lady may be) is a combination not often witnessed in any country on the
civilized earth. Either the money is always spent, or the money has
been forgotten on the toilet-table at home. Blanche’s purse contained a
sovereign and some six or seven shillings in silver. As pocket-money for
an heiress it was contemptible. But as a gratuity to Bishopriggs it was
magnificent. The old rascal put the money into his pocket with one hand,
and dashed away the tears of sensibility, which he had _not_ shed, with
the other.
“Cast yer bread on the waters,” cried Mr. Bishopriggs, with his one eye
raised devotionally to the sky, “and ye sall find it again after monny
days! Heeh! hech! didna I say when I first set eyes on that puir leddy,
‘I feel like a fether to ye?’ It’s seemply mairvelous to see hoo a man’s
ain gude deeds find him oot in this lower warld o’ ours. If ever I heard
the voice o’ naitural affection speaking in my ain breast,” pursued Mr.
Bishopriggs, with his eye fixed in uneasy expectation on Blanche, “it
joost spak’ trumpet-tongued when that winsome creature first lookit at
me. Will it be she now that told ye of the wee bit sairvice I rendered
to her in the time when I was in bondage at the hottle?”
“Yes--she told me herself.”
“Might I mak’ sae bauld as to ask whar’ she may be at the present time?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Bishopriggs. I am more miserable about it than I can
say. She has gone away--and I don’t know where.”
“Ow! ow! that’s bad. And the bit husband-creature danglin’ at her
petticoat’s tail one day, and awa’ wi’ the sunrise next mornin’--have
they baith taken leg-bail together?”
“I know nothing of him; I never saw him. You saw him. Tell me--what was
he like?”
“Eh! he was joost a puir weak creature. Didn’t know a glass o’ good
sherry-wine when he’d got it. Free wi’ the siller--that’s a’ ye can say
for him--free wi’ the siller!”
Finding it impossible to extract from Mr. Bishopriggs any clearer
description of the man who had been with Anne at the inn than this,
Blanche approached the main object of the interview. Too anxious to
waste time in circumlocution, she turned the conversation at once to the
delicate and doubtful subject of the lost letter.
“There is something else that I want to say to you,” she resumed. “My
friend had a loss while she was staying at the inn.”
The clouds of doubt rolled off the mind of Mr. Bishopriggs. The lady’s
friend knew of the lost letter. And, better still, the lady’s friend
looked as if she wanted it!
“Ay! ay!” he said, with all due appearance of carelessness. “Like
eneugh. From the mistress downward, they’re a’ kittle cattle at the inn
since I’ve left ‘em. What may it ha’ been that she lost?”
“She lost a letter.”
The look of uneasy expectation reappeared in the eye of Mr. Bishopriggs.
It was a question--and a serious question, from his point of
view--whether any suspicion of theft was attached to the disappearance
of the letter.
“When ye say ‘lost,’” he asked, “d’ye mean stolen?”
Blanche was quite quick enough to see the necessity of quieting his mind
on this point.
“Oh no!” she answered. “Not stolen. Only lost. Did you hear about it?”
“Wherefore suld _I_ ha’ heard aboot it?” He looked hard at Blanche--and
detected a momentary hesitation in her face. “Tell me this, my young
leddy,” he went on, advancing warily near to the point. “When ye’re
speering for news o’ your friend’s lost letter--what sets ye on comin’
to _me?_”
Those words were decisive. It is hardly too much to say that Blanche’s
future depended on Blanche’s answer to that question.
If she could have produced the money; and if she had said, boldly, “You
have got the letter, Mr. Bishopriggs: I pledge my word that no questions
shall be asked, and I offer you ten pounds for it”--in all probability
the bargain would have been struck; and the whole course of coming
events would, in that case, have been altered. But she had no money
left; and there were no friends, in the circle at Swanhaven, to whom she
could apply, without being misinterpreted, for a loan of ten pounds,
to be privately intrusted to her on the spot. Under stress of sheer
necessity Blanche abandoned all hope of making any present appeal of a
pecuniary nature to the confidence of Bishopriggs.
The one other way of attaining her object that she could see was to arm
herself with the influence of Sir Patrick’s name. A man, placed in her
position, would have thought it mere madness to venture on such a
risk as this. But Blanche--with one act of rashness already on her
conscience--rushed, woman-like, straight to the commission of another.
