CHAPTER XV.

On the next morning but one, news was received from Mr. Pendril. The

place of Michael Vanstone’s residence on the Continent had been

discovered. He was living at Zurich; and a letter had been dispatched

to him, at that place, on the day when the information was obtained. In

the course of the coming week an answer might be expected, and the

purport of it should be communicated forthwith to the ladies at

Combe-Raven.

Short as it was, the interval of delay passed wearily. Ten days elapsed

before the expected answer was received; and when it came at last, it

proved to be, strictly speaking, no answer at all. Mr. Pendril had been

merely referred to an agent in London who was in possession of Michael

Vanstone’s instructions. Certain difficulties had been discovered in

connection with those instructions, which had produced the necessity of

once more writing to Zurich. And there “the negotiations” rested again

for the present.

A second paragraph in Mr. Pendril’s letter contained another piece of

intelligence entirely new. Mr. Michael Vanstone’s son (and only child),

Mr. Noel Vanstone, had recently arrived in London, and was then staying

in lodgings occupied by his cousin, Mr. George Bartram. Professional

considerations had induced Mr. Pendril to pay a visit to the lodgings.

He had been very kindly received by Mr. Bartram; but had been informed

by that gentleman that his cousin was not then in a condition to

receive visitors. Mr. Noel Vanstone had been suffering, for some years

past, from a wearing and obstinate malady; he had come to England

expressly to obtain the best medical advice, and he still felt the

fatigue of the journey so severely as to be confined to his bed. Under

these circumstances, Mr. Pendril had no alternative but to take his

leave. An interview with Mr. Noel Vanstone might have cleared up some

of the difficulties in connection with his father’s instructions. As

events had turned out, there was no help for it but to wait for a few

days more.

The days passed, the empty days of solitude and suspense. At last, a

third letter from the lawyer announced the long delayed conclusion of

the correspondence. The final answer had been received from Zurich, and

Mr. Pendril would personally communicate it at Combe-Raven on the

afternoon of the next day.

That next day was Wednesday, the twelfth of August. The weather had

changed in the night; and the sun rose watery through mist and cloud.

By noon the sky was overcast at all points; the temperature was

sensibly colder; and the rain poured down, straight and soft and

steady, on the thirsty earth. Toward three o’clock, Miss Garth and

Norah entered the morning-room, to await Mr. Pendril’s arrival. They

were joined shortly afterward by Magdalen. In half an hour more the

familiar fall of the iron latch in the socket reached their ears from

the fence beyond the shrubbery. Mr. Pendril and Mr. Clare advanced into

view along the garden-path, walking arm-in-arm through the rain,

sheltered by the same umbrella. The lawyer bowed as they passed the

windows; Mr. Clare walked straight on, deep in his own

thoughts—noticing nothing.

After a delay which seemed interminable; after a weary scraping of wet

feet on the hall mat; after a mysterious, muttered interchange of

question and answer outside the door, the two came in—Mr. Clare leading

the way. The old man walked straight up to the table, without any

preliminary greeting, and looked across it at the three women, with a

stern pity for them in his ragged, wrinkled face.

“Bad news,” he said. “I am an enemy to all unnecessary suspense.

Plainness is kindness in such a case as this. I mean to be kind—and I

tell you plainly—bad news.”

Mr. Pendril followed him. He shook hands, in silence, with Miss Garth

and the two sisters, and took a seat near them. Mr. Clare placed

himself apart on a chair by the window. The gray rainy light fell soft

and sad on the faces of Norah and Magdalen, who sat together opposite

to him. Miss Garth had placed herself a little behind them, in partial

shadow; and the lawyer’s quiet face was seen in profile, close beside

her. So the four occupants of the room appeared to Mr. Clare, as he sat

apart in his corner; his long claw-like fingers interlaced on his knee;

his dark vigilant eyes fixed searchingly now on one face, now on

another. The dripping rustle of the rain among the leaves, and the

clear, ceaseless tick of the clock on the mantel-piece, made the minute

of silence which followed the settling of the persons present in their

places indescribably oppressive. It was a relief to every one when Mr.

Pendril spoke.

“Mr. Clare has told you already,” he began, “that I am the bearer of

bad news. I am grieved to say, Miss Garth, that your doubts, when I

last saw you, were better founded than my hopes. What that heartless

elder brother was in his youth, he is still in his old age. In all my

unhappy experience of the worst side of human nature, I have never met

with a man so utterly dead to every consideration of mercy as Michael

Vanstone.”

“Do you mean that he takes the whole of his brother’s fortune, and

makes no provision whatever for his brother’s children?” asked Miss

Garth.

“He offers a sum of money for present emergencies,” replied Mr.

Pendril, “so meanly and disgracefully insufficient that I am ashamed to

mention it.”

“And nothing for the future?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

As that answer was given, the same thought passed, at the same moment,

through Miss Garth’s mind and through Norah’s. The decision, which

deprived both the sisters alike of the resources of fortune, did not

end there for the younger of the two. Michael Vanstone’s merciless

resolution had virtually pronounced the sentence which dismissed Frank

to China, and which destroyed all present hope of Magdalen’s marriage.

As the words passed the lawyer’s lips, Miss Garth and Norah looked at

Magdalen anxiously. Her face turned a shade paler—but not a feature of

it moved; not a word escaped her. Norah, who held her sister’s hand in

her own, felt it tremble for a moment, and then turn cold—and that was

all.

“Let me mention plainly what I have done,” resumed Mr. Pendril; “I am

very desirous you should not think that I have left any effort untried.

When I wrote to Michael Vanstone, in the first instance, I did not

confine myself to the usual formal statement. I put before him, plainly

and earnestly, every one of the circumstances under which he has become

possessed of his brother’s fortune. When I received the answer,

referring me to his written instructions to his lawyer in London—and

when a copy of those instructions was placed in my hands—I positively

declined, on becoming acquainted with them, to receive the writer’s

decision as final. I induced the solicitor, on the other side, to

accord us a further term of delay; I attempted to see Mr. Noel Vanstone

in London for the purpose of obtaining his intercession; and, failing

in that, I myself wrote to his father for the second time. The answer

referred me, in insolently curt terms, to the instructions already

communicated; declared those instructions to be final; and declined any

further correspondence with me. There is the beginning and the end of

the negotiation. If I have overlooked any means of touching this

heartless man—tell me, and those means shall be tried.”

He looked at Norah. She pressed her sister’s hand encouragingly, and

answered for both of them.

“I speak for my sister, as well as for myself,” she said, with her

color a little heightened, with her natural gentleness of manner just

touched by a quiet, uncomplaining sadness. “You have done all that

could be done, Mr. Pendril. We have tried to restrain ourselves from

hoping too confidently; and we are deeply grateful for your kindness,

at a time when kindness is sorely needed by both of us.”

Magdalen’s hand returned the pressure of her sister’s—withdrew

itself—trifled for a moment impatiently with the arrangement of her

dress—then suddenly moved the chair closer to the table. Leaning one

arm on it (with the hand fast clinched), she looked across at Mr.

Pendril. Her face, always remarkable for its want of color, was now

startling to contemplate, in its blank, bloodless pallor. But the light

in her large gray eyes was bright and steady as ever; and her voice,

though low in tone, was clear and resolute in accent as she addressed

the lawyer in these terms:

“I understood you to say, Mr. Pendril, that my father’s brother had

sent his written orders to London, and that you had a copy. Have you

preserved it?”

“Certainly.”

“Have you got it about you?”

“I have.”

“May I see it?”

Mr. Pendril hesitated, and looked uneasily from Magdalen to Miss Garth,

and from Miss Garth back again to Magdalen.

“Pray oblige me by not pressing your request,” he said. “It is surely

enough that you know the result of the instructions. Why should you

agitate yourself to no purpose by reading them? They are expressed so

cruelly; they show such abominable want of feeling, that I really

cannot prevail upon myself to let you see them.”

“I am sensible of your kindness, Mr. Pendril, in wishing to spare me

pain. But I can bear pain; I promise to distress nobody. Will you

excuse me if I repeat my request?”

She held out her hand—the soft, white, virgin hand that had touched

nothing to soil it or harden it yet.

“Oh, Magdalen, think again!” said Norah.

“You distress Mr. Pendril,” added Miss Garth; “you distress us all.”

“There can be no end gained,” pleaded the lawyer—“forgive me for saying

so—there can really be no useful end gained by my showing you the

instructions.”

(“Fools!” said Mr. Clare to himself. “Have they no eyes to see that she

means to have her own way?”)

“Something tells me there is an end to be gained,” persisted Magdalen.

“This decision is a very serious one. It is more serious to me—” She

looked round at Mr. Clare, who sat closely watching her, and instantly

looked back again, with the first outward betrayal of emotion which had

escaped her yet. “It is even more serious to me,” she resumed, “for

private reasons—than it is to my sister. I know nothing yet but that

our father’s brother has taken our fortunes from us. He must have some

motives of his own for such conduct as that. It is not fair to him, or

fair to us, to keep those motives concealed. He has deliberately robbed

Norah, and robbed me; and I think we have a right, if we wish it, to

know why?”

“I don’t wish it,” said Norah.

“I do,” said Magdalen; and once more she held out her hand.

At this point Mr. Clare roused himself and interfered for the first

time.

“You have relieved your conscience,” he said, addressing the lawyer.

“Give her the right she claims. It _is_ her right—if she will have it.”

Mr. Pendril quietly took the written instructions from his pocket. “I

have warned you,” he said—and handed the papers across the table

without another word. One of the pages of writing—was folded down at

the corner; and at that folded page the manuscript opened, when

Magdalen first turned the leaves. “Is this the place which refers to my

sister and myself?” she inquired. Mr. Pendril bowed; and Magdalen

smoothed out the manuscript before her on the table.

“Will you decide, Norah?” she asked, turning to her sister. “Shall I

read this aloud, or shall I read it to myself?”

“To yourself,” said Miss Garth; answering for Norah, who looked at her

in mute perplexity and distress.

“It shall be as you wish,” said Magdalen. With that reply, she turned

again to the manuscript and read these lines:

“. . . . You are now in possession of my wishes in relation to the

property in money, and to the sale of the furniture, carriages, horses,

and so forth. The last point left on which it is necessary for me to

instruct you refers to the persons inhabiting the house, and to certain

preposterous claims on their behalf set up by a solicitor named

Pendril; who has, no doubt, interested reasons of his own for making

application to me.

“I understand that my late brother has left two illegitimate children;

both of them young women, who are of an age to earn their own

livelihood. Various considerations, all equally irregular, have been

urged in respect to these persons by the solicitor representing them.

Be so good as to tell him that neither you nor I have anything to do

with questions of mere sentiment; and then state plainly, for his

better information, what the motives are which regulate my conduct, and

what the provision is which I feel myself justified in making for the

two young women. Your instructions on both these points you will find

detailed in the next paragraph.

“I wish the persons concerned to know, once for all, how I regard the

circumstances which have placed my late brother’s property at my

disposal. Let them understand that I consider those circumstances to be

a Providential interposition which has restored to me the inheritance

that ought always to have been mine. I receive the money, not only as

my right, but also as a proper compensation for the injustice which I

suffered from my father, and a proper penalty paid by my younger

brother for the vile intrigue by which he succeeded in disinheriting

me. His conduct, when a young man, was uniformly discreditable in all

the relations of life; and what it then was it continued to be (on the

showing of his own legal representative) after the time when I ceased

to hold any communication with him. He appears to have systematically

imposed a woman on Society as his wife who was not his wife, and to

have completed the outrage on morality by afterward marrying her. Such

conduct as this has called down a Judgment on himself and his children.

I will not invite retribution on my own head by assisting those

children to continue the imposition which their parents practiced, and

by helping them to take a place in the world to which they are not

entitled. Let them, as becomes their birth, gain their bread in

situations. If they show themselves disposed to accept their proper

position I will assist them to start virtuously in life by a present of

one hundred pounds each. This sum I authorize you to pay them, on their

personal application, with the necessary acknowledgment of receipt; and

on the express understanding that the transaction, so completed, is to

be the beginning and the end of my connection with them. The

arrangements under which they quit the house I leave to your

discretion; and I have only to add that my decision on this matter, as

on all other matters, is positive and final.”

