Man and Wife Page 14

  "Yes. I haven't done wrong--have I? As I understood it, there was

  no alternative. Geoffrey told me you had settled with him to

  present yourself here as a married lady, whose husband was coming

  to join her."

  "I thought of _him_ when I said that. I never thought of _you."_

  "Natural enough. Still, it comes to the same thing (doesn't it?)

  with the people of this house."

  "I don't understand you. "

  "I will try and explain myself a little better. Geoffrey said

  your position here depended on my asking for you at the door (as

  _he_ would have asked for you if he had come) in the character of

  your husband."

  "He had no right to say that."

  "No right? After what you have told me of the landlady, just

  think what might have happened if he had _not_ said it! I haven't

  had much experience myself of these things. But--allow me to

  ask--wouldn't it have been a little awkward (at my age) if I had

  come here and inquired for you as a friend? Don't you think, in

  that case, the landlady might have made some additional

  difficulty about letting you have the rooms?"

  It was beyond dispute that the landlady would have refused to let

  the rooms at all. It was equally plain that the deception which

  Arnold had practiced on the people of the inn was a deception

  which Anne had herself rendered necessary, in her own interests.

  She was not to blame; it was clearly impossible for her to have

  foreseen such an event as Geoffrey's departure for London. Still,

  she felt an uneasy sense of responsibility--a vague dread of what

  might happen next. She sat nervously twisting her handkerchief in

  her lap, and made no answer.

  "Don't suppose I object to this little stratagem," Arnold went

  on. "I am serving my old friend, and I am helping the lady who is

  soon to be his wife."

  Anne rose abruptly to her feet, and amazed him by a very

  unexpected question.

  "Mr. Brinkworth," she said, "forgive me the rudeness of something

  I am about to say to you. When are you going away?"

  Arnold burst out laughing.

  "When I am quite sure I can do nothing more to assist you," he

  answered.

  "Pray don't think of _me_ any longer."

  "In your situation! who else am I to think of?"

  Anne laid her hand earnestly on his arm, and answered:

  "Blanche!"

  "Blanche?" repeated Arnold, utterly at a loss to understand her.

  "Yes--Blanche. She found time to tell me what had passed between

  you this morning before I left Windygates. I know you have made

  her an offer: I know you are engaged to be married to her."

  Arnold was delighted to hear it. He had been merely unwilling to

  leave her thus far. He was absolutely determined to stay with her

  now.

  "Don't expect me to go after that!" he said. "Come and sit down

  again, and let's talk about Blanche."

  Anne declined impatiently, by a gesture. Arnold was too deeply

  interested in the new topic to take any notice of it.

  "You know all about her habits and her tastes," he went on, "and

  what she likes, and what she dislikes. It's most important that I

  should talk to you about her. When we are husband and wife,

  Blanche is to have all her own way in every thing. That's my idea

  of the Whole Duty of Man--when Man is married. You are still

  standing? Let me give you a chair."

  It was cruel--under other circumstances it would have been

  impossible--to disappoint him. But the vague fear of consequences

  which had taken possession of Anne was not to be trifled with.

  She had no clear conception of the risk (and it is to be added,

  in justice to Geoffrey, that _he_ had no clear conception of the

  risk) on which Arnold had unconsciously ventured, in undertaking

  his errand to the inn. Neither of them had any adequate idea (few

  people have) of the infamous absence of all needful warning, of

  all decent precaution and restraint, which makes the marriage law

  of Scotland a trap to catch unmarried men and women, to this day.

  But, while Geoffrey's mind was incapable of looking beyond the

  present emergency, Anne's finer intelligence told her that a

  country which offered such facilities for private marriage as the

  facilities of which she had proposed to take advantage in her own

  case, was not a country in which a man could act as Arnold had

  acted, without danger of some serious embarrassment following as

  the possible result. With this motive to animate her, she

  resolutely declined to take the offered chair, or to enter into

  the proposed conversation.

  "Whatever we have to say about Blanche, Mr. Brinkworth, must be

  said at some fitter time. I beg you will leave me."

  "Leave you!"

  "Yes. Leave me to the solitude that is best for me, and to the

  sorrow that I have deserved. Thank you--and good-by."

