"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 pa.s.sed through the garden gates 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 IV.
MRS. LECOUNT returned to the parlor, 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 favored 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 gray 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 pa.s.sion, 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 lock 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 pa.s.sion 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!"
Instead of sending for the police, Mrs. Lecount took a large green paper fan from the chimney-piece, and seated herself opposite her master.
"You are agitated, Mr. Noel," she said, "you are heated. Let me cool you."
With her face as hard as ever--with less tenderness of look and manner than most women would have shown if they had been rescuing a half-drowned fly from a milk-jug--she silently and patiently fanned him for five minutes or more. No practiced eye observing the peculiar bluish pallor of his complexion, and the marked difficulty with which he drew his breath, could have failed to perceive that the great organ of life was in this man, what the housekeeper had stated it to be, too weak for the function which it was called on to perform. The heart labored over its work as if it had been the heart of a worn-out old man.
"Are you relieved, sir?" asked Mrs. Lecount. "Can you think a little?
Can you exercise your better judgment?"
She rose and put her hand over his heart with as much mechanical attention and as little genuine interest as if she had been feeling the plates at dinner to ascertain if they had been properly warmed. "Yes,"
she went on, seating herself again, and resuming the exercise of the fan; "you are getting better already, Mr. Noel.--Don"t ask me about this anonymous letter until you have thought for yourself, and have given your own opinion first." She went on with the fanning, and looked him hard in the face all the time. "Think," she said; "think, sir, without troubling yourself to express your thoughts. Trust to my intimate sympathy with you to read them. Yes, Mr. Noel, this letter is a paltry attempt to frighten you. What does it say? It says you are the object of a conspiracy directed by Miss Vanstone. We know that already--the lady of the inflamed eyes has told us. We snap our fingers at the conspiracy.
What does the letter say next? It says the writer has valuable information to give you if you will pay for it. What did you call this person yourself just now, sir?"
"I called him a scoundrel," said Noel Vanstone, recovering his self-importance, and raising himself gradually in his chair.
"I agree with you in that, sir, as I agree in everything else,"
proceeded Mrs. Lecount. "He is a scoundrel who really has this information and who means what he says, or he is a mouthpiece of Miss Vanstone"s, and she has caused this letter to be written for the purpose of puzzling us by another form of disguise. Whether the letter is true, or whether the letter is false--am I not reading your own wiser thoughts now, Mr. Noel?--you know better than to put your enemies on their guard by employing the police in this matter too soon. I quite agree with you--no police just yet. You will allow this anonymous man, or anonymous woman, to suppose you are easily frightened; you will lay a trap for the information in return for the trap laid for your money; you will answer the letter, and see what comes of the answer; and you will only pay the expense of employing the police when you know the expense is necessary.
I agree with you again--no expense, if we can help it. In every particular, Mr. Noel, my mind and your mind in this matter are one."
"It strikes you in that light, Lecount--does it?" said Noel Vanstone. "I think so myself; I certainly think so. I won"t pay the police a farthing if I can possibly help it." He took up the letter again, and became fretfully perplexed over a second reading of it. "But the man wants money!" he broke out, impatiently. "You seem to forget, Lecount, that the man wants money."
"Money which you offer him, sir," rejoined Mrs. Lecount; "but--as your thoughts have already antic.i.p.ated--money which you don"t give him. No!
no! you say to this man: "Hold out your hand, sir;" and when he has held it, you give him a smack for his pains, and put your own hand back in your pocket.--I am so glad to see you laughing, Mr. Noel! so glad to see you getting back your good spirits. We will answer the letter by advertis.e.m.e.nt, as the writer directs--advertis.e.m.e.nt is so cheap! Your poor hand is trembling a little--shall I hold the pen for you? I am not fit to do more; but I can always promise to hold the pen."
Without waiting for his reply she went into the back parlor, and returned with pen, ink, and paper. Arranging a blotting-book on her knees, and looking a model of cheerful submission, she placed herself once more in front of her master"s chair.
"Shall I write from your dictation, sir?" she inquired. "Or shall I make a little sketch, and will you correct it afterward? I will make a little sketch. Let me see the letter. We are to advertise in the _Times_, and we are to address "An Unknown Friend." What shall I say, Mr. Noel? Stay; I will write it, and then you can see for yourself: "An Unknown Friend is requested to mention (by advertis.e.m.e.nt) an address at which a letter can reach him. The receipt of the information which he offers will be acknowledged by a reward of--" What sum of money do you wish me to set down, sir?"
"Set down nothing," said Noel Vanstone, with a sudden outbreak of impatience. "Money matters are my business--I say money matters are my business, Lecount. Leave it to me."
"Certainly, sir," replied Mrs. Lecount, handing her master the blotting-book. "You will not forget to be liberal in offering money when you know beforehand you don"t mean to part with it?"
"Don"t dictate, Lecount! I won"t submit to dictation!" said Noel Vanstone, a.s.serting his own independence more and more impatiently. "I mean to conduct this business for myself. I am master, Lecount!"
"You are master, sir."
"My father was master before me. And I am my father"s son. I tell you, Lecount, I am my father"s son!"
Mrs. Lecount bowed submissively.
"I mean to set down any sum of money I think right," pursued Noel Vanstone, nodding his little flaxen head vehemently. "I mean to send this advertis.e.m.e.nt myself. The servant shall take it to the stationer"s to be put into the _Times_. When I ring the bell twice, send the servant. You understand, Lecount? Send the servant."
Mrs. Lecount bowed again and walked slowly to the door. She knew to a nicety when to lead her master and when to let him go alone. Experience had taught her to govern him in all essential points by giving way to him afterward on all points of minor detail. It was a characteristic of his weak nature--as it is of all weak natures--to a.s.sert itself obstinately on trifles. The filling in of the blank in the advertis.e.m.e.nt was the trifle in this case; and Mrs. Lecount quieted her master"s suspicions that she was leading him by instantly conceding it.
"My mule has kicked," she thought to herself, in her own language, as she opened the door. "I can do no more with him to-day."
"Lecount!" cried her master, as she stepped into the pa.s.sage. "Come back."
Mrs. Lecount came back.
"You"re not offended with me, are you?" asked Noel Vanstone, uneasily.
"Certainly not, sir," replied Mrs. Lecount. "As you said just now--you are master."
"Good creature! Give me your hand." He kissed her hand, and smiled in high approval of his own affectionate proceeding. "Lecount, you are a worthy creature!"
"Thank you, sir," said Mrs. Lecount. She courtesied and went out. "If he had any brains in that monkey head of his," she said to herself in the pa.s.sage, "what a rascal he would be!"