Armadale (81 page)

To-day; Sunday; Monday; Tuesday. They can't arrest me for the money before Wednesday. And my miserable five pounds are dwindling to four! And he told her he had plenty of money! And she blushed and trembled when he kissed her! It might have been better for him, better for her, and better for me, if my debt had fallen due yesterday, and if the bailiffs had their hands on me at this moment.

Suppose I had the means of leaving Thorpe-Ambrose by the next train, and going somewhere abroad, and absorbing myself in some new interest, among new people. Could I do it, rather than look again at that easy way to his life which would smooth the way to everything else?

Perhaps I might. But where is the money to come from? Surely some way of getting it struck me a day or two since? Yes; that mean idea of asking Armadale to help me! Well; I
will
be mean for once. I'll give him the chance of making a generous use of that well-filled purse which it is such a comfort to him to reflect on in his present circumstances. It would soften my heart towards any man if he lent me money in my present extremity; and if Armadale lends me money, it might soften my heart towards
him
. When shall I go? At once! I won't give myself time to feel the degradation of it, and to change my mind.

Three o'clock
. – I mark the hour. He has sealed his own doom. He has insulted me.

Yes! I have suffered it once from Miss Milroy. And I have now suffered it a second time from Armadale himself. An insult – a marked, merciless, deliberate insult in the open day!

I had got through the town, and had advanced a few hundred yards along the road that leads to the great house, when I saw Armadale, at a little distance, coming towards me. He was walking fast, evidently, with some errand of his own to take him to the town. The instant he caught sight of me he stopped, coloured up, took off his hat, hesitated, and turned aside down a lane behind him, which I happen to know would take him exactly in the contrary direction to the direction in which he was walking when he first saw me. His conduct said, in so many words, ‘Miss Milroy may hear of it; I daren't run the risk of being seen speaking to you.' Men have used me heartlessly; men have done and said hard things to me – but no man living ever yet treated me as if I was plague-struck, and as if the very air about me was infected by my presence!

I say no more. When he walked away from me down that lane, he walked to his death. I have written to Midwinter to expect me in London next week, and to be ready for our marriage soon afterwards.

Four o'clock
. – Half-an-hour since, I put on my bonnet to go out and post the letter to Midwinter myself. And here I am, still in my room, with my mind torn by doubts, and my letter on the table.

Armadale counts for nothing in the perplexities that are now torturing me. It is Midwinter who makes me hesitate. Can I take the first of those three steps that lead me to the end, without the common caution of looking at consequences? Can I marry Midwinter, without knowing beforehand how to meet the obstacle of my husband, when the time comes which transforms me from the living Armadale's wife, to the dead Armadale's widow?

Why can't I think of it, when I know I
must
think of it? Why can't I look at it as steadily as I have looked at all the rest? I feel his kisses on my lips; I feel his tears on my bosom; I feel his arms round me again. He is far away in London – and yet, he is here and won't let me think of it!

Why can't I wait a little? Why can't I let Time help me? Time? It's Saturday! What need is there to think of it, unless I like? There is no post to London to-day. I
must
wait. If I posted the letter it wouldn't go. Besides, to-morrow I may hear from Mrs Oldershaw. I ought to wait to hear from Mrs Oldershaw. I can't consider myself a free woman till I know what Mrs Oldershaw means to do. There is a necessity for waiting till to-morrow. I shall take my bonnet off, and lock the letter up in my desk.

Sunday morning
. – There is no resisting it! One after another the circumstances crowd on me. They come thicker and thicker, and they all force me one way.

I have got Mother Oldershaw's answer. The wretch fawns on me, and cringes to me. I can see, as plainly as if she had acknowledged it, that she suspects me of seeing my own way to success at Thorpe-Ambrose without her assistance. Having found threatening me useless, she tries coaxing me now. I am her darling Lydia again! She is quite shocked that I could imagine she ever really intended to arrest her bosom friend – and she has only to entreat me, as a favour to herself, to renew the bill!

