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Man and Wife
by Wilkie Collins
January, 1999 [Etext #1586]
*The Project Gutenberg Etext of Man and Wife, by Wilkie Collins*
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[Italics are indicatedby underscores
James Rusk, jrusk@cyberramp.net.]
MAN AND WIFE
by Wilkie Collins
PROLOGUE.--THE IRISH MARRIAGE.
Part the First.
THE VILLA AT HAMPSTEAD.
I.
ON a summer's morning, between thirty and forty years ago, two
girls were crying bitterly in the cabin of an East Indian
passenger ship, bound outward, from Gravesend to Bombay.
They were both of the same age--eighteen. They had both, from
childhood upward, been close and dear friends at the same school.
They were now parting for the first time--and parting, it might
be, for life.
The name of one was Blanche. The name of the other was Anne.
Both were the children of poor parents, both had been
pupil-teachers at the school; and both were destined to earn
their own bread. Personally speaking, and socially speaking,
these were the only points of resemblance between them.
Blanche was passably attractive and passably intelligent, and no
more. Anne was rarely beautiful and rarely endowed. Blanche's
parents were worthy people, whose first consideration was to
secure, at any sacrifice, the future well-being of their child.
Anne's parents were heartless and depraved. Their one idea, in
connection with their daughter, was to speculate on her beauty,
and to turn her abilities to profitable account.
The girls were starting in life under widely different
conditions. Blanche was going to India, to be governess in the
household of a Judge, under care of the Judge's wife. Anne was to
wait at home until the first opportunity offered of sending her
cheaply to Milan. There, among strangers, she was to be perfected
in the actress's and the singer's art; then to return to England,
and make the fortune of her family on the lyric stage.
Such were the prospects of the two as they sat together in the
cabin of the Indiaman locked fast in each other's arms, and
crying bitterly. The whispered farewell talk exchanged between
them--exaggerated and impulsive as girls' talk is apt to be--came
honestly, in each case, straight from the heart.
"Blanche! you may be married in India. Make your husband bring
you back to England."
"Anne! you may take a dislike to the stage. Come out to India if
you do."
"In England or out of England, married or not married, we will
meet, darling--if it's years hence--with all the old love between
us; friends who help each other, sisters who trust each other,
for life! Vow it, Blanche!"
"I vow it, Anne!"
"With all your heart and soul?"
"With all my heart and soul!"
The sails were spread to the wind, and the ship began to move in
the water. It was necessary to appeal to the captain's authority
before the girls could be parted. The captain interfered gently
and firmly. "Come, my dear," he said, putting his arm round Anne;
"you won't mind _me!_ I have got a daughter of my own." Anne's
head fell on the sailor's shoulder. He put her, with his own
hands, into the shore-boat alongside. In five minutes more the
ship had gathered way; the boat was at the landing-stage--and the
girls had seen the last of each other for many a long year to
come.
This was in the summer of eighteen hundred and thirty-one.
II.
Twenty-four years later--in the summer of eighteen hundred and
fifty-five--there was a villa at Hampstead to be let, furnished.
The house was still occupied by the persons who desired to let
it. On the evening on which this scene opens a lady and two
gentlemen were seated at the dinner-table. The lady had reached
the mature age of forty-two. She was still a rarely beautiful
woman. Her husband, some years younger than herself, faced her at
the table, sitting silent and constrained, and never, even by
accident, looking at his wife. The third person was a guest. The
husband's name was Vanborough. The guest's name was Kendrew.
It was the end of the dinner. The fruit and the wine were on the
table. Mr. Vanborough pushed the bottles in silence to Mr.
Kendrew. The lady of the house looked round at the servant who
was waiting, and said, "Tell the children to come in."
The door opened, and a girl twelve years old entered, lending by
the hand a younger girl of five. They were both prettily dressed
in white, with sashes of the same shade of light blue. But there
was no family resemblance between them. The elder girl was frail
and delicate, with a pale, sensitive face. The younger was light
and florid, with round red cheeks and bright, saucy eyes--a
charming little picture of happiness and health.
Mr. Kendrew looked inquiringly at the youngest of the two girls.
"Here is a young lady," he said, "who is a total stranger to me."
"If you had not been a total stranger yourself for a whole year
past," answered Mrs. Vanborough, "you would never have made that
confession. This is little Blanche--the only child of the dearest
friend I have. When Blanche's mother and I last saw each other we
were two poor school-girls beginning the world. My friend went to
India, and married there late in life. You may have heard of her
husband--the famous Indian officer, Sir Thomas Lundie? Yes: 'the
rich Sir Thomas,' as you call him. Lady Lundie is now on her way
back to England, for the first time since she left it--I am
afraid to say how many years since. I expected her yesterday; I
expect her to-day--she may come at any moment. We exchanged
promises to meet, in the ship that took her to India--'vows' we
called them in the dear old times. Imagine how changed we shall
find each other when we _do_ meet again at last!"
"In the mean time," said Mr. Kendrew, "your friend appears to
have sent you her little daughter to represent her? It's a long
journey for so young a traveler."
"A journey ordered by the doctors in India a year since,"
rejoined Mrs. Vanborough. "They said Blanche's health required
English air. Sir Thomas was ill at the time, and his wife
couldn't leave him. She had to send the child to England, and who
should she send her to but me? Look at her now, and say if the
English air hasn't agreed with her! We two mothers, Mr. Kendrew,
seem literally to live again in our children. I have an only
child. My friend has an only child. My daughter is little
Anne--as _I_ was. My friend's daughter is little Blanche--as
_she_ was. And, to crown it all, those two girls have taken the
same fancy to each other which we took to each other in the
by-gone days at school. One has often heard of hereditary hatred.
Is there such a thing as hereditary love as well?"
Before the guest could answer, his attention was claimed by the
master of the house.
"Kendrew," said Mr. Vanborough, "when you have had enough of
domestic sentiment, suppose you take a glass of wine?"
The words were spoken with undisguised contempt of tone and
manner. Mrs. Vanborough's color rose. She waited, and controlled
the momentary irritation. When she spoke to her husband it was
evidently with a wish to soothe and conciliate him.
"I am afraid, my dear, you are not well this evening?"
"I shall be better when those children have done clattering with
their knives and forks."
The girls were peeling fruit. The younger one went on. The elder
stopped, and looked at her mother. Mrs. Vanborough beckoned to
Blanche to come to her, and pointed toward the French window
opening to the floor.
"Would you like to eat your fruit in the garden, Blanche?"
"Yes," said Blanche, "if Anne will go with me."
Anne rose at once, and the two girls went away together into the
garden, hand in hand. On their departure Mr. Kendrew wisely
started a new subject. He referred to the letting of the house.
"The loss of the garden will be a sad loss to those two young
ladies," he said. "It really seems to be a pity that you should
be giving up this pretty place."
"Leaving the house is not the worst of the sacrifice," answered
Mrs. Vanborough. "If John finds Hampstead too far for him from
London, of course we must move. The only hardship that I complain
of is the hardship of having the house to let."
Mr. Vanborough looked across the table, as ungraciously as
possible, at his wife.
"What have _you_ to do with it?" he asked.
Mrs. Vanborough tried to clear the conjugal horizon b y a smile.
"My dear John," she said, gently, "you forget that, while you are
at business, I am here all day. I can't help seeing the people
who come to look at the house. Such people!" she continued,
turning to Mr. Kendrew. "They distrust every thing, from the
scraper at the door to the chimneys on the roof. They force their
way in at all hours. They ask all sorts of impudent
questions--and they show you plainly that they don't mean to
believe your answers, before you have time to make them. Some
wretch of a woman says, 'Do you think the drains are right?'--and
sniffs suspiciously, before I can say Yes. Some brute of a man
asks, 'Are you quite sure this house is solidly built,
ma'am?'--and jumps on the floor at the full stretch of his legs,
without waiting for me to reply. Nobody believes in our gravel
soil and our south aspect. Nobody wants any of our improvements.
The moment they hear of John's Artesian well, they look as if
they never drank water. And, if they happen to pass my
poultry-yard, they instantly lose all appreciation of the merits
of a fresh egg!"
Mr. Kendrew laughed. "I have been through it all in my time," he
said. "The people who want to take a house are the born enemies
of the people who want to let a house. Odd--isn't it,
Vanborough?"
Mr. Vanborough's sullen humor resisted his friend as obstinately
as it had resisted his wife.
"I dare say," he answered. "I wasn't listening."
This time the tone was almost brutal. Mrs. Vanborough looked at
her husband with unconcealed surprise and distress.
"John!" she said. "What _can_ be the matter with you? Are you in
pain?"
"A man may be anxious and worried, I suppose, without being
actually in pain."
"I am sorry to hear you are worried. Is it business?"
"Yes--business."
"Consult Mr. Kendrew."
"I am waiting to consult him."
Mrs. Vanborough rose immediately. "Ring, dear," she said, "when
you want coffee." As she passed her husband she stopped and laid
her hand tenderly on his forehead. "I wish I could smooth out
that frown!" she whispered. Mr. Vanborough impatiently shook his
head. Mrs. Vanborough sighed as she turned to the door. Her
husband called to her before she could leave the room.
"Mind we are not interrupted!"
"I will do my best, John." She looked at Mr. Kendrew, holding the
door open for her; and resumed, with an effort, her former
lightness of tone. "But don't forget our 'born enemies!' Somebody
may come, even at this hour of the evening, who wants to see the
house."
The two gentlemen were left alone over their wine. There was a
strong personal contrast between them. Mr. Vanborough was tall
and dark--a dashing, handsome man; with an energy in his face
which all the world saw; with an inbred falseness under it which
only a special observer could detect. Mr. Kendrew was short and
light--slow and awkward in manner, except when something happened
to rouse him. Looking in _his_ face, the world saw an ugly and
undemonstrative little man. The special observer, penetrating
under the surface, found a fine nature beneath, resting on a
steady foundation of honor and truth.
Mr. Vanborough opened the conversation.
"If you ever marry," he said, "don't be such a fool, Kendrew, as
I have been. Don't take a wife from the stage."
"If I could get such a wife as yours," replied the other, "I
would take her from the stage to-morrow. A beautiful woman, a
clever woman, a woman of unblemished character, and a woman who
truly loves you. Man alive! what do you want more?"
"I want a great deal more. I want a woman highly connected and
highly bred--a woman who can receive the best society in England,
and open her husband's way to a position in the world."
"A position in the world!" cried Mr. Kendrew. "Here is a man
whose father has left him half a million of money--with the one
condition annexed to it of taking his father's place at the head
of one of the greatest mercantile houses in England. And he talks
about a position, as if he was a junior clerk in his own office!
What on earth does your ambition see, beyond what your ambition
has already got?"
Mr. Vanborough finished his glass of wine, and looked his friend
steadily in the face.
"My ambition," he said, "sees a Parliamentary career, with a
Peerage at the end of it--and with no obstacle in the way but my
estimable wife."
Mr. Kendrew lifted his hand warningly. "Don't talk in that way,"
he said. "If you're joking--it's a joke I don't see. If you're in
earnest--you force a suspicion on me which I would rather not
feel. Let us change the subject."
"No! Let us have it out at once. What do you suspect?"
"I suspect you are getting tired of your wife."
"She is forty-two, and I am thirty-five; and I have been married
to her for thirteen years. You know all that--and you only
suspect I am tired of her. Bless your innocence! Have you any
thing more to say?"
"If you force me to it, I take the freedom of an old friend, and
I say you are not treating her fairly. It's nearly two years
since you broke up your establishment abroad, and came to England
on your father's death. With the exception of myself, and one or
two other friends of former days, you have presented your wife to
nobody. Your new position has smoothed the way for you into the
best society. You never take your wife with you. You go out as if
you were a single man. I have reason to know that you are
actually believed to be a single man, among these new
acquaintances of yours, in more than one quarter. Forgive me for
speaking my mind bluntly--I say what I think. It's unworthy of
you to keep your wife buried here, as if you were ashamed of
her."
"I _am_ ashamed of her."
"Vanborough!"
"Wait a little! you are not to have it all your own way, my good
fellow. What are the facts? Thirteen years ago I fell in love
with a handsome public singer, and married her. My father was
angry with me; and I had to go and live with her abroad. It
didn't matter, abroad. My father forgave me on his death-bed, and
I had to bring her home again. It does matter, at home. I find
myself, with a great career opening before me, tied to a woman
whose relations are (as you well know) the lowest of the low. A
woman without the slightest distinction of manner, or the
slightest aspiration beyond her nursery and her kitchen, her
piano and her books. Is _that_ a wife who can help me to make my
place in society?--who can smooth my way through social obstacles
and political obstacles, to the House of Lords? By Jupiter! if
ever there was a woman to be 'buried' (as you call it), that
woman is my wife. And, what's more, if you want the truth, it's
because I _can't_ bury her here that I'm going to leave this
house. She has got a cursed knack of making acquaintances
wherever she goes. She'll have a circle of friends about her if I
leave her in this neighborhood much longer. Friends who remember
her as the famous opera-singer. Friends who will see her
swindling scoundrel of a father (when my back is turned) coming
drunk to the door to borrow money of her! I tell you, my marriage
has wrecked my prospects. It's no use talking to me of my wife's
virtues. She is a millstone round my neck, with all her virtues.
If I had not been a born idiot I should have waited, and married
a woman who would have been of some use to me; a woman with high
connections--"
Mr. Kendrew touched his host's arm, and suddenly interrupted him.
"To come to the point," he said--"a woman like Lady Jane
Parnell."
Mr. Vanborough started. His eyes fell, for the first time, before
the eyes of his friend.
"What do you know about Lady Jane?" he asked.
"Nothing. I don't move in Lady Jane's world--but I do go
sometimes to the opera. I saw you with her last night in her box;
and I heard what was said in the stalls near me. You were openly
spoken of as the favored man who was singled out from the rest by
Lady Jane. Imagine what would happen if your wife heard that! You
are wrong, Vanborough--you are in every way wrong. You alarm, you
distress, you disappoint me. I never sought this explanation--but
now it has come, I won't shrink from it. Reconsider your conduct;
reconsider what you have said to me--or you count me no longer
among your friends. No! I
want no farther talk about it now. We are both getting hot--we
may end in saying what had better have been left unsaid. Once
more, let us change the subject. You wrote me word that you
wanted me here to-day, because you needed my advice on a matter
of some importance. What is it?"
Silence followed that question. Mr. Vanborough's face betrayed
signs of embarrassment. He poured himself out another glass of
wine, and drank it at a draught before he replied.
"It's not so easy to tell you what I want," he said, "after the
tone you have taken with me about my wife."
Mr. Kendrew looked surprised.
"Is Mrs. Vanborough concerned in the matter?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Does she know about it?"
"No."
"Have you kept the thing a secret out of regard for _her?_"
"Yes."
"Have I any right to advise on it?"
"You have the right of an old friend."
"Then, why not tell me frankly what it is?"
There was another moment of embarrassment on Mr. Vanborough's
part.
"It will come better," he answered, "from a third person, whom I
expect here every minute. He is in possession of all the
facts--and he is better able to state them than I am."
"Who is the person?"
"My friend, Delamayn."
"Your lawyer?"
"Yes--the junior partner in the firm of Delamayn, Hawke, and
Delamayn. Do you know him?"
"I am acquainted with him. His wife's family were friends of mine
before he married. I don't like him."
"You're rather hard to please to-day! Delamayn is a rising man,
if ever there was one yet. A man with a career before him, and
with courage enough to pursue it. He is going to leave the Firm,
and try his luck at the Bar. Every body says he will do great
things. What's your objection to him?"
"I have no objection whatever. We meet with people occasionally
whom we dislike without knowing why. Without knowing why, I
dislike Mr. Delamayn."
"Whatever you do you must put up with him this evening. He will
be here directly."
He was there at that moment. The servant opened the door, and
announced--"Mr. Delamayn."
III.
Externally speaking, the rising solicitor, who was going to try
his luck at the Bar, looked like a man who was going to succeed.
His hard, hairless face, his watchful gray eyes, his thin,
resolute lips, said plainly, in so many words, "I mean to get on
in the world; and, if you are in my way, I mean to get on at your
expense." Mr. Delamayn was habitually polite to every body--but
he had never been known to say one unnecessary word to his
dearest friend. A man of rare ability; a man of unblemished honor
(as the code of the world goes); but not a man to be taken
familiarly by the hand. You would never have borrowed money of
him--but you would have trusted him with untold gold. Involved in
private and personal troubles, you would have hesitated at asking
him to help you. Involved in public and producible troubles, you
would have said, Here is my man. Sure to push his way--nobody
could look at him and doubt it--sure to push his way.
"Kendrew is an old friend of mine," said Mr. Vanborough,
addressing himself to the lawyer. "Whatever you have to say to
_me_ you may say before _him._ Will you have some wine?"
"No--thank you."
"Have you brought any news?"
"Yes."
"Have you got the written opinions of the two barristers?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"'Because nothing of the sort is necessary. If the facts of the
case are correctly stated there is not the slightest doubt about
the law."
With that reply Mr. Delamayn took a written paper from his
pocket, and spread it out on the table before him.
"What is that?" asked Mr. Vanborough.
"The case relating to your marriage."
Mr. Kendrew started, and showed the first tokens of interest in
the proceedings which had escaped him yet. Mr. Delamayn looked at
him for a moment, and went on.
"The case," he resumed, "as originally stated by you, and taken
down in writing by our head-clerk."
Mr. Vanborough's temper began to show itself again.
"What have we got to do with that now?" he asked. "You have made
your inquiries to prove the correctness of my statement--haven't
you?"
"Yes."
"And you have found out that I am right?"
"I have found out that you are right--if the case is right. I
wish to be sure that no mistake has occurred between you and the
clerk. This is a very important matter. I am going to take the
responsibility of giving an opinion which may be followed by
serious consequences; and I mean to assure myself that the
opinion is given on a sound basis, first. I have some questions
to ask you. Don't be impatient, if you please. They won't take
long."
He referred to the manuscript, and put the first question.
"You were married at Inchmallock, in Ireland, Mr. Vanborough,
thirteen years since?"
"Yes."
"Your wife--then Miss Anne Silvester--was a Roman Catholic?"
"Yes."
"Her father and mother were Roman Catholics?"
"They were."
"_Your_ father and mother were Protestants? and _you_ were
baptized and brought up in the Church of England?"
"All right!"
"Miss Anne Silvester felt, and expressed, a strong repugnance to
marrying you, because you and she belonged to different religious
communities?"
"She did."
"You got over her objection by consenting to become n Roman
Catholic, like herself?"
"It was the shortest way with her and it didn't matter to _me_."
"You were formally received into the Roman Catholic Church?"
"I went through the whole ceremony."
"Abroad or at home?"
"Abroad."
"How long was it before the date of your marriage?"
"Six weeks before I was married."
Referring perpetually to the paper in his hand, Mr. Delamayn was
especially careful in comparing that last answer with the answer
given to the head-clerk.
"Quite right," he said, and went on with his questions.
"The priest who married you was one Ambrose Redman--a young man
recently appointed to his clerical duties?"
"Yes."
"Did he ask if you were both Roman Catholics?"
"Yes."
"Did he ask any thing more?"
"No."
"Are you sure he never inquired whether you had both been
Catholics _for more than one year before you came to him to be
married?_"
"I am certain of it."
"He must have forgotten that part of his duty--or being only a
beginner, he may well have been ignorant of it altogether. Did
neither you nor the lady think of informing him on the point?"
"Neither I nor the lady knew there was any necessity for
informing him."
Mr. Delamayn folded up the manuscript, and put it back in his
pocket.
"Right," he said, "in every particular."
Mr. Vanborough's swarthy complexion slowly turned pale. He cast
one furtive glance at Mr. Kendrew, and turned away again.
"Well," he said to the lawyer, "now for your opinion! What is the
law?"
"The law," answered Mr. Delamayn, "is beyond all doubt or
dispute. Your marriage with Miss Anne Silvester is no marriage at
all."
Mr. Kendrew started to his feet.
"What do you mean?" he asked, sternly.
The rising solicitor lifted his eyebrows in polite surprise. If
Mr. Kendrew wanted information, why should Mr. Kendrew ask for it
in that way? "Do you wish me to go into the law of the case?" he
inquired.
"I do."
Mr. Delamayn stated the law, as that law still stands--to the
disgrace of the English Legislature and the English Nation.
"By the Irish Statute of George the Second," he said, "every
marriage celebrated by a Popish priest between two Protestants,
or between a Papist and any person who has been a Protestant
within twelve months before the marriage, is declared null and
void. And by two other Acts of the same reign such a celebration
of marriage is made a felony on the part of the priest. The
clergy in Ireland of other religious denominations have been
relieved from this law. But it still remains in force so far as
the Roman Catholic priesthood is concerned."
"Is such a state of things possible in the age we live in!"
exclaimed Mr. Kendrew.
Mr. Delamayn smiled. He had outgrown the customary illusions as
to the age we live in.
"There are other instances in which the Irish marriage-law
presents some curious anomalies of its own," he went on. "It is
felony, as I have just told you, for a Roman Catholic priest to
celebrate a marriage which may be lawfully celebrated by a
parochial clergyman, a Presbyterian mini ster, and a
Non-conformist minister. It is also felony (by another law) on
the part of a parochial clergyman to celebrate a marriage that
may be lawfully celebrated by a Roman Catholic priest. And it is
again felony (by yet another law) for a Presbyterian minister and
a Non-conformist minister to celebrate a marriage which may be
lawfully celebrated by a clergyman of the Established Church. An
odd state of things. Foreigners might possibly think it a
scandalous state of things. In this country we don't appear to
mind it. Returning to the present case, the results stand thus:
Mr. Vanborough is a single man; Mrs. Vanborough is a single
woman; their child is illegitimate, and the priest, Ambrose
Redman, is liable to be tried, and punished, as a felon, for
marrying them."
"An infamous law!" said Mr. Kendrew.
"It _is_ the law," returned Mr. Delamayn, as a sufficient answer
to him.
Thus far not a word had escaped the master of the house. He sat
with his lips fast closed and his eyes riveted on the table,
thinking.
Mr. Kendrew turned to him, and broke the silence.
"Am I to understand," he asked, "that the advice you wanted from
me related to _this?_"
"Yes."
"You mean to tell me that, foreseeing the present interview and
the result to which it might lead, you felt any doubt as to the
course you were bound to take? Am I really to understand that you
hesitate to set this dreadful mistake right, and to make the
woman who is your wife in the sight of Heaven your wife in the
sight of the law?"
"If you choose to put it in that light," said Mr. Vanborough; "if
you won't consider--"
"I want a plain answer to my question--'yes, or no.' "
"Let me speak, will you! A man has a right to explain himself, I
suppose?"
Mr. Kendrew stopped him by a gesture of disgust.
"I won't trouble you to explain yourself," he said. "I prefer to
leave the house. You have given me a lesson, Sir, which I shall
not forget. I find that one man may have known another from the
days when they were both boys, and may have seen nothing but the
false surface of him in all that time. I am ashamed of having
ever been your friend. You are a stranger to me from this
moment."
With those words he left the room.
"That is a curiously hot-headed man," remarked Mr. Delamayn. "If
you will allow me, I think I'll change my mind. I'll have a glass
of wine."
Mr. Vanborough rose to his feet without replying, and took a turn
in the room impatiently. Scoundrel as he was--in intention, if
not yet in act--the loss of the oldest friend he had in the world
staggered him for the moment.
"This is an awkward business, Delamayn," he said. "What would you
advise me to do?"
Mr. Delamayn shook his head, and sipped his claret.
"I decline to advise you," he answered. "I take no
responsibility, beyond the responsibility of stating the law as
it stands, in your case."
Mr. Vanborough sat down again at the table, to consider the
alternative of asserting or not asserting his freedom from the
marriage tie. He had not had much time thus far for turning the
matter over in his mind. But for his residence on the Continent
the question of the flaw in his marriage might no doubt have been
raised long since. As things were, the question had only taken
its rise in a chance conversation with Mr. Delamayn in the summer
of that year.
For some minutes the lawyer sat silent, sipping his wine, and the
husband sat silent, thinking his own thoughts. The first change
that came over the scene was produced by the appearance of a
servant in the dining-room.
Mr. Vanborough looked up at the man with a sudden outbreak of
anger.
"What do you want here?"
The man was a well-bred English servant. In other words, a human
machine, doing its duty impenetrably when it was once wound up.
He had his words to speak, and he spoke them.
"There is a lady at the door, Sir, who wishes to see the house."
"The house is not to be seen at this time of the evening."
The machine had a message to deliver, and delivered it.
"The lady desired me to present her apologies, Sir. I was to tell
you she was much pressed for time. This was the last house on the
house agent's list, and her coachman is stupid about finding his
way in strange places."
"Hold your tongue, and tell the lady to go to the devil!"
Mr. Delamayn interfered--partly in the interests of his client,
partly in the interests of propriety.
"You attach some importance, I think, to letting this house as
soon as possible?" he said.
"Of course I do!"
"Is it wise--on account of a momentary annoyance--to lose an
opportunity of laying your hand on a tenant?"
"Wise or not, it's an infernal nuisance to be disturbed by a
stranger."
"Just as you please. I don't wish to interfere. I only wish to
say--in case you are thinking of my convenience as your
guest--that it will be no nuisance to _me._"
The servant impenetrably waited. Mr. Vanborough impatiently gave
way.
"Very well. Let her in. Mind, if she comes here, she's only to
look into the room, and go out again. If she wants to ask
questions, she must go to the agent."
Mr. Delamayn interfered once more, in the interests, this time,
of the lady of the house.
"Might it not be desirable," he suggested, to consult Mrs.
Vanborough before you quite decide?"
"Where's your mistress?"
"In the garden, or the paddock, Sir--I am not sure which."
"We can't send all over the grounds in search of her. Tell the
house-maid, and show the lady in."
The servant withdrew. Mr. Delamayn helped himself to a second
glass of wine.
"Excellent claret," he said. "Do you get it direct from
Bordeaux?"
There was no answer. Mr. Vanborough had returned to the
contemplation of the alternative between freeing himself or not
freeing himself from the marriage tie. One of his elbows was on
the table, he bit fiercely at his finger-nails. He muttered
between his teeth, "What am I to do?"
A sound of rustling silk made itself gently audible in the
passage outside. The door opened, and the lady who had come to
see the house appeared in the dining-room.
IV.
She was tall and elegant; beautifully dressed, in the happiest
combination of simplicity and splendor. A light summer veil hung
over her face. She lifted it, and made her apologies for
disturbing the gentlemen over their wine, with the unaffected
ease and grace of a highly-bred woman.
"Pray accept my excuses for this intrusion. I am ashamed to
disturb you. One look at the room will be quite enough."
Thus far she had addressed Mr. Delamayn, who happened to be
nearest to her. Looking round the room her eye fell on Mr.
Vanborough. She started, with a loud exclamation of astonishment.
_"You!"_ she said. "Good Heavens! who would have thought of
meeting _you_ here?"
Mr. Vanborough, on his side, stood petrified.
"Lady Jane!" he exclaimed. "Is it possible?"
He barely looked at her while she spoke. His eyes wandered
guiltily toward the window which led into the garden. The
situation was a terrible one--equally terrible if his wife
discovered Lady Jane, or if Lady Jane discovered his wife. For
the moment nobody was visible on the lawn. There was time, if the
chance only offered--there was time for him to get the visitor
out of the house. The visitor, innocent of all knowledge of the
truth, gayly offered him her hand.
"I believe in mesmerism for the first time," she said. "This is
an instance of magnetic sympathy, Mr. Vanborough. An invalid
friend of mine wants a furnished house at Hampstead. I undertake
to find one for her, and the day _I_ select to make the discovery
is the day _you_ select for dining with a friend. A last house at
Hampstead is left on my list--and in that house I meet you.
Astonishing!" She turned to Mr. Delamayn. "I presume I am
addressing the owner of the house?" Before a word could be said
by either of the gentlemen she noticed the garden. "What pretty
grounds! Do I see a lady in the garden? I hope I have not driven
her away." She looked round, and appealed to Mr. Vanborough.
"Your friend's wife?" she asked, and, on this occasion, waited
for a reply.
In Mr. Vanborough's situation what reply was possible?
Mrs. Vanborough was not only visible--but audible--in the garden;
giving her orders to one of the out-of-door servants with the
tone and manner which proclaimed the mistress of the house.
Suppose he said, "She is _not_ my friend's wife?" Female
curiosity would inevitably put the next question, "Who is she?"
Suppose he invented an explanation? The explanation would take
time, and time would give his wife an opportunity of discovering
Lady Jane. Seeing all these considerations in one breathless
moment, Mr. Vanborough took the shortest and the boldest way out
of the difficulty. He answered silently by an affirmative
inclination of the head, which dextrously turned Mrs. Vanborough
into to Mrs. Delamayn without allowing Mr. Delamayn the
opportunity of hearing it.
But the lawyer's eye was habitually watchful, and the lawyer saw
him.
Mastering in a moment his first natural astonishment at the
liberty taken with him, Mr. Delamayn drew the inevitable
conclusion that there was something wrong, and that there was an
attempt (not to be permitted for a moment) to mix him up in it.
He advanced, resolute to contradict his client, to his client's
own face.
The voluble Lady Jane interrupted him before he could open his
lips.
"Might I ask one question? Is the aspect south? Of course it is!
I ought to see by the sun that the aspect is south. These and the
other two are, I suppose, the only rooms on the ground-floor? And
is it quiet? Of course it's quiet! A charming house. Far more
likely to suit my friend than any I have seen yet. Will you give
me the refusal of it till to-morrow?" There she stopped for
breath, and gave Mr. Delamayn his first opportunity of speaking
to her.
"I beg your ladyship's pardon," he began. "I really can't--"
Mr. Vanborough--passing close behind him and whispering as he
passed--stopped the lawyer before he could say a word more.
"For God's sake, don't contradict me! My wife is coming this
way!"
At the same moment (still supposing that Mr. Delamayn was the
master of the house) Lady Jane returned to the charge.
"You appear to feel some hesitation," she said. "Do you want a
reference?" She smiled satirically, and summoned her friend to
her aid. "Mr. Vanborough!"
Mr. Vanborough, stealing step by step nearer to the
window--intent, come what might of it, on keeping his wife out of
the room--neither heeded nor heard her. Lady Jane followed him,
and tapped him briskly on the shoulder with her parasol.
At that moment Mrs. Vanborough appeared on the garden side of the
window.
"Am I in the way?" she asked, addressing her husband, after one
steady look at Lady Jane. "This lady appears to be an old friend
of yours." There was a tone of sarcasm in that allusion to the
parasol, which might develop into a tone of jealousy at a
moment's notice.
Lady Jane was not in the least disconcerted. She had her double
privilege of familiarity with the men whom she liked--her
privilege as a woman of high rank, and her privilege as a young
widow. She bowed to Mrs. Vanborough, with all the highly-finished
politeness of the order to which she belonged.
"The lady of the house, I presume?" she said, with a gracious
smile.
Mrs. Vanborough returned the bow coldly--entered the room
first--and then answered, "Yes."
Lady Jane turned to Mr. Vanborough.
"Present me!" she said, submitting resignedly to the formalities
of the middle classes.
Mr. Vanborough obeyed, without looking at his wife, and without
mentioning his wife's name.
"Lady Jane Parnell," he said, passing over the introduction as
rapidly as possible. "Let me see you to your carriage," he added,
offering his arm. "I will take care that you have the refusal of
the house. You may trust it all to me."
No! Lady Jane was accustomed to leave a favorable impression
behind her wherever she went. It was a habit with her to be
charming (in widely different ways) to both sexes. The social
experience of the upper classes is, in England, an experience of
universal welcome. Lady Jane declined to leave until she had
thawed the icy reception of the lady of the house.
"I must repeat my apologies," she said to Mrs. Vanborough, "for
coming at this inconvenient time. My intrusion appears to have
sadly disturbed the two gentlemen. Mr. Vanborough looks as if he
wished me a hundred miles away. And as for your husband--" She
stopped and glanced toward Mr. Delamayn. "Pardon me for speaking
in that familiar way. I have not the pleasure of knowing your
husband's name."
In speechless amazement Mrs. Vanborough's eyes followed the
direction of Lady Jane's eyes--and rested on the lawyer,
personally a total stranger to her.
Mr. Delamayn, resolutely waiting his opportunity to speak, seized
it once more--and held it this time.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "There is some misapprehension
here, for which I am in no way responsible. I am _not_ that
lady's husband."
It was Lady Jane's turn to be astonished. She looked at the
lawyer. Useless! Mr. Delamayn had set himself right--Mr. Delamayn
declined to interfere further. He silently took a chair at the
other end of the room. Lady Jane addressed Mr. Vanborough.
"Whatever the mistake may be," she said, "you are responsible for
it. You certainly told me this lady was your friend's wife."
"What!!!" cried Mrs. Vanborough--loudly, sternly, incredulously.
The inbred pride of the great lady began to appear behind the
thin outer veil of politeness that covered it.
"I will speak louder if you wish it," she said. "Mr. Vanborough
told me you were that gentleman's wife."
Mr. Vanborough whispered fiercely to his wife through his
clenched teeth.
"The whole thing is a mistake. Go into the garden again!"
Mrs. Vanborough's indignation was suspended for the moment in
dread, as she saw the passion and the terror struggling in her
husband's face.
"How you look at me!" she said. "How you speak to me!"
He only repeated, "Go into the garden!"
Lady Jane began to perceive, what the lawyer had discovered some
minutes previously--that there was something wrong in the villa
at Hampstead. The lady of the house was a lady in an anomalous
position of some kind. And as the house, to all appearance,
belonged to Mr. Vanborough's friend, Mr. Vanborough's friend must
(in spite of his recent disclaimer) be in some way responsible
for it. Arriving, naturally enough, at this erroneous conclusion,
Lady Jane's eyes rested for an instant on Mrs. Vanborough with a
finely contemptuous expression of inquiry which would have roused
the spirit of the tamest woman in existence. The implied insult
stung the wife's sensitive nature to the quick. She turned once
more to her husband--this time without flinching.
"Who is that woman?" she asked.
Lady Jane was equal to the emergency. The manner in which she
wrapped herself up in her own virtue, without the slightest
pretension on the one hand, and without the slightest compromise
on the other, was a sight to see.
"Mr. Vanborough," she said, "you offered to take me to my
carriage just now. I begin to understand that I had better have
accepted the offer at once. Give me your arm."
"Stop!" said Mrs. Vanborough, "your ladyship's looks are looks of
contempt; your ladyship's words can bear but one interpretation.
I am innocently involved in some vile deception which I don't
understand. But this I do know--I won't submit to be insulted in
my own house. After what you have just said I forbid my husband
to give you his arm.
Her husband!
Lady Jane looked at Mr. Vanborough--at Mr. Vanborough, whom she
loved; whom she had honestly believed to be a single man; whom
she had suspected, up to that moment, of nothing worse than of
trying to screen the frailties of his friend. She dropped her
highly-bred tone; she lost her highly-bred manners. The sense of
her injury (if this was true), the pang of her jealousy (if that
woman was his wife), stripped the human nature in her bare of all
disguises, raised the angry color in her cheeks, and struck the
angry fire out of her eyes.
"If you can tell the truth, Sir," she said, haughtily, "be so
good as to tell it now. Have you been falsely presenting yourself
to the world--falsely presenting yourself to _me_--in the
character and with the aspirations of a single man? Is that lady
your wife?"
"Do you hear her? do you see her?" cri ed Mrs. Vanborough,
appealing to her husband, in her turn. She suddenly drew back
from him, shuddering from head to foot. "He hesitates!" she said
to herself, faintly. "Good God! he hesitates!"
Lady Jane sternly repeated her question.
"Is that lady your wife?"
He roused his scoundrel-courage, and said the fatal word:
"No!"
Mrs. Vanborough staggered back. She caught at the white curtains
of the window to save herself from falling, and tore them. She
looked at her husband, with the torn curtain clenched fast in her
hand. She asked herself, "Am I mad? or is he?"
Lady Jane drew a deep breath of relief. He was not married! He
was only a profligate single man. A profligate single man is
shocking--but reclaimable. It is possible to blame him severely,
and to insist on his reformation in the most uncompromising
terms. It is also possible to forgive him, and marry him. Lady
Jane took the necessary position under the circumstances with
perfect tact. She inflicted reproof in the present without
excluding hope in the future.
"I have made a very painful discovery," she said, gravely, to Mr.
Vanborough. "It rests with _you_ to persuade me to forget it!
Good-evening!"
She accompanied the last words by a farewell look which aroused
Mrs. Vanborough to frenzy. She sprang forward and prevented Lady
Jane from leaving the room.
"No!" she said. "You don't go yet!"
Mr. Vanborough came forward to interfere. His wife eyed him with
a terrible look, and turned from him with a terrible contempt.
"That man has lied!" she said. "In justice to myself, I insist on
proving it!" She struck a bell on a table near her. The servant
came in. "Fetch my writing-desk out of the next room." She
waited--with her back turned on her husband, with her eyes fixed
on Lady Jane. Defenseless and alone she stood on the wreck of her
married life, superior to the husband's treachery, the lawyer's
indifference, and her rival's contempt. At that dreadful moment
her beauty shone out again with a gleam of its old glory. The
grand woman, who in the old stage days had held thousands
breathless over the mimic woes of the scene, stood there grander
than ever, in her own woe, and held the three people who looked
at her breathless till she spoke again.
The servant came in with the desk. She took out a paper and
handed it to Lady Jane.
"I was a singer on the stage," she said, "when I was a single
woman. The slander to which such women are exposed doubted my
marriage. I provided myself with the paper in your hand. It
speaks for itself. Even the highest society, madam, respects
_that!_"
Lady Jane examined the paper. It was a marriage-certificate. She
turned deadly pale, and beckoned to Mr. Vanborough. "Are you
deceiving me?" she asked.
Mr. Vanborough looked back into the far corner of the room, in
which the lawyer sat, impenetrably waiting for events. "Oblige me
by coming here for a moment," he said.
Mr. Delamayn rose and complied with the request. Mr. Vanborough
addressed himself to Lady Jane.
"I beg to refer you to my man of business. _He_ is not interested
in deceiving you."
"Am I required simply to speak to the fact?" asked Mr. Delamayn.
"I decline to do more."
"You are not wanted to do more."
Listening intently to that interchange of question and answer,
Mrs. Vanborough advanced a step in silence. The high courage that
had sustained her against outrage which had openly declared
itself shrank under the sense of something coming which she had
not foreseen. A nameless dread throbbed at her heart and crept
among the roots of her hair.
Lady Jane handed the certificate to the lawyer.
"In two words, Sir," she said, impatiently, "what is this?"
"In two words, madam," answered Mr. Delamayn; "waste paper."
"He is _not_ married?"
"He is _not_ married."
After a moment's hesitation Lady Jane looked round at Mrs.
Vanborough, standing silent at her side--looked, and started back
in terror. "Take me away!" she cried, shrinking from the ghastly
face that confronted her with the fixed stare of agony in the
great, glittering eyes. "Take me away! That woman will murder
me!"
Mr. Vanborough gave her his arm and led her to the door. There
was dead silence in the room as he did it. Step by step the
wife's eyes followed them with the same dreadful stare, till the
door closed and shut them out. The lawyer, left alone with the
disowned and deserted woman, put the useless certificate silently
on the table. She looked from him to the paper, and dropped,
without a cry to warn him, without an effort to save herself,
senseless at his feet.
He lifted her from the floor and placed her on the sofa, and
waited to see if Mr. Vanborough would come back. Looking at the
beautiful face--still beautiful, even in the swoon--he owned it
was hard on her. Yes! in his own impenetrable way, the rising
lawyer owned it was hard on her.
But the law justified it. There was no doubt in this case. The
law justified it.
The trampling of horses and the grating of wheels sounded
outside. Lady Jane's carriage was driving away. Would the husband
come back? (See what a thing habit is! Even Mr. Delamayn still
mechanically thought of him as the husband--in the face of the
law! in the face of the facts!)
No. Then minutes passed. And no sign of the husband coming back.
It was not wise to make a scandal in the house. It was not
desirable (on his own sole responsibility) to let the servants
see what had happened. Still, there she lay senseless. The cool
evening air came in through the open window and lifted the light
ribbons in her lace cap, lifted the little lock of hair that had
broken loose and drooped over her neck. Still, there she lay--the
wife who had loved him, the mother of his child--there she lay.
He stretched out his hand to ring the bell and summon help.
At the same moment the quiet of the summer evening was once more
disturbed. He held his hand suspended over the bell. The noise
outside came nearer. It was again the trampling of horses and the
grating of wheels. Advancing--rapidly advancing--stopping at the
house.
Was Lady Jane coming back?
Was the husband coming back?
There was a loud ring at the bell--a quick opening of the
house-door--a rustling of a woman's dress in the passage. The
door of the room opened, and the woman appeared--alone. Not Lady
Jane. A stranger--older, years older, than Lady Jane. A plain
woman, perhaps, at other times. A woman almost beautiful now,
with the eager happiness that beamed in her face.
She saw the figure on the sofa. She ran to it with a cry--a cry
of recognition and a cry of terror in one. She dropped on her
knees--and laid that helpless head on her bosom, and kissed, with
a sister's kisses, that cold, white cheek.
"Oh, my darling!" she said. "Is it thus we meet again?"
Yes! After all the years that had passed since the parting in the
cabin of the ship, it was thus the two school-friends met again.
Part the Second.
THE MARCH OF TIME.
V.
ADVANCING from time past to time present, the Prologue leaves the
date last attained (the summer of eighteen hundred and
fifty-five), and travels on through an interval of twelve
years--tells who lived, who died, who prospered, and who failed
among the persons concerned in the tragedy at the Hampstead
villa--and, this done, leaves the reader at the opening of THE
STORY in the spring of eighteen hundred and sixty-eight.
The record begins with a marriage--the marriage of Mr. Vanborough
and Lady Jane Parnell.
In three months from the memorable day when his solicitor had
informed him that he was a free man, Mr. Vanborough possessed the
wife he desired, to grace the head of his table and to push his
fortunes in the world--the Legislature of Great Britain being the
humble servant of his treachery, and the respectable accomplice
of his crime.
He entered Parliament. He gave (thanks to his wife) six of the
grandest dinners, and two of the most crowded balls of the
season. He made a successful first speech in the House of
Commons. He endowed a church in a poor neighborhood. He wrote an
article which attracted attention in a quarterly review. He
discovered, denounced, and remedied a crying abuse in the
administration of a public charity. He r eceived (thanks once
more to his wife) a member of the Royal family among the visitors
at his country house in the autumn recess. These were his
triumphs, and this his rate of progress on the way to the
peerage, during the first year of his life as the husband of Lady
Jane.
There was but one more favor that Fortune could confer on her
spoiled child--and Fortune bestowed it. There was a spot on Mr.
Vanborough's past life as long as the woman lived whom he had
disowned and deserted. At the end of the first year Death took
her--and the spot was rubbed out.
She had met the merciless injury inflicted on her with a rare
patience, with an admirable courage. It is due to Mr. Vanborough
to admit that he broke her heart, with the strictest attention to
propriety. He offered (through his lawyer ) a handsome provision
for her and for her child. It was rejected, without an instant's
hesitation. She repudiated his money--she repudiated his name. By
the name which she had borne in her maiden days--the name which
she had made illustrious in her Art--the mother and daughter were
known to all who cared to inquire after them when they had sunk
in the world.
There was no false pride in the resolute attitude which she thus
assumed after her husband had forsaken her. Mrs. Silvester (as
she was now called) gratefully accepted for herself, and for Miss
Silvester, the assistance of the dear old friend who had found
her again in her affliction, and who remained faithful to her to
the end. They lived with Lady Lundie until the mother was strong
enough to carry out the plan of life which she had arranged for
the future, and to earn her bread as a teacher of singing. To all
appearance she rallied, and became herself again, in a few
months' time. She was making her way; she was winning sympathy,
confidence, and respect every where--when she sank suddenly at
the opening of her new life. Nobody could account for it. The
doctors themselves were divided in opinion. Scientifically
speaking, there was no reason why she should die. It was a mere
figure of speech--in no degree satisfactory to any reasonable
mind--to say, as Lady Lundie said, that she had got her
death-blow on the day when her husband deserted her. The one
thing certain was the fact--account for it as you might. In spite
of science (which meant little), in spite of her own courage
(which meant much), the woman dropped at her post and died.
In the latter part of her illness her mind gave way. The friend
of her old school-days, sitting at the bedside, heard her talking
as if she thought herself back again in the cabin of the ship.
The poor soul found the tone, almost the look, that had been lost
for so many years--the tone of the past time when the two girls
had gone their different ways in the world. She said, "we will
meet, darling, with all the old love between us," just as she had
said almost a lifetime since. Before the end her mind rallied.
She surprised the doctor and the nurse by begging them gently to
leave the room. When they had gone she looked at Lady Lundie, and
woke, as it seemed, to consciousness from a dream.
"Blanche," she said, "you will take care of my child?"
"She shall be _my_ child, Anne, when you are gone."
The dying woman paused, and thought for a little. A sudden
trembling seized her.
"Keep it a secret!" she said. "I am afraid for my child."
"Afraid? After what I have promised you?"
She solemnly repeated the words, "I am afraid for my child."
"Why?"
"My Anne is my second self--isn't she?"
"Yes."
"She is as fond of your child as I was of you?"
"Yes."
"She is not called by her father's name--she is called by mine.
She is Anne Silvester as I was. Blanche! _Will she end like Me?_"
The question was put with the laboring breath, with the heavy
accents which tell that death is near. It chilled the living
woman who heard it to the marrow of her bones.
"Don't think that!" she cried, horror-struck. "For God's sake,
don't think that!"
The wildness began to appear again in Anne Silvester's eyes. She
made feebly impatient signs with her hands. Lady Lundie bent over
her, and heard her whisper, "Lift me up."
She lay in her friend's arms; she looked up in her friend's face;
she went back wildly to her fear for her child.
"Don't bring her up like Me! She must be a governess--she must
get her bread. Don't let her act! don't let her sing! don't let
her go on the stage!" She stopped--her voice suddenly recovered
its sweetness of tone--she smiled faintly--she said the old
girlish words once more, in the old girlish way, "Vow it,
Blanche!" Lady Lundie kissed her, and answered, as she had
answered when they parted in the ship, "I vow it, Anne!"
The head sank, never to be lifted more. The last look of life
flickered in the filmy eyes and went out. For a moment afterward
her lips moved. Lady Lundie put her ear close to them, and heard
the dreadful question reiterated, in the same dreadful words:
"She is Anne Silvester--as I was. _Will she end like Me?_"
VI.
Five years passed--and the lives of the three men who had sat at
the dinner-table in the Hampstead villa began, in their altered
aspects, to reveal the progress of time and change.
Mr. Kendrew; Mr. Delamayn; Mr. Vanborough. Let the order in which
they are here named be the order in which their lives are
reviewed, as seen once more after a lapse of five years.
How the husband's friend marked his sense of the husband's
treachery has been told already. How he felt the death of the
deserted wife is still left to tell. Report, which sees the
inmost hearts of men, and delights in turning them outward to the
public view, had always declared that Mr. Kendrew's life had its
secret, and that the secret was a hopeless passion for the
beautiful woman who had married his friend. Not a hint ever
dropped to any living soul, not a word ever spoken to the woman
herself, could be produced in proof of the assertion while the
woman lived. When she died Report started up again more
confidently than ever, and appealed to the man's own conduct as
proof against the man himself.
He attended the funeral--though he was no relation. He took a few
blades of grass from the turf with which they covered her
grave--when he thought that nobody was looking at him. He
disappeared from his club. He traveled. He came back. He admitted
that he was weary of England. He applied for, and obtained, an
appointment in one of the colonies. To what conclusion did all
this point? Was it not plain that his usual course of life had
lost its attraction for him, when the object of his infatuation
had ceased to exist? It might have been so--guesses less likely
have been made at the truth, and have hit the mark. It is, at any
rate, certain that he left England, never to return again.
Another man lost, Report said. Add to that, a man in ten
thousand--and, for once, Report might claim to be right.
Mr. Delamayn comes next.
The rising solicitor was struck off the roll, at his own
request--and entered himself as a student at one of the Inns of
Court. For three years nothing was known of him but that he was
reading hard and keeping his terms. He was called to the Bar. His
late partners in the firm knew they could trust him, and put
business into his hands. In two years he made himself a position
in Court. At the end of the two years he made himself a position
out of Court. He appeared as "Junior" in "a famous case," in
which the honor of a great family, and the title to a great
estate were concerned. His "Senior" fell ill on the eve of the
trial. He conducted the case for the defendant and won it. The
defendant said, "What can I do for you?" Mr. Delamayn answered,
"Put me into Parliament." Being a landed gentleman, the defendant
had only to issue the necessary orders--and behold, Mr. Delamayn
was in Parliament!
In the House of Commons the new member and Mr. Vanborough met
again.
They sat on the same bench, and sided with the same party. Mr.
Delamayn noticed that Mr. Vanborough was looking old and worn and
gray. He put a few questions to a well-informed person. The
well-informed person shook his head. Mr. Vanborough was rich; Mr.
Vanborough was well-connected (through his wife); Mr. Van borough
was a sound man in every sense of the word; _but_--nobody liked
him. He had done very well the first year, and there it had
ended. He was undeniably clever, but he produced a disagreeable
impression in the House. He gave splendid entertainments, but he
wasn't popular in society. His party respected him, but when they
had any thing to give they passed him over. He had a temper of
his own, if the truth must be told; and with nothing against
him--on the contrary, with every thing in his favor--he didn't
make friends. A soured man. At home and abroad, a soured man.
