Left by himself, Noel Vanstone became absorbed in anxious reflection over the blank s.p.a.ce in the advertis.e.m.e.nt. Mrs. Lecount"s apparently superfluous hint to him to be liberal in offering money when he knew he had no intention of parting with it, had been founded on an intimate knowledge of his character. He had inherited his father"s sordid love of money, without inheriting his father"s hard-headed capacity for seeing the uses to which money can be put. His one idea in connection with his wealth was the idea of keeping it. He was such an inborn miser that the bare prospect of being liberal in theory only daunted him. He took up the pen; laid it down again; and read the anonymous letter for the third time, shaking his head over it suspiciously. "If I offer this man a large sum of money," he thought, on a sudden, "how do I know he may not find a means of actually making me pay it? Women are always in a hurry.
Lecount is always in a hurry. I have got the afternoon before me--I"ll take the afternoon to consider it."
He fretfully put away the blotting-book and the sketch of the advertis.e.m.e.nt on the chair which Mrs. Lecount had just left. As he returned to his own seat, he shook his little head solemnly, and arranged his white dressing-gown over his knees with the air of a man absorbed in anxious thought. Minute after minute pa.s.sed away; the quarters and the half-hours succeeded each other on the dial of Mrs.
Lecount"s watch, and still Noel Vanstone remained lost in doubt; still no summons for the servants disturbed the tranquillity of the parlor bell.
Meanwhile, after parting with Mrs. Lecount, Magdalen had cautiously abstained from crossing the road to her lodgings, and had only ventured to return after making a circuit in the neighborhood. When she found herself once more in Vauxhall Walk, the first object which attracted her attention was a cab drawn up before the door of the lodgings. A few steps more in advance showed her the landlady"s daughter standing at the cab door engaged in a dispute with the driver on the subject of his fare. Noticing that the girl"s back was turned toward her, Magdalen instantly profited by that circ.u.mstance and slipped un.o.bserved into the house.
She glided along the pa.s.sage, ascended the stairs, and found herself, on the first landing, face to face with her traveling companion! There stood Mrs. Wragge, with a pile of small parcels hugged up in her arms, anxiously waiting the issue of the dispute with the cabman in the street. To return was impossible--the sound of the angry voices below was advancing into the pa.s.sage. To hesitate was worse than useless. But one choice was left--the choice of going on--and Magdalen desperately took it. She pushed by Mrs. Wragge without a word, ran into her own room, tore off her cloak, bonnet and wig, and threw them down out of sight in the blank s.p.a.ce between the sofa-bedstead and the wall.
For the first few moments, astonishment bereft Mrs. Wragge of the power of speech, and rooted her to the spot where she stood. Two out of the collection of parcels in her arms fell from them on the stairs. The sight of that catastrophe roused her. "Thieves!" cried Mrs. Wragge, suddenly struck by an idea. "Thieves!"
Magdalen heard her through the room door, which she had not had time to close completely. "Is that you, Mrs. Wragge?" she called out in her own voice. "What is the matter?" She s.n.a.t.c.hed up a towel while she spoke, dipped it in water, and pa.s.sed it rapidly over the lower part of her face. At the sound of the familiar voice Mrs. Wragge turned round--dropped a third parcel--and, forgetting it in her astonishment, ascended the second flight of stairs. Magdalen stepped out on the first-floor landing, with the towel held over her forehead as if she was suffering from headache. Her false eyebrows required time for their removal, and a headache a.s.sumed for the occasion suggested the most convenient pretext she could devise for hiding them as they were hidden now.
"What are you disturbing the house for?" she asked. "Pray be quiet; I am half blind with the headache."
"Anything wrong, ma"am?" inquired the landlady from the pa.s.sage.
"Nothing whatever," replied Magdalen. "My friend is timid; and the dispute with the cabman has frightened her. Pay the man what he wants, and let him go."
"Where is She?" asked Mrs. Wragge, in a tremulous whisper. "Where"s the woman who scuttled by me into your room?"
"Pooh!" said Magdalen. "No woman scuttled by you--as you call it. Look in and see for yourself."
She threw open the door. Mrs. Wragge walked into the room--looked all over it--saw n.o.body--and indicated her astonishment at the result by dropping a fourth parcel, and trembling helplessly from head to foot.
"I saw her go in here," said Mrs. Wragge, in awestruck accents. "A woman in a gray cloak and a poke bonnet. A rude woman. She scuttled by me on the stairs--she did. Here"s the room, and no woman in it. Give us a Prayer-book!" cried Mrs. Wragge, turning deadly pale, and letting her whole remaining collection of parcels fall about her in a little cascade of commodities. "I want to read something Good. I want to think of my latter end. I"ve seen a Ghost!"
