Midwinter’s face darkened when the last trace of the carriage had
disappeared from view. “I have done my best,” he said, as he turned back
gloomily into the house “If Mr. Brock himself were here, Mr. Brock could
do no more!”
He looked at the bunch of keys which Allan had thrust into his hand,
and a sudden longing to put himself to the test over the steward’s books
took possession of his sensitive self-tormenting nature. Inquiring his
way to the room in which the various movables of the steward’s office
had been provisionally placed after the letting of the cottage, he sat
down at the desk, and tried how his own unaided capacity would guide him
through the business records of the Thorpe Ambrose estate. The result
exposed his own ignorance unanswerably before his own eyes. The ledgers
bewildered him; the leases, the plans, and even the correspondence
itself, might have been written, for all he could understand of them,
in an unknown tongue. His memory reverted bitterly as he left the room
again to his two years’ solitary self-instruction in the Shrewsbury
book-seller’s shop. “If I could only have worked at a business!” he
thought. “If I could only have known that the company of poets and
philosophers was company too high for a vagabond like me!”
He sat down alone in the great hall; the silence of it fell heavier and
heavier on his sinking spirits; the beauty of it exasperated him, like
an insult from a purse-proud man. “Curse the place!” he said, snatching
up his hat and stick. “I like the bleakest hillside I ever slept on
better than I like this house!”
He impatiently descended the door-steps, and stopped on the drive,
considering, by which direction he should leave the park for the country
beyond. If he followed the road taken by the carriage, he might risk
unsettling Allan by accidentally meeting him in the town. If he went
out by the back gate, he knew his own nature well enough to doubt his
ability to pass the room of the dream without entering it again. But
one other way remained: the way which he had taken, and then abandoned
again, in the morning. There was no fear of disturbing Allan and the
major’s daughter now. Without further hesitation, Midwinter set forth
through the gardens to explore the open country on that side of the
estate.
Thrown off its balance by the events of the day, his mind was full
of that sourly savage resistance to the inevitable self-assertion of
wealth, so amiably deplored by the prosperous and the rich; so bitterly
familiar to the unfortunate and the poor. “The heather-bell costs
nothing!” he thought, looking contemptuously at the masses of rare and
beautiful flowers that surrounded him; “and the buttercups and daisies
are as bright as the best of you!” He followed the artfully contrived
ovals and squares of the Italian garden with a vagabond indifference to
the symmetry of their construction and the ingenuity of their design.
“How many pounds a foot did _you_ cost?” he said, looking back with
scornful eyes at the last path as he left it. “Wind away over high and
low like the sheep-walk on the mountain side, if you can!”
He entered the shrubbery which Allan had entered before him; crossed the
paddock and the rustic bridge beyond; and reached the major’s cottage.
His ready mind seized the right conclusion at the first sight of it; and
he stopped before the garden gate, to look at the trim little residence
which would never have been empty, and would never have been let, but
for Allan’s ill-advised resolution to force the steward’s situation on
his friend.
The summer afternoon was warm; the summer air was faint and still. On
the upper and the lower floor of the cottage the windows were all
open. From one of them, on the upper story, the sound of voices was
startlingly audible in the quiet of the park as Midwinter paused on the
outer side of the garden inclosure. The voice of a woman, harsh, high,
and angrily complaining--a voice with all the freshness and the
melody gone, and with nothing but the hard power of it left--was the
discordantly predominant sound. With it, from moment to moment, there
mingled the deeper and quieter tones, soothing and compassionate, of the
voice of a man. Although the distance was too great to allow Midwinter
to distinguish the words that were spoken, he felt the impropriety of
remaining within hearing of the voices, and at once stepped forward to
continue his walk.
