Man and Wife Page 34

  "Yes, Sir Patrick."

  "My compliments to her ladyship. If she is not otherwise engaged,

  I shall be glad to speak to her privately in an hour's time."

  CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH.

  DROPPED.

  SIR PATRICK made a bad breakfast. Blanche's absence fretted him,

  and Anne Silvester's letter puzzled him.

  He read it, short as it was, a second time, and a third. If it

  meant any thing, it meant that the motive at the bottom of Anne's

  flight was to accomplish the sacrifice of herself to the

  happiness of Blanche. She had parted for life from his niece for

  his niece's sake! What did this mean? And how was it to be

  reconciled with Anne's position--as described to him by Mrs.

  Inchbare during his visit to Craig Fernie?

  All Sir Patrick's ingenuity, and all Sir Patrick's experience,

  failed to find so much as the shadow of an answer to that

  question.

  While he was still pondering over the letter, Arnold and the

  surgeon entered the breakfast-room together.

  "Have you heard about Blanche?" asked Arnold, excitedly. "She is

  in no danger, Sir Patrick--the worst of it is over now."

  The surgeon interposed before Sir Patrick could appeal to him.

  "Mr. Brinkworth's interest in the young lady a little exaggerates

  the state of the case," he said. "I have seen her, at Lady

  Lundie's request; and I can assure you that there is not the

  slightest reason for any present alarm. Miss Lundie has had a

  nervous attack, which has yielded to the simplest domestic

  remedies. The only anxiety you need feel is connected with the

  management of her in the future. She is suffering from some

  mental distress, which it is not for me, but for her friends, to

  alleviate and remove. If you can turn her thoughts from the

  painful subject--whatever it may be--on which they are dwelling

  now, you will do all that needs to be done." He took up a

  newspaper from the table, and strolled out into the garden,

  leaving Sir Patrick and Arnold together.

  "You heard that?" said Sir Patrick.

  "Is he right, do you think?" asked Arnold.

  "Right? Do you suppose a man gets _his_ reputation by making

  mistakes? You're one of the new generation, Master Arnold. You

  can all of you stare at a famous man; but you haven't an atom of

  respect for his fame. If Shakspeare came to life again, and

  talked of playwriting, the first pretentious nobody who sat

  opposite at dinner would differ with him as composedly as he

  might differ with you and me. Veneration is dead among us; the

  present age has buried it, without a stone to mark the place. So

  much for that! Let's get back to Blanche. I suppose you can guess

  what the painful subject is that's dwelling on her mind? Miss

  Silvester has baffled me, and baffled the Edinburgh police.

  Blanche discovered that we had failed last night and Blanche

  received that letter this morning."

  He pushed Anne's letter across the breakfast-table.

  Arnold read it, and handed it back without a word. Viewed by the

  new light in which he saw Geoffrey's character after the quarrel

  on the heath, the letter conveyed but one conclusion to his mind.

  Geoffrey had deserted her.

  "Well?" said Sir Patrick. "Do you understand what it means?"

  "I understand Blanche's wretchedness when she read it."

  He said no more than that. It was plain that no information which

  he could afford--even if he had considered himself at liberty to

  give it--would be of the slightest use in assisting Sir Patrick

  to trace Miss Silvester, under present circumstances, There

  was--unhappily--no temptation to induce him to break the

  honorable silence which he had maintained thus far. And--more

  unfortunately still--assuming the temptation to present itself,

  Arnold's capacity to resist it had never been so strong a

  capacity as it was now.

  To the two powerful motives which had hitherto tied his

  tongue--respect for Anne's reputation, and reluctance to reveal

  to Blanche the deception which he had been compelled to practice

  on her at the inn--to these two motives there was now added a

  third. The meanness of betraying the confidence which Geoffrey

  had reposed in him would be doubled meanness if he proved false

  to his trust after Geoffrey had personally insulted him. The

  paltry revenge which that false friend had unhesitatingly

  suspected him of taking was a revenge of which Arnold's nature

  was simply incapable. Never had his lips been more effectually

  sealed than at this moment--when his whole future depended on Sir

  Patrick's discovering the part that he had played in past events

  at Craig Fernie.