Line by line—without once looking up from the pages before her

—Magdalen read those atrocious sentences through, from beginning to

end. The other persons assembled in the room, all eagerly looking at

her together, saw the dress rising and falling faster and faster over

her bosom—saw the hand in which she lightly held the manuscript at the

outset close unconsciously on the paper and crush it, as she advanced

nearer and nearer to the end—but detected no other outward signs of

what was passing within her. As soon as she had done, she silently

pushed the manuscript away, and put her hands on a sudden over her

face. When she withdrew them, all the four persons in the room noticed

a change in her. Something in her expression had altered, subtly and

silently; something which made the familiar features suddenly look

strange, even to her sister and Miss Garth; something, through all

after years, never to be forgotten in connection with that day—and

never to be described.

The first words she spoke were addressed to Mr. Pendril.

“May I ask one more favor,” she said, “before you enter on your

business arrangements?”

Mr. Pendril replied ceremoniously by a gesture of assent. Magdalen’s

resolution to possess herself of the Instructions did not appear to

have produced a favorable impression on the lawyer’s mind.

“You mentioned what you were so kind as to do, in our interests, when

you first wrote to Mr. Michael Vanstone,” she continued. “You said you

had told him all the circumstances. I want—if you will allow me—to be

made quite sure of what he really knew about us—when he sent these

orders to his lawyer. Did he know that my father had made a will, and

that he had left our fortunes to my sister and myself?”

“He did know it,” said Mr. Pendril.

“Did you tell him how it happened that we are left in this helpless

position?”

“I told him that your father was entirely unaware, when he married, of

the necessity for making another will.”

“And that another will would have been made, after he saw Mr. Clare,

but for the dreadful misfortune of his death?”

“He knew that also.”

“Did he know that my father’s untiring goodness and kindness to both of

us—”

Her voice faltered for the first time: she sighed, and put her hand to

her head wearily. Norah spoke entreatingly to her; Miss Garth spoke

entreatingly to her; Mr. Clare sat silent, watching her more and more

earnestly. She answered her sister’s remonstrance with a faint smile.

“I will keep my promise,” she said; “I will distress nobody.” With that

reply, she turned again to Mr. Pendril; and steadily reiterated the

question—but in another form of words.

“Did Mr. Michael Vanstone know that my father’s great anxiety was to

make sure of providing for my sister and myself?”

“He knew it in your father’s own words. I sent him an extract from your

father’s last letter to me.”

“The letter which asked you to come for God’s sake, and relieve him

from the dreadful thought that his daughters were unprovided for? The

letter which said he should not rest in his grave if he left us

disinherited?”

“That letter and those words.”

She paused, still keeping her eyes steadily fixed on the lawyer’s face.

“I want to fasten it all in my mind,” she said “before I go on. Mr.

Michael Vanstone knew of the first will; he knew what prevented the

making of the second will; he knew of the letter and he read the words.

What did he know of besides? Did you tell him of my mother’s last

illness? Did you say that her share in the money would have been left

to us, if she could have lifted her dying hand in your presence? Did

you try to make him ashamed of the cruel law which calls girls in our

situation Nobody’s Children, and which allows him to use us as he is

using us now?”

“I put all those considerations to him. I left none of them doubtful; I

left none of them out.”

She slowly reached her hand to the copy of the Instructions, and slowly

folded it up again, in the shape in which it had been presented to her.

“I am much obliged to you, Mr. Pendril.” With those words, she bowed,

and gently pushed the manuscript back across the table; then turned to

her sister.

“Norah,” she said, “if we both of us live to grow old, and if you ever

forget all that we owe to Michael Vanstone—come to me, and I will

remind you.”

She rose and walked across the room by herself to the window. As she

passed Mr. Clare, the old man stretched out his claw-like fingers and

caught her fast by the arm before she was aware of him.

“What is this mask of yours hiding?” he asked, forcing her to bend to

him, and looking close into her face. “Which of the extremes of human

temperature does your courage start from—the dead cold or the white

hot?”

She shrank back from him and turned away her head in silence. She would

have resented that unscrupulous intrusion on her own thoughts from any

man alive but Frank’s father. He dropped her arm as suddenly as he had

taken it, and let her go on to the window. “No,” he said to himself,

“not the cold extreme, whatever else it may be. So much the worse for

her, and for all belonging to her.”

There was a momentary pause. Once more the dripping rustle of the rain

and the steady ticking of the clock filled up the gap of silence. Mr.

Pendril put the Instructions back in his pocket, considered a little,

and, turning toward Norah and Miss Garth, recalled their attention to

the present and pressing necessities of the time.

“Our consultation has been needlessly prolonged,” he said, “by painful

references to the past. We shall be better employed in settling our

arrangements for the future. I am obliged to return to town this

evening. Pray let me hear how I can best assist you; pray tell me what

trouble and what responsibility I can take off your hands.”

For the moment, neither Norah nor Miss Garth seemed to be capable of

answering him. Magdalen’s reception of the news which annihilated the

marriage prospect that her father’s own lips had placed before her not

a month since, had bewildered and dismayed them alike. They had

summoned their courage to meet the shock of her passionate grief, or to

face the harder trial of witnessing her speechless despair. But they

were not prepared for her invincible resolution to read the

Instructions; for the terrible questions which she had put to the

lawyer; for her immovable determination to fix all the circumstances in

her mind, under which Michael Vanstone’s decision had been pronounced.

There she stood at the window, an unfathomable mystery to the sister

who had never been parted from her, to the governess who had trained

her from a child. Miss Garth remembered the dark doubts which had

crossed her mind on the day when she and Magdalen had met in the

garden. Norah looked forward to the coming time, with the first serious

dread of it on her sister’s account which she had felt yet. Both had

hitherto remained passive, in despair of knowing what to do. Both were

now silent, in despair of knowing what to say.

Mr. Pendril patiently and kindly helped them, by returning to the

subject of their future plans for the second time.

“I am sorry to press any business matters on your attention,” he said,

“when you are necessarily unfitted to deal with them. But I must take

my instructions back to London with me to-night. With reference, in the

first place, to the disgraceful pecuniary offer, to which I have

already alluded. The younger Miss Vanstone having read the

Instructions, needs no further information from my lips. The elder

will, I hope, excuse me if I tell her (what I should be ashamed to tell

her, but that it is a matter of necessity), that Mr. Michael Vanstone’s

provision for his brother’s children begins and ends with an offer to

each of them of one hundred pounds.”

Norah’s face crimsoned with indignation. She started to her feet, as if

Michael Vanstone had been present in the room, and had personally

insulted her.

“I see,” said the lawyer, wishing to spare her; “I may tell Mr. Michael

Vanstone you refuse the money.”

“Tell him,” she broke out passionately, “if I was starving by the

roadside, I wouldn’t touch a farthing of it!”

“Shall I notify your refusal also?” asked Mr. Pendril, speaking to

Magdalen next.

She turned round from the window—but kept her face in shadow, by

standing close against it with her back to the light.

“Tell him, on my part,” she said, “to think again before he starts me

in life with a hundred pounds. I will give him time to think.” She

spoke those strange words with a marked emphasis; and turning back

quickly to the window, hid her face from the observation of every one

in the room.

“You both refuse the offer,” said Mr. Pendril, taking out his pencil,

and making his professional note of the decision. As he shut up his

pocketbook, he glanced toward Magdalen doubtfully. She had roused in

him the latent distrust which is a lawyer’s second nature: he had his

suspicions of her looks; he had his suspicions of her language. Her

sister seemed to have mere influence over her than Miss Garth. He

resolved to speak privately to her sister before he went away.

While the idea was passing through his mind, his attention was claimed

by another question from Magdalen.

“Is he an old man?” she asked, suddenly, without turning round from the

window.

“If you mean Mr. Michael Vanstone, he is seventy-five or seventy-six

years of age.”

“You spoke of his son a little while since. Has he any other sons—or

daughters?”

“None.”

“Do you know anything of his wife?”

“She has been dead for many years.”

There was a pause. “Why do you ask these questions?” said Norah.

“I beg your pardon,” replied Magdalen, quietly; “I won’t ask any more.”

For the third time, Mr. Pendril returned to the business of the

interview.

“The servants must not be forgotten,” he said. “They must be settled

with and discharged: I will give them the necessary explanation before

I leave. As for the house, no questions connected with it need trouble

you. The carriages and horses, the furniture and plate, and so on, must

simply be left on the premises to await Mr. Michael Vanstone’s further

orders. But any possessions, Miss Vanstone, personally belonging to you

or to your sister—jewelry and dresses, and any little presents which

may have been made to you—are entirely at your disposal. With regard to

the time of your departure, I understand that a month or more will

elapse before Mr. Michael Vanstone can leave Zurich; and I am sure I

only do his solicitor justice in saying—”

“Excuse me, Mr. Pendril,” interposed Norah; “I think I understand, from

what you have just said, that our house and everything in it belongs

to—?” She stopped, as if the mere utterance of the man’s name was

abhorrent to her.

“To Michael Vanstone,” said Mr. Pendril. “The house goes to him with

the rest of the property.”

“Then I, for one, am ready to leave it tomorrow!”

Magdalen started at the window, as her sister spoke, and looked at Mr.

Clare, with the first open signs of anxiety and alarm which she had

shown yet.

“Don’t be angry with me,” she whispered, stooping over the old man with

a sudden humility of look, and a sudden nervousness of manner. “I can’t

go without seeing Frank first!”

“You shall see him,” replied Mr. Clare. “I am here to speak to you

about it, when the business is done.”

“It is quite unnecessary to hurry your departure, as you propose,”

continued Mr. Pendril, addressing Norah. “I can safely assure you that

a week hence will be time enough.”

“If this is Mr. Michael Vanstone’s house,” repeated Norah; “I am ready

to leave it tomorrow.”

She impatiently quitted her chair and seated herself further away on

the sofa. As she laid her hand on the back of it, her face changed.

There, at the head of the sofa, were the cushions which had supported

her mother when she lay down for the last time to repose. There, at the

foot of the sofa, was the clumsy, old-fashioned arm-chair, which had

been her father’s favorite seat on rainy days, when she and her sister

used to amuse him at the piano opposite, by playing his favorite tunes.

A heavy sigh, which she tried vainly to repress, burst from her lips.

“Oh,” she thought, “I had forgotten these old friends! How shall we

part from them when the time comes!”

“May I inquire, Miss Vanstone, whether you and your sister have formed

any definite plans for the future?” asked Mr. Pendril. “Have you

thought of any place of residence?”

“I may take it on myself, sir,” said Miss Garth, “to answer your

question for them. When they leave this house, they leave it with me.

My home is their home, and my bread is their bread. Their parents

honored me, trusted me, and loved me. For twelve happy years they never

let me remember that I was their governess; they only let me know

myself as their companion and their friend. My memory of them is the

memory of unvarying gentleness and generosity; and my life shall pay

the debt of my gratitude to their orphan children.”

Norah rose hastily from the sofa; Magdalen impetuously left the window.

For once, there was no contrast in the conduct of the sisters. For

once, the same impulse moved their hearts, the same earnest feeling

inspired their words. Miss Garth waited until the first outburst of

emotion had passed away; then rose, and, taking Norah and Magdalen each

by the hand, addressed herself to Mr. Pendril and Mr. Clare. She spoke

with perfect self-possession; strong in her artless unconsciousness of

her own good action.

“Even such a trifle as my own story,” she said, “is of some importance

at such a moment as this. I wish you both, gentlemen, to understand

that I am not promising more to the daughters of your old friend than I

can perform. When I first came to this house, I entered it under such

independent circumstances as are not common in the lives of

governesses. In my younger days, I was associated in teaching with my

elder sister: we established a school in London, which grew to be a

large and prosperous one. I only left it, and became a private

governess, because the heavy responsibility of the school was more than

my strength could bear. I left my share in the profits untouched, and I

possess a pecuniary interest in our establishment to this day. That is

my story, in few words. When we leave this house, I propose that we

shall go back to the school in London, which is still prosperously

directed by my elder sister. We can live there as quietly as we please,

until time has helped us to bear our affliction better than we can bear

it now. If Norah’s and Magdalen’s altered prospects oblige them to earn

their own independence, I can help them to earn it, as a gentleman’s

daughters should. The best families in this land are glad to ask my

sister’s advice where the interests of their children’s home-training

are concerned; and I answer, beforehand, for her hearty desire to serve

Mr. Vanstone’s daughters, as I answer for my own. That is the future

which my gratitude to their father and mother, and my love for

themselves, now offers to them. If you think my proposal, gentlemen, a

fit and fair proposal—and I see in your faces that you do—let us not

make the hard necessities of our position harder still, by any useless

delay in meeting them at once. Let us do what we must do; let us act on

Norah’s decision, and leave this house to-morrow. You mentioned the

servants just now, Mr. Pendril: I am ready to call them together in the

next room, and to assist you in the settlement of their claims,

whenever you please.”

