‘Would there be any harm in telling it, sir?’ asked the landlord. ‘Miserable or not – a story’s a story, when you know it to be true.’
Mr Kirke hesitated. ‘I hardly think I should be doing right to tell it,’ he said. ‘If this man, or any relations of his are still alive, it is not a story they might like strangers to know. All I can tell you is, that my father was the salvation of that young officer, under very dreadful circumstances. They parted in Canada. My father remained with his regiment: the young officer sold out and returned to England – and from that moment they lost sight of each other. It would be curious if this Vanstone here was the same man. It would be curious –’
He suddenly checked himself, just as another reference to ‘the young lady’ was on the point of passing his lips. At the same moment, the landlord’s wife came in; and Mr Kirke at once transferred his inquiries to the higher authority in the house.
‘Do you know anything of this Mr Vanstone who is down here on the visitors’ list?’ asked the sailor. ‘Is he an old man?’
‘He’s a miserable little creature to look at,’ replied the landlady – ‘but he’s not old, captain!’
‘Then he is not the man I mean. Perhaps, he is the man’s son? Has he got any ladies with him?’
The landlady tossed her head, and pursed up her lips disparagingly.
‘He has a housekeeper with him,’ she said. ‘A middle-aged person – not one of my sort. I dare say I’m wrong – but I don’t like a dressy woman in her station of life.’
Mr Kirke began to look puzzled. ‘I must have made some mistake about the house,’ he said. ‘Surely there’s a lawn cut octagon-shape at Sea-View Cottage, and a white flag-staff in the middle of the gravel walk?’
‘That’s not Sea-View, sir! It’s North Shingles you’re talking of. Mr. By grave’s. His wife and his niece came here, by the coach, to-day. His wife’s tall enough to be put in a show, and the worst-dressed woman I ever set eyes on. But Miss Bygrave is worth looking at, if I may venture to say so. She’s the finest girl, to my mind, we’ve had at Aldborough for many a long day. I wonder who they are! Do you know the name, captain?’
‘No,’ said Mr Kirke, with a shade of disappointment on his dark, weather-beaten face; ‘I never heard the name before.’
After replying in those words, he rose to take his leave. The landlord vainly invited him to drink a parting glass; the landlady vainly pressed him to stay another ten minutes, and try a cup of tea. He only replied that his sister expected him, and that he must return to the parsonage immediately.
On leaving the hotel, Mr Kirke set his face westward, and walked inland along the high road, as fast as the darkness would let him.
‘Bygrave?’ he thought to himself. ‘Now I know her name, how much am I the wiser for it! If it had been Vanstone, my father’s son might have had a chance of making acquaintance with her.’ He stopped, and looked back in the direction of Aldborough. ‘What a fool I am!’ he burst out suddenly, striking his stick on the ground. ‘I was forty last birthday.’ He turned, and went on again faster than ever – his head down; his resolute black eyes searching the darkness on the land as they had searched it many a time on the sea, from the deck of his ship.
After more than an hour’s walking, he reached a village, with a primitive little church and parsonage nestled together in a hollow. He entered the house by the back way, and found his sister, the clergyman’s wife, sitting alone over her work in the parlour.
‘Where is your husband, Lizzie?’ he asked, taking a chair in a corner.
‘William has gone out to see a sick person. He had just time enough, before he went,’ she added, with a smile, ‘to tell me about the young lady; and he declares he will never trust himself at Aldborough with you again, until you are a steady married man.’ She stopped; and looked at her brother more attentively than she had looked at him yet. ‘Robert!’ she said, laying aside her work, and suddenly crossing the room to him. ‘You look anxious, you look distressed. William only laughed about your meeting with the young lady. Is it serious? Tell me, what is she like?’
He turned his head away at the question.
She took a stool at his feet, and persisted in looking up at him. ‘Is it serious, Robert?’ she repeated softly.
Kirke’s weather-beaten face was accustomed to no concealments – it answered for him before he spoke a word. ‘Don’t tell your husband till I am gone,’ he said, with a roughness quite new in his sister’s experience of him. ‘I know I only deserve to be laughed at – but it hurts me, for all that.’
‘Hurts you?’ she repeated, in astonishment.
