‘I’ll take another teaspoonful of brandy,’ said Noel Vanstone, holding out his glass with a trembling hand as the word ‘settlements’ passed Captain Wragge’s lips.
‘I’ll take a teaspoonful with you,’ said the captain, nimbly dismounting from the pedestal of his respectability, and sipping his brandy with the highest relish. Noel Vanstone, after nervously following his host’s example, composed himself to meet the coming ordeal, with reclining head and grasping hands – in the position familiarly associated to all civilized humanity with a seat in a dentist’s chair.
The captain put down his empty glass and got up again on his pedestal.
‘We were talking of settlements,’ he resumed. ‘I have already mentioned, Mr Vanstone, at an early period of our conversation, that my niece presents the man of her choice with no other dowry than the most inestimable of all gifts – the gift of herself. This circumstance, however (as you are no doubt aware), does not disentitle me to make the customary stipulations with her future husband. According to the usual course in this matter, my lawyer would see yours – consultations would take place – delays would occur – strangers would be in possession of your intentions – and Mrs Lecount would, sooner or later, arrive at that knowledge of the truth, which you are anxious to keep from her. Do you agree with me, so far?’
Unutterable apprehension closed Noel Vanstone’s lips. He could only reply by an inclination of the head.
‘Very good,’ said the captain. ‘Now, sir, you may possibly have observed that I am a man of a very original turn of mind. If I have not hitherto struck you in that light, it may then be necessary to mention that there are some subjects on which I persist in thinking for myself. The subject of marriage settlements is one of them. What, let me ask you, does a parent or guardian in my present condition usually do? After having trusted the man whom he has chosen for his son-in-law with the sacred deposit of a woman’s happiness – he turns round on that man, and declines to trust him with the infinitely inferior responsibility of providing for her pecuniary future. He fetters his son-in-law with the most binding document the law can produce; and employs with the husband of his own child, the same precautions which he would use if he were dealing with a stranger and a rogue. I call such conduct as this, inconsistent and unbecoming in the last degree. You will not find it my course of conduct, Mr Vanstone – you will not find me preaching what I don’t practise. If I trust you with my niece, I trust you with every inferior responsibility towards her and towards me. Give me your hand, sir – tell me on your word of honour that you will provide for your wife, as becomes her position and your means – and the question of settlements is decided between us from this moment, at once and for ever!’ Having carried out Magdalen’s instructions in this lofty tone, he threw open his respectable frock-coat, and sat with head erect, and hand extended, the model of parental feeling, and the picture of human integrity.
For one moment, Noel Vanstone remained literally petrified by astonishment. The next, he started from his chair and wrung the hand of his magnanimous friend, in a perfect transport of admiration. Never yet, throughout his long and varied career, had Captain Wragge felt such difficulty in keeping his countenance, as he felt now. Contempt for the outburst of miserly gratitude of which he was the object; triumph in the sense of successful conspiracy against a man who had rated the offer of his protection at five pounds; regret at the lost opportunity of effecting a fine stroke of moral agriculture, which his dread of involving himself in coming consequences had forced him to let slip – all these varied emotions agitated the captain’s mind; all strove together to find their way to the surface, through the outlets of his face or his tongue. He allowed Noel Vanstone to keep possession of his hand, and to heap one series of shrill protestations and promises on another, until he had regained his usual mastery over himself. That result achieved, he put the little man back in his chair, and returned forthwith to the subject of Mrs Lecount.
‘Suppose we now revert to the difficulty which we have not conquered yet,’ said the captain. ‘Let us say that I do violence to my own habits and feelings; that I allow the considerations I have already mentioned to weigh with me; and that I sanction your wish to be united to my niece, without the knowledge of Mrs Lecount. Allow me to inquire, in that case, what means you can suggest for the accomplishment of your end?’
‘I can’t suggest anything,’ replied Noel Vanstone, helplessly. ‘Would you object to suggest for me?’
‘You are making a bolder request than you think, Mr Vanstone. I never do things by halves. When I am acting with my customary candour, I am frank (as you know already) to the utmost verge of imprudence. When exceptional circumstances compel me to take an opposite course, there isn’t a slyer fox alive than I am. If, at your express request, I take off my honest English coat here, and put on a Jesuit’s gown – if, purely out of sympathy for your awkward position, I consent to keep your secret for you from Mrs Lecount – I must have no unseasonable scruples to contend with on your part. If it is neck or nothing on my side, sir – it must be neck or nothing on yours also!’
‘Neck or nothing by all means,’ said Noel Vanstone, briskly – ‘on the understanding that you go first. I have no scruples about keeping Lecount in the dark. But she is devilish cunning, Mr Bygrave. How is it to be done?’
‘You shall hear directly,’ replied the captain. ‘Before I develop my views, I should like to have your opinion on an abstract question of morality. What do you think, my dear sir, of pious frauds in general?’
Noel Vanstone looked a little embarrassed by the question.
