 SCENE V. CHAPTER III. There was a pause of a few minutes while Mrs. Lickhound opened the second of the two papers which lay before her on the table, and refreshed her memory by looking it rapidly through. This done, she once more addressed herself to Noel Vanstone, carefully lowering her voice so as to render it inaudible to anyone who might be listening in the passage outside. I must beg your permission, sir, she began, to return to the subject of your wife. I do so most unwillingly, and I promise you that what I have now to say about her shall be said for your sake and for mine in the fewest words. What do we know of this woman, Mr. Noel, judging her by her own confession when she came to us in the character of Miss Garth, and by her own acts afterwards at Elborough? We know that if death had not snatched your father out of her reach, she was ready with her plot to rob him of the comb-braven money. We know that when you inherited the money in your turn, she was ready with her plot to rob you. We know how she carried that plot through to the end, and we know that nothing but your death is wanted at this moment to crown her repacity and her deception with success. We are sure of these things. We are sure that she is young, bold and clever, that she has neither doubts, grouples nor pity, and that she possesses the personal qualities which mean in general, quite incomprehensibly to me, are weak enough to admire. These are not fancies, Mr. Noel, but facts. You know them as well as I do. He made a sign in the affirmative, and Mrs. LeCount went on. Keep in your mind what I have said of the past, sir, and now look with me to the future. I hope and trust you have a long life still before you, but let us for the moment only suppose the case of your death, your death leaving this will behind you, which gives your fortune to your cousin George. I am told there is an office in London in which copies of all wills must be kept. Any curious stranger who chooses to pay a shilling for the privilege may enter that office and may read any will in the place, at his or her discretion. Do you see what I am coming to, Mr. Noel? Your disinherited widow pays her shilling and reads your will. Your disinherited widow sees that the coombe-braven money, which has gone from your father to you, goes next from you to Mr. George Bartram. What is the certain end of that discovery? The end is that you leave to your cousin and your friend the legacy of this woman's vengeance, and this woman's deceit vengeance made more resolute, deceit made more devilish than ever by her ex-aspiration at her own failure. What is your cousin George? He is a generous, unsuspicious man, incapable of deceit himself and fearing no deception in others. Leave him at the mercy of your wife's unscrupulous fascinations, and your wife's unfaithonable deceit, and I see the end as clearly as I see you sitting here. She will blind his eyes as she blinded yours, and in spite of you, in spite of me, she will have the money. She stopped and left her last words time to gain their hold on his mind. The circumstances had been stated so clearly, the conclusion from them had been so plainly drawn that he seized her meaning without an effort and seized it at once. I see, he said, vindictively clinching his hands. I understand, Gleckhound. She shan't have a farthing. What shall I do? Shall I leave the money to the admiral?" He paused and considered a little. No, he resumed, there's the same danger in leaving it to the admiral than there is in leaving it to George. There is no danger, Mr. Noel, if you take my advice. What is your advice? Know your own idea, sir, take the pen in hand again and leave the money to admiral Bartram. He mechanically dipped the pen in the ink, and then hesitated. You shall know where I am leading you, sir, said Mrs. Leckhound, before you sign your will. In the meantime, let us gain every inch of ground we can as we go on. I want the will to be all written out before we advance a single step beyond it. Sign your third paragraph, Mr. Noel, under the lines which leave me my legacy of five thousand pounds. She dictated the last momentous sentence of the will from the rough draft in her own possession in these words. The whole residue of my estate, after payment of my burial expenses and my lawful depths, I give and bequeath to rear admiral Arthur Everard Bartram, my executor aforesaid, to be by him applied to such uses as he may think fit. Signed, sealed and delivered, this third day of November, eighteen-hundred and forty-seven, by Noel Van Stone, the within-name test-setter, as and for his late will and testament, in the presence of us. Is that all, asked Noel Van Stone, in astonishment? That is enough, sir, to bequeath your fortune to the admiral, and therefore that is all. Now let us go back to the case which we have supposed already. Your widow pays her shilling, and sees this will. There is the coon-braven money left to admiral Bartram, with a declaration in plain words that it is his to use as he likes. When she sees this, what does she know? When she sees this, what does she do? She sets a trap for the admiral. He is a bachelor, and he is an old man. Who is to protect him against the arts of this desperate woman? Protect him yourself, sir, with a few more strokes of that pen which has done such wonders already. You have left him this legacy in your will, which your wife sees. Take the legacy away again, in a letter which is a dead secret between the admiral and you. Put the will and the letter under one cover, and place them in the admiral's possession, with your written directions, to him to break the seal on the day of your death. Let the will say what it says now, and let the letter, which is your secret and his, tell him the truth. Say that in leaving him your fortune you leave it with the request that he will take his legacy with one hand from you, and give it with the other to his nephew George. Tell him that your trust in this matter rests solely on your confidence in his honour, and on your belief in his affectionate remembrance of your father and yourself. You have known the admiral since you were a boy. He has his little whims and oddities, but he is a gentleman from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, and he is utterly incapable of proving false to a trust in his honour reposed by his dead friend. Meet the difficulty boldly, by such a stratagem as this, and you save these two helpless men from your wife's snares, one by means of the other. Here on one side is your will, which gives the fortune to the admiral and sets her plotting accordingly, and