At the same moment, the face of a young girl (easily recognizable as the
face of Miss Milroy, from Allan’s description of her) appeared at the
open window of the room. In spite of himself, Midwinter paused to look
at her. The expression of the bright young face, which had smiled
so prettily on Allan, was weary and disheartened. After looking out
absently over the park, she suddenly turned her head back into the room,
her attention having been apparently struck by something that had just
been said in it. “Oh, mamma, mamma,” she exclaimed, indignantly, “how
_can_ you say such things!” The words were spoken close to the window;
they reached Midwinter’s ears, and hurried him away before he heard
more. But the self-disclosure of Major Milroy’s domestic position had
not reached its end yet. As Midwinter turned the corner of the garden
fence, a tradesman’s boy was handing a parcel in at the wicket gate
to the woman servant. “Well,” said the boy, with the irrepressible
impudence of his class, “how is the missus?” The woman lifted her hand
to box his ears. “How is the missus?” she repeated, with an angry toss
of her head, as the boy ran off. “If it would only please God to take
the missus, it would be a blessing to everybody in the house.”
No such ill-omened shadow as this had passed over the bright domestic
picture of the inhabitants of the cottage, which Allan’s enthusiasm
had painted for the contemplation of his friend. It was plain that
the secret of the tenants had been kept from the landlord so far. Five
minutes more of walking brought Midwinter to the park gates. “Am I fated
to see nothing and hear nothing to-day, which can give me heart and hope
for the future?” he thought, as he angrily swung back the lodge gate.
“Even the people Allan has let the cottage to are people whose lives
are imbittered by a household misery which it is _my_ misfortune to have
found out!”
He took the first road that lay before him, and walked on, noticing
little, immersed in his own thoughts.
More than an hour passed before the necessity of turning back entered
his mind. As soon as the idea occurred to him, he consulted his watch,
and determined to retrace his steps, so as to be at the house in good
time to meet Allan on his return. Ten minutes of walking brought him
back to a point at which three roads met, and one moment’s observation
of the place satisfied him that he had entirely failed to notice at the
time by which of the three roads he had advanced. No sign-post was to
be seen; the country on either side was lonely and flat, intersected
by broad drains and ditches. Cattle were grazing here and there, and a
windmill rose in the distance above the pollard willows that fringed the
low horizon. But not a house was to be seen, and not a human creature
appeared on the visible perspective of any one of the three roads.
Midwinter glanced back in the only direction left to look at--the
direction of the road along which he had just been walking. There, to
his relief, was the figure of a man, rapidly advancing toward him, of
whom he could ask his way.
The figure came on, clad from head to foot in dreary black--a moving
blot on the brilliant white surface of the sun-brightened road. He was
a lean, elderly, miserably respectable man. He wore a poor old black
dress-coat, and a cheap brown wig, which made no pretense of being his
own natural hair. Short black trousers clung like attached old servants
round his wizen legs; and rusty black gaiters hid all they could of his
knobbed, ungainly feet. Black crape added its mite to the decayed and
dingy wretchedness of his old beaver hat; black mohair in the obsolete
form of a stock drearily encircled his neck and rose as high as his
haggard jaws. The one morsel of color he carried about him was a
lawyer’s bag of blue serge, as lean and limp as himself. The one
attractive feature in his clean-shaven, weary old face was a neat set of
teeth--teeth (as honest as his wig) which said plainly to all inquiring
eyes, “We pass our nights on his looking-glass, and our days in his
mouth.”
All the little blood in the man’s body faintly reddened his fleshless
cheeks as Midwinter advanced to meet him, and asked the way to
Thorpe Ambrose. His weak, watery eyes looked hither and thither in a
bewilderment painful to see. If he had met with a lion instead of a man,
and if the few words addressed to him had been words expressing a threat
instead of a question, he could hardly have looked more confused and
alarmed than he looked now. For the first time in his life, Midwinter
saw his own shy uneasiness in the presence of strangers reflected, with
tenfold intensity of nervous suffering, in the face of another man--and
that man old enough to be his father.
“Which do you please to mean, sir--the town or the house? I beg your
pardon for asking, but they both go by the same name in these parts.”
He spoke with a timid gentleness of tone, an ingratiatory smile, and an
anxious courtesy of manner, all distressingly suggestive of his being
accustomed to receive rough answers in exchange for his own politeness
from the persons whom he habitually addressed.
