_Chronicle for June_.
_9th_.--I returned yesterday with my information. Here it is, privately
noted down for convenience of future reference:
Mr. Noel Vanstone has left Brighton, and has removed, for the purpose of
transacting business in London, to one of his late father's empty houses
in Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth. This singularly mean selection of a place of
residence on the part of a gentleman of fortune looks as if Mr. N. V.
and his money were not easily parted.
Mr. Noel Vanstone has stepped into his father's shoes under the
following circumstances: Mr. Michael Vanstone appears to have died,
curiously enough, as Mr. Andrew Vanstone died--intestate. With this
difference, however, in the two cases, that the younger brother left an
informal will, and the elder brother left no will at all. The hardest
men have their weaknesses; and Mr. Michael Vanstone's weakness seems to
have been an insurmountable horror of contemplating the event of his
own death. His son, his housekeeper, and his lawyer, had all three tried
over and over again to get him to make a will; and had never shaken his
obstinate resolution to put off performing the only business duty he
was ever known to neglect. Two doctors attended him in his last illness;
warned him that he was too old a man to hope to get over it; and warned
him in vain. He announced his own positive determination not to die. His
last words in this world (as I succeeded in discovering from the nurse
who assisted Mrs. Lecount) were: "I'm getting better every minute; send
for the fly directly and take me out for a drive." The same night Death
proved to be the more obstinate of the two; and left his son (and only
child) to take the property in due course of law. Nobody doubts that the
result would have been the same if a will had been made. The father and
son had every confidence in each other, and were known to have always
lived together on the most friendly terms.
Mrs. Lecount remains with Mr. Noel Vanstone, in the same housekeeping
capacity which she filled with his father, and has accompanied him to
the new residence in Vauxhall Walk. She is acknowledged on all hands
to have been a sufferer by the turn events have taken. If Mr. Michael
Vanstone had made his will, there is no doubt she would have received a
handsome legacy. She is now left dependent on Mr. Noel Vanstone's sense
of gratitude; and she is not at all likely, I should imagine, to let
that sense fall asleep for want of a little timely jogging. Whether my
fair relative's future intentions in this quarter point toward Mischief
or Money, is more than I can yet say. In either case, I venture to
predict that she will find an awkward obstacle in Mrs. Lecount.
So much for my information to the present date. The manner in which it
was received by Miss Vanstone showed the most ungrateful distrust of me.
She confided nothing to my private ear but the expression of her best
thanks. A sharp girl--a devilish sharp girl. But there is such a thing
as bowling a man out once too often; especially when the name of that
man happens to be Wragge.
Not a word more about the Entertainment; not a word more about moving
from our present quarters. Very good. My right hand lays my left hand
a wager. Ten to one, on her opening communications with the son as she
opened them with the father. Ten to one, on her writing to Noel Vanstone
before the month is out.
_21st_.--She has written by to-day's post. A long letter,
apparently--for she put two stamps on the envelope. (Private memorandum,
addressed to myself. Wait for the answer.)
_22d, 23d, 24th._--(Private memorandum continued. Wait for the answer.)
_25th._--The answer has come. As an ex-military man, I have naturally
employed stratagem to get at it. The success which rewards all genuine
perseverance has rewarded me--and I have got at it accordingly.
The letter is written, not by Mr. Noel Vanstone, but by Mrs. Lecount.
She takes the highest moral ground, in a tone of spiteful politeness.
Mr. Noel Vanstone's delicate health and recent bereavement prevent
him from writing himself. Any more letters from Miss Vanstone will be
returned unopened. Any personal application will produce an immediate
appeal to the protection of the law. Mr. Noel Vanstone, having been
expressly cautioned against Miss Magdalen Vanstone by his late lamented
father, has not yet forgotten his father's advice. Considers it a
reflection cast on the memory of the best of men, to suppose that his
course of action toward the Misses Vanstone can be other than the
course of action which his father pursued. This is what he has himself
instructed Mrs. Lecount to say. She has endeavored to express herself in
the most conciliatory language she could select; she had tried to avoid
giving unnecessary pain, by addressing Miss Vanstone (as a matter of
courtesy) by the family name; and she trusts these concessions, which
speak for themselves, will not be thrown away.--Such is the substance of
the letter, and so it ends.
I draw two conclusions from this little document. First--that it will
lead to serious results. Secondly--that Mrs. Lecount, with all her
politeness, is a dangerous woman to deal with. I wish I saw my way safe
before me. I don't see it yet.
_29th._--Miss Vanstone has abandoned my protection; and the whole
lucrative future of the dramatic entertainment has abandoned me with
her. I am swindled--I, the last man under heaven who could possibly have
expected to write in those disgraceful terms of myself--I AM SWINDLED!
