 Book III. CHAPTER XIV. PART II. OF ARMADALE. Anything so ridiculous as Armadale's behaviour under the double shock of discovering that his young lady has been taken away from him and that I am to be married to midwinter, I never before witnessed in all my experience. To say that he was like a child is a libel on all children who are not born idiots. He congratulated me on my coming marriage and executed the unknown wretch who had written the anonymous letter, little thinking that he was speaking of one and the same person in one and the same breath. Now he submissively acknowledged that Major Mirroy had his rights as a father and now he revived the Major as having no feeling for anything but his mechanics and his clock. At one moment he started up with the tears in his eyes and declared that his darling Neely was an angel on earth. At another he sat down sulkingly and thought that a girl of her spirit might have run away on the spot and joined him in London. After a good half hour of this absurd exhibition I succeeded in quieting him and then a few words of tender inquiry produced what I had expressed he come to the hotel to see, Miss Mirroy's letter. It was outrageously long and rambling and confused, in short the letter of a fool. I had to wait through plenty of vulgar sentiment and lamentation and to lose time and patience over muddling outbursts of affection and nauseous kisses enclosed in circles of ink. However I contrived to extract the information I wanted at last and here it is. The Major, on receipt of my anonymous warning, appears to have sent at once for his daughter and to have shown her the letter. You know what a hard life I'll lead with your mother. Don't make it harder still, Neely, by deceiving me. That was all the poor old gentleman said. I always did like the Major and, though he was afraid to show it, I know he always liked me. His appeal to his daughter, if her account of it is to be believed, cut her to the heart. She burst out crying, let her alone for crying at the right moment, and confessed everything. After giving her time to recover herself, if he had given her a good box on the ears it would have been more to the purpose. The Major seems to have put certain questions and to have become convinced, as I was convinced myself, that his daughter's heart, or fancy, or whatever she calls it, was really and truly set on Armadain. The discovery evidently distressed as well as surprised him. He appears to have hesitated and to have maintained his own unfavorable opinion of Miss Neely's lover for some little time. But his daughter's tears and entreaties, so like the weakness of the dear old gentleman, shook him at last. Though he firmly refused to allow of any marriage engagement at present, he consented to overlook the clandestine meetings in the park and to put Armadain his fitness to become his son-in-law to the test on certain conditions. These conditions are that for the next six months to come, all communication is to be broke enough, both personally and by writing, between Armadain and Miss Mirroy. That space of time is to be occupied by the young gentleman as he himself thinks best, and by the young lady in completing her education at school. If, when the six months have passed, they are both still of the same mind, and if Armadain's conduct in the interval has been such as to improve the major's opinion of him, he will be allowed to present himself in the character of Miss Mirroy's suitor. And, in six months more, if all goes well, the marriage may take place. I declare I could kiss the dear old major if I was only within reach of him. If I had been at his elbow and had dictated the conditions myself, I could have asked for nothing better than this. Six months of total separation between Armadain and Miss Mirroy. In half that time, with all communication cut off between the two, it must go hard with me indeed if I don't find myself dressed in the necessary mourning and publicly recognized as Armadain's widow. But I am forgetting the girl's letter. She gives her father's reasons for making his conditions in her father's own words. The major seems to have spoken so sensibly and so feelingly that he left his daughter no decent alternative, and he leaves Armadain no decent alternative, but to submit. As well as I can remember, he seems to have expressed himself to Miss Neely in these or Neely in these terms. Don't think I am behaving cruelly to you, my dear. I am merely asking you to put Mr Armadain to the proof. It is not only right. It is absolutely necessary that you should hold no communication with him for some time to come, and I will show you why. In the first place, if you go to school, the necessary rules in such places, necessary for the sake of the other girls, would not permit you to see Mr Armadain or to receive letters from him. And, if you are to become mistress of Thorpe Ambrus, to school you must go, for you would be ashamed, and I should be ashamed, if you occupy the position of a lady of station without having the accomplishments which all ladies of station are expected to possess. In the second place, I want to see whether Mr Armadain will continue to think of you as he thinks now, without being encouraged in his attachment by seeing you, or reminded of it by hearing from you. If I am wrong in thinking him flighty and unreliable, and if your opinion of him is the right one, this is not putting the young men to an unfair test. True love survives much longer separations than a separation of six months. And when that time is over, and well over, and when I have had him under my own eye for another six months, and have learned to think as highly of him as you do, even then, my dear, after all that terrible delay, you will still be a married woman before you are eighteen. Think of this, Neely, and show that you love me and trust me by accepting my proposal. I will hold no communication with Mr Armadain myself. I will leave it to you to write and tell him what has been decided on. He may write back one letter, and one only, to acquaint you with his decision. After that, for the sake of your reputation, nothing more is to be said, and nothing more is to be done, and the matter is to be kept strictly private until the six-month interval is at an end. To this effect the Major spoke. His behaviour to that little slut of a girl has produced a stronger impression on me than anything else in the letter. It has set me thinking, me of all the people in the world, of what they call a moral difficulty. We are perpetually told that there can be no possible connection between virtue and vice. Can there not? Here is Major Mirroy doing exactly what an excellent father, at once kind and prudent, affectionate and firm, would do under the circumstances. And by that very course of conduct he has now smoothed the way for me, as completely as if he had been the chosen accomplice of that abominable creature, Miss Gueld. Only think of my reasoning in this way. But I am in such good spirits I can do anything today. I have not looked so bright and so young as I look now for month past. To return to the letter for the last time, it is so excessively dull and stupid that I really can't help wandering away from it into reflections of my own as a mere relief. After solemnly announcing that she meant to sacrifice herself to her beloved father's wishes, the brazen assurance of her setting up for a martyr after what has happened exceeds anything I have heard or read of, Miss Neely next mentioned that the Major proposed taking her to the seaside for change of air during the few days that were still to elapse before she went to school. Armadale was to send his answer by return of post and to address her under cover to her father at Laustacht. With this, and with the last outburst of tender protestation, crammed cruelly into a corner of the page, the letter ended. NB, the Major's object in taking her to the seaside, is plain enough. He still privately distressed Armadale and he is wisely determined to prevent any more clandestine meetings in the park before the girl is safely disposed of at school. When I had done with the letter, I had requested permission to read parts of it which I particularly admired for the second and third time. We all consulted together in a friendly way about what Armadale was to do. He was full enough at the outset to protest against submitting to Major Melroy's conditions. He declared with his odious red face looking the picture of brute health that he should never survive a six month separation from his beloved Neely. Midwinter, as may easily be imagined, seemed a little ashamed of him and joined me in bringing him to his senses. We showed him what would have been plain enough to anybody but a booby that there was no honourable or even decent alternative left but to follow the example of submission set by the young lady. Wait and you will have her for your wife, was what I said. Wait and you will force the Major to alter his unjust opinion of you, was what Midwinter added. With two clever people hammering common sense into his head at that rate, it is needless to say that his head gave way and he submitted. Having decided him to accept the Major's conditions, I was careful to warn him before he wrote to Miss Melroy that my engagement to Midwinter was to be kept as strictly secret from her as from everybody else. The next question we had to settle related to his future proceedings. I was ready with the necessary arguments to stop him if he had proposed returning to Thorpe Ambrose, but he proposed nothing of the sort. On the contrary, he declared of his own accord that nothing would induce him to go back. The place and the people were associated with everything that was hateful to him. There would be no Miss Melroy now to meet him in the park, and no Midwinter to keep him company in the solitary house. I'd rather break stones on the road was the sensible and cheerful way in which he put it than go back to Thorpe Ambrose. The first suggestion after this came from Midwinter. The sly old clergyman who gave Mrs. Aldershow and me so much trouble has, it seems, been ill, but has been latterly reported better. Why not go to Somersetshire, said Midwinter, and see your good friend and my good friend Mr. Brock? Armadale coded the proposal readily enough. He longed in the first place to see dear old Brock, and he longed in the second place to see his yacht. After staying a few days more in London with Midwinter, he would gladly go to Somersetshire. But what after that? Seeing my opportunity, I came to the rescue this time. You have got a yacht, Mr. Armadale, I said, and you know that Midwinter is going to Italy. When you are tired of Somersetshire, why not make a voyage to the Mediterranean and meet your friend and your friend's wife at