RETURNING to his office, Mr. Troy discovered, among the correspondence
that was waiting for him, a letter from the very person whose welfare
was still the uppermost subject in his mind. Isabel Miller wrote in
these terms:
“Dear Sir--My aunt, Miss Pink, is very desirous of consulting you
professionally at the earliest opportunity. Although South Morden is
within little more than half an hour’s railway ride from London, Miss
Pink does not presume to ask you to visit her, being well aware of the
value of your time. Will you, therefore, be so kind as to let me know
when it will be convenient to you to receive my aunt at your office in
London? Believe me, dear sir, respectfully yours, ISABEL MILLER.
P.S.--I am further instructed to say that the regrettable event at Lady
Lydiard’s house is the proposed subject of the consultation. The Lawn,
South Morden. Thursday.”
Mr. Troy smiled as he read the letter. “Too formal for a young girl!” he
said to himself. “Every word of it has been dictated by Miss Pink.”
He was not long in deciding what course he should take. There was a
pressing necessity for cautioning Isabel, and here was his opportunity.
He sent for his head clerk, and looked at his list of engagements for
the day. There was nothing set down in the book which the clerk was
not quite as well able to do as the master. Mr. Troy consulted his
railway-guide, ordered his cab, and caught the next train to South Morden.
South Morden was then (and remains to this day) one of those primitive
agricultural villages, passed over by the march of modern progress,
which are still to be found in the near neighborhood of London. Only the
slow trains stopped at the station and there was so little to do that
the station-master and his porter grew flowers on the embankment, and
trained creepers over the waiting-room window. Turning your back on the
railway, and walking along the one street of South Morden, you found
yourself in the old England of two centuries since. Gabled cottages,
with fast-closed windows; pigs and poultry in quiet possession of the
road; the venerable church surrounded by its shady burial-ground; the
grocer’s shop which sold everything, and the butcher’s shop which sold
nothing; the scarce inhabitants who liked a good look at a stranger, and
the unwashed children who were pictures of dirty health; the clash of
the iron-chained bucket in the public well, and the thump of the falling
nine-pins in the skittle-ground behind the public-house; the horse-pond
on the one bit of open ground, and the old elm-tree with the wooden seat
round it on the other--these were some of the objects that you saw, and
some of the noises that you heard in South Morden, as you passed from
one end of the village to the other.
About half a mile beyond the last of the old cottages, modern England
met you again under the form of a row of little villas, set up by an
adventurous London builder who had bought the land a bargain. Each villa
stood in its own little garden, and looked across a stony road at the
meadow lands and softly-rising wooded hills beyond. Each villa faced you
in the sunshine with the horrid glare of new red brick, and forced its
nonsensical name on your attention, traced in bright paint on the posts
of its entrance gate. Consulting the posts as he advanced, Mr. Troy
arrived in due course of time at the villa called The Lawn, which
derived its name apparently from a circular patch of grass in front of
the house. The gate resisting his efforts to open it, he rang the bell.
Admitted by a trim, clean, shy little maid-servant, Mr. Troy looked
about him in amazement. Turn which way he might, he found himself
silently confronted by posted and painted instructions to visitors,
which forbade him to do this, and commanded him to do that, at every
step of his progress from the gate to the house. On the side of the lawn
a label informed him that he was not to walk on the grass. On the other
side a painted hand pointed along a boundary-wall to an inscription
which warned him to go that way if he had business in the kitchen. On
the gravel walk at the foot of the housesteps words, neatly traced in
little white shells, reminded him not to “forget the scraper”. On the
doorstep he was informed, in letters of lead, that he was “Welcome!”
On the mat in the passage bristly black words burst on his attention,
commanding him to “wipe his shoes.” Even the hat-stand in the hall was
not allowed to speak for itself; it had “Hats and Cloaks” inscribed on
it, and it issued its directions imperatively in the matter of your wet
umbrella--“Put it here!”
Giving the trim little servant his card, Mr. Troy was introduced to a
reception-room on the lower floor. Before he had time to look round him
the door was opened again from without, and Isabel stole into the room
on tiptoe. She looked worn and anxious. When she shook hands with the
old lawyer the charming smile that he remembered so well was gone.
“Don’t say you have seen me,” she whispered. “I am not to come into the
room till my aunt sends for me. Tell me two things before I run away
again. How is Lady Lydiard? And have you discovered the thief?”
