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 some 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 _Ecarte_ 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 first. 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.