"Nonsense!" said Magdalen. "You"re dreaming; the shopping has been too much for you. Go into your own room and take your bonnet off."
"I"ve heard tell of ghosts in night-gowns, ghosts in sheets, and ghosts in chains," proceeded Mrs. Wragge, standing petrified in her own magic circle of linen-drapers" parcels. "Here"s a worse ghost than any of "em--a ghost in a gray cloak and a poke bonnet. I know what it is,"
continued Mrs. Wragge, melting into penitent tears. "It"s a judgment on me for being so happy away from the captain. It"s a judgment on me for having been down at heel in half the shops in London, first with one shoe and then with the other, all the time I"ve been out. I"m a sinful creature. Don"t let go of me--whatever you do, my dear, don"t let go of me!" She caught Magdalen fast by the arm and fell into another trembling fit at the bare idea of being left by herself.
The one remaining chance in such an emergency as this was to submit to circ.u.mstances. Magdalen took Mrs. Wragge to a chair; having first placed it in such a position as might enable her to turn her back on her traveling-companion, while she removed the false eyebrows by the help of a little water. "Wait a minute there," she said, "and try if you can compose yourself while I bathe my head."
"Compose myself?" repeated Mrs. Wragge. "How am I to compose myself when my head feels off my shoulders? The worst Buzzing I ever had with the Cookery-book was nothing to the Buzzing I"ve got now with the Ghost.
Here"s a miserable end to a holiday! You may take me back again, my dear, whenever you like--I"ve had enough of it already!"
Having at last succeeded in removing the eyebrows, Magdalen was free to combat the unfortunate impression produced on her companion"s mind by every weapon of persuasion which her ingenuity could employ.
The attempt proved useless. Mrs. Wragge persisted--on evidence which, it may be remarked in parenthesis, would have satisfied many wiser ghost-seers than herself--in believing that she had been supernaturally favored by a visitor from the world of spirits. All that Magdalen could do was to ascertain, by cautious investigation, that Mrs. Wragge had not been quick enough to identify the supposed ghost with the character of the old North-country lady in the Entertainment. Having satisfied herself on this point, she had no resource but to leave the rest to the natural incapability of retaining impressions--unless those impressions were perpetually renewed--which was one of the characteristic infirmities of her companion"s weak mind. After fortifying Mrs. Wragge by reiterated a.s.surances that one appearance (according to all the laws and regulations of ghosts) meant nothing unless it was immediately followed by two more--after patiently leading back her attention to the parcels dropped on the floor and on the stairs--and after promising to keep the door of communication ajar between the two rooms if Mrs. Wragge would engage on her side to retire to her own chamber, and to say no more on the terrible subject of the ghost--Magdalen at last secured the privilege of reflecting uninterruptedly on the events of that memorable day.
Two serious consequences had followed her first step forward. Mrs.
Lecount had entrapped her into speaking in her own voice, and accident had confronted her with Mrs. Wragge in disguise.
What advantage had she gained to set against these disasters? The advantage of knowing more of Noel Vanstone and of Mrs. Lecount than she might have discovered in months if she had trusted to inquiries made for her by others. One uncertainty which had hitherto perplexed her was set at rest already. The scheme she had privately devised against Michael Vanstone--which Captain Wragge"s sharp insight had partially penetrated when she first warned him that their partnership must be dissolved--was a scheme which she could now plainly see must be abandoned as hopeless, in the case of Michael Vanstone"s son. The father"s habits of speculation had been the pivot on which the whole machinery of her meditated conspiracy had been constructed to turn. No such vantage-ground was discoverable in the doubly sordid character of the son. Noel Vanstone was invulnerable on the very point which had presented itself in his father as open to attack.
Having reached this conclusion, how was she to shape her future course?
What new means could she discover which would lead her secretly to her end, in defiance of Mrs. Lecount"s malicious vigilance and Noel Vanstone"s miserly distrust?
She was seated before the looking-gla.s.s, mechanically combing out her hair, while that all-important consideration occupied her mind. The agitation of the moment had raised a feverish color in her cheeks, and had brightened the light in her large gray eyes. She was conscious of looking her best; conscious how her beauty gained by contrast, after the removal of the disguise. Her lovely light brown hair looked thicker and softer than ever, now that it had escaped from its imprisonment under the gray wig. She twisted it this way and that, with quick, dexterous fingers; she laid it in ma.s.ses on her shoulders; she threw it back from them in a heap and turned sidewise to see how it fell--to see her back and shoulders freed from the artificial deformities of the padded cloak.