  "Yes! yes!" resumed Sir Patrick, impatiently. "Blanche's distress

  is intelligible enough. But here is my niece apparently

  answerable for this unhappy woman's disappearance. Can you

  explain what my niece has got to do with it?"

  "I! Blanche herself is completely mystified. How should _I_

  know?"

  Answering in those terms, he spoke with perfect sincerity. Anne's

  vague distrust of the position in which they had innocently

  placed themselves at the inn had produced no corresponding effect

  on Arnold at the time. He had not regarded it; he had not even

  understood it. As a necessary result, not the faintest suspicion

  of the motive under which Anne was acting existed in his mind

  now.

  Sir Patrick put the letter into his pocket-book, and abandoned

  all further attempt at interpreting the meaning of it in despair.

  "Enough, and more than enough, of groping in the dark," he said.

  "One point is clear to me after what has happened up stairs this

  morning. We must accept the position in which Miss Silvester has

  placed us. I shall give up all further effort to trace her from

  this moment."

  "Surely that will be a dreadful disappointment to Blanche, Sir

  Patrick?"

  "I don't deny it. We must face that result."

  "If you are sure there is nothing else to be done, I suppose we

  must."

  "I am not sure of any thing of the so rt, Master Arnold! There

  are two chances still left of throwing light on this matter,

  which are both of them independent of any thing that Miss

  Silvester can do to keep it in the dark."

  "Then why not try them, Sir? It seems hard to drop Miss Silvester

  when she is in trouble."

  "We can't help her against her own will," rejoined Sir Patrick.

  "And we can't run the risk, after that nervous attack this

  morning, of subjecting Blanche to any further suspense. I have

  thought of my niece's interests throughout this business; and if

  I now change my mind, and decline to agitate her by more

  experiments, ending (quite possibly) in more failures, it is

  because I am thinking of her interests still. I have no other

  motive. However numerous my weaknesses may be, ambition to

  distinguish myself as a detective policeman is not one of them.

  The case, from the police point of view, is by no means a lost

  case. I drop it, nevertheless, for Blanche's sake.
Instead of

  encouraging her thoughts to dwell on this melancholy business, we

  must apply the remedy suggested by our medical friend."

  "How is that to be done?" asked Arnold.

  The sly twist of humor began to show itself in Sir Patrick's

  face.

  "Has she nothing to think of in the future, which is a pleasanter

  subject of reflection than the loss of her friend?" he asked.

  "You are interested, my young gentleman, in the remedy that is to

  cure Blanche. You are one of the drugs in the moral prescription.

  Can you guess what it is?"

  Arnold started to his feet, and brightened into a new being.

  "Perhaps you object to be hurried?" said Sir Patrick.

  "Object! If Blanche will only consent, I'll take her to church as

  soon as she comes down stairs!"

  "Thank you!" said Sir Patrick, dryly. "Mr. Arnold Brinkworth, may

  you always be as ready to take Time by the forelock as you are

  now! Sit down again; and don't talk nonsense. It is just

  possible--if Blanche consents (as you say), and if we can hurry

  the lawyers--that you may be married in three weeks' or a month's

  time."

  "What have the lawyers got to do with it?"

  "My good fellow, this is not a marriage in a novel! This is the

  most unromantic affair of the sort that ever happened. Here are a

  young gentleman and a young lady, both rich people; both well

  matched in birth and character; one of age, and the other

  marrying with the full consent and approval of her guardian. What

  is the consequence of this purely prosaic state of things?

  Lawyers and settlements, of course!"

  "Come into the library, Sir Patrick; and I'll soon settle the

  settlements! A bit of paper, and a dip of ink. 'I hereby give

  every blessed farthing I have got in the world to my dear

  Blanche.' Sign that; stick a wafer on at the side; clap your

  finger on the wafer; 'I deliver this as my act and deed;' and

  there it is--done!"

  "Is it, really? You are a born legislator. You create and codify

  your own system all in a breath. Moses-Justinian-Mahomet, give me

  your arm! There is one atom of sense in what you have just said.

