Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (704 page)

“Follow you?” interposed Geoffrey. “Where?” She drew her chair nearer to him, and whispered the next words in his ear.

“To a lonely little mountain inn — four miles from this.”

“An inn!”

“Why not?”

“An inn is a public place.”

A movement of natural impatience escaped her — but she controlled herself, and went on as quietly as before:

“The place I mean is the loneliest place in the neighbourhood. You have no prying eyes to dread there. I have picked it out expressly for that reason. It’s away from the railway; it’s away from the high-road: it’s kept by a decent, respectable Scotchwoman — ”

“Decent, respectable Scotchwomen who keep inns,” interposed Geoffrey, “don’t cotton to young ladies who are traveling alone. The landlady won’t receive you.”

It was a well-aimed objection — but it missed the mark. A woman bent on her marriage is a woman who can meet the objections of the whole world, single-handed, and refute them all.

“I have provided for every thing,” she said, “and I have provided for that. I shall tell the landlady I am on my wedding-trip. I shall say my husband is sight-seeing, on foot, among the mountains in the neighbourhood — ”

“She is sure to believe that!” said Geoffrey.

“She is sure to
dis
believe it, if you like. Let her! You have only to appear, and to ask for your wife — and there is my story proved to be true! She may be the most suspicious woman living, as long as I am alone with her. The moment you join me, you set her suspicions at rest. Leave me to do my part. My part is the hard one. Will you do yours?”

It was impossible to say No: she had fairly cut the ground from under his feet. He shifted his ground. Any thing rather than say Yes!

“I suppose
you
know how we are to be married?” he asked. “All I can say is —
I
don’t.”

“You do!” she retorted. “You know that we are in Scotland. You know that there are neither forms, ceremonies, nor delays in marriage, here. The plan I have proposed to you secures my being received at the inn, and makes it easy and natural for you to join me there afterward. The rest is in our own hands. A man and a woman who wish to be married (in Scotland) have only to secure the necessary witnesses and the thing is done. If the landlady chooses to resent the deception practiced on her, after that, the landlady may do as she pleases. We shall have gained our object in spite of her — and, what is more, we shall have gained it without risk to
you.
”

“Don’t lay it all on my shoulders,” Geoffrey rejoined. “You women go headlong at every thing. Say we are married. We must separate afterward — or how are we to keep it a secret?”

“Certainly. You will go back, of course, to your brother’s house, as if nothing had happened.”

“And what is to become of
you?
”

“I shall go to London.”

“What are you to do in London?”

“Haven’t I already told you that I have thought of every thing? When I get to London I shall apply to some of my mother’s old friends — friends of hers in the time when she was a musician. Every body tells me I have a voice — if I had only cultivated it. I
will
cultivate it! I can live, and live respectably, as a concert singer. I have saved money enough to support me, while I am learning — and my mother’s friends will help me, for her sake.”

So, in the new life that she was marking out, was she now unconsciously reflecting in herself the life of her mother before her. Here was the mother’s career as a public singer, chosen (in spite of all efforts to prevent it) by the child! Here (though with other motives, and under other circumstances) was the mother’s irregular marriage in Ireland, on the point of being followed by the daughter’s irregular marriage in Scotland! And here, stranger still, was the man who was answerable for it — the son of the man who had found the flaw in the Irish marriage, and had shown the way by which her mother was thrown on the world! “My Anne is my second self. She is not called by her father’s name; she is called by mine. She is Anne Silvester as I was. Will she end like Me?” — The answer to those words — the last words that had trembled on the dying mother’s lips — was coming fast. Through the chances and changes of many years, the future was pressing near — and Anne Silvester stood on the brink of it.

“Well?” she resumed. “Are you at the end of your objections? Can you give me a plain answer at last?”

No! He had another objection ready as the words passed her lips.

“Suppose the witnesses at the inn happen to know me?” he said. “Suppose it comes to my father’s ears in that way?”

“Suppose you drive me to my death?” she retorted, starting to her feet. “Your father shall know the truth, in that case — I swear it!”

He rose, on his side, and drew back from her. She followed him up. There was a clapping of hands, at the same moment, on the lawn. Somebody had evidently made a brilliant stroke which promised to decide the game. There was no security now that Blanche might not return again. There was every prospect, the game being over, that Lady Lundie would be free. Anne brought the interview to its crisis, without wasting a moment more.

“Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn,” she said. “You have bargained for a private marriage, and I have consented. Are you, or are you not, ready to marry me on your own terms?”

“Give me a minute to think!”

“Not an instant. Once for all, is it Yes, or No?”

He couldn’t say “Yes,” even then. But he said what was equivalent to it. He asked, savagely, “Where is the inn?”

She put her arm in his, and whispered, rapidly, “Pass the road on the right that leads to the railway. Follow the path over the moor, and the sheep-track up the hill. The first house you come to after that is the inn. You understand!”

He nodded his head, with a sullen frown, and took his pipe out of his pocket again.

“Let it alone this time,” he said, meeting her eye. “My mind’s upset. When a man’s mind’s upset, a man can’t smoke. What’s the name of the place?”

