After paying my landlady the necessary forfeit for leaving her without notice, I arranged with her son that he should take my boxes in a cab to the cloak-room at the nearest railway station, and send me the ticket in a letter, to wait my application for it at the post-office. While he went his way in one cab, I went mine in another, with a few things for the night in my little hand-bag. I drove straight to the milliner’s shop – which I had observed, when I was there yesterday, had a back entrance into a mews, for the apprentices to go in and out by. I went in at once, leaving the cab waiting for me at the door. ‘A man is following me,’ I said; ‘and I want to get rid of him. Here is my cab-fare; wait ten minutes before you give it to the driver, and let me out at once by the back way!’ In a moment I was out in the mews – in another, I was in the next street – in a third, I hailed a passing omnibus, and was a free woman again.5
Having now cut off all communication between me and my last lodgings, the next precaution (in case Midwinter or Armadale are watched) is to cut off all communication, for some days to come at least, between me and the hotel. I have written to Midwinter – making my suppositious mother once more the excuse – to say that I am tied to my nursing duties, and that we must communicate by writing only for the present. Doubtful as I still am of who my hidden enemy really is, I can do no more to defend myself than I have done now.
August 4th. – The two friends at the hotel have both written to me. Midwinter expresses his regret at our separation, in the tenderest terms. Armadale writes an entreaty for help under very awkward circumstances. A letter from Major Milroy has been forwarded to him from the great house, and he encloses it in his letter to me.
Having left the seaside, and placed his daughter safely at the school originally chosen for her (in the neighbourhood of Ely), the major appears to have returned to Thorpe-Ambrose at the close of last week; to have heard then, for the first time, the reports about Armadale and me; and to have written instantly to Armadale to tell him so.
The letter is stern and short. Major Milroy dismisses the report as unworthy of credit, because it is impossible for him to believe in such an act of ‘cold-blooded treachery’, as the scandal would imply, if the scandal were true. He simply writes to warn Armadale that, if he is not more careful in his actions for the future, he must resign all pretensions to Miss Milroy’s hand. ‘I neither expect, nor wish for, an answer to this’ (the letter ends), ‘for I desire to receive no mere protestations in words. By your conduct, and by your conduct alone, I shall judge you as time goes on. Let me also add, that I positively forbid you to consider this letter as an excuse for violating the terms agreed on between us, by writing again to my daughter. You have no need to justify yourself in her eyes – for I fortunately removed her from Thorpe-Ambrose before this abominable report had time to reach her; and I shall take good care, for her sake, that she is not agitated and unsettled by hearing it where she is now.’
Armadale’s petition to me, under these circumstances, entreats (as I am the innocent cause of the new attack on his character), that I will write to the major to absolve him of all indiscretion in the matter, and to say that he could not, in common politeness, do otherwise than accompany me to London. I forgive the impudence of his request, in consideration of the news that he sends me. It is certainly another circumstance in my favour, that the scandal at Thorpe-Ambrose is not to be allowed to reach Miss Milroy’s ears. With her temper (if she did hear it) she might do something desperate in the way of claiming her lover, and might compromise me seriously. As for my own course with Armadale, it is easy enough. I shall quiet him by promising to write to Major Milroy; and I shall take the liberty, in my own private interests, of not keeping my word.
Nothing in the least suspicious has happened to-day. Whoever my enemies are, they have lost me, and between this and the time when I leave England they shall not find me again. I have been to the post-office, and have got the ticket for my luggage, enclosed to me in a letter from All Saints’ Terrace as I directed. The luggage itself I shall still leave at the cloak-room, until I see the way before me more clearly than I see it now.
August 5th. – Two letters again from the hotel. Midwinter writes to remind me, in the prettiest possible manner, that he will have lived long enough in the parish by to-morrow to be able to get our marriage licence, and that he proposes applying for it in the usual way at Doctors’ Commons. Now, if I am ever to say it, is the time to say No. I can’t say No. There is the plain truth – and there is an end of it!
