No Name

by Wilkie Collins

  Two days after Mr Vanstone’s return from London, he was called away from the breakfast-table before he had found time enough to look over his letters, delivered by the morning’s post. Thrusting them into one of the pockets of his shooting-jacket, he took the letters out again, at one grasp, to read them when occasion served, later in the day. The grasp included the whole correspondence, with one exception – that exception being a final report from the civil engineer, which notified the termination of the connection between his pupil and himself, and the immediate return of Frank to his father’s house.

  While this important announcement lay unsuspected in Mr Vanstone’s pocket, the object of it was travelling home, as fast as railways could take him. At half-past ten at night, while Mr Clare was sitting in studious solitude over his books and his green tea, with his favourite black cat to keep him company, he heard footsteps in the passage – the door opened – and Frank stood before him.

  Ordinary men would have been astonished. But the philosopher’s composure was not to be shaken by any such trifle as the unexpected return of his eldest son. He could not have looked up more calmly from his learned volume, if Frank had been absent for three minutes instead of three years.

  ‘Exactly what I predicted,’ said Mr Clare. ‘Don’t interrupt me by making explanations; and don’t frighten the cat. If there is anything to eat in the kitchen, get it and go to bed. You can walk over to Combe-Raven to-morrow, and give this message from me to Mr Vanstone: “Father’s compliments, sir, and I have come back upon your hands like a bad shilling, as he always said I should. He keeps his own guinea, and takes your five; and he hopes you’ll mind what he says to you another time.” That is the message. Shut the door after you. Goodnight.’

  Under these unfavourable auspices, Mr Francis Clare made his appearance the next morning in the grounds at Combe-Raven; and, something doubtful of the reception that might await him, slowly approached the precincts of the house.

  It was not wonderful that Magdalen should have failed to recognize him when he first appeared in view. He had gone away a backward lad of seventeen; he returned a young man of twenty. His slim figure had now acquired strength and grace, and had increased in stature to the medium height. The small regular features, which he was supposed to have inherited from his mother, were rounded and filled out, without having lost their remarkable delicacy of form. His beard was still in its infancy; and nascent lines of whisker traced their modest way sparely down his cheeks. His gentle wandering brown eyes would have looked to better advantage in a woman’s face – they wanted spirit and firmness to fit them for the face of a man. His hands had the same wandering habit as his eyes; they were constantly changing from one position to another, constantly twisting and turning any little stray thing they could pick up. He was undeniably handsome, graceful, well bred – but no close observer could look at him, without suspecting that the stout old family stock had begun to wear out in the later generations, and that Mr Francis Clare had more in him of the shadow of his ancestors than of the substance.

  When the astonishment caused by his appearance had partially subsided, a search was instituted for the missing report. It was found in the remotest recesses of Mr Vanstone’s capacious pocket, and was read by that gentleman on the spot.

  The plain facts, as stated by the engineer, were briefly these. Frank was not possessed of the necessary abilities to fit him for his new calling; and it was useless to waste time, by keeping him any longer in an employment for which he had no vocation. This, after three years’ trial, being the conviction on both sides, the master had thought it the most straightforward course for the pupil to go home, and candidly place results before his father and his friends. In some other pursuit, for which he was more fit and in which he could feel an interest, he would no doubt display the industry and perseverance which he had been too much discouraged to practise in the profession that he had now abandoned. Personally, he was liked by all who knew him; and his future prosperity was heartily desired by the many friends whom he had made in the north. Such was the substance of the report, and so it came to an end.

  Many men would have thought the engineer’s statement rather too carefully worded; and, suspecting him of trying to make the best of a bad case, would have entertained serious doubts on the subject of Frank’s future. Mr Vanstone was too easy-tempered and sanguine – and too anxious as well, not to yield his old antagonist an inch more ground than he could help – to look at the letter from any such unfavourable point of view. Was it Frank’s fault if he had not got the stuff in him that engineers were made of? Did no other young men ever begin life with a false start? Plenty began in that way, and got over it, and did wonders afterwards. With these commentaries on the letter, the kind-hearted gentleman patted Frank on the shoulder. ‘Cheer up, my lad!’ said Mr Vanstone. ‘We will be even with your father one of these days, though he has won the wager this time!’

