Man and Wife - Wilkie Collins (the gingerbread man read aloud txt) š
- Author: Wilkie Collins
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He had quieted Lady Lundieāhe had even quieted Blanche. But it was evidently on the condition that he was to go to Craig Fernie in their places, and to see Anne Silvester himself. Without a word more of explanation he mounted his horse, and led the way out. The shooting-party left Windygates.
SECOND SCENE.āTHE INN.
CHAPTER THE NINTH.
ANNE.
āYEāLL just permit me to remind ye again, young leddy, that the hottleās fullāexceptinā only this settinā-room, and the bedchamber yonder belonging to it.ā
So spoke āMistress Inchbare,ā landlady of the Craig Fernie Inn, to Anne Silvester, standing in the parlor, purse in hand, and offering the price of the two rooms before she claimed permission to occupy them.
The time of the afternoon was about the time when Geoffrey Delamayn had started in the train, on his journey to London. About the time also, when Arnold Brinkworth had crossed the moor, and was mounting the first rising ground which led to the inn.
Mistress Inchbare was tall and thin, and decent and dry. Mistress Inchbareās unlovable hair clung fast round her head in wiry little yellow curls. Mistress Inchbareās hard bones showed themselves, like Mistress Inchbareās hard Presbyterianism, without any concealment or compromise. In short, a savagely-respectable woman who plumed herself on presiding over a savagely-respectable inn.
There was no competition to interfere with Mistress Inchbare. She regulated her own prices, and made her own rules. If you objected to her prices, and revolted from her rules, you were free to go. In other words, you were free to cast yourself, in the capacity of houseless wanderer, on the scanty mercy of a Scotch wilderness. The village of Craig Fernie was a collection of hovels. The country about Craig Fernie, mountain on one side and moor on the other, held no second house of public entertainment, for miles and miles round, at any point of the compass. No rambling individual but the helpless British Tourist wanted food and shelter from strangers in that part of Scotland; and nobody but Mistress Inchbare had food and shelter to sell. A more thoroughly independent person than this was not to be found on the face of the hotel-keeping earth. The most universal of all civilized terrorsāthe terror of appearing unfavorably in the newspapersāwas a sensation absolutely unknown to the Empress of the Inn. You lost your temper, and threatened to send her bill for exhibition in the public journals. Mistress Inchbare raised no objection to your taking any course you pleased with it. āEh, man! send the bill wharā ye like, as long as ye pay it first. Thereās nae such thing as a newspaper ever darkens my doors. Yeāve got the Auld and New Testaments in your bedchambers, and the natural history oā Pairthshire on the coffee-room tableāand if thatās noā reading eneugh for ye, ye may een gae back South again, and get the rest of it there.ā
This was the inn at which Anne Silvester had appeared alone, with nothing but a little bag in her hand. This was the woman whose reluctance to receive her she innocently expected to overcome by showing her purse.
āMention your charge for the rooms,ā she said. āI am willing to pay for them beforehand.ā
Her majesty, Mrs. Inchbare, never even looked at her subjectās poor little purse.
āIt just comes to this, mistress,ā she answered. āIām noā free to takā your money, if Iām noā free to let ye the last rooms left in the hoose. The Craig Fernie hottle is a faimily hottleāand has its ain gude name to keep up. Yeāre ower-well-looking, my young leddy, to be traveling alone.ā
The time had been when Anne would have answered sharply enough. The hard necessities of her position made her patient now.
āI have already told you,ā she said, āmy husband is coming here to join me.ā She sighed wearily as she repeated her ready-made storyāand dropped into the nearest chair, from sheer inability to stand any longer.
Mistress Inchbare looked at her, with the exact measure of compassionate interest which she might have shown if she had been looking at a stray dog who had fallen footsore at the door of the inn.
āWeel! weel! sae let it be. Bide awhile, and rest ye. Weāll noā chairge ye for thatāand weāll see if your husband comes. Iāll just let the rooms, mistress, to him,, instead oā lettinā them to you. And, sae, good-morrow tā ye.ā With that final announcement of her royal will and pleasure, the Empress of the Inn withdrew.
Anne made no reply. She watched the landlady out of the roomāand then struggled to control herself no longer. In her position, suspicion was doubly insult. The hot tears of shame gathered in her eyes; and the heart-ache wrung her, poor soulāwrung her without mercy.
A trifling noise in the room startled her. She looked up, and detected a man in a corner, dusting the furniture, and apparently acting in the capacity of attendant at the inn. He had shown her into the parlor on her arrival; but he had remained so quietly in the room that she had never noticed him since, until that moment.