“I was not aware that both the house and the town went by the same
name,” said Midwinter; “I meant the house.” He instinctively conquered
his own shyness as he answered in those words, speaking with a
cordiality of manner which was very rare with him in his intercourse
with strangers.
The man of miserable respectability seemed to feel the warm return of
his own politeness gratefully; he brightened and took a little courage.
His lean forefinger pointed eagerly to the right road. “That way, sir,”
he said, “and when you come to two roads next, please take the left
one of the two. I am sorry I have business the other way, I mean in the
town. I should have been happy to go with you and show you. Fine summer
weather, sir, for walking? You can’t miss your way if you keep to the
left. Oh, don’t mention it! I’m afraid I have detained you, sir. I wish
you a pleasant walk back, and--good-morning.”
By the time he had made an end of speaking (under an impression
apparently that the more he talked the more polite he would be) he
had lost his courage again. He darted away down his own road, as
if Midwinter’s attempt to thank him involved a series of trials too
terrible to confront. In two minutes more, his black retreating figure
had lessened in the distance till it looked again, what it had once
looked already, a moving blot on the brilliant white surface of the
sun-brightened road.
The man ran strangely in Midwinter’s thoughts while he took his way back
to the house. He was at a loss to account for it. It never occurred to
him that he might have been insensibly reminded of himself, when he saw
the plain traces of past misfortune and present nervous suffering in
the poor wretch’s face. He blindly resented his own perverse interest in
this chance foot passenger on the high-road, as he had resented all else
that had happened to him since the beginning of the day. “Have I made
another unlucky discovery?” he asked himself, impatiently. “Shall I see
this man again, I wonder? Who can he be?”
Time was to answer both those questions before many days more had passed
over the inquirer’s head.
Allan had not returned when Midwinter reached the house. Nothing had
happened but the arrival of a message of apology from the cottage.
“Major Milroy’s compliments, and he was sorry that Mrs. Milroy’s illness
would prevent his receiving Mr. Armadale that day.” It was plain that
Mrs. Milroy’s occasional fits of suffering (or of ill temper) created
no mere transitory disturbance of the tranquillity of the household.
Drawing this natural inference, after what he had himself heard at the
cottage nearly three hours since, Midwinter withdrew into the library to
wait patiently among the books until his friend came back.
It was past six o’clock when the well-known hearty voice was heard again
in the hall. Allan burst into the library, in a state of irrepressible
excitement, and pushed Midwinter back unceremoniously into the chair
from which he was just rising, before he could utter a word.
“Here’s a riddle for you, old boy!” cried Allan. “Why am I like the
resident manager of the Augean stable, before Hercules was called in to
sweep the litter out? Because I have had my place to keep up, and I’ve
gone and made an infernal mess of it! Why don’t you laugh? By George,
he doesn’t see the point! Let’s try again. Why am I like the resident
manager--”
“For God’s sake, Allan, be serious for a moment!” interposed Midwinter.
“You don’t know how anxious I am to hear if you have recovered the good
opinion of your neighbors.”
“That’s just what the riddle was intended to tell you!” rejoined Allan.
“But if you will have it in so many words, my own impression is that you
would have done better not to disturb me under that tree in the park.
I’ve been calculating it to a nicety, and I beg to inform you that I
have sunk exactly three degrees lower in the estimation of the resident
gentry since I had the pleasure of seeing you last.”
“You _will_ have your joke out,” said Midwinter, bitterly. “Well, if I
can’t laugh, I can wait.”
“My dear fellow, I’m not joking; I really mean what I say. You shall
hear what happened; you shall have a report in full of my first visit.
It will do, I can promise you, as a sample for all the rest. Mind this,
in the first place, I’ve gone wrong with the best possible intentions.
