Nine
From Magdalen to Norah
‘July 7th
‘MY DEAREST NORAH,
‘All that your love for me can wish, your letter has done. You, and you alone, have found your way to my heart. I could think again, I could feel again, after reading what you have written to me. Let this assurance quiet your anxieties. My mind lives and breathes once more -it was dead until I got your letter.
‘The shock I have suffered has left a strange quietness in me. I feel as if I had parted from my former self- as if the hopes, once so dear to me, had all gone back to some past time, from which I am now far removed. I can look at the wreck of my life more calmly, Norah, than you could look at it, if we were both together again. I can trust myself, already, to write to Frank.
‘My darling, I think no woman ever knows how utterly she has given herself up to the man she loves – until that man has ill-treated her. Can you pity my weakness if I confess to having felt a pang at my heart when I read that part of your letter which calls Frank a coward and a villain? Nobody can despise me for this, as I despise myself. I am like a dog who crawls back and licks the master’s hand that has beaten him. But it is so – I would confess it to nobody but you – indeed, indeed it is so. He has deceived and deserted me; he has written me a cruel farewell – but don’t call him a villain! If he repented, and came back to me, I would die rather than marry him now – but it grates on me to see that word coward written against him in your hand! If he is weak of purpose, who tried his weakness beyond what it could bear? Do you think this would have happened if Michael Vanstone had not robbed us of our own, and forced Frank away from me to China? In a week from to-day, the year of waiting would have come to an end; and I should have been Frank’s wife, if my marriage portion had not been taken from me.
‘You will say – after what has happened, it is well that I have escaped. My love! there is something perverse in my heart, which answers – No! Better have been Frank’s wretched wife than the free woman I am now.
‘I have not written to him. He sends me no address at which I could write, even if I would. But I have not the wish. I will wait, before I send him my farewell. If a day ever comes when I have the fortune which my father once promised I should bring to him – do you know what I would do with it? I would send it all to Frank, as my revenge on him for his letter; as the last farewell word, on my side, to the man who has deserted me. Let me live for that day! Let me live, Norah, in the hope of better times for you, which is all the hope I have left. When I think of your hard life, I can almost feel the tears once more in my weary eyes. I can almost think I have come back again to my former self.
‘You will not think me hard-hearted and ungrateful, if I say that we must wait a little yet, before we meet? I want to be more fit to see you than I am now. I want to put Frank farther away from me, and to bring you nearer still. Are these good reasons? I don’t know – don’t ask me for reasons. Take the kiss I have put for you here, where the little circle is drawn on the paper; and let that bring us together for the present, till I write again. Good-bye, my love. My heart is true to you, Norah – but I dare not see you yet.
‘MAGDALEN’
Ten
From Magdalen to Miss Garth
‘MY DEAR MISS GARTH,
‘I have been long in answering your letter; but you know what has happened, and you will forgive me.
‘All that I have to say may be said in few words. You may depend on my never making the general Sense of Propriety my enemy again: I am getting knowledge enough of the world to make it my accomplice next time. Norah will never leave another situation on my account – my life, as a public performer, is at an end. It was harmless enough, God knows – I may live, and so may you, to mourn the day when I parted from it -but I shall never return to it again. It has left me, as Frank has left me, as all my better thoughts have left me – except my thoughts of Norah.
‘Enough of myself! Shall I tell you some news to brighten this dull letter? Mr Michael Vanstone is dead; and Mr Noel Vanstone has succeeded to the possession of my fortune and Norah’s. He is quite worthy of his inheritance. In his father’s place, he would have ruined us as his father did.
‘I have no more to say that you would care to know. Don’t be distressed about me. I am trying to recover my spirits – I am trying to forget the poor deluded girl who was foolish enough to be fond of Frank, in the old days at Combe-Raven. Sometimes, a pang comes which tells me the girl won’t be forgotten – but not often.