He was an ancient manāwith one eye filmy and blind, and one eye moist and merry. His head was bald; his feet were gouty; his nose was justly celebrated as the largest nose and the reddest nose in that part of Scotland. The mild wisdom of years was expressed mysteriously in his mellow smile. In contact with this wicked world, his manner revealed that happy mixture of two extremesāthe servility which just touches independence, and the independence which just touches servilityāattained by no men in existence but Scotchmen. Enormous native impudence, which amused but never offended; immeasurable cunning, masquerading habitually under the double disguise of quaint prejudice and dry humor, were the solid moral foundations on which the character of this elderly person was built. No amount of whisky ever made him drunk; and no violence of bell-ringing ever hurried his movements. Such was the headwaiter at the Craig Fernie Inn; known, far and wide, to local fame, as āMaister Bishopriggs, Mistress Inchbareās right-hand man.ā
āWhat are you doing there?ā Anne asked, sharply.
Mr. Bishopriggs turned himself about on his gouty feet; waved his duster gently in the air; and looked at Anne, with a mild, paternal smile.
āEh! Am just doostinā the things; and setinā the room in decent order for ye.ā
āFor me? Did you hear what the landlady said?ā
Mr. Bishopriggs advanced confidentially, and pointed with a very unsteady forefinger to the purse which Anne still held in her hand.
āNever fash yourselā aboot the landleddy!ā said the sage chief of the Craig Fernie waiters. āYour purse speaks for you, my lassie. Pet it up!ā cried Mr. Bishopriggs, waving temptation away from him with the duster. āIn wiā it into yer pocket! Sae long as the warldās the warld, Iāll uphaud it any whereāwhile thereās siller in the purse, thereās gude in the woman!ā
Anneās patience, which had resisted harder trials, gave way at this.
āWhat do you mean by speaking to me in that familiar manner?ā she asked, rising angrily to her feet again.
Mr. Bishopriggs tucked his duster under his arm, and proceeded to satisfy Anne that he shared the landladyās view of her position, without sharing the severity of the landladyās principles. āThereās nae man livinā,ā said Mr. Bishopriggs, ālooks with mair indulgence at human frailty than my ain selā. Am I noā to be familiar wiā yeāwhen Iām auld eneugh to be a fether to ye, and ready to be a fether to ye till further notice? Hech! hech! Order your bit dinner lassie. Husband or no husband, yeāve got a stomach, and ye must een eat. Thereās fesh and thereās fowlāor, maybe, yeāll be for the sheepās head singit, when theyāve done with it at the tabble dot?ā
There was but one way of getting rid of him: āOrder what you like,ā Anne said, āand leave the room.ā Mr. Bishopriggs highly approved of the first half of the sentence, and totally overlooked the second.
āAy, ayājust pet aā yer little interests in my hands; itās the wisest thing ye can do. Ask for Maister Bishopriggs (thatās me) when ye want a decent āsponsible man to giā ye a word of advice. Set ye doon againāset ye doon. And donāt takā the arm-chair. Hech! hech! yer husband will be coming, ye know, and heās sure to want it!ā With that seasonable pleasantry the venerable Bishopriggs winked, and went out.
Anne looked at her watch. By her calculation it was not far from the hour when Geoffrey might be expected to arrive at the inn, assuming Geoffrey to have left Windygates at the time agreed on. A little more patience, and the landladyās scruples would be satisfied, and the ordeal would be at an end.
Could she have met him nowhere else than at this barbarous house, and among these barbarous people?
No. Outside the doors of Windygates she had not a friend to help her in all Scotland. There was no place at her disposal but the inn; and she had only to be thankful that it occupied a sequestered situation, and was not likely to be visited by any of Lady Lundieās friends. Whatever the risk might be, the end in view justified her in confronting it. Her whole future depended on Geoffreyās making an honest woman of her. Not her future with himāthat way there was no hope; that way her life was wasted. Her future with Blancheāshe looked forward to nothing now but her future with Blanche.
Her spirits sank lower and lower. The tears rose again. It would only irritate him if he came and found her crying. She tried to divert her mind by looking about the room.
There was very little to see. Except that it was solidly built of good sound stone, the Craig Fernie hotel differed in no other important respect from the average of second-rate English inns. There was the usual slippery black sofaāconstructed to let you slide when you wanted to rest. There was the usual highly-varnished arm-chair, expressly manufactured to test the endurance of the human spine. There was the usual paper on the walls, of the pattern designed to make your eyes ache and your head giddy. There were the usual engravings, which humanity never tires of contemplating. The Royal Portrait, in the first place of honor. The next greatest of all human beingsāthe Duke of Wellingtonāin the second place of honor. The third greatest of all human beingsāthe local member of parliamentāin the third place of honor; and a hunting scene, in the dark. A door opposite the door of admission from the passage opened into the bedroom; and a window at the side looked out on the open space in front of the hotel, and commanded a view of the vast expanse of the Craig Fernie moor, stretching away below the rising ground on which the house was built.
Anne turned in despair from the view in the room to the view from the window. Within the last half hour it had changed for the worse. The clouds had gathered; the sun was hidden; the light on the landscape was gray and dull. Anne turned from the window, as she had turned from the room. She was just making the hopeless attempt to rest her weary limbs on the sofa, when the sound of voices and footsteps in
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