ARNOLD.
MEANWHILE Arnold remained shut up in the head-waiter's
pantry--chafing secretly at the position forced upon him.
He was, for the first time in his life, in hiding from another
person, and that person a man. Twice--stung to it by the
inevitable loss of self-respect which his situation
occasioned--he had gone to the door, determined to face Sir
Patrick boldly; and twice he had abandoned the idea, in mercy to
Anne. It would have been impossible for him to set himself right
with Blanche's guardian without betraying the unhappy woman whose
secret he was bound in honor to keep. "I wish to Heaven I had
never come here!" was the useless aspiration that escaped him, as
he doggedly seated himself on the dresser to wait till Sir
Patrick's departure set him free.
After an interval--not by any means the long interval which he
had anticipated--his solitude was enlivened by the appearance of
Father Bishopriggs.
"Well?" cried Arnold, jumping off the dresser, "is the coast
clear?"
There were occasions when Mr. Bishopriggs became, on a sudden,
unexpectedly hard of hearing, This was one of them.
"Hoo do ye find the paintry?" he asked, without paying the
slightest attention to Arnold's question. "Snug and private? A
Patmos in the weelderness, as ye may say!"
His one available eye, which had begun by looking at Arnold's
face, dropped slowly downward, and fixed itself, in mute but
eloquent expectation, on Arnold's waistcoat pocket.
"I understand!" said Arnold. "I promised to pay you for the
Patmos--eh? There you are!"
Mr. Bishopriggs pocketed the money with a dreary smile and a
sympathetic shake of the head. Other waiters would have returned
thanks. The sage of Craig Fernie returned a few brief remarks
instead. Admirable in many things, Father Bishopriggs was
especially great at drawing a moral. He drew a moral on this
occasion from his own gratuity.
"There I am--as ye say. Mercy presairve us! ye need the siller at
every turn, when there's a woman at yer heels. It's an awfu'
reflection--ye canna hae any thing to do wi' the sex they ca' the
opposite sex without its being an expense to ye. There's this
young leddy o' yours, I doot she'll ha' been an expense to ye
from the first. When you were coortin' her, ye did it, I'll go
bail, wi' the open hand. Presents and keep-sakes, flowers and
jewelery, and little dogues. Sair expenses all of them!"
"Hang your reflections! Has Sir Patrick left the inn?"
The reflections of Mr. Bishopriggs declined to be disposed of in
any thing approaching to a summary way. On they flowed from their
parent source, as slowly and as smoothly as ever!
"Noo ye're married to her, there's her bonnets and goons and
under-clothin'--her ribbons, laces, furbelows, and fallals. A
sair expense again!"
"What is the expense of cutting your reflections short, Mr.
Bishopriggs?"
"Thirdly, and lastly, if ye canna agree wi' her as time gaes
on--if there's incompaitibeelity of temper betwixt ye--in short,
if ye want a wee bit separation, hech, Sirs! ye pet yer hand in
yer poaket, and come to an aimicable understandin' wi' her in
that way. Or, maybe she takes ye into Court, and pets _her_ hand
in your poaket, and comes to a hoastile understandin' wi' ye
there. Show me a woman--and I'll show ye a man not far off wha'
has mair expenses on his back than he ever bairgained for."
Arnold's patience would last no longer--he turned to the door.
Mr. Bishopriggs, with equal alacrity on his side, turned to the
matter in hand. "Yes, Sir! The room is e'en clear o' Sir
Paitrick, and the leddy's alane, and waitin' for ye."
In a moment more Arnold was back in the sitting-room.
"Well?" he asked, anxiously. "What is it? Bad news from Lady
Lundie's?"
Anne closed and directed the letter to Blanche, which she had
just completed. "No," she replied. "Nothing to interest _you."_."
"What did Sir Patrick want?"
"Only to warn me. They have found out at Windygates that I am
here."
"That's awkward, isn't it?"
"Not in the least. I can manage perfectly; I have nothing to
fear. Don't think of _me_--think of yourself."
"I am not suspected, am I?"
