted on <i>your</i> system this +morning?” +</p> + +<p> +“Suffering!” repeated Magdalen, recovering her breath, and the use +of her tongue with it. “I don’t know the meaning of the word: if +there’s anything the matter with me, I’m too well. Suffering! +I’m ready for another concert to-night, and a ball to-morrow, and a play +the day after. Oh,” cried Magdalen, dropping into a chair and crossing +her hands rapturously on the table, “how I do like pleasure!” +</p> + +<p> +“Come! that’s explicit at any rate,” said Miss Garth. +“I think Pope must have had you in his mind when he wrote his famous +lines: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Men some to business, some to pleasure take,<br/> +But every woman is at heart a rake.” +</p> + +<p> +“The deuce she is!” cried Mr. Vanstone, entering the room while +Miss Garth was making her quotation, with the dogs at his heels. “Well; +live and learn. If you’re all rakes, Miss Garth, the sexes are turned +topsy-turvy with a vengeance; and the men will have nothing left for it but to +stop at home and darn the stockings.—Let’s have some +breakfast.” +</p> + +<p> +“How-d’ye-do, papa?” said Magdalen, taking Mr. Vanstone as +boisterously round the neck as if he belonged to some larger order of +Newfoundland dog, and was made to be romped with at his daughter’s +convenience. “I’m the rake Miss Garth means; and I want to go to +another concert—or a play, if you like—or a ball, if you prefer +it—or anything else in the way of amusement that puts me into a new +dress, and plunges me into a crowd of people, and illuminates me with plenty of +light, and sets me in a tingle of excitement all over, from head to foot. +Anything will do, as long as it doesn’t send us to bed at eleven +o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Vanstone sat down composedly under his daughter’s flow of language, +like a man who was well used to verbal inundation from that quarter. “If +I am to be allowed my choice of amusements next time,” said the worthy +gentleman, “I think a play will suit me better than a concert. The girls +enjoyed themselves amazingly, my dear,” he continued, addressing his +wife. “More than I did, I must say. It was altogether above my mark. They +played one piece of music which lasted forty minutes. It stopped three times, +by-the-way; and we all thought it was done each time, and clapped our hands, +rejoiced to be rid of it. But on it went again, to our great surprise and +mortification, till we gave it up in despair, and all wished ourselves at +Jericho. Norah, my dear! when we had crash-bang for forty minutes, with three +stoppages by-the-way, what did they call it?” +</p> + +<p> +“A symphony, papa,” replied Norah. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you darling old Goth, a symphony by the great Beethoven!” +added Magdalen. “How can you say you were not amused? Have you forgotten +the yellow-looking foreign woman, with the unpronounceable name? Don’t +you remember the faces she made when she sang? and the way she courtesied and +courtesied, till she cheated the foolish people into crying encore? Look here, +mamma—look here, Miss Garth!” +</p> + +<p> +She snatched up an empty plate from the table, to represent a sheet of music, +held it before her in the established concert-room position, and produced an +imitation of the unfortunate singer’s grimaces and courtesyings, so +accurately and quaintly true to the original, that her father roared with +laughter; and even the footman (who came in at that moment with the post-bag) +rushed out of the room again, and committed the indecorum of echoing his master +audibly on the other side of the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Letters, papa. I want the key,” said Magdalen, passing from the +imitation at the breakfast-table to the post-bag on the sideboard with the easy +abruptness which characterized all her actions. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Vanstone searched his pockets and shook his head. Though his youngest +daughter might resemble him in nothing else, it was easy to see where +Magdalen’s unmethodical habits came from. +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say I have left it in the library, along with my other +keys,” said Mr. Vanstone. “Go and look for it, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“You really should check Magdalen,” pleaded Mrs. Vanstone, +addressing her husband when her daughter had left the room. “Those habits +of mimicry are growing on her; and she speaks to you with a levity which it is +positively shocking to hear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly what I have said myself, till I am tired of repeating it,” +remarked Miss Garth. “She treats Mr. Vanstone as if he was a kind of +younger brother of hers.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are kind to us in everything else, papa; and you make kind +allowances for Magdalen’s high spirits—don’t you?” said +the quiet Norah, taking her father’s part and her sister’s with so +little show of resolution on the surface that few observers would have been +sharp enough to detect the genuine substance beneath it. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, my dear,” said good-natured Mr. Vanstone. “Thank +you for a very pretty speech. As for Magdalen,” he continued, addressing +his wife and Miss Garth, “she’s an unbroken filly. Let her caper +and kick in the paddock to her heart’s content. Time enough to break her +to harness when she gets a little older.” +</p> + +<p> +The door opened, and Magdalen returned with the key. She unlocked the post-bag +at the sideboard and poured out the letters in a heap. Sorting them gayly in +less than a minute, she approached the breakfast-table with both hands full, +and delivered the letters all round with the business-like rapidity of a London +postman. +</p> + +<p> +“Two for Norah,” she announced, beginning with her sister. +“Three for Miss Garth. None for mamma. One for me. And the other six all +for papa. You lazy old darling, you hate answering letters, don’t +you?” pursued Magdalen, dropping the postman’s character and +assuming the daughter’s. “How you will grumble and fidget in the +study! and how you will wish there were no such things as letters in the world! +and how red your nice old bald head will get at the top with the worry of +writing the answers; and how many of the answers you will leave until tomorrow +after all! <i>The Bristol Theater’s open, papa,</i>” she whispered, +slyly and suddenly, in her father’s ear; “I saw it in the newspaper +when I went to the library to get the key. Let’s go to-morrow +night!” +</p> + +<p> +While his daughter was chattering, Mr. Vanstone was mechanically sorting his +letters. He turned over the first four in succession and looked carelessly at +the addresses. When he came to the fifth his attention, which had hitherto +wandered toward Magdalen, suddenly became fixed on the post-mark of the letter. +</p> + +<p> +Stooping over him, with her head on his shoulder, Magdalen could see the +post-mark as plainly as her father saw it—NEW ORLEANS. +</p> + +<p> +“An American letter, papa!” she said. “Who do you know at New +Orleans?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Vanstone started, and looked eagerly at her husband the moment Magdalen +spoke those words. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Vanstone said nothing. He quietly removed his daughter’s arm from his +neck, as if he wished to be free from all interruption. She returned, +accordingly, to her place at the breakfast-table. Her father, with the letter +in his hand, waited a little before he opened it; her mother looking at him, +the while, with an eager, expectant attention which attracted Miss +Garth’s notice, and Norah’s, as well as Magdalen’s. +</p> + +<p> +After a minute or more of hesitation Mr. Vanstone opened the letter. +</p> + +<p> +His face changed color the instant he read the first lines; his cheeks fading +to a dull, yellow-brown hue, which would have been ashy paleness in a less +florid man; and his expression becoming saddened and overclouded in a moment. +Norah and Magdalen, watching anxiously, saw nothing but the change that passed +over their father. Miss Garth alone observed the effect which that change +produced on the attentive mistress of the house. +</p> + +<p> +It was not the effect which she, or any one, could have anticipated. Mrs. +Vanstone looked excited rather than alarmed. A faint flush rose on her +cheeks—her eyes brightened—she stirred the tea round and round in +her cup in a restless, impatient manner which was not natural to her. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen, in her capacity of spoiled child, was, as usual, the first to break +the silence. +</p> + +<p> +“What <i>is</i> the matter, papa?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing,” said Mr. Vanstone, sharply, without looking up at her. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure there must be something,” persisted Magdalen. +“I’m sure there is bad news, papa, in that American letter.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is nothing in the letter that concerns <i>you</i>,” said Mr. +Vanstone. +</p> + +<p> +It was the first direct rebuff that Magdalen had ever received from her father. +She looked at him with an incredulous surprise, which would have been +irresistibly absurd under less serious circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing more was said. For the first time, perhaps, in their lives, the family +sat round the breakfast-table in painful silence. Mr. Vanstone’s hearty +morning appetite, like his hearty morning spirits, was gone. He absently broke +off some morsels of dry toast from the rack near him, absently finished his +first cup of tea—then asked for a second, which he left before him +untouched. +</p> + +<p> +“Norah,” he said, after an interval, “you needn’t wait +for me. Magdalen, my dear, you can go when you like.” +</p> + +<p> +His daughters rose immediately; and Miss Garth considerately followed their +example. When an easy-tempered man does assert himself in his family, the +rarity of the demonstration invariably has its effect; and the will of that +easy-tempered man is Law. +</p> + +<p> +“What can have happened?” whispered Norah, as they closed the +breakfast-room door and crossed the hall. +</p> + +<p> +“What does papa mean by being cross with Me?” exclaimed Magdalen, +chafing under a sense of her own injuries. +</p> + +<p> +“May I ask—what right you had to pry into your father’s +private affairs?” retorted Miss Garth. +</p> + +<p> +“Right?” repeated Magdalen. “I have no secrets from +papa—what business has papa to have secrets from me! I consider myself +insulted.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you considered yourself properly reproved for not minding your own +business,” said the plain-spoken Miss Garth, “you would be a trifle +nearer the truth. Ah! you are like all the rest of the girls in the present +day. Not one in a hundred of you knows which end of her’s +uppermost.” +</p> + +<p> +The three ladies entered the morning-room; and Magdalen acknowledged Miss +Garth’s reproof by banging the door. +</p> + +<p> +Half an hour passed, and neither Mr. Vanstone nor his wife left the +breakfast-room. The servant, ignorant of what had happened, went in to clear +the table—found his master and mistress seated close together in deep +consultation—and immediately went out again. Another quarter of an hour +elapsed before the breakfast-room door was opened, and the private conference +of the husband and wife came to an end. +</p> + +<p> +“I hear mamma in the hall,” said Norah. “Perhaps she is +coming to tell us something.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Vanstone entered the morning-room as her daughter spoke. The color was +deeper on her cheeks, and the brightness of half-dried tears glistened in her +eyes; her step was more hasty, all her movements were quicker than usual. +</p> + +<p> +“I bring news, my dears, which will surprise you,” she said, +addressing her daughters. “Your father and I are going to London +to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen caught her mother by the arm in speechless astonishment. Miss Garth +dropped her work on her lap; even the sedate Norah started to her feet, and +amazedly repeated the words, “Going to London!” +</p> + +<p> +“Without us?” added Magdalen. +</p> + +<p> +“Your father and I are going alone,” said Mrs. Vanstone. +“Perhaps, for as long as three weeks—but not longer. We are +going”—she hesitated—“we are going on important family +business. Don’t hold me, Magdalen. This is a sudden necessity—I +have a great deal to do to-day—many things to set in order before +tomorrow. There, there, my love, let me go.” +</p> + +<p> +She drew her arm away; hastily kissed her youngest daughter on the forehead; +and at once left the room again. Even Magdalen saw that her mother was not to +be coaxed into hearing or answering any more questions. +</p> + +<p> +The morning wore on, and nothing was seen of Mr. Vanstone. With the reckless +curiosity of her age and character, Magdalen, in defiance of Miss Garth’s +prohibition and her sister’s remonstrances, determined to go to the study +and look for her father there. When she tried the door, it was locked on the +inside. She said, “It’s only me, papa;” and waited for the +answer. “I’m busy now, my dear,” was the answer. +“Don’t disturb me.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Vanstone was, in another way, equally inaccessible. She remained in her +own room, with the female servants about her, immersed in endless preparations +for the approaching departure. The servants, little used in that family to +sudden resolutions and unexpected orders, were awkward and confused in obeying +directions. They ran from room to room unnecessarily, and lost time and +patience in jostling each other on the stairs. If a stranger had entered the +house that day, he might have imagined that an unexpected disaster had happened +in it, instead of an unexpected necessity for a journey to London. Nothing +proceeded in its ordinary routine. Magdalen, who was accustomed to pass the +morning at the piano, wandered restlessly about the staircases and passages, +and in and out of doors when there were glimpses of fine weather. Norah, whose +fondness for reading had passed into a family proverb, took up book after book +from table and shelf, and laid them down again, in despair of fixing her +attention. Even Miss Garth felt the all-pervading influence of the household +disorganization, and sat alone by the morning-room fire, with her head shaking +ominously, and her work laid aside. +</p> + +<p> +“Family affairs?” thought Miss Garth, pondering over Mrs. +Vanstone’s vague explanatory words. “I have lived twelve years at +Combe-Raven; and these are the first family affairs which have got between the +parents and the children, in all my experience. What does it mean? Change? I +suppose I’m getting old. I don’t like change.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<p> +At ten o’clock the next morning Norah and Magdalen stood alone in the +hall at Combe-Raven watching the departure of the carriage which took their +father and mother to the London train. +</p> + +<p> +Up to the last moment, both the sisters had hoped for some explanation of that +mysterious “family business” to which Mrs. Vanstone had so briefly +alluded on the previous day. No such explanation had been offered. Even the +agitation of the leave-taking, under circumstances entirely new in the home +experience of the parents and children, had not shaken the resolute discretion +of Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone. They had gone—with the warmest testimonies of +affection, with farewell embraces fervently reiterated again and +again—but without dropping one word, from first to last, of the nature of +their errand. +</p> + +<p> +As the grating sound of the carriage-wheels ceased suddenly at a turn in the +road, the sisters looked one another in the face; each feeling, and each +betraying in her own way, the dreary sense that she was openly excluded, for +the first time, from the confidence of her parents. Norah’s customary +reserve strengthened into sullen silence—she sat down in one of the hall +chairs and looked out frowningly through the open house door. Magdalen, as +usual when her temper was ruffled, expressed her dissatisfaction in the +plainest terms. “I don’t care who knows it—I think we are +both of us shamefully ill-used!” With those words, the young lady +followed her sister’s example by seating herself on a hall chair and +looking aimlessly out through the open house door. +</p> + +<p> +Almost at the same moment Miss Garth entered the hall from the morning-room. +Her quick observation showed her the necessity for interfering to some +practical purpose; and her ready good sense at once pointed the way. +</p> + +<p> +“Look up, both of you, if you please, and listen to me,” said Miss +Garth. “If we are all three to be comfortable and happy together, now we +are alone, we must stick to our usual habits and go on in our regular way. +There is the state of things in plain words. Accept the situation—as the +French say. Here am I to set you the example. I have just ordered an excellent +dinner at the customary hour. I am going to the medicine-chest next, to physic +the kitchen-maid—an unwholesome girl, whose face-ache is all stomach. In +the meantime, Norah, my dear, you will find your work and your books, as usual, +in the library. Magdalen, suppose you leave off tying your handkerchief into +knots and use your fingers on the keys of the piano instead? We’ll lunch +at one, and take the dogs out afterward. Be as brisk and cheerful both of you +as I am. Come, rouse up directly. If I see those gloomy faces any longer, as +sure as my name’s Garth, I’ll give your mother written warning and +go back to my friends by the mixed train at twelve forty.” +</p> + +<p> +Concluding her address of expostulation in those terms, Miss Garth led Norah to +the library door, pushed Magdalen into the morning-room, and went on her own +way sternly to the regions of the medicine-chest. +</p> + +<p> +In this half-jesting, half-earnest manner she was accustomed to maintain a sort +of friendly authority over Mr. Vanstone’s daughters, after her proper +functions as governess had necessarily come to an end. Norah, it is needless to +say, had long since ceased to be her pupil; and Magdalen had, by this time, +completed her education. But Miss Garth had lived too long and too intimately +under Mr. Vanstone’s roof to be parted with for any purely formal +considerations; and the first hint at going away which she had thought it her +duty to drop was dismissed with such affectionate warmth of protest that she +never repeated it again, except in jest. The entire management of the household +was, from that time forth, left in her hands; and to those duties she was free +to add what companionable assistance she could render to Norah’s reading, +and what friendly superintendence she could still exercise over +Magdalen’s music. Such were the terms on which Miss Garth was now a +resident in Mr. Vanstone’s family. +</p> + +<p> +Toward the afternoon the weather improved. At half-past one the sun was shining +brightly; and the ladies left the house, accompanied by the dogs, to set forth +on their walk. +</p> + +<p> +They crossed the stream, and ascended by the little rocky pass to the hills +beyond; then diverged to the left, and returned by a cross-road which led +through the village of Combe-Raven. +</p> + +<p> +As they came in sight of the first cottages, they passed a man, hanging about +the road, who looked attentively, first at Magdalen, then at Norah. They merely +observed that he was short, that he was dressed in black, and that he was a +total stranger to them—and continued their homeward walk, without +thinking more about the loitering foot-passenger whom they had met on their way +back. +</p> + +<p> +After they had left the village, and had entered the road which led straight to +the house, Magdalen surprised Miss Garth by announcing that the stranger in +black had turned, after they had passed him, and was now following them. +“He keeps on Norah’s side of the road,” she said, +mischievously. “I’m not the attraction—don’t blame +<i>me</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Whether the man was really following them, or not, made little difference, for +they were now close to the house. As they passed through the lodge-gates, Miss +Garth looked round, and saw that the stranger was quickening his pace, +apparently with the purpose of entering into conversation. Seeing this, she at +once directed the young ladies to go on to the house with the dogs, while she +herself waited for events at the gate. +</p> + +<p> +There was just time to complete this discreet arrangement, before the stranger +reached the lodge. He took off his hat to Miss Garth politely, as she turned +round. What did he look like, on the face of him? He looked like a clergyman in +difficulties. +</p> + +<p> +Taking his portrait, from top to toe, the picture of him began with a tall hat, +broadly encircled by a mourning band of crumpled crape. Below the hat was a +lean, long, sallow face, deeply pitted with the smallpox, and characterized, +very remarkably, by eyes of two different colors—one bilious green, one +bilious brown, both sharply intelligent. His hair was iron-gray, carefully +brushed round at the temples. His cheeks and chin were in the bluest bloom of +smooth shaving; his nose was short Roman; his lips long, thin, and supple, +curled up at the corners with a mildly-humorous smile. His white cravat was +high, stiff, and dingy; the collar, higher, stiffer, and dingier, projected its +rigid points on either side beyond his chin. Lower down, the lithe little +figure of the man was arrayed throughout in sober-shabby black. His frock-coat +was buttoned tight round the waist, and left to bulge open majestically at the +chest. His hands were covered with black cotton gloves neatly darned at the +fingers; his umbrella, worn down at the ferule to the last quarter of an inch, +was carefully preserved, nevertheless, in an oilskin case. The front view of +him was the view in which he looked oldest; meeting him face to face, he might +have been estimated at fifty or more. Walking behind him, his back and +shoulders were almost young enough to have passed for five-and-thirty. His +manners were distinguished by a grave serenity. When he opened his lips, he +spoke in a rich bass voice, with an easy flow of language, and a strict +attention to the elocutionary claims of words in more than one syllable. +Persuasion distilled from his mildly-curling lips; and, shabby as he was, +perennial flowers of courtesy bloomed all over him from head to foot. +</p> + +<p> +“This is the residence of Mr. Vanstone, I believe?” he began, with +a circular wave of his hand in the direction of the house. “Have I the +honor of addressing a member of Mr. Vanstone’s family?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the plain-spoken Miss Garth. “You are addressing +Mr. Vanstone’s governess.” +</p> + +<p> +The persuasive man fell back a step—admired Mr. Vanstone’s +governess—advanced a step again—and continued the conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“And the two young ladies,” he went on, “the two young ladies +who were walking with you are doubtless Mr. Vanstone’s daughters? I +recognized the darker of the two, and the elder as I apprehend, by her likeness +to her handsome mother. The younger lady—” +</p> + +<p> +“You are acquainted with Mrs. Vanstone, I suppose?” said Miss +Garth, interrupting the stranger’s flow of language, which, all things +considered, was beginning, in her opinion, to flow rather freely. The stranger +acknowledged the interruption by one of his polite bows, and submerged Miss +Garth in his next sentence as if nothing had happened. +</p> + +<p> +“The younger lady,” he proceeded, “takes after her father, I +presume? I assure you, her face struck me. Looking at it with my friendly +interest in the family, I thought it very remarkable. I said to +myself—Charming, Characteristic, Memorable. Not like her sister, not like +her mother. No doubt, the image of her father?” +</p> + +<p> +Once more Miss Garth attempted to stem the man’s flow of words. It was +plain that he did not know Mr. Vanstone, even by sight—otherwise he would +never have committed the error of supposing that Magdalen took after her +father. Did he know Mrs. Vanstone any better? He had left Miss Garth’s +question on that point unanswered. In the name of wonder, who was he? Powers of +impudence! what did he want? +</p> + +<p> +“You may be a friend of the family, though I don’t remember your +face,” said Miss Garth. “What may your commands be, if you please? +Did you come here to pay Mrs. Vanstone a visit?” +</p> + +<p> +“I had anticipated the pleasure of communicating with Mrs. +Vanstone,” answered this inveterately evasive and inveterately civil man. +“How is she?” +</p> + +<p> +“Much as usual,” said Miss Garth, feeling her resources of +politeness fast failing her. +</p> + +<p> +“Is she at home?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Out for long?” +</p> + +<p> +“Gone to London with Mr. Vanstone.” +</p> + +<p> +The man’s long face suddenly grew longer. His bilious brown eye looked +disconcerted, and his bilious green eye followed its example. His manner became +palpably anxious; and his choice of words was more carefully selected than +ever. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Mrs. Vanstone’s absence likely to extend over any very +lengthened period?” he inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“It will extend over three weeks,” replied Miss Garth. “I +think you have now asked me questions enough,” she went on, beginning to +let her temper get the better of her at last. “Be so good, if you please, +as to mention your business and your name. If you have any message to leave for +Mrs. Vanstone, I shall be writing to her by to-night’s post, and I can +take charge of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“A thousand thanks! A most valuable suggestion. Permit me to take +advantage of it immediately.” +</p> + +<p> +He was not in the least affected by the severity of Miss Garth’s looks +and language—he was simply relieved by her proposal, and he showed it +with the most engaging sincerity. This time his bilious green eye took the +initiative, and set his bilious brown eye the example of recovered serenity. +His curling lips took a new twist upward; he tucked his umbrella briskly under +his arm; and produced from the breast of his coat a large old-fashioned black +pocketbook. From this he took a pencil and a card—hesitated and +considered for a moment—wrote rapidly on the card—and placed it, +with the politest alacrity, in Miss Garth’s hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall feel personally obliged if you will honor me by inclosing that +card in your letter,” he said. “There is no necessity for my +troubling you additionally with a message. My name will be quite sufficient to +recall a little family matter to Mrs. Vanstone, which has no doubt escaped her +memory. Accept my best thanks. This has been a day of agreeable surprises to +me. I have found the country hereabouts remarkably pretty; I have seen Mrs. +Vanstone’s two charming daughters; I have become acquainted with an +honored preceptress in Mr. Vanstone’s family. I congratulate +myself—I apologize for occupying your valuable time—I beg my +renewed acknowledgments—I wish you good-morning.” +</p> + +<p> +He raised his tall hat. His brown eye twinkled, his green eye twinkled, his +curly lips smiled sweetly. In a moment he turned on his heel. His youthful back +appeared to the best advantage; his active little legs took him away trippingly +in the direction of the village. One, two, three—and he reached the turn +in the road. Four, five, six—and he was gone. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth looked down at the card in her hand, and looked up again in blank +astonishment. The name and address of the clerical-looking stranger (both +written in pencil) ran as follows: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>Captain Wragge. Post-office, Bristol.</i> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.</h3> + +<p> +When she returned to the house, Miss Garth made no attempt to conceal her +unfavorable opinion of the stranger in black. His object was, no doubt, to +obtain pecuniary assistance from Mrs. Vanstone. What the nature of his claim on +her might be seemed less intelligible—unless it was the claim of a poor +relation. Had Mrs. Vanstone ever mentioned, in the presence of her daughters, +the name of Captain Wragge? Neither of them recollected to have heard it +before. Had Mrs. Vanstone ever referred to any poor relations who were +dependent on her? On the contrary she had mentioned of late years that she +doubted having any relations at all who were still living. And yet Captain +Wragge had plainly declared that the name on his card would recall “a +family matter” to Mrs. Vanstone’s memory. What did it mean? A false +statement, on the stranger’s part, without any intelligible reason for +making it? Or a second mystery, following close on the heels of the mysterious +journey to London? +</p> + +<p> +All the probabilities seemed to point to some hidden connection between the +“family affairs” which had taken Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone so suddenly +from home and the “family matter” associated with the name of +Captain Wragge. Miss Garth’s doubts thronged back irresistibly on her +mind as she sealed her letter to Mrs. Vanstone, with the captain’s card +added by way of inclosure. +</p> + +<p> +By return of post the answer arrived. +</p> + +<p> +Always the earliest riser among the ladies of the house, Miss Garth was alone +in the breakfast-room when the letter was brought in. Her first glance at its +contents convinced her of the necessity of reading it carefully through in +retirement, before any embarrassing questions could be put to her. Leaving a +message with the servant requesting Norah to make the tea that morning, she +went upstairs at once to the solitude and security of her own room. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Vanstone’s letter extended to some length. The first part of it +referred to Captain Wragge, and entered unreservedly into all necessary +explanations relating to the man himself and to the motive which had brought +him to Combe-Raven. +</p> + +<p> +It appeared from Mrs. Vanstone’s statement that her mother had been twice +married. Her mother’s first husband had been a certain Doctor +Wragge—a widower with young children; and one of those children was now +the unmilitary-looking captain, whose address was “Post-office, +Bristol.” Mrs. Wragge had left no family by her first husband; and had +afterward married Mrs. Vanstone’s father. Of that second marriage Mrs. +Vanstone herself was the only issue. She had lost both her parents while she +was still a young woman; and, in course of years, her mother’s family +connections (who were then her nearest surviving relatives) had been one after +another removed by death. She was left, at the present writing, without a +relation in the world—excepting, perhaps, certain cousins whom she had +never seen, and of whose existence even, at the present moment, she possessed +no positive knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +Under these circumstances, what family claim had Captain Wragge on Mrs. +Vanstone? +</p> + +<p> +None whatever. As the son of her mother’s first husband, by that +husband’s first wife, not even the widest stretch of courtesy could have +included him at any time in the list of Mrs. Vanstone’s most distant +relations. Well knowing this (the letter proceeded to say), he had nevertheless +persisted in forcing himself upon her as a species of family connection: and +she had weakly sanctioned the intrusion, solely from the dread that he would +otherwise introduce himself to Mr. Vanstone’s notice, and take unblushing +advantage of Mr. Vanstone’s generosity. Shrinking, naturally, from +allowing her husband to be annoyed, and probably cheated as well, by any person +who claimed, however preposterously, a family connection with herself, it had +been her practice, for many years past, to assist the captain from her own +purse, on the condition that he should never come near the house, and that he +should not presume to make any application whatever to Mr. Vanstone. +</p> + +<p> +Readily admitting the imprudence of this course, Mrs. Vanstone further +explained that she had perhaps been the more inclined to adopt it through +having been always accustomed, in her early days, to see the captain living now +upon one member, and now upon another, of her mother’s family. Possessed +of abilities which might have raised him to distinction in almost any career +that he could have chosen, he had nevertheless, from his youth upward, been a +disgrace to all his relatives. He had been expelled the militia regiment in +which he once held a commission. He had tried one employment after another, and +had discreditably failed in all. He had lived on his wits, in the lowest and +basest meaning of the phrase. He had married a poor ignorant woman, who had +served as a waitress at some low eating-house, who had unexpectedly come into a +little money, and whose small inheritance he had mercilessly squandered to the +last farthing. In plain terms, he was an incorrigible scoundrel; and he had now +added one more to the list of his many misdemeanors by impudently breaking the +conditions on which Mrs. Vanstone had hitherto assisted him. She had written at +once to the address indicated on his card, in such terms and to such purpose as +would prevent him, she hoped and believed, from ever venturing near the house +again. Such were the terms in which Mrs. Vanstone concluded that first part of +her letter which referred exclusively to Captain Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +Although the statement thus presented implied a weakness in Mrs. +Vanstone’s character which Miss Garth, after many years of intimate +experience, had never detected, she accepted the explanation as a matter of +course; receiving it all the more readily inasmuch as it might, without +impropriety, be communicated in substance to appease the irritated curiosity of +the two young ladies. For this reason especially she perused the first half of +the letter with an agreeable sense of relief. Far different was the impression +produced on her when she advanced to the second half, and when she had read it +to the end. +</p> + +<p> +The second part of the letter was devoted to the subject of the journey to +London. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Vanstone began by referring to the long and intimate friendship which had +existed between Miss Garth and herself. She now felt it due to that friendship +to explain confidentially the motive which had induced her to leave home with +her husband. Miss Garth had delicately refrained from showing it, but she must +naturally have felt, and must still be feeling, great surprise at the mystery +in which their departure had been involved; and she must doubtless have asked +herself why Mrs. Vanstone should have been associated with family affairs which +(in her independent position as to relatives) must necessarily concern Mr. +Vanstone alone. +</p> + +<p> +Without touching on those affairs, which it was neither desirable nor necessary +to do, Mrs. Vanstone then proceeded to say that she would at once set all Miss +Garth’s doubts at rest, so far as they related to herself, by one plain +acknowledgment. Her object in accompanying her husband to London was to see a +certain celebrated physician, and to consult him privately on a very delicate +and anxious matter connected with the state of her health. In plainer terms +still, this anxious matter meant nothing less than the possibility that she +might again become a mother. +</p> + +<p> +When the doubt had first suggested itself she had treated it as a mere +delusion. The long interval that had elapsed since the birth of her last child; +the serious illness which had afflicted her after the death of that child in +infancy; the time of life at which she had now arrived—all inclined her +to dismiss the idea as soon as it arose in her mind. It had returned again and +again in spite of her. She had felt the necessity of consulting the highest +medical authority; and had shrunk, at the same time, from alarming her +daughters by summoning a London physician to the house. The medical opinion, +sought under the circumstances already mentioned, had now been obtained. Her +doubt was confirmed as a certainty; and the result, which might be expected to +take place toward the end of the summer, was, at her age and with her +constitutional peculiarities, a subject for serious future anxiety, to say the +least of it. The physician had done his best to encourage her; but she had +understood the drift of his questions more clearly than he supposed, and she +knew that he looked to the future with more than ordinary doubt. +</p> + +<p> +Having disclosed these particulars, Mrs. Vanstone requested that they might be +kept a secret between her correspondent and herself. She had felt unwilling to +mention her suspicions to Miss Garth, until those suspicions had been +confirmed—and she now recoiled, with even greater reluctance, from +allowing her daughters to be in any way alarmed about her. It would be best to +dismiss the subject for the present, and to wait hopefully till the summer +came. In the meantime they would all, she trusted, be happily reunited on the +twenty-third of the month, which Mr. Vanstone had fixed on as the day for their +return. With this intimation, and with the customary messages, the letter, +abruptly and confusedly, came to an end. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +For the first few minutes, a natural sympathy for Mrs. Vanstone was the only +feeling of which Miss Garth was conscious after she had laid the letter down. +Ere long, however, there rose obscurely on her mind a doubt which perplexed and +distressed her. Was the explanation which she had just read really as +satisfactory and as complete as it professed to be? Testing it plainly by +facts, surely not. +</p> + +<p> +On the morning of her departure, Mrs. Vanstone had unquestionably left the +house in good spirits. At her age, and in her state of health, were good +spirits compatible with such an errand to a physician as the errand on which +she was bent? Then, again, had that letter from New Orleans, which had +necessitated Mr. Vanstone’s departure, no share in occasioning his +wife’s departure as well? Why, otherwise, had she looked up so eagerly +the moment her daughter mentioned the postmark. Granting the avowed motive for +her journey—did not her manner, on the morning when the letter was +opened, and again on the morning of departure, suggest the existence of some +other motive which her letter kept concealed? +</p> + +<p> +If it was so, the conclusion that followed was a very distressing one. Mrs. +Vanstone, feeling what was due to her long friendship with Miss Garth, had +apparently placed the fullest confidence in her, on one subject, by way of +unsuspiciously maintaining the strictest reserve toward her on another. +Naturally frank and straightforward in all her own dealings, Miss Garth shrank +from plainly pursuing her doubts to this result: a want of loyalty toward her +tried and valued friend seemed implied in the mere dawning of it on her mind. +</p> + +<p> +She locked up the letter in her desk; roused herself resolutely to attend to +the passing interests of the day; and went downstairs again to the +breakfast-room. Amid many uncertainties, this at least was clear, Mr. and Mrs. +Vanstone were coming back on the twenty-third of the month. Who could say what +new revelations might not come back with them? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + +<p> +No new revelations came back with them: no anticipations associated with their +return were realized. On the one forbidden subject of their errand in London, +there was no moving either the master or the mistress of the house. Whatever +their object might have been, they had to all appearance successfully +accomplished it—for they both returned in perfect possession of their +every-day looks and manners. Mrs. Vanstone’s spirits had subsided to +their natural quiet level; Mr. Vanstone’s imperturbable cheerfulness sat +as easily and indolently on him as usual. This was the one noticeable result of +their journey—this, and no more. Had the household revolution run its +course already? Was the secret thus far hidden impenetrably, hidden forever? +</p> + +<p> +Nothing in this world is hidden forever. The gold which has lain for centuries +unsuspected in the ground, reveals itself one day on the surface. Sand turns +traitor, and betrays the footstep that has passed over it; water gives back to +the tell-tale surface the body that has been drowned. Fire itself leaves the +confession, in ashes, of the substance consumed in it. Hate breaks its +prison-secrecy in the thoughts, through the doorway of the eyes; and Love finds +the Judas who betrays it by a kiss. Look where we will, the inevitable law of +revelation is one of the laws of nature: the lasting preservation of a secret +is a miracle which the world has never yet seen. +</p> + +<p> +How was the secret now hidden in the household at Combe-Raven doomed to +disclose itself? Through what coming event in the daily lives of the father, +the mother, and the daughters, was the law of revelation destined to break the +fatal way to discovery? The way opened (unseen by the parents, and unsuspected +by the children) through the first event that happened after Mr. and Mrs. +Vanstone’s return—an event which presented, on the surface of it, +no interest of greater importance than the trivial social ceremony of a morning +call. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Three days after the master and mistress of Combe-Raven had come back, the +female members of the family happened to be assembled together in the +morning-room. The view from the windows looked over the flower-garden and +shrubbery; this last being protected at its outward extremity by a fence, and +approached from the lane beyond by a wicket-gate. During an interval in the +conversation, the attention of the ladies was suddenly attracted to this gate, +by the sharp sound of the iron latch falling in its socket. Some one had +entered the shrubbery from the lane; and Magdalen at once placed herself at the +window to catch the first sight of the visitor through the trees. +</p> + +<p> +After a few minutes, the figure of a gentleman became visible, at the point +where the shrubbery path joined the winding garden-walk which led to the house. +Magdalen looked at him attentively, without appearing, at first, to know who he +was. As he came nearer, however, she started in astonishment; and, turning +quickly to her mother and sister, proclaimed the gentleman in the garden to be +no other than “Mr. Francis Clare.” +</p> + +<p> +The visitor thus announced was the son of Mr. Vanstone’s oldest associate +and nearest neighbor. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Clare the elder inhabited an unpretending little cottage, situated just +outside the shrubbery fence which marked the limit of the Combe-Raven grounds. +Belonging to the younger branch of a family of great antiquity, the one +inheritance of importance that he had derived from his ancestors was the +possession of a magnificent library, which not only filled all the rooms in his +modest little dwelling, but lined the staircases and passages as well. Mr. +Clare’s books represented the one important interest of Mr. Clare’s +life. He had been a widower for many years past, and made no secret of his +philosophical resignation to the loss of his wife. As a father, he regarded his +family of three sons in the light of a necessary domestic evil, which +perpetually threatened the sanctity of his study and the safety of his books. +When the boys went to school, Mr. Clare said “good-by” to +them—and “thank God” to himself. As for his small income, and +his still smaller domestic establishment, he looked at them both from the same +satirically indifferent point of view. He called himself a pauper with a +pedigree. He abandoned the entire direction of his household to the slatternly +old woman who was his only servant, on the condition that she was never to +venture near his books, with a duster in her hand, from one year’s end to +the other. His favorite poets were Horace and Pope; his chosen philosophers, +Hobbes and Voltaire. He took his exercise and his fresh air under protest; and +always walked the same distance to a yard, on the ugliest high-road in the +neighborhood. He was crooked of back, and quick of temper. He could digest +radishes, and sleep after green tea. His views of human nature were the views +of Diogenes, tempered by Rochefoucauld; his personal habits were slovenly in +the last degree; and his favorite boast was that he had outlived all human +prejudices. +</p> + +<p> +Such was this singular man, in his more superficial aspects. What nobler +qualities he might possess below the surface, no one had ever discovered. Mr. +Vanstone, it is true, stoutly asserted that “Mr. Clare’s worst side +was his outside”—but in this expression of opinion he stood alone +among his neighbors. The association between these two widely-dissimilar men +had lasted for many years, and was almost close enough to be called a +friendship. They had acquired a habit of meeting to smoke together on certain +evenings in the week, in the cynic-philosopher’s study, and of there +disputing on every imaginable subject—Mr. Vanstone flourishing the stout +cudgels of assertion, and Mr. Clare meeting him with the keen edged-tools of +sophistry. They generally quarreled at night, and met on the neutral ground of +the shrubbery to be reconciled together the next morning. The bond of +intercourse thus curiously established between them was strengthened on Mr. +Vanstone’s side by a hearty interest in his neighbor’s three +sons—an interest by which those sons benefited all the more importantly, +seeing that one of the prejudices which their father had outlived was a +prejudice in favor of his own children. +</p> + +<p> +“I look at those boys,” the philosopher was accustomed to say, +“with a perfectly impartial eye; I dismiss the unimportant accident of +their birth from all consideration; and I find them below the average in every +respect. The only excuse which a poor gentleman has for presuming to exist in +the nineteenth century, is the excuse of extraordinary ability. My boys have +been addle-headed from infancy. If I had any capital to give them, I should +make Frank a butcher, Cecil a baker, and Arthur a grocer—those being the +only human vocations I know of which are certain to be always in request. As it +is, I have no money to help them with; and they have no brains to help +themselves. They appear to me to be three human superfluities in dirty jackets +and noisy boots; and, unless they clear themselves off the community by running +away, I don’t myself profess to see what is to be done with them.” +</p> + +<p> +Fortunately for the boys, Mr. Vanstone’s views were still fast imprisoned +in the ordinary prejudices. At his intercession, and through his influence, +Frank, Cecil, and Arthur were received on the foundation of a well-reputed +grammar-school. In holiday-time they were mercifully allowed the run of Mr. +Vanstone’s paddock; and were humanized and refined by association, +indoors, with Mrs. Vanstone and her daughters. On these occasions, Mr. Clare +used sometimes to walk across from his cottage (in his dressing-gown and +slippers), and look at the boys disparagingly, through the window or over the +fence, as if they were three wild animals whom his neighbor was attempting to +tame. “You and your wife are excellent people,” he used to say to +Mr. Vanstone. “I respect your honest prejudices in favor of those boys of +mine with all my heart. But you are <i>so</i> wrong about them—you are +indeed! I wish to give no offense; I speak quite impartially—but mark my +words, Vanstone: they’ll all three turn out ill, in spite of everything +you can do to prevent it.” +</p> + +<p> +In later years, when Frank had reached the age of seventeen, the same curious +shifting of the relative positions of parent and friend between the two +neighbors was exemplified more absurdly than ever. A civil engineer in the +north of England, who owed certain obligations to Mr. Vanstone, expressed his +willingness to take Frank under superintendence, on terms of the most favorable +kind. When this proposal was received, Mr. Clare, as usual, first shifted his +own character as Frank’s father on Mr. Vanstone’s +shoulders—and then moderated his neighbor’s parental enthusiasm +from the point of view of an impartial spectator. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the finest chance for Frank that could possibly have +happened,” cried Mr. Vanstone, in a glow of fatherly enthusiasm. +</p> + +<p> +“My good fellow, he won’t take it,” retorted Mr. Clare, with +the icy composure of a disinterested friend. +</p> + +<p> +“But he <i>shall</i> take it,” persisted Mr. Vanstone. +</p> + +<p> +“Say he shall have a mathematical head,” rejoined Mr. Clare; +“say he shall possess industry, ambition, and firmness of purpose. Pooh! +pooh! you don’t look at him with my impartial eyes. I say, No +mathematics, no industry, no ambition, no firmness of purpose. Frank is a +compound of negatives—and there they are.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hang your negatives!” shouted Mr. Vanstone. “I don’t +care a rush for negatives, or affirmatives either. Frank shall have this +splendid chance; and I’ll lay you any wager you like he makes the best of +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not rich enough to lay wagers, usually,” replied Mr. Clare; +“but I think I have got a guinea about the house somewhere; and +I’ll lay you that guinea Frank comes back on our hands like a bad +shilling.” +</p> + +<p> +“Done!” said Mr. Vanstone. “No: stop a minute! I won’t +do the lad’s character the injustice of backing it at even money. +I’ll lay you five to one Frank turns up trumps in this business! You +ought to be ashamed of yourself for talking of him as you do. What sort of +hocus-pocus you bring it about by, I don’t pretend to know; but you +always end in making me take his part, as if I was his father instead of you. +Ah yes! give you time, and you’ll defend yourself. I won’t give you +time; I won’t have any of your special pleading. Black’s white +according to you. I don’t care: it’s black for all that. You may +talk nineteen to the dozen—I shall write to my friend and say Yes, in +Frank’s interests, by to-day’s post.” +</p> + +<p> +Such were the circumstances under which Mr. Francis Clare departed for the +north of England, at the age of seventeen, to start in life as a civil +engineer. +</p> + +<p> +From time to time, Mr. Vanstone’s friend communicated with him on the +subject of the new pupil. Frank was praised, as a quiet, gentleman-like, +interesting lad—but he was also reported to be rather slow at acquiring +the rudiments of engineering science. Other letters, later in date, described +him as a little too ready to despond about himself; as having been sent away, +on that account, to some new railway works, to see if change of scene would +rouse him; and as having benefited in every respect by the +experiment—except perhaps in regard to his professional studies, which +still advanced but slowly. Subsequent communications announced his departure, +under care of a trustworthy foreman, for some public works in Belgium; touched +on the general benefit he appeared to derive from this new change; praised his +excellent manners and address, which were of great assistance in facilitating +business communications with the foreigners—and passed over in ominous +silence the main question of his actual progress in the acquirement of +knowledge. These reports, and many others which resembled them, were all +conscientiously presented by Frank’s friend to the attention of +Frank’s father. On each occasion, Mr. Clare exulted over Mr. Vanstone, +and Mr. Vanstone quarreled with Mr. Clare. “One of these days +you’ll wish you hadn’t laid that wager,” said the cynic +philosopher. “One of these days I shall have the blessed satisfaction of +pocketing your guinea,” cried the sanguine friend. Two years had then +passed since Frank’s departure. In one year more results asserted +themselves, and settled the question. +</p> + +<p> +Two days after Mr. Vanstone’s return from London, he was called away from +the breakfast-table before he had found time enough to look over his letters, +delivered by the morning’s post. Thrusting them into one of the pockets +of his shooting-jacket, he took the letters out again, at one grasp, to read +them when occasion served, later in the day. The grasp included the whole +correspondence, with one exception—that exception being a final report +from the civil engineer, which notified the termination of the connection +between his pupil and himself, and the immediate return of Frank to his +father’s house. +</p> + +<p> +While this important announcement lay unsuspected in Mr. Vanstone’s +pocket, the object of it was traveling home, as fast as railways could take +him. At half-past ten at night, while Mr. Clare was sitting in studious +solitude over his books and his green tea, with his favorite black cat to keep +him company, he heard footsteps in the passage—the door opened—and +Frank stood before him. +</p> + +<p> +Ordinary men would have been astonished. But the philosopher’s composure +was not to be shaken by any such trifle as the unexpected return of his eldest +son. He could not have looked up more calmly from his learned volume if Frank +had been absent for three minutes instead of three years. +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly what I predicted,” said Mr. Clare. “Don’t +interrupt me by making explanations; and don’t frighten the cat. If there +is anything to eat in the kitchen, get it and go to bed. You can walk over to +Combe-Raven tomorrow and give this message from me to Mr. Vanstone: +‘Father’s compliments, sir, and I have come back upon your hands +like a bad shilling, as he always said I should. He keeps his own guinea, and +takes your five; and he hopes you’ll mind what he says to you another +time.’ That is the message. Shut the door after you. Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +Under these unfavorable auspices, Mr. Francis Clare made his appearance the +next morning in the grounds at Combe-Raven; and, something doubtful of the +reception that might await him, slowly approached the precincts of the house. +</p> + +<p> +It was not wonderful that Magdalen should have failed to recognize him when he +first appeared in view. He had gone away a backward lad of seventeen; he +returned a young man of twenty. His slim figure had now acquired strength and +grace, and had increased in stature to the medium height. The small regular +features, which he was supposed to have inherited from his mother, were rounded +and filled out, without having lost their remarkable delicacy of form. His +beard was still in its infancy; and nascent lines of whisker traced their +modest way sparely down his cheeks. His gentle, wandering brown eyes would have +looked to better advantage in a woman’s face—they wanted spirit and +firmness to fit them for the face of a man. His hands had the same wandering +habit as his eyes; they were constantly changing from one position to another, +constantly twisting and turning any little stray thing they could pick up. He +was undeniably handsome, graceful, well-bred—but no close observer could +look at him without suspecting that the stout old family stock had begun to +wear out in the later generations, and that Mr. Francis Clare had more in him +of the shadow of his ancestors than of the substance. +</p> + +<p> +When the astonishment caused by his appearance had partially subsided, a search +was instituted for the missing report. It was found in the remotest recesses of +Mr. Vanstone’s capacious pocket, and was read by that gentleman on the +spot. +</p> + +<p> +The plain facts, as stated by the engineer, were briefly these: Frank was not +possessed of the necessary abilities to fit him for his new calling; and it was +useless to waste time by keeping him any longer in an employment for which he +had no vocation. This, after three years’ trial, being the conviction on +both sides, the master had thought it the most straightforward course for the +pupil to go home and candidly place results before his father and his friends. +In some other pursuit, for which he was more fit, and in which he could feel an +interest, he would no doubt display the industry and perseverance which he had +been too much discouraged to practice in the profession that he had now +abandoned. Personally, he was liked by all who knew him; and his future +prosperity was heartily desired by the many friends whom he had made in the +North. Such was the substance of the report, and so it came to an end. +</p> + +<p> +Many men would have thought the engineer’s statement rather too carefully +worded; and, suspecting him of trying to make the best of a bad case, would +have entertained serious doubts on the subject of Frank’s future. Mr. +Vanstone was too easy-tempered and sanguine—and too anxious, as well, not +to yield his old antagonist an inch more ground than he could help—to +look at the letter from any such unfavorable point of view. Was it +Frank’s fault if he had not got the stuff in him that engineers were made +of? Did no other young men ever begin life with a false start? Plenty began in +that way, and got over it, and did wonders afterward. With these commentaries +on the letter, the kind-hearted gentleman patted Frank on the shoulder. +“Cheer up, my lad!” said Mr. Vanstone. “We will be even with +your father one of these days, though he <i>has</i> won the wager this +time!” +</p> + +<p> +The example thus set by the master of the house was followed at once by the +family—with the solitary exception of Norah, whose incurable formality +and reserve expressed themselves, not too graciously, in her distant manner +toward the visitor. The rest, led by Magdalen (who had been Frank’s +favorite playfellow in past times) glided back into their old easy habits with +him without an effort. He was “Frank” with all of them but Norah, +who persisted in addressing him as “Mr. Clare.” Even the account he +was now encouraged to give of the reception accorded to him by his father, on +the previous night, failed to disturb Norah’s gravity. She sat with her +dark, handsome face steadily averted, her eyes cast down, and the rich color in +her cheeks warmer and deeper than usual. All the rest, Miss Garth included, +found old Mr. Clare’s speech of welcome to his son quite irresistible. +The noise and merriment were at their height when the servant came in, and +struck the whole party dumb by the announcement of visitors in the +drawing-room. “Mr. Marrable, Mrs. Marrable, and Miss Marrable; Evergreen +Lodge, Clifton.” +</p> + +<p> +Norah rose as readily as if the new arrivals had been a relief to her mind. +Mrs. Vanstone was the next to leave her chair. These two went away first, to +receive the visitors. Magdalen, who preferred the society of her father and +Frank, pleaded hard to be left behind; but Miss Garth, after granting five +minutes’ grace, took her into custody and marched her out of the room. +Frank rose to take his leave. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” said Mr. Vanstone, detaining him. “Don’t go. +These people won’t stop long. Mr. Marrable’s a merchant at Bristol. +I’ve met him once or twice, when the girls forced me to take them to +parties at Clifton. Mere acquaintances, nothing more. Come and smoke a cigar in +the greenhouse. Hang all visitors—they worry one’s life out. +I’ll appear at the last moment with an apology; and you shall follow me +at a safe distance, and be a proof that I was really engaged.” +</p> + +<p> +Proposing this ingenious stratagem in a confidential whisper, Mr. Vanstone took +Frank’s arm and led him round the house by the back way. The first ten +minutes of seclusion in the conservatory passed without events of any kind. At +the end of that time, a flying figure in bright garments flashed upon the two +gentlemen through the glass—the door was flung open—flower-pots +fell in homage to passing petticoats—and Mr. Vanstone’s youngest +daughter ran up to him at headlong speed, with every external appearance of +having suddenly taken leave of her senses. +</p> + +<p> +“Papa! the dream of my whole life is realized,” she said, as soon +as she could speak. “I shall fly through the roof of the greenhouse if +somebody doesn’t hold me down. The Marrables have come here with an +invitation. Guess, you darling—guess what they’re going to give at +Evergreen Lodge!” +</p> + +<p> +“A ball!” said Mr. Vanstone, without a moment’s hesitation. +</p> + +<p> +“Private Theatricals!!!” cried Magdalen, her clear young voice +ringing through the conservatory like a bell; her loose sleeves falling back +and showing her round white arms to the dimpled elbows, as she clapped her +hands ecstatically in the air. “‘The Rivals’ is the play, +papa—‘The Rivals,’ by the famous +what’s-his-name—and they want ME to act! The one thing in the whole +universe that I long to do most. It all depends on you. Mamma shakes her head; +and Miss Garth looks daggers; and Norah’s as sulky as usual—but if +you say Yes, they must all three give way and let me do as I like. Say +Yes,” she pleaded, nestling softly up to her father, and pressing her +lips with a fond gentleness to his ear, as she whispered the next words. +“Say Yes, and I’ll be a good girl for the rest of my life.” +</p> + +<p> +“A good girl?” repeated Mr. Vanstone—“a mad girl, I +think you must mean. Hang these people and their theatricals! I shall have to +go indoors and see about this matter. You needn’t throw away your cigar, +Frank. You’re well out of the business, and you can stop here.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, he can’t,” said Magdalen. “He’s in the +business, too.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Francis Clare had hitherto remained modestly in the background. He now came +forward with a face expressive of speechless amazement. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” continued Magdalen, answering his blank look of inquiry with +perfect composure. “You are to act. Miss Marrable and I have a turn for +business, and we settled it all in five minutes. There are two parts in the +play left to be filled. One is Lucy, the waiting-maid; which is the character I +have undertaken—with papa’s permission,” she added, slyly +pinching her father’s arm; “and he won’t say No, will he? +First, because he’s a darling; secondly, because I love him, and he loves +me; thirdly, because there is never any difference of opinion between us (is +there?); fourthly, because I give him a kiss, which naturally stops his mouth +and settles the whole question. Dear me, I’m wandering. Where was I just +now? Oh yes! explaining myself to Frank—” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” began Frank, attempting, at this point, to +enter his protest. +</p> + +<p> +“The second character in the play,” pursued Magdalen, without +taking the smallest notice of the protest, “is Falkland—a jealous +lover, with a fine flow of language. Miss Marrable and I discussed Falkland +privately on the window-seat while the rest were talking. She is a delightful +girl—so impulsive, so sensible, so entirely unaffected. She confided in +me. She said: ‘One of our miseries is that we can’t find a +gentleman who will grapple with the hideous difficulties of Falkland.’ Of +course I soothed her. Of course I said: ‘I’ve got the gentleman, +and he shall grapple immediately.’—‘Oh heavens! who is +he?’—‘Mr. Francis Clare.’—‘And where is +he?’—‘In the house at this moment.’—‘Will +you be so very charming, Miss Vanstone, as to fetch +him?’—‘I’ll fetch him, Miss Marrable, with the greatest +pleasure.’ I left the window-seat—I rushed into the +morning-room—I smelled cigars—I followed the smell—and here I +am.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a compliment, I know, to be asked to act,” said Frank, +in great embarrassment. “But I hope you and Miss Marrable will excuse +me—” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not. Miss Marrable and I are both remarkable for the firmness +of our characters. When we say Mr. So-and-So is positively to act the part of +Falkland, we positively mean it. Come in and be introduced.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I never tried to act. I don’t know how.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not of the slightest consequence. If you don’t know how, come to +me and I’ll teach you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You!” exclaimed Mr. Vanstone. “What do you know about +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray, papa, be serious! I have the strongest internal conviction that I +could act every character in the play—Falkland included. Don’t let +me have to speak a second time, Frank. Come and be introduced.” +</p> + +<p> +She took her father’s arm, and moved on with him to the door of the +greenhouse. At the steps, she turned and looked round to see if Frank was +following her. It was only the action of a moment; but in that moment her +natural firmness of will rallied all its resources—strengthened itself +with the influence of her beauty —commanded—and conquered. She +looked lovely: the flush was tenderly bright in her cheeks; the radiant +pleasure shone and sparkled in her eyes; the position of her figure, turned +suddenly from the waist upward, disclosed its delicate strength, its supple +firmness, its seductive, serpentine grace. “Come!” she said, with a +coquettish beckoning action of her head. “Come, Frank!” +</p> + +<p> +Few men of forty would have resisted her at that moment. Frank was twenty last +birthday. In other words, he threw aside his cigar, and followed her out of the +greenhouse. +</p> + +<p> +As he turned and closed the door—in the instant when he lost sight of +her—his disinclination to be associated with the private theatricals +revived. At the foot of the house-steps he stopped again; plucked a twig from a +plant near him; broke it in his hand; and looked about him uneasily, on this +side and on that. The path to the left led back to his father’s +cottage—the way of escape lay open. Why not take it? +</p> + +<p> +While he still hesitated, Mr. Vanstone and his daughter reached the top of the +steps. Once more, Magdalen looked round—looked with her resistless +beauty, with her all-conquering smile. She beckoned again; and again he +followed her—up the steps, and over the threshold. The door closed on +them. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +So, with a trifling gesture of invitation on one side, with a trifling act of +compliance on the other: so—with no knowledge in his mind, with no +thought in hers, of the secret still hidden under the journey to +London—they took the way which led to that secret’s discovery, +through many a darker winding that was yet to come. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.</h3> + +<p> +Mr. Vanstone’s inquiries into the proposed theatrical entertainment at +Evergreen Lodge were answered by a narrative of dramatic disasters; of which +Miss Marrable impersonated the innocent cause, and in which her father and +mother played the parts of chief victims. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Marrable was that hardest of all born tyrants—an only child. She had +never granted a constitutional privilege to her oppressed father and mother +since the time when she cut her first tooth. Her seventeenth birthday was now +near at hand; she had decided on celebrating it by acting a play; had issued +her orders accordingly; and had been obeyed by her docile parents as implicitly +as usual. Mrs. Marrable gave up the drawing-room to be laid waste for a stage +and a theater. Mr. Marrable secured the services of a respectable professional +person to drill the young ladies and gentlemen, and to accept all the other +responsibilities incidental to creating a dramatic world out of a domestic +chaos. Having further accustomed themselves to the breaking of furniture and +the staining of walls—to thumping, tumbling, hammering, and screaming; to +doors always banging, and to footsteps perpetually running up and down +stairs—the nominal master and mistress of the house fondly believed that +their chief troubles were over. Innocent and fatal delusion! It is one thing in +private society to set up the stage and choose the play—it is another +thing altogether to find the actors. Hitherto, only the small preliminary +annoyances proper to the occasion had shown themselves at Evergreen Lodge. The +sound and serious troubles were all to come. +</p> + +<p> +“The Rivals” having been chosen as the play, Miss Marrable, as a +matter of course, appropriated to herself the part of “Lydia +Languish.” One of her favored swains next secured “Captain +Absolute,” and another laid violent hands on “Sir Lucius +O’Trigger.” These two were followed by an accommodating spinster +relative, who accepted the heavy dramatic responsibility of “Mrs. +Malaprop”—and there the theatrical proceedings came to a pause. +Nine more speaking characters were left to be fitted with representatives; and +with that unavoidable necessity the serious troubles began. +</p> + +<p> +All the friends of the family suddenly became unreliable people, for the first +time in their lives. After encouraging the idea of the play, they declined the +personal sacrifice of acting in it—or, they accepted characters, and then +broke down in the effort to study them—or they volunteered to take the +parts which they knew were already engaged, and declined the parts which were +waiting to be acted—or they were afflicted with weak constitutions, and +mischievously fell ill when they were wanted at rehearsal—or they had +Puritan relatives in the background, and, after slipping into their parts +cheerfully at the week’s beginning, oozed out of them penitently, under +serious family pressure, at the week’s end. Meanwhile, the carpenters +hammered and the scenes rose. Miss Marrable, whose temperament was sensitive, +became hysterical under the strain of perpetual anxiety; the family doctor +declined to answer for the nervous consequences if something was not done. +Renewed efforts were made in every direction. Actors and actresses were sought +with a desperate disregard of all considerations of personal fitness. +Necessity, which knows no law, either in the drama or out of it, accepted a lad +of eighteen as the representative of “Sir Anthony Absolute”; the +stage-manager undertaking to supply the necessary wrinkles from the illimitable +resources of theatrical art. A lady whose age was unknown, and whose personal +appearance was stout—but whose heart was in the right +place—volunteered to act the part of the sentimental “Julia,” +and brought with her the dramatic qualification of habitually wearing a wig in +private life. Thanks to these vigorous measures, the play was at last supplied +with representatives—always excepting the two unmanageable characters of +“Lucy” the waiting-maid, and “Falkland,” Julia’s +jealous lover. Gentlemen came; saw Julia at rehearsal; observed her stoutness +and her wig; omitted to notice that her heart was in the right place; quailed +at the prospect, apologized, and retired. Ladies read the part of +“Lucy”; remarked that she appeared to great advantage in the first +half of the play, and faded out of it altogether in the latter half; objected +to pass from the notice of the audience in that manner, when all the rest had a +chance of distinguishing themselves to the end; shut up the book, apologized, +and retired. In eight days more the night of performance would arrive; a +phalanx of social martyrs two hundred strong had been convened to witness it; +three full rehearsals were absolutely necessary; and two characters in the play +were not filled yet. With this lamentable story, and with the humblest +apologies for presuming on a slight acquaintance, the Marrables appeared at +Combe-Raven, to appeal to the young ladies for a “Lucy,” and to the +universe for a “Falkland,” with the mendicant pertinacity of a +family in despair. +</p> + +<p> +This statement of circumstances—addressed to an audience which included a +father of Mr. Vanstone’s disposition, and a daughter of Magdalen’s +temperament—produced the result which might have been anticipated from +the first. +</p> + +<p> +Either misinterpreting, or disregarding, the ominous silence preserved by his +wife and Miss Garth, Mr. Vanstone not only gave Magdalen permission to assist +the forlorn dramatic company, but accepted an invitation to witness the +performance for Norah and himself. Mrs. Vanstone declined accompanying them on +account of her health; and Miss Garth only engaged to make one among the +audience conditionally on not being wanted at home. The “parts” of +“Lucy” and “Falkland” (which the distressed family +carried about with them everywhere, like incidental maladies) were handed to +their representatives on the spot. Frank’s faint remonstrances were +rejected without a hearing; the days and hours of rehearsal were carefully +noted down on the covers of the parts; and the Marrables took their leave, with +a perfect explosion of thanks—father, mother, and daughter sowing their +expressions of gratitude broadcast, from the drawing-room door to the +garden-gates. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as the carriage had driven away, Magdalen presented herself to the +general observation under an entirely new aspect. +</p> + +<p> +“If any more visitors call to-day,” she said, with the profoundest +gravity of look and manner, “I am not at home. This is a far more serious +matter than any of you suppose. Go somewhere by yourself, Frank, and read over +your part, and don’t let your attention wander if you can possibly help +it. I shall not be accessible before the evening. If you will come +here—with papa’s permission—after tea, my views on the +subject of Falkland will be at your disposal. Thomas! whatever else the +gardener does, he is not to make any floricultural noises under my window. For +the rest of the afternoon I shall be immersed in study—and the quieter +the house is, the more obliged I shall feel to everybody.” +</p> + +<p> +Before Miss Garth’s battery of reproof could open fire, before the first +outburst of Mr. Vanstone’s hearty laughter could escape his lips, she +bowed to them with imperturbable gravity; ascended the house-steps, for the +first time in her life, at a walk instead of a run, and retired then and there +to the bedroom regions. Frank’s helpless astonishment at her +disappearance added a new element of absurdity to the scene. He stood first on +one leg and then on the other; rolling and unrolling his part, and looking +piteously in the faces of the friends about him. “I know I can’t do +it,” he said. “May I come in after tea, and hear Magdalen’s +views? Thank you—I’ll look in about eight. Don’t tell my +father about this acting, please; I should never hear the last of it.” +Those were the only words he had spirit enough to utter. He drifted away +aimlessly in the direction of the shrubbery, with the part hanging open in his +hand—the most incapable of Falklands, and the most helpless of mankind. +</p> + +<p> +Frank’s departure left the family by themselves, and was the signal +accordingly for an attack on Mr. Vanstone’s inveterate carelessness in +the exercise of his paternal authority. +</p> + +<p> +“What could you possibly be thinking of, Andrew, when you gave your +consent?” said Mrs. Vanstone. “Surely my silence was a sufficient +warning to you to say No?” +</p> + +<p> +“A mistake, Mr. Vanstone,” chimed in Miss Garth. “Made with +the best intentions—but a mistake for all that.” +</p> + +<p> +“It may be a mistake,” said Norah, taking her father’s part, +as usual. “But I really don’t see how papa, or any one else, could +have declined, under the circumstances.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite right, my dear,” observed Mr. Vanstone. “The +circumstances, as you say, were dead against me. Here were these unfortunate +people in a scrape on one side; and Magdalen, on the other, mad to act. I +couldn’t say I had methodistical objections—I’ve nothing +methodistical about me. What other excuse could I make? The Marrables are +respectable people, and keep the best company in Clifton. What harm can she get +in their house? If you come to prudence and that sort of thing—why +shouldn’t Magdalen do what Miss Marrable does? There! there! let the poor +things act, and amuse themselves. We were their age once—and it’s +no use making a fuss—and that’s all I’ve got to say about +it.” +</p> + +<p> +With that characteristic defense of his own conduct, Mr. Vanstone sauntered +back to the greenhouse to smoke another cigar. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t say so to papa,” said Norah, taking her +mother’s arm on the way back to the house, “but the bad result of +the acting, in my opinion, will be the familiarity it is sure to encourage +between Magdalen and Francis Clare.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are prejudiced against Frank, my love,” said Mrs. Vanstone. +</p> + +<p> +Norah’s soft, secret, hazel eyes sank to the ground; she said no more. +Her opinions were unchangeable—but she never disputed with anybody. She +had the great failing of a reserved nature—the failing of obstinacy; and +the great merit—the merit of silence. “What is your head running on +now?” thought Miss Garth, casting a sharp look at Norah’s dark, +downcast face. “You’re one of the impenetrable sort. Give me +Magdalen, with all her perversities; I can see daylight through her. +You’re as dark as night.” +</p> + +<p> +The hours of the afternoon passed away, and still Magdalen remained shut up in +her own room. No restless footsteps pattered on the stairs; no nimble tongue +was heard chattering here, there, and everywhere, from the garret to the +kitchen—the house seemed hardly like itself, with the one ever-disturbing +element in the family serenity suddenly withdrawn from it. Anxious to witness +with her own eyes the reality of a transformation in which past experience +still inclined her to disbelieve, Miss Garth ascended to Magdalen’s room, +knocked twice at the door, received no answer, opened it and looked in. +</p> + +<p> +There sat Magdalen, in an arm-chair before the long looking-glass, with all her +hair let down over her shoulders; absorbed in the study of her part and +comfortably arrayed in her morning wrapper, until it was time to dress for +dinner. And there behind her sat the lady’s-maid, slowly combing out the +long heavy locks of her young mistress’s hair, with the sleepy +resignation of a woman who had been engaged in that employment for some hours +past. The sun was shining; and the green shutters outside the window were +closed. The dim light fell tenderly on the two quiet seated figures; on the +little white bed, with the knots of rose-colored ribbon which looped up its +curtains, and the bright dress for dinner laid ready across it; on the gayly +painted bath, with its pure lining of white enamel; on the toilet-table with +its sparkling trinkets, its crystal bottles, its silver bell with Cupid for a +handle, its litter of little luxuries that adorn the shrine of a woman’s +bed-chamber. The luxurious tranquillity of the scene; the cool fragrance of +flowers and perfumes in the atmosphere; the rapt attitude of Magdalen, absorbed +over her reading; the monotonous regularity of movement in the maid’s +hand and arm, as she drew the comb smoothly through and through her +mistress’s hair—all conveyed the same soothing impression of +drowsy, delicious quiet. On one side of the door were the broad daylight and +the familiar realities of life. On the other was the dream-land of Elysian +serenity—the sanctuary of unruffled repose. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth paused on the threshold, and looked into the room in silence. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen’s curious fancy for having her hair combed at all times and +seasons was among the peculiarities of her character which were notorious to +everybody in the house. It was one of her father’s favorite jokes that +she reminded him, on such occasions, of a cat having her back stroked, and that +he always expected, if the combing were only continued long enough, to hear her +<i>purr</i>. Extravagant as it may seem, the comparison was not altogether +inappropriate. The girl’s fervid temperament intensified the essentially +feminine pleasure that most women feel in the passage of the comb through their +hair, to a luxury of sensation which absorbed her in enjoyment, so serenely +self-demonstrative, so drowsily deep that it did irresistibly suggest a pet +cat’s enjoyment under a caressing hand. Intimately as Miss Garth was +acquainted with this peculiarity in her pupil, she now saw it asserting itself +for the first time, in association with mental exertion of any kind on +Magdalen’s part. Feeling, therefore, some curiosity to know how long the +combing and the studying had gone on together, she ventured on putting the +question, first to the mistress; and (receiving no answer in that quarter) +secondly to the maid. +</p> + +<p> +“All the afternoon, miss, off and on,” was the weary answer. +“Miss Magdalen says it soothes her feelings and clears her mind.” +</p> + +<p> +Knowing by experience that interference would be hopeless, under these +circumstances, Miss Garth turned sharply and left the room. She smiled when she +was outside on the landing. The female mind does occasionally—though not +often—project itself into the future. Miss Garth was prophetically +pitying Magdalen’s unfortunate husband. +</p> + +<p> +Dinner-time presented the fair student to the family eye in the same mentally +absorbed aspect. On all ordinary occasions Magdalen’s appetite would have +terrified those feeble sentimentalists who affect to ignore the all-important +influence which female feeding exerts in the production of female beauty. On +this occasion she refused one dish after another with a resolution which +implied the rarest of all modern martyrdoms—gastric martyrdom. “I +have conceived the part of Lucy,” she observed, with the demurest +gravity. “The next difficulty is to make Frank conceive the part of +Falkland. I see nothing to laugh at—you would all be serious enough if +you had my responsibilities. No, papa—no wine to-day, thank you. I must +keep my intelligence clear. Water, Thomas—and a little more jelly, I +think, before you take it away.” +</p> + +<p> +When Frank presented himself in the evening, ignorant of the first elements of +his part, she took him in hand, as a middle-aged schoolmistress might have +taken in hand a backward little boy. The few attempts he made to vary the +sternly practical nature of the evening’s occupation by slipping in +compliments sidelong she put away from her with the contemptuous +self-possession of a woman of twice her age. She literally forced him into his +part. Her father fell asleep in his chair. Mrs. Vanstone and Miss Garth lost +their interest in the proceedings, retired to the further end of the room, and +spoke together in whispers. It grew later and later; and still Magdalen never +flinched from her task—still, with equal perseverance, Norah, who had +been on the watch all through the evening, kept on the watch to the end. The +distrust darkened and darkened on her face as she looked at her sister and +Frank; as she saw how close they sat together, devoted to the same interest and +working to the same end. The clock on the mantel-piece pointed to half-past +eleven before Lucy the resolute permitted Falkland the helpless to shut up his +task-book for the night. “She’s wonderfully clever, isn’t +she?” said Frank, taking leave of Mr. Vanstone at the hall door. +“I’m to come to-morrow, and hear more of her views—if you +have no objection. I shall never do it; don’t tell her I said so. As fast +as she teaches me one speech, the other goes out of my head. Discouraging, +isn’t it? Goodnight.” +</p> + +<p> +The next day but one was the day of the first full rehearsal. On the previous +evening Mrs. Vanstone’s spirits had been sadly depressed. At a private +interview with Miss Garth she had referred again, of her own accord, to the +subject of her letter from London—had spoken self-reproachfully of her +weakness in admitting Captain Wragge’s impudent claim to a family +connection with her—and had then reverted to the state of her health and +to the doubtful prospect that awaited her in the coming summer in a tone of +despondency which it was very distressing to hear. Anxious to cheer her +spirits, Miss Garth had changed the conversation as soon as possible—had +referred to the approaching theatrical performance—and had relieved Mrs. +Vanstone’s mind of all anxiety in that direction, by announcing her +intention of accompanying Magdalen to each rehearsal, and of not losing sight +of her until she was safely back again in her father’s house. +Accordingly, when Frank presented himself at Combe-Raven on the eventful +morning, there stood Miss Garth, prepared—in the interpolated character +of Argus—to accompany Lucy and Falkland to the scene of trial. The +railway conveyed the three, in excellent time, to Evergreen Lodge; and at one +o’clock the rehearsal began. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h3> + +<p> +“I hope Miss Vanstone knows her part?” whispered Mrs. Marrable, +anxiously addressing herself to Miss Garth, in a corner of the theater. +</p> + +<p> +“If airs and graces make an actress, ma’am, Magdalen’s +performance will astonish us all.” With that reply, Miss Garth took out +her work, and seated herself, on guard, in the center of the pit. +</p> + +<p> +The manager perched himself, book in hand, on a stool close in front of the +stage. He was an active little man, of a sweet and cheerful temper; and he gave +the signal to begin with as patient an interest in the proceedings as if they +had caused him no trouble in the past and promised him no difficulty in the +future. The two characters which opened the comedy of The Rivals, +“Fag” and “The Coachman,” appeared on the +scene—looked many sizes too tall for their canvas background, which +represented a “Street in Bath”—exhibited the customary +inability to manage their own arms, legs, and voices—went out severally +at the wrong exits—and expressed their perfect approval of results, so +far, by laughing heartily behind the scenes. “Silence, gentlemen, if you +please,” remonstrated the cheerful manager. “As loud as you like +<i>on</i> the stage, but the audience mustn’t hear you <i>off</i> it. +Miss Marrable ready? Miss Vanstone ready? Easy there with the ‘Street in +Bath’; it’s going up crooked! Face this way, Miss Marrable; full +face, if you please. Miss Vanstone—” he checked himself suddenly. +“Curious,” he said, under his breath—“she fronts the +audience of her own accord!” Lucy opened the scene in these words: +“Indeed, ma’am, I traversed half the town in search of it: I +don’t believe there’s a circulating library in Bath I haven’t +been at.” The manager started in his chair. “My heart alive! she +speaks out without telling!” The dialogue went on. Lucy produced the +novels for Miss Lydia Languish’s private reading from under her cloak. +The manager rose excitably to his feet. Marvelous! No hurry with the books; no +dropping them. She looked at the titles before she announced them to her +mistress; she set down “Humphrey Clinker” on “The Tears of +Sensibility” with a smart little smack which pointed the antithesis. One +moment—and she announced Julia’s visit; another—and she +dropped the brisk waiting-maid’s courtesy; a third—and she was off +the stage on the side set down for her in the book. The manager wheeled round +on his stool, and looked hard at Miss Garth. “I beg your pardon, +ma’am,” he said. “Miss Marrable told me, before we began, +that this was the young lady’s first attempt. It can’t be, +surely!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is,” replied Miss Garth, reflecting the manager’s look of +amazement on her own face. Was it possible that Magdalen’s unintelligible +industry in the study of her part really sprang from a serious interest in her +occupation—an interest which implied a natural fitness for it? +</p> + +<p> +The rehearsal went on. The stout lady with the wig (and the excellent heart) +personated the sentimental Julia from an inveterately tragic point of view, and +used her handkerchief distractedly in the first scene. The spinster relative +felt Mrs. Malaprop’s mistakes in language so seriously, and took such +extraordinary pains with her blunders, that they sounded more like exercises in +elocution than anything else. The unhappy lad who led the forlorn hope of the +company, in the person of “Sir Anthony Absolute,” expressed the age +and irascibility of his character by tottering incessantly at the knees, and +thumping the stage perpetually with his stick. Slowly and clumsily, with +constant interruptions and interminable mistakes, the first act dragged on, +until Lucy appeared again to end it in soliloquy, with the confession of her +assumed simplicity and the praise of her own cunning. +</p> + +<p> +Here the stage artifice of the situation presented difficulties which Magdalen +had not encountered in the first scene—and here, her total want of +experience led her into more than one palpable mistake. The stage-manager, with +an eagerness which he had not shown in the case of any other member of the +company, interfered immediately, and set her right. At one point she was to +pause, and take a turn on the stage—she did it. At another, she was to +stop, toss her head, and look pertly at the audience—she did it. When she +took out the paper to read the list of the presents she had received, could she +give it a tap with her finger (Yes)? And lead off with a little laugh +(Yes—after twice trying)? Could she read the different items with a sly +look at the end of each sentence, straight at the pit (Yes, straight at the +pit, and as sly as you please)? The manager’s cheerful face beamed with +approval. He tucked the play under his arm, and clapped his hands gayly; the +gentlemen, clustered together behind the scenes, followed his example; the +ladies looked at each other with dawning doubts whether they had not better +have left the new recruit in the retirement of private life. Too deeply +absorbed in the business of the stage to heed any of them, Magdalen asked leave +to repeat the soliloquy, and make quite sure of her own improvement. She went +all through it again without a mistake, this time, from beginning to end; the +manager celebrating her attention to his directions by an outburst of +professional approbation, which escaped him in spite of himself. “She can +take a hint!” cried the little man, with a hearty smack of his hand on +the prompt-book. “She’s a born actress, if ever there was one +yet!” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope not,” said Miss Garth to herself, taking up the work which +had dropped into her lap, and looking down at it in some perplexity. Her worst +apprehension of results in connection with the theatrical enterprise had +foreboded levity of conduct with some of the gentlemen—she had not +bargained for this. Magdalen, in the capacity of a thoughtless girl, was +comparatively easy to deal with. Magdalen, in the character of a born actress, +threatened serious future difficulties. +</p> + +<p> +The rehearsal proceeded. Lucy returned to the stage for her scenes in the +second act (the last in which she appears) with Sir Lucius and Fag. Here, +again, Magdalen’s inexperience betrayed itself—and here once more +her resolution in attacking and conquering her own mistakes astonished +everybody. “Bravo!” cried the gentlemen behind the scenes, as she +steadily trampled down one blunder after another. “Ridiculous!” +said the ladies, “with such a small part as hers.” “Heaven +forgive me!” thought Miss. Garth, coming round unwillingly to the general +opinion. “I almost wish we were Papists, and I had a convent to put her +in to-morrow.” One of Mr. Marrable’s servants entered the theater +as that desperate aspiration escaped the governess. She instantly sent the man +behind the scene with a message: “Miss Vanstone has done her part in the +rehearsal; request her to come here and sit by me.” The servant returned +with a polite apology: “Miss Vanstone’s kind love, and she begs to +be excused—she’s prompting Mr. Clare.” She prompted him to +such purpose that he actually got through his part. The performances of the +other gentlemen were obtrusively imbecile. Frank was just one degree +better—he was modestly incapable; and he gained by comparison. +“Thanks to Miss Vanstone,” observed the manager, who had heard the +prompting. “She pulled him through. We shall be flat enough at night, +when the drop falls on the second act, and the audience have seen the last of +her. It’s a thousand pities she hasn’t got a better part!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a thousand mercies she’s no more to do than she +has,” muttered Miss Garth, overhearing him. “As things are, the +people can’t well turn her head with applause. She’s out of the +play in the second act—that’s one comfort!” +</p> + +<p> +No well-regulated mind ever draws its inferences in a hurry; Miss Garth’s +mind was well regulated; therefore, logically speaking, Miss Garth ought to +have been superior to the weakness of rushing at conclusions. She had committed +that error, nevertheless, under present circumstances. In plainer terms, the +consoling reflection which had just occurred to her assumed that the play had +by this time survived all its disasters, and entered on its long-deferred +career of success. The play had done nothing of the sort. Misfortune and the +Marrable family had not parted company yet. +</p> + +<p> +When the rehearsal was over, nobody observed that the stout lady with the wig +privately withdrew herself from the company; and when she was afterward missed +from the table of refreshments, which Mr. Marrable’s hospitality kept +ready spread in a room near the theater, nobody imagined that there was any +serious reason for her absence. It was not till the ladies and gentlemen +assembled for the next rehearsal that the true state of the case was impressed +on the minds of the company. At the appointed hour no Julia appeared. In her +stead, Mrs. Marrable portentously approached the stage, with an open letter in +her hand. She was naturally a lady of the mildest good breeding: she was +mistress of every bland conventionality in the English language—but +disasters and dramatic influences combined, threw even this harmless matron off +her balance at last. For the first time in her life Mrs. Marrable indulged in +vehement gesture, and used strong language. She handed the letter sternly, at +arms-length, to her daughter. “My dear,” she said, with an aspect +of awful composure, “we are under a Curse.” Before the amazed +dramatic company could petition for an explanation, she turned and left the +room. The manager’s professional eye followed her out +respectfully—he looked as if he approved of the exit, from a theatrical +point of view. +</p> + +<p> +What new misfortune had befallen the play? The last and worst of all +misfortunes had assailed it. The stout lady had resigned her part. +</p> + +<p> +Not maliciously. Her heart, which had been in the right place throughout, +remained inflexibly in the right place still. Her explanation of the +circumstances proved this, if nothing else did. The letter began with a +statement: She had overheard, at the last rehearsal (quite unintentionally), +personal remarks of which she was the subject. They might, or might not, have +had reference to her—Hair; and her—Figure. She would not distress +Mrs. Marrable by repeating them. Neither would she mention names, because it +was foreign to her nature to make bad worse. The only course at all consistent +with her own self-respect was to resign her part. She inclosed it, accordingly, +to Mrs. Marrable, with many apologies for her presumption in undertaking a +youthful character, at—what a gentleman was pleased to term—her +Age; and with what two ladies were rude enough to characterize as her +disadvantages of—Hair, and—Figure. A younger and more attractive +representative of Julia would no doubt be easily found. In the meantime, all +persons concerned had her full forgiveness, to which she would only beg leave +to add her best and kindest wishes for the success of the play. +</p> + +<p> +In four nights more the play was to be performed. If ever any human enterprise +stood in need of good wishes to help it, that enterprise was unquestionably the +theatrical entertainment at Evergreen Lodge! +</p> + +<p> +One arm-chair was allowed on the stage; and into that arm-chair Miss Marrable +sank, preparatory to a fit of hysterics. Magdalen stepped forward at the first +convulsion; snatched the letter from Miss Marrable’s hand; and stopped +the threatened catastrophe. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s an ugly, bald-headed, malicious, middle-aged wretch!” +said Magdalen, tearing the letter into fragments, and tossing them over the +heads of the company. “But I can tell her one thing—she +shan’t spoil the play. I’ll act Julia.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bravo!” cried the chorus of gentlemen—the anonymous +gentleman who had helped to do the mischief (otherwise Mr. Francis Clare) +loudest of all. +</p> + +<p> +“If you want the truth, I don’t shrink from owning it,” +continued Magdalen. “I’m one of the ladies she means. I said she +had a head like a mop, and a waist like a bolster. So she has.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am the other lady,” added the spinster relative. “But I +only said she was too stout for the part.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am the gentleman,” chimed in Frank, stimulated by the force of +example. “I said nothing—I only agreed with the ladies.” +</p> + +<p> +Here Miss Garth seized her opportunity, and addressed the stage loudly from the +pit. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop! Stop!” she said. “You can’t settle the +difficulty that way. If Magdalen plays Julia, who is to play Lucy?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Marrable sank back in the arm-chair, and gave way to the second +convulsion. +</p> + +<p> +“Stuff and nonsense!” cried Magdalen, “the thing’s +simple enough, I’ll act Julia and Lucy both together.” +</p> + +<p> +The manager was consulted on the spot. Suppressing Lucy’s first entrance, +and turning the short dialogue about the novels into a soliloquy for Lydia +Languish, appeared to be the only changes of importance necessary to the +accomplishment of Magdalen’s project. Lucy’s two telling scenes, at +the end of the first and second acts, were sufficiently removed from the scenes +in which Julia appeared to give time for the necessary transformations in +dress. Even Miss Garth, though she tried hard to find them, could put no fresh +obstacles in the way. The question was settled in five minutes, and the +rehearsal went on; Magdalen learning Julia’s stage situations with the +book in her hand, and announcing afterward, on the journey home, that she +proposed sitting up all night to study the new part. Frank thereupon expressed +his fears that she would have no time left to help him through his theatrical +difficulties. She tapped him on the shoulder coquettishly with her part. +“You foolish fellow, how am I to do without you? You’re +Julia’s jealous lover; you’re always making Julia cry. Come +to-night, and make me cry at tea-time. You haven’t got a venomous old +woman in a wig to act with now. It’s <i>my</i> heart you’re to +break—and of course I shall teach you how to do it.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The four days’ interval passed busily in perpetual rehearsals, public and +private. The night of performance arrived; the guests assembled; the great +dramatic experiment stood on its trial. Magdalen had made the most of her +opportunities; she had learned all that the manager could teach her in the +time. Miss Garth left her when the overture began, sitting apart in a corner +behind the scenes, serious and silent, with her smelling-bottle in one hand, +and her book in the other, resolutely training herself for the coming ordeal, +to the very last. +</p> + +<p> +The play began, with all the proper accompaniments of a theatrical performance +in private life; with a crowded audience, an African temperature, a bursting of +heated lamp-glasses, and a difficulty in drawing up the curtain. +“Fag” and “the Coachman,” who opened the scene, took +leave of their memories as soon as they stepped on the stage; left half their +dialogue unspoken; came to a dead pause; were audibly entreated by the +invisible manager to “come off”; and went off accordingly, in every +respect sadder and wiser men than when they went on. The next scene disclosed +Miss Marrable as “Lydia Languish,” gracefully seated, very pretty, +beautifully dressed, accurately mistress of the smallest words in her part; +possessed, in short, of every personal resource—except her voice. The +ladies admired, the gentlemen applauded. Nobody heard anything but the words +“Speak up, miss,” whispered by the same voice which had already +entreated “Fag” and “the Coachman” to “come +off.” A responsive titter rose among the younger spectators; checked +immediately by magnanimous applause. The temperature of the audience was rising +to Blood Heat—but the national sense of fair play was not boiled out of +them yet. +</p> + +<p> +In the midst of the demonstration, Magdalen quietly made her first entrance, as +“Julia.” She was dressed very plainly in dark colors, and wore her +own hair; all stage adjuncts and alterations (excepting the slightest possible +touch of rouge on her cheeks) having been kept in reserve to disguise her the +more effectually in her second part. The grace and simplicity of her costume, +the steady self-possession with which she looked out over the eager rows of +faces before her, raised a low hum of approval and expectation. She +spoke—after suppressing a momentary tremor—with a quiet +distinctness of utterance which reached all ears, and which at once confirmed +the favorable impression that her appearance had produced. The one member of +the audience who looked at her and listened to her coldly, was her elder +sister. Before the actress of the evening had been five minutes on the stage, +Norah detected, to her own indescribable astonishment, that Magdalen had +audaciously individualized the feeble amiability of “Julia’s” +character, by seizing no less a person than herself as the model to act it by. +She saw all her own little formal peculiarities of manner and movement +unblushingly reproduced—and even the very tone of her voice so accurately +mimicked from time to time, that the accents startled her as if she was +speaking herself, with an echo on the stage. The effect of this cool +appropriation of Norah’s identity to theatrical purposes on the +audience—who only saw results—asserted itself in a storm of +applause on Magdalen’s exit. She had won two incontestable triumphs in +her first scene. By a dexterous piece of mimicry, she had made a living reality +of one of the most insipid characters in the English drama; and she had roused +to enthusiasm an audience of two hundred exiles from the blessings of +ventilation, all simmering together in their own animal heat. Under the +circumstances, where is the actress by profession who could have done much +more? +</p> + +<p> +But the event of the evening was still to come. Magdalen’s disguised +re-appearance at the end of the act, in the character of +“Lucy”—with false hair and false eyebrows, with a bright-red +complexion and patches on her cheeks, with the gayest colors flaunting in her +dress, and the shrillest vivacity of voice and manner—fairly staggered +the audience. They looked down at their programmes, in which the representative +of Lucy figured under an assumed name; looked up again at the stage; penetrated +the disguise; and vented their astonishment in another round of applause, +louder and heartier even than the last. Norah herself could not deny this time +that the tribute of approbation had been well deserved. There, forcing its way +steadily through all the faults of inexperience—there, plainly visible to +the dullest of the spectators, was the rare faculty of dramatic impersonation, +expressing itself in every look and action of this girl of eighteen, who now +stood on a stage for the first time in her life. Failing in many minor +requisites of the double task which she had undertaken, she succeeded in the +one important necessity of keeping the main distinctions of the two characters +thoroughly apart. Everybody felt that the difficulty lay here—everybody +saw the difficulty conquered—everybody echoed the manager’s +enthusiasm at rehearsal, which had hailed her as a born actress. +</p> + +<p> +When the drop-scene descended for the first time, Magdalen had concentrated in +herself the whole interest and attraction of the play. The audience politely +applauded Miss Marrable, as became the guests assembled in her father’s +house: and good-humoredly encouraged the remainder of the company, to help them +through a task for which they were all, more or less, palpably unfit. But, as +the play proceeded, nothing roused them to any genuine expression of interest +when Magdalen was absent from the scene. There was no disguising it: Miss +Marrable and her bosom friends had been all hopelessly cast in the shade by the +new recruit whom they had summoned to assist them, in the capacity of forlorn +hope. And this on Miss Marrable’s own birthday! and this in her +father’s house! and this after the unutterable sacrifices of six weeks +past! Of all the domestic disasters which the thankless theatrical enterprise +had inflicted on the Marrable family, the crowning misfortune was now +consummated by Magdalen’s success. +</p> + +<p> +Leaving Mr. Vanstone and Norah, on the conclusion of the play, among the guests +in the supper-room, Miss Garth went behind the scenes; ostensibly anxious to +see if she could be of any use; really bent on ascertaining whether +Magdalen’s head had been turned by the triumphs of the evening. It would +not have surprised Miss Garth if she had discovered her pupil in the act of +making terms with the manager for her forthcoming appearance in a public +theater. As events really turned out, she found Magdalen on the stage, +receiving, with gracious smiles, a card which the manager presented to her with +a professional bow. Noticing Miss Garth’s mute look of inquiry, the civil +little man hastened to explain that the card was his own, and that he was +merely asking the favor of Miss Vanstone’s recommendation at any future +opportunity. +</p> + +<p> +“This is not the last time the young lady will be concerned in private +theatricals, I’ll answer for it,” said the manager. “And if a +superintendent is wanted on the next occasion, she has kindly promised to say a +good word for me. I am always to be heard of, miss, at that address.” +Saying those words, he bowed again, and discreetly disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +Vague suspicions beset the mind of Miss Garth, and urged her to insist on +looking at the card. No more harmless morsel of pasteboard was ever passed from +one hand to another. The card contained nothing but the manager’s name, +and, under it, the name and address of a theatrical agent in London. +</p> + +<p> +“It is not worth the trouble of keeping,” said Miss Garth. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen caught her hand before she could throw the card away—possessed +herself of it the next instant—and put it in her pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“I promised to recommend him,” she said—“and +that’s one reason for keeping his card. If it does nothing else, it will +remind me of the happiest evening of my life—and that’s another. +Come!” she cried, throwing her arms round Miss Garth with a feverish +gayety—“congratulate me on my success!” +</p> + +<p> +“I will congratulate you when you have got over it,” said Miss +Garth. +</p> + +<p> +In half an hour more Magdalen had changed her dress; had joined the guests; and +had soared into an atmosphere of congratulation high above the reach of any +controlling influence that Miss Garth could exercise. Frank, dilatory in all +his proceedings, was the last of the dramatic company who left the precincts of +the stage. He made no attempt to join Magdalen in the supper-room—but he +was ready in the hall with her cloak when the carriages were called and the +party broke up. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Frank!” she said, looking round at him as he put the cloak on +her shoulders, “I am so sorry it’s all over! Come to-morrow +morning, and let’s talk about it by ourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“In the shrubbery at ten?” asked Frank, in a whisper. +</p> + +<p> +She drew up the hood of her cloak and nodded to him gayly. Miss Garth, standing +near, noticed the looks that passed between them, though the disturbance made +by the parting guests prevented her from hearing the words. There was a soft, +underlying tenderness in Magdalen’s assumed gayety of manner—there +was a sudden thoughtfulness in her face, a confidential readiness in her hand, +as she took Frank’s arm and went out to the carriage. What did it mean? +Had her passing interest in him as her stage-pupil treacherously sown the seeds +of any deeper interest in him, as a man? Had the idle theatrical scheme, now +that it was all over, graver results to answer for than a mischievous waste of +time? +</p> + +<p> +The lines on Miss Garth’s face deepened and hardened: she stood lost +among the fluttering crowd around her. Norah’s warning words, addressed +to Mrs. Vanstone in the garden, recurred to her memory—and now, for the +first time, the idea dawned on her that Norah had seen the consequences in +their true light. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h3> + +<p> +Early the next morning Miss Garth and Norah met in the garden and spoke +together privately. The only noticeable result of the interview, when they +presented themselves at the breakfast-table, appeared in the marked silence +which they both maintained on the topic of the theatrical performance. Mrs. +Vanstone was entirely indebted to her husband and to her youngest daughter for +all that she heard of the evening’s entertainment. The governess and the +elder daughter had evidently determined on letting the subject drop. +</p> + +<p> +After breakfast was over Magdalen proved to be missing, when the ladies +assembled as usual in the morning-room. Her habits were so little regular that +Mrs. Vanstone felt neither surprise nor uneasiness at her absence. Miss Garth +and Norah looked at one another significantly, and waited in silence. Two hours +passed—and there were no signs of Magdalen. Norah rose, as the clock +struck twelve, and quietly left the room to look for her. +</p> + +<p> +She was not upstairs dusting her jewelry and disarranging her dresses. She was +not in the conservatory, not in the flower-garden; not in the kitchen teasing +the cook; not in the yard playing with the dogs. Had she, by any chance, gone +out with her father? Mr. Vanstone had announced his intention, at the +breakfast-table, of paying a morning visit to his old ally, Mr. Clare, and of +rousing the philosopher’s sarcastic indignation by an account of the +dramatic performance. None of the other ladies at Combe-Raven ever ventured +themselves inside the cottage. But Magdalen was reckless enough for +anything—and Magdalen might have gone there. As the idea occurred to her, +Norah entered the shrubbery. +</p> + +<p> +At the second turning, where the path among the trees wound away out of sight +of the house, she came suddenly face to face with Magdalen and Frank: they were +sauntering toward her, arm in arm, their heads close together, their +conversation apparently proceeding in whispers. They looked suspiciously +handsome and happy. At the sight of Norah both started, and both stopped. Frank +confusedly raised his hat, and turned back in the direction of his +father’s cottage. Magdalen advanced to meet her sister, carelessly +swinging her closed parasol from side to side, carelessly humming an air from +the overture which had preceded the rising of the curtain on the previous +night. +</p> + +<p> +“Luncheon-time already!” she said, looking at her watch. +“Surely not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you and Mr. Francis Clare been alone in the shrubbery since ten +o’clock?” asked Norah. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Mr.</i> Francis Clare! How ridiculously formal you are. Why +don’t you call him Frank?” +</p> + +<p> +“I asked you a question, Magdalen.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me, how black you look this morning! I’m in disgrace, I +suppose. Haven’t you forgiven me yet for my acting last night? I +couldn’t help it, love; I should have made nothing of Julia, if I +hadn’t taken you for my model. It’s quite a question of Art. In +your place, I should have felt flattered by the selection.” +</p> + +<p> +“In <i>your</i> place, Magdalen, I should have thought twice before I +mimicked my sister to an audience of strangers.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s exactly why I did it—an audience of strangers. How +were they to know? Come! come! don’t be angry. You are eight years older +than I am—you ought to set me an example of good-humor.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will set you an example of plain-speaking. I am more sorry than I can +say, Magdalen, to meet you as I met you here just now!” +</p> + +<p> +“What next, I wonder? You meet me in the shrubbery at home, talking over +the private theatricals with my old playfellow, whom I knew when I was no +taller than this parasol. And that is a glaring impropriety, is it? ‘Honi +soit qui mal y pense.’ You wanted an answer a minute ago—there it +is for you, my dear, in the choicest Norman-French.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am in earnest about this, Magdalen—” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a doubt of it. Nobody can accuse you of ever making jokes.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am seriously sorry—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dear!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is quite useless to interrupt me. I have it on my conscience to tell +you—and I <i>will</i> tell you—that I am sorry to see how this +intimacy is growing. I am sorry to see a secret understanding established +already between you and Mr. Francis Clare.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Frank! How you do hate him, to be sure. What on earth has he done +to offend you?” +</p> + +<p> +Norah’s self-control began to show signs of failing her. Her dark cheeks +glowed, her delicate lips trembled, before she spoke again. Magdalen paid more +attention to her parasol than to her sister. She tossed it high in the air and +caught it. “Once!” she said—and tossed it up again. +“Twice!”—and she tossed it higher. +“Thrice—” Before she could catch it for the third time, Norah +seized her passionately by the arm, and the parasol dropped to the ground +between them. +</p> + +<p> +“You are treating me heartlessly,” she said. “For shame, +Magdalen—for shame!” +</p> + +<p> +The irrepressible outburst of a reserved nature, forced into open +self-assertion in its own despite, is of all moral forces the hardest to +resist. Magdalen was startled into silence. For a moment, the two +sisters—so strangely dissimilar in person and character—faced one +another, without a word passing between them. For a moment the deep brown eyes +of the elder and the light gray eyes of the younger looked into each other with +steady, unyielding scrutiny on either side. Norah’s face was the first to +change; Norah’s head was the first to turn away. She dropped her +sister’s arm in silence. Magdalen stooped and picked up her parasol. +</p> + +<p> +“I try to keep my temper,” she said, “and you call me +heartless for doing it. You always were hard on me, and you always will +be.” +</p> + +<p> +Norah clasped her trembling hands fast in each other. “Hard on +you!” she said, in low, mournful tones—and sighed bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen drew back a little, and mechanically dusted the parasol with the end +of her garden cloak. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” she resumed, doggedly. “Hard on me and hard on +Frank.” +</p> + +<p> +“Frank!” repeated Norah, advancing on her sister and turning pale +as suddenly as she had turned red. “Do you talk of yourself and Frank as +if your interests were One already? Magdalen! if I hurt <i>you</i>, do I hurt +<i>him</i>? Is he so near and so dear to you as that?” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen drew further and further back. A twig from a tree near caught her +cloak; she turned petulantly, broke it off, and threw it on the ground. +“What right have you to question me?” she broke out on a sudden. +“Whether I like Frank, or whether I don’t, what interest is it of +yours?” As she said the words, she abruptly stepped forward to pass her +sister and return to the house. +</p> + +<p> +Norah, turning paler and paler, barred the way to her. “If I hold you by +main force,” she said, “you shall stop and hear me. I have watched +this Francis Clare; I know him better than you do. He is unworthy of a +moment’s serious feeling on your part; he is unworthy of our dear, good, +kind-hearted father’s interest in him. A man with any principle, any +honor, any gratitude, would not have come back as he has come back, +disgraced—yes! disgraced by his spiritless neglect of his own duty. I +watched his face while the friend who has been better than a father to him was +comforting and forgiving him with a kindness he had not deserved: I watched his +face, and I saw no shame and no distress in it—I saw nothing but a look +of thankless, heartless relief. He is selfish, he is ungrateful, he is +ungenerous—he is only twenty, and he has the worst failings of a mean old +age already. And this is the man I find you meeting in secret—the man who +has taken such a place in your favor that you are deaf to the truth about him, +even from <i>my</i> lips! Magdalen! this will end ill. For God’s sake, +think of what I have said to you, and control yourself before it is too +late!” She stopped, vehement and breathless, and caught her sister +anxiously by the hand. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen looked at her in unconcealed astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“You are so violent,” she said, “and so unlike yourself, that +I hardly know you. The more patient I am, the more hard words I get for my +pains. You have taken a perverse hatred to Frank; and you are unreasonably +angry with me because I won’t hate him, too. Don’t, Norah! you hurt +my hand.” +</p> + +<p> +Norah pushed the hand from her contemptuously. “I shall never hurt your +heart,” she said; and suddenly turned her back on Magdalen as she spoke +the words. +</p> + +<p> +There was a momentary pause. Norah kept her position. Magdalen looked at her +perplexedly—hesitated—then walked away by herself toward the house. +</p> + +<p> +At the turn in the shrubbery path she stopped and looked back uneasily. +“Oh, dear, dear!” she thought to herself, “why didn’t +Frank go when I told him?” She hesitated, and went back a few steps. +“There’s Norah standing on her dignity, as obstinate as +ever.” She stopped again. “What had I better do? I hate quarreling: +I think I’ll make up.” She ventured close to her sister and touched +her on the shoulder. Norah never moved. “It’s not often she flies +into a passion,” thought Magdalen, touching her again; “but when +she does, what a time it lasts her!—Come!” she said, “give me +a kiss, Norah, and make it up. Won’t you let me get at any part of you, +my dear, but the back of your neck? Well, it’s a very nice +neck—it’s better worth kissing than mine—and there the kiss +is, in spite of you!” +</p> + +<p> +She caught fast hold of Norah from behind, and suited the action to the word, +with a total disregard of all that had just passed, which her sister was far +from emulating. Hardly a minute since the warm outpouring of Norah’s +heart had burst through all obstacles. Had the icy reserve frozen her up again +already! It was hard to say. She never spoke; she never changed her +position—she only searched hurriedly for her handkerchief. As she drew it +out, there was a sound of approaching footsteps in the inner recesses of the +shrubbery. A Scotch terrier scampered into view; and a cheerful voice sang the +first lines of the glee in “As You Like It.” “It’s +papa!” cried Magdalen. “Come, Norah—come and meet him.” +</p> + +<p> +Instead of following her sister, Norah pulled down the veil of her garden hat, +turned in the opposite direction, and hurried back to the house. She ran up to +her own room and locked herself in. She was crying bitterly. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h3> + +<p> +When Magdalen and her father met in the shrubbery Mr. Vanstone’s face +showed plainly that something had happened to please him since he had left home +in the morning. He answered the question which his daughter’s curiosity +at once addressed to him by informing her that he had just come from Mr. +Clare’s cottage; and that he had picked up, in that unpromising locality, +a startling piece of news for the family at Combe-Raven. +</p> + +<p> +On entering the philosopher’s study that morning, Mr. Vanstone had found +him still dawdling over his late breakfast, with an open letter by his side, in +place of the book which, on other occasions, lay ready to his hand at +meal-times. He held up the letter the moment his visitor came into the room, +and abruptly opened the conversation by asking Mr. Vanstone if his nerves were +in good order, and if he felt himself strong enough for the shock of an +overwhelming surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“Nerves!” repeated Mr. Vanstone. “Thank God, I know nothing +about my nerves. If you have got anything to tell me, shock or no shock, out +with it on the spot.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Clare held the letter a little higher, and frowned at his visitor across +the breakfast-table. “What have I always told you?” he asked, with +his sourest solemnity of look and manner. +</p> + +<p> +“A great deal more than I could ever keep in my head,” answered Mr. +Vanstone. +</p> + +<p> +“In your presence and out of it,” continued Mr. Clare, “I +have always maintained that the one important phenomenon presented by modern +society is—the enormous prosperity of Fools. Show me an individual Fool, +and I will show you an aggregate Society which gives that highly-favored +personage nine chances out of ten—and grudges the tenth to the wisest man +in existence. Look where you will, in every high place there sits an Ass, +settled beyond the reach of all the greatest intellects in this world to pull +him down. Over our whole social system, complacent Imbecility rules +supreme—snuffs out the searching light of Intelligence with total +impunity—and hoots, owl-like, in answer to every form of protest, See how +well we all do in the dark! One of these days that audacious assertion will be +practically contradicted, and the whole rotten system of modern society will +come down with a crash.” +</p> + +<p> +“God forbid!” cried Mr. Vanstone, looking about him as if the crash +was coming already. +</p> + +<p> +“With a crash!” repeated Mr. Clare. “There is my theory, in +few words. Now for the remarkable application of it which this letter suggests. +Here is my lout of a boy—” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mean that Frank has got another chance?” exclaimed +Mr. Vanstone. +</p> + +<p> +“Here is this perfectly hopeless booby, Frank,” pursued the +philosopher. “He has never done anything in his life to help himself, +and, as a necessary consequence, Society is in a conspiracy to carry him to the +top of the tree. He has hardly had time to throw away that chance you gave him +before this letter comes, and puts the ball at his foot for the second time. My +rich cousin (who is intellectually fit to be at the tail of the family, and who +is, therefore, as a matter of course, at the head of it) has been good enough +to remember my existence; and has offered his influence to serve my eldest boy. +Read his letter, and then observe the sequence of events. My rich cousin is a +booby who thrives on landed property; he has done something for another booby +who thrives on Politics, who knows a third booby who thrives on Commerce, who +can do something for a fourth booby, thriving at present on nothing, whose name +is Frank. So the mill goes. So the cream of all human rewards is sipped in +endless succession by the Fools. I shall pack Frank off to-morrow. In course of +time he’ll come back again on our hands, like a bad shilling; more +chances will fall in his way, as a necessary consequence of his meritorious +imbecility. Years will go on—I may not live to see it, no more may +you—it doesn’t matter; Frank’s future is equally certain +either way—put him into the army, the Church, politics, what you please, +and let him drift: he’ll end in being a general, a bishop, or a minister +of State, by dint of the great modern qualification of doing nothing whatever +to deserve his place.” With this summary of his son’s worldly +prospects, Mr. Clare tossed the letter contemptuously across the table and +poured himself out another cup of tea. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Vanstone read the letter with eager interest and pleasure. It was written +in a tone of somewhat elaborate cordiality; but the practical advantages which +it placed at Frank’s disposal were beyond all doubt. The writer had the +means of using a friend’s interest—interest of no ordinary +kind—with a great Mercantile Firm in the City; and he had at once exerted +this influence in favor of Mr. Clare’s eldest boy. Frank would be +received in the office on a very different footing from the footing of an +ordinary clerk; he would be “pushed on” at every available +opportunity; and the first “good thing” the House had to offer, +either at home or abroad, would be placed at his disposal. If he possessed fair +abilities and showed common diligence in exercising them, his fortune was made; +and the sooner he was sent to London to begin the better for his own interests +it would be. +</p> + +<p> +“Wonderful news!” cried Mr. Vanstone, returning the letter. +“I’m delighted—I must go back and tell them at home. This is +fifty times the chance that mine was. What the deuce do you mean by abusing +Society? Society has behaved uncommonly well, in my opinion. Where’s +Frank?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lurking,” said Mr. Clare. “It is one of the intolerable +peculiarities of louts that they always lurk. I haven’t seen <i>my</i> +lout this morning. It you meet with him anywhere, give him a kick, and say I +want him.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Mr. Clare’s opinion of his son’s habits might have been expressed +more politely as to form; but, as to substance, it happened, on that particular +morning, to be perfectly correct. After leaving Magdalen, Frank had waited in +the shrubbery, at a safe distance, on the chance that she might detach herself +from her sister’s company, and join him again. Mr. Vanstone’s +appearance immediately on Norah’s departure, instead of encouraging him +to show himself, had determined him on returning to the cottage. He walked back +discontentedly; and so fell into his father’s clutches, totally +unprepared for the pending announcement, in that formidable quarter, of his +departure for London. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime, Mr. Vanstone had communicated his news—in the first +place, to Magdalen, and afterward, on getting back to the house, to his wife +and Miss Garth. He was too unobservant a man to notice that Magdalen looked +unaccountably startled, and Miss Garth unaccountably relieved, by his +announcement of Frank’s good fortune. He talked on about it, quite +unsuspiciously, until the luncheon-bell rang—and then, for the first +time, he noticed Norah’s absence. She sent a message downstairs, after +they had assembled at the table, to say that a headache was keeping her in her +own room. When Miss Garth went up shortly afterward to communicate the news +about Frank, Norah appeared, strangely enough, to feel very little relieved by +hearing it. Mr. Francis Clare had gone away on a former occasion (she +remarked), and had come back. He might come back again, and sooner than they +any of them thought for. She said no more on the subject than this: she made no +reference to what had taken place in the shrubbery. Her unconquerable reserve +seemed to have strengthened its hold on her since the outburst of the morning. +She met Magdalen, later in the day, as if nothing had happened: no formal +reconciliation took place between them. It was one of Norah’s +peculiarities to shrink from all reconciliations that were openly ratified, and +to take her shy refuge in reconciliations that were silently implied. Magdalen +saw plainly, in her look and manner, that she had made her first and last +protest. Whether the motive was pride, or sullenness, or distrust of herself, +or despair of doing good, the result was not to be mistaken—Norah had +resolved on remaining passive for the future. +</p> + +<p> +Later in the afternoon, Mr. Vanstone suggested a drive to his eldest daughter, +as the best remedy for her headache. She readily consented to accompany her +father; who thereupon proposed, as usual, that Magdalen should join them. +Magdalen was nowhere to be found. For the second time that day she had wandered +into the grounds by herself. On this occasion, Miss Garth—who, after +adopting Norah’s opinions, had passed from the one extreme of +over-looking Frank altogether, to the other extreme of believing him capable of +planning an elopement at five minutes’ notice—volunteered to set +forth immediately, and do her best to find the missing young lady. After a +prolonged absence, she returned unsuccessful—with the strongest +persuasion in her own mind that Magdalen and Frank had secretly met one another +somewhere, but without having discovered the smallest fragment of evidence to +confirm her suspicions. By this time the carriage was at the door, and Mr. +Vanstone was unwilling to wait any longer. He and Norah drove away together; +and Mrs. Vanstone and Miss Garth sat at home over their work. +</p> + +<p> +In half an hour more, Magdalen composedly walked into the room. She was pale +and depressed. She received Miss Garth’s remonstrances with a weary +inattention; explained carelessly that she had been wandering in the wood; took +up some books, and put them down again; sighed impatiently, and went away +upstairs to her own room. +</p> + +<p> +“I think Magdalen is feeling the reaction, after yesterday,” said +Mrs. Vanstone, quietly. “It is just as we thought. Now the theatrical +amusements are all over, she is fretting for more.” +</p> + +<p> +Here was an opportunity of letting in the light of truth on Mrs. +Vanstone’s mind, which was too favorable to be missed. Miss Garth +questioned her conscience, saw her chance, and took it on the spot. +</p> + +<p> +“You forget,” she rejoined, “that a certain neighbor of ours +is going away to-morrow. Shall I tell you the truth? Magdalen is fretting over +the departure of Francis Clare.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Vanstone looked up from her work with a gentle, smiling surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely not?” she said. “It is natural enough that Frank +should be attracted by Magdalen; but I can’t think that Magdalen returns +the feeling. Frank is so very unlike her; so quiet and undemonstrative; so dull +and helpless, poor fellow, in some things. He is handsome, I know, but he is so +singularly unlike Magdalen, that I can’t think it possible—I +can’t indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear good lady!” cried Miss Garth, in great amazement; +“do you really suppose that people fall in love with each other on +account of similarities in their characters? In the vast majority of cases, +they do just the reverse. Men marry the very last women, and women the very +last men, whom their friends would think it possible they could care about. Is +there any phrase that is oftener on all our lips than ‘What can have made +Mr. So-and-So marry that woman?’—or ‘How could Mrs. So-and-So +throw herself away on that man?’ Has all your experience of the world +never yet shown you that girls take perverse fancies for men who are totally +unworthy of them?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very true,” said Mrs. Vanstone, composedly. “I forgot that. +Still it seems unaccountable, doesn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Unaccountable, because it happens every day!” retorted Miss Garth, +good-humoredly. “I know a great many excellent people who reason against +plain experience in the same way—who read the newspapers in the morning, +and deny in the evening that there is any romance for writers or painters to +work upon in modern life. Seriously, Mrs. Vanstone, you may take my word for +it—thanks to those wretched theatricals, Magdalen is going the way with +Frank that a great many young ladies have gone before her. He is quite unworthy +of her; he is, in almost every respect, her exact opposite—and, without +knowing it herself, she has fallen in love with him on that very account. She +is resolute and impetuous, clever and domineering; she is not one of those +model women who want a man to look up to, and to protect them—her +beau-ideal (though she may not think it herself) is a man she can henpeck. +Well! one comfort is, there are far better men, even of that sort, to be had +than Frank. It’s a mercy he is going away, before we have more trouble +with them, and before any serious mischief is done.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Frank!” said Mrs. Vanstone, smiling compassionately. +“We have known him since he was in jackets, and Magdalen in short frocks. +Don’t let us give him up yet. He may do better this second time.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth looked up in astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“And suppose he does better?” she asked. “What then?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Vanstone cut off a loose thread in her work, and laughed outright. +</p> + +<p> +“My good friend,” she said, “there is an old farmyard proverb +which warns us not to count our chickens before they are hatched. Let us wait a +little before we count ours.” +</p> + +<p> +It was not easy to silence Miss Garth, when she was speaking under the +influence of a strong conviction; but this reply closed her lips. She resumed +her work, and looked, and thought, unutterable things. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Vanstone’s behavior was certainly remarkable under the +circumstances. Here, on one side, was a girl—with great personal +attractions, with rare pecuniary prospects, with a social position which might +have justified the best gentleman in the neighborhood in making her an offer of +marriage—perversely casting herself away on a penniless idle young +fellow, who had failed at his first start in life, and who even if he succeeded +in his second attempt, must be for years to come in no position to marry a +young lady of fortune on equal terms. And there, on the other side, was that +girl’s mother, by no means dismayed at the prospect of a connection which +was, to say the least of it, far from desirable; by no means certain, judging +her by her own words and looks, that a marriage between Mr. Vanstone’s +daughter and Mr. Clare’s son might not prove to be as satisfactory a +result of the intimacy between the two young people as the parents on both +sides could possibly wish for! It was perplexing in the extreme. It was almost +as unintelligible as that past mystery—that forgotten mystery +now—of the journey to London. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +In the evening, Frank made his appearance, and announced that his father had +mercilessly sentenced him to leave Combe-Raven by the parliamentary train the +next morning. He mentioned this circumstance with an air of sentimental +resignation; and listened to Mr. Vanstone’s boisterous rejoicings over +his new prospects with a mild and mute surprise. His gentle melancholy of look +and manner greatly assisted his personal advantages. In his own effeminate way +he was more handsome than ever that evening. His soft brown eyes wandered about +the room with a melting tenderness; his hair was beautifully brushed; his +delicate hands hung over the arms of his chair with a languid grace. He looked +like a convalescent Apollo. Never, on any previous occasion, had he practiced +more successfully the social art which he habitually cultivated—the art +of casting himself on society in the character of a well-bred Incubus, and +conferring an obligation on his fellow-creatures by allowing them to sit under +him. It was undeniably a dull evening. All the talking fell to the share of Mr. +Vanstone and Miss Garth. Mrs. Vanstone was habitually silent; Norah kept +herself obstinately in the background; Magdalen was quiet and undemonstrative +beyond all former precedent. From first to last, she kept rigidly on her guard. +The few meaning looks that she cast on Frank flashed at him like lightning, and +were gone before any one else could see them. Even when she brought him his +tea; and when, in doing so, her self-control gave way under the temptation +which no woman can resist—the temptation of touching the man she +loves—even then, she held the saucer so dexterously that it screened her +hand. Frank’s self-possession was far less steadily disciplined: it only +lasted as long as he remained passive. When he rose to go; when he felt the +warm, clinging pressure of Magdalen’s fingers round his hand, and the +lock of her hair which she slipped into it at the same moment, he became +awkward and confused. He might have betrayed Magdalen and betrayed himself, but +for Mr. Vanstone, who innocently covered his retreat by following him out, and +patting him on the shoulder all the way. “God bless you, Frank!” +cried the friendly voice that never had a harsh note in it for anybody. +“Your fortune’s waiting for you. Go in, my boy—go in and +win.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Frank. “Thank you. It will be rather difficult to +go in and win, at first. Of course, as you have always told me, a man’s +business is to conquer his difficulties, and not to talk about them. At the +same time, I wish I didn’t feel quite so loose as I do in my figures. +It’s discouraging to feel loose in one’s figures.—Oh, yes; +I’ll write and tell you how I get on. I’m very much obliged by your +kindness, and very sorry I couldn’t succeed with the engineering. I think +I should have liked engineering better than trade. It can’t be helped +now, can it? Thank you, again. Good-by.” +</p> + +<p> +So he drifted away into the misty commercial future—as aimless, as +helpless, as gentleman-like as ever. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h3> + +<p> +Three months passed. During that time Frank remained in London; pursuing his +new duties, and writing occasionally to report himself to Mr. Vanstone, as he +had promised. +</p> + +<p> +His letters were not enthusiastic on the subject of mercantile occupations. He +described himself as being still painfully loose in his figures. He was also +more firmly persuaded than ever—now when it was unfortunately too +late—that he preferred engineering to trade. In spite of this conviction; +in spite of headaches caused by sitting on a high stool and stooping over +ledgers in unwholesome air; in spite of want of society, and hasty breakfasts, +and bad dinners at chop-houses, his attendance at the office was regular, and +his diligence at the desk unremitting. The head of the department in which he +was working might be referred to if any corroboration of this statement was +desired. Such was the general tenor of the letters; and Frank’s +correspondent and Frank’s father differed over them as widely as usual. +Mr. Vanstone accepted them as proofs of the steady development of industrious +principles in the writer. Mr. Clare took his own characteristically opposite +view. “These London men,” said the philosopher, “are not to +be trifled with by louts. They have got Frank by the scruff of the +neck—he can’t wriggle himself free—and he makes a merit of +yielding to sheer necessity.” +</p> + +<p> +The three months’ interval of Frank’s probation in London passed +less cheerfully than usual in the household at Combe-Raven. +</p> + +<p> +As the summer came nearer and nearer, Mrs. Vanstone’s spirits, in spite +of her resolute efforts to control them, became more and more depressed. +</p> + +<p> +“I do my best,” she said to Miss Garth; “I set an example of +cheerfulness to my husband and my children—but I dread July.” +Norah’s secret misgivings on her sister’s account rendered her more +than usually serious and uncommunicative, as the year advanced. Even Mr. +Vanstone, when July drew nearer, lost something of his elasticity of spirit. He +kept up appearances in his wife’s presence—but on all other +occasions there was now a perceptible shade of sadness in his look and manner. +Magdalen was so changed since Frank’s departure that she helped the +general depression, instead of relieving it. All her movements had grown +languid; all her usual occupations were pursued with the same weary +indifference; she spent hours alone in her own room; she lost her interest in +being brightly and prettily dressed; her eyes were heavy, her nerves were +irritable, her complexion was altered visibly for the worse—in one word, +she had become an oppression and a weariness to herself and to all about her. +Stoutly as Miss Garth contended with these growing domestic difficulties, her +own spirits suffered in the effort. Her memory reverted, oftener and oftener, +to the March morning when the master and mistress of the house had departed for +London, and then the first serious change, for many a year past, had stolen +over the family atmosphere. When was that atmosphere to be clear again? When +were the clouds of change to pass off before the returning sunshine of past and +happier times? +</p> + +<p> +The spring and the early summer wore away. The dreaded month of July came, with +its airless nights, its cloudless mornings, and its sultry days. +</p> + +<p> +On the fifteenth of the month, an event happened which took every one but Norah +by surprise. For the second time, without the slightest apparent +reason—for the second time, without a word of warning +beforehand—Frank suddenly re-appeared at his father’s cottage. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Clare’s lips opened to hail his son’s return, in the old +character of the “bad shilling”; and closed again without uttering +a word. There was a portentous composure in Frank’s manner which showed +that he had other news to communicate than the news of his dismissal. He +answered his father’s sardonic look of inquiry by at once explaining that +a very important proposal for his future benefit had been made to him, that +morning, at the office. His first idea had been to communicate the details in +writing; but the partners had, on reflection, thought that the necessary +decision might be more readily obtained by a personal interview with his father +and his friends. He had laid aside the pen accordingly, and had resigned +himself to the railway on the spot. +</p> + +<p> +After this preliminary statement, Frank proceeded to describe the proposal +which his employers had addressed to him, with every external appearance of +viewing it in the light of an intolerable hardship. +</p> + +<p> +The great firm in the City had obviously made a discovery in relation to their +clerk, exactly similar to the discovery which had formerly forced itself on the +engineer in relation to his pupil. The young man, as they politely phrased it, +stood in need of some special stimulant to stir him up. His employers (acting +under a sense of their obligation to the gentleman by whom Frank had been +recommended) had considered the question carefully, and had decided that the +one promising use to which they could put Mr. Francis Clare was to send him +forthwith into another quarter of the globe. +</p> + +<p> +As a consequence of this decision, it was now, therefore, proposed that he +should enter the house of their correspondents in China; that he should remain +there, familiarizing himself thoroughly on the spot with the tea trade and the +silk trade for five years; and that he should return, at the expiration of this +period, to the central establishment in London. If he made a fair use of his +opportunities in China, he would come back, while still a young man, fit for a +position of trust and emolument, and justified in looking forward, at no +distant date, to a time when the House would assist him to start in business +for himself. Such were the new prospects which—to adopt Mr. Clare’s +theory—now forced themselves on the ever-reluctant, ever-helpless and +ever-ungrateful Frank. There was no time to be lost. The final answer was to be +at the office on “Monday, the twentieth”: the correspondents in +China were to be written to by the mail on that day; and Frank was to follow +the letter by the next opportunity, or to resign his chance in favor of some +more enterprising young man. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Clare’s reception of this extraordinary news was startling in the +extreme. The glorious prospect of his son’s banishment to China appeared +to turn his brain. The firm pedestal of his philosophy sank under him; the +prejudices of society recovered their hold on his mind. He seized Frank by the +arm, and actually accompanied him to Combe-Raven, in the amazing character of +visitor to the house! +</p> + +<p> +“Here I am with my lout,” said Mr. Clare, before a word could be +uttered by the astonished family. “Hear his story, all of you. It has +reconciled me, for the first time in my life, to the anomaly of his +existence.” Frank ruefully narrated the Chinese proposal for the second +time, and attempted to attach to it his own supplementary statement of +objections and difficulties. His father stopped him at the first word, pointed +peremptorily southeastward (from Somersetshire to China); and said, without an +instant’s hesitation: “Go!” Mr. Vanstone, basking in golden +visions of his young friend’s future, echoed that monosyllabic decision +with all his heart. Mrs. Vanstone, Miss Garth, even Norah herself, spoke to the +same purpose. Frank was petrified by an absolute unanimity of opinion which he +had not anticipated; and Magdalen was caught, for once in her life, at the end +of all her resources. +</p> + +<p> +So far as practical results were concerned, the sitting of the family council +began and ended with the general opinion that Frank must go. Mr. +Vanstone’s faculties were so bewildered by the son’s sudden +arrival, the father’s unexpected visit, and the news they both brought +with them, that he petitioned for an adjournment before the necessary +arrangements connected with his young friend’s departure were considered +in detail. “Suppose we all sleep upon it?” he said. “Tomorrow +our heads will feel a little steadier; and to-morrow will be time enough to +decide all uncertainties.” This suggestion was readily adopted; and all +further proceedings stood adjourned until the next day. +</p> + +<p> +That next day was destined to decide more uncertainties than Mr. Vanstone +dreamed of. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Early in the morning, after making tea by herself as usual, Miss Garth took her +parasol and strolled into the garden. She had slept ill; and ten minutes in the +open air before the family assembled at breakfast might help to compensate her, +as she thought, for the loss of her night’s rest. +</p> + +<p> +She wandered to the outermost boundary of the flower-garden, and then returned +by another path, which led back, past the side of an ornamental summer-house +commanding a view over the fields from a corner of the lawn. A slight +noise—like, and yet not like, the chirruping of a bird—caught her +ear as she approached the summer-house. She stepped round to the entrance; +looked in; and discovered Magdalen and Frank seated close together. To Miss +Garth’s horror, Magdalen’s arm was unmistakably round Frank’s +neck; and, worse still, the position of her face, at the moment of discovery, +showed beyond all doubt that she had just been offering to the victim of +Chinese commerce the first and foremost of all the consolations which a woman +can bestow on a man. In plainer words, she had just given Frank a kiss. +</p> + +<p> +In the presence of such an emergency as now confronted her, Miss Garth felt +instinctively that all ordinary phrases of reproof would be phrases thrown +away. +</p> + +<p> +“I presume,” she remarked, addressing Magdalen with the merciless +self-possession of a middle-aged lady, unprovided for the occasion with any +kissing remembrances of her own—“I presume (whatever excuses your +effrontery may suggest) you will not deny that my duty compels me to mention +what I have just seen to your father?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will save you the trouble,” replied Magdalen, composedly. +“I will mention it to him myself.” +</p> + +<p> +With those words, she looked round at Frank, standing trebly helpless in a +corner of the summer-house. “You shall hear what happens,” she +said, with her bright smile. “And so shall you,” she added for Miss +Garth’s especial benefit, as she sauntered past the governess on her way +back to the breakfast-table. The eyes of Miss Garth followed her indignantly; +and Frank slipped out on his side at that favorable opportunity. +</p> + +<p> +Under these circumstances, there was but one course that any respectable woman +could take—she could only shudder. Miss Garth registered her protest in +that form, and returned to the house. +</p> + +<p> +When breakfast was over, and when Mr. Vanstone’s hand descended to his +pocket in search of his cigar-case, Magdalen rose; looked significantly at Miss +Garth; and followed her father into the hall. +</p> + +<p> +“Papa,” she said, “I want to speak to you this +morning—in private.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay! ay!” returned Mr. Vanstone. “What about, my dear!” +</p> + +<p> +“About—” Magdalen hesitated, searching for a satisfactory +form of expression, and found it. “About business, papa,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Vanstone took his garden hat from the hall table—opened his eyes in +mute perplexity—attempted to associate in his mind the two extravagantly +dissimilar ideas of Magdalen and “business”—failed—and +led the way resignedly into the garden. +</p> + +<p> +His daughter took his arm, and walked with him to a shady seat at a convenient +distance from the house. She dusted the seat with her smart silk apron before +her father occupied it. Mr. Vanstone was not accustomed to such an +extraordinary act of attention as this. He sat down, looking more puzzled than +ever. Magdalen immediately placed herself on his knee, and rested her head +comfortably on his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Am I heavy, papa?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my dear, you are,” said Mr. Vanstone—“but not too +heavy for <i>me</i>. Stop on your perch, if you like it. Well? And what may +this business happen to be?” +</p> + +<p> +“It begins with a question.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, indeed? That doesn’t surprise me. Business with your sex, my +dear, always begins with questions. Go on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Papa! do you ever intend allowing me to be married?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Vanstone’s eyes opened wider and wider. The question, to use his own +phrase, completely staggered him. +</p> + +<p> +“This is business with a vengeance!” he said. “Why, Magdalen! +what have you got in that harum-scarum head of yours now?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t exactly know, papa. Will you answer my question?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will if I can, my dear; you rather stagger me. Well, I don’t +know. Yes; I suppose I must let you be married one of these days—if we +can find a good husband for you. How hot your face is! Lift it up, and let the +air blow over it. You won’t? Well—have your own way. If talking of +business means tickling your cheek against my whisker I’ve nothing to say +against it. Go on, my dear. What’s the next question? Come to the +point.” +</p> + +<p> +She was far too genuine a woman to do anything of the sort. She skirted round +the point and calculated her distance to the nicety of a hair-breadth. +</p> + +<p> +“We were all very much surprised yesterday—were we not, papa? Frank +is wonderfully lucky, isn’t he?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s the luckiest dog I ever came across,” said Mr. Vanstone +“But what has that got to do with this business of yours? I dare say you +see your way, Magdalen. Hang me if I can see mine!” +</p> + +<p> +She skirted a little nearer. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose he will make his fortune in China?” she said. +“It’s a long way off, isn’t it? Did you observe, papa, that +Frank looked sadly out of spirits yesterday?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was so surprised by the news,” said Mr. Vanstone, “and so +staggered by the sight of old Clare’s sharp nose in my house, that I +didn’t much notice. Now you remind me of it—yes. I don’t +think Frank took kindly to his own good luck; not kindly at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you wonder at that, papa?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my dear; I do, rather.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you think it’s hard to be sent away for five years, to +make your fortune among hateful savages, and lose sight of your friends at home +for all that long time? Don’t you think Frank will miss <i>us</i> sadly? +Don’t you, papa?—don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Gently, Magdalen! I’m a little too old for those long arms of +yours to throttle me in fun.—You’re right, my love. Nothing in this +world without a drawback. Frank <i>will</i> miss his friends in England: +there’s no denying that.” +</p> + +<p> +“You always liked Frank. And Frank always liked you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes—a good fellow; a quiet, good fellow. Frank and I have +always got on smoothly together.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have got on like father and son, haven’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you will think it harder on him when he has gone than you think +it now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Likely enough, Magdalen; I don’t say no.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you will wish he had stopped in England? Why shouldn’t he +stop in England, and do as well as if he went to China?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear! he has no prospects in England. I wish he had, for his own +sake. I wish the lad well, with all my heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“May I wish him well too, papa—with all <i>my</i> heart?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, my love—your old playfellow—why not? What’s +the matter? God bless my soul, what is the girl crying about? One would think +Frank was transported for life. You goose! You know, as well as I do, he is +going to China to make his fortune.” +</p> + +<p> +“He doesn’t want to make his fortune—he might do much +better.” +</p> + +<p> +“The deuce he might! How, I should like to know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid to tell you. I’m afraid you’ll laugh at me. +Will you promise not to laugh at me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Anything to please you, my dear. Yes: I promise. Now, then, out with it! +How might Frank do better?” +</p> + +<p> +“He might marry Me.” +</p> + +<p> +If the summer scene which then spread before Mr. Vanstone’s eyes had +suddenly changed to a dreary winter view—if the trees had lost all their +leaves, and the green fields had turned white with snow in an instant—his +face could hardly have expressed greater amazement than it displayed when his +daughter’s faltering voice spoke those four last words. He tried to look +at her—but she steadily refused him the opportunity: she kept her face +hidden over his shoulder. Was she in earnest? His cheek, still wet with her +tears, answered for her. There was a long pause of silence; she +waited—with unaccustomed patience, she waited for him to speak. He roused +himself, and spoke these words only: “You surprise me, Magdalen; you +surprise me more than I can say.” +</p> + +<p> +At the altered tone of his voice—altered to a quiet, fatherly +seriousness—Magdalen’s arms clung round him closer than before. +</p> + +<p> +“Have I disappointed you, papa?” she asked, faintly. +“Don’t say I have disappointed you! Who am I to tell my secret to, +if not to you? Don’t let him go—don’t! don’t! You will +break his heart. He is afraid to tell his father; he is even afraid <i>you</i> +might be angry with him. There is nobody to speak for us, except—except +me. Oh, don’t let him go! Don’t for his sake—” she +whispered the next words in a kiss—“Don’t for Mine!” +</p> + +<p> +Her father’s kind face saddened; he sighed, and patted her fair head +tenderly. “Hush, my love,” he said, almost in a whisper; +“hush!” She little knew what a revelation every word, every action +that escaped her, now opened before him. She had made him her grown-up +playfellow, from her childhood to that day. She had romped with him in her +frocks, she had gone on romping with him in her gowns. He had never been long +enough separated from her to have the external changes in his daughter forced +on his attention. His artless, fatherly experience of her had taught him that +she was a taller child in later years—and had taught him little more. And +now, in one breathless instant, the conviction that she was a woman rushed over +his mind. He felt it in the trouble of her bosom pressed against his; in the +nervous thrill of her arms clasped around his neck. The Magdalen of his +innocent experience, a woman—with the master-passion of her sex in +possession of her heart already! +</p> + +<p> +“Have you thought long of this, my dear?” he asked, as soon as he +could speak composedly. “Are you sure—?” +</p> + +<p> +She answered the question before he could finish it. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure I love him?” she said. “Oh, what words can say Yes for +me, as I want to say it? I love him—!” Her voice faltered softly; +and her answer ended in a sigh. +</p> + +<p> +“You are very young. You and Frank, my love, are both very young.” +</p> + +<p> +She raised her head from his shoulder for the first time. The thought and its +expression flashed from her at the same moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Are we much younger than you and mamma were?” she asked, smiling +through her tears. +</p> + +<p> +She tried to lay her head back in its old position; but as she spoke those +words, her father caught her round the waist, forced her, before she was aware +of it, to look him in the face—and kissed her, with a sudden outburst of +tenderness which brought the tears thronging back thickly into her eyes. +“Not much younger, my child,” he said, in low, broken +tones—“not much younger than your mother and I were.” He put +her away from him, and rose from the seat, and turned his head aside quickly. +“Wait here, and compose yourself; I will go indoors and speak to your +mother.” His voice trembled over those parting words; and he left her +without once looking round again. +</p> + +<p> +She waited—waited a weary time; and he never came back. At last her +growing anxiety urged her to follow him into the house. A new timidity throbbed +in her heart as she doubtingly approached the door. Never had she seen the +depths of her father’s simple nature stirred as they had been stirred by +her confession. She almost dreaded her next meeting with him. She wandered +softly to and fro in the hall, with a shyness unaccountable to herself; with a +terror of being discovered and spoken to by her sister or Miss Garth, which +made her nervously susceptible to the slightest noises in the house. The door +of the morning-room opened while her back was turned toward it. She started +violently, as she looked round and saw her father in the hall: her heart beat +faster and faster, and she felt herself turning pale. A second look at him, as +he came nearer, re-assured her. He was composed again, though not so cheerful +as usual. She noticed that he advanced and spoke to her with a forbearing +gentleness, which was more like his manner to her mother than his ordinary +manner to herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Go in, my love,” he said, opening the door for her which he had +just closed. “Tell your mother all you have told me—and more, if +you have more to say. She is better prepared for you than I was. We will take +to-day to think of it, Magdalen; and to-morrow you shall know, and Frank shall +know, what we decide.” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes brightened, as they looked into his face and saw the decision there +already, with the double penetration of her womanhood and her love. Happy, and +beautiful in her happiness, she put his hand to her lips, and went, without +hesitation, into the morning-room. There, her father’s words had smoothed +the way for her; there, the first shock of the surprise was past and over, and +only the pleasure of it remained. Her mother had been her age once; her mother +would know how fond she was of Frank. So the coming interview was anticipated +in her thoughts; and—except that there was an unaccountable appearance of +restraint in Mrs. Vanstone’s first reception of her—was anticipated +aright. After a little, the mother’s questions came more and more +unreservedly from the sweet, unforgotten experience of the mother’s +heart. She lived again through her own young days of hope and love in +Magdalen’s replies. +</p> + +<p> +The next morning the all-important decision was announced in words. Mr. +Vanstone took his daughter upstairs into her mother’s room, and there +placed before her the result of the yesterday’s consultation, and of the +night’s reflection which had followed it. He spoke with perfect kindness +and self-possession of manner—but in fewer and more serious words than +usual; and he held his wife’s hand tenderly in his own all through the +interview. +</p> + +<p> +He informed Magdalen that neither he nor her mother felt themselves justified +in blaming her attachment to Frank. It had been in part, perhaps, the natural +consequence of her childish familiarity with him; in part, also, the result of +the closer intimacy between them which the theatrical entertainment had +necessarily produced. At the same time, it was now the duty of her parents to +put that attachment, on both sides, to a proper test—for her sake, +because her happy future was their dearest care; for Frank’s sake, +because they were bound to give him the opportunity of showing himself worthy +of the trust confided in him. They were both conscious of being strongly +prejudiced in Frank’s favor. His father’s eccentric conduct had +made the lad the object of their compassion and their care from his earliest +years. He (and his younger brothers) had almost filled the places to them of +those other children of their own whom they had lost. Although they firmly +believed their good opinion of Frank to be well founded—still, in the +interest of their daughter’s happiness, it was necessary to put that +opinion firmly to the proof, by fixing certain conditions, and by interposing a +year of delay between the contemplated marriage and the present time. +</p> + +<p> +During that year, Frank was to remain at the office in London; his employers +being informed beforehand that family circumstances prevented his accepting +their offer of employment in China. He was to consider this concession as a +recognition of the attachment between Magdalen and himself, on certain terms +only. If, during the year of probation, he failed to justify the confidence +placed in him—a confidence which had led Mr. Vanstone to take +unreservedly upon himself the whole responsibility of Frank’s future +prospects—the marriage scheme was to be considered, from that moment, as +at an end. If, on the other hand, the result to which Mr. Vanstone confidently +looked forward really occurred—if Frank’s probationary year proved +his claim to the most precious trust that could be placed in his +hands—then Magdalen herself should reward him with all that a woman can +bestow; and the future, which his present employers had placed before him as +the result of a five years’ residence in China, should be realized in one +year’s time, by the dowry of his young wife. +</p> + +<p> +As her father drew that picture of the future, the outburst of Magdalen’s +gratitude could no longer be restrained. She was deeply touched—she spoke +from her inmost heart. Mr. Vanstone waited until his daughter and his wife were +composed again; and then added the last words of explanation which were now +left for him to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“You understand, my love,” he said, “that I am not +anticipating Frank’s living in idleness on his wife’s means? My +plan for him is that he should still profit by the interest which his present +employers take in him. Their knowledge of affairs in the City will soon place a +good partnership at his disposal, and you will give him the money to buy it out +of hand. I shall limit the sum, my dear, to half your fortune; and the other +half I shall have settled upon yourself. We shall all be alive and hearty, I +hope”—he looked tenderly at his wife as he said those +words—“all alive and hearty at the year’s end. But if I am +gone, Magdalen, it will make no difference. My will—made long before I +ever thought of having a son-in-law divides my fortune into two equal parts. +One part goes to your mother; and the other part is fairly divided between my +children. You will have your share on your wedding-day (and Norah will have +hers when she marries) from my own hand, if I live; and under my will if I die. +There! there! no gloomy faces,” he said, with a momentary return of his +every-day good spirits. “Your mother and I mean to live and see Frank a +great merchant. I shall leave you, my dear, to enlighten the son on our new +projects, while I walk over to the cottage—” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped; his eyebrows contracted a little; and he looked aside hesitatingly +at Mrs. Vanstone. +</p> + +<p> +“What must you do at the cottage, papa?” asked Magdalen, after +having vainly waited for him to finish the sentence of his own accord. +</p> + +<p> +“I must consult Frank’s father,” he replied. “We must +not forget that Mr. Clare’s consent is still wanting to settle this +matter. And as time presses, and we don’t know what difficulties he may +not raise, the sooner I see him the better.” +</p> + +<p> +He gave that answer in low, altered tones; and rose from his chair in a +half-reluctant, half-resigned manner, which Magdalen observed with secret +alarm. +</p> + +<p> +She glanced inquiringly at her mother. To all appearance, Mrs. Vanstone had +been alarmed by the change in him also. She looked anxious and uneasy; she +turned her face away on the sofa pillow—turned it suddenly, as if she was +in pain. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you not well, mamma?” asked Magdalen. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite well, my love,” said Mrs. Vanstone, shortly and sharply, +without turning round. “Leave me a little—I only want rest.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen went out with her father. +</p> + +<p> +“Papa!” she whispered anxiously, as they descended the stairs; +“you don’t think Mr. Clare will say No?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t tell beforehand,” answered Mr. Vanstone. “I +hope he will say Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no reason why he should say anything else—is +there?” +</p> + +<p> +She put the question faintly, while he was getting his hat and stick; and he +did not appear to hear her. Doubting whether she should repeat it or not, she +accompanied him as far as the garden, on his way to Mr. Clare’s cottage. +He stopped her on the lawn, and sent her back to the house. +</p> + +<p> +“You have nothing on your head, my dear,” he said. “If you +want to be in the garden, don’t forget how hot the sun +is—don’t come out without your hat.” +</p> + +<p> +He walked on toward the cottage. +</p> + +<p> +She waited a moment, and looked after him. She missed the customary flourish of +his stick; she saw his little Scotch terrier, who had run out at his heels, +barking and capering about him unnoticed. He was out of spirits: he was +strangely out of spirits. What did it mean? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.</h3> + +<p> +On returning to the house, Magdalen felt her shoulder suddenly touched from +behind as she crossed the hall. She turned and confronted her sister. Before +she could ask any questions, Norah confusedly addressed her, in these words: +“I beg your pardon; I beg you to forgive me.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen looked at her sister in astonishment. All memory, on her side, of the +sharp words which had passed between them in the shrubbery was lost in the new +interests that now absorbed her; lost as completely as if the angry interview +had never taken place. “Forgive you!” she repeated, amazedly. +“What for?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have heard of your new prospects,” pursued Norah, speaking with +a mechanical submissiveness of manner which seemed almost ungracious; “I +wished to set things right between us; I wished to say I was sorry for what +happened. Will you forget it? Will you forget and forgive what happened in the +shrubbery?” She tried to proceed; but her inveterate reserve—or, +perhaps, her obstinate reliance on her own opinions—silenced her at those +last words. Her face clouded over on a sudden. Before her sister could answer +her, she turned away abruptly and ran upstairs. +</p> + +<p> +The door of the library opened, before Magdalen could follow her; and Miss +Garth advanced to express the sentiments proper to the occasion. +</p> + +<p> +They were not the mechanically-submissive sentiments which Magdalen had just +heard. Norah had struggled against her rooted distrust of Frank, in deference +to the unanswerable decision of both her parents in his favor; and had +suppressed the open expression of her antipathy, though the feeling itself +remained unconquered. Miss Garth had made no such concession to the master and +mistress of the house. She had hitherto held the position of a high authority +on all domestic questions; and she flatly declined to get off her pedestal in +deference to any change in the family circumstances, no matter how amazing or +how unexpected that change might be. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray accept my congratulations,” said Miss Garth, bristling all +over with implied objections to Frank—“my congratulations, +<i>and</i> my apologies. When I caught you kissing Mr. Francis Clare in the +summer-house, I had no idea you were engaged in carrying out the intentions of +your parents. I offer no opinion on the subject. I merely regret my own +accidental appearance in the character of an Obstacle to the course of +true-love—which appears to run smooth in summer-houses, whatever +Shakespeare may say to the contrary. Consider me for the future, if you please, +as an Obstacle removed. May you be happy!” Miss Garth’s lips closed +on that last sentence like a trap, and Miss Garth’s eyes looked ominously +prophetic into the matrimonial future. +</p> + +<p> +If Magdalen’s anxieties had not been far too serious to allow her the +customary free use of her tongue, she would have been ready on the instant with +an appropriately satirical answer. As it was, Miss Garth simply irritated her. +“Pooh!” she said—and ran upstairs to her sister’s room. +</p> + +<p> +She knocked at the door, and there was no answer. She tried the door, and it +resisted her from the inside. The sullen, unmanageable Norah was locked in. +</p> + +<p> +Under other circumstances, Magdalen would not have been satisfied with +knocking—she would have called through the door loudly and more loudly, +till the house was disturbed and she had carried her point. But the doubts and +fears of the morning had unnerved her already. She went downstairs again +softly, and took her hat from the stand in the hall. “He told me to put +my hat on,” she said to herself, with a meek filial docility which was +totally out of her character. +</p> + +<p> +She went into the garden, on the shrubbery side; and waited there to catch the +first sight of her father on his return. Half an hour passed; forty minutes +passed—and then his voice reached her from among the distant trees. +“Come in to heel!” she heard him call out loudly to the dog. Her +face turned pale. “He’s angry with Snap!” she exclaimed to +herself in a whisper. The next minute he appeared in view; walking rapidly, +with his head down and Snap at his heels in disgrace. The sudden excess of her +alarm as she observed those ominous signs of something wrong rallied her +natural energy, and determined her desperately on knowing the worst. She walked +straight forward to meet her father. +</p> + +<p> +“Your face tells your news,” she said faintly. “Mr. Clare has +been as heartless as usual—Mr. Clare has said No?” +</p> + +<p> +Her father turned on her with a sudden severity, so entirely unparalleled in +her experience of him that she started back in downright terror. +</p> + +<p> +“Magdalen!” he said; “whenever you speak of my old friend and +neighbor again, bear this in mind: Mr. Clare has just laid me under an +obligation which I shall remember gratefully to the end of my life.” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped suddenly after saying those remarkable words. Seeing that he had +startled her, his natural kindness prompted him instantly to soften the +reproof, and to end the suspense from which she was plainly suffering. +“Give me a kiss, my love,” he resumed; “and I’ll tell +you in return that Mr. Clare has said—YES.” +</p> + +<p> +She attempted to thank him; but the sudden luxury of relief was too much for +her. She could only cling round his neck in silence. He felt her trembling from +head to foot, and said a few words to calm her. At the altered tones of his +master’s voice, Snap’s meek tail re-appeared fiercely from between +his legs; and Snap’s lungs modestly tested his position with a brief, +experimental bark. The dog’s quaintly appropriate assertion of himself on +his old footing was the interruption of all others which was best fitted to +restore Magdalen to herself. She caught the shaggy little terrier up in her +arms and kissed <i>him</i> next. “You darling,” she exclaimed, +“you’re almost as glad as I am!” She turned again to her +father, with a look of tender reproach. “You frightened me, papa,” +she said. “You were so unlike yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be right again to-morrow, my dear. I am a little upset +to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not by me?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no.” +</p> + +<p> +“By something you have heard at Mr. Clare’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—nothing you need alarm yourself about; nothing that +won’t wear off by to-morrow. Let me go now, my dear; I have a letter to +write; and I want to speak to your mother.” +</p> + +<p> +He left her and went on to the house. Magdalen lingered a little on the lawn, +to feel all the happiness of her new sensations—then turned away toward +the shrubbery to enjoy the higher luxury of communicating them. The dog +followed her. She whistled, and clapped her hands. “Find him!” she +said, with beaming eyes. “Find Frank!” Snap scampered into the +shrubbery, with a bloodthirsty snarl at starting. Perhaps he had mistaken his +young mistress and considered himself her emissary in search of a rat? +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, Mr. Vanstone entered the house. He met his wife slowly descending +the stairs, and advanced to give her his arm. “How has it ended?” +she asked, anxiously, as he led her to the sofa. +</p> + +<p> +“Happily—as we hoped it would,” answered her husband. +“My old friend has justified my opinion of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God!” said Mrs. Vanstone, fervently. “Did you feel it, +love?” she asked, as her husband arranged the sofa +pillows—“did you feel it as painfully as I feared you would?” +</p> + +<p> +“I had a duty to do, my dear—and I did it.” +</p> + +<p> +After replying in those terms, he hesitated. Apparently, he had something more +to say—something, perhaps, on the subject of that passing uneasiness of +mind which had been produced by his interview with Mr. Clare, and which +Magdalen’s questions had obliged him to acknowledge. A look at his wife +decided his doubts in the negative. He only asked if she felt comfortable; and +then turned away to leave the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Must you go?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a letter to write, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anything about Frank?” +</p> + +<p> +“No: to-morrow will do for that. A letter to Mr. Pendril. I want him here +immediately.” +</p> + +<p> +“Business, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my dear—business.” +</p> + +<p> +He went out, and shut himself into the little front room, close to the hall +door, which was called his study. By nature and habit the most procrastinating +of letter-writers, he now inconsistently opened his desk and took up the pen +without a moment’s delay. His letter was long enough to occupy three +pages of note-paper; it was written with a readiness of expression and a +rapidity of hand which seldom characterized his proceedings when engaged over +his ordinary correspondence. He wrote the address as follows: +“Immediate—William Pendril, Esq., Serle Street, Lincoln’s +Inn, London”—then pushed the letter away from him, and sat at the +table, drawing lines on the blotting-paper with his pen, lost in thought. +“No,” he said to himself; “I can do nothing more till Pendril +comes.” He rose; his face brightened as he put the stamp on the envelope. +The writing of the letter had sensibly relieved him, and his whole bearing +showed it as he left the room. +</p> + +<p> +On the doorstep he found Norah and Miss Garth, setting forth together for a +walk. +</p> + +<p> +“Which way are you going?” he asked. “Anywhere near the +post-office? I wish you would post this letter for me, Norah. It is very +important—so important that I hardly like to trust it to Thomas, as +usual.” +</p> + +<p> +Norah at once took charge of the letter. +</p> + +<p> +“If you look, my dear,” continued her father, “you will see +that I am writing to Mr. Pendril. I expect him here to-morrow afternoon. Will +you give the necessary directions, Miss Garth? Mr. Pendril will sleep here +to-morrow night, and stay over Sunday.—Wait a minute! Today is Friday. +Surely I had an engagement for Saturday afternoon?” He consulted his +pocketbook and read over one of the entries, with a look of annoyance. +“Grailsea Mill, three o’clock, Saturday. Just the time when Pendril +will be here; and I <i>must</i> be at home to see him. How can I manage it? +Monday will be too late for my business at Grailsea. I’ll go to-day, +instead; and take my chance of catching the miller at his dinner-time.” +He looked at his watch. “No time for driving; I must do it by railway. If +I go at once, I shall catch the down train at our station, and get on to +Grailsea. Take care of the letter, Norah. I won’t keep dinner waiting; if +the return train doesn’t suit, I’ll borrow a gig and get back in +that way.” +</p> + +<p> +As he took up his hat, Magdalen appeared at the door, returning from her +interview with Frank. The hurry of her father’s movements attracted her +attention; and she asked him where he was going. +</p> + +<p> +“To Grailsea,” replied Mr. Vanstone. “Your business, Miss +Magdalen, has got in the way of mine—and mine must give way to it.” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke those parting words in his old hearty manner; and left them, with the +old characteristic flourish of his trusty stick. +</p> + +<p> +“My business!” said Magdalen. “I thought my business was +done.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth pointed significantly to the letter in Norah’s hand. +“Your business, beyond all doubt,” she said. “Mr. Pendril is +coming tomorrow; and Mr. Vanstone seems remarkably anxious about it. Law, and +its attendant troubles already! Governesses who look in at summer-house doors +are not the only obstacles to the course of true-love. Parchment is sometimes +an obstacle. I hope you may find Parchment as pliable as I am—I wish you +well through it. Now, Norah!” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth’s second shaft struck as harmless as the first. Magdalen had +returned to the house, a little vexed; her interview with Frank having been +interrupted by a messenger from Mr. Clare, sent to summon the son into the +father’s presence. Although it had been agreed at the private interview +between Mr. Vanstone and Mr. Clare that the questions discussed that morning +should not be communicated to the children until the year of probation was at +an end—-and although under these circumstances Mr. Clare had nothing to +tell Frank which Magdalen could not communicate to him much more +agreeably—the philosopher was not the less resolved on personally +informing his son of the parental concession which rescued him from Chinese +exile. The result was a sudden summons to the cottage, which startled Magdalen, +but which did not appear to take Frank by surprise. His filial experience +penetrated the mystery of Mr. Clare’s motives easily enough. “When +my father’s in spirits,” he said, sulkily, “he likes to bully +me about my good luck. This message means that he’s going to bully me +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t go,” suggested Magdalen. +</p> + +<p> +“I must,” rejoined Frank. “I shall never hear the last of it +if I don’t. He’s primed and loaded, and he means to go off. He went +off, once, when the engineer took me; he went off, twice, when the office in +the City took me; and he’s going off, thrice, now <i>you’ve</i> +taken me. If it wasn’t for you, I should wish I had never been born. Yes; +your father’s been kind to me, I know—and I should have gone to +China, if it hadn’t been for him. I’m sure I’m very much +obliged. Of course, we have no right to expect anything else—still +it’s discouraging to keep us waiting a year, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen stopped his mouth by a summary process, to which even Frank submitted +gratefully. At the same time, she did not forget to set down his discontent to +the right side. “How fond he is of me!” she thought. “A +year’s waiting is quite a hardship to him.” She returned to the +house, secretly regretting that she had not heard more of Frank’s +complimentary complaints. Miss Garth’s elaborate satire, addressed to her +while she was in this frame of mind, was a purely gratuitous waste of Miss +Garth’s breath. What did Magdalen care for satire? What do Youth and Love +ever care for except themselves? She never even said as much as +“Pooh!” this time. She laid aside her hat in serene silence, and +sauntered languidly into the morning-room to keep her mother company. She +lunched on dire forebodings of a quarrel between Frank and his father, with +accidental interruptions in the shape of cold chicken and cheese-cakes. She +trifled away half an hour at the piano; and played, in that time, selections +from the Songs of Mendelssohn, the Mazurkas of Chopin, the Operas of Verdi, and +the Sonatas of Mozart—all of whom had combined together on this occasion +and produced one immortal work, entitled “Frank.” She closed the +piano and went up to her room, to dream away the hours luxuriously in visions +of her married future. The green shutters were closed, the easy-chair was +pushed in front of the glass, the maid was summoned as usual; and the comb +assisted the mistress’s reflections, through the medium of the +mistress’s hair, till heat and idleness asserted their narcotic +influences together, and Magdalen fell asleep. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It was past three o’clock when she woke. On going downstairs again she +found her mother, Norah and Miss Garth all sitting together enjoying the shade +and the coolness under the open portico in front of the house. +</p> + +<p> +Norah had the railway time-table in her hand. They had been discussing the +chances of Mr. Vanstone’s catching the return train and getting back in +good time. That topic had led them, next, to his business errand at +Grailsea—an errand of kindness, as usual; undertaken for the benefit of +the miller, who had been his old farm-servant, and who was now hard pressed by +serious pecuniary difficulties. From this they had glided insensibly into a +subject often repeated among them, and never exhausted by repetition—the +praise of Mr. Vanstone himself. Each one of the three had some experience of +her own to relate of his simple, generous nature. The conversation seemed to be +almost painfully interesting to his wife. She was too near the time of her +trial now not to feel nervously sensitive to the one subject which always held +the foremost place in her heart. Her eyes overflowed as Magdalen joined the +little group under the portico; her frail hand trembled as it signed to her +youngest daughter to take the vacant chair by her side. “We were talking +of your father,” she said, softly. “Oh, my love, if your married +life is only as happy—” Her voice failed her; she put her +handkerchief hurriedly over her face and rested her head on Magdalen’s +shoulder. Norah looked appealingly to Miss Garth, who at once led the +conversation back to the more trivial subject of Mr. Vanstone’s return. +“We have all been wondering,” she said, with a significant look at +Magdalen, “whether your father will leave Grailsea in time to catch the +train—or whether he will miss it and be obliged to drive back. What do +you say?” +</p> + +<p> +“I say, papa will miss the train,” replied Magdalen, taking Miss +Garth’s hint with her customary quickness. “The last thing he +attends to at Grailsea will be the business that brings him there. Whenever he +has business to do, he always puts it off to the last moment, doesn’t he, +mamma?” +</p> + +<p> +The question roused her mother exactly as Magdalen had intended it should. +“Not when his errand is an errand of kindness,” said Mrs. Vanstone. +“He has gone to help the miller in a very pressing +difficulty—” +</p> + +<p> +“And don’t you know what he’ll do?” persisted Magdalen. +“He’ll romp with the miller’s children, and gossip with the +mother, and hob-and-nob with the father. At the last moment when he has got +five minutes left to catch the train, he’ll say: ‘Let’s go +into the counting-house and look at the books.’ He’ll find the +books dreadfully complicated; he’ll suggest sending for an accountant; +he’ll settle the business off hand, by lending the money in the meantime; +he’ll jog back comfortably in the miller’s gig; and he’ll +tell us all how pleasant the lanes were in the cool of the evening.” +</p> + +<p> +The little character-sketch which these words drew was too faithful a likeness +not to be recognized. Mrs. Vanstone showed her appreciation of it by a smile. +“When your father returns,” she said, “we will put your +account of his proceedings to the test. I think,” she continued, rising +languidly from her chair, “I had better go indoors again now and rest on +the sofa till he comes back.” +</p> + +<p> +The little group under the portico broke up. Magdalen slipped away into the +garden to hear Frank’s account of the interview with his father. The +other three ladies entered the house together. When Mrs. Vanstone was +comfortably established on the sofa, Norah and Miss Garth left her to repose, +and withdrew to the library to look over the last parcel of books from London. +</p> + +<p> +It was a quiet, cloudless summer’s day. The heat was tempered by a light +western breeze; the voices of laborers at work in a field near reached the +house cheerfully; the clock-bell of the village church as it struck the +quarters floated down the wind with a clearer ring, a louder melody than usual. +Sweet odors from field and flower-garden, stealing in at the open windows, +filled the house with their fragrance; and the birds in Norah’s aviary +upstairs sang the song of their happiness exultingly in the sun. +</p> + +<p> +As the church clock struck the quarter past four, the morning-room door opened; +and Mrs. Vanstone crossed the hall alone. She had tried vainly to compose +herself. She was too restless to lie still and sleep. For a moment she directed +her steps toward the portico—then turned, and looked about her, doubtful +where to go, or what to do next. While she was still hesitating, the half-open +door of her husband’s study attracted her attention. The room seemed to +be in sad confusion. Drawers were left open; coats and hats, account-books and +papers, pipes and fishing-rods were all scattered about together. She went in, +and pushed the door to—but so gently that she still left it ajar. +“It will amuse me to put his room to rights,” she thought to +herself. “I should like to do something for him before I am down on my +bed, helpless.” She began to arrange his drawers, and found his +banker’s book lying open in one of them. “My poor dear, how +careless he is! The servants might have seen all his affairs, if I had not +happened to have looked in.” She set the drawers right; and then turned +to the multifarious litter on a side-table. A little old-fashioned music-book +appeared among the scattered papers, with her name written in it, in faded ink. +She blushed like a young girl in the first happiness of the discovery. +“How good he is to me! He remembers my poor old music-book, and keeps it +for my sake.” As she sat down by the table and opened the book, the +bygone time came back to her in all its tenderness. The clock struck the +half-hour, struck the three-quarters—and still she sat there, with the +music-book on her lap, dreaming happily over the old songs; thinking gratefully +of the golden days when his hand had turned the pages for her, when his voice +had whispered the words which no woman’s memory ever forgets. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Norah roused herself from the volume she was reading, and glanced at the clock +on the library mantel-piece. +</p> + +<p> +“If papa comes back by the railway,” she said, “he will be +here in ten minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth started, and looked up drowsily from the book which was just +dropping out of her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think he will come by train,” she replied. “He +will jog back—as Magdalen flippantly expressed it—in the +miller’s gig.” +</p> + +<p> +As she said the words, there was a knock at the library door. The footman +appeared, and addressed himself to Miss Garth. +</p> + +<p> +“A person wishes to see you, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, ma’am. A stranger to me—a +respectable-looking man—and he said he particularly wished to see +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth went out into the hall. The footman closed the library door after +her, and withdrew down the kitchen stairs. +</p> + +<p> +The man stood just inside the door, on the mat. His eyes wandered, his face was +pale—he looked ill; he looked frightened. He trifled nervously with his +cap, and shifted it backward and forward, from one hand to the other. +</p> + +<p> +“You wanted to see me?” said Miss Garth. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, ma’am.—You are not Mrs. Vanstone, are +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not. I am Miss Garth. Why do you ask the question?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am employed in the clerk’s office at Grailsea +Station—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sent here—” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped again. His wandering eyes looked down at the mat, and his restless +hands wrung his cap harder and harder. He moistened his dry lips, and tried +once more. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sent here on a very serious errand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Serious to <i>me</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Serious to all in this house.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth took one step nearer to him—took one steady look at his face. +She turned cold in the summer heat. “Stop!” she said, with a sudden +distrust, and glanced aside anxiously at the door of the morning-room. It was +safely closed. “Tell me the worst; and don’t speak loud. There has +been an accident. Where?” +</p> + +<p> +“On the railway. Close to Grailsea Station.” +</p> + +<p> +“The up-train to London?” +</p> + +<p> +“No: the down-train at one-fifty—” +</p> + +<p> +“God Almighty help us! The train Mr. Vanstone traveled by to +Grailsea?” +</p> + +<p> +“The same. I was sent here by the up-train; the line was just cleared in +time for it. They wouldn’t write—they said I must see ‘Miss +Garth,’ and tell her. There are seven passengers badly hurt; and +two—” +</p> + +<p> +The next word failed on his lips; he raised his hand in the dead silence. With +eyes that opened wide in horror, he raised his hand and pointed over Miss +Garth’s shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +She turned a little, and looked back. +</p> + +<p> +Face to face with her, on the threshold of the study door, stood the mistress +of the house. She held her old music-book clutched fast mechanically in both +hands. She stood, the specter of herself. With a dreadful vacancy in her eyes, +with a dreadful stillness in her voice, she repeated the man’s last +words: +</p> + +<p> +“Seven passengers badly hurt; and two—” +</p> + +<p> +Her tortured fingers relaxed their hold; the book dropped from them; she sank +forward heavily. Miss Garth caught her before she fell—caught her, and +turned upon the man, with the wife’s swooning body in her arms, to hear +the husband’s fate. +</p> + +<p> +“The harm is done,” she said; “you may speak out. Is he +wounded, or dead?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dead.