"MISS GARTH, sir," said Mrs. Lecount, opening the parlor door, and
announcing the visitor's appearance with the tone and manner of a
well-bred servant.
Magdalen found herself in a long, narrow room, consisting of a back
parlor and a front parlor, which had been thrown into one by opening the
folding-doors between them. Seated not far from the front window, with
his back to the light, she saw a frail, flaxen-haired, self-satisfied
little man, clothed in a fair white dressing-gown many sizes too large
for him, with a nosegay of violets drawn neatly through the button-hole
over his breast. He looked from thirty to five-and-thirty years old.
His complexion was as delicate as a young girl's, his eyes were of
the lightest blue, his upper lip was adorned by a weak little white
mustache, waxed and twisted at either end into a thin spiral curl. When
any object specially attracted his attention he half closed his eyelids
to look at it. When he smiled, the skin at his temples crumpled itself
up into a nest of wicked little wrinkles. He had a plate of strawberries
on his lap, with a napkin under them to preserve the purity of his white
dressing-gown. At his right hand stood a large round table, covered with
a collection of foreign curiosities, which seemed to have been brought
together from the four quarters of the globe. Stuffed birds from Africa,
porcelain monsters from China, silver ornaments and utensils from India
and Peru, mosaic work from Italy, and bronzes from France, were all
heaped together pell-mell with the coarse deal boxes and dingy
leather cases which served to pack them for traveling. The little man
apologized, with a cheerful and simpering conceit, for his litter of
curiosities, his dressing-gown, and his delicate health; and, waving his
hand toward a chair, placed his attention, with pragmatical politeness,
at the visitor's disposal. Magdalen looked at him with a momentary
doubt whether Mrs. Lecount had not deceived her. Was this the man who
mercilessly followed the path on which his merciless father had walked
before him? She could hardly believe it. "Take a seat, Miss Garth," he
repeated, observing her hesitation, and announcing his own name in a
high, thin, fretfully-consequential voice: "I am Mr. Noel Vanstone. You
wished to see me--here I am!"
"May I be permitted to retire, sir?" inquired Mrs. Lecount.
"Certainly not!" replied her master. "Stay here, Lecount, and keep
us company. Mrs. Lecount has my fullest confidence," he continued,
addressing Magdalen. "Whatever you say to me, ma'am, you say to her. She
is a domestic treasure. There is not another house in England has such a
treasure as Mrs. Lecount."
The housekeeper listened to the praise of her domestic virtues with
eyes immovably fixed on her elegant chemisette. But Magdalen's quick
penetration had previously detected a look that passed between Mrs.
Lecount and her master, which suggested that Noel Vanstone had been
instructed beforehand what to say and do in his visitor's presence.
The suspicion of this, and the obstacles which the room presented to
arranging her position in it so as to keep her face from the light,
warned Magdalen to be on her guard.
She had taken her chair at first nearly midway in the room. An instant's
after-reflection induced her to move her seat toward the left hand, so
as to place herself just inside, and close against, the left post of the
folding-door. In this position she dexterously barred the only passage
by which Mrs. Lecount could have skirted round the large table and
contrived to front Magdalen by taking a chair at her master's side. On
the right hand of the table the empty space was well occupied by
the fireplace and fender, by some traveling-trunks, and a large
packing-case. There was no alternative left for Mrs. Lecount but to
place herself on a line with Magdalen against the opposite post of
the folding-door, or to push rudely past the visitor with the obvious
intention of getting in front of her. With an expressive little cough,
and with one steady look at her master, the housekeeper conceded the
point, and took her seat against the right-hand door-post. "Wait a
little," thought Mrs. Lecount; "my turn next!"
"Mind what you are about, ma'am!" cried Noel Vanstone, as Magdalen
accidentally approached the table in moving her chair. "Mind the
sleeve of your cloak! Excuse me, you nearly knocked down that silver
candlestick. Pray don't suppose it's a common candlestick. It's nothing
of the sort--it's a Peruvian candlestick. There are only three of that
pattern in the world. One is in the possession of the President of Peru;
one is locked up in the Vatican; and one is on My table. It cost ten
pounds; it's worth fifty. One of my father's bargains, ma'am. All these
things are my father's bargains. There is not another house in England
which has such curiosities as these. Sit down, Lecount; I beg you will
make yourself comfortable. Mrs. Lecount is like the curiosities, Miss
Garth--she is one of my father's bargains. You are one of my father's
bargains, are you not, Lecount? My father was a remarkable man,
ma'am. You will be reminded of him here at every turn. I have got his
dressing-gown on at this moment. No such linen as this is made now--you
can't get it for love or money. Would you like to feel the texture?