“Lady Lydiard was well when I last saw her; and we have not yet
succeeded in discovering the thief.” Having answered the questions in
those terms, Mr. Troy decided on cautioning Isabel on the subject of
the steward while he had the chance. “One question on my side,” he said,
holding her back from the door by the arm. “Do you expect Moody to visit
you here?”
“I am _sure_ he will visit me,” Isabel answered warmly. “He has promised
to come here at my request. I never knew what a kind heart Robert Moody
had till this misfortune fell on me. My aunt, who is not easily taken
with strangers, respects and admires him. I can’t tell you how good he
was to me on the journey here--and how kindly, how nobly, he spoke to
me when we parted.” She paused, and turned her head away. The tears were
rising in her eyes. “In my situation,” she said faintly, “kindness is
very keenly felt. Don’t notice me, Mr. Troy.”
The lawyer waited a moment to let her recover herself.
“I agree entirely, my dear, in your opinion of Moody,” he said. “At the
same time, I think it right to warn you that his zeal in your service
may possibly outrun his discretion. He may feel too confidently about
penetrating the mystery of the missing money; and, unless you are on
your guard, he may raise false hopes in you when you next see him.
Listen to any advice that he may give you, by all means. But, before you
decide on being guided by his opinion, consult my older experience,
and hear what I have to say on the subject. Don’t suppose that I am
attempting to make you distrust this good friend,” he added, noticing
the look of uneasy surprise which Isabel fixed on him. “No such idea is
in my mind. I only warn you that Moody’s eagerness to be of service to
you may mislead him. You understand me.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Isabel coldly; “I understand you. Please let me go
now. My aunt will be down directly; and she must not find me here.” She
curtseyed with distant respect, and left the room.
“So much for trying to put two ideas together into a girl’s mind!”
thought Mr. Troy, when he was alone again. “The little fool evidently
thinks I am jealous of Moody’s place in her estimation. Well! I have
done my duty--and I can do no more.”
He looked round the room. Not a chair was out of its place, not a speck
of dust was to be seen. The brightly-perfect polish of the table made
your eyes ache; the ornaments on it looked as if they had never been
touched by mortal hand; the piano was an object for distant admiration,
not an instrument to be played on; the carpet made Mr. Troy look
nervously at the soles of his shoes; and the sofa (protected by layers
of white crochet-work) said as plainly as if in words, “Sit on me if you
dare!” Mr. Troy retreated to a bookcase at the further end of the room.
The books fitted the shelves to such absolute perfection that he had
some difficulty in taking one of them out. When he had succeeded, he
found himself in possession of a volume of the History of England. On
the fly-leaf he encountered another written warning:--“This book belongs
to Miss Pink’s Academy for Young Ladies, and is not to be removed from
the library.” The date, which was added, referred to a period of ten
years since. Miss Pink now stood revealed as a retired schoolmistress,
and Mr. Troy began to understand some of the characteristic
peculiarities of that lady’s establishment which had puzzled him up to
the present time.
He had just succeeded in putting the book back again when the door
opened once more, and Isabel’s aunt entered the room.
If Miss Pink could, by any possible conjuncture of circumstances, have
disappeared mysteriously from her house and her friends, the police
would have found the greatest difficulty in composing the necessary
description of the missing lady. The acutest observer could have
discovered nothing that was noticeable or characteristic in her personal
appearance. The pen of the present writer portrays her in despair by a
series of negatives. She was not young, she was not old; she was neither
tall nor short, nor stout nor thin; nobody could call her features
attractive, and nobody could call them ugly; there was nothing in her
voice, her expression, her manner, or her dress that differed in any
appreciable degree from the voice, expression, manner, and dress of
five hundred thousand other single ladies of her age and position in
the world. If you had asked her to describe herself, she would have
answered, “I am a gentlewoman”; and if you had further inquired which
of her numerous accomplishments took highest rank in her own esteem, she
would have replied, “My powers of conversation.” For the rest, she was
Miss Pink, of South Morden; and, when that has been said, all has been
said.
“Pray be seated, sir. We have had a beautiful day, after the
long-continued wet weather. I am told that the season is very
unfavorable for wall-fruit. May I offer you some refreshment after
your journey?” In these terms and in the smoothest of voices, Miss Pink
opened the interview.