After a moment she faced the looking-gla.s.s once more; plunged both hands deep in her hair; and, resting her elbows on the table, looked closer and closer at the reflection of herself, until her breath began to dim the gla.s.s. "I can twist any man alive round my finger," she thought, with a smile of superb triumph, "as long as I keep my looks! If that contemptible wretch saw me now--" She shrank from following that thought to its end, with a sudden horror of herself: she drew back from the gla.s.s, shuddering, and put her hands over her face. "Oh, Frank!" she murmured, "but for you, what a wretch I might be!" Her eager fingers s.n.a.t.c.hed the little white silk bag from its hiding-place in her bosom; her lips devoured it with silent kisses. "My darling! my angel! Oh, Frank, how I love you!" The tears gushed into her eyes. She pa.s.sionately dried them, restored the bag to its place, and turned her back on the looking-gla.s.s. "No more of myself," she thought; "no more of my mad, miserable self for to-day!"
Shrinking from all further contemplation of her next step in advance--shrinking from the fast-darkening future, with which Noel Vanstone was now a.s.sociated in her inmost thoughts--she looked impatiently about the room for some homely occupation which might take her out of herself. The disguise which she had flung down between the wall and the bed recurred to her memory. It was impossible to leave it there. Mrs. Wragge (now occupied in sorting her parcels) might weary of her employment, might come in again at a moment"s notice, might pa.s.s near the bed, and see the gray cloak. What was to be done?
Her first thought was to put the disguise back in her trunk. But after what had happened, there was danger in trusting it so near to herself while she and Mrs. Wragge were together under the same roof. She resolved to be rid of it that evening, and boldly determined on sending it back to Birmingham. Her bonnet-box fitted into her trunk. She took the box out, thrust in the wig and cloak, and remorselessly flattened down the bonnet at the top. The gown (which she had not yet taken off) was her own; Mrs. Wragge had been accustomed to see her in it--there was no need to send the gown back. Before closing the box, she hastily traced these lines on a sheet of paper: "I took the inclosed things away by mistake. Please keep them for me, with the rest of my luggage in your possession, until you hear from me again." Putting the paper on the top of the bonnet, she directed the box to Captain Wragge at Birmingham, took it downstairs immediately, and sent the landlady"s daughter away with it to the nearest Receiving-house. "That difficulty is disposed of," she thought, as she went back to her own room again.
Mrs. Wragge was still occupied in sorting her parcels on her narrow little bed. She turned round with a faint scream when Magdalen looked in at her. "I thought it was the ghost again," said Mrs. Wragge. "I"m trying to take warning, my dear, by what"s happened to me. I"ve put all my parcels straight, just as the captain would like to see "em. I"m up at heel with both shoes. If I close my eyes to-night--which I don"t think I shall--I"ll go to sleep as straight as my legs will let me. And I"ll never have another holiday as long as I live. I hope I shall be forgiven," said Mrs. Wragge, mournfully shaking her head. "I humbly hope I shall be forgiven."
"Forgiven!" repeated Magdalen. "If other women wanted as little forgiving as you do--Well! well! Suppose you open some of these parcels.
Come! I want to see what you have been buying to-day."
Mrs. Wragge hesitated, sighed penitently, considered a little, stretched out her hand timidly toward one of the parcels, thought of the supernatural warning, and shrank back from her own purchases with a desperate exertion of self-control.
"Open this one." said Magdalen, to encourage her: "what is it?"
Mrs. Wragge"s faded blue eyes began to brighten dimly, in spite of her remorse; but she self-denyingly shook her head. The master-pa.s.sion of shopping might claim his own again--but the ghost was not laid yet.
"Did you get it at a bargain?" asked Magdalen, confidentially.
"Dirt cheap!" cried poor Mrs. Wragge, falling headlong into the snare, and darting at the parcel as eagerly as if nothing had happened.
Magdalen kept her gossiping over her purchases for an hour or more, and then wisely determined to distract her attention from all ghostly recollections in another way by taking her out for a walk.
As they left the lodgings, the door of Noel Vanstone"s house opened, and the woman-servant appeared, bent on another errand. She was apparently charged with a letter on this occasion which she carried carefully in her hand. Conscious of having formed no plan yet either for attack or defense, Magdalen wondered, with a momentary dread, whether Mrs. Lecount had decided already on opening fresh communications, and whether the letter was directed to "Miss Garth."
The let ter bore no such address. Noel Vanstone had solved his pecuniary problem at last. The blank s.p.a.ce in the advertis.e.m.e.nt was filled up, and Mrs. Lecount"s acknowledgment of the captain"s anonymous warning was now on its way to insertion in the _Times_.
THE END OF THE THIRD SCENE.
BETWEEN THE SCENES.
PROGRESS OF THE STORY THROUGH THE POST.
I.
_Extract from the Advertising Columns of "The Times."_
"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 Five Pounds."
II.
_From Captain Wragge to Magdalen._