Here he paused; and left Mrs Lecount no polite alternative but to request an explanation.
‘With infinite pleasure, ma’am,’ said the captain, drowning in the deepest notes of his voice the feeble treble in which Noel Vanstone paid his compliments to Magdalen. ‘We will start, if you please, with a first principle. All bodies whatever that float on the surface of the water, displace as much fluid as is equal in weight to the weight of the bodies. Good! We have got our first principle. What do we deduce from it? Manifestly this: That in order to keep a vessel above water, it is necessary to take care that the vessel and its cargo shall be of less weight than the weight of a quantity of water – pray follow me here! – of a quantity of water equal in bulk to that part of the vessel which it will be safe to immerse in the water. Now, ma’am, salt water is specifically thirty times heavier than fresh or river water; and a vessel in the German Ocean will not sink so deep as a vessel in the Thames. Consequently, when we load our ship with a view to the London market, we have (Hydrostatically speaking) three alternatives. Either we load with one-thirtieth part less than we can carry at sea; or we take one-thirtieth part out at the mouth of the river; or we do neither the one nor the other, and, as I have already had the honour of remarking – down we go! Such,’ said the captain, shifting the camp-stool back again from his right hand to his left, in token that Joyce was done with for the time being; ‘such, my dear madam, is the Theory of Floating Vessels. Permit me to add, in conclusion – you are heartily welcome to it.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Mrs Lecount. ‘You have unintentionally saddened me, but the information I have received is not the less precious on that account. It is long, long ago, Mr Bygrave, since I have heard myself addressed in the language of science. My dear husband made me his companion – my dear husband improved my mind as you have been trying to improve it. Nobody has taken pains with my intellect since. Many thanks, sir. Your kind consideration for me is not thrown away.’
She sighed with a plaintive humility; and privately opened her ears to the conversation on the other side of her.
A minute earlier, she would have heard her master expressing himself in the most flattering terms on the subject of Miss Bygrave’s appearance in her sea-side costume. But Magdalen had seen Captain Wragge’s signal with the camp-stool, and had at once diverted Noel Vanstone to the topic of himself and his possessions, by a neatly-timed question about his house at Aldborough.
‘I don’t wish to alarm you, Miss Bygrave,’ were the first words of Noel Vanstone’s which caught Mrs Lecount’s attention – ‘but there is only one safe house in Aldborough – and that house is Mine. The sea may destroy all the other houses – it can’t destroy Mine. My father took care of that; my father was a remarkable man. He had My house built on piles. I have reason to believe they are the strongest piles in England. Nothing can possibly knock them down – I don’t care what the sea does – nothing can possibly knock them down.’
‘Then if the sea invades us,’ said Magdalen, ‘we must all run for refuge to you.’
Noel Vanstone saw his way to another compliment; and, at the same moment, the wary captain saw his way to another burst of science.
‘I could almost wish the invasion might happen,’ murmured one of the gentlemen, ‘to give me the happiness of offering the refuge.’
‘I could almost swear the wind had shifted again!’ exclaimed the other. ‘Where is a man I can ask? Oh, there he is. Boatman! How’s the wind, now? Nor’-west and by west still – hey? And south-east and by south yesterday evening – ha? Is there anything more remarkable, Mrs Lecount, than the variableness of the wind in this climate?’ proceeded the captain, shifting the camp-stool to the scientific side of him. ‘Is there any natural phenomenon more bewildering to the scientific inquirer? You will tell me that the electric fluid which abounds in the air is the principal cause of this variableness. You will remind me of the experiment of that illustrious philosopher who measured the velocity of a great storm by a flight of small feathers. My dear madam, I grant all your propositions –’
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Mrs Lecount; ‘you kindly attribute to me a knowledge that I don’t possess. Propositions, I regret to say, are quite beyond me.’