  The example thus set by the master of the house, was followed at once by the family – with the solitary exception of Norah, whose incurable formality and reserve expressed themselves, not too graciously, in her distant manner towards the visitor. The rest, led by Magdalen (who had been Frank’s favourite playfellow in past times) glided back into their old easy habits with him, without an effort. He was ‘Frank’ with all of them but Norah, who persisted in addressing him as ‘Mr Clare’. Even the account he was now encouraged to give of the reception accorded to him by his father, on the previous night, failed to disturb Norah’s gravity. She sat with her dark handsome face steadily averted, her eyes cast down, and the rich colour in her cheeks warmer and deeper than usual. All the rest, Miss Garth included, found old Mr Clare’s speech of welcome to his son, quite irresistible. The noise and merriment were at their height, when the servant came in, and struck the whole party dumb by the announcement of visitors in the drawing-room. ‘Mr Marrable, Mrs Marrable and Miss Marrable; Evergreen Lodge, Clifton.’

  Norah rose as readily as if the new arrivals had been a relief to her mind. Mrs Vanstone was the next to leave her chair. These two went away first, to receive the visitors. Magdalen, who preferred the society of her father and Frank, pleaded hard to be left behind; but Miss Garth, after granting five minutes’ grace, took her into custody, and marched her out of the room. Frank rose to take his leave.

  ‘No, no,’ said Mr Vanstone, detaining him. ‘Don’t go. These people won’t stop long. Mr Marrable’s a merchant at Bristol. I’ve met him once or twice, when the girls forced me to take them to parties at Clifton. Mere acquaintances, nothing more. Come and smoke a cigar in the greenhouse. Hang all visitors – they worry one’s life out. I’ll appear at the last moment with an apology; and you shall follow me at a safe distance, and be a proof that I was really engaged.’

  Proposing this ingenious stratagem, in a confidential whisper, Mr Vanstone took Frank’s arm, and led him round the house by the back way. The first ten minutes of seclusion in the conservatory, passed without events of any kind. At the end of that time, a flying figure in bright garments, flashed upon the two gentlemen through the glass – the door was flung open – flower-pots fell in homage to passing petticoats – and Mr Vanstone’s youngest daughter ran up to him at headlong speed, with every external appearance of having suddenly taken leave of her senses.

  ‘Papa! the dream of my whole life is realized,’ she said, as soon as she could speak. ‘I shall fly through the roof of the greenhouse, if some-body doesn’t hold me down. The Marrables have come here with an invitation. Guess, you darling – guess what they’re going to give at Evergreen Lodge!’

  ‘A ball,’ said Mr Vanstone, without a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘Private Theatricals! ! !’ cried Magdalen, her clear young voice ringing through the conservatory like a bell; her loose sleeves falling back, and showing her round white arms to the dimpled elbows, as she clapped her hands ecstatically in the air. ‘The Rivals, is the play, papa – The Rivals by the famous what’s-his-name3 – and they want ME to act!
The one thing in the whole universe that I long to do most. It all depends on you. Mamma shakes her head; and Miss Garth looks daggers; and Norah’s as sulky as usual – but if you say Yes, they must all three give way, and let me do as I like. Say yes,’ she pleaded, nestling softly up to her father, and pressing her lips with a fond gentleness to his ear, as she whispered the next words. ‘Say Yes – and I’ll be a good girl for the rest of my life.’

  ‘A good girl?’ repeated Mr Vanstone – ‘A mad girl, I think you must mean. Hang these people, and their theatricals! I shall have to go indoors, and see about this matter. You needn’t throw away your cigar, Frank. You’re well out of the business, and you can stop here.’

  ‘No, he can’t,’ said Magdalen. ‘He’s in the business, too.’

  Mr Francis Clare had hitherto remained modestly in the background. He now came forward, with a face expressive of speechless amazement.

