‘Precisely so,’ replied Noel Vanstone.
‘You have inherited your own father’s fortune, as well as the fortune of Mr Andrew Vanstone, and yet you feel no obligation to act from motives of justice or generosity towards these two sisters? All you think it necessary to say to them is – you have got the money, and you refuse to part with a single farthing of it?’
‘Most accurately stated! Miss Garth, you are a woman of business. Lecount, Miss Garth is a woman of business.’
‘Don’t appeal to me, sir,’ cried Mrs Lecount, gracefully wringing her plump white hands. ‘I can’t bear it! I must interfere! Let me suggest -oh, what do you call it in English? – a compromise. Dear Mr Noel, you are perversely refusing to do yourself justice; you have better reasons than the reason you have given to Miss Garth. You follow your honoured father’s example; you feel it due to his memory to act in this matter as he acted before you. That is his reason, Miss Garth – I implore you on my knees, take that as his reason. He will do what his dear father did; no more, no less. His dear father made a proposal, and he himself will now make that proposal, over again. Yes, Mr Noel, you will remember what this poor girl says in her letter to you. Her sister has been obliged to go out as a governess; and she herself, in losing her fortune, has lost the hope of her marriage for years and years to come. You will remember this – and you will give the hundred pounds to one, and the hundred pounds to the other, which your admirable father offered in the past time? If he does this, Miss Garth, will he do enough? If he gives a hundred pounds each to these unfortunate sisters -?’
‘He will repent the insult to the last hour of his life,’ said Magdalen.
The instant that answer passed her lips, she would have given worlds to recall it. Mrs Lecount had planted her sting in the right place at last. Those rash words of Magdalen’s had burst from her passionately, in her own voice.
Nothing but the habit of public performance saved her from making the serious error that she had committed more palpable still, by attempting to set it right. Here, her past practice in the Entertainment came to her rescue, and urged her to go on instantly, in Miss Garth’s voice, as if nothing had happened.
‘You mean well, Mrs Lecount,’ she continued, ‘but you are doing harm instead of good. My pupils will accept no such compromise as you propose. I am sorry to have spoken violently, just now; I beg you will excuse me.’ She looked hard for information in the housekeeper’s face while she spoke those conciliatory words. Mrs Lecount baffled the look, by putting her handkerchief to her eyes. Had she, or had she not, noticed the momentary change in Magdalen’s voice from the tones that were assumed to the tones that were natural? Impossible to say.
‘What more can I do!’ murmured Mrs Lecount behind her handkerchief. ‘Give me time to think – give me time to recover myself. May I retire, sir, for a moment? My nerves are shaken by this sad scene. I must have a glass of water, or I think I shall faint. Don’t go yet, Miss Garth. I beg you will give us time to set this sad matter right, if we can – I beg you will remain until I come back.’
There were two doors of entrance to the room. One, the door into the front parlour, close at Magdalen’s left hand. The other, the door into the back parlour, situated behind her. Mrs Lecount politely retired -through the open folding-doors – by this latter means of exit, so as not to disturb the visitor by passing in front of her. Magdalen waited until she heard the door open and close again behind her; and then resolved to make the most of the opportunity which left her alone with Noel Vanstone. The utter hopelessness of rousing a generous impulse in that base nature, had now been proved by her own experience. The last chance left was to treat him like the craven creature he was, and to influence him through his fears.
Before she could speak, Noel Vanstone himself broke the silence. Cunningly as he strove to hide it, he was half angry, half alarmed at his housekeeper’s desertion of him. He looked doubtingly at his visitor; he showed a nervous anxiety to conciliate her, until Mrs Lecount’s return.
