Bishopriggs proceeded to the Harp of Scotland--at which establishment
for the reception of travelers he possessed the advantage of being known
to the landlord as Mrs. Inchbare’s right-hand man, and of standing high
on the head-waiter’s list of old and intimate friends.
Inquiring for the waiter first by the name of Thomas (otherwise Tammy)
Pennyquick, Bishopriggs found his friend in sore distress of body and
mind. Contending vainly against the disabling advances of rheumatism,
Thomas Pennyquick ruefully contemplated the prospect of being laid up
at home by a long illness--with a wife and children to support, and with
the emoluments attached to his position passing into the pockets of the
first stranger who could be found to occupy his place at the inn.
Hearing this doleful story, Bishopriggs cunningly saw his way to serving
his own private interests by performing the part of Thomas Pennyquick’s
generous and devoted friend.
He forthwith offered to fill the place, without taking the emoluments,
of the invalided headwaiter--on the understanding, as a matter of
course, that the landlord consented to board and lodge him free of
expense at the inn. The landlord having readily accepted this condition,
Thomas Pennyquick retired to the bosom of his family. And there was
Bishopriggs, doubly secured behind a respectable position and a virtuous
action against all likelihood of suspicion falling on him as a stranger
in Perth--in the event of his correspondence with Mrs. Glenarm being
made the object of legal investigation on the part of her friends!
Having opened the campaign in this masterly manner, the same sagacious
foresight had distinguished the operations of Bishopriggs throughout.
His correspondence with Mrs. Glenarm was invariably written with the
left hand--the writing thus produced defying detection, in all cases,
as bearing no resemblance of character whatever to writing produced by
persons who habitually use the other hand. A no less far-sighted cunning
distinguished his proceedings in answering the advertisements which the
lawyers duly inserted in the newspaper. He appointed hours at which he
was employed on business-errands for the inn, and places which lay
on the way to those errands, for his meetings with Mrs. Glenarm’s
representatives: a pass-word being determined on, as usual in such
cases, by exchanging which the persons concerned could discover each
other. However carefully the lawyers might set the snare--whether they
had their necessary “witness” disguised as an artist sketching in the
neighborhood, or as an old woman selling fruit, or what not--the wary
eye of Bishopriggs detected it. He left the pass-word unspoken; he
went his way on his errand; he was followed on suspicion; and he was
discovered to be only “a respectable person,” charged with a message by
the landlord of the Harp of Scotland Inn!
To a man intrenched behind such precautions as these, the chance of
being detected might well be reckoned among the last of all the chances
that could possibly happen.
Discovery was, nevertheless, advancing on Bishopriggs from a quarter
which had not been included in his calculations. Anne Silvester was in
Perth; forewarned by the newspaper (as Sir Patrick had guessed) that the
letters offered to Mrs. Glenarm were the letters between Geoffrey and
herself, which she had lost at Craig Fernie, and bent on clearing up the
suspicion which pointed to Bishopriggs as the person who was trying to
turn the correspondence to pecuniary account. The inquiries made for
him, at Anne’s request, as soon as she arrived in the town, openly
described his name, and his former position as headwaiter at Craig
Fernie--and thu s led easily to the discovery of him, in his publicly
avowed character of Thomas Pennyquick’s devoted friend. Toward
evening, on the day after she reached Perth, the news came to Anne that
Bishopriggs was in service at the inn known as the Harp of Scotland.
The landlord of the hotel at which she was staying inquired whether he
should send a message for her. She answered, “No, I will take my message
myself. All I want is a person to show me the way to the inn.”
Secluded in the solitude of the head-waiter’s pantry, Bishopriggs sat
peacefully melting the sugar in his whisky-punch.
It was the hour of the evening at which a period of tranquillity
generally occurred before what was called “the night-business” of the
house began. Bishopriggs was accustomed to drink and meditate daily in
this interval of repose. He tasted the punch, and smiled contentedly as
he set down his glass. The prospect before him looked fairly enough. He
had outwitted the lawyers in the preliminary negotiations thus far. All
that was needful now was to wait till the terror of a public scandal
(sustained by occasional letters from her “Friend in the Dark”) had
its due effect on Mrs. Glenarm, and hurried her into paying the
purchase-money for the correspondence with her own hand. “Let it breed
in the brain,” he thought, “and the siller will soon come out o’ the
purse.”
