‘The nature of the man, my dear girl – the nature of the man,’ he said, opening one of his plump little books, bound in calf and vellum. ‘A transaction has taken place between us. I must have it down in black and white.’ He opened the book at a blank page, and wrote at the top, in a fine mercantile hand: ‘Miss Vanstone the Younger: In account with Horatio Wragge, late of the Royal Militia. Dr – Cr. Sept. 24th, 1846 D’.: To estimated value of H. Wragge’s interest in Miss V.’s first year’s salary – say £200. C. By paid on account £25’ Having completed the entry – and having also shown, by doubling his original estimate on the Debtor side, that Magdalen’s easy compliance with his demand on her had not been thrown away on him – the captain pressed his blotting-paper over the wet ink, and put away the book with the air of a man who had done a virtuous action, and who was above boasting about it.
‘Excuse me for leaving you abruptly,’ he said. ‘Time is of importance; I must make sure of the chaise. If Mrs Wragge comes in, tell her nothing – she is not sharp enough to be trusted. If she presumes to ask questions, extinguish her immediately. You have only to be loud. Pray take my authority into your own hands, and be as loud with Mrs Wragge as I am!’ He snatched up his tall hat, bowed, smiled, and tripped out of the room.
Sensible of little else but of the relief of being alone; feeling no more distinct impression than the vague sense of some serious change having taken place in herself and her position, Magdalen let the events of the morning come and go like shadows on her mind, and waited wearily for what the day might bring forth. After the lapse of some time, the door opened softly. The giant figure of Mrs Wragge stalked into the room; and stopped opposite Magdalen in solemn astonishment.
‘Where are your Things?’ asked Mrs Wragge, with a burst of incontrol-lable anxiety. ‘I’ve been upstairs, looking in your drawers. Where are your night-gowns and night-caps? and your petticoats and stockings? and your hairpins and bear’s grease, and all the rest of it?’
‘My luggage is left at the railway-station,’ said Magdalen.
Mrs Wragge’s moon-face brightened dimly. The ineradicable female instinct of Curiosity tried to sparkle in her faded blue eyes – flickered piteously – and died out.
‘How much luggage?’ she asked, confidentially. ‘The captain’s gone out. Let’s go and get it!’
‘Mrs Wragge!’ cried a terrible voice at the door.
For the first time in Magdalen’s experience, Mrs Wragge was deaf to the customary stimulant. She actually ventured on a feeble remonstrance, in the presence of her husband.
‘Oh, do let her have her Things!’ pleaded Mrs Wragge. ‘Oh, poor soul, do let her have her Things!’
The captain’s inexorable forefinger pointed to a corner of the room -dropped slowly as his wife retired before it – and suddenly stopped at the region of her shoes.
‘Do I hear a clapping on the floor!’ exclaimed Captain Wragge, with an expression of horror. ‘Yes; I do. Down at heel again! The left shoe, this time. Pull it up, Mrs Wragge! pull it up! The chaise will be here tomorrow morning at nine o’clock,’ he continued, addressing Magdalen. ‘We can’t possibly venture on claiming your box. There is note-paper. Write down a list of the necessaries you want. I will take it myself to the shop, pay the bill for you, and bring back the parcel. We must sacrifice the box – we must indeed.’
While her husband was addressing Magdalen, Mrs Wragge had stolen out again from her corner; and had ventured near enough to the captain to hear the words, ‘shop’ and ‘parcel’. She clapped her great hands together in ungovernable excitement, and lost all control over herself immediately.
‘Oh, if it’s shopping, let me do it!’ cried Mrs Wragge. ‘She’s going out to buy her Things! Oh, let me go with her – please let me go with her!’
‘Sit down!’ shouted the captain. ‘Straight! more to the right – more still. Stop where you are!’
Mrs Wragge crossed her helpless hands on her lap, and melted meekly into tears.
I do so like shopping,’ pleaded the poor creature; ‘and I get so little of it now!’
Magdalen completed her list; and Captain Wragge at once left the room with it. ‘Don’t let my wife bore you,’ he said pleasantly, as he went out. ‘Cut her short, poor soul – cut her short!’
