Man and Wife Page 12

inquiries down stairs. She got on from Jonathan (last of the

  males, indoors) to the coachman (first of the males,

  out-of-doors), and dug down, man by man, through that new

  stratum, until she struck the stable-boy at the bottom . Not an

  atom of information having been extracted in the house or out of

  the house, from man or boy, her ladyship fell back on the women

  next. She pulled the bell, and summoned the cook--Hester

  Dethridge.

  A very remarkable-looking person entered the room.

  Elderly and quiet; scrupulously clean; eminently respectable; her

  gray hair neat and smooth under her modest white cap; her eyes,

  set deep in their orbits, looking straight at any person who

  spoke to her--here, at a first view, was a steady, trust-worthy

  woman. Here also on closer inspection, was a woman with the seal

  of some terrible past suffering set on her for the rest of her

  life. You felt it, rather than saw it, in the look of immovable

  endurance which underlain her expression--in the deathlike

  tranquillity which never disappeared from her manner. Her story

  was a sad one--so far as it was known. She had entered Lady

  Lundie's service at the period of Lady Lundie's marriage to Sir

  Thomas. Her character (given by the clergyman of her parish)

  described her as having been married to an inveterate drunkard,

  and as having suffered unutterably during her husband's lifetime.

  There were drawbacks to engaging her, now that she was a widow.

  On one of the many occasions on which her husband had personally

  ill-treated her, he had struck her a blow which had produced very

  remarkable nervous results. She had lain insensible many days

  together, and had recovered with the total loss of her speech. In

  addition to this objection, she was odd, at times, in her manner;

  and she made it a condition of accepting any situation, that she

  should be privileged to sleep in a room by herself As a set-off

  against all this, it was to be said, on the other side of the

  question, that she was sober; rigidly honest in all her dealings;

  and one of the best cooks in England. In consideration of this

  last merit, the late Sir Thomas had decided on giving her a

  trial, and had discovered that he had never dined in his life as

  he dined when Hester Dethridge was at the head of his kitchen.

  She remained after his death in his widow's service. Lady Lundie

  was far from liking her. An unpleasant suspicion attached to the

  cook, which Sir Thomas had over-looked, but which persons less

  sensible of the immense importance of dining well could not fail

  to regard as a serious objection to her. Medical men, consulted

  about her case discovered certain physiological anomalies in it

  which led them to suspect the woman of feigning dumbness, for

  some reason best known to herself. She obstinately declined to

  learn the deaf and dumb alphabet--on the ground that dumbness was

  not associated with deafness in her case. Stratagems were

  invented (seeing that she really did possess the use of her ears)

  to entrap her into also using her speech, and failed. Efforts

  were made to induce her to answer questions relating to her past

  life in her husband's time. She flatly declined to reply to them,

  one and all. At certain intervals, strange impulses to get a

  holiday away from the house appeared to seize her. If she was

  resisted, she passively declined to do her work. If she was

  threatened with dismissal, she impenetrably bowed her head, as

  much as to say, "Give me the word, and I go." Over and over

  again, Lady Lundie had decided, naturally enough, on no longer

  keeping such a servant as this; but she had never yet carried the

  decision to execution. A cook who is a perfect mistress of her

  art, who asks for no perquisites, who allows no waste, who never

  quarrels with the other servants, who drinks nothing stronger

  than tea, who is to be trusted with untold gold--is not a cook

  easily replaced. In this mortal life we put up with many persons

  and things, as Lady Lundie put up with her cook. The woman lived,

  as it were, on the brink of dismissal--but thus far the woman

  kept her place--getting her holidays when she asked for them

  (which, to do her justice, was not often) and sleeping always (go

  where she might with the family) with a locked door, in a room by

  herself.

  Hester Dethridge advanced slowly to the table at which Lady

  Lundie was sitting. A slate and pencil hung at her side, which

  she used for making such replies as were not to be expressed by a

  gesture or by a motion of the head. She took up the slate and

  pencil, and waited with stony submission for her mistress to

  begin.

