That startling consideration terrified Noel Vanstone into instant submission.
"What shall I say to the admiral?" he asked, helplessly.
"Tell him you are going to be married, to be sure! What does it matter, now Lecount"s back is turned? If he wonders you didn"t tell him before, say it"s a runaway match, and the bride is waiting for you. Stop! Any letters addressed to you in your absence will be sent to this place, of course? Give the admiral these envelopes, and tell him to forward your letters under cover to me. I am an old customer at the hotel we are going to; and if we find the place full, the landlord may be depended on to take care of any letters with my name on them. A safe address in London for your correspondence may be of the greatest importance. How do we know Lecount may not write to you on her way to Zurich?"
"What a head you have got!" cried Noel Vanstone, eagerly taking the envelopes. "You think of everything."
He left the carriage in high excitement, and ran back into the house. In ten minutes more Captain Wragge had him in safe custody, and the horses started on their return journey.
The travelers reached London in good time that evening, and found accommodation at the hotel.
Knowing the restless, inquisitive nature of the man he had to deal with, Captain Wragge had antic.i.p.ated some little difficulty and embarra.s.sment in meeting the questions which Noel Vanstone might put to him on the way to London. To his great relief, a startling domestic discovery absorbed his traveling companion"s whole attention at the outset of the journey.
By some extraordinary oversight, Miss Bygrave had been left, on the eve of her marriage, unprovided with a maid. Noel Vanstone declared that he would take the whole responsibility of correcting this deficiency in the arrangements, on his own shoulders; he would not trouble Mr. Bygrave to give him any a.s.sistance; he would confer, when they got to their journey"s end, with the landlady of the hotel, and would examine the candidates for the vacant office himself. All the way to London, he returned again and again to the same subject; all the evening, at the hotel, he was in and out of the landlady"s sitting-room, until he fairly obliged her to lock the door. In every other proceeding which related to his marriage, he had been kept in the background; he had been compelled to follow in the footsteps of his ingenious friend. In the matter of the lady"s maid he claimed his fitting position at last--he followed n.o.body; he took the lead!
The forenoon of the next day was devoted to obtaining the license--the personal distinction of making the declaration on oath being eagerly accepted by Noel Vanstone, who swore, in perfect good faith (on information previously obtained from the captain) that the lady was of age. The doc.u.ment procured, the bridegroom returned to examine the characters and qualifications of the women-servants out of the place whom the landlady had engaged to summon to the hotel, while Captain Wragge turned his steps, "on business personal to himself," toward the residence of a friend in a distant quarter of London.
The captain"s friend was connected with the law, and the captain"s business was of a twofold nature. His first object was to inform himself of the legal bearings of the approaching marriage on the future of the husband and the wife. His second object was to provide beforehand for destroying all traces of the destination to which he might betake himself when he left Aldborough on the wedding-day. Having reached his end successfully in both these cases, he returned to the hotel, and found Noel Vanstone nursing his offended dignity in the landlady"s sitting-room. Three ladies" maids had appeared to pa.s.s their examination, and had all, on coming to the question of wages, impudently declined accepting the place. A fourth candidate was expected to present herself on the next day; and, until she made her appearance, Noel Vanstone positively declined removing from the metropolis. Captain Wragge showed his annoyance openly at the unnecessary delay thus occasioned in the return to Aldborough, but without producing any effect. Noel Vanstone shook his obstinate little head, and solemnly refused to trifle with his responsibilities.
The first event which occurred on Sat.u.r.day morning was the arrival of Mrs. Lecount"s letter to her master, inclosed in one of the envelopes which the captain had addressed to himself. He received it (by previous arrangement with the waiter) in his bedroom--read it with the closest attention--and put it away carefully in his pocketbook. The letter was ominous of serious events to come when the housekeeper returned to England; and it was due to Magdalen--who was the person threatened--to place the warning of danger in her own possession.
Later in the day the fourth candidate appeared for the maid"s situation--a young woman of small expectations and subdued manners, who looked (as the landlady remarked) like a person overtaken by misfortune.
She pa.s.sed the ordeal of examination successfully, and accepted the wages offered with out a murmur. The engagement having been ratified on both sides, fresh delays ensued, of which Noel Vanstone was once more the cause. He had not yet made up his mind whether he would, or would not, give more than a guinea for the wedding-ring; and he wasted the rest of the day to such disastrous purpose in one jeweler"s shop after another, that he and the captain, and the new lady"s maid (who traveled with them), were barely in time to catch the last train from London that evening. It was late at night when they left the railway at the nearest station to Aldborough. Captain Wragge had been strangely silent all through the journey. His mind was ill at ease. He had left Magdalen, under very critical circ.u.mstances, with no fit person to control her, and he was wholly ignorant of the progress of events in his absence at North Shingles.
CHAPTER XIII.
WHAT had happened at Aldborough in Captain Wragge"s absence? Events had occurred which the captain"s utmost dexterity might have found it hard to remedy.
