Man and Wife

by Wilkie Collins

  "No. I satisfied myself about that--I had it searched for, under

  my own eye. The letter is stolen, Blanche; and Bishopriggs has

  got it. I have left a line for him, in Mrs. Inchbare's care. The

  old rascal is missed already by the visitors at the inn, just as

  I told you he would be. His mistress is feeling the penalty of

  having been fool enough to vent her ill temper on her

  head-waiter. She lays the whole blame of the quarrel on Miss

  Silvester, of course. Bishopriggs neglected every body at the inn

  to wait on Miss Silvester. Bishopriggs was insolent on being

  remonstrated with, and Miss Silvester encouraged him--and so on.

  The result will be--now Miss Silvester has gone--that Bishopriggs

  will return to Craig Fernie before the autumn is over. We are

  sailing with wind and tide, my dear. Come, and learn to play

  whist."

  He rose to join the card-players. Blanche detained him.

  "You haven't told me one thing yet," she said. "Whoever the man

  may be, is Anne married to him?"

  "Whoever the man may be," returned Sir Patrick, "he had better

  not attempt to marry any body else."

  So the niece unconsciously put the question, and so the uncle

  unconsciously gave the answer on which depended the whole

  happiness of Blanche's life to come, The "man!" How lightly they

  both talked of the "man!" Would nothing happen to rouse the

  faintest suspicion--in their minds or in Arnold's mind--that

  Arnold was the "man" himself?

  "You mean that she _is_ married?" said Blanche.

  "I don't go as far as that."

  "You mean that she is _not_ married?"

  "I don't go so far as _that._"

  "Oh! the law! "

  "Provoking, isn't it, my dear? I can tell you, professionally,

  that (in my opinion) she has grounds to go on if she claims to be

  the man's wife. That is what I meant by my answer; and, until we

  know more, that is all I can say."

  "When shall we know more? When shall we get the telegram?"

  "Not for some hours yet. Come, and learn to play whist."

  "I think I would rather talk to Arnold, uncle, if you don't

  mind."

  "By all means! But don't talk to him about what I have been

  telling you to-night. He and Mr. Delamayn are old associates,

  remember; and he might blunder into telling his friend what his

  friend had better not know. Sad (isn't it?) for me to be

  instilling these lessons of duplicity into the youthful mind. A

  wise person once said, 'The older a man gets the worse he gets.'

  That wise person, my dear, had me in his eye, and was perfectly

  right."

  He mitigated the pain of that confession with a pinch of snuff,

  and went to the whist table to wait until the end of the rubber

  gave him a place at the game.

  CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH.

  FORWARD.

  BLANCHE found her lover as attentive as usual to her slightest

  wish, but not in his customary good spirits. He pleaded fatigue,

  after his long watch at the cross-roads, as an excuse for his

  depression. As long as there was any hope of a reconciliation

  with Geoffrey, he was unwilling to tell Blanche what had happened

  that afternoon. The hope grew fainter and fainter as the evening

  advanced. Arnold purposely suggested a visit to the

  billiard-room, and joined the game, with Blanche, to give

  Geoffrey an opportunity of saying the few gracious words which

  would have made them friends again. Geoffrey never spoke the

  words; he obstinately ignored Arnold's presence in the room.

  At the card-table the whist went on interminably. Lady Lundie,

  Sir Patrick, and the surgeon, were all inveterate players, evenly

  matched. Smith and Jones (joining the game alternately) were aids

  to whist, exactly as they were aids to conversation. The same

  safe and modest mediocrity of style distinguished the proceedings

  of these two gentlemen in all the affairs of life.

  The time wore on to midnight. They went to bed late and they rose

  late at Windygates House. Under that hospitable roof, no

  intrusive hints, in the shape of flat candlesticks exhibiting

  themselves with ostentatious virtue on side-tables, hurried the

  guest to his room; no vile bell rang him ruthlessly out of bed

  the next morning, and insisted on his breakfasting at a given

  hour. Life has surely hardships enough that are inevitable

  without gratuitously adding the hardship of absolute government,

  administered by a clock?