  ‘Yes,’ continued Magdalen, answering his blank look of inquiry with perfect composure. ‘You are to act. Miss Marrable and I have a turn for business, and we settled it all in five minutes. There are two parts in the play left to be filled. One is Lucy, the waiting-maid; which is the character I have undertaken – with papa’s permission,’ she added, slily pinching her father’s arm; ‘and he won’t say No, will he? First, because he’s a darling; secondly, because I love him, and he loves me; thirdly, because there is never any difference of opinion between us (is there?); fourthly, because I give him a kiss, which naturally stops his mouth and settles the whole question. Dear me, I’m wandering. Where was I just now? Oh, yes! explaining myself to Frank –’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ began Frank, attempting, at this point, to enter his protest.

  ‘The second character in the play,’ pursued Magdalen, without taking the smallest notice of the protest, ‘is Falkland – a jealous lover, with a fine flow of language. Miss Marrable and I discussed Falkland privately on the window-seat while the rest were talking. She is a delightful girl – so impulsive, so sensible, so entirely unaffected. She confided in me. She said, “One of our miseries is that we can’t find a gentleman who will grapple with the hideous difficulties of Falkland.” Of course I soothed her. Of course I said, “I’ve got the gentleman, and he shall grapple immediately.” – “Oh heavens! who is he?” – “Mr Francis Glare.” – “And where is he?” – “In the house at this moment.” – “Will you be so very charming, Miss Vanstone, as to fetch him?” – “I’ll fetch him, Miss Marrable, with the greatest pleasure.” I left the window-seat – I rushed into the morning-room – I smelt cigars – I followed the smell – and here I am.’

  ‘It’s a compliment, I know, to be asked to act,’ said Frank, in great embarrassment. ‘But I hope you and Miss Marrable will excuse me – ’

  ‘Certainly not. Miss Marrable and I are both remarkable for the firmness of our characters. When we say Mr So-and-So is positively to act the part of Falkland, we positively mean it. Come in, and be introduced.’

  ‘But I never tried to act. I don’t know how.’

  ‘Not of the slightest consequence. If you don’t know how, come to me, and I’ll teach you.’

  ‘You!’ exclaimed Mr Vanstone. ‘What do you know about it?’

  ‘Pray, papa, be serious! I have the strongest internal conviction that I could act every character in the play – Falkland included. Don’t let me have to speak a second time, Frank. Come and be introduced.’

  She took her father’s arm, and moved on with him to the door of the greenhouse. At the steps, she turned and looked round to see if Frank was following her. It was only the action of a moment; but in that moment her natural firmness of will rallied all its resources – strengthened itself with the influence of her beauty – commanded – and conquered. She looked lovely: the flush was tenderly bright in her cheeks; the radiant pleasure shone and sparkled in her eyes; the position of her figure, turned suddenly from the waist upwards, disclosed its delicate strength, its supple firmness, its seductive serpentine grace. ‘Come!’ she said, with a coquettish beckoning action of her head. ‘Come, Frank!’

  Few men of forty would have resisted her, at that moment. Frank was twenty last birthday. In other words, he threw aside his cigar, and followed her out of the greenhouse.

  As he turned, and closed the door – in the instant when he lost sight of her – his disinclination to be associated with the private theatricals revived. At the foot of the house-steps he stopped again; plucked a twig from a plant near him; broke it in his hand; and looked about him uneasily, on this side, and on that. The path to the left led back to his father’s cottage – the way of escape lay open. Why not take it?

  While he still hesitated, Mr Vanstone and his daughter reached the top of the steps. Once more, Magdalen looked round; looked with her resistless beauty, with her all-conquering smile. She beckoned again; and again he followed her – up the steps, and over the threshold. The door closed on them.

  So, with a trifling gesture of invitation on one side, with a trifling act of compliance on the other: so – with no knowledge in his mind, with no thought in hers, of the secret still hidden under the journey to London – they took the way which led to that secret’s discovery, through many a darker winding that was yet to come.