As soon as the chaise had left North Shingles, Mrs. Wragge received the message which her husband had charged the servant to deliver. She hastened into the parlor, bewildered by her stormy interview with the captain, and penitently conscious that she had done wrong, without knowing what the wrong was. If Magdalen"s mind had been unoccupied by the one idea of the marriage which now filled it--if she had possessed composure enough to listen to Mrs. Wragge"s rambling narrative of what had happened during her interview with the housekeeper--Mrs. Lecount"s visit to the wardrobe must, sooner or later, have formed part of the disclosure; and Magdalen, although she might never have guessed the truth, must at least have been warned that there was some element of danger lurking treacherously in the Alpaca dress. As it was, no such consequence as this followed Mrs. Wragge"s appearance in the parlor; for no such consequence was now possible.
Events which had happened earlier in the morning, events which had happened for days and weeks past, had vanished as completely from Magdalen"s mind as if they had never taken place. The horror of the coming Monday--the merciless certainty implied in the appointment of the day and hour--petrified all feeling in her, and annihilated all thought.
Mrs. Wragge made three separate attempts to enter on the subject of the housekeeper"s visit. The first time she might as well have addressed herself to the wind, or to the sea. The second attempt seemed likely to be more successful. Magdalen sighed, listened for a moment indifferently, and then dismissed the subject. "It doesn"t matter," she said. "The end has come all the same. I"m not angry with you. Say no more." Later in the day, from not knowing what else to talk about, Mrs.
Wragge tried again. This time Magdalen turned on her impatiently. "For G.o.d"s sake, don"t worry me about trifles! I can"t bear it." Mrs. Wragge closed her lips on the spot, and returned to the subject no more.
Magdalen, who had been kind to her at all other times, had angrily forbidden it. The captain--utterly ignorant of Mrs. Lecount"s interest in the secrets of the wardrobe--had never so much as approached it. All the information that he had extracted from his wife"s mental confusion, he had extracted by putting direct questions, derived purely from the resources of his own knowledge. He had insisted on plain answers, without excuses of any kind; he had carried his point as usual; and his departure the same morning had left him no chance of re-opening the question, even if his irritation against his wife had permitted him to do so. There the Alpaca dress hung, neglected in the dark--the unnoticed, unsuspected center of dangers that were still to come.
Toward the afternoon Mrs. Wragge took courage to start a suggestion of her own--she pleaded for a little turn in the fresh air.
Magdalen pa.s.sively put on her hat; pa.s.sively accompanied her companion along the public walk, until they reached its northward extremity. Here the beach was left solitary, and here they sat down, side by side, on the shingle. It was a bright, exhilarating day; pleasure-boats were sailing on the calm blue water; Aldborough was idling happily afloat and ash.o.r.e. Mrs. Wragge recovered her spirits in the gayety of the prospect--she amused herself like a child, by tossing pebbles into the sea. From time to time she stole a questioning glance at Magdalen, and saw no encouragement in her manner, no change to cordiality in her face.
She sat silent on the slope of the shingle, with her elbow on her knee, and her head resting on her hand, looking out over the sea--looking with rapt attention, and yet with eyes that seemed to notice nothing.
Mrs. Wragge wearied of the pebbles, and lost her interest in looking at the pleasure-boats. Her great head began to nod heavily, and she dozed in the warm, drowsy air. When she woke, the pleasure-boats were far off; their sails were white specks in the distance. The idlers on the beach were thinned in number; the sun was low in the heaven; the blue sea was darker, and rippled by a breeze. Changes on sky and earth and ocean told of the waning day; change was everywhere--except close at her side.
There Magdalen sat, in the same position, with weary eyes that still looked over the sea, and still saw nothing.
"Oh, do speak to me!" said Mrs. Wragge.
Magdalen started, and looked about her vacantly.
"It"s late," she said, shivering under the first sensation that reached her of the rising breeze. "Come home; you want your tea." They walked home in silence.
"Don"t be angry with me for asking," said Mrs. Wragge, as they sat together at the tea-table. "Are you troubled, my dear, in your mind?"
"Yes," replied Magdalen. "Don"t notice me. My trouble will soon be over."
She waited patiently until Mrs. Wragge had made an end of the meal, and then went upstairs to her own room.
"Monday!" she said, as she sat down at her toilet-table. "Something may happen before Monday comes!"
Her fingers wandered mechanically among the brushes and combs, the tiny bottles and cases placed on the table. She set them in order, now in one way, and now in another--then on a sudden pushed them away from her in a heap. For a minute or two her hands remained idle. That interval pa.s.sed, they grew restless again, and pulled the two little drawers backward and forward in their grooves. Among the objects laid in one of them was a Prayer-book which had belonged to her at Combe-Raven, and which she had saved with her other relics of the past, when she and her sister had taken their farewell of home. She opened the Prayer-book, after a long hesitation, at the Marriage Service, shut it again before she had read a line, and put it back hurriedly in one of the drawers. After turning the key in the locks, she rose and walked to the window. "The horrible sea!" she said, turning from it with a shudder of disgust--"the lonely, dreary, horrible sea!"