‘Don’t cry,’ said Magdalen, trying to comfort Mrs Wragge by patting her on the shoulder. ‘When the parcel comes back you shall open it.’
‘Thank you, my dear,’ said Mrs Wragge, meekly drying her eyes; ‘thank you kindly. Don’t notice my handkerchief, please. It’s such a very little one! I had a nice lot of them once, with lace borders. They’re all gone now. Never mind! It will comfort me to unpack your Things. You’re very good to me. I like you. I say – you won’t be angry, will you? Give us a kiss.’
Magdalen stooped over her with the frank grace and gentleness of past days, and touched her faded cheek. ‘Let me do something harmless!’ she thought, with a pang at her heart – ‘Oh let me do something innocent and kind, for the sake of old times!’
She felt her eyes moistening, and silently turned away.
That night no rest came to her. That night the roused forces of Good and Evil fought their terrible fight for her soul – and left the strife between them still in suspense when morning came. As the clock of York Minster struck nine, she followed Mrs Wragge to the chaise, and took her seat by the captain’s side. In a quarter of an hour more, York was in the distance; and the high-road lay bright and open before them in the morning sunlight.
THE END OF THE SECOND SCENE
BETWEEN THE SCENES
CHRONICLE OF EVENTS: PRESERVED IN CAPTAIN WRAGGE’s
DESPATCH-BOX
One
Chronicle for October, 1846
I have retired into the bosom of my family. We are residing in the secluded village of Ruswarp, on the banks of the Esk, about two miles inland from Whitby. Our lodgings are comfortable, and we possess the additional blessing of a tidy landlady. Mrs Wragge and Miss Vanstone preceded me here, in accordance with the plan I laid down for effecting our retreat from York. On the next day I followed them alone, with the luggage. On leaving the terminus, I had the satisfaction of seeing the lawyer’s clerk in close confabulation with the detective officer whose advent I had prophesied. I left him in peaceable possession of the city of York, and the whole surrounding neighbourhood. He has returned the compliment, and has left us in peaceable possession of the valley of the Esk, thirty miles away from him.
Remarkable results have followed my first efforts at the cultivation of Miss Vanstone’s dramatic abilities.
I have discovered that she possesses extraordinary talent as a mimic. She has the flexible face, the manageable voice and the dramatic knack which fit a woman for character-parts and disguises on the stage. All she now wants is teaching and practice to make her sure of her own resources. The experience of her, thus gained, has revived an idea in my mind, which originally occurred to me at one of the ‘At Homes’ of the late inimitable Charles Mathews, comedian.1 I was in the Wine-Trade at the time, I remember. We imitated the Vintage-processes of Nature, in a back-kitchen at Brompton; and produced a dinner-sherry, pale and curious, tonic in character, round in the mouth, a favourite with the Court of Spain, at nineteen and sixpence a dozen, bottles included – Vide Prospectus of the period. The profits of myself and partners were small; we were in advance of the tastes of the age, and in debt to the bottle merchant. Being at my wits’ end for want of money, and seeing what audiences Mathews drew, the idea occurred to me of starting an imitation of the great Imitator himself, in the shape of an ‘At Home,’ given by a woman. The one trifling obstacle in the way was the difficulty of finding the woman. From that time to this, I have hitherto failed to overcome it. I have conquered it at last: I have found the woman now. Miss Vanstone possesses youth and beauty as well as talent. Train her in the art of dramatic disguise; provide her with appropriate dresses for different characters; develop her accomplishments in singing and playing; gi
ve her plenty of smart talk addressed to the audience; advertise her as A Young Lady at Home; astonish the public by a dramatic entertainment which depends from first to last on that young lady’s own sole exertions; commit the entire management of the thing to my care – and what follows as a necessary consequence? Fame for my fair relative, and a fortune for myself.
