SHE COMES BETWEEN THEM.
Appointed hours for the various domestic events of the day were
things unknown at Thorpe Ambrose. Irregular in all his habits,
Allan accommodated himself to no stated times (with the solitary
exception of dinner-time) at any hour of the day or night. He
retired to rest early or late, and he rose early or late, exactly
as he felt inclined. The servants were forbidden to call him;
and Mrs. Gripper was accustomed to improvise the breakfast as she
best might, from the time when the kitchen fire was first lighted
to the time when the clock stood on the stroke of noon.
Toward nine o'clock on the morning after his return Midwinter
knocked at Allan's door, and on entering the room found it empty.
After inquiry among the servants, it appeared that Allan had
risen that morning before the man who usually attended on him was
up, and that his hot water had been brought to the door by one of
the house-maids, who was then still in ignorance of Midwinter's
return. Nobody had chanced to see the master, either on the
stairs or in the hall; nobody had heard him ring the bell for
breakfast, as usual. In brief, nobody knew anything about him,
except what was obviously clear to all--that he was not in the
house.
Midwinter went out under the great portico. He stood at the head
of the flight of steps considering in which direction he should
set forth to look for his friend. Allan's unexpected absence
added one more to the disquieting influences which still
perplexed his mind. He was in the mood in which trifles irritate
a man, and fancies are all-powerful to exalt or depress his
spirits.
The sky was cloudy; and the wind blew in puffs from the south;
there was every prospect, to weather-wise eyes, of coming rain.
While Midwinter was still hesitating, one of the grooms passed
him on the drive below. The man proved, on being questioned, to
be better informed about his master's movements than the servants
indoors. He had seen Allan pass the stables more than an hour
since, going out by the back way into the park with a nosegay
in his hand.
A nosegay in his hand? The nosegay hung incomprehensibly on
Midwinter's mind as he walked round, on the chance of meeting
Allan, to the back of the house. "What does the nosegay mean?"
he asked himself, with an unintelligible sense of irritation,
and a petulant kick at a stone that stood in his way.
It meant that Allan had been following his impulses as usual.
The one pleasant impression left on his mind after his interview
with Pedgift Senior was the impression made by the lawyer's
account of his conversation with Neelie in the park. The anxiety
that he should not misjudge her, which the major's daughter had
so earnestly expressed, placed her before Allan's eyes in an
irresistibly attractive character--the character of the one
person among all his neighbors who had some respect still left
for his good opinion. Acutely sensible of his social isolation,
now that there was no Midwinter to keep him company in the empty
house, hungering and thirsting in his solitude for a kind word
and a friendly look, he began to think more and more regretfully
and more and more longingly of the bright young face so
pleasantly associated with his first happiest days at Thorpe
Ambrose. To be conscious of such a feeling as this was, with a
character like Allan's, to act on it headlong, lead him where it
might. He had gone out on the previous morning to look for Neelie
with a peace-offering of flowers, but with no very distinct idea
of what he should say to her if they met; and failing to find her
on the scene of her customary walks, he had characteristically
persisted the next morning in making a second attempt with
another peace-offering on a larger scale. Still ignorant of
his friend's return, he was now at some distance from the house,
searching the park in a direction which he had not tried yet.
After walking out a few hundred yards beyond the stables, and
failing to discover any signs of Allan, Midwinter retraced his
steps, and waited for his friend's return, pacing slowly to and
fro on the little strip of garden ground at the back of the
house.
From time to time, as he passed it, he looked in absently at
the room which had formerly been Mrs. Armadale's, which was now
(through his interposition) habitually occupied by her son--the
room with the Statuette on the bracket, and the French windows
opening to the ground, which had once recalled to him the Second
Vision of the Dream. The Shadow of the Man, which Allan had seen
standing opposite to him at the long window; the view over a lawn
and flower-garden; the pattering of the rain against the glass;
the stretching out of the Shadow's arm, and the fall of the
statue in fragments on the floor--these objects and events of the
visionary scene, so vividly present to his memory once, were all
superseded by later remembrances now, were all left to fade as
they might in the dim background of time. He could pass the room
again and again, alone and anxious, and never once think of the
boat drifting away in the moonlight, and the night's imprisonment
on the Wrecked Ship!