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h3> + +<p> +The sun sank lower; the western breeze floated cool and fresh into the house. +As the evening advanced, the cheerful ring of the village clock came nearer and +nearer. Field and flower-garden felt the influence of the hour, and shed their +sweetest fragrance. The birds in Norah’s aviary sunned themselves in the +evening stillness, and sang their farewell gratitude to the dying day. +</p> + +<p> +Staggered in its progress for a time only, the pitiless routine of the house +went horribly on its daily way. The panic-stricken servants took their blind +refuge in the duties proper to the hour. The footman softly laid the table for +dinner. The maid sat waiting in senseless doubt, with the hot-water jugs for +the bedrooms ranged near her in their customary row. The gardener, who had been +ordered to come to his master, with vouchers for money that he had paid in +excess of his instructions, said his character was dear to him, and left the +vouchers at his appointed time. Custom that never yields, and Death that never +spares, met on the wreck of human happiness—and Death gave way. +</p> + +<p> +Heavily the thunder-clouds of Affliction had gathered over the +house—heavily, but not at their darkest yet. At five, that evening, the +shock of the calamity had struck its blow. Before another hour had passed, the +disclosure of the husband’s sudden death was followed by the suspense of +the wife’s mortal peril. She lay helpless on her widowed bed; her own +life, and the life of her unborn child, trembling in the balance. +</p> + +<p> +But one mind still held possession of its resources—but one guiding +spirit now moved helpfully in the house of mourning. +</p> + +<p> +If Miss Garth’s early days had been passed as calmly and as happily as +her later life at Combe-Raven, she might have sunk under the cruel necessities +of the time. But the governess’s youth had been tried in the ordeal of +family affliction; and she met her terrible duties with the steady courage of a +woman who had learned to suffer. Alone, she had faced the trial of telling the +daughters that they were fatherless. Alone, she now struggled to sustain them, +when the dreadful certainty of their bereavement was at last impressed on their +minds. +</p> + +<p> +Her least anxiety was for the elder sister. The agony of Norah’s grief +had forced its way outward to the natural relief of tears. It was not so with +Magdalen. Tearless and speechless, she sat in the room where the revelation of +her father’s death had first reached her; her face, unnaturally petrified +by the sterile sorrow of old age—a white, changeless blank, fearful to +look at. Nothing roused, nothing melted her. She only said, “Don’t +speak to me; don’t touch me. Let me bear it by myself”—and +fell silent again. The first great grief which had darkened the sisters’ +lives had, as it seemed, changed their everyday characters already. +</p> + +<p> +The twilight fell, and faded; and the summer night came brightly. As the first +carefully shaded light was kindled in the sick-room, the physician, who had +been summoned from Bristol, arrived to consult with the medical attendant of +the family. He could give no comfort: he could only say, “We must try, +and hope. The shock which struck her, when she overheard the news of her +husband’s death, has prostrated her strength at the time when she needed +it most. No effort to preserve her shall be neglected. I will stay here for the +night.” +</p> + +<p> +He opened one of the windows to admit more air as he spoke. The view overlooked +the drive in front of the house and the road outside. Little groups of people +were standing before the lodge-gates, looking in. “If those persons make +any noise,” said the doctor, “they must be warned away.” +There was no need to warn them: they were only the laborers who had worked on +the dead man’s property, and here and there some women and children from +the village. They were all thinking of him—some talking of him—and +it quickened their sluggish minds to look at his house. The gentlefolks +thereabouts were mostly kind to them (the men said), but none like <i>him</i>. +The women whispered to each other of his comforting ways when he came into +their cottages. “He was a cheerful man, poor soul; and thoughtful of us, +too: he never came in and stared at meal-times; the rest of ’em help us, +and scold us—all <i>he</i> ever said was, better luck next time.” +So they stood and talked of him, and looked at his house and grounds and moved +off clumsily by twos and threes, with the dim sense that the sight of his +pleasant face would never comfort them again. The dullest head among them knew, +that night, that the hard ways of poverty would be all the harder to walk on, +now he was gone. +</p> + +<p> +A little later, news was brought to the bed-chamber door that old Mr. Clare had +come alone to the house, and was waiting in the hall below, to hear what the +physician said. Miss Garth was not able to go down to him herself: she sent a +message. He said to the servant, “I’ll come and ask again, in two +hours’ time”—and went out slowly. Unlike other men in all +things else, the sudden death of his old friend had produced no discernible +change in him. The feeling implied in the errand of inquiry that had brought +him to the house was the one betrayal of human sympathy which escaped the +rugged, impenetrable old man. +</p> + +<p> +He came again, when the two hours had expired; and this time Miss Garth saw +him. +</p> + +<p> +They shook hands in silence. She waited; she nerved herself to hear him speak +of his lost friend. No: he never mentioned the dreadful accident, he never +alluded to the dreadful death. He said these words, “Is she better, or +worse?” and said no more. Was the tribute of his grief for the husband +sternly suppressed under the expression of his anxiety for the wife? The nature +of the man, unpliably antagonistic to the world and the world’s customs, +might justify some such interpretation of his conduct as this. He repeated his +question, “Is she better, or worse?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth answered him: +</p> + +<p> +“No better; if there is any change, it is a change for the worse.” +</p> + +<p> +They spoke those words at the window of the morning-room which opened on the +garden. Mr. Clare paused, after hearing the reply to his inquiry, stepped out +on to the walk, then turned on a sudden, and spoke again: +</p> + +<p> +“Has the doctor given her up?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“He has not concealed from us that she is in danger. We can only pray for +her.” +</p> + +<p> +The old man laid his hand on Miss Garth’s arm as she answered him, and +looked her attentively in the face. +</p> + +<p> +“You believe in prayer?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth drew sorrowfully back from him. +</p> + +<p> +“You might have spared me that question sir, at such a time as +this.” +</p> + +<p> +He took no notice of her answer; his eyes were still fastened on her face. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray!” he said. “Pray as you never prayed before, for the +preservation of Mrs. Vanstone’s life.” +</p> + +<p> +He left her. His voice and manner implied some unutterable dread of the future, +which his words had not confessed. Miss Garth followed him into the garden, and +called to him. He heard her, but he never turned back: he quickened his pace, +as if he desired to avoid her. She watched him across the lawn in the warm +summer moonlight. She saw his white, withered hands, saw them suddenly against +the black background of the shrubbery, raised and wrung above his head. They +dropped—the trees shrouded him in darkness—he was gone. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth went back to the suffering woman, with the burden on her mind of one +anxiety more. +</p> + +<p> +It was then past eleven o’clock. Some little time had elapsed since she +had seen the sisters and spoken to them. The inquiries she addressed to one of +the female servants only elicited the information that they were both in their +rooms. She delayed her return to the mother’s bedside to say her parting +words of comfort to the daughters, before she left them for the night. +Norah’s room was the nearest. She softly opened the door and looked in. +The kneeling figure by the bedside told her that God’s help had found the +fatherless daughter in her affliction. Grateful tears gathered in her eyes as +she looked: she softly closed the door, and went on to Magdalen’s room. +There doubt stayed her feet at the threshold, and she waited for a moment +before going in. +</p> + +<p> +A sound in the room caught her ear—the monotonous rustling of a +woman’s dress, now distant, now near; passing without cessation from end +to end over the floor—a sound which told her that Magdalen was pacing to +and fro in the secrecy of her own chamber. Miss Garth knocked. The rustling +ceased; the door was opened, and the sad young face confronted her, locked in +its cold despair; the large light eyes looked mechanically into hers, as vacant +and as tearless as ever. +</p> + +<p> +That look wrung the heart of the faithful woman, who had trained her and loved +her from a child. She took Magdalen tenderly in her arms. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my love,” she said, “no tears yet! Oh, if I could see +you as I have seen Norah! Speak to me, Magdalen—try if you can speak to +me.” +</p> + +<p> +She tried, and spoke: +</p> + +<p> +“Norah,” she said, “feels no remorse. He was not serving +Norah’s interests when he went to his death: he was serving mine.” +</p> + +<p> +With that terrible answer, she put her cold lips to Miss Garth’s cheek. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me bear it by myself,” she said, and gently closed the door. +</p> + +<p> +Again Miss Garth waited at the threshold, and again the sound of the rustling +dress passed to and fro—now far, now near—to and fro with a cruel, +mechanical regularity, that chilled the warmest sympathy, and daunted the +boldest hope. +</p> + +<p> +The night passed. It had been agreed, if no change for the better showed itself +by the morning, that the London physician whom Mrs. Vanstone had consulted some +months since should be summoned to the house on the next day. No change for the +better appeared, and the physician was sent for. +</p> + +<p> +As the morning advanced, Frank came to make inquiries from the cottage. Had Mr. +Clare intrusted to his son the duty which he had personally performed on the +previous day through reluctance to meet Miss Garth again after what he had said +to her? It might be so. Frank could throw no light on the subject; he was not +in his father’s confidence. He looked pale and bewildered. His first +inquiries after Magdalen showed how his weak nature had been shaken by the +catastrophe. He was not capable of framing his own questions: the words +faltered on his lips, and the ready tears came into his eyes. Miss +Garth’s heart warmed to him for the first time. Grief has this that is +noble in it—it accepts all sympathy, come whence it may. She encouraged +the lad by a few kind words, and took his hand at parting. +</p> + +<p> +Before noon Frank returned with a second message. His father desired to know +whether Mr. Pendril was not expected at Combe-Raven on that day. If the +lawyer’s arrival was looked for, Frank was directed to be in attendance +at the station, and to take him to the cottage, where a bed would be placed at +his disposal. This message took Miss Garth by surprise. It showed that Mr. +Clare had been made acquainted with his dead friend’s purpose of sending +for Mr. Pendril. Was the old man’s thoughtful offer of hospitality +another indirect expression of the natural human distress which he perversely +concealed? or was he aware of some secret necessity for Mr. Pendril’s +presence, of which the bereaved family had been kept in total ignorance? Miss +Garth was too heart-sick and hopeless to dwell on either question. She told +Frank that Mr. Pendril had been expected at three o’clock, and sent him +back with her thanks. +</p> + +<p> +Shortly after his departure, such anxieties on Magdalen’s account as her +mind was now able to feel were relieved by better news than her last +night’s experience had inclined her to hope for. Norah’s influence +had been exerted to rouse her sister; and Norah’s patient sympathy had +set the prisoned grief free. Magdalen had suffered severely—suffered +inevitably, with such a nature as hers—in the effort that relieved her. +The healing tears had not come gently; they had burst from her with a +torturing, passionate vehemence—but Norah had never left her till the +struggle was over, and the calm had come. These better tidings encouraged Miss +Garth to withdraw to her own room, and to take the rest which she needed +sorely. Worn out in body and mind, she slept from sheer exhaustion—slept +heavily and dreamless for some hours. It was between three and four in the +afternoon when she was roused by one of the female servants. The woman had a +note in her hand—a note left by Mr. Clare the younger, with a message +desiring that it might be delivered to Miss Garth immediately. The name written +in the lower corner of the envelope was “William Pendril.” The +lawyer had arrived. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth opened the note. After a few first sentences of sympathy and +condolence, the writer announced his arrival at Mr. Clare’s; and then +proceeded, apparently in his professional capacity, to make a very startling +request. +</p> + +<p> +“If,” he wrote, “any change for the better in Mrs. Vanstone +should take place—whether it is only an improvement for the time, or +whether it is the permanent improvement for which we all hope—in either +case I entreat you to let me know of it immediately. It is of the last +importance that I should see her, in the event of her gaining strength enough +to give me her attention for five minutes, and of her being able at the +expiration of that time to sign her name. May I beg that you will communicate +my request, in the strictest confidence, to the medical men in attendance? They +will understand, and you will understand, the vital importance I attach to this +interview when I tell you that I have arranged to defer to it all other +business claims on me; and that I hold myself in readiness to obey your summons +at any hour of the day or night.” +</p> + +<p> +In those terms the letter ended. Miss Garth read it twice over. At the second +reading the request which the lawyer now addressed to her, and the farewell +words which had escaped Mr. Clare’s lips the day before, connected +themselves vaguely in her mind. There was some other serious interest in +suspense, known to Mr. Pendril and known to Mr. Clare, besides the first and +foremost interest of Mrs. Vanstone’s recovery. Whom did it affect? The +children? Were they threatened by some new calamity which their mother’s +signature might avert? What did it mean? Did it mean that Mr. Vanstone had died +without leaving a will? +</p> + +<p> +In her distress and confusion of mind Miss Garth was incapable of reasoning +with herself, as she might have reasoned at a happier time. She hastened to the +antechamber of Mrs. Vanstone’s room; and, after explaining Mr. +Pendril’s position toward the family, placed his letter in the hands of +the medical men. They both answered, without hesitation, to the same purpose. +Mrs. Vanstone’s condition rendered any such interview as the lawyer +desired a total impossibility. If she rallied from her present prostration, +Miss Garth should be at once informed of the improvement. In the meantime, the +answer to Mr. Pendril might be conveyed in one word—Impossible. +</p> + +<p> +“You see what importance Mr. Pendril attaches to the interview?” +said Miss Garth. +</p> + +<p> +Yes: both the doctors saw it. +</p> + +<p> +“My mind is lost and confused, gentlemen, in this dreadful suspense. Can +you either of you guess why the signature is wanted? or what the object of the +interview may be? I have only seen Mr. Pendril when he has come here on former +visits: I have no claim to justify me in questioning him. Will you look at the +letter again? Do you think it implies that Mr. Vanstone has never made a +will?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it can hardly imply that,” said one of the doctors. +“But, even supposing Mr. Vanstone to have died intestate, the law takes +due care of the interests of his widow and his children—” +</p> + +<p> +“Would it do so,” interposed the other medical man, “if the +property happened to be in land?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not sure in that case. Do you happen to know, Miss Garth, whether +Mr. Vanstone’s property was in money or in land?” +</p> + +<p> +“In money,” replied Miss Garth. “I have heard him say so on +more than one occasion.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I can relieve your mind by speaking from my own experience. The +law, if he has died intestate, gives a third of his property to his widow, and +divides the rest equally among his children.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if Mrs. Vanstone—” +</p> + +<p> +“If Mrs. Vanstone should die,” pursued the doctor, completing the +question which Miss Garth had not the heart to conclude for herself, “I +believe I am right in telling you that the property would, as a matter of legal +course, go to the children. Whatever necessity there may be for the interview +which Mr. Pendril requests, I can see no reason for connecting it with the +question of Mr. Vanstone’s presumed intestacy. But, by all means, put the +question, for the satisfaction of your own mind, to Mr. Pendril himself.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth withdrew to take the course which the doctor advised. After +communicating to Mr. Pendril the medical decision which, thus far, refused him +the interview that he sought, she added a brief statement of the legal question +she had put to the doctors; and hinted delicately at her natural anxiety to be +informed of the motives which had led the lawyer to make his request. The +answer she received was guarded in the extreme: it did not impress her with a +favorable opinion of Mr. Pendril. He confirmed the doctors’ +interpretation of the law in general terms only; expressed his intention of +waiting at the cottage in the hope that a change for the better might yet +enable Mrs. Vanstone to see him; and closed his letter without the slightest +explanation of his motives, and without a word of reference to the question of +the existence, or the non-existence, of Mr. Vanstone’s will. +</p> + +<p> +The marked caution of the lawyer’s reply dwelt uneasily on Miss +Garth’s mind, until the long-expected event of the day recalled all her +thoughts to her one absorbing anxiety on Mrs. Vanstone’s account. +</p> + +<p> +Early in the evening the physician from London arrived. He watched long by the +bedside of the suffering woman; he remained longer still in consultation with +his medical brethren; he went back again to the sick-room, before Miss Garth +could prevail on him to communicate to her the opinion at which he had arrived. +</p> + +<p> +When he called out into the antechamber for the second time, he silently took a +chair by her side. She looked in his face; and the last faint hope died in her +before he opened his lips. +</p> + +<p> +“I must speak the hard truth,” he said, gently. “All that +<i>can</i> be done <i>has</i> been done. The next four-and-twenty hours, at +most, will end your suspense. If Nature makes no effort in that time—I +grieve to say it—you must prepare yourself for the worst.” +</p> + +<p> +Those words said all: they were prophetic of the end. +</p> + +<p> +The night passed; and she lived through it. The next day came; and she lingered +on till the clock pointed to five. At that hour the tidings of her +husband’s death had dealt the mortal blow. When the hour came round +again, the mercy of God let her go to him in the better world. Her daughters +were kneeling at the bedside as her spirit passed away. She left them +unconscious of their presence; mercifully and happily insensible to the pang of +the last farewell. +</p> + +<p> +Her child survived her till the evening was on the wane and the sunset was dim +in the quiet western heaven. As the darkness came, the light of the frail +little life—faint and feeble from the first—flickered and went out. +All that was earthly of mother and child lay, that night, on the same bed. The +Angel of Death had done his awful bidding; and the two Sisters were left alone +in the world. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h3> + +<p> +Earlier than usual on the morning of Thursday, the twenty-third of July, Mr. +Clare appeared at the door of his cottage, and stepped out into the little +strip of garden attached to his residence. +</p> + +<p> +After he had taken a few turns backward and forward, alone, he was joined by a +spare, quiet, gray-haired man, whose personal appearance was totally devoid of +marked character of any kind; whose inexpressive face and conventionally-quiet +manner presented nothing that attracted approval and nothing that inspired +dislike. This was Mr. Pendril—this was the man on whose lips hung the +future of the orphans at Combe-Raven. +</p> + +<p> +“The time is getting on,” he said, looking toward the shrubbery, as +he joined Mr. Clare. +</p> + +<p> +“My appointment with Miss Garth is for eleven o’clock: it only +wants ten minutes of the hour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you to see her alone?” asked Mr. Clare. +</p> + +<p> +“I left Miss Garth to decide—after warning her, first of all, that +the circumstances I am compelled to disclose are of a very serious +nature.” +</p> + +<p> +“And <i>has</i> she decided?” +</p> + +<p> +“She writes me word that she mentioned my appointment, and repeated the +warning I had given her to both the daughters. The elder of the two +shrinks—and who can wonder at it?—from any discussion connected +with the future which requires her presence so soon as the day after the +funeral. The younger one appears to have expressed no opinion on the subject. +As I understand it, she suffers herself to be passively guided by her +sister’s example. My interview, therefore, will take place with Miss +Garth alone—and it is a very great relief to me to know it.” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke the last words with more emphasis and energy than seemed habitual to +him. Mr. Clare stopped, and looked at his guest attentively. +</p> + +<p> +“You are almost as old as I am, sir,” he said. “Has all your +long experience as a lawyer not hardened you yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never knew how little it had hardened me,” replied Mr. Pendril, +quietly, “until I returned from London yesterday to attend the funeral. I +was not warned that the daughters had resolved on following their parents to +the grave. I think their presence made the closing scene of this dreadful +calamity doubly painful, and doubly touching. You saw how the great concourse +of people were moved by it—and <i>they</i> were in ignorance of the +truth; <i>they</i> knew nothing of the cruel necessity which takes me to the +house this morning. The sense of that necessity—and the sight of those +poor girls at the time when I felt my hard duty toward them most +painfully—shook me, as a man of my years and my way of life is not often +shaken by any distress in the present or any suspense in the future. I have not +recovered it this morning: I hardly feel sure of myself yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“A man’s composure—when he is a man like you—comes with +the necessity for it,” said Mr. Clare. “You must have had duties to +perform as trying in their way as the duty that lies before you this +morning.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pendril shook his head. “Many duties as serious; many stories more +romantic. No duty so trying, no story so hopeless, as this.” +</p> + +<p> +With those words they parted. Mr. Pendril left the garden for the shrubbery +path which led to Combe-Raven. Mr. Clare returned to the cottage. +</p> + +<p> +On reaching the passage, he looked through the open door of his little parlor +and saw Frank sitting there in idle wretchedness, with his head resting wearily +on his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I have had an answer from your employers in London,” said Mr. +Clare. “In consideration of what has happened, they will allow the offer +they made you to stand over for another month.” +</p> + +<p> +Frank changed color, and rose nervously from his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Are my prospects altered?” he asked. “Are Mr. +Vanstone’s plans for me not to be carried out? He told Magdalen his will +had provided for her. She repeated his words to me; she said I ought to know +all that his goodness and generosity had done for both of us. How can his death +make a change? Has anything happened?” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait till Mr. Pendril comes back from Combe-Raven,” said his +father. “Question him—don’t question me.” +</p> + +<p> +The ready tears rose in Frank’s eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t be hard on me?” he pleaded, faintly. “You +won’t expect me to go back to London without seeing Magdalen +first?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Clare looked thoughtfully at his son, and considered a little before he +replied. +</p> + +<p> +“You may dry your eyes,” he said. “You shall see Magdalen +before you go back.” +</p> + +<p> +He left the room, after making that reply, and withdrew to his study. The books +lay ready to his hand as usual. He opened one of them and set himself to read +in the customary manner. But his attention wandered; and his eyes strayed away, +from time to time, to the empty chair opposite—the chair in which his old +friend and gossip had sat and wrangled with him good-humoredly for many and +many a year past. After a struggle with himself he closed the book. +“D—n the chair!” he said: “it <i>will</i> talk of him; +and I must listen.” He reached down his pipe from the wall and +mechanically filled it with tobacco. His hand shook, his eyes wandered back to +the old place; and a heavy sigh came from him unwillingly. That empty chair was +the only earthly argument for which he had no answer: his heart owned its +defeat and moistened his eyes in spite of him. “He has got the better of +me at last,” said the rugged old man. “There is one weak place left +in me still—and <i>he</i> has found it.” +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, Mr. Pendril entered the shrubbery, and followed the path which led +to the lonely garden and the desolate house. He was met at the door by the +man-servant, who was apparently waiting in expectation of his arrival. +</p> + +<p> +“I have an appointment with Miss Garth. Is she ready to see me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite ready, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is she alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“In the room which was Mr. Vanstone’s study?” +</p> + +<p> +“In that room, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The servant opened the door and Mr. Pendril went in. +</p> + +<p> +The governess stood alone at the study window. The morning was oppressively +hot, and she threw up the lower sash to admit more air into the room, as Mr. +Pendril entered it. +</p> + +<p> +They bowed to each other with a formal politeness, which betrayed on either +side an uneasy sense of restraint. Mr. Pendril was one of the many men who +appear superficially to the worst advantage, under the influence of strong +mental agitation which it is necessary for them to control. Miss Garth, on her +side, had not forgotten the ungraciously guarded terms in which the lawyer had +replied to her letter; and the natural anxiety which she had felt on the +subject of the interview was not relieved by any favorable opinion of the man +who sought it. As they confronted each other in the silence of the +summer’s morning—both dressed in black; Miss Garth’s hard +features, gaunt and haggard with grief; the lawyer’s cold, colorless +face, void of all marked expression, suggestive of a business embarrassment and +of nothing more—it would have been hard to find two persons less +attractive externally to any ordinary sympathies than the two who had now met +together, the one to tell, the other to hear, the secrets of the dead. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sincerely sorry, Miss Garth, to intrude on you at such a time as +this. But circumstances, as I have already explained, leave me no other +choice.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you take a seat, Mr. Pendril? You wished to see me in this room, I +believe?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only in this room, because Mr. Vanstone’s papers are kept here, +and I may find it necessary to refer to some of them.” +</p> + +<p> +After that formal interchange of question and answer, they sat down on either +side of a table placed close under the window. One waited to speak, the other +waited to hear. There was a momentary silence. Mr. Pendril broke it by +referring to the young ladies, with the customary expressions of sympathy. Miss +Garth answered him with the same ceremony, in the same conventional tone. There +was a second pause of silence. The humming of flies among the evergreen shrubs +under the window penetrated drowsily into the room; and the tramp of a +heavy-footed cart-horse, plodding along the high-road beyond the garden, was as +plainly audible in the stillness as if it had been night. +</p> + +<p> +The lawyer roused his flagging resolution, and spoke to the purpose when he +spoke next. +</p> + +<p> +“You have some reason, Miss Garth,” he began, “to feel not +quite satisfied with my past conduct toward you, in one particular. During Mrs. +Vanstone’s fatal illness, you addressed a letter to me, making certain +inquiries; which, while she lived, it was impossible for me to answer. Her +deplorable death releases me from the restraint which I had imposed on myself, +and permits—or, more properly, obliges me to speak. You shall know what +serious reasons I had for waiting day and night in the hope of obtaining that +interview which unhappily never took place; and in justice to Mr. +Vanstone’s memory, your own eyes shall inform you that he made his +will.” +</p> + +<p> +He rose; unlocked a little iron safe in the corner of the room; and returned to +the table with some folded sheets of paper, which he spread open under Miss +Garth’s eyes. When she had read the first words, “In the name of +God, Amen,” he turned the sheet, and pointed to the end of the next page. +She saw the well-known signature: “Andrew Vanstone.” She saw the +customary attestations of the two witnesses; and the date of the document, +reverting to a period of more than five years since. Having thus convinced her +of the formality of the will, the lawyer interposed before she could question +him, and addressed her in these words: +</p> + +<p> +“I must not deceive you,” he said. “I have my own reasons for +producing this document.” +</p> + +<p> +“What reasons, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall hear them. When you are in possession of the truth, these +pages may help to preserve your respect for Mr. Vanstone’s +memory—” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth started back in her chair. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” she asked, with a stern straightforwardness. +</p> + +<p> +He took no heed of the question; he went on as if she had not interrupted him. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a second reason,” he continued, “for showing you the +will. If I can prevail on you to read certain clauses in it, under my +superintendence, you will make your own discovery of the circumstances which I +am here to disclose—circumstances so painful that I hardly know how to +communicate them to you with my own lips.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth looked him steadfastly in the face. +</p> + +<p> +“Circumstances, sir, which affect the dead parents, or the living +children?” +</p> + +<p> +“Which affect the dead and the living both,” answered the lawyer. +“Circumstances, I grieve to say, which involve the future of Mr. +Vanstone’s unhappy daughters.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait,” said Miss Garth, “wait a little.” She pushed +her gray hair back from her temples, and struggled with the sickness of heart, +the dreadful faintness of terror, which would have overpowered a younger or a +less resolute woman. Her eyes, dim with watching, weary with grief, searched +the lawyer’s unfathomable face. “His unhappy daughters?” she +repeated to herself, vacantly. “He talks as if there was some worse +calamity than the calamity which has made them orphans.” She paused once +more; and rallied her sinking courage. “I will not make your hard duty, +sir, more painful to you than I can help,” she resumed. “Show me +the place in the will. Let me read it, and know the worst.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pendril turned back to the first page, and pointed to a certain place in +the cramped lines of writing. “Begin here,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She tried to begin; she tried to follow his finger, as she had followed it +already to the signatures and the dates. But her senses seemed to share the +confusion of her mind—the words mingled together, and the lines swam +before her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t follow you,” she said. “You must tell it, or +read it to me.” She pushed her chair back from the table, and tried to +collect herself. “Stop!” she exclaimed, as the lawyer, with visible +hesitation and reluctance, took the papers in his own hand. “One +question, first. Does his will provide for his children?” +</p> + +<p> +“His will provided for them, when he made it.” +</p> + +<p> +“When he made it!” (Something of her natural bluntness broke out in +her manner as she repeated the answer.) “Does it provide for them +now?” +</p> + +<p> +“It does not.” +</p> + +<p> +She snatched the will from his hand, and threw it into a corner of the room. +“You mean well,” she said; “you wish to spare me—but +you are wasting your time, and my strength. If the will is useless, there let +it lie. Tell me the truth, Mr. Pendril—tell it plainly, tell it +instantly, in your own words!” +</p> + +<p> +He felt that it would be useless cruelty to resist that appeal. There was no +merciful alternative but to answer it on the spot. +</p> + +<p> +“I must refer you to the spring of the present year, Miss Garth. Do you +remember the fourth of March?” +</p> + +<p> +Her attention wandered again; a thought seemed to have struck her at the moment +when he spoke. Instead of answering his inquiry, she put a question of her own. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me break the news to myself,” she said—“let me +anticipate you, if I can. His useless will, the terms in which you speak of his +daughters, the doubt you seem to feel of my continued respect for his memory, +have opened a new view to me. Mr. Vanstone has died a ruined man—is that +what you had to tell me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Far from it. Mr. Vanstone has died, leaving a fortune of more than +eighty thousand pounds—a fortune invested in excellent securities. He +lived up to his income, but never beyond it; and all his debts added together +would not reach two hundred pounds. If he had died a ruined man, I should have +felt deeply for his children: but I should not have hesitated to tell you the +truth, as I am hesitating now. Let me repeat a question which escaped you, I +think, when I first put it. Carry your mind back to the spring of this year. Do +you remember the fourth of March?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth shook her head. “My memory for dates is bad at the best of +times,” she said. “I am too confused to exert it at a +moment’s notice. Can you put your question in no other form?” +</p> + +<p> +He put it in this form: +</p> + +<p> +“Do you remember any domestic event in the spring of the present year +which appeared to affect Mr. Vanstone more seriously than usual?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth leaned forward in her chair, and looked eagerly at Mr. Pendril +across the table. “The journey to London!” she exclaimed. “I +distrusted the journey to London from the first! Yes! I remember Mr. Vanstone +receiving a letter—I remember his reading it, and looking so altered from +himself that he startled us all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you notice any apparent understanding between Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone +on the subject of that letter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes: I did. One of the girls—it was Magdalen—mentioned the +post-mark; some place in America. It all comes back to me, Mr. Pendril. Mrs. +Vanstone looked excited and anxious, the moment she heard the place named. They +went to London together the next day; they explained nothing to their +daughters, nothing to me. Mrs. Vanstone said the journey was for family +affairs. I suspected something wrong; I couldn’t tell what. Mrs. Vanstone +wrote to me from London, saying that her object was to consult a physician on +the state of her health, and not to alarm her daughters by telling them. +Something in the letter rather hurt me at the time. I thought there might be +some other motive that she was keeping from me. Did I do her wrong?” +</p> + +<p> +“You did her no wrong. There was a motive which she was keeping from you. +In revealing that motive, I reveal the painful secret which brings me to this +house. All that I could do to prepare you, I have done. Let me now tell the +truth in the plainest and fewest words. When Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone left +Combe-Raven, in the March of the present year—” +</p> + +<p> +Before he could complete the sentence, a sudden movement of Miss Garth’s +interrupted him. She started violently, and looked round toward the window. +“Only the wind among the leaves,” she said, faintly. “My +nerves are so shaken, the least thing startles me. Speak out, for God’s +sake! When Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone left this house, tell me in plain words, why +did they go to London?” +</p> + +<p> +In plain words, Mr. Pendril told her: +</p> + +<p> +“They went to London to be married.” +</p> + +<p> +With that answer he placed a slip of paper on the table. It was the marriage +certificate of the dead parents, and the date it bore was March the twentieth, +eighteen hundred and forty-six. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth neither moved nor spoke. The certificate lay beneath her unnoticed. +She sat with her eyes rooted on the lawyer’s face; her mind stunned, her +senses helpless. He saw that all his efforts to break the shock of the +discovery had been efforts made in vain; he felt the vital importance of +rousing her, and firmly and distinctly repeated the fatal words. +</p> + +<p> +“They went to London to be married,” he said. “Try to rouse +yourself: try to realize the plain fact first: the explanation shall come +afterward. Miss Garth, I speak the miserable truth! In the spring of this year +they left home; they lived in London for a fortnight, in the strictest +retirement; they were married by license at the end of that time. There is a +copy of the certificate, which I myself obtained on Monday last. Read the date +of the marriage for yourself. It is Friday, the twentieth of March—the +March of this present year.” +</p> + +<p> +As he pointed to the certificate, that faint breath of air among the shrubs +beneath the window, which had startled Miss Garth, stirred the leaves once +more. He heard it himself this time, and turned his face, so as to let the +breeze play upon it. No breeze came; no breath of air that was strong enough +for him to feel, floated into the room. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth roused herself mechanically, and read the certificate. It seemed to +produce no distinct impression on her: she laid it on one side in a lost, +bewildered manner. “Twelve years,” she said, in low, hopeless +tones—“twelve quiet, happy years I lived with this family. Mrs. +Vanstone was my friend; my dear, valued friend—my sister, I might almost +say. I can’t believe it. Bear with me a little, sir, I can’t +believe it yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall help you to believe it when I tell you more,” said Mr. +Pendril—“you will understand me better when I take you back to the +time of Mr. Vanstone’s early life. I won’t ask for your attention +just yet. Let us wait a little, until you recover yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +They waited a few minutes. The lawyer took some letters from his pocket, +referred to them attentively, and put them back again. “Can you listen to +me, now?” he asked, kindly. She bowed her head in answer. Mr. Pendril +considered with himself for a moment, “I must caution you on one +point,” he said. “If the aspect of Mr. Vanstone’s character +which I am now about to present to you seems in some respects at variance with +your later experience, bear in mind that, when you first knew him twelve years +since, he was a man of forty; and that, when I first knew him, he was a lad of +nineteen.” +</p> + +<p> +His next words raised the veil, and showed the irrevocable Past. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h3> + +<p> +“The fortune which Mr. Vanstone possessed when you knew him” (the +lawyer began) “was part, and part only, of the inheritance which fell to +him on his father’s death. Mr. Vanstone the elder was a manufacturer in +the North of England. He married early in life; and the children of the +marriage were either six or seven in number—I am not certain which. +First, Michael, the eldest son, still living, and now an old man turned +seventy. Secondly, Selina, the eldest daughter, who married in after-life, and +who died ten or eleven years ago. After those two came other sons and +daughters, whose early deaths make it unnecessary to mention them particularly. +The last and by many years the youngest of the children was Andrew, whom I +first knew, as I told you, at the age of nineteen. My father was then on the +point of retiring from the active pursuit of his profession; and in succeeding +to his business, I also succeeded to his connection with the Vanstones as the +family solicitor. +</p> + +<p> +“At that time, Andrew had just started in life by entering the army. +After little more than a year of home-service, he was ordered out with his +regiment to Canada. When he quitted England, he left his father and his elder +brother Michael seriously at variance. I need not detain you by entering into +the cause of the quarrel. I need only tell you that the elder Mr. Vanstone, +with many excellent qualities, was a man of fierce and intractable temper. His +eldest son had set him at defiance, under circumstances which might have justly +irritated a father of far milder character; and he declared, in the most +positive terms, that he would never see Michael’s face again. In defiance +of my entreaties, and of the entreaties of his wife, he tore up, in our +presence, the will which provided for Michael’s share in the paternal +inheritance. Such was the family position, when the younger son left home for +Canada. +</p> + +<p> +“Some months after Andrew’s arrival with his regiment at Quebec, he +became acquainted with a woman of great personal attractions, who came, or said +she came, from one of the Southern States of America. She obtained an immediate +influence over him; and she used it to the basest purpose. You knew the easy, +affectionate, trusting nature of the man in later life—you can imagine +how thoughtlessly he acted on the impulse of his youth. It is useless to dwell +on this lamentable part of the story. He was just twenty-one: he was blindly +devoted to a worthless woman; and she led him on, with merciless cunning, till +it was too late to draw back. In one word, he committed the fatal error of his +life: he married her. +</p> + +<p> +“She had been wise enough in her own interests to dread the influence of +his brother-officers, and to persuade him, up to the period of the marriage +ceremony, to keep the proposed union between them a secret. She could do this; +but she could not provide against the results of accident. Hardly three months +had passed, when a chance disclosure exposed the life she had led before her +marriage. But one alternative was left to her husband—the alternative of +instantly separating from her. +</p> + +<p> +“The effect of the discovery on the unhappy boy—for a boy in +disposition he still was—may be judged by the event which followed the +exposure. One of Andrew’s superior officers—a certain Major Kirke, +if I remember right—found him in his quarters, writing to his father a +confession of the disgraceful truth, with a loaded pistol by his side. That +officer saved the lad’s life from his own hand, and hushed up the +scandalous affair by a compromise. The marriage being a perfectly legal one, +and the wife’s misconduct prior to the ceremony giving her husband no +claim to his release from her by divorce, it was only possible to appeal to her +sense of her own interests. A handsome annual allowance was secured to her, on +condition that she returned to the place from which she had come; that she +never appeared in England; and that she ceased to use her husband’s name. +Other stipulations were added to these. She accepted them all; and measures +were privately taken to have her well looked after in the place of her retreat. +What life she led there, and whether she performed all the conditions imposed +on her, I cannot say. I can only tell you that she never, to my knowledge, came +to England; that she never annoyed Mr. Vanstone; and that the annual allowance +was paid her, through a local agent in America, to the day of her death. All +that she wanted in marrying him was money; and money she got. +</p> + +<p> +“In the meantime, Andrew had left the regiment. Nothing would induce him +to face his brother-officers after what had happened. He sold out and returned +to England. The first intelligence which reached him on his return was the +intelligence of his father’s death. He came to my office in London, +before going home, and there learned from my lips how the family quarrel had +ended. +</p> + +<p> +“The will which Mr. Vanstone the elder had destroyed in my presence had +not been, so far as I know, replaced by another. When I was sent for, in the +usual course, on his death, I fully expected that the law would be left to make +the customary division among his widow and his children. To my surprise, a will +appeared among his papers, correctly drawn and executed, and dated about a week +after the period when the first will had been destroyed. He had maintained his +vindictive purpose against his eldest son, and had applied to a stranger for +the professional assistance which I honestly believe he was ashamed to ask for +at my hands. +</p> + +<p> +“It is needless to trouble you with the provisions of the will in detail. +There were the widow and three surviving children to be provided for. The widow +received a life-interest only in a portion of the testator’s property. +The remaining portion was divided between Andrew and Selina—two-thirds to +the brother; one-third to the sister. On the mother’s death, the money +from which her income had been derived was to go to Andrew and Selina, in the +same relative proportions as before—five thousand pounds having been +first deducted from the sum and paid to Michael, as the sole legacy left by the +implacable father to his eldest son. +</p> + +<p> +“Speaking in round numbers, the division of property, as settled by the +will, stood thus. Before the mother’s death, Andrew had seventy thousand +pounds; Selina had thirty-five thousand pounds; Michael—had nothing. +After the mother’s death, Michael had five thousand pounds, to set +against Andrew’s inheritance augmented to one hundred thousand, and +Selina’s inheritance increased to fifty thousand.—Do not suppose +that I am dwelling unnecessarily on this part of the subject. Every word I now +speak bears on interests still in suspense, which vitally concern Mr. +Vanstone’s daughters. As we get on from past to present, keep in mind the +terrible inequality of Michael’s inheritance and Andrew’s +inheritance. The harm done by that vindictive will is, I greatly fear, not over +yet. +</p> + +<p> +“Andrew’s first impulse, when he heard the news which I had to tell +him, was worthy of the open, generous nature of the man. He at once proposed to +divide his inheritance with his elder brother. But there was one serious +obstacle in the way. A letter from Michael was waiting for him at my office +when he came there, and that letter charged him with being the original cause +of estrangement between his father and his elder brother. The efforts which he +had made—bluntly and incautiously, I own, but with the purest and kindest +intentions, as I know—to compose the quarrel before leaving home, were +perverted, by the vilest misconstruction, to support an accusation of treachery +and falsehood which would have stung any man to the quick. Andrew felt, what I +felt, that if these imputations were not withdrawn before his generous +intentions toward his brother took effect, the mere fact of their execution +would amount to a practical acknowledgment of the justice of Michael’s +charge against him. He wrote to his brother in the most forbearing terms. The +answer received was as offensive as words could make it. Michael had inherited +his father’s temper, unredeemed by his father’s better qualities: +his second letter reiterated the charges contained in the first, and declared +that he would only accept the offered division as an act of atonement and +restitution on Andrew’s part. I next wrote to the mother to use her +influence. She was herself aggrieved at being left with nothing more than a +life interest in her husband’s property; she sided resolutely with +Michael; and she stigmatized Andrew’s proposal as an attempt to bribe her +eldest son into withdrawing a charge against his brother which that brother +knew to be true. After this last repulse, nothing more could be done. Michael +withdrew to the Continent; and his mother followed him there. She lived long +enough, and saved money enough out of her income, to add considerably, at her +death, to her elder son’s five thousand pounds. He had previously still +further improved his pecuniary position by an advantageous marriage; and he is +now passing the close of his days either in France or Switzerland—a +widower, with one son. We shall return to him shortly. In the meantime, I need +only tell you that Andrew and Michael never again met—never again +communicated, even by writing. To all intents and purposes they were dead to +each other, from those early days to the present time. +</p> + +<p> +“You can now estimate what Andrew’s position was when he left his +profession and returned to England. Possessed of a fortune, he was alone in the +world; his future destroyed at the fair outset of life; his mother and brother +estranged from him; his sister lately married, with interests and hopes in +which he had no share. Men of firmer mental caliber might have found refuge +from such a situation as this in an absorbing intellectual pursuit. He was not +capable of the effort; all the strength of his character lay in the affections +he had wasted. His place in the world was that quiet place at home, with wife +and children to make his life happy, which he had lost forever. To look back +was more than he dare. To look forward was more than he could. In sheer +despair, he let his own impetuous youth drive him on; and cast himself into the +lowest dissipations of a London life. +</p> + +<p> +“A woman’s falsehood had driven him to his ruin. A woman’s +love saved him at the outset of his downward career. Let us not speak of her +harshly—for we laid her with him yesterday in the grave. +</p> + +<p> +“You, who only knew Mrs. Vanstone in later life, when illness and sorrow +and secret care had altered and saddened her, can form no adequate idea of her +attractions of person and character when she was a girl of seventeen. I was +with Andrew when he first met her. I had tried to rescue him, for one night at +least, from degrading associates and degrading pleasures, by persuading him to +go with me to a ball given by one of the great City Companies. There they met. +She produced a strong impression on him the moment he saw her. To me, as to +him, she was a total stranger. An introduction to her, obtained in the +customary manner, informed him that she was the daughter of one Mr. Blake. The +rest he discovered from herself. They were partners in the dance (unobserved in +that crowded ball-room) all through the evening. +</p> + +<p> +“Circumstances were against her from the first. She was unhappy at home. +Her family and friends occupied no recognized station in life: they were mean, +underhand people, in every way unworthy of her. It was her first ball—it +was the first time she had ever met with a man who had the breeding, the +manners and the conversation of a gentleman. Are these excuses for her, which I +have no right to make? If we have any human feeling for human weakness, surely +not! +</p> + +<p> +“The meeting of that night decided their future. When other meetings had +followed, when the confession of her love had escaped her, he took the one +course of all others (took it innocently and unconsciously), which was most +dangerous to them both. His frankness and his sense of honor forbade him to +deceive her: he opened his heart and told her the truth. She was a generous, +impulsive girl; she had no home ties strong enough to plead with her; she was +passionately fond of him—and he had made that appeal to her pity which, +to the eternal honor of women, is the hardest of all appeals for them to +resist. She saw, and saw truly, that she alone stood between him and his ruin. +The last chance of his rescue hung on her decision. She decided; and saved him. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me not be misunderstood; let me not be accused of trifling with the +serious social question on which my narrative forces me to touch. I will defend +her memory by no false reasoning—I will only speak the truth. It is the +truth that she snatched him from mad excesses which must have ended in his +early death. It is the truth that she restored him to that happy home existence +which you remember so tenderly—which <i>he</i> remembered so gratefully +that, on the day when he was free, he made her his wife. Let strict morality +claim its right, and condemn her early fault. I have read my New Testament to +little purpose, indeed, if Christian mercy may not soften the hard sentence +against her—if Christian charity may not find a plea for her memory in +the love and fidelity, the suffering and the sacrifice, of her whole life. +</p> + +<p> +“A few words more will bring us to a later time, and to events which have +happened within your own experience. +</p> + +<p> +“I need not remind you that the position in which Mr. Vanstone was now +placed could lead in the end to but one result—to a disclosure, more or +less inevitable, of the truth. Attempts were made to keep the hopeless +misfortune of his life a secret from Miss Blake’s family; and, as a +matter of course, those attempts failed before the relentless scrutiny of her +father and her friends. What might have happened if her relatives had been what +is termed ‘respectable’ I cannot pretend to say. As it was, they +were people who could (in the common phrase) be conveniently treated with. The +only survivor of the family at the present time is a scoundrel calling himself +Captain Wragge. When I tell you that he privately extorted the price of his +silence from Mrs. Vanstone to the last; and when I add that his conduct +presents no extraordinary exception to the conduct, in their lifetime, of the +other relatives—you will understand what sort of people I had to deal +with in my client’s interests, and how their assumed indignation was +appeased. +</p> + +<p> +“Having, in the first instance, left England for Ireland, Mr. Vanstone +and Miss Blake remained there afterward for some years. Girl as she was, she +faced her position and its necessities without flinching. Having once resolved +to sacrifice her life to the man she loved; having quieted her conscience by +persuading herself that his marriage was a legal mockery, and that she was +‘his wife in the sight of Heaven,’ she set herself from the first +to accomplish the one foremost purpose of so living with him, in the +world’s eye, as never to raise the suspicion that she was not his lawful +wife. The women are few, indeed, who cannot resolve firmly, scheme patiently, +and act promptly where the dearest interests of their lives are concerned. Mrs. +Vanstone—she has a right now, remember, to that name—Mrs. Vanstone +had more than the average share of a woman’s tenacity and a woman’s +tact; and she took all the needful precautions, in those early days, which her +husband’s less ready capacity had not the art to devise—precautions +to which they were largely indebted for the preservation of their secret in +later times. +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks to these safeguards, not a shadow of suspicion followed them when +they returned to England. They first settled in Devonshire, merely because they +were far removed there from that northern county in which Mr. Vanstone’s +family and connections had been known. On the part of his surviving relatives, +they had no curious investigations to dread. He was totally estranged from his +mother and his elder brother. His married sister had been forbidden by her +husband (who was a clergyman) to hold any communication with him, from the +period when he had fallen into the deplorable way of life which I have +described as following his return from Canada. Other relations he had none. +When he and Miss Blake left Devonshire, their next change of residence was to +this house. Neither courting nor avoiding notice; simply happy in themselves, +in their children, and in their quiet rural life; unsuspected by the few +neighbors who formed their modest circle of acquaintance to be other than what +they seemed—the truth in their case, as in the cases of many others, +remained undiscovered until accident forced it into the light of day. +</p> + +<p> +“If, in your close intimacy with them, it seems strange that they should +never have betrayed themselves, let me ask you to consider the circumstances +and you will understand the apparent anomaly. Remember that they had been +living as husband and wife, to all intents and purposes (except that the +marriage-service had not been read over them), for fifteen years before you +came into the house; and bear in mind, at the same time, that no event occurred +to disturb Mr. Vanstone’s happiness in the present, to remind him of the +past, or to warn him of the future, until the announcement of his wife’s +death reached him, in that letter from America which you saw placed in his +hand. From that day forth—when a past which <i>he</i> abhorred was forced +back to his memory; when a future which <i>she</i> had never dared to +anticipate was placed within her reach—you will soon perceive, if you +have not perceived already, that they both betrayed themselves, time after +time; and that your innocence of all suspicion, and their children’s +innocence of all suspicion, alone prevented you from discovering the truth. +</p> + +<p> +“The sad story of the past is now as well known to you as to me. I have +had hard words to speak. God knows I have spoken them with true sympathy for +the living, with true tenderness for the memory of the dead.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He paused, turned his face a little away, and rested his head on his hand, in +the quiet, undemonstrative manner which was natural to him. Thus far, Miss +Garth had only interrupted his narrative by an occasional word or by a mute +token of her attention. She made no effort to conceal her tears; they fell fast +and silently over her wasted cheeks, as she looked up and spoke to him. +“I have done you some injury, sir, in my thoughts,” she said, with +a noble simplicity. “I know you better now. Let me ask your forgiveness; +let me take your hand.” +</p> + +<p> +Those words, and the action which accompanied them, touched him deeply. He took +her hand in silence. She was the first to speak, the first to set the example +of self-control. It is one of the noble instincts of women that nothing more +powerfully rouses them to struggle with their own sorrow than the sight of a +man’s distress. She quietly dried her tears; she quietly drew her chair +round the table, so as to sit nearer to him when she spoke again. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been sadly broken, Mr. Pendril, by what has happened in this +house,” she said, “or I should have borne what you have told me +better than I have borne it to-day. Will you let me ask one question before you +go on? My heart aches for the children of my love—more than ever my +children now. Is there no hope for their future? Are they left with no prospect +but poverty before them?” +</p> + +<p> +The lawyer hesitated before he answered the question. +</p> + +<p> +“They are left dependent,” he said, at last, “on the justice +and the mercy of a stranger.” +</p> + +<p> +“Through the misfortune of their birth?” +</p> + +<p> +“Through the misfortunes which have followed the marriage of their +parents.” +</p> + +<p> +With that startling answer he rose, took up the will from the floor, and +restored it to its former position on the table between them. +</p> + +<p> +“I can only place the truth before you,” he resumed, “in one +plain form of words. The marriage has destroyed this will, and has left Mr. +Vanstone’s daughters dependent on their uncle.” +</p> + +<p> +As he spoke, the breeze stirred again among the shrubs under the window. +</p> + +<p> +“On their uncle?” repeated Miss Garth. She considered for a moment, +and laid her hand suddenly on Mr. Pendril’s arm. “Not on Michael +Vanstone!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes: on Michael Vanstone.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth’s hand still mechanically grasped the lawyer’s arm. Her +whole mind was absorbed in the effort to realize the discovery which had now +burst on her. +</p> + +<p> +“Dependent on Michael Vanstone!” she said to herself. +“Dependent on their father’s bitterest enemy? How can it be?” +</p> + +<p> +“Give me your attention for a few minutes more,” said Mr. Pendril, +“and you shall hear. The sooner we can bring this painful interview to a +close, the sooner I can open communications with Mr. Michael Vanstone, and the +sooner you will know what he decides on doing for his brother’s orphan +daughters. I repeat to you that they are absolutely dependent on him. You will +most readily understand how and why, if we take up the chain of events where we +last left it—at the period of Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone’s +marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“One moment, sir,” said Miss Garth. “Were you in the secret +of that marriage at the time when it took place?” +</p> + +<p> +“Unhappily, I was not. I was away from London—away from England at +the time. If Mr. Vanstone had been able to communicate with me when the letter +from America announced the death of his wife, the fortunes of his daughters +would not have been now at stake.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused, and, before proceeding further, looked once more at the letters +which he had consulted at an earlier period of the interview. He took one +letter from the rest, and put it on the table by his side. +</p> + +<p> +“At the beginning of the present year,” he resumed, “a very +serious business necessity, in connection with some West Indian property +possessed by an old client and friend of mine, required the presence either of +myself, or of one of my two partners, in Jamaica. One of the two could not be +spared; the other was not in health to undertake the voyage. There was no +choice left but for me to go. I wrote to Mr. Vanstone, telling him that I +should leave England at the end of February, and that the nature of the +business which took me away afforded little hope of my getting back from the +West Indies before June. My letter was not written with any special motive. I +merely thought it right—seeing that my partners were not admitted to my +knowledge of Mr. Vanstone’s private affairs—to warn him of my +absence, as a measure of formal precaution which it was right to take. At the +end of February I left England, without having heard from him. I was on the sea +when the news of his wife’s death reached him, on the fourth of March: +and I did not return until the middle of last June.” +</p> + +<p> +“You warned him of your departure,” interposed Miss Garth. +“Did you not warn him of your return?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not personally. My head-clerk sent him one of the circulars which were +dispatched from my office, in various directions, to announce my return. It was +the first substitute I thought of for the personal letter which the pressure of +innumerable occupations, all crowding on me together after my long absence, did +not allow me leisure to write. Barely a month later, the first information of +his marriage reached me in a letter from himself, written on the day of the +fatal accident. The circumstances which induced him to write arose out of an +event in which you must have taken some interest—I mean the attachment +between Mr. Clare’s son and Mr. Vanstone’s youngest +daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot say that I was favorably disposed toward that attachment at the +time,” replied Miss Garth. “I was ignorant then of the family +secret: I know better now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly. The motive which you can now appreciate is the motive that +leads us to the point. The young lady herself (as I have heard from the elder +Mr. Clare, to whom I am indebted for my knowledge of the circumstances in +detail) confessed her attachment to her father, and innocently touched him to +the quick by a chance reference to his own early life. He had a long +conversation with Mrs. Vanstone, at which they both agreed that Mr. Clare must +be privately informed of the truth, before the attachment between the two young +people was allowed to proceed further. It was painful in the last degree, both +to husband and wife, to be reduced to this alternative. But they were resolute, +honorably resolute, in making the sacrifice of their own feelings; and Mr. +Vanstone betook himself on the spot to Mr. Clare’s cottage.—You no +doubt observed a remarkable change in Mr. Vanstone’s manner on that day; +and you can now account for it?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth bowed her head, and Mr. Pendril went on. +</p> + +<p> +“You are sufficiently acquainted with Mr. Clare’s contempt for all +social prejudices,” he continued, “to anticipate his reception of +the confession which his neighbor addressed to him. Five minutes after the +interview had begun, the two old friends were as easy and unrestrained together +as usual. In the course of conversation, Mr. Vanstone mentioned the pecuniary +arrangement which he had made for the benefit of his daughter and of her future +husband—and, in doing so, he naturally referred to his will here, on the +table between us. Mr. Clare, remembering that his friend had been married in +the March of that year, at once asked when the will had been executed: +receiving the reply that it had been made five years since; and, thereupon, +astounded Mr. Vanstone by telling him bluntly that the document was waste paper +in the eye of the law. Up to that moment he, like many other persons, had been +absolutely ignorant that a man’s marriage is, legally as well as +socially, considered to be the most important event in his life; that it +destroys the validity of any will which he may have made as a single man; and +that it renders absolutely necessary the entire re-assertion of his +testamentary intentions in the character of a husband. The statement of this +plain fact appeared to overwhelm Mr. Vanstone. Declaring that his friend had +laid him under an obligation which he should remember to his dying day, he at +once left the cottage, at once returned home, and wrote me this letter.” +</p> + +<p> +He handed the letter open to Miss Garth. In tearless, speechless grief, she +read these words: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“MY DEAR PENDRIL—Since we last wrote to each other an extraordinary +change has taken place in my life. About a week after you went away, I received +news from America which told me that I was free. Need I say what use I made of +that freedom? Need I say that the mother of my children is now my Wife?<br/> + “If you are surprised at not having heard from me the moment you got +back, attribute my silence, in great part—if not altogether—to my +own total ignorance of the legal necessity for making another will. Not half an +hour since, I was enlightened for the first time (under circumstances which I +will mention when me meet) by my old friend, Mr. Clare. Family anxieties have +had something to do with my silence as well. My wife’s confinement is +close at hand; and, besides this serious anxiety, my second daughter is just +engaged to be married. Until I saw Mr. Clare to-day, these matters so filled my +mind that I never thought of writing to you during the one short month which is +all that has passed since I got news of your return. Now I know that my will +must be made again, I write instantly. For God’s sake, come on the day +when you receive this—come and relieve me from the dreadful thought that +my two darling girls are at this moment unprovided for. If anything happened to +me, and if my desire to do their mother justice, ended (through my miserable +ignorance of the law) in leaving Norah and Magdalen disinherited, I should not +rest in my grave! Come at any cost, to yours ever, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“A. V.” +</p> + +<p> +“On the Saturday morning,” Mr. Pendril resumed, “those lines +reached me. I instantly set aside all other business, and drove to the railway. +At the London terminus, I heard the first news of the Friday’s accident; +heard it, with conflicting accounts of the numbers and names of the passengers +killed. At Bristol, they were better informed; and the dreadful truth about Mr. +Vanstone was confirmed. I had time to recover myself before I reached your +station here, and found Mr. Clare’s son waiting for me. He took me to his +father’s cottage; and there, without losing a moment, I drew out Mrs. +Vanstone’s will. My object was to secure the only provision for her +daughters which it was now possible to make. Mr. Vanstone having died +intestate, a third of his fortune would go to his widow; and the rest would be +divided among his next of kin. As children born out of wedlock, Mr. +Vanstone’s daughters, under the circumstances of their father’s +death, had no more claim to a share in his property than the daughters of one +of his laborers in the village. The one chance left was that their mother might +sufficiently recover to leave her third share to them, by will, in the event of +her decease. Now you know why I wrote to you to ask for that +interview—why I waited day and night, in the hope of receiving a summons +to the house. I was sincerely sorry to send back such an answer to your note of +inquiry as I was compelled to write. But while there was a chance of the +preservation of Mrs. Vanstone’s life, the secret of the marriage was +hers, not mine; and every consideration of delicacy forbade me to disclose +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You did right, sir,” said Miss Garth; “I understand your +motives, and respect them.” +</p> + +<p> +“My last attempt to provide for the daughters,” continued Mr. +Pendril, “was, as you know, rendered unavailing by the dangerous nature +of Mrs. Vanstone’s illness. Her death left the infant who survived her by +a few hours (the infant born, you will remember, in lawful wedlock) possessed, +in due legal course, of the whole of Mr. Vanstone’s fortune. On the +child’s death—if it had only outlived the mother by a few seconds, +instead of a few hours, the result would have been the same—the next of +kin to the legitimate offspring took the money; and that next of kin is the +infant’s paternal uncle, Michael Vanstone. The whole fortune of eighty +thousand pounds has virtually passed into his possession already.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are there no other relations?” asked Miss Garth. “Is there +no hope from any one else?” +</p> + +<p> +“There are no other relations with Michael Vanstone’s claim,” +said the lawyer. “There are no grandfathers or grandmothers of the dead +child (on the side of either of the parents) now alive. It was not likely there +should be, considering the ages of Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone when they died. But it +is a misfortune to be reasonably lamented that no other uncles or aunts +survive. There are cousins alive; a son and two daughters of that elder sister +of Mr. Vanstone’s, who married Archdeacon Bartram, and who died, as I +told you, some years since. But their interest is superseded by the interest of +the nearer blood. No, Miss Garth, we must look facts as they are resolutely in +the face. Mr. Vanstone’s daughters are Nobody’s Children; and the +law leaves them helpless at their uncle’s mercy.” +</p> + +<p> +“A cruel law, Mr. Pendril—a cruel law in a Christian +country.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cruel as it is, Miss Garth, it stands excused by a shocking peculiarity +in this case. I am far from defending the law of England as it affects +illegitimate offspring. On the contrary, I think it a disgrace to the nation. +It visits the sins of the parents on the children; it encourages vice by +depriving fathers and mothers of the strongest of all motives for making the +atonement of marriage; and it claims to produce these two abominable results in +the names of morality and religion. But it has no extraordinary oppression to +answer for in the case of these unhappy girls. The more merciful and Christian +law of other countries, which allows the marriage of the parents to make the +children legitimate, has no mercy on <i>these</i> children. The accident of +their father having been married, when he first met with their mother, has made +them the outcasts of the whole social community; it has placed them out of the +pale of the Civil Law of Europe. I tell you the hard truth—it is useless +to disguise it. There is no hope, if we look back at the past: there may be +hope, if we look on to the future. The best service which I can now render you +is to shorten the period of your suspense. In less than an hour I shall be on +my way back to London. Immediately on my arrival, I will ascertain the +speediest means of communicating with Mr. Michael Vanstone; and will let you +know the result. Sad as the position of the two sisters now is, we must look at +it on its best side; we must not lose hope.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hope?” repeated Miss Garth. “Hope from Michael +Vanstone!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; hope from the influence on him of time, if not from the influence +of mercy. As I have already told you, he is now an old man; he cannot, in the +course of nature, expect to live much longer. If he looks back to the period +when he and his brother were first at variance, he must look back through +thirty years. Surely, these are softening influences which must affect any man? +Surely, his own knowledge of the shocking circumstances under which he has +become possessed of this money will plead with him, if nothing else +does?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will try to think as you do, Mr. Pendril—I will try to hope for +the best. Shall we be left long in suspense before the decision reaches +us?” +</p> + +<p> +“I trust not. The only delay on my side will be caused by the necessity +of discovering the place of Michael Vanstone’s residence on the +Continent. I think I have the means of meeting this difficulty successfully; +and the moment I reach London, those means shall be tried.” +</p> + +<p> +He took up his hat; and then returned to the table on which the father’s +last letter, and the father’s useless will, were lying side by side. +After a moment’s consideration, he placed them both in Miss Garth’s +hands. +</p> + +<p> +“It may help you in breaking the hard truth to the orphan sisters,” +he said, in his quiet, self-repressed way, “if they can see how their +father refers to them in his will—if they can read his letter to me, the +last he ever wrote. Let these tokens tell them that the one idea of their +father’s life was the idea of making atonement to his children. +‘They may think bitterly of their birth,’ he said to me, at the +time when I drew this useless will; ‘but they shall never think bitterly +of me. I will cross them in nothing: they shall never know a sorrow that I can +spare them, or a want which I will not satisfy.’ He made me put those +words in his will, to plead for him when the truth which he had concealed from +his children in his lifetime was revealed to them after his death. No law can +deprive his daughters of the legacy of his repentance and his love. I leave the +will and the letter to help you: I give them both into your care.” +</p> + +<p> +He saw how his parting kindness touched her and thoughtfully hastened the +farewell. She took his hand in both her own and murmured a few broken words of +gratitude. “Trust me to do my best,” he said—and, turning +away with a merciful abruptness, left her. In the broad, cheerful sunshine he +had come in to reveal the fatal truth. In the broad, cheerful +sunshine—that truth disclosed—he went out. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h3> + +<p> +It was nearly an hour past noon when Mr. Pendril left the house. Miss Garth sat +down again at the table alone, and tried to face the necessity which the event +of the morning now forced on her. +</p> + +<p> +Her mind was not equal to the effort. She tried to lessen the strain on +it—to lose the sense of her own position—to escape from her +thoughts for a few minutes only. After a little, she opened Mr. +Vanstone’s letter, and mechanically set herself to read it through once +more. +</p> + +<p> +One by one, the last words of the dead man fastened themselves more and more +firmly on her attention. The unrelieved solitude, the unbroken silence, helped +their influence on her mind and opened it to those very impressions of past and +present which she was most anxious to shun. As she reached the melancholy lines +which closed the letter, she found herself—insensibly, almost +unconsciously, at first—tracing the fatal chain of events, link by link +backward, until she reached its beginning in the contemplated marriage between +Magdalen and Francis Clare. +</p> + +<p> +That marriage had taken Mr. Vanstone to his old friend, with the confession on +his lips which would otherwise never have escaped them. Thence came the +discovery which had sent him home to summon the lawyer to the house. That +summons, again, had produced the inevitable acceleration of the +Saturday’s journey to Friday; the Friday of the fatal accident, the +Friday when he went to his death. From his death followed the second +bereavement which had made the house desolate; the helpless position of the +daughters whose prosperous future had been his dearest care; the revelation of +the secret which had overwhelmed her that morning; the disclosure, more +terrible still, which she now stood committed to make to the orphan sisters. +For the first time she saw the whole sequence of events—saw it as plainly +as the cloudless blue of the sky and the green glow of the trees in the +sunlight outside. +</p> + +<p> +How—when could she tell them? Who could approach them with the disclosure +of their own illegitimacy before their father and mother had been dead a week? +Who could speak the dreadful words, while the first tears were wet on their +cheeks, while the first pang of separation was at its keenest in their hearts, +while the memory of the funeral was not a day old yet? Not their last friend +left; not the faithful woman whose heart bled for them. No! silence for the +present time, at all risks—merciful silence, for many days to come! +</p> + +<p> +She left the room, with the will and the letter in her hand—with the +natural, human pity at her heart which sealed her lips and shut her eyes +resolutely to the future. In the hall she stopped and listened. Not a sound was +audible. She softly ascended the stairs, on her way to her own room, and passed +the door of Norah’s bed-chamber. Voices inside, the voices of the two +sisters, caught her ear. After a moment’s consideration, she checked +herself, turned back, and quickly descended the stairs again. Both Norah and +Magdalen knew of the interview between Mr. Pendril and herself; she had felt it +her duty to show them his letter making the appointment. Could she excite their +suspicion by locking herself up from them in her room as soon as the lawyer had +left the house? Her hand trembled on the banister; she felt that her face might +betray her. The self-forgetful fortitude, which had never failed her until that +day, had been tried once too often—had been tasked beyond its powers at +last. +</p> + +<p> +At the hall door she reflected for a moment again, and went into the garden; +directing her steps to a rustic bench and table placed out of sight of the +house among the trees. In past times she had often sat there, with Mrs. +Vanstone on one side, with Norah on the other, with Magdalen and the dogs +romping on the grass. Alone she sat there now—the will and the letter +which she dared not trust out of her own possession, laid on the +table—her head bowed over them; her face hidden in her hands. Alone she +sat there and tried to rouse her sinking courage. +</p> + +<p> +Doubts thronged on her of the dark days to come; dread beset her of the hidden +danger which her own silence toward Norah and Magdalen might store up in the +near future. The accident of a moment might suddenly reveal the truth. Mr. +Pendril might write, might personally address himself to the sisters, in the +natural conviction that she had enlightened them. Complications might gather +round them at a moment’s notice; unforeseen necessities might arise for +immediately leaving the house. She saw all these perils—and still the +cruel courage to face the worst, and speak, was as far from her as ever. Ere +long the thickening conflict of her thoughts forced its way outward for relief, +in words and actions. She raised her head and beat her hand helplessly on the +table. +</p> + +<p> +“God help me, what am I to do?” she broke out. “How am I to +tell them?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no need to tell them,” said a voice behind her. +“They know it already.” +</p> + +<p> +She started to her feet and looked round. It was Magdalen who stood before +her—Magdalen who had spoken those words. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, there was the graceful figure, in its mourning garments, standing out tall +and black and motionless against the leafy background. There was Magdalen +herself, with a changeless stillness on her white face; with an icy resignation +in her steady gray eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“We know it already,” she repeated, in clear, measured tones. +“Mr. Vanstone’s daughters are Nobody’s Children; and the law +leaves them helpless at their uncle’s mercy.” +</p> + +<p> +So, without a tear on her cheeks, without a faltering tone in her voice, she +repeated the lawyer’s own words, exactly as he had spoken them. Miss +Garth staggered back a step and caught at the bench to support herself. Her +head swam; she closed her eyes in a momentary faintness. When they opened +again, Magdalen’s arm was supporting her, Magdalen’s breath fanned +her cheek, Magdalen’s cold lips kissed her. She drew back from the kiss; +the touch of the girl’s lips thrilled her with terror. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as she could speak she put the inevitable question. “You heard +us,” she said. “Where?” +</p> + +<p> +“Under the open window.” +</p> + +<p> +“All the time?” +</p> + +<p> +“From beginning to end.” +</p> + +<p> +She had listened—this girl of eighteen, in the first week of her +orphanage, had listened to the whole terrible revelation, word by word, as it +fell from the lawyer’s lips; and had never once betrayed herself! From +first to last, the only movements which had escaped her had been movements +guarded enough and slight enough to be mistaken for the passage of the summer +breeze through the leaves! +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t try to speak yet,” she said, in softer and gentler +tones. “Don’t look at me with those doubting eyes. What wrong have +I done? When Mr. Pendril wished to speak to you about Norah and me, his letter +gave us our choice to be present at the interview, or to keep away. If my elder +sister decided to keep away, how could I come? How could I hear my own story +except as I did? My listening has done no harm. It has done good—it has +saved you the distress of speaking to us. You have suffered enough for us +already; it is time we learned to suffer for ourselves. I have learned. And +Norah is learning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Norah!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I have done all I could to spare you. I have told Norah.” +</p> + +<p> +She had told Norah! Was this girl, whose courage had faced the terrible +necessity from which a woman old enough to be her mother had recoiled, the girl +Miss Garth had brought up? the girl whose nature she had believed to be as well +known to her as her own? +</p> + +<p> +“Magdalen!” she cried out, passionately, “you frighten +me!” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen only sighed, and turned wearily away. +</p> + +<p> +“Try not to think worse of me than I deserve,” she said. “I +can’t cry. My heart is numbed.” +</p> + +<p> +She moved away slowly over the grass. Miss Garth watched the tall black figure +gliding away alone until it was lost among the trees. While it was in sight she +could think of nothing else. The moment it was gone, she thought of Norah. For +the first time in her experience of the sisters her heart led her instinctively +to the elder of the two. +</p> + +<p> +Norah was still in her own room. She was sitting on the couch by the window, +with her mother’s old music-book—the keepsake which Mrs. Vanstone +had found in her husband’s study on the day of her husband’s +death—spread open on her lap. She looked up from it with such quiet +sorrow, and pointed with such ready kindness to the vacant place at her side, +that Miss Garth doubted for the moment whether Magdalen had spoken the truth. +“See,” said Norah, simply, turning to the first leaf in the +music-book—“my mother’s name written in it, and some verses +to my father on the next page. We may keep this for ourselves, if we keep +nothing else.” She put her arm round Miss Garth’s neck, and a faint +tinge of color stole over her cheeks. “I see anxious thoughts in your +face,” she whispered. “Are you anxious about me? Are you doubting +whether I have heard it? I have heard the whole truth. I might have felt it +bitterly, later; it is too soon to feel it now. You have seen Magdalen? She +went out to find you—where did you leave her?” +</p> + +<p> +“In the garden. I couldn’t speak to her; I couldn’t look at +her. Magdalen has frightened me.” +</p> + +<p> +Norah rose hurriedly; rose, startled and distressed by Miss Garth’s +reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t think ill of Magdalen,” she said. “Magdalen +suffers in secret more than I do. Try not to grieve over what you have heard +about us this morning. Does it matter who we are, or what we keep or lose? What +loss is there for us after the loss of our father and mother? Oh, Miss Garth, +<i>there</i> is the only bitterness! What did we remember of them when we laid +them in the grave yesterday? Nothing but the love they gave us—the love +we must never hope for again. What else can we remember to-day? What change can +the world, and the world’s cruel laws make in <i>our</i> memory of the +kindest father, the kindest mother, that children ever had!” She stopped: +struggled with her rising grief; and quietly, resolutely, kept it down. +“Will you wait here,” she said, “while I go and bring +Magdalen back? Magdalen was always your favorite: I want her to be your +favorite still.” She laid the music-book gently on Miss Garth’s +lap—and left the room. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Magdalen was always your favorite.” +</p> + +<p> +Tenderly as they had been spoken, those words fell reproachfully on Miss +Garth’s ear. For the first time in the long companionship of her pupils +and herself a doubt whether she, and all those about her, had not been fatally +mistaken in their relative estimate of the sisters, now forced itself on her +mind. +</p> + +<p> +She had studied the natures of her two pupils in the daily intimacy of twelve +years. Those natures, which she believed herself to have sounded through all +their depths, had been suddenly tried in the sharp ordeal of affliction. How +had they come out from the test? As her previous experience had prepared her to +see them? No: in flat contradiction to it. +</p> + +<p> +What did such a result as this imply? +</p> + +<p> +Thoughts came to her, as she asked herself that question, which have startled +and saddened us all. +</p> + +<p> +Does there exist in every human being, beneath that outward and visible +character which is shaped into form by the social influences surrounding us, an +inward, invisible disposition, which is part of ourselves, which education may +indirectly modify, but can never hope to change? Is the philosophy which denies +this and asserts that we are born with dispositions like blank sheets of paper +a philosophy which has failed to remark that we are not born with blank +faces—a philosophy which has never compared together two infants of a few +days old, and has never observed that those infants are not born with blank +tempers for mothers and nurses to fill up at will? Are there, infinitely +varying with each individual, inbred forces of Good and Evil in all of us, deep +down below the reach of mortal encouragement and mortal repression—hidden +Good and hidden Evil, both alike at the mercy of the liberating opportunity and +the sufficient temptation? Within these earthly limits, is earthly Circumstance +ever the key; and can no human vigilance warn us beforehand of the forces +imprisoned in ourselves which that key <i>may</i> unlock? +</p> + +<p> +For the first time, thoughts such as these rose darkly—as shadowy and +terrible possibilities—in Miss Garth’s mind. For the first time, +she associated those possibilities with the past conduct and characters, with +the future lives and fortunes of the orphan sisters. +</p> + +<p> +Searching, as in a glass darkly, into the two natures, she felt her way, doubt +by doubt, from one possible truth to another. It might be that the upper +surface of their characters was all that she had, thus far, plainly seen in +Norah and Magdalen. It might be that the unalluring secrecy and reserve of one +sister, the all-attractive openness and high spirits of the other, were more or +less referable, in each case, to those physical causes which work toward the +production of moral results. It might be, that under the surface so +formed—a surface which there had been nothing, hitherto, in the happy, +prosperous, uneventful lives of the sisters to disturb—forces of inborn +and inbred disposition had remained concealed, which the shock of the first +serious calamity in their lives had now thrown up into view. Was this so? Was +the promise of the future shining with prophetic light through the +surface-shadow of Norah’s reserve, and darkening with prophetic gloom, +under the surface-glitter of Magdalen’s bright spirits? If the life of +the elder sister was destined henceforth to be the ripening ground of the +undeveloped Good that was in her—was the life of the younger doomed to be +the battle-field of mortal conflict with the roused forces of Evil in herself? +</p> + +<p> +On the brink of that terrible conclusion, Miss Garth shrank back in dismay. Her +heart was the heart of a true woman. It accepted the conviction which raised +Norah higher in her love: it rejected the doubt which threatened to place +Magdalen lower. She rose and paced the room impatiently; she recoiled with an +angry suddenness from the whole train of thought in which her mind had been +engaged but the moment before. What if there were dangerous elements in the +strength of Magdalen’s character—was it not her duty to help the +girl against herself? How had she performed that duty? She had let herself be +governed by first fears and first impressions; she had never waited to consider +whether Magdalen’s openly acknowledged action of that morning might not +imply a self-sacrificing fortitude, which promised, in after-life, the noblest +and the most enduring results. She had let Norah go and speak those words of +tender remonstrance, which she should first have spoken herself. +“Oh!” she thought, bitterly, “how long I have lived in the +world, and how little I have known of my own weakness and wickedness until +to-day!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The door of the room opened. Norah came in, as she had gone out, alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you remember leaving anything on the little table by the +garden-seat?” she asked, quietly. +</p> + +<p> +Before Miss Garth could answer the question, she held out her father’s +will and her father’s letter. +</p> + +<p> +“Magdalen came back after you went away,” she said, “and +found these last relics. She heard Mr. Pendril say they were her legacy and +mine. When I went into the garden she was reading the letter. There was no need +for me to speak to her; our father had spoken to her from his grave. See how +she has listened to him!” +</p> + +<p> +She pointed to the letter. The traces of heavy tear-drops lay thick over the +last lines of the dead man’s writing. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Her</i> tears,” said Norah, softly. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Garth’s head drooped low over the mute revelation of +Magdalen’s return to her better self. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, never doubt her again!” pleaded Norah. “We are alone +now—we have our hard way through the world to walk on as patiently as we +can. If Magdalen ever falters and turns back, help her for the love of old +times; help her against herself.” +</p> + +<p> +“With all my heart and strength—as God shall judge me, with the +devotion of my whole life!” In those fervent words Miss Garth answered. +She took the hand which Norah held out to her, and put it, in sorrow and +humility, to her lips. “Oh, my love, forgive me! I have been miserably +blind—I have never valued you as I ought!” +</p> + +<p> +Norah gently checked her before she could say more; gently whispered, +“Come with me into the garden—come, and help Magdalen to look +patiently to the future.” +</p> + +<p> +The future! Who could see the faintest glimmer of it? Who could see anything +but the ill-omened figure of Michael Vanstone, posted darkly on the verge of +the present time—and closing all the prospect that lay beyond him? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h3> + +<p> +On the next morning but one, news was received from Mr. Pendril. The place of +Michael Vanstone’s residence on the Continent had been discovered. He was +living at Zurich; and a letter had been dispatched to him, at that place, on +the day when the information was obtained. In the course of the coming week an +answer might be expected, and the purport of it should be communicated +forthwith to the ladies at Combe-Raven. +</p> + +<p> +Short as it was, the interval of delay passed wearily. Ten days elapsed before +the expected answer was received; and when it came at last, it proved to be, +strictly speaking, no answer at all. Mr. Pendril had been merely referred to an +agent in London who was in possession of Michael Vanstone’s instructions. +Certain difficulties had been discovered in connection with those instructions, +which had produced the necessity of once more writing to Zurich. And there +“the negotiations” rested again for the present. +</p> + +<p> +A second paragraph in Mr. Pendril’s letter contained another piece of +intelligence entirely new. Mr. Michael Vanstone’s son (and only child), +Mr. Noel Vanstone, had recently arrived in London, and was then staying in +lodgings occupied by his cousin, Mr. George Bartram. Professional +considerations had induced Mr. Pendril to pay a visit to the lodgings. He had +been very kindly received by Mr. Bartram; but had been informed by that +gentleman that his cousin was not then in a condition to receive visitors. Mr. +Noel Vanstone had been suffering, for some years past, from a wearing and +obstinate malady; he had come to England expressly to obtain the best medical +advice, and he still felt the fatigue of the journey so severely as to be +confined to his bed. Under these circumstances, Mr. Pendril had no alternative +but to take his leave. An interview with Mr. Noel Vanstone might have cleared +up some of the difficulties in connection with his father’s instructions. +As events had turned out, there was no help for it but to wait for a few days +more. +</p> + +<p> +The days passed, the empty days of solitude and suspense. At last, a third +letter from the lawyer announced the long delayed conclusion of the +correspondence. The final answer had been received from Zurich, and Mr. Pendril +would personally communicate it at Combe-Raven on the afternoon of the next +day. +</p> + +<p> +That next day was Wednesday, the twelfth of August. The weather had changed in +the night; and the sun rose watery through mist and cloud. By noon the sky was +overcast at all points; the temperature was sensibly colder; and the rain +poured down, straight and soft and steady, on the thirsty earth. Toward three +o’clock, Miss Garth and Norah entered the morning-room, to await Mr. +Pendril’s arrival. They were joined shortly afterward by Magdalen. In +half an hour more the familiar fall of the iron latch in the socket reached +their ears from the fence beyond the shrubbery. Mr. Pendril and Mr. Clare +advanced into view along the garden-path, walking arm-in-arm through the rain, +sheltered by the same umbrella. The lawyer bowed as they passed the windows; +Mr. Clare walked straight on, deep in his own thoughts—noticing nothing. +</p> + +<p> +After a delay which seemed interminable; after a weary scraping of wet feet on +the hall mat; after a mysterious, muttered interchange of question and answer +outside the door, the two came in—Mr. Clare leading the way. The old man +walked straight up to the table, without any preliminary greeting, and looked +across it at the three women, with a stern pity for them in his ragged, +wrinkled face. +</p> + +<p> +“Bad news,” he said. “I am an enemy to all unnecessary +suspense. Plainness is kindness in such a case as this. I mean to be +kind—and I tell you plainly—bad news.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pendril followed him. He shook hands, in silence, with Miss Garth and the +two sisters, and took a seat near them. Mr. Clare placed himself apart on a +chair by the window. The gray rainy light fell soft and sad on the faces of +Norah and Magdalen, who sat together opposite to him. Miss Garth had placed +herself a little behind them, in partial shadow; and the lawyer’s quiet +face was seen in profile, close beside her. So the four occupants of the room +appeared to Mr. Clare, as he sat apart in his corner; his long claw-like +fingers interlaced on his knee; his dark vigilant eyes fixed searchingly now on +one face, now on another. The dripping rustle of the rain among the leaves, and +the clear, ceaseless tick of the clock on the mantel-piece, made the minute of +silence which followed the settling of the persons present in their places +indescribably oppressive. It was a relief to every one when Mr. Pendril spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Clare has told you already,” he began, “that I am the +bearer of bad news. I am grieved to say, Miss Garth, that your doubts, when I +last saw you, were better founded than my hopes. What that heartless elder +brother was in his youth, he is still in his old age. In all my unhappy +experience of the worst side of human nature, I have never met with a man so +utterly dead to every consideration of mercy as Michael Vanstone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean that he takes the whole of his brother’s fortune, and +makes no provision whatever for his brother’s children?” asked Miss +Garth. +</p> + +<p> +“He offers a sum of money for present emergencies,” replied Mr. +Pendril, “so meanly and disgracefully insufficient that I am ashamed to +mention it.” +</p> + +<p> +“And nothing for the future?” +</p> + +<p> +“Absolutely nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +As that answer was given, the same thought passed, at the same moment, through +Miss Garth’s mind and through Norah’s. The decision, which deprived +both the sisters alike of the resources of fortune, did not end there for the +younger of the two. Michael Vanstone’s merciless resolution had virtually +pronounced the sentence which dismissed Frank to China, and which destroyed all +present hope of Magdalen’s marriage. As the words passed the +lawyer’s lips, Miss Garth and Norah looked at Magdalen anxiously. Her +face turned a shade paler—but not a feature of it moved; not a word +escaped her. Norah, who held her sister’s hand in her own, felt it +tremble for a moment, and then turn cold—and that was all. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me mention plainly what I have done,” resumed Mr. Pendril; +“I am very desirous you should not think that I have left any effort +untried. When I wrote to Michael Vanstone, in the first instance, I did not +confine myself to the usual formal statement. I put before him, plainly and +earnestly, every one of the circumstances under which he has become possessed +of his brother’s fortune. When I received the answer, referring me to his +written instructions to his lawyer in London—and when a copy of those +instructions was placed in my hands—I positively declined, on becoming +acquainted with them, to receive the writer’s decision as final. I +induced the solicitor, on the other side, to accord us a further term of delay; +I attempted to see Mr. Noel Vanstone in London for the purpose of obtaining his +intercession; and, failing in that, I myself wrote to his father for the second +time. The answer referred me, in insolently curt terms, to the instructions +already communicated; declared those instructions to be final; and declined any +further correspondence with me. There is the beginning and the end of the +negotiation. If I have overlooked any means of touching this heartless +man—tell me, and those means shall be tried.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at Norah. She pressed her sister’s hand encouragingly, and +answered for both of them. +</p> + +<p> +“I speak for my sister, as well as for myself,” she said, with her +color a little heightened, with her natural gentleness of manner just touched +by a quiet, uncomplaining sadness. “You have done all that could be done, +Mr. Pendril. We have tried to restrain ourselves from hoping too confidently; +and we are deeply grateful for your kindness, at a time when kindness is sorely +needed by both of us.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen’s hand returned the pressure of her +sister’s—withdrew itself—trifled for a moment impatiently +with the arrangement of her dress—then suddenly moved the chair closer to +the table. Leaning one arm on it (with the hand fast clinched), she looked +across at Mr. Pendril. Her face, always remarkable for its want of color, was +now startling to contemplate, in its blank, bloodless pallor. But the light in +her large gray eyes was bright and steady as ever; and her voice, though low in +tone, was clear and resolute in accent as she addressed the lawyer in these +terms: +</p> + +<p> +“I understood you to say, Mr. Pendril, that my father’s brother had +sent his written orders to London, and that you had a copy. Have you preserved +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you got it about you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have.” +</p> + +<p> +“May I see it?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pendril hesitated, and looked uneasily from Magdalen to Miss Garth, and +from Miss Garth back again to Magdalen. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray oblige me by not pressing your request,” he said. “It +is surely enough that you know the result of the instructions. Why should you +agitate yourself to no purpose by reading them? They are expressed so cruelly; +they show such abominable want of feeling, that I really cannot prevail upon +myself to let you see them.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sensible of your kindness, Mr. Pendril, in wishing to spare me +pain. But I can bear pain; I promise to distress nobody. Will you excuse me if +I repeat my request?” +</p> + +<p> +She held out her hand—the soft, white, virgin hand that had touched +nothing to soil it or harden it yet. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Magdalen, think again!” said Norah. +</p> + +<p> +“You distress Mr. Pendril,” added Miss Garth; “you distress +us all.” +</p> + +<p> +“There can be no end gained,” pleaded the +lawyer—“forgive me for saying so—there can really be no +useful end gained by my showing you the instructions.” +</p> + +<p> +(“Fools!” said Mr. Clare to himself. “Have they no eyes to +see that she means to have her own way?”) +</p> + +<p> +“Something tells me there is an end to be gained,” persisted +Magdalen. “This decision is a very serious one. It is more serious to +me—” She looked round at Mr. Clare, who sat closely watching her, +and instantly looked back again, with the first outward betrayal of emotion +which had escaped her yet. “It is even more serious to me,” she +resumed, “for private reasons—than it is to my sister. I know +nothing yet but that our father’s brother has taken our fortunes from us. +He must have some motives of his own for such conduct as that. It is not fair +to him, or fair to us, to keep those motives concealed. He has deliberately +robbed Norah, and robbed me; and I think we have a right, if we wish it, to +know why?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t wish it,” said Norah. +</p> + +<p> +“I do,” said Magdalen; and once more she held out her hand. +</p> + +<p> +At this point Mr. Clare roused himself and interfered for the first time. +</p> + +<p> +“You have relieved your conscience,” he said, addressing the +lawyer. “Give her the right she claims. It <i>is</i> her right—if +she will have it.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pendril quietly took the written instructions from his pocket. “I +have warned you,” he said—and handed the papers across the table +without another word. One of the pages of writing—was folded down at the +corner; and at that folded page the manuscript opened, when Magdalen first +turned the leaves. “Is this the place which refers to my sister and +myself?” she inquired. Mr. Pendril bowed; and Magdalen smoothed out the +manuscript before her on the table. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you decide, Norah?” she asked, turning to her sister. +“Shall I read this aloud, or shall I read it to myself?” +</p> + +<p> +“To yourself,” said Miss Garth; answering for Norah, who looked at +her in mute perplexity and distress. +</p> + +<p> +“It shall be as you wish,” said Magdalen. With that reply, she +turned again to the manuscript and read these lines: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“. . . . You are now in possession of my wishes in relation to the +property in money, and to the sale of the furniture, carriages, horses, and so +forth. The last point left on which it is necessary for me to instruct you +refers to the persons inhabiting the house, and to certain preposterous claims +on their behalf set up by a solicitor named Pendril; who has, no doubt, +interested reasons of his own for making application to me. +</p> + +<p> +“I understand that my late brother has left two illegitimate children; +both of them young women, who are of an age to earn their own livelihood. +Various considerations, all equally irregular, have been urged in respect to +these persons by the solicitor representing them. Be so good as to tell him +that neither you nor I have anything to do with questions of mere sentiment; +and then state plainly, for his better information, what the motives are which +regulate my conduct, and what the provision is which I feel myself justified in +making for the two young women. Your instructions on both these points you will +find detailed in the next paragraph. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish the persons concerned to know, once for all, how I regard the +circumstances which have placed my late brother’s property at my +disposal. Let them understand that I consider those circumstances to be a +Providential interposition which has restored to me the inheritance that ought +always to have been mine. I receive the money, not only as my right, but also +as a proper compensation for the injustice which I suffered from my father, and +a proper penalty paid by my younger brother for the vile intrigue by which he +succeeded in disinheriting me. His conduct, when a young man, was uniformly +discreditable in all the relations of life; and what it then was it continued +to be (on the showing of his own legal representative) after the time when I +ceased to hold any communication with him. He appears to have systematically +imposed a woman on Society as his wife who was not his wife, and to have +completed the outrage on morality by afterward marrying her. Such conduct as +this has called down a Judgment on himself and his children. I will not invite +retribution on my own head by assisting those children to continue the +imposition which their parents practiced, and by helping them to take a place +in the world to which they are not entitled. Let them, as becomes their birth, +gain their bread in situations. If they show themselves disposed to accept +their proper position I will assist them to start virtuously in life by a +present of one hundred pounds each. This sum I authorize you to pay them, on +their personal application, with the necessary acknowledgment of receipt; and +on the express understanding that the transaction, so completed, is to be the +beginning and the end of my connection with them. The arrangements under which +they quit the house I leave to your discretion; and I have only to add that my +decision on this matter, as on all other matters, is positive and final.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Line by line—without once looking up from the pages before her +—Magdalen read those atrocious sentences through, from beginning to end. +The other persons assembled in the room, all eagerly looking at her together, +saw the dress rising and falling faster and faster over her bosom—saw the +hand in which she lightly held the manuscript at the outset close unconsciously +on the paper and crush it, as she advanced nearer and nearer to the +end—but detected no other outward signs of what was passing within her. +As soon as she had done, she silently pushed the manuscript away, and put her +hands on a sudden over her face. When she withdrew them, all the four persons +in the room noticed a change in her. Something in her expression had altered, +subtly and silently; something which made the familiar features suddenly look +strange, even to her sister and Miss Garth; something, through all after years, +never to be forgotten in connection with that day—and never to be +described. +</p> + +<p> +The first words she spoke were addressed to Mr. Pendril. +</p> + +<p> +“May I ask one more favor,” she said, “before you enter on +your business arrangements?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pendril replied ceremoniously by a gesture of assent. Magdalen’s +resolution to possess herself of the Instructions did not appear to have +produced a favorable impression on the lawyer’s mind. +</p> + +<p> +“You mentioned what you were so kind as to do, in our interests, when you +first wrote to Mr. Michael Vanstone,” she continued. “You said you +had told him all the circumstances. I want—if you will allow me—to +be made quite sure of what he really knew about us—when he sent these +orders to his lawyer. Did he know that my father had made a will, and that he +had left our fortunes to my sister and myself?” +</p> + +<p> +“He did know it,” said Mr. Pendril. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you tell him how it happened that we are left in this helpless +position?” +</p> + +<p> +“I told him that your father was entirely unaware, when he married, of +the necessity for making another will.” +</p> + +<p> +“And that another will would have been made, after he saw Mr. Clare, but +for the dreadful misfortune of his death?” +</p> + +<p> +“He knew that also.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he know that my father’s untiring goodness and kindness to +both of us—” +</p> + +<p> +Her voice faltered for the first time: she sighed, and put her hand to her head +wearily. Norah spoke entreatingly to her; Miss Garth spoke entreatingly to her; +Mr. Clare sat silent, watching her more and more earnestly. She answered her +sister’s remonstrance with a faint smile. “I will keep my +promise,” she said; “I will distress nobody.” With that +reply, she turned again to Mr. Pendril; and steadily reiterated the +question—but in another form of words. +</p> + +<p> +“Did Mr. Michael Vanstone know that my father’s great anxiety was +to make sure of providing for my sister and myself?” +</p> + +<p> +“He knew it in your father’s own words. I sent him an extract from +your father’s last letter to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“The letter which asked you to come for God’s sake, and relieve him +from the dreadful thought that his daughters were unprovided for? The letter +which said he should not rest in his grave if he left us disinherited?” +</p> + +<p> +“That letter and those words.” +</p> + +<p> +She paused, still keeping her eyes steadily fixed on the lawyer’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to fasten it all in my mind,” she said “before I go +on. Mr. Michael Vanstone knew of the first will; he knew what prevented the +making of the second will; he knew of the letter and he read the words. What +did he know of besides? Did you tell him of my mother’s last illness? Did +you say that her share in the money would have been left to us, if she could +have lifted her dying hand in your presence? Did you try to make him ashamed of +the cruel law which calls girls in our situation Nobody’s Children, and +which allows him to use us as he is using us now?” +</p> + +<p> +“I put all those considerations to him. I left none of them doubtful; I +left none of them out.” +</p> + +<p> +She slowly reached her hand to the copy of the Instructions, and slowly folded +it up again, in the shape in which it had been presented to her. “I am +much obliged to you, Mr. Pendril.” With those words, she bowed, and +gently pushed the manuscript back across the table; then turned to her sister. +</p> + +<p> +“Norah,” she said, “if we both of us live to grow old, and if +you ever forget all that we owe to Michael Vanstone—come to me, and I +will remind you.” +</p> + +<p> +She rose and walked across the room by herself to the window. As she passed Mr. +Clare, the old man stretched out his claw-like fingers and caught her fast by +the arm before she was aware of him. +</p> + +<p> +“What is this mask of yours hiding?” he asked, forcing her to bend +to him, and looking close into her face. “Which of the extremes of human +temperature does your courage start from—the dead cold or the white +hot?” +</p> + +<p> +She shrank back from him and turned away her head in silence. She would have +resented that unscrupulous intrusion on her own thoughts from any man alive but +Frank’s father. He dropped her arm as suddenly as he had taken it, and +let her go on to the window. “No,” he said to himself, “not +the cold extreme, whatever else it may be. So much the worse for her, and for +all belonging to her.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a momentary pause. Once more the dripping rustle of the rain and the +steady ticking of the clock filled up the gap of silence. Mr. Pendril put the +Instructions back in his pocket, considered a little, and, turning toward Norah +and Miss Garth, recalled their attention to the present and pressing +necessities of the time. +</p> + +<p> +“Our consultation has been needlessly prolonged,” he said, +“by painful references to the past. We shall be better employed in +settling our arrangements for the future. I am obliged to return to town this +evening. Pray let me hear how I can best assist you; pray tell me what trouble +and what responsibility I can take off your hands.” +</p> + +<p> +For the moment, neither Norah nor Miss Garth seemed to be capable of answering +him. Magdalen’s reception of the news which annihilated the marriage +prospect that her father’s own lips had placed before her not a month +since, had bewildered and dismayed them alike. They had summoned their courage +to meet the shock of her passionate grief, or to face the harder trial of +witnessing her speechless despair. But they were not prepared for her +invincible resolution to read the Instructions; for the terrible questions +which she had put to the lawyer; for her immovable determination to fix all the +circumstances in her mind, under which Michael Vanstone’s decision had +been pronounced. There she stood at the window, an unfathomable mystery to the +sister who had never been parted from her, to the governess who had trained her +from a child. Miss Garth remembered the dark doubts which had crossed her mind +on the day when she and Magdalen had met in the garden. Norah looked forward to +the coming time, with the first serious dread of it on her sister’s +account which she had felt yet. Both had hitherto remained passive, in despair +of knowing what to do. Both were now silent, in despair of knowing what to say. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pendril patiently and kindly helped them, by returning to the subject of +their future plans for the second time. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry to press any business matters on your attention,” he +said, “when you are necessarily unfitted to deal with them. But I must +take my instructions back to London with me to-night. With reference, in the +first place, to the disgraceful pecuniary offer, to which I have already +alluded. The younger Miss Vanstone having read the Instructions, needs no +further information from my lips. The elder will, I hope, excuse me if I tell +her (what I should be ashamed to tell her, but that it is a matter of +necessity), that Mr. Michael Vanstone’s provision for his brother’s +children begins and ends with an offer to each of them of one hundred +pounds.” +</p> + +<p> +Norah’s face crimsoned with indignation. She started to her feet, as if +Michael Vanstone had been present in the room, and had personally insulted her. +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said the lawyer, wishing to spare her; “I may tell +Mr. Michael Vanstone you refuse the money.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him,” she broke out passionately, “if I was starving by +the roadside, I wouldn’t touch a farthing of it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I notify your refusal also?” asked Mr. Pendril, speaking to +Magdalen next. +</p> + +<p> +She turned round from the window—but kept her face in shadow, by standing +close against it with her back to the light. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him, on my part,” she said, “to think again before he +starts me in life with a hundred pounds. I will give him time to think.” +She spoke those strange words with a marked emphasis; and turning back quickly +to the window, hid her face from the observation of every one in the room. +</p> + +<p> +“You both refuse the offer,” said Mr. Pendril, taking out his +pencil, and making his professional note of the decision. As he shut up his +pocketbook, he glanced toward Magdalen doubtfully. She had roused in him the +latent distrust which is a lawyer’s second nature: he had his suspicions +of her looks; he had his suspicions of her language. Her sister seemed to have +mere influence over her than Miss Garth. He resolved to speak privately to her +sister before he went away. +</p> + +<p> +While the idea was passing through his mind, his attention was claimed by +another question from Magdalen. +</p> + +<p> +“Is he an old man?” she asked, suddenly, without turning round from +the window. +</p> + +<p> +“If you mean Mr. Michael Vanstone, he is seventy-five or seventy-six +years of age.” +</p> + +<p> +“You spoke of his son a little while since. Has he any other +sons—or daughters?” +</p> + +<p> +“None.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know anything of his wife?” +</p> + +<p> +“She has been dead for many years.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. “Why do you ask these questions?” said Norah. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” replied Magdalen, quietly; “I +won’t ask any more.” +</p> + +<p> +For the third time, Mr. Pendril returned to the business of the interview. +</p> + +<p> +“The servants must not be forgotten,” he said. “They must be +settled with and discharged: I will give them the necessary explanation before +I leave. As for the house, no questions connected with it need trouble you. The +carriages and horses, the furniture and plate, and so on, must simply be left +on the premises to await Mr. Michael Vanstone’s further orders. But any +possessions, Miss Vanstone, personally belonging to you or to your +sister—jewelry and dresses, and any little presents which may have been +made to you—are entirely at your disposal. With regard to the time of +your departure, I understand that a month or more will elapse before Mr. +Michael Vanstone can leave Zurich; and I am sure I only do his solicitor +justice in saying—” +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me, Mr. Pendril,” interposed Norah; “I think I +understand, from what you have just said, that our house and everything in it +belongs to—?” She stopped, as if the mere utterance of the +man’s name was abhorrent to her. +</p> + +<p> +“To Michael Vanstone,” said Mr. Pendril. “The house goes to +him with the rest of the property.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I, for one, am ready to leave it tomorrow!” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen started at the window, as her sister spoke, and looked at Mr. Clare, +with the first open signs of anxiety and alarm which she had shown yet. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be angry with me,” she whispered, stooping over the +old man with a sudden humility of look, and a sudden nervousness of manner. +“I can’t go without seeing Frank first!” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall see him,” replied Mr. Clare. “I am here to speak +to you about it, when the business is done.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is quite unnecessary to hurry your departure, as you propose,” +continued Mr. Pendril, addressing Norah. “I can safely assure you that a +week hence will be time enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“If this is Mr. Michael Vanstone’s house,” repeated Norah; +“I am ready to leave it tomorrow.” +</p> + +<p> +She impatiently quitted her chair and seated herself further away on the sofa. +As she laid her hand on the back of it, her face changed. There, at the head of +the sofa, were the cushions which had supported her mother when she lay down +for the last time to repose. There, at the foot of the sofa, was the clumsy, +old-fashioned arm-chair, which had been her father’s favorite seat on +rainy days, when she and her sister used to amuse him at the piano opposite, by +playing his favorite tunes. A heavy sigh, which she tried vainly to repress, +burst from her lips. “Oh,” she thought, “I had forgotten +these old friends! How shall we part from them when the time comes!” +</p> + +<p> +“May I inquire, Miss Vanstone, whether you and your sister have formed +any definite plans for the future?” asked Mr. Pendril. “Have you +thought of any place of residence?” +</p> + +<p> +“I may take it on myself, sir,” said Miss Garth, “to answer +your question for them. When they leave this house, they leave it with me. My +home is their home, and my bread is their bread. Their parents honored me, +trusted me, and loved me. For twelve happy years they never let me remember +that I was their governess; they only let me know myself as their companion and +their friend. My memory of them is the memory of unvarying gentleness and +generosity; and my life shall pay the debt of my gratitude to their orphan +children.” +</p> + +<p> +Norah rose hastily from the sofa; Magdalen impetuously left the window. For +once, there was no contrast in the conduct of the sisters. For once, the same +impulse moved their hearts, the same earnest feeling inspired their words. Miss +Garth waited until the first outburst of emotion had passed away; then rose, +and, taking Norah and Magdalen each by the hand, addressed herself to Mr. +Pendril and Mr. Clare. She spoke with perfect self-possession; strong in her +artless unconsciousness of her own good action. +</p> + +<p> +“Even such a trifle as my own story,” she said, “is of some +importance at such a moment as this. I wish you both, gentlemen, to understand +that I am not promising more to the daughters of your old friend than I can +perform. When I first came to this house, I entered it under such independent +circumstances as are not common in the lives of governesses. In my younger +days, I was associated in teaching with my elder sister: we established a +school in London, which grew to be a large and prosperous one. I only left it, +and became a private governess, because the heavy responsibility of the school +was more than my strength could bear. I left my share in the profits untouched, +and I possess a pecuniary interest in our establishment to this day. That is my +story, in few words. When we leave this house, I propose that we shall go back +to the school in London, which is still prosperously directed by my elder +sister. We can live there as quietly as we please, until time has helped us to +bear our affliction better than we can bear it now. If Norah’s and +Magdalen’s altered prospects oblige them to earn their own independence, +I can help them to earn it, as a gentleman’s daughters should. The best +families in this land are glad to ask my sister’s advice where the +interests of their children’s home-training are concerned; and I answer, +beforehand, for her hearty desire to serve Mr. Vanstone’s daughters, as I +answer for my own. That is the future which my gratitude to their father and +mother, and my love for themselves, now offers to them. If you think my +proposal, gentlemen, a fit and fair proposal—and I see in your faces that +you do—let us not make the hard necessities of our position harder still, +by any useless delay in meeting them at once. Let us do what we must do; let us +act on Norah’s decision, and leave this house to-morrow. You mentioned +the servants just now, Mr. Pendril: I am ready to call them together in the +next room, and to assist you in the settlement of their claims, whenever you +please.” +</p> + +<p> +Without waiting for the lawyer’s answer, without leaving the sisters time +to realize their own terrible situation, she moved at once toward the door. It +was her wise resolution to meet the coming trial by doing much and saying +little. Before she could leave the room, Mr. Clare followed, and stopped her on +the threshold. +</p> + +<p> +“I never envied a woman’s feelings before,” said the old man. +“It may surprise you to hear it; but I envy yours. Wait! I have something +more to say. There is an obstacle still left—the everlasting obstacle of +Frank. Help me to sweep him off. Take the elder sister along with you and the +lawyer, and leave me here to have it out with the younger. I want to see what +metal she’s really made of.” +</p> + +<p> +While Mr. Clare was addressing these words to Miss Garth, Mr. Pendril had taken +the opportunity of speaking to Norah. “Before I go back to town,” +he said, “I should like to have a word with you in private. From what has +passed today, Miss Vanstone, I have formed a very high opinion of your +discretion; and, as an old friend of your father’s, I want to take the +freedom of speaking to you about your sister.” +</p> + +<p> +Before Norah could answer, she was summoned, in compliance with Mr. +Clare’s request, to the conference with the servants. Mr. Pendril +followed Miss Garth, as a matter of course. When the three were out in the +hall, Mr. Clare re-entered the room, closed the door, and signed peremptorily +to Magdalen to take a chair. +</p> + +<p> +She obeyed him in silence. He took a turn up and down the room, with his hands +in the side-pockets of the long, loose, shapeless coat which he habitually +wore. +</p> + +<p> +“How old are you?” he said, stopping suddenly, and speaking to her +with the whole breadth of the room between them. +</p> + +<p> +“I was eighteen last birthday,” she answered, humbly, without +looking up at him. +</p> + +<p> +“You have shown extraordinary courage for a girl of eighteen. Have you +got any of that courage left?” +</p> + +<p> +She clasped her hands together, and wrung them hard. A few tears gathered in +her eyes, and rolled slowly over her cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t give Frank up,” she said, faintly. “You +don’t care for me, I know; but you used to care for my father. Will you +try to be kind to me for my father’s sake?” +</p> + +<p> +The last words died away in a whisper; she could say no more. Never had she +felt the illimitable power which a woman’s love possesses of absorbing +into itself every other event, every other joy or sorrow of her life, as she +felt it then. Never had she so tenderly associated Frank with the memory of her +lost parents, as at that moment. Never had the impenetrable atmosphere of +illusion through which women behold the man of their choice—the +atmosphere which had blinded her to all that was weak, selfish, and mean in +Frank’s nature—surrounded him with a brighter halo than now, when +she was pleading with the father for the possession of the son. “Oh, +don’t ask me to give him up!” she said, trying to take courage, and +shuddering from head to foot. In the next instant, she flew to the opposite +extreme, with the suddenness of a flash of lightning. “I won’t give +him up!” she burst out violently. “No! not if a thousand fathers +ask me!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am one father,” said Mr. Clare. “And I don’t ask +you.” +</p> + +<p> +In the first astonishment and delight of hearing those unexpected words, she +started to her feet, crossed the room, and tried to throw her arms round his +neck. She might as well have attempted to move the house from its foundations. +He took her by the shoulders and put her back in her chair. His inexorable eyes +looked her into submission; and his lean forefinger shook at her warningly, as +if he was quieting a fractious child. +</p> + +<p> +“Hug Frank,” he said; “don’t hug me. I haven’t +done with you yet; when I have, you may shake hands with me, if you like. Wait, +and compose yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +He left her. His hands went back into his pockets, and his monotonous march up +and down the room began again. +</p> + +<p> +“Ready?” he asked, stopping short after a while. She tried to +answer. “Take two minutes more,” he said, and resumed his walk with +the regularity of clock-work. “These are the creatures,” he thought +to himself, “into whose keeping men otherwise sensible give the happiness +of their lives. Is there any other object in creation, I wonder, which answers +its end as badly as a woman does?” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped before her once more. Her breathing was easier; the dark flush on +her face was dying out again. +</p> + +<p> +“Ready?” he repeated. “Yes; ready at last. Listen to me; and +let’s get it over. I don’t ask you to give Frank up. I ask you to +wait.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will wait,” she said. “Patiently, willingly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you make Frank wait?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you send him to China?” +</p> + +<p> +Her head drooped upon her bosom, and she clasped her hands again, in silence. +Mr. Clare saw where the difficulty lay, and marched straight up to it on the +spot. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t pretend to enter into your feelings for Frank, or +Frank’s for you,” he said. “The subject doesn’t +interest me. But I <i>do</i> pretend to state two plain truths. It is one plain +truth that you can’t be married till you have money enough to pay for the +roof that shelters you, the clothes that cover you, and the victuals you eat. +It is another plain truth that you can’t find the money; that I +can’t find the money; and that Frank’s only chance of finding it, +is going to China. If I tell him to go, he’ll sit in a corner and cry. If +I insist, he’ll say Yes, and deceive me. If I go a step further, and see +him on board ship with my own eyes, he’ll slip off in the pilot’s +boat, and sneak back secretly to you. That’s his disposition.” +</p> + +<p> +“No!” said Magdalen. “It’s not his disposition; +it’s his love for Me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Call it what you like,” retorted Mr. Clare. “Sneak or +Sweetheart —he’s too slippery, in either capacity, for my fingers +to hold him. My shutting the door won’t keep him from coming back. Your +shutting the door will. Have you the courage to shut it? Are you fond enough of +him not to stand in his light?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fond! I would die for him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you send him to China?” +</p> + +<p> +She sighed bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +“Have a little pity for me,” she said. “I have lost my +father; I have lost my mother; I have lost my fortune—and now I am to +lose Frank. You don’t like women, I know; but try to help me with a +little pity. I don’t say it’s not for his own interests to send him +to China; I only say it’s hard—very, very hard on <i>me</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Clare had been deaf to her violence, insensible to her caresses, blind to +her tears; but under the tough integument of his philosophy he had a +heart—and it answered that hopeless appeal; it felt those touching words. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t deny that your case is a hard one,” he said. +“I don’t want to make it harder. I only ask you to do in +Frank’s interests what Frank is too weak to do for himself. It’s no +fault of yours; it’s no fault of mine—but it’s not the less +true that the fortune you were to have brought him has changed owners.” +</p> + +<p> +She suddenly looked up, with a furtive light in her eyes, with a threatening +smile on her lips. +</p> + +<p> +“It may change owners again,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Clare saw the alteration in her expression, and heard the tones of her +voice. But the words were spoken low; spoken as if to herself—they failed +to reach him across the breadth of the room. He stopped instantly in his walk +and asked what she had said. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing,” she answered, turning her head away toward the window, +and looking out mechanically at the falling rain. “Only my own +thoughts.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Clare resumed his walk, and returned to his subject. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s your interest,” he went on, “as well as +Frank’s interest, that he should go. He may make money enough to marry +you in China; he can’t make it here. If he stops at home, he’ll be +the ruin of both of you. He’ll shut his eyes to every consideration of +prudence, and pester you to marry him; and when he has carried his point, he +will be the first to turn round afterward and complain that you’re a +burden on him. Hear me out! You’re in love with Frank—I’m +not, and I know him. Put you two together often enough; give him time enough to +hug, cry, pester, and plead; and I’ll tell you what the end will +be—you’ll marry him.” +</p> + +<p> +He had touched the right string at last. It rung back in answer before he could +add another word. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know me,” she said, firmly. “You don’t +know what I can suffer for Frank’s sake. He shall never marry me till I +can be what my father said I should be—the making of his fortune. He +shall take no burden, when he takes me; I promise you that! I’ll be the +good angel of Frank’s life; I’ll not go a penniless girl to him, +and drag him down.” She abruptly left her seat, advanced a few steps +toward Mr. Clare, and stopped in the middle of the room. Her arms fell helpless +on either side of her, and she burst into tears. “He shall go,” she +said. “If my heart breaks in doing it, I’ll tell him to-morrow that +we must say Good-by!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Clare at once advanced to meet her, and held out his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll help you,” he said. “Frank shall hear every word +that has passed between us. When he comes to-morrow he shall know, beforehand, +that he comes to say Good-by.” +</p> + +<p> +She took his hand in both her own—hesitated—looked at him—and +pressed it to her bosom. “May I ask a favor of you, before you go?” +she said, timidly. He tried to take his hand from her; but she knew her +advantage, and held it fast. “Suppose there should be some change for the +better?” she went on. “Suppose I could come to Frank, as my fat her +said I should come to him—?” +</p> + +<p> +Before she could complete the question, Mr. Clare made a second effort and +withdrew his hand. “As your father said you should come to him?” he +repeated, looking at her attentively. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she replied. “Strange things happen sometimes. If +strange things happen to me will you let Frank come back before the five years +are out?” +</p> + +<p> +What did she mean? Was she clinging desperately to the hope of melting Michael +Vanstone’s heart? Mr. Clare could draw no other conclusion from what she +had just said to him. At the beginning of the interview he would have roughly +dispelled her delusion. At the end of the interview he left her compassionately +in possession of it. +</p> + +<p> +“You are hoping against all hope,” he said; “but if it gives +you courage, hope on. If this impossible good fortune of yours ever happens, +tell me, and Frank shall come back. In the meantime—” +</p> + +<p> +“In the meantime,” she interposed sadly, “you have my +promise.” +</p> + +<p> +Once more Mr. Clare’s sharp eyes searched her face attentively. +</p> + +<p> +“I will trust your promise,” he said. “You shall see Frank +to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +She went back thoughtfully to her chair, and sat down again in silence. Mr. +Clare made for the door before any formal leave-taking could pass between them. +“Deep!” he thought to himself, as he looked back at her before he +went out; “only eighteen; and too deep for my sounding!” +</p> + +<p> +In the hall he found Norah, waiting anxiously to hear what had happened. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it all over?” she asked. “Does Frank go to China?” +</p> + +<p> +“Be careful how you manage that sister of yours,” said Mr. Clare, +without noticing the question. “She has one great misfortune to contend +with: she’s not made for the ordinary jog-trot of a woman’s life. I +don’t say I can see straight to the end of the good or evil in +her—I only warn you, her future will be no common one.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +An hour later, Mr. Pendril left the house; and, by that night’s post, +Miss Garth dispatched a letter to her sister in London. +</p> + +<h5>THE END OF THE FIRST SCENE.</h5> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap16"></a>BETWEEN THE SCENES.<br/> +<small>PROGRESS OF THE STORY THROUGH THE POST.</small></h3> + +<h4> +I.<br/> +From Norah Vanstone to Mr. Pendril. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Westmoreland House, Kensington,<br/> +“August 14th, 1846. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MR. PENDRIL,— +</p> + +<p> +“The date of this letter will show you that the last of many hard +partings is over. We have left Combe-Raven; we have said farewell to home. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been thinking seriously of what you said to me on Wednesday, +before you went back to town. I entirely agree with you that Miss Garth is more +shaken by all she has gone through for our sakes than she is herself willing to +admit; and that it is my duty, for the future, to spare her all the anxiety +that I can on the subject of my sister and myself. This is very little to do +for our dearest friend, for our second mother. Such as it is, I will do it with +all my heart. +</p> + +<p> +“But, forgive me for saying that I am as far as ever from agreeing with +you about Magdalen. I am so sensible, in our helpless position, of the +importance of your assistance; so anxious to be worthy of the interest of my +father’s trusted adviser and oldest friend, that I feel really and truly +disappointed with myself for differing with you—and yet I do differ. +Magdalen is very strange, very unaccountable, to those who don’t know her +intimately. I can understand that she has innocently misled you; and that she +has presented herself, perhaps, under her least favorable aspect. But that the +clue to her language and her conduct on Wednesday last is to be found in such a +feeling toward the man who has ruined us, as the feeling at which you hinted, +is what I cannot and will not believe of my sister. If you knew, as I do, what +a noble nature she has, you would not be surprised at this obstinate resistance +of mine to your opinion. Will you try to alter it? I don’t mind what Mr. +Clare says; he believes in nothing. But I attach a very serious importance to +what <i>you</i> say; and, kind as I know your motives to be, it distresses me +to think you are doing Magdalen an injustice. +</p> + +<p> +“Having relieved my mind of this confession, I may now come to the proper +object of my letter. I promised, if you could not find leisure time to visit us +to-day, to write and tell you all that happened after you left us. The day has +passed without our seeing you. So I open my writing-case and perform my +promise. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry to say that three of the women-servants—the house-maid, +the kitchen-maid, and even our own maid (to whom I am sure we have always been +kind)—took advantage of your having paid them their wages to pack up and +go as soon as your back was turned. They came to say good-by with as much +ceremony and as little feeling as if they were leaving the house under ordinary +circumstances. The cook, for all her violent temper, behaved very differently: +she sent up a message to say that she would stop and help us to the last. And +Thomas (who has never yet been in any other place than ours) spoke so +gratefully of my dear father’s unvarying kindness to him, and asked so +anxiously to be allowed to go on serving us while his little savings lasted, +that Magdalen and I forgot all formal considerations and both shook hands with +him. The poor lad went out of the room crying. I wish him well; I hope he will +find a kind master and a good place. +</p> + +<p> +“The long, quiet, rainy evening out-of-doors—our last evening at +Combe-Raven—was a sad trial to us. I think winter-time would have weighed +less on our spirits; the drawn curtains and the bright lamps, and the +companionable fires would have helped us. We were only five in the house +altogether—after having once been so many! I can’t tell you how +dreary the gray daylight looked, toward seven o’clock, in the lonely +rooms, and on the noiseless staircase. Surely, the prejudice in favor of long +summer evenings is the prejudice of happy people? We did our best. We kept +ourselves employed, and Miss Garth helped us. The prospect of preparing for our +departure, which had seemed so dreadful earlier in the day, altered into the +prospect of a refuge from ourselves as the evening came on. We each tried at +first to pack up in our own rooms—but the loneliness was more than we +could bear. We carried all our possessions downstairs, and heaped them on the +large dining-table, and so made our preparations together in the same room. I +am sure we have taken nothing away which does not properly belong to us. +</p> + +<p> +“Having already mentioned to you my own conviction that Magdalen was not +herself when you saw her on Wednesday, I feel tempted to stop here and give you +an instance in proof of what I say. The little circumstance happened on +Wednesday night, just before we went up to our rooms. +</p> + +<p> +“After we had packed our dresses and our birthday presents, our books and +our music, we began to sort our letters, which had got confused from being +placed on the table together. Some of my letters were mixed with +Magdalen’s, and some of hers with mine. Among these last I found a card, +which had been given to my sister early in the year by an actor who managed an +amateur theatrical performance in which she took a part. The man had given her +the card, containing his name and address, in the belief that she would be +invited to many more amusements of the same kind, and in the hope that she +would recommend him as a superintendent on future occasions. I only relate +these trifling particulars to show you how little worth keeping such a card +could be, in such circumstances as ours. Naturally enough, I threw it away from +me across the table, meaning to throw it on the floor. It fell short, close to +the place in which Magdalen was sitting. She took it up, looked at it, and +immediately declared that she would not have had this perfectly worthless thing +destroyed for the world. She was almost angry with me for having thrown it +away; almost angry with Miss Garth for asking what she could possibly want with +it! Could there be any plainer proof than this that our +misfortunes—falling so much more heavily on her than on me—have +quite unhinged her, and worn her out? Surely her words and looks are not to be +interpreted against her, when she is not sufficiently mistress of herself to +exert her natural judgment—when she shows the unreasonable petulance of a +child on a question which is not of the slightest importance. +</p> + +<p> +“A little after eleven we went upstairs to try if we could get some rest. +</p> + +<p> +“I drew aside the curtain of my window and looked out. Oh, what a cruel +last night it was: no moon, no stars; such deep darkness that not one of the +dear familiar objects in the garden was visible when I looked for them; such +deep stillness that even my own movements about the room almost frightened me! +I tried to lie down and sleep, but the sense of loneliness came again and quite +overpowered me. You will say I am old enough, at six-and-twenty, to have +exerted more control over myself. I hardly know how it happened, but I stole +into Magdalen’s room, just as I used to steal into it years and years +ago, when we were children. She was not in bed; she was sitting with her +writing materials before her, thinking. I said I wanted to be with her the last +night; and she kissed me, and told me to lie down, and promised soon to follow +me. My mind was a little quieted and I fell asleep. It was daylight when I +woke—and the first sight I saw was Magdalen, still sitting in the chair, +and still thinking. She had never been to bed; she had not slept all through +the night. +</p> + +<p> +“‘I shall sleep when we have left Combe-Raven,’ she said. +‘I shall be better when it is all over, and I have bid Frank +good-by.’ She had in her hand our father’s will, and the letter he +wrote to you; and when she had done speaking, she gave them into my possession. +I was the eldest (she said), and those last precious relics ought to be in my +keeping. I tried to propose to her that we should divide them; but she shook +her head. ‘I have copied for myself,’ was her answer, ‘all +that he says of us in the will, and all that he says in the letter.’ She +told me this, and took from her bosom a tiny white silk bag, which she had made +in the night, and in which she had put the extracts, so as to keep them always +about her. ‘This tells me in his own words what his last wishes were for +both of us,’ she said; ‘and this is all I want for the +future.’ +</p> + +<p> +“These are trifles to dwell on; and I am almost surprised at myself for +not feeling ashamed to trouble you with them. But, since I have known what your +early connection was with my father and mother, I have learned to think of you +(and, I suppose, to write to you) as an old friend. And, besides, I have it so +much at heart to change your opinion of Magdalen, that I can’t help +telling you the smallest things about her which may, in my judgment, end in +making you think of her as I do. +</p> + +<p> +“When breakfast-time came (on Thursday morning), we were surprised to +find a strange letter on the table. Perhaps I ought to mention it to you, in +case of any future necessity for your interference. It was addressed to Miss +Garth, on paper with the deepest mourning-border round it; and the writer was +the same man who followed us on our way home from a walk one day last +spring—Captain Wragge. His object appears to be to assert once more his +audacious claim to a family connection with my poor mother, under cover of a +letter of condolence; which it is an insolence in such a person to have written +at all. He expresses as much sympathy—on his discovery of our affliction +in the newspaper—as if he had been really intimate with us; and he begs +to know, in a postscript (being evidently in total ignorance of all that has +really happened), whether it is thought desirable that he should be present, +among the other relatives, at the reading of the will! The address he gives, at +which letters will reach him for the next fortnight, is, ‘Post-office, +Birmingham.’ This is all I have to tell you on the subject. Both the +letter and the writer seem to me to be equally unworthy of the slightest +notice, on our part or on yours. +</p> + +<p> +“After breakfast Magdalen left us, and went by herself into the +morning-room. The weather being still showery, we had arranged that Francis +Clare should see her in that room, when he presented himself to take his leave. +I was upstairs when he came; and I remained upstairs for more than half an hour +afterward, sadly anxious, as you may well believe, on Magdalen’s account. +</p> + +<p> +“At the end of the half-hour or more, I came downstairs. As I reached the +landing I suddenly heard her voice, raised entreatingly, and calling on him by +his name—then loud sobs—then a frightful laughing and screaming, +both together, that rang through the house. I instantly ran into the room, and +found Magdalen on the sofa in violent hysterics, and Frank standing staring at +her, with a lowering, angry face, biting his nails. +</p> + +<p> +“I felt so indignant—without knowing plainly why, for I was +ignorant, of course, of what had passed at the interview—that I took Mr. +Francis Clare by the shoulders and pushed him out of the room. I am careful to +tell you how I acted toward him, and what led to it; because I understand that +he is excessively offended with me, and that he is likely to mention elsewhere +what he calls my unladylike violence toward him. If he should mention it to +you, I am anxious to acknowledge, of my own accord, that I forgot +myself—not, I hope you will think, without some provocation. +</p> + +<p> +“I pushed him into the hall, leaving Magdalen, for the moment, to Miss +Garth’s care. Instead of going away, he sat down sulkily on one of the +hall chairs. ‘May I ask the reason of this extraordinary violence?’ +he inquired, with an injured look. ‘No,’ I said. ‘You will be +good enough to imagine the reason for yourself, and to leave us immediately, if +you please.’ He sat doggedly in the chair, biting his nails and +considering. ‘What have I done to be treated in this unfeeling +manner?’ he asked, after a while. ‘I can enter into no discussion +with you,’ I answered; ‘I can only request you to leave us. If you +persist in waiting to see my sister again, I will go to the cottage myself and +appeal to your father.’ He got up in a great hurry at those words. +‘I have been infamously used in this business,’ he said. ‘All +the hardships and the sacrifices have fallen to my share. I’m the only +one among you who has any heart: all the rest are as hard as +stones—Magdalen included. In one breath she says she loves me, and in +another she tells me to go to China. What have I done to be treated with this +heartless inconsistency? I am consistent myself—I only want to stop at +home—and (what’s the consequence?) you’re all against +me!’ In that manner he grumbled his way down the steps, and so I saw the +last of him. This was all that passed between us. If he gives you any other +account of it, what he says will be false. He made no attempt to return. An +hour afterward his father came alone to say good-by. He saw Miss Garth and me, +but not Magdalen; and he told us he would take the necessary measures, with +your assistance, for having his son properly looked after in London, and seen +safely on board the vessel when the time came. It was a short visit, and a sad +leave-taking. Even Mr. Clare was sorry, though he tried hard to hide it. +</p> + +<p> +“We had barely two hours, after Mr. Clare had left us, before it would be +time to go. I went back to Magdalen, and found her quieter and better, though +terribly pale and exhausted, and oppressed, as I fancied, by thoughts which she +could not prevail on herself to communicate. She would tell me nothing +then—she has told me nothing since—of what passed between herself +and Francis Clare. When I spoke of him angrily (feeling as I did that he had +distressed and tortured her, when she ought to have had all the encouragement +and comfort from him that man could give), she refused to hear me: she made the +kindest allowances and the sweetest excuses for him, and laid all the blame of +the dreadful state in which I had found her entirely on herself. Was I wrong in +telling you that she had a noble nature? And won’t you alter your opinion +when you read these lines? +</p> + +<p> +“We had no friends to come and bid us good-by; and our few acquaintances +were too far from us—perhaps too indifferent about us—to call. We +employed the little leisure left in going over the house together for the last +time. We took leave of our old schoolroom, our bedrooms, the room where our +mother died, the little study where our father used to settle his accounts and +write his letters—feeling toward them, in our forlorn condition, as other +girls might have felt at parting with old friends. From the house, in a gleam +of fine weather, we went into the garden, and gathered our last nosegay; with +the purpose of drying the flowers when they begin to wither, and keeping them +in remembrance of the happy days that are gone. When we had said good-by to the +garden, there was only half an hour left. We went together to the grave; we +knelt down, side by side, in silence, and kissed the sacred ground. I thought +my heart would have broken. August was the month of my mother’s birthday; +and, this time last year, my father and Magdalen and I were all consulting in +secret what present we could make to surprise her with on the birthday morning. +</p> + +<p> +“If you had seen how Magdalen suffered, you would never doubt her again. +I had to take her from the last resting-place of our father and mother almost +by force. Before we were out of the churchyard she broke from me and ran back. +She dropped on her knees at the grave; tore up from it passionately a handful +of grass; and said something to herself, at the same moment, which, though I +followed her instantly, I did not get near enough to hear. She turned on me in +such a frenzied manner, when I tried to raise her from the ground—she +looked at me with such a fearful wildness in her eyes—that I felt +absolutely terrified at the sight of her. To my relief, the paroxysm left her +as suddenly as it had come. She thrust away the tuft of grass into the bosom of +her dress, and took my arm and hurried with me out of the churchyard. I asked +her why she had gone back—I asked what those words were which she had +spoken at the grave. ‘A promise to our dead father,’ she answered, +with a momentary return of the wild look and the frenzied manner which had +startled me already. I was afraid to agitate her by saying more; I left all +other questions to be asked at a fitter and a quieter time. You will understand +from this how terribly she suffers, how wildly and strangely she acts under +violent agitation; and you will not interpret against her what she said or did +when you saw her on Wednesday last. +</p> + +<p> +“We only returned to the house in time to hasten away from it to the +train. Perhaps it was better for us so—better that we had only a moment +left to look back before the turn in the road hid the last of Combe-Raven from +our view. There was not a soul we knew at the station; nobody to stare at us, +nobody to wish us good-by. The rain came on again as we took our seats in the +train. What we felt at the sight of the railway—what horrible +remembrances it forced on our minds of the calamity which has made us +fatherless—I cannot, and dare not, tell you. I have tried anxiously not +to write this letter in a gloomy tone; not to return all your kindness to us by +distressing you with our grief. Perhaps I have dwelt too long already on the +little story of our parting from home? I can only say, in excuse, that my heart +is full of it; and what is not in my heart my pen won’t write. +</p> + +<p> +“We have been so short a time in our new abode that I have nothing more +to tell you—except that Miss Garth’s sister has received us with +the heartiest kindness. She considerately leaves us to ourselves, until we are +fitter than we are now to think of our future plans, and to arrange as we best +can for earning our own living. The house is so large, and the position of our +rooms has been so thoughtfully chosen, that I should hardly know—except +when I hear the laughing of the younger girls in the garden—that we were +living in a school. +</p> + +<p> +“With kindest and best wishes from Miss Garth and my sister, believe me, +dear Mr. Pendril, gratefully yours, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“NORAH VANSTONE.” +</p> + +<h4> +II.<br/> +From Miss Garth to Mr. Pendril. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Westmoreland House, Kensington,<br/> +“September 23d, 1846. +</p> + +<p> +“MY DEAR SIR,— +</p> + +<p> +“I write these lines in such misery of mind as no words can describe. +Magdalen has deserted us. At an early hour this morning she secretly left the +house, and she has not been heard of since. +</p> + +<p> +“I would come and speak to you personally; but I dare not leave Norah. I +must try to control myself; I must try to write. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing happened yesterday to prepare me or to prepare Norah for this +last—I had almost said, this worst—of all our afflictions. The only +alteration we either of us noticed in the unhappy girl was an alteration for +the better when we parted for the night. She kissed me, which she has not done +latterly; and she burst out crying when she embraced her sister next. We had so +little suspicion of the truth that we thought these signs of renewed tenderness +and affection a promise of better things for the future. +</p> + +<p> +“This morning, when her sister went into her room, it was empty, and a +note in her handwriting, addressed to Norah, was lying on the dressing-table. I +cannot prevail on Norah to part with the note; I can only send you the inclosed +copy of it. You will see that it affords no clue to the direction she has +taken. +</p> + +<p> +“Knowing the value of time, in this dreadful emergency, I examined her +room, and (with my sister’s help) questioned the servants immediately on +the news of her absence reaching me. Her wardrobe was empty; and all her boxes +but one, which she has evidently taken away with her, are empty, too. We are of +opinion that she has privately turned her dresses and jewelry into money; that +she had the one trunk she took with her removed from the house yesterday; and +that she left us this morning on foot. The answers given by one of the servants +are so unsatisfactory that we believe the woman has been bribed to assist her; +and has managed all those arrangements for her flight which she could not have +safely undertaken by herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Of the immediate object with which she has left us, I entertain no +doubt. +</p> + +<p> +“I have reasons (which I can tell you at a fitter time) for feeling +assured that she has gone away with the intention of trying her fortune on the +stage. She has in her possession the card of an actor by profession, who +superintended an amateur theatrical performance at Clifton, in which she took +part; and to him she has gone to help her. I saw the card at the time, and I +know the actor’s name to be Huxtable. The address I cannot call to mind +quite so correctly; but I am almost sure it was at some theatrical place in Bow +Street, Covent Garden. Let me entreat you not to lose a moment in sending to +make the necessary inquiries; the first trace of her will, I firmly believe, be +found at that address. +</p> + +<p> +“If we had nothing worse to dread than her attempting to go on the stage, +I should not feel the distress and dismay which now overpower me. Hundreds of +other girls have acted as recklessly as she has acted, and have not ended ill +after all. But my fears for Magdalen do not begin and end with the risk she is +running at present. +</p> + +<p> +“There has been something weighing on her mind ever since we left +Combe-Raven—weighing far more heavily for the last six weeks than at +first. Until the period when Francis Clare left England, I am persuaded she was +secretly sustained by the hope that he would contrive to see her again. From +the day when she knew that the measures you had taken for preventing this had +succeeded; from the day when she was assured that the ship had really taken him +away, nothing has roused, nothing has interested her. She has given herself up, +more and more hopelessly, to her own brooding thoughts; thoughts which I +believe first entered her mind on the day when the utter ruin of the prospects +on which her marriage depended was made known to her. She has formed some +desperate project of contesting the possession of her father’s fortune +with Michael Vanstone; and the stage career which she has gone away to try is +nothing more than a means of freeing herself from all home dependence, and of +enabling her to run what mad risks she pleases, in perfect security from all +home control. What it costs me to write of her in these terms, I must leave you +to imagine. The time has gone by when any consideration of distress to my own +feelings can weigh with me. Whatever I can say which will open your eyes to the +real danger, and strengthen your conviction of the instant necessity of +averting it, I say in despite of myself, without hesitation and without +reserve. +</p> + +<p> +“One word more, and I have done. +</p> + +<p> +“The last time you were so good as to come to this house, do you remember +how Magdalen embarrassed and distressed us by questioning you about her right +to bear her father’s name? Do you remember her persisting in her +inquiries, until she had forced you to acknowledge that, legally speaking, she +and her sister had No Name? I venture to remind you of this, because you have +the affairs of hundreds of clients to think of, and you might well have +forgotten the circumstance. Whatever natural reluctance she might otherwise +have had to deceiving us, and degrading herself, by the use of an assumed name, +that conversation with you is certain to have removed. We must discover her by +personal description—we can trace her in no other way. +</p> + +<p> +“I can think of nothing more to guide your decision in our deplorable +emergency. For God’s sake, let no expense and no efforts be spared. My +letter ought to reach you by ten o’clock this morning, at the latest. Let +me have one line in answer, to say you will act instantly for the best. My only +hope of quieting Norah is to show her a word of encouragement from your pen. +Believe me, dear sir, yours sincerely and obliged, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“HARRIET GARTH.” +</p> + +<h4> +III.<br/> +From Magdalen to Norah (inclosed in the preceding Letter). +</h4> + +<p> +“MY DARLING,— +</p> + +<p> +“Try to forgive me. I have struggled against myself till I am worn out in +the effort. I am the wretchedest of living creatures. Our quiet life here +maddens me; I can bear it no longer; I must go. If you knew what my thoughts +are; if you knew how hard I have fought against them, and how horribly they +have gone on haunting me in the lonely quiet of this house, you would pity and +forgive me. Oh, my love, don’t feel hurt at my not opening my heart to +you as I ought! I dare not open it. I dare not show myself to you as I really +am. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray don’t send and seek after me; I will write and relieve all +your anxieties. You know, Norah, we must get our living for ourselves; I have +only gone to get mine in the manner which is fittest for me. Whether I succeed, +or whether I fail, I can do myself no harm either way. I have no position to +lose, and no name to degrade. Don’t doubt I love you—don’t +let Miss Garth doubt my gratitude. I go away miserable at leaving you; but I +must go. If I had loved you less dearly, I might have had the courage to say +this in your presence—but how could I trust myself to resist your +persuasions, and to bear the sight of your distress? Farewell, my darling! Take +a thousand kisses from me, my own best, dearest love, till we meet again. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“MAGDALEN.” +</p> + +<h4> +IV.<br/> +From Sergeant Bulmer (of the Detective Police) to Mr. Pendril. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Scotland Yard,<br/> +“September 29th, 1846. +</p> + +<p> +“SIR,— +</p> + +<p> +“Your clerk informs me that the parties interested in our inquiry after +the missing young lady are anxious for news of the same. I went to your office +to speak to you about the matter to-day. Not having found you, and not being +able to return and try again to-morrow, I write these lines to save delay, and +to tell you how we stand thus far. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry to say, no advance has been made since my former report. The +trace of the young lady which we found nearly a week since, still remains the +last trace discovered of her. This case seems a mighty simple one looked at +from a distance. Looked at close, it alters very considerably for the worse, +and becomes, to speak the plain truth—a Poser. +</p> + +<p> +“This is how we now stand: +</p> + +<p> +“We have traced the young lady to the theatrical agent’s in Bow +Street. We know that at an early hour on the morning of the twenty-third the +agent was called downstairs, while he was dressing, to speak to a young lady in +a cab at the door. We know that, on her production of Mr. Huxtable’s +card, he wrote on it Mr. Huxtable’s address in the country, and heard her +order the cabman to drive to the Great Northern terminus. We believe she left +by the nine o’clock train. We followed her by the twelve o’clock +train. We have ascertained that she called at half-past two at Mr. +Huxtable’s lodgings; that she found he was away, and not expected back +till eight in the evening; that she left word she would call again at eight; +and that she never returned. Mr. Huxtable’s statement is—he and the +young lady have never set eyes on each other. The first consideration which +follows, is this: Are we to believe Mr. Huxtable? I have carefully inquired +into his character; I know as much, or more, about him than he knows about +himself; and my opinion is, that we <i>are</i> to believe him. To the best of +my knowledge, he is a perfectly honest man. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, then, is the hitch in the case. The young lady sets out with a +certain object before her. Instead of going on to the accomplishment of that +object, she stops short of it. Why has she stopped? and where? Those are, +unfortunately, just the questions which we can’t answer yet. +</p> + +<p> +“My own opinion of the matter is, briefly, as follows: I don’t +think she has met with any serious accident. Serious accidents, in nine cases +out of ten, discover themselves. My own notion is, that she has fallen into the +hands of some person or persons interested in hiding her away, and sharp enough +to know how to set about it. Whether she is in their charge, with or without +her own consent, is more than I can undertake to say at present. I don’t +wish to raise false hopes or false fears; I wish to stop short at the opinion I +have given already. +</p> + +<p> +“In regard to the future, I may tell you that I have left one of my men +in daily communication with the authorities. I have also taken care to have the +handbills offering a reward for the discovery of her widely circulated. Lastly, +I have completed the necessary arrangements for seeing the play-bills of all +country theaters, and for having the dramatic companies well looked after. Some +years since, this would have cost a serious expenditure of time and money. +Luckily for our purpose, the country theaters are in a bad way. Excepting the +large cities, hardly one of them is open, and we can keep our eye on them, with +little expense and less difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +“These are the steps which I think it needful to take at present. If you +are of another opinion, you have only to give me your directions, and I will +carefully attend to the same. I don’t by any means despair of our finding +the young lady and bringing her back to her friends safe and well. Please to +tell them so; and allow me to subscribe myself, yours respectfully, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“ABRAHAM BULMER.” +</p> + +<h4> +V.<br/> +Anonymous Letter addressed to Mr. Pendril. +</h4> + +<p> +“SIR,— +</p> + +<p> +“A word to the wise. The friends of a certain young lady are wasting time +and money to no purpose. Your confidential clerk and your detective policeman +are looking for a needle in a bottle of hay. This is the ninth of October, and +they have not found her yet: they will as soon find the Northwest Passage. Call +your dogs off; and you may hear of the young lady’s safety under her own +hand. The longer you look for her, the longer she will remain, what she is +now—lost.” +</p> + +<hr class="small" /> + +<p> +[The preceding letter is thus indorsed, in Mr. Pendril’s handwriting: +“No apparent means of tracing the inclosed to its source. Post-mark, +‘Charing Cross.’ Stationer’s stamp cut off the inside of the +envelope. Handwriting, probably a man’s, in disguise. Writer, whoever he +is, correctly informed. No further trace of the younger Miss Vanstone +discovered yet.”] +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="part02"></a>THE SECOND SCENE.<br/> +<small>SKELDERGATE, YORK.</small></h3> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<p> +In that part of the city of York which is situated on the western bank of the +Ouse there is a narrow street, called Skeldergate, running nearly north and +south, parallel with the course of the river. The postern by which Skeldergate +was formerly approached no longer exists; and the few old houses left in the +street are disguised in melancholy modern costume of whitewash and cement. +Shops of the smaller and poorer order, intermixed here and there with dingy +warehouses and joyless private residences of red brick, compose the present +aspect of Skeldergate. On the river-side the houses are separated at intervals +by lanes running down to the water, and disclosing lonely little plots of open +ground, with the masts of sailing-barges rising beyond. At its southward +extremity the street ceases on a sudden, and the broad flow of the Ouse, the +trees, the meadows, the public-walk on one bank and the towing-path on the +other, open to view. +</p> + +<p> +Here, where the street ends, and on the side of it furthest from the river, a +narrow little lane leads up to the paved footway surmounting the ancient Walls +of York. The one small row of buildings, which is all that the lane possesses, +is composed of cheap lodging-houses, with an opposite view, at the distance of +a few feet, of a portion of the massive city wall. This place is called +Rosemary Lane. Very little light enters it; very few people live in it; the +floating population of Skeldergate passes it by; and visitors to the Walk on +the Walls, who use it as the way up or the way down, get out of the dreary +little passage as fast as they can. +</p> + +<p> +The door of one of the houses in this lost corner of York opened softly on the +evening of the twenty-third of September, eighteen hundred and forty-six; and a +solitary individual of the male sex sauntered into Skeldergate from the +seclusion of Rosemary Lane. +</p> + +<p> +Turning northward, this person directed his steps toward the bridge over the +Ouse and the busy center of the city. He bore the external appearance of +respectable poverty; he carried a gingham umbrella, preserved in an oilskin +case; he picked his steps, with the neatest avoidance of all dirty places on +the pavement; and he surveyed the scene around him with eyes of two different +colors—a bilious brown eye on the lookout for employment, and a bilious +green eye in a similar predicament. In plainer terms, the stranger from +Rosemary Lane was no other than—Captain Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +Outwardly speaking, the captain had not altered for the better since the +memorable spring day when he had presented himself to Miss Garth at the +lodge-gate at Combe-Raven. The railway mania of that famous year had attacked +even the wary Wragge; had withdrawn him from his customary pursuits; and had +left him prostrate in the end, like many a better man. He had lost his clerical +appearance—he had faded with the autumn leaves. His crape hat-band had +put itself in brown mourning for its own bereavement of black. His dingy white +collar and cravat had died the death of old linen, and had gone to their long +home at the paper-maker’s, to live again one day in quires at a +stationer’s shop. A gray shooting-jacket in the last stage of woolen +atrophy replaced the black frockcoat of former times, and, like a faithful +servant, kept the dark secret of its master’s linen from the eyes of a +prying world. From top to toe every square inch of the captain’s clothing +was altered for the worse; but the man himself remained +unchanged—superior to all forms of moral mildew, impervious to the action +of social rust. He was as courteous, as persuasive, as blandly dignified as +ever. He carried his head as high without a shirt-collar as ever he had carried +it with one. The threadbare black handkerchief round his neck was perfectly +tied; his rotten old shoes were neatly blacked; he might have compared chins, +in the matter of smooth shaving, with the highest church dignitary in York. +Time, change, and poverty had all attacked the captain together, and had all +failed alike to get him down on the ground. He paced the streets of York, a man +superior to clothes and circumstances—his vagabond varnish as bright on +him as ever. +</p> + +<p> +Arrived at the bridge, Captain Wragge stopped and looked idly over the parapet +at the barges in the river. It was plainly evident that he had no particular +destination to reach and nothing whatever to do. While he was still loitering, +the clock of York Minster chimed the half-hour past five. Cabs rattled by him +over the bridge on their way to meet the train from London, at twenty minutes +to six. After a moment’s hesitation, the captain sauntered after the +cabs. When it is one of a man’s regular habits to live upon his +fellow-creatures, that man is always more or less fond of haunting large +railway stations. Captain Wragge gleaned the human field, and on that +unoccupied afternoon the York terminus was as likely a corner to look about in +as any other. +</p> + +<p> +He reached the platform a few minutes after the train had arrived. That entire +incapability of devising administrative measures for the management of large +crowds, which is one of the characteristics of Englishmen in authority, is +nowhere more strikingly exemplified than at York. Three different lines of +railway assemble three passenger mobs, from morning to-night, under one roof; +and leave them to raise a traveler’s riot, with all the assistance which +the bewildered servants of the company can render to increase the confusion. +The customary disturbance was rising to its climax as Captain Wragge approached +the platform. Dozens of different people were trying to attain dozens of +different objects, in dozens of different directions, all starting from the +same common point and all equally deprived of the means of information. A +sudden parting of the crowd, near the second-class carriages, attracted the +captain’s curiosity. He pushed his way in; and found a decently-dressed +man—assisted by a porter and a policeman—attempting to pick up some +printed bills scattered from a paper parcel, which his frenzied +fellow-passengers had knocked out of his hand. +</p> + +<p> +Offering his assistance in this emergency, with the polite alacrity which +marked his character, Captain Wragge observed the three startling words, +“Fifty Pounds Reward,” printed in capital letters on the bills +which he assisted in recovering; and instantly secreted one of them, to be more +closely examined at the first convenient opportunity. As he crumpled up the +bill in the palm of his hand, his party-colored eyes fixed with hungry interest +on the proprietor of the unlucky parcel. When a man happens not to be possessed +of fifty pence in his own pocket, if his heart is in the right place, it +bounds; if his mouth is properly constituted, it waters, at the sight of +another man who carries about with him a printed offer of fifty pounds +sterling, addressed to his fellow-creatures. +</p> + +<p> +The unfortunate traveler wrapped up his parcel as he best might, and made his +way off the platform, after addressing an inquiry to the first official victim +of the day’s passenger-traffic, who was sufficiently in possession of his +senses to listen to it. Leaving the station for the river-side, which was close +at hand, the stranger entered the ferryboat at the North Street Postern. The +captain, who had carefully dogged his steps thus far, entered the boat also; +and employed the short interval of transit to the opposite bank in a perusal of +the handbill which he had kept for his own private enlightenment. With his back +carefully turned on the traveler, Captain Wragge now possessed his mind of the +following lines: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +“FIFTY POUNDS REWARD.” +</p> + +<p> +“Left her home, in London, early on the morning of September 23d, 1846, A +YOUNG LADY. Age—eighteen. Dress—deep mourning. Personal +appearance—hair of a very light brown; eyebrows and eyelashes darker; +eyes light gray; complexion strikingly pale; lower part of her face large and +full; tall upright figure; walks with remarkable grace and ease; speaks with +openness and resolution; has the manners and habits of a refined, cultivated +lady. Personal marks—two little moles, close together, on the left side +of the neck. Mark on the under-clothing—‘Magdalen Vanstone.’ +Is supposed to have joined, or attempted to join, under an assumed name, a +theatrical company now performing at York. Had, when she left London, one black +box, and no other luggage. Whoever will give such information as will restore +her to her friends shall receive the above Reward. Apply at the office of Mr. +Harkness, solicitor, Coney Street, York. Or to Messrs. Wyatt, Pendril, and +Gwilt, Serle Street, Lincoln’s Inn, London.” +</p> + +<p> +Accustomed as Captain Wragge was to keep the completest possession of himself +in all human emergencies, his own profound astonishment, when the course of his +reading brought him to the mark on the linen of the missing young lady, +betrayed him into an exclamation of surprise which even startled the ferryman. +The traveler was less observant; his whole attention was fixed on the opposite +bank of the river, and he left the boat hastily the moment it touched the +landing-place. Captain Wragge recovered himself, pocketed the handbill, and +followed his leader for the second time. +</p> + +<p> +The stranger directed his steps to the nearest street which ran down to the +river, compared a note in his pocketbook with the numbers of the houses on the +left-hand side, stopped at one of them, and rang the bell. The captain went on +to the next house; affected to ring the bell, in his turn, and stood with his +back to the traveler—in appearance, waiting to be let in; in reality, +listening with all his might for any scraps of dialogue which might reach his +ears on the opening of the door behind him. +</p> + +<p> +The door was answered with all due alacrity, and a sufficiently instructive +interchange of question and answer on the threshold rewarded the dexterity of +Captain Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +“Does Mr. Huxtable live here?” asked the traveler. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” was the answer, in a woman’s voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Is he at home?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at home now, sir; but he will be in again at eight to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think a young lady called here early in the day, did she not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; a young lady came this afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly; I come on the same business. Did she see Mr. Huxtable?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir; he has been away all day. The young lady told me she would come +back at eight o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just so. I will call and see Mr. Huxtable at the same time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Any name, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; say a gentleman called on theatrical business—that will be +enough. Wait one minute, if you please. I am a stranger in York; will you +kindly tell me which is the way to Coney Street?” +</p> + +<p> +The woman gave the required information, the door closed, and the stranger +hastened away in the direction of Coney Street. +</p> + +<p> +On this occasion Captain Wragge made no attempt to follow him. The handbill +revealed plainly enough that the man’s next object was to complete the +necessary arrangements with the local solicitor on the subject of the promised +reward. +</p> + +<p> +Having seen and heard enough for his immediate purpose, the captain retraced +his steps down the street, turned to the right, and entered on the Esplanade, +which, in that quarter of the city, borders the river-side between the +swimming-baths and Lendal Tower. “This is a family matter,” said +Captain Wragge to himself, persisting, from sheer force of habit, in the old +assertion of his relationship to Magdalen’s mother; “I must +consider it in all its bearings.” He tucked the umbrella under his arm, +crossed his hands behind him, and lowered himself gently into the abyss of his +own reflections. The order and propriety observable in the captain’s +shabby garments accurately typified the order and propriety which distinguished +the operations of the captain’s mind. It was his habit always to see his +way before him through a neat succession of alternatives—and so he saw it +now. +</p> + +<p> +Three courses were open to him in connection with the remarkable discovery +which he had just made. The first course was to do nothing in the matter at +all. Inadmissible, on family grounds: equally inadmissible on pecuniary +grounds: rejected accordingly. The second course was to deserve the gratitude +of the young lady’s friends, rated at fifty pounds. The third course was, +by a timely warning to deserve the gratitude of the young lady herself, +rated—at an unknown figure. Between these two last alternatives the wary +Wragge hesitated; not from doubt of Magdalen’s pecuniary +resources—for he was totally ignorant of the circumstances which had +deprived the sisters of their inheritance—but from doubt whether an +obstacle in the shape of an undiscovered gentleman might not be privately +connected with her disappearance from home. After mature reflection, he +determined to pause, and be guided by circumstances. In the meantime, the first +consideration was to be beforehand with the messenger from London, and to lay +hands securely on the young lady herself. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel for this misguided girl,” mused the captain, solemnly +strutting backward and forward by the lonely river-side. “I always have +looked upon her—I always shall look upon her—in the light of a +niece.” +</p> + +<p> +Where was the adopted relative at that moment? In other words, how was a young +lady in Magdalen’s critical position likely to while away the hours until +Mr. Huxtable ‘s return? If there was an obstructive gentleman in the +background, it would be mere waste of time to pursue the question. But if the +inference which the handbill suggested was correct—if she was really +alone at that moment in the city of York—where was she likely to be? +</p> + +<p> +Not in the crowded thoroughfares, to begin with. Not viewing the objects of +interest in the Minster, for it was now past the hour at which the cathedral +could be seen. Was she in the waiting-room at the railway? She would hardly run +that risk. Was she in one of the hotels? Doubtful, considering that she was +entirely by herself. In a pastry-cook’s shop? Far more likely. Driving +about in a cab? Possible, certainly; but no more. Loitering away the time in +some quiet locality, out-of-doors? Likely enough, again, on that fine autumn +evening. The captain paused, weighed the relative claims on his attention of +the quiet locality and the pastry-cook’s shop; and decided for the first +of the two. There was time enough to find her at the pastry-cook’s, to +inquire after her at the principal hotels, or, finally, to intercept her in Mr. +Huxtable’s immediate neighborhood from seven to eight. While the light +lasted, the wise course was to use it in looking for her out-of-doors. Where? +The Esplanade was a quiet locality; but she was not there—not on the +lonely road beyond, which ran back by the Abbey Wall. Where next? The captain +stopped, looked across the river, brightened under the influence of a new idea, +and suddenly hastened back to the ferry. +</p> + +<p> +“The Walk on the Walls,” thought this judicious man, with a twinkle +of his party-colored eyes. “The quietest place in York; and the place +that every stranger goes to see.” +</p> + +<p> +In ten minutes more Captain Wragge was exploring the new field of search. He +mounted to the walls (which inclose the whole western portion of the city) by +the North Street Postern, from which the walk winds round until it ends again +at its southernly extremity in the narrow passage of Rosemary Lane. It was then +twenty minutes to seven. The sun had set more than half an hour since; the red +light lay broad and low in the cloudless western heaven; all visible objects +were softening in the tender twilight, but were not darkening yet. The first +few lamps lit in the street below looked like faint little specks of yellow +light, as the captain started on his walk through one of the most striking +scenes which England can show. +</p> + +<p> +On his right hand, as he set forth, stretched the open country beyond the +walls—the rich green meadows, the boundary-trees dividing them, the broad +windings of the river in the distance, the scattered buildings nearer to view; +all wrapped in the evening stillness, all made beautiful by the evening peace. +On his left hand, the majestic west front of York Minster soared over the city +and caught the last brightest light of heaven on the summits of its lofty +towers. Had this noble prospect tempted the lost girl to linger and look at it? +No; thus far, not a sign of her. The captain looked round him attentively, and +walked on. +</p> + +<p> +He reached the spot where the iron course of the railroad strikes its way +through arches in the old wall. He paused at this place—where the central +activity of a great railway enterprise beats, with all the pulses of its +loud-clanging life, side by side with the dead majesty of the past, deep under +the old historic stones which tell of fortified York and the sieges of two +centuries since—he stood on this spot, and searched for her again, and +searched in vain. Others were looking idly down at the desolate activity on the +wilderness of the iron rails; but she was not among them. The captain glanced +doubtfully at the darkening sky, and walked on. +</p> + +<p> +He stopped again where the postern of Micklegate still stands, and still +strengthens the city wall as of old. Here the paved walk descends a few steps, +passes through the dark stone guardroom of the ancient gate, ascends again, and +continues its course southward until the walls reach the river once more. He +paused, and peered anxiously into the dim inner corners of the old guard-room. +Was she waiting there for the darkness to come, and hide her from prying eyes? +No: a solitary workman loitered through the stone chamber; but no other living +creature stirred in the place. The captain mounted the steps which led out from +the postern and walked on. +</p> + +<p> +He advanced some fifty or sixty yards along the paved footway; the outlying +suburbs of York on one side of him, a rope-walk and some patches of kitchen +garden occupying a vacant strip of ground on the other. He advanced with eager +eyes and quickened step; for he saw before him the lonely figure of a woman, +standing by the parapet of the wall, with her face set toward the westward +view. He approached cautiously, to make sure of her before she turned and +observed him. There was no mistaking that tall, dark figure, as it rested +against the parapet with a listless grace. There she stood, in her long black +cloak and gown, the last dim light of evening falling tenderly on her pale, +resolute young face. There she stood—not three months since the spoiled +darling of her parents; the priceless treasure of the household, never left +unprotected, never trusted alone—there she stood in the lovely dawn of +her womanhood, a castaway in a strange city, wrecked on the world! +</p> + +<p> +Vagabond as he was, the first sight of her staggered even the dauntless +assurance of Captain Wragge. As she slowly turned her face and looked at him, +he raised his hat, with the nearest approach to respect which a long life of +unblushing audacity had left him capable of making. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I have the honor of addressing the younger Miss Vanstone?” +he began. “Deeply gratified, I am sure—for more reasons than +one.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him with a cold surprise. No recollection of the day when he had +followed her sister and herself on their way home with Miss Garth rose in her +memory, while he now confronted her, with his altered manner and his altered +dress. +</p> + +<p> +“You are mistaken,” she said, quietly. “You are a perfect +stranger to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me,” replied the captain; “I am a species of +relation. I had the pleasure of seeing you in the spring of the present year. I +presented myself on that memorable occasion to an honored preceptress in your +late father’s family. Permit me, under equally agreeable circumstances, +to present myself to <i>you</i>. My name is Wragge.” +</p> + +<p> +By this time he had recovered complete possession of his own impudence; his +party-colored eyes twinkled cheerfully, and he accompanied his modest +announcement of himself with a dancing-master’s bow. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen frowned, and drew back a step. The captain was not a man to be daunted +by a cold reception. He tucked his umbrella under his arm and jocosely spelled +his name for her further enlightenment. “W, R, A, double G, +E—Wragge,” said the captain, ticking off the letters persuasively +on his fingers. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember your name,” said Magdalen. “Excuse me for leaving +you abruptly. I have an engagement.” +</p> + +<p> +She tried to pass him and walk on northward toward the railway. He instantly +met the attempt by raising both hands, and displaying a pair of darned black +gloves outspread in polite protest. +</p> + +<p> +“Not that way,” he said; “not that way, Miss Vanstone, I beg +and entreat!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” she asked haughtily. +</p> + +<p> +“Because,” answered the captain, “that is the way which leads +to Mr. Huxtable’s.” +</p> + +<p> +In the ungovernable astonishment of hearing his reply she suddenly bent +forward, and for the first time looked him close in the face. He sustained her +suspicious scrutiny with every appearance of feeling highly gratified by it. +“H, U, X—Hux,” said the captain, playfully turning to the old +joke: “T, A—ta, Huxta; B, L, E—ble; Huxtable.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you know about Mr. Huxtable?” she asked. “What do +you mean by mentioning him to me?” +</p> + +<p> +The captain’s curly lip took a new twist upward. He immediately replied, +to the best practical purpose, by producing the handbill from his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“There is just light enough left,” he said, “for young (and +lovely) eyes to read by. Before I enter upon the personal statement which your +flattering inquiry claims from me, pray bestow a moment’s attention on +this Document.” +</p> + +<p> +She took the handbill from him. By the last gleam of twilight she read the +lines which set a price on her recovery—which published the description +of her in pitiless print, like the description of a strayed dog. No tender +consideration had prepared her for the shock, no kind word softened it to her +when it came. The vagabond, whose cunning eyes watched her eagerly while she +read, knew no more that the handbill which he had stolen had only been prepared +in anticipation of the worst, and was only to be publicly used in the event of +all more considerate means of tracing her being tried in vain—than she +knew it. The bill dropped from her hand; her face flushed deeply. She turned +away from Captain Wragge, as if all idea of his existence had passed out of her +mind. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Norah, Norah!” she said to herself, sorrowfully. “After +the letter I wrote you—after the hard struggle I had to go away! Oh, +Norah, Norah!” +</p> + +<p> +“How is Norah?” inquired the captain, with the utmost politeness. +</p> + +<p> +She turned upon him with an angry brightness in her large gray eyes. “Is +this thing shown publicly?” she asked, stamping her foot on it. “Is +the mark on my neck described all over York?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray compose yourself,” pleaded the persuasive Wragge. “At +present I have every reason to believe that you have just perused the only copy +in circulation. Allow me to pick it up.” +</p> + +<p> +Before he could touch the bill she snatched it from the pavement, tore it into +fragments, and threw them over the wall. +</p> + +<p> +“Bravo!” cried the captain. “You remind me of your poor dear +mother. The family spirit, Miss Vanstone. We all inherit our hot blood from my +maternal grandfather.