"Thank heaven--no. But there is no knowing what may happen if you
stay here. Ring the bell at once, and ask the waiter about the
trains."
Struck by the unusual obscurity of the sky at that hour of the
evening, Arnold went to the window. The rain had come--and was
falling heavily. The view on the moor was fast disappearing in
mist and darkness.
"Pleasant weather to travel in!" he said.
"The railway!" Anne exclaimed, impatiently. "It's getting late.
See about the railway!"
Arnold walked to the fire-place to ring the bell. The railway
time-table hanging over it met his eye.
"Here's the information I want," he said to Anne; "if I only knew
how to get at it. 'Down'--'Up'--'A. M.'--P. M.' What a cursed
confusion! I believe they do it on purpose."
Anne joined him at the fire-place.
"I understand it--I'll help you. Did you say it was the up train
you wanted?"
"What is the name of the station you stop at?"
Arnold told her. She followed the intricate net-work of lines and
figures with her finger--suddenly stopped--looked again to make
sure--and turned from the time-table with a face of blank
despair. The last train for the day had gone an hour since.
In the silence which followed that discovery, a first flash of
lightning passed across the window and the low roll of thunder
sounded the outbreak of the storm.
"What's to be done now?" asked Arnold.
In the face of the storm, Anne answered without hesitation, "You
must take a carriage, and drive."
"Drive? They told me it was three-and-twenty miles, by railway,
from the station to my place--let alone the distance from this
inn to the station."
"What does the distance matter? Mr. Brinkworth, you can't
possibly stay here!"
A second flash of lightning crossed the window; the roll of the
thunder came nearer. Even Arnold's good temper began to be a
little ruffled by Anne's determination to get rid of him. He sat
down with the air of a man who had made up his mind not to leave
the house.
"Do you hear that?" he asked, as the sound of the thunder died
away grandly, and the hard pattering of the rain on the window
became audible once more. "If I ordered horses, do you think they
would let me have them, in such weather as this? And, if they
did, do you suppose the horses could face it on the moor? No, no,
Miss Silvester--I am sorry to be in the way, but the train has
gone, and the night and the storm have come. I have no choice but
to stay here!"
Anne still maintained her own view, but less resolutely than
before. "After what you have told the landlady," she said, "think
/>
of the embarrassment, the cruel embarrassment of our position, if
you stop at the inn till to-morrow morning!"
"Is that all?" returned Arnold.
Anne looked up at him, quickly and angrily. No! he was quite
unconscious of having said any thing that could offend her. His
rough masculine sense broke its way unconsciously through all the
little feminine subtleties and delicacies of his companion, and
looked the position practically in the face for what it was
worth, and no more. "Where's the embarrassment?" he asked,
pointing to the bedroom door. "There's your room, all ready for
you. And here's the sofa, in this room, all ready for _me._ If
you had seen the places I have slept in at sea--!"
She interrupted him, without ceremony. The places he had slept
in, at sea, were of no earthly importance. The one question to
consider, was the place he was to sleep in that night.
"If you must stay," she rejoined, "can't you get a room in some
other part of the house?"
But one last mistake in dealing with her, in her present nervous
condition, was left to make--and the innocent Arnold made it. "In
some other part of the house?" he repeated, jestingly. "The
landlady would be scandalized. Mr. Bishopriggs would never allow
it!"
She rose, and stamped her foot impatiently on the floor. "Don't
joke!" she exclaimed. "This is no laughing matter." She paced the
room excitedly. "I don't like it! I don't like it!"
Arnold looked after her, with a stare of boyish wonder.
"What puts you out so?" he asked. "Is it the storm?"
She threw herself on the sofa again. "Yes," she said, shortly.
"It's the storm."
Arnold's inexhaustible good-nature was at once roused to activity
again.
"Shall we have the candles," he suggested, "and shut the weather
out?" She turned irritably on the sofa, without replying. "I'll
promise to go away the first thing in the morning!" he went on.
"Do try and take it easy--and don't be angry with me. Come! come!
you wouldn't turn a dog out, Miss Silvester, on such a night as
this!"