Toward ten o'clock the well-remembered sound of Allan's voice
became suddenly audible in the direction of the stables. In a
moment more he was visible from the garden. His second morning's
search for Neelie had ended to all appearance in a second defeat
of his object. The nosegay was still in his hand; and he was
resignedly making a present of it to one of the coachman's
children.
Midwinter impulsively took a step forward toward the stables, and
abruptly checked his further progress.
Conscious that his position toward his friend was altered already
in relation to Miss Gwilt, the first sight of Allan filled his
mind with a sudden distrust of the governess's influence over
him, which was almost a distrust of himself. He knew that he had
set forth from the moors on his return to Thorpe Ambrose with the
resolution of acknowledging the passion that had mastered him,
and of insisting, if necessary, on a second and a longer absence
in the interests of the sacrifice which he was bent on making to
the happiness of his friend. What had become of that resolution
now? The discovery of Miss Gwilt's altered position, and the
declaration that she had voluntarily made of her indifference to
Allan, had scattered it to the winds. The first words with which
he would have met his friend, if nothing had happened to him
on the homeward way, were words already dismissed from his lips.
He drew back as he felt it, and struggled, with an instinctive
loyalty toward Allan, to free himself at the last moment from
the influence of Miss Gwilt.
Having disposed of his useless nosegay, Allan passed on into the
garden, and the instant he entered it recognized Midwinter with
a loud cry of surprise and delight.
"Am I awake or dreaming?" he exclaimed, seizing his friend
excitably by both hands." You dear old Midwinter, have you sprung
up out of the ground, or have you dropped from the clouds?"
It was not till Midwinter had explained the mystery of his
unexpected appearance in every particular that Allan could be
prevailed on to say a word about himself. When he did speak,
he shook his head ruefully, and subdued the hearty loudness of
his voice, with a preliminary look round to see if the servants
were within hearing.
"I've learned to be cautious since you went away and left me,"
said Allan. "My dear fellow, you haven't the least notion what
things have happened, and what an awful scrape I'm in at this
very moment!"
"You are mistaken, Allan. I have heard more of what has happened
than you suppose."
"What! the dreadful mess I'm in with Miss Gwilt? the row with
the major? the infernal scandal-mongering in the neighborhood?
You don't mean to say--?"
"Yes," interposed Midwinter, quietly; "I have heard of it all."
"Good heavens! how? Did you stop at Thorpe Ambrose on your way
back? Have you been in the coffee-room at the hotel? Have you met
Pedgift? Have you dropped into the Reading Rooms, and seen what
they call the freedom of the press in the town newspaper?"
Midwinter paused before he answered, and looked up at the sky.
The clouds had been gathering unnoticed over their heads, and
the first rain-drops were beginning to fall.
"Come in here," said Allan. "We'll go up to breakfast this way."
He led Midwinter through the open French window into his own
sitting-room. The wind blew toward that side of the house, and
the rain followed them in. Midwinter, who was last, turned and
closed the window.
Allan was too eager for the answer which the weather had
interrupted to wait for it till they reached the breakfast-room.
He stopped close at the window, and added two more to his string
of questions.
"How can you possibly have heard about me and Miss Gwilt?" he
asked. "Who told you?"
"Miss Gwilt herself," replied Midwinter, gravely.
Allan's manner changed the moment the governess's name passed
his friend's lips.
"I wish you had heard my story first," he said. "Where did you
meet with Miss Gwilt?"
There was a momentary pause. They both stood still at the window,
absorbed in the interest of the moment. They both forgot that
their contemplated place of shelter from the rain had been the
breakfast-room upstairs.
"Before I answer your question," said Midwinter, a little
constrainedly, "I want to ask you something, Allan, on my side.
