Man and Wife - Wilkie Collins (phonics books TXT) 📗

Anne was speechless. Arnold put the question: “Who is it?”

“Wha is’t?” repeated Mrs. Inchbare. “It’s joost the bonny young leddy⁠—Miss Blanche hersel’.”

An irrepressible cry of horror burst from Anne. The landlady set it down to the lightning, which flashed into the room again at the same moment.

“Eh, mistress! ye’ll find Miss Blanche a bit baulder than to skirl at a flash o’ lightning, that gait! Here she is, the bonny birdie!” exclaimed Mrs. Inchbare, deferentially backing out into the passage again.

Blanche’s voice reached them, calling for Anne.

Anne caught Arnold by the hand and wrung it hard. “Go!” she whispered. The next instant she was at the mantlepiece, and had blown out both the candles.

Another flash of lightning came through the darkness, and showed Blanche’s figure standing at the door.

Mrs. Inchbare was the first person who acted in the emergency. She called for lights; and sternly rebuked the housemaid, who brought them, for not having closed the house door. “Ye feckless ne’er-do-weel!” cried the landlady; “the wind’s blawn the candles oot.”

The woman declared (with perfect truth) that the door had been closed. An awkward dispute might have ensued if Blanche had not diverted Mrs. Inchbare’s attention to herself. The appearance of the lights disclosed her, wet through with her arms round Anne’s neck. Mrs. Inchbare digressed at once to the pressing question of changing the young lady’s clothes, and gave Anne the opportunity of looking round her, unobserved. Arnold had made his escape before the candles had been brought in.

In the meantime Blanche’s attention was absorbed in her own dripping skirts.

“Good gracious! I’m absolutely distilling rain from every part of me. And I’m making you, Anne, as wet as I am! Lend me some dry things. You can’t? Mrs. Inchbare, what does your experience suggest? Which had I better do? Go to bed while my clothes are being dried? or borrow from your wardrobe⁠—though you are a head and shoulders taller than I am?”

Mrs. Inchbare instantly bustled out to fetch the choicest garments that her wardrobe could produce. The moment the door had closed on her Blanche looked round the room in her turn.

The rights of affection having been already asserted, the claims of curiosity naturally pressed for satisfaction next.

“Somebody passed me in the dark,” she whispered. “Was it your husband? I’m dying to be introduced to him. And, oh my dear! what is your married name?”

Anne answered, coldly, “Wait a little. I can’t speak about it yet.”

“Are you ill?” asked Blanche.

“I am a little nervous.”

“Has anything unpleasant happened between you and my uncle? You have seen him, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Did he give you my message?”

“He gave me your message.⁠—Blanche! you promised him to stay at Windygates. Why, in the name of heaven, did you come here tonight?”

“If you were half as fond of me as I am of you,” returned Blanche, “you wouldn’t ask that. I tried hard to keep my promise, but I couldn’t do it. It was all very well, while my uncle was laying down the law⁠—with Lady Lundie in a rage, and the dogs barking, and the doors banging, and all that. The excitement kept me up. But when my uncle had gone, and the dreadful gray, quiet, rainy evening came, and it had all calmed down again, there was no bearing it. The house⁠—without you⁠—was like a tomb. If I had had Arnold with me I might have done very well. But I was all by myself. Think of that! Not a soul to speak to! There wasn’t a horrible thing that could possibly happen to you that I didn’t fancy was going to happen. I went into your empty room and looked at your things. That settled it, my darling! I rushed downstairs⁠—carried away, positively carried away, by an impulse beyond human resistance. How could I help it? I ask any reasonable person how could I help it? I ran to the stables and found Jacob. Impulse⁠—all impulse! I said, ‘Get the pony-chaise⁠—I must have a drive⁠—I don’t care if it rains⁠—you come with me.’ All in a breath, and all impulse! Jacob behaved like an angel. He said, ‘All right, miss.’ I am perfectly certain Jacob would die for me if I asked him. He is drinking hot grog at this moment, to prevent him from catching cold, by my express orders. He had the pony-chaise out in two minutes; and off we went. Lady Lundie, my dear, prostrate in her own room⁠—too much sal volatile. I hate her. The rain got worse. I didn’t mind it. Jacob didn’t mind it. The pony didn’t mind it. They had both caught my impulse⁠—especially the pony. It didn’t come on to thunder till some time afterward; and then we were nearer Craig Fernie than Windygates⁠—to say nothing of your being at one place and not at the other. The lightning was quite awful on the moor. If I had had one of the horses, he would have been frightened. The pony shook his darling little head, and dashed through it. He is to have beer. A mash with beer in it⁠—by my express orders. When he has done we’ll borrow a lantern, and go into the stable, and kiss him. In the meantime, my dear, here I am⁠—wet through in a thunderstorm, which doesn’t in the least matter⁠—and determined to satisfy my own mind about you, which matters a great deal, and must and shall be done before I rest tonight!”

She turned Anne, by main force, as she spoke, toward the light of the candles.

Her tone changed the moment she looked at Anne’s face.

“I knew it!” she said. “You would never have kept the most interesting event in your life a secret from me⁠—you would never have written me such a cold formal letter as the letter you left in your room⁠—if there had not been something wrong. I said so at the time. I know it now! Why has your husband forced you to leave Windygates at a moment’s notice? Why does