Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (392 page)

“Oh, never doubt her again!” pleaded Norah. “We are alone now — we have our hard way through the world to walk on as patiently as we can. If Magdalen ever falters and turns back, help her for the love of old times; help her against herself.”

“With all my heart and strength — as God shall judge me, with the devotion of my whole life!” In those fervent words Miss Garth answered. She took the hand which Norah held out to her, and put it, in sorrow and humility, to her lips. “Oh, my love, forgive me! I have been miserably blind — I have never valued you as I ought!”

Norah gently checked her before she could say more; gently whispered, “Come with me into the garden — come, and help Magdalen to look patiently to the future.”

The future! Who could see the faintest glimmer of it? Who could see anything but the ill-omened figure of Michael Vanstone, posted darkly on the verge of the present time — and closing all the prospect that lay beyond him?

CHAPTER XV.

ON the next morning but one, news was received from Mr. Pendril. The place of Michael Vanstone’s residence on the Continent had been discovered. He was living at Zurich; and a letter had been dispatched to him, at that place, on the day when the information was obtained. In the course of the coming week an answer might be expected, and the purport of it should be communicated forthwith to the ladies at Combe-Raven.

Short as it was, the interval of delay passed wearily. Ten days elapsed before the expected answer was received; and when it came at last, it proved to be, strictly speaking, no answer at all. Mr. Pendril had been merely referred to an agent in London who was in possession of Michael Vanstone’s instructions. Certain difficulties had been discovered in connection with those instructions, which had produced the necessity of once more writing to Zurich. And there “the negotiations” rested again for the present.

A second paragraph in Mr. Pendril’s letter contained another piece of intelligence entirely new. Mr. Michael Vanstone’s son (and only child), Mr. Noel Vanstone, had recently arrived in London, and was then staying in lodgings occupied by his cousin, Mr. George Bartram. Professional considerations had induced Mr. Pendril to pay a visit to the lodgings. He had been very kindly received by Mr. Bartram; but had been informed by that gentleman that his cousin was not then in a condition to receive visitors. Mr. Noel Vanstone had been suffering, for some years past, from a wearing and obstinate malady; he had come to England expressly to obtain the best medical advice, and he still felt the fatigue of the journey so severely as to be confined to his bed. Under these circumstances, Mr. Pendril had no alternative but to take his leave. An interview with Mr. Noel Vanstone might have cleared up some of the difficulties in connection with his father’s instructions. As events had turned out, there was no help for it but to wait for a few days more.

The days passed, the empty days of solitude and suspense. At last, a third letter from the lawyer announced the long delayed conclusion of the correspondence. The final answer had been received from Zurich, and Mr. Pendril would personally communicate it at Combe-Raven on the afternoon of the next day.

That next day was Wednesday, the twelfth of August. The weather had changed in the night; and the sun rose watery through mist and cloud. By noon the sky was overcast at all points; the temperature was sensibly colder; and the rain poured down, straight and soft and steady, on the thirsty earth. Toward three o’clock, Miss Garth and Norah entered the morning-room, to await Mr. Pendril’s arrival. They were joined shortly afterward by Magdalen. In half an hour more the familiar fall of the iron latch in the socket reached their ears from the fence beyond the shrubbery. Mr. Pendril and Mr. Clare advanced into view along the garden-path, walking arm-in-arm through the rain, sheltered by the same umbrella. The lawyer bowed as they passed the windows; Mr. Clare walked straight on, deep in his own thoughts — noticing nothing.

After a delay which seemed interminable; after a weary scraping of wet feet on the hall mat; after a mysterious, muttered interchange of question and answer outside the door, the two came in — Mr. Clare leading the way. The old man walked straight up to the table, without any preliminary greeting, and looked across it at the three women, with a stern pity for them in his ragged, wrinkled face.

“Bad news,” he said. “I am an enemy to all unnecessary suspense. Plainness is kindness in such a case as this. I mean to be kind — and I tell you plainly — bad news.”

Mr. Pendril followed him. He shook hands, in silence, with Miss Garth and the two sisters, and took a seat near them. Mr. Clare placed himself apart on a chair by the window. The gray rainy light fell soft and sad on the faces of Norah and Magdalen, who sat together opposite to him. Miss Garth had placed herself a little behind them, in partial shadow; and the lawyer’s quiet face was seen in profile, close beside her. So the four occupants of the room appeared to Mr. Clare, as he sat apart in his corner; his long claw-like fingers interlaced on his knee; his dark vigilant eyes fixed searchingly now on one face, now on another. The dripping rustle of the rain among the leaves, and the clear, ceaseless tick of the clock on the mantel-piece, made the minute of silence which followed the settling of the persons present in their places indescribably oppressive. It was a relief to every one when Mr. Pendril spoke.

“Mr. Clare has told you already,” he began, “that I am the bearer of bad news. I am grieved to say, Miss Garth, that your doubts, when I last saw you, were better founded than my hopes. What that heartless elder brother was in his youth, he is still in his old age. In all my unhappy experience of the worst side of human nature, I have never met with a man so utterly dead to every consideration of mercy as Michael Vanstone.”

“Do you mean that he takes the whole of his brother’s fortune, and makes no provision whatever for his brother’s children?” asked Miss Garth.

“He offers a sum of money for present emergencies,” replied Mr. Pendril, “so meanly and disgracefully insufficient that I am ashamed to mention it.”

