Man and Wife
Page 13
unsteady forefinger to the purse which Anne still held in her
hand.
"Never fash yoursel' aboot the landleddy!" said the sage chief of
the Craig Fernie waiters. "Your purse speaks for you, my lassie.
Pet it up!" cried Mr. Bishopriggs, waving temptation away from
him with the duster. "In wi' it into yer pocket! Sae long as the
warld's the warld, I'll uphaud it any where--while there's siller
in the purse, there's gude in the woman!"
Anne's patience, which had resisted harder trials, gave way at
this.
"What do you mean by speaking to me in that familiar manner?" she
asked, rising angrily to her feet again.
Mr. Bishopriggs tucked his duster under his arm, and proceeded to
satisfy Anne that he shared the landlady's view of her position,
without sharing the severity of the landlady's principles.
"There's nae man livin'," said Mr. Bishopriggs, "looks with mair
indulgence at human frailty than my ain sel'. Am I no' to be
familiar wi' ye--when I'm auld eneugh to be a fether to ye, and
ready to be a fether to ye till further notice? Hech! hech! Order
your bit dinner lassie. Husband or no husband, ye've got a
stomach, and ye must een eat. There's fesh and there's fowl--or,
maybe, ye'll be for the sheep's head singit, when they've done
with it at the tabble dot?"
There was but one way of getting rid of him: "Order what you
like," Anne said, "and leave the room." Mr. Bishopriggs highly
approved of the first half of the sentence, and totally
overlooked the second.
"Ay, ay--just pet a' yer little interests in my hands; it's the
wisest thing ye can do. Ask for Maister Bishopriggs (that's me)
when ye want a decent 'sponsible man to gi' ye a word of advice.
Set ye doon again--set ye doon. And don't tak' the arm-chair.
Hech! hech! yer husband will be coming, ye know, and he's sure to
want it!" With that seasonable pleasantry the venerable
Bishopriggs winked, and went out.
Anne looked at her watch. By her calculation it was not far from
the hour when Geoffrey might be expected to arrive at the inn,
assuming Geoffrey to have left Windygates at the time agreed on.
A little more patience, and the landlady's scruples would be
satisfied, and the ordeal would be at an end.
Could she have met him nowhere else than at this barbarous house,
and among these barbarous people?
No. Outside the doors of Windygates she had not a friend to help
her in all Scotland. There was no place at her disposal but the
inn; and she had only to be thankful that it occupied a
sequestered situation, and was not likely to be visited by any of
Lady Lundie's friends. Whatever the risk might be, the end in
view justified her in confronting it. Her whole future depended
on Geoffrey's making an honest woman of her. Not her future with
_him_--that way there was no hope; that way her life was wasted.
Her future with Blanche--she looked forward to nothing now but
her future with Blanche.
Her spirits sank lower and lower. The tears rose again. It would
only irritate him if he came and found her crying. She tried to
divert her mind by looking about the room.
There was very little to see. Except that it was solidly built of
good sound stone, the Craig Fernie hotel differed in no other
important respect from the average of second-rate English inns.
There was the usual slippery black sofa--constructed to let you
slide when you wanted to rest. There was the usual
highly-varnished arm-chair, expressly manufactured to test the
endurance of the human spine. There was the usual paper on the
walls, of the pattern designed to make your eyes ache and your
head giddy. There were the usual engravings, which humanity never
tires of contemplating. The Royal Portrait, in the first place of
honor. The next greatest of all human beings--the Duke of
Wellington--in the second place of honor. The third greatest of
all human beings--the local member of parliament--in the third
place of honor; and a hunting scene, in the dark. A door opposite
the door of admission from the passage opened into the bedroom;
and a window at the side looked out on the open space in front of
the hotel, and commanded a view of the vast expanse of the Craig
Fernie moor, stretching away below the rising ground on which the
house was built.
Anne turned in despair from the view in the room to the view from
the window. Within the last half hour it had changed for the
worse. The clouds had gathered; the sun was hidden; the light on
the landscape was gray and dull. Anne turned from the window, as
she had turned from the room. She was just making the hopeless
attempt to rest her weary limbs on the sofa, when the sound of
voices and footsteps in the passage caught her ear.
Was Geoffrey's voice among them? No.
Were the strangers coming in?
The landlady had declined to let her have the rooms: it was quite
possible that the strangers might be coming to look at them.
There was no knowing who they might be. In the impulse of the
moment she flew to the bedchamber and locked herself in.
The door from the passage opened, and Arnold Brinkworth--shown in
by Mr. Bishopriggs--entered the sitting-room.
"Nobody here!" exclaimed Arnold, looking round. "Where is she?"
Mr. Bishopriggs pointed to the bedroom door. "Eh! yer good
leddy's joost in the bedchamber, nae doot!"
Arnold started. He had felt no difficulty (when he and Geoffrey
had discussed the question at Windygates) about presenting
himself at the inn in the assumed character of Anne's husband.
But the result of putting the deception in practice was, to say
the least of it, a little embarrassing at first. Here was the
waiter describing Miss Silvester as his "good lady;" and leaving
it (most naturally and properly) to the "good lady's" husband to
knock at her bedroom door, and tell her that he was there. In
despair of knowing what else to do at the moment, Arnold asked
for the landlady, whom he had not seen on arriving at the inn.