VII.
Five years more passed, dating from the day when the deserted
wife was laid in her grave. It was now the year eighteen hundred
and sixty six.
On a certain day in that year two special items of news appeared
in the papers--the news of an elevation to the peerage, and the
news of a suicide.
Getting on well at the Bar, Mr. Delamayn got on better still in
Parliament. He became one of the prominent men in the House.
Spoke clearly, sensibly, and modestly, and was never too long.
Held the House, where men of higher abilities "bored" it. The
chiefs of his party said openly, "We must do something for
Delamayn," The opportunity offered, and the chiefs kept their
word. Their Solicitor-General was advanced a step, and they put
Delamayn in his place. There was an outcry on the part of the
older members of the Bar. The Ministry answered, "We want a man
who is listened to in the House, and we have got him." The papers
supported the new nomination. A great debate came off, and the
new Solicitor-General justified the Ministry and the papers. His
enemies said, derisively, "He will be Lord Chancellor in a year
or two!" His friends made genial jokes in his domestic circle,
which pointed to the same conclusion. They warned his two sons,
Julius and Geoffrey (then at college), to be careful what
acquaintances they made, as they might find themselves the sons
of a lord at a moment's notice. It really began to look like
something of the sort. Always rising, Mr. Delamayn rose next to
be Attorney-General. About the same time--so true it is that
"nothing succeeds like success"--a childless relative died and
left him a fortune. In the summer of 'sixty-six a Chief Judgeship
fell vacant. The Ministry had made a previous appointment which
had been universally unpopular. They saw their way to supplying
the place of their Attorney-General, and they offered the
judicial appointment to Mr. Delamayn. He preferred remaining in
the House of Commons, and refused to accept it. The Ministry
declined to take No for an answer. They whispered confidentially,
" Will you take it with a peerage?" Mr. Delamayn consulted his
wife, and took it with a peerage. The London _ Gazette_ announced
him to the world as Baron Holchester of Holchester. And the
friends of the family rubbed their hands and said, "What did we
tell you? Here are our two young friends, Julius and Geoffrey,
the sons of a lord!"
And where was Mr. Vanborough all this time? Exactly where we left
him five years since.
He was as rich, or richer, than ever. He was as well-connected as
ever. He was as ambitious as ever. But there it ended. He stood
still in the House; he stood still in society; nobody liked him;
he made no friends. It was all the old story over again, with
this difference, that the soured man was sourer; the gray head,
grayer; and the irritable temper more unendurable than ever. His
wife had her rooms in the house and he had his, and the
confidential servants took care that they never met on the
stairs. They had no children. They only saw each other at their
grand dinners and balls. People ate at their table, and danced on
their floor, and compared notes afterward, and said how dull it
was. Step by step the man who had once been Mr. Vanborough's
lawyer rose, till the peerage received him, and he could rise no
longer; while Mr. Vanborough, on the lower round of the ladder,
looked up, and noted it, with no more chance (rich as he was and
well-connected as he was) of climbing to the House of Lords than
your chance or mine.
The man's career was ended; and on the day when the nomination of
the new peer was announced, the man ended with it.
He laid the newspaper aside without making any remark, and went
out. His carriage set him down, where the green fields still
remain, on the northwest of London, near the foot-path which
leads to Hampstead. He walked alone to the villa where he had
once lived with the woman whom he had so cruelly wronged. New
houses had risen round it, part of the old garden had been sold
and built on. After a moment's hesitation he went to the gate and
rang the bell. He gave the servant his card. The servant's master
knew the name as the name of a man of great wealth, and of a
Member of Parliament. He asked politely to what fortunate
circumstance he owed the honor of that visit. Mr. Vanborough
answered, briefly and simply, "I once lived here; I have
associations with the place with which it is not necessary for me
to trouble you. Will you excuse what must seem to you a very
strange request? I should like to see the dining-room again, if
there is no objection, and if I am disturbing nobody."
The "strange requests" of rich men are of the nature of
"privileged communications," for this excellent reason, that they
are sure not to be requests for money. Mr. Vanborough was shown
into the dining-room. The master of the house, secretly
wondering, watched him.
He walked straight to a certain spot on the carpet, not far from
the window that led into the garden, and nearly opposite the
door. On that spot he stood silently, with his head on his
breast--thinking. Was it _there_ he had seen her for the last
time, on the day when he left the room forever? Yes; it was
there. After a minute or so he roused himself, but in a dreamy,
absent manner. He said it was a pretty place, and expressed his
thanks, and looked back before the door closed, and then went his
way again. His carriage picked him up where it had set him down.
He drove to the residence of the new Lord Holchester, and left a
card for him. Then he went home. Arrived at his house, his
secretary reminded him that he had an appointment in ten minutes'
time. He thanked the secretary in the same dreamy, absent manner
in which he had thanked the owner of the villa, and went into his
dressing-room. The person with whom he had made the appointment
came, and the secretary sent the valet up stairs to knock at the
door. There was no answer. On trying the lock it proved to be
turned inside. They broke open the door, and saw him lying on the
sofa. They went close to look--and found him dead by his own
hand.
VIII.
Drawing fast to its close, the Prologue reverts to the two
girls--and tells, in a few words, how the years passed with Anne
and Blanche.
Lady Lundie more than redeemed the solemn pledge that she had
given to her friend. Preserved from every temptation which might
lure her into a longing to follow her mother's career; trained
for a teacher's life, with all the arts and all the advantages
that money could procure, Anne's first and only essays as a
governess were made, under Lady Lundie's own roof, on Lady
Lundie's own child. The difference in the ages of the
girls--seven years--the love between them, which seemed, as time
went on, to grow with their growth, favored the trial of the
experiment. In the double relation of teacher and friend to
little Blanche, the girlhood of Anne Silvester the younger passed
safely, happily, uneventfully, in the modest sanctuary of home.
Who could imagine a contrast more complete than the contrast
between her early life and her mother's? Who could see any thing
but a death-bed delusion in the terrible question which had
tortured the mother's last moments: "Will she end like Me?"
But two events of importance occurred in the quiet family circle
during the lapse of years which is now under review. In eighteen
hundred and fifty-eight the household was enlivened by the
arrival of Sir Thomas Lundie. In eighteen hundred and sixty-five
the household was broken up by the return of Sir Thomas to India,
accompanied by his wife.
Lady Lundie's health had b een failing for some time previously.
The medical men, consulted on the case, agreed that a sea-voyage
was the one change needful to restore their patient's wasted
strength--exactly at the time, as it happened, when Sir Thomas
was due again in India. For his wife's sake, he agreed to defer
his return, by taking the sea-voyage with her. The one difficulty
to get over was the difficulty of leaving Blanche and Anne behind
in England.
Appealed to on this point, the doctors had declared that at
Blanche's critical time of life they could not sanction her going
to India with her mother. At the same time, near and dear
relatives came forward, who were ready and anxious to give
Blanche and her governess a home--Sir Thomas, on his side,
engaging to bring his wife back in a year and a half, or, at
most, in two years' time. Assailed in all directions, Lady
Lundie's natural unwillingness to leave the girls was overruled.
She consented to the parting--with a mind secretly depressed, and
secretly doubtful of the future.
At the last moment she drew Anne Silvester on one side, out of
hearing of the rest. Anne was then a young woman of twenty-two,
and Blanche a girl of fifteen.
"My dear," she said, simply, "I must tell _you_ what I can not
tell Sir Thomas, and what I am afraid to tell Blanche. I am going
away, with a mind that misgives me. I am persuaded I shall not
live to return to England; and, when I am dead, I believe my
husband will marry again. Years ago your mother was uneasy, on
her death-bed, about _your_ future. I am uneasy, now, about
Blanche's future. I promised my dear dead friend that you should
be like my own child to me--and it quieted her mind. Quiet my
mind, Anne, before I go. Whatever happens in years to
come--promise me to be always, what you are now, a sister to
Blanche."
She held out her hand for the last time. With a full heart Anne
Silvester kissed it, and gave the promise.
IX.
In two months from that time one of the forebodings which had
weighed on Lady Lundie's mind was fulfilled. She died on the
voyage, and was buried at sea.
In a year more the second misgiving was confirmed. Sir Thomas
Lundie married again. He brought his second wife to England
toward the close of eighteen hundred and sixty six.
Time, in the new household, promised to pass as quietly as in the
old. Sir Thomas remembered and respected the trust which his
first wife had placed in Anne. The second Lady Lundie, wisely
guiding her conduct in this matter by the conduct of her husband,
left things as she found them in the new house. At the opening of
eighteen hundred and sixty-seven the relations between Anne and
Blanche were relations of sisterly sympathy and sisterly love.
The prospect in the future was as fair as a prospect could be.
At this date, of the persons concerned in the tragedy of twelve
years since at the Hampstead villa, three were dead; and one was
self-exiled in a foreign land. There now remained living Anne and
Blanche, who had been children at the time; and the rising
solicitor who had discovered the flaw in the Irish marriage--once
Mr. Delamayn: now Lord Holchester.
THE STORY.
FIRST SCENE.--THE SUMMER-HOUSE.
CHAPTER THE FIRST.
THE OWLS.
IN the spring of the year eighteen hundred and sixty-eight there
lived, in a certain county of North Britain, two venerable White
Owls.
The Owls inhabited a decayed and deserted summer-house. The
summer-house stood in grounds attached to a country seat in
Perthshire, known by the name of Windygates.
The situation of Windygates had been skillfully chosen in that
part of the county where the fertile lowlands first begin to
merge into the mountain region beyond. The mansion-house was
intelligently laid out, and luxuriously furnished. The stables
offered a model for ventilation and space; and the gardens and
grounds were fit for a prince.
Possessed of these advantages, at starting, Windygates,
nevertheless, went the road to ruin in due course of time. The
curse of litigation fell on house and lands. For more than ten
years an interminable lawsuit coiled itself closer and closer
round the place, sequestering it from human habitation, and even
from human approach. The mansion was closed. The garden became a
wilderness of weeds. The summer-house was choked up by creeping
plants; and the appearance of the creepers was followed by the
appearance of the birds of night.
For years the Owls lived undisturbed on the property which they
had acquired by the oldest of all existing rights--the right of
taking. Throughout the day they sat peaceful and solemn, with
closed eyes, in the cool darkness shed round them by the ivy.
With the twilight they roused themselves softly to the business
of life. In sage and silent companionship of two, they went
flying, noiseless, along the quiet lanes in search of a meal. At
one time they would beat a field like a setter dog, and drop down
in an instant on a mouse unaware of them. At another time--moving
spectral over the black surface of the water--they would try the
lake for a change, and catch a perch as they had caught the
mouse. Their catholic digestions were equally tolerant of a rat
or an insect. And there were moments, proud moments, in their
lives, when they were clever enough to snatch a small bird at
roost off his perch. On those occasions the sense of superiority
which the large bird feels every where over the small, warmed
their cool blood, and set them screeching cheerfully in the
stillness of the night.
So, for years, the Owls slept their happy sleep by day, and found
their comfortable meal when darkness fell. They had come, with
the creepers, into possession of the summer-house. Consequently,
the creepers were a part of the constitution of the summer-house.
And consequently the Owls were the guardians of the Constitution.
There are some human owls who reason as they did, and who are, in
this respect--as also in respect of snatching smaller birds off
their roosts--wonderfully like them.
The constitution of the summer-house had lasted until the spring
of the year eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, when the unhallowed
footsteps of innovation passed that way; and the venerable
privileges of the Owls were assailed, for the first time, from
the world outside.
Two featherless beings appeared, uninvited, at the door of the
summer-house, surveyed the constitutional creepers, and said,
"These must come down"--looked around at the horrid light of
noonday, and said, "That must come in"--went away, thereupon, and
were heard, in the distance, agreeing together, "To-morrow it
shall be done."
And the Owls said, "Have we honored the summer-house by occupying
it all these years--and is the horrid light of noonday to be let
in on us at last? My lords and gentlemen, the Constitution is
destroyed!"
They passed a resolution to that effect, as is the manner of
their kind. And then they shut their eyes again, and felt that
they had done their duty.
The same night, on their way to the fields, they observed with
dismay a light in one of the windows of the house. What did the
light mean?
It meant, in the first place, that the lawsuit was over at last.
It meant, in the second place that the owner of Windygates,
wanting money, had decided on letting the property. It meant, in
the third place, that the property had found a tenant, and was to
be renovated immediately out of doors and in. The Owls shrieked
as they flapped along the lanes in the darkness, And that night
they struck at a mouse--and missed him.
The next morning, the Owls--fast asleep in charge of the
Constitution--were roused by voices of featherless beings all
round them. They opened their eyes, under protest, and saw
instruments of destruction attacking the creepers. Now in one
direction, and now in another, those instruments let in on the
summer-house the horrid light of day. But the Owls were equal to
the occasion. They ruffled their feathers, and cried, "No
surrender!" The featherless beings plied their work cheerfully,
and answered, "Reform!" The creepers were torn down this way and
that. The horrid daylight poured in brighter and brighter. The
Owls had barely time to pass a new resolution, namely, "That we
do stand
by the Constitution," when a ray of the outer sunlight flashed
into their eyes, and sent them flying headlong to the nearest
shade. There they sat winking, while the summer-house was cleared
of the rank growth that had choked it up, while the rotten
wood-work was renewed, while all the murky place was purified
with air and light. And when the world saw it, and said, "Now we
shall do!" the Owls shut their eyes in pious remembrance of the
darkness, and answered, "My lords and gentlemen, the Constitution
is destroyed!"
CHAPTER THE SECOND.
THE GUESTS.
Who was responsible for the reform of the summer-house? The new
tenant at Windygates was responsible.
And who was the new tenant?
Come, and see.
In the spring of eighteen hundred and sixty-eight the
summer-house had been the dismal dwelling-place of a pair of
owls. In the autumn
of the same year the summer-house was the lively gathering-place
of a crowd of ladies and gentlemen, assembled at a lawn
party--the guests of the tenant who had taken Windygates.
The scene--at the opening of the party--was as pleasant to look
at as light and beauty and movement could make it.
Inside the summer-house the butterfly-brightness of the women in
their summer dresses shone radiant out of the gloom shed round it
by the dreary modern clothing of the men. Outside the
summer-house, seen through three arched openings, the cool green
prospect of a lawn led away, in the distance, to flower-beds and
shrubberies, and, farther still, disclosed, through a break in
the trees, a grand stone house which closed the view, with a
fountain in front of it playing in the sun.
They were half of them laughing, they were all of them
talking--the comfortable hum of their voices was at its loudest;
the cheery pealing of the laughter was soaring to its highest
notes--when one dominant voice, rising clear and shrill above all
the rest, called imperatively for silence. The moment after, a
young lady stepped into the vacant space in front of the
summer-house, and surveyed the throng of guests as a general in
command surveys a regiment under review.
She was young, she was pretty, she was plump, she was fair. She
was not the least embarrassed by her prominent position. She was
dressed in the height of the fashion. A hat, like a cheese-plate,
was tilted over her forehead. A balloon of light brown hair
soared, fully inflated, from the crown of her head. A cataract of
beads poured over her bosom. A pair of cock-chafers in enamel
(frightfully like the living originals) hung at her ears. Her
scanty skirts shone splendid with the blue of heaven. Her ankles
twinkled in striped stockings. Her shoes were of the sort called
"Watteau." And her heels were of the height at which men shudder,
and ask themselves (in contemplating an otherwise lovable woman),
"Can this charming person straighten her knees?"
The young lady thus presenting herself to the general view was
Miss Blanche Lundie--once the little rosy Blanche whom the
Prologue has introduced to the reader. Age, at the present time,
eighteen. Position, excellent. Money, certain. Temper, quick.
Disposition, variable. In a word, a child of the modern
time--with the merits of the age we live in, and the failings of
the age we live in--and a substance of sincerity and truth and
feeling underlying it all.
"Now then, good people," cried Miss Blanche, "silence, if you
please! We are going to choose sides at croquet. Business,
business, business!"
Upon this, a second lady among the company assumed a position of
prominence, and answered the young person who had just spoken
with a look of mild reproof, and in a tone of benevolent protest.
The second lady was tall, and solid, and five-and-thirty. She
presented to the general observation a cruel aquiline nose, an
obstinate straight chin, magnificent dark hair and eyes, a serene
splendor of fawn-colored apparel, and a lazy grace of movement
which was attractive at first sight, but inexpressibly monotonous
and wearisome on a longer acquaintance. This was Lady Lundie the
Second, now the widow (after four months only of married life) of
Sir Thomas Lundie, deceased. In other words, the step-mother of
Blanche, and the enviable person who had taken the house and
lands of Windygates.
"My dear," said Lady Lundie, "words have their meanings--even on
a young lady's lips. Do you call Croquet, 'business?' "
"You don't call it pleasure, surely?" said a gravely ironical
voice in the back-ground of the summer-house.
The ranks of the visitors parted before the last speaker, and
disclosed to view, in the midst of that modern assembly, a
gentleman of the bygone time.
The manner of this gentleman was distinguished by a pliant grace
and courtesy unknown to the present generation. The attire of
this gentleman was composed of a many-folded white cravat, a
close-buttoned blue dress-coat, and nankeen trousers with gaiters
to match, ridiculous to the present generation. The talk of this
gentleman ran in an easy flow--revealing an independent habit of
mind, and exhibiting a carefully-polished capacity for satirical
retort--dreaded and disliked by the present generation.
Personally, he was little and wiry and slim--with a bright white
head, and sparkling black eyes, and a wry twist of humor curling
sharply at the corners of his lips. At his lower extremities, he
exhibited the deformity which is popularly known as "a
club-foot." But he carried his lameness, as he carried his years,
gayly. He was socially celebrated for his ivory cane, with a
snuff-box artfully let into the knob at the top--and he was
socially dreaded for a hatred of modern institutions, which
expressed itself in season and out of season, and which always
showed the same, fatal knack of hitting smartly on the weakest
place. Such was Sir Patrick Lundie; brother of the late baronet,
Sir Thomas; and inheritor, at Sir Thomas's death, of the title
and estates.
Miss Blanche--taking no notice of her step-mother's reproof, or
of her uncle's commentary on it--pointed to a table on which
croquet mallets and balls were laid ready, and recalled the
attention of the company to the matter in hand.
"I head one side, ladies and gentlemen," she resumed. "And Lady
Lundie heads the other. We choose our players turn and turn
about. Mamma has the advantage of me in years. So mamma chooses
first."
With a look at her step-daughter--which, being interpreted,
meant, "I would send you back to the nursery, miss, if I
could!"--Lady Lundie turned and ran her eye over her guests. She
had evidently made up her mind, beforehand, what player to pick
out first.
"I choose Miss Silvester," she said--with a special emphasis laid
on the name.
At that there was another parting among the crowd. To us (who
know her), it was Anne who now appeared. Strangers, who saw her
for the first time, saw a lady in the prime of her life--a lady
plainly dressed in unornamented white--who advanced slowly, and
confronted the mistress of the house.
A certain proportion--and not a small one--of the men at the
lawn-party had been brought there by friends who were privileged
to introduce them. The moment she appeared every one of those men
suddenly became interested in the lady who had been chosen first.
"That's a very charming woman," whispered one of the strangers at
the house to one of the friends of the house. "Who is she?"
The friend whispered back.
"Miss Lundie's governess--that's all."
The moment during which the question was put and answered was
also the moment which brought Lady Lundie and Miss Silvester face
to face in the presence of the company.
The stranger at the house looked at the two women, and whispered
again.
"Something wrong between the lady and the governess," he said.
The friend looked also, and answered, in one emphatic word:
"Evidently!"
There are certain women whose influence over men is an
unfathomable mystery to observers of their own sex. The governess
was one of those women. She had inherited the charm, but not the
beauty, of her unhappy mother. Judge her by the standard set up
in the illustrated gift-books and the print-shop windows--and the
sentence must have inevitably followed. "She has not a single
good feature
in her face."
There was nothing individually remarkable about Miss Silvester,
seen in a state of repose. She was of the average height. She was
as well made as most women. In hair and complexion she was
neither light nor dark, but provokingly neutral just between the
two. Worse even than this, there were positive defects in her
face, which it was impossible to deny. A nervous contraction at
one corner of her mouth drew up the lips out of the symmetrically
right line, when, they moved. A nervous uncertainty in the eye on
the same side narrowly escaped presenting the deformity of a
"cast." And yet, with these indisputable drawbacks, here was one
of those women--the formidable few--who have the hearts of men
and the peace of families at their mercy. She moved--and there
was some subtle charm, Sir, in the movement, that made you look
back, and suspend your conversation with your friend, and watch
her silently while she walked. She sat by you and talked to
you--and behold, a sensitive something passed into that little
twist at the corner of the mouth, and into that nervous
uncertainty in the soft gray eye, which turned defect into
beauty--which enchained your senses--which made your nerves
thrill if she touched you by accident, and set your heart beating
if you looked at the same book with her, and felt her breath on
your face. All this, let it be well understood, only happened if
you were a man.
If you saw her with the eyes of a woman, the results were of
quite another kind. In that case you merely turned to your
nearest female friend, and said, with unaffected pity for the
other sex, "What _can_ the men see in her!"
The eyes of the lady of the house and the eyes of the governess
met, with marked distrust on either side. Few people could have
failed to see what the stranger and the friend had noticed
alike--that there was something smoldering under the surface
here. Miss Silvester spoke first.
"Thank you, Lady Lundie," she said. "I would rather not play."
Lady Lundie assumed an extreme surprise which passed the limits
of good-breeding.
"Oh, indeed?" she rejoined, sharply. "Considering that we are all
here for the purpose of playing, that seems rather remarkable. Is
any thing wrong, Miss Silvester?"
A flush appeared on the delicate paleness of Miss Silvester's
face. But she did her duty as a woman and a governess. She
submitted, and so preserved appearances, for that time.
"Nothing is the matter," she answered. "I am not very well this
morning. But I will play if you wish it."
"I do wish it," answered Lady Lundie.
Miss Silvester turned aside toward one of the entrances into the
summer-house. She waited for events, looking out over the lawn,
with a visible inner disturbance, marked over the bosom by the
rise and fall of her white dress.
It was Blanche's turn to select the next player .
In some preliminary uncertainty as to her choice she looked about
among the guests, and caught the eye of a gentleman in the front
ranks. He stood side by side with Sir Patrick--a striking
representative of the school that is among us--as Sir Patrick was
a striking representative of the school that has passed away.
The modern gentleman was young and florid, tall and strong. The
parting of his curly Saxon locks began in the center of his
forehead, traveled over the top of his head, and ended,
rigidly-central, at the ruddy nape of his neck. His features were
as perfectly regular and as perfectly unintelligent as human
features can be. His expression preserved an immovable composure
wonderful to behold. The muscles of his brawny arms showed
through the sleeves of his light summer coat. He was deep in the
chest, thin in the flanks, firm on the legs--in two words a
magnificent human animal, wrought up to the highest pitch of
physical development, from head to foot. This was Mr. Geoffrey
Delamayn--commonly called "the honorable;" and meriting that
distinction in more ways than one. He was honorable, in the first
place, as being the son (second son) of that once-rising
solicitor, who was now Lord Holchester. He was honorable, in the
second place, as having won the highest popular distinction which
the educational system of modern England can bestow--he had
pulled the stroke-oar in a University boat-race. Add to this,
that nobody had ever seen him read any thing but a newspaper, and
that nobody had ever known him to be backward in settling a
bet--and the picture of this distinguished young Englishman will
be, for the present, complete.
Blanche's eye naturally rested on him. Blanche's voice naturally
picked him out as the first player on her side.
"I choose Mr. Delamayn," she said.
As the name passed her lips the flush on Miss Silvester's face
died away, and a deadly paleness took its place. She made a
movement to leave the summer-house--checked herself abruptly--and
laid one hand on the back of a rustic seat at her side. A
gentleman behind her, looking at the hand, saw it clench itself
so suddenly and so fiercely that the glove on it split. The
gentleman made a mental memorandum, and registered Miss Silvester
in his private books as "the devil's own temper."
Meanwhile Mr. Delamayn, by a strange coincidence, took exactly
the same course which Miss Silvester had taken before him. He,
too, attempted to withdraw from the coming game.
"Thanks very much," he said. "Could you additionally honor me by
choosing somebody else? It's not in my line."
Fifty years ago such an answer as this, addressed to a lady,
would have been considered inexcusably impertinent. The social
code of the present time hailed it as something frankly amusing.
The company laughed. Blanche lost her temper.
"Can't we interest you in any thing but severe muscular exertion,
Mr. Delamayn?" she asked, sharply. "Must you always be pulling in
a boat-race, or flying over a high jump? If you had a mind, you
would want to relax it. You have got muscles instead. Why not
relax _ them?"_
The shafts of Miss Lundie's bitter wit glided off Mr. Geoffrey
Delamayn like water off a duck's back.
"Just as you please," he said, with stolid good-humor. "Don't be
offended. I came here with ladies--and they wouldn't let me
smoke. I miss my smoke. I thought I'd slip away a bit and have
it. All right! I'll play."
"Oh! smoke by all means!" retorted Blanche. "I shall choose
somebody else. I won't have you!"
The honorable young gentleman looked unaffectedly relieved. The
petulant young lady turned her back on him, and surveyed the
guests at the other extremity of the summer-house.
"Who shall I choose?" she said to herself.
A dark young man--with a face burned gipsy-brown by the sun; with
something in his look and manner suggestive of a roving life, and
perhaps of a familiar acquaintance with the sea--advanced shyly,
and said, in a whisper:
"Choose me!"
Blanche's face broke prettily into a charming smile. Judging from
appearances, the dark young man had a place in her estimation
peculiarly his own.
"You!" she said, coquettishly. "You are going to leave us in an
hour's time!"
He ventured a step nearer. "I am coming back," he pleaded, "the
day after to-morrow."
"You play very badly!"
"I might improve--if you would teach me."
"Might you? Then I will teach you!" She turned, bright and rosy,
to her step-mother. "I choose Mr. Arnold Brinkworth," she said.
Here, again, there appeared to be something in a name unknown to
celebrity, which nevertheless produced its effect--not, this
time, on Miss Silvester, but on Sir Patrick. He looked at Mr.
Brinkworth with a sudden interest and curiosity. If the lady of
the house had not claimed his attention at the moment he would
evidently have spoken to the dark young man.
But it was Lady Lundie's turn to choose a second player on her
side. Her brother-in-law was a person of some importance; and she
had her own motives for ingratiating herself with the head of the
family. She surprised the whole company by choosing Sir Patrick.
"Mamma!" cried Blanche. "What can you be thinking of? Sir Patrick
won't play. Croquet wasn't discovered in his time."
Sir Patrick never allowed "his time" to be made the subject of
disparaging remarks by the younger generation without paying the
y ounger generation back in its own coin.
"In _my_ time, my dear," he said to his niece, "people were
expected to bring some agreeable quality with them to social
meetings of this sort. In your time you have dispensed with all
that. Here," remarked the old gentleman, taking up a croquet
mallet from the table near him, "is one of the qualifications for
success in modern society. And here," he added, taking up a ball,
"is another. Very good. Live and learn. I'll play! I'll play!"
Lady Lundie (born impervious to all sense of irony) smiled
graciously.
"I knew Sir Patrick would play," she said, "to please me,"
Sir Patrick bowed with satirical politeness.
"Lady Lundie," he answered, "you read me like a book." To the
astonishment of all persons present under forty he emphasized
those words by laying his hand on his heart, and quoting poetry.
"I may say with Dryden," added the gallant old gentleman:
" 'Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,
The power of beauty I remember yet.' "
Lady Lundie looked unaffectedly shocked. Mr. Delamayn went a step
farther. He interfered on the spot--with the air of a man who
feels himself imperatively called upon to perform a public duty.
"Dryden never said that," he remarked, "I'll answer for it."
Sir Patrick wheeled round with the help of his ivory cane, and
looked Mr. Delamayn hard in the face.
"Do you know Dryden, Sir, better than I do?" he asked.
The Honorable Geoffrey answered, modestly, "I should say I did. I
have rowed three races with him, and we trained together."
Sir Patrick looked round him with a sour smile of triumph.
"Then let me tell you, Sir," he said, "that you trained with a
man who died nearly two hundred years ago."
Mr. Delamayn appealed, in genuine bewilderment, to the company
generally:
"What does this old gentleman mean?" he asked. "I am speaking of
Tom Dryden, of Corpus. Every body in the University knows _him._"
"I am speaking," echoed Sir Patrick, "of John Dryden the Poet.
Apparently, every body in the University does _not_ know _him!"_
Mr. Delamayn answered, with a cordial earnestness very pleasant
to see:
"Give you my word of honor, I never heard of him before in my
life! Don't be angry, Sir. _I'm_ not offended with _you._" He
smiled, and took out his brier-wood pipe. "Got a light?" he
asked, in the friendliest possible manner.
Sir Patrick answered, with a total absence of cordiality:
"I don't smoke, Sir."
Mr. Delamayn looked at him, without taking the slightest offense:
"You don't smoke!" he repeated. "I wonder how you get through
your spare time?"
Sir Patrick closed the conversation:
"Sir," he said, with a low bow, "you _may_ wonder."
While this little skirmish was proceeding Lady Lundie and her
step-daughter had organized the game; and the company, players
and spectators, were beginning to move toward the lawn. Sir
Patrick stopped his niece on her way out, with the dark young man
in close attendance on her.
"Leave Mr. Brinkworth with me," he said. "I want to speak to
him."
Blanche issued her orders immediately. Mr. Brinkworth was
sentenced to stay with Sir Patrick until she wanted him for the
game. Mr. Brinkworth wondered, and obeyed.
During the exercise of this act of authority a circumstance
occurred at the other end of the summer-house. Taking advantage
of the confusion caused by the general movement to the lawn, Miss
Silvester suddenly placed herself close to Mr. Delamayn.
"In ten minutes," she whispered, "the summer-house will be empty.
Meet me here."
The Honorable Geoffrey started, and looked furtively at the
visitors about him.
"Do you think it's safe?" he whispered back.
The governess's sensitive lips trembled, with fear or with anger,
it was hard to say which.
"I insist on it!" she answered, and left him.
Mr. Delamayn knitted his handsome eyebrows as he looked after
her, and then left the summer-house in his turn. The rose-garden
at the back of the building was solitary for the moment. He took
out his pipe and hid himself among the roses. The smoke came from
his mouth in hot and hasty puffs. He was usually the gentlest of
masters--to his pipe. When he hurried that confidential servant,
it was a sure sign of disturbance in the inner man.
CHAPTER THE THIRD.
THE DISCOVERIES.
BUT two persons were now left in the summer-house--Arnold
Brinkworth and Sir Patrick Lundie.
"Mr. Brinkworth," said the old gentleman, "I have had no
opportunity of speaking to you before this; and (as I hear that
you are to leave us, to-day) I may find no opportunity at a later
time. I want to introduce myself. Your father was one of my
dearest friends--let me make a friend of your father's son."
He held out his hands, and mentioned his name.
Arnold recognized it directly. "Oh, Sir Patrick!" he said,
warmly, "if my poor father had only taken your advice--"
"He would have thought twice before he gambled away his fortune
on the turf; and he might have been alive here among us, instead
of dying an exile in a foreign land," said Sir Patrick, finishing
the sentence which the other had begun. "No more of that! Let's
talk of something else. Lady Lundie wrote to me about you the
other day. She told me your aunt was dead, and had left you heir
to her property in Scotland. Is that true?--It is?--I
congratulate you with all my heart. Why are you visiting here,
instead of looking after your house and lands? Oh! it's only
three-and-twenty miles from this; and you're going to look after
it to-day, by the next train? Quite right. And--what?
what?--coming back again the day after to-morrow? Why should you
come back? Some special attraction here, I suppose? I hope it's
the right sort of attraction. You're very young--you're exposed
to all sorts of temptations. Have you got a solid foundation of
good sense at the bottom of you? It is not inherited from your
poor father, if you have. You must have been a mere boy when he
ruined his children's prospects. How have you lived from that
time to this? What were you doing when your aunt's will made an
idle man of you for life?"
The question was a searching one. Arnold answered it, without the
slightest hesitation; speaking with an unaffected modesty and
simplicity which at once won Sir Patrick's heart.
"I was a boy at Eton, Sir," he said, "when my father's losses
ruined him. I had to leave school, and get my own living; and I
have got it, in a roughish way, from that time to this. In plain
English, I have followed the sea--in the merchant-service."
"In plainer English still, you met adversity like a brave lad,
and you have fairly earned the good luck that has fallen to you,"
rejoined Sir Patrick. "Give me your hand--I have taken a liking
to you. You're not like the other young fellows of the present
time. I shall call you 'Arnold.' You mus'n't return the
compliment and call me 'Patrick,' mind--I'm too old to be treated
in that way. Well, and how do you get on here? What sort of a
woman is my sister-in-law? and what sort of a house is this?"
Arnold burst out laughing.
"Those are extraordinary questions for you to put to me," he
said. "You talk, Sir, as if you were a stranger here!"
Sir Patrick touched a spring in the knob of his ivory cane. A
little gold lid flew up, and disclosed the snuff-box hidden
inside. He took a pinch, and chuckled satirically over some
passing thought, which he did not think it necessary to
communicate to his young friend.
"I talk as if I was a stranger here, do I?" he resumed. "That's
exactly what I am. Lady Lundie and I correspond on excellent
terms; but we run in different grooves, and we see each other as
seldom as possible. My story," continued the pleasant old man,
with a charming frankness which leveled all differences of age
and rank between Arnold and himself, "is not entirely unlike
yours; though I _am_ old enough to be your grandfather. I was
getting my living, in my way (as a crusty old Scotch lawyer),
when my brother married again. His death, without leaving a son
by either of his wives, gave me a lift in the world, like you.
Here I am (to my own sincere regret) the present baronet. Yes, to
my sincere regret! All sorts of responsibilities which I never
bargained for are thrust on my shou lders. I am the head of the
family; I am my niece's guardian; I am compelled to appear at
this lawn-party--and (between ourselves) I am as completely out
of my element as a man can be. Not a single familiar face meets
_me_ among all these fine people. Do you know any body here?"
"I have one friend at Windygates," said Arnold. "He came here
this morning, like you. Geoffrey Delamayn."
As he made the reply, Miss Silvester appeared at the entrance to
the summer-house. A shadow of annoyance passed over her face when
she saw that the place was occupied. She vanished, unnoticed, and
glided back to the game.
Sir Patrick looked at the son of his old friend, with every
appearance of being disappointed in the young man for the first
time.
"Your choice of a friend rather surprises me," he said.
Arnold artlessly accepted the words as an appeal to him for
information.
"I beg your pardon, Sir--there's nothing surprising in it," he
returned. "We were school-fellows at Eton, in the old times. And
I have met Geoffrey since, when he was yachting, and when I was
with my ship. Geoffrey saved my life, Sir Patrick," he added, his
voice rising, and his eyes brightening with honest admiration of
his friend. "But for him, I should have been drowned in a
boat-accident. Isn't _that_ a good reason for his being a friend
of mine?"
"It depends entirely on the value you set on your life," said Sir
Patrick.
"The value I set on my life?" repeated Arnold. "I set a high
value on it, of course!"
"In that case, Mr. Delamayn has laid you under an obligation."
"Which I can never repay!"
"Which you will repay one of these days, with interest--if I know
any thing of human nature," answered Sir Patrick.
He said the words with the emphasis of strong conviction. They
were barely spoken when Mr. Delamayn appeared (exactly as Miss
Silvester had appeared) at the entrance to the summer-house. He,
too, vanished, unnoticed--like Miss Silvester again. But there
the parallel stopped. The Honorable Geoffrey's expression, on
discovering the place to be occupied, was, unmistakably an
expression of relief.
Arnold drew the right inference, this time, from Sir Patrick's
language and Sir Patrick's tones. He eagerly took up the defense
of his friend.
"You said that rather bitterly, Sir," he remarked. "What has
Geoffrey done to offend you?"
"He presumes to exist--that's what he has done," retorted Sir
Patrick. "Don't stare! I am speaking generally. Your friend is
the model young Briton of the present time. I don't like the
model young Briton. I don't see the sense of crowing over him as
a superb national production, because he is big and strong, and
drinks beer with impunity, and takes a cold shower bath all the
year round. There is far too much glorification in England, just
now, of the mere physical qualities which an Englishman shares
with the savage and the brute. And the ill results are beginning
to show themselves already! We are readier than we ever were to
practice all that is rough in our national customs, and to excuse
all that is violent and brutish in our national acts. Read the
popular books--attend the popular amusements; and you will find
at the bottom of them all a lessening regard for the gentler
graces of civilized life, and a growing admiration for the
virtues of the aboriginal Britons!"
Arnold listened in blank amazement. He had been the innocent
means of relieving Sir Patrick's mind of an accumulation of
social protest, unprovided with an issue for some time past. "
How hot you are over it, Sir!" he exclaimed, in irrepressible
astonishment.
Sir Patrick instantly recovered himself. The genuine wonder
expressed in the young man's face was irresistible.
"Almost as hot," he said, "as if I was cheering at a boat-race,
or wrangling over a betting-book--eh? Ah, we were so easily
heated when I was a young man! Let's change the subject. I know
nothing to the prejudice of your friend, Mr. Delamayn. It's the
cant of the day," cried Sir Patrick, relapsing again, "to take
these physically-wholesome men for granted as being
morally-wholesome men into the bargain. Time will show whether
the cant of the day is right.--So you are actually coming back to
Lady Lundie's after a mere flying visit to your own property? I
repeat, that is a most extraordinary proceeding on the part of a
landed gentleman like you. What's the attraction here--eh?"
Before Arnold could reply Blanche called to him from the lawn.
His color rose, and he turned eagerly to go out. Sir Patrick
nodded his head with the air of a man who had been answered to
his own entire satisfaction. "Oh!" he said, "_that's_ the
attraction, is it?"
Arnold's life at sea had left him singularly ignorant of the ways
of the world on shore. Instead of taking the joke, he looked
confused. A deeper tinge of color reddened his dark cheeks. "I
didn't say so," he answered, a little irritably.
Sir Patrick lifted two of his white, wrinkled old fingers, and
good-humoredly patted the young sailor on the cheek.
"Yes you did," he said. "In red letters."
The little gold lid in the knob of the ivory cane flew up, and
the old gentleman rewarded himself for that neat retort with a
pinch of snuff. At the same moment Blanche made her appearance on
the scene.
"Mr. Brinkworth," she said, "I shall want you directly. Uncle,
it's your turn to play."
"Bless my soul!" cried Sir Patrick, "I forgot the game." He
looked about him, and saw his mallet and ball left waiting on the
table. "Where are the modern substitutes for conversation? Oh,
here they are!" He bowled the ball out before him on to the lawn,
and tucked the mallet, as if it was an umbrella, under his arm.
"Who was the first mistaken person," he said to himself, as he
briskly hobbled out, "who discovered that human life was a
serious thing? Here am I, with one foot in the grave; and the
most serious question before me at the present moment is, Shall I
get through the Hoops?"
Arnold and Blanche were left together.
Among the personal privileges which Nature has accorded to women,
there are surely none more enviable than their privilege of
always looking their best when they look at the man they love.
When Blanche's eyes turned on Arnold after her uncle had gone
out, not even the hideous fashionable disfigurements of the
inflated "chignon" and the tilted hat could destroy the triple
charm of youth, beauty, and tenderness beaming in her face.
Arnold looked at her--and remembered, as he had never remembered
yet, that he was going by the next train, and that he was leaving
her in the society of more than one admiring man of his own age.
The experience of a whole fortnight passed under the same roof
with her had proved Blanche to be the most charming girl in
existence. It was possible that she might not be mortally
offended with him if he told her so. He determined that he
_would_ tell her so at that auspicious moment.
But who shall presume to measure the abyss that lies between the
Intention and the Execution? Arnold's resolution to speak was as
firmly settled as a resolution could be. And what came of it?
Alas for human infirmity! Nothing came of it but silence.
"You don't look quite at your ease, Mr. Brinkworth," said
Blanche. "What has Sir Patrick been saying to you? My uncle
sharpens his wit on every body. He has been sharpening it on
_you?"_
Arnold began to see his way. At an immeasurable distance--but
still he saw it.
"Sir Patrick is a terrible old man," he answered. "Just before
you came in he discovered one of my secrets by only looking in my
face." He paused, rallied his courage, pushed on at all hazards,
and came headlong to the point. "I wonder," he asked, bluntly,
"whether you take after your uncle?"
Blanche instantly understood him. With time at her disposal, she
would have taken him lightly in hand, and led him, by fine
gradations, to the object in view. But in two minutes or less it
would be Arnold's turn to play. "He is going to make me an
offer," thought Blanche; "and he has about a minute to do it in.
He _shall_ do it!"
"What!" she exclaimed, " do you think the gift of discovery runs
in the family?"
Arnold made a plunge.
"I wish it did! " he said.
Blanche looked the picture of astonishment.
"Why?" she asked.
"If you could see in my face what Sir Patrick saw--"
He had only to finish the sentence, and the thing was done. But
the tender passion perversely delights in raising obstacles to
itself. A sudden timidity seized on Arnold exactly at the wrong
moment. He stopped short, in the most awkward manner possible.
Blanche heard from the lawn the blow of the mallet on the ball,
and the laughter of the company at some blunder of Sir Patrick's.
The precious seconds were slipping away. She could have boxed
Arnold on both ears for being so unreasonably afraid of her.
"Well," she said, impatiently, "if I did look in your face, what
should I see?"
Arnold made another plunge. He answered: "You would see that I
want a little encouragement."
"From _me?_"
"Yes--if you please."
Blanche looked back over her shoulder. The summer-house stood on
an eminence, approached by steps. The players on the lawn beneath
were audible, but not visible. Any one of them might appear,
unexpectedly, at a moment's notice. Blanche listened. There was
no sound of approaching footsteps--there was a general hush, and
then another bang of the mallet on the ball and then a clapping
of hands. Sir Patrick was a privileged person. He had been
allowed, in all probability, to try again; and he was succeeding
at the second effort. This implied a reprieve of some seconds.
Blanche looked back again at Arnold.
"Consider yourself encouraged," she whispered; and instantly
added, with the ineradicable female instinct of self-defense,
"within limits!"
Arnold made a last plunge--straight to the bottom, this time.
"Consider yourself loved," he burst out, "without any limits at
all."
It was all over--the words were spoken--he had got her by the
hand. Again the perversity of the tender passion showed itself
more strongly than ever. The confession which Blanche had been
longing to hear, had barely escaped her lover's lips before
Blanche protested against it! She struggled to release her hand.
She formally appealed to Arnold to let her go.
Arnold only held her the tighter.
"Do try to like me a little!" he pleaded. "I am so fond of
_you!_"
Who was to resist such wooing as this?--when you were privately
fond of him yourself, remember, and when you were certain to be
interrupted in another moment! Blanche left off struggling, and
looked up at her young sailor with a smile.
"Did you learn this method of making love in the
merchant-service?" she inquired, saucily.
Arnold persisted in contemplating his prospects from the serious
point of view.
"I'll go back to the merchant-service," he said, "if I have made
you angry with me."
Blanche administered another dose of encouragement.
"Anger, Mr. Brinkworth, is one of the bad passions," she
answered, demurely. "A young lady who has been properly brought
up has no bad passions."
There was a sudden cry from the players on the lawn--a cry for
"Mr. Brinkworth." Blanche tried to push him out. Arnold was
immovable.
"Say something to encourage me before I go," he pleaded. "One
word will do. Say, Yes."
Blanche shook her head. Now she had got him, the temptation to
tease him was irresistible.
"Quite impossible!" she rejoined. "If you want any more
encouragement, you must speak to my uncle."
"I'll speak to him," returned Arnold, "before I leave the house."
There was another cry for "Mr. Brinkworth." Blanche made another
effort to push him out.
"Go!" she said. "And mind you get through the hoop!"
She had both hands on his shoulders--her face was close to
his--she was simply irresistible. Arnold caught her round the
waist and kissed her. Needless to tell him to get through the
hoop. He had surely got through it already! Blanche was
speechless. Arnold's last effort in the art of courtship had
taken away her breath. Before she could recover herself a sound
of approaching footsteps became plainly audible. Arnold gave her
a last squeeze, and ran out.
She sank on the nearest chair, and closed her eyes in a flutter
of delicious confusion.
The footsteps ascending to the summer-house came nearer. Blanche
opened her eyes, and saw Anne Silvester, standing alone, looking
at her. She sprang to her feet, and threw her arms impulsively
round Anne's neck.
"You don't know what has happened," she whispered. "Wish me joy,
darling. He has said the words. He is mine for life!"
All the sisterly love and sisterly confidence of many years was
expressed in that embrace, and in the tone in which the words
were spoken. The hearts of the mothers, in the past time, could
hardly have been closer to each other--as it seemed--than the
hearts of the daughters were now. And yet, if Blanche had looked
up in Anne's face at that moment, she must have seen that Anne's
mind was far away from her little love-story.
"You know who it is?" she went on, after waiting for a reply.
"Mr. Brinkworth?"
"Of course! Who else should it be?"
"And you are really happy, my love?"
"Happy?" repeated Blanche "Mind! this is strictly between
ourselves. I am ready to jump out of my skin for joy. I love him!
I love him! I love him!" she cried, with a childish pleasure in
repeating the words. They were echoed by a heavy sigh. Blanche
instantly looked up into Anne's face. "What's the matter?" she
asked, with a sudden change of voice and manner.
"Nothing."
Blanche's observation saw too plainly to be blinded in that way.
"There _is_ something the matter," she said. "Is it money?" she
added, after a moment's consideration. "Bills to pay? I have got
plenty of money, Anne. I'll lend you what you like."
"No, no, my dear!"
Blanche drew back, a little hurt. Anne was keeping her at a
distance for the first time in Blanche's experience of her.
"I tell you all my secrets," she said. "Why are _you_ keeping a
secret from _me?_ Do you know that you have been looking anxious
and out of spirits for some time past? Perhaps you don't like Mr.
Brinkworth? No? you _do_ like him? Is it my marrying, then? I
believe it is! You fancy we shall be parted, you goose? As if I
could do without you! Of course, when I am married to Arnold, you
will come and live with us. That's quite understood between
us--isn't it?"
Anne drew herself suddenly, almost roughly, away from Blanche,
and pointed out to the steps.
"There is somebody coming," she said. "Look!"
The person coming was Arnold. It was Blanche's turn to play, and
he had volunteered to fetch her.
Blanche's attention--easily enough distracted on other
occasions--remained steadily fixed on Anne.
"You are not yourself," she said, "and I must know the reason of
it. I will wait till to-night; and then you will tell me, when
you come into my room. Don't look like that! You _shall_ tell me.
And there's a kiss for you in the mean time!"
She joined Arnold, and recovered her gayety the moment she looked
at him.
"Well? Have you got through the hoops?"
"Never mind the hoops. I have broken the ice with Sir Patrick."
"What! before all the company!"
"Of course not! I have made an appointment to speak to him here."
They went laughing down the steps, and joined the game.
Left alone, Anne Silvester walked slowly to the inner and darker
part of the summer-house. A glass, in a carved wooden frame, was
fixed against one of the side walls. She stopped and looked into
it--looked, shuddering, at the reflection of herself.
"Is the time coming," she said, "when even Blanche will see what
I am in my face?"
She turned aside from the glass. With a sudden cry of despair she
flung up her arms and laid them heavily against the wall, and
rested her head on them with her back to the light. At the same
moment a man's figure appeared--standing dark in the flood of
sunshine at the entrance to the summer-house. The man was
Geoffrey Delamayn.
CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
THE TWO.
He advanced a few steps, and stopped. Absorbed in herself, Anne
failed to hear him. She never moved.
"I have come, as you made a point of it," he said, sullenly.
"But, mind you, it isn't safe."
At the sound of his voice, Anne turned toward him. A change of
expression appeared in her face, as she slowly advanced from the
back of the summer-house, which revealed a likeness to her moth
er, not perceivable at other times. As the mother had looked, in
by-gone days, at the man who had disowned her, so the daughter
looked at Geoffrey Delamayn--with the same terrible composure,
and the same terrible contempt.
"Well?" he asked. "What have you got to say to me?"
"Mr. Delamayn," she answered, "you are one of the fortunate
people of this world. You are a nobleman's son. You are a
handsome man. You are popular at your college. You are free of
the best houses in England. Are you something besides all this?
Are you a coward and a scoundrel as well?"
He started--opened his lips to speak--checked himself--and made
an uneasy attempt to laugh it off. "Come!" he said, "keep your
temper."
The suppressed passion in her began to force its way to the
surface.
"Keep my temper?" she repeated. "Do _you_ of all men expect me to
control myself? What a memory yours must be! Have you forgotten
the time when I was fool enough to think you were fond of me? and
mad enough to believe you could keep a promise?"
He persisted in trying to laugh it off. "Mad is a strongish word
to use, Miss Silvester!"
"Mad is the right word! I look back at my own infatuation--and I
can't account for it; I can't understand myself. What was there
in _you_," she asked, with an outbreak of contemptuous surprise,
"to attract such a woman as I am?"
His inexhaustible good-nature was proof even against this. He put
his hands in his pockets, and said, "I'm sure I don't know."