  It was a quarter past twelve when Lady Lundie rose blandly from

  the whist-table, and said that she supposed somebody must set the

  example of going to bed. Sir Patrick and Smith, the surgeon and

  Jones, agreed on a last rubber. Blanche vanished while her

  stepmother's eye was on her; and appeared again in the

  drawing-room, when Lady Lundie was safe in the hands of her maid.

  Nobody followed the example of the mistress of the house but

  Arnold. He left the billiard-room with the certainty that it was

  all over now between Geoffrey and himself. Not even the

  attraction of Blanche proved strong enough to detain him that

  night. He went his way to bed.

  It was past one o'clock. The final rubber was at an end, the

  accounts were settled at the card-table; the surgeon had strolled

  into the billiard-room, and Smith and Jones had followed him,

  when Duncan came in, at last, with the telegram in his hand.

  Blanche turned from the broad, calm autumn moonlight which had

  drawn her to the window, and looked over her uncle's shoulder

  while he opened the telegram.

  She read the first line--and that was enough. The whole

  scaffolding of hope built round that morsel of paper fell to the

  ground in an instant. The train from Kirkandrew had reached

  Edinburgh at the usual time. Every passenger in it had passed

  under the eyes of the police, and nothing had been seen of any

  person who answered the description given of Anne!

  Sir Patrick pointed to the two last sentences in the telegram:

  "Inquiries telegraphed to Falkirk. If with any result, you shall

  know."

  "We must hope for the best, Blanche. They evidently suspect her

  of having got out at the junction of the two railways for the

  purpose of giving the telegraph the slip. There is no help for

  it. Go to bed, child--go to bed."

  Blanche kissed her uncle in silence and went away. The bright

  young face was sad with the first hopeless sorrow which the old

  man had yet seen in it. His niece's parting look dwelt painfully

  on his mind when he was up in his room, with the faithful Duncan

  getting him ready for his bed.

  "This is a bad business, Duncan. I don't like to say so to Miss

  Lundie; but I greatly fear the governess has baffled us."

  "It seems likely, Sir Patrick. The poor young lady looks quite

  heart-broken about it."

  "You noticed that too, did you? She has lived all her life, you

  see, with Miss Silvester; and there is a very strong attachment

  between them. I am uneasy about my niece, Duncan. I am afraid

  this disappointment will have a serious effec
t on her."

  "She's young, Sir Patrick."

  "Yes, my friend, she's young; but the young (when they are good

  for any thing) have warm hearts. Winter hasn't stolen on _them,_

  Duncan! And they feel keenly."

  "I think there's reason to hope, Sir, that Miss Lundie may get

  over it more easily than you suppose."

  "What reason, pray?"

  "A person in my position can hardly venture to speak freely, Sir,

  on a delicate matter of this kind."

  Sir Patrick's temper flashed out, half-seriously,

  half-whimsically, as usual.

  "Is that a snap at Me, you old dog? If I am not your friend, as

  well as your master, who is? Am _I_ in the habit of keeping any

  of my harmless fellow-creatures at a distance? I despise the cant

  of modern Liberalism; but it's not the less true that I have, all

  my life, protested against the inhuman separation of classes in

  England. We are, in that respect, brag as we may of our national

  virtue, the most unchristian people in the civilized world."

  "I beg your pardon, Sir Patrick--"

  "God help me! I'm talking polities at this time of night! It's

  your fault, Duncan. What do you mean by casting my station in my

  teeth, because I can't put my night-cap on comfortably till you

  have brushed my hair? I have a good mind to get up and brush

  yours. There! there! I'm uneasy about my niece--nervous

  irritability, my good fellow, that's all. Let's hear what you

  have to say about Miss Lundie. And go on with my hair. And don't

  be a humbug."

  "I was about to remind you, Sir Patrick, that Miss Lundie has

  another interest in her life to turn to. If this matter of Miss

  Silvester ends badly--and I own it begins to look as if it

  would--I should hurry my niece's marriage, Sir, and see if _that_

  wouldn't console her."