"The landleddy's just tottin' up the ledgers o' the hottle in her
ain room," answered Mr. Bishopriggs. "She'll be here anon--the
wearyful woman!--speerin' who ye are and what ye are, and takin'
a' the business o' the hoose on her ain pair o' shouthers." He
dropped the subject of the landlady, and put in a plea for
himself. "I ha' lookit after a' the leddy's little comforts,
Sir," he whispered. "Trust in me! trust in me!"
Arnold's attention was absorbed in the very serious difficulty of
announcing his arrival to Anne. "How am I to get her out?" he
said to himself, with a look of perplexity directed at the
bedroom door.
He had spoken loud enough for the waiter to hear him. Arnold's
look of perplexity was instantly reflected on the face of Mr.
Bishopriggs. The head-waiter at Craig Fernie possessed an immense
experience of the manners and customs of newly-married people on
their honeymoon trip. He had been a second fath
er (with excellent
pecuniary results) to innumerable brides and bridegrooms. He knew
young married couples in all their varieties:--The couples who
try to behave as if they had been married for many years; the
couples who attempt no concealment, and take advice from
competent authorities about them. The couples who are bashfully
talkative before third persons; the couples who are bashfully
silent under similar circumstances. The couples who don't know
what to do, the couples who wish it was over; the couples who
must never be intruded upon without careful preliminary knocking
at the door; the couples who _can_ eat and drink in the intervals
of "bliss," and the other couples who _can't._ But the bridegroom
who stood he lpless on one side of the door, and the bride who
remained locked in on the other, were new varieties of the
nuptial species, even in the vast experience of Mr. Bishopriggs
himself.
"Hoo are ye to get her oot?" he repeated. "I'll show ye hoo!" He
advanced as rapidly as his gouty feet would let him, and knocked
at the bedroom door. "Eh, my leddy! here he is in flesh and
bluid. Mercy preserve us! do ye lock the door of the nuptial
chamber in your husband's face?"
At that unanswerable appeal the lock was heard turning in the
door. Mr. Bishopriggs winked at Arnold with his one available
eye, and laid his forefinger knowingly along his enormous nose.
"I'm away before she falls into your arms! Rely on it I'll no
come in again without knocking first!"
He left Arnold alone in the room. The bedroom door opened slowly
by a few inches at a time. Anne's voice was just audible speaking
cautiously behind it.
"Is that you, Geoffrey?"
Arnold's heart began to beat fast, in anticipation of the
disclosure which was now close at hand. He knew neither what to
say or do--he remained silent.
Anne repeated the question in louder tones:
"Is that you?"
There was the certain prospect of alarming her, if some reply was
not given. There was no help for it. Come what come might, Arnold
answered, in a whisper:
"Yes."
The door was flung wide open. Anne Silvester appeared on the
threshold, confronting him.
"Mr. Brinkworth!!!" she exclaimed, standing petrified with
astonishment.
For a moment more neither of them spoke. Anne advanced one step
into the sitting-room, and put the next inevitable question, with
an instantaneous change from surprise to suspicion.
"What do you want here?"
Geoffrey's letter represented the only possible excuse for
Arnold's appearance in that place, and at that time.
"I have got a letter for you," he said--and offered it to her.
She was instantly on her guard. They were little better than
strangers to each other, as Arnold had said. A sickening
presentiment of some treachery on Geoffrey's part struck cold to
her heart. She refused to take the letter.
"I expect no letter," she said. "Who told you I was here?" She
put the question, not only with a tone of suspicion, but with a
look of contempt. The look was not an easy one for a man to bear.
It required a momentary exertion of self-control on Arnold's
part, before he could trust himself to answer with due
consideration for her. "Is there a watch set on my actions?" she
went on, with rising anger. "And are _you_ the spy?"
"You haven't known me very long, Miss Silvester," Arnold
answered, quietly. "But you ought to know me better than to say
that. I am the bearer of a letter from Geoffrey."
She was an the point of following his example, and of speaking of
Geoffrey by his Christian name, on her side. But she checked
herself, before the word had passed her lips.
"Do you mean Mr. Delamayn?" she asked, coldly.
"Yes."
"What occasion have _I_ for a letter from Mr. Delamayn?"
She was determined to acknowledge nothing--she kept him
obstinately at arm's-length. Arnold did, as a matter of instinct,
what a man of larger experience would have done, as a matter of
calculation--he closed with her boldly, then and there.
"Miss Silvester! it's no use beating about the bush. If you won't
take the letter, you force me to speak out. I am here on a very
unpleasant errand. I begin to wish, from the bottom of my heart,
I had never undertaken it."
A quick spasm of pain passed across her face. She was beginning,
dimly beginning, to understand him. He hesitated. His generous
nature shrank from hurting her.
"Go on," she said, with an effort.
"Try not to be angry with me, Miss Silvester. Geoffrey and I are
old friends. Geoffrey knows he can trust me--"
"Trust you?" she interposed. "Stop!"