She went back to the drawer, and took the Prayer-book out for the second time, half opened it again at the Marriage Service, and impatiently threw it back into the drawer. This time, after turning the lock, she took the key away, walked with it in her hand to the open window, and threw it violently from her into the garden. It fell on a bed thickly planted with flowers. It was invisible; it was lost. The sense of its loss seemed to relieve her.
"Something may happen on Friday; something may happen on Sat.u.r.day; something may happen on Sunday. Three days still!"
She closed the green shutters outside the window and drew the curtains to darken the room still more. Her head felt heavy; her eyes were burning hot. She threw herself on her bed, with a sullen impulse to sleep away the time. The quiet of the house helped her; the darkness of the room helped her; the stupor of mind into which she had fallen had its effect on her senses; she dropped into a broken sleep. Her restless hands moved incessantly, her head tossed from side to side of the pillow, but still she slept. Ere long words fell by ones and twos from her lips; words whispered in her sleep, growing more and more continuous, more and more articulate, the longer the sleep lasted--words which seemed to calm her restlessness and to hush her into deeper repose. She smiled; she was in the happy land of dreams; Frank"s name escaped her. "Do you love me, Frank?" she whispered. "Oh, my darling, say it again! say it again!"
The time pa.s.sed, the room grew darker; and still she slumbered and dreamed. Toward sunset--without any noise inside the house or out to account for it--she started up on the bed, awake again in an instant.
The drowsy obscurity of the room struck her with terror. She ran to the window, pushed open the shutters, and leaned far out into the evening air and the evening light. Her eyes devoured the trivial sights on the beach; her ears drank in the welcome murmur of the sea. Anything to deliver her from the waking impression which her dreams had left! No more darkness, no more repose. Sleep that came mercifully to others came treacherously to her. Sleep had only closed her eyes on the future, to open them on the past.
She went down again into the parlor, eager to talk--no matter how idly, no matter on what trifles. The room was empty. Perhaps Mrs. Wragge had gone to her work--perhaps she was too tired to talk. Magdalen took her hat from the table and went out. The sea that she had shrunk from, a few hours since, looked friendly now. How lovely it was in its cool evening blue! What a G.o.d-like joy in the happy mult.i.tude of waves leaping up to the light of heaven!
She stayed out until the night fell and the stars appeared. The night steadied her.
By slow degrees her mind recovered its balance and she looked her position unflinchingly in the face. The vain hope that accident might defeat the very end for which, of her own free-will, she had ceaselessly plotted and toiled, vanished and left her; self-dissipated in its own weakness. She knew the true alternative, and faced it. On one side was the revolting ordeal of the marriage; on the other, the abandonment of her purpose. Was it too late to choose between the sacrifice of the purpose and the sacrifice of herself? Yes! too late. The backward path had closed behind her. Time that no wish could change, Time that no prayers could recall, had made her purpose a part of herself: once she had governed it; now it governed her. The more she shrank, the harder she struggled, the more mercilessly it drove her on. No other feeling in her was strong enough to master it--not even the horror that was maddening her--the horror of her marriage.
Toward nine o"clock she went back to the house.
"Walking again!" said Mrs. Wragge, meeting her at the door. "Come in and sit down, my dear. How tired you must be!"
Magdalen smiled, and patted Mrs. Wragge kindly on the shoulder.
"You forget how strong I am," she said. "Nothing hurts me."
She lit her candle and went upstairs again into her room. As she returned to the old place by her toilet-table, the vain hope in the three days of delay, the vain hope of deliverance by accident, came back to her--this time in a form more tangible than the form which it had hitherto worn.
"Friday, Sat.u.r.day, Sunday. Something may happen to him; something may happen to me. Something serious; something fatal. One of us may die."
A sudden change came over her face. She shivered, though there was no cold in the air. She started, though there was no noise to alarm her.
"One of us may die. I may be the one."
She fell into deep thought, roused herself after a while, and, opening the door, called to Mrs. Wragge to come and speak to her.
"You were right in thinking I should fatigue myself," she said. "My walk has been a little too much for me. I feel tired, and I am going to bed.
Good-night." She kissed Mrs. Wragge and softly closed the door again.
After a few turns backward and forward in the room, she abruptly opened her writing-case and began a letter to her sister. The letter grew and grew under her hands; she filled sheet after sheet of note-paper. Her heart was full of her subject: it was her own story addressed to Norah.
She shed no tears; she was composed to a quiet sadness. Her pen ran smoothly on. After writing for more than two hours, she left off while the letter was still unfinished. There was no signature attached to it--there was a blank s.p.a.ce reserved, to be filled up at some other time. After putting away the case, with the sheets of writing secured inside it, she walked to the window for air, and stood there looking out.