‘There’s the lot of ‘em,’ said Mrs Wragge. ‘They may do for Venus and the two other Ones (I’ve seen ‘em in picters without a morsel of decent linen among the three) – but they won’t do for Me.’
‘Surely there is another dress left?’ said Mrs Lecount, pointing to the wardrobe, but touching nothing in it. ‘Surely I see something hanging in the corner, behind that dark shawl?’
Mrs Wragge removed the shawl; Mrs Lecount opened the door of the wardrobe a little wider. There – hitched carelessly on the innermost peg – there, with its white spots, and its double flounce, was the brown alpaca dress!
The suddenness and completeness of the discovery threw the housekeeper, practised dissembler as she was, completely off her guard. She started at the sight of the dress. The instant afterwards, her eyes turned uneasily towards Mrs Wragge. Had the start been observed? It had passed entirely unnoticed. Mrs Wragge’s whole attention was fixed on the alpaca dress: she was staring at it incomprehensibly, with an expression of the utmost dismay.
‘You seem alarmed, ma’am,’ said Mrs Lecount. ‘What is there in the wardrobe to frighten you?’
‘I’d have given a crown-piece out of my pocket,’ said Mrs Wragge, ‘not to have set eyes on that gown. It had gone clean out of my head – and now it’s come back again. Cover it up!’ cried Mrs Wragge, throwing the shawl over the dress in a sudden fit of desperation. ‘If I look at it much longer, I shall think I’m back again in Vauxhall Walk!’
Vauxhall Walk! Those two words told Mrs Lecount she was on the brink of another discovery. She stole a second look at her watch. There was barely ten minutes to spare before the time when Mr Bygrave might return; there was not one of those ten minutes which might not bring his niece back to the house. Caution counselled Mrs Lecount to go, without running any more risks. Curiosity rooted her to the spot, and gave her the courage to stay at all hazards until the time was up. Her amiable smile began to harden a little, as she probed her way tenderly into Mrs Wragge’s feeble mind.
‘You have some unpleasant remembrances of Vauxhall Walk?’ she said, with the gentlest possible tone of inquiry in her voice. ‘Or, perhaps, I should say, unpleasant remembrances of that dress belonging to your niece?’
‘The last time I saw her with that gown on,’ said Mrs Wragge, dropping into a chair and beginning to tremble, ‘was the time when I came back from shopping, and saw the Ghost.’
‘The Ghost?’ repeated Mrs. Lecount, clasping her hands in graceful astonishment. ‘Dear madam, pardon me! Is there such a thing in the world? Where did you see it? In Vauxhall Walk? Tell me – you are the first lady I ever met with who has seen a Ghost – pray tell me!’
Flattered by the position of importance which she had suddenly assumed in the housekeeper’s eyes, Mrs Wragge entered at full length into the narrative of her supernatural adventure. The breathless eagerness with which Mrs Lecount listened to her description of the spectre’s costume, the spectre’s hurry on the stairs, and the spectre’s disappearance in the bedroom; the extraordinary interest which Mrs Lecount displayed on hearing that the dress in the wardrobe was the very dress in which Magdalen happened to be attired, at the awful moment when the ghost vanished – encouraged Mrs Wragge to wade deeper and deeper into details, and to involve herself in a confusion of collateral circumstances, out of which there seemed to be no prospect of her emerging for hours to come. Faster and faster the inexorable minutes flew by; nearer and nearer came the fatal moment of Mr Bygrave’s return. Mrs Lecount looked at her watch for the third time, without an attempt, on this occasion, to conceal the action from her companion’s notice. There were literally two minutes left for her to get clear of North Shingles. Two minutes would be enough, if no accident happened. She had discovered the alpaca dress; she had heard the whole story of the adventure in Vauxhall Walk; and, more than that, she had even informed herself of the number of the house – which Mrs Wragge happened to remember, because it answered to the number of years in her own age. All that was necessary to her master’s complete enlightenment, she had now accomplished. Even if there had been time to stay longer, there was nothing worth staying for. ‘I’ll strike this worthy idiot dumb with a coup d’état,’ thought the housekeeper, ‘and vanish before she recovers herself.’