Without waiting for the lawyer’s answer, without leaving the sisters

time to realize their own terrible situation, she moved at once toward

the door. It was her wise resolution to meet the coming trial by doing

much and saying little. Before she could leave the room, Mr. Clare

followed, and stopped her on the threshold.

“I never envied a woman’s feelings before,” said the old man. “It may

surprise you to hear it; but I envy yours. Wait! I have something more

to say. There is an obstacle still left—the everlasting obstacle of

Frank. Help me to sweep him off. Take the elder sister along with you

and the lawyer, and leave me here to have it out with the younger. I

want to see what metal she’s really made of.”

While Mr. Clare was addressing these words to Miss Garth, Mr. Pendril

had taken the opportunity of speaking to Norah. “Before I go back to

town,” he said, “I should like to have a word with you in private. From

what has passed today, Miss Vanstone, I have formed a very high opinion

of your discretion; and, as an old friend of your father’s, I want to

take the freedom of speaking to you about your sister.”

Before Norah could answer, she was summoned, in compliance with Mr.

Clare’s request, to the conference with the servants. Mr. Pendril

followed Miss Garth, as a matter of course. When the three were out in

the hall, Mr. Clare re-entered the room, closed the door, and signed

peremptorily to Magdalen to take a chair.

She obeyed him in silence. He took a turn up and down the room, with

his hands in the side-pockets of the long, loose, shapeless coat which

he habitually wore.

“How old are you?” he said, stopping suddenly, and speaking to her with

the whole breadth of the room between them.

“I was eighteen last birthday,” she answered, humbly, without looking

up at him.

“You have shown extraordinary courage for a girl of eighteen. Have you

got any of that courage left?”

She clasped her hands together, and wrung them hard. A few tears

gathered in her eyes, and rolled slowly over her cheeks.

“I can’t give Frank up,” she said, faintly. “You don’t care for me, I

know; but you used to care for my father. Will you try to be kind to me

for my father’s sake?”

The last words died away in a whisper; she could say no more. Never had

she felt the illimitable power which a woman’s love possesses of

absorbing into itself every other event, every other joy or sorrow of

her life, as she felt it then. Never had she so tenderly associated

Frank with the memory of her lost parents, as at that moment. Never had

the impenetrable atmosphere of illusion through which women behold the

man of their choice—the atmosphere which had blinded her to all that

was weak, selfish, and mean in Frank’s nature—surrounded him with a

brighter halo than now, when she was pleading with the father for the

possession of the son. “Oh, don’t ask me to give him up!” she said,

trying to take courage, and shuddering from head to foot. In the next

instant, she flew to the opposite extreme, with the suddenness of a

flash of lightning. “I won’t give him up!” she burst out violently.

“No! not if a thousand fathers ask me!”

“I am one father,” said Mr. Clare. “And I don’t ask you.”

In the first astonishment and delight of hearing those unexpected

words, she started to her feet, crossed the room, and tried to throw

her arms round his neck. She might as well have attempted to move the

house from its foundations. He took her by the shoulders and put her

back in her chair. His inexorable eyes looked her into submission; and

his lean forefinger shook at her warningly, as if he was quieting a

fractious child.

“Hug Frank,” he said; “don’t hug me. I haven’t done with you yet; when

I have, you may shake hands with me, if you like. Wait, and compose

yourself.”

He left her. His hands went back into his pockets, and his monotonous

march up and down the room began again.

“Ready?” he asked, stopping short after a while. She tried to answer.

“Take two minutes more,” he said, and resumed his walk with the

regularity of clock-work. “These are the creatures,” he thought to

himself, “into whose keeping men otherwise sensible give the happiness

of their lives. Is there any other object in creation, I wonder, which

answers its end as badly as a woman does?”

He stopped before her once more. Her breathing was easier; the dark

flush on her face was dying out again.

“Ready?” he repeated. “Yes; ready at last. Listen to me; and let’s get

it over. I don’t ask you to give Frank up. I ask you to wait.”

“I will wait,” she said. “Patiently, willingly.”

“Will you make Frank wait?”

“Yes.”

“Will you send him to China?”

Her head drooped upon her bosom, and she clasped her hands again, in

silence. Mr. Clare saw where the difficulty lay, and marched straight

up to it on the spot.

“I don’t pretend to enter into your feelings for Frank, or Frank’s for

you,” he said. “The subject doesn’t interest me. But I _do_ pretend to

state two plain truths. It is one plain truth that you can’t be married

till you have money enough to pay for the roof that shelters you, the

clothes that cover you, and the victuals you eat. It is another plain

truth that you can’t find the money; that I can’t find the money; and

that Frank’s only chance of finding it, is going to China. If I tell

him to go, he’ll sit in a corner and cry. If I insist, he’ll say Yes,

and deceive me. If I go a step further, and see him on board ship with

my own eyes, he’ll slip off in the pilot’s boat, and sneak back

secretly to you. That’s his disposition.”

“No!” said Magdalen. “It’s not his disposition; it’s his love for Me.”

“Call it what you like,” retorted Mr. Clare. “Sneak or Sweetheart —he’s

too slippery, in either capacity, for my fingers to hold him. My

shutting the door won’t keep him from coming back. Your shutting the

door will. Have you the courage to shut it? Are you fond enough of him

not to stand in his light?”

“Fond! I would die for him!”

“Will you send him to China?”

She sighed bitterly.

“Have a little pity for me,” she said. “I have lost my father; I have

lost my mother; I have lost my fortune—and now I am to lose Frank. You

don’t like women, I know; but try to help me with a little pity. I

don’t say it’s not for his own interests to send him to China; I only

say it’s hard—very, very hard on _me_.”

Mr. Clare had been deaf to her violence, insensible to her caresses,

blind to her tears; but under the tough integument of his philosophy he

had a heart—and it answered that hopeless appeal; it felt those

touching words.

“I don’t deny that your case is a hard one,” he said. “I don’t want to

make it harder. I only ask you to do in Frank’s interests what Frank is

too weak to do for himself. It’s no fault of yours; it’s no fault of

mine—but it’s not the less true that the fortune you were to have

brought him has changed owners.”

She suddenly looked up, with a furtive light in her eyes, with a

threatening smile on her lips.

“It may change owners again,” she said.

Mr. Clare saw the alteration in her expression, and heard the tones of

her voice. But the words were spoken low; spoken as if to herself—they

failed to reach him across the breadth of the room. He stopped

instantly in his walk and asked what she had said.

“Nothing,” she answered, turning her head away toward the window, and

looking out mechanically at the falling rain. “Only my own thoughts.”

Mr. Clare resumed his walk, and returned to his subject.

“It’s your interest,” he went on, “as well as Frank’s interest, that he

should go. He may make money enough to marry you in China; he can’t

make it here. If he stops at home, he’ll be the ruin of both of you.

He’ll shut his eyes to every consideration of prudence, and pester you

to marry him; and when he has carried his point, he will be the first

to turn round afterward and complain that you’re a burden on him. Hear

me out! You’re in love with Frank—I’m not, and I know him. Put you two

together often enough; give him time enough to hug, cry, pester, and

plead; and I’ll tell you what the end will be—you’ll marry him.”

He had touched the right string at last. It rung back in answer before

he could add another word.

“You don’t know me,” she said, firmly. “You don’t know what I can

suffer for Frank’s sake. He shall never marry me till I can be what my

father said I should be—the making of his fortune. He shall take no

burden, when he takes me; I promise you that! I’ll be the good angel of

Frank’s life; I’ll not go a penniless girl to him, and drag him down.”

She abruptly left her seat, advanced a few steps toward Mr. Clare, and

stopped in the middle of the room. Her arms fell helpless on either

side of her, and she burst into tears. “He shall go,” she said. “If my

heart breaks in doing it, I’ll tell him to-morrow that we must say

Good-by!”

Mr. Clare at once advanced to meet her, and held out his hand.

“I’ll help you,” he said. “Frank shall hear every word that has passed

between us. When he comes to-morrow he shall know, beforehand, that he

comes to say Good-by.”

She took his hand in both her own—hesitated—looked at him—and pressed

it to her bosom. “May I ask a favor of you, before you go?” she said,

timidly. He tried to take his hand from her; but she knew her

advantage, and held it fast. “Suppose there should be some change for

the better?” she went on. “Suppose I could come to Frank, as my fat her

said I should come to him—?”

Before she could complete the question, Mr. Clare made a second effort

and withdrew his hand. “As your father said you should come to him?” he

repeated, looking at her attentively.

“Yes,” she replied. “Strange things happen sometimes. If strange things

happen to me will you let Frank come back before the five years are

out?”

What did she mean? Was she clinging desperately to the hope of melting

Michael Vanstone’s heart? Mr. Clare could draw no other conclusion from

what she had just said to him. At the beginning of the interview he

would have roughly dispelled her delusion. At the end of the interview

he left her compassionately in possession of it.

“You are hoping against all hope,” he said; “but if it gives you

courage, hope on. If this impossible good fortune of yours ever

happens, tell me, and Frank shall come back. In the meantime—”

“In the meantime,” she interposed sadly, “you have my promise.”

Once more Mr. Clare’s sharp eyes searched her face attentively.

“I will trust your promise,” he said. “You shall see Frank to-morrow.”

She went back thoughtfully to her chair, and sat down again in silence.

Mr. Clare made for the door before any formal leave-taking could pass

between them. “Deep!” he thought to himself, as he looked back at her

before he went out; “only eighteen; and too deep for my sounding!”

In the hall he found Norah, waiting anxiously to hear what had

happened.

“Is it all over?” she asked. “Does Frank go to China?”

“Be careful how you manage that sister of yours,” said Mr. Clare,

without noticing the question. “She has one great misfortune to contend

with: she’s not made for the ordinary jog-trot of a woman’s life. I

don’t say I can see straight to the end of the good or evil in her—I

only warn you, her future will be no common one.”

An hour later, Mr. Pendril left the house; and, by that night’s post,

Miss Garth dispatched a letter to her sister in London.

THE END OF THE FIRST SCENE.

BETWEEN THE SCENES.

PROGRESS OF THE STORY THROUGH THE POST.

I.

From Norah Vanstone to Mr. Pendril.

“Westmoreland House, Kensington,

“August 14th, 1846.

“DEAR MR. PENDRIL,—

“The date of this letter will show you that the last of many hard

partings is over. We have left Combe-Raven; we have said farewell to

home.

“I have been thinking seriously of what you said to me on Wednesday,

before you went back to town. I entirely agree with you that Miss Garth

is more shaken by all she has gone through for our sakes than she is

herself willing to admit; and that it is my duty, for the future, to

spare her all the anxiety that I can on the subject of my sister and

myself. This is very little to do for our dearest friend, for our

second mother. Such as it is, I will do it with all my heart.

“But, forgive me for saying that I am as far as ever from agreeing with

you about Magdalen. I am so sensible, in our helpless position, of the

importance of your assistance; so anxious to be worthy of the interest

of my father’s trusted adviser and oldest friend, that I feel really

and truly disappointed with myself for differing with you—and yet I do

differ. Magdalen is very strange, very unaccountable, to those who

don’t know her intimately. I can understand that she has innocently

misled you; and that she has presented herself, perhaps, under her

least favorable aspect. But that the clue to her language and her

conduct on Wednesday last is to be found in such a feeling toward the

man who has ruined us, as the feeling at which you hinted, is what I

cannot and will not believe of my sister. If you knew, as I do, what a

noble nature she has, you would not be surprised at this obstinate

resistance of mine to your opinion. Will you try to alter it? I don’t

mind what Mr. Clare says; he believes in nothing. But I attach a very

serious importance to what _you_ say; and, kind as I know your motives

to be, it distresses me to think you are doing Magdalen an injustice.

“Having relieved my mind of this confession, I may now come to the

proper object of my letter. I promised, if you could not find leisure

time to visit us to-day, to write and tell you all that happened after

you left us. The day has passed without our seeing you. So I open my

writing-case and perform my promise.

“I am sorry to say that three of the women-servants—the house-maid, the

kitchen-maid, and even our own maid (to whom I am sure we have always

been kind)—took advantage of your having paid them their wages to pack

up and go as soon as your back was turned. They came to say good-by

with as much ceremony and as little feeling as if they were leaving the

house under ordinary circumstances. The cook, for all her violent

temper, behaved very differently: she sent up a message to say that she

would stop and help us to the last. And Thomas (who has never yet been

in any other place than ours) spoke so gratefully of my dear father’s

unvarying kindness to him, and asked so anxiously to be allowed to go

on serving us while his little savings lasted, that Magdalen and I

forgot all formal considerations and both shook hands with him. The

poor lad went out of the room crying. I wish him well; I hope he will

find a kind master and a good place.

