ARMADALE. BY WILKIE COLLINS, AUTHOR OF "NO NAME," "THE WOMAN IN WHITE," ETC. BOOK THE THIRD. CHAPTER X. THE HOUSE-MAID'S FACE. LL was quiet at Thorpe-Ambrose. had not been shaken for an instant since he had seen the first vision of the Dream realized on the shores of the Mere. But now, for the first time, his own heart rose against him in unanswerable rebuke. "Go, if you must and will! but remember the time when you were ill and dark. sat by your bedside, and he open The The servants, waiting for the supper-hour in the garden at the back of the house, looked up at the clear heaven and the rising moon, and agreed that there was little prospect of the return of the picnic party until later in the night. The general opinion, led by the high authority of the cook, predicted that they might all sit down to supper without the least fear of being disturbed by the bell. Having arrived at this conclusion the servants assembled round the table, and exactly at the moment when they sat down the bell rang. The footman, wondering, went up stairs to open the door, and found, to his astonishment, Midwinter waiting alone on the threshold, and looking (in the servant's opinion) miserably ill. He asked for a light, and saying he wanted nothing else withdrew at once to his room. The footman went back to his fellow-servants and reported that something had certainly happened to his master's friend. On entering his room Midwinter closed the door, and hurriedly filled a bag with the necessaries for traveling. This done, he took from a locked drawer, and placed in the breast-pocket of his coat, some little presents which Allan had given to him—a cigar-case, a purse, and a set of studs in plain gold. Having possessed himself of these memorials he snatched up the bag and laid his hand on the door. There, for the first time, he paused. There the headlong haste of all his actions thus far suddenly ceased, and the hard despair in his face began to soften. He waited, with the door in his hand. Up to that moment he had been conscious of but one motive that animated him, but one purpose that he was resolute to achieve. "For Allan's sake!" he had said to himself, when he looked back toward the fatal landscape and saw his friend leaving him to meet the woman at the pool. "For Allan's sake!" he had said again, when he crossed the open country beyond the wood, and saw afar, in the gray twilight, the long line of embankment and the distant glimmer of the railway lamps beckoning him away already to the iron road. It was only when he now paused before he closed the door behind him-it was only when his own impetuous rapidity of action came for the first time to a check-that the nobler nature of the man rose in protest against the superstitious despair which was hurrying him from all that he held dear. His conviction of the terrible necessity of leaving Allan for Allan's good ed his heart to you-and write, if you fear to speak; write and ask him to forgive you, before you leave him forever!" The half-opened door closed again softly. Midwinter sat down at the writing-table and took up the pen. He tried again and again, and yet again, to write the farewell words; he tried till the floor all round him was littered with torn sheets of paper. Turn from them which way he would the old times still came back and faced him reproachfully. The spacious bedchamber in which he sat narrowed, in spite of him, to the sick usher's garret at the west-country inn. The kind hand that had once patted him on the shoulder touched him again; the kind voice that had cheered him spoke unchangeably in the old friendly tones. He flung his arms on the table, and dropped his head on them in tearless despair. The parting words that his tongue was powerless to utter his pen was powerless to write. Mercilessly in earnest, his superstition pointed to him to go while the time was his own; mercilessly in earnest, his love for Allan held him back till the farewell plea for pardon and pity was written. He rose, with a sudden resolution, and rang for the servant. "When Mr. Armadale returns," he said, "ask him to excuse my coming down stairs, and say that I am trying to get to sleep." He locked the door and put out the light, and sat down alone in the darkness. "The night will keep us apart," he said, "and time may help me to write. I may go in the early morning; I may go while-" The thought died in him uncompleted; and the sharp agony of the struggle forced to his lips the first cry of suffering that had escaped him yet. He waited in the darkness. As the time stole on his senses remained mechanically awake, but his mind began to sink slowly under the heavy strain that had now been laid on it for some hours past. A dull vacancy possessed him; he made no attempt to kindle the light and write once more. He never started; he never moved to the open window when the first sound of approaching wheels broke in on the silence of the night. He heard the carriages draw up at the door; he heard the horses champing their bits; he heard the voices of Allan and young Pedgift on the steps-and still he sat quiet in the darkness, and still no interest was aroused in him by the sounds that reached his ear from outside. The voices remained audible after the car riages had been driven away; the two young men were evidently lingering on the steps before they took leave of each other. Every word they said reached Midwinter through the open window. Their one subject of conversation was the new governess. Allan's voice was loud in her praise. He had never passed such an hour of delight in his life as the hour he had spent with Miss Gwilt in the boat on the way from Hurle Mere to the picnic party waiting at the other Broad. Agreeing, on his side, with all that his client said in praise of the charming stranger, young Pedgift appeared to treat the subject, when it fell into his