‘Horrible!’ cried Mrs Lecount, interrupting the ghostly narrative by a shrill little scream, and making for the door, to Mrs Wragge’s unutterable astonishment, without the least ceremony. ‘You freeze the very marrow off my bones. Good morning!’ She coolly tossed the Oriental Cashmere Robe into Mrs Wragge’s expansive lap, and left the room in an instant.
As she swiftly descended the stairs, she heard the door of the bedroom open.
‘Where are your manners?’ cried a voice from above, hailing her feebly over the banisters. ‘What do you mean by pitching my gown at me, in that way? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!’ pursued Mrs Wragge, turning from a lamb to a lioness, as she gradually realized the indignity offered to the Cashmere Robe. ‘You nasty foreigner, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!’
Pursued by this valedictory address, Mrs Lecount reached the house-door, and opened it without interruption. She glided rapidly along the garden-path; passed through the gate; and finding herself safe on the Parade, stopped, and looked towards the sea.
The first object which her eyes encountered, was the figure of Mr Bygrave, standing motionless on the beach – a petrified bather, with his towels in his hand! One glance at him was enough to show that he had seen the housekeeper passing out through his garden-gate.
Rightly conjecturing that Mr Bygrave’s first impulse would lead him to make instant inquiries in his own house, Mrs Lecount pursued her way back to Sea-View as composedly as if nothing had happened. When she entered the parlour where her solitary breakfast was waiting for her, she was surprised to see a letter lying on the table. She approached to take it up, with an expression of impatience, thinking it might be some tradesman’s bill which she had forgotten.
It was the forged letter from Zürich.
Chapter Eleven
The post-mark and the handwriting on the address (admirably imitated from the original), warned Mrs Lecount of the contents of the letter before she opened it.
After waiting a moment to compose herself, she read the announcement of her brother’s relapse.
There was nothing in the handwriting, there was no expression in any part of the letter, which could suggest to her mind the faintest suspicion of foul play. Not the shadow of a doubt occurred to her that the summons to her brother’s bedside was genuine. The hand that held the letter dropped heavily into her lap; she became pale, and old, and haggard, in a moment. Thoughts, far removed from her present aims and interests; remembrances that carried her back to other lands than England, to other times than the time of her life in service, prolonged their inner shadows to the surface, and showed the traces of their mysterious passage darkly on her face. The minutes followed each other; and still the servant below stairs waited vainly for the parlour bell. The minutes followed each other; and still she sat, tearless and quiet, dead to the present and the future, living in the past.
The entrance of the servant, uncalled, roused her. With a heavy sigh, the cold and secret woman folded the letter up again, and addressed herself to the interests and the duties of the passing time.
She decided the question of going or not going, to Zürich, after a very brief consideration of it. Before she had drawn her chair to the breakfast-table, she had resolved to go.
Admirably as Captain Wragge’s stratagem had worked, it might have failed – unassisted by the occurrence of the morning – to achieve this result. The very accident against which it had been the captain’s chief anxiety to guard – the accident which had just taken place in spite of him – was, of all the events that could have happened, the one event which falsified every previous calculation, by directly forwarding the main purpose of the conspiracy! If Mrs Lecount had not obtained the information of which she was in search
, before the receipt of the letter from Zürich, the letter might have addressed her in vain. She would have hesitated, before deciding to leave England; and that hesitation might have proved fatal to the captain’s scheme.
As it was, with the plain proofs in her possession – with the gown discovered in Magdalen’s wardrobe; with the piece cut out of it, in her own pocket-book; and with the knowledge, obtained from Mrs Wragge, of the very house in which the disguise had been put on – Mrs Lecount had now at her command, the means of warning Noel Vanstone, as she had never been able to warn him yet – or, in other words, the means of guarding against any dangerous tendencies towards reconciliation with the Bygraves, which might otherwise have entered his mind during her absence at Zürich. The only difficulty which now perplexed her, was the difficulty of deciding whether she should communicate with her master personally, or by writing, before her departure from England.
