Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (420 page)

“The last detail I have to communicate refers to my acquaintance with Mrs. Lecount.

“We met yesterday, in the grocer’s shop here. Keeping my ears open, I found that Mrs. Lecount wanted a particular kind of tea which the man had not got, and which he believed could not be procured any nearer than Ipswich. I instantly saw my way to beginning an acquaintance, at the trifling expense of a journey to that flourishing city. ‘I have business to-day in Ipswich,’ I said, ‘and I propose returning to Aldborough (if I can get back in time) this evening. Pray allow me to take your order for the tea, and to bring it back with my own parcels.’ Mrs. Lecount politely declined giving me the trouble — I politely insisted on taking it. We fell into conversation. There is no need to trouble you with our talk. The result of it on my mind is — that Mrs. Lecount’s one weak point, if she has such a thing at all, is a taste for science, implanted by her deceased husband, the professor. I think I see a chance here of working my way into her good graces, and casting a little needful dust into those handsome black eyes of hers. Acting on this idea when I purchased the lady’s tea at Ipswich, I also bought on my own account that far-famed pocket-manual of knowledge, ‘Joyce’s Scientific Dialogues.’ Possessing, as I do, a quick memory and boundless confidence in myself, I propose privately inflating my new skin with as much ready-made science as it will hold, and presenting Mr. Bygrave to Mrs. Lecount’s notice in the character of the most highly informed man she has met with since the professor’s death. The necessity of blindfolding that woman (to use your own admirable expression) is as clear to me as to you. If it is to be done in the way I propose, make your mind easy — Wragge, inflated by Joyce, is the man to do it.

“You now have my whole budget of news. Am I, or am I not, worthy of your confidence in me? I say nothing of my devouring anxiety to know what your objects really are — that anxiety will be satisfied when we meet. Never yet, my dear girl, did I long to administer a productive pecuniary Squeeze to any human creature, as I long to administer it to Mr. Noel Vanstone. I say no more.
Verbum sap.
Pardon the pedantry of a Latin quotation, and believe me,

“Entirely yours,

“HORATIO WRAGGE.

“P.S. — I await my instructions, as you requested. You have only to say whether I shall return to London for the purpose of escorting you to this place, or whether I shall wait here to receive you. The house is in perfect order, the weather is charming, and the sea is as smooth as Mrs. Lecount’s apron. She has just passed the window, and we have exchanged bows. A sharp woman, my dear Magdalen; but Joyce and I together may prove a trifle too much for her.”

XIII.

Extract from the “East Suffolk Argus.”

“ALDBOROUGH. — We notice with pleasure the arrival of visitors to this healthful and far-famed watering-place earlier in the season than usual during the present year.
Esto Perpetua
is all we have to say.

“VISITORS’ LIST. — Arrivals since our last. North Shingles Villa — Mrs. Bygrave; Miss Bygrave.”

THE FOURTH SCENE.

ALDBOROUGH, SUFFOLK.

CHAPTER I.

THE most striking spectacle presented to a stranger by the shores of Suffolk is the extraordinary defenselessness of the land against the encroachments of the sea.

At Aldborough, as elsewhere on this coast, local traditions are, for the most part, traditions which have been literally drowned. The site of the old town, once a populous and thriving port, has almost entirely disappeared in the sea. The German Ocean has swallowed up streets, market-places, jetties, and public walks; and the merciless waters, consummating their work of devastation, closed, no longer than eighty years since, over the salt-master’s cottage at Aldborough, now famous in memory only as the birthplace of the poet CRABBE.

Thrust back year after year by the advancing waves, the inhabitants have receded, in the present century, to the last morsel of land which is firm enough to be built on — a strip of ground hemmed in between a marsh on one side and the sea on the other. Here, trusting for their future security to certain sand-hills which the capricious waves have thrown up to encourage them, the people of Aldborough have boldly established their quaint little watering-place. The first fragment of their earthly possessions is a low natural dike of shingle, surmounted by a public path which runs parallel with the sea. Bordering this path, in a broken, uneven line, are the villa residences of modern Aldborough — fanciful little houses, standing mostly in their own gardens, and possessing here and there, as horticultural ornaments, staring figure-heads of ships doing duty for statues among the flowers. Viewed from the low level on which th ese villas stand, the sea, in certain conditions of the atmosphere, appears to be higher than the land: coasting-vessels gliding by assume gigantic proportions, and look alarmingly near the windows. Intermixed with the houses of the better sort are buildings of other forms and periods. In one direction the tiny Gothic town-hall of old Aldborough — once the centre of the vanished port and borough — now stands, fronting the modern villas close on the margin of the sea. At another point, a wooden tower of observation, crowned by the figure-head of a wrecked Russian vessel, rises high above the neighbouring houses, and discloses through its scuttle-window grave men in dark clothing seated on the topmost story, perpetually on the watch — the pilots of Aldborough looking out from their tower for ships in want of help. Behind the row of buildings thus curiously intermingled runs the one straggling street of the town, with its sturdy pilots’ cottages, its mouldering marine store-houses, and its composite shops. Toward the northern end this street is bounded by the one eminence visible over all the marshy flat — a low wooded hill, on which the church is built. At its opposite extremity the street leads to a deserted martello tower, and to the forlorn outlying suburb of Slaughden, between the river Alde and the sea. Such are the main characteristics of this curious little outpost on the shores of England as it appears at the present time.