  Chapter Five

  Mr Vanstone’s inquiries into the proposed theatrical entertainment at Evergreen Lodge were answered by a narrative of dramatic disasters; of which Miss Marrable impersonated the innocent cause, and in which her father and mother played the parts of chief victims.

  Miss Marrable was that hardest of all born tyrants – an only child. She had never granted a constitutional privilege to her oppressed father and mother, since the time when she cut her first tooth. Her seventeenth birthday was now near at hand; she had decided on celebrating it by acting a play; had issued her orders accordingly; and had been obeyed by her docile parents as implicitly as usual. Mrs Marrable gave up the drawing-room to be laid waste for a stage and a theatre. Mr Marrable secured the services of a respectable professional person to drill the young ladies and gentlemen, and to accept all the other responsibilities, incidental to creating a dramatic world out of a domestic chaos. Having further accustomed themselves to the breaking of furniture and the staining of walls – to thumping, tumbling, hammering and screaming; to doors always banging, and to footsteps perpetually running up and down stairs – the nominal master and mistress of the house fondly believed that their chief troubles were over. Innocent and fatal delusion! It is one thing in private society to set up the stage and choose the play – it is another thing altogether to find the actors. Hitherto, only the small preliminary annoyances proper to the occasion had shown themselves at Evergreen Lodge. The sound and serious troubles were all to come.

  The Rivals having been chosen as the play, Miss Marrable, as a matter of course, appropriated to herself the part of Lydia Languish. One of her favoured swains next secured Captain Absolute, and another laid violent hands on Sir Lucius O’Trigger. These two were followed by an accommodating spinster-relative, who accepted the heavy dramatic responsibility of Mrs Malaprop – and there the theatrical proceedings came to a pause. Nine more speaking characters were left to be fitted with representatives; and with that unavoidable necessity the serious troubles began.

  All the friends of the family suddenly became unreliable people, for the first time in their lives. After encouraging the idea of the play, they declined the personal sacrifice of acting in it – or they accepted characters, and then broke down in the effort to study them – or they volunteered to take the parts which they knew were already engaged, and declined the parts which were waiting to be acted – or they were afflicted with weak constitutions, and mischievously fell ill when they were wanted at rehearsal – or they had Puritan relatives in the background, and, after slipping into their parts cheerfully at the week’s beginning, oozed out of them penitently, under serious family pressure, at the week’s end. Meanwhile, the carpenters hammered and the scenes rose. Mis
s Marrable, whose temperament was sensitive, became hysterical under the strain of perpetual anxiety; the family doctor declined to answer for the nervous consequences if something was not done. Renewed efforts were made in every direction. Actors and actresses were sought with a desperate disregard of all considerations of personal fitness. Necessity, which knows no law, either in the drama or out of it, accepted a lad of eighteen as the representative of Sir Anthony Absolute; the stage-manager undertaking to supply the necessary wrinkles from the illimitable resources of theatrical art. A lady whose age was unknown, and whose personal appearance was stout – but whose heart was in the right place – volunteered to act the part of the sentimental Julia, and brought with her the dramatic qualification of habitually wearing a wig in private life. Thanks to these vigorous measures, the play was at last supplied with representatives – always excepting the two unmanageable characters of Lucy the waiting-maid, and Falkland, Julia’s jealous lover. Gentlemen came; saw Julia at rehearsal; observed her stoutness and her wig; omitted to notice that her heart was in the right place; quailed at the prospect, apologized, and retired. Ladies read the part of Lucy; remarked that she appeared to great advantage in the first half of the play, and faded out of it altogether in the latter half; objected to pass from the notice of the audience in that manner, when all the rest had a chance of distinguishing themselves to the end; shut up the book, apologized, and retired. In eight days more the night of performance would arrive; a phalanx of social martyrs two hundred strong, had been convened to witness it; three full rehearsals were absolutely necessary; and two characters in the play were not filled yet. With this lamentable story, and with the humblest apologies for presuming on a slight acquaintance, the Marrables appeared at Combe-Raven, to appeal to the young ladies for a Lucy, and to the universe for a Falkland, with the mendicant pertinacity of a family in despair.