The same headlong eagerness to reach her end, which had hurried her into
questioning Geoffrey before he left Windygates, now drove her, just
as recklessly, into taking the management of Bishopriggs out of Sir
Patrick’s skilled and practiced hands. The starving sisterly love in her
hungered for a trace of Anne. Her heart whispered, Risk it! And Blanche
risked it on the spot.
“Sir Patrick set me on coming to you,” she said.
The opening hand of Mr. Bishopriggs--ready to deliver the letter, and
receive the reward--closed again instantly as she spoke those words.
“Sir Paitrick?” he repeated “Ow! ow! ye’ve een tauld Sir Paitrick aboot
it, have ye? There’s a chiel wi’ a lang head on his shouthers, if ever
there was ane yet! What might Sir Paitrick ha’ said?”
Blanche noticed a change in his tone. Blanche was rigidly careful (when
it was too late) to answer him in guarded terms.
“Sir Patrick thought you might have found the letter,” she said, “and
might not have remembered about it again until after you had left the
inn.”
Bishopriggs looked back into his own personal experience of his old
master--and drew the correct conclusion that Sir Patrick’s view of
his connection with the disappearance of the letter was not the purely
unsuspicious view reported by Blanche. “The dour auld deevil,” he
thought to himself, “knows me better than _that!_”
“Well?” asked Blanche, impatiently. “Is Sir Patrick right?”
“Richt?” rejoined Bishopriggs, briskly. “He’s as far awa’ from the truth
as John o’ Groat’s House is from Jericho.”
“You know nothing of the letter?”
“Deil a bit I know o’ the letter. The first I ha’ heard o’ it is what I
hear noo.”
Blanche’s heart sank within her. Had she defeated her own object, and
cut the ground from under Sir Patrick’s feet, for the second time?
Surely not! There was unquestionably a chance, on this occasion, that
the man might be prevailed upon to place the trust in her uncle which
he was too cautious to confide to a stranger like herself. The one wise
thing to do now was to pave the way for the exertion of Sir Patrick’s
superior influence, and Sir Patrick’s superior skill. She resumed the
conversation with that object in view.
“I am sorry to hear that Sir Patrick has guessed wrong,” she resumed.
“My friend was anxious to recover the letter when I last saw her; and I
hoped to hear news of it from you. However, right or wrong, Sir Patrick
has some reasons for wishing to see you--and I take the opportunity of
telling you so. He has left a letter to wait for you at the Craig Fernie
inn.”
“I’m thinking the letter will ha’ lang eneugh to wait, if it waits till
I gae back for it to the hottle,” remarked Bishopriggs.
“In that case,” said Blanche, promptly, “you had better give me an
address at which Sir Patrick can write to you. You wouldn’t, I suppose,
wish me to say that I had seen you here, and that you refused to
communicate with him?”
“Never think it!” cried Bishopriggs, fervently. “If there’s ain thing
mair than anither that I’m carefu’ to presairve intact, it’s joost the
respectful attention that I owe to Sir Paitrick. I’ll make sae bauld,
miss, au to chairge ye wi’ that bit caird. I’m no’ settled in ony place
yet (mair’s the pity at my time o’ life!), but Sir Paitrick may hear o’
me, when Sir Paitrick has need o’ me, there.” He handed a dirty
little card to Blanche containing the name and address of a butcher in
Edinburgh. “Sawmuel Bishopriggs,” he went on, glibly. “Care o’ Davie
Dow, flesher; Cowgate; Embro. My Patmos in the weelderness, miss, for
the time being.”
Blanche received the address with a sense of unspeakable relief. If
she had once more ventured on taking Sir Patrick’s place, and once
more failed in justifying her rashness by the results, she had at
least gained some atoning advantage, this time, by opening a means of
communication between her uncle and Bishopriggs. “You will hear from Sir
Patrick,” she said, and nodded kindly, and returned to her place among
the guests.
“I’ll hear from Sir Paitrick, wull I?” repeated Bishopriggs when he was
left by himself. “Sir Paitrick will wark naething less than a meeracle
if he finds Sawmuel Bishopriggs at the Cowgate, Embro!”
He laughed softly over his own cleverness; and withdrew to a lonely
place in the plantation, in which he could consult the stolen
correspondence without fear of being observed by any living creature.
Once more the truth had tried to struggle into light, before the day of
the marriage, and once more Blanche had innocently helped the darkness
to keep it from view.
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-THIRD.