He was irresistible. The most sensitive woman breathing could not
have accused him of failing toward her in any single essential of
consideration and respect. He wanted tact, poor fellow--but who
could expect him to have learned that always superficial (and
sometimes dangerous) accomplishment, in the life he had led at
sea? At the sight of his honest, pleading face, Anne recovered
possession of her gentler and sweeter self. She made her excuses
for her irritability with a grace that enchanted him. "We'll have
a pleasant evening of it yet!" cried Arnold, in his hearty
way--and rang the bell.
The bell was hung outside the door of that Patmos in the
wilderness--otherwise known as the head-waiter's pantry. Mr.
Bishopriggs (employing his brief leisure in the seclusion of his
own apartment) had just mixed a glass of the hot and comforting
liquor called "toddy" in the language of North Britain, and was
just lifting it to his lips, when the summons from Arnold invited
him to leave his grog.
"Haud yer screechin' tongue! " cried Mr. Bishopriggs, addressing
the bell through the door. "Ye're waur than a woman when ye aince
begin!"
The bell--like the woman--went on again. Mr. Bishopriggs, equally
pertinacious, went on with his toddy.
"Ay! ay! ye may e'en ring yer heart out--but ye won't part a
Scotchman from his glass. It's maybe the end of their dinner
they'll be wantin'. Sir Paitrick cam' in at the fair beginning of
it, and spoilt the collops, like the dour deevil he is!" The bell
rang for the third time. "Ay! ay! ring awa'! I doot yon young
gentleman's little better than a belly-god--there's a scandalous
haste to comfort the carnal part o' him in a' this ringin'! He
knows naething o' wine," added Mr. Bishopriggs, on whose mind
Arnold's discovery of the watered sherry still dwelt
unpleasantly.
The lightning quickened, and lit the sitting-room horribly with
its lurid glare; the thunder rolled nearer and nearer over the
black gulf of the moor. Arnold had just raised his hand to ring
for the fourth time, when the inevitable knock was heard at the
door. It was useless to say "come in." The immutable laws of
Bishopriggs had decided that a second knock was necessary. Storm
or no storm, the second knock came--and then, and not till then,
the sage appeared, with the dish of untasted "collops" in his
hand.
"Candles!" said Arnold.
Mr. Bishopriggs set the "collops" (in the language of England,
minced meat) upon the table, lit the candles on the mantle-piece,
faced about with the fire of recent toddy flaming in his nose,
and waited for further orders, before he went back to his second
glass. Anne declined to return to the dinner. Arnold ordered Mr.
Bishopriggs to close the shutters, and sat down to dine by
himself.
"It looks greasy, and smells greasy," he said to Anne, turning
over the collops with a spoon. "I won't be ten minutes dining.
Will you have some tea?"
Anne declined again.
Arnold tried her once more. "What shall we do to get through the
evening?"
"Do what you like," she answered, resignedly.
Arnold's mind was suddenly illuminated by an idea.
"I have got it!" he exclaimed. "We'll kill the time as our
cabin-passengers used to kill it at sea." He looked over his
shoulder at Mr. Bishopriggs. "Waiter! bring a pack of cards."
"What's that ye're wantin'?" asked Mr. Bishopriggs, doubting the
evidence of his own senses.
"A pack of cards," repeated Arnold.
"Cairds?" echoed Mr. Bishopriggs. "A pack o' cairds? The deevil's
allegories in the deevil's own colors--red and black! I wunna
execute yer order. For yer ain saul's sake, I wunna do it. Ha' ye
lived to your time o' life, and are ye no' awakened yet to the
awfu' seenfulness o' gamblin' wi' the cairds?"
"Just as you please," returned Arnold. "You will find me
awakened--when I go away--to the awful folly of feeing a waiter."
"Does that mean that ye're bent on the cairds?" asked Mr.
Bishopriggs, suddenly betraying signs of worldly anxiety in his
look and manner.
"Yes--that means I am bent on the cards."
