Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (400 page)

“Suppose I choose to depend on nobody, and to act for myself?” said Magdalen. “What then?”

“Then,” replied the captain, “you will walk straight into one of the four traps which are set to catch you in the ancient and interesting city of York. Trap the first, at Mr. Huxtable’s house; trap the second, at all the hotels; trap the third, at the railway station; trap the fourth, at the theater. That man with the handbills has had an hour at his disposal. If he has not set those four traps (with the assistance of the local solicitor) by this time, he is not the competent lawyer’s clerk I take him for. Come, come, my dear girl! if there is somebody else in the background, whose advice you prefer to mine — ”

“You see that I am alone,” she interposed, proudly. “If you knew me better, you would know that I depend on nobody but myself.”

Those words decided the only doubt which now remained in the captain’s mind — the doubt whether the course was clear before him. The motive of her flight from home was evidently what the handbills assumed it to be — a reckless fancy for going on the stage. “One of two things,” thought Wragge to himself, in his logical way. “She’s worth more than fifty pounds to me in her present situation, or she isn’t. If she is, her friends may whistle for her. If she isn’t, I have only to keep her till the bills are posted.” Fortified by this simple plan of action, the captain returned to the charge, and politely placed Magdalen between the two inevitable alternatives of trusting herself to him, on the one hand, or of returning to her friends, on the other.

“I respect independence of character wherever I find it,” he said, with an air of virtuous severity. “In a young and lovely relative, I more than respect — I admire it. But (excuse the bold assertion), to walk on a way of your own, you must first have a way to walk on. Under existing circumstances, where is
your
way? Mr. Huxtable is out of the question, to begin with.”

“Out of the question for to-night,” said Magdalen; “but what hinders me from writing to Mr. Huxtable, and making my own private arrangements with him for to-morrow?”

“Granted with all my heart — a hit, a palpable hit. Now for my turn. To get to to-morrow (excuse the bold assertion, once more), you must first pass through to-night. Where are you to sleep?”

“Are there no hotels in York?”

“Excellent hotels for large families; excellent hotels for single gentlemen. The very worst hotels in the world for handsome young ladies who present themselves alone at the door without male escort, without a maid in attendance, and without a single article of luggage. Dark as it is, I think I could see a lady’s box, if there was anything of the sort in our immediate neighbourhood.”

“My box is at the cloak-room. What is to prevent my sending the ticket for it?”

“Nothing — if you want to communicate your address by means of your box — nothing whatever. Think; pray think! Do you really suppose that the people who are looking for you are such fools as not to have an eye on the cloakroom? Do you think they are such fools — when they find you don’t come to Mr. Huxtable’s at eight to-night — as not to inquire at all the hotels? Do you think a young lady of your striking appearance (even if they consented to receive you) could take up her abode at an inn without becoming the subject of universal curiosity and remark? Here is night coming on as fast as it can. Don’t let me bore you; only let me ask once more — Where are you to sleep?”

There was no answer to that question: in Magdalen’s position, there was literally no answer to it on her side. She was silent.

“Where are you to sleep?” repeated the captain. “The reply is obvious — under my roof. Mrs. Wragge will be charmed to see you. Look upon her as your aunt; pray look upon her as your aunt. The landlady is a widow, the house is close by, there are no other lodgers, and there is a bedroom to let. Can anything be more satisfactory, under all the circumstances? Pray observe, I say nothing about to-morrow — I leave to-morrow to you, and confine myself exclusively to the night. I may, or may not, command theatrical facilities, which I am in a position to offer you. Sympathy and admiration may, or may not, be strong within me, when I contemplate the dash and independence of your character. Hosts of examples of bright stars of the British drama, who have begun their apprenticeship to the stage as you are beginning yours, may, or may not, crowd on my memory. These are topics for the future. For the present, I confine myself within my strict range of duty. We are within five minutes’ walk of my present address. Allow me to offer you my arm. No? You hesitate? You distrust me? Good heavens! is it possible you can have heard anything to my disadvantage?”

“Quite possible,” said Magdalen, without a moment’s flinching from the answer.

“May I inquire the particulars?” asked the captain, with the politest composure. “Don’t spare my feelings; oblige me by speaking out. In the plainest terms, now, what have you heard?”

She answered him with a woman’s desperate disregard of consequences when she is driven to bay — she answered him instantly,

“I have heard you are a Rogue.”

“Have you, indeed?” said the impenetrable Wragge. “A Rogue? Well, I waive my privilege of setting you right on that point for a fitter time. For the sake of argument, let us say I am a Rogue. What is Mr. Huxtable?”

“A respectable man, or I should not have seen him in the house where we first met.”

“Very good. Now observe! You talked of writing to Mr. Huxtable a minute ago. What do you think a respectable man is likely to do with a young lady who openly acknowledges that she has run away from her home and her friends to go on the stage? My dear girl, on your own showing, it’s not a respectable man you want in your present predicament. It’s a Rogue — like me.”

Magdalen laughed, bitterly.

“There is some truth in that,” she said. “Thank you for recalling me to myself and my circumstances. I have my end to gain — and who am I, to pick and choose the way of getting to it? It is my turn to beg pardon now. I have been talking as if I was a young lady of family and position. Absurd! We know better than that, don’t we, Captain Wragge? You are quite right. Nobody’s child must sleep under Somebody’s roof — and why not yours?”

“This way,” said the captain, dexterously profiting by the sudden change in her humor, and cunningly refraining from exasperating it by saying more himself. “This way.”

She followed him a few steps, and suddenly stopped.