  'Come into the library'--is a suggestion worth attending to. Do

  you happen, among your other superfluities, to have such a thing

  as a lawyer about you?"

  "I have got two. One in London, and one in Edinburgh."

  "We will take the nearest of the two, because we are in a hurry.

  Who is the Edinburgh lawyer? Pringle of Pitt Street? Couldn't be

  a better man. Come and write to him. You have given me your

  abstract of a marriage settlement with the brevity of an ancient

  Roman. I scorn to be outdone by an amateur lawyer. Here is _my_

  abstract: You are just and generous to Blanche; Blanche is just

  and generous to you; and you both combine to be just and generous

  together to your children. There is a model settlement! and there

  are your instructions to Pringle of Pitt Street! Can you do it by

  yourself? No; of course you can't. Now don't be slovenly-minded!

  See the points in their order as they come. You are going to be

  married; you state to whom, you add that I am the lady's

  guardian; you give the name and address of my lawyer in

  Edinburgh; you write your instructions plainly in the fewest

  words, and leave details to your legal adviser; you refer the

  lawyers to each other; you request that the draft settlements be

  prepared as speedily as possible, and you give your address at

  this house. There are the heads. Can't you do it now? Oh, the

  rising generation! Oh, the progress we are making in these

  enlightened modern times! There! there! you can marry Blanche,

  and make her happy, and increase the population--and all without

  knowing how to write the English language. One can only say with

  the learned Bevorskius, looking out of his window at the

  illimitable loves of the sparrows, 'How merciful is Heaven to its

  creatures!' Take up the pen. I'll dictate! I'll dictate!"

  Sir Patrick read the letter over, approved of it, and saw it safe

  in the box for the post. This done, he peremptorily forbade

  Arnold to speak to his niece on the subject of the marriage

  without his express permission. "There's somebody else's consent

  to be got," he said, "besides Blanche's consent and mine."

  "Lady Lundie?"

  "Lady Lundie. Strictly speaking, I am the only authority. But my

  sister-in-law is Blanche's step-mother, and she is appointed

  guardian in the event of my death. She has a right to be

  consulted--in courtesy, if not in law. Would you like to do it?"

  Arnold's face fell. He looked at Sir Patrick in silent dismay.

  "What! you can't even speak to such a perfectly pliable person as

  Lady Lundie? You may have been a very useful fellow at sea. A

  more helpless young man I never met with on shore. Get out with

  you into the garden among the other sparrows! Somebody must

  confront her ladyship. And if you won't--I must."

  He pushed Arnold out of the library, and applied meditatively to

  the knob of his cane. His gayety disappeared, now that he was

  alone. His experience of Lady Lundie's character told him that,

  in attempting to win her approval to any scheme for hurrying

  Blanche's marriage, he was undertaking no easy task. "I suppose,"

  mused Sir Patrick, thinking of his late brother--"I suppose poor

  Tom had some way of managing her. How did he do it, I wonder? If

  she had been the wife of a bricklayer, she is the sort of woman

  who would have been kept in perfect order by a vigorous and

  regular application of her husband's fist. But Tom wasn't a

  bricklayer. I wonder how Tom did it?" After a little hard

  thinking on this point Sir Patrick gave up the problem as beyond

  human solution. "It must be done," he concluded. "And my own

  mother-wit must help me to do it."

  In that resigned frame of mind he knocked at the door of Lady

  Lundie's boudoir.

  CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH.

  OUTWITTED.

  SIR PATRICK found his sister-in-law immersed in domestic

  business. Her ladyship's correspondence and visiting list, her

  ladyship's household bills and ledgers; her ladyship's Diary and

  Memorandum-book (bound in scarlet morocco); her ladyship's desk,

  envelope-case, match-box, and taper candlestick (all in ebony and

  silver); her ladyship herself, presiding over her

  responsibilities, and wielding her materials, equal to any calls

  of emergency, beautifully dressed in correct morning costume,

  blessed with perfect health both of the secretions and the

  principles; absolutely void of vice, and formidably full of

  virtue, presented, to every properly-constituted mind, the most

  imposing spectacle known to humanity--the British Matron on her

  throne, asking the world in general, When will you produce the

  like of Me?