‘Don’t misunderstand me, ma’am,’ continued the captain, politely unconscious of the interruption. ‘My remarks apply to the temperate zone only. Place me on the coasts beyond the tropics – place me where the wind blows towards the shore in the daytime, and towards the sea by night – and I instantly advance towards conclusive experiments. For example, I know that the heat of the sun during the day, rarefies that air over the land, and so causes the wind. You challenge me to prove it. I escort you down the kitchen-stairs (with your kind permission); I take my largest pie-dish out of the cook’s hands; I fill it with cold water. Good! that dish of cold water represents the ocean. I next provide myself with one of our most precious domestic conveniences – a hot- water plate – I fill it with hot-water and I put it in the middle of the pie-dish. Good again! the hot-water plate represents the land rarefying the air over it. Bear that in mind, and give me a lighted candle. I hold my lighted candle over the cold water, and blow it out. The smoke immediately moves from the dish to the plate. Before you have time to express your satisfaction, I light the candle once more, and reverse the whole proceeding. I fill the pie-dish with hot water, and the plate with cold; I blow the candle out again, and the smoke moves this time from the plate to the dish. The smell is disagreeable – but the experiment is conclusive.’
He shifted the camp-stool back again, and looked at Mrs Lecount with his ingratiating smile. ‘You don’t find me long-winded, ma’am -do you?’ he said, in his easy, cheerful way, just as the housekeeper was privately opening her ears once more to the conversation on the other side of her.
‘I am amazed, sir, by the range of your information,’ replied Mrs Lecount, observing the captain with some perplexity – but, thus far, with no distrust. She thought him eccentric, even for an Englishman, and possibly a little vain of his knowledge. But he had at least paid her the implied compliment of addressing that knowledge to herself; and she felt it the more sensibly, from having hitherto found her scientific sympathies with her deceased husband, treated with no great respect by the people with whom she came in contact. ‘Have you extended your inquiries, sir,’ she proceeded, after a momentary hesitation, ‘to my late husband’s branch of science? I merely ask, Mr Bygrave, because (though I am only a woman) I think I might exchange ideas with you, on the subject of the reptile creation.’
Captain Wragge was far too sharp to risk his ready-made science on the enemy’s ground. The old militiaman shook his wary head.
‘Too vast a subject, ma’am,’ he said, ‘for a smatterer like me. The life and labours of such a philosopher as your husband, Mrs Lecount, warn men of my intellectual calibre not to measure themselves with a giant. May I inquire,’ proceeded the captain, softly smoothing the way for future intercourse with Sea-View Cottage, ‘whether you possess any scientific memorials of the late Professor?’
I possess his Tank, sir,’ said Mrs Lecount, modestly casting her eyes on the ground; ‘and one of his Subjects – a little foreign Toad.’
‘His Tank!’ exclaimed the captain, in tones of mournful interest. ‘And his Toad! Pardon my blunt way of speaking my mind, ma’am. You possess an object of public interest; and, as one of the public, I acknowledge my curiosity to see it.’
Mrs Lecount’s smooth cheeks coloured with pleasure. The one assailable place in that cold and secret nature, was the place occupied by the memory of the Professor. Her pride in his scientific achievements, and her mortification at finding them but little known out of his own country, were genuine feelings. Never had Captain Wragge burnt his adulterated incense on the flimsy altar of human vanity to better purpose than he was .burning it now.
‘You are very good, sir,’ said Mrs Lecount. ‘In honouring my husband’s memory, you honour me. But though you kindly treat me on a
footing of equality, I must not forget that I fill a domestic situation. I shall feel it a privilege to show you my relics, if you will allow me to ask my master’s permission first.’
She turned to Noel Vanstone; her perfectly sincere intention of making the proposed request, mingling – in that strange complexity of motives which is found so much oftener in a woman’s mind than in a man’s – with her jealous distrust of the impression which Magdalen had produced on her master.
‘May I make a request, sir?’ asked Mrs Lecount, after waiting a moment to catch any fragments of tenderly-personal talk that might reach her, and after being again neatly baffled by Magdalen – thanks to the camp-stool. ‘Mr Bygrave is one of the few persons in England who appreciate my husband’s scientific labours. He honours me by wishing to see my little world of reptiles. May I show it to him?’