When I started for these visits, I own I was angry with that old brute
of a lawyer, and I certainly had a notion of carrying things with a high
hand. But it wore off somehow on the road; and the first family I called
on, I went in, as I tell you, with the best possible intentions. Oh,
dear, dear! there was the same spick-and-span reception-room for me to
wait in, with the neat conservatory beyond, which I saw again and again
and again at every other house I went to afterward. There was the same
choice selection of books for me to look at--a religious book, a book
about the Duke of Wellington, a book about sporting, and a book about
nothing in particular, beautifully illustrated with pictures. Down came
papa with his nice white hair, and mamma with her nice lace cap; down
came young mister with the pink face and straw-colored whiskers, and
young miss with the plump cheeks and the large petticoats. Don’t suppose
there was the least unfriendliness on my side; I always began with them
in the same way--I insisted on shaking hands all round. That staggered
them to begin with. When I came to the sore subject next--the subject
of the public reception--I give you my word of honor I took the greatest
possible pains with my apologies. It hadn’t the slightest effect; they
let my apologies in at one ear and out at the other, and then waited to
hear more. Some men would have been disheartened: I tried another way
with them; I addressed myself to the master of the house, and put
it pleasantly next. ‘The fact is,’ I said, ‘I wanted to escape the
speechifying--my getting up, you know, and telling you to your face
you’re the best of men, and I beg to propose your health; and your
getting up and telling me to my face I’m the best of men, and you beg
to thank me; and so on, man after man, praising each other and pestering
each other all round the table.’ That’s how I put it, in an easy,
light-handed, convincing sort of way. Do you think any of them took it
in the same friendly spirit? Not one! It’s my belief they had got their
speeches ready for the reception, with the flags and the flowers, and
that they’re secretly angry with me for stopping their open mouths just
as they were ready to begin. Anyway, whenever we came to the matter of
the speechifying (whether they touched it first or I), down I fell in
their estimation the first of those three steps I told you of just
now. Don’t suppose I made no efforts to get up again! I made desperate
efforts. I found they were all anxious to know what sort of life I had
led before I came in for the Thorpe Ambrose property, and I did my best
to satisfy them. And what came of that, do you think? Hang me, if I
didn’t disappoint them for the second time! When they found out that I
had actually never been to Eton or Harrow, or Oxford or Cambridge, they
were quite dumb with astonishment. I fancy they thought me a sort of
outlaw. At any rate, they all froze up again; and down I fell the second
step in their estimation. Never mind! I wasn’t to be beaten; I had
promised you to do my best, and I did it. I tried cheerful small-talk
about the neighborhood next. The women said nothing in particular; the
men, to my unutterable astonishment, all began to condole with me. I
shouldn’t be able to find a pack of hounds, they said, within twenty
miles of my house; and they thought it only right to prepare me for the
disgracefully careless manner in which the Thorpe Ambrose covers had
been preserved. I let them go on condoling with me, and then what do you
think I did? I put my foot in it again. ‘Oh, don’t take that to heart!’
I said; ‘I don’t care two straws about hunting or shooting, either. When
I meet with a bird in my walk, I can’t for the life of me feel eager
to kill it; I rather like to see the bird flying about and enjoying
itself.’ You should have seen their faces! They had thought me a sort of
outlaw before; now they evidently thought me mad. Dead silence fell upon
them all; and down I tumbled the third step in the general estimation.
It was just the same at the next house, and the next and the next. The
devil possessed us all, I think. It _would_ come out, now in one way,
and now in another, that I couldn’t make speeches--that I had been
brought up without a university education--and that I could enjoy a ride
on horseback without galloping after a wretched stinking fox or a poor
distracted little hare. These three unlucky defects of mine are not
excused, it seems, in a country gentleman (especially when he has dodged
a public reception to begin with). I think I got on best, upon the
whole, with the wives and daughters. The women and I always fell, sooner
or later, on the subject of Mrs. Blanchard and her niece. We invariably
agreed that they had done wisely in going to Florence; and the only
reason we had to give for our opinion was that we thought their minds
would be benefited after their sad bereavement, by the contemplation
of the masterpieces of Italian art. Every one of the ladies--I solemnly
declare it--at every house I went to, came sooner or later to Mrs. and
Miss Blanchard’s bereavement and the masterpieces of Italian art. What
we should have done without that bright idea to help us, I really don’t
know. The one pleasant thing at any of the visits was when we all shook
our heads together, and declared that the masterpieces would console
them. As for the rest of it, there’s only one thing more to be said.