Naples? I made the allusion to his friend's wife with the most becoming modesty and confusion. Armadale was enchanted. I had hit on the best of all ways of occupying the weary time. He started up and wrung my hand in quite an ecstasy of gratitude. How I do hate people who can only express their feelings by hurting other people's hands. Midwinter was as pleased with my proposal as Armadale, but he saw difficulties in the way of carrying it out. He considered the yacht too small for a cruise to the Mediterranean, and he thought it desirable to hire a larger vessel. His friend thought otherwise. I left him arguing the question. It was quite enough for me to have made sure, in the first place, that Armadale will not return to Thope Ambrose and to have decided him, in the second place, on going abroad. He may go how he likes. I should prefer the small yacht myself, for there seems to be a chance that the small yacht might do me the inestimable service of drowning him. Five o'clock. The excitement of feeling that I had got Armadale's future movements completely under my own control made me so restless, when I returned to my lodgings, that I was obliged to go out again and do something. The new interest to occupy me being what I wanted, I went to Pimlico to have it out with mother Aldershan. I walked, and made up my mind, on the way, that I would begin by quarreling with her. One of my notes of hand being paid already, and Midwinter being willing to pay the other two when they fold you, my present position with the old wretch is as independent a one as I could desire. I always get the better of her when it comes to a downright battle between us, and find her wonderfully civil and obliging the moment I have made her feel that mine is the strongest will of the two. In my present situation she might be of use to me in various ways, if I could secure her assistance without trusting her with secrets which I am now more than ever determined to keep to myself. That was my idea as I walked to Pimlico. Obsetting mother Aldershan's nerves in the first place, and then twisting her round my little finger in the second, promised me, as I thought, an interesting occupation for the rest of the afternoon. When I got to Pimlico a surprise was in store for me. The house was shut up, not only on Mrs Aldershan's side, but on Dr Downwards as well. A padlock was on the shop door, and a man was hanging about on the watch, who might have been an ordinary idler certainly, but who looked, to my mind, like a policeman in disguise. Knowing the risks the doctor runs in his particular form of practice, I suspected at once that something serious had happened, and that even cunning Mrs Aldershan was compromised this time. Without stopping or making any inquiry, therefore, I called the first cab that passed me and drove to the post office to which I had desired my letters to be forwarded, if any came for me after I left my Thorpe Ambrose lodging. An inquiry a letter was produced for Miss Guilt. It was Mother Aldershan's handwriting, and it told me, as I had supposed, that the doctor had got into a serious difficulty, that she was herself most unfortunately mixed up in the murder, and that they were both in hiding for the present. The letter ended with some sufficiently venomous sentences about my conduct at Thorpe Ambrose, and with a warning that I have not heard the last of Mrs Aldershan yet. It relieved me to find her writing in this way, for she would have been civil and cringing if she had had any suspicion of what I have really got in view. I burnt the letter as soon as the candles came up, and there, for the present, is an end of the connection between Mother Jezebel and me. I must do all my own dirty work now, and I shall be all the safer, perhaps, for trusting nobody's hands to do it but my own. July 31. More useful information for me. I met Midwinter again in the park, on the pretext that my reputation might suffer if he called too often at my lodgings, and heard the last news of Armadale since I left the hotel yesterday. After he had written to Mr Milroy, Midwinter took the opportunity of speaking to him about the necessary business arrangements during his absence from the Great House. It was decided that the servants should be put on board wages, and that Mr Bashwood should be left in charge. Somehow I don't like this reappearance of Mr Bashwood in connection with my present interests, but there is no help for it. The next question, the question of money, was settled at once by Mr Armadale himself. All his available, ready money, a large sum, is to be lodged by Mr Bashwood in Coutts Bank, and to be there deposited in Armadale's name. This, he said, would save him the worry of any further letter writing to his steward, and would enable him to get what he wanted when he went abroad at a moment's notice. The plan thus proposed, being certainly the simplest and the safest, was adopted with Midwinter's full concurrence, and here the business discussion would have ended if the everlasting Mr Bashwood had not termed up again in the conversation and prolonged it in an entirely new direction. On reflection it seems to have struck Midwinter that the whole responsibility at Thorpe Ambrose owed not to rest on Mr Bashwood's shoulders. Without in the least distrusting him, Midwinter felt, nevertheless, that he owed to have somebody set over him to apply it to in case of emergency. Armadale made no objection to this. He only asked, in his helpless way, who the person was to be. The answer was not an easy one to arrive at. Either of the two solicitors at Thorpe Ambrose might have been employed, but Armadale was on bad terms with both of them. Any reconciliation with such a bitter enemy as the elder lawyer, Mr Darge, was out of the question, and reinstating Mr Petgift in his former position he applied a tacit sanction on Armadale's part of the lawyer's abominable conduct toward me, which was scarcely consistent with the respect and regard that he felt for a lady who was soon to be his friend's wife. After some further discussion, Midwinter hid on a new suggestion which appeared to meet the difficulty. He proposed that Armadale should write to a respectable solicitor at Norwich, stating his position in general terms, and requesting that gentlemen to act as Mr Bashwood's advisor and superintendent when occasion required. Norwich, being within an easy railway ride of Thorpe Ambrose, Armadale saw no objection to the proposal and promised to write to the Norwich lawyer. Fearing that he might make some mistake if he wrote without assistance, Midwinter had drawn him out a draft of the necessary letter, and Armadale was now engaged in copying the draft, and also in writing to Mr Bashwood to lodge the money immediately in Couttsbank. These details are so dry and uninteresting in themselves that I hesitated at first about putting them down in my diary. But a little reflection has convinced me that they are too important to be passed over. Looked at from my point of view, they mean this, that Armadale's own act is now cutting him off from all communication with Thorpe Ambrose, even by letter. He is as good as dead already to everybody he leaves behind him. The causes which have led to such a result as that are causes which certainly claim the best place I can give them in these pages. August 1st. Nothing to record, but that I have had a long, quiet, happy day with Midwinter. He hired a carriage and withdrew to Richmond and dined there. After today's experience, it is impossible to deceive myself any longer. Come what may of it, I love him. I have fallen into low spirits since he left me. A persuasion has taken possession of my mind that the smooth and prosperous cause of my affairs since I have been in London is too smooth and prosperous to last. There is something oppressing me tonight, which is more than the oppression of the heavy London air. August 2nd. Three o'clock. My presentiments, like other peoples, have deceived me often enough, but I am almost afraid that my presentiment of last night was really prophetic for once in a way. I went after breakfast to a million years in this neighbourhood to order a few cheap summer things and thence to Midwinter's hotel to arrange with him for another day in the country. I drove to the million years and to the hotel and part of the way back. Then, feeling disgusted with the horrid closed smell of the cab, somebody had been smoking in it, I suppose, I got out to walk the rest of the way. Before I had been two minutes on my feet, I discovered that I was being followed by a strange man. This may mean nothing but that an idle fellow has been struck by my figure and my appearance generally. My face could have made no impression on him, for it was hidden as usual by my veil. Whether he followed me, in a cab, of course, from the million years or from the hotel, I cannot say. Nor am I quite certain whether he did or did not track me to this door. I only know that I lost sight of him before I got back. There is no help for it but to wait till events enlighten me. If there is anything serious in what has happened, I shall soon discover it. Five o'clock. It is serious. Ten minutes since, I was in my bedroom which communicates with the sitting-room. I was just coming out when I heard a strange voice on the landing-outside. A woman's voice. The next instant the sitting-room door was suddenly opened. The woman's voice said, Are these the apartments you have got to let? And though the landlady behind her answered, No, hire up, ma'am! The woman came on straight to my bedroom as if she had not heard. I had just time to slam the door in her face before she saw me. The necessary explanations and apologies followed between the landlady and the stranger in the sitting-room, and then I was left alone again. I have no time to write more. It is plain that somebody has an interest in trying to identify me, and that, but for my own quickness, the strange woman would have accomplished this object by taking me by surprise. She and the men who followed me in the street are, I suspect, in league together, and there is probably somebody in the background whose interests they are serving. Is mother Aldershire attacking me in the dark? Or who else can it be? No matter who it is, my present situation is too critical to be travelled with. I must get away from this house tonight and leave no trace behind me by which I can be followed to another place. August 3, Gary Street, Tottenham Court Road. I got away last night after writing an excuse to midwinter in which my invalid mother figured as the old sufficient cause of my disappearance, and I have found refuge here. It has cost me some money, but my object is attained. Nobody can possibly have traced me from all saints to race to this address. 