  Lady Lundie opened the proceedings with the regular formula of

  inquiry which she had used with all the other servants

  "Do you know that Miss Silvester has left the house?"

  The cook nodded her head affirmatively,

  "Do you know at what time she left it?"

  Another affirmative reply. The first which Lady Lundie had

  received to that question yet. She eagerly went on to the next

  inquiry.

  "Have you seen her since she left the house?"

  A third affirmative reply.

  "Where?"

  Hester Dethridge wrote slowly on the slate, in singularly firm

  upright characters for a woman in her position of life, these

  words:

  "On the road that leads to the railway. Nigh to Mistress Chew's

  Farm."

  "What did you want at Chew's Farm?"

  Hester Dethridge wrote: "I wanted eggs for the kitchen, and a

  breath of fresh air for myself."

  "Did Miss Silvester see you?"

  A negative shake of the head.

  "Did she take the turning that leads to the railway?"

  Another negative shake of the head.

  "She went on, toward the moor?"

  An affirmative reply.

  "What did she do when she got to the moor?"

  Hester Dethridge wrote: "She took the footpath which leads to

  Craig Fernie."

  Lady Lundie rose excitedly to her feet. There was but one place

  that a stranger could go to at Craig Fernie. "The inn!" exclaimed

  her ladyship. "She has gone to the inn!"

  Hester Dethridge waited immovably. Lady Lundie put a last

  precautionary question, in these words:

  "Have you reported what you have seen to any body else?"

  An affirmative reply. Lady Lundie had not bargained for that.

  Hester Dethridge (she thought) must surely have misunderstood

  her.

  "Do you mean that you have told somebody else what you have just

  told me?"

  Another affirmative reply.

  "A person who questioned you, as I have done?"

  A third affirmative reply.

  "Who was it?"

  Hester Dethridge wrote on her slate: "Miss Blanche."

  Lady Lundie stepped back, staggered by the discovery that

  Blanche's resolution to trace Anne Silvester was, to all

  appearance, as firmly settled as her own. Her step-daughter was

  keeping her own counsel, and acting on her own

  responsibility--her step-daughter might be an awkwar
d obstacle in

  the way. The manner in which Anne had left the house had mortally

  offended Lady Lundie. An inveterately vindictive woman, she had

  resolved to discover whatever compromising elements might exist

  in the governess's secret, and to make them public property (from

  a paramount sense of duty, of course) among her own circle of

  friends. But to do this--with Blanche acting (as might certainly

  be anticipated) in direct opposition to her, and openly espousing

  Miss Silvester's interests--was manifestly impossible.

  The first thing to be done--and that instantly--was to inform

  Blanche that she was discovered, and to forbid her to stir in the

  matter.

  Lady Lundie rang the bell twice--thus intimating, according to

  the laws of the household, that she required the attendance of

  her own maid. She then turned to the cook--still waiting her

  pleasure, with stony composure, slate in hand.

  "You have done wrong," said her ladyship, severely. "I am your

  mistress. You are bound to answer your mistress--"

  Hester Dethridge bowed her head, in icy acknowledgment of the

  principle laid down--so far.

  The bow was an interruption. Lady Lundie resented it.

  "But Miss Blanche is _not_ your mistress," she went on, sternly.

  "You are very much to blame for answering Miss Blanche's

  inquiries about Miss Silvester."

  Hester Dethridge, perfectly unmoved, wrote her justification on

  her slate, in two stiff sentences: "I had no orders _not_ to

  answer. I keep nobody's secrets but my own."

  That reply settled the question of the cook's dismissal--the

  question which had been pending for months past.

  "You are an insolent woman! I have borne with you long enough--I

  will bear with you no longer. When your month is up, you go!"

  In those words Lady Lundie dismissed Hester Dethridge from her

  service.

  Not the slightest change passed over the sinister tranquillity of

  the cook. She bowed her head again, in acknowledgment of the

  sentence pronounced on her--dropped her slate at her side--turned

  about--and left the room. The woman was alive in the world, and

  working in the world; and yet (so far as all human interests were

  concerned) she was as completely out of the world as if she had

  been screwed down in her coffin, and laid in her grave.