there on the other side is your letter, which privately puts the money into the nephew's hands. The malicious dexterity of this combination was exactly the dexterity which Noel Van Stone was most fit to appreciate. He tried to express his approval and admiration in words. Mrs. LeCount held up her hand warningly and closed his lips. Wait, sir, before you express your opinion, she went on. Half the difficulty is all that we have conquered yet. Let us say the admiral has made the use of your legacy, which you have privately requested him to make of it. Sooner or later, however well the secret may be kept, your wife will discover the truth. What follows that discovery? She lay siege to Mr. George. All you have done is to leave him the money by a roundabout way. There he is after an interval of time as much at the mercy as if you had openly mentioned him in your will. What is the remedy for this? The remedy is to mislead her, if we can, for the second time, to set up an obstacle between her and the money for the protection of your cousin George. Can you guess for yourself, Mr. Noel, what is the most promising obstacle we can put in her way? She shook her head. Mrs. Lecun smiled and startled him into close attention by laying her hand on his arm. Put a woman in her ways there, she whispered in her wilyest tones. We don't believe in that fascinating beauty of hers, whatever you may do. Our lips don't burn to kiss those smooth cheeks. Our arms don't long to be around that supple waist. We see through her smiles and her crisis and her stares and her padding. We can't fascinate us. Put a woman in her way, Mr. Noel. Not a woman in my helpless situation, who is only a servant, but a woman with the authority and the jealousy of a wife. Make it a condition in your letter to the admiral, that if Mr. George is a bachelor at the time of your death, he shall marry within a certain time afterward, or he shall not have the legacy. Suppose he remains single in spite of your condition. Who is to have the money then? Put a woman in your wife's way, sir, once more, and leave the fortune in that case to the married sister of your cousin George. She paused. Noel then stoned again, attempted to express his opinion, and again Mrs. Lickhoun's hand extinguished him in silence. If you approve, Mr. Noel, she said, I will take your approval for granted. If you object, I will meet your objection before it's out of your mouth. You may say, Suppose this condition is sufficient to answer the purpose, why hide it in a private letter to the admiral? Why not openly write it down with my cousin's name in the will? Only for one reason, sir, only because the secret way is the sure way, with such a woman as your wife. The more secret you can keep your intentions, the more time you force her to waste and finding them out for herself. That time which she loses is time gained from the treachery by the admiral. Time gained by Mr. George, if he is still a bachelor, for his undisturbed choice of a lady. Time gained for her own security by the object of his choice, who might otherwise be the first object of your wife's suspicion and your wife's hostility. Remember the bottle we have discovered upstairs, and keep this desperate woman ignorant and therefore harmless as long as you can. There is my advice, Mr. Noel, in the fewest and plainest words. What do you say, sir? Am I almost as clever in my way as your friend, Mr. Bygrave? Can I, too, conspire a little when the object of my conspiracy is to assist your wishes and to protect your friends? Permitted the use of his tongue at last, Noel Van Stone's admiration of Mrs. LeCount's expressed itself in terms precisely similar to those which he had used on a former occasion in paying his compliments to Captain Wragg. What a hat you've got! Were the grateful words which he had once spoken to Mrs. LeCount's bitterest enemy? What a head you have got! Were the grateful words which he now spoke again to Mrs. LeCount herself. So do extremes meet, and such is sometimes the all-embracing capacity of the approval of a fool. Allow my head, sir, to deserve the compliment which you have paid to it, said Mrs. LeCount. The letter to the admiral has not written yet. Your will there is a body without a soul, an atom without a neve, until the letter is completed and laid by its side. A little more dictation on my part, a little more writing on yours, and our work is done. Pardon me, the letter will be longer than the will, we must have larger paper than the note paper this time. The writing case was searched, and some letter paper was found in it of the size required. Mrs. LeCount resumed her dictation, and Noel Van Stone resumed his pen. Balliol Cottage Dumfries, November the 3rd, 1847. Private Dear admiral Bartram, when you open my will, in which you are named my sole executor, you will find that I have bequeathed the whole residue of my estate after payment of one legacy of five thousand pounds to yourself. It is the purpose of my letter to tell you privately what the object is for which I have left you the fortune which is now placed in your hands. I beg you to consider this large legacy as intended under certain conditions to be given by you to your nephew George. If your nephew is married at the time of my death, and if his wife is living, I request you to put him at once in possession of your legacy, accompanying it by the expression of my desire, which I am sure he will consider a sacred and binding obligation on him, that he will settle the money on his wife and on his children if he has any. If on the other hand he is unmarried at the time of my death, or if he is a widower, in either of those cases, I make it a condition of his receiving the legacy that he shall be married within the period of—Mrs. LeCount laid down the draft letter from which he had been dictating thus far, and informed Noel Vanstone by a sign that he spent my dress. We have come to the question of time, sir, she observed. How long will you give your cousin to marry if he is single or a widower at the time of your death? Will I give him a year, inquired Noel Vanstone? If we had nothing to consider but the interests of propriety, said Mrs. LeCount, I should say a year too, sir, especially if Mr. George should happen to be a widower, but we have your wife to consider, as well as the interests of propriety. A year of delay between your death and your cousin's marriage is a dangerously long time to leave the disposal of your fortune in suspense. Give a determined woman a year to plot on country even, and there is no saying what she may not do. Six months? suggested Noel