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 cloakroom 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 handbag. I drove straight to the Mininus shop, which I had observed when I was there yesterday, had a back entrance into a muse 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 muse. In another I was in the next street. In a third I hailed a passing omnibus and was a free woman again. 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 whom I hidden enemy really is, I can do no more to defend myself than I have done now. August falls. The two friends at the hotel had 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 Miroy 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 neighborhood of Eley, 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 Miroy 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 one Armadale that if he is not more careful in his actions for the future, he must resign all pretensions to Miss Miroy's hand. I neither expect nor wish for an answer to this, the letter ends, for I desire to receive no more 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 is petitioned to me under these circumstances and treats, 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, to 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 Miroy'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 cause with Armadale, it is easy enough. I shall quiet him by promising to write to Major Miroy and I shall take the liberty in my own private interests of not keeping my word. Nothing in the least suspicious has happened today. 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 and been close to me in the letter from Old Saints Deray's 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. End of Part 2 Book III, Chapter 14, Part 3 of Armadale. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Nadine Eckert-Boulet. Armadale by Wilkie Collins. Part 3 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 tomorrow to be able to get our marriage license and that he proposes applying for it in the usual way at Doctor's 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 beats me goodbye till we meet again at Naples. He has learned 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 tonight'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 jeweler's box with a ring in it. Armadale is 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 Mira 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 flirted 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 today. On his return to the hotel this morning, after getting the marriage license, 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 ride at greater length after he has seen Mr. Brock by tonight'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 nose. But one last chance of detection stood in my way when I opened my diary yesterday. When I open it today, 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 tonight 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. 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 millenia 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 millenia'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 tempered 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 pitifully 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 toward the glazed and curtain 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 uninstinct, 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 amade his life at Thorpe Ambrus, 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 Summerceture, 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 a Neil Oman for our marriage. I know it, because I feel Mr. Brock's death as a Neil Oman too. The superstition, his superstition, took so strong a hold on me that when we grew calmer and he spoke of time 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 thoughts seemed to rise in my mind like a necko. 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 Quilt. 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 as 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 tomorrow, and he will return here after bidding Armadale goodbye tomorrow 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. Today, 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 millenia has been tempered 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 brooded 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 called 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 millenia 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 cloakroom of the Great Western to get the luggage which I sent there from All Saints to race. Next to the cloakroom of the South-Eastern to leave my luggage, labeled in Minwinter's name, to wait for me till the starting of the tidal train 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 artist's puzzle 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 today when he is coming back to me tomorrow 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 excuse. 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. 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 already been something weary and hopeless to me for years past. I dream, 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 newer relation enlightened me in my sleep. All I could guess dreaming was what I had guessed wakin' that mother Aldershaw is the enemy who is attacking me in the dark. 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 makin' 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 tensioning peace for her kind services to me did the rest. In the intervals of her housework she has been with me nearly the whole morning and I 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 tomorrow is a man, I think it just possible that he may find his attention desegribly diverted from his quilt in the course of the evening. When mid-winter came here last from the railway he came at half past eight. How am I to get through the weary, weary hours between this and the evening? I think I shall darken my bedroom and drink the blessing of oblivion from my bottle of drops. Eleven o'clock. We have parted for the last time before the day comes that makes us man and wife. He has left me, as he left me before, with an absorbing subject of interest to think of in his absence. I noticed a change in him the moment he entered the room. When he told me of the funeral and of his parting with Armadale on board the yacht, though he spoke with feelings deeply moved, he spoke with a mastery over himself which is new to me in my experience of him. It was the same when our talk turned next on our own hopes and prospects. He was plainly disappointed when he found that my family embarrassments would prevent our meeting tomorrow and plainly uneasy at the prospect of leaving me to find my way by myself on Monday to the church. But there was a certain hopefulness and composure of manner underlying it all which produced so strong an impression on me that I was obliged to notice it. You know what odd fancies make possession of me sometimes, I said. Shall I tell you the fancy that has taken possession of me now? I can't help thinking that something has happened since we last saw each other which you have not told me yet. Something has happened, he answered, and it is something which you ought to know. With those words he took out his pocketbook and produced two written papers from it. One he looked at and put back. The other he placed on the table. Before I tell you what this is and how it came into my possession he said, I must own something that I have concealed from you. It is no more serious confession than the confession of my own weakness. He then acknowledged to me that the renewal of his friendship with Armadale had been clouded through the whole period of the intercourse in London by his own superstitious misgivings. He had obeyed the summons which called him to the rector's bedside with the firm intention of confiding his provisions of coming trouble to Mr. Brock and he had been doubly confirmed in his superstition when he found that death had entered the house before him and had parted them in this world forever. More than this he had travelled back to be present at the funeral with a secret sense of relief at the prospect of being parted from Armadale and with a secret resolution to make the after-meeting agreed on between us three at Naples a meeting that should never take place. With that purpose in his heart he had gone up alone to the room prepared for him on his arrival at the rector's and had opened a letter which he found waiting for him on the table. The letter had only that day been discovered, dropped and lost under the bed on which Mr. Brock had died. It was in the rector's handwriting throughout and the person to whom it was addressed was Midwinter himself. Having told me this nearly in the words in which I have written it he gave me the written paper that lay on the table between us. Read it, he said and you will not need to be told that my mind is at peace again and that I took Alan's hand at parting with a heart that was worthier of Alan's love. I read the letter there was no superstition to be conquered in my mind there were no old feelings of gratitude toward Armadale to be roused in my heart and yet the effect which the letter had had on Midwinter was, I firmly believe more than matched by the effect that the letter now produced on me. It was vain to ask him to leave it and to let me read it again as I wished when I was left by myself. He is determined to keep it side by side with that other paper which I had seen him take out of his pocketbook and which contains the written narrative of Armadale's dream. All I could do was to ask his leaf to copy it and this he granted readily. I wrote the copy in his presence and I now place it here in my diary to mark a day which is one of the memorable days in my life. My dear Midwinter for the first time since the beginning of my illness I found strength enough yesterday to look over my letters. One among them is a letter from Alan which has been lying unopened on my table for ten days past. He writes to me in great distress to say that there has been a dissension between you and that you have left him. If you still remember what passed between us when you first opened your heart to me in the eye of man you will be at no loss to understand how I have thought over this miserable news through the night that has now passed and you will not be surprised to hear that I have roused myself this morning to make the effort of writing to you. I want no explanation of the circumstances that have parted you from your friend. If my estimate of your character is not founded on an entire delusion the one influence which can have led to your estrangement from Alan is the influence of that evil