She turned away from him. The frank brutality of the answer had
not offended her. It forced her, cruelly forced her, to remember
that she had nobody but herself to blame for the position in
which she stood at that moment. She was unwilling to let him see
how the remembrance hurt her--that was all. A sad, sad story; but
it must be told. In her mother's time she had been the sweetest,
the most lovable of children. In later days, under the care of
her mother's friend, her girlhood had passed so harmlessly and so
happily--it seemed as if the sleeping passions might sleep
forever! She had lived on to the prime of her womanhood--and
then, when the treasure of her life was at its richest, in one
fatal moment she had flung it away on the man in whose presence
she now stood.
Was she without excuse? No: not utterly without excuse.
She had seen him under other aspects than the aspect which he
presented now. She had seen him, the hero of the river-race, the
first and foremost man in a trial of strength and skill which had
roused the enthusiasm of all England. She had seen him, the
central object of the interest of a nation; the idol of the
popular worship and the popular applause. _His_ were the arms
whose muscle was celebrated in the newspapers. _He_ was first
among the heroes hailed by ten thousand roaring throats as the
pride and flower of England. A woman, in an atmosphere of red-hot
enthusiasm, witnesses the apotheosis of Physical Strength. Is it
reasonable--is it just--to expect her to ask herself, in cold
blood, What (morally and intellectually) is all this worth?--and
that, when the man who is the object of the apotheosis, notices
her, is presented to her, finds her to his taste, and singles her
out from the rest? No. While humanity is humanity, the woman is
not utterly without excuse.
Has she escaped, without suffering for it?
Look at her as she stands there, tortured by the knowledge of her
own secret--the hideous secret which she is hiding from the
innocent girl, whom she loves with a sister's love. Look at her,
bowed down under a humiliation which is unutterable in words. She
has seen him below the surface--now, when it is too late. She
rates him at his true value--now, when her reputation is at his
mercy. Ask her the question: What was there to love in a man who
can speak to you as that man has spoken, who can treat you as
that man is treating you now? you so clever, so cultivated, so
refined--what, in Heaven's name, could _you_ see in him? Ask her
that, and she will have no answer to give. She will not even
remind you that he was once your model of manly beauty, too--that
you waved your handkerchief till you could wave it no longer,
when he took his seat, with the others, in the boat--that your
heart was like to jump out of your bosom, on that later occasion
when he leaped the last hurdle at the foot-race, and won it by a
head. In the bitterness of her remorse, she will not even seek
for _that_ excuse for herself. Is there no atoning suffering to
be seen here? Do your sympathies shrink from such a character as
this? Follow her, good friends of virtue, on the pilgrimage that
leads, by steep and thorny ways, to the purer atmosphere and the
nobler life. Your fellow-creature, who has sinned and has
repented--you have the authority of the Divine Teacher for it--is
your fellow-creature, purified and ennobled. A joy among the
angels of heaven--oh, my brothers and sisters of the earth, have
I not laid my hand on a fit companion for You?
There was a moment of silence in the summer-house. The cheerful
tumult of the lawn-party was pleasantly audible from the
distance. Outside, the hum of voices, the laughter of girls, the
thump of the croquet-mallet against the ball. Inside, nothing but
a woman forcing back the bitter tears of sorrow and shame--and a
man who was tired of her.
She roused herself. She was her mother's daughter; and she had a
spark of her mother's spirit. Her life depended on the issue of
that interview. It was useless--without father or brother to take
her part--to lose the last chance of appealing to him. She dashed
away the tears--time enough to cry, is time easily found in a
woman's existence--she dashed away the tears, and spoke to him
again, more gently than she had spoken yet.
"You have been three weeks, Geoffrey, at your brother Julius's
place, not ten miles from here; and you have never once ridden
over to see me. You would not have come to-day, if I had not
written to you to insist on it. Is that the treatment I have
deserved?"
She paused. There was no answer.
"Do you hear me?" she asked, advancing and speaking in louder
tones.
He was still silent. It was not in human endurance to bear his
contempt. The warning of a coming outbreak began to show itself
in her face. He met it, beforehand, with an impenetrable front.
Feeling nervous about the interview, while he was waiting in the
rose-garden--now that he stood committed to it, he was in full
possession of himself. He was composed enough to remember that he
had not put his pipe in its case--composed enough to set that
little matter right before other matters went any farther. He
took the case out of one pocket, and the pipe out of another.
"Go on," he said, quietly. "I hear you."
She struck the pipe out of his hand at a blow. If she had had the
strength she would have struck him down with it on the floor of
the summer-house.
"How dare you use me in this way?" she burst out, vehemently.
"Your conduct is infamous. Defend it if you can!"
He made no attempt to defend it. He looked, with an expression of
genuine anxiety, at the fallen pipe. It was beautifully
colored--it had cost him ten shillings. "I'll pick up my pipe
first," he said. His face brightened pleasantly--he looked
handsomer than ever--as he examined the precious object, and put
it back in the case. "All right," he said to himself. "She hasn't
broken it." His attitude as he looked at her again, was the
perfection of easy grace--the grace that attends on cultivated
strength in a state of repose. "I put it to your own
common-sense, " he said, in the most reasonable manner, "what's
the good of bullying me? You don't want them to hear you, out on
the lawn there--do you? You women are all alike. There's no
beating a little prudence into your heads, try how one may."
There he waited, expecting her to speak. She waited, on her side,
and forced him to go on.
"Look here," he said, "there's no need to quarrel, you know. I
don't want to break my promise; but what can I do ? I'm not the
eldest son. I'm dependent on my father for every farthing I have;
and I'm on bad terms with him already. Can't you see it yourself?
You're a lady, and all that, I know. But you're only a governess.
It's your interest as well as mine to wait till my father has
provided for me. Here it is in a nut-shell: if I marry you now,
I'm a ruined man."
The answer came, this time.
"You villain if you _don't_ marry me, I am a ruined woman!"
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. Don't look at me in that way."
"How do you expect me to look at a woman who calls me a villain
to my face?"
She suddenly changed her tone. The savage element in
humanity--let the modern optimists who doubt its existence look
at any uncultivated man (no matter how muscular), woman (no
matter how beautiful), or child (no matter how young)--began to
show itself furtively in his eyes, to utter itself furtively in
his voice. Was he to blame for the manner in which he looked at
her and spoke to her? Not he! What had there been in the training
of _his_ life (at school or at college) to soften and subdue the
savage element in him? About as much as there had been in the
training of his ancestors (without the school or the college)
five hundred years since.
It was plain that one of them must give way. The woman had the
most at stake--and the woman set the example of submission.
"Don't be hard on me," she pleaded. "I don't mean to be hard on
_you._ My temper gets the better of me. You know my temper. I am
sorry I forgot myself. Geoffrey, my whole future is in your
hands. Will you do me justice?"
She came nearer, and laid her hand persuasively on his arm.
"Haven't you a word to say to me? No answer? Not even a look?"
She waited a moment more. A marked change came over her. She
turned slowly to leave the summer-house. "I am sorry to have
troubled you, Mr. Delamayn. I won't detain you any longer."
He looked at her. There was a tone in her voice that he had never
heard before. There was a light in her eyes that he had never
seen in them before. Suddenly and fiercely he reached out his
hand, and stopped her.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
She answered, looking him straight in the face, "Where many a
miserable woman has gone before me. Out of the world."
He drew her nearer to him, and eyed her closely. Even _his_
intelligence discovered that he had brought her to bay, and that
she really meant it!
"Do you mean you will destroy yourself?" he said.
"Yes. I mean I will destroy myself."
He dropped her arm. "By Jupiter, she _does_ mean it!"
With that conviction in him, he pushed one of the chairs in the
summer-house to her with his foot, and signed to her to take it.
"Sit down!" he said, roughly. She had frightened him--and fear
comes seldom to men of his type. They feel it, when it does come,
with an angry distrust; they grow loud and brutal, in instinctive
protest against it. "Sit down!" he repeated. She obeyed him.
"Haven't you got a word to say to me?" he asked, with an oath.
No! there she sat, immovable, reckless how it ended--as only
women can be, when women's minds are made up. He took a turn in
the summer-house and came back, and struck his hand angrily on
the rail of her chair. "What do you want?"
"You know what I want."
He took another turn. There was nothing for it but to give way on
his side, or run the risk of something happening which might
cause an awkward scandal, and come to his father's ears.
"Look here, Anne," he began, abruptly. "I have got something to
propose."
She looked up at him.
"What do you say to a private marriage?"
Without asking a single question, without making objections, she
answered him, speaking as bluntly as he had spoken himself:
"I consent to a private marriage."
He began to temporize directly.
"I own I don't see how it's to be managed--"
She stopped him there.
"I do!"
"What!" he cried out, suspiciously. "You have thought of it
yourself, have you?"
"Yes."
"And planned for it?"
"And planned for it!"
"Why didn't you tell me so before?"
She answered haughtily; insisting on the respect which is due to
women--the respect which was doubly due from _him,_ in her
position.
"Because _you_ owed it to _me,_ Sir, to speak first."
"Very well. I've spoken first. Will you wait a little?"
"Not a day!"
The tone was positive. There was no mistaking it. Her mind was
made up.
"Where's the hurry?"
"Have you eyes?" she asked, vehemently. "Have you ears? Do you
see how Lady Lundie looks at me? Do you hear how Lady Lundie
speaks to me? I am suspected by that woman. My shameful dismissal
from this house may be a question of a few hours." Her head sunk
on her bosom; she wrung her clasped hands as they rested on her
lap. "And, oh, Blanche!" she moaned to herself, the tears
gathering again, and falling, this time, unchecked. "Blanche, who
looks up to me! Blanche, who loves me! Blanche, who told me, in
this very place, that I was to live with her when she was
married!" She started up from the chair; the tears dried
suddenly; the hard despair settled again, wan and white, on her
face. "Let me go! What is death, compared to such a life as is
waiting for _me?_" She looked him over, in one disdainful glance
from head to foot; her voice rose to its loudest and firmest
tones." Why, even _you_; would have the courage to die if you
were in my place!"
Geoffrey glanced round toward the lawn.
"Hush!" he said. "They will hear you!"
"Let them hear me! When _I_ am past hearing _them_, what does it
matter?"
He put her back by main force on the chair. In another moment
they must have heard her, through all the noise and laughter of
the game.
"Say what you want," he resumed, "and I'll do it. Only be
reasonable. I can't marry you to-day."
"You can!"
"What nonsense you talk! The house and grounds are swarming with
company. It can't be!"
"It can! I have been thinking about it ever since we came to this
house. I have got something to propose to you. Will you hear it,
or not?"
"Speak lower!"
"Will you hear it, or not?"
"There's somebody coming!"
"Will you hear it, or not?"
"The devil take your obstinacy! Yes!"
The answer had been wrung from him. Still, it was the answer she
wanted--it opened the door to hope. The instant he had consented
to hear her her mind awakened to the serious necessity of
averting discovery by any third person who might stray idly into
the summer-house. She held up her hand for silence, and listened
to what was going forward on the lawn.
The dull thump of the croquet-mallet against the ball was no
longer to be heard. The game had stopped.
In a moment more she heard her own name called. An interval of
another instant passed, and a familiar voice said, "I know where
she is. I'll fetch her."
She turned to Geoffrey, and pointed to the back of the
summer-house.
"It's my turn to play," she said. "And Blanche is coming here to
look for me. Wait there, and I'll stop her on the steps."
She went out at once. It was a critical moment. Discovery, which
meant moral-ruin to the woman, meant money-ruin to the man.
Geoffrey had not exaggerated his position with his father. Lord
Holchester had twice paid his debts, and had declined to see him
since. One more outrage on his father's rigid sense of propriety,
and he would be left out of the will as well as kept out of the
house. He looked for a means of retreat, in case there was no
escaping unperceived by the front entrance. A door--intended for
the use of servants, when picnics and gipsy tea-parties were
given in the summer-house--had been made in the back wall. It
opened outward, and it was locked. With his strength it was easy
to remove that obstacle. He put his shoulder to the door. At the
moment when he burst it open he felt a hand on his arm. Anne was
behind him, alone.
"You may want it before long," she said, observing the open door,
without expressing any surprise, "You don't want it now. Another
person will play for me--I have told Blanche I am not well. Sit
down. I have secured a respite of five minutes, and I must make
the most of it. In that time, or less, Lady Lundie's suspicions
will bring her here--to see how I am. For the present, shut the
door."
She seated herself, and pointed to a second chair. He took
it--with his eye on the closed door.
"Come to the point!" he said, impatiently. "What is it?"
"You can marry me privately to-day," she answered. "Lis ten--and
I will tell you how!"
CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
THE PLAN.
SHE took his hand, and began with all the art of persuasion that
she possessed.
"One question, Geoffrey, before I say what I want to say. Lady
Lundie has invited you to stay at Windygates. Do you accept her
invitation? or do you go back to your brother's in the evening?"
"I can't go back in the evening--they've put a visitor into my
room. I'm obliged to stay here. My brother has done it on
purpose. Julius helps me when I'm hard up--and bullies me
afterward. He has sent me here, on duty for the family. Somebody
must be civil to Lady Lundie--and I'm the sacrifice."
She took him up at his last word. "Don't make the sacrifice," she
said. "Apologize to Lady Lundie, and say you are obliged to go
back."
"Why?"
"Because we must both leave this place to-day."
There was a double objection to that. If he left Lady Lundie's,
he would fail to establish a future pecuniary claim on his
brother's indulgence. And if he left with Anne, the eyes of the
world would see them, and the whispers of the world might come to
his father's ears.
"If we go away together," he said, "good-by to my prospects, and
yours too."
"I don't mean that we shall leave together," she explained. "We
will leave separately--and I will go first."
"There will be a hue and cry after you, when you are missed."
"There will be a dance when the croquet is over. I don't
dance--and I shall not be missed. There will be time, and
opportunity to get to my own room. I shall leave a letter there
for Lady Lundie, and a letter"--her voice trembled for a
moment--"and a letter for Blanche. Don't interrupt me! I have
thought of this, as I have thought of every thing else. The
confession I shall make will be the truth in a few hours, if it's
not the truth now. My letters will say I am privately married,
and called away unexpectedly to join my husband. There will be a
scandal in the house, I know. But there will be no excuse for
sending after me, when I am under my husband's protection. So far
as you are personally concerned there are no discoveries to
fear--and nothing which it is not perfectly safe and perfectly
easy to do. Wait here an hour after I have gone to save
appearances; and then follow me."
"Follow you?" interposed Geoffrey. "Where?" She drew her chair
nearer to him, and whispered the next words in his ear.
"To a lonely little mountain inn--four miles from this."
"An inn!"
"Why not?"
"An inn is a public place."
A movement of natural impatience escaped her--but she controlled
herself, and went on as quietly as before:
"The place I mean is the loneliest place in the neighborhood. You
have no prying eyes to dread there. I have picked it out
expressly for that reason. It's away from the railway; it's away
from the high-road: it's kept by a decent, respectable
Scotchwoman--"
"Decent, respectable Scotchwomen who keep inns," interposed
Geoffrey, "don't cotton to young ladies who are traveling alone.
The landlady won't receive you."
It was a well-aimed objection--but it missed the mark. A woman
bent on her marriage is a woman who can meet the objections of
the whole world, single-handed, and refute them all.
"I have provided for every thing," she said, "and I have provided
for that. I shall tell the landlady I am on my wedding-trip. I
shall say my husband is sight-seeing, on foot, among the
mountains in the neighborhood--"
"She is sure to believe that!" said Geoffrey.
"She is sure to _dis_believe it, if you like. Let her! You have
only to appear, and to ask for your wife--and there is my story
proved to be true! She may be the most suspicious woman living,
as long as I am alone with her. The moment you join me, you set
her suspicions at rest. Leave me to do my part. My part is the
hard one. Will you do yours?"
It was impossible to say No: she had fairly cut the ground from
under his feet. He shifted his ground. Any thing rather than say
Yes!
"I suppose _you_ know how we are to be married?" he asked. "All I
can say is--_I_ don't."
"You do!" she retorted. "You know that we are in Scotland. You
know that there are neither forms, ceremonies, nor delays in
marriage, here. The plan I have proposed to you secures my being
received at the inn, and makes it easy and natural for you to
join me there afterward. The rest is in our own hands. A man and
a woman who wish to be married (in Scotland) have only to secure
the necessary witnesses and the thing is done. If the landlady
chooses to resent the deception practiced on her, after that, the
landlady may do as she pleases. We shall have gained our object
in spite of her--and, what is more, we shall have gained it
without risk to _you._"
"Don't lay it all on my shoulders," Geoffrey rejoined. "You women
go headlong at every thing. Say we are married. We must separate
afterward--or how are we to keep it a secret?"
"Certainly. You will go back, of course, to your brother's house,
as if nothing had happened."
"And what is to become of _you?_"
"I shall go to London."
"What are you to do in London?"
"Haven't I already told you that I have thought of every thing?
When I get to London I shall apply to some of my mother's old
friends--friends of hers in the time when she was a musician.
Every body tells me I have a voice--if I had only cultivated it.
I _will_ cultivate it! I can live, and live respectably, as a
concert singer. I have saved money enough to support me, while I
am learning--and my mother's friends will help me, for her sake."
So, in the new life that she was marking out, was she now
unconsciously reflecting in herself the life of her mother before
her. Here was the mother's career as a public singer, chosen (in
spite of all efforts to prevent it) by the child! Here (though
with other motives, and under other circumstances) was the
mother's irregular marriage in Ireland, on the point of being
followed by the daughter's irregular marriage in Scotland! And
here, stranger still, was the man who was answerable for it--the
son of the man who had found the flaw in the Irish marriage, and
had shown the way by which her mother was thrown on the world!
"My Anne is my second self. She is not called by her father's
name; she is called by mine. She is Anne Silvester as I was. Will
she end like Me?"--The answer to those words--the last words that
had trembled on the dying mother's lips--was coming fast. Through
the chances and changes of many years, the future was pressing
near--and Anne Silvester stood on the brink of it.
"Well?" she resumed. "Are you at the end of your objections? Can
you give me a plain answer at last?"
No! He had another objection ready as the words passed her lips.
"Suppose the witnesses at the inn happen to know me?" he said.
"Suppose it comes to my father's ears in that way?"
"Suppose you drive me to my death?" she retorted, starting to her
feet. "Your father shall know the truth, in that case--I swear
it!"
He rose, on his side, and drew back from her. She followed him
up. There was a clapping of hands, at the same moment, on the
lawn. Somebody had evidently made a brilliant stroke which
promised to decide the game. There was no security now that
Blanche might not return again. There was every prospect, the
game being over, that Lady Lundie would be free. Anne brought the
interview to its crisis, without wasting a moment more.
"Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn," she said. "You have bargained for a
private marriage, and I have consented. Are you, or are you not,
ready to marry me on your own terms?"
"Give me a minute to think!"
"Not an instant. Once for all, is it Yes, or No?"
He couldn't say "Yes," even then. But he said what was equivalent
to it. He asked, savagely, "Where is the inn?"
She put her arm in his, and whispered, rapidly, "Pass the road on
the right that leads to the railway. Follow the path over the
moor, and the sheep-track up the hill. The first house you come
to after that is the inn. You understand!"
He nodded his head, with a sullen frown, and took his pipe out of
his pocket again.
"Let it alone this time," he said, meeting her eye. "My mind's
upset. When a man's mind's upset, a man can't smoke. What's the
name of the place?"
"Craig Fernie."
"Who am I to ask for at the door?"
"For your wife."
"Suppose they want you to give your name when you get there?"
"If I must give a name, I shall call myself Mrs., instead of
Miss, Silvester. But I shall do my best to avoid giving any name.
And you will do your best to avoid making a mistake, by only
asking for me as your wife. Is there any thing else you want to
know?"
"Yes."
"Be quick about it! What is it?"
"How am I to know you have got away from here?"
"If you don't hear from me in half an hour from the time when I
have left you, you may be sure I have got away. Hush!"
Two voices, in conversation, were audible at the bottom of the
steps--Lady Lundie's voice and Sir Patrick's. Anne pointed to the
door in the back wall of the summer-house. She had just pulled it
to again, after Geoffrey had passed through it, when Lady Lundie
and Sir Patrick appeared at the top of the steps.
CHAPTER THE SIXTH.
THE SUITOR.
LADY LUNDIE pointed significantly to the door, and addressed
herself to Sir Patrick's private ear.
"Observe!" she said. "Miss Silvester has just got rid of
somebody."
Sir Patrick deliberately looked in the wrong direction, and (in
the politest possible manner) observed--nothing.
Lady Lundie advanced into the summer-house. Suspicious hatred of
the governess was written legibly in every line of her face.
Suspicious distrust of the governess's illness spoke plainly in
every tone of her voice.
"May I inquire, Miss Silvester, if your sufferings are relieved?"
"I am no better, Lady Lundie."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I said I was no better."
"You appear to be able to stand up. When _I_ am ill, I am not so
fortunate. I am obliged to lie down."'
"I will follow your example, Lady Lundie. If you will be so good
as to excuse me, I will leave you, and lie down in my own room."
She could say no more. The interview with Geoffrey had worn her
out; there was no spirit left in her to resist the petty malice
of the woman, after bearing, as she had borne it, the brutish
indifference of the man. In another moment the hysterical
suffering which she was keeping down would have forced its way
outward in tears. Without waiting to know whether she was excused
or not, without stopping to hear a word more, she left the
summer-house.
Lady Lundie's magnificent black eyes opened to their utmost
width, and blazed with their most dazzling brightness. She
appealed to Sir Patrick, poised easily on his ivory cane, and
looking out at the lawn-party, the picture of venerable
innocence.
"After what I have already told you, Sir Patrick, of Miss
Silvester's conduct, may I ask whether you consider _that_
proceeding at all extraordinary?"
The old gentleman touched the spring in the knob of his cane, and
answered, in the courtly manner of the old school:
"I consider no proceeding extraordinary Lady Lundie, which
emanates from your enchanting sex."
He bowed, and took his pinch. With a little jaunty flourish of
the hand, he dusted the stray grains of snuff off his finger and
thumb, and looked back again at the lawn-party, and became more
absorbed in the diversions of his young friends than ever.
Lady Lundie stood her ground, plainly determined to force a
serious expression of opinion from her brother-in-law. Before she
could speak again, Arnold and Blanche appeared together at the
bottom of the steps. "And when does the dancing begin?" inquired
Sir Patrick, advancing to meet them, and looking as if he felt
the deepest interest in a speedy settlement of the question.
"The very thing I was going to ask mamma," returned Blanche. "Is
she in there with Anne? Is Anne better?"
Lady Lundie forthwith appeared, and took the answer to that
inquiry on herself.
"Miss Silvester has retired to her room. Miss Silvester persists
in being ill. Have you noticed, Sir Patrick, that these half-bred
sort of people are almost invariably rude when they are ill?"
Blanche's bright face flushed up. "If you think Anne a half-bred
person, Lady Lundie, you stand alone in your opinion. My uncle
doesn't agree with you, I'm sure."
Sir Patrick's interest in the first quadrille became almost
painful to see. "_Do_ tell me, my dear, when _is_ the dancing
going to begin?"
"The sooner the better," interposed Lady Lundie; "before Blanche
picks another quarrel with me on the subject of Miss Silvester."
Blanche looked at her uncle. "Begin! begin! Don't lose time!"
cried the ardent Sir Patrick, pointing toward the house with his
cane. "Certainly, uncle! Any thing that _you_ wish!" With that
parting shot at her step-mother, Blanche withdrew. Arnold, who
had thus far waited in silence at the foot of the steps, looked
appealingly at Sir Patrick. The train which was to take him to
his newly inherited property would start in less than an hour;
and he had not presented himself to Blanche's guardian in the
character of Blanche's suitor yet! Sir Patrick's indifference to
all domestic claims on him--claims of persons who loved, and
claims of persons who hated, it didn't matter which--remained
perfectly unassailable. There he stood, poised on his cane,
humming an old Scotch air. And there was Lady Lundie, resolute
not to leave him till he had seen the governess with _her_ eyes
and judged the governess with _her_ mind. She returned to the
charge--in spite of Sir Patrick, humming at the top of the steps,
and of Arnold, waiting at the bottom. (Her enemies said, "No
wonder poor Sir Thomas died in a few months after his marriage!"
And, oh dear me, our enemies _are_ sometimes right!)
"I must once more remind you, Sir Patrick, that I have serious
reason to doubt whether Miss Silvester is a fit companion for
Blanche. My governess has something on her mind. She has fits of
crying in private. She is up and walking about her room when she
ought to be asleep. She posts her own letters--_and,_ she has
lately been excessively insolent to Me. There is something wrong.
I must take some steps in the matter--and it is only proper that
I should do so with your sanction, as head of the family."
"Consider me as abdicating my position, Lady Lundie, in your
favor."
"Sir Patrick, I beg you to observe that I am speaking seriously,
and that I expect a serious reply."
"My good lady, ask me for any thing else and it is at your
service. I have not made a serious reply since I gave up practice
at the Scottish Bar. At my age," added Sir Patrick, cunningly
drifting into generalities, "nothing is serious--except
Indigestion. I say, with the philosopher, 'Life is a comedy to
those who think, and tragedy to those who feel.' " He took his
sister-in-law's hand, and kissed it. "Dear Lady Lundie, why
feel?"
Lady Lundie, who had never "felt" in her life, appeared
perversely determined to feel, on this occasion. She was
offended--and she showed it plainly.
"When you are next called on, Sir Patrick, to judge of Miss
Silvester's conduct," she said, "unless I am entirely mistaken,
you will find yourself _compelled_ to consider it as something
beyond a joke." With those words, she walked out of the
summer-house--and so forwarded Arnold's interests by leaving
Blanche's guardian alone at last.
It was an excellent opportunity. The guests were safe in the
house--there was no interruption to be feared, Arnold showed
himself. Sir Patrick (perfectly undisturbed by Lady Lundie's
parting speech) sat down in the summer-house, without noticing
his young friend, and asked himself a question founded on
profound observation of the female sex. "Were there ever two
women yet with a quarrel between them," thought the old
gentleman, "who didn't want to drag a man into it? Let them drag
_me_ in, if they can!"
Arnold advanced a step, and modestly announced himself. "I hope I
am not in the way, Sir Patrick?"
"In the way? of course not! Bless my soul, how serious the boy
looks! Are _you_ going to appeal to me as the head of the family
next?"
It was exactly what Arnold was about to do. But it was plain that
if he admitted it just then Sir Patrick (for some unintelligible
reason) would decline to listen to him. He answered cautiously,
"I asked leave to consult you in private, Sir; and you kindly
said you would give me the opportunity before I left W
indygates?"
"Ay! ay! to be sure. I remember. We were both engaged in the
serious business of croquet at the time--and it was doubtful
which of us did that business most clumsily. Well, here is the
opportunity; and here am I, with all my worldly experience, at
your service. I have only one caution to give you. Don't appeal
to me as 'the head of the family.' My resignation is in Lady
Lundie's hands."
He was, as usual, half in jest, half in earnest. The wry twist of
humor showed itself at the corners of his lips. Arnold was at a
loss how to approach Sir Patrick on the subject of his niece
without reminding him of his domestic responsibilities on the one
hand, and without setting himself up as a target for the shafts
of Sir Patrick's wit on the other. In this difficulty, he
committed a mistake at the outset. He hesitated.
"Don't hurry yourself," said Sir Patrick. "Collect your ideas. I
can wait! I can wait!"
Arnold collected his ideas--and committed a second mistake. He
determined on feeling his way cautiously at first. Under the
circumstances (and with such a man as he had now to deal with),
it was perhaps the rashest resolution at which he could possibly
have arrived--it was the mouse attempting to outmanoeuvre the cat
"You have been very kind, Sir, in offering me the benefit of your
experience," he began. "I want a word of advice."
"Suppose you take it sitting?" suggested Sir Patrick. "Get a
chair." His sharp eyes followed Arnold with an expression of
malicious enjoyment. "Wants my advice?" he thought. "The young
humbug wants nothing of the sort--he wants my niece."
Arnold sat down under Sir Patrick's eye, with a well-founded
suspicion that he was destined to suffer, before he got up again,
under Sir Patrick's tongue.
"I am only a young man," he went on, moving uneasily in his
chair, "and I am beginning a new life--"
"Any thing wrong with the chair?" asked Sir Patrick. "Begin your
new life comfortably, and get another."
"There's nothing wrong with the chair, Sir. Would you--"
"Would I keep the chair, in that case? Certainly."
"I mean, would you advise me--"
"My good fellow, I'm waiting to advise you. (I'm sure there's
something wrong with that chair. Why be obstinate about it? Why
not get another?)"
"Please don't notice the chair, Sir Patrick--you put me out. I
want--in short--perhaps it's a curious question--"
"I can't say till I have heard it," remarked Sir Patrick.
"However, we will admit it, for form's sake, if you like. Say
it's a curious question. Or let us express it more strongly, if
that will help you. Say it's the most extraordinary question that
ever was put, since the beginning of the world, from one human
being to another."
"It's this!" Arnold burst out, desperately. "I want to be
married!"
"That isn't a question," objected Sir Patrick. "It's an
assertion. You say, I want to be married. And I say, Just so! And
there's an end of it."
Arnold's head began to whirl. "Would you advise me to get
married, Sir?" he said, piteously. "That's what I meant."
"Oh! That's the object of the present interview, is it? Would I
advise you to marry, eh?"
(Having caught the mouse by this time, the cat lifted his paw and
let the luckless little creature breathe again. Sir Patrick's
manner suddenly freed itself from any slight signs of impatience
which it might have hitherto shown, and became as pleasantly easy
and confidential as a manner could be. He touched the knob of his
cane, and helped himself, with infinite zest and enjoyment, to a
pinch of snuff.)
"Would I advise you to marry?" repeated Sir Patrick. "Two courses
are open to us, Mr. Arnold, in treating that question. We may put
it briefly, or we may put it at great length. I am for putting it
briefly. What do you say?"
"What you say, Sir Patrick."
"Very good. May I begin by making an inquiry relating to your
past life?"
"Certainly!"
"Very good again. When you were in the merchant service, did you
ever have any experience in buying provisions ashore?"
Arnold stared. If any relation existed between that question and
the subject in hand it was an impenetrable relation to _him_. He
answered, in unconcealed bewilderment, "Plenty of experience,
Sir."
"I'm coming to the point," pursued Sir Patrick. "Don't be
astonished. I'm coming to the point. What did you think of your
moist sugar when you bought it at the grocer's?"
"Think?" repeated Arnold. "Why, I thought it was moist sugar, to
be sure!"
"Marry, by all means!" cried Sir Patrick. "You are one of the few
men who can try that experiment with a fair chance of success."
The suddenness of the answer fairly took away Arnold's breath.
There was something perfectly electric in the brevity of his
venerable friend. He stared harder than ever.
"Don't you understand me?" asked Sir Patrick.
"I don't understand what the moist sugar has got to do with it,
Sir."
"You don't see that?"
"Not a bit!"
"Then I'll show you," said Sir Patrick, crossing his legs, and
setting in comfortably for a good talk "You go to the tea-shop,
and get your moist sugar. You take it on the understanding that
it is moist sugar. But it isn't any thing of the sort. It's a
compound of adulterations made up to look like sugar. You shut
your eyes to that awkward fact, and swallow your adulterated mess
in various articles of food; and you and your sugar get on
together in that way as well as you can. Do you follow me, so
far?"
Yes. Arnold (quite in the dark) followed, so far.
"Very good," pursued Sir Patrick. "You go to the marriage-shop,
and get a wife. You take her on the understanding--let us
say--that she has lovely yellow hair, that she has an exquisite
complexion, that her figure is the perfection of plumpness, and
that she is just tall enough to carry the plumpness off. You
bring her home, and you discover that it's the old story of the
sugar over again. Your wife is an adulterated article. Her lovely
yellow hair is--dye. Her exquisite skin is--pearl powder. Her
plumpness is--padding. And three inches of her height are--in the
boot-maker's heels. Shut your eyes, and swallow your adulterated
wife as you swallow your adulterated sugar--and, I tell you
again, you are one of the few men who can try the marriage
experiment with a fair chance of success."
With that he uncrossed his legs again, and looked hard at Arnold.
Arnold read the lesson, at last, in the right way. He gave up the
hopeless attempt to circumvent Sir Patrick, and--come what might
of it--dashed at a direct allusion to Sir Patrick's niece.
"That may be all very true, Sir, of some young ladies," he said.
"There is one I know of, who is nearly related to you, and who
doesn't deserve what you have said of the rest of them."
This was coming to the point. Sir Patrick showed his approval of
Arnold's frankness by coming to the point himself, as readily as
his own whimsical humor would let him.
"Is this female phenomenon my niece?" he inquired.
"Yes, Sir Patrick."
"May I ask how you know that my niece is not an adulterated
article, like the rest of them?"
Arnold's indignation loosened the last restraints that tied
Arnold's tongue. He exploded in the three words which mean three
volumes in every circulating library in the kingdom.
"I love her."
Sir Patrick sat back in his chair, and stretched out his legs
luxuriously.
"That's the most convincing answer I ever heard in my life," he
said.
"I'm in earnest!" cried Arnold, reckless by this time of every
consideration but one. "Put me to the test, Sir! put me to the
test!"
"Oh, very well. The test is easily put." He looked at Arnold,
with the irrepressible humor twinkling merrily in his eyes, and
twitching sharply at the corners of his lips. "My niece has a
beautiful complexion. Do you believe in her complexion?"
"There's a beautiful sky above our heads," returned Arnold. "I
believe in the sky."
"Do you?" retorted Sir Patrick. "You were evidently never caught
in a shower. My niece has an immense quantity of hair. Are you
convinced that it all grows on her head?"
"I defy any other woman's head to produce the like of it!"
"My dear Arnold, you greatly underrate the existing resources of
the trade in hair! Look into the shop-windows. When
you next go to London pray look into the show-windows. In the
mean time, what do you think of my niece's figure?"
"Oh, come! there can't be any doubt about _that!_ Any man, with
eyes in his head, can see it's the loveliest figure in the
world."
Sir Patrick laughed softly, and crossed his legs again.
"My good fellow, of course it is! The loveliest figure in the
world is the commonest thing in the world. At a rough guess,
there are forty ladies at this lawn-party. Every one of them
possesses a beautiful figure. It varies in price; and when it's
particularly seductive you may swear it comes from Paris. Why,
how you stare! When I asked you what you thought of my niece's
figure, I meant--how much of it comes from Nature, and how much
of it comes from the Shop? I don't know, mind! Do you?"
"I'll take my oath to every inch of it!"
"Shop?"
"Nature!"
Sir Patrick rose to his feet; his satirical humor was silenced at
last.
"If ever I have a son," he thought to himself, "that son shall go
to sea!" He took Arnold's arm, as a preliminary to putting an end
to Arnold's suspense. "If I _ can_ be serious about any thing,"
he resumed, "it's time to be serious with you. I am convinced of
the sincerity of your attachment. All I know of you is in your
favor, and your birth and position are beyond dispute. If you
have Blanche's consent, you have mine." Arnold attempted to
express his gratitude. Sir Patrick, declining to hear him, went
on. "And remember this, in the future. When you next want any
thing that I can give you, ask for it plainly. Don't attempt to
mystify _me_ on the next occasion, and I will promise, on my
side, not to mystify _you._ There, that's understood. Now about
this journey of yours to see your estate. Property has its
duties, Master Arnold, as well as its rights. The time is fast
coming when its rights will be disputed, if its duties are not
performed. I have got a new interest in you, and I mean to see
that you do your duty. It's settled you are to leave Windygates
to-day. Is it arranged how you are to go?"
"Yes, Sir Patrick. Lady Lundie has kindly ordered the gig to take
me to the station, in time for the next train."
"When are you to be ready?"
Arnold looked at his watch. "In a quarter of an hour."
"Very good. Mind you _are_ ready. Stop a minute! you will have
plenty of time to speak to Blanche when I have done with you. You
don't appear to me to be sufficiently anxious about seeing your
own property."
"I am not very anxious to leave Blanche, Sir--that's the truth of
it."
"Never mind Blanche. Blanche is not business. They both begin
with a B--and that's the only connection between them. I hear you
have got one of the finest houses in this part of Scotland. How
long are you going to stay in Scotland? How long are you going to
stay in it?"
"I have arranged (as I have already told you, Sir) to return to
Windygates the day after to-morrow."
"What! Here is a man with a palace waiting to receive him--and he
is only going to stop one clear day in it!"
"I am not going to stop in it at all, Sir Patrick--I am going to
stay with the steward. I'm only wanted to be present to-morrow at
a dinner to my tenants--and, when that's over, there's nothing in
the world to prevent my coming back here. The steward himself
told me so in his last letter."
"Oh, if the steward told you so, of course there is nothing more
to be said!"
"Don't object to my coming back! pray don't, Sir Patrick! I'll
promise to live in my new house when I have got Blanche to live
in it with me. If you won't mind, I'll go and tell her at once
that it all belongs to her as well as to me."
"Gently! gently! you talk as if you were married to her already!"
"It's as good as done, Sir! Where's the difficulty in the way
now?"
As he asked the question the shadow of some third person,
advancing from the side of the summer-house, was thrown forward
on the open sunlit space at the top of the steps. In a moment
more the shadow was followed by the substance--in the shape of a
groom in his riding livery. The man was plainly a stranger to the
place. He started, and touched his hat, when he saw the two
gentlemen in the summer-house.
"What do you want?" asked Sir Patrick
"I beg your pardon, Sir; I was sent by my master--"
"Who is your master?"
"The Honorable Mr. Delamayn, Sir."
"Do you mean Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?" asked Arnold.
"No, Sir. Mr. Geoffrey's brother--Mr. Julius. I have ridden over
from the house, Sir, with a message from my master to Mr.
Geoffrey."
"Can't you find him?"
"They told me I should find him hereabouts, Sir. But I'm a
stranger, and don't rightly know where to look." He stopped, and
took a card out of his pocket. "My master said it was very
important I should deliver this immediately. Would you be pleased
to tell me, gentlemen, if you happen to know where Mr. Geoffrey
is?"
Arnold turned to Sir Patrick. "I haven't seen him. Have you?"
"I have smelt him," answered Sir Patrick, "ever since I have been
in the summer-house. There is a detestable taint of tobacco in
the air--suggestive (disagreeably suggestive to _my_ mind) of
your friend, Mr. Delamayn."
Arnold laughed, and stepped outside the summer-house.
"If you are right, Sir Patrick, we will find him at once." He
looked around, and shouted, "Geoffrey!"
A voice from the rose-garden shouted back, "Hullo!"
"You're wanted. Come here!"
Geoffrey appeared, sauntering doggedly, with his pipe in his
mouth, and his hands in his pockets.
"Who wants me?"
"A groom--from your brother."
That answer appeared to electrify the lounging and lazy athlete.
Geoffrey hurried, with eager steps, to the summer-house. He
addressed the groom before the man had time to speak With horror
and dismay in his face, he exclaimed:
"By Jupiter! Ratcatcher has relapsed!"
Sir Patrick and Arnold looked at each other in blank amazement.
"The best horse in my brother's stables!" cried Geoffrey,
explaining, and appealing to them, in a breath. "I left written
directions with the coachman, I measured out his physic for three
days; I bled him," said Geoffrey, in a voice broken by
emotion--"I bled him myself, last night."
"I beg your pardon, Sir--" began the groom.
"What's the use of begging my pardon? You're a pack of infernal
fools! Where's your horse? I'll ride back, and break every bone
in the coachman's skin! Where's your horse?"
"If you please, Sir, it isn't Ratcatcher. Ratcatcher's all
right."
"Ratcatcher's all right? Then what the devil is it?"
"It's a message, Sir."
"About what?"
"About my lord."
"Oh! About my father?" He took out his handkerchief, and passed
it over his forehead, with a deep gasp of relief. "I thought it
was Ratcatcher," he said, looking at Arnold, with a smile. He put
his pipe into his mouth, and rekindled the dying ashes of the
tobacco. "Well?" he went on, when the pipe was in working order,
and his voice was composed again: "What's up with my father?"
"A telegram from London, Sir. Bad news of my lord."
The man produced his master's card.
Geoffrey read on it (written in his brother's handwriting) these
words:
"I have only a moment to scribble a line on my card. Our father
is dangerously ill--his lawyer has been sent for. Come with me to
London by the first train. Meet at the junction."
Without a word to any one of the three persons present, all
silently looking at him, Geoffrey consulted his watch. Anne had
told him to wait half an hour, and to assume that she had gone if
he failed to hear from her in that time. The interval had
passed--and no communication of any sort had reached him. The
flight from the house had been safely accomplished. Anne
Silvester was, at that moment, on her way to the mountain inn.
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.
THE DEBT.
ARNOLD was the first who broke the silence. "Is your father
seriously ill?" he asked.
Geoffrey answered by handing him the card.
Sir Patrick, who had stood apart (while the question of
Ratcatcher's relapse was under discussion) sardonically studying
the manners and customs of modern English youth, now came
forward, and took his part in the proceedings. Lady Lundie
herself must have acknowledged that he spoke and acted as became
the head of the family, on t his occasion.
"Am I right in supposing that Mr. Delamayn's father is
dangerously ill?" he asked, addressing himself to Arnold.
"Dangerously ill, in London," Arnold answered. "Geoffrey must
leave Windygates with me. The train I am traveling by meets the
train his brother is traveling by, at the junction. I shall leave
him at the second station from here."
"Didn't you tell me that Lady Lundie was going to send you to the
railway in a gig?"
"Yes."
"If the servant drives, there will be three of you--and there
will be no room."
"We had better ask for some other vehicle," suggested Arnold.
Sir Patrick looked at his watch. There was no time to change the
carriage. He turned to Geoffrey. "Can you drive, Mr. Delamayn?"
Still impenetrably silent, Geoffrey replied by a nod of the head.
Without noticing the unceremonious manner in which he had been
answered, Sir Patrick went on:
"In that case, you can leave the gig in charge of the
station-master. I'll tell the servant that he will not be wanted
to drive."
"Let me save you the trouble, Sir Patrick," said Arnold.
Sir Patrick declined, by a gesture. He turned again, with
undiminished courtesy, to Geoffrey. "It is one of the duties of
hospitality, Mr. Delamayn, to hasten your departure, under these
sad circumstances. Lady Lundie is engaged with her guests. I will
see myself that there is no unnecessary delay in sending you to
the station." He bowed--and left the summer-house.
Arnold said a word of sympathy to his friend, when they were
alone.
"I am sorry for this, Geoffrey. I hope and trust you will get to
London in time."
He stopped. There was something in Geoffrey's face--a strange
mixture of doubt and bewilderment, of annoyance and
hesitation--which was not to be accounted for as the natural
result of the news that he had received. His color shifted and
changed; he picked fretfully at his finger-nails; he looked at
Arnold as if he was going to speak--and then looked away again,
in silence.
"Is there something amiss, Geoffrey, besides this bad news about
your father?" asked Arnold.
"I'm in the devil's own mess," was the answer.
"Can I do any thing to help you?"
Instead of making a direct reply, Geoffrey lifted his mighty
hand, and gave Arnold a friendly slap on the shoulder which shook
him from head to foot. Arnold steadied himself, and
waited--wondering what was coming next.
"I say, old fellow!" said Geoffrey.
"Yes."
"Do you remember when the boat turned keel upward in Lisbon
Harbor?"
Arnold started. If he could have called to mind his first
interview in the summer-house with his father's old friend he
might have remembered Sir Patrick's prediction that he would
sooner or later pay, with interest, the debt he owed to the man
who had saved his life. As it was his memory reverted at a bound
to the time of the boat-accident. In the ardor of his gratitude
and the innocence of his heart, he almost resented his friend's
question as a reproach which he had not deserved.
"Do you think I can ever forget," he cried, warmly, "that you
swam ashore with me and saved my life?"
Geoffrey ventured a step nearer to the object that he had in
view.
"One good turn deserves another," he said, "don't it?"
Arnold took his hand. "Only tell me!" he eagerly rejoined--"only
tell me what I can do!"
"You are going to-day to see your new place, ain't you?"
"Yes."
"Can you put off going till to-morrow?"
"If it's any thing serious--of course I can!"
Geoffrey looked round at the entrance to the summer-house, to
make sure that they were alone.
"You know the governess here, don't you?" he said, in a whisper.
"Miss Silvester?"
"Yes. I've got into a little difficulty with Miss Silvester. And
there isn't a living soul I can ask to help me but _you._"
"You know I will help you. What is it?"
"It isn't so easy to say. Never mind--you're no saint either, are
you? You'll keep it a secret, of course? Look here! I've acted
like an infernal fool. I've gone and got the girl into a
scrape--"
Arnold drew back, suddenly understanding him.
"Good heavens, Geoffrey! You don't mean--"
"I do! Wait a bit--that's not the worst of it. She has left the
house."
"Left the house?"
"Left, for good and all. She can't come back again."
"Why not?"
"Because she's written to her missus. Women (hang 'em!) never do
these things by halves. She's left a letter to say she's
privately married, and gone off to her husband. Her husband
is--Me. Not that I'm married to her yet, you understand. I have
only promised to marry her. She has gone on first (on the sly) to
a place four miles from this. And we settled I was to follow, and
marry her privately this afternoon. That's out of the question
now. While she's expecting me at the inn I shall be bowling along
to London. Somebody must tell her what has happened--or she'll
play the devil, and the whole business will burst up. I can't
trust any of the people here. I'm done for, old chap, unless you
help me."
Arnold lifted his hands in dismay. "It's the most dreadful
situation, Geoffrey, I ever heard of in my life!"
Geoffrey thoroughly agreed with him. "Enough to knock a man
over," he said, "isn't it? I'd give something for a drink of
beer." He produced his everlasting pipe, from sheer force of
habit. "Got a match?" he asked.
Arnold's mind was too preoccupied to notice the question.
"I hope you won't think I'm making light of your father's
illness," he said, earnestly. "But it seems to me--I must say
it--it seems to me that the poor girl has the first claim on
you."
Geoffrey looked at him in surly amazement.
"The first claim on me? Do you think I'm going to risk being cut
out of my father's will? Not for the best woman that ever put on
a petticoat!"
Arnold's admiration of his friend was the solidly-founded
admiration of many years; admiration for a man who could row,
box, wrestle, jump--above all, who could swim--as few other men
could perform those exercises in contemporary England. But that
answer shook his faith. Only for the moment--unhappily for
Arnold, only for the moment.
"You know best," he returned, a little coldly. "What can I do?"
Geoffrey took his arm--roughly as he took every thing; but in a
companionable and confidential way.
"Go, like a good fellow, and tell her what has happened. We'll
start from here as if we were both going to the railway; and I'll
drop you at the foot-path, in the gig. You can get on to your own
place afterward by the evening train. It puts you to no
inconvenience, and it's doing the kind thing by an old friend.
There's no risk of being found out. I'm to drive, remember!
There's no servant with us, old boy, to notice, and tell tales."
Even Arnold began to see dimly by this time that he was likely to
pay his debt of obligation with interest--as Sir Patrick had
foretold.
"What am I to say to her?" he asked. "I'm bound to do all I can
do to help you, and I will. But what am I to say?"
It was a natural question to put. It was not an easy question to
answer. What a man, under given muscular circumstances, could do,
no person living knew better than Geoffrey Delamayn. Of what a
man, under given social circumstances, could say, no person
living knew less.
"Say?" he repeated. "Look here! say I'm half distracted, and all
that. And--wait a bit--tell her to stop where she is till I write
to her."
Arnold hesitated. Absolutely ignorant of that low and limited
form of knowledge which is called "knowledge of the world," his
inbred delicacy of mind revealed to him the serious difficulty of
the position which his friend was asking him to occupy as plainly
as if he was looking at it through the warily-gathered experience
of society of a man of twice his age.
"Can't you write to her now, Geoffrey?" he asked.
"What's the good of that?"
"Consider for a minute, and you will see. You have trusted me
with a very awkward secret. I may be wrong--I never was mixed up
in such a matter before--but to present myself to this lady as
your messenger seems exposing her to a dreadful humiliation. Am I
to go and tell her to her face: 'I know what you are hiding from
the knowledge of all the world;' and is she to be expected to
endure it?"
"Bosh!" said Geoffrey. "They can
endure a deal more than you think. I wish you had heard how she
bullied me, in this very place. My good fellow, you don't
understand women. The grand secret, in dealing with a woman, is
to take her as you take a cat, by the scruff of the neck--"
"I can't face her--unless you will help me by breaking the thing
to her first. I'll stick at no sacrifice to serve you; but--hang
it!--make allowances, Geoffrey, for the difficulty you are
putting me in. I am almost a stranger; I don't know how Miss
Silvester may receive me, before I can open my lips."
Those last words touched the question on its practical side. The
matter-of-fact view of the difficulty was a view which Geoffrey
instantly recognized and understood.
"She has the devil's own temper," he said. "There's no denying
that. Perhaps I'd better write. Have we time to go into the
house?"
"No. The house is full of people, and we haven't a minute to
spare. Write at once, and write here. I have got a pencil."
"What am I to write on?"
"Any thing--your brother's card."
Geoffrey took the pencil which Arnold offered to him, and looked
at the card. The lines his brother had written covered it. There
was no room left. He felt in his pocket, and produced a
letter--the letter which Anne had referred to at the interview
between them--the letter which she had written to insist on his
attending the lawn-party at Windygates.
"This will do," he said. "It's one of Anne's own letters to me.
There's room on the fourth page. If I write," he added, turning
suddenly on Arnold, "you promise to take it to her? Your hand on
the bargain!"
He held out the hand which had saved Arnold's life in Lisbon
Harbor, and received Arnold's promise, in remembrance of that
time.
