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 command 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; snatching 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?”