Armadale (73 page)

I must leave you, I fear, to judge for yourself of the effect of this on the young lady; for though I tried hard, I failed to catch what she said. I am almost certain I heard her crying, and Mr Armadale entreating her not to break his heart. They whispered a great deal, which aggravated me. I was afterwards alarmed by Mr Armadale coming out into the conservatory to pick some flowers. He did not come as far, fortunately, as the place where I was hidden; and he went in again into the drawing-room, and there was more talking (I suspect at close quarters), which to my great regret I again failed to catch. Pray forgive me for having so little to tell you. I can only add, that when the storm cleared off, Miss
Milroy went away with the flowers in her hand, and with Mr Armadale escorting her from the house. My own humble opinion is that he had a powerful friend at court, all through the interview, in the young lady's own liking for him.

This is all I can say at present, with the exception of one other thing I heard, which I blush to mention. But your word is law, and you have ordered me to have no concealments from you.

Their talk turned once, dear madam, on yourself. I think I heard the word ‘Creature' from Miss Milroy; and I am certain that Mr Armadale, while acknowledging that he had once admired you, added that circumstances had since satisfied him of ‘his folly'. I quote his own expression – it made me quite tremble with indignation. If I may be permitted to say so, the man who admires Miss Gwilt lives in paradise. Respect, if nothing else, ought to have closed Mr Armadale's lips. He is my employer, I know – but, after his calling it an act of folly to admire you (though I
am
his deputy steward), I utterly despise him.

Trusting that I may have been so happy as to give you satisfaction thus far, and earnestly desirous to deserve the honour of your continued confidence in me, I remain, dear madam,

Your grateful and devoted servant,

F
ELIX
B
ASHWOOD
.

2. –
From Mrs Oldershaw to Miss Gwilt

Diana Street, Monday, July 21st.

M
Y DEAR
L
YDIA
, – I trouble you with a few lines. They are written under a sense of the duty which I owe to myself, in our present position towards each other.

I am not at all satisfied with the tone of your two last letters; and I am still less pleased at your leaving me this morning without any letter at all – and this when we had arranged, in the doubtful state of our prospects, that I was to hear from you every day. I can only interpret your conduct in one way. I can only infer that matters at Thorpe-Ambrose, having been all mismanaged, are all going wrong.

It is not my present object to reproach you, for why should I waste time, language, and paper? I merely wish to recall to your memory certain considerations which you appear to be disposed
to overlook. Shall I put them in the plainest English? Yes – for with all my faults, I am frankness personified.

In the first place, then, I have an interest in your becoming Mrs Armadale of Thorpe-Ambrose as well as you. Secondly, I have provided you (to say nothing of good advice) with all the money needed to accomplish our object. Thirdly, I hold your notes-of-hand,
¹
at short dates, for every farthing so advanced. Fourthly and lastly, though I am indulgent to a fault in the capacity of a friend – in the capacity of a woman of business, my dear, I am not to be trifled with. That is all, Lydia, at least for the present.

Pray don't suppose I write in anger; I am only sorry and disheartened. My state of mind resembles David's. If I had the wings of a dove,
²
I would flee away and be at rest.

Affectionately yours,

M
ARIA
O
LDERSHAW
.

3. –
From Mr Bashwood to Miss Gwilt

Thorpe-Ambrose, July 21st.

D
EAR
M
ADAM
, – You will probably receive these lines a few hours after my yesterday's communication reaches you. I posted my first letter last night, and I shall post this before noon today.

My present object in writing is to give you some more news from this house. I have the inexpressible happiness of announcing that Mr Armadale's disgraceful intrusion on your privacy is at an end. The watch set on your actions is to be withdrawn this day. I write, dear madam, with the tears in my eyes – tears of joy, caused by feelings which I ventured to express in my previous letter (see first paragraph towards the end). Pardon me this personal reference. I can speak to you (I don't know why) so much more readily with my pen than with my tongue.

Let me try to compose myself, and proceed with my narrative.