  Sir Patrick started under the gentle discipline of the hair-brush

  in Duncan's hand.

  "That's very sensibly put," said the old gentleman. "Duncan! you

  are, what I call, a clear-minded man. Well worth thinking of, old

  Truepenny! If the worst comes to the worst, well worth thinking

  of!"

  It was not the first time that Duncan's steady good sense had

  struck light, under the form of a new thought, in his master's

  mind. But never yet had he wrought such mischief as the mischief

  which he had innocently done now. He had sent Sir Patrick to bed

  with the fatal idea of hastening the marriage of Arnold and

  Blanche.

  The situation of affairs at Windygates--now that Anne had

  apparently obliterated all trace of herself--was becoming

  serious. The one chance on which the discovery of Arnold's

  position depended, was the chance that accident might reveal the

  truth in the lapse of time. In this posture of circumstances, Sir

  Patrick now resolved--if nothing happened to relieve Blanche's

  anxiety in the course of the week--to advance the celebration of

  the marriage from the end of the autumn (as originally

  contemplated) to the first fortnight of the ensuing month. As

  dates then stood, the change led (so far as free scope for the

  development of accident was concerned) to this serious result. It

  abridged a lapse of three months into an interval of three weeks.

  The next morning came; and Blanche marked it as a memorable

  morning, by committing an act of imprudence, which struck away

  one more of the chances of discovery that had existed, before the

  arrival of the Edinburgh telegram on the previous day.

  She had passed a sleepless night; fevered in mind and body;

  thinking, hour after hour, of nothing but Anne. At sunrise she

  could endure it no longer. Her power to control herself was

  completely exhausted; her own impulses led her as they pleased.

  She got up, determined not to let Geoffrey leave the house

  without risking an effort to make him reveal what he knew about

  Anne. It was nothing less than downright treason to Sir Patrick

  to act on her own responsibility in this way. She knew it was

  wrong; she was heartily ashamed of herself for doing it. But the

  demon that possesses women with a recklessness all their own, at

  the critical moments of their lives, had got her--and she did it.

  Geoffrey had arranged overnight, to breakfast early, by himself,

  and to walk the ten miles to his brother's house; sending a

  servant to fetch his luggage later in the day.

  He had got on his hat; he was standing in the hall, searching his

  pocket for his second self, the pipe--when Blanche suddenly

  appeared from the morning-room, and placed herself between him

  and the house door.

  "Up early--eh?" said Geoffrey. "I'm off to my brother's."

  She made no reply. He looked at her closer. The girl's eyes were

  trying to read his face, with an utter carelessness of

  concealment, which forbade (even to his mind) all unworthy

  interpretation of her motive for stopping him on his way out

  "Any commands for me?" he inquired

  This time she answered him. "I have something to ask you," she

  said.

  He smiled graciously, and opened his tobacco-pouch. He was fresh

  and strong after his night's sleep--healthy and handsome and

  good-humored. The house-maids had had a peep at him that morning,

  and had wished--like Desdemona, with a difference--that "Heaven

  had made all three of them such a man."

  "Well," he said, "what is it?"

  She put her question, without a single word of preface--purposely

  to surprise him.

  "Mr. Delamayn," she said, "do you know where Anne Silvester is

  this morning?"

  He was filling his pipe as she spoke, and he dropped some of the

  tobacco on the floor. Instead of answering before he picked up

  the tobacco he answered after--in surly self-possession, and in

  one word--"No."

  "Do you know nothing about her?"

  He devoted himself doggedly to the filling of his pipe.

  "Nothing."

  "On your word of honor, as a gentleman?"

  "On my word of honor, as a gentleman."

  He put back his tobacco-pouch in his pocket. His handsome face

  was as hard as stone. His clear blue eyes defied all the girls in

  England put together to see into _his_ mind. "Have you done, Miss

  Lundie?" he asked, suddenly changing to a bantering politeness of

  tone and manner.

  Blanche saw that it was hopeless--saw that she had compromised

  her own interests by her own headlong act. Sir Patrick's warning

  words came back reproachfully to her now when it was too late.