“The long, quiet, rainy evening out-of-doors—our last evening at

Combe-Raven—was a sad trial to us. I think winter-time would have

weighed less on our spirits; the drawn curtains and the bright lamps,

and the companionable fires would have helped us. We were only five in

the house altogether—after having once been so many! I can’t tell you

how dreary the gray daylight looked, toward seven o’clock, in the

lonely rooms, and on the noiseless staircase. Surely, the prejudice in

favor of long summer evenings is the prejudice of happy people? We did

our best. We kept ourselves employed, and Miss Garth helped us. The

prospect of preparing for our departure, which had seemed so dreadful

earlier in the day, altered into the prospect of a refuge from

ourselves as the evening came on. We each tried at first to pack up in

our own rooms—but the loneliness was more than we could bear. We

carried all our possessions downstairs, and heaped them on the large

dining-table, and so made our preparations together in the same room. I

am sure we have taken nothing away which does not properly belong to

us.

“Having already mentioned to you my own conviction that Magdalen was

not herself when you saw her on Wednesday, I feel tempted to stop here

and give you an instance in proof of what I say. The little

circumstance happened on Wednesday night, just before we went up to our

rooms.

“After we had packed our dresses and our birthday presents, our books

and our music, we began to sort our letters, which had got confused

from being placed on the table together. Some of my letters were mixed

with Magdalen’s, and some of hers with mine. Among these last I found a

card, which had been given to my sister early in the year by an actor

who managed an amateur theatrical performance in which she took a part.

The man had given her the card, containing his name and address, in the

belief that she would be invited to many more amusements of the same

kind, and in the hope that she would recommend him as a superintendent

on future occasions. I only relate these trifling particulars to show

you how little worth keeping such a card could be, in such

circumstances as ours. Naturally enough, I threw it away from me across

the table, meaning to throw it on the floor. It fell short, close to

the place in which Magdalen was sitting. She took it up, looked at it,

and immediately declared that she would not have had this perfectly

worthless thing destroyed for the world. She was almost angry with me

for having thrown it away; almost angry with Miss Garth for asking what

she could possibly want with it! Could there be any plainer proof than

this that our misfortunes—falling so much more heavily on her than on

me—have quite unhinged her, and worn her out? Surely her words and

looks are not to be interpreted against her, when she is not

sufficiently mistress of herself to exert her natural judgment—when she

shows the unreasonable petulance of a child on a question which is not

of the slightest importance.

“A little after eleven we went upstairs to try if we could get some

rest.

“I drew aside the curtain of my window and looked out. Oh, what a cruel

last night it was: no moon, no stars; such deep darkness that not one

of the dear familiar objects in the garden was visible when I looked

for them; such deep stillness that even my own movements about the room

almost frightened me! I tried to lie down and sleep, but the sense of

loneliness came again and quite overpowered me. You will say I am old

enough, at six-and-twenty, to have exerted more control over myself. I

hardly know how it happened, but I stole into Magdalen’s room, just as

I used to steal into it years and years ago, when we were children. She

was not in bed; she was sitting with her writing materials before her,

thinking. I said I wanted to be with her the last night; and she kissed

me, and told me to lie down, and promised soon to follow me. My mind

was a little quieted and I fell asleep. It was daylight when I woke—and

the first sight I saw was Magdalen, still sitting in the chair, and

still thinking. She had never been to bed; she had not slept all

through the night.

“‘I shall sleep when we have left Combe-Raven,’ she said. ‘I shall be

better when it is all over, and I have bid Frank good-by.’ She had in

her hand our father’s will, and the letter he wrote to you; and when

she had done speaking, she gave them into my possession. I was the

eldest (she said), and those last precious relics ought to be in my

keeping. I tried to propose to her that we should divide them; but she

shook her head. ‘I have copied for myself,’ was her answer, ‘all that

he says of us in the will, and all that he says in the letter.’ She

told me this, and took from her bosom a tiny white silk bag, which she

had made in the night, and in which she had put the extracts, so as to

keep them always about her. ‘This tells me in his own words what his

last wishes were for both of us,’ she said; ‘and this is all I want for

the future.’

“These are trifles to dwell on; and I am almost surprised at myself for

not feeling ashamed to trouble you with them. But, since I have known

what your early connection was with my father and mother, I have

learned to think of you (and, I suppose, to write to you) as an old

friend. And, besides, I have it so much at heart to change your opinion

of Magdalen, that I can’t help telling you the smallest things about

her which may, in my judgment, end in making you think of her as I do.

“When breakfast-time came (on Thursday morning), we were surprised to

find a strange letter on the table. Perhaps I ought to mention it to

you, in case of any future necessity for your interference. It was

addressed to Miss Garth, on paper with the deepest mourning-border

round it; and the writer was the same man who followed us on our way

home from a walk one day last spring—Captain Wragge. His object appears

to be to assert once more his audacious claim to a family connection

with my poor mother, under cover of a letter of condolence; which it is

an insolence in such a person to have written at all. He expresses as

much sympathy—on his discovery of our affliction in the newspaper—as if

he had been really intimate with us; and he begs to know, in a

postscript (being evidently in total ignorance of all that has really

happened), whether it is thought desirable that he should be present,

among the other relatives, at the reading of the will! The address he

gives, at which letters will reach him for the next fortnight, is,

‘Post-office, Birmingham.’ This is all I have to tell you on the

subject. Both the letter and the writer seem to me to be equally

unworthy of the slightest notice, on our part or on yours.

“After breakfast Magdalen left us, and went by herself into the

morning-room. The weather being still showery, we had arranged that

Francis Clare should see her in that room, when he presented himself to

take his leave. I was upstairs when he came; and I remained upstairs

for more than half an hour afterward, sadly anxious, as you may well

believe, on Magdalen’s account.

“At the end of the half-hour or more, I came downstairs. As I reached

the landing I suddenly heard her voice, raised entreatingly, and

calling on him by his name—then loud sobs—then a frightful laughing and

screaming, both together, that rang through the house. I instantly ran

into the room, and found Magdalen on the sofa in violent hysterics, and

Frank standing staring at her, with a lowering, angry face, biting his

nails.

“I felt so indignant—without knowing plainly why, for I was ignorant,

of course, of what had passed at the interview—that I took Mr. Francis

Clare by the shoulders and pushed him out of the room. I am careful to

tell you how I acted toward him, and what led to it; because I

understand that he is excessively offended with me, and that he is

likely to mention elsewhere what he calls my unladylike violence toward

him. If he should mention it to you, I am anxious to acknowledge, of my

own accord, that I forgot myself—not, I hope you will think, without

some provocation.

“I pushed him into the hall, leaving Magdalen, for the moment, to Miss

Garth’s care. Instead of going away, he sat down sulkily on one of the

hall chairs. ‘May I ask the reason of this extraordinary violence?’ he

inquired, with an injured look. ‘No,’ I said. ‘You will be good enough

to imagine the reason for yourself, and to leave us immediately, if you

please.’ He sat doggedly in the chair, biting his nails and

considering. ‘What have I done to be treated in this unfeeling manner?’

he asked, after a while. ‘I can enter into no discussion with you,’ I

answered; ‘I can only request you to leave us. If you persist in

waiting to see my sister again, I will go to the cottage myself and

appeal to your father.’ He got up in a great hurry at those words. ‘I

have been infamously used in this business,’ he said. ‘All the

hardships and the sacrifices have fallen to my share. I’m the only one

among you who has any heart: all the rest are as hard as

stones—Magdalen included. In one breath she says she loves me, and in

another she tells me to go to China. What have I done to be treated

with this heartless inconsistency? I am consistent myself—I only want

to stop at home—and (what’s the consequence?) you’re all against me!’

In that manner he grumbled his way down the steps, and so I saw the

last of him. This was all that passed between us. If he gives you any

other account of it, what he says will be false. He made no attempt to

return. An hour afterward his father came alone to say good-by. He saw

Miss Garth and me, but not Magdalen; and he told us he would take the

necessary measures, with your assistance, for having his son properly

looked after in London, and seen safely on board the vessel when the

time came. It was a short visit, and a sad leave-taking. Even Mr. Clare

was sorry, though he tried hard to hide it.

“We had barely two hours, after Mr. Clare had left us, before it would

be time to go. I went back to Magdalen, and found her quieter and

better, though terribly pale and exhausted, and oppressed, as I

fancied, by thoughts which she could not prevail on herself to

communicate. She would tell me nothing then—she has told me nothing

since—of what passed between herself and Francis Clare. When I spoke of

him angrily (feeling as I did that he had distressed and tortured her,

when she ought to have had all the encouragement and comfort from him

that man could give), she refused to hear me: she made the kindest

allowances and the sweetest excuses for him, and laid all the blame of

the dreadful state in which I had found her entirely on herself. Was I

wrong in telling you that she had a noble nature? And won’t you alter

your opinion when you read these lines?

“We had no friends to come and bid us good-by; and our few

acquaintances were too far from us—perhaps too indifferent about us—to

call. We employed the little leisure left in going over the house

together for the last time. We took leave of our old schoolroom, our

bedrooms, the room where our mother died, the little study where our

father used to settle his accounts and write his letters—feeling toward

them, in our forlorn condition, as other girls might have felt at

parting with old friends. From the house, in a gleam of fine weather,

we went into the garden, and gathered our last nosegay; with the

purpose of drying the flowers when they begin to wither, and keeping

them in remembrance of the happy days that are gone. When we had said

good-by to the garden, there was only half an hour left. We went

together to the grave; we knelt down, side by side, in silence, and

kissed the sacred ground. I thought my heart would have broken. August

was the month of my mother’s birthday; and, this time last year, my

father and Magdalen and I were all consulting in secret what present we

could make to surprise her with on the birthday morning.

“If you had seen how Magdalen suffered, you would never doubt her

again. I had to take her from the last resting-place of our father and

mother almost by force. Before we were out of the churchyard she broke

from me and ran back. She dropped on her knees at the grave; tore up

from it passionately a handful of grass; and said something to herself,

at the same moment, which, though I followed her instantly, I did not

get near enough to hear. She turned on me in such a frenzied manner,

when I tried to raise her from the ground—she looked at me with such a

fearful wildness in her eyes—that I felt absolutely terrified at the

sight of her. To my relief, the paroxysm left her as suddenly as it had

come. She thrust away the tuft of grass into the bosom of her dress,

and took my arm and hurried with me out of the churchyard. I asked her

why she had gone back—I asked what those words were which she had

spoken at the grave. ‘A promise to our dead father,’ she answered, with

a momentary return of the wild look and the frenzied manner which had

startled me already. I was afraid to agitate her by saying more; I left

all other questions to be asked at a fitter and a quieter time. You

will understand from this how terribly she suffers, how wildly and

strangely she acts under violent agitation; and you will not interpret

against her what she said or did when you saw her on Wednesday last.

“We only returned to the house in time to hasten away from it to the

train. Perhaps it was better for us so—better that we had only a moment

left to look back before the turn in the road hid the last of

Combe-Raven from our view. There was not a soul we knew at the station;

nobody to stare at us, nobody to wish us good-by. The rain came on

again as we took our seats in the train. What we felt at the sight of

the railway—what horrible remembrances it forced on our minds of the

calamity which has made us fatherless—I cannot, and dare not, tell you.

I have tried anxiously not to write this letter in a gloomy tone; not

to return all your kindness to us by distressing you with our grief.

Perhaps I have dwelt too long already on the little story of our

parting from home? I can only say, in excuse, that my heart is full of

it; and what is not in my heart my pen won’t write.

“We have been so short a time in our new abode that I have nothing more

to tell you—except that Miss Garth’s sister has received us with the

heartiest kindness. She considerately leaves us to ourselves, until we

are fitter than we are now to think of our future plans, and to arrange

as we best can for earning our own living. The house is so large, and

the position of our rooms has been so thoughtfully chosen, that I

should hardly know—except when I hear the laughing of the younger girls

in the garden—that we were living in a school.

“With kindest and best wishes from Miss Garth and my sister, believe

me, dear Mr. Pendril, gratefully yours,

“NORAH VANSTONE.”

II.

From Miss Garth to Mr. Pendril.

“Westmoreland House, Kensington,

“September 23d, 1846.

“MY DEAR SIR,—

“I write these lines in such misery of mind as no words can describe.

Magdalen has deserted us. At an early hour this morning she secretly

left the house, and she has not been heard of since.

“I would come and speak to you personally; but I dare not leave Norah.

I must try to control myself; I must try to write.