spirit of superstition which I have once already cast out of your heart which I will once again conquer please God if I have strength enough to make my pens make my mind to you in this letter. It is no part of my design to combat the belief which I know you to hold that mortal creatures may be the objects of supernatural intervention in their pilgrimage through this world. Speaking as a reasonable man I own that I cannot prove you to be wrong. Speaking as a believer in the Bible I am bound to go further and to admit that you possess a higher than any human warrant for the face that is in you. The one object that I have it at heart to attain is to induce you to free yourself from the paralyzing fatalism of the heathen and the savage and to look at the mysteries that perplex and the portents that downed you from the Christians point of view. If I can succeed in this I shall clear your mind of the ghastly doubts that now oppress it and I shall reunite you to your friend never to be parted from him again. I have no means of seeing and questioning you. I can only send this letter to Alan to be forwarded if he knows or can discover your present address. Placed in this position toward you I am bound to assume all that can be assumed in your favor. I will take it for granted that something has happened to you or to Alan which to your mind has not only confirmed the fatalist conviction in which your father died but has added a new and terrible meaning to the warning which he sent you in his deathbed letter. On this common ground I meet you. On this common ground I appeal to your higher nature and your better sense. Preserve your present conviction that the events which have happened be they what they may are not to be reconciled with ordinary mortal coincidences and ordinary mortal laws and view your own position by the best and clearest light that your superstition can throw on it. What are you? You are a helpless instrument in the hands of fate. You are doomed beyond all human capacity of resistance to bring misery and destruction blindfold on a man to whom you have harmlessly and gratefully united yourself in the bonds of a brother's love. All that is morally firmest in your will and morally purest in your aspirations evades nothing against the hereditary impulsion of you to want evil caused by a crime which your father committed before you were born. In what does that belief end? It ends in the darkness in which you are now lost in the self-contradictions in which you are now bewildered in the stubborn despair by which a man profanes his own soul and lowers himself to the level of the boots that perish. Look up, my poor suffering brother! Look up, my hardly tried, my well-loved friend! Higher than this! Meet the doubts that now assail you from the blessed vantage ground of Christian courage and Christian hope and your heart will turn again to Alan and your mind will be at peace. Happen what may. God is all merciful. God is all wise. Natural or supernatural it happens through him. The mystery of evil that perplexes our feeble minds the sorrow and the suffering that torture us in this little life leave the one great truth unshaken that the destiny of man is in the hands of his creature and that God's will and that God's blessed son died to make us worthy of it. Nothing that is done in unquestioning submission to the wisdom of the Almighty is done wrong. No evil exists out of which in obedience to his laws good may not come. Be true to what Christ tells you is true. Encourage in yourself be the circumstances what they may all that is loving all that is grateful all that is patient all that is forgiving toward your fellow men and humbly and trustfully leave the rest to the God who made you and to the Saviour who loved you better than his own life. This is the faith in which I have lived by the divine help and mercy from my youth airport. I ask you earnestly I ask you confidently I ask you confidently to make it your faith too. It is the mainspring of all the good I have ever done of all the happiness I have ever known. It lightens my darkness it sustains my hope it comforts and quiets me lying here to live or die I know not which. Let it sustain comfort and enlighten you it will help you in your sores need as it has helped me in mine. It will show you another purpose in the events which brought you and Alan together than the purpose which your guilty father foresaw. Strange things I do not deny it have happened to you already. Stranger things still may happen before long which I may not live to see. Remember if that time comes that I died firmly believing in your influence over Alan being other than an influence for good. The great sacrifice of the atonement I say it reverently has its mortal reflections even in this world. If danger ever threatens Alan you whose father took his father's life you and no other may be the man whom the providence of God has appointed to save him. Come to me if I live go back to the friend who loves you whether I live or die yours affectionately to the last Decimus Brock you and no other may be the man whom the providence of God has appointed to save him. Those are the words which have shaken me to the soul. Those are the words which make me feel as if the dead man had left his grave and had put his hand on the place in my heart where my terrible secret lies hidden from every living creature but myself. One part of the letter has come true already. The danger that it foresees threatens Armadale at this moment and threatens him for me. If the favoring circumstances which have driven me thus far drive me on to the end and if that old man's last earthly conviction is prophetic of the truth then Armadale will escape me do what I may and midwinter will be the victim who is sacrificed to save his life. It is horrible it is impossible it shall never be at the thinking of it only my hand trembles and my heart sings I bless the trembling that unnerves me I bless the thinking that turns me faint I bless those words in the letter which have revived the relenting thoughts that first came to me two days since is it hard now that events are taking me smoothly and safely nearer and nearer to the end is it hard to conquer the temptation to go on no if there is only a chance of harm coming to midwinter the dread of that chance is enough to decide me enough to strengthen me to conquer the temptation for his sake I have never loved him yet never, never, never as I love him now Sunday, August 10th the eve of my wedding day I close and lock this book never to write in it never to open it again I have won the great victory I have trampled my own wickedness and the foot I am innocent I am happy again my love, my angel when tomorrow gives me to you I will not have a thought in my heart which is not your thought as well as mine end of chapter recording by Nadine Kurt Boulet book 3 chapter 15 part 1 the wedding day the time was 9 o'clock in the morning the place was a private room in one of the old fashioned ends which still remain on the borough side of the Thames the date was Monday the 11th of August and the person was Mr. Bashwood who had traveled to London on the summons from his son and had taken up his abode at the inn on the previous day he had never yet looked so pitiably old and helpless as he looked now the fever and chill of alternate need hope and despair had dried and withered and wasted him the angles of his figure had sharpened the outline of his face had shrunk his dress pointed the melancholy change in him with a merciless and shocking emphasis never, even in his youth had he worn such clothes as he wore now with the desperate resolution to leave no chance untried of producing an impression on this quilt he had cast aside his dreary black garments he'd even mustered the courage to wear his blue satin cravat his coat was a riding coat of light gray he had ordered it with a vindictive subtlety of purpose to be made on the pattern of a coat that he had seen Alan wear his waistcoat was white his trousers were of the gayest summer pattern in the largest check his wig was oiled and scented and brushed round on either side to hide the wrinkles on his temples he was an object to laugh at he was an object to weep over his enemies if a creature so wretched could have had enemies would have forgiven him on seeing him in his new dress his friends had any of his friends been left would have been less distressed if they had looked at him in his coffin than if they had looked at him as he was now incessantly restless he paced the room from end to end now he looked at his watch now he looked at the window now he looked at the well furnished breakfast table always with the same wistful uneasy inquiry in his eyes the waiter coming in with the urn of boiling water was addressed for the fiftieth time in the one form of words which the miserable creature seemed to be capable of uttering that morning my son is coming to breakfast my son is very particular I want everything of the best hot things and cold things and tea and coffee and all the rest of it waiter all the rest of it for the fiftieth time he now reiterated those anxious words for the fiftieth time and just returned his one pacifying answer all right sir you may leave it to me when the sound of leisurely footsteps was heard on the stairs the door opened and the long expected son saw turned indolently into the room with the neat little black leather bag in his hand well done old gentleman said bashwood the younger surveying his father's death with a smile of sardonic encouragement he'd be married in the squilt at a moment's notice the father took the son's hand and tried to echo the son's laugh you have such good spirits jimmy he said using the name in its familiar form as he had been accustomed to use it in happier days you always had good spirits my dear from a child come and sit down I've ordered you a nice breakfast everything of the best what a relief it is to see you oh dear dear what a relief it is to see you he stopped and sat down at the table his face flushed with the effort to control the impatience that was devouring him tell me about her he burst out giving up the effort with a sudden self abandonment I shall die jimmy if I wait for it any longer tell me tell me tell me one thing at a time I'm going to be a little younger perfectly unmoved by his father's impatience we'll try the breakfast first and come to the lady afterward gently does it old gentleman gently does it he put his leather bag on a chair and sat down opposite to his father composed and smiling and humming a little tune no ordinary observation applying the ordinary rules of analysis would have detected the character of bash with the younger in his face his youthful look aided by his light hair and his plump beardless cheeks his