Nine days had passed, and the tenth day was nearly at an end, since Miss
Gwilt and her pupil had taken their morning walk in the cottage garden.
The night was overcast. Since sunset, there had been signs in the sky
from which the popular forecast had predicted rain. The reception-rooms
at the great house were all empty and dark. Allan was away, passing
the evening with the Milroys; and Midwinter was waiting his return--not
where Midwinter usually waited, among the books in the library, but in
the little back room which Allan’s mother had inhabited in the last days
of her residence at Thorpe Ambrose.
Nothing had been taken away, but much had been added to the room, since
Midwinter had first seen it. The books which Mrs. Armadale had left
behind her, the furniture, the old matting on the floor, the old paper
on the walls, were all undisturbed. The statuette of Niobe still stood
on its bracket, and the French window still opened on the garden.
But now, to the relics left by the mother, were added the personal
possessions belonging to the son. The wall, bare hitherto, was decorated
with water-color drawings--with a portrait of Mrs. Armadale supported
on one side by a view of the old house in Somersetshire, and on the
other by a picture of the yacht. Among the books which bore in faded
ink Mrs. Armadale’s inscriptions, “From my father,” were other books
inscribed in the same handwriting, in brighter ink, “To my son.” Hanging
to the wall, ranged on the chimney-piece, scattered over the table, were
a host of little objects, some associated with Allan’s past life,
others necessary to his daily pleasures and pursuits, and all plainly
testifying that the room which he habitually occupied at Thorpe Ambrose
was the very room which had once recalled to Midwinter the second vision
of the dream. Here, strangely unmoved by the scene around him, so lately
the object of his superstitious distrust, Allan’s friend now waited
composedly for Allan’s return; and here, more strangely still, he looked
on a change in the household arrangements, due in the first instance
entirely to himself. His own lips had revealed the discovery which he
had made on the first morning in the new house; his own voluntary act
had induced the son to establish himself in the mother’s room.
Under what motives had he spoken the words? Under no motives which were
not the natural growth of the new interests and the new hopes that now
animated him.
The entire change wrought in his convictions by the memorable event that
had brought him face to face with Miss Gwilt was a change which it was
not in his nature to hide from Allan’s knowledge. He had spoken openly,
and had spoken as it was in his character to speak. The merit of
conquering his superstition was a merit which he shrank from claiming,
until he had first unsparingly exposed that superstition in its worst
and weakest aspects to view.
It was only after he had unreservedly acknowledged the impulse under
which he had left Allan at the Mere, that he had taken credit to himself
for the new point of view from which he could now look at the Dream.
Then, and not till then, he had spoken of the fulfillment of the first
Vision as the doctor at the Isle of Man might have spoken of it. He had
asked, as the doctor might have asked, Where was the wonder of their
seeing a pool at sunset, when they had a whole network of pools within
a few hours’ drive of them? and what was there extraordinary in
discovering a woman at the Mere, when there were roads that led to it,
and villages in its neighborhood, and boats employed on it, and pleasure
parties visiting it? So again, he had waited to vindicate the firmer
resolution with which he looked to the future, until he had first
revealed all that he now saw himself of the errors of the past.
The abandonment of his friend’s interests, the unworthiness of the
confidence that had given him the steward’s place, the forgetfulness of
the trust that Mr. Brock had reposed in him all implied in the one idea
of leaving Allan--were all pointed out. The glaring self-contradictions
betrayed in accepting the Dream as the revelation of a fatality, and
in attempting to escape that fatality by an exertion of free-will--in
toiling to store up knowledge of the steward’s duties for the
future, and in shrinking from letting the future find him in Allan’s
house--were, in their turn, unsparingly exposed. To every error, to
every inconsistency, he resolutely confessed, before he ventured on the
last simple appeal which closed all, “Will you trust me in the future?
Will you forgive and forget the past?”
A man who could thus open his whole heart, without one lurking reserve
inspired by consideration for himself, was not a man to forget any minor
act of concealment of which his weakness might have led him to be guilty
toward his friend. It lay heavy on Midwinter’s conscience that he had
kept secret from Allan a discovery which he ought in Allan’s dearest
interests to have revealed--the discovery of his mother’s room.
But one doubt still closed his lips--the doubt whether Mrs. Armadale’s
conduct in Madeira had been kept secret on her return to England.
Careful inquiry, first among the servants, then among the tenantry,
careful consideration of the few reports current at the time, as
repeated to him by the few persons left who remembered them, convinced
him at last that the family secret had been successfully kept within the
family limits. Once satisfied that whatever inquiries the son might
make would lead to no disclosure which could shake his respect for his
mother’s memory, Midwinter had hesitated no longer. He had taken Allan
into the room, and had shown him the books on the shelves, and all that
the writing in the books disclosed. He had said plainly, “My one motive
for not telling you this before sprang from my dread of interesting you
in the room which I looked at with horror as the second of the scenes
pointed at in the Dream. Forgive me this also, and you will have
forgiven me all.”
With Allan’s love for his mother’s memory, but one result could follow
such an avowal as this. He had liked the little room from the first,
as a pleasant contrast to the oppressive grandeur of the other rooms at
Thorpe Ambrose, and, now that he knew what associations were connected
with it, his resolution was at once taken to make it especially his own.
The same day, all his personal possessions were collected and arranged
in his mother’s room--in Midwinter’s presence, and with Midwinter’s
assistance given to the work.
Under those circumstances had the change now wrought in the household
arrangements been produced; and in this way had Midwinter’s victory over
his own fatalism--by making Allan the daily occupant of a room which
he might otherwise hardly ever have entered--actually favored the
fulfillment of the Second Vision of the Dream.