"I tak' up my testimony against 'em--but I'm no' telling ye that
I canna lay my hand on 'em if I like. What do they say in my
country? 'Him that will to Coupar, maun to Coupar.' And what do
they say in your country? 'Needs must when the deevil drives.' "
With that excellent reason for turning his back on his own
principles, Mr. Bishopriggs shuffled out of the room to fetch the
cards.
The dresser-drawer in the pantry contained a choice selection of
miscellaneous objects--a pack of cards being among them. In
searching for the cards, the wary hand of the head-waiter came in
contact with a morsel of crumpled-up paper. He drew it out, and
recognized the le
tter which he had picked up in the sitting-room
s ome hours since.
"Ay! ay! I'll do weel, I trow, to look at this while my mind's
runnin' on it," said Mr. Bishopriggs. "The cairds may e'en find
their way to the parlor by other hands than mine."
He forthwith sent the cards to Arnold by his second in command,
closed the pantry door, and carefully smoothed out the crumpled
sheet of paper on which the two letters were written. This done,
he trimmed his candle, and began with the letter in ink, which
occupied the first three pages of the sheet of note-paper.
It ran thus:
"WINDYGATES HOUSE, _August_ 12, 1868.
"GEOFFREY DELAMAYN,--I have waited in the hope that you would
ride over from your brother's place, and see me--and I have
waited in vain. Your conduct to me is cruelty itself; I will bear
it no longer. Consider! in your own interests, consider--before
you drive the miserable woman who has trusted you to despair. You
have promised me marriage by all that is sacred. I claim your
promise. I insist on nothing less than to be what you vowed I
should be--what I have waited all this weary time to be--what I
_am_, in the sight of Heaven, your wedded wife. Lady Lundie gives
a lawn-party here on the 14th. I know you have been asked. I
expect you to accept her invitation. If I don't see you, I won't
answer for what may happen. My mind is made up to endure this
suspense no longer. Oh, Geoffrey, remember the past! Be
faithful--be just--to your loving wife,
"ANNE SILVESTER."
Mr. Bishopriggs paused. His commentary on the correspondence, so
far, was simple enough. "Hot words (in ink) from the leddy to the
gentleman!" He ran his eye over the second letter, on the fourth
page of the paper, and added, cynically, "A trifle caulder (in
pencil) from the gentleman to the leddy! The way o' the warld,
Sirs! From the time o' Adam downwards, the way o' the warld!"
The second letter ran thus:
"DEAR ANNE,--Just called to London to my father. They have
telegraphed him in a bad way. Stop where you are, and I will
write you. Trust the bearer. Upon my soul, I'll keep my promise.
Your loving husband that is to be,
"GEOFFREY DELAMAYN."
WINDYGATES HOUSE, _Augt._ 14, 4 P. M.
"In a mortal hurry. Train starts at 4.30."
There it ended!
"Who are the pairties in the parlor? Is ane o' them 'Silvester?'
and t'other 'Delamayn?' " pondered Mr. Bishopriggs, slowly
folding the letter up again in its original form. "Hech, Sirs!
what, being intairpreted, may a' this mean?"
He mixed himself a second glass of toddy, as an aid to
reflection, and sat sipping the liquor, and twisting and turning
the letter in his gouty fingers. It was not easy to see his way
to the true connection between the lady and gentleman in the
parlor and the two letters now in his own possession. They might
be themselves the writers of the letters, or they might be only
friends of the writers. Who was to decide?
In the first case, the lady's object would appear to have been as
good as gained; for the two had certainly asserted themselves to
be man and wife, in his own presence, and in the presence of the
landlady. In the second case, the correspondence so carelessly
thrown aside might, for all a stranger knew to the contrary,
prove to be of some importance in the future. Acting on this
latter view, Mr. Bishopriggs--whose past experience as "a bit
clerk body," in Sir Patrick's chambers, had made a man of
business of him--produced his pen and ink, and indorsed the
letter with a brief dated statement of the circumstances under
which he had found it. "I'll do weel to keep the Doecument," he
thought to himself. "Wha knows but there'll be a reward offered
Man and Wife Page 16
