Armadale (61 page)

Allan turned carelessly on his heel. ‘I wish I could take to that fellow,' he thought – ‘but I can't; he's such a sneak! What the deuce was there to tremble about? Does he think I want to pry into his secrets?'

Mr Bashwood's secret on this occasion concerned Allan more nearly than Allan supposed. The letter which he had just placed in charge of the guard was nothing less than a word of warning addressed to Mrs Oldershaw, and written by Miss Gwilt.

If you can hurry your business (wrote the major's governess) do so, and come back to London immediately. Things are going wrong here, and Miss Milroy is at the bottom of the mischief. This morning she insisted on taking up her mother's breakfast, always on other occasions taken up by the nurse. They had a long confabulation in private; and half an hour later I saw the nurse slip out with a letter, and take the path that leads to the great house. The sending of the letter has been followed by young Armadale's sudden departure for London – in the face of an appointment which he had with me for to-morrow morning. This looks serious. The girl is evidently bold enough to make a fight of it for the position of Mrs Armadale of Thorpe-Ambrose, and she has found out some way of getting her mother to help her. Don't suppose I am in the least nervous or discouraged; and don't do anything till you hear from me again. Only get back to London – for I may have serious need of your assistance in the course of the next day or two.

I send this letter to town (to save a post) by the mid-day train, in charge of the guard. As you insist on knowing every step I take at Thorpe-Ambrose, I may as well tell you that my messenger (for I can't go to the station myself) is that curious old creature
whom I mentioned to you in my first letter. Ever since that time, he has been perpetually hanging about here for a look at me. I am not sure whether I frighten him or fascinate him – perhaps I do both together. All you need care to know is, that I can trust him with my trifling errands, and possibly, as time goes on, with something more.

L. G.

Meanwhile the train had started from the Thorpe-Ambrose station, and the squire and his travelling companion were on their way to London.

Some men, finding themselves in Allan's company under present circumstances, might have felt curious to know the nature of his business in the metropolis. Young Pedgift's unerring instinct as a man of the world penetrated the secret without the slightest difficulty. ‘The old story,' thought his wary old head, wagging privately on its lusty young shoulders. ‘There's a woman in the case, as usual. Any other business would have been turned over to
me
.' Perfectly satisfied with this conclusion, Mr Pedgift the younger proceeded, with an eye to his professional interest, to make himself as agreeable to his client as usual. He seized on the whole administrative business of the journey to London, as he had seized on the whole administrative business of the picnic at the Broads. On reaching the terminus, Allan was ready to go to any hotel that might be recommended. His invaluable solicitor straightway drove him to an hotel at which the Pedgift family had been accustomed to put up for three generations.

‘You don't object to vegetables, sir?' said the cheerful Pedgift, as the cab stopped at an hotel in Covent Garden Market. ‘Very good, you may leave the rest to my grandfather, my father, and me. I don't know which of the three is most beloved and respected in this house. How-d'ye-do, William? (Our head-waiter, Mr Armadale.) Is your wife's rheumatism better, and does the little boy get on nicely at school? Your master's out, is he? Never mind, you'll do. This, William, is Mr Armadale of Thorpe-Ambrose. I have prevailed on Mr Armadale to try our house. Have you got the bedroom I wrote for? Very good. Let Mr Armadale have it, instead of me (my grandfather's favourite bedroom, sir; number five, on the second floor;) pray take it – I can sleep anywhere. Will you have the mattress on the top of the feather-bed? You hear, William? Tell Matilda, the mattress on the top of the featherbed. How is Matilda? Has she got the tooth-ache, as usual? The head-chambermaid, Mr Armadale, and a most extraordinary woman;
she will
not
part with a hollow tooth in her lower jaw. My grandfather says, “have it out” – my father says, “have it out” – I say, “have it out,” and Matilda turns a deaf ear to all three of us. Yes, William, yes; if Mr Armadale approves, this sitting-room will do. About dinner, sir? You would prefer getting your business over first, and coming back to dinner? Shall we say, in that case, half-past seven? William, half-past seven. Not the least need to order anything, Mr Armadale. The head-waiter has only to give my compliments to the cook, and the best dinner in London will be sent up, punctual to the minute, as a necessary consequence. Say Mr Pedgift, junior, if you please, William – otherwise, sir, we might get my grandfather's dinner or my father's dinner, and they
might
turn out a little too heavy and old-fashioned in their way of feeding for you and me. As to the wine, William. At dinner,
my
champagne, and the sherry that my father thinks nasty. After dinner, the claret with the blue seal – the wine my innocent grandfather said wasn't worth sixpence a bottle. Ha! ha! poor old boy! You will send up the evening papers and the playbills, just as usual, and – that will do, I think, William, for the present. An invaluable servant, Mr Armadale; they're all invaluable servants in this house. We may not be fashionable here, sir, but by the Lord Harry we are snug! A cab? you would like a cab? Don't stir! I've rung the bell twice – that means, Cab wanted in a hurry. Might I ask, Mr Armadale, which way your business takes you? Towards Bayswater? Would you mind dropping me in the park? It's a habit of mine when I'm in London to air myself among the aristocracy. Yours truly, sir, has an eye for a fine woman and a fine horse; and when he's in Hyde Park he's quite in his native element.' Thus the all-accomplished Pedgift ran on; and by these little arts did he recommend himself to the good opinion of his client.