His reflections were interrupted by the appearance of a slovenly
maid-servant, with a cotton handkerchief tied round her head, and an
uncleaned sauce-pan in her hand.
“Eh, Maister Bishopriggs,” cried the girl, “here’s a braw young leddy
speerin’ for ye by yer ain name at the door.”
“A leddy?” repeated Bishopriggs, with a look of virtuous disgust. “Ye
donnert ne’er-do-weel, do you come to a decent, ‘sponsible man like me,
wi’ sic a Cyprian overture as that? What d’ye tak’ me for? Mark Antony
that lost the world for love (the mair fule he!)? or Don Jovanny that
counted his concubines by hundreds, like the blessed Solomon himself?
Awa’ wi’ ye to yer pots and pans; and bid the wandering Venus that sent
ye go spin!”
Before the girl could answer she was gently pulled aside from the
doorway, and Bishopriggs, thunder-struck, saw Anne Silvester standing in
her place.
“You had better tell the servant I am no stranger to you,” said Anne,
looking toward the kitchen-maid, who stood in the passage staring at her
in stolid amazement.
“My ain sister’s child!” cried Bishopriggs, lying with his customary
readiness. “Go yer ways, Maggie. The bonny lassie’s my ain kith and kin.
The tongue o’ scandal, I trow, has naething to say against that.--Lord
save us and guide us!” he added In another tone, as the girl closed the
door on them, “what brings ye here?”
“I have something to say to you. I am not very well; I must wait a
little first. Give me a chair.”
Bishopriggs obeyed in silence. His one available eye rested on Anne,
as he produced the chair, with an uneasy and suspicious attention. “I’m
wanting to know one thing,” he said. “By what meeraiculous means, young
madam, do ye happen to ha’ fund yer way to this inn?”
Anne told him how her inquiries had been made and what the result had
been, plainly and frankly. The clouded face of Bishopriggs began to
clear again.
“Hech! hech!” he exclaimed, recovering all his native impudence, “I hae
had occasion to remark already, to anither leddy than yersel’, that it’s
seemply mairvelous hoo a man’s ain gude deeds find him oot in this lower
warld o’ ours. I hae dune a gude deed by pure Tammy Pennyquick, and
here’s a’ Pairth ringing wi the report o’ it; and Sawmuel Bishopriggs
sae weel known that ony stranger has only to ask, and find him.
Understand, I beseech ye, that it’s no hand o’ mine that pets this new
feather in my cap. As a gude Calvinist, my saul’s clear o’ the smallest
figment o’ belief in Warks. When I look at my ain celeebrity I joost
ask, as the Psawmist asked before me, ‘Why do the heathen rage, and the
people imagine a vain thing?’ It seems ye’ve something to say to me,” he
added, suddenly reverting to the object of Anne’s visit. “Is it humanly
possible that ye can ha’ come a’ the way to Pairth for naething but
that?”
The expression of suspicion began to show itself again in his face.
Concealing as she best might the disgust that he inspired in her, Anne
stated her errand in the most direct manner, and in the fewest possible
words.
“I have come here to ask you for something,” she said.
“Ay? ay? What may it be ye’re wanting of me?”
“I want the letter I lost at Craig Fernie.”
Even the solidly-founded self-possession of Bishopriggs himself was
shaken by the startling directness of that attack on it. His glib tongue
was paralyzed for the moment. “I dinna ken what ye’re drivin’ at,” he
said, after an interval, with a sullen consciousness that he had been
all but tricked into betraying himself.
The change in his manner convinced Anne that she had found in
Bishopriggs the person of whom she was in search.
“You have got my letter,” she said, sternly insisting on the truth. “And
you are trying to turn it to a disgraceful use. I won’t allow you to
make a market of my private affairs. You have offered a letter of mine
for sale to a stranger. I insist on your restoring it to me before I
leave this room!”
Bishopriggs hesitated again. His first suspicion that Anne had been
privately instructed by Mrs. Glenarm’s lawyers returned to his mind as
a suspicion confirmed. He felt the vast importance of making a cautious
reply.
“I’ll no’ waste precious time,” he said, after a moment’s consideration
with himself, “in brushing awa’ the fawse breath o’ scandal, when it
passes my way. It blaws to nae purpose, my young leddy, when it blaws on
an honest man like me. Fie for shame on ye for saying what ye’ve joost
said--to me that was a fether to ye at Craig Fernie! Wha’ set ye on to
it? Will it be man or woman that’s misca’ed me behind my back?”