Vanstone. Six months, sir, rejoined Mrs. LeCount, is the preferable time of the two. A six-months interval from the day of your death is enough for Mr. George. You licked his composter, what is the matter? I wish you wouldn't talk so much about my death. He broke out, petulantly, I don't like it. I hate the very sound of the word. Mrs. LeCount smiled resently, and referred to her draft. I see the word, decazed, written here, she remarked. Perhaps Mr. Noel, you would prefer it? Yes, he said, I prefer decazed. It doesn't sound so dreadful as death. Let us go on with the letter, sir. She resumed her dictation as follows. In either of those cases, I make it a condition of his receiving the legacy that he shall be married within the period of six calendar months from the day of my decrees, that the woman he marry shall not be a widow, and that his marriage shall be a marriage by bans, publicly celebrated in the parish church of Osary, where he has been known from his childhood and where the family and circumstances of his future wife are likely to be the subject of public interest and inquiry. This, said Mrs. LeCount, quietly looking up from the draft, is to protect Mr. George, sir, in case the same trap is set for him which was successfully set for you. She will not find her false character and her false name fit quite so easily next time. No, not even with Mr. Bygrave to help her. Another dip of ink, Mr. Noel, let us write the next paragraph. Are you ready? Yes. Mrs. LeCount went on. If your nephew fails to comply with these conditions, that is to say, if being either a bachelor or a widower at the time of my decrees, he fails to marry in all respect as I have here instructed him to marry within six calendar months from that time, it is my desire that he shall not receive the legacy, or any part of it. I request you, in the case he is supposed, to pass him over altogether and to give the fortune left you in my will to his married sister, Mrs. Gerdelstone. Having now put you in possession of my motives and intentions, I come to the next question which it is necessary to consider. If, when you open this letter, your nephew is an unmarried man, it is clearly indispensable that he should know of the conditions he are imposed on him as soon, if possible, as you know of them yourself. Are you, under these circumstances, freely to communicate to him what I have here written to you, or are you to leave him under the impression that no such private expression of my wishes as this is in existence, or are you to state all the conditions relating to his marriage as if they emanated entirely from yourself? If you will adopt this letter alternative, you will add one more to the many obligations under which your friendship has placed me. I have serious reason to believe that the possession of my money and the discovery of any peculiar arrangements relating to the disposal of it will be objects after my decrees, of the fraud and conspiracy of an unscrupulous person. I am therefore anxious, for your sake, in the first place, that no suspicion of the existence of this letter should be conveyed to the mind of the person to whom I allude. And I am equally desirous, for Mrs. Girdelstone's sake in the second place, that the same person should be entirely ignorant that the legacy will pass into Mrs. Girdelstone's possession if your nephew is not married in the given time. I know, Jules, just easy pliable disposition. I dread the attempts that will be made to practice on it, and I feel sure that the prudent cause will be to abstain from trusting him with secrets, the rash revelation of which might be followed by serious and even dangerous results. State the conditions therefore to your nephew as if they were your own. Let him think they have been suggested to your mind by the new responsibilities imposed on you as a man of property, by your position in my will and by your consequent anxiety to provide for the perpetuation of the family name. If these reasons are not sufficient to satisfy him, there can be no objection to your referring him for any further explanations which he may desire to his wedding day. I have done. My last wishes are now confided to you in implicit reliance on your honour and on your tender regard for the memory of your friend. Of the miserable circumstances which compel me to write as I have written here, I say nothing. You will hear of them if my life is spared from my own lips, for you will be the first friend to my shell consult in my difficulty and distress. Keep this letter strictly secret and strictly in your own possession until my requests are complied with. Let no human being but yourself know where it is, on any pretends whatever. Believe me, dear Admiral Bartram, affectionately yours, Noel Vanstone. Have you signed, sir? asked Mrs. LeCount. Let me look the letter over, if you please, before we seal it up. She read the letter carefully. In Noel Vanstone's close crammed handwriting, it filled two pages of letter paper and ended at the top of the third page. Instead of using an envelope, Mrs. LeCount folded it, neatly and securely, in the old-fashioned way. She lit the taper in the ink stand and returned the letter to the writer. See, let Mr. Noel, she said, with your own hand and your own seal. She extinguished the taper and handed him the pen again. Addressed the letter, sir, she proceeded to Admiral Bartram, sent crux on the marsh, Essex. Now add the words and sign them above the address. To be kept in your own possession and to be opened by yourself only on the day of my death, or disease, if you prefer it, Noel Vanstone. Have you done? Let me look at it again. Quite right in every particular. Except my congratulation, sir, if your wife has not plotted her last plot for the Coon-Braven money, it is not your fault, Mr. Noel, and not mine. Finding his attention released by the completion of the letter, Noel Vanstone reverted at once to purely personal considerations. There is my pecking up to be thought of now, he said. I can't go away without my warm things. Excuse me, sir, rejoined Mrs. Lickhound. There's the will to be signed first, and there must be two persons found to witness your signature. She looked out of the front window and saw the carriage waiting at the door. The coachman will do for one of the witnesses, she said. He is in respectable service at Dumfries, and he can be found if he happens to be wanted. We must have one of your own servants, I suppose, for the other witness. They are all detestable women, but the cook is the least ill-looking of the three. Send for the cook, sir, while I go out and call the coachman. When