Is it really true that you are in some way concerned in Miss
Gwilt's leaving Major Milroy's service?"
There was another pause. The disturbance which had begun to
appear in Allan's manner palpably increased.
"It's rather a long story," he began. "I have been taken in,
Midwinter. I've been imposed on by a person, who--I can't help
saying it--who cheated me into promising what I oughtn't to have
promised, and doing what I had better not have done. It isn't
breaking my promise to tell you. I can trust in your discretion,
can't I? You will never say a word, will you?"
"Stop!" said Midwinter. "Don't trust me with any secrets which
are not your own. If you have given a promise, don't trifle with
it, even in speaking to such an intimate friend as I am." He laid
his hand gently and kindly on Allan's shoulder. "I can't help
seeing that I have made you a little uncomfortable," he went on.
"I can't help seeing that my question is not so easy a one to
answer as I had hoped and supposed. Shall we wait a little? Shall
we go upstairs and breakfast first?"
Allan was far too earnestly bent on presenting his conduct to
his friend in the right aspect to heed Midwinter's suggestion.
He spoke eagerly on the instant, without moving from the window.
"My dear fellow, it's a perfectly easy question to answer.
Only"--he hesitated--"only it requires what I'm a bad hand at:
it requires an explanation."
"Do you mean," asked Midwinter, more seriously, but not less
gently than before, "that you must first justify yourself, and
then answer my question?"
"That's it!" said Allan, with an air of relief. "You're hit
the right nail on the head, just as usual."
Midwinter's face darkened for the first time. "I am sorry to hear
it," he said, his voice sinking low, and his eyes dropping to the
ground as he spoke.
The rain was beginning to fall thickly. It swept across the
garden, straight on the closed windows, and pattered heavily
against the glass.
"Sorry!" repeated Allan. "My dear fellow, you haven't heard the
particulars yet. Wait till I explain the thing first."
"You are a bad hand at explanations," said Midwinter, repeating
Allan's own words. "Don't place yourself at a disadvantage. Don't
explain it."
Allan looked at him, in silent perplexity and surprise.
"You are my friend--my best and dearest friend," Midwinter went
on. "I can't bear to let you justify yourself to me as if I was
your judge, or as if I doubted you." He looked up again at Allan
frankly and kindly as he said those words. "Besides," he resumed,
"I think, if I look into my memory, I can anticipate your
explanation. We had a moment's talk, before I went away, about
some very delicate questions which you proposed putting to Major
Milroy. I remember I warned you; I remember I had my misgivings.
Should I be guessing right if I guessed that those questions have
been in some way the means of leading you into a false position?
If it is true that you have been concerned in Miss Gwilt's
leaving her situation, is it also true--is it only doing you
justice to believe--that any mischief for which you are
responsible has been mischief innocently done?"
"Yes," said Allan, speaking, for the first time, a little
constrainedly on his side. "It is only doing me justice to say
that." He stopped and began drawing lines absently with his
finger on the blurred surface of the window-pane. "You're not
like other people, Midwinter," he resumed, suddenly, with an
effort; "and I should have liked you to have heard the
particulars all the same."
"I will hear them if you desire it," returned Midwinter. "But I
am satisfied, without another word, that you have not willingly
been the means of depriving Miss Gwilt of her situation. If that
is understood between you and me, I think we need say no more.
Besides, I have another question to ask, of much greater
importance--a question that has been forced on me by what I saw
with my own eyes, and heard with my own ears, last night."
He stopped, recoiling in spite of himself. "Shall we go upstairs
first?" he asked, abruptly, leading the way to the door, and
trying to gain time.
It was useless. Once again, the room which they were both free
to leave, the room which one of them had twice tried to leave
already, held them as if they were prisoners.
Without answering, without even appearing to have heard
Midwinter's proposal to go upstairs, Allan followed him
mechanically as far as the opposite side of the window. There
he stopped. "Midwinter!" he burst out, in a sudden panic of
astonishment and alarm, "there seems to be something strange
between us! You're not like yourself. What is it?"