Anne took the Glasgow newspaper from the pocket of her traveling cloak,
and placed it before him, open at the paragraph which described the act
of extortion attempted on Mrs. Glenarm.
“I have found there,” she said, “all that I want to know.”
“May a’ the tribe o’ editors, preenters, paper-makers, news-vendors,
and the like, bleeze together in the pit o’ Tophet!” With this devout
aspiration--internally felt, not openly uttered--Bishopriggs put on his
spectacles, and read the passage pointed out to him. “I see naething
here touching the name o’ Sawmuel Bishopriggs, or the matter o’ ony loss
ye may or may not ha’ had at Craig Fernie,” he said, when he had done;
still defending his position, with a resolution worthy of a better
cause.
Anne’s pride recoiled at the prospect of prolonging the discussion with
him. She rose to her feet, and said her last words.
“I have learned enough by this time,” she answered, “to know that the
one argument that prevails with you is the argument of money. If money
will spare me the hateful necessity of disputing with you--poor as I
am, money you shall have. Be silent, if you please. You are personally
interested in what I have to say next.”
She opened her purse, and took a five-pound note from it.
“If you choose to own the truth, and produce the letter,” she resumed,
“I will give you this, as your reward for finding, and restoring to me,
something that I had lost. If you persist in your present prevarication,
I can, and will, make that sheet of note-paper you have stolen from me
nothing but waste paper in your hands. You have threatened Mrs. Glenarm
with my interference. Suppose I go to Mrs. Glenarm? Suppose I interfere
before the week is out? Suppose I have other letters of Mr. Delamayn’s
in my possession, and produce them to speak for me? What has Mrs.
Glenarm to purchase of you _then?_ Answer me that!”
The color rose on her pale face. Her eyes, dim and weary when
she entered the room, looked him brightly through and through in
immeasurable contempt. “Answer me that!” she repeated, with a burst
of her old energy which revealed the fire and passion of the woman’s
nature, not quenched even yet!
If Bishopriggs had a merit, it was a rare merit, as men go, of
knowing when he was beaten. If he had an accomplishment, it was the
accomplishment of retiring defeated, with all the honors of war.
“Mercy presairve us!” he exclaimed, in the most innocent manner. “Is it
even You Yersel’ that writ the letter to the man ca’ed Jaffray Delamayn,
and got the wee bit answer in pencil on the blank page? Hoo, in Heeven’s
name, was I to know _that_ was the letter ye were after when ye cam’ in
here? Did ye ever tell me ye were Anne Silvester, at the hottle? Never
ance! Was the puir feckless husband-creature ye had wi’ ye at the inn,
Jaffray Delamayn? Jaffray wad mak’ twa o’ him, as my ain eyes ha’ seen.
Gi’ ye back yer letter? My certie! noo I know it is yer letter, I’ll gi’
it back wi’ a’ the pleasure in life!”
He opened his pocket-book, and took it out, with an alacrity worthy of
the honestest man in Christendom--and (more wonderful still) he looked
with a perfectly assumed expression of indifference at the five-pound
note in Anne’s hand.
“Hoot! toot!” he said, “I’m no’ that clear in my mind that I’m free to
tak’ yer money. Eh, weel! weel! I’ll een receive it, if ye like, as a
bit Memento o’ the time when I was o’ some sma’ sairvice to ye at the
hottle. Ye’ll no’ mind,” he added, suddenly returning to business,
“writin’ me joost a line--in the way o’ receipt, ye ken--to clear me o’
ony future suspicion in the matter o’ the letter?”
Anne threw down the bank-note on the table near which they were
standing, and snatched the letter from him.
“You need no receipt,” she answered. “There shall be no letter to bear
witness against you!”
She lifted her other hand to tear it in pieces. Bishopriggs caught her
by both wrists, at the same moment, and held her fast.
“Bide a wee!” he said. “Ye don’t get the letter, young madam, without
the receipt. It may be a’ the same to _you,_ now ye’ve married the other
man, whether Jaffray Delamayn ance promised ye fair in the by-gone time,
or no. But, my certie! it’s a matter o’ some moment to _me,_ that ye’ve
chairged wi’ stealin’ the letter, and making a market o’t, and Lord
knows what besides, that I suld hae yer ain acknowledgment for it in
black and white. Gi’ me my bit receipt--and een do as ye will with yer
letter after that!”
