Armadale

by Wilkie Collins

  They were received in the parlour by the major’s daughter, pending the arrival of the major himself.

  Allan attempted to present his friend in the usual form. To his astonishment, Midwinter took the words flippantly out of his lips, and introduced himself to Miss Milroy with a confident look, a hard laugh, and a clumsy assumption of ease which presented him at his worst. His artificial spirits, lashed continuously into higher and higher effervescence since the morning, were now mounting hysterically beyond his own control. He looked and spoke with that terrible freedom of licence which is the necessary consequence, when a diffident man has thrown off his reserve, of the very effort by which he has broken loose from his own restraints. He involved himself in a confused medley of apologies that were not wanted, and of compliments that might have over-flattered the vanity of a savage. He looked backwards and forwards from Miss Milroy to Allan, and declared jocosely that he understood now why his friend’s morning walks were always taken in the same direction. He asked her questions about her mother, and cut short the answers she gave him by remarks on the weather. In one breath, he said she must feel the day insufferably hot; and, in another, he protested that he quite envied her in her cool muslin dress.

  The major came in. Before he could say two words, Midwinter overwhelmed him with the same frenzy of familiarity, and the same feverish fluency of speech. He expressed his interest in Mrs Milroy’s health in terms which would have been exaggerated on the lips of a friend of the family. He overflowed into a perfect flood of apologies for disturbing the major at his mechanical pursuits. He quoted Allan’s extravagant account of the clock, and expressed his own anxiety to see it in terms more extravagant still. He paraded his superficial book-knowledge of the great clock at Strasbourg, with far-fetched jests on the extraordinary automaton figures which that clock puts in motion – on the procession of the twelve apostles, which walks out under the dial at noon, and on the toy-cock, which crows at St Peter’s appearance – and this before a man who had studied every wheel in that complex machinery, and who had passed whole years of his life in trying to imitate it. ‘I hear you have outnumbered the Strasbourg apostles, and outcrowed the Strasbourg cock,’ he exclaimed, with the tone and manner of a friend habitually privileged to waive all ceremony; ‘and I am dying, absolutely dying, major, to see your wonderful clock!’

  Major Milroy had entered the room with his mind absorbed in his own mechanical contrivances as usual. But the sudden shock of Midwinter’s familiarity was violent enough to recall him instantly to himself, and to make him master again, for the time, of his social resources as a man of the world.

  ‘Excuse me for interrupting you,’ he said, stopping Midwinter for the moment, by a look of steady surprise. ‘I happen to have seen the clock at Strasbourg; and it sounds almost absurd in my ears (if you will pardon me for saying so) to put my little experiment in any light of comparison with that wonderful achievement. There is nothing else of the kind like it in the world!’ He paused, to control his own mounting enthusiasm; the clock at Strasbourg was to Major Milroy what the name of Michael Angelo was to Sir Joshua Reynolds.1 ‘Mr Armadale’s kindness has led him to exaggerate a little,’ pursued the major, smiling at Allan, and passing over another attempt of Midwinter’s to seize on the talk, as if no such attempt had been made. ‘But as there does happen to be this one point of resemblance between the great clock abroad and the little clock at home, that they both show what they can do on the stroke of noon, and as it is close on twelve now, if you still wish to visit my workshop, Mr Midwinter, the sooner I show you the way to it the better.’ He opened the door, and apologized to Midwinter, with marked ceremony, for preceding him out of the room.

  ‘What do you think of my friend?’ whispered Allan, as he and Miss Milroy followed.

  ‘Must I tell you the truth, Mr Armadale?’ she whispered back.

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Then I don’t like him at all!’

  ‘He’s the best and dearest fellow in the world,’ rejoined the outspoken Allan. ‘You’ll like him better when you know him better – I’m sure you will!’