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you come by it?” she asked, suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear creature, I have just told you,” remonstrated the captain. +“We all come by it from my maternal grandfather.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you come by that handbill?” she repeated, passionately. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg ten thousand pardons! My head was running on the family +spirit.—How did I come by it? Briefly thus.” Here Captain Wragge +entered on his personal statement; taking his customary vocal exercise through +the longest words of the English language, with the highest elocutionary +relish. Having, on this rare occasion, nothing to gain by concealment, he +departed from his ordinary habits, and, with the utmost amazement at the +novelty of his own situation, permitted himself to tell the unmitigated truth. +</p> + +<p> +The effect of the narrative on Magdalen by no means fulfilled Captain +Wragge’s anticipations in relating it. She was not startled; she was not +irritated; she showed no disposition to cast herself on his mercy, and to seek +his advice. She looked him steadily in the face; and all she said, when he had +neatly rounded his last sentence, was—“Go on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go on?” repeated the captain. “Shocked to disappoint you, I +am sure; but the fact is, I have done.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you have not,” she rejoined; “you have left out the end +of your story. The end of it is, you came here to look for me; and you mean to +earn the fifty pounds reward.” +</p> + +<p> +Those plain words so completely staggered Captain Wragge that for the moment he +stood speechless. But he had faced awkward truths of all sorts far too often to +be permanently disconcerted by them. Before Magdalen could pursue her +advantage, the vagabond had recovered his balance: Wragge was himself again. +</p> + +<p> +“Smart,” said the captain, laughing indulgently, and drumming with +his umbrella on the pavement. “Some men might take it seriously. +I’m not easily offended. Try again.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen looked at him through the gathering darkness in mute perplexity. All +her little experience of society had been experience among people who possessed +a common sense of honor, and a common responsibility of social position. She +had hitherto seen nothing but the successful human product from the great +manufactory of Civilization. Here was one of the failures, and, with all her +quickness, she was puzzled how to deal with it. +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me for returning to the subject,” pursued the captain. +“It has just occurred to my mind that you might actually have spoken in +earnest. My poor child! how can I earn the fifty pounds before the reward is +offered to me? Those handbills may not be publicly posted for a week to come. +Precious as you are to all your relatives (myself included), take my word for +it, the lawyers who are managing this case will not pay fifty pounds for you if +they can possibly help it. Are you still persuaded that my needy pockets are +gaping for the money? Very good. Button them up in spite of me with your own +fair fingers. There is a train to London at nine forty-five to-night. Submit +yourself to your friend’s wishes and go back by it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never!” said Magdalen, firing at the bare suggestion, exactly as +the captain had intended she should. “If my mind had not been made up +before, that vile handbill would have decided me. I forgive Norah,” she +added, turning away and speaking to herself, “but not Mr. Pendril, and +not Miss Garth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite right!” said Captain Wragge. “The family spirit. I +should have done the same myself at your age. It runs in the blood. Hark! there +goes the clock again—half-past seven. Miss Vanstone, pardon this +seasonable abruptness! If you are to carry out your resolution—if you are +to be your own mistress much longer, you must take a course of some kind before +eight o’clock. You are young, you are inexperienced, you are in imminent +danger. Here is a position of emergency on one side—and here am I, on the +other, with an uncle’s interest in you, full of advice. Tap me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose I choose to depend on nobody, and to act for myself?” said +Magdalen. “What then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” replied the captain, “you will walk straight into one +of the four traps which are set to catch you in the ancient and interesting +city of York. Trap the first, at Mr. Huxtable’s house; trap the second, +at all the hotels; trap the third, at the railway station; trap the fourth, at +the theater. That man with the handbills has had an hour at his disposal. If he +has not set those four traps (with the assistance of the local solicitor) by +this time, he is not the competent lawyer’s clerk I take him for. Come, +come, my dear girl! if there is somebody else in the background, whose advice +you prefer to mine—” +</p> + +<p> +“You see that I am alone,” she interposed, proudly. “If you +knew me better, you would know that I depend on nobody but myself.” +</p> + +<p> +Those words decided the only doubt which now remained in the captain’s +mind—the doubt whether the course was clear before him. The motive of her +flight from home was evidently what the handbills assumed it to be—a +reckless fancy for going on the stage. “One of two things,” thought +Wragge to himself, in his logical way. “She’s worth more than fifty +pounds to me in her present situation, or she isn’t. If she is, her +friends may whistle for her. If she isn’t, I have only to keep her till +the bills are posted.” Fortified by this simple plan of action, the +captain returned to the charge, and politely placed Magdalen between the two +inevitable alternatives of trusting herself to him, on the one hand, or of +returning to her friends, on the other. +</p> + +<p> +“I respect independence of character wherever I find it,” he said, +with an air of virtuous severity. “In a young and lovely relative, I more +than respect—I admire it. But (excuse the bold assertion), to walk on a +way of your own, you must first have a way to walk on. Under existing +circumstances, where is <i>your</i> way? Mr. Huxtable is out of the question, +to begin with.” +</p> + +<p> +“Out of the question for to-night,” said Magdalen; “but what +hinders me from writing to Mr. Huxtable, and making my own private arrangements +with him for to-morrow?” +</p> + +<p> +“Granted with all my heart—a hit, a palpable hit. Now for my turn. +To get to to-morrow (excuse the bold assertion, once more), you must first pass +through to-night. Where are you to sleep?” +</p> + +<p> +“Are there no hotels in York?” +</p> + +<p> +“Excellent hotels for large families; excellent hotels for single +gentlemen. The very worst hotels in the world for handsome young ladies who +present themselves alone at the door without male escort, without a maid in +attendance, and without a single article of luggage. Dark as it is, I think I +could see a lady’s box, if there was anything of the sort in our +immediate neighborhood.” +</p> + +<p> +“My box is at the cloak-room. What is to prevent my sending the ticket +for it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing—if you want to communicate your address by means of your +box—nothing whatever. Think; pray think! Do you really suppose that the +people who are looking for you are such fools as not to have an eye on the +cloakroom? Do you think they are such fools—when they find you +don’t come to Mr. Huxtable’s at eight to-night—as not to +inquire at all the hotels? Do you think a young lady of your striking +appearance (even if they consented to receive you) could take up her abode at +an inn without becoming the subject of universal curiosity and remark? Here is +night coming on as fast as it can. Don’t let me bore you; only let me ask +once more—Where are you to sleep?” +</p> + +<p> +There was no answer to that question: in Magdalen’s position, there was +literally no answer to it on her side. She was silent. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you to sleep?” repeated the captain. “The reply is +obvious—under my roof. Mrs. Wragge will be charmed to see you. Look upon +her as your aunt; pray look upon her as your aunt. The landlady is a widow, the +house is close by, there are no other lodgers, and there is a bedroom to let. +Can anything be more satisfactory, under all the circumstances? Pray observe, I +say nothing about to-morrow—I leave to-morrow to you, and confine myself +exclusively to the night. I may, or may not, command theatrical facilities, +which I am in a position to offer you. Sympathy and admiration may, or may not, +be strong within me, when I contemplate the dash and independence of your +character. Hosts of examples of bright stars of the British drama, who have +begun their apprenticeship to the stage as you are beginning yours, may, or may +not, crowd on my memory. These are topics for the future. For the present, I +confine myself within my strict range of duty. We are within five +minutes’ walk of my present address. Allow me to offer you my arm. No? +You hesitate? You distrust me? Good heavens! is it possible you can have heard +anything to my disadvantage?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite possible,” said Magdalen, without a moment’s flinching +from the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“May I inquire the particulars?” asked the captain, with the +politest composure. “Don’t spare my feelings; oblige me by speaking +out. In the plainest terms, now, what have you heard?” +</p> + +<p> +She answered him with a woman’s desperate disregard of consequences when +she is driven to bay—she answered him instantly, +</p> + +<p> +“I have heard you are a Rogue.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you, indeed?” said the impenetrable Wragge. “A Rogue? +Well, I waive my privilege of setting you right on that point for a fitter +time. For the sake of argument, let us say I am a Rogue. What is Mr. +Huxtable?” +</p> + +<p> +“A respectable man, or I should not have seen him in the house where we +first met.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good. Now observe! You talked of writing to Mr. Huxtable a minute +ago. What do you think a respectable man is likely to do with a young lady who +openly acknowledges that she has run away from her home and her friends to go +on the stage? My dear girl, on your own showing, it’s not a respectable +man you want in your present predicament. It’s a Rogue—like +me.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen laughed, bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +“There is some truth in that,” she said. “Thank you for +recalling me to myself and my circumstances. I have my end to gain—and +who am I, to pick and choose the way of getting to it? It is my turn to beg +pardon now. I have been talking as if I was a young lady of family and +position. Absurd! We know better than that, don’t we, Captain Wragge? You +are quite right. Nobody’s child must sleep under Somebody’s +roof—and why not yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“This way,” said the captain, dexterously profiting by the sudden +change in her humor, and cunningly refraining from exasperating it by saying +more himself. “This way.” +</p> + +<p> +She followed him a few steps, and suddenly stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose I <i>am</i> discovered?” she broke out, abruptly. +“Who has any authority over me? Who can take me back, if I don’t +choose to go? If they all find me to-morrow, what then? Can’t I say No to +Mr. Pendril? Can’t I trust my own courage with Miss Garth?” +</p> + +<p> +“Can you trust your courage with your sister?” whispered the +captain, who had not forgotten the references to Norah which had twice escaped +her already. +</p> + +<p> +Her head drooped. She shivered as if the cold night air had struck her, and +leaned back wearily against the parapet of the wall. +</p> + +<p> +“Not with Norah,” she said, sadly. “I could trust myself with +the others. Not with Norah.” +</p> + +<p> +“This way,” repeated Captain Wragge. She roused herself; looked up +at the darkening heaven, looked round at the darkening view. “What must +be, must,” she said, and followed him. +</p> + +<p> +The Minster clock struck the quarter to eight as they left the Walk on the Wall +and descended the steps into Rosemary Lane. Almost at the same moment the +lawyer’s clerk from London gave the last instructions to his +subordinates, and took up his own position, on the opposite side of the river, +within easy view of Mr. Huxtable’s door. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<p> +Captain Wragge stopped nearly midway in the one little row of houses composing +Rosemary Lane, and let himself and his guest in at the door of his lodgings +with his own key. As they entered the passage, a care-worn woman in a +widow’s cap made her appearance with a candle. “My niece,” +said the captain, presenting Magdalen; “my niece on a visit to York. She +has kindly consented to occupy your empty bedroom. Consider it let, if you +please, to my niece—and be very particular in airing the sheets? Is Mrs. +Wragge upstairs? Very good. You may lend me your candle. My dear girl, Mrs. +Wragge’s boudoir is on the first floor; Mrs. Wragge is visible. Allow me +to show you the way up.” +</p> + +<p> +As he ascended the stairs first, the care-worn widow whispered, piteously, to +Magdalen, “I hope you’ll pay me, miss. Your uncle +doesn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +The captain threw open the door of the front room on the first floor, and +disclosed a female figure, arrayed in a gown of tarnished amber-colored satin, +seated solitary on a small chair, with dingy old gloves on its hands, with a +tattered old book on its knees, and with one little bedroom candle by its side. +The figure terminated at its upper extremity in a large, smooth, white round +face—like a moon—encircled by a cap and green ribbons, and dimly +irradiated by eyes of mild and faded blue, which looked straightforward into +vacancy, and took not the smallest notice of Magdalen’s appearance, on +the opening of the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Wragge!” cried the captain, shouting at her as if she was +fast asleep. “Mrs. Wragge!” +</p> + +<p> +The lady of the faded blue eyes slowly rose to an apparently interminable +height. When she had at last attained an upright position, she towered to a +stature of two or three inches over six feet. Giants of both sexes are, by a +wise dispensation of Providence, created, for the most part, gentle. If Mrs. +Wragge and a lamb had been placed side by side, comparison, under those +circumstances, would have exposed the lamb as a rank impostor. +</p> + +<p> +“Tea, captain?” inquired Mrs. Wragge, looking submissively down at +her husband, whose head, when he stood on tiptoe, barely reached her shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Vanstone, the younger,” said the captain, presenting +Magdalen. “Our fair relative, whom I have met by fortunate accident. Our +guest for the night. Our guest!” reiterated the captain, shouting once +more as if the tall lady was still fast asleep, in spite of the plain testimony +of her own eyes to the contrary. +</p> + +<p> +A smile expressed itself (in faint outline) on the large vacant space of Mrs. +Wragge’s countenance. “Oh?” she said, interrogatively. +“Oh, indeed? Please, miss, will you sit down? I’m sorry—no, I +don’t mean I’m sorry; I mean I’m glad—” she +stopped, and consulted her husband by a helpless look. +</p> + +<p> +“Glad, of course!” shouted the captain. +</p> + +<p> +“Glad, of course,” echoed the giantess of the amber satin, more +meekly than ever. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Wragge is not deaf,” explained the captain. +“She’s only a little slow. Constitutionally torpid—if I may +use the expression. I am merely loud with her (and I beg you will honor me by +being loud, too) as a necessary stimulant to her ideas. Shout at her—and +her mind comes up to time. Speak to her—and she drifts miles away from +you directly. Mrs. Wragge!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge instantly acknowledged the stimulant. “Tea, captain?” +she inquired, for the second time. +</p> + +<p> +“Put your cap straight!” shouted her husband. “I beg ten +thousand pardons,” he resumed, again addressing himself to Magdalen. +“The sad truth is, I am a martyr to my own sense of order. All +untidiness, all want of system and regularity, cause me the acutest irritation. +My attention is distracted, my composure is upset; I can’t rest till +things are set straight again. Externally speaking, Mrs. Wragge is, to my +infinite regret, the crookedest woman I ever met with. More to the +right!” shouted the captain, as Mrs. Wragge, like a well-trained child, +presented herself with her revised head-dress for her husband’s +inspection. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge immediately pulled the cap to the left. Magdalen rose, and set it +right for her. The moon-face of the giantess brightened for the first time. She +looked admiringly at Magdalen’s cloak and bonnet. “Do you like +dress, miss?” she asked, suddenly, in a confidential whisper. “I +do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Show Miss Vanstone her room,” said the captain, looking as if the +whole house belonged to him. “The spare-room, the landlady’s +spare-room, on the third floor front. Offer Miss Vanstone all articles +connected with the toilet of which she may stand in need. She has no luggage +with her. Supply the deficiency, and then come back and make tea.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge acknowledged the receipt of these lofty directions by a look of +placid bewilderment, and led the way out of the room; Magdalen following her, +with a candle presented by the attentive captain. As soon as they were alone on +the landing outside, Mrs. Wragge raised the tattered old book which she had +been reading when Magdalen was first presented to her, and which she had never +let out of her hand since, and slowly tapped herself on the forehead with it. +“Oh, my poor head!” said the tall lady, in meek soliloquy; +“it’s Buzzing again worse than ever!” +</p> + +<p> +“Buzzing?” repeated Magdalen, in the utmost astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge ascended the stairs, without offering any explanation, stopped at +one of the rooms on the second floor, and led the way in. +</p> + +<p> +“This is not the third floor,” said Magdalen. “This is not my +room, surely?” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a bit,” pleaded Mrs. Wragge. “Wait a bit, miss, before +we go up any higher. I’ve got the Buzzing in my head worse than ever. +Please wait for me till I’m a little better again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I ask for help?” inquired Magdalen. “Shall I call the +landlady?” +</p> + +<p> +“Help?” echoed Mrs. Wragge. “Bless you, I don’t want +help! I’m used to it. I’ve had the Buzzing in my head, off and +on—how many years?” She stopped, reflected, lost herself, and +suddenly tried a question in despair. “Have you ever been at +Darch’s Dining-rooms in London?” she asked, with an appearance of +the deepest interest. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” replied Magdalen, wondering at the strange inquiry. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s where the Buzzing in my head first began,” said Mrs. +Wragge, following the new clue with the deepest attention and anxiety. “I +was employed to wait on the gentlemen at Darch’s Dining-rooms—I +was. The gentlemen all came together; the gentlemen were all hungry together; +the gentlemen all gave their orders together—” She stopped, and +tapped her head again, despondently, with the tattered old book. +</p> + +<p> +“And you had to keep all their orders in your memory, separate one from +the other?” suggested Magdalen, helping her out. “And the trying to +do that confused you?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it!” said Mrs. Wragge, becoming violently excited in +a moment. “Boiled pork and greens and pease-pudding, for Number One. +Stewed beef and carrots and gooseberry tart, for Number Two. Cut of mutton, and +quick about it, well done, and plenty of fat, for Number Three. Codfish and +parsnips, two chops to follow, hot-and-hot, or I’ll be the death of you, +for Number Four. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Carrots and gooseberry +tart—pease-pudding and plenty of fat—pork and beef and mutton, and +cut ’em all, and quick about it—stout for one, and ale for +t’other—and stale bread here, and new bread there—and this +gentleman likes cheese, and that gentleman doesn’t—Matilda, Tilda, +Tilda, Tilda, fifty times over, till I didn’t know my own name +again—oh lord! oh lord!! oh lord!!! all together, all at the same time, +all out of temper, all buzzing in my poor head like forty thousand million +bees—don’t tell the captain! don’t tell the captain!” +The unfortunate creature dropped the tattered old book, and beat both her hands +on her head, with a look of blank terror fixed on the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Hush! hush!” said Magdalen. “The captain hasn’t heard +you. I know what is the matter with your head now. Let me cool it.” +</p> + +<p> +She dipped a towel in water, and pressed it on the hot and helpless head which +Mrs. Wragge submitted to her with the docility of a sick child. +</p> + +<p> +“What a pretty hand you’ve got!” said the poor creature, +feeling the relief of the coolness and taking Magdalen’s hand, +admiringly, in her own. “How soft and white it is! I try to be a lady; I +always keep my gloves on—but I can’t get my hands like yours. +I’m nicely dressed, though, ain’t I? I like dress; it’s a +comfort to me. I’m always happy when I’m looking at my things. I +say—you won’t be angry with me?—I should so like to try your +bonnet on.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen humored her, with the ready compassion of the young. She stood smiling +and nodding at herself in the glass, with the bonnet perched on the top of her +head. “I had one as pretty as this, once,” she +said—“only it was white, not black. I wore it when the captain +married me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you meet with him?” asked Magdalen, putting the question +as a chance means of increasing her scanty stock of information on the subject +of Captain Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +“At the Dining-rooms,” said Mrs. Wragge. “He was the +hungriest and the loudest to wait upon of the lot of ’em. I made more +mistakes with him than I did with all the rest of them put together. He used to +swear—oh, didn’t he use to swear! When he left off swearing at me +he married me. There was others wanted me besides him. Bless you, I had my +pick. Why not? When you have a trifle of money left you that you didn’t +expect, if that don’t make a lady of you, what does? Isn’t a lady +to have her pick? I had my trifle of money, and I had my pick, and I picked the +captain—I did. He was the smartest and the shortest of them all. He took +care of me and my money. I’m here, the money’s gone. Don’t +you put that towel down on the table—he won’t have that! +Don’t move his razors—don’t, please, or I shall forget which +is which. I’ve got to remember which is which to-morrow morning. Bless +you, the captain don’t shave himself! He had me taught. I shave him. I do +his hair, and cut his nails—he’s awfully particular about his +nails. So he is about his trousers. And his shoes. And his newspaper in the +morning. And his breakfasts, and lunches, and dinners, and teas—” +She stopped, struck by a sudden recollection, looked about her, observed the +tattered old book on the floor, and clasped her hands in despair. +“I’ve lost the place!” she exclaimed helplessly. “Oh, +mercy, what will become of me! I’ve lost the place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind,” said Magdalen; “I’ll soon find the place +for you again.” +</p> + +<p> +She picked up the book, looked into the pages, and found that the object of +Mrs. Wragge’s anxiety was nothing more important than an old-fashioned +Treatise on the Art of Cookery, reduced under the usual heads of Fish, Flesh, +and Fowl, and containing the customary series of recipes. Turning over the +leaves, Magdalen came to one particular page, thickly studded with little drops +of moisture half dry. “Curious!” she said. “If this was +anything but a cookery-book, I should say somebody had been crying over +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Somebody?” echoed Mrs. Wragge, with a stare of amazement. +“It isn’t somebody—it’s Me. Thank you kindly, +that’s the place, sure enough. Bless you, I’m used to crying over +it. You’d cry, too, if you had to get the captain’s dinners out of +it. As sure as ever I sit down to this book the Buzzing in my head begins +again. Who’s to make it out? Sometimes I think I’ve got it, and it +all goes away from me. Sometimes I think I haven’t got it, and it all +comes back in a heap. Look here! Here’s what he’s ordered for his +breakfast to-morrow: ‘Omelette with Herbs. Beat up two eggs with a little +water or milk, salt, pepper, chives, and parsley. Mince +small.’—There! mince small! How am I to mince small when it’s +all mixed up and running? ‘Put a piece of butter the size of your thumb +into the frying-pan.’—Look at my thumb, and look at yours! whose +size does she mean? ‘Boil, but not brown.’—If it +mustn’t be brown, what color must it be? She won’t tell me; she +expects me to know, and I don’t. ‘Pour in the +omelette.’—There! I can do that. ‘Allow it to set, raise it +round the edge; when done, turn it over to double it.’—Oh, the +number of times I turned it over and doubled it in my head, before you came in +to-night! ‘Keep it soft; put the dish on the frying-pan, and turn it +over.’ Which am I to turn over—oh, mercy, try the cold towel again, +and tell me which—the dish or the frying-pan?” +</p> + +<p> +“Put the dish on the frying-pan,” said Magdalen; “and then +turn the frying-pan over. That is what it means, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you kindly,” said Mrs. Wragge, “I want to get it into +my head; please say it again.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen said it again. +</p> + +<p> +“And then turn the frying-pan over,” repeated Mrs. Wragge, with a +sudden burst of energy. “I’ve got it now! Oh, the lots of omelettes +all frying together in my head; and all frying wrong! Much obliged, I’m +sure. You’ve put me all right again: I’m only a little tired with +talking. And then turn the frying-pan, then turn the frying-pan, then turn the +frying-pan over. It sounds like poetry, don’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +Her voice sank, and she drowsily closed her eyes. At the same moment the door +of the room below opened, and the captain’s mellifluous bass notes +floated upstairs, charged with the customary stimulant to his wife’s +faculties. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Wragge!” cried the captain. “Mrs. Wragge!” +</p> + +<p> +She started to her feet at that terrible summons. “Oh, what did he tell +me to do?” she asked, distractedly. “Lots of things, and I’ve +forgotten them all!” +</p> + +<p> +“Say you have done them when he asks you,” suggested Magdalen. +“They were things for me—things I don’t want. I remember all +that is necessary. My room is the front room on the third floor. Go downstairs +and say I am coming directly.” +</p> + +<p> +She took up the candle and pushed Mrs. Wragge out on the landing. “Say I +am coming directly,” she whispered again—and went upstairs by +herself to the third story. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The room was small, close, and very poorly furnished. In former days Miss Garth +would have hesitated to offer such a room to one of the servants at +Combe-Raven. But it was quiet; it gave her a few minutes alone; and it was +endurable, even welcome, on that account. She locked herself in and walked +mechanically, with a woman’s first impulse in a strange bedroom, to the +rickety little table and the dingy little looking-glass. She waited there for a +moment, and then turned away with weary contempt. “What does it matter +how pale I am?” she thought to herself. “Frank can’t see +me—what does it matter now!” +</p> + +<p> +She laid aside her cloak and bonnet, and sat down to collect herself. But the +events of the day had worn her out. The past, when she tried to remember it, +only made her heart ache. The future, when she tried to penetrate it, was a +black void. She rose again, and stood by the uncurtained window—stood +looking out, as if there was some hidden sympathy for her own desolation in the +desolate night. +</p> + +<p> +“Norah!” she said to herself, tenderly; “I wonder if Norah is +thinking of me? Oh, if I could be as patient as she is! If I could only forget +the debt we owe to Michael Vanstone!” +</p> + +<p> +Her face darkened with a vindictive despair, and she paced the little cage of a +room backward and forward, softly. “No: never till the debt is +paid!” Her thoughts veered back again to Frank. “Still at sea, poor +fellow; further and further away from me; sailing through the day, sailing +through the night. Oh, Frank, love me!” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes filled with tears. She dashed them away, made for the door, and +laughed with a desperate levity, as she unlocked it again. +</p> + +<p> +“Any company is better than my own thoughts,” she burst out, +recklessly, as she left the room. “I’m forgetting my ready-made +relations—my half-witted aunt, and my uncle the rogue.” She +descended the stairs to the landing on the first floor, and paused there in +momentary hesitation. “How will it end?” she asked herself. +“Where is my blindfolded journey taking me to now? Who knows, and who +cares?” +</p> + +<p> +She entered the room. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Captain Wragge was presiding at the tea-tray with the air of a prince in his +own banqueting-hall. At one side of the table sat Mrs. Wragge, watching her +husband’s eye like an animal waiting to be fed. At the other side was an +empty chair, toward which the captain waved his persuasive hand when Magdalen +came in. “How do you like your room?” he inquired; “I trust +Mrs. Wragge has made herself useful? You take milk and sugar? Try the local +bread, honor the York butter, test the freshness of a new and neighboring egg. +I offer my little all. A pauper’s meal, my dear girl—seasoned with +a gentleman’s welcome.” +</p> + +<p> +“Seasoned with salt, pepper, chives and parsley,” murmured Mrs. +Wragge, catching instantly at a word in connection with cookery, and harnessing +her head to the omelette for the rest of the evening. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit straight at the table!” shouted the captain. “More to +the left, more still—that will do. During your absence upstairs,” +he continued, addressing himself to Magdalen, “my mind has not been +unemployed. I have been considering your position with a view exclusively to +your own benefit. If you decide on being guided to-morrow by the light of my +experience, that light is unreservedly at your service. You may naturally say: +‘I know but little of you, captain, and that little is +unfavorable.’ Granted, on one condition—that you permit me to make +myself and my character quite familiar to you when tea is over. False shame is +foreign to my nature. You see my wife, my house, my bread, my butter, and my +eggs, all exactly as they are. See me, too, my dear girl, while you are about +it.” +</p> + +<p> +When tea was over, Mrs. Wragge, at a signal from her husband, retired to a +corner of the room, with the eternal cookery-book still in her hand. +“Mince small,” she whispered, confidentially, as she passed +Magdalen. “That’s a teaser, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Down at heel again!” shouted the captain, pointing to his +wife’s heavy flat feet as they shuffled across the room. “The right +shoe. Pull it up at heel, Mrs. Wragge—pull it up at heel! Pray allow +me,” he continued, offering his arm to Magdalen, and escorting her to a +dirty little horse-hair sofa. “You want repose—after your long +journey, you really want repose.” He drew his chair to the sofa, and +surveyed her with a bland look of investigation—as if he had been her +medical attendant, with a diagnosis on his mind. +</p> + +<p> +“Very pleasant! very pleasant!” said the captain, when he had seen +his guest comfortable on the sofa. “I feel quite in the bosom of my +family. Shall we return to our subject—the subject of my rascally self? +No! no! No apologies, no protestations, pray. Don’t mince the matter on +your side—and depend on me not to mince it on mine. Now come to facts; +pray come to facts. Who, and what am I? Carry your mind back to our +conversation on the Walls of this interesting City, and let us start once more +from your point of view. I am a Rogue; and, in that capacity (as I have already +pointed out), the most useful man you possibly could have met with. Now +observe! There are many varieties of Rogue; let me tell you my variety, to +begin with. I am a Swindler.” +</p> + +<p> +His entire shamelessness was really super-human. Not the vestige of a blush +varied the sallow monotony of his complexion; the smile wreathed his curly lips +as pleasantly as ever his party-colored eyes twinkled at Magdalen with the +self-enjoying frankness of a naturally harmless man. Had his wife heard him? +Magdalen looked over his shoulder to the corner of the room in which she was +sitting behind him. No: the self-taught student of cookery was absorbed in her +subject. She had advanced her imaginary omelette to the critical stage at which +the butter was to be thrown in—that vaguely-measured morsel of butter, +the size of your thumb. Mrs. Wragge sat lost in contemplation of one of her own +thumbs, and shook her head over it, as if it failed to satisfy her. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be shocked,” proceeded the captain; “don’t +be astonished. Swindler is nothing but a word of two syllables. S, W, I, N, +D—swind; L, E, R—ler; Swindler. Definition: A moral agriculturist; +a man who cultivates the field of human sympathy. I am that moral +agriculturist, that cultivating man. Narrow-minded mediocrity, envious of my +success in my profession, calls me a Swindler. What of that? The same low tone +of mind assails men in other professions in a similar manner—calls great +writers scribblers—great generals, butchers—and so on. It entirely +depends on the point of view. Adopting your point, I announce myself +intelligibly as a Swindler. Now return the obligation, and adopt mine. Hear +what I have to say for myself, in the exercise of my profession.—Shall I +continue to put it frankly?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Magdalen; “and I’ll tell you frankly +afterward what I think of it.” +</p> + +<p> +The captain cleared his throat; mentally assembled his entire army of +words—horse, foot, artillery, and reserves; put himself at the head; and +dashed into action, to carry the moral intrenchments of Society by a general +charge. +</p> + +<p> +“Now observe,” he began. “Here am I, a needy object. Very +good. Without complicating the question by asking how I come to be in that +condition, I will merely inquire whether it is, or is not, the duty of a +Christian community to help the needy. If you say No, you simply shock me; and +there is an end of it; if you say Yes, then I beg to ask, Why am I to blame for +making a Christian community do its duty? You may say, Is a careful man who has +saved money bound to spend it again on a careless stranger who has saved none? +Why of course he is! And on what ground, pray? Good heavens! on the ground that +he has <i>got</i> the money, to be sure. All the world over, the man who has +not got the thing, obtains it, on one pretense or another, of the man who +has—and, in nine cases out of ten, the pretense is a false one. What! +your pockets are full, and my pockets are empty; and you refuse to help me? +Sordid wretch! do you think I will allow you to violate the sacred obligations +of charity in my person? I won’t allow you—I say, distinctly, I +won’t allow you. Those are my principles as a moral agriculturist. +Principles which admit of trickery? Certainly. Am I to blame if the field of +human sympathy can’t be cultivated in any other way? Consult my brother +agriculturists in the mere farming line—do they get their crops for the +asking? No! they must circumvent arid Nature exactly as I circumvent sordid +Man. They must plow, and sow, and top-dress, and bottom-dress, and deep-drain, +and surface-drain, and all the rest of it. Why am I to be checked in the vast +occupation of deep-draining mankind? Why am I to be persecuted for habitually +exciting the noblest feelings of our common nature? Infamous!—I can +characterize it by no other word—infamous! If I hadn’t confidence +in the future, I should despair of humanity—but I have confidence in the +future. Yes! one of these days (when I am dead and gone), as ideas enlarge and +enlightenment progresses, the abstract merits of the profession now called +swindling will be recognized. When that day comes, don’t drag me out of +my grave and give me a public funeral; don’t take advantage of my having +no voice to raise in my own defense, and insult me by a national statue. No! do +me justice on my tombstone; dash me off, in one masterly sentence, on my +epitaph. Here lies Wragge, embalmed in the tardy recognition of his species: he +plowed, sowed, and reaped his fellow-creatures; and enlightened posterity +congratulates him on the uniform excellence of his crops.” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped; not from want of confidence, not from want of words—purely +from want of breath. “I put it frankly, with a dash of humor,” he +said, pleasantly. “I don’t shock you—do I?” Weary and +heart-sick as she was—suspicious of others, doubtful of herself—the +extravagant impudence of Captain Wragge’s defense of swindling touched +Magdalen’s natural sense of humor, and forced a smile to her lips. +“Is the Yorkshire crop a particularly rich one just at present?” +she inquired, meeting him, in her neatly feminine way, with his own weapons. +</p> + +<p> +“A hit—a palpable hit,” said the captain, jocosely exhibiting +the tails of his threadbare shooting jacket, as a practical commentary on +Magdalen’s remark. “My dear girl, here or elsewhere, the crop never +fails—but one man can’t always gather it in. The assistance of +intelligent co-operation is, I regret to say, denied me. I have nothing in +common with the clumsy rank and file of my profession, who convict themselves, +before recorders and magistrates, of the worst of all offenses—incurable +stupidity in the exercise of their own vocation. Such as you see me, I stand +entirely alone. After years of successful self-dependence, the penalties of +celebrity are beginning to attach to me. On my way from the North, I pause at +this interesting city for the third time; I consult my Books for the customary +references to past local experience; I find under the heading, ‘Personal +position in York,’ the initials, T. W. K., signifying Too Well Known. I +refer to my Index, and turn to the surrounding neighborhood. The same brief +marks meet my eye. ‘Leeds. T. W. K.—Scarborough. T. W. +K.—Harrowgate. T. W. K.’—and so on. What is the inevitable +consequence? I suspend my proceedings; my resources evaporate; and my fair +relative finds me the pauper gentleman whom she now sees before her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your books?” said Magdalen. “What books do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall see,” replied the captain. “Trust me, or not, as +you like—I trust <i>you</i> implicitly. You shall see.” +</p> + +<p> +With those words he retired into the back room. While he was gone, Magdalen +stole another look at Mrs. Wragge. Was she still self-isolated from her +husband’s deluge of words? Perfectly self-isolated. She had advanced the +imaginary omelette to the last stage of culinary progress; and she was now +rehearsing the final operation of turning it over—with the palm of her +hand to represent the dish, and the cookery-book to impersonate the frying-pan. +“I’ve got it,” said Mrs. Wragge, nodding across the room at +Magdalen. “First put the frying-pan on the dish, and then tumble both of +them over.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge returned, carrying a neat black dispatch-box, adorned with a +bright brass lock. He produced from the box five or six plump little books, +bound in commercial calf and vellum, and each fitted comfortably with its own +little lock. +</p> + +<p> +“Mind!” said the moral agriculturist, “I take no credit to +myself for this: it is my nature to be orderly, and orderly I am. I must have +everything down in black and white, or I should go mad! Here is my commercial +library: Daybook, Ledger, Book of Districts, Book of Letters, Book of Remarks, +and so on. Kindly throw your eye over any one of them. I flatter myself there +is no such thing as a blot, or a careless entry in it, from the first page to +the last. Look at this room—is there a chair out of place? Not if I know +it! Look at <i>me</i>. Am I dusty? am I dirty? am I half shaved? Am I, in +brief, a speckless pauper, or am I not? Mind! I take no credit to myself; the +nature of the man, my dear girl—the nature of the man!” +</p> + +<p> +He opened one of the books. Magdalen was no judge of the admirable correctness +with which the accounts inside were all kept; but she could estimate the +neatness of the handwriting, the regularity in the rows of figures, the +mathematical exactness of the ruled lines in red and black ink, the cleanly +absence of blots, stains, or erasures. Although Captain Wragge’s inborn +sense of order was in him—as it is in others—a sense too +inveterately mechanical to exercise any elevating moral influence over his +actions, it had produced its legitimate effect on his habits, and had reduced +his rogueries as strictly to method and system as if they had been the +commercial transactions of an honest man. +</p> + +<p> +“In appearance, my system looks complicated?” pursued the captain. +“In reality, it is simplicity itself. I merely avoid the errors of +inferior practitioners. That is to say, I never plead for myself; and I never +apply to rich people—both fatal mistakes which the inferior practitioner +perpetually commits. People with small means sometimes have generous impulses +in connection with money—rich people, <i>never</i>. My lord, with forty +thousand a year; Sir John, with property in half a dozen counties—those +are the men who never forgive the genteel beggar for swindling them out of a +sovereign; those are the men who send for the mendicity officers; those are the +men who take care of their money. Who are the people who lose shillings and +sixpences by sheer thoughtlessness? Servants and small clerks, to whom +shillings and sixpences are of consequence. Did you ever hear of Rothschild or +Baring dropping a fourpenny-piece down a gutter-hole? Fourpence in +Rothschild’s pocket is safer than fourpence in the pocket of that woman +who is crying stale shrimps in Skeldergate at this moment. Fortified by these +sound principles, enlightened by the stores of written information in my +commercial library, I have ranged through the population for years past, and +have raised my charitable crops with the most cheering success. Here, in book +Number One, are all my Districts mapped out, with the prevalent public feeling +to appeal to in each: Military District, Clerical District, Agricultural +District; et cetera, et cetera. Here, in Number Two, are my cases that I plead: +Family of an officer who fell at Waterloo; Wife of a poor curate stricken down +by nervous debility; Widow of a grazier in difficulties gored to death by a mad +bull; et cetera, et cetera. Here, in Number Three, are the people who have +heard of the officer’s family, the curate’s wife, the +grazier’s widow, and the people who haven’t; the people who have +said Yes, and the people who have said No; the people to try again, the people +who want a fresh case to stir them up, the people who are doubtful, the people +to beware of; et cetera, et cetera. Here, in Number Four, are my Adopted +Handwritings of public characters; my testimonials to my own worth and +integrity; my Heartrending Statements of the officer’s family, the +curate’s wife, and the grazier’s widow, stained with tears, blotted +with emotion; et cetera, et cetera. Here, in Numbers Five and Six, are my own +personal subscriptions to local charities, actually paid in remunerative +neighborhoods, on the principle of throwing a sprat to catch a herring; also, +my diary of each day’s proceedings, my personal reflections and remarks, +my statement of existing difficulties (such as the difficulty of finding myself +T. W. K. in this interesting city); my outgivings and incomings; wind and +weather; politics and public events; fluctuations in my own health; +fluctuations in Mrs. Wragge’s head; fluctuations in our means and meals, +our payments, prospects, and principles; et cetera, et cetera. So, my dear +girl, the Swindler’s Mill goes. So you see me exactly as I am. You knew, +before I met you, that I lived on my wits. Well! have I, or have I not, shown +you that I have wits to live on?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no doubt you have done yourself full justice,” said +Magdalen, quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not at all exhausted,” continued the captain. “I can go +on, if necessary, for the rest of the evening.—However, if I have done +myself full justice, perhaps I may leave the remaining points in my character +to develop themselves at future opportunities. For the present, I withdraw +myself from notice. Exit Wragge. And now to business! Permit me to inquire what +effect I have produced on your own mind? Do you still believe that the Rogue +who has trusted you with all his secrets is a Rogue who is bent on taking a +mean advantage of a fair relative?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will wait a little,” Magdalen rejoined, “before I answer +that question. When I came down to tea, you told me you had been employing your +mind for my benefit. May I ask how?” +</p> + +<p> +“By all means,” said Captain Wragge. “You shall have the net +result of the whole mental process. Said process ranges over the present and +future proceedings of your disconsolate friends, and of the lawyers who are +helping them to find you. Their present proceedings are, in all probability, +assuming the following form: the lawyer’s clerk has given you up at Mr. +Huxtable’s, and has also, by this time, given you up, after careful +inquiry, at all the hotels. His last chance is that you may send for your box +to the cloak-room—you don’t send for it—and there the clerk +is to-night (thanks to Captain Wragge and Rosemary Lane) at the end of his +resources. He will forthwith communicate that fact to his employers in London; +and those employers (don’t be alarmed!) will apply for help to the +detective police. Allowing for inevitable delays, a professional spy, with all +his wits about him, and with those handbills to help him privately in +identifying you, will be here certainly not later than the day after +tomorrow—possibly earlier. If you remain in York, if you attempt to +communicate with Mr. Huxtable, that spy will find you out. If, on the other +hand, you leave the city before he comes (taking your departure by other means +than the railway, of course) you put him in the same predicament as the +clerk—you defy him to find a fresh trace of you. There is my brief +abstract of your present position. What do you think of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it has one defect,” said Magdalen. “It ends in +nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me,” retorted the captain. “It ends in an arrangement +for your safe departure, and in a plan for the entire gratification of your +wishes in the direction of the stage. Both drawn from the resources of my own +experience, and both waiting a word from you, to be poured forth immediately in +the fullest detail.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I know what that word is,” replied Magdalen, looking at +him attentively. +</p> + +<p> +“Charmed to hear it, I am sure. You have only to say, ‘Captain +Wragge, take charge of me’—and my plans are yours from that +moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will take to-night to consider your proposal,” she said, after +an instant’s reflection. “You shall have my answer to-morrow +morning.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge looked a little disappointed. He had not expected the +reservation on his side to be met so composedly by a reservation on hers. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not decide at once?” he remonstrated, in his most persuasive +tones. “You have only to consider—” +</p> + +<p> +“I have more to consider than you think for,” she answered. +“I have another object in view besides the object you know of.” +</p> + +<p> +“May I ask—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me, Captain Wragge—you may <i>not</i> ask. Allow me to +thank you for your hospitality, and to wish you good-night. I am worn out. I +want rest.” +</p> + +<p> +Once more the captain wisely adapted himself to her humor with the ready +self-control of an experienced man. +</p> + +<p> +“Worn out, of course!” he said, sympathetically. +“Unpardonable on my part not to have thought of it before. We will resume +our conversation to-morrow. Permit me to give you a candle. Mrs. Wragge!” +</p> + +<p> +Prostrated by mental exertion, Mrs. Wragge was pursuing the course of the +omelette in dreams. Her head was twisted one way, and her body the other. She +snored meekly. At intervals one of her hands raised itself in the air, shook an +imaginary frying-pan, and dropped again with a faint thump on the cookery-book +in her lap. At the sound of her husband’s voice, she started to her feet, +and confronted him with her mind fast asleep, and her eyes wide open. +</p> + +<p> +“Assist Miss Vanstone,” said the captain. “And the next time +you forget yourself in your chair, fall asleep straight—don’t annoy +me by falling asleep crooked.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge opened her eyes a little wider, and looked at Magdalen in helpless +amazement. +</p> + +<p> +“Is the captain breakfasting by candle-light?” she inquired, +meekly. “And haven’t I done the omelette?” +</p> + +<p> +Before her husband’s corrective voice could apply a fresh stimulant, +Magdalen took her compassionately by the arm and led her out of the room. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Another object besides the object I know of?” repeated Captain +Wragge, when he was left by himself. “<i>Is</i> there a gentleman in the +background, after all? Is there mischief brewing in the dark that I don’t +bargain for?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER III.</h3> + +<p> +Toward six o’clock the next morning, the light pouring in on her face +awoke Magdalen in the bedroom in Rosemary Lane. +</p> + +<p> +She started from her deep, dreamless repose of the past night with that painful +sense of bewilderment, on first waking, which is familiar to all sleepers in +strange beds. “Norah!” she called out mechanically, when she opened +her eyes. The next instant her mind roused itself, and her senses told her the +truth. She looked round the miserable room with a loathing recognition of it. +The sordid contrast which the place presented to all that she had been +accustomed to see in her own bed-chamber—the practical abandonment, +implied in its scanty furniture, of those elegant purities of personal habit to +which she had been accustomed from her childhood—shocked that sense of +bodily self-respect in Magdalen which is a refined woman’s second nature. +Contemptible as the influence seemed, when compared with her situation at that +moment, the bare sight of the jug and basin in a corner of the room decided her +first resolution when she woke. She determined, then and there, to leave +Rosemary Lane. +</p> + +<p> +How was she to leave it? With Captain Wragge, or without him? +</p> + +<p> +She dressed herself, with a dainty shrinking from everything in the room which +her hands or her clothes touched in the process, and then opened the window. +The autumn air felt keen and sweet; and the little patch of sky that she could +see was warmly bright already with the new sunlight. Distant voices of bargemen +on the river, and the chirping of birds among the weeds which topped the old +city wall, were the only sounds that broke the morning silence. She sat down by +the window; and searched her mind for the thoughts which she had lost, when +weariness overcame her on the night before. +</p> + +<p> +The first subject to which she returned was the vagabond subject of Captain +Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +The “moral agriculturist” had failed to remove her personal +distrust of him, cunningly as he had tried to plead against it by openly +confessing the impostures that he had practiced on others. He had raised her +opinion of his abilities; he had amused her by his humor; he had astonished her +by his assurance; but he had left her original conviction that he was a Rogue +exactly where it was when he first met with her. If the one design then in her +mind had been the design of going on the stage, she would, at all hazards, have +rejected the more than doubtful assistance of Captain Wragge on the spot. +</p> + +<p> +But the perilous journey on which she had now adventured herself had another +end in view—an end, dark and distant—an end, with pitfalls hidden +on the way to it, far other than the shallow pitfalls on the way to the stage. +In the mysterious stillness of the morning, her mind looked on to its second +and its deeper design, and the despicable figure of the swindler rose before +her in a new view. +</p> + +<p> +She tried to shut him out—to feel above him and beyond him again, as she +had felt up to this time. +</p> + +<p> +After a little trifling with her dress, she took from her bosom the white silk +bag which her own hands had made on the farewell night at Combe-Raven. It drew +together at the mouth with delicate silken strings. The first thing she took +out, on opening it, was a lock of Frank’s hair, tied with a morsel of +silver thread; the next was a sheet of paper containing the extracts which she +had copied from her father’s will and her father’s letter; the last +was a closely-folded packet of bank-notes, to the value of nearly two hundred +pounds—the produce (as Miss Garth had rightly conjectured) of the sale of +her jewelry and her dresses, in which the servant at the boarding-school had +privately assisted her. She put back the notes at once, without a second glance +at them, and then sat looking thoughtfully at the lock of hair as it lay on her +lap. “You are better than nothing,” she said, speaking to it with a +girl’s fanciful tenderness. “I can sit and look at you sometimes, +till I almost think I am looking at Frank. Oh, my darling! my darling!” +Her voice faltered softly, and she put the lock of hair, with a languid +gentleness, to her lips. It fell from her fingers into her bosom. A lovely +tinge of color rose on her cheeks, and spread downward to her neck, as if it +followed the falling hair. She closed her eyes, and let her fair head droop +softly. The world passed from her; and, for one enchanted moment, Love opened +the gates of Paradise to the daughter of Eve. +</p> + +<p> +The trivial noises in the neighboring street, gathering in number as the +morning advanced, forced her back to the hard realities of the passing time. +She raised her head with a heavy sigh, and opened her eyes once more on the +mean and miserable little room. +</p> + +<p> +The extracts from the will and the letter—those last memorials of her +father, now so closely associated with the purpose which had possession of her +mind—still lay before her. The transient color faded from her face, as +she spread the little manuscript open on her lap. The extracts from the will +stood highest on the page; they were limited to those few touching words in +which the dead father begged his children’s forgiveness for the stain on +their birth, and implored them to remember the untiring love and care by which +he had striven to atone for it. The extract from the letter to Mr. Pendril came +next. She read the last melancholy sentences aloud to herself: “For +God’s sake come on the day when you receive this—come and relieve +me from the dreadful thought that my two darling girls are at this moment +unprovided for. If anything happened to me, and if my desire to do their mother +justice ended (through my miserable ignorance of the law) in leaving Norah and +Magdalen disinherited, I should not rest in my grave!” Under these lines +again, and close at the bottom of the page, was written the terrible commentary +on that letter which had fallen from Mr. Pendril’s lips: “Mr. +Vanstone’s daughters are Nobody’s Children, and the law leaves them +helpless at their uncle’s mercy.” +</p> + +<p> +Helpless when those words were spoken—helpless still, after all that she +had resolved, after all that she had sacrificed. The assertion of her natural +rights and her sister’s, sanctioned by the direct expression of her +father’s last wishes; the recall of Frank from China; the justification +of her desertion of Norah—all hung on her desperate purpose of recovering +the lost inheritance, at any risk, from the man who had beggared and insulted +his brother’s children. And that man was still a shadow to her! So little +did she know of him that she was even ignorant at that moment of his place of +abode. +</p> + +<p> +She rose and paced the room with the noiseless, negligent grace of a wild +creature of the forest in its cage. “How can I reach him in the +dark?” she said to herself. “How can I find out—?” She +stopped suddenly. Before the question had shaped itself to an end in her +thoughts, Captain Wragge was back in her mind again. +</p> + +<p> +A man well used to working in the dark; a man with endless resources of +audacity and cunning; a man who would hesitate at no mean employment that could +be offered to him, if it was employment that filled his pockets—was this +the instrument for which, in its present need, her hand was waiting? Two of the +necessities to be met, before she could take a single step in advance, were +plainly present to her—the necessity of knowing more of her +father’s brother than she knew now; and the necessity of throwing him off +his guard by concealing herself personally during the process of inquiry. +Resolutely self-dependent as she was, the inevitable spy’s work at the +outset must be work delegated to another. In her position, was there any ready +human creature within reach but the vagabond downstairs? Not one. She thought +of it anxiously, she thought of it long. Not one! There the choice was, +steadily confronting her: the choice of taking the Rogue, or of turning her +back on the Purpose. +</p> + +<p> +She paused in the middle of the room. “What can he do at his +worst?” she said to herself. “Cheat me. Well! if my money governs +him for me, what then? Let him have my money!” She returned mechanically +to her place by the window. A moment more decided her. A moment more, and she +took the first fatal step downward-she determined to face the risk, and try +Captain Wragge. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +At nine o’clock the landlady knocked at Magdalen’s door, and +informed her (with the captain’s kind compliments) that breakfast was +ready. +</p> + +<p> +She found Mrs. Wragge alone, attired in a voluminous brown holland wrapper, +with a limp cape and a trimming of dingy pink ribbon. The ex-waitress at +Darch’s Dining-rooms was absorbed in the contemplation of a large dish, +containing a leathery-looking substance of a mottled yellow color, profusely +sprinkled with little black spots. +</p> + +<p> +“There it is!” said Mrs. Wragge. “Omelette with herbs. The +landlady helped me. And that’s what we’ve made of it. Don’t +you ask the captain for any when he comes in—don’t, there’s a +good soul. It isn’t nice. We had some accidents with it. It’s been +under the grate. It’s been spilled on the stairs. It’s scalded the +landlady’s youngest boy—he went and sat on it. Bless you, it +isn’t half as nice as it looks! Don’t you ask for any. Perhaps he +won’t notice if you say nothing about it. What do you think of my +wrapper? I should so like to have a white one. Have you got a white one? How is +it trimmed? Do tell me!” +</p> + +<p> +The formidable entrance of the captain suspended the next question on her lips. +Fortunately for Mrs. Wragge, her husband was far too anxious for the promised +expression of Magdalen’s decision to pay his customary attention to +questions of cookery. When breakfast was over, he dismissed Mrs. Wragge, and +merely referred to the omelette by telling her that she had his full permission +to “give it to the dogs.” +</p> + +<p> +“How does my little proposal look by daylight?” he asked, placing +chairs for Magdalen and himself. “Which is it to be: ‘Captain +Wragge, take charge of me?’ or, ‘Captain Wragge, +good-morning?’” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall hear directly,” replied Magdalen. “I have +something to say first. I told you, last night, that I had another object in +view besides the object of earning my living on the stage—” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” interposed Captain Wragge. “Did you say, +earning your living?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly. Both my sister and myself must depend on our own exertions to +gain our daily bread.” +</p> + +<p> +“What!!!” cried the captain, starting to his feet. “The +daughters of my wealthy and lamented relative by marriage reduced to earn their +own living? Impossible—wildly, extravagantly impossible!” He sat +down again, and looked at Magdalen as if she had inflicted a personal injury on +him. +</p> + +<p> +“You are not acquainted with the full extent of our misfortune,” +she said, quietly. “I will tell you what has happened before I go any +further.” She told him at once, in the plainest terms she could find, and +with as few details as possible. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge’s profound bewilderment left him conscious of but one +distinct result produced by the narrative on his own mind. The lawyer’s +offer of Fifty Pounds Reward for the missing young lady ascended instantly to a +place in his estimation which it had never occupied until that moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Do I understand,” he inquired, “that you are entirely +deprived of present resources?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have sold my jewelry and my dresses,” said Magdalen, impatient +of his mean harping on the pecuniary string. “If my want of experience +keeps me back in a theater, I can afford to wait till the stage can afford to +pay me.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge mentally appraised the rings, bracelets, and necklaces, the +silks, satins, and laces of the daughter of a gentleman of fortune, +at—say, a third of their real value. In a moment more, the Fifty Pounds +Reward suddenly sank again to the lowest depths in the deep estimation of this +judicious man. +</p> + +<p> +“Just so,” he said, in his most business-like manner. “There +is not the least fear, my dear girl, of your being kept back in a theater, if +you possess present resources, and if you profit by my assistance.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must accept more assistance than you have already offered—or +none,” said Magdalen. “I have more serious difficulties before me +than the difficulty of leaving York, and the difficulty of finding my way to +the stage.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t say so! I am all attention; pray explain +yourself!” +</p> + +<p> +She considered her next words carefully before they passed her lips. +</p> + +<p> +“There are certain inquiries,” she said, “which I am +interested in making. If I undertook them myself, I should excite the suspicion +of the person inquired after, and should learn little or nothing of what I wish +to know. If the inquiries could be made by a stranger, without my being seen in +the matter, a service would be rendered me of much greater importance than the +service you offered last night.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge’s vagabond face became gravely and deeply attentive. +</p> + +<p> +“May I ask,” he said, “what the nature of the inquiries is +likely to be?” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen hesitated. She had necessarily mentioned Michael Vanstone’s name +in informing the captain of the loss of her inheritance. She must inevitably +mention it to him again if she employed his services. He would doubtless +discover it for himself, by a plain process of inference, before she said many +words more, frame them as carefully as she might. Under these circumstances, +was there any intelligible reason for shrinking from direct reference to +Michael Vanstone? No intelligible reason—and yet she shrank. +</p> + +<p> +“For instance,” pursued Captain Wragge, “are they inquiries +about a man or a woman; inquiries about an enemy or a friend—?” +</p> + +<p> +“An enemy,” she answered, quickly. +</p> + +<p> +Her reply might still have kept the captain in the dark—but her eyes +enlightened him. “Michael Vanstone!” thought the wary Wragge. +“She looks dangerous; I’ll feel my way a little further.” +</p> + +<p> +“With regard, now, to the person who is the object of these +inquiries,” he resumed. “Are you thoroughly clear in your own mind +about what you want to know?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perfectly clear,” replied Magdalen. “I want to know where he +lives, to begin with.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. And after that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to know about his habits; about who the people are whom he +associates with; about what he does with his money—” She considered +a little. “And one thing more,” she said; “I want to know +whether there is any woman about his house—a relation, or a +housekeeper—who has an influence over him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Harmless enough, so far,” said the captain. “What +next?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. The rest is my secret.” +</p> + +<p> +The clouds on Captain Wragge’s countenance began to clear away again. He +reverted, with his customary precision, to his customary choice of +alternatives. “These inquiries of hers,” he thought, “mean +one of two things—Mischief, or Money! If it’s Mischief, I’ll +slip through her fingers. If it’s Money, I’ll make myself useful, +with a view to the future.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen’s vigilant eyes watched the progress of his reflections +suspiciously. “Captain Wragge,” she said, “if you want time +to consider, say so plainly.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want a moment,” replied the captain. “Place +your departure from York, your dramatic career, and your private inquiries +under my care. Here I am, unreservedly at your disposal. Say the word—do +you take me?” +</p> + +<p> +Her heart beat fast; her lips turned dry—but she said the word. +</p> + +<p> +“I do.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. Magdalen sat silent, struggling with the vague dread of the +future which had been roused in her mind by her own reply. Captain Wragge, on +his side, was apparently absorbed in the consideration of a new set of +alternatives. His hands descended into his empty pockets, and prophetically +tested their capacity as receptacles for gold and silver. The brightness of the +precious metals was in his face, the smoothness of the precious metals was in +his voice, as he provided himself with a new supply of words, and resumed the +conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“The next question,” he said, “is the question of time. Do +these confidential investigations of ours require immediate attention—or +can they wait?” +</p> + +<p> +“For the present, they can wait,” replied Magdalen. “I wish +to secure my freedom from all interference on the part of my friends before the +inquiries are made.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good. The first step toward accomplishing that object is to beat +our retreat—excuse a professional metaphor from a military man—to +beat our retreat from York to-morrow. I see my way plainly so far; but I am all +abroad, as we used to say in the militia, about my marching orders afterward. +The next direction we take ought to be chosen with an eye to advancing your +dramatic views. I am all ready, when I know what your views are. How came you +to think of the theater at all? I see the sacred fire burning in you; tell me, +who lit it?” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen could only answer him in one way. She could only look back at the days +that were gone forever, and tell him the story of her first step toward the +stage at Evergreen Lodge. Captain Wragge listened with his usual politeness; +but he evidently derived no satisfactory impression from what he heard. +Audiences of friends were audiences whom he privately declined to trust; and +the opinion of the stage-manager was the opinion of a man who spoke with his +fee in his pocket and his eye on a future engagement. +</p> + +<p> +“Interesting, deeply interesting,” he said, when Magdalen had done. +“But not conclusive to a practical man. A specimen of your abilities is +necessary to enlighten me. I have been on the stage myself; the comedy of the +Rivals is familiar to me from beginning to end. A sample is all I want, if you +have not forgotten the words—a sample of ‘Lucy,’ and a sample +of ‘Julia.’” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not forgotten the words,” said Magdalen, sorrowfully; +“and I have the little books with me in which my dialogue was written +out. I have never parted with them; they remind me of a time—” Her +lip trembled, and a pang of the heart-ache silenced her. +</p> + +<p> +“Nervous,” remarked the captain, indulgently. “Not at all a +bad sign. The greatest actresses on the stage are nervous. Follow their +example, and get over it. Where are the parts? Oh, here they are! Very nicely +written, and remarkably clean. I’ll give you the cues—it will all +be over (as the dentists say) in no time. Take the back drawing-room for the +stage, and take me for the audience. Tingle goes the bell; up runs the curtain; +order in the gallery, silence in the pit—enter Lucy!” +</p> + +<p> +She tried hard to control herself; she forced back the sorrow—the +innocent, natural, human sorrow for the absent and the dead—pleading hard +with her for the tears that she refused. Resolutely, with cold, clinched hands, +she tried to begin. As the first familiar words passed her lips, Frank came +back to her from the sea, and the face of her dead father looked at her with +the smile of happy old times. The voices of her mother and her sister talked +gently in the fragrant country stillness, and the garden-walks at Combe-Raven +opened once more on her view. With a faint, wailing cry, she dropped into a +chair; her head fell forward on the table, and she burst passionately into +tears. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge was on his feet in a moment. She shuddered as he came near her, +and waved him back vehemently with her hand. “Leave me!” she said; +“leave me a minute by myself!” The compliant Wragge retired to the +front room; looked out of the window; and whistled under his breath. “The +family spirit again!” he said. “Complicated by hysterics.” +</p> + +<p> +After waiting a minute or two he returned to make inquiries. +</p> + +<p> +“Is there anything I can offer you?” he asked. “Cold water? +burned feathers? smelling salts? medical assistance? Shall I summon Mrs. +Wragge? Shall we put it off till to-morrow?” +</p> + +<p> +She started up, wild and flushed, with a desperate self-command in her face, +with an angry resolution in her manner. +</p> + +<p> +“No!” she said. “I must harden myself—and I will! Sit +down again and see me act.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bravo!” cried the captain. “Dash at it, my beauty—and +it’s done!” +</p> + +<p> +She dashed at it, with a mad defiance of herself—with a raised voice, and +a glow like fever in her cheeks. All the artless, girlish charm of the +performance in happier and better days was gone. The native dramatic capacity +that was in her came, hard and bold, to the surface, stripped of every +softening allurement which had once adorned it. She would have saddened and +disappointed a man with any delicacy of feeling. She absolutely electrified +Captain Wragge. He forgot his politeness, he forgot his long words. The +essential spirit of the man’s whole vagabond life burst out of him +irresistibly in his first exclamation. “Who the devil would have thought +it? She <i>can</i> act, after all!” The instant the words escaped his +lips he recovered himself, and glided off into his ordinary colloquial +channels. Magdalen stopped him in the middle of his first compliment. +“No,” she said; “I have forced the truth out of you for once. +I want no more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me,” replied the incorrigible Wragge. “You want a +little instruction; and I am the man to give it you.” +</p> + +<p> +With that answer, he placed a chair for her, and proceeded to explain himself. +</p> + +<p> +She sat down in silence. A sullen indifference began to show itself in her +manner; her cheeks turned pale again; and her eyes looked wearily vacant at the +wall before her. Captain Wragge noticed these signs of heart-sickness and +discontent with herself, after the effort she had made, and saw the importance +of rousing her by speaking, for once, plainly and directly to the point. She +had set a new value on herself in his mercenary eyes. She had suggested to him +a speculation in her youth, her beauty, and her marked ability for the stage, +which had never entered his mind until he saw her act. The old militia-man was +quick at his shifts. He and his plans had both turned right about together when +Magdalen sat down to hear what he had to say. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Huxtable’s opinion is my opinion,” he began. “You +are a born actress. But you must be trained before you can do anything on the +stage. I am disengaged—I am competent—I have trained others—I +can train you. Don’t trust my word: trust my eye to my own interests. +I’ll make it my interest to take pains with you, and to be quick about +it. You shall pay me for my instructions from your profits on the stage. Half +your salary for the first year; a third of your salary for the second year; and +half the sum you clear by your first benefit in a London theater. What do you +say to that? Have I made it my interest to push you, or have I not?” +</p> + +<p> +So far as appearances went, and so far as the stage went, it was plain that he +had linked his interests and Magdalen’s together. She briefly told him +so, and waited to hear more. +</p> + +<p> +“A month or six weeks’ study,” continued the captain, +“will give me a reasonable idea of what you can do best. All ability runs +in grooves; and your groove remains to be found. We can’t find it +here—for we can’t keep you a close prisoner for weeks together in +Rosemary Lane. A quiet country place, secure from all interference and +interruption, is the place we want for a month certain. Trust my knowledge of +Yorkshire, and consider the place found. I see no difficulties anywhere, except +the difficulty of beating our retreat to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought your arrangements were made last night?” said Magdalen. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite right,” rejoined the captain. “They were made last +night; and here they are. We can’t leave by railway, because the +lawyer’s clerk is sure to be on the lookout for you at the York terminus. +Very good; we take to the road instead, and leave in our own carriage. Where +the deuce do we get it? We get it from the landlady’s brother, who has a +horse and chaise which he lets out for hire. That chaise comes to the end of +Rosemary Lane at an early hour to-morrow morning. I take my wife and my niece +out to show them the beauties of the neighborhood. We have a picnic hamper with +us, which marks our purpose in the public eye. You disfigure yourself in a +shawl, bonnet, and veil of Mrs. Wragge’s; we turn our backs on York; and +away we drive on a pleasure trip for the day—you and I on the front seat, +Mrs. Wragge and the hamper behind. Good again. Once on the highroad, what do we +do? Drive to the first station beyond York, northward, southward, or eastward, +as may be hereafter determined. No lawyer’s clerk is waiting for you +there. You and Mrs. Wragge get out—first opening the hamper at a +convenient opportunity. Instead of containing chickens and Champagne, it +contains a carpet-bag, with the things you want for the night. You take your +tickets for a place previously determined on, and I take the chaise back to +York. Arrived once more in this house, I collect the luggage left behind, and +send for the woman downstairs. ‘Ladies so charmed with such and such a +place (wrong place of course), that they have determined to stop there. Pray +accept the customary week’s rent, in place of a week’s warning. +Good day.’ Is the clerk looking for me at the York terminus? Not he. I +take my ticket under his very nose; I follow you with the luggage along your +line of railway—and where is the trace left of your departure? Nowhere. +The fairy has vanished; and the legal authorities are left in the lurch.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you talk of difficulties?” asked Magdalen. “The +difficulties seem to be provided for.” +</p> + +<p> +“All but ONE,” said Captain Wragge, with an ominous emphasis on the +last word. “The Grand Difficulty of humanity from the cradle to the +grave—Money.” He slowly winked his green eye; sighed with deep +feeling; and buried his insolvent hands in his unproductive pockets. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the money wanted for?” inquired Magdalen. +</p> + +<p> +“To pay my bills,” replied the captain, with a touching simplicity. +“Pray understand! I never was—and never shall be—personally +desirous of paying a single farthing to any human creature on the habitable +globe. I am speaking in your interest, not in mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“My interest?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly. You can’t get safely away from York to-morrow without +the chaise. And I can’t get the chaise without money. The +landlady’s brother will lend it if he sees his sister’s bill +receipted, and if he gets his day’s hire beforehand—not otherwise. +Allow me to put the transaction in a business light. We have agreed that I am +to be remunerated for my course of dramatic instruction out of your future +earnings on the stage. Very good. I merely draw on my future prospects; and +you, on whom those prospects depend, are naturally my banker. For mere +argument’s sake, estimate my share in your first year’s salary at +the totally inadequate value of a hundred pounds. Halve that sum; quarter that +sum—” +</p> + +<p> +“How much do you want?” said Magdalen, impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge was sorely tempted to take the Reward at the top of the +handbills as his basis of calculation. But he felt the vast future importance +of present moderation; and actually wanting some twelve or thirteen pounds, he +merely doubled the amount, and said, “Five-and-twenty.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen took the little bag from her bosom, and gave him the money, with a +contemptuous wonder at the number of words which he had wasted on her for the +purpose of cheating on so small a scale. In the old days at Combe-Raven, +five-and-twenty pounds flowed from a stroke of her father’s pen into the +hands of any one in the house who chose to ask for it. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge’s eyes dwelt on the little bag as the eyes of lovers dwell +on their mistresses. “Happy bag!” he murmured, as she put it back +in her bosom. He rose; dived into a corner of the room; produced his neat +dispatch-box; and solemnly unlocked it on the table between Magdalen and +himself. +</p> + +<p> +“The nature of the man, my dear girl—the nature of the man,” +he said, opening one of his plump little books bound in calf and vellum. +“A transaction has taken place between us. I must have it down in black +and white.” He opened the book at a blank page, and wrote at the top, in +a fine mercantile hand: “<i>Miss Vanstone, the Younger: In account with +Horatio Wragge, late of the Royal Militia. +D</i><sup>r</sup>.—<i>C</i><sup>r</sup>. <i>Sept.</i> 24<i>th</i>, 1846. +<i>D</i><sup>r</sup><i>.: To estimated value of H. Wragge’s interest in +Miss V.‘s first year’s salary—say</i> £ 200. +<i>C</i><sup>r</sup>. <i>By paid on account</i>, £ 25.” Having completed +the entry—and having also shown, by doubling his original estimate on the +Debtor side, that Magdalen’s easy compliance with his demand on her had +not been thrown away on him—the captain pressed his blotting-paper over +the wet ink, and put away the book with the air of a man who had done a +virtuous action, and who was above boasting about it. +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me for leaving you abruptly,” he said. “Time is of +importance; I must make sure of the chaise. If Mrs. Wragge comes in, tell her +nothing—she is not sharp enough to be trusted. If she presumes to ask +questions, extinguish her immediately. You have only to be loud. Pray take my +authority into your own hands, and be as loud with Mrs. Wragge as I am!” +He snatched up his tall hat, bowed, smiled, and tripped out of the room. +</p> + +<p> +Sensible of little else but of the relief of being alone; feeling no more +distinct impression than the vague sense of some serious change having taken +place in herself and her position, Magdalen let the events of the morning come +and go like shadows on her mind, and waited wearily for what the day might +bring forth. After the lapse of some time, the door opened softly. The giant +figure of Mrs. Wragge stalked into the room, and stopped opposite Magdalen in +solemn astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are your Things?” asked Mrs. Wragge, with a burst of +incontrollable anxiety. “I’ve been upstairs looking in your +drawers. Where are your night-gowns and night-caps? and your petticoats and +stockings? and your hair-pins and bear’s grease, and all the rest of +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“My luggage is left at the railway station,” said Magdalen. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge’s moon-face brightened dimly. The ineradicable female +instinct of Curiosity tried to sparkle in her faded blue eyes—flickered +piteously—and died out. +</p> + +<p> +“How much luggage?” she asked, confidentially. “The +captain’s gone out. Let’s go and get it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Wragge!” cried a terrible voice at the door. +</p> + +<p> +For the first time in Magdalen’s experience, Mrs. Wragge was deaf to the +customary stimulant. She actually ventured on a feeble remonstrance in the +presence of her husband. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, do let her have her Things!” pleaded Mrs. Wragge. “Oh, +poor soul, do let her have her Things!” +</p> + +<p> +The captain’s inexorable forefinger pointed to a corner of the +room—dropped slowly as his wife retired before it—and suddenly +stopped at the region of her shoes. +</p> + +<p> +“Do I hear a clapping on the floor!” exclaimed Captain Wragge, with +an expression of horror. “Yes; I do. Down at heel again! The left shoe +this time. Pull it up, Mrs. Wragge! pull it up!—The chaise will be here +to-morrow morning at nine o’clock,” he continued, addressing +Magdalen. “We can’t possibly venture on claiming your box. There is +note-paper. Write down a list of the necessaries you want. I will take it +myself to the shop, pay the bill for you, and bring back the parcel. We must +sacrifice the box—we must, indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +While her husband was addressing Magdalen, Mrs. Wragge had stolen out again +from her corner, and had ventured near enough to the captain to hear the words +“shop” and “parcel.” She clapped her great hands +together in ungovernable excitement, and lost all control over herself +immediately. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, if it’s shopping, let me do it!” cried Mrs. Wragge. +“She’s going out to buy her Things! Oh, let me go with +her—please let me go with her!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down!” shouted the captain. “Straight! more to the +right—more still. Stop where you are!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge crossed her helpless hands on her lap, and melted meekly into +tears. +</p> + +<p> +“I do so like shopping,” pleaded the poor creature; “and I +get so little of it now!” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen completed her list; and Captain Wragge at once left the room with it. +“Don’t let my wife bore you,” he said, pleasantly, as he went +out. “Cut her short, poor soul—cut her short!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t cry,” said Magdalen, trying to comfort Mrs. Wragge by +patting her on the shoulder. “When the parcel comes back you shall open +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, my dear,” said Mrs. Wragge, meekly, drying her eyes; +“thank you kindly. Don’t notice my handkerchief, please. It’s +such a very little one! I had a nice lot of them once, with lace borders. +They’re all gone now. Never mind! It will comfort me to unpack your +Things. You’re very good to me. I like you. I say—you won’t +be angry, will you? Give us a kiss.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen stooped over her with the frank grace and gentleness of past days, and +touched her faded cheek. “Let me do something harmless!” she +thought, with a pang at her heart—“oh let me do something innocent +and kind for the sake of old times!” +</p> + +<p> +She felt her eyes moistening, and silently turned away. +</p> + +<p> +That night no rest came to her. That night the roused forces of Good and Evil +fought their terrible fight for her soul—and left the strife between them +still in suspense when morning came. As the clock of York Minster struck nine, +she followed Mrs. Wragge to the chaise, and took her seat by the +captain’s side. In a quarter of an hour more York was in the distance, +and the highroad lay bright and open before them in the morning sunlight. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap20"></a>BETWEEN THE SCENES.<br/> +<small>CHRONICLE OF EVENTS: PRESERVED IN CAPTAIN WRAGGE’S DESPATCH BOX.</small></h3> + +<h4> +I.<br/> +Chronicle for October, 1846. +</h4> + +<p> +I have retired into the bosom of my family. We are residing in the secluded +village of Ruswarp, on the banks of the Esk, about two miles inland from +Whitby. Our lodgings are comfortable, and we possess the additional blessing of +a tidy landlady. Mrs. Wragge and Miss Vanstone preceded me here, in accordance +with the plan I laid down for effecting our retreat from York. On the next day +I followed them alone, with the luggage. On leaving the terminus, I had the +satisfaction of seeing the lawyer’s clerk in close confabulation with the +detective officer whose advent I had prophesied. I left him in peaceable +possession of the city of York, and the whole surrounding neighborhood. He has +returned the compliment, and has left us in peaceable possession of the valley +of the Esk, thirty miles away from him. +</p> + +<p> +Remarkable results have followed my first efforts at the cultivation of Miss +Vanstone’s dramatic abilities. +</p> + +<p> +I have discovered that she possesses extraordinary talent as a mimic. She has +the flexible face, the manageable voice, and the dramatic knack which fit a +woman for character-parts and disguises on the stage. All she now wants is +teaching and practice, to make her sure of her own resources. The experience of +her, thus gained, has revived an idea in my mind which originally occurred to +me at one of the “At Homes” of the late inimitable Charles Mathews, +comedian. I was in the Wine Trade at the time, I remember. We imitated the +Vintage-processes of Nature in a back-kitchen at Brompton, and produced a +dinner-sherry, pale and curious, tonic in character, round in the mouth, a +favorite with the Court of Spain, at nineteen-and-sixpence a dozen, bottles +included—<i>Vide</i> Prospectus of the period. The profits of myself and +partners were small; we were in advance of the tastes of the age, and in debt +to the bottle merchant. Being at my wits’ end for want of money, and +seeing what audiences Mathews drew, the idea occurred to me of starting an +imitation of the great Imitator himself, in the shape of an “At +Home,” given by a woman. The one trifling obstacle in the way was the +difficulty of finding the woman. From that time to this, I have hitherto failed +to overcome it. I have conquered it at last; I have found the woman now. Miss +Vanstone possesses youth and beauty as well as talent. Train her in the art of +dramatic disguise; provide her with appropriate dresses for different +characters; develop her accomplishments in singing and playing; give her plenty +of smart talk addressed to the audience; advertise her as a Young Lady at Home; +astonish the public by a dramatic entertainment which depends from first to +last on that young lady’s own sole exertions; commit the entire +management of the thing to my care—and what follows as a necessary con +sequence? Fame for my fair relative, and a fortune for myself. +</p> + +<p> +I put these considerations, as frankly as usual, to Miss Vanstone; offering to +write the Entertainment, to manage all the business, and to share the profits. +I did not forget to strengthen my case by informing her of the jealousies she +would encounter, and the obstacles she would meet, if she went on the stage. +And I wound up by a neat reference to the private inquiries which she is +interested in making, and to the personal independence which she is desirous of +securing before she acts on her information. “If you go on the +stage,” I said, “your services will be bought by a manager, and he +may insist on his claims just at the time when you want to get free from him. +If, on the contrary, you adopt my views, you will be your own mistress and your +own manager, and you can settle your course just as you like.” This last +consideration appeared to strike her. She took a day to consider it; and, when +the day was over, gave her consent. +</p> + +<p> +I had the whole transaction down in black and white immediately. Our +arrangement is eminently satisfactory, except in one particular. She shows a +morbid distrust of writing her name at the bottom of any document which I +present to her, and roundly declares she will sign nothing. As long as it is +her interest to provide herself with pecuniary resources for the future, she +verbally engages to go on. When it ceases to be her interest, she plainly +threatens to leave off at a week’s notice. A difficult girl to deal with; +she has found out her own value to me already. One comfort is, I have the +cooking of the accounts; and my fair relative shall not fill her pockets too +suddenly if I can help it. +</p> + +<p> +My exertions in training Miss Vanstone for the coming experiment have been +varied by the writing of two anonymous letters in that young lady’s +interests. Finding her too fidgety about arranging matters with her friends to +pay proper attention to my instructions, I wrote anonymously to the lawyer who +is conducting the inquiry after her, recommending him, in a friendly way, to +give it up. The letter was inclosed to a friend of mine in London, with +instructions to post it at Charing Cross. A week later I sent a second letter, +through the same channel, requesting the lawyer to inform me, in writing, +whether he and his clients had or had not decided on taking my advice. I +directed him, with jocose reference to the collision of interests between us, +to address his letter: “Tit for Tat, Post-office, West Strand.” +</p> + +<p> +In a few days the answer arrived—privately forwarded, of course, to +Post-office, Whitby, by arrangement with my friend in London. +</p> + +<p> +The lawyer’s reply was short and surly: “SIR—If my advice had +been followed, you and your anonymous letter would both be treated with the +contempt which they deserve. But the wishes of Miss Magdalen Vanstone’s +eldest sister have claims on my consideration which I cannot dispute; and at +her entreaty I inform you that all further proceedings on my part are +withdrawn—on the express understanding that this concession is to open +facilities for written communication, at least, between the two sisters. A +letter from the elder Miss Vanstone is inclosed in this. If I don’t hear +in a week’s time that it has been received, I shall place the matter once +more in the hands of the police.—WILLIAM PENDRIL.” A sour man, this +William Pendril. I can only say of him what an eminent nobleman once said of +his sulky servant—“I wouldn’t have such a temper as that +fellow has got for any earthly consideration that could be offered me!” +</p> + +<p> +As a matter of course, I looked into the letter which the lawyer inclosed, +before delivering it. Miss Vanstone, the elder, described herself as distracted +at not hearing from her sister; as suited with a governess’s situation in +a private family; as going into the situation in a week’s time; and as +longing for a letter to comfort her, before she faced the trial of undertaking +her new duties. After closing the envelope again, I accompanied the delivery of +the letter to Miss Vanstone, the younger, by a word of caution. “Are you +more sure of your own courage now,” I said, “than you were when I +met you?” She was ready with her answer. “Captain Wragge, when you +met me on the Walls of York I had not gone too far to go back. I have gone too +far now.” +</p> + +<p> +If she really feels this—and I think she does—her corresponding +with her sister can do no harm. She wrote at great length the same day; cried +profusely over her own epistolary composition; and was remarkably ill-tempered +and snappish toward me, when we met in the evening. She wants experience, poor +girl—she sadly wants experience of the world. How consoling to know that +I am just the man to give it her! +</p> + +<h4> +II.<br/> +Chronicle for November. +</h4> + +<p> +We are established at Derby. The Entertainment is written; and the rehearsals +are in steady progress. All difficulties are provided for, but the one eternal +difficulty of money. Miss Vanstone’s resources stretch easily enough to +the limits of our personal wants; including piano-forte hire for practice, and +the purchase and making of the necessary dresses. But the expenses of starting +the Entertainment are beyond the reach of any means we possess. A theatrical +friend of mine here, whom I had hoped to interest in our undertaking, proves, +unhappily, to be at a crisis in his career. The field of human sympathy, out of +which I might have raised the needful pecuniary crop, is closed to me from want +of time to cultivate it. I see no other resource left—if we are to be +ready by Christmas—than to try one of the local music-sellers in this +town, who is said to be a speculating man. A private rehearsal at these +lodgings, and a bargain which will fill the pockets of a grasping +stranger—such are the sacrifices which dire necessity imposes on me at +starting. Well! there is only one consolation: I’ll cheat the +music-seller. +</p> + +<h4> +III.<br/> +Chronicle for December. First Fortnight. +</h4> + +<p> +The music-seller extorts my unwilling respect. He is one of the very few human +beings I have met with in the course of my life who is not to be cheated. He +has taken a masterly advantage of our helplessness; and has imposed terms on +us, for performances at Derby and Nottingham, with such a business-like +disregard of all interests but his own that—fond as I am of putting +things down in black and white—I really cannot prevail upon myself to +record the bargain. It is needless to say, I have yielded with my best grace; +sharing with my fair relative the wretched pecuniary prospects offered to us. +Our turn will come. In the meantime, I cordially regret not having known the +local music-seller in early life. +</p> + +<p> +Personally speaking, I have no cause to complain of Miss Vanstone. We have +arranged that she shall regularly forward her address (at the post-office) to +her friends, as we move about from place to place. Besides communicating in +this way with her sister, she also reports herself to a certain Mr. Clare, +residing in Somersetshire, who is to forward all letters exchanged between +herself and his son. Careful inquiry has informed me that this latter +individual is now in China. Having suspected from the first that there was a +gentleman in the background, it is highly satisfactory to know that he recedes +into the remote perspective of Asia. Long may he remain there! +</p> + +<p> +The trifling responsibility of finding a name for our talented Magdalen to +perform under has been cast on my shoulders. She feels no interest whatever in +this part of the subject. “Give me any name you like,” she said; +“I have as much right to one as to another. Make it yourself.” I +have readily consented to gratify her wishes. The resources of my commercial +library include a list of useful names to assume; and we can choose one at five +minutes’ notice, when the admirable man of business who now oppresses us +is ready to issue his advertisements. On this point my mind is easy enough: all +my anxieties center in the fair performer. I have not the least doubt she will +do wonders if she is only left to herself on the first night. But if the +day’s post is mischievous enough to upset her by a letter from her +sister, I tremble for the consequences. +</p> + +<h4> +IV.<br/> +Chronicle for December. Second Fortnight. +</h4> + +<p> +My gifted relative has made her first appearance in public, and has laid the +foundation of our future fortunes. +</p> + +<p> +On the first night the attendance was larger than I had ventured to hope. The +novelty of an evening’s entertainment, conducted from beginning to end by +the unaided exertions of a young lady (see advertisement), roused the public +curiosity, and the seats were moderately well filled. As good luck would have +it, no letter addressed to Miss Vanstone came that day. She was in full +possession of herself until she got the first dress on and heard the bell ring +for the music. At that critical moment she suddenly broke down. I found her +alone in the waiting-room, sobbing, and talking like a child. “Oh, poor +papa! poor papa! Oh, my God, if he saw me now!” My experience in such +matters at once informed me that it was a case of sal-volatile, accompanied by +sound advice. We strung her up in no time to concert pitch; set her eyes in a +blaze; and made her out-blush her own rouge. The curtain rose when we had got +her at a red heat. She dashed at it exactly as she dashed at it in the back +drawing-room at Rosemary Lane. Her personal appearance settled the question of +her reception before she opened her lips. She rushed full gallop through her +changes of character, her songs, and her dialogue; making mistakes by the +dozen, and never stopping to set them right; carrying the people along with her +in a perfect whirlwind, and never waiting for the applause. The whole thing was +over twenty minutes sooner than the time we had calculated on. She carried it +through to the end, and fainted on the waiting-room sofa a minute after the +curtain was down. The music-seller having taken leave of his senses from sheer +astonishment, and I having no evening costume to appear in, we sent the doctor +to make the necessary apology to the public, who were calling for her till the +place rang again. I prompted our medical orator with a neat speech from behind +the curtain; and I never heard such applause, from such a comparatively small +audience, before in my life. I felt the tribute—I felt it deeply. +Fourteen years ago I scraped together the wretched means of existence in this +very town by reading the newspaper (with explanatory comments) to the company +at a public-house. And now here I am at the top of the tree. +</p> + +<p> +It is needless to say that my first proceeding was to bowl out the music-seller +on the spot. He called the next morning, no doubt with a liberal proposal for +extending the engagement beyond Derby and Nottingham. My niece was described as +not well enough to see him; and, when he asked for me, he was told I was not +up. I happened to be at that moment engaged in putting the case pathetically to +our gifted Magdalen. Her answer was in the highest degree satisfactory. She +would permanently engage herself to nobody—least of all to a man who had +taken sordid advantage of her position and mine. She would be her own mistress, +and share the profits with me, while she wanted money, and while it suited her +to go on. So far so good. But the reason she added next, for her flattering +preference of myself, was less to my taste. “The music-seller is not the +man whom I employ to make my inquiries,” she said. “You are the +man.” I don’t like her steadily remembering those inquiries, in the +first bewilderment of her success. It looks ill for the future; it looks +infernally ill for the future. +</p> + +<h4> +V.<br/> +Chronicle for January, 1847. +</h4> + +<p> +She has shown the cloven foot already. I begin to be a little afraid of her. +</p> + +<p> +On the conclusion of the Nottingham engagement (the results of which more than +equaled the results at Derby), I proposed taking the entertainment +next—now we had got it into our own hands—to Newark. Miss Vanstone +raised no objection until we came to the question of time, when she amazed me +by stipulating for a week’s delay before we appeared in public again. +</p> + +<p> +“For what possible purpose?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“For the purpose of making the inquiries which I mentioned to you at +York,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +I instantly enlarged on the danger of delay, putting all the considerations +before her in every imaginable form. She remained perfectly immovable. I tried +to shake her on the question of expenses. She answered by handing me over her +share of the proceeds at Derby and Nottingham—and there were my expenses +paid, at the rate of nearly two guineas a day. I wonder who first picked out a +mule as the type of obstinacy? How little knowledge that man must have had of +women! +</p> + +<p> +There was no help for it. I took down my instructions in black and white, as +usual. My first exertions were to be directed to the discovery of Mr. Michael +Vanstone’s address: I was also expected to find out how long he was +likely to live there, and whether he had sold Combe-Raven or not. My next +inquiries were to inform me of his ordinary habits of life; of what he did with +his money; of who his intimate friends were; and of the sort of terms on which +his son, Mr. Noel Vanstone, was now living with him. Lastly, the investigations +were to end in discovering whether there was any female relative, or any woman +exercising domestic authority in the house, who was known to have an influence +over either father or son. +</p> + +<p> +If my long practice in cultivating the field of human sympathy had not +accustomed me to private investigations into the affairs of other people, I +might have found some of these queries rather difficult to deal with in the +course of a week. As it was, I gave myself all the benefit of my own +experience, and brought the answers back to Nottingham in a day less than the +given time. Here they are, in regular order, for convenience of future +reference: +</p> + +<p> +(1.) Mr. Michael Vanstone is now residing at German Place, Brighton, and likely +to remain there, as he finds the air suits him. He reached London from +Switzerland in September last; and sold the Combe-Raven property immediately on +his arrival. +</p> + +<p> +(2.) His ordinary habits of life are secret and retired; he seldom visits, or +receives company. Part of his money is supposed to be in the Funds, and part +laid out in railway investments, which have survived the panic of eighteen +hundred and forty-six, and are rapidly rising in value. He is said to be a bold +speculator. Since his arrival in England he has invested, with great judgment, +in house property. He has some houses in remote parts of London, and some +houses in certain watering-places on the east coast, which are shown to be +advancing in public repute. In all these cases he is reported to have made +remarkably good bargains. +</p> + +<p> +(3.) It is not easy to discover who his intimate friends are. Two names only +have been ascertained. The first is Admiral Bartram; supposed to have been +under friendly obligations, in past years, to Mr. Michael Vanstone. The second +is Mr. George Bartram, nephew of the Admiral, and now staying on a short visit +in the house at German Place. Mr. George Bartram is the son of the late Mr. +Andrew Vanstone’s sister, also deceased. He is therefore a cousin of Mr. +Noel Vanstone’s. This last—viz., Mr. Noel Vanstone—is in +delicate health, and is living on excellent terms with his father in German +Place. +</p> + +<p> +(4.) There is no female relative in Mr. Michael Vanstone’s family circle. +But there is a housekeeper who has lived in his service ever since his +wife’s death, and who has acquired a strong influence over both father +and son. She is a native of Switzerland, elderly, and a widow. Her name is Mrs. +Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +On placing these particulars in Miss Vanstone’s hands, she made no +remark, except to thank me. I endeavored to invite her confidence. No results; +nothing but a renewal of civility, and a sudden shifting to the subject of the +Entertainment. Very good. If she won’t give me the information I want, +the conclusion is obvious—I must help myself. +</p> + +<p> +Business considerations claim the remainder of this page. Let me return to +business. +</p> + +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ——————————————————————————— + Financial Statement. | Third Week in January. + ——————————————————————————— + Place Visited. | Performances. + Newark. | Two. + ——————————————————————————— + Net Receipts. | Net Receipts. + In black and white. | Actually Realized. + £ 25 | £ 32 10s. + ———————————————————————————— + Apparent Division | Actual Division + of Profits. | of Profits. + Miss V.......£ 12 10 | Miss V.......£ 12 10 + Self.........£ 12 10 | Self.........£ 20 00 + ——————————————————————————— + Private Surplus on the Week, + Or say, + Self-presented Testimonial. + £ 7 10s. + ——————————————————————————— + Audited, | Passed correct, + H. WRAGGE. | H. WRAGGE + ——————————————————————————— +</pre> + +<p> +The next stronghold of British sympathy which we take by storm is Sheffield. We +open the first week in February. +</p> + +<h4> +VI.<br/> +Chronicle for February. +</h4> + +<p> +Practice has now given my fair relative the confidence which I predicted would +come with time. Her knack of disguising her own identity in the impersonation +of different characters so completely staggers her audiences that the same +people come twice over to find out how she does it. It is the amiable defect of +the English public never to know when they have had enough of a good thing. +They actually try to encore one of her characters—an old north-country +lady; modeled on that honored preceptress in the late Mr. Vanstone’s +family to whom I presented myself at Combe-Raven. This particular performance +fairly amazes the people. I don’t wonder at it. Such an extraordinary +assumption of age by a girl of nineteen has never been seen in public before, +in the whole course of my theatrical experience. +</p> + +<p> +I find myself writing in a lower tone than usual; I miss my own dash of humor. +The fact is, I am depressed about the future. In the very height of our +prosperity my perverse pupil sticks to her trumpery family quarrel. I feel +myself at the mercy of the first whim in the Vanstone direction which may come +into her head—I, the architect of her fortunes. Too bad; upon my soul, +too bad. +</p> + +<p> +She has acted already on the inquiries which she forced me to make for her. She +has written two letters to Mr. Michael Vanstone. +</p> + +<p> +To the first letter no answer came. To the second a reply was received. Her +infernal cleverness put an obstacle I had not expected in the way of my +intercepting it. Later in the day, after she had herself opened and read the +answer, I laid another trap for her. It just succeeded, and no more. I had half +a minute to look into the envelope in her absence. It contained nothing but her +own letter returned. She is not the girl to put up quietly with such an insult +as this. Mischief will come of it—Mischief to Michael +Vanstone—which is of no earthly consequence: mischief to Me—which +is a truly serious matter. +</p> + +<h4> +VII.<br/> +Chronicle for March. +</h4> + +<p> +After performing at Sheffield and Manchester, we have moved to Liverpool, +Preston, and Lancaster. Another change in this weathercock of a girl. She has +written no more letters to Michael Vanstone; and she has become as anxious to +make money as I am myself. We are realizing large profits, and we are worked to +death. I don’t like this change in her: she has a purpose to answer, or +she would not show such extraordinary eagerness to fill her purse. Nothing I +can do—no cooking of accounts; no self-presented testimonials—can +keep that purse empty. The success of the Entertainment, and her own sharpness +in looking after her interests, literally force me into a course of comparative +honesty. She puts into her pocket more than a third of the profits, in defiance +of my most arduous exertions to prevent her. And this at my age! this after my +long and successful career as a moral agriculturist! Marks of admiration are +very little things; but they express my feelings, and I put them in freely. +</p> + +<h4> +VIII.<br/> +Chronicle for April and May. +</h4> + +<p> +We have visited seven more large towns, and are now at Birmingham. Consulting +my books, I find that Miss Vanstone has realized by the Entertainment, up to +this time, the enormous sum of nearly four hundred pounds. It is quite possible +that my own profits may reach one or two miserable hundred more. But I was the +architect of her fortunes—the publisher, so to speak, of her +book—and, if anything, I am underpaid. +</p> + +<p> +I made the above discovery on the twenty-ninth of the month—anniversary +of the Restoration of my royal predecessor in the field of human sympathies, +Charles the Second. I had barely finished locking up my dispatch-box, when the +ungrateful girl, whose reputation I have made, came into the room and told me +in so many words that the business connection between us was for the present at +an end. +</p> + +<p> +I attempt no description of my own sensations: I merely record facts. She +informed me, with an appearance of perfect composure, that she needed rest, and +that she had “new objects in view.” She might possibly want me to +assist those objects; and she might possibly return to the Entertainment. In +either case it would be enough if we exchanged addresses, at which we could +write to each other in case of need. Having no desire to leave me too abruptly, +she would remain the next day (which was Sunday); and would take her departure +on Monday morning. Such was her explanation, in so many words. +</p> + +<p> +Remonstrance, as I knew by experience, would be thrown away. Authority I had +none to exert. My one sensible course to take in this emergency was to find out +which way my own interests pointed, and to go that way without a moment’s +unnecessary hesitation. +</p> + +<p> +A very little reflection has since convinced me that she has a deep-laid scheme +against Michael Vanstone in view. She is young, handsome, clever, and +unscrupulous; she has made money to live on, and has time at her disposal to +find out the weak side of an old man; and she is going to attack Mr. Michael +Vanstone unawares with the legitimate weapons of her sex. Is she likely to want +me for such a purpose as this? Doubtful. Is she merely anxious to get rid of me +on easy terms? Probable. Am I the sort of man to be treated in this way by my +own pupil? Decidedly not: I am the man to see my way through a neat succession +of alternatives; and here they are: +</p> + +<p> +First alternative: To announce my compliance with her proposal; to exchange +addresses with her; and then to keep my eye privately on all her future +movements. Second alternative: to express fond anxiety in a paternal capacity; +and to threaten giving the alarm to her sister and the lawyer, if she persists +in her design. Third alternative: to turn the information I already possess to +the best account, by making it a marketable commodity between Mr. Michael +Vanstone and myself. At present I incline toward the last of these three +courses. But my decision is far too important to be hurried. To-day is only the +twenty-ninth. I will suspend my Chronicle of Events until Monday. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +May 31st.—My alternatives and her plans are both overthrown together. +</p> + +<p> +The newspaper came in, as usual, after breakfast. I looked it over, and +discovered this memorable entry among the obituary announcements of the day: +</p> + +<p> +“On the 29th inst., at Brighton, Michael Vanstone, Esq., formerly of +Zurich, aged 77.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Vanstone was present in the room when I read those two startling lines. +Her bonnet was on; her boxes were packed; she was waiting impatiently until it +was time to go to the train. I handed the paper to her, without a word on my +side. Without a word on hers, she looked where I pointed, and read the news of +Michael Vanstone’s death. +</p> + +<p> +The paper dropped out of her hand, and she suddenly pulled down her veil. I +caught one glance at her face before she hid it from me. The effect on my mind +was startling in the extreme. To put it with my customary dash of +humor—her face informed me that the most sensible action which Michael +Vanstone, Esq., formerly of Zurich, had ever achieved in his life was the +action he performed at Brighton on the 29th instant. +</p> + +<p> +Finding the dead silence in the room singularly unpleasant under existing +circumstances, I thought I would make a remark. My regard for my own interests +supplied me with a subject. I mentioned the Entertainment. +</p> + +<p> +“After what has happened,” I said, “I presume we go on with +our performances as usual?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she answered, behind the veil. “We go on with my +inquiries.” +</p> + +<p> +“Inquiries after a dead man?” +</p> + +<p> +“Inquiries after the dead man’s son.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Noel Vanstone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; Mr. Noel Vanstone.” +</p> + +<p> +Not having a veil to put down over my own face, I stooped and picked up the +newspaper. Her devilish determination quite upset me for the moment. I actually +had to steady myself before I could speak to her again. +</p> + +<p> +“Are the new inquiries as harmless as the old ones?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite as harmless.” +</p> + +<p> +“What am I expected to find out?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish to know whether Mr. Noel Vanstone remains at Brighton after the +funeral.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if not?” +</p> + +<p> +“If not, I shall want to know his new address wherever it may be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. And what next?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you to find out next if all the father’s money goes to the +son.” +</p> + +<p> +I began to see her drift. The word money relieved me; I felt quite on my own +ground again. +</p> + +<p> +“Anything more?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Only one thing more,” she answered. “Make sure, if you +please, whether Mrs. Lecount, the housekeeper, remains or not in Mr. Noel +Vanstone’s service.” +</p> + +<p> +Her voice altered a little as she mentioned Mrs. Lecount’s name; she is +evidently sharp enough to distrust the housekeeper already. +</p> + +<p> +“My expenses are to be paid as usual?” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“As usual.” +</p> + +<p> +“When am I expected to leave for Brighton?” +</p> + +<p> +“As soon as you can.” +</p> + +<p> +She rose, and left the room. After a momentary doubt, I decided on executing +the new commission. The more private inquiries I conduct for my fair relative +the harder she will find it to get rid of hers truly, Horatio Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +There is nothing to prevent my starting for Brighton to-morrow. So to-morrow I +go. If Mr. Noel Vanstone succeeds to his father’s property, he is the +only human being possessed of pecuniary blessings who fails to inspire me with +a feeling of unmitigated envy. +</p> + +<h4> +IX.<br/> +Chronicle for June. +</h4> + +<p> +9th.—I returned yesterday with my information. Here it is, privately +noted down for convenience of future reference: +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Noel Vanstone has left Brighton, and has removed, for the purpose of +transacting business in London, to one of his late father’s empty houses +in Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth. This singularly mean selection of a place of +residence on the part of a gentleman of fortune looks as if Mr. N. V. and his +money were not easily parted. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Noel Vanstone has stepped into his father’s shoes under the following +circumstances: Mr. Michael Vanstone appears to have died, curiously enough, as +Mr. Andrew Vanstone died—intestate. With this difference, however, in the +two cases, that the younger brother left an informal will, and the elder +brother left no will at all. The hardest men have their weaknesses; and Mr. +Michael Vanstone’s weakness seems to have been an insurmountable horror +of contemplating the event of his own death. His son, his housekeeper, and his +lawyer, had all three tried over and over again to get him to make a will; and +had never shaken his obstinate resolution to put off performing the only +business duty he was ever known to neglect. Two doctors attended him in his +last illness; warned him that he was too old a man to hope to get over it; and +warned him in vain. He announced his own positive determination not to die. His +last words in this world (as I succeeded in discovering from the nurse who +assisted Mrs. Lecount) were: “I’m getting better every minute; send +for the fly directly and take me out for a drive.” The same night Death +proved to be the more obstinate of the two; and left his son (and only child) +to take the property in due course of law. Nobody doubts that the result would +have been the same if a will had been made. The father and son had every +confidence in each other, and were known to have always lived together on the +most friendly terms. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount remains with Mr. Noel Vanstone, in the same housekeeping capacity +which she filled with his father, and has accompanied him to the new residence +in Vauxhall Walk. She is acknowledged on all hands to have been a sufferer by +the turn events have taken. If Mr. Michael Vanstone had made his will, there is +no doubt she would have received a handsome legacy. She is now left dependent +on Mr. Noel Vanstone’s sense of gratitude; and she is not at all likely, +I should imagine, to let that sense fall asleep for want of a little timely +jogging. Whether my fair relative’s future intentions in this quarter +point toward Mischief or Money, is more than I can yet say. In either case, I +venture to predict that she will find an awkward obstacle in Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +So much for my information to the present date. The manner in which it was +received by Miss Vanstone showed the most ungrateful distrust of me. She +confided nothing to my private ear but the expression of her best thanks. A +sharp girl—a devilish sharp girl. But there is such a thing as bowling a +man out once too often; especially when the name of that man happens to be +Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +Not a word more about the Entertainment; not a word more about moving from our +present quarters. Very good. My right hand lays my left hand a wager. Ten to +one, on her opening communications with the son as she opened them with the +father. Ten to one, on her writing to Noel Vanstone before the month is out. +</p> + +<p> +21st.—She has written by to-day’s post. A long letter, +apparently—for she put two stamps on the envelope. (Private memorandum, +addressed to myself. Wait for the answer.) +</p> + +<p> +22d, 23d, 24th.—(Private memorandum continued. Wait for the answer.) +</p> + +<p> +25th.—The answer has come. As an ex-military man, I have naturally +employed stratagem to get at it. The success which rewards all genuine +perseverance has rewarded me—and I have got at it accordingly. +</p> + +<p> +The letter is written, not by Mr. Noel Vanstone, but by Mrs. Lecount. She takes +the highest moral ground, in a tone of spiteful politeness. Mr. Noel +Vanstone’s delicate health and recent bereavement prevent him from +writing himself. Any more letters from Miss Vanstone will be returned unopened. +Any personal application will produce an immediate appeal to the protection of +the law. Mr. Noel Vanstone, having been expressly cautioned against Miss +Magdalen Vanstone by his late lamented father, has not yet forgotten his +father’s advice. Considers it a reflection cast on the memory of the best +of men, to suppose that his course of action toward the Misses Vanstone can be +other than the course of action which his father pursued. This is what he has +himself instructed Mrs. Lecount to say. She has endeavored to express herself +in the most conciliatory language she could select; she had tried to avoid +giving unnecessary pain, by addressing Miss Vanstone (as a matter of courtesy) +by the family name; and she trusts these concessions, which speak for +themselves, will not be thrown away.—Such is the substance of the letter, +and so it ends. +</p> + +<p> +I draw two conclusions from this little document. First—that it will lead +to serious results. Secondly—that Mrs. Lecount, with all her politeness, +is a dangerous woman to deal with. I wish I saw my way safe before me. I +don’t see it yet. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +29th.—Miss Vanstone has abandoned my protection; and the whole lucrative +future of the dramatic entertainment has abandoned me with her. I am +swindled—I, the last man under heaven who could possibly have expected to +write in those disgraceful terms of myself—I AM SWINDLED! +</p> + +<p> +Let me chronicle the events. They exhibit me, for the time being, in a sadly +helpless point of view. But the nature of the man prevails: I must have the +events down in black and white. +</p> + +<p> +The announcement of her approaching departure was intimated to me yesterday. +After another civil speech about the information I had procured at Brighton, +she hinted that there was a necessity for pushing our inquiries a little +further. I immediately offered to undertake them, as before. “No,” +she said; “they are not in your way this time. They are inquiries +relating to a woman; and I mean to make them myself!” Feeling privately +convinced that this new resolution pointed straight at Mrs. Lecount, I tried a +few innocent questions on the subject. She quietly declined to answer them. I +asked next when she proposed to leave. She would leave on the twenty-eighth. +For what destination? London. For long? Probably not. By herself? No. With me? +No. With whom then? With Mrs. Wragge, if I had no objection. Good heavens! for +what possible purpose? For the purpose of getting a respectable lodging, which +she could hardly expect to accomplish unless she was accompanied by an elderly +female friend. And was I, in the capacity of elderly male friend, to be left +out of the business altogether? Impossible to say at present. Was I not even to +forward any letters which might come for her at our present address? No: she +would make the arrangement herself at the post-office; and she would ask me, at +the same time, for an address, at which I could receive a letter from her, in +case of necessity for future communication. Further inquiries, after this last +answer, could lead to nothing but waste of time. I saved time by putting no +more questions. +</p> + +<p> +It was clear to me that our present position toward each other was what our +position had been previously to the event of Michael Vanstone’s death. I +returned, as before, to my choice of alternatives. Which way did my private +interests point? Toward trusting the chance of her wanting me again? Toward +threatening her with the interference of her relatives and friends? Or toward +making the information which I possessed a marketable commodity between the +wealthy branch of the family and myself? The last of the three was the +alternative I had chosen in the case of the father. I chose it once more in the +case of the son. +</p> + +<p> +The train started for London nearly four hours since, and took her away in it, +accompanied by Mrs. Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +My wife is too great a fool, poor soul, to be actively valuable in the present +emergency; but she will be passively useful in keeping up Miss Vanstone’s +connection with me—and, in consideration of that circumstance, I consent +to brush my own trousers, shave my own chin, and submit to the other +inconveniences of waiting on myself for a limited period. Any faint glimmerings +of sense which Mrs. Wragge may have formerly possessed appear to have now +finally taken their leave of her. On receiving permission to go to London, she +favored us immediately with two inquiries. Might she do some shopping? and +might she leave the cookery-book behind her? Miss Vanstone said Yes to one +question, and I said Yes to the other—and from that moment, Mrs. Wragge +has existed in a state of perpetual laughter. I am still hoarse with vainly +repeated applications of vocal stimulant; and I left her in the railway +carriage, to my inexpressible disgust, with <i>both</i> shoes down at heel. +</p> + +<p> +Under ordinary circumstances these absurd particulars would not have dwelt on +my memory. But, as matters actually stand, my unfortunate wife’s +imbecility may, in her present position, lead to consequences which we none of +us foresee. She is nothing more or less than a grown-up child; and I can +plainly detect that Miss Vanstone trusts her, as she would not have trusted a +sharper woman, on that very account. I know children, little and big, rather +better than my fair relative does; and I say—beware of all forms of human +innocence, when it happens to be your interest to keep a secret to yourself. +</p> + +<p> +Let me return to business. Here I am, at two o’clock on a fine +summer’s afternoon, left entirely alone, to consider the safest means of +approaching Mr. Noel Vanstone on my own account. My private suspicions of his +miserly character produce no discouraging effect on me. I have extracted +cheering pecuniary results in my time from people quite as fond of their money +as he can be. The real difficulty to contend with is the obstacle of Mrs. +Lecount. If I am not mistaken, this lady merits a little serious consideration +on my part. I will close my chronicle for to-day, and give Mrs. Lecount her +due. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Three o’clock.—I open these pages again to record a discovery which +has taken me entirely by surprise. +</p> + +<p> +After completing the last entry, a circumstance revived in my memory which I +had noticed on escorting the ladies this morning to the railway. I then +remarked that Miss Vanstone had only taken one of her three boxes with +her—and it now occurred to me that a private investigation of the luggage +she had left behind might possibly be attended with beneficial results. Having, +at certain periods of my life been in the habit of cultivating friendly terms +with strange locks, I found no difficulty in establishing myself on a familiar +footing with Miss Vanstone’s boxes. One of the two presented nothing to +interest me. The other—devoted to the preservation of the costumes, +articles of toilet, and other properties used in the dramatic +Entertainment—proved to be better worth examining: for it led me straight +to the discovery of one of its owner’s secrets. +</p> + +<p> +I found all the dresses in the box complete—with one remarkable +exception. That exception was the dress of the old north-country lady; the +character which I have already mentioned as the best of all my pupil’s +disguises, and as modeled in voice and manner on her old governess, Miss Garth. +The wig; the eyebrows; the bonnet and veil; the cloak, padded inside to +disfigure her back and shoulders; the paints and cosmetics used to age her face +and alter her complexion—were all gone. Nothing but the gown remained; a +gaudily-flowered silk, useful enough for dramatic purposes, but too extravagant +in color and pattern to bear inspection by daylight. The other parts of the +dress are sufficiently quiet to pass muster; the bonnet and veil are only +old-fashioned, and the cloak is of a sober gray color. But one plain inference +can be drawn from such a discovery as this. As certainly as I sit here, she is +going to open the campaign against Noel Vanstone and Mrs. Lecount in a +character which neither of those two persons can have any possible reason for +suspecting at the outset—the character of Miss Garth. +</p> + +<p> +What course am I to take under these circumstances? Having got her secret, what +am I to do with it? These are awkward considerations; I am rather puzzled how +to deal with them. +</p> + +<p> +It is something more than the mere fact of her choosing to disguise herself to +forward her own private ends that causes my present perplexity. Hundreds of +girls take fancies for disguising themselves; and hundreds of instances of it +are related year after year in the public journals. But my ex-pupil is not to +be confounded for one moment with the average adventuress of the newspapers. +She is capable of going a long way beyond the limit of dressing herself like a +man, and imitating a man’s voice and manner. She has a natural gift for +assuming characters which I have never seen equaled by a woman; and she has +performed in public until she has felt her own power, and trained her talent +for disguising herself to the highest pitch. A girl who takes the sharpest +people unawares by using such a capacity as this to help her own objects in +private life, and who sharpens that capacity by a determination to fight her +way to her own purpose, which has beaten down everything before it, up to this +time—is a girl who tries an experiment in deception, new enough and +dangerous enough to lead, one way or the other, to very serious results. This +is my conviction, founded on a large experience in the art of imposing on my +fellow-creatures. I say of my fair relative’s enterprise what I never +said or thought of it till I introduced myself to the inside of her box. The +chances for and against her winning the fight for her lost fortune are now so +evenly balanced that I cannot for the life of me see on which side the scale +inclines. All I can discern is, that it will, to a dead certainty, turn one way +or the other on the day when she passes Noel Vanstone’s doors in +disguise. +</p> + +<p> +Which way do my interests point now? Upon my honor, I don’t know. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Five o’clock.—I have effected a masterly compromise; I have decided +on turning myself into a Jack-on-both-sides. +</p> + +<p> +By to-day’s post I have dispatched to London an anonymous letter for Mr. +Noel Vanstone. It will be forwarded to its destination by the same means which +I successfully adopted to mystify Mr. Pendril; and it will reach Vauxhall Walk, +Lambeth, by the afternoon of to-morrow at the latest. +</p> + +<p> +The letter is short, and to the purpose. It warns Mr. Noel Vanstone, in the +most alarming language, that he is destined to become the victim of a +conspiracy; and that the prime mover of it is a young lady who has already held +written communication with his father and himself. It offers him the +information necessary to secure his own safety, on condition that he makes it +worth the writer’s while to run the serious personal risk which such a +disclosure will entail on him. And it ends by stipulating that the answer shall +be advertised in the <i>Times</i>; shall be addressed to “An Unknown +Friend”; and shall state plainly what remuneration Mr. Noel Vanstone +offers for the priceless service which it is proposed to render him. +</p> + +<p> +Unless some unexpected complication occurs, this letter places me exactly in +the position which it is my present interest to occupy. If the advertisement +appears, and if the remuneration offered is large enough to justify me in going +over to the camp of the enemy, over I go. If no advertisement appears, or if +Mr. Noel Vanstone rates my invaluable assistance at too low a figure, here I +remain, biding my time till my fair relative wants me, or till I make her want +me, which comes to the same thing. If the anonymous letter falls by any +accident into her hands, she will find disparaging allusions in it to myself, +purposely introduced to suggest that the writer must be one of the persons whom +I addressed while conducting her inquiries. If Mrs. Lecount takes the business +in hand and lays a trap for me—I decline her tempting invitation by +becoming totally ignorant of the whole affair the instant any second person +appears in it. Let the end come as it may, here I am ready to profit by it: +here I am, facing both ways, with perfect ease and security—a moral +agriculturist, with his eye on two crops at once, and his swindler’s +sickle ready for any emergency. +</p> + +<p> +For the next week to come, the newspaper will be more interesting to me than +ever. I wonder which side I shall eventually belong to? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="part03"></a>THE THIRD SCENE.<br/> +<small>VAUXHALL WALK, LAMBETH.</small></h3> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<p> +The old Archiepiscopal Palace of Lambeth, on the southern bank of the +Thames—with its Bishop’s Walk and Garden, and its terrace fronting +the river—is an architectural relic of the London of former times, +precious to all lovers of the picturesque, in the utilitarian London of the +present day. Southward of this venerable structure lies the street labyrinth of +Lambeth; and nearly midway, in that part of the maze of houses which is placed +nearest to the river, runs the dingy double row of buildings now, as in former +days, known by the name of Vauxhall Walk. +</p> + +<p> +The network of dismal streets stretching over the surrounding neighborhood +contains a population for the most part of the poorer order. In the +thoroughfares where shops abound, the sordid struggle with poverty shows itself +unreservedly on the filthy pavement; gathers its forces through the week; and, +strengthening to a tumult on Saturday night, sees the Sunday morning dawn in +murky gaslight. Miserable women, whose faces never smile, haunt the +butchers’ shops in such London localities as these, with relics of the +men’s wages saved from the public-house clutched fast in their hands, +with eyes that devour the meat they dare not buy, with eager fingers that touch +it covetously, as the fingers of their richer sisters touch a precious stone. +In this district, as in other districts remote from the wealthy quarters of the +metropolis, the hideous London vagabond—with the filth of the street +outmatched in his speech, with the mud of the street outdirtied in his +clothes—lounges, lowering and brutal, at the street corner and the +gin-shop door; the public disgrace of his country, the unheeded warning of +social troubles that are yet to come. Here, the loud self-assertion of Modern +Progress—which has reformed so much in manners, and altered so little in +men—meets the flat contradiction that scatters its pretensions to the +winds. Here, while the national prosperity feasts, like another Belshazzar, on +the spectacle of its own magnificence, is the Writing on the Wall, which warns +the monarch, Money, that his glory is weighed in the balance, and his power +found wanting. +</p> + +<p> +Situated in such a neighborhood as this, Vauxhall Walk gains by comparison, and +establishes claims to respectability which no impartial observation can fail to +recognize. A large proportion of the Walk is still composed of private houses. +In the scattered situations where shops appear, those shops are not besieged by +the crowds of more populous thoroughfares. Commerce is not turbulent, nor is +the public consumer besieged by loud invitations to “buy.” +Bird-fanciers have sought the congenial tranquillity of the scene; and pigeons +coo, and canaries twitter, in Vauxhall Walk. Second-hand carts and cabs, +bedsteads of a certain age, detached carriage-wheels for those who may want one +to make up a set, are all to be found here in the same repository. One +tributary stream, in the great flood of gas which illuminates London, tracks +its parent source to Works established in this locality. Here the followers of +John Wesley have set up a temple, built before the period of Methodist +conversion to the principles of architectural religion. And here—most +striking object of all—on the site where thousands of lights once +sparkled; where sweet sounds of music made night tuneful till morning dawned; +where the beauty and fashion of London feasted and danced through the summer +seasons of a century—spreads, at this day, an awful wilderness of mud and +rubbish; the deserted dead body of Vauxhall Gardens mouldering in the open air. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +On the same day when Captain Wragge completed the last entry in his Chronicle +of Events, a woman appeared at the window of one of the houses in Vauxhall +Walk, and removed from the glass a printed paper which had been wafered to it +announcing that Apartments were to be let. The apartments consisted of two +rooms on the first floor. They had just been taken for a week certain by two +ladies who had paid in advance—those two ladies being Magdalen and Mrs. +Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as the mistress of the house had left the room, Magdalen walked to the +window, and cautiously looked out from it at the row of buildings opposite. +They were of superior pretensions in size and appearance to the other houses in +the Walk: the date at which they had been erected was inscribed on one of them, +and was stated to be the year 1759. They stood back from the pavement, +separated from it by little strips of garden-ground. This peculiarity of +position, added to the breadth of the roadway interposing between them and the +smaller houses opposite, made it impossible for Magdalen to see the numbers on +the doors, or to observe more of any one who might come to the windows than the +bare general outline of dress and figure. Nevertheless, there she stood, +anxiously fixing her eyes on one house in the row, nearly opposite to +her—the house she had looked for before entering the lodgings; the house +inhabited at that moment by Noel Vanstone and Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +After keeping watch at the window in silence for ten minutes or more, she +suddenly looked back into the room, to observe the effect which her behavior +might have produced on her traveling companion. +</p> + +<p> +Not the slightest cause appeared for any apprehension in that quarter. Mrs. +Wragge was seated at the table absorbed in the arrangement of a series of smart +circulars and tempting price-lists, issued by advertising trades-people, and +flung in at the cab-windows as they left the London terminus. “I’ve +often heard tell of light reading,” said Mrs. Wragge, restlessly shifting +the positions of the circulars as a child restlessly shifts the position of a +new set of toys. “Here’s light reading, printed in pretty colors. +Here’s all the Things I’m going to buy when I’m out shopping +to-morrow. Lend us a pencil, please—you won’t be angry, will you? I +do so want to mark ’em off.” She looked up at Magdalen, chuckled +joyfully over her own altered circumstances, and beat her great hands on the +table in irrepressible delight. “No cookery-book!” cried Mrs. +Wragge. “No Buzzing in my head! no captain to shave to-morrow! I’m +all down at heel; my cap’s on one side; and nobody bawls at me. My heart +alive, here <i>is</i> a holiday and no mistake!” Her hands began to drum +on the table louder than ever, until Magdalen quieted them by presenting her +with a pencil. Mrs. Wragge instantly recovered her dignity, squared her elbows +on the table, and plunged into imaginary shopping for the rest of the evening. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen returned to the window. She took a chair, seated herself behind the +curtain, and steadily fixed her eyes once more on the house opposite. +</p> + +<p> +The blinds were down over the windows of the first floor and the second. The +window of the room on the ground-floor was uncovered and partly open, but no +living creature came near it. Doors opened, and people came and went, in the +houses on either side; children by the dozen poured out on the pavement to +play, and invaded the little strips of garden-ground to recover lost balls and +shuttlecocks; streams of people passed backward and forward perpetually; heavy +wagons piled high with goods lumbered along the road on their way to, or their +way from, the railway station near; all the daily life of the district stirred +with its ceaseless activity in every direction but one. The hours +passed—and there was the house opposite still shut up, still void of any +signs of human existence inside or out. The one object which had decided +Magdalen on personally venturing herself in Vauxhall Walk—the object of +studying the looks, manners and habits of Mrs. Lecount and her master from a +post of observation known only to herself—was thus far utterly defeated. +After three hours’ watching at the window, she had not even discovered +enough to show her that the house was inhabited at all. +</p> + +<p> +Shortly after six o’clock, the landlady disturbed Mrs. Wragge’s +studies by spreading the cloth for dinner. Magdalen placed herself at the table +in a position which still enabled her to command the view from the window. +Nothing happened. The dinner came to an end; Mrs. Wragge (lulled by the +narcotic influence of annotating circulars, and eating and drinking with an +appetite sharpened by the captain’s absence) withdrew to an arm-chair, +and fell asleep in an attitude which would have caused her husband the acutest +mental suffering; seven o’clock struck; the shadows of the summer evening +lengthened stealthily on the gray pavement and the brown house-walls—and +still the closed door opposite remained shut; still the one window open showed +nothing but the black blank of the room inside, lifeless and changeless as if +that room had been a tomb. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge’s meek snoring deepened in tone; the evening wore on +drearily; it was close on eight o’clock—when an event happened at +last. The street door opposite opened for the first time, and a woman appeared +on the threshold. +</p> + +<p> +Was the woman Mrs. Lecount? No. As she came nearer, her dress showed her to be +a servant. She had a large door-key in her hand, and was evidently going out to +perform an errand. Roused partly by curiosity, partly by the impulse of the +moment, which urged her impetuous nature into action after the passive +endurance of many hours past, Magdalen snatched up her bonnet, and determined +to follow the servant to her destination, wherever it might be. +</p> + +<p> +The woman led her to the great thoroughfare of shops close at hand, called +Lambeth Walk. After proceeding some little distance, and looking about her with +the hesitation of a person not well acquainted with the neighborhood, the +servant crossed the road and entered a stationer’s shop. Magdalen crossed +the road after her and followed her in. +</p> + +<p> +The inevitable delay in entering the shop under these circumstances made +Magdalen too late to hear what the woman asked for. The first words spoken, +however, by the man behind the counter reached her ears, and informed her that +the servant’s object was to buy a railway guide. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean a Guide for this month or a Guide for July?” asked the +shopman, addressing his customer. +</p> + +<p> +“Master didn’t tell me which,” answered the woman. “All +I know is, he’s going into the country the day after to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“The day after to-morrow is the first of July,” said the shopman. +“The Guide your master wants is the Guide for the new month. It +won’t be published till to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +Engaging to call again on the next day, the servant left the shop, and took the +way that led back to Vauxhall Walk. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen purchased the first trifle she saw on the counter, and hastily +returned in the same direction. The discovery she had just made was of very +serious importance to her; and she felt the necessity of acting on it with as +little delay as possible. +</p> + +<p> +On entering the front room at the lodgings she found Mrs. Wragge just awake, +lost in drowsy bewilderment, with her cap fallen off on her shoulders, and with +one of her shoes missing altogether. Magdalen endeavored to persuade her that +she was tired after her journey, and that her wisest proceeding would be to go +to bed. Mrs. Wragge was perfectly willing to profit by this suggestion, +provided she could find her shoe first. In looking for the shoe, she +unfortunately discovered the circulars, put by on a side-table, and forthwith +recovered her recollection of the earlier proceedings of the evening. +</p> + +<p> +“Give us the pencil,” said Mrs. Wragge, shuffling the circulars in +a violent hurry. “I can’t go to bed yet—I haven’t half +done marking down the things I want. Let’s see; where did I leave off? +<i>Try Finch’s feeding-bottle for Infants.</i> No! there’s a cross +against that: the cross means I don’t want it. <i>Comfort in the Field. +Buckler’s Indestructible Hunting-breeches.</i> Oh dear, dear! I’ve +lost the place. No, I haven’t. Here it is; here’s my mark against +it. <i>Elegant Cashmere Robes; strictly Oriental, very grand; reduced to one +pound nineteen-and-sixpence. Be in time. Only three left.</i> Only three! Oh, +do lend us the money, and let’s go and get one!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not to-night,” said Magdalen. “Suppose you go to bed now, +and finish the circulars tomorrow? I will put them by the bedside for you, and +you can go on with them as soon as you wake the first thing in the +morning.” +</p> + +<p> +This suggestion met with Mrs. Wragge’s immediate approval. Magdalen took +her into the next room and put her to bed like a child—with her toys by +her side. The room was so narrow, and the bed was so small; and Mrs. Wragge, +arrayed in the white apparel proper for the occasion, with her moon-face framed +round by a spacious halo of night-cap, looked so hugely and disproportionately +large, that Magdalen, anxious as she was, could not repress a smile on taking +leave of her traveling companion for the night. +</p> + +<p> +“Aha!” cried Mrs. Wragge, cheerfully; “we’ll have that +Cashmere Robe to-morrow. Come here! I want to whisper something to you. Just +you look at me—I’m going to sleep crooked, and the captain’s +not here to bawl at me!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The front room at the lodgings contained a sofa-bedstead which the landlady +arranged betimes for the night. This done, and the candles brought in, Magdalen +was left alone to shape the future course as her own thoughts counseled her. +</p> + +<p> +The questions and answers which had passed in her presence that evening at the +stationer’s shop led plainly to the conclusion that one day more would +bring Noel Vanstone’s present term of residence in Vauxhall Walk to an +end. Her first cautious resolution to pass many days together in unsuspected +observation of the house opposite before she ventured herself inside was +entirely frustrated by the turn events had taken. She was placed in the dilemma +of running all risks headlong on the next day, or of pausing for a future +opportunity which might never occur. There was no middle course open to her. +Until she had seen Noel Vanstone with her own eyes, and had discovered the +worst there was to fear from Mrs. Lecount—until she had achieved this +double object, with the needful precaution of keeping her own identity +carefully in the dark—not a step could she advance toward the +accomplishment of the purpose which had brought her to London. +</p> + +<p> +One after another the minutes of the night passed away; one after another the +thronging thoughts followed each other over her mind—and still she +reached no conclusion; still she faltered and doubted, with a hesitation new to +her in her experience of herself. At last she crossed the room impatiently to +seek the trivial relief of unlocking her trunk and taking from it the few +things that she wanted for the night. Captain Wragge’s suspicions had not +misled him. There, hidden between two dresses, were the articles of costume +which he had missed from her box at Birmingham. She turned them over one by +one, to satisfy herself that nothing she wanted had been forgotten, and +returned once more to her post of observation by the window. +</p> + +<p> +The house opposite was dark down to the parlor. There the blind, previously +raised, was now drawn over the window: the light burning behind it showed her +for the first time that the room was inhabited. Her eyes brightened, and her +color rose as she looked at it. +</p> + +<p> +“There he is!” she said to herself, in a low, angry whisper. +“There he lives on our money, in the house that his father’s +warning has closed against me!” She dropped the blind which she had +raised to look out, returned to her trunk, and took from it the gray wig which +was part of her dramatic costume in the character of the North-country lady. +The wig had been crumpled in packing; she put it on and went to the +toilet-table to comb it out. “His father has warned him against Magdalen +Vanstone,” she said, repeating the passage in Mrs. Lecount’s +letter, and laughing bitterly, as she looked at herself in the glass. “I +wonder whether his father has warned him against Miss Garth? To-morrow is +sooner than I bargained for. No matter: to-morrow shall show.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<p> +The early morning, when Magdalen rose and looked out, was cloudy and overcast. +But as time advanced to the breakfast hour the threatening of rain passed away; +and she was free to provide, without hinderance from the weather, for the first +necessity of the day—the necessity of securing the absence of her +traveling companion from the house. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge was dressed, armed at all points with her collection of circulars, +and eager to be away by ten o’clock. At an earlier hour Magdalen had +provided for her being properly taken care of by the landlady’s eldest +daughter—a quiet, well-conducted girl, whose interest in the shopping +expedition was readily secured by a little present of money for the purchase, +on her own account, of a parasol and a muslin dress. Shortly after ten +o’clock Magdalen dismissed Mrs. Wragge and her attendant in a cab. She +then joined the landlady—who was occupied in setting the rooms in order +upstairs—with the object of ascertaining, by a little well-timed gossip, +what the daily habits might be of the inmates of the house. +</p> + +<p> +She discovered that there were no other lodgers but Mrs. Wragge and herself. +The landlady’s husband was away all day, employed at a railway station. +Her second daughter was charged with the care of the kitchen in the elder +sister’s absence. The younger children were at school, and would be back +at one o’clock to dinner. The landlady herself “got up fine linen +for ladies,” and expected to be occupied over her work all that morning +in a little room built out at the back of the premises. Thus there was every +facility for Magdalen’s leaving the house in disguise, and leaving it +unobserved, provided she went out before the children came back to dinner at +one o’clock. +</p> + +<p> +By eleven o’clock the apartments were set in order, and the landlady had +retired to pursue her own employments. Magdalen softly locked the door of her +room, drew the blind over the window, and entered at once on her preparations +for the perilous experiment of the day. +</p> + +<p> +The same quick perception of dangers to be avoided and difficulties to be +overcome which had warned her to leave the extravagant part of her character +costume in the box at Birmingham now kept her mind fully alive to the vast +difference between a disguise worn by gas-light for the amusement of an +audience and a disguise assumed by daylight to deceive the searching eyes of +two strangers. The first article of dress which she put on was an old gown of +her own (made of the material called “alpaca”), of a dark-brown +color, with a neat pattern of little star-shaped spots in white. A double +flounce running round the bottom of this dress was the only milliner’s +ornament which it presented—an ornament not at all out of character with +the costume appropriated to an elderly lady. The disguise of her head and face +was the next object of her attention. She fitted and arranged the gray wig with +the dexterity which constant practice had given her; fixed the false eyebrows +(made rather large, and of hair darker than the wig) carefully in their +position with the gum she had with her for the purpose, and stained her face +with the customary stage materials, so as to change the transparent fairness of +her complexion to the dull, faintly opaque color of a woman in ill health. The +lines and markings of age followed next; and here the first obstacles presented +themselves. The art which succeeded by gas-light failed by day: the difficulty +of hiding the plainly artificial nature of the marks was almost insuperable. +She turned to her trunk; took from it two veils; and putting on her +old-fashioned bonnet, tried the effect of them in succession. One of the veils +(of black lace) was too thick to be worn over the face at that summer season +without exciting remark. The other, of plain net, allowed her features to be +seen through it, just indistinctly enough to permit the safe introduction of +certain lines (many fewer than she was accustomed to use in performing the +character) on the forehead and at the sides of the mouth. But the obstacle thus +set aside only opened the way to a new difficulty—the difficulty of +keeping her veil down while she was speaking to other persons, without any +obvious reason for doing so. An instant’s consideration, and a chance +look at her little china palette of stage colors, suggested to her ready +invention the production of a visible excuse for wearing her veil. She +deliberately disfigured herself by artificially reddening the insides of her +eyelids so as to produce an appearance of inflammation which no human creature +but a doctor—and that doctor at close quarters—could have detected +as false. She sprang to her feet and looked triumphantly at the hideous +transformation of herself reflected in the glass. Who could think it strange +now if she wore her veil down, and if she begged Mrs. Lecount’s +permission to sit with her back to the light? +</p> + +<p> +Her last proceeding was to put on the quiet gray cloak which she had brought +from Birmingham, and which had been padded inside by Captain Wragge’s own +experienced hands, so as to hide the youthful grace and beauty of her back and +shoulders. Her costume being now complete, she practiced the walk which had +been originally taught her as appropriate to the character—a walk with a +slight limp—and, returning to the glass after a minute’s trial, +exercised herself next in the disguise of her voice and manner. This was the +only part of the character in which it had been possible, with her physical +peculiarities, to produce an imitation of Miss Garth; and here the resemblance +was perfect. The harsh voice, the blunt manner, the habit of accompanying +certain phrases by an emphatic nod of the head, the Northumbrian <i>burr</i> +expressing itself in every word which contained the letter +“r”—all these personal peculiarities of the old North-country +governess were reproduced to the life. The personal transformation thus +completed was literally what Captain Wragge had described it to be—a +triumph in the art of self-disguise. Excepting the one case of seeing her face +close, with a strong light on it, nobody who now looked at Magdalen could have +suspected for an instant that she was other than an ailing, ill-made, +unattractive woman of fifty years old at least. +</p> + +<p> +Before unlocking the door, she looked about her carefully, to make sure that +none of her stage materials were exposed to view in case the landlady entered +the room in her absence. The only forgotten object belonging to her that she +discovered was a little packet of Norah’s letters which she had been +reading overnight, and which had been accidentally pushed under the +looking-glass while she was engaged in dressing herself. As she took up the +letters to put them away, the thought struck her for the first time, +“Would Norah know me now if we met each other in the street?” She +looked in the glass, and smiled sadly. “No,” she said, “not +even Norah.” +</p> + +<p> +She unlocked the door, after first looking at her watch. It was close on twelve +o’clock. There was barely an hour left to try her desperate experiment, +and to return to the lodging before the landlady’s children came back +from school. +</p> + +<p> +An instant’s listening on the landing assured her that all was quiet in +the passage below. She noiselessly descended the stairs and gained the street +without having met any living creature on her way out of the house. In another +minute she had crossed the road, and had knocked at Noel Vanstone’s door. +</p> + +<p> +The door was opened by the same woman-servant whom she had followed on the +previous evening to the stationer’s shop. With a momentary tremor, which +recalled the memorable first night of her appearance in public, Magdalen +inquired (in Miss Garth’s voice, and with Miss Garth’s manner) for +Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Lecount has gone out, ma’am,” said the servant. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Mr. Vanstone at home?” asked Magdalen, her resolution asserting +itself at once against the first obstacle that opposed it. +</p> + +<p> +“My master is not up yet, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +Another check! A weaker nature would have accepted the warning. +Magdalen’s nature rose in revolt against it. +</p> + +<p> +“What time will Mrs. Lecount be back?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“About one o’clock, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, if you please, that I will call again as soon after one +o’clock as possible. I particularly wish to see Mrs. Lecount. My name is +Miss Garth.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned and left the house. Going back to her own room was out of the +question. The servant (as Magdalen knew by not hearing the door close) was +looking after her; and, moreover, she would expose herself, if she went +indoors, to the risk of going out again exactly at the time when the +landlady’s children were sure to be about the house. She turned +mechanically to the right, walked on until she recalled Vauxhall Bridge, and +waited there, looking out over the river. +</p> + +<p> +The interval of unemployed time now before her was nearly an hour. How should +she occupy it? +</p> + +<p> +As she asked herself the question, the thought which had struck her when she +put away the packet of Norah’s letters rose in her mind once more. A +sudden impulse to test the miserable completeness of her disguise mixed with +the higher and purer feeling at her heart, and strengthened her natural longing +to see her sister’s face again, though she dare not discover herself and +speak. Norah’s later letters had described, in the fullest details, her +life as a governess—her hours for teaching, her hours of leisure, her +hours for walking out with her pupils. There was just time, if she could find a +vehicle at once, for Magdalen to drive to the house of Norah’s employer, +with the chance of getting there a few minutes before the hour when her sister +would be going out. “One look at her will tell me more than a hundred +letters!” With that thought in her heart, with the one object of +following Norah on her daily walk, under protection of the disguise, Magdalen +hastened over the bridge, and made for the northern bank of the river. +</p> + +<p> +So, at the turning-point of her life—so, in the interval before she took +the irrevocable step, and passed the threshold of Noel Vanstone’s +door—the forces of Good triumphing in the strife for her over the forces +of Evil, turned her back on the scene of her meditated deception, and hurried +her mercifully further and further away from the fatal house. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She stopped the first empty cab that passed her; told the driver to go to New +Street, Spring Gardens; and promised to double his fare if he reached his +destination by a given time. The man earned the money—more than earned +it, as the event proved. Magdalen had not taken ten steps in advance along New +Street, walking toward St. James’s Park, before the door of a house +beyond her opened, and a lady in mourning came out, accompanied by two little +girls. The lady also took the direction of the Park, without turning her head +toward Magdalen as she descended the house step. It mattered little; +Magdalen’s heart looked through her eyes, and told her that she saw +Norah. +</p> + +<p> +She followed them into St. James’s Park, and thence (along the Mall) into +the Green Park, venturing closer and closer as they reached the grass and +ascended the rising ground in the direction of Hyde Park Corner. Her eager eyes +devoured every detail in Norah’s dress, and detected the slightest change +that had taken place in her figure and her bearing. She had become thinner +since the autumn—her head drooped a little; she walked wearily. Her +mourning dress, worn with the modest grace and neatness which no misfortune +could take from her, was suited to her altered station; her black gown was made +of stuff; her black shawl and bonnet were of the plainest and cheapest kind. +The two little girls, walking on either side of her, were dressed in silk. +Magdalen instinctively hated them. +</p> + +<p> +She made a wide circuit on the grass, so as to turn gradually and meet her +sister without exciting suspicion that the meeting was contrived. Her heart +beat fast; a burning heat glowed in her as she thought of her false hair, her +false color, her false dress, and saw the dear familiar face coming nearer and +nearer. They passed each other close. Norah’s dark gentle eyes looked up, +with a deeper light in them, with a sadder beauty than of old—rested, all +unconscious of the truth, on her sister’s face—and looked away from +it again as from the face of a stranger. That glance of an instant struck +Magdalen to the heart. She stood rooted to the ground after Norah had passed +by. A horror of the vile disguise that concealed her; a yearning to burst its +trammels and hide her shameful painted face on Norah’s bosom, took +possession of her, body and soul. She turned and looked back. +</p> + +<p> +Norah and the two children had reached the higher ground, and were close to one +of the gates in the iron railing which fenced the Park from the street. Drawn +by an irresistible fascination, Magdalen followed them again, gained on them as +they reached the gate, and heard the voices of the two children raised in angry +dispute which way they wanted to walk next. She saw Norah take them through the +gate, and then stoop and speak to them, while waiting for an opportunity to +cross the road. They only grew the louder and the angrier for what she said. +The youngest—a girl of eight or nine years old—flew into a +child’s vehement passion, cried, screamed, and even kicked at the +governess. The people in the street stopped and laughed; some of them jestingly +advised a little wholesome correction; one woman asked Norah if she was the +child’s mother; another pitied her audibly for being the child’s +governess. Before Magdalen could push her way through the crowd—before +her all-mastering anxiety to help her sister had blinded her to every other +consideration, and had brought her, self-betrayed, to Norah’s +side—an open carriage passed the pavement slowly, hindered in its +progress by the press of vehicles before it. An old lady seated inside heard +the child’s cries, recognized Norah, and called to her immediately. The +footman parted the crowd, and the children were put into the carriage. +“It’s lucky I happened to pass this way,” said the old lady, +beckoning contemptuously to Norah to take her place on the front seat; +“you never could manage my daughter’s children, and you never +will.” The footman put up the steps, the carriage drove on with the +children and the governess, the crowd dispersed, and Magdalen was alone again. +</p> + +<p> +“So be it!” she thought, bitterly. “I should only have +distressed her. We should only have had the misery of parting to suffer +again.” +</p> + +<p> +She mechanically retraced her steps; she returned, as in a dream, to the open +space of the Park. Arming itself treacherously with the strength of her love +for her sister, with the vehemence of the indignation that she felt for her +sister’s sake, the terrible temptation of her life fastened its hold on +her more firmly than ever. Through all the paint and disfigurement of the +disguise, the fierce despair of that strong and passionate nature lowered, +haggard and horrible. Norah made an object of public curiosity and amusement; +Norah reprimanded in the open street; Norah, the hired victim of an old +woman’s insolence and a child’s ill-temper, and the same man to +thank for it who had sent Frank to China!—and that man’s son to +thank after him! The thought of her sister, which had turned her from the scene +of her meditated deception, which had made the consciousness of her own +disguise hateful to her, was now the thought which sanctioned that means, or +any means, to compass her end; the thought which set wings to her feet, and +hurried her back nearer and nearer to the fatal house. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She left the Park again, and found herself in the streets without knowing +where. Once more she hailed the first cab that passed her, and told the man to +drive to Vauxhall Walk. +</p> + +<p> +The change from walking to riding quieted her. She felt her attention returning +to herself and her dress. The necessity of making sure that no accident had +happened to her disguise in the interval since she had left her own room +impressed itself immediately on her mind. She stopped the driver at the first +pastry-cook’s shop which he passed, and there obtained the means of +consulting a looking-glass before she ventured back to Vauxhall Walk. +</p> + +<p> +Her gray head-dress was disordered, and the old-fashioned bonnet was a little +on one side. Nothing else had suffered. She set right the few defects in her +costume, and returned to the cab. It was half-past one when she approached the +house and knocked, for the second time, at Noel Vanstone’s door. The +woman-servant opened it as before. +</p> + +<p> +“Has Mrs. Lecount come back?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am. Step this way, if you please.” +</p> + +<p> +The servant preceded Magdalen along an empty passage, and, leading her past an +uncarpeted staircase, opened the door of a room at the back of the house. The +room was lighted by one window looking out on a yard; the walls were bare; the +boarded floor was uncovered. Two bedroom chairs stood against the wall, and a +kitchen-table was placed under the window. On the table stood a glass tank +filled with water, and ornamented in the middle by a miniature pyramid of +rock-work interlaced with weeds. Snails clung to the sides of the tank; +tadpoles and tiny fish swam swiftly in the green water, slippery efts and slimy +frogs twined their noiseless way in and out of the weedy rock-work; and on top +of the pyramid there sat solitary, cold as the stone, brown as the stone, +motionless as the stone, a little bright-eyed toad. The art of keeping fish and +reptiles as domestic pets had not at that time been popularized in England; and +Magdalen, on entering the room, started back, in irrepressible astonishment and +disgust, from the first specimen of an Aquarium that she had ever seen. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be alarmed,” said a woman’s voice behind her. +“My pets hurt nobody.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen turned, and confronted Mrs. Lecount. She had expected—founding +her anticipations on the letter which the housekeeper had written to +her—to see a hard, wily, ill-favored, insolent old woman. She found +herself in the presence of a lady of mild, ingratiating manners, whose dress +was the perfection of neatness, taste, and matronly simplicity, whose personal +appearance was little less than a triumph of physical resistance to the +deteriorating influence of time. If Mrs. Lecount had struck some fifteen or +sixteen years off her real age, and had asserted herself to be +eight-and-thirty, there would not have been one man in a thousand, or one woman +in a hundred, who would have hesitated to believe her. Her dark hair was just +turning to gray, and no more. It was plainly parted under a spotless lace cap, +sparingly ornamented with mourning ribbons. Not a wrinkle appeared on her +smooth white forehead, or her plump white cheeks. Her double chin was dimpled, +and her teeth were marvels of whiteness and regularity. Her lips might have +been critically considered as too thin, if they had not been accustomed to make +the best of their defects by means of a pleading and persuasive smile. Her +large black eyes might have looked fierce if they had been set in the face of +another woman, they were mild and melting in the face of Mrs. Lecount; they +were tenderly interested in everything she looked at—in Magdalen, in the +toad on the rock-work, in the back-yard view from the window; in her own plump +fair hands,—which she rubbed softly one over the other while she spoke; +in her own pretty cambric chemisette, which she had a habit of looking at +complacently while she listened to others. The elegant black gown in which she +mourned the memory of Michael Vanstone was not a mere dress—it was a +well-made compliment paid to Death. Her innocent white muslin apron was a +little domestic poem in itself. Her jet earrings were so modest in their +pretensions that a Quaker might have looked at them and committed no sin. The +comely plumpness of her face was matched by the comely plumpness of her figure; +it glided smoothly over the ground; it flowed in sedate undulations when she +walked. There are not many men who could have observed Mrs. Lecount entirely +from the Platonic point of view—lads in their teens would have found her +irresistible—women only could have hardened their hearts against her, and +mercilessly forced their way inward through that fair and smiling surface. +Magdalen’s first glance at this Venus of the autumn period of female life +more than satisfied her that she had done well to feel her ground in disguise +before she ventured on matching herself against Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“Have I the pleasure of addressing the lady who called this +morning?” inquired the housekeeper. “Am I speaking to Miss +Garth?” +</p> + +<p> +Something in the expression of her eyes, as she asked that question, warned +Magdalen to turn her face further inward from the window than she had turned it +yet. The bare doubt whether the housekeeper might not have seen her already +under too strong a light shook her self-possession for the moment. She gave +herself time to recover it, and merely answered by a bow. +</p> + +<p> +“Accept my excuses, ma’am, for the place in which I am compelled to +receive you,” proceeded Mrs. Lecount in fluent English, spoken with a +foreign accent. “Mr. Vanstone is only here for a temporary purpose. We +leave for the sea-side to-morrow afternoon, and it has not been thought worth +while to set the house in proper order. Will you take a seat, and oblige me by +mentioning the object of your visit?” +</p> + +<p> +She glided imperceptibly a step or two nearer to Magdalen, and placed a chair +for her exactly opposite the light from the window. “Pray sit +down,” said Mrs. Lecount, looking with the tenderest interest at the +visitor’s inflamed eyes through the visitor’s net veil. +</p> + +<p> +“I am suffering, as you see, from a complaint in the eyes,” replied +Magdalen, steadily keeping her profile toward the window, and carefully +pitching her voice to the tone of Miss Garth’s. “I must beg your +permission to wear my veil down, and to sit away from the light.” She +said those words, feeling mistress of herself again. With perfect composure she +drew the chair back into the corner of the room beyond the window and seated +herself, keeping the shadow of her bonnet well over her face. Mrs. +Lecount’s persuasive lips murmured a polite expression of sympathy; Mrs. +Lecount’s amiable black eyes looked more interested in the strange lady +than ever. She placed a chair for herself exactly on a line with +Magdalen’s, and sat so close to the wall as to force her visitor either +to turn her head a little further round toward the window, or to fail in +politeness by not looking at the person whom she addressed. “Yes,” +said Mrs. Lecount, with a confidential little cough. “And to what +circumstances am I indebted for the honor of this visit?” +</p> + +<p> +“May I inquire, first, if my name happens to be familiar to you?” +said Magdalen, turning toward her as a matter of necessity, but coolly holding +up her handkerchief at the same time between her face and the light. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” answered Mrs. Lecount, with another little cough, rather +harsher than the first. “The name of Miss Garth is not familiar to +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“In that case,” pursued Magdalen, “I shall best explain the +object that causes me to intrude on you by mentioning who I am. I lived for +many years as governess in the family of the late Mr. Andrew Vanstone, of +Combe-Raven, and I come here in the interest of his orphan daughters.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount’s hands, which had been smoothly sliding one over the other +up to this time, suddenly stopped; and Mrs. Lecount’s lips, +self-forgetfully shutting up, owned they were too thin at the very outset of +the interview. +</p> + +<p> +“I am surprised you can bear the light out-of-doors without a green +shade,” she quietly remarked; leaving the false Miss Garth’s +announcement of herself as completely unnoticed as it she had not spoken at +all. +</p> + +<p> +“I find a shade over my eyes keeps them too hot at this time of the +year,” rejoined Magdalen, steadily matching the housekeeper’s +composure. “May I ask whether you heard what I said just now on the +subject of my errand in this house?” +</p> + +<p> +“May I inquire on my side, ma’am, in what way that errand can +possibly concern <i>me?</i>” retorted Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” said Magdalen. “I come to you because Mr. Noel +Vanstone’s intentions toward the two young ladies were made known to them +in the form of a letter from yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +That plain answer had its effect. It warned Mrs. Lecount that the strange lady +was better informed than she had at first suspected, and that it might hardly +be wise, under the circumstances, to dismiss her unheard. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray pardon me,” said the housekeeper, “I scarcely +understood before; I perfectly understand now. You are mistaken, ma’am, +in supposing that I am of any importance, or that I exercise any influence in +this painful matter. I am the mouth-piece of Mr. Noel Vanstone; the pen he +holds, if you will excuse the expression—nothing more. He is an invalid, +and like other invalids, he has his bad days and his good. It was his bad day +when that answer was written to the young person—shall I call her Miss +Vanstone? I will, with pleasure, poor girl; for who am I to make distinctions, +and what is it to me whether her parents were married or not? As I was saying, +it was one of Mr. Noel Vanstone’s bad days when that answer was sent, and +therefore I had to write it; simply as his secretary, for want of a better. If +you wish to speak on the subject of these young ladies—shall I call them +young ladies, as you did just now? no, poor things, I will call them the Misses +Vanstone.—If you wish to speak on the subject of these Misses Vanstone, I +will mention your name, and your object in favoring me with this call, to Mr. +Noel Vanstone. He is alone in the parlor, and this is one of his good days. I +have the influence of an old servant over him, and I will use that influence +with pleasure in your behalf. Shall I go at once?” asked Mrs. Lecount, +rising, with the friendliest anxiety to make herself useful. +</p> + +<p> +“If you please,” replied Magdalen; “and if I am not taking +any undue advantage of your kindness.” +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary,” rejoined Mrs. Lecount, “you are laying me +under an obligation—you are permitting me, in my very limited way, to +assist the performance of a benevolent action.” She bowed, smiled, and +glided out of the room. +</p> + +<p> +Left by herself, Magdalen allowed the anger which she had suppressed in Mrs. +Lecount’s presence to break free from her. For want of a nobler object to +attack, it took the direction of the toad. The sight of the hideous little +reptile sitting placid on his rock throne, with his bright eyes staring +impenetrably into vacancy, irritated every nerve in her body. She looked at the +creature with a shrinking intensity of hatred; she whispered at it maliciously +through her set teeth. “I wonder whose blood runs coldest,” she +said, “yours, you little monster, or Mrs. Lecount’s? I wonder which +is the slimiest, her heart or your back? You hateful wretch, do you know what +your mistress is? Your mistress is a devil!” +</p> + +<p> +The speckled skin under the toad’s mouth mysteriously wrinkled itself, +then slowly expanded again, as if he had swallowed the words just addressed to +him. Magdalen started back in disgust from the first perceptible movement in +the creature’s body, trifling as it was, and returned to her chair. She +had not seated herself again a moment too soon. The door opened noiselessly, +and Mrs. Lecount appeared once more. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Vanstone will see you,” she said, “if you will kindly +wait a few minutes. He will ring the parlor bell when his present occupation is +at an end, and he is ready to receive you. Be careful, ma’am, not to +depress his spirits, nor to agitate him in any way. His heart has been a cause +of serious anxiety to those about him, from his earliest years. There is no +positive disease; there is only a chronic feebleness—a fatty +degeneration—a want of vital power in the organ itself. His heart will go +on well enough if you don’t give his heart too much to do—that is +the advice of all the medical men who have seen him. You will not forget it, +and you will keep a guard over your conversation accordingly. Talking of +medical men, have you ever tried the Golden Ointment for that sad affliction in +your eyes? It has been described to me as an excellent remedy.” +</p> + +<p> +“It has not succeeded in my case,” replied Magdalen, sharply. +“Before I see Mr. Noel Vanstone,” she continued, “may I +inquire—” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” interposed Mrs. Lecount. “Does your +question refer in any way to those two poor girls?” +</p> + +<p> +“It refers to the Misses Vanstone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I can’t enter into it. Excuse me, I really can’t +discuss these poor girls (I am so glad to hear you call them the Misses +Vanstone!) except in my master’s presence, and by my master’s +express permission. Let us talk of something else while we are waiting here. +Will you notice my glass Tank? I have every reason to believe that it is a +perfect novelty in England.” +</p> + +<p> +“I looked at the tank while you were out of the room,” said +Magdalen. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you? You take no interest in the subject, I dare say? Quite natural. +I took no interest either until I was married. My dear husband—dead many +years since—formed my tastes and elevated me to himself. You have heard +of the late Professor Lecomte, the eminent Swiss naturalist? I am his widow. +The English circle at Zurich (where I lived in my late master’s service) +Anglicized my name to Lecount. Your generous country people will have nothing +foreign about them—not even a name, if they can help it. But I was +speaking of my husband—my dear husband, who permitted me to assist him in +his pursuits. I have had only one interest since his death—an interest in +science. Eminent in many things, the professor was great at reptiles. He left +me his Subjects and his Tank. I had no other legacy. There is the Tank. All the +Subjects died but this quiet little fellow—this nice little toad. Are you +surprised at my liking him? There is nothing to be surprised at. The professor +lived long enough to elevate me above the common prejudice against the reptile +creation. Properly understood, the reptile creation is beautiful. Properly +dissected, the reptile creation is instructive in the last degree.” She +stretched out her little finger, and gently stroked the toad’s back with +the tip of it. “So refreshing to the touch,” said Mrs. +Lecount—“so nice and cool this summer weather!” +</p> + +<p> +The bell from the parlor rang. Mrs. Lecount rose, bent fondly over the +Aquarium, and chirruped to the toad at parting as if it had been a bird. +“Mr. Vanstone is ready to receive you. Follow me, if you please, Miss +Garth.” With these words she opened the door, and led the way out of the +room. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER III.</h3> + +<p> +“Miss Garth, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount, opening the parlor door, and +announcing the visitor’s appearance with the tone and manner of a +well-bred servant. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen found herself in a long, narrow room, consisting of a back parlor and +a front parlor, which had been thrown into one by opening the folding-doors +between them. Seated not far from the front window, with his back to the light, +she saw a frail, flaxen-haired, self-satisfied little man, clothed in a fair +white dressing-gown many sizes too large for him, with a nosegay of violets +drawn neatly through the button-hole over his breast. He looked from thirty to +five-and-thirty years old. His complexion was as delicate as a young +girl’s, his eyes were of the lightest blue, his upper lip was adorned by +a weak little white mustache, waxed and twisted at either end into a thin +spiral curl. When any object specially attracted his attention he half closed +his eyelids to look at it. When he smiled, the skin at his temples crumpled +itself up into a nest of wicked little wrinkles. He had a plate of strawberries +on his lap, with a napkin under them to preserve the purity of his white +dressing-gown. At his right hand stood a large round table, covered with a +collection of foreign curiosities, which seemed to have been brought together +from the four quarters of the globe. Stuffed birds from Africa, porcelain +monsters from China, silver ornaments and utensils from India and Peru, mosaic +work from Italy, and bronzes from France, were all heaped together pell-mell +with the coarse deal boxes and dingy leather cases which served to pack them +for traveling. The little man apologized, with a cheerful and simpering +conceit, for his litter of curiosities, his dressing-gown, and his delicate +health; and, waving his hand toward a chair, placed his attention, with +pragmatical politeness, at the visitor’s disposal. Magdalen looked at him +with a momentary doubt whether Mrs. Lecount had not deceived her. Was this the +man who mercilessly followed the path on which his merciless father had walked +before him? She could hardly believe it. “Take a seat, Miss Garth,” +he repeated, observing her hesitation, and announcing his own name in a high, +thin, fretfully-consequential voice: “I am Mr. Noel Vanstone. You wished +to see me—here I am!” +</p> + +<p> +“May I be permitted to retire, sir?” inquired Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not!” replied her master. “Stay here, Lecount, and +keep us company. Mrs. Lecount has my fullest confidence,” he continued, +addressing Magdalen. “Whatever you say to me, ma’am, you say to +her. She is a domestic treasure. There is not another house in England has such +a treasure as Mrs. Lecount.” +</p> + +<p> +The housekeeper listened to the praise of her domestic virtues with eyes +immovably fixed on her elegant chemisette. But Magdalen’s quick +penetration had previously detected a look that passed between Mrs. Lecount and +her master, which suggested that Noel Vanstone had been instructed beforehand +what to say and do in his visitor’s presence. The suspicion of this, and +the obstacles which the room presented to arranging her position in it so as to +keep her face from the light, warned Magdalen to be on her guard. +</p> + +<p> +She had taken her chair at first nearly midway in the room. An instant’s +after-reflection induced her to move her seat toward the left hand, so as to +place herself just inside, and close against, the left post of the +folding-door. In this position she dexterously barred the only passage by which +Mrs. Lecount could have skirted round the large table and contrived to front +Magdalen by taking a chair at her master’s side. On the right hand of the +table the empty space was well occupied by the fireplace and fender, by some +traveling-trunks, and a large packing-case. There was no alternative left for +Mrs. Lecount but to place herself on a line with Magdalen against the opposite +post of the folding-door, or to push rudely past the visitor with the obvious +intention of getting in front of her. With an expressive little cough, and with +one steady look at her master, the housekeeper conceded the point, and took her +seat against the right-hand door-post. “Wait a little,” thought +Mrs. Lecount; “my turn next!” +</p> + +<p> +“Mind what you are about, ma’am!” cried Noel Vanstone, as +Magdalen accidentally approached the table in moving her chair. “Mind the +sleeve of your cloak! Excuse me, you nearly knocked down that silver +candlestick. Pray don’t suppose it’s a common candlestick. +It’s nothing of the sort—it’s a Peruvian candlestick. There +are only three of that pattern in the world. One is in the possession of the +President of Peru; one is locked up in the Vatican; and one is on My table. It +cost ten pounds; it’s worth fifty. One of my father’s bargains, +ma’am. All these things are my father’s bargains. There is not +another house in England which has such curiosities as these. Sit down, +Lecount; I beg you will make yourself comfortable. Mrs. Lecount is like the +curiosities, Miss Garth—she is one of my father’s bargains. You are +one of my father’s bargains, are you not, Lecount? My father was a +remarkable man, ma’am. You will be reminded of him here at every turn. I +have got his dressing-gown on at this moment. No such linen as this is made +now—you can’t get it for love or money. Would you like to feel the +texture? Perhaps you’re no judge of texture? Perhaps you would prefer +talking to me about these two pupils of yours? They are two, are they not? Are +they fine girls? Plump, fresh, full-blown English beauties?” +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me, sir,” interposed Mrs. Lecount, sorrowfully. “I +must really beg permission to retire if you speak of the poor things in that +way. I can’t sit by, sir, and hear them turned into ridicule. Consider +their position; consider Miss Garth.” +</p> + +<p> +“You good creature!” said Noel Vanstone, surveying the housekeeper +through his half-closed eyelids. “You excellent Lecount! I assure you, +ma’am, Mrs. Lecount is a worthy creature. You will observe that she +pities the two girls. I don’t go so far as that myself, but I can make +allowances for them. I am a large-minded man. I can make allowances for them +and for you.” He smiled with the most cordial politeness, and helped +himself to a strawberry from the dish on his lap. +</p> + +<p> +“You shock Miss Garth; indeed, sir, without meaning it, you shock Miss +Garth,” remonstrated Mrs. Lecount. “She is not accustomed to you as +I am. Consider Miss Garth, sir. As a favor to <i>me</i>, consider Miss +Garth.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus far Magdalen had resolutely kept silence. The burning anger, which would +have betrayed her in an instant if she had let it flash its way to the surface, +throbbed fast and fiercely at her heart, and warned her, while Noel Vanstone +was speaking, to close her lips. She would have allowed him to talk on +uninterruptedly for some minutes more if Mrs. Lecount had not interfered for +the second time. The refined insolence of the housekeeper’s pity was a +woman’s insolence; and it stung her into instantly controlling herself. +She had never more admirably imitated Miss Garth’s voice and manner than +when she spoke her next words. +</p> + +<p> +“You are very good,” she said to Mrs. Lecount. “I make no +claim to be treated with any extraordinary consideration. I am a governess, and +I don’t expect it. I have only one favor to ask. I beg Mr. Noel Vanstone, +for his own sake, to hear what I have to say to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“You understand, sir?” observed Mrs. Lecount. “It appears +that Miss Garth has some serious warning to give you. She says you are to hear +her, for your own sake.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Noel Vanstone’s fair complexion suddenly turned white. He put away +the plate of strawberries among his father’s bargains. His hand shook and +his little figure twisted itself uneasily in the chair. Magdalen observed him +attentively. “One discovery already,” she thought; “he is a +coward!” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean, ma’am?” asked Noel Vanstone, with visible +trepidation of look and manner. “What do you mean by telling me I must +listen to you for my own sake? If you come her to intimidate me, you come to +the wrong man. My strength of character was universally noticed in our circle +at Zurich—wasn’t it, Lecount?” +</p> + +<p> +“Universally, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount. “But let us hear Miss +Garth. Perhaps I have misinterpreted her meaning.” +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary,” replied Magdalen, “you have exactly +expressed my meaning. My object in coming here is to warn Mr. Noel Vanstone +against the course which he is now taking.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t!” pleaded Mrs. Lecount. “Oh, if you want to help +these poor girls, don’t talk in that way! Soften his resolution, +ma’am, by entreaties; don’t strengthen it by threats!” She a +little overstrained the tone of humility in which she spoke those words—a +little overacted the look of apprehension which accompanied them. If Magdalen +had not seen plainly enough already that it was Mrs. Lecount’s habitual +practice to decide everything for her master in the first instance, and then to +persuade him that he was not acting under his housekeeper’s resolution +but under his own, she would have seen it now. +</p> + +<p> +“You hear what Lecount has just said?” remarked Noel Vanstone. +“You hear the unsolicited testimony of a person who has known me from +childhood? Take care, Miss Garth—take care!” He complacently +arranged the tails of his white dressing-gown over his knees and took the plate +of strawberries back on his lap. +</p> + +<p> +“I have no wish to offend you,” said Magdalen. “I am only +anxious to open your eyes to the truth. You are not acquainted with the +characters of the two sisters whose fortunes have fallen into your possession. +I have known them from childhood; and I come to give you the benefit of my +experience in their interests and in yours. You have nothing to dread from the +elder of the two; she patiently accepts the hard lot which you, and your father +before you, have forced on her. The younger sister’s conduct is the very +opposite of this. She has already declined to submit to your father’s +decision, and she now refuses to be silenced by Mrs. Lecount’s letter. +Take my word for it, she is capable of giving you serious trouble if you +persist in making an enemy of her.” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone changed color once more, and began to fidget again in his chair. +“Serious trouble,” he repeated, with a blank look. “If you +mean writing letters, ma’am, she has given trouble enough already. She +has written once to me, and twice to my father. One of the letters to my father +was a threatening letter—wasn’t it, Lecount?” +</p> + +<p> +“She expressed her feelings, poor child,” said Mrs. Lecount. +“I thought it hard to send her back her letter, but your dear father knew +best. What I said at the time was, Why not let her express her feelings? What +are a few threatening words, after all? In her position, poor creature, they +are words, and nothing more.” +</p> + +<p> +“I advise you not to be too sure of that,” said Magdalen. “I +know her better than you do.” +</p> + +<p> +She paused at those words—paused in a momentary terror. The sting of Mrs. +Lecount’s pity had nearly irritated her into forgetting her assumed +character, and speaking in her own voice. +</p> + +<p> +“You have referred to the letters written by my pupil,” she +resumed, addressing Noel Vanstone as soon as she felt sure of herself again. +“We will say nothing about what she has written to your father; we will +only speak of what she has written to you. Is there anything unbecoming in her +letter, anything said in it that is false? Is it not true that these two +sisters have been cruelly deprived of the provision which their father made for +them? His will to this day speaks for him and for them; and it only speaks to +no purpose, because he was not aware that his marriage obliged him to make it +again, and because he died before he could remedy the error. Can you deny +that?” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone smiled, and helped himself to a strawberry. “I don’t +attempt to deny it,” he said. “Go on, Miss Garth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it not true,” persisted Magdalen, “that the law which has +taken the money from these sisters, whose father made no second will, has now +given that very money to you, whose father made no will at all? Surely, explain +it how you may, this is hard on those orphan girls?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very hard,” replied Noel Vanstone. “It strikes you in that +light, too—doesn’t it, Lecount?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount shook her head, and closed her handsome black eyes. +“Harrowing,” she said; “I can characterize it, Miss Garth, by +no other word—harrowing. How the young person—no! how Miss +Vanstone, the younger—discovered that my late respected master made no +will I am at a loss to understand. Perhaps it was put in the papers? But I am +interrupting you, Miss Garth. Do have something more to say about your +pupil’s letter?” She noiselessly drew her chair forward, as she +said these words, a few inches beyond the line of the visitor’s chair. +The attempt was neatly made, but it proved useless. Magdalen only kept her head +more to the left, and the packing-case on the floor prevented Mrs. Lecount from +advancing any further. +</p> + +<p> +“I have only one more question to put,” said Magdalen. “My +pupil’s letter addressed a proposal to Mr. Noel Vanstone. I beg him to +inform me why he has refused to consider it.” +</p> + +<p> +“My good lady!” cried Noel Vanstone, arching his white eyebrows in +satirical astonishment. “Are you really in earnest? Do you know what the +proposal is? Have you seen the letter?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am quite in earnest,” said Magdalen, “and I have seen the +letter. It entreats you to remember how Mr. Andrew Vanstone’s fortune has +come into your hands; it informs you that one-half of that fortune, divided +between his daughters, was what his will intended them to have; and it asks of +your sense of justice to do for his children what he would have done for them +himself if he had lived. In plainer words still, it asks you to give one-half +of the money to the daughters, and it leaves you free to keep the other half +yourself. That is the proposal. Why have you refused to consider it?” +</p> + +<p> +“For the simplest possible reason, Miss Garth,” said Noel Vanstone, +in high good-humor. “Allow me to remind you of a well-known proverb: A +fool and his money are soon parted. Whatever else I may be, ma’am, +I’m not a fool.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t put it in that way, sir!” remonstrated Mrs. Lecount. +“Be serious—pray be serious!” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite impossible, Lecount,” rejoined her master. “I +can’t be serious. My poor father, Miss Garth, took a high moral point of +view in this matter. Lecount, there, takes a high moral point of +view—don’t you, Lecount? I do nothing of the sort. I have lived too +long in the Continental atmosphere to trouble myself about moral points of +view. My course in this business is as plain as two and two make four. I have +got the money, and I should be a born idiot if I parted with it. There is my +point of view! Simple enough, isn’t it? I don’t stand on my +dignity; I don’t meet you with the law, which is all on my side; I +don’t blame your coming here, as a total stranger, to try and alter my +resolution; I don’t blame the two girls for wanting to dip their fingers +into my purse. All I say is, I am not fool enough to open it. <i>Pas si +bete</i>, as we used to say in the English circle at Zurich. You understand +French, Miss Garth? <i>Pas si bete!</i>” He set aside his plate of +strawberries once more, and daintily dried his fingers on his fine white +napkin. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen kept her temper. If she could have struck him dead by lifting her hand +at that moment, it is probable she would have lifted it. But she kept her +temper. +</p> + +<p> +“Am I to understand,” she asked, “that the last words you +have to say in this matter are the words said for you in Mrs. Lecount’s +letter!” +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely so,” replied Noel Vanstone. +</p> + +<p> +“You have inherited your own father’s fortune, as well as the +fortune of Mr. Andrew Vanstone, and yet you feel no obligation to act from +motives of justice or generosity toward these two sisters? All you think it +necessary to say to them is, you have got the money, and you refuse to part +with a single farthing of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Most accurately stated! Miss Garth, you are a woman of business. +Lecount, Miss Garth is a woman of business.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t appeal to me, sir,” cried Mrs. Lecount, gracefully +wringing her plump white hands. “I can’t bear it! I must interfere! +Let me suggest—oh, what do you call it in English?—a compromise. +Dear Mr. Noel, you are perversely refusing to do yourself justice; you have +better reasons than the reason you have given to Miss Garth. You follow your +honored father’s example; you feel it due to his memory to act in this +matter as he acted before you. That is his reason, Miss Garth—— I +implore you on my knees to take that as his reason. He will do what his dear +father did; no more, no less. His dear father made a proposal, and he himself +will now make that proposal over again. Yes, Mr. Noel, you will remember what +this poor girl says in her letter to you. Her sister has been obliged to go out +as a governess; and she herself, in losing her fortune, has lost the hope of +her marriage for years and years to come. You will remember this—and you +will give the hundred pounds to one, and the hundred pounds to the other, which +your admirable father offered in the past time? If he does this, Miss Garth, +will he do enough? If he gives a hundred pounds each to these unfortunate +sisters—?” +</p> + +<p> +“He will repent the insult to the last hour of his life,” said +Magdalen. +</p> + +<p> +The instant that answer passed her lips she would have given worlds to recall +it. Mrs. Lecount had planted her sting in the right place at last. Those rash +words of Magdalen’s had burst from her passionately, in her own voice. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing but the habit of public performance saved her from making the serious +error that she had committed more palpable still, by attempting to set it +right. Here her past practice in the Entertainment came to her rescue, and +urged her to go on instantly in Miss Garth’s voice as if nothing had +happened. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean well, Mrs. Lecount,” she continued, “but you are +doing harm instead of good. My pupils will accept no such compromise as you +propose. I am sorry to have spoken violently just now; I beg you will excuse +me.” She looked hard for information in the housekeeper’s face +while she spoke those conciliatory words. Mrs. Lecount baffled the look by +putting her handkerchief to her eyes. Had she, or had she not, noticed the +momentary change in Magdalen’s voice from the tones that were assumed to +the tones that were natural? Impossible to say. +</p> + +<p> +“What more can I do!” murmured Mrs. Lecount behind her +handkerchief. “Give me time to think—give me time to recover +myself. May I retire, sir, for a moment? My nerves are shaken by this sad +scene. I must have a glass of water, or I think I shall faint. Don’t go +yet, Miss Garth. I beg you will give us time to set this sad matter right, if +we can—I beg you will remain until I come back.” +</p> + +<p> +There were two doors of entrance to the room. One, the door into the front +parlor, close at Magdalen’s left hand. The other, the door into the back +parlor, situated behind her. Mrs. Lecount politely retired—through the +open folding-doors—by this latter means of exit, so as not to disturb the +visitor by passing in front of her. Magdalen waited until she heard the door +open and close again behind her, and then resolved to make the most of the +opportunity which left her alone with Noel Vanstone. The utter hopelessness of +rousing a generous impulse in that base nature had now been proved by her own +experience. The last chance left was to treat him like the craven creature he +was, and to influence him through his fears. +</p> + +<p> +Before she could speak, Noel Vanstone himself broke the silence. Cunningly as +he strove to hide it, he was half angry, half alarmed at his +housekeeper’s desertion of him. He looked doubtingly at his visitor; he +showed a nervous anxiety to conciliate her until Mrs. Lecount’s return. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray remember, ma’am, I never denied that this case was a hard +one,” he began. “You said just now you had no wish to offend +me—and I’m sure I don’t want to offend you. May I offer you +some strawberries? Would you like to look at my father’s bargains? I +assure you, ma’am, I am naturally a gallant man; and I feel for both +these sisters—especially the younger one. Touch me on the subject of the +tender passion, and you touch me on a weak place. Nothing would please me more +than to hear that Miss Vanstone’s lover (I’m sure I always call her +Miss Vanstone, and so does Lecount)—I say, ma’am, nothing would +please me more than to hear that Miss Vanstone’s lover had come back and +married her. If a loan of money would be likely to bring him back, and if the +security offered was good, and if my lawyer thought me justified—” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop, Mr. Vanstone,” said Magdalen. “You are entirely +mistaken in your estimate of the person you have to deal with. You are +seriously wrong in supposing that the marriage of the younger sister—if +she could be married in a week’s time—would make any difference in +the convictions which induced her to write to your father and to you. I +don’t deny that she may act from a mixture of motives. I don’t deny +that she clings to the hope of hastening her marriage, and to the hope of +rescuing her sister from a life of dependence. But if both those objects were +accomplished by other means, nothing would induce her to leave you in +possession of the inheritance which her father meant his children to have. I +know her, Mr. Vanstone! She is a nameless, homeless, friendless wretch. The law +which takes care of you, the law which takes care of all legitimate children, +casts her like carrion to the winds. It is your law—not hers. She only +knows it as the instrument of a vile oppression, an insufferable wrong. The +sense of that wrong haunts her like a possession of the devil. The resolution +to right that wrong burns in her like fire. If that miserable girl was married +and rich, with millions tomorrow, do you think she would move an inch from her +purpose? I tell you she would resist, to the last breath in her body, the vile +injustice which has struck at the helpless children, through the calamity of +their father’s death! I tell you she would shrink from no means which a +desperate woman can employ to force that closed hand of yours open, or die in +the attempt!” +</p> + +<p> +She stopped abruptly. Once more her own indomitable earnestness had betrayed +her. Once more the inborn nobility of that perverted nature had risen superior +to the deception which it had stooped to practice. The scheme of the moment +vanished from her mind’s view; and the resolution of her life burst its +way outward in her own words, in her own tones, pouring hotly and more hotly +from her heart. She saw the abject manikin before her cowering, silent, in his +chair. Had his fears left him sense enough to perceive the change in her voice? +No: <i>his</i> face spoke the truth—his fears had bewildered him. This +time the chance of the moment had befriended her. The door behind her chair had +not opened again yet. “No ears but his have heard me,” she thought, +with a sense of unutterable relief. “I have escaped Mrs. Lecount.” +</p> + +<p> +She had done nothing of the kind. Mrs. Lecount had never left the room. +</p> + +<p> +After opening the door and closing it again, without going out, the housekeeper +had noiselessly knelt down behind Magdalen’s chair. Steadying herself +against the post of the folding-door, she took a pair of scissors from her +pocket, waited until Noel Vanstone (from whose view she was entirely hidden) +had attracted Magdalen’s attention by speaking to her, and then bent +forward, with the scissors ready in her hand. The skirt of the false Miss +Garth’s gown—the brown alpaca dress, with the white spots on +it—touched the floor, within the housekeeper’s reach. Mrs. Lecount +lifted the outer of the two flounces which ran round the bottom of the dress +one over the other, softly cut away a little irregular fragment of stuff from +the inner flounce, and neatly smoothed the outer one over it again, so as to +hide the gap. By the time she had put the scissors back in her pocket, and had +risen to her feet (sheltering herself behind the post of the folding-door), +Magdalen had spoken her last words. Mrs. Lecount quietly repeated the ceremony +of opening and shutting the back parlor door; and returned to her place. +</p> + +<p> +“What has happened, sir, in my absence?” she inquired, addressing +her master with a look of alarm. “You are pale; you are agitated! Oh, +Miss Garth, have you forgotten the caution I gave you in the other room?” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Garth has forgotten everything,” cried Noel Vanstone, +recovering his lost composure on the re-appearance of Mrs. Lecount. “Miss +Garth has threatened me in the most outrageous manner. I forbid you to pity +either of those two girls any more, Lecount—especially the younger one. +She is the most desperate wretch I ever heard of! If she can’t get my +money by fair means, she threatens to have it by foul. Miss Garth has told me +that to my face. To my face!” he repeated, folding his arms, and looking +mortally insulted. +</p> + +<p> +“Compose yourself, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount. “Pray compose +yourself, and leave me to speak to Miss Garth. I regret to hear, ma’am, +that you have forgotten what I said to you in the next room. You have agitated +Mr. Noel; you have compromised the interests you came here to plead; and you +have only repeated what we knew before. The language you have allowed yourself +to use in my absence is the same language which your pupil was foolish enough +to employ when she wrote for the second time to my late master. How can a lady +of your years and experience seriously repeat such nonsense? This girl boasts +and threatens. She will do this; she will do that. You have her confidence, +ma’am. Tell me, if you please, in plain words, what can she do?” +</p> + +<p> +Sharply as the taunt was pointed, it glanced off harmless. Mrs. Lecount had +planted her sting once too often. Magdalen rose in complete possession of her +assumed character and composedly terminated the interview. Ignorant as she was +of what had happened behind her chair, she saw a change in Mrs. Lecount’s +look and manner which warned her to run no more risks, and to trust herself no +longer in the house. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not in my pupil’s confidence,” she said. “Her own +acts will answer your question when the time comes. I can only tell you, from +my own knowledge of her, that she is no boaster. What she wrote to Mr. Michael +Vanstone was what she was prepared to do—-what, I have reason to think, +she was actually on the point of doing, when her plans were overthrown by his +death. Mr. Michael Vanstone’s son has only to persist in following his +father’s course to find, before long, that I am not mistaken in my pupil, +and that I have not come here to intimidate him by empty threats. My errand is +done. I leave Mr. Noel Vanstone with two alternatives to choose from. I leave +him to share Mr. Andrew Vanstone’s fortune with Mr. Andrew +Vanstone’s daughters—or to persist in his present refusal and face +the consequences.” She bowed, and walked to the door. +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone started to his feet, with anger and alarm struggling which should +express itself first in his blank white face. Before he could open his lips, +Mrs. Lecount’s plump hands descended on his shoulders, put him softly +back in his chair, and restored the plate of strawberries to its former +position on his lap. +</p> + +<p> +“Refresh yourself, Mr. Noel, with a few more strawberries,” she +said, “and leave Miss Garth to me.” +</p> + +<p> +She followed Magdalen into the passage, and closed the door of the room after +her. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you residing in London, ma’am?” asked Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” replied Magdalen. “I reside in the country.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I want to write to you, where can I address my letter?” +</p> + +<p> +“To the post-office, Birmingham,” said Magdalen, mentioning the +place which she had last left, and at which all letters were still addressed to +her. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount repeated the direction to fix it in her memory, advanced two steps +in the passage, and quietly laid her right hand on Magdalen’s arm. +</p> + +<p> +“A word of advice, ma’am,” she said; “one word at +parting. You are a bold woman and a clever woman. Don’t be too bold; +don’t be too clever. You are risking more than you think for.” She +suddenly raised herself on tiptoe and whispered the next words in +Magdalen’s ear. “<i>I hold you in the hollow of my hand!</i>” +said Mrs. Lecount, with a fierce hissing emphasis on every syllable. Her left +hand clinched itself stealthily as she spoke. It was the hand in which she had +concealed the fragment of stuff from Magdalen’s gown—the hand which +held it fast at that moment. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” asked Magdalen, pushing her back. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount glided away politely to open the house door. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean nothing now,” she said; “wait a little, and time may +show. One last question, ma’am, before I bid you good-by. When your pupil +was a little innocent child, did she ever amuse herself by building a house of +cards?” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen impatiently answered by a gesture in the affirmative. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever see her build up the house higher and higher,” +proceeded Mrs. Lecount, “till it was quite a pagoda of cards? Did you +ever see her open her little child’s eyes wide and look at it, and feel +so proud of what she had done already that she wanted to do more? Did you ever +see her steady her pretty little hand, and hold her innocent breath, and put +one other card on the top, and lay the whole house, the instant afterward, a +heap of ruins on the table? Ah, you have seen that. Give her, if you please, a +friendly message from me. I venture to say she has built the house high enough +already; and I recommend her to be careful before she puts on that other +card.” +</p> + +<p> +“She shall have your message,” said Magdalen, with Miss +Garth’s bluntness, and Miss Garth’s emphatic nod of the head. +“But I doubt her minding it. Her hand is rather steadier than you +suppose, and I think she will put on the other card.” +</p> + +<p> +“And bring the house down,” said Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“And build it up again,” rejoined Magdalen. “I wish you +good-morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-morning,” said Mrs. Lecount, opening the door. “One +last word, Miss Garth. Do think of what I said in the back room! Do try the +Golden Ointment for that sad affliction in your eyes!” +</p> + +<p> +As Magdalen crossed the threshold of the door she was met by the postman +ascending the house steps with a letter picked out from the bundle in his hand. +“Noel Vanstone, Esquire?” she heard the man say, interrogatively, +as she made her way down the front garden to the street. +</p> + +<p> +She passed through the garden gates little thinking from what new difficulty +and new danger her timely departure had saved her. The letter which the postman +had just delivered into the housekeeper’s hands was no other than the +anonymous letter addressed to Noel Vanstone by Captain Wragge. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount returned to the parlor, with the fragment of Magdalen’s +dress in one hand, and with Captain Wragge’s letter in the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you got rid of her?” asked Noel Vanstone. “Have you +shut the door at last on Miss Garth?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t call her Miss Garth, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount, smiling +contemptuously. “She is as much Miss Garth as you are. We have been +favored by the performance of a clever masquerade; and if we had taken the +disguise off our visitor, I think we should have found under it Miss Vanstone +herself.—Here is a letter for you, sir, which the postman has just +left.” +</p> + +<p> +She put the letter on the table within her master’s reach. Noel +Vanstone’s amazement at the discovery just communicated to him kept his +whole attention concentrated on the housekeeper’s face. He never so much +as looked at the letter when she placed it before him. +</p> + +<p> +“Take my word for it, sir,” proceeded Mrs. Lecount, composedly +taking a chair. “When our visitor gets home she will put her gray hair +away in a box, and will cure that sad affliction in her eyes with warm water +and a sponge. If she had painted the marks on her face, as well as she painted +the inflammation in her eyes, the light would have shown me nothing, and I +should certainly have been deceived. But I saw the marks; I saw a young +woman’s skin under that dirty complexion of hers; I heard in this room a +true voice in a passion, as well as a false voice talking with an accent, and I +don’t believe in one morsel of that lady’s personal appearance from +top to toe. The girl herself, in my opinion, Mr. Noel—and a bold girl +too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you lock the door and send for the police?” asked +Mr. Noel. “My father would have sent for the police. You know, as well as +I do, Lecount, my father would have sent for the police.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount, “I think your father +would have waited until he had got something more for the police to do than we +have got for them yet. We shall see this lady again, sir. Perhaps she will come +here next time with her own face and her own voice. I am curious to see what +her own face is like. I am curious to know whether what I have heard of her +voice in a passion is enough to make me recognize her voice when she is calm. I +possess a little memorial of her visit of which she is not aware, and she will +not escape me so easily as she thinks. If it turns out a useful memorial, you +shall know what it is. If not, I will abstain from troubling you on so trifling +a subject.—Allow me to remind you, sir, of the letter under your hand. +You have not looked at it yet.” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone opened the letter. He started as his eye fell on the first +lines—hesitated—and then hurriedly read it through. The paper +dropped from his hand, and he sank back in his chair. Mrs. Lecount sprang to +her feet with the alacrity of a young woman and picked up the letter. +</p> + +<p> +“What has happened, sir?” she asked. Her face altered as she put +the question, and her large black eyes hardened fiercely, in genuine +astonishment and alarm. +</p> + +<p> +“Send for the police,” exclaimed her master. “Lecount, I +insist on being protected. Send for the police!” +</p> + +<p> +“May I read the letter, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +He feebly waved his hand. Mrs. Lecount read the letter attentively, and put it +aside on the table, without a word, when she had done. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you nothing to say to me?” asked Noel Vanstone, staring at +his housekeeper in blank dismay. “Lecount, I’m to be robbed! The +scoundrel who wrote that letter knows all about it, and won’t tell me +anything unless I pay him. I’m to be robbed! Here’s property on +this table worth thousands of pounds—property that can never be +replaced—property that all the crowned heads in Europe could not produce +if they tried. Lock me in, Lecount, and send for the police!” +</p> + +<p> +Instead of sending for the police, Mrs. Lecount took a large green paper fan +from the chimney-piece, and seated herself opposite her master. +</p> + +<p> +“You are agitated, Mr. Noel,” she said, “you are heated. Let +me cool you.” +</p> + +<p> +With her face as hard as ever—with less tenderness of look and manner +than most women would have shown if they had been rescuing a half-drowned fly +from a milk-jug—she silently and patiently fanned him for five minutes or +more. No practiced eye observing the peculiar bluish pallor of his complexion, +and the marked difficulty with which he drew his breath, could have failed to +perceive that the great organ of life was in this man, what the housekeeper had +stated it to be, too weak for the function which it was called on to perform. +The heart labored over its work as if it had been the heart of a worn-out old +man. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you relieved, sir?” asked Mrs. Lecount. “Can you think a +little? Can you exercise your better judgment?” +</p> + +<p> +She rose and put her hand over his heart with as much mechanical attention and +as little genuine interest as if she had been feeling the plates at dinner to +ascertain if they had been properly warmed. “Yes,” she went on, +seating herself again, and resuming the exercise of the fan; “you are +getting better already, Mr. Noel.—Don’t ask me about this anonymous +letter until you have thought for yourself, and have given your own opinion +first.” She went on with the fanning, and looked him hard in the face all +the time. “Think,” she said; “think, sir, without troubling +yourself to express your thoughts. Trust to my intimate sympathy with you to +read them. Yes, Mr. Noel, this letter is a paltry attempt to frighten you. What +does it say? It says you are the object of a conspiracy directed by Miss +Vanstone. We know that already—the lady of the inflamed eyes has told us. +We snap our fingers at the conspiracy. What does the letter say next? It says +the writer has valuable information to give you if you will pay for it. What +did you call this person yourself just now, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“I called him a scoundrel,” said Noel Vanstone, recovering his +self-importance, and raising himself gradually in his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“I agree with you in that, sir, as I agree in everything else,” +proceeded Mrs. Lecount. “He is a scoundrel who really has this +information and who means what he says, or he is a mouthpiece of Miss +Vanstone’s, and she has caused this letter to be written for the purpose +of puzzling us by another form of disguise. Whether the letter is true, or +whether the letter is false—am I not reading your own wiser thoughts now, +Mr. Noel?—you know better than to put your enemies on their guard by +employing the police in this matter too soon. I quite agree with you—no +police just yet. You will allow this anonymous man, or anonymous woman, to +suppose you are easily frightened; you will lay a trap for the information in +return for the trap laid for your money; you will answer the letter, and see +what comes of the answer; and you will only pay the expense of employing the +police when you know the expense is necessary. I agree with you again—no +expense, if we can help it. In every particular, Mr. Noel, my mind and your +mind in this matter are one.” +</p> + +<p> +“It strikes you in that light, Lecount—does it?” said Noel +Vanstone. “I think so myself; I certainly think so. I won’t pay the +police a farthing if I can possibly help it.” He took up the letter +again, and became fretfully perplexed over a second reading of it. “But +the man wants money!” he broke out, impatiently. “You seem to +forget, Lecount, that the man wants money.” +</p> + +<p> +“Money which you offer him, sir,” rejoined Mrs. Lecount; +“but—as your thoughts have already anticipated—money which +you don’t give him. No! no! you say to this man: ‘Hold out your +hand, sir;’ and when he has held it, you give him a smack for his pains, +and put your own hand back in your pocket.—I am so glad to see you +laughing, Mr. Noel! so glad to see you getting back your good spirits. We will +answer the letter by advertisement, as the writer directs—advertisement +is so cheap! Your poor hand is trembling a little—shall I hold the pen +for you? I am not fit to do more; but I can always promise to hold the +pen.” +</p> + +<p> +Without waiting for his reply she went into the back parlor, and returned with +pen, ink, and paper. Arranging a blotting-book on her knees, and looking a +model of cheerful submission, she placed herself once more in front of her +master’s chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I write from your dictation, sir?” she inquired. “Or +shall I make a little sketch, and will you correct it afterward? I will make a +little sketch. Let me see the letter. We are to advertise in the <i>Times</i>, +and we are to address ‘An Unknown Friend.’ What shall I say, Mr. +Noel? Stay; I will write it, and then you can see for yourself: ‘An +Unknown Friend is requested to mention (by advertisement) an address at which a +letter can reach him. The receipt of the information which he offers will be +acknowledged by a reward of—’ What sum of money do you wish me to +set down, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Set down nothing,” said Noel Vanstone, with a sudden outbreak of +impatience. “Money matters are my business—I say money matters are +my business, Lecount. Leave it to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, sir,” replied Mrs. Lecount, handing her master the +blotting-book. “You will not forget to be liberal in offering money when +you know beforehand you don’t mean to part with it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t dictate, Lecount! I won’t submit to dictation!” +said Noel Vanstone, asserting his own independence more and more impatiently. +“I mean to conduct this business for myself. I am master, Lecount!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are master, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“My father was master before me. And I am my father’s son. I tell +you, Lecount, I am my father’s son!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount bowed submissively. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean to set down any sum of money I think right,” pursued Noel +Vanstone, nodding his little flaxen head vehemently. “I mean to send this +advertisement myself. The servant shall take it to the stationer’s to be +put into the <i>Times</i>. When I ring the bell twice, send the servant. You +understand, Lecount? Send the servant.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount bowed again and walked slowly to the door. She knew to a nicety +when to lead her master and when to let him go alone. Experience had taught her +to govern him in all essential points by giving way to him afterward on all +points of minor detail. It was a characteristic of his weak nature—as it +is of all weak natures—to assert itself obstinately on trifles. The +filling in of the blank in the advertisement was the trifle in this case; and +Mrs. Lecount quieted her master’s suspicions that she was leading him by +instantly conceding it. “My mule has kicked,” she thought to +herself, in her own language, as she opened the door. “I can do no more +with him to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lecount!” cried her master, as she stepped into the passage. +“Come back.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount came back. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not offended with me, are you?” asked Noel Vanstone, +uneasily. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not, sir,” replied Mrs. Lecount. “As you said just +now—you are master.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good creature! Give me your hand.” He kissed her hand, and smiled +in high approval of his own affectionate proceeding. “Lecount, you are a +worthy creature!” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount. She courtesied and went out. +“If he had any brains in that monkey head of his,” she said to +herself in the passage, “what a rascal he would be!” +</p> + +<p> +Left by himself, Noel Vanstone became absorbed in anxious reflection over the +blank space in the advertisement. Mrs. Lecount’s apparently superfluous +hint to him to be liberal in offering money when he knew he had no intention of +parting with it, had been founded on an intimate knowledge of his character. He +had inherited his father’s sordid love of money, without inheriting his +father’s hard-headed capacity for seeing the uses to which money can be +put. His one idea in connection with his wealth was the idea of keeping it. He +was such an inborn miser that the bare prospect of being liberal in theory only +daunted him. He took up the pen; laid it down again; and read the anonymous +letter for the third time, shaking his head over it suspiciously. “If I +offer this man a large sum of money,” he thought, on a sudden, “how +do I know he may not find a means of actually making me pay it? Women are +always in a hurry. Lecount is always in a hurry. I have got the afternoon +before me—I’ll take the afternoon to consider it.” +</p> + +<p> +He fretfully put away the blotting-book and the sketch of the advertisement on +the chair which Mrs. Lecount had just left. As he returned to his own seat, he +shook his little head solemnly, and arranged his white dressing-gown over his +knees with the air of a man absorbed in anxious thought. Minute after minute +passed away; the quarters and the half-hours succeeded each other on the dial +of Mrs. Lecount’s watch, and still Noel Vanstone remained lost in doubt; +still no summons for the servants disturbed the tranquillity of the parlor +bell. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Meanwhile, after parting with Mrs. Lecount, Magdalen had cautiously abstained +from crossing the road to her lodgings, and had only ventured to return after +making a circuit in the neighborhood. When she found herself once more in +Vauxhall Walk, the first object which attracted her attention was a cab drawn +up before the door of the lodgings. A few steps more in advance showed her the +landlady’s daughter standing at the cab door engaged in a dispute with +the driver on the subject of his fare. Noticing that the girl’s back was +turned toward her, Magdalen instantly profited by that circumstance and slipped +unobserved into the house. +</p> + +<p> +She glided along the passage, ascended the stairs, and found herself, on the +first landing, face to face with her traveling companion! There stood Mrs. +Wragge, with a pile of small parcels hugged up in her arms, anxiously waiting +the issue of the dispute with the cabman in the street. To return was +impossible—the sound of the angry voices below was advancing into the +passage. To hesitate was worse than useless. But one choice was left—the +choice of going on—and Magdalen desperately took it. She pushed by Mrs. +Wragge without a word, ran into her own room, tore off her cloak, bonnet and +wig, and threw them down out of sight in the blank space between the +sofa-bedstead and the wall. +</p> + +<p> +For the first few moments, astonishment bereft Mrs. Wragge of the power of +speech, and rooted her to the spot where she stood. Two out of the collection +of parcels in her arms fell from them on the stairs. The sight of that +catastrophe roused her. “Thieves!” cried Mrs. Wragge, suddenly +struck by an idea. “Thieves!” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen heard her through the room door, which she had not had time to close +completely. “Is that you, Mrs. Wragge?” she called out in her own +voice. “What is the matter?” She snatched up a towel while she +spoke, dipped it in water, and passed it rapidly over the lower part of her +face. At the sound of the familiar voice Mrs. Wragge turned round—dropped +a third parcel—and, forgetting it in her astonishment, ascended the +second flight of stairs. Magdalen stepped out on the first-floor landing, with +the towel held over her forehead as if she was suffering from headache. Her +false eyebrows required time for their removal, and a headache assumed for the +occasion suggested the most convenient pretext she could devise for hiding them +as they were hidden now. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you disturbing the house for?” she asked. “Pray be +quiet; I am half blind with the headache.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anything wrong, ma’am?” inquired the landlady from the +passage. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing whatever,” replied Magdalen. “My friend is timid; +and the dispute with the cabman has frightened her. Pay the man what he wants, +and let him go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is She?” asked Mrs. Wragge, in a tremulous whisper. +“Where’s the woman who scuttled by me into your room?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh!” said Magdalen. “No woman scuttled by you—as you +call it. Look in and see for yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +She threw open the door. Mrs. Wragge walked into the room—looked all over +it—saw nobody—and indicated her astonishment at the result by +dropping a fourth parcel, and trembling helplessly from head to foot. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw her go in here,” said Mrs. Wragge, in awestruck accents. +“A woman in a gray cloak and a poke bonnet. A rude woman. She scuttled by +me on the stairs—she did. Here’s the room, and no woman in it. Give +us a Prayer-book!” cried Mrs. Wragge, turning deadly pale, and letting +her whole remaining collection of parcels fall about her in a little cascade of +commodities. “I want to read something Good. I want to think of my latter +end. I’ve seen a Ghost!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense!” said Magdalen. “You’re dreaming; the +shopping has been too much for you. Go into your own room and take your bonnet +off.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve heard tell of ghosts in night-gowns, ghosts in sheets, and +ghosts in chains,” proceeded Mrs. Wragge, standing petrified in her own +magic circle of linen-drapers’ parcels. “Here’s a worse ghost +than any of ’em—a ghost in a gray cloak and a poke bonnet. I know +what it is,” continued Mrs. Wragge, melting into penitent tears. +“It’s a judgment on me for being so happy away from the captain. +It’s a judgment on me for having been down at heel in half the shops in +London, first with one shoe and then with the other, all the time I’ve +been out. I’m a sinful creature. Don’t let go of me—whatever +you do, my dear, don’t let go of me!” She caught Magdalen fast by +the arm and fell into another trembling fit at the bare idea of being left by +herself. +</p> + +<p> +The one remaining chance in such an emergency as this was to submit to +circumstances. Magdalen took Mrs. Wragge to a chair; having first placed it in +such a position as might enable her to turn her back on her +traveling-companion, while she removed the false eyebrows by the help of a +little water. “Wait a minute there,” she said, “and try if +you can compose yourself while I bathe my head.” +</p> + +<p> +“Compose myself?” repeated Mrs. Wragge. “How am I to compose +myself when my head feels off my shoulders? The worst Buzzing I ever had with +the Cookery-book was nothing to the Buzzing I’ve got now with the Ghost. +Here’s a miserable end to a holiday! You may take me back again, my dear, +whenever you like—I’ve had enough of it already!” +</p> + +<p> +Having at last succeeded in removing the eyebrows, Magdalen was free to combat +the unfortunate impression produced on her companion’s mind by every +weapon of persuasion which her ingenuity could employ. +</p> + +<p> +The attempt proved useless. Mrs. Wragge persisted—on evidence which, it +may be remarked in parenthesis, would have satisfied many wiser ghost-seers +than herself—in believing that she had been supernaturally favored by a +visitor from the world of spirits. All that Magdalen could do was to ascertain, +by cautious investigation, that Mrs. Wragge had not been quick enough to +identify the supposed ghost with the character of the old North-country lady in +the Entertainment. Having satisfied herself on this point, she had no resource +but to leave the rest to the natural incapability of retaining +impressions—unless those impressions were perpetually renewed—which +was one of the characteristic infirmities of her companion’s weak mind. +After fortifying Mrs. Wragge by reiterated assurances that one appearance +(according to all the laws and regulations of ghosts) meant nothing unless it +was immediately followed by two more—after patiently leading back her +attention to the parcels dropped on the floor and on the stairs—and after +promising to keep the door of communication ajar between the two rooms if Mrs. +Wragge would engage on her side to retire to her own chamber, and to say no +more on the terrible subject of the ghost—Magdalen at last secured the +privilege of reflecting uninterruptedly on the events of that memorable day. +</p> + +<p> +Two serious consequences had followed her first step forward. Mrs. Lecount had +entrapped her into speaking in her own voice, and accident had confronted her +with Mrs. Wragge in disguise. +</p> + +<p> +What advantage had she gained to set against these disasters? The advantage of +knowing more of Noel Vanstone and of Mrs. Lecount than she might have +discovered in months if she had trusted to inquiries made for her by others. +One uncertainty which had hitherto perplexed her was set at rest already. The +scheme she had privately devised against Michael Vanstone—which Captain +Wragge’s sharp insight had partially penetrated when she first warned him +that their partnership must be dissolved—was a scheme which she could now +plainly see must be abandoned as hopeless, in the case of Michael +Vanstone’s son. The father’s habits of speculation had been the +pivot on which the whole machinery of her meditated conspiracy had been +constructed to turn. No such vantage-ground was discoverable in the doubly +sordid character of the son. Noel Vanstone was invulnerable on the very point +which had presented itself in his father as open to attack. +</p> + +<p> +Having reached this conclusion, how was she to shape her future course? What +new means could she discover which would lead her secretly to her end, in +defiance of Mrs. Lecount’s malicious vigilance and Noel Vanstone’s +miserly distrust? +</p> + +<p> +She was seated before the looking-glass, mechanically combing out her hair, +while that all-important consideration occupied her mind. The agitation of the +moment had raised a feverish color in her cheeks, and had brightened the light +in her large gray eyes. She was conscious of looking her best; conscious how +her beauty gained by contrast, after the removal of the disguise. Her lovely +light brown hair looked thicker and softer than ever, now that it had escaped +from its imprisonment under the gray wig. She twisted it this way and that, +with quick, dexterous fingers; she laid it in masses on her shoulders; she +threw it back from them in a heap and turned sidewise to see how it +fell—to see her back and shoulders freed from the artificial deformities +of the padded cloak. After a moment she faced the looking-glass once more; +plunged both hands deep in her hair; and, resting her elbows on the table, +looked closer and closer at the reflection of herself, until her breath began +to dim the glass. “I can twist any man alive round my finger,” she +thought, with a smile of superb triumph, “as long as I keep my looks! If +that contemptible wretch saw me now—” She shrank from following +that thought to its end, with a sudden horror of herself: she drew back from +the glass, shuddering, and put her hands over her face. “Oh, +Frank!” she murmured, “but for you, what a wretch I might +be!” Her eager fingers snatched the little white silk bag from its +hiding-place in her bosom; her lips devoured it with silent kisses. “My +darling! my angel! Oh, Frank, how I love you!” The tears gushed into her +eyes. She passionately dried them, restored the bag to its place, and turned +her back on the looking-glass. “No more of myself,” she thought; +“no more of my mad, miserable self for to-day!” +</p> + +<p> +Shrinking from all further contemplation of her next step in +advance—shrinking from the fast-darkening future, with which Noel +Vanstone was now associated in her inmost thoughts—she looked impatiently +about the room for some homely occupation which might take her out of herself. +The disguise which she had flung down between the wall and the bed recurred to +her memory. It was impossible to leave it there. Mrs. Wragge (now occupied in +sorting her parcels) might weary of her employment, might come in again at a +moment’s notice, might pass near the bed, and see the gray cloak. What +was to be done? +</p> + +<p> +Her first thought was to put the disguise back in her trunk. But after what had +happened, there was danger in trusting it so near to herself while she and Mrs. +Wragge were together under the same roof. She resolved to be rid of it that +evening, and boldly determined on sending it back to Birmingham. Her bonnet-box +fitted into her trunk. She took the box out, thrust in the wig and cloak, and +remorselessly flattened down the bonnet at the top. The gown (which she had not +yet taken off) was her own; Mrs. Wragge had been accustomed to see her in +it—there was no need to send the gown back. Before closing the box, she +hastily traced these lines on a sheet of paper: “I took the inclosed +things away by mistake. Please keep them for me, with the rest of my luggage in +your possession, until you hear from me again.” Putting the paper on the +top of the bonnet, she directed the box to Captain Wragge at Birmingham, took +it downstairs immediately, and sent the landlady’s daughter away with it +to the nearest Receiving-house. “That difficulty is disposed of,” +she thought, as she went back to her own room again. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge was still occupied in sorting her parcels on her narrow little bed. +She turned round with a faint scream when Magdalen looked in at her. “I +thought it was the ghost again,” said Mrs. Wragge. “I’m +trying to take warning, my dear, by what’s happened to me. I’ve put +all my parcels straight, just as the captain would like to see ’em. +I’m up at heel with both shoes. If I close my eyes to-night—which I +don’t think I shall—I’ll go to sleep as straight as my legs +will let me. And I’ll never have another holiday as long as I live. I +hope I shall be forgiven,” said Mrs. Wragge, mournfully shaking her head. +“I humbly hope I shall be forgiven.” +</p> + +<p> +“Forgiven!” repeated Magdalen. “If other women wanted as +little forgiving as you do—Well! well! Suppose you open some of these +parcels. Come! I want to see what you have been buying to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge hesitated, sighed penitently, considered a little, stretched out +her hand timidly toward one of the parcels, thought of the supernatural +warning, and shrank back from her own purchases with a desperate exertion of +self-control. +</p> + +<p> +“Open this one.” said Magdalen, to encourage her: “what is +it?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge’s faded blue eyes began to brighten dimly, in spite of her +remorse; but she self-denyingly shook her head. The master-passion of shopping +might claim his own again—but the ghost was not laid yet. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you get it at a bargain?” asked Magdalen, confidentially. +</p> + +<p> +“Dirt cheap!” cried poor Mrs. Wragge, falling headlong into the +snare, and darting at the parcel as eagerly as if nothing had happened. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen kept her gossiping over her purchases for an hour or more, and then +wisely determined to distract her attention from all ghostly recollections in +another way by taking her out for a walk. +</p> + +<p> +As they left the lodgings, the door of Noel Vanstone’s house opened, and +the woman-servant appeared, bent on another errand. She was apparently charged +with a letter on this occasion which she carried carefully in her hand. +Conscious of having formed no plan yet either for attack or defense, Magdalen +wondered, with a momentary dread, whether Mrs. Lecount had decided already on +opening fresh communications, and whether the letter was directed to +“Miss Garth.” +</p> + +<p> +The letter bore no such address. Noel Vanstone had solved his pecuniary +problem at last. The blank space in the advertisement was filled up, and Mrs. +Lecount’s acknowledgment of the captain’s anonymous warning was now +on its way to insertion in the <i>Times</i>. +</p> + +<h5>THE END OF THE THIRD SCENE.</h5> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap25"></a>BETWEEN THE SCENES.<br/> +<small>PROGRESS OF THE STORY THROUGH THE POST.</small></h3> + +<h4> +I.<br/> +Extract from the Advertising Columns of “The Times.” +</h4> + +<p> +“An unknown friend is requested to mention (by advertisement) an address +at which a letter can reach him. The receipt of the information which he offers +will be acknowledged by a reward of Five Pounds.” +</p> + +<h4> +II.<br/> +From Captain Wragge to Magdalen. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Birmingham, July 2d, 1847. +</p> + +<p> +“MY DEAR GIRL, +</p> + +<p> +“The box containing the articles of costumes which you took away by +mistake has come safely to hand. Consider it under my special protection until +I hear from you again. +</p> + +<p> +“I embrace this opportunity to assure you once more of my unalterable +fidelity to your interests. Without attempting to intrude myself into your +confidence, may I inquire whether Mr. Noel Vanstone has consented to do you +justice? I greatly fear he has declined—in which case I can lay my hand +on my heart, and solemnly declare that his meanness revolts me. Why do I feel a +foreboding that you have appealed to him in vain? Why do I find myself viewing +this fellow in the light of a noxious insect? We are total strangers to each +other; I have no sort of knowledge of him, except the knowledge I picked up in +making your inquiries. Has my intense sympathy with your interests made my +perceptions prophetic? or, to put it fancifully, is there really such a thing +as a former state of existence? and has Mr. Noel Vanstone mortally insulted +me—say, in some other planet? +</p> + +<p> +“I write, my dear Magdalen, as you see, with my customary dash of humor. +But I am serious in placing my services at your disposal. Don’t let the +question of terms cause you an instant’s hesitation. I accept beforehand +any terms you like to mention. If your present plans point that way, I am ready +to squeeze Mr. Noel Vanstone, in your interests, till the gold oozes out of him +at every pore. Pardon the coarseness of this metaphor. My anxiety to be of +service to you rushes into words; lays my meaning, in the rough, at your feet; +and leaves your taste to polish it with the choicest ornaments of the English +language. +</p> + +<p> +“How is my unfortunate wife? I am afraid you find it quite impossible to +keep her up at heel, or to mold her personal appearance into harmony with the +eternal laws of symmetry and order. Does she attempt to be too familiar with +you? I have always been accustomed to check her, in this respect. She has never +been permitted to call me anything but Captain; and on the rare occasions since +our union, when circumstances may have obliged her to address me by letter, her +opening form of salutation has been rigidly restricted to ‘Dear +Sir.’ Accept these trifling domestic particulars as suggesting hints +which may be useful to you in managing Mrs. Wragge; and believe me, in anxious +expectation of hearing from you again, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Devotedly yours,<br/> +“HORATIO WRAGGE.” +</p> + +<h4> +III.<br/> +From Norah to Magdalen. +</h4> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Forwarded, with the Two Letters that follow it, from the Post Office, +Birmingham.</i> +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Westmoreland House, Kensington,<br/> +“July 1st. +</p> + +<p> +“MY DEAREST MAGDALEN, +</p> + +<p> +“When you write next (and pray write soon!) address your letter to me at +Miss Garth’s. I have left my situation; and some little time may elapse +before I find another. +</p> + +<p> +“Now it is all over I may acknowledge to you, my darling, that I was not +happy. I tried hard to win the affection of the two little girls I had to +teach; but they seemed, I am sure I can’t tell why, to dislike me from +the first. Their mother I have no reason to complain of. But their grandmother, +who was really the ruling power in the house, made my life very hard to me. My +inexperience in teaching was a constant subject of remark with her; and my +difficulties with the children were always visited on me as if they had been +entirely of my own making. I tell you this, so that you may not suppose I +regret having left my situation. Far from it, my love—I am glad to be out +of the house. +</p> + +<p> +“I have saved a little money, Magdalen; and I should so like to spend it +in staying a few days with you. My heart aches for a sight of my sister; my +ears are weary for the sound of her voice. A word from you telling me where we +can meet, is all I want. Think of it—pray think of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t suppose I am discouraged by this first check. There are many +kind people in the world; and some of them may employ me next time. The way to +happiness is often very hard to find; harder, I almost think, for women than +for men. But if we only try patiently, and try long enough, we reach it at +last—in heaven, if not on earth. I think <i>my</i> way now is the way +which leads to seeing you again. Don’t forget that, my love, the next +time you think of +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“NORAH.” +</p> + +<h4> +IV.<br/> +From Miss Garth to Magdalen. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Westmoreland House, July 1st. +</p> + +<p> +“MY DEAR MAGDALEN, +</p> + +<p> +“You have no useless remonstrances to apprehend at the sight of my +handwriting. My only object in this letter is to tell you something which I +know your sister will not tell you of her own accord. She is entirely ignorant +that I am writing to you. Keep her in ignorance, if you wish to spare her +unnecessary anxiety, and me unnecessary distress. +</p> + +<p> +“Norah’s letter, no doubt, tells you that she has left her +situation. I feel it my painful duty to add that she has left it on your +account. +</p> + +<p> +“The matter occurred in this manner. Messrs. Wyatt, Pendril, and Gwilt +are the solicitors of the gentleman in whose family Norah was employed. The +life which you have chosen for yourself was known as long ago as December last +to all the partners. You were discovered performing in public at Derby by the +person who had been employed to trace you at York; and that discovery was +communicated by Mr. Wyatt to Norah’s employer a few days since, in reply +to direct inquiries about you on that gentleman’s part. His wife and his +mother (who lives with him) had expressly desired that he would make those +inquiries; their doubts having been aroused by Norah’s evasive answers +when they questioned her about her sister. You know Norah too well to blame her +for this. Evasion was the only escape your present life had left her, from +telling a downright falsehood. +</p> + +<p> +“That same day, the two ladies of the family, the elder and the younger, +sent for your sister, and told her they had discovered that you were a public +performer, roaming from place to place in the country under an assumed name. +They were just enough not to blame Norah for this; they were just enough to +acknowledge that her conduct had been as irreproachable as I had guaranteed it +should be when I got her the situation. But, at the same time, they made it a +positive condition of her continuing in their employment that she should never +permit you to visit her at their house, or to meet her and walk out with her +when she was in attendance on the children. Your sister—who has patiently +borne all hardships that fell on herself—instantly resented the slur cast +on <i>you</i>. She gave her employers warning on the spot. High words followed, +and she left the house that evening. +</p> + +<p> +“I have no wish to distress you by representing the loss of this +situation in the light of a disaster. Norah was not so happy in it as I had +hoped and believed she would be. It was impossible for me to know beforehand +that the children were sullen and intractable, or that the husband’s +mother was accustomed to make her domineering disposition felt by every one in +the house. I will readily admit that Norah is well out of this situation. But +the harm does not stop here. For all you and I know to the contrary, the harm +may go on. What has happened in this situation may happen in another. Your way +of life, however pure your conduct may be—and I will do you the justice +to believe it pure—is a suspicious way of life to all respectable people. +I have lived long enough in this world to know that the sense of Propriety, in +nine Englishwomen out of ten, makes no allowances and feels no pity. +Norah’s next employers may discover you; and Norah may throw up a +situation next time which we may never be able to find for her again. +</p> + +<p> +“I leave you to consider this. My child, don’t think I am hard on +you. I am jealous for your sister’s tranquillity. If you will forget the +past, Magdalen, and come back, trust to your old governess to forget it too, +and to give you the home which your father and mother once gave her. Your +friend, my dear, always, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“HARRIET GARTH.” +</p> + +<h4> +V.<br/> +From Francis Clare, Jun., to Magdalen. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Shanghai, China,<br/> +“April 23d, 1847. +</p> + +<p> +“MY DEAR MAGDALEN, +</p> + +<p> +“I have deferred answering your letter, in consequence of the distracted +state of my mind, which made me unfit to write to you. I am still unfit, but I +feel I ought to delay no longer. My sense of honor fortifies me, and I undergo +the pain of writing this letter. +</p> + +<p> +“My prospects in China are all at an end. The Firm to which I was +brutally consigned, as if I was a bale of merchandise, has worn out my patience +by a series of petty insults; and I have felt compelled, from motives of +self-respect, to withdraw my services, which were undervalued from the first. +My returning to England under these circumstances is out of the question. I +have been too cruelly used in my own country to wish to go back to it, even if +I could. I propose embarking on board a private trading-vessel in these seas in +a mercantile capacity, to make my way, if I can, for myself. How it will end, +or what will happen to me next, is more than I can say. It matters little what +becomes of me. I am a wanderer and an exile, entirely through the fault of +others. The unfeeling desire at home to get rid of me has accomplished its +object. I am got rid of for good. +</p> + +<p> +“There is only one more sacrifice left for me to make—the sacrifice +of my heart’s dearest feelings. With no prospects before me, with no +chance of coming home, what hope can I feel of performing my engagement to +yourself? None! A more selfish man than I am might hold you to that engagement; +a less considerate man than I am might keep you waiting for years—and to +no purpose after all. Cruelly as they have been trampled on, my feelings are +too sensitive to allow me to do this. I write it with the tears in my +eyes—you shall not link your fate to an outcast. Accept these +heart-broken lines as releasing you from your promise. Our engagement is at an +end. +</p> + +<p> +“The one consolation which supports me in bidding you farewell is, that +neither of us is to blame. You may have acted weakly, under my father’s +influence, but I am sure you acted for the best. Nobody knew what the fatal +consequences of driving me out of England would be but myself—and I was +not listened to. I yielded to my father, I yielded to you; and this is the end +of it! +</p> + +<p> +“I am suffering too acutely to write more. May you never know what my +withdrawal from our engagement has cost me! I beg you will not blame yourself. +It is not your fault that I have had all my energies misdirected by +others—it is not your fault that I have never had a fair chance of +getting on in life. Forget the deserted wretch who breathes his heartfelt +prayers for your happiness, and who will ever remain your friend and +well-wisher. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“FRANCIS CLARE, Jun.” +</p> + +<h4> +VI.<br/> +From Francis Clare, Sen., to Magdalen. +</h4> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Enclosing the preceding Letter.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“I always told your poor father my son was a Fool, but I never knew he +was a Scoundrel until the mail came in from China. I have every reason to +believe that he has left his employers under the most disgraceful +circumstances. Forget him from this time forth, as I do. When you and I last +set eyes on each other, you behaved well to me in this business. All I can now +say in return, I do say. My girl, I am sorry for you, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“F. C.” +</p> + +<h4> +VII.<br/> +From Mrs. Wragge to her Husband. +</h4> + +<p> +“Dear sir for mercy’s sake come here and help us She had a dreadful +letter I don’t know what yesterday but she read it in bed and when I went +in with her breakfast I found her dead and if the doctor had not been two doors +off nobody else could have brought her to life again and she sits and looks +dreadful and won’t speak a word her eyes frighten me so I shake from head +to foot oh please do come I keep things as tidy as I can and I do like her so +and she used to be so kind to me and the landlord says he’s afraid +she’ll destroy herself I wish I could write straight but I do shake so +your dutiful wife matilda wragge excuse faults and beg you on my knees come and +help us the Doctor good man will put some of his own writing into this for fear +you can’t make out mine and remain once more your dutiful wife matilda +wragge.” +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Added by the Doctor.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“SIR,—I beg to inform you that I was yesterday called into a +neighbor’s in Vauxhall Walk to attend a young lady who had been suddenly +taken ill. I recovered her with great difficulty from one of the most obstinate +fainting-fits I ever remember to have met with. Since that time she has had no +relapse, but there is apparently some heavy distress weighing on her mind which +it has hitherto been found impossible to remove. She sits, as I am informed, +perfectly silent, and perfectly unconscious of what goes on about her, for +hours together, with a letter in her hand which she will allow nobody to take +from her. If this state of depression continues, very distressing mental +consequences may follow; and I only do my duty in suggesting that some relative +or friend should interfere who has influence enough to rouse her. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Your obedient servant,<br/> +“RICHARD JARVIS, M.R.C.S.” +</p> + +<h4> +VIII.<br/> +From Norah to Magdalen. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“July 5th. +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake, write me one line to say if you are still at +Birmingham, and where I can find you there! I have just heard from old Mr. +Clare. Oh, Magdalen, if you have no pity on yourself, have some pity on me! The +thought of you alone among strangers, the thought of you heart-broken under +this dreadful blow, never leaves me for an instant. No words can tell how I +feel for you! My own love, remember the better days at home before that +cowardly villain stole his way into your heart; remember the happy time at +Combe-Raven when we were always together. Oh, don’t, don’t treat me +like a stranger! We are alone in the world now—let me come and comfort +you, let me be more than a sister to you, if I can. One line—only one +line to tell me where I can find you!” +</p> + +<h4> +IX.<br/> +From Magdalen to Norah. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“July 7th. +</p> + +<p> +“MY DEAREST NORAH, +</p> + +<p> +“All that your love for me can wish your letter has done. You, and you +alone, have found your way to my heart. I could think again, I could feel +again, after reading what you have written to me. Let this assurance quiet your +anxieties. My mind lives and breathes once more—it was dead until I got +your letter. +</p> + +<p> +“The shock I have suffered has left a strange quietness in me. I feel as +if I had parted from my former self—as if the hopes once so dear to me +had all gone back to some past time from which I am now far removed. I can look +at the wreck of my life more calmly, Norah, than you could look at it if we +were both together again. I can trust myself already to write to Frank. +</p> + +<p> +“My darling, I think no woman ever knows how utterly she has given +herself up to the man she loves—until that man has ill-treated her. Can +you pity my weakness if I confess to having felt a pang at my heart when I read +that part of your letter which calls Frank a coward and a villain? Nobody can +despise me for this as I despise myself. I am like a dog who crawls back and +licks the master’s hand that has beaten him. But it is so—I would +confess it to nobody but you—indeed, indeed it is so. He has deceived and +deserted me; he has written me a cruel farewell —but don’t call him +a villain! If he repented and came back to me, I would die rather than marry +him now—but it grates on me to see that word coward written against him +in your hand! If he is weak of purpose, who tried his weakness beyond what it +could bear? Do you think this would have happened if Michael Vanstone had not +robbed us of our own, and forced Frank away from me to China? In a week from +to-day the year of waiting would have come to an end, and I should have been +Frank’s wife, if my marriage portion had not been taken from me. +</p> + +<p> +“You will say, after what has happened, it is well that I have escaped. +My love! there is something perverse in my heart which answers, No! Better have +been Frank’s wretched wife than the free woman I am now. +</p> + +<p> +“I have not written to him. He sends me no address at which I could +write, even if I would. But I have not the wish. I will wait before I send him +<i>my</i> farewell. If a day ever comes when I have the fortune which my father +once promised I should bring to him, do you know what I would do with it? I +would send it all to Frank, as my revenge on him for his letter; as the last +farewell word on my side to the man who has deserted me. Let me live for that +day! Let me live, Norah, in the hope of better times for <i>you</i>, which is +all the hope I have left. When I think of your hard life, I can almost feel the +tears once more in my weary eyes. I can almost think I have come back again to +my former self. +</p> + +<p> +“You will not think me hard-hearted and ungrateful if I say that we must +wait a little yet before we meet. I want to be more fit to see you than I am +now. I want to put Frank further away from me, and to bring you nearer still. +Are these good reasons? I don’t know—don’t ask me for +reasons. Take the kiss I have put for you here, where the little circle is +drawn on the paper; and let that bring us together for the present till I write +again. Good-by, my love. My heart is true to you, Norah, but I dare not see you +yet. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“MAGDALEN.” +</p> + +<h4> +X. +From Magdalen to Miss Garth. +</h4> + +<p> +“MY DEAR MISS GARTH, +</p> + +<p> +“I have been long in answering your letter; but you know what has +happened, and you will forgive me. +</p> + +<p> +“All that I have to say may be said in a few words. You may depend on my +never making the general Sense of Propriety my enemy again: I am getting +knowledge enough of the world to make it my accomplice next time. Norah will +never leave another situation on my account—my life as a public performer +is at an end. It was harmless enough, God knows—I may live, and so may +you, to mourn the day when I parted from it—but I shall never return to +it again. It has left me, as Frank has left me, as all my better thoughts have +left me except my thoughts of Norah. +</p> + +<p> +“Enough of myself! Shall I tell you some news to brighten this dull +letter? Mr. Michael Vanstone is dead, and Mr. Noel Vanstone has succeeded to +the possession of my fortune and Norah’s. He is quite worthy of his +inheritance. In his father’s place, he would have ruined us as his father +did. +</p> + +<p> +“I have no more to say that you would care to know. Don’t be +distressed about me. I am trying to recover my spirits—I am trying to +forget the poor deluded girl who was foolish enough to be fond of Frank in the +old days at Combe-Raven. Sometimes a pang comes which tells me the girl +won’t be forgotten—but not often. +</p> + +<p> +“It was very kind of you, when you wrote to such a lost creature as I am, +to sign yourself—<i>always my friend.</i> ‘Always’ is a bold +word, my dear old governess! I wonder whether you will ever want to recall it? +It will make no difference if you do, in the gratitude I shall always feel for +the trouble you took with me when I was a little girl. I have ill repaid that +trouble—ill repaid your kindness to me in after life. I ask your pardon +and your pity. The best thing you can do for both of us is to forget me. +Affectionately yours, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“MAGDALEN.” +</p> + +<p> +“P.S.—I open the envelope to add one line. For God’s sake, +don’t show this letter to Norah!” +</p> + +<h4> +XI.<br/> +From Magdalen to Captain Wragge. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Vauxhall Walk, July 17th. +</p> + +<p> +“If I am not mistaken, it was arranged that I should write to you at +Birmingham as soon as I felt myself composed enough to think of the future. My +mind is settled at last, and I am now able to accept the services which you +have so unreservedly offered to me. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg you will forgive the manner in which I received you on your +arrival in this house, after hearing the news of my sudden illness. I was quite +incapable of controlling myself—I was suffering an agony of mind which +for the time deprived me of my senses. It is only your due that I should now +thank you for treating me with great forbearance at a time when forbearance was +mercy. +</p> + +<p> +“I will mention what I wish you to do as plainly and briefly as I can. +</p> + +<p> +“In the first place, I request you to dispose (as privately as possible) +of every article of costume used in the dramatic Entertainment. I have done +with our performances forever; and I wish to be set free from everything which +might accidentally connect me with them in the future. The key of my box is +inclosed in this letter. +</p> + +<p> +“The other box, which contains my own dresses, you will be kind enough to +forward to this house. I do not ask you to bring it yourself, because I have a +far more important commission to intrust to you. +</p> + +<p> +“Referring to the note which you left for me at your departure, I +conclude that you have by this time traced Mr. Noel Vanstone from Vauxhall Walk +to the residence which he is now occupying. If you have made the +discovery—and if you are quite sure of not having drawn the attention +either of Mrs. Lecount or her master to yourself—I wish you to arrange +immediately for my residing (with you and Mrs. Wragge) in the same town or +village in which Mr. Noel Vanstone has taken up his abode. I write this, it is +hardly necessary to say, under the impression that, wherever he may now be +living, he is settled in the place for some little time. +</p> + +<p> +“If you can find a small furnished house for me on these conditions which +is to be let by the month, take it for a month certain to begin with. Say that +it is for your wife, your niece, and yourself, and use any assumed name you +please, as long as it is a name that can be trusted to defeat the most +suspicious inquiries. I leave this to your experience in such matters. The +secret of who we really are must be kept as strictly as if it was a secret on +which our lives depend. +</p> + +<p> +“Any expenses to which you may be put in carrying out my wishes I will +immediately repay. If you easily find the sort of house I want, there is no +need for your returning to London to fetch us. We can join you as soon as we +know where to go. The house must be perfectly respectable, and must be +reasonably near to Mr. Noel Vanstone’s present residence, wherever that +is. +</p> + +<p> +“You must allow me to be silent in this letter as to the object which I +have now in view. I am unwilling to risk an explanation in writing. When all +our preparations are made, you shall hear what I propose to do from my own +lips; and I shall expect you to tell me plainly, in return, whether you will or +will not give me the help I want on the best terms which I am able to offer +you. +</p> + +<p> +“One word more before I seal up this letter. +</p> + +<p> +“If any opportunity falls in your way after you have taken the house, and +before we join you, of exchanging a few civil words either with Mr. Noel +Vanstone or Mrs. Lecount, take advantage of it. It is very important to my +present object that we should become acquainted with each other—as the +purely accidental result of our being near neighbors. I want you to smooth the +way toward this end if you can, before Mrs. Wragge and I come to you. Pray +throw away no chance of observing Mrs. Lecount, in particular, very carefully. +Whatever help you can give me at the outset in blindfolding that woman’s +sharp eyes will be the most precious help I have ever received at your hands. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no need to answer this letter immediately—unless I have +written it under a mistaken impression of what you have accomplished since +leaving London. I have taken our lodgings on for another week; and I can wait +to hear from you until you are able to send me such news as I wish to receive. +You may be quite sure of my patience for the future, under all possible +circumstances. My caprices are at an end, and my violent temper has tried your +forbearance for the last time. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“MAGDALEN.” +</p> + +<h4> +XII.<br/> +From Captain Wragge to Magdalen. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“North Shingles Villa, Aldborough, Suffolk,<br/> +“July 22d. +</p> + +<p> +“MY DEAR GIRL, +</p> + +<p> +“Your letter has charmed and touched me. Your excuses have gone straight +to my heart; and your confidence in my humble abilities has followed in the +same direction. The pulse of the old militia-man throbs with pride as he thinks +of the trust you have placed in him, and vows to deserve it. Don’t be +surprised at this genial outburst. All enthusiastic natures must explode +occasionally; and <i>my</i> form of explosion is—Words. +</p> + +<p> +“Everything you wanted me to do is done. The house is taken; the name is +found; and I am personally acquainted with Mrs. Lecount. After reading this +general statement, you will naturally be interested in possessing your mind +next of the accompanying details. Here they are, at your service: +</p> + +<p> +“The day after leaving you in London, I traced Mr. Noel Vanstone to this +curious little seaside snuggery. One of his father’s innumerable bargains +was a house at Aldborough—a rising watering-place, or Mr. Michael +Vanstone would not have invested a farthing in it. In this house the despicable +little miser, who lived rent free in London, now lives, rent free again, on the +coast of Suffolk. He is settled in his present abode for the summer and autumn; +and you and Mrs. Wragge have only to join me here, to be established five doors +away from him in this elegant villa. I have got the whole house for three +guineas a week, with the option of remaining through the autumn at the same +price. In a fashionable watering-place, such a residence would have been cheap +at double the money. +</p> + +<p> +“Our new name has been chosen with a wary eye to your suggestions. My +books—I hope you have not forgotten my Books?—contain, under the +heading of <i>Skins To Jump Into,</i> a list of individuals retired from this +mortal scene, with whose names, families, and circumstances I am well +acquainted. Into some of those Skins I have been compelled to Jump, in the +exercise of my profession, at former periods of my career. Others are still in +the condition of new dresses and remain to be tried on. The Skin which will +exactly fit us originally clothed the bodies of a family named Bygrave. I am in +Mr. Bygrave’s skin at this moment-and it fits without a wrinkle. If you +will oblige me by slipping into Miss Bygrave (Christian name, Susan); and if +you will afterward push Mrs. Wragge—anyhow; head foremost if you +like—into Mrs. Bygrave (Christian name, Julia), the transformation will +be complete. Permit me to inform you that I am your paternal uncle. My worthy +brother was established twenty years ago in the mahogany and logwood trade at +Belize, Honduras. He died in that place; and is buried on the south-west side +of the local cemetery, with a neat monument of native wood carved by a +self-taught negro artist. Nineteen months afterward his widow died of apoplexy +at a boarding-house in Cheltenham. She was supposed to be the most corpulent +woman in England, and was accommodated on the ground-floor of the house in +consequence of the difficulty of getting her up and down stairs. You are her +only child; you have been under my care since the sad event at Cheltenham; you +are twenty-one years old on the second of August next; and, corpulence +excepted, you are the living image of your mother. I trouble you with these +specimens of my intimate knowledge of our new family Skin, to quiet your mind +on the subject of future inquiries. Trust to me and my books to satisfy any +amount of inquiry. In the meantime write down our new name and address, and see +how they strike you: ‘Mr. Bygrave, Mrs. Bygrave, Miss Bygrave; North +Shingles Villa, Aldborough.’ Upon my life, it reads remarkably well! +</p> + +<p> +“The last detail I have to communicate refers to my acquaintance with +Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“We met yesterday, in the grocer’s shop here. Keeping my ears open, +I found that Mrs. Lecount wanted a particular kind of tea which the man had not +got, and which he believed could not be procured any nearer than Ipswich. I +instantly saw my way to beginning an acquaintance, at the trifling expense of a +journey to that flourishing city. ‘I have business to-day in +Ipswich,’ I said, ‘and I propose returning to Aldborough (if I can +get back in time) this evening. Pray allow me to take your order for the tea, +and to bring it back with my own parcels.’ Mrs. Lecount politely declined +giving me the trouble—I politely insisted on taking it. We fell into +conversation. There is no need to trouble you with our talk. The result of it +on my mind is—that Mrs. Lecount’s one weak point, if she has such a +thing at all, is a taste for science, implanted by her deceased husband, the +professor. I think I see a chance here of working my way into her good graces, +and casting a little needful dust into those handsome black eyes of hers. +Acting on this idea when I purchased the lady’s tea at Ipswich, I also +bought on my own account that far-famed pocket-manual of knowledge, +‘Joyce’s Scientific Dialogues.’ Possessing, as I do, a quick +memory and boundless confidence in myself, I propose privately inflating my new +skin with as much ready-made science as it will hold, and presenting Mr. +Bygrave to Mrs. Lecount’s notice in the character of the most highly +informed man she has met with since the professor’s death. The necessity +of blindfolding that woman (to use your own admirable expression) is as clear +to me as to you. If it is to be done in the way I propose, make your mind +easy—Wragge, inflated by Joyce, is the man to do it. +</p> + +<p> +“You now have my whole budget of news. Am I, or am I not, worthy of your +confidence in me? I say nothing of my devouring anxiety to know what your +objects really are—that anxiety will be satisfied when we meet. Never +yet, my dear girl, did I long to administer a productive pecuniary Squeeze to +any human creature, as I long to administer it to Mr. Noel Vanstone. I say no +more. <i>Verbum sap.</i> Pardon the pedantry of a Latin quotation, and believe +me, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Entirely yours,<br/> +“HORATIO WRAGGE. +</p> + +<p> +“P.S.—I await my instructions, as you requested. You have only to +say whether I shall return to London for the purpose of escorting you to this +place, or whether I shall wait here to receive you. The house is in perfect +order, the weather is charming, and the sea is as smooth as Mrs. +Lecount’s apron. She has just passed the window, and we have exchanged +bows. A sharp woman, my dear Magdalen; but Joyce and I together may prove a +trifle too much for her.” +</p> + +<h4> +XIII. +</h4> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Extract from the East Suffolk Argus.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“ALDBOROUGH.—We notice with pleasure the arrival of visitors to +this healthful and far-famed watering-place earlier in the season than usual +during the present year. <i>Esto Perpetua</i> is all we have to say. +</p> + +<p> +“VISITORS’ LIST.—Arrivals since our last. North Shingles +Villa—Mrs. Bygrave; Miss Bygrave.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="part04"></a>THE FOURTH SCENE.<br/> +<small>ALDBOROUGH, SUFFOLK.</small></h3> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<p> +The most striking spectacle presented to a stranger by the shores of Suffolk is +the extraordinary defenselessness of the land against the encroachments of the +sea. +</p> + +<p> +At Aldborough, as elsewhere on this coast, local traditions are, for the most +part, traditions which have been literally drowned. The site of the old town, +once a populous and thriving port, has almost entirely disappeared in the sea. +The German Ocean has swallowed up streets, market-places, jetties, and public +walks; and the merciless waters, consummating their work of devastation, +closed, no longer than eighty years since, over the salt-master’s cottage +at Aldborough, now famous in memory only as the birthplace of the poet CRABBE. +</p> + +<p> +Thrust back year after year by the advancing waves, the inhabitants have +receded, in the present century, to the last morsel of land which is firm +enough to be built on—a strip of ground hemmed in between a marsh on one +side and the sea on the other. Here, trusting for their future security to +certain sand-hills which the capricious waves have thrown up to encourage them, +the people of Aldborough have boldly established their quaint little +watering-place. The first fragment of their earthly possessions is a low +natural dike of shingle, surmounted by a public path which runs parallel with +the sea. Bordering this path, in a broken, uneven line, are the villa +residences of modern Aldborough—fanciful little houses, standing mostly +in their own gardens, and possessing here and there, as horticultural +ornaments, staring figure-heads of ships doing duty for statues among the +flowers. Viewed from the low level on which these villas stand, the sea, in +certain conditions of the atmosphere, appears to be higher than the land: +coasting-vessels gliding by assume gigantic proportions, and look alarmingly +near the windows. Intermixed with the houses of the better sort are buildings +of other forms and periods. In one direction the tiny Gothic town-hall of old +Aldborough—once the center of the vanished port and borough—now +stands, fronting the modern villas close on the margin of the sea. At another +point, a wooden tower of observation, crowned by the figure-head of a wrecked +Russian vessel, rises high above the neighboring houses, and discloses through +its scuttle-window grave men in dark clothing seated on the topmost story, +perpetually on the watch—the pilots of Aldborough looking out from their +tower for ships in want of help. Behind the row of buildings thus curiously +intermingled runs the one straggling street of the town, with its sturdy +pilots’ cottages, its mouldering marine store-houses, and its composite +shops. Toward the northern end this street is bounded by the one eminence +visible over all the marshy flat—a low wooded hill, on which the church +is built. At its opposite extremity the street leads to a deserted martello +tower, and to the forlorn outlying suburb of Slaughden, between the river Alde +and the sea. Such are the main characteristics of this curious little outpost +on the shores of England as it appears at the present time. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +On a hot and cloudy July afternoon, and on the second day which had elapsed +since he had written to Magdalen, Captain Wragge sauntered through the gate of +North Shingles Villa to meet the arrival of the coach, which then connected +Aldborough with the Eastern Counties Railway. He reached the principal inn as +the coach drove up, and was ready at the door to receive Magdalen and Mrs. +Wragge, on their leaving the vehicle. +</p> + +<p> +The captain’s reception of his wife was not characterized by an +instant’s unnecessary waste of time. He looked distrustfully at her +shoes—raised himself on tiptoe—set her bonnet straight for her with +a sharp tug—-said, in a loud whisper, “hold your +tongue”—and left her, for the time being, without further notice. +His welcome to Magdalen, beginning with the usual flow of words, stopped +suddenly in the middle of the first sentence. Captain Wragge’s eye was a +sharp one, and it instantly showed him something in the look and manner of his +old pupil which denoted a serious change. +</p> + +<p> +There was a settled composure on her face which, except when she spoke, made it +look as still and cold as marble. Her voice was softer and more equable, her +eyes were steadier, her step was slower than of old. When she smiled, the smile +came and went suddenly, and showed a little nervous contraction on one side of +her mouth never visible there before. She was perfectly patient with Mrs. +Wragge; she treated the captain with a courtesy and consideration entirely new +in his experience of her—but she was interested in nothing. The curious +little shops in the back street; the high impending sea; the old town-hall on +the beach; the pilots, the fishermen, the passing ships—she noticed all +these objects as indifferently as if Aldborough had been familiar to her from +her infancy. Even when the captain drew up at the garden-gate of North +Shingles, and introduced her triumphantly to the new house, she hardly looked +at it. The first question she asked related not to her own residence, but to +Noel Vanstone’s. +</p> + +<p> +“How near to us does he live?” she inquired, with the only betrayal +of emotion which had escaped her yet. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge answered by pointing to the fifth villa from North Shingles, on +the Slaughden side of Aldborough. Magdalen suddenly drew back from the +garden-gate as he indicated the situation, and walked away by herself to obtain +a nearer view of the house. Captain Wragge looked after her, and shook his +head, discontentedly. +</p> + +<p> +“May I speak now?” inquired a meek voice behind him, articulating +respectfully ten inches above the top of his straw hat. +</p> + +<p> +The captain turned round, and confronted his wife. The more than ordinary +bewilderment visible in her face at once suggested to him that Magdalen had +failed to carry out the directions in his letter; and that Mrs. Wragge had +arrived at Aldborough without being properly aware of the total transformation +to be accomplished in her identity and her name. The necessity of setting this +doubt at rest was too serious to be trifled with; and Captain Wragge instituted +the necessary inquiries without a moment’s delay. +</p> + +<p> +“Stand straight, and listen to me,” he began. “I have a +question to ask you. Do you know whose Skin you are in at this moment? Do you +know that you are dead and buried in London; and that you have risen like a +phoenix from the ashes of Mrs. Wragge? No! you evidently don’t know it. +This is perfectly disgraceful. What is your name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Matilda,” answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest +bewilderment. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing of the sort!” cried the captain, fiercely. “How dare +you tell me your name’s Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?—Hold +that basket of sandwiches straight, or I’ll pitch it into the +sea!—Who am I?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the +negative side of the question this time. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down!” said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of +North Shingles Villa. “More to the right! More still! That will do. You +don’t know?” repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as +soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his +own. “Don’t let me hear you say that a second time. Don’t let +me have a woman who doesn’t know who I am to operate on my beard +to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left—more still—that +will do. Who am I? I’m Mr. Bygrave—Christian name, Thomas. Who are +you? You’re Mrs. Bygrave—Christian name, Julia. Who is that young +lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss +Bygrave—Christian name, Susan. I’m her clever uncle Tom; and +you’re her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like +the Catechism! What is your name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Spare my poor head!” pleaded Mrs. Wragge. “Oh, please spare +my poor head till I’ve got the stage-coach out of it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t distress her,” said Magdalen, joining them at that +moment. “She will learn it in time. Come into the house.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. “We are beginning +badly,” he said, with less politeness than usual. “My wife’s +stupidity stands in our way already.” +</p> + +<p> +They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the +captain’s arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for +her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at +tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in +the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the +daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge’s customary drowsiness after +fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband’s orders +to leave the room (taking care that she left it “up at heel”), and +to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon +as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be +spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a +polite inquiry after the state of her health. “You look fatigued,” +he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. “I am afraid the journey has +been too much for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said, looking out listlessly through the window; “I +am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, +weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you +to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can’t we go out? It is very +hot here; and the droning of those men’s voices is beyond all +endurance.” She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, +as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. “Is there no +quiet walk in this wretched place?” she asked, impatiently. +“Can’t we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by +strangers?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is perfect solitude within half an hour’s walk of the +house,” replied the ready captain. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well. Come out, then.” +</p> + +<p> +With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from +the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led +the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then +stopped, struck by a new idea. +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me,” he whispered, confidentially. “In my +wife’s existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not +trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I’ll privately turn the +key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe +find—you know the proverb!—I will be with you again in a +moment.” +</p> + +<p> +He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall +to await his return. +</p> + +<p> +She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking +together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, +passed close by her. +</p> + +<p> +The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His +companion’s station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary +observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his +manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of +life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black +hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm—the eyes of a man +with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two +to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and +he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, +undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond +his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at +that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man’s resolute black +eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him +impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. +</p> + +<p> +The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had +advanced a few yards—had then evidently stopped—and was now in the +very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, +noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, +and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared +round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor +twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. +</p> + +<p> +“A friend of yours?” inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at +that moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not,” she replied; “a perfect stranger. He stared +at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll find out in a moment,” said the compliant captain, +joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with +the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with +a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of +a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his +wife’s brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was +supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time +only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman’s name was +Strickland, and the merchant-captain’s name was Kirke; and that was all +the boatmen knew about either of them. +</p> + +<p> +“It is of no consequence who they are,” said Magdalen, carelessly. +“The man’s rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have +done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the +solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?” +</p> + +<p> +The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to +Noel Vanstone’s house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and +forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. +Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master’s green fan. +Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge’s right arm, so as to +place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. +</p> + +<p> +“The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is +to take your arm,” she said, with a bitter laugh. “Come! let us go +on.” +</p> + +<p> +“They are looking this way,” whispered the captain. “Shall I +introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not to-night,” she answered. “Wait, and hear what I have to +say to you first.” +</p> + +<p> +They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart +flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw +the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant +interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. +As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her +through the evening stillness. “A fine girl, Lecount,” she heard +him say. “You know I am a judge of that sort of thing—a fine +girl!” +</p> + +<p> +As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in +sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were +fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit +of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered +grass—the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. +</p> + +<p> +It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, +hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the +monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. +Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a +martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all +that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary +heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland +marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to +the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the +muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, +lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses +of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy +river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters +bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose +from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the +inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled +mournfully through the evening calm. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen drew her hand from the captain’s arm, and led the way to the +mound of the martello tower. “I am weary of walking,” she said. +“Let us stop and rest here.” +</p> + +<p> +She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled +up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her +hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned +suddenly on Captain Wragge. “Do I surprise you?” she asked, with a +startling abruptness. “Do you find me changed?” +</p> + +<p> +The captain’s ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain +with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. +</p> + +<p> +“If you ask the question, I must answer it,” he replied. +“Yes, I do find you changed.” +</p> + +<p> +She pulled up another tuft of grass. “I suppose you can guess the +reason?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. +</p> + +<p> +“I have lost all care for myself,” she went on, tearing faster and +faster at the tufts of grass. “Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, +but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner +than do at one time—things it would have turned me cold to think of. I +don’t care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no +more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I +have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don’t know. Do you? +What nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and +there’s an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of +me—and that’s left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, +have I? There! there! never mind answering; don’t trouble yourself to pay +me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then +Mr. Noel Vanstone—enough for any woman’s vanity, surely! Have I any +right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, +me, I feel as if I was forty!” She scattered the last fragments of grass +to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her +cheek touched the turf bank. “It feels soft and friendly,” she +said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. “It +doesn’t cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as +he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment +which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words—which was +now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. “Devilish +odd!” he thought to himself, uneasily. “Has the loss of her lover +turned her brain?” He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to +her. “Leave it till to-morrow,” suggested the captain +confidentially. “You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear +girl—no hurry.” +</p> + +<p> +She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry +resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in +her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the +first time. “I came here to tell you what is in my mind,” she said; +“and I <i>will</i> tell it!” She seated herself upright on the +slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight +before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited +until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning +her head to look round at him, in these words: +</p> + +<p> +“When you and I first met,” she began, abruptly, “I tried +hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I +failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I +believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit +to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that +determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, +than ever.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ten times stronger than ever,” echoed the captain. “Exactly +so—the natural result of firmness of character.” +</p> + +<p> +“No—the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had +something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have +nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future +always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I +meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read +the account of Michael Vanstone’s death?” +</p> + +<p> +“Generally,” replied Captain Wragge—“I guessed, +generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from +it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your +not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to +myself)—why is she so unreasonably reserved?” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall have no reserve to complain of now,” pursued Magdalen. +“I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you +<i>would</i> have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have +gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an +assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months +together. I would have employed that time—I would have waited a whole +year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount’s influence over +him—and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, +into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the +advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have +succeeded. Before the year was out—before half the year was out—you +should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen +me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone’s adopted +daughter—as the faithful friend—who had saved him from an +adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as +hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had +my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old +man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack +in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you would,” said the captain. “And what next?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You +would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he +was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had +robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly +as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking +deception—wasn’t it? I don’t care! Any conspiracy, any +deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us +helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I +spoken out at the eleventh hour?” +</p> + +<p> +The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more +on his broadest flow of language. +</p> + +<p> +“You fill me with unavailing regret,” he said. “If that old +man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous +transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! +<i>Ars longa,</i>” said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into +Latin—“<i>vita brevis!</i> Let us drop a tear on the lost +opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One +conclusion is clear to my mind—the experiment you proposed to try with +Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. +His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may +trust my solemn assurance,” continued the captain, speaking with an +indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, +“when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of +mankind.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can trust my own experience as well,” said Magdalen. “I +have seen him, and spoken to him—I know him better than you do. Another +disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain +articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to +London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to +judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell +you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal +with better than you do.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent +questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by +surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, +“and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we +should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your +way?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she said, quickly. “I see my way.” +</p> + +<p> +The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in +every line of his vagabond face. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on,” he said, in an anxious whisper; “pray go on.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, +without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands +tightened mechanically round her knees. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no disguising the fact,” said Captain Wragge, warily +rousing her into speaking to him. “The son is harder to deal with than +the father—” +</p> + +<p> +“Not in my way,” she interposed, suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed!” said the captain. “Well! they say there is a short +cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long +enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed—you have found +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without +looking.” +</p> + +<p> +“The deuce you have!” cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. +“My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether +astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your +fortune and your sister’s, as his father was, and determined to keep it, +as his father was?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“And here are you—quite helpless to get it by +persuasion—quite helpless to get it by law—just as resolute in his +case as you were in his father’s, to take it by stratagem in spite of +him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune—mind that! For +the sake of the right.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the +father—who was not a miser—are easy with the son, who is?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perfectly easy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!” cried the +captain, at the end of his patience. “Hang me if I know what you +mean!” +</p> + +<p> +She looked round at him for the first time—looked him straight and +steadily in the face. +</p> + +<p> +“I will tell you what I mean,” she said. “I mean to marry +him.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by +astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“Remember what I told you,” said Magdalen, looking away from him +again. “I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, +and the sooner I reach it—and die—the better. If—” She +stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the +fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening +twilight—“if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself +into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble +myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the +vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?” said the captain, +slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. +“Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?” +</p> + +<p> +“As your niece, Miss Bygrave.” +</p> + +<p> +“And after the marriage—?” His voice faltered, as he began +the question, and he left it unfinished. +</p> + +<p> +“After the marriage,” she said, “I shall stand in no further +need of your assistance.” +</p> + +<p> +The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and +suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat +down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the +dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, +since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you nothing to say to me?” she asked. “Perhaps you are +waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our +expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a +farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your +assistance on those conditions?” +</p> + +<p> +“What am I expected to do?” he asked, with a furtive glance at her, +and a sudden distrust in his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own,” +she answered, “and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. +Lecount’s from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my +responsibility—not yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have nothing to do with what happens—at any time, or in any +place—after the marriage?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing whatever.” +</p> + +<p> +“I may leave you at the church door if I please?” +</p> + +<p> +“At the church door, with your fee in your pocket.” +</p> + +<p> +“Paid from the money in your own possession?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly! How else should I pay it?” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with +an air of relief. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me a minute to consider it,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“As many minutes as you like,” she rejoined, reclining on the bank +in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up +the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The captain’s reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary +divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of +Magdalen’s. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by +Frank’s infamous treachery to his engagement—an injury which had +severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it +was, had been the saving aspiration of her life—Captain Wragge accepted +the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to +the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. +</p> + +<p> +In the prospect <i>before</i> the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved +than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different—except +in the end to be attained by it—from the deceptions which his vagabond +life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the +prospect <i>after</i> the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous +darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black +gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, +within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as +deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in +existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest +coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his +mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel +Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without +risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him +must certainly ensue? +</p> + +<p> +Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by +no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted +the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him—for the profits of the +Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred +pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had +estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved +too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of +self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain +Wragge’s indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, +stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply +offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, +and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his +own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or +less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone’s +name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it +is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in +his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“I accept the terms,” said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his +legs again. “Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. +We part on the wedding-day. I don’t ask where you go: you don’t ask +where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, +showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain’s offered +hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly +hear her. +</p> + +<p> +“We understand each other,” she said; “and we can now go +back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must ask a few questions first,” said the captain, gravely. +“There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our +way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning +call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with +each other.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait till to-morrow,” she broke out impatiently. +“Don’t madden me by talking about it to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked +slowly back. +</p> + +<p> +By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor +stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come +with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air +more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out +toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black +void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its +mystery had no secrets for her—she advanced toward it slowly, as if it +drew her by some hidden attraction into itself. +</p> + +<p> +“I am going down to the sea,” she said to her companion. +“Wait here, and I will come back.” +</p> + +<p> +He lost sight of her in an instant; it was as if the night had swallowed her +up. He listened, and counted her footsteps by the crashing of them on the +shingle in the deep stillness. They retreated slowly, further and further away +into the night. Suddenly the sound of them ceased. Had she paused on her course +or had she reached one of the strips of sand left bare by the ebbing tide? +</p> + +<p> +He waited, and listened anxiously. The time passed, and no sound reached him. +He still listened, with a growing distrust of the darkness. Another moment, and +there came a sound from the invisible shore. Far and faint from the beach +below, a long cry moaned through the silence. Then all was still once more. +</p> + +<p> +In sudden alarm, he stepped forward to descend to the beach, and to call to +her. Before he could cross the path, footsteps rapidly advancing caught his +ear. He waited an instant, and the figure of a man passed quickly along the +walk between him and the sea. It was too dark to discern anything of the +stranger’s face; it was only possible to see that he was a tall +man—as tall as that officer in the merchant-service whose name was Kirke. +</p> + +<p> +The figure passed on northward, and was instantly lost to view. Captain Wragge +crossed the path, and, advancing a few steps down the beach, stopped and +listened again. The crash of footsteps on the shingle caught his ear once more. +Slowly, as the sound had left him, that sound now came back. He called, to +guide her to him. She came on till he could just see her—a shadow +ascending the shingly slope, and growing out of the blackness of the night. +</p> + +<p> +“You alarmed me,” he whispered, nervously. “I was afraid +something had happened. I heard you cry out as if you were in pain.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you?” she said, carelessly. “I <i>was</i> in pain. It +doesn’t matter—it’s over now.” +</p> + +<p> +Her hand mechanically swung something to and fro as she answered him. It was +the little white silk bag which she had always kept hidden in her bosom up to +this time. One of the relics which it held—one of the relics which she +had not had the heart to part with before—was gone from its keeping +forever. Alone, on a strange shore, she had torn from her the fondest of her +virgin memories, the dearest of her virgin hopes. Alone, on a strange shore, +she had taken the lock of Frank’s hair from its once-treasured place, and +had cast it away from her to the sea and the night. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<p> +The tall man who had passed Captain Wragge in the dark proceeded rapidly along +the public walk, struck off across a little waste patch of ground, and entered +the open door of the Aldborough Hotel. The light in the passage, falling full +on his face as he passed it, proved the truth of Captain Wragge’s +surmise, and showed the stranger to be Mr. Kirke, of the merchant service. +</p> + +<p> +Meeting the landlord in the passage, Mr. Kirke nodded to him with the +familiarity of an old customer. “Have you got the paper?” he asked; +“I want to look at the visitors’ list.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have got it in my room, sir,” said the landlord, leading the way +into a parlor at the back of the house. “Are there any friends of yours +staying here, do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +Without replying, the seaman turned to the list as soon as the newspaper was +placed in his hand, and ran his finger down it, name by name. The finger +suddenly stopped at this line: “Sea-view Cottage; Mr. Noel +Vanstone.” Kirke of the merchant-service repeated the name to himself, +and put down the paper thoughtfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you found anybody you know, captain?” asked the landlord. +</p> + +<p> +“I have found a name I know—a name my father used often to speak of +in his time. Is this Mr. Vanstone a family man? Do you know if there is a young +lady in the house?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t say, captain. My wife will be here directly; she is sure +to know. It must have been some time ago, if your father knew this Mr. +Vanstone?” +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>was</i> some time ago. My father knew a subaltern officer of that +name when he was with his regiment in Canada. It would be curious if the person +here turned out to be the same man, and if that young lady was his +daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me, captain—but the young lady seems to hang a little on +your mind,” said the landlord, with a pleasant smile. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Kirke looked as if the form which his host’s good-humor had just +taken was not quite to his mind. He returned abruptly to the subaltern officer +and the regiment in Canada. “That poor fellow’s story was as +miserable a one as ever I heard,” he said, looking back again absently at +the visitors’ list. +</p> + +<p> +“Would there be any harm in telling it, sir?” asked the landlord. +“Miserable or not, a story’s a story, when you know it to be +true.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Kirke hesitated. “I hardly think I should be doing right to tell +it,” he said. “If this man, or any relations of his, are still +alive, it is not a story they might like strangers to know. All I can tell you +is, that my father was the salvation of that young officer under very dreadful +circumstances. They parted in Canada. My father remained with his regiment; the +young officer sold out and returned to England, and from that moment they lost +sight of each other. It would be curious if this Vanstone here was the same +man. It would be curious—” +</p> + +<p> +He suddenly checked himself just as another reference to “the young +lady” was on the point of passing his lips. At the same moment the +landlord’s wife came in, and Mr. Kirke at once transferred his inquiries +to the higher authority in the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know anything of this Mr. Vanstone who is down here on the +visitors’ list?” asked the sailor. “Is he an old man?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a miserable little creature to look at,” replied the +landlady; “but he’s not old, captain.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then he’s not the man I mean. Perhaps he is the man’s son? +Has he got any ladies with him?” +</p> + +<p> +The landlady tossed her head, and pursed up her lips disparagingly. +</p> + +<p> +“He has a housekeeper with him,” she said. “A middle-aged +person—not one of my sort. I dare say I’m wrong—but I +don’t like a dressy woman in her station of life.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Kirke began to look puzzled. “I must have made some mistake about the +house,” he said. “Surely there’s a lawn cut octagon-shape at +Sea-view Cottage, and a white flag-staff in the middle of the +gravel-walk?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not Sea-view, sir! It’s North Shingles you’re +talking of. Mr. Bygrave’s. His wife and his niece came here by the coach +to-day. His wife’s tall enough to be put in a show, and the worst-dressed +woman I ever set eyes on. But Miss Bygrave is worth looking at, if I may +venture to say so. She’s the finest girl, to my mind, we’ve had at +Aldborough for many a long day. I wonder who they are! Do you know the name, +captain?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Mr. Kirke, with a shade of disappointment on his dark, +weather-beaten face; “I never heard the name before.” +</p> + +<p> +After replying in those words, he rose to take his leave. The landlord vainly +invited him to drink a parting glass; the landlady vainly pressed him to stay +another ten minutes and try a cup of tea. He only replied that his sister +expected him, and that he must return to the parsonage immediately. +</p> + +<p> +On leaving the hotel Mr. Kirke set his face westward, and walked inland along +the highroad as fast as the darkness would let him. +</p> + +<p> +“Bygrave?” he thought to himself. “Now I know her name, how +much am I the wiser for it! If it had been Vanstone, my father’s son +might have had a chance of making acquaintance with her.” He stopped, and +looked back in the direction of Aldborough. “What a fool I am!” he +burst out suddenly, striking his stick on the ground. “I was forty last +birthday.” He turned and went on again faster than ever—his head +down; his resolute black eyes searching the darkness on the land as they had +searched it many a time on the sea from the deck of his ship. +</p> + +<p> +After more than an hour’s walking he reached a village, with a primitive +little church and parsonage nestled together in a hollow. He entered the house +by the back way, and found his sister, the clergyman’s wife, sitting +alone over her work in the parlor. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is your husband, Lizzie?” he asked, taking a chair in a +corner. +</p> + +<p> +“William has gone out to see a sick person. He had just time enough +before he went,” she added, with a smile, “to tell me about the +young lady; and he declares he will never trust himself at Aldborough with you +again until you are a steady, married man.” She stopped, and looked at +her brother more attentively than she had looked at him yet. +“Robert!” she said, laying aside her work, and suddenly crossing +the room to him. “You look anxious, you look distressed. William only +laughed about your meeting with the young lady. Is it serious? Tell me; what is +she like?” +</p> + +<p> +He turned his head away at the question. +</p> + +<p> +She took a stool at his feet, and persisted in looking up at him. “Is it +serious, Robert?” she repeated, softly. +</p> + +<p> +Kirke’s weather-beaten face was accustomed to no concealments—it +answered for him before he spoke a word. “Don’t tell your husband +till I am gone,” he said, with a roughness quite new in his +sister’s experience of him. “I know I only deserve to be laughed +at; but it hurts me, for all that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hurts you?” she repeated, in astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t think me half such a fool, Lizzie, as I think +myself,” pursued Kirke, bitterly. “A man at my age ought to know +better. I didn’t set eyes on her for as much as a minute altogether; and +there I have been hanging about the place till after nightfall on the chance of +seeing her again—skulking, I should have called it, if I had found one of +my men doing what I have been doing myself. I believe I’m bewitched. +She’s a mere girl, Lizzie—I doubt if she’s out of her +teens—I’m old enough to be her father. It’s all one; she +stops in my mind in spite of me. I’ve had her face looking at me, through +the pitch darkness, every step of the way to this house; and it’s looking +at me now—as plain as I see yours, and plainer.” +</p> + +<p> +He rose impatiently, and began to walk backward and forward in the room. His +sister looked after him, with surprise as well as sympathy expressed in her +face. From his boyhood upward she had always been accustomed to see him master +of himself. Years since, in the failing fortunes of the family, he had been +their example and their support. She had heard of him in the desperate +emergencies of a life at sea, when hundreds of his fellow-creatures had looked +to his steady self-possession for rescue from close-threatening death—and +had not looked in vain. Never, in all her life before, had his sister seen the +balance of that calm and equal mind lost as she saw it lost now. +</p> + +<p> +“How can you talk so unreasonably about your age and yourself?” she +said. “There is not a woman alive, Robert, who is good enough for you. +What is her name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bygrave. Do you know it?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. But I might soon make acquaintance with her. If we only had a little +time before us; if I could only get to Aldborough and see her—but you are +going away to-morrow; your ship sails at the end of the week.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God for that!” said Kirke, fervently. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you glad to be going away?” she asked, more and more amazed at +him. +</p> + +<p> +“Right glad, Lizzie, for my own sake. If I ever get to my senses again, I +shall find my way back to them on the deck of my ship. This girl has got +between me and my thoughts already: she shan’t go a step further, and get +between me and my duty. I’m determined on that. Fool as I am, I have +sense enough left not to trust myself within easy hail of Aldborough to-morrow +morning. I’m good for another twenty miles of walking, and I’ll +begin my journey back tonight.” +</p> + +<p> +His sister started up, and caught him fast by the arm. “Robert!” +she exclaimed; “you’re not serious? You don’t mean to leave +us on foot, alone in the dark?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s only saying good-by, my dear, the last thing at night instead +of the first thing in the morning,” he answered, with a smile. “Try +and make allowances for me, Lizzie. My life has been passed at sea; and +I’m not used to having my mind upset in this way. Men ashore are used to +it; men ashore can take it easy. I can’t. If I stopped here I +shouldn’t rest. If I waited till to-morrow, I should only be going back +to have another look at her. I don’t want to feel more ashamed of myself +than I do already. I want to fight my way back to my duty and myself, without +stopping to think twice about it. Darkness is nothing to me—I’m +used to darkness. I have got the high-road to walk on, and I can’t lose +my way. Let me go, Lizzie! The only sweetheart I have any business with at my +age is my ship. Let me get back to her!” +</p> + +<p> +His sister still kept her hold of his arm, and still pleaded with him to stay +till the morning. He listened to her with perfect patience and kindness, but +she never shook his determination for an instant. +</p> + +<p> +“What am I to say to William?” she pleaded. “What will he +think when he comes back and finds you gone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him I have taken the advice he gave us in his sermon last Sunday. +Say I have turned my back on the world, the flesh, and the devil.” +</p> + +<p> +“How can you talk so, Robert! And the boys, too—you promised not to +go without bidding the boys good-by.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s true. I made my little nephews a promise, and I’ll +keep it.” He kicked off his shoes as he spoke, on the mat outside the +door. “Light me upstairs, Lizzie; I’ll bid the two boys good-by +without waking them.” +</p> + +<p> +She saw the uselessness of resisting him any longer; and, taking the candle, +went before him upstairs. +</p> + +<p> +The boys—both young children—were sleeping together in the same +bed. The youngest was his uncle’s favorite, and was called by his +uncle’s name. He lay peacefully asleep, with a rough little toy ship +hugged fast in his arms. Kirke’s eyes softened as he stole on tiptoe to +the child’s side, and kissed him with the gentleness of a woman. +“Poor little man!” said the sailor, tenderly. “He is as fond +of his ship as I was at his age. I’ll cut him out a better one when I +come back. Will you give me my nephew one of these days, Lizzie, and will you +let me make a sailor of him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Robert, if you were only married and happy, as I am!” +</p> + +<p> +“The time has gone by, my dear. I must make the best of it as I am, with +my little nephew there to help me.” +</p> + +<p> +He left the room. His sister’s tears fell fast as she followed him into +the parlor. “There is something so forlorn and dreadful in your leaving +us like this,” she said. “Shall I go to Aldborough to-morrow, +Robert, and try if I can get acquainted with her for your sake?” +</p> + +<p> +“No!” he replied. “Let her be. If it’s ordered that I +am to see that girl again, I <i>shall</i> see her. Leave it to the future, and +you leave it right.” He put on his shoes, and took up his hat and stick. +“I won’t overwalk myself,” he said, cheerfully. “If the +coach doesn’t overtake me on the road, I can wait for it where I stop to +breakfast. Dry your eyes, my dear, and give me a kiss.” +</p> + +<p> +She was like her brother in features and complexion, and she had a touch of her +brother’s spirit; she dashed away the tears, and took her leave of him +bravely. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be back in a year’s time,” said Kirke, falling into +his old sailor-like way at the door. “I’ll bring you a China shawl, +Lizzie, and a chest of tea for your store-room. Don’t let the boys forget +me, and don’t think I’m doing wrong to leave you in this way. I +know I am doing right. God bless you and keep you, my dear—and your +husband, and your children! Good-by!” +</p> + +<p> +He stooped and kissed her. She ran to the door to look after him. A puff of air +extinguished the candle, and the black night shut him out from her in an +instant. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Three days afterward the first-class merchantman <i>Deliverance</i>, Kirke, +commander, sailed from London for the China Sea. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap28"></a>CHAPTER III.</h3> + +<p> +The threatening of storm and change passed away with the night. When morning +rose over Aldborough, the sun was master in the blue heaven, and the waves were +rippling gayly under the summer breeze. +</p> + +<p> +At an hour when no other visitors to the watering—place were yet astir, +the indefatigable Wragge appeared at the door of North Shingles Villa, and +directed his steps northward, with a neatly-bound copy of “Joyce’s +Scientific Dialogues” in his hand. Arriving at the waste ground beyond +the houses, he descended to the beach and opened his book. The interview of the +past night had sharpened his perception of the difficulties to be encountered +in the coming enterprise. He was now doubly determined to try the +characteristic experiment at which he had hinted in his letter to Magdalen, and +to concentrate on himself—in the character of a remarkably well-informed +man—the entire interest and attention of the formidable Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +Having taken his dose of ready-made science (to use his own expression) the +first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, Captain Wragge joined his small +family circle at breakfast-time, inflated with information for the day. He +observed that Magdalen’s face showed plain signs of a sleepless night. +She made no complaint: her manner was composed, and her temper perfectly under +control. Mrs. Wragge—refreshed by some thirteen consecutive hours of +uninterrupted repose—was in excellent spirits, and up at heel (for a +wonder) with both shoes. She brought with her into the room several large +sheets of tissue-paper, cut crisply into mysterious and many-varying forms, +which immediately provoked from her husband the short and sharp question, +“What have you got there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Patterns, captain,” said Mrs. Wragge, in timidly conciliating +tones. “I went shopping in London, and bought an Oriental Cashmere Robe. +It cost a deal of money; and I’m going to try and save, by making it +myself. I’ve got my patterns, and my dress-making directions written out +as plain as print. I’ll be very tidy, captain; I’ll keep in my own +corner, if you’ll please to give me one; and whether my head Buzzes, or +whether it don’t, I’ll sit straight at my work all the same.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will do your work,” said the captain, sternly, “when you +know who you are, who I am, and who that young lady is—not before. Show +me your shoes! Good. Show me you cap! Good. Make the breakfast.” +</p> + +<p> +When breakfast was over, Mrs. Wragge received her orders to retire into an +adjoining room, and to wait there until her husband came to release her. As +soon as her back was turned, Captain Wragge at once resumed the conversation +which had been suspended, by Magdalen’s own desire, on the preceding +night. The questions he now put to her all related to the subject of her visit +in disguise to Noel Vanstone’s house. They were the questions of a +thoroughly clear-headed man—short, searching, and straight to the point. +In less than half an hour’s time he had made himself acquainted with +every incident that had happened in Vauxhall Walk. +</p> + +<p> +The conclusions which the captain drew, after gaining his information, were +clear and easily stated. +</p> + +<p> +On the adverse side of the question, he expressed his conviction that Mrs. +Lecount had certainly detected her visitor to be disguised; that she had never +really left the room, though she might have opened and shut the door; and that +on both the occasions, therefore, when Magdalen had been betrayed into speaking +in her own voice, Mrs. Lecount had heard her. On the favorable side of the +question, he was perfectly satisfied that the painted face and eyelids, the +wig, and the padded cloak had so effectually concealed Magdalen’s +identity, that she might in her own person defy the housekeeper’s closest +scrutiny, so far as the matter of appearance was concerned. The difficulty of +deceiving Mrs. Lecount’s ears, as well as her eyes, was, he readily +admitted, not so easily to be disposed of. But looking to the fact that +Magdalen, on both the occasions when she had forgotten herself, had spoken in +the heat of anger, he was of opinion that her voice had every reasonable chance +of escaping detection, if she carefully avoided all outbursts of temper for the +future, and spoke in those more composed and ordinary tones which Mrs. Lecount +had not yet heard. Upon the whole, the captain was inclined to pronounce the +prospect hopeful, if one serious obstacle were cleared away at the +outset—that obstacle being nothing less than the presence on the scene of +action of Mrs. Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +To Magdalen’s surprise, when the course of her narrative brought her to +the story of the ghost, Captain Wragge listened with the air of a man who was +more annoyed than amused by what he heard. When she had done, he plainly told +her that her unlucky meeting on the stairs of the lodging-house with Mrs. +Wragge was, in his opinion, the most serious of all the accidents that had +happened in Vauxhall Walk. +</p> + +<p> +“I can deal with the difficulty of my wife’s stupidity,” he +said, “as I have often dealt with it before. I can hammer her new +identity <i>into</i> her head, but I can’t hammer the ghost <i>out</i> of +it. We have no security that the woman in the gray cloak and poke bonnet may +not come back to her recollection at the most critical time, and under the most +awkward circumstances. In plain English, my dear girl, Mrs. Wragge is a pitfall +under our feet at every step we take.” +</p> + +<p> +“If we are aware of the pitfall,” said Magdalen, “we can take +our measures for avoiding it. What do you propose?” +</p> + +<p> +“I propose,” replied the captain, “the temporary removal of +Mrs. Wragge. Speaking purely in a pecuniary point of view, I can’t afford +a total separation from her. You have often read of very poor people being +suddenly enriched by legacies reaching them from remote and unexpected +quarters? Mrs. Wragge’s case, when I married her, was one of these. An +elderly female relative shared the favors of fortune on that occasion with my +wife; and if I only keep up domestic appearances, I happen to know that Mrs. +Wragge will prove a second time profitable to me on that elderly +relative’s death. But for this circumstance, I should probably long since +have transferred my wife to the care of society at large—in the agreeable +conviction that if I didn’t support her, somebody else would. Although I +can’t afford to take this course, I see no objection to having her +comfortably boarded and lodged out of our way for the time being—say, at +a retired farm-house, in the character of a lady in infirm mental health. +<i>You</i> would find the expense trifling; <i>I</i> should find the relief +unutterable. What do you say? Shall I pack her up at once, and take her away by +the next coach?” +</p> + +<p> +“No!” replied Magdalen, firmly. “The poor creature’s +life is hard enough already; I won’t help to make it harder. She was +affectionately and truly kind to me when I was ill, and I won’t allow her +to be shut up among strangers while I can help it. The risk of keeping her here +is only one risk more. I will face it, Captain Wragge, if you +won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Think twice,” said the captain, gravely, “before you decide +on keeping Mrs. Wragge.” +</p> + +<p> +“Once is enough,” rejoined Magdalen. “I won’t have her +sent away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good,” said the captain, resignedly. “I never interfere +with questions of sentiment. But I have a word to say on my own behalf. If my +services are to be of any use to you, I can’t have my hands tied at +starting. This is serious. I won’t trust my wife and Mrs. Lecount +together. I’m afraid, if you’re not, and I make it a condition +that, if Mrs. Wragge stops here, she keeps her room. If you think her health +requires it, you can take her for a walk early in the morning, or late in the +evening; but you must never trust her out with the servant, and never trust her +out by herself. I put the matter plainly, it is too important to be trifled +with. What do you say—yes or no?” +</p> + +<p> +“I say yes,” replied Magdalen, after a moment’s +consideration. “On the understanding that I am to take her out walking, +as you propose.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge bowed, and recovered his suavity of manner. “What are our +plans?” he inquired. “Shall we start our enterprise this afternoon? +Are you ready for your introduction to Mrs. Lecount and her master?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite ready.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good again. We will meet them on the Parade, at their usual hour for +going out—two o’clock. It is not twelve yet. I have two hours +before me—just time enough to fit my wife into her new Skin. The process +is absolutely necessary, to prevent her compromising us with the servant. +Don’t be afraid about the results; Mrs. Wragge has had a copious +selection of assumed names hammered into her head in the course of her +matrimonial career. It is merely a question of hammering hard +enough—nothing more. I think we have settled everything now. Is there +anything I can do before two o’clock? Have you any employment for the +morning?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Magdalen. “I shall go back to my own room, and try +to rest.” +</p> + +<p> +“You had a disturbed night, I am afraid?” said the captain, +politely opening the door for her. +</p> + +<p> +“I fell asleep once or twice,” she answered, carelessly. “I +suppose my nerves are a little shaken. The bold black eyes of that man who +stared so rudely at me yesterday evening seemed to be looking at me again in my +dreams. If we see him to-day, and if he annoys me any more, I must trouble you +to speak to him. We will meet here again at two o’clock. Don’t be +hard with Mrs. Wragge; teach her what she must learn as tenderly as you +can.” +</p> + +<p> +With those words she left him, and went upstairs. +</p> + +<p> +She lay down on her bed with a heavy sigh, and tried to sleep. It was useless. +The dull weariness of herself which now possessed her was not the weariness +which finds its remedy in repose. She rose again and sat by the window, looking +out listlessly over the sea. +</p> + +<p> +A weaker nature than hers would not have felt the shock of Frank’s +desertion as she had felt it—as she was feeling it still. A weaker nature +would have found refuge in indignation and comfort in tears. The passionate +strength of Magdalen’s love clung desperately to the sinking wreck of its +own delusion-clung, until she tore herself from it, by plain force of will. All +that her native pride, her keen sense of wrong could do, was to shame her from +dwelling on the thoughts which still caught their breath of life from the +undying devotion of the past; which still perversely ascribed Frank’s +heartless farewell to any cause but the inborn baseness of the man who had +written it. The woman never lived yet who could cast a true-love out of her +heart because the object of that love was unworthy of her. All she can do is to +struggle against it in secret—to sink in the contest if she is weak; to +win her way through it if she is strong, by a process of self-laceration which +is, of all moral remedies applied to a woman’s nature, the most dangerous +and the most desperate; of all moral changes, the change that is surest to mark +her for life. Magdalen’s strong nature had sustained her through the +struggle; and the issue of it had left her what she now was. +</p> + +<p> +After sitting by the window for nearly an hour, her eyes looking mechanically +at the view, her mind empty of all impressions, and conscious of no thoughts, +she shook off the strange waking stupor that possessed her, and rose to prepare +herself for the serious business of the day. +</p> + +<p> +She went to the wardrobe and took down from the pegs two bright, delicate +muslin dresses, which had been made for summer wear at Combe-Raven a year +since, and which had been of too little value to be worth selling when she +parted with her other possessions. After placing these dresses side by side on +the bed, she looked into the wardrobe once more. It only contained one other +summer dress—the plain alpaca gown which she had worn during her +memorable interview with Noel Vanstone and Mrs. Lecount. This she left in its +place, resolving not to wear it—less from any dread that the housekeeper +might recognize a pattern too quiet to be noticed, and too common to be +remembered, than from the conviction that it was neither gay enough nor +becoming enough for her purpose. After taking a plain white muslin scarf, a +pair of light gray kid gloves, and a garden-hat of Tuscan straw, from the +drawers of the wardrobe, she locked it, and put the key carefully in her +pocket. +</p> + +<p> +Instead of at once proceeding to dress herself, she sat idly looking at the two +muslin gowns; careless which she wore, and yet inconsistently hesitating which +to choose. “What does it matter!” she said to herself, with a +reckless laugh; “I am equally worthless in my own estimation, whichever I +put on.” She shuddered, as if the sound of her own laughter had startled +her, and abruptly caught up the dress which lay nearest to her hand. Its colors +were blue and white—the shade of blue which best suited her fair +complexion. She hurriedly put on the gown, without going near her +looking-glass. For the first time in her life she shrank from meeting the +reflection of herself—except for a moment, when she arranged her hair +under her garden-hat, leaving the glass again immediately. She drew her scarf +over her shoulders and fitted on her gloves, with her back to the toilet-table. +“Shall I paint?” she asked herself, feeling instinctively that she +was turning pale. “The rouge is still left in my box. It can’t make +my face more false than it is already.” She looked round toward the +glass, and again turned away from it. “No!” she said. “I have +Mrs. Lecount to face as well as her master. No paint.” After consulting +her watch, she left the room and went downstairs again. It wanted ten minutes +only of two o’clock. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge was waiting for her in the parlor—respectable, in a +frock-coat, a stiff summer cravat, and a high white hat; specklessly and +cheerfully rural, in a buff waistcoat, gray trousers, and gaiters to match. His +collars were higher than ever, and he carried a brand-new camp-stool in his +hand. Any tradesman in England who had seen him at that moment would have +trusted him on the spot. +</p> + +<p> +“Charming!” said the captain, paternally surveying Magdalen when +she entered the room. “So fresh and cool! A little too pale, my dear, and +a great deal too serious. Otherwise perfect. Try if you can smile.” +</p> + +<p> +“When the time comes for smiling,” said Magdalen, bitterly, +“trust my dramatic training for any change of face that may be necessary. +Where is Mrs. Wragge?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Wragge has learned her lesson,” replied the captain, +“and is rewarded by my permission to sit at work in her own room. I +sanction her new fancy for dressmaking, because it is sure to absorb all her +attention, and to keep her at home. There is no fear of her finishing the +Oriental Robe in a hurry, for there is no mistake in the process of making it +which she is not certain to commit. She will sit incubating her +gown—pardon the expression—like a hen over an addled egg. I assure +you, her new whim relieves me. Nothing could be more convenient, under existing +circumstances.” +</p> + +<p> +He strutted away to the window, looked out, and beckoned to Magdalen to join +him. “There they are!” he said, and pointed to the Parade. +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone slowly walked by, as she looked, dressed in a complete suit of +old-fashioned nankeen. It was apparently one of the days when the state of his +health was at the worst. He leaned on Mrs. Lecount’s arm, and was +protected from the sun by a light umbrella which she held over him. The +housekeeper—dressed to perfection, as usual, in a quiet, lavender-colored +summer gown, a black mantilla, an unassuming straw bonnet, and a crisp blue +veil—escorted her invalid master with the tenderest attention; sometimes +directing his notice respectfully to the various objects of the sea view; +sometimes bending her head in graceful acknowledgment of the courtesy of +passing strangers on the Parade, who stepped aside to let the invalid pass by. +She produced a visible effect among the idlers on the beach. They looked after +her with unanimous interest, and exchanged confidential nods of approval which +said, as plainly as words could have expressed it, “A very domestic +person! a truly superior woman!” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge’s party-colored eyes followed Mrs. Lecount with a steady, +distrustful attention. “Tough work for us <i>there</i>,” he +whispered in Magdalen’s ear; “tougher work than you think, before +we turn that woman out of her place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait,” said Magdalen, quietly. “Wait and see.” +</p> + +<p> +She walked to the door. The captain followed her without making any further +remark. “I’ll wait till you’re married,” he thought to +himself—“not a moment longer, offer me what you may.” +</p> + +<p> +At the house door Magdalen addressed him again. +</p> + +<p> +“We will go that way,” she said, pointing southward, “then +turn, and meet them as they come back.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge signified his approval of the arrangement, and followed Magdalen +to the garden gate. As she opened it to pass through, her attention was +attracted by a lady, with a nursery-maid and two little boys behind her, +loitering on the path outside the garden wall. The lady started, looked +eagerly, and smiled to herself as Magdalen came out. Curiosity had got the +better of Kirke’s sister, and she had come to Aldborough for the express +purpose of seeing Miss Bygrave. +</p> + +<p> +Something in the shape of the lady’s face, something in the expression of +her dark eyes, reminded Magdalen of the merchant-captain whose uncontrolled +admiration had annoyed her on the previous evening. She instantly returned the +stranger’s scrutiny by a frowning, ungracious look. The lady colored, +paid the look back with interest, and slowly walked on. +</p> + +<p> +“A hard, bold, bad girl,” thought Kirke’s sister. “What +could Robert be thinking of to admire her? I am almost glad he is gone. I hope +and trust he will never set eyes on Miss Bygrave again.” +</p> + +<p> +“What boors the people are here!” said Magdalen to Captain Wragge. +“That woman was even ruder than the man last night. She is like him in +the face. I wonder who she is?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll find out directly,” said the captain. “We +can’t be too cautious about strangers.” He at once appealed to his +friends, the boatmen. They were close at hand, and Magdalen heard the questions +and answers plainly. +</p> + +<p> +“How are you all this morning?” said Captain Wragge, in his easy +jocular way. “And how’s the wind? Nor’-west and by west, is +it? Very good. Who is that lady?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s Mrs. Strickland, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay! ay! The clergyman’s wife and the captain’s sister. +Where’s the captain to-day?” +</p> + +<p> +“On his way to London, I should think, sir. His ship sails for China at +the end of the week.” +</p> + +<p> +China! As that one word passed the man’s lips, a pang of the old sorrow +struck Magdalen to the heart. Stranger as he was, she began to hate the bare +mention of the merchant-captain’s name. He had troubled her dreams of the +past night; and now, when she was most desperately and recklessly bent on +forgetting her old home-existence, he had been indirectly the cause of +recalling her mind to Frank. +</p> + +<p> +“Come!” she said, angrily, to her companion. “What do we care +about the man or his ship? Come away.” +</p> + +<p> +“By all means,” said Captain Wragge. “As long as we +don’t find friends of the Bygraves, what do we care about anybody?” +</p> + +<p> +They walked on southward for ten minutes or more, then turned and walked back +again to meet Noel Vanstone and Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap29"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + +<p> +Captain Wragge and Magdalen retraced their steps until they were again within +view of North Shingles Villa before any signs appeared of Mrs. Lecount and her +master. At that point the housekeeper’s lavender-colored dress, the +umbrella, and the feeble little figure in nankeen walking under it, became +visible in the distance. The captain slackened his pace immediately, and issued +his directions to Magdalen for her conduct at the coming interview in these +words: +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t forget your smile,” he said. “In all other +respects you will do. The walk has improved your complexion, and the hat +becomes you. Look Mrs. Lecount steadily in the face; show no embarrassment when +you speak; and if Mr. Noel Vanstone pays you pointed attention, don’t +take too much notice of him while his housekeeper’s eye is on you. Mind +one thing! I have been at Joyce’s Scientific Dialogues all the morning; +and I am quite serious in meaning to give Mrs. Lecount the full benefit of my +studies. If I can’t contrive to divert her attention from you and her +master, I won’t give sixpence for our chance of success. Small-talk +won’t succeed with that woman; compliments won’t succeed; jokes +won’t succeed—ready-made science may recall the deceased professor, +and ready-made science may do. We must establish a code of signals to let you +know what I am about. Observe this camp-stool. When I shift it from my left +hand to my right, I am talking Joyce. When I shift it from my right hand to my +left, I am talking Wragge. In the first case, don’t interrupt me—I +am leading up to my point. In the second case, say anything you like; my +remarks are not of the slightest consequence. Would you like a rehearsal? Are +you sure you understand? Very good—take my arm, and look happy. Steady! +here they are.” +</p> + +<p> +The meeting took place nearly midway between Sea-view Cottage and North +Shingles. Captain Wragge took off his tall white hat and opened the interview +immediately on the friendliest terms. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-morning, Mrs. Lecount,” he said, with the frank and cheerful +politeness of a naturally sociable man. “Good-morning, Mr. Vanstone; I am +sorry to see you suffering to-day. Mrs. Lecount, permit me to introduce my +niece—my niece, Miss Bygrave. My dear girl, this is Mr. Noel Vanstone, +our neighbor at Sea-view Cottage. We must positively be sociable at Aldborough, +Mrs. Lecount. There is only one walk in the place (as my niece remarked to me +just now, Mr. Vanstone); and on that walk we must all meet every time we go +out. And why not? Are we formal people on either side? Nothing of the sort; we +are just the reverse. You possess the Continental facility of manner, Mr. +Vanstone—I match you with the blunt cordiality of an old-fashioned +Englishman—the ladies mingle together in harmonious variety, like flowers +on the same bed—and the result is a mutual interest in making our sojourn +at the sea-side agreeable to each other. Pardon my flow of spirits; pardon my +feeling so cheerful and so young. The Iodine in the sea-air, Mrs. +Lecount—the notorious effect of the Iodine in the sea-air!” +</p> + +<p> +“You arrived yesterday, Miss Bygrave, did you not?” said the +housekeeper, as soon as the captain’s deluge of language had come to an +end. +</p> + +<p> +She addressed those words to Magdalen with a gentle motherly interest in her +youth and beauty, chastened by the deferential amiability which became her +situation in Noel Vanstone’s household. Not the faintest token of +suspicion or surprise betrayed itself in her face, her voice, or her manner, +while she and Magdalen now looked at each other. It was plain at the outset +that the true face and figure which she now saw recalled nothing to her mind of +the false face and figure which she had seen in Vauxhall Walk. The disguise had +evidently been complete enough even to baffle the penetration of Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“My aunt and I came here yesterday evening,” said Magdalen. +“We found the latter part of the journey very fatiguing. I dare say you +found it so, too?” +</p> + +<p> +She designedly made her answer longer than was necessary for the purpose of +discovering, at the earliest opportunity, the effect which the sound of her +voice produced on Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +The housekeeper’s thin lips maintained their motherly smile; the +housekeeper’s amiable manner lost none of its modest deference, but the +expression of her eyes suddenly changed from a look of attention to a look of +inquiry. Magdalen quietly said a few words more, and then waited again for +results. The change spread gradually all over Mrs. Lecount’s face, the +motherly smile died away, and the amiable manner betrayed a slight touch of +restraint. Still no signs of positive recognition appeared; the +housekeeper’s expression remained what it had been from the +first—an expression of inquiry, and nothing more. +</p> + +<p> +“You complained of fatigue, sir, a few minutes since,” she said, +dropping all further conversation with Magdalen and addressing her master. +“Will you go indoors and rest?” +</p> + +<p> +The proprietor of Sea-view Cottage had hitherto confined himself to bowing, +simpering and admiring Magdalen through his half-closed eyelids. There was no +mistaking the sudden flutter and agitation in his manner, and the heightened +color in his wizen little face. Even the reptile temperament of Noel Vanstone +warmed under the influence of the sex: he had an undeniably appreciative eye +for a handsome woman, and Magdalen’s grace and beauty were not thrown +away on him. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you go indoors, sir, and rest?” asked the housekeeper, +repeating her quest ion. +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet, Lecount,” said her master. “I fancy I feel +stronger; I fancy I can go on a little.” He turned simpering to Magdalen, +and added, in a lower tone: “I have found a new interest in my walk, Miss +Bygrave. Don’t desert us, or you will take the interest away with +you.” +</p> + +<p> +He smiled and smirked in the highest approval of the ingenuity of his own +compliment—from which Captain Wragge dexterously diverted the +housekeeper’s attention by ranging himself on her side of the path and +speaking to her at the same moment. They all four walked on slowly. Mrs. +Lecount said nothing more. She kept fast hold of her master’s arm, and +looked across him at Magdalen with the dangerous expression of inquiry more +marked than ever in her handsome black eyes. That look was not lost on the wary +Wragge. He shifted his indicative camp-stool from the left hand to the right, +and opened his scientific batteries on the spot. +</p> + +<p> +“A busy scene, Mrs. Lecount,” said the captain, politely waving his +camp-stool over the sea and the passing ships. “The greatness of England, +ma’am—the true greatness of England. Pray observe how heavily some +of those vessels are laden! I am often inclined to wonder whether the British +sailor is at all aware, when he has got his cargo on board, of the Hydrostatic +importance of the operation that he has performed. If I were suddenly +transported to the deck of one of those ships (which Heaven forbid, for I +suffer at sea); and if I said to a member of the crew: ‘Jack! you have +done wonders; you have grasped the Theory of Floating Vessels’—how +the gallant fellow would stare! And yet on that theory Jack’s life +depends. If he loads his vessel one-thirtieth part more than he ought, what +happens? He sails past Aldborough, I grant you, in safety. He enters the +Thames, I grant you again, in safety. He gets on into the fresh water as far, +let us say, as Greenwich; and—down he goes! Down, ma’am, to the +bottom of the river, as a matter of scientific certainty!” +</p> + +<p> +Here he paused, and left Mrs. Lecount no polite alternative but to request an +explanation. +</p> + +<p> +“With infinite pleasure, ma’am,” said the captain, drowning +in the deepest notes of his voice the feeble treble in which Noel Vanstone paid +his compliments to Magdalen. “We will start, if you please, with a first +principle. All bodies whatever that float on the surface of the water displace +as much fluid as is equal in weight to the weight of the bodies. Good. We have +got our first principle. What do we deduce from it? Manifestly this: That, in +order to keep a vessel above water, it is necessary to take care that the +vessel and its cargo shall be of less weight than the weight of a quantity of +water—pray follow me here!—of a quantity of water equal in bulk to +that part of the vessel which it will be safe to immerse in the water. Now, +ma’am, salt-water is specifically thirty times heavier than fresh or +river water, and a vessel in the German Ocean will not sink so deep as a vessel +in the Thames. Consequently, when we load our ship with a view to the London +market, we have (Hydrostatically speaking) three alternatives. Either we load +with one-thirtieth part less than we can carry at sea; or we take one-thirtieth +part out at the mouth of the river; or we do neither the one nor the other, +and, as I have already had the honor of remarking—down we go! +Such,” said the captain, shifting the camp-stool back again from his +right hand to his left, in token that Joyce was done with for the time being; +“such, my dear madam, is the Theory of Floating Vessels. Permit me to +add, in conclusion, you are heartily welcome to it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount. “You have +unintentionally saddened me; but the information I have received is not the +less precious on that account. It is long, long ago, Mr. Bygrave, since I have +heard myself addressed in the language of science. My dear husband made me his +companion—my dear husband improved my mind as you have been trying to +improve it. Nobody has taken pains with my intellect since. Many thanks, sir. +Your kind consideration for me is not thrown away.” +</p> + +<p> +She sighed with a plaintive humility, and privately opened her ears to the +conversation on the other side of her. +</p> + +<p> +A minute earlier she would have heard her master expressing himself in the most +flattering terms on the subject of Miss Bygrave’s appearance in her +sea-side costume. But Magdalen had seen Captain Wragge’s signal with the +camp-stool, and had at once diverted Noel Vanstone to the topic of himself and +his possessions by a neatly-timed question about his house at Aldborough. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t wish to alarm you, Miss Bygrave,” were the first +words of Noel Vanstone’s which caught Mrs. Lecount’s attention, +“but there is only one safe house in Aldborough, and that house is mine. +The sea may destroy all the other houses—it can’t destroy Mine. My +father took care of that; my father was a remarkable man. He had My house built +on piles. I have reason to believe they are the strongest piles in England. +Nothing can possibly knock them down—I don’t care what the sea +does—nothing can possibly knock them down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, if the sea invades us,” said Magdalen, “we must all +run for refuge to you.” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone saw his way to another compliment; and, at the same moment, the +wary captain saw his way to another burst of science. +</p> + +<p> +“I could almost wish the invasion might happen,” murmured one of +the gentlemen, “to give me the happiness of offering the refuge.” +</p> + +<p> +“I could almost swear the wind had shifted again!” exclaimed the +other. “Where is a man I can ask? Oh, there he is. Boatman! How’s +the wind now? Nor’west and by west still—hey? And southeast and by +south yesterday evening—ha? Is there anything more remarkable, Mrs. +Lecount, than the variableness of the wind in this climate?” proceeded +the captain, shifting the camp-stool to the scientific side of him. “Is +there any natural phenomenon more bewildering to the scientific inquirer? You +will tell me that the electric fluid which abounds in the air is the principal +cause of this variableness. You will remind me of the experiment of that +illustrious philosopher who measured the velocity of a great storm by a flight +of small feathers. My dear madam, I grant all your propositions—” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount; “you kindly +attribute to me a knowledge that I don’t possess. Propositions, I regret +to say, are quite beyond me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t misunderstand me, ma’am,” continued the captain, +politely unconscious of the interruption. “My remarks apply to the +temperate zone only. Place me on the coasts beyond the tropics—place me +where the wind blows toward the shore in the day-time, and toward the sea by +night—and I instantly advance toward conclusive experiments. For example, +I know that the heat of the sun during the day rarefies the air over the land, +and so causes the wind. You challenge me to prove it. I escort you down the +kitchen stairs (with your kind permission); take my largest pie-dish out of the +cook’s hands; I fill it with cold water. Good! that dish of cold water +represents the ocean. I next provide myself with one of our most precious +domestic conveniences, a hot-water plate; I fill it with hot water and I put it +in the middle of the pie-dish. Good again! the hot-water plate represents the +land rarefying the air over it. Bear that in mind, and give me a lighted +candle. I hold my lighted candle over the cold water, and blow it out. The +smoke immediately moves from the dish to the plate. Before you have time to +express your satisfaction, I light the candle once more, and reverse the whole +proceeding. I fill the pie-dish with hot-water, and the plate with cold; I blow +the candle out again, and the smoke moves this time from the plate to the dish. +The smell is disagreeable—but the experiment is conclusive.” +</p> + +<p> +He shifted the camp-stool back again, and looked at Mrs. Lecount with his +ingratiating smile. “You don’t find me long-winded, +ma’am—do you?” he said, in his easy, cheerful way, just as +the housekeeper was privately opening her ears once more to the conversation on +the other side of her. +</p> + +<p> +“I am amazed, sir, by the range of your information,” replied Mrs. +Lecount, observing the captain with some perplexity—but thus far with no +distrust. She thought him eccentric, even for an Englishman, and possibly a +little vain of his knowledge. But he had at least paid her the implied +compliment of addressing that knowledge to herself; and she felt it the more +sensibly, from having hitherto found her scientific sympathies with her +deceased husband treated with no great respect by the people with whom she came +in contact. “Have you extended your inquiries, sir,” she proceeded, +after a momentary hesitation, “to my late husband’s branch of +science? I merely ask, Mr. Bygrave, because (though I am only a woman) I think +I might exchange ideas with you on the subject of the reptile creation.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge was far too sharp to risk his ready-made science on the +enemy’s ground. The old militia-man shook his wary head. +</p> + +<p> +“Too vast a subject, ma’am,” he said, “for a smatterer +like me. The life and labors of such a philosopher as your husband, Mrs. +Lecount, warn men of my intellectual caliber not to measure themselves with a +giant. May I inquire,” proceeded the captain, softly smoothing the way +for future intercourse with Sea-view Cottage, “whether you possess any +scientific memorials of the late Professor?” +</p> + +<p> +“I possess his Tank, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount, modestly casting her +eyes on the ground, “and one of his Subjects—a little foreign +Toad.” +</p> + +<p> +“His Tank!” exclaimed the captain, in tones of mournful interest; +“and his Toad! Pardon my blunt way of speaking my mind, ma’am. You +possess an object of public interest; and, as one of the public, I acknowledge +my curiosity to see it.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount’s smooth cheeks colored with pleasure. The one assailable +place in that cold and secret nature was the place occupied by the memory of +the Professor. Her pride in his scientific achievements, and her mortification +at finding them but little known out of his own country, were genuine feelings. +Never had Captain Wragge burned his adulterated incense on the flimsy altar of +human vanity to better purpose than he was burning it now. +</p> + +<p> +“You are very good, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount. “In honoring my +husband’s memory, you honor me. But though you kindly treat me on a +footing of equality, I must not forget that I fill a domestic situation. I +shall feel it a privilege to show you my relics, if you will allow me to ask my +master’s permission first.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned to Noel Vanstone; her perfectly sincere intention of making the +proposed request, mingling—in that strange complexity of motives which is +found so much oftener in a woman’s mind than in a man’s—with +her jealous distrust of the impression which Magdalen had produced on her +master. +</p> + +<p> +“May I make a request, sir?” asked Mrs. Lecount, after waiting a +moment to catch any fragments of tenderly-personal talk that might reach her, +and after being again neatly baffled by Magdalen—thanks to the +camp-stool. “Mr. Bygrave is one of the few persons in England who +appreciate my husband’s scientific labors. He honors me by wishing to see +my little world of reptiles. May I show it to him?” +</p> + +<p> +“By all means, Lecount,” said Noel Vanstone, graciously. “You +are an excellent creature, and I like to oblige you. Lecount’s Tank, Mr. +Bygrave, is the only Tank in England—Lecount’s Toad is the oldest +Toad in the world. Will you come and drink tea at seven o’clock to-night? +And will you prevail on Miss Bygrave to accompany you? I want her to see my +house. I don’t think she has any idea what a strong house it is. Come and +survey my premises, Miss Bygrave. You shall have a stick and rap on the walls; +you shall go upstairs and stamp on the floors, and then you shall hear what it +all cost.” His eyes wrinkled up cunningly at the corners, and he slipped +another tender speech into Magdalen’s ear, under cover of the +all-predominating voice in which Captain Wragge thanked him for the invitation. +“Come punctually at seven,” he whispered, “and pray wear that +charming hat!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount’s lips closed ominously. She set down the captain’s +niece as a very serious drawback to the intellectual luxury of the +captain’s society. +</p> + +<p> +“You are fatiguing yourself, sir,” she said to her master. +“This is one of your bad days. Let me recommend you to be careful; let me +beg you to walk back.” +</p> + +<p> +Having carried his point by inviting the new acquaintances to tea, Noel +Vanstone proved to be unexpectedly docile. He acknowledged that he was a little +fatigued, and turned back at once in obedience to the housekeeper’s +advice. +</p> + +<p> +“Take my arm, sir—take my arm on the other side,” said +Captain Wragge, as they turned to retrace their steps. His party-colored eyes +looked significantly at Magdalen while he spoke, and warned her not to stretch +Mrs. Lecount’s endurance too far at starting. She instantly understood +him; and, in spite of Noel Vanstone’s reiterated assertions that he stood +in no need of the captain’s arm, placed herself at once by the +housekeeper’s side. Mrs. Lecount recovered her good-humor, and opened +another conversation with Magdalen by making the one inquiry of all others +which, under existing circumstances, was the hardest to answer. +</p> + +<p> +“I presume Mrs. Bygrave is too tired, after her journey, to come out +to-day?” said Mrs. Lecount. “Shall we have the pleasure of seeing +her tomorrow?” +</p> + +<p> +“Probably not,” replied Magdalen. “My aunt is in delicate +health.” +</p> + +<p> +“A complicated case, my dear madam,” added the captain; conscious +that Mrs. Wragge’s personal appearance (if she happened to be seen by +accident) would offer the flattest of all possible contradictions to what +Magdalen had just said of her. “There is some remote nervous mischief +which doesn’t express itself externally. You would think my wife the +picture of health if you looked at her, and yet, so delusive are appearances, I +am obliged to forbid her all excitement. She sees no society—our medical +attendant, I regret to say, absolutely prohibits it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very sad,” said Mrs. Lecount. “The poor lady must often feel +lonely, sir, when you and your niece are away from her?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” replied the captain. “Mrs. Bygrave is a naturally +domestic woman. When she is able to employ herself, she finds unlimited +resources in her needle and thread.” Having reached this stage of the +explanation, and having purposely skirted, as it were, round the confines of +truth, in the event of the housekeeper’s curiosity leading her to make +any private inquiries on the subject of Mrs. Wragge, the captain wisely checked +his fluent tongue from carrying him into any further details. “I have +great hope from the air of this place,” he remarked, in conclusion. +“The Iodine, as I have already observed, does wonders.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount acknowledged the virtues of Iodine, in the briefest possible form +of words, and withdrew into the innermost sanctuary of her own thoughts. +“Some mystery here,” said the housekeeper to herself. “A lady +who looks the picture of health; a lady who suffers from a complicated nervous +malady; and a lady whose hand is steady enough to use her needle and +thread—is a living mass of contradictions I don’t quite understand. +Do you make a long stay at Aldborough, sir?” she added aloud, her eyes +resting for a moment, in steady scrutiny, on the captain’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“It all depends, my dear madam, on Mrs. Bygrave. I trust we shall stay +through the autumn. You are settled at Sea-view Cottage, I presume, for the +season?” +</p> + +<p> +“You must ask my master, sir. It is for him to decide, not for me.” +</p> + +<p> +The answer was an unfortunate one. Noel Vanstone had been secretly annoyed by +the change in the walking arrangements, which had separated him from Magdalen. +He attributed that change to the meddling influence of Mrs. Lecount, and he now +took the earliest opportunity of resenting it on the spot. +</p> + +<p> +“I have nothing to do with our stay at Aldborough,” he broke out, +peevishly. “You know as well as I do, Lecount, it all depends on +<i>you</i>. Mrs. Lecount has a brother in Switzerland,” he went on, +addressing himself to the captain—“a brother who is seriously ill. +If he gets worse, she will have to go there to see him. I can’t accompany +her, and I can’t be left in the house by myself. I shall have to break up +my establishment at Aldborough, and stay with some friends. It all depends on +you, Lecount—or on your brother, which comes to the same thing. If it +depended on <i>me</i>,” continued Mr. Noel Vanstone, looking pointedly at +Magdalen across the housekeeper, “I should stay at Aldborough all through +the autumn with the greatest pleasure. With the greatest pleasure,” he +reiterated, repeating the words with a tender look for Magdalen, and a spiteful +accent for Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +Thus far Captain Wragge had remained silent; carefully noting in his mind the +promising possibilities of a separation between Mrs. Lecount and her master +which Noel Vanstone’s little fretful outbreak had just disclosed to him. +An ominous trembling in the housekeeper’s thin lips, as her master openly +exposed her family affairs before strangers, and openly set her jealously at +defiance, now warned him to interfere. If the misunderstanding were permitted +to proceed to extremities, there was a chance that the invitation for that +evening to Sea-view Cottage might be put off. Now, as ever, equal to the +occasion, Captain Wragge called his useful information once more to the rescue. +Under the learned auspices of Joyce, he plunged, for the third time, into the +ocean of science, and brought up another pearl. He was still haranguing (on +Pneumatics this time), still improving Mrs. Lecount’s mind with his +politest perseverance and his smoothest flow of language—when the walking +party stopped at Noel Vanstone’s door. +</p> + +<p> +“Bless my soul, here we are at your house, sir!” said the captain, +interrupting himself in the middle of one of his graphic sentences. “I +won’t keep you standing a moment. Not a word of apology, Mrs. Lecount, I +beg and pray! I will put that curious point in Pneumatics more clearly before +you on a future occasion. In the meantime I need only repeat that you can +perform the experiment I have just mentioned to your own entire satisfaction +with a bladder, an exhausted receiver, and a square box. At seven o’clock +this evening, sir—at seven o’clock, Mrs. Lecount. We have had a +remarkably pleasant walk, and a most instructive interchange of ideas. Now, my +dear girl, your aunt is waiting for us.” +</p> + +<p> +While Mrs. Lecount stepped aside to open the garden gate, Noel Vanstone seized +his opportunity and shot a last tender glance at Magdalen, under shelter of the +umbrella, which he had taken into his own hands for that express purpose. +“Don’t forget,” he said, with the sweetest smile; +“don’t forget, when you come this evening, to wear that charming +hat!” Before he could add any last words, Mrs. Lecount glided back to her +place, and the sheltering umbrella changed hands again immediately. +</p> + +<p> +“An excellent morning’s work!” said Captain Wragge, as he and +Magdalen walked on together to North Shingles. “You and I and Joyce have +all three done wonders. We have secured a friendly invitation at the first +day’s fishing for it.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused for an answer; and, receiving none, observed Magdalen more +attentively than he had observed her yet. Her face had turned deadly pale +again; her eyes looked out mechanically straight before her in heedless, +reckless despair. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter?” he asked, with the greatest surprise. +“Are you ill?” +</p> + +<p> +She made no reply; she hardly seemed to hear him. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you getting alarmed about Mrs. Lecount?” he inquired next. +“There is not the least reason for alarm. She may fancy she has heard +something like your voice before, but your face evidently bewilders her. Keep +your temper, and you keep her in the dark. Keep her in the dark, and you will +put that two hundred pounds into my hands before the autumn is over.” +</p> + +<p> +He waited again for an answer, and again she remained silent. The captain tried +for the third time in another direction. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you get any letters this morning?” he went on. “Is there +bad news again from home? Any fresh difficulties with your sister?” +</p> + +<p> +“Say nothing about my sister!” she broke out passionately. +“Neither you nor I are fit to speak of her.” +</p> + +<p> +She said those words at the garden-gate, and hurried into the house by herself. +He followed her, and heard the door of her own room violently shut to, +violently locked and double-locked. Solacing his indignation by an oath, +Captain Wragge sullenly went into one of the parlors on the ground-floor to +look after his wife. The room communicated with a smaller and darker room at +the back of the house by means of a quaint little door with a window in the +upper half of it. Softly approaching this door, the captain lifted the white +muslin curtain which hung over the window, and looked into the inner room. +</p> + +<p> +There was Mrs. Wragge, with her cap on one side, and her shoes down at heel; +with a row of pins between her teeth; with the Oriental Cashmere Robe slowly +slipping off the table; with her scissors suspended uncertain in one hand, and +her written directions for dressmaking held doubtfully in the other—so +absorbed over the invincible difficulties of her employment as to be perfectly +unconscious that she was at that moment the object of her husband’s +superintending eye. Under other circumstances she would have been soon brought +to a sense of her situation by the sound of his voice. But Captain Wragge was +too anxious about Magdalen to waste any time on his wife, after satisfying +himself that she was safe in her seclusion, and that she might be trusted to +remain there. +</p> + +<p> +He left the parlor, and, after a little hesitation in the passage, stole +upstairs and listened anxiously outside Magdalen’s door. A dull sound of +sobbing—a sound stifled in her handkerchief, or stifled in the +bed-clothes—was all that caught his ear. He returned at once to the +ground-floor, with some faint suspicion of the truth dawning on his mind at +last. +</p> + +<p> +“The devil take that sweetheart of hers!” thought the captain. +“Mr. Noel Vanstone has raised the ghost of him at starting.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap30"></a>CHAPTER V.</h3> + +<p> +When Magdalen appeared in the parlor shortly before seven o’clock, not a +trace of discomposure was visible in her manner. She looked and spoke as +quietly and unconcernedly as usual. +</p> + +<p> +The lowering distrust on Captain Wragge’s face cleared away at the sight +of her. There had been moments during the afternoon when he had seriously +doubted whether the pleasure of satisfying the grudge he owed to Noel Vanstone, +and the prospect of earning the sum of two hundred pounds, would not be dearly +purchased by running the risk of discovery to which Magdalen’s uncertain +temper might expose him at any hour of the day. The plain proof now before him +of her powers of self-control relieved his mind of a serious anxiety. It +mattered little to the captain what she suffered in the privacy of her own +chamber, as long as she came out of it with a face that would bear inspection, +and a voice that betrayed nothing. +</p> + +<p> +On the way to Sea-view Cottage, Captain Wragge expressed his intention of +asking the housekeeper a few sympathizing questions on the subject of her +invalid brother in Switzerland. He was of opinion that the critical condition +of this gentleman’s health might exercise an important influence on the +future progress of the conspiracy. Any chance of a separation, he remarked, +between the housekeeper and her master was, under existing circumstances, a +chance which merited the closest investigation. “If we can only get Mrs. +Lecount out of the way at the right time,” whispered the captain, as he +opened his host’s garden gate, “our man is caught!” +</p> + +<p> +In a minute more Magdalen was again under Noel Vanstone’s roof; this time +in the character of his own invited guest. +</p> + +<p> +The proceedings of the evening were for the most part a repetition of the +proceedings during the morning walk. Noel Vanstone vibrated between his +admiration of Magdalen’s beauty and his glorification of his own +possessions. Captain Wragge’s inexhaustible outbursts of +information—relieved by delicately-indirect inquiries relating to Mrs. +Lecount’s brother—perpetually diverted the housekeeper’s +jealous vigilance from dwelling on the looks and language of her master. So the +evening passed until ten o’clock. By that time the captain’s +ready-made science was exhausted, and the housekeeper’s temper was +forcing its way to the surface. Once more Captain Wragge warned Magdalen by a +look, and, in spite of Noel Vanstone’s hospitable protest, wisely rose to +say good-night. +</p> + +<p> +“I have got my information,” remarked the captain on the way back. +“Mrs. Lecount’s brother lives at Zurich. He is a bachelor; he +possesses a little money, and his sister is his nearest relation. If he will +only be so obliging as to break up altogether, he will save us a world of +trouble with Mrs. Lecount.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a fine moonlight night. He looked round at Magdalen, as he said those +words, to see if her intractable depression of spirits had seized on her again. +</p> + +<p> +No! her variable humor had changed once more. She looked about her with a +flaunting, feverish gayety; she scoffed at the bare idea of any serious +difficulty with Mrs. Lecount; she mimicked Noel Vanstone’s high-pitched +voice, and repeated Noel Vanstone’s high-flown compliments, with a bitter +enjoyment of turning him into ridicule. Instead of running into the house as +before, she sauntered carelessly by her companion’s side, humming little +snatches of song, and kicking the loose pebbles right and left on the +garden-walk. Captain Wragge hailed the change in her as the best of good omens. +He thought he saw plain signs that the family spirit was at last coming back +again. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said, as he lit her bedroom candle for her, “when +we all meet on the Parade tomorrow, we shall see, as our nautical friends say, +how the land lies. One thing I can tell you, my dear girl—I have used my +eyes to very little purpose if there is not a storm brewing tonight in Mr. Noel +Vanstone’s domestic atmosphere.” +</p> + +<p> +The captain’s habitual penetration had not misled him. As soon as the +door of Sea-view Cottage was closed on the parting guests, Mrs. Lecount made an +effort to assert the authority which Magdalen’s influence was threatening +already. +</p> + +<p> +She employed every artifice of which she was mistress to ascertain +Magdalen’s true position in Noel Vanstone’s estimation. She tried +again and again to lure him into an unconscious confession of the pleasure +which he felt already in the society of the beautiful Miss Bygrave; she twined +herself in and out of every weakness in his character, as the frogs and efts +twined themselves in and out of the rock-work of her Aquarium. But she made one +serious mistake which very clever people in their intercourse with their +intellectual inferiors are almost universally apt to commit—she trusted +implicitly to the folly of a fool. She forgot that one of the lowest of human +qualities—cunning—is exactly the capacity which is often most +largely developed in the lowest of intellectual natures. If she had been +honestly angry with her master, she would probably have frightened him. If she +had opened her mind plainly to his view, she would have astonished him by +presenting a chain of ideas to his limited perceptions which they were not +strong enough to grasp; his curiosity would have led him to ask for an +explanation; and by practicing on that curiosity, she might have had him at her +mercy. As it was, she set her cunning against his, and the fool proved a match +for her. Noel Vanstone, to whom all large-minded motives under heaven were +inscrutable mysteries, saw the small-minded motive at the bottom of his +housekeeper’s conduct with as instantaneous a penetration as if he had +been a man of the highest ability. Mrs. Lecount left him for the night, foiled, +and knowing she was foiled—left him, with the tigerish side of her +uppermost, and a low-lived longing in her elegant finger-nails to set them in +her master’s face. +</p> + +<p> +She was not a woman to be beaten by one defeat or by a hundred. She was +positively determined to think, and think again, until she had found a means of +checking the growing intimacy with the Bygraves at once and forever. In the +solitude of her own room she recovered her composure, and set herself for the +first time to review the conclusions which she had gathered from the events of +the day. +</p> + +<p> +There was something vaguely familiar to her in the voice of this Miss Bygrave, +and, at the same time, in unaccountable contradiction, something strange to her +as well. The face and figure of the young lady were entirely new to her. It was +a striking face, and a striking figure; and if she had seen either at any +former period, she would certainly have remembered it. Miss Bygrave was +unquestionably a stranger; and yet— +</p> + +<p> +She had got no further than this during the day; she could get no further now: +the chain of thought broke. Her mind took up the fragments, and formed another +chain which attached itself to the lady who was kept in seclusion—to the +aunt, who looked well, and yet was nervous; who was nervous, and yet able to +ply her needle and thread. An incomprehensible resemblance to some unremembered +voice in the niece; an unintelligible malady which kept the aunt secluded from +public view; an extraordinary range of scientific cultivation in the uncle, +associated with a coarseness and audacity of manner which by no means suggested +the idea of a man engaged in studious pursuits—were the members of this +small family of three what they seemed on the surface of them? +</p> + +<p> +With that question on her mind, she went to bed. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as the candle was out, the darkness seemed to communicate some +inexplicable perversity to her thoughts. They wandered back from present things +to past, in spite of her. They brought her old master back to life again; they +revived forgotten sayings and doings in the English circle at Zurich; they +veered away to the old man’s death-bed at Brighton; they moved from +Brighton to London; they entered the bare, comfortless room at Vauxhall Walk; +they set the Aquarium back in its place on the kitchen table, and put the false +Miss Garth in the chair by the side of it, shading her inflamed eyes from the +light; they placed the anonymous letter, the letter which glanced darkly at a +conspiracy, in her hand again, and brought her with it into her master’s +presence; they recalled the discussion about filling in the blank space in the +advertisement, and the quarrel that followed when she told Noel Vanstone that +the sum he had offered was preposterously small; they revived an old doubt +which had not troubled her for weeks past—a doubt whether the threatened +conspiracy had evaporated in mere words, or whether she and her master were +likely to hear of it again. At this point her thoughts broke off once more, and +there was a momentary blank. The next instant she started up in bed; her heart +beating violently, her head whirling as if she had lost her senses. With +electric suddenness her mind pieced together its scattered multitude of +thoughts, and put them before her plainly under one intelligible form. In the +all-mastering agitation of the moment, she clapped her hands together, and +cried out suddenly in the darkness: +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Vanstone again!!!” +</p> + +<p> +She got out of bed and kindled the light once more. Steady as her nerves were, +the shock of her own suspicion had shaken them. Her firm hand trembled as she +opened her dressing-case and took from it a little bottle of sal-volatile. In +spite of her smooth cheeks and her well-preserved hair, she looked every year +of her age as she mixed the spirit with water, greedily drank it, and, wrapping +her dressing-gown round her, sat down on the bedside to get possession again of +her calmer self. +</p> + +<p> +She was quite incapable of tracing the mental process which had led her to +discovery. She could not get sufficiently far from herself to see that her +half-formed conclusions on the subject of the Bygraves had ended in making that +family objects of suspicion to her; that the association of ideas had thereupon +carried her mind back to that other object of suspicion which was represented +by the conspiracy against her master; and that the two ideas of those two +separate subjects of distrust, coming suddenly in contact, had struck the +light. She was not able to reason back in this way from the effect to the +cause. She could only feel that the suspicion had become more than a suspicion +already: conviction itself could not have been more firmly rooted in her mind. +</p> + +<p> +Looking back at Magdalen by the new light now thrown on her, Mrs. Lecount would +fain have persuaded herself that she recognized some traces left of the false +Miss Garth’s face and figure in the graceful and beautiful girl who had +sat at her master’s table hardly an hour since—that she found +resemblances now, which she had never thought of before, between the angry +voice she had heard in Vauxhall Walk and the smooth, well-bred tones which +still hung on her ears after the evening’s experience downstairs. She +would fain have persuaded herself that she had reached these results with no +undue straining of the truth as she really knew it, but the effort was in vain. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount was not a woman to waste time and thought in trying to impose on +herself. She accepted the inevitable conclusion that the guesswork of a moment +had led her to discovery. And, more than that, she recognized the plain +truth—unwelcome as it was—that the conviction now fixed in her own +mind was thus far unsupported by a single fragment of producible evidence to +justify it to the minds of others. +</p> + +<p> +Under these circumstances, what was the safe course to take with her master? +</p> + +<p> +If she candidly told him, when they met the next morning, what had passed +through her mind that night, her knowledge of Noel Vanstone warned her that one +of two results would certainly happen. Either he would be angry and +disputatious; would ask for proofs; and, finding none forthcoming, would accuse +her of alarming him without a cause, to serve her own jealous end of keeping +Magdalen out of the house; or he would be seriously startled, would clamor for +the protection of the law, and would warn the Bygraves to stand on their +defense at the outset. If Magdalen only had been concerned in the plot this +latter consequence would have assumed no great importance in the +housekeeper’s mind. But seeing the deception as she now saw it, she was +far too clever a woman to fail in estimating the captain’s inexhaustible +fertility of resource at its true value. “If I can’t meet this +impudent villain with plain proofs to help me,” thought Mrs. Lecount, +“I may open my master’s eyes to-morrow morning, and Mr. Bygrave +will shut them up again before night. The rascal is playing with all his own +cards under the table, and he will win the game to a certainty, if he sees my +hand at starting.” +</p> + +<p> +This policy of waiting was so manifestly the wise policy—the wily Mr. +Bygrave was so sure to have provided himself, in case of emergency, with +evidence to prove the identity which he and his niece had assumed for their +purpose—that Mrs. Lecount at once decided to keep her own counsel the +next morning, and to pause before attacking the conspiracy until she could +produce unanswerable facts to help her. Her master’s acquaintance with +the Bygraves was only an acquaintance of one day’s standing. There was no +fear of its developing into a dangerous intimacy if she merely allowed it to +continue for a few days more, and if she permanently checked it, at the latest, +in a week’s time. +</p> + +<p> +In that period what measures could she take to remove the obstacles which now +stood in her way, and to provide herself with the weapons which she now wanted? +</p> + +<p> +Reflection showed her three different chances in her favor—three +different ways of arriving at the necessary discovery. +</p> + +<p> +The first chance was to cultivate friendly terms with Magdalen, and then, +taking her unawares, to entrap her into betraying herself in Noel +Vanstone’s presence. The second chance was to write to the elder Miss +Vanstone, and to ask (with some alarming reason for putting the question) for +information on the subject of her younger sister’s whereabouts, and of +any peculiarities in her personal appearance which might enable a stranger to +identify her. The third chance was to penetrate the mystery of Mrs. +Bygrave’s seclusion, and to ascertain at a personal interview whether the +invalid lady’s real complaint might not possibly be a defective capacity +for keeping her husband’s secrets. Resolving to try all three chances, in +the order in which they are here enumerated, and to set her snares for Magdalen +on the day that was now already at hand, Mrs. Lecount at last took off her +dressing-gown and allowed her weaker nature to plead with her for a little +sleep. +</p> + +<p> +The dawn was breaking over the cold gray sea as she lay down in her bed again. +The last idea in her mind before she fell asleep was characteristic of the +woman—it was an idea that threatened the captain. “He has trifled +with the sacred memory of my husband,” thought the Professor’s +widow. “On my life and honor, I will make him pay for it.