Man and Wife

by Wilkie Collins

  She went into the library, and turned over the novels. Went out

  again, and looked across the hall at the dining-room door. Would

  the men never have done talking their politics and drinking their

  wine? She went up to her own room, and changed her ear-rings, and

  scolded her maid. Descended once more--and made an alarming

  discovery in a dark corner of the hall.

  Two men were standing there, hat in hand whispering to the

  butler. The butler, leaving them, went into the dining-room--came

  out again with Sir Patrick--and said to the two men, "Step this

  way, please." The two men came out into the light. Murdoch, the

  station-master; and Duncan, the valet! News of Anne!

  "Oh, uncle, let me stay!" pleaded Blanche.

  Sir Patrick hesitated. It was impossible to say--as matters stood

  at that moment--what distressing intelligence the two men might

  not have brought of the missing woman. Duncan's return,

  accompanied by the station-master, looked serious. Blanche

  instantly penetrated the secret of her uncle's hesitation. She

  turned pale, and caught him by the arm. "Don't send me away," she

  whispered. "I can bear any thing but suspense."

  "Out with it!" said Sir Patrick, holding his niece's hand. "Is

  she found or not?"

  "She's gone by the up-train," said the station-master. "And we

  know where."

  Sir Patrick breathed freely; Blanche's color came back. In

  different ways, the relief to both of them was equally great.

  "You had my orders to follow her," said Sir Patrick to Duncan.

  "Why have you come back?"

  "Your man is not to blame, Sir," interposed the station-master.

  "The lady took the train at Kirkandrew."

  Sir Patrick started and looked at the station-master. "Ay? ay?

  The next station--the market-town. Inexcusably stupid of me. I

  never thought of that."

  "I took the liberty of telegraphing your description of the lady

  to Kirkandrew, Sir Patrick, in case of accidents."

  "I stand corrected, Mr. Murdoch. Your head, in this matter, has

  been the sharper head of the two. Well?"

  "There's the answer, Sir."

  Sir Patrick and Blanche read the telegram together.

  "Kirkandrew. Up train. 7.40 P.M. Lady as described. No luggage.

  Bag in her hand. Traveling alone. Ticket--second-class.

  Place--Edinburgh."

  "Edinburgh!" repeated Blanche. "Oh, uncle! we shall lose her in a

  great place like that!"

  "We shall find her, my dear; and you shall see how. Duncan, get

  me pen, ink, and paper. Mr. Murdoch, you are going back to the

  station, I suppose?"

  "Yes, Sir Patrick."

  "I will give you a telegram, to be sent at once to Edinburgh."

  He wrote a carefully-worded telegraphic message, and addressed it

  to The Sheriff of Mid-Lothian.

  "The Sheriff is an old friend of mine," he explained to his

  niece. "And he is now in Edinburgh. Long before the train gets to

  the terminus he will receive this personal description of Miss

  Silvester, with my request to have all her movements carefully

  watched till further notice. The police are entirely at his

  disposal; and the best men will be selected for the purpose. I

  have asked for an answer by telegraph. Keep a special messenger

  ready for it at the station, Mr. Murdoch. Thank you;

  good-evening. Duncan, get your supper, and make yourself

  comfortable. Blanche, my dear, go back to the drawing-room, and

  expect us in to tea immediately. You will know where your friend

  is before you go to bed to-night."

  With those comforting words he returned to the gentlemen. In ten

  minutes more they all appeared in the drawing-room; and Lady

  Lundie (firmly persuaded that she had never closed her eyes) was

  back again in baronial Scotland five hundred years since.

  Blanche, watching her opportunity, caught her uncle alone.

  "Now for your promise," she said. "You have made some important

  discoveries at Craig Fernie. What are they?"

  Sir Patrick's eye turned toward Geoffrey, dozing in an arm-chair

  in a corner of the room. He showed a certain disposition to

  trifle with the curiosity of his niece.

  "After the discovery we have already made," he said, "can't you

  wait, my dear, till we get the telegram from Edinburgh?"

  "That is just what it's impossible for me to do! The telegram

  won't come for hours yet. I want something to go on with in the

  mean time."