‘Shall I put it more plainly?’ continued Captain Wragge. ‘What do you say to the universally-accepted maxim, that “all stratagems are fair in love and war”? – Yes, or No?’
‘Yes!’ answered Noel Vanstone, with the utmost readiness.
‘One more question, and I have done,’ said the captain. ‘Do you see any particular objection to practising a pious fraud on Mrs Lecount?
Noel Vanstone’s resolution began to falter a little.
‘Is Lecount likely to find it out?’ he asked cautiously.
‘She can’t possibly discover it until you are married, and out of her reach.’
‘You are sure of that?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘Play any trick you like on Lecount,’ said Noel Vanstone, with an air of unutterable relief. ‘I have had my suspicions lately, that she is trying to domineer over me – I am beginning to feel that I have borne with Lecount long enough. I wish I was well rid of her.’
‘You shall have your wish,’ said Captain Wragge. ‘You shall be rid of her in a week or ten days.’
Noel Vanstone rose eagerly and approached the captain’s chair.
‘You don’t say so!’ he exclaimed. ‘How do you mean to send her away?’
‘I mean to send her on a journey,’ replied Captain Wragge.
‘Where?’
‘From your house at Aldborough, to her brother’s bedside at Zürich.’
Noel Vanstone started back at the answer, and returned suddenly to his chair.
‘How can you do that?’ he inquired, in the greatest perplexity. ‘Her brother (hang him!) is much better. She had another letter from Zürich to say so, this morning.’
‘Did you see the letter?’
‘Yes. She always worries about her brother – she would show it to me.’
‘Who was it from? and what did it say?’
‘It was from the doctor – he always writes to her. I don’t care two straws about her brother; and I don’t remember much of the letter, except that it was a short one. The fellow was much better; and if the doctor didn’t write again, she might take it for granted that he was getting well. That was the substance of it.’
‘Did you notice where she put the letter, when you gave it her back again?’
‘Yes. She put it in the drawer, where she keeps her account-books.’
‘Can you get at that drawer?’
&n
bsp; ‘Of course I can. I have got a duplicate key-I always insist on a duplicate key of the place where she keeps her account-books. I never allow the account-books to be locked up from my inspection: it’s a rule of the house.’
‘Be so good as to get that letter to-day, Mr Vanstone, without your housekeeper’s knowledge; and add to the favour by letting me have it here privately for an hour or two.’
‘What do you want it for?’
‘I have some more questions to ask, before I can tell you. Have you any intimate friend at Zürich, whom you could trust to help you in playing a trick on Mrs Lecount?’
‘What sort of help do you mean?’ asked Noel Vanstone.
‘Suppose,’ said the captain, ‘you were to send a letter addressed to Mrs Lecount, at Aldborough, enclosed in another letter addressed to one of your friends abroad? And suppose you were to instruct that friend to help a harmless practical joke by posting Mrs Lecount’s letter at Zürich? Do you know any one who could be trusted to do that?’
‘I know two people who could be trusted!’ cried Noel Vanstone. ‘Both ladies – both spinsters – both bitter enemies of Lecount’s. But what is your drift, Mr Bygrave? Though I am not usually wanting in penetration, I don’t altogether see your drift.’
‘You shall see it directly, Mr Vanstone.’
With those words he rose, withdrew to his desk in the corner of the room, and wrote a few lines on a sheet of note-paper. After first reading them carefully to himself, he beckoned to Noel Vanstone to come and read them too.
‘A few minutes since,’ said the captain, pointing complacently to his own composition with the feather end of his pen, ‘I had the honour of suggesting a pious fraud on Mrs Lecount. There it is!’
He resigned his chair at the writing-table to his visitor. Noel Vanstone sat down, and read these lines:
MY DEAR MADAM, – Since I last wrote, I deeply regret to inform you that your brother has suffered a relapse. The symptoms are so serious, that it is my painful duty to summon you instantly to his bedside. I am making every effort to resist the renewed progress of the malady; and I have not yet lost all hope of success. But I cannot reconcile it to my conscience to leave you in ignorance of a serious change in my patient for the worse, which may be attended by fatal results. With much sympathy, I remain, &c. &c.
Captain Wragge waited with some anxiety for the effect which this letter might produce. Mean, selfish and cowardly as he was, even Noel Vanstone might feel some compunction at practising such a deception as was here suggested, on a woman who stood towards him in the position of Mrs Lecount. She had served him faithfully, however interested her motives might be – she had lived, since he was a lad, in the full possession of his father’s confidence – she was living now under the protection of his own roof. Could he fail to remember this; and, remembering it, could he lend his aid without hesitation to the scheme which was now proposed to him? Captain Wragge unconsciously retained belief enough in human nature to doubt it. To his surprise, and, it must be added, to his relief also, his apprehensions proved to be perfectly groundless. The only emotions aroused in Noel Vanstone’s mind by a perusal of the letter, were a hearty admiration of his friend’s idea, and a vainglorious anxiety to claim the credit to himself of being the person who carried it out. Examples may be found every day of a fool who is no coward; examples may be found occasionally of a fool who is not cunning – but it may reasonably be doubted whether there is a producible instance anywhere of a fool who is not cruel.
