WHEN Magdalen appeared in the parlor shortly before seven o'clock, not a
trace of discomposure was visible in her manner. She looked and spoke as
quietly and unconcernedly as usual.
The lowering distrust on Captain Wragge's face cleared away at the
sight of her. There had been moments during the afternoon when he had
seriously doubted whether the pleasure of satisfying the grudge he owed
to Noel Vanstone, and the prospect of earning the sum of two hundred
pounds, would not be dearly purchased by running the risk of discovery
to which Magdalen's uncertain temper might expose him at any hour of
the day. The plain proof now before him of her powers of self-control
relieved his mind of a serious anxiety. It mattered little to the
captain what she suffered in the privacy of her own chamber, as long as
she came out of it with a face that would bear inspection, and a voice
that betrayed nothing.
On the way to Sea-view Cottage, Captain Wragge expressed his intention
of asking the housekeeper a few sympathizing questions on the subject of
her invalid brother in Switzerland. He was of opinion that the critical
condition of this gentleman's health might exercise an important
influence on the future progress of the conspiracy. Any chance of a
separation, he remarked, between the housekeeper and her master was,
under existing circumstances, a chance which merited the closest
investigation. "If we can only get Mrs. Lecount out of the way at the
right time," whispered the captain, as he opened his host's garden gate,
"our man is caught!"
In a minute more Magdalen was again under Noel Vanstone's roof; this
time in the character of his own invited guest.
The proceedings of the evening were for the most part a repetition of
the proceedings during the morning walk. Noel Vanstone vibrated between
his admiration of Magdalen's beauty and his glorification of his
own possessions. Captain Wragge's inexhaustible outbursts of
information--relieved by delicately-indirect inquiries relating to
Mrs. Lecount's brother--perpetually diverted the housekeeper's jealous
vigilance from dwelling on the looks and language of her master. So the
evening passed until ten o'clock. By that time the captain's ready-made
science was exhausted, and the housekeeper's temper was forcing its way
to the surface. Once more Captain Wragge warned Magdalen by a look,
and, in spite of Noel Vanstone's hospitable protest, wisely rose to say
good-night.
"I have got my information," remarked the captain on the way back. "Mrs.
Lecount's brother lives at Zurich. He is a bachelor; he possesses a
little money, and his sister is his nearest relation. If he will only
be so obliging as to break up altogether, he will save us a world of
trouble with Mrs. Lecount."
It was a fine moonlight night. He looked round at Magdalen, as he said
those words, to see if her intractable depression of spirits had seized
on her again.
No! her variable humor had changed once more. She looked about her
with a flaunting, feverish gayety; she scoffed at the bare idea of
any serious difficulty with Mrs. Lecount; she mimicked Noel Vanstone's
high-pitched voice, and repeated Noel Vanstone's high-flown compliments,
with a bitter enjoyment of turning him into ridicule. Instead of running
into the house as before, she sauntered carelessly by her companion's
side, humming little snatches of song, and kicking the loose pebbles
right and left on the garden-walk. Captain Wragge hailed the change in
her as the best of good omens. He thought he saw plain signs that the
family spirit was at last coming back again.
"Well," he said, as he lit her bedroom candle for her, "when we all meet
on the Parade tomorrow, we shall see, as our nautical friends say, how
the land lies. One thing I can tell you, my dear girl--I have used my
eyes to very little purpose if there is not a storm brewing tonight in
Mr. Noel Vanstone's domestic atmosphere."
The captain's habitual penetration had not misled him. As soon as the
door of Sea-view Cottage was closed on the parting guests, Mrs. Lecount
made an effort to assert the authority which Magdalen's influence was
threatening already.