  Miss Milroy made a little grimace, implying supreme indifference to Midwinter, and saucy surprise at Allan’s earnest advocacy of the merits of his friend. ‘Has he got nothing more interesting to say to me than that,’ she wondered, privately, ‘after kissing my hand twice yesterday morning?’

  They were all in the major’s workroom before Allan had the chance of trying a more attractive subject. There, on the top of a rough wooden case, which evidently contained the machinery, was the wonderful clock. The dial was crowned by a glass pedestal placed on rockwork in carved ebony; and on the top of the pedestal sat the inevitable figure of Time, with his everlasting scythe in his hand. Below the dial was a little platform, and at either end of it rose two miniature sentry-boxes, with closed doors. Externally, this was all that appeared, until the magic moment came when the clock struck twelve at noon.

  It wanted then about three minutes to twelve; and Major Milroy seized the opportunity of explaining what the exhibition was to be, before the exhibition began. At the first words, his mind fell back again into its old absorption over the one employment of his life. He turned to Midwinter (who had persisted in talking all the way from the parlour, and who was talking still) without a trace left in his manner of the cool and cutting composure with which he had spoken but a few minutes before. The noisy, familiar man, who had been an ill-bred intruder in the parlour, became a privileged guest in the workshop – for there he possessed the all-atoning social advantage of being new to the performances of the wonderful clock.

  ‘At the first stroke of twelve, Mr Midwinter,’ said the major, quite eagerly, ‘keep your eye on the figure of Time: he will move his scythe, and point it downwards to the glass pedestal. You will next see a little printed card appear behind the glass, which will tell you the day of the month and the day of the week. At the last stroke of the clock, Time will lift his scythe again into its former position, and the chimes will ring a peal. The peal will be succeeded by the playing of a tune – the favourite march of my old regiment – and then the final performance of the clock will follow. The sentry-boxes, which you may observe at each side, will both open at the same moment. In one of them you will see the sentinel appear; and, from the other, a corporal and two privates will march across the platform to relieve the guard, and will then disappear, leaving the new sentinel at his post. I must ask your kind allowances for this last part of the performance. The machinery is a little complicated, and there are defects in it which I am ashamed to say I have not yet succeeded in remedying as I could wish. Sometimes the figures go all wrong, and sometimes they go all right. I hope they may do their best on the occasion of your seeing them for the first time.’

  As the major, posted near his clock, said the last words, his little audience of three, assembled at the opposite end of the room, saw the hour-hand and the minute-hand on the dial point together to twelve. The first stroke sounded, and Time, true to the signal, moved his scythe. The day of the month and the day of the week announced themselves in print through the glass pedestal next; Midwinter applauding their appearance with a noisy exaggeration of surprise, which Miss Milroy mistook for coarse sarcasm directed at her father’s pursuits, and which Allan (seeing that she was offended) attempted to moderate by touching the elbow of his friend. Meanwhile, the performances of the clock went on. At the last stroke of twelve, Time lifted his scythe again, the chimes rang, the march tune of the major’s old regiment followed; and the crowning exhibition of the relief of the guard announced itself in a preliminary trembling of the sentry-boxes, and a sudden disappearance of the major at the back of the clock.

  The performance began with the opening of the sentry-box on the right-hand side of the platform, as punctually as could be desired; the door on the other side, however, was less tractable – it remained obstinately closed. Unaware of this hitch in the proceedings, the corporal and his two privates appeared in
their places in a state of perfect discipline, tottered out across the platform, all three trembling in every limb, dashed themselves headlong against the closed door on the other side, and failed in producing the smallest impression on the immovable sentry presumed to be within. An intermittent clicking, as of the major’s keys and tools at work, was heard in the machinery. The corporal and his two privates suddenly returned, backwards, across the platform, and shut themselves up with a bang inside their own door. Exactly at the same moment, the other door opened for the first time, and the provoking sentry appeared with the utmost deliberation at his post, waiting to be relieved. He was allowed to wait. Nothing happened in the other box but an occasional knocking inside the door, as if the corporal and his privates were impatient to be let out. The clicking of the major’s tools was heard again among the machinery; the corporal and his party, suddenly restored to liberty, appeared in a violent hurry, and spun furiously across the platform. Quick as they were, however, the hitherto deliberate sentry on the other side, now perversely showed himself to be quicker still. He disappeared like lightning into his own premises, the door closed smartly after him, the corporal and his privates dashed themselves headlong against it for the second time, and the major appearing again round the corner of the clock, asked his audience innocently, ‘if they would be good enough to tell him whether anything had gone wrong?’

