MRS. LECOUNT returned to the parlor, with the fragment of Magdalen's
dress in one hand, and with Captain Wragge's letter in the other.
"Have you got rid of her?" asked Noel Vanstone. "Have you shut the door
at last on Miss Garth?"
"Don't call her Miss Garth, sir," said Mrs. Lecount, smiling
contemptuously. "She is as much Miss Garth as you are. We have been
favored by the performance of a clever masquerade; and if we had taken
the disguise off our visitor, I think we should have found under it Miss
Vanstone herself.--Here is a letter for you, sir, which the postman has
just left."
She put the letter on the table within her master's reach. Noel
Vanstone's amazement at the discovery just communicated to him kept his
whole attention concentrated on the housekeeper's face. He never so much
as looked at the letter when she placed it before him.
"Take my word for it, sir," proceeded Mrs. Lecount, composedly taking a
chair. "When our visitor gets home she will put her gray hair away in a
box, and will cure that sad affliction in her eyes with warm water and a
sponge. If she had painted the marks on her face, as well as she painted
the inflammation in her eyes, the light would have shown me nothing,
and I should certainly have been deceived. But I saw the marks; I saw a
young woman's skin under that dirty complexion of hers; I heard in this
room a true voice in a passion, as well as a false voice talking with
an accent, and I don't believe in one morsel of that lady's personal
appearance from top to toe. The girl herself, in my opinion, Mr.
Noel--and a bold girl too."
"Why didn't you lock the door and send for the police?" asked Mr. Noel.
"My father would have sent for the police. You know, as well as I do,
Lecount, my father would have sent for the police."
"Pardon me, sir," said Mrs. Lecount, "I think your father would have
waited until he had got something more for the police to do than we have
got for them yet. We shall see this lady again, sir. Perhaps she will
come here next time with her own face and her own voice. I am curious to
see what her own face is like. I am curious to know whether what I have
heard of her voice in a passion is enough to make me recognize her voice
when she is calm. I possess a little memorial of her visit of which she
is not aware, and she will not escape me so easily as she thinks. If it
turns out a useful memorial, you shall know what it is. If not, I will
abstain from troubling you on so trifling a subject.--Allow me to remind
you, sir, of the letter under your hand. You have not looked at it yet."
Noel Vanstone opened the letter. He started as his eye fell on the first
lines--hesitated--and then hurriedly read it through. The paper dropped
from his hand, and he sank back in his chair. Mrs. Lecount sprang to her
feet with the alacrity of a young woman and picked up the letter.
"What has happened, sir?" she asked. Her face altered as she put
the question, and her large black eyes hardened fiercely, in genuine
astonishment and alarm.
"Send for the police," exclaimed her master. "Lecount, I insist on being
protected. Send for the police!"
"May I read the letter, sir?"
He feebly waved his hand. Mrs. Lecount read the letter attentively, and
put it aside on the table, without a word, when she had done.
"Have you nothing to say to me?" asked Noel Vanstone, staring at his
housekeeper in blank dismay. "Lecount, I'm to be robbed! The scoundrel
who wrote that letter knows all about it, and won't tell me anything
unless I pay him. I'm to be robbed! Here's property on this table worth
thousands of pounds--property that can never be replaced--property that
all the crowned heads in Europe could not produce if they tried. Lock me
in, Lecount, and send for the police!"
Instead of sending for the police, Mrs. Lecount took a large green paper
fan from the chimney-piece, and seated herself opposite her master.
"You are agitated, Mr. Noel," she said, "you are heated. Let me cool
you."
With her face as hard as ever--with less tenderness of look and
manner than most women would have shown if they had been rescuing a
half-drowned fly from a milk-jug--she silently and patiently fanned him
for five minutes or more. No practiced eye observing the peculiar bluish
pallor of his complexion, and the marked difficulty with which he drew
his breath, could have failed to perceive that the great organ of life
was in this man, what the housekeeper had stated it to be, too weak for
the function which it was called on to perform. The heart labored over
its work as if it had been the heart of a worn-out old man.