  Arnold made no attempt to disguise his disappointment and

  surprise.

  "If I must go, I must," he said, "But why are you in such a

  hurry?"

  "I don't want you to call me your wife again before the people of

  this inn."

  "Is _that_ all? What on earth are you afraid of?"

  She was unable fully to realize her own apprehensions. She was

  doubly unable to express them in words. In her anxiety to produce

  some reason which might prevail on him to go, she drifted back

  into that very conversation about Blanche into which she had

  declined to enter but the moment before.

  "I have reasons for being afraid," she said. "One that I can't

  give; and one that I can. Suppose Blanche heard of what you have

  done? The longer you stay here--the more people you see--the more

  chance there is that she _might_ hear of it."

  "And what if she did?" asked Arnold, in his own straightforward

  way. "Do you think she would be angry with me for making myself

  useful to _you?_"

  "Yes," rejoined Anne, sharply, "if she was jealous of me."

  Arnold's unlimited belief in Blanche expressed itself, without

  the slightest compromise, in two words:

  "That's impossible!"

  Anxious as she was, miserable as she was, a faint smile flitted

  over Anne's face.

  "Sir Patrick would tell you, Mr. Brinkworth, that nothing is

  impossible where women are concerned." She dropped her momentary

  lightness of tone, and went on as earnestly as ever. "You can't

  put yourself in Blanche's place--I can. Once more, I beg you to

  go. I don't like your coming here, in this way! I don't like it

  at all!"

  She held out her hand to take leave. At the same moment there was

  a loud knock at the door of the room.

  Anne sank into the chair at her side, and uttered a faint cry of

  alarm. Arnold, perfectly impenetrable to all sense of his

  position, asked what there was to frighten her--and answered the

  knock in the two customary words:

  "Come in!"

  CHAPTER THE TENTH.

  MR. BISHOPRIGGS.

  THE knock at the door was repeated--a louder knock than before.

  "Are you deaf?" shouted Arnold.

&
nbsp; The door opened, little by little, an inch at a time. Mr.

  Bishopriggs appeared mysteriously, with the cloth for dinner over

  his arm, and with his second in c ommand behind him, bearing "the

  furnishing of the table" (as it was called at Craig Fernie) on a

  tray.

  "What the deuce were you waiting for?" asked Arnold. "I told you

  to come in."

  "And _I_ tauld _you,_" answered Mr. Bishopriggs, "that I wadna

  come in without knocking first. Eh, man!" he went on, dismissing

  his second in command, and laying the cloth with his own

  venerable hands, "d'ye think I've lived in this hottle in blinded

  eegnorance of hoo young married couples pass the time when

  they're left to themselves? Twa knocks at the door--and an unco

  trouble in opening it, after that--is joost the least ye can do

  for them! Whar' do ye think, noo, I'll set the places for you and

  your leddy there?"

  Anne walked away to the window, in undisguised disgust. Arnold

  found Mr. Bishopriggs to be quite irresistible. He answered,

  humoring the joke,

  "One at the top and one at the bottom of the table, I suppose ?"

  "One at tap and one at bottom?" repeated Mr. Bishopriggs, in high

  disdain. "De'il a bit of it! Baith yer chairs as close together

  as chairs can be. Hech! hech!--haven't I caught 'em, after

  goodness knows hoo many preleeminary knocks at the door, dining

  on their husbands' knees, and steemulating a man's appetite by

  feeding him at the fork's end like a child? Eh!" sighed the sage

  of Craig Fernie, "it's a short life wi' that nuptial business,

  and a merry one! A mouth for yer billin' and cooin'; and a' the

  rest o' yer days for wondering ye were ever such a fule, and

  wishing it was a' to be done ower again.--Ye'll be for a bottle

  o' sherry wine, nae doot? and a drap toddy afterwards, to do yer

  digestin' on?"

  Arnold nodded--and then, in obedience to a signal from Anne,

  joined her at the window. Mr. Bishopriggs looked after them

  attentively--observed that they were talking in whispers--and

  approved of that proceeding, as representing another of the

  established customs of young married couples at inns, in the

  presence of third persons appointed to wait on them.