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Early the next morning Magdalen began the day, according to her agreement with +the captain, by taking Mrs. Wragge out for a little exercise at an hour when +there was no fear of her attracting the public attention. She pleaded hard to +be left at home; having the Oriental Cashmere Robe still on her mind, and +feeling it necessary to read her directions for dressmaking, for the hundredth +time at least, before (to use her own expression) she could “screw up her +courage to put the scissors into the stuff.” But her companion would take +no denial, and she was forced to go out. The one guileless purpose of the life +which Magdalen now led was the resolution that poor Mrs. Wragge should not be +made a prisoner on her account; and to that resolution she mechanically clung, +as the last token left her by which she knew her better-self. +</p> + +<p> +They returned later than usual to breakfast. While Mrs. Wragge was upstairs, +straightening herself from head to foot to meet the morning inspection of her +husband’s orderly eye; and while Magdalen and the captain were waiting +for her in the parlor, the servant came in with a note from Sea-view Cottage. +The messenger was waiting for an answer, and the note was addressed to Captain +Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +The captain opened the note and read these lines: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“DEAR SIR,<br/> + Mr. Noel Vanstone desires me to write and tell you that he proposes +enjoying this fine day by taking a long drive to a place on the coast here +called Dunwich. He is anxious to know if you will share the expense of a +carriage, and give him the pleasure of your company and Miss Bygrave’s +company on this excursion. I am kindly permitted to be one of the party; and if +I may say so without impropriety, I would venture to add that I shall feel as +much pleasure as my master if you and your young lady will consent to join us. +We propose leaving Aldborough punctually at eleven o’clock. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Believe me, dear sir,<br/> +“your humble servant,<br/> +“VIRGINIE LECOUNT.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is the letter from?” asked Magdalen, noticing a change in +Captain Wragge’s face as he read it. “What do they want with us at +Sea-view Cottage?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me,” said the captain, gravely, “this requires +consideration. Let me have a minute or two to think.” +</p> + +<p> +He took a few turns up and down the room, then suddenly stepped aside to a +table in a corner on which his writing materials were placed. “I was not +born yesterday, ma’am!” said the captain, speaking jocosely to +himself. He winked his brown eye, took up his pen, and wrote the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you speak now?” inquired Magdalen, when the servant had left +the room. “What does that letter say, and how have you answered +it?” +</p> + +<p> +The captain placed the letter in her hand. “I have accepted the +invitation,” he replied, quietly. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen read the letter. “Hidden enmity yesterday,” she said, +“and open friendship to-day. What does it mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“It means,” said Captain Wragge, “that Mrs. Lecount is even +sharper than I thought her. She has found you out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Impossible,” cried Magdalen. “Quite impossible in the +time.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t say <i>how</i> she has found you out,” proceeded the +captain, with perfect composure. “She may know more of your voice than we +supposed she knew. Or she may have thought us, on reflection, rather a +suspicious family; and anything suspicious in which a woman was concerned may +have taken her mind back to that morning call of yours in Vauxhall Walk. +Whichever way it may be, the meaning of this sudden change is clear enough. She +has found you out; and she wants to put her discovery to the proof by slipping +in an awkward question or two, under cover of a little friendly talk. My +experience of humanity has been a varied one, and Mrs. Lecount is not the first +sharp practitioner in petticoats whom I have had to deal with. All the +world’s a stage, my dear girl, and one of the scenes on our little stage +is shut in from this moment.” +</p> + +<p> +With those words he took his copy of Joyce’s Scientific Dialogues out of +his pocket. “You’re done with already, my friend!” said the +captain, giving his useful information a farewell smack with his hand, and +locking it up in the cupboard. “Such is human popularity!” +continued the indomitable vagabond, putting the key cheerfully in his pocket. +“Yesterday Joyce was my all-in-all. To-day I don’t care that for +him!” He snapped his fingers and sat down to breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand you,” said Magdalen, looking at him +angrily. “Are you leaving me to my own resources for the future?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear girl!” cried Captain Wragge, “can’t you +accustom yourself to my dash of humor yet? I have done with my ready-made +science simply because I am quite sure that Mrs. Lecount has done believing in +me. Haven’t I accepted the invitation to Dunwich? Make your mind easy. +The help I have given you already counts for nothing compared with the help I +am going to give you now. My honor is concerned in bowling out Mrs. Lecount. +This last move of hers has made it a personal matter between us. <i>The woman +actually thinks she can take me in!!!</i>” cried the captain, striking +his knife-handle on the table in a transport of virtuous indignation. “By +heavens, I never was so insulted before in my life! Draw your chair in to the +table, my dear, and give me half a minute’s attention to what I have to +say next.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen obeyed him. Captain Wragge cautiously lowered his voice before he went +on. +</p> + +<p> +“I have told you all along,” he said, “the one thing needful +is never to let Mrs. Lecount catch you with your wits wool-gathering. I say the +same after what has happened this morning. Let her suspect you! I defy her to +find a fragment of foundation for her suspicions, unless we help her. We shall +see to-day if she has been foolish enough to betray herself to her master +before she has any facts to support her. I doubt it. If she has told him, we +will rain down proofs of our identity with the Bygraves on his feeble little +head till it absolutely aches with conviction. You have two things to do on +this excursion. First, to distrust every word Mrs. Lecount says to you. +Secondly, to exert all your fascinations, and make sure of Mr. Noel Vanstone, +dating from to-day. I will give you the opportunity when we leave the carriage +and take our walk at Dunwich. Wear your hat, wear your smile; do your figure +justice, lace tight; put on your neatest boots and brightest gloves; tie the +miserable little wretch to your apron-string—tie him fast; and leave the +whole management of the matter after that to me. Steady! here is Mrs. Wragge: +we must be doubly careful in looking after her now. Show me your cap, Mrs. +Wragge! show me your shoes! What do I see on your apron? A spot? I won’t +have spots! Take it off after breakfast, and put on another. Pull your chair to +the middle of the table—more to the left—more still. Make the +breakfast.” +</p> + +<p> +At a quarter before eleven Mrs. Wragge (with her own entire concurrence) was +dismissed to the back room, to bewilder herself over the science of dressmaking +for the rest of the day. Punctually as the clock struck the hour, Mrs. Lecount +and her master drove up to the gate of North Shingles, and found Magdalen and +Captain Wragge waiting for them in the garden. +</p> + +<p> +On the way to Dunwich nothing occurred to disturb the enjoyment of the drive. +Noel Vanstone was in excellent health and high good-humor. Lecount had +apologized for the little misunderstanding of the previous night; Lecount had +petitioned for the excursion as a treat to herself. He thought of these +concessions, and looked at Magdalen, and smirked and simpered without +intermission. Mrs. Lecount acted her part to perfection. She was motherly with +Magdalen and tenderly attentive to Noel Vanstone. She was deeply interested in +Captain Wragge’s conversation, and meekly disappointed to find it turn on +general subjects, to the exclusion of science. Not a word or look escaped her +which hinted in the remotest degree at her real purpose. She was dressed with +her customary elegance and propriety; and she was the only one of the party on +that sultry summer’s day who was perfectly cool in the hottest part of +the journey. +</p> + +<p> +As they left the carriage on their arrival at Dunwich, the captain seized a +moment when Mrs. Lecount’s eye was off him and fortified Magdalen by a +last warning word. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Ware the cat!” he whispered. “She will show her claws +on the way back.” +</p> + +<p> +They left the village and walked to the ruins of a convent near at +hand—the last relic of the once populous city of Dunwich which has +survived the destruction of the place, centuries since, by the all-devouring +sea. After looking at the ruins, they sought the shade of a little wood between +the village and the low sand-hills which overlook the German Ocean. Here +Captain Wragge maneuvered so as to let Magdalen and Noel Vanstone advance some +distance in front of Mrs. Lecount and himself, took the wrong path, and +immediately lost his way with the most consummate dexterity. After a few +minutes’ wandering (in the wrong direction), he reached an open space +near the sea; and politely opening his camp-stool for the housekeeper’s +accommodation, proposed waiting where they were until the missing members of +the party came that way and discovered them. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount accepted the proposal. She was perfectly well aware that her +escort had lost himself on purpose, but that discovery exercised no disturbing +influence on the smooth amiability of her manner. Her day of reckoning with the +captain had not come yet—she merely added the new item to her list, and +availed herself of the camp-stool. Captain Wragge stretched himself in a +romantic attitude at her feet, and the two determined enemies (grouped like two +lovers in a picture) fell into as easy and pleasant a conversation as if they +had been friends of twenty years’ standing. +</p> + +<p> +“I know you, ma’am!” thought the captain, while Mrs. Lecount +was talking to him. “You would like to catch me tripping in my ready-made +science, and you wouldn’t object to drown me in the Professor’s +Tank!” +</p> + +<p> +“You villain with the brown eye and the green!” thought Mrs. +Lecount, as the captain caught the ball of conversation in his turn; +“thick as your skin is, I’ll sting you through it yet!” +</p> + +<p> +In this frame of mind toward each other they talked fluently on general +subjects, on public affairs, on local scenery, on society in England and +society in Switzerland, on health, climate, books, marriage and +money—talked, without a moment’s pause, without a single +misunderstanding on either side for nearly an hour, before Magdalen and Noel +Vanstone strayed that way and made the party of four complete again. +</p> + +<p> +When they reached the inn at which the carriage was waiting for them, Captain +Wragge left Mrs. Lecount in undisturbed possession of her master, and signed to +Magdalen to drop back for a moment and speak to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” asked the captain, in a whisper, “is he fast to your +apron-string?” +</p> + +<p> +She shuddered from head to foot as she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“He has kissed my hand,” she said. “Does that tell you +enough? Don’t let him sit next me on the way home! I have borne all I can +bear—spare me for the rest of the day.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll put you on the front seat of the carriage,” replied the +captain, “side by side with me.” +</p> + +<p> +On the journey back Mrs. Lecount verified Captain Wragge’s prediction. +She showed her claws. +</p> + +<p> +The time could not have been better chosen; the circumstances could hardly have +favored her more. Magdalen’s spirits were depressed: she was weary in +body and mind; and she sat exactly opposite the housekeeper, who had been +compelled, by the new arrangement, to occupy the seat of honor next her master. +With every facility for observing the slightest changes that passed over +Magdalen’s face, Mrs. Lecount tried her first experiment by leading the +conversation to the subject of London, and to the relative advantages offered +to residents by the various quarters of the metropolis on both sides of the +river. The ever-ready Wragge penetrated her intention sooner than she had +anticipated, and interposed immediately. “You’re coming to Vauxhall +Walk, ma’am,” thought the captain; “I’ll get there +before you.” +</p> + +<p> +He entered at once into a purely fictitious description of the various quarters +of London in which he had himself resided; and, adroitly mentioning Vauxhall +Walk as one of them, saved Magdalen from the sudden question relating to that +very locality with which Mrs. Lecount had proposed startling her, to begin +with. From his residences he passed smoothly to himself, and poured his whole +family history (in the character of Mr. Bygrave) into the housekeeper’s +ears—not forgetting his brother’s grave in Honduras, with the +monument by the self-taught negro artist, and his brother’s hugely +corpulent widow, on the ground-floor of the boarding-house at Cheltenham. As a +means of giving Magdalen time to compose herself, this outburst of +autobiographical information attained its object, but it answered no other +purpose. Mrs. Lecount listened, without being imposed on by a single word the +captain said to her. He merely confirmed her conviction of the hopelessness of +taking Noel Vanstone into her confidence before she had facts to help her +against Captain Wragge’s otherwise unassailable position in the identity +which he had assumed. She quietly waited until he had done, and then returned +to the charge. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a coincidence that your uncle should have once resided in Vauxhall +Walk,” she said, addressing herself to Magdalen. “Mr. Noel has a +house in the same place, and we lived there before we came to Aldborough. May I +inquire, Miss Bygrave, whether you know anything of a lady named Miss +Garth?” +</p> + +<p> +This time she put the question before the captain could interfere. Magdalen +ought to have been prepared for it by what had already passed in her presence, +but her nerves had been shaken by the earlier events of the day; and she could +only answer the question in the negative, after an instant’s preliminary +pause to control herself. Her hesitation was of too momentary a nature to +attract the attention of any unsuspicious person. But it lasted long enough to +confirm Mrs. Lecount’s private convictions, and to encourage her to +advance a little further. +</p> + +<p> +“I only asked,” she continued, steadily fixing her eyes on +Magdalen, steadily disregarding the efforts which Captain Wragge made to join +in the conversation, “because Miss Garth is a stranger to me, and I am +curious to find out what I can about her. The day before we left town, Miss +Bygrave, a person who presented herself under the name I have mentioned paid us +a visit under very extraordinary circumstances.” +</p> + +<p> +With a smooth, ingratiating manner, with a refinement of contempt which was +little less than devilish in its ingenious assumption of the language of pity, +she now boldly described Magdalen’s appearance in disguise in +Magdalen’s own presence. She slightingly referred to the master and +mistress of Combe-Raven as persons who had always annoyed the elder and more +respectable branch of the family; she mourned over the children as following +their parents’ example, and attempting to take a mercenary advantage of +Mr. Noel Vanstone, under the protection of a respectable person’s +character and a respectable person’s name. Cleverly including her master +in the conversation, so as to prevent the captain from effecting a diversion in +that quarter; sparing no petty aggravation; striking at every tender place +which the tongue of a spiteful woman can wound, she would, beyond all doubt, +have carried her point, and tortured Magdalen into openly betraying herself, if +Captain Wragge had not checked her in full career by a loud exclamation of +alarm, and a sudden clutch at Magdalen’s wrist. +</p> + +<p> +“Ten thousand pardons, my dear madam!” cried the captain. “I +see in my niece’s face, I feel in my niece’s pulse, that one of her +violent neuralgic attacks has come on again. My dear girl, why hesitate among +friends to confess that you are in pain? What mistimed politeness! Her face +shows she is suffering—doesn’t it Mrs. Lecount? Darting pains, Mr. +Vanstone, darting pains on the left side of the head. Pull down your veil, my +dear, and lean on me. Our friends will excuse you; our excellent friends will +excuse you for the rest of the day.” +</p> + +<p> +Before Mrs. Lecount could throw an instant’s doubt on the genuineness of +the neuralgic attack, her master’s fidgety sympathy declared itself +exactly as the captain had anticipated, in the most active manifestations. He +stopped the carriage, and insisted on an immediate change in the arrangement of +the places—the comfortable back seat for Miss Bygrave and her uncle, the +front seat for Lecount and himself. Had Lecount got her smelling-bottle? +Excellent creature! let her give it directly to Miss Bygrave, and let the +coachman drive carefully. If the coachman shook Miss Bygrave he should not have +a half-penny for himself. Mesmerism was frequently useful in these cases. Mr. +Noel Vanstone’s father had been the most powerful mesmerist in Europe, +and Mr. Noel Vanstone was his father’s son. Might he mesmerize? Might he +order that infernal coachman to draw up in a shady place adapted for the +purpose? Would medical help be preferred? Could medical help be found any +nearer than Aldborough? That ass of a coachman didn’t know. Stop every +respectable man who passed in a gig, and ask him if he was a doctor! So Mr. +Noel Vanstone ran on, with brief intervals for breathing-time, in a +continually-ascending scale of sympathy and self-importance, throughout the +drive home. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount accepted her defeat without uttering a word. From the moment when +Captain Wragge interrupted her, her thin lips closed and opened no more for the +remainder of the journey. The warmest expressions of her master’s anxiety +for the suffering young lady provoked from her no outward manifestations of +anger. She took as little notice of him as possible. She paid no attention +whatever to the captain, whose exasperating consideration for his vanquished +enemy made him more polite to her than ever. The nearer and the nearer they got +to Aldborough the more and more fixedly Mrs. Lecount’s hard black eyes +looked at Magdalen reclining on the opposite seat, with her eyes closed and her +veil down. +</p> + +<p> +It was only when the carriage stopped at North Shingles, and when Captain +Wragge was handing Magdalen out, that the housekeeper at last condescended to +notice him. As he smiled and took off his hat at the carriage door, the strong +restraint she had laid on herself suddenly gave way, and she flashed one look +at him which scorched up the captain’s politeness on the spot. He turned +at once, with a hasty acknowledgment of Noel Vanstone’s last sympathetic +inquiries, and took Magdalen into the house. “I told you she would show +her claws,” he said. “It is not my fault that she scratched you +before I could stop her. She hasn’t hurt you, has she?” +</p> + +<p> +“She has hurt me, to some purpose,” said Magdalen—“she +has given me the courage to go on. Say what must be done to-morrow, and trust +me to do it.” She sighed heavily as she said those words, and went up to +her room. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge walked meditatively into the parlor, and sat down to consider. +He felt by no means so certain as he could have wished of the next proceeding +on the part of the enemy after the defeat of that day. The housekeeper’s +farewell look had plainly informed him that she was not at the end of her +resources yet, and the old militia-man felt the full importance of preparing +himself in good time to meet the next step which she took in advance. He lit a +cigar, and bent his wary mind on the dangers of the future. +</p> + +<p> +While Captain Wragge was considering in the parlor at North Shingles, Mrs. +Lecount was meditating in her bedroom at Sea View. Her exasperation at the +failure of her first attempt to expose the conspiracy had not blinded her to +the instant necessity of making a second effort before Noel Vanstone’s +growing infatuation got beyond her control. The snare set for Magdalen having +failed, the chance of entrapping Magdalen’s sister was the next chance to +try. Mrs. Lecount ordered a cup of tea, opened her writing-case, and began the +rough draft of a letter to be sent to Miss Vanstone, the elder, by the +morrow’s post. +</p> + +<p> +So the day’s skirmish ended. The heat of the battle was yet to come. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap31"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h3> + +<p> +All human penetration has its limits. Accurately as Captain Wragge had seen his +way hitherto, even his sharp insight was now at fault. He finished his cigar +with the mortifying conviction that he was totally unprepared for Mrs. +Lecount’s next proceeding. In this emergency, his experience warned him +that there was one safe course, and one only, which he could take. He resolved +to try the confusing effect on the housekeeper of a complete change of tactics +before she had time to press her advantage and attack him in the dark. With +this view he sent the servant upstairs to request that Miss Bygrave would come +down and speak to him. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope I don’t disturb you,” said the captain, when Magdalen +entered the room. “Allow me to apologize for the smell of tobacco, and to +say two words on the subject of our next proceedings. To put it with my +customary frankness, Mrs. Lecount puzzles me, and I propose to return the +compliment by puzzling her. The course of action which I have to suggest is a +very simple one. I have had the honor of giving you a severe neuralgic attack +already, and I beg your permission (when Mr. Noel Vanstone sends to inquire +to-morrow morning) to take the further liberty of laying you up altogether. +Question from Sea-view Cottage: ‘How is Miss Bygrave this morning?’ +Answer from North Shingles: ‘Much worse: Miss Bygrave is confined to her +room.’ Question repeated every day, say for a fortnight: ‘How is +Miss Bygrave?’ Answer repeated, if necessary, for the same time: +‘No better.’ Can you bear the imprisonment? I see no objection to +your getting a breath of fresh air the first thing in the morning, or the last +thing at night. But for the whole of the day, there is no disguising it, you +must put yourself in the same category with Mrs. Wragge—you must keep +your room.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is your object in wishing me to do this?” inquired Magdalen. +</p> + +<p> +“My object is twofold,” replied the captain. “I blush for my +own stupidity; but the fact is, I can’t see my way plainly to Mrs. +Lecount’s next move. All I feel sure of is, that she means to make +another attempt at opening her master’s eyes to the truth. Whatever means +she may employ to discover your identity, personal communication with you +<i>must</i> be necessary to the accomplishment of her object. Very good. If I +stop that communication, I put an obstacle in her way at starting—or, as +we say at cards, I force her hand. Do you see the point?” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen saw it plainly. The captain went on. +</p> + +<p> +“My second reason for shutting you up,” he said, “refers +entirely to Mrs. Lecount’s master. The growth of love, my dear girl, is, +in one respect, unlike all other growths—it flourishes under adverse +circumstances. Our first course of action is to make Mr. Noel Vanstone feel the +charm of your society. Our next is to drive him distracted by the loss of it. I +should have proposed a few more meetings, with a view to furthering this end, +but for our present critical position toward Mrs. Lecount. As it is, we must +trust to the effect you produced yesterday, and try the experiment of a sudden +separation rather sooner than I could have otherwise wished. I shall see Mr. +Noel Vanstone, though you don’t; and if there <i>is</i> a raw place +established anywhere about the region of that gentleman’s heart, trust me +to hit him on it! You are now in full possession of my views. Take your time to +consider, and give me your answer—Yes or no.” +</p> + +<p> +“Any change is for the better,” said Magdalen “which keeps me +out of the company of Mrs. Lecount and her master! Let it be as you +wish.” +</p> + +<p> +She had hitherto answered faintly and wearily; but she spoke those last words +with a heightened tone and a rising color—signs which warned Captain +Wragge not to press her further. +</p> + +<p> +“Very good,” said the captain. “As usual, we understand each +other. I see you are tired; and I won’t detain you any longer.” +</p> + +<p> +He rose to open the door, stopped half-way to it, and came back again. +“Leave me to arrange matters with the servant downstairs,” he +continued. “You can’t absolutely keep your bed, and we must +purchase the girl’s discretion when she answers the door, without taking +her into our confidence, of course. I will make her understand that she is to +say you are ill, just as she might say you are not at home, as a way of keeping +unwelcome acquaintances out of the house. Allow me to open the door for +you—I beg your pardon, you are going into Mrs. Wragge’s work-room +instead of going to your own.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know I am,” said Magdalen. “I wish to remove Mrs. Wragge +from the miserable room she is in now, and to take her upstairs with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“For the evening?” +</p> + +<p> +“For the whole fortnight.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge followed her into the dining-room, and wisely closed the door +before he spoke again. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you seriously mean to inflict my wife’s society on yourself for +a fortnight?” he asked, in great surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“Your wife is the only innocent creature in this guilty house,” she +burst out vehemently. “I must and will have her with me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray don’t agitate yourself,” said the captain. “Take +Mrs. Wragge, by all means. I don’t want her.” Having resigned the +partner of his existence in those terms, he discreetly returned to the parlor. +“The weakness of the sex!” thought the captain, tapping his +sagacious head. “Lay a strain on the female intellect, and the female +temper gives way directly.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The strain to which the captain alluded was not confined that evening to the +female intellect at North Shingles: it extended to the female intellect at Sea +View. For nearly two hours Mrs. Lecount sat at her desk writing, correcting, +and writing again, before she could produce a letter to Miss Vanstone, the +elder, which exactly accomplished the object she wanted to attain. At last the +rough draft was completed to her satisfaction; and she made a fair copy of it +forthwith, to be posted the next day. +</p> + +<p> +Her letter thus produced was a masterpiece of ingenuity. After the first +preliminary sentences, the housekeeper plainly informed Norah of the appearance +of the visitor in disguise at Vauxhall Walk; of the conversation which passed +at the interview; and of her own suspicion that the person claiming to be Miss +Garth was, in all probability, the younger Miss Vanstone herself. Having told +the truth thus far, Mrs. Lecount next proceeded to say that her master was in +possession of evidence which would justify him in putting the law in force; +that he knew the conspiracy with which he was threatened to be then in process +of direction against him at Aldborough; and that he only hesitated to protect +himself in deference to family considerations, and in the hope that the elder +Miss Vanstone might so influence her sister as to render it unnecessary to +proceed to extremities. +</p> + +<p> +Under these circumstances (the letter continued) it was plainly necessary that +the disguised visitor to Vauxhall Walk should be properly identified; for if +Mrs. Lecount’s guess proved to be wrong, and if the person turned out to +be a stranger, Mr. Noel Vanstone was positively resolved to prosecute in his +own defense. Events at Aldborough, on which it was not necessary to dwell, +would enable Mrs. Lecount in a few days to gain sight of the suspected person +in her own character. But as the housekeeper was entirely unacquainted with the +younger Miss Vanstone, it was obviously desirable that some better informed +person should, in this particular, take the matter in hand. If the elder Miss +Vanstone happened to be at liberty to come to Aldborough herself, would she +kindly write and say so? and Mrs. Lecount would write back again to appoint a +day. If, on the other hand, Miss Vanstone was prevented from taking the +journey, Mrs. Lecount suggested that her reply should contain the fullest +description of her sister’s personal appearance—should mention any +little peculiarities which might exist in the way of marks on her face or her +hands—and should state (in case she had written lately) what the address +was in her last letter, and failing that, what the post-mark was on the +envelope. With this information to help her, Mrs. Lecount would, in the +interest of the misguided young lady herself, accept the responsibility of +privately identifying her, and would write back immediately to acquaint the +elder Miss Vanstone with the result. +</p> + +<p> +The difficulty of sending this letter to the right address gave Mrs. Lecount +very little trouble. Remembering the name of the lawyer who had pleaded the +cause of the two sisters in Michael Vanstone’s time, she directed her +letter to “Miss Vanstone, care of——Pendril, Esquire, +London.” This she inclosed in a second envelope, addressed to Mr. Noel +Vanstone’s solicitor, with a line inside, requesting that gentleman to +send it at once to the office of Mr. Pendril. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” thought Mrs. Lecount, as she locked the letter up in her +desk, preparatory to posting it the next day with her own hand, “now I +have got her!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The next morning the servant from Sea View came, with her master’s +compliments, to make inquiries after Miss Bygrave’s health. Captain +Wragge’s bulletin was duly announced—Miss Bygrave was so ill as to +be confined to her room. +</p> + +<p> +On the reception of this intelligence, Noel Vanstone’s anxiety led him to +call at North Shingles himself when he went out for his afternoon walk. Miss +Bygrave was no better. He inquired if he could see Mr. Bygrave. The worthy +captain was prepared to meet this emergency. He thought a little irritating +suspense would do Noel Vanstone no harm, and he had carefully charged the +servant, in case of necessity, with her answer: “Mr. Bygrave begged to be +excused; he was not able to see any one.” +</p> + +<p> +On the second day inquiries were made as before, by message in the morning, and +by Noel Vanstone himself in the afternoon. The morning answer (relating to +Magdalen) was, “a shade better.” The afternoon answer (relating to +Captain Wragge) was, “Mr. Bygrave has just gone out.” That evening +Noel Vanstone’s temper was very uncertain, and Mrs. Lecount’s +patience and tact were sorely tried in the effort to avoid offending him. +</p> + +<p> +On the third morning the report of the suffering young lady was less +favorable—“Miss Bygrave was still very poorly, and not able to +leave her bed.” The servant returning to Sea View with this message, met +the postman, and took into the breakfast-room with her two letters addressed to +Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +The first letter was in a handwriting familiar to the housekeeper. It was from +the medical attendant on her invalid brother at Zurich; and it announced that +the patient’s malady had latterly altered in so marked a manner for the +better that there was every hope now of preserving his life. +</p> + +<p> +The address on the second letter was in a strange handwriting. Mrs. Lecount, +concluding that it was the answer from Miss Vanstone, waited to read it until +breakfast was over, and she could retire to her own room. +</p> + +<p> +She opened the letter, looked at once for the name at the end, and started a +little as she read it. The signature was not “Norah Vanstone,” but +“Harriet Garth.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Miss Garth announced that the elder Miss Vanstone had, a week since, accepted +an engagement as governess, subject to the condition of joining the family of +her employer at their temporary residence in the south of France, and of +returning with them when they came back to England, probably in a month or six +weeks’ time. During the interval of this necessary absence Miss Vanstone +had requested Miss Garth to open all her letters, her main object in making +that arrangement being to provide for the speedy answering of any communication +which might arrive for her from her sister. Miss Magdalen Vanstone had not +written since the middle of July—on which occasion the postmark on the +letter showed that it must have been posted in London, in the district of +Lambeth—and her elder sister had left England in a state of the most +distressing anxiety on her account. +</p> + +<p> +Having completed this explanation, Miss Garth then mentioned that family +circumstances prevented her from traveling personally to Aldborough to assist +Mrs. Lecount’s object, but that she was provided with a substitute; in +every way fitter for the purpose, in the person of Mr. Pendril. That gentleman +was well acquainted with Miss Magdalen Vanstone, and his professional +experience and discretion would render his assistance doubly valuable. He had +kindly consented to travel to Aldborough whenever it might be thought +necessary. But as his time was very valuable, Miss Garth specially requested +that he might not be sent for until Mrs. Lecount was quite sure of the day on +which his services might be required. +</p> + +<p> +While proposing this arrangement, Miss Garth added that she thought it right to +furnish her correspondent with a written description of the younger Miss +Vanstone as well. An emergency might happen which would allow Mrs. Lecount no +time for securing Mr. Pendril’s services; and the execution of Mr. Noel +Vanstone’s intentions toward the unhappy girl who was the object of his +forbearance might be fatally delayed by an unforeseen difficulty in +establishing her identity. The personal description, transmitted under these +circumstances, then followed. It omitted no personal peculiarity by which +Magdalen could be recognized, and it included the “two little moles close +together on the left side of the neck,” which had been formerly mentioned +in the printed handbills sent to York. +</p> + +<p> +In conclusion, Miss Garth expressed her fears that Mrs. Lecount’s +suspicions were only too likely to be proved true. While, however, there was +the faintest chance that the conspiracy might turn out to be directed by a +stranger, Miss Garth felt bound, in gratitude toward Mr. Noel Vanstone, to +assist the legal proceedings which would in that case be instituted. She +accordingly appended her own formal denial—which she would personally +repeat if necessary—of any identity between herself and the person in +disguise who had made use of her name. She was the Miss Garth who had filled +the situation of the late Mr. Andrew Vanstone’s governess, and she had +never in her life been in, or near, the neighborhood of Vauxhall Wall. +</p> + +<p> +With this disclaimer, and with the writer’s fervent assurances that she +would do all for Magdalen’s advantage which her sister might have done if +her sister had been in England, the letter concluded. It was signed in full, +and was dated with the business-like accuracy in such matters which had always +distinguished Miss Garth’s character. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +This letter placed a formidable weapon in the housekeeper’s hands. +</p> + +<p> +It provided a means of establishing Magdalen’s identity through the +intervention of a lawyer by profession. It contained a personal description +minute enough to be used to advantage, if necessary, before Mr. Pendril’s +appearance. It presented a signed exposure of the false Miss Garth under the +hand of the true Miss Garth; and it established the fact that the last letter +received by the elder Miss Vanstone from the younger had been posted (and +therefore probably written) in the neighborhood of Vauxhall Walk. If any later +letter had been received with the Aldborough postmark, the chain of evidence, +so far as the question of localities was concerned, might doubtless have been +more complete. But as it was, there was testimony enough (aided as that +testimony might be by the fragment of the brown alpaca dress still in Mrs. +Lecount’s possession) to raise the veil which hung over the conspiracy, +and to place Mr. Noel Vanstone face to face with the plain and startling truth. +</p> + +<p> +The one obstacle which now stood in the way of immediate action on the +housekeeper’s part was the obstacle of Miss Bygrave’s present +seclusion within the limits of her own room. The question of gaining personal +access to her was a question which must be decided before any communication +could be opened with Mr. Pendril. Mrs. Lecount put on her bonnet at once, and +called at North Shingles to try what discoveries she could make for herself +before post-time. +</p> + +<p> +On this occasion Mr. Bygrave was at home, and she was admitted without the +least difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +Careful consideration that morning had decided Captain Wragge on advancing +matters a little nearer to the crisis. The means by which he proposed achieving +this result made it necessary for him to see the housekeeper and her master +separately, and to set them at variance by producing two totally opposite +impressions relating to himself on their minds. Mrs. Lecount’s visit, +therefore, instead of causing him any embarrassment, was the most welcome +occurrence he could have wished for. He received her in the parlor with a +marked restraint of manner for which she was quite unprepared. His ingratiating +smile was gone, and an impenetrable solemnity of countenance appeared in its +stead. +</p> + +<p> +“I have ventured to intrude on you, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount, +“to express the regret with which both my master and I have heard of Miss +Bygrave’s illness. Is there no improvement?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, ma’am,” replied the captain, as briefly as possible. +“My niece is no better.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have had some experience, Mr. Bygrave, in nursing. If I could be of +any use—” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Mrs. Lecount. There is no necessity for our taking advantage +of your kindness.” +</p> + +<p> +This plain answer was followed by a moment’s silence. The housekeeper +felt some little perplexity. What had become of Mr. Bygrave’s elaborate +courtesy, and Mr. Bygrave’s many words? Did he want to offend her? If he +did, Mrs. Lecount then and there determined that he should not gain his object. +</p> + +<p> +“May I inquire the nature of the illness?” she persisted. “It +is not connected, I hope, with our excursion to Dunwich?” +</p> + +<p> +“I regret to say, ma’am,” replied the captain, “it +began with that neuralgic attack in the carriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“So! so!” thought Mrs. Lecount. “He doesn’t even +<i>try</i> to make me think the illness a real one; he throws off the mask at +starting.—Is it a nervous illness, sir?” she added, aloud. +</p> + +<p> +The captain answered by a solemn affirmative inclination of the head. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you have <i>two</i> nervous sufferers in the house, Mr. +Bygrave?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am—two. My wife and my niece.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is rather a strange coincidence of misfortunes.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is, ma’am. Very strange.” +</p> + +<p> +In spite of Mrs. Lecount’s resolution not to be offended, Captain +Wragge’s exasperating insensibility to every stroke she aimed at him +began to ruffle her. She was conscious of some little difficulty in securing +her self-possession before she could say anything more. +</p> + +<p> +“Is there no immediate hope,” she resumed, “of Miss Bygrave +being able to leave her room?” +</p> + +<p> +“None whatever, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are satisfied, I suppose, with the medical attendance?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no medical attendance,” said the captain, composedly. +“I watch the case myself.” +</p> + +<p> +The gathering venom in Mrs. Lecount swelled up at that reply, and overflowed at +her lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Your smattering of science, sir,” she said, with a malicious +smile, “includes, I presume, a smattering of medicine as well?” +</p> + +<p> +“It does, ma’am,” answered the captain, without the slightest +disturbance of face or manner. “I know as much of one as I do of the +other.” +</p> + +<p> +The tone in which he spoke those words left Mrs. Lecount but one dignified +alternative. She rose to terminate the interview. The temptation of the moment +proved too much for her, and she could not resist casting the shadow of a +threat over Captain Wragge at parting. +</p> + +<p> +“I defer thanking you, sir, for the manner in which you have received +me,” she said, “until I can pay my debt of obligation to some +purpose. In the meantime I am glad to infer, from the absence of a medical +attendant in the house, that Miss Bygrave’s illness is much less serious +than I had supposed it to be when I came here.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never contradict a lady, ma’am,” rejoined the incorrigible +captain. “If it is your pleasure, when we next meet to think my niece +quite well, I shall bow resignedly to the expression of your opinion.” +With those words, he followed the housekeeper into the passage, and politely +opened the door for her. “I mark the trick, ma’am!” he said +to himself, as he closed it again. “The trump-card in your hand is a +sight of my niece, and I’ll take care you don’t play it!” +</p> + +<p> +He returned to the parlor, and composedly awaited the next event which was +likely to happen—a visit from Mrs. Lecount’s master. In less than +an hour results justified Captain Wragge’s anticipations, and Noel +Vanstone walked in. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sir!” cried the captain, cordially seizing his +visitor’s reluctant hand, “I know what you have come for. Mrs. +Lecount has told you of her visit here, and has no doubt declared that my +niece’s illness is a mere subterfuge. You feel surprised—you feel +hurt—you suspect me of trifling with your kind sympathies—in short, +you require an explanation. That explanation you shall have. Take a seat. Mr. +Vanstone. I am about to throw myself on your sense and judgment as a man of the +world. I acknowledge that we are in a false position, sir; and I tell you +plainly at the outset—your housekeeper is the cause of it.” +</p> + +<p> +For once in his life, Noel Vanstone opened his eyes. “Lecount!” he +exclaimed, in the utmost bewilderment. +</p> + +<p> +“The same, sir,” replied Captain Wragge. “I am afraid I +offended Mrs. Lecount, when she came here this morning, by a want of cordiality +in my manner. I am a plain man, and I can’t assume what I don’t +feel. Far be it from me to breathe a word against your housekeeper’s +character. She is, no doubt, a most excellent and trustworthy woman, but she +has one serious failing common to persons at her time of life who occupy her +situation—she is jealous of her influence over her master, although you +may not have observed it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” interposed Noel Vanstone; “my +observation is remarkably quick. Nothing escapes me.” +</p> + +<p> +“In that case, sir,” resumed the captain, “you cannot fail to +have noticed that Mrs. Lecount has allowed her jealousy to affect her conduct +toward my niece?” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone thought of the domestic passage at arms between Mrs. Lecount and +himself when his guests of the evening had left Sea View, and failed to see his +way to any direct reply. He expressed the utmost surprise and distress—he +thought Lecount had done her best to be agreeable on the drive to +Dunwich—he hoped and trusted there was some unfortunate mistake. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean to say, sir,” pursued the captain, severely, +“that you have not noticed the circumstance yourself? As a man of honor +and a man of observation, you can’t tell me that! Your +housekeeper’s superficial civility has not hidden your +housekeeper’s real feeling. My niece has seen it, and so have you, and so +have I. My niece, Mr. Vanstone, is a sensitive, high-spirited girl; and she has +positively declined to cultivate Mrs. Lecount’s society for the future. +Don’t misunderstand me! To my niece as well as to myself, the attraction +of <i>your</i> society, Mr. Vanstone, remains the same. Miss Bygrave simply +declines to be an apple of discord (if you will permit the classical allusion) +cast into your household. I think she is right so far, and I frankly confess +that I have exaggerated a nervous indisposition, from which she is really +suffering, into a serious illness—purely and entirely to prevent these +two ladies for the present from meeting every day on the Parade, and from +carrying unpleasant impressions of each other into your domestic establishment +and mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“I allow nothing unpleasant in <i>my</i> establishment,” remarked +Noel Vanstone. “I’m master—you must have noticed that +already, Mr. Bygrave—I’m master.” +</p> + +<p> +“No doubt of it, my dear sir. But to live morning, noon, and night in the +perpetual exercise of your authority is more like the life of a governor of a +prison than the life of a master of a household. The wear and +tear—consider the wear and tear.” +</p> + +<p> +“It strikes you in that light, does it?” said Noel Vanstone, +soothed by Captain Wragge’s ready recognition of his authority. “I +don’t know that you’re not right. But I must take some steps +directly. I won’t be made ridiculous—I’ll send Lecount away +altogether, sooner than be made ridiculous.” His color rose, and he +folded his little arms fiercely. Captain Wragge’s artfully irritating +explanation had awakened that dormant suspicion of his housekeeper’s +influence over him which habitually lay hidden in his mind, and which Mrs. +Lecount was now not present to charm back to repose as usual. “What must +Miss Bygrave think of me!” he exclaimed, with a sudden outburst of +vexation. “I’ll send Lecount away. Damme, I’ll send Lecount +away on the spot!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, no!” said the captain, whose interest it was to avoid +driving Mrs. Lecount to any desperate extremities. “Why take strong +measures when mild measures will do? Mrs. Lecount is an old servant; Mrs. +Lecount is attached and useful. She has this little drawback of +jealousy—jealousy of her domestic position with her bachelor master. She +sees you paying courteous attention to a handsome young lady; she sees that +young lady properly sensible of your politeness; and, poor soul, she loses her +temper! What is the obvious remedy? Humor her—make a manly concession to +the weaker sex. If Mrs. Lecount is with you, the next time we meet on the +Parade, walk the other way. If Mrs. Lecount is not with you, give us the +pleasure of your company by all means. In short, my dear sir, try the +<i>suaviter in modo</i> (as we classical men say) before you commit yourself to +the <i>fortiter in re!”</i> +</p> + +<p> +There was one excellent reason why Noel Vanstone should take Captain +Wragge’s conciliatory advice. An open rupture with Mrs. +Lecount—even if he could have summoned the courage to face it—would +imply the recognition of her claims to a provision, in acknowledgment of the +services she had rendered to his father and to himself. His sordid nature +quailed within him at the bare prospect of expressing the emotion of gratitude +in a pecuniary form; and, after first consulting appearances by a show of +hesitation, he consented to adopt the captain’s suggestion, and to humor +Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“But I must be considered in this matter,” proceeded Noel Vanstone. +“My concession to Lecount’s weakness must not be misunderstood. +Miss Bygrave must not be allowed to suppose I am afraid of my +housekeeper.” +</p> + +<p> +The captain declared that no such idea ever had entered, or ever could enter, +Miss Bygrave’s mind. Noel Vanstone returned to the subject nevertheless, +again and again, with his customary pertinacity. Would it be indiscreet if he +asked leave to set himself right personally with Miss Bygrave? Was there any +hope that he might have the happiness of seeing her on that day? or, if not, on +the next day? or if not, on the day after? Captain Wragge answered cautiously: +he felt the importance of not rousing Noel Vanstone’s distrust by too +great an alacrity in complying with his wishes. +</p> + +<p> +“An interview to-day, my dear sir, is out of the question,” he +said. “She is not well enough; she wants repose. To-morrow I propose +taking her out before the heat of the day begins—not merely to avoid +embarrassment, after what has happened with Mrs. Lecount, but because the +morning air and the morning quiet are essential in these nervous cases. We are +early people here—we shall start at seven o’clock. If you are +early, too, and if you would like to join us, I need hardly say that we can +feel no objection to your company on our morning walk. The hour, I am aware, is +an unusual one—but later in the day my niece may be resting on the sofa, +and may not be able to see visitors.” +</p> + +<p> +Having made this proposal purely for the purpose of enabling Noel Vanstone to +escape to North Shingles at an hour in the morning when his housekeeper would +be probably in bed, Captain Wragge left him to take the hint, if he could, as +indirectly as it had been given. He proved sharp enough (the case being one in +which his own interests were concerned) to close with the proposal on the spot. +Politely declaring that he was always an early man when the morning presented +any special attraction to him, he accepted the appointment for seven +o’clock, and rose soon afterward to take his leave. +</p> + +<p> +“One word at parting,” said Captain Wragge. “This +conversation is entirely between ourselves. Mrs. Lecount must know nothing of +the impression she has produced on my niece. I have only mentioned it to you to +account for my apparently churlish conduct and to satisfy your own mind. In +confidence, Mr. Vanstone—strictly in confidence. Good-morning!” +</p> + +<p> +With these parting words, the captain bowed his visitor out. Unless some +unexpected disaster occurred, he now saw his way safely to the end of the +enterprise. He had gained two important steps in advance that morning. He had +sown the seeds of variance between the housekeeper and her master, and he had +given Noel Vanstone a common interest with Magdalen and himself, in keeping a +secret from Mrs. Lecount. “We have caught our man,” thought Captain +Wragge, cheerfully rubbing his hands—“we have caught our man at +last!” +</p> + +<p> +On leaving North Shingles Noel Vanstone walked straight home, fully restored to +his place in his own estimation, and sternly determined to carry matters with a +high hand if he found himself in collision with Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +The housekeeper received her master at the door with her mildest manner and her +gentlest smile. She addressed him with downcast eyes; she opposed to his +contemplated assertion of independence a barrier of impenetrable respect. +</p> + +<p> +“May I venture to ask, sir,” she began, “if your visit to +North Shingles has led you to form the same conclusion as mine on the subject +of Miss Bygrave’s illness?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not, Lecount. I consider your conclusion to have been both +hasty and prejudiced.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry to hear it, sir. I felt hurt by Mr. Bygrave’s rude +reception of me, but I was not aware that my judgment was prejudiced by it. +Perhaps he received <i>you</i>, sir, with a warmer welcome?” +</p> + +<p> +“He received me like a gentleman—that is all I think it necessary +to say, Lecount—he received me like a gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +This answer satisfied Mrs. Lecount on the one doubtful point that had perplexed +her. Whatever Mr. Bygrave’s sudden coolness toward herself might mean, +his polite reception of her master implied that the risk of detection had not +daunted him, and that the plot was still in full progress. The +housekeeper’s eyes brightened; she had expressly calculated on this +result. After a moment’s thinking, she addressed her master with another +question: “You will probably visit Mr. Bygrave again, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I shall visit him—if I please.” +</p> + +<p> +“And perhaps see Miss Bygrave, if she gets better?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not? I should be glad to know why not? Is it necessary to ask your +leave first, Lecount?” +</p> + +<p> +“By no means, sir. As you have often said (and as I have often agreed +with you), you are master. It may surprise you to hear it, Mr. Noel, but I have +a private reason for wishing that you should see Miss Bygrave again.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Noel started a little, and looked at his housekeeper with some curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a strange fancy of my own, sir, about that young lady,” +proceeded Mrs. Lecount. “If you will excuse my fancy, and indulge it, you +will do me a favor for which I shall be very grateful.” +</p> + +<p> +“A fancy?” repeated her master, in growing surprise. “What +fancy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only this, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +She took from one of the neat little pockets of her apron a morsel of +note-paper, carefully folded into the smallest possible compass, and +respectfully placed it in Noel Vanstone’s hands. +</p> + +<p> +“If you are willing to oblige an old and faithful servant, Mr. +Noel,” she said, in a very quiet and very impressive manner, “you +will kindly put that morsel of paper into your waistcoat pocket; you will open +and read it, for the first time, <i>when you are next in Miss Bygrave’s +company</i>, and you will say nothing of what has now passed between us to any +living creature, from this time to that. I promise to explain my strange +request, sir, when you have done what I ask, and when your next interview with +Miss Bygrave has come to an end.” +</p> + +<p> +She courtesied with her best grace, and quietly left the room. +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone looked from the folded paper to the door, and from the door back +to the folded paper, in unutterable astonishment. A mystery in his own house! +under his own nose! What did it mean? +</p> + +<p> +It meant that Mrs. Lecount had not wasted her time that morning. While the +captain was casting the net over his visitor at North Shingles, the housekeeper +was steadily mining the ground under his feet. The folded paper contained +nothing less than a carefully written extract from the personal description of +Magdalen in Miss Garth’s letter. With a daring ingenuity which even +Captain Wragge might have envied, Mrs. Lecount had found her instrument for +exposing the conspiracy in the unsuspecting person of the victim himself! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap32"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h3> + +<p> +Late that evening, when Magdalen and Mrs. Wragge came back from their walk in +the dark, the captain stopped Magdalen on her way upstairs to inform her of the +proceedings of the day. He added the expression of his opinion that the time +had come for bringing Noel Vanstone, with the least possible delay, to the +point of making a proposal. She merely answered that she understood him, and +that she would do what was required of her. Captain Wragge requested her in +that case to oblige him by joining a walking excursion in Mr. Noel +Vanstone’s company at seven o’clock the next morning. “I will +be ready,” she replied. “Is there anything more?” There was +nothing more. Magdalen bade him good-night and returned to her own room. +</p> + +<p> +She had shown the same disinclination to remain any longer than was necessary +in the captain’s company throughout the three days of her seclusion in +the house. +</p> + +<p> +During all that time, instead of appearing to weary of Mrs. Wragge’s +society, she had patiently, almost eagerly, associated herself with her +companion’s one absorbing pursuit. She who had often chafed and fretted +in past days under the monotony of her life in the freedom of Combe-Raven, now +accepted without a murmur the monotony of her life at Mrs. Wragge’s +work-table. She who had hated the sight of her needle and thread in old +times—who had never yet worn an article of dress of her own +making—now toiled as anxiously over the making of Mrs. Wragge’s +gown, and bore as patiently with Mrs. Wragge’s blunders, as if the sole +object of her existence had been the successful completion of that one dress. +Anything was welcome to her—the trivial difficulties of fitting a gown: +the small, ceaseless chatter of the poor half-witted creature who was so proud +of her assistance, and so happy in her company—anything was welcome that +shut her out from the coming future, from the destiny to which she stood +self-condemned. That sorely-wounded nature was soothed by such a trifle now as +the grasp of her companion’s rough and friendly hand—that desolate +heart was cheered, when night parted them, by Mrs. Wragge’s kiss. +</p> + +<p> +The captain’s isolated position in the house produced no depressing +effect on the captain’s easy and equal spirits. Instead of resenting +Magdalen’s systematic avoidance of his society, he looked to results, and +highly approved of it. The more she neglected him for his wife the more +directly useful she became in the character of Mrs. Wragge’s +self-appointed guardian. He had more than once seriously contemplated revoking +the concession which had been extorted from him, and removing his wife, at his +own sole responsibility, out of harm’s way; and he had only abandoned the +idea on discovering that Magdalen’s resolution to keep Mrs. Wragge in her +own company was really serious. While the two were together, his main anxiety +was set at rest. They kept their door locked by his own desire while he was out +of the house, and, whatever Mrs. Wragge might do, Magdalen was to be trusted +not to open it until he came back. That night Captain Wragge enjoyed his cigar +with a mind at ease, and sipped his brandy-and-water in happy ignorance of the +pitfall which Mrs. Lecount had prepared for him in the morning. +</p> + +<p> +Punctually at seven o’clock Noel Vanstone made his appearance. The moment +he entered the room Captain Wragge detected a change in his visitor’s +look and manner. “Something wrong!” thought the captain. “We +have not done with Mrs. Lecount yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“How is Miss Bygrave this morning?” asked Noel Vanstone. +“Well enough, I hope, for our early walk?” His half-closed eyes, +weak and watery with the morning light and the morning air, looked about the +room furtively, and he shifted his place in a restless manner from one chair to +another, as he made those polite inquiries. +</p> + +<p> +“My niece is better—she is dressing for the walk,” replied +the captain, steadily observing his restless little friend while he spoke. +“Mr. Vanstone!” he added, on a sudden, “I am a plain +Englishman—excuse my blunt way of speaking my mind. You don’t meet +me this morning as cordially as you met me yesterday. There is something +unsettled in your face. I distrust that housekeeper of yours, sir! Has she been +presuming on your forbearance? Has she been trying to poison your mind against +me or my niece?” +</p> + +<p> +If Noel Vanstone had obeyed Mrs. Lecount’s injunctions, and had kept her +little morsel of note-paper folded in his pocket until the time came to use it, +Captain Wragge’s designedly blunt appeal might not have found him +unprepared with an answer. But curiosity had got the better of him; he had +opened the note at night, and again in the morning; it had seriously perplexed +and startled him; and it had left his mind far too disturbed to allow him the +possession of his ordinary resources. He hesitated; and his answer, when he +succeeded in making it, began with a prevarication. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge stopped him before he had got beyond his first sentence. +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me, sir,” said the captain, in his loftiest manner. +“If you have secrets to keep, you have only to say so, and I have done. I +intrude on no man’s secrets. At the same time, Mr. Vanstone, you must +allow me to recall to your memory that I met you yesterday without any reserves +on my side. I admitted you to my frankest and fullest confidence, +sir—and, highly as I prize the advantages of your society, I can’t +consent to cultivate your friendship on any other than equal terms.” He +threw open his respectable frock-coat and surveyed his visitor with a manly and +virtuous severity. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean no offense!” cried Noel Vanstone, piteously. “Why do +you interrupt me, Mr. Bygrave? Why don’t you let me explain? I mean no +offense.” +</p> + +<p> +“No offense is taken, sir,” said the captain. “You have a +perfect right to the exercise of your own discretion. I am not offended—I +only claim for myself the same privilege which I accord to you.” He rose +with great dignity and rang the bell. “Tell Miss Bygrave,” he said +to the servant, “that our walk this morning is put off until another +opportunity, and that I won’t trouble her to come downstairs.” +</p> + +<p> +This strong proceeding had the desired effect. Noel Vanstone vehemently pleaded +for a moment’s private conversation before the message was delivered. +Captain Wragge’s severity partially relaxed. He sent the servant +downstairs again, and, resuming his chair, waited confidently for results. In +calculating the facilities for practicing on his visitor’s weakness, he +had one great superiority over Mrs. Lecount. His judgment was not warped by +latent female jealousies, and he avoided the error into which the housekeeper +had fallen, self-deluded—the error of underrating the impression on Noel +Vanstone that Magdalen had produced. One of the forces in this world which no +middle-aged woman is capable of estimating at its full value, when it acts +against her, is the force of beauty in a woman younger than herself. +</p> + +<p> +“You are so hasty, Mr. Bygrave—you won’t give me +time—you won’t wait and hear what I have to say!” cried Noel +Vanstone, piteously, when the servant had closed the parlor door. +</p> + +<p> +“My family failing, sir—the blood of the Bygraves. Accept my +excuses. We are alone, as you wished; pray proceed.” +</p> + +<p> +Placed between the alternatives of losing Magdalen’s society or betraying +Mrs. Lecount, unenlightened by any suspicion of the housekeeper’s +ultimate object, cowed by the immovable scrutiny of Captain Wragge’s +inquiring eye, Noel Vanstone was not long in making his choice. He confusedly +described his singular interview of the previous evening with Mrs. Lecount, +and, taking the folded paper from his pocket, placed it in the captain’s +hand. +</p> + +<p> +A suspicion of the truth dawned on Captain Wragge’s mind the moment he +saw the mysterious note. He withdrew to the window before he opened it. The +first lines that attracted his attention were these: “Oblige me, Mr. +Noel, by comparing the young lady who is now in your company with the personal +description which follows these lines, and which has been communicated to me by +a friend. You shall know the name of the person described—which I have +left a blank—as soon as the evidence of your own eyes has forced you to +believe what you would refuse to credit on the unsupported testimony of +Virginie Lecount.” +</p> + +<p> +That was enough for the captain. Before he had read a word of the description +itself, he knew what Mrs. Lecount had done, and felt, with a profound sense of +humiliation, that his female enemy had taken him by surprise. +</p> + +<p> +There was no time to think; the whole enterprise was threatened with +irrevocable overthrow. The one resource in Captain Wragge’s present +situation was to act instantly on the first impulse of his own audacity. Line +by line he read on, and still the ready inventiveness which had never deserted +him yet failed to answer the call made on it now. He came to the closing +sentence—to the last words which mentioned the two little moles on +Magdalen’s neck. At that crowning point of the description, an idea +crossed his mind; his party-colored eyes twinkled; his curly lips twisted up at +the corners; Wragge was himself again. He wheeled round suddenly from the +window, and looked Noel Vanstone straight in the face with a grimly-quiet +suggestiveness of something serious to come. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray, sir, do you happen to know anything of Mrs. Lecount’s +family?” he inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“A respectable family,” said Noel +Vanstone—“that’s all I know. Why do you ask?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not usually a betting man,” pursued Captain Wragge. +“But on this occasion I will lay you any wager you like there is madness +in your housekeeper’s family.” +</p> + +<p> +“Madness!” repeated Noel Vanstone, amazedly +</p> + +<p> +“Madness!” reiterated the captain, sternly tapping the note with +his forefinger. “I see the cunning of insanity, the suspicion of +insanity, the feline treachery of insanity in every line of this deplorable +document. There is a far more alarming reason, sir, than I had supposed for +Mrs. Lecount’s behavior to my niece. It is clear to me that Miss Bygrave +resembles some other lady who has seriously offended your housekeeper—who +has been formerly connected, perhaps, with an outbreak of insanity in your +housekeeper—and who is now evidently confused with my niece in your +housekeeper’s wandering mind. That is my conviction, Mr. Vanstone. I may +be right, or I may be wrong. All I say is this—neither you, nor any man, +can assign a sane motive for the production of that incomprehensible document, +and for the use which you are requested to make of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think Lecount’s mad,” said Noel Vanstone, with +a very blank look, and a very discomposed manner. “It couldn’t have +escaped me, with my habits of observation; it couldn’t possibly have +escaped me if Lecount had been mad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, my dear sir. In my opinion, she is the subject of an insane +delusion. In your opinion, she is in possession of her senses, and has some +mysterious motive which neither you nor I can fathom. Either way, there can be +no harm in putting Mrs. Lecount’s description to the test, not only as a +matter of curiosity, but for our own private satisfaction on both sides. It is +of course impossible to tell my niece that she is to be made the subject of +such a preposterous experiment as that note of yours suggests. But you can use +your own eyes, Mr. Vanstone; you can keep your own counsel; and—mad or +not—you can at least tell your housekeeper, on the testimony of your own +senses, that she is wrong. Let me look at the description again. The greater +part of it is not worth two straws for any purpose of identification; hundreds +of young ladies have tall figures, fair complexions, light brown hair, and +light gray eyes. You will say, on the other hand, hundreds of young ladies have +not got two little moles close together on the left side of the neck. Quite +true. The moles supply us with what we scientific men call a Crucial Test. When +my niece comes downstairs, sir, you have my full permission to take the liberty +of looking at her neck.” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone expressed his high approval of the Crucial Test by smirking and +simpering for the first time that morning. +</p> + +<p> +“Of looking at her neck,” repeated the captain, returning the note +to his visitor, and then making for the door. “I will go upstairs myself, +Mr. Vanstone,” he continued, “and inspect Miss Bygrave’s +walking-dress. If she has innocently placed any obstacles in your way, if her +hair is a little too low, or her frill is a little too high, I will exert my +authority, on the first harmless pretext I can think of, to have those +obstacles removed. All I ask is, that you will choose your opportunity +discreetly, and that you will not allow my niece to suppose that her neck is +the object of a gentleman’s inspection.” +</p> + +<p> +The moment he was out of the parlor Captain Wragge ascended the stairs at the +top of his speed and knocked at Magdalen’s door. She opened it to him in +her walking-dress, obedient to the signal agreed on between them which summoned +her downstairs. +</p> + +<p> +“What have you done with your paints and powders?” asked the +captain, without wasting a word in preliminary explanations. “They were +not in the box of costumes which I sold for you at Birmingham. Where are +they?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have got them here,” replied Magdalen. “What can you +possibly mean by wanting them now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bring them instantly into my dressing-room—the whole collection, +brushes, palette, and everything. Don’t waste time in asking questions; +I’ll tell you what has happened as we go on. Every moment is precious to +us. Follow me instantly!” +</p> + +<p> +His face plainly showed that there was a serious reason for his strange +proposal. Magdalen secured her collection of cosmetics and followed him into +the dressing-room. He locked the door, placed her on a chair close to the +light, and then told her what had happened. +</p> + +<p> +“We are on the brink of detection,” proceeded the captain, +carefully mixing his colors with liquid glue, and with a strong +“drier” added from a bottle in his own possession. “There is +only one chance for us (lift up your hair from the left side of your +neck)—I have told Mr. Noel Vanstone to take a private opportunity of +looking at you; and I am going to give the lie direct to that she-devil Lecount +by painting out your moles.” +</p> + +<p> +“They can’t be painted out,” said Magdalen. “No color +will stop on them.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>My</i> color will,” remarked Captain Wragge. “I have +tried a variety of professions in my time—the profession of painting +among the rest. Did you ever hear of such a thing as a Black Eye? I lived some +months once in the neighborhood of Drury Lane entirely on Black Eyes. My +flesh-color stood on bruises of all sorts, shades, and sizes, and it will +stand, I promise you, on your moles.” +</p> + +<p> +With this assurance, the captain dipped his brush into a little lump of opaque +color which he had mixed in a saucer, and which he had graduated as nearly as +the materials would permit to the color of Magdalen’s skin. After first +passing a cambric handkerchief, with some white powder on it, over the part of +her neck on which he designed to operate, he placed two layers of color on the +moles with the tip of the brush. The process was performed in a few moments, +and the moles, as if by magic, disappeared from view. Nothing but the closest +inspection could have discovered the artifice by which they had been concealed; +at the distance of two or three feet only, it was perfectly invisible. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait here five minutes,” said Captain Wragge, “to let the +paint dry—and then join us in the parlor. Mrs. Lecount herself would be +puzzled if she looked at you now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop!” said Magdalen. “There is one thing you have not told +me yet. How did Mrs. Lecount get the description which you read downstairs? +Whatever else she has seen of me, she has not seen the mark on my neck—it +is too far back, and too high up; my hair hides it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who knows of the mark?” asked Captain Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +She turned deadly pale under the anguish of a sudden recollection of Frank. +</p> + +<p> +“My sister knows it,” she said, faintly. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Lecount may have written to your sister,” suggested the +captain: +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think my sister would tell a stranger what no stranger has a +right to know? Never! never!” +</p> + +<p> +“Is there nobody else who could tell Mrs. Lecount? The mark was mentioned +in the handbills at York. Who put it there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not Norah! Perhaps Mr. Pendril. Perhaps Miss Garth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then Mrs. Lecount has written to Mr. Pendril or Miss Garth—more +likely to Miss Garth. The governess would be easier to deal with than the +lawyer.” +</p> + +<p> +“What can she have said to Miss Garth?” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge considered a little. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t say what Mrs. Lecount may have written,” he said, +“but I can tell you what I should have written in Mrs. Lecount’s +place. I should have frightened Miss Garth by false reports about you, to begin +with, and then I should have asked for personal particulars, to help a +benevolent stranger in restoring you to your friends.” The angry glitter +flashed up instantly in Magdalen’s eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“What <i>you</i> would have done is what Mrs. Lecount has done,” +she said, indignantly. “Neither lawyer nor governess shall dispute my +right to my own will and my own way. If Miss Garth thinks she can control my +actions by corresponding with Mrs. Lecount, I will show Miss Garth she is +mistaken! It is high time, Captain Wragge, to have done with these wretched +risks of discovery. We will take the short way to the end we have in view +sooner than Mrs. Lecount or Miss Garth think for. How long can you give me to +wring an offer of marriage out of that creature downstairs?” +</p> + +<p> +“I dare not give you long,” replied Captain Wragge. “Now your +friends know where you are, they may come down on us at a day’s notice. +Could you manage it in a week?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll manage it in half the time,” she said, with a hard, +defiant laugh. “Leave us together this morning as you left us at Dunwich, +and take Mrs. Wragge with you, as an excuse for parting company. Is the paint +dry yet? Go downstairs and tell him I am coming directly.” +</p> + +<p> +So, for the second time, Miss Garth’s well-meant efforts defeated their +own end. So the fatal force of circumstance turned the hand that would fain +have held Magdalen back into the hand that drove her on. +</p> + +<p> +The captain returned to his visitor in the parlor, after first stopping on his +way to issue his orders for the walking excursion to Mrs. Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +“I am shocked to have kept you waiting,” he said, sitting down +again confidentially by Noel Vanstone’s side. “My only excuse is, +that my niece had accidentally dressed her hair so as to defeat our object. I +have been persuading her to alter it, and young ladies are apt to be a little +obstinate on questions relating to their toilet. Give her a chair on that side +of you when she comes in, and take your look at her neck comfortably before we +start for our walk.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen entered the room as he said those words, and after the first greetings +were exchanged, took the chair presented to her with the most unsuspicious +readiness. Noel Vanstone applied the Crucial Test on the spot, with the highest +appreciation of the fair material which was the subject of experiment. Not the +vestige of a mole was visible on any part of the smooth white surface of Miss +Bygrave’s neck. It mutely answered the blinking inquiry of Noel +Vanstone’s half-closed eyes by the flattest practical contradiction of +Mrs. Lecount. That one central incident in the events of the morning was of all +the incidents that had hitherto occurred, the most important in its results. +That one discovery shook the housekeeper’s hold on her master as nothing +had shaken it yet. +</p> + +<p> +In a few minutes Mrs. Wragge made her appearance, and excited as much surprise +in Noel Vanstone’s mind as he was capable of feeling while absorbed in +the enjoyment of Magdalen’s society. The walking-party left the house at +once, directing their steps northward, so as not to pass the windows of +Sea-view Cottage. To Mrs. Wragge’s unutterable astonishment, her husband, +for the first time in the course of their married life, politely offered her +his arm, and led her on in advance of the young people, as if the privilege of +walking alone with her presented some special attraction to him! “Step +out!” whispered the captain, fiercely. “Leave your niece and Mr. +Vanstone alone! If I catch you looking back at them, I’ll put the +Oriental Cashmere Robe on the top of the kitchen fire! Turn your toes out, and +keep step—confound you, keep step!” Mrs. Wragge kept step to the +best of her limited ability. Her sturdy knees trembled under her. She firmly +believed the captain was intoxicated. +</p> + +<p> +The walk lasted for rather more than an hour. Before nine o’clock they +were all back again at North Shingles. The ladies went at once into the house. +Noel Vanstone remained with Captain Wragge in the garden. “Well,” +said the captain, “what do you think now of Mrs. Lecount?” +</p> + +<p> +“Damn Lecount!” replied Noel Vanstone, in great agitation. +“I’m half inclined to agree with you. I’m half inclined to +think my infernal housekeeper is mad.” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke fretfully and unwillingly, as if the merest allusion to Mrs. Lecount +was distasteful to him. His color came and went; his manner was absent and +undecided; he fidgeted restlessly about the garden walk. It would have been +plain to a far less acute observation than Captain Wragge’s, that +Magdalen had met his advances by an unexpected grace and readiness of +encouragement which had entirely overthrown his self-control. +</p> + +<p> +“I never enjoyed a walk so much in my life!” he exclaimed, with a +sudden outburst of enthusiasm. “I hope Miss Bygrave feels all the better, +for it. Do you go out at the same time to-morrow morning? May I join you +again?” +</p> + +<p> +“By all means, Mr. Vanstone,” said the Captain, cordially. +“Excuse me for returning to the subject—but what do you propose +saying to Mrs. Lecount?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. Lecount is a perfect nuisance! What would you do, +Mr. Bygrave, if you were in my place?” +</p> + +<p> +“Allow me to ask a question, my dear sir, before I tell you. What is your +breakfast-hour?” +</p> + +<p> +“Half-past nine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is Mrs. Lecount an early riser?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Lecount is lazy in the morning. I hate lazy women! If you were in my +place, what should you say to her?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should say nothing,” replied Captain Wragge. “I should +return at once by the back way; I should let Mrs. Lecount see me in the front +garden as if I was taking a turn before breakfast; and I should leave her to +suppose that I was only just out of my room. If she asks you whether you mean +to come here today, say No. Secure a quiet life until circumstances force you +to give her an answer. Then tell the plain truth—say that Mr. +Bygrave’s niece and Mrs. Lecount’s description are at variance with +each other in the most important particular, and beg that the subject may not +be mentioned again. There is my advice. What do you think of it?” +</p> + +<p> +If Noel Vanstone could have looked into his counselor’s mind, he might +have thought the captain’s advice excellently adapted to serve the +captain’s interests. As long as Mrs. Lecount could be kept in ignorance +of her master’s visits to North Shingles, so long she would wait until +the opportunity came for trying her experiment, and so long she might be +trusted not to endanger the conspiracy by any further proceedings. Necessarily +incapable of viewing Captain Wragge’s advice under this aspect, Noel +Vanstone simply looked at it as offering him a temporary means of escape from +an explanation with his housekeeper. He eagerly declared that the course of +action suggested to him should be followed to the letter, and returned to Sea +View without further delay. +</p> + +<p> +On this occasion Captain Wragge’s anticipations were in no respect +falsified by Mrs. Lecount’s conduct. She had no suspicion of her +master’s visit to North Shingles: she had made up her mind, if necessary, +to wait patiently for his interview with Miss Bygrave until the end of the +week; and she did not embarrass him by any unexpected questions when he +announced his intention of holding no personal communication with the Bygraves +on that day. All she said was, “Don’t you feel well enough, Mr. +Noel? or don’t you feel inclined?” He answered, shortly, “I +don’t feel well enough”; and there the conversation ended. +</p> + +<p> +The next day the proceedings of the previous morning were exactly repeated. +This time Noel Vanstone went home rapturously with a keepsake in his +breast-pocket; he had taken tender possession of one of Miss Bygrave’s +gloves. At intervals during the day, whenever he was alone, he took out the +glove and kissed it with a devotion which was almost passionate in its fervor. +The miserable little creature luxuriated in his moments of stolen happiness +with a speechless and stealthy delight which was a new sensation to him. The +few young girls whom he had met with, in his father’s narrow circle at +Zurich, had felt a mischievous pleasure in treating him like a quaint little +plaything; the strongest impression he could make on their hearts was an +impression in which their lap-dogs might have rivaled him; the deepest interest +he could create in them was the interest they might have felt in a new trinket +or a new dress. The only women who had hitherto invited his admiration, and +taken his compliments seriously had been women whose charms were on the wane, +and whose chances of marriage were fast failing them. For the first time in his +life he had now passed hours of happiness in the society of a beautiful girl, +who had left him to think of her afterward without a single humiliating +remembrance to lower him in his own esteem. +</p> + +<p> +Anxiously as he tried to hide it, the change produced in his look and manner by +the new feeling awakened in him was not a change which could be concealed from +Mrs. Lecount. On the second day she pointedly asked him whether he had not made +an arrangement to call on the Bygraves. He denied it as before. “Perhaps +you are going to-morrow, Mr. Noel?” persisted the housekeeper. He was at +the end of his resources; he was impatient to be rid of her inquiries; he +trusted to his friend at North Shingles to help him; and this time he answered +Yes. “If you see the young lady,” proceeded Mrs. Lecount, +“don’t forget that note of mine, sir, which you have in your +waistcoat-pocket.” No more was said on either side, but by that +night’s post the housekeeper wrote to Miss Garth. The letter merely +acknowledged, with thanks, the receipt of Miss Garth’s communication, and +informed her that in a few days Mrs. Lecount hoped to be in a position to write +again and summon Mr. Pendril to Aldborough. +</p> + +<p> +Late in the evening, when the parlor at North Shingles began to get dark, and +when the captain rang the bell for candles as usual, he was surprised by +hearing Magdalen’s voice in the passage telling the servant to take the +lights downstairs again. She knocked at the door immediately afterward, and +glided into the obscurity of the room like a ghost. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a question to ask you about your plans for to-morrow,” she +said. “My eyes are very weak this evening, and I hope you will not object +to dispense with the candles for a few minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +She spoke in low, stifled tones, and felt her way noiselessly to a chair far +removed from the captain in the darkest part of the room. Sitting near the +window, he could just discern the dim outline of her dress, he could just hear +the faint accents of her voice. For the last two days he had seen nothing of +her except during their morning walk. On that afternoon he had found his wife +crying in the little backroom down-stairs. She could only tell him that +Magdalen had frightened her—that Magdalen was going the way again which +she had gone when the letter came from China in the terrible past time at +Vauxhall Walk. +</p> + +<p> +“I was sorry to hear that you were ill to-day, from Mrs. Wragge,” +said the captain, unconsciously dropping his voice almost to a whisper as he +spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter,” she answered quietly, out of the +darkness. “I am strong enough to suffer, and live. Other girls in my +place would have been happier—they would have suffered, and died. It +doesn’t matter; it will be all the same a hundred years hence. Is he +coming again tomorrow morning at seven o’clock?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is coming, if you feel no objection to it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no objection to make; I have done with objecting. But I should +like to have the time altered. I don’t look my best in the early +morning—-I have bad nights, and I rise haggard and worn. Write him a note +this evening, and tell him to come at twelve o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“Twelve is rather late, under the circumstances, for you to be seen out +walking.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no intention of walking. Let him be shown into the +parlor—” +</p> + +<p> +Her voice died away in silence before she ended the sentence. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” said Captain Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +“And leave me alone in the parlor to receive him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand,” said the captain. “An admirable idea. +I’ll be out of the way in the dining-room while he is here, and you can +come and tell me about it when he has gone.” +</p> + +<p> +There was another moment of silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Is there no way but telling you?” she asked, suddenly. “I +can control myself while he is with me, but I can’t answer for what I may +say or do afterward. Is there no other way?” +</p> + +<p> +“Plenty of ways,” said the captain. “Here is the first that +occurs to me. Leave the blind down over the window of your room upstairs before +he comes. I will go out on the beach, and wait there within sight of the house. +When I see him come out again, I will look at the window. If he has said +nothing, leave the blind down. If he has made you an offer, draw the blind up. +The signal is simplicity itself; we can’t misunderstand each other. Look +your best to-morrow! Make sure of him, my dear girl—make sure of him, if +you possibly can.” +</p> + +<p> +He had spoken loud enough to feel certain that she had heard him, but no +answering word came from her. The dead silence was only disturbed by the +rustling of her dress, which told him she had risen from her chair. Her shadowy +presence crossed the room again; the door shut softly; she was gone. He rang +the bell hurriedly for the lights. The servant found him standing close at the +window, looking less self-possessed than usual. He told her he felt a little +poorly, and sent her to the cupboard for the brandy. +</p> + +<p> +At a few minutes before twelve the next day Captain Wragge withdrew to his post +of observation, concealing himself behind a fishing-boat drawn up on the beach. +Punctually as the hour struck, he saw Noel Vanstone approach North Shingles and +open the garden gate. When the house door had closed on the visitor, Captain +Wragge settled himself comfortably against the side of the boat and lit his +cigar. +</p> + +<p> +He smoked for half an hour—for ten minutes over the half-hour, by his +watch. He finished the cigar down to the last morsel of it that he could hold +in his lips. Just as he had thrown away the end, the door opened again and Noel +Vanstone came out. +</p> + +<p> +The captain looked up instantly at Magdalen’s window. In the absorbing +excitement of the moment, he counted the seconds. She might get from the parlor +to her own room in less than a minute. He counted to thirty, and nothing +happened. He counted to fifty, and nothing happened. He gave up counting, and +left the boat impatiently, to return to the house. +</p> + +<p> +As he took his first step forward he saw the signal. +</p> + +<p> +The blind was drawn up. +</p> + +<p> +Cautiously ascending the eminence of the beach, Captain Wragge looked toward +Sea-view Cottage before he showed himself on the Parade. Noel Vanstone had +reached home again; he was just entering his own door. +</p> + +<p> +“If all your money was offered me to stand in your shoes,” said the +captain, looking after him—“rich as you are, I wouldn’t take +it!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap33"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h3> + +<p> +On returning to the house, Captain Wragge received a significant message from +the servant. “Mr. Noel Vanstone would call again at two o’clock +that afternoon, when he hoped to have the pleasure of finding Mr. Bygrave at +home.” +</p> + +<p> +The captain’s first inquiry after hearing this message referred to +Magdalen. “Where was Miss Bygrave?” “In her own room.” +“Where was Mrs. Bygrave?” “In the back parlor.” Captain +Wragge turned his steps at once in the latter direction, and found his wife, +for the second time, in tears. She had been sent out of Magdalen’s room +for the whole day, and she was at her wits’ end to know what she had done +to deserve it. Shortening her lamentations without ceremony, her husband sent +her upstairs on the spot, with instructions to knock at the door, and to +inquire whether Magdalen could give five minutes’ attention to a question +of importance which must be settled before two o’clock. +</p> + +<p> +The answer returned was in the negative. Magdalen requested that the subject on +which she was asked to decide might be mentioned to her in writing. She engaged +to reply in the same way, on the understanding that Mrs. Wragge, and not the +servant, should be employed to deliver the note and to take back the answer. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge forthwith opened his paper-case and wrote these lines: +“Accept my warmest congratulations on the result of your interview with +Mr. N. V. He is coming again at two o’clock—no doubt to make his +proposals in due form. The question to decide is, whether I shall press him or +not on the subject of settlements. The considerations for your own mind are two +in number. First, whether the said pressure (without at all underrating your +influence over him) may not squeeze for a long time before it squeezes money +out of Mr. N. V. Secondly, whether we are altogether +justified—considering our present position toward a certain sharp +practitioner in petticoats—in running the risk of delay. Consider these +points, and let me have your decision as soon as convenient.” +</p> + +<p> +The answer returned to this note was written in crooked, blotted characters, +strangely unlike Magdalen’s usually firm and clear handwriting. It only +contained these words: “Give yourself no trouble about settlements. Leave +the use to which he is to put his money for the future in my hands.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you see her?” asked the captain, when his wife had delivered +the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“I tried,” said Mrs. Wragge, with a fresh burst of +tears—“but she only opened the door far enough to put out her hand. +I took and gave it a little squeeze—and, oh poor soul, it felt so cold in +mine!” +</p> + +<p> +When Mrs. Lecount’s master made his appearance at two o’clock, he +stood alarmingly in need of an anodyne application from Mrs. Lecount’s +green fan. The agitation of making his avowal to Magdalen; the terror of +finding himself discovered by the housekeeper; the tormenting suspicion of the +hard pecuniary conditions which Magdalen’s relative and guardian might +impose on him—all these emotions, stirring in conflict together, had +overpowered his feebly-working heart with a trial that strained it sorely. He +gasped for breath as he sat down in the parlor at North Shingles, and that +ominous bluish pallor which always overspread his face in moments of agitation +now made its warning appearance again. Captain Wragge seized the brandy bottle +in genuine alarm, and forced his visitor to drink a wine-glassful of the spirit +before a word was said between them on either side. +</p> + +<p> +Restored by the stimulant, and encouraged by the readiness with which the +captain anticipated everything that he had to say, Noel Vanstone contrived to +state the serious object of his visit in tolerably plain terms. All the +conventional preliminaries proper to the occasion were easily disposed of. The +suitor’s family was respectable; his position in life was undeniably +satisfactory; his attachment, though hasty, was evidently disinterested and +sincere. All that Captain Wragge had to do was to refer to these various +considerations with a happy choice of language in a voice that trembled with +manly emotion, and this he did to perfection. For the first half-hour of the +interview, no allusion whatever was made to the delicate and dangerous part of +the subject. The captain waited until he had composed his visitor, and when +that result was achieved came smoothly to the point in these terms: +</p> + +<p> +“There is one little difficulty, Mr. Vanstone, which I think we have both +overlooked. Your housekeeper’s recent conduct inclines me to fear that +she will view the approaching change in your life with anything but a friendly +eye. Probably you have not thought it necessary yet to inform her of the new +tie which you propose to form?” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone turned pale at the bare idea of explaining himself to Mrs. +Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t tell what I’m to do,” he said, glancing aside +nervously at the window, as if he expected to see the housekeeper peeping in. +“I hate all awkward positions, and this is the most unpleasant position I +ever was placed in. You don’t know what a terrible woman Lecount is. +I’m not afraid of her; pray don’t suppose I’m afraid of +her—” +</p> + +<p> +At those words his fears rose in his throat, and gave him the lie direct by +stopping his utterance. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray don’t trouble yourself to explain,” said Captain +Wragge, coming to the rescue. “This is the common story, Mr. Vanstone. +Here is a woman who has grown old in your service, and in your father’s +service before you; a woman who has contrived, in all sorts of small, underhand +ways, to presume systematically on her position for years and years past; a +woman, in short, whom your inconsiderate but perfectly natural kindness has +allowed to claim a right of property in you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Property!” cried Noel Vanstone, mistaking the captain, and letting +the truth escape him through sheer inability to conceal his fears any longer. +“I don’t know what amount of property she won’t claim. +She’ll make me pay for my father as well as for myself. Thousands, Mr. +Bygrave—thousands of pounds sterling out of my pocket!!!” He +clasped his hands in despair at the picture of pecuniary compulsion which his +fancy had conjured up—his own golden life-blood spouting from him in +great jets of prodigality, under the lancet of Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“Gently, Mr. Vanstone—gently! The woman knows nothing so far, and +the money is not gone yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; the money is not gone, as you say. I’m only nervous about +it; I can’t help being nervous. You were saying something just now; you +were going to give me advice. I value your advice; you don’t know how +highly I value your advice.” He said those words with a conciliatory +smile which was more than helpless; it was absolutely servile in its dependence +on his judicious friend. +</p> + +<p> +“I was only assuring you, my dear sir, that I understood your +position,” said the captain. “I see your difficulty as plainly as +you can see it yourself. Tell a woman like Mrs. Lecount that she must come off +her domestic throne, to make way for a young and beautiful successor, armed +with the authority of a wife, and an unpleasant scene must be the inevitable +result. An unpleasant scene, Mr. Vanstone, if your opinion of your +housekeeper’s sanity is well founded. Something far more serious, if my +opinion that her intellect is unsettled happens to turn out the right +one.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t say it isn’t my opinion, too,” rejoined Noel +Vanstone. “Especially after what has happened to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge immediately begged to know what the event alluded to might be. +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone thereupon explained—with an infinite number of parentheses +all referring to himself—that Mrs. Lecount had put the dreaded question +relating to the little note in her master’s pocket barely an hour since. +He had answered her inquiry as Mr. Bygrave had advised him. On hearing that the +accuracy of the personal description had been fairly put to the test, and had +failed in the one important particular of the moles on the neck, Mrs. Lecount +had considered a little, and had then asked him whether he had shown her note +to Mr. Bygrave before the experiment was tried. He had answered in the +negative, as the only safe form of reply that he could think of on the spur of +the moment, and the housekeeper had then addressed him in these strange and +startling words: “You are keeping the truth from me, Mr. Noel. You are +trusting strangers, and doubting your old servant and your old friend. Every +time you go to Mr. Bygrave’s house, every time you see Miss Bygrave, you +are drawing nearer and nearer to your destruction. They have got the bandage +over your eyes in spite of me; but I tell them, and tell you, before many days +are over I will take it off!” To this extraordinary +outbreak—accompanied as it was by an expression in Mrs. Lecount’s +face which he had never seen there before—Noel Vanstone had made no +reply. Mr. Bygrave’s conviction that there was a lurking taint of +insanity in the housekeeper’s blood had recurred to his memory, and he +had left the room at the first opportunity. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge listened with the closest attention to the narrative thus +presented to him. But one conclusion could be drawn from it—it was a +plain warning to him to hasten the end. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not surprised,” he said, gravely, “to hear that you are +inclining more favorably to my opinion. After what you have just told me, Mr. +Vanstone, no sensible man could do otherwise. This is becoming serious. I +hardly know what results may not be expected to follow the communication of +your approaching change in life to Mrs. Lecount. My niece may be involved in +those results. She is nervous; she is sensitive in the highest degree; she is +the innocent object of this woman’s unreasoning hatred and distrust. You +alarm me, sir! I am not easily thrown off my balance, but I acknowledge you +alarm me for the future.” He frowned, shook his head, and looked at his +visitor despondently. +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone began to feel uneasy. The change in Mr. Bygrave’s manner +seemed ominous of a reconsideration of his proposals from a new and unfavorable +point of view. He took counsel of his inborn cowardice and his inborn cunning, +and proposed a solution of the difficulty discovered by himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Why should we tell Lecount at all?” he asked. “What right +has Lecount to know? Can’t we be married without letting her into the +secret? And can’t somebody tell her afterward when we are both out of her +reach?” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge received this proposal with an expression of surprise which did +infinite credit to his power of control over his own countenance. His foremost +object throughout the interview had been to conduct it to this point, or, in +other words, to make the first idea of keeping the marriage a secret from Mrs. +Lecount emanate from Noel Vanstone instead of from himself. No one knew better +than the captain that the only responsibilities which a weak man ever accepts +are responsibilities which can be perpetually pointed out to him as resting +exclusively on his own shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“I am accustomed to set my face against clandestine proceedings of all +kinds,” said Captain Wragge. “But there are exceptions to the +strictest rules; and I am bound to admit, Mr. Vanstone, that your position in +this matter is an exceptional position, if ever there was one yet. The course +you have just proposed—however unbecoming I may think it, however +distasteful it may be to myself—would not only spare you a very serious +embarrassment (to say the least of it), but would also protect you from the +personal assertion of those pecuniary claims on the part of your housekeeper to +which you have already adverted. These are both desirable results to +achieve—to say nothing of the removal, on my side, of all apprehension of +annoyance to my niece. On the other hand, however, a marriage solemnized with +such privacy as you propose must be a hasty marriage; for, as we are situated, +the longer the delay the greater will be the risk that our secret may escape +our keeping. I am not against hasty marriages where a mutual flame is fanned by +an adequate income. My own was a love-match contracted in a hurry. There are +plenty of instances in the experience of every one, of short courtships and +speedy marriages, which have turned up trumps—I beg your +pardon—which have turned out well after all. But if you and my niece, Mr. +Vanstone, are to add one to the number of these eases, the usual preliminaries +of marriage among the higher classes must be hastened by some means. You +doubtless understand me as now referring to the subject of settlements.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take another teaspoonful of brandy,” said Noel +Vanstone, holding out his glass with a trembling hand as the word +“settlements” passed Captain Wragge’s lips. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take a teaspoonful with you,” said the captain, nimbly +dismounting from the pedestal of his respectability, and sipping his brandy +with the highest relish. Noel Vanstone, after nervously following his +host’s example, composed himself to meet the coming ordeal, with +reclining head and grasping hands, in the position familiarly associated to all +civilized humanity with a seat in a dentist’s chair. +</p> + +<p> +The captain put down his empty glass and got up again on his pedestal. +</p> + +<p> +“We were talking of settlements,” he resumed. “I have already +mentioned, Mr. Vanstone, at an early period of our conversation, that my niece +presents the man of her choice with no other dowry than the most inestimable of +all gifts—the gift of herself. This circumstance, however (as you are no +doubt aware), does not disentitle me to make the customary stipulations with +her future husband. According to the usual course in this matter, my lawyer +would see yours—consultations would take place—delays would +occur—strangers would be in possession of your intentions—and Mrs. +Lecount would, sooner or later, arrive at that knowledge of the truth which you +are anxious to keep from her. Do you agree with me so far?” +</p> + +<p> +Unutterable apprehension closed Noel Vanstone’s lips. He could only reply +by an inclination of the head. +</p> + +<p> +“Very good,” said the captain. “Now, sir, you may possibly +have observed that I am a man of a very original turn of mind. If I have not +hitherto struck you in that light, it may then be necessary to mention that +there are some subjects on which I persist in thinking for myself. The subject +of marriage settlements is one of them. What, let me ask you, does a parent or +guardian in my present condition usually do? After having trusted the man whom +he has chosen for his son-in-law with the sacred deposit of a woman’s +happiness, he turns round on that man, and declines to trust him with the +infinitely inferior responsibility of providing for her pecuniary future. He +fetters his son-in-law with the most binding document the law can produce, and +employs with the husband of his own child the same precautions which he would +use if he were dealing with a stranger and a rogue. I call such conduct as this +inconsistent and unbecoming in the last degree. You will not find it my course +of conduct, Mr. Vanstone—you will not find me preaching what I +don’t practice. If I trust you with my niece, I trust you with every +inferior responsibility toward her and toward me. Give me your hand, sir; tell +me, on your word of honor, that you will provide for your wife as becomes her +position and your means, and the question of settlements is decided between us +from this moment at once and forever!” Having carried out +Magdalen’s instructions in this lofty tone, he threw open his respectable +frockcoat, and sat with head erect and hand extended, the model of parental +feeling and the picture of human integrity. +</p> + +<p> +For one moment Noel Vanstone remained literally petrified by astonishment. The +next, he started from his chair and wrung the hand of his magnanimous friend in +a perfect transport of admiration. Never yet, throughout his long and varied +career, had Captain Wragge felt such difficulty in keeping his countenance as +he felt now. Contempt for the outburst of miserly gratitude of which he was the +object; triumph in the sense of successful conspiracy against a man who had +rated the offer of his protection at five pounds; regret at the lost +opportunity of effecting a fine stroke of moral agriculture, which his dread of +involving himself in coming consequences had forced him to let slip—all +these varied emotions agitated the captain’s mind; all strove together to +find their way to the surface through the outlets of his face or his tongue. He +allowed Noel Vanstone to keep possession of his hand, and to heap one series of +shrill protestations and promises on another, until he had regained his usual +mastery over himself. That result achieved, he put the little man back in his +chair, and returned forthwith to the subject of Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose we now revert to the difficulty which we have not conquered +yet,” said the captain. “Let us say that I do violence to my own +habits and feelings; that I allow the considerations I have already mentioned +to weigh with me; and that I sanction your wish to be united to my niece +without the knowledge of Mrs. Lecount. Allow me to inquire in that case what +means you can suggest for the accomplishment of your end?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t suggest anything,” replied Noel Vanstone, +helplessly. “Would you object to suggest for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are making a bolder request than you think, Mr. Vanstone. I never do +things by halves. When I am acting with my customary candor, I am frank (as you +know already) to the utmost verge of imprudence. When exceptional circumstances +compel me to take an opposite course, there isn’t a slyer fox alive than +I am. If, at your express request, I take off my honest English coat here and +put on a Jesuit’s gown—if, purely out of sympathy for your awkward +position, I consent to keep your secret for you from Mrs. Lecount—I must +have no unseasonable scruples to contend with on your part. If it is neck or +nothing on my side, sir, it must be neck or nothing on yours also.” +</p> + +<p> +“Neck or nothing, by all means,” said Noel Vanstone, +briskly—“on the understanding that you go first. I have no scruples +about keeping Lecount in the dark. But she is devilish cunning, Mr. Bygrave. +How is it to be done?” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall hear directly,” replied the captain. “Before I +develop my views, I should like to have your opinion on an abstract question of +morality. What do you think, my dear sir, of pious frauds in general?” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone looked a little embarrassed by the question. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I put it more plainly?” continued Captain Wragge. +“What do you say to the universally-accepted maxim that ‘all +stratagems are fair in love and war’?—Yes or No?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” answered Noel Vanstone, with the utmost readiness. +</p> + +<p> +“One more question and I have done,” said the captain. “Do +you see any particular objection to practicing a pious fraud on Mrs. +Lecount?” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone’s resolution began to falter a little. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Lecount likely to find it out?” he asked cautiously. +</p> + +<p> +“She can’t possibly discover it until you are married and out of +her reach.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are sure of that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Play any trick you like on Lecount,” said Noel Vanstone, with an +air of unutterable relief. “I have had my suspicions lately that she is +trying to domineer over me; I am beginning to feel that I have borne with +Lecount long enough. I wish I was well rid of her.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall have your wish,” said Captain Wragge. “You shall +be rid of her in a week or ten days.” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone rose eagerly and approached the captain’s chair. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t say so!” he exclaimed. “How do you mean to +send her away?” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean to send her on a journey,” replied Captain Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” +</p> + +<p> +“From your house at Aldborough to her brother’s bedside at +Zurich.” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone started back at the answer, and returned suddenly to his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“How can you do that?” he inquired, in the greatest perplexity. +“Her brother (hang him!) is much better. She had another letter from +Zurich to say so, this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you see the letter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. She always worries about her brother—she <i>would</i> show it +to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who was it from? and what did it say?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was from the doctor—he always writes to her. I don’t care +two straws about her brother, and I don’t remember much of the letter, +except that it was a short one. The fellow was much better; and if the doctor +didn’t write again, she might take it for granted that he was getting +well. That was the substance of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you notice where she put the letter when you gave it her back +again?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. She put it in the drawer where she keeps her account-books.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can you get at that drawer?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I can. I have got a duplicate key—I always insist on a +duplicate key of the place where she keeps her account books. I never allow the +account-books to be locked up from my inspection: it’s a rule of the +house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be so good as to get that letter to-day, Mr. Vanstone, without your +housekeeper’s knowledge, and add to the favor by letting me have it here +privately for an hour or two.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you want it for?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have some more questions to ask before I tell you. Have you any +intimate friend at Zurich whom you could trust to help you in playing a trick +on Mrs. Lecount?” +</p> + +<p> +“What sort of help do you mean?” asked Noel Vanstone. +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose,” said the captain, “you were to send a letter +addressed to Mrs. Lecount at Aldborough, inclosed in another letter addressed +to one of your friends abroad? And suppose you were to instruct that friend to +help a harmless practical joke by posting Mrs. Lecount’s letter at +Zurich? Do you know any one who could be trusted to do that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know two people who could be trusted!” cried Noel Vanstone. +“Both ladies—both spinsters—both bitter enemies of +Lecount’s. But what is your drift, Mr. Bygrave? Though I am not usually +wanting in penetration, I don’t altogether see your drift.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall see it directly, Mr. Vanstone.” +</p> + +<p> +With those words he rose, withdrew to his desk in the corner of the room, and +wrote a few lines on a sheet of note-paper. After first reading them carefully +to himself, he beckoned to Noel Vanstone to come and read them too. +</p> + +<p> +“A few minutes since,” said the captain, pointing complacently to +his own composition with the feather end of his pen, “I had the honor of +suggesting a pious fraud on Mrs. Lecount. There it is!” +</p> + +<p> +He resigned his chair at the writing-table to his visitor. Noel Vanstone sat +down, and read these lines: +</p> + +<p> +“MY DEAR MADAM—Since I last wrote, I deeply regret to inform you +that your brother has suffered a relapse. The symptoms are so serious, that it +is my painful duty to summon you instantly to his bedside. I am making every +effort to resist the renewed progress of the malady, and I have not yet lost +all hope of success. But I cannot reconcile it to my conscience to leave you in +ignorance of a serious change in my patient for the worse, which <i>may</i> be +attended by fatal results. With much sympathy, I remain, etc. etc.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge waited with some anxiety for the effect which this letter might +produce. Mean, selfish, and cowardly as he was, even Noel Vanstone might feel +some compunction at practicing such a deception as was here suggested on a +woman who stood toward him in the position of Mrs. Lecount. She had served him +faithfully, however interested her motives might be—she had lived since +he was a lad in the full possession of his father’s confidence—she +was living now under the protection of his own roof. Could he fail to remember +this; and, remembering it, could he lend his aid without hesitation to the +scheme which was now proposed to him? Captain Wragge unconsciously retained +belief enough in human nature to doubt it. To his surprise, and, it must be +added, to his relief, also, his apprehensions proved to be groundless. The only +emotions aroused in Noel Vanstone’s mind by a perusal of the letter were +a hearty admiration of his friend’s idea, and a vainglorious anxiety to +claim the credit to himself of being the person who carried it out. Examples +may be found every day of a fool who is no coward; examples may be found +occasionally of a fool who is not cunning; but it may reasonably be doubted +whether there is a producible instance anywhere of a fool who is not cruel. +</p> + +<p> +“Perfect!” cried Noel Vanstone, clapping his hands. “Mr. +Bygrave, you are as good as Figaro in the French comedy. Talking of French, +there is one serious mistake in this clever letter of yours—it is written +in the wrong language. When the doctor writes to Lecount, he writes in French. +Perhaps you meant me to translate it? You can’t manage without my help, +can you? I write French as fluently as I write English. Just look at me! +I’ll translate it, while I sit here, in two strokes of the pen.” +</p> + +<p> +He completed the translation almost as rapidly as Captain Wragge had produced +the original. “Wait a minute!” he cried, in high critical triumph +at discovering another defect in the composition of his ingenious friend. +“The doctor always dates his letters. Here is no date to yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“I leave the date to you,” said the captain, with a sardonic smile. +“You have discovered the fault, my dear sir—pray correct it!” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone mentally looked into the great gulf which separates the faculty +that can discover a defect, from the faculty that can apply a remedy, and, +following the example of many a wiser man, declined to cross over it. +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t think of taking the liberty,” he said, politely. +“Perhaps you had a motive for leaving the date out?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I had,” replied Captain Wragge, with his easiest +good-humor. “The date must depend on the time a letter takes to get to +Zurich. <i>I</i> have had no experience on that point—<i>you</i> must +have had plenty of experience in your father’s time. Give me the benefit +of your information, and we will add the date before you leave the +writing-table.” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone’s experience was, as Captain Wragge had anticipated, +perfectly competent to settle the question of time. The railway resources of +the Continent (in the year eighteen hundred and forty-seven) were but scanty; +and a letter sent at that period from England to Zurich, and from Zurich back +again to England, occupied ten days in making the double journey by post. +</p> + +<p> +“Date the letter in French five days on from to-morrow,” said the +captain, when he had got his information. “Very good. The next thing is +to let me have the doctor’s note as soon as you can. I may be obliged to +practice some hours before I can copy your translation in an exact imitation of +the doctor’s handwriting. Have you got any foreign note-paper? Let me +have a few sheets, and send, at the same time, an envelope addressed to one of +those lady-friends of yours at Zurich, accompanied by the necessary request to +post the inclosure. This is all I need trouble you to do, Mr. Vanstone. +Don’t let me seem inhospitable; but the sooner you can supply me with my +materials, the better I shall be pleased. We entirely understand each other, I +suppose? Having accepted your proposal for my niece’s hand, I sanction a +private marriage in consideration of the circumstances on your side. A little +harmless stratagem is necessary to forward your views. I invent the stratagem +at your request, and you make use of it without the least hesitation. The +result is, that in ten days from to-morrow Mrs. Lecount will be on her way to +Switzerland; in fifteen days from to-morrow Mrs. Lecount will reach Zurich, and +discover the trick we have played her; in twenty days from to-morrow Mrs. +Lecount will be back at Aldborough, and will find her master’s +wedding-cards on the table, and her master himself away on his honey-moon trip. +I put it arithmetically, for the sake of putting it plain. God bless you. +Good-morning!” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I may have the happiness of seeing Miss Bygrave +to-morrow?” said Noel Vanstone, turning round at the door. +</p> + +<p> +“We must be careful,” replied Captain Wragge. “I don’t +forbid to-morrow, but I make no promise beyond that. Permit me to remind you +that we have got Mrs. Lecount to manage for the next ten days.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish Lecount was at the bottom of the German Ocean!” exclaimed +Noel Vanstone, fervently. “It’s all very well for you to manage +her—you don’t live in the house. What am I to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you to-morrow,” said the captain. “Go out +for your walk alone, and drop in here, as you dropped in to-day, at two +o’clock. In the meantime, don’t forget those things I want you to +send me. Seal them up together in a large envelope. When you have done that, +ask Mrs. Lecount to walk out with you as usual; and while she is upstairs +putting her bonnet on, send the servant across to me. You understand? +Good-morning.” +</p> + +<p> +An hour afterward, the sealed envelope, with its inclosures, reached Captain +Wragge in perfect safety. The double task of exactly imitating a strange +handwriting, and accurately copying words written in a language with which he +was but slightly acquainted, presented more difficulties to be overcome than +the captain had anticipated. It was eleven o’clock before the employment +which he had undertaken was successfully completed, and the letter to Zurich +ready for the post. +</p> + +<p> +Before going to bed, he walked out on the deserted Parade to breathe the cool +night air. All the lights were extinguished in Sea-view Cottage, when he looked +that way, except the light in the housekeeper’s window. Captain Wragge +shook his head suspiciously. He had gained experience enough by this time to +distrust the wakefulness of Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap34"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h3> + +<p> +If Captain Wragge could have looked into Mrs. Lecount’s room while he +stood on the Parade watching the light in her window, he would have seen the +housekeeper sitting absorbed in meditation over a worthless little morsel of +brown stuff which lay on her toilet-table. +</p> + +<p> +However exasperating to herself the conclusion might be, Mrs. Lecount could not +fail to see that she had been thus far met and baffled successfully at every +point. What was she to do next? If she sent for Mr. Pendril when he came to +Aldborough (with only a few hours spared from his business at her disposal), +what definite course would there be for him to follow? If she showed Noel +Vanstone the original letter from which her note had been copied, he would +apply instantly to the writer for an explanation: would expose the fabricated +story by which Mrs. Lecount had succeeded in imposing on Miss Garth; and would, +in any event, still declare, on the evidence of his own eyes, that the test by +the marks on the neck had utterly failed. Miss Vanstone, the elder, whose +unexpected presence at Aldborough might have done wonders—whose voice in +the hall at North Shingles, even if she had been admitted no further, might +have reached her sister’s ears and led to instant results—Miss +Vanstone, the elder, was out of the country, and was not likely to return for a +month at least. Look as anxiously as Mrs. Lecount might along the course which +she had hitherto followed, she failed to see her way through the accumulated +obstacles which now barred her advance. +</p> + +<p> +Other women in this position might have waited until circumstances altered, and +helped them. Mrs. Lecount boldly retraced her steps, and determined to find her +way to her end in a new direction. Resigning for the present all further +attempt to prove that the false Miss Bygrave was the true Magdalen Vanstone, +she resolved to narrow the range of her next efforts; to leave the actual +question of Magdalen’s identity untouched; and to rest satisfied with +convincing her master of this simple fact—that the young lady who was +charming him at North Shingles, and the disguised woman who had terrified him +in Vauxhall Walk, were one and the same person. +</p> + +<p> +The means of effecting this new object were, to all appearance, far less easy +of attainment than the means of effecting the object which Mrs. Lecount had +just resigned. Here no help was to be expected from others, no ostensibly +benevolent motives could be put forward as a blind—no appeal could be +made to Mr. Pendril or to Miss Garth. Here the housekeeper’s only chance +of success depended, in the first place, on her being able to effect a stolen +entrance into Mr. Bygrave’s house, and, in the second place, on her +ability to discover whether that memorable alpaca dress from which she had +secretly cut the fragment of stuff happened to form part of Miss +Bygrave’s wardrobe. +</p> + +<p> +Taking the difficulties now before her in their order as they occurred, Mrs. +Lecount first resolved to devote the next few days to watching the habits of +the inmates of North Shingles, from early in the morning to late at night, and +to testing the capacity of the one servant in the house to resist the +temptation of a bribe. Assuming that results proved successful, and that, +either by money or by stratagem, she gained admission to North Shingles +(without the knowledge of Mr. Bygrave or his niece), she turned next to the +second difficulty of the two—the difficulty of obtaining access to Miss +Bygrave’s wardrobe. +</p> + +<p> +If the servant proved corruptible, all obstacles in this direction might be +considered as removed beforehand. But if the servant proved honest, the new +problem was no easy one to solve. +</p> + +<p> +Long and careful consideration of the question led the housekeeper at last to +the bold resolution of obtaining an interview—if the servant failed +her—with Mrs. Bygrave herself. What was the true cause of this +lady’s mysterious seclusion? Was she a person of the strictest and the +most inconvenient integrity? or a person who could not be depended on to +preserve a secret? or a person who was as artful as Mr. Bygrave himself, and +who was kept in reserve to forward the object of some new deception which was +yet to come? In the first two cases, Mrs. Lecount could trust in her own powers +of dissimulation, and in the results which they might achieve. In the last case +(if no other end was gained), it might be of vital importance to her to +discover an enemy hidden in the dark. In any event, she determined to run the +risk. Of the three chances in her favor on which she had reckoned at the outset +of the struggle—the chance of entrapping Magdalen by word of mouth, the +chance of entrapping her by the help of her friends, and the chance of +entrapping her by means of Mrs. Bygrave—two had been tried, and two had +failed. The third remained to be tested yet; and the third might succeed. +</p> + +<p> +So, the captain’s enemy plotted against him in the privacy of her own +chamber, while the captain watched the light in her window from the beach +outside. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Before breakfast the next morning, Captain Wragge posted the forged letter to +Zurich with his own hand. He went back to North Shingles with his mind not +quite decided on the course to take with Mrs. Lecount during the all-important +interval of the next ten days. +</p> + +<p> +Greatly to his surprise, his doubts on this point were abruptly decided by +Magdalen herself. +</p> + +<p> +He found her waiting for him in the room where the breakfast was laid. She was +walking restlessly to and fro, with her head drooping on her bosom and her hair +hanging disordered over her shoulders. The moment she looked up on his +entrance, the captain felt the fear which Mrs. Wragge had felt before +him—the fear that her mind would be struck prostrate again, as it had +been struck once already, when Frank’s letter reached her in Vauxhall +Walk. +</p> + +<p> +“Is he coming again to-day?” she asked, pushing away from her the +chair which Captain Wragge offered, with such violence that she threw it on the +floor. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the captain, wisely answering her in the fewest words. +“He is coming at two o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take me away!” she exclaimed, tossing her hair back wildly from +her face. “Take me away before he comes. I can’t get over the +horror of marrying him while I am in this hateful place; take me somewhere +where I can forget it, or I shall go mad! Give me two days’ +rest—two days out of sight of that horrible sea—two days out of +prison in this horrible house—two days anywhere in the wide world away +from Aldborough. I’ll come back with you! I’ll go through with it +to the end! Only give me two days’ escape from that man and everything +belonging to him! Do you hear, you villain?” she cried, seizing his arm +and shaking it in a frenzy of passion; “I have been tortured +enough—I can bear it no longer!” +</p> + +<p> +There was but one way of quieting her, and the captain instantly took it. +</p> + +<p> +“If you will try to control yourself,” he said, “you shall +leave Aldborough in an hour’s time.” +</p> + +<p> +She dropped his arm, and leaned back heavily against the wall behind her. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll try,” she answered, struggling for breath, but looking +at him less wildly. “You shan’t complain of me, if I can help +it.” She attempted confusedly to take her handkerchief from her apron +pocket, and failed to find it. The captain took it out for her. Her eyes +softened, and she drew her breath more freely as she received the handkerchief +from him. “You are a kinder man than I thought you were,” she said; +“I am sorry I spoke so passionately to you just now—I am very, very +sorry.” The tears stole into her eyes, and she offered him her hand with +the native grace and gentleness of happier days. “Be friends with me +again,” she said, pleadingly. “I’m only a girl, Captain +Wragge—I’m only a girl!” +</p> + +<p> +He took her hand in silence, patted it for a moment, and then opened the door +for her to go back to her own room again. There was genuine regret in his face +as he showed her that trifling attention. He was a vagabond and a cheat; he had +lived a mean, shuffling, degraded life, but he was human; and she had found her +way to the lost sympathies in him which not even the self-profanation of a +swindler’s existence could wholly destroy. “Damn the +breakfast!” he said, when the servant came in for her orders. “Go +to the inn directly, and say I want a carriage and pair at the door in an +hour’s time.” He went out into the passage, still chafing under a +sense of mental disturbance which was new to him, and shouted to his wife more +fiercely than ever—“Pack up what we want for a week’s +absence, and be ready in half an hour!” Having issued those directions, +he returned to the breakfast-room, and looked at the half-spread table with an +impatient wonder at his disinclination to do justice to his own meal. +“She has rubbed off the edge of my appetite,” he said to himself, +with a forced laugh. “I’ll try a cigar, and a turn in the fresh +air.” +</p> + +<p> +If he had been twenty years younger, those remedies might have failed him. But +where is the man to be found whose internal policy succumbs to revolution when +that man is on the wrong side of fifty? Exercise and change of place gave the +captain back into the possession of himself. He recovered the lost sense of the +flavor of his cigar, and recalled his wandering attention to the question of +his approaching absence from Aldborough. A few minutes’ consideration +satisfied his mind that Magdalen’s outbreak had forced him to take the +course of all others which, on a fair review of existing emergencies, it was +now most desirable to adopt. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge’s inquiries on the evening when he and Magdalen had drunk +tea at Sea View had certainly informed him that the housekeeper’s brother +possessed a modest competence; that his sister was his nearest living relative; +and that there were some unscrupulous cousins on the spot who were anxious to +usurp the place in his will which properly belonged to Mrs. Lecount. Here were +strong motives to take the housekeeper to Zurich when the false report of her +brother’s relapse reached England. But if any idea of Noel +Vanstone’s true position dawned on her in the meantime, who could say +whether she might not, at the eleventh hour, prefer asserting her large +pecuniary interest in her master, to defending her small pecuniary interest at +her brother’s bedside? While that question remained undecided, the plain +necessity of checking the growth of Noel Vanstone’s intimacy with the +family at North Shingles did not admit of a doubt; and of all means of +effecting that object, none could be less open to suspicion than the temporary +removal of the household from their residence at Aldborough. Thoroughly +satisfied with the soundness of this conclusion, Captain Wragge made straight +for Sea-view Cottage, to apologize and explain before the carriage came and the +departure took place. +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone was easily accessible to visitors; he was walking in the garden +before breakfast. His disappointment and vexation were freely expressed when he +heard the news which his friend had to communicate. The captain’s fluent +tongue, however, soon impressed on him the necessity of resignation to present +circumstances. The bare hint that the “pious fraud” might fail +after all, if anything happened in the ten days’ interval to enlighten +Mrs. Lecount, had an instant effect in making Noel Vanstone as patient and as +submissive as could be wished. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t tell you where we are going, for two good reasons,” +said Captain Wragge, when his preliminary explanations were completed. +“In the first place, I haven’t made up my mind yet; and, in the +second place, if you don’t know where our destination is, Mrs. Lecount +can’t worm it out of you. I have not the least doubt she is watching us +at this moment from behind her window-curtain. When she asks what I wanted with +you this morning, tell her I came to say good-by for a few days, finding my +niece not so well again, and wishing to take her on a short visit to some +friends to try change of air. If you could produce an impression on Mrs. +Lecount’s mind (without overdoing it), that you are a little disappointed +in me, and that you are rather inclined to doubt my heartiness in cultivating +your acquaintance, you will greatly help our present object. You may depend on +our return to North Shingles in four or five days at furthest. If anything +strikes me in the meanwhile, the post is always at our service, and I +won’t fail to write to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t Miss Bygrave write to me?” inquired Noel Vanstone, +piteously. “Did she know you were coming here? Did she send me no +message?” +</p> + +<p> +“Unpardonable on my part to have forgotten it!” cried the captain. +“She sent you her love.” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone closed his eyes in silent ecstasy. +</p> + +<p> +When he opened them again Captain Wragge had passed through the garden gate and +was on his way back to North Shingles. As soon as his own door had closed on +him, Mrs. Lecount descended from the post of observation which the captain had +rightly suspected her of occupying, and addressed the inquiry to her master +which the captain had rightly foreseen would follow his departure. The reply +she received produced but one impression on her mind. She at once set it down +as a falsehood, and returned to her own window to keep watch over North +Shingles more vigilantly than ever. +</p> + +<p> +To her utter astonishment, after a lapse of less than half an hour she saw an +empty carriage draw up at Mr. Bygrave’s door. Luggage was brought out and +packed on the vehicle. Miss Bygrave appeared, and took her seat in it. She was +followed into the carriage by a lady of great size and stature, whom the +housekeeper conjectured to be Mrs. Bygrave. The servant came next, and stood +waiting on the path. The last person to appear was Mr. Bygrave. He locked the +house door, and took the key away with him to a cottage near at hand, which was +the residence of the landlord of North Shingles. On his return, he nodded to +the servant, who walked away by herself toward the humbler quarter of the +little town, and joined the ladies in the carriage. The coachman mounted the +box, and the vehicle disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount laid down the opera-glass, through which she had been closely +investigating these proceedings, with a feeling of helpless perplexity which +she was almost ashamed to acknowledge to herself. The secret of Mr. +Bygrave’s object in suddenly emptying his house at Aldborough of every +living creature in it was an impenetrable mystery to her. +</p> + +<p> +Submitting herself to circumstances with a ready resignation which Captain +Wragge had not shown, on his side, in a similar situation, Mrs. Lecount wasted +neither time nor temper in unprofitable guess-work. She left the mystery to +thicken or to clear, as the future might decide, and looked exclusively at the +uses to which she might put the morning’s event in her own interests. +Whatever might have become of the family at North Shingles, the servant was +left behind, and the servant was exactly the person whose assistance might now +be of vital importance to the housekeeper’s projects. Mrs. Lecount put on +her bonnet, inspected the collection of loose silver in her purse, and set +forth on the spot to make the servant’s acquaintance. +</p> + +<p> +She went first to the cottage at which Mr. Bygrave had left the key of North +Shingles, to discover the servant’s present address from the landlord. So +far as this object was concerned, her errand proved successful. The landlord +knew that the girl had been allowed to go home for a few days to her friends, +and knew in what part of Aldborough her friends lived. But here his sources of +information suddenly dried up. He knew nothing of the destination to which Mr. +Bygrave and his family had betaken themselves, and he was perfectly ignorant of +the number of days over which their absence might be expected to extend. All he +could say was, that he had not received a notice to quit from his tenant, and +that he had been requested to keep the key of the house in his possession until +Mr. Bygrave returned to claim it in his own person. +</p> + +<p> +Baffled, but not discouraged, Mrs. Lecount turned her steps next toward the +back street of Aldborough, and astonished the servant’s relatives by +conferring on them the honor of a morning call. +</p> + +<p> +Easily imposed on at starting by Mrs. Lecount’s pretense of calling to +engage her, under the impression that she had left Mr. Bygrave’s service, +the servant did her best to answer the questions put to her. But she knew as +little as the landlord of her master’s plans. All she could say about +them was, that she had not been dismissed, and that she was to await the +receipt of a note recalling her when necessary to her situation at North +Shingles. Not having expected to find her better informed on this part of the +subject, Mrs. Lecount smoothly shifted her ground, and led the woman into +talking generally of the advantages and defects of her situation in Mr. +Bygrave’s family. +</p> + +<p> +Profiting by the knowledge gained, in this indirect manner, of the little +secrets of the household, Mrs. Lecount made two discoveries. She found out, in +the first place, that the servant (having enough to do in attending to the +coarser part of the domestic work) was in no position to disclose the secrets +of Miss Bygrave’s wardrobe, which were known only to the young lady +herself and to her aunt. In the second place, the housekeeper ascertained that +the true reason of Mrs. Bygrave’s rigid seclusion was to be found in the +simple fact that she was little better than an idiot, and that her husband was +probably ashamed of allowing her to be seen in public. These apparently trivial +discoveries enlightened Mrs. Lecount on a very important point which had been +previously involved in doubt. She was now satisfied that the likeliest way to +obtaining a private investigation of Magdalen’s wardrobe lay through +deluding the imbecile lady, and not through bribing the ignorant servant. +</p> + +<p> +Having reached that conclusion—pregnant with coming assaults on the +weakly-fortified discretion of poor Mrs. Wragge—the housekeeper +cautiously abstained from exhibiting herself any longer under an inquisitive +aspect. She changed the conversation to local topics, waited until she was sure +of leaving an excellent impression behind her, and then took her leave. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Three days passed; and Mrs. Lecount and her master—each with their +widely-different ends in view—watched with equal anxiety for the first +signs of returning life in the direction of North Shingles. In that interval, +no letter either from the uncle or the niece arrived for Noel Vanstone. His +sincere feeling of irritation under this neglectful treatment greatly assisted +the effect of those feigned doubts on the subject of his absent friends which +the captain had recommended him to express in the housekeeper’s presence. +He confessed his apprehensions of having been mistaken, not in Mr. Bygrave +only, but even in his niece as well, with such a genuine air of annoyance that +he actually contributed a new element of confusion to the existing perplexities +of Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +On the morning of the fourth day Noel Vanstone met the postman in the garden; +and, to his great relief, discovered among the letters delivered to him a note +from Mr. Bygrave. +</p> + +<p> +The date of the note was “Woodbridge,” and it contained a few lines +only. Mr. Bygrave mentioned that his niece was better, and that she sent her +love as before. He proposed returning to Aldborough on the next day, when he +would have some new considerations of a strictly private nature to present to +Mr. Noel Vanstone’s mind. In the meantime he would beg Mr. Vanstone not +to call at North Shingles until he received a special invitation to do +so—which invitation should certainly be given on the day when the family +returned. The motive of this apparently strange request should be explained to +Mr. Vanstone’s perfect satisfaction when he was once more united to his +friends. Until that period arrived, the strictest caution was enjoined on him +in all his communications with Mrs. Lecount; and the instant destruction of Mr. +Bygrave’s letter, after due perusal of it, was (if the classical phrase +might be pardoned) a <i>sine qua non</i>. +</p> + +<p> +The fifth day came. Noel Vanstone (after submitting himself to the <i>sine qua +non</i>, and destroying the letter) waited anxiously for results; while Mrs. +Lecount, on her side, watched patiently for events. Toward three o’clock +in the afternoon the carriage appeared again at the gate of North Shingles. Mr. +Bygrave got out and tripped away briskly to the landlord’s cottage for +the key. He returned with the servant at his heels. Miss Bygrave left the +carriage; her giant relative followed her example; the house door was opened; +the trunks were taken off; the carriage disappeared, and the Bygraves were at +home again! +</p> + +<p> +Four o’clock struck, five o’clock, six o’clock, and nothing +happened. In half an hour more, Mr. Bygrave—spruce, speckless, and +respectable as ever—appeared on the Parade, sauntering composedly in the +direction of Sea View. +</p> + +<p> +Instead of at once entering the house, he passed it; stopped, as if struck by a +sudden recollection; and, retracing his steps, asked for Mr. Vanstone at the +door. Mr. Vanstone came out hospitably into the passage. Pitching his voice to +a tone which could be easily heard by any listening individual through any open +door in the bedroom regions, Mr. Bygrave announced the object of his visit on +the door-mat in the fewest possible words. He had been staying with a distant +relative. The distant relative possessed two pictures—Gems by the Old +Masters—which he was willing to dispose of, and which he had intrusted +for that purpose to Mr. Bygrave’s care. If Mr. Noel Vanstone, as an +amateur in such matters, wished to see the Gems, they would be visible in half +an hour’s time, when Mr. Bygrave would have returned to North Shingles. +</p> + +<p> +Having delivered himself of this incomprehensible announcement, the +arch-conspirator laid his significant forefinger along the side of his short +Roman nose, said, “Fine weather, isn’t it? Good-afternoon!” +and sauntered out inscrutably to continue his walk on the Parade. +</p> + +<p> +On the expiration of the half-hour Noel Vanstone presented himself at North +Shingles, with the ardor of a lover burning inextinguishably in his bosom, +through the superincumbent mental fog of a thoroughly bewildered man. To his +inexpressible happiness, he found Magdalen alone in the parlor. Never yet had +she looked so beautiful in his eyes. The rest and relief of her four +days’ absence from Aldborough had not failed to produce their results; +she had more than recovered her composure. Vibrating perpetually from one +violent extreme to another, she had now passed from the passionate despair of +five days since to a feverish exaltation of spirits which defied all remorse +and confronted all consequences. Her eyes sparkled; her cheeks were bright with +color; she talked incessantly, with a forlorn mockery of the girlish gayety of +past days; she laughed with a deplorable persistency in laughing; she imitated +Mrs. Lecount’s smooth voice, and Mrs. Lecount’s insinuating graces +of manner with an overcharged resemblance to the original, which was but the +coarse reflection of the delicately-accurate mimicry of former times. Noel +Vanstone, who had never yet seen her as he saw her now, was enchanted; his weak +head whirled with an intoxication of enjoyment; his wizen cheeks flushed as if +they had caught the infection from hers. The half-hour during which he was +alone with her passed like five minutes to him. When that time had elapsed, and +when she suddenly left him—to obey a previously-arranged summons to her +aunt’s presence—miser as he was, he would have paid at that moment +five golden sovereigns out of his pocket for five golden minutes more passed in +her society. +</p> + +<p> +The door had hardly closed on Magdalen before it opened again, and the captain +walked in. He entered on the explanations which his visitor naturally expected +from him with the unceremonious abruptness of a man hard pressed for time, and +determined to make the most of every moment at his disposal. +</p> + +<p> +“Since we last saw each other,” he began, “I have been +reckoning up the chances for and against us as we stand at present. The result +on my own mind is this: If you are still at Aldborough when that letter from +Zurich reaches Mrs. Lecount, all the pains we have taken will have been pains +thrown away. If your housekeeper had fifty brothers all dying together, she +would throw the whole fifty over sooner than leave you alone at Sea View while +we are your neighbors at North Shingles.” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone’s flushed cheek turned pale with dismay. His own knowledge +of Mrs. Lecount told him that this view of the case was the right one. +</p> + +<p> +“If <i>we</i> go away again,” proceeded the captain, “nothing +will be gained, for nothing would persuade your housekeeper, in that case, that +we have not left you the means of following us. <i>You</i> must leave +Aldborough this time; and, what is more, you must go without leaving a single +visible trace behind you for us to follow. If we accomplish this object in the +course of the next five days, Mrs. Lecount will take the journey to Zurich. If +we fail, she will be a fixture at Sea View, to a dead certainty. Don’t +ask questions! I have got your instructions ready for you, and I want your +closest attention to them. Your marriage with my niece depends on your not +forgetting a word of what I am now going to tell you.—One question first. +Have you followed my advice? Have you told Mrs. Lecount you are beginning to +think yourself mistaken in me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did worse than that,” replied Noel Vanstone penitently. “I +committed an outrage on my own feelings. I disgraced myself by saying that I +doubted Miss Bygrave!” +</p> + +<p> +“Go on disgracing yourself, my dear sir! Doubt us both with all your +might, and I’ll help you. One question more. Did I speak loud enough this +afternoon? Did Mrs. Lecount hear me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Lecount opened her door; Lecount heard you. What made you give me +that message? I see no pictures here. Is this another pious fraud, Mr. +Bygrave?” +</p> + +<p> +“Admirably guessed, Mr. Vanstone! You will see the object of my imaginary +picture-dealing in the very next words which I am now about to address to you. +When you get back to Sea View, this is what you are to say to Mrs. Lecount. +Tell her that my relative’s works of Art are two worthless +pictures—copies from the Old Masters, which I have tried to sell you as +originals at an exorbitant price. Say you suspect me of being little better +than a plausible impostor, and pity my unfortunate niece for being associated +with such a rascal as I am. There is your text to speak from. Say in many words +what I have just said in a few. You can do that, can’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I can do it,” said Noel Vanstone. “But I can tell +you one thing—Lecount won’t believe me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a little, Mr. Vanstone; I have not done with my instructions yet. +You understand what I have just told you? Very good. We may get on from to-day +to to-morrow. Go out to-morrow with Mrs. Lecount at your usual time. I will +meet you on the Parade, and bow to you. Instead of returning my bow, look the +other way. In plain English, cut me! That is easy enough to do, isn’t +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“She won’t believe me, Mr. Bygrave—she won’t believe +me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a little again, Mr. Vanstone. There are more instructions to come. +You have got your directions for to-day, and you have got your directions for +to-morrow. Now for the day after. The day after is the seventh day since we +sent the letter to Zurich. On the seventh day decline to go out walking as +before, from dread of the annoyance of meeting me again. Grumble about the +smallness of the place; complain of your health; wish you had never come to +Aldborough, and never made acquaintances with the Bygraves; and when you have +well worried Mrs. Lecount with your discontent, ask her on a sudden if she +can’t suggest a change for the better. If you put that question to her +naturally, do you think she can be depended on to answer it?” +</p> + +<p> +“She won’t want to be questioned at all,” replied Noel +Vanstone, irritably. “I have only got to say I am tired of Aldborough; +and, if she believes me—which she won’t; I’m quite positive, +Mr. Bygrave, she won’t!—she will have her suggestion ready before I +can ask for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay! ay!” said the captain eagerly. “There is some place, +then, that Mrs. Lecount wants to go to this autumn?” +</p> + +<p> +“She wants to go there (hang her!) every autumn.” +</p> + +<p> +“To go where?” +</p> + +<p> +“To Admiral Bartram’s—you don’t know him, do +you?—at St. Crux-in-the-Marsh.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t lose your patience, Mr. Vanstone! What you are now telling +me is of the most vital importance to the object we have in view. Who is +Admiral Bartram?” +</p> + +<p> +“An old friend of my father’s. My father laid him under +obligations—my father lent him money when they were both young men. I am +like one of the family at St. Crux; my room is always kept ready for me. Not +that there’s any family at the admiral’s except his nephew, George +Bartram. George is my cousin; I’m as intimate with George as my father +was with the admiral; and I’ve been sharper than my father, for I +haven’t lent my friend any money. Lecount always makes a show of liking +George—I believe to annoy me. She likes the admiral, too; he flatters her +vanity. He always invites her to come with me to St. Crux. He lets her have one +of the best bedrooms, and treats her as if she was a lady. She is as proud as +Lucifer—she likes being treated like a lady—and she pesters me +every autumn to go to St. Crux. What’s the matter? What are you taking +out your pocketbook for?” +</p> + +<p> +“I want the admiral’s address, Mr. Vanstone, for a purpose which I +will explain immediately.” +</p> + +<p> +With those words, Captain Wragge opened his pocketbook and wrote down the +address from Noel Vanstone’s dictation, as follows: “Admiral +Bartram, St. Crux-in-the-Marsh, near Ossory, Essex.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good!” cried the captain, closing his pocketbook again. “The +only difficulty that stood in our way is now cleared out of it. Patience, Mr. +Vanstone—patience! Let us take up my instructions again at the point +where we dropped them. Give me five minutes’ more attention, and you will +see your way to your marriage as plainly as I see it. On the day after +to-morrow you declare you are tired of Aldborough, and Mrs. Lecount suggests +St. Crux. You don’t say yes or no on the spot; you take the next day to +consider it, and you make up your mind the last thing at night to go to St. +Crux the first thing in the morning. Are you in the habit of superintending +your own packing up, or do you usually shift all the trouble of it on Mrs. +Lecount’s shoulders?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lecount has all the trouble, of course; Lecount is paid for it! But I +don’t really go, do I?” +</p> + +<p> +“You go as fast as horses can take you to the railway without having held +any previous communication with this house, either personally or by letter. You +leave Mrs. Lecount behind to pack up your curiosities, to settle with the +tradespeople, and to follow you to St. Crux the next morning. The next morning +is the tenth morning. On the tenth morning she receives the letter from Zurich; +and if you only carry out my instructions, Mr. Vanstone, as sure as you sit +there, to Zurich she goes.” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone’s color began to rise again, as the captain’s +stratagem dawned on him at last in its true light. +</p> + +<p> +“And what am I to do at St. Crux?” he inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait there till I call for you,” replied the captain. “As +soon as Mrs. Lecount’s back is turned, I will go to the church here and +give the necessary notice of the marriage. The same day or the next, I will +travel to the address written down in my pocketbook, pick you up at the +admiral’s, and take you on to London with me to get the license. With +that document in our possession, we shall be on our way back to Aldborough +while Mrs. Lecount is on her way out to Zurich; and before she starts on her +return journey, you and my niece will be man and wife! There are your future +prospects for you. What do you think of them?” +</p> + +<p> +“What a head you have got!” cried Noel Vanstone, in a sudden +outburst of enthusiasm. “You’re the most extraordinary man I ever +met with. One would think you had done nothing all your life but take people +in.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge received that unconscious tribute to his native genius with the +complacency of a man who felt that he thoroughly deserved it. +</p> + +<p> +“I have told you already, my dear sir,” he said, modestly, +“that I never do things by halves. Pardon me for reminding you that we +have no time for exchanging mutual civilities. Are you quite sure about your +instructions? I dare not write them down for fear of accidents. Try the system +of artificial memory; count your instructions off after me, on your thumb and +your four fingers. To-day you tell Mrs. Lecount I have tried to take you in +with my relative’s works of Art. To-morrow you cut me on the Parade. The +day after you refuse to go out, you get tired of Aldborough, and you allow Mrs. +Lecount to make her suggestion. The next day you accept the suggestion. And the +next day to that you go to St. Crux. Once more, my dear sir! Thumb—works +of Art. Forefinger—cut me on the Parade. Middle finger—tired of +Aldborough. Third finger—take Lecount’s advice. Little +finger—off to St. Crux. Nothing can be clearer—nothing can be +easier to do. Is there anything you don’t understand? Anything that I can +explain over again before you go?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only one thing,” said Noel Vanstone. “Is it settled that I +am not to come here again before I go to St. Crux?” +</p> + +<p> +“Most decidedly!” answered the captain. “The whole success of +the enterprise depends on your keeping away. Mrs. Lecount will try the +credibility of everything you say to her by one test—the test of your +communicating, or not, with this house. She will watch you night and day! +Don’t call here, don’t send messages, don’t write letters; +don’t even go out by yourself. Let her see you start for St. Crux on her +suggestion, with the absolute certainty in her own mind that you have followed +her advice without communicating it in any form whatever to me or to my niece. +Do that, and she <i>must</i> believe you, on the best of all evidence for our +interests, and the worst for hers—the evidence of her own senses.” +</p> + +<p> +With those last words of caution, he shook the little man warmly by the hand +and sent him home on the spot. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap35"></a>CHAPTER X.</h3> + +<p> +On returning to Sea View, Noel Vanstone executed the instructions which +prescribed his line of conduct for the first of the five days with +unimpeachable accuracy. A faint smile of contempt hovered about Mrs. +Lecount’s lips while the story of Mr. Bygrave’s attempt to pass off +his spurious pictures as originals was in progress, but she did not trouble +herself to utter a single word of remark when it had come to an end. +“Just what I said!” thought Noel Vanstone, cunningly watching her +face; “she doesn’t believe a word of it!” +</p> + +<p> +The next day the meeting occurred on the Parade. Mr. Bygrave took off his hat, +and Noel Vanstone looked the other way. The captain’s start of surprise +and scowl of indignation were executed to perfection, but they plainly failed +to impose on Mrs. Lecount. “I am afraid, sir, you have offended Mr. +Bygrave to-day,” she ironically remarked. “Happily for you, he is +an excellent Christian! and I venture to predict that he will forgive you +to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone wisely refrained from committing himself to an answer. Once more +he privately applauded his own penetration; once more he triumphed over his +ingenious friend. +</p> + +<p> +Thus far the captain’s instructions had been too clear and simple to be +mistaken by any one. But they advanced in complication with the advance of +time, and on the third day Noel Vanstone fell confusedly into the commission of +a slight error. After expressing the necessary weariness of Aldborough, and the +consequent anxiety for change of scene, he was met (as he had anticipated) by +an immediate suggestion from the housekeeper, recommending a visit to St. Crux. +In giving his answer to the advice thus tendered, he made his first mistake. +Instead of deferring his decision until the next day, he accepted Mrs. +Lecount’s suggestion on the day when it was offered to him. +</p> + +<p> +The consequences of this error were of no great importance. The housekeeper +merely set herself to watch her master one day earlier than had been calculated +on—a result which had been already provided for by the wise precautionary +measure of forbidding Noel Vanstone all communication with North Shingles. +Doubting, as Captain Wragge had foreseen, the sincerity of her master’s +desire to break off his connection with the Bygraves by going to St. Crux, Mrs. +Lecount tested the truth or falsehood of the impression produced on her own +mind by vigilantly watching for signs of secret communication on one side or on +the other. The close attention with which she had hitherto observed the +out-goings and in-comings at North Shingles was now entirely transferred to her +master. For the rest of that third day she never let him out of her sight; she +never allowed any third person who came to the house, on any pretense whatever, +a minute’s chance of private communication with him. At intervals through +the night she stole to the door of his room, to listen and assure herself that +he was in bed; and before sunrise the next morning, the coast-guardsman going +his rounds was surprised to see a lady who had risen as early as himself +engaged over her work at one of the upper windows of Sea View. +</p> + +<p> +On the fourth morning Noel Vanstone came down to breakfast conscious of the +mistake that he had committed on the previous day. The obvious course to take, +for the purpose of gaining time, was to declare that his mind was still +undecided. He made the assertion boldly when the housekeeper asked him if he +meant to move that day. Again Mrs. Lecount offered no remark, and again the +signs and tokens of incredulity showed themselves in her face. Vacillation of +purpose was not at all unusual in her experience of her master. But on this +occasion she believed that his caprice of conduct was assumed for the purpose +of gaining time to communicate with North Shingles, and she accordingly set her +watch on him once more with doubled and trebled vigilance. +</p> + +<p> +No letters came that morning. Toward noon the weather changed for the worse, +and all idea of walking out as usual was abandoned. Hour after hour, while her +master sat in one of the parlors, Mrs. Lecount kept watch in the other, with +the door into the passage open, and with a full view of North Shingles through +the convenient side-window at which she had established herself. Not a sign +that was suspicious appeared, not a sound that was suspicious caught her ear. +As the evening closed in, her master’s hesitation came to an end. He was +disgusted with the weather; he hated the place; he foresaw the annoyance of +more meetings with Mr. Bygrave, and he was determined to go to St. Crux the +first thing the next morning. Lecount could stay behind to pack up the +curiosities and settle with the trades-people, and could follow him to the +admiral’s on the next day. The housekeeper was a little staggered by the +tone and manner in which he gave these orders. He had, to her own certain +knowledge, effected no communication of any sort with North Shingles, and yet +he seemed determined to leave Aldborough at the earliest possible opportunity. +For the first time she hesitated in her adherence to her own conclusions. She +remembered that her master had complained of the Bygraves before they returned +to Aldborough; and she was conscious that her own incredulity had once already +misled her when the appearance of the traveling-carriage at the door had proved +even Mr. Bygrave himself to be as good as his word. +</p> + +<p> +Still Mrs. Lecount determined to act with unrelenting caution to the last. That +night, when the doors were closed, she privately removed the keys from the door +in front and the door at the back. She then softly opened her bedroom window +and sat down by it, with her bonnet and cloak on, to prevent her taking cold. +Noel Vanstone’s window was on the same side of the house as her own. If +any one came in the dark to speak to him from the garden beneath, they would +speak to his housekeeper as well. Prepared at all points to intercept every +form of clandestine communication which stratagem could invent, Mrs. Lecount +watched through the quiet night. When morning came, she stole downstairs before +the servant was up, restored the keys to their places, and re-occupied her +position in the parlor until Noel Vanstone made his appearance at the +breakfast-table. Had he altered his mind? No. He declined posting to the +railway on account of the expense, but he was as firm as ever in his resolution +to go to St. Crux. He desired that an inside place might be secured for him in +the early coach. Suspicious to the last, Mrs. Lecount sent the baker’s +man to take the place. He was a public servant, and Mr. Bygrave would not +suspect him of performing a private errand. +</p> + +<p> +The coach called at Sea View. Mrs. Lecount saw her master established in his +place, and ascertained that the other three inside seats were already occupied +by strangers. She inquired of the coachman if the outside places (all of which +were not yet filled up) had their full complement of passengers also. The man +replied in the affirmative. He had two gentlemen to call for in the town, and +the others would take their places at the inn. Mrs. Lecount forthwith turned +her steps toward the inn, and took up her position on the Parade opposite from +a point of view which would enable her to see the last of the coach on its +departure. In ten minutes more it rattled away, full outside and in; and the +housekeeper’s own eyes assured her that neither Mr. Bygrave himself, nor +any one belonging to North Shingles, was among the passengers. +</p> + +<p> +There was only one more precaution to take, and Mrs. Lecount did not neglect +it. Mr. Bygrave had doubtless seen the coach call at Sea View. He might hire a +carriage and follow it to the railway on pure speculation. Mrs. Lecount +remained within view of the inn (the only place at which a carriage could be +obtained) for nearly an hour longer, waiting for events. Nothing happened; no +carriage made its appearance; no pursuit of Noel Vanstone was now within the +range of human possibility. The long strain on Mrs. Lecount’s mind +relaxed at last. She left her seat on the Parade, and returned in higher +spirits than usual, to perform the closing household ceremonies at Sea View. +</p> + +<p> +She sat down alone in the parlor and drew a long breath of relief. Captain +Wragge’s calculations had not deceived him. The evidence of her own +senses had at last conquered the housekeeper’s incredulity, and had +literally forced her into the opposite extreme of belief. +</p> + +<p> +Estimating the events of the last three days from her own experience of them; +knowing (as she certainly knew) that the first idea of going to St. Crux had +been started by herself, and that her master had found no opportunity and shown +no inclination to inform the family at North Shingles that he had accepted her +proposal, Mrs. Lecount was fairly compelled to acknowledge that not a fragment +of foundation remained to justify the continued suspicion of treachery in her +own mind. Looking at the succession of circumstances under the new light thrown +on them by results, she could see nothing unaccountable, nothing contradictory +anywhere. The attempt to pass off the forged pictures as originals was in +perfect harmony with the character of such a man as Mr. Bygrave. Her +master’s indignation at the attempt to impose on him; his +plainly-expressed suspicion that Miss Bygrave was privy to it; his +disappointment in the niece; his contemptuous treatment of the uncle on the +Parade; his weariness of the place which had been the scene of his rash +intimacy with strangers, and his readiness to quit it that morning, all +commended themselves as genuine realities to the housekeeper’s mind, for +one sufficient reason. Her own eyes had seen Noel Vanstone take his departure +from Aldborough without leaving, or attempting to leave, a single trace behind +him for the Bygraves to follow. +</p> + +<p> +Thus far the housekeeper’s conclusions led her, but no further. She was +too shrewd a woman to trust the future to chance and fortune. Her +master’s variable temper might relent. Accident might at any time give +Mr. Bygrave an opportunity of repairing the error that he had committed, and of +artfully regaining his lost place in Noel Vanstone’s estimation. +Admitting that circumstances had at last declared themselves unmistakably in +her favor, Mrs. Lecount was not the less convinced that nothing would +permanently assure her master’s security for the future but the plain +exposure of the conspiracy which she had striven to accomplish from the +first—which she was resolved to accomplish still. +</p> + +<p> +“I always enjoy myself at St. Crux,” thought Mrs. Lecount, opening +her account-books, and sorting the tradesmen’s bills. “The admiral +is a gentleman, the house is noble, the table is excellent. No matter! Here at +Sea View I stay by myself till I have seen the inside of Miss Bygrave’s +wardrobe.” +</p> + +<p> +She packed her master’s collection of curiosities in their various cases, +settled the claims of the trades-people, and superintended the covering of the +furniture in the course of the day. Toward nightfall she went out, bent on +investigation, and ventured into the garden at North Shingles under cover of +the darkness. She saw the light in the parlor window, and the lights in the +windows of the rooms upstairs, as usual. After an instant’s hesitation +she stole to the house door, and noiselessly tried the handle from the outside. +It turned the lock as she had expected, from her experience of houses at +Aldborough and at other watering-places, but the door resisted her; the door +was distrustfully bolted on the inside. After making that discovery, she went +round to the back of the house, and ascertained that the door on that side was +secured in the same manner. “Bolt your doors, Mr. Bygrave, as fast as you +like,” said the housekeeper, stealing back again to the Parade. +“You can’t bolt the entrance to your servant’s pocket. The +best lock you have may be opened by a golden key.” +</p> + +<p> +She went back to bed. The ceaseless watching, the unrelaxing excitement of the +last two days, had worn her out. +</p> + +<p> +The next morning she rose at seven o’clock. In half an hour more she saw +the punctual Mr. Bygrave—as she had seen him on many previous mornings at +the same time—issue from the gate of North Shingles, with his towels +under his arm, and make his way to a boat that was waiting for him on the +beach. Swimming was one among the many personal accomplishments of which the +captain was master. He was rowed out to sea every morning, and took his bath +luxuriously in the deep blue water. Mrs. Lecount had already computed the time +consumed in this recreation by her watch, and had discovered that a full hour +usually elapsed from the moment when he embarked on the beach to the moment +when he returned. +</p> + +<p> +During that period she had never seen any other inhabitant of North Shingles +leave the house. The servant was no doubt at her work in the kitchen; Mrs. +Bygrave was probably still in her bed; and Miss Bygrave (if she was up at that +early hour) had perhaps received directions not to venture out in her +uncle’s absence. The difficulty of meeting the obstacle of +Magdalen’s presence in the house had been, for some days past, the one +difficulty which all Mrs. Lecount’s ingenuity had thus far proved unable +to overcome. +</p> + +<p> +She sat at the window for a quarter of an hour after the captain’s boat +had left the beach with her mind hard at work, and her eyes fixed mechanically +on North Shingles—she sat considering what written excuse she could send +to her master for delaying her departure from Aldborough for some days to +come—when the door of the house she was watching suddenly opened, and +Magdalen herself appeared in the garden. There was no mistaking her figure and +her dress. She took a few steps hastily toward the gate, stopped and pulled +down the veil of her garden hat as if she felt the clear morning light too much +for her, then hurried out on the Parade and walked away northward, in such +haste, or in such pre-occupation of mind, that she went through the garden gate +without closing it after her. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount started up from her chair with a moment’s doubt of the +evidence of her own eyes. Had the opportunity which she had been vainly +plotting to produce actually offered itself to her of its own accord? Had the +chances declared themselves at last in her favor, after steadily acting against +her for so long? There was no doubt of it: in the popular phrase, “her +luck had turned.” She snatched up her bonnet and mantilla, and made for +North Shingles without an instant’s hesitation. Mr. Bygrave out at sea; +Miss Bygrave away for a walk; Mrs. Bygrave and the servant both at home, and +both easily dealt with—the opportunity was not to be lost; the risk was +well worth running! +</p> + +<p> +This time the house door was easily opened: no one had bolted it again after +Magdalen’s departure. Mrs. Lecount closed the door softly, listened for a +moment in the passage, and heard the servant noisily occupied in the kitchen +with her pots and pans. “If my lucky star leads me straight into Miss +Bygrave’s room,” thought the housekeeper, stealing noiselessly up +the stairs, “I may find my way to her wardrobe without disturbing +anybody.” +</p> + +<p> +She tried the door nearest to the front of the house on the right-hand side of +the landing. Capricious chance had deserted her already. The lock was turned. +She tried the door opposite, on her left hand. The boots ranged symmetrically +in a row, and the razors on the dressing-table, told her at once that she had +not found the right room yet. She returned to the right-hand side of the +landing, walked down a little passage leading to the back of the house, and +tried a third door. The door opened, and the two opposite extremes of female +humanity, Mrs. Wragge and Mrs. Lecount, stood face to face in an instant! +</p> + +<p> +“I beg ten thousand pardons!” said Mrs. Lecount, with the most +consummate self-possession. +</p> + +<p> +“Lord bless us and save us!” cried Mrs. Wragge, with the most +helpless amazement. +</p> + +<p> +The two exclamations were uttered in a moment, and in that moment Mrs. Lecount +took the measure of her victim. Nothing of the least importance escaped her. +She noticed the Oriental Cashmere Robe lying half made, and half unpicked +again, on the table; she noticed the imbecile foot of Mrs. Wragge searching +blindly in the neighborhood of her chair for a lost shoe; she noticed that +there was a second door in the room besides the door by which she had entered, +and a second chair within easy reach, on which she might do well to seat +herself in a friendly and confidential way. “Pray don’t resent my +intrusion,” pleaded Mrs. Lecount, taking the chair. “Pray allow me +to explain myself!” +</p> + +<p> +Speaking in her softest voice, surveying Mrs. Wragge with a sweet smile on her +insinuating lips, and a melting interest in her handsome black eyes, the +housekeeper told her little introductory series of falsehoods with an artless +truthfulness of manner which the Father of Lies himself might have envied. She +had heard from Mr. Bygrave that Mrs. Bygrave was a great invalid; she had +constantly reproached herself, in her idle half-hours at Sea View (where she +filled the situation of Mr. Noel Vanstone’s housekeeper), for not having +offered her friendly services to Mrs. Bygrave; she had been directed by her +master (doubtless well known to Mrs. Bygrave, as one of her husband’s +friends, and, naturally, one of her charming niece’s admirers), to join +him that day at the residence to which he had removed from Aldborough; she was +obliged to leave early, but she could not reconcile it to her conscience to go +without calling to apologize for her apparent want of neighborly consideration; +she had found nobody in the house; she had not been able to make the servant +hear; she had presumed (not discovering that apartment downstairs) that Mrs. +Bygrave’s boudoir might be on the upper story; she had thoughtlessly +committed an intrusion of which she was sincerely ashamed, and she could now +only trust to Mrs. Bygrave’s indulgence to excuse and forgive her. +</p> + +<p> +A less elaborate apology might have served Mrs. Lecount’s purpose. As +soon as Mrs. Wragge’s struggling perceptions had grasped the fact that +her unexpected visitor was a neighbor well known to her by repute, her whole +being became absorbed in admiration of Mrs. Lecount’s lady-like manners, +and Mrs. Lecount’s perfectly-fitting gown! “What a noble way she +has of talking!” thought poor Mrs. Wragge, as the housekeeper reached her +closing sentence. “And, oh my heart alive, how nicely she’s +dressed!” +</p> + +<p> +“I see I disturb you,” pursued Mrs. Lecount, artfully availing +herself of the Oriental Cashmere Robe as a means ready at hand of reaching the +end she had in view—“I see I disturb you, ma’am, over an +occupation which, I know by experience, requires the closest attention. Dear, +dear me, you are unpicking the dress again, I see, after it has been made! +This is my own experience again, Mrs. Bygrave. Some dresses are so obstinate! +Some dresses seem to say to one, in so many words, ‘No! you may do what +you like with me; I won’t fit!’” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge was greatly struck by this happy remark. She burst out laughing, +and clapped her great hands in hearty approval. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what this gown has been saying to me ever since I first put +the scissors into it,” she exclaimed, cheerfully. “I know +I’ve got an awful big back, but that’s no reason. Why should a gown +be weeks on hand, and then not meet behind you after all? It hangs over my +Boasom like a sack—it does. Look here, ma’am, at the skirt. It +won’t come right. It draggles in front, and cocks up behind. It shows my +heels—and, Lord knows, I get into scrapes enough about my heels, without +showing them into the bargain!” +</p> + +<p> +“May I ask a favor?” inquired Mrs. Lecount, confidentially. +“May I try, Mrs. Bygrave, if I can make my experience of any use to you? +I think our bosoms, ma’am, are our great difficulty. Now, this bosom of +yours?—Shall I say in plain words what I think? This bosom of yours is an +Enormous Mistake!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say that!” cried Mrs. Wragge, imploringly. +“Don’t please, there’s a good soul! It’s an awful big +one, I know; but it’s modeled, for all that, from one of Magdalen’s +own.” +</p> + +<p> +She was far too deeply interested on the subject of the dress to notice that +she had forgotten herself already, and that she had referred to Magdalen by her +own name. Mrs. Lecount’s sharp ears detected the mistake the instant it +was committed. “So! so!” she thought. “One discovery already. +If I had ever doubted my own suspicions, here is an estimable lady who would +now have set me right.—I beg your pardon,” she proceeded, aloud, +“did you say this was modeled from one of your niece’s +dresses?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mrs. Wragge. “It’s as like as two +peas.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” replied Mrs. Lecount, adroitly, “there must be some +serious mistake in the making of your niece’s dress. Can you show it to +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bless your heart—yes!” cried Mrs. Wragge. “Step this +way, ma’am; and bring the gown along with you, please. It keeps sliding +off, out of pure aggravation, if you lay it out on the table. There’s +lots of room on the bed in here.” +</p> + +<p> +She opened the door of communication and led the way eagerly into +Magdalen’s room. As Mrs. Lecount followed, she stole a look at her watch. +Never before had time flown as it flew that morning! In twenty minutes more Mr. +Bygrave would be back from his bath. +</p> + +<p> +“There!” said Mrs. Wragge, throwing open the wardrobe, and taking a +dress down from one of the pegs. “Look there! There’s plaits on her +Boasom, and plaits on mine. Six of one and half a dozen of the other; and mine +are the biggest—that’s all!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount shook her head gravely, and entered forthwith into subtleties of +disquisition on the art of dressmaking which had the desired effect of utterly +bewildering the proprietor of the Oriental Cashmere Robe in less than three +minutes. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t!” cried Mrs. Wragge, imploringly. “Don’t +go on like that! I’m miles behind you; and my head’s Buzzing +already. Tell us, like a good soul, what’s to be done. You said something +about the pattern just now. Perhaps I’m too big for the pattern? I +can’t help it if I am. Many’s the good cry I had, when I was a +growing girl, over my own size! There’s half too much of me, +ma’am—measure me along or measure me across, I don’t deny +it—there’s half too much of me, anyway.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear madam,” protested Mrs. Lecount, “you do yourself a +wrong! Permit me to assure you that you possess a commanding figure—a +figure of Minerva. A majestic simplicity in the form of a woman imperatively +demands a majestic simplicity in the form of that woman’s dress. The laws +of costume are classical; the laws of costume must not be trifled with! Plaits +for Venus, puffs for Juno, folds for Minerva. I venture to suggest a total +change of pattern. Your niece has other dresses in her collection. Why may we +not find a Minerva pattern among them?” +</p> + +<p> +As she said those words, she led the way back to the wardrobe. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge followed, and took the dresses out one by one, shaking her head +despondently. Silk dresses appeared, muslin dresses appeared. The one dress +which remained invisible was the dress of which Mrs. Lecount was in search. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s the lot of ’em,” said Mrs. Wragge. “They +may do for Venus and the two other Ones (I’ve seen ’em in picters +without a morsel of decent linen among the three), but they won’t do for +Me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely there is another dress left?” said Mrs. Lecount, pointing +to the wardrobe, but touching nothing in it. “Surely I see something +hanging in the corner behind that dark shawl?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge removed the shawl; Mrs. Lecount opened the door of the wardrobe a +little wider. There—hitched carelessly on the innermost peg—there, +with its white spots, and its double flounce, was the brown Alpaca dress! +</p> + +<p> +The suddenness and completeness of the discovery threw the housekeeper, +practiced dissembler as she was, completely off her guard. She started at the +sight of the dress. The instant afterward her eyes turned uneasily toward Mrs. +Wragge. Had the start been observed? It had passed entirely unnoticed. Mrs. +Wragge’s whole attention was fixed on the Alpaca dress: she was staring +at it incomprehensibly, with an expression of the utmost dismay. +</p> + +<p> +“You seem alarmed, ma’am,” said Mrs. Lecount. “What is +there in the wardrobe to frighten you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d have given a crown piece out of my pocket,” said Mrs. +Wragge, “not to have set my eyes on that gown. It had gone clean out of +my head, and now it’s come back again. Cover it up!” cried Mrs. +Wragge, throwing the shawl over the dress in a sudden fit of desperation. +“If I look at it much longer, I shall think I’m back again in +Vauxhall Walk!” +</p> + +<p> +Vauxhall Walk! Those two words told Mrs. Lecount she was on the brink of +another discovery. She stole a second look at her watch. There was barely ten +minutes to spare before the time when Mr. Bygrave might return; there was not +one of those ten minutes which might not bring his niece back to the house. +Caution counseled Mrs. Lecount to go, without running any more risks. Curiosity +rooted her to the spot, and gave the courage to stay at all hazards until the +time was up. Her amiable smile began to harden a little as she probed her way +tenderly into Mrs. Wragge’s feeble mind. +</p> + +<p> +“You have some unpleasant remembrances of Vauxhall Walk?” she said, +with the gentlest possible tone of inquiry in her voice. “Or perhaps I +should say, unpleasant remembrances of that dress belonging to your +niece?” +</p> + +<p> +“The last time I saw her with that gown on,” said Mrs. Wragge, +dropping into a chair and beginning to tremble, “was the time when I came +back from shopping and saw the Ghost.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Ghost?” repeated Mrs. Lecount, clasping her hands in graceful +astonishment. “Dear madam, pardon me! Is there such a thing in the world? +Where did you see it? In Vauxhall Walk? Tell me—you are the first lady I +ever met with who has seen a ghost—pray tell me!” +</p> + +<p> +Flattered by the position of importance which she had suddenly assumed in the +housekeeper’s eyes, Mrs. Wragge entered at full length into the narrative +of her supernatural adventure. The breathless eagerness with which Mrs. Lecount +listened to her description of the specter’s costume, the specter’s +hurry on the stairs, and the specter’s disappearance in the bedroom; the +extraordinary interest which Mrs. Lecount displayed on hearing that the dress +in the wardrobe was the very dress in which Magdalen happened to be attired at +the awful moment when the ghost vanished, encouraged Mrs. Wragge to wade deeper +and deeper into details, and to involve herself in a confusion of collateral +circumstances out of which there seemed to be no prospect of her emerging for +hours to come. Faster and faster the inexorable minutes flew by; nearer and +nearer came the fatal moment of Mr. Bygrave’s return. Mrs. Lecount looked +at her watch for the third time, without an attempt on this occasion to conceal +the action from her companion’s notice. There were literally two minutes +left for her to get clear of North Shingles. Two minutes would be enough, if no +accident happened. She had discovered the Alpaca dress; she had heard the whole +story of the adventure in Vauxhall Walk; and, more than that, she had even +informed herself of the number of the house—which Mrs. Wragge happened to +remember, because it answered to the number of years in her own age. All that +was necessary to her master’s complete enlightenment she had now +accomplished. Even if there had been time to stay longer, there was nothing +worth staying for. “I’ll strike this worthy idiot dumb with a +<i>coup d’etat</i>,” thought the housekeeper, “and vanish +before she recovers herself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Horrible!” cried Mrs. Lecount, interrupting the ghostly narrative +by a shrill little scream and making for the door, to Mrs. Wragge’s +unutterable astonishment, without the least ceremony. “You freeze the +very marrow of my bones. Good-morning!” She coolly tossed the Oriental +Cashmere Robe into Mrs. Wragge’s expansive lap and left the room in an +instant. +</p> + +<p> +As she swiftly descended the stairs, she heard the door of the bedroom open. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are your manners?” cried a voice from above, hailing her +feebly over the banisters. “What do you mean by pitching my gown at me in +that way? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” pursued Mrs. Wragge, +turning from a lamb to a lioness, as she gradually realized the indignity +offered to the Cashmere Robe. “You nasty foreigner, you ought to be +ashamed of yourself!” +</p> + +<p> +Pursued by this valedictory address, Mrs. Lecount reached the house door, and +opened it without interruption. She glided rapidly along the garden path, +passed through the gate, and finding herself safe on the Parade, stopped, and +looked toward the sea. +</p> + +<p> +The first object which her eyes encountered was the figure of Mr. Bygrave +standing motionless on the beach—a petrified bather, with his towels in +his hand! One glance at him was enough to show that he had seen the housekeeper +passing out through his garden gate. +</p> + +<p> +Rightly conjecturing that Mr. Bygrave’s first impulse would lead him to +make instant inquiries in his own house, Mrs. Lecount pursued her way back to +Sea View as composedly as if nothing had happened. When she entered the parlor +where her solitary breakfast was waiting for her, she was surprised to see a +letter lying on the table. She approached to take it up with an expression of +impatience, thinking it might be some tradesman’s bill which she had +forgotten. +</p> + +<p> +It was the forged letter from Zurich. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap36"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h3> + +<p> +The postmark and the handwriting on the address (admirably imitated from the +original) warned Mrs. Lecount of the contents of the letter before she opened +it. +</p> + +<p> +After waiting a moment to compose herself, she read the announcement of her +brother’s relapse. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing in the handwriting, there was no expression in any part of +the letter which could suggest to her mind the faintest suspicion of foul play. +Not the shadow of a doubt occurred to her that the summons to her +brother’s bedside was genuine. The hand that held the letter dropped +heavily into her lap; she became pale, and old, and haggard in a moment. +Thoughts, far removed from her present aims and interests; remembrances that +carried her back to other lands than England, to other times than the time of +her life in service, prolonged their inner shadows to the surface, and showed +the traces of their mysterious passage darkly on her face. The minutes followed +each other, and still the servant below stairs waited vainly for the parlor +bell. The minutes followed each other, and still she sat, tearless and quiet, +dead to the present and the future, living in the past. +</p> + +<p> +The entrance of the servant, uncalled, roused her. With a heavy sigh, the cold +and secret woman folded the letter up again and addressed herself to the +interests and the duties of the passing time. +</p> + +<p> +She decided the question of going or not going to Zurich, after a very brief +consideration of it. Before she had drawn her chair to the breakfast-table she +had resolved to go. +</p> + +<p> +Admirably as Captain Wragge’s stratagem had worked, it might have +failed—unassisted by the occurrence of the morning—to achieve this +result. The very accident against which it had been the captain’s chief +anxiety to guard—the accident which had just taken place in spite of +him—was, of all the events that could have happened, the one event which +falsified every previous calculation, by directly forwarding the main purpose +of the conspiracy! If Mrs. Lecount had not obtained the information of which +she was in search before the receipt of the letter from Zurich, the letter +might have addressed her in vain. She would have hesitated before deciding to +leave England, and that hesitation might have proved fatal to the +captain’s scheme. +</p> + +<p> +As it was, with the plain proofs in her possession, with the gown discovered in +Magdalen’s wardrobe, with the piece cut out of it in her own pocketbook, +and with the knowledge, obtained from Mrs. Wragge, of the very house in which +the disguise had been put on, Mrs. Lecount had now at her command the means of +warning Noel Vanstone as she had never been able to warn him yet, or, in other +words, the means of guarding against any dangerous tendencies toward +reconciliation with the Bygraves which might otherwise have entered his mind +during her absence at Zurich. The only difficulty which now perplexed her was +the difficulty of deciding whether she should communicate with her master +personally or by writing, before her departure from England. +</p> + +<p> +She looked again at the doctor’s letter. The word +“instantly,” in the sentence which summoned her to her dying +brother, was twice underlined. Admiral Bartram’s house was at some +distance from the railway; the time consumed in driving to St. Crux, and +driving back again, might be time fatally lost on the journey to Zurich. +Although she would infinitely have preferred a personal interview with Noel +Vanstone, there was no choice on a matter of life and death but to save the +precious hours by writing to him. +</p> + +<p> +After sending to secure a place at once in the early coach, she sat down to +write to her master. +</p> + +<p> +Her first thought was to tell him all that had happened at North Shingles that +morning. On reflection, however, she rejected the idea. Once already (in +copying the personal description from Miss Garth’s letter) she had +trusted her weapons in her master’s hands, and Mr. Bygrave had contrived +to turn them against her. She resolved this time to keep them strictly in her +own possession. The secret of the missing fragment of the Alpaca dress was +known to no living creature but herself; and, until her return to England, she +determined to keep it to herself. The necessary impression might be produced on +Noel Vanstone’s mind without venturing into details. She knew by +experience the form of letter which might be trusted to produce an effect on +him, and she now wrote it in these words: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“DEAR MR. NOEL—Sad news has reached me from Switzerland. My beloved +brother is dying and his medical attendant summons me instantly to Zurich. The +serious necessity of availing myself of the earliest means of conveyance to the +Continent leaves me but one alternative. I must profit by the permission to +leave England, if necessary, which you kindly granted to me at the beginning of +my brother’s illness, and I must avoid all delay by going straight to +London, instead of turning aside, as I should have liked, to see you first at +St. Crux. +</p> + +<p> +“Painfully as I am affected by the family calamity which has fallen on +me, I cannot let this opportunity pass without adverting to another subject +which seriously concerns your welfare, and in which (on that account) your old +housekeeper feels the deepest interest. +</p> + +<p> +“I am going to surprise and shock you, Mr. Noel. Pray don’t be +agitated! pray compose yourself! +</p> + +<p> +“The impudent attempt to cheat you, which has happily opened your eyes to +the true character of our neighbors at North Shingles, was not the only object +which Mr. Bygrave had in forcing himself on your acquaintance. The infamous +conspiracy with which you were threatened in London has been in full progress +against you under Mr. Bygrave’s direction, at Aldborough. +Accident—I will tell you what accident when we meet—has put me in +possession of information precious to your future security. I have discovered, +to an absolute certainty, that the person calling herself Miss Bygrave is no +other than the woman who visited us in disguise at Vauxhall Walk. +</p> + +<p> +“I suspected this from the first, but I had no evidence to support my +suspicions; I had no means of combating the false impression produced on you. +My hands, I thank Heaven, are tied no longer. I possess absolute proof of the +assertion that I have just made—proof that your own eyes can +see—proof that would satisfy you, if you were judge in a Court of +Justice. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps even yet, Mr. Noel, you will refuse to believe me? Be it so. +Believe me or not, I have one last favor to ask, which your English sense of +fair play will not deny me. +</p> + +<p> +“This melancholy journey of mine will keep me away from England for a +fortnight, or, at most, for three weeks. You will oblige me—and you will +certainly not sacrifice your own convenience and pleasure—by staying +through that interval with your friends at St. Crux. If, before my return, some +unexpected circumstance throws you once more into the company of the Bygraves, +and if your natural kindness of heart inclines you to receive the excuses which +they will, in that case, certainly address to you, place one trifling restraint +on yourself, for your own sake, if not for mine. Suspend your flirtation with +the young lady (I beg pardon of all other young ladies for calling her so!) +until my return. If, when I come back, I fail to prove to you that Miss Bygrave +is the woman who wore that disguise, and used those threatening words, in +Vauxhall Wall, I will engage to leave your service at a day’s notice; and +I will atone for the sin of bearing false witness against my neighbor by +resigning every claim I have to your grateful remembrance, on your +father’s account as well as on your own. I make this engagement without +reserves of any kind; and I promise to abide by it—if my proofs +fail—on the faith of a good Catholic, and the word of an honest woman. +Your faithful servant, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“VIRGINIE LECOUNT.” +</p> + +<p> +The closing sentences of this letter—as the housekeeper well knew when +she wrote them—embodied the one appeal to Noel Vanstone which could be +certainly trusted to produce a deep and lasting effect. She might have staked +her oath, her life, or her reputation, on proving the assertion which she had +made, and have failed to leave a permanent impression on his mind. But when she +staked not only her position in his service, but her pecuniary claims on him as +well, she at once absorbed the ruling passion of his life in expectation of the +result. There was not a doubt of it, in the strongest of all his +interests—the interest of saving his money—he would wait. +</p> + +<p> +“Checkmate for Mr. Bygrave!” thought Mrs. Lecount, as she sealed +and directed the letter. “The battle is over—the game is played +out.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +While Mrs. Lecount was providing for her master’s future security at Sea +View, events were in full progress at North Shingles. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as Captain Wragge recovered his astonishment at the housekeeper’s +appearance on his own premises, he hurried into the house, and, guided by his +own forebodings of the disaster that had happened, made straight for his +wife’s room. +</p> + +<p> +Never, in all her former experience, had poor Mrs. Wragge felt the full weight +of the captain’s indignation as she felt it now. All the little +intelligence she naturally possessed vanished at once in the whirlwind of her +husband’s rage. The only plain facts which he could extract from her were +two in number. In the first place, Magdalen’s rash desertion of her post +proved to have no better reason to excuse it than Magdalen’s incorrigible +impatience: she had passed a sleepless night; she had risen feverish and +wretched; and she had gone out, reckless of all consequences, to cool her +burning head in the fresh air. In the second place, Mrs. Wragge had, on her own +confession, seen Mrs. Lecount, had talked with Mrs. Lecount, and had ended by +telling Mrs. Lecount the story of the ghost. Having made these discoveries, +Captain Wragge wasted no time in contending with his wife’s terror and +confusion. He withdrew at once to a window which commanded an uninterrupted +prospect of Noel Vanstone’s house, and there established himself on the +watch for events at Sea View, precisely as Mrs. Lecount had established herself +on the watch for events at North Shingles. +</p> + +<p> +Not a word of comment on the disaster of the morning escaped him when Magdalen +returned and found him at his post. His flow of language seemed at last to have +run dry. “I told you what Mrs. Wragge would do,” he said, +“and Mrs. Wragge has done it.” He sat unflinchingly at the window +with a patience which Mrs. Lecount herself could not have surpassed. The one +active proceeding in which he seemed to think it necessary to engage was +performed by deputy. He sent the servant to the inn to hire a chaise and a fast +horse, and to say that he would call himself before noon that day and tell the +hostler when the vehicle would be wanted. Not a sign of impatience escaped him +until the time drew near for the departure of the early coach. Then the +captain’s curly lips began to twitch with anxiety, and the +captain’s restless fingers beat the devil’s tattoo unremittingly on +the window-pane. +</p> + +<p> +The coach appeared at last, and drew up at Sea View. In a minute more, Captain +Wragge’s own observation informed him that one among the passengers who +left Aldborough that morning was—Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +The main uncertainty disposed of, a serious question—suggested by the +events of the morning—still remained to be solved. Which was the destined +end of Mrs. Lecount’s journey—Zurich or St. Crux? That she would +certainly inform her master of Mrs. Wragge’s ghost story, and of every +other disclosure in relation to names and places which might have escaped Mrs. +Wragge’s lips, was beyond all doubt. But of the two ways at her disposal +of doing the mischief—either personally or by letter—it was vitally +important to the captain to know which she had chosen. If she had gone to the +admiral’s, no choice would be left him but to follow the coach, to catch +the train by which she traveled, and to outstrip her afterward on the drive +from the station in Essex to St. Crux. If, on the contrary, she had been +contented with writing to her master, it would only be necessary to devise +measures for intercepting the letter. The captain decided on going to the +post-office, in the first place. Assuming that the housekeeper had written, she +would not have left the letter at the mercy of the servant—she would have +seen it safely in the letter-box before leaving Aldborough. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-morning,” said the captain, cheerfully addressing the +postmaster. “I am Mr. Bygrave of North Shingles. I think you have a +letter in the box, addressed to Mr.—?” +</p> + +<p> +The postmaster was a short man, and consequently a man with a proper idea of +his own importance. He solemnly checked Captain Wragge in full career. +</p> + +<p> +“When a letter is once posted, sir,” he said, “nobody out of +the office has any business with it until it reaches its address.” +</p> + +<p> +The captain was not a man to be daunted, even by a postmaster. A bright idea +struck him. He took out his pocketbook, in which Admiral Bartram’s +address was written, and returned to the charge. +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose a letter has been wrongly directed by mistake?” he began. +“And suppose the writer wants to correct the error after the letter is +put into the box?” +</p> + +<p> +“When a letter is once posted, sir,” reiterated the impenetrable +local authority, “nobody out of the office touches it on any pretense +whatever.” +</p> + +<p> +“Granted, with all my heart,” persisted the captain. “I +don’t want to touch it—I only want to explain myself. A lady has +posted a letter here, addressed to ‘Noel Vanstone, Esq., Admiral +Bartram’s, St. Crux-in-the-Marsh, Essex.’ She wrote in a great +hurry, and she is not quite certain whether she added the name of the +post-town, ‘Ossory.’ It is of the last importance that the delivery +of the letter should not be delayed. What is to hinder your facilitating the +post-office work, and obliging a lady, by adding the name of the post-town (if +it happens to be left out), with your own hand? I put it to you as a zealous +officer, what possible objection can there be to granting my request?” +</p> + +<p> +The postmaster was compelled to acknowledge that there could be no objection, +provided nothing but a necessary line was added to the address, provided nobody +touched the letter but himself, and provided the precious time of the +post-office was not suffered to run to waste. As there happened to be nothing +particular to do at that moment, he would readily oblige the lady at Mr. +Bygrave’s request. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge watched the postmaster’s hands, as they sorted the letters +in the box, with breathless eagerness. Was the letter there? Would the hands of +the zealous public servant suddenly stop? Yes! They stopped, and picked out a +letter from the rest. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Noel Vanstone, Esquire,’ did you say?” asked the +postmaster, keeping the letter in his own hand. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Noel Vanstone, Esquire,’” replied the captain, +“‘Admiral Bartram’s, St. Crux-in-the-Marsh.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Ossory, Essex,” chimed in the postmaster, throwing the letter back +into the box. “The lady has made no mistake, sir. The address is quite +right.” +</p> + +<p> +Nothing but a timely consideration of the heavy debt he owed to appearances +prevented Captain Wragge from throwing his tall white hat up in the air as soon +as he found the street once more. All further doubt was now at an end. Mrs. +Lecount had written to her master—therefore Mrs. Lecount was on her way +to Zurich! +</p> + +<p> +With his head higher than ever, with the tails of his respectable frock-coat +floating behind him in the breeze, with his bosom’s native impudence +sitting lightly on its throne, the captain strutted to the inn and called for +the railway time-table. After making certain calculations (in black and white, +as a matter of course), he ordered his chaise to be ready in an hour—so +as to reach the railway in time for the second train running to +London—with which there happened to be no communication from Aldborough +by coach. +</p> + +<p> +His next proceeding was of a far more serious kind; his next proceeding implied +a terrible certainty of success. The day of the week was Thursday. From the inn +he went to the church, saw the clerk, and gave the necessary notice for a +marriage by license on the following Monday. +</p> + +<p> +Bold as he was, his nerves were a little shaken by this last achievement; his +hand trembled as it lifted the latch of the garden gate. He doctored his nerves +with brandy and water before he sent for Magdalen to inform her of the +proceedings of the morning. Another outbreak might reasonably be expected when +she heard that the last irrevocable step had been taken, and that notice had +been given of the wedding-day. +</p> + +<p> +The captain’s watch warned him to lose no time in emptying his glass. In +a few minutes he sent the necessary message upstairs. While waiting for +Magdalen’s appearance, he provided himself with certain materials which +were now necessary to carry the enterprise to its crowning point. In the first +place, he wrote his assumed name (by no means in so fine a hand as usual) on a +blank visiting-card, and added underneath these words: “Not a moment is +to be lost. I am waiting for you at the door—come down to me +directly.” His next proceeding was to take some half-dozen envelopes out +of the case, and to direct them all alike to the following address: +“Thomas Bygrave, Esq., Mussared’s Hotel, Salisbury Street, Strand, +London.” After carefully placing the envelopes and the card in his +breast-pocket, he shut up the desk. As he rose from the writing-table, Magdalen +came into the room. +</p> + +<p> +The captain took a moment to decide on the best method of opening the +interview, and determined, in his own phrase, to dash at it. In two words he +told Magdalen what had happened, and informed her that Monday was to be her +wedding-day. +</p> + +<p> +He was prepared to quiet her, if she burst into a frenzy of passion; to reason +with her, if she begged for time; to sympathize with her, if she melted into +tears. To his inexpressible surprise, results falsified all his calculations. +She heard him without uttering a word, without shedding a tear. When he had +done, she dropped into a chair. Her large gray eyes stared at him vacantly. In +one mysterious instant all her beauty left her; her face stiffened awfully, +like the face of a corpse. For the first time in the captain’s experience +of her, fear—all-mastering fear—had taken possession of her, body +and soul. +</p> + +<p> +“You are not flinching,” he said, trying to rouse her. +“Surely you are not flinching at the last moment?” +</p> + +<p> +No light of intelligence came into her eyes, no change passed over her face. +But she heard him—for she moved a little in the chair, and slowly shook +her head. +</p> + +<p> +“You planned this marriage of your own freewill,” pursued the +captain, with the furtive look and the faltering voice of a man ill at ease. +“It was your own idea—not mine. I won’t have the +responsibility laid on my shoulders—no! not for twice two hundred pounds. +If your resolution fails you; if you think better of it—?” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped. Her face was changing; her lips were moving at last. She slowly +raised her left hand, with the fingers outspread; she looked at it as if it was +a hand that was strange to her; she counted the days on it, the days before the +marriage. +</p> + +<p> +“Friday, one,” she whispered to herself; “Saturday, two; +Sunday, three; Monday—” Her hands dropped into her lap, her face +stiffened again; the deadly fear fastened its paralyzing hold on her once more, +and the next words died away on her lips. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. +</p> + +<p> +“Damn the two hundred pounds!” he said. “Two thousand +wouldn’t pay me for this!” +</p> + +<p> +He put the handkerchief back, took the envelopes which he had addressed to +himself out of his pocket, and, approaching her closely for the first time, +laid his hand on her arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Rouse yourself,” he said, “I have a last word to say to you. +Can you listen?” +</p> + +<p> +She struggled, and roused herself—a faint tinge of color stole over her +white cheeks—she bowed her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at these,” pursued Captain Wragge, holding up the envelopes. +“If I turn these to the use for which they have been written, Mrs. +Lecount’s master will never receive Mrs. Lecount’s letter. If I +tear them up, he will know by to-morrow’s post that you are the woman who +visited him in Vauxhall Walk. Say the word! Shall I tear the envelopes up, or +shall I put them back in my pocket?” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause of dead silence. The murmur of the summer waves on the +shingle of the beach and the voices of the summer idlers on the Parade floated +through the open window, and filled the empty stillness of the room. +</p> + +<p> +She raised her head; she lifted her hand and pointed steadily to the envelopes. +</p> + +<p> +“Put them back,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean it?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean it.” +</p> + +<p> +As she gave that answer, there was a sound of wheels on the road outside. +</p> + +<p> +“You hear those wheels?” said Captain Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +“I hear them.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see the chaise?” said the captain, pointing through the window +as the chaise which had been ordered from the inn made its appearance at the +garden gate. +</p> + +<p> +“I see it.” +</p> + +<p> +“And, of your own free-will, you tell me to go?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Go!” +</p> + +<p> +Without another word he left her. The servant was waiting at the door with his +traveling bag. “Miss Bygrave is not well,” he said. “Tell +your mistress to go to her in the parlor.” +</p> + +<p> +He stepped into the chaise, and started on the first stage of the journey to +St. Crux. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap37"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h3> + +<p> +Toward three o’clock in the afternoon Captain Wragge stopped at the +nearest station to Ossory which the railway passed in its course through Essex. +Inquiries made on the spot informed him that he might drive to St. Crux, remain +there for a quarter of an hour, and return to the station in time for an +evening train to London. In ten minutes more the captain was on the road again, +driving rapidly in the direction of the coast. +</p> + +<p> +After proceeding some miles on the highway, the carriage turned off, and the +coachman involved himself in an intricate network of cross-roads. +</p> + +<p> +“Are we far from St. Crux?” asked the captain, growing impatient, +after mile on mile had been passed without a sign of reaching the +journey’s end. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll see the house, sir, at the next turn in the road,” +said the man. +</p> + +<p> +The next turn in the road brought them within view of the open country again. +Ahead of the carriage, Captain Wragge saw a long dark line against the +sky—the line of the sea-wall which protects the low coast of Essex from +inundation. The flat intermediate country was intersected by a labyrinth of +tidal streams, winding up from the invisible sea in strange fantastic +curves—rivers at high water, and channels of mud at low. On his right +hand was a quaint little village, mostly composed of wooden houses, straggling +down to the brink of one of the tidal streams. On his left hand, further away, +rose the gloomy ruins of an abbey, with a desolate pile of buildings, which +covered two sides of a square attached to it. One of the streams from the sea +(called, in Essex, “backwaters”) curled almost entirely round the +house. Another, from an opposite quarter, appeared to run straight through the +grounds, and to separate one side of the shapeless mass of buildings, which was +in moderate repair, from another, which was little better than a ruin. Bridges +of wood and bridges of brick crossed the stream, and gave access to the house +from all points of the compass. No human creature appeared in the neighborhood, +and no sound was heard but the hoarse barking of a house-dog from an invisible +courtyard. +</p> + +<p> +“Which door shall I drive to, sir?” asked the coachman. “The +front or the back?” +</p> + +<p> +“The back,” said Captain Wragge, feeling that the less notice he +attracted in his present position, the safer that position might be. +</p> + +<p> +The carriage twice crossed the stream before the coachman made his way through +the grounds into a dreary inclosure of stone. At an open door on the inhabited +side of the place sat a weather-beaten old man, busily at work on a +half-finished model of a ship. He rose and came to the carriage door, lifting +up his spectacles on his forehead, and looking disconcerted at the appearance +of a stranger. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Mr. Noel Vanstone staying here?” asked Captain Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” replied the old man. “Mr. Noel came +yesterday.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take that card to Mr. Vanstone, if you please,” said the captain, +“and say I am waiting here to see him.” +</p> + +<p> +In a few minutes Noel Vanstone made his appearance, breathless and +eager—absorbed in anxiety for news from Aldborough. Captain Wragge opened +the carriage door, seized his outstretched hand, and pulled him in without +ceremony. +</p> + +<p> +“Your housekeeper has gone,” whispered the captain, “and you +are to be married on Monday. Don’t agitate yourself, and don’t +express your feelings—there isn’t time for it. Get the first active +servant you can find in the house to pack your bag in ten minutes, take leave +of the admiral, and come back at once with me to the London train.” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone faintly attempted to ask a question. The captain declined to hear +it. +</p> + +<p> +“As much talk as you like on the road,” he said. “Time is too +precious for talking here. How do we know Lecount may not think better of it? +How do we know she may not turn back before she gets to Zurich?” +</p> + +<p> +That startling consideration terrified Noel Vanstone into instant submission. +</p> + +<p> +“What shall I say to the admiral?” he asked, helplessly. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him you are going to be married, to be sure! What does it matter, +now Lecount’s back is turned? If he wonders you didn’t tell him +before, say it’s a runaway match, and the bride is waiting for you. Stop! +Any letters addressed to you in your absence will be sent to this place, of +course? Give the admiral these envelopes, and tell him to forward your letters +under cover to me. I am an old customer at the hotel we are going to; and if we +find the place full, the landlord may be depended on to take care of any +letters with my name on them. A safe address in London for your correspondence +may be of the greatest importance. How do we know Lecount may not write to you +on her way to Zurich?” +</p> + +<p> +“What a head you have got!” cried Noel Vanstone, eagerly taking the +envelopes. “You think of everything.” +</p> + +<p> +He left the carriage in high excitement, and ran back into the house. In ten +minutes more Captain Wragge had him in safe custody, and the horses started on +their return journey. +</p> + +<p> +The travelers reached London in good time that evening, and found accommodation +at the hotel. +</p> + +<p> +Knowing the restless, inquisitive nature of the man he had to deal with, +Captain Wragge had anticipated some little difficulty and embarrassment in +meeting the questions which Noel Vanstone might put to him on the way to +London. To his great relief, a startling domestic discovery absorbed his +traveling companion’s whole attention at the outset of the journey. By +some extraordinary oversight, Miss Bygrave had been left, on the eve of her +marriage, unprovided with a maid. Noel Vanstone declared that he would take the +whole responsibility of correcting this deficiency in the arrangements, on his +own shoulders; he would not trouble Mr. Bygrave to give him any assistance; he +would confer, when they got to their journey’s end, with the landlady of +the hotel, and would examine the candidates for the vacant office himself. All +the way to London, he returned again and again to the same subject; all the +evening, at the hotel, he was in and out of the landlady’s sitting-room, +until he fairly obliged her to lock the door. In every other proceeding which +related to his marriage, he had been kept in the background; he had been +compelled to follow in the footsteps of his ingenious friend. In the matter of +the lady’s maid he claimed his fitting position at last—he followed +nobody; he took the lead! +</p> + +<p> +The forenoon of the next day was devoted to obtaining the license—the +personal distinction of making the declaration on oath being eagerly accepted +by Noel Vanstone, who swore, in perfect good faith (on information previously +obtained from the captain) that the lady was of age. The document procured, the +bridegroom returned to examine the characters and qualifications of the +women-servants out of the place whom the landlady had engaged to summon to the +hotel, while Captain Wragge turned his steps, “on business personal to +himself,” toward the residence of a friend in a distant quarter of +London. +</p> + +<p> +The captain’s friend was connected with the law, and the captain’s +business was of a twofold nature. His first object was to inform himself of the +legal bearings of the approaching marriage on the future of the husband and the +wife. His second object was to provide beforehand for destroying all traces of +the destination to which he might betake himself when he left Aldborough on the +wedding-day. Having reached his end successfully in both these cases, he +returned to the hotel, and found Noel Vanstone nursing his offended dignity in +the landlady’s sitting-room. Three ladies’ maids had appeared to +pass their examination, and had all, on coming to the question of wages, +impudently declined accepting the place. A fourth candidate was expected to +present herself on the next day; and, until she made her appearance, Noel +Vanstone positively declined removing from the metropolis. Captain Wragge +showed his annoyance openly at the unnecessary delay thus occasioned in the +return to Aldborough, but without producing any effect. Noel Vanstone shook his +obstinate little head, and solemnly refused to trifle with his +responsibilities. +</p> + +<p> +The first event which occurred on Saturday morning was the arrival of Mrs. +Lecount’s letter to her master, inclosed in one of the envelopes which +the captain had addressed to himself. He received it (by previous arrangement +with the waiter) in his bedroom—read it with the closest +attention—and put it away carefully in his pocketbook. The letter was +ominous of serious events to come when the housekeeper returned to England; and +it was due to Magdalen—who was the person threatened—to place the +warning of danger in her own possession. +</p> + +<p> +Later in the day the fourth candidate appeared for the maid’s +situation—a young woman of small expectations and subdued manners, who +looked (as the landlady remarked) like a person overtaken by misfortune. She +passed the ordeal of examination successfully, and accepted the wages offered +without a murmur. The engagement having been ratified on both sides, fresh +delays ensued, of which Noel Vanstone was once more the cause. He had not yet +made up his mind whether he would, or would not, give more than a guinea for +the wedding-ring; and he wasted the rest of the day to such disastrous purpose +in one jeweler’s shop after another, that he and the captain, and the new +lady’s maid (who traveled with them), were barely in time to catch the +last train from London that evening. It was late at night when they left the +railway at the nearest station to Aldborough. Captain Wragge had been strangely +silent all through the journey. His mind was ill at ease. He had left Magdalen, +under very critical circumstances, with no fit person to control her, and he +was wholly ignorant of the progress of events in his absence at North Shingles. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap38"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h3> + +<p> +What had happened at Aldborough in Captain Wragge’s absence? Events had +occurred which the captain’s utmost dexterity might have found it hard to +remedy. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as the chaise had left North Shingles, Mrs. Wragge received the message +which her husband had charged the servant to deliver. She hastened into the +parlor, bewildered by her stormy interview with the captain, and penitently +conscious that she had done wrong, without knowing what the wrong was. If +Magdalen’s mind had been unoccupied by the one idea of the marriage which +now filled it—if she had possessed composure enough to listen to Mrs. +Wragge’s rambling narrative of what had happened during her interview +with the housekeeper—Mrs. Lecount’s visit to the wardrobe must, +sooner or later, have formed part of the disclosure; and Magdalen, although she +might never have guessed the truth, must at least have been warned that there +was some element of danger lurking treacherously in the Alpaca dress. As it +was, no such consequence as this followed Mrs. Wragge’s appearance in the +parlor; for no such consequence was now possible. +</p> + +<p> +Events which had happened earlier in the morning, events which had happened for +days and weeks past, had vanished as completely from Magdalen’s mind as +if they had never taken place. The horror of the coming Monday—the +merciless certainty implied in the appointment of the day and +hour—petrified all feeling in her, and annihilated all thought. Mrs. +Wragge made three separate attempts to enter on the subject of the +housekeeper’s visit. The first time she might as well have addressed +herself to the wind, or to the sea. The second attempt seemed likely to be more +successful. Magdalen sighed, listened for a moment indifferently, and then +dismissed the subject. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. +“The end has come all the same. I’m not angry with you. Say no +more.” Later in the day, from not knowing what else to talk about, Mrs. +Wragge tried again. This time Magdalen turned on her impatiently. “For +God’s sake, don’t worry me about trifles! I can’t bear +it.” Mrs. Wragge closed her lips on the spot, and returned to the subject +no more. Magdalen, who had been kind to her at all other times, had angrily +forbidden it. The captain—utterly ignorant of Mrs. Lecount’s +interest in the secrets of the wardrobe—had never so much as approached +it. All the information that he had extracted from his wife’s mental +confusion, he had extracted by putting direct questions, derived purely from +the resources of his own knowledge. He had insisted on plain answers, without +excuses of any kind; he had carried his point as usual; and his departure the +same morning had left him no chance of re-opening the question, even if his +irritation against his wife had permitted him to do so. There the Alpaca dress +hung, neglected in the dark—the unnoticed, unsuspected center of dangers +that were still to come. +</p> + +<p> +Toward the afternoon Mrs. Wragge took courage to start a suggestion of her +own—she pleaded for a little turn in the fresh air. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen passively put on her hat; passively accompanied her companion along +the public walk, until they reached its northward extremity. Here the beach was +left solitary, and here they sat down, side by side, on the shingle. It was a +bright, exhilarating day; pleasure-boats were sailing on the calm blue water; +Aldborough was idling happily afloat and ashore. Mrs. Wragge recovered her +spirits in the gayety of the prospect—she amused herself like a child, by +tossing pebbles into the sea. From time to time she stole a questioning glance +at Magdalen, and saw no encouragement in her manner, no change to cordiality in +her face. She sat silent on the slope of the shingle, with her elbow on her +knee, and her head resting on her hand, looking out over the sea—looking +with rapt attention, and yet with eyes that seemed to notice nothing. Mrs. +Wragge wearied of the pebbles, and lost her interest in looking at the +pleasure-boats. Her great head began to nod heavily, and she dozed in the warm, +drowsy air. When she woke, the pleasure-boats were far off; their sails were +white specks in the distance. The idlers on the beach were thinned in number; +the sun was low in the heaven; the blue sea was darker, and rippled by a +breeze. Changes on sky and earth and ocean told of the waning day; change was +everywhere—except close at her side. There Magdalen sat, in the same +position, with weary eyes that still looked over the sea, and still saw +nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, do speak to me!” said Mrs. Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen started, and looked about her vacantly. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s late,” she said, shivering under the first sensation +that reached her of the rising breeze. “Come home; you want your +tea.” They walked home in silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be angry with me for asking,” said Mrs. Wragge, as +they sat together at the tea-table. “Are you troubled, my dear, in your +mind?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” replied Magdalen. “Don’t notice me. My trouble +will soon be over.” +</p> + +<p> +She waited patiently until Mrs. Wragge had made an end of the meal, and then +went upstairs to her own room. +</p> + +<p> +“Monday!” she said, as she sat down at her toilet-table. +“Something may happen before Monday comes!” +</p> + +<p> +Her fingers wandered mechanically among the brushes and combs, the tiny bottles +and cases placed on the table. She set them in order, now in one way, and now +in another—then on a sudden pushed them away from her in a heap. For a +minute or two her hands remained idle. That interval passed, they grew restless +again, and pulled the two little drawers backward and forward in their grooves. +Among the objects laid in one of them was a Prayer-book which had belonged to +her at Combe-Raven, and which she had saved with her other relics of the past, +when she and her sister had taken their farewell of home. She opened the +Prayer-book, after a long hesitation, at the Marriage Service, shut it again +before she had read a line, and put it back hurriedly in one of the drawers. +After turning the key in the locks, she rose and walked to the window. +“The horrible sea!” she said, turning from it with a shudder of +disgust—“the lonely, dreary, horrible sea!” +</p> + +<p> +She went back to the drawer, and took the Prayer-book out for the second time, +half opened it again at the Marriage Service, and impatiently threw it back +into the drawer. This time, after turning the lock, she took the key away, +walked with it in her hand to the open window, and threw it violently from her +into the garden. It fell on a bed thickly planted with flowers. It was +invisible; it was lost. The sense of its loss seemed to relieve her. +</p> + +<p> +“Something may happen on Friday; something may happen on Saturday; +something may happen on Sunday. Three days still!” +</p> + +<p> +She closed the green shutters outside the window and drew the curtains to +darken the room still more. Her head felt heavy; her eyes were burning hot. She +threw herself on her bed, with a sullen impulse to sleep away the time. The +quiet of the house helped her; the darkness of the room helped her; the stupor +of mind into which she had fallen had its effect on her senses; she dropped +into a broken sleep. Her restless hands moved incessantly, her head tossed from +side to side of the pillow, but still she slept. Ere long words fell by ones +and twos from her lips; words whispered in her sleep, growing more and more +continuous, more and more articulate, the longer the sleep lasted—words +which seemed to calm her restlessness and to hush her into deeper repose. She +smiled; she was in the happy land of dreams; Frank’s name escaped her. +“Do you love me, Frank?” she whispered. “Oh, my darling, say +it again! say it again!” +</p> + +<p> +The time passed, the room grew darker; and still she slumbered and dreamed. +Toward sunset—without any noise inside the house or out to account for +it—she started up on the bed, awake again in an instant. The drowsy +obscurity of the room struck her with terror. She ran to the window, pushed +open the shutters, and leaned far out into the evening air and the evening +light. Her eyes devoured the trivial sights on the beach; her ears drank in the +welcome murmur of the sea. Anything to deliver her from the waking impression +which her dreams had left! No more darkness, no more repose. Sleep that came +mercifully to others came treacherously to her. Sleep had only closed her eyes +on the future, to open them on the past. +</p> + +<p> +She went down again into the parlor, eager to talk—no matter how idly, no +matter on what trifles. The room was empty. Perhaps Mrs. Wragge had gone to her +work—perhaps she was too tired to talk. Magdalen took her hat from the +table and went out. The sea that she had shrunk from, a few hours since, looked +friendly now. How lovely it was in its cool evening blue! What a god-like joy +in the happy multitude of waves leaping up to the light of heaven! +</p> + +<p> +She stayed out until the night fell and the stars appeared. The night steadied +her. +</p> + +<p> +By slow degrees her mind recovered its balance and she looked her position +unflinchingly in the face. The vain hope that accident might defeat the very +end for which, of her own free-will, she had ceaselessly plotted and toiled, +vanished and left her; self-dissipated in its own weakness. She knew the true +alternative, and faced it. On one side was the revolting ordeal of the +marriage; on the other, the abandonment of her purpose. Was it too late to +choose between the sacrifice of the purpose and the sacrifice of herself? Yes! +too late. The backward path had closed behind her. Time that no wish could +change, Time that no prayers could recall, had made her purpose a part of +herself: once she had governed it; now it governed her. The more she shrank, +the harder she struggled, the more mercilessly it drove her on. No other +feeling in her was strong enough to master it—not even the horror that +was maddening her—the horror of her marriage. +</p> + +<p> +Toward nine o’clock she went back to the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Walking again!” said Mrs. Wragge, meeting her at the door. +“Come in and sit down, my dear. How tired you must be!” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen smiled, and patted Mrs. Wragge kindly on the shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“You forget how strong I am,” she said. “Nothing hurts +me.” +</p> + +<p> +She lit her candle and went upstairs again into her room. As she returned to +the old place by her toilet-table, the vain hope in the three days of delay, +the vain hope of deliverance by accident, came back to her—this time in a +form more tangible than the form which it had hitherto worn. +</p> + +<p> +“Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Something may happen to him; something may +happen to me. Something serious; something fatal. One of us may die.” +</p> + +<p> +A sudden change came over her face. She shivered, though there was no cold in +the air. She started, though there was no noise to alarm her. +</p> + +<p> +“One of us may die. I may be the one.” +</p> + +<p> +She fell into deep thought, roused herself after a while, and, opening the +door, called to Mrs. Wragge to come and speak to her. +</p> + +<p> +“You were right in thinking I should fatigue myself,” she said. +“My walk has been a little too much for me. I feel tired, and I am going +to bed. Good-night.” She kissed Mrs. Wragge and softly closed the door +again. +</p> + +<p> +After a few turns backward and forward in the room, she abruptly opened her +writing-case and began a letter to her sister. The letter grew and grew under +her hands; she filled sheet after sheet of note-paper. Her heart was full of +her subject: it was her own story addressed to Norah. She shed no tears; she +was composed to a quiet sadness. Her pen ran smoothly on. After writing for +more than two hours, she left off while the letter was still unfinished. There +was no signature attached to it—there was a blank space reserved, to be +filled up at some other time. After putting away the case, with the sheets of +writing secured inside it, she walked to the window for air, and stood there +looking out. +</p> + +<p> +The moon was waning over the sea. The breeze of the earlier hours had died out. +On earth and ocean, the spirit of the Night brooded in a deep and awful calm. +</p> + +<p> +Her head drooped low on her bosom, and all the view waned before her eyes with +the waning moon. She saw no sea, no sky. Death, the Tempter, was busy at her +heart. Death, the Tempter, pointed homeward, to the grave of her dead parents +in Combe-Raven churchyard. +</p> + +<p> +“Nineteen last birthday,” she thought. “Only nineteen!” +She moved away from the window, hesitated, and then looked out again at the +view. “The beautiful night!” she said, gratefully. “Oh, the +beautiful night!” +</p> + +<p> +She left the window and lay down on her bed. Sleep, that had come treacherously +before, came mercifully now; came deep and dreamless, the image of her last +waking thought—the image of Death. +</p> + +<p> +Early the next morning Mrs. Wragge went into Magdalen’s room, and found +that she had risen betimes. She was sitting before the glass, drawing the comb +slowly through and through her hair—thoughtful and quiet. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you feel this morning, my dear?” asked Mrs. Wragge. +“Quite well again?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +After replying in the affirmative, she stopped, considered for a moment, and +suddenly contradicted herself. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said, “not quite well. I am suffering a little from +toothache.” +</p> + +<p> +As she altered her first answer in those words she gave a twist to her hair +with the comb, so that it fell forward and hid her face. +</p> + +<p> +At breakfast she was very silent, and she took nothing but a cup of tea. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me go to the chemist’s and get something,” said Mrs. +Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do let me!” +</p> + +<p> +“No!” +</p> + +<p> +She refused for the second time, sharply and angrily. As usual, Mrs. Wragge +submitted, and let her have her own way. When breakfast was over, she rose, +without a word of explanation, and went out. Mrs. Wragge watched her from the +window and saw that she took the direction of the chemist’s shop. +</p> + +<p> +On reaching the chemist’s door she stopped—paused before entering +the shop, and looked in at the window—hesitated, and walked away a +little—hesitated again, and took the first turning which led back to the +beach. +</p> + +<p> +Without looking about her, without caring what place she chose, she seated +herself on the shingle. The only persons who were near to her, in the position +she now occupied, were a nursemaid and two little boys. The youngest of the two +had a tiny toy-ship in his hand. After looking at Magdalen for a little while +with the quaintest gravity and attention, the boy suddenly approached her, and +opened the way to an acquaintance by putting his toy composedly on her lap. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at my ship,” said the child, crossing his hands on +Magdalen’s knee. +</p> + +<p> +She was not usually patient with children. In happier days she would not have +met the boy’s advance toward her as she met it now. The hard despair in +her eyes left them suddenly; her fast-closed lips parted and trembled. She put +the ship back into the child’s hands and lifted him on her lap. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you give me a kiss?” she said, faintly. The boy looked at his +ship as if he would rather have kissed the ship. +</p> + +<p> +She repeated the question—repeated it almost humbly. The child put his +hand up to her neck and kissed her. +</p> + +<p> +“If I was your sister, would you love me?” All the misery of her +friendless position, all the wasted tenderness of her heart, poured from her in +those words. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you love me?” she repeated, hiding her face on the bosom of +the child’s frock. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the boy. “Look at my ship.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at the ship through her gathering tears. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you call it?” she asked, trying hard to find her way even +to the interest of a child. +</p> + +<p> +“I call it Uncle Kirke’s ship,” said the boy. “Uncle +Kirke has gone away.” +</p> + +<p> +The name recalled nothing to her memory. No remembrances but old remembrances +lived in her now. “Gone?” she repeated absently, thinking what she +should say to her little friend next. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the boy. “Gone to China.” +</p> + +<p> +Even from the lips of a child that word struck her to the heart. She put +Kirke’s little nephew off her lap, and instantly left the beach. +</p> + +<p> +As she turned back to the house, the struggle of the past night renewed itself +in her mind. But the sense of relief which the child had brought to her, the +reviving tenderness which she had felt while he sat on her knee, influenced her +still. She was conscious of a dawning hope, opening freshly on her thoughts, as +the boy’s innocent eyes had opened on her face when he came to her on the +beach. Was it too late to turn back? Once more she asked herself that question, +and now, for the first time, she asked it in doubt. +</p> + +<p> +She ran up to her own room with a lurking distrust in her changed self which +warned her to act, and not to think. Without waiting to remove her shawl or to +take off her hat, she opened her writing-case and addressed these lines to +Captain Wragge as fast as her pen could trace them: +</p> + +<p> +“You will find the money I promised you inclosed in this. My resolution +has failed me. The horror of marrying him is more than I can face. I have left +Aldborough. Pity my weakness, and forget me. Let us never meet again.” +</p> + +<p> +With throbbing heart, with eager, trembling fingers, she drew her little white +silk bag from her bosom and took out the banknotes to inclose them in the +letter. Her hand searched impetuously; her hand had lost its discrimination of +touch. She grasped the whole contents of the bag in one handful of papers, and +drew them out violently, tearing some and disarranging the folds of others. As +she threw them down before her on the table, the first object that met her eye +was her own handwriting, faded already with time. She looked closer, and saw +the words she had copied from her dead father’s letter—saw the +lawyer’s brief and terrible commentary on them confronting her at the +bottom of the page: +</p> + +<p> +<i>Mr. Vanstone’s daughters are Nobody’s Children, and the law +leaves them helpless at their uncle’s mercy.</i> +</p> + +<p> +Her throbbing heart stopped; her trembling hands grew icily quiet. All the Past +rose before her in mute, overwhelming reproach. She took up the lines which her +own hand had written hardly a minute since, and looked at the ink, still wet on +the letters, with a vacant incredulity. +</p> + +<p> +The color that had risen on her cheeks faded from them once more. The hard +despair looked out again, cold and glittering, in her tearless eyes. She folded +the banknotes carefully, and put them back in her bag. She pressed the copy of +her father’s letter to her lips, and returned it to its place with the +banknotes. When the bag was in her bosom again, she waited a little, with her +face hidden in her hands, then deliberately tore up the lines addressed to +Captain Wragge. Before the ink was dry, the letter lay in fragments on the +floor. +</p> + +<p> +“No!” she said, as the last morsel of the torn paper dropped from +her hand. “On the way I go there is no turning back.” +</p> + +<p> +She rose composedly and left the room. While descending the stairs, she met +Mrs. Wragge coming up. “Going out again, my dear?” asked Mrs. +Wragge. “May I go with you?” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen’s attention wandered. Instead of answering the question, she +absently answered her own thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +“Thousands of women marry for money,” she said. “Why +shouldn’t I?” +</p> + +<p> +The helpless perplexity of Mrs. Wragge’s face as she spoke those words +roused her to a sense of present things. “My poor dear!” she said; +“I puzzle you, don’t I? Never mind what I say—all girls talk +nonsense, and I’m no better than the rest of them. Come! I’ll give +you a treat. You shall enjoy yourself while the captain is away. We will have a +long drive by ourselves. Put on your smart bonnet, and come with me to the +hotel. I’ll tell the landlady to put a nice cold dinner into a basket. +You shall have all the things you like, and I’ll wait on you. When you +are an old, old woman, you will remember me kindly, won’t you? You will +say: ‘She wasn’t a bad girl; hundreds worse than she was live and +prosper, and nobody blames them.’ There! there! go and put your bonnet +on. Oh, my God, what is my heart made of! How it lives and lives, when other +girls’ hearts would have died in them long ago!” +</p> + +<p> +In half an hour more she and Mrs. Wragge were seated together in the carriage. +One of the horses was restive at starting. “Flog him,” she cried +angrily to the driver. “What are you frightened about? Flog him! Suppose +the carriage was upset,” she said, turning suddenly to her companion; +“and suppose I was thrown out and killed on the spot? Nonsense! +don’t look at me in that way. I’m like your husband; I have a dash +of humor, and I’m only joking.” +</p> + +<p> +They were out the whole day. When they reached home again, it was after dark. +The long succession of hours passed in the fresh air left them both with the +same sense of fatigue. Again that night Magdalen slept the deep dreamless sleep +of the night before. And so the Friday closed. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Her last thought at night had been the thought which had sustained her +throughout the day. She had laid her head on the pillow with the same reckless +resolution to submit to the coming trial which had already expressed itself in +words when she and Mrs. Wragge met by accident on the stairs. When she woke on +the morning of Saturday, the resolution was gone. The Friday’s +thoughts—the Friday’s events even—were blotted out of her +mind. Once again, creeping chill through the flow of her young blood, she felt +the slow and deadly prompting of despair which had come to her in the waning +moonlight, which had whispered to her in the awful calm. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw the end as the end must be,” she said to herself, “on +Thursday night. I have been wrong ever since.” +</p> + +<p> +When she and her companion met that morning, she reiterated her complaint of +suffering from the toothache; she repeated her refusal to allow Mrs. Wragge to +procure a remedy; she left the house after breakfast, in the direction of the +chemist’s shop, exactly as she had left it on the morning before. +</p> + +<p> +This time she entered the shop without an instant’s hesitation. +</p> + +<p> +“I have got an attack of toothache,” she said, abruptly, to an +elderly man who stood behind the counter. +</p> + +<p> +“May I look at the tooth, miss?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no necessity to look. It is a hollow tooth. I think I have +caught cold in it.” +</p> + +<p> +The chemist recommended various remedies which were in vogue fifteen years +since. She declined purchasing any of them. +</p> + +<p> +“I have always found Laudanum relieve the pain better than anything +else,” she said, trifling with the bottles on the counter, and looking at +them while she spoke, instead of looking at the chemist. “Let me have +some Laudanum.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, miss. Excuse my asking the question—it is only a matter +of form. You are staying at Aldborough, I think?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I am Miss Bygrave, of North Shingles.” +</p> + +<p> +The chemist bowed; and, turning to his shelves, filled an ordinary half-ounce +bottle with laudanum immediately. In ascertaining his customer’s name and +address beforehand, the owner of the shop had taken a precaution which was +natural to a careful man, but which was by no means universal, under similar +circumstances, in the state of the law at that time. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I put you up a little cotton wool with the laudanum?” he +asked, after he had placed a label on the bottle, and had written a word on it +in large letters. +</p> + +<p> +“If you please. What have you just written on the bottle?” She put +the question sharply, with something of distrust as well as curiosity in her +manner. +</p> + +<p> +The chemist answered the question by turning the label toward her. She saw +written on it, in large letters—POISON. +</p> + +<p> +“I like to be on the safe side, miss,” said the old man, smiling. +“Very worthy people in other respects are often sadly careless where +poisons are concerned.” +</p> + +<p> +She began trifling again with the bottles on the counter, and put another +question, with an ill-concealed anxiety to hear the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Is there danger,” she asked, “in such a little drop of +Laudanum as that?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is Death in it, miss,” replied the chemist, quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“Death to a child, or to a person in delicate health?” +</p> + +<p> +“Death to the strongest man in England, let him be who he may.” +</p> + +<p> +With that answer, the chemist sealed up the bottle in its wrapping of white +paper and handed the laudanum to Magdalen across the counter. She laughed as +she took it from him, and paid for it. +</p> + +<p> +“There will be no fear of accidents at North Shingles,” she said. +“I shall keep the bottle locked up in my dressing-case. If it +doesn’t relieve the pain, I must come to you again, and try some other +remedy. Good-morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-morning, miss.” +</p> + +<p> +She went straight back to the house without once looking up, without noticing +any one who passed her. She brushed by Mrs. Wragge in the passage as she might +have brushed by a piece of furniture. She ascended the stairs, and caught her +foot twice in her dress, from sheer inattention to the common precaution of +holding it up. The trivial daily interests of life had lost their hold on her +already. +</p> + +<p> +In the privacy of her own room, she took the bottle from its wrapping, and +threw the paper and the cotton wool into the fire-place. At the moment when she +did this there was a knock at the door. She hid the little bottle, and looked +up impatiently. Mrs. Wragge came into the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you got something for your toothache, my dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can I do anything to help you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge still lingered uneasily near the door. Her manner showed plainly +that she had something more to say. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” asked Magdalen, sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be angry,” said Mrs. Wragge. “I’m not +settled in my mind about the captain. He’s a great writer, and he +hasn’t written. He’s as quick as lightning, and he hasn’t +come back. Here’s Saturday, and no signs of him. Has he run away, do you +think? Has anything happened to him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think not. Go downstairs; I’ll come and speak to you +about it directly.” +</p> + +<p> +As soon as she was alone again, Magdalen rose from her chair, advanced toward a +cupboard in the room which locked, and paused for a moment, with her hand on +the key, in doubt. Mrs. Wragge’s appearance had disturbed the whole +current of her thoughts. Mrs. Wragge’s last question, trifling as it was, +had checked her on the verge of the precipice—had roused the old vain +hope in her once more of release by accident. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” she said. “Why may something not have happened to +one of them?” +</p> + +<p> +She placed the laudanum in the cupboard, locked it, and put the key in her +pocket. “Time enough still,” she thought, “before Monday. +I’ll wait till the captain comes back.” +</p> + +<p> +After some consultation downstairs, it was agreed that the servant should sit +up that night, in expectation of her master’s return. The day passed +quietly, without events of any kind. Magdalen dreamed away the hours over a +book. A weary patience of expectation was all she felt now—the poignant +torment of thought was dulled and blunted at last. She passed the day and the +evening in the parlor, vaguely conscious of a strange feeling of aversion to +going back to her own room. As the night advanced, as the noises ceased indoors +and out, her restlessness began to return. She endeavored to quiet herself by +reading. Books failed to fix her attention. The newspaper was lying in a corner +of the room: she tried the newspaper next. +</p> + +<p> +She looked mechanically at the headings of the articles; she listlessly turned +over page after page, until her wandering attention was arrested by the +narrative of an Execution in a distant part of England. There was nothing to +strike her in the story of the crime, and yet she read it. It was a common, +horribly common, act of bloodshed—the murder of a woman in farm-service +by a man in the same employment who was jealous of her. He had been convicted +on no extraordinary evidence, he had been hanged under no unusual +circumstances. He had made his confession, when he knew there was no hope for +him, like other criminals of his class, and the newspaper had printed it at the +end of the article, in these terms: +</p> + +<p> +“I kept company with the deceased for a year or thereabouts. I said I +would marry her when I had money enough. She said I had money enough now. We +had a quarrel. She refused to walk out with me any more; she wouldn’t +draw me my beer; she took up with my fellow-servant, David Crouch. I went to +her on the Saturday, and said I would marry her as soon as we could be asked in +church if she would give up Crouch. She laughed at me. She turned me out of the +wash-house, and the rest of them saw her turn me out. I was not easy in my +mind. I went and sat on the gate—the gate in the meadow they call +Pettit’s Piece. I thought I would shoot her. I went and fetched my gun +and loaded it. I went out into Pettit’s Piece again. I was hard put to it +to make up my mind. I thought I would try my luck—I mean try whether to +kill her or not—-by throwing up the Spud of the plow into the air. I said +to myself, if it falls flat, I’ll spare her; if it falls point in the +earth, I’ll kill her. I took a good swing with it, and shied it up. It +fell point in the earth. I went and shot her. It was a bad job, but I did it. I +did it, as they said I did it at the trial. I hope the Lord will have mercy on +me. I wish my mother to have my old clothes. I have no more to say.” +</p> + +<p> +In the happier days of her life, Magdalen would have passed over the narrative +of the execution, and the printed confession which accompanied it unread; the +subject would have failed to attract her. She read the horrible story +now—read it with an interest unintelligible to herself. Her attention, +which had wandered over higher and better things, followed every sentence of +the murderer’s hideously direct confession from beginning to end. If the +man or the woman had been known to her, if the place had been familiar to her +memory, she could hardly have followed the narrative more closely, or have felt +a more distinct impression of it left on her mind. She laid down the paper, +wondering at herself; she took it up once more, and tried to read some other +portion of the contents. The effort was useless; her attention wandered again. +She threw the paper away, and went out into the garden. The night was dark; the +stars were few and faint. She could just see the gravel-walk—she could +just pace backward and forward between the house door and the gate. +</p> + +<p> +The confession in the newspaper had taken a fearful hold on her mind. As she +paced the walk, the black night opened over the sea, and showed her the +murderer in the field hurling the Spud of the plow into the air. She ran, +shuddering, back to the house. The murderer followed her into the parlor. She +seized the candle and went up into her room. The vision of her own distempered +fancy followed her to the place where the laudanum was hidden, and vanished +there. +</p> + +<p> +It was midnight, and there was no sign yet of the captain’s return. +</p> + +<p> +She took from the writing-case the long letter which she had written to Norah, +and slowly read it through. The letter quieted her. When she reached the blank +space left at the end, she hurriedly turned back and began it over again. +</p> + +<p> +One o’clock struck from the church clock, and still the captain never +appeared. +</p> + +<p> +She read the letter for the second time; she turned back obstinately, +despairingly, and began it for the third time. As she once more reached the +last page, she looked at her watch. It was a quarter to two. She had just put +the watch back in the belt of her dress, when there came to her—far off +in the stillness of the morning—a sound of wheels. +</p> + +<p> +She dropped the letter and clasped her cold hands in her lap and listened. The +sound came on, faster and faster, nearer and nearer—the trivial sound to +all other ears; the sound of Doom to hers. It passed the side of the house; it +traveled a little further on; it stopped. She heard a loud knocking—then +the opening of a window—then voices—then a long silence—than +the wheels again coming back—then the opening of the door below, and the +sound of the captain’s voice in the passage. +</p> + +<p> +She could endure it no longer. She opened her door a little way and called to +him. +</p> + +<p> +He ran upstairs instantly, astonished that she was not in bed. She spoke to him +through the narrow opening of the door, keeping herself hidden behind it, for +she was afraid to let him see her face. +</p> + +<p> +“Has anything gone wrong?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Make your mind easy,” he answered. “Nothing has gone +wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is no accident likely to happen between this and Monday?” +</p> + +<p> +“None whatever. The marriage is a certainty.” +</p> + +<p> +“A certainty?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +She put her hand out through the door. He took it with some little surprise; it +was not often in his experience that she gave him her hand of her own accord. +</p> + +<p> +“You have sat up too long,” he said, as he felt the clasp of her +cold fingers. “I am afraid you will have a bad night—I’m +afraid you will not sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +She softly closed the door. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall sleep,” she said, “sounder than you think +for.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It was past two o’clock when she shut herself up alone in her room. Her +chair stood in its customary place by the toilet-table. She sat down for a few +minutes thoughtfully, then opened her letter to Norah, and turned to the end +where the blank space was left. The last lines written above the space ran +thus: “... I have laid my whole heart bare to you; I have hidden nothing. +It has come to this. The end I have toiled for, at such terrible cost to +myself, is an end which I must reach or die. It is wickedness, madness, what +you will—but it is so. There are now two journeys before me to choose +between. If I can marry him—the journey to the church. If the profanation +of myself is more than I can bear—the journey to the grave!” +</p> + +<p> +Under that last sentence, she wrote these lines: +</p> + +<p> +“My choice is made. If the cruel law will let you, lay me with my father +and mother in the churchyard at home. Farewell, my love! Be always innocent; be +always happy. If Frank ever asks about me, say I died forgiving him. +Don’t grieve long for me, Norah—I am not worth it.” +</p> + +<p> +She sealed the letter, and addressed it to her sister. The tears gathered in +her eyes as she laid it on the table. She waited until her sight was clear +again, and then took the banknotes once more from the little bag in her bosom. +After wrapping them in a sheet of note paper, she wrote Captain Wragge’s +name on the inclosure, and added these words below it: “Lock the door of +my room, and leave me till my sister comes. The money I promised you is in +this. You are not to blame; it is my fault, and mine only. If you have any +friendly remembrance of me, be kind to your wife for my sake.” +</p> + +<p> +After placing the inclosure by the letter to Norah, she rose and looked round +the room. Some few little things in it were not in their places. She set them +in order, and drew the curtains on either side at the head of her bed. Her own +dress was the next object of her scrutiny. It was all as neat, as pure, as +prettily arranged as ever. Nothing about her was disordered but her hair. Some +tresses had fallen loose on one side of her head; she carefully put them back +in their places with the help of her glass. “How pale I look!” she +thought, with a faint smile. “Shall I be paler still when they find me in +the morning?” +</p> + +<p> +She went straight to the place where the laudanum was hidden, and took it out. +The bottle was so small that it lay easily in the palm of her hand. She let it +remain there for a little while, and stood looking at it. +</p> + +<p> +“DEATH!” she said. “In this drop of brown +drink—DEATH!” +</p> + +<p> +As the words passed her lips, an agony of unutterable horror seized on her in +an instant. She crossed the room unsteadily, with a maddening confusion in her +head, with a suffocating anguish at her heart. She caught at the table to +support herself. The faint clink of the bottle, as it fell harmlessly from her +loosened grasp and rolled against some porcelain object on the table, struck +through her brain like the stroke of a knife. The sound of her own voice, sunk +to a whisper—her voice only uttering that one word, Death—rushed in +her ears like the rushing of a wind. She dragged herself to the bedside, and +rested her head against it, sitting on the floor. “Oh, my life! my +life!” she thought; “what is my life worth, that I cling to it like +this?” +</p> + +<p> +An interval passed, and she felt her strength returning. She raised herself on +her knees and hid her face on the bed. She tried to pray—to pray to be +forgiven for seeking the refuge of death. Frantic words burst from her +lips—words which would have risen to cries, if she had not stifled them +in the bed-clothes. She started to her feet; despair strengthened her with a +headlong fury against herself. In one moment she was back at the table; in +another, the poison was once more in her hand. +</p> + +<p> +She removed the cork and lifted the bottle to her mouth. +</p> + +<p> +At the first cold touch of the glass on her lips, her strong young life leaped +up in her leaping blood, and fought with the whole frenzy of its loathing +against the close terror of Death. Every active power in the exuberant vital +force that was in her rose in revolt against the destruction which her own will +would fain have wreaked on her own life. She paused: for the second time, she +paused in spite of herself. There, in the glorious perfection of her youth and +health—there, trembling on the verge of human existence, she stood; with +the kiss of the Destroyer close at her lips, and Nature, faithful to its sacred +trust, fighting for the salvation of her to the last. +</p> + +<p> +No word passed her lips. Her cheeks flushed deep; her breath came thick and +fast. With the poison still in her hand, with the sense that she might faint in +another moment, she made for the window, and threw back the curtain that +covered it. +</p> + +<p> +The new day had risen. The broad gray dawn flowed in on her, over the quiet +eastern sea. +</p> + +<p> +She saw the waters heaving, large and silent, in the misty calm; she felt the +fresh breath of the morning flutter cool on her face. Her strength returned; +her mind cleared a little. At the sight of the sea, her memory recalled the +walk in the garden overnight, and the picture which her distempered fancy had +painted on the black void. In thought, she saw the picture again—the +murderer hurling the Spud of the plow into the air, and setting the life or +death of the woman who had deserted him on the hazard of the falling point. The +infection of that terrible superstition seized on her mind as suddenly as the +new day had burst on her view. The promise of release which she saw in it from +the horror of her own hesitation roused the last energies of her despair. She +resolved to end the struggle by setting her life or death on the hazard of a +chance. +</p> + +<p> +On what chance? +</p> + +<p> +The sea showed it to her. Dimly distinguishable through the mist, she saw a +little fleet of coasting-vessels slowly drifting toward the house, all +following the same direction with the favoring set of the tide. In half an +hour—perhaps in less—the fleet would have passed her window. The +hands of her watch pointed to four o’clock. She seated herself close at +the side of the window, with her back toward the quarter from which the vessels +were drifting down on her—with the poison placed on the window-sill and +the watch on her lap. For one half-hour to come she determined to wait there +and count the vessels as they went by. If in that time an even number passed +her, the sign given should be a sign to live. If the uneven number prevailed, +the end should be Death. +</p> + +<p> +With that final resolution, she rested her head against the window and waited +for the ships to pass. +</p> + +<p> +The first came, high, dark and near in the mist, gliding silently over the +silent sea. An interval—and the second followed, with the third close +after it. Another interval, longer and longer drawn out—and nothing +passed. She looked at her watch. Twelve minutes, and three ships. Three. +</p> + +<p> +The fourth came, slower than the rest, larger than the rest, further off in the +mist than the rest. The interval followed; a long interval once more. Then the +next vessel passed, darkest and nearest of all. Five. The next uneven +number— +</p> + +<p> +Five. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at her watch again. Nineteen minutes, and five ships. Twenty +minutes. Twenty-one, two, three—and no sixth vessel. Twenty-four, and the +sixth came by. Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, and the +next uneven number—the fatal Seven—glided into view. Two minutes to +the end of the half-hour. And seven ships. +</p> + +<p> +Twenty-nine, and nothing followed in the wake of the seventh ship. The +minute-hand of the watch moved on half-way to thirty, and still the white +heaving sea was a misty blank. Without moving her head from the window, she +took the poison in one hand, and raised the watch in the other. As the quick +seconds counted each other out, her eyes, as quick as they, looked from the +watch to the sea, from the sea to the watch—looked for the last time at +the sea—and saw the EIGHTH ship. +</p> + +<p> +She never moved, she never spoke. The death of thought, the death of feeling, +seemed to have come to her already. She put back the poison mechanically on the +ledge of the window and watched, as in a dream, the ship gliding smoothly on +its silent way—gliding till it melted dimly into shadow—gliding +till it was lost in the mist. +</p> + +<p> +The strain on her mind relaxed when the Messenger of Life had passed from her +sight. +</p> + +<p> +“Providence?” she whispered faintly to herself. “Or +chance?” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes closed, and her head fell back. When the sense of life returned to +her, the morning sun was warm on her face—the blue heaven looked down on +her—and the sea was a sea of gold. +</p> + +<p> +She fell on her knees at the window and burst into tears. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Towards noon that day, the captain, waiting below stairs, and hearing no +movement in Magdalen’s room, felt uneasy at the long silence. He desired +the new maid to follow him upstairs, and, pointing to the door, told her to go +in softly and see whether her mistress was awake. +</p> + +<p> +The maid entered the room, remained there a moment, and came out again, closing +the door gently. +</p> + +<p> +“She looks beautiful, sir,” said the girl; “and she’s +sleeping as quietly as a new-born child.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap39"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h3> + +<p> +The morning of her husband’s return to North Shingles was a morning +memorable forever in the domestic calendar of Mrs. Wragge. She dated from that +occasion the first announcement which reached her of Magdalen’s marriage. +</p> + +<p> +It had been Mrs. Wragge’s earthly lot to pass her life in a state of +perpetual surprise. Never yet, however, had she wandered in such a maze of +astonishment as the maze in which she lost herself when the captain coolly told +her the truth. She had been sharp enough to suspect Mr. Noel Vanstone of coming +to the house in the character of a sweetheart on approval; and she had dimly +interpreted certain expressions of impatience which had fallen from +Magdalen’s lips as boding ill for the success of his suit, but her utmost +penetration had never reached as far as a suspicion of the impending marriage. +She rose from one climax of amazement to another, as her husband proceeded with +his disclosure. A wedding in the family at a day’s notice! and that +wedding Magdalen’s! and not a single new dress ordered for anybody, the +bride included! and the Oriental Cashmere Robe totally unavailable on the +occasion when she might have worn it to the greatest advantage! Mrs. Wragge +dropped crookedly into a chair, and beat her disorderly hands on her +unsymmetrical knees, in utter forgetfulness of the captain’s presence and +the captain’s terrible eye. It would not have surprised her to hear that +the world had come to an end, and that the only mortal whom Destiny had +overlooked, in winding up the affairs of this earthly planet, was herself! +</p> + +<p> +Leaving his wife to recover her composure by her own unaided efforts, Captain +Wragge withdrew to wait for Magdalen’s appearance in the lower regions of +the house. It was close on one o’clock before the sound of footsteps in +the room above warned him that she was awake and stirring. He called at once +for the maid (whose name he had ascertained to be Louisa), and sent her +upstairs to her mistress for the second time. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen was standing by her dressing-table when a faint tap at the door +suddenly roused her. The tap was followed by the sound of a meek voice, which +announced itself as the voice of “her maid,” and inquired if Miss +Bygrave needed any assistance that morning. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at present,” said Magdalen, as soon as she had recovered the +surprise of finding herself unexpectedly provided with an attendant. “I +will ring when I want you.” +</p> + +<p> +After dismissing the woman with that answer, she accidentally looked from the +door to the window. Any speculations on the subject of the new servant in which +she might otherwise have engaged were instantly suspended by the sight of the +bottle of laudanum, still standing on the ledge of the window, where she had +left it at sunrise. She took it once more in her hand, with a strange confusion +of feeling—with a vague doubt even yet, whether the sight of it reminded +her of a terrible reality or a terrible dream. Her first impulse was to rid +herself of it on the spot. She raised the bottle to throw the contents out of +the window, and paused, in sudden distrust of the impulse that had come to her. +“I have accepted my new life,” she thought. “How do I know +what that life may have in store for me?” She turned from the window and +went back to the table. “I may be forced to drink it yet,” she +said, and put the laudanum into her dressing-case. +</p> + +<p> +Her mind was not at ease when she had done this: there seemed to be some +indefinable ingratitude in the act. Still she made no attempt to remove the +bottle from its hiding-place. She hurried on her toilet; she hastened the time +when she could ring for the maid, and forget herself and her waking thoughts in +a new subject. After touching the bell, she took from the table her letter to +Norah and her letter to the captain, put them both into her dressing-case with +the laudanum, and locked it securely with the key which she kept attached to +her watch-chain. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen’s first impression of her attendant was not an agreeable one. +She could not investigate the girl with the experienced eye of the landlady at +the London hotel, who had characterized the stranger as a young person +overtaken by misfortune, and who had showed plainly, by her look and manner, of +what nature she suspected that misfortune to be. But with this drawback, +Magdalen was perfectly competent to detect the tokens of sickness and sorrow +lurking under the surface of the new maid’s activity and politeness. She +suspected the girl was ill-tempered; she disliked her name; and she was +indisposed to welcome any servant who had been engaged by Noel Vanstone. But +after the first few minutes, “Louisa” grew on her liking. She +answered all the questions put to her with perfect directness; she appeared to +understand her duties thoroughly; and she never spoke until she was spoken to +first. After making all the inquiries that occurred to her at the time, and +after determining to give the maid a fair trial, Magdalen rose to leave the +room. The very air in it was still heavy to her with the oppression of the past +night. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you anything more to say to me?” she asked, turning to the +servant, with her hand on the door. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, miss,” said Louisa, very respectfully and very +quietly. “I think my master told me that the marriage was to be +to-morrow?” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen repressed the shudder that stole over her at that reference to the +marriage on the lips of a stranger, and answered in the affirmative. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a very short time, miss, to prepare in. If you would be so +kind as to give me my orders about the packing before you go +downstairs—?” +</p> + +<p> +“There are no such preparations to make as you suppose,” said +Magdalen, hastily. “The few things I have here can be all packed at once, +if you like. I shall wear the same dress to-morrow which I have on to-day. +Leave out the straw bonnet and the light shawl, and put everything else into my +boxes. I have no new dresses to pack; I have nothing ordered for the occasion +of any sort.” She tried to add some commonplace phrases of explanation, +accounting as probably as might be for the absence of the usual wedding outfit +and wedding-dress. But no further reference to the marriage would pass her +lips, and without another word she abruptly left the room. +</p> + +<p> +The meek and melancholy Louisa stood lost in astonishment. “Something +wrong here,” she thought. “I’m half afraid of my new place +already.” She sighed resignedly, shook her head, and went to the +wardrobe. She first examined the drawers underneath, took out the various +articles of linen laid inside, and placed them on chairs. Opening the upper +part of the wardrobe next, she ranged the dresses in it side by side on the +bed. Her last proceeding was to push the empty boxes into the middle of the +room, and to compare the space at her disposal with the articles of dress which +she had to pack. She completed her preliminary calculations with the ready +self-reliance of a woman who thoroughly understood her business, and began the +packing forthwith. Just as she had placed the first article of linen in the +smaller box, the door of the room opened, and the house-servant, eager for +gossip, came in. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you want?” asked Louisa, quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever hear of anything like this!” said the house-servant, +entering on her subject immediately. +</p> + +<p> +“Like what?” +</p> + +<p> +“Like this marriage, to be sure. You’re London bred, they tell me. +Did you ever hear of a young lady being married without a single new thing to +her back? No wedding veil, and no wedding breakfast, and no wedding favors for +the servants. It’s flying in the face of Providence—that’s +what I say. I’m only a poor servant, I know. But it’s wicked, +downright wicked—and I don’t care who hears me!” +</p> + +<p> +Louisa went on with the packing. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at her dresses!” persisted the house-servant, waving her hand +indignantly at the bed. “I’m only a poor girl, but I wouldn’t +marry the best man alive without a new gown to my back. Look here! look at this +dowdy brown thing here. Alpaca! You’re not going to pack this Alpaca +thing, are you? Why, it’s hardly fit for a servant! I don’t know +that I’d take a gift of it if it was offered me. It would do for me if I +took it up in the skirt, and let it out in the waist—and it +wouldn’t look so bad with a bit of bright trimming, would it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let that dress alone, if you please,” said Louisa, as quietly as +ever. +</p> + +<p> +“What did you say?” inquired the other, doubting whether her ears +had not deceived her. +</p> + +<p> +“I said, let that dress alone. It belongs to my mistress, and I have my +mistress’s orders to pack up everything in the room. You are not helping +me by coming here—you are very much in my way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” said the house-servant, “you may be London bred, as +they say. But if these are your London manners, give me Suffolk!” She +opened the door with an angry snatch at the handle, shut it violently, opened +it again, and looked in. “Give me Suffolk!” said the house-servant, +with a parting nod of her head to point the edge of her sarcasm. +</p> + +<p> +Louisa proceeded impenetrably with her packing up. +</p> + +<p> +Having neatly disposed of the linen in the smaller box, she turned her +attention to the dresses next. After passing them carefully in review, to +ascertain which was the least valuable of the collection, and to place that one +at the bottom of the trunk for the rest to lie on, she made her choice with +very little difficulty. The first gown which she put into the box was—the +brown Alpaca dress. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, Magdalen had joined the captain downstairs. Although he could not +fail to notice the languor in her face and the listlessness of all her +movements, he was relieved to find that she met him with perfect composure. She +was even self-possessed enough to ask him for news of his journey, with no +other signs of agitation than a passing change of color and a little trembling +of the lips. +</p> + +<p> +“So much for the past,” said Captain Wragge, when his narrative of +the expedition to London by way of St. Crux had come to an end. “Now for +the present. The bridegroom—” +</p> + +<p> +“If it makes no difference,” she interposed, “call him Mr. +Noel Vanstone.” +</p> + +<p> +“With all my heart. Mr. Noel Vanstone is coming here this afternoon to +dine and spend the evening. He will be tiresome in the last degree; but, like +all tiresome people, he is not to be got rid of on any terms. Before he comes, +I have a last word or two of caution for your private ear. By this time +to-morrow we shall have parted—without any certain knowledge, on either +side, of our ever meeting again. I am anxious to serve your interests +faithfully to the last; I am anxious you should feel that I have done all I +could for your future security when we say good-by.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen looked at him in surprise. He spoke in altered tones. He was agitated; +he was strangely in earnest. Something in his look and manner took her memory +back to the first night at Aldborough, when she had opened her mind to him in +the darkening solitude—when they two had sat together alone on the slope +of the martello tower. “I have no reason to think otherwise than kindly +of you,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge suddenly left his chair, and took a turn backward and forward in +the room. Magdalen’s last words seemed to have produced some +extraordinary disturbance in him. +</p> + +<p> +“Damn it!” he broke out; “I can’t let you say that. You +have reason to think ill of me. I have cheated you. You never got your fair +share of profit from the Entertainment, from first to last. There! now the +murder’s out!” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen smiled, and signed to him to come back to his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“I know you cheated me,” she said, quietly. “You were in the +exercise of your profession, Captain Wragge. I expected it when I joined you. I +made no complaint at the time, and I make none now. If the money you took is +any recompense for all the trouble I have given you, you are heartily welcome +to it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you shake hands on that?” asked the captain, with an +awkwardness and hesitation strongly at variance with his customary ease of +manner. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen gave him her hand. He wrung it hard. “You are a strange +girl,” he said, trying to speak lightly. “You have laid a hold on +me that I don’t quite understand. I’m half uncomfortable at taking +the money from you now; and yet you don’t want it, do you?” He +hesitated. “I almost wish,” he said, “I had never met you on +the Walls of York.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is too late to wish that, Captain Wragge. Say no more. You only +distress me—say no more. We have other subjects to talk about. What were +those words of caution which you had for my private ear?” +</p> + +<p> +The captain took another turn in the room, and struggled back again into his +every-day character. He produced from his pocketbook Mrs. Lecount’s +letter to her master, and handed it to Magdalen. +</p> + +<p> +“There is the letter that might have ruined us if it had ever reached its +address,” he said. “Read it carefully. I have a question to ask you +when you have done.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen read the letter. “What is this proof,” she inquired, +“which Mrs. Lecount relies on so confidently!” +</p> + +<p> +“The very question I was going to ask you,” said Captain Wragge. +“Consult your memory of what happened when you tried that experiment in +Vauxhall Walk. Did Mrs. Lecount get no other chance against you than the +chances you have told me of already?” +</p> + +<p> +“She discovered that my face was disguised, and she heard me speak in my +own voice.” +</p> + +<p> +“And nothing more?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good. Then my interpretation of the letter is clearly the right +one. The proof Mrs. Lecount relies on is my wife’s infernal ghost +story—which is, in plain English, the story of Miss Bygrave having been +seen in Miss Vanstone’s disguise; the witness being the very person who +is afterward presented at Aldborough in the character of Miss Bygrave’s +aunt. An excellent chance for Mrs. Lecount, if she can only lay her hand at the +right time on Mrs. Wragge, and no chance at all, if she can’t. Make your +mind easy on that point. Mrs. Lecount and my wife have seen the last of each +other. In the meantime, don’t neglect the warning I give you, in giving +you this letter. Tear it up, for fear of accidents, but don’t forget +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Trust me to remember it,” replied Magdalen, destroying the letter +while she spoke. “Have you anything more to tell me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have some information to give you,” said Captain Wragge, +“which may be useful, because it relates to your future security. Mind, I +want to know nothing about your proceedings when to-morrow is over; we settled +that when we first discussed this matter. I ask no questions, and I make no +guesses. All I want to do now is to warn you of your legal position after your +marriage, and to leave you to make what use you please of your knowledge, at +your own sole discretion. I took a lawyer’s opinion on the point when I +was in London, thinking it might be useful to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is sure to be useful. What did the lawyer say?” +</p> + +<p> +“To put it plainly, this is what he said. If Mr. Noel Vanstone ever +discovers that you have knowingly married him under a false name, he can apply +to the Ecclesiastical Court to have his marriage declared null and void. The +issue of the application would rest with the judges. But if he could prove that +he had been intentionally deceived, the legal opinion is that his case would be +a strong one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose I chose to apply on my side?” said Magdalen, eagerly. +“What then?” +</p> + +<p> +“You might make the application,” replied the captain. “But +remember one thing—you would come into Court with the acknowledgment of +your own deception. I leave you to imagine what the judges would think of +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did the lawyer tell you anything else?” +</p> + +<p> +“One thing besides,” said Captain Wragge. “Whatever the law +might do with the marriage in the lifetime of both the parties to it—on +the death of either one of them, no application made by the survivor would +avail; and, as to the case of that survivor, the marriage would remain valid. +You understand? If he dies, or if you die—and if no application has been +made to the Court—he the survivor, or you the survivor, would have no +power of disputing the marriage. But in the lifetime of both of you, if he +claimed to have the marriage dissolved, the chances are all in favor of his +carrying his point.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at Magdalen with a furtive curiosity as he said those words. She +turned her head aside, absently tying her watch-chain into a loop and untying +it again, evidently thinking with the closest attention over what he had last +said to her. Captain Wragge walked uneasily to the window and looked out. The +first object that caught his eye was Mr. Noel Vanstone approaching from Sea +View. He returned instantly to his former place in the room, and addressed +himself to Magdalen once more. +</p> + +<p> +“Here is Mr. Noel Vanstone,” he said. “One last caution +before he comes in. Be on your guard with him about your age. He put the +question to me before he got the License. I took the shortest way out of the +difficulty, and told him you were twenty-one, and he made the declaration +accordingly. Never mind about <i>me</i>; after to-morrow I am invisible. But, +in your own interests, don’t forget, if the subject turns up, that you +were of age when you were married. There is nothing more. You are provided with +every necessary warning that I can give you. Whatever happens in the future, +remember I have done my best.” +</p> + +<p> +He hurried to the door without waiting for an answer, and went out into the +garden to receive his guest. +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone made his appearance at the gate, solemnly carrying his bridal +offering to North Shingles with both hands. The object in question was an +ancient casket (one of his father’s bargains); inside the casket reposed +an old-fashioned carbuncle brooch, set in silver (another of his father’s +bargains)—bridal presents both, possessing the inestimable merit of +leaving his money undisturbed in his pocket. He shook his head portentously +when the captain inquired after his health and spirits. He had passed a wakeful +night; ungovernable apprehensions of Lecount’s sudden re-appearance had +beset him as soon as he found himself alone at Sea View. Sea View was redolent +of Lecount: Sea View (though built on piles, and the strongest house in +England) was henceforth odious to him. He had felt this all night; he had also +felt his responsibilities. There was the lady’s maid, to begin with. Now +he had hired her, he began to think she wouldn’t do. She might fall sick +on his hands; she might have deceived him by a false character; she and the +landlady of the hotel might have been in league together. Horrible! Really +horrible to think of. Then there was the other responsibility—perhaps the +heavier of the two—the responsibility of deciding where he was to go and +spend his honeymoon to-morrow. He would have preferred one of his +father’s empty houses: But except at Vauxhall Walk (which he supposed +would be objected to), and at Aldborough (which was of course out of the +question) all the houses were let. He would put himself in Mr. Bygrave’s +hands. Where had Mr. Bygrave spent his own honeymoon? Given the British Islands +to choose from, where would Mr. Bygrave pitch his tent, on a careful review of +all the circumstances? +</p> + +<p> +At this point the bridegroom’s questions suddenly came to an end, and the +bridegroom’s face exhibited an expression of ungovernable astonishment. +His judicious friend, whose advice had been at his disposal in every other +emergency, suddenly turned round on him, in the emergency of the honeymoon, and +flatly declined discussing the subject. +</p> + +<p> +“No!” said the captain, as Noel Vanstone opened his lips to plead +for a hearing, “you must really excuse me. My point of view in this +matter is, as usual, a peculiar one. For some time past I have been living in +an atmosphere of deception, to suit your convenience. That atmosphere, my good +sir, is getting close; my Moral Being requires ventilation. Settle the choice +of a locality with my niece, and leave me, at my particular request, in total +ignorance of the subject. Mrs. Lecount is certain to come here on her return +from Zurich, and is certain to ask me where you are gone. You may think it +strange, Mr. Vanstone; but when I tell her I don’t know, I wish to enjoy +the unaccustomed luxury of feeling, for once in a way, that I am speaking the +truth!” +</p> + +<p> +With those words, he opened the sitting-room door, introduced Noel Vanstone to +Magdalen’s presence, bowed himself out of the room again, and set forth +alone to while away the rest of the afternoon by taking a walk. His face showed +plain tokens of anxiety, and his party-colored eyes looked hither and thither +distrustfully, as he sauntered along the shore. “The time hangs heavy on +our hands,” thought the captain. “I wish to-morrow was come and +gone.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The day passed and nothing happened; the evening and the night followed, +placidly and uneventfully. Monday came, a cloudless, lovely day; Monday +confirmed the captain’s assertion that the marriage was a certainty. +Toward ten o’clock, the clerk, ascending the church steps quoted the old +proverb to the pew-opener, meeting him under the porch: “Happy the bride +on whom the sun shines!” +</p> + +<p> +In a quarter of an hour more the wedding-party was in the vestry, and the +clergyman led the way to the altar. Carefully as the secret of the marriage had +been kept, the opening of the church in the morning had been enough to betray +it. A small congregation, almost entirely composed of women, were scattered +here and there among the pews. Kirke’s sister and her children were +staying with a friend at Aldborough, and Kirke’s sister was one of the +congregation. +</p> + +<p> +As the wedding-party entered the church, the haunting terror of Mrs. Lecount +spread from Noel Vanstone to the captain. For the first few minutes, the eyes +of both of them looked among the women in the pews with the same searching +scrutiny, and looked away again with the same sense of relief. The clergyman +noticed that look, and investigated the License more closely than usual. The +clerk began to doubt privately whether the old proverb about the bride was a +proverb to be always depended on. The female members of the congregation +murmured among themselves at the inexcusable disregard of appearances implied +in the bride’s dress. Kirke’s sister whispered venomously in her +friend’s ear, “Thank God for to-day for Robert’s sake.” +Mrs. Wragge cried silently, with the dread of some threatening calamity she +knew not what. The one person present who remained outwardly undisturbed was +Magdalen herself. She stood, with tearless resignation, in her place before the +altar—stood, as if all the sources of human emotion were frozen up within +her. +</p> + +<p> +The clergyman opened the Book. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +It was done. The awful words which speak from earth to Heaven were pronounced. +The children of the two dead brothers—inheritors of the implacable enmity +which had parted their parents—were Man and Wife. +</p> + +<p> +From that moment events hurried with a headlong rapidity to the parting scene. +They were back at the house while the words of the Marriage Service seemed +still ringing in their ears. Before they had been five minutes indoors the +carriage drew up at the garden gate. In a minute more the opportunity came for +which Magdalen and the captain had been on the watch—the opportunity of +speaking together in private for the last time. She still preserved her icy +resignation; she seemed beyond all reach now of the fear that had once mastered +her, of the remorse that had once tortured her soul. With a firm hand she gave +him the promised money. With a firm face she looked her last at him. +“I’m not to blame,” he whispered, eagerly; “I have only +done what you asked me.” She bowed her head; she bent it toward him +kindly and let him touch her fore-head with his lips. “Take care!” +he said. “My last words are—for God’s sake take care when +I’m gone!” She turned from him with a smile, and spoke her farewell +words to his wife. Mrs. Wragge tried hard to face her loss bravely—the +loss of the friend whose presence had fallen like light from Heaven over the +dim pathway of her life. “You have been very good to me, my dear; I thank +you kindly; I thank you with all my heart.” She could say no more; she +clung to Magdalen in a passion of tears, as her mother might have clung to her, +if her mother had lived to see that horrible day. “I’m frightened +for you!” cried the poor creature, in a wild, wailing voice. “Oh, +my darling, I’m frightened for you!” Magdalen desperately drew +herself free—kissed her—and hurried out to the door. The expression +of that artless gratitude, the cry of that guileless love, shook her as nothing +else had shaken her that day. It was a refuge to get to the carriage—a +refuge, though the man she had married stood there waiting for her at the door. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Wragge tried to follow her into the garden. But the captain had seen +Magdalen’s face as she ran out, and he steadily held his wife back in the +passage. From that distance the last farewells were exchanged. As long as the +carriage was in sight, Magdalen looked back at them; she waved her handkerchief +as she turned the corner. In a moment more the last thread which bound her to +them was broken; the familiar companionship of many months was a thing of the +past already! +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge closed the house door on the idlers who were looking in from the +Parade. He led his wife back into the sitting-room, and spoke to her with a +forbearance which she had never yet experienced from him. +</p> + +<p> +“She has gone her way,” he said, “and in another hour we +shall have gone ours. Cry your cry out—I don’t deny she’s +worth crying for.” +</p> + +<p> +Even then—even when the dread of Magdalen’s future was at its +darkest in his mind—the ruling habit of the man’s life clung to +him. Mechanically he unlocked his dispatch-box. Mechanically he opened his Book +of Accounts, and made the closing entry—the entry of his last transaction +with Magdalen—in black and white. “By Rec’d from Miss +Vanstone,” wrote the captain, with a gloomy brow, “Two hundred +pounds.” +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t be angry with me?” said Mrs. Wragge, looking +timidly at her husband through her tears. “I want a word of comfort, +captain. Oh, do tell me, when shall I see her again?” +</p> + +<p> +The captain closed the book, and answered in one inexorable word: +“Never!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Between eleven and twelve o’clock that night Mrs. Lecount drove into +Zurich. +</p> + +<p> +Her brother’s house, when she stopped before it, was shut up. With some +difficulty and delay the servant was aroused. She held up her hands in +speechless amazement when she opened the door and saw who the visitor was. +</p> + +<p> +“Is my brother alive?” asked Mrs. Lecount, entering the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Alive!” echoed the servant. “He has gone holiday-making into +the country, to finish his recovery in the fine fresh air.” +</p> + +<p> +The housekeeper staggered back against the wall of the passage. The coachman +and the servant put her into a chair. Her face was livid, and her teeth +chattered in her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Send for my brother’s doctor,” she said, as soon as she +could speak. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor came. She handed him a letter before he could say a word. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you write that letter?” +</p> + +<p> +He looked it over rapidly, and answered her without hesitation, +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is your handwriting.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a forgery of my handwriting.” +</p> + +<p> +She rose from the chair with a new strength in her. +</p> + +<p> +“When does the return mail start for Paris?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“In half an hour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Send instantly and take me a place in it!” +</p> + +<p> +The servant hesitated, the doctor protested. She turned a deaf ear to them +both. +</p> + +<p> +“Send!” she reiterated, “or I will go myself.” +</p> + +<p> +They obeyed. The servant went to take the place: the doctor remained and held a +conversation with Mrs. Lecount. When the half-hour had passed, he helped her +into her place in the mail, and charged the conductor privately to take care of +his passenger. +</p> + +<p> +“She has traveled from England without stopping,” said the doctor; +“and she is traveling back again without rest. Be careful of her, or she +will break down under the double journey.” +</p> + +<p> +The mail started. Before the first hour of the new day was at an end Mrs. +Lecount was on her way back to England. +</p> + +<h5>THE END OF THE FOURTH SCENE.</h5> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap40"></a>BETWEEN THE SCENES.<br/> +<small>PROGRESS OF THE STORY THROUGH THE POST.</small></h3> + +<h4> +I.<br/> +From George Bartram to Noel Vanstone. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“St. Crux, September 4th, 1847. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Noel, +</p> + +<p> +“Here are two plain questions at starting. In the name of all that is +mysterious, what are you hiding for? And why is everything relating to your +marriage kept an impenetrable secret from your oldest friends? +</p> + +<p> +“I have been to Aldborough to try if I could trace you from that place, +and have come back as wise as I went. I have applied to your lawyer in London, +and have been told, in reply, that you have forbidden him to disclose the place +of your retreat to any one without first receiving your permission to do so. +All I could prevail on him to say was, that he would forward any letter which +might be sent to his care. I write accordingly, and mind this, I expect an +answer. +</p> + +<p> +“You may ask, in your ill-tempered way, what business I have to meddle +with affairs of yours which it is your pleasure to keep private. My dear Noel, +there is a serious reason for our opening communications with you from this +house. You don’t know what events have taken place at St. Crux since you +ran away to get married; and though I detest writing letters, I must lose an +hour’s shooting to-day in trying to enlighten you. +</p> + +<p> +“On the twenty-third of last month, the admiral and I were disturbed over +our wine after dinner by the announcement that a visitor had unexpectedly +arrived at St. Crux. Who do you think the visitor was? Mrs. Lecount! +</p> + +<p> +“My uncle, with that old-fashioned bachelor gallantry of his which pays +equal respect to all wearers of petticoats, left the table directly to welcome +Mrs. Lecount. While I was debating whether I should follow him or not, my +meditations were suddenly brought to an end by a loud call from the admiral. I +ran into the morning-room, and there was your unfortunate housekeeper on the +sofa, with all the women servants about her, more dead than alive. She had +traveled from England to Zurich, and from Zurich back again to England, without +stopping; and she looked, seriously and literally, at death’s door. I +immediately agreed with my uncle that the first thing to be done was to send +for medical help. We dispatched a groom on the spot, and, at Mrs. +Lecount’s own request, sent all the servants in a body out of the room. +</p> + +<p> +“As soon as we were alone, Mrs. Lecount surprised us by a singular +question. She asked if you had received a letter which she had addressed to you +before leaving England at this house. When we told her that the letter had been +forwarded, under cover to your friend Mr. Bygrave, by your own particular +request, she turned as pale as ashes; and when we added that you had left us in +company with this same Mr. Bygrave, she clasped her hands and stared at us as +if she had taken leave of her senses. Her next question was, ‘Where is +Mr. Noel now?’ We could only give her one reply—Mr. Noel had not +informed us. She looked perfectly thunderstruck at that answer. ‘He has +gone to his ruin!’ she said. ‘He has gone away in company with the +greatest villain in England. I must find him! I tell you I must find Mr. Noel! +If I don’t find him at once, it will be too late. He will be +married!’ she burst out quite frantically. ‘On my honor and my +oath, he will be married!’ The admiral, incautiously perhaps, but with +the best intentions, told her you were married already. She gave a scream that +made the windows ring again and dropped back on the sofa in a fainting-fit. The +doctor came in the nick of time, and soon brought her to. But she was taken ill +the same night; she has grown worse and worse ever since; and the last medical +report is, that the fever from which she has been suffering is in a fair way to +settle on her brain. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, my dear Noel, neither my uncle nor I have any wish to intrude +ourselves on your confidence. We are naturally astonished at the extraordinary +mystery which hangs over you and your marriage, and we cannot be blind to the +fact that your housekeeper has, apparently, some strong reason of her own for +viewing Mrs. Noel Vanstone with an enmity and distrust which we are quite ready +to believe that lady has done nothing to deserve. Whatever strange +misunderstanding there may have been in your household, is your business (if +you choose to keep it to yourself), and not ours. All we have any right to do +is to tell you what the doctor says. His patient has been delirious; he +declines to answer for her life if she goes on as she is going on now; and he +thinks—finding that she is perpetually talking of her master—that +your presence would be useful in quieting her, if you could come here at once, +and exert your influence before it is too late. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you say? Will you emerge from the darkness that surrounds you +and come to St. Crux? If this was the case of an ordinary servant, I could +understand your hesitating to leave the delights of your honeymoon for any such +object as is here proposed to you. But, my dear fellow, Mrs. Lecount is not an +ordinary servant. You are under obligations to her fidelity and attachment in +your father’s time, as well as in your own; and if you <i>can</i> quiet +the anxieties which seem to be driving this unfortunate woman mad, I really +think you ought to come here and do so. Your leaving Mrs. Noel Vanstone is of +course out of the question. There is no necessity for any such hard-hearted +proceeding. The admiral desires me to remind you that he is your oldest friend +living, and that his house is at your wife’s disposal, as it has always +been at yours. In this great rambling-place she need dread no near association +with the sick-room; and, with all my uncle’s oddities, I am sure she will +not think the offer of his friendship an offer to be despised. +</p> + +<p> +“Have I told you already that I went to Aldborough to try and find a clue +to your whereabouts? I can’t be at the trouble of looking back to see; +so, if I have told you, I tell you again. The truth is, I made an acquaintance +at Aldborough of whom you know something—at least by report. +</p> + +<p> +“After applying vainly at Sea View, I went to the hotel to inquire about +you. The landlady could give me no information; but the moment I mentioned your +name, she asked if I was related to you; and when I told her I was your cousin, +she said there was a young lady then at the hotel whose name was Vanstone also, +who was in great distress about a missing relative, and who might prove of some +use to me—or I to her—if we knew of each other’s errand at +Aldborough. I had not the least idea who she was, but I sent in my card at a +venture; and in five minutes afterward I found myself in the presence of one of +the most charming women these eyes ever looked on. +</p> + +<p> +“Our first words of explanation informed me that my family name was known +to her by repute. Who do you think she was? The eldest daughter of my uncle and +yours—Andrew Vanstone. I had often heard my poor mother in past years +speak of her brother Andrew, and I knew of that sad story at Combe-Raven. But +our families, as you are aware, had always been estranged, and I had never seen +my charming cousin before. She has the dark eyes and hair, and the gentle, +retiring manners that I always admire in a woman. I don’t want to renew +our old disagreement about your father’s conduct to those two sisters, or +to deny that his brother Andrew may have behaved badly to him; I am willing to +admit that the high moral position he took in the matter is quite unassailable +by such a miserable sinner as I am; and I will not dispute that my own +spendthrift habits incapacitate me from offering any opinion on the conduct of +other people’s pecuniary affairs. But, with all these allowances and +drawbacks, I can tell you one thing, Noel. If you ever see the elder Miss +Vanstone, I venture to prophesy that, for the first time in your life, you will +doubt the propriety of following your father’s example. +</p> + +<p> +“She told me her little story, poor thing, most simply and unaffectedly. +She is now occupying her second situation as a governess—and, as usual, +I, who know everybody, know the family. They are friends of my uncle’s, +whom he has lost sight of latterly—the Tyrrels of Portland +Place—and they treat Miss Vanstone with as much kindness and +consideration as if she was a member of the family. One of their old servants +accompanied her to Aldborough, her object in traveling to that place being what +the landlady of the hotel had stated it to be. The family reverses have, it +seems, had a serious effect on Miss Vanstone’s younger sister, who has +left her friends and who has been missing from home for some time. She had been +last heard of at Aldborough; and her elder sister, on her return from the +Continent with the Tyrrels, had instantly set out to make inquiries at that +place. +</p> + +<p> +“This was all Miss Vanstone told me. She asked whether you had seen +anything of her sister, or whether Mrs. Lecount knew anything of her +sister—I suppose because she was aware you had been at Aldborough. Of +course I could tell her nothing. She entered into no details on the subject, +and I could not presume to ask her for any. All I did was to set to work with +might and main to assist her inquiries. The attempt was an utter failure; +nobody could give us any information. We tried personal description of course; +and strange to say, the only young lady formerly staying at Aldborough who +answered the description was, of all the people in the world, the lady you have +married! If she had not had an uncle and aunt (both of whom have left the +place), I should have begun to suspect that you had married your cousin without +knowing it! Is this the clue to the mystery? Don’t be angry; I must have +my little joke, and I can’t help writing as carelessly as I talk. The end +of it was, our inquiries were all baffled, and I traveled back with Miss +Vanstone and her attendant as far as our station here. I think I shall call on +the Tyrrels when I am next in London. I have certainly treated that family with +the most inexcusable neglect. +</p> + +<p> +“Here I am at the end of my third sheet of note-paper! I don’t +often take the pen in hand; but when I do, you will agree with me that I am in +no hurry to lay it aside again. Treat the rest of my letter as you like, but +consider what I have told you about Mrs. Lecount, and remember that time is of +consequence. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Ever yours,<br/> +“GEORGE BARTRAM.” +</p> + +<h4> +II.<br/> +From Norah Vanstone to Miss Garth. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Portland Place. +</p> + +<p> +“MY DEAR MISS GARTH, +</p> + +<p> +“More sorrow, more disappointment! I have just returned from Aldborough, +without making any discovery. Magdalen is still lost to us. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot attribute this new overthrow of my hopes to any want of +perseverance or penetration in making the necessary inquiries. My inexperience +in such matters was most kindly and unexpectedly assisted by Mr. George +Bartram. By a strange coincidence, he happened to be at Aldborough, inquiring +after Mr. Noel Vanstone, at the very time when I was there inquiring after +Magdalen. He sent in his card, and knowing, when I looked at the name, that he +was my cousin—if I may call him so—I thought there would be no +impropriety in my seeing him and asking his advice. I abstained from entering +into particulars for Magdalen’s sake, and I made no allusion to that +letter of Mrs. Lecount’s which you answered for me. I only told him +Magdalen was missing, and had been last heard of at Aldborough. The kindness +which he showed in devoting himself to my assistance exceeds all description. +He treated me, in my forlorn situation, with a delicacy and respect which I +shall remember gratefully long after he has himself perhaps forgotten our +meeting altogether. He is quite young—not more than thirty, I should +think. In face and figure, he reminded me a little of the portrait of my father +at Combe-Raven—I mean the portrait in the dining-room, of my father when +he was a young man. +</p> + +<p> +“Useless as our inquiries were, there is one result of them which has +left a very strange and shocking impression on my mind. +</p> + +<p> +“It appears that Mr. Noel Vanstone has lately married, under mysterious +circumstances, a young lady whom he met with at Aldborough, named Bygrave. He +has gone away with his wife, telling nobody but his lawyer where he has gone +to. This I heard from Mr. George Bartram, who was endeavoring to trace him, for +the purpose of communicating the news of his housekeeper’s serious +illness—the housekeeper being the same Mrs. Lecount whose letter you +answered. So far, you may say, there is nothing which need particularly +interest either of us. But I think you will be as much surprised as I was when +I tell you that the description given by the people at Aldborough of Miss +Bygrave’s appearance is most startlingly and unaccountably like the +description of Magdalen’s appearance. This discovery, taken in connection +with all the circumstances we know of, has had an effect on my mind which I +cannot describe to you—which I dare not realize to myself. Pray come and +see me! I have never felt so wretched about Magdalen as I feel now. Suspense +must have weakened my nerves in some strange way. I feel superstitious about +the slightest things. This accidental resemblance of a total stranger to +Magdalen fills me every now and then with the most horrible +misgivings—merely because Mr. Noel Vanstone’s name happens to be +mixed up with it. Once more, pray come to me; I have so much to say to you that +I cannot, and dare not, say in writing. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Gratefully and affectionately yours,<br/> +“NORAH.” +</p> + +<h4> +III.<br/> +From Mr. John Loscombe (Solicitor) to George Bartram, Esq. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Lincoln’s Inn, London,<br/> +“September 6th, 1847. +</p> + +<p> +“SIR, +</p> + +<p> +“I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your note, inclosing a letter +addressed to my client, Mr. Noel Vanstone, and requesting that I will forward +the same to Mr. Vanstone’s present address. +</p> + +<p> +“Since I last had the pleasure of communicating with you on this subject, +my position toward my client is entirely altered. Three days ago I received a +letter from him, which stated his intention of changing his place of residence +on the next day then ensuing, but which left me entirely in ignorance on the +subject of the locality to which it was his intention to remove. I have not +heard from him since; and, as he had previously drawn on me for a larger sum of +money than usual, there would be no present necessity for his writing to me +again—assuming that it is his wish to keep his place of residence +concealed from every one, myself included. +</p> + +<p> +“Under these circumstances, I think it right to return you your letter, +with the assurance that I will let you know, if I happen to be again placed in +a position to forward it to its destination. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Your obedient servant,<br/> +“JOHN LOSCOMBE.” +</p> + +<h4> +IV.<br/> +From Norah Vanstone to Miss Garth. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Portland Place. +</p> + +<p> +“MY DEAR MISS GARTH, +</p> + +<p> +“Forget the letter I wrote to you yesterday, and all the gloomy +forebodings that it contains. This morning’s post has brought new life to +me. I have just received a letter, addressed to me at your house, and forwarded +here, in your absence from home yesterday, by your sister. Can you guess who +the writer is?—Magdalen! +</p> + +<p> +“The letter is very short; it seems to have been written in a hurry. She +says she has been dreaming of me for some nights past, and the dreams have made +her fear that her long silence has caused me more distress on her account than +she is worth. She writes, therefore, to assure me that she is safe and +well—that she hopes to see me before long—and that she has +something to tell me, when we meet, which will try my sisterly love for her as +nothing has tried it yet. The letter is not dated; but the postmark is +‘Allonby,’ which I have found, on referring to the Gazetteer, to be +a little sea-side place in Cumberland. There is no hope of my being able to +write back, for Magdalen expressly says that she is on the eve of departure +from her present residence, and that she is not at liberty to say where she is +going to next, or to leave instructions for forwarding any letters after her. +</p> + +<p> +“In happier times I should have thought this letter very far from being a +satisfactory one, and I should have been seriously alarmed by that allusion to +a future confidence on her part which will try my love for her as nothing has +tried it yet. But after all the suspense I have suffered, the happiness of +seeing her handwriting again seems to fill my heart and to keep all other +feelings out of it. I don’t send you her letter, because I know you are +coming to me soon, and I want to have the pleasure of seeing you read it. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Ever affectionately yours,<br/> +“NORAH. +</p> + +<p> +“P.S.—Mr. George Bartram called on Mrs. Tyrrel to-day. He insisted +on being introduced to the children. When he was gone, Mrs. Tyrrel laughed in +her good-humored way, and said that his anxiety to see the children looked, to +her mind, very much like an anxiety to see <i>me</i>. You may imagine how my +spirits are improved when I can occupy my pen in writing such nonsense as +this!” +</p> + +<h4> +V.<br/> +From Mrs. Lecount to Mr. de Bleriot, General Agent, London. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“St. Crux, October 23d, 1847. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR SIR, +</p> + +<p> +“I have been long in thanking you for the kind letter which promises me +your assistance, in friendly remembrance of the commercial relations formerly +existing between my brother and yourself. The truth is, I have over-taxed my +strength on my recovery from a long and dangerous illness; and for the last ten +days I have been suffering under a relapse. I am now better again, and able to +enter on the business which you so kindly offer to undertake for me. +</p> + +<p> +“The person whose present place of abode it is of the utmost importance +to me to discover is Mr. Noel Vanstone. I have lived, for many years past, in +this gentleman’s service as house-keeper; and not having received my +formal dismissal, I consider myself in his service still. During my absence on +the Continent he was privately married at Aldborough, in Suffolk, on the +eighteenth of August last. He left Aldborough the same day, taking his wife +with him to some place of retreat which was kept a secret from everybody except +his lawyer, Mr. Loscombe, of Lincoln’s Inn. After a short time he again +removed, on the 4th of September, without informing Mr. Loscombe, on this +occasion, of his new place of abode. From that date to this the lawyer has +remained (or has pretended to remain) in total ignorance of where he now is. +Application has been made to Mr. Loscombe, under the circumstances, to mention +what that former place of residence was, of which Mr. Vanstone is known to have +informed him. Mr. Loscombe has declined acceding to this request, for want of +formal permission to disclose his client’s proceedings after leaving +Aldborough. I have all these latter particulars from Mr. Loscombe’s +correspondent—the nephew of the gentleman who owns this house, and whose +charity has given me an asylum, during the heavy affliction of my sickness, +under his own roof. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe the reasons which have induced Mr. Noel Vanstone to keep +himself and his wife in hiding are reasons which relate entirely to myself. In +the first place, he is aware that the circumstances under which he has married +are such as to give me the right of regarding him with a just indignation. In +the second place, he knows that my faithful services, rendered through a period +of twenty years, to his father and to himself, forbid him, in common decency, +to cast me out helpless on the world without a provision for the end of my +life. He is the meanest of living men, and his wife is the vilest of living +women. As long as he can avoid fulfilling his obligations to me, he will; and +his wife’s encouragement may be trusted to fortify him in his +ingratitude. +</p> + +<p> +“My object in determining to find him out is briefly this. His marriage +has exposed him to consequences which a man of ten times his courage could not +face without shrinking. Of those consequences he knows nothing. His wife knows, +and keeps him in ignorance. I know, and can enlighten him. His security from +the danger that threatens him is in my hands alone; and he shall pay the price +of his rescue to the last farthing of the debt that justice claims for me as my +due—no more, and no less. +</p> + +<p> +“I have now laid my mind before you, as you told me, without reserve. You +know why I want to find this man, and what I mean to do when I find him. I +leave it to your sympathy for me to answer the serious question that remains: +How is the discovery to be made? If a first trace of them can be found, after +their departure from Aldborough, I believe careful inquiry will suffice for the +rest. The personal appearance of the wife, and the extraordinary contrast +between her husband and herself, are certain to be remarked, and remembered, by +every stranger who sees them. +</p> + +<p> +“When you favor me with your answer, please address it to ‘Care of +Admiral Bartram, St. Crux-in the-Marsh, near Ossory, Essex’. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Your much obliged,<br/> +“VIRGINIE LECOUNT.” +</p> + +<h4> +VI.<br/> +From Mr. de Bleriot to Mrs. Lecount. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Dark’s Buildings, Kingsland,<br/> +“October 25th, 1847. +</p> + +<p> +“Private and Confidential. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MADAM, +</p> + +<p> +“I hasten to reply to your favor of Saturday’s date. Circumstances +have enabled me to forward your interests, by consulting a friend of mine +possessing great experience in the management of private inquiries of all +sorts. I have placed your case before him (without mentioning names); and I am +happy to inform you that my views and his views of the proper course to take +agree in every particular. +</p> + +<p> +“Both myself and friend, then, are of opinion that little or nothing can +be done toward tracing the parties you mention, until the place of their +temporary residence after they left Aldborough has been discovered first. If +this can be done, the sooner it is done the better. Judging from your letter, +some weeks must have passed since the lawyer received his information that they +had shifted their quarters. As they are both remarkable-looking people, the +strangers who may have assisted them on their travels have probably not +forgotten them yet. Nevertheless, expedition is desirable. +</p> + +<p> +“The question for you to consider is, whether they may not possibly have +communicated the address of which we stand in need to some other person besides +the lawyer. The husband may have written to members of his family, or the wife +may have written to members of her family. Both myself and friend are of +opinion that the latter chance is the likelier of the two. If you have any +means of access in the direction of the wife’s family, we strongly +recommend you to make use of them. If not, please supply us with the names of +any of her near relations or intimate female friends whom you know, and we will +endeavor to get access for you. +</p> + +<p> +“In any case, we request you will at once favor us with the most exact +personal description that can be written of both the parties. We may require +your assistance, in this important particular, at five minutes’ notice. +Favor us, therefore, with the description by return of post. In the meantime, +we will endeavor to ascertain on our side whether any information is to be +privately obtained at Mr. Loscombe’s office. The lawyer himself is +probably altogether beyond our reach. But if any one of his clerks can be +advantageously treated with on such terms as may not overtax your pecuniary +resources, accept my assurance that the opportunity shall be made the most of +by, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Dear madam,<br/> +“Your faithful servant,<br/> +“ALFRED DE BLERIOT.” +</p> + +<h4> +VII.<br/> +From Mr. Pendril to Norah Vanstone. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Serle Street, October 27th. 1847. +</p> + +<p> +“MY DEAR MISS VANSTONE, +</p> + +<p> +“A lady named Lecount (formerly attached to Mr. Noel Vanstone’s +service in the capacity of housekeeper) has called at my office this morning, +and has asked me to furnish her with your address. I have begged her to excuse +my immediate compliance with her request, and to favor me with a call to-morrow +morning, when I shall be prepared to meet her with a definite answer. +</p> + +<p> +“My hesitation in this matter does not proceed from any distrust of Mrs. +Lecount personally, for I know nothing whatever to her prejudice. But in making +her request to me, she stated that the object of the desired interview was to +speak to you privately on the subject of your sister. Forgive me for +acknowledging that I determined to withhold the address as soon as I heard +this. You will make allowances for your old friend, and your sincere +well-wisher? You will not take it amiss if I express my strong disapproval of +your allowing yourself, on any pretense whatever, to be mixed up for the future +with your sister’s proceedings. +</p> + +<p> +“I will not distress you by saying more than this. But I feel too deep an +interest in your welfare, and too sincere an admiration of the patience with +which you have borne all your trials, to say less. +</p> + +<p> +“If I cannot prevail on you to follow my advice, you have only to say so, +and Mrs. Lecount shall have your address to-morrow. In this case (which I +cannot contemplate without the greatest unwillingness), let me at least +recommend you to stipulate that Miss Garth shall be present at the interview. +In any matter with which your sister is concerned, you may want an old +friend’s advice, and an old friend’s protection against your own +generous impulses. If I could have helped you in this way, I would; but Mrs. +Lecount gave me indirectly to understand that the subject to be discussed was +of too delicate a nature to permit of my presence. Whatever this objection may +be really worth, it cannot apply to Miss Garth, who has brought you both up +from childhood. I say, again, therefore, if you see Mrs. Lecount, see her in +Miss Garth’s company. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Always most truly yours,<br/> +“WILLIAM PENDRIL.” +</p> + +<h4> +VIII.<br/> +From Norah Vanstone to Mr. Pendril. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Portland Place, Wednesday. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MR. PENDRIL, +</p> + +<p> +“Pray don’t think I am ungrateful for your kindness. Indeed, indeed +I am not! But I must see Mrs. Lecount. You were not aware when you wrote to me +that I had received a few lines from Magdalen—not telling me where she +is, but holding out the hope of our meeting before long. Perhaps Mrs. Lecount +may have something to say to me on this very subject. Even if it should not be +so, my sister—do what she may—is still my sister. I can’t +desert her; I can’t turn my back on any one who comes to me in her name. +You know, dear Mr. Pendril, I have always been obstinate on this subject, and +you have always borne with me. Let me owe another obligation to you which I can +never return, and bear with me still! +</p> + +<p> +“Need I say that I willingly accept that part of your advice which refers +to Miss Garth? I have already written to beg that she will come here at four +to-morrow afternoon. When you see Mrs. Lecount, please inform her that Miss +Garth will be with me, and that she will find us both ready to receive her here +to-morrow at four o’clock. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Gratefully yours,<br/> +“NORAH VANSTONE.” +</p> + +<h4> +IX.<br/> +From Mr. de Bleriot to Mrs. Lecount. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Dark’s Buildings, October 28th. +</p> + +<p> +“Private. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MADAM, +</p> + +<p> +“One of Mr. Loscombe’s clerks has proved amenable to a small +pecuniary consideration, and has mentioned a circumstance which it may be of +some importance to you to know. +</p> + +<p> +“Nearly a month since, accident gave the clerk in question an opportunity +of looking into one of the documents on his master’s table, which had +attracted his attention from a slight peculiarity in the form and color of the +paper. He had only time, during Mr. Loscombe’s momentary absence, to +satisfy his curiosity by looking at the beginning of the document and at the +end. At the beginning he saw the customary form used in making a will; at the +end he discovered the signature of Mr. Noel Vanstone, with the names of two +attesting witnesses, and the date (of which he is quite certain)—<i>the +thirtieth of September last.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“Before the clerk had time to make any further investigations, his master +returned, sorted the papers on the table, and carefully locked up the will in +the strong box devoted to the custody of Mr. Noel Vanstone’s documents. +It has been ascertained that, at the close of September, Mr. Loscombe was +absent from the office. If he was then employed in superintending the execution +of his client’s will—which is quite possible—it follows +clearly that he was in the secret of Mr. Vanstone’s address after the +removal of the 4th of September; and if you can do nothing on your side, it may +be desirable to have the lawyer watched on ours. In any case, it is certainly +ascertained that Mr. Noel Vanstone has made his will since his marriage. I +leave you to draw your own conclusions from that fact, and remain, in the hope +of hearing from you shortly, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Your faithful servant,<br/> +“ALFRED DE BLERIOT.” +</p> + +<h4> +X.<br/> +From Miss Garth to Mr. Pendril. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Portland Place, October 28th. +</p> + +<p> +“MY DEAR SIR, +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Lecount has just left us. If it was not too late to wish, I should +wish, from the bottom of my heart, that Norah had taken your advice, and had +refused to see her. +</p> + +<p> +“I write in such distress of mind that I cannot hope to give you a clear +and complete account of the interview. I can only tell you briefly what Mrs. +Lecount has done, and what our situation now is. The rest must be left until I +am more composed, and until I can speak to you personally. +</p> + +<p> +“You will remember my informing you of the letter which Mrs. Lecount +addressed to Norah from Aldborough, and which I answered for her in her +absence. When Mrs. Lecount made her appearance to-day, her first words +announced to us that she had come to renew the subject. As well as I can +remember it, this is what she said, addressing herself to Norah: +</p> + +<p> +“‘I wrote to you on the subject of your sister, Miss Vanstone, some +little time since, and Miss Garth was so good as to answer the letter. What I +feared at that time has come true. Your sister has defied all my efforts to +check her; she has disappeared in company with my master, Mr. Noel Vanstone; +and she is now in a position of danger which may lead to her disgrace and ruin +at a moment’s notice. It is my interest to recover my master, it is your +interest to save your sister. Tell me—for time is precious—have you +any news of her?’ +</p> + +<p> +“Norah answered, as well as her terror and distress would allow her, +‘I have had a letter, but there was no address on it.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Lecount asked, ‘Was there no postmark on the envelope?’ +</p> + +<p> +“Norah said, ‘Yes; Allonby.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Allonby is better than nothing,’ said Mrs. Lecount. +‘Allonby may help you to trace her. Where is Allonby?’ +</p> + +<p> +“Norah told her. It all passed in a minute. I had been too much confused +and startled to interfere before, but I composed myself sufficiently to +interfere now. +</p> + +<p> +“‘You have entered into no particulars,’ I said. ‘You +have only frightened us—you have told us nothing.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘You shall hear the particulars, ma’am,’ said Mrs. +Lecount; ‘and you and Miss Vanstone shall judge for yourselves if I have +frightened you without a cause.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Upon this, she entered at once upon a long narrative, which I +cannot—I might almost say, which I dare not—repeat. You will +understand the horror we both felt when I tell you the end. If Mrs. +Lecount’s statement is to be relied on, Magdalen has carried her mad +resolution of recovering her father’s fortune to the last and most +desperate extremity—she has married Michael Vanstone’s son under a +false name. Her husband is at this moment still persuaded that her maiden name +was Bygrave, and that she is really the niece of a scoundrel who assisted her +imposture, and whom I recognize, by the description of him, to have been +Captain Wragge. +</p> + +<p> +“I spare you Mrs. Lecount’s cool avowal, when she rose to leave us, +of her own mercenary motives in wishing to discover her master and to enlighten +him. I spare you the hints she dropped of Magdalen’s purpose in +contracting this infamous marriage. The one aim and object of my letter is to +implore you to assist me in quieting Norah’s anguish of mind. The shock +she has received at hearing this news of her sister is not the worst result of +what has happened. She has persuaded herself that the answers she innocently +gave, in her distress, to Mrs. Lecount’s questions on the subject of her +letter—the answers wrung from her under the sudden pressure of confusion +and alarm—may be used to Magdalen’s prejudice by the woman who +purposely startled her into giving the information. I can only prevent her from +taking some desperate step on her side—some step by which she may forfeit +the friendship and protection of the excellent people with whom she is now +living—by reminding her that if Mrs. Lecount traces her master by means +of the postmark on the letter, we may trace Magdalen at the same time, and by +the same means. Whatever objection you may personally feel to renewing the +efforts for the rescue of this miserable girl which failed so lamentably at +York, I entreat you, for Norah’s sake, to take the same steps now which +we took then. Send me the only assurance which will quiet her—the +assurance, under your own hand, that the search on our side has begun. If you +will do this, you may trust me, when the time comes, to stand between these two +sisters, and to defend Norah’s peace, character, and future prosperity at +any price. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Most sincerely yours,<br/> +“HARRIET GARTH.” +</p> + +<h4> +XI.<br/> +From Mrs. Lecount to Mr. de Bleriot. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“October 28th. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR SIR, +</p> + +<p> +“I have found the trace you wanted. Mrs. Noel Vanstone has written to her +sister. The letter contains no address, but the postmark is Allonby, in +Cumberland. From Allonby, therefore, the inquiries must begin. You have already +in your possession the personal description of both husband and wife. I +urgently recommend you not to lose one unnecessary moment. If it is possible to +send to Cumberland immediately on receipt of this letter, I beg you will do so. +</p> + +<p> +“I have another word to say before I close my note—a word about the +discovery in Mr. Loscombe’s office. +</p> + +<p> +“It is no surprise to me to hear that Mr. Noel Vanstone has made his will +since his marriage, and I am at no loss to guess in whose favor the will is +made. If I succeed in finding my master, let that person get the money if that +person can. A course to follow in this matter has presented itself to my mind +since I received your letter, but my ignorance of details of business and +intricacies of law leaves me still uncertain whether my idea is capable of +ready and certain execution. I know no professional person whom I can trust in +this delicate and dangerous business. Is your large experience in other matters +large enough to help me in this? I will call at your office to-morrow at two +o’clock, for the purpose of consulting you on the subject. It is of the +greatest importance, when I next see Mr. Noel Vanstone, that he should find me +thoroughly prepared beforehand in this matter of the will. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Your much obliged servant,<br/> +“VIRGINIE LECOUNT.” +</p> + +<h4> +XII.<br/> +From Mr. Pendril to Miss Garth. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Serle Street, October 29th. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MISS GARTH, +</p> + +<p> +“I have only a moment to assure you of the sorrow with which I have read +your letter. The circumstances under which you urge your request, and the +reasons you give for making it, are sufficient to silence any objection I might +otherwise feel to the course you propose. A trustworthy person, whom I have +myself instructed, will start for Allonby to-day, and as soon as I receive any +news from him, you shall hear of it by special messenger. Tell Miss Vanstone +this, and pray add the sincere expression of my sympathy and regard. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Faithfully yours,<br/> +“WILLIAM PENDRIL.” +</p> + +<h4> +XIII.<br/> +From Mr. de Bleriot to Mrs. Lecount. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Dark’s Buildings. November 1st. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MADAM, +</p> + +<p> +“I have the pleasure of informing you that the discovery has been made +with far less trouble than I had anticipated. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. and Mrs. Noel Vanstone have been traced across the Solway Firth to +Dumfries, and thence to a cottage a few miles from the town, on the banks of +the Nith. The exact address is Baliol Cottage, near Dumfries. +</p> + +<p> +“This information, though easily hunted up, has nevertheless been +obtained under rather singular circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +“Before leaving Allonby, the persons in my employ discovered, to their +surprise, that a stranger was in the place pursuing the same inquiry as +themselves. In the absence of any instructions preparing them for such an +occurrence as this, they took their own view of the circumstance. Considering +the man as an intruder on their business, whose success might deprive them of +the credit and reward of making the discovery, they took advantage of their +superiority in numbers, and of their being first in the field, and carefully +misled the stranger before they ventured any further with their own +investigations. I am in possession of the details of their proceedings, with +which I need not trouble you. The end is, that this person, whoever he may be, +was cleverly turned back southward on a false scent before the men in my +employment crossed the Firth. +</p> + +<p> +“I mention the circumstance, as you may be better able than I am to find +a clue to it, and as it may possibly be of a nature to induce you to hasten +your journey. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Your faithful servant,<br/> +“ALFRED DE BLERIOT.” +</p> + +<h4> +XIV.<br/> +From Mrs. Lecount to Mr. de Bleriot. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“November 1st. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR SIR, +</p> + +<p> +“One line to say that your letter has just reached me at my lodging in +London. I think I know who sent the strange man to inquire at Allonby. It +matters little. Before he finds out his mistake, I shall be at Dumfries. My +luggage is packed, and I start for the North by the next train. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Your deeply obliged,<br/> +“VIRGINIE LECOUNT.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="part05"></a>THE FIFTH SCENE.<br/> +<small>BALIOL COTTAGE, DUMFRIES.</small></h3> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap41"></a>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<p> +Toward eleven o’clock, on the morning of the third of November, the +breakfast-table at Baliol Cottage presented that essentially comfortless +appearance which is caused by a meal in a state of transition—that is to +say, by a meal prepared for two persons, which has been already eaten by one, +and which has not yet been approached by the other. It must be a hardy appetite +which can contemplate without a momentary discouragement the battered +egg-shell, the fish half stripped to a skeleton, the crumbs in the plate, and +the dregs in the cup. There is surely a wise submission to those weaknesses in +human nature which must be respected and not reproved, in the sympathizing +rapidity with which servants in places of public refreshment clear away all +signs of the customer in the past, from the eyes of the customer in the +present. Although his predecessor may have been the wife of his bosom or the +child of his loins, no man can find himself confronted at table by the traces +of a vanished eater, without a passing sense of injury in connection with the +idea of his own meal. +</p> + +<p> +Some such impression as this found its way into the mind of Mr. Noel Vanstone +when he entered the lonely breakfast-parlor at Baliol Cottage shortly after +eleven o’clock. He looked at the table with a frown, and rang the bell +with an expression of disgust. +</p> + +<p> +“Clear away this mess,” he said, when the servant appeared. +“Has your mistress gone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir—nearly an hour ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is Louisa downstairs?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“When you have put the table right, send Louisa up to me.” +</p> + +<p> +He walked away to the window. The momentary irritation passed away from his +face; but it left an expression there which remained—an expression of +pining discontent. Personally, his marriage had altered him for the worse. His +wizen little cheeks were beginning to shrink into hollows, his frail little +figure had already contracted a slight stoop. The former delicacy of his +complexion had gone—the sickly paleness of it was all that remained. His +thin flaxen mustaches were no longer pragmatically waxed and twisted into a +curl: their weak feathery ends hung meekly pendent over the querulous corners +of his mouth. If the ten or twelve weeks since his marriage had been counted by +his locks, they might have reckoned as ten or twelve years. He stood at the +window mechanically picking leaves from a pot of heath placed in front of it, +and drearily humming the forlorn fragment of a tune. +</p> + +<p> +The prospect from the window overlooked the course of the Nith at a bend of the +river a few miles above Dumfries. Here and there, through wintry gaps in the +wooded bank, broad tracts of the level cultivated valley met the eye. Boats +passed on the river, and carts plodded along the high-road on their way to +Dumfries. The sky was clear; the November sun shone as pleasantly as if the +year had been younger by two good months; and the view, noted in Scotland for +its bright and peaceful charm, was presented at the best which its wintry +aspect could assume. If it had been hidden in mist or drenched with rain, Mr. +Noel Vanstone would, to all appearance, have found it as attractive as he found +it now. He waited at the window until he heard Louisa’s knock at the +door, then turned back sullenly to the breakfast-table and told her to come in. +</p> + +<p> +“Make the tea,” he said. “I know nothing about it. I’m +left here neglected. Nobody helps me.” +</p> + +<p> +The discreet Louisa silently and submissively obeyed. +</p> + +<p> +“Did your mistress leave any message for me,” he asked, +“before she went away?” +</p> + +<p> +“No message in particular, sir. My mistress only said she should be too +late if she waited breakfast any longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did she say nothing else?” +</p> + +<p> +“She told me at the carriage door, sir, that she would most likely be +back in a week.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was she in good spirits at the carriage door?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir. I thought my mistress seemed very anxious and uneasy. Is there +anything more I can do, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. Wait a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +He proceeded discontentedly with his breakfast. Louisa waited resignedly at the +door. +</p> + +<p> +“I think your mistress has been in bad spirits lately,” he resumed, +with a sudden outbreak of petulance. +</p> + +<p> +“My mistress has not been very cheerful, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean by not very cheerful? Do you mean to prevaricate? Am I +nobody in the house? Am I to be kept in the dark about everything? Is your +mistress to go away on her own affairs, and leave me at home like a +child—and am I not even to ask a question about her? Am I to be +prevaricated with by a servant? I won’t be prevaricated with! Not very +cheerful? What do you mean by not very cheerful?” +</p> + +<p> +“I only meant that my mistress was not in good spirits, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why couldn’t you say it, then? Don’t you know the value of +words? The most dreadful consequences sometimes happen from not knowing the +value of words. Did your mistress tell you she was going to London?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did you think when your mistress told you she was going to London? +Did you think it odd she was going without me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not presume to think it odd, sir.—Is there anything more I +can do for you, if you please, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“What sort of a morning is it out? Is it warm? Is the sun on the +garden?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you seen the sun yourself on the garden?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Get me my great-coat; I’ll take a little turn. Has the man brushed +it? Did you see the man brush it yourself? What do you mean by saying he has +brushed it, when you didn’t see him? Let me look at the tails. If +there’s a speck of dust on the tails, I’ll turn the man +off!—Help me on with it.” +</p> + +<p> +Louisa helped him on with his coat, and gave him his hat. He went out +irritably. The coat was a large one (it had belonged to his father); the hat +was a large one (it was a misfit purchased as a bargain by himself). He was +submerged in his hat and coat; he looked singularly small, and frail, and +miserable, as he slowly wended his way, in the wintry sunlight, down the garden +walk. The path sloped gently from the back of the house to the water side, from +which it was parted by a low wooden fence. After pacing backward and forward +slowly for some little time, he stopped at the lower extremity of the garden, +and, leaning on the fence, looked down listlessly at the smooth flow of the +river. +</p> + +<p> +His thoughts still ran on the subject of his first fretful question to +Louisa—he was still brooding over the circumstances under which his wife +had left the cottage that morning, and over the want of consideration toward +himself implied in the manner of her departure. The longer he thought of his +grievance, the more acutely he resented it. He was capable of great tenderness +of feeling where any injury to his sense of his own importance was concerned. +His head drooped little by little on his arms, as they rested on the fence, +and, in the deep sincerity of his mortification, he sighed bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +The sigh was answered by a voice close at his side. +</p> + +<p> +“You were happier with <i>me</i>, sir,” said the voice, in accents +of tender regret. +</p> + +<p> +He looked up with a scream—literally, with a scream—and confronted +Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +Was it the specter of the woman, or the woman herself? Her hair was white; her +face had fallen away; her eyes looked out large, bright, and haggard over her +hollow cheeks. She was withered and old. Her dress hung loose round her wasted +figure; not a trace of its buxom autumnal beauty remained. The quietly +impenetrable resolution, the smoothly insinuating voice—these were the +only relics of the past which sickness and suffering had left in Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“Compose yourself, Mr. Noel,” she said, gently. “You have no +cause to be alarmed at seeing me. Your servant, when I inquired, said you were +in the garden, and I came here to find you. I have traced you out, sir, with no +resentment against yourself, with no wish to distress you by so much as the +shadow of a reproach. I come here on what has been, and is still, the business +of my life—your service.” +</p> + +<p> +He recovered himself a little, but he was still incapable of speech. He held +fast by the fence, and stared at her. +</p> + +<p> +“Try to possess your mind, sir, of what I say,” proceeded Mrs. +Lecount. “I have come here not as your enemy, but as your friend. I have +been tried by sickness, I have been tried by distress. Nothing remains of me +but my heart. My heart forgives you; my heart, in your sore need—need +which you have yet to feel-places me at your service. Take my arm, Mr. Noel. A +little turn in the sun will help you to recover yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +She put his hand through her arm and marched him slowly up the garden walk. +Before she had been five minutes in his company, she had resumed full +possession of him in her own right. +</p> + +<p> +“Now down again, Mr. Noel,” she said. “Gently down again, in +this fine sunlight. I have much to say to you, sir, which you never expected to +hear from me. Let me ask a little domestic question first. They told me at the +house door Mrs. Noel Vanstone was gone away on a journey. Has she gone for +long?” +</p> + +<p> +Her master’s hand trembled on her arm as she put that question. Instead +of answering it, he tried faintly to plead for himself. The first words that +escaped him were prompted by his first returning sense—the sense that his +housekeeper had taken him into custody. He tried to make his peace with Mrs. +Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“I always meant to do something for you,” he said, coaxingly. +“You would have heard from me before long. Upon my word and honor, +Lecount, you would have heard from me before long!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t doubt it, sir,” replied Mrs. Lecount. “But for +the present, never mind about Me. You and your interests first.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you come here?” he asked, looking at her in astonishment. +“How came you to find me out?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a long story, sir; I will tell it you some other time. Let it be +enough to say now that I <i>have</i> found you. Will Mrs. Noel be back again at +the house to-day? A little louder, sir; I can hardly hear you. So! so! Not back +again for a week! And where has she gone? To London, did you say? And what +for?—I am not inquisitive, Mr. Noel; I am asking serious questions, under +serious necessity. Why has your wife left you here, and gone to London by +herself?” +</p> + +<p> +They were down at the fence again as she made that last inquiry, and they +waited, leaning against it, while Noel Vanstone answered. Her reiterated +assurances that she bore him no malice were producing their effect; he was +beginning to recover himself. The old helpless habit of addressing all his +complaints to his housekeeper was returning already with the re-appearance of +Mrs. Lecount—returning insidiously, in company with that besetting +anxiety to talk about his grievances, which had got the better of him at the +breakfast-table, and which had shown the wound inflicted on his vanity to his +wife’s maid. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t answer for Mrs. Noel Vanstone,” he said, spitefully. +“Mrs. Noel Vanstone has not treated me with the consideration which is my +due. She has taken my permission for granted, and she has only thought proper +to tell me that the object of her journey is to see her friends in London. She +went away this morning without bidding me good-by. She takes her own way as if +I was nobody; she treats me like a child. You may not believe it, Lecount, but +I don’t even know who her friends are. I am left quite in the dark; I am +left to guess for myself that her friends in London are her uncle and +aunt.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount privately considered the question by the help of her own knowledge +obtained in London. She soon reached the obvious conclusion. After writing to +her sister in the first instance, Magdalen had now, in all probability, +followed the letter in person. There was little doubt that the friends she had +gone to visit in London were her sister and Miss Garth. +</p> + +<p> +“Not her uncle and aunt, sir,” resumed Mrs. Lecount, composedly. +“A secret for your private ear! She has no uncle and aunt. Another little +turn before I explain myself—another little turn to compose your +spirits.” +</p> + +<p> +She took him into custody once more, and marched him back toward the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Noel!” she said, suddenly stopping in the middle of the walk. +“Do you know what was the worst mischief you ever did yourself in your +life? I will tell you. That worst mischief was sending me to Zurich.” +</p> + +<p> +His hand began to tremble on her arm once more. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t do it!” he cried piteously. “It was all Mr. +Bygrave.” +</p> + +<p> +“You acknowledge, sir, that Mr. Bygrave deceived <i>me?</i>” +proceeded Mrs. Lecount. “I am glad to hear that. You will be all the +readier to make the next discovery which is waiting for you—the discovery +that Mr. Bygrave has deceived <i>you</i>. He is not here to slip through my +fingers now, and I am not the helpless woman in this place that I was at +Aldborough. Thank God!” +</p> + +<p> +She uttered that devout exclamation through her set teeth. All her hatred of +Captain Wragge hissed out of her lips in those two words. +</p> + +<p> +“Oblige me, sir, by holding one side of my traveling-bag,” she +resumed, “while I open it and take something out.” +</p> + +<p> +The interior of the bag disclosed a series of neatly-folded papers, all laid +together in order, and numbered outside. Mrs. Lecount took out one of the +papers, and shut up the bag again with a loud snap of the spring that closed +it. +</p> + +<p> +“At Aldborough, Mr. Noel, I had only my own opinion to support me,” +she remarked. “My own opinion was nothing against Miss Bygrave’s +youth and beauty, and Mr. Bygrave’s ready wit. I could only hope to +attack your infatuation with proofs, and at that time I had not got them. I +have got them now! I am armed at all points with proofs; I bristle from head to +foot with proofs; I break my forced silence, and speak with the emphasis of my +proofs. Do you know this writing, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +He shrank back from the paper which she offered to him. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand this,” he said, nervously. “I +don’t know what you want, or what you mean.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount forced the paper into his hand. “You shall know what I mean, +sir, if you will give me a moment’s attention,” she said. “On +the day after you went away to St. Crux, I obtained admission to Mr. +Bygrave’s house, and I had some talk in private with Mr. Bygrave’s +wife. That talk supplied me with the means to convince you which I had wanted +to find for weeks and weeks past. I wrote you a letter to say so—I wrote +to tell you that I would forfeit my place in your service, and my expectations +from your generosity, if I did not prove to you when I came back from +Switzerland that my own private suspicion of Miss Bygrave was the truth. I +directed that letter to you at St. Crux, and I posted it myself. Now, Mr. Noel, +read the paper which I have forced into your hand. It is Admiral +Bartram’s written affirmation that my letter came to St. Crux, and that +he inclosed it to you, under cover to Mr. Bygrave, at your own request. Did Mr. +Bygrave ever give you that letter? Don’t agitate yourself, sir! One word +of reply will do—Yes or No.” +</p> + +<p> +He read the paper, and looked up at her with growing bewilderment and fear. She +obstinately waited until he spoke. “No,” he said, faintly; “I +never got the letter.” +</p> + +<p> +“First proof!” said Mrs. Lecount, taking the paper from him, and +putting it back in the bag. “One more, with your kind permission, before +we come to things more serious still. I gave you a written description, sir, at +Aldborough, of a person not named, and I asked you to compare it with Miss +Bygrave the next time you were in her company. After having first shown the +description to Mr. Bygrave—it is useless to deny it now, Mr. Noel; your +friend at North Shingles is not here to help you!—after having first +shown my note to Mr. Bygrave, you made the comparison, and you found it fail in +the most important particular. There were two little moles placed close +together on the left side of the neck, in my description of the unknown lady, +and there were no little moles at all when you looked at Miss Bygrave’s +neck. I am old enough to be your mother, Mr. Noel. If the question is not +indelicate, may I ask what the present state of your knowledge is on the +subject of your wife’s neck?” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him with a merciless steadiness. He drew back a few steps, +cowering under her eye. “I can’t say,” he stammered. “I +don’t know. What do you mean by these questions? I never thought about +the moles afterward; I never looked. She wears her hair low—” +</p> + +<p> +“She has excellent reasons to wear it low, sir,” remarked Mrs. +Lecount. “We will try and lift that hair before we have done with the +subject. When I came out here to find you in the garden, I saw a neat young +person through the kitchen window, with her work in her hand, who looked to my +eyes like a lady’s maid. Is this young person your wife’s maid? I +beg your pardon, sir, did you say yes? In that case, another question, if you +please. Did you engage her, or did your wife?” +</p> + +<p> +“I engaged her—” +</p> + +<p> +“While I was away? While I was in total ignorance that you meant to have +a wife, or a wife’s maid?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Under those circumstances, Mr. Noel, you cannot possibly suspect me of +conspiring to deceive you, with the maid for my instrument. Go into the house, +sir, while I wait here. Ask the woman who dresses Mrs. Noel Vanstone’s +hair morning and night whether her mistress has a mark on the left side of her +neck, and (if so) what that mark is?” +</p> + +<p> +He walked a few steps toward the house without uttering a word, then stopped, +and looked back at Mrs. Lecount. His blinking eyes were steady, and his wizen +face had become suddenly composed. Mrs. Lecount advanced a little and joined +him. She saw the change; but, with all her experience of him, she failed to +interpret the true meaning of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you in want of a pretense, sir?” she asked. “Are you at +a loss to account to your wife’s maid for such a question as I wish you +to put to her? Pretenses are easily found which will do for persons in her +station of life. Say I have come here with news of a legacy for Mrs. Noel +Vanstone, and that there is a question of her identity to settle before she can +receive the money.” +</p> + +<p> +She pointed to the house. He paid no attention to the sign. His face grew paler +and paler. Without moving or speaking he stood and looked at her. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you afraid?” asked Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +Those words roused him; those words lit a spark of the fire of manhood in him +at last. He turned on her like a sheep on a dog. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t be questioned and ordered!” he broke out, trembling +violently under the new sensation of his own courage. “I won’t be +threatened and mystified any longer! How did you find me out at this place? +What do you mean by coming here with your hints and your mysteries? What have +you got to say against my wife?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount composedly opened the traveling-bag and took out her smelling +bottle, in case of emergency. +</p> + +<p> +“You have spoken to me in plain words,” she said. “In plain +words, sir, you shall have your answer. Are you too angry to listen?” +</p> + +<p> +Her looks and tones alarmed him, in spite of himself. His courage began to sink +again; and, desperately as he tried to steady it, his voice trembled when he +answered her. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me my answer,” he said, “and give it at once.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your commands shall be obeyed, sir, to the letter,” replied Mrs. +Lecount. “I have come here with two objects. To open your eyes to your +own situation, and to save your fortune—perhaps your life. Your situation +is this. Miss Bygrave has married you under a false character and a false name. +Can you rouse your memory? Can you call to mind the disguised woman who +threatened you in Vauxhall Walk? That woman—as certainly as I stand +here—is now your wife.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her in breathless silence, his lips falling apart, his eyes fixed +in vacant inquiry. The suddenness of the disclosure had overreached its own +end. It had stupefied him. +</p> + +<p> +“My wife?” he repeated, and burst into an imbecile laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Your wife,” reiterated Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +At the repetition of those two words the strain on his faculties relaxed. A +thought dawned on him for the first time. His eyes fixed on her with a furtive +alarm, and he drew back hastily. “Mad!” he said to himself, with a +sudden remembrance of what his friend Mr. Bygrave had told him at Aldborough, +sharpened by his own sense of the haggard change that he saw in her face. +</p> + +<p> +He spoke in a whisper, but Mrs. Lecount heard him. She was close at his side +again in an instant. For the first time, her self-possession failed her, and +she caught him angrily by the arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you put my madness to the proof, sir?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +He shook off her hold; he began to gather courage again, in the intense +sincerity of his disbelief, courage to face the assertion which she persisted +in forcing on him. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he answered. “What must I do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do what I told you,” said Mrs. Lecount. “Ask the maid that +question about her mistress on the spot. And if she tells you the mark is +there, do one thing more. Take me up into your wife’s room, and open her +wardrobe in my presence with your own hands.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you want with her wardrobe?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“You shall know when you open it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very strange!” he said to himself, vacantly. “It’s +like a scene in a novel—it’s like nothing in real life.” He +went slowly into the house, and Mrs. Lecount waited for him in the garden. +</p> + +<p> +After an absence of a few minutes only he appeared again, on the top of the +flight of steps which led into the garden from the house. He held by the iron +rail with one hand, while with the other he beckoned to Mrs. Lecount to join +him on the steps. +</p> + +<p> +“What does the maid say?” she asked, as she approached him. +“Is the mark there?” +</p> + +<p> +He answered in a whisper, “Yes.” What he had heard from the maid +had produced a marked change in him. The horror of the coming discovery had +laid its paralyzing hold on his mind. He moved mechanically; he looked and +spoke like a man in a dream. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you take my arm, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head, and, preceding her along the passage and up the stairs, led +the way into his wife’s room. When she joined him and locked the door, he +stood passively waiting for his directions, without making any remark, without +showing any external appearance of surprise. He had not removed either his hat +or coat. Mrs. Lecount took them off for him. “Thank you,” he said, +with the docility of a well-trained child. “It’s like a scene in a +novel—it’s like nothing in real life.” +</p> + +<p> +The bed-chamber was not very large, and the furniture was heavy and +old-fashioned. But evidences of Magdalen’s natural taste and refinement +were visible everywhere, in the little embellishments that graced and enlivened +the aspect of the room. The perfume of dried rose-leaves hung fragrant on the +cool air. Mrs. Lecount sniffed the perfume with a disparaging frown and threw +the window up to its full height. “Pah!” she said, with a shudder +of virtuous disgust, “the atmosphere of deceit!” +</p> + +<p> +She seated herself near the window. The wardrobe stood against the wall +opposite, and the bed was at the side of the room on her right hand. +“Open the wardrobe, Mr. Noel,” she said. “I don’t go +near it. I touch nothing in it myself. Take out the dresses with your own hand +and put them on the bed. Take them out one by one until I tell you to +stop.” +</p> + +<p> +He obeyed her. “I’ll do it as well as I can,” he said. +“My hands are cold, and my head feels half asleep.” +</p> + +<p> +The dresses to be removed were not many, for Magdalen had taken some of them +away with her. After he had put two dresses on the bed, he was obliged to +search in the inner recesses of the wardrobe before he could find a third. When +he produced it, Mrs. Lecount made a sign to him to stop. The end was reached +already; he had found the brown Alpaca dress. +</p> + +<p> +“Lay it out on the bed, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount. “You will +see a double flounce running round the bottom of it. Lift up the outer flounce, +and pass the inner one through your fingers, inch by inch. If you come to a +place where there is a morsel of the stuff missing, stop and look up at +me.” +</p> + +<p> +He passed the flounce slowly through his fingers for a minute or more, then +stopped and looked up. Mrs. Lecount produced her pocket-book and opened it. +</p> + +<p> +“Every word I now speak, sir, is of serious consequence to you and to +me,” she said. “Listen with your closest attention. When the woman +calling herself Miss Garth came to see us in Vauxhall Walk, I knelt down behind +the chair in which she was sitting and I cut a morsel of stuff from the dress +she wore, which might help me to know that dress if I ever saw it again. I did +this while the woman’s whole attention was absorbed in talking to you. +The morsel of stuff has been kept in my pocketbook from that time to this. See +for yourself, Mr. Noel, if it fits the gap in that dress which your own hands +have just taken from your wife’s wardrobe.” +</p> + +<p> +She rose and handed him the fragment of stuff across the bed. He put it into +the vacant space in the flounce as well as his trembling fingers would let him. +</p> + +<p> +“Does it fit, sir?” asked Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +The dress dropped from his hands, and the deadly bluish pallor—which +every doctor who attended him had warned his housekeeper to +dread—overspread his face slowly. Mrs. Lecount had not reckoned on such +an answer to her question as she now saw in his cheeks. She hurried round to +him, with the smelling-bottle in her hand. He dropped to his knees and caught +at her dress with the grasp of a drowning man. “Save me!” he +gasped, in a hoarse, breathless whisper. “Oh, Lecount, save me!” +</p> + +<p> +“I promise to save you,” said Mrs. Lecount; “I am here with +the means and the resolution to save you. Come away from this place—come +nearer to the air.” She raised him as she spoke, and led him across the +room to the window. “Do you feel the chill pain again on your left +side?” she asked, with the first signs of alarm that she had shown yet. +“Has your wife got any eau-de-cologne, any sal-volatile in her room? +Don’t exhaust yourself by speaking—point to the place!” +</p> + +<p> +He pointed to a little triangular cupboard of old worm-eaten walnut-wood fixed +high in a corner of the room. Mrs. Lecount tried the door: it was locked. +</p> + +<p> +As she made that discovery, she saw his head sink back gradually on the +easy-chair in which she had placed him. The warning of the doctors in past +years—“If you ever let him faint, you let him +die”—recurred to her memory as if it had been spoken the day +before. She looked at the cupboard again. In a recess under it lay some ends of +cord, placed there apparently for purposes of packing. Without an +instant’s hesitation, she snatched up a morsel of cord, tied one end fast +round the knob of the cupboard door, and seizing the other end in both hands, +pulled it suddenly with the exertion of her whole strength. The rotten wood +gave way, the cupboard doors flew open, and a heap of little trifles poured out +noisily on the floor. Without stopping to notice the broken china and glass at +her feet, she looked into the dark recesses of the cupboard and saw the gleam +of two glass bottles. One was put away at the extreme back of the shelf, the +other was a little in advance, almost hiding it. She snatched them both out at +once, and took them, one in each hand, to the window, where she could read +their labels in the clearer light. +</p> + +<p> +The bottle in her right hand was the first bottle she looked at. It was +marked—<i>Sal-volatile</i>. +</p> + +<p> +She instantly laid the other bottle aside on the table without looking at it. +The other bottle lay there, waiting its turn. It held a dark liquid, and it was +labeled—POISON. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap42"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount mixed the sal-volatile with water, and administered it +immediately. The stimulant had its effect. In a few minutes Noel Vanstone was +able to raise himself in the chair without assistance; his color changed again +for the better, and his breath came and went more freely. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you feel now, sir?” asked Mrs. Lecount. “Are you warm +again on your left side?” +</p> + +<p> +He paid no attention to that inquiry; his eyes, wandering about the room, +turned by chance toward the table. To Mrs. Lecount’s surprise, instead of +answering her, he bent forward in his chair, and looked with staring eyes and +pointing hand at the second bottle which she had taken from the cupboard, and +which she had hastily laid aside without paying attention to it. Seeing that +some new alarm possessed him, she advanced to the table, and looked where he +looked. The labeled side of the bottle was full in view; and there, in the +plain handwriting of the chemist at Aldborough, was the one startling word +confronting them both—“Poison.” +</p> + +<p> +Even Mrs. Lecount’s self-possession was shaken by that discovery. She was +not prepared to see her own darkest forebodings—the unacknowledged +offspring of her hatred for Magdalen—realized as she saw them realized +now. The suicide-despair in which the poison had been procured; the +suicide-purpose for which, in distrust of the future, the poison had been kept, +had brought with them their own retribution. There the bottle lay, in +Magdalen’s absence, a false witness of treason which had never entered +her mind—treason against her husband’s life! +</p> + +<p> +With his hand still mechanically pointing at the table Noel Vanstone raised his +head and looked up at Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“I took it from the cupboard,” she said, answering the look. +“I took both bottles out together, not knowing which might be the bottle +I wanted. I am as much shocked, as much frightened, as you are.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poison!” he said to himself, slowly. “Poison locked up by my +wife in the cupboard in her own room.” He stopped, and looked at Mrs. +Lecount once more. “For <i>me?</i>” he asked, in a vacant, +inquiring tone. +</p> + +<p> +“We will not talk of it, sir, until your mind is more at ease,” +said Mrs. Lecount. “In the meantime, the danger that lies waiting in this +bottle shall be instantly destroyed in your presence.” She took out the +cork, and threw the laudanum out of window, and the empty bottle after it. +“Let us try to forget this dreadful discovery for the present,” she +resumed; “let us go downstairs at once. All that I have now to say to you +can be said in another room.” +</p> + +<p> +She helped him to rise from the chair, and took his arm in her own. “It +is well for him; it is well for me,” she thought, as they went downstairs +together, “that I came when I did.” +</p> + +<p> +On crossing the passage, she stepped to the front door, where the carriage was +waiting which had brought her from Dumfries, and instructed the coachman to put +up his horses at the nearest inn, and to call again for her in two hours’ +time. This done, she accompanied Noel Vanstone into the sitting-room, stirred +up the fire, and placed him before it comfortably in an easy-chair. He sat for +a few minutes, warming his hands feebly like an old man, and staring straight +into the flame. Then he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“When the woman came and threatened me in Vauxhall Walk,” he began, +still staring into the fire, “you came back to the parlor after she was +gone, and you told me—?” He stopped, shivered a little, and lost +the thread of his recollections at that point. +</p> + +<p> +“I told you, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount, “that the woman was, in +my opinion, Miss Vanstone herself. Don’t start, Mr. Noel! Your wife is +away, and I am here to take care of you. Say to yourself, if you feel +frightened, ‘Lecount is here; Lecount will take care of me.’ The +truth must be told, sir, however hard to bear the truth may be. Miss Magdalen +Vanstone was the woman who came to you in disguise; and the woman who came to +you in disguise is the woman you have married. The conspiracy which she +threatened you with in London is the conspiracy which has made her your wife. +That is the plain truth. You have seen the dress upstairs. If that dress had +been no longer in existence, I should still have had my proofs to convince you. +Thanks to my interview with Mrs. Bygrave I have discovered the house your wife +lodged at in London; it was opposite our house in Vauxhall Walk. I have laid my +hand on one of the landlady’s daughters, who watched your wife from an +inner room, and saw her put on the disguise; who can speak to her identity, and +to the identity of her companion, Mrs. Bygrave; and who has furnished me, at my +own request, with a written statement of facts, which she is ready to affirm on +oath if any person ventures to contradict her. You shall read the statement, +Mr. Noel, if you like, when you are fitter to understand it. You shall also +read a letter in the handwriting of Miss Garth—who will repeat to you +personally every word she has written to me—a letter formally denying +that she was ever in Vauxhall Walk, and formally asserting that those moles on +your wife’s neck are marks peculiar to Miss Magdalen Vanstone, whom she +has known from childhood. I say it with a just pride—you will find no +weak place anywhere in the evidence which I bring you. If Mr. Bygrave had not +stolen my letter, you would have had your warning before I was cruelly deceived +into going to Zurich; and the proofs which I now bring you, after your +marriage, I should then have offered to you before it. Don’t hold me +responsible, sir, for what has happened since I left England. Blame your +uncle’s bastard daughter, and blame that villain with the brown eye and +the green!” +</p> + +<p> +She spoke her last venomous words as slowly and distinctly as she had spoken +all the rest. Noel Vanstone made no answer—he still sat cowering over the +fire. She looked round into his face. He was crying silently. “I was so +fond of her!” said the miserable little creature; “and I thought +she was so fond of Me!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount turned her back on him in disdainful silence. “Fond of +her!” As she repeated those words to herself, her haggard face became +almost handsome again in the magnificent intensity of its contempt. +</p> + +<p> +She walked to a book-case at the lower end of the room, and began examining the +volumes in it. Before she had been long engaged in this way, she was startled +by the sound of his voice, affrightedly calling her back. The tears were gone +from his face; it was blank again with terror when he now turned it toward her. +</p> + +<p> +“Lecount!” he said, holding to her with both hands. “Can an +egg be poisoned? I had an egg for breakfast this morning, and a little +toast.” +</p> + +<p> +“Make your mind easy, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount. “The poison of +your wife’s deceit is the only poison you have taken yet. If she had +resolved already on making you pay the price of your folly with your life, she +would not be absent from the house while you were left living in it. Dismiss +the thought from your mind. It is the middle of the day; you want refreshment. +I have more to say to you in the interests of your own safety—I have +something for you to do, which must be done at once. Recruit your strength, and +you will do it. I will set you the example of eating, if you still distrust the +food in this house. Are you composed enough to give the servant her orders, if +I ring the bell? It is necessary to the object I have in view for you, that +nobody should think you ill in body or troubled in mind. Try first with me +before the servant comes in. Let us see how you look and speak when you say, +‘Bring up the lunch.’” +</p> + +<p> +After two rehearsals, Mrs. Lecount considered him fit to give the order, +without betraying himself. +</p> + +<p> +The bell was answered by Louisa—Louisa looked hard at Mrs. Lecount. The +luncheon was brought up by the house-maid—the house-maid looked hard at +Mrs. Lecount. When luncheon was over, the table was cleared by the +cook—the cook looked hard at Mrs. Lecount. The three servants were +plainly suspicious that something extraordinary was going on in the house. It +was hardly possible to doubt that they had arranged to share among themselves +the three opportunities which the service of the table afforded them of +entering the room. +</p> + +<p> +The curiosity of which she was the object did not escape the penetration of +Mrs. Lecount. “I did well,” she thought, “to arm myself in +good time with the means of reaching my end. If I let the grass grow under my +feet, one or the other of those women might get in my way.” Roused by +this consideration, she produced her traveling-bag from a corner, as soon as +the last of the servants had entered the room; and seating herself at the end +of the table opposite Noel Vanstone, looked at him for a moment, with a steady, +investigating attention. She had carefully regulated the quantity of wine which +he had taken at luncheon—she had let him drink exactly enough to fortify, +without confusing him; and she now examined his face critically, like an artist +examining his picture at the end of the day’s work. The result appeared +to satisfy her, and she opened the serious business of the interview on the +spot. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you look at the written evidence I have mentioned to you, Mr. Noel, +before I say any more?” she inquired. “Or are you sufficiently +persuaded of the truth to proceed at once to the suggestion which I have now to +make to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me hear your suggestion,” he said, sullenly resting his elbows +on the table, and leaning his head on his hands. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount took from her traveling-bag the written evidence to which she had +just alluded, and carefully placed the papers on one side of him, within easy +reach, if he wished to refer to them. Far from being daunted, she was visibly +encouraged by the ungraciousness of his manner. Her experience of him informed +her that the sign was a promising one. On those rare occasions when the little +resolution that he possessed was roused in him, it invariably asserted +itself—like the resolution of most other weak men—aggressively. At +such times, in proportion as he was outwardly sullen and discourteous to those +about him, his resolution rose; and in proportion as he was considerate and +polite, it fell. The tone of the answer he had just given, and the attitude he +assumed at the table, convinced Mrs. Lecount that Spanish wine and Scotch +mutton had done their duty, and had rallied his sinking courage. +</p> + +<p> +“I will put the question to you for form’s sake, sir, if you wish +it,” she proceeded. “But I am already certain, without any question +at all, that you have made your will?” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded his head without looking at her. +</p> + +<p> +“You have made it in your wife’s favor?” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded again. +</p> + +<p> +“You have left her everything you possess?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount looked surprised. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you exercise a reserve toward her, Mr. Noel, of your own +accord?” she inquired; “or is it possible that your wife put her +own limits to her interest in your will?” +</p> + +<p> +He was uneasily silent—he was plainly ashamed to answer the question. +Mrs. Lecount repeated it in a less direct form. +</p> + +<p> +“How much have you left your widow, Mr. Noel, in the event of your +death?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eighty thousand pounds.” +</p> + +<p> +That reply answered the question. Eighty thousand pounds was exactly the +fortune which Michael Vanstone had taken from his brother’s orphan +children at his brother’s death—exactly the fortune of which +Michael Vanstone’s son had kept possession, in his turn, as pitilessly as +his father before him. Noel Vanstone’s silence was eloquent of the +confession which he was ashamed to make. His doting weakness had, beyond all +doubt, placed his whole property at the feet of his wife. And this girl, whose +vindictive daring had defied all restraints—this girl, who had not shrunk +from her desperate determination even at the church door—had, in the very +hour of her triumph, taken part only from the man who would willingly have +given all!—had rigorously exacted her father’s fortune from him to +the last farthing; and had then turned her back on the hand that was tempting +her with tens of thousands more! For the moment, Mrs. Lecount was fairly +silenced by her own surprise; Magdalen had forced the astonishment from her +which is akin to admiration, the astonishment which her enmity would fain have +refused. She hated Magdalen with a tenfold hatred from that time. +</p> + +<p> +“I have no doubt, sir,” she resumed, after a momentary silence, +“that Mrs. Noel gave you excellent reasons why the provision for her at +your death should be no more, and no less, than eighty thousand pounds. And, on +the other hand, I am equally sure that you, in your innocence of all suspicion, +found those reasons conclusive at the time. That time has now gone by. Your +eyes are opened, sir; and you will not fail to remark (as I remark) that the +Combe-Raven property happens to reach the same sum exactly, as the legacy which +your wife’s own instructions directed you to leave her. If you are still +in any doubt of the motive for which she married you, look in your own +will—and there the motive is!” +</p> + +<p> +He raised his head from his hands, and became closely attentive to what she was +saying to him, for the first time since they had faced each other at the table. +The Combe-Raven property had never been classed by itself in his estimation. It +had come to him merged in his father’s other possessions, at his +father’s death. The discovery which had now opened before him was one to +which his ordinary habits of thought, as well as his innocence of suspicion, +had hitherto closed his eyes. He said nothing; but he looked less sullenly at +Mrs. Lecount. His manner was more ingratiating; the high tide of his courage +was already on the ebb. +</p> + +<p> +“Your position, sir, must be as plain by this time to you as it is to +me,” said Mrs. Lecount. “There is only one obstacle now left +between this woman and the attainment of her end. <i>That obstacle is your +life.</i> After the discovery we have made upstairs, I leave you to consider +for yourself what your life is worth.” +</p> + +<p> +At those terrible words, the ebbing resolution in him ran out to the last drop. +“Don’t frighten me!” he pleaded; “I have been +frightened enough already.” He rose, and dragged his chair after him, +round the table to Mrs. Lecount’s side. He sat down and caressingly +kissed her hand. “You good creature!” he said, in a sinking voice. +“You excellent Lecount! Tell me what to do. I’m full of +resolution—I’ll do anything to save my life!” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you got writing materials in the room, sir?” asked Mrs. +Lecount. “Will you put them on the table, if you please?” +</p> + +<p> +While the writing materials were in process of collection, Mrs. Lecount made a +new demand on the resources of her traveling-bag. She took two papers from it, +each indorsed in the same neat commercial handwriting. One was described as +“Draft for proposed Will,” and the other as “Draft for +proposed Letter.” When she placed them before her on the table, her hand +shook a little; and she applied the smelling-salts, which she had brought with +her in Noel Vanstone’s interests, to her own nostrils. +</p> + +<p> +“I had hoped, when I came here, Mr. Noel,” she proceeded, “to +have given you more time for consideration than it seems safe to give you now. +When you first told me of your wife’s absence in London, I thought it +probable that the object of her journey was to see her sister and Miss Garth. +Since the horrible discovery we have made upstairs, I am inclined to alter that +opinion. Your wife’s determination not to tell you who the friends are +whom she has gone to see, fills me with alarm. She may have accomplices in +London—accomplices, for anything we know to the contrary, in this house. +All three of your servants, sir, have taken the opportunity, in turn, of coming +into the room and looking at me. I don’t like their looks! Neither you +nor I know what may happen from day to day, or even from hour to hour. If you +take my advice, you will get the start at once of all possible accidents; and, +when the carriage comes back, you will leave this house with me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes!” he said, eagerly; “I’ll leave the house +with you. I wouldn’t stop here by myself for any sum of money that could +be offered me. What do we want the pen and ink for? Are you to write, or am +I?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are to write, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount. “The means taken +for promoting your own safety are to be means set in motion, from beginning to +end, by yourself. I suggest, Mr. Noel—and you decide. Recognize your own +position, sir. What is your first and foremost necessity? It is plainly this. +You must destroy your wife’s interest in your death by making another +will.” +</p> + +<p> +He vehemently nodded his approval; his color rose, and his blinking eyes +brightened in malicious triumph. “She shan’t have a +farthing,” he said to himself, in a whisper—“she shan’t +have a farthing!” +</p> + +<p> +“When your will is made, sir,” proceeded Mrs. Lecount, “you +must place it in the hands of a trustworthy person—not my hands, Mr. +Noel; I am only your servant! Then, when the will is safe, and when you are +safe, write to your wife at this house. Tell her her infamous imposture is +discovered; tell her you have made a new will, which leaves her penniless at +your death; tell her, in your righteous indignation, that she enters your doors +no more. Place yourself in that strong position, and it is no longer you who +are at your wife’s mercy, but your wife who is at yours. Assert your own +power, sir, with the law to help you, and crush this woman into submission to +any terms for the future that you please to impose.” +</p> + +<p> +He eagerly took up the pen. “Yes,” he said, with a vindictive +self-importance, “any terms I please to impose.” He suddenly +checked himself and his face became dejected and perplexed. “How can I do +it now?” he asked, throwing down the pen as quickly as he had taken it +up. +</p> + +<p> +“Do what, sir?” inquired Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“How can I make my will, with Mr. Loscombe away in London, and no lawyer +here to help me?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount gently tapped the papers before her on the table with her +forefinger. +</p> + +<p> +“All the help you need, sir, is waiting for you here,” she said. +“I considered this matter carefully before I came to you; and I provided +myself with the confidential assistance of a friend to guide me through those +difficulties which I could not penetrate for myself. The friend to whom I refer +is a gentleman of Swiss extraction, but born and bred in England. He is not a +lawyer by profession—but he has had his own sufficient experience of the +law, nevertheless; and he has supplied me, not only with a model by which you +may make your will, but with the written sketch of a letter which it is as +important for us to have, as the model of the will itself. There is another +necessity waiting for you, Mr. Noel, which I have not mentioned yet, but which +is no less urgent in its way than the necessity of the will.