"Are you relieved, sir?" asked Mrs. Lecount. "Can you think a little?
Can you exercise your better judgment?"
She rose and put her hand over his heart with as much mechanical
attention and as little genuine interest as if she had been feeling the
plates at dinner to ascertain if they had been properly warmed. "Yes,"
she went on, seating herself again, and resuming the exercise of the
fan; "you are getting better already, Mr. Noel.--Don't ask me about this
anonymous letter until you have thought for yourself, and have given
your own opinion first." She went on with the fanning, and looked him
hard in the face all the time. "Think," she said; "think, sir, without
troubling yourself to express your thoughts. Trust to my intimate
sympathy with you to read them. Yes, Mr. Noel, this letter is a paltry
attempt to frighten you. What does it say? It says you are the object of
a conspiracy directed by Miss Vanstone. We know that already--the lady
of the inflamed eyes has told us. We snap our fingers at the conspiracy.
What does the letter say next? It says the writer has valuable
information to give you if you will pay for it. What did you call this
person yourself just now, sir?"
"I called him a scoundrel," said Noel Vanstone, recovering his
self-importance, and raising himself gradually in his chair.
"I agree with you in that, sir, as I agree in everything else,"
proceeded Mrs. Lecount. "He is a scoundrel who really has this
information and who means what he says, or he is a mouthpiece of Miss
Vanstone's, and she has caused this letter to be written for the purpose
of puzzling us by another form of disguise. Whether the letter is true,
or whether the letter is false--am I not reading your own wiser thoughts
now, Mr. Noel?--you know better than to put your enemies on their guard
by employing the police in this matter too soon. I quite agree with
you--no police just yet. You will allow this anonymous man, or anonymous
woman, to suppose you are easily frightened; you will lay a trap for the
information in return for the trap laid for your money; you will answer
the letter, and see what comes of the answer; and you will only pay the
expense of employing the police when you know the expense is necessary.
I agree with you again--no expense, if we can help it. In every
particular, Mr. Noel, my mind and your mind in this matter are one."
"It strikes you in that light, Lecount--does it?" said Noel Vanstone. "I
think so myself; I certainly think so. I won't pay the police a farthing
if I can possibly help it." He took up the letter again, and became
fretfully perplexed over a second reading of it. "But the man wants
money!" he broke out, impatiently. "You seem to forget, Lecount, that
the man wants money."
"Money which you offer him, sir," rejoined Mrs. Lecount; "but--as your
thoughts have already anticipated--money which you don't give him. No!
no! you say to this man: 'Hold out your hand, sir;' and when he has held
it, you give him a smack for his pains, and put your own hand back in
your pocket.--I am so glad to see you laughing, Mr. Noel! so glad to
see you getting back your good spirits. We will answer the letter by
advertisement, as the writer directs--advertisement is so cheap! Your
poor hand is trembling a little--shall I hold the pen for you? I am not
fit to do more; but I can always promise to hold the pen."
Without waiting for his reply she went into the back parlor, and
returned with pen, ink, and paper. Arranging a blotting-book on her
knees, and looking a model of cheerful submission, she placed herself
once more in front of her master's chair.
"Shall I write from your dictation, sir?" she inquired. "Or shall I make
a little sketch, and will you correct it afterward? I will make a little
sketch. Let me see the letter. We are to advertise in the _Times_, and
we are to address 'An Unknown Friend.' What shall I say, Mr. Noel? Stay;
I will write it, and then you can see for yourself: 'An Unknown Friend
is requested to mention (by advertisement) an address at which a letter
can reach him. The receipt of the information which he offers will be
acknowledged by a reward of--' What sum of money do you wish me to set
down, sir?"
"Set down nothing," said Noel Vanstone, with a sudden outbreak of
impatience. "Money matters are my business--I say money matters are my
business, Lecount. Leave it to me."