She employed every artifice of which she was mistress to ascertain
Magdalen's true position in Noel Vanstone's estimation. She tried again
and again to lure him into an unconscious confession of the pleasure
which he felt already in the society of the beautiful Miss Bygrave; she
twined herself in and out of every weakness in his character, as the
frogs and efts twined themselves in and out of the rock-work of her
Aquarium. But she made one serious mistake which very clever people
in their intercourse with their intellectual inferiors are almost
universally apt to commit--she trusted implicitly to the folly of a
fool. She forgot that one of the lowest of human qualities--cunning--is
exactly the capacity which is often most largely developed in the lowest
of intellectual natures. If she had been honestly angry with her master,
she would probably have frightened him. If she had opened her mind
plainly to his view, she would have astonished him by presenting a chain
of ideas to his limited perceptions which they were not strong enough to
grasp; his curiosity would have led him to ask for an explanation; and
by practicing on that curiosity, she might have had him at her mercy. As
it was, she set her cunning against his, and the fool proved a match for
her. Noel Vanstone, to whom all large-minded motives under heaven were
inscrutable mysteries, saw the small-minded motive at the bottom of his
housekeeper's conduct with as instantaneous a penetration as if he had
been a man of the highest ability. Mrs. Lecount left him for the night,
foiled, and knowing she was foiled--left him, with the tigerish side of
her uppermost, and a low-lived longing in her elegant finger-nails to
set them in her master's face.
She was not a woman to be beaten by one defeat or by a hundred. She was
positively determined to think, and think again, until she had found
a means of checking the growing intimacy with the Bygraves at once and
forever. In the solitude of her own room she recovered her composure,
and set herself for the first time to review the conclusions which she
had gathered from the events of the day.
There was something vaguely familiar to her in the voice of this
Miss Bygrave, and, at the same time, in unaccountable contradiction,
something strange to her as well. The face and figure of the young lady
were entirely new to her. It was a striking face, and a striking figure;
and if she had seen either at any former period, she would certainly
have remembered it. Miss Bygrave was unquestionably a stranger; and
yet--
She had got no further than this during the day; she could get no
further now: the chain of thought broke. Her mind took up the fragments,
and formed another chain which attached itself to the lady who was kept
in seclusion--to the aunt, who looked well, and yet was nervous; who was
nervous, and yet able to ply her needle and thread. An incomprehensible
resemblance to some unremembered voice in the niece; an unintelligible
malady which kept the aunt secluded from public view; an extraordinary
range of scientific cultivation in the uncle, associated with a
coarseness and audacity of manner which by no means suggested the idea
of a man engaged in studious pursuits--were the members of this small
family of three what they seemed on the surface of them?
With that question on her mind, she went to bed.
As soon as the candle was out, the darkness seemed to communicate some
inexplicable perversity to her thoughts. They wandered back from present
things to past, in spite of her. They brought her old master back to
life again; they revived forgotten sayings and doings in the English
circle at Zurich; they veered away to the old man's death-bed at
Brighton; they moved from Brighton to London; they entered the bare,
comfortless room at Vauxhall Walk; they set the Aquarium back in its
place on the kitchen table, and put the false Miss Garth in the chair
by the side of it, shading her inflamed eyes from the light; they placed
the anonymous letter, the letter which glanced darkly at a conspiracy,
in her hand again, and brought her with it into her master's presence;
they recalled the discussion about filling in the blank space in the
advertisement, and the quarrel that followed when she told Noel Vanstone
that the sum he had offered was preposterously small; they revived an
old doubt which had not troubled her for weeks past--a doubt whether the
threatened conspiracy had evaporated in mere words, or whether she and
her master were likely to hear of it again. At this point her thoughts
broke off once more, and there was a momentary blank. The next instant
she started up in bed; her heart beating violently, her head whirling
as if she had lost her senses. With electric suddenness her mind pieced
together its scattered multitude of thoughts, and put them before her
plainly under one intelligible form. In the all-mastering agitation of
the moment, she clapped her hands together, and cried out suddenly in
the darkness:
"Miss Vanstone again!!!"
She got out of bed and kindled the light once more. Steady as her nerves
were, the shock of her own suspicion had shaken them. Her firm hand
trembled as she opened her dressing-case and took from it a little
bottle of sal-volatile. In spite of her smooth cheeks and her
well-preserved hair, she looked every year of her age as she mixed the
spirit with water, greedily drank it, and, wrapping her dressing-gown
round her, sat down on the bedside to get possession again of her calmer
self.
She was quite incapable of tracing the mental process which had led her
to discovery. She could not get sufficiently far from herself to see
that her half-formed conclusions on the subject of the Bygraves had
ended in making that family objects of suspicion to her; that the
association of ideas had thereupon carried her mind back to that other
object of suspicion which was represented by the conspiracy against
her master; and that the two ideas of those two separate subjects of
distrust, coming suddenly in contact, had struck the light. She was not
able to reason back in this way from the effect to the cause. She could
only feel that the suspicion had become more than a suspicion already:
conviction itself could not have been more firmly rooted in her mind.