What I might be in other places I don’t know: I’m the wrong man in the
wrong place here. Let me muddle on for the future in my own way, with my
own few friends; and ask me anything else in the world, as long as you
don’t ask me to make any more calls on my neighbors.”
With that characteristic request, Allan’s report of his exploring
expedition among the resident gentry came to a close. For a moment
Midwinter remained silent. He had allowed Allan to run on from first to
last without uttering a word on his side. The disastrous result of
the visits--coming after what had happened earlier in the day; and
threatening Allan, as it did, with exclusion from all local sympathies
at the very outset of his local career--had broken down Midwinter’s
power of resisting the stealthily depressing influence of his own
superstition. It was with an effort that he now looked up at Allan; it
was with an effort that he roused himself to answer.
“It shall be as you wish,” he said, quietly. “I am sorry for what has
happened; but I am not the less obliged to you, Allan, for having done
what I asked you.”
His head sank on his breast, and the fatalist resignation which had
once already quieted him on board the wreck now quieted him again. “What
_must_ be, _will_ be,” he thought once more. “What have I to do with the
future, and what has he?”
“Cheer up!” said Allan. “_Your_ affairs are in a thriving condition, at
any rate. I paid one pleasant visit in the town, which I haven’t told
you of yet. I’ve seen Pedgift, and Pedgift’s son, who helps him in the
office. They’re the two jolliest lawyers I ever met with in my life;
and, what’s more, they can produce the very man you want to teach you
the steward’s business.”
Midwinter looked up quickly. Distrust of Allan’s discovery was plainly
written in his face already; but he said nothing.
“I thought of you,” Allan proceeded, “as soon as the two Pedgifts and I
had had a glass of wine all round to drink to our friendly connection.
The finest sherry I ever tasted in my life; I’ve ordered some of the
same--but that’s not the question just now. In two words I told
these worthy fellows your difficulty, and in two seconds old Pedgift
understood all about it. ‘I have got the man in my office,’ he said,
‘and before the audit-day comes, I’ll place him with the greatest
pleasure at your friend’s disposal.’”
At this last announcement, Midwinter’s distrust found its expression in
words. He questioned Allan unsparingly.
The man’s name, it appeared was Bashwood. He had been some time (how
long, Allan could not remember) in Mr. Pedgift’s service. He had been
previously steward to a Norfolk gentleman (name forgotten) in the
westward district of the county. He had lost the steward’s place,
through some domestic trouble, in connection with his son, the precise
nature of which Allan was not able to specify. Pedgift vouched for him,
and Pedgift would send him to Thorpe Ambrose two or three days before
the rent-day dinner. He could not be spared, for office reasons, before
that time. There was no need to fidget about it; Pedgift laughed at the
idea of there being any difficulty with the tenants. Two or three
day’s work over the steward’s books with a man to help Midwinter who
practically understood that sort of thing would put him all right for
the audit; and the other business would keep till afterward.
“Have you seen this Mr. Bashwood yourself, Allan?” asked Midwinter,
still obstinately on his guard.
“No,” replied Allan “he was out--out with the bag, as young Pedgift
called it. They tell me he’s a decent elderly man. A little broken by
his troubles, and a little apt to be nervous and confused in his manner
with strangers; but thoroughly competent and thoroughly to be depended
on--those are Pedgift’s own words.”
Midwinter paused and considered a little, with a new interest in the
subject. The strange man whom he had just heard described, and the
strange man of whom he had asked his way where the three roads met,
were remarkably like each other. Was this another link in the
fast-lengthening chain of events? Midwinter grew doubly determined to be
careful, as the bare doubt that it might be so passed through his mind.
“When Mr. Bashwood comes,” he said, “will you let me see him, and speak
to him, before anything definite is done?”
“Of course I will!” rejoined Allan. He stopped and looked at his watch.