‘Perfect!’ cried Noel Vanstone, clapping his hands. ‘Mr Bygrave, you are as good as Figaro2 in the French comedy. Talking of French, there is one serious mistake in this clever letter of yours – it is written in the wrong language. When the doctor writes to Lecount, he writes in French. Perhaps you meant me to translate it? You can’t manage without my help can you? I write French as fluently as I write English. Just look at me! I’ll translate it while I sit here, in two strokes of the pen.’
He completed the translation almost as rapidly as Captain Wragge had produced the original. ‘Wait a minute!’ he cried, in high critical triumph at discovering another defect in the composition of his ingenious friend. ‘The doctor always dates his letters. Here is no date to yours.’
‘I leave the date to you,’ said the captain, with a sardonic smile. ‘You have discovered the fault, my dear sir – pray correct it!’
Noel Vanstone mentally looked into the great gulf which separates the faculty that can discover a defect, from the faculty that can apply a remedy – and, following the example of many a wiser man, declined to cross over it.
‘I couldn’t think of taking the liberty,’ he said, politely. ‘Perhaps you had a motive for leaving the date out?’
‘Perhaps I had,’ replied Captain Wragge, with his easiest good humour. ‘The date must depend on the time a letter takes to get to Zürich. / have had no experience on that point – you must have had plenty of experience in your father’s time. Give me the benefit of your information; and we will add the date before you leave the writing-table.’
Noel Vanstone’s experience was, as Captain Wragge had anticipated, perfectly competent to settle the question of time. The railway resources of the Continent (in the year eighteen hundred and forty-seven) were but scanty; and a letter sent, at that period, from England to Zürich, and from Zürich back again to England, occupied ten days in making the double journey by post.
‘Date the letter, in French, five days on from to-morrow,’ said the captain, when he had got his information. ‘Very good. The next thing is to let me have the doctor’s note, as soon as you can. I may be obliged to practise some hours before I can copy your translation in an exact imitation of the doctor’s handwriting. Have you got any foreign note – paper? Let me have a few sheets; and send, at the same time, an envelope addressed to one of those lady-friends of yours at Zürich, accompanied by the necessary request to post the enclosure. This is all I need trouble you to do, Mr Vanstone. Don’t let me seem inhospitable -but the sooner you can supply me with my materials, the better I shall be pleased. We entirely understand each other, I suppose? Having accepted your proposal for my niece’s hand, I sanction a private marriage in consideration of the circumstances on your side. A little harmless stratagem is necessary to forward your views. I invent the stratagem at your request – and you make use of it without the least hesitation. The result is, that in ten days from to-morrow, Mrs Lecount will be on her way to Switzerland – in fifteen days from to-morrow, Mrs Lecount will reach Zürich, and discover the trick we have played her -in twenty days from to-morrow, Mrs Lecount will be back at Aldborough, and will find her master’s wedding-cards on the table, and her master himself away on his honeymoon trip. I put it arithmetically, for the sake of putting it plain. God bless you. Good morning!’
‘I suppose I may have the happiness of seeing Miss Bygrave tomorrow?’ said Noel Vanstone, turning round at the door.
‘We must be careful,’ replied Captain Wragge. ‘I don’t forbid to-morrow – but I make no promise beyond that. Permit me to remind you that we have got Mrs Lecount to manage for the next ten days.’
‘I wish Lecount was at the bottom of the German Ocean!’ exclaimed Noel Vanstone, fervently. ‘It’s all very well for you to manage her – you don’t live in the house. What am I to do?’
‘I’ll tell you to-morrow,’ said the captain. ‘Go out for your walk alone, and drop in here, as you dropped in to-day, at two o’clock. In the mean time, don’t forget those things I want you to send me. Seal them up together in a large envelope. When you have done that, ask Mrs Lecount to walk out with you as usual; and while she is upstairs putting her bonnet on, send the servant across to me. You understand? Good morning.’
An hour afterwards, the sealed envelope, with its enclosures, reached Captain Wragge in perfect safety. The double task of exactly imitating a strange handwriting, and accurately copying words written in a language with which he was but slightly acquainted, presented more difficulties
to be overcome than the captain had anticipated. It was eleven o’clock before the employment which he had undertaken was successfully completed, and the letter to Zürich ready for the post.
Before going to bed, he walked out on the deserted Parade, to breathe the cool night air. All the lights were extinguished in Sea-View Cottage, when he looked that way – except the light in the housekeeper’s window. Captain Wragge shook his head suspiciously. He had gained experience enough, by this time, to distrust the wakefulness of Mrs Lecount.
Chapter Nine
If Captain Wragge could have looked into Mrs Lecount’s room – while he stood on the Parade watching the light in her window – he would have seen the housekeeper sitting absorbed in meditation over a worthless little morsel of brown stuff, which lay on her toilet-table.
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