Armadale

by Wilkie Collins

  In the first place, then, I have an interest in your becoming Mrs Armadale of Thorpe-Ambrose as well as you. Secondly, I have provided you (to say nothing of good advice) with all the money needed to accomplish our object. Thirdly, I hold your notes-of-hand,1 at short dates, for every farthing so advanced. Fourthly and lastly, though I am indulgent to a fault in the capacity of a friend – in the capacity of a woman of business, my dear, I am not to be trifled with. That is all, Lydia, at least for the present.

  Pray don’t suppose I write in anger; I am only sorry and disheartened. My state of mind resembles David’s. If I had the wings of a dove,2 I would flee away and be at rest.

  Affectionately yours,

  MARIA OLDERSHAW.

  3. – From Mr Bashwood to Miss Gwilt

  Thorpe-Ambrose, July 21st.

  DEAR MADAM, – You will probably receive these lines a few hours after my yesterday’s communication reaches you. I posted my first letter last night, and I shall post this before noon today.

  My present object in writing is to give you some more news from this house. I have the inexpressible happiness of announcing that Mr Armadale’s disgraceful intrusion on your privacy is at an end. The watch set on your actions is to be withdrawn this day. I write, dear madam, with the tears in my eyes – tears of joy, caused by feelings which I ventured to express in my previous letter (see first paragraph towards the end). Pardon me this personal reference. I can speak to you (I don’t know why) so much more readily with my pen than with my tongue.

  Let me try to compose myself, and proceed with my narrative.

  I had just arrived at the steward’s office this morning, when Mr Pedgift the elder followed me to the great house to see Mr Armadale by special appointment. It is needless to say that I at once suspended any little business there was to do, feeling that your interests might possibly be concerned. It is also most gratifying to add that this time circumstances favoured me. I was able to stand under the open window, and to hear the whole interview.

  Mr Armadale explained himself at once in the plainest terms. He gave orders that the person who had been hired to watch you should be instantly dismissed. On being asked to explain this sudden change of purpose, he did not conceal that it was owing to the effect produced on his mind by what had passed between Mr Midwinter and himself on the previous day. Mr Midwinter’s language, cruelly unjust as it was, had nevertheless convinced him that no necessity whatever could excuse any proceeding so essentially base in itself as the employment of a spy, and on that conviction he was now determined to act.

  But for your own positive directions to me to conceal nothing that passes here in which your name is concerned, I should really be ashamed to report what Mr Pedgift said on his side. He has behaved kindly to me, I know. But if he was my own brother, I could never forgive him the tone in which he spoke of you, and the obstinacy with which he tried to make Mr Armadale change his mind.

  He began by attacking Mr Midwinter. He declared that Mr Midwinter’s opinion was the very worst opinion that could be taken; for it was quite plain that you, dear madam, had twisted him round your finger. Producing no effect by this coarse suggestion (which nobody who knows you could for a moment believe), Mr Pedgift next referred to Miss Milroy, and asked Mr Armadale if he had given up all idea of protecting her. What this meant I cannot imagine. I can only report it for your private consideration. Mr Armadale briefly answered that he had his own plan for protecting Miss Milroy, and that the circumstances were altered in that quarter, or words to a similar effect. Still Mr Pedgift persisted. He went on (I blush to mention) from bad to worse. He tried to persuade Mr Armadale next to bring an action at law against one or other of the persons who had been most strongly condemning his conduct in the neighbourhood, for the purpose – I really hardly know how to write it – of getting you into the witness-box. And worse yet: when Mr Armadale still said No, Mr Pedgift, after having, as I suspected by the sound of his voice, been on the point of leaving the room, artfully came back, and proposed sending for a detective officer from London, simply to look at you. ‘The whole of this mystery about Miss Gwilt’s true character,’ he said, ‘may turn on a question of identity. It won’t cost much to have a man down from London; and it’s worth trying whether her face is or is not known at head-quarters to the police.’ I again and again assure you, dearest lady, that I only repeat those abominable words from a sense of duty towards yourself. I shook – I declare I shook from head to foot when I heard them.

  To resume, for there is more to tell you.