"Certainly, sir," replied Mrs. Lecount, handing her master the
blotting-book. "You will not forget to be liberal in offering money when
you know beforehand you don't mean to part with it?"
"Don't dictate, Lecount! I won't submit to dictation!" said Noel
Vanstone, asserting his own independence more and more impatiently. "I
mean to conduct this business for myself. I am master, Lecount!"
"You are master, sir."
"My father was master before me. And I am my father's son. I tell you,
Lecount, I am my father's son!"
Mrs. Lecount bowed submissively.
"I mean to set down any sum of money I think right," pursued Noel
Vanstone, nodding his little flaxen head vehemently. "I mean to send
this advertisement myself. The servant shall take it to the stationer's
to be put into the _Times_. When I ring the bell twice, send the
servant. You understand, Lecount? Send the servant."
Mrs. Lecount bowed again and walked slowly to the door. She knew to a
nicety when to lead her master and when to let him go alone. Experience
had taught her to govern him in all essential points by giving way to
him afterward on all points of minor detail. It was a characteristic
of his weak nature--as it is of all weak natures--to assert
itself obstinately on trifles. The filling in of the blank in the
advertisement was the trifle in this case; and Mrs. Lecount quieted her
master's suspicions that she was leading him by instantly conceding it.
"My mule has kicked," she thought to herself, in her own language, as
she opened the door. "I can do no more with him to-day."
"Lecount!" cried her master, as she stepped into the passage. "Come
back."
Mrs. Lecount came back.
"You're not offended with me, are you?" asked Noel Vanstone, uneasily.
"Certainly not, sir," replied Mrs. Lecount. "As you said just now--you
are master."
"Good creature! Give me your hand." He kissed her hand, and smiled in
high approval of his own affectionate proceeding. "Lecount, you are a
worthy creature!"
"Thank you, sir," said Mrs. Lecount. She courtesied and went out. "If he
had any brains in that monkey head of his," she said to herself in the
passage, "what a rascal he would be!"
Left by himself, Noel Vanstone became absorbed in anxious reflection
over the blank space in the advertisement. Mrs. Lecount's apparently
superfluous hint to him to be liberal in offering money when he knew
he had no intention of parting with it, had been founded on an intimate
knowledge of his character. He had inherited his father's sordid love of
money, without inheriting his father's hard-headed capacity for seeing
the uses to which money can be put. His one idea in connection with his
wealth was the idea of keeping it. He was such an inborn miser that the
bare prospect of being liberal in theory only daunted him. He took up
the pen; laid it down again; and read the anonymous letter for the third
time, shaking his head over it suspiciously. "If I offer this man a
large sum of money," he thought, on a sudden, "how do I know he may not
find a means of actually making me pay it? Women are always in a hurry.
Lecount is always in a hurry. I have got the afternoon before me--I'll
take the afternoon to consider it."
He fretfully put away the blotting-book and the sketch of the
advertisement on the chair which Mrs. Lecount had just left. As he
returned to his own seat, he shook his little head solemnly, and
arranged his white dressing-gown over his knees with the air of a
man absorbed in anxious thought. Minute after minute passed away; the
quarters and the half-hours succeeded each other on the dial of Mrs.
Lecount's watch, and still Noel Vanstone remained lost in doubt; still
no summons for the servants disturbed the tranquillity of the parlor
bell.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, after parting with Mrs. Lecount, Magdalen had cautiously
abstained from crossing the road to her lodgings, and had only ventured
to return after making a circuit in the neighborhood. When she found
herself once more in Vauxhall Walk, the first object which attracted
her attention was a cab drawn up before the door of the lodgings. A few
steps more in advance showed her the landlady's daughter standing at
the cab door engaged in a dispute with the driver on the subject of
his fare. Noticing that the girl's back was turned toward her, Magdalen
instantly profited by that circumstance and slipped unobserved into the
house.
