‘Believe me, dear Admiral Bartram,
‘Affectionately yours,
‘NOEL VANSTONE’
‘Have you signed, sir?’ asked Mrs Lecount. ‘Let me look the letter over, if you please, before we seal it up.’
She read the letter carefully. In Noel Vanstone’s close, cramped handwriting, it filled two pages of letter – paper, and ended at the top of the third page. Instead of using an envelope, Mrs Lecount folded it, neatly and securely, in the old – fashioned way. She lit the taper in the inkstand, and returned the letter to the writer.
‘Seal it, Mr Noel,’ she said, ‘with your own hand, and your own seal.’ She extinguished the taper, and handed him the pen again. ‘Address the letter, sir,’ she proceeded, ‘to Admiral Bartram, St Crux – in the – Marsh, Essex. Now added these words, and sign them, above the address: To be kept in your own possession, and to be opened by yourself only, on the day of my death – or “Decease”, if you prefer it – Noel Vanstone. Have you done? Let me look at it again. Quite right in every particular. Accept my congratulations, sir. If your wife has not plotted her last plot for the Combe – Raven money, it is not your fault, Mr Noel – and not mine!’
Finding his attention released by the completion of the letter, Noel Vanstone reverted at once to purely personal considerations. ‘There is my packing – up to be thought of now,’ he said. ‘I can’t go away without my warm things.’
‘Excuse me, sir,’ rejoined Mrs Lecount, ‘there is the will to be signed first; and there must be two persons found to witness your signature.’ She looked out of the front window, and saw the carriage waiting at the door. ‘The coachman will do for one of the witnesses,’ she said. ‘He is in respectable service at Dumfries, and he can be found if he happens to be wanted. We must have one of your own servants, I suppose, for the other witness. They are all detestable women; but the cook is the least ill – looking of the three. Send for the cook, sir, while I go out and call the coachman. When we have got our witnesses here, you have only to speak to them in these words: “I have a document here to sign, and I wish you to write your names on it, as witnesses of my signature.” Nothing more, Mr Noel! Say those few words, in your usual manner – and, when the signing is over, I will see myself to your packing – up, and your warm things.’
She went to the front door, and summoned the coachman to the parlour. On her return, she found the cook already in the room. The cook looked mysteriously offended, and stared without intermission at Mrs Lecount. In a minute more, the coachman – an elderly man – came in. He was preceded by a relishing odour of whisky – but his head was Scotch; and nothing but his odour betrayed him.
‘I have a document here to sign,’ said Noel Vanstone, repeating his lesson: ‘and I wish you to write your names on it, as witnesses of my signature.’
The coachman looked at the will. The cook never moved her eyes from Mrs Lecount.
‘Ye’ll no object, sir,’ said the coachman, with the national caution showing itself in every wrinkle on his face – ‘ye’ll no object, sir, to tell me, first, what the Doecument may be?’
Mrs Lecount interposed before Noel Vanstone’s indignation could express itself in words.
‘You must tell the man, sir, that this is your will,’ she said. ‘When he witnesses your signature, he can see as much for himself if he looks at the top of the page.’
‘Ay, ay,’ said the coachman, looking at the top of the page immediately. ‘His last Wull and Testament. Hech, sirs! there’s a sair confronting of Death, in a Doecument like yon! A’ flesh is grass,’ continued the coachman, exhaling an additional puff of whisky, and looking up devoutly at the ceiling. ‘Tak’ those words in connection with that other Screepture: Many are ca’ad but few are chosen. Tak’ that again, in connection with Rev’lations, Chapter the First; verses, One to Fefteen. Lay the whole to heart – and what’s your Walth, then? Dross, sirs! And your body? (Screepture again.) Clay for the potter! And your life? (Screepture once more.) The Breeth o’ your Nostrils!’
The cook listened as if the cook was at church – but she never removed her eyes from Mrs Lecount.
‘You had better sign, sir. This is apparently some custom prevalent in Dumfries during the transaction of business,’ said Mrs Lecount resignedly. ‘The man means well, I dare say.’