hands, from a different point of view. Miss Gwilt's attractions had not so entirely absorbed his attention as to prevent him from noticing the impression which the new governess had produced on her employer and her pupil. "There's a screw loose somewhere, Sir, in Major Milroy's family," said the voice of young Pedgift. "Did you notice how the major and his daughter looked when Miss Gwilt made her excuses for being late at the Mere? You don't remember? Do you remember what Miss Gwilt said ?" "Something about Mrs. Milroy, wasn't it?" Allan rejoined. Young Pedgift's voice dropped mysteriously a note lower. "Miss Gwilt reached the cottage this afternoon, Sir, at the time when I told you she would reach it, and she would have joined us at the time I told you she would come, but for Mrs. Milroy. Mrs. Milroy sent for her up stairs as soon as she entered the house, and kept her up stairs a good half hour and more. That was Miss Gwilt's excuse, Mr. Armadale, for being late at the Mere." "Well, and what then?" An interval passed, and the silence was once more disturbed by voices outside; the voices of a man and a woman this time. The first few words exchanged between them indicated plainly enough a meeting of the clandestine kind; and revealed the man as one of the servants at Thorpe-Ambrose, and the woman as one of the servants at the cottage. Here again, after the first greetings were over, the subject of the new governess became the allabsorbing subject of conversation. The woman was brimful of forebodings (inspired solely by Miss Gwilt's good looks), which she poured out irrepressibly on the man, try as he might to divert her to other topics. Sooner or later, let him mark her words, there would be an awful "upset" at the cottage. Her master, it might be mentioned in confidence, led a dreadful life with her mistress. The major was the best of "You seem to forget, Sir, what the whole neighborhood has heard about Mrs. Milroy ever since the major first settled among us. We have all been told, on the doctor's own authority, that she is too great a sufferer to see strangers. Isn't it a little odd that she should have sudden-men; he hadn't a thought in his heart beyond ly turned out well enough to see Miss Gwilt (in her husband's absence) the moment Miss Gwilt entered the house?" his daughter and his everlasting clock. But only let a nice-looking woman come near the place, and Mrs. Milroy was jealous of herraging jealous, like a woman possessed, on that "Not a bit of it! Of course she was anxious to make acquaintance with her daughter's gov-miserable sick-bed of hers. If Miss Gwilt (who erness." "Likely enough, Mr. Armadale. But the major and Miss Neelie don't see it in that light, at any rate. I had my eye on them both when the governess told them that Mrs. Milroy had sent for her. If ever I saw a girl look thoroughly frightened, Miss Milroy was that girl; and (if I may be allowed, in the strictest confidence, to libel a gallant soldier) I should say that the major himself was much in the same condition. Take my word for it, Sir, there's something wrong up stairs in that pretty cottage of yours; and Miss Gwilt is mixed up in it already." There was a minute of silence. When the voices were next heard by Midwinter they were farther away from the house, Allan was probably accompanying young Pedgift a few steps on his way back. was certainly good-looking, in spite of her hideous hair) didn't blow the fire into a flame before many days more were over their heads the mistress was the mistress no longer, but somebody else. Whatever happened, the fault, this time, would lie at the door of the major's mother. The old lady and the mistress had had a dreadful quarrel two years since; and the old lady had gone away in a fury, telling her son, before all the servants, that if he had a spark of spirit in him, he would never submit to his wife's temper as he did. It would be too much perhaps to accuse the major's mother of purposely picking out a handsome governess to spite the major's wife. But it might be safely said that the old lady was the last person in the world to humor the mistress's jealousy, by declining to engage a capable and respectable governess After a while Allan's voice was audible once for her grand-daughter, because that governess more under the portico, making inquiries after happened to be blessed with good looks. How his friend; answered by the servant's voice giv- it was all to end (except that it was certain to ing Midwinter's message. This brief interrup-end badly) no human creature could say. Things tion over, the silence was not broken again till were looking as black already as things well the time came for shutting up the house. The servants' footsteps passing to and fro, the clang of closing doors, the barking of a disturbed dog in the stable-yard-these sounds warned Midwinter that it was getting late. He rose mechanically to kindle a light. But his head was giddy, his hand trembled-he laid aside the match-box, and returned to his chair. The conversation between Allan and young Pedgift had ceased to occupy his attention the instant he ceased to hear it; and now again, the sense that the precious time was failing him became a lost sense, as soon as the house-noises which had awakened it had passed away. His energies of body and mind were both alike worn out; he waited with a stolid resignation for the trouble that was to come to him with the coming day. could. Miss Neelie was crying, after the day's pleasure (which was one bad sign); the mistress had found fault with nobody (which was another); the master had wished her good-night through the door (which was a third); and the governess had locked herself up in her room (which was the worst sign of all, for it looked as if she distrusted the servants). Thus the stream of the woman's gossip ran on, and thus it reached Midwinter's