  "We commit a serious mistake if we put him on his guard at

  starting."

  There was but one course to take now. "Yes," she said. "I have

  done."

  "My turn now," rejoined Geoffrey. "You want to know where Miss

  Silvester is. Why do you ask Me?"

  Blanche did all that could be done toward repairing the error

  that she had committed. She kept Geoffrey as far away as Geoffrey

  had kept _her_ from the truth.

  "I happen to know," she replied "that Miss Silvester left the

  place at which she had been staying about the time when y
ou went

  out walking yesterday. And I thought you might have seen her."

  "Oh? That's the reason--is it?" said Geoffrey, with a smile.

  The smile stung Blanche's sensitive temper to the quick. She made

  a final effort to control herself, before her indignation got the

  better of her.

  "I have no more to say, Mr. Delamayn." With that reply she turned

  her back on him, and closed the door of the morning-room between

  them.

  Geoffrey descended the house steps and lit his pipe. He was not

  at the slightest loss, on this occasion, to account for what had

  happened. He assumed at once that Arnold had taken a mean revenge

  on him after his conduct of the day before, and had told the

  whole secret of his errand at Craig Fernie to Blanche. The thing

  would get next, no doubt, to Sir Patrick's ears; and Sir Patrick

  would thereupon be probably the first person who revealed to

  Arnold the position in which he had placed himself with Anne. All

  right! Sir Patrick would be an excellent witness to appeal to,

  when the scandal broke out, and when the time came for

  repudiating Anne's claim on him as the barefaced imposture of a

  woman who was married already to another man. He puffed away

  unconcernedly at his pipe, and started, at his swinging, steady

  pace, for his brother's house.

  Blanche remained alone in the morning-room. The prospect of

  getting at the truth, by means of what Geoffrey might say on the

  next occasion when he co nsulted Sir Patrick, was a prospect that

  she herself had closed from that moment. She sat down in despair

  by the window. It commanded a view of the little side-terrace

  which had been Anne's favorite walk at Windygates. With weary

  eyes and aching heart the poor child looked at the familiar

  place; and asked herself, with the bitter repentance that comes

  too late, if she had destroyed the last chance of finding Anne!

  She sat passively at the window, while the hours of the morning

  wore on, until the postman came. Before the servant could take

  the letter bag she was in the hall to receive it. Was it possible

  to hope that the bag had brought tidings of Anne? She sorted the

  letters; and lighted suddenly on a letter to herself. It bore the

  Kirkandrew postmark, and It was addressed to her in Anne's

  handwriting.

  She tore the letter open, and read these lines:

  "I have left you forever, Blanche. God bless and reward you! God

  make you a happy woman in all your life to come! Cruel as you

  will think me, love, I have never been so truly your sister as I

  am now. I can only tell you this--I can never tell you more.

  Forgive me, and forget me, our lives are parted lives from this

  day."

  Going down to breakfast about his usual hour, Sir Patrick missed

  Blanche, whom he was accustomed to see waiting for him at the

  table at that time. The room was empty; the other members of the

  household having all finished their morning meal. Sir Patrick

  disliked breakfasting alone. He sent Duncan with a message, to be

  given to Blanche's maid.

  The maid appeared in due time Miss Lundie was unable to leave her

  room. She sent a letter to her uncle, with her love--and begged

  he would read it.

  Sir Patrick opened the letter and saw what Anne had written to

  Blanche.

  He waited a little, reflecting, with evident pain and anxiety, on

  what he had read--then opened his own letters, and hurriedly

  looked at the signatures. There was nothing for him from his

  friend, the sheriff, at Edinburgh, and no communication from the

  railway, in the shape of a telegram. He had decided, overnight,

  on waiting till the end of the week before he interfered in the

  matter of Blanche's marriage. The events of the morning

  determined him on not waiting another day. Duncan returned to the

  breakfast-room to pour out his master's coffee. Sir Patrick sent

  him away again with a second message

  "Do you know where Lady Lundie is, Duncan?"