Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1951 page)

MAG. Am I to understand those as your last words?

VANS. Precisely, madam.

MAG. You have got their father’s money, and you refuse to part with a single farthing of it?

VANS. Most accurately stated.

MAD. L. No, no, sir! now I must be allowed to speak. Let me suggest a compromise; you must do justice to yourself, sir; you follow your honoured father’s example, you feel it due to his memory to act as he has acted before you. Well, he made a proposal, and you will make that proposal again; you will give a hundred pounds apiece to them. If you do that, you’ll do enough; yes, Miss Garth, if he gives a hundred pounds to each of these unfortunate girls —
 
—

MAG. (
starts from her chair, and replies in her own voice
). He will repent the insult to the last hour of his life.

MAD. L. (
aside
). As I suspected, ‘tis the girl herself.

MAG. (
recovering herself
). You may mean well, Madame Lecompte, but you are doing harm instead of good. My pupils will accept of no such compromise as you propose.

MAD. L. What more can I do? my nerves are so shaken by this sad scene — I must have a glass of water, or I shall faint. I must retire, sir, for a moment; but don’t go yet, Miss Garth. Give us time to think, and set this matter right, if we can; give us time to think, (
she goes off,
C.,
but appears directly after, listening.
)

VANS. No, no, don’t go, Lecompte, don’t go, I — I pray. Miss Garth, remember, I don’t deny the case is a hard one. You say you have no wish to offend me, and I’m sure I’ve no wish to offend you. May I offer you some strawberries? I assure you I’m naturally a gallant man, and I feel for these poor sisters, especially the younger one, who was going to be married. Touch me on the subject of the tender passion, and you touch me in a weak place. Nothing would please me better than to hear that young Miss Vanstone’s lover had come back, and if a loan of money would be likely to bring him, and the security offered me were good —
 
—

MAG. Stop, sir. You are entirely wrong in the estimate you’ve taken of that girl — entirely wrong in thinking that her marriage would alter her convictions, though I don’t deny she clings to it, and to the hope of rescuing her sister from dependence. I know her, Mr. Vanstone. She is now a nameless, homeless, friendless wretch; the law that takes care of you, casts her like carrion to the winds. It is your law, not hers; she only knows it as the instrument of a vile oppression, an insufferable wrong — the sense of that wrong haunts her like a possession of the devil — the resolve to right that wrong burns in her like fire! If that miserable girl were married, and rich with millions to-morrow, do you think she would move an inch, a single inch from her purpose? I tell you she would resist to the last breath in her body — I tell you she would shrink from no means which a desperate woman can employ to force that closed hand of yours to open, or die in the attempt!

VANS. (
shouting
). Madame Lecompte!

Enter
MADAME LECOMPTE, C.

MAD. L. Good heavens, sir! What’s happened? You are very pale, you are agitated. Oh, Miss Garth, have you forgotten the caution which I gave you when you entered?

VANS. (
loudly
). Miss Garth has forgotten everything. She has threatened me, absolutely threatened me, and in the most outrageous manner. I forbid you to pity either of these two girls another moment, especially the younger, who is the most desperate wretch I ever heard of. If she can’t get my money by fair means, she means to do it by foul. Miss Garth has told me so to my face — to my face, ma’am — to my face!

MAD. L. Compose yourself, sir, pray compose yourself, and leave me to speak to Miss Garth. I regret to find, madam, you have so much forgotten the important caution I gave you. You have agitated Mr. Noel, and have compromised the interests you came here to plead; the language you have used is merely that which your pupil used in her letter, and how can a lady of your years and experience seriously repeat such nonsense? This girl boasts and threatens she will do this and do that. You have her confidence, and pray tell me, in plain words, what is it she can do? (
music to end.
)

MAG. Her own acts, madam, will best enlighten you, and answer your question when the time comes. My errand is done. I leave Mr. Noel Vanstone with two alternatives to choose from; to share Mr. Andrew Vanstone’s fortune with Mr. Andrew Vanstone’s daughters, or to persist in his present refusal, and face the consequences. I wish you good morning. (
up
C.)

MAD. L. (
detains her, aside to her
). You are a bold woman, madam, and a clever one; but don’t be too bold, don’t be too clever. You are risking more than you think for; one last word: when your pupil was a little innocent child, did she ever amuse herself by building a house of cards?

MAG. (
aside to her
). She may have done so.

MAD. L. (
same
). Did you ever see her build up the house higher and higher, till it was quite a pagoda of cards, and open her little eyes wide and look at it, and feel so proud of what she had done already, that she wanted to do more? Did you ever see her steady her little hand, and hold her innocent breath, and put one card on the top, and lay the whole house an instant afterwards a heap of ruins on the table? Give her, if you please, a friendly message. She has built the house high enough already, and I recommend her to be more careful before she puts on the other card.

MAG. (
same
). She shall have your message, but I doubt her minding it. Her hand is steadier than you suppose, and I think she will put on the other card.

MAD. L. (
same
). And bring the house down.

MAG. And build it up again! (
aloud
) I wish you a good morning.

[
Exit,
L. 3. E. D.

VANS. (
falls back in chair,
R. C). Madame Lecompte! (MADAME L.
leans over him.
)

CURTAIN.

ACT IV.

SCENE. —
The beach at Aldborough, on the coast of Norfolk.

CAPTAIN WRAGGE
enters from
R.,
house — a newspaper in his hand.