SEEDS OF THE FUTURE (THIRD SOWING).
AFTER a new and attentive reading of Anne’s letter to Geoffrey, and of
Geoffrey’s letter to Anne, Bishopriggs laid down comfortably under a
tree, and set himself the task of seeing his position plainly as it was
at that moment.
The profitable disposal of the correspondence to Blanche was no longer
among the possibilities involved in the case. As for treating with Sir
Patrick, Bishopriggs determined to keep equally dear of the Cowgate,
Edinburgh, and of Mrs. Inchbare’s inn, so long as there was the faintest
chance of his pushing his own interests in any other quarter. No person
living would be capable of so certainly extracting the correspondence
from him, on such ruinously cheap terms as his old master. “I’ll no’ put
myself under Sir Paitrick’s thumb,” thought Bishopriggs, “till I’ve gane
my ain rounds among the lave o’ them first.”
Rendered into intelligible English, this resolution pledged him to hold
no communication with Sir Patrick--until he had first tested his success
in negotiating with other persons, who might be equally interested in
getting possession of the correspondence, and more liberal in giving
hush-money to the thief who had stolen it.
Who were the “other persons” at his disposal, under these circumstances?
He had only to recall the conversation which he had overheard between
Lady Lundie and Mrs. Delamayn to arrive at the discovery of one person,
to begin with, who was directly interested in getting possession of his
own letter. Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn was in a fair way of being married to
a lady named Mrs. Glenarm. And here was this same Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn
in matrimonial correspondence, little more than a fortnight since, with
another lady--who signed herself “Anne Silvester.”
Whatever his position between the two women might be, his interest in
possessing himself of the correspondence was plain beyond all doubt. It
was equally clear that the first thing to be done by Bishopriggs was
to find the means of obtaining a personal interview with him. If the
interview led to nothing else, it would decide one important question
which still remained to be solved. The lady whom Bishopriggs had waited
on at Craig Fernie might well be “Anne Silvester.” Was Mr. Geoffrey
Delamayn, in that case, the gentleman who had passed as her husband at
the inn?
Bishopriggs rose to his gouty feet with all possible alacrity, and
hobbled away to make the necessary inquiries, addressing himself, not to
the men-servants at the dinner-table, who would be sure to insist on
his joining them, but to the women-servants left in charge of the empty
house.
He easily obtained the necessary directions for finding the cottage. But
he was warned that Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn’s trainer allowed nobody to see
his patron at exercise, and that he would certainly be ordered off again
the moment he appeared on the scene.
Bearing this caution in mind, Bishopriggs made a circuit, on reaching
the open ground, so as to approach the cottage at the back, under
shelter of the trees behind it. One look at Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn was
all that he wanted in the first instance. They were welcome to order him
off again, as long as he obtained that.
He was still hesitating at the outer line of the trees, when he heard a
loud, imperative voice, calling from the front of the cottage, “Now, Mr.
Geoffrey! Time’s up!” Another voice answered, “All right!” and, after an
interval, Geoffrey Delamayn appeared on the open ground, proceeding to
the point from which he was accustomed to walk his measured mile.
Advancing a few steps to look at his man more closely, Bishopriggs
was instantly detected by the quick eye of the trainer. “Hullo!” cried
Perry, “what do you want here?” Bishopriggs opened his lips to make an
excuse. “Who the devil are you?” roared Geoffrey. The trainer answered
the question out of the resources of his own experience. “A spy,
Sir--sent to time you at your work.” Geoffrey lifted his mighty fist,
and sprang forward a step. Perry held his patron back. “You can’t do
that, Sir,” he said; “the man’s too old. No fear of his turning up
again--you’ve scared him out of his wits.” The statement was strictly
true. The terror of Bishopriggs at the sight of Geoffrey’s fist restored
to him the activity of his youth. He ran for the first time for twenty
years; and only stopped to remember his infirmities, and to catch his
breath, when he was out of sight of the cottage, among the trees.
He sat down to rest and recover himself, with the comforting inner
conviction that, in one respect at least, he had gained his point.
The furious savage, with the eyes that darted fire and the fist that
threatened destruction, was a total stranger to him. In other words,
_not_ the man who had passed as the lady’s husband at the inn.