I had just arrived at the steward's office this morning, when Mr Pedgift the elder followed me to the great house to see Mr Armadale by special appointment. It is needless to say that I at once suspended any little business there was to do, feeling that your interests might possibly be concerned. It is also most gratifying
to add that this time circumstances favoured me. I was able to stand under the open window, and to hear the whole interview.

Mr Armadale explained himself at once in the plainest terms. He gave orders that the person who had been hired to watch you should be instantly dismissed. On being asked to explain this sudden change of purpose, he did not conceal that it was owing to the effect produced on his mind by what had passed between Mr Midwinter and himself on the previous day. Mr Midwinter's language, cruelly unjust as it was, had nevertheless convinced him that no necessity whatever could excuse any proceeding so essentially base in itself as the employment of a spy, and on that conviction he was now determined to act.

But for your own positive directions to me to conceal nothing that passes here in which your name is concerned, I should really be ashamed to report what Mr Pedgift said on his side. He has behaved kindly to me, I know. But if he was my own brother, I could never forgive him the tone in which he spoke of you, and the obstinacy with which he tried to make Mr Armadale change his mind.

He began by attacking Mr Midwinter. He declared that Mr Midwinter's opinion was the very worst opinion that could be taken; for it was quite plain that you, dear madam, had twisted him round your finger. Producing no effect by this coarse suggestion (which nobody who knows you could for a moment believe), Mr Pedgift next referred to Miss Milroy, and asked Mr Armadale if he had given up all idea of protecting her. What this meant I cannot imagine. I can only report it for your private consideration. Mr Armadale briefly answered that he had his own plan for protecting Miss Milroy, and that the circumstances were altered in that quarter, or words to a similar effect. Still Mr Pedgift persisted. He went on (I blush to mention) from bad to worse. He tried to persuade Mr Armadale next to bring an action at law against one or other of the persons who had been most strongly condemning his conduct in the neighbourhood, for the purpose – I really hardly know how to write it – of getting you into the witness-box. And worse yet: when Mr Armadale still said No, Mr Pedgift, after having, as I suspected by the sound of his voice, been on the point of leaving the room, artfully came back, and proposed sending for a detective officer from London, simply to look at you. ‘The whole of this mystery about Miss Gwilt's true character,' he said, ‘may turn on a question of identity. It won't
cost much to have a man down from London; and it's worth trying whether her face is or is not known at head-quarters to the police.' I again and again assure you, dearest lady, that I only repeat those abominable words from a sense of duty towards yourself. I shook – I declare I shook from head to foot when I heard them.

To resume, for there is more to tell you.

Mr Armadale (to his credit – I don't deny it, though I don't like him) still said No. He appeared to be getting irritated under Mr Pedgift's persistence, and he spoke in a somewhat hasty way. ‘You persuaded me on the last occasion when we talked about this,' he said, ‘to do something that I have been since heartily ashamed of. You won't succeed in persuading me, Mr Pedgift, a second time.' Those were his words. Mr Pedgift took him up short; Mr Pedgift seemed to be nettled on his side.

‘If that is the light in which you see my advice, sir,' he said, ‘the less you have of it for the future, the better. Your character and position are publicly involved in this matter between yourself and Miss Gwilt; and you persist, at a most critical moment, in taking a course of your own, which I believe will end badly. After what I have already said and done in this very serious case, I can't consent to go on with it with both my hands tied; and I can't drop it with credit to myself, while I remain publicly known as your solicitor. You leave me no alternative, sir, but to resign the honour of acting as your legal adviser.' ‘I am sorry to hear it,' says Mr Armadale, ‘but I have suffered enough already through interfering with Miss Gwilt. I can't and won't stir any further in the matter.' ‘
You
may not stir any further in it, sir,' says Mr Pedgift, ‘and
I
shall not stir any further in it, for it has ceased to be a question of professional interest to me. But mark my words, Mr Armadale, you are not at the end of this business yet. Some other person's curiosity may go on from the point where you (and I) have stopped, and some other person's hand may let the broad daylight in yet on Miss Gwilt.'

I report their language, dear madam, almost word for word, I believe, as I heard it. It produced an indescribable impression on me; it filled me, I hardly know why, with quite a panic of alarm. I don't at all understand it, and I understand still less what happened immediately afterwards.

Mr Pedgift's voice, when he said those last words, sounded dreadfully close to me. He must have been speaking at the open
window, and he must, I fear, have seen me under it. I had time, before he left the house, to get out quietly from among the laurels, but not to get back to the office. Accordingly I walked away along the drive towards the lodge, as if I was going on some errand connected with the steward's business.

Before long, Mr Pedgift overtook me in his gig, and stopped. ‘So
you
feel some curiosity about Miss Gwilt, do you?' he said. ‘Gratify your curiosity by all means ‘ I don't object to it.' I felt naturally nervous, but I managed to ask him what he meant. He didn't answer; he only looked down at me from the gig in a very odd manner, and laughed. ‘I have known stranger things happen even than
that
!' he said to himself suddenly, and drove off.

I have ventured to trouble you with this last incident, though it may seem of no importance in your eyes, in the hope that your superior ability may be able to explain it. My own poor faculties, I confess, are quite unable to penetrate Mr Pedgift's meaning. All I know is, that he has no right to accuse me of any such impertinent feeling as curiosity in relation to a lady whom I ardently esteem and admire. I dare not put it in warmer words.

I have only to add that I am in a position to be of continued service to you here if you wish it. Mr Armadale has just been into the office, and has told me briefly that, in Mr Midwinter's continued absence, I am still to act as steward's deputy till further notice. Believe me, dear madam, anxiously and devotedly yours,

F
ELIX
B
ASHWOOD
.

4. –
From Allan Armadale to the Rev. Decimus Brock

Thorpe-Ambrose, Tuesday.

M
Y DEAR
M
R
B
ROCK
, – I am in sad trouble. Midwinter has quarrelled with me and left me; and my lawyer has quarrelled with me and left me; and (except dear little Miss Milroy, who has forgiven me) all the neighbours have turned their backs on me.
There is a good deal about ‘
me
' in this, but I can't help it. I am very miserable alone in my own house. Do pray come and see me! You are the only old friend I have left, and I do long so to tell you about it. N.B. – On my word of honour as a gentleman, I am not to blame. Yours affectionately,

A
LLAN
A
RMADALE
.

P.S. – I would come to you (for this place is grown quite hateful to me), but I have a reason for not going too far away from Miss Milroy just at present.

5. –
From Robert Stapleton to Allan Armadale, Esq
.

Boscombe Rectory, Thursday Morning.

R
ESPECTED
S
IR
, – I see a letter in your writing, on the table along with the others, which I am sorry to say my master is not well enough to open. He is down with a sort of low fever. The doctor says it has been brought on with worry and anxiety, which master was not strong enough to bear. This seems likely; for I was with him when he went to London last month, and what with his own business, and the business of looking after that person who afterwards gave us the slip, he was worried and anxious all the time; and for the matter of that, so was I.

My master was talking of you a day or two since. He seemed unwilling that you should know of his illness, unless he got worse. But I think you ought to know of it. At the same time he is not worse – perhaps a trifle better. The doctor says he must be kept very quiet, and not agitated on any account. So be pleased to take no notice of this – I mean in the way of coming to the rectory. I have the doctor's orders to say it is not needful, and it would only upset my master in the state he is in now.

I will write again if you wish it. Please accept of my duty, and believe me to remain, sir, your humble servant,

R
OBERT
S
TAPLETON
.

P.S. – The yacht has been rigged and repainted, waiting your orders. She looks beautiful.

6. –
From Mrs Oldershaw to Miss Gwilt

Diana Street, July 24th.

M
ISS
G
WILT
, – The post-hour has passed for three mornings following, and has brought me no answer to my letter. Are you purposely bent on insulting me? or have you left Thorpe-Ambrose? In either case, I won't put up with your conduct any longer. The law shall bring you to book, if I can't.