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” he asked, with roused curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +“We will take it in its turn, sir,” answered Mrs. Lecount. +“Its turn has not come yet. The will, if you please, first. I will +dictate from the model in my possession and you will write.” +</p> + +<p> +Noel Vanstone looked at the draft for the Will and the draft for the Letter +with suspicious curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I ought to see the papers myself, before you dictate,” he +said. “It would be more satisfactory to my own mind, Lecount.” +</p> + +<p> +“By all means, sir,” rejoined Mrs. Lecount, handing him the papers +immediately. +</p> + +<p> +He read the draft for the Will first, pausing and knitting his brows +distrustfully, wherever he found blank spaces left in the manuscript to be +filled in with the names of persons and the enumeration of sums bequeathed to +them. Two or three minutes of reading brought him to the end of the paper. He +gave it back to Mrs. Lecount without making any objection to it. +</p> + +<p> +The draft for the Letter was a much longer document. He obstinately read it +through to the end, with an expression of perplexity and discontent which +showed that it was utterly unintelligible to him. “I must have this +explained,” he said, with a touch of his old self-importance, +“before I take any steps in the matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“It shall be explained, sir, as we go on,” said Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“Every word of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Every word of it, Mr. Noel, when its turn comes. You have no objection +to the will? To the will, then, as I said before, let us devote ourselves +first. You have seen for yourself that it is short enough and simple enough for +a child to understand it. But if any doubts remain on your mind, by all means +compose those doubts by showing your will to a lawyer by profession. In the +meantime, let me not be considered intrusive if I remind you that we are all +mortal, and that the lost opportunity can never be recalled. While your time is +your own, sir, and while your enemies are unsuspicious of you, make your +will!” +</p> + +<p> +She opened a sheet of note-paper and smoothed it out before him; she dipped the +pen in ink, and placed it in his hands. He took it from her without +speaking—he was, to all appearance, suffering under some temporary +uneasiness of mind. But the main point was gained. There he sat, with the paper +before him, and the pen in his hand; ready at last, in right earnest, to make +his will. +</p> + +<p> +“The first question for you to decide, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount, +after a preliminary glance at her Draft, “is your choice of an executor. +I have no desire to influence your decision; but I may, without impropriety, +remind you that a wise choice means, in other words, the choice of an old and +tried friend whom you know that you can trust.” +</p> + +<p> +“It means the admiral, I suppose?” said Noel Vanstone. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount bowed. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” he continued. “The admiral let it be.” +</p> + +<p> +There was plainly some oppression still weighing on his mind. Even under the +trying circumstances in which he was placed it was not in his nature to take +Mrs. Lecount’s perfectly sensible and disinterested advice without a word +of cavil, as he had taken it now. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you ready, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount dictated the first paragraph from the Draft, as follows: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“This is the last Will and Testament of me, Noel Vanstone, now living at +Baliol Cottage, near Dumfries. I revoke, absolutely and in every particular, my +former will executed on the thirtieth of September, eighteen hundred and +forty-seven; and I hereby appoint Rear-Admiral Arthur Everard Bartram, of St. +Crux-in-the-Marsh, Essex, sole executor of this my will.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Have you written those words, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount laid down the Draft; Noel Vanstone laid down the pen. They neither +of them looked at each other. There was a long silence. +</p> + +<p> +“I am waiting, Mr. Noel,” said Mrs. Lecount, at last, “to +hear what your wishes are in respect to the disposal of your fortune. Your +<i>large</i> fortune,” she added, with merciless emphasis. +</p> + +<p> +He took up the pen again, and began picking the feathers from the quill in dead +silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps your existing will may help you to instruct me, sir,” +pursued Mrs. Lecount. “May I inquire to whom you left all your surplus +money, after leaving the eighty thousand pounds to your wife?” +</p> + +<p> +If he had answered that question plainly, he must have said: “I have left +the whole surplus to my cousin, George Bartram”—and the implied +acknowledgment that Mrs. Lecount’s name was not mentioned in the will +must then have followed in Mrs. Lecount’s presence. A much bolder man, in +his situation, might have felt the same oppression and the same embarrassment +which he was feeling now. He picked the last morsel of feather from the quill; +and, desperately leaping the pitfall under his feet, advanced to meet Mrs. +Lecount’s claims on him of his own accord. +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather not talk of any will but the will I am making now,” +he said uneasily. “The first thing, Lecount—” He +hesitated—put the bare end of the quill into his mouth—gnawed at it +thoughtfully—and said no more. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir?” persisted Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“The first thing is—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“The first thing is, to—to make some provision for You?” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke the last words in a tone of plaintive interrogation—as if all +hope of being met by a magnanimous refusal had not deserted him even yet. Mrs. +Lecount enlightened his mind on this point, without a moment’s loss of +time. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Mr. Noel,” she said, with the tone and manner of a +woman who was not acknowledging a favor, but receiving a right. +</p> + +<p> +He took another bite at the quill. The perspiration began to appear on his +face. +</p> + +<p> +“The difficulty is,” he remarked, “to say how much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your lamented father, sir,” rejoined Mrs. Lecount, “met that +difficulty (if you remember) at the time of his last illness?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t remember,” said Noel Vanstone, doggedly. +</p> + +<p> +“You were on one side of his bed, sir, and I was on the other. We were +vainly trying to persuade him to make his will. After telling us he would wait +and make his will when he was well again, he looked round at me, and said some +kind and feeling words which my memory will treasure to my dying day. Have you +forgotten those words, Mr. Noel?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mr. Noel, without hesitation. +</p> + +<p> +“In my present situation, sir,” retorted Mrs. Lecount, +“delicacy forbids me to improve your memory.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at her watch, and relapsed into silence. He clinched his hands, and +writhed from side to side of his chair in an agony of indecision. Mrs. Lecount +passively refused to take the slightest notice of him. +</p> + +<p> +“What should you say—?” he began, and suddenly stopped again. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“What should you say to—a thousand pounds?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount rose from her chair, and looked him full in the face, with the +majestic indignation of an outraged woman. +</p> + +<p> +“After the service I have rendered you to-day, Mr. Noel,” she said, +“I have at least earned a claim on your respect, if I have earned nothing +more. I wish you good-morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Two thousand!” cried Noel Vanstone, with the courage of despair. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount folded up her papers and hung her traveling-bag over her arm in +contemptuous silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Three thousand!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount moved with impenetrable dignity from the table to the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Four thousand!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount gathered her shawl round her with a shudder, and opened the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Five thousand!” +</p> + +<p> +He clasped his hands, and wrung them at her in a frenzy of rage and suspense. +“Five thousand” was the death-cry of his pecuniary suicide. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount softly shut the door again, and came back a step. +</p> + +<p> +“Free of legacy duty, sir?” she inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount turned on her heel and opened the door again. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount came back, and resumed her place at the table as if nothing had +happened. +</p> + +<p> +“Five thousand pounds, free of legacy duty, was the sum, sir, which your +father’s grateful regard promised me in his will,” she said, +quietly. “If you choose to exert your memory, as you have not chosen to +exert it yet, your memory will tell you that I speak the truth. I accept your +filial performance of your father’s promise, Mr. Noel—and there I +stop. I scorn to take a mean advantage of my position toward you; I scorn to +grasp anything from your fears. You are protected by my respect for myself, and +for the Illustrious Name I bear. You are welcome to all that I have done, and +to all that I have suffered in your service. The widow of Professor Lecompte, +sir, takes what is justly hers—and takes no more!” +</p> + +<p> +As she spoke those words, the traces of sickness seemed, for the moment, to +disappear from her face; her eyes shone with a steady inner light; all the +woman warmed and brightened in the radiance of her own triumph—the +triumph, trebly won, of carrying her point, of vindicating her integrity, and +of matching Magdalen’s incorruptible self-denial on Magdalen’s own +ground. +</p> + +<p> +“When you are yourself again, sir, we will proceed. Let us wait a little +first.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave him time to compose himself; and then, after first looking at her +Draft, dictated the second paragraph of the will, in these terms: +</p> + +<p> +“I give and bequeath to Madame Virginie Lecompte (widow of Professor +Lecompte, late of Zurich) the sum of Five Thousand Pounds, free of Legacy +Duty. And, in making this bequest, I wish to place it on record that I am not +only expressing my own sense of Madame Lecompte’s attachment and fidelity +in the capacity of my housekeeper, but that I also believe myself to be +executing the intentions of my deceased father, who, but for the circumstance +of his dying intestate, would have left Madame Lecompte, in <i>his</i> will, +the same token of grateful regard for her services which I now leave her in +mine.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Have you written the last words, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount leaned across the table and offered Noel Vanstone her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Mr. Noel,” she said. “The five thousand pounds is +the acknowledgment on your father’s side of what I have done for him. The +words in the will are the acknowledgment on yours.” +</p> + +<p> +A faint smile flickered over his face for the first time. It comforted him, on +reflection, to think that matters might have been worse. There was balm for his +wounded spirit in paying the debt of gratitude by a sentence not negotiable at +his banker’s. Whatever his father might have done, <i>he</i> had got +Lecount a bargain, after all! +</p> + +<p> +“A little more writing, sir,” resumed Mrs. Lecount, “and your +painful but necessary duty will be performed. The trifling matter of my legacy +being settled, we may come to the important question that is left. The future +direction of a large fortune is now waiting your word of command. To whom is it +to go?” +</p> + +<p> +He began to writhe again in his chair. Even under the all-powerful fascination +of his wife the parting with his money on paper had not been accomplished +without a pang. He had endured the pang; he had resigned himself to the +sacrifice. And now here was the dreaded ordeal again, awaiting him mercilessly +for the second time! +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps it may assist your decision, sir, if I repeat a question which I +have put to you already,” observed Mrs. Lecount. “In the will that +you made under your wife’s influence, to whom did you leave the surplus +money which remained at your own disposal?” +</p> + +<p> +There was no harm in answering the question now. He acknowledged that he had +left the money to his cousin George. +</p> + +<p> +“You could have done nothing better, Mr. Noel; and you can do nothing +better now,” said Mrs. Lecount. “Mr. George and his two sisters are +your only relations left. One of those sisters is an incurable invalid, with +more than money enough already for all the wants which her affliction allows +her to feel. The other is the wife of a man even richer than yourself. To leave +the money to these sisters is to waste it. To leave the money to their brother +George is to give your cousin exactly the assistance which he will want when he +one day inherits his uncle’s dilapidated house and his uncle’s +impoverished estate. A will which names the admiral your executor and Mr. +George your heir is the right will for you to make. It does honor to the claims +of friendship, and it does justice to the claims of blood.” +</p> + +<p> +She spoke warmly; for she spoke with a grateful remembrance of all that she +herself owed to the hospitality of St. Crux. Noel Vanstone took up another pen +and began to strip the second quill of its feathers as he had stripped the +first. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said, reluctantly, “I suppose George must have +it—I suppose George has the principal claim on me.” He hesitated: +he looked at the door, he looked at the window, as if he longed to make his +escape by one way or the other. “Oh, Lecount,” he cried, piteously, +“it’s such a large fortune! Let me wait a little before I leave it +to anybody.” +</p> + +<p> +To his surprise; Mrs. Lecount at once complied with this characteristic +request. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you to wait, sir,” she replied. “I have something +important to say, before you add another line to your will. A little while +since, I told you there was a second necessity connected with your present +situation, which had not been provided for yet, but which must be provided for, +when the time came. The time has come now. You have a serious difficulty to +meet and conquer before you can leave your fortune to your cousin +George.” +</p> + +<p> +“What difficulty?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount rose from her chair without answering, stole to the door, and +suddenly threw it open. No one was listening outside; the passage was a +solitude, from one end to the other. +</p> + +<p> +“I distrust all servants,” she said, returning to her +place—“your servants particularly. Sit closer, Mr. Noel. What I +have now to say to you must be heard by no living creature but +ourselves.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap43"></a>CHAPTER III.</h3> + +<p> +There was a pause of a few minutes while Mrs. Lecount opened the second of the +two papers which lay before her on the table, and refreshed her memory by +looking it rapidly through. This done, she once more addressed herself to Noel +Vanstone, carefully lowering her voice, so as to render it inaudible to any one +who might be listening in the passage outside. +</p> + +<p> +“I must beg your permission, sir,” she began, “to return to +the subject of your wife. I do so most unwillingly; and I promise you that what +I have now to say about her shall be said, for your sake and for mine, in the +fewest words. What do we know of this woman, Mr. Noel—judging her by her +own confession when she came to us in the character of Miss Garth, and by her +own acts afterward at Aldborough? We know that, if death had not snatched your +father out of her reach, she was ready with her plot to rob him of the +Combe-Raven money. We know that, when you inherited the money in your turn, she +was ready with her plot to rob <i>you</i>. We know how she carried that plot +through to the end; and we know that nothing but your death is wanted, at this +moment, to crown her rapacity and her deception with success. We are sure of +these things. We are sure that she is young, bold, and clever—that she +has neither doubts, scruples, nor pity—and that she possesses the +personal qualities which men in general (quite incomprehensibly to <i>me!</i>) +are weak enough to admire. These are not fancies, Mr. Noel, but facts; you know +them as well as I do.” +</p> + +<p> +He made a sign in the affirmative, and Mrs. Lecount went on: +</p> + +<p> +“Keep in your mind what I have said of the past, sir, and now look with +me to the future. I hope and trust you have a long life still before you; but +let us, for the moment only, suppose the case of your death—your death +leaving this will behind you, which gives your fortune to your cousin George. I +am told there is an office in London in which copies of all wills must be kept. +Any curious stranger who chooses to pay a shilling for the privilege may enter +that office, and may read any will in the place at his or her discretion. Do +you see what I am coming to, Mr. Noel? Your disinherited widow pays her +shilling, and reads your will. Your disinherited widow sees that the +Combe-Raven money, which has gone from your father to you, goes next from you +to Mr. George Bartram. What is the certain end of that discovery? The end is, +that you leave to your cousin and your friend the legacy of this woman’s +vengeance and this woman’s deceit-vengeance made more resolute, deceit +made more devilish than ever, by her exasperation at her own failure. What is +your cousin George? He is a generous, unsuspicious man; incapable of deceit +himself, and fearing no deception in others. Leave him at the mercy of your +wife’s unscrupulous fascinations and your wife’s unfathomable +deceit, and I see the end as certainly as I see you sitting there! She will +blind his eyes, as she blinded yours; and, in spite of <i>you</i>, in spite of +<i>me</i>, she will have the money!” +</p> + +<p> +She stopped, and left her last words time to gain their hold on his mind. The +circumstances had been stated so clearly, the conclusion from them had been so +plainly drawn, that he seized her meaning without an effort, and seized it at +once. +</p> + +<p> +“I see!” he said, vindictively clinching his hands. “I +understand, Lecount! She shan’t have a farthing. What shall I do? Shall I +leave the money to the admiral?” He paused, and considered a little. +“No,” he resumed; “there’s the same danger in leaving +it to the admiral that there is in leaving it to George.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no danger, Mr. Noel, if you take my advice.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is your advice?” +</p> + +<p> +“Follow your own idea, sir. Take the pen in hand again, and leave the +money to Admiral Bartram.” +</p> + +<p> +He mechanically dipped the pen in the ink, and then hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“You shall know where I am leading you, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount, +“before you sign your will. In the meantime, let us gain every inch of +ground we can, as we go on. I want the will to be all written out before we +advance a single step beyond it. Begin your third paragraph, Mr. Noel, under +the lines which leave me my legacy of five thousand pounds.” +</p> + +<p> +She dictated the last momentous sentence of the will (from the rough draft in +her own possession) in these words: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“The whole residue of my estate, after payment of my burial expenses and +my lawful debts, I give and bequeath to Rear-Admiral Arthur Everard Bartram, my +Executor aforesaid; to be by him applied to such uses as he may think fit. +</p> + +<p> +“Signed, sealed, and delivered, this third day of November, eighteen +hundred and forty-seven, by Noel Vanstone, the within-named testator, as and +for his last Will and Testament, in the presence of us—” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that all?” asked Noel Vanstone, in astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“That is enough, sir, to bequeath your fortune to the admiral; and +therefore that is all. Now let us go back to the case which we have supposed +already. Your widow pays her shilling, and sees this will. There is the +Combe-Raven money left to Admiral Bartram, with a declaration in plain words +that it is his, to use as he likes. When she sees this, what does she do? She +sets her trap for the admiral. He is a bachelor, and he is an old man. Who is +to protect him against the arts of this desperate woman? Protect him yourself, +sir, with a few more strokes of that pen which has done such wonders already. +You have left him this legacy in your will—which your wife sees. Take the +legacy away again, in a letter—which is a dead secret between the admiral +and you. Put the will and the letter under one cover, and place them in the +admiral’s possession, with your written directions to him to break the +seal on the day of your death. Let the will say what it says now; and let the +letter (which is your secret and his) tell him the truth. Say that, in leaving +him your fortune, you leave it with the request that he will take his legacy +with one hand from you, and give it with the other to his nephew George. Tell +him that your trust in this matter rests solely on your confidence in his +honor, and on your belief in his affectionate remembrance of your father and +yourself. You have known the admiral since you were a boy. He has his little +whims and oddities; but he is a gentleman from the crown of his head to the +sole of his foot; and he is utterly incapable of proving false to a trust in +his honor, reposed by his dead friend. Meet the difficulty boldly, by such a +stratagem as this; and you save these two helpless men from your wife’s +snare, one by means of the other. Here, on one side, is your will, which gives +the fortune to the admiral, and sets her plotting accordingly. And there, on +the other side, is your letter, which privately puts the money into the +nephew’s hands!” +</p> + +<p> +The malicious dexterity of this combination was exactly the dexterity which +Noel Vanstone was most fit to appreciate. He tried to express his approval and +admiration in words. Mrs. Lecount held up her hand warningly and closed his +lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait, sir, before you express your opinion,” she went on. +“Half the difficulty is all that we have conquered yet. Let us say, the +admiral has made the use of your legacy which you have privately requested him +to make of it. Sooner or later, however well the secret may be kept, your wife +will discover the truth. What follows that discovery! She lays siege to Mr. +George. All you have done is to leave him the money by a roundabout way. There +he is, after an interval of time, as much at her mercy as if you had openly +mentioned him in your will. What is the remedy for this? The remedy is to +mislead her, if we can, for the second time—to set up an obstacle between +her and the money, for the protection of your cousin George. Can you guess for +yourself, Mr. Noel, what is the most promising obstacle we can put in her +way?” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head. Mrs. Lecount smiled, and startled him into close attention +by laying her hand on his arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Put a Woman in her way, sir!” she whispered in her wiliest tones. +“<i>We</i> don’t believe in that fascinating beauty of +hers—whatever <i>you</i> may do. <i>Our</i> lips don’t burn to kiss +those smooth cheeks. <i>Our</i> arms don’t long to be round that supple +waist. <i>We</i> see through her smiles and her graces, and her stays and her +padding—she can’t fascinate <i>us!</i> Put a woman in her way, Mr. +Noel! Not a woman in my helpless situation, who is only a servant, but a woman +with the authority and the jealousy of a Wife. Make it a condition, in your +letter to the admiral, that if Mr. George is a bachelor at the time of your +death, he shall marry within a certain time afterward, or he shall not have the +legacy. Suppose he remains single in spite of your condition, who is to have +the money then? Put a woman in your wife’s way, sir, once more—and +leave the fortune, in that case, to the married sister of your cousin +George.” +</p> + +<p> +She paused. Noel Vanstone again attempted to express his opinion, and again +Mrs. Lecount’s hand extinguished him in silence. +</p> + +<p> +“If you approve, Mr. Noel,” she said, “I will take your +approval for granted. If you object, I will meet your objection before it is +out of your mouth. You may say: Suppose this condition is sufficient to answer +the purpose, why hide it in a private letter to the admiral? Why not openly +write it down, with my cousin’s name, in the will? Only for one reason, +sir. Only because the secret way is the sure way, with such a woman as your +wife. The more secret you can keep your intentions, the more time you force her +to waste in finding them out for herself. That time which she loses is time +gained from her treachery by the admiral—time gained by Mr. George (if he +is still a bachelor) for his undisturbed choice of a lady—time gained, +for her own security, by the object of his choice, who might otherwise be the +first object of your wife’s suspicion and your wife’s hostility. +Remember the bottle we have discovered upstairs; and keep this desperate woman +ignorant, and therefore harmless, as long as you can. There is my advice, Mr. +Noel, in the fewest and plainest words. What do you say, sir? Am I almost as +clever in my way as your friend Mr. Bygrave? Can I, too, conspire a little, +when the object of my conspiracy is to assist your wishes and to protect your +friends?” +</p> + +<p> +Permitted the use of his tongue at last, Noel Vanstone’s admiration of +Mrs. Lecount expressed itself in terms precisely similar to those which he had +used on a former occasion, in paying his compliments to Captain Wragge. +“What a head you have got!” were the grateful words which he had +once spoken to Mrs. Lecount’s bitterest enemy. “What a head you +have got!” were the grateful words which he now spoke again to Mrs. +Lecount herself. So do extremes meet; and such is sometimes the all-embracing +capacity of the approval of a fool! +</p> + +<p> +“Allow my head, sir, to deserve the compliment which you have paid to +it,” said Mrs. Lecount. “The letter to the admiral is not written +yet. Your will there is a body without a soul—an Adam without an +Eve—until the letter is completed and laid by its side. A little more +dictation on my part, a little more writing on yours, and our work is done. +Pardon me. The letter will be longer than the will; we must have larger paper +than the note-paper this time.” +</p> + +<p> +The writing-case was searched, and some letter paper was found in it of the +size required. Mrs. Lecount resumed her dictation; and Noel Vanstone resumed +his pen. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Baliol Cottage, Dumfries,<br/> +“November 3d, 1847. +</p> + +<p> +“Private. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR ADMIRAL BARTRAM, +</p> + +<p> +“When you open my Will (in which you are named my sole executor), you +will find that I have bequeathed the whole residue of my estate—after +payment of one legacy of five thousand pounds—to yourself. It is the +purpose of my letter to tell you privately what the object is for which I have +left you the fortune which is now placed in your hands. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg you to consider this large legacy as intended, under certain +conditions, to be given by you to your nephew George. If your nephew is married +at the time of my death, and if his wife is living, I request you to put him at +once in possession of your legacy; accompanying it by the expression of my +desire (which I am sure he will consider a sacred and binding obligation on +him) that he will settle the money on his wife—and on his children, if he +has any. If, on the other hand, he is unmarried at the time of my death, or if +he is a widower—in either of those cases, I make it a condition of his +receiving the legacy, that he shall be married within the period +of—” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Mrs. Lecount laid down the Draft letter from which she had been dictating thus +far, and informed Noel Vanstone by a sign that his pen might rest. +</p> + +<p> +“We have come to the question of time, sir,” she observed. +“How long will you give your cousin to marry, if he is single, or a +widower, at the time of your death?” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I give him a year?” inquired Noel Vanstone. +</p> + +<p> +“If we had nothing to consider but the interests of Propriety,” +said Mrs. Lecount, “I should say a year too, sir—especially if Mr. +George should happen to be a widower. But we have your wife to consider, as +well as the interests of Propriety. A year of delay, between your death and +your cousin’s marriage, is a dangerously long time to leave the disposal +of your fortune in suspense. Give a determined woman a year to plot and +contrive in, and there is no saying what she may not do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Six months?” suggested Noel Vanstone. +</p> + +<p> +“Six months, sir,” rejoined Mrs. Lecount, “is the preferable +time of the two. A six months’ interval from the day of your death is +enough for Mr. George. You look discomposed, sir; what is the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you wouldn’t talk so much about my death,” he broke +out, petulantly. “I don’t like it! I hate the very sound of the +word!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount smiled resignedly, and referred to her Draft. +</p> + +<p> +“I see the word ‘decease’ written here,” she remarked. +“Perhaps, Mr. Noel, you would prefer it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said; “I prefer ‘Decease.’ It +doesn’t sound so dreadful as ‘Death.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Let us go on with the letter, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +She resumed her dictation, as follows: +</p> + +<p> +“...in either of those cases, I make it a condition of his receiving the +legacy that he shall be married within the period of Six calendar months from +the day of my decease; that the woman he marries shall not be a widow; and that +his marriage shall be a marriage by Banns, publicly celebrated in the parish +church of Ossory—where he has been known from his childhood, and where +the family and circumstances of his future wife are likely to be the subject of +public interest and inquiry.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“This,” said Mrs. Lecount, quietly looking up from the Draft, +“is to protect Mr. George, sir, in case the same trap is set for him +which was successfully set for you. She will not find her false character and +her false name fit quite so easily next time—no, not even with Mr. +Bygrave to help her! Another dip of ink, Mr. Noel; let us write the next +paragraph. Are you ready?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount went on. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“If your nephew fails to comply with these conditions—that is to +say, if being either a bachelor or a widower at the time of my decease, he +fails to marry in all respects as I have here instructed him to marry, within +Six calendar months from that time—it is my desire that he shall not +receive the legacy, or any part of it. I request you, in the case here +supposed, to pass him over altogether; and to give the fortune left you in my +will to his married sister, Mrs. Girdlestone. +</p> + +<p> +“Having now put you in possession of my motives and intentions, I come to +the next question which it is necessary to consider. If, when you open this +letter, your nephew is an unmarried man, it is clearly indispensable that he +should know of the conditions here imposed on him, as soon, if possible, as you +know of them yourself. Are you, under these circumstances, freely to +communicate to him what I have here written to you? Or are you to leave him +under the impression that no such private expression of my wishes as this is in +existence; and are you to state all the conditions relating to his marriage, as +if they emanated entirely from yourself? +</p> + +<p> +“If you will adopt this latter alternative, you will add one more to the +many obligations under which your friendship has placed me. +</p> + +<p> +“I have serious reason to believe that the possession of my money, and +the discovery of any peculiar arrangements relating to the disposal of it, will +be objects (after my decease) of the fraud and conspiracy of an unscrupulous +person. I am therefore anxious—for your sake, in the first +place—that no suspicion of the existence of this letter should be +conveyed to the mind of the person to whom I allude. And I am equally +desirous—for Mrs. Girdlestone’s sake, in the second +place—that this same person should be entirely ignorant that the legacy +will pass into Mrs. Girdlestone’s possession, if your nephew is not +married in the given time. I know George’s easy, pliable disposition; I +dread the attempts that will be made to practice on it; and I feel sure that +the prudent course will be, to abstain from trusting him with secrets, the rash +revelation of which might be followed by serious, and even dangerous results. +</p> + +<p> +“State the conditions, therefore, to your nephew, as if they were your +own. Let him think they have been suggested to your mind by the new +responsibilities imposed on you as a man of property, by your position in my +will, and by your consequent anxiety to provide for the perpetuation of the +family name. If these reasons are not sufficient to satisfy him, there can be +no objection to your referring him, for any further explanations which he may +desire, to his wedding-day. +</p> + +<p> +“I have done. My last wishes are now confided to you, in implicit +reliance on your honor, and on your tender regard for the memory of your +friend. Of the miserable circumstances which compel me to write as I have +written here, I say nothing. You will hear of them, if my life is spared, from +my own lips—for you will be the first friend whom I shall consult in my +difficulty and distress. Keep this letter strictly secret, and strictly in your +own possession, until my requests are complied with. Let no human being but +yourself know where it is, on any pretense whatever. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Believe me, dear Admiral Bartram,<br/> +“Affectionately yours,<br/> +“NOEL VANSTONE.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you signed, sir?” asked Mrs. Lecount. “Let me look the +letter over, if you please, before we seal it up.” +</p> + +<p> +She read the letter carefully. In Noel Vanstone’s close, cramped +handwriting, it filled two pages of letter-paper, and ended at the top of the +third page. Instead of using an envelope, Mrs. Lecount folded it, neatly and +securely, in the old-fashioned way. She lit the taper in the ink-stand, and +returned the letter to the writer. +</p> + +<p> +“Seal it, Mr. Noel,” she said, “with your own hand, and your +own seal.” She extinguished the taper, and handed him the pen again. +“Address the letter, sir,” she proceeded, “to <i>Admiral +Bartram, St. Crux-in-the-Marsh, Essex.</i> Now, add these words, and sign them, +above the address: <i>To be kept in your own possession, and to be opened by +yourself only, on the day of my death</i>—or ‘Decease,’ if +you prefer it—<i>Noel Vanstone.</i> Have you done? Let me look at it +again. Quite right in every particular. Accept my congratulations, sir. If your +wife has not plotted her last plot for the Combe-Raven money, it is not your +fault, Mr. Noel—and not mine!” +</p> + +<p> +Finding his attention released by the completion of the letter, Noel Vanstone +reverted at once to purely personal considerations. “There is my +packing-up to be thought of now,” he said. “I can’t go away +without my warm things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me, sir,” rejoined Mrs. Lecount, “there is the Will +to be signed first; and there must be two persons found to witness your +signature.” She looked out of the front window, and saw the carriage +waiting at the door. “The coachman will do for one of the +witnesses,” she said. “He is in respectable service at Dumfries, +and he can be found if he happens to be wanted. We must have one of your own +servants, I suppose, for the other witness. They are all detestable women; but +the cook is the least ill-looking of the three. Send for the cook, sir; while I +go out and call the coachman. When we have got our witnesses here, you have +only to speak to them in these words: ‘I have a document here to sign, +and I wish you to write your names on it, as witnesses of my signature.’ +Nothing more, Mr. Noel! Say those few words in your usual manner—and, +when the signing is over, I will see myself to your packing-up, and your warm +things.” +</p> + +<p> +She went to the front door, and summoned the coachman to the parlor. On her +return, she found the cook already in the room. The cook looked mysteriously +offended, and stared without intermission at Mrs. Lecount. In a minute more the +coachman—an elderly man—came in. He was preceded by a relishing +odor of whisky; but his head was Scotch; and nothing but his odor betrayed him. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a document here to sign,” said Noel Vanstone, repeating his +lesson; “and I wish you to write your names on it, as witnesses of my +signature.” +</p> + +<p> +The coachman looked at the will. The cook never removed her eyes from Mrs. +Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“Ye’ll no object, sir,” said the coachman, with the national +caution showing itself in every wrinkle on his face—“ye’ll no +object, sir, to tell me, first, what the Doecument may be?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount interposed before Noel Vanstone’s indignation could express +itself in words. +</p> + +<p> +“You must tell the man, sir, that this is your Will,” she said. +“When he witnesses your signature, he can see as much for himself if he +looks at the top of the page.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay,” said the coachman, looking at the top of the page +immediately. “His last Will and Testament. Hech, sirs! there’s a +sair confronting of Death in a Doecument like yon! A’ flesh is +grass,” continued the coachman, exhaling an additional puff of whisky, +and looking up devoutly at the ceiling. “Tak’ those words in +connection with that other Screepture: Many are ca’ad, but few are +chosen. Tak’ that again, in connection with Rev’lations, Chapter +the First, verses One to Fefteen. Lay the whole to heart; and what’s your +Walth, then? Dross, sirs! And your body? (Screepture again.) Clay for the +potter! And your life? (Screepture once more.) The Breeth o’ your +Nostrils!” +</p> + +<p> +The cook listened as if the cook was at church: but she never removed her eyes +from Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“You had better sign, sir. This is apparently some custom prevalent in +Dumfries during the transaction of business,” said Mrs. Lecount, +resignedly. “The man means well, I dare say.” +</p> + +<p> +She added those last words in a soothing tone, for she saw that Noel +Vanstone’s indignation was fast merging into alarm. The coachman’s +outburst of exhortation seemed to have inspired him with fear, as well as +disgust. +</p> + +<p> +He dipped the pen in the ink, and signed the Will without uttering a word. The +coachman (descending instantly from Theology to Business) watched the signature +with the most scrupulous attention; and signed his own name as witness, with an +implied commentary on the proceeding, in the form of another puff of whisky, +exhaled through the medium of a heavy sigh. The cook looked away from Mrs. +Lecount with an effort—signed her name in a violent hurry—and +looked back again with a start, as if she expected to see a loaded pistol +(produced in the interval) in the housekeeper’s hands. “Thank +you,” said Mrs. Lecount, in her friendliest manner. The cook shut up her +lips aggressively and looked at her master. “You may go!” said her +master. The cook coughed contemptuously, and went. +</p> + +<p> +“We shan’t keep you long,” said Mrs. Lecount, dismissing the +coachman. “In half an hour, or less, we shall be ready for the journey +back.” +</p> + +<p> +The coachman’s austere countenance relaxed for the first time. He smiled +mysteriously, and approached Mrs. Lecount on tiptoe. +</p> + +<p> +“Ye’ll no forget one thing, my leddy,” he said, with the most +ingratiating politeness. “Ye’ll no forget the witnessing as weel as +the driving, when ye pay me for my day’s wark!” He laughed with +guttural gravity; and, leaving his atmosphere behind him, stalked out of the +room. +</p> + +<p> +“Lecount,” said Noel Vanstone, as soon as the coachman closed the +door, “did I hear you tell that man we should be ready in half an +hour?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you blind?” +</p> + +<p> +He asked the question with an angry stamp of his foot. Mrs. Lecount looked at +him in astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t you see the brute is drunk?” he went on, more and more +irritably. “Is my life nothing? Am I to be left at the mercy of a drunken +coachman? I won’t trust that man to drive me, for any consideration under +heaven! I’m surprised you could think of it, Lecount.” +</p> + +<p> +“The man has been drinking, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount. “It is +easy to see and to smell that. But he is evidently used to drinking. If he is +sober enough to walk quite straight—which he certainly does—and to +sign his name in an excellent handwriting—which you may see for yourself +on the Will—I venture to think he is sober enough to drive us to +Dumfries.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing of the sort! You’re a foreigner, Lecount; you don’t +understand these people. They drink whisky from morning to-night. Whisky is the +strongest spirit that’s made; whisky is notorious for its effect on the +brain. I tell you, I won’t run the risk. I never was driven, and I never +will be driven, by anybody but a sober man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Must I go back to Dumfries by myself, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“And leave me here? Leave me alone in this house after what has happened? +How do I know my wife may not come back to-night? How do I know her journey is +not a blind to mislead me? Have you no feeling, Lecount? Can you leave me in my +miserable situation—?” He sank into a chair and burst out crying +over his own idea, before he had completed the expression of it in words. +“Too bad!” he said, with his handkerchief over his +face—“too bad!” +</p> + +<p> +It was impossible not to pity him. If ever mortal was pitiable, he was the man. +He had broken down at last, under the conflict of violent emotions which had +been roused in him since the morning. The effort to follow Mrs. Lecount along +the mazes of intricate combination through which she had steadily led the way, +had upheld him while that effort lasted: the moment it was at an end, he +dropped. The coachman had hastened a result—of which the coachman was far +from being the cause. +</p> + +<p> +“You surprise me—you distress me, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount. +“I entreat you to compose yourself. I will stay here, if you wish it, +with pleasure—I will stay here to-night, for your sake. You want rest and +quiet after this dreadful day. The coachman shall be instantly sent away, Mr. +Noel. I will give him a note to the landlord of the hotel, and the carriage +shall come back for us to-morrow morning, with another man to drive it.” +</p> + +<p> +The prospect which those words presented cheered him. He wiped his eyes, and +kissed Mrs. Lecount’s hand. “Yes!” he said, faintly; +“send the coachman away—and you stop here. You good creature! You +excellent Lecount! Send the drunken brute away, and come back directly. We will +be comfortable by the fire, Lecount—and have a nice little +dinner—and try to make it like old times.” His weak voice faltered; +he returned to the fire side, and melted into tears again under the pathetic +influence of his own idea. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount left him for a minute to dismiss the coachman. When she returned +to the parlor she found him with his hand on the bell. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you want, sir?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to tell the servants to get your room ready,” he answered. +“I wish to show you every attention, Lecount.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are all kindness, Mr. Noel; but wait one moment. It may be well to +have these papers put out of the way before the servant comes in again. If you +will place the Will and the Sealed Letter together in one envelope—and if +you will direct it to the admiral—I will take care that the inclosure so +addressed is safely placed in his own hands. Will you come to the table, Mr. +Noel, only for one minute more?” +</p> + +<p> +No! He was obstinate; he refused to move from the fire; he was sick and tired +of writing: he wished he had never been born, and he loathed the sight of pen +and ink. All Mrs. Lecount’s patience and all Mrs. Lecount’s +persuasion were required to induce him to write the admiral’s address for +the second time. She only succeeded by bringing the blank envelope to him upon +the paper-case, and putting it coaxingly on his lap. He grumbled, he even +swore, but he directed the envelope at last, in these terms: “To Admiral +Bartram, St. Crux-in-the-Marsh. Favored by Mrs. Lecount.” With that final +act of compliance his docility came to an end. He refused, in the fiercest +terms, to seal the envelope. There was no need to press this proceeding on him. +His seal lay ready on the table, and it mattered nothing whether he used it, or +whether a person in his confidence used it for him. Mrs. Lecount sealed the +envelope, with its two important inclosures placed safely inside. +</p> + +<p> +She opened her traveling-bag for the last time, and pausing for a moment before +she put the sealed packet away, looked at it with a triumph too deep for words. +She smiled as she dropped it into the bag. Not the shadow of a suspicion that +the Will might contain superfluous phrases and expressions which no practical +lawyer would have used; not the vestige of a doubt whether the Letter was quite +as complete a document as a practical lawyer might have made it, troubled her +mind. In blind reliance—born of her hatred for Magdalen and her hunger +for revenge—in blind reliance on her own abilities and on her +friend’s law, she trusted the future implicitly to the promise of the +morning’s work. +</p> + +<p> +As she locked her traveling-bag Noel Vanstone rang the bell. On this occasion, +the summons was answered by Louisa. +</p> + +<p> +“Get the spare room ready,” said her master; “this lady will +sleep here to-night. And air my warm things; this lady and I are going away +to-morrow morning.” +</p> + +<p> +The civil and submissive Louisa received her orders in sullen +silence—darted an angry look at her master’s impenetrable +guest—and left the room. The servants were evidently all attached to +their mistress’s interests, and were all of one opinion on the subject of +Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s done!” said Noel Vanstone, with a sigh of infinite +relief. “Come and sit down, Lecount. Let’s be +comfortable—let’s gossip over the fire.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount accepted the invitation and drew an easy-chair to his side. He +took her hand with a confidential tenderness, and held it in his while the talk +went on. A stranger, looking in through the window, would have taken them for +mother and son, and would have thought to himself: “What a happy +home!” +</p> + +<p> +The gossip, led by Noel Vanstone, consisted as usual of an endless string of +questions, and was devoted entirely to the subject of himself and his future +prospects. Where would Lecount take him to when they went away the next +morning? Why to London? Why should he be left in London, while Lecount went on +to St. Crux to give the admiral the Letter and the Will? Because his wife might +follow him, if he went to the admiral’s? Well, there was something in +that. And because he ought to be safely concealed from her, in some comfortable +lodging, near Mr. Loscombe? Why near Mr. Loscombe? Ah, yes, to be sure—to +know what the law would do to help him. Would the law set him free from the +Wretch who had deceived him? How tiresome of Lecount not to know! Would the law +say he had gone and married himself a second time, because he had been living +with the Wretch, like husband and wife, in Scotland? Anything that publicly +assumed to be a marriage was a marriage (he had heard) in Scotland. How +excessively tiresome of Lecount to sit there and say she knew nothing about it! +Was he to stay long in London by himself, with nobody but Mr. Loscombe to speak +to? Would Lecount come back to him as soon as she had put those important +papers in the admiral’s own hands? Would Lecount consider herself still +in his service? The good Lecount! the excellent Lecount! And after all the +law-business was over—what then? Why not leave this horrid England and go +abroad again? Why not go to France, to some cheap place near Paris? Say +Versailles? say St. Germain? In a nice little French house—cheap? With a +nice French <i>bonne</i> to cook—who wouldn’t waste his substance +in the grease-pot? With a nice little garden—where he could work himself, +and get health, and save the expense of keeping a gardener? It wasn’t a +bad idea. And it seemed to promise well for the future—didn’t it, +Lecount? +</p> + +<p> +So he ran on—the poor weak creature! the abject, miserable little man! +</p> + +<p> +As the darkness gathered at the close of the short November day he began to +grow drowsy—his ceaseless questions came to an end at last—he fell +asleep. The wind outside sang its mournful winter-song; the tramp of passing +footsteps, the roll of passing wheels on the road ceased in dreary silence. He +slept on quietly. The firelight rose and fell on his wizen little face and his +nervous, drooping hands. Mrs. Lecount had not pitied him yet. She began to pity +him now. Her point was gained; her interest in his will was secured; he had put +his future life, of his own accord, under her fostering care—the fire was +comfortable; the circumstances were favorable to the growth of Christian +feeling. “Poor wretch!” said Mrs. Lecount, looking at him with a +grave compassion—“poor wretch!” +</p> + +<p> +The dinner-hour roused him. He was cheerful at dinner; he reverted to the idea +of the cheap little house in France; he smirked and simpered; and talked French +to Mrs. Lecount, while the house-maid and Louisa waited, turn and turn about, +under protest. When dinner was over, he returned to his comfortable chair +before the fire, and Mrs. Lecount followed him. He resumed the +conversation—which meant, in his case, repeating his questions. But he +was not so quick and ready with them as he had been earlier in the day. They +began to flag—they continued, at longer and longer intervals—they +ceased altogether. Toward nine o’clock he fell asleep again. +</p> + +<p> +It was not a quiet sleep this time. He muttered, and ground his teeth, and +rolled his head from side to side of the chair. Mrs. Lecount purposely made +noise enough to rouse him. He woke, with a vacant eye and a flushed cheek. He +walked about the room restlessly, with a new idea in his mind—the idea of +writing a terrible letter; a letter of eternal farewell to his wife. How was it +to be written? In what language should he express his feelings? The powers of +Shakespeare himself would be unequal to the emergency! He had been the victim +of an outrage entirely without parallel. A wretch had crept into his bosom! A +viper had hidden herself at his fireside! Where could words be found to brand +her with the infamy she deserved? He stopped, with a suffocating sense in him +of his own impotent rage—he stopped, and shook his fist tremulously in +the empty air. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lecount interfered with an energy and a resolution inspired by serious +alarm. After the heavy strain that had been laid on his weakness already, such +an outbreak of passionate agitation as was now bursting from him might be the +destruction of his rest that night and of his strength to travel the next day. +With infinite difficulty, with endless promises to return to the subject, and +to advise him about it in the morning, she prevailed on him, at last, to go +upstairs and compose himself for the night. She gave him her arm to assist him. +On the way upstairs his attention, to her great relief, became suddenly +absorbed by a new fancy. He remembered a certain warm and comfortable mixture +of wine, eggs, sugar, and spices, which she had often been accustomed to make +for him in former times, and which he thought he should relish exceedingly +before he went to bed. Mrs. Lecount helped him on with his +dressing-gown—then went down-stairs again to make his warm drink for him +at the parlor fire. +</p> + +<p> +She rang the bell and ordered the necessary ingredients for the mixture, in +Noel Vanstone’s name. The servants, with the small ingenious malice of +their race, brought up the materials one by one, and kept her waiting for each +of them as long as possible. She had got the saucepan, and the spoon, and the +tumbler, and the nutmeg-grater, and the wine—but not the egg, the sugar, +or the spices—when she heard him above, walking backward and forward +noisily in his room; exciting himself on the old subject again, beyond all +doubt. +</p> + +<p> +She went upstairs once more; but he was too quick for her—he heard her +outside the door; and when she opened it, she found him in his chair, with his +back cunningly turned toward her. Knowing him too well to attempt any +remonstrance, she merely announced the speedy arrival of the warm drink and +turned to leave the room. On her way out, she noticed a table in a corner, with +an inkstand and a paper-case on it, and tried, without attracting his +attention, to take the writing materials away. He was too quick for her again. +He asked, angrily, if she doubted his promise. She put the writing materials +back on the table, for fear of offending him, and left the room. +</p> + +<p> +In half an hour more the mixture was ready. She carried it up to him, foaming +and fragrant, in a large tumbler. “He will sleep after this,” she +thought to herself, as she opened the door; “I have made it stronger than +usual on purpose.” +</p> + +<p> +He had changed his place. He was sitting at the table in the corner—still +with his back to her, writing. This time his quick ears had not served him; +this time she caught him in the fact. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Mr. Noel! Mr. Noel!” she said, reproachfully, “what is +your promise worth?” +</p> + +<p> +He made no answer. He was sitting with his left elbow on the table, and with +his head resting on his left hand. His right hand lay back on the paper, with +the pen lying loose in it. “Your drink, Mr. Noel,” she said, in a +kinder tone, feeling unwilling to offend him. He took no notice of her. She +went to the table to rouse him. Was he deep in thought? +</p> + +<p> +He was dead! +</p> + +<h5>THE END OF THE FIFTH SCENE.</h5> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap44"></a>BETWEEN THE SCENES.<br/> +<small>PROGRESS OF THE STORY THROUGH THE POST.</small></h3> + +<h4> +I.<br/> +From Mrs. Noel Vanstone to Mr. Loscombe. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Park Terrace, St. John’s Wood, November 5th. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Sir, +</p> + +<p> +“I came to London yesterday for the purpose of seeing a relative, leaving +Mr. Vanstone at Baliol Cottage, and proposing to return to him in the course of +the week. I reached London late last night, and drove to these lodgings, having +written to secure accommodation beforehand. +</p> + +<p> +“This morning’s post has brought me a letter from my own maid, whom +I left at Baliol Cottage, with instructions to write to me if anything +extraordinary took place in my absence. You will find the girl’s letter +inclosed in this. I have had some experience of her; and I believe she is to be +strictly depended on to tell the truth. +</p> + +<p> +“I purposely abstain from troubling you by any useless allusions to +myself. When you have read my maid’s letter, you will understand the +shock which the news contained in it has caused me. I can only repeat that I +place implicit belief in her statement. I am firmly persuaded that my +husband’s former housekeeper has found him out, has practiced on his +weakness in my absence, and has prevailed on him to make another Will. From +what I know of this woman, I feel no doubt that she has used her influence over +Mr. Vanstone to deprive me, if possible, of all future interests in my +husband’s fortune. +</p> + +<p> +“Under such circumstances as these, it is in the last degree +important—for more reasons than I need mention here—that I should +see Mr. Vanstone, and come to an explanation with him, at the earliest possible +opportunity. You will find that my maid thoughtfully kept her letter open until +the last moment before post-time—without, however, having any later news +to give me than that Mrs. Lecount was to sleep at the cottage last night and +that she and Mr. Vanstone were to leave together this morning. But for that +last piece of intelligence, I should have been on my way back to Scotland +before now. As it is, I cannot decide for myself what I ought to do next. My +going back to Dumfries, after Mr. Vanstone has left it, seems like taking a +journey for nothing —and my staying in London appears to be almost +equally useless. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you kindly advise me in this difficulty? I will come to you at +Lincoln’s Inn at any time this afternoon or to-morrow which you may +appoint. My next few hours are engaged. As soon as this letter is dispatched, I +am going to Kensington, with the object of ascertaining whether certain doubts +I feel about the means by which Mrs. Lecount may have accomplished her +discovery are well founded or not. If you will let me have your answer by +return of post, I will not fail to get back to St. John’s Wood in time to +receive it. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Believe me, dear sir, yours sincerely,<br/> +“MAGDALEN VANSTONE.” +</p> + +<h4> +II.<br/> +From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Lincoln’s Inn, November 5th. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MADAM, +</p> + +<p> +“Your letter and its inclosure have caused me great concern and surprise. +Pressure of business allows me no hope of being able to see you either to-day +or to-morrow morning. But if three o’clock to-morrow afternoon will suit +you, at that hour you will find me at your service. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot pretend to offer a positive opinion until I know more of the +particulars connected with this extraordinary business than I find communicated +either in your letter or in your maid’s. But with this reserve, I venture +to suggest that your remaining in London until to-morrow may possibly lead to +other results besides your consultation at my chambers. There is at least a +chance that you or I may hear something further in this strange matter by the +morning’s post. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“I remain, dear Madam, faithfully yours,<br/> +“JOHN LOSCOMBE.” +</p> + +<h4> +III.<br/> +From Mrs. Noel Vanstone to Miss Garth. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“November 5th, Two o’clock. +</p> + +<p> +“I have just returned from Westmoreland House—after purposely +leaving it in secret, and purposely avoiding you under your own roof. You shall +know why I came, and why I went away. It is due to my remembrance of old times +not to treat you like a stranger, although I can never again treat you like a +friend. +</p> + +<p> +“I set forth on the third from the North to London. My only object in +taking this long journey was to see Norah. I had been suffering for many weary +weeks past such remorse as only miserable women like me can feel. Perhaps the +suffering weakened me; perhaps it roused some old forgotten +tenderness—God knows!—I can’t explain it; I can only tell you +that I began to think of Norah by day, and to dream of Norah by night, till I +was almost heartbroken. I have no better reason than this to give for running +all the risks which I ran, and coming to London to see her. I don’t wish +to claim more for myself than I deserve; I don’t wish to tell you I was +the reformed and repenting creature whom <i>you</i> might have approved. I had +only one feeling in me that I know of. I wanted to put my arms round +Norah’s neck, and cry my heart out on Norah’s bosom. Childish +enough, I dare say. Something might have come of it; nothing might have come of +it—who knows? +</p> + +<p> +“I had no means of finding Norah without your assistance. However you +might disapprove of what I had done, I thought you would not refuse to help me +to find my sister. When I lay down last night in my strange bed, I said to +myself, ‘I will ask Miss Garth, for my father’s sake and my +mother’s sake, to tell me.’ You don’t know what a comfort I +felt in that thought. How should you? What do good women like you know of +miserable sinners like me? All you know is that you pray for us at church. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I fell asleep happily that night—for the first time since my +marriage. When the morning came, I paid the penalty of daring to be happy only +for one night. When the morning came, a letter came with it, which told me that +my bitterest enemy on earth (you have meddled sufficiently with my affairs to +know what enemy I mean) had revenged herself on me in my absence. In following +the impulse which led me to my sister, I had gone to my ruin. +</p> + +<p> +“The mischief was beyond all present remedy, when I received the news of +it. Whatever had happened, whatever might happen, I made up my mind to persist +in my resolution of seeing Norah before I did anything else. I suspected +<i>you</i> of being concerned in the disaster which had overtaken +me—because I felt positively certain at Aldborough that you and Mrs. +Lecount had written to each other. But I never suspected Norah. If I lay on my +death-bed at this moment I could say with a safe conscience I never suspected +Norah. +</p> + +<p> +“So I went this morning to Westmoreland House to ask you for my +sister’s address, and to acknowledge plainly that I suspected you of +being again in correspondence with Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +“When I inquired for you at the door, they told me you had gone out, but +that you were expected back before long. They asked me if I would see your +sister, who was then in the school-room. I desired that your sister should on +no account be disturbed: my business was not with her, but with you. I begged +to be allowed to wait in a room by myself until you returned. +</p> + +<p> +“They showed me into the double room on the ground-floor, divided by +curtains—as it was when I last remember it. There was a fire in the outer +division of the room, but none in the inner; and for that reason, I suppose, +the curtains were drawn. The servant was very civil and attentive to me. I have +learned to be thankful for civility and attention, and I spoke to her as +cheerfully as I could. I said to her, ‘I shall see Miss Garth here, as +she comes up to the door, and I can beckon her in through the long +window.’ The servant said I could do so, if you came that way, but that +you let yourself in sometimes with your own key by the back-garden gate; and if +you did this, she would take care to let you know of my visit. I mention these +trifles, to show you that there was no pre-meditated deceit in my mind when I +came to the house. +</p> + +<p> +“I waited a weary time, and you never came: I don’t know whether my +impatience made me think so, or whether the large fire burning made the room +really as hot as I felt it to be—I only know that, after a while, I +passed through the curtains into the inner room, to try the cooler atmosphere. +</p> + +<p> +“I walked to the long window which leads into the back garden, to look +out, and almost at the same time I heard the door opened—the door of the +room I had just left, and your voice and the voice of some other woman, a +stranger to me, talking. The stranger was one of the parlor-boarders, I dare +say. I gathered from the first words you exchanged together, that you had met +in the passage—she on her way downstairs, and you on your way in from the +back garden. Her next question and your next answer informed me that this +person was a friend of my sister’s, who felt a strong interest in her, +and who knew that you had just returned from a visit to Norah. So far, I only +hesitated to show myself, because I shrank, in my painful situation, from +facing a stranger. But when I heard my own name immediately afterward on your +lips and on hers, then I purposely came nearer to the curtain between us, and +purposely listened. +</p> + +<p> +“A mean action, you will say? Call it mean, if you like. What better can +you expect from such a woman as I am? +</p> + +<p> +“You were always famous for your memory. There is no necessity for my +repeating the words you spoke to your friend, and the words your friend spoke +to you, hardly an hour since. When you read these lines, you will know, as well +as I know, what those words told me. I ask for no particulars; I will take all +your reasons and all your excuses for granted. It is enough for me to know that +you and Mr. Pendril have been searching for me again, and that Norah is in the +conspiracy this time, to reclaim me in spite of myself. It is enough for me to +know that my letter to my sister has been turned into a trap to catch me, and +that Mrs. Lecount’s revenge has accomplished its object by means of +information received from Norah’s lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I tell you what I suffered when I heard these things? No; it would +only be a waste of time to tell you. Whatever I suffer, I deserve +it—don’t I? +</p> + +<p> +“I waited in that inner room—knowing my own violent temper, and not +trusting myself to see you, after what I had heard—I waited in that inner +room, trembling lest the servant should tell you of my visit before I could +find an opportunity of leaving the house. No such misfortune happened. The +servant, no doubt, heard the voices upstairs, and supposed that we had met each +other in the passage. I don’t know how long or how short a time it was +before you left the room to go and take off your bonnet—you went, and +your friend went with you. I raised the long window softly, and stepped into +the back garden. The way by which you returned to the house was the way by +which I left it. No blame attaches to the servant. As usual, where I am +concerned, nobody is to blame but me. +</p> + +<p> +“Time enough has passed now to quiet my mind a little. You know how +strong I am? You remember how I used to fight against all my illnesses when I +was a child? Now I am a woman, I fight against my miseries in the same way. +Don’t pity me, Miss Garth! Don’t pity me! +</p> + +<p> +“I have no harsh feeling against Norah. The hope I had of seeing her is a +hope taken from me; the consolation I had in writing to her is a consolation +denied me for the future. I am cut to the heart; but I have no angry feeling +toward my sister. She means well, poor soul—I dare say she means well. It +would distress her, if she knew what has happened. Don’t tell her. +Conceal my visit, and burn my letter. +</p> + +<p> +“A last word to yourself and I have done: +</p> + +<p> +“If I rightly understand my present situation, your spies are still +searching for me to just as little purpose as they searched at York. Dismiss +them—you are wasting your money to no purpose. If you discovered me +to-morrow, what could you do? My position has altered. I am no longer the poor +outcast girl, the vagabond public performer, whom you once hunted after. I have +done what I told you I would do—I have made the general sense of +propriety my accomplice this time. Do you know who I am? I am a respectable +married woman, accountable for my actions to nobody under heaven but my +husband. I have got a place in the world, and a name in the world, at last. +Even the law, which is the friend of all you respectable people, has recognized +my existence, and has become <i>my</i> friend too! The Archbishop of Canterbury +gave me his license to be married, and the vicar of Aldborough performed the +service. If I found your spies following me in the street, and if I chose to +claim protection from them, the law would acknowledge my claim. You forget what +wonders my wickedness has done for me. It has made Nobody’s Child +Somebody’s Wife. +</p> + +<p> +“If you will give these considerations their due weight; if you will +exert your excellent common sense, I have no fear of being obliged to appeal to +my newly-found friend and protector—the law. You will feel, by this time, +that you have meddled with me at last to some purpose. I am estranged from +Norah—I am discovered by my husband—I am defeated by Mrs. Lecount. +You have driven me to the last extremity; you have strengthened me to fight the +battle of my life with the resolution which only a lost and friendless woman +can feel. Badly as your schemes have prospered, they have not proved totally +useless after all! +</p> + +<p> +“I have no more to say. If you ever speak about me to Norah, tell her +that a day may come when she will see me again—the day when we two +sisters have recovered our natural rights; the day when I put Norah’s +fortune into Norah’s hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Those are my last words. Remember them the next time you feel tempted to +meddle with me again. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“MAGDALEN VANSTONE.” +</p> + +<h4> +IV.<br/> +From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Lincoln’s Inn, November 6th. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MADAM, +</p> + +<p> +“This morning’s post has doubtless brought you the same shocking +news which it has brought to me. You must know by this time that a terrible +affliction has befallen you—the affliction of your husband’s sudden +death. +</p> + +<p> +“I am on the point of starting for the North, to make all needful +inquiries, and to perform whatever duties I may with propriety undertake, as +solicitor to the deceased gentleman. Let me earnestly recommend you not to +follow me to Baliol Cottage, until I have had time to write to you first, and +to give you such advice as I cannot, through ignorance of all the +circumstances, pretend to offer now. You may rely on my writing, after my +arrival in Scotland, by the first post. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“I remain, dear Madam, faithfully yours,<br/> +“JOHN LOSCOMBE.” +</p> + +<h4> +V.<br/> +From Mr. Pendril to Miss Garth. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Serle Street, November 6th. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MISS GARTH, +</p> + +<p> +“I return you Mrs. Noel Vanstone’s letter. I can understand your +mortification at the tone in which it is written, and your distress at the +manner in which this unhappy woman has interpreted the conversation that she +overheard at your house. I cannot honestly add that I lament what has happened. +My opinion has never altered since the Combe-Raven time. I believe Mrs. Noel +Vanstone to be one of the most reckless, desperate, and perverted women living; +and any circumstances that estrange her from her sister are circumstances which +I welcome, for her sister’s sake. +</p> + +<p> +“There cannot be a moment’s doubt on the course you ought to follow +in this matter. Even Mrs. Noel Vanstone herself acknowledges the propriety of +sparing her sister additional and unnecessary distress. By all means, keep Miss +Vanstone in ignorance of the visit to Kensington, and of the letter which has +followed it. It would be not only unwise, but absolutely cruel, to enlighten +her. If we had any remedy to apply, or even any hope to offer, we might feel +some hesitation in keeping our secret. But there is no remedy, and no hope. +Mrs. Noel Vanstone is perfectly justified in the view she takes of her own +position. Neither you nor I can assert the smallest right to control her. +</p> + +<p> +“I have already taken the necessary measures for putting an end to our +useless inquiries. In a few days I will write to Miss Vanstone, and will do my +best to tranquilize her mind on the subject of her sister. If I can find no +sufficient excuse to satisfy her, it will be better she should think we have +discovered nothing than that she should know the truth. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Believe me most truly yours,<br/> +“WILLIAM PENDRIL.” +</p> + +<h4> +VI.<br/> +From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Lincoln’s Inn, November 15th. +</p> + +<p> +“Private. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MADAM, +</p> + +<p> +“In compliance with your request, I now proceed to communicate to you in +writing what (but for the calamity which has so recently befallen you) I should +have preferred communicating by word of mouth. Be pleased to consider this +letter as strictly confidential between yourself and me. +</p> + +<p> +“I enclose, as you desire, a copy of the Will executed by your late +husband on the third of this month. There can be no question of the genuineness +of the original document. I protested, as a matter of form, against Admiral +Bartram’s solicitor assuming a position of authority at Baliol Cottage. +But he took the position, nevertheless; acting as legal representative of the +sole Executor under the second Will. I am bound to say I should have done the +same myself in his place. +</p> + +<p> +“The serious question follows, What can we do for the best in your +interests? The Will executed under my professional superintendence, on the +thirtieth of September last, is at present superseded and revoked by the second +and later Will, executed on the third of November. Can we dispute this +document? +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt the possibility of disputing the new Will on the face of it. It +is no doubt irregularly expressed; but it is dated, signed, and witnessed as +the law directs; and the perfectly simple and straightforward provisions that +it contains are in no respect, that I can see, technically open to attack. +</p> + +<p> +“This being the case, can we dispute the Will on the ground that it has +been executed when the Testator was not in a fit state to dispose of his own +property? or when the Testator was subjected to undue and improper influence? +</p> + +<p> +“In the first of these cases, the medical evidence would put an obstacle +in our way. We cannot assert that previous illness had weakened the +Testator’s mind. It is clear that he died suddenly, as the doctors had +all along declared he would die, of disease of the heart. He was out walking in +his garden, as usual, on the day of his death; he ate a hearty dinner; none of +the persons in his service noticed any change in him; he was a little more +irritable with them than usual, but that was all. It is impossible to attack +the state of his faculties: there is no case to go into court with, so far. +</p> + +<p> +“Can we declare that he acted under undue influence; or, in plainer +terms, under the influence of Mrs. Lecount? +</p> + +<p> +“There are serious difficulties, again, in the way of taking this course. +We cannot assert, for example, that Mrs. Lecount has assumed a place in the +will which she has no fair claim to occupy. She has cunningly limited her own +legacy, not only to what is fairly due her, but to what the late Mr. Michael +Vanstone himself had the intention of leaving her. If I were examined on the +subject, I should be compelled to acknowledge that I had heard him express this +intention myself. It is only the truth to say that I have heard him express it +more than once. There is no point of attack in Mrs. Lecount’s legacy, and +there is no point of attack in your late husband’s choice of an executor. +He has made the wise choice, and the natural choice, of the oldest and +trustiest friend he had in the world. +</p> + +<p> +“One more consideration remains—the most important which I have yet +approached, and therefore the consideration which I have reserved to the last. +On the thirtieth of September, the Testator executes a will, leaving his widow +sole executrix, with a legacy of eighty thousand pounds. On the third of +November following, he expressly revokes this will, and leaves another in its +stead, in which his widow is never once mentioned, and in which the whole +residue of his estate, after payment of one comparatively trifling legacy, is +left to a friend. +</p> + +<p> +“It rests entirely with you to say whether any valid reason can or cannot +be produced to explain such an extraordinary proceeding as this. If no reason +can be assigned—and I know of none myself—I think we have a point +here which deserves our careful consideration; for it may be a point which is +open to attack. Pray understand that I am now appealing to you solely as a +lawyer, who is obliged to look all possible eventualities in the face. I have +no wish to intrude on your private affairs; I have no wish to write a word +which could be construed into any indirect reflection on yourself. +</p> + +<p> +“If you tell me that, so far as you know, your husband capriciously +struck you out of his will, without assignable reason or motive for doing so, +and without other obvious explanation of his conduct than that he acted in this +matter entirely under the influence of Mrs. Lecount, I will immediately take +Counsel’s opinion touching the propriety of disputing the will on this +ground. If, on the other hand, you tell me that there are reasons (known to +yourself, though unknown to me) for not taking the course I propose, I will +accept that intimation without troubling you, unless you wish it, to explain +yourself further. In this latter event, I will write to you again; for I shall +then have something more to say, which may greatly surprise you, on the subject +of the Will. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Faithfully yours,<br/> +“JOHN LOSCOMBE.” +</p> + +<h4> +VII.<br/> +From Mrs. Noel Vanstone to Mr. Loscombe. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“November 16th. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR SIR, +</p> + +<p> +“Accept my best thanks for the kindness and consideration with which you +have treated me; and let the anxieties under which I am now suffering plead my +excuse, if I reply to your letter without ceremony, in the fewest possible +words. +</p> + +<p> +“I have my own reasons for not hesitating to answer your question in the +negative. It is impossible for us to go to law, as you propose, on the subject +of the Will. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Believe me, dear sir, yours gratefully,<br/> +“MAGDALEN VANSTONE.” +</p> + +<h4> +VIII.<br/> +From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Lincoln’s Inn. November 17th. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MADAM, +</p> + +<p> +“I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, answering my proposal +in the negative, for reasons of your own. Under these circumstances—on +which I offer no comment—I beg to perform my promise of again +communicating with you on the subject of your late husband’s Will. +</p> + +<p> +“Be so kind as to look at your copy of the document. You will find that +the clause which devises the whole residue of your husband’s estate to +Admiral Bartram ends in these terms: <i>to be by him applied to such uses as he +may think fit.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“Simple as they may seem to you, these are very remarkable words. In the +first place, no practical lawyer would have used them in drawing your +husband’s will. In the second place, they are utterly useless to serve +any plain straightforward purpose. The legacy is left unconditionally to the +admiral; and in the same breath he is told that he may do what he likes with +it! The phrase points clearly to one of two conclusions. It has either dropped +from the writer’s pen in pure ignorance, or it has been carefully set +where it appears to serve the purpose of a snare. I am firmly persuaded that +the latter explanation is the right one. The words are expressly intended to +mislead some person—yourself in all probability—and the cunning +which has put them to that use is a cunning which (as constantly happens when +uninstructed persons meddle with law) has overreached itself. My thirty +years’ experience reads those words in a sense exactly opposite to the +sense which they are intended to convey. I say that Admiral Bartram is +<i>not</i> free to apply his legacy to such purposes as he may think fit; I +believe he is privately controlled by a supplementary document in the shape of +a Secret Trust. +</p> + +<p> +“I can easily explain to you what I mean by a Secret Trust. It is usually +contained in the form of a letter from a Testator to his Executors, privately +informing them of testamentary intentions on his part which he has not thought +proper openly to acknowledge in his will. I leave you a hundred pounds; and I +write a private letter enjoining you, on taking the legacy, not to devote it to +your own purposes, but to give it to some third person, whose name I have my +own reasons for not mentioning in my will. That is a Secret Trust. +</p> + +<p> +“If I am right in my own persuasion that such a document as I here +describe is at this moment in Admiral Bartram’s possession—a +persuasion based, in the first instance, on the extraordinary words that I have +quoted to you; and, in the second instance, on purely legal considerations with +which it is needless to incumber my letter—if I am right in this opinion, +the discovery of the Secret Trust would be, in all probability, a most +important discovery to your interests. I will not trouble you with technical +reasons, or with references to my experience in these matters, which only a +professional man could understand. I will merely say that I don’t give up +your cause as utterly lost, until the conviction now impressed on my own mind +is proved to be wrong. +</p> + +<p> +“I can add no more, while this important question still remains involved +in doubt; neither can I suggest any means of solving that doubt. If the +existence of the Trust was proved, and if the nature of the stipulations +contained in it was made known to me, I could then say positively what the +legal chances were of your being able to set up a Case on the strength of it: +and I could also tell you whether I should or should not feel justified in +personally undertaking that Case under a private arrangement with yourself. +</p> + +<p> +“As things are, I can make no arrangement, and offer no advice. I can +only put you confidentially in possession of my private opinion, leaving you +entirely free to draw your own inferences from it, and regretting that I cannot +write more confidently and more definitely than I have written here. All that I +could conscientiously say on this very difficult and delicate subject, I have +said. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Believe me, dear madam, faithfully yours,<br/> +“JOHN LOSCOMBE. +</p> + +<p> +“P.S.—I omitted one consideration in my last letter, which I may +mention here, in order to show you that no point in connection with the case +has escaped me. If it had been possible to show that Mr. Vanstone was +<i>domiciled</i> in Scotland at the time of his death, we might have asserted +your interests by means of the Scotch law, which does not allow a husband the +power of absolutely disinheriting his wife. But it is impossible to assert that +Mr. Vanstone was legally domiciled in Scotland. He came there as a visitor +only; he occupied a furnished house for the season; and he never expressed, +either by word or deed, the slightest intention of settling permanently in the +North.” +</p> + +<h4> +IX.<br/> +From Mrs. Noel Vanstone to Mr. Loscombe. +</h4> + +<p> +“DEAR SIR, +</p> + +<p> +“I have read your letter more than once, with the deepest interest and +attention; and the oftener I read it, the more firmly I believe that there is +really such a Letter as you mention in Admiral Bartram’s hands. +</p> + +<p> +“It is my interest that the discovery should be made, and I at once +acknowledge to you that I am determined to find the means of secretly and +certainly making it. My resolution rests on other motives than the motives +which you might naturally suppose would influence me. I only tell you this, in +case you feel inclined to remonstrate. There is good reason for what I say, +when I assure you that remonstrance will be useless. +</p> + +<p> +“I ask for no assistance in this matter; I will trouble nobody for +advice. You shall not be involved in any rash proceedings on my part. Whatever +danger there may be, I will risk it. Whatever delays may happen, I will bear +them patiently. I am lonely and friendless, and surely troubled in mind, but I +am strong enough to win my way through worse trials than these. My spirits will +rise again, and my time will come. If that Secret Trust is in Admiral +Bartram’s possession—when you next see me, you shall see me with it +in my own hands. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Yours gratefully,<br/> +“MAGDALEN VANSTONE.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="part06"></a>THE SIXTH SCENE.<br/> +<small>ST. JOHN’S WOOD.</small></h3> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap45"></a>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<p> +It wanted little more than a fortnight to Christmas; but the weather showed no +signs yet of the frost and snow, conventionally associated with the coming +season. The atmosphere was unnaturally warm, and the old year was dying feebly +in sapping rain and enervating mist. +</p> + +<p> +Toward the close of the December afternoon, Magdalen sat alone in the lodging +which she had occupied since her arrival in London. The fire burned sluggishly +in the narrow little grate; the view of the wet houses and soaking gardens +opposite was darkening fast; and the bell of the suburban muffin-boy tinkled in +the distance drearily. Sitting close over the fire, with a little money lying +loose in her lap, Magdalen absently shifted the coins to and fro on the smooth +surface of her dress, incessantly altering their positions toward each other, +as if they were pieces of a “child’s puzzle” which she was +trying to put together. The dim fire-light flaming up on her faintly from time +to time showed changes which would have told their own tale sadly to friends of +former days. Her dress had become loose through the wasting of her figure; but +she had not cared to alter it. The old restlessness in her movements, the old +mobility in her expression, appeared no more. Her face passively maintained its +haggard composure, its changeless unnatural calm. Mr. Pendril might have +softened his hard sentence on her, if he had seen her now; and Mrs. Lecount, in +the plenitude of her triumph, might have pitied her fallen enemy at last. +</p> + +<p> +Hardly four months had passed since the wedding-day at Aldborough, and the +penalty for that day was paid already—paid in unavailing remorse, in +hopeless isolation, in irremediable defeat! Let this be said for her; let the +truth which has been told of the fault be told of the expiation as well. Let it +be recorded of her that she enjoyed no secret triumph on the day of her +success. The horror of herself with which her own act had inspired her, had +risen to its climax when the design of her marriage was achieved. She had never +suffered in secret as she suffered when the Combe-Raven money was left to her +in her husband’s will. She had never felt the means taken to accomplish +her end so unutterably degrading to herself, as she felt them on the day when +the end was reached. Out of that feeling had grown the remorse which had +hurried her to seek pardon and consolation in her sister’s love. Never +since it had first entered her heart, never since she had first felt it sacred +to her at her father’s grave, had the Purpose to which she had vowed +herself, so nearly lost its hold on her as at this time. Never might +Norah’s influence have achieved such good as on the day when that +influence was lost—the day when the fatal words were overheard at Miss +Garth’s—the day when the fatal letter from Scotland told of Mrs. +Lecount’s revenge. +</p> + +<p> +The harm was done; the chance was gone. Time and Hope alike had both passed her +by. +</p> + +<p> +Faintly and more faintly the inner voices now pleaded with her to pause on the +downward way. The discovery which had poisoned her heart with its first +distrust of her sister; the tidings which had followed it of her +husband’s death; the sting of Mrs. Lecount’s triumph, felt through +all, had done their work. The remorse which had embittered her married life was +deadened now to a dull despair. It was too late to make the atonement of +confession—too late to lay bare to the miserable husband the deeper +secrets that had once lurked in the heart of the miserable wife. Innocent of +all thought of the hideous treachery which Mrs. Lecount had imputed to +her—she was guilty of knowing how his health was broken when she married +him; guilty of knowing, when he left her the Combe-Raven money, that the +accident of a moment, harmless to other men, might place his life in jeopardy, +and effect her release. His death had told her this—had told her plainly +what she had shrunk, in his lifetime, from openly acknowledging to herself. +From the dull torment of that reproach; from the dreary wretchedness of +doubting everybody, even to Norah herself; from the bitter sense of her +defeated schemes; from the blank solitude of her friendless life—what +refuge was left? But one refuge now. She turned to the relentless Purpose which +was hurrying her to her ruin, and cried to it with the daring of her +despair—Drive me on! +</p> + +<p> +For days and days together she had bent her mind on the one object which +occupied it since she had received the lawyer’s letter. For days and days +together she had toiled to meet the first necessity of her position—to +find a means of discovering the Secret Trust. There was no hope, this time, of +assistance from Captain Wragge. Long practice had made the old militia-man an +adept in the art of vanishing. The plow of the moral agriculturist left no +furrows—not a trace of him was to be found! Mr. Loscombe was too cautious +to commit himself to an active course of any kind; he passively maintained his +opinions and left the rest to his client—-he desired to know nothing +until the Trust was placed in his hands. Magdalen’s interests were now in +Magdalen’s own sole care. Risk or no risk, what she did next she must do +by herself. +</p> + +<p> +The prospect had not daunted her. Alone she had calculated the chances that +might be tried. Alone she was now determined to make the attempt. +</p> + +<p> +“The time has come,” she said to herself, as she sat over the fire. +“I must sound Louisa first.” +</p> + +<p> +She collected the scattered coins in her lap, and placed them in a little heap +on the table, then rose and rang the bell. The landlady answered it. +</p> + +<p> +“Is my servant downstairs?” inquired Magdalen. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am. She is having her tea.” +</p> + +<p> +“When she has done, say I want her up here. Wait a moment. You will find +your money on the table—the money I owe you for last week. Can you find +it? or would you like to have a candle?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s rather dark, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen lit a candle. “What notice must I give you,” she asked, as +she put the candle on the table, “before I leave?” +</p> + +<p> +“A week is the usual notice, ma’am. I hope you have no objection to +make to the house?” +</p> + +<p> +“None whatever. I only ask the question, because I may be obliged to +leave these lodgings rather sooner than I anticipated. Is the money +right?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite right, ma’am. Here is your receipt.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you. Don’t forget to send Louisa to me as soon as she has +done her tea.” +</p> + +<p> +The landlady withdrew. As soon as she was alone again, Magdalen extinguished +the candle, and drew an empty chair close to her own chair on the hearth. This +done, she resumed her former place, and waited until Louisa appeared. There was +doubt in her face as she sat looking mechanically into the fire. “A poor +chance,” she thought to herself; “but, poor as it is, a chance that +I must try.” +</p> + +<p> +In ten minutes more, Louisa’s meek knock was softly audible outside. She +was surprised, on entering the room, to find no other light in it than the +light of the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you have the candles, ma’am?” she inquired, +respectfully. +</p> + +<p> +“We will have candles if you wish for them yourself,” replied +Magdalen; “not otherwise. I have something to say to you. When I have +said it, you shall decide whether we sit together in the dark or in the +light.” +</p> + +<p> +Louisa waited near the door, and listened to those strange words in silent +astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“Come here,” said Magdalen, pointing to the empty chair; +“come here and sit down.” +</p> + +<p> +Louisa advanced, and timidly removed the chair from its position at her +mistress’s side. Magdalen instantly drew it back again. “No!” +she said. “Come closer—come close by me.” After a +moment’s hesitation, Louisa obeyed. +</p> + +<p> +“I ask you to sit near me,” pursued Magdalen, “because I wish +to speak to you on equal terms. Whatever distinctions there might once have +been between us are now at an end. I am a lonely woman thrown helpless on my +own resources, without rank or place in the world. I may or may not keep you as +my friend. As mistress and maid the connection between us must come to an +end.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ma’am, don’t, don’t say that!” pleaded +Louisa, faintly. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen sorrowfully and steadily went on. +</p> + +<p> +“When you first came to me,” she resumed, “I thought I should +not like you. I have learned to like you—I have learned to be grateful to +you. From first to last you have been faithful and good to me. The least I can +do in return is not to stand in the way of your future prospects.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t send me away, ma’am!” said Louisa, imploringly. +“If you can only help me with a little money now and then, I’ll +wait for my wages—I will, indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen took her hand and went on, as sorrowfully and as steadily as before. +</p> + +<p> +“My future life is all darkness, all uncertainty,” she said. +“The next step I may take may lead me to my prosperity or may lead me to +my ruin. Can I ask you to share such a prospect as this? If your future was as +uncertain as mine is—if you, too, were a friendless woman thrown on the +world—my conscience might be easy in letting you cast your lot with mine. +I might accept your attachment, for I might feel I was not wronging you. How +can I feel this in your case? You have a future to look to. You are an +excellent servant; you can get another place—a far better place than +mine. You can refer to me; and if the character I give is not considered +sufficient, you can refer to the mistress you served before me—” +</p> + +<p> +At the instant when that reference to the girl’s last employer escaped +Magdalen’s lips, Louisa snatched her hand away and started up +affrightedly from her chair. There was a moment’s silence. Both mistress +and maid were equally taken by surprise. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen was the first to recover herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it getting too dark?” she asked, significantly. “Are you +going to light the candles, after all?” +</p> + +<p> +Louisa drew back into the dimmest corner of the room. +</p> + +<p> +“You suspect me, ma’am!” she answered out of the darkness, in +a breathless whisper. “Who has told you? How did you find +out—?” She stopped, and burst into tears. “I deserve your +suspicion,” she said, struggling to compose herself. “I can’t +deny it to <i>you</i>. You have treated me so kindly; you have made me so fond +of you! Forgive me, Mrs. Vanstone—I am a wretch; I have deceived +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come here and sit down by me again,” said Magdalen. +“Come—or I will get up myself and bring you back.” +</p> + +<p> +Louisa slowly returned to her place. Dim as the fire-light was, she seemed to +fear it. She held her handkerchief over her face, and shrank from her mistress +as she seated herself again in the chair. +</p> + +<p> +“You are wrong in thinking that any one has betrayed you to me,” +said Magdalen. “All that I know of you is, what your own looks and ways +have told me. You have had some secret trouble weighing on your mind ever since +you have been in my service. I confess I have spoken with the wish to find out +more of you and your past life than I have found out yet—not because I am +curious, but because I have my secret troubles too. Are you an unhappy woman, +like me? If you are, I will take you into my confidence. If you have nothing to +tell me—if you choose to keep your secret—I don’t blame you; +I only say, Let us part. I won’t ask how you have deceived me. I will +only remember that you have been an honest and faithful and competent servant +while I have employed you; and I will say as much in your favor to any new +mistress you like to send to me.” +</p> + +<p> +She waited for the reply. For a moment, and only for a moment, Louisa +hesitated. The girl’s nature was weak, but not depraved. She was honestly +attached to her mistress; and she spoke with a courage which Magdalen had not +expected from her. +</p> + +<p> +“If you send me away, ma’am,” she said, “I won’t +take my character from you till I have told you the truth; I won’t return +your kindness by deceiving you a second time. Did my master ever tell you how +he engaged me?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I never asked him, and he never told me.” +</p> + +<p> +“He engaged me, ma’am, with a written character—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“The character was a false one.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen drew back in amazement. The confession she heard was not the +confession she had anticipated. +</p> + +<p> +“Did your mistress refuse to give you a character?” she asked. +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +Louisa dropped on her knees and hid her face in her mistress’s lap. +“Don’t ask me!” she said. “I’m a miserable, +degraded creature; I’m not fit to be in the same room with you!” +Magdalen bent over her, and whispered a question in her ear. Louisa whispered +back the one sad word of reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Has he deserted you?” asked Magdalen, after waiting a moment, and +thinking first. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you love him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dearly.” +</p> + +<p> +The remembrance of her own loveless marriage stung Magdalen to the quick. +</p> + +<p> +“For God’s sake, don’t kneel to <i>me!</i>” she cried, +passionately. “If there is a degraded woman in this room, I am the +woman—not you!” +</p> + +<p> +She raised the girl by main force from her knees, and put her back in the +chair. They both waited a little in silence. Keeping her hand on Louisa’s +shoulder, Magdalen seated herself again, and looked with unutterable bitterness +of sorrow into the dying fire. “Oh,” she thought, “what happy +women there are in the world! Wives who love their husbands! Mothers who are +not ashamed to own their children! Are you quieter?” she asked, gently +addressing Louisa once more. “Can you answer me, if I ask you something +else? Where is the child?” +</p> + +<p> +“The child is out at nurse.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does the father help to support it?” +</p> + +<p> +“He does all he can, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is he? Is he in service? Is he in a trade?” +</p> + +<p> +“His father is a master-carpenter—he works in his father’s +yard.” +</p> + +<p> +“If he has got work, why has he not married you?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is his father’s fault, ma’am—not his. His father +has no pity on us. He would be turned out of house and home if he married +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can he get no work elsewhere?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s hard to get good work in London, ma’am. There are so +many in London—they take the bread out of each other’s mouths. If +we had only had the money to emigrate, he would have married me long +since.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would he marry you if you had the money now?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure he would, ma’am. He could get plenty of work in +Australia, and double and treble the wages he gets here. He is trying hard, and +I am trying hard, to save a little toward it—I put by all I can spare +from my child. But it is so little! If we live for years to come, there seems +no hope for us. I know I have done wrong every way—I know I don’t +deserve to be happy. But how could I let my child suffer?—I was obliged +to go to service. My mistress was hard on me, and my health broke down in +trying to live by my needle. I would never have deceived anybody by a false +character, if there had been another chance for me. I was alone and helpless, +ma’am; and I can only ask you to forgive me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ask better women than I am,” said Magdalen, sadly. “I am +only fit to feel for you, and I do feel for you with all my heart. In your +place I should have gone into service with a false character, too. Say no more +of the past—you don’t know how you hurt me in speaking of it. Talk +of the future. I think I can help you, and do you no harm. I think you can help +me, and do me the greatest of all services in return. Wait, and you shall hear +what I mean. Suppose you were married—how much would it cost for you and +your husband to emigrate?” +</p> + +<p> +Louisa mentioned the cost of a steerage passage to Australia for a man and his +wife. She spoke in low, hopeless tones. Moderate as the sum was, it looked like +unattainable wealth in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen started in her chair, and took the girl’s hand once more. +</p> + +<p> +“Louisa!” she said, earnestly; “if I gave you the money, what +would you do for me in return?” +</p> + +<p> +The proposal seemed to strike Louisa speechless with astonishment. She trembled +violently, and said nothing. Magdalen repeated her words. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ma’am, do you mean it?” said the girl. “Do you +really mean it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” replied Magdalen; “I really mean it. What would you do +for me in return?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do?” repeated Louisa. “Oh what is there I would <i>not</i> +do!” She tried to kiss her mistress’s hand; but Magdalen would not +permit it. She resolutely, almost roughly, drew her hand away. +</p> + +<p> +“I am laying you under no obligation,” she said. “We are +serving each other—that is all. Sit quiet, and let me think.” +</p> + +<p> +For the next ten minutes there was silence in the room. At the end of that time +Magdalen took out her watch and held it close to the grate. There was just +firelight enough to show her the hour. It was close on six o’clock. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you composed enough to go downstairs and deliver a message?” +she asked, rising from her chair as she spoke to Louisa again. “It is a +very simple message—it is only to tell the boy that I want a cab as soon +as he can get me one. I must go out immediately. You shall know why later in +the evening. I have much more to say to you; but there is no time to say it +now. When I am gone, bring your work up here, and wait for my return. I shall +be back before bed-time.” +</p> + +<p> +Without another word of explanation, she hurriedly lit a candle and withdrew +into the bedroom to put on her bonnet and shawl. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap46"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<p> +Between nine and ten o’clock the same evening, Louisa, waiting anxiously, +heard the long-expected knock at the house door. She ran downstairs at once and +let her mistress in. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen’s face was flushed. She showed far more agitation on returning +to the house than she had shown on leaving it. “Keep your place at the +table,” she said to Louisa, impatiently; “but lay aside your work. +I want you to attend carefully to what I am going to say.” +</p> + +<p> +Louisa obeyed. Magdalen seated herself at the opposite side of the table, and +moved the candles, so as to obtain a clear and uninterrupted view of her +servant’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you noticed a respectable elderly woman,” she began, +abruptly, “who has been here once or twice in the last fortnight to pay +me a visit?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am; I think I let her in the second time she came. An +elderly person named Mrs. Attwood?” +</p> + +<p> +“That is the person I mean. Mrs. Attwood is Mr. Loscombe’s +housekeeper; not the housekeeper at his private residence, but the housekeeper +at his offices in Lincoln’s Inn. I promised to go and drink tea with her +some evening this week, and I have been to-night. It is strange of me, is it +not, to be on these familiar terms with a woman in Mrs. Attwood’s +situation?” +</p> + +<p> +Louisa made no answer in words. Her face spoke for her: she could hardly avoid +thinking it strange. +</p> + +<p> +“I had a motive for making friends with Mrs. Attwood,” Magdalen +went on. “She is a widow, with a large family of daughters. Her daughters +are all in service. One of them is an under-housemaid in the service of Admiral +Bartram, at St. Crux-in-the-Marsh. I found that out from Mrs. Attwood’s +master; and as soon as I arrived at the discovery, I privately determined to +make Mrs. Attwood’s acquaintance. Stranger still, is it not?” +</p> + +<p> +Louisa began to look a little uneasy. Her mistress’s manner was at +variance with her mistress’s words—it was plainly suggestive of +something startling to come. +</p> + +<p> +“What attraction Mrs. Attwood finds in my society,” Magdalen +continued, “I cannot presume to say. I can only tell you she has seen +better days; she is an educated person; and she may like my society on that +account. At any rate, she has readily met my advances toward her. What +attraction I find in this good woman, on my side, is soon told. I have a great +curiosity—an unaccountable curiosity, you will think—about the +present course of household affairs at St. Crux-in-the-Marsh. Mrs. +Attwood’s daughter is a good girl, and constantly writes to her mother. +Her mother is proud of the letters and proud of the girl, and is ready enough +to talk about her daughter and her daughter’s place. That is Mrs. +Attwood’s attraction to <i>me.</i> You understand, so far?” +</p> + +<p> +Yes—Louisa understood. Magdalen went on. “Thanks to Mrs. Attwood +and Mrs. Attwood’s daughter,” she said, “I know some curious +particulars already of the household at St. Crux. Servants’ tongues and +servants’ letters—as I need not tell <i>you</i>—are oftener +occupied with their masters and mistresses than their masters and mistresses +suppose. The only mistress at St. Crux is the housekeeper. But there is a +master—Admiral Bartram. He appears to be a strange old man, whose whims +and fancies amuse his servants as well as his friends. One of his fancies (the +only one we need trouble ourselves to notice) is, that he had men enough about +him when he was living at sea, and that now he is living on shore, he will be +waited on by women-servants alone. The one man in the house is an old sailor, +who has been all his life with his master—he is a kind of pensioner at +St. Crux, and has little or nothing to do with the housework. The other +servants, indoors, are all women; and instead of a footman to wait on him at +dinner, the admiral has a parlor-maid. The parlor-maid now at St. Crux is +engaged to be married, and as soon as her master can suit himself she is going +away. These discoveries I made some days since. But when I saw Mrs. Attwood +to-night, she had received another letter from her daughter in the interval, +and that letter has helped me to find out something more. The housekeeper is at +her wits’ end to find a new servant. Her master insists on youth and good +looks—he leaves everything else to the housekeeper—but he will have +that. All the inquiries made in the neighborhood have failed to produce the +sort of parlor-maid whom the admiral wants. If nothing can be done in the next +fortnight or three weeks, the housekeeper will advertise in the <i>Times</i>, +and will come to London herself to see the applicants, and to make strict +personal inquiry into their characters.” +</p> + +<p> +Louisa looked at her mistress more attentively than ever. The expression of +perplexity left her face, and a shade of disappointment appeared there in its +stead. “Bear in mind what I have said,” pursued Magdalen; +“and wait a minute more, while I ask you some questions. Don’t +think you understand me yet—I can assure you, you don’t understand +me. Have you always lived in service as lady’s maid?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you ever lived as parlor-maid?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only in one place, ma’am, and not for long there.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you lived long enough to learn your duties?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“What were your duties besides waiting at table?” +</p> + +<p> +“I had to show visitors in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; and what else?” +</p> + +<p> +“I had the plate and the glass to look after; and the table-linen was all +under my care. I had to answer all the bells, except in the bedrooms. There +were other little odds and ends sometimes to do—” +</p> + +<p> +“But your regular duties were the duties you have just mentioned?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“How long ago is it since you lived in service as a parlor-maid?” +</p> + +<p> +“A little better than two years, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you have not forgotten how to wait at table, and clean plate, +and the rest of it, in that time?” +</p> + +<p> +At this question Louisa’s attention, which had been wandering more and +more during the progress of Magdalen’s inquiries, wandered away +altogether. Her gathering anxieties got the better of her discretion, and even +of her timidity. Instead of answering her mistress, she suddenly and confusedly +ventured on a question of her own. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” she said. “Did you mean me +to offer for the parlor-maid’s place at St. Crux?” +</p> + +<p> +“You?” replied Magdalen. “Certainly not! Have you forgotten +what I said to you in this room before I went out? I mean you to be married, +and go to Australia with your husband and your child. You have not waited as I +told you, to hear me explain myself. You have drawn your own conclusions, and +you have drawn them wrong. I asked a question just now, which you have not +answered—I asked if you had forgotten your parlor-maid’s +duties?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, ma’am!” Louisa had replied rather unwillingly thus +far. She answered readily and confidently now. +</p> + +<p> +“Could you teach the duties to another servant?” asked Magdalen. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am—easily, if she was quick and attentive.” +</p> + +<p> +“Could you teach the duties to Me?” +</p> + +<p> +Louisa started, and changed color. “You, ma’am!” she +exclaimed, half in incredulity, half in alarm. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Magdalen. “Could you qualify me to take the +parlor-maid’s place at St. Crux?” +</p> + +<p> +Plain as those words were, the bewilderment which they produced in +Louisa’s mind seemed to render her incapable of comprehending her +mistress’s proposal. “You, ma’am!” she repeated, +vacantly. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall perhaps help you to understand this extraordinary project of +mine,” said Magdalen, “if I tell you plainly what the object of it +is. Do you remember what I said to you about Mr. Vanstone’s will when you +came here from Scotland to join me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am. You told me you had been left out of the will +altogether. I’m sure my fellow-servant would never have been one of the +witnesses if she had known—” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind that now. I don’t blame your fellow-servant—I +blame nobody but Mrs. Lecount. Let me go on with what I was saying. It is not +at all certain that Mrs. Lecount can do me the mischief which Mrs. Lecount +intended. There is a chance that my lawyer, Mr. Loscombe, may be able to gain +me what is fairly my due, in spite of the will. The chance turns on my +discovering a letter which Mr. Loscombe believes, and which I believe, to be +kept privately in Admiral Bartram’s possession. I have not the least hope +of getting at that letter if I make the attempt in my own person. Mrs. Lecount +has poisoned the admiral’s mind against me, and Mr. Vanstone has given +him a secret to keep from me. If I wrote to him, he would not answer my letter. +If I went to his house, the door would be closed in my face. I must find my way +into St. Crux as a stranger—I must be in a position to look about the +house, unsuspected—I must be there with plenty of time on my hands. All +the circumstances are in my favor, if I am received into the house as a +servant; and as a servant I mean to go.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you are a lady, ma’am,” objected Louisa, in the greatest +perplexity. “The servants at St. Crux would find you out.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not at all afraid of their finding me out,” said Magdalen. +“I know how to disguise myself in other people’s characters more +cleverly than you suppose. Leave me to face the chances of discovery—that +is my risk. Let us talk of nothing now but what concerns <i>you.</i> +Don’t decide yet whether you will, or will not, give me the help I want. +Wait, and hear first what the help is. You are quick and clever at your needle. +Can you make me the sort of gown which it is proper for a servant to +wear—and can you alter one of my best silk dresses so as to make it fit +yourself —in a week’s time?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I could get them done in a week, ma’am. But why am I to +wear—” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a little, and you will see. I shall give the landlady her +week’s notice to-morrow. In the interval, while you are making the +dresses, I can be learning the parlor-maid’s duties. When the +house-servant here has brought up the dinner, and when you and I are alone in +the room—instead of your waiting on me, as usual, I will wait on you. (I +am quite serious; don’t interrupt me!) Whatever I can learn besides, +without hindering you, I will practice carefully at every opportunity. When the +week is over, and the dresses are done, we will leave this place, and go into +other lodgings—you as the mistress and I as the maid.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should be found out, ma’am,” interposed Louisa, trembling +at the prospect before her. “I am not a lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I am,” said Magdalen, bitterly. “Shall I tell you what a +lady is? A lady is a woman who wears a silk gown, and has a sense of her own +importance. I shall put the gown on your back, and the sense in your head. You +speak good English; you are naturally quiet and self-restrained; if you can +only conquer your timidity, I have not the least fear of you. There will be +time enough in the new lodging for you to practice your character, and for me +to practice mine. There will be time enough to make some more +dresses—another gown for me, and your wedding-dress (which I mean to give +you) for yourself. I shall have the newspaper sent every day. When the +advertisement appears, I shall answer it—in any name I can take on the +spur of the moment; in your name, if you like to lend it to me; and when the +housekeeper asks me for my character, I shall refer her to you. She will see +you in the position of mistress, and me in the position of maid—no +suspicion can possibly enter her mind, unless you put it there. If you only +have the courage to follow my instructions, and to say what I shall tell you to +say, the interview will be over in ten minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You frighten me, ma’am,” said Louisa, still trembling. +“You take my breath away with surprise. Courage! Where shall I find +courage?” +</p> + +<p> +“Where I keep it for you,” said Magdalen—“in the +passage-money to Australia. Look at the new prospect which gives you a husband, +and restores you to your child—and you will find your courage +there.” +</p> + +<p> +Louisa’s sad face brightened; Louisa’s faint heart beat quick. A +spark of her mistress’s spirit flew up into her eyes as she thought of +the golden future. +</p> + +<p> +“If you accept my proposal,” pursued Magdalen, “you can be +asked in church at once, if you like. I promise you the money on the day when +the advertisement appears in the newspaper. The risk of the housekeeper’s +rejecting me is my risk—not yours. My good looks are sadly gone off, I +know. But I think I can still hold my place against the other servants—I +think I can still <i>look</i> the parlor-maid whom Admiral Bartram wants. There +is nothing for you to fear in this matter; I should not have mentioned it if +there had been. The only danger is the danger of my being discovered at St. +Crux, and that falls entirely on me. By the time I am in the admiral’s +house you will be married, and the ship will be taking you to your new +life.” +</p> + +<p> +Louisa’s face, now brightening with hope, now clouding again with fear, +showed plain signs of the struggle which it cost her to decide. She tried to +gain time; she attempted confusedly to speak a few words of gratitude; but her +mistress silenced her. +</p> + +<p> +“You owe me no thanks,” said Magdalen. “I tell you again, we +are only helping each other. I have very little money, but it is enough for +your purpose, and I give it you freely. I have led a wretched life; I have made +others wretched about me. I can’t even make you happy, except by tempting +you to a new deceit. There! there! it’s not your fault. Worse women than +you are will help me, if you refuse. Decide as you like, but don’t be +afraid of taking the money. If I succeed, I shall not want it. If I +fail—” +</p> + +<p> +She stopped, rose abruptly from her chair, and hid her face from Louisa by +walking away to the fire-place. +</p> + +<p> +“If I fail,” she resumed, warming her foot carelessly at the +fender, “all the money in the world will be of no use to me. Never mind +why—never mind Me—think of yourself. I won’t take advantage +of the confession you have made to me; I won’t influence you against your +will. Do as you yourself think best. But remember one thing—my mind is +made up; nothing you can say or do will change it.” +</p> + +<p> +Her sudden removal from the table, the altered tones of her voice as she spoke +the last words, appeared to renew Louisa’s hesitation. She clasped her +hands together in her lap, and wrung them hard. “This has come on me very +suddenly, ma’am,” said the girl. “I am sorely tempted to say +Yes; and yet I am almost afraid—” +</p> + +<p> +“Take the night to consider it,” interposed Magdalen, keeping her +face persistently turned toward the fire; “and tell me what you have +decided to do, when you come into my room to-morrow morning. I shall want no +help to-night—I can undress myself. You are not so strong as I am; you +are tired, I dare say. Don’t sit up on my account. Good-night, Louisa, +and pleasant dreams!” +</p> + +<p> +Her voice sank lower and lower as she spoke those kind words. She sighed +heavily, and, leaning her arm on the mantel-piece, laid her head on it with a +reckless weariness miserable to see. Louisa had not left the room, as she +supposed—Louisa came softly to her side, and kissed her hand. Magdalen +started; but she made no attempt, this time, to draw her hand away. The sense +of her own horrible isolation subdued her, at the touch of the servant’s +lips. Her proud heart melted; her eyes filled with burning tears. +“Don’t distress me!” she said, faintly. “The time for +kindness has gone by; it only overpowers me now. Good-night!” +</p> + +<p> +When the morning came, the affirmative answer which Magdalen had anticipated +was the answer given. +</p> + +<p> +On that day the landlady received her week’s notice to quit, and +Louisa’s needle flew fast through the stitches of the parlor-maid’s +dress. +</p> + +<h5>THE END OF THE SIXTH SCENE.</h5> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap47"></a>BETWEEN THE SCENES.<br/> +<small>PROGRESS OF THE STORY THROUGH THE POST.</small></h3> + +<h4> +I.<br/> +From Miss Garth to Mr. Pendril. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Westmoreland House,<br/> +January 3d, 1848. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Mr. Pendril, +</p> + +<p> +“I write, as you kindly requested, to report how Norah is going on, and +to tell you what changes I see for the better in the state of her mind on the +subject of her sister. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot say that she is becoming resigned to Magdalen’s continued +silence—I know her faithful nature too well to say it. I can only tell +you that she is beginning to find relief from the heavy pressure of sorrow and +suspense in new thoughts and new hopes. I doubt if she has yet realized this in +her own mind; but I see the result, although she is not conscious of it +herself. I see her heart opening to the consolation of another interest and +another love. She has not said a word to me on the subject, nor have I said a +word to her. But as certainly as I know that Mr. George Bartram’s visits +have lately grown more and more frequent to the family at Portland +Place—so certainly I can assure you that Norah is finding a relief under +her suspense, which is not of my bringing, and a hope in the future, which I +have not taught her to feel. +</p> + +<p> +“It is needless for me to say that I tell you this in the strictest +confidence. God knows whether the happy prospect which seems to me to be just +dawning will grow brighter or not as time goes on. The oftener I see Mr. George +Bartram—and he has called on me more than once—the stronger my +liking for him grows. To my poor judgment he seems to be a gentleman in the +highest and truest sense of the word. If I could live to see Norah his wife, I +should almost feel that I had lived long enough. But who can discern the +future? We have suffered so much that I am afraid to hope. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you heard anything of Magdalen? I don’t know why or how it +is; but since I have known of her husband’s death, my old tenderness for +her seems to cling to me more obstinately than ever. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Always yours truly,<br/> +“HARRIET GARTH.” +</p> + +<h4> +II.<br/> +From Mr. Pendril to Miss Garth. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Serle Street, January 4th, 1848. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MISS GARTH, +</p> + +<p> +“Of Mrs. Noel Vanstone herself I have heard nothing. But I have learned, +since I saw you, that the report of the position in which she is left by the +death of her husband may be depended upon as the truth. No legacy of any kind +is bequeathed to her. Her name is not once mentioned in her husband’s +will. +</p> + +<p> +“Knowing what we know, it is not to be concealed that this circumstance +threatens us with more embarrassment, and perhaps with more distress. Mrs. Noel +Vanstone is not the woman to submit, without a desperate resistance, to the +total overthrow of all her schemes and all her hopes. The mere fact that +nothing whatever has been heard of her since her husband’s death is +suggestive to my mind of serious mischief to come. In her situation, and with +her temper, the quieter she is now, the more inveterately I, for one, distrust +her in the future. It is impossible to say to what violent measures her present +extremity may not drive her. It is impossible to feel sure that she may not be +the cause of some public scandal this time, which may affect her innocent +sister as well as herself. +</p> + +<p> +“I know you will not misinterpret the motive which has led me to write +these lines; I know you will not think that I am inconsiderate enough to cause +you unnecessary alarm. My sincere anxiety to see that happy prospect realized +to which your letter alludes has caused me to write far less reservedly than I +might otherwise have written. I strongly urge you to use your influence, on +every occasion when you can fairly exert it, to strengthen that growing +attachment, and to place it beyond the reach of any coming disasters, while you +have the opportunity of doing so. When I tell you that the fortune of which +Mrs. Noel Vanstone has been deprived is entirely bequeathed to Admiral Bartram; +and when I add that Mr. George Bartram is generally understood to be his +uncle’s heir—you will, I think, acknowledge that I am not warning +you without a cause. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Yours most truly,<br/> +“WILLIAM PENDRIL.” +</p> + +<h4> +III.<br/> +From Admiral Bartram to Mrs. Drake<br/> +(housekeeper at St. Crux). +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“St. Crux, January 10th, 1848. +</p> + +<p> +“MRS. DRAKE, +</p> + +<p> +“I have received your letter from London, stating that you have found me +a new parlor-maid at last, and that the girl is ready to return with you to St. +Crux when your other errands in town allow you to come back. +</p> + +<p> +“This arrangement must be altered immediately, for a reason which I am +heartily sorry to have to write. +</p> + +<p> +“The illness of my niece, Mrs. Girdlestone—which appeared to be so +slight as to alarm none of us, doctors included—has ended fatally. I +received this morning the shocking news of her death. Her husband is said to be +quite frantic with grief. Mr. George has already gone to his +brother-in-law’s, to superintend the last melancholy duties and I must +follow him before the funeral takes place. We propose to take Mr. Girdlestone +away afterward, and to try the effect on him of change of place and new scenes. +Under these sad circumstances, I may be absent from St. Crux a month or six +weeks at least; the house will be shut up, and the new servant will not be +wanted until my return. +</p> + +<p> +“You will therefore tell the girl, on receiving this letter, that a death +in the family has caused a temporary change in our arrangements. If she is +willing to wait, you may safely engage her to come here in six weeks’ +time; I shall be back then, if Mr. George is not. If she refuses, pay her what +compensation is right, and so have done with her. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Yours,<br/> +“ARTHUR BARTRAM.” +</p> + +<h4> +IV.<br/> +From Mrs. Drake to Admiral Bartram. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“January 11th. +</p> + +<p> +“HONORED SIR, +</p> + +<p> +“I hope to get my errands done, and to return to St. Crux to-morrow, but +write to save you anxiety, in case of delay. +</p> + +<p> +“The young woman whom I have engaged (Louisa by name) is willing to wait +your time; and her present mistress, taking an interest in her welfare, will +provide for her during the interval. She understands that she is to enter on +her new service in six weeks from the present date—namely, on the +twenty-fifth of February next. +</p> + +<p> +“Begging you will accept my respectful sympathy under the sad bereavement +which has befallen the family, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“I remain, honored sir, your humble servant,<br/> +“SOPHIA DRAKE.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="part07"></a>THE SEVENTH SCENE.<br/> +<small>ST. CRUX-IN-THE-MARSH.</small></h3> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap48"></a>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<p> +“This is where you are to sleep. Put yourself tidy, and then come down +again to my room. The admiral has returned, and you will have to begin by +waiting on him at dinner to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +With those words, Mrs. Drake, the housekeeper, closed the door; and the new +parlor-maid was left alone in her bed-chamber at St. Crux. +</p> + +<p> +That day was the eventful twenty-fifth of February. In barely four months from +the time when Mrs. Lecount had placed her master’s private Instructions +in his Executor’s hands, the one combination of circumstances against +which it had been her first and foremost object to provide was exactly the +combination which had now taken place. Mr. Noel Vanstone’s widow and +Admiral Bartram’s Secret Trust were together in the same house. +</p> + +<p> +Thus far, events had declared themselves without an exception in +Magdalen’s favor. Thus far, the path which had led her to St. Crux had +been a path without an obstacle: Louisa, whose name she had now taken, had +sailed three days since for Australia, with her husband and her child; she was +the only living creature whom Magdalen had trusted with her secret, and she was +by this time out of sight of the English land. The girl had been careful, +reliable and faithfully devoted to her mistress’s interests to the last. +She had passed the ordeal of her interview with the housekeeper, and had +forgotten none of the instructions by which she had been prepared to meet it. +She had herself proposed to turn the six weeks’ delay, caused by the +death in the admiral’s family, to good account, by continuing the +all-important practice of those domestic lessons, on the perfect acquirement of +which her mistress’s daring stratagem depended for its success. Thanks to +the time thus gained, when Louisa’s marriage was over, and the day of +parting had come, Magdalen had learned and mastered, in the nicest detail, +everything that her former servant could teach her. On the day when she passed +the doors of St. Crux she entered on her desperate venture, strong in the ready +presence of mind under emergencies which her later life had taught her, +stronger still in the trained capacity that she possessed for the assumption of +a character not her own, strongest of all in her two months’ daily +familiarity with the practical duties of the position which she had undertaken +to fill. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +As soon as Mrs. Drake’s departure had left her alone, she unpacked her +box, and dressed herself for the evening. +</p> + +<p> +She put on a lavender-colored stuff-gown—half-mourning for Mrs. +Girdlestone; ordered for all the servants, under the admiral’s +instructions—a white muslin apron, and a neat white cap and collar, with +ribbons to match the gown. In this servant’s costume—in the plain +gown fastening high round her neck, in the neat little white cap at the back of +her head—in this simple dress, to the eyes of all men, not linen-drapers, +at once the most modest and the most alluring that a woman can wear, the sad +changes which mental suffering had wrought in her beauty almost disappeared +from view. In the evening costume of a lady, with her bosom uncovered, with her +figure armed, rather than dressed, in unpliable silk, the admiral might have +passed her by without notice in his own drawing-room. In the evening costume of +a servant, no admirer of beauty could have looked at her once and not have +turned again to look at her for the second time. +</p> + +<p> +Descending the stairs, on her way to the house-keeper’s room, she passed +by the entrances to two long stone corridors, with rows of doors opening on +them; one corridor situated on the second, and one on the first floor of the +house. “Many rooms!” she thought, as she looked at the doors. +“Weary work searching here for what I have come to find!” +</p> + +<p> +On reaching the ground-floor she was met by a weather-beaten old man, who +stopped and stared at her with an appearance of great interest. He was the same +old man whom Captain Wragge had seen in the backyard at St. Crux, at work on +the model of a ship. All round the neighborhood he was known, far and wide, as +“the admiral’s coxswain.” His name was Mazey. Sixty years had +written their story of hard work at sea, and hard drinking on shore, on the +veteran’s grim and wrinkled face. Sixty years had proved his fidelity, +and had brought his battered old carcass, at the end of the voyage, into port +in his master’s house. +</p> + +<p> +Seeing no one else of whom she could inquire, Magdalen requested the old man to +show her the way that led to the housekeeper’s room. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll show you, my dear,” said old Mazey, speaking in the +high and hollow voice peculiar to the deaf. “You’re the new +maid—eh? And a fine-grown girl, too! His honor, the admiral, likes a +parlor-maid with a clean run fore and aft. You’ll do, my +dear—you’ll do.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must not mind what Mr. Mazey says to you,” remarked the +housekeeper, opening her door as the old sailor expressed his approval of +Magdalen in these terms. “He is privileged to talk as he pleases; and he +is very tiresome and slovenly in his habits; but he means no harm.” +</p> + +<p> +With that apology for the veteran, Mrs. Drake led Magdalen first to the pantry, +and next to the linen-room, installing her, with all due formality, in her own +domestic dominions. This ceremony completed, the new parlor-maid was taken +upstairs, and was shown the dining-room, which opened out of the corridor on +the first floor. Here she was directed to lay the cloth, and to prepare the +table for one person only—Mr. George Bartram not having returned with his +uncle to St. Crux. Mrs. Drake’s sharp eyes watched Magdalen attentively +as she performed this introductory duty; and Mrs. Drake’s private +convictions, when the table was spread, forced her to acknowledge, so far, that +the new servant thoroughly understood her work. +</p> + +<p> +An hour later the soup-tureen was placed on the table; and Magdalen stood alone +behind the admiral’s empty chair, waiting her master’s first +inspection of her when he entered the dining-room. +</p> + +<p> +A large bell rang in the lower regions—quick, shambling footsteps +pattered on the stone corridor outside—the door opened suddenly—and +a tall lean yellow old man, sharp as to his eyes, shrewd as to his lips, +fussily restless as to all his movements, entered the room, with two huge +Labrador dogs at his heels, and took his seat in a violent hurry. The dogs +followed him, and placed themselves, with the utmost gravity and composure, one +on each side of his chair. This was Admiral Bartram, and these were the +companions of his solitary meal. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay! ay! ay! here’s the new parlor-maid, to be sure!” he +began, looking sharply, but not at all unkindly, at Magdalen. +“What’s your name, my good girl? Louisa, is it? I shall call you +Lucy, if you don’t mind. Take off the cover, my dear—I’m a +minute or two late to-day. Don’t be unpunctual to-morrow on that account; +I am as regular as clock-work generally. How are you after your journey? Did my +spring-cart bump you about much in bringing you from the station? Capital soup +this—hot as fire—reminds me of the soup we used to have in the West +Indies in the year Three. Have you got your half-mourning on? Stand there, and +let me see. Ah, yes, very neat, and nice, and tidy. Poor Mrs. Girdlestone! Oh +dear, dear, dear, poor Mrs. Girdlestone! You’re not afraid of dogs, are +you, Lucy? Eh? What? You like dogs? That’s right! Always be kind to dumb +animals. These two dogs dine with me every day, except when there’s +company. The dog with the black nose is Brutus, and the dog with the white nose +is Cassius. Did you ever hear who Brutus and Cassius were? Ancient Romans? +That’s right—-good girl. Mind your book and your needle, and +we’ll get you a good husband one of these days. Take away the soup, my +dear, take away the soup!” +</p> + +<p> +This was the man whose secret it was now the one interest of Magdalen’s +life to surprise! This was the man whose name had supplanted hers in Noel +Vanstone’s will! +</p> + +<p> +The fish and the roast meat followed; and the admiral’s talk rambled +on—now in soliloquy, now addressed to the parlor-maid, and now directed +to the dogs—as familiarly and as discontentedly as ever. Magdalen +observed with some surprise that the companions of the admiral’s dinner +had, thus far, received no scraps from their master’s plate. The two +magnificent brutes sat squatted on their haunches, with their great heads over +the table, watching the progress of the meal, with the profoundest attention, +but apparently expecting no share in it. The roast meat was removed, the +admiral’s plate was changed, and Magdalen took the silver covers off the +two made-dishes on either side of the table. As she handed the first of the +savory dishes to her master, the dogs suddenly exhibited a breathless personal +interest in the proceedings. Brutus gluttonously watered at the mouth; and the +tongue of Cassius, protruding in unutterable expectation, smoked again between +his enormous jaws. +</p> + +<p> +The admiral helped himself liberally from the dish; sent Magdalen to the +side-table to get him some bread; and, when he thought her eye was off him, +furtively tumbled the whole contents of his plate into Brutus’s mouth. +Cassius whined faintly as his fortunate comrade swallowed the savory mess at a +gulp. “Hush! you fool,” whispered the admiral. “Your turn +next!” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen presented the second dish. Once more the old gentleman helped himself +largely—once more he sent her away to the side-table—once more he +tumbled the entire contents of the plate down the dog’s throat, selecting +Cassius this time, as became a considerate master and an impartial man. When +the next course followed—consisting of a plain pudding and an unwholesome +“cream”—Magdalen’s suspicion of the function of the +dogs at the dinner-table was confirmed. While the master took the simple +pudding, the dogs swallowed the elaborate cream. The admiral was plainly afraid +of offending his cook on the one hand, and of offending his digestion on the +other—and Brutus and Cassius were the two trained accomplices who +regularly helped him every day off the horns of his dilemma. “Very good! +very good!” said the old gentleman, with the most transparent duplicity. +“Tell the cook, my dear, a capital cream!” +</p> + +<p> +Having placed the wine and dessert on the table, Magdalen was about to +withdraw. Before she could leave the room, her master called her back. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop, stop!” said the admiral; “you don’t know the +ways of the house yet, Lucy. Put another wine-glass here, at my right +hand—the largest you can find, my dear. I’ve got a third dog, who +comes in at dessert—a drunken old sea-dog who has followed my fortunes, +afloat and ashore, for fifty years and more. Yes, yes, that’s the sort of +glass we want. You’re a good girl—you’re a neat, handy girl. +Steady, my dear! there’s nothing to be frightened at!” +</p> + +<p> +A sudden thump on the outside of the door, followed by one mighty bark from +each of the dogs, had made Magdalen start. “Come in!” shouted the +admiral. The door opened; the tails of Brutus and Cassius cheerfully thumped +the floor; and old Mazey marched straight up to the right-hand side of his +master’s chair. The veteran stood there, with his legs wide apart and his +balance carefully adjusted, as if the dining-room had been a cabin, and the +house a ship pitching in a sea-way. +</p> + +<p> +The admiral filled the large glass with port, filled his own glass with claret, +and raised it to his lips. +</p> + +<p> +“God bless the Queen, Mazey,” said the admiral. +</p> + +<p> +“God bless the Queen, your honor,” said old Mazey, swallowing his +port, as the dogs swallowed the made-dishes, at a gulp. +</p> + +<p> +“How’s the wind, Mazey?” +</p> + +<p> +“West and by Noathe, your honor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Any report to-night, Mazey!” +</p> + +<p> +“No report, your honor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-evening, Mazey.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-evening, your honor.” +</p> + +<p> +The after-dinner ceremony thus completed, old Mazey made his bow, and walked +out of the room again. Brutus and Cassius stretched themselves on the rug to +digest mushrooms and made gravies in the lubricating heat of the fire. +“For what we have received, the Lord make us truly thankful,” said +the admiral. “Go downstairs, my good girl, and get your supper. A light +meal, Lucy, if you take my advice—a light meal, or you will have the +nightmare. Early to bed, my dear, and early to rise, makes a parlor-maid +healthy and wealthy and wise. That’s the wisdom of your +ancestors—you mustn’t laugh at it. Good-night.” In those +words Magdalen was dismissed; and so her first day’s experience of +Admiral Bartram came to an end. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +After breakfast the next morning, the admiral’s directions to the new +parlor-maid included among them one particular order which, in Magdalen’s +situation, it was especially her interest to receive. In the old +gentleman’s absence from home that day, on local business which took him +to Ossory, she was directed to make herself acquainted with the whole inhabited +quarter of the house, and to learn the positions of the various rooms, so as to +know where the bells called her when the bells rang. Mrs. Drake was charged +with the duty of superintending the voyage of domestic discovery, unless she +happened to be otherwise engaged—in which case any one of the inferior +servants would be equally competent to act as Magdalen’s guide. +</p> + +<p> +At noon the admiral left for Ossory, and Magdalen presented herself in Mrs. +Drake’s room, to be shown over the house. Mrs. Drake happened to be +otherwise engaged, and referred her to the head house-maid. The head house-maid +happened on that particular morning to be in the same condition as Mrs. Drake, +and referred her to the under-house-maids. The under-house-maids declared they +were all behindhand and had not a minute to spare—they suggested, not too +civilly, that old Mazey had nothing on earth to do, and that he knew the house +as well, or better, than he knew his A B C. Magdalen took the hint, with a +secret indignation and contempt which it cost her a hard struggle to conceal. +She had suspected, on the previous night, and she was certain now, that the +women-servants all incomprehensibly resented her presence among them with the +same sullen unanimity of distrust. Mrs. Drake, as she had seen for herself, was +really engaged that morning over her accounts. But of all the servants under +her who had made their excuses not one had even affected to be more occupied +than usual. Their looks said plainly, “We don’t like you; and we +won’t show you over the house.” +</p> + +<p> +She found her way to old Mazey, not by the scanty directions given her, but by +the sound of the veteran’s cracked and quavering voice, singing in some +distant seclusion a verse of the immortal sea-song—“Tom +Bowling.” Just as she stopped among the rambling stone passages on the +basement story of the house, uncertain which way to turn next, she heard the +tuneless old voice in the distance, singing these lines: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“His form was of the manliest beau-u-u-uty,<br/> + His heart was ki-i-ind and soft;<br/> +Faithful below Tom did his duty,<br/> + But now he’s gone alo-o-o-o-oft—<br/> + But now he’s go-o-o-one aloft!” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen followed in the direction of the quavering voice, and found herself in +a little room looking out on the back yard. There sat old Mazey, with his +spectacles low on his nose, and his knotty old hands blundering over the +rigging of his model ship. There were Brutus and Cassius digesting before the +fire again, and snoring as if they thoroughly enjoyed it. There was Lord Nelson +on one wall, in flaming watercolors; and there, on the other, was a portrait of +Admiral Bartram’s last flagship, in full sail on a sea of slate, with a +salmon-colored sky to complete the illusion. +</p> + +<p> +“What, they won’t show you over the house—won’t +they?” said old Mazey. “I will, then! That head house-maid’s +a sour one, my dear—if ever there was a sour one yet. You’re too +young and good-looking to please ’em—that’s what you +are.” He rose, took off his spectacles, and feebly mended the fire. +“She’s as straight as a poplar,” said old Mazey, considering +Magdalen’s figure in drowsy soliloquy. “I say she’s as +straight as a poplar, and his honor the admiral says so too! Come along, my +dear,” he proceeded, addressing himself to Magdalen again. +“I’ll teach you your Pints of the Compass first. When you know your +Pints, blow high, blow low, you’ll find it plain sailing all over the +house.” +</p> + +<p> +He led the way to the door—stopped, and suddenly bethinking himself of +his miniature ship, went back to put his model away in an empty +cupboard—led the way to the door again—stopped once +more—remembered that some of the rooms were chilly—and pottered +about, swearing and grumbling, and looking for his hat. Magdalen sat down +patiently to wait for him. She gratefully contrasted his treatment of her with +the treatment she had received from the women. Resist it as firmly, despise it +as proudly as we may, all studied unkindness—no matter how contemptible +it may be—has a stinging power in it which reaches to the quick. Magdalen +only knew how she had felt the small malice of the female servants, by the +effect which the rough kindness of the old sailor produced on her afterward. +The dumb welcome of the dogs, when the movements in the room had roused them +from their sleep, touched her more acutely still. Brutus pushed his mighty +muzzle companionably into her hand; and Cassius laid his friendly fore-paw on +her lap. Her heart yearned over the two creatures as she patted and caressed +them. It seemed only yesterday since she and the dogs at Combe-Raven had roamed +the garden together, and had idled away the summer mornings luxuriously on the +shady lawn. +</p> + +<p> +Old Mazey found his hat at last, and they started on their exploring +expedition, with the dogs after them. +</p> + +<p> +Leaving the basement story of the house, which was entirely devoted to the +servants’ offices, they ascended to the first floor, and entered the long +corridor, with which Magdalen’s last night’s experience had already +made her acquainted. “Put your back ag’in this wall,” said +old Mazey, pointing to the long wall—pierced at irregular intervals with +windows looking out over a courtyard and fish-pond—which formed the +right-hand side of the corridor, as Magdalen now stood. “Put your back +here,” said the veteran, “and look straight afore you. What do you +see?”—“The opposite wall of the passage,” said +Magdalen.—“Ay! ay! what else?”—“The doors leading +into the rooms.”—“What else?”—“I see +nothing else.” Old Mazey chuckled, winked, and shook his knotty +forefinger at Magdalen, impressively. “You see one of the Pints of the +Compass, my dear. When you’ve got your back ag’in this wall, and +when you look straight afore you, you look Noathe. If you ever get lost +hereaway, put your back ag’in the wall, look out straight afore you, and +say to yourself: ‘I look Noathe!’ You do that like a good girl, and +you won’t lose your bearings.” +</p> + +<p> +After administering this preliminary dose of instruction, old Mazey opened the +first of the doors on the left-hand side of the passage. It led into the +dining-room, with which Magdalen was already familiar. The second room was +fitted up as a library; and the third, as a morning-room. The fourth and fifth +doors—both belonging to dismantled and uninhabited rooms, and both +locked-brought them to the end of the north wing of the house, and to the +opening of a second and shorter passage, placed at a right angle to the first. +Here old Mazey, who had divided his time pretty equally during the +investigation of the rooms, in talking of “his honor the Admiral,” +and whistling to the dogs, returned with all possible expedition to the points +of the compass, and gravely directed Magdalen to repeat the ceremony of putting +her back against the wall. She attempted to shorten the proceedings, by +declaring (quite correctly) that in her present position she knew she was +looking east. “Don’t you talk about the east, my dear,” said +old Mazey, proceeding unmoved with his own system of instruction, “till +you know the east first. Put your back ag’in this wall, and look straight +afore you. What do you see?” The remainder of the catechism proceeded as +before. When the end was reached, Magdalen’s instructor was satisfied. He +chuckled and winked at her once more. “Now you may talk about the east, +my dear,” said the veteran, “for now you know it.” +</p> + +<p> +The east passage, after leading them on for a few yards only, terminated in a +vestibule, with a high door in it which faced them as they advanced. The door +admitted them to a large and lofty drawing-room, decorated, like all the other +apartments, with valuable old-fashioned furniture. Leading the way across this +room, Magdalen’s conductor pushed back a heavy sliding-door, opposite the +door of entrance. “Put your apron over your head,” said old Mazey. +“We are coming to the Banqueting-Hall now. The floor’s mortal cold, +and the damp sticks to the place like cockroaches to a collier. His honor the +admiral calls it the Arctic Passage. I’ve got my name for it, too—I +call it, Freeze-your-Bones.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen passed through the doorway, and found herself in the ancient +Banqueting-Hall of St. Crux. +</p> + +<p> +On her left hand she saw a row of lofty windows, set deep in embrasures, and +extending over a frontage of more than a hundred feet in length. On her right +hand, ranged in one long row from end to end of the opposite wall, hung a +dismal collection of black, begrimed old pictures, rotting from their frames, +and representing battle-scenes by sea and land. Below the pictures, midway down +the length of the wall, yawned a huge cavern of a fireplace, surmounted by a +towering mantel-piece of black marble. The one object of furniture (if +furniture it might be called) visible far or near in the vast emptiness of the +place, was a gaunt ancient tripod of curiously chased metal, standing lonely in +the middle of the hall, and supporting a wide circular pan, filled deep with +ashes from an extinct charcoal fire. The high ceiling, once finely carved and +gilt, was foul with dirt and cobwebs; the naked walls at either end of the room +were stained with damp; and the cold of the marble floor struck through the +narrow strip of matting laid down, parallel with the windows, as a foot-path +for passengers across the wilderness of the room. No better name for it could +have been devised than the name which old Mazey had found. +“Freeze-your-Bones” accurately described, in three words, the +Banqueting-Hall at St. Crux. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you never light a fire in this dismal place?” asked Magdalen. +</p> + +<p> +“It all depends on which side of Freeze-your-Bones his honor the admiral +lives,” said old Mazey. “His honor likes to shift his quarters, +sometimes to one side of the house, sometimes to the other. If he lives Noathe +of Freeze-your-Bones—which is where you’ve just come from—we +don’t waste our coals here. If he lives South of +Freeze-your-Bones—which is where we are going to next—we light the +fire in the grate and the charcoal in the pan. Every night, when we do that, +the damp gets the better of us: every morning, we turn to again, and get the +better of the damp.” +</p> + +<p> +With this remarkable explanation, old Mazey led the way to the lower end of the +Hall, opened more doors, and showed Magdalen through another suite of rooms, +four in number, all of moderate size, and all furnished in much the same manner +as the rooms in the northern wing. She looked out of the windows, and saw the +neglected gardens of St. Crux, overgrown with brambles and weeds. Here and +there, at no great distance in the grounds, the smoothly curving line of one of +the tidal streams peculiar to the locality wound its way, gleaming in the +sunlight, through gaps in the brambles and trees. The more distant view ranged +over the flat eastward country beyond, speckled with its scattered little +villages; crossed and recrossed by its network of “back-waters”; +and terminated abruptly by the long straight line of sea-wall which protects +the defenseless coast of Essex from invasion by the sea. +</p> + +<p> +“Have we more rooms still to see?” asked Magdalen, turning from the +view of the garden, and looking about her for another door. +</p> + +<p> +“No more, my dear—we’ve run aground here, and we may as well +wear round and put back again,” said old Mazey. “There’s +another side of the house—due south of you as you stand now—which +is all tumbling about our ears. You must go out into the garden if you want to +see it; it’s built off from us by a brick bulkhead, t’other side of +this wall here. The monks lived due south of us, my dear, hundreds of years +afore his honor the admiral was born or thought of, and a fine time of it they +had, as I’ve heard. They sang in the church all the morning, and drank +grog in the orchard all the afternoon. They slept off their grog on the best of +feather-beds, and they fattened on the neighborhood all the year round. Lucky +beggars! lucky beggars!” +</p> + +<p> +Apostrophizing the monks in these terms, and evidently regretting that he had +not lived himself in those good old times, the veteran led the way back through +the rooms. On the return passage across “Freeze-your-Bones,” +Magdalen preceded him. “She’s as straight as a poplar,” +mumbled old Mazey to himself, hobbling along after his youthful companion, and +wagging his venerable head in cordial approval. “I never was particular +what nation they belonged to; but I always <i>did</i> like ’em straight +and fine grown, and I always <i>shall</i> like ’em straight and fine +grown, to my dying day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are there more rooms to see upstairs, on the second floor?” asked +Magdalen, when they had returned to the point from which they had started. +</p> + +<p> +The naturally clear, distinct tones of her voice had hitherto reached the old +sailor’s imperfect sense of hearing easily enough. Rather to her +surprise, he became stone deaf on a sudden, to her last question. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you sure of your Pints of the Compass?” he inquired. “If +you’re not sure, put your back ag’in the wall, and we’ll go +all over ’em again, my dear, beginning with the Noathe.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen assured him that she felt quite familiar, by this time, with all the +points, the “Noathe” included; and then repeated her question in +louder tones. The veteran obstinately matched her by becoming deafer than ever. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my dear,” he said, “you’re right; it <i>is</i> +chilly in these passages; and unless I go back to my fire, my fire’ll go +out—won’t it? If you don’t feel sure of your Pints of the +Compass, come in to me and I’ll put you right again.” He winked +benevolently, whistled to the dogs, and hobbled off. Magdalen heard him chuckle +over his own success in balking her curiosity on the subject of the second +floor. “I know how to deal with ’em!” said old Mazey to +himself, in high triumph. “Tall and short, native and foreign, +sweethearts and wives—<i>I</i> know how to deal with ’em!” +</p> + +<p> +Left by herself, Magdalen exemplified the excellence of the old sailor’s +method of treatment, in her particular case, by ascending the stairs +immediately, to make her own observations on the second floor. The stone +passage here was exactly similar, except that more doors opened out of it, to +the passage on the first floor. She opened the two nearest doors, one after +another, at a venture, and discovered that both rooms were bed-chambers. The +fear of being discovered by one of the woman-servants in a part of the house +with which she had no concern, warned her not to push her investigations on the +bedroom floor too far at starting. She hurriedly walked down the passage to see +where it ended, discovered that it came to its termination in a lumber-room, +answering to the position of the vestibule downstairs, and retraced her steps +immediately. +</p> + +<p> +On her way back she noticed an object which had previously escaped her +attention. It was a low truckle-bed, placed parallel with the wall, and close +to one of the doors on the bedroom side. In spite of its strange and +comfortless situation, the bed was apparently occupied at night by a sleeper; +the sheets were on it, and the end of a thick red fisherman’s cap peeped +out from under the pillow. She ventured on opening the door near which the bed +was placed, and found herself, as she conjectured from certain signs and +tokens, in the admiral’s sleeping chamber. A moment’s observation +of the room was all she dared risk, and, softly closing the door again, she +returned to the kitchen regions. +</p> + +<p> +The truckle-bed, and the strange position in which it was placed, dwelt on her +mind all through the afternoon. Who could possibly sleep in it? The remembrance +of the red fisherman’s cap, and the knowledge she had already gained of +Mazey’s dog-like fidelity to his master, helped her to guess that the old +sailor might be the occupant of the truckle-bed. But why, with bedrooms enough +and to spare, should he occupy that cold and comfortless situation at night? +Why should he sleep on guard outside his master’s door? Was there some +nocturnal danger in the house of which the admiral was afraid? The question +seemed absurd, and yet the position of the bed forced it irresistibly on her +mind. +</p> + +<p> +Stimulated by her own ungovernable curiosity on this subject, Magdalen ventured +to question the housekeeper. She acknowledged having walked from end to end of +the passage on the second floor, to see if it was as long as the passage on the +first; and she mentioned having noticed with astonishment the position of the +truckle-bed. Mrs. Drake answered her implied inquiry shortly and sharply. +“I don’t blame a young girl like you,” said the old lady, +“for being a little curious when she first comes into such a strange +house as this. But remember, for the future, that your business does not lie on +the bedroom story. Mr. Mazey sleeps on that bed you noticed. It is his habit at +night to sleep outside his master’s door.” With that meager +explanation Mrs. Drake’s lips closed, and opened no more. +</p> + +<p> +Later in the day Magdalen found an opportunity of applying to old Mazey +himself. She discovered the veteran in high good humor, smoking his pipe, and +warming a tin mug of ale at his own snug fire. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Mazey,” she asked, boldly, “why do you put your bed in +that cold passage?” +</p> + +<p> +“What! you have been upstairs, you young jade, have you?” said old +Mazey, looking up from his mug with a leer. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen smiled and nodded. “Come! come! tell me,” she said, +coaxingly. “Why do you sleep outside the admiral’s door?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you part your hair in the middle, my dear?” asked old +Mazey, with another leer. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose, because I am accustomed to do it,” answered Magdalen. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay! ay!” said the veteran. “That’s why, is it? Well, +my dear, the reason why you part your hair in the middle is the reason why I +sleep outside the admiral’s door. I know how to deal with +’em!” chuckled old Mazey, lapsing into soliloquy, and stirring up +his ale in high triumph. “Tall and short, native and foreign, sweethearts +and wives—<i>I</i> know how to deal with ’em!” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen’s third and last attempt at solving the mystery of the +truckle-bed was made while she was waiting on the admiral at dinner. The old +gentleman’s questions gave her an opportunity of referring to the +subject, without any appearance of presumption or disrespect; but he proved to +be quite as impenetrable, in his way, as old Mazey and Mrs. Drake had been in +theirs. “It doesn’t concern you, my dear,” said the admiral, +bluntly. “Don’t be curious. Look in your Old Testament when you go +downstairs, and see what happened in the Garden of Eden through curiosity. Be a +good girl, and don’t imitate your mother Eve.” +</p> + +<p> +Late at night, as Magdalen passed the end of the second-floor passage, +proceeding alone on her way up to her own room, she stopped and listened. A +screen was placed at the entrance of the corridor, so as to hide it from the +view of persons passing on the stairs. The snoring she heard on the other side +of the screen encouraged her to slip round it, and to advance a few steps. +Shading the light of her candle with her hand, she ventured close to the +admiral’s door, and saw, to her surprise, that the bed had been moved +since she had seen it in the day-time, so as to stand exactly across the door, +and to bar the way entirely to any one who might attempt to enter the +admiral’s room. After this discovery, old Mazey himself, snoring lustily, +with the red fisherman’s cap pulled down to his eyebrows, and the +blankets drawn up to his nose, became an object of secondary importance only, +by comparison with his bed. That the veteran did actually sleep on guard before +his master’s door, and that he and the admiral and the housekeeper were +in the secret of this unaccountable proceeding, was now beyond all doubt. +</p> + +<p> +“A strange end,” thought Magdalen, pondering over her discovery as +she stole upstairs to her own sleeping-room—“a strange end to a +strange day!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap49"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<p> +The first week passed, the second week passed, and Magdalen was, to all +appearance, no nearer to the discovery of the Secret Trust than on the day when +she first entered on her service at St. Crux. +</p> + +<p> +But the fortnight, uneventful as it was, had not been a fortnight lost. +Experience had already satisfied her on one important point—experience +had shown that she could set the rooted distrust of the other servants safely +at defiance. Time had accustomed the women to her presence in the house, +without shaking the vague conviction which possessed them all alike, that the +newcomer was not one of themselves. All that Magdalen could do in her own +defense was to keep the instinctive female suspicion of her confined within +those purely negative limits which it had occupied from the first, and this she +accomplished. +</p> + +<p> +Day after day the women watched her with the untiring vigilance of malice and +distrust, and day after day not the vestige of a discovery rewarded them for +their pains. Silently, intelligently, and industriously—with an +ever-present remembrance of herself and her place—the new parlor-maid did +her work. Her only intervals of rest and relaxation were the intervals passed +occasionally in the day with old Mazey and the dogs, and the precious interval +of the night during which she was secure from observation in the solitude of +her room. Thanks to the superfluity of bed-chambers at St. Crux, each one of +the servants had the choice, if she pleased, of sleeping in a room of her own. +Alone in the night, Magdalen might dare to be herself again—might dream +of the past, and wake from the dream, encountering no curious eyes to notice +that she was in tears—might ponder over the future, and be roused by no +whisperings in corners, which tainted her with the suspicion of “having +something on her mind.” +</p> + +<p> +Satisfied, thus far, of the perfect security of her position in the house, she +profited next by a second chance in her favor, which—before the fortnight +was at an end—relieved her mind of all doubt on the formidable subject of +Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p> +Partly from the accidental gossip of the women at the table in the +servants’ hall; partly from a marked paragraph in a Swiss newspaper, +which she had found one morning lying open on the admiral’s +easy-chair—she gained the welcome assurance that no danger was to be +dreaded, this time, from the housekeeper’s presence on the scene. Mrs. +Lecount had, as it appeared, passed a week or more at St. Crux after the date +of her master’s death, and had then left England, to live on the interest +of her legacy, in honorable and prosperous retirement, in her native place. The +paragraph in the Swiss newspaper described the fulfillment of this laudable +project. Mrs. Lecount had not only established herself at Zurich, but (wisely +mindful of the uncertainty of life) had also settled the charitable uses to +which her fortune was to be applied after her death. One half of it was to go +to the founding of a “Lecompte Scholarship” for poor students in +the University of Geneva. The other half was to be employed by the municipal +authorities of Zurich in the maintenance and education of a certain number of +orphan girls, natives of the city, who were to be trained for domestic service +in later life. The Swiss journalist adverted to these philanthropic bequests in +terms of extravagant eulogy. Zurich was congratulated on the possession of a +Paragon of public virtue; and William Tell, in the character of benefactor to +Switzerland, was compared disadvantageously with Mrs. Lecount. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The third week began, and Magdalen was now at liberty to take her first step +forward on the way to the discovery of the Secret Trust. +</p> + +<p> +She ascertained from old Mazey that it was his master’s custom, during +the winter and spring months, to occupy the rooms in the north wing; and during +the summer and autumn to cross the Arctic passage of +“Freeze-your-Bones,” and live in the eastward apartments which +looked out on the garden. While the Banqueting-Hall remained—owing to the +admiral’s inadequate pecuniary resources—in its damp and dismantled +state, and while the interior of St. Crux was thus comfortlessly divided into +two separate residences, no more convenient arrangement than this could well +have been devised. Now and then (as Magdalen understood from her informant) +there were days, both in winter and summer, when the admiral became anxious +about the condition of the rooms which he was not occupying at the time, and +when he insisted on investigating the state of the furniture, the pictures, and +the books with his own eyes. On these occasions, in summer as in winter, a +blazing fire was kindled for some days previously in the large grate, and the +charcoal was lighted in the tripod-pan, to keep the Banqueting-Hall as warm as +circumstances would admit. As soon as the old gentleman’s anxieties were +set at rest the rooms were shut up again, and “Freeze-your-Bones” +was once more abandoned for weeks and weeks together to damp, desolation, and +decay. The last of these temporary migrations had taken place only a few days +since; the admiral had satisfied himself that the rooms in the east wing were +none the worse for the absence of their master, and he might now be safely +reckoned on as settled in the north wing for weeks, and perhaps, if the season +was cold, for months to come. +</p> + +<p> +Trifling as they might be in themselves, these particulars were of serious +importance to Magdalen, for they helped her to fix the limits of the field of +search. Assuming that the admiral was likely to keep all his important +documents within easy reach of his own hand, she might now feel certain that +the Secret Trust was secured in one or other of the rooms in the north wing. +</p> + +<p> +In which room? That question was not easy to answer. +</p> + +<p> +Of the four inhabitable rooms which were all at the admiral’s disposal +during the day—that is to say, of the dining-room, the library, the +morning-room, and the drawing-room opening out of the vestibule—the +library appeared to be the apartment in which, if he had a preference, he +passed the greater part of his time. There was a table in this room, with +drawers that locked; there was a magnificent Italian cabinet, with doors that +locked; there were five cupboards under the book-cases, every one of which +locked. There were receptacles similarly secured in the other rooms; and in all +or any of these papers might be kept. +</p> + +<p> +She had answered the bell, and had seen him locking and unlocking, now in one +room, now in another, but oftenest in the library. She had noticed occasionally +that his expression was fretful and impatient when he looked round at her from +an open cabinet or cupboard and gave his orders; and she inferred that +something in connection with his papers and possessions—it might or might +not be the Secret Trust—irritated and annoyed him from time to time. She +had heard him more than once lock something up in one of the rooms, come out +and go into another room, wait there a few minutes, then return to the first +room with his keys in his hand, and sharply turn the locks and turn them again. +This fidgety anxiety about his keys and his cupboards might be the result of +the inbred restlessness of his disposition, aggravated in a naturally active +man by the aimless indolence of a life in retirement—a life drifting +backward and forward among trifles, with no regular employment to steady it at +any given hour of the day. On the other hand, it was just as probable that +these comings and goings, these lockings and unlockings, might be attributable +to the existence of some private responsibility which had unexpectedly intruded +itself into the old man’s easy existence, and which tormented him with a +sense of oppression new to the experience of his later years. Either one of +these interpretations might explain his conduct as reasonably and as probably +as the other. Which was the right interpretation of the two, it was, in +Magdalen’s position, impossible to say. +</p> + +<p> +The one certain discovery at which she arrived was made in her first +day’s observation of him. The admiral was a rigidly careful man with his +keys. +</p> + +<p> +All the smaller keys he kept on a ring in the breast-pocket of his coat. The +larger he locked up together; generally, but not always, in one of the drawers +of the library table. Sometimes he left them secured in this way at night; +sometimes he took them up to the bedroom with him in a little basket. He had no +regular times for leaving them or for taking them away with him; he had no +discoverable reason for now securing them in the library-table drawer, and now +again locking them up in some other place. The inveterate willfulness and +caprice of his proceedings in these particulars defied every effort to reduce +them to a system, and baffled all attempts at calculating on them beforehand. +</p> + +<p> +The hope of gaining positive information to act on, by laying artful snares for +him which he might fall into in his talk, proved, from the outset, to be +utterly futile. +</p> + +<p> +In Magdalen’s situation all experiments of this sort would have been in +the last degree difficult and dangerous with any man. With the admiral they +were simply impossible. His tendency to veer about from one subject to another; +his habit of keeping his tongue perpetually going, so long as there was +anybody, no matter whom, within reach of the sound of his voice; his comical +want of all dignity and reserve with his servants, promised, in appearance, +much, and performed in reality nothing. No matter how diffidently or how +respectfully Magdalen might presume on her master’s example, and on her +master’s evident liking for her, the old man instantly discovered the +advance she was making from her proper position, and instantly put her back in +it again, with a quaint good humor which inflicted no pain, but with a blunt +straightforwardness of purpose which permitted no escape. Contradictory as it +may sound, Admiral Bartram was too familiar to be approached; he kept the +distance between himself and his servant more effectually than if he had been +the proudest man in England. The systematic reserve of a superior toward an +inferior may be occasionally overcome—the systematic familiarity never. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly the time dragged on. The fourth week came; and Magdalen had made no new +discoveries. The prospect was depressing in the last degree. Even in the +apparently hopeless event of her devising a means of getting at the +admiral’s keys, she could not count on retaining possession of them +unsuspected more than a few hours—hours which might be utterly wasted +through her not knowing in what direction to begin the search. The Trust might +be locked up in any one of some twenty receptacles for papers, situated in four +different rooms; and which room was the likeliest to look in, which receptacle +was the most promising to begin with, which position among other heaps of +papers the one paper needful might be expected to occupy, was more than she +could say. Hemmed in by immeasurable uncertainties on every side; condemned, as +it were, to wander blindfold on the very brink of success, she waited for the +chance that never came, for the event that never happened, with a patience +which was sinking already into the patience of despair. +</p> + +<p> +Night after night she looked back over the vanished days, and not an event rose +on her memory to distinguish them one from the other. The only interruptions to +the weary uniformity of the life at St. Crux were caused by the characteristic +delinquencies of old Mazey and the dogs. +</p> + +<p> +At certain intervals, the original wildness broke out in the natures of Brutus +and Cassius. The modest comforts of home, the savory charms of made dishes, the +decorous joy of digestions accomplished on hearth-rugs, lost all their +attractions, and the dogs ungratefully left the house to seek dissipation and +adventure in the outer world. On these occasions the established after-dinner +formula of question and answer between old Mazey and his master varied a little +in one particular. “God bless the Queen, Mazey,” and +“How’s the wind, Mazey?” were followed by a new inquiry: +“Where are the dogs, Mazey?” “Out on the loose, your honor, +and be damned to ’em,” was the veteran’s unvarying answer. +The admiral always sighed and shook his head gravely at the news, as if Brutus +and Cassius had been sons of his own, who treated him with a want of proper +filial respect. In two or three days’ time the dogs always returned, +lean, dirty, and heartily ashamed of themselves. For the whole of the next day +they were invariably tied up in disgrace. On the day after they were scrubbed +clean, and were formally re-admitted to the dining-room. There, Civilization, +acting through the subtle medium of the Saucepan, recovered its hold on them; +and the admiral’s two prodigal sons, when they saw the covers removed, +watered at the mouth as copiously as ever. +</p> + +<p> +Old Mazey, in his way, proved to be just as disreputably inclined on certain +occasions as the dogs. At intervals, the original wildness in <i>his</i> nature +broke out; he, too, lost all relish for the comforts of home, and ungratefully +left the house. He usually disappeared in the afternoon, and returned at night +as drunk as liquor could make him. He was by many degrees too seasoned a vessel +to meet with any disasters on these occasions. His wicked old legs might take +roundabout methods of progression, but they never failed him; his wicked old +eyes might see double, but they always showed him the way home. Try as hard as +they might, the servants could never succeed in persuading him that he was +drunk; he always scorned the imputation. He even declined to admit the idea +privately into his mind, until he had first tested his condition by an +infallible criterion of his own. +</p> + +<p> +It was his habit, in these cases of Bacchanalian emergency, to stagger +obstinately into his room on the ground-floor, to take the model-ship out of +the cupboard, and to try if he could proceed with the never-to-be-completed +employment of setting up the rigging. When he had smashed the tiny spars, and +snapped asunder the delicate ropes—then, and not till then, the veteran +admitted facts as they were, on the authority of practical evidence. “Ay! +ay!” he used to say confidentially to himself, “the women are +right. Drunk again, Mazey—drunk again!” Having reached this +discovery, it was his habit to wait cunningly in the lower regions until the +admiral was safe in his room, and then to ascend in discreet list slippers to +his post. Too wary to attempt getting into the truckle-bed (which would have +been only inviting the catastrophe of a fall against his master’s door), +he always walked himself sober up and down the passage. More than once Magdalen +had peeped round the screen, and had seen the old sailor unsteadily keeping his +watch, and fancying himself once more at his duty on board ship. “This is +an uncommonly lively vessel in a sea-way,” he used to mutter under his +breath, when his legs took him down the passage in zigzag directions, or left +him for the moment studying the “Pints of the Compass” on his own +system, with his back against the wall. “A nasty night, mind you,” +he would maunder on, taking another turn. “As dark as your pocket, and +the wind heading us again from the old quarter.” On the next day old +Mazey, like the dogs, was kept downstairs in disgrace. On the day after, like +the dogs again, he was reinstated in his privileges; and another change was +introduced in the after-dinner formula. On entering the room, the old sailor +stopped short and made his excuses in this brief yet comprehensive form of +words, with his back against the door: “Please your honor, I’m +ashamed of myself.” So the apology began and ended. “This +mustn’t happen again, Mazey,” the admiral used to answer. “It +shan’t happen again, your honor.” “Very good. Come here, and +drink your glass of wine. God bless the Queen, Mazey.” The veteran tossed +off his port, and the dialogue ended as usual. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +So the days passed, with no incidents more important than these to relieve +their monotony, until the end of the fourth week was at hand. +</p> + +<p> +On the last day, an event happened; on the last day, the long deferred promise +of the future unexpectedly began to dawn. While Magdalen was spreading the +cloth in the dining-room, as usual, Mrs. Drake looked in, and instructed her on +this occasion, for the first time, to lay the table for two persons. The +admiral had received a letter from his nephew. Early that evening Mr. George +Bartram was expected to return to St. Crux. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap50"></a>CHAPTER III.</h3> + +<p> +After placing the second cover, Magdalen awaited the ringing of the +dinner-bell, with an interest and impatience which she found it no easy task to +conceal. The return of Mr. Bartram would, in all probability, produce a change +in the life of the house; and from change of any kind, no matter how trifling, +something might be hoped. The nephew might be accessible to influences which +had failed to reach the uncle. In any case, the two would talk of their affairs +over their dinner; and through that talk—proceeding day after day in her +presence—the way to discovery, now absolutely invisible, might, sooner or +later, show itself. +</p> + +<p> +At last the bell rang, the door opened, and the two gentlemen entered the room +together. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen was struck, as her sister had been struck, by George Bartram’s +resemblance to her father—judging by the portrait at Combe-Raven, which +presented the likeness of Andrew Vanstone in his younger days. The light hair +and florid complexion, the bright blue eyes and hardy upright figure, familiar +to her in the picture, were all recalled to her memory, as the nephew followed +the uncle across the room and took his place at table. She was not prepared for +this sudden revival of the lost associations of home. Her attention wandered as +she tried to conceal its effect on her; and she made a blunder in waiting at +table, for the first time since she had entered the house. +</p> + +<p> +A quaint reprimand from the admiral, half in jest, half in earnest, gave her +time to recover herself. She ventured another look at George Bartram. The +impression which he produced on her this time roused her curiosity immediately. +His face and manner plainly expressed anxiety and preoccupation of mind. He +looked oftener at his plate than at his uncle, and at Magdalen herself (except +one passing inspection of the new parlor-maid, when the admiral spoke to her) +he never looked at all. Some uncertainty was evidently troubling his thoughts; +some oppression was weighing on his natural freedom of manner. What +uncertainty? what oppression? Would any personal revelations come out, little +by little, in the course of conversation at the dinner-table? +</p> + +<p> +No. One set of dishes followed another set of dishes, and nothing in the shape +of a personal revelation took place. The conversation halted on irregularly, +between public affairs on one side and trifling private topics on the other. +Politics, home and foreign, took their turn with the small household history of +St. Crux; the leaders of the revolution which expelled Louis Philippe from the +throne of France marched side by side, in the dinner-table review, with old +Mazey and the dogs. The dessert was put on the table, the old sailor came in, +drank his loyal toast, paid his respects to “Master George,” and +went out again. Magdalen followed him, on her way back to the servants’ +offices, having heard nothing in the conversation of the slightest importance +to the furtherance of her own design, from the first word of it to the last. +She struggled hard not to lose heart and hope on the first day. They could +hardly talk again to-morrow, they could hardly talk again the next day, of the +French Revolution and the dogs. Time might do wonders yet; and time was all her +own. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Left together over their wine, the uncle and nephew drew their easy-chairs on +either side of the fire; and, in Magdalen’s absence, began the very +conversation which it was Magdalen’s interest to hear. +</p> + +<p> +“Claret, George?” said the admiral, pushing the bottle across the +table. “You look out of spirits.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a little anxious, sir,” replied George, leaving his glass +empty, and looking straight into the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad to hear it,” rejoined the admiral. “I am more than +a little anxious myself, I can tell you. Here we are at the last days of +March—and nothing done! Your time comes to an end on the third of May; +and there you sit, as if you had years still before you, to turn round +in.” +</p> + +<p> +George smiled, and resignedly helped himself to some wine. +</p> + +<p> +“Am I really to understand, sir,” he asked, “that you are +serious in what you said to me last November? Are you actually resolved to bind +me to that incomprehensible condition?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t call it incomprehensible,” said the admiral, +irritably. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you, sir? I am to inherit your estate, +unconditionally—as you have generously settled it from the first. But I +am not to touch a farthing of the fortune poor Noel left you unless I am +married within a certain time. The house and lands are to be mine (thanks to +your kindness) under any circumstances. But the money with which I might +improve them both is to be arbitrarily taken away from me, if I am not a +married man on the third of May. I am sadly wanting in intelligence, I dare +say, but a more incomprehensible proceeding I never heard of!” +</p> + +<p> +“No snapping and snarling, George! Say your say out. We don’t +understand sneering in Her Majesty’s Navy!” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean no offense, sir. But I think it’s a little hard to astonish +me by a change of proceeding on your part, entirely foreign to my experience of +your character—and then, when I naturally ask for an explanation, to turn +round coolly and leave me in the dark. If you and Noel came to some private +arrangement together before he made his will, why not tell me? Why set up a +mystery between us, where no mystery need be?” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t have it, George!” cried the admiral, angrily +drumming on the table with the nutcrackers. “You are trying to draw me +like a badger, but I won’t be drawn! I’ll make any conditions I +please; and I’ll be accountable to nobody for them unless I like. +It’s quite bad enough to have worries and responsibilities laid on my +unlucky shoulders that I never bargained for—never mind what worries: +they’re not yours, they’re mine—without being questioned and +cross-questioned as if I was a witness in a box. Here’s a pretty +fellow!” continued the admiral, apostrophizing his nephew in red-hot +irritation, and addressing himself to the dogs on the hearth-rug for want of a +better audience. “Here’s a pretty fellow? He is asked to help +himself to two uncommonly comfortable things in their way—a fortune and a +wife; he is allowed six months to get the wife in (we should have got her, in +the Navy, bag and baggage, in six days); he has a round dozen of nice girls, to +my certain knowledge, in one part of the country and another, all at his +disposal to choose from, and what does he do? He sits month after month, with +his lazy legs crossed before him; he leaves the girls to pine on the stem, and +he bothers his uncle to know the reason why! I pity the poor unfortunate women. +Men were made of flesh and blood, and plenty of it, too, in my time. +They’re made of machinery now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can only repeat, sir, I am sorry to have offended you,” said +George. +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh! pooh! you needn’t look at me in that languishing way if you +are,” retorted the admiral. “Stick to your wine, and I’ll +forgive you. Your good health, George. I’m glad to see you again at St. +Crux. Look at that plateful of sponge-cakes! The cook has sent them up in honor +of your return. We can’t hurt her feelings, and we can’t spoil our +wine. Here!”—The admiral tossed four sponge-cakes in quick +succession down the accommodating throats of the dogs. “I am sorry, +George,” the old gentleman gravely proceeded; “I am really sorry +you haven’t got your eye on one of those nice girls. You don’t know +what a loss you’re inflicting on yourself; you don’t know what +trouble and mortification you’re causing me by this shilly-shally conduct +of yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you would only allow me to explain myself, sir, you would view my +conduct in a totally different light. I am ready to marry to-morrow, if the +lady will have me.” +</p> + +<p> +“The devil you are! So you have got a lady in your eye, after all? Why in +Heaven’s name couldn’t you tell me so before? Never mind, +I’ll forgive you everything, now I know you have laid your hand on a +wife. Fill your glass again. Here’s her health in a bumper. By-the-by, +who is she?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you directly, admiral. When we began this conversation, +I mentioned that I was a little anxious—” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s not one of my round dozen of nice girls—aha, Master +George, I see that in your face already! Why are you anxious?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid you will disapprove of my choice, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t beat about the bush! How the deuce can I say whether I +disapprove or not, if you won’t tell me who she is?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is the eldest daughter of Andrew Vanstone, of Combe-Raven.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who!!!” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Vanstone, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The admiral put down his glass of wine untasted. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re right, George,” he said. “I do disapprove of +your choice —strongly disapprove of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it the misfortune of her birth, sir, that you object to?” +</p> + +<p> +“God forbid! the misfortune of her birth is not her fault, poor thing. +You know as well as I do, George, what I object to.” +</p> + +<p> +“You object to her sister?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly! The most liberal man alive might object to her sister, I +think.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s hard, sir, to make Miss Vanstone suffer for her +sister’s faults.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Faults</i>, do you call them? You have a mighty convenient memory, +George, when your own interests are concerned.” +</p> + +<p> +“Call them crimes if you like, sir—I say again, it’s hard on +Miss Vanstone. Miss Vanstone’s life is pure of all reproach. From first +to last she has borne her hard lot with such patience, and sweetness, and +courage as not one woman in a thousand would have shown in her place. Ask Miss +Garth, who has known her from childhood. Ask Mrs. Tyrrel, who blesses the day +when she came into the house—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ask a fiddlestick’s end! I beg your pardon, George, but you are +enough to try the patience of a saint. My good fellow, I don’t deny Miss +Vanstone’s virtues. I’ll admit, if you like, she’s the best +woman that ever put on a petticoat. That is not the question—” +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me, admiral—it <i>is</i> the question, if she is to be my +wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hear me out, George; look at it from my point of view, as well as your +own. What did your cousin Noel do? Your cousin Noel fell a victim, poor fellow, +to one of the vilest conspiracies I ever heard of, and the prime mover of that +conspiracy was Miss Vanstone’s damnable sister. She deceived him in the +most infamous manner; and as soon as she was down for a handsome legacy in his +will, she had the poison ready to take his life. This is the truth; we know it +from Mrs. Lecount, who found the bottle locked up in her own room. If you marry +Miss Vanstone, you make this wretch your sister-in-law. She becomes a member of +our family. All the disgrace of what she has done; all the disgrace of what she +<i>may</i> do—and the Devil, who possesses her, only knows what lengths +she may go to next—becomes <i>our</i> disgrace. Good heavens, George, +consider what a position that is! Consider what pitch you touch, if you make +this woman your sister-in-law.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have put your side of the question, admiral,” said George +resolutely; “now let me put mine. A certain impression is produced on me +by a young lady whom I meet with under very interesting circumstances. I +don’t act headlong on that impression, as I might have done if I had been +some years younger; I wait, and put it to the trial. Every time I see this +young lady the impression strengthens; her beauty grows on me, her character +grows on me; when I am away from her, I am restless and dissatisfied; when I am +with her, I am the happiest man alive. All I hear of her conduct from those who +know her best more than confirms the high opinion I have formed of her. The one +drawback I can discover is caused by a misfortune for which she is not +responsible—the misfortune of having a sister who is utterly unworthy of +her. Does this discovery—an unpleasant discovery, I grant +you—destroy all those good qualities in Miss Vanstone for which I love +and admire her? Nothing of the sort—it only makes her good qualities all +the more precious to me by contrast. If I am to have a drawback to contend +with—and who expects anything else in this world?—I would +infinitely rather have the drawback attached to my wife’s sister than to +my wife. My wife’s sister is not essential to my happiness, but my wife +is. In my opinion, sir, Mrs. Noel Vanstone has done mischief enough already. I +don’t see the necessity of letting her do more mischief, by depriving me +of a good wife. Right or wrong, that is my point of view. I don’t wish to +trouble you with any questions of sentiment. All I wish to say is that I am old +enough by this time to know my own mind, and that my mind is made up. If my +marriage is essential to the execution of your intentions on my behalf, there +is only one woman in the world whom I <i>can</i> marry, and that woman is Miss +Vanstone.” +</p> + +<p> +There was no resisting this plain declaration. Admiral Bartram rose from his +chair without making any reply, and walked perturbedly up and down the room. +</p> + +<p> +The situation was emphatically a serious one. Mrs. Girdlestone’s death +had already produced the failure of one of the two objects contemplated by the +Secret Trust. If the third of May arrived and found George a single man, the +second (and last) of the objects would then have failed in its turn. In little +more than a fortnight, at the very latest, the Banns must be published in +Ossory church, or the time would fail for compliance with one of the +stipulations insisted on in the Trust. Obstinate as the admiral was by nature, +strongly as he felt the objections which attached to his nephew’s +contemplated alliance, he recoiled in spite of himself, as he paced the room +and saw the facts on either side immovably staring him in the face. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you engaged to Miss Vanstone?” he asked, suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir,” replied George. “I thought it due to your uniform +kindness to me to speak to you on the subject first.” +</p> + +<p> +“Much obliged, I’m sure. And you have put off speaking to me to the +last moment, just as you put off everything else. Do you think Miss Vanstone +will say yes when you ask her?” +</p> + +<p> +George hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“The devil take your modesty!” shouted the admiral. “This is +not a time for modesty; this is a time for speaking out. Will she or +won’t she?