ears through the window, till the clock in the stable-yard struck, and stopped the talking. When the last vibrations of the bell had died away the voices were not audible again, and the silence was broken no more. Another interval passed, and Midwinter made a new effort to rouse himself. This time he kindled the light without hesitation, and took the pen in hand. He wrote at the first trial with a sudden fa- | itively declares that he failed to see her in any cility of expression, which, surprising him as he one of them. He admits, at the same time, went on, ended in rousing in him some vague that his search (conducted between two o'clock, suspicion of himself. He left the table, and when he lost sight of her, and ten minutes past, bathed his head and face in water, and came when the train started), was, in the confusion back to read what he had written. The lan- of the moment, necessarily an imperfect one. guage was barely intelligible-sentences were But this latter circumstance, in my opinion, left unfinished; words were misplaced one for matters little. I as firmly disbelieve in the wothe other every line recorded the protest of the man's actual departure by that train as if I had weary brain against the merciless will that had searched every one of the carriages myself; and forced it into action. Midwinter tore up the you, I have no doubt, will entirely agree with sheet of paper as he had torn up the other sheets me. before it and sinking under the struggle at last, laid his weary head on the pillow. Almost on the instant exhaustion overcame him, and before he could put the light out he fell asleep. He was roused by a noise at the door. The sunlight was pouring into the room; the candle had burned down into the socket; and the servant was waiting outside with a letter which had come for him by the morning's post. "You now know how the disaster happened. Let us not waste time and words in lamenting it. The evil is done-and you and I together must find the way to remedy it. "What I have accomplished already, on my side, may be told in two words. Any hesitation I might have previously felt at trusting this delicate business in strangers' hands, was at an end the moment I heard Robert's news. I went "I ventured to disturb you, Sir," said the back at once to the city, and placed the whole man, when Midwinter opened the door, "be- matter confidentially before my lawyers. The cause the letter is marked 'Immediate,' and I conference was a long one; and when I left didn't know but it might be of some conse- the office it was past the post-hour, or I should quence." have written to you on Monday instead of Midwinter thanked him, and looked at the writing to-day. My interview with the lawletter. It was of some consequence-the hand-yers was not very encouraging. They warn me writing was Mr. Brock's. plainly that serious difficulties stand in the way of our recovering the last trace. But they have, promised to do their best; and we have decided on the course to be taken-excepting one point on which we totally differ. I must tell you what this difference is; for while business keeps me away from Thorpe-Ambrose you are the only person whom I can trust to put my convictions to the test. He paused to collect his faculties. The torn sheets of paper on the floor recalled to him in a moment the position in which he stood. He locked the door again, in the fear that Allan might rise earlier than usual and come in to make inquiries. Then-feeling strangely little interest in any thing that the rector could write to him now he opened Mr. Brock's letter, and read these lines: "Tuesday. "MY DEAR MIDWINTER,-It is sometimes best to tell bad news plainly in few words. Let me tell mine at once in one sentence. My precautions have all been defeated; the woman has escaped me. "The lawyers are of opinion, then, that the woman has been aware from the first that I was watching her; that there is, consequently, no present hope of her being rash enough to appear personally at Thorpe-Ambrose; that any mischief she may have in contemplation to do will be done in the first instance by deputy; "This misfortune-for it is nothing less- and that the only wise course for Allan's friends happened yesterday (Monday). Between elev- and guardians to take is to wait passively till en and twelve in the forenoon of that day, the events enlighten them. My own idea is diabusiness which originally brought me to Lon- metrically opposed to this. After what has don obliged me to go to Doctors' Commons, happened at the railway I can not deny that and to leave my servant Robert to watch the the woman must have discovered that I was house opposite our lodging until my return. watching her. But she has no reason to supAbout an hour and a half after my departure he pose that she has not succeeded in deceiving observed an empty cab drawn up at the door of me; and I firmly believe she is bold enough to the house. Boxes and bags made their appear- take us by surprise, and to win, or force, her ance first; they were followed by the woman her- way into Allan's confidence before we are preself, in the dress I had first seen her in. Hav-pared to prevent her. You and you only (while ing previously secured a cab, Robert traced her I am detained in London) can decide whether I to the terminus of the Northwestern Railwaysaw her pass through the ticket-office-kept her in view till she reached the platform-and there, in the confusion caused by the starting of a large mixed train, lost her. I must do him the justice to say that he at once took the right course in this emergency. Instead of wasting time in searching for her on the platform, he looked along the line of carriages; and he pos am right or wrong-and you can do it in this way. Ascertain at once whether any woman who is a stranger in the neighborhood has appeared since Monday last at, or near, ThorpeAmbrose. If any such person has been observed (and nobody escapes observation in the country), take the first opportunity you can get of seeing her, and ask yourself if her face does, or does not, answer certain plain questions which I am now about to write down for you. You may depend on my accuracy. I saw the woman unveiled on more than one occasion-and the last time through an excellent glass. "1. Is her hair light brown, and (apparently) not very plentiful? 