Perhaps you're no judge of texture? Perhaps you would prefer talking to
me about these two pupils of yours? They are two, are they not? Are they
fine girls? Plump, fresh, full-blown English beauties?"
"Excuse me, sir," interposed Mrs. Lecount, sorrowfully. "I must really
beg permission to retire if you speak of the poor things in that way.
I can't sit by, sir, and hear them turned into ridicule. Consider their
position; consider Miss Garth."
"You good creature!" said Noel Vanstone, surveying the housekeeper
through his half-closed eyelids. "You excellent Lecount! I assure you,
ma'am, Mrs. Lecount is a worthy creature. You will observe that she
pities the two girls. I don't go so far as that myself, but I can make
allowances for them. I am a large-minded man. I can make allowances
for them and for you." He smiled with the most cordial politeness, and
helped himself to a strawberry from the dish on his lap.
"You shock Miss Garth; indeed, sir, without meaning it, you shock Miss
Garth," remonstrated Mrs. Lecount. "She is not accustomed to you as I
am. Consider Miss Garth, sir. As a favor to _me_, consider Miss Garth."
Thus far Magdalen had resolutely kept silence. The burning anger, which
would have betrayed her in an instant if she had let it flash its way
to the surface, throbbed fast and fiercely at her heart, and warned
her, while Noel Vanstone was speaking, to close her lips. She would have
allowed him to talk on uninterruptedly for some minutes more if Mrs.
Lecount had not interfered for the second time. The refined insolence
of the housekeeper's pity was a woman's insolence; and it stung her into
instantly controlling herself. She had never more admirably imitated
Miss Garth's voice and manner than when she spoke her next words.
"You are very good," she said to Mrs. Lecount. "I make no claim to be
treated with any extraordinary consideration. I am a governess, and I
don't expect it. I have only one favor to ask. I beg Mr. Noel Vanstone,
for his own sake, to hear what I have to say to him."
"You understand, sir?" observed Mrs. Lecount. "It appears that Miss
Garth has some serious warning to give you. She says you are to hear
her, for your own sake."
Mr. Noel Vanstone's fair complexion suddenly turned white. He put away
the plate of strawberries among his father's bargains. His hand shook
and his little figure twisted itself uneasily in the chair. Magdalen
observed him attentively. "One discovery already," she thought; "he is a
coward!"
"What do you mean, ma'am?" asked Noel Vanstone, with visible trepidation
of look and manner. "What do you mean by telling me I must listen to you
for my own sake? If you come her to intimidate me, you come to the wrong
man. My strength of character was universally noticed in our circle at
Zurich--wasn't it, Lecount?"
"Universally, sir," said Mrs. Lecount. "But let us hear Miss Garth.
Perhaps I have misinterpreted her meaning."
"On the contrary," replied Magdalen, "you have exactly expressed my
meaning. My object in coming here is to warn Mr. Noel Vanstone against
the course which he is now taking."
"Don't!" pleaded Mrs. Lecount. "Oh, if you want to help these poor
girls, don't talk in that way! Soften his resolution, ma'am, by
entreaties; don't strengthen it by threats!" She a little overstrained
the tone of humility in which she spoke those words--a little overacted
the look of apprehension which accompanied them. If Magdalen had not
seen plainly enough already that it was Mrs. Lecount's habitual practice
to decide everything for her master in the first instance, and then to
persuade him that he was not acting under his housekeeper's resolution
but under his own, she would have seen it now.
"You hear what Lecount has just said?" remarked Noel Vanstone. "You hear
the unsolicited testimony of a person who has known me from childhood?
Take care, Miss Garth--take care!" He complacently arranged the tails
of his white dressing-gown over his knees and took the plate of
strawberries back on his lap.
"I have no wish to offend you," said Magdalen. "I am only anxious to
open your eyes to the truth. You are not acquainted with the characters
of the two sisters whose fortunes have fallen into your possession. I
have known them from childhood; and I come to give you the benefit of
my experience in their interests and in yours. You have nothing to dread
from the elder of the two; she patiently accepts the hard lot which you,
and your father before you, have forced on her. The younger sister's
conduct is the very opposite of this. She has already declined to submit
to your father's decision, and she now refuses to be silenced by Mrs.
Lecount's letter. Take my word for it, she is capable of giving you
serious trouble if you persist in making an enemy of her."