She glided along the passage, ascended the stairs, and found herself,
on the first landing, face to face with her traveling companion! There
stood Mrs. Wragge, with a pile of small parcels hugged up in her arms,
anxiously waiting the issue of the dispute with the cabman in the
street. To return was impossible--the sound of the angry voices below
was advancing into the passage. To hesitate was worse than useless. But
one choice was left--the choice of going on--and Magdalen desperately
took it. She pushed by Mrs. Wragge without a word, ran into her own
room, tore off her cloak, bonnet and wig, and threw them down out of
sight in the blank space between the sofa-bedstead and the wall.
For the first few moments, astonishment bereft Mrs. Wragge of the power
of speech, and rooted her to the spot where she stood. Two out of the
collection of parcels in her arms fell from them on the stairs. The
sight of that catastrophe roused her. "Thieves!" cried Mrs. Wragge,
suddenly struck by an idea. "Thieves!"
Magdalen heard her through the room door, which she had not had time to
close completely. "Is that you, Mrs. Wragge?" she called out in her own
voice. "What is the matter?" She snatched up a towel while she spoke,
dipped it in water, and passed it rapidly over the lower part of
her face. At the sound of the familiar voice Mrs. Wragge turned
round--dropped a third parcel--and, forgetting it in her astonishment,
ascended the second flight of stairs. Magdalen stepped out on the
first-floor landing, with the towel held over her forehead as if she
was suffering from headache. Her false eyebrows required time for their
removal, and a headache assumed for the occasion suggested the most
convenient pretext she could devise for hiding them as they were hidden
now.
"What are you disturbing the house for?" she asked. "Pray be quiet; I am
half blind with the headache."
"Anything wrong, ma'am?" inquired the landlady from the passage.
"Nothing whatever," replied Magdalen. "My friend is timid; and the
dispute with the cabman has frightened her. Pay the man what he wants,
and let him go."
"Where is She?" asked Mrs. Wragge, in a tremulous whisper. "Where's the
woman who scuttled by me into your room?"
"Pooh!" said Magdalen. "No woman scuttled by you--as you call it. Look
in and see for yourself."
She threw open the door. Mrs. Wragge walked into the room--looked all
over it--saw nobody--and indicated her astonishment at the result by
dropping a fourth parcel, and trembling helplessly from head to foot.
"I saw her go in here," said Mrs. Wragge, in awestruck accents. "A woman
in a gray cloak and a poke bonnet. A rude woman. She scuttled by me
on the stairs--she did. Here's the room, and no woman in it. Give us a
Prayer-book!" cried Mrs. Wragge, turning deadly pale, and letting her
whole remaining collection of parcels fall about her in a little cascade
of commodities. "I want to read something Good. I want to think of my
latter end. I've seen a Ghost!"
"Nonsense!" said Magdalen. "You're dreaming; the shopping has been too
much for you. Go into your own room and take your bonnet off."
"I've heard tell of ghosts in night-gowns, ghosts in sheets, and ghosts
in chains," proceeded Mrs. Wragge, standing petrified in her own magic
circle of linen-drapers' parcels. "Here's a worse ghost than any of
'em--a ghost in a gray cloak and a poke bonnet. I know what it is,"
continued Mrs. Wragge, melting into penitent tears. "It's a judgment on
me for being so happy away from the captain. It's a judgment on me for
having been down at heel in half the shops in London, first with one
shoe and then with the other, all the time I've been out. I'm a sinful
creature. Don't let go of me--whatever you do, my dear, don't let go of
me!" She caught Magdalen fast by the arm and fell into another trembling
fit at the bare idea of being left by herself.
The one remaining chance in such an emergency as this was to submit to
circumstances. Magdalen took Mrs. Wragge to a chair; having first
placed it in such a position as might enable her to turn her back on her
traveling-companion, while she removed the false eyebrows by the help
of a little water. "Wait a minute there," she said, "and try if you can
compose yourself while I bathe my head."
"Compose myself?" repeated Mrs. Wragge. "How am I to compose myself when
my head feels off my shoulders? The worst Buzzing I ever had with the
Cookery-book was nothing to the Buzzing I've got now with the Ghost.
