_From Mrs. Noel Vanstone to Miss Garth._
"November 5th, Two o'Clock.
"I have just returned from Westmoreland House--after purposely leaving
it in secret, and purposely avoiding you under your own roof. You shall
know why I came, and why I went away. It is due to my remembrance of old
times not to treat you like a stranger, although I can never again treat
you like a friend.
"I set forth on the third from the North to London. My only object in
taking this long journey was to see Norah. I had been suffering for many
weary weeks past such remorse as only miserable women like me can feel.
Perhaps the suffering weakened me; perhaps it roused some old forgotten
tenderness--God knows!--I can't explain it; I can only tell you that I
began to think of Norah by day, and to dream of Norah by night, till I
was almost heartbroken. I have no better reason than this to give for
running all the risks which I ran, and coming to London to see her. I
don't wish to claim more for myself than I deserve; I don't wish to
tell you I was the reformed and repenting creature whom _you_ might have
approved. I had only one feeling in me that I know of. I wanted to
put my arms round Norah's neck, and cry my heart out on Norah's bosom.
Childish enough, I dare say. Something might have come of it; nothing
might have come of it--who knows?
"I had no means of finding Norah without your assistance. However you
might disapprove of what I had done, I thought you would not refuse to
help me to find my sister. When I lay down last night in my strange bed,
I said to myself, 'I will ask Miss Garth, for my father's sake and my
mother's sake, to tell me.' You don't know what a comfort I felt in that
thought. How should you? What do good women like you know of miserable
sinners like me? All you know is that you pray for us at church.
"Well, I fell asleep happily that night--for the first time since my
marriage. When the morning came, I paid the penalty of daring to be
happy only for one night. When the morning came, a letter came with
it, which told me that my bitterest enemy on earth (you have meddled
sufficiently with my affairs to know what enemy I mean) had revenged
herself on me in my absence. In following the impulse which led me to my
sister, I had gone to my ruin.
"The mischief was beyond all present remedy, when I received the news of
it. Whatever had happened, whatever might happen, I made up my mind to
persist in my resolution of seeing Norah before I did anything else. I
suspected _you_ of being concerned in the disaster which had overtaken
me--because I felt positively certain at Aldborough that you and Mrs.
Lecount had written to each other. But I never suspected Norah. If I
lay on my death-bed at this moment I could say with a safe conscience I
never suspected Norah.
"So I went this morning to Westmor eland House to ask you for my
sister's address, and to acknowledge plainly that I suspected you of
being again in correspondence with Mrs. Lecount.
"When I inquired for you at the door, they told me you had gone out, but
that you were expected back before long. They asked me if I would see
your sister, who was then in the school-room. I desired that your sister
should on no account be disturbed: my business was not with her, but
with you. I begged to be allowed to wait in a room by myself until you
returned.
"They showed me into the double room on the ground-floor, divided by
curtains--as it was when I last remember it. There was a fire in the
outer division of the room, but none in the inner; and for that reason,
I suppose, the curtains were drawn. The servant was very civil and
attentive to me. I have learned to be thankful for civility and
attention, and I spoke to her as cheerfully as I could. I said to her,
'I shall see Miss Garth here, as she comes up to the door, and I can
beckon her in through the long window.' The servant said I could do so,
if you came that way, but that you let yourself in sometimes with your
own key by the back-garden gate; and if you did this, she would take
care to let you know of my visit. I mention these trifles, to show you
that there was no pre-meditated deceit in my mind when I came to the
house.
"I waited a weary time, and you never came: I don't know whether my
impatience made me think so, or whether the large fire burning made the
room really as hot as I felt it to be--I only know that, after a while,
I passed through the curtains into the inner room, to try the cooler
atmosphere.
"I walked to the long window which leads into the back garden, to look
out, and almost at the same time I heard the door opened--the door of
the room I had just left, and your voice and the voice of some
other woman, a stranger to me, talking. The stranger was one of the
parlor-boarders, I dare say. I gathered from the first words you
exchanged together, that you had met in the passage--she on her way
downstairs, and you on your way in from the back garden. Her next
question and your next answer informed me that this person was a friend
of my sister's, who felt a strong interest in her, and who knew that
you had just returned from a visit to Norah. So far, I only hesitated
to show myself, because I shrank, in my painful situation, from facing
a stranger. But when I heard my own name immediately afterward on your
lips and on hers, then I purposely came nearer to the curtain between
us, and purposely listened.
