Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (468 page)

This was the man whose secret it was now the one interest of Magdalen’s life to surprise! This was the man whose name had supplanted hers in Noel Vanstone’s will!

The fish and the roast meat followed; and the admiral’s talk rambled on — now in soliloquy, now addressed to the parlor-maid, and now directed to the dogs — as familiarly and as discontentedly as ever. Magdalen observed with some surprise that the companions of the admiral’s dinner had, thus far, received no scraps from their master’s plate. The two magnificent brutes sat squatted on their haunches, with their great heads over the table, watching the progress of the meal, with the profoundest attention, but apparently expecting no share in it. The roast meat was removed, the admiral’s plate was changed, and Magdalen took the silver covers off the two made-dishes on either side of the table. As she handed the first of the savory dishes to her master, the dogs suddenly exhibited a breathless personal interest in the proceedings. Brutus gluttonously watered at the mouth; and the tongue of Cassius, protruding in unutterable expectation, smoked again between his enormous jaws.

The admiral helped himself liberally from the dish; sent Magdalen to the side-table to get him some bread; and, when he thought her eye was off him, furtively tumbled the whole contents of his plate into Brutus’s mouth. Cassius whined faintly as his fortunate comrade swallowed the savory mess at a gulp. “Hush! you fool,” whispered the admiral. “Your turn next!”

Magdalen presented the second dish. Once more the old gentleman helped himself largely — once more he sent her away to the side-table — once more he tumbled the entire contents of the plate down the dog’s throat, selecting Cassius this time, as became a considerate master and an impartial man. When the next course followed — consisting of a plain pudding and an unwholesome “cream” — Magdalen’s suspicion of the function of the dogs at the dinner-table was confirmed. While the master took the simple pudding, the dogs swallowed the elabourate cream. The admiral was plainly afraid of offending his cook on the one hand, and of offending his digestion on the other — and Brutus and Cassius were the two trained accomplices who regularly helped him every day off the horns of his dilemma. “Very good! very good!” said the old gentleman, with the most transparent duplicity. “Tell the cook, my dear, a capital cream!”

Having placed the wine and dessert on the table, Magdalen was about to withdraw. Before she could leave the room, her master called her back.

“Stop, stop!” said the admiral; “you don’t know the ways of the house yet, Lucy. Put another wine-glass here, at my right hand — the largest you can find, my dear. I’ve got a third dog, who comes in at dessert — a drunken old sea-dog who has followed my fortunes, afloat and ashore, for fifty years and more. Yes, yes, that’s the sort of glass we want. You’re a good girl — you’re a neat, handy girl. Steady, my dear! there’s nothing to be frightened at!”

A sudden thump on the outside of the door, followed by one mighty bark from each of the dogs, had made Magdalen start. “Come in!” shouted the admiral. The door opened; the tails of Brutus and Cassius cheerfully thumped the floor; and old Mazey marched straight up to the right-hand side of his master’s chair. The veteran stood there, with his legs wide apart and his balance carefully adjusted, as if the dining-room had been a cabin, and the house a ship pitching in a sea-way.

The admiral filled the large glass with port, filled his own glass with claret, and raised it to his lips.

“God bless the Queen, Mazey,” said the admiral.

“God bless the Queen, your honour,” said old Mazey, swallowing his port, as the dogs swallowed the made-dishes, at a gulp.

“How’s the wind, Mazey?”

“West and by Noathe, your honour.”

“Any report to-night, Mazey!”

“No report, your honour.”

“Good-evening, Mazey.”

“Good-evening, your honour.”

The after-dinner ceremony thus completed, old Mazey made his bow, and walked out of the room again. Brutus and Cassius stretched themselves on the rug to digest mushrooms and made gravies in the lubricating heat of the fire. “For what we have received, the Lord make us truly thankful,” said the admiral. “Go downstairs, my good girl, and get your supper. A light meal, Lucy, if you take my advice — a light meal, or you will have the nightmare. Early to bed, my dear, and early to rise, makes a parlor-maid healthy and wealthy and wise. That’s the wisdom of your ancestors — you mustn’t laugh at it. Good-night.” In those words Magdalen was dismissed; and so her first day’s experience of Admiral Bartram came to an end.

After breakfast the next morning, the admiral’s directions to the new parlor-maid included among them one particular order which, in Magdalen’s situation, it was especially her interest to receive. In the old gentleman’s absence from home that day, on local business which took him to Ossory, she was directed to make herself acquainted with the whole inhabited quarter of the house, and to learn the positions of the various rooms, so as to know where the bells called her when the bells rang. Mrs. Drake was charged with the duty of superintending the voyage of domestic discovery, unless she happened to be otherwise engaged — in which case any one of the inferior servants would be equally competent to act as Magdalen’s guide.

At noon the admiral left for Ossory, and Magdalen presented herself in Mrs. Drake’s room, to be shown over the house. Mrs. Drake happened to be otherwise engaged, and referred her to the head house-maid. The head house-maid happened on that particular morning to be in the same condition as Mrs. Drake, and referred her to the under-house-maids. The under-house-maids declared they were all behindhand and had not a minute to spare — they suggested, not too civilly, that old Mazey had nothing on earth to do, and that he knew the house as well, or better, than he knew his A B C. Magdalen took the hint, with a secret indignation and contempt which it cost her a hard struggle to conceal. She had suspected, on the previous night, and she was certain now, that the women-servants all incomprehensibly resented her presence among them with the same sullen unanimity of distrust. Mrs. Drake, as she had seen for herself, was really engaged that morning over her accounts. But of all the servants under her who had made their excuses not one had even affected to be more occupied than usual. Their looks said plainly, “We don’t like you; and we won’t show you over the house.”