Mr. Troy made a polite reply, and added a few strictly conventional
remarks on the beauty of the neighborhood. Not even a lawyer could sit
in Miss Pink’s presence, and hear Miss Pink’s conversation, without
feeling himself called upon (in the nursery phrase) to “be on his best
behavior”.
“It is extremely kind of you, Mr. Troy, to favor me with this visit,”
Miss Pink resumed. “I am well aware that the time of professional
gentlemen is of especial value to them; and I will therefore ask you
to excuse me if I proceed abruptly to the subject on which I desire to
consult your experience.”
Here the lady modestly smoothed out her dress over her knees, and the
lawyer made a bow. Miss Pink’s highly-trained conversation had perhaps
one fault--it was not, strictly speaking, conversation at all. In its
effect on her hearers it rather resembled the contents of a fluently
conventional letter, read aloud.
“The circumstances under which my niece Isabel has left Lady Lydiard’s
house,” Miss Pink proceeded, “are so indescribably painful--I will go
further, I will say so deeply humiliating--that I have forbidden her to
refer to them again in my presence, or to mention them in the future
to any living creature besides myself. You are acquainted with those
circumstances, Mr. Troy; and you will understand my indignation when I
first learnt that my sister’s child had been suspected of theft. I
have not the honor of being acquainted with Lady Lydiard. She is not
a Countess, I believe? Just so! Her husband was only a Baron. I am not
acquainted with Lady Lydiard; and I will not trust myself to say what I
think of her conduct to my niece.”
“Pardon me, madam,” Mr. Troy interposed. “Before you say any more about
Lady Lydiard, I really must beg leave to observe--”
“Pardon _me_,” Miss Pink rejoined. “I never form a hasty judgment. Lady
Lydiard’s conduct is beyond the reach of any defense, no matter how
ingenious it may be. You may not be aware, sir, that in receiving my
niece under her roof her Ladyship was receiving a gentlewoman by birth
as well as by education. My late lamented sister was the daughter of a
clergyman of the Church of England. I need hardly remind you that,
as such, she was a born lady. Under favoring circumstances, Isabel’s
maternal grandfather might have been Archbishop of Canterbury, and have
taken precedence of the whole House of Peers, the Princes of the blood
Royal alone excepted. I am not prepared to say that my niece is equally
well connected on her father’s side. My sister surprised--I will not add
shocked--us when she married a chemist. At the same time, a chemist
is not a tradesman. He is a gentleman at one end of the profession of
Medicine, and a titled physician is a gentleman at the other end. That
is all. In inviting Isabel to reside with her, Lady Lydiard, I repeat,
was bound to remember that she was associating herself with a young
gentlewoman. She has _not_ remembered this, which is one insult; and she
has suspected my niece of theft, which is another.”
Miss Pink paused to take breath. Mr. Troy made a second attempt to get a
hearing.
“Will you kindly permit me, madam, to say a few words?”
“No!” said Miss Pink, asserting the most immovable obstinacy under
the blandest politeness of manner. “Your time, Mr. Troy, is really too
valuable! Not even your trained intellect can excuse conduct which is
manifestly _in_excusable on the face of it. Now you know my opinion of
Lady Lydiard, you will not be surprised to hear that I decline to trust
her Ladyship. She may, or she may not, cause the necessary inquiries
to be made for the vindication of my niece’s character. In a matter so
serious as this--I may say, in a duty which I owe to the memories of
my sister and my parents--I will not leave the responsibility to Lady
Lydiard. I will take it on myself. Let me add that I am able to pay the
necessary expenses. The earlier years of my life, Mr. Troy, have been
passed in the tuition of young ladies. I have been happy in meriting the
confidence of parents; and I have been strict in observing the golden
rules of economy. On my retirement, I have been able to invest a modest,
a very modest, little fortune in the Funds. A portion of it is at the
service of my niece for the recovery of her good name; and I desire to
place the necessary investigation confidentially in your hands. You are
acquainted with the case, and the case naturally goes to you. I could
not prevail on myself--I really could not prevail on myself--to mention
it to a stranger. That is the business on which I wished to consult you.
Please say nothing more about Lady Lydiard--the subject is inexpressibly
disagreeable to me. I will only trespass on your kindness to tell me if
I have succeeded in making myself understood.”