Looking back at Magdalen by the new light now thrown on her, Mrs.
Lecount would fain have persuaded herself that she recognized some
traces left of the false Miss Garth's face and figure in the graceful
and beautiful girl who had sat at her master's table hardly an hour
since--that she found resemblances now, which she had never thought of
before, between the angry voice she had heard in Vauxhall Walk and the
smooth, well-bred tones which still hung on her ears after the evening's
experience downstairs. She would fain have persuaded herself that she
had reached these results with no undue straining of the truth as she
really knew it, but the effort was in vain.
Mrs. Lecount was not a woman to waste time and thought in trying to
impose on herself. She accepted the inevitable conclusion that the
guesswork of a moment had led her to discovery. And, more than that, she
recognized the plain truth--unwelcome as it was--that the conviction now
fixed in her own mind was thus far unsupported by a single fragment of
producible evidence to justify it to the minds of others.
Under these circumstances, what was the safe course to take with her
master?
If she candidly told him, when they met the next morning, what had
passed through her mind that night, her knowledge of Noel Vanstone
warned her that one of two results would certainly happen. Either he
would be angry and disputatious; would ask for proofs; and, finding none
forthcoming, would accuse her of alarming him without a cause, to serve
her own jealous end of keeping Magdalen out of the house; or he would
be seriously startled, would clamor for the protection of the law, and
would warn the Bygraves to stand on their defense at the outset. If
Magdalen only had been concerned in the plot this latter consequence
would have assumed no great importance in the housekeeper's mind. But
seeing the deception as she now saw it, she was far too clever a woman
to fail in estimating the captain's inexhaustible fertility of resource
at its true value. "If I can't meet this impudent villain with plain
proofs to help me," thought Mrs. Lecount, "I may open my master s eyes
to-morrow morning, and Mr. Bygrave will shut them up again before night.
The rascal is playing with all his own cards under the table, and he
will win the game to a certainty, if he sees my hand at starting."
This policy of waiting was so manifestly the wise policy--the wily Mr.
Bygrave was so sure to have provided himself, in case of emergency, with
evidence to prove the identity which he and his niece had assumed for
their purpose--that Mrs. Lecount at once decided to keep her own counsel
the next morning, and to pause before attacking the conspiracy until she
could produce unanswerable facts to help her. Her master's acquaintance
with the Bygraves was only an acquaintance of one day's standing. There
was no fear of its developing into a dangerous intimacy if she merely
allowed it to continue for a few days more, and if she permanently
checked it, at the latest, in a week's time.
In that period what measures could she take to remove the obstacles
which now stood in her way, and to provide herself with the weapons
which she now wanted?
Reflection showed her three different chances in her favor--three
different ways of arriving at the necessary discovery.
The first chance was to cultivate friendly terms with Magdalen, and
then, taking her unawares, to entrap her into betraying herself in Noel
Vanstone's presence. The second chance was to write to the elder
Miss Vanstone, and to ask (with some alarming reason for putting
the question) for information on the subject of her younger sister's
whereabouts, and of any peculiarities in her personal appearance
which might enable a stranger to identify her. The third chance was to
penetrate the mystery of Mrs. Bygrave's seclusion, and to ascertain at
a personal interview whether the invalid lady's real complaint might
not possibly be a defective capacity for keeping her husband's secrets.
Resolving to try all three chances, in the order in which they are here
enumerated, and to set her snares for Magdalen on the day that was now
already at hand, Mrs. Lecount at last took off her dressing-gown and
allowed her weaker nature to plead with her for a little sleep.
The dawn was breaking over the cold gray sea as she lay down in her
bed again. The last idea in her mind before she fell asleep was
characteristic of the woman--it was an idea that threatened the captain.
"He has trifled with the sacred memory of my husband," thought the
Professor's widow. "On my life and honor, I will make him pay for it."
Early the next morning Magdalen began the day, according to her
agreement with the captain, by taking Mrs. Wragge out for a little
exercise at an hour when there was no fear of her attracting the public
attention. She pleaded hard to be left at home; having the Oriental
Cashmere Robe still on her mind, and feeling it necessary to read her
directions for dressmaking, for the hundredth time at least, before
(to use her own expression) she could "screw up her courage to put the
scissors into the stuff." But her companion would take no denial, and
she was forced to go out. The one guileless purpose of the life which
Magdalen now led was the resolution that poor Mrs. Wragge should not be
made a prisoner on her account; and to that resolution she mechanically
clung, as the last token left her by which she knew her better-self.