‘By all means, Lecount,’ said Noel Vanstone, graciously. ‘You are an excellent creature, and I like to oblige you. Lecount’s Tank, Mr Bygrave, is the only Tank in England – Lecount’s Toad, is the oldest Toad in the world. Will you come and drink tea at seven o’clock tonight? And will you prevail on Miss Bygrave to accompany you? I want her to see my house. I don’t think she has any idea what a strong house it is. Come and survey my premises, Miss Bygrave. You shall have a stick, and rap on the walls; you shall go upstairs and stamp on the floors – and then you shall hear what it all cost.’ His eyes wrinkled up cunningly at the corners, and he slipped another tender speech into Magdalen’s ear, under cover of the all-predominating voice in which Captain Wragge thanked him for the invitation. ‘Come punctually at seven,’ he whispered, ‘and pray wear that charming hat!’
Mrs Lecount’s lips closed ominously. She set down the captain’s niece as a very serious drawback to the intellectual luxury of the captain’s society.
‘You are fatiguing yourself, sir,’ she said to her master. ‘This is one of your bad days. Let me recommend you to be careful; let me beg you to walk back.’
Having carried his point by inviting the new acquaintances to tea, Noel Vanstone proved to be unexpectedly docile. He acknowledged that he was a little fatigued, and turned back at once in obedience to the housekeeper’s advice.
‘Take my arm, sir – take my arm on the other side,’ said Captain Wragge, as they turned to retrace their steps. His parti-coloured eyes looked significantly at Magdalen while he spoke, and warned her not to stretch Mrs Lecount’s endurance too far at starting. She instantly understood him; and, in spite of Noel Vanstone’s reiterated assertions that he stood in no need of the captain’s arm, placed herself at once by the housekeeper’s side. Mrs Lecount recovered her good humour, and opened another conversation with Magdalen, by making the one inquiry of all others which, under existing circumstances, was the hardest to answer.
‘I presume Mrs Bygrave is too tired, after her journey, to come out today?’ said Mrs Lecount. ‘Shall we have the pleasure of seeing her tomorrow?’
‘Probably not,’ replied Magdalen. ‘My aunt is in delicate health.’
‘A complicated case, my dear madam,’ added the captain; conscious that Mrs Wragge’s personal appearance (if she happened to be seen by accident) would offer the flattest of all possible contradictions to what Magdalen had just said of her. ‘There is some remote nervous mischief which doesn’t express itself externally. You would think my wife the picture of health, if you looked at her – and yet, so delusive are appearances, I am obliged to forbid her all excitement. She sees no society – our medical attendant, I regret to say, absolutely prohibits it.’
‘Very sad,’ said Mrs Lecount. ‘The poor lady must often feel lonely, sir, when you and your niece are away from her?’
‘No,’ replied the captain. ‘Mrs Bygrave is a naturally domestic woman. When she is able to employ herself, she finds unlimited resources in her needle and thread.’ Having reached this stage of the explanation – and having purposely skirted, as it were, round the confines of truth, in the event of the housekeeper’s curiosity leading her to make any private inquiries on the subject of Mrs Wragge – the captain wisely checked his fluent tongue from carrying him into any further details. ‘I have great hope from the air of this place,’ he remarked in conclusion. ‘The Iodine, as I have already observed, does wonders.’
Mrs Lecount acknowledged the virtues of Iodine in the briefest possible form of words, and withdrew into the innermost sanctuary of her own thoughts. ‘Some mystery here,’ said the housekeeper to herself. ‘A lady who looks the picture of health; a lady who suffers from a complicated nervous malady; and a lady whose hand is steady enough to use her needle and thread – is a living mass of contradictions I don’t quite understand. Do you make a long stay at Aldborough, sir?’ she added aloud; her eyes resting for a moment, in steady scrutiny, on the captain’s face.
‘It all depends, my dear madam, on Mrs Bygrave. I trust we shall stay through the autumn. You are settled at Sea-View Cottage, I presume, for the season?’
‘You must ask my master, sir. It is for him to decide, not for me.’