Let me chronicle the events. They exhibit me, for the time being, in a
sadly helpless point of view. But the nature of the man prevails: I must
have the events down in black and white.
The announcement of her approaching departure was intimated to me
yesterday. After another civil speech about the information I had
procured at Brighton, she hinted that there was a necessity for pushing
our inquiries a little further. I immediately offered to undertake them,
as before. "No," she said; "they are not in your way this time. They are
inquiries relating to a woman; and I mean to make them myself!" Feeling
privately convinced that this new resolution pointed straight at Mrs.
Lecount, I tried a few innocent questions on the subject. She quietly
declined to answer them. I asked next when she proposed to leave. She
would leave on the twenty-eighth. For what destination? London. For
long? Probably not. By herself? No. With me? No. With whom then? With
Mrs. Wragge, if I had no objection. Good heavens! for what possible
purpose? For the purpose of getting a respectable lodging, which she
could hardly expect to accomplish unless she was accompanied by an
elderly female friend. And was I, in the capacity of elderly male
friend, to be left out of the business altogether? Impossible to say at
present. Was I not even to forward any letters which might come for her
at our present address? No: she would make the arrangement herself at
the post-office; and she would ask me, at the same time, for an address,
at which I could receive a letter from her, in case of necessity for
future communication. Further inquiries, after this last answer, could
lead to nothing but waste of time. I saved time by putting no more
questions.
It was clear to me that our present position toward each other was what
our position had been previously to the event of Michael Vanstone's
death. I returned, as before, to my choice of alternatives. Which
way did my private interests point? Toward trusting the chance of her
wanting me again? Toward threatening her with the interference of
her relatives and friends? Or toward making the information which I
possessed a marketable commodity between the wealthy branch of the
family and myself? The last of the three was the alternative I had
chosen in the case of the father. I chose it once more in the case of
the son.
The train started for London nearly four hours since, and took her away
in it, accompanied by Mrs. Wragge.
My wife is too great a fool, poor soul, to be actively valuable in the
present emergency; but she will be passively useful in keeping up
Miss Vanstone's connection with me--and, in consideration of that
circumstance, I consent to brush my own trousers, shave my own chin, and
submit to the other inconveniences of waiting on myself for a limited
period. Any faint glimmerings of sense which Mrs. Wragge may have
formerly possessed appear to have now finally taken their leave of her.
On receiving permission to go to London, she favored us immediately
with two inquiries. Might she do some shopping? and might she leave the
cookery-book behind her? Miss Vanstone said Yes to one question, and I
said Yes to the other--and from that moment, Mrs. Wragge has existed in
a state of perpetual laughter. I am still hoarse with vainly repeated
applications of vocal stimulant; and I left her in the railway carriage,
to my inexpressible disgust, with _both_ shoes down at heel.
Under ordinary circumstances these absurd particulars would not have
dwelt on my memory. But, as matters actually stand, my unfortunate
wife's imbecility may, in her present position, lead to consequences
which we none of us foresee. She is nothing more or less than a grown-up
child; and I can plainly detect that Miss Vanstone trusts her, as she
would not have trusted a sharper woman, on that very account. I know
children, little and big, rather better than my fair relative does; and
I say--beware of all forms of human innocence, when it happens to be
your interest to keep a secret to yourself.
Let me return to business. Here I am, at two o'clock on a fine summer's
afternoon, left entirely alone, to consider the safest means of
approaching Mr. Noel Vanstone on my own account. My private suspicions
of his miserly character produce no discouraging effect on me. I have
extracted cheering pecuniary results in my time from people quite as
fond of their money as he can be. The real difficulty to contend with is
the obstacle of Mrs. Lecount. If I am not mistaken, this lady merits a
little serious consideration on my part. I will close my chronicle for
to-day, and give Mrs. Lecount her due.
_Three o'clock._--I open these pages again to record a discovery which
has taken me entirely by surprise.
After completing the last entry, a circumstance revived in my memory
which I had noticed on escorting the ladies this morning to the railway.
I then remarked that Miss Vanstone had only taken one of her three boxes
with her--and it now occurred to me that a private investigation of the
luggage she had left behind might possibly be attended with beneficial
results. Having, at certain periods of my life been in the habit of
cultivating friendly terms with strange locks, I found no difficulty in
establishing myself on a familiar footing with Miss Vanstone's boxes.
One of the two presented nothing to interest me. The other--devoted
to the preservation of the costumes, articles of toilet, and other
properties used in the dramatic Entertainment--proved to be better worth
examining: for it led me straight to the discovery of one of its owner's
secrets.