“Suppose I
am
discovered?” she broke out, abruptly. “Who has any authority over me? Who can take me back, if I don’t choose to go? If they all find me to-morrow, what then? Can’t I say No to Mr. Pendril? Can’t I trust my own courage with Miss Garth?”

“Can you trust your courage with your sister?” whispered the captain, who had not forgotten the references to Norah which had twice escaped her already.

Her head drooped. She shivered as if the cold night air had struck her, and leaned back wearily against the parapet of the wall.

“Not with Norah,” she said, sadly. “I could trust myself with the others. Not with Norah.”

“This way,” repeated Captain Wragge. She roused herself; looked up at the darkening heaven, looked round at the darkening view. “What must be, must,” she said, and followed him.

The Minster clock struck the quarter to eight as they left the Walk on the Wall and descended the steps into Rosemary Lane. Almost at the same moment the lawyer’s clerk from London gave the last instructions to his subordinates, and took up his own position, on the opposite side of the river, within easy view of Mr. Huxtable’s door.

CHAPTER II.

CAPTAIN WRAGGE stopped nearly midway in the one little row of houses composing Rosemary Lane, and let himself and his guest in at the door of his lodgings with his own key. As they entered the passage, a care-worn woman in a widow’s cap made her appearance with a candle. “My niece,” said the captain, presenting Magdalen; “my niece on a visit to York. She has kindly consented to occupy your empty bedroom. Consider it let, if you please, to my niece — and be very particular in airing the sheets? Is Mrs. Wragge upstairs? Very good. You may lend me your candle. My dear girl, Mrs. Wragge’s boudoir is on the first floor; Mrs. Wragge is visible. Allow me to show you the way up.”

As he ascended the stairs first, the care-worn widow whispered, piteously, to Magdalen, “I hope you’ll pay me, miss. Your uncle doesn’t.”

The captain threw open the door of the front room on the first floor, and disclosed a female figure, arrayed in a gown of tarnished amber-coloured satin, seated solitary on a small chair, with dingy old gloves on its hands, with a tattered old book on its knees, and with one little bedroom candle by its side. The figure terminated at its upper extremity in a large, smooth, white round face — like a moon — encircled by a cap and green ribbons, and dimly irradiated by eyes of mild and faded blue, which looked straightforward into vacancy, and took not the smallest notice of Magdalen’s appearance, on the opening of the door.

“Mrs. Wragge!” cried the captain, shouting at her as if she was fast asleep. “Mrs. Wragge!”

The lady of the faded blue eyes slowly rose to an apparently interminable height. When she had at last attained an upright position, she towered to a stature of two or three inches over six feet. Giants of both sexes are, by a wise dispensation of Providence, created, for the most part, gentle. If Mrs. Wragge and a lamb had been placed side by side, comparison, under those circumstances, would have exposed the lamb as a rank impostor.

“Tea, captain?” inquired Mrs. Wragge, looking submissively down at her husband, whose head, when he stood on tiptoe, barely reached her shoulder.

“Miss Vanstone, the younger,” said the captain, presenting Magdalen. “Our fair relative, whom I have met by fortunate accident. Our guest for the night. Our guest!” reiterated the captain, shouting once more as if the tall lady was still fast asleep, in spite of the plain testimony of her own eyes to the contrary.

A smile expressed itself (in faint outline) on the large vacant space of Mrs. Wragge’s countenance. “Oh?” she said, interrogatively. “Oh, indeed? Please, miss, will you sit down? I’m sorry — no, I don’t mean I’m sorry; I mean I’m glad — ” she stopped, and consulted her husband by a helpless look.

“Glad, of course!” shouted the captain.

“Glad, of course,” echoed the giantess of the amber satin, more meekly than ever.

“Mrs. Wragge is not deaf,” explained the captain. “She’s only a little slow. Constitutionally torpid — if I may use the expression. I am merely loud with her (and I beg you will honour me by being loud, too) as a necessary stimulant to her ideas. Shout at her — and her mind comes up to time. Speak to her — and she drifts miles away from you directly. Mrs. Wragge!”

Mrs. Wragge instantly acknowledged the stimulant. “Tea, captain?” she inquired, for the second time.

“Put your cap straight!” shouted her husband. “I beg ten thousand pardons,” he resumed, again addressing himself to Magdalen. “The sad truth is, I am a martyr to my own sense of order. All untidiness, all want of system and regularity, cause me the acutest irritation. My attention is distracted, my composure is upset; I can’t rest till things are set straight again. Externally speaking, Mrs. Wragge is, to my infinite regret, the crookedest woman I ever met with. More to the right!” shouted the captain, as Mrs. Wragge, like a well-trained child, presented herself with her revised head-dress for her husband’s inspection.

Mrs. Wragge immediately pulled the cap to the left. Magdalen rose, and set it right for her. The moon-face of the giantess brightened for the first time. She looked admiringly at Magdalen’s cloak and bonnet. “Do you like dress, miss?” she asked, suddenly, in a confidential whisper. “I do.”

“Show Miss Vanstone her room,” said the captain, looking as if the whole house belonged to him. “The spare-room, the landlady’s spare-room, on the third floor front. Offer Miss Vanstone all articles connected with the toilet of which she may stand in need. She has no luggage with her. Supply the deficiency, and then come back and make tea.”

Mrs. Wragge acknowledged the receipt of these lofty directions by a look of placid bewilderment, and led the way out of the room; Magdalen following her, with a candle presented by the attentive captain. As soon as they were alone on the landing outside, Mrs. Wragge raised the tattered old book which she had been reading when Magdalen was first presented to her, and which she had never let out of her hand since, and slowly tapped herself on the forehead with it. “Oh, my poor head!” said the tall lady, in meek soliloquy; “it’s Buzzing again worse than ever!”