Man and Wife - Wilkie Collins (the gingerbread man read aloud txt) 📗

“Going?” she said, a little sadly.

“I shall be back in two days,” Arnold whispered. “It’s all right! Sir Patrick consents.”

She held him fast by the arm. The hurried parting before other people seemed to be not a parting to Blanche’s taste.

“You will lose the train!” cried Sir Patrick.

Geoffrey seized Arnold by the arm which Blanche was holding, and tore him—literally tore him—away. The two were out of sight, in the shrubbery, before Blanche’s indignation found words, and addressed itself to her uncle.

“Why is that brute going away with Mr. Brinkworth?” she asked.

“Mr. Delamayn is called to London by his father’s illness,” replied Sir Patrick. “You don’t like him?”

“I hate him!”

Sir Patrick reflected a little.

“She is a young girl of eighteen,” he thought to himself. “And I am an old man of seventy. Curious, that we should agree about any thing. More than curious that we should agree in disliking Mr. Delamayn.”

He roused himself, and looked again at Blanche. She was seated at the table, with her head on her hand; absent, and out of spirits—thinking of Arnold, and set, with the future all smooth before them, not thinking happily.

“Why, Blanche! Blanche!” cried Sir Patrick, “one would think he had gone for a voyage round the world. You silly child! he will be back again the day after to-morrow.”

“I wish he hadn’t gone with that man!” said Blanche. “I wish he hadn’t got that man for a friend!”

“There! there! the man was rude enough I own. Never mind! he will leave the man at the second station. Come back to the ball-room with me. Dance it off, my dear—dance it off!”

“No,” returned Blanche. “I’m in no humor for dancing. I shall go up stairs, and talk about it to Anne.”

“You will do nothing of the sort!” said a third voice, suddenly joining in the conversation.

Both uncle and niece looked up, and found Lady Lundie at the top of the summer-house steps.

“I forbid you to mention that woman’s name again in my hearing,” pursued her ladyship. “Sir Patrick! I warned you (if you remember?) that the matter of the governess was not a matter to be trifled with. My worst anticipations are realized. Miss Silvester has left the house!”

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.

THE SCANDAL.

IT was still early in the afternoon when the guests at Lady Lundie’s lawn-party began to compare notes together in corners, and to agree in arriving at a general conviction that “some thing was wrong.”

Blanche had mysteriously disappeared from her partners in the dance. Lady Lundie had mysteriously abandoned her guests. Blanche had not come back. Lady Lundie had returned with an artificial smile, and a preoccupied manner. She acknowledged that she was “not very well.” The same excuse had been given to account for Blanche’s absence—and, again (some time previously), to explain Miss Silvester’s withdrawal from the croquet! A wit among the gentlemen declared it reminded him of declining a verb. “I am not very well; thou art not very well; she is not very well”—and so on. Sir Patrick too! Only think of the sociable Sir Patrick being in a state of seclusion—pacing up and down by himself in the loneliest part of the garden. And the servants again! it had even spread to the servants! They were presuming to whisper in corners, like their betters. The house-maids appeared, spasmodically, where house maids had no business to be. Doors banged and petticoats whisked in the upper regions. Something wrong—depend upon it, something wrong! “We had much better go away. My dear, order the carriage”—“Louisa, love, no more dancing; your papa is going.”—”Good-afternoon, Lady LundieSo sorry for dear Blanche!”—“Oh, it’s been too charming!” So Society jabbered its poor, nonsensical little jargon, and got itself politely out of the way before the storm came.

This was exactly the consummation of events for which Sir Patrick had been waiting in the seclusion of the garden.

There was no evading the responsibility which was now thrust upon him. Lady Lundie had announced it as a settled resolution, on her part, to trace Anne to the place in which she had taken refuge, and discover (purely in the interests of virtue) whether she actually was married or not. Blanche (already overwrought by the excitem ent of the day) had broken into an hysterical passion of tears on hearing the news, and had then, on recovering, taken a view of her own of Anne’s flight from the house. Anne would never have kept her marriage a secret from Blanche; Anne would never have written such a formal farewell letter as she had written to Blanche—if things were going as smoothly with her as she was trying to make them believe at Windygates. Some dreadful trouble had fallen on Anne and Blanche was determined (as Lady Lundie was determined) to find out where she had gone, and to follow, and help her.

It was plain to Sir Patrick (to whom both ladies had opened their hearts, at separate interviews) that his sister-in-law, in one way, and his niece in another, were equally likely—if not duly restrained—to plunge headlong into acts of indiscretion which might lead to very undesirable results. A man in authority was sorely needed at Windygates that afternoon—and Sir Patrick was fain to acknowledge that he was the man.

“Much is to be said for, and much is to be said against a single life,” thought the old gentleman, walking up and down the sequestered garden-path to which he had retired , and applying himself at shorter intervals than usual to the knob of his ivory cane. “This, however, is, I take it, certain. A man’s married friends can’t prevent him from leading the life of a bachelor, if he pleases. But they can, and do, take devilish good care that he sha’n’t enjoy it!”