Miss Pink leaned back in her chair, at the exact angle permitted by the
laws of propriety; rested her left elbow on the palm of her right hand,
and lightly supported her cheek with her forefinger and thumb. In this
position she waited Mr. Troy’s answer--the living picture of human
obstinacy in its most respectable form.
If Mr. Troy had not been a lawyer--in other words, if he had not been
professionally capable of persisting in his own course, in the face of
every conceivable difficulty and discouragement--Miss Pink might have
remained in undisturbed possession of her own opinions. As it was, Mr.
Troy had got his hearing at last; and no matter how obstinately she
might close her eyes to it, Miss Pink was now destined to have the other
side of the case presented to her view.
“I am sincerely obliged to you, madam, for the expression of your
confidence in me,” Mr. Troy began; “at the same time, I must beg you to
excuse me if I decline to accept your proposal.”
Miss Pink had not expected to receive such an answer as this. The
lawyer’s brief refusal surprised and annoyed her.
“Why do you decline to assist me?” she asked.
“Because,” answered Mr. Troy, “my services are already engaged, in Miss
Isabel’s interest, by a client whom I have served for more than twenty
years. My client is--”
Miss Pink anticipated the coming disclosure. “You need not trouble
yourself, sir, to mention your client’s name,” she said.
“My client,” persisted Mr. Troy, “loves Miss Isabel dearly.”
“That is a matter of opinion,” Miss Pink interposed.
“And believes in Miss Isabel’s innocence,” proceeded the irrepressible
lawyer, “as firmly as you believe in it yourself.”
Miss Pink (being human) had a temper; and Mr. Troy had found his way to
it.
“If Lady Lydiard believes in my niece’s innocence,” said Miss Pink,
suddenly sitting bolt upright in her chair, “why has my niece been
compelled, in justice to herself, to leave Lady Lydiard’s house?”
“You will admit, madam,” Mr. Troy answered cautiously, “that we are all
of us liable, in this wicked world, to be the victims of appearances.
Your niece is a victim--an innocent victim. She wisely withdraws from
Lady Lydiard’s house until appearances are proved to be false and her
position is cleared up.”
Miss Pink had her reply ready. “That is simply acknowledging, in other
words, that my niece is suspected. I am only a woman, Mr. Troy--but it
is not quite so easy to mislead me as you seem to suppose.”
Mr. Troy’s temper was admirably trained. But it began to acknowledge
that Miss Pink’s powers of irritation could sting to some purpose.
“No intention of misleading you, madam, has ever crossed my mind,” he
rejoined warmly. “As for your niece, I can tell you this. In all my
experience of Lady Lydiard, I never saw her so distressed as she was
when Miss Isabel left the house!”
“Indeed!” said Miss Pink, with an incredulous smile. “In my rank of
life, when we feel distressed about a person, we do our best to comfort
that person by a kind letter or an early visit. But then I am not a lady
of title.”
“Lady Lydiard engaged herself to call on Miss Isabel in my hearing,”
said Mr. Troy. “Lady Lydiard is the most generous woman living!”
“Lady Lydiard is here!” cried a joyful voice on the other side of the
door.
At the same moment, Isabel burst into the room in a state of excitement
which actually ignored the formidable presence of Miss Pink. “I beg your
pardon, aunt! I was upstairs at the window, and I saw the carriage
stop at the gate. And Tommie has come, too! The darling saw me at the
window!” cried the poor girl, her eyes sparkling with delight as a
perfect explosion of barking made itself heard over the tramp of horses’
feet and the crash of carriage wheels outside.
Miss Pink rose slowly, with a dignity that looked capable of adequately
receiving--not one noble lady only, but the whole peerage of England.
“Control yourself, dear Isabel,” she said. “No well-bred young lady
permits herself to become unduly excited. Stand by my side--a little
behind me.”
Isabel obeyed. Mr. Troy kept his place, and privately enjoyed his
triumph over Miss Pink. If Lady Lydiard had been actually in league with
him, she could not have chosen a more opportune time for her visit. A
momentary interval passed. The carriage drew up at the door; the horses
trampled on the gravel; the bell rung madly; the uproar of Tommie,
released from the carriage and clamoring to be let in, redoubled its
fury. Never before had such an unruly burst of noises invaded the
tranquility of Miss Pink’s villa!