we have got our witnesses here, you have only to speak to them in these words. I have a document here to sign, and I wish you to write your names on it as witnesses of my signature. Nothing more, Mr. Noel. Say those few words in your usual manner, and when the signing is over I will see myself to your packing up and your warm things. She went to the front door and summoned the coachman to the parlour. On her return she found the cook ready in the room. The cook looked mysteriously offended, and stared without intermission at Mrs. LeCount. In a minute more the coachman and elderly man came in. He was preceded by a relishing odor of whiskey, but his head was scotch, and nothing but his odor betrayed him. I have a document here to sign, said Noel Van Stone, repeating his lesson, and I wish you to write your names on it as witnesses of my signature. The coachman looked at the will. The cook never removed her eyes from Mrs. LeCount. You'll no object, sir, said the coachman, with a national caution showing itself in every wrinkle on his face. You'll no object, sir, to tell me first what the document may be. Mrs. LeCount interposed to be four Noel Van Stone's indignation could express itself in words. You must tell the man, sir, that it is your will, she said. When he witnesses your signature, he can see as much for himself if he looks at the top of the page. I, I, said the coachman, looking at the top of the page immediately. His last will and testament, eh, sirs! There's a seer confronting of death in a document like you. Our flesh is gross! Continued the coachman, exhaling an additional puff of whiskey, and looking up devoutly at the ceiling. Take those words in connection with that other scripture. Many are quiet, but fewer chosen. Take that again in connection with revelations. Chapter the first, verses one to fifteen. Lay the whole to heart, and watch your wealth then. Dost, sir, and your body, scripture again, clay for the potter. And your life, scripture once more, the breathy and nostrils. The cook listened, as if cook was a church, but she never removed her eyes from Mrs. LeCount. You had better sign, sir. This is apparently some custom prevalent in Dumfries during the transaction of business, said Mrs. LeCount resoundly. The man means well, I daresay. She added those last words in a soothing tone, for she saw that Noel Vanstone's indignation was fast merging into alarm. The coachman's outburst of exhortations deemed to have inspired him with fear as well as disgust. He dipped the pen in the ink and signed the will without uttering a word. The coachman, descending instantly from theology to business, watched the signature with the most scrupulous attention, and signed his own name as witness, with an implied commentary on the proceedings, in the form of another puff of whiskey, exhaled through the medium of a heavy sigh. The cook looked away from Mrs. LeCount with an effort, signed her name in a violent hurry, and looked back again with a start, as if she expected to see a loaded pistol produced in the interval in the housekeeper's house. Thank you, said Mrs. LeCount, in her friendliest manner. The cook shut up her lips aggressively and looked at her master. You may go, said her master. The cook cuffed contemptuously and went. We shan't keep you long, said Mrs. LeCount, dismissing the coachman. In half an hour or less we shall be ready for the journey back. The coachman's austere countenance relaxed for the first time. He smiled mysteriously and approached Mrs. LeCount on tiptoe. You'll know, forget one thing, milleddy," he said, with a most ingratiating politeness. You'll know, forget the witnessin' as well as the drivin' when you pay me for my day's work. He laughed with guttural gravity, and leaving his atmosphere behind him, stalked out of the room. LeCount, said Noel Van Stone, as soon as the coachman closed the door, did I hear you tell that man we should be ready in half an hour? Yes, sir. Are you blind? He asked the question with an angry stamp of his foot. Mrs. LeCount looked at him in astonishment. Can't you see the brute is drunk? He went on, more and more irritably. Is my life nothing? Am I to be left at the mercy of a drunken coachman? I won't trust that man to drive me for any consideration under heaven. I'm surprised you could think of it, LeCount. The man has been drinking, sir, said Mrs. LeCount. It is easy to see and to smell that, but he is evidently used to drinking. If he is sober enough to walk quite straight, which he certainly does, and to sign his name in an excellent handwriting, which you may see for yourself on the wheel, I venture to think he is sober enough to drive us to Dumfries. Nothing of the sort! You're a foreigner, LeCount. You don't understand these people. They drink whiskey from morning to night. They are the strongest spirit that's made. Whiskey is notorious for its effect on the brain. I tell you, I won't run the risk. I never was driven, and I never will be driven by anybody but a sober man. Must I go back to Dumfries by myself, sir? And leave me here? Leave me alone in this house after what's happened? How do I know my wife may not come back tonight? How do I know her journey is not a blind timis, LeCount? If you know feeling LeCount, can you leave me in my miserable situation? He sank into a chair and burst out crying over his own idea, before he had completed the expression of hidden words. Too bad, he said, with his handkerchief over his face, too bad! It was impossible not to pity him. If ever mortal was pitiable, he was the man. He had broken down at last under the conflict of violent emotions which had been roused in him since the morning. The effort to follow Mrs. LeCount along the mazes of intricate combination, through which he had steadily led the way, had upheld him while that effort lasted. The moment it was at an end, he dropped. The coachman had hastened a result of which the coachman was far from being the cause. He surprised me, he distressed me, sir, said Mrs. LeCount. I entreat you to compose yourself. I will stay here, if you wish it, with pleasure. I will stay here to-night for your sake. You want rest and quiet after this dreadful day. The coachman shall be instantly sent away, Mr. Noel. I will give him a note to the landlord of the hotel, and the carrier shall come back for us tomorrow morning with another man to drive it. The prospect with those words presented cheered him. He wiped his eyes and kissed Mrs. LeCount's hand. Yes, he said faintly, sent the coachman away, and he stopped here. You good creature, you excellently count! Let the drunken brood