“And I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you, old boy, in the meantime,” he
added; “I’ll introduce you to the prettiest girl in Norfolk! There’s
just time to run over to the cottage before dinner. Come along, and be
introduced to Miss Milroy.”
“You can’t introduce me to Miss Milroy to-day,” replied Midwinter; and
he repeated the message of apology which had been brought from the major
that afternoon. Allan was surprised and disappointed; but he was not to
be foiled in his resolution to advance himself in the good graces of
the inhabitants of the cottage. After a little consideration he hit on
a means of turning the present adverse circumstances to good account.
“I’ll show a proper anxiety for Mrs. Milroy’s recovery,” he said,
gravely. “I’ll send her a basket of strawberries, with my best respects,
to-morrow morning.”
Nothing more happened to mark the end of that first day in the new
house.
The one noticeable event of the next day was another disclosure of
Mrs. Milroy’s infirmity of temper. Half an hour after Allan’s basket of
strawberries had been delivered at the cottage, it was returned to him
intact (by the hands of the invalid lady’s nurse), with a short and
sharp message, shortly and sharply delivered. “Mrs. Milroy’s compliments
and thanks. Strawberries invariably disagreed with her.” If this
curiously petulant acknowledgment of an act of politeness was intended
to irritate Allan, it failed entirely in accomplishing its object.
Instead of being offended with the mother, he sympathized with the
daughter. “Poor little thing,” was all he said, “she must have a hard
life of it with such a mother as that!”
He called at the cottage himself later in the day, but Miss Milroy was
not to be seen; she was engaged upstairs. The major received his visitor
in his working apron--far more deeply immersed in his wonderful clock,
and far less readily accessible to outer influences, than Allan had seen
him at their first interview. His manner was as kind as before; but not
a word more could be extracted from him on the subject of his wife than
that Mrs. Milroy “had not improved since yesterday.”
The two next days passed quietly and uneventfully. Allan persisted
in making his inquiries at the cottage; but all he saw of the major’s
daughter was a glimpse of her on one occasion at a window on the bedroom
floor. Nothing more was heard from Mr. Pedgift; and Mr. Bashwood’s
appearance was still delayed. Midwinter declined to move in the matter
until time enough had passed to allow of his first hearing from Mr.
Brock, in answer to the letter which he had addressed to the rector on
the night of his arrival at Thorpe Ambrose. He was unusually silent and
quiet, and passed most of his hours in the library among the books. The
time wore on wearily. The resident gentry acknowledged Allan’s visit by
formally leaving their cards. Nobody came near the house afterward;
the weather was monotonously fine. Allan grew a little restless and
dissatisfied. He began to resent Mrs. Milroy’s illness; he began to
think regretfully of his deserted yacht.
The next day--the twentieth--brought some news with it from the outer
world. A message was delivered from Mr. Pedgift, announcing that his
clerk, Mr. Bashwood, would personally present himself at Thorpe Ambrose
on the following day; and a letter in answer to Midwinter was received
from Mr. Brock.
The letter was dated the 18th, and the news which it contained raised
not Allan’s spirits only, but Midwinter’s as well.
On the day on which he wrote, Mr. Brock announced that he was about to
journey to London; having been summoned thither on business connected
with the interests of a sick relative, to whom he stood in the position
of trustee. The business completed, he had good hope of finding one or
other of his clerical friends in the metropolis who would be able and
willing to do duty for him at the rectory; and, in that case, he trusted
to travel on from London to Thorpe Ambrose in a week’s time or less.
Under these circumstances, he would leave the majority of the subjects
on which Midwinter had written to him to be discussed when they met. But
as time might be of importance, in relation to the stewardship of the
Thorpe Ambrose estate, he would say at once that he saw no reason why
Midwinter should not apply his mind to learning the steward’s duties,
and should not succeed in rendering himself invaluably serviceable in
that way to the interests of his friend.