  She seated herself on a sofa in the corner opposite Geoffrey, and

  pointed to the vacant place by her side.

  Sir Patrick had promised--Sir Patrick had no choice but to keep

  his word. After another look at Geoffrey, he took the vacant

  place by his niece.

  CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH.

  BACKWARD.

  "WELL?" whispered Blanche, taking her uncle confidentially by the

  arm.

  "Well," said Sir Patrick, with a spark of his satirical humor

  flashing out at his niece, "I am going to do a very rash thing. I

  am going to place a serious trust in the hands of a girl of

  eighteen."

  "The girl's hands will keep it, uncle--though she _is_ only

  eighteen."

  "I must run the risk, my dear; your intimate knowledge of Miss

  Silvester may be of the greatest assistance to me in the next

  step I take. You shall know all that I can tell you, but I must

  warn you first. I can only admit you into my confidence by

  startling you with a great surprise. Do you follow me, so far?"

  "Yes! yes!"

  "If you fail to control yourself, you place an obstacle in the

  way of my being of some future use to Miss Silvester. Remember

  that, and now prepare for the surprise. What did I tell you

  before dinner?"

  "You said you had made discoveries at Craig Fernie. What have you

  found out?"

  "I have found out that there is a certain person who is in full

  possession of the information which Miss Silvester has concealed

  from you and from me. The person is within our reach. The person

  is in this neighborhood. The person is in this room!"

  He caught up Blanche's hand, resting on his arm, and pressed it

  significantly. She looked at him with the cry of surprise

  suspended on her lips--waited a little with her eyes fixed on Fir

  Patrick's face--struggled resolutely, and composed herself.

  "Point the person out." She said the words with a self-possession

  which won her uncle's hearty approval. Blanche had done wonders

  for a girl in her teens.

  "Look!" said Sir Patrick; "and tell me what you see."

  "I see Lady Lundie, at the other end of the room, with the map of

  Perthshire and the Baronial Antiquities of Scotland on the table.

  And I see every body but you and me obliged to listen to her."

  "Every body?"

  Blanche looked carefully round the room, and noticed Geoffrey in

  the opposite corner; fast asleep by this time in his arm-chair.

  "Uncle! you don't mean--?"

  "There is the man."

  "Mr. Delamayn--!"

  "Mr. Delamayn knows every thing."

  Blanche held mechanically by her uncle's arm
, and looked at the

  sleeping man as if her eyes could never see enough of him.

  "You saw me in the library in private consultation with Mr.

  Delamayn," resumed Sir Patrick. "I have to acknowledge, my dear,

  that you were quite right in thinking this a suspicious

  circumstance, And I am now to justify myself for having purposely

  kept you in the dark up to the present time."

  With those introductory words, he briefly reverted to the earlier

  occurrences of the day, and then added, by way of commentary, a

  statement of the conclusions which events had suggested to his

  own mind.

  The events, it may be remembered, were three in number. First,

  Geoffrey's private conference with Sir Patrick on the subject of

  Irregular Marriages in Scotla nd. Secondly, Anne Silvester's

  appearance at Windygates. Thirdly, Anne's flight.

  The conclusions which had thereupon suggested themselves to Sir

  Patrick's mind were six in number.

  First, that a connection of some sort might possibly exist

  between Geoffrey's acknowledged difficulty about his friend, and

  Miss Silvester's presumed difficulty about herself. Secondly,

  that Geoffrey had really put to Sir Patrick--not his own

  case--but the case of a friend. Thirdly, that Geoffrey had some

  interest (of no harmless kind) in establishing the fact of his

  friend's marriage. Fourthly, that Anne's anxiety (as described by

  Blanche) to hear the names of the gentlemen who were staying at

  Windygates, pointed, in all probability, to Geoffrey. Fifthly,

  that this last inference disturbed the second conclusion, and

  reopened the doubt whether Geoffrey had not been stating his own

  case, after all, under pretense of stating the case of a friend.