“And nothing for the future?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

As that answer was given, the same thought passed, at the same moment, through Miss Garth’s mind and through Norah’s. The decision, which deprived both the sisters alike of the resources of fortune, did not end there for the younger of the two. Michael Vanstone’s merciless resolution had virtually pronounced the sentence which dismissed Frank to China, and which destroyed all present hope of Magdalen’s marriage. As the words passed the lawyer’s lips, Miss Garth and Norah looked at Magdalen anxiously. Her face turned a shade paler — but not a feature of it moved; not a word escaped her. Norah, who held her sister’s hand in her own, felt it tremble for a moment, and then turn cold — and that was all.

“Let me mention plainly what I have done,” resumed Mr. Pendril; “I am very desirous you should not think that I have left any effort untried. When I wrote to Michael Vanstone, in the first instance, I did not confine myself to the usual formal statement. I put before him, plainly and earnestly, every one of the circumstances under which he has become possessed of his brother’s fortune. When I received the answer, referring me to his written instructions to his lawyer in London — and when a copy of those instructions was placed in my hands — I positively declined, on becoming acquainted with them, to receive the writer’s decision as final. I induced the solicitor, on the other side, to accord us a further term of delay; I attempted to see Mr. Noel Vanstone in London for the purpose of obtaining his intercession; and, failing in that, I myself wrote to his father for the second time. The answer referred me, in insolently curt terms, to the instructions already communicated; declared those instructions to be final; and declined any further correspondence with me. There is the beginning and the end of the negotiation. If I have overlooked any means of touching this heartless man — tell me, and those means shall be tried.”

He looked at Norah. She pressed her sister’s hand encouragingly, and answered for both of them.

“I speak for my sister, as well as for myself,” she said, with her colour a little heightened, with her natural gentleness of manner just touched by a quiet, uncomplaining sadness. “You have done all that could be done, Mr. Pendril. We have tried to restrain ourselves from hoping too confidently; and we are deeply grateful for your kindness, at a time when kindness is sorely needed by both of us.”

Magdalen’s hand returned the pressure of her sister’s — withdrew itself — trifled for a moment impatiently with the arrangement of her dress — then suddenly moved the chair closer to the table. Leaning one arm on it (with the hand fast clinched), she looked across at Mr. Pendril. Her face, always remarkable for its want of colour, was now startling to contemplate, in its blank, bloodless pallor. But the light in her large gray eyes was bright and steady as ever; and her voice, though low in tone, was clear and resolute in accent as she addressed the lawyer in these terms:

“I understood you to say, Mr. Pendril, that my father’s brother had sent his written orders to London, and that you had a copy. Have you preserved it?”

“Certainly.”

“Have you got it about you?”

“I have.”

“May I see it?”

Mr. Pendril hesitated, and looked uneasily from Magdalen to Miss Garth, and from Miss Garth back again to Magdalen.

“Pray oblige me by not pressing your request,” he said. “It is surely enough that you know the result of the instructions. Why should you agitate yourself to no purpose by reading them? They are expressed so cruelly; they show such abominable want of feeling, that I really cannot prevail upon myself to let you see them.”

“I am sensible of your kindness, Mr. Pendril, in wishing to spare me pain. But I can bear pain; I promise to distress nobody. Will you excuse me if I repeat my request?”

She held out her hand — the soft, white, virgin hand that had touched nothing to soil it or harden it yet.

“Oh, Magdalen, think again!” said Norah.

“You distress Mr. Pendril,” added Miss Garth; “you distress us all.”

“There can be no end gained,” pleaded the lawyer — ”forgive me for saying so — there can really be no useful end gained by my showing you the instructions.”

(“Fools!” said Mr. Clare to himself. “Have they no eyes to see that she means to have her own way?”)

“Something tells me there is an end to be gained,” persisted Magdalen. “This decision is a very serious one. It is more serious to me — ” She looked round at Mr. Clare, who sat closely watching her, and instantly looked back again, with the first outward betrayal of emotion which had escaped her yet. “It is even more serious to me,” she resumed, “for private reasons — than it is to my sister. I know nothing yet but that our father’s brother has taken our fortunes from us. He must have some motives of his own for such conduct as that. It is not fair to him, or fair to us, to keep those motives concealed. He has deliberately robbed Norah, and robbed me; and I think we have a right, if we wish it, to know why?”

“I don’t wish it,” said Norah.

“I do,” said Magdalen; and once more she held out her hand.

At this point Mr. Clare roused himself and interfered for the first time.

“You have relieved your conscience,” he said, addressing the lawyer. “Give her the right she claims. It
is
her right — if she will have it.”

Mr. Pendril quietly took the written instructions from his pocket. “I have warned you,” he said — and handed the papers across the table without another word. One of the pages of writing — was folded down at the corner; and at that folded page the manuscript opened, when Magdalen first turned the leaves. “Is this the place which refers to my sister and myself?” she inquired. Mr. Pendril bowed; and Magdalen smoothed out the manuscript before her on the table.

“Will you decide, Norah?” she asked, turning to her sister. “Shall I read this aloud, or shall I read it to myself?”

“To yourself,” said Miss Garth; answering for Norah, who looked at her in mute perplexity and distress.

“It shall be as you wish,” said Magdalen. With that reply, she turned again to the manuscript and read these lines:

“.... You are now in possession of my wishes in relation to the property in money, and to the sale of the furniture, carriages, horses, and so forth. The last point left on which it is necessary for me to instruct you refers to the persons inhabiting the house, and to certain preposterous claims on their behalf set up by a solicitor named Pendril; who has, no doubt, interested reasons of his own for making application to me.