She looked again at the doctor’s letter. The word ‘instant’, in the sentence which summoned her to her dying brother, was twice underlined. Admiral Bartram’s house was at some distance from the railway; the time consumed in driving to St Crux, and driving back again, might be time fatally lost on the journey to Zürich. Although she would infinitely have preferred a personal interview with Noel Vanstone, there was no choice on a matter of life and death, but to save the precious hours by writing to him.
After sending to secure a place at once in the early coach, she sat down to write to her master.
Her first thought was to tell him all that had happened at North Shingles that morning. On reflection, however, she rejected the idea. Once already (in copying the personal description from Miss Garth’s letter) she had trusted her weapons in her master’s hands, and Mr Bygrave had contrived to turn them against her. She resolved this time to keep them strictly in her own possession. The secret of the missing fragment of the alpaca dress was known to no living creature but herself; and, until her return to England, she determined to keep it to herself. The necessary impression might be produced on Noel Vanstone’s mind without venturing into details. She knew, by experience, the form of letter which might be trusted to produce an effect on him, and she now wrote it in these words:
’DEAR MR NOEL,
‘Sad news has reached me from Switzerland. My beloved brother is dying, and his medical attendant summons me instantly to Zürich. The serious necessity of availing myself of the earliest means of conveyance to the Continent, leaves me but one alternative. I must profit by the permission to leave England, if necessary, which you kindly granted to me at the beginning of my brother’s illness; and I must avoid all delay, by going straight to London, instead of turning aside, as I should have liked, to see yoù first at St Crux.
‘Painfully as I am affected by the family calamity which has fallen on me, I cannot let this opportunity pass without adverting to another subject, which seriously concerns your welfare, and in which (on that account) your old housekeeper feels the deepest interest.
‘I am going to surprise and shock you, Mr Noel. Pray don’t be agitated! pray compose yourself!
‘The impudent attempt to cheat you, which has happily opened your eyes to the true character of our neighbours at North Shingles, was not the only object which Mr Bygrave had in forcing himself on your acquaintance. The infamous conspiracy with which you were threatened in London, has been in full progress against you, under Mr Bygrave’s direction, at Aldborough. Accident – I will tell you what accident when we meet – has put me in possession of information precious to your future security. I have discovered, to an absolute certainty, that the person calling herself Miss Bygrave, is no other than the woman who visited us in disguise at Vauxhall Walk.
‘I suspected this, from the first; but I had no evidence to support my suspicions; I had no means of combating the false impression produced on you. My hands, I thank Heaven, are tied no longer. I possess absolute proof of the assertion that I have just made – proof that your own eyes can see; proof that would satisfy you, if you were judge in a Court of Justice.
‘Perhaps, even yet, Mr Noel, you will refuse to believe me? Be it so. Believe me or not, I have one last favour to ask, which your English sense of fair play will not deny me.
‘This melancholy journey of mine will keep me away from England for a fortnight, or, at most, for three weeks. You will oblige me – and you will certainly not sacrifice your own convenience and pleasure – by staying through that interval with your friends at St Crux. If, before my return, some unexpected circumstance throws you once more into the company of the Bygraves; and if your natural kindness of heart inclines you to receive the excuses which they will, in that case, certainly address to you – place one trifling restraint on yourself, for your own sake, if not for mine. Suspend your flirtation with the young lady (I beg pardon of all other young ladies for calling her so!) until my return. If, when I come back, I fail to prove to you that Miss Bygrave is the woman who wore that disguise, and used those threatening words, in Vauxhall Walk, I will engage to leave your service at a day’s notice; and I will atone for the sin of bearing false witness against my neighbour, by resigning every claim I have to your grateful remembrance, on your father’s account as well as on your own. I make this engagement without reserves of any kind; and I promise to abide by it – if my proofs fail – on the faith of a good Catholic, and the word of an honest woman. Your faithful servant,
’VIRGINIE LECOUNT’
The closing sentences of this letter – as the housekeeper well knew when she wrote them – embodied the one appeal to Noel Vanstone, which could be certainly trusted to produce a deep and lasting effect. She might have staked her oath, her life, or her reputation on proving the assertion which she had made, and have failed to leave a permanent impression on his mind. But when she staked not only her position in his service, but her pecuniary claims on him as well, she at once absorbed the ruling passion of his life in expectation of the result. There was not a doubt of it, in the strongest of all his interests – the interest of saving his money – he would wait.