On a hot and cloudy July afternoon, and on the second day which had elapsed since he had written to Magdalen, Captain Wragge sauntered through the gate of North Shingles Villa to meet the arrival of the coach, which then connected Aldborough with the Eastern Counties Railway. He reached the principal inn as the coach drove up, and was ready at the door to receive Magdalen and Mrs. Wragge, on their leaving the vehicle.

The captain’s reception of his wife was not characterized by an instant’s unnecessary waste of time. He looked distrustfully at her shoes — raised himself on tiptoe — set her bonnet straight for her with a sharp tug — -said, in a loud whisper, “hold your tongue” — and left her, for the time being, without further notice. His welcome to Magdalen, beginning with the usual flow of words, stopped suddenly in the middle of the first sentence. Captain Wragge’s eye was a sharp one, and it instantly showed him something in the look and manner of his old pupil which denoted a serious change.

There was a settled composure on her face which, except when she spoke, made it look as still and cold as marble. Her voice was softer and more equable, her eyes were steadier, her step was slower than of old. When she smiled, the smile came and went suddenly, and showed a little nervous contraction on one side of her mouth never visible there before. She was perfectly patient with Mrs. Wragge; she treated the captain with a courtesy and consideration entirely new in his experience of her — but she was interested in nothing. The curious little shops in the back street; the high impending sea; the old town-hall on the beach; the pilots, the fishermen, the passing ships — she noticed all these objects as indifferently as if Aldborough had been familiar to her from her infancy. Even when the captain drew up at the garden-gate of North Shingles, and introduced her triumphantly to the new house, she hardly looked at it. The first question she asked related not to her own residence, but to Noel Vanstone’s.

“How near to us does he live?” she inquired, with the only betrayal of emotion which had escaped her yet.

Captain Wragge answered by pointing to the fifth villa from North Shingles, on the Slaughden side of Aldborough. Magdalen suddenly drew back from the garden-gate as he indicated the situation, and walked away by herself to obtain a nearer view of the house. Captain Wragge looked after her, and shook his head, discontentedly.

“May I speak now?” inquired a meek voice behind him, articulating respectfully ten inches above the top of his straw hat.

The captain turned round, and confronted his wife. The more than ordinary bewilderment visible in her face at once suggested to him that Magdalen had failed to carry out the directions in his letter; and that Mrs. Wragge had arrived at Aldborough without being properly aware of the total transformation to be accomplished in her identity and her name. The necessity of setting this doubt at rest was too serious to be trifled with; and Captain Wragge instituted the necessary inquiries without a moment’s delay.

“Stand straight, and listen to me,” he began. “I have a question to ask you. Do you know whose Skin you are in at this moment? Do you know that you are dead and buried in London; and that you have risen like a phoenix from the ashes of Mrs. Wragge? No! you evidently don’t know it. This is perfectly disgraceful. What is your name?”

“Matilda,” answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment.

“Nothing of the sort!” cried the captain, fiercely. “How dare you tell me your name’s Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I? — Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I’ll pitch it into the sea! — Who am I?”

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time.

“Sit down!” said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. “More to the right! More still! That will do. You don’t know?” repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. “Don’t let me hear you say that a second time. Don’t let me have a woman who doesn’t know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left — more still — that will do. Who am I? I’m Mr. Bygrave — Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You’re Mrs. Bygrave — Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave — Christian name, Susan. I’m her clever uncle Tom; and you’re her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?”

“Spare my poor head!” pleaded Mrs. Wragge. “Oh, please spare my poor head till I’ve got the stage-coach out of it!”

“Don’t distress her,” said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. “She will learn it in time. Come into the house.”

Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. “We are beginning badly,” he said, with less politeness than usual. “My wife’s stupidity stands in our way already.”

They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain’s arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge’s customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband’s orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it “up at heel”), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. “You look fatigued,” he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. “I am afraid the journey has been too much for you.”