Arnold waited. She went on, speaking to herself, not to him.
"When I was in the other room I asked if Geoffrey was there. And
this man answered for him." She sprang forward with a cry of
horror.
"Has he told you--"
"For God's sake, read his letter!"
She violently pushed back the hand with which Arnold once more
offered the letter. "You don't look at me! He _has_ told you!"
"Read his letter," persisted Arnold. "In justice to him, if you
won't in justice to me."
The situation was too painful to be endured. Arnold looked at
her, this time, with a man's resolution in his eyes--spoke to
her, this time, with a man's resolution in his voice. She took
the letter.
"I beg your pardon, Sir," she said, with a sudden humiliation of
tone and manner, inexpressibly shocking, inexpressibly pitiable
to see. "I understand my position at last. I am a woman doubly
betrayed. Please to excuse what I said to you just now, when I
supposed myself to have some claim on your respect. Perhaps you
will grant me your pity? I can ask for nothing more."
Arnold was silent. Words were useless in the face of such utter
self-abandonment as this. Any man living--even Geoffrey
himself--must have felt for her at that moment.
She looked for the first time at the letter. She opened it on the
wrong side. "My own letter!" she said to herself. "In the hands
of another man!"
"Look at the last page," said Arnold.
She turned to the last page, and read the hurried penciled lines.
"Villain! villain! villain!" At the third repetition of the word,
she crushed the letter in the palm of her hand, and flung it from
her to the other end of the room. The instant after, the fire
that had flamed up in her died out. Feebly and slowly she reached
out her hand to the nearest chair, and sat down in it with her
back to Arnold. "He has deserted me!" was all she said. The words
fell low and quiet on the silence: they were the utterance of an
immeasurable despair.
"You are wrong!" exclaimed Arnold. "Indeed, indeed you are wrong!
It's no excuse--it's the truth. I was present when the message
came about his father."
She never heeded him, and never moved. She only repeated the
words
"He has deserted me!"
"Don't take it in that way!" pleaded Arnold--"pray don't! It's
dreadful to hear you; it is indeed. I am sure he has _not_
deserted you." There was no answer; no sign that she heard him;
she sat there, struck to stone. It was impossible to call the
landlady in at such a moment as this. In despair of knowing how
else to rouse her, Arnold drew a chair to her side, and patted
her timidly on the shoulder. "Come!" he said, in his
single-hearted, boyish way. "Cheer up a little!"
She slowly turned her head, and looked at him with a dull
surprise.
"Didn't you say he had told you every thing?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Don't you despise a woman like me?"
Arnold's heart went back, at that dreadful question, to the one
woman who was eternally sacred to him--to the woman from whose
bosom he had drawn the breath of life.
"Does the man live," he said, "who can think of his mother--and
despise women?"
That answer set the prisoned misery in her free. She gave him her
hand--she faintly thanked him. The merciful tears came to her at
last.
Arnold rose, and turned away to the window in despair. "I mean
well," he said. "And yet I only distress her!"
She heard him, and straggled to compose herself "No," she
answered, "you comfort me. Don't mind my crying--I'm the better
for it." She looked round at him gratefully. "I won't distress
you, Mr. Brinkworth. I ought to thank you--and I do. Come back or
I shall think you are angry with me." Arnold went back to her.
She gave him her hand once more. "One doesn't understand people
all at once," she said, simply. "I thought you were like other
men--I didn't know till to-day how kind you could be. Did you
walk here?" she added, suddenly, with an effort to change the
subject. "Are you tired? I have not been kindly received at this
place--but I'm sure I may offer you whatever the inn affords."
It was impossible not to feel for her--it was impossible not to
be interested in her. Arnold's honest longing to help her
expressed itself a little too openly when he spoke next. "All I
want, Miss Silvester, is to be of some service to you, if I can,"
he said. "Is there any thing I can do to make your position here
more comfortable? You will stay at this place,
won't you? Geoffrey wishes it."
She shuddered, and looked away. "Yes! yes!" she answered,
hurriedly.
"You will hear from Geoffrey," Arnold went on, "to-morrow or next
day. I know he means to write."
"For Heaven's sake, don't speak of him any more!" she cried out.
"How do you think I can look you in the face--" Her cheeks
flushed deep, and her eyes rested on him with a momentary
firmness. "Mind this! I am his wife, if promises can make me his
wife! He has pledged his word to me by all that is sacred!" She
checked herself impatiently. "What am I saying? What interest can
_you_ have in this miserable state of things? Don't let us talk
of it! I have something else to say to you. Let us go back to my
troubles here. Did you see the landlady when you came in?"
"No. I only saw the waiter."
"The landlady has made some absurd difficulty about letting me
have these rooms because I came here alone."
"She won't make any difficulty now," said Arnold. "I have settled
that."
"_You!_"
Arnold smiled. After what had passed, it was an indescribable
relief to him to see the humorous side of his own position at the
inn.
"Certainly," he answered. "When I asked for the lady who had
arrived here alone this afternoon--"
"Yes."
"I was told, in your interests, to ask for her as my wife."
Anne looked at him--in alarm as well as in surprise.
"You asked for me as your wife?" she repeated.