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think she will, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The admiral laughed sardonically, and took another turn in the room. He +suddenly stopped, put his hands in his pockets, and stood still in a corner, +deep in thought. After an interval of a few minutes, his face cleared a little; +it brightened with the dawning of a new idea. He walked round briskly to +George’s side of the fire, and laid his hand kindly on his nephew’s +shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re wrong, George,” he said; “but it is too late +now to set you right. On the sixteenth of next month the Banns must be put up +in Ossory church, or you will lose the money. Have you told Miss Vanstone the +position you stand in? Or have you put that off to the eleventh hour, like +everything else?” +</p> + +<p> +“The position is so extraordinary, sir, and it might lead to so much +misapprehension of my motives, that I have felt unwilling to allude to it. I +hardly know how I can tell her of it at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Try the experiment of telling her friends. Let them know it’s a +question of money, and they will overcome her scruples, if you can’t. But +that is not what I had to say to you. How long do you propose stopping here +this time?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought of staying a few days, and then—” +</p> + +<p> +“And then of going back to London and making your offer, I suppose? Will +a week give you time enough to pick your opportunity with Miss Vanstone—a +week out of the fortnight or so that you have to spare?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will stay here a week, admiral, with pleasure, if you wish it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t wish it. I want you to pack up your traps and be off +to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +George looked at his uncle in silent astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“You found some letters waiting for you when you got here,” +proceeded the admiral. “Was one of those letters from my old friend, Sir +Franklin Brock?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was it an invitation to you to go and stay at the Grange?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“To go at once?” +</p> + +<p> +“At once, if I could manage it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good. I want you to manage it; I want you to start for the Grange +to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +George looked back at the fire, and sighed impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“I understand you now, admiral,” he said. “You are entirely +mistaken in me. My attachment to Miss Vanstone is not to be shaken in +<i>that</i> manner.” +</p> + +<p> +Admiral Bartram took his quarter-deck walk again, up and down the room. +</p> + +<p> +“One good turn deserves another, George,” said the old gentleman. +“If I am willing to make concessions on my side, the least you can do is +to meet me half-way, and make concessions on yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t deny it, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well. Now listen to my proposal. Give me a fair hearing, +George—a fair hearing is every man’s privilege. I will be perfectly +just to begin with. I won’t attempt to deny that you honestly believe +Miss Vanstone is the only woman in the world who can make you happy. I +don’t question that. What I do question is, whether you really know your +own mind in this matter quite so well as you think you know it yourself. You +can’t deny, George, that you have been in love with a good many women in +your time? Among the rest of them, you have been in love with Miss Brock. No +longer ago than this time last year there was a sneaking kindness between you +and that young lady, to say the least of it. And quite right, too! Miss Brock +is one of that round dozen of darlings I mentioned over our first glass of +wine.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are confusing an idle flirtation, sir, with a serious +attachment,” said George. “You are altogether mistaken—you +are, indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Likely enough; I don’t pretend to be infallible—I leave that +to my juniors. But I happen to have known you, George, since you were the +height of my old telescope; and I want to have this serious attachment of yours +put to the test. If you can satisfy me that your whole heart and soul are as +strongly set on Miss Vanstone as you suppose them to be, I must knock under to +necessity, and keep my objections to myself. But I <i>must</i> be satisfied +first. Go to the Grange to-morrow, and stay there a week in Miss Brock’s +society. Give that charming girl a fair chance of lighting up the old flame +again if she can, and then come back to St. Crux, and let me hear the result. +If you tell me, as an honest man, that your attachment to Miss Vanstone still +remains unshaken, you will have heard the last of my objections from that +moment. Whatever misgivings I may feel in my own mind, I will say nothing, and +do nothing, adverse to your wishes. There is my proposal. I dare say it looks +like an old man’s folly, in your eyes. But the old man won’t +trouble you much longer, George; and it may be a pleasant reflection, when you +have got sons of your own, to remember that you humored him in his last +days.” +</p> + +<p> +He came back to the fire-place as he said those words, and laid his hand once +more on his nephew’s shoulder. George took the hand and pressed it +affectionately. In the tenderest and best sense of the word, his uncle had been +a father to him. +</p> + +<p> +“I will do what you ask me, sir,” he replied, “if you +seriously wish it. But it is only right to tell you that the experiment will be +perfectly useless. However, if you prefer my passing a week at the Grange to my +passing it here, to the Grange I will go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, George,” said the admiral, bluntly. “I expected +as much from you, and you have not disappointed me.—If Miss Brock +doesn’t get us out of this mess,” thought the wily old gentleman, +as he resumed his place at the table, “my nephew’s weather-cock of +a head has turned steady with a vengeance!—We’ll consider the +question settled for to-night, George,” he continued, aloud, “and +call another subject. These family anxieties don’t improve the flavor of +my old claret. The bottle stands with you. What are they doing at the theaters +in London? We always patronized the theaters, in my time, in the Navy. We used +to like a good tragedy to begin with, and a hornpipe to cheer us up at the end +of the entertainment.” +</p> + +<p> +For the rest of the evening, the talk flowed in the ordinary channels. Admiral +Bartram only returned to the forbidden subject when he and his nephew parted +for the night. +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t forget to-morrow, George?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not, sir. I’ll take the dog-cart, and drive myself over +after breakfast.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Before noon the next day Mr. George Bartram had left the house, and the last +chance in Magdalen’s favor had left it with him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap51"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + +<p> +When the servants’ dinner-bell at St. Crux rang as usual on the day of +George Bartram’s departure, it was remarked that the new +parlor-maid’s place at table remained empty. One of the inferior servants +was sent to her room to make inquiries, and returned with the information that +“Louisa” felt a little faint, and begged that her attendance at +table might be excused for that day. Upon this, the superior authority of the +housekeeper was invoked, and Mrs. Drake went upstairs immediately to ascertain +the truth for herself. Her first look of inquiry satisfied her that the +parlor-maid’s indisposition, whatever the cause of it might be, was +certainly not assumed to serve any idle or sullen purpose of her own. She +respectfully declined taking any of the remedies which the housekeeper offered, +and merely requested permission to try the efficacy of a walk in the fresh air. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been accustomed to more exercise, ma’am, than I take +here,” she said. “Might I go into the garden, and try what the air +will do for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly. Can you walk by yourself, or shall I send some one with +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will go by myself, if you please, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well. Put on your bonnet and shawl, and, when you get out, keep in +the east garden. The admiral sometimes walks in the north garden, and he might +feel surprised at seeing you there. Come to my room, when you have had air and +exercise enough, and let me see how you are.” +</p> + +<p> +In a few minutes more Magdalen was out in the east garden. The sky was clear +and sunny; but the cold shadow of the house rested on the garden walk and +chilled the midday air. She walked toward the ruins of the old monastery, +situated on the south side of the more modern range of buildings. Here there +were lonely open spaces to breathe in freely; here the pale March sunshine +stole through the gaps of desolation and decay, and met her invitingly with the +genial promise of spring. +</p> + +<p> +She ascended three or four riven stone steps, and seated herself on some ruined +fragments beyond them, full in the sunshine. The place she had chosen had once +been the entrance to the church. In centuries long gone by, the stream of human +sin and human suffering had flowed, day after day, to the confessional, over +the place where she now sat. Of all the miserable women who had trodden those +old stones in the bygone time, no more miserable creature had touched them than +the woman whose feet rested on them now. +</p> + +<p> +Her hands trembled as she placed them on either side of her, to support herself +on the stone seat. She laid them on her lap; they trembled there. She held them +out, and looked at them wonderingly; they trembled as she looked. “Like +an old woman!” she said, faintly, and let them drop again at her side. +</p> + +<p> +For the first time, that morning, the cruel discovery had forced itself on her +mind—the discovery that her strength was failing her, at the time when +she had most confidently trusted to it, at the time when she wanted it most. +She had felt the surprise of Mr. Bartram’s unexpected departure, as if it +had been the shock of the severest calamity that could have befallen her. That +one check to her hopes—a check which at other times would only have +roused the resisting power in her to new efforts—had struck her with as +suffocating a terror, had prostrated her with as all-mastering a despair, as if +she had been overwhelmed by the crowning disaster of expulsion from St. Crux. +But one warning could be read in such a change as this. Into the space of +little more than a year she had crowded the wearing and wasting emotions of a +life. The bountiful gifts of health and strength, so prodigally heaped on her +by Nature, so long abused with impunity, were failing her at last. +</p> + +<p> +She looked up at the far faint blue of the sky. She heard the joyous singing of +birds among the ivy that clothed the ruins. Oh the cold distance of the +heavens! Oh the pitiless happiness of the birds! Oh the lonely horror of +sitting there, and feeling old and weak and worn, in the heyday of her youth! +She rose with a last effort of resolution, and tried to keep back the +hysterical passion swelling at her heart by moving and looking about her. +Rapidly and more rapidly she walked to and fro in the sunshine. The exercise +helped her, through the very fatigue that she felt from it. She forced the +rising tears desperately back to their sources; she fought with the clinging +pain, and wrenched it from its hold. Little by little her mind began to clear +again: the despairing fear of herself grew less vividly present to her +thoughts. There were reserves of youth and strength in her still to be wasted; +there was a spirit sorely wounded, but not yet subdued. +</p> + +<p> +She gradually extended the limits of her walk; she gradually recovered the +exercise of her observation. +</p> + +<p> +At the western extremity the remains of the monastery were in a less ruinous +condition than at the eastern. In certain places, where the stout old walls +still stood, repairs had been made at some former time. Roofs of red tile had +been laid roughly over four of the ancient cells; wooden doors had been added; +and the old monastic chambers had been used as sheds to hold the multifarious +lumber of St. Crux. No padlocks guarded any of the doors. Magdalen had only to +push them to let the daylight in on the litter inside. She resolved to +investigate the sheds one after the other—not from curiosity, not with +the idea of making discoveries of any sort. Her only object was to fill up the +vacant time, and to keep the thoughts that unnerved her from returning to her +mind. +</p> + +<p> +The first shed she opened contained the gardener’s utensils, large and +small. The second was littered with fragments of broken furniture, empty +picture-frames of worm-eaten wood, shattered vases, boxes without covers, and +books torn from their bindings. As Magdalen turned to leave the shed, after one +careless glance round her at the lumber that it contained, her foot struck +something on the ground which tinkled against a fragment of china lying near +it. She stooped, and discovered that the tinkling substance was a rusty key. +</p> + +<p> +She picked up the key and looked at it. She walked out into the air, and +considered a little. More old forgotten keys were probably lying about among +the lumber in the sheds. What if she collected all she could find, and tried +them, one after another, in the locks of the cabinets and cupboards now closed +against her? Was there chance enough that any one of them might fit to justify +her in venturing on the experiment? If the locks at St. Crux were as +old-fashioned as the furniture—if there were no protective niceties of +modern invention to contend against—there was chance enough beyond all +question. Who could say whether the very key in her hand might not be the lost +duplicate of one of the keys on the admiral’s bunch? In the dearth of all +other means of finding the way to her end, the risk was worth running. A flash +of the old spirit sparkled in her weary eyes as she turned and re-entered the +shed. +</p> + +<p> +Half an hour more brought her to the limits of the time which she could venture +to allow herself in the open air. In that interval she had searched the sheds +from first to last, and had found five more keys. “Five more +chances!” she thought to herself, as she hid the keys, and hastily +returned to the house. +</p> + +<p> +After first reporting herself in the housekeeper’s room, she went +upstairs to remove her bonnet and shawl; taking that opportunity to hide the +keys in her bed-chamber until night came. They were crusted thick with rust and +dirt; but she dared not attempt to clean them until bed-time secluded her from +the prying eyes of the servants in the solitude of her room. +</p> + +<p> +When the dinner hour brought her, as usual, into personal contact with the +admiral, she was at once struck by a change in him. For the first time in her +experience the old gentleman was silent and depressed. He ate less than usual, +and he hardly said five words to her from the beginning of the meal to the end. +Some unwelcome subject of reflection had evidently fixed itself on his mind, +and remained there persistently, in spite of his efforts to shake it off. At +intervals through the evening, she wondered with an ever-growing perplexity +what the subject could be. +</p> + +<p> +At last the lagging hours reached their end, and bed-time came. Before she +slept that night Magdalen had cleaned the keys from all impurities, and had +oiled the wards, to help them smoothly into the locks. The last difficulty that +remained was the difficulty of choosing the time when the experiment might be +tried with the least risk of interruption and discovery. After carefully +considering the question overnight, Magdalen could only resolve to wait and be +guided by the events of the next day. +</p> + +<p> +The morning came, and for the first time at St. Crux events justified the trust +she had placed in them. The morning came, and the one remaining difficulty that +perplexed her was unexpectedly smoothed away by no less a person than the +admiral himself! To the surprise of every one in the house, he announced at +breakfast that he had arranged to start for London in an hour; that he should +pass the night in town; and that he might be expected to return to St. Crux in +time for dinner on the next day. He volunteered no further explanations to the +housekeeper or to any one else, but it was easy to see that his errand to +London was of no ordinary importance in his own estimation. He swallowed his +breakfast in a violent hurry, and he was impatiently ready for the carriage +before it came to the door. +</p> + +<p> +Experience had taught Magdalen to be cautious. She waited a little, after +Admiral Bartram’s departure, before she ventured on trying her experiment +with the keys. It was well she did so. Mrs. Drake took advantage of the +admiral’s absence to review the condition of the apartments on the first +floor. The results of the investigation by no means satisfied her; brooms and +dusters were set to work; and the house-maids were in and out of the rooms +perpetually, as long as the daylight lasted. +</p> + +<p> +The evening passed, and still the safe opportunity for which Magdalen was on +the watch never presented itself. Bed-time came again, and found her placed +between the two alternatives of trusting to the doubtful chances of the next +morning, or of trying the keys boldly in the dead of night. In former times she +would have made her choice without hesitation. She hesitated now; but the wreck +of her old courage still sustained her, and she determined to make the venture +at night. +</p> + +<p> +They kept early hours at St. Crux. If she waited in her room until half-past +eleven, she would wait long enough. At that time she stole out on to the +staircase, with the keys in her pocket, and the candle in her hand. +</p> + +<p> +On passing the entrance to the corridor on the bedroom floor, she stopped and +listened. No sound of snoring, no shuffling of infirm footsteps was to be heard +on the other side of the screen. She looked round it distrustfully. The stone +passage was a solitude, and the truckle-bed was empty. Her own eyes had shown +her old Mazey on his way to the upper regions, more than an hour since, with a +candle in his hand. Had he taken advantage of his master’s absence to +enjoy the unaccustomed luxury of sleeping in a room? As the thought occurred to +her, a sound from the further end of the corridor just caught her ear. She +softly advanced toward it, and heard through the door of the last and remotest +of the spare bed-chambers the veteran’s lusty snoring in the room inside. +The discovery was startling, in more senses than one. It deepened the +impenetrable mystery of the truckle-bed; for it showed plainly that old Mazey +had no barbarous preference of his own for passing his nights in the corridor; +he occupied that strange and comfortless sleeping-place purely and entirely on +his master’s account. +</p> + +<p> +It was no time for dwelling on the reflections which this conclusion might +suggest. Magdalen retraced her steps along the passage, and descended to the +first floor. Passing the doors nearest to her, she tried the library first. On +the staircase and in the corridors she had felt her heart throbbing fast with +an unutterable fear; but a sense of security returned to her when she found +herself within the four walls of the room, and when she had closed the door on +the ghostly quiet outside. +</p> + +<p> +The first lock she tried was the lock of the table-drawer. None of the keys +fitted it. Her next experiment was made on the cabinet. Would the second +attempt fail, like the first? +</p> + +<p> +No! One of the keys fitted; one of the keys, with a little patient management, +turned the lock. She looked in eagerly. There were open shelves above, and one +long drawer under them. The shelves were devoted to specimens of curious +minerals, neatly labeled and arranged. The drawer was divided into +compartments. Two of the compartments contained papers. In the first, she +discovered nothing but a collection of receipted bills. In the second, she +found a heap of business documents; but the writing, yellow with age, was +enough of itself to warn her that the Trust was not there. She shut the doors +of the cabinet, and, after locking them again with some little difficulty, +proceeded to try the keys in the bookcase cupboards next, before she continued +her investigations in the other rooms. +</p> + +<p> +The bookcase cupboards were unassailable, the drawers and cupboards in all the +other rooms were unassailable. One after another she tried them patiently in +regular succession. It was useless. The chance which the cabinet in the library +had offered in her favor was the first chance and the last. +</p> + +<p> +She went back to her room, seeing nothing but her own gliding shadow, hearing +nothing but her own stealthy footfall in the midnight stillness of the house. +After mechanically putting the keys away in their former hiding-place, she +looked toward her bed, and turned away from it, shuddering. The warning +remembrance of what she had suffered that morning in the garden was vividly +present to her mind. “Another chance tried,” she thought to +herself, “and another chance lost! I shall break down again if I think of +it; and I shall think of it if I lie awake in the dark.” She had brought +a work-box with her to St. Crux, as one of the many little things which in her +character of a servant it was desirable to possess; and she now opened the box +and applied herself resolutely to work. Her want of dexterity with her needle +assisted the object she had in view; it obliged her to pay the closest +attention to her employment; it forced her thoughts away from the two subjects +of all others which she now dreaded most—herself and the future. +</p> + +<p> +The next day, as he had arranged, the admiral returned. His visit to London had +not improved his spirits. The shadow of some unconquerable doubt still clouded +his face; his restless tongue was strangely quiet, while Magdalen waited on him +at his solitary meal. That night the snoring resounded once more on the inner +side of the screen, and old Mazey was back again in the comfortless +truckle-bed. +</p> + +<p> +Three more days passed—April came. On the second of the month +—returning as unexpectedly as he had departed a week before—Mr. +George Bartram re-appeared at St. Crux. +</p> + +<p> +He came back early in the afternoon, and had an interview with his uncle in the +library. The interview over, he left the house again, and was driven to the +railway by the groom in time to catch the last train to London that night. The +groom noticed, on the road, that “Mr. George seemed to be rather pleased +than otherwise at leaving St. Crux.” He also remarked, on his return, +that the admiral swore at him for overdriving the horses—an indication of +ill-temper, on the part of his master, which he described as being entirely +without precedent in all his former experience. Magdalen, in her department of +service, had suffered in like manner under the old man’s irritable humor: +he had been dissatisfied with everything she did in the dining-room; and he had +found fault with all the dishes, one after another, from the mutton-broth to +the toasted cheese. +</p> + +<p> +The next two days passed as usual. On the third day an event happened. In +appearance, it was nothing more important than a ring at the drawing-room bell. +In reality, it was the forerunner of approaching catastrophe—the +formidable herald of the end. +</p> + +<p> +It was Magdalen’s business to answer the bell. On reaching the +drawing-room door, she knocked as usual. There was no reply. After again +knocking, and again receiving no answer, she ventured into the room, and was +instantly met by a current of cold air flowing full on her face. The heavy +sliding door in the opposite wall was pushed back, and the Arctic atmosphere of +Freeze-your-Bones was pouring unhindered into the empty room. +</p> + +<p> +She waited near the door, doubtful what to do next; it was certainly the +drawing-room bell that had rung, and no other. She waited, looking through the +open doorway opposite, down the wilderness of the dismantled Hall. +</p> + +<p> +A little consideration satisfied her that it would be best to go downstairs +again, and wait there for a second summons from the bell. On turning to leave +the room, she happened to look back once more, and exactly at that moment she +saw the door open at the opposite extremity of the Banqueting-Hall—the +door leading into the first of the apartments in the east wing. A tall man came +out, wearing his great coat and his hat, and rapidly approached the +drawing-room. His gait betrayed him, while he was still too far off for his +features to be seen. Before he was quite half-way across the Hall, Magdalen had +recognized—the admiral. +</p> + +<p> +He looked, not irritated only, but surprised as well, at finding his +parlor-maid waiting for him in the drawing-room, and inquired, sharply and +suspiciously, what she wanted there? Magdalen replied that she had come there +to answer the bell. His face cleared a little when he heard the explanation. +“Yes, yes; to be sure,” he said. “I did ring, and then I +forgot it.” He pulled the sliding door back into its place as he spoke. +“Coals,” he resumed, impatiently, pointing to the empty scuttle. +“I rang for coals.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen went back to the kitchen regions. After communicating the +admiral’s order to the servant whose special duty it was to attend to the +fires, she returned to the pantry, and, gently closing the door, sat down alone +to think. +</p> + +<p> +It had been her impression in the drawing-room—and it was her impression +still—that she had accidentally surprised Admiral Bartram on a visit to +the east rooms, which, for some urgent reason of his own, he wished to keep a +secret. Haunted day and night by the one dominant idea that now possessed her, +she leaped all logical difficulties at a bound, and at once associated the +suspicion of a secret proceeding on the admiral’s part with the kindred +suspicion which pointed to him as the depositary of the Secret Trust. Up to +this time it had been her settled belief that he kept all his important +documents in one or other of the suite of rooms which he happened to be +occupying for the time being. Why—she now asked herself, with a sudden +distrust of the conclusion which had hitherto satisfied her mind—why +might he not lock some of them up in the other rooms as well? The remembrance +of the keys still concealed in their hiding-place in her room sharpened her +sense of the reasonableness of this new view. With one unimportant exception, +those keys had all failed when she tried them in the rooms on the north side of +the house. Might they not succeed with the cabinets and cupboards in the east +rooms, on which she had never tried them, or thought of trying them, yet? If +there was a chance, however small, of turning them to better account than she +had turned them thus far, it was a chance to be tried. If there was a +possibility, however remote, that the Trust might be hidden in any one of the +locked repositories in the east wing, it was a possibility to be put to the +test. When? Her own experience answered the question. At the time when no +prying eyes were open, and no accidents were to be feared—when the house +was quiet—in the dead of night. +</p> + +<p> +She knew enough of her changed self to dread the enervating influence of delay. +She determined to run the risk headlong that night. +</p> + +<p> +More blunders escaped her when dinner-time came; the admiral’s criticisms +on her waiting at table were sharper than ever. His hardest words inflicted no +pain on her; she scarcely heard him—her mind was dull to every sense but +the sense of the coming trial. The evening which had passed slowly to her on +the night of her first experiment with the keys passed quickly now. When +bed-time came, bed-time took her by surprise. +</p> + +<p> +She waited longer on this occasion than she had waited before. The admiral was +at home; he might alter his mind and go downstairs again, after he had gone up +to his room; he might have forgotten something in the library and might return +to fetch it. Midnight struck from the clock in the servants’ hall before +she ventured out of her room, with the keys again in her pocket, with the +candle again in her hand. +</p> + +<p> +At the first of the stairs on which she set her foot to descend, an +all-mastering hesitation, an unintelligible shrinking from some peril unknown, +seized her on a sudden. She waited, and reasoned with herself. She had recoiled +from no sacrifices, she had yielded to no fears, in carrying out the stratagem +by which she had gained admission to St. Crux; and now, when the long array of +difficulties at the outset had been patiently conquered, now, when by sheer +force of resolution the starting-point was gained, she hesitated to advance. +“I shrank from nothing to get here,” she said to herself. +“What madness possesses me that I shrink now?” +</p> + +<p> +Every pulse in her quickened at the thought, with an animating shame that +nerved her to go on. She descended the stairs, from the third floor to the +second, from the second to the first, without trusting herself to pause again +within easy reach of her own room. In another minute, she had reached the end +of the corridor, had crossed the vestibule, and had entered the drawing-room. +It was only when her grasp was on the heavy brass handle of the sliding +door—it was only at the moment before she pushed the door back—that +she waited to take breath. The Banqueting-Hall was close on the other side of +the wooden partition against which she stood; her excited imagination felt the +death-like chill of it flowing over her already. +</p> + +<p> +She pushed back the sliding door a few inches—and stopped in momentary +alarm. When the admiral had closed it in her presence that day, she had heard +no noise. When old Mazey had opened it to show her the rooms in the east wing, +she had heard no noise. Now, in the night silence, she noticed for the first +time that the door made a sound—a dull, rushing sound, like the wind. +</p> + +<p> +She roused herself, and pushed it further back—pushed it halfway into the +hollow chamber in the wall constructed to receive it. She advanced boldly into +the gap, and met the night view of the Banqueting-Hall face to face. +</p> + +<p> +The moon was rounding the southern side of the house. Her paling beams streamed +through the nearer windows, and lay in long strips of slanting light on the +marble pavement of the Hall. The black shadows of the pediments between each +window, alternating with the strips of light, heightened the wan glare of the +moonshine on the floor. Toward its lower end, the Hall melted mysteriously into +darkness. The ceiling was lost to view; the yawning fire-place, the overhanging +mantel-piece, the long row of battle pictures above, were all swallowed up in +night. But one visible object was discernible, besides the gleaming windows and +the moon-striped floor. Midway in the last and furthest of the strips of light, +the tripod rose erect on its gaunt black legs, like a monster called to life by +the moon—a monster rising through the light, and melting invisibly into +the upper shadows of the Hall. Far and near, all sound lay dead, drowned in the +stagnant cold. The soothing hush of night was awful here. The deep abysses of +darkness hid abysses of silence more immeasurable still. +</p> + +<p> +She stood motionless in the door-way, with straining eyes, with straining ears. +She looked for some moving thing, she listened for some rising sound, and +looked and listened in vain. A quick ceaseless shivering ran through her from +head to foot. The shivering of fear, or the shivering of cold? The bare doubt +roused her resolute will. “Now,” she thought, advancing a step +through the door-way, “or never! I’ll count the strips of moonlight +three times over, and cross the Hall.” +</p> + +<p> +“One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, +three, four, five.” +</p> + +<p> +As the final number passed her lips at the third time of counting, she crossed +the Hall. Looking for nothing, listening for nothing, one hand holding the +candle, the other mechanically grasping the folds of her dress, she sped, +ghost-like, down the length of the ghostly place. She reached the door of the +first of the eastern rooms, opened it, and ran in. The sudden relief of +attaining a refuge, the sudden entrance into a new atmosphere, overpowered her +for the moment. She had just time to put the candle safely on a table before +she dropped giddy and breathless into the nearest chair. +</p> + +<p> +Little by little she felt the rest quieting her. In a few minutes she became +conscious of the triumph of having won her way to the east rooms. In a few +minutes she was strong enough to rise from the chair, to take the keys from her +pocket, and to look round her. +</p> + +<p> +The first objects of furniture in the room which attracted her attention were +an old bureau of carved oak, and a heavy buhl table with a cabinet attached. +She tried the bureau first; it looked the likeliest receptacle for papers of +the two. Three of the keys proved to be of a size to enter the lock, but none +of them would turn it. The bureau was unassailable. She left it, and paused to +trim the wick of the candle before she tried the buhl cabinet next. +</p> + +<p> +At the moment when she raised her hand to the candle, she heard the stillness +of the Banqueting-Hall shudder with the terror of a sound—a sound faint +and momentary, like the distant rushing of the wind. +</p> + +<p> +The sliding door in the drawing-room had moved. +</p> + +<p> +Which way had it moved? Had an unknown hand pushed it back in its socket +further than she had pushed it, or pulled it to again, and closed it? The +horror of being shut out all night, by some undiscoverable agency, from the +life of the house, was stronger in her than the horror of looking across the +Banqueting-Hall. She made desperately for the door of the room. +</p> + +<p> +It had fallen to silently after her when she had come in, but it was not +closed. She pulled it open, and looked. +</p> + +<p> +The sight that met her eyes rooted her, panic-stricken, to the spot. +</p> + +<p> +Close to the first of the row of windows, counting from the drawing-room, and +full in the gleam of it, she saw a solitary figure. It stood motionless, rising +out of the furthest strip of moonlight on the floor. As she looked, it suddenly +disappeared. In another instant she saw it again, in the second strip of +moonlight—lost it again—saw it in the third strip—lost it +once more—and saw it in the fourth. Moment by moment it advanced, now +mysteriously lost in the shadow, now suddenly visible again in the light, until +it reached the fifth and nearest strip of moonlight. There it paused, and +strayed aside slowly to the middle of the Hall. It stopped at the tripod, and +stood, shivering audibly in the silence, with its hands raised over the dead +ashes, in the action of warming them at a fire. It turned back again, moving +down the path of the moonlight, stopped at the fifth window, turned once more, +and came on softly through the shadow straight to the place where Magdalen +stood. +</p> + +<p> +Her voice was dumb, her will was helpless. Every sense in her but the seeing +sense was paralyzed. The seeing sense—held fast in the fetters of its own +terror—looked unchangeably straightforward, as it had looked from the +first. There she stood in the door-way, full in the path of the figure +advancing on her through the shadow, nearer and nearer, step by step. +</p> + +<p> +It came close. +</p> + +<p> +The bonds of horror that held her burst asunder when it was within +arm’s-length. She started back. The light of the candle on the table fell +full on its face, and showed her—Admiral Bartram. +</p> + +<p> +A long, gray dressing-gown was wrapped round him. His head was uncovered; his +feet were bare. In his left hand he carried his little basket of keys. He +passed Magdalen slowly, his lips whispering without intermission, his open eyes +staring straight before him with the glassy stare of death. His eyes revealed +to her the terrifying truth. He was walking in his sleep. +</p> + +<p> +The terror of seeing him as she saw him now was not the terror she had felt +when her eyes first lighted on him—an apparition in the moon-light, a +specter in the ghostly Hall. This time she could struggle against the shock; +she could feel the depth of her own fear. +</p> + +<p> +He passed her, and stopped in the middle of the room. Magdalen ventured near +enough to him to be within reach of his voice as he muttered to himself. She +ventured nearer still, and heard the name of her dead husband fall distinctly +from the sleep-walker’s lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Noel!” he said, in the low monotonous tones of a dreamer talking +in his sleep, “my good fellow, Noel, take it back again! It worries me +day and night. I don’t know where it’s safe; I don’t know +where to put it. Take it back, Noel—take it back!” +</p> + +<p> +As those words escaped him, he walked to the buhl cabinet. He sat down in the +chair placed before it, and searched in the basket among his keys. Magdalen +softly followed him, and stood behind his chair, waiting with the candle in her +hand. He found the key, and unlocked the cabinet. Without an instant’s +hesitation, he drew out a drawer, the second of a row. The one thing in the +drawer was a folded letter. He removed it, and put it down before him on the +table. “Take it back, Noel!” he repeated, mechanically; “take +it back!” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen looked over his shoulder and read these lines, traced in her +husband’s handwriting, at the top of the letter: <i>To be kept in your +own possession, and to be opened by yourself only on the day of my decease. +Noel Vanstone.</i> She saw the words plainly, with the admiral’s name and +the admiral’s address written under them. +</p> + +<p> +The Trust within reach of her hand! The Trust traced to its hiding-place at +last! +</p> + +<p> +She took one step forward, to steal round his chair and to snatch the letter +from the table. At the instant when she moved, he took it up once more, locked +the cabinet, and, rising, turned and faced her. +</p> + +<p> +In the impulse of the moment, she stretched out her hand toward the hand in +which he held the letter. The yellow candle-light fell full on him. The awful +death-in-life of his face—the mystery of the sleeping body, moving in +unconscious obedience to the dreaming mind—daunted her. Her hand +trembled, and dropped again at her side. +</p> + +<p> +He put the key of the cabinet back in the basket, and crossed the room to the +bureau, with the basket in one hand and the letter in the other. Magdalen set +the candle on the table again, and watched him. As he had opened the cabinet, +so he now opened the bureau. Once more Magdalen stretched out her hand, and +once more she recoiled before the mystery and the terror of his sleep. He put +the letter in a drawer at the back of the bureau, and closed the heavy oaken +lid again. “Yes,” he said. “Safer there, as you say, +Noel—safer there.” So he spoke. So, time after time, the words that +betrayed him revealed the dead man living and speaking again in the dream. +</p> + +<p> +Had he locked the bureau? Magdalen had not heard the lock turn. As he slowly +moved away, walking back once more toward the middle of the room, she tried the +lid. It was locked. That discovery made, she looked to see what he was doing +next. He was leaving the room again, with the basket of keys in his hand. When +her first glance overtook him, he was crossing the threshold of the door. +</p> + +<p> +Some inscrutable fascination possessed her, some mysterious attraction drew her +after him, in spite of herself. She took up the candle and followed him +mechanically, as if she too were walking in her sleep. One behind the other, in +slow and noiseless progress, they crossed the Banqueting-Hall. One behind the +other, they passed through the drawing-room, and along the corridor, and up the +stairs. She followed him to his own door. He went in, and shut it behind him +softly. She stopped, and looked toward the truckle-bed. It was pushed aside at +the foot, some little distance away from the bedroom door. Who had moved it? +She held the candle close and looked toward the pillow, with a sudden curiosity +and a sudden doubt. +</p> + +<p> +The truckle-bed was empty. +</p> + +<p> +The discovery startled her for the moment, and for the moment only. Plain as +the inferences were to be drawn from it, she never drew them. Her mind, slowly +recovering the exercise of its faculties, was still under the influence of the +earlier and the deeper impressions produced on it. Her mind followed the +admiral into his room, as her body had followed him across the Banqueting-Hall. +</p> + +<p> +Had he lain down again in his bed? Was he still asleep? She listened at the +door. Not a sound was audible in the room. She tried the door, and, finding it +not locked, softly opened it a few inches and listened again. The rise and fall +of his low, regular breathing instantly caught her ear. He was still asleep. +</p> + +<p> +She went into the room, and, shading the candle-light with her hand, approached +the bedside to look at him. The dream was past; the old man’s sleep was +deep and peaceful; his lips were still; his quiet hand was laid over the +coverlet in motionless repose. He lay with his face turned toward the +right-hand side of the bed. A little table stood there within reach of his +hand. Four objects were placed on it; his candle, his matches, his customary +night drink of lemonade, and his basket of keys. +</p> + +<p> +The idea of possessing herself of his keys that night (if an opportunity +offered when the basket was not in his hand) had first crossed her mind when +she saw him go into his room. She had lost it again for the moment, in the +surprise of discovering the empty truckle-bed. She now recovered it the instant +the table attracted her attention. It was useless to waste time in trying to +choose the one key wanted from the rest—the one key was not well enough +known to her to be readily identified. She took all the keys from the table, in +the basket as they lay, and noiselessly closed the door behind her on leaving +the room. +</p> + +<p> +The truckle-bed, as she passed it, obtruded itself again on her attention, and +forced her to think of it. After a moment’s consideration, she moved the +foot of the bed back to its customary position across the door. Whether he was +in the house or out of it, the veteran might return to his deserted post at any +moment. If he saw the bed moved from its usual place, he might suspect +something wrong, he might rouse his master, and the loss of the keys might be +discovered. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing happened as she descended the stairs, nothing happened as she passed +along the corridor; the house was as silent and as solitary as ever. She +crossed the Banqueting-Hall this time without hesitation; the events of the +night had hardened her mind against all imaginary terrors. “Now, I have +got it!” she whispered to herself, in an irrepressible outburst of +exaltation, as she entered the first of the east rooms and put her candle on +the top of the old bureau. +</p> + +<p> +Even yet there was a trial in store for her patience. Some minutes +elapsed—minutes that seemed hours—before she found the right key +and raised the lid of the bureau. At last she drew out the inner drawer! At +last she had the letter in her hand! +</p> + +<p> +It had been sealed, but the seal was broken. She opened it on the spot, to make +sure that she had actually possessed herself of the Trust before leaving the +room. The end of the letter was the first part of it she turned to. It came to +its conclusion high on the third page, and it was signed by Noel Vanstone. +Below the name these lines were added in the admiral’s handwriting: +</p> + +<p> +“This letter was received by me at the same time with the will of my +friend, Noel Vanstone. In the event of my death, without leaving any other +directions respecting it, I beg my nephew and my executors to understand that I +consider the requests made in this document as absolutely binding on me. +</p> + +<p> +“ARTHUR EVERARD BARTRAM.” +</p> + +<p> +She left those lines unread. She just noticed that they were not in Noel +Vanstone’s handwriting; and, passing over them instantly, as immaterial +to the object in view, turned the leaves of the letter, and transferred her +attention to the opening sentences on the first page. She read these words: +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR ADMIRAL BARTRAM—When you open my Will (in which you are named +my sole executor), you will find that I have bequeathed the whole residue of my +estate—after payment of one legacy of five thousand pounds—to +yourself. It is the purpose of my letter to tell you privately what the object +is for which I have left you the fortune which is now placed in your hands. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg you to consider this large legacy as intended——” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She had proceeded thus far with breathless curiosity and interest, when her +attention suddenly failed her. Something—she was too deeply absorbed to +know what—had got between her and the letter. Was it a sound in the +Banqueting-Hall again? She looked over her shoulder at the door behind her, and +listened. Nothing was to be heard, nothing was to be seen. She returned to the +letter. +</p> + +<p> +The writing was cramped and close. In her impatient curiosity to read more, she +failed to find the lost place again. Her eyes, attracted by a blot, lighted on +a sentence lower in the page than the sentence at which she had left off. The +first three words she saw riveted her attention anew—they were the first +words she had met with in the letter which directly referred to George Bartram. +In the sudden excitement of that discovery, she read the rest of the sentence +eagerly, before she made any second attempt to return to the lost place: +</p> + +<p> +“If your nephew fails to comply with these conditions—that is to +say, if, being either a bachelor or a widower at the time of my decease, he +fails to marry in all respects as I have here instructed him to marry, within +six calendar months from that time—it is my desire that he shall not +receive—” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +She had read to that point, to that last word and no further, when a hand +passed suddenly from behind her between the letter and her eye, and gripped her +fast by the wrist in an instant. +</p> + +<p> +She turned with a shriek of terror, and found herself face to face with old +Mazey. +</p> + +<p> +The veteran’s eyes were bloodshot; his hand was heavy; his list slippers +were twisted crookedly on his feet; and his body swayed to and fro on his +widely parted legs. If he had tested his condition that night by the unfailing +criterion of the model ship, he must have inevitably pronounced sentence on +himself in the usual form: “Drunk again, Mazey; drunk again.” +</p> + +<p> +“You young Jezebel!” said the old sailor, with a leer on one side +of his face, and a frown on the other. “The next time you take to +night-walking in the neighborhood of Freeze-your-Bones, use those sharp eyes of +yours first, and make sure there’s nobody else night walking in the +garden outside. Drop it, Jezebel! drop it!” +</p> + +<p> +Keeping fast hold of Magdalen’s arm with one hand, he took the letter +from her with the other, put it back into the open drawer, and locked the +bureau. She never struggled with him, she never spoke. Her energy was gone; her +powers of resistance were crushed. The terrors of that horrible night, +following one close on the other in reiterated shocks, had struck her down at +last. She yielded as submissively, she trembled as helplessly, as the weakest +woman living. +</p> + +<p> +Old Mazey dropped her arm, and pointed with drunken solemnity to a chair in an +inner corner of the room. She sat down, still without uttering a word. The +veteran (breathing very hard over it) steadied himself on both elbows against +the slanting top of the bureau, and from that commanding position addressed +Magdalen once more. +</p> + +<p> +“Come and be locked up!” said old Mazey, wagging his venerable head +with judicial severity. “There’ll be a court of inquiry to-morrow +morning, and I’m witness—worse luck!—I’m witness. You +young jade, you’ve committed burglary—that’s what +you’ve done. His honor the admiral’s keys stolen; his honor the +admiral’s desk ransacked; and his honor the admiral’s private +letters broke open. Burglary! Burglary! Come and be locked up!” He slowly +recovered an upright position, with the assistance of his hands, backed by the +solid resisting power of the bureau; and lapsed into lachrymose soliloquy. +“Who’d have thought it?” said old Mazey, paternally watering +at the eyes. “Take the outside of her, and she’s as straight as a +poplar; take the inside of her, and she’s as crooked as Sin. Such a +fine-grown girl, too. What a pity! what a pity!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t hurt me!” said Magdalen, faintly, as old Mazey +staggered up to the chair, and took her by the wrist again. “I’m +frightened, Mr. Mazey—I’m dreadfully frightened.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hurt you?” repeated the veteran. “I’m a deal too fond +of you—and more shame for me at my age!—to hurt you. If I let go of +your wrist, will you walk straight before me, where I can see you all the way? +Will you be a good girl, and walk straight up to your own door?” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen gave the promise required of her—gave it with an eager longing +to reach the refuge of her room. She rose, and tried to take the candle from +the bureau, but old Mazey’s cunning hand was too quick for her. +“Let the candle be,” said the veteran, winking in momentary +forgetfulness of his responsible position. “You’re a trifle quicker +on your legs than I am, my dear, and you might leave me in the lurch, if I +don’t carry the light.” +</p> + +<p> +They returned to the inhabited side of the house. Staggering after Magdalen, +with the basket of keys in one hand and the candle in the other, old Mazey +sorrowfully compared her figure with the straightness of the poplar, and her +disposition with the crookedness of Sin, all the way across +“Freeze-your-Bones,” and all the way upstairs to her own door. +Arrived at that destination, he peremptorily refused to give her the candle +until he had first seen her safely inside the room. The conditions being +complied with, he resigned the light with one hand, and made a dash with the +other at the key, drew it from the inside of the lock, and instantly closed the +door. Magdalen heard him outside chuckling over his own dexterity, and fitting +the key into the lock again with infinite difficulty. At last he secured the +door, with a deep grunt of relief. “There she is safe!” Magdalen +heard him say, in regretful soliloquy. “As fine a girl as ever I sat eyes +on. What a pity! what a pity!” +</p> + +<p> +The last sounds of his voice died out in the distance; and she was left alone +in her room. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Holding fast by the banister, old Mazey made his way down to the corridor on +the second floor, in which a night light was always burning. He advanced to the +truckle-bed, and, steadying himself against the opposite wall, looked at it +attentively. Prolonged contemplation of his own resting-place for the night +apparently failed to satisfy him. He shook his head ominously, and, taking from +the side-pocket of his great-coat a pair of old patched slippers, surveyed them +with an aspect of illimitable doubt. “I’m all abroad +to-night,” he mumbled to himself. “Troubled in my +mind—that’s what it is—troubled in my mind.” +</p> + +<p> +The old patched slippers and the veteran’s existing perplexities happened +to be intimately associated one with the other, in the relation of cause and +effect. The slippers belonged to the admiral, who had taken one of his +unreasonable fancies to this particular pair, and who still persisted in +wearing them long after they were unfit for his service. Early that afternoon +old Mazey had taken the slippers to the village cobbler to get them repaired on +the spot, before his master called for them the next morning; he sat +superintending the progress and completion of the work until evening came, when +he and the cobbler betook themselves to the village inn to drink each +other’s healths at parting. They had prolonged this social ceremony till +far into the night, and they had parted, as a necessary consequence, in a +finished and perfect state of intoxication on either side. +</p> + +<p> +If the drinking-bout had led to no other result than those night wanderings in +the grounds of St. Crux, which had shown old Mazey the light in the east +windows, his memory would unquestionably have presented it to him the next +morning in the aspect of one of the praiseworthy achievements of his life. But +another consequence had sprung from it, which the old sailor now saw dimly, +through the interposing bewilderment left in his brain by the drink. He had +committed a breach of discipline, and a breach of trust. In plainer words, he +had deserted his post. +</p> + +<p> +The one safeguard against Admiral Bartram’s constitutional tendency to +somnambulism was the watch and ward which his faithful old servant kept outside +his door. No entreaties had ever prevailed on him to submit to the usual +precaution taken in such cases. He peremptorily declined to be locked into his +room; he even ignored his own liability, whenever a dream disturbed him, to +walk in his sleep. Over and over again, old Mazey had been roused by the +admiral’s attempts to push past the truckle-bed, or to step over it, in +his sleep; and over and over again, when the veteran had reported the fact the +next morning, his master had declined to believe him. As the old sailor now +stood, staring in vacant inquiry at the bed-chamber door, these incidents of +the past rose confusedly on his memory, and forced on him the serious question +whether the admiral had left his room during the earlier hours of the night. If +by any mischance the sleep-walking fit had seized him, the slippers in old +Mazey’s hand pointed straight to the conclusion that followed—his +master must have passed barefoot in the cold night over the stone stairs and +passages of St. Crux. “Lord send he’s been quiet!” muttered +old Mazey, daunted, bold as he was and drunk as he was, by the bare +contemplation of that prospect. “If his honor’s been walking +to-night, it will be the death of him!” +</p> + +<p> +He roused himself for the moment by main force—strong in his dog-like +fidelity to the admiral, though strong in nothing else—and fought off the +stupor of the drink. He looked at the bed with steadier eyes and a clearer +mind. Magdalen’s precaution in returning it to its customary position +presented it to him necessarily in the aspect of a bed which had never been +moved from its place. He next examined the counterpane carefully. Not the +faintest vestige appeared of the indentation which must have been left by +footsteps passing over it. There was the plain evidence before him—the +evidence recognizable at last by his own bewildered eyes—that the admiral +had never moved from his room. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take the Pledge to-morrow!” mumbled old Mazey, in an +outburst of grateful relief. The next moment the fumes of the liquor floated +back insidiously over his brain; and the veteran, returning to his customary +remedy, paced the passage in zigzag as usual, and kept watch on the deck of an +imaginary ship. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Soon after sunrise, Magdalen suddenly heard the grating of the key from outside +in the lock of the door. The door opened, and old Mazey re-appeared on the +threshold. The first fever of his intoxication had cooled, with time, into a +mild, penitential glow. He breathed harder than ever, in a succession of low +growls, and wagged his venerable head at his own delinquencies without +intermission. +</p> + +<p> +“How are you now, you young land-shark in petticoats?” inquired the +old sailor. “Has your conscience been quiet enough to let you go to +sleep?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not slept,” said Magdalen, drawing back from him in doubt +of what he might do next. “I have no remembrance of what happened after +you locked the door—I think I must have fainted. Don’t frighten me +again, Mr. Mazey! I feel miserably weak and ill. What do you want?” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to say something serious,” replied old Mazey, with +impenetrable solemnity. “It’s been on my mind to come here and make +a clean breast of it, for the last hour or more. Mark my words, young woman. +I’m going to disgrace myself.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen drew further and further back, and looked at him in rising alarm. +</p> + +<p> +“I know my duty to his honor the admiral,” proceeded old Mazey, +waving his hand drearily in the direction of his master’s door. +“But, try as hard as I may, I can’t find it in my heart, you young +jade, to be witness against you. I liked the make of you (especially about the +waist) when you first came into the house, and I can’t help liking the +make of you still—though you <i>have</i> committed burglary, and though +you <i>are</i> as crooked as Sin. I’ve cast the eyes of indulgence on +fine-grown girls all my life, and it’s too late in the day to cast the +eyes of severity on ’em now. I’m seventy-seven, or seventy-eight, I +don’t rightly know which. I’m a battered old hulk, with my seams +opening, and my pumps choked, and the waters of Death powering in on me as fast +as they can. I’m as miserable a sinner as you’ll meet with anywhere +in these parts—Thomas Nagle, the cobbler, only excepted; and he’s +worse than I am, for he’s the younger of the two, and he ought to know +better. But the long and short or it is, I shall go down to my grave with an +eye of indulgence for a fine-grown girl. More shame for me, you young +Jezebel—more shame for me!” +</p> + +<p> +The veteran’s unmanageable eyes began to leer again in spite of him, as +he concluded his harangue in these terms: the last reserves of austerity left +in his face entrenched themselves dismally round the corners of his mouth. +Magdalen approached him again, and tried to speak. He solemnly motioned her +back with another dreary wave of his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“No carneying!” said old Mazey; “I’m bad enough +already, without that. It’s my duty to make my report to his honor the +admiral, and I <i>will</i> make it. But if you like to give the house the slip +before the burglary’s reported, and the court of inquiry begins, +I’ll disgrace myself by letting you go. It’s market morning at +Ossory, and Dawkes will be driving the light cart over in a quarter of an +hour’s time. Dawkes will take you if I ask him. I know my duty—my +duty is to turn the key on you, and see Dawkes damned first. But I can’t +find it in my heart to be hard on a fine girl like you. It’s bred in the +bone, and it wunt come out of the flesh. More shame for me, I tell you +again—more shame for me!” +</p> + +<p> +The proposal thus strangely and suddenly presented to her took Magdalen +completely by surprise. She had been far too seriously shaken by the events of +the night to be capable of deciding on any subject at a moment’s notice. +“You are very good to me, Mr. Mazey,” she said. “May I have a +minute by myself to think?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you may,” replied the veteran, facing about forthwith and +leaving the room. “They’re all alike,” proceeded old Mazey, +with his head still running on the sex. “Whatever you offer ’em, +they always want something more. Tall and short, native and foreign, +sweethearts and wives, they’re all alike!” +</p> + +<p> +Left by herself, Magdalen reached her decision with far less difficulty than +she had anticipated. +</p> + +<p> +If she remained in the house, there were only two courses before her—to +charge old Mazey with speaking under the influence of a drunken delusion, or to +submit to circumstances. Though she owed to the old sailor her defeat in the +very hour of success, his consideration for her at that moment forbade the idea +of defending herself at his expense—even supposing, what was in the last +degree improbable, that the defense would be credited. In the second of the two +cases (the case of submission to circumstances), but one result could be +expected—instant dismissal, and perhaps discovery as well. What object +was to be gained by braving that degradation—by leaving the house +publicly disgraced in the eyes of the servants who had hated and distrusted her +from the first? The accident which had literally snatched the Trust from her +possession when she had it in her hand was irreparable. The one apparent +compensation under the disaster—in other words, the discovery that the +Trust actually existed, and that George Bartram’s marriage within a given +time was one of the objects contained in it—was a compensation which +could only be estimated at its true value by placing it under the light of Mr. +Loscombe’s experience. Every motive of which she was conscious was a +motive which urged her to leave the house secretly while the chance was at her +disposal. She looked out into the passage, and called softly to old Mazey to +come back. +</p> + +<p> +“I accept your offer thankfully, Mr. Mazey,” she said. “You +don’t know what hard measure you dealt out to me when you took that +letter from my hand. But you did your duty, and I can be grateful to you for +sparing me this morning, hard as you were upon me last night. I am not such a +bad girl as you think me—I am not, indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +Old Mazey dismissed the subject with another dreary wave of his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Let it be,” said the veteran; “let it be! It makes no +difference, my girl, to such an old rascal as I am. If you were fifty times +worse than you are, I should let you go all the same. Put on your bonnet and +shawl, and come along. I’m a disgrace to myself and a warning to +others—that’s what I am. No luggage, mind! Leave all your +rattle-traps behind you: to be overhauled, if necessary, at his honor the +admiral’s discretion. I can be hard enough on your boxes, you young +Jezebel, if I can’t be hard on you.” +</p> + +<p> +With these words, old Mazey led the way out of the room. “The less I see +of her the better—especially about the waist,” he said to himself, +as he hobbled downstairs with the help of the banisters. +</p> + +<p> +The cart was standing in the back yard when they reached the lower regions of +the house, and Dawkes (otherwise the farm-bailiff’s man) was fastening +the last buckle of the horse’s harness. The hoar-frost of the morning was +still white in the shade. The sparkling points of it glistened brightly on the +shaggy coats of Brutus and Cassius, as they idled about the yard, waiting, with +steaming mouths and slowly wagging tails, to see the cart drive off. Old Mazey +went out alone and used his influence with Dawkes, who, staring in stolid +amazement, put a leather cushion on the cart-seat for his fellow-traveler. +Shivering in the sharp morning air, Magdalen waited, while the preliminaries of +departure were in progress, conscious of nothing but a giddy bewilderment of +thought, and a helpless suspension of feeling. The events of the night confused +themselves hideously with the trivial circumstances passing before her eyes in +the courtyard. She started with the sudden terror of the night when old Mazey +re-appeared to summon her out to the cart. She trembled with the helpless +confusion of the night when the veteran cast the eyes of indulgence on her for +the last time, and gave her a kiss on the cheek at parting. The next minute she +felt him help her into the cart, and pat her on the back. The next, she heard +him tell her in a confidential whisper that, sitting or standing, she was as +straight as a poplar either way. Then there was a pause, in which nothing was +said, and nothing done; and then the driver took the reins in hand and mounted +to his place. +</p> + +<p> +She roused herself at the parting moment and looked back. The last sight she +saw at St. Crux was old Mazey wagging his head in the courtyard, with his +fellow-profligates, the dogs, keeping time to him with their tails. The last +words she heard were the words in which the veteran paid his farewell tribute +to her charms: +</p> + +<p> +“Burglary or no burglary,” said old Mazey, “she’s a +fine-grown girl, if ever there was a fine one yet. What a pity! what a +pity!” +</p> + +<h5>THE END OF THE SEVENTH SCENE.</h5> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap52"></a>BETWEEN THE SCENES.<br/> +<small>PROGRESS OF THE STORY THROUGH THE POST.</small></h3> + +<h4> +I.<br/> +From George Bartram to Admiral Bartram. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“London, April 3d, 1848. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear uncle, +</p> + +<p> +“One hasty line, to inform you of a temporary obstacle, which we neither +of us anticipated when we took leave of each other at St. Crux. While I was +wasting the last days of the week at the Grange, the Tyrrels must have been +making their arrangements for leaving London. I have just come from Portland +Place. The house is shut up, and the family (Miss Vanstone, of course, +included) left England yesterday, to pass the season in Paris. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray don’t let yourself be annoyed by this little check at +starting. It is of no serious importance whatever. I have got the address at +which the Tyrrels are living, and I mean to cross the Channel after them by the +mail to-night. I shall find my opportunity in Paris just as soon as I could +have found it in London. The grass shall not grow under my feet, I promise you. +For once in my life, I will take Time as fiercely by the forelock as if I was +the most impetuous man in England; and, rely on it, the moment I know the +result, you shall know the result, too. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Affectionately yours,<br/> +“GEORGE BARTRAM.” +</p> + +<h4> +II.<br/> +From George Bartram to Miss Garth. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Paris, April 13th. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MISS GARTH, +</p> + +<p> +“I have just written, with a heavy heart, to my uncle, and I think I owe +it to your kind interest in me not to omit writing next to you. +</p> + +<p> +“You will feel for my disappointment, I am sure, when I tell you, in the +fewest and plainest words, that Miss Vanstone has refused me. +</p> + +<p> +“My vanity may have grievously misled me, but I confess I expected a very +different result. My vanity may be misleading me still; for I must acknowledge +to you privately that I think Miss Vanstone was sorry to refuse me. The reason +she gave for her decision—no doubt a sufficient reason in her +estimation—did not at the time, and does not now, seem sufficient to +<i>me</i>. She spoke in the sweetest and kindest manner, but she firmly +declared that ‘her family misfortunes’ left her no honorable +alternative—but to think of my own interests as I had not thought of them +myself—and gratefully to decline accepting my offer. +</p> + +<p> +“She was so painfully agitated that I could not venture to plead my own +cause as I might otherwise have pleaded it. At the first attempt I made to +touch the personal question, she entreated me to spare her, and abruptly left +the room. I am still ignorant whether I am to interpret the ‘family +misfortunes’ which have set up this barrier between us, as meaning the +misfortune for which her parents alone are to blame, or the misfortune of her +having such a woman as Mrs. Noel Vanstone for her sister. In whichever of these +circumstances the obstacle lies, it is no obstacle in my estimation. Can +nothing remove it? Is there no hope? Forgive me for asking these questions. I +cannot bear up against my bitter disappointment. Neither she, nor you, nor any +one but myself, can know how I love her. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Ever most truly yours,<br/> +“GEORGE BARTRAM. +</p> + +<p> +“P. S.—I shall leave for England in a day or two, passing through +London on my way to St. Crux. There are family reasons, connected with the +hateful subject of money, which make me look forward with anything but pleasure +to my next interview with my uncle. If you address your letter to Long’s +Hotel, it will be sure to reach me.” +</p> + +<h4> +III.<br/> +From Miss Garth to George Bartram. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Westmoreland House, April 16th. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MR. BARTRAM, +</p> + +<p> +“You only did me justice in supposing that your letter would distress me. +If you had supposed that it would make me excessively angry as well, you would +not have been far wrong. I have no patience with the pride and perversity of +the young women of the present day. +</p> + +<p> +“I have heard from Norah. It is a long letter, stating the particulars in +full detail. I am now going to put all the confidence in your honor and your +discretion which I really feel. For your sake, and for Norah’s, I am +going to let you know what the scruple really is which has misled her into the +pride and folly of refusing you. I am old enough to speak out; and I can tell +you, if she had only been wise enough to let her own wishes guide her, she +would have said Yes—and gladly, too. +</p> + +<p> +“The original cause of all the mischief is no less a person than your +worthy uncle—Admiral Bartram. +</p> + +<p> +“It seems that the admiral took it into his head (I suppose during your +absence) to go to London by himself and to satisfy some curiosity of his own +about Norah by calling in Portland Place, under pretense of renewing his old +friendship with the Tyrrels. He came at luncheon-time, and saw Norah; and, from +all I can hear, was apparently better pleased with her than he expected or +wished to be when he came into the house. +</p> + +<p> +“So far, this is mere guess-work; but it is unluckily certain that he and +Mrs. Tyrrel had some talk together alone when luncheon was over. Your name was +not mentioned; but when their conversation fell on Norah, you were in both +their minds, of course. The admiral (doing her full justice personally) +declared himself smitten with pity for her hard lot in life. The scandalous +conduct of her sister must always stand (he feared) in the way of her future +advantage. Who could marry her, without first making it a condition that she +and her sister were to be absolute strangers to each other? And even then, the +objection would remain—the serious objection to the husband’s +family—of being connected by marriage with such a woman as Mrs. Noel +Vanstone. It was very sad; it was not the poor girl’s fault, but it was +none the less true that her sister was her rock ahead in life. So he ran on, +with no real ill-feeling toward Norah, but with an obstinate belief in his own +prejudices which bore the aspect of ill-feeling, and which people with more +temper than judgment would be but too readily disposed to resent accordingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Unfortunately, Mrs. Tyrrel is one of those people. She is an excellent, +warm-hearted woman, with a quick temper and very little judgment; strongly +attached to Norah, and heartily interested in Norah’s welfare. From all I +can learn, she first resented the expression of the admiral’s opinion, in +his presence, as worldly and selfish in the last degree; and then interpreted +it, behind his back, as a hint to discourage his nephew’s visits, which +was a downright insult offered to a lady in her own house. This was foolish +enough so far; but worse folly was to come. +</p> + +<p> +“As soon as your uncle was gone, Mrs. Tyrrel, most unwisely and +improperly, sent for Norah, and, repeating the conversation that had taken +place, warned her of the reception she might expect from the man who stood +toward you in the position of a father, if she accepted an offer of marriage on +your part. When I tell you that Norah’s faithful attachment to her sister +still remains unshaken, and that there lies hidden under her noble submission +to the unhappy circumstances of her life a proud susceptibility to slights of +all kinds, which is deeply seated in her nature—you will understand the +true motive of the refusal which has so naturally and so justly disappointed +you. They are all three equally to blame in this matter. Your uncle was wrong +to state his objections so roundly and inconsiderately as he did. Mrs. Tyrrel +was wrong to let her temper get the better of her, and to suppose herself +insulted where no insult was intended. And Norah was wrong to place a scruple +of pride, and a hopeless belief in her sister which no strangers can be +expected to share, above the higher claims of an attachment which might have +secured the happiness and the prosperity of her future life. +</p> + +<p> +“But the mischief has been done. The next question is, can the harm be +remedied? +</p> + +<p> +“I hope and believe it can. My advice is this: Don’t take No for an +answer. Give her time enough to reflect on what she has done, and to regret it +(as I believe she will regret it) in secret; trust to my influence over her to +plead your cause for you at every opportunity I can find; wait patiently for +the right moment, and ask her again. Men, being accustomed to act on reflection +themselves, are a great deal too apt to believe that women act on reflection, +too. Women do nothing of the sort. They act on impulse; and, in nine cases out +of ten, they are heartily sorry for it afterward. +</p> + +<p> +“In the meanwhile, you must help your own interests by inducing your +uncle to alter his opinion, or at least to make the concession of keeping his +opinion to himself. Mrs. Tyrrel has rushed to the conclusion that the harm he +has done he did intentionally—which is as much as to say, in so many +words, that he had a prophetic conviction, when he came into the house, of what +she would do when he left it. My explanation of the matter is a much simpler +one. I believe that the knowledge of your attachment naturally aroused his +curiosity to see the object of it, and that Mrs. Tyrrel’s injudicious +praises of Norah irritated his objections into openly declaring themselves. +Anyway, your course lies equally plain before you. Use your influence over your +uncle to persuade him into setting matters right again; trust my settled +resolution to see Norah your wife before six months more are over our heads; +and believe me, your friend and well-wisher, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“HARRIET GARTH.” +</p> + +<h4> +IV.<br/> +From Mrs. Drake to George Bartram. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“St. Crux, April 17th. +</p> + +<p> +“SIR, +</p> + +<p> +“I direct these lines to the hotel you usually stay at in London, hoping +that you may return soon enough from foreign parts to receive my letter without +delay. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry to say that some unpleasant events have taken place at St. +Crux since you left it, and that my honored master, the admiral, is far from +enjoying his usual good health. On both these accounts, I venture to write to +you on my own responsibility, for I think your presence is needed in the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Early in the month a most regrettable circumstance took place. Our new +parlor-maid was discovered by Mr. Mazey, at a late hour of the night (with her +master’s basket of keys in her possession), prying into the private +documents kept in the east library. The girl removed herself from the house the +next morning before we were any of us astir, and she has not been heard of +since. This event has annoyed and alarmed my master very seriously; and to make +matters worse, on the day when the girl’s treacherous conduct was +discovered, the admiral was seized with the first symptoms of a severe +inflammatory cold. He was not himself aware, nor was any one else, how he had +caught the chill. The doctor was sent for, and kept the inflammation down until +the day before yesterday, when it broke out again, under circumstances which I +am sure you will be sorry to hear, as I am truly sorry to write of them. +</p> + +<p> +“On the date I have just mentioned—I mean the fifteenth of the +month—my master himself informed me that he had been dreadfully +disappointed by a letter received from you, which had come in the morning from +foreign parts, and had brought him bad news. He did not tell me what the news +was—but I have never, in all the years I have passed in the +admiral’s service, seen him so distressingly upset, and so unlike +himself, as he was on that day. At night his uneasiness seemed to increase. He +was in such a state of irritation that he could not bear the sound of Mr. +Mazey’s hard breathing outside his door, and he laid his positive orders +on the old man to go into one of the bedrooms for that night. Mr. Mazey, to his +own great regret, was of course obliged to obey. +</p> + +<p> +“Our only means of preventing the admiral from leaving his room in his +sleep, if the fit unfortunately took him, being now removed, Mr. Mazey and I +agreed to keep watch by turns through the night, sitting, with the door ajar, +in one of the empty rooms near our master’s bed-chamber. We could think +of nothing better to do than this, knowing he would not allow us to lock him +in, and not having the door key in our possession, even if we could have +ventured to secure him in his room without his permission. I kept watch for the +first two hours, and then Mr. Mazey took my place. After having been some +little time in my own room, it occurred to me that the old man was hard of +hearing, and that if his eyes grew at all heavy in the night, his ears were not +to be trusted to warn him if anything happened. I slipped on my clothes again, +and went back to Mr. Mazey. He was neither asleep nor awake—he was +between the two. My mind misgave me, and I went on to the admiral’s room. +The door was open, and the bed was empty. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Mazey and I went downstairs instantly. We looked in all the north +rooms, one after another, and found no traces of him. I thought of the +drawing-room next, and, being the more active of the two, went first to examine +it. The moment I turned the sharp corner of the passage, I saw my master coming +toward me through the open drawing-room door, asleep and dreaming, with his +keys in his hands. The sliding door behind him was open also; and the fear came +to me then, and has remained with me ever since, that his dream had led him +through the Banqueting-Hall into the east rooms. We abstained from waking him, +and followed his steps until he returned of his own accord to his bed-chamber. +The next morning, I grieve to say, all the bad symptoms came back; and none of +the remedies employed have succeeded in getting the better of them yet. By the +doctor’s advice, we refrained from telling the admiral what had happened. +He is still under the impression that he passed the night as usual in his own +room. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been careful to enter into all the particulars of this +unfortunate accident, because neither Mr. Mazey nor myself desire to screen +ourselves from blame, if blame we have deserved. We both acted for the best, +and we both beg and pray you will consider our responsible situation, and come +as soon as possible to St. Crux. Our honored master is very hard to manage; and +the doctor thinks, as we do, that your presence is wanted in the house. +</p> + +<p> +“I remain, sir, with Mr. Mazey’s respects and my own, your humble +servant, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“SOPHIA DRAKE.” +</p> + +<h4> +V.<br/> +From George Bartram to Miss Garth. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“St. Crux, April 22d. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MISS GARTH, +</p> + +<p> +“Pray excuse my not thanking you sooner for your kind and consoling +letter. We are in sad trouble at St. Crux. Any little irritation I might have +felt at my poor uncle’s unlucky interference in Portland Place is all +forgotten in the misfortune of his serious illness. He is suffering from +internal inflammation, produced by cold; and symptoms have shown themselves +which are dangerous at his age. A physician from London is now in the house. +You shall hear more in a few days. Meantime, believe me, with sincere gratitude, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Yours most truly,<br/> +“GEORGE BARTRAM.” +</p> + +<h4> +VI.<br/> +From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Lincoln’s Inn Fields, May 6th. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MADAM, +</p> + +<p> +“I have unexpectedly received some information which is of the most vital +importance to your interests. The news of Admiral Bartram’s death has +reached me this morning. He expired at his own house, on the fourth of the +present month. +</p> + +<p> +“This event at once disposes of the considerations which I had previously +endeavored to impress on you, in relation to your discovery at St. Crux. The +wisest course we can now follow is to open communications at once with the +executors of the deceased gentleman; addressing them through the medium of the +admiral’s legal adviser, in the first instance. +</p> + +<p> +“I have dispatched a letter this day to the solicitor in question. It +simply warns him that we have lately become aware of the existence of a private +Document, controlling the deceased gentleman in his use of the legacy devised +to him by Mr. Noel Vanstone’s will. My letter assumes that the document +will be easily found among the admiral’s papers; and it mentions that I +am the solicitor appointed by Mrs. Noel Vanstone to receive communications on +her behalf. My object in taking this step is to cause a search to be instituted +for the Trust—in the very probable event of the executors not having met +with it yet—before the usual measures are adopted for the administration +of the admiral’s estate. We will threaten legal proceedings, if we find +that the object does not succeed. But I anticipate no such necessity. Admiral +Bartram’s executors must be men of high standing and position; and they +will do justice to you and to themselves in this matter by looking for the +Trust. +</p> + +<p> +“Under these circumstances, you will naturally ask, ‘What are our +prospects when the document is found?’ Our prospects have a bright side +and a dark side. Let us take the bright side to begin with. +</p> + +<p> +“What do we actually know? +</p> + +<p> +“We know, first, that the Trust does really exist. Secondly, that there +is a provision in it relating to the marriage of Mr. George Bartram in a given +time. Thirdly, that the time (six months from the date of your husband’s +death) expired on the third of this month. Fourthly, that Mr. George Bartram +(as I have found out by inquiry, in the absence of any positive information on +the subject possessed by yourself) is, at the present moment, a single man. The +conclusion naturally follows, that the object contemplated by the Trust, in +this case, is an object that has failed. +</p> + +<p> +“If no other provisions have been inserted in the document—or if, +being inserted, those other provisions should be discovered to have failed +also—I believe it to be impossible (especially if evidence can be found +that the admiral himself considered the Trust binding on him) for the executors +to deal with your husband’s fortune as legally forming part of Admiral +Bartram’s estate. The legacy is expressly declared to have been left to +him, on the understanding that he applies it to certain stated +objects—and those objects have failed. What is to be done with the money? +It was not left to the admiral himself, on the testator’s own showing; +and the purposes for which it <i>was</i> left have not been, and cannot be, +carried out. I believe (if the case here supposed really happens) that the +money must revert to the testator’s estate. In that event the Law, +dealing with it as a matter of necessity, divides it into two equal portions. +One half goes to Mr. Noel Vanstone’s childless widow, and the other half +is divided among Mr. Noel Vanstone’s next of kin. +</p> + +<p> +“You will no doubt discover the obvious objection to the case in our +favor, as I have here put it. You will see that it depends for its practical +realization not on one contingency, but on a series of contingencies, which +must all happen exactly as we wish them to happen. I admit the force of the +objection; but I can tell you, at the same time, that these said contingencies +are by no means so improbable as they may look on the face of them. +</p> + +<p> +“We have every reason to believe that the Trust, like the Will, was +<i>not</i> drawn by a lawyer. That is one circumstance in our favor that is +enough of itself to cast a doubt on the soundness of all, or any, of the +remaining provisions which we may not be acquainted with. Another chance which +we may count on is to be found, as I think, in that strange handwriting, placed +under the signature on the third page of the Letter, which you saw, but which +you, unhappily, omitted to read. All the probabilities point to those lines as +written by Admiral Bartram: and the position which they occupy is certainly +consistent with the theory that they touch the important subject of his own +sense of obligation under the Trust. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish to raise no false hopes in your mind. I only desire to satisfy +you that we have a case worth trying. +</p> + +<p> +“As for the dark side of the prospect, I need not enlarge on it. After +what I have already written, you will understand that the existence of a sound +provision, unknown to us, in the Trust, which has been properly carried out by +the admiral—or which can be properly carried out by his +representatives—would be necessarily fatal to our hopes. The legacy would +be, in this case, devoted to the purpose or purposes contemplated by your +husband—and, from that moment, you would have no claim. +</p> + +<p> +“I have only to add, that as soon as I hear from the late admiral’s +man of business, you shall know the result. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Believe me, dear madam,<br/> +“Faithfully yours,<br/> +“JOHN LOSCOMBE.” +</p> + +<h4> +VII.<br/> +From George Bartram to Miss Garth. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“St. Crux, May 15th. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MISS GARTH, +</p> + +<p> +“I trouble you with another letter: partly to thank you for your kind +expression of sympathy with me, under the loss that I have sustained; and +partly to tell you of an extraordinary application made to my uncle’s +executors, in which you and Miss Vanstone may both feel interested, as Mrs. +Noel Vanstone is directly concerned in it. +</p> + +<p> +“Knowing my own ignorance of legal technicalities, I inclose a copy of +the application, instead of trying to describe it. You will notice as +suspicious, that no explanation is given of the manner in which the alleged +discovery of one of my uncle’s secrets was made, by persons who are total +strangers to him. +</p> + +<p> +“On being made acquainted with the circumstances, the executors at once +applied to me. I could give them no positive information—for my uncle +never consulted me on matters of business. But I felt in honor bound to tell +them, that during the last six months of his life, the admiral had occasionally +let fall expressions of impatience in my hearing, which led to the conclusion +that he was annoyed by a private responsibility of some kind. I also mentioned +that he had imposed a very strange condition on me—a condition which, in +spite of his own assurances to the contrary, I was persuaded could not have +emanated from himself—of marrying within a given time (which time has now +expired), or of not receiving from him a certain sum of money, which I believed +to be the same in amount as the sum bequeathed to him in my cousin’s +will. The executors agreed with me that these circumstances gave a color of +probability to an otherwise incredible story; and they decided that a search +should be instituted for the Secret Trust, nothing in the slightest degree +resembling this same Trust having been discovered, up to that time, among the +admiral’s papers. +</p> + +<p> +“The search (no trifle in such a house as this) has now been in full +progress for a week. It is superintended by both the executors, and by my +uncle’s lawyer, who is personally, as well as professionally, known to +Mr. Loscombe (Mrs. Noel Vanstone’s solicitor), and who has been included +in the proceedings at the express request of Mr. Loscombe himself. Up to this +time, nothing whatever has been found. Thousands and thousands of letters have +been examined, and not one of them bears the remotest resemblance to the letter +we are looking for. +</p> + +<p> +“Another week will bring the search to an end. It is only at my express +request that it will be persevered with so long. But as the admiral’s +generosity has made me sole heir to everything he possessed, I feel bound to do +the fullest justice to the interests of others, however hostile to myself those +interests may be. +</p> + +<p> +“With this view, I have not hesitated to reveal to the lawyer a +constitutional peculiarity of my poor uncle’s, which was always kept a +secret among us at his own request—I mean his tendency to somnambulism. I +mentioned that he had been discovered (by the housekeeper and his old servant) +walking in his sleep, about three weeks before his death, and that the part of +the house in which he had been seen, and the basket of keys which he was +carrying in his hand, suggested the inference that he had come from one of the +rooms in the east wing, and that he might have opened some of the pieces of +furniture in one of them. I surprised the lawyer (who seemed to be quite +ignorant of the extraordinary actions constantly performed by somnambulists), +by informing him that my uncle could find his way about the house, lock and +unlock doors, and remove objects of all kinds from one place to another, as +easily in his sleep as in his waking hours. And I declared that, while I felt +the faintest doubt in my own mind whether he might not have been dreaming of +the Trust on the night in question, and putting the dream in action in his +sleep, I should not feel satisfied unless the rooms in the east wing were +searched again. +</p> + +<p> +“It is only right to add that there is not the least foundation in fact +for this idea of mine. During the latter part of his fatal illness, my poor +uncle was quite incapable of speaking on any subject whatever. From the time of +my arrival at St. Crux, in the middle of last month, to the time of his death, +not a word dropped from him which referred in the remotest way to the Secret +Trust. +</p> + +<p> +“Here then, for the present, the matter rests. If you think it right to +communicate the contents of this letter to Miss Vanstone, pray tell her that it +will not be my fault if her sister’s assertion (however preposterous it +may seem to my uncle’s executors) is not fairly put to the proof. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Believe me, dear Miss Garth,<br/> +“Always truly yours,<br/> +“GEORGE BARTRAM. +</p> + +<p> +“P. S.—As soon as all business matters are settled, I am going +abroad for some months, to try the relief of change of scene. The house will be +shut up, and left under the charge of Mrs. Drake. I have not forgotten your +once telling me that you should like to see St. Crux, if you ever found +yourself in this neighborhood. If you are at all likely to be in Essex during +the time when I am abroad, I have provided against the chance of your being +disappointed, by leaving instructions with Mrs. Drake to give you, and any +friends of yours, the freest admission to the house and grounds.” +</p> + +<h4> +VIII.<br/> +From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Lincoln’s Inn Fields, May 24th. +</p> + +<p> +“DEAR MADAM, +</p> + +<p> +“After a whole fortnight’s search—conducted, I am bound to +admit, with the most conscientious and unrelaxing care—no such document +as the Secret Trust has been found among the papers left at St. Crux by the +late Admiral Bartram. +</p> + +<p> +“Under these circumstances, the executors have decided on acting under +the only recognizable authority which they have to guide them—the +admiral’s own will. This document (executed some years since) bequeaths +the whole of his estate, both real and personal (that is to say, all the lands +he possesses, and all the money he possesses, at the time of his death), to his +nephew. The will is plain, and the result is inevitable. Your husband’s +fortune is lost to you from this moment. Mr. George Bartram legally inherits +it, as he legally inherits the house and estate of St. Crux. +</p> + +<p> +“I make no comment upon this extraordinary close to the proceedings. The +Trust may have been destroyed, or the Trust may be hidden in some place of +concealment inaccessible to discovery. Either way, it is, in my opinion, +impossible to found any valid legal declaration on a knowledge of the document +so fragmentary and so incomplete as the knowledge which you possess. If other +lawyers differ from me on this point, by all means consult them. I have devoted +money enough and time enough to the unfortunate attempt to assert your +interests; and my connection with the matter must, from this moment, be +considered at an end. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Your obedient servant,<br/> +“JOHN LOSCOMBE.” +</p> + +<h4> +IX.<br/> +From Mrs. Ruddock (Lodging-house Keeper) to Mr. Loscombe. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Park Terrace, St. John’s Wood,<br/> +“June 2d. +</p> + +<p> +“SIR, +</p> + +<p> +“Having, by Mrs. Noel Vanstone’s directions, taken letters for her +to the post, addressed to you—and knowing no one else to apply to—I +beg to inquire whether you are acquainted with any of her friends; for I think +it right that they should be stirred up to take some steps about her. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Vanstone first came to me in November last, when she and her maid +occupied my apartments. On that occasion, and again on this, she has given me +no cause to complain of her. She has behaved like a lady, and paid me my due. I +am writing, as a mother of a family, under a sense of responsibility—I am +not writing with an interested motive. +</p> + +<p> +“After proper warning given, Mrs. Vanstone (who is now quite alone) +leaves me to-morrow. She has not concealed from me that her circumstances are +fallen very low, and that she cannot afford to remain in my house. This is all +she has told me—I know nothing of where she is going, or what she means +to do next. But I have every reason to believe she desires to destroy all +traces by which she might be found, after leaving this place—for I +discovered her in tears yesterday, burning letters which were doubtless letters +from her friends. In looks and conduct she has altered most shockingly in the +last week. I believe there is some dreadful trouble on her mind; and I am +afraid, from what I see of her, that she is on the eve of a serious illness. It +is very sad to see such a young woman so utterly deserted and friendless as she +is now. +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse my troubling you with this letter; it is on my conscience to +write it. If you know any of her relations, please warn them that time is not +to be wasted. If they lose to-morrow, they may lose the last chance of finding +her. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Your humble servant,<br/> +“CATHERINE RUDDOCK.” +</p> + +<h4> +X.<br/> +From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Ruddock. +</h4> + +<p class="right"> +“Lincoln’s Inn Fields, June 2d. +</p> + +<p> +“MADAM, +</p> + +<p> +“My only connection with Mrs. Noel Vanstone was a professional one, and +that connection is now at an end. I am not acquainted with any of her friends; +and I cannot undertake to interfere personally, either with her present or +future proceedings. +</p> + +<p> +“Regretting my inability to afford you any assistance, I remain, your +obedient servant, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“JOHN LOSCOMBE.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="part08"></a>THE LAST SCENE.<br/> +<small>AARON’S BUILDINGS</small></h3> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap53"></a>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<p> +On the seventh of June, the owners of the merchantman <i>Deliverance</i> +received news that the ship had touched at Plymouth to land passengers, and had +then continued her homeward voyage to the Port of London. Five days later, the +vessel was in the river, and was towed into the East India Docks. +</p> + +<p> +Having transacted the business on shore for which he was personally +responsible, Captain Kirke made the necessary arrangements, by letter, for +visiting his brother-in-law’s parsonage in Suffolk, on the seventeenth of +the month. As usual in such cases, he received a list of commissions to execute +for his sister on the day before he left London. One of these commissions took +him into the neighborhood of Camden Town. He drove to his destination from the +Docks; and then, dismissing the vehicle, set forth to walk back southward, +toward the New Road. +</p> + +<p> +He was not well acquainted with the district; and his attention wandered +further and further away from the scene around him as he went on. His thoughts, +roused by the prospect of seeing his sister again, had led his memory back to +the night when he had parted from her, leaving the house on foot. The spell so +strangely laid on him, in that past time, had kept its hold through all +after-events. The face that had haunted him on the lonely road had haunted him +again on the lonely sea. The woman who had followed him, as in a dream, to his +sister’s door, had followed him—thought of his thought, and spirit +of his spirit—to the deck of his ship. Through storm and calm on the +voyage out, through storm and calm on the voyage home, she had been with him. +In the ceaseless turmoil of the London streets, she was with him now. He knew +what the first question on his lips would be, when he had seen his sister and +her boys. “I shall try to talk of something else,” he thought; +“but when Lizzie and I am alone, it will come out in spite of me.” +</p> + +<p> +The necessity of waiting to let a string of carts pass at a turning before he +crossed awakened him to present things. He looked about in a momentary +confusion. The street was strange to him; he had lost his way. +</p> + +<p> +The first foot passenger of whom he inquired appeared to have no time to waste +in giving information. Hurriedly directing him to cross to the other side of +the road, to turn down the first street he came to on his right hand, and then +to ask again, the stranger unceremoniously hastened on without waiting to be +thanked. +</p> + +<p> +Kirke followed his directions and took the turning on his right. The street was +short and narrow, and the houses on either side were of the poorer order. He +looked up as he passed the corner to see what the name of the place might be. +It was called “Aaron’s Buildings.” +</p> + +<p> +Low down on the side of the “Buildings” along which he was walking, +a little crowd of idlers was assembled round two cabs, both drawn up before the +door of the same house. Kirke advanced to the crowd, to ask his way of any +civil stranger among them who might <i>not</i> be in a hurry this time. On +approaching the cabs, he found a woman disputing with the drivers; and heard +enough to inform him that two vehicles had been sent for by mistake, where only +one was wanted. +</p> + +<p> +The house door was open; and when he turned that way next, he looked easily +into the passage, over the heads of the people in front of him. +</p> + +<p> +The sight that met his eyes should have been shielded in pity from the +observation of the street. He saw a slatternly girl, with a frightened face, +standing by an old chair placed in the middle of the passage, and holding a +woman on the chair, too weak and helpless to support herself—a woman +apparently in the last stage of illness, who was about to be removed, when the +dispute outside was ended, in one of the cabs. Her head was drooping when he +first saw her, and an old shawl which covered it had fallen forward so as to +hide the upper part of her face. +</p> + +<p> +Before he could look away again, the girl in charge of her raised her head and +restored the shawl to its place. The action disclosed her face to view, for an +instant only, before her head drooped once more on her bosom. In that instant +he saw the woman whose beauty was the haunting remembrance of his +life—whose image had been vivid in his mind not five minutes since. +</p> + +<p> +The shock of the double recognition—the recognition, at the same moment, +of the face, and of the dreadful change in it—struck him speechless and +helpless. The steady presence of mind in all emergencies which had become a +habit of his life, failed him for the first time. The poverty-stricken street, +the squalid mob round the door, swam before his eyes. He staggered back and +caught at the iron railings of the house behind him. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are they taking her to?” he heard a woman ask, close at his +side. +</p> + +<p> +“To the hospital, if they will have her,” was the reply. “And +to the work-house, if they won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +That horrible answer roused him. He pushed his way through the crowd and +entered the house. +</p> + +<p> +The misunderstanding on the pavement had been set right, and one of the cabs +had driven off. +</p> + +<p> +As he crossed the threshold of the door he confronted the people of the house +at the moment when they were moving her. The cabman who had remained was on one +side of the chair, and the woman who had been disputing with the two drivers +was on the other. They were just lifting her, when Kirke’s tall figure +darkened the door. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing with that lady?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +The cabman looked up with the insolence of his reply visible in his eyes, +before his lips could utter it. But the woman, quicker than he, saw the +suppressed agitation in Kirke’s face, and dropped her hold of the chair +in an instant. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know her, sir?” asked the woman, eagerly. “Are you +one of her friends?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Kirke, without hesitation. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not my fault, sir,” pleaded the woman, shirking under +the look he fixed on her. “I would have waited patiently till her friends +found her—I would, indeed!” +</p> + +<p> +Kirke made no reply. He turned, and spoke to the cabman. +</p> + +<p> +“Go out,” he said, “and close the door after you. I’ll +send you down your money directly. What room in the house did you take her +from, when you brought her here?” he resumed, addressing himself to the +woman again. +</p> + +<p> +“The first floor back, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Show me the way to it.” +</p> + +<p> +He stooped, and lifted Magdalen in his arms. Her head rested gently on the +sailor’s breast; her eyes looked up wonderingly into the sailor’s +face. She smiled, and whispered to him vacantly. Her mind had wandered back to +old days at home; and her few broken words showed that she fancied herself a +child again in her father’s arms. “Poor papa!” she said, +softly. “Why do you look so sorry? Poor papa!” +</p> + +<p> +The woman led the way into the back room on the first floor. It was very small; +it was miserably furnished. But the little bed was clean, and the few things in +the room were neatly kept. Kirke laid her tenderly on the bed. She caught one +of his hands in her burning fingers. “Don’t distress mamma about +me,” she said. “Send for Norah.” Kirke tried gently to +release his hand; but she only clasped it the more eagerly. He sat down by the +bedside to wait until it pleased her to release him. The woman stood looking at +them and crying, in a corner of the room. Kirke observed her attentively. +“Speak,” he said, after an interval, in low, quiet tones. +“Speak in <i>her</i> presence; and tell me the truth.” +</p> + +<p> +With many words, with many tears, the woman spoke. +</p> + +<p> +She had let her first floor to the lady a fortnight since. The lady had paid a +week’s rent, and had given the name of Gray. She had been out from +morning till night, for the first three days, and had come home again, on every +occasion, with a wretchedly weary, disappointed look. The woman of the house +had suspected that she was in hiding from her friends, under a false name; and +that she had been vainly trying to raise money, or to get some employment, on +the three days when she was out for so long, and when she looked so +disappointed on coming home. However that might be, on the fourth day she had +fallen ill, with shivering fits and hot fits, turn and turn about. On the fifth +day she was worse; and on the sixth, she was too sleepy at one time, and too +light-headed at another, to be spoken to. The chemist (who did the doctoring in +those parts) had come and looked at her, and had said he thought it was a bad +fever. He had left a “saline draught,” which the woman of the house +had paid for out of her own pocket, and had administered without effect. She +had ventured on searching the only box which the lady had brought with her; and +had found nothing in it but a few necessary articles of linen—no dresses, +no ornaments, not so much as the fragment of a letter which might help in +discovering her friends. Between the risk of keeping her under these +circumstances, and the barbarity of turning a sick woman into the street, the +landlady herself had not hesitated. She would willingly have kept her tenant, +on the chance of the lady’s recovery, and on the chance of her friends +turning up. But not half an hour since, her husband—who never came near +the house, except to take her money—had come to rob her of her little +earnings, as usual. She had been obliged to tell him that no rent was in hand +for the first floor, and that none was likely to be in hand until the lady +recovered, or her friends found her. On hearing this, he had mercilessly +insisted—well or ill—that the lady should go. There was the +hospital to take her to; and if the hospital shut its doors, there was the +workhouse to try next. If she was not out of the place in an hour’s time, +he threatened to come back and take her out himself. His wife knew but too well +that he was brute enough to be as good as his word; and no other choice had +been left her but to do as she had done, for the sake of the lady herself. +</p> + +<p> +The woman told her shocking story, with every appearance of being honestly +ashamed of it. Toward the end, Kirke felt the clasp of the burning fingers +slackening round his hand. He looked back at the bed again. Her weary eyes were +closing; and, with her face still turned toward the sailor, she was sinking +into sleep. +</p> + +<p> +“Is there any one in the front room?” said Kirke, in a whisper. +“Come in there; I have something to say to you.” +</p> + +<p> +The woman followed him through the door of communication between the rooms. +</p> + +<p> +“How much does she owe you?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +The landlady mentioned the sum. Kirke put it down before her on the table. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is your husband?” was his next question. +</p> + +<p> +“Waiting at the public-house, sir, till the hour is up.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can take him the money or not, as you think right,” said +Kirke, quietly. “I have only one thing to tell you, as far as your +husband is concerned. If you want to see every bone in his skin broken, let him +come to the house while I am in it. Stop! I have something more to say. Do you +know of any doctor in the neighborhood who can be depended on?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not in our neighborhood, sir. But I know of one within half an +hour’s walk of us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take the cab at the door; and, if you find him at home, bring him back +in it. Say I am waiting here for his opinion on a very serious case. He shall +be well paid, and you shall be well paid. Make haste!” +</p> + +<p> +The woman left the room. +</p> + +<p> +Kirke sat down alone, to wait for her return. He hid his face in his hands, and +tried to realize the strange and touching situation in which the accident of a +moment had placed him. +</p> + +<p> +Hidden in the squalid by-ways of London under a false name; cast, friendless +and helpless, on the mercy of strangers, by illness which had struck her +prostrate, mind and body alike—so he met her again, the woman who had +opened a new world of beauty to his mind; the woman who had called Love to life +in him by a look! What horrible misfortune had struck her so cruelly, and +struck her so low? What mysterious destiny had guided him to the last refuge of +her poverty and despair, in the hour of her sorest need? “If it is +ordered that I am to see her again, I <i>shall</i> see her.” Those words +came back to him now—the memorable words that he had spoken to his sister +at parting. With that thought in his heart, he had gone where his duty called +him. Months and months had passed; thousands and thousands of miles, +protracting their desolate length on the unresting waters had rolled between +them. And through the lapse of time, and over the waste of oceans—day +after day, and night after night, as the winds of heaven blew, and the good +ship toiled on before them—he had advanced nearer and nearer to the end +that was waiting for him; he had journeyed blindfold to the meeting on the +threshold of that miserable door. “What has brought me here?” he +said to himself in a whisper. “The mercy of chance? No. The mercy of +God.” +</p> + +<p> +He waited, unregardful of the place, unconscious of the time, until the sound +of footsteps on the stairs came suddenly between him and his thoughts. The door +opened, and the doctor was shown into the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Dr. Merrick,” said the landlady, placing a chair for him. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Mr.</i> Merrick,” said the visitor, smiling quietly as he took +the chair. “I am not a physician—I am a surgeon in general +practice.” +</p> + +<p> +Physician or surgeon, there was something in his face and manner which told +Kirke at a glance that he was a man to be relied on. +</p> + +<p> +After a few preliminary words on either side, Mr. Merrick sent the landlady +into the bedroom to see if his patient was awake or asleep. The woman returned, +and said she was “betwixt the two, light in the head again, and burning +hot.” The doctor went at once into the bedroom, telling the landlady to +follow him, and to close the door behind her. +</p> + +<p> +A weary time passed before he came back into the front room. When he +re-appeared, his face spoke for him, before any question could be asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it a serious illness?” said Kirke his voice sinking low, his +eyes anxiously fixed on the doctor’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a <i>dangerous</i> illness,” said Mr. Merrick, with an +emphasis on the word. +</p> + +<p> +He drew his chair nearer to Kirke and looked at him attentively. +</p> + +<p> +“May I ask you some questions which are not strictly medical?” he +inquired. +</p> + +<p> +Kirke bowed. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you tell me what her life has been before she came into this house, +and before she fell ill?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no means of knowing. I have just returned to England after a long +absence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you know of her coming here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I only discovered it by accident.” +</p> + +<p> +“Has she no female relations? No mother? no sister? no one to take care +of her but yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +“No one—unless I can succeed in tracing her relations. No one but +myself.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Merrick was silent. He looked at Kirke more attentively than ever. +“Strange!” thought the doctor. “He is here, in sole charge of +her—and is this all he knows?” +</p> + +<p> +Kirke saw the doubt in his face; and addressed himself straight to that doubt, +before another word passed between them, +</p> + +<p> +“I see my position here surprises you,” he said, simply. +“Will you consider it the position of a relation—the position of +her brother or her father—until her friends can be found?” His +voice faltered, and he laid his hand earnestly on the doctor’s arm. +“I have taken this trust on myself,” he said; “and as God +shall judge me, I will not be unworthy of it!” +</p> + +<p> +The poor weary head lay on his breast again, the poor fevered fingers clasped +his hand once more, as he spoke those words. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you,” said the doctor, warmly. “I believe you are +an honest man.—Pardon me if I have seemed to intrude myself on your +confidence. I respect your reserve—from this moment it is sacred to me. +In justice to both of us, let me say that the questions I have asked were not +prompted by mere curiosity. No common cause will account for the illness which +has laid my patient on that bed. She has suffered some long-continued mental +trial, some wearing and terrible suspense—and she has broken down under +it. It might have helped me if I could have known what the nature of the trial +was, and how long or how short a time elapsed before she sank under it. In that +hope I spoke.” +</p> + +<p> +“When you told me she was dangerously ill,” said Kirke, “did +you mean danger to her reason or to her life?” +</p> + +<p> +“To both,” replied Mr. Merrick. “Her whole nervous system has +given way; all the ordinary functions of her brain are in a state of collapse. +I can give you no plainer explanation than that of the nature of the malady. +The fever which frightens the people of the house is merely the effect. The +cause is what I have told you. She may lie on that bed for weeks to come; +passing alternately, without a gleam of consciousness, from a state of delirium +to a state of repose. You must not be alarmed if you find her sleep lasting far +beyond the natural time. That sleep is a better remedy than any I can give, and +nothing must disturb it. All our art can accomplish is to watch her, to help +her with stimulants from time to time, and to wait for what Nature will +do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Must she remain here? Is there no hope of our being able to remove her +to a better place?” +</p> + +<p> +“No hope whatever, for the present. She has already been disturbed, as I +understand, and she is seriously the worse for it. Even if she gets better, +even if she comes to herself again, it would still be a dangerous experiment to +move her too soon—the least excitement or alarm would be fatal to her. +You must make the best of this place as it is. The landlady has my directions; +and I will send a good nurse to help her. There is nothing more to be done. So +far as her life can be said to be in any human hands, it is as much in your +hands now as in mine. Everything depends on the care that is taken of her, +under your direction, in this house.” With those farewell words he rose +and quitted the room. +</p> + +<p> +Left by himself, Kirke walked to the door of communication, and, knocking at it +softly, told the landlady he wished to speak with her. +</p> + +<p> +He was far more composed, far more like his own resolute self, after his +interview with the doctor, than he had been before it. A man living in the +artificial social atmosphere which <i>this</i> man had never breathed would +have felt painfully the worldly side of the situation—its novelty and +strangeness; the serious present difficulty in which it placed him; the +numberless misinterpretations in the future to which it might lead. Kirke never +gave the situation a thought. He saw nothing but the duty it claimed from +him—a duty which the doctor’s farewell words had put plainly before +his mind. Everything depended on the care taken of her, under his direction, in +that house. There was his responsibility, and he unconsciously acted under it, +exactly as he would have acted in a case of emergency with women and children +on board his own ship. He questioned the landlady in short, sharp sentences; +the only change in him was in the lowered tone of his voice, and in the anxious +looks which he cast, from time to time, at the room where she lay. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you understand what the doctor has told you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“The house must be kept quiet. Who lives in the house?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only me and my daughter, sir; we live in the parlors. Times have gone +badly with us since Lady Day. Both the rooms above this are to let.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will take them both, and the two rooms down here as well. Do you know +of any active trustworthy man who can run on errands for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir. Shall I go—?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; let your daughter go. You must not leave the house until the nurse +comes. Don’t send the messenger up here. Men of that sort tread heavily. +I’ll go down, and speak to him at the door.” +</p> + +<p> +He went down when the messenger came, and sent him first to purchase pen, ink, +and paper. The man’s next errand dispatched him to make inquiries for a +person who could provide for deadening the sound of passing wheels in the +street by laying down tan before the house in the usual way. This object +accomplished, the messenger received two letters to post. The first was +addressed to Kirke’s brother-in-law. It told him, in few and plain words, +what had happened; and left him to break the news to his wife as he thought +best. The second letter was directed to the landlord of the Aldborough Hotel. +Magdalen’s assumed name at North Shingles was the only name by which +Kirke knew her; and the one chance of tracing her relatives that he could +discern was the chance of discovering her reputed uncle and aunt by means of +inquiries starting from Aldborough. +</p> + +<p> +Toward the close of the afternoon a decent middle-aged woman came to the house, +with a letter from Mr. Merrick. She was well known to the doctor as a +trustworthy and careful person, who had nursed his own wife; and she would be +assisted, from time to time, by a lady who was a member of a religious +Sisterhood in the district, and whose compassionate interest had been warmly +aroused in the case. Toward eight o’clock that evening the doctor himself +would call and see that his patient wanted for nothing. +</p> + +<p> +The arrival of the nurse, and the relief of knowing that she was to be trusted, +left Kirke free to think of himself. His luggage was ready packed for his +contemplated journey to Suffolk the next day. It was merely necessary to +transport it from the hotel to the house in Aaron’s Buildings. +</p> + +<p> +He stopped once only on his way to the hotel to look at a toyshop in one of the +great thoroughfares. The miniature ships in the window reminded him of his +nephew. “My little name-sake will be sadly disappointed at not seeing me +to-morrow,” he thought. “I must make it up to the boy by sending +him something from his uncle.” He went into the shop and bought one of +the ships. It was secured in a box, and packed and directed in his presence. He +put a card on the deck of the miniature vessel before the cover of the box was +nailed on, bearing this inscription: “A ship for the little sailor, with +the big sailor’s love.”—“Children like to be written +to, ma’am,” he said, apologetically, to the woman behind the +counter. “Send the box as soon as you can—I am anxious the boy +should get it to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +Toward the dusk of the evening he returned with his luggage to Aaron’s +Buildings. He took off his boots in the passage and carried his trunk upstairs +himself; stopping, as he passed the first floor, to make his inquiries. Mr. +Merrick was present to answer them. +</p> + +<p> +“She was awake and wandering,” said the doctor, “a few +minutes since. But we have succeeded in composing her, and she is sleeping +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have no words escaped her, sir, which might help us to find her +friends?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Merrick shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Weeks and weeks may pass yet,” he said, “and that poor +girl’s story may still be a sealed secret to all of us. We can only +wait.” +</p> + +<p> +So the day ended—the first of many days that were to come. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap54"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<p> +The warm sunlight of July shining softly through a green blind; an open window +with fresh flowers set on the sill; a strange bed, in a strange room; a giant +figure of the female sex (like a dream of Mrs. Wragge) towering aloft on one +side of the bed, and trying to clap its hands; another woman (quickly) stopping +the hands before they could make any noise; a mild expostulating voice (like a +dream of Mrs. Wragge again) breaking the silence in these words, “She +knows me, ma’am, she knows me; if I mustn’t be happy, it will be +the death of me!”—such were the first sights, such were the first +sounds, to which, after six weeks of oblivion, Magdalen suddenly and strangely +awoke. +</p> + +<p> +After a little, the sights grew dim again, and the sounds sank into silence. +Sleep, the merciful, took her once more, and hushed her back to repose. +</p> + +<p> +Another day—and the sights were clearer, the sounds were louder. +Another—and she heard a man’s voice, through the door, asking for +news from the sick-room. The voice was strange to her; it was always cautiously +lowered to the same quiet tone. It inquired after her, in the morning, when she +woke—at noon, when she took her refreshment—in the evening, before +she dropped asleep again. “Who is so anxious about me?” That was +the first thought her mind was strong enough to form—“Who is so +anxious about me?” +</p> + +<p> +More days—and she could speak to the nurse at her bedside; she could +answer the questions of an elderly man, who knew far more about her than she +knew about herself, and who told her he was Mr. Merrick, the doctor; she could +sit up in bed, supported by pillows, wondering what had happened to her, and +where she was; she could feel a growing curiosity about that quiet voice, which +still asked after her, morning, noon, and night, on the other side of the door. +</p> + +<p> +Another day’s delay—and Mr. Merrick asked her if she was strong +enough to see an old friend. A meek voice, behind him, articulating high in the +air, said, “It’s only me.” The voice was followed by the +prodigious bodily apparition of Mrs. Wragge, with her cap all awry, and one of +her shoes in the next room. “Oh, look at her! look at her!” cried +Mrs. Wragge, in an ecstasy, dropping on her knees at Magdalen’s bedside, +with a thump that shook the house. “Bless her heart, she’s well +enough to laugh at me already. ‘Cheer, boys, cheer—!’ I beg +your pardon, doctor, my conduct isn’t ladylike, I know. It’s my +head, sir; it isn’t <i>me.</i> I must give vent somehow, or my head will +burst!” No coherent sentence, in answer to any sort of question put to +her, could be extracted that morning from Mrs. Wragge. She rose from one climax +of verbal confusion to another—and finished her visit under the bed, +groping inscrutably for the second shoe. +</p> + +<p> +The morrow came—and Mr. Merrick promised that she should see another old +friend on the next day. In the evening, when the inquiring voice asked after +her, as usual, and when the door was opened a few inches to give the reply, she +answered faintly for herself: “I am better, thank you.” There was a +moment of silence—and then, just as the door was shut again, the voice +sank to a whisper, and said, fervently, “Thank God!” Who was he? +She had asked them all, and no one would tell her. Who was he? +</p> + +<p> +The next day came; and she heard her door opened softly. Brisk footsteps +tripped into the room; a lithe little figure advanced to the bed-side. Was it a +dream again? No! There he was in his own evergreen reality, with the copious +flow of language pouring smoothly from his lips; with the lambent dash of humor +twinkling in his party-colored eyes—there he was, more audacious, more +persuasive, more respectable than ever, in a suit of glossy black, with a +speckless white cravat, and a rampant shirt frill—the unblushing, the +invincible, unchangeable Wragge! +</p> + +<p> +“Not a word, my dear girl!” said the captain, seating himself +comfortably at the bedside, in his old confidential way. “I am to do all +the talking; and, I think you will own, a more competent man for the purpose +could not possibly have been found. I am really delighted—honestly +delighted, if I may use such an apparently inappropriate word—to see you +again, and to see you getting well. I have often thought of you; I have often +missed you; I have often said to myself—never mind what! Clear the stage, +and drop the curtain on the past. <i>Dum vivimus, vivamus!</i> Pardon the +pedantry of a Latin quotation, my dear, and tell me how I look. Am I, or am I +not, the picture of a prosperous man?” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen attempted to answer him. The captain’s deluge of words flowed +over her again in a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t exert yourself,” he said. “I’ll put all +your questions for you. What have I been about? Why do I look so remarkably +well off? And how in the world did I find my way to this house? My dear girl, I +have been occupied, since we last saw each other, in slightly modifying my old +professional habits. I have shifted from Moral Agriculture to Medical +Agriculture. Formerly I preyed on the public sympathy, now I prey on the public +stomach. Stomach and sympathy, sympathy and stomach—look them both fairly +in the face when you reach the wrong side of fifty, and you will agree with me +that they come to much the same thing. However that may be, here I +am—incredible as it may appear—a man with an income, at last. The +founders of my fortune are three in number. Their names are Aloes, Scammony, +and Gamboge. In plainer words, I am now living—on a Pill. I made a little +money (if you remember) by my friendly connection with you. I made a little +more by the happy decease (<i>Requiescat in Pace!</i>) of that female relative +of Mrs. Wragge’s from whom, as I told you, my wife had expectations. Very +good. What do you think I did? I invested the whole of my capital, at one fell +swoop, in advertisements, and purchased my drugs and my pill-boxes on credit. +The result is now before you. Here I am, a Grand Financial Fact. Here I am, +with my clothes positively paid for; with a balance at my banker’s; with +my servant in livery, and my gig at the door; solvent, flourishing, +popular—and all on a Pill.” +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen smiled. The captain’s face assumed an expression of mock +gravity; he looked as if there was a serious side to the question, and as if he +meant to put it next. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no laughing matter to the public, my dear,” he said. +“They can’t get rid of me and my Pill; they must take us. There is +not a single form of appeal in the whole range of human advertisement which I +am not making to the unfortunate public at this moment. Hire the last new +novel, there I am, inside the boards of the book. Send for the last new +Song—the instant you open the leaves, I drop out of it. Take a +cab—I fly in at the window in red. Buy a box of tooth-powder at the +chemist’s—I wrap it up for you in blue. Show yourself at the +theater—I flutter down on you in yellow. The mere titles of my +advertisements are quite irresistible. Let me quote a few from last +week’s issue. Proverbial Title: ‘A Pill in time saves Nine.’ +Familiar Title: ‘Excuse me, how is your Stomach?’ Patriotic Title: +‘What are the three characteristics of a true-born Englishman? His +Hearth, his Home, and his Pill.’ Title in the form of a nursery dialogue: +‘Mamma, I am not well.’ ‘What is the matter, my pet?’ +‘I want a little Pill.’ Title in the form of a Historical Anecdote: +‘New Discovery in the Mine of English History. When the Princes were +smothered in the Tower, their faithful attendant collected all their little +possessions left behind them. Among the touching trifles dear to the poor boys, +he found a tiny Box. It contained the Pill of the Period. Is it necessary to +say how inferior that Pill was to its Successor, which prince and peasant alike +may now obtain?’—Et cetera, et cetera. The place in which my Pill +is made is an advertisement in itself. I have got one of the largest shops in +London. Behind one counter (visible to the public through the lucid medium of +plate-glass) are four-and-twenty young men, in white aprons, making the Pill. +Behind another counter are four-and-twenty young men, in white cravats, making +the boxes. At the bottom of the shop are three elderly accountants, posting the +vast financial transactions accruing from the Pill in three enormous ledgers. +Over the door are my name, portrait, and autograph, expanded to colossal +proportions, and surrounded in flowing letters, by the motto of the +establishment, ‘Down with the Doctors!’ Even Mrs. Wragge +contributes her quota to this prodigious enterprise. She is the celebrated +woman whom I have cured of indescribable agonies from every complaint under the +sun. Her portrait is engraved on all the wrappers, with the following +inscription beneath it: ‘Before she took the Pill you might have blown +this patient away with a feather. Look at her now!!!’ Last, not least, my +dear girl, the Pill is the cause of my finding my way to this house. My +department in the prodigious Enterprise already mentioned is to scour the +United Kingdom in a gig, establishing Agencies everywhere. While founding one +of those Agencies, I heard of a certain friend of mine, who had lately landed +in England, after a long sea-voyage. I got his address in London—he was a +lodger in this house. I called on him forthwith, and was stunned by the news of +your illness. Such, in brief, is the history of my existing connection with +British Medicine; and so it happens that you see me at the present moment +sitting in the present chair, now as ever, yours truly, Horatio Wragge.” +In these terms the captain brought his personal statement to a close. He looked +more and more attentively at Magdalen, the nearer he got to the conclusion. Was +there some latent importance attaching to his last words which did not appear +on the face of them? There was. His visit to the sick-room had a serious +object, and that object he had now approached. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +In describing the circumstances under which he had become acquainted with +Magdalen’s present position, Captain Wragge had skirted, with his +customary dexterity, round the remote boundaries of truth. Emboldened by the +absence of any public scandal in connection with Noel Vanstone’s +marriage, or with the event of his death as announced in the newspaper +obituary, the captain, roaming the eastern circuit, had ventured back to +Aldborough a fortnight since, to establish an agency there for the sale of his +wonderful Pill. No one had recognized him but the landlady of the hotel, who at +once insisted on his entering the house and reading Kirke’s letter to her +husband. The same night Captain Wragge was in London, and was closeted with the +sailor in the second-floor room at Aaron’s Buildings. +</p> + +<p> +The serious nature of the situation, the indisputable certainty that Kirke must +fail in tracing Magdalen’s friends unless he first knew who she really +was, had decided the captain on disclosing part, at least, of the truth. +Declining to enter into any particulars—for family reasons, which +Magdalen might explain on her recovery, if she pleased—he astounded Kirke +by telling him that the friendless woman whom he had rescued, and whom he had +only known up to that moment as Miss Bygrave—was no other than the +youngest daughter of Andrew Vanstone. The disclosure, on Kirke’s side, of +his father’s connection with the young officer in Canada, had followed +naturally on the revelation of Magdalen’s real name. Captain Wragge had +expressed his surprise, but had made no further remark at the time. A fortnight +later, however, when the patient’s recovery forced the serious difficulty +on the doctor of meeting the questions which Magdalen was sure to ask, the +captain’s ingenuity had come, as usual, to the rescue. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t tell her the truth,” he said, “without +awakening painful recollections of her stay at Aldborough, into which I am not +at liberty to enter. Don’t acknowledge just yet that Mr. Kirke only knew +her as Miss Bygrave of North Shingles when he found her in this house. Tell her +boldly that he knew who she was, and that he felt (what she must feel) that he +had a hereditary right to help and protect her as his father’s son. I am, +as I have already told you,” continued the captain, sticking fast to his +old assertion, “a distant relative of the Combe-Raven family; and, if +there is nobody else at hand to help you through this difficulty, my services +are freely at your disposal.” +</p> + +<p> +No one else was at hand, and the emergency was a serious one. Strangers +undertaking the responsibility might ignorantly jar on past recollections, +which it would, perhaps, be the death of her to revive too soon. Near relatives +might, by their premature appearance at the bedside, produce the same +deplorable result. The alternative lay between irritating and alarming her by +leaving her inquiries unanswered, or trusting Captain Wragge. In the +doctor’s opinion, the second risk was the least serious risk of the +two—and the captain was now seated at Magdalen’s bedside in +discharge of the trust confided to him. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Would she ask the question which it had been the private object of all Captain +Wragge’s preliminary talk lightly and pleasantly to provoke? Yes; as soon +as his silence gave her the opportunity, she asked it: “Who was that +friend of his living in the house?” +</p> + +<p> +“You ought by rights to know him as well as I do,” said the +captain. “He is the son of one of your father’s old military +friends, when your father was quartered with his regiment in Canada. Your +cheeks mustn’t flush up! If they do, I shall go away.” +</p> + +<p> +She was astonished, but not agitated. Captain Wragge had begun by interesting +her in the remote past, which she only knew by hearsay, before he ventured on +the delicate ground of her own experience. +</p> + +<p> +In a moment more she advanced to her next question: “What was his +name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Kirke,” proceeded the captain. “Did you never hear of his +father, Major Kirke, commanding officer of the regiment in Canada? Did you +never hear that the major helped your father through a great difficulty, like +the best of good fellows and good friends?” +</p> + +<p> +Yes; she faintly fancied she had heard something about her father and an +officer who had once been very good to him when he was a young man. But she +could not look back so long. “Was Mr. Kirke poor?” Even Captain +Wragge’s penetration was puzzled by that question. He gave the true +answer at hazard. “No,” he said, “not poor.” +</p> + +<p> +Her next inquiry showed what she had been thinking of. “If Mr. Kirke was +not poor, why did he come to live in that house?” +</p> + +<p> +“She has caught me!” thought the captain. “There is only one +way out of it—I must administer another dose of truth. Mr. Kirke +discovered you here by chance,” he proceeded, aloud, “very ill, and +not nicely attended to. Somebody was wanted to take care of you while you were +not able to take care of yourself. Why not Mr. Kirke? He was the son of your +father’s old friend—which is the next thing to being <i>your</i> +old friend. Who had a better claim to send for the right doctor, and get the +right nurse, when I was not here to cure you with my wonderful Pill? Gently! +gently! you mustn’t take hold of my superfine black coat-sleeve in that +unceremonious manner.” +</p> + +<p> +He put her hand back on the bed, but she was not to be checked in that way. She +persisted in asking another question.—How came Mr. Kirke to know her? She +had never seen him; she had never heard of him in her life. +</p> + +<p> +“Very likely,” said Captain Wragge. “But your never having +seen <i>him</i> is no reason why he should not have seen <i>you</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“When did he see me?” +</p> + +<p> +The captain corked up his doses of truth on the spot without a moment’s +hesitation. “Some time ago, my dear. I can’t exactly say +when.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only once?” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Wragge suddenly saw his way to the administration of another dose. +“Yes,” he said, “only once.” +</p> + +<p> +She reflected a little. The next question involved the simultaneous expression +of two ideas, and the next question cost her an effort. +</p> + +<p> +“He only saw me once,” she said, “and he only saw me some +time ago. How came he to remember me when he found me here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Aha!” said the captain. “Now you have hit the right nail on +the head at last. You can’t possibly be more surprised at his remembering +you than I am. A word of advice, my dear. When you are well enough to get up +and see Mr. Kirke, try how that sharp question of yours sounds in <i>his</i> +ears, and insist on his answering it himself.” Slipping out of the +dilemma in that characteristically adroit manner, Captain Wragge got briskly on +his legs again and took up his hat. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait!” she pleaded. “I want to ask you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Not another word,” said the captain. “I have given you quite +enough to think of for one day. My time is up, and my gig is waiting for me. I +am off, to scour the country as usual. I am off, to cultivate the field of +public indigestion with the triple plowshare of aloes, scammony and +gamboge.” He stopped and turned round at the door. “By-the-by, a +message from my unfortunate wife. If you will allow her to come and see you +again, Mrs. Wragge solemnly promises <i>not</i> to lose her shoe next time. +<i>I</i> don’t believe her. What do you say? May she come?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; whenever she likes,” said Magdalen. “If I ever get well +again, may poor Mrs. Wragge come and stay with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, my dear. If you have no objection, I will provide her +beforehand with a few thousand impressions in red, blue, and yellow of her own +portrait (‘You might have blown this patient away with a feather before +she took the Pill. Look at her now!’). She is sure to drop herself about +perpetually wherever she goes, and the most gratifying results, in an +advertising point of view, must inevitably follow. Don’t think me +mercenary—I merely understand the age I live in.” He stopped on his +way out, for the second time, and turned round once more at the door. +“You have been a remarkably good girl,” he said, “and you +deserve to be rewarded for it. I’ll give you a last piece of information +before I go. Have you heard anybody inquiring after you, for the last day or +two, outside your door? Ah! I see you have. A word in your ear, my dear. +That’s Mr. Kirke.” He tripped away from the bedside as briskly as +ever. Magdalen heard him advertising himself to the nurse before he closed the +door. “If you are ever asked about it,” he said, in a confidential +whisper, “the name is Wragge, and the Pill is to be had in neat boxes, +price thirteen pence half-penny, government stamp included. Take a few copies +of the portrait of a female patient, whom you might have blown away with a +feather before she took the Pill, and whom you are simply requested to +contemplate now. Many thanks. <i>Good</i>-morning.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The door closed and Magdalen was alone again. She felt no sense of solitude; +Captain Wragge had left her with something new to think of. Hour after hour her +mind dwelt wonderingly on Mr. Kirke, until the evening came, and she heard his +voice again through the half-opened door. +</p> + +<p> +“I am very grateful,” she said to him, before the nurse could +answer his inquiries—“very, very grateful for all your goodness to +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Try to get well,” he replied, kindly. “You will more than +reward me, if you try to get well.” +</p> + +<p> +The next morning Mr. Merrick found her impatient to leave her bed, and be moved +to the sofa in the front room. The doctor said he supposed she wanted a change. +“Yes,” she replied; “I want to see Mr. Kirke.” The +doctor consented to move her on the next day, but he positively forbade the +additional excitement of seeing anybody until the day after. She attempted a +remonstrance—Mr. Merrick was impenetrable. She tried, when he was gone, +to win the nurse by persuasion—the nurse was impenetrable, too. +</p> + +<p> +On the next day they wrapped her in shawls, and carried her in to the sofa, and +made her a little bed on it. On the table near at hand were some flowers and a +number of an illustrated paper. She immediately asked who had put them there. +The nurse (failing to notice a warning look from the doctor) said Mr. Kirke had +thought that she might like the flowers, and that the pictures in the paper +might amuse her. After that reply, her anxiety to see Mr. Kirke became too +ungovernable to be trifled with. The doctor left the room at once to fetch him. +</p> + +<p> +She looked eagerly at the opening door. Her first glance at him as he came in +raised a doubt in her mind whether she now saw that tall figure and that open +sun-burned face for the first time. But she was too weak and too agitated to +follow her recollections as far back as Aldborough. She resigned the attempt, +and only looked at him. He stopped at the foot of the sofa and said a few +cheering words. She beckoned to him to come nearer, and offered him her wasted +hand. He tenderly took it in his, and sat down by her. They were both silent. +His face told her of the sorrow and the sympathy which his silence would fain +have concealed. She still held his hand—consciously now—as +persistently as she had held it on the day when he found her. Her eyes closed, +after a vain effort to speak to him, and the tears rolled slowly over her wan +white cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor signed to Kirke to wait and give her time. She recovered a little +and looked at him. “How kind you have been to me!” she murmured. +“And how little I have deserved it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush! hush!” he said. “You don’t know what a happiness +it was to me to help you.” +</p> + +<p> +The sound of his voice seemed to strengthen her, and to give her courage. She +lay looking at him with an eager interest, with a gratitude which artlessly +ignored all the conventional restraints that interpose between a woman and a +man. “Where did you see me,” she said, suddenly, “before you +found me here?” +</p> + +<p> +Kirke hesitated. Mr. Merrick came to his assistance. +</p> + +<p> +“I forbid you to say a word about the past to Mr. Kirke,” +interposed the doctor; “and I forbid Mr. Kirke to say a word about it to +<i>you.</i> You are beginning a new life to-day, and the only recollections I +sanction are recollections five minutes old.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at the doctor and smiled. “I must ask him one question,” +she said, and turned back again to Kirke. “Is it true that you had only +seen me once before you came to this house?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite true!” He made the reply with a sudden change of color which +she instantly detected. Her brightening eyes looked at him more earnestly than +ever, as she put her next question. +</p> + +<p> +“How came you to remember me after only seeing me once?” +</p> + +<p> +His hand unconsciously closed on hers, and pressed it for the first time. He +attempted to answer, and hesitated at the first word. “I have a good +memory,” he said at last; and suddenly looked away from her with a +confusion so strangely unlike his customary self-possession of manner that the +doctor and the nurse both noticed it. +</p> + +<p> +Every nerve in her body felt that momentary pressure of his hand, with the +exquisite susceptibility which accompanies the first faltering advance on the +way to health. She looked at his changing color, she listened to his hesitating +words, with every sensitive perception of her sex and age quickened to seize +intuitively on the truth. In the moment when he looked away from her, she +gently took her hand from him, and turned her head aside on the pillow. +“<i>Can</i> it be?” she thought, with a flutter of delicious fear +at her heart, with a glow of delicious confusion burning on her cheeks. +“<i>Can</i> it be?” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor made another sign to Kirke. He understood it, and rose immediately. +The momentary discomposure in his face and manner had both disappeared. He was +satisfied in his own mind that he had successfully kept his secret, and in the +relief of feeling that conviction he had become himself again. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-by till to-morrow,” he said, as he left the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-by,” she answered, softly, without looking at him. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Merrick took the chair which Kirke had resigned, and laid his hand on her +pulse. “Just what I feared,” remarked the doctor; “too quick +by half.” +</p> + +<p> +She petulantly snatched away her wrist. “Don’t!” she said, +shrinking from him. “Pray don’t touch me!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Merrick good-humoredly gave up his place to the nurse. “I’ll +return in half an hour,” he whispered, “and carry her back to bed. +Don’t let her talk. Show her the pictures in the newspaper, and keep her +quiet in that way.” +</p> + +<p> +When the doctor returned, the nurse reported that the newspaper had not been +wanted. The patient’s conduct had been exemplary. She had not been at all +restless, and she had never spoken a word. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The days passed, and the time grew longer and longer which the doctor allowed +her to spend in the front room. She was soon able to dispense with the bed on +the sofa—she could be dressed, and could sit up, supported by pillows, in +an arm-chair. Her hours of emancipation from the bedroom represented the great +daily event of her life. They were the hours she passed in Kirke’s +society. +</p> + +<p> +She had a double interest in him now—her interest in the man whose +protecting care had saved her reason and her life; her interest in the man +whose heart’s deepest secret she had surprised. Little by little they +grew as easy and familiar with each other as old friends; little by little she +presumed on all her privileges, and wound her way unsuspected into the most +intimate knowledge of his nature. +</p> + +<p> +Her questions were endless. Everything that he could tell her of himself and +his life she drew from him delicately and insensibly: he, the least +self-conscious of mankind, became an egotist in her dexterous hands. She found +out his pride in his ship, and practiced on it without remorse. She drew him +into talking of the fine qualities of the vessel, of the great things the +vessel had done in emergencies, as he had never in his life talked yet to any +living creature on shore. She found him out in private seafaring anxieties and +unutterable seafaring exultations which he had kept a secret from his own mate. +She watched his kindling face with a delicious sense of triumph in adding fuel +to the fire; she trapped him into forgetting all considerations of time and +place, and striking as hearty a stroke on the rickety little lodging-house +table, in the fervor of his talk, as if his hand had descended on the solid +bulwark of his ship. His confusion at the discovery of his own forgetfulness +secretly delighted her; she could have cried with pleasure when he penitently +wondered what he could possibly have been thinking of. +</p> + +<p> +At other times she drew him from dwelling on the pleasures of his life, and led +him into talking of its perils—the perils of that jealous mistress the +sea, which had absorbed so much of his existence, which had kept him so +strangely innocent and ignorant of the world on shore. Twice he had been +shipwrecked. Times innumerable he and all with him had been threatened with +death, and had escaped their doom by the narrowness of a hair-breadth. He was +always unwilling at the outset to speak of this dark and dreadful side of his +life: it was only by adroitly tempting him, by laying little snares for him in +his talk, that she lured him into telling her of the terrors of the great deep. +She sat listening to him with a breathless interest, looking at him with a +breathless wonder, as those fearful stories—made doubly vivid by the +simple language in which he told them—fell, one by one, from his lips. +His noble unconsciousness of his own heroism—the artless modesty with +which he described his own acts of dauntless endurance and devoted courage, +without an idea that they were anything more than plain acts of duty to which +he was bound by the vocation that he followed—raised him to a place in +her estimation so hopelessly high above her that she became uneasy and +impatient until she had pulled down the idol again which she herself had set +up. It was on these occasions that she most rigidly exacted from him all those +little familiar attentions so precious to women in their intercourse with men. +“This hand,” she thought, with an exquisite delight in secretly +following the idea while he was close to her—“this hand that has +rescued the drowning from death is shifting my pillows so tenderly that I +hardly know when they are moved. This hand that has seized men mad with mutiny, +and driven them back to their duty by main force, is mixing my lemonade and +peeling my fruit more delicately and more neatly than I could do it for myself. +Oh, if I could be a man, how I should like to be such a man as this!” +</p> + +<p> +She never allowed her thoughts, while she was in his presence, to lead her +beyond that point. It was only when the night had separated them that she +ventured to let her mind dwell on the self-sacrificing devotion which had so +mercifully rescued her. Kirke little knew how she thought of him, in the +secrecy of her own chamber, during the quiet hours that elapsed before she sank +to sleep. No suspicion crossed his mind of the influence which he was exerting +over her—of the new spirit which he was breathing into that new life, so +sensitively open to impression in the first freshness of its recovered sense. +“She has nobody else to amuse her, poor thing,” he used to think, +sadly, sitting alone in his small second-floor room. “If a rough fellow +like me can beguile the weary hours till her friends come here, she is heartily +welcome to all that I can tell her.” +</p> + +<p> +He was out of spirits and restless now whenever he was by himself. Little by +little he fell into a habit of taking long, lonely walks at night, when +Magdalen thought he was sleeping upstairs. Once he went away abruptly in the +day-time—on business, as he said. Something had passed between Magdalen +and himself the evening before which had led her into telling him her age. +“Twenty last birthday,” he thought. “Take twenty from +forty-one. An easy sum in subtraction—as easy a sum as my little nephew +could wish for.” He walked to the Docks, and looked bitterly at the +shipping. “I mustn’t forget how a ship is made,” he said. +“It won’t be long before I am back at the old work again.” On +leaving the Docks he paid a visit to a brother sailor—a married man. In +the course of conversation he asked how much older his friend might be than his +friend’s wife. There was six years’ difference between them. +“I suppose that’s difference enough?” said Kirke. +“Yes,” said his friend; “quite enough. Are you looking out +for a wife at last? Try a seasoned woman of thirty-five—that’s your +mark, Kirke, as near as I can calculate.” +</p> + +<p> +The time passed smoothly and quickly—the present time, in which +<i>she</i> was recovering so happily—the present time, which <i>he</i> +was beginning to distrust already. +</p> + +<p> +Early one morning Mr. Merrick surprised Kirke by a visit in his little room on +the second floor. +</p> + +<p> +“I came to the conclusion yesterday,” said the doctor, entering +abruptly on his business, “that our patient was strong enough to justify +us at last in running all risks, and communicating with her friends; and I have +accordingly followed the clue which that queer fellow, Captain Wragge, put into +our hands. You remember he advised us to apply to Mr. Pendril, the lawyer? I +saw Mr. Pendril two days ago, and was referred by him—not overwillingly, +as I thought—to a lady named Miss Garth. I heard enough from her to +satisfy me that we have exercised a wise caution in acting as we have done. It +is a very, very sad story; and I am bound to say that I, for one, make great +allowances for the poor girl downstairs. Her only relation in the world is her +elder sister. I have suggested that the sister shall write to her in the first +instance, and then, if the letter does her no harm, follow it personally in a +day or two. I have not given the address, by way of preventing any visits from +being paid here without my permission. All I have done is to undertake to +forward the letter, and I shall probably find it at my house when I get back. +Can you stop at home until I send my man with it? There is not the least hope +of my being able to bring it myself. All you need do is to watch for an +opportunity when she is not in the front room, and to put the letter where she +can see it when she comes in. The handwriting on the address will break the +news before she opens the letter. Say nothing to her about it—take care +that the landlady is within call—and leave her to herself. I know I can +trust <i>you</i> to follow my directions, and that is why I ask you to do us +this service. You look out of spirits this morning. Natural enough. +You’re used to plenty of fresh air, captain, and you’re beginning +to pine in this close place.” +</p> + +<p> +“May I ask a question, doctor? Is <i>she</i> pining in this close place, +too? When her sister comes, will her sister take her away?” +</p> + +<p> +“Decidedly, if my advice is followed. She will be well enough to be moved +in a week or less. Good-day. You are certainly out of spirits, and your hand +feels feverish. Pining for the blue water, captain—pining for the blue +water!” With that expression of opinion, the doctor cheerfully went out. +</p> + +<p> +In an hour the letter arrived. Kirke took it from the landlady reluctantly, and +almost roughly, without looking at it. Having ascertained that Magdalen was +still engaged at her toilet, and having explained to the landlady the necessity +of remaining within call, he went downstairs immediately, and put the letter on +the table in the front room. Magdalen heard the sound of the familiar step on +the floor. “I shall soon be ready,” she called to him, through the +door. +</p> + +<p> +He made no reply; he took his hat and went out. After a momentary hesitation, +he turned his face eastward, and called on the ship-owners who employed him, at +their office in Cornhill. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap55"></a>CHAPTER III.</h3> + +<p> +Magdalen’s first glance round the empty room showed her the letter on the +table. The address, as the doctor had predicted, broke the news the moment she +looked at it. +</p> + +<p> +Not a word escaped her. She sat down by the table, pale and silent, with the +letter in her lap. Twice she attempted to open it, and twice she put it back +again. The bygone time was not alone in her mind as she looked at her +sister’s handwriting: the fear of Kirke was there with it. “My past +life!” she thought. “What will he think of me when he knows my past +life?” +</p> + +<p> +She made another effort, and broke the seal. A second letter dropped out of the +inclosure, addressed to her in a handwriting with which she was not familiar. +She put the second letter aside and read the lines which Norah had written: +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Ventnor, Isle of Wight, August 24th. +</p> + +<p> +“MY DEAREST MAGDALEN, +</p> + +<p> +“When you read this letter, try to think we have only been parted since +yesterday; and dismiss from your mind (as I have dismissed from mine) the past +and all that belongs to it. +</p> + +<p> +“I am strictly forbidden to agitate you, or to weary you by writing a +long letter. Is it wrong to tell you that I am the happiest woman living? I +hope not, for I can’t keep the secret to myself. +</p> + +<p> +“My darling, prepare yourself for the greatest surprise I have ever +caused you. I am married. It is only a week to-day since I parted with my old +name—it is only a week since I have been the happy wife of George +Bartram, of St. Crux. +</p> + +<p> +“There were difficulties at first in the way of our marriage, some of +them, I am afraid, of my making. Happily for me, my husband knew from the +beginning that I really loved him: he gave me a second chance of telling him +so, after I had lost the first, and, as you see, I was wise enough to take it. +You ought to be especially interested, my love, in this marriage, for you are +the cause of it. If I had not gone to Aldborough to search for the lost trace +of you—if George had not been brought there at the same time by +circumstances in which you were concerned, my husband and I might never have +met. When we look back to our first impressions of each other, we look back to +<i>you</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“I must keep my promise not to weary you; I must bring this letter +(sorely against my will) to an end. Patience! patience! I shall see you soon. +George and I are both coming to London to take you back with us to Ventnor. +This is my husband’s invitation, mind, as well as mine. Don’t +suppose I married him, Magdalen, until I had taught him to think of you as I +think—to wish with my wishes, and to hope with my hopes. I could say so +much more about this, so much more about George, if I might only give my +thoughts and my pen their own way; but I must leave Miss Garth (at her own +special request) a blank space to fill up on the last page of this letter; and +I must only add one word more before I say good-by—a word to warn you +that I have another surprise in store, which I am keeping in reserve until we +meet. Don’t attempt to guess what it is. You might guess for ages, and be +no nearer than you are now to the discovery of the truth. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Your affectionate sister,<br/> +“NORAH BARTRAM.” +</p> + +<p class="center"> +(Added by Miss Garth.) +</p> + +<p> +“MY DEAR CHILD, +</p> + +<p> +“If I had ever lost my old loving recollection of you, I should feel it +in my heart again now, when I know that it has pleased God to restore you to us +from the brink of the grave. I add these lines to your sister’s letter +because I am not sure that you are quite so fit yet, as she thinks you, to +accept her proposal. She has not said a word of her husband or herself which is +not true. But Mr. Bartram is a stranger to you; and if you think you can +recover more easily and more pleasantly to yourself under the wing of your old +governess than under the protection of your new brother-in-law, come to me +first, and trust to my reconciling Norah to the change of plans. I have secured +the refusal of a little cottage at Shanklin, near enough to your sister to +allow of your seeing each other whenever you like, and far enough away, at the +same time, to secure you the privilege, when you wish it, of being alone. Send +me one line before we meet to say Yes or No, and I will write to Shanklin by +the next post. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Always yours affectionately,<br/> +“HARRIET GARTH” +</p> + +<p> +The letter dropped from Magdalen’s hand. Thoughts which had never risen +in her mind yet rose in it now. +</p> + +<p> +Norah, whose courage under undeserved calamity had been the courage of +resignation—Norah, who had patiently accepted her hard lot; who from +first to last had meditated no vengeance and stooped to no deceit—Norah +had reached the end which all her sister’s ingenuity, all her +sister’s resolution, and all her sister’s daring had failed to +achieve. Openly and honorably, with love on one side and love on the other, +Norah had married the man who possessed the Combe-Raven money—and +Magdalen’s own scheme to recover it had opened the way to the event which +had brought husband and wife together. +</p> + +<p> +As the light of that overwhelming discovery broke on her mind, the old strife +was renewed; and Good and Evil struggled once more which should win +her—but with added forces this time; with the new spirit that had been +breathed into her new life; with the nobler sense that had grown with the +growth of her gratitude to the man who had saved her, fighting on the better +side. All the higher impulses of her nature, which had never, from first to +last, let her err with impunity—which had tortured her, before her +marriage and after it, with the remorse that no woman inherently heartless and +inherently wicked can feel—all the nobler elements in her character, +gathered their forces for the crowning struggle and strengthened her to meet, +with no unworthy shrinking, the revelation that had opened on her view. Clearer +and clearer, in the light of its own immortal life, the truth rose before her +from the ashes of her dead passions, from the grave of her buried hopes. When +she looked at the letter again—when she read the words once more which +told her that the recovery of the lost fortune was her sister’s triumph, +not hers, she had victoriously trampled down all little jealousies and all mean +regrets; she could say in her hearts of hearts, “Norah has deserved +it!” +</p> + +<p> +The day wore on. She sat absorbed in her own thoughts, and heedless of the +second letter which she had not opened yet, until Kirke’s return. +</p> + +<p> +He stopped on the landing outside, and, opening the door a little way only, +asked, without entering the room, if she wanted anything that he could send +her. She begged him to come in. His face was worn and weary; he looked older +than she had seen him look yet. “Did you put my letter on the table for +me?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I put it there at the doctor’s request.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose the doctor told you it was from my sister? She is coming to +see me, and Miss Garth is coming to see me. They will thank you for all your +goodness to me better than I can.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no claim on their thanks,” he answered, sternly. +“What I have done was not done for them, but for you.” He waited a +little, and looked at her. His face would have betrayed him in that look, his +voice would have betrayed him in the next words he spoke, if she had not +guessed the truth already. “When your friends come here,” he +resumed, “they will take you away, I suppose, to some better place than +this.” +</p> + +<p> +“They can take me to no place,” she said, gently, “which I +shall think of as I think of the place where you found me. They can take me to +no dearer friend than the friend who saved my life.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a moment’s silence between them. +</p> + +<p> +“We have been very happy here,” he went on, in lower and lower +tones. “You won’t forget me when we have said good-by?” +</p> + +<p> +She turned pale as the words passed his lips, and, leaving her chair, knelt +down at the table, so as to look up into his face, and to force him to look +into hers. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you talk of it?” she asked. “We are not going to say +good-by, at least not yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought—” he began. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought your friends were coming here—” +</p> + +<p> +She eagerly interrupted him. “Do you think I would go away with +anybody,” she said, “even with the dearest relation I have in the +world, and leave you here, not knowing and not caring whether I ever saw you +again? Oh, you don’t think that of me!” she exclaimed, with the +passionate tears springing into her eyes—“I’m sure you +don’t think that of me!” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said; “I never have thought, I never can think, +unjustly or unworthily of you.” +</p> + +<p> +Before he could add another word she left the table as suddenly as she had +approached it, and returned to her chair. He had unconsciously replied in terms +that reminded her of the hard necessity which still remained +unfulfilled—the necessity of telling him the story of the past. Not an +idea of concealing that story from his knowledge crossed her mind. “Will +he love me, when he knows the truth, as he loves me now?” That was her +only thought as she tried to approach the subject in his presence without +shrinking from it. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us put my own feelings out of the question,” she said. +“There is a reason for my not going away, unless I first have the +assurance of seeing you again. You have a claim—the strongest claim of +any one—to know how I came here, unknown to my friends, and how it was +that you found me fallen so low.” +</p> + +<p> +“I make no claim,” he said, hastily. “I wish to know nothing +which distresses you to tell me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have always done your duty,” she rejoined, with a faint smile. +“Let me take example from you, if I can, and try to do mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am old enough to be your father,” he said, bitterly. “Duty +is more easily done at my age than it is at yours.” +</p> + +<p> +His age was so constantly in his mind now that he fancied it must be in her +mind too. She had never given it a thought. The reference he had just made to +it did not divert her for a moment from the subject on which she was speaking +to him. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know how I value your good opinion of me,” she +said, struggling resolutely to sustain her sinking courage. “How can I +deserve your kindness, how can I feel that I am worthy of your regard, until I +have opened my heart to you? Oh, don’t encourage me in my own miserable +weakness! Help me to tell the truth—<i>force</i> me to tell it, for my +own sake if not for yours!” +</p> + +<p> +He was deeply moved by the fervent sincerity of that appeal. +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>shall</i> tell it,” he said. “You are right—and +I was wrong.” He waited a little, and considered. “Would it be +easier to you,” he asked, with delicate consideration for her, “to +write it than to tell it?” +</p> + +<p> +She caught gratefully at the suggestion. “Far easier,” she replied. +“I can be sure of myself—I can be sure of hiding nothing from you, +if I write it. Don’t write to me on your side!” she added, +suddenly, seeing with a woman’s instinctive quickness of penetration the +danger of totally renouncing her personal influence over him. “Wait till +we meet, and tell me with your own lips what you think.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where shall I tell it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Here!” she said eagerly. “Here, where you found me +helpless—here, where you have brought me back to life, and where I have +first learned to know you. I can bear the hardest words you say to me if you +will only say them in this room. It is impossible I can be away longer than a +month; a month will be enough and more than enough. If I come +back—” She stopped confusedly. “I am thinking of +myself,” she said, “when I ought to be thinking of you. You have +your own occupations and your own friends. Will you decide for us? Will you say +how it shall be?” +</p> + +<p> +“It shall be as you wish. If you come back in a month, you will find me +here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will it cause you no sacrifice of your own comfort and your own +plans?” +</p> + +<p> +“It will cause me nothing,” he replied, “but a journey back +to the City.” He rose and took his hat. “I must go there at +once,” he added, “or I shall not be in time.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a promise between us?” she said, and held out her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he answered, a little sadly; “it is a promise.” +</p> + +<p> +Slight as it was, the shade of melancholy in his manner pained her. Forgetting +all other anxieties in the anxiety to cheer him, she gently pressed the hand he +gave her. “If <i>that</i> won’t tell him the truth,” she +thought, “nothing will.” +</p> + +<p> +It failed to tell him the truth; but it forced a question on his mind which he +had not ventured to ask himself before. “Is it her gratitude, or her +love; that is speaking to me?” he wondered. “If I was only a +younger man, I might almost hope it was her love.” That terrible sum in +subtraction which had first presented itself on the day when she told him her +age began to trouble him again as he left the house. He took twenty from +forty-one, at intervals, all the way back to the ship-owners’ office in +Cornhill. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Left by herself, Magdalen approached the table to write the line of answer +which Miss Garth requested, and gratefully to accept the proposal that had been +made to her. +</p> + +<p> +The second letter which she had laid aside and forgotten was the first object +that caught her eye on changing her place. She opened it immediately, and, not +recognizing the handwriting, looked at the signature. To her unutterable +astonishment, her correspondent proved to be no less a person than—old +Mr. Clare! +</p> + +<p> +The philosopher’s letter dispensed with all the ordinary forms of +address, and entered on the subject without prefatory phrases of any kind, in +these uncompromising terms: +</p> + +<p> +“I have more news for you of that contemptible cur, my son. Here it is in +the fewest possible words. +</p> + +<p> +“I always told you, if you remember, that Frank was a Sneak. The very +first trace recovered of him, after his running away from his employers in +China, presents him in that character. Where do you think he turns up next? He +turns up, hidden behind a couple of flour barrels, on board an English vessel +bound homeward from Hong-Kong to London. +</p> + +<p> +“The name of the ship was the <i>Deliverance</i>, and the commander was +one Captain Kirke. Instead of acting like a sensible man, and throwing Frank +overboard, Captain Kirke was fool enough to listen to his story. He made the +most of his misfortunes, you may be sure. He was half starved; he was an +Englishman lost in a strange country, without a friend to help him; his only +chance of getting home was to sneak into the hold of an English +vessel—and he had sneaked in, accordingly, at Hong-Kong, two days since. +That was his story. Any other lout in Frank’s situation would have been +rope’s ended by any other captain. Deserving no pity from anybody, Frank +was, as a matter of course, coddled and compassionated on the spot. The captain +took him by the hand, the crew pitied him, and the passengers patted him on the +back. He was fed, clothed, and presented with his passage home. Luck enough so +far, you will say. Nothing of the sort; nothing like luck enough for my +despicable son. +</p> + +<p> +“The ship touched at the Cape of Good Hope. Among his other acts of folly +Captain Kirke took a woman passenger on board at that place—not a young +woman by any means—the elderly widow of a rich colonist. Is it necessary +to say that she forthwith became deeply interested in Frank and his +misfortunes? Is it necessary to tell you what followed? Look back at my +son’s career, and you will see that what followed was all of a piece with +what went before. He didn’t deserve your poor father’s interest in +him—and he got it. He didn’t deserve your attachment—and he +got it. He didn’t deserve the best place in one of the best offices in +London; he didn’t deserve an equally good chance in one of the best +mercantile houses in China; he didn’t deserve food, clothing, pity, and a +free passage home—and he got them all. Last, not least, he didn’t +even deserve to marry a woman old enough to be his grandmother—and he has +done it! Not five minutes since I sent his wedding-cards out to the dust-hole, +and tossed the letter that came with them into the fire. The last piece of +information which that letter contains is that he and his wife are looking out +for a house and estate to suit them. Mark my words! Frank will get one of the +best estates in England; a seat in the House of Commons will follow as a matter +of course; and one of the legislators of this Ass-ridden country will +be—MY LOUT! +</p> + +<p> +“If you are the sensible girl I have always taken you for, you have long +since learned to rate Frank at his true value, and the news I send you will +only confirm your contempt for him. I wish your poor father could but have +lived to see this day! Often as I have missed my old gossip, I don’t know +that I ever felt the loss of him so keenly as I felt it when Frank’s +wedding-cards and Frank’s letter came to this house. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Your friend, if you ever want one,<br/> +“FRANCIS CLARE, Sen.” +</p> + +<p> +With one momentary disturbance of her composure, produced by the appearance of +Kirke’s name in Mr. Clare’s singular narrative, Magdalen read the +letter steadily through from beginning to end. The time when it could have +distressed her was gone by; the scales had long since fallen from her eyes. Mr. +Clare himself would have been satisfied if he had seen the quiet contempt on +her face as she laid aside his letter. The only serious thought it cost her was +a thought in which Kirke was concerned. The careless manner in which he had +referred in her presence to the passengers on board his ship, without +mentioning any of them by their names, showed her that Frank must have kept +silence on the subject of the engagement once existing between them. The +confession of that vanished delusion was left for her to make, as part of the +story of the past which she had pledged herself unreservedly to reveal. +</p> + +<p> +She wrote to Miss Garth, and sent the letter to the post immediately. +</p> + +<p> +The next morning brought a line of rejoinder. Miss Garth had written to secure +the cottage at Shanklin, and Mr. Merrick had consented to Magdalen’s +removal on the following day. Norah would be the first to arrive at the house; +and Miss Garth would follow, with a comfortable carriage to take the invalid to +the railway. Every needful arrangement had been made for her; the effort of +moving was the one effort she would have to make. +</p> + +<p> +Magdalen read the letter thankfully, but her thoughts wandered from it, and +followed Kirke on his return to the City. What was the business which had once +already taken him there in the morning? And why had the promise exchanged +between them obliged him to go to the City again, for the second time in one +day? +</p> + +<p> +Was it by any chance business relating to the sea? Were his employers tempting +him to go back to his ship? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap56"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + +<p> +The first agitation of the meeting between the sisters was over; the first +vivid impressions, half pleasurable, half painful, had softened a little, and +Norah and Magdalen sat together hand in hand, each rapt in the silent fullness +of her own joy. Magdalen was the first to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“You have something to tell me, Norah?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have a thousand things to tell you, my love; and you have ten thousand +things to tell me.—Do you mean that second surprise which I told you of +in my letter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I suppose it must concern me very nearly, or you would hardly have +thought of mentioning it in your first letter?” +</p> + +<p> +“It does concern you very nearly. You have heard of George’s house +in Essex? You must be familiar, at least, with the name of St. Crux?—What +is there to start at, my dear? I am afraid you are hardly strong enough for any +more surprises just yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite strong enough, Norah. I have something to say to you about St. +Crux—I have a surprise, on my side, for <i>you.</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you tell it me now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not now. You shall know it when we are at the seaside; you shall know it +before I accept the kindness which has invited me to your husband’s +house.” +</p> + +<p> +“What <i>can</i> it be? Why not tell me at once?” +</p> + +<p> +“You used often to set me the example of patience, Norah, in old times; +will you set me the example now?” +</p> + +<p> +“With all my heart. Shall I return to my own story as well? Yes? Then we +will go back to it at once. I was telling you that St. Crux is George’s +house, in Essex, the house he inherited from his uncle. Knowing that Miss Garth +had a curiosity to see the place, he left word (when he went abroad after the +admiral’s death) that she and any friends who came with her were to be +admitted, if she happened to find herself in the neighborhood during his +absence. Miss Garth and I, and a large party of Mr. Tyrrel’s friends, +found ourselves in the neighborhood not long after George’s departure. We +had all been invited to see the launch of Mr. Tyrrel’s new yacht from the +builder’s yard at Wivenhoe, in Essex. When the launch was over, the rest +of the company returned to Colchester to dine. Miss Garth and I contrived to +get into the same carriage together, with nobody but my two little pupils for +our companions. We gave the coachman his orders, and drove round by St. Crux. +The moment Miss Garth mentioned her name we were let in, and shown all over the +house. I don’t know how to describe it to you. It is the most bewildering +place I ever saw in my life—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t attempt to describe it, Norah. Go on with your story +instead.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well. My story takes me straight into one of the rooms at St. +Crux—a room about as long as your street here—so dreary, so dirty, +and so dreadfully cold that I shiver at the bare recollection of it. Miss Garth +was for getting out of it again as speedily as possible, and so was I. But the +housekeeper declined to let us off without first looking at a singular piece of +furniture, the only piece of furniture in the comfortless place. She called it +a tripod, I think. (There is nothing to be alarmed at, Magdalen; I assure you +there is nothing to be alarmed at!) At any rate, it was a strange, three-legged +thing, which supported a great panful of charcoal ashes at the top. It was +considered by all good judges (the housekeeper told us) a wonderful piece of +chasing in metal; and she especially pointed out the beauty of some scroll-work +running round the inside of the pan, with Latin mottoes on it, +signifying—I forget what. I felt not the slightest interest in the thing +myself, but I looked close at the scroll-work to satisfy the housekeeper. To +confess the truth, she was rather tiresome with her mechanically learned +lecture on fine metal work; and, while she was talking, I found myself idly +stirring the soft feathery white ashes backward and forward with my hand, +pretending to listen, with my mind a hundred miles away from her. I don’t +know how long or how short a time I had been playing with the ashes, when my +fingers suddenly encountered a piece of crumpled paper hidden deep among them. +When I brought it to the surface, it proved to be a letter—a long letter +full of cramped, close writing.—You have anticipated my story, Magdalen, +before I can end it! You know as well as I do that the letter which my idle +fingers found was the Secret Trust. Hold out your hand, my dear. I have got +George’s permission to show it to you, and there it is!” +</p> + +<p> +She put the Trust into her sister’s hand. Magdalen took it from her +mechanically. “You!” she said, looking at her sister with the +remembrance of all that she had vainly ventured, of all that she had vainly +suffered, at St. Crux—“<i>you</i> have found it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Norah, gayly; “the Trust has proved no exception +to the general perversity of all lost things. Look for them, and they remain +invisible. Leave them alone, and they reveal themselves! You and your lawyer, +Magdalen, were both justified in supposing that your interest in this discovery +was an interest of no common kind. I spare you all our consultations after I +had produced the crumpled paper from the ashes. It ended in George’s +lawyer being written to, and in George himself being recalled from the +Continent. Miss Garth and I both saw him immediately on his return. He did what +neither of us could do—he solved the mystery of the Trust being hidden in +the charcoal ashes. Admiral Bartram, you must know, was all his life subject to +fits of somnambulism. He had been found walking in his sleep not long before +his death—just at the time, too, when he was sadly troubled in his mind +on the subject of that very letter in your hand. George’s idea is that he +must have fancied he was doing in his sleep what he would have died rather than +do in his waking moments—destroying the Trust. The fire had been lighted +in the pan not long before, and he no doubt saw it still burning in his dream. +This was George’s explanation of the strange position of the letter when +I discovered it. The question of what was to be done with the letter itself +came next, and was no easy question for a woman to understand. But I determined +to master it, and I did master it, because it related to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me try to master it, in my turn,” said Magdalen. “I have +a particular reason for wishing to know as much about this letter as you know +yourself. What has it done for others, and what is it to do for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Magdalen, how strangely you look at it! how strangely you talk +of it! Worthless as it may appear, that morsel of paper gives you a +fortune.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is my only claim to the fortune the claim which this letter gives +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; the letter is your only claim. Shall I try if I can explain it in +two words? Taken by itself, the letter might, in the lawyer’s opinion, +have been made a matter for dispute, though I am sure George would have +sanctioned no proceeding of that sort. Taken, however, with the postscript +which Admiral Bartram attached to it (you will see the lines if you look under +the signature on the third page), it becomes legally binding, as well as +morally binding, on the admiral’s representatives. I have exhausted my +small stock of legal words, and must go on in my own language instead of in the +lawyer’s. The end of the thing was simply this. All the money went back +to Mr. Noel Vanstone’s estate (another legal word! my vocabulary is +richer than I thought), for one plain reason—that it had not been +employed as Mr. Noel Vanstone directed. If Mrs. Girdlestone had lived, or if +George had married me a few months earlier, results would have been just the +other way. As it is, half the money has been already divided between Mr. Noel +Vanstone’s next of kin; which means, translated into plain English, my +husband, and his poor bedridden sister—who took the money formally, one +day, to satisfy the lawyer, and who gave it back again generously, the next, to +satisfy herself. So much for one half of this legacy. The other half, my dear, +is all yours. How strangely events happen, Magdalen! It is only two years since +you and I were left disinherited orphans—and we are sharing our poor +father’s fortune between us, after all!” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a little, Norah. Our shares come to us in very different +ways.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do they? Mine comes to me by my husband. Yours comes to +you—” She stopped confusedly, and changed color. “Forgive me, +my own love!” she said, putting Magdalen’s hand to her lips. +“I have forgotten what I ought to have remembered. I have thoughtlessly +distressed you!” +</p> + +<p> +“No!” said Magdalen; “you have encouraged me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Encouraged you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall see.” +</p> + +<p> +With those words, she rose quietly from the sofa, and walked to the open +window. Before Norah could follow her, she had torn the Trust to pieces, and +had cast the fragments into the street. +</p> + +<p> +She came back to the sofa and laid her head, with a deep sigh of relief, on +Norah’s bosom. “I will owe nothing to my past life,” she +said. “I have parted with it as I have parted with those torn morsels of +paper. All the thoughts and all the hopes belonging to it are put away from me +forever!” +</p> + +<p> +“Magdalen, my husband will never allow you! I will never allow you +myself—” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush! hush! What your husband thinks right, Norah, you and I will think +right too. I will take from <i>you</i> what I would never have taken if that +letter had given it to me. The end I dreamed of has come. Nothing is changed +but the position I once thought we might hold toward each other. Better as it +is, my love—far, far better as it is!” +</p> + +<p> +So she made the last sacrifice of the old perversity and the old pride. So she +entered on the new and nobler life. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +A month had passed. The autumn sunshine was bright even in the murky streets, +and the clocks in the neighborhood were just striking two, as Magdalen returned +alone to the house in Aaron’s Buildings. +</p> + +<p> +“Is he waiting for me?” she asked, anxiously, when the landlady let +her in. +</p> + +<p> +He was waiting in the front room. Magdalen stole up the stairs and knocked at +the door. He called to her carelessly and absently to come in, plainly thinking +that it was only the servant who applied for permission to enter the room. +</p> + +<p> +“You hardly expected me so soon?” she said speaking on the +threshold, and pausing there to enjoy his surprise as he started to his feet +and looked at her. +</p> + +<p> +The only traces of illness still visible in her face left a delicacy in its +outline which added refinement to her beauty. She was simply dressed in muslin. +Her plain straw bonnet had no other ornament than the white ribbon with which +it was sparingly trimmed. She had never looked lovelier in her best days than +she looked now, as she advanced to the table at which he had been sitting, with +a little basket of flowers that she had brought with her from the country, and +offered him her hand. +</p> + +<p> +He looked anxious and careworn when she saw him closer. She interrupted his +first inquiries and congratulations to ask if he had remained in London since +they had parted—if he had not even gone away, for a few days only, to see +his friends in Suffolk? No; he had been in London ever since. He never told her +that the pretty parsonage house in Suffolk wanted all those associations with +herself in which the poor four walls at Aaron’s Buildings were so rich. +He only said he had been in London ever since. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder,” she asked, looking him attentively in the face, +“if you are as happy to see me again as I am to see you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I am even happier, in my different way,” he answered, with +a smile. +</p> + +<p> +She took off her bonnet and scarf, and seated herself once more in her own +arm-chair. “I suppose this street is very ugly,” she said; +“and I am sure nobody can deny that the house is very small. And +yet—and yet it feels like coming home again. Sit there where you used to +sit; tell me about yourself. I want to know all that you have done, all that +you have thought even, while I have been away.” She tried to resume the +endless succession of questions by means of which she was accustomed to lure +him into speaking of himself. But she put them far less spontaneously, far less +adroitly, than usual. Her one all-absorbing anxiety in entering that room was +not an anxiety to be trifled with. After a quarter of an hour wasted in +constrained inquiries on one side, in reluctant replies on the other, she +ventured near the dangerous subject at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you received the letters I wrote to you from the seaside?” +she asked, suddenly looking away from him for the first time. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said; “all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you read them?” +</p> + +<p> +“Every one of them—many times over.” +</p> + +<p> +Her heart beat as if it would suffocate her. She had kept her promise bravely. +The whole story of her life, from the time of the home-wreck at Combe-Raven to +the time when she had destroyed the Secret Trust in her sister’s +presence, had been all laid before him. Nothing that she had done, nothing even +that she had thought, had been concealed from his knowledge. As he would have +kept a pledged engagement with her, so she had kept her pledged engagement with +him. She had not faltered in the resolution to do this; and now she faltered +over the one decisive question which she had come there to ask. Strong as the +desire in her was to know if she had lost or won him, the fear of knowing was +at that moment stronger still. She waited and trembled; she waited, and said no +more. +</p> + +<p> +“May I speak to you about your letters?” he asked. “May I +tell you—?” +</p> + +<p> +If she had looked at him as he said those few words, she would have seen what +he thought of her in his face. She would have seen, innocent as he was in this +world’s knowledge, that he knew the priceless value, the all-ennobling +virtue, of a woman who speaks the truth. But she had no courage to look at +him—no courage to raise her eyes from her lap. +</p> + +<p> +“Not just yet,” she said, faintly. “Not quite so soon after +we have met again.” +</p> + +<p> +She rose hurriedly from her chair, and walked to the window, turned back again +into the room, and approached the table, close to where he was sitting. The +writing materials scattered near him offered her a pretext for changing the +subject, and she seized on it directly. “Were you writing a +letter,” she asked, “when I came in?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was thinking about it,” he replied. “It was not a letter +to be written without thinking first.” He rose as he answered her to +gather the writing materials together and put them away. +</p> + +<p> +“Why should I interrupt you?” she said. “Why not let me try +whether I can’t help you instead? Is it a secret?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not a secret.” +</p> + +<p> +He hesitated as he answered her. She instantly guessed the truth. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it about your ship?” +</p> + +<p> +He little knew how she had been thinking in her absence from him of the +business which he believed that he had concealed from her. He little knew that +she had learned already to be jealous of his ship. “Do they want you to +return to your old life?” she went on. “Do they want you to go back +to the sea? Must you say Yes or No at once?” +</p> + +<p> +“At once.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I had not come in when I did would you have said Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +She unconsciously laid her hand on his arm, forgetting all inferior +considerations in her breathless anxiety to hear his next words. The confession +of his love was within a hair-breadth of escaping him; but he checked the +utterance of it even yet. “I don’t care for myself,” he +thought; “but how can I be certain of not distressing <i>her?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you have said Yes?” she repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“I was doubting,” he answered—“I was doubting between +Yes and No.” +</p> + +<p> +Her hand tightened on his arm; a sudden trembling seized her in every limb, she +could bear it no longer. All her heart went out to him in her next words: +</p> + +<p> +“Were you doubting <i>for my sake?”</i> +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said. “Take my confession in return for +yours—I was doubting for your sake.” +</p> + +<p> +She said no more; she only looked at him. In that look the truth reached him at +last. The next instant she was folded in his arms, and was shedding delicious +tears of joy, with her face hidden on his bosom. +</p> + +<p> +“Do I deserve my happiness?” she murmured, asking the one question +at last. “Oh, I know how the poor narrow people who have never felt and +never suffered would answer me if I asked them what I ask you. If <i>they</i> +knew my story, they would forget all the provocation, and only remember the +offense; they would fasten on my sin, and pass all my suffering by. But you are +not one of them! Tell me if you have any shadow of a misgiving! Tell me if you +doubt that the one dear object of all my life to come is to live worthy of you! +I asked you to wait and see me; I asked you, if there was any hard truth to be +told, to tell it me here with your own lips. Tell it, my love, my +husband!—tell it me now!” +</p> + +<p> +She looked up, still clinging to him as she clung to the hope of her better +life to come. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me the truth!” she repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“With my own lips?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” she answered, eagerly. “Say what you think of me with +your own lips.” +</p> + +<p> +He stooped and kissed her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1438 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> + + |