‘Pray remember, ma’am, I never denied that this case was a hard one,’ he began. ‘You said just now how you had no wish to offend me -and I’m sure I don’t want to offend you. May I offer you some strawberries? Would you like to look at my father’s bargains? I assure you, ma’am, I am naturally a gallant man; and I feel for both these sisters – especially the younger one. Touch me on the subject of the tender passion, and you touch me on a weak place. Nothing would please me more than to hear that Miss Vanstone’s lover (I’m sure I always call her Miss Vanstone, and so does Lecount) – I say, ma’am, nothing would please me more than to hear that Miss Vanstone’s lover had come back, and married her. If a loan of money would be likely to bring him back, and if the security offered was good, and if my lawyer thought me justified –’
‘Stop, Mr Vanstone,’ said Magdalen. ‘You are entirely mistaken in your estimate of the person you have to deal with. You are seriously wrong in supposing that the marriage of the younger sister – if she could be married in a week’s time – would make any difference in the convictions which induced her to write to your father and to you. I don’t deny that she may act from a mixture of motives. I don’t deny that she clings to the hope of hastening her marriage, and to the hope of rescuing her sister from a life of dependence. But, if both those objects were accomplished by other means, nothing would induce her to leave you in possession of the inheritance which her father meant his children to have. I know her, Mr Vanstone! She is a nameless, homeless, friendless wretch. The law which takes care of you, the law which takes care of all legitimate children, casts her like carrion to the winds. It is your law – not hers. She only knows it as the instrument of a vile oppression, an insufferable wrong. The sense of that wrong haunts her, like a possession of the devil. The resolution to right that wrong burns in her like fire. If that miserable girl was married and rich with millions to-morrow, do you think she would move an inch from her purpose? I tell you she would resist, to the last breath in her body, the vile injustice which has struck at the helpless children, through the calamity of their father’s death! I tell you she would shrink from no means which a desperate woman can employ, to force that closed hand of yours open, or die in the attempt!’
She stopped abruptly. Once more, her own indomitable earnestness had betrayed her. Once more, the inborn nobility of that perverted nature had risen superior to the deception which it had stooped to practise. The scheme of the moment vanished from her mind’s view; and the resolution of her life burst its way outward in her own words, in her own tones, pouring hotly and more hotly from her heart. She saw the abject mannikin before her, cowering silent in his chair. Had his fears left him sense enough to perceive the change in her voice? No: his face spoke the truth – his fears had bewildered him. This time, the chance of the moment had befriended her. The door behind her chair had not opened again yet. ‘No ears but his have heard me,’ she thought, with a sense of unutterable relief. ‘I have escaped Mrs Lecount.’
She had done nothing of the kind. Mrs Lecount had never left the room.
After opening the door and closing it again, without going out, the housekeeper had noiselessly knelt down behind Magdalen’s chair. Steadying herself against the post of the folding-door, she took a pair of scissors from her pocket, waited until Noel Vanstone (from whose view she was entirely hidden) had attracted Magdalen’s attention by speaking to her; and then bent forward with the scissors ready in her hand. The skirt of the false Miss Garth’s gown – the brown alpaca dress, with the white spots on it – touched the floor, within the housekeeper’s reach. Mrs Lecount lifted the outer of the two flounces which ran round the bottom of the dress, one over the other; softly cut away a little irregular fragment of stuff from the inner flounce; and neatly smoothed the outer one over it again, so as to hide the gap. By the time she had put the scissors back in her pocket, and had risen to her feet (sheltering herself behind the post of the folding-door), Magdalen had spoken her last words. Mrs Lecount quietl
y repeated the ceremony of opening and shutting the back parlour door; and returned to her place.
‘What has happened, sir, in my absence?’ she inquired, addressing her master with a look of alarm. ‘You are pale; you are agitated! Oh, Miss Garth, have you forgotten the caution I gave you in the other room?’
‘Miss Garth has forgotten everything,’ cried Noel Vanstone, recovering his lost composure on the reappearance of Mrs Lecount. ‘Miss Garth has threatened me in the most outrageous manner. I forbid you to pity either of those two girls any more, Lecount – especially the younger one. She is the most desperate wretch I ever heard of! If she can’t get my money by fair means, she threatens to have it by foul. Miss Garth has told me that to my face. To my face!’ he repeated, folding his arms and looking mortally insulted.