"All right, old fellow. I can tell you how to find the place as
we go along in the gig. By-the-by, there's one thing that's
rather important. I'd better mention it while I think of it."
"What is that?"
"You mustn't present yourself at the inn in your own name; and
you mustn't ask for her by _her_ name."
"Who am I to ask for?"
"It's a little awkward. She has gone there as a married woman, in
case they're particular about taking her in--"
"I understand. Go on."
"And she has planned to tell them (by way of making it all right
and straight for both of us, you know) that she expects her
husband to join her. If I had been able to go I should have asked
at the door for 'my wife.' You are going in my place--"
"And I must ask at the door for 'my wife,' or I shall expose Miss
Silvester to unpleasant consequences?"
"You don't object?"
"Not I! I don't care what I say to the people of the inn. It's
the meeting with Miss Silvester that I'm afraid of."
"I'll put that right for you--never fear!"
He went at once to the table and rapidly scribbled a few
lines--then stopped and considered. "Will that do?" he asked
himself. "No; I'd better say something spooney to quiet her." He
considered again, added a line, and brought his hand down on the
table with a cheery smack. "That will do the business! Read it
yourself, Arnold--it's not so badly written."
Arnold read the note without appearing to share his friend's
favorable opinion of it.
"This is rather short," he said.
"Have I time to make it longer?"
"Perhaps not. But let Miss Silvester see for herself that you
have no time to make it longer. The train starts in less than
half an hour. Put the time."
"Oh, all right! and the date too, if you like."
He had just added the desired words and figures, and had given
the revised letter to Arnold, when Sir Patrick returned to
announce that the gig was waiting.
"Come!" he said. "You haven't a moment to lose!"
Geoffrey started to his feet. Arnold hesitated.
"I must see Blanche!" he pleaded. "I can't leave Blanche without
saying good-by. Where is she?"
Sir Patrick pointed to the steps, with a smile. Blanche had
followed him from the house. Arnold ran out to her instantly.
"Going?" she said, a little sadly.
"I shall be back in two days," Arnold whispered. "It's all right!
Sir Patrick consents."
She held him fast by the arm. The hurried parting before other
people seemed to be not a parting to Blanche's taste.
"You will lose the train!" cried Sir Patrick.
Geoffrey seized Arnold by the arm which Blanche was holding, and
tore him--literally tore him--away. The two were out of sight, in
the shrubbery, before Blanche's indignation found words, and
addressed itself to her uncle.
"Why is that brute going away with Mr. Brinkworth?" she asked.
"Mr. Delamayn is called to London by his father's illness,"
replied Sir Patrick. "You don't like him?"
"I hate him!"
Sir Patrick reflected a little.
"She is a young girl of eighteen," he thought to himself. "And I
am an old man of seventy. Curious, that we should agree about any
thing. More than curious that we should agree in disliking Mr.
Delamayn."
He roused himself, and looked again at Blanche. She was seated at
the table, with her head on her hand; absent, and out of
spirits--thinking of Arnold, and set, with the future all smooth
before them, not thinking happily.
"Why, Blanche! Blanche!" cried Sir Patrick, "one would think he
had gone for a voyage round the world. You silly child! he will
be back again the day after to-morrow."
"I wish he hadn't gone with that man!" said Blanche. "I wish he
hadn't got that man for a friend!"
"There! there! the man was rude enough I own. Never mind! he will
leave the man at the second station. Come back to the ball-room
with me. Dance it off, my dear--dance it off!"
"No," returned Blanche. "I'm in no humor for dancing. I shall go
up stairs, and talk about it to Anne."
"You will do nothing of the sort!" said a third voice, suddenly
joining in the conversation.
Both uncle and niece looked up, and found Lady Lundie at the top
of the summer-house steps.
"I forbid you to mention that woman's name again in my hearing,"
pursued her ladyship. "Sir Patrick! I warned you (if you
remember?) that the matter of the governess was not a matter to
be trifled with. My worst anticipations are realized. Miss
Silvester has left the house!"
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.
THE SCANDAL.
IT was still early in the afternoon when the guests at Lady
Lundie's lawn-party began to compare notes together in corners,
and to agree in arriving at a general conviction that "some thing
was wrong."
Blanche had mysteriously disappeared from her partners in the
dance. Lady Lundie had mysteriously abandoned her guests. Blanche
had not come back. Lady Lundie had returned with an artificial
smile, and a preoccupied manner. She acknowledged that she was
"not very well." The same excuse had been given to account for
Blanche's absence--and, again (some time previously), to explain
Miss Silvester's withdrawal from the croquet! A wit among the
gentlemen declared it reminded him of declining a verb. "I am not
very well; thou art not very well; she is not very well"--and so
on. Sir Patrick too! Only think of the sociable Sir Patrick being
in a state of seclusion--pacing up and down by himself in the
loneliest part of the garden. And the servants again! it had even
spread to the servants! _They_ were presuming to whisper in
corners, like their betters. The house-maids appeared,
spasmodically, where house maids had no business to be. Doors
banged and petticoats whisked in the upper regions. Something
wrong--depend upon it, something wrong! "We had much better go
away. My dear, order the carriage"--"Louisa, love, no more
dancing; your papa is going."--"_Good_-afternoon, Lady
Lundie!"--"Haw! thanks very much!"--"_So_ sorry for dear
Blanche!"--"Oh, it's been _too_ charming!" So Society jabbered
its poor, nonsensical little jargon, and got itself politely out
of the way before the storm came.
This was exactly the consummation of events for which Sir Patrick
had been waiting in the seclusion of the garden.
There was no evading the responsibility which was now thrust upon
him. Lady Lundie had announced it as a settled resolution, on her
part, to trace Anne to the place in which she had taken refuge,
and discover (purely in the interests of virtue) whether she
actually was married or not. Blanche (already overwrought by the
excitem ent of the day) had broken into an hysterical passion of
tears on hearing the news, and had then, on recovering, taken a
view of her own of Anne's flight from the house. Anne would never
have kept her marriage a secret from Blanche; Anne would never
have written such a formal farewell letter as she had written to
Blanche--if things were going as smoothly with her as she was
trying to make them believe at Windygates. Some dreadful trouble
had fallen on Anne and Blanche was determined (as Lady Lundie was
determined) to find out where she had gone, and to follow, and
help her.
It was plain to Sir Patrick (to whom both ladies had opened their
hearts, at separate interviews) that his sister-in-law, in one
way, and his niece in another, were equally likely--if not duly
restrained--to plunge headlong into acts of indiscretion which
might lead to very undesirable results. A man in authority was
sorely needed at Windygates that afternoon--and Sir Patrick was
fain to acknowledge that he was the man.
"Much is to be said for, and much is to be said against a single
life," thought the old gentleman, walking up and down the
sequestered garden-path to which he had retired , and applying
himself at shorter intervals than usual to the knob of his ivory
cane. "This, however, is, I take it, certain. A man's married
friends can't prevent him from leading the life of a bachelor, if
he pleases. But they can, and do, take devilish good care that he
sha'n't enjoy it!"
Sir Patrick's meditations were interrupted by the appearance of a
servant, previously instructed to keep him informed of the
progress of events at the house.
"They're all gone, Sir Patrick," said the man.
"That's a comfort, Simpson. We have no visitors to deal with now,
except the visitors who are staying in the house?"
"None, Sir Patrick."
"They're all gentlemen, are they not?"
"Yes, Sir Patrick."
"That's another comfort, Simpson. Very good. I'll see Lady Lundie
first."
Does any other form of human resolution approach the firmness of
a woman who is bent on discovering the frailties of another woman
whom she hates? You may move rocks, under a given set of
circumstances. But here is a delicate being in petticoats, who
shrieks if a spider drops on her neck, and shudders if you
approach her after having eaten an onion. Can you move _her,_
under a given set of circumstances, as set forth above? Not you!
Sir Patrick found her ladyship instituting her inquiries on the
same admirably exhaustive system which is pursued, in cases of
disappearance, by the police. Who was the last witness who had
seen the missing person? Who was the last servant who had seen
Anne Silvester? Begin with the men-servants, from the butler at
the top to the stable boy at the bottom. Go on with the
women-servants, from the cook in all her glory to the small
female child who weeds the garden. Lady Lundie had cross-examined
her way downward as far as the page, when Sir Patrick joined her.
"My dear lady! pardon me for reminding you again, that this is a
free country, and that you have no claim whatever to investigate
Miss Silvester's proceedings after she has left your house."
Lady Lundie raised her eyes, devotionally, to the ceiling. She
looked like a martyr to duty. If you had seen her ladyship at
that moment, you would have said yourself, "A martyr to duty."
"No, Sir Patrick! As a Christian woman, that is not _my_ way of
looking at it. This unhappy person has lived under my roof. This
unhappy person has been the companion of Blanche. I am
responsible--I am, in a manner, morally responsible. I would give
the world to be able to dismiss it as you do. But no! I must be
satisfied that she _is_ married. In the interests of propriety.
For the quieting of my own conscience. Before I lay my head on my
pillow to-night, Sir Patrick--before I lay my head on my pillow
to-night!"
"One word, Lady Lundie--"
"No!" repeated her ladyship, with the most pathetic gentleness.
"You are right, I dare say, from the worldly point of view. I
can't take the worldly point of view. The worldly point of view
hurts me." She turned, with impressive gravity, to the page. "You
know where you will go, Jonathan, if you tell lies!"
Jonathan was lazy, Jonathan was pimply, Jonathan was fat--_but_
Jonathan was orthodox. He answered that he did know; and, what is
more, he mentioned the place.
Sir Patrick saw that further opposition on his part, at that
moment, would be worse than useless. He wisely determined to
wait, before he interfered again, until Lady Lundie had
thoroughly exhausted herself and her inquiries. At the same
time--as it was impossible, in the present state of her
ladyship's temper, to provide against what might happen if the
inquiries after Anne unluckily proved successful--he decided on
taking measures to clear the house of the guests (in the
interests of all parties) for the next four-and-twenty hours.
"I only want to ask you a question, Lady Lundie," he resumed.
"The position of the gentlemen who are staying here is not a very
pleasant one while all this is going on. If you had been content
to let the matter pass without notice, we should have done very
well. As things are, don't you think it will be more convenient
to every body if I relieve you of the responsibility of
entertaining your guests?"
"As head of the family?" stipulated Lady Lundie.
"As head of the family!" answered Sir Patrick.
"I gratefully accept the proposal," said Lady Lundie.
"I beg you won't mention it," rejoined Sir Patrick.
He quitted the room, leaving Jonathan under examination. He and
his brother (the late Sir Thomas) had chosen widely different
paths in life, and had seen but little of each other since the
time when they had been boys. Sir Patrick's recollections (on
leaving Lady Lundie) appeared to have taken him back to that
time, and to have inspired him with a certain tenderness for his
brother's memory. He shook his head, and sighed a sad little
sigh. "Poor Tom!" he said to himself, softly, after he had shut
the door on his brother's widow. "Poor Tom!"
On crossing the hall, he stopped the first servant he met, to
inquire after Blanche. Miss Blanche was quiet, up stairs,
closeted with her maid in her own room. "Quiet?" thought Sir
Patrick. "That's a bad sign. I shall hear more of my niece."
Pending that event, the next thing to do was to find the guests.
Unerring instinct led Sir Patrick to the billiard-room. There he
found them, in solemn conclave assembled. wondering what they had
better do. Sir Patrick put them all at their ease in two minutes.
"What do you say to a day's shooting to-morrow?" he asked.
Every man present--sportsman or not--said yes.
"You can start from this house," pursued Sir Patrick; "or you can
start from a shooting-cottage which is on the Windygates
property--among the woods, on the other side of the moor. The
weather looks pretty well settled (for Scotland), and there are
plenty of horses in the stables. It is useless to conceal from
you, gentlemen, that events have taken a certain unexpected turn
in my sister-in-law's family circle. You will be equally Lady
Lundie's guests, whether you choose the cottage or the house. For
the next twenty-four hours (let us say)--which shall it be?"
Every body--with or without rheumatism--answered "the cottage."
"Very good," pursued Sir Patrick, "It is arranged to ride over to
the shooting-cottage this evening, and to try the moor, on that
side, the first thing in the morning. If events here will allow
me, I shall be delighted to accompany you, and do the honors as
well as I can. If not, I am sure you will accept my apologies for
to-night, and permit Lady Lundie's steward to see to your comfort
in my place."
Adopted unanimously. Sir Patrick left the guests to their
billiards, and went out to give the necessary orders at the
stables.
In the mean time Blanche remained portentously quiet in the upper
regions of the house; while Lady Lundie steadily pursued her
inquiries down stairs. She got on from Jonathan (last of the
males, indoors) to the coachman (first of the males,
out-of-doors), and dug down, man by man, through that new
stratum, until she struck the stable-boy at the bottom . Not an
atom of information having been extracted in the house or out of
the house, from man or boy, her ladyship fell back on the women
next. She pulled the bell, and summoned the cook--Hester
Dethridge.
A very remarkable-looking person entered the room.
Elderly and quiet; scrupulously clean; eminently respectable; her
gray hair neat and smooth under her modest white cap; her eyes,
set deep in their orbits, looking straight at any person who
spoke to her--here, at a first view, was a steady, trust-worthy
woman. Here also on closer inspection, was a woman with the seal
of some terrible past suffering set on her for the rest of her
life. You felt it, rather than saw it, in the look of immovable
endurance which underlain her expression--in the deathlike
tranquillity which never disappeared from her manner. Her story
was a sad one--so far as it was known. She had entered Lady
Lundie's service at the period of Lady Lundie's marriage to Sir
Thomas. Her character (given by the clergyman of her parish)
described her as having been married to an inveterate drunkard,
and as having suffered unutterably during her husband's lifetime.
There were drawbacks to engaging her, now that she was a widow.
On one of the many occasions on which her husband had personally
ill-treated her, he had struck her a blow which had produced very
remarkable nervous results. She had lain insensible many days
together, and had recovered with the total loss of her speech. In
addition to this objection, she was odd, at times, in her manner;
and she made it a condition of accepting any situation, that she
should be privileged to sleep in a room by herself As a set-off
against all this, it was to be said, on the other side of the
question, that she was sober; rigidly honest in all her dealings;
and one of the best cooks in England. In consideration of this
last merit, the late Sir Thomas had decided on giving her a
trial, and had discovered that he had never dined in his life as
he dined when Hester Dethridge was at the head of his kitchen.
She remained after his death in his widow's service. Lady Lundie
was far from liking her. An unpleasant suspicion attached to the
cook, which Sir Thomas had over-looked, but which persons less
sensible of the immense importance of dining well could not fail
to regard as a serious objection to her. Medical men, consulted
about her case discovered certain physiological anomalies in it
which led them to suspect the woman of feigning dumbness, for
some reason best known to herself. She obstinately declined to
learn the deaf and dumb alphabet--on the ground that dumbness was
not associated with deafness in her case. Stratagems were
invented (seeing that she really did possess the use of her ears)
to entrap her into also using her speech, and failed. Efforts
were made to induce her to answer questions relating to her past
life in her husband's time. She flatly declined to reply to them,
one and all. At certain intervals, strange impulses to get a
holiday away from the house appeared to seize her. If she was
resisted, she passively declined to do her work. If she was
threatened with dismissal, she impenetrably bowed her head, as
much as to say, "Give me the word, and I go." Over and over
again, Lady Lundie had decided, naturally enough, on no longer
keeping such a servant as this; but she had never yet carried the
decision to execution. A cook who is a perfect mistress of her
art, who asks for no perquisites, who allows no waste, who never
quarrels with the other servants, who drinks nothing stronger
than tea, who is to be trusted with untold gold--is not a cook
easily replaced. In this mortal life we put up with many persons
and things, as Lady Lundie put up with her cook. The woman lived,
as it were, on the brink of dismissal--but thus far the woman
kept her place--getting her holidays when she asked for them
(which, to do her justice, was not often) and sleeping always (go
where she might with the family) with a locked door, in a room by
herself.
Hester Dethridge advanced slowly to the table at which Lady
Lundie was sitting. A slate and pencil hung at her side, which
she used for making such replies as were not to be expressed by a
gesture or by a motion of the head. She took up the slate and
pencil, and waited with stony submission for her mistress to
begin.
Lady Lundie opened the proceedings with the regular formula of
inquiry which she had used with all the other servants
"Do you know that Miss Silvester has left the house?"
The cook nodded her head affirmatively,
"Do you know at what time she left it?"
Another affirmative reply. The first which Lady Lundie had
received to that question yet. She eagerly went on to the next
inquiry.
"Have you seen her since she left the house?"
A third affirmative reply.
"Where?"
Hester Dethridge wrote slowly on the slate, in singularly firm
upright characters for a woman in her position of life, these
words:
"On the road that leads to the railway. Nigh to Mistress Chew's
Farm."
"What did you want at Chew's Farm?"
Hester Dethridge wrote: "I wanted eggs for the kitchen, and a
breath of fresh air for myself."
"Did Miss Silvester see you?"
A negative shake of the head.
"Did she take the turning that leads to the railway?"
Another negative shake of the head.
"She went on, toward the moor?"
An affirmative reply.
"What did she do when she got to the moor?"
Hester Dethridge wrote: "She took the footpath which leads to
Craig Fernie."
Lady Lundie rose excitedly to her feet. There was but one place
that a stranger could go to at Craig Fernie. "The inn!" exclaimed
her ladyship. "She has gone to the inn!"
Hester Dethridge waited immovably. Lady Lundie put a last
precautionary question, in these words:
"Have you reported what you have seen to any body else?"
An affirmative reply. Lady Lundie had not bargained for that.
Hester Dethridge (she thought) must surely have misunderstood
her.
"Do you mean that you have told somebody else what you have just
told me?"
Another affirmative reply.
"A person who questioned you, as I have done?"
A third affirmative reply.
"Who was it?"
Hester Dethridge wrote on her slate: "Miss Blanche."
Lady Lundie stepped back, staggered by the discovery that
Blanche's resolution to trace Anne Silvester was, to all
appearance, as firmly settled as her own. Her step-daughter was
keeping her own counsel, and acting on her own
responsibility--her step-daughter might be an awkward obstacle in
the way. The manner in which Anne had left the house had mortally
offended Lady Lundie. An inveterately vindictive woman, she had
resolved to discover whatever compromising elements might exist
in the governess's secret, and to make them public property (from
a paramount sense of duty, of course) among her own circle of
friends. But to do this--with Blanche acting (as might certainly
be anticipated) in direct opposition to her, and openly espousing
Miss Silvester's interests--was manifestly impossible.
The first thing to be done--and that instantly--was to inform
Blanche that she was discovered, and to forbid her to stir in the
matter.
Lady Lundie rang the bell twice--thus intimating, according to
the laws of the household, that she required the attendance of
her own maid. She then turned to the cook--still waiting her
pleasure, with stony composure, slate in hand.
"You have done wrong," said her ladyship, severely. "I am your
mistress. You are bound to answer your mistress--"
Hester Dethridge bowed her head, in icy acknowledgment of the
principle laid down--so far.
The bow was an interruption. Lady Lundie resented it.
"But Miss Blanche is _not_ your mistress," she went on, sternly.
"You are very much to blame for answering Miss Blanche's
inquiries about Miss Silvester."
Hester Dethridge, perfectly unmoved, wrote her justification on
her slate, in two stiff sentences: "I had no orders _not_ to
answer. I keep nobody's secrets but my own."
That reply settled the question of the cook's dismissal--the
question which had been pending for months past.
"You are an insolent woman! I have borne with you long enough--I
will bear with you no longer. When your month is up, you go!"
In those words Lady Lundie dismissed Hester Dethridge from her
service.
Not the slightest change passed over the sinister tranquillity of
the cook. She bowed her head again, in acknowledgment of the
sentence pronounced on her--dropped her slate at her side--turned
about--and left the room. The woman was alive in the world, and
working in the world; and yet (so far as all human interests were
concerned) she was as completely out of the world as if she had
been screwed down in her coffin, and laid in her grave.
Lady Lundie's maid came into the room as Hester left it.
"Go up stairs to Miss Blanche," said her mistress, "and say I
want her here. Wait a minute!" She paused, and considered.
Blanche might decline to submit to her step-mother's interference
with her. It might be necessary to appeal to the higher authority
of her guardian. "Do you know where Sir Patrick is?" asked Lady
Lundie.
"I heard Simpson say, my lady, that Sir Patrick was at the
stables."
"Send Simpson with a message. My compliments to Sir Patrick--and
I wish to see him immediately."
The preparations for the departure to the shooting-cottage were
just completed; and the one question that remained to be settled
was, whether Sir Patrick could accompany the party--when the
man-servant appeared with the message from his mistress.
"Will you give me a quarter of an hour, gentlemen?" asked Sir
Patrick. "In that time I shall know for certain whether I can go
with you or not."
As a matter of course, the guests decided to wait. The younger
men among them (being Englishmen) naturally occupied their
leisure time in betting. Would Sir Patrick get the better of the
domestic crisis? or would the domestic crisis get the better of
Sir Patrick? The domestic crisis was backed, at two to one, to
win.
Punctually at the expiration of the quarter of an hour, Sir
Patrick reappeared. The domestic crisis had betrayed the blind
confidence which youth and inexperience had placed in it. Sir
Patrick had won the day.
"Things are settled and quiet, gentlemen; and I am able to
accompany you," he said. "There are two ways to the
shooting-cottage. One--the longest--passes by the inn at Craig
Fernie. I am compelled to ask you to go with me by that way.
While you push on to the cottage, I must drop behind, and say a
word to a person who is staying at the inn."
He had quieted Lady Lundie--he had even quieted Blanche. But it
was evidently on the condition that he was to go to Craig Fernie
in their places, and to see Anne Silvester himself. Without a
word more of explanation he mounted his horse, and led the way
out. The shooting-party left Windygates.
SECOND SCENE.--THE INN.
CHAPTER THE NINTH.
ANNE.
"YE'LL just permit me to remind ye again, young leddy, that the
hottle's full--exceptin' only this settin'-room, and the
bedchamber yonder belonging to it."
So spoke "Mistress Inchbare," landlady of the Craig Fernie Inn,
to Anne Silvester, standing in the parlor, purse in hand, and
offering the price of the two rooms before she claimed permission
to occupy them.
The time of the afternoon was about the time when Geoffrey
Delamayn had started in the train, on his journey to London.
About the time also, when Arnold Brinkworth had crossed the moor,
and was mounting the first rising ground which led to the inn.
Mistress Inchbare was tall and thin, and decent and dry. Mistress
Inchbare's unlovable hair clung fast round her head in wiry
little yellow curls. Mistress Inchbare's hard bones showed
themselves, like Mistress Inchbare's hard Presbyterianism,
without any concealment or compromise. In short, a
savagely-respectable woman who plumed herself on presiding over a
savagely-respectable inn.
There was no competition to interfere with Mistress Inchbare. She
regulated her own prices, and made her own rules. If you objected
to her prices, and revolted from her rules, you were free to go.
In other words, you were free to cast yourself, in the capacity
of houseless wanderer, on the scanty mercy of a Scotch
wilderness. The village of Craig Fernie was a collection of
hovels. The country about Craig Fernie, mountain on one side and
moor on the other, held no second house of public entertainment,
for miles and miles round, at any point of the compass. No
rambling individual but the helpless British Tourist wanted food
and shelter from strangers in that part of Scotland; and nobody
but Mistress Inchbare had food and shelter to sell. A more
thoroughly independent person than this was not to be found on
the face of the hotel-keeping earth. The most universal of all
civilized terrors--the terror of appearing unfavorably in the
newspapers--was a sensation absolutely unknown to the Empress of
the Inn. You lost your temper, and threatened to send her bill
for exhibition in the public journals. Mistress Inchbare raised
no objection to your taking any course you pleased with it. "Eh,
man! send the bill whar' ye like, as long as ye pay it first.
There's nae such thing as a newspaper ever darkens my doors.
Ye've got the Auld and New Testaments in your bedchambers, and
the natural history o' Pairthshire on the coffee-room table--and
if that's no' reading eneugh for ye, ye may een gae back South
again, and get the rest of it there."
This was the inn at which Anne Silvester had appeared alone, with
nothing but a little bag in her hand. This was the woman whose
reluctance to receive her she innocently expected to overcome by
showing her purse.
"Mention your charge for the rooms," she said. "I am willing to
pay for them beforehand."
Her majesty, Mrs. Inchbare, never even looked at her subject's
poor little purse.
"It just comes to this, mistress," she answered. "I'm no' free to
tak' your money, if I'm no' free to let ye the last rooms left in
the hoose. The Craig Fernie hottle is a faimily hottle--and has
its ain gude name to keep up. Ye're ower-well-looking, my young
leddy, to be traveling alone."
The time had been when Anne would have answered sharply enough.
The hard necessities of her position made her patient now.
"I have already told you," she said, "my husband is coming here
to join me." She sighed wearily as she repeated her ready-made
story--and dropped into the nearest chair, from sheer inability
to stand any longer.
Mistress Inchbare looked at her, with the exact measure of
compassionate interest which she might have shown if she had been
looking at a stray dog who had fallen footsore at the door of the
inn.
"Weel! weel! sae let it be. Bide awhile, and rest ye. We'll no'
chairge ye for that--and we'll see if your husband comes. I'll
just let the rooms, mistress, to _him,_, instead o' lettin' them
to _you._ And, sae, good-morrow t' ye." With that final
announcement of her royal will and pleasure, the Empress of the
Inn withdrew.
Anne made no reply. She watched the landlady out of the room--and
then struggled to control herself no longer. In her position,
suspicion was doubly insult. The hot tears of shame gathered in
her eyes; and the heart-ache wrung her, poor soul--wrung her
without mercy.
A trifling noise in the room startled her. She looked up, and
detected a man in a corner, dusting the furniture, and apparently
acting in the capacity of attendant at the inn. He had shown her
into the parlor on her arrival; but he had remained so quietly in
the room that she had never noticed him since, until that moment.
He was an ancient man--with one eye filmy and blind, and one eye
moist and merry. His head was bald; his feet were gouty; his nose
was justly celebrated as the largest nose and the reddest nose in
that part of Scotland. The mild wisdom of years was expressed
mysteriously in his mellow smile. In contact with this wicked
world, his manner revealed that happy mixture of two
extremes--the servility which just touches independence, and the
independence which just touches servility--attained by no men in
existence but Scotchmen. Enormous native impudence, which amused
but never offended; immeasurable cunning, masquerading habitually
under the double disguise of quaint prejudice and dry humor, were
the solid moral foundations on which the character of this
elderly person was built. No amount of whisky ever made him
drunk; and no violence of bell-ringing ever hurried his
movements. Such was the headwaiter at the Craig Fernie Inn;
known, far and wide, to local fame, as "Maister Bishopriggs,
Mistress Inchbare's right-hand man."
"What are you doing there?" Anne asked, sharply.
Mr. Bishopriggs turned himself about on his gouty feet; waved his
duster gently in the air; and looked at Anne, with a mild,
paternal smile.
"Eh! Am just doostin' the things; and setin' the room in decent
order for ye."
"For _me?_ Did you hear what the landlady said?"
Mr. Bishopriggs advanced confidentially, and pointed with a very
unsteady forefinger to the purse which Anne still held in her
hand.
"Never fash yoursel' aboot the landleddy!" said the sage chief of
the Craig Fernie waiters. "Your purse speaks for you, my lassie.
Pet it up!" cried Mr. Bishopriggs, waving temptation away from
him with the duster. "In wi' it into yer pocket! Sae long as the
warld's the warld, I'll uphaud it any where--while there's siller
in the purse, there's gude in the woman!"
Anne's patience, which had resisted harder trials, gave way at
this.
"What do you mean by speaking to me in that familiar manner?" she
asked, rising angrily to her feet again.
Mr. Bishopriggs tucked his duster under his arm, and proceeded to
satisfy Anne that he shared the landlady's view of her position,
without sharing the severity of the landlady's principles.
"There's nae man livin'," said Mr. Bishopriggs, "looks with mair
indulgence at human frailty than my ain sel'. Am I no' to be
familiar wi' ye--when I'm auld eneugh to be a fether to ye, and
ready to be a fether to ye till further notice? Hech! hech! Order
your bit dinner lassie. Husband or no husband, ye've got a
stomach, and ye must een eat. There's fesh and there's fowl--or,
maybe, ye'll be for the sheep's head singit, when they've done
with it at the tabble dot?"
There was but one way of getting rid of him: "Order what you
like," Anne said, "and leave the room." Mr. Bishopriggs highly
approved of the first half of the sentence, and totally
overlooked the second.
"Ay, ay--just pet a' yer little interests in my hands; it's the
wisest thing ye can do. Ask for Maister Bishopriggs (that's me)
when ye want a decent 'sponsible man to gi' ye a word of advice.
Set ye doon again--set ye doon. And don't tak' the arm-chair.
Hech! hech! yer husband will be coming, ye know, and he's sure to
want it!" With that seasonable pleasantry the venerable
Bishopriggs winked, and went out.
Anne looked at her watch. By her calculation it was not far from
the hour when Geoffrey might be expected to arrive at the inn,
assuming Geoffrey to have left Windygates at the time agreed on.
A little more patience, and the landlady's scruples would be
satisfied, and the ordeal would be at an end.
Could she have met him nowhere else than at this barbarous house,
and among these barbarous people?
No. Outside the doors of Windygates she had not a friend to help
her in all Scotland. There was no place at her disposal but the
inn; and she had only to be thankful that it occupied a
sequestered situation, and was not likely to be visited by any of
Lady Lundie's friends. Whatever the risk might be, the end in
view justified her in confronting it. Her whole future depended
on Geoffrey's making an honest woman of her. Not her future with
_him_--that way there was no hope; that way her life was wasted.
Her future with Blanche--she looked forward to nothing now but
her future with Blanche.
Her spirits sank lower and lower. The tears rose again. It would
only irritate him if he came and found her crying. She tried to
divert her mind by looking about the room.
There was very little to see. Except that it was solidly built of
good sound stone, the Craig Fernie hotel differed in no other
important respect from the average of second-rate English inns.
There was the usual slippery black sofa--constructed to let you
slide when you wanted to rest. There was the usual
highly-varnished arm-chair, expressly manufactured to test the
endurance of the human spine. There was the usual paper on the
walls, of the pattern designed to make your eyes ache and your
head giddy. There were the usual engravings, which humanity never
tires of contemplating. The Royal Portrait, in the first place of
honor. The next greatest of all human beings--the Duke of
Wellington--in the second place of honor. The third greatest of
all human beings--the local member of parliament--in the third
place of honor; and a hunting scene, in the dark. A door opposite
the door of admission from the passage opened into the bedroom;
and a window at the side looked out on the open space in front of
the hotel, and commanded a view of the vast expanse of the Craig
Fernie moor, stretching away below the rising ground on which the
house was built.
Anne turned in despair from the view in the room to the view from
the window. Within the last half hour it had changed for the
worse. The clouds had gathered; the sun was hidden; the light on
the landscape was gray and dull. Anne turned from the window, as
she had turned from the room. She was just making the hopeless
attempt to rest her weary limbs on the sofa, when the sound of
voices and footsteps in the passage caught her ear.
Was Geoffrey's voice among them? No.
Were the strangers coming in?
The landlady had declined to let her have the rooms: it was quite
possible that the strangers might be coming to look at them.
There was no knowing who they might be. In the impulse of the
moment she flew to the bedchamber and locked herself in.
The door from the passage opened, and Arnold Brinkworth--shown in
by Mr. Bishopriggs--entered the sitting-room.
"Nobody here!" exclaimed Arnold, looking round. "Where is she?"
Mr. Bishopriggs pointed to the bedroom door. "Eh! yer good
leddy's joost in the bedchamber, nae doot!"
Arnold started. He had felt no difficulty (when he and Geoffrey
had discussed the question at Windygates) about presenting
himself at the inn in the assumed character of Anne's husband.
But the result of putting the deception in practice was, to say
the least of it, a little embarrassing at first. Here was the
waiter describing Miss Silvester as his "good lady;" and leaving
it (most naturally and properly) to the "good lady's" husband to
knock at her bedroom door, and tell her that he was there. In
despair of knowing what else to do at the moment, Arnold asked
for the landlady, whom he had not seen on arriving at the inn.
"The landleddy's just tottin' up the ledgers o' the hottle in her
ain room," answered Mr. Bishopriggs. "She'll be here anon--the
wearyful woman!--speerin' who ye are and what ye are, and takin'
a' the business o' the hoose on her ain pair o' shouthers." He
dropped the subject of the landlady, and put in a plea for
himself. "I ha' lookit after a' the leddy's little comforts,
Sir," he whispered. "Trust in me! trust in me!"
Arnold's attention was absorbed in the very serious difficulty of
announcing his arrival to Anne. "How am I to get her out?" he
said to himself, with a look of perplexity directed at the
bedroom door.
He had spoken loud enough for the waiter to hear him. Arnold's
look of perplexity was instantly reflected on the face of Mr.
Bishopriggs. The head-waiter at Craig Fernie possessed an immense
experience of the manners and customs of newly-married people on
their honeymoon trip. He had been a second father (with excellent
pecuniary results) to innumerable brides and bridegrooms. He knew
young married couples in all their varieties:--The couples who
try to behave as if they had been married for many years; the
couples who attempt no concealment, and take advice from
competent authorities about them. The couples who are bashfully
talkative before third persons; the couples who are bashfully
silent under similar circumstances. The couples who don't know
what to do, the couples who wish it was over; the couples who
must never be intruded upon without careful preliminary knocking
at the door; the couples who _can_ eat and drink in the intervals
of "bliss," and the other couples who _can't._ But the bridegroom
who stood he lpless on one side of the door, and the bride who
remained locked in on the other, were new varieties of the
nuptial species, even in the vast experience of Mr. Bishopriggs
himself.
"Hoo are ye to get her oot?" he repeated. "I'll show ye hoo!" He
advanced as rapidly as his gouty feet would let him, and knocked
at the bedroom door. "Eh, my leddy! here he is in flesh and
bluid. Mercy preserve us! do ye lock the door of the nuptial
chamber in your husband's face?"
At that unanswerable appeal the lock was heard turning in the
door. Mr. Bishopriggs winked at Arnold with his one available
eye, and laid his forefinger knowingly along his enormous nose.
"I'm away before she falls into your arms! Rely on it I'll no
come in again without knocking first!"
He left Arnold alone in the room. The bedroom door opened slowly
by a few inches at a time. Anne's voice was just audible speaking
cautiously behind it.
"Is that you, Geoffrey?"
Arnold's heart began to beat fast, in anticipation of the
disclosure which was now close at hand. He knew neither what to
say or do--he remained silent.
Anne repeated the question in louder tones:
"Is that you?"
There was the certain prospect of alarming her, if some reply was
not given. There was no help for it. Come what come might, Arnold
answered, in a whisper:
"Yes."
The door was flung wide open. Anne Silvester appeared on the
threshold, confronting him.
"Mr. Brinkworth!!!" she exclaimed, standing petrified with
astonishment.
For a moment more neither of them spoke. Anne advanced one step
into the sitting-room, and put the next inevitable question, with
an instantaneous change from surprise to suspicion.
"What do you want here?"
Geoffrey's letter represented the only possible excuse for
Arnold's appearance in that place, and at that time.
"I have got a letter for you," he said--and offered it to her.
She was instantly on her guard. They were little better than
strangers to each other, as Arnold had said. A sickening
presentiment of some treachery on Geoffrey's part struck cold to
her heart. She refused to take the letter.
"I expect no letter," she said. "Who told you I was here?" She
put the question, not only with a tone of suspicion, but with a
look of contempt. The look was not an easy one for a man to bear.
It required a momentary exertion of self-control on Arnold's
part, before he could trust himself to answer with due
consideration for her. "Is there a watch set on my actions?" she
went on, with rising anger. "And are _you_ the spy?"
"You haven't known me very long, Miss Silvester," Arnold
answered, quietly. "But you ought to know me better than to say
that. I am the bearer of a letter from Geoffrey."
She was an the point of following his example, and of speaking of
Geoffrey by his Christian name, on her side. But she checked
herself, before the word had passed her lips.
"Do you mean Mr. Delamayn?" she asked, coldly.
"Yes."
"What occasion have _I_ for a letter from Mr. Delamayn?"
She was determined to acknowledge nothing--she kept him
obstinately at arm's-length. Arnold did, as a matter of instinct,
what a man of larger experience would have done, as a matter of
calculation--he closed with her boldly, then and there.
"Miss Silvester! it's no use beating about the bush. If you won't
take the letter, you force me to speak out. I am here on a very
unpleasant errand. I begin to wish, from the bottom of my heart,
I had never undertaken it."
A quick spasm of pain passed across her face. She was beginning,
dimly beginning, to understand him. He hesitated. His generous
nature shrank from hurting her.
"Go on," she said, with an effort.
"Try not to be angry with me, Miss Silvester. Geoffrey and I are
old friends. Geoffrey knows he can trust me--"
"Trust you?" she interposed. "Stop!"
Arnold waited. She went on, speaking to herself, not to him.
"When I was in the other room I asked if Geoffrey was there. And
this man answered for him." She sprang forward with a cry of
horror.
"Has he told you--"
"For God's sake, read his letter!"
She violently pushed back the hand with which Arnold once more
offered the letter. "You don't look at me! He _has_ told you!"
"Read his letter," persisted Arnold. "In justice to him, if you
won't in justice to me."
The situation was too painful to be endured. Arnold looked at
her, this time, with a man's resolution in his eyes--spoke to
her, this time, with a man's resolution in his voice. She took
the letter.
"I beg your pardon, Sir," she said, with a sudden humiliation of
tone and manner, inexpressibly shocking, inexpressibly pitiable
to see. "I understand my position at last. I am a woman doubly
betrayed. Please to excuse what I said to you just now, when I
supposed myself to have some claim on your respect. Perhaps you
will grant me your pity? I can ask for nothing more."
Arnold was silent. Words were useless in the face of such utter
self-abandonment as this. Any man living--even Geoffrey
himself--must have felt for her at that moment.
She looked for the first time at the letter. She opened it on the
wrong side. "My own letter!" she said to herself. "In the hands
of another man!"
"Look at the last page," said Arnold.
She turned to the last page, and read the hurried penciled lines.
"Villain! villain! villain!" At the third repetition of the word,
she crushed the letter in the palm of her hand, and flung it from
her to the other end of the room. The instant after, the fire
that had flamed up in her died out. Feebly and slowly she reached
out her hand to the nearest chair, and sat down in it with her
back to Arnold. "He has deserted me!" was all she said. The words
fell low and quiet on the silence: they were the utterance of an
immeasurable despair.
"You are wrong!" exclaimed Arnold. "Indeed, indeed you are wrong!
It's no excuse--it's the truth. I was present when the message
came about his father."
She never heeded him, and never moved. She only repeated the
words
"He has deserted me!"
"Don't take it in that way!" pleaded Arnold--"pray don't! It's
dreadful to hear you; it is indeed. I am sure he has _not_
deserted you." There was no answer; no sign that she heard him;
she sat there, struck to stone. It was impossible to call the
landlady in at such a moment as this. In despair of knowing how
else to rouse her, Arnold drew a chair to her side, and patted
her timidly on the shoulder. "Come!" he said, in his
single-hearted, boyish way. "Cheer up a little!"
She slowly turned her head, and looked at him with a dull
surprise.
"Didn't you say he had told you every thing?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Don't you despise a woman like me?"
Arnold's heart went back, at that dreadful question, to the one
woman who was eternally sacred to him--to the woman from whose
bosom he had drawn the breath of life.
"Does the man live," he said, "who can think of his mother--and
despise women?"
That answer set the prisoned misery in her free. She gave him her
hand--she faintly thanked him. The merciful tears came to her at
last.
Arnold rose, and turned away to the window in despair. "I mean
well," he said. "And yet I only distress her!"
She heard him, and straggled to compose herself "No," she
answered, "you comfort me. Don't mind my crying--I'm the better
for it." She looked round at him gratefully. "I won't distress
you, Mr. Brinkworth. I ought to thank you--and I do. Come back or
I shall think you are angry with me." Arnold went back to her.
She gave him her hand once more. "One doesn't understand people
all at once," she said, simply. "I thought you were like other
men--I didn't know till to-day how kind you could be. Did you
walk here?" she added, suddenly, with an effort to change the
subject. "Are you tired? I have not been kindly received at this
place--but I'm sure I may offer you whatever the inn affords."
It was impossible not to feel for her--it was impossible not to
be interested in her. Arnold's honest longing to help her
expressed itself a little too openly when he spoke next. "All I
want, Miss Silvester, is to be of some service to you, if I can,"
he said. "Is there any thing I can do to make your position here
more comfortable? You will stay at this place,
won't you? Geoffrey wishes it."
She shuddered, and looked away. "Yes! yes!" she answered,
hurriedly.
"You will hear from Geoffrey," Arnold went on, "to-morrow or next
day. I know he means to write."
"For Heaven's sake, don't speak of him any more!" she cried out.
"How do you think I can look you in the face--" Her cheeks
flushed deep, and her eyes rested on him with a momentary
firmness. "Mind this! I am his wife, if promises can make me his
wife! He has pledged his word to me by all that is sacred!" She
checked herself impatiently. "What am I saying? What interest can
_you_ have in this miserable state of things? Don't let us talk
of it! I have something else to say to you. Let us go back to my
troubles here. Did you see the landlady when you came in?"
"No. I only saw the waiter."
"The landlady has made some absurd difficulty about letting me
have these rooms because I came here alone."
"She won't make any difficulty now," said Arnold. "I have settled
that."
"_You!_"
Arnold smiled. After what had passed, it was an indescribable
relief to him to see the humorous side of his own position at the
inn.
"Certainly," he answered. "When I asked for the lady who had
arrived here alone this afternoon--"
"Yes."
"I was told, in your interests, to ask for her as my wife."
Anne looked at him--in alarm as well as in surprise.
"You asked for me as your wife?" she repeated.
"Yes. I haven't done wrong--have I? As I understood it, there was
no alternative. Geoffrey told me you had settled with him to
present yourself here as a married lady, whose husband was coming
to join her."
"I thought of _him_ when I said that. I never thought of _you."_
"Natural enough. Still, it comes to the same thing (doesn't it?)
with the people of this house."
"I don't understand you. "
"I will try and explain myself a little better. Geoffrey said
your position here depended on my asking for you at the door (as
_he_ would have asked for you if he had come) in the character of
your husband."
"He had no right to say that."
"No right? After what you have told me of the landlady, just
think what might have happened if he had _not_ said it! I haven't
had much experience myself of these things. But--allow me to
ask--wouldn't it have been a little awkward (at my age) if I had
come here and inquired for you as a friend? Don't you think, in
that case, the landlady might have made some additional
difficulty about letting you have the rooms?"
It was beyond dispute that the landlady would have refused to let
the rooms at all. It was equally plain that the deception which
Arnold had practiced on the people of the inn was a deception
which Anne had herself rendered necessary, in her own interests.
She was not to blame; it was clearly impossible for her to have
foreseen such an event as Geoffrey's departure for London. Still,
she felt an uneasy sense of responsibility--a vague dread of what
might happen next. She sat nervously twisting her handkerchief in
her lap, and made no answer.
"Don't suppose I object to this little stratagem," Arnold went
on. "I am serving my old friend, and I am helping the lady who is
soon to be his wife."
Anne rose abruptly to her feet, and amazed him by a very
unexpected question.
"Mr. Brinkworth," she said, "forgive me the rudeness of something
I am about to say to you. When are you going away?"
Arnold burst out laughing.
"When I am quite sure I can do nothing more to assist you," he
answered.
"Pray don't think of _me_ any longer."
"In your situation! who else am I to think of?"
Anne laid her hand earnestly on his arm, and answered:
"Blanche!"
"Blanche?" repeated Arnold, utterly at a loss to understand her.
"Yes--Blanche. She found time to tell me what had passed between
you this morning before I left Windygates. I know you have made
her an offer: I know you are engaged to be married to her."
Arnold was delighted to hear it. He had been merely unwilling to
leave her thus far. He was absolutely determined to stay with her
now.
"Don't expect me to go after that!" he said. "Come and sit down
again, and let's talk about Blanche."
Anne declined impatiently, by a gesture. Arnold was too deeply
interested in the new topic to take any notice of it.
"You know all about her habits and her tastes," he went on, "and
what she likes, and what she dislikes. It's most important that I
should talk to you about her. When we are husband and wife,
Blanche is to have all her own way in every thing. That's my idea
of the Whole Duty of Man--when Man is married. You are still
standing? Let me give you a chair."
It was cruel--under other circumstances it would have been
impossible--to disappoint him. But the vague fear of consequences
which had taken possession of Anne was not to be trifled with.
She had no clear conception of the risk (and it is to be added,
in justice to Geoffrey, that _he_ had no clear conception of the
risk) on which Arnold had unconsciously ventured, in undertaking
his errand to the inn. Neither of them had any adequate idea (few
people have) of the infamous absence of all needful warning, of
all decent precaution and restraint, which makes the marriage law
of Scotland a trap to catch unmarried men and women, to this day.
But, while Geoffrey's mind was incapable of looking beyond the
present emergency, Anne's finer intelligence told her that a
country which offered such facilities for private marriage as the
facilities of which she had proposed to take advantage in her own
case, was not a country in which a man could act as Arnold had
acted, without danger of some serious embarrassment following as
the possible result. With this motive to animate her, she
resolutely declined to take the offered chair, or to enter into
the proposed conversation.
"Whatever we have to say about Blanche, Mr. Brinkworth, must be
said at some fitter time. I beg you will leave me."
"Leave you!"
"Yes. Leave me to the solitude that is best for me, and to the
sorrow that I have deserved. Thank you--and good-by."
Arnold made no attempt to disguise his disappointment and
surprise.
"If I must go, I must," he said, "But why are you in such a
hurry?"
"I don't want you to call me your wife again before the people of
this inn."
"Is _that_ all? What on earth are you afraid of?"
She was unable fully to realize her own apprehensions. She was
doubly unable to express them in words. In her anxiety to produce
some reason which might prevail on him to go, she drifted back
into that very conversation about Blanche into which she had
declined to enter but the moment before.
"I have reasons for being afraid," she said. "One that I can't
give; and one that I can. Suppose Blanche heard of what you have
done? The longer you stay here--the more people you see--the more
chance there is that she _might_ hear of it."
"And what if she did?" asked Arnold, in his own straightforward
way. "Do you think she would be angry with me for making myself
useful to _you?_"
"Yes," rejoined Anne, sharply, "if she was jealous of me."
Arnold's unlimited belief in Blanche expressed itself, without
the slightest compromise, in two words:
"That's impossible!"
Anxious as she was, miserable as she was, a faint smile flitted
over Anne's face.
"Sir Patrick would tell you, Mr. Brinkworth, that nothing is
impossible where women are concerned." She dropped her momentary
lightness of tone, and went on as earnestly as ever. "You can't
put yourself in Blanche's place--I can. Once more, I beg you to
go. I don't like your coming here, in this way! I don't like it
at all!"
She held out her hand to take leave. At the same moment there was
a loud knock at the door of the room.
Anne sank into the chair at her side, and uttered a faint cry of
alarm. Arnold, perfectly impenetrable to all sense of his
position, asked what there was to frighten her--and answered the
knock in the two customary words:
"Come in!"
CHAPTER THE TENTH.
MR. BISHOPRIGGS.
THE knock at the door was repeated--a louder knock than before.
"Are you deaf?" shouted Arnold.
The door opened, little by little, an inch at a time. Mr.
Bishopriggs appeared mysteriously, with the cloth for dinner over
his arm, and with his second in c ommand behind him, bearing "the
furnishing of the table" (as it was called at Craig Fernie) on a
tray.
"What the deuce were you waiting for?" asked Arnold. "I told you
to come in."
"And _I_ tauld _you,_" answered Mr. Bishopriggs, "that I wadna
come in without knocking first. Eh, man!" he went on, dismissing
his second in command, and laying the cloth with his own
venerable hands, "d'ye think I've lived in this hottle in blinded
eegnorance of hoo young married couples pass the time when
they're left to themselves? Twa knocks at the door--and an unco
trouble in opening it, after that--is joost the least ye can do
for them! Whar' do ye think, noo, I'll set the places for you and
your leddy there?"
Anne walked away to the window, in undisguised disgust. Arnold
found Mr. Bishopriggs to be quite irresistible. He answered,
humoring the joke,
"One at the top and one at the bottom of the table, I suppose ?"
"One at tap and one at bottom?" repeated Mr. Bishopriggs, in high
disdain. "De'il a bit of it! Baith yer chairs as close together
as chairs can be. Hech! hech!--haven't I caught 'em, after
goodness knows hoo many preleeminary knocks at the door, dining
on their husbands' knees, and steemulating a man's appetite by
feeding him at the fork's end like a child? Eh!" sighed the sage
of Craig Fernie, "it's a short life wi' that nuptial business,
and a merry one! A mouth for yer billin' and cooin'; and a' the
rest o' yer days for wondering ye were ever such a fule, and
wishing it was a' to be done ower again.--Ye'll be for a bottle
o' sherry wine, nae doot? and a drap toddy afterwards, to do yer
digestin' on?"
Arnold nodded--and then, in obedience to a signal from Anne,
joined her at the window. Mr. Bishopriggs looked after them
attentively--observed that they were talking in whispers--and
approved of that proceeding, as representing another of the
established customs of young married couples at inns, in the
presence of third persons appointed to wait on them.