  Sixthly, that the one way of obtaining any enlightenment on this

  point, and on all the other points involved in mystery, was to go

  to Craig Fernie, and consult Mrs. Inchbare's experience during

  the period of Anne's residence at the inn. Sir Patrick's apology

  for keeping all this a secret from his niece followed. He had

  shrunk from agitating her on the subject until he could be sure

  of proving his conclusions to be true. The proof had been

  obtained; and he was now, therefore, ready to open his mind to

  Blanche without reserve.

  "So much, my dear," proceeded Sir Patrick, "for those necessary

  explanations which are also the necessary nuisances of human

  intercourse. You now know as much as I did when I arrived at

  Craig Fernie--and you are, therefore, in a position to appreciate

  the value of my discoveries at the inn. Do you understand every

  thing, so far?"

  "Perfectly!"

  "Very good. I drove up to the inn; and--behold me closeted with

  Mrs. Inchbare in her own private parlor! (My reputation may or

  may not suffer, but Mrs. Inchbare's bones are above suspicion!)

  It was a long business, Blanche. A more sour-tempered, cunning,

  and distrustful witness I never examined in all my experience at

  the Bar. She would have upset the temper of any mortal man but a

  lawyer. We have such wonderful tempers in our profession; and we

  can be so aggravating when we like! In short, my dear, Mrs.

  Inchbare was a she-cat, and I was a he-cat--and I clawed the

  truth out of her at last. The result was well worth arriving at,

  as you shall see. Mr. Delamayn had described to me certain

  remarkable circumstances as taking place between a lady and a

  gentleman at an inn: the object of the parties being to pass

  themselves off at the time as man and wife. Every one of those

  circumstances, Blanche, occurred at Craig Fernie, between a lady

  and a gentleman, on the day when Miss Silvester disappeared from

  this house And--wait!--being pressed for her name, after the

  gentleman had left her behind him at the inn, the name the lady

  gave was, 'Mrs. Silvester.' What do you think of that?"

  "Think! I'm bewildered--I can't realize it."

  "It's a startling discovery, my dear child--there is no denying

  that. Shall I wait a little, and let you recover yourself?"

  "No! no! Go on! The gentleman, uncle? The gentleman who was with

  Anne? Who is he? Not Mr. Delamayn?"

  "Not Mr. Delamayn," said Sir Patrick. "If I have proved nothing

  else, I have proved that."

  "What need was there to prove it? Mr. Delamayn went to London on

  the day of the lawn-party. And Arnold--"

  "And Arnold went with him as far as the second station from this.

  Quite true! But how was I to know what Mr. Delamayn might have

  done after Arnold had left him? I could only make sure that he

  had not gone back privately to the inn, by getting the proof from

  Mrs. Inchbare."

  "How did you get it?"

  "I asked her to describe the gentleman who was with Miss

  Silvester. Mrs. Inchbare's description (vague as you will

  presently find it to be) completely exonerates that man," said

  Sir Patrick, pointing to Geoffrey still asleep in his chair.

  "_He_ is not the person who passed Miss Silvester off as his wife

  at Craig Fernie. He spoke the truth when he described the case to

  me as the case of a friend."

  "But who is the friend?" persisted Blanche. "That's what I want

  to know."

  "That's what I want to know, too."

  "Tell me exactly, uncle, what Mrs. Inchbare said. I have lived

  with Anne all my life. I _must_ have seen the man somewhere."

  "If you can identify him by Mrs. Inchbare's description,"

  returned Sir Patrick, "you will be a great deal cleverer than I

  am. Here is the picture of the man, as painted by the landlady:

  Young; middle-sized; dark hair, eyes, and complexion; nice

  temper, pleasant way of speaking. Leave out 'young,' and the rest

  is the exact contrary of Mr. Delamayn. So far, Mrs. Inchbare

  guides us plainly enough. But how are we to apply her description

  to the right person? There must be, at the lowest computation,

  five hundred thousand men in England who are young, middle-sized,

  dark, nice-tempered, and pleasant spoken. One of the footmen here

  answers that description in every particular."

  "And Arnold answers it," said Blanche--as a still stronger

  instance of the provoking vagueness of the description.

  "And Arnold answers it," repeated Sir Patrick, quite agreeing

  with her.

  They had barely said those words when Arnold himself appeared,

  approaching Sir Patrick with a pack of cards in his hand.