They returned later than usual to breakfast. While Mrs. Wragge was
upstairs, straightening herself from head to foot to meet the morning
inspection of her husband's orderly eye; and while Magdalen and the
captain were waiting for her in the parlor, the servant came in with a
note from Sea-view Cottage. The messenger was waiting for an answer, and
the note was addressed to Captain Wragge.
The captain opened the note and read these lines:
"DEAR SIR--Mr. Noel Vanstone desires me to write and tell you that he
proposes enjoying this fine day by taking a long drive to a place on the
coast here called Dunwich. He is anxious to know if you will share the
expense of a carriage, and give him the pleasure of your company and
Miss Bygrave's company on this excursion. I am kindly permitted to
be one of the party; and if I may say so without impropriety, I would
venture to add that I shall feel as much pleasure as my master if
you and your young lady will consent to join us. We propose leaving
Aldborough punctually at eleven o'clock. Believe me, dear sir, your
humble servant,
"VIRGINIE LECOUNT."
"Who is the letter from?" asked Magdalen, noticing a change in Captain
Wragge's face as he read it. "What do they want with us at Sea-view
Cottage?"
"Pardon me," said the captain, gravely, "this requires consideration.
Let me have a minute or two to think."
He took a few turns up and down the room, then suddenly stepped aside to
a table in a corner on which his writing materials were placed. "I
was not born yesterday, ma'am!" said the captain, speaking jocosely to
himself. He winked his brown eye, took up his pen, and wrote the answer.
"Can you speak now?" inquired Magdalen, when the servant had left the
room. "What does that letter say, and how have you answered it?"
The captain placed the letter in her hand. "I have accepted the
invitation," he replied, quietly.
Magdalen read the letter. "Hidden enmity yesterday," she said, "and open
friendship to-day. What does it mean?"
"It means," said Captain Wragge, "that Mrs. Lecount is even sharper than
I thought her. She has found you out."
"Impossible," cried Magdalen. "Quite impossible in the time."
"I can't say _how_ she has found you out," proceeded the captain, with
perfect composure. "She may know more of your voice than we supposed
she knew. Or she may have thought us, on reflection, rather a suspicious
family; and anything suspicious in which a woman was concerned may have
taken her mind back to that morning call of yours in Vauxhall Walk.
Whichever way it may be, the meaning of this sudden change is clear
enough. She has found you out; and she wants to put her discovery to the
proof by slipping in an awkward question or two, under cover of a little
friendly talk. My experience of humanity has been a varied one, and
Mrs. Lecount is not the first sharp practitioner in petticoats whom I
have had to deal with. All the world's a stage, my dear girl, and one of
the scenes on our little stage is shut in from this moment."
With those words he took his copy of Joyce's Scientific Dialogues out
of his pocket. "You're done with already, my friend!" said the captain,
giving his useful information a farewell smack with his hand, and
locking it up in the cupboard. "Such is human popularity!" continued
the indomitable vagabond, putting the key cheerfully in his pocket.
"Yesterday Joyce was my all-in-all. To-day I don't care that for him!"
He snapped his fingers and sat down to breakfast.
"I don't understand you," said Magdalen, looking at him angrily. "Are
you leaving me to my own resources for the future?"
"My dear girl!" cried Captain Wragge, "can't you accustom yourself to my
dash of humor yet? I have done with my ready-made science simply because
I am quite sure that Mrs. Lecount has done believing in me. Haven't I
accepted the invitation to Dunwich? Make your mind easy. The help I have
given you already counts for nothing compared with the help I am going
to give you now. My honor is concerned in bowling out Mrs. Lecount. This
last move of hers has made it a personal matter between us. _The woman
actually thinks she can take me in!!!_" cried the captain, striking his
knife-handle on the table in a transport of virtuous indignation. "By
heavens, I never was so insulted before in my life! Draw your chair in
to the table, my dear, and give me half a minute's attention to what I
have to say next."
Magdalen obeyed him. Captain Wragge cautiously lowered his voice before
he went on.