Sir Patrick’s meditations were interrupted by the appearance of a servant, previously instructed to keep him informed of the progress of events at the house.

“They’re all gone, Sir Patrick,” said the man.

“That’s a comfort, Simpson. We have no visitors to deal with now, except the visitors who are staying in the house?”

“None, Sir Patrick.”

“They’re all gentlemen, are they not?”

“Yes, Sir Patrick.”

“That’s another comfort, Simpson. Very good. I’ll see Lady Lundie first.”

Does any other form of human resolution approach the firmness of a woman who is bent on discovering the frailties of another woman whom she hates? You may move rocks, under a given set of circumstances. But here is a delicate being in petticoats, who shrieks if a spider drops on her neck, and shudders if you approach her after having eaten an onion. Can you move her, under a given set of circumstances, as set forth above? Not you!

Sir Patrick found her ladyship instituting her inquiries on the same admirably exhaustive system which is pursued, in cases of disappearance, by the police. Who was the last witness who had seen the missing person? Who was the last servant who had seen Anne Silvester? Begin with the men-servants, from the butler at the top to the stable boy at the bottom. Go on with the women-servants, from the cook in all her glory to the small female child who weeds the garden. Lady Lundie had cross-examined her way downward as far as the page, when Sir Patrick joined her.

“My dear lady! pardon me for reminding you again, that this is a free country, and that you have no claim whatever to investigate Miss Silvester’s proceedings after she has left your house.”

Lady Lundie raised her eyes, devotionally, to the ceiling. She looked like a martyr to duty. If you had seen her ladyship at that moment, you would have said yourself, “A martyr to duty.”

“No, Sir Patrick! As a Christian woman, that is not my way of looking at it. This unhappy person has lived under my roof. This unhappy person has been the companion of Blanche. I am responsible—I am, in a manner, morally responsible. I would give the world to be able to dismiss it as you do. But no! I must be satisfied that she is married. In the interests of propriety. For the quieting of my own conscience. Before I lay my head on my pillow to-night, Sir Patrick—before I lay my head on my pillow to-night!”

“One word, Lady Lundie—”

“No!” repeated her ladyship, with the most pathetic gentleness. “You are right, I dare say, from the worldly point of view. I can’t take the worldly point of view. The worldly point of view hurts me.” She turned, with impressive gravity, to the page. “You know where you will go, Jonathan, if you tell lies!”

Jonathan was lazy, Jonathan was pimply, Jonathan was fat—_but_ Jonathan was orthodox. He answered that he did know; and, what is more, he mentioned the place.

Sir Patrick saw that further opposition on his part, at that moment, would be worse than useless. He wisely determined to wait, before he interfered again, until Lady Lundie had thoroughly exhausted herself and her inquiries. At the same time—as it was impossible, in the present state of her ladyship’s temper, to provide against what might happen if the inquiries after Anne unluckily proved successful—he decided on taking measures to clear the house of the guests (in the interests of all parties) for the next four-and-twenty hours.

“I only want to ask you a question, Lady Lundie,” he resumed. “The position of the gentlemen who are staying here is not a very pleasant one while all this is going on. If you had been content to let the matter pass without notice, we should have done very well. As things are, don’t you think it will be more convenient to every body if I relieve you of the responsibility of entertaining your guests?”

“As head of the family?” stipulated Lady Lundie.

“As head of the family!” answered Sir Patrick.

“I gratefully accept the proposal,” said Lady Lundie.

“I beg you won’t mention it,” rejoined Sir Patrick.

He quitted the room, leaving Jonathan under examination. He and his brother (the late Sir Thomas) had chosen widely different paths in life, and had seen but little of each other since the time when they had been boys. Sir Patrick’s recollections (on leaving Lady Lundie) appeared to have taken him back to that time, and to have inspired him with a certain tenderness for his brother’s memory. He shook his head, and sighed a sad little sigh. “Poor Tom!” he said to himself, softly, after he had shut the door on his brother’s widow. “Poor Tom!”

On crossing the hall, he stopped the first servant he met, to inquire after Blanche. Miss Blanche was quiet, up stairs, closeted with her maid in her own room. “Quiet?” thought Sir Patrick. “That’s a bad sign. I shall hear more of my niece.”

Pending that event, the next thing to do was to find the guests. Unerring instinct led Sir Patrick to the billiard-room. There he found them, in solemn conclave assembled. wondering what they had better do. Sir Patrick put them all at their ease in two minutes.

“What do you say to a day’s shooting to-morrow?” he asked.

Every man present—sportsman or not—said yes.

“You can start from this house,” pursued Sir Patrick; “or you can start from a shooting-cottage which is on the Windygates property—among the woods, on the other side of the moor. The weather looks pretty well settled (for Scotland), and there are plenty of horses in the stables. It is useless to conceal from you, gentlemen, that events have taken a certain unexpected turn in my sister-in-law’s family circle. You will be equally Lady Lundie’s guests, whether you choose the