“Craig Fernie.”

“Who am I to ask for at the door?”

“For your wife.”

“Suppose they want you to give your name when you get there?”

“If I must give a name, I shall call myself Mrs., instead of Miss, Silvester. But I shall do my best to avoid giving any name. And you will do your best to avoid making a mistake, by only asking for me as your wife. Is there any thing else you want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Be quick about it! What is it?”

“How am I to know you have got away from here?”

“If you don’t hear from me in half an hour from the time when I have left you, you may be sure I have got away. Hush!”

Two voices, in conversation, were audible at the bottom of the steps — Lady Lundie’s voice and Sir Patrick’s. Anne pointed to the door in the back wall of the summer-house. She had just pulled it to again, after Geoffrey had passed through it, when Lady Lundie and Sir Patrick appeared at the top of the steps.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH.

THE SUITOR.

LADY LUNDIE pointed significantly to the door, and addressed herself to Sir Patrick’s private ear.

“Observe!” she said. “Miss Silvester has just got rid of somebody.”

Sir Patrick deliberately looked in the wrong direction, and (in the politest possible manner) observed — nothing.

Lady Lundie advanced into the summer-house. Suspicious hatred of the governess was written legibly in every line of her face. Suspicious distrust of the governess’s illness spoke plainly in every tone of her voice.

“May I inquire, Miss Silvester, if your sufferings are relieved?”

“I am no better, Lady Lundie.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said I was no better.”

“You appear to be able to stand up. When
I
am ill, I am not so fortunate. I am obliged to lie down.”‘

“I will follow your example, Lady Lundie. If you will be so good as to excuse me, I will leave you, and lie down in my own room.”

She could say no more. The interview with Geoffrey had worn her out; there was no spirit left in her to resist the petty malice of the woman, after bearing, as she had borne it, the brutish indifference of the man. In another moment the hysterical suffering which she was keeping down would have forced its way outward in tears. Without waiting to know whether she was excused or not, without stopping to hear a word more, she left the summer-house.

Lady Lundie’s magnificent black eyes opened to their utmost width, and blazed with their most dazzling brightness. She appealed to Sir Patrick, poised easily on his ivory cane, and looking out at the lawn-party, the picture of venerable innocence.

“After what I have already told you, Sir Patrick, of Miss Silvester’s conduct, may I ask whether you consider
that
proceeding at all extraordinary?”

The old gentleman touched the spring in the knob of his cane, and answered, in the courtly manner of the old school:

“I consider no proceeding extraordinary Lady Lundie, which emanates from your enchanting sex.”

He bowed, and took his pinch. With a little jaunty flourish of the hand, he dusted the stray grains of snuff off his finger and thumb, and looked back again at the lawn-party, and became more absorbed in the diversions of his young friends than ever.

Lady Lundie stood her ground, plainly determined to force a serious expression of opinion from her brother-in-law. Before she could speak again, Arnold and Blanche appeared together at the bottom of the steps. “And when does the dancing begin?” inquired Sir Patrick, advancing to meet them, and looking as if he felt the deepest interest in a speedy settlement of the question.

“The very thing I was going to ask mamma,” returned Blanche. “Is she in there with Anne? Is Anne better?”

Lady Lundie forthwith appeared, and took the answer to that inquiry on herself.

“Miss Silvester has retired to her room. Miss Silvester persists in being ill. Have you noticed, Sir Patrick, that these half-bred sort of people are almost invariably rude when they are ill?”

Blanche’s bright face flushed up. “If you think Anne a half-bred person, Lady Lundie, you stand alone in your opinion. My uncle doesn’t agree with you, I’m sure.”

Sir Patrick’s interest in the first quadrille became almost painful to see. “
Do
tell me, my dear, when
is
the dancing going to begin?”

“The sooner the better,” interposed Lady Lundie; “before Blanche picks another quarrel with me on the subject of Miss Silvester.”

Blanche looked at her uncle. “Begin! begin! Don’t lose time!” cried the ardent Sir Patrick, pointing toward the house with his cane. “Certainly, uncle! Any thing that
you
wish!” With that parting shot at her step-mother, Blanche withdrew. Arnold, who had thus far waited in silence at the foot of the steps, looked appealingly at Sir Patrick. The train which was to take him to his newly inherited property would start in less than an hour; and he had not presented himself to Blanche’s guardian in the character of Blanche’s suitor yet! Sir Patrick’s indifference to all domestic claims on him — claims of persons who loved, and claims of persons who hated, it didn’t matter which — remained perfectly unassailable. There he stood, poised on his cane, humming an old Scotch air. And there was Lady Lundie, resolute not to leave him till he had seen the governess with
her
eyes and judged the governess with
her
mind. She returned to the charge — in spite of Sir Patrick, humming at the top of the steps, and of Arnold, waiting at the bottom. (Her enemies said, “No wonder poor Sir Thomas died in a few months after his marriage!” And, oh dear me, our enemies
are
sometimes right!)