She added those last words in a soothing tone, for she saw that Noel Vanstone’s indignation was fast merging into alarm. The coachman’s outburst of exhortation seemed to have inspired him with fear, as well as disgust.
He dipped the pen in the ink, and signed the will without uttering a word. The coachman (descending instantly from Theology to Business) watched the signature with the most scrupulous attention; and signed his own name as witness, with an implied commentary on the proceeding, in the form of another puff of whisky, exhaled through the medium of a heavy sigh. The cook looked away from Mrs Lecount with an effort – signed her name in a violent hurry – and looked back again with a start, as if she expected to see a loaded pistol (produced in the interval) in the housekeeper’s hands. ‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Lecount, in her friendliest manner. The cook shut up her lips aggressively and looked at her master. ‘You may go!’ said her master. The cook coughed contemptuously – and went.
‘We sha’n’t keep you long,’ said Mrs Lecount, dismissing the coachman. ‘In half an hour, or less, we shall be ready for the journey back.’
The coachman’s austere countenance relaxed for the first time. He smiled mysteriously, and approached Mrs Lecount on tiptoe.
‘Ye’ll no forget one thing, my leddy,’ he said, with the most ingratiating politeness. ‘Ye’ll no forget the witnessing as weel as the driving, when ye pay me for day’s wark!’ He laughed with guttural gravity; and, leaving his atmosphere behind him, stalked out of the room.
‘Lecount,’ said Noel Vanstone, as soon as the coachman closed the door. ‘Did I hear you tell that man we should be ready in half an hour?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Are you blind?’
He asked the question with an angry stamp of his foot. Mrs Lecount looked at him in astonishment.
‘Can’t you see the brute is drunk?’ he went on, more and more irritably. ‘Is my life nothing? Am I to be left at the mercy of a drunken coachman? I won’t trust that man to drive me, for any consideration under Heaven! I’m surprised you could think of it, Lecount.’
‘The man has been drinking, sir,’ said Mrs Lecount. ‘It is easy to see, and to smell, that. But he is evidently used to drinking. If he is sober enough to walk quite straight – which he certainly does – and to sign his name in an excellent handwriting – which you may see for yourself on the will – I venture to think he is sober enough to drive us to Dumfries.’
‘Nothing of the sort! You’re a foreigner, Lecount; you don’t understand these people. They drink whisky from morning to night. Whisky is the strongest spirit that’s made; whisky is notorious for its effect on the brain. I tell you, I won’t run the risk. I never was driven, and I never will be driven, by anybody but a sober man.’
‘Must I go back to Dumfries by myself, sir?’
‘And leave me here? Leave me alone in this house after what has happened? How do I know my wife may not come back to – night? How do I know her journey is not a blind to mislead me? Have you no feeling, Lecount? Can you leave me in my miserable situation – ?’ He sank into a chair and burst out crying over his own idea, before he had completed the expression of it in words. ‘Too bad!’ he said, with his handkerchief over his face – ‘too bad!’
It was impossible not to pity him. If ever mortal was pitiable, he was the man. He had broken down at last, under the conflict of violent emotions which had been roused in him, since the morning. The effort to follow Mrs Lecount along the mazes of intricate combination through which she had steadily led the way, had upheld him while that effort lasted: the moment it was at an end, he dropped. The coachman had hastened a result – of which the coachman was far from being the cause
.
‘You surprise me, you distress me, sir,’ said Mrs Lecount. ‘I entreat you to compose yourself. I will stay here, if you wish it, with pleasure – I will stay here to – night, for your sake. You want rest and quiet after this dreadful day. The coachman shall be instantly sent away, Mr Noel. I will give him a note to the landlord of the hotel – and the carriage shall come back for us to – morrow morning, with another man to drive it.’
The prospect which those words presented, cheered him. He wiped his eyes, and kissed Mrs Lecount’s hand.
‘Yes!’ he said faintly; ‘send the coachman away – and you stop here. You good creature! You excellent Lecount! Send the drunken brute away, and come back directly. We will be comfortable by the fire, Lecount – and have a nice little dinner – and try to make it like old times.’ His weak voice faltered; he returned to the fireside, and melted into tears again under the pathetic influence of his own idea.