"A mean action, you will say? Call it mean, if you like. What better can
you expect from such a woman as I am?
"You were always famous for your memory. There is no necessity for my
repeating the words you spoke to your friend, and the words your friend
spoke to you, hardly an hour since. When you read these lines, you
will know, as well as I know, what those words told me. I ask for no
particulars; I will take all your reasons and all your excuses for
granted. It is enough for me to know that you and Mr. Pendril have been
searching for me again, and that Norah is in the conspiracy this time,
to reclaim me in spite of myself. It is enough for me to know that my
letter to my sister has been turned into a trap to catch me, and
that Mrs. Lecount's revenge has accomplished its object by means of
information received from Norah's lips.
"Shall I tell you what I suffered when I heard these things? No; it
would only be a waste of time to tell you. Whatever I suffer, I deserve
it--don't I?
"I waited in that inner room--knowing my own violent temper, and not
trusting myself to see you, after what I had heard--I waited in that
inner room, trembling lest the servant should tell you of my visit
before I could find an opportunity of leaving the house. No such
misfortune happened. The servant, no doubt, heard the voices upstairs,
and supposed that we had met each other in the passage. I don't know how
long or how short a time it was before you left the room to go and take
off your bonnet--you went, and your friend went with you. I raised the
long window softly, and stepped into the back garden. The way by which
you returned to the house was the way by which I left it. No blame
attaches to the servant. As usual, where I am concerned, nobody is to
blame but me.
"Time enough has passed now to quiet my mind a little. You know how
strong I am? You remember how I used to fight against all my illnesses
when I was a child? Now I am a woman, I fight against my miseries in the
same way. Don't pity me, Miss Garth! Don't pity me!
"I have no harsh feeling against Norah. The hope I had of seeing her
is a hope taken from me; the consolation I had in writing to her is a
consolation denied me for the future. I am cut to the heart; but I have
no angry feeling toward my sister. She means well, poor soul--I dare say
she means well. It would distress her, if she knew what has happened.
Don't tell her. Conceal my visit, and burn my letter.
"A last word to yourself and I have done:
"If I rightly understand my present situation, your spies are still
searching for me to just as little purpose as they searched at
York. Dismiss them--you are wasting your money to no purpose. If you
discovered me to-morrow, what could you do? My position has altered. I
am no longer the poor outcast girl, the vagabond public performer, whom
you once hunted after. I have done what I told you I would do--I have
made the general sense of propriety my accomplice this time. Do you know
who I am? I am a respectable married woman, accountable for my actions
to nobody under heaven but my husband. I have got a place in the world,
and a name in the world, at last. Even the law, which is the friend of
all you respectable people, has recognized my existence, and has become
_my_ friend too! The Archbishop of Canterbury gave me his license to be
married, and the vicar of Aldborough performed the service. If I
found your spies following me in the street, and if I chose to claim
protection from them, the law would acknowledge my claim. You forget
what wonders my wickedness has done for me. It has made Nobody's Child
Somebody's Wife.
"If you will give these considerations their due weight; if you will
exert your excellent common sense, I have no fear of being obliged to
appeal to my newly-found friend and protector--the law. You will feel,
by this time, that you have meddled with me at last to some purpose. I
am estranged from Norah--I am discovered by my husband--I am defeated
by Mrs. Lecount. You have driven me to the last extremity; you have
strengthened me to fight the battle of my life with the resolution which
only a lost and friendless woman can feel. Badly as your schemes have
prospered, they have not proved totally useless after all!
"I have no more to say. If you ever speak about me to Norah, tell her
that a day may come when she will see me again--the day when we two
sisters have recovered our natural rights; the day when I put Norah's
fortune into Norah's hand.
"Those are my last words. Remember them the next time you feel tempted
to meddle with me again.
"MAGDALEN VANSTONE."