‘Compose yourself, sir,’ said Mrs Lecount. ‘Pray compose yourself, and leave me to speak to Miss Garth. – I regret to hear, ma’am, that you have forgotten what I said to you in the next room. You have agitated Mr Noel; you have compromised the interests you came here to plead; and you have only repeated what we knew before. The language you have allowed yourself to use in my absence, is the same language which your pupil was foolish enough to employ when she wrote for the second time, to my late master. How can a lady of your years and experience seriously repeat such nonsense? This girl boasts and threatens. She will do this; she will do that. You have her confidence, ma’am. Tell me, if you please, in plain words, what can she do?’
Sharply as the taunt was pointed, it glanced off harmless. Mrs Lecount had planted her sting once too often. Magdalen rose in complete possession of her assumed character, and composedly terminated the interview. Ignorant as she was of what had happened behind her chair, she saw a change in Mrs Lecount’s look and manner, which warned her to run no more risks, and to trust herself no longer in the house.
‘I am not in my pupil’s confidence,’ she said. ‘Her own acts will answer your question when the time comes. I can only tell you, from my own knowledge of her, that she is no boaster. What she wrote to Mr Michael Vanstone, was what she was prepared to do – what, I have reason to think, she was actually on the point of doing, when her plans were overthrown by his death. Mr Michael Vanstone’s son has only to persist in following his father’s course to find, before long, that I am not mistaken in my pupil, and that I have not come here to intimidate him by empty threats. My errand is done. I leave Mr Noel Vanstone with two alternatives to choose from. I leave him to share Mr Andrew Vanstone’s fortune with Mr Andrew Vanstone’s daughters – or to persist in his present refusal and face the consequences.’ She bowed, and walked to the door.
Noel Vanstone started to his feet, with anger and alarm struggling which should express itself first in his blank white face. Before he could open his lips, Mrs Lecount’s plump hands descended on his shoulders; put him softly back in his chair; and restored the plate of strawberries to its former position on his lap.
‘Refresh yourself, Mr Noel, with a few more strawberries,’ she said; ‘and leave Miss Garth to me.’
She followed Magdalen into the passage, and closed the door of the room after her.
‘Are you residing in London, ma’am?’ asked Mrs Lecount.
‘No,’ replied Magdalen. ‘I reside in the country.’
‘If I want to write to you, where can I address my letter?’
‘To the post-office, Birmingham,’ said Magdalen, mentioning the place which she had last left, and at which all letters were still addressed to her.
Mrs Lecount repeated the direction to fix it in her memory -advanced two steps in the passage – and quietly laid her right hand on Magdalen’s arm.
‘A word of advice, ma’am,’ she said; ‘one word at parting. You are a bold woman and a clever woman. Don’t be too bold; don’t be too clever. You are risking more than you think for.’ She suddenly raised herself on tiptoe, and whispered the next words in Magdalen’s ear. ‘I hold you in the hollow of my hand!’said Mrs Lecount, with a fierce hissing emphasis on every syllable. Her left hand clenched itself stealthily as she spoke. It was the hand in which she had concealed the .fragment of stuff from Magdalen’s gown – the hand which held it fast at that moment.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Magdalen, pushing her back.
Mrs Lecount glided away politely to open the house-door.
‘I mean nothing now,’ she said; ‘wait a little, and time may show. One last question, ma’am, before I bid you good-bye. When your pupil was a little innocent child, did she ever amuse herself by building a house of cards?’
Magdalen impatiently answered by a gesture in the affirmative.
‘Did you ever see her build up the house higher and higher,’ proceeded Mrs Lecount, ‘till it was quite a pagoda of cards? Did you ever see her open her little child’s eyes wide, and look at it, and feel so proud of what she had done already, that she wanted to do more? Did you ever see her steady her pretty little hand, and hold her innocent breath, and put one other card on the top – and lay the whole house, the instant afterwards, a heap of ruins on the table? Ah, you have seen that. Give her, if you please, a friendly message from me. I venture to say she has built the house high enough already; and I recommend her to be careful before she puts on that other card.’
‘She shall have your message,’ said Magdalen, with Miss Garth’s bluntness, and Miss Garth’s emphatic nod of the head. ‘But I doubt her minding it. Her hand is rather steadier than you suppose; and I think she will put on the other card.’
‘And bring the house down,’ said Mrs Lecount.