"I have told you all along," he said, "the one thing needful is never to
let Mrs. Lecount catch you with your wits wool-gathering. I say the same
after what has happened this morning. Let her suspect you! I defy her to
find a fragment of foundation for her suspicions, unless we help her. We
shall see to-day if she has been foolish enough to betray herself to her
master before she has any facts to support her. I doubt it. If she has
told him, we will rain down proofs of our identity with the Bygraves
on his feeble little head till it absolutely aches with conviction. You
have two things to do on this excursion. First, to distrust every word
Mrs. Lecount says to you. Secondly, to exert all your fascinations, and
make sure of Mr. Noel Vanstone, dating from to-day. I will give you the
opportunity when we leave the carriage and take our walk at Dunwich.
Wear your hat, wear your smile; do your figure justice, lace tight; put
on your neatest boots and brightest gloves; tie the miserable little
wretch to your apron-string--tie him fast; and leave the whole
management of the matter after that to me. Steady! here is Mrs. Wragge:
we must be doubly careful in looking after her now. Show me your cap,
Mrs. Wragge! show me your shoes! What do I see on your apron? A spot? I
won't have spots! Take it off after breakfast, and put on another. Pull
your chair to the middle of the table--more to the left--more still.
Make the breakfast."
At a quarter before eleven Mrs. Wragge (with her own entire concurrence)
was dismissed to the back room, to bewilder herself over the science of
dressmaking for the rest of the day. Punctually as the clock struck
the hour, Mrs. Lecount and her master drove up to the gate of North
Shingles, and found Magdalen and Captain Wragge waiting for them in the
garden.
On the way to Dunwich nothing occurred to disturb the enjoyment of
the drive. Noel Vanstone was in excellent health and high good-humor.
Lecount had apologized for the little misunderstanding of the previous
night; Lecount had petitioned for the excursion as a treat to herself.
He thought of these concessions, and looked at Magdalen, and smirked
and simpered without intermission. Mrs. Lecount acted her part to
perfection. She was motherly with Magdalen and tenderly attentive
to Noel Vanstone. She was deeply interested in Captain Wragge's
conversation, and meekly disappointed to find it turn on general
subjects, to the exclusion of science. Not a word or look escaped her
which hinted in the remotest degree at her real purpose. She was dressed
with her customary elegance and propriety; and she was the only one
of the party on that sultry summer's day who was perfectly cool in the
hottest part of the journey.
As they left the carriage on their arrival at Dunwich, the captain
seized a moment when Mrs. Lecount's eye was off him and fortified
Magdalen by a last warning word.
"'Ware the cat!" he whispered. "She will show her claws on the way
back."
They left the village and walked to the ruins of a convent near at
hand--the last relic of the once populous city of Dunwich which
has survived the destruction of the place, centuries since, by the
all-devouring sea. After looking at the ruins, they sought the shade of
a little wood between the village and the low sand-hills which overlook
the German Ocean. Here Captain Wragge maneuvered so as to let Magdalen
and Noel Vanstone advance some distance in front of Mrs. Lecount and
himself, took the wrong path, and immediately lost his way with the
most consummate dexterity. After a few minutes' wandering (in the wrong
direction), he reached an open space near the sea; and politely opening
his camp-stool for the housekeeper's accommodation, proposed waiting
where they were until the missing members of the party came that way and
discovered them.
Mrs. Lecount accepted the proposal. She was perfectly well aware that
her escort had lost himself on purpose, but that discovery exercised no
disturbing influence on the smooth amiability of her manner. Her day of
reckoning with the captain had not come yet--she merely added the new
item to her list, and availed herself of the camp-stool. Captain Wragge
stretched himself in a romantic attitude at her feet, and the two
determined enemies (grouped like two lovers in a picture) fell into as
easy and pleasant a conversation as if they had been friends of twenty
years' standing.
"I know you, ma'am!" thought the captain, while Mrs. Lecount was talking
to him. "You would like to catch me tripping in my ready-made science,
and you wouldn't object to drown me in the Professor's Tank!"
"You villain with the brown eye and the green!" thought Mrs. Lecount, as
the captain caught the ball of conversation in his turn; "thick as your
skin is, I'll sting you through it yet!"