  Lady Lundie's maid came into the room as Hester left it.

  "Go up stairs to Miss Blanche," said her mistress, "and say I

  want her here. Wait a minute!" She paused, and considered.

  Blanche might decline to submit to her step-mother's interference

  with her. It might be necessary to appeal to the higher authority

  of her guardian. "Do you know where Sir Patrick is?" asked Lady

  Lundie.

  "I heard Simpson say, my lady, that Sir Patrick was at the

  stables."

  "Send Simpson with a message. My compliments to Sir Patrick--and

  I wish to see him immediately."

  * * * * * *

  The preparations for the departure to the shooting-cottage were

  just completed; and the one question that remained to be settled

  was, whether Sir Patrick could accompany the party--when the

  man-servant appeared with the message from his mistress.

  "Will you give me a quarter of an hour, gentlemen?" asked Sir

  Patrick. "In that time I shall know for certain whether I can go

  with you or not."

  As a matter of course, the guests decided to wait. The younger

  men among them (being Englishmen) naturally occupied their

  leisure time in betting. Would Sir Patrick get the better of the

  domestic crisis? or would the domestic crisis get the better of

  Sir Patrick? The domestic crisis was backed, at two to one, to

  win.

  Punctually at the expiration of the quarter of an hour, Sir

  Patrick reappeared. The domestic crisis had betrayed the blind

  confidence which youth and inexperience had placed in it. Sir

  Patrick had won the day.

  "Things are settled and quiet, gentlemen; and I am able to

  accompany you," he said. "There are two ways to the

  shooting-cottage. One--the longest--passes by the inn at Craig

  Fernie. I am compelled to ask you to go with me by that way.

  While you push on to the cottage, I must drop behind, and say a

  word to a person who is staying at the inn."

  He had quieted Lady Lundie--he had even quieted Blanche. But it

  was evidently on the condition that he was to go to Craig Fernie

  in their places, and to see Anne Silvester himself. Without a

  word more of explanation he mounted his horse, and led the way

  out. The shooting-party left Windygates.

  SECOND SCENE.--THE INN.

  CHAPTER THE NINTH.

  ANNE.

  "YE'LL just permit me to remind ye again, young leddy, that the

  hottle's full--exceptin' only this settin'-room, and the

  bedchamber yonder belonging to it."

  So spoke "Mistress Inchbare," landlady of the Craig Fernie Inn,

  to Anne Silvester, standing in the parlor, purse in hand, and

  offering the price of the two rooms before she claimed permission

  to occupy them.

  The time of the afternoon was about the time when Geoffrey

  Delamayn had started in the train, on his journey to London.

  About the time also, when Arnold Brinkworth had crossed the moor,

  and was mounting the first rising ground which led to the inn.

  Mistress Inchbare was tall and thin, and decent and dry. Mistress

  Inchbare's unlovable hair clung fast round her head in wiry

  little yellow curls. Mistress Inchbare's hard bones showed

  themselves, like Mistress Inchbare's hard Presbyterianism,

  without any concealment or compromise. In short, a

  savagely-respectable woman who plumed herself on presiding over a

  savagely-respectable inn.

  There was no competition to interfere with Mistress Inchbare. She

  regulated her own prices, and made her own rules. If you objected

  to her prices, and revolted from her rules, you were free to go.

  In other words, you were free to cast yourself, in the capacity

  of houseless wanderer, on the scanty mercy of a Scotch

  wilderness. The village of Craig Fernie was a collection of

  hovels. The country about Craig Fernie, mountain on one side and

  moor on the other, held no second house of public entertainment,

  for miles and miles round, at any point of the compass. No

  rambling individual but the helpless British Tourist wanted food

  and shelter from strangers in that part of Scotland; and nobody

  but Mistress Inchbare had food and shelter to sell. A more

  thoroughly independent person than this was not to be found on

  the face of the hotel-keeping earth. The most universal of all

  civilized terrors--the terror of appearing unfavorably in the

  newspapers--was a sensation absolutely unknown to the Empress of

  the Inn. You lost your temper, and threatened to send her bill

  for exhibition in the public journals. Mistress Inchbare raised

  no objection to your taking any course you pleased with it. "Eh,

  man! send the bill whar' ye like, as long as ye pay it first.