away, and come back directly. We will be comfortable by the fire, LeCount, and have a nice little dinner, and try to make it like old times. His weak voice faltered. He returned to the fireside, and melted into tears again under the pathetic influence of his own idea. Mrs. LeCount left him for a minute to dismiss the coachman. When she returned to the parlour, she found him with his hand on the bell. What do you want, sir? She asked. I want to tell the servants to get your room ready, he answered. I wish to show you every attention, LeCount. You are all kindness, Mr. Noel, but wait one moment. It may be well to have these papers put out of the way before the servant comes in again. If you will place the wheel and the seal letter together in one envelope, and if you will direct it to the admiral, I will take care that the enclosure so addressed is safely placed in his own hands. Will you come to the table, Mr. Noel, only for one minute more? No. He was obstinate. He refused to move from the fire. He was sick and tired of writing. He wished he had never been born, and he loathed the sight of pen and ink. All Mrs. LeCount's patience and all Mrs. LeCount's persuasion were required to induce him to write the admiral's address for the second time. She only succeeded by bringing the blank envelope to him upon the paper case and putting it coaxingly on his lap. He grumbled. He even swore, but he directed the envelope at last in these terms. Mr. Admiral Bartram sent crux on the march, favoured by Mrs. LeCount. With that final act of compliance his facility came to an end. He refused, in the fiercest terms, to seal the envelope. There was no need to press this proceeding on him. His seal lay ready on the table, and it met at nothing whether he used it or whether a person in his confidence used it for him. Mrs. LeCount sealed the envelope, with its two important enclosures placed safely inside. She opened the travelling bag for the last time, and, pausing for a moment before she put the sealed packet away, looked at it with a triumph too deep forwards. She smiled as she dropped it into the bag. Not the shadow of a suspicion that the will might contain superfluous phrases and expressions which no practical lawyer would have used, not the vestige of a doubt whether the letter was quite as complete a document as a practical lawyer might have made it, troubled her mind. In blind reliance, born of her hatred for Magdalen and her hunger for revenge, in blind reliance on her own abilities, and on her friend's law, she trusted the future implicitly to the promise of the morning's work. As she locked her travelling bag, Noel Vanstone rang the bell. On this occasion the summons was answered by Louisa. Get the spear-room ready, said her master. This lady will sleep here tonight, and ere my warm things, this lady and I are going away tomorrow morning. The civil and submissive Louisa received her orders in silent silence, darted an angry look at her master's impenetrable guest, and left the room. The servants were evidently all attached to their mistress' interests, and were all of one opinion on the subject of Mrs. Lacount. That's done, said Noel Vanstone, with a sigh of infinite relief. Come and sit down, Lacount. Let's be comfortable. Let's gossip over the fire. Mrs. Lacount accepted the invitation and drew an easy chair to his side. He took a hand with a confidential tenderness, and held it in his while the talk went on. A stranger looking in through the window would have taken them for mother and son, and would have thought to himself, what a happy home. The gossip, led by Noel Vanstone, consisted as usual of an endless string of questions, and was devoted entirely to the subject of himself and his future prospects. Where would Lacount take him to when they went away the next morning? Why to London? Why should he be left in London, while Lacount went on to send cracks to give the admiral the letter and the will? Because his wife might follow him if he went to the admirals. Well, there was something in that. And because he ought to be safely concealed from her in some comfortable lodging near Mr. Loscomb. Why near Mr. Loscomb? Ah, yes, to be sure, to know what the law would do to help him. Would the law set him free from the wretch who had redissaved him? How tiresome of Lacount not to know! Would the law say he had gone and married himself a second time because he had been living with the wretch like husband and wife in Scotland? Anything that publicly assumed to be a marriage was a marriage, he had heard in Scotland, how excessively tiresome of Lacount to sit there and say she knew nothing about it! Was he to stay long in London by himself, with nobody but Mr. Loscomb to speak to? Would Lacount come back to him as soon as she had put those important papers and the admiral's own hands? Would Lacount consider herself still in his service? The good Lacount, the excellent Lacount, and after all the law business was over. What then? Why not leave this horrid England and go abroad again? Why not go to France to some cheap place near Paris? Say, Versailles? Say, Saint-Germain? In a nice little French house, cheap, with a nice French bond to cook who wouldn't waste his substance in the great spot. With a nice little garden where he could work himself and get health and save the expense of keeping a gardener. It wasn't a bad idea, and it seemed to promise well for the future, didn't it, Lacount? So he ran on the poor weak creature, the abject, miserable little man. As the darkness gathered at the close of the short November day, he began to grow drowsy. As Kiesel's questions came to an end at last, he fell asleep. The wind outside sang its mournful winter song, the tramp of passing footsteps, the roll of passing wheels on the road keezed in dreary silence. He slept on quietly. The firelight rose and fell on his wise and little face and his nervous, drooping hands. Mrs. Lacount had not pitied him yet. She began to pity him now. Her point was gained. Her interest in his will was secured. He had put his future life of his own accord under her fostering care. The fire was comfortable. The circumstances were favourable to the growth of Christian feeling. Poor Vretch, said Mrs. Lacount, looking at him with a grave compassion. Poor Vretch. The dinner-hour roused him. He was cheerful at dinner. He reverted to the idea of the cheap little house in France. He snirked and simpered and talked French to Mrs. Lacount, while the housemate and Louisa waited turn and turn about under protest. When dinner was over, he returned to his comfortable chair before the fire, and