“Nothing happened yesterday to prepare me or to prepare Norah for this

last—I had almost said, this worst—of all our afflictions. The only

alteration we either of us noticed in the unhappy girl was an

alteration for the better when we parted for the night. She kissed me,

which she has not done latterly; and she burst out crying when she

embraced her sister next. We had so little suspicion of the truth that

we thought these signs of renewed tenderness and affection a promise of

better things for the future.

“This morning, when her sister went into her room, it was empty, and a

note in her handwriting, addressed to Norah, was lying on the

dressing-table. I cannot prevail on Norah to part with the note; I can

only send you the inclosed copy of it. You will see that it affords no

clue to the direction she has taken.

“Knowing the value of time, in this dreadful emergency, I examined her

room, and (with my sister’s help) questioned the servants immediately

on the news of her absence reaching me. Her wardrobe was empty; and all

her boxes but one, which she has evidently taken away with her, are

empty, too. We are of opinion that she has privately turned her dresses

and jewelry into money; that she had the one trunk she took with her

removed from the house yesterday; and that she left us this morning on

foot. The answers given by one of the servants are so unsatisfactory

that we believe the woman has been bribed to assist her; and has

managed all those arrangements for her flight which she could not have

safely undertaken by herself.

“Of the immediate object with which she has left us, I entertain no

doubt.

“I have reasons (which I can tell you at a fitter time) for feeling

assured that she has gone away with the intention of trying her fortune

on the stage. She has in her possession the card of an actor by

profession, who superintended an amateur theatrical performance at

Clifton, in which she took part; and to him she has gone to help her. I

saw the card at the time, and I know the actor’s name to be Huxtable.

The address I cannot call to mind quite so correctly; but I am almost

sure it was at some theatrical place in Bow Street, Covent Garden. Let

me entreat you not to lose a moment in sending to make the necessary

inquiries; the first trace of her will, I firmly believe, be found at

that address.

“If we had nothing worse to dread than her attempting to go on the

stage, I should not feel the distress and dismay which now overpower

me. Hundreds of other girls have acted as recklessly as she has acted,

and have not ended ill after all. But my fears for Magdalen do not

begin and end with the risk she is running at present.

“There has been something weighing on her mind ever since we left

Combe-Raven—weighing far more heavily for the last six weeks than at

first. Until the period when Francis Clare left England, I am persuaded

she was secretly sustained by the hope that he would contrive to see

her again. From the day when she knew that the measures you had taken

for preventing this had succeeded; from the day when she was assured

that the ship had really taken him away, nothing has roused, nothing

has interested her. She has given herself up, more and more hopelessly,

to her own brooding thoughts; thoughts which I believe first entered

her mind on the day when the utter ruin of the prospects on which her

marriage depended was made known to her. She has formed some desperate

project of contesting the possession of her father’s fortune with

Michael Vanstone; and the stage career which she has gone away to try

is nothing more than a means of freeing herself from all home

dependence, and of enabling her to run what mad risks she pleases, in

perfect security from all home control. What it costs me to write of

her in these terms, I must leave you to imagine. The time has gone by

when any consideration of distress to my own feelings can weigh with

me. Whatever I can say which will open your eyes to the real danger,

and strengthen your conviction of the instant necessity of averting it,

I say in despite of myself, without hesitation and without reserve.

“One word more, and I have done.

“The last time you were so good as to come to this house, do you

remember how Magdalen embarrassed and distressed us by questioning you

about her right to bear her father’s name? Do you remember her

persisting in her inquiries, until she had forced you to acknowledge

that, legally speaking, she and her sister had No Name? I venture to

remind you of this, because you have the affairs of hundreds of clients

to think of, and you might well have forgotten the circumstance.

Whatever natural reluctance she might otherwise have had to deceiving

us, and degrading herself, by the use of an assumed name, that

conversation with you is certain to have removed. We must discover her

by personal description—we can trace her in no other way.

“I can think of nothing more to guide your decision in our deplorable

emergency. For God’s sake, let no expense and no efforts be spared. My

letter ought to reach you by ten o’clock this morning, at the latest.

Let me have one line in answer, to say you will act instantly for the

best. My only hope of quieting Norah is to show her a word of

encouragement from your pen. Believe me, dear sir, yours sincerely and

obliged,

“HARRIET GARTH.”

III.

From Magdalen to Norah (inclosed in the preceding Letter).

“MY DARLING,—

“Try to forgive me. I have struggled against myself till I am worn out

in the effort. I am the wretchedest of living creatures. Our quiet life

here maddens me; I can bear it no longer; I must go. If you knew what

my thoughts are; if you knew how hard I have fought against them, and

how horribly they have gone on haunting me in the lonely quiet of this

house, you would pity and forgive me. Oh, my love, don’t feel hurt at

my not opening my heart to you as I ought! I dare not open it. I dare

not show myself to you as I really am.

“Pray don’t send and seek after me; I will write and relieve all your

anxieties. You know, Norah, we must get our living for ourselves; I

have only gone to get mine in the manner which is fittest for me.

Whether I succeed, or whether I fail, I can do myself no harm either

way. I have no position to lose, and no name to degrade. Don’t doubt I

love you—don’t let Miss Garth doubt my gratitude. I go away miserable

at leaving you; but I must go. If I had loved you less dearly, I might

have had the courage to say this in your presence—but how could I trust

myself to resist your persuasions, and to bear the sight of your

distress? Farewell, my darling! Take a thousand kisses from me, my own

best, dearest love, till we meet again.

“MAGDALEN.”

IV.

From Sergeant Bulmer (of the Detective Police) to Mr. Pendril.

“Scotland Yard,

“September 29th, 1846.

“SIR,—

“Your clerk informs me that the parties interested in our inquiry after

the missing young lady are anxious for news of the same. I went to your

office to speak to you about the matter to-day. Not having found you,

and not being able to return and try again to-morrow, I write these

lines to save delay, and to tell you how we stand thus far.

“I am sorry to say, no advance has been made since my former report.

The trace of the young lady which we found nearly a week since, still

remains the last trace discovered of her. This case seems a mighty

simple one looked at from a distance. Looked at close, it alters very

considerably for the worse, and becomes, to speak the plain truth—a

Poser.

“This is how we now stand:

“We have traced the young lady to the theatrical agent’s in Bow Street.

We know that at an early hour on the morning of the twenty-third the

agent was called downstairs, while he was dressing, to speak to a young

lady in a cab at the door. We know that, on her production of Mr.

Huxtable’s card, he wrote on it Mr. Huxtable’s address in the country,

and heard her order the cabman to drive to the Great Northern terminus.

We believe she left by the nine o’clock train. We followed her by the

twelve o’clock train. We have ascertained that she called at half-past

two at Mr. Huxtable’s lodgings; that she found he was away, and not

expected back till eight in the evening; that she left word she would

call again at eight; and that she never returned. Mr. Huxtable’s

statement is—he and the young lady have never set eyes on each other.

The first consideration which follows, is this: Are we to believe Mr.

Huxtable? I have carefully inquired into his character; I know as much,

or more, about him than he knows about himself; and my opinion is, that

we _are_ to believe him. To the best of my knowledge, he is a perfectly

honest man.

“Here, then, is the hitch in the case. The young lady sets out with a

certain object before her. Instead of going on to the accomplishment of

that object, she stops short of it. Why has she stopped? and where?

Those are, unfortunately, just the questions which we can’t answer yet.

“My own opinion of the matter is, briefly, as follows: I don’t think

she has met with any serious accident. Serious accidents, in nine cases

out of ten, discover themselves. My own notion is, that she has fallen

into the hands of some person or persons interested in hiding her away,

and sharp enough to know how to set about it. Whether she is in their

charge, with or without her own consent, is more than I can undertake

to say at present. I don’t wish to raise false hopes or false fears; I

wish to stop short at the opinion I have given already.

“In regard to the future, I may tell you that I have left one of my men

in daily communication with the authorities. I have also taken care to

have the handbills offering a reward for the discovery of her widely

circulated. Lastly, I have completed the necessary arrangements for

seeing the play-bills of all country theaters, and for having the

dramatic companies well looked after. Some years since, this would have

cost a serious expenditure of time and money. Luckily for our purpose,

the country theaters are in a bad way. Excepting the large cities,

hardly one of them is open, and we can keep our eye on them, with

little expense and less difficulty.

“These are the steps which I think it needful to take at present. If

you are of another opinion, you have only to give me your directions,

and I will carefully attend to the same. I don’t by any means despair

of our finding the young lady and bringing her back to her friends safe

and well. Please to tell them so; and allow me to subscribe myself,

yours respectfully,

“ABRAHAM BULMER.”

V.

Anonymous Letter addressed to Mr. Pendril.

“SIR,—

“A word to the wise. The friends of a certain young lady are wasting

time and money to no purpose. Your confidential clerk and your

detective policeman are looking for a needle in a bottle of hay. This

is the ninth of October, and they have not found her yet: they will as

soon find the Northwest Passage. Call your dogs off; and you may hear

of the young lady’s safety under her own hand. The longer you look for

her, the longer she will remain, what she is now—lost.”

[The preceding letter is thus indorsed, in Mr. Pendril’s handwriting:

“No apparent means of tracing the inclosed to its source. Post-mark,

‘Charing Cross.’ Stationer’s stamp cut off the inside of the envelope.

Handwriting, probably a man’s, in disguise. Writer, whoever he is,

correctly informed. No further trace of the younger Miss Vanstone

discovered yet.”]

THE SECOND SCENE.

SKELDERGATE, YORK.

CHAPTER I.

In that part of the city of York which is situated on the western bank

of the Ouse there is a narrow street, called Skeldergate, running

nearly north and south, parallel with the course of the river. The

postern by which Skeldergate was formerly approached no longer exists;

and the few old houses left in the street are disguised in melancholy

modern costume of whitewash and cement. Shops of the smaller and poorer

order, intermixed here and there with dingy warehouses and joyless

private residences of red brick, compose the present aspect of

Skeldergate. On the river-side the houses are separated at intervals by

lanes running down to the water, and disclosing lonely little plots of

open ground, with the masts of sailing-barges rising beyond. At its

southward extremity the street ceases on a sudden, and the broad flow

of the Ouse, the trees, the meadows, the public-walk on one bank and

the towing-path on the other, open to view.

Here, where the street ends, and on the side of it furthest from the

river, a narrow little lane leads up to the paved footway surmounting

the ancient Walls of York. The one small row of buildings, which is all

that the lane possesses, is composed of cheap lodging-houses, with an

opposite view, at the distance of a few feet, of a portion of the

massive city wall. This place is called Rosemary Lane. Very little

light enters it; very few people live in it; the floating population of

Skeldergate passes it by; and visitors to the Walk on the Walls, who

use it as the way up or the way down, get out of the dreary little

passage as fast as they can.

The door of one of the houses in this lost corner of York opened softly

on the evening of the twenty-third of September, eighteen hundred and

forty-six; and a solitary individual of the male sex sauntered into

Skeldergate from the seclusion of Rosemary Lane.

Turning northward, this person directed his steps toward the bridge

over the Ouse and the busy center of the city. He bore the external

appearance of respectable poverty; he carried a gingham umbrella,

preserved in an oilskin case; he picked his steps, with the neatest

avoidance of all dirty places on the pavement; and he surveyed the

scene around him with eyes of two different colors—a bilious brown eye

on the lookout for employment, and a bilious green eye in a similar

predicament. In plainer terms, the stranger from Rosemary Lane was no

other than—Captain Wragge.

Outwardly speaking, the captain had not altered for the better since

the memorable spring day when he had presented himself to Miss Garth at

the lodge-gate at Combe-Raven. The railway mania of that famous year

had attacked even the wary Wragge; had withdrawn him from his customary

pursuits; and had left him prostrate in the end, like many a better

man. He had lost his clerical appearance—he had faded with the autumn

leaves. His crape hat-band had put itself in brown mourning for its own

bereavement of black. His dingy white collar and cravat had died the

death of old linen, and had gone to their long home at the

paper-maker’s, to live again one day in quires at a stationer’s shop. A

gray shooting-jacket in the last stage of woolen atrophy replaced the

black frockcoat of former times, and, like a faithful servant, kept the

dark secret of its master’s linen from the eyes of a prying world. From

top to toe every square inch of the captain’s clothing was altered for

the worse; but the man himself remained unchanged—superior to all forms

of moral mildew, impervious to the action of social rust. He was as

courteous, as persuasive, as blandly dignified as ever. He carried his

head as high without a shirt-collar as ever he had carried it with one.