2. Is her forehead high, narrow, and sloping backward from the brow? 3. Are her eyebrows very faintly marked, and are her eyes small, and nearer dark than light -either gray or hazel (I have not seen her close enough to be certain which)? 4. Is her nose aquiline? 5. Are her lips thin, and is the upper lip long? 6. Does her complexion look like an originally fair complexion, which has deteriorated into a dull, sickly paleness? 7 (and lastly). Has she a retreating chin, and is there, on the left side of it, a mark of some kind --a mole or a scar, I can't say which? "I add nothing about her expression, for you may see her under circumstances which may partially alter it as seen by me. Test her by her features, which no circumstances can change. If there is a stranger in the neighborhood, and if her face answers my seven questions--you have | found the woman! Go instantly, in that case, to the nearest lawyer, and pledge my name and credit for whatever expenses may be incurred in keeping her under inspection night and day. Having done this, take the speediest means of communicating with me; and whether my business is finished or not, I will start for Norfolk by the first train. "In any event-whether you succeed or whether you fail in confirming my suspicionswrite to me by return of post. If it is only to tell me that you have received my letter, write! I am suffering under anxiety and suspense, separated as I am from Allan, which you alone can relieve. Having said this, I know you well enough to feel sure that I need say no more. "Always your friend, "DECIMUS BROCK." Hardened by the fatalist conviction that now possessed him, Midwinter read the rector's confession of defeat from the first line to the last without the slightest betrayal either of interest or surprise. The one part of the letter at which he looked back was the closing part of it. He read the last paragraph for the second time; and then waited for a moment reflecting on it. "I owe much to Mr. Brock's kindness," he thought; "and I shall never see Mr. Brock again. It is useless and hopeless-but he asks me to it and it shall be done. A moment's look at her will be enough a moment's look at her with his letter in my hand-and a line to tell him that the woman is here!" Again he stood hesitating at the half-opened door; again, the cruel necessity of writing his farewell to Allan stopped him and stared him in the face. He looked aside doubtingly at the rector's letter. "I will write the two together," he said. "One may help the other." His face flushed deep as the words escaped him. He was conscious of doing what he had not done yet-of voluntarily putting off the evil hour; of making Mr. Brock the pretext for gaining the last respite left, the respite of time. The only sound that reached him through the open door was the sound of Allan stirring noisily in the next room. He stepped at once into the empty corridor; and, meeting no one on the stairs, made his way out of the house. The dread that his resolution to leave Allan might fail him, if he saw Allan again, was as vividly present to his mind in the morning as it had been all through the night. He drew a deep breath of relief as he descended the house steps-relief at having escaped the friendly greeting of the morning from the one human creature whom he loved! He entered the shrubbery with Mr. Brock's letter in his hand and took the nearest way that led to the major's cottage. Not the slightest recollection was in his mind of the talk which had found its way to his ears during the night. His one reason for determining to see the woman was the reason which the rector had put in his mind. The one remembrance that now guided him to the place in which she lived, was the remembrance of Allan's exclamation when he first identified the governess with the figure at the pool. Arrived at the gate of the cottage he stopped. The thought struck him that he might defeat his own object if he looked at the rector's questions in the woman's presence. Her suspicions would be probably roused, in the first instance, by his asking to see her (as he had determined to ask, with or without an excuse); and the appearance of the letter in his hand might confirm them. She might defeat him by instantly leaving the room. Determined to fix the description in his mind first, and then to confront her, he opened the letter; and turning away slowly by the side of the house, read the seven questions which he felt absolutely assured beforehand the woman's face would answer. In the morning quiet of the park slight noises traveled far. A slight noise disturbed Midwinter over the letter. He looked up and found himself on the brink of a broad grassy trench, having the park on one side and the high laurel hedge of an inclosure on the other. The inclosure evidently surrounded the back garden of the cottage; and the trench was intended to protect it from being damaged by the cattle grazing in the park. Listening carefully as the slight sound which had disturbed him grew fainter, he recognized in it the rustling of women's dresses. A few paces ahead the trench was crossed by a bridge (closed by a wicket-gate) which connected the garden with the park. He passed through the gate, crossed the bridge, and, opening a door at the other end, found himself in a summerhouse, thickly covered with creepers, and commanding a full view of the garden from end to end. |