Mrs. Lacount followed him. He resumed the conversation, which meant, in his case, repeating his questions. But he was not so quick and ready with them as he had been early in the day. They began to flag. They continued at longer and longer intervals. The keys doled together. Toward nine o'clock he fell asleep again. It was not a quiet sleep this time. He muttered and ground his teeth and rolled his head from side to side of the chair. Mrs. Lacount purposely made noise enough to rouse him. He woke, with a vacant eye and a flushed cheek. He walked about the room restlessly, with a new idea in his mind—the idea of writing a terrible letter, a letter of eternal farewell to his wife. How was it to be written? In what language should he express his feelings? The powers of Shakespeare himself would be unequal to the emergency. He had been the victim of an outrage entirely without parallel. A wretch had crept into his bosom, and Viper had hidden herself at his fireside. Where could words be found to brand her with the infamy she deserved? He stopped with a supplicating sense in him of his own impotent rage. He stopped and took his fist tremulously in the empty air. Mrs. Lacount interfered with an energy and a resolution inspired by serious alarm. After the heavy strain that had been late on his weakness already, such an outbreak of passionate agitation as was now bursting from him might be the destruction of his rest that night and of his strength to travel the next day. With infinite difficulty, with endless promises to return to the subject and to advise him about it in the morning, she prevailed on him at last to go upstairs and compose himself for the night. She gave him her arm to assist him. On the way upstairs his attention to her great relief became suddenly absorbed by a new fancy. He remembered a certain warm and comfortable mixture of wine, eggs, sugar and spices, which he had often been accustomed to make for him in former times, and which he thought he should relish exceedingly before he went to bed. Mrs. Lacount helped him on with his dressing gown, then went downstairs again to make his warm drink for him at the parlour fire. She rang the bell and ordered the necessary ingredients for the mixture in Well Van Stone's name. The servants, with a small ingenious malice of their race, brought up the materials one by one and kept her waiting for each of them as long as possible. She had got the saucepan and the spoon and the tumbler and the nutmeg grater and the wine, but not the egg, the sugar or the spices, when she heard him above walking backward and forward noisily in his room, exciting himself on the old subject again beyond all doubt. She went upstairs once more, but he was too quick for her. He heard her outside the door, and when she opened it, she found him in his chair with his back cunningly turned towards her. Knowing him too well to attend any remonstrance, she merely announced the speedy arrival of the warm drink and turned to leave the room. On her way out she noticed a table in a corner, with an ink stand and a paper case on it and tried, without attracting her attention, to take the writing materials away. He was too quick for her again. He asked angrily if she doubted his promise. She put the writing materials back on the table for fear of offending him and left the room. In half an hour more the mixture was ready. She carried it up to him, foaming and fragrant in a large tumbler. He will sleep after this, she thought to herself as she opened the door. I have made it stronger than usual on purpose. He had changed his place. He was sitting at the table in the corner, still with his back to her, writing, This time his quick ears had not served him. This time she caught him in the fact. Oh! Mr. Noel! Mr. Noel! she said reproachfully. What is your promise worth? He made no answer. He was sitting with his left elbow on the table and with his head resting on his left hand. His right hand lay back on the paper with a pen lying loose in it. You drink, Mr. Noel! she said, in a kinder tone, feeling unwilling to offend him. He took no notice of her. She went to the table to rouse him. Was he deep in thought? He was dead. THE END OF THE FIFTH SCENE END OF SCENE V CHAPTER III Between the fifth scene and the sixth scene of No Name, this is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Vipgamula. No Name by Wilkie Collins. Between the scenes. Progress of the story through the post. One. From Mrs. Noel Vanstone to Mr. Loscomb. Park Terrace, St. John's Wood, November the 5th. Dear sir, I came to London yesterday for the purpose of seeing a relative, leaving Mr. Vanstone at Balliol Cottage and proposing to return to him in the course of the week. I reached London late last night and drove to these lodgings, having written to secure accommodation beforehand. This morning's post has brought me a letter from my own maid, whom I left at Balliol Cottage, with instructions to write to me if anything extraordinary took place in my absence. You will find the girl's letter enclosed in this. I have had some experience of her, and I believe she is to be strictly dependent on to tell the truth. I purposely abstain from troubling you by any useless illusions to myself. When you have read my maid's letter, you will understand the shock which the news contained, and it has caused me. I can only repeat that I place implicit belief in her statement. I am firmly persuaded that my husband's former housekeeper has found him out, has practised on his weakness in my absence, and has prevailed on him to make another will. From what I know of this woman, I feel no doubt that she has used her influence over Mr Van Stone to deprive me of possible of all future interests in my husband's fortune. Under such circumstances as these, it is in the last degree important, for more reasons than I need mention here, that I should see Mr Van Stone and come to an explanation with him at the earliest possible opportunity. You will find that my maid thoughtfully kept a letter open until the last moment before post-time, without, however, having any later news to give me than that Mrs LeCount was to sleep at the cottage last night, and that she and Mr Van Stone were to leave together this morning. But for that last piece of intelligence I should have been on my way back to Scotland before now. As it is, I cannot decide for myself what I ought to do next. My going back to Dumfries after Mr Van Stone has left it seems like taking a journey for nothing, and my staying in London appears to be almost equally useless. Will you kindly advise me in this difficulty? I will come to you at Lincoln's Inn at any time this afternoon or tomorrow, which you may appoint. My next few hours are engaged. As soon as this letter is dispatched, I am going to Kensington with the object of ascertaining whether certain doubts I feel about the means by which Mrs LeCount may have accomplished her discovery are well founded or not. If you will let me have your answer by return of post, I will not fail to get back to St John's Wood in time to receive it. Believe me, dear sir, you are sincerely Magdalen Van Stone. 