Armadale’s letter is a letter of farewell. He thanks me for my kindness in consenting to write to the major, and bids me good-by till we meet again at Naples. He has learnt from his friend that there are private reasons which will oblige him to forbid himself the pleasure of being present at our marriage. Under these circumstances, there is nothing to keep him in London. He has made all his business arrangements; he goes to Somersetshire by to-night’s train; and, after staying some time with Mr Brock, he will sail for the Mediterranean from the Bristol Channel (in spite of Midwinter’s objections) in his own yacht.
The letter encloses a jeweller’s box, with a ring in it – Armadale’s present to me on my marriage. It is a ruby – but rather a small one, and set in the worst possible taste. He would have given Miss Milroy a ring worth ten times the money, if it had been her marriage present. There is no more hateful creature, in my opinion, than a miserly young man. I wonder whether his trumpery little yacht will drown him?
I am so excited and fluttered, I hardly know what I am writing. Not that I shrink from what is coming – I only feel as if I was being hurried on faster than I quite like to go. At this rate, if nothing happens, Midwinter will have married me, by the end of the week. And then–!
August 6th. – If anything could startle me now, I should feel startled by the news that has reached me to-day.
On his return to the hotel this morning, after getting the Marriage Licence, Midwinter found a telegram waiting for him. It contained an urgent message from Armadale, announcing that Mr Brock had had a relapse, and that all hope of his recovery was pronounced by the doctors to be at an end. By the dying man’s own desire, Midwinter was summoned to take leave of him, and was entreated by Armadale not to lose a moment in starting for the rectory by the first train.
The hurried letter which tells me this, tells me also that, by the time I receive it, Midwinter will be on his way to the west. He promises to write at greater length, after he has seen Mr Brock, by to-night’s post.
This news has an interest for me, which Midwinter little suspects. There is but one human creature, besides myself, who knows the secret of his birth and his name – and that one, is the old man who now lies waiting for him at the point of death. What will they say to each other at the last moment? Will some chance word take them back to the time when I was in Mrs Armadale’s service at Madeira? Will they speak of Me?
August 7th. – The promised letter has just reached me. No parting words have been exchanged between them – it was all over before Midwinter reached Somersetshire. Armadale met him at the rectory gate with the news that Mr Brock was dead.
I try to struggle against it, but, coming after the strange complication of circumstances that has been closing round me for weeks past, there is something in this latest event of all that shakes my nerves. But one last chance of detection stood in my way when I opened my diary yesterday. When I open it to-day, that chance is removed by Mr Brock’s death. It means something; I wish I knew what.
The funeral is to be on Saturday morning. Midwinter will attend it as well as Armadale. But he proposes returning to London first; and he writes word that he will call to-night, in the hope of seeing me on his way from the station to the hotel. Even if there was any risk in it, I should see him, as things are now. But there is no risk if he comes here from the station, instead of coming from the hotel.6
Five o’clock. – I was not mistaken in believing that my nerves were all unstrung. Trifles that would not have cost me
a second thought at other times, weigh heavily on my mind now.
Two hours since, in despair of knowing how to get through the day, I bethought myself of the milliner who is making my summer dress. I had intended to go and try it on yesterday – but it slipped out of my memory, in the excitement of hearing about Mr Brock. So I went this afternoon, eager to do anything that might help me to get rid of myself. I have returned, feeling more uneasy and more depressed than I felt when I went out – for I have come back, fearing that I may yet have reason to repent not having left my unfinished dress on the milliner’s hands.
Nothing happened to me, this time, in the street. It was only in the trying-on room that my suspicions were roused; and, there, it certainly did cross my mind that the attempt to discover me, which I defeated at All Saints’ Terrace, was not given up yet, and that some of the shopwomen had been tampered with, if not the mistress herself.