Anne’s hold of the letter relaxed. She let Bishopriggs repossess himself
of it as it dropped on the floor between them, without making an effort
to prevent him.
“It may be a’ the same to _you,_ now ye’ve married the other man,
whether Jaffray Delamayn ance promised ye fair in the by-gone time,
or no.” Those words presented Anne’s position before her in a light in
which she had not seen it yet. She had truly expressed the loathing that
Geoffrey now inspired in her, when she had declared, in her letter to
Arnold, that, even if he offered her marriage, in atonement for the
past, she would rather be what she was than be his wife. It had never
occurred to her, until this moment, that others would misinterpret the
sensitive pride which had prompted the abandonment of her claim on the
man who had ruined her. It had never been brought home to her until now,
that if she left him contemptuously to go his own way, and sell himself
to the first woman who had money enough to buy him, her conduct would
sanction the false conclusion that she was powerless to interfere,
because she was married already to another man. The color that had risen
in her face vanished, and left it deadly pale again. She began to see
that the purpose of her journey to the north was not completed yet.
“I will give you your receipt,” she said. “Tell me what to write, and it
shall be written.”
Bishopriggs dictated the receipt. She wrote and signed it. He put it in
his pocket-book with the five-pound note, and handed her the letter in
exchange.
“Tear it if ye will,” he said. “It matters naething to _me._”
For a moment she hesitated. A sudden shuddering shook her from head to
foot--the forewarning, it might be, of the influence which that letter,
saved from destruction by a hair’s-breadth, was destined to exercise on
her life to come. She recovered herself, and folded her cloak closer to
her, as if she had felt a passing chill.
“No,” she said; “I will keep the letter.”
She folded it and put it in the pocket of her dress. Then turned to
go--and stopped at the door.
“One thing more,” she added. “Do you know Mrs. Glenarm’s present
address?”
“Ye’re no’ reely going to Mistress Glenarm?”
“That is no concern of yours. You can answer my question or not, as you
please.”
“Eh, my leddy! yer temper’s no’ what it used to be in the auld times at
the hottle. Aweel! aweel! ye ha’ gi’en me yer money, and I’ll een gi’
ye back gude measure for it, on my side. Mistress Glenarm’s awa’ in
private--incog, as they say--to Jaffray Delamayn’s brither at Swanhaven
Lodge. Ye may rely on the information, and it’s no’ that easy to come
at either. They’ve keepit it a secret as they think from a’ the warld.
Hech! hech! Tammy Pennyquick’s youngest but twa is page-boy at the hoose
where the leddy’s been veesitin’, on the outskirts o’ Pairth. Keep a
secret if ye can frae the pawky ears o’ yer domestics in the servants’
hall!--Eh! she’s aff, without a word at parting!” he exclaimed, as Anne
left him without ceremony in the middle of his dissertation on secrets
and servants’ halls. “I trow I ha’ gaen out for wool, and come back
shorn,” he added, reflecting grimly on the disastrous overthrow of the
promising speculation on which he had embarked. “My certie! there was
naething left for’t, when madam’s fingers had grippit me, but to slip
through them as cannily as I could. What’s Jaffray’s marrying, or no’
marrying, to do wi’ _her?_” he wondered, reverting to the question which
Anne had put to him at parting. “And whar’s the sense o’ her errand, if
she’s reely bent on finding her way to Mistress Glenarm?”
Whatever the sense of her errand might be, Anne’s next proceeding proved
that she was really bent on it. After resting two days, she left Perth
by the first train in the morning, for Swanhaven Lodge.
NINTH SCENE.--THE MUSIC-ROOM.
CHAPTER THE FORTIETH.
JULIUS MAKES MISCHIEF.
JULIUS DELAMAYN was alone, idly sauntering to and fro, with his violin
in his hand, on the terrace at Swanhaven Lodge.
The first mellow light of evening was in the sky. It was the close of
the day on which Anne Silvester had left Perth.