"Ay! ay!" he said, looking over his shoulder at Arnold, "gae to
your deerie! gae to your deerie! and leave a' the solid business
o' life to Me. Ye've Screepture warrant for it. A man maun leave
fether and mother (I'm yer fether), and cleave to his wife. My
certie! 'cleave' is a strong word--there's nae sort o' doot aboot
it, when it comes to 'cleaving!' " He wagged his head
thoughtfully, and walked to the side-table in a corner, to cut
the bread.
As he took up the knife, his one wary eye detected a morsel of
crumpled paper, lying lost between the table and the wall. It was
the letter from Geoffrey, which Anne had flung from her, in the
first indignation of reading it--and which neither she nor Arnold
had thought of since.
"What's that I see yonder?" muttered Mr. Bishopriggs, under his
breath. "Mair litter in the room, after I've doosted and tidied
it wi' my ain hands!"
He picked up the crumpled paper, and partly opened it. "Eh!
what's here? Writing on it in ink? and writing on it in pencil?
Who may this belong to?" He looked round cautiously toward Arnold
and Anne. They were both still talking in whispers, and both
standing with their backs to him, looking out of the window.
"Here it is, clean forgotten and dune with!" thought Mr.
Bishopriggs. "Noo what would a fule do, if he fund this? A fule
wad light his pipe wi' it, and then wonder whether he wadna ha'
dune better to read it first. And what wad a wise man do, in a
seemilar position?" He practically answered that question by
putting the letter into his pocket. It might be worth keeping, or
it might not; five minutes' private examination of it would
decide the alternative, at the first convenient opportunity. "Am
gaun' to breeng the dinner in!" he called out to Arnold. "And,
mind ye, there's nae knocking at the door possible, when I've got
the tray in baith my hands, and mairs the pity, the gout in baith
my feet." With that friendly warning, Mr. Bishopriggs went his
way to the regions of the kitchen.
Arnold continued his conversation with Anne in terms which showed
that the question of his leaving the inn had been the question
once more discussed between them while they were standing at the
window.
"You see we can't help it," he said. "The waiter has gone to
bring the dinner in. What will they think in the house, if I go
away already, and leave 'my wife' to dine alone?"
It was so plainly necessary to keep up appearances for the
present, that there was nothing more to be said. Arnold was
committing a serious imprudence--and yet, on this occasion,
Arnold was right. Anne's annoyance at feeling that conclusion
forced on her produced the first betrayal of impatience which she
had shown yet. She left Arnold at the window, and flung herself
on the sofa. "A curse seems to follow me!" she thought, bitterly.
"This will end ill--and I shall be answerable for it!"
In the mean time Mr. Bishopriggs had found the dinner in the
kitchen, ready, and waiting for him. Instead of at once taking
the tray on which it was placed into the sitting-room, he
conveyed it privately into his own pantry, and shut the door.
"Lie ye there, my freend, till the spare moment comes--and I'll
look at ye again," he said, putting the letter away carefully in
the dresser-drawer. "Noo aboot the dinner o' they twa
turtle-doves in the parlor?" he continued, directing his
attention to the dinner tray. "I maun joost see that the
cook's;'s dune her duty--the creatures are no' capable o'
decidin' that knotty point for their ain selves." He took off one
of the covers, and picked bits, here and there, out of the dish
with the fork " Eh! eh! the collops are no' that bad!" He took
off another cover, and shook his head in solemn doubt. "Here's
the green meat. I doot green meat's windy diet for a man at my
time o' life!" He put the cover on again, and tried the next
dish. "The fesh? What the de'il does the woman fry the trout for?
Boil it next time, ye betch, wi' a pinch o' saut and a spunefu'
o' vinegar." He drew the cork from a bottle of sherry, and
decanted the wine. "The sherry wine?" he said, in tones of deep
feeling, holding the decanter up to the light. "Hoo do I know but
what it may be corkit? I maun taste and try. It's on my
conscience, as an honest man, to taste and try." He forthwith
relieved his conscience--copiously. There was a vacant space, of
no inconsiderable dimensions, left in the decanter. Mr.
Bishopriggs gravely filled it up from the water-bottle. "Eh !
it's joost addin' ten years to the age o' the wine. The
turtle-doves will be nane the waur--and I mysel' am a glass o'
sherry the better. Praise Providence for a' its maircies!" Having
relieved himself of that devout aspiration, he took up the tray
again, and decided on letting the turtle-doves have their dinner.
The conversation in the parlor (dropped for the moment) had been
renewed, in the absence of Mr. Bishopriggs. Too restless to
remain long in one place, Anne had risen again from the sofa, and
had rejoined Arnold at the window.
"Where do your friends at Lady Lundie's believe you to be now?"
she asked, abruptly.
"I am believed," replied Arnold, "to be meeting my tenants, and
taking possession of my estate."
"How are you to get to your estate to-night?"
"By railway, I suppose. By-the-by, what excuse am I to make for
going away after dinner? We are sure to have the landlady in here
before long. What will she say to my going off by myself to the
train, and leaving 'my wife' behind me?"
"Mr. Brinkworth! that joke--if it _is_ a joke--is worn out!"
"I beg your pardon," said Arnold.
"You may leave your excuse to me," pursued Anne. "Do you go by
the up train, or the down?"
"By the up train."
The door opened suddenly; and Mr. Bishopriggs appeared with the
dinner. Anne nervously separated herself from Arnold. The one
available eye of Mr. Bishopriggs followed her reproachfully, as
he put the dishes on the table.
"I warned ye baith, it was a clean impossibility to knock at the
door this time. Don't blame me, young madam--don't blame _me!"_
"Where will you sit?" asked Arnold, by way of diverting Anne's
attention from the familiarities of Father Bishopriggs.
"Any where!" she answered, impatiently; snatchi ng up a chair,
and placing it at the bottom of the table.
Mr. Bishopriggs politely, but firmly, put the chair back again in
its place.
"Lord's sake! what are ye doin'? It's clean contrary to a' the
laws and customs o' the honey-mune, to sit as far away from your
husband as that!"
He waved his persuasive napkin to one of the two chairs placed
close together at the table.
Arnold interfered once more, and prevented another outbreak of
impatience from Anne.
"What does it matter?" he said. "Let the man have his way."
"Get it over as soon as you can," she returned. "I can't, and
won't, bear it much longer."
They took their places at the table, with Father Bishopriggs
behind them, in the mixed character of major domo and guardian
angel.
"Here's the trout!" he cried, taking the cover off with a
flourish. "Half an hour since, he was loupin' in the water. There
he lies noo, fried in the dish. An emblem o' human life for ye!
When ye can spare any leisure time from yer twa selves, meditate
on that."
Arnold took up the spoon, to give Anne one of the trout. Mr.
Bishopriggs clapped the cover on the dish again, with a
countenance expressive of devout horror.
"Is there naebody gaun' to say grace?" he asked.
"Come! come!" said Arnold. "The fish is getting cold."
Mr. Bishopriggs piously closed his available eye, and held the
cover firmly on the dish. "For what ye're gaun' to receive, may
ye baith be truly thankful!" He opened his available eye, and
whipped the cover off again. "My conscience is easy noo. Fall to!
Fall to!"
"Send him away!" said Anne. "His familiarity is beyond all
endurance."
"You needn't wait," said Arnold.
"Eh! but I'm here to wait," objected Mr. Bishopriggs. "What's the
use o' my gaun' away, when ye'll want me anon to change the
plates for ye?" He considered for a moment (privately consulting
his experience) and arrived at a satisfactory conclusion as to
Arnold's motive for wanting to get rid of him. "Tak' her on yer
knee," he whispered in Arnold's ear, "as soon as ye like! Feed
him at the fork's end," he added to Anne, "whenever ye please!
I'll think of something else, and look out at the proaspect." He
winked--and went to the window.
"Come! come! " said Arnold to Anne. "There's a comic side to all
this. Try and see it as I do."
Mr. Bishopriggs returned from the window, and announced the
appearance of a new element of embarrassment in the situation at
the inn.
"My certie!" he said, "it's weel ye cam' when ye did. It's ill
getting to this hottle in a storm."
Anne started. and looked round at him. "A storm coming!" she
exclaimed.
"Eh! ye're well hoosed here--ye needn't mind it. There's the
cloud down the valley," he added, pointing out of the window,"
coming up one way, when the wind's blawing the other. The storm's
brewing, my leddy, when ye see that!"
There was another knock at the door. As Arnold had predicted, the
landlady made her appearance on the scene.
"I ha' just lookit in, Sir," said Mrs. Inchbare, addressing
herself exclusively to Arnold, "to see ye've got what ye want."
"Oh! you are the landlady? Very nice, ma'am--very nice."
Mistress Inchbare had her own private motive for entering the
room, and came to it without further preface.
"Ye'll excuse me, Sir," she proceeded. "I wasna in the way when
ye cam' here, or I suld ha' made bauld to ask ye the question
which I maun e'en ask noo. Am I to understand that ye hire these
rooms for yersel', and this leddy here--yer wife?"
Anne raised her head to speak. Arnold pressed her hand warningly,
under the table, and silenced her.
"Certainly," he said. "I take the rooms for myself, and this lady
here--my wife!"
Anne made a second attempt to speak.
"This gentleman--" she began.
Arnold stopped her for the second time.
"This gentleman?" repeated Mrs. Inchbare, with a broad stare of
surprise. "I'm only a puir woman, my leddy--d'ye mean yer husband
here?"
Arnold's warning hand touched Anne's, for the third time.
Mistress Inchbare's eyes remained fixed on her in merciless
inquiry. To have given utterance to the contradiction which
trembled on her lips would have been to involve Arnold (after all
that he had sacrificed for her) in the scandal which would
inevitably follow--a scandal which would be talked of in the
neighborhood, and which might find its way to Blanche's ears.
White and cold, her eyes never moving from the table, she
accepted the landlady's implied correction, and faintly repeated
the words: "My husband."
Mistress Inchbare drew a breath of virtuous relief, and waited
for what Anne had to say next. Arnold came considerately to the
rescue, and got her out of the room.
"Never mind," he said to Anne; "I know what it is, and I'll see
about it. She's always like this, ma'am, when a storm's coming,"
he went on, turning to the landlady. "No, thank you--I know how
to manage her. Well send to you, if we want your assistance."
"At yer ain pleasure, Sir, " answered Mistress Inchbare. She
turned, and apologized to Anne (under protest), with a stiff
courtesy. "No offense, my leddy! Ye'll remember that ye cam' here
alane, and that the hottle has its ain gude name to keep up."
Having once more vindicated "the hottle," she made the
long-desired move to the door, and left the room.
"I'm faint!" Anne whispered. "Give me some water."
There was no water on the table. Arnold ordered it of Mr.
Bishopriggs--who had remained passive in the back-ground (a model
of discreet attention) as long as the mistress was in the room.
"Mr. Brinkworth!" said Anne, when they were alone, "you are
acting with inexcusable rashness. That woman's question was an
impertinence. Why did you answer it? Why did you force me--?"
She stopped, unable to finish the sentence. Arnold insisted on
her drinking a glass of wine--and then defended himself with the
patient consideration for her which he had shown from the first.
"Why didn't I have the inn door shut in your face"--he asked,
good humoredly--"with a storm coming on, and without a place in
which you can take refuge? No, no, Miss Silvester! I don't
presume to blame you for any scruples you may feel--but scruples
are sadly out of place with such a woman as that landlady. I am
responsible for your safety to Geoffrey; and Geoffrey expects to
find you here. Let's change the subject. The water is a long time
coming. Try another glass of wine. No? Well--here is Blanche's
health" (he took some of the wine himself), "in the weakest
sherry I ever drank in my life." As he set down his glass, Mr.
Bishopriggs came in with the water. Arnold hailed him
satirically. "Well? have you got the water? or have you used it
all for the sherry?"
Mr. Bishopriggs stopped in the middle of the room, thunder-struck
at the aspersion cast on the wine.
"Is that the way ye talk of the auldest bottle o' sherry wine in
Scotland?" he asked, gravely. "What's the warld coming to? The
new generation's a foot beyond my fathoming. The maircies o'
Providence, as shown to man in the choicest veentages o' Spain,
are clean thrown away on 'em."
"Have you brought the water?"
"I ha' brought the water--and mair than the water. I ha' brought
ye news from ootside. There's a company o' gentlemen on
horseback, joost cantering by to what they ca' the shootin'
cottage, a mile from this."
"Well--and what have we got to do with it?"
"Bide a wee! There's ane o' them has drawn bridle at the hottle,
and he's speerin' after the leddy that cam' here alane. The
leddy's your leddy, as sure as saxpence. I doot," said Mr.
Bishopriggs, walking away to the window, "_that's_ what ye've got
to do with it."
Arnold looked at Anne.
"Do you expect any body?"
"Is it Geoffrey?"
"Impossible. Geoffrey is on his way to London."
"There he is, any way," resumed Mr. Bishopriggs, at the window.
"He's loupin' down from his horse. He's turning this way. Lord
save us!" he exclaimed, with a start of consternation, "what do I
see? That incarnate deevil, Sir Paitrick himself!"
Arnold sprang to his feet.
"Do you mean Sir Patrick Lundie?"
Anne ran to the window.
"It _is_ Sir Patrick!" she said. "Hide yourself before he comes
in!"
"Hide myself?"
"What will he think if he sees you with _me?"_
He was Blanche's g uardian, and he believed Arnold to be at that
moment visiting his new property. What he would think was not
difficult to foresee. Arnold turned for help to Mr. Bishopriggs.
"Where can I go?"
Mr. Bishopriggs pointed to the bedroom door.
"Whar' can ye go? There's the nuptial chamber!"
"Impossible!"
Mr. Bishopriggs expressed the utmost extremity of human amazement
by a long whistle, on one note.
"Whew! Is that the way ye talk o' the nuptial chamber already?"
"Find me some other place--I'll make it worth your while."
"Eh! there's my paintry! I trow that's some other place; and the
door's at the end o' the passage."
Arnold hurried out. Mr. Bishopriggs--evidently under the
impression that the case before him was a case of elopement, with
Sir Patrick mixed up in it in the capacity of guardian--addressed
himself, in friendly confidence, to Anne.
"My certie, mistress! it's ill wark deceivin' Sir Paitrick, if
that's what ye've dune. Ye must know, I was ance a bit clerk body
in his chambers at Embro--"
The voice of Mistress Inchbare, calling for the head-waiter, rose
shrill and imperative from the regions of the bar. Mr.
Bishopriggs disappeared. Anne remained, standing helpless by the
window. It was plain by this time that the place of her retreat
had been discovered at Windygates. The one doubt to decide, now,
was whether it would be wise or not to receive Sir Patrick, for
the purpose of discovering whether he came as friend or enemy to
the inn.
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH.
SIR PATRICK.
THE doubt was practically decided before Anne had determined what
to do. She was still at the window when the sitting-room door was
thrown open, and Sir Patrick appeared, obsequiously shown in by
Mr. Bishopriggs.
"Ye're kindly welcome, Sir Paitrick. Hech, Sirs! the sight of you
is gude for sair eyne."
Sir Patrick turned and looked at Mr. Bishopriggs--as he might
have looked at some troublesome insect which he had driven out of
the window, and which had returned on him again.
"What, you scoundrel! have you drifted into an honest employment
at last?"
Mr. Bishopriggs rubbed his hands cheerfully, and took his tone
from his superior, with supple readiness
"Ye're always in the right of it, Sir Paitrick! Wut, raal wut in
that aboot the honest employment, and me drifting into it. Lord's
sake, Sir, hoo well ye wear!"
Dismissing Mr. Bishopriggs by a sign, Sir Patrick advanced to
Anne.
"I am committing an intrusion, madam which must, I am afraid,
appear unpardonable in your eyes," he said. "May I hope you will
excuse me when I have made you acquainted with my motive?"
He spoke with scrupulous politeness. His knowledge of Anne was of
the slightest possible kind. Like other men, he had felt the
attraction of her unaffected grace and gentleness on the few
occasions when he had been in her company--and that was all. If
he had belonged to the present generation he would, under the
circumstances, have fallen into one of the besetting sins of
England in these days--the tendency (to borrow an illustration
from the stage) to "strike an attitude" in the presence of a
social emergency. A man of the present period, in Sir Patrick's
position, would have struck an attitude of (what is called)
chivalrous respect; and would have addressed Anne in a tone of
ready-made sympathy, which it was simply impossible for a
stranger really to feel. Sir Patrick affected nothing of the
sort. One of the besetting sins of _his_ time was the habitual
concealment of our better selves--upon the whole, a far less
dangerous national error than the habitual advertisement of our
better selves, which has become the practice, public and
privately, of society in this age. Sir Patrick assumed, if
anything, less sympathy on this occasion than he really felt.
Courteous to all women, he was as courteous as usual to Anne--and
no more.
"I am quite at a loss, Sir, to know what brings you to this
place. The servant here informs me that you are one of a party of
gentlemen who have just passed by the inn, and who have all gone
on except yourself." In those guarded terms Anne opened the
interview with the unwelcome visitor, on her side.
Sir Patrick admitted the fact, without betraying the slightest
embarrassment.
"The servant is quite right," he said. "I am one of the party.
And I have purposely allowed them to go on to the keeper's
cottage without me. Having admitted this, may I count on
receiving your permission to explain the motive of my visit?"
Necessarily suspicious of him, as coming from Windygates, Anne
answered in few and formal words, as coldly as before.
"Explain it, Sir Patrick, if you please, as briefly as possible."
Sir Patrick bowed. He was not in the least offended; he was even
(if the confession may be made without degrading him in the
public estimation) privately amused. Conscious of having honestly
presented himself at the inn in Anne's interests, as well as in
the interests of the ladies at Windygates, it appealed to his
sense of humor to find himself kept at arm's-length by the very
woman whom he had come to benefit. The temptation was strong on
him to treat his errand from his own whimsical point of view. He
gravely took out his watch, and noted the time to a second,
before he spoke again.
"I have an event to relate in which you are interested," he said.
"And I have two messages to deliver, which I hope you will not
object to receive. The event I undertake to describe in one
minute. The messages I promise to dispose of in two minutes more.
Total duration of this intrusion on your time--three minutes."
He placed a chair for Anne, and waited until she had permitted
him, by a sign, to take a second chair for himself.
"We will begin with the event," he resumed. "Your arrival at this
place is no secret at Windygates. You were seen on the foot-road
to Craig Fernie by one of the female servants. And the inference
naturally drawn is, that you were on your way to the inn. It may
be important for you to know this; and I have taken the liberty
of mentioning it accordingly." He consulted his watch. "Event
related. Time, one minute."
He had excited her curiosity, to begin with. "Which of the women
saw me?" she asked, impulsively.
Sir Patrick (watch in hand) declined to prolong the interview by
answering any incidental inquiries which might arise in the
course of it.
"Pardon me," he rejoined; "I am pledged to occupy three minutes
only. I have no room for the woman. With your kind permission, I
will get on to the messages next."
Anne remained silent. Sir Patrick went on.
"First message: 'Lady Lundie's compliments to her step-daughter's
late governess--with whose married name she is not acquainted.
Lady Lundie regrets to say that Sir Patrick, as head of the
family, has threatened to return to Edinburgh, unless she
consents to be guided by his advice in the course she pursues
with the late governess. Lady Lundie, accordingly, foregoes her
intention of calling at the Craig Fernie inn, to express her
sentiments and make her inquiries in person, and commits to Sir
Patrick the duty of expressing her sentiments; reserving to
herself the right of making her inquiries at the next convenient
opportunity. Through the medium of her brother-in-law, she begs
to inform the late governess that all intercourse is at an end
between them, and that she declines to act as reference in case
of future emergency.'--Message textually correct. Expressive of
Lady Lundie's view of your sudden departure from the house. Time,
two minutes."
Anne's color rose. Anne's pride was up in arms on the spot.
"The impertinence of Lady Lundie's message is no more than I
should have expected from her," she said. "I am only surprised at
Sir Patrick's delivering it."
"Sir Patrick's motives will appear presently," rejoined the
incorrigible old gentleman. "Second message: 'Blanche's fondest
love. Is dying to be acquainted with Anne's husband, and to be
informed of Anne's married name. Feels indescribable anxiety and
apprehension on Anne's account. Insists on hearing from Anne
immediately. Longs, as she never longed for any thing yet, to
order her pony-chaise and drive full gallop to the inn. Yields,
under irresistible pressure, to t he exertion of her guardian's
authority, and commits the expression of her feelings to Sir
Patrick, who is a born tyrant, and doesn't in the least mind
breaking other people's hearts.' Sir Patrick, speaking for
himself, places his sister-in-law's view and his niece's view,
side by side, before the lady whom he has now the honor of
addressing, and on whose confidence he is especially careful not
to intrude. Reminds the lady that his influence at Windygates,
however strenuously he may exert it, is not likely to last
forever. Requests her to consider whether his sister-in-law's
view and his niece's view in collision, may not lead to very
undesirable domestic results; and leaves her to take the course
which seems best to herself under those circumstances.--Second
message delivered textually. Time, three minutes. A storm coming
on. A quarter of an hour's ride from here to the
shooting-cottage. Madam, I wish you good-evening."
He bowed lower than ever--and, without a word more, quietly left
the room.
Anne's first impulse was (excusably enough, poor soul) an impulse
of resentment.
"Thank you, Sir Patrick!" she said, with a bitter look at the
closing door. "The sympathy of society with a friendless woman
could hardly have been expressed in a more amusing way!"
The little irritation of the moment passed off with the moment.
Anne's own intelligence and good sense showed her the position in
its truer light.
She recognized in Sir Patrick's abrupt departure Sir Patrick's
considerate resolution to spare her from entering into any
details on the subject of her position at the inn. He had given
her a friendly warning; and he had delicately left her to decide
for herself as to the assistance which she might render him in
maintaining tranquillity at Windygates. She went at once to a
side-table in the room, on which writing materials were placed,
and sat down to write to Blanche.
"I can do nothing with Lady Lundie," she thought. "But I have
more influence than any body else over Blanche and I can prevent
the collision between them which Sir Patrick dreads."
She began the letter. "My dearest Blanche, I have seen Sir
Patrick, and he has given me your message. I will set your mind
at ease about me as soon as I can. But, before I say any thing
else, let me entreat you, as the greatest favor you can do to
your sister and your friend, not to enter into any disputes about
me with Lady Lundie, and not to commit the imprudence--the
useless imprudence, my love--of coming here." She stopped--the
paper swam before her eyes. "My own darling!" she thought, "who
could have foreseen that I should ever shrink from the thought of
seeing _you?"_ She sighed, and dipped the pen in the ink, and
went on with the letter.
The sky darkened rapidly as the evening fell. The wind swept in
fainter and fainter gusts across the dreary moor. Far and wide
over the face of Nature the stillness was fast falling which
tells of a coming storm.
CHAPTER THE TWELFTH.
ARNOLD.
MEANWHILE Arnold remained shut up in the head-waiter's
pantry--chafing secretly at the position forced upon him.
He was, for the first time in his life, in hiding from another
person, and that person a man. Twice--stung to it by the
inevitable loss of self-respect which his situation
occasioned--he had gone to the door, determined to face Sir
Patrick boldly; and twice he had abandoned the idea, in mercy to
Anne. It would have been impossible for him to set himself right
with Blanche's guardian without betraying the unhappy woman whose
secret he was bound in honor to keep. "I wish to Heaven I had
never come here!" was the useless aspiration that escaped him, as
he doggedly seated himself on the dresser to wait till Sir
Patrick's departure set him free.
After an interval--not by any means the long interval which he
had anticipated--his solitude was enlivened by the appearance of
Father Bishopriggs.
"Well?" cried Arnold, jumping off the dresser, "is the coast
clear?"
There were occasions when Mr. Bishopriggs became, on a sudden,
unexpectedly hard of hearing, This was one of them.
"Hoo do ye find the paintry?" he asked, without paying the
slightest attention to Arnold's question. "Snug and private? A
Patmos in the weelderness, as ye may say!"
His one available eye, which had begun by looking at Arnold's
face, dropped slowly downward, and fixed itself, in mute but
eloquent expectation, on Arnold's waistcoat pocket.
"I understand!" said Arnold. "I promised to pay you for the
Patmos--eh? There you are!"
Mr. Bishopriggs pocketed the money with a dreary smile and a
sympathetic shake of the head. Other waiters would have returned
thanks. The sage of Craig Fernie returned a few brief remarks
instead. Admirable in many things, Father Bishopriggs was
especially great at drawing a moral. He drew a moral on this
occasion from his own gratuity.
"There I am--as ye say. Mercy presairve us! ye need the siller at
every turn, when there's a woman at yer heels. It's an awfu'
reflection--ye canna hae any thing to do wi' the sex they ca' the
opposite sex without its being an expense to ye. There's this
young leddy o' yours, I doot she'll ha' been an expense to ye
from the first. When you were coortin' her, ye did it, I'll go
bail, wi' the open hand. Presents and keep-sakes, flowers and
jewelery, and little dogues. Sair expenses all of them!"
"Hang your reflections! Has Sir Patrick left the inn?"
The reflections of Mr. Bishopriggs declined to be disposed of in
any thing approaching to a summary way. On they flowed from their
parent source, as slowly and as smoothly as ever!
"Noo ye're married to her, there's her bonnets and goons and
under-clothin'--her ribbons, laces, furbelows, and fallals. A
sair expense again!"
"What is the expense of cutting your reflections short, Mr.
Bishopriggs?"
"Thirdly, and lastly, if ye canna agree wi' her as time gaes
on--if there's incompaitibeelity of temper betwixt ye--in short,
if ye want a wee bit separation, hech, Sirs! ye pet yer hand in
yer poaket, and come to an aimicable understandin' wi' her in
that way. Or, maybe she takes ye into Court, and pets _her_ hand
in your poaket, and comes to a hoastile understandin' wi' ye
there. Show me a woman--and I'll show ye a man not far off wha'
has mair expenses on his back than he ever bairgained for."
Arnold's patience would last no longer--he turned to the door.
Mr. Bishopriggs, with equal alacrity on his side, turned to the
matter in hand. "Yes, Sir! The room is e'en clear o' Sir
Paitrick, and the leddy's alane, and waitin' for ye."
In a moment more Arnold was back in the sitting-room.
"Well?" he asked, anxiously. "What is it? Bad news from Lady
Lundie's?"
Anne closed and directed the letter to Blanche, which she had
just completed. "No," she replied. "Nothing to interest _you."_."
"What did Sir Patrick want?"
"Only to warn me. They have found out at Windygates that I am
here."
"That's awkward, isn't it?"
"Not in the least. I can manage perfectly; I have nothing to
fear. Don't think of _me_--think of yourself."
"I am not suspected, am I?"
"Thank heaven--no. But there is no knowing what may happen if you
stay here. Ring the bell at once, and ask the waiter about the
trains."
Struck by the unusual obscurity of the sky at that hour of the
evening, Arnold went to the window. The rain had come--and was
falling heavily. The view on the moor was fast disappearing in
mist and darkness.
"Pleasant weather to travel in!" he said.
"The railway!" Anne exclaimed, impatiently. "It's getting late.
See about the railway!"
Arnold walked to the fire-place to ring the bell. The railway
time-table hanging over it met his eye.
"Here's the information I want," he said to Anne; "if I only knew
how to get at it. 'Down'--'Up'--'A. M.'--P. M.' What a cursed
confusion! I believe they do it on purpose."
Anne joined him at the fire-place.
"I understand it--I'll help you. Did you say it was the up train
you wanted?"
"What is the name of the station you stop at?"
Arnold told her. She followed the intricate net-work of lines and
figures with her finger--suddenly stopped--looked again to make
sure--and turned from the time-table with a face of blank
despair. The last train for the day had gone an hour since.
In the silence which followed that discovery, a first flash of
lightning passed across the window and the low roll of thunder
sounded the outbreak of the storm.
"What's to be done now?" asked Arnold.
In the face of the storm, Anne answered without hesitation, "You
must take a carriage, and drive."
"Drive? They told me it was three-and-twenty miles, by railway,
from the station to my place--let alone the distance from this
inn to the station."
"What does the distance matter? Mr. Brinkworth, you can't
possibly stay here!"
A second flash of lightning crossed the window; the roll of the
thunder came nearer. Even Arnold's good temper began to be a
little ruffled by Anne's determination to get rid of him. He sat
down with the air of a man who had made up his mind not to leave
the house.
"Do you hear that?" he asked, as the sound of the thunder died
away grandly, and the hard pattering of the rain on the window
became audible once more. "If I ordered horses, do you think they
would let me have them, in such weather as this? And, if they
did, do you suppose the horses could face it on the moor? No, no,
Miss Silvester--I am sorry to be in the way, but the train has
gone, and the night and the storm have come. I have no choice but
to stay here!"
Anne still maintained her own view, but less resolutely than
before. "After what you have told the landlady," she said, "think
of the embarrassment, the cruel embarrassment of our position, if
you stop at the inn till to-morrow morning!"
"Is that all?" returned Arnold.
Anne looked up at him, quickly and angrily. No! he was quite
unconscious of having said any thing that could offend her. His
rough masculine sense broke its way unconsciously through all the
little feminine subtleties and delicacies of his companion, and
looked the position practically in the face for what it was
worth, and no more. "Where's the embarrassment?" he asked,
pointing to the bedroom door. "There's your room, all ready for
you. And here's the sofa, in this room, all ready for _me._ If
you had seen the places I have slept in at sea--!"
She interrupted him, without ceremony. The places he had slept
in, at sea, were of no earthly importance. The one question to
consider, was the place he was to sleep in that night.
"If you must stay," she rejoined, "can't you get a room in some
other part of the house?"
But one last mistake in dealing with her, in her present nervous
condition, was left to make--and the innocent Arnold made it. "In
some other part of the house?" he repeated, jestingly. "The
landlady would be scandalized. Mr. Bishopriggs would never allow
it!"
She rose, and stamped her foot impatiently on the floor. "Don't
joke!" she exclaimed. "This is no laughing matter." She paced the
room excitedly. "I don't like it! I don't like it!"
Arnold looked after her, with a stare of boyish wonder.
"What puts you out so?" he asked. "Is it the storm?"
She threw herself on the sofa again. "Yes," she said, shortly.
"It's the storm."
Arnold's inexhaustible good-nature was at once roused to activity
again.
"Shall we have the candles," he suggested, "and shut the weather
out?" She turned irritably on the sofa, without replying. "I'll
promise to go away the first thing in the morning!" he went on.
"Do try and take it easy--and don't be angry with me. Come! come!
you wouldn't turn a dog out, Miss Silvester, on such a night as
this!"
He was irresistible. The most sensitive woman breathing could not
have accused him of failing toward her in any single essential of
consideration and respect. He wanted tact, poor fellow--but who
could expect him to have learned that always superficial (and
sometimes dangerous) accomplishment, in the life he had led at
sea? At the sight of his honest, pleading face, Anne recovered
possession of her gentler and sweeter self. She made her excuses
for her irritability with a grace that enchanted him. "We'll have
a pleasant evening of it yet!" cried Arnold, in his hearty
way--and rang the bell.
The bell was hung outside the door of that Patmos in the
wilderness--otherwise known as the head-waiter's pantry. Mr.
Bishopriggs (employing his brief leisure in the seclusion of his
own apartment) had just mixed a glass of the hot and comforting
liquor called "toddy" in the language of North Britain, and was
just lifting it to his lips, when the summons from Arnold invited
him to leave his grog.
"Haud yer screechin' tongue! " cried Mr. Bishopriggs, addressing
the bell through the door. "Ye're waur than a woman when ye aince
begin!"
The bell--like the woman--went on again. Mr. Bishopriggs, equally
pertinacious, went on with his toddy.
"Ay! ay! ye may e'en ring yer heart out--but ye won't part a
Scotchman from his glass. It's maybe the end of their dinner
they'll be wantin'. Sir Paitrick cam' in at the fair beginning of
it, and spoilt the collops, like the dour deevil he is!" The bell
rang for the third time. "Ay! ay! ring awa'! I doot yon young
gentleman's little better than a belly-god--there's a scandalous
haste to comfort the carnal part o' him in a' this ringin'! He
knows naething o' wine," added Mr. Bishopriggs, on whose mind
Arnold's discovery of the watered sherry still dwelt
unpleasantly.
The lightning quickened, and lit the sitting-room horribly with
its lurid glare; the thunder rolled nearer and nearer over the
black gulf of the moor. Arnold had just raised his hand to ring
for the fourth time, when the inevitable knock was heard at the
door. It was useless to say "come in." The immutable laws of
Bishopriggs had decided that a second knock was necessary. Storm
or no storm, the second knock came--and then, and not till then,
the sage appeared, with the dish of untasted "collops" in his
hand.
"Candles!" said Arnold.
Mr. Bishopriggs set the "collops" (in the language of England,
minced meat) upon the table, lit the candles on the mantle-piece,
faced about with the fire of recent toddy flaming in his nose,
and waited for further orders, before he went back to his second
glass. Anne declined to return to the dinner. Arnold ordered Mr.
Bishopriggs to close the shutters, and sat down to dine by
himself.
"It looks greasy, and smells greasy," he said to Anne, turning
over the collops with a spoon. "I won't be ten minutes dining.
Will you have some tea?"
Anne declined again.
Arnold tried her once more. "What shall we do to get through the
evening?"
"Do what you like," she answered, resignedly.
Arnold's mind was suddenly illuminated by an idea.
"I have got it!" he exclaimed. "We'll kill the time as our
cabin-passengers used to kill it at sea." He looked over his
shoulder at Mr. Bishopriggs. "Waiter! bring a pack of cards."
"What's that ye're wantin'?" asked Mr. Bishopriggs, doubting the
evidence of his own senses.
"A pack of cards," repeated Arnold.
"Cairds?" echoed Mr. Bishopriggs. "A pack o' cairds? The deevil's
allegories in the deevil's own colors--red and black! I wunna
execute yer order. For yer ain saul's sake, I wunna do it. Ha' ye
lived to your time o' life, and are ye no' awakened yet to the
awfu' seenfulness o' gamblin' wi' the cairds?"
"Just as you please," returned Arnold. "You will find me
awakened--when I go away--to the awful folly of feeing a waiter."
"Does that mean that ye're bent on the cairds?" asked Mr.
Bishopriggs, suddenly betraying signs of worldly anxiety in his
look and manner.
"Yes--that means I am bent on the cards."
"I tak' up my testimony against 'em--but I'm no' telling ye that
I canna lay my hand on 'em if I like. What do they say in my
country? 'Him that will to Coupar, maun to Coupar.' And what do
they say in your country? 'Needs must when the deevil drives.' "
With that excellent reason for turning his back on his own
principles, Mr. Bishopriggs shuffled out of the room to fetch the
cards.
The dresser-drawer in the pantry contained a choice selection of
miscellaneous objects--a pack of cards being among them. In
searching for the cards, the wary hand of the head-waiter came in
contact with a morsel of crumpled-up paper. He drew it out, and
recognized the letter which he had picked up in the sitting-room
s ome hours since.
"Ay! ay! I'll do weel, I trow, to look at this while my mind's
runnin' on it," said Mr. Bishopriggs. "The cairds may e'en find
their way to the parlor by other hands than mine."
He forthwith sent the cards to Arnold by his second in command,
closed the pantry door, and carefully smoothed out the crumpled
sheet of paper on which the two letters were written. This done,
he trimmed his candle, and began with the letter in ink, which
occupied the first three pages of the sheet of note-paper.
It ran thus:
"WINDYGATES HOUSE, _August_ 12, 1868.
"GEOFFREY DELAMAYN,--I have waited in the hope that you would
ride over from your brother's place, and see me--and I have
waited in vain. Your conduct to me is cruelty itself; I will bear
it no longer. Consider! in your own interests, consider--before
you drive the miserable woman who has trusted you to despair. You
have promised me marriage by all that is sacred. I claim your
promise. I insist on nothing less than to be what you vowed I
should be--what I have waited all this weary time to be--what I
_am_, in the sight of Heaven, your wedded wife. Lady Lundie gives
a lawn-party here on the 14th. I know you have been asked. I
expect you to accept her invitation. If I don't see you, I won't
answer for what may happen. My mind is made up to endure this
suspense no longer. Oh, Geoffrey, remember the past! Be
faithful--be just--to your loving wife,
"ANNE SILVESTER."
Mr. Bishopriggs paused. His commentary on the correspondence, so
far, was simple enough. "Hot words (in ink) from the leddy to the
gentleman!" He ran his eye over the second letter, on the fourth
page of the paper, and added, cynically, "A trifle caulder (in
pencil) from the gentleman to the leddy! The way o' the warld,
Sirs! From the time o' Adam downwards, the way o' the warld!"
The second letter ran thus:
"DEAR ANNE,--Just called to London to my father. They have
telegraphed him in a bad way. Stop where you are, and I will
write you. Trust the bearer. Upon my soul, I'll keep my promise.
Your loving husband that is to be,
"GEOFFREY DELAMAYN."
WINDYGATES HOUSE, _Augt._ 14, 4 P. M.
"In a mortal hurry. Train starts at 4.30."
There it ended!
"Who are the pairties in the parlor? Is ane o' them 'Silvester?'
and t'other 'Delamayn?' " pondered Mr. Bishopriggs, slowly
folding the letter up again in its original form. "Hech, Sirs!
what, being intairpreted, may a' this mean?"
He mixed himself a second glass of toddy, as an aid to
reflection, and sat sipping the liquor, and twisting and turning
the letter in his gouty fingers. It was not easy to see his way
to the true connection between the lady and gentleman in the
parlor and the two letters now in his own possession. They might
be themselves the writers of the letters, or they might be only
friends of the writers. Who was to decide?
In the first case, the lady's object would appear to have been as
good as gained; for the two had certainly asserted themselves to
be man and wife, in his own presence, and in the presence of the
landlady. In the second case, the correspondence so carelessly
thrown aside might, for all a stranger knew to the contrary,
prove to be of some importance in the future. Acting on this
latter view, Mr. Bishopriggs--whose past experience as "a bit
clerk body," in Sir Patrick's chambers, had made a man of
business of him--produced his pen and ink, and indorsed the
letter with a brief dated statement of the circumstances under
which he had found it. "I'll do weel to keep the Doecument," he
thought to himself. "Wha knows but there'll be a reward offered
for it ane o' these days? Eh! eh! there may be the warth o' a fi'
pun' note in this, to a puir lad like me!"
With that comforting reflection, he drew out a battered tin
cash-box from the inner recesses of the drawer, and locked up the
stolen correspondence to bide its time.
The storm rose higher and higher as the evening advanced.
In the sitting-room, the state of affairs, perpetually changing,
now presented itself under another new aspect.
Arnold had finished his dinner, and had sent it away. He had next
drawn a side-table up to the sofa on which Anne lay--had shuffled
the pack of cards--and was now using all his powers of persuasion
to induce her to try one game at _Ecarté_ with him, by way
of diverting her attention from the tumult of the storm. In sheer
weariness, she gave up contesting the matter; and, raising
herself languidly on the sofa, said she would try to play.
"Nothing can make matters worse than they are," she thought,
despairingly, as Arnold dealt the cards for her. "Nothing can
justify my inflicting my own wretchedness on this kind-hearted
boy!"
Two worse players never probably sat down to a game. Anne's
attention perpetually wandered; and Anne's companion was, in all
human probability, the most incapable card-player in Europe.
Anne turned up the trump--the nine of Diamonds. Arnold looked at
his hand--and "proposed." Anne declined to change the cards.
Arnold announced, with undiminished good-humor, that he saw his
way clearly, now, to losing the game, and then played his first
card--the Queen of Trumps!
Anne took it with the King, and forgot to declare the King. She
played the ten of Trumps.
Arnold unexpectedly discovered the eight of Trumps in his hand.
"What a pity!" he said, as he played it. "Hullo! you haven't
marked the King! I'll do it for you. That's two--no, three--to
you. I said I should lose the game. Couldn't be expected to do
any thing (could I?) with such a hand as mine. I've lost every
thing now I've lost my trumps. You to play."
Anne looked at her hand. At the same moment the lightning flashed
into the room through the ill-closed shutters; the roar of the
thunder burst over the house, and shook it to its foundation. The
screaming of some hysterical female tourist, and the barking of a
dog, rose shrill from the upper floor of the inn. Anne's nerves
could support it no longer. She flung her cards on the table, and
sprang to her feet.
"I can play no more," she said. "Forgive me--I am quite unequal
to it. My head burns! my heart stifles me!"
She began to pace the room again. Aggravated by the effect of the
storm on her nerves, her first vague distrust of the false
position into which she and Arnold had allowed themselves to
drift had strengthened, by this time, into a downright horror of
their situation which was not to be endured. Nothing could
justify such a risk as the risk they were now running! They had
dined together like married people--and there they were, at that
moment, shut in together, and passing the evening like man and
wife!
"Oh, Mr. Brinkworth!" she pleaded. "Think--for Blanche's sake,
think--is there no way out of this?"
Arnold was quietly collecting the scattered cards.
"Blanche, again?" he said, with the most exasperating composure.
"I wonder how she feels, in this storm?"
In Anne's excited state, the reply almost maddened her. She
turned from Arnold, and hurried to the door.
"I don't care!" she cried, wildly. "I won't let this deception go
on. I'll do what I ought to have done before. Come what may of
it, I'll tell the landlady the truth!"
She had opened the door, and was on the point of stepping into
the passage--when she stopped, and started violently. Was it
possible, in that dreadful weather, that she had actually heard
the sound of carriage wheels on the strip of paved road outside
the inn?
Yes! others had heard the sound too. The hobbling figure of Mr.
Bishopriggs passed her in the passage, making for the house door.
The hard voice of the landlady rang through the inn, ejaculating
astonishment in broad Scotch. Anne closed the sitting-room door
again, and turned to Arnold--who had risen, in surprise, to his
feet.
"Travelers!" she exclaimed. "At this time!"
"And in this weather!" added Arnold.
"_Can_ it be Geoffrey?" she asked--going back to the old vain
delusion that he might yet feel for her, and return.
Arnold shook his head. "Not Geoffrey. Whoever else it may be--not
Geoffrey!"
Mrs. Inchbare suddenly entered the room--with her cap-ribb ons
flying, her eyes staring, and her bones looking harder than ever.
"Eh, mistress!" she said to Anne. "Wha do ye think has driven
here to see ye, from Windygates Hoose, and been owertaken in the
storm?"
Anne was speechless. Arnold put the question: "Who is it?"
"Wha is't?" repeated Mrs. Inchbare. "It's joost the bonny young
leddy--Miss Blanche hersel'."
An irrepressible cry of horror burst from Anne. The landlady set
it down to the lightning, which flashed into the room again at
the same moment.
"Eh, mistress! ye'll find Miss Blanche a bit baulder than to
skirl at a flash o' lightning, that gait! Here she is, the bonny
birdie!" exclaimed Mrs. Inchbare, deferentially backing out into
the passage again.
Blanche's voice reached them, calling for Anne.
Anne caught Arnold by the hand and wrung it hard. "Go!" she
whispered. The next instant she was at the mantle-piece, and had
blown out both the candles.
Another flash of lightning came through the darkness, and showed
Blanche's figure standing at the door.
CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH.
BLANCHE.
MRS. INCHBARE was the first person who acted in the emergency.
She called for lights; and sternly rebuked the house-maid, who
brought them, for not having closed the house door. "Ye feckless
ne'er-do-weel!" cried the landlady; "the wind's blawn the candles
oot."
The woman declared (with perfect truth) that the door had been
closed. An awkward dispute might have ensued if Blanche had not
diverted Mrs. Inchbare's attention to herself. The appearance of
the lights disclosed her, wet through with her arms round Anne's
neck. Mrs. Inchbare digressed at once to the pressing question of
changing the young lady's clothes, and gave Anne the opportunity
of looking round her, unobserved. Arnold had made his escape
before the candles had been brought in.
In the mean time Blanche's attention was absorbed in her own
dripping skirts.
"Good gracious! I'm absolutely distilling rain from every part of
me. And I'm making you, Anne, as wet as I am! Lend me some dry
things. You can't? Mrs. Inchbare, what does your experience
suggest? Which had I better do? Go to bed while my clothes are
being dried? or borrow from your wardrobe--though you _are_ a
head and shoulders taller than I am?"
Mrs. Inchbare instantly bustled out to fetch the choicest
garments that her wardrobe could produce. The moment the door had
closed on her Blanche looked round the room in her turn.
The rights of affection having been already asserted, the claims
of curiosity naturally pressed for satisfaction next.
"Somebody passed me in the dark," she whispered. "Was it your
husband? I'm dying to be introduced to him. And, oh my dear! what
_is_ your married name?"
Anne answered, coldly, "Wait a little. I can't speak about it
yet."
"Are you ill?" asked Blanche.
"I am a little nervous."
"Has any thing unpleasant happened between you and my uncle? You
have seen him, haven't you?"
"Yes."
"Did he give you my message?"
"He gave me your message.--Blanche! you promised him to stay at
Windygates. Why, in the name of heaven, did you come here
to-night?"
"If you were half as fond of me as I am of you," returned
Blanche, "you wouldn't ask that. I tried hard to keep my promise,
but I couldn't do it. It was all very well, while my uncle was
laying down the law--with Lady Lundie in a rage, and the dogs
barking, and the doors banging, and all that. The excitement kept
me up. But when my uncle had gone, and the dreadful gray, quiet,
rainy evening came, and it had all calmed down again, there was
no bearing it. The house--without you--was like a tomb. If I had
had Arnold with me I might have done very well. But I was all by
myself. Think of that! Not a soul to speak to! There wasn't a
horrible thing that could possibly happen to you that I didn't
fancy was going to happen. I went into your empty room and looked
at your things. _That_ settled it, my darling! I rushed down
stairs--carried away, positively carried away, by an Impulse
beyond human resistance. How could I help it? I ask any
reasonable person how could I help it? I ran to the stables and
found Jacob. Impulse--all impulse! I said, 'Get the
pony-chaise--I must have a drive--I don't care if it rains--you
come with me.' All in a breath, and all impulse! Jacob behaved
like an angel. He said, 'All right, miss.' I am perfectly certain
Jacob would die for me if I asked him. He is drinking hot grog at
this moment, to prevent him from catching cold, by my express
orders. He had the pony-chaise out in two minutes; and off we
went. Lady Lundie, my dear, prostrate in her own room--too much
sal volatile. I hate her. The rain got worse. I didn't mind it.
Jacob didn't mind it. The pony didn't mind it. They had both
caught my impulse--especially the pony. It didn't come on to
thunder till some time afterward; and then we were nearer Craig
Fernie than Windygates--to say nothing of your being at one place
and not at the other. The lightning was quite awful on the moor.
If I had had one of the horses, he would have been frightened.
The pony shook his darling little head, and dashed through it. He
is to have beer. A mash with beer in it--by my express orders.
When he has done we'll borrow a lantern, and go into the stable,
and kiss him. In the mean time, my dear, here I am--wet through
in a thunderstorm, which doesn't in the least matter--and
determined to satisfy my own mind about you, which matters a
great deal, and must and shall be done before I rest to-night! "
She turned Anne, by main force, as she spoke, toward the light of
the candles.
Her tone changed the moment she looked at Anne's face.
"I knew it!" she said. "You would never have kept the most
interesting event in your life a secret from _me_--you would
never have written me such a cold formal letter as the letter you
left in your room--if there had not been something wrong. I said
so at the time. I know it now! Why has your husband forced you to
leave Windygates at a moment's notice? Why does he slip out of
the room in the dark, as if he was afraid of being seen? Anne!
Anne! what has come to you? Why do you receive me in this way?"
At that critical moment Mrs. Inchbare reappeared, with the
choicest selection of wearing apparel which her wardrobe could
furnish. Anne hailed the welcome interruption. She took the
candles, and led the way into the bedroom immediately.
"Change your wet clothes first," she said. "We can talk after
that."
The bedroom door had hardly been closed a minute before there was
a tap at it. Signing to Mrs. Inchbare not to interrupt the
services she was rendering to Blanche, Anne passed quickly into
the sitting-room, and closed the door behind her. To her infinite
relief, she only found herself face to face with the discreet Mr.
Bishopriggs.
"What do you want?" she asked.
The eye of Mr. Bishopriggs announced, by a wink, that his mission
was of a confidential nature. The hand of Mr. Bishopriggs
wavered; the breath of Mr. Bishopriggs exhaled a spirituous fume.
He slowly produced a slip of paper, with some lines of writing on
it.
"From ye ken who," he explained, jocosely. "A bit love-letter, I
trow, from him that's dear to ye. Eh! he's an awfu' reprobate is
him that's dear to ye. Miss, in the bedchamber there, will nae
doot be the one he's jilted for _you?_ I see it all--ye can't
blind Me--I ha' been a frail person my ain self, in my time.
Hech! he's safe and sound, is the reprobate. I ha' lookit after
a' his little creature-comforts--I'm joost a fether to him, as
well as a fether to you. Trust Bishopriggs--when puir human
nature wants a bit pat on the back, trust Bishopriggs."
While the sage was speaking these comfortable words, Anne was
reading the lines traced on the paper. They were signed by
Arnold; and they ran thus:
"I am in the smoking-room of the inn. It rests with you to say
whether I must stop there. I don't believe Blanche would be
jealous. If I knew how to explain my being at the inn without
betraying the confidence which you and Geoffrey have placed in
me, I wouldn't be away from her another moment. It does grate on
me so! At the same time, I don't want to make your position
harder than it is. Think of yourself f irst. I leave it in your
hands. You have only to say, Wait, by the bearer--and I shall
understand that I am to stay where I am till I hear from you
again."