At the same time it was equally certain that he _was_ the man involved
in the compromising correspondence which Bishopriggs possessed. To
appeal, however, to his interest in obtaining the letter was entirely
incompatible (after the recent exhibition of his fist) with the strong
regard which Bishopriggs felt for his own personal security. There was
no alternative now but to open negotiations with the one other person
concerned in the matter (fortunately, on this occasion, a person of
the gentler sex), who was actually within reach. Mrs. Glenarm was at
Swanhaven. She had a direct interest in clearing up the question of a
prior claim to Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn on the part of another woman. And
she could only do that by getting the correspondence into her own hands.
“Praise Providence for a’ its mercies!” said Bishopriggs, getting on his
feet again. “I’ve got twa strings, as they say, to my boo. I trow the
woman’s the canny string o’ the twa--and we’ll een try the twanging of
her.”
He set forth on his road back again, to search among the company at the
lake for Mrs. Glenarm.
The dance had reached its climax of animation when Bishopriggs
reappeared on the scene of his duties; and the ranks of the company had
been recruited, in his absence, by the very person whom it was now his
foremost object to approach.
Receiving, with supple submission, a reprimand for his prolonged absence
from the chief of the servants, Bishopriggs--keeping his one observant
eye carefully on the look-out--busied himself in promoting the
circulation of ices and cool drinks.
While he was thus occupied, his attention was attracted by two persons
who, in very different ways, stood out prominently as marked characters
among the rank and file of the guests.
The first person was a vivacious, irascible old gentleman, who
persisted in treating the undeniable fact of his age on the footing of a
scandalous false report set afloat by Time. He was superbly strapped
and padded. His hair, his teeth, and his complexion were triumphs of
artificial youth. When he was not occupied among the youngest women
present--which was very seldom--he attached himself exclusively to the
youngest men. He insisted on joining every dance. Twice he measured his
length upon the grass, but nothing daunted him. He was waltzing again,
with another young woman, at the next dance, as if nothing had happened.
Inquiring who this effervescent old gentleman might be, Bishopriggs
discovered that he was a retired officer in the navy; commonly known
(among his inferiors) as “The Tartar;” more formally described in
society as Captain Newenden, the last male representative of one of the
oldest families in England.
The second person, who appeared to occupy a position of distinction at
the dance in the glade, was a lady.
To the eye of Bishopriggs, she was a miracle of beauty, with a small
fortune for a poor man carried about her in silk, lace, and jewelry. No
woman present was the object of such special attention among the men as
this fascinating and priceless creature. She sat fanning herself with
a matchless work of art (supposed to be a handkerchief) representing an
island of cambric in the midst of an ocean of lace. She was surrounded
by a little court of admirers, who fetched and carried at her slightest
nod, like well-trained dogs. Sometimes they brought refreshments, which
she had asked for, only to decline taking them when they came. Sometimes
they brought information of what was going on among the dancers, which
the lady had been eager to receive when they went away, and in which she
had ceased to feel the smallest interest when they came back. Every body
burst into ejaculations of distress when she was asked to account for
her absence from the dinner, and answered, “My poor nerves.” Every body
said, “What should we have done without you!”--when she doubted if she
had done wisely in joining the party at all. Inquiring who this favored
lady might be, Bishopriggs discovered that she was the niece of the
indomitable old gentleman who _would_ dance--or, more plainly still, no
less a person than his contemplated customer, Mrs. Glenarm.
With all his enormous assurance Bishopriggs was daunted when he found
himself facing the question of what he was to do next.
To open negotiations with Mrs. Glenarm, under present circumstances,
was, for a man in his position, simply impossible. But, apart from this,
the prospect of profitably addressing himself to that lady in the future
was, to say the least of it, beset with difficulties of no common kind.
Supposing the means of disclosing Geoffrey’s position to her to be
found--what would she do, when she received her warning? She would in
all probability apply to one of two formidable men, both of whom were
interested in the matter. If she went straight to the man accused
of attempting to marry her, at a time when he was already engaged to
another woman--Bishopriggs would find himself confronted with the owner
of that terrible fist, which had justly terrified him even on a distant
and cursory view. If, on the other hand she placed her interests in the
care of her uncle--Bishopriggs had only to look at the captain, and to
calculate his chance of imposing terms on a man who owed Life a bill of
more than sixty years’ date, and who openly defied time to recover the
debt.
With these serious obstacles standing in the way, what was to be done?
The only alternative left was to approach Mrs. Glenarm under shelter of
the dark.