I put these considerations, as frankly as usual, to Miss Vanstone; offering to write the Entertainment, to manage all the business, and to share the profits. I did not forget to strengthen my case by informing her of the jealousies she would encounter, and the obstacles she would meet, if she went on the stage. And I wound up by a neat reference to the private inquiries which she is interested in making, and to the personal independence which she is desirous of securing before she acts on her information. ‘If you go on the stage,’ I said, ‘your services will be bought by a manager, and he may insist on his claims just at the time when you want to get free from him. If, on the contrary, you adopt my views, you will be your own mistress and your own manager, and you can settle your course just as you like.’ This last consideration appeared to strike her. She took a day to consider it; and when the day was over, gave her consent.
I had the whole transaction down in black and white immediately. Our arrangement is eminently satisfactory, except in one particular. She shows a morbid distrust of writing her name at the bottom of any document which I present to her; and roundly declares she will sign nothing. As long as it is her interest to provide herself with pecuniary resources for the future, she verbally engages to go on. When it ceases to be her interest, she plainly threatens to leave off at a week’s notice. A difficult girl to deal with: she has found out her own value to me already. One comfort is, I have the cooking of the accounts; and my fair relative shall not fill her pockets too suddenly, if I can help it.
My exertions in training Miss Vanstone for the coming experiment, have been varied by the writing of two anonymous letters, in that young lady’s interests. Finding her too fidgety about arranging matters with her friends to pay proper attention to my instructions, I wrote anonymously to the lawyer who is conducting the inquiry after her; recommending him in a friendly way to give it up. The letter was enclosed to a friend of mine in London, with instructions to post it at Charing Cross. A week later, I sent a second letter, through the same channel, requesting the lawyer to inform me, in writing, whether he and his clients had or had not decided on taking my advice. I directed him, with jocose reference to the collision of interests between us, to address his letter: ‘Tit for Tat: Post-Office, West Strand’.
In a few days the answer arrived – privately forwarded, of course, to Post-Office, Whitby, by arrangement with my friend in London.
The lawyer’s reply was short and surly: ‘Sir – If my advice had been followed, you and your anonymous letter would both be treated with the contempt which they deserve. But the wishes of Miss Magdalen Vanstone’s eldest sister have claims on my consideration which I cannot dispute; and at her entreaty I inform you that all further proceedings on my part are withdrawn – on the express understanding that this concession is to open facilities for written communication at least, between the two sisters. A letter from the elder Miss Vanstone is enclosed in this. If I don’t hear in a week’s time, that it has been received, I shall place the matter once more in the hands of the police. – WILLIAM PENDRIL.’A sour man, this William Pendril. I can only say of him, what an eminent nobleman once said of his sulky servant – ‘I wouldn’t have such a temper as that fellow has got, for any earthly consideration that could be offered me!’
As a matter of course, I looked into the letter which the lawyer enclosed, before delivering it. Miss Vanstone, the elder, described herself as distracted at not hearing from her sister; as suited with a governess’s situation in a private family; as going into the situation in a week’s time; and as longing for a letter to comfort her, before she faced the trial of undertaking her new duties. After closing the envelope again, I accompanied the delivery of the letter to Miss Vanstone the younger, by a word of caution. ‘Are you more sure of your own courage now,’ I said, ‘than you were when I met you?’ She was ready with her answer. ‘Captain Wragge, when you met me on the Walls of York, I had not gone too far to go back. I have gone too far now.’
If she really feels this – and I think she does – her corresponding with her sister can do no harm. She wrote at great length the same day; cried profusely over her own epistolary composition; and was remarkably ill-tempered and snappish towards me, when we met in the evening. She wants experience, poor girl – she sadly wants experience of the world. How consoling to know that I am just the man to give it her!
Two
Chronicle for November
We are established at Derby. The Entertainment is written; and the rehearsals are in steady progress. All difficulties are provided for, but the one eternal difficulty of money. Miss Vanstone’s resources stretch easily enough to the limits of our personal wants; including pianoforte hire for practice, and the purchase and making of the necessary dresses. But the expenses of starting the Entertainment are beyond the reach of any means we possess. A theatrical friend of mine here, whom I had hoped to interest in our undertaking, proves unhappily to be at a crisis in his career. The field of human sympathy, out of which I might have raised the needful pecuniary crop, is closed to me from want of time to cultivate it. I see no other resource left – if we are to be ready by Christmas – than to try one of the local music-sellers in this town, who is said to be a speculating man. A private rehearsal at these lodgings, and a bargain which will fill the pockets of a grasping stranger – such are the sacrifices which dire necessity imposes on me at starting. Well! there is only one consolation: I’ll cheat the music-seller.