Noel Vanstone changed color once more, and began to fidget again in his
chair. "Serious trouble," he repeated, with a blank look. "If you mean
writing letters, ma'am, she has given trouble enough already. She has
written once to me, and twice to my father. One of the letters to my
father was a threatening letter--wasn't it, Lecount?"
"She expressed her feelings, poor child," said Mrs. Lecount. "I thought
it hard to send her back her letter, but your dear father knew best.
What I said at the time was, Why not let her express her feelings? What
are a few threatening words, after all? In her position, poor creature,
they are words, and nothing more."
"I advise you not to be too sure of that," said Magdalen. "I know her
better than you do."
She paused at those words--paused in a momentary terror. The sting of
Mrs. Lecount's pity had nearly irritated her into forgetting her assumed
character, and speaking in her own voice.
"You have referred to the letters written by my pupil," she resumed,
addressing Noel Vanstone as soon as she felt sure of herself again. "We
will say nothing about what she has written to your father; we will only
speak of what she has written to you. Is there anything unbecoming in
her letter, anything said in it that is false? Is it not true that these
two sisters have been cruelly deprived of the provision which their
father made for them? His will to this day speaks for him and for them;
and it only speaks to no purpose, because he was not aware that his
marriage obliged him to make it again, and because he died before he
could remedy the error. Can you deny that?"
Noel Vanstone smiled, and helped himself to a strawberry. "I don't
attempt to deny it," he said. "Go on, Miss Garth."
"Is it not true," persisted Magdalen, "that the law which has taken
the money from these sisters, whose father made no second will, has now
given that very money to you, whose father made no will at all? Surely,
explain it how you may, this is hard on those orphan girls?"
"Very hard," replied Noel Vanstone. "It strikes you in that light,
too--doesn't it, Lecount?"
Mrs. Lecount shook her head, and closed her handsome black eyes.
"Harrowing," she said; "I can characterize it, Miss Garth, by no other
word--harrowing. How the young person--no! how Miss Vanstone, the
younger--discovered that my late respected master made no will I am at
a loss to understand. Perhaps it was put in the papers? But I am
interrupting you, Miss Garth. Do have something more to say about your
pupil's letter?" She noiselessly drew her chair forward, as she said
these words, a few inches beyond the line of the visitor's chair. The
attempt was neatly made, but it proved useless. Magdalen only kept her
head more to the left, and the packing-case on the floor prevented Mrs.
Lecount from advancing any further.
"I have only one more question to put," said Magdalen. "My pupil's
letter addressed a proposal to Mr. Noel Vanstone. I beg him to inform me
why he has refused to consider it."
"My good lady!" cried Noel Vanstone, arching his white eyebrows in
satirical astonishment. "Are you really in earnest? Do you know what the
proposal is? Have you seen the letter?"
"I am quite in earnest," said Magdalen, "and I have seen the letter. It
entreats you to remember how Mr. Andrew Vanstone's fortune has come
into your hands; it informs you that one-half of that fortune, divided
between his daughters, was what his will intended them to have; and it
asks of your sense of justice to do for his children what he would have
done for them himself if he had lived. In plainer words still, it asks
you to give one-half of the money to the daughters, and it leaves you
free to keep the other half yourself. That is the proposal. Why have you
refused to consider it?"
"For the simplest possible reason, Miss Garth," said Noel Vanstone, in
high good-humor. "Allow me to remind you of a well-known proverb: A fool
and his money are soon parted. Whatever else I may be, ma'am, I'm not a
fool."
"Don't put it in that way, sir!" remonstrated Mrs. Lecount. "Be
serious--pray be serious!"
"Quite impossible, Lecount," rejoined her master. "I can't be serious.
My poor father, Miss Garth, took a high moral point of view in this
matter. Lecount, there, takes a high moral point of view--don't
you, Lecount? I do nothing of the sort. I have lived too long in the
Continental atmosphere to trouble myself about moral points of view. My
course in this business is as plain as two and two make four. I have got
the money, and I should be a born idiot if I parted with it. There is my
point of view! Simple enough, isn't it? I don't stand on my dignity; I
don't meet you with the law, which is all on my side; I don't blame
your coming here, as a total stranger, to try and alter my resolution;
I don't blame the two girls for wanting to dip their fingers into my
purse. All I say is, I am not fool enough to open it. _Pas si bete_, as
we used to say in the English circle at Zurich. You understand French,
Miss Garth? _Pas si bete!_" He set aside his plate of strawberries once
more, and daintily dried his fingers on his fine white napkin.