  Mr Armadale (to his credit – I don’t deny it, though I don’t like him) still said No. He appeared to be getting irritated under Mr Pedgift’s persistence, and he spoke in a somewhat hasty way. ‘You persuaded me on the last occasion when we talked about this,’ he said, ‘to do something that I have been since heartily ashamed of. You won’t succeed in persuading me, Mr Pedgift, a second time.’ Those were his words. Mr Pedgift took him up short; Mr Pedgift seemed to be nettled on his side.

  ‘If that is the light in which you see my advice, sir,’ he said, ‘the less you have of it for the future, the better. Your character and position are publicly involved in this matter between yourself and Miss Gwilt; and you persist, at a most critical moment, in taking a course of your own, which I believe will end badly. After what I have already said and done in this very serious case, I can’t consent to go on with it with both my hands tied; and I can’t drop it with credit to myself, while I remain publicly known as your solicitor. You leave me no alternative, sir, but to resign the honour of acting as your legal adviser.’ ‘I am sorry to hear it,’ says Mr Armadale, ‘but I have suffered enough already through interfering with Miss Gwilt. I can’t and won’t stir any further in the matter.’ ‘You may not stir any further in it, sir,’ says Mr Pedgift, ‘and I shall not stir any further in it, for it has ceased to be a question of professional interest to me. But mark my words, Mr Armadale, you are not at the end of this business yet. Some other person’s curiosity may go on from the point where you (and I) have stopped, and some other person’s hand may let the broad daylight in yet on Miss Gwilt.’

  I report their language, dear madam, almost word for word, I believe, as I heard it. It produced an indescribable impression on me; it filled me, I hardly know why, with quite a panic of alarm. I don’t at all understand it, and I understand still less what happened immediately afterwards.

  Mr Pedgift’s voice, when he said those last words, sounded dreadfully close to me. He must have been speaking at the open window, and he must, I fear, have seen me under it. I had time, before he left the house, to get out quietly from among the laurels, but not to get back to the office. Accordingly I walked away along the drive towards the lodge, as if I was going on some errand connected with the steward’s business.

  Before long, Mr Pedgift overtook me in his gig, and stopped. ‘So you feel some curiosity about Miss Gwilt, do you?’ he said. ‘Gratify your curiosity by all means ‘ I don’t object to it.’ I felt naturally nervous, but I managed to ask him what he meant. He didn’t answer; he only looked down at me from the gig in a very odd manner, and laughed. ‘I have known stranger things happen even than that!’ he said to himself suddenly, and drove off.

  I have ventured to trouble you with this last incident, though it may seem of no importance in your eyes, in the hope that your superior ability may be able to explain it. My own poor faculties, I confess, are quite unable to penetrate Mr Pedgift’s meaning. All I know is, that he has no right to accuse me of any such impertinent feeling as curiosity in relation to a lady whom I ardently esteem and admire. I dare not put it in warmer words.

  I have only to add that I am in a position to be of continued service to you here if you wish it. Mr Armadale has just been into the office, and has told me briefly that, in Mr Midwinter’s continued absence, I am still to act as steward’s deputy till further notice. Believe me, dear madam, anxiously and devotedly yours,

  FELIX BASHWOOD.

  4.
– From Allan Armadale to the Rev. Decimus Brock

  Thorpe-Ambrose, Tuesday.

  MY DEAR MR BROCK, – I am in sad trouble. Midwinter has quarrelled with me and left me; and my lawyer has quarrelled with me and left me; and (except dear little Miss Milroy, who has forgiven me) all the neighbours have turned their backs on me. There is a good deal about ‘me’ in this, but I can’t help it. I am very miserable alone in my own house. Do pray come and see me! You are the only old friend I have left, and I do long so to tell you about it. N.B. – On my word of honour as a gentleman, I am not to blame. Yours affectionately,

  ALLAN ARMADALE.

  P.S. – I would come to you (for this place is grown quite hateful to me), but I have a reason for not going too far away from Miss Milroy just at present.

  5. – From Robert Stapleton to Allan Armadale, Esq.

  Boscombe Rectory, Thursday Morning.