The threadbare black handkerchief round his neck was perfectly tied;

his rotten old shoes were neatly blacked; he might have compared chins,

in the matter of smooth shaving, with the highest church dignitary in

York. Time, change, and poverty had all attacked the captain together,

and had all failed alike to get him down on the ground. He paced the

streets of York, a man superior to clothes and circumstances—his

vagabond varnish as bright on him as ever.

Arrived at the bridge, Captain Wragge stopped and looked idly over the

parapet at the barges in the river. It was plainly evident that he had

no particular destination to reach and nothing whatever to do. While he

was still loitering, the clock of York Minster chimed the half-hour

past five. Cabs rattled by him over the bridge on their way to meet the

train from London, at twenty minutes to six. After a moment’s

hesitation, the captain sauntered after the cabs. When it is one of a

man’s regular habits to live upon his fellow-creatures, that man is

always more or less fond of haunting large railway stations. Captain

Wragge gleaned the human field, and on that unoccupied afternoon the

York terminus was as likely a corner to look about in as any other.

He reached the platform a few minutes after the train had arrived. That

entire incapability of devising administrative measures for the

management of large crowds, which is one of the characteristics of

Englishmen in authority, is nowhere more strikingly exemplified than at

York. Three different lines of railway assemble three passenger mobs,

from morning to-night, under one roof; and leave them to raise a

traveler’s riot, with all the assistance which the bewildered servants

of the company can render to increase the confusion. The customary

disturbance was rising to its climax as Captain Wragge approached the

platform. Dozens of different people were trying to attain dozens of

different objects, in dozens of different directions, all starting from

the same common point and all equally deprived of the means of

information. A sudden parting of the crowd, near the second-class

carriages, attracted the captain’s curiosity. He pushed his way in; and

found a decently-dressed man—assisted by a porter and a

policeman—attempting to pick up some printed bills scattered from a

paper parcel, which his frenzied fellow-passengers had knocked out of

his hand.

Offering his assistance in this emergency, with the polite alacrity

which marked his character, Captain Wragge observed the three startling

words, “Fifty Pounds Reward,” printed in capital letters on the bills

which he assisted in recovering; and instantly secreted one of them, to

be more closely examined at the first convenient opportunity. As he

crumpled up the bill in the palm of his hand, his party-colored eyes

fixed with hungry interest on the proprietor of the unlucky parcel.

When a man happens not to be possessed of fifty pence in his own

pocket, if his heart is in the right place, it bounds; if his mouth is

properly constituted, it waters, at the sight of another man who

carries about with him a printed offer of fifty pounds sterling,

addressed to his fellow-creatures.

The unfortunate traveler wrapped up his parcel as he best might, and

made his way off the platform, after addressing an inquiry to the first

official victim of the day’s passenger-traffic, who was sufficiently in

possession of his senses to listen to it. Leaving the station for the

river-side, which was close at hand, the stranger entered the ferryboat

at the North Street Postern. The captain, who had carefully dogged his

steps thus far, entered the boat also; and employed the short interval

of transit to the opposite bank in a perusal of the handbill which he

had kept for his own private enlightenment. With his back carefully

turned on the traveler, Captain Wragge now possessed his mind of the

following lines:

“FIFTY POUNDS REWARD.”

“Left her home, in London, early on the morning of September 23d, 1846,

A YOUNG LADY. Age—eighteen. Dress—deep mourning. Personal

appearance—hair of a very light brown; eyebrows and eyelashes darker;

eyes light gray; complexion strikingly pale; lower part of her face

large and full; tall upright figure; walks with remarkable grace and

ease; speaks with openness and resolution; has the manners and habits

of a refined, cultivated lady. Personal marks—two little moles, close

together, on the left side of the neck. Mark on the

under-clothing—‘Magdalen Vanstone.’ Is supposed to have joined, or

attempted to join, under an assumed name, a theatrical company now

performing at York. Had, when she left London, one black box, and no

other luggage. Whoever will give such information as will restore her

to her friends shall receive the above Reward. Apply at the office of

Mr. Harkness, solicitor, Coney Street, York. Or to Messrs. Wyatt,

Pendril, and Gwilt, Serle Street, Lincoln’s Inn, London.”

Accustomed as Captain Wragge was to keep the completest possession of

himself in all human emergencies, his own profound astonishment, when

the course of his reading brought him to the mark on the linen of the

missing young lady, betrayed him into an exclamation of surprise which

even startled the ferryman. The traveler was less observant; his whole

attention was fixed on the opposite bank of the river, and he left the

boat hastily the moment it touched the landing-place. Captain Wragge

recovered himself, pocketed the handbill, and followed his leader for

the second time.

The stranger directed his steps to the nearest street which ran down to

the river, compared a note in his pocketbook with the numbers of the

houses on the left-hand side, stopped at one of them, and rang the

bell. The captain went on to the next house; affected to ring the bell,

in his turn, and stood with his back to the traveler—in appearance,

waiting to be let in; in reality, listening with all his might for any

scraps of dialogue which might reach his ears on the opening of the

door behind him.

The door was answered with all due alacrity, and a sufficiently

instructive interchange of question and answer on the threshold

rewarded the dexterity of Captain Wragge.

“Does Mr. Huxtable live here?” asked the traveler.

“Yes, sir,” was the answer, in a woman’s voice.

“Is he at home?”

“Not at home now, sir; but he will be in again at eight to-night.”

“I think a young lady called here early in the day, did she not?”

“Yes; a young lady came this afternoon.”

“Exactly; I come on the same business. Did she see Mr. Huxtable?”

“No, sir; he has been away all day. The young lady told me she would

come back at eight o’clock.”

“Just so. I will call and see Mr. Huxtable at the same time.”

“Any name, sir?”

“No; say a gentleman called on theatrical business—that will be enough.

Wait one minute, if you please. I am a stranger in York; will you

kindly tell me which is the way to Coney Street?”

The woman gave the required information, the door closed, and the

stranger hastened away in the direction of Coney Street.

On this occasion Captain Wragge made no attempt to follow him. The

handbill revealed plainly enough that the man’s next object was to

complete the necessary arrangements with the local solicitor on the

subject of the promised reward.

Having seen and heard enough for his immediate purpose, the captain

retraced his steps down the street, turned to the right, and entered on

the Esplanade, which, in that quarter of the city, borders the

river-side between the swimming-baths and Lendal Tower. “This is a

family matter,” said Captain Wragge to himself, persisting, from sheer

force of habit, in the old assertion of his relationship to Magdalen’s

mother; “I must consider it in all its bearings.” He tucked the

umbrella under his arm, crossed his hands behind him, and lowered

himself gently into the abyss of his own reflections. The order and

propriety observable in the captain’s shabby garments accurately

typified the order and propriety which distinguished the operations of

the captain’s mind. It was his habit always to see his way before him

through a neat succession of alternatives—and so he saw it now.

Three courses were open to him in connection with the remarkable

discovery which he had just made. The first course was to do nothing in

the matter at all. Inadmissible, on family grounds: equally

inadmissible on pecuniary grounds: rejected accordingly. The second

course was to deserve the gratitude of the young lady’s friends, rated

at fifty pounds. The third course was, by a timely warning to deserve

the gratitude of the young lady herself, rated—at an unknown figure.

Between these two last alternatives the wary Wragge hesitated; not from

doubt of Magdalen’s pecuniary resources—for he was totally ignorant of

the circumstances which had deprived the sisters of their

inheritance—but from doubt whether an obstacle in the shape of an

undiscovered gentleman might not be privately connected with her

disappearance from home. After mature reflection, he determined to

pause, and be guided by circumstances. In the meantime, the first

consideration was to be beforehand with the messenger from London, and

to lay hands securely on the young lady herself.

“I feel for this misguided girl,” mused the captain, solemnly strutting

backward and forward by the lonely river-side. “I always have looked

upon her—I always shall look upon her—in the light of a niece.”

Where was the adopted relative at that moment? In other words, how was

a young lady in Magdalen’s critical position likely to while away the

hours until Mr. Huxtable ‘s return? If there was an obstructive

gentleman in the background, it would be mere waste of time to pursue

the question. But if the inference which the handbill suggested was

correct—if she was really alone at that moment in the city of

York—where was she likely to be?

Not in the crowded thoroughfares, to begin with. Not viewing the

objects of interest in the Minster, for it was now past the hour at

which the cathedral could be seen. Was she in the waiting-room at the

railway? She would hardly run that risk. Was she in one of the hotels?

Doubtful, considering that she was entirely by herself. In a

pastry-cook’s shop? Far more likely. Driving about in a cab? Possible,

certainly; but no more. Loitering away the time in some quiet locality,

out-of-doors? Likely enough, again, on that fine autumn evening. The

captain paused, weighed the relative claims on his attention of the

quiet locality and the pastry-cook’s shop; and decided for the first of

the two. There was time enough to find her at the pastry-cook’s, to

inquire after her at the principal hotels, or, finally, to intercept

her in Mr. Huxtable’s immediate neighborhood from seven to eight. While

the light lasted, the wise course was to use it in looking for her

out-of-doors. Where? The Esplanade was a quiet locality; but she was

not there—not on the lonely road beyond, which ran back by the Abbey

Wall. Where next? The captain stopped, looked across the river,

brightened under the influence of a new idea, and suddenly hastened

back to the ferry.

“The Walk on the Walls,” thought this judicious man, with a twinkle of

his party-colored eyes. “The quietest place in York; and the place that

every stranger goes to see.”

In ten minutes more Captain Wragge was exploring the new field of

search. He mounted to the walls (which inclose the whole western

portion of the city) by the North Street Postern, from which the walk

winds round until it ends again at its southernly extremity in the

narrow passage of Rosemary Lane. It was then twenty minutes to seven.

The sun had set more than half an hour since; the red light lay broad

and low in the cloudless western heaven; all visible objects were

softening in the tender twilight, but were not darkening yet. The first

few lamps lit in the street below looked like faint little specks of

yellow light, as the captain started on his walk through one of the

most striking scenes which England can show.

On his right hand, as he set forth, stretched the open country beyond

the walls—the rich green meadows, the boundary-trees dividing them, the

broad windings of the river in the distance, the scattered buildings

nearer to view; all wrapped in the evening stillness, all made

beautiful by the evening peace. On his left hand, the majestic west

front of York Minster soared over the city and caught the last

brightest light of heaven on the summits of its lofty towers. Had this

noble prospect tempted the lost girl to linger and look at it? No; thus

far, not a sign of her. The captain looked round him attentively, and

walked on.

He reached the spot where the iron course of the railroad strikes its

way through arches in the old wall. He paused at this place—where the

central activity of a great railway enterprise beats, with all the

pulses of its loud-clanging life, side by side with the dead majesty of

the past, deep under the old historic stones which tell of fortified

York and the sieges of two centuries since—he stood on this spot, and

searched for her again, and searched in vain. Others were looking idly

down at the desolate activity on the wilderness of the iron rails; but

she was not among them. The captain glanced doubtfully at the darkening

sky, and walked on.

He stopped again where the postern of Micklegate still stands, and

still strengthens the city wall as of old. Here the paved walk descends

a few steps, passes through the dark stone guardroom of the ancient

gate, ascends again, and continues its course southward until the walls

reach the river once more. He paused, and peered anxiously into the dim

inner corners of the old guard-room. Was she waiting there for the

darkness to come, and hide her from prying eyes? No: a solitary workman

loitered through the stone chamber; but no other living creature

stirred in the place. The captain mounted the steps which led out from

the postern and walked on.

He advanced some fifty or sixty yards along the paved footway; the

outlying suburbs of York on one side of him, a rope-walk and some

patches of kitchen garden occupying a vacant strip of ground on the

other. He advanced with eager eyes and quickened step; for he saw

before him the lonely figure of a woman, standing by the parapet of the

wall, with her face set toward the westward view. He approached

cautiously, to make sure of her before she turned and observed him.

There was no mistaking that tall, dark figure, as it rested against the

parapet with a listless grace. There she stood, in her long black cloak

and gown, the last dim light of evening falling tenderly on her pale,

resolute young face. There she stood—not three months since the spoiled

darling of her parents; the priceless treasure of the household, never

left unprotected, never trusted alone—there she stood in the lovely

dawn of her womanhood, a castaway in a strange city, wrecked on the

world!

Vagabond as he was, the first sight of her staggered even the dauntless

assurance of Captain Wragge. As she slowly turned her face and looked

at him, he raised his hat, with the nearest approach to respect which a

long life of unblushing audacity had left him capable of making.

“I think I have the honor of addressing the younger Miss Vanstone?” he

began. “Deeply gratified, I am sure—for more reasons than one.”