  The fantastic absurdity of the exhibition, heightened by Major Milroy’s grave inquiry at the end of it, was so irresistibly ludicrous that the visitors shouted with laughter; and even Miss Milroy, with all her consideration for her father’s sensitive pride in his clock, could not restrain herself from joining in the merriment which the catastrophe of the puppets had provoked. But there are limits even to the licence of laughter; and these limits were ere long so outrageously overstepped by one of the little party as to have the effect of almost instantly silencing the other two. The fever of Midwinter’s false spirits flamed out into sheer delirium as the performance of the puppets came to an end. His paroxysms of laughter followed each other with such convulsive violence, that Miss Milroy started back from him in alarm, and even the patient major turned on him with a look which said plainly, Leave the room! Allan, wisely impulsive for once in his life, seized Midwinter by the arm, and dragged him out by main force into the garden, and thence into the park beyond.

  ‘Good heavens! What has come to you!’ he exclaimed, shrinking back from the tortured face before him, as he stopped and looked close at it for the first time.

  For the moment, Midwinter was incapable of answering. The hysterical paroxysm was passing from one extreme to the other. He leaned against a tree, sobbing and gasping for breath, and stretched out his hand in mute entreaty to Allan to give him time.

  ‘You had better not have nursed me through my fever,’ he said faintly, as soon as he could speak. ‘I’m mad and miserable, Allan – I have never recovered it. Go back, and ask them to forgive me; I am ashamed to go and ask them myself. I can’t tell how it happened – I can only ask your pardon and theirs.’ He turned aside his head quickly so as to conceal his face. ‘Don’t stop here,’ he said; ‘don’t look at me – I shall soon get over it.’ Allan still hesitated, and begged hard to be allowed to take him back to the house. It was useless. ‘You break my heart with your kindness,’ he burst out passionately. ‘For God’s sake leave me by myself!’

  Allan went back to the cottage, and pleaded there for indulgence to Midwinter, with an earnestness and simplicity which raised him immensely in the major’s estimation, but which totally failed to produce the same favourable impression on Miss Milroy. Little as she herself suspected it, she was fond enough of Allan already to be jealous of Allan’s friend.

  ‘How excessively absurd!’ she thought, pettishly. ‘As if either papa or I considered such a person of the slightest consequence!’

  ‘You will kindly suspend your opinion, won’t you, Major Milroy?’ said Allan, in his hearty way, at parting.

  ‘With the greatest pleasure!’ replied the major, cordially shaking hands.

  ‘And you, too, Miss Milroy?’ added Allan.

  Miss Milroy made a mercilessly formal bow. ‘My opinion, Mr Armadale, is not of the slightest consequence.’

  Allan left the cottage, sorely puzzled to account for Miss Milroy’s sudden coolness towards him. His grand idea of conciliating the whole neighbourhood by becoming a married man, underwent some modification as he closed the garden-gate behind him. The virtue called Prudence and the Squire of Thorpe-Ambrose became personally acquainted with each other, on this occasion, for the first time; and Allan, entering headlong as usual on the high-road to moral improvement, actually decided on doing nothing in a hurry!