‘Check-mate for Mr Bygrave!’ thought Mrs Lecount, as she sealed and directed the letter. ‘The battle is over – the game is played out.’
While Mrs Lecount was providing for her master’s future security at Sea-View, events were in full progress at North Shingles.
As soon as Captain Wragge recovered his astonishment at the housekeeper’s appearance on his own premises, he hurried into the house, and guided by his own forebodings of the disaster that had happened, made straight for his wife’s room.
Never, in all her former experience, had poor Mrs Wragge felt the full weight of the captain’s indignation, as she felt it now. All the little intelligence she naturally possessed, vanished at once in the whirlwind of her husband’s rage. The only plain facts which he could extract from her were two in number. In the first place, Magdalen’s rash desertion of her post proved to have no better reason to excuse it than Magdalen’s incorrigible impatience: she had passed a sleepless night; she had risen feverish and wretched; and she had gone out, reckless of all consequences, to cool her burning head in the fresh air. In the second place, Mrs Wragge had, on her own confession, seen Mrs Lecount, had talked with Mrs Lecount, and had ended by telling Mrs Lecount the story of the ghost. Having made these discoveries, Captain Wragge wasted no time in contending with his wife’s terror and confusion. He withdrew at once to a window which commanded an^ uninterrupted prospect of Noel Vanstone’s house; and there established himself, on the watch for events at Sea-View, precisely as Mrs Lecount had established herself, on the watch for events at North Shingles.
Not a word of comment on the disaster of the morning escaped him, when Magdalen returned, and found him at his post. His flow of language seemed at last to have run dry. ‘I told you what Mrs Wragge would do,’ he said – ‘and Mrs Wragge has done it.’ He sat unflinchingly at the window, with a patience which Mrs Lecount herself could not have surpassed. The one active proceeding in which he see
med to think it necessary to engage, was performed by deputy. He sent the servant to the inn to hire a chaise and a fast horse, and to say that he would call himself, before noon that day, and tell the ostler when the vehicle would be wanted. Not a sign of impatience escaped him, until the time drew near for departure of the early coach. Then the captain’s curly lips began to twitch with anxiety, and the captain’s restless fingers beat the devil’s tattoo unremittingly on the window-pane.
The coach appeared at last, and drew up at Sea-View. In a minute more, Captain Wragge’s own observation informed him that one among the passengers who left Aldborough that morning, was – Mrs Lecount.
The main uncertainty disposed of, a serious question – suggested by the events of the morning – still remained to be solved. Which was the destined end of Mrs Lecount’s journey – Zürich or St Crux? That she would certainly inform her master of Mrs Wragge’s ghost story, and of every other disclosure in relation to names and places, which might have escaped Mrs Wragge’s lips, was beyond all doubt. But of the two ways at her disposal of doing the mischief – either personally, or by letter – it was vitally important to the captain to know which she had chosen. If she had gone to the admiral’s, no choice would be left him but to follow the coach, to catch the train by which she travelled, and to outstrip her afterwards on the drive from the station in Essex to St Crux. If, on the contrary, she had been contented with writing to her master, it would only be necessary to devise measures for intercepting the letter. The captain decided on going to the post-office, in the first place. Assuming that the housekeeper had written, she would not have left the letter at the mercy of the servant – she would have seen it safely in the letter-box before leaving Aldborough.
‘Good morning,’ said the captain, cheerfully addressing the postmaster. ‘I am Mr Bygrave of North Shingles. I think you have a letter in the box, addressed to Mr —?’
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