Can I give myself anything in the shape of a reason for this impression? Let me think a little.
I certainly noticed two things which were out of the ordinary routine, under the circumstances. In the first place, there were twice as many women as were needed in the trying-on room. This looked suspicious – and yet, I might have accounted for it in more ways than one. Is it not the slack time now? and don’t I know by experience that I am the sort of woman about whom other women are always spitefully curious? I thought again, in the second place, that one of the assistants persisted rather oddly in keeping me turned in a particular direction, with my face towards the glazed and curtained door that led into the workroom. But, after all, she gave a reason, when I asked for it. She said the light fell better on me that way – and, when I looked round, there was the window to prove her right. Still, these trifles produced such an effect on me, at the time, that I purposely found fault with the dress, so as to have an excuse for trying it on again, before I told them where I lived, and had it sent home. Pure fancy, I dare say. Pure fancy, perhaps, at the present moment. I don’t care – I shall act on instinct (as they say), and give up the dress. In plainer words still, I won’t go back.
Midnight. – Midwinter came to see me as he promised. An hour has passed since we said good-night; and here I still sit, with my pen in my hand, thinking of him. No words of mine can describe what has passed between us. The end of it is all I can write in these pages – and the end of it is, that he has shaken my resolution. For the first time since I saw the easy way to Armadale’s life at Thorpe-Ambrose, I feel as if the man whom I have doomed in my own thoughts, had a chance of escaping me.
Is it my love for Midwinter that has altered me? Or is it his love for me that has taken possession, not only of all I wish to give him, but of all I wish to keep from him as well? I feel as if I had lost myself – lost myself, I mean, in him – all through the evening. He was in great agitation about what had happened in Somersetshire – and he made me feel as disheartened and as wretched about it as he did. Though he never confessed it in words, I know that Mr Brock’s death has startled him as an ill-omen for our marriage – I know it because I feel Mr Brock’s death as an ill-omen too. The superstition – his superstition – took so strong a hold on me, that when we grew calmer, and he spoke of the future – when he told me that he must either break his engagement with his new employers, or go abroad, as he is pledged to go, on Monday next – I actually shrank at the thought of our marriage following close on Mr Brock’s funeral; I actually said to him, in the impulse of the moment, ‘Go, and begin your new life alone! go, and leave me here to wait for happier times.’
He took me in his arms. He sighed, and kissed me with an angelic tenderness. He said – oh, so softly and so sadly! – ‘I have no life now, apart from you.’ As those words passed his lips, the thought seemed to rise in my mind like an echo, ‘Why not live out all the days that are left to me, happy and harmless in a love like this!’ I can’t explain it – I can’t realize it. That was the thought in me at the time; and that is the thought in me still. I see my own hand while I write the words – and I ask myself whether it is really the hand of Lydia Gwilt!
Armadale—
No! I will never write, I will never think of Armadale again.
Yes! Let me write once more – let me think once more of him, because it quiets me to know that he is going away, and that the sea will have parted us before I am married. His old home is home to him no longer, now that the loss of his mother has been followed by the loss of his best and earliest friend. When the funeral is over, he has decided to sail the same day for the foreign seas. We may, or we may not, meet at Naples. Shall I be an altered woman, if we do? I wonder! I wonder!
August 8th. – A line from Midwinter. He has gone back to Somersetshire to be in readiness for the funeral to-morrow; and he will return here (after bidding Armadale good-by) to-morrow evening.
The last forms and ceremonies preliminary to our marriage have been complied with. I am to be his wife, on Monday next. The hour must not be later than half-past ten – which will give us just time, when the service is over, to get from the church door to the railway, and to start on our journey to Naples the same day.
To-day – Saturday – Sunday! I am not afraid of the time; the time will pass. I am not afraid of myself, if I can only keep all thoughts but one out of my mind. I love him! Day and night, till Monday comes, I will think of nothing but that. I love him!