In this frame of mind toward each other they talked fluently on general
subjects, on public affairs, on local scenery, on society in England
and society in Switzerland, on health, climate, books, marriage
and money--talked, without a moment's pause, without a single
misunderstanding on either side for nearly an hour, before Magdalen
and Noel Vanstone strayed that way and made the party of four complete
again.
When they reached the inn at which the carriage was waiting for them,
Captain Wragge left Mrs. Lecount in undisturbed possession of her
master, and signed to Magdalen to drop back for a moment and speak to
him.
"Well?" asked the captain, in a whisper, "is he fast to your
apron-string?"
She shuddered from head to foot as she answered.
"He has kissed my hand," she said. "Does that tell you enough? Don't let
him sit next me on the way home! I have borne all I can bear--spare me
for the rest of the day."
"I'll put you on the front seat of the carriage," replied the captain,
"side by side with me."
On the journey back Mrs. Lecount verified Captain Wragge's prediction.
She showed her claws.
The time could not have been better chosen; the circumstances could
hardly have favored her more. Magdalen's spirits were depressed: she was
weary in body and mind; and she sat exactly opposite the housekeeper,
who had been compelled, by the new arrangement, to occupy the seat of
honor next her master. With every facility for observing the slightest
changes that passed over Magdalen's face, Mrs. Lecount tried he r first
experiment by leading the conversation to the subject of London, and to
the relative advantages offered to residents by the various quarters
of the metropolis on both sides of the river. The ever-ready Wragge
penetrated her intention sooner than she had anticipated, and interposed
immediately. "You're coming to Vauxhall Walk, ma'am," thought the
captain; "I'll get there before you."
He entered at once into a purely fictitious description of the various
quarters of London in which he had himself resided; and, adroitly
mentioning Vauxhall Walk as one of them, saved Magdalen from the sudden
question relating to that very locality with which Mrs. Lecount had
proposed startling her, to begin with. From his residences he passed
smoothly to himself, and poured his whole family history (in the
character of Mr. Bygrave) into the housekeeper's ears--not forgetting
his brother's grave in Honduras, with the monument by the self-taught
negro artist, and his brother's hugely corpulent widow, on the
ground-floor of the boarding-house at Cheltenham. As a means of giving
Magdalen time to compose herself, this outburst of autobiographical
information attained its object, but it answered no other purpose. Mrs.
Lecount listened, without being imposed on by a single word the captain
said to her. He merely confirmed her conviction of the hopelessness of
taking Noel Vanstone into her confidence before she had facts to help
her against Captain Wragge's otherwise unassailable position in the
identity which he had assumed. She quietly waited until he had done, and
then returned to the charge.
"It is a coincidence that your uncle should have once resided in
Vauxhall Walk," she said, addressing herself to Magdalen. "Mr. Noel
has a house in the same place, and we lived there before we came to
Aldborough. May I inquire, Miss Bygrave, whether you know anything of a
lady named Miss Garth?"
This time she put the question before the captain could interfere.
Magdalen ought to have been prepared for it by what had already passed
in her presence, but her nerves had been shaken by the earlier events of
the day; and she could only answer the question in the negative, after
an instant's preliminary pause to control herself. Her hesitation was
of too momentary a nature to attract the attention of any unsuspicious
person. But it lasted long enough to confirm Mrs. Lecount's private
convictions, and to encourage her to advance a little further.
"I only asked," she continued, steadily fixing her eyes on Magdalen,
steadily disregarding the efforts which Captain Wragge made to join
in the conversation, "because Miss Garth is a stranger to me, and I am
curious to find out what I can about her. The day before we left town,
Miss Bygrave, a person who presented herself under the name I have
mentioned paid us a visit under very extraordinary circumstances."
With a smooth, ingratiating manner, with a refinement of contempt
which was little less than devilish in its ingenious assumption of the
language of pity, she now boldly described Magdalen's appearance in
disguise in Magdalen's own presence. She slightingly referred to the
master and mistress of Combe-Raven as persons who had always annoyed the
elder and more respectable branch of the family; she mourned over the
children as following their parents' example, and attempting to take
a mercenary advantage of Mr. Noel Vanstone, under the protection of a
respectable person's character and a respectable person's name. Cleverly
including her master in the conversation, so as to prevent the
captain from effecting a diversion in that quarter; sparing no petty
aggravation; striking at every tender place which the tongue of a
spiteful woman can wound, she would, beyond all doubt, have carried her
point, and tortured Magdalen into openly betraying herself, if Captain
Wragge had not checked her in full career by a loud exclamation of
alarm, and a sudden clutch at Magdalen's wrist.