easy manner and his every ready smile his eyes which met untrinkingly the eyes of everyone whom he addressed all combined to make the impression of him a favourable impression in the general mind no eye for reading character but such an eye belongs to one person perhaps in ten thousand we've penetrated the smoothly deceptive service of this man and have seen him for what he really was the vile creature whom the vile or need of society has fashioned for its use there he sat the confidential spy of modern times whose business is steadily enlarging whose private inquiry offices are steadily on the increase there he sat the necessary detective attendant on the progress of our national civilization a man who was in this instance at least the legitimate and intelligible product of the vocation that employed him a man professionally ready on the mirror suspicion if the mirror suspicion paid him to get under our beds and look through gimlet holes in our doors a man who would have been useless to his employers if he could have felt a touch of human sympathy for his father's presence and who would have deservedly forfeited his situation if under any circumstances whatever he had been personally accessible to a sense of pity or a sense of shame gently does it old gentleman he repeated lifting the covers from the dishes and looking under them one after the other all around the table gently does it don't be angry with me jemmy try if you can to think how anxious I must be I got your letter so long ago as yesterday morning I've had to travel all the way from Thor Bambros I've had to get through the dreadful long evening and the dreadful long night with your letter telling me that you have found out who she is and telling me nothing more suspense is very hard to bear jemmy when you come to my age what was it preventing you my dear from coming to me when I got here yesterday evening a little dinner at richmond said bashwood the younger give me some tea Mr. Bashwood tried to comply with the request but the hand with which he lifted the teapot trembled so unmanageably that the tea missed the cup and streamed out on the cloth I'm very sorry I can't help trembling when I'm anxious said the old man as his son took the teapot out of his hand I'm afraid you bear me malice jemmy for what happened when I was last in town I owned I was obstinate and unreasonable about going back to Thor Bambros I'm more sensible now you were quite right in taking it all on yourself as soon as I showed you the veiled lady when we saw her come out of the hotel and you were quite right to send me back the same day to my business in the steward's office at the great house he watched the effect of these concessions on his son and ventured doubtfully on another entreaty if you won't tell me anything else just yet he said faintly will you tell me how you found her out do jemmy do Bashwood the younger looked up from his plate I'll tell you that he said the reckoning up of Ms. Guilt has cost more money and taken more time than I expected about it the sooner we shall get to what you want to know without a word of expostulation the father laid his dingy old pocketbook and his purse on the table before the son Bashwood the younger looked into the purse observed with a contemptuous elevation of the eyebrows that it held no more than a sovereign and some silver and returned it intact the pocketbook on being open next proved to contain four or five pound notes Bashwood the younger transferred three of the notes to his own keeping and handed the pocketbook back to his father with a bow expressive of mock gratitude and sarcastic respect a thousand thanks he said some of it is for the people at our office and the balance for myself one of the few stupid things my dear sir that I have done in the course of my life was to write you word when you first consulted me that you might have my services grotties as you see I hasten to repair the error an hour or two at odd times I was ready enough to give you but this business has taken days and has gone in the way of other jobs I told you I couldn't be out of pocket by you I put it in my letter as plain as words could say it yes yes Jemmy I don't complain my dear I don't complain never mind the money tell me how you found her out besides pursued Bashwood the younger perceiving impenetrably with his justification of himself I have given you the benefit of my experience I've done it cheap it would have cost double the money if another man had taken this in hand another man would have kept a watch on Mr. Armandale as well as Ms. Guilt I have saved you that expense you are certain that Mr. Armandale has bent on marrying her very good in that case while we have our eye on her we have for all useful purposes got our eye on him know where the lady is and you know that the gentleman can't be far off quite true Jemmy but how was it Ms. Guilt came to give you so much trouble she's a devilish clever woman said Bashwood the younger that's how it was she gave us a slip at a milliner shop we made it all right with the milliner and speculated on the chance of her coming back to try on a gown she had ordered the cleverest women lose the use of their wits in nine cases out of ten where there's a new dress in the case and even Ms. Guilt was rash enough to go back that was all we wanted one of the women from our office helped to try on her new gown and put her in the right position by one of our men behind the door he instantly suspected who she was on the strength of what he had been told of her for she's a famous woman in her way of course we didn't trust to that we traced her to her new address and we got a man from Scotland Yard who was certain to know her if our own man's idea was the right one the man from Scotland Yard turned milliner's lad for the occasion and took her gown home he saw her in the passage and identified her in an instant your unlock I can tell you Ms. Guilt's a public character if we had had a less notorious woman to deal with she might have cost us weeks of inquiry and you might have had to pay hundreds of pounds a day did it in Ms. Guilt's case and another day put the whole story of her life in black and white into my hand there it is the present moment old gentleman in my black bag bash with the father made straight for the bag with eager eyes and outstretched hand bash with the son took a little key out of his waistcoat pocket winked shook his head and put the key back again I haven't done breakfast yet he said gently does it my dear sir gently does it I can't wait cry the old man struggling vainly to preserve his self-control it's a fortnight today since she went to London with Mr. Armadale she may be married to him in a fortnight she may be married to him this morning I can't wait I can't wait there's no knowing what you can do till you try rejoined bash with the younger try and you'll find you can wait what has become of your curiosity he went on feeding the fire ingenuously with a stick at a time why don't you ask me what I mean by calling the school to a public character why don't you wonder how I came to lay my hand on the story of her life in black and white if you'll sit down again I'll tell you if you won't I shall confine myself to my breakfast Mr. Bashwood sighed heavily and went back to his chair I wish you were not so fond of your joke Jemmy he said I wish my dear you were not quite so fond of your joke joke repeated his son it would be serious enough in some people's eyes I can tell you Ms. Quilt has been tried for her life and the papers in that black bag are the lawyer's instructions for the defense do you call that a joke the father started to his feet and looked straight across the table at the son with a smile of exaltation that was terrible to see she's been tried for her life he burst out with a deep gasp of satisfaction she's been tried for her life he broke into a low prolonged laugh and snapped his fingers exultingly ah something to frighten Mr. Armadale in that scoundrel as he was the son was daunted by the explosion of pent-up passion which burst on him in those words don't excite yourself he said with a sullen suppression of the mocking manner in which he had spoken thus far Mr. Bashwood sat down again and passed his handkerchief over his forehead no he said nodding and smiling at his son no no no excitement as you say I can wait now Jimmy I can wait now he waited with immovable patience at intervals he nodded whispered to himself something to frighten Mr. Armadale in that but he made no further attempt by word, look or action to hurry his son Bashwood the younger finished his breakfast slowly out of pure bravado lit a cigar with the utmost deliberation looked at his father and seeing him still as immovably patient as ever opened the black bag at last on the table how will you have it? he asked long or short I've got her whole life here the council who defended her at the trial was instructed to hammer hard at the sympathies of the jury he went head over ears into the miseries of her past career and shocked everybody in the court in the most workman-like manner shall I take the same line do you want to know all about her when she was in short frocks and frilled trousers or do you prefer getting on at once to her first appearance as a prisoner in the dock? I want to know all about her said his father eagerly the worst and the best the worst particularly don't spare my feelings, Jimmy whatever you do don't spare my feelings can't I look at the papers myself? no you can't thank your stars that you've got a sharp sun who can take the pith out of these papers and give it a smack of the right flavour and serving it up there are not ten men in England who could tell you this woman's story as I can tell it it's a gift, old gentleman of the sort that is given to very few people and it lodges here he tapped his forehead smartly and turned to the first page of the manuscript before him with an unconcealed triumph the prospect of exhibiting his own cleverness which was the first expression of a genuine feeling of any sort that had escaped him yet Miss Guilt's story begins said Bash with the Younger in the marketplace at Thorpe Ambrose one day, something like a quarter of a century ago a travelling quack doctor who dealt in perfumery as well as medicines came to the town with his cart and exhibited as a living example of the excellence of his washes and hair oils and so on a pretty little girl with a beautiful complexion and wonderful hair his name was Oldershop he had a wife who helped him in the perfumery part of his business and who carried it on by herself after his death she is risen in the world of late years and she is identical with that sly old lady who employed me professionally a short time since as for the pretty little girl you know who she was