  "Ay! ay!" he said, looking over his shoulder at Arnold, "gae to

  your deerie! gae to your deerie! and leave a' the solid business

  o' life to Me. Ye've Screepture warrant for it. A man maun leave

  fether and mother (I'm yer fether), and cleave to his wife. My

  certie! 'cleave' is a strong word--there's nae sort o' doot aboot

  it, when it comes to 'cleaving!' " He wagged his head

  thoughtfully, and walked to the side-table in a corner, to cut

  the bread.

  As he took up the knife, his one wary eye detected a morsel of

  crumpled paper, lying lost between the table and the wall. It was

  the letter from Geoffrey, which Anne had flung from her, in the

  first indignation of reading it--and which neither she nor Arnold

  had thought of since.

  "What's that I see yonder?" muttered Mr. Bishopriggs, under his

  breath. "Mair litter in the room, after I've doosted and tidied

  it wi' my ain hands!"

  He picked up the crumpled paper, and partly opened it. "Eh!

  what's here? Writing on it in ink? and writing on it in pencil?

  Who may this belong to?" He looked round cautiously toward Arnold

  and Anne. They were both still talking in whispers, and both

  standing with their backs to him, looking out of the window.

  "Here it is, clean forgotten and dune with!" thought Mr.

  Bishopriggs. "Noo what would a fule do, if he fund this? A fule

  wad light his pipe wi' it, and then wonder whether he wadna ha'

  dune better to read it first. And what wad a wise man do, in a

  seemilar position?" He practically answered that question by

  putting the letter into his pocket. It might be worth keeping, or

  it might not; five minutes' private examination of it would

  decide the alternative, at the first convenient opportunity. "Am

  gaun' to breeng the dinner in!" he called out to Arnold. "And,

  mind ye, there's nae knocking at the door possible, when I've got

  the tray in baith my hands, and mairs the pity, the gout in baith

  my feet." With that friendly warning, Mr. Bishopriggs went his

  way to the regions of the kitchen.

  Arnold continued his conversation with Anne in terms which showed

  that the question of his leaving the inn had been the question

  once more discussed between them while they were standing at the

  window.

  "You see we can't help it," he said. "The waiter has gone to

  bring the dinner in. What will they think in the house, if I go

  away already, and leave 'my wife' to dine alone?"

  It was so plainly necessary to keep up appearances for the

  present, that there was nothing more to be said. Arnold was

  committing a serious imprudence--and yet, on this occasion,

  Arnold was right. Anne's annoyance at feeling that conclusion

  forced on her produced the first betrayal of impatience which she

  had shown yet. She left Arnold at the window, and flung herself

  on the sofa. "A curse seems to follow me!" she thought, bitterly.

  "This will end ill--and I shall be answerable for it!"

  In the mean time Mr. Bishopriggs had found the dinner in the

  kitchen, ready, and waiting for him. Instead of at once taking

  the tray on which it was placed into the sitting-room, he

  conveyed it privately into his own pantry, and shut the door.

  "Lie ye there, my freend, till the spare moment comes--and I'll

  look at ye again," he said, putting the letter away carefully in

  the dresser-drawer. "Noo aboot the dinner o' they twa

  turtle-doves in the parlor?" he continued, directing his

  attention to the dinner tray. "I maun joost see that the

  cook's;'s dune her duty--the creatures are no' capable o'

  decidin' that knotty point for their ain selves." He took off one

  of the covers, and picked bits, here and there, out of the dish

  with the fork " Eh! eh! the collops are no' that bad!" He took

  off another cover, and shook his head in solemn doubt. "Here's

  the green meat. I doot green meat's windy diet for a man at my

  time o' life!" He put the cover on again, and tried the next

  dish. "The fesh? What the de'il does the woman fry the trout for?

  Boil it next time, ye betch, wi' a pinch o' saut and a spunefu'

  o' vinegar." He drew the cork from a bottle of sherry, and

  decanted the wine. "The sherry wine?" he said, in tones of deep

  feeling, holding the decanter up to the light. "Hoo do I know but

  what it may be corkit? I maun taste and try. It's on my

  conscience, as an honest man, to taste and try." He forthwith

  relieved his conscience--copiously. There was a vacant space, of

  no inconsiderable dimensions, left in the decanter. Mr.