Leaving Midwinter reading and re-reading the rector’s cheering letter,
as if he was bent on getting every sentence in it by heart, Allan
went out rather earlier than usual, to make his daily inquiry at the
cottage--or, in plainer words, to make a fourth attempt at improving
his acquaintance with Miss Milroy. The day had begun encouragingly, and
encouragingly it seemed destined to go on. When Allan turned the corner
of the second shrubbery, and entered the little paddock where he and the
major’s daughter had first met, there was Miss Milroy herself loitering
to and fro on the grass, to all appearance on the watch for somebody.
She gave a little start when Allan appeared, and came forward without
hesitation to meet him. She was not in her best looks. Her rosy
complexion had suffered under confinement to the house, and a marked
expression of embarrassment clouded her pretty face.
“I hardly know how to confess it, Mr. Armadale,” she said, speaking
eagerly, before Allan could utter a word, “but I certainly ventured
here this morning in the hope of meeting with you. I have been very much
distressed; I have only just heard, by accident, of the manner in which
mamma received the present of fruit you so kindly sent to her. Will you
try to excuse her? She has been miserably ill for years, and she is not
always quite herself. After your being so very, very kind to me (and to
papa), I really could not help stealing out here in the hope of seeing
you, and telling you how sorry I was. Pray forgive and forget, Mr.
Armadale--pray do!” her voice faltered over the last words, and, in her
eagerness to make her mother’s peace with him, she laid her hand on his
arm.
Allan was himself a little confused. Her earnestness took him by
surprise, and her evident conviction that he had been offended honestly
distressed him. Not knowing what else to do, he followed his instincts,
and possessed himself of her hand to begin with.
“My dear Miss Milroy, if you say a word more you will distress _me_
next,” he rejoined, unconsciously pressing her hand closer and closer,
in the embarrassment of the moment. “I never was in the least offended;
I made allowances--upon my honor I did--for poor Mrs. Milroy’s illness.
Offended!” cried Allan, reverting energetically to the old complimentary
strain. “I should like to have my basket of fruit sent back every
day--if I could only be sure of its bringing you out into the paddock
the first thing in the morning.”
Some of Miss Milroy’s missing color began to appear again in her cheeks.
“Oh, Mr. Armadale, there is really no end to your kindness,” she said;
“you don’t know how you relieve me!” She paused; her spirits rallied with
as happy a readiness of recovery as if they had been the spirits of a
child; and her native brightness of temper sparkled again in her eyes,
as she looked up, shyly smiling in Allan’s face. “Don’t you think,” she
asked, demurely, “that it is almost time now to let go of my hand?”
Their eyes met. Allan followed his instincts for the second time.
Instead of releasing her hand, he lifted it to his lips and kissed
it. All the missing tints of the rosier sort returned to Miss Milroy’s
complexion on the instant. She snatched away her hand as if Allan had
burned it.
“I’m sure _that’s_ wrong, Mr. Armadale,” she said, and turned her head
aside quickly, for she was smiling in spite of herself.
“I meant it as an apology for--for holding your hand too long,”
stammered Allan. “An apology can’t be wrong--can it?”
There are occasions, though not many, when the female mind accurately
appreciates an appeal to the force of pure reason. This was one of the
occasions. An abstract proposition had been presented to Miss Milroy,
and Miss Milroy was convinced. If it was meant as an apology, that,
she admitted, made all the difference. “I only hope,” said the little
coquet, looking at him slyly, “you’re not misleading me. Not that it
matters much now,” she added, with a serious shake of her head. “If we
have committed any improprieties, Mr. Armadale, we are not likely to
have the opportunity of committing many more.”
“You’re not going away?” exclaimed Allan, in great alarm.
“Worse than that, Mr. Armadale. My new governess is coming.”
“Coming?” repeated Allan. “Coming already?”
“As good as coming, I ought to have said--only I didn’t know you wished
me to be so very particular. We got the answers to the advertisements
this morning. Papa and I opened them and read them together half an hour
ago; and we both picked out the same letter from all the rest. I picked
it out, because it was so prettily expressed; and papa picked it out
because the terms were so reasonable. He is going to send the letter up
to grandmamma in London by to-day’s post, and, if she finds everything
satisfactory on inquiry, the governess is to be engaged You don’t
know how dreadfully nervous I am getting about it already; a strange
governess is such an awful prospect. But it is not quite so bad as going
to school; and I have great hopes of this new lady, because she writes
such a nice letter! As I said to papa, it almost reconciles me to her
horrid, unromantic name.”