  RESPECTED SIR, – I see a letter in your writing, on the table along with the others, which I am sorry to say my master is not well enough to open. He is down with a sort of low fever. The doctor says it has been brought on with worry and anxiety, which master was not strong enough to bear. This seems likely; for I was with him when he went to London last month, and what with his own business, and the business of looking after that person who afterwards gave us the slip, he was worried and anxious all the time; and for the matter of that, so was I.

  My master was talking of you a day or two since. He seemed unwilling that you should know of his illness, unless he got worse. But I think you ought to know of it. At the same time he is not worse – perhaps a trifle better. The doctor says he must be kept very quiet, and not agitated on any account. So be pleased to take no notice of this – I mean in the way of coming to the rectory. I have the doctor’s orders to say it is not needful, and it would only upset my master in the state he is in now.

  I will write again if you wish it. Please accept of my duty, and believe me to remain, sir, your humble servant,

  ROBERT STAPLETON.

  P.S. – The yacht has been rigged and repainted, waiting your orders. She looks beautiful.

  6. – From Mrs Oldershaw to Miss Gwilt

  Diana Street, July 24th.

  MISS GWILT, – The post-hour has passed for three mornings following, and has brought me no answer to my letter. Are you purposely bent on insulting me? or have you left Thorpe-Ambrose? In either case, I won’t put up with your conduct any longer. The law shall bring you to book, if I can’t.

  Your first note-of-hand (for thirty pounds) falls due on Tuesday next, the 29th. If you had behaved with common consideration towards me, I would have let you renew it with pleasure. As things are, I shall have the note presented; and, if it is not paid, I shall instruct my man of business to take the usual course.

  Yours,

  MARIA OLDERSHAW.

  7. –From Miss Gwilt to Mrs Oldershaw

  5, Paradise Place, Thorpe-Ambrose, July 25th.

  MRS OLDERSHAW, – The time of your man of business being, no doubt, of some value, I write a line to assist him when he takes the usual course. He will find me waiting to be arrested in the first-floor apartments, at the above address. In my present situation, and with my present thoughts, the best service you can possibly render me is to lock me up.

  L.G.

  8. – From Mrs Oldershaw to Miss Gwilt

  Diana Street, July 26th.

  MY DARLING LYDIA, – The longer I live in this wicked world the more plainly I see that women’s own tempers are the worst enemies women have to contend with. What a truly regrettable style of correspondence we have fallen into! What a sad want of self-restraint, my dear, on your side and on mine!

  Let me, as the oldest in years, be the first to make the needful excuses, the first to blush for my own want of self-control. Your cruel neglect Lydia, stung me into writing as I did. I am so sensitive to ill-treatment, when it is inflicted on me by a person whom I love and admire – and, though turned sixty, I am still (unfortunately for myself) so young at heart. Accept my apologies for having made use of my pen, when I ought to have been content to take refuge in my pocket-handkerchief. Forgive your attached Maria for being still young at heart!

  But oh, my dear – though I own I threatened you – how hard of you to take me at my word! How cruel of you, if your debt had been ten times what it is, to suppose me capable (whatever I might say) of the odious inhumanity of arresting my bosom friend! Heavens! have I deserved to be taken at my word in this unmercifully exact way, after the years of tender intimacy that have united us? But I don’t complain; I only mourn over the frailty of our common human nature. Let us expect as little of each other as possible, my dear; we are both women, and we can’t help it. I declare, when I reflect on the origin of our unfortunate sex – when I remember that we were all originally made of no better material than the rib of a man (and that rib of so little importance to its possessor that he never appears to have missed it afterwards), I am quite astonished at our virtues, and not in the least surprised at our faults.

  I am wandering a little; I am losing myself in serious thought, like that sweet character in Shakspeare who was ‘fancy free’.3 One last word, dearest, to say that my longing for an answer to this proceeds entirely from my wish to hear from you again in your old friendly tone, and is quite unconnected with any curiosity to know what you are doing at Thorpe-Ambrose – except such curiosity as you yourself might approve. Need I add that I beg you as a favour to me, to renew, on the customary terms? I refer to the little bill due on Tuesday next, and I venture to suggest that day six weeks.

  Yours, with a truly motherly feeling,

  MARIA OLDERSHAW.

  9. – From Miss Gwilt to Mrs Oldershaw

  Paradise Place, July 27th.