  Bishopriggs gravely filled it up from the water-bottle. "Eh !

  it's joost addin' ten years to the age o' the wine. The

  turtle-doves will be nane the waur--and I mysel' am a glass o'

  sherry the better. Praise Providence for a' its maircies!" Having

  relieved
himself of that devout aspiration, he took up the tray

  again, and decided on letting the turtle-doves have their dinner.

  The conversation in the parlor (dropped for the moment) had been

  renewed, in the absence of Mr. Bishopriggs. Too restless to

  remain long in one place, Anne had risen again from the sofa, and

  had rejoined Arnold at the window.

  "Where do your friends at Lady Lundie's believe you to be now?"

  she asked, abruptly.

  "I am believed," replied Arnold, "to be meeting my tenants, and

  taking possession of my estate."

  "How are you to get to your estate to-night?"

  "By railway, I suppose. By-the-by, what excuse am I to make for

  going away after dinner? We are sure to have the landlady in here

  before long. What will she say to my going off by myself to the

  train, and leaving 'my wife' behind me?"

  "Mr. Brinkworth! that joke--if it _is_ a joke--is worn out!"

  "I beg your pardon," said Arnold.

  "You may leave your excuse to me," pursued Anne. "Do you go by

  the up train, or the down?"

  "By the up train."

  The door opened suddenly; and Mr. Bishopriggs appeared with the

  dinner. Anne nervously separated herself from Arnold. The one

  available eye of Mr. Bishopriggs followed her reproachfully, as

  he put the dishes on the table.

  "I warned ye baith, it was a clean impossibility to knock at the

  door this time. Don't blame me, young madam--don't blame _me!"_

  "Where will you sit?" asked Arnold, by way of diverting Anne's

  attention from the familiarities of Father Bishopriggs.

  "Any where!" she answered, impatiently; snatchi ng up a chair,

  and placing it at the bottom of the table.

  Mr. Bishopriggs politely, but firmly, put the chair back again in

  its place.

  "Lord's sake! what are ye doin'? It's clean contrary to a' the

  laws and customs o' the honey-mune, to sit as far away from your

  husband as that!"

  He waved his persuasive napkin to one of the two chairs placed

  close together at the table.

  Arnold interfered once more, and prevented another outbreak of

  impatience from Anne.

  "What does it matter?" he said. "Let the man have his way."

  "Get it over as soon as you can," she returned. "I can't, and

  won't, bear it much longer."

  They took their places at the table, with Father Bishopriggs

  behind them, in the mixed character of major domo and guardian

  angel.

  "Here's the trout!" he cried, taking the cover off with a

  flourish. "Half an hour since, he was loupin' in the water. There

  he lies noo, fried in the dish. An emblem o' human life for ye!

  When ye can spare any leisure time from yer twa selves, meditate

  on that."

  Arnold took up the spoon, to give Anne one of the trout. Mr.

  Bishopriggs clapped the cover on the dish again, with a

  countenance expressive of devout horror.

  "Is there naebody gaun' to say grace?" he asked.

  "Come! come!" said Arnold. "The fish is getting cold."

  Mr. Bishopriggs piously closed his available eye, and held the

  cover firmly on the dish. "For what ye're gaun' to receive, may

  ye baith be truly thankful!" He opened his available eye, and

  whipped the cover off again. "My conscience is easy noo. Fall to!

  Fall to!"

  "Send him away!" said Anne. "His familiarity is beyond all

  endurance."

  "You needn't wait," said Arnold.

  "Eh! but I'm here to wait," objected Mr. Bishopriggs. "What's the

  use o' my gaun' away, when ye'll want me anon to change the

  plates for ye?" He considered for a moment (privately consulting

  his experience) and arrived at a satisfactory conclusion as to

  Arnold's motive for wanting to get rid of him. "Tak' her on yer

  knee," he whispered in Arnold's ear, "as soon as ye like! Feed

  him at the fork's end," he added to Anne, "whenever ye please!

  I'll think of something else, and look out at the proaspect." He

  winked--and went to the window.