2. From Mr Loscomb to Mrs Noel Van Stone. Lincoln's Inn, November the 5th. Dear Madam, your letter and its enclosure have caused me great concern and surprise. Pressure of business allows me no hope of being able to see you either today or tomorrow morning, but if three o'clock tomorrow afternoon will suit you at that hour you will find me at your service. I cannot pretend to offer a positive opinion until I know more of the particulars connected with this extraordinary business that I find communicated either in your letter or in your maids, but with this reserve I venture to suggest that your remaining in London until tomorrow may possibly lead to other results besides your consultation at my chambers. There is at least a chance that you or I may hear something further in this strange matter by the morning's post. I remain, dear Madam, faithfully yours, John Loscomb. 3. From Mrs Noel Van Stone to Miss Garth. November the 5th, two o'clock. I have just returned from Westmoreland House after purposely leaving it in secret and purposely avoiding you under your own roof. You shall know why I came and why I went away. It is due to my remembrance of old times not to treat you like a stranger, although I can never again treat you like a friend. I set forth on the 3rd from the north to London. My only object in taking this journey was to see Nora. I had been suffering for many weary weeks past such remorse as only miserable women like me can feel. Perhaps the suffering weakened me, perhaps it roused some old forgotten tenderness. God knows! I can't explain it. I can only tell you that I began to think of Nora by day and to dream of Nora by night till I was almost heartbroken. I have no better reason than this to give for running all the risks which I ran and coming to London to see her. I don't wish to claim more for myself than I deserve. I don't wish to tell you I was the reformed and repenting creature whom you might approve of. I had only one feeling in me that I know of. I wanted to put my arms round Nora's neck and cry my heart out at Nora's bosom. Childish enough, I dare say. Something might have come of it. Nothing might have come of it. Who knows? I had no means of finding Nora without your assistance. However you might disapprove of what I had done, I thought you would not refuse to help me find my sister. When I lay down last night in my strange bed I said to myself, I will ask Miss Garth for my father's sake and my mother's sake to tell me. You don't know what a comfort I felt in that thought. How should you? What do good women like you know of miserable sinners like me? All you know is that you pray for us at church. Well, I fell asleep happily that night for the first time since my marriage. When the morning came I paid the penalty of daring to be happy only for one night. When the morning came a letter came with it, which told me that my bitterest enemy on earth, you have meddled sufficiently with my affairs to know what enemy I mean, had revenged herself on me in my absence. In following the impulse which led me to my sister I had gone to my ruin. The mischief was beyond all present remedy when I received the news of it. Whatever had happened, whatever might happen, I made up my mind to persist in my resolution of seeing Nora before I did anything else. I suspected you of being concerned and the disaster which had overtaken me, because I felt positively certain at outborrow that you and Mrs. LeCount had written to each other. But I never suspected Nora. If I lay on my death bed at this moment I could say with a safe conscience, I never suspected Nora. So I went this morning to Westmoreland House to ask you for my sister's address and to acknowledge plainly that I suspected you of being again in correspondence with Mrs. LeCount. When I inquired for you at the door, they told me you had gone out, but that you were expected back before long. They asked me if I would see your sister, who was then in the schoolroom. I desired that your sister should on no account be disturbed. My business was not with her, but with you. I begged to be allowed to wait in a room by myself until you returned. They showed me into the double-room on the ground floor, divided by curtains, as it was when I last remembered it. There was a fire in the outer division of the room, but none in the inner, and for that reason I suppose the curtains were drawn. The servant was very civil and attentive to me. I have learned to be thankful for civility and attention, and I spoke to her as cheerfully as I could. I said to her, I shall see Mithgarth here as she comes up to the door, and I can back in her in through the long window. The servant said I could do so if you came that way, but that you let yourself in sometimes, with your own key, by the back garden-gate, and if you did this she would take care to let you know of my visit. I mentioned these trifles to show you that there was no premeditated deceit in my mind when I came to the house. I waited a weary time, and you never came. I don't know whether my impatience made me think so, or whether the large fire burning made the room really as hot as I felt it to be. I only know that after a while I passed through the curtains into the inner room to try the cooler atmosphere. I walked to the long window which leads into the back garden to look out, and almost at the same time I heard the door opened, the door of the room I had just left, and your voice and the voice of some other woman, a stranger to me, talking. The stranger was one of the parlour-boarders, I daresay. I gathered from the first words you exchanged together that you had met in the passage. She is on her way downstairs, and you on your way in from the back garden. The next question and your next answer informed me that this person was a friend of my sister's who felt a strong interest in her, and who knew that you had just returned from a visit to Nora. So far I only hesitated to show myself because I shrank in my painful situation from facing a stranger. But when I heard my own name immediately afterwards on your lips and on