“West Place, June 20th.
“MY POOR OLD DEAR--How very little you know of my sensitive nature, as
you call it! Instead of feeling offended when you left me, I went to
your piano, and forgot all about you till your messenger came. Your
letter is irresistible; I have been laughing over it till I am quite
out of breath. Of all the absurd stories I ever read, the story you
addressed to the Somersetshire clergyman is the most ridiculous. And as
for your interview with him in the street, it is a perfect sin to keep
it to ourselves. The public ought really to enjoy it in the form of a
farce at one of the theaters.
“Luckily for both of us (to come to serious matters), your messenger is
a prudent person. He sent upstairs to know if there was an answer.
In the midst of my merriment I had presence of mind enough to send
downstairs and say ‘Yes.’
“Some brute of a man says, in some book which I once read, that no woman
can keep two separate trains of ideas in her mind at the same time. I
declare you have almost satisfied me that the man is right. What! when
you have escaped unnoticed to your place of business, and when you
suspect this house to be watched, you propose to come back here, and
to put it in the parson’s power to recover the lost trace of you! What
madness! Stop where you are; and when you have got over your difficulty
at Pimlico (it is some woman’s business, of course; what worries women
are!), be so good as to read what I have got to say about our difficulty
at Brompton.
“In the first place, the house (as you supposed) is watched.
“Half an hour after you left me, loud voices in the street interrupted
me at the piano, and I went to the window. There was a cab at the house
opposite, where they let lodgings; and an old man, who looked like a
respectable servant, was wrangling with the driver about his fare. An
elderly gentleman came out of the house, and stopped them. An elderly
gentleman returned into the house, and appeared cautiously at the front
drawing-room window. You know him, you worthy creature; he had the bad
taste, some few hours since, to doubt whether you were telling him
the truth. Don’t be afraid, he didn’t see me. When he looked up, after
settling with the cab driver, I was behind the curtain. I have been
behind the curtain once or twice since; and I have seen enough to
satisfy me that he and his servant will relieve each other at the
window, so as never to lose sight of your house here, night or day. That
the parson suspects the real truth is of course impossible. But that
he firmly believes I mean some mischief to young Armadale, and that you
have entirely confirmed him in that conviction, is as plain as that two
and two make four. And this has happened (as you helplessly remind me)
just when we have answered the advertisement, and when we may expect the
major’s inquiries to be made in a few days’ time.
“Surely, here is a terrible situation for two women to find themselves
in? A fiddlestick’s end for the situation! We have got an easy way out
of it--thanks, Mother Oldershaw, to what I myself forced you to do, not
three hours before the Somersetshire clergyman met with us.
“Has that venomous little quarrel of ours this morning--after we had
pounced on the major’s advertisement in the newspaper--quite slipped out
of your memory? Have you forgotten how I persisted in my opinion that
you were a great deal too well known in London to appear safely as my
reference in your own name, or to receive an inquiring lady or gentleman
(as you were rash enough to propose) in your own house? Don’t you
remember what a passion you were in when I brought our dispute to an end
by declining to stir a step in the matter, unless I could conclude my
application to Major Milroy by referring him to an address at which you
were totally unknown, and to a name which might be anything you pleased,
as long as it was not yours? What a look you gave me when you found
there was nothing for it but to drop the whole speculation or to let
me have my own way! How you fumed over the lodging hunting on the other
side of the Park! and how you groaned when you came back, possessed of
furnished apartments in respectable Bayswater, over the useless expense
I had put you to!
“What do you think of those furnished apartments _now_, you obstinate
old woman? Here we are, with discovery threatening us at our very door,
and with no hope of escape unless we can contrive to disappear from the
parson in the dark. And there are the lodgings in Bayswater, to which no
inquisitive strangers have traced either you or me, ready and waiting
to swallow us up--the lodgings in which we can escape all further
molestation, and answer the major’s inquiries at our ease. Can you see,
at last, a little further than your poor old nose? Is there anything in
the world to prevent your safe disappearance from Pimlico to-night,
and your safe establishment at the new lodgings, in the character of
my respectable reference, half an hour afterward? Oh, fie, fie, Mother
Oldershaw! Go down on your wicked old knees, and thank your stars that
you had a she-devil like me to deal with this morning!
“Suppose we come now to the only difficulty worth mentioning--_my_
difficulty. Watched as I am in this house, how am I to join you without
bringing the parson or the parson’s servant with me at my heels?
“Being to all intents and purposes a prisoner here, it seems to me that
I have no choice but to try the old prison plan of escape: a change of
clothes. I have been looking at your house-maid. Except that we are both
light, her face and hair and my face and hair are as unlike each other
as possible. But she is as nearly as can be my height and size; and (if
she only knew how to dress herself, and had smaller feet) her figure is
a very much better one than it ought to be for a person in her station
in life.
“My idea is to dress her in the clothes I wore in the Gardens to-day;
to send her out, with our reverend enemy in full pursuit of her; and, as
soon as the coast is clear, to slip away myself and join you. The thing
would be quite impossible, of course, if I had been seen with my veil
up; but, as events have turned out, it is one advantage of the horrible
exposure which followed my marriage that I seldom show myself in public,
and never, of course, in such a populous place as London, without
wearing a thick veil and keeping that veil down. If the house-maid wears
my dress, I don’t really see why the house-maid may not be counted on to
represent me to the life.
“The one question is, Can the woman be trusted? If she can, send me a
line, telling her, on your authority, that she is to place herself at my
disposal. I won’t say a word till I have heard from you first.
“Let me have my answer to-night. As long as we were only talking about
my getting the governess’s place, I was careless enough how it ended.
But now that we have actually answered Major Milroy’s advertisement, I
am in earnest at last. I mean to be Mrs. Armadale of Thorpe Ambrose; and
woe to the man or woman who tries to stop me! Yours,
“LYDIA GWILT.
“P.S.--I open my letter again to say that you need have no fear of your
messenger being followed on his return to Pimlico. He will drive to a
public-house where he is known, will dismiss the cab at the door, and
will go out again by a back way which is only used by the landlord and
his friends.--L. G.”