Here's a miserable end to a holiday! You may take me back again, my
dear, whenever you like--I've had enough of it already!"
Having at last succeeded in removing the eyebrows, Magdalen was free to
combat the unfortunate impression produced on her companion's mind by
every weapon of persuasion which her ingenuity could employ.
The attempt proved useless. Mrs. Wragge persisted--on evidence which,
it may be remarked in parenthesis, would have satisfied many wiser
ghost-seers than herself--in believing that she had been supernaturally
favored by a visitor from the world of spirits. All that Magdalen could
do was to ascertain, by cautious investigation, that Mrs. Wragge had not
been quick enough to identify the supposed ghost with the character
of the old North-country lady in the Entertainment. Having satisfied
herself on this point, she had no resource but to leave the rest to the
natural incapability of retaining impressions--unless those impressions
were perpetually renewed--which was one of the characteristic
infirmities of her companion's weak mind. After fortifying Mrs. Wragge
by reiterated assurances that one appearance (according to all the
laws and regulations of ghosts) meant nothing unless it was immediately
followed by two more--after patiently leading back her attention to the
parcels dropped on the floor and on the stairs--and after promising to
keep the door of communication ajar between the two rooms if Mrs. Wragge
would engage on her side to retire to her own chamber, and to say no
more on the terrible subject of the ghost--Magdalen at last secured the
privilege of reflecting uninterruptedly on the events of that memorable
day.
Two serious consequences had followed her first step forward. Mrs.
Lecount had entrapped her into speaking in her own voice, and accident
had confronted her with Mrs. Wragge in disguise.
What advantage had she gained to set against these disasters? The
advantage of knowing more of Noel Vanstone and of Mrs. Lecount than she
might have discovered in months if she had trusted to inquiries made for
her by others. One uncertainty which had hitherto perplexed her was set
at rest already. The scheme she had privately devised against Michael
Vanstone--which Captain Wragge's sharp insight had partially penetrated
when she first warned him that their partnership must be dissolved--was
a scheme which she could now plainly see must be abandoned as
hopeless, in the case of Michael Vanstone's son. The father's habits
of speculation had been the pivot on which the whole machinery of
her meditated conspiracy had been constructed to turn. No such
vantage-ground was discoverable in the doubly sordid character of
the son. Noel Vanstone was invulnerable on the very point which had
presented itself in his father as open to attack.
Having reached this conclusion, how was she to shape her future course?
What new means could she discover which would lead her secretly to
her end, in defiance of Mrs. Lecount's malicious vigilance and Noel
Vanstone's miserly distrust?
She was seated before the looking-glass, mechanically combing out her
hair, while that all-important consideration occupied her mind. The
agitation of the moment had raised a feverish color in her cheeks, and
had brightened the light in her large gray eyes. She was conscious of
looking her best; conscious how her beauty gained by contrast, after the
removal of the disguise. Her lovely light brown hair looked thicker and
softer than ever, now that it had escaped from its imprisonment under
the gray wig. She twisted it this way and that, with quick, dexterous
fingers; she laid it in masses on her shoulders; she threw it back from
them in a heap and turned sidewise to see how it fell--to see her back
and shoulders freed from the artificial deformities of the padded cloak.
After a moment she faced the looking-glass once more; plunged both hands
deep in her hair; and, resting her elbows on the table, looked closer
and closer at the reflection of herself, until her breath began to dim
the glass. "I can twist any man alive round my finger," she thought,
with a smile of superb triumph, "as long as I keep my looks! If that
contemptible wretch saw me now--" She shrank from following that thought
to its end, with a sudden horror of herself: she drew back from the
glass, shuddering, and put her hands over her face. "Oh, Frank!" she
murmured, "but for you, what a wretch I might be!" Her eager fingers
snatched the little white silk bag from its hiding-place in her bosom;
her lips devoured it with silent kisses. "My darling! my angel! Oh,
Frank, how I love you!" The tears gushed into her eyes. She passionately
dried them, restored the bag to its place, and turned her back on the
looking-glass. "No more of myself," she thought; "no more of my mad,
miserable self for to-day!"