Mrs Lecount left him for a minute to dismiss the coachman. When she returned to the parlour, she found him with his hand on the bell.
‘What do you want, sir?’ she asked.
‘I want to tell the servants to get your room ready,’ he answered. ‘I wish to show you every attention, Lecount.’
‘You are all kindness, Mr Noel – but wait one moment. It may be well to have these papers put out of the way, before the servant comes in again. If you will place the will and the sealed letter together in one envelope – and if you will direct it to the admiral – I will take care that the enclosure so addressed is safely placed in his own hands. Will you come to the table, Mr Noel, only for one minute more?’
No! He was obstinate; he refused to move from the fire; he was sick and tired of writing; he wished he had never been born, and he loathed the sight of pen and ink. All Mrs Lecount’s patience, and all Mrs Lecount’s persuasion, were required to induce him to write the admiral’s address for the second time. She only succeeded by bringing the blank envelope to him upon the paper – case, and putting it coaxingly on his lap. He grumbled, he even swore, but he directed the envelope at last, in these terms: ‘To Admiral Bartram, St Crux – in – the – Marsh. Favoured by Mrs Lecount.’ With that final act of compliance, his docility came to end. He refused, in the fiercest terms, to seal the envelope.
There was no need to press this proceeding on him. His seal lay ready on the table; and it mattered nothing whether he used it, or whether a person in his confidence used it for him. Mrs Lecount sealed the envelope, with its two important enclosures placed safely inside.
She opened her travelling – bag for the last time, and pausing for a moment before she put the sealed packet away, looked at it with a triumph too deep for words. She smiled as she dropped it into the bag. Not the shadow of a suspicion that the will might contain superfluous phrases and expressions which no practical lawyer would have used; not the vestige of a doubt whether the letter was quite as complete a document as a practical lawyer might have made it, troubled her mind. In blind reliance – born of her hatred for Magdalen and her hunger for revenge – in blind reliance on her own abilities, and on her friend’s law, she trusted the future implicitly to the promise of the morning’s work.
As she locked her travelling – bag, Noel Vanstone rang the bell. On this occasion, the summons was answered by Louisa.
‘Get the spare room ready,’ said her master; ‘this lady will sleep here to – night. And air my warm things; this lady and I are going away tomorrow morning.’
The civil and submissive Louisa received her orders in sullen silence – darted an angry look at her master’s impenetrable guest – and left the room. The servants were evidently all attached to their mistress’s interests, and were all of one opinion on the subject of Mrs Lecount.
‘That’s done!’ said Noel Vanstone, with a sigh of infinite relief. ‘Come and sit down, Lecount. Let’s be comfortable – let’s gossip over the fire.’
Mrs Lecount accepted the invitation; and drew an easy – chair to his side. He took her hand with a confidential tenderness, and held it in his, while the talk went on. A stranger, looking in through the window, would have taken them for mother and son; and would have thought to himself, ‘What a happy home!’
The gossip, led by Noel Vanstone, consisted as usual of an endless string of questions, and was devoted entirely to the subject of himself and his future prospects. Where would Lecount take him to, when they went away the next morning? Why to London? Why should he be left in London, while Lecount went to St Crux to give the admiral the letter and the will? Because his wife might follow him, if he went to the admiral’s? Well, there was something in that. And because he ought to be safely concealed from her, in some comfortable lodging, near Mr Loscombe? Why near Mr Loscombe? Ah, yes, to be sure – to know what the law would do to help him. Would the law set him free from the Wretch who had deceived him? How tiresome of Lecount not to know! Would the law say he had gone and married himself a second time, because he had been living with the Wretch, like husband and wife, in Scotland? Anything that publicly assumed to be a marriage, was a marriage (he had heard) in Scotland.1 How excessively tiresome of Lecount to sit there, and say she knew nothing about it! Was he to stay long in London, by himself, with nobody but Mr Loscombe to speak to? Would Lecount come back to him, as soon as she had put those important papers in the admiral’s own hands? Would Lecount consider herself still in his service? The good Lecount! the excellent Lecount! And after all the law – business was over – what then? Why not leave this horrid England, and go abroad again? Why not go to France, to some cheap place, near Paris? Say Versailles? Say St Germain? In a nice little French house – cheap? With a nice French bonne to cook – who wouldn’t waste his substance in the grease – pot? With a nice little garden – where he could work himself, and get health, and save the expense of keeping a gardener? It wasn’t a bad idea. And it seemed to promise well for the future – didn’t it, Lecount?