as well as I do while the quack was haranguing the mob and showing them the child's hair a young lady driving through the marketplace stopped her carriage to hear what it was all about saw the little girl and took a violent fancy to her on the spot the young lady was the daughter of Mr. Blanchard of Thorpe Ambrose she went home and interested her father in the fate of the innocent little victim of the quack doctor the same evening the Oldershaws were sent for to the great house and were questioned they declared themselves to be her uncle and aunt a lie of course and they were quite willing to let her attend the village school while they stayed at Thorpe Ambrose when the proposal was made to them the new arrangement was carried out the next day and the day after that the Oldershaws had disappeared and had left the little girl on the squire's hands she evidently had an answer as they expected in the capacity of an advertisement and that was the way they took of providing for her for life there's the first act of the play for you clear enough so far isn't it clear enough Jimmy to clever people but I'm old and slow I don't understand one thing child was she a very sensible question sorry to inform you that nobody can answer it misquilt herself included these instructions that I'm referring to are founded of course on her own statements sifted by her attorney all she could remember on being questioned was that she was beaten and half starved somewhere in the country by a woman who took in in children at nurse stating that her name was Lydia Guilt and got a yearly allowance for taking care of her paid through a lawyer till she was 8 years old at that time the allowance stopped the lawyer had no explanation to offer nobody came to look after her nobody wrote the Oldershaws saw her and thought she might answer to exhibit and the woman parted with her for a trifle to the Oldershaws and the Oldershaws parted with her and all to the Bland Shirts that's the story of her birth parentage and education she may be the daughter of a Duke or the daughter of a costar monger the circumstances may be highly romantic or utterly commonplace fancy anything you like there's nothing to stop you when you've had your fancy out say the word and I'll turn over the leaves and go on please to go on Jimmy please to go on the next glimpse of Miss Guilt resumed bash with the younger turning over the papers is a glimpse at a family mystery the deserted child was in luck's way at last she'd taken the fancy of an amiable young lady with a rich father and she was petted and made much of at the great house in the character of Miss Bland Shirts last new plaything not long afterward Mr. Bland Shirt and his daughter went abroad and took the girl with them in the capacity of Miss Bland Shirts Little Maid when they came back the daughter had married and become a widow in the interval and the pretty Little Maid instead of returning with them to Thor Bambros turns up suddenly all alone as a pupil at a school in France there she was at a first rate establishment with her maintenance and education secured until she married and settled in life on this understanding that she never returned to England those were all the particulars she could be prevailed on to give the lawyer who drew up these instructions she declined to say what had happened abroad she declined even after all the years that had passed to mention her Mr. Sis' married name it's quite clear of course that she was in possession of some family secret and that the Bland Shirts kept her schooling on the continent to keep her out of the way and it's equally plain that she would never have kept her secret as she did if she had not seen her way to trading on it for her own advantage at some future time a clever woman as I've told you already a devilish clever woman who hasn't been knocked about in the world and seen the ups and downs of life abroad and at home for nothing yes yes Jimmy quite true how long did she stop please at the school in France Bache with the younger referred to the papers she stopped at the French school he replied till she was seventeen at that time something happened at the school which I find mildly describing these papers as something unpleasant the plain fact was that the music master attached to the establishment fell in love with Miss Guilt he was a respectable middle aged man with a wife and family and finding the circumstances entirely hopeless he took a pistol and rashly assuming that he had brains in his head tried to blow them out the doctor saved his life but not his reason he ended where he had better have begun in an asylum Miss Guilt's beauty having been at the bottom of the scandal it was of course impossible though she was proved to have been otherwise quite blameless in the matter she was the main at the school after what had happened her friends the blanchards were communicated with and her friends transferred her to another school at Brussels this time what are you saying about what's wrong now I can't help feeling a little for the poor music master Jimmy go on according to her own account of it dad Miss Guilt seems to have felt for him too she took a serious turn as converted as they call it by the lady who a charge of her in the interval before she went to Brussels the priest at the Belgium school appears to have been a man of some discretion and to have seen that the girls sensibilities were getting into a dangerously excited state before he could quiet her down he fell ill and was succeeded by another priest who was a fanatic you will understand that sort of interest he took in the girl which he worked on her feelings when I tell you that she announced it as her decision after having been nearly two years at the school to end her days in a convent you may well stare Miss Guilt in the character of a nun is the sort of female phenomenon you don't often set eyes on did she go into the convent asked Mr. Bashwood did they let her go in so friendless and so young with nobody to advise her for the best end of chapter 15 part 1 book the third chapter 15 part 2 of Armadale this is a LibraVox recording all LibraVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibraVox.org Armadale by Wilkie Collins chapter 15 part 2 the Blanchards were consulted as a matter of form pursued Bashwood the Younger they had no objection to her shutting herself up in a convent as you may well imagine the pleasantest letter they ever had from her all answer for it was the letter in which she solemnly took leave of them in this world forever the people at the convent were as careful as usual not to commit themselves their rules wouldn't allow her to take the veil till she had tried the life for a year first and then if she had any doubt for another year after that she tried the life for a year accordingly and doubted she tried it for the second year and was wise enough by that time to give it up without further hesitation her position was rather an awkward one when she found herself at liberty again the sisters at the convent had lost their interest in her the mistress at the school declined to take her back as teacher on the ground that she was too nice looking for the place the priest considered her to be possessed by the devil there was nothing for it but to write to the bland shirts again and ask them to start her in life as a teacher of music on her own account she wrote to her former mistress accordingly her former mistress had evidently doubted the genuineness of the girl's resolution to be a nun and had seized the opportunity offered by her entry into the convent to cut off all further communication between her ex-waiting maid and herself Miss Quilt's letter was returned by the post office she caused inquiries to be made and found that Mr. Blanchard was dead and that his daughter had left the great house for some place of retirement unknown the next thing she did upon this was to write to the heir in possession of the estate the letter was unanswered by his solicitors they were instructed to put the law in force at the first attempt she made to extort money from any member of the family at Thorpe Ambrose the last chance was to get at the address of her mistress's place of retirement the family bankers to whom she wrote wrote back to say that they were instructed not to give a lady's address to anyone applying for it without being previously empowered to do so by the lady herself the last letter settled the question Miss Quilt could do nothing more with money at her command she might have gone to England and made the Blanchards think twice before they carry things with too high hand not having a half penny at command she was helpless without money and without friends you may wonder how she supported herself while the correspondence was going on she supported herself by playing the piano forte at a low concert room in Brussels the men laid siege to her of course in all directions but they found her insensible as adamant one of these rejected gentlemen was a Russian and he was the means of making her acquainted with a countrywoman of his whose name is unpronounceable by English lips let us give her her title and call her the Baroness the two women liked each other at their first introduction the scene opened in Miss Quilt's life she became reader and companion to the Baroness everything was right everything was smooth on the surface everything was rotten and everything was wrong under it in what way, Jimmy please, to wait a little and tell me in what way in this way the Baroness was fond of travelling and she had a select set of friends about her who were quite keen they went from one city on the continent to another and were such charming people that they picked up acquaintances everywhere the acquaintances were invited to the Baroness's receptions and car tables were invariably a part of the Baroness's furniture do you see it now or must I tell you in the strictest confidence that cars were not considered sinful on these festivations and that the luck, at the end of the evening turned out to be almost invariably on the side of the Baroness and her friends swindlers all of them and there isn't a doubt on my mind whatever there may be on yours that Miss Quilt's manners and appearance made her a valuable member of the society in the capacity of a decoy her own statement is that she was innocent of all knowledge of what really went on that she was quite ignorant of car plane that she hadn't such a thing as a respectable friend to turn to in the world and that she honestly liked the Baroness for the simple reason that the Baroness was a hearty good friend to her from first to last believe that or not as you please for five years she traveled about all over the continent with these card sharpers in high life and she might have been