‘It was very kind of you, when you wrote to such a lost creature as I am, to sign yourself- always my friend. “Always” is a bold word, my dear old governess! I wonder whether you will ever want to recall it? It will make no difference, if you do, in the gratitude I shall always feel for the trouble you took with me, when I was a little girl. I have ill repaid that trouble – ill repaid your kindness to me in after-life. I ask your pardon and your pity. The best thing you can do for both of us, is to forget me. Affectionately yours,
‘MAGDALEN
‘P.S. – I open the envelope to add one line. For God’s sake, don’t show this letter to Norah!’
Eleven
From Magdalen to Captain Wragge
‘Vauxhall Walk, July 17th
‘If I am not mistaken, it was arranged that I should write to you at Birmingham, as soon as I felt myself composed enough to think of the future. My mind is settled at last; and I am now able to accept the services which you have unreservedly offered to me.
‘I beg you will forgive the manner in which I received you, on your arrival in this house, after hearing the news of my sudden illness. I was quite incapable of controlling myself- I was suffering an agony of mind which for the time deprived me of my senses. It is only your due that I should now thank you for treating me with great forbearance, at a time when forbearance was mercy.
‘I will mention what I wish you to do, as plainly and briefly as I can.
‘In the first place, I request you to dispose (as privately as possible) of every article of costume used in the dramatic Entertainment. I have done with our performances for ever; and I wish to be set free from everything which might accidentally connect me with them in the future. The key of my box is enclosed in this letter.
‘The other box, which contains my own dresses, you will be kind enough to forward to this house. I do not ask you to bring it yourself, because I have a far more important commission to intrust to you.
‘Referring to the note which you left for me at your departure, I conclude that you have, by this time, traced Mr Noel Vanstone from Vauxhall Walk to the residence which he is now occupying. If you have made the discovery – and if you are quite sure of not having drawn the attention either of Mrs Lecount or her master to yourself – I wish you to arrange immediately for my residing (with you and Mrs Wragge) in the same town or village in which Mr Noel Vanstone has taken up his abode. I write this, it is hardly necessary to say, under the impression that, wherever he may now be living, he is settled in the place for some little time.
‘If you can find a small furnished house for me on these conditions, which is to be let by the month, take it for a month certain to begin with. Say that it is for your wife, your niece, and yourself; and use any assumed name you please, as long as it is a name that can be trusted to defeat the most suspicious inquiries. I leave this to your experience in such matters. The secret of who we really are, must be kept as strictly as if it was a secret on which our lives depend.
‘Any expenses to which you may be put in carrying out my wishes, I will immediately repay. If you easily find the sort of house I want, there is no need for your returning to London to fetch us. We can join you as soon as we know where to go. The house must be perfectly respectable, and must be reasonably near to Mr Noel Vanstone’s present residence, wherever that is.
‘You must allow me to be silent in this letter as to the object which I have now in view. I am unwilling to risk an explanation in writing. When all our p
reparations are made, you shall hear what I propose to do from my own lips; and I shall expect you to tell me plainly in return, whether you will, or will not, give me the help I want, on the best terms which I am able to offer you.
‘One word more before I seal up this letter.
‘If any opportunity falls in your way, after you have taken the house, and before we join you, of exchanging a few civil words either with Mr Noel Vanstone or Mrs Lecount, take advantage of it. It is very important to my present object that we should become acquainted with each other – as the purely accidental result of our being near neighbours. I want you to smooth the way towards this end, if you can, before Mrs Wragge and I come to you. Pray throw away no chance of observing Mrs Lecount, in particular, very carefully. Whatever help you can give me at the outset, in blindfolding that woman’s sharp eyes, will be the most precious help I have ever received at your hands.
‘There is no need to answer this letter immediately – unless I have written it under a mistaken impression of what you have accomplished since leaving London. I have taken our lodgings on for another week; and I can wait to hear from you, until you are able to send me such news as I wish to receive. You may be quite sure of my patience for the future, under all possible circumstances. My caprices are at an end; and my violent temper has tried your forbearance for the last time.
‘MAGDALEN’
Twelve
From Captain Wragge to Magdalen
‘North Shingles Villa, Aldborough, Suffolk,
July 22nd
‘MY DEAR GIRL,
‘Your letter has charmed and touched me. Your excuses have gone straight to my heart; and your confidence in my humble abilities has followed in the same direction. The pulse of the old militiaman throbs with pride as he thinks of the trust you have placed in him, and vows to deserve it. Don’t be surprised at this genial outburst. All enthusiastic natures must explode occasionally: and my form of explosion is – Words.