Magdalen kept her temper. If she could have struck him dead by lifting
her hand at that moment, it is probable she would have lifted it. But
she kept her temper.
"Am I to understand," she asked, "that the last words you have to say in
this matter are the words said for you in Mrs. Lecount's letter!"
"Precisely so," replied Noel Vanstone.
"You have inherited your own father's fortune, as well as the fortune of
Mr. Andrew Vanstone, and yet you feel no obligation to act from motives
of justice or generosity toward these two sisters? All you think it
necessary to say to them is, you have got the money, and you refuse to
part with a single farthing of it?"
"Most accurately stated! Miss Garth, you are a woman of business.
Lecount, Miss Garth is a woman of business."
"Don't appeal to me, sir," cried Mrs. Lecount, gracefully wringing
her plump white hands. "I can't bear it! I must interfere! Let me
suggest--oh, what do you call it in English?--a compromise. Dear Mr.
Noel, you are perversely refusing to do yourself justice; you have
better reasons than the reason you have given to Miss Garth. You follow
your honored father's example; you feel it due to his memory to act in
this matter as he acted before you. That is his reason, Miss Garth---- I
implore you on my knees to take that as his reason. He will do what his
dear father did; no more, no less. His dear father made a proposal, and
he himself will now make that proposal over again. Yes, Mr. Noel, you
will remember what this poor girl says in her letter to you. Her sister
has been obliged to go out as a governess; and she herself, in losing
her fortune, has lost the hope of her marriage for years and years to
come. You will remember this--and you will give the hundred pounds to
one, and the hundred pounds to the other, which your admirable father
offered in the past time? If he does this, Miss Garth, will he
do enough? If he gives a hundred pounds each to these unfortunate
sisters--?"
"He will repent the insult to the last hour of his life," said Magdalen.
The instant that answer passed her lips she would have given worlds
to recall it. Mrs. Lecount had planted her sting in the right place at
last. Those rash words of Magdalen's had burst from her passionately, in
her own voice.
Nothing but the habit of public performance saved her from making the
serious error that she had committed more palpable still, by attempting
to set it right. Here her past practice in the Entertainment came to
her rescue, and urged her to go on instantly in Miss Garth's voice as if
nothing had happened.
"You mean well, Mrs. Lecount," she continued, "but you are doing
harm instead of good. My pupils will accept no such compromise as you
propose. I am sorry to have spoken violently just now; I beg you will
excuse me." She looked hard for information in the housekeeper's face
while she spoke those conciliatory words. Mrs. Lecount baffled the
look by putting her handkerchief to her eyes. Had she, or had she not,
noticed the momentary change in Magdalen's voice from the tones that
were assumed to the tones that were natural? Impossible to say.
"What more can I do!" murmured Mrs. Lecount behind her handkerchief.
"Give me time to think--give me time to recover myself. May I retire,
sir, for a moment? My nerves are shaken by this sad scene. I must have
a glass of water, or I think I shall faint. Don't go yet, Miss Garth. I
beg you will give us time to set this sad matter right, if we can--I beg
you will remain until I come back."
There were two doors of entrance to the room. One, the door into the
front parlor, close at Magdalen's left hand. The other, the door
into the back parlor, situated behind her. Mrs. Lecount politely
retired--through the open folding-doors--by this latter means of exit,
so as not to disturb the visitor by passing in front of her. Magdalen
waited until she heard the door open and close again behind her, and
then resolved to make the most of the opportunity which left her alone
with Noel Vanstone. The utter hopelessness of rousing a generous impulse
in that base nature had now been proved by her own experience. The last
chance left was to treat him like the craven creature he was, and to
influence him through his fears.
Before she could speak, Noel Vanstone himself broke the silence.
Cunningly as he strove to hide it, he was half angry, half alarmed at
his housekeeper's desertion of him. He looked doubtingly at his visitor;
he showed a nervous anxiety to conciliate her until Mrs. Lecount's
return.