She looked at him with a cold surprise. No recollection of the day when

he had followed her sister and herself on their way home with Miss

Garth rose in her memory, while he now confronted her, with his altered

manner and his altered dress.

“You are mistaken,” she said, quietly. “You are a perfect stranger to

me.”

“Pardon me,” replied the captain; “I am a species of relation. I had

the pleasure of seeing you in the spring of the present year. I

presented myself on that memorable occasion to an honored preceptress

in your late father’s family. Permit me, under equally agreeable

circumstances, to present myself to _you_. My name is Wragge.”

By this time he had recovered complete possession of his own impudence;

his party-colored eyes twinkled cheerfully, and he accompanied his

modest announcement of himself with a dancing-master’s bow.

Magdalen frowned, and drew back a step. The captain was not a man to be

daunted by a cold reception. He tucked his umbrella under his arm and

jocosely spelled his name for her further enlightenment. “W, R, A,

double G, E—Wragge,” said the captain, ticking off the letters

persuasively on his fingers.

“I remember your name,” said Magdalen. “Excuse me for leaving you

abruptly. I have an engagement.”

She tried to pass him and walk on northward toward the railway. He

instantly met the attempt by raising both hands, and displaying a pair

of darned black gloves outspread in polite protest.

“Not that way,” he said; “not that way, Miss Vanstone, I beg and

entreat!”

“Why not?” she asked haughtily.

“Because,” answered the captain, “that is the way which leads to Mr.

Huxtable’s.”

In the ungovernable astonishment of hearing his reply she suddenly bent

forward, and for the first time looked him close in the face. He

sustained her suspicious scrutiny with every appearance of feeling

highly gratified by it. “H, U, X—Hux,” said the captain, playfully

turning to the old joke: “T, A—ta, Huxta; B, L, E—ble; Huxtable.”

“What do you know about Mr. Huxtable?” she asked. “What do you mean by

mentioning him to me?”

The captain’s curly lip took a new twist upward. He immediately

replied, to the best practical purpose, by producing the handbill from

his pocket.

“There is just light enough left,” he said, “for young (and lovely)

eyes to read by. Before I enter upon the personal statement which your

flattering inquiry claims from me, pray bestow a moment’s attention on

this Document.”

She took the handbill from him. By the last gleam of twilight she read

the lines which set a price on her recovery—which published the

description of her in pitiless print, like the description of a strayed

dog. No tender consideration had prepared her for the shock, no kind

word softened it to her when it came. The vagabond, whose cunning eyes

watched her eagerly while she read, knew no more that the handbill

which he had stolen had only been prepared in anticipation of the

worst, and was only to be publicly used in the event of all more

considerate means of tracing her being tried in vain—than she knew it.

The bill dropped from her hand; her face flushed deeply. She turned

away from Captain Wragge, as if all idea of his existence had passed

out of her mind.

“Oh, Norah, Norah!” she said to herself, sorrowfully. “After the letter

I wrote you—after the hard struggle I had to go away! Oh, Norah,

Norah!”

“How is Norah?” inquired the captain, with the utmost politeness.

She turned upon him with an angry brightness in her large gray eyes.

“Is this thing shown publicly?” she asked, stamping her foot on it. “Is

the mark on my neck described all over York?”

“Pray compose yourself,” pleaded the persuasive Wragge. “At present I

have every reason to believe that you have just perused the only copy

in circulation. Allow me to pick it up.”

Before he could touch the bill she snatched it from the pavement, tore

it into fragments, and threw them over the wall.

“Bravo!” cried the captain. “You remind me of your poor dear mother.

The family spirit, Miss Vanstone. We all inherit our hot blood from my

maternal grandfather.”

“How did you come by it?” she asked, suddenly.

“My dear creature, I have just told you,” remonstrated the captain. “We

all come by it from my maternal grandfather.”

“How did you come by that handbill?” she repeated, passionately.

“I beg ten thousand pardons! My head was running on the family

spirit.—How did I come by it? Briefly thus.” Here Captain Wragge

entered on his personal statement; taking his customary vocal exercise

through the longest words of the English language, with the highest

elocutionary relish. Having, on this rare occasion, nothing to gain by

concealment, he departed from his ordinary habits, and, with the utmost

amazement at the novelty of his own situation, permitted himself to

tell the unmitigated truth.

The effect of the narrative on Magdalen by no means fulfilled Captain

Wragge’s anticipations in relating it. She was not startled; she was

not irritated; she showed no disposition to cast herself on his mercy,

and to seek his advice. She looked him steadily in the face; and all

she said, when he had neatly rounded his last sentence, was—“Go on.”

“Go on?” repeated the captain. “Shocked to disappoint you, I am sure;

but the fact is, I have done.”

“No, you have not,” she rejoined; “you have left out the end of your

story. The end of it is, you came here to look for me; and you mean to

earn the fifty pounds reward.”

Those plain words so completely staggered Captain Wragge that for the

moment he stood speechless. But he had faced awkward truths of all

sorts far too often to be permanently disconcerted by them. Before

Magdalen could pursue her advantage, the vagabond had recovered his

balance: Wragge was himself again.

“Smart,” said the captain, laughing indulgently, and drumming with his

umbrella on the pavement. “Some men might take it seriously. I’m not

easily offended. Try again.”

Magdalen looked at him through the gathering darkness in mute

perplexity. All her little experience of society had been experience

among people who possessed a common sense of honor, and a common

responsibility of social position. She had hitherto seen nothing but

the successful human product from the great manufactory of

Civilization. Here was one of the failures, and, with all her

quickness, she was puzzled how to deal with it.

“Pardon me for returning to the subject,” pursued the captain. “It has

just occurred to my mind that you might actually have spoken in

earnest. My poor child! how can I earn the fifty pounds before the

reward is offered to me? Those handbills may not be publicly posted for

a week to come. Precious as you are to all your relatives (myself

included), take my word for it, the lawyers who are managing this case

will not pay fifty pounds for you if they can possibly help it. Are you

still persuaded that my needy pockets are gaping for the money? Very

good. Button them up in spite of me with your own fair fingers. There

is a train to London at nine forty-five to-night. Submit yourself to

your friend’s wishes and go back by it.”

“Never!” said Magdalen, firing at the bare suggestion, exactly as the

captain had intended she should. “If my mind had not been made up

before, that vile handbill would have decided me. I forgive Norah,” she

added, turning away and speaking to herself, “but not Mr. Pendril, and

not Miss Garth.”

“Quite right!” said Captain Wragge. “The family spirit. I should have

done the same myself at your age. It runs in the blood. Hark! there

goes the clock again—half-past seven. Miss Vanstone, pardon this

seasonable abruptness! If you are to carry out your resolution—if you

are to be your own mistress much longer, you must take a course of some

kind before eight o’clock. You are young, you are inexperienced, you

are in imminent danger. Here is a position of emergency on one side—and

here am I, on the other, with an uncle’s interest in you, full of

advice. Tap me.”

“Suppose I choose to depend on nobody, and to act for myself?” said

Magdalen. “What then?”

“Then,” replied the captain, “you will walk straight into one of the

four traps which are set to catch you in the ancient and interesting

city of York. Trap the first, at Mr. Huxtable’s house; trap the second,

at all the hotels; trap the third, at the railway station; trap the

fourth, at the theater. That man with the handbills has had an hour at

his disposal. If he has not set those four traps (with the assistance

of the local solicitor) by this time, he is not the competent lawyer’s

clerk I take him for. Come, come, my dear girl! if there is somebody

else in the background, whose advice you prefer to mine—”

“You see that I am alone,” she interposed, proudly. “If you knew me

better, you would know that I depend on nobody but myself.”

Those words decided the only doubt which now remained in the captain’s

mind—the doubt whether the course was clear before him. The motive of

her flight from home was evidently what the handbills assumed it to

be—a reckless fancy for going on the stage. “One of two things,”

thought Wragge to himself, in his logical way. “She’s worth more than

fifty pounds to me in her present situation, or she isn’t. If she is,

her friends may whistle for her. If she isn’t, I have only to keep her

till the bills are posted.” Fortified by this simple plan of action,

the captain returned to the charge, and politely placed Magdalen

between the two inevitable alternatives of trusting herself to him, on

the one hand, or of returning to her friends, on the other.

“I respect independence of character wherever I find it,” he said, with

an air of virtuous severity. “In a young and lovely relative, I more

than respect—I admire it. But (excuse the bold assertion), to walk on a

way of your own, you must first have a way to walk on. Under existing

circumstances, where is _your_ way? Mr. Huxtable is out of the

question, to begin with.”

“Out of the question for to-night,” said Magdalen; “but what hinders me

from writing to Mr. Huxtable, and making my own private arrangements

with him for to-morrow?”

“Granted with all my heart—a hit, a palpable hit. Now for my turn. To

get to to-morrow (excuse the bold assertion, once more), you must first

pass through to-night. Where are you to sleep?”

“Are there no hotels in York?”

“Excellent hotels for large families; excellent hotels for single

gentlemen. The very worst hotels in the world for handsome young ladies

who present themselves alone at the door without male escort, without a

maid in attendance, and without a single article of luggage. Dark as it

is, I think I could see a lady’s box, if there was anything of the sort

in our immediate neighborhood.”

“My box is at the cloak-room. What is to prevent my sending the ticket

for it?”

“Nothing—if you want to communicate your address by means of your

box—nothing whatever. Think; pray think! Do you really suppose that the

people who are looking for you are such fools as not to have an eye on

the cloakroom? Do you think they are such fools—when they find you

don’t come to Mr. Huxtable’s at eight to-night—as not to inquire at all

the hotels? Do you think a young lady of your striking appearance (even

if they consented to receive you) could take up her abode at an inn

without becoming the subject of universal curiosity and remark? Here is

night coming on as fast as it can. Don’t let me bore you; only let me

ask once more—Where are you to sleep?”

There was no answer to that question: in Magdalen’s position, there was

literally no answer to it on her side. She was silent.

“Where are you to sleep?” repeated the captain. “The reply is

obvious—under my roof. Mrs. Wragge will be charmed to see you. Look

upon her as your aunt; pray look upon her as your aunt. The landlady is

a widow, the house is close by, there are no other lodgers, and there

is a bedroom to let. Can anything be more satisfactory, under all the

circumstances? Pray observe, I say nothing about to-morrow—I leave

to-morrow to you, and confine myself exclusively to the night. I may,

or may not, command theatrical facilities, which I am in a position to

offer you. Sympathy and admiration may, or may not, be strong within

me, when I contemplate the dash and independence of your character.

Hosts of examples of bright stars of the British drama, who have begun

their apprenticeship to the stage as you are beginning yours, may, or

may not, crowd on my memory. These are topics for the future. For the

present, I confine myself within my strict range of duty. We are within

five minutes’ walk of my present address. Allow me to offer you my arm.

No? You hesitate? You distrust me? Good heavens! is it possible you can

have heard anything to my disadvantage?”

“Quite possible,” said Magdalen, without a moment’s flinching from the

answer.

“May I inquire the particulars?” asked the captain, with the politest

composure. “Don’t spare my feelings; oblige me by speaking out. In the

plainest terms, now, what have you heard?”

She answered him with a woman’s desperate disregard of consequences

when she is driven to bay—she answered him instantly,

“I have heard you are a Rogue.”

“Have you, indeed?” said the impenetrable Wragge. “A Rogue? Well, I

waive my privilege of setting you right on that point for a fitter

time. For the sake of argument, let us say I am a Rogue. What is Mr.

Huxtable?”

“A respectable man, or I should not have seen him in the house where we

first met.”

“Very good. Now observe! You talked of writing to Mr. Huxtable a minute

ago. What do you think a respectable man is likely to do with a young

lady who openly acknowledges that she has run away from her home and

her friends to go on the stage? My dear girl, on your own showing, it’s

not a respectable man you want in your present predicament. It’s a

Rogue—like me.”

Magdalen laughed, bitterly.

“There is some truth in that,” she said. “Thank you for recalling me to

myself and my circumstances. I have my end to gain—and who am I, to

pick and choose the way of getting to it? It is my turn to beg pardon

now. I have been talking as if I was a young lady of family and

position. Absurd! We know better than that, don’t we, Captain Wragge?

You are quite right. Nobody’s child must sleep under Somebody’s

roof—and why not yours?”

“This way,” said the captain, dexterously profiting by the sudden

change in her humor, and cunningly refraining from exasperating it by

saying more himself. “This way.”

She followed him a few steps, and suddenly stopped.

“Suppose I _am_ discovered?” she broke out, abruptly. “Who has any

authority over me? Who can take me back, if I don’t choose to go? If

they all find me to-morrow, what then? Can’t I say No to Mr. Pendril?