hers, then I purposely came nearer to the curtain between us, and purposely listened. A mean action, you will say. Call it mean if you like. What better can you expect from such a woman as I am? You were always famous for your memory. There is no necessity for my repeating the words you spoke to your friend, and the words your friend spoke to you, hardly an hour since. When you read these lines you will know, as well as I know, what those words told me. I ask for no particulars. I will take all your reasons and all your excuses for granted. It is enough for me to know that you and Mr. Pendrell have been searching for me again, and that Nora is in the conspiracy this time to reclaim me in spite of myself. It is enough for me to know that my letter to my sister has been turned into a trap to catch me, and that Mrs. Lickhoun's revenge has accomplished its object by means of information received from Nora's lips. Shall I tell you what I suffered when I heard these things? No, it would only be a waste of time to tell you. Whatever I suffer, I deserve it, don't die. I waited in that inner room, knowing my own violent temper and not trusting myself to see you after what I had heard, I waited in that inner room trembling lest the servant should tell you of my visit before I could find an opportunity of leaving the house. No such misfortune happened. The servant no doubt hurt the voices upstairs and supposed that we had met each other in the passage. I don't know how long or how short a time it was before you left the room to go and take off your bonnet. You went, and your friend went with you. I raced the long window softly and stepped into the back garden. The way by which you returned to the house was the way by which I lifted. No blame attaches to the servant. As usual, where I am concerned, nobody is to blame but me. Time enough has passed now to quiet my mind a little. You know how strong I am. You remember how I used to fight against all my illnesses when I was a child? Now I am a woman. I fight against my miseries in the same way. Don't pity me, Miss Garth. Don't pity me. I have no harsh feeling against Nora. The hope I had of seeing her is a hope taken from me. The consolation I had in writing to her is a consolation denied me for the future. I am cut to the heart. But I have no angry feeling towards my sister. She means well, poor soul. I dare say she means well. It would distress her if she knew what has happened. Don't tell her. Conceal my visit, and burn my letter. A last word to yourself, and I have done. If I rightly understand my present situation, your spies are still searching for me to just as little purpose as they searched at York. This missed them. You are wasting your money to no purpose. If you discovered me to moral, what could you do? My position has altered. I am no longer the poor outcast girl, the vagabond public performer whom you once hunted after. I have done what I told you I would do. I have made the general sense of propriety my accomplice this time. Do you know who I am? I am a respectable married woman, accountable for my actions to nobody under heaven but my husband. I have got a place in the world, and a name in the world, at last. Even the law, which is the friend of all you respectable people, has recognized my existence, and has become my friend too. The Archbishop of Kenterbury gave me his license to be married, and the vicar of Altboro performed the service. If I found your spies following me in the street, and if I chose to claim protection from them, the law would acknowledge my claim. You forget what wonders my wickedness has done for me. It has made nobody's child, somebody's wife. If you would give these considerations that you wait, if you will exert your excellent common sense, I have no fear of being obliged to appeal to my newly found friend and protector, the law. You will feel by this time that you have meddled with me at last to some purpose. I am estranged from Nora. I am discovered by my husband. I am defeated by Mrs. LeCount. You have driven me to the last extremity. You have strengthened me to fight the battle of my life with the resolution which only a lost and friendless woman can feel. Badly as your schemes have prospered, they have not proved totally useless after all. I have no more to say. If you ever speak about me to Nora, tell her that a day may come when she will see me again, the day when we two sisters have recovered our natural rights, the day when I put Nora's fortune into Nora's hand. Those are my last words. Remember them the next time you feel tempted to meddle with me again. 4. From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone, Lincoln's Inn, November the Sixth Dear Madam, this morning's post has doubtless brought you the same shocking news which it has brought to me. You must know by this time that a terrible affliction has before on you, the affliction of your husband's sudden death. I am on the point of starting to the North to make all needful inquiries and to perform whatever duties I may with propriety undertake as solicitor to the deceased, gentlemen. Let me earnestly recommand you not to follow me to Balliol Cottage, until I have had time to write to you first and to give you such advice as I cannot through ignorance of all the circumstances pretend to offer now. You may rely on my writing after my arrival in Scotland by the first post. I remain, dear Madam, faithfully yours, John Loscombe. 5. From Mr. Pendrell to Mrs. Garth, Seld Street, November the Sixth Dear Mrs. Garth, I return you Mrs. Noel Vanstone's letter. I can understand your mortification at the tone in which it is written, and your distress at the manner in which this unhappy woman has interpreted the conversation that she overheard at your house. I cannot honestly add that I lament what has happened. My opinion has never altered since the Coombe-Braven time. I believe Mrs. Noel Vanstone to be one of the most reckless, desperate and perverted women living, and any circumstances that estrange her from her sister are circumstances which I welcome for her sister's sake. There cannot be a moment's doubt on the course you ought to follow in this matter. Even Mrs. Noel Vanstone herself acknowledges the propriety of spearing her sister additional and unnecessary distress. By all means, keep Miss Vanstone in ignorance of the visit to Kensington, and of the letter which has followed it. It would be not only unwise, but absolutely cruel, to enlighten her. If we had any remedy to apply or even any hope to offer, we might feel some hesitation in keeping our secret. But there is no remedy, and no