‘Everything you wanted me to do, is done. The house is taken; the name is found; and I am personally acquainted with Mrs Lecount. After reading this general statement, you will naturally be interested in possessing your mind next of the accompanying details. Here they are, at your service:
‘The day after leaving you in London, I traced Mr Noel Vanstone to this curious little sea-side snuggery. One of his father’s innumerable bargains was a house at Aldborough – a rising watering-place, or Mr Michael Vanstone would not have invested a farthing in it. In this house the despicable little miser who lived rent free in London, now lives rent free again, on the coast of Suffolk. He is settled in his present abode for the summer and autumn; and you and Mrs Wragge have only to join me here, to be established five doors away from him in this elegant villa. I have got the whole house for three guineas a week, with the option of remaining through the autumn at the same price. In a fashionable watering-place, such a residence would have been cheap at double the money.
‘Our new name has been chosen with a wary eye to your suggestions. My books – I hope you have not forgotten my Books? – contain, under the heading of Skins To Jump Into, a list of individuals retired from this mortal scene, with whose names, families and circumstances, I am well acquainted. Into some of those Skins I have been compelled to Jump, in the exercise of my profession, at former periods of my career. Others are still in the condition of new dresses, and remain to be tried on. The Skin which will exactly fit us, originally clothed the bodies of a family named Bygrave. I am in Mr Bygrave’s skin at this moment – and it fits without a wrinkle. If you will oblige me by slipping into Miss Bygrave (Christian name, Susan); and if you will afterwards push Mrs Wragge – anyhow; head foremost if you like – into Mrs Bygrave (Christian name, Julia), the transformation will be complete. Permit me to inform you that I am your paternal uncle. My worthy brother was established twenty years ago, in the mahogany and logwood trade at Belize, Honduras. He died in that place; and is buried on the south-west side of the local cemetery, with a neat monument of native wood carved by a self-taught negro artist. Nineteen months afterwards, his widow died of apoplexy at a boarding-house in Cheltenham. She was supposed to be the most corpulent woman in England; and was accommodated on the ground floor of the house in consequence of the difficulty of getting her up and down stairs. You are her only child; you have been under my care since the sad event at Cheltenham; you are twenty-one years old on the second of August next; and, corpulence excepted, you are the living image of your mother. I trouble you with these specimens of my intimate knowledge of our new family Skin, to quiet your mind on the subject of future inquiries. Trust to me and my books to satisfy any amount of inquiry. In the mean time, write down our new name and address, and see how they strike you: “Mr Bygrave, Mrs Bygrave, Miss Bygrave; North Shingles Villa, Aldborough”. Upon my life, it reads remarkably well!
‘The last detail I have to communicate refers to my acquaintance with Mrs Lecount.
‘We met yesterday, in the grocer’s shop here. Keeping my ears open, I found that Mrs Lecount wanted a particular kind of tea, which the man had not got, and which he believed could not be procured any nearer than Ipswich. I instantly saw my way to beginning an acquaintance, at the trifling expense of a journey to that flourishing city. “I have business, to-day, in Ipswich,” I said, “and I propose returning to Aldborough (if I can get back in time) this evening. Pray allow me to take your order for the tea, and to bring it back with my own parcels.” Mrs Lecount politely declined giving me the trouble – I politely insisted on taking it. We fell into conversation. There is no need to trouble you with our talk. The result of it on my mind is – that Mrs Lecount’s one weak point, if she has such a thing at all, is a taste for science, implanted by her deceased husband, the Professor. I think I see a chance here, of working my way into her good graces, and casting a little needful dust into those handsome black eyes of hers. Acting on this idea, when I purchased the lady’s tea at Ipswich, I also bought on my own account that far-famed pocket manual of knowledge, Joyce’s Scientific Dialogues.1 Possessing, as I do, a quick memory and boundless confidence in myself, I propose privately inflating my new skin with as much ready-made science as it will hold, and presenting Mr Bygrave to Mrs Lecount’s notice in the character of the most highly informed man she has met with since the Professor’s death. The necessity of blindfolding that woman (to use your own admirable expression) is as clear to me as to you. If it is to be done in the way I propose, make your mind easy -Wragge, inflated by Joyce, is the man to do it.