With his hand on the lock of the door, Midwinter turned, and
looked back into the room. The moment had come. His haunting fear
of doing his friend an injustice had shown itself in a restraint
of word, look, and action which had been marked enough to force
its way to Allan's notice. The one course left now, in the
dearest interests of the friendship that united them, was to
speak at once, and to speak boldly.
"There's something strange between us," reiterated Allan. "For
God's sake, what is it?"
Midwinter took his hand from the door, and came down again to
the window, fronting Allan. He occupied the place, of necessity,
which Allan had just left. It was the side of the window on which
the Statuette stood. The little figure, placed on its projecting
bracket, was, close behind him on his right hand. No signs of
change appeared in the stormy sky. The rain still swept slanting
across the garden, and pattered heavily against the glass.
"Give me your hand, Allan."
Allan gave it, and Midwinter held it firmly while he spoke.
"There is something strange between us," he said. "There is
something to be set right which touches you nearly; and it has
not been set right yet. You asked me just now where I met with
Miss Gwilt. I met with her on my way back here, upon the
high-road on the further side of the town. She entreated me to
protect her from a man who was following and frightening her. I
saw the scoundrel with my own eyes, and I should have laid hands
on him, if Miss Gwilt herself had not stopped me. She gave a very
strange reason for stopping me. She said I didn't know who his
employer was."
Allan's ruddy color suddenly deepened; he looked aside quickly
through the window at the pouring rain. At the same moment their
hands fell apart, and there was a pause of silence on either
side. Midwinter was the first to speak again.
"Later in the evening," he went on, "Miss Gwilt explained
herself. She told me two things. She declared that the man whom
I had seen following her was a hired spy. I was surprised, but
I could not dispute it. She told me next, Allan--what I believe
with my whole heart and soul to be a falsehood which has been
imposed on her as the truth--she told me that the spy was in your
employment!"
Allan turned instantly from the window, and looked Midwinter full
in the face again. "I must explain myself this time," he said,
resolutely.
The ashy paleness peculiar to him in moments of strong emotion
began to show itself on Midwinter's cheeks.
"More explanations!" he said, and drew back a step, with his eyes
fixed in a sudden terror of inquiry on Allan's face.
"You don't know what I know, Midwinter. You don't know that what
I have done has been done with a good reason. And what is more,
I have not trusted to myself--I have had good advice."
"Did you hear what I said just now?" asked Midwinter,
incredulously. "You can't--surely, you can't have been attending
to me?"
"I haven't missed a word," rejoined Allan. "I tell you again, you
don't know what I know of Miss Gwilt. She has threatened Miss
Milroy. Miss Milroy is in danger while her governess stops in
this neighborhood."
Midwinter dismissed the major's daughter from the conversation
with a contemptuous gesture of his hand.
"I don't want to hear about Miss, Milroy," he said. "Don't mix up
Miss Milroy-- Good God, Allan, am I to understand that the spy
set to watch Miss Gwilt was doing his vile work with your
approval?"
"Once for all, my dear fellow, will you, or will you not, let me
explain?"
"Explain!" cried Midwinter, his eyes aflame, and his hot Creole
blood rushing crimson into his face. "Explain the employment of a
spy? What! after having driven Miss Gwilt out of her situation by
meddling with her private affairs, you meddle again by the vilest
of all means--the means of a paid spy? You set a watch on the
woman whom you yourself told me you loved, only a fortnight
since--the woman you were thinking of as your wife! I don't
believe it; I won't believe it. Is my head failing me? Is it
Allan Armadale I am speaking to? Is it Allan Armadale's face
looking at me? Stop! you are acting under some mistaken scruple.
Some low fellow has crept into your confidence, and has done this
in your name without telling you first."
Allan controlled himself with admirable patience and admirable
consideration for the temper of his friend. "If you persist in
refusing to hear me," he said, "I must wait as well as I can till
my turn comes."
"Tell me you are a stranger to the employment of that man, and
I will hear you willingly."
"Suppose there should be a necessity, that you know nothing
about, for employing him?"