She found her way to old Mazey, not by the scanty directions given her, but by the sound of the veteran’s cracked and quavering voice, singing in some distant seclusion a verse of the immortal sea-song — ”Tom Bowling.” Just as she stopped among the rambling stone passages on the basement story of the house, uncertain which way to turn next, she heard the tuneless old voice in the distance, singing these lines:

    
“His form was of the manliest beau-u-u-uty,

    
His heart was ki-i-ind and soft;

    
Faithful below Tom did his duty,

    
But now he’s gone alo-o-o-o-oft

   
— But now he’s go-o-o-one aloft!”

Magdalen followed in the direction of the quavering voice, and found herself in a little room looking out on the back yard. There sat old Mazey, with his spectacles low on his nose, and his knotty old hands blundering over the rigging of his model ship. There were Brutus and Cassius digesting before the fire again, and snoring as if they thoroughly enjoyed it. There was Lord Nelson on one wall, in flaming watercolours; and there, on the other, was a portrait of Admiral Bartram’s last flagship, in full sail on a sea of slate, with a salmon-coloured sky to complete the illusion.

“What, they won’t show you over the house — won’t they?” said old Mazey. “I will, then! That head house-maid’s a sour one, my dear — if ever there was a sour one yet. You’re too young and good-looking to please ‘em — that’s what you are.” He rose, took off his spectacles, and feebly mended the fire. “She’s as straight as a poplar,” said old Mazey, considering Magdalen’s figure in drowsy soliloquy. “I say she’s as straight as a poplar, and his honour the admiral says so too! Come along, my dear,” he proceeded, addressing himself to Magdalen again. “I’ll teach you your Pints of the Compass first. When you know your Pints, blow high, blow low, you’ll find it plain sailing all over the house.”

He led the way to the door — stopped, and suddenly bethinking himself of his miniature ship, went back to put his model away in an empty cupboard — led the way to the door again — stopped once more — remembered that some of the rooms were chilly — and pottered about, swearing and grumbling, and looking for his hat. Magdalen sat down patiently to wait for him. She gratefully contrasted his treatment of her with the treatment she had received from the women. Resist it as firmly, despise it as proudly as we may, all studied unkindness — no matter how contemptible it may be — has a stinging power in it which reaches to the quick. Magdalen only knew how she had felt the small malice of the female servants, by the effect which the rough kindness of the old sailor produced on her afterward. The dumb welcome of the dogs, when the movements in the room had roused them from their sleep, touched her more acutely still. Brutus pushed his mighty muzzle companionably into her hand; and Cassius laid his friendly fore-paw on her lap. Her heart yearned over the two creatures as she patted and caressed them. It seemed only yesterday since she and the dogs at Combe-Raven had roamed the garden together, and had idled away the summer mornings luxuriously on the shady lawn.

Old Mazey found his hat at last, and they started on their exploring expedition, with the dogs after them.

Leaving the basement story of the house, which was entirely devoted to the servants’ offices, they ascended to the first floor, and entered the long corridor, with which Magdalen’s last night’s experience had already made her acquainted. “Put your back ag’in this wall,” said old Mazey, pointing to the long wall — pierced at irregular intervals with windows looking out over a courtyard and fish-pond — which formed the right-hand side of the corridor, as Magdalen now stood. “Put your back here,” said the veteran, “and look straight afore you. What do you see?” — ”The opposite wall of the passage,” said Magdalen. — ”Ay! ay! what else?” — ”The doors leading into the rooms.” — ”What else?” — ”I see nothing else.” Old Mazey chuckled, winked, and shook his knotty forefinger at Magdalen, impressively. “You see one of the Pints of the Compass, my dear. When you’ve got your back ag’in this wall, and when you look straight afore you, you look Noathe. If you ever get lost hereaway, put your back ag’in the wall, look out straight afore you, and say to yourself: ‘I look Noathe!’ You do that like a good girl, and you won’t lose your bearings.”

After administering this preliminary dose of instruction, old Mazey opened the first of the doors on the left-hand side of the passage. It led into the dining-room, with which Magdalen was already familiar. The second room was fitted up as a library; and the third, as a morning-room. The fourth and fifth doors — both belonging to dismantled and uninhabited rooms, and both locked-brought them to the end of the north wing of the house, and to the opening of a second and shorter passage, placed at a right angle to the first. Here old Mazey, who had divided his time pretty equally during the investigation of the rooms, in talking of “his honour the Admiral,” and whistling to the dogs, returned with all possible expedition to the points of the compass, and gravely directed Magdalen to repeat the ceremony of putting her back against the wall. She attempted to shorten the proceedings, by declaring (quite correctly) that in her present position she knew she was looking east. “Don’t you talk about the east, my dear,” said old Mazey, proceeding unmoved with his own system of instruction, “till you know the east first. Put your back ag’in this wall, and look straight afore you. What do you see?” The remainder of the catechism proceeded as before. When the end was reached, Magdalen’s instructor was satisfied. He chuckled and winked at her once more. “Now you may talk about the east, my dear,” said the veteran, “for now you know it.”