CAPT. W. Nobody out yet, and the day so splendid; neither Mr. Vanstone nor his housekeeper — that charming Madame Lecompte! that she-dragon, who thinks she is guarding her Thespian bachelor so safely. To-day may teach her differently — (
walks about
) to-day may show her the sort of antagonist she possesses in the person of Mr. Bygrave. Bygrave, ha, ha! that name begins to be as natural to me as if I had never had another, and yet I have owned it only a month, only the one month that we have been at Aldborough. Mr. and Mrs. Bygrave, and their niece, Miss Bygrave, who arrived at North Shingles cottage just one fortnight after Mr. Vanstone had taken up his abode at Sea View, opposite. That name is one of the skins that I keep by me ready to jump into. The designation of individuals who have retired from this mortal scene, and with whose families and circumstances I have made myself acquainted. Some I have tried on, some remain to try; this of the departed Mr. Bygrave fits me without a wrinkle. Miss Vanstone slipped with great ease into that of the late Miss Bygrave; and when we had pushed Mrs. Wragge almost headforemost into Mrs. B.’s, the transformation was complete; our only chance of betrayal is by that simpleton, my wife, whom I have instructed in her new relationship almost a dozen times a day, and yet —
 
—

MRS. WRAGGE
comes from the house.

MRS. WRAGGE. Oh, please, dear, Miss Vanstone wishes to know —
 
—

CAPT. W. Vanstone!

MRS. W. Oh, no dear — no — I meant —
 
—

CAPT. W. Why, this is infamous; don’t know her name yet, after all I have told you! Do you know your own?

MRS. W. Yes, dear; Matilda!

CAPT. W. Nothing of the sort. How dare you tell me your name’s Matilda? Your name’s Julia. Who am I?

MRS. W. I — I don’t know, dear!

CAPT. W. You don’t know?

MRS. W. Well, dear — I —
 
—

CAPT. W. Stand straight. Don’t know the skin I am in; nor the skin you are in yourself; don’t know that you are dead and buried in London, and that you have risen like a phoenix from the ashes of Mrs. Wragge? This is perfectly disgraceful! (
crosses to
R.,
and returns.
)

MRS. W. Well, dear, I’m very sorry — but —
 
—

CAPT. W. Sit down; more to the right, more still. (MRS. WRAGGE
takes seat,
R.) Didn’t I tell you that my brother, Mr. John Bygrave, was in the mahogany and logwood trade at Belize, Honduras, where he died and was buried on the south-west side of the local cemetery, and has a neat monument of native wood, carved by a self-taught negro artist; and that nineteen months afterwards his wife died at Cheltenham, died of apoplexy at a boarding-house, in consequence of her corpulence, being supposed to be the most corpulent woman in all England, and that her daughter, who is the image of her in everything but corpulence, has been under our care ever since?

MRS. W. Ye — yes, dear.

CAPT. W. Then don’t let me hear you say, “You don’t know who we are,” again. Now look at me; more to the left, more still. Who am? Mr. Bygrave, Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? Mrs. Bygrave Christian name, Julia. Who is the young lady who is with us? That young lady is Miss Bygrave, Christian name, Susan. I am her clever uncle, Tom, and you are her addle-headed aunt, Julia. Say it all over to me in an instant, say it like the catechism.

MRS. W. Oh, my poor head! The buzzing’s come again.

CAPT. W. Sit straight, will you, and say it?

MAGDALEN
enters from
R.
house.

MAGDALEN. Don’t distress her, she’ll learn it all in time. She’ll go into the house and think it over.

MRS. W. Oh, the buzzing. [
Exit,
R.
house.
MAGDALEN
takes seat,
L.

CAPT. W. Precautions, my dear Miss Vanstone, proper precautions with that woman, or —
 
—

CAPTAIN KIRKE
enters,
R. U. E.,
and seeing
MAGDALEN,
pauses an instant surveying her.

KIRKE (
aside
). It is herself. I am again so fortunate as to see her, to see her if but for an instant; and if, also, for the last time —
 
— (MAGDALEN,
seeing
KIRKE,
rises indignantly.
KIRKE
bows respectfully and goes off
L. H.)

MAG. Who is that man that follows me so impertinently — that a second time has presumed to stare at me in that manner?

CAPT. W. My dear Miss Vanstone, you really must be a little tolerant when you afford him so much excuse. A person of your appearance is not seen ordinarily at Aldborough. I inquired who was this person when he followed and stared at you before, and I find he is a son of Neptune, a rough and simple, but worthy sailor, the captain of an East Indiaman, on a visit here to his brother-in-law, the rector. Sailors, you know, are just like children; if they see anything grand or beautiful they stare at it as a matter of course, without any notion of giving offence. (MAGDALEN
resumes her seat.
)

MAG. The people here are boors. (
pausing
) Do you find me changed?

CAPT. W. Changed?

MAG. I have lost all care for myself. There are things I would have died rather than do at one time; things it would have turned we cold to think of.

CAPT. W. Very true, but —
 
—

CAPT. W. I don’t care now whether I do such things or not. I am nothing to myself; no more to myself than that tuft of grass I see before me. I suppose I have lost something. What is it, heart — conscience? I don’t know, do you? What nonsense I am talking. Who cares what I have lost — it’s gone, and there’s an end of it. (
hangs her head.
)