Reaching this conclusion, Bishopriggs decided to ascertain from the
servants what the lady’s future movements might be; and, thus informed,
to startle her by anonymous warnings, conveyed through the post, and
claiming their answer through the advertising channel of a newspaper.
Here was the certainty of alarming her, coupled with the certainty of
safety to himself! Little did Mrs. Glenarm dream, when she capriciously
stopped a servant going by with some glasses of lemonade, that the
wretched old creature who offered the tray contemplated corresponding
with her before the week was out, in the double character of her
“Well-Wisher” and her “True Friend.”
The evening advanced. The shadows lengthened. The waters of the lake
grew pitchy black. The gliding of the ghostly swans became rare and more
rare. The elders of the party thought of the drive home. The juniors
(excepting Captain Newenden) began to flag at the dance. Little by
little the comfortable attractions of the house--tea, coffee, and
candle-light in snug rooms--resumed their influence. The guests
abandoned the glade; and the fingers and lungs of the musicians rested
at last.
Lady Lundie and her party were the first to send for the carriage and
say farewell; the break-up of the household at Windygates on the next
day, and the journey south, being sufficient apologies for setting the
example of retreat. In an hour more the only visitors left were the
guests staying at Swanhaven Lodge.
The company gone, the hired waiters from Kirkandrew were paid and
dismissed.
On the journey back the silence of Bishopriggs created some surprise
among his comrades.
“I’ve got my ain concerns to think of,” was the only answer he
vouchsafed to the remonstrances addressed to him. The “concerns” alluded
to, comprehended, among other changes of plan, his departure from
Kirkandrew the next day--with a reference, in case of inquiries, to his
convenient friend at the Cowgate, Edinburgh. His actual destination--to
be kept a secret from every body--was Perth. The neighborhood of this
town--as stated on the authority of her own maid--was the part of
Scotland to which the rich widow contemplated removing when she left
Swanhaven in two days’ time. At Perth, Bishopriggs knew of more than
one place in which he could get temporary employment--and at Perth he
determined to make his first anonymous advances to Mrs. Glenarm.
The remainder of the evening passed quietly enough at the Lodge.
The guests were sleepy and dull after the excitement of the day. Mrs.
Glenarm retired early. At eleven o’clock Julius Delamayn was the only
person left up in the house. He was understood to be in his study,
preparing an address to the electors, based on instructions sent from
London by his father. He was actually occupied in the music-room--now
that there was nobody to discover him--playing exercises softly on his
beloved violin.
At the trainer’s cottage a trifling incident occured, that night, which
afforded materials for a note in Perry’s professional diary.
Geoffrey had sustained the later trial of walking for a given time and
distance, at his full speed, without showing any of those symptoms of
exhaustion which had followed the more serious experiment of running,
to which he had been subjected earlier in the day. Perry, honestly
bent--though he had privately hedged his own bets--on doing his best
to bring his man in good order to the post on the day of the race, had
forbidden Geoffrey to pay his evening visit to the house, and had sent
him to bed earlier than usual. The trainer was alone, looking over
his own written rules, and considering what modifications he should
introduce into the diet and exercises of the next day, when he was
startled by a sound of groaning from the bedroom in which his patron lay
asleep.
He went in, and found Geoffrey rolling to and fro on the pillow, with
his face contorted, with his hands clenched, and with the perspiration
standing thick on his forehead--suffering evidently under the nervous
oppression produced by the phantom-terrors of a dream.
Perry spoke to him, and pulled him up in the bed. He woke with a scream.
He stared at his trainer in vacant terror, and spoke to his trainer in
wild words. “What are your horrid eyes looking at over my shoulder?”
he cried out. “Go to the devil--and take your infernal slate with you!”
Perry spoke to him once more. “You’ve been dreaming of somebody, Mr.
Delamayn. What’s to do about a slate?” Geoffrey looked eagerly round the
room, and heaved a heavy breath of relief. “I could have sworn she was
staring at me over the dwarf pear-trees,” he said. “All right, I know
where I am now.” Perry (attributing the dream to nothing more important
than a passing indigestion) administered some brandy and water, and left
him to drop off again to sleep. He fretfully forbade the extinguishing
of the light. “Afraid of the dark?” said Perry, with a laugh. No. He was
afraid of dreaming again of the dumb cook at Windygates House.
SEVENTH SCENE.--HAM FARM.
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FOURTH.
THE NIGHT BEFORE.
THE time was the night before the marriage. The place was Sir Patrick’s
house in Kent.