When the dinner-hour united the travelling companions again in their sitting-room at the hotel, a far less acute observer than young Pedgift must have noticed the marked change that appeared in Allan's manner. He looked vexed and puzzled, and sat drumming with his fingers on the dining-table without uttering a word.

‘I'm afraid something has happened to annoy you, sir, since we parted company in the Park?' said Pedgift Junior. ‘Excuse the question – I only ask it in case I can be of any use.'

‘something that I never expected has happened,' returned Allan; ‘I don't know what to make of it. I should like to have your opinion,' he added, after a little hesitation; ‘that is to say, if you will excuse my not entering into any particulars?'

‘Certainly!' assented young Pedgift. ‘Sketch it in outline, sir. The
merest hint will do; I wasn't born yesterday.' (‘Oh, these women!' thought the youthful philosopher, in parenthesis.)

‘Well,' began Allan, ‘you know what I said when we got to this hotel; I said I had a place to go to in Bayswater' (Pedgift mentally checked off the first point – Case in the suburbs, Bayswater); ‘and a person – that is to say – no – as I said before, a person to inquire after.' (Pedgift checked off the next point: Person in the case. She-person, or he-person? She-person unquestionably!) ‘Well, I went to the house, and when I asked for her – I mean the person – she – that is to say, the person – oh, confound it!' cried Allan, ‘I shall drive myself mad, and you too, if I try to tell my story in this roundabout way. Here it is in two words. I went to number eighteen Kingsdown Crescent, to see a lady named Mandeville; and when I asked for her, the servant said Mrs Mandeville had gone away, without telling anybody where, and without even leaving an address at which letters could be sent to her. There! it's out at last, and what do you think of it now?'

‘Tell me first, sir,' said the wary Pedgift, ‘what inquiries you made, when you found this lady had vanished?'

‘Inquiries?' repeated Allan, ‘I was utterly staggered; I didn't say anything. What inquiries ought I to have made?'

Pedgift Junior cleared his throat, and crossed his legs in a strictly professional manner.

‘I have no wish, Mr Armadale,' he began, ‘to inquire into your business with Mrs Mandeville—'

‘No,' interposed Allan, bluntly, ‘I hope you won't inquire into that. My business with Mrs Mandeville must remain a secret.'

‘But,' pursued Pedgift, laying down the law with the forefinger of one hand on the outstretched palm of the other, ‘I may, perhaps, be allowed to ask generally, whether your business with Mrs Mandeville is of a nature to interest you in tracing her from Kingsdown Crescent to her present residence?'

‘Certainly!' said Allan. ‘I have a very particular reason for wishing to see her.'

‘In that case, sir,' returned Pedgift Junior, ‘there were two obvious questions which you ought to have asked, to begin with – namely, on what date Mrs Mandeville left, and how she left. Having discovered this, you should have ascertained next, under what domestic circumstances she went away – whether there was a misunderstanding with anybody; say a difficulty about money-matters. Also, whether she went away alone, or with somebody else. Also, whether the house was her own, or whether she only lodged in it. Also, in the latter event—'

‘stop! stop! You're making my head swim,' cried Allan. ‘I don't understand all these ins and outs – I'm not used to this sort of thing.'