‘You can’t think me half such a fool, Lizzie, as I think myself,’ pursued Kirke, bitterly. ‘A man at my age ought to know better. I didn’t set eyes on her for as much as a minute altogether; and there I have been, hanging about the place till after nightfall, on the chance of seeing her again – skulking, I should have called it, if I had found one of my men doing what I have been doing myself. I believe I’m bewitched. She’s a mere girl, Lizzie, – I doubt if she’s out of her teens – I’m old enough to be her father. It’s all one; she stops in my mind in spite of me. I’ve had her face looking at me, through the pitch darkness, every step of the way to this house; and it’s looking at me now – as plain as I see yours, and plainer.’
He rose impatiently, and began to walk backwards and forwards in the room. His sister looked after him with surprise, as well as sympathy, expressed in her face. From his boyhood upwards, she had always been accustomed to see him master of himself. Years since, in the failing fortunes of the family, he had been their example and their support. She had heard of him, in the desperate emergencies of a life at sea, when hundreds of his fellow-creatures had looked to his steady self-possession for rescue from close-threatening death – and had not looked in vain. Never, in all her life before, had his sister seen the balance of that calm and equal mind lost, as she saw it lost now.
‘How can you talk so unreasonably about your age and yourself?’ she said. ‘There is not a woman alive, Robert, who is good enough for you. What is her name?’
‘Bygrave. Do you know it?’
‘No. But I might soon make acquaintance with her. If we only had a little time before us; if I could only get to Aldborough and see her – but you are going away to-morrow; your ship sails at the end of the week.’
‘Thank God for that!’ said Kirke, fervently.
‘Are you glad to be going away?’ she asked, more and more amazed at him.
‘Right glad, Lizzie, for my own sake. If I ever get to my senses again, I shall find my way back to them on the deck of my ship. This girl has got between me and my thoughts already: she sha’n’t go a step further, and get between me and my duty. I’m determined on that. Fool as I am, I have sense enough left not to trust myself within easy hail of Aldborough to-morrow morning. I’m good for another twenty miles of walking – and I’ll begin my journey back to-night.’
His sister started up, and caught him fast by the arm. ‘Robert!’ she exclaimed; ‘you’re not serious? You don’t mean to leave us on foot, alone in the dark?’
‘It’s only saying good-bye, my dear, the last thing at night, instead of the first thing in the morning,’ he answered, with a smile. ‘Try and make allowances for me, Lizzie. My life has been passed at sea; and I’m not used to having my mind upset in this way. Men ashore are used to it; men ashore can take it easy. I can’t. If I stopped here, I shouldn’t rest. If I waited till to-morrow, I should only be going back to have another look at her. I don’t want to feel more ashamed of myself than I do already. I want to fight my way back to my duty and myself, without stopping to think twice about it. Darkness is nothing to me – I’m used to darkness. I have got the high-road to walk on, and I can’t lose my way. Let me go, Lizzie! The only sweetheart I have any business with, at my age, is my ship. Let me get back to her!’
His sister still kept her hold of his arm, and still pleaded with him to stay till the
morning. He listened to her with perfect patience and kindness – but she never shook his determination for an instant.
‘What am I to say to William?’ she pleaded. ‘What will he think, when he comes back, and finds you gone?’
‘Tell him I have taken the advice he gave us, in his sermon last Sunday. Say I have turned my back on the world, the flesh and the devil.’
‘How can you talk so, Robert! And the boys too – you promised not to go without bidding the boys good-bye.’
‘That’s true. I made my little nephews a promise; and I’ll keep it.’ He kicked off his shoes, as he spoke, on the mat outside the door. ‘Light me upstairs, Lizzie; I’ll bid the two boys good-bye without waking them.’
She saw the uselessness of resisting him any longer; and, taking the candle, went before him upstairs.
The boys – both young children – were sleeping together in the same bed. The youngest was his uncle’s favourite, and was called by his uncle’s name. He lay peacefully asleep, with a rough little toy ship hugged fast in his arms. Kirke’s eyes softened as he stole on tiptoe to the child’s side, and kissed him with the gentleness of a woman. ‘Poor little man!’ said the sailor, tenderly. ‘He is as fond of his ship as I was at his age. I’ll cut him out a better one when I come back. Will you give me my nephew one of these days, Lizzie, and will you let me make a sailor of him?’