"Pray remember, ma'am, I never denied that this case was a hard one," he
began. "You said just now you had no wish to offend me--and I'm sure I
don't want to offend you. May I offer you some strawberries? Would
you like to look at my father's bargains? I assure you, ma'am, I am
naturally a gallant man; and I feel for both these sisters--especially
the younger one. Touch me on the subject of the tender passion, and you
touch me on a weak place. Nothing would please me more than to hear that
Miss Vanstone's lover (I'm sure I always call her Miss Vanstone, and so
does Lecount)--I say, ma'am, nothing would please me more than to hear
that Miss Vanstone's lover had come back and married her. If a loan of
money would be likely to bring him back, and if the security offered was
good, and if my lawyer thought me justified--"
"Stop, Mr. Vanstone," said Magdalen. "You are entirely mistaken in your
estimate of the person you have to deal with. You are seriously wrong
in supposing that the marriage of the younger sister--if she could be
married in a week's time--would make any difference in the convictions
which induced her to write to your father and to you. I don't deny that
she may act from a mixture of motives. I don't deny that she clings
to the hope of hastening her marriage, and to the hope of rescuing
her sister from a life of dependence. But if both those objects were
accomplished by other means, nothing would induce her to leave you in
possession of the inheritance which her father meant his children to
have. I know her, Mr. Vanstone! She is a nameless, homeless, friendless
wretch. The law which takes care of you, the law which takes care of
all legitimate children, casts her like carrion to the winds. It is your
law--not hers. She only knows it as the instrument of a vile oppression,
an insufferable wrong. The sense of that wrong haunts her like a
possession of the devil. The resolution to right that wrong burns in her
like fire. If that miserable girl was married and rich, with millions
tomorrow, do you think she would move an inch from her purpose? I tell
you she would resist, to the last breath in her body, the vile injustice
which has struck at the helpless children, through the calamity of
their father's death! I tell you she would shrink from no means which a
desperate woman can employ to force that closed hand of yours open, or
die in the attempt!"
She stopped abruptly. Once more her own indomitable earnestness had
betrayed her. Once more the inborn nobility of that perverted nature had
risen superior to the deception which it had stooped to practice. The
scheme of the moment vanished from her mind's view; and the resolution
of her life burst its way outward in her own words, in her own tones,
pouring hotly and more hotly from her heart. She saw the abject manikin
before her cowering, silent, in his chair. Had his fears left him sense
enough to perceive the change in her voice? No: _his_ face spoke the
truth--his fears had bewildered him. This time the chance of the moment
had befriended her. The door behind her chair had not opened again
yet. "No ears but his have heard me," she thought, with a sense of
unutterable relief. "I have escaped Mrs. Lecount."
She had done nothing of the kind. Mrs. Lecount had never left the room.
After opening the door and closing it again, without going out,
the housekeeper had noiselessly knelt down behind Magdalen's chair.
Steadying herself against the post of the folding-door, she took a pair
of scissors from her pocket, waited until Noel Vanstone (from whose view
she was entirely hidden) had attracted Magdalen's attention by speaking
to her, and then bent forward, with the scissors ready in her hand. The
skirt of the false Miss Garth's gown--the brown alpaca dress, with the
white spots on it--touched the floor, within the housekeeper's reach.
Mrs. Lecount lifted the outer of the two flounces which ran round
the bottom of the dress one over the other, softly cut away a little
irregular fragment of stuff from the inner flounce, and neatly smoothed
the outer one over it again, so as to hide the gap. By the time she
had put the scissors back in her pocket, and had risen to her feet
(sheltering herself behind the post of the folding-door), Magdalen had
spoken her last words. Mrs. Lecount quietly repeated the ceremony of
opening and shutting the back parlor door; and returned to her place.
"What has happened, sir, in my absence?" she inquired, addressing her
master with a look of alarm. "You are pale; you are agitated! Oh, Miss
Garth, have you forgotten the caution I gave you in the other room?"
"Miss Garth has forgotten everything," cried Noel Vanstone, recovering
his lost composure on the re-appearance of Mrs. Lecount. "Miss Garth
has threatened me in the most outrageous manner. I forbid you to pity
either of those two girls any more, Lecount--especially the younger
one. She is the most desperate wretch I ever heard of! If she can't get
my money by fair means, she threatens to have it by foul. Miss Garth has
told me that to my face. To my face!" he repeated, folding his arms, and
looking mortally insulted.
"Compose yourself, sir," said Mrs. Lecount. "Pray compose yourself, and
leave me to speak to Miss Garth. I regret to hear, ma'am, that you have
forgotten what I said to you in the next room. You have agitated Mr.
Noel; you have compromised the interests you came here to plead; and you
have only repeated what we knew before. The language you have allowed
yourself to use in my absence is the same language which your pupil was
foolish enough to employ when she wrote for the second time to my late
master. How can a lady of your years and experience seriously repeat
such nonsense? This girl boasts and threatens. She will do this; she
will do that. You have her confidence, ma'am. Tell me, if you please, in
plain words, what can she do?"