‘I've been used to it myself from my childhood upwards, sir,' remarked Pedgift. ‘And if I can be of any assistance, say the word.'

‘You're very kind,' returned Allan. ‘If you could only help me to find Mrs Mandeville; and if you wouldn't mind leaving the thing afterwards entirely in my hands—?'

‘I'll leave it in your hands, sir, with all the pleasure in life,' said Pedgift Junior. (‘And I'll lay five to one,' he added mentally, ‘when the time comes, you'll leave it in mine!') ‘We'll go to Bayswater together, Mr Armadale, to-morrow morning. In the meantime here's the soup. The case now before the court is – Pleasure
versus
Business. I don't know what you say, sir; I say, without a moment's hesitation, Verdict for the plaintiff. Let us gather our rosebuds while we may. Excuse my high spirits, Mr Armadale. Though buried in the country, I was made for a London life; the very air of the metropolis intoxicates me.' With that avowal the irresistible Pedgift placed a chair for his patron, and issued his orders cheerfully to his viceroy, the head-waiter. ‘Iced punch, William, after the soup. I answer for the punch, Mr Armadale – it's made after a receipt of my great-uncle's. He kept a tavern, and founded the fortunes of the family. I don't mind telling you the Pedgifts have had a publican among them; there's no false pride about me. “Worth makes the man (as Pope says), and want of it the fellow; the rest is all but leather and prunella.”
¹
I cultivate poetry as well as music, sir, in my leisure hours; in fact, I'm more or less on familiar terms with the whole of the nine Muses. Aha! here's the punch! The memory of my great-uncle, the publican, Mr Armadale – drunk in solemn silence!'

Allan tried hard to emulate his companion's gaiety and good humour, but with very indifferent success. His visit to Kingsdown Crescent recurred ominously again and again to his memory, all through the dinner, and all through the public amusements to which he and his legal adviser repaired at a later hour of the evening. When Pedgift Junior put out his candle that night, he shook his wary head, and regretfully apostrophized ‘the women' for the second time.

By ten o'clock the next morning, the indefatigable Pedgift was on the scene of action. To Allan's great relief, he proposed making the necessary inquiries at Kingsdown Crescent, in his own person, while his patron waited near at hand, in the cab which had brought them from the hotel. After a delay of little more than five minutes, he re-appeared, in full possession of all attainable particulars. His first proceeding was to request Allan to step out of the cab, and to pay the driver. Next, he
politely offered his arm, and led the way round the corner of the crescent, across a square, and into a by-street, which was rendered exceptionally lively by the presence of the local cab-stand. Here he stopped, and asked jocosely, whether Mr Armadale saw his way now, or whether it would be necessary to test his patience by making an explanation.

‘see my way?' repeated Allan in bewilderment. ‘I see nothing but a cab-stand.'

Pedgift Junior smiled compassionately, and entered on his explanation. It was a lodging-house at Kingsdown Crescent, he begged to state to begin with. He had insisted on seeing the landlady. A very nice person, with all the remains of having been a fine girl about fifty years ago; quite in Pedgift's style – if he had only been alive at the beginning of the present century – quite in Pedgift's style. But perhaps Mr Armadale would prefer hearing about Mrs Mandeville? Unfortunately, there was nothing to tell. There had been no quarrelling, and not a farthing left unpaid: the lodger had gone, and there wasn't an explanatory circumstance to lay hold of anywhere. It was either Mrs Mandeville's way to vanish, or there was something under the rose, quite undiscoverable so far. Pedgift had got the date on which she left, and the time of day at which she left, and the means by which she left. The means might help to trace her. She had gone away in a cab which the servant had fetched from the nearest stand. The stand was now before their eyes; and the waterman was the first person to apply to – going to the waterman for information, being clearly (if Mr Armadale would excuse the joke) going to the fountain-head. Treating the subject in this airy manner, and telling Allan that he would be back in a moment, Pedgift Junior sauntered down the street, and beckoned the waterman confidentially into the nearest public-house.