among them at this moment for anything I know to the contrary if the Baroness had not caught a tardar at Naples in the shape of a rich traveling Englishman named Waldron ah that name startles you does it you've read the trial of the famous Mrs. Waldron like the rest of the world and you know who Miss Quilt is now without my telling you he paused and looked at his father in sudden perplexity far from being overwhelmed by the discovery which had just burst on him Mr. Bashwood after the first natural movement of surprise faced his son with a self-possession which was nothing short of extraordinary under the circumstances there was a new brightness in his eyes and a new color in his face if it had been possible to conceive such a thing of a man in his position he seemed to be absolutely encouraged instead of depressed by what he had just heard go on Jemmy he said quietly I am one of the few people who didn't read the trial I only heard of it still wondering inwardly Bashwood the younger recovered himself and went on you always were and you always will be behind the age he said when we come to the trial I can tell you as much about it as you need to know in the meantime we must go back to the baroness and Mr. Waldron for a certain number of nights the Englishman let the car choppers have it all their own way in other words he paid for the privilege of making himself agreeable to Miss Quilt when he thought he had produced the necessary impression on her he exposed the whole confederacy without mercy the police interfered the baroness found herself in prison and Miss Quilt was put between the two alternatives of accepting Mr. Waldron's protection or being thrown on the world again she was amazingly virtuous or amazingly clever which you please to Mr. Waldron's astonishment she told him that she could face the prospect of being thrown on the world and that he must address her honorably or leave her forever the end of it was what the end always is where the man is infatuated and the woman is determined to the disgust of his family and friends Mr. Waldron made a virtue of necessity and married her how old was he? asked Bashwood the elder eagerly Bashwood the younger burst out laughing he was about old enough daddy to be your son and rich enough to have burst that precious pocketbook of yours with thousand pound notes don't hang your head it wasn't a happy marriage though he was so young and so rich they lived abroad and got on well enough at first he made a new will of course as soon as he was married and provided handsomely for his wife under the tender pressure of the honeymoon but women were out like other things with time and one fine morning Mr. Waldron woke up with a doubt in his mind whether he had not acted like a fool he was an ill tempered man he was discontented with himself and of course he made his wife feel it having begun by quarreling with her he got on to suspecting her and became savagely jealous of every male creature who entered the house they had no encumbrances in the shape of children and they moved from one place to another just as his jealousy inclined him till they moved back to England at last after having been married close on for years he had a lonely old house of his own among the Yorkshire moors and there he showed his wife and himself up after every living creature except his servants and his dogs only one result could come of course of treating a high spirited young woman in that way it may be her fate or it may be chance but whenever a woman is desperate there is sure to be a man handy to take advantage of it the man in this case was rather a dark horse as they say on the turf he was a certain captain manual a native of Cuba his own account an ex-officer in the Spanish Navy he had met Mr. Waldron's beautiful wife on the journey back to England and had contrived to speak to her in spite of her husband's jealousy and had followed her to a place of imprisonment in Mr. Waldron's house on the moors the captain is described as a clever determined fellow of the daring paradical sort with the dash of mystery about him like she's not the same as other women interposed Mr. Bashwood suddenly interrupting the son did she his voice spailed him and he stopped without bringing the question to an end did she like the captain suggested Bashwood the younger with another laugh according to her own account of it she adored him at the same time her conduct considering how carefully her husband watched her the statement incredible as it appears is probably true for six weeks or so they can find themselves to corresponding privately the Cuban captain who spoke and wrote English perfectly having contrived to make a go between of one of the female servants in the Yorkshire house how it might have ended we need in trouble ourselves to inquire Mr. Waldron himself what matters to a crisis whether he got wind of the clandestine correspondence or not doesn't appear but this is certain that he came home from a ride one day in a fiercer temper than usual that his wife showed him a sample of that high spirit of hers which he had never yet been able to break and that it ended in his striking her across the face with his riding whip un-gently conduct I'm afraid we must admit to all outward appearance the riding whip produced the most astonishing results from that moment the lady submitted as she had never submitted before for a fortnight afterward he did what he liked and she never thwarted him he said what he liked and she never uttered a word of protest some men might have suspected this sudden reformation of hiding something dangerous under the surface whether Mr. Waldron looked at it in that light I can't tell you all that is known is that before the mark of the whip was off his wife's face he fell ill and that in two days afterward he was a dead man what do you say to that I say he deserved it answered Mr. Bashwood striking his hand excitedly on the table as his son paused and looked at him the doctor who attended the dying man was not of your way of thinking remarked Bashwood the younger dryly he called in two other medical men and they all three refused to certify the death the usual legal investigation followed the evidence of the doctors and the evidence of the servants pointed irresistibly in one and the same direction and Mrs. Waldron was committed for trial on the charge of murdering her husband by poison a solicitor in first rate criminal practice was sent for from London to get up the prisoner's defense and these instructions took their form and shape accordingly what's the matter what do you want now suddenly rising from his chair Mr. Bashwood stretched across the table and tried to take the papers from his son I want to look at them he burst out eagerly I want to see what they say about the captain from Cuba he was at the bottom of it Jimmy I'll swear he was at the bottom of it nobody doubted who was in the secret of the case of the time rejoined his son but nobody could prove it sit down again dad and compose yourself there's nothing here about captain Manuel but the lawyers private suspicions of him for the counsel to act on or not at the counsel's discretion from first to last she persisted in screening the captain at the outset of the business she volunteered two statements to the lawyer both of which were suspected to be false in the first place she declared that she was innocent of the crime he wasn't surprised of course so far his clients were as a general rule in the habit of deceiving him in that way in the second place while admitting her private correspondence with the Cuban captain she declared that the letters on both sides related solely to a proposed allotment to which her husband's barbers treatment had induced her to consent the lawyer naturally asked to see the letters he has burned all my letters and I have burned all his was the only answer he got it was quite possible that captain Manuel might have burned her letters when he heard there was a coroner's inquest in the house but it was in her solicitor's experience as it is in my experience too that when a woman is fond of a man in 99 cases out of 100 risk or no risk she keeps his letters having his suspicions roused in this way the lawyer privately made some inquiries about the foreign captain and found that he was as short of money as a foreign captain could be at the same time he put some questions to his client about her expectations from her deceased husband she answered in high indignation that a will had been found among her husband's papers privately executed only a few days before his death and leaving her no more out of all his immense fortune than five thousand pounds was there an older will then says the lawyer which the new will revoked yes there was a will that he had given into her own possession a will made when they were first married leaving his widow well provided for leaving her just ten times the second will left her has she ever mentioned that first will now revoked to captain manual she saw the trap set for her and said no, never without an instance hesitation that reply confirmed the lawyer's suspicions he tried to frighten her by declaring that her life might pay the forfeit of her deceiving him in this matter with the usual obstinacy of women she remained unmovable as ever the captain on his side behaved in the most exemplary manner he confessed to planning the allotment he declared that he had burned all the ladies letters as they reached him out of regard for her reputation he remained in the neighbourhood and he volunteered to attend before the magistrates nothing was discovered that could legally connect him with the crime or that could put him into court on the day of the trial then the capacity of a witness I don't believe myself that there's any moral doubt as they call it that manual knew of the will which left her mistress of fifty thousand pounds and that he was ready and willing in virtue of that circumstance to marry her on Mr. Waldron's death if anybody tempted her to effect her own release from her husband by making herself a widow the captain must have been the man unless she contrived, garden and watched as she was to get the poison for herself the poison must have come to her in one of the captain's letters I don't believe she used it if it did come to her exclaimed Mr. Bashwood I believe it was the captain himself who poisoned her husband Bashwood the younger without noticing the interruption folded up the instructions for the defence which had now served their purpose put them back in his bag and produced a printed pamphlet in their place here is one of the published reports of the trial he said which you can read at your leisure if you like we needn't waste time now by going into details I've told you already how cleverly our council paved