  There--at the very moment when they had both guessed the truth,

  without feeling the slightest suspicion of it in their own

  minds--there stood Discovery, presenting itself unconsciously to

  eyes incapable of seeing it, in the person of the man who had

  passed Anne Silvester off as his wife at the Craig Fernie inn!

  The terrible caprice of Chance, the merciless irony of

  Circumstance, could go no further than this. The three had their

  feet on the brink of the precipice at that moment. And two of

  them were smiling at an odd coincidence; and one of them was

  shuffling a pack of cards!

  "We have done with the Antiquities at last!" said Arno
ld; "and we

  are going to play at Whist. Sir Patrick, will you choose a card?"

  "Too soon after dinner, my good fellow, for _me_. Play the first

  rubber, and then give me another chance. By-the-way," he added

  "Miss Silvester has been traced to Kirkandrew. How is it that you

  never saw her go by?"

  "She can't have gone my way, Sir Patrick, or I must have seen

  her."

  Having justified himself in those terms, he was recalled to the

  other end of the room by the whist-party, impatient for the cards

  which he had in his hand.

  "What were we talking of when he interrupted us?" said Sir

  Patrick to Blanche.

  "Of the man, uncle, who was with Miss Silvester at the inn."

  "It's useless to pursue that inquiry, my dear, with nothing

  better than Mrs. Inchbare's description to help us."

  Blanche looked round at the sleeping Geoffrey.

  "And _he_ knows!" she said. "It's maddening, uncle, to look at

  the brute snoring in his chair!"

  Sir Patrick held up a warning hand. Before a word more could be

  said between them they were silenced again by another

  interruption,

  The whist-party comprised Lady Lundie and the surgeon, playing as

  partners against Smith and Jones. Arnold sat behind the surgeon,

  taking a lesson in the game. One, Two, and Three, thus left to

  their own devices, naturally thought of the billiard-table; and,

  detecting Geoffrey asleep in his corner, advanced to disturb his

  slumbers, under the all-sufficing apology of "Pool." Geoffrey

  roused himself, and rubbed his eyes, and said, drowsily, "All

  right." As he rose, he looked at the opposite corner in which Sir

  Patrick and his niece were sitting. Blanche's self-possession,

  resolutely as she struggled to preserve it, was not strong enough

  to keep her eyes from turning toward Geoffrey with an expression

  which betrayed the reluctant interest that she now felt in him.

  He stopped, noticing something entirely new in the look with

  which the young lady was regarding him.

  "Beg your pardon," said Geoffrey. "Do you wish to speak to me?"

  Blanche's face flushed all over. Her uncle came to the rescue.

  "Miss Lundie and I hope you have slept well Mr. Delamayn," said

  Sir Patrick, jocosely.

  "That's all."

  "Oh? That's all?" said Geoffrey still looking at Blanche. "Beg

  your pardon again. Deuced long walk, and deuced heavy dinner.

  Natural consequence--a nap."

  Sir Patrick eyed him closely. It was plain that he had been

  honestly puzzled at finding himself an object of special

  attention on Blanche's part. "See you in the billiard-room?" he

  said, carelessly, and followed his companions out of the room--as

  usual, without waiting for an answer.

  "Mind what you are about," said Sir Patrick to his niece. "That

  man is quicker than he looks. We commit a serious mistake if we

  put him on his guard at starting."

  "It sha'n't happen again, uncle," said Blanche. "But think of

  _his_ being in Anne's confidence, and of _my_ being shut out of

  it!"

  "In his friend's confidence, you mean, my dear; and (if we only

  avoid awakening his suspicion) there is no knowing how soon he

  may say or do something which may show us who his friend is."

  "But he is going back to his brother's to-morrow--he said so at

  dinner-time."

  "So much the better. He will be out of the way of seeing strange

  things in a certain young lady's face. His brother's house is

  within easy reach of this; and I am his legal adviser. My

  experience tells me that he has not done consulting me yet--and

  that he will let out something more next time. So much for our

  chance of seeing the light through Mr. Delamayn--if we can't see

  it in any other way. And that is not our only chance, remember. I

  have something to tell you about Bishopriggs and the lost

  letter."

  "Is it found?"