Four o’clock. – Other thoughts are forced into my mind in spite of me. My suspicions of yesterday were no mere fancies; the milliner has been tampered with. My folly in going back to her house has led to my being traced here. I am absolutely certain that I never gave the woman my address – and yet my new gown was sent home to me at two o’clock today!
A man brought it with the bill, and a civil message to say that, as I had not called at the appointed time to try it on again, the dress had been finished and sent to me. He caught me in the passage; I had no choice but to pay the bill, and dismiss him. Any other proceeding, as events have now turned out, would have been pure folly. The messenger (not the man who followed me in the street, but another spy sent to look at me beyond all doubt) would have declared he knew nothing about it, if I had spoken to him. The milliner would tell me to my face, if I went to her, that I had given her my address. The one useful thing to do now, is to set my wits to work in the interests of my own security, and to step out of the false position in which my own rashness has placed me – if I can.
Seven o’clock. – My spirits have risen again. I believe I am in a fair way of extricating myself already.
I have just come back from a long round in a cab. First, to the cloak-room of the Great Western, to get the luggage which I sent there from All Saints’ Terrace. Next, to the cloak-room of the South Eastern, to leave my luggage (labelled in Midwinter’s name), to wait for me till the starting of the tidal train7 on Monday. Next, to the General Post Office, to post a letter to Midwinter at the rectory, which he will receive tomorrow morning. Lastly, back again to this house – from which I shall move no more till Monday comes.
My letter to Midwinter will, I have little doubt, lead to his seconding (quite innocently) the precautions that I am taking for my own safety. The shortness of the time at our disposal, on Monday, will oblige him to pay his bill at the hotel and to remove his luggage, before the marriage ceremony takes place. All I ask him to do beyond this, is to take the luggage himself to the South Eastern (so as to make any inquiries useless which may address themselves to the servants at the hotel) – and, that done, to meet me at the church door, instead of calling for me here. The rest concerns nobody but myself. When Sunday night or Monday morning comes, it will be hard indeed – freed as I am now from all encumbrances – if I can’t give the people who are watching me the slip for the second time.
It seems needless enough to have written to Midwinter to-day, when he is coming back to me to-morrow night. But it was impossible to ask, what I have been obliged to ask of him, without making my false family circumstances once more the e
xcuse; and having this to do – I must own the truth – I wrote to him because, after what I suffered on the last occasion, I can never again deceive him to his face.
August 9th. – Two o’clock. – I rose early this morning, more depressed in spirits than usual. The re-beginning of one’s life, at the re-beginning of every day, has always been something weary and hopeless to me for years past. I dreamt too all through the night – not of Midwinter and of my married life, as I had hoped to dream – but of the wretched conspiracy to discover me, by which I have been driven from one place to another, like a hunted animal. Nothing in the shape of a new revelation enlightened me in my sleep. All I could guess, dreaming, was what I had guessed waking, that Mother Oldershaw is the enemy who is attacking me in the dark. Except old Bashwood (whom it would be ridiculous to think of in such a serious matter as this), who else but Mother Oldershaw can have an object to serve by interfering with my proceedings at the present time?
My restless night has, however, produced one satisfactory result. It has led to my winning the good graces of the servant here, and securing all the assistance she can give me when the time comes for making my escape.
The girl noticed this morning that I looked pale and anxious. I took her into my confidence, to the extent of telling her that I was privately engaged to be married, and that I had enemies who were trying to part me from my sweetheart. This instantly roused her sympathy – and a present of a ten-shilling piece for her kind services to me did the rest. In the intervals of her house-work she has been with me nearly the whole morning; and I have found out, among other things, that her sweetheart is a private soldier in the Guards, and that she expects to see him tomorrow. I have got money enough left, little as it is, to turn the head of any Private in the British army – and, if the person appointed to watch me to-morrow is a man, I think it just possible that he may find his attention disagreeably diverted from Miss Gwilt in the course of the evening.