Anne looked up from the message.
"Ask him to wait," she said; "and I will send word to him again."
"Wi' mony loves and kisses," suggested Mr. Bishopriggs, as a
necessary supplement to the message." Eh! it comes as easy as A.
B. C. to a man o' my experience. Ye can ha' nae better
gae-between than yer puir servant to command, Sawmuel
Bishopriggs. I understand ye baith pairfeckly." He laid his
forefinger along his flaming nose, and withdrew.
Without allowing herself to hesitate for an instant, Anne opened
the bedroom door--with the resolution of relieving Arnold from
the new sacrifice imposed on him by owning the truth.
"Is that you?" asked Blanche.
At the sound of her voice, Anne started back guiltily. "I'll be
with you in a moment," she answered, and closed the door again
between them.
No! it was not to be done. Something in Blanche's trivial
question--or something, perhaps, in the sight of Blanche's
face--roused the warning instinct in Anne, which silenced her on
the very brink of the disclosure. At the last moment the iron
chain of circumstances made itself felt, binding her without
mercy to the hateful, the degrading deceit. Could she own the
truth, about Geoffrey and herself, to Blanche? and, without
owning it, could she explain and justify Arnold's conduct in
joining her privately at Craig Fernie? A shameful confession made
to an innocent girl; a risk of fatally shaking Arnold's place in
Blanche's estimation; a scandal at the inn, in the disgrace of
which the others would be involved with herself--this was the
price at which she must speak, if she followed her first impulse,
and said, in so many words, "Arnold is here."
It was not to be thought of. Cost what it might in present
wretchedness--end how it might, if the deception was discovered
in the future--Blanche must be kept in ignorance of the truth,
Arnold must be kept in hiding until she had gone.
Anne opened the door for the second time, and went in.
The business of the toilet was standing still. Blanche was in
confidential communication with Mrs. Inchbare. At the moment when
Anne entered the room she was eagerly questioning the landlady
about her friend's "invisible husband"--she was just saying, "Do
tell me! what is he like?"
The capacity for accurate observation is a capacity so uncommon,
and is so seldom associated, even where it does exist, with the
equally rare gift of accurately describing the thing or the
person observed, that Anne's dread of the consequences if Mrs.
Inchbare was allowed time to comply with Blanches request, was,
in all probability, a dread misplaced. Right or wrong, however,
the alarm that she felt hurried her into taking measures for
dismissing the landlady on the spot. "We mustn't keep you from
your occupations any longer," she said to Mrs. Inchbare. "I will
give Miss Lundie all the help she needs."
Barred from advancing in one direction, Blanche's curiosity
turned back, and tried in another. She boldly addressed herself
to Anne.
"I _must_ know something about him," she said. "Is he shy before
strangers? I heard you whispering with him on the other side of
the door. Are you jealous, Anne? Are you afraid I shall fascinate
him in this dress?"
Blanche, in Mrs. Inchbare's best gown--an ancient and
high-waisted silk garment, of the hue called "bottle-green,"
pinned up in front, and trailing far behind her--with a short,
orange-colored shawl over her shoulders, and a towel tied turban
fashion round her head, to dry her wet hair, looked at once the
strangest and the prettiest human anomaly that ever was seen.
"For heaven's sake," she said, gayly, "don't tell your husband I
am in Mrs. Inchbare's clothes! I want to appear suddenly, without
a word to warn him of what a figure I am! I should have nothing
left to wish for in this world," she added, " if Arnold could
only see me now!"
Looking in the glass, she noticed Anne's face reflected behind
her, and started at the sight of it.
"What _is_ the matter?" she asked. "Your face frightens me."
It was useless to prolong the pain of the inevitable
misunderstanding between them. The one course to take was to
silence all further inquiries then and there. Strongly as she
felt this, Anne's inbred loyalty to Blanche still shrank from
deceiving her to her face. "I might write it," she thought. "I
can't say it, with Arnold Brinkworth in the same house with her!
"Write it? As she reconsidered the word, a sudden idea struck
her. She opened the bedroom door, and led the way back into the
sitting-room.
"Gone again!" exclaimed Blanche, looking uneasily round the empty
room. "Anne! there's something so strange in all this, that I
neither can, nor will, put up with your silence any longer. It's
not just, it's not kind, to shut me out of your confidence, after
we have lived together like sisters all our lives!"
Anne sighed bitterly, and kissed her on the forehead. "You shall
know all I can tell you--all I _dare_ tell you," she said,
gently. "Don't reproach me. It hurts me more than you think."
She turned away to the side table, and came back with a letter in
her hand. "Read that," she said, and handed it to Blanche.
Blanche saw her own name, on the address, in the handwriting of
Anne.
"What does this mean?" she asked.
"I wrote to you, after Sir Patrick had left me," Anne replied. "I
meant you to have received my letter to-morrow, in time to
prevent any little imprudence into which your anxiety might hurry
you. All that I _can_ say to you is said there. Spare me the
distress of speaking. Read it, Blanche."
Blanche still held the letter, unopened.
"A letter from you to me! when we are both together, and both
alone in the same room! It's worse than formal, Anne! It's as if
there was a quarrel between us. Why should it distress you to
speak to me?"
Anne's eyes dropped to the ground. She pointed to the letter for
the second time.
Blanche broke the seal.
She passed rapidly over the opening sentences, and devoted all
her attention to the second paragraph.
"And now, my love, you will expect me to atone for the surprise
and distress that I have caused you, by explaining what my
situation really is, and by telling you all my plans for the
future. Dearest Blanche! don't think me untrue to the affection
we bear toward each other--don't think there is any change in my
heart toward you--believe only that I am a very unhappy woman,
and that I am in a position which forces me, against my own will,
to be silent about myself. Silent even to you, the sister of my
love--the one person in the world who is dearest to me! A time
may come when I shall be able to open my heart to you. Oh, what
good it will do me! what a relief it will be! For the present, I
must be silent. For the present, we must be parted. God knows
what it costs me to write this. I think of the dear old days that
are gone; I remember how I promised your mother to be a sister to
you, when her kind eyes looked at me, for the last time--_your_
mother, who was an angel from heaven to _ mine!_ All this comes
back on me now, and breaks my heart. But it must be! my own
Blanche, for the present. it must be! I will write often--I will
think of you, my darling, night and day, till a happier future
unites us again. God bless _you,_ my dear one! And God help _
me!"_
Blanche silently crossed the room to the sofa on which Anne was
sitting, and stood there for a moment, looking at her. She sat
down, and laid her head on Anne's shoulder. Sorrowfully and
quietly, she put the letter into her bosom--and took Anne's hand,
and kissed it.
"All my questions are answered, dear. I will wait your time."
It was simply, sweetly, generously said.
Anne burst into tears.
The rain still fell, but the storm was dying away.
Blanche left the sofa, and, going to the window, opened the
shutters to look out at the night. She suddenly came back to
Anne.
"I see lights," she said--"the lights of a carriage coming up out
of the darkness of the moor. They are sending after me, from
Windygates. Go into t he bedroom. It's just possible Lady Lundie
may have come for me herself."
The ordinary relations of the two toward each other were
completely reversed. Anne was like a child in Blanche's hands.
She rose, and withdrew.
Left alone, Blanche took the letter out of her bosom, and read it
again, in the interval of waiting for the carriage.
The second reading confirmed her in a resolution which she had
privately taken, while she had been sitting by Anne on the
sofa--a resolution destined to lead to far more serious results
in the future than any previsions of hers could anticipate. Sir
Patrick was the one person she knew on whose discretion and
experience she could implicitly rely. She determined, in Anne's
own interests, to take her uncle into her confidence, and to tell
him all that had happened at the inn "I'll first make him forgive
me," thought Blanche. "And then I'll see if he thinks as I do,
when I tell him about Anne."
The carriage drew up at the door; and Mrs. Inchbare showed
in--not Lady Lundie, but Lady Lundie's maid.
The woman's account of what had happened at Windygates was simple
enough. Lady Lundie had, as a matter of course, placed the right
interpretation on Blanche's abrupt departure in the pony-chaise,
and had ordered the carriage, with the firm determination of
following her step-daughter herself. But the agitations and
anxieties of the day had proved too much for her. She had been
seized by one of the attacks of giddiness to which she was always
subject after excessive mental irritation; and, eager as she was
(on more accounts than one) to go to the inn herself, she had
been compelled, in Sir Patrick's absence, to commit the pursuit
of Blanche to her own maid, in whose age and good sense she could
place every confidence. The woman seeing the state of the
weather--had thoughtfully brought a box with her, containing a
change of wearing apparel. In offering it to Blanche, she added,
with all due respect, that she had full powers from her mistress
to go on, if necessary, to the shooting-cottage, and to place the
matter in Sir Patrick's hands. This said, she left it to her
young lady to decide for herself, whether she would return to
Windygates, under present circumstances, or not.
Blanche took the box from the woman's hands, and joined Anne in
the bedroom, to dress herself for the drive home.
"I am going back to a good scolding," she said. "But a scolding
is no novelty in my experience of Lady Lundie. I'm not uneasy
about that, Anne--I'm uneasy about you. Can I be sure of one
thing--do you stay here for the present?"
The worst that could happen at the inn _had_ happened. Nothing
was to be gained now--and every thing might be lost--by leaving
the place at which Geoffrey had promised to write to her. Anne
answered that she proposed remaining at the inn for the present.
"You promise to write to me?"
"Yes."
"If there is any thing I can do for you--?"
"There is nothing, my love."
"There may be. If you want to see me, we can meet at Windygates
without being discovered. Come at luncheon-time--go around by the
shrubbery--and step in at the library window. You know as well as
I do there is nobody in the library at that hour. Don't say it's
impossible--you don't know what may happen. I shall wait ten
minutes every day on the chance of seeing you. That's
settled--and it's settled that you write. Before I go, darling,
is there any thing else we can think of for the future?"
At those words Anne suddenly shook off the depression that
weighed on her. She caught Blanche in her arms, she held Blanche
to her bosom with a fierce energy. "Will you always be to me, in
the future, what you are now?" she asked, abruptly. "Or is the
time coming when you will hate me?" She prevented any reply by a
kiss--and pushed Blanche toward the door. "We have had a happy
time together in the years that are gone," she said, with a
farewell wave of her hand. "Thank God for that! And never mind
the rest."
She threw open the bedroom door, and called to the maid, in the
sitting-room. "Miss Lundie is waiting for you." Blanche pressed
her hand, and left her.
Anne waited a while in the bedroom, listening to the sound made
by the departure of the carriage from the inn door. Little by
little, the tramp of the horses and the noise of the rolling
wheels lessened and lessened. When the last faint sounds were
lost in silence she stood for a moment thinking--then, rousing on
a sudden, hurried into the sitting-room, and rang the bell.
"I shall go mad," she said to herself, "if I stay here alone."
Even Mr. Bishopriggs felt the necessity of being silent when he
stood face to face with her on answering the bell.
"I want to speak to him. Send him here instantly."
Mr. Bishopriggs understood her, and withdrew.
Arnold came in.
"Has she gone?" were the first words he said.
"She has gone. She won't suspect you when you see her again. I
have told her nothing. Don't ask me for my reasons!"
"I have no wish to ask you."
"Be angry with me, if you like!"
"I have no wish to be angry with you."
He spoke and looked like an altered man. Quietly seating himself
at the table, he rested his head on his hand--and so remained
silent. Anne was taken completely by surprise. She drew near, and
looked at him curiously. Let a woman's mood be what it may, it is
certain to feel the influence of any change for which she is
unprepared in the manner of a man--when that man interests her.
The cause of this is not to be found in the variableness of her
humor. It is far more probably to be traced to the noble
abnegation of Self, which is one of the grandest--and to the
credit of woman be it said--one of the commonest virtues of the
sex. Little by little, the sweet feminine charm of Anne's face
came softly and sadly back. The inbred nobility of the woman's
nature answered the call which the man had unconsciously made on
it. She touched Arnold on the shoulder.
"This has been hard on _you,_" she said. "And I am to blame for
it. Try and forgive me, Mr. Brinkworth. I am sincerely sorry. I
wish with all my heart I could comfort you!"
"Thank you, Miss Silvester. It was not a very pleasant feeling,
to be hiding from Blanche as if I was afraid of her--and it's set
me thinking, I suppose, for the first time in my life. Never
mind. It's all over now. Can I do any thing for you?"
"What do you propose doing to-night?"
"What I have proposed doing all along--my duty by Geoffrey. I
have promised him to see you through your difficulties here, and
to provide for your safety till he comes back. I can only make
sure of doing that by keeping up appearances, and staying in the
sitting-room to-night. When we next meet it will be under
pleasanter circumstances, I hope. I shall always be glad to think
that I was of some service to you. In the mean time I shall be
most likely away to-morrow morning before you are up."
Anne held out her hand to take leave. Nothing could undo what had
been done. The time for warning and remonstrance had passed away.
"You have not befriended an ungrateful woman," she said. "The day
may yet come, Mr. Brinkworth, when I shall prove it."
"I hope not, Miss Silvester. Good-by, and good luck!"
She withdrew into her own room. Arnold locked the sitting-room
door, and stretched himself on the sofa for the night.
The morning was bright, the air was delicious after the storm.
Arnold had gone, as he had promised, before Anne was out of her
room. It was understood at the inn that important business had
unexpectedly called him south. Mr. Bishopriggs had been presented
with a handsome gratuity; and Mrs. Inchbare had been informed
that the rooms were taken for a week certain.
In every quarter but one the march of events had now, to all
appearance, fallen back into a quiet course. Arnold was on his
way to his estate; Blanche was safe at Windygates; Anne's
residence at the inn was assured for a week to come. The one
present doubt was the doubt which hung over Geoffrey's movements.
The one event still involved in darkness turned on the question
of life or death waiting for solution in London--otherwise, the
question of Lord Holchester's health. Taken by i tself, the
alternative, either way, was plain enough. If my lord
lived--Geoffrey would he free to come back, and marry her
privately in Scotland. If my lord died--Geoffrey would be free to
send for her, and marry her publicly in London. But could
Geoffrey be relied on?
Anne went out on to the terrace-ground in front of the inn. The
cool morning breeze blew steadily. Towering white clouds sailed
in grand procession over the heavens, now obscuring, and now
revealing the sun. Yellow light and purple shadow chased each
other over the broad brown surface of the moor--even as hope and
fear chased each other over Anne's mind, brooding on what might
come to her with the coming time.
She turned away, weary of questioning the impenetrable future,
and went back to the inn.
Crossing the hall she looked at the clock. It was past the hour
when the train from Perthshire was due in London. Geoffrey and
his brother were, at that moment, on their way to Lord
Holchester's house.
THIRD SCENE.--LONDON.
CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.
GEOFFREY AS A LETTER-WRITER.
LORD HOLCHESTER'S servants--with the butler at their head--were
on the look-out for Mr. Julius Delamayn's arrival from Scotland.
The appearance of the two brothers together took the whole
domestic establishment by surprise. Inquiries were addressed to
the butler by Julius; Geoffrey standing by, and taking no other
than a listener's part in the proceedings.
"Is my father alive?"
"His lordship, I am rejoiced to say, has astonished the doctors,
Sir. He rallied last night in the most wonderful way. If things
go on for the next eight-and-forty hours as they are going now,
my lord's recovery is considered certain."
"What was the illness?"
"A paralytic stroke, Sir. When her ladyship telegraphed to you in
Scotland the doctors had given his lordship up."
"Is my mother at home?"
"Her ladyship is at home to _you,_, Sir."'
The butler laid a special emphasis on the personal pronoun.
Julius turned to his brother. The change for the better in the
state of Lord Holchester's health made Geoffrey's position, at
that moment, an embarrassing one. He had been positively
forbidden to enter the house. His one excuse for setting that
prohibitory sentence at defiance rested on the assumption that
his father was actually dying. As matters now stood, Lord
Holchester's order remained in full force. The under-servants in
the hall (charged to obey that order as they valued their places)
looked from "Mr. Geoffrey" to the butler, The butler looked from
"Mr. Geoffrey" to "Mr. Julius." Julius looked at his brother.
There was an awkward pause. The position of the second son was
the position of a wild beast in the house--a creature to be got
rid of, without risk to yourself, if you only knew how.
Geoffrey spoke, and solved the problem
"Open the door, one of you fellows," he said to the footmen. "I'm
off."
"Wait a minute," interposed his brother. "It will be a sad
disappointment to my mother to know that you have been here, and
gone away again without seeing her. These are no ordinary
circumstances, Geoffrey. Come up stairs with me--I'll take it on
myself."
"I'm blessed if I take it on _my_self!" returned Geoffrey. "Open
the door!"
"Wait here, at any rate," pleaded Julius, "till I can send you
down a message."
"Send your message to Nagle's Hotel. I'm at home at Nagle's--I'm
not at home here."
At that point the discussion was interrupted by the appearance of
a little terrier in the hall. Seeing strangers, the dog began to
bark. Perfect tranquillity in the house had been absolutely
insisted on by the doctors; and the servants, all trying together
to catch the animal and quiet him, simply aggravated the noise he
was making. Geoffrey solved this problem also in his own decisive
way. He swung round as the dog was passing him, and kicked it
with his heavy boot. The little creature fell on the spot,
whining piteously. "My lady's pet dog!" exclaimed the butler.
"You've broken its ribs, Sir." "I've broken it of barking, you
mean," retorted Geoffrey. "Ribs be hanged!" He turned to his
brother. "That settles it," he said, jocosely. "I'd better defer
the pleasure of calling on dear mamma till the next opportunity.
Ta-ta, Julius. You know where to find me. Come, and dine. We'll
give you a steak at Nagle's that will make a man of you."
He went out. The tall footmen eyed his lordship's second son with
unaffected respect. They had seen him, in public, at the annual
festival of the Christian-Pugilistic-Association, with "the
gloves" on. He could have beaten the biggest man in the hall
within an inch of his life in three minutes. The porter bowed as
he threw open the door. The whole interest and attention of the
domestic establishment then present was concentrated on Geoffrey.
Julius went up stairs to his mother without attracting the
slightest notice.
The month was August. The streets were empty. The vilest breeze
that blows--a hot east wind in London--was the breeze abroad on
that day. Even Geoffrey appeared to feel the influence of the
weather as the cab carried him from his father's door to the
hotel. He took off his hat, and unbuttoned his waistcoat, and lit
his everlasting pipe, and growled and grumbled between his teeth
in the intervals of smoking. Was it only the hot wind that wrung
from him these demonstrations of discomfort? Or was there some
secret anxiety in his mind which assisted the depressing
influences of the day? There was a secret anxiety in his mind.
And the name of it was--Anne.
As things actually were at that moment, what course was he to
take with the unhappy woman who was waiting to hear from him at
the Scotch inn?
To write? or not to write? That was the question with Geoffrey.
The preliminary difficulty, relating to addressing a letter to
Anne at the inn, had been already provided for. She had
decided--if it proved necessary to give her name, before Geoffrey
joined her--to call herself Mrs., instead of Miss, Silvester. A
letter addressed to "Mrs. Silvester" might be trusted to find its
way to her without causing any embarrassment. The doubt was not
here. The doubt lay, as usual, between two alternatives. Which
course would it be wisest to take?--to inform Anne, by that day's
post, that an interval of forty-eight hours must elapse before
his father's recovery could be considered certain? Or to wait
till the interval was over, and be guided by the result?
Considering the alternatives in the cab, he decided that the wise
course was to temporize with Anne, by reporting matters as they
then stood.
Arrived at the hotel, he sat down to write the
letter--doubted--and tore it up--doubted again--and began
again--doubted once more--and tore up the second letter--rose to
his feet--and owned to himself (in unprintable language) that he
couldn't for the life of him decide which was safest--to write or
to wait.
In this difficulty, his healthy physical instincts sent him to
healthy physical remedies for relief. "My mind's in a muddle,"
said Geoffrey. "I'll try a bath."
It was an elaborate bath, proceeding through many rooms, and
combining many postures and applications. He steamed. He plunged.
He simmered. He stood under a pipe, and received a cataract of
cold water on his head. He was laid on his back; he was laid on
his stomach; he was respectfully pounded and kneaded, from head
to foot, by the knuckles of accomplished practitioners. He came
out of it all, sleek, clear rosy, beautiful. He returned to the
hotel, and took up the writing materials--and behold the
intolerable indecision seized him again, declining to be washed
out! This time he laid it all to Anne. "That infernal woman will
be the ruin of me," said Geoffrey, taking up his hat. "I must try
the dumb-bells."
The pursuit of the new remedy for stimulating a sluggish brain
took him to a public house, kept by the professional pedestrian
who had the honor of training him when he contended at Athletic
Sports.
"A private room and the dumb-bells!" cried Geoffrey. "The
heaviest you have got."
He stripped himself of his upper clothing, and set to work, with
the heavy weights in each hand, waving them up and down, and
backward and forward, in every attainable variety o f movement,
till his magnificent muscles seemed on the point of starting
through his sleek skin. Little by little his animal spirits
roused themselves. The strong exertion intoxicated the strong
man. In sheer excitement he swore cheerfully--invoking thunder
and lightning, explosion and blood, in return for the compliments
profusely paid to him by the pedestrian and the pedestrian's son.
"Pen, ink, and paper!" he roared, when he could use the
dumb-bells no longer. "My mind's made up; I'll write, and have
done with it!" He sat down to his writing on the spot; actually
finished the letter; another minute would have dispatched it to
the post--and, in that minute, the maddening indecision took
possession of him once more. He opened the letter again, read it
over again, and tore it up again. "I'm out of my mind!" cried
Geoffrey, fixing his big bewildered blue eyes fiercely on the
professor who trained him. "Thunder and lightning! Explosion and
blood! Send for Crouch."
Crouch (known and respected wherever English manhood is known and
respected) was a retired prize-fighter. He appeared with the
third and last remedy for clearing the mind known to the
Honorable Geoffrey Delamayn--namely, two pair of boxing-gloves in
a carpet-bag.
The gentleman and the prize-fighter put on the gloves, and faced
each other in the classically correct posture of pugilistic
defense. "None of your play, mind!" growled Geoffrey. "Fight, you
beggar, as if you were in the Ring again with orders to win." No
man knew better than the great and terrible Crouch what real
fighting meant, and what heavy blows might be given even with
such apparently harmless weapons as stuffed and padded gloves. He
pretended, and only pretended, to comply with his patron's
request. Geoffrey rewarded him for his polite forbearance by
knocking him down. The great and terrible rose with unruffled
composure. "Well hit, Sir!" he said. "Try it with the other hand
now." Geoffrey's temper was not under similar control. Invoking
everlasting destruction on the frequently-blackened eyes of
Crouch, he threatened instant withdrawal of his patronage and
support unless the polite pugilist hit, then and there, as hard
as he could. The hero of a hundred fights quailed at the dreadful
prospect. "I've got a family to support," remarked Crouch. "If
you _will_ have it, Sir--there it is!" The fall of Geoffrey
followed, and shook the house. He was on his legs again in an
instant--not satisfied even yet. "None of your body-hitting!" he
roared. "Stick to my head. Thunder and lightning! explosion and
blood! Knock it out of me! Stick to the head!" Obedient Crouch
stuck to the head. The two gave and took blows which would have
stunned--possibly have killed--any civilized member of the
community. Now on one side of his patron's iron skull, and now on
the other, the hammering of the prize-fighter's gloves fell,
thump upon thump, horrible to hear--until even Geoffrey himself
had had enough of it. "Thank you, Crouch," he said, speaking
civilly to the man for the first time. "That will do. I feel nice
and clear again." He shook his head two or three times, he was
rubbed down like a horse by the professional runner; he drank a
mighty draught of malt liquor; he recovered his good-humor as if
by magic. "Want the pen and ink, Sir?" inquired his pedestrian
host. "Not I!" answered Geoffrey. "The muddle's out of me now.
Pen and ink be hanged! I shall look up some of our fellows, and
go to the play." He left the public house in the happiest
condition of mental calm. Inspired by the stimulant application
of Crouch's gloves, his torpid cunning had been shaken up into
excellent working order at last. Write to Anne? Who but a fool
would write to such a woman as that until he was forced to it?
Wait and see what the chances of the next eight-and-forty hours
might bring forth, and then write to her, or desert her, as the
event might decide. It lay in a nut-shell, if you could only see
it. Thanks to Crouch, he did see it--and so away in a pleasant
temper for a dinner with "our fellows" and an evening at the
play!
CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH.
GEOFFREY IN THE MARRIAGE MARKET.
THE interval of eight-and-forty hours passed--without the
occurrence of any personal communication between the two brothers
in that time.
Julius, remaining at his father's house, sent brief written
bulletins of Lord Holchester's health to his brother at the
hotel. The first bulletin said, "Going on well. Doctors
satisfied." The second was firmer in tone. "Going on excellently.
Doctors very sanguine." The third was the most explicit of all.
"I am to see my father in an hour from this. The doctors answer
for his recovery. Depend on my putting in a good word for you, if
I can; and wait to hear from me further at the hotel."
Geoffrey's face darkened as he read the third bulletin. He called
once more for the hated writing materials. There could be no
doubt now as to the necessity of communicating with Anne. Lord
Holchester's recovery had put him back again in the same critical
position which he had occupied at Windygates. To keep Anne from
committing some final act of despair, which would connect him
with a public scandal, and ruin him so far as his expectations
from his father were concerned, was, once more, the only safe
policy that Geoffrey could pursue. His letter began and ended in
twenty words:
"DEAR ANNE,--Have only just heard that my father is turning the
corner. Stay where you are. Will write again."
Having dispatched this Spartan composition by the post, Geoffrey
lit his pipe, and waited the event of the interview between Lord
Holchester and his eldest son.
Julius found his father alarmingly altered in personal
appearance, but in full possession of his faculties nevertheless.
Unable to return the pressure of his son's hand--unable even to
turn in the bed without help--the hard eye of the old lawyer was
as keen, the hard mind of the old lawyer was as clear, as ever.
His grand ambition was to see Julius in Parliament. Julius was
offering himself for election in Perthshire, by his father's
express desire, at that moment. Lord Holchester entered eagerly
into politics before his eldest son had been two minutes by his
bedside.
"Much obliged, Julius, for your congratulations. Men of my sort
are not easily killed. (Look at Brougham and Lyndhurst!) You
won't be called to the Upper House yet. You will begin in the
House of Commons--precisely as I wished. What are your prospects
with the constituency? Tell me exactly how you stand, and where I
can be of use to you."
"Surely, Sir, you are hardly recovered enough to enter on matters
of business yet?"
"I am quite recovered enough. I want some present interest to
occupy me. My thoughts are beginning to drift back to past times,
and to things which are better forgotten." A sudden contraction
crossed his livid face. He looked hard at his son, and entered
abruptly on a new question. "Julius!" he resumed, "have you ever
heard of a young woman named Anne Silvester?"
Julius answered in the negative. He and his wife had exchanged
cards with Lady Lundie, and had excused themselves from accepting
her invitation to the lawn-party. With the exception of Blanche,
they were both quite ignorant of the persons who composed the
family circle at Windygates.
"Make a memorandum of the name," Lord Holchester went on. "Anne
Silvester. Her father and mother are dead. I knew her father in
former times. Her mother was ill-used. It was a bad business. I
have been thinking of it again, for the first time for many
years. If the girl is alive and about the world she may remember
our family name. Help her, Julius, if she ever wants help, and
applies to you." The painful contraction passed across his face
once more. Were his thoughts taking him back to the memorable
summer evening at the Hampstead villa? Did he see the deserted
woman swooning at his feet again? "About your election?" he
asked, impatiently. "My mind is not used to be idle. Give it
something to do."
Julius stated his position as plainly and as briefly as he could.
The father found nothing to object to in the report--except the
son's absence from the field of action. He blamed Lady H
olchester for summoning Julius to London. He was annoyed at his
son's being there, at the bedside, when he ought to have been
addressing the electors. "It's inconvenient, Julius," he said,
petulantly. "Don't you see it yourself?"
Having previously arranged with his mother to take the first
opportunity that offered of risking a reference to Geoffrey,
Julius decided to "see it" in a light for which his father was
not prepared. The opportunity was before him. He took it on the
spot.
"It is no inconvenience to me, Sir," he replied, "and it is no
inconvenience to my brother either. Geoffrey was anxious about
you too. Geoffrey has come to London with me."
Lord Holchester looked at his eldest son with a grimly-satirical
expression of surprise.
"Have I not already told you," he rejoined, "that my mind is not
affected by my illness? Geoffrey anxious about me! Anxiety is one
of the civilized emotions. Man in his savage state is incapable
of feeling it."
"My brother is not a savage, Sir."
"His stomach is generally full, and his skin is covered with
linen and cloth, instead of red ochre and oil. So far, certainly,
your brother is civilized. In all other respects your brother is
a savage."
"I know what you mean, Sir. But there is something to be said for
Geoffrey's way of life. He cultivates his courage and his
strength. Courage and strength are fine qualities, surely, in
their way?"
"Excellent qualities, as far as they go. If you want to know how
far that is, challenge Geoffrey to write a sentence of decent
English, and see if his courage doesn't fail him there. Give him
his books to read for his degree, and, strong as he is, he will
be taken ill at the sight of them. You wish me to see your
brother. Nothing will induce me to see him, until his way of life
(as you call it) is altered altogether. I have but one hope of
its ever being altered now. It is barely possible that the
influence of a sensible woman--possessed of such advantages of
birth and fortune as may compel respect, even from a
savage--might produce its effect on Geoffrey. If he wishes to
find his way back into this house, let him find his way back into
good society first, and bring me a daughter-in-law to plead his
cause for him--whom his mother and I can respect and receive.
When that happens, I shall begin to have some belief in Geoffrey.
Until it does happen, don't introduce your brother into any
future conversations which you may have with Me. To return to
your election. I have some advice to give you before you go back.
You will do well to go back to-night. Lift me up on the pillow. I
shall speak more easily with my head high."
His son lifted him on the pillows, and once more entreated him to
spare himself.
It was useless. No remonstrances shook the iron resolution of the
man who had hewed his way through the rank and file of political
humanity to his own high place apart from the rest. Helpless,
ghastly, snatched out of the very jaws of death, there he lay,
steadily distilling the clear common-sense which had won him all
his worldly rewards into the mind of his son. Not a hint was
missed, not a caution was forgotten, that could guide Julius
safely through the miry political ways which he had trodden so
safely and so dextrously himself. An hour more had passed before
the impenetrable old man closed his weary eyes, and consented to
take his nourishment and compose himself to rest. His last words,
rendered barely articulate by exhaustion, still sang the praises
of party manoeuvres and political strife. "It's a grand career! I
miss the House of Commons, Julius, as I miss nothing else!"
Left free to pursue his own thoughts, and to guide his own
movements, Julius went straight from Lord Holchester's bedside to
Lady Holchester's boudoir.
"Has your father said any thing about Geoffrey?" was his mother's
first question as soon as he entered the room.
"My father gives Geoffrey a last chance, if Geoffrey will only
take it."
Lady Holchester's face clouded. "I know," she said, with a look
of disappointment. "His last chance is to read for his degree.
Hopeless, my dear. Quite hopeless! If it had only been something
easier than that; something that rested with me--"
"It does rest with you," interposed Julius. "My dear mother!--can
you believe it?--Geoffrey's last chance is (in one word)
Marriage!"
"Oh, Julius! it's too good to be true!"
Julius repeated his father's own words. Lady Holchester looked
twenty years younger as she listened. When he had done she rang
the bell.
"No matter who calls," she said to the servant, "I am not at
home." She turned to Julius, kissed him, and made a place for him
on the sofa by her side. "Geoffrey shall take _that_ chance," she
said, gayly--"I will answer for it! I have three women in my
mind, any one of whom would suit him. Sit down, my dear, and let
us consider carefully which of the three will be most likely to
attract Geoffrey, and to come up to your father's standard of
what his daughter-in-law ought to be. When we have decided, don't
trust to writing. Go yourself and see Geoffrey at his hotel."
Mother and son entered on their consultation--and innocently
sowed the seeds of a terrible harvest to come.
CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH.
GEOFFREY AS A PUBLIC CHARACTER.
TIME had advanced to after noon before the selection of
Geoffrey's future wife was accomplished, and before the
instructions of Geoffrey's brother were complete enough to
justify the opening of the matrimonial negotiation at Nagle's
Hotel.
"Don't leave him till you have got his promise," were Lady
Holchester's last words when her son started on his mission.
"If Geoffrey doesn't jump at what I am going to offer him," was
the son's reply, "I shall agree with my father that the case is
hopeless; and I shall end, like my father, in giving Geoffrey
up."
This was strong language for Julius to use. It was not easy to
rouse the disciplined and equable temperament of Lord
Holchester's eldest son. No two men were ever more thoroughly
unlike each other than these two brothers. It is melancholy to
acknowledge it of the blood relation of a "stroke oar," but it
must be owned, in the interests of truth, that Julius cultivated
his intelligence. This degenerate Briton could digest books--and
couldn't digest beer. Could learn languages--and couldn't learn
to row. Practiced the foreign vice of perfecting himself in the
art of playing on a musical instrument and couldn't learn the
English virtue of knowing a good horse when he saw him. Got
through life. (Heaven only knows how!) without either a biceps or
a betting-book. Had openly acknowledged, in English society, that
he didn't think the barking of a pack of hounds the finest music
in the world. Could go to foreign parts, and see a mountain which
nobody had ever got to the top of yet--and didn't instantly feel
his honor as an Englishman involved in getting to the top of it
himself. Such people may, and do, exist among the inferior races
of the Continent. Let us thank Heaven, Sir, that England never
has been, and never will be, the right place for them!
Arrived at Nagle's Hotel, and finding nobody to inquire of in the
hall, Julius applied to the young lady who sat behind the window
of "the bar." The young lady was reading something so deeply
interesting in the evening newspaper that she never even heard
him. Julius went into the coffee-room.
The waiter, in his corner, was absorbed over a second newspaper.
Three gentlemen, at three different tables, were absorbed in a
third, fourth, and fifth newspaper. They all alike went on with
their reading without noticing the entrance of the stranger.
Julius ventured on disturbing the waiter by asking for Mr.
Geoffrey Delamayn. At the sound of that illustrious name the
waiter looked up with a start. "Are you Mr. Delamayn's brother,
Sir?"
"Yes."
The three gentlemen at the tables looked up with a start. The
light of Geoffrey's celebrity fell, reflected, on Geoffrey's
brother, and made a public character of him.
"You'll find Mr. Geoffrey, Sir," said the waiter, in a flurried,
excited manner, "at the Cock and Bottle, Putney."
"I expected to find him here. I had an appointment with him at
this hotel."
The wait er opened his eyes on Julius with an expression of blank
astonishment. "Haven't you heard the news, Sir?"
"No!"
"God bless my soul!" exclaimed the waiter--and offered the
newspaper.
"God bless my soul!" exclaimed the three gentlemen--and offered
the three newspapers.
"What is it?" asked Julius.
"What is it?" repeated the waiter, in a hollow voice. "The most
dreadful thing that's happened in my time. It's all up, Sir, with
the great Foot-Race at Fulham. Tinkler has gone stale."
The three gentlemen dropped solemnly back into their three
chairs, and repeated the dreadful intelligence, in
chorus--"Tinkler has gone stale."
A man who stands face to face with a great national disaster, and
who doesn't understand it, is a man who will do wisely to hold
his tongue and enlighten his mind without asking other people to
help him. Julius accepted the waiter's newspaper, and sat down to
make (if possible) two discoveries: First, as to whether
"Tinkler" did, or did not, mean a man. Second, as to what
particular form of human affliction you implied when you
described that man as "gone stale."
There was no difficulty in finding the news. It was printed in
the largest type, and was followed by a personal statement of the
facts, taken one way--which was followed, in its turn, by another
personal statement of the facts, taken in another way. More
particulars, and further personal statements, were promised in
later editions. The royal salute of British journalism thundered
the announcement of Tinkler's staleness before a people prostrate
on the national betting book.
Divested of exaggeration, the facts were few enough and simple
enough. A famous Athletic Association of the North had challenged
a famous Athletic Association of the South. The usual "Sports"
were to take place--such as running, jumping, "putting" the
hammer, throwing cricket-balls, and the like--and the whole was
to wind up with a Foot-Race of unexampled length and difficulty
in the annals of human achievement between the two best men on
either side. "Tinkler" was the best man on the side of the South.
"Tinkler" was backed in innumerable betting-books to win. And
Tinkler's lungs had suddenly given way under stress of training!
A prospect of witnessing a prodigious achievement in foot-racing,
and (more important still) a prospect of winning and losing large
sums of money, was suddenly withdrawn from the eyes of the
British people. The "South" could produce no second opponent
worthy of the North out of its own associated resources.
Surveying the athletic world in general, but one man existed who
might possibly replace "Tinkler"--and it was doubtful, in the
last degree, whether he would consent to come forward under the
circumstances. The name of that man--Julius read it with
horror--was Geoffrey Delamayn.
Profound silence reigned in the coffee-room. Julius laid down the
newspaper, and looked about him. The waiter was busy, in his
corner, with a pencil and a betting-book. The three gentlemen
were busy, at the three tables, with pencils and betting-books.
"Try and persuade him!" said the waiter, piteously, as Delamayn's
brother rose to leave the room.
"Try and persuade him!" echoed the three gentlemen, as Delamayn's
brother opened the door and went out.
Julius called a cab. and told the driver (busy with a pencil and
a betting-book) to go to the Cock and Bottle, Putney. The man
brightened into a new being at the prospect. No need to hurry
him; he drove, unasked, at the top of his horse's speed.
As the cab drew near to its destination the signs of a great
national excitement appeared, and multiplied. The lips of a
people pronounced, with a grand unanimity, the name of "Tinkler."
The heart of a people hung suspended (mostly in the public
houses) on the chances for and against the possibility of
replacing "Tinkler" by another man. The scene in front of the inn
was impressive in the highest degree. Even the London blackguard
stood awed and quiet in the presence of the national calamity.
Even the irrepressible man with the apron, who always turns up to
sell nuts and sweetmeats in a crowd, plied his trade in silence,
and found few indeed (to the credit of the nation be it spoken)
who had the heart to crack a nut at such a time as this. The
police were on the spot, in large numbers, and in mute sympathy
with the people, touching to see. Julius, on being stopped at the
door, mentioned his name--and received an ovation. His brother!
oh, heavens, his brother! The people closed round him, the people
shook hands with him, the people invoked blessings on his head.
Julius was half suffocated, when the police rescued him, and
landed him safe in the privileged haven on the inner side of the
public house door. A deafening tumult broke out, as he entered,
from the regions above stairs. A distant voice screamed, "Mind
yourselves!" A hatless shouting man tore down through the people
congregated on the stairs. "Hooray! Hooray! He's promised to do
it! He's entered for the race!" Hundreds on hundreds of voices
took up the cry. A roar of cheering burst from the people
outside. Reporters for the newspapers raced, in frantic
procession, out of the inn, and rushed into cabs to put the news
in print. The hand of the landlord, leading Julius carefully up
stairs by the arm, trembled with excitement. "His brother,
gentlemen! his brother!" At those magic words a lane was made
through the throng. At those magic words the closed door of the
council-chamber flew open; and Julius found himself among the
Athletes of his native country, in full parliament assembled. Is
any description of them needed? The description of Geoffrey
applies to them all. The manhood and muscle of England resemble
the wool and mutton of England, in this respect, that there is
about as much variety in a flock of athletes as in a flock of
sheep. Julius looked about him, and saw the same man in the same
dress, with the same health, strength, tone, tastes, habits,
conversation, and pursuits, repeated infinitely in every part of
the room. The din was deafening; the enthusiasm (to an
uninitiated stranger) something at once hideous and terrifying to
behold. Geoffrey had been lifted bodily on to the table, in his
chair, so as to be visible to the whole room. They sang round
him, they danced round him, they cheered round him, they swore
round him. He was hailed, in mandlin terms of endearment, by
grateful giants with tears in their eyes. "Dear old man!"
"Glorious, noble, splendid, beautiful fellow!" They hugged him.
They patted him on the back. They wrung his hands. They prodded
and punched his muscles. They embraced the noble legs that were
going to run the unexampled race. At the opposite end of the
room, where it was physically impossible to get near the hero,
the enthusiasm vented itself in feats of strength and acts of
destruction. Hercules I. cleared a space with his elbows, and
laid down--and Hercules II. took him up in his teeth. Hercules
III. seized the poker from the fireplace, and broke it on his
arm. Hercules IV. followed with the tongs, and shattered them on
his neck. The smashing of the furniture and the pulling down of
the house seemed likely to succeed--when Geoffrey's eye lighted
by accident on Julius, and Geoffrey's voice, calling fiercely for
his brother, hushed the wild assembly into sudden attention, and
turned the fiery enthusiasm into a new course. Hooray for his
brother! One, two, three--and up with his brother on our
shoulders! Four five, six--and on with his brother, over our
heads, to the other end of the room! See, boys--see! the hero has
got him by the collar! the hero has lifted him on the table! The
hero heated red-hot with his own triumph, welcomes the poor
little snob cheerfully, with a volley of oaths. "Thunder and
lightning! Explosion and blood! What's up now, Julius? What's up
now?"
Julius recovered his breath, and arranged his coat. The quiet
little man, who had just muscle enough to lift a dictionary from
the shelf, and just training enough to play the fiddle, so far
from being daunted by the rough reception accorded to him,
appeared to feel no other sentiment in relation to it than a
sentiment of unmitigated conte mpt.
"You're not frightened, are you?" said Geoffrey. "Our fellows are
a roughish lot, but they mean well."
"I am not frightened," answered Julius. "I am only
wondering--when the Schools and Universities of England turn out
such a set of ruffians as these--how long the Schools and
Universities of England will last."
"Mind what you are about, Julius! They'll cart you out of window
if they hear you."
"They will only confirm my opinion of them, Geoffrey, if they
do."
Here the assembly, seeing but not hearing the colloquy between
the two brothers, became uneasy on the subject of the coming
race. A roar of voices summoned Geoffrey to announce it, if there
was any thing wrong. Having pacified the meeting, Geoffrey turned
again to his brother, and asked him, in no amiable mood, what the
devil he wanted there?
"I want to tell you something, before I go back to Scotland,"
answered Julius. "My father is willing to give you a last chance.
If you don't take it, _my_ doors are closed against you as well
as _his._"
Nothing is more remarkable, in its way, than the sound
common-sense and admirable self-restraint exhibited by the youth
of the present time when confronted by an emergency in which
their own interests are concerned. Instead of resenting the tone
which his brother had taken with him, Geoffrey instantly
descended from the pedestal of glory on which he stood, and
placed himself without a struggle in the hands which vicariously
held his destiny--otherwise, the hands which vicariously held the
purse. In five minutes more the meeting had been dismissed, with
all needful assurances relating to Geoffrey's share in the coming
Sports--and the two brothers were closeted together in one of the
private rooms of the inn.
"Out with it!" said Geoffrey. "And don't be long about it."
"I won't be five minutes," replied Julius. "I go back to-night by
the mail-train; and I have a great deal to do in the mean time.
Here it is, in plain words: My father consents to see you again,
if you choose to settle in life--with his approval. And my mother
has discovered where you may find a wife. Birth, beauty, and
money are all offered to you. Take them--and you recover your
position as Lord Holchester's son. Refuse them--and you go to
ruin your own way."
Geoffrey's reception of the news from home was not of the most
reassuring kind. Instead of answering he struck his fist
furiously on the table, and cursed with all his heart some absent
woman unnamed.
"I have nothing to do with any degrading connection which you may
have formed," Julius went on. "I have only to put the matter
before you exactly as it stands, and to leave you to decide for
yourself. The lady in question was formerly Miss Newenden--a
descendant of one of the oldest families in England. She is now
Mrs. Glenarm--the young widow (and the childless widow) of the
great iron-master of that name. Birth and fortune--she unites
both. Her income is a clear ten thousand a year. My father can
and will, make it fifteen thousand, if you are lucky enough to
persuade her to marry you. My mother answers for her personal
qualities. And my wife has met her at our house in London. She is
now, as I hear, staying with some friends in Scotland; and when I
get back I will take care that an invitation is sent to her to
pay her next visit at my house. It remains, of course, to be seen
whether you are fortunate enough to produce a favorable
impression on her. In the mean time you will be doing every thing
that my father can ask of you, if you make the attempt."
Geoffrey impatiently dismissed that part of the question from all
consideration.
"If she don't cotton to a man who's going to run in the Great
Race at Fulham," he said, "there are plenty as good as she is who
will! That's not the difficulty. Bother _that!_"
"I tell you again, I have nothing to do with your difficulties,"
Julius resumed. "Take the rest of the day to consider what I have
said to you. If you decide to accept the proposal, I shall expect
you to prove you are in earnest by meeting me at the station
to-night. We will travel back to Scotland together. You will
complete your interrupted visit at Lady Lundie's (it is
important, in my interests, that you should treat a person of her
position in the county with all due respect); and my wife will
make the necessary arrangements with Mrs. Glenarm, in
anticipation of your return to our house. There is nothing more
to be said, and no further necessity of my staying here. If you
join me at the station to-night, your sister-in-law and I will do
all we can to help you. If I travel back to Scotland alone, don't
trouble yourself to follow--I have done with you." He shook hands
with his brother, and went out.
Left alone, Geoffrey lit his pipe and sent for the landlord.
"Get me a boat. I shall scull myself up the river for an hour or
two. And put in some towels. I may take a swim."
The landlord received the order--with a caution addressed to his
illustrious guest.
"Don't show yourself in front of the house, Sir! If you let the
people see you, they're in such a state of excitement, the police
won't answer for keeping them in order."
"All right. I'll go out by the back way."
He took a turn up and down the room. What were the difficulties
to be overcome before he could profit by the golden prospect
which his brother had offered to him? The Sports? No! The
committee had promised to defer the day, if he wished it--and a
month's training, in his physical condition, would be amply
enough for him. Had he any personal objection to trying his luck
with Mrs. Glenarm? Not he! Any woman would do--provided his
father was satisfied, and the money was all right. The obstacle
which was really in his way was the obstacle of the woman whom he
had ruined. Anne! The one insuperable difficulty was the
difficulty of dealing with Anne.
"We'll see how it looks," he said to himself, "after a pull up
the river!"
The landlord and the police inspector smugled him out by the back
way unknown to the expectant populace in front The two men stood
on the river-bank admiring him, as he pulled away from them, with
his long, powerful, easy, beautiful stroke.
"That's what I call the pride and flower of England!" said the
inspector. "Has the betting on him begun?"
"Six to four," said the landlord, "and no takers."
Julius went early to the station that night. His mother was very
anxious. "Don't let Geoffrey find an excuse in your example," she
said, "if he is late."
The first person whom Julius saw on getting out of the carriage
was Geoffrey--with his ticket taken, and his portmanteau in
charge of the guard.
FOURTH SCENE.--WINDYGATES.
CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH
NEAR IT.
THE Library at Windygates was the largest and the handsomest room
in the house. The two grand divisions under which Literature is
usually arranged in these days occupied the customary places in
it. On the shelves which ran round the walls were the books which
humanity in general respects--and does not read. On the tables
distributed over the floor were the books which humanity in
general reads--and does not respect. In the first class, the
works of the wise ancients; and the Histories, Biographies, and
Essays of writers of more modern times--otherwise the Solid
Literature, which is universally respected, and occasionally
read. In the second class, the Novels of our own day--otherwise
the Light Literature, which is universally read, and occasionally
respected. At Windygates, as elsewhere, we believed History to be
high literature, because it assumed to be true to Authorities (of
which we knew little)--and Fiction to be low literature, because
it attempted to be true to Nature (of which we knew less). At
Windygates as elsewhere, we were always more or less satisfied
with ourselves, if we were publicly discovered consulting our
History--and more or less ashamed of ourselves, if we were
publicly discovered devouring our Fiction. An architectural
peculiarity in the original arrangement of the library favored
the development of this common and curious form of human
stupidity. While a row of luxurious arm-chairs, in the main
thoroughfare of the room, invited the reader of solid lit erature
to reveal himself in the act of cultivating a virtue, a row of
snug little curtained recesses, opening at intervals out of one
of the walls, enabled the reader of light literature to conceal
himself in the act of indulging a vice. For the rest, all the
minor accessories of this spacious and tranquil place were as
plentiful and as well chosen as the heart could desire. And solid
literature and light literature, and great writers and small,
were all bounteously illuminated alike by a fine broad flow of
the light of heaven, pouring into the room through windows that
opened to the floor.
It was the fourth day from the day of Lady Lundie's garden-party,
and it wanted an hour or more of the time at which the
luncheon-bell usually rang.
The guests at Windygates were most of them in the garden,
enjoying the morning sunshine, after a prevalent mist and rain
for some days past. Two gentlemen (exceptions to the general
rule) were alone in the library. They were the two last gentlemen
in the would who could possibly be supposed to have any
legitimate motive for meeting each other in a place of literary
seclusion. One was Arnold Brinkworth, and the other was Geoffrey
Delamayn.
They had arrived together at Windygates that morning. Geoffrey
had traveled from London with his brother by the train of the
previous night. Arnold, delayed in getting away at his own time,
from his own property, by ceremonies incidental to his position
which were not to be abridged without giving offense to many
worthy people--had caught the passing train early that morning at
the station nearest to him, and had returned to Lady Lundie's, as
he had left Lady Lundie's, in company with his friend.