‘O, Robert, if you were only married and happy, as I am!’
‘The time has gone by, my dear. I must make the best of it as I am, with my little nephew there to help me.’
He left the room. His sister’s tears fell fast as she followed him into the parlour. ‘There is something so forlorn and dreadful in your leaving us like this,’ she said. ‘Shall I go to Aldborough to-morrow, Robert, and try if I can get acquainted with her, for your sake?’
‘No!’ he replied. ‘Let her be. If it’s ordered that I am to see that girl again, I shall see her. Leave it to the future, and you leave it right.’ He put on his shoes, and took up his hat and stick. ‘I won’t over-walk myself,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘If the coach doesn’t overtake me on the road, I can wait for it where I stop to breakfast. Dry your eyes, my dear; and give me a kiss.’
She was like her brother, in features and complexion; and she had a touch of her brother’s spirit – she dashed away the tears, and took her leave of him bravely.
‘I shall be back in a year’s time,’ said Kirke, falling into his old sailorlike way, at the door. ‘I’ll bring you a China shawl, Lizzie, and a chest of tea for your store-room. Don’t let the boys forget me; and don’t think I’m doing wrong to leave you in this way. I know I am doing right. God bless you and keep you, my dear – and your husband, and your children! Good-bye!’
He stooped, and kissed her. She ran to the door to look after him. A puff of air extinguished the candle – and the black night shut him out from her in an instant.
Three days afterwards the first-class merchantman, Deliverance – Kirke, commander – sailed from London for the China Sea.
Chapter Three
The threatening of storm and change passed away with the night. When morning rose over Aldborough, the sun was master in the blue heaven, and the waves were rippling gaily under the summer breeze.
At an hour when no other visitors to the watering-place were yet astir, the indefatigable Wragge appeared at the door of North Shingles Villa, and directed his steps northward, with a neatly-bound copy of Joyce’s Scientific Dialogues in his hand. Arriving at the waste ground beyond the houses, he descended to the bench, and opened his book. The interview of the past night had sharpened his perception of the difficulties to be encountered in the coming enterprise. He was now doubly determined to try the characteristic experiment at which he had hinted in his letter to Magdalen: and to concentrate on himself – in the character of a remarkably well-informed man – the entire interest and attention of the formidable Mrs Lecount.
Having taken his dose of ready-made science (to use his own expression) the first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, Captain Wragge joined his small family circle at breakfast-time, inflated with information for the day. He observed that Magdalen’s face showed plain signs of a sleepless night. She made no complaint: her manner was composed, and her temper perfectly under control. Mrs Wragge – refreshed by some thirteen consecutive hours of uninterrupted repose – was in excellent spirits, and up at heel (for a wonder) with both shoes. She brought with her into the room several large sheets of tissue paper, cut crisply into mysterious and many-varying forms, which immediately provoked from her husband the short and sharp question, ‘What have you got there?’
‘Patterns, captain,’ said Mrs Wragge, in timidly conciliating tones. ‘I went shopping in London, and bought an Oriental Cashmere Robe. It cost a deal of money; and I’m going to try and save, by making it myself. I’ve got my patterns, and my dressmaking directions written out as plain as print. I’ll be very tidy, captain; I’ll keep in my own corner, if you’ll please to give me one; and whether my head Buzzes, or whether it don’t, I’ll sit straight at my work all the same.’
‘You will do your work,’ said the captain, sternly, ‘when you know who you are, who I am, and who that young lady is – not before. Show me your shoes! Good. Show me your cap! Good. Make the breakfast.’
When breakfast was over, Mrs Wragge received her orders to retire to an adjoining room, and to wait there until her husband came to release her. As soon as her back was turned, Captain Wragge at once resumed the conversation which had been suspended, by Magdalen’s own desire, on the preceding night. The questions he now put to her, all related to the subject of her visit in disguise to Noel Vanstone’s house. They were the questions of a thoroughly clear-headed man – short, searching and straight to the point. In less than half an hour’s time, he had made himself acquainted with every incident that had happened in Vauxhall Walk.