‘You now have my whole budget of news. Am I, or am I not, worthy of your confidence in me? I say nothing of my devouring anxiety to know what your objects really are – that anxiety will be satisfied when we meet. Never yet, my dear girl, did I long to administer a productive pecuniary Squeeze to any human creature, as I long to administer it to Mr Noel Vanstone. I say no more. Verbum sap.2 Pardon the pedantry of a Latin quotation, and believe me,
‘Entirely yours,
‘HORATIO WRAGGE
‘P.S. – I await my instructions, as you requested. You have only to say whether I shall return to London for the purpose of escorting you to this place – or whether I shall wait here to receive you. The house is in perfect order – the weather is charming – and the sea is as smooth as Mrs Lecount’s apron. She has just passed the window; and we have exchanged bows. A sharp woman, my dear Magdalen – but Joyce and I together, may prove a trifle too much for her.’
Thirteen
Extract from the East Suffolk Argus
‘Aldborough. We notice with pleasure the arrival of visitors to this healthful and far-famed watering-place, earlier in the season than usual during the present year. Esto Perpetua3 is all we have to say.
‘Visitors’ List. Arrivals since our last. North Shingles Villa – Mrs Bygrave; Miss Bygrave.’
THE FOURTH SCENE
ALDBOROUGH,1 Suffolk
Chapter One
The most striking spectacle presented to a stranger by the shores
of Suffolk, is the extraordinary defencelessness of the land against the encroachments of the sea.
At Aldborough, as elsewhere on this coast, local traditions are, for the most part, traditions which have been literally drowned. The site of the old town, once a populous and thriving port, has almost entirely disappeared in the sea. The German Ocean2 has swallowed up streets, market-places, jetties, and public walks; and the merciless waters, consummating their work of devastation, closed, no longer than eighty years since, over the salt-master’s cottage at Aldborough, now famous in memory only, as the birth-place of the poet Crabbe.3
Thrust back year after year by the advancing waves, the inhabitants have receded, in the present century, to the last morsel of land which is firm enough to be built on – a strip of ground hemmed in between a marsh on one side and the sea on the other. Here – trusting for their future security to certain sandhills which the capricious waves have thrown up to encourage them – the people of Aldborough have boldly established their quaint little watering-place. The first fragment of their earthly possessions, is a low natural dyke of shingle, surmounted by a public path which runs parallel with the sea. Bordering this path in a broken, uneven line are the villa residences of modern Aldborough -fanciful little houses, standing mostly in their own gardens, and possessing here and there, as horticultural ornaments, staring figure-heads of ships, doing duty for statues among the flowers. Viewed from the low level on which these villas stand, the sea, in certain conditions of the atmosphere, appears to be higher than the land: coasting vessels gliding by, assume gigantic proportions, and look alarmingly near the windows. Intermixed with the houses of the better sort, are buildings of other forms and periods. In one direction, the tiny Gothic town-hall of old Aldborough – once the centre of the vanished port and borough – now stands fronting the modern villas close on the margin of the sea. At another point, a wooden tower of observation, crowned by the figurehead of a wrecked Russian vessel, rises high above the neighbouring houses; and discloses through its scuttle-window, grave men in dark clothing, seated on the topmost story, perpetually on the watch – the pilots of Aldborough looking out from their tower, for ships in want of help. Behind the row of buildings thus curiously intermingled, runs the one straggling street of the town, with its sturdy pilots’ cottages, its mouldering marine storehouses, and its composite shops. Towards the northern end, this street is bounded by the one eminence visible over all the marshy flat – a low wooded hill on which the church is built. At its opposite extremity, the street leads to a deserted martello tower, and to the forlorn outlying suburb of Slaughden, between the river Aide and the sea. Such are the main characteristics of this curious little outpost on the shores of England, as it appears at the present time.
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