After a short preliminary interview with Blanche, Arnold had
rejoined Geoffrey in the safe retirement of the library, to say
what was still left to be said between them on the subject of
Anne. Having completed his report of events at Craig Fernie, he
was now naturally waiting to hear what Geoffrey had to say on his
side. To Arnold's astonishment, Geoffrey coolly turned away to
leave the library without uttering a word.
Arnold stopped him without ceremony.
"Not quite so fast, Geoffrey," he said. "I have an interest in
Miss Silvester's welfare as well as in yours. Now you are back
again in Scotland, what are you going to do?"
If Geoffrey had told the truth, he must have stated his position
much as follows:
He had necessarily decided on deserting Anne when he had decided
on joining his brother on the journey back. But he had advanced
no farther than this. How he was to abandon the woman who had
trusted him, without seeing his own dastardly conduct dragged
into the light of day, was more than he yet knew. A vague idea of
at once pacifying and deluding Anne, by a marriage which should
be no marriage at all, had crossed his mind on the journey. He
had asked himself whether a trap of that sort might not be easily
set in a country notorious for the looseness of its marriage
laws--if a man only knew how? And he had thought it likely that
his well-informed brother, who lived in Scotland, might be
tricked into innocently telling him what he wanted to know. He
had turned the conversation to the subject of Scotch marriages in
general by way of trying the experiment. Julius had not studied
the question; Julius knew nothing about it; and there the
experiment had come to an end. As the necessary result of the
check thus encountered, he was now in Scotland with absolutely
nothing to trust to as a means of effecting his release but the
chapter of accidents, aided by his own resolution to marry Mrs.
Glenarm. Such was his position, and such should have been the
substance of his reply when he was confronted by Arnold's
question, and plainly asked what he meant to do.
"The right thing," he answered, unblushingly. "And no mistake
about it."
"I'm glad to hear you see your way so plainly," returned Arnold.
"In your place, I should have been all abroad. I was wondering,
only the other day, whether you would end, as I should have
ended, in consulting Sir Patrick."
Geoffrey eyed him sharply.
"Consult Sir Patrick?" he repeated. "Why would you have done
that?"
"_I_ shouldn't have known how to set about marrying her," replied
Arnold. "And--being in Scotland--I should have applied to Sir
Patrick (without mentioning names, of course), because he would
be sure to know all about it."
"Suppose I don't see my way quite so plainly as you think," said
Geoffrey. " Would you advise me--"
"To consult Sir Patrick? Certainly! He has passed his life in the
practice of the Scotch law. Didn't you know that?"
"No."
"Then take my advice--and consult him. You needn't mention names.
You can say it's the case of a friend."
The idea was a new one and a good one. Geoffrey looked longingly
toward the door. Eager to make Sir Patrick his innocent
accomplice on the spot, he made a second attempt to leave the
library; and made it for the second time in vain. Arnold had more
unwelcome inquiries to make, and more advice to give unasked.
"How have you arranged about meeting Miss Silvester?" he went on.
"You can't go to the hotel in the character of her husband. I
have prevented that. Where else are you to meet her? She is all
alone; she must be weary of waiting, poor thing. Can you manage
matters so as to see her to-day?"
After staring hard at Arnold while he was speaking, Geoffrey
burst out laughing when he had done. A disinterested anxiety for
the welfare of another person was one of those refinements of
feeling which a muscular education had not fitted him to
understand.
"I say, old boy," he burst out, "you seem to take an
extraordinary interest in Miss Silvester! You haven't fallen in
love with her yourself--have you?"
"Come! come!" said Arnold, seriously. "Neither she nor I deserve
to be sneered at, in that way. I have made a sacrifice to your
interests, Geoffrey--and so has she."
Geoffrey's face became serious again. His secret was in Arnold's
hands; and his estimate of Arnold's character was founded,
unconsciously, on his experience of himself. "All right," he
said, by way of timely apology and concession. "I was only
joking."
"As much joking as you please, when you have married her,"
replied Arnold. "It seems serious enough, to my mind, till then."
He stopped--considered--and laid his hand very earnestly on
Geoffrey's arm. "Mind!" he resumed. "You are not to breathe a
word to any living soul, of my having been near the inn!"
"I've promised to hold my tongue, once already. What do you want
more?"
"I am anxious, Geoffrey. I was at Craig Fernie, remember, when
Blanche came there! She has been telling me all that happened,
poor darling, in the firm persuasion that I was miles off at the
time. I swear I couldn't look her in the face! What would she
think of me, if she knew the truth? Pray be careful! pray be
careful!"
Geoffrey's patience began to fail him.
"We had all this out," he said, "on the way here from the
station. What's the good of going over the ground again?"
"You're quite right," said Arnold, good-humoredly. "The fact
is--I'm out of sorts, this morning. My mind misgives me--I don't
know why."
"Mind?" repeated Geoffrey, in high contempt. "It's flesh--that's
what's the matter with _you._ You're nigh on a stone over your
right weight. Mind he hanged! A man in healthy training don't
know that he has got a mind. Take a turn with the dumb-bells, and
a run up hill with a great-coat on. Sweat it off, Arnold! Sweat
it off!"
With that excellent advice, he turned to leave the room for the
third time. Fate appeared to have determined to keep him
imprisoned in the library, that morning. On this occasion, it was
a servant who got in the way--a servant, with a letter and a
message. "The man waits for answer."
Geoffrey looked at the letter. It was in his brother's
handwriting. He had left Julius at the junction about three hours
since. What could Julius possibly have to say to him now?
He opened the letter. Julius had to announce that Fortune was
favoring them already. He had heard news of Mrs. Glenarm, as soon
as he reached home. She had called on his wife, during his
absence in London--she had been inv ited to the house--and she
had promised to accept the invitation early in the week. "Early
in the week," Julius wrote, "may mean to-morrow. Make your
apologies to Lady Lundie; and take care not to offend her. Say
that family reasons, which you hope soon to have the pleasure of
confiding to her, oblige you to appeal once more to her
indulgence--and come to-morrow, and help us to receive Mrs.
Glenarm."
Even Geoffrey was startled, when he found himself met by a sudden
necessity for acting on his own decision. Anne knew where his
brother lived. Suppose Anne (not knowing where else to find him)
appeared at his brother's house, and claimed him in the presence
of Mrs. Glenarm? He gave orders to have the messenger kept
waiting, and said he would send back a written reply.
"From Craig Fernie?" asked Arnold, pointing to the letter in his
friend's hand.
Geoffrey looked up with a frown. He had just opened his lips to
answer that ill-timed reference to Anne, in no very friendly
terms, when a voice, calling to Arnold from the lawn outside,
announced the appearance of a third person in the library, and
warned the two gentlemen that their private interview was at an
end.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH.
NEARER STILL.
BLANCHE stepped lightly into the room, through one of the open
French windows.
"What are you doing here?" she said to Arnold.
"Nothing. I was just going to look for you in the garden."
"The garden is insufferable, this morning." Saying those words,
she fanned herself with her handkerchief, and noticed Geoffrey's
presence in the room with a look of very thinly-concealed
annoyance at the discovery. "Wait till I am married!" she
thought. "Mr. Delamayn will be cleverer than I take him to be, if
he gets much of his friend's company _then!_"
"A trifle too hot--eh?" said Geoffrey, seeing her eyes fixed on
him, and supposing that he was expected to say something.
Having performed that duty he walked away without waiting for a
reply; and seated himself with his letter, at one of the
writing-tables in the library.
"Sir Patrick is quite right about the young men of the present
day," said Blanche, turning to Arnold. "Here is this one asks me
a question, and doesn't wait for an answer. There are three more
of them, out in the garden, who have been talking of nothing, for
the last hour, but the pedigrees of horses and the muscles of
men. When we are married, Arnold, don't present any of your male
friends to me, unless they have turned fifty. What shall we do
till luncheon-time? It's cool and quiet in here among the books.
I want a mild excitement--and I have got absolutely nothing to
do. Suppose you read me some poetry?"
"While _he_ is here?" asked Arnold, pointing to the personified
antithesis of poetry--otherwise to Geoffrey, seated with his back
to them at the farther end of the library.
"Pooh!" said Blanche. "There's only an animal in the room. We
needn't mind _him!_"
"I say!" exclaimed Arnold. "You're as bitter, this morning, as
Sir Patrick himself. What will you say to Me when we are married
if you talk in that way of my friend?"
Blanche stole her hand into Arnold's hand and gave it a little
significant squeeze. "I shall always be nice to _you,_" she
whispered--with a look that contained a host of pretty promises
in itself. Arnold returned the look (Geoffrey was unquestionably
in the way!). Their eyes met tenderly (why couldn't the great
awkward brute write his letters somewhere else?). With a faint
little sigh, Blanche dropped resignedly into one of the
comfortable arm-chairs--and asked once more for "some poetry," in
a voice that faltered softly, and with a color that was brighter
than usual.
"Whose poetry am I to read?" inquired Arnold.
"Any body's," said Blanche. "This is another of my impulses. I am
dying for some poetry. I don't know whose poetry. And I don't
know why."
Arnold went straight to the nearest book-shelf, and took down the
first volume that his hand lighted on--a solid quarto, bound in
sober brown.
"Well?" asked Blanche. "What have you found?"
Arnold opened the volume, and conscientiously read the title
exactly as it stood:
"Paradise Lost. A Poem. By John Milton."
"I have never read Milton," said Blanche. "Have you?"
"No."
"Another instance of sympathy between us. No educated person
ought to be ignorant of Milton. Let us be educated persons.
Please begin."
"At the beginning?"
"Of course! Stop! You musn't sit all that way off--you must sit
where I can look at you. My attention wanders if I don't look at
people while they read."
Arnold took a stool at Blanche's feet, and opened the "First
Book" of Paradise Lost. His "system" as a reader of blank verse
was simplicity itself. In poetry we are some of us (as many
living poets can testify) all for sound; and some of us (as few
living poets can testify) all for sense. Arnold was for sound. He
ended every line inexorably with a full stop; and he got on to
his full stop as fast as the inevitable impediment of the words
would let him. He began:
"Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit.
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste.
Brought death into the world and all our woe.
With loss of Eden till one greater Man.
Restore us and regain the blissful seat.
Sing heavenly Muse--"
"Beautiful!" said Blanche. "What a shame it seems to have had
Milton all this time in the library and never to have read him
yet! We will have Mornings with Milton, Arnold. He seems long;
but we are both young, and we _may_ live to get to the end of
him. Do you know dear, now I look at you again, you don't seem to
have come back to Windygates in good spirits."
"Don't I? I can't account for it."
"I can. It's sympathy with Me. I am out of spirits too."
"You!"
"Yes. After what I saw at Craig Fernie, I grow more and more
uneasy about Anne. You will understand that, I am sure, after
what I told you this morning?"
Arnold looked back, in a violent hurry, from Blanche to Milton.
That renewed reference to events at Craig Fernie was a renewed
reproach to him for his conduct at the inn. He attempted to
silence her by pointing to Geoffrey.
"Don't forget," he whispered, "that there is somebody in the room
besides ourselves."
Blanche shrugged her shoulders contemptuously.
"What does _he_ matter?" she asked. "What does _he_ know or care
about Anne?"
There was only one other chance of diverting her from the
delicate subject. Arnold went on reading headlong, two lines in
advance of the place at which he had left off, with more sound
and less sense than ever:
"In the beginning how the heavens and earth.
Rose out of Chaos or if Sion hill--"
At "Sion hill," Blanche interrupted him again.
"Do wait a little, Arnold. I can't have Milton crammed down my
throat in that way. Besides I had something to say. Did I tell
you that I consulted my uncle about Anne? I don't think I did. I
caught him alone in this very room. I told him all I have told
you. I showed him Anne's letter. And I said, 'What do you think?'
He took a little time (and a great deal of snuff) before he would
say what he thought. When he did speak, he told me I might quite
possibly be right in suspecting Anne's husband to be a very
abominable person. His keeping himself out of my way was (just as
I thought) a suspicious circumstance, to begin with. And then
there was the sudden extinguishing of the candles, when I first
went in. I thought (and Mrs. Inchbare thought) it was done by the
wind. Sir Patrick suspects it was done by the horrid man himself,
to prevent me from seeing him when I entered the room. I am
firmly persuaded Sir Patrick is right. What do _you_ think?"
"I think we had better go on," said Arnold, with his head down
over his book. "We seem to be forgetting Milton."
"How you do worry about Milton! That last bit wasn't as
interesting as the other. Is there any love in Paradise Lost?"
"Perhaps we may find some if we go on."
"Very well, then. Go on. And be quick about it."
Arnold was _so_ quick about it that he lost his place. Instead of
going on he went back. He read once more:
"In the beginning how the heavens and earth.
Rose out of Chaos or if Sion hill--"
"You read
that before," said Blanche.
"I think not."
"I'm sure you did. When you said 'Sion hill' I recollect I
thought of the Methodists directly. I couldn't have thought of
the Methodists, if you hadn't said 'Sion hill.' It stands to
reason."
"I'll try the next page," said Arnold. "I can't have read that
before--for I haven't turned over yet."
Blanche threw herself back in her chair, and flung her
handkerchief resignedly over her face. "The flies," she
explained. "I'm not going to sleep. Try the next page. Oh, dear
me, try the next page!"
Arnold proceeded:
"Say first for heaven hides nothing from thy view.
Nor the deep tract of hell say first what cause.
Moved our grand parents in that happy state--"
Blanche suddenly threw the handkerchief off again, and sat bolt
upright in her chair. "Shut it up," she cried. "I can't bear any
more. Leave off, Arnold--leave off!"
"What's, the matter now?"
" 'That happy state,' " said Blanche. "What does 'that happy
state' mean? Marriage, of course! And marriage reminds me of
Anne. I won't have any more. Paradise Lost is painful. Shut it
up. Well, my next question to Sir Patrick was, of course, to know
what he thought Anne's husband had done. The wretch had behaved
infamously to her in some way. In what way? Was it any thing to
do with her marriage? My uncle considered again. He thought it
quite possible. Private marriages were dangerous things (he
said)--especially in Scotland. He asked me if they had been
married in Scotland. I couldn't tell him--I only said, 'Suppose
they were? What then?' 'It's barely possible, in that case,' says
Sir Patrick, 'that Miss Silvester may be feeling uneasy about her
marriage. She may even have reason--or may think she has
reason--to doubt whether it is a marriage at all.' "
Arnold started, and looked round at Geoffrey still sitting at the
writing-table with his back turned on them. Utterly as Blanche
and Sir Patrick were mistaken in their estimate of Anne's
position at Craig Fernie, they had drifted, nevertheless, into
discussing the very question in which Geoffrey and Miss Silvester
were interested--the question of marriage in Scotland. It was
impossible in Blanche's presence to tell Geoffrey that he might
do well to listen to Sir Patrick's opinion, even at second-hand.
Perhaps the words had found their way to him? perhaps he was
listening already, of his own accord?
(He _was_ listening. Blanche's last words had found their way to
him, while he was pondering over his half-finished letter to his
brother. He waited to hear more--without moving, and with the pen
suspended in his hand.)
Blanche proceeded, absently winding her fingers in and out of
Arnold's hair as he sat at her feet:
"It flashed on me instantly that Sir Patrick had discovered the
truth. Of course I told him so. He laughed, and said I mustn't
jump at conclusions We were guessing quite in the dark; and all
the distressing things I had noticed at the inn might admit of
some totally different explanation. He would have gone on
splitting straws in that provoking way the whole morning if I
hadn't stopped him. I was strictly logical. I said _I_ had seen
Anne, and _he_ hadn't--and that made all the difference. I said,
'Every thing that puzzled and frightened me in the poor darling
is accounted for now. The law must, and shall, reach that man,
uncle--and I'll pay for it!' I was so much in earnest that I
believe I cried a little. What do you think the dear old man did?
He took me on his knee and gave me a kiss; and he said, in the
nicest way, that he would adopt my view, for the present, if I
would promise not to cry any more; and--wait! the cream of it is
to come!--that he would put the view in quite a new light to me
as soon as I was composed again. You may imagine how soon I dried
my eyes, and what a picture of composure I presented in the
course of half a minute. 'Let us take it for granted,' says Sir
Patrick, 'that this man unknown has really tried to deceive Miss
Silvester, as you and I suppose. I can tell you one thing: it's
as likely as not that, in trying to overreach _her,_ he may
(without in the least suspecting it) have ended in overreaching
himself.' "
(Geoffrey held his breath. The pen dropped unheeded from his
fingers. It was coming. The light that his brother couldn't throw
on the subject was dawning on it at last!)
Blanche resumed:
"I was so interested, and it made such a tremendous impression on
me, that I haven't forgotten a word. 'I mustn't make that poor
little head of yours ache with Scotch law,' my uncle said; 'I
must put it plainly. There are marriages allowed in Scotland,
Blanche, which are called Irregular Marriages--and very
abominable things they are. But they have this accidental merit
in the present case. It is extremely difficult for a man to
pretend to marry in Scotland, and not really to do it. And it is,
on the other hand, extremely easy for a man to drift into
marrying in Scotland without feeling the slightest suspicion of
having done it himself.' That was exactly what he said, Arnold.
When _we_ are married, it sha'n't be in Scotland!"
(Geoffrey's ruddy color paled. If this was true he might be
caught himself in the trap which he had schemed to set for Anne!
Blanche went on with her narrative. He waited and listened.)
"My uncle asked me if I understood him so far. It was as plain as
the sun at noonday, of course I understood him! 'Very well,
then--now for the application!' says Sir Patrick. 'Once more
supposing our guess to be the right one, Miss Silvester may be
making herself very unhappy without any real cause. If this
invisible man at Craig Fernie has actually meddled, I won't say
with marrying her, but only with pretending to make her his wife,
and if he has attempted it in Scotland, the chances are nine to
one (though _he_ may not believe it, and though _she_ may not
believe it) that he has really married her, after all.' My
uncle's own words again! Quite needless to say that, half an hour
after they were out of his lips, I had sent them to Craig Fernie
in a letter to Anne!"
(Geoffrey's stolidly-staring eyes suddenly brightened. A light of
the devil's own striking illuminated him. An idea of the devil's
own bringing entered his mind. He looked stealthily round at the
man whose life he had saved--at the man who had devotedly served
him in return. A hideous cunning leered at his mouth and peeped
out of his eyes. "Arnold Brinkworth pretended to be married to
her at the inn. By the lord Harry! that's a way out of it that
never struck me before!" With that thought in his heart he turned
back again to his half-finished letter to Julius. For once in his
life he was strongly, fiercely agitated. For once in his life he
was daunted--and that by his Own Thought! He had written to
Julius under a strong sense of the necessity of gaining time to
delude Anne into leaving Scotland before he ventured on paying
his addresses to Mrs. Glenarm. His letter contained a string of
clumsy excuses, intended to delay his return to his brother's
house. "No," he said to himself, as he read it again. "Whatever
else may do--_this_ won't! " He looked round once more at Arnold,
and slowly tore the letter into fragments as he looked.)
In the mean time Blanche had not done yet. "No," she said, when
Arnold proposed an adjournment to the garden; "I have something
more to say, and you are interested in it, this time." Arnold
resigned himself to listen, and worse still to answer, if there
was no help for it, in the character of an innocent stranger who
had never been near the Craig Fernie inn.
"Well," Blanche resumed, "and what do you think has come of my
letter to Anne?"
"I'm sure I don't know."
"Nothing has come of it!"
"Indeed?"
"Absolutely nothing! I know she received the letter yesterday
morning. I ought to have had the answer to-day at breakfast."
"Perhaps she thought it didn't require an answer."
"She couldn't have thought that, for reasons that I know of.
Besides, in my letter yesterday I implored her to tell me (if it
was one line only) whether, in guessing at what her trouble was,
Sir Patrick and I had not guessed right. And here is the day
getting on, and no answer! What am I to conclude?"
"I really can't say!"
"Is it possible, Arnold, that we have _not_ guessed right, after
all? Is the wickedness of that man who blew the candles out
wickedness beyond our discovering? The doubt is so dreadful that
I have made up my mind not to bear it after to-day. I count on
your sympathy and assistance when to-morrow comes!"
Arnold's heart sank. Some new complication was evidently
gathering round him. He waited in silence to hear the worst.
Blanche bent forward, and whispered to him.
"This is a secret," she said. "If that creature at the
writing-table has ears for any thing but rowing and racing, he
mustn't hear this! Anne may come to me privately to-day while you
are all at luncheon. If she doesn't come and if I don't hear from
her, then the mystery of her silence must be cleared up; and You
must do it!"
"I!"
"Don't make difficulties! If you can't find your way to Craig
Fernie, I can help you. As for Anne, you know what a charming
person she is, and you know she will receive you perfectly, for
my sake. I must and will have some news of her. I can't break the
laws of the household a second time. Sir Patrick sympathizes, but
he won't stir. Lady Lundie is a bitter enemy. The servants are
threatened with the loss of their places if any one of them goes
near Anne. There is nobody but you. And to Anne you go to-morrow,
if I don't see her or hear from her to-day!"
This to the man who had passed as Anne's husband at the inn, and
who had been forced into the most intimate knowledge of Anne's
miserable secret! Arnold rose to put Milton away, with the
composure of sheer despair. Any other secret he might, in the
last resort, have confided to the discretion of a third person.
But a woman's secret--with a woman's reputation depending on his
keeping it--was not to be confided to any body, under any stress
of circumstances whatever. "If Geoffrey doesn't get me out of
_this,_," he thought, "I shall have no choice but to leave
Windygates to-morrow."
As he replaced the book on the shelf, Lady Lundie entered the
library from the garden.
"What are you doing here?" she said to her step-daughter.
"Improving my mind," replied Blanche. "Mr. Brinkworth and I have
been reading Milton."
"Can you condescend so far, after reading Milton all the morning,
as to help me with the invitations for the dinner next week?"
"If _you_ can condescend, Lady Lundie, after feeding the poultry
all the morning, I must be humility itself after only reading
Milton!"
With that little interchange of the acid amenities of feminine
intercourse, step-mother and step-daughter withdrew to a
writing-table, to put the virtue of hospitality in practice
together.
Arnold joined his friend at the other end of the library.
Geoffrey was sitting with his elbows on the desk, and his
clenched fists dug into his cheeks. Great drops of perspiration
stood on his forehead, and the fragments of a torn letter lay
scattered all round him. He exhibited symptoms of nervous
sensibility for the first time in his life--he started when
Arnold spoke to him.
"What's the matter, Geoffrey?"
"A letter to answer. And I don't know how."
"From Miss Silvester?" asked Arnold, dropping his voice so as to
prevent the ladies at the other end of the room from hearing him.
"No," answered Geoffrey, in a lower voice still.
"Have you heard what Blanche has been saying to me about Miss
Silvester?"
"Some of it."
"Did you hear Blanche say that she meant to send me to Craig
Fernie to-morrow, if she failed to get news from Miss Silvester
to-day?"
"No."
"Then you know it now. That is what Blanche has just said to me."
"Well?"
"Well--there's a limit to what a man can expect even from his
best friend. I hope you won't ask me to be Blanche's messenger
to-morrow. I can't, and won't, go back to the inn as things are
now."
"You have had enough of it--eh?"
"I have had enough of distressing Miss Silvester, and more than
enough of deceiving Blanche."
"What do you mean by 'distressing Miss Silvester?' "
"She doesn't take the same easy view that you and I do, Geoffrey,
of my passing her off on the people of the inn as my wife."
Geoffrey absently took up a paper-knife. Still with his head
down, he began shaving off the topmost layer of paper from the
blotting-pad under his hand. Still with his head down, he
abruptly broke the silence in a whisper.
"I say!"
"Yes?"
"How did you manage to pass her off as your wife?"
"I told you how, as we were driving from the station here."
"I was thinking of something else. Tell me again."
Arnold told him once more what had happened at the inn. Geoffrey
listened, without making any remark. He balanced the paper-knife
vacantly on one of his fingers. He was strangely sluggish and
strangely silent.
"All _that_ is done and ended," said Arnold shaking him by the
shoulder. "It rests with you now to get me out of the difficulty
I'm placed in with Blanche. Things must be settled with Miss
Silvester to-day."
"Things _shall_ be settled."
"Shall be? What are you waiting for?"
"I'm waiting to do what you told me."
"What I told you?"
"Didn't you tell me to consult Sir Patrick before I married her?"
"To be sure! so I did."
"Well--I am waiting for a chance with Sir Patrick."
"And then?"
"And then--" He looked at Arnold for the first time. "Then," he
said, "you may consider it settled."
"The marriage?"
He suddenly looked down again at the blotting-pad. "Yes--the
marriage."
Arnold offered his hand in congratulation. Geoffrey never noticed
it. His eyes were off the blotting-pad again. He was looking out
of the window near him.
"Don't I hear voices outside?" he asked.
"I believe our friends are in the garden," said Arnold. "Sir
Patrick may be among them. I'll go and see."
The instant his back was turned Geoffrey snatched up a sheet of
note-paper. "Before I forget it!" he said to himself. He wrote
the word "Memorandum" at the top of the page, and added these
lines beneath it:
"He asked for her by the name of his wife at the door. He said,
at dinner, before the landlady and the waiter, 'I take these
rooms for my wife.' He made _her_ say he was her husband at the
same time. After that he stopped all night. What do the lawyers
call this in Scotland?--(Query: a marriage?)"
After folding up the paper he hesitated for a moment. "No!" he
thought, "It won't do to trust to what Miss Lundie said about it.
I can't be certain till I have consulted Sir Patrick himself."
He put the paper away in his pocket, and wiped the heavy
perspiration from his forehead. He was pale--for _him,_
strikingly pale--when Arnold came back.
"Any thing wrong, Geoffrey?--you're as white as ashes."
"It's the heat. Where's Sir Patrick?"
"You may see for yourself."
Arnold pointed to the window. Sir Patrick was crossing the lawn,
on his way to the library with a newspaper in his hand; and the
guests at Windygates were accompanying him. Sir Patrick was
smiling, and saying nothing. The guests were talking excitedly at
the tops of their voices. There had apparently been a collision
of some kind between the old school and the new. Arnold directed
Geoffrey's attention to the state of affairs on the lawn.
"How are you to consult Sir Patrick with all those people about
him?"
"I'll consult Sir Patrick, if I take him by the scruff of the
neck and carry him into the next county!" He rose to his feet as
he spoke those words, and emphasized them under his breath with
an oath.
Sir Patrick entered the library, with the guests at his heels.
CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH.
CLOSE ON IT.
THE object of the invasion of the library by the party in the
garden appeared to be twofold.
Sir Patrick had entered the room to restore the newspaper to the
place from which he had taken it. The guests, to the number of
five, had followed him, to appeal in a body to Geoffrey Delamayn.
Between these two apparently dissimilar motives there was a
connection, not visible on the surface, which was now to assert
itself.
Of the five guests, two were middle-aged gentlemen belonging to
that large, but indistinct, division of the human family whom the
hand of Nature has painted in unobtrusive neutral tint. They had
absorbed the ideas of their time with such receptive capacity as
they possessed; and they occupied much the same place in society
which the chorus in an opera occupies on the stage. They echoed
the prevalent sentiment of the moment; and they gave the
solo-talker time to fetch his breath.
The three remaining guests were on the right side of thirty. All
profoundly versed in horse-racing, in athletic sports, in pipes,
beer, billiards, and betting. All profoundly ignorant of every
thing else under the sun. All gentlemen by birth, and all marked
as such by the stamp of "a University education." They may be
personally described as faint reflections of Geoffrey; and they
may be numerically distinguished (in the absence of all other
distinction) as One, Two, and Three.
Sir Patrick laid the newspaper on the table and placed himself in
one of the comfortable arm-chairs. He was instantly assailed, in
his domestic capacity, by his irrepressible sister-in-law. Lady
Lundie dispatched Blanche to him with the list of her guests at
the dinner. "For your uncle's approval, my dear, as head of the
family."
While Sir Patrick was looking over the list, and while Arnold was
making his way to Blanche, at the back of her uncle's chair, One,
Two, and Three--with the Chorus in attendance on them--descended
in a body on Geoffrey, at the other end of the room, and appealed
in rapid succession to his superior authority, as follows:
"I say, Delamayn. We want You. Here is Sir Patrick running a
regular Muck at us. Calls us aboriginal Britons. Tells us we
ain't educated. Doubts if we could read, write, and cipher, if he
tried us. Swears he's sick of fellows showing their arms and
legs, and seeing which fellow's hardest, and who's got three
belts of muscle across his wind, and who hasn't, and the like of
that. Says a most infernal thing of a chap. Says--because a chap
likes a healthy out-of-door life, and trains for rowing and
running, and the rest of it, and don't see his way to stewing
over his books--_therefore_ he's safe to commit all the crimes in
the calendar, murder included. Saw your name down in the
newspaper for the Foot-Race; and said, when we asked him if he'd
taken the odds, he'd lay any odds we liked against you in the
other Race at the University--meaning, old boy, your Degree.
Nasty, that about the Degree--in the opinion of Number One. Bad
taste in Sir Patrick to rake up what we never mention among
ourselves--in the opinion of Number Two. Un-English to sneer at a
man in that way behind his back--in the opinion of Number Three.
Bring him to book, Delamayn. Your name's in the papers; he can't
ride roughshod over You."
The two choral gentlemen agreed (in the minor key) with the
general opinion. "Sir Patrick's views are certainly extreme,
Smith?" "I think, Jones, it's desirable to hear Mr. Delamayn on
the other side."
Geoffrey looked from one to the other of his admirers with an
expression on his face which was quite new to them, and with
something in his manner which puzzled them all.
"You can't argue with Sir Patrick yourselves," he said, "and you
want me to do it?"
One, Two, Three, and the Chorus all answered, "Yes."
"I won't do it."
One, Two, Three, and the Chorus all asked, "Why?"
"Because," answered Geoffrey, "you're all wrong. And Sir
Patrick's right."
Not astonishment only, but downright stupefaction, struck the
deputation from the garden speechless.
Without saying a word more to any of the persons standing near
him, Geoffrey walked straight up to Sir Patrick's arm-chair, and
personally addressed him. The satellites followed, and listened
(as well they might) in wonder.
"You will lay any odds, Sir," said Geoffrey "against me taking my
Degree? You're quite right. I sha'n't take my Degree. You doubt
whether I, or any of those fellows behind me, could read, write,
and cipher correctly if you tried us. You're right again--we
couldn't. You say you don't know why men like Me, and men like
Them, may not begin with rowing and running and the like of that,
and end in committing all the crimes in the calendar: murder
included. Well! you may be right again there. Who's to know what
may happen to him? or what he may not end in doing before he
dies? It may be Another, or it may be Me. How do I know? and how
do you?" He suddenly turned on the deputation, standing
thunder-struck behind him. "If you want to know what I think,
there it is for you, in plain words."
There was something, not only in the shamelessness of the
declaration itself, but in the fierce pleasure that the speaker
seemed to feel in making it, which struck the circle of
listeners, Sir Patrick included, with a momentary chill.
In the midst of the silence a sixth guest appeared on the lawn,
and stepped into the library--a silent, resolute, unassuming,
elderly man who had arrived the day before on a visit to
Windygates, and who was well known, in and out of London, as one
of the first consulting surgeons of his time.
"A discussion going on?" he asked. "Am I in the way?"
"There's no discussion--we are all agreed," cried Geoffrey,
answering boisterously for the rest. "The more the merrier, Sir!"
After a glance at Geoffrey, the surgeon suddenly checked himself
on the point of advancing to the inner part of the room, and
remained standing at the window.
"I beg your pardon," said Sir Patrick, addressing himself to
Geoffrey, with a grave dignity which was quite new in Arnold's
experience of him. "We are not all agreed. I decline, Mr.
Delamayn, to allow you to connect me with such an expression of
feeling on your part as we have just heard. The language you have
used leaves me no alternative but to meet your statement of what
you suppose me to have said by my statement of what I really did
say. It is not my fault if the discussion in the garden is
revived before another audience in this room--it is yours,"
He looked as he spoke to Arnold and Blanche, and from them to the
surgeon standing at the window.
The surgeon had found an occupation for himself which completely
isolated him among the rest of the guests. Keeping his own face
in shadow, he was studying Geoffrey's face, in the full flood of
light that fell on it, with a steady attention which must have
been generally remarked, if all eyes had not been turned toward
Sir Patrick at the time.
It was not an easy face to investigate at that moment.
While Sir Patrick had been speaking Geoffrey had seated himself
near the window, doggedly impenetrable to the reproof of which he
was the object. In his impatience to consult the one authority
competent to decide the question of Arnold's position toward
Anne, he had sided with Sir Patrick, as a means of ridding
himself of the unwelcome presence of his friends--and he had
defeated his own purpose, thanks to his own brutish incapability
of bridling himself in the pursuit of it. Whether he was now
discouraged under these circumstances, or whether he was simply
resigned to bide his time till his time came, it was impossible,
judging by outward appearances, to say. With a heavy dropping at
the corners of his mouth, with a stolid indifference staring dull
in his eyes, there he sat, a man forearmed, in his own obstinate
neutrality, against all temptation to engage in the conflict of
opinions that was to come.
Sir Patrick took up the newspaper which he had brought in from
the garden, and looked once more to see if the surgeon was
attending to him.
No! The surgeon's attention was absorbed in his own subject.
There he was in the same position, with his mind still hard at
work on something in Geoffrey which at once interested and
puzzled it! "That man," he was thinking to himself, "has come
here this morning after traveling from London all night. Does any
ordinary fatigue explain what I see in his face? No!"
"Our little discussion in the garden," resumed Sir Patrick,
answering Blanche's inquiring look as she bent over him, "began,
my dear, in a paragraph here announcing Mr. Delamayn's
forthcoming appearance in a foot-race in the neighborhood of
London. I hold very unpopular opinions as to the athletic
displays which are so much in vogue in England just now. And it
is possible that I may have expressed those opinions a li ttle
too strongly, in the heat of discussion, with gentlemen who are
opposed to me--I don't doubt, conscientiously opposed--on this
question."
A low groan of protest rose from One, Two, and Three, in return
for the little compliment which Sir Patrick had paid to them.
"How about rowing and running ending in the Old Bailey and the
gallows? You said that, Sir--you know you did!"
The two choral gentlemen looked at each other, and agreed with
the prevalent sentiment. "It came to that, I think, Smith." "Yes,
Jones, it certainly came to that."
The only two men who still cared nothing about it were Geoffrey
and the surgeon. There sat the first, stolidly
neutral--indifferent alike to the attack and the defense. There
stood the second, pursuing his investigation--with the growing
interest in it of a man who was beginning to see his way to the
end.
"Hear my defense, gentlemen," continued Sir Patrick, as
courteously as ever. "You belong, remember, to a nation which
especially claims to practice the rules of fair play. I must beg
to remind you of what I said in the garden. I started with a
concession. I admitted--as every person of the smallest sense
must admit--that a man will, in the great majority of cases, be
all the fitter for mental exercise if he wisely combines physical
exercise along with it. The whole question between the two is a
question of proportion and degree, and my complaint of the
present time is that the present time doesn't see it. Popular
opinion in England seems to me to be, not only getting to
consider the cultivation of the muscles as of equal importance
with the cultivation of the mind, but to be actually
extending--in practice, if not in theory--to the absurd and
dangerous length of putting bodily training in the first place of
importance, and mental training in the second. To take a case in
point: I can discover no enthusiasm in the nation any thing like
so genuine and any thing like so general as the enthusiasm
excited by your University boat-race. Again: I see this Athletic
Education of yours made a matter of public celebration in schools
and colleges; and I ask any unprejudiced witness to tell me which
excites most popular enthusiasm, and which gets the most
prominent place in the public journals--the exhibition, indoors
(on Prize-day), of what the boys can do with their minds? or the
exhibition, out of doors (on Sports-day), of what the boys can do
with their bodies? You know perfectly well which performance
excites the loudest cheers, which occupies the prominent place in
the newspapers, and which, as a necessary consequence, confers
the highest social honors on the hero of the day."
Another murmur from One, Two, and Three. "We have nothing to say
to that, Sir; have it all your own way, so far."
Another ratification of agreement with the prevalent opinion
between Smith and Jones.
"Very good," pursued Sir Patrick. "We are all of one mind as to
which way the public feeling sets. If it is a feeling to be
respected and encouraged, show me the national advantage which
has resulted from it. Where is the influence of this modern
outburst of manly enthusiasm on the serious concerns of life? and
how has it improved the character of the people at large? Are we
any of us individually readier than we ever were to sacrifice our
own little private interests to the public good? Are we dealing
with the serious social questions of our time in a conspicuously
determined, downright, and definite way? Are we becoming a
visibly and indisputably purer people in our code of commercial
morals? Is there a healthier and higher tone in those public
amusements which faithfully reflect in all countries the public
taste? Produce me affirmative answers to these questions, which
rest on solid proof, and I'll accept the present mania for
athletic sports as something better than an outbreak of our
insular boastfulness and our insular barbarity in a new form."
"Question! question!" in a general cry, from One, Two, and Three.
"Question! question!" in meek reverberation, from Smith and
Jones.
"That is the question," rejoined Sir Patrick. "You admit the
existence of the public feeling and I ask, what good does it do?"
"What harm does it do?" from One, Two, and Three.
"Hear! hear!" from Smith and Jones.
"That's a fair challenge," replied Sir Patrick. "I am bound to
meet you on that new ground. I won't point, gentlemen, by way of
answer, to the coarseness which I can see growing on our national
manners, or to the deterioration which appears to me to be
spreading more and more widely in our national tastes. You may
tell me with perfect truth that I am too old a man to be a fair
judge of manners and tastes which have got beyond my standards.
We will try the issue, as it now stands between us, on its
abstract merits only. I assert that a state of public feeling
which does practically place physical training, in its
estimation, above moral and mental training, is a positively bad
and dangerous state of feeling in this, that it encourages the
inbred reluctance in humanity to submit to the demands which
moral and mental cultivation must inevitably make on it. Which am
I, as a boy, naturally most ready to do--to try how high I can
jump? or to try how much I can learn? Which training comes
easiest to me as a young man? The training which teaches me to
handle an oar? or the training which teaches me to return good
for evil, and to love my neighbor as myself? Of those two
experiments, of those two trainings, which ought society in
England to meet with the warmest encouragement? And which does
society in England practically encourage, as a matter of fact?"
"What did you say yourself just now?" from One, Two, and Three.
"Remarkably well put!" from Smith and Jones.
"I said," admitted Sir Patrick, "that a man will go all the
better to his books for his healthy physical exercise. And I say
that again--provided the physical exercise be restrained within
fit limits. But when public feeling enters into the question, and
directly exalts the bodily exercises above the books--then I say
public feeling is in a dangerous extreme. The bodily exercises,
in that case, will be uppermost in the youth's thoughts, will
have the strongest hold on his interest, will take the lion's
share of his time, and will, by those means--barring the few
purely exceptional instances--slowly and surely end in leaving
him, to all good moral and mental purpose, certainly an
uncultivated, and, possibly, a dangerous man."
A cry from the camp of the adversaries: "He's got to it at last!
A man who leads an out-of-door life, and uses the strength that
God has given to him, is a dangerous man. Did any body ever hear
the like of that?"
Cry reverberated, with variations, by the two human echoes: "No!
Nobody ever heard the like of that!"
"Clear your minds of cant, gentlemen," answered Sir Patrick. "The
agricultural laborer leads an out-of-door life, and uses the
strength that God has given to him. The sailor in the merchant
service does the name. Both are an uncultivated, a shamefully
uncultivated, class--and see the result! Look at the Map of
Crime, and you will find the most hideous offenses in the
calendar, committed--not in the towns, where the average man
doesn't lead an out-of-door life, doesn't as a rule, use his
strength, but is, as a rule, comparatively cultivated--not in the
towns, but in the agricultural districts. As for the English
sailor--except when the Royal Navy catches and cultivates
him--ask Mr. Brinkworth, who has served in the merchant navy,
what sort of specimen of the moral influence of out-of-door life
and muscular cultivation _he_ is."
"In nine cases out of ten," said Arnold, "he is as idle and
vicious as ruffian as walks the earth."
Another cry from the Opposition: "Are _we_ agricultural laborers?
Are _we_ sailors in the merchant service?"
A smart reverberation from the human echoes: "Smith! am I a
laborer?" "Jones! am I a sailor?"
"Pray let us not be personal, gentlemen," said Sir Patrick. "I am
speaking generally, and I can only meet extreme objections by
pushing my argument to extreme limits. The laborer and the sailor
have served my purpose. If the laborer and
the sailor offend you, by all means let them walk off the stage!
I hold to the position which I advanced just now. A man may be
well born, well off, well dressed, well fed--but if he is an
uncultivated man, he is (in spite of all those advantages) a man
with special capacities for evil in him, on that very account.
Don't mistake me! I am far from saving that the present rage for
exclusively muscular accomplishments must lead inevitably
downward to the lowest deep of depravity. Fortunately for
society, all special depravity is more or less certainly the
result, in the first instance, of special temptation. The
ordinary mass of us, thank God, pass through life without being
exposed to other than ordinary temptations. Thousands of the
young gentlemen, devoted to the favorite pursuits of the present
time, will get through existence with no worse consequences to
themselves than a coarse tone of mind and manners, and a
lamentable incapability of feeling any of those higher and
gentler influences which sweeten and purify the lives of more
cultivated men. But take the other case (which may occur to any
body), the case of a special temptation trying a modern young man
of your prosperous class and of mine. And let me beg Mr. Delamayn
to honor with his attention what I have now to say, because it
refers to the opinion which I did really express--as
distinguished from the opinion which he affects to agree with,
and which I never advanced."
Geoffrey's indifference showed no signs of giving way. "Go on!"
he said--and still sat looking straight before him, with heavy
eyes, which noticed nothing, and expressed nothing.
"Take the example which we have now in view," pursued Sir
Patrick--"the example of an average young gentleman of our time,
blest with every advantage that physical cultivation can bestow
on him. Let this man be tried by a temptation which insidiously
calls into action, in his own interests, the savage instincts
latent in humanity--the instincts of self-seeking and cruelty
which are at the bottom of all crime. Let this man be placed
toward some other person, guiltless of injuring him, in a
position which demands one of two sacrifices: the sacrifice of
the other person, or the sacrifice of his own interests and his
own desires. His neighbor's happiness, or his neighbor's life,
stands, let us say, between him and the attainment of something
that he wants. He can wreck the happiness, or strike down the
life, without, to his knowledge, any fear of suffering for it
himself. What is to prevent him, being the man he is, from going
straight to his end, on those conditions? Will the skill in
rowing, the swiftness in running, the admirable capacity and
endurance in other physical exercises, which he has attained, by
a strenuous cultivation in this kind that has excluded any
similarly strenuous cultivation in other kinds--will these
physical attainments help him to win a purely moral victory over
his own selfishness and his own cruelty? They won't even help him
to see that it _is_ selfishness, and that it _is_ cruelty. The
essential principle of his rowing and racing (a harmless
principle enough, if you can be sure of applying it to rowing and
racing only) has taught him to take every advantage of another
man that his superior strength and superior cunning can suggest.
There has been nothing in his training to soften the barbarous
hardness in his heart, and to enlighten the barbarous darkness in
his mind. Temptation finds this man defenseless, when temptation
passes his way. I don't care who he is, or how high he stands
accidentally in the social scale--he is, to all moral intents and
purposes, an Animal, and nothing more. If my happiness stands in
his way--and if he can do it with impunity to himself--he will
trample down my happiness. If my life happens to be the next
obstacle he encounters--and if he can do it with impunity to
himself--he will trample down my life. Not, Mr. Delamayn, in the
character of a victim to irresistible fatality, or to blind
chance; but in the character of a man who has sown the seed, and
reaps the harvest. That, Sir, is the case which I put as an
extreme case only, when this discussion began. As an extreme case
only--but as a perfectly possible case, at the same time--I
restate it now."
Before the advocates of the other side of the question could open
their lips to reply, Geoffrey suddenly flung off his
indifference, and started to his feet.
"Stop!" he cried, threatening the others, in his fierce
impatience to answer for himself, with his clenched fist.
There was a general silence.
Geoffrey turned and looked at Sir Patrick, as if Sir Patrick had
personally insulted him.
"Who is this anonymous man, who finds his way to his own ends,
and pities nobody and sticks at nothing?" he asked. "Give him a
name!"
"I am quoting an example," said Sir Patrick. "I am not attacking
a man."
"What right have you," cried Geoffrey--utterly forgetful, in the
strange exasperation that had seized on him, of the interest that
he had in controlling himself before Sir Patrick--"what right
have you to pick out an example of a rowing man who is an
infernal scoundrel--when it's quite as likely that a rowing man
may be a good fellow: ay! and a better fellow, if you come to
that, than ever stood in your shoes!"
"If the one case is quite as likely to occur as the other (which
I readily admit)," answered Sir Patrick, "I have surely a right
to choose which case I please for illustration. (Wait, Mr.
Delamayn! These are the last words I have to say and I mean to
say them.) I have taken the example--not of a specially depraved
man, as you erroneously suppose--but of an average man, with his
average share of the mean, cruel, and dangerous qualities, which
are part and parcel of unreformed human nature--as your religion
tells you, and as you may see for yourself, if you choose to look
at your untaught fellow-creatures any where. I suppose that man
to be tried by a temptation to wickedness, out of the common; and
I show, to the best of my ability, how completely the moral and
mental neglect of himself, which the present material tone of
public feeling in England has tacitly encouraged, leaves him at
the mercy of all the worst instincts in his nature; and how
surely, under those conditions, he _must_ go down (gentleman as
he is) step by step--as the lowest vagabond in the streets goes
down under _his_ special temptation--from the beginning in
ignorance to the end in crime. If you deny my right to take such
an example as that, in illustration of the views I advocate, you
must either deny that a special temptation to wickedness can
assail a man in the position of a gentleman, or you must assert
that gentlemen who are naturally superior to all temptation are
the only gentlemen who devote themselves to athletic pursuits.
There is my defense. In stating my case, I have spoken out of my
own sincere respect for the interests of virtue and of learning;
out of my own sincere admiration for those young men among us who
are resisting the contagion of barbarism about them. In _their_
future is the future hope of England. I have done."
Angrily ready with a violent personal reply, Geoffrey found
himself checked, in his turn by another person with something to
say, and with a resolution to say it at that particular moment.
For some little time past the surgeon had discontinued his steady
investigation of Geoffrey's face, and had given all his attention
to the discussion, with the air of a man whose self-imposed task
had come to an end. As the last sentence fell from the last
speaker's lips, he interposed so quickly and so skillfully
between Geoffrey and Sir Patrick, that Geoffrey himself was taken
by surprise,
"There is something still wanting to make Sir Patrick's statement
of the case complete," he said. "I think I can supply it, from
the result of my own professional experience. Before I say what I
have to say, Mr. Delamayn will perhaps excuse me, if I venture on
giving him a caution to control himself."
"Are _you_ going to make a dead set at me, too?" inquired
Geoffrey.
"I am recommending you to keep your temper--nothing more. There
are plenty of men who can fly into a passion without doing
themselves any particular harm. You are not one of them."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't think the state of your health, Mr. Delamayn, is quite
so satisfactory as you may be disposed to consider it yourself."
Geoffrey turned to his admirers and adherents with a roar of
derisive laughter. The admirers and adherents all echoed him
together. Arnold and Blanche smiled at each other. Even Sir
Patrick looked as if he could hardly credit the evidence of his
own ears. There stood the modern Hercules, self-vindicated as a
Hercules, before all eyes that looked at him. And there,
opposite, stood a man whom he could have killed with one blow of
his fist, telling him, in serious earnest, that he was not in
perfect health!
"You are a rare fellow!" said Geoffrey, half in jest and half in
anger. "What's the matter with me?"
"I have undertaken to give you, what I believe to be, a necessary
caution," answered the surgeon. "I have _not_ undertaken to tell
you what I think is the matter with you. That may be a question
for consideration some little time hence. In the meanwhile, I
should like to put my impression about you to the test. Have you
any objection to answer a question on a matter of no particular
importance relating to yourself?"
"Let's hear the question first."
"I have noticed something in your behavior while Sir Patrick was
speaking. You are as much interested in opposing his views as any
of those gentlemen about you. I don't understand your sitting in
silence, and leaving it entirely to the others to put the case on
your side--until Sir Patrick said something which happened to
irritate you. Had you, all the time before that, no answer ready
in your own mind?"
"I had as good answers in my mind as any that have been made here
to-day."
"And yet you didn't give them?"
"No; I didn't give them."
"Perhaps you felt--though you knew your objections to be good
ones--that it was hardly worth while to take the trouble of
putting them into words? In short, you let your friends answer
for you, rather than make the effort of answering for yourself?"
Geoffrey looked at his medical adviser with a sudden curiosity
and a sudden distrust.
"I say," he asked, "how do you come to know what's going on in my
mind--without my telling you of it?"
"It is my business to find out what is going on in people's
bodies--and to do that it is sometimes necessary for me to find
out (if I can) what is going on in their minds. If I have rightly
interpreted what was going on in _your_ mind, there is no need
for me to press my question. You have answered it already."
He turned to Sir Patrick next
"There is a side to this subject," he said, "which you have not
touched on yet. There is a Physical objection to the present rage
for muscular exercises of all sorts, which is quite as strong, in
its way, as the Moral objection. You have stated the consequences
as they _ may_ affect the mind. I can state the consequences as
they _do_ affect the body."
"From your own experience?"