his way for treating the charge of murder as the crowning calamity of the many that had already fallen on an innocent woman the two legal points relied on for the defence this preliminary flourish were first that there was no evidence to connect her with the possession of poison and secondly that the medical witnesses while positively declaring that her husband had died by poison differed in their conclusions as to the particular drug that had killed him both good points and both while worked but the evidence on the other side bore down everything before it the prisoner was proved to have had less than three excellent reasons for killing her husband he had treated her with almost unexampled barbarity he had left her in a will, unrevoked so far as she knew misters of a fortune on his death and she was, by her own confession contemplating an elopement with another man having set forth these motives the prosecution next showed by evidence which was never once shaken on any single point that the one person in the house who could by any human possibility have administered the poison was the prisoner at the bar what could the judge and jury do with such evidence before them is this the verdict was guilty as a matter of course and the judge declared that he agreed with it the female part of the audience was in hysterics and the male part was not much better the judge sobbed and the bar shuddered she was sentenced to death in such a scene as had never been previously witnessed in an English court of justice and she is alive and hearty at the present moment free to do any mischief she pleases and a poison at her own entire convenience any man, woman, or child that happens to stand in her way a most interesting woman keep on good terms with her my dear sir whatever you do for the law has said to her in the plainest possible English my charming friend I have no terrors for you how was she pardoned asked Mr. Bashwood breathlessly they told me at the time but I forgotten was it the home secretary if it was I respect the home secretary I say the home secretary was deserving of his place quite right old gentleman rejoined Bashwood the younger with the obedient humble servant of an enlightened free press and he was deserving of his place is it possible you don't know how she cheated the gallows if you don't I must tell you on the evening of the trial two or three of the young buccaneers of literature went down to two or three newspaper offices and wrote two or three heart-rending leading articles on the subject of the proceedings in court the next morning the public caught light like tinder and the prisoner was tried over again before an amateur court of justice in the columns of the newspapers all the people who had no personal experience whatever on the subject seized their pens and rushed by kind permission of the editor into print doctors who had not attended the sick man and who had not been present at the examination of the body declared by dozens that he had died a natural death barristers without business who had not heard the evidence attacked the jury who had heard it and judged the judge who had sat on the bench before some of them were born the general public followed the lead of the barristers and the doctors and the young buccaneers who had set the thing going here was the law that they all paid to protect them they were all very faithful earnest shocking shocking the British public rose to protest as one man against the working of its own machinery and the home secretary in a state of distraction went to the judge the judge held firm he had said it was the right verdict at the time and he said so still but suppose says the home secretary that the prosecution had tried some other way of proving her guilty at the trial but they did what would you and the jury have done then of course it was quite impossible for the judge to say this comforted the home secretary to begin with and when he got the judge's consent to having the conflict of medical evidence submitted to one great doctor and when the one great doctor took the merciful view after expressly stating in the first instance that he knew nothing practically of the merits of the case the home secretary was perfectly satisfied the prisoner's death warrant went into the waste paper basket the verdict of the law was reversed by a general acclamation and the verdict of the newspapers carried the day but the best of it is to come you know what happened when the people found themselves with the pet object of her sympathy suddenly cast loose on their hands a general impression prevailed directly that she was not quite innocent enough after all to be let out of prison then in there punish her a little that was the state of the popular feeling punish her a little Mr. Home Secretary on general moral grounds a small course of gentle legal medicine if you love us and then we shall feel perfectly easy on the subject to the end of our days don't joke about it cried his father don't don't Jimmy they couldn't they dirtsed nobody can be tried twice over for the same offence poo poo she could be tried a second time for a second offence retorted bash with the younger and tried she was luckily for the pacification of the public mind she had rushed headlong into redressing her own grievances as women will when she discovered that her husband had cut her down from a legacy of 50,000 pounds to a legacy of 5,000 by a stroke of his pen the day before the inquest a locked drawer in Mr. Waldron's dressing room table which contained some valuable jewelry was discovered to have been opened and emptied and when the prisoner was committed by the magistrates the precious stones were found torn out of their settings and sewed up in her stays the lady considered it a case of justifiable self-compensation the law declared it to be a robbery committed on the executors of the dead man the lighter offence which had been passed over when such a charge as murder was brought against her was just the thing to revive to save appearances in the eyes of the public they had stopped the course of justice in the case of the prisoner at one trial and now all they wanted was to set the course of justice going again in the case of the prisoner at another she was a reign for the robbery after having been pardoned for the murder and what is more if her beauty and her misfortunes had it made a strong impression on her lawyer she would not only have had to stand another trial but would have had even the 5000 pounds to which she was entitled by the second will taken away from her as a felon by the crown I respect her lawyer I admire her lawyer exclaimed Mr. Bashwood I should like to take his hand to tell him so he wouldn't thank you if you did remarked Bashwood the younger he is under a comfortable impression that nobody knows how he saved Mrs. Waldron's legacy for her but himself I beg your pardon Jimmy in her post as father but don't call her Mrs. Waldron speak of her pleas by her name when she was innocent and young and a girl at school would you mind for my sake calling her Miss Quilt not I it makes no difference to me what name I give her bother your sentiment let's go on with the facts this is what the lawyer did before the second trial came off he told her she would be found guilty again to a dead certainty and this time he said the public will let the law take its course have you got an old friend whom you can trust she hadn't such a thing as an old friend in the world very well then says the lawyer you must trust me sign this paper and you will have executed a fictitious sale of all your property to myself when the right time comes I shall first carefully settle with your husband's executors and I shall then reconvey the money to you securing it properly in case you ever marry again in your own possession the crown and other transactions of this kind frequently waives its rights of disputing the validity of the sale and if the crown is no harder on you than on other people when you come out of prison you will have your 5,000 pounds to begin the world with again need the lawyer when she was going to be tried for robbing the executors to put her up to a way of robbing the crown wasn't it what a world it is the last effort of the son sarcasm was unheeded by the father in prison he said to himself oh me after all that misery in prison again yes said bashwood the younger rising and stretching himself that's how it ended the verdict was guilty and the sentence was imprisonment for 2 years she served her time and came out as well as I can reckon it about 3 years since if you want to know what she did when she recovered her liberty and how she went on afterward I may be able to tell you something about it say on another occasion when you've got an extra note or two in your pocketbook for the present all you need know you do know there isn't the shadow of doubt that this fascinating lady has the double slur on her of having been found guilty of murder and of having served her term of imprisonment for theft there's your money's worth for your money with the whole of my wonderful knack at my feet thrown in for nothing if you have any gratitude in you you ought to do something handsome one of these days for your son but for me I'll tell you what you would have done old gentleman if you could have had your own way you would have married Miss Quilt Mr. Bashwood rose to his feet and looked at his son settling the face if I could have my own way he said I would marry her now he started back a step after all I have told you he asked in the blankest astonishment after all you have told me with the chance of being poisoned the first time you happened to offend her with the chance of being poisoned answered Mr. Bashwood in four and twenty hours the spy of the private inquiry office dropped back into his chair cowed by his father's worth and his father's looks mad he said to himself Stark mad by Jingo Mr. Bashwood looked at his watch and hurriedly took his hat from a side table I should like to hear the rest of it he said I should like to hear every word you have to tell me about her to the very last by the time the dreadful galloping time is getting on for all I know they may be on their way to be married at this very moment what are you going to do Mr. Bashwood the younger getting between his father and the door I'm going to the hotel said the old man trying to pass him I'm going to see Mr. Armadale what for to tell him everything you have told me he paused after making that reply the terrible smile of triumph which had once already appeared on his face over spread it again Mr. Armadale is young Mr. Armadale has all his life before him he whispered cunningly with his trembling fingers clutching his son's arm what doesn't frighten me will frighten him End of Chapter 15 Part 2