I found all the dresses in the box complete--with one remarkable
exception. That exception was the dress of the old north-country lady;
the character which I have already mentioned as the best of all my
pupil's disguises, and as modeled in voice and manner on her old
governess, Miss Garth. The wig; the eyebrows; the bonnet and veil; the
cloak, padded inside to disfigure her back and shoulders; the paints and
cosmetics used to age her face and alter her complexion--were all gone.
Nothing but the gown remained; a gaudily-flowered silk, useful enough
for dramatic purposes, but too extravagant in color and pattern to bear
inspection by daylight. The other parts of the dress are sufficiently
quiet to pass muster; the bonnet and veil are only old-fashioned, and
the cloak is of a sober gray color. But one plain inference can be drawn
from such a discovery as this. As certainly as I sit here, she is
going to open the campaign against Noel Vanstone and Mrs. Lecount in
a character which neither of those two persons can have any possible
reason for suspecting at the outset--the character of Miss Garth.
What course am I to take under these circumstances? Having got her
secret, what am I to do with it? These are awkward considerations; I am
rather puzzled how to deal with them.
It is something more than the mere fact of her choosing to disguise
herself to forward her own private ends that causes my present
perplexity. Hundreds of girls take fancies for disguising themselves;
and hundreds of instances of it are related year after year in the
public journals. But my ex-pupil is not to be confounded for one moment
with the average adventuress of the newspapers. She is capable of
going a long way beyond the limit of dressing herself like a man, and
imitating a man's voice and manner. She has a natural gift for assuming
characters which I have never seen equaled by a woman; and she has
performed in public until she has felt her own power, and trained her
talent for disguising herself to the highest pitch. A girl who takes the
sharpest people unawares by using such a capacity as this to help
her own objects in private life, and who sharpens that capacity by a
determination to fight her way to her own purpose, which has beaten down
everything before it, up to this time--is a girl who tries an experiment
in deception, new enough and dangerous enough to lead, one way or the
other, to very serious results. This is my conviction, founded on a
large experience in the art of imposing on my fellow-creatures. I say of
my fair relative's enterprise what I never said or thought of it till I
introduced myself to the inside of her box. The chances for and against
her winning the fight for her lost fortune are now so evenly balanced
that I cannot for the life of me see on which side the scale inclines.
All I can discern is, that it will, to a dead certainty, turn one way or
the other on the day when she passes Noel Vanstone's doors in disguise.
Which way do my interests point now? Upon my honor, I don't know.
_Five o'clock._--I have effected a masterly compromise; I have decided
on turning myself into a Jack-o n-both-sides.
By to-day's post I have dispatched to London an anonymous letter for M
r. Noel Vanstone. It will be forwarded to its destination by the same
means which I successfully adopted to mystify Mr. Pendril; and it will
reach Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth, by the afternoon of to-morrow at the
latest.
The letter is short, and to the purpose. It warns Mr. Noel Vanstone, in
the most alarming language, that he is destined to become the victim
of a conspiracy; and that the prime mover of it is a young lady who
has already held written communication with his father and himself.
It offers him the information necessary to secure his own safety, on
condition that he makes it worth the writer's while to run the serious
personal risk which such a disclosure will entail on him. And it ends by
stipulating that the answer shall be advertised in the _Times_; shall
be addressed to "An Unknown Friend"; and shall state plainly what
remuneration Mr. Noel Vanstone offers for the priceless service which it
is proposed to render him.
Unless some unexpected complication occurs, this letter places me
exactly in the position which it is my present interest to occupy. If
the advertisement appears, and if the remuneration offered is large
enough to justify me in going over to the camp of the enemy, over I go.
If no advertisement appears, or if Mr. Noel Vanstone rates my invaluable
assistance at too low a figure, here I remain, biding my time till my
fair relative wants me, or till I make her want me, which comes to
the same thing. If the anonymous letter falls by any accident into her
hands, she will find disparaging allusions in it to myself, purposely
introduced to suggest that the writer must be one of the persons whom
I addressed while conducting her inquiries. If Mrs. Lecount takes
the business in hand and lays a trap for me--I decline her tempting
invitation by becoming totally ignorant of the whole affair the instant
any second person appears in it. Let the end come as it may, here I am
ready to profit by it: here I am, facing both ways, with perfect ease
and security--a moral agriculturist, with his eye on two crops at once,
and his swindler's sickle ready for any emergency.
For the next week to come, the newspaper will be more interesting to me
than ever. I wonder which side I shall eventually belong to?