‘And build it up again,’ rejoined Magdalen. ‘I wish you good morning.’
‘Good morning,’ said Mrs Lecount, opening the door. ‘One last word, Miss Garth. Do think of what I said in the back room! Do try the Golden Ointment for that sad affliction in your eyes!’
As Magdalen crossed the threshold of the door, she was met by the postman, ascending the house steps, with a letter picked out from the bundle in his hand. ‘Noel Vanstone, Esquire?’ she heard the man say interrogatively, as she made her way down the front garden to the street.
She passed through the garden gate, little thinking from what new difficulty and new danger her timely departure had saved her. The letter which the postman had just delivered into the housekeeper’s hands, was no other than the anonymous letter addressed to Noel Vanstone by Captain Wragge.
Chapter Four
Mrs Lecount returned to the parlour, with the fragment of Magdalen’s dress in one hand, and with Captain Wragge’s letter in the other.
‘Have you got rid of her?’ asked Noel Vanstone. ‘Have you shut the door at last on Miss Garth?’
‘Don’t call her Miss Garth, sir,’ said Mrs Lecount, smiling contemptuously. ‘She is as much Miss Garth as you are. We have been favoured by the performance of a clever masquerade; and if we had taken the disguise off our visitor, I think we should have found under it, Miss Vanstone herself. – Here is a letter for you sir, which the postman has just left.’
She put the letter on the table within her master’s reach. Noel Vanstone’s amazement at the discovery just communicated to him, kept his whole attention concentrated on the housekeeper’s face. He never so much as looked at the letter when she placed it before him.
‘Take my word for it, sir,’ proceeded Mrs Lecount, composedly taking a chair. ‘When our visitor gets home she will put her grey hair away in a box, and will cure that sad affliction in her eyes with warm water and a sponge. If she had painted the marks on her face, as well as she painted the inflammation in her eyes, the light would have shown me nothing, and I should certainly have been deceived. But I saw the marks; I saw a young woman’s skin under that dirty complexion of hers; I heard, in this room, a true voice in a passion, as well as a false voice talking with an accent, – and I don’t believe in one morsel of that lady’s personal appearance from top to toe. The girl herself in my opinion, Mr Noel – and a bold girl too.’
‘Why didn’t you lo
ck the door and send for the police?’ asked Mr Noel. ‘My father would have sent for the police. You know, as well as I do, Lecount, my father would have sent for the police.’
‘Pardon me, sir,’ said Mrs Lecount, ‘I think your father would have waited until he had got something more for the police to do than we have got for them yet. We shall see this lady again, sir. Perhaps, she will come here next time, with her own face and her own voice. I am curious to see what her own face is like. I am curious to know whether what I have heard of her voice in a passion, is enough to make me recognize her voice when she is calm. I possess a little memorial of her visit of which she is not aware; and she will not escape me so easily as she thinks. If it turns out a useful memorial, you shall know what it is. If not, I will abstain from troubling you on so trifling a subject. – Allow me to remind you, sir, of the letter under your hand. You have not looked at it yet.’
Noel Vanstone opened the letter. He started as his eye fell on the first lines – hesitated – and then hurriedly read it through. The paper dropped from his hand, and he sank back in his chair. Mrs Lecount sprang to her feet with the alacrity of a young woman, and picked up the letter.
‘What has happened, sir?’ she asked. Her face altered as she put the question; and her large black eyes hardened fiercely, in genuine astonishment and alarm.
‘Send for the police,’ exclaimed her master. ‘Lecount, I insist on being protected. Send for the police!’
‘May I read the letter, sir?’
He feebly waved his hand. Mrs Lecount read the letter attentively, and put it aside, on the table, without a word, when she had done.
‘Have you nothing to say to me?’ asked Noel Vanstone, staring at his housekeeper in blank dismay. ‘Lecount, I’m to be robbed! The scoundrel who wrote that letter knows all about it, and won’t tell me anything unless I pay him. I’m to be robbed! Here’s property on this table worth thousands of pounds – property that can never be replaced – property that all the crowned heads in Europe could not produce if they tried. Lock me in, Lecount – and send for the police!’