The answer was an unfortunate one. Noel Vanstone had been secretly annoyed by the change in the walking arrangements, which had separated him from Magdalen. He attributed that change to the meddling influence of Mrs Lecount, and he now took the earliest opportunity of resenting it on the spot.
‘I have nothing to do with our stay at Aldborough,’ he broke out peevishly. ‘You know as well as I do, Lecount, it all depends on you. Mrs Lecount has a brother in Switzerland,’ he went on, addressing himself to the captain – ‘a brother who is seriously ill. If he gets worse, she will have to go there and see him. I can’t accompany her, and I can’t be left in the house by myself. I shall have to break up my establishment at Aldborough, and stay with some friends. It all depends on you, Lecount – or on your brother, which comes to the same thing. If it depended on me,’ continued Mr Noel Vanstone, looking pointedly at Magdalen across the housekeeper, ‘I should stay at Aldborough all through the autumn with the greatest pleasure. With the greatest pleasure,’ he reiterated, repeating the words with a tender look for Magdalen, and a spiteful accent for Mrs Lecount.
Thus far, Captain Wragge had remained silent; carefully noting in his mind the promising possibilities of a separation between Mrs Lecount and her master, which Noel Vanstone’s little fretful outbreak had just disclosed to him. An ominous trembling in the housekeeper’s thin lips, as her master openly exposed her family affairs before strangers, and openly set her jealousy at defiance, now warned him to interfere. If the misunderstanding were permitted to proceed to extremities, there was a chance that the invitation for that evening to Sea-View Cottage might be put off. Now, as ever, equal to the occasion, Captain Wragge called his useful information, once more to the rescue. Under the learned auspices of Joyce, he plunged, for the third time, into the ocean of science, and brought up another pearl. He was still haranguing (on Pneumatics this time), still improving Mrs Lecount’s mind with his politest perseverance and his smoothest flow of language – when the walking party stopped at Noel Vanstone’s door.
‘Bless my soul, here we are at your house, sir!’ said the captain, interrupting himself in the middle of one of his graphic sentences. ‘I won’t keep you standing a moment. Not a word of apology, Mrs Lecount, I beg and pray! I will put that curious point in Pneumatics more clearly before you on a future occasion. In the mean time, I need only repeat, that you can perform the experiment I have just mentioned, to your own entire satisfaction, with a bladder, an exhausted receiver and a square box. At seven o’clock this evening, sir – at seven o’clock, Mrs Lecount. We have had a remarkably pleasant walk, and a most instructive interchange of ideas. Now, my dear girl! your aunt is waiting for us.’
While Mrs Lecount stepped aside to open the garden-gate, Noel Vanstone seized his opportunity, and shot a last tender glance at Magdalen – under shelter of the umbrella, which he had taken into his own hands for that express purpose. ‘Don’t forget,’ he said, with the sweetest smi
le; ‘don’t forget, when you come this evening, to wear that charming hat!’ Before he could add any last words, Mrs Lecount glided back to her place; and the sheltering umbrella changed hands again immediately.
‘An excellent morning’s work!’ said Captain Wragge, as he and Magdalen walked on together to North Shingles. ‘You and I and Joyce have all three done wonders. We have secured a friendly invitation at the first day’s fishing for it.’
He paused for an answer; and, receiving none, observed Magdalen more attentively than he had observed her yet. Her face had turned deadly pale again; her eyes looked out mechanically straight before her, in heedless reckless despair.
‘What is the matter?’ he asked with the greatest surprise. ‘Are you ill?’
She made no reply; she hardly seemed to hear him.
‘Are you getting alarmed about Mrs Lecount?’ he inquired next. ‘There is not the least reason for alarm. She may fancy she has heard something like your voice before; but your face evidently bewilders her. Keep your temper, and you keep her in the dark. Keep her in the dark; and you will put that two hundred pounds into my hands before the autumn is over.’
He waited again for an answer; and again she remained silent. The captain tried for the third time, in another direction.
‘Did you get any letters this morning?’ he went on. ‘Is there bad news again from home? Any fresh difficulties with your sister?’