  A man who is entering on a course of reformation ought, if virtue is its own reward, to be a man engaged in an essentially inspiriting pursuit. But virtue is not always its own reward; and the way that leads to reformation is remarkably ill-lighted for so respectable a thoroughfare. Allan seemed to have caught the infection of his friend’s despondency. As he walked home, he, too, began to doubt – in his widely-different way, and for his widely-different reasons – whether the life at Thorpe-Ambrose was promising quite as fairly for the future as it had promised at first.

  CHAPTER VII

  THE PLOT THICKENS

  Two messages were waiting for Allan when he returned to the house. One had been left by Midwinter. ‘He had gone out for a long walk, and Mr Armadale was not to be alarmed if he did not get back till late in the day.’ The other message had been left by ‘a person from Mr Pedgift’s office’, who had called, according to appointment, while the two gentlemen were away at the major’s. ‘Mr Bashwood’s respects, and he would have the honour of waiting on Mr Armadale again, in the course of the evening.’

  Towards five o’clock, Midwinter returned, pale and silent. Allan hastened to assure him that his peace was made at the cottage; and then, to change the subject, mentioned Mr Bashwood’s message. Midwinter’s mind was so pre-occupied or so languid, that he hardly seemed to remember the name. Allan was obliged to remind him that Bashwood was the elderly clerk, whom Mr Pedgift had sent to be his instructor in the duties of the steward’s office. He listened without making any remark, and withdrew to his room, to rest till dinner-time.

  Left by himself, Allan went into the library, to try if he could while away the time over a book. He took many volumes off the shelves, and put a few of them back again – and there he ended. Miss Milroy contrived in some mysterious manner to get, in this case, between the reader and the books. Her formal bow, and her merciless parting speech, dwelt, try how he might to forget them, on Allan’s mind; he began to grow more and more anxious as the idle hour wore on, to recover his lost place in her favour. To call again that day at the cottage, and ask if he had been so unfortunate as to offend her, was impossible. To put the question in writing with the needful nicety of expression, proved, on trying the experiment, to be a task beyond his literary reach. After a turn or two up and down the room, with his pen in his mouth, he decided on the more diplomatic course (which happened, in this case, to be the easiest course too), of writing to Miss Milroy as cordially as if nothing had happened, and of testing his position in her good graces by the answer that she sent him back. An invitation of some kind (including her father, of course, but addressed directly to herself) was plainly the right thing to oblige her to send a written reply – but here the difficulty occurred of what the invitation was to be. A ball was not to be thought of, in his present position with the resident gentry. A dinner-party, with no indispensable elderly lady on the premises to receive Miss Milroy – except Mrs Gripper, who could only receive her in the kitchen – was equally out of the question. What was the invitation to be? Never backward, when he wanted help, in asking for it right and left in every available direction, Allan, feeling himself at the end of his own resources, coolly rang the bell, and astonished the servant who answered it, by inquiring how the late family at Thorpe-Ambrose used to amuse
themselves, and what sort of invitations they were in the habit of sending to their friends.

  ‘The family did what the rest of the gentry did, sir,’ said the man, staring at his master in utter bewilderment. ‘They gave dinner-parties and balls. And, in fine summer weather, sir, like this, they sometimes had lawn-parties and picnics—’

  ‘That’ll do!’ shouted Allan. ‘A picnic’s just the thing to please her. Richard, you’re an invaluable man – you may go downstairs again.’

  Richard retired wondering, and Richard’s master seized his ready pen.

  DEAR MISS MILROY, – Since I left you, it has suddenly struck me that we might have a picnic. A little change and amusement (what I should call a good shaking-up, if I wasn’t writing to a young lady) is just the thing for you, after being so long indoors lately in Mrs Milroy’s room. A picnic is a change, and (when the wine is good) amusement too. Will you ask the major if he will consent to the picnic, and come? And if you have got any friends in the neighbourhood who like a picnic, pray ask them too – for I have got none. It shall be your picnic, but I will provide everything and take everybody. You shall choose the day, and we will picnic where you like. I have set my heart on this picnic.