Some hours earlier, Julius had sacrificed himself to the duties of his
political position--as made for him by his father. He had submitted to
the dire necessity of delivering an oration to the electors, at a public
meeting in the neighboring town of Kirkandrew. A detestable atmosphere
to breathe; a disorderly audience to address; insolent opposition to
conciliate; imbecile inquiries to answer; brutish interruptions to
endure; greedy petitioners to pacify; and dirty hands to shake: these
are the stages by which the aspiring English gentleman is compelled
to travel on the journey which leads him from the modest obscurity of
private life to the glorious publicity of the House of Commons. Julius
paid the preliminary penalties of a political first appearance, as
exacted by free institutions, with the necessary patience; and returned
to the welcome shelter of home, more indifferent, if possible, to the
attractions of Parliamentary distinction than when he set out. The
discord of the roaring “people” (still echoing in his ears) had
sharpened his customary sensibility to the poetry of sound, as composed
by Mozart, and as interpreted by piano and violin. Possessing himself of
his beloved instrument, he had gone out on the terrace to cool himself
in the evening air, pending the arrival of the servant whom he had
summoned by the music-room bell. The man appeared at the glass door
which led into the room; and reported, in answer to his master’s
inquiry, that Mrs. Julius Delamayn was out paying visits, and was not
expected to return for another hour at least.
Julius groaned in spirit. The finest music which Mozart has written for
the violin associates that instrument with the piano. Without the wife
to help him, the husband was mute. After an instant’s consideration,
Julius hit on an idea which promised, in some degree, to remedy the
disaster of Mrs. Delamayn’s absence from home.
“Has Mrs. Glenarm gone out, too?” he asked.
“No, Sir.”
“My compliments. If Mrs. Glenarm has nothing else to do, will she be so
kind as to come to me in the music-room?”
The servant went away with his message. Julius seated himself on one of
the terrace-benches, and began to tune his violin.
Mrs. Glenarm--rightly reported by Bishopriggs as having privately
taken refuge from her anonymous correspondent at Swanhaven Lodge--was,
musically speaking, far from being an efficient substitute for Mrs.
Delamayn. Julius possessed, in his wife, one of the few players on
the piano-forte under whose subtle touch that shallow and soulless
instrument becomes inspired with expression not its own, and produces
music instead of noise. The fine organization which can work this
miracle had not been bestowed on Mrs. Glenarm. She had been carefully
taught; and she was to be trusted to play correctly--and that was all.
Julius, hungry for music, and reigned to circumstances, asked for no
more.
The servant returned with his answer. Mrs. Glenarm would join Mr.
Delamayn in the music-room in ten minutes’ time.
Julius rose, relieved, and resumed his sauntering walk; now playing
little snatches of music, now stopping to look at the flowers on the
terrace, with an eye that enjoyed their beauty, and a hand that fondled
them with caressing touch. If Imperial Parliament had seen him at that
moment, Imperial Parliament must have given notice of a question to
his illustrious father: Is it possible, my lord, that _you_ can have
begotten such a Member as this?
After stopping for a moment to tighten one of the strings of his violin,
Julius, raising his head from the instrument, was surprised to see
a lady approaching him on the terrace. Advancing to meet her, and
perceiving that she was a total stranger to him, he assumed that she
was, in all probability, a visitor to his wife.
“Have I the honor of speaking to a friend of Mrs. Delamayn’s?” he asked.
“My wife is not at home, I am sorry to say.”
“I am a stranger to Mrs. Delamayn,” the lady answered. “The servant
informed me that she had gone out; and that I should find Mr. Delamayn
here.”
Julius bowed--and waited to hear more.
“I must beg you to forgive my intrusion,” the stranger went on. “My
object is to ask permission to see a lady who is, I have been informed,
a guest in your house.”
The extraordinary formality of the request rather puzzled Julius.
“Do you mean Mrs. Glenarm?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Pray don’t think any permission necessary. A friend of Mrs. Glenarm’s
may take her welcome for granted in this house.”
“I am not a friend of Mrs. Glenarm. I am a total stranger to her.”
This made the ceremonious request preferred by the lady a little more
intelligible--but it left the lady’s object in wishing to speak to Mrs.
Glenarm still in the dark. Julius politely waited, until it pleased her
to proceed further, and explain herself The explanation did not appear
to be an easy one to give. Her eyes dropped to the ground. She hesitated
painfully.
“My name--if I mention it,” she resumed, without looking up, “may
possibly inform you--” She paused. Her color came and went. She
hesitated again; struggled with her agitation, and controlled it. “I am
Anne Silvester,” she said, suddenly raising her pale face, and suddenly
steadying her trembling voice.
Julius started, and looked at her in silent surprise.