  There's nae such th
ing as a newspaper ever darkens my doors.

  Ye've got the Auld and New Testaments in your bedchambers, and

  the natural history o' Pairthshire on the coffee-room table--and

  if that's no' reading eneugh for ye, ye may een gae back South

  again, and get the rest of it there."

  This was the inn at which Anne Silvester had appeared alone, with

  nothing but a little bag in her hand. This was the woman whose

  reluctance to receive her she innocently expected to overcome by

  showing her purse.

  "Mention your charge for the rooms," she said. "I am willing to

  pay for them beforehand."

  Her majesty, Mrs. Inchbare, never even looked at her subject's

  poor little purse.

  "It just comes to this, mistress," she answered. "I'm no' free to

  tak' your money, if I'm no' free to let ye the last rooms left in

  the hoose. The Craig Fernie hottle is a faimily hottle--and has

  its ain gude name to keep up. Ye're ower-well-looking, my young

  leddy, to be traveling alone."

  The time had been when Anne would have answered sharply enough.

  The hard necessities of her position made her patient now.

  "I have already told you," she said, "my husband is coming here

  to join me." She sighed wearily as she repeated her ready-made

  story--and dropped into the nearest chair, from sheer inability

  to stand any longer.

  Mistress Inchbare looked at her, with the exact measure of

  compassionate interest which she might have shown if she had been

  looking at a stray dog who had fallen footsore at the door of the

  inn.

  "Weel! weel! sae let it be. Bide awhile, and rest ye. We'll no'

  chairge ye for that--and we'll see if your husband comes. I'll

  just let the rooms, mistress, to _him,_, instead o' lettin' them

  to _you._ And, sae, good-morrow t' ye." With that final

  announcement of her royal will and pleasure, the Empress of the

  Inn withdrew.

  Anne made no reply. She watched the landlady out of the room--and

  then struggled to control herself no longer. In her position,

  suspicion was doubly insult. The hot tears of shame gathered in

  her eyes; and the heart-ache wrung her, poor soul--wrung her

  without mercy.

  A trifling noise in the room startled her. She looked up, and

  detected a man in a corner, dusting the furniture, and apparently

  acting in the capacity of attendant at the inn. He had shown her

  into the parlor on her arrival; but he had remained so quietly in

  the room that she had never noticed him since, until that moment.

  He was an ancient man--with one eye filmy and blind, and one eye

  moist and merry. His head was bald; his feet were gouty; his nose

  was justly celebrated as the largest nose and the reddest nose in

  that part of Scotland. The mild wisdom of years was expressed

  mysteriously in his mellow smile. In contact with this wicked

  world, his manner revealed that happy mixture of two

  extremes--the servility which just touches independence, and the

  independence which just touches servility--attained by no men in

  existence but Scotchmen. Enormous native impudence, which amused

  but never offended; immeasurable cunning, masquerading habitually

  under the double disguise of quaint prejudice and dry humor, were

  the solid moral foundations on which the character of this

  elderly person was built. No amount of whisky ever made him

  drunk; and no violence of bell-ringing ever hurried his

  movements. Such was the headwaiter at the Craig Fernie Inn;

  known, far and wide, to local fame, as "Maister Bishopriggs,

  Mistress Inchbare's right-hand man."

  "What are you doing there?" Anne asked, sharply.

  Mr. Bishopriggs turned himself about on his gouty feet; waved his

  duster gently in the air; and looked at Anne, with a mild,

  paternal smile.

  "Eh! Am just doostin' the things; and setin' the room in decent

  order for ye."

  "For _me?_ Did you hear what the landlady said?"

  Mr. Bishopriggs advanced confidentially, and pointed with a very