The conclusions which the captain drew, after gaining his information, were clear and easily stated.
On the adverse side of the question, he expressed his conviction that Mrs Lecount had certainly detected her visitor to be disguised; that she had never really left the room, though she might have opened and shut the door; and that on both the occasions, therefore, when Magdalen had been betrayed into speaking in her own voice, Mrs Lecount had heard her. On the favourable side of the question, he was perfectly satisfied that the painted face and eyelids, the wig and the padded cloak had so effectually concealed Magdalen’s identity, that she might, in her own person, defy the housekeeper’s closest scrutiny, so far as the matter of appearance was concerned. The difficulty of deceiving Mrs Lecount’s ears, as well as her eyes, was, he readily admitted, not so easily to be disposed of. But looking to the fact that Magdalen, on both the occasions when she had forgotten herself, had spoken in the heat of anger, he was of opinion that her voice had every reasonable chance of escaping detection – if she carefully avoided all outbursts of temper for the future, and spoke in those more composed and ordinary tones, which Mrs Lecount had not yet heard. Upon the whole, the captain was inclined to pronounce the prospect hopeful, if one serious obstacle were cleared away at the outset – that obstacle being nothing less than the presence on the scene of action of Mrs Wragge.
To Magdalen’s surprise, when the course of her narrative brought her to the story of the ghost, Captain Wragge listened with the air of a man who was more annoyed than amused by what he heard. When she had done, he plainly told her that her unlucky meeting on the stairs of the lodging-house with Mrs Wragge was, in his opinion, the most serious of all the accidents that had happened in Vauxhall Walk.
‘I can deal with the difficulty of my wife’s stupidity,’ he said, ‘as I have often dealt with it before. I can hammer her new identity into her head, but I can’t hammer the ghost out of it. We have no security that the woman in the grey cloak and poke bonnet may not come back to her recollection at the most critical time, and under the most awkward circumstances. In plain English
, my dear girl, Mrs Wragge is a pitfall under our feet at every step we take.’
‘If we are aware of the pitfall,’ said Magdalen, ‘we can take our measures for avoiding it. What do you propose?’
‘I propose,’ replied the captain, ‘the temporary removal of Mrs Wragge. Speaking purely in a pecuniary point of view, I can’t afford a total separation from her. You have often read of very poor people being suddenly enriched by legacies reaching them from remote and unexpected quarters? Mrs Wragge’s case, when I married her, was one of these. An elderly female relative shared the favours of fortune, on that occasion, with my wife; and if I only keep up domestic appearances, I happen to know that Mrs Wragge will prove a second time profitable to me, on that elderly relative’s death. But for this circumstance, I should probably long since have transferred my wife to the care of society at large – in the agreeable conviction that if I didn’t support her, somebody else would. Although I can’t afford to take this course, I see no objection to having her comfortably boarded and lodged out of our way, for the time being – say, at a retired farm-house, in the character of a lady in infirm mental health. You would find the expense trifling; I should find the relief unutterable. What do you say? Shall I pack her up at once, and take her away by the next coach?’
‘No!’ replied Magdalen, firmly. ‘The poor creature’s life is hard enough already; I won’t help to make it harder. She was affectionately and truly kind to me when I was ill – and I won’t allow her to be shut up among strangers while I can help it. The risk of keeping her here is only one risk more. I will face it, Captain Wragge – if you won’t.’
‘Think twice,’ said the captain, gravely, ‘before you decide on keeping Mrs Wragge.’
‘Once is enough,’ rejoined Magdalen. ‘I won’t have her sent away.’
‘Very good,’ said the captain, resignedly. ‘I never interfere with questions of sentiment. But I have a word to say, on my own behalf. If my services are to be of any use to you, I can’t have my hands tied at starting. This is serious. I won’t trust my wife and Mrs Lecount together. I’m afraid, if you’re not – and I make it a condition that, if Mrs Wragge stops here, she keeps her room. If you think her health requires it, you can take her for a walk early in the morning, or late in the evening – but you must never trust her out with the servant, and never trust her out by herself. I put the matter plainly, it is too important to be trifled with. What do you say – yes, or no?’
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