Sharply as the taunt was pointed, it glanced off harmless. Mrs.
Lecount had planted her sting once too often. Magdalen rose in complete
possession of her assumed character and composedly terminated the
interview. Ignorant as she was of what had happened behind her chair,
she saw a change in Mrs. Lecount's look and manner which warned her to
run no more risks, and to trust herself no longer in the house.
"I am not in my pupil's confidence," she said. "Her own acts will answer
your question when the time comes. I can only tell you, from my own
knowledge of her, that she is no boaster. What she wrote to Mr. Michael
Vanstone was what she was prepared to do---what, I have reason to think,
she was actually on the point of doing, when her plans were overthrown
by his death. Mr. Michael Vanstone's son has only to persist in
following his father's course to find, before long, that I am not
mistaken in my pupil, and that I have not come here to intimidate him
by empty threats. My errand is done. I leave Mr. Noel Vanstone with two
alternatives to choose from. I leave him to share Mr. Andrew Vanstone's
fortune with Mr. Andrew Vanstone's daughters--or to persist in his
present refusal and face the consequences." She bowed, and walked to the
door.
Noel Vanstone started to his feet, with anger and alarm struggling which
should express itself first in his blank white face. Before he could
open his lips, Mrs. Lecount's plump hands descended on his shoulders,
put him softly back in his chair, and restored the plate of strawberries
to its former position on his lap.
"Refresh yourself, Mr. Noel, with a few more strawberries," she said,
"and leave Miss Garth to me."
She followed Magdalen into the passage, and closed the door of the room
after her.
"Are you residing in London, ma'am?" asked Mrs. Lecount.
"No," replied Magdalen. "I reside in the country."
"If I want to write to you, where can I address my letter?"
"To the post-office, Birmingham," said Magdalen, mentioning the place
which she had last left, and at which all letters were still addressed
to her.
Mrs. Lecount repeated the direction to fix it in her memory, advanced
two steps in the passage, and quietly laid her right hand on Magdalen's
arm.
"A word of advice, ma'am," she said; "one word at parting. You are a
bold woman and a clever woman. Don't be too bold; don't be too clever.
You are risking more than you think for." She suddenly raised herself on
tiptoe and whispered the next words in Magdalen's ear. "_I hold you
in the hollow of my hand!_" said Mrs. Lecount, with a fierce hissing
emphasis on every syllable. Her left hand clinched itself stealthily as
she spoke. It was the hand in which she had concealed the fragment of
stuff from Magdalen's gown--the hand which held it fast at that moment.
"What do you mean?" asked Magdalen, pushing her back.
Mrs. Lecount glided away politely to open the house door.
"I mean nothing now," she said; "wait a little, and time may show. One
last question, ma'am, before I bid you good-by. When your pupil was a
little innocent child, did she ever amuse herself by building a house of
cards?"
Magdalen impatiently answered by a gesture in the affirmative.
"Did you ever see her build up the house higher and higher," proceeded
Mrs. Lecount, "till it was quite a pagoda of cards? Did you ever see her
open her little child's eyes wide and look at it, and feel so proud of
what she had done already that she wanted to do more? Did you ever see
her steady her pretty little hand, and hold her innocent breath, and
put one other card on the top, and lay the whole house, the instant
afterward, a heap of ruins on the table? Ah, you have seen that. Give
her, if you please, a friendly message from me. I venture to say she has
built the house high enough already; and I recommend her to be careful
before she puts on that other card."
"She shall have your message," said Magdalen, with Miss Garth's
bluntness, and Miss Garth's emphatic nod of the head. "But I doubt her
minding it. Her hand is rather steadier than you suppose, and I think
she will put on the other card."
"And bring the house down," said Mrs. Lecount.
"And build it up again," rejoined Magdalen. "I wish you good-morning."
"Good-morning," said Mrs. Lecount, opening the door. "One last word,
Miss Garth. Do think of what I said in the back room! Do try the Golden
Ointment for that sad affliction in your eyes!"
As Magdalen crossed the threshold of the door she was met by the postman
ascending the house steps with a letter picked out from the bundle
in his hand. "Noel Vanstone, Esquire?" she heard the man say,
interrogatively, as she made her way down the front garden to the
street.
She passed through the garden gates little thinking from what new
difficulty and new danger her timely departure had saved her. The letter
which the postman had just delivered into the housekeeper's hands was
no other than the anonymous letter addressed to Noel Vanstone by Captain
Wragge.