"From my own experience. I can tell you, as a medical man, that a
proportion, and not by any means a small one, of the young men
who are now putting themselves to violent athletic tests of their
strength and endurance, are taking that course to the serious and
permanent injury of their own health. The public who attend
rowing-matches, foot-races, and other exhibitions of that sort,
see nothing but the successful results of muscular training.
Fathers and mothers at home see the failures. There are
households in England--miserable households, to be counted, Sir
Patrick, by more than ones and twos--in which there are young men
who have to thank the strain laid on their constitutions by the
popular physical displays of the present time, for being broken
men, and invalided men, for the rest of their lives."
"Do you hear that?" said Sir Patrick, looking at Geoffrey.
Geoffrey carelessly nodded his head. His irritation had had time
to subside; the stolid indifference had got possession of him
again. He had resumed his chair--he sat, with outstretched legs,
staring stupidly at the pattern on the carpet. "What does it
matter to Me?" was the sentiment expressed all over him, from
head to foot.
The surgeon went on.
"I can see no remedy for this sad state of things," he said, "as
long as the public feeling remains what the public feeling is
now. A fine healthy-looking young man, with a superb muscular
development, longs (naturally enough) to distinguish himself like
others. The training-authorities at his college, or elsewhere,
take him in hand (naturally enough again) on the strength of
outward appearances. And whether they have been right or wrong in
choosing him is more than they can say, until the experiment has
been tried, and the mischief has been, in many cases,
irretrievably done. How many of them are aware of the important
physiological truth, that the muscular power of a man is no fair
guarantee of his vital power? How many of them know that we all
have (as a great French writer puts it) two lives in us--the
surface life of the muscles, and the inner life of the heart,
lungs, and brain? Even if they did know this--even with medical
men to help them--it would be in the last degree doubtful, in
most cases, whether any previous examination would result in any
reliable discovery of the vital fitness of the man to undergo the
stress of muscular exertion laid on him. Apply to any of my
brethren; and they will tell you, as the result of their own
professional observation, that I am, in no sense, overstating
this serious evil, or exaggerating the deplorable and dangerous
consequences to which it leads. I have a patient at this moment,
who is a young man of twenty, and who possesses one of the finest
muscular developments I ever saw in my life. If that young man
had consulted me, before he followed the example of the other
young men about him, I can not honestly say that I could have
foreseen the results. As things are, after going through a
certain amount of muscular training, after performing a certain
number of muscular feats, he suddenly fainted one day, to the
astonishment of his family and friends. I was called in and I
have watched the case since. He will probably live, but he will
never recover. I am obliged to take precautions with this youth
of twenty which I should take with an old man of eighty. He is
big enough and muscular enough to sit to a painter as a model for
Samson--and only last week I saw him swoon away like a young
girl, in his mother's arms."
"Name!" cried Geoffrey's admirers, still fighting the battle on
their side, in the absence of any encouragement from Geoffrey
himself.
"I am not in the habit of mentioning my patients' names," replied
the surgeon. "But if you insist on my producing an example of a
man broken by athletic exercises, I can do it."
"Do it! Who is he?"
"You all know him perfectly well."
"Is he in the doctor's hands?"
"Not yet."
"Where is he?"
"There!"
In a pause of breathless silence--with the eyes of every person
in the room eagerly fastened on him--the surgeon lifted his hand
and pointed to Geoffrey Delamayn.
CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.
TOUCHING IT.
As soon as the general stupefaction was allayed, the general
incredulity asserted itself as a matter of course.
The man who first declared that "seeing" was "believing" laid his
finger (whether he knew it himself or not) on one of the
fundamental follies of humanity. The easiest of all evidence to
receive is the evidence that requires no other judgment to decide
on it than the judgment of the eye--and it will be, on that
account, the evidence which humanity is most ready to credit, as
long as humanity lasts. The eyes of every body looked at
Geoffrey; and the judgment of every body decided, on the evidence
there visible, that the surgeon must be wrong. Lady Lundie
herself (disturbed over her dinner invitations) led the general
protest. "Mr. Delamayn in broken health!" she exclaimed,
appealing to the better sense of her eminent medical guest.
"Really, now, you can't expect us to believe that!"
Stung into action for the second time by the startling assertion
of which he had been
made the subject, Geoffrey rose, and looked the surgeon,
steadily and insolently, straight in the face.
"Do you mean what you say?" he asked.
"Yes."
"You point me out before all these people--"
"One moment, Mr. Delamayn. I admit that I may have been wrong in
directing the general attention to you. You have a right to
complain of my having answered too publicly the public challenge
offered to me by your friends. I apologize for having done that.
But I don't retract a single word of what I have said on the
subject of your health."
"You stick to it that I'm a broken-down man?"
"I do."
"I wish you were twenty years younger, Sir!"
"Why?"
"I'd ask you to step out on the lawn there and I'd show you
whether I'm a broken-down man or not."
Lady Lundie looked at her brother-in-law. Sir Patrick instantly
interfered.
"Mr. Delamayn," he said, "you were invited here in the character
of a gentleman, and you are a guest in a lady's house."
"No! no!" said the surgeon, good humoredly. "Mr. Delamayn is
using a strong argument, Sir Patrick--and that is all. If I
_were_ twenty years younger," he went on, addressing himself to
Geoffrey, "and if I _did_ step out on the lawn with you, the
result wouldn't affect the question between us in the least. I
don't say that the violent bodily exercises in which you are
famous have damaged your muscular power. I assert that they have
damaged your vital power. In what particular way they have
affected it I don't consider myself bound to tell you. I simply
give you a warning, as a matter of common humanity. You will do
well to be content with the success you have already achieved in
the field of athletic pursuits, and to alter your mode of life
for the future. Accept my excuses, once more, for having said
this publicly instead of privately--and don't forget my warning."
He turned to move away to another part of the room. Geoffrey
fairly forced him to return to the subject.
"Wait a bit," he said. "You have had your innings. My turn now. I
can't give it words as you do; but I can come to the point. And,
by the Lord, I'll fix you to it! In ten days or a fortnight from
this I'm going into training for the Foot-Race at Fulham. Do you
say I shall break down?"
"You will probably get through your training."
"Shall I get through the race?"
"You may _possibly_ get through the race. But if you do--"
"If I do?"
"You will never run another."
"And never row in another match?"
"Never."
"I have been asked to row in the Race, next spring; and I have
said I will. Do you tell me, in so many words, that I sha'n't be
able to do it?"
"Yes--in so many words."
"Positively?"
"Positively."
"Back your opinion!" cried Geoffrey, tearing his betting-book out
of his pocket. "I lay you an even hundred I'm in fit condition to
row in the University Match next spring."
"I don't bet, Mr. Delamayn."
With that final reply the surgeon walked away to the other end of
the library. Lady Lundie (taking Blanche in custody) withdrew, at
the same time, to return to the serious business of her
invitations for the dinner. Geoffrey turned defiantly, book in
hand, to his college friends about him. The British blood was up;
and the British resolution to bet, which successfully defies
common decency and common-law from one end of the country to the
other, was not to be trifled with.
"Come on!" cried Geoffrey. "Back the doctor, one of you!"
Sir Patrick rose in undisguised disgust, and followed the
surgeon. One, Two, and Three, invited to business by their
illustrious friend. shook their thick heads at him knowingly, and
answered with one accord, in one eloquent word--"Gammon!"
"One of _you_ back him!" persisted Geoffrey, appealing to the two
choral gentlemen in the back-ground, with his temper fast rising
to fever heat. The two choral gentlemen compared notes, as usual.
"We weren't born yesterday, Smith?" "Not if we know it, Jones."
"Smith!" said Geoffrey, with a sudden assumption of politeness
ominous of something unpleasant to come.
Smith said "Yes?"--with a smile.
"Jones!"
Jones said "Yes?"--with a reflection of Smith.
"You're a couple of infernal cads--and you haven't got a hundred
pound between you!"
"Come! come!" said Arnold, interfering for the first time. "This
is shameful, Geoffrey!"
"Why the"--(never mind what!)--"won't they any of them take the
bet?"
"If you must be a fool," returned Arnold, a little irritably on
his side, "and if nothing else will keep you quiet, _I'll_ take
the bet."
"An even hundred on the doctor!" cried Geoffrey. "Done with you!"
His highest aspirations were satisfied; his temper was in perfect
order again. He entered the bet in his book; and made his excuses
to Smith and Jones in the heartiest way. "No offense, old chaps!
Shake hands!" The two choral gentlemen were enchanted with him.
"The English aristocracy--eh, Smith?" "Blood and breeding--ah,
Jones!"
As soon as he had spoken, Arnold's conscience reproached him: not
for betting (who is ashamed of _that_ form of gambling in
England?) but for "backing the doctor." With the best intention
toward his friend, he was speculating on the failure of his
friend's health. He anxiously assured Geoffrey that no man in the
room could be more heartily persuaded that the surgeon was wrong
than himself. "I don't cry off from the bet," he said. "But, my
dear fellow, pray understand that I only take it to please
_you._"
"Bother all that!" answered Geoffrey, with the steady eye to
business, which was one of the choicest virtues in his character.
"A bet's a bet--and hang your sentiment!" He drew Arnold by the
arm out of ear-shot of the others. "I say!" he asked, anxiously.
"Do you think I've set the old fogy's back up?"
"Do you mean Sir Patrick?"
Geoffrey nodded, and went on.
"I haven't put that little matter to him yet--about marrying in
Scotland, you know. Suppose he cuts up rough with me if I try him
now?" His eye wandered cunningly, as he put the question, to the
farther end of the room. The surgeon was looking over a
port-folio of prints. The ladies were still at work on their
notes of invitation. Sir Patrick was alone at the book-shelves
immersed in a volume which he had just taken down.
"Make an apology," suggested Arnold. "Sir Patrick may be a little
irritable and bitter; but he's a just man and a kind man. Say you
were not guilty of any intentional disrespect toward him--and you
will say enough."
"All right!"
Sir Patrick, deep in an old Venetian edition of The Decameron,
found himself suddenly recalled from medieval Italy to modern
England, by no less a person than Geoffrey Delamayn.
"What do you want?" he asked, coldly.
"I want to make an apology," said Geoffrey. "Let by-gones be
by-gones--and that sort of thing. I wasn't guilty of any
intentional disrespect toward you. Forgive and forget. Not half a
bad motto, Sir--eh?"
It was clumsily expressed--but still it was an apology. Not even
Geoffrey could appeal to Sir Patrick's courtesy and Sir Patrick's
consideration in vain.
"Not a word more, Mr. Delamayn!" said the polite old man. "Accept
my excuses for any thing which I may have said too sharply, on my
side; and let us by all means forget the rest."
Having met the advance made to him, in those terms, he paused,
expecting Geoffrey to leave him free to return to the Decameron.
To his unutterable astonishment, Geoffrey suddenly stooped over
him, and whispered in his ear, "I want a word in private with
you."
Sir Patrick started back, as if Geoffrey had tried to bite him.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Delamayn--what did you say?"
"Could you give me a word in private?"
Sir Patrick put back the Decameron; and bowed in freezing
silence. The confidence of the Honorable Geoffrey Delamayn was
the last confidence in the world into which he desired to be
drawn. "This is the secret of the apology!" he thought. "What can
he possibly want with Me?"
"It's about a friend of mine," pursued Geoffrey; leading the way
toward one of the windows. "He's in a scrape, my friend is. And I
want to ask your advice. It's strictly private, you know." There
he came to a full stop--and looked to see what impression he had
produced, so far.
Sir Patrick declined, either by word or g esture, to exhibit the
slightest anxiety to hear a word more.
"Would you mind taking a turn in the garden?" asked Geoffrey.
Sir Patrick pointed to his lame foot. "I have had my allowance of
walking this morning," he said. "Let my infirmity excuse me."
Geoffrey looked about him for a substitute for the garden, and
led the way back again toward one of the convenient curtained
recesses opening out of the inner wall of the library. "We shall
be private enough here," he said.
Sir Patrick made a final effort to escape the proposed
conference--an undisguised effort, this time
"Pray forgive me, Mr. Delamayn. Are you quite sure that you apply
to the right person, in applying to _me?_"
"You're a Scotch lawyer, ain't you?"
"Certainly."
"And you understand about Scotch marriages--eh?"
Sir Patrick's manner suddenly altered.
"Is _that_ the subject you wish to consult me on?" he asked.
"It's not me. It's my friend."
"Your friend, then?"
"Yes. It's a scrape with a woman. Here in Scotland. My friend
don't know whether he's married to her or not."
"I am at your service, Mr. Delamayn."
To Geoffrey's relief--by no means unmixed with surprise--Sir
Patrick not only showed no further reluctance to be consulted by
him, but actually advanced to meet his wishes, by leading the way
to the recess that was nearest to them. The quick brain of the
old lawyer had put Geoffrey's application to him for assistance,
and Blanche's application to him for assistance, together; and
had built its own theory on the basis thus obtained. "Do I see a
connection between the present position of Blanche's governess,
and the present position of Mr. Delamayn's 'friend?' " thought
Sir Patrick. "Stranger extremes than _that_ have met me in my
experience. Something may come out of this."
The two strangely-assorted companions seated themselves, one on
each side of a little table in the recess. Arnold and the other
guests had idled out again on to the lawn. The surgeon with his
prints, and the ladies with their invitations, were safely
absorbed in a distant part of the library. The conference between
the two men, so trifling in appearance, so terrible in its
destined influence, not over Anne's future only, but over the
future of Arnold and Blanche, was, to all practical purposes, a
conference with closed doors.
"Now," said Sir Patrick, "what is the question?"
"The question," said Geoffrey, "is whether my friend is married
to her or not?"
"Did he mean to marry her?"
"No."
"He being a single man, and she being a single woman, at the
time? And both in Scotland?"
"Yes."
"Very well. Now tell me the circumstances."
Geoffrey hesitated. The art of stating circumstances implies the
cultivation of a very rare gift--the gift of arranging ideas. No
one was better acquainted with this truth than Sir Patrick. He
was purposely puzzling Geoffrey at starting, under the firm
conviction that his client had something to conceal from him. The
one process that could be depended on for extracting the truth,
under those circumstances, was the process of interrogation. If
Geoffrey was submitted to it, at the outset, his cunning might
take the alarm. Sir Patrick's object was to make the man himself
invite interrogation. Geoffrey invited it forthwith, by
attempting to state the circumstances, and by involving them in
the usual confusion. Sir Patrick waited until he had thoroughly
lost the thread of his narrative--and then played for the winning
trick.
"Would it be easier to you if I asked a few questions?" he
inquired, innocently.
"Much easier."
"I am quite at your service. Suppose we clear the ground to begin
with? Are you at liberty to mention names?"
"No."
"Places?"
"No."
"Dates?"
"Do you want me to be particular?"
"Be as particular as you can."
"Will it do, if I say the present year?"
"Yes. Were your friend and the lady--at some time in the present
year--traveling together in Scotland?"
"No."
"Living together in Scotland?"
"No."
"What _were_ they doing together in Scotland?"
"Well--they were meeting each other at an inn."
"Oh? They were meeting each other at an inn. Which was first at
the rendezvous?"
"The woman was first. Stop a bit! We are getting to it now." He
produced from his pocket the written memorandum of Arnold's
proceedings at Craig Fernie, which he had taken down from
Arnold's own lips. "I've got a bit of note here," he went on.
"Perhaps you'd like to have a look at it?"
Sir Patrick took the note--read it rapidly through to
himself--then re-read it, sentence by sentence, to Geoffrey;
using it as a text to speak from, in making further inquiries.
" 'He asked for her by the name of his wife, at the door,' " read
Sir Patrick. "Meaning, I presume, the door of the inn? Had the
lady previously given herself out as a married woman to the
people of the inn?"
"Yes."
"How long had she been at the inn before the gentleman joined
her?"
"Only an hour or so."
"Did she give a name?"
"I can't be quite sure--I should say not."
"Did the gentleman give a name?"
"No. I'm certain _he_ didn't."
Sir Patrick returned to the memorandum.
" 'He said at dinner, before the landlady and the waiter, I take
these rooms for my wife. He made _her_ say he was her husband, at
the same time.' Was that done jocosely, Mr. Delamayn--either by
the lady or the gentleman?"
"No. It was done in downright earnest."
"You mean it was done to look like earnest, and so to deceive the
landlady and the waiter?"
"Yes."
Sir Patrick returned to the memorandum.
" 'After that, he stopped all night.' Stopped in the rooms he had
taken for himself and his wife?"
"Yes."
"And what happened the next day?"
"He went away. Wait a bit! Said he had business for an excuse."
"That is to say, he kept up the deception with the people of the
inn? and left the lady behind him, in the character of his wife?"
"That's it."
"Did he go back to the inn?"
"No."
"How long did the lady stay there, after he had gone?"
"She staid--well, she staid a few days."
"And your friend has not seen her since?"
"No."
"Are your friend and the lady English or Scotch?"
"Both English."
"At the time when they met at the inn, had they either of them
arrived in Scotland, from the place in which they were previously
living, within a period of less than twenty-one days?"
Geoffrey hesitated. There could be no difficulty in answering for
Anne. Lady Lundie and her domestic circle had occupied Windygates
for a much longer period than three weeks before the date of the
lawn-party. The question, as it affected Arnold, was the only
question that required reflection. After searching his memory for
details of the conversation which had taken place between them,
when he and Arnold had met at the lawn-party, Geoffrey recalled a
certain reference on the part of his friend to a performance at
the Edinburgh theatre, which at once decided the question of
time. Arnold had been necessarily detained in Edinburgh, before
his arrival at Windygates, by legal business connected with his
inheritance; and he, like Anne, had certainly been in Scotland,
before they met at Craig Fernie, for a longer period than a
period of three weeks He accordingly informed Sir Patrick that
the lady and gentleman had been in Scotland for more than
twenty-one days--and then added a question on his own behalf:
"Don't let me hurry you, Sir--but, shall you soon have done?"
"I shall have done, after two more questions," answered Sir
Patrick. "Am I to understand that the lady claims, on the
strength of the circumstances which you have mentioned to me, to
be your friend's wife?"
Geoffrey made an affirmative reply. The readiest means of
obtaining Sir Patrick's opinion was, in this case, to answer,
Yes. In other words, to represent Anne (in the character of "the
lady") as claiming to be married to Arnold (in the character of
"his friend").
Having made this concession to circumstances, he was, at the same
time, quite cunning enough to see that it was of vital importance
to the purpose which he had in view, to confine himself strictly
to this one perversion of the truth. There could be plainly no
depending on the lawyer's opinion, unless that opinion was given
on the facts exactly a s they had occurred at the inn. To the
facts he had, thus far, carefully adhered; and to the facts (with
the one inevitable departure from them which had been just forced
on him) he determined to adhere to the end.
"Did no letters pass between the lady and gentleman?" pursued Sir
Patrick.
"None that I know of," answered Geoffrey, steadily returning to
the truth.
"I have done, Mr. Delamayn."
"Well? and what's your opinion?"
"Before I give my opinion I am bound to preface it by a personal
statement which you are not to take, if you please, as a
statement of the law. You ask me to decide--on the facts with
which you have supplied me--whether your friend is, according to
the law of Scotland, married or not?"
Geoffrey nodded. "That's it!" he said, eagerly.
"My experience, Mr. Delamayn, is that any single man, in
Scotland, may marry any single woman, at any time, and under any
circumstances. In short, after thirty years' practice as a
lawyer, I don't know what is _not_ a marriage in Scotland."
"In plain English," said Geoffrey, "you mean she's his wife?"
In spite of his cunning; in spite of his self-command, his eyes
brightened as he said those words. And the tone in which he
spoke--though too carefully guarded to be a tone of triumph--was,
to a fine ear, unmistakably a tone of relief.
Neither the look nor the tone was lost on Sir Patrick.
His first suspicion, when he sat down to the conference, had been
the obvious suspicion that, in speaking of "his friend," Geoffrey
was speaking of himself. But, like all lawyers, he habitually
distrusted first impressions, his own included. His object, thus
far, had been to solve the problem of Geoffrey's true position
and Geoffrey's real motive. He had set the snare accordingly, and
had caught his bird.
It was now plain to his mind--first, that this man who was
consulting him, was, in all probability, really speaking of the
case of another person: secondly, that he had an interest (of
what nature it was impossible yet to say) in satisfying his own
mind that "his friend" was, by the law of Scotland, indisputably
a married man. Having penetrated to that extent the secret which
Geoffrey was concealing from him, he abandoned the hope of making
any further advance at that present sitting. The next question to
clear up in the investigation, was the question of who the
anonymous "lady" might be. And the next discovery to make was,
whether "the lady" could, or could not, be identified with Anne
Silvester. Pending the inevitable delay in reaching that result,
the straight course was (in Sir Patrick's present state of
uncertainty) the only course to follow in laying down the law. He
at once took the question of the marriage in hand--with no
concealment whatever, as to the legal bearings of it, from the
client who was consulting him.
"Don't rush to conclusions, Mr. Delamayn," he said. "I have only
told you what my general experience is thus far. My professional
opinion on the special case of your friend has not been given
yet."
Geoffrey's face clouded again. Sir Patrick carefully noted the
new change in it.
"The law of Scotland," he went on, "so far as it relates to
Irregular Marriages, is an outrage on common decency and
common-sense. If you think my language in thus describing it too
strong--I can refer you to the language of a judicial authority.
Lord Deas delivered a recent judgment of marriage in Scotland,
from the bench, in these words: 'Consent makes marriage. No form
or ceremony, civil or religious; no notice before, or publication
after; no cohabitation, no writing, no witnesses even, are
essential to the constitution of this, the most important
contract which two persons can enter into.'--There is a Scotch
judge's own statement of the law that he administers! Observe, at
the same time, if you please, that we make full legal provision
in Scotland for contracts affecting the sale of houses and lands,
horses and dogs. The only contract which we leave without
safeguards or precautions of any sort is the contract that unites
a man and a woman for life. As for the authority of parents, and
the innocence of children, our law recognizes no claim on it
either in the one case or in the other. A girl of twelve and a
boy of fourteen have nothing to do but to cross the Border, and
to be married--without the interposition of the slightest delay
or restraint, and without the slightest attempt to inform their
parents on the part of the Scotch law. As to the marriages of men
and women, even the mere interchange of consent which, as you
have just heard, makes them man and wife, is not required to be
directly proved: it may be proved by inference. And, more even
than that, whatever the law for its consistency may presume, men
and women are, in point of fact, held to be married in Scotland
where consent has never been interchanged, and where the parties
do not even know that they are legally held to be married
persons. Are you sufficiently confused about the law of Irregular
Marriages in Scotland by this time, Mr. Delamayn? And have I said
enough to justify the strong language I used when I undertook to
describe it to you?"
"Who's that 'authority' you talked of just now?" inquired
Geoffrey. "Couldn't I ask _him?_"
"You might find him flatly contradicted, if you did ask him by
another authority equally learned and equally eminent," answered
Sir Patrick. "I am not joking--I am only stating facts. Have you
heard of the Queen's Commission?"
"No."
"Then listen to this. In March, 'sixty-five, the Queen appointed
a Commission to inquire into the Marriage-Laws of the United
Kingdom. The Report of that Commission is published in London;
and is accessible to any body who chooses to pay the price of two
or three shillings for it. One of the results of the inquiry was,
the discovery that high authorities were of entirely contrary
opinions on one of the vital questions of Scottish marriage-law.
And the Commissioners, in announcing that fact, add that the
question of which opinion is right is still disputed, and has
never been made the subject of legal decision. Authorities are
every where at variance throughout the Report. A haze of doubt
and uncertainty hangs in Scotland over the most important
contract of civilized life. If no other reason existed for
reforming the Scotch marriage-law, there would be reason enough
afforded by that one fact. An uncertain marriage-law is a
national calamity."
"You can tell me what you think yourself about my friend's
case--can't you?" said Geoffrey, still holding obstinately to the
end that he had in view.
"Certainly. Now that I have given you due warning of the danger
of implicitly relying on any individual opinion, I may give my
opinion with a clear conscience. I say that there has not been a
positive marriage in this case. There has been evidence in favor
of possibly establishing a marriage--nothing more."
The distinction here was far too fine to be appreciated by
Geoffrey's mind. He frowned heavily, in bewilderment and disgust.
"Not married!" he exclaimed, "when they said they were man and
wife, before witnesses?"
"That is a common popular error," said Sir Patrick. "As I have
already told you, witnesses are not legally necessary to make a
marriage in Scotland. They are only valuable--as in this case--to
help, at some future time, in proving a marriage that is in
dispute."
Geoffrey caught at the last words.
"The landlady and the waiter _might_ make it out to be a
marriage, then?" he said.
"Yes. And, remember, if you choose to apply to one of my
professional colleagues, he might possibly tell you they were
married already. A state of the law which allows the interchange
of matrimonial consent to be proved by inference leaves a wide
door open to conjecture. Your friend refers to a certain lady, in
so many words, as his wife. The lady refers to your friend, in so
many words, as her husband. In the rooms which they have taken,
as man and wife, they remain, as man and wife, till the next
morning. Your friend goes away, without undeceiving any body. The
lady stays at the inn, for some days after, in the character of
his wife. And all these circumstances take place in the presence
- f competent witnesses. Logically--if not legally--there is
apparently an inference of the interchange of matrimonial consent
here. I stick to my own opinion, nevertheless. Evidence in proof
of a marriage (I say)--nothing more."
While Sir Patrick had been speaking, Geoffrey had been
considering with himself. By dint of hard thinking he had found
his way to a decisive question on his side.
"Look here!" he said, dropping his heavy hand down on the table."
I want to bring you to book, Sir! Suppose my friend had another
lady in his eye?"
"Yes?"
"As things are now--would you advise him to marry her?"
"As things are now--certainly not!"
Geoffrey got briskly on his legs, and closed the interview.
"That will do," he said, "for him and for me."
With those words he walked back, without ceremony, into the main
thoroughfare of the room.
"I don't know who your friend is," thought Sir Patrick, looking
after him. "But if your interest in the question of his marriage
is an honest and a harmless interest, I know no more of human
nature than the babe unborn!"
Immediately on leaving Sir Patrick, Geoffrey was encountered by
one of the servants in search of him.
"I beg your pardon, Sir," began the man. "The groom from the
Honorable Mr. Delamayn's--"
"Yes? The fellow who brought me a note from my brother this
morning?"
"He's expected back, Sir--he's afraid he mustn't wait any
longer."
"Come here, and I'll give you the answer for him."
He led the way to the writing-table, and referred to Julius's
letter again. He ran his eye carelessly over it, until he reached
the final lines: "Come to-morrow, and help us to receive Mrs.
Glenarm." For a while he paused, with his eye fixed on that
sentence; and with the happiness of three people--of Anne, who
had loved him; of Arnold, who had served him; of Blanche,
guiltless of injuring him--resting on the decision that guided
his movements for the next day. After what had passed that
morning between Arnold and Blanche, if he remained at Lady
Lundie's, he had no alternative but to perform his promise to
Anne. If he returned to his brother's house, he had no
alternative but to desert Anne, on the infamous pretext that she
was Arnold's wife.
He suddenly tossed the letter away from him on the table, and
snatched a sheet of note-paper out of the writing-case. "Here
goes for Mrs. Glenarm!" he said to himself; and wrote back to his
brother, in one line: "Dear Julius, Expect me to-morrow. G. D."
The impassible man-servant stood by while he wrote, looking at
his magnificent breadth of chest, and thinking what a glorious
"staying-power" was there for the last terrible mile of the
coming race.
"There you are!" he said, and handed his note to the man.
"All right, Geoffrey?" asked a friendly voice behind him.
He turned--and saw Arnold, anxious for news of the consultation
with Sir Patrick.
"Yes," he said. "All right."
- NOTE.--There are certain readers who feel a
disposition to doubt Facts, when they meet with them in a work of
fiction. Persons of this way of thinking may be profitably
referred to the book which first suggested to me the idea of
writing the present Novel. The book is the Report of the Royal
Commissioners on The Laws of Marriage. Published by the Queen's
Printers For her Majesty's Stationery Office. (London, 1868.)
What Sir Patrick says professionally of Scotch Marriages in this
chapter is taken from this high authority. What the lawyer (in
the Prologue) says professionally of Irish Marriages is also
derived from the same source. It is needless to encumber these
pages with quotations. But as a means of satisfying my readers
that they may depend on me, I subjoin an extract from my list of
references to the Report of the Marriage Commission, which any
persons who may be so inclined can verify for themselves.
_Irish Marriages_ (In the Prologue).--See Report, pages XII.,
XIII., XXIV.
_Irregular Marriages in Scotland._--Statement of the law by Lord
Deas. Report, page XVI.--Marriages of children of tender years.
Examination of Mr. Muirhead by Lord Chelmsford (Question
689).--Interchange of consent, established by inference.
Examination of Mr. Muirhead by the Lord Justice Clerk (Question
654)--Marriage where consent has never been interchanged.
Observations of Lord Deas. Report, page XIX.--Contradiction of
opinions between authorities. Report, pages XIX., XX.--Legal
provision for the sale of horses and dogs. No legal provision for
the marriage of men and women. Mr. Seeton's Remarks. Report, page
XXX.--Conclusion of the Commissioners. In spite of the arguments
advanced before them in favor of not interfering with Irregular
Marriages in Scotland, the Commissioners declare their opinion
that "Such marriages ought not to continue." (Report, page
XXXIV.)
In reference to the arguments (alluded to above) in favor of
allowing the present disgraceful state of things to continue, I
find them resting mainly on these grounds: That Scotland doesn't
like being interfered with by England (!). That Irregular
Marriages cost nothing (!!). That they are diminishing in number,
and may therefore be trusted, in course of time, to exhaust
themselves (!!!). That they act, on certain occasions, in the
capacity of a moral trap to catch a profligate man (!!!!). Such
is the elevated point of view from which the Institution of
Marriage is regarded by some of the most pious and learned men in
Scotland. A legal enactment providing for the sale of your wife,
when you have done with her, or of your husband; when you "really
can't put up with him any longer," appears to be all that is
wanting to render this North British estimate of the "Estate of
Matrimony" practically complete. It is only fair to add that, of
the witnesses giving evidence--oral and written--before the
Commissioners, fully one-half regard the Irregular Marriages of
Scotland from the Christian and the civilized point of view, and
entirely agree with the authoritative conclusion already
cited--that such marriages ought to be abolished.
W. C.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.
DONE!
ARNOLD was a little surprised by the curt manner in which
Geoffrey answered him.
"Has Sir Patrick said any thing unpleasant?" he asked.
"Sir Patrick has said just what I wanted him to say."
"No difficulty about the marriage?"
"None."
"No fear of Blanche--"
"She won't ask you to go to Craig Fernie--I'll answer for that!"
He said the words with a strong emphasis on them, took his
brother's letter from the table, snatched up his hat, and went
out.
His friends, idling on the lawn, hailed him. He passed by them
quickly without answering, without so much as a glance at them
over his shoulder. Arriving at the rose-garden, he stopped and
took out his pipe; then suddenly changed his mind, and turned
back again by another path. There was no certainty, at that hour
of the day, of his being left alone in the rose-garden. He had a
fierce and hungry longing to be by himself; he felt as if he
could have been the death of any body who came and spoke to him
at that moment. With his head down and his brows knit heavily, he
followed the path to see what it ended in. It ended in a
wicket-gate which led into a kitchen-garden. Here he was well out
of the way of interruption: there was nothing to attract visitors
in the kitchen-garden. He went on to a walnut-tree planted in the
middle of the inclosure, with a wooden bench and a broad strip of
turf running round it. After first looking about him, he seated
himself and lit his pipe.
"I wish it was done!" he said.
He sat, with his elbows on his knees, smoking and thinking.
Before long the restlessness that had got possession of him
forced him to his feet again. He rose, and paced round and round
the strip of greensward under the walnut-tree, like a wild beast
in a cage.
What was the meaning of this disturbance in the inner man? Now
that he had committed himself to the betrayal of the friend who
had trusted and served him, was he torn by remorse?
He was no more torn by remorse than you are while your eye is
passing over this sentence. He was simply in a raging fever of
impatience to see himself safely la nded at the end which he had
in view.
Why should he feel remorse? All remorse springs, more or less
directly, from the action of two sentiments, which are neither of
them inbred in the natural man. The first of these sentiments is
the product of the respect which we learn to feel for ourselves.
The second is the product of the respect which we learn to feel
for others. In their highest manifestations, these two feelings
exalt themselves, until the first he comes the love of God, and
the second the love of Man. I have injured you, and I repent of
it when it is done. Why should I repent of it if I have gained
something by it for my own self and if you can't make me feel it
by injuring Me? I repent of it because there has been a sense put
into me which tells me that I have sinned against Myself, and
sinned against You. No such sense as that exists among the
instincts of the natural man. And no such feelings as these
troubled Geoffrey Delamayn; for Geoffrey Delamayn was the natural
man.
When the idea of his scheme had sprung to life in his mind, the
novelty of it had startled him--the enormous daring of it,
suddenly self-revealed, had daunted him. The signs of emotion
which he had betrayed at the writing-table in the library were
the signs of mere mental perturbation, and of nothing more.
That first vivid impression past, the idea had made itself
familiar to him. He had become composed enough to see such
difficulties as it involved, and such consequences as it implied.
These had fretted him with a passing trouble; for these he
plainly discerned. As for the cruelty and the treachery of the
thing he meditated doing--that consideration never crossed the
limits of his mental view. His position toward the man whose life
he had preserved was the position of a dog. The "noble animal"
who has saved you or me from drowning will fly at your throat or
mine, under certain conditions, ten minutes afterward. Add to the
dog's unreasoning instinct the calculating cunning of a man;
suppose yourself to be in a position to say of some trifling
thing, "Curious! at such and such a time I happened to pick up
such and such an object; and now it turns out to be of some use
to me!"--and there you have an index to the state of Geoffrey's
feeling toward his friend when he recalled the past or when he
contemplated the future. When Arnold had spoken to him at the
critical moment, Arnold had violently irritated him; and that was
all.
The same impenetrable insensibility, the same primitively natural
condition of the moral being, prevented him from being troubled
by the slightest sense of pity for Anne. "She's out of my way!"
was his first thought. "She's provided for, without any trouble
to Me! was his second. He was not in the least uneasy about her.
Not the slightest doubt crossed his mind that, when once she had
realized her own situation, when once she saw herself placed
between the two alternatives of facing her own ruin or of
claiming Arnold as a last resource, she would claim Arnold. She
would do it as a matter of course; because _he_ would have done
it in her place.
But he wanted it over. He was wild, as he paced round and round
the walnut-tree, to hurry on the crisis and be done with it. Give
me my freedom to go to the other woman, and to train for the
foot-race--that's what I want. _They_ injured? Confusion to them
both! It's I who am injured by them. They are the worst enemies I
have! They stand in my way.
How to be rid of them? There was the difficulty. He had made up
his mind to be rid of them that day. How was he to begin?
There was no picking a quarrel with Arnold, and so beginning with
_him._ This course of proceeding, in Arnold's position toward
Blanche, would lead to a scandal at the outset--a scandal which
would stand in the way of his making the right impression on Mrs.
Glenarm. The woman--lonely and friendless, with her sex and her
position both against her if _she_ tried to make a scandal of
it--the woman was the one to begin with. Settle it at once and
forever with Anne; and leave Arnold to hear of it and deal with
it, sooner or later, no matter which.
How was he to break it to her before the day was out?
By going to the inn and openly addressing her to her face as Mrs.
Arnold Brinkworth? No! He had had enough, at Windygates, of
meeting her face to face. The easy way was to write to her, and
send the letter, by the first messenger he could find, to the
inn. She might appear afterward at Windygates; she might follow
him to his brother's; she might appeal to his father. It didn't
matter; he had got the whip-hand of her now. "You are a married
woman." There was the one sufficient answer, which was strong
enough to back him in denying any thing!
He made out the letter in his own mind. "Something like this
would do," he thought, as he went round and round the
walnut-tree: "You may be surprised not to have seen me. You have
only yourself to thank for it. I know what took place between you
and him at the inn. I have had a lawyer's advice. You are Arnold
Brinkworth's wife. I wish you joy, and good-by forever." Address
those lines: "To Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth;" instruct the messenger
to leave the letter late that night, without waiting for an
answer; start the first thing the next morning for his brother's
house; and behold, it was done!
But even here there was an obstacle--one last exasperating
obstacle--still in the way.
If she was known at the inn by any name at all, it was by the
name of Mrs. Silvester. A letter addressed to "Mrs. Arnold
Brinkworth" would probably not be taken in at the door; or if it
was admitted. and if it was actually offered to her, she might
decline to receive it, as a letter not addressed to herself. A
man of readier mental resources would have seen that the name on
the outside of the letter mattered little or nothing, so long as
the contents were read by the person to whom they were addressed.
But Geoffrey's was the order of mind which expresses disturbance
by attaching importance to trifles. He attached an absurd
importance to preserving absolute consistency in his letter,
outside and in. If he declared her to be Arnold Brinkworth's
wife, he must direct to her as Arnold Brinkworth's wife; or who
could tell what the law might say, or what scrape he might not
get himself into by a mere scratch of the pen! The more he
thought of it, the more persuaded he felt of his own cleverness
here, and the hotter and the angrier he grew.
There is a way out of every thing. And there was surely a way out
of this, if he could only see it.
He failed to see it. After dealing with all the great
difficulties, the small difficulty proved too much for him. It
struck him that he might have been thinking too long about
it--considering that he was not accustomed to thinking long about
any thing. Besides, his head was getting giddy, with going
mechanically round and round the tree. He irritably turned his
back on the tree and struck into another path: resolved to think
of something else, and then to return to his difficulty, and see
it with a new eye.
Leaving his thoughts free to wander where they liked, his
thoughts naturally busied themselves with the next subject that
was uppermost in his mind, the subject of the Foot-Race. In a
week's time his arrangements ought to be made. Now, as to the
training, first.
He decided on employing two trainers this time. One to travel to
Scotland, and begin with him at his brother's house. The other to
take him up, with a fresh eye to him, on his return to London. He
turned over in his mind the performances of the formidable rival
against whom he was to be matched. That other man was the
swiftest runner of the two. The betting in Geoffrey's favor was
betting which calculated on the unparalleled length of the race,
and on Geoffrey's prodigious powers of endurance. How long he
should "wait on" the man? Whereabouts it would be safe to "pick
the man up?" How near the end to calculate the man's exhaustion
to a nicety, and "put on the spurt," and pass him? These were
nice points to decide. The deliberations of a
pedestrian-privy-council would be required to help him under this
heavy responsibility. What men coul d he trust? He could trust A.
and B.--both of them authorities: both of them stanch. Query
about C.? As an authority, unexceptionable; as a man, doubtful.
The problem relating to C. brought him to a standstill--and
declined to be solved, even then. Never mind! he could always
take the advice of A. and B. In the mean time devote C. to the
infernal regions; and, thus dismissing him, try and think of
something else. What else? Mrs. Glenarm? Oh, bother the women!
one of them is the same as another. They all waddle when they
run; and they all fill their stomachs before dinner with sloppy
tea. That's the only difference between women and men--the rest
is nothing but a weak imitation of Us. Devote the women to the
infernal regions; and, so dismissing _them,_ try and think of
something else. Of what? Of something worth thinking of, this
time--of filling another pipe.
He took out his tobacco-pouch; and suddenly suspended operations
at the moment of opening it.
What was the object he saw, on the other side of a row of dwarf
pear-trees, away to the right? A woman--evidently a servant by
her dress--stooping down with her back to him, gathering
something: herbs they looked like, as well as he could make them
out at the distance.
What was that thing hanging by a string at the woman's side? A
slate? Yes. What the deuce did she want with a slate at her side?
He was in search of something to divert his mind--and here it was
found. "Any thing will do for me," he thought. "Suppose I 'chaff'
her a little about her slate?"
He called to the woman across the pear-trees. "Hullo!"
The woman raised herself, and advanced toward him slowly--looking
at him, as she came on, with the sunken eyes, the sorrow-stricken
face, the stony tranquillity of Hester Dethridge.
Geoffrey was staggered. He had not bargained for exchanging the
dullest producible vulgarities of human speech (called in the
language of slang, "Chaff") with such a woman as this.
"What's that slate for?" he asked, not knowing what else to say,
to begin with.
The woman lifted her hand to her lips--touched them--and shook
her head.
"Dumb?"
The woman bowed her head.
"Who are you?"
The woman wrote on her slate, and handed it to him over the
pear-trees. He read:--"I am the cook."
"Well, cook, were you born dumb?"
The woman shook her head.
"What struck you dumb?"
The woman wrote on her slate:--"A blow."
"Who gave you the blow?"
She shook her head.
"Won't you tell me?"
She shook her head again.
Her eyes had rested on his face while he was questioning her;
staring at him, cold, dull, and changeless as the eyes of a
corpse. Firm as his nerves were--dense as he was, on all ordinary
occasions, to any thing in the shape of an imaginative
impression--the eyes of the dumb cook slowly penetrated him with
a stealthy inner chill. Something crept at the marrow of his
back, and shuddered under the roots of his hair. He felt a sudden
impulse to get away from her. It was simple enough; he had only
to say good-morning, and go on. He did say good-morning--but he
never moved. He put his hand into his pocket, and offered her
some money, as a way of making _her_ go. She stretched out her
hand across the pear-trees to take it--and stopped abruptly, with
her arm suspended in the air. A sinister change passed over the
deathlike tranquillity of her face. Her closed lips slowly
dropped apart. Her dull eyes slowly dilated; looked away,
sideways, from _his_ eyes; stopped again; and stared, rigid and
glittering, over his shoulder--stared as if they saw a sight of
horror behind him. "What the devil are you looking at?" he
asked--and turned round quickly, with a start. There was neither
person nor thing to be seen behind him. He turned back again to
the woman. The woman had left him, under the influence of some
sudden panic. She was hurrying away from him--running, old as she
was--flying the sight of him, as if the sight of him was the
pestilence.
"Mad!" he thought--and turned his back on the sight of her.
He found himself (hardly knowing how he had got there) under the
walnut-tree once more. In a few minutes his hardy nerves had
recovered themselves--he could laugh over the remembrance of the
strange impression that had been produced on him. "Frightened for
the first time in my life," he thought--"and that by an old
woman! It's time I went into training again, when things have
come to this!"
He looked at his watch. It was close on the luncheon hour up at
the house; and he had not decided yet what to do about his letter
to Anne. He resolved to decide, then and there.
The woman--the dumb woman, with the stony face and the horrid
eyes--reappeared in his thoughts, and got in the way of his
decision. Pooh! some crazed old servant, who might once have been
cook; who was kept out of charity now. Nothing more important
than that. No more of her! no more of her!
He laid himself down on the grass, and gave his mind to the
serious question. How to address Anne as "Mrs. Arnold
Brinkworth?" and how to make sure of her receiving the letter?
The dumb old woman got in his way again.
He closed his eyes impatiently, and tried to shut her out in a
darkness of his own making.
The woman showed herself through the darkness. He saw her, as if
he had just asked her a question, writing on her slate. What she
wrote he failed to make out. It was all over in an instant. He
started up, with a feeling of astonishment at himself--and, at
the same moment his brain cleared with the suddenness of a flash
of light. He saw his way, without a conscious effort on his own
part, through the difficulty that had troubled him. Two
envelopes, of course: an inner one, unsealed, and addressed to
"Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth;" an outer one, sealed, and addressed to
"Mrs. Silvester:" and there was the problem solved! Surely the
simplest problem that had ever puzzled a stupid head.
Why had he not seen it before? Impossible to say.
How came he to have seen it now?
The dumb old woman reappeared in his thoughts--as if the answer
to the question lay in something connected with _her._
He became alarmed about himself, for the first time in his life.
Had this persistent impression, produced by nothing but a crazy
old woman, any thing to do with the broken health which the
surgeon had talked about? Was his head on the turn? Or had he
smoked too much on an empty stomach, and gone too long (after
traveling all night) without his customary drink of ale?
He left the garden to put that latter theory to the test
forthwith. The betting would have gone dead against him if the
public had seen him at that moment. He looked haggard and
anxious--and with good reason too. His nervous system had
suddenly forced itself on his notice, without the slightest
previous introduction, and was saying (in an unknown tongue),
Here I am!
Returning to the purely ornamental part of the grounds, Geoffrey
encountered one of the footmen giving a message to one of the
gardeners. He at once asked for the butler--as the only safe
authority to consult in the present emergency.
Conducted to the butler's pantry, Geoffrey requested that
functionary to produce a jug of his oldest ale, with appropriate
solid nourishment in the shape of "a hunk of bread and cheese."
The butler stared. As a form of condescension among the upper
classes this was quite new to him.
"Luncheon will be ready directly, Sir."
"What is there for lunch?"
The butler ran over an appetizing list of good dishes and rare
wines.
"The devil take your kickshaws!" said Geoffrey. "Give me my old
ale, and my hunk of bread and cheese."
"Where will you take them, Sir?"
"Here, to be sure! And the sooner the better."
The butler issued the necessary orders with all needful alacrity.
He spread the simple refreshment demanded, before his
distinguished guest, in a state of blank bewilderment. Here was a
nobleman's son, and a public celebrity into the bargain, filling
himself with bread and cheese and ale, in at once the most
voracious and the most unpretending manner, at _his_ table! The
butler ventured on a little complimentary familiarity. He smiled,
and touched the betting-book in his breast-pocket. "I've put six
pound on you, Sir, for the
Race." "All right, old boy! you shall win your money!" With
those noble words the honorable gentleman clapped him on the
back, and held out his tumbler for some more ale. The butler felt
trebly an Englishman as he filled the foaming glass. Ah! foreign
nations may have their revolutions! foreign aristocracies may
tumble down! The British aristocracy lives in the hearts of the
people, and lives forever!
"Another!" said Geoffrey, presenting his empty glass. "Here's
luck!" He tossed off his liquor at a draught, and nodded to the
butler, and went out.
Had the experiment succeeded? Had he proved his own theory about
himself to be right? Not a doubt of it! An empty stomach, and a
determination of tobacco to the head--these were the true causes
of that strange state of mind into which he had fallen in the
kitchen-garden. The dumb woman with the stony face vanished as if
in a mist. He felt nothing now but a comfortable buzzing in his
head, a genial warmth all over him, and an unlimited capacity for
carrying any responsibility that could rest on mortal shoulders.
Geoffrey was himself again.
He went round toward the library, to write his letter to
Anne--and so have done with that, to begin with. The company had
collected in the library waiting for the luncheon-bell. All were
idly talking; and some would be certain, if he showed himself, to
fasten on _him._ He turned back again, without showing himself.
The only way of writing in peace and quietness would be to wait
until they were all at luncheon, and then return to the library.
The same opportunity would serve also for finding a messenger to
take the letter, without exciting attention, and for going away
afterward, unseen, on a long walk by himself. An absence of two
or three hours would cast the necessary dust in Arnold's eyes;
for it would be certainly interpreted by him as meaning absence
at an interview with Anne.
He strolled idly through the grounds, farther and farther away
from the house.
The talk in the library--aimless and empty enough, for the most
part--was talk to the purpose, in one corner of the room, in
which Sir Patrick and Blanche were sitting together.
"Uncle! I have been watching you for the last minute or two."
"At my age, Blanche? that is paying me a very pretty compliment."
"Do you know what I have seen?"
"You have seen an old gentleman in want of his lunch."
"I have seen an old gentleman with something on his mind. What is
it?"
"Suppressed gout, my dear."
"That won't do! I am not to be put off in that way. Uncle! I want
to know--"
"Stop there, Blanche! A young lady who says she 'wants to know,'
expresses very dangerous sentiments. Eve 'wanted to know'--and
see what it led to. Faust 'wanted to know'--and got into bad
company, as the necessary result."
"You are feeling anxious about something," persisted Blanche.
"And, what is more, Sir Patrick, you behaved in a most
unaccountable manner a little while since."
"When?"
"When you went and hid yourself with Mr. Delamayn in that snug
corner there. I saw you lead the way in, while I was at work on
Lady Lundie's odious dinner-invitations."
"Oh! you call that being at work, do you? I wonder whether there
was ever a woman yet who could give the whole of her mind to any
earthly thing that she had to do?"
"Never mind the women! What subject in common could you and Mr.
Delamayn possibly have to talk about? And why do I see a wrinkle
between your eyebrows, now you have done with him?--a wrinkle
which certainly wasn't there before you had that private
conference together?"
Before answering, Sir Patrick considered whether he should take
Blanche into his confidence or not. The attempt to identify
Geoffrey's unnamed "lady," which he was determined to make, would
lead him to Craig Fernie, and would no doubt end in obliging him
to address himself to Anne. Blanche's intimate knowledge of her
friend might unquestionably be made useful to him under these
circumstances; and Blanche's discretion was to be trusted in any
matter in which Miss Silvester's interests were concerned. On the
other hand, caution was imperatively necessary, in the present
imperfect state of his information--and caution, in Sir Patrick's
mind, carried the day. He decided to wait and see what came first
of his investigation at the inn.
"Mr. Delamayn consulted me on a dry point of law, in which a
friend of his was interested," said Sir Patrick. "You have wasted
your curiosity, my dear, on a subject totally unworthy of a
lady's notice."
Blanche's penetration was not to be deceived on such easy terms
as these. "Why not say at once that you won't tell me?" she
rejoined. "_You_ shutting yourself up with Mr. Delamayn to talk
law! _You_ looking absent and anxious about it afterward! I am a
very unhappy girl!" said Blanche, with a little, bitter sigh.
"There is something in me that seems to repel the people I love.
Not a word in confidence can I get from Anne. And not a word in
confidence can I get from you. And I do so long to