The hour wore on quietly as Allan’s friend sat waiting for Allan’s
return. Sometimes reading, sometimes thinking placidly, he whiled away
the time. No vexing cares, no boding doubts, troubled him now. The
rent-day, which he had once dreaded, had come and gone harmlessly. A
friendlier understanding had been established between Allan and his
tenants; Mr. Bashwood had proved himself to be worthy of the confidence
reposed in him; the Pedgifts, father and son, had amply justified their
client’s good opinion of them. Wherever Midwinter looked, the prospect
was bright, the future was without a cloud.
He trimmed the lamp on the table beside him and looked out at the night.
The stable clock was chiming the half-hour past eleven as he walked to
the window, and the first rain-drops were beginning to fall. He had his
hand on the bell to summon the servant, and send him over to the cottage
with an umbrella, when he was stopped by hearing the familiar footstep
on the walk outside.
“How late you are!” said Midwinter, as Allan entered through the open
French window. “Was there a party at the cottage?”
“No! only ourselves. The time slipped away somehow.” He answered in
lower tones than usual, and sighed as he took his chair.
“You seem to be out of spirits?” pursued Midwinter. “What’s the matter?”
Allan hesitated. “I may as well tell you,” he said, after a moment.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of; I only wonder you haven’t noticed it
before! There’s a woman in it, as usual--I’m in love.”
Midwinter laughed. “Has Miss Milroy been more charming to-night than
ever?” he asked, gayly.
“Miss Milroy!” repeated Allan. “What are you thinking of! I’m not in
love with Miss Milroy.”
“Who is it, then?”
“Who is it! What a question to ask! Who can it be but Miss Gwilt?”
There was a sudden silence. Allan sat listlessly, with his hands in his
pockets, looking out through the open window at the falling rain. If
he had turned toward his friend when he mentioned Miss Gwilt’s name he
might possibly have been a little startled by the change he would have
seen in Midwinter’s face.
“I suppose you don’t approve of it?” he said, after waiting a little.
There was no answer.
“It’s too late to make objections,” proceeded Allan. “I really mean it
when I tell you I’m in love with her.”
“A fortnight since you were in love with Miss Milroy,” said the other,
in quiet, measured tones.
“Pooh! a mere flirtation. It’s different this time. I’m in earnest about
Miss Gwilt.”
He looked round as he spoke. Midwinter turned his face aside on the
instant, and bent it over a book.
“I see you don’t approve of the thing,” Allan went on. “Do you object to
her being only a governess? You can’t do that, I’m sure. If you were
in my place, her being only a governess wouldn’t stand in the way with
_you_?”
“No,” said Midwinter; “I can’t honestly say it would stand in the way
with me.” He gave the answer reluctantly, and pushed his chair back out
of the light of the lamp.
“A governess is a lady who is not rich,” said Allan, in an oracular
manner; “and a duchess is a lady who is not poor. And that’s all the
difference I acknowledge between them. Miss Gwilt is older than I am--I
don’t deny that. What age do you guess her at, Midwinter? I say, seven
or eight and twenty. What do you say?”
“Nothing. I agree with you.”
“Do you think seven or eight and twenty is too old for me? If you were
in love with a woman yourself, you wouldn’t think seven or eight and
twenty too old--would you?”
“I can’t say I should think it too old, if--”
“If you were really fond of her?”
Once more there was no answer.
“Well,” resumed Allan, “if there’s no harm in her being only a
governess, and no harm in her being a little older than I am, what’s the
objection to Miss Gwilt?”
“I have made no objection.”
“I don’t say you have. But you don’t seem to like the notion of it, for
all that.”
There was another pause. Midwinter was the first to break the silence
this time.
“Are you sure of yourself, Allan?” he asked, with his face bent once
more over the book. “Are you really attached to this lady? Have you
thought seriously already of asking her to be your wife?”
“I am thinking seriously of it at this moment,” said Allan. “I can’t be
happy--I can’t live without her. Upon my soul, I worship the very ground
she treads on!”
“How long--” His voice faltered, and he stopped. “How long,” he
reiterated, “have you worshipped the very ground she treads on?”
“Longer than you think for. I know I can trust you with all my
secrets--”
“Don’t trust me!”
“Nonsense! I _will_ trust you. There is a little difficulty in the way
which I haven’t mentioned yet. It’s a matter of some delicacy, and I
want to consult you about it. Between ourselves, I have had private
opportunities with Miss Gwilt--”
Midwinter suddenly started to his feet, and opened the door.
“We’ll talk of this to-morrow,” he said. “Good-night.”
Allan looked round in astonishment. The door was closed again, and he
was alone in the room.
“He has never shaken hands with me!” exclaimed Allan, looking bewildered
at the empty chair.
As the words passed his lips the door opened, and Midwinter appeared
again.
“We haven’t shaken hands,” he said, abruptly. “God bless you, Allan!
We’ll talk of it to-morrow. Good-night.”
Allan stood alone at the window, looking out at the pouring rain. He
felt ill at ease, without knowing why. “Midwinter’s ways get stranger
and stranger,” he thought. “What can he mean by putting me off till
to-morrow, when I wanted to speak to him to-night?” He took up his
bedroom candle a little impatiently, put it down again, and, walking
back to the open window, stood looking out in the direction of the
cottage. “I wonder if she’s thinking of me?” he said to himself softly.
She _was_ thinking of him. She had just opened her desk to write to Mrs.
Oldershaw; and her pen had that moment traced the opening line: “Make
your mind easy. I have got him!”