Can’t I trust my own courage with Miss Garth?”

“Can you trust your courage with your sister?” whispered the captain,

who had not forgotten the references to Norah which had twice escaped

her already.

Her head drooped. She shivered as if the cold night air had struck her,

and leaned back wearily against the parapet of the wall.

“Not with Norah,” she said, sadly. “I could trust myself with the

others. Not with Norah.”

“This way,” repeated Captain Wragge. She roused herself; looked up at

the darkening heaven, looked round at the darkening view. “What must

be, must,” she said, and followed him.

The Minster clock struck the quarter to eight as they left the Walk on

the Wall and descended the steps into Rosemary Lane. Almost at the same

moment the lawyer’s clerk from London gave the last instructions to his

subordinates, and took up his own position, on the opposite side of the

river, within easy view of Mr. Huxtable’s door.

CHAPTER II.

Captain Wragge stopped nearly midway in the one little row of houses

composing Rosemary Lane, and let himself and his guest in at the door

of his lodgings with his own key. As they entered the passage, a

care-worn woman in a widow’s cap made her appearance with a candle. “My

niece,” said the captain, presenting Magdalen; “my niece on a visit to

York. She has kindly consented to occupy your empty bedroom. Consider

it let, if you please, to my niece—and be very particular in airing the

sheets? Is Mrs. Wragge upstairs? Very good. You may lend me your

candle. My dear girl, Mrs. Wragge’s boudoir is on the first floor; Mrs.

Wragge is visible. Allow me to show you the way up.”

As he ascended the stairs first, the care-worn widow whispered,

piteously, to Magdalen, “I hope you’ll pay me, miss. Your uncle

doesn’t.”

The captain threw open the door of the front room on the first floor,

and disclosed a female figure, arrayed in a gown of tarnished

amber-colored satin, seated solitary on a small chair, with dingy old

gloves on its hands, with a tattered old book on its knees, and with

one little bedroom candle by its side. The figure terminated at its

upper extremity in a large, smooth, white round face—like a

moon—encircled by a cap and green ribbons, and dimly irradiated by eyes

of mild and faded blue, which looked straightforward into vacancy, and

took not the smallest notice of Magdalen’s appearance, on the opening

of the door.

“Mrs. Wragge!” cried the captain, shouting at her as if she was fast

asleep. “Mrs. Wragge!”

The lady of the faded blue eyes slowly rose to an apparently

interminable height. When she had at last attained an upright position,

she towered to a stature of two or three inches over six feet. Giants

of both sexes are, by a wise dispensation of Providence, created, for

the most part, gentle. If Mrs. Wragge and a lamb had been placed side

by side, comparison, under those circumstances, would have exposed the

lamb as a rank impostor.

“Tea, captain?” inquired Mrs. Wragge, looking submissively down at her

husband, whose head, when he stood on tiptoe, barely reached her

shoulder.

“Miss Vanstone, the younger,” said the captain, presenting Magdalen.

“Our fair relative, whom I have met by fortunate accident. Our guest

for the night. Our guest!” reiterated the captain, shouting once more

as if the tall lady was still fast asleep, in spite of the plain

testimony of her own eyes to the contrary.

A smile expressed itself (in faint outline) on the large vacant space

of Mrs. Wragge’s countenance. “Oh?” she said, interrogatively. “Oh,

indeed? Please, miss, will you sit down? I’m sorry—no, I don’t mean I’m

sorry; I mean I’m glad—” she stopped, and consulted her husband by a

helpless look.

“Glad, of course!” shouted the captain.

“Glad, of course,” echoed the giantess of the amber satin, more meekly

than ever.

“Mrs. Wragge is not deaf,” explained the captain. “She’s only a little

slow. Constitutionally torpid—if I may use the expression. I am merely

loud with her (and I beg you will honor me by being loud, too) as a

necessary stimulant to her ideas. Shout at her—and her mind comes up to

time. Speak to her—and she drifts miles away from you directly. Mrs.

Wragge!”

Mrs. Wragge instantly acknowledged the stimulant. “Tea, captain?” she

inquired, for the second time.

“Put your cap straight!” shouted her husband. “I beg ten thousand

pardons,” he resumed, again addressing himself to Magdalen. “The sad

truth is, I am a martyr to my own sense of order. All untidiness, all

want of system and regularity, cause me the acutest irritation. My

attention is distracted, my composure is upset; I can’t rest till

things are set straight again. Externally speaking, Mrs. Wragge is, to

my infinite regret, the crookedest woman I ever met with. More to the

right!” shouted the captain, as Mrs. Wragge, like a well-trained child,

presented herself with her revised head-dress for her husband’s

inspection.

Mrs. Wragge immediately pulled the cap to the left. Magdalen rose, and

set it right for her. The moon-face of the giantess brightened for the

first time. She looked admiringly at Magdalen’s cloak and bonnet. “Do

you like dress, miss?” she asked, suddenly, in a confidential whisper.

“I do.”

“Show Miss Vanstone her room,” said the captain, looking as if the

whole house belonged to him. “The spare-room, the landlady’s

spare-room, on the third floor front. Offer Miss Vanstone all articles

connected with the toilet of which she may stand in need. She has no

luggage with her. Supply the deficiency, and then come back and make

tea.”

Mrs. Wragge acknowledged the receipt of these lofty directions by a

look of placid bewilderment, and led the way out of the room; Magdalen

following her, with a candle presented by the attentive captain. As

soon as they were alone on the landing outside, Mrs. Wragge raised the

tattered old book which she had been reading when Magdalen was first

presented to her, and which she had never let out of her hand since,

and slowly tapped herself on the forehead with it. “Oh, my poor head!”

said the tall lady, in meek soliloquy; “it’s Buzzing again worse than

ever!”

“Buzzing?” repeated Magdalen, in the utmost astonishment.

Mrs. Wragge ascended the stairs, without offering any explanation,

stopped at one of the rooms on the second floor, and led the way in.

“This is not the third floor,” said Magdalen. “This is not my room,

surely?”

“Wait a bit,” pleaded Mrs. Wragge. “Wait a bit, miss, before we go up

any higher. I’ve got the Buzzing in my head worse than ever. Please

wait for me till I’m a little better again.”

“Shall I ask for help?” inquired Magdalen. “Shall I call the landlady?”

“Help?” echoed Mrs. Wragge. “Bless you, I don’t want help! I’m used to

it. I’ve had the Buzzing in my head, off and on—how many years?” She

stopped, reflected, lost herself, and suddenly tried a question in

despair. “Have you ever been at Darch’s Dining-rooms in London?” she

asked, with an appearance of the deepest interest.

“No,” replied Magdalen, wondering at the strange inquiry.

“That’s where the Buzzing in my head first began,” said Mrs. Wragge,

following the new clue with the deepest attention and anxiety. “I was

employed to wait on the gentlemen at Darch’s Dining-rooms—I was. The

gentlemen all came together; the gentlemen were all hungry together;

the gentlemen all gave their orders together—” She stopped, and tapped

her head again, despondently, with the tattered old book.

“And you had to keep all their orders in your memory, separate one from

the other?” suggested Magdalen, helping her out. “And the trying to do

that confused you?”

“That’s it!” said Mrs. Wragge, becoming violently excited in a moment.

“Boiled pork and greens and pease-pudding, for Number One. Stewed beef

and carrots and gooseberry tart, for Number Two. Cut of mutton, and

quick about it, well done, and plenty of fat, for Number Three. Codfish

and parsnips, two chops to follow, hot-and-hot, or I’ll be the death of

you, for Number Four. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Carrots and

gooseberry tart—pease-pudding and plenty of fat—pork and beef and

mutton, and cut ’em all, and quick about it—stout for one, and ale for

t’other—and stale bread here, and new bread there—and this gentleman

likes cheese, and that gentleman doesn’t—Matilda, Tilda, Tilda, Tilda,

fifty times over, till I didn’t know my own name again—oh lord! oh

lord!! oh lord!!! all together, all at the same time, all out of

temper, all buzzing in my poor head like forty thousand million

bees—don’t tell the captain! don’t tell the captain!” The unfortunate

creature dropped the tattered old book, and beat both her hands on her

head, with a look of blank terror fixed on the door.

“Hush! hush!” said Magdalen. “The captain hasn’t heard you. I know what

is the matter with your head now. Let me cool it.”

She dipped a towel in water, and pressed it on the hot and helpless

head which Mrs. Wragge submitted to her with the docility of a sick

child.

“What a pretty hand you’ve got!” said the poor creature, feeling the

relief of the coolness and taking Magdalen’s hand, admiringly, in her

own. “How soft and white it is! I try to be a lady; I always keep my

gloves on—but I can’t get my hands like yours. I’m nicely dressed,

though, ain’t I? I like dress; it’s a comfort to me. I’m always happy

when I’m looking at my things. I say—you won’t be angry with me?—I

should so like to try your bonnet on.”

Magdalen humored her, with the ready compassion of the young. She stood

smiling and nodding at herself in the glass, with the bonnet perched on

the top of her head. “I had one as pretty as this, once,” she

said—“only it was white, not black. I wore it when the captain married

me.”

“Where did you meet with him?” asked Magdalen, putting the question as

a chance means of increasing her scanty stock of information on the

subject of Captain Wragge.

“At the Dining-rooms,” said Mrs. Wragge. “He was the hungriest and the

loudest to wait upon of the lot of ’em. I made more mistakes with him

than I did with all the rest of them put together. He used to swear—oh,

didn’t he use to swear! When he left off swearing at me he married me.

There was others wanted me besides him. Bless you, I had my pick. Why

not? When you have a trifle of money left you that you didn’t expect,

if that don’t make a lady of you, what does? Isn’t a lady to have her

pick? I had my trifle of money, and I had my pick, and I picked the

captain—I did. He was the smartest and the shortest of them all. He

took care of me and my money. I’m here, the money’s gone. Don’t you put

that towel down on the table—he won’t have that! Don’t move his

razors—don’t, please, or I shall forget which is which. I’ve got to

remember which is which to-morrow morning. Bless you, the captain don’t

shave himself! He had me taught. I shave him. I do his hair, and cut

his nails—he’s awfully particular about his nails. So he is about his

trousers. And his shoes. And his newspaper in the morning. And his

breakfasts, and lunches, and dinners, and teas—” She stopped, struck by

a sudden recollection, looked about her, observed the tattered old book

on the floor, and clasped her hands in despair. “I’ve lost the place!”

she exclaimed helplessly. “Oh, mercy, what will become of me! I’ve lost

the place.”

“Never mind,” said Magdalen; “I’ll soon find the place for you again.”

She picked up the book, looked into the pages, and found that the

object of Mrs. Wragge’s anxiety was nothing more important than an

old-fashioned Treatise on the Art of Cookery, reduced under the usual

heads of Fish, Flesh, and Fowl, and containing the customary series of

recipes. Turning over the leaves, Magdalen came to one particular page,

thickly studded with little drops of moisture half dry. “Curious!” she

said. “If this was anything but a cookery-book, I should say somebody

had been crying over it.”

“Somebody?” echoed Mrs. Wragge, with a stare of amazement. “It isn’t

somebody—it’s Me. Thank you kindly, that’s the place, sure enough.

Bless you, I’m used to crying over it. You’d cry, too, if you had to

get the captain’s dinners out of it. As sure as ever I sit down to this

book the Buzzing in my head begins again. Who’s to make it out?

Sometimes I think I’ve got it, and it all goes away from me. Sometimes

I think I haven’t got it, and it all comes back in a heap. Look here!

Here’s what he’s ordered for his breakfast to-morrow: ‘Omelette with

Herbs. Beat up two eggs with a little water or milk, salt, pepper,

chives, and parsley. Mince small.’—There! mince small! How am I to

mince small when it’s all mixed up and running? ‘Put a piece of butter

the size of your thumb into the frying-pan.’—Look at my thumb, and look

at yours! whose size does she mean? ‘Boil, but not brown.’—If it

mustn’t be brown, what color must it be? She won’t tell me; she expects

me to know, and I don’t. ‘Pour in the omelette.’—There! I can do that.

‘Allow it to set, raise it round the edge; when done, turn it over to

double it.’—Oh, the number of times I turned it over and doubled it in

my head, before you came in to-night! ‘Keep it soft; put the dish on

the frying-pan, and turn it over.’ Which am I to turn over—oh, mercy,

try the cold towel again, and tell me which—the dish or the

frying-pan?”

“Put the dish on the frying-pan,” said Magdalen; “and then turn the

frying-pan over. That is what it means, I think.”