So he ran on – the poor, weak creature! the abject, miserable little man!
As the darkness gathered, at the close of the short November day, he began to grow drowsy – his ceaseless questions came to an end at last – he fell asleep. The wind outside sang its mournful winter – song; the tramp of passing footsteps, the roll of passing wheels on the road, ceased in dreary silence. He slept on quietly. The firelight rose and fell on his wizen little face, and his nerveless drooping hands. Mrs Lecount had not pitied him yet. She began to pity him, now. Her point was gained; her interest in his will was secured; he had put his future life, of his own accord, under her fostering care – the fire was comfortable; the circumstances were favourable to the growth of Christian feeling. ‘Poor wretch!’ said Mrs Lecount, looking at him with a grave compassion – ‘Poor wretch!’
The dinner – hour roused him. He was cheerful at dinner; he reverted to the idea of the cheap little house in France; he smirked and simpered; and talked French to Mrs Lecount, while the housemaid and Louisa waited, turn and turn about, under protest. When dinner was over he returned to his comfortable chair before the fire, and Mrs Lecount followed him. He resumed the conversation – which meant, in his case, repeating his questions. But he was not so quick and ready with them, as he had been earlier in the day. They began to flag – they continued, at longer and longer intervals – they ceased altogether. Towards nine o’clock he fell asleep again.
It was not a quiet sleep this time. He muttered, and ground his teeth, and rolled his head from side to side of the chair. Mrs Lecount purposely made noise enough to rouse him. He woke with a vacant eye, and a flushed cheek. He walked about the room restlessly, with a new idea in his mind – the idea of writing a terrible letter; a letter of eternal farewell to his wife. How was it to be written? In what language should he express his feelings? The powers of Shakespeare himself would be unequal to the emergency! He had been the victim of an outrage entirely without parallel. A wretch had crept into his bosom! A viper had hidden herself at his fireside! Where could words be found to bran
d her with the infamy she deserved? He stopped, with a suffocating sense in him of his own impotent rage – he stopped, and shook his fist tremulously in the empty air.
Mrs Lecount interfered with an energy and a resolution inspired by serious alarm. After the heavy strain that had been laid on his weakness already, such an outbreak of passionate agitation as was now bursting from him, might be the destruction of his rest that night, and of his strength to travel the next day. With infinite difficulty, with endless promises to return to the subject, and to advise him about it in the morning, she prevailed on him, at last, to go upstairs and compose himself for the night. She gave him her arm to assist him. On the way upstairs, his attention, to her great relief, became suddenly absorbed by a new fancy. He remembered a certain warm and comfortable mixture of wine, egg, sugar and spices, which she had often been accustomed to make for him, in former times; and which he thought he should relish exceedingly, before he went to bed. Mrs Lecount helped him on with his dressing – gown – then went downstairs again, to make his warm drink for him at the parlour fire.
She rang the bell, and ordered the necessary ingrethents for the mixture, in Noel Vanstone’s name. The servants, with the small ingenious malice of their race, brought up the materials, one by one, and kept her waiting for each of them as long as possible. She had got the saucepan, and the spoon, and the tumbler, and the nutmeg – grater, and the wine – but not the egg, the sugar or the spices – when she heard him above, walking backwards and forwards noisily in his room; exciting himself on the old subject again, beyond all doubt.
She went upstairs once more; but he was too quick for her – he heard her outside the door; and when she opened it, she found him in his chair, with his back cunningly turned towards her. Knowing him too well to attempt any remonstrance, she merely announced the speedy arrival of the warm drink, and turned to leave the room. On her way out, she noticed a table in a corner, with an inkstand and a paper – case on it, and tried, without attracting his attention, to take the writing materials away. He was too quick for her again. He asked angrily, if she doubted his promise. She put the writing materials back on the table, for fear of offending him, and left the room.
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