“What is her name?” asked Allan. “Brown? Grubb? Scraggs? Anything of
that sort?”
“Hush! hush! Nothing quite so horrible as that. Her name is Gwilt.
Dreadfully unpoetical, isn’t it? Her reference must be a respectable
person, though; for she lives in the same part of London as grandmamma.
Stop, Mr. Armadale! we are going the wrong way. No; I can’t wait to look
at those lovely flowers of yours this morning, and, many thanks, I can’t
accept your arm. I have stayed here too long already. Papa is waiting
for his breakfast; and I must run back every step of the way. Thank you
for making those kind allowances for mamma; thank you again and again,
and good-by!”
“Won’t you shake hands?” asked Allan.
She gave him her hand. “No more apologies, if you please, Mr. Armadale,”
she said, saucily. Once more their eyes met, and once more the plump,
dimpled little hand found its way to Allan’s lips. “It isn’t an apology
this time!” cried Allan, precipitately defending himself. “It’s--it’s a
mark of respect.”
She started back a few steps, and burst out laughing. “You won’t find me
in our grounds again, Mr. Armadale,” she said, merrily, “till I have got
Miss Gwilt to take care of me!” With that farewell, she gathered up her
skirts, and ran back across the paddock at the top of her speed.
Allan stood watching her in speechless admiration till she was out
of sight. His second interview with Miss Milroy had produced an
extraordinary effect on him. For the first time since he had become the
master of Thorpe Ambrose, he was absorbed in serious consideration of
what he owed to his new position in life. “The question is,” pondered
Allan, “whether I hadn’t better set myself right with my neighbors by
becoming a married man? I’ll take the day to consider; and if I keep in
the same mind about it, I’ll consult Midwinter to-morrow morning.”
When the morning came, and when Allan descended to the breakfast-room,
resolute to consult his friend on the obligations that he owed to his
neighbors in general, and to Miss Milroy in particular, no Midwinter was
to be seen. On making inquiry, it appeared that he had been observed in
the hall; that he had taken from the table a letter which the morning’s
post had brought to him; and that he had gone back immediately to his
own room. Allan at once ascended the stairs again, and knocked at his
friend’s door.
“May I come in?” he asked.
“Not just now,” was the answer.
“You have got a letter, haven’t you?” persisted Allan. “Any bad news?
Anything wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m not very well this morning. Don’t wait breakfast for me;
I’ll come down as soon as I can.”
No more was said on either side. Allan returned to the breakfast-room a
little disappointed. He had set his heart on rushing headlong into his
consultation with Midwinter, and here was the consultation indefinitely
delayed. “What an odd fellow he is!” thought Allan. “What on earth can
he be doing, locked in there by himself?”
He was doing nothing. He was sitting by the window, with the letter
which had reached him that morning open in his hand. The handwriting was
Mr. Brock’s, and the words written were these:
“MY DEAR MIDWINTER--I have literally only two minutes before post time
to tell you that I have just met (in Kensington Gardens) with the woman
whom we both only know, thus far, as the woman with the red Paisley
shawl. I have traced her and her companion (a respectable-looking
elderly lady) to their residence--after having distinctly heard Allan’s
name mentioned between them. Depend on my not losing sight of the woman
until I am satisfied that she means no mischief at Thorpe Ambrose;
and expect to hear from me again as soon as I know how this strange
discovery is to end.
“Very truly yours, DECIMUS BROCK.”
After reading the letter for the second time, Midwinter folded it up
thoughtfully, and placed it in his pocket-book, side by side with the
manuscript narrative of Allan’s dream.
“Your discovery will not end with _you_, Mr. Brock,” he said. “Do what
you will with the woman, when the time comes the woman will be here.”