Three
Chronicle for December. First Fortnight
The music-seller extorts my unwilling respect. He is one of the very few human beings I have met with in the course of my life who is not to be cheated. He has taken a masterly advantage of our helplessness; and has imposed terms on us, for performances at Derby and Nottingham, with such a business-like disregard of all interests but his own, that – fond as I am of putting things down in black and white – I really cannot prevail upon myself to record the bargain. It is needless to say, I have yielded with my best grace; sharing with my fair relative the wretched pecuniary prospects offered to us. Our turn will come. In the mean time, I cordially regret not having known the local music-seller in early life.
Personally speaking, I have no cause to complain of Miss Vanstone. We have arranged that she shall regularly forward her address (at the post-office) to her friends, as we move about from place to place. Besides communicating in this way with her sister, she also reports herself to a certain Mr Clare, residing in Somersetshire, who is to forward all letters exchanged between herself and his son. Careful inquiry has informed me that this latter individual is now in China. Having suspected, from the first, that there was a gentleman in the background, it is highly satisfactory to know that he recedes into the remote perspective of Asia. Long may he remain there!
The trifling responsibility of finding a name for our talented Magdalen to perform under, has been cast on my shoulders. She feels no interest whatever in this part of the subject. ‘Give me any name you like,’ she said; ‘I have as much right to one as to another. Make it yourself.’ I have readily consented to gratify her wishes. The resources of my commercial library include a list of useful names to assume; and we can choose one at five minutes’ notice, when the admirable man of business who now oppresses us is ready to issue his advertisements. On this point my mind is easy enough: all my anxieties centre in the fair performer. I have not the least doubt she will do wonders if she is only left to herself on the first night. But if the day’s post is mischievous enough to upset her by a letter from her sister, I tremble for the consequences.
Four
Chronicle for December. Second Fortnight
My gifted r
elative has made her first appearance in public, and has laid the foundation of our future fortunes.
On the first night, the attendance was larger than I had ventured to hope. The novelty of an evening’s entertainment, conducted from beginning to end by the unaided exertions of a young lady (see advertisement) roused the public curiosity, and the seats were moderately well filled. As good luck would have it, no letter addressed to Miss Vanstone came that day. She was in full possession of herself, until she got the first dress on, and heard the bell ring for the music. At that critical moment she suddenly broke down. I found her alone in the waiting-room, sobbing, and talking like a child. ‘Oh, poor papa! poor papa! Oh, my God, if he saw me now!’ My experience in such matters at once informed me that it was a case of sal-volatile, accompanied by sound advice. We strung her up, in no time, to concert pitch; set her eyes in a blaze; and made her out-blush her own rouge. The curtain rose when we had got her at a red heat. She dashed at it, exactly as she dashed at it in the back drawing-room at Rosemary Lane. Her personal appearance settled the question of her reception before she opened her lips. She rushed full gallop through her changes of character, her songs and her dialogue; making mistakes by the dozen, and never stopping to set them right; carrying the people along with her in a perfect whirlwind, and never waiting for the applause. The whole thing was over twenty minutes sooner than the time we had calculated on. She carried it through to the end; and fainted on the waiting-room sofa, a minute after the curtain was down. The music-seller having taken leave of his senses from sheer astonishment; and I having no evening costume to appear in – we sent the doctor to make the necessary apology to the public, who were calling for her till the place rang again. I prompted our medical orator with a neat speech from behind the curtain; and I never heard such applause, from such a comparatively small audience, before in my life. I felt the tribute – I felt it deeply. Fourteen years ago I scraped together the wretched means of existence, in this very town, by reading the newspaper (with explanatory comments) to the company at a public-house. And now, here I am at the top of the tree.
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