  I HAVE just got your last letter. The brazen impudence of it has roused me. I am to be treated like a child, am I? – to be threatened first, and then, if threatening fails, to be coaxed afterwards? You shall coax me; you shall know, my motherly friend, the sort of child you have to deal with.

  I had a reason, Mrs Oldershaw, for the silence which has so seriously offended you. I was afraid – yes, actually afraid – to let you into the secret of my thoughts. No such fear troubles me now. My only anxiety this morning is to make you my best acknowledgments for the manner in which you have written to me. After carefully considering it, I think the worst turn I can possibly do you, is to tell you what you are burning to know. So here I am at my desk, bent on telling it. You shall hear what has happened at Thorpe-Ambrose – you shall see my thoughts as plainly as I see them myself. If you don’t bitterly repent, when you are at the end of this letter, not having held to your first resolution, and locked me up out of harm’s way while you had the chance, my name is not Lydia Gwilt.

  Where did my last letter end? I don’t remember, and don’t care. Make it out as you can – I am not going back any further than this day week. That is to say, Sunday last.

  There was a thunderstorm in the morning. It began to clear off towards noon. I didn’t go out – I waited to see Midwinter or to hear from him. (Are you surprised at my not writing ‘Mr’ before his name? We have got so familiar, my dear, that ‘Mr’ would be quite out of place.) He had left me the evening before, under very interesting circumstances. I had told him that his friend, Armadale, was persecuting me by means of a hired spy. He had declined to believe it, and had gone straight to Thorpe-Ambrose to clear the thing up. I had let him kiss my hand before he went. He had promised to come back the next day (the Sunday). I felt I had secured my influence over him; and I believed he would keep his word.

  Well, the thunder passed away as I told you. The weather cleared up; the people walked out in their best clothes; the dinners came in from the baker’s; I sat dreaming at my wretched little hired piano, nicely dressed and looking my best – and still no Midwinter appeared. It was late in the afternoon, and I was beginning to feel offended, when a letter was brought to me. It had been left by a strange messenger who went awa
y again immediately. I looked at the letter. Midwinter at last – in writing, instead of in person. I began to feel more offended than ever – for, as I told you, I thought I had used my influence over him to better purpose.

  The letter, when I read it, set my mind off in a new direction. It surprised, it puzzled, it interested me. I thought, and thought, and thought of him, all the rest of the day.

  He began by asking my pardon for having doubted what I told him. Mr Armadale’s own lips had confirmed me. They had quarrelled (as I had anticipated they would) – and he, and the man who had once been his dearest friend on earth, had parted for ever. So far, I was not surprised. I was amused by his telling me in his extravagant way that he and his friend were parted for ever; and I rather wondered what he would think when I carried out my plan, and found my way into the great house on pretence of reconciling them.

  But the second part of the letter set me thinking. Here it is, in his own words.

  ‘It is only by struggling against myself (and no language can say how hard the struggle has been) that I have decided on writing, instead of speaking to you. A merciless necessity claims my future life. I must leave Thorpe-Ambrose, I must leave England, without hesitating, without stopping to look back. There are reasons – terrible reasons, which I have madly trifled with – for my never letting Mr Armadale set eyes on me, or hear of me again, after what has happened between us. I must go, never more to live under the same roof, never more to breathe the same air with that man. I must hide myself from him, under an assumed name; I must put the mountains and the seas between us. I have been warned as no human creature was ever warned before. I believe – I dare not tell you why – I believe that if the fascination you have for me draws me back to you, fatal consequences will come of it to the man whose life has been so strangely mingled with your life and mine – the man who was once your admirer and my friend. And yet, feeling this, seeing it in my mind as plainly as I see the sky above my head, there is a weakness in me that still shrinks from the one imperative sacrifice of never seeing you again. I am fighting with it as a man fights with the strength of his despair. I have been near enough, not an hour since, to see the house where you live, and have forced myself away again out of sight of it. Can I force myself away farther still, now that my letter is written – now, when the useless confession escapes me, and I own to loving you with the first love I have ever known, with the last love I shall ever feel? Let the coming time answer the question; I dare not write of it or think of it more.’