Shrinking from all further contemplation of her next step in
advance--shrinking from the fast-darkening future, with which Noel
Vanstone was now associated in her inmost thoughts--she looked
impatiently about the room for some homely occupation which might take
her out of herself. The disguise which she had flung down between the
wall and the bed recurred to her memory. It was impossible to leave it
there. Mrs. Wragge (now occupied in sorting her parcels) might weary
of her employment, might come in again at a moment's notice, might pass
near the bed, and see the gray cloak. What was to be done?
Her first thought was to put the disguise back in her trunk. But after
what had happened, there was danger in trusting it so near to herself
while she and Mrs. Wragge were together under the same roof. She
resolved to be rid of it that evening, and boldly determined on sending
it back to Birmingham. Her bonnet-box fitted into her trunk. She took
the box out, thrust in the wig and cloak, and remorselessly flattened
down the bonnet at the top. The gown (which she had not yet taken off)
was her own; Mrs. Wragge had been accustomed to see her in it--there
was no need to send the gown back. Before closing the box, she hastily
traced these lines on a sheet of paper: "I took the inclosed things away
by mistake. Please keep them for me, with the rest of my luggage in your
possession, until you hear from me again." Putting the paper on the top
of the bonnet, she directed the box to Captain Wragge at Birmingham,
took it downstairs immediately, and sent the landlady's daughter away
with it to the nearest Receiving-house. "That difficulty is disposed
of," she thought, as she went back to her own room again.
Mrs. Wragge was still occupied in sorting her parcels on her narrow
little bed. She turned round with a faint scream when Magdalen looked
in at her. "I thought it was the ghost again," said Mrs. Wragge. "I'm
trying to take warning, my dear, by what's happened to me. I've put all
my parcels straight, just as the captain would like to see 'em. I'm
up at heel with both shoes. If I close my eyes to-night--which I don't
think I shall--I'll go to sleep as straight as my legs will let me. And
I'll never have another holiday as long as I live. I hope I shall be
forgiven," said Mrs. Wragge, mournfully shaking her head. "I humbly hope
I shall be forgiven."
"Forgiven!" repeated Magdalen. "If other women wanted as little
forgiving as you do--Well! well! Suppose you open some of these parcels.
Come! I want to see what you have been buying to-day."
Mrs. Wragge hesitated, sighed penitently, considered a little,
stretched out her hand timidly toward one of the parcels, thought of
the supernatural warning, and shrank back from her own purchases with a
desperate exertion of self-control.
"Open this one." said Magdalen, to encourage her: "what is it?"
Mrs. Wragge's faded blue eyes began to brighten dimly, in spite of her
remorse; but she self-denyingly shook her head. The master-passion of
shopping might claim his own again--but the ghost was not laid yet.
"Did you get it at a bargain?" asked Magdalen, confidentially.
"Dirt cheap!" cried poor Mrs. Wragge, falling headlong into the snare,
and darting at the parcel as eagerly as if nothing had happened.
Magdalen kept her gossiping over her purchases for an hour or more,
and then wisely determined to distract her attention from all ghostly
recollections in another way by taking her out for a walk.
As they left the lodgings, the door of Noel Vanstone's house opened, and
the woman-servant appeared, bent on another errand. She was apparently
charged with a letter on this occasion which she carried carefully in
her hand. Conscious of having formed no plan yet either for attack or
defense, Magdalen wondered, with a momentary dread, whether Mrs. Lecount
had decided already on opening fresh communications, and whether the
letter was directed to "Miss Garth."
The let ter bore no such address. Noel Vanstone had solved his pecuniary
problem at last. The blank space in the advertisement was filled up, and
Mrs. Lecount's acknowledgment of the captain's anonymous warning was now
on its way to insertion in the _Times_.
THE END OF THE THIRD SCENE.