  "I am afraid I disturb you," said Sir Patrick. "I am a perfectly

  idle person. Shall I look in a little later?"

  Lady Lundie put her hand to her head, and smiled faintly.

  "A little pressure _here,_ Sir Patrick. Pray sit d
own. Duty finds

  me earnest; Duty finds me cheerful; Duty finds me accessible.

  From a poor, weak woman, Duty must expect no more. Now what is

  it?" (Her ladyship consulted her scarlet memorandum-book.) "I

  have got it here, under its proper head, distinguished by initial

  letters. P.--the. poor. No. H.M.--heathen missions. No.

  V.T.A.--Visitors to arrive. No. P. I. P.--Here it is: private

  interview with Patrick. Will you forgive me the little harmless

  familiari ty of omitting your title? Thank you! You are always so

  good. I am quite at your service when you like to begin. If it's

  any thing painful, pray don't hesitate. I am quite prepared."

  With that intimation her ladyship threw herself back in her

  chair, with her elbows on the arms, and her fingers joined at the

  tips, as if she was receiving a deputation. "Yes?" she said,

  interrogatively. Sir Patrick paid a private tribute of pity to

  his late brother's memory, and entered on his business.

  "We won't call it a painful matter," he began. "Let us say it's a

  matter of domestic anxiety. Blanche--"

  Lady Lundie emitted a faint scream, and put her hand over her

  eyes.

  "_Must_ you?" cried her ladyship, in a tone of touching

  remonstrance. "Oh, Sir Patrick, _must_ you?"

  "Yes. I must."

  Lady Lundie's magnificent eyes looked up at that hidden court of

  human appeal which is lodged in the ceiling. The hidden court

  looked down at Lady Lundie, and saw--Duty advertising itself in

  the largest capital letters.

  "Go on, Sir Patrick. The motto of woman is Self-sacrifice. You

  sha'n't see how you distress me. Go on."

  Sir Patrick went on impenetrably--without betraying the slightest

  expression of sympathy or surprise.

  "I was about to refer to the nervous attack from which Blanche

  has suffered this morning," he said. "May I ask whether you have

  been informed of the cause to which the attack is attributable?"

  "There!" exclaimed Lady Lundie with a sudden bound in her chair,

  and a sudden development of vocal power to correspond. "The one

  thing I shrank from speaking of! the cruel, cruel, cruel behavior

  I was prepared to pass over! And Sir Patrick hints on it!

  Innocently--don't let me do an injustice--innocently hints on

  it!"

  "Hints on what, my dear Madam?"

  "Blanche's conduct to me this morning. Blanche's heartless

  secrecy. Blanche's undutiful silence. I repeat the words:

  Heartless secrecy. Undutiful silence."

  "Allow me for one moment, Lady Lundie--"

  "Allow _me,_ Sir Patrick! Heaven knows how unwilling I am to

  speak of it. Heaven knows that not a word of reference to it

  escaped _my_ lips. But you leave me no choice now. As mistress of

  the household, as a Christian woman, as the widow of your dear

  brother, as a mother to this misguided girl, I must state the

  facts. I know you mean well; I know you wish to spare me. Quite

  useless! I must state the facts."

  Sir Patrick bowed, and submitted. (If he had only been a

  bricklayer! and if Lady Lundie had not been, what her ladyship

  unquestionably was, the strongest person of the two!)

  "Permit me to draw a veil, for your sake," said Lady Lundie,

  "over the horrors--I can not, with the best wish to spare you,

  conscientiously call them by any other name--the horrors that

  took place up stairs. The moment I heard that Blanche was ill I

  was at my post. Duty will always find me ready, Sir Patrick, to

  my dying day. Shocking as the whole thing was, I presided calmly

  over the screams and sobs of my step-daughter. I closed my ears

  to the profane violence of her language. I set the necessary

  example, as an English gentlewoman at the head of her household.

  It was only when I distinctly heard the name of a person, never

  to be mentioned again in my family circle, issue (if I may use

  the expression) from Blanche's lips that I began to be really

  alarmed. I said to my maid: 'Hopkins, this is not Hysteria. This