"Ten thousand pardons, my dear madam!" cried the captain. "I see in
my niece's face, I feel in my niece's pulse, that one of her violent
neuralgic attacks has come on again. My dear girl, why hesitate among
friends to confess that you are in pain? What mistimed politeness! Her
face shows she is suffering--doesn't it Mrs. Lecount? Darting pains,
Mr. Vanstone, darting pains on the left side of the head. Pull down
your veil, my dear, and lean on me. Our friends will excuse you; our
excellent friends will excuse you for the rest of the day."
Before Mrs. Lecount could throw an instant's doubt on the genuineness
of the neuralgic attack, her master's fidgety sympathy declared
itself exactly as the captain had anticipated, in the most active
manifestations. He stopped the carriage, and insisted on an immediate
change in the arrangement of the places--the comfortable back seat for
Miss Bygrave and her uncle, the front seat for Lecount and himself. Had
Lecount got her smelling-bottle? Excellent creature! let her give it
directly to Miss Bygrave, and let the coachman drive carefully. If the
coachman shook Miss Bygrave he should not have a half-penny for himself.
Mesmerism was frequently useful in these cases. Mr. Noel Vanstone's
father had been the most powerful mesmerist in Europe, and Mr. Noel
Vanstone was his father's son. Might he mesmerize? Might he order that
infernal coachman to draw up in a shady place adapted for the purpose?
Would medical help be preferred? Could medical help be found any
nearer than Aldborough? That ass of a coachman didn't know. Stop every
respectable man who passed in a gig, and ask him if he was a doctor! So
Mr. Noel Vanstone ran on, with brief intervals for breathing-time, in a
continually-ascending scale of sympathy and self-importance, throughout
the drive home.
Mrs. Lecount accepted her defeat without uttering a word. From the
moment when Captain Wragge interrupted her, her thin lips closed and
opened no more for the remainder of the journey. The warmest expressions
of her master's anxiety for the suffering young lady provoked from her
no outward manifestations of anger. She took as little notice of him
as possible. She paid no attention whatever to the captain, whose
exasperating consideration for his vanquished enemy made him more polite
to her than ever. The nearer and the nearer they got to Aldborough the
more and more fixedly Mrs. Lecount's hard black eyes looked at Magdalen
reclining on the opposite seat, with her eyes closed and her veil down.
It was only when the carriage stopped at North Shingles, and when
Captain Wragge was handing Magdalen out, that the housekeeper at last
condescended to notice him. As he smiled and took off his hat at the
carriage door, the strong restraint she had laid on herself suddenly
gave way, and she flashed one look at him which scorched up the
captain's politeness on the spot. He turned at once, with a hasty
acknowledgment of Noel Vanstone's last sympathetic inquiries, and took
Magdalen into the house. "I told you she would show her claws," he said.
"It is not my fault that she scratched you before I could stop her. She
hasn't hurt you, has she?"
"She has hurt me, to some purpose," said Magdalen--"she has given me the
courage to go on. Say what must be done to-morrow, and trust me to do
it." She sighed heavily as she said those words, and went up to her
room.
Captain Wragge walked meditatively into the parlor, and sat down to
consider. He felt by no means so certain as he could have wished of the
next proceeding on the part of the enemy after the defeat of that day.
The housekeeper's farewell look had plainly informed him that she was
not at the end of her resources yet, and the old militia-man felt the
full importance of preparing himself in good time to meet the next step
which she took in advance. He lit a cigar, and bent his wary mind on the
dangers of the future.
While Captain Wragge was considering in the parlor at North Shingles,
Mrs. Lecount was meditating in her bedroom at Sea View. Her exasperation
at the failure of her first attempt to expose the conspiracy had not
blinded her to the instant necessity of making a second effort before
Noel Vanstone's growing infatuation got beyond her control. The snare
set for Magdalen having failed, the chance of entrapping Magdalen's
sister was the next chance to try. Mrs. Lecount ordered a cup of tea,
opened her writing-case, and began the rough draft of a letter to be
sent to Miss Vanstone, the elder, by the morrow's post.
So the day's skirmish ended. The heat of the battle was yet to come.