"I acknowledge no necessity for the cowardly persecution of
a helpless woman."
A momentary flush of irritation--momentary, and no more--passed
over Allan's face. "You mightn't think her quite so helpless,"
he said, "if you knew the truth."
"Are _you_ the man to tell me the truth?" retorted the other.
"You who have refused to hear her in her own defense! You who
have closed the doors of this house against her!"
Allan still controlled himself, but the effort began at last
to be visible.
"I know your temper is a hot one," he said. "But for all that,
your violence quite takes me by surprise. I can't account for it,
unless"--he hesitated a moment, and then finished the sentence
in his usual frank, outspoken way--"unless you are sweet yourself
on Miss Gwilt."
Those last words heaped fuel on the fire. They stripped the truth
instantly of all concealments and disguises, and laid it bare
to view. Allan's instinct had guessed, and the guiding influence
stood revealed of Midwinter's interest in Miss Gwilt.
"What right have you to say that?" he asked, with raised voice
and threatening eyes.
"I told _you_," said Allan, simply, "when I thought I was sweet
on her myself. Come! come! it's a little hard, I think, even if
you are in love with her, to believe everything she tells you,
and not to let me say a word. Is _that_ the way you decide
between us?"
"Yes, it is!" cried the other, infuriated by Allan's second
allusion to Miss Gwilt. "When I am asked to choose between
the employer of a spy and the victim of a spy, I side with
the victim!"
"Don't try me too hard, Midwinter, I have a temper to lose
as well as you."
He stopped, struggling with himself. The torture of passion
in Midwinter's face, from which a less simple and less generous
nature might have recoiled in horror, touched Allan suddenly with
an artless distress, which, at that moment, was little less than
sublime. He advanced, with his eyes moistening, and his hand held
out. "You asked me for my hand just now," he said, "and I gave it
you. Will you remember old times, and give me yours, before it's
too late?"
"No!" retorted Midwinter, furiously. "I may meet Miss Gwilt
again, and I may want my hand free to deal with your spy!"
He had drawn back along the wall as Allan advanced, until the
bracket which supported the Statuette was before instead of
behind him. In the madness of his passion he saw nothing but
Allan's face confronting him. In the madness of his passion,
he stretched out his right hand as he answered, and shook it
threateningly in the air. It struck the forgotten projection of
the bracket--and the next instant the Statuette lay in fragments
on the floor.
The rain drove slanting over flower-bed and lawn, and pattered
heavily against the glass; and the two Armadales stood by the
window, as the two Shadows had stood in the Second Vision of
the Dream, with the wreck of the image between them.
Allan stooped over the fragments of the little figure, and lifted
them one by one from the floor.
"Leave me," he said, without looking up, "or we shall both repent
it."
Without a word, Midwinter moved back slowly. He stood for the
second time with his hand on the door, and looked his last at the
room. The horror of the night on the Wreck had got him once more,
and the flame of his passion was quenched in an instant.
"The Dream!" he whispered, under his breath. "The Dream again!"
The door was tried from the outside, and a servant appeared with
a trivial message about the breakfast.
Midwinter looked at the man with a blank, dreadful helplessness
in his face. "Show me the way out," he said. "The place is dark,
and the room turns round with me."
The servant took him by the arm, and silently led him out.
As the door closed on them, Allan picked up the last fragment
of the broken figure. He sat down alone at the table, and hid
his face in his hands. The self-control which he had bravely
preserved under exasperation renewed again and again now failed
him at last in the friendless solitude of his room, and, in the
first bitterness of feeling that Midwinter had turned against him
like the rest, he burst into tears.
The moments followed each other, the slow time wore on. Little
by little the signs of a new elemental disturbance began to show
themselves in the summer storm. The shadow of a swiftly deepening
darkness swept over the sky. The pattering of the rain lessened
with the lessening wind. There was a momentary hush of stillness.
Then on a sudden the rain poured down again like a cataract, and
the low roll of thunder came up solemnly on the dying air.