I say once more, no mortal creature could resist it! Time after time I have tried to escape the temptation; and time after time the circumstances drive me back again. I can struggle no longer. The post that takes the letters to-night shall take my letter to Midwinter among the rest.

To-night! If I give myself till to-night, something else may happen. If I give myself till to-night, I may hesitate again. I'm weary of the torture of hesitating. I must and will have relief in the present, cost what it may in the future. My letter to Midwinter will drive me mad if I see it staring and staring at me in my desk any longer. I can post it in ten minutes' time – and I will!

It is done. The first of the three steps that lead me to the end, is a step taken. My mind is quieter – the letter is in the post.

By to-morrow Midwinter will receive it. Before the end of the week, Armadale must be publicly seen to leave Thorpe-Ambrose; and I must be publicly seen to leave with him.

Have I looked at the consequences of my marriage to Midwinter? No! Do I know how to meet the obstacle of my husband, when the time comes which transforms me from the living Armadale's wife, to the dead Armadale's widow?

No! When the time comes, I must meet the obstacle as I best may. I am going blindfold then – so far as Midwinter is concerned – into this frightful risk? Yes; blindfold. Am I out of my senses? Very likely. Or am I a little too fond of him to look the thing in the face? I daresay. Who cares?

I won't, I won't, I won't think of it! Haven't I a will of my own? And can't I think, if I like, of something else?

Here is Mother Jezebel's cringing letter.
That
is something else to think of. I'll answer it. I am in a fine humour for writing to Mother Jezebel.

Conclusion of Miss Gwilt's Letter to Mrs Oldershaw

… I told you, when I broke off, that I would wait before I finished this, and ask my Diary if I could safely tell you what I have now got it in my mind to do. Well, I have asked; and my Diary says, ‘Don't tell her!' Under these circumstances, I close my letter – with my best excuses for leaving you in the dark.

I shall probably be in London before long – and I may tell you by word of mouth what I don't think it safe to write here. Mind, I make no promise! It all depends on how I feel towards you at the time. I don't doubt your discretion – but (under certain circumstances) I am not so sure of your courage.

L.G.

P.S. – My best thanks for your permission to renew the bill. I decline profiting by the proposal. The money will be ready, when the money is due. I have a friend now in London who will pay it, if I ask him. Do you wonder who the friend is? You will wonder at one or two other things, Mrs Oldershaw, before many weeks more are over your head and mine.

On the morning of Monday, the twenty-eighth of July, Miss Gwilt – once more on the watch for Allan and Neelie – reached her customary post of observation in the park, by the usual roundabout way.

She was a little surprised to find Neelie alone at the place of meeting. She was more seriously astonished, when the tardy Allan made his appearance ten minutes later, to see him mounting the side of the dell, with a large volume under his arm, and to hear him say, as an apology for being late, that ‘he had muddled away his time in hunting for the Books; and that he had only found one, after all, which seemed in the least likely to repay either Neelie or himself for the trouble of looking into it.'

If Miss Gwilt had waited long enough in the park, on the previous Saturday, to hear the lovers' parting words on that occasion, she would have been at no loss to explain the mystery of the volume under Allan's arm, and she would have understood the apology which he now offered for being late, as readily as Neelie herself.

There is a certain exceptional occasion in life – the occasion of marriage – on which even girls in their teens sometimes become capable (more or less hysterically) of looking at consequences. At the farewell moment of the interview on Saturday, Neelie's mind had suddenly precipitated itself into the future; and she had utterly confounded Allan by inquiring whether the contemplated elopement was an offence punishable by the Law? Her memory satisfied her that she had certainly read somewhere, at some former period, in some book or other (possibly a novel), of an elopement with a dreadful end – of a bride dragged home in hysterics – and of a bridegroom sentenced to languish in prison, with all his beautiful hair cut off, by Act of Parliament, close to his head. Supposing she could bring herself to consent to the elopement at all – which she positively declined to promise – she must first insist on discovering whether there was any fear of the police being concerned in her marriage as well as the parson and the clerk. Allan being a man, ought to know; and to Allan she looked for information – with this preliminary assurance to assist him in laying down the law, that she would die of a broken heart a thousand times over, rather than be the innocent means of sending him to languish in prison, and of cutting his hair off, by Act of Parliament, close to his head. ‘It's no laughing matter,' said Neelie resolutely, in conclusion; ‘I decline even to think of our marriage, till my mind is made easy first on the subject of the Law.'

‘But I don't know anything about the law, not even as much as you do,' said Allan. ‘Hang the law! I don't mind my head being cropped. Let's risk it.'

‘Risk it?' repeated Neelie, indignantly. ‘Have you no consideration for
me
? I won't risk it! Where there's a will, there's a way. We must find out the law for ourselves.'

‘With all my heart,' said Allan. ‘How?'

‘Out of books, to be sure! There must be quantities of information in that enormous library of yours at the great house. If you really love me, you won't mind going over the backs of a few thousand books, for my sake!'

‘I'll go over the backs of ten thousand!' cried Allan, warmly. ‘Would you mind telling me what I'm to look for?'

‘For “Law” to be sure! When it says “Law” on the back, open it,
and look inside for Marriage – read every word of it – and then come here and explain it to me. What? you don't think your head is to be trusted to do such a simple thing as that?'

‘I'm certain it isn't,' said Allan. ‘Can't you help me?'

‘Of course I can, if you can't manage without me! Law may be hard, but it can't be harder than music; and I must, and will, satisfy my mind. Bring me all the books you can find, on Monday morning – in a wheelbarrow, if there are a good many of them, and if you can't manage it in any other way.'

The result of this conversation was Allan's appearance in the park, with a volume of Blackstone's Commentaries under his arm, on the fatal Monday morning, when Miss Gwilt's written engagement of marriage was placed in Midwinter's hands. Here again, in this, as in all other human instances, the widely discordant elements of the grotesque and the terrible were forced together by that subtle law of contrast which is one of the laws of mortal life. Amid all the thickening complications now impending over their heads – with the shadow of meditated murder stealing towards one of them already, from the lurking-place that hid Miss Gwilt – the two sat down, unconscious of the future, with the book between them; and applied themselves to the study of the law of marriage, with a grave resolution to understand it, which, in two such students, was nothing less than a burlesque in itself!

‘Find the place,' said Neelie, as soon as they were comfortably established. ‘We must manage this, by what they call a division of labour. You shall read – and I'll take notes.'

She produced forthwith a smart little pocket-book and pencil, and opened the book in the middle, where there was a blank page on the right hand and the left. At the top of the right-hand page, she wrote the word,
Good
. At the top of the left-hand page, she wrote the word,
Bad
.' “Good” means where the law is on our side,' she explained; ‘and “Bad” means where the law is against us. We will have “Good” and “Bad” opposite each other, all down the two pages; and when we get to the bottom, we'll add them up, and act accordingly. They say girls have no heads for business. Haven't they! Don't look at me – look at Blackstone, and begin.'

‘Would you mind giving me a kiss first?' asked Allan.

‘I should mind it very much. In our serious situation, when we have both got to exert our intellects, I wonder you can ask for such a thing!'

‘That's why I asked for it,' said the unblushing Allan. ‘I feel as if it would clear my head.'

‘Oh, if it would clear your head, that's quite another thing! I must clear your head, of course, at any sacrifice. Only one, mind,' she whispered coquettishly; ‘and pray be careful of Blackstone, or you'll lose the place.'

There was a pause in the conversation. Blackstone and the pocket-book both rolled on the ground together.

‘If this happens again,' said Neelie, picking up the pocket-book, with her eyes and her complexion at their brightest and best, ‘I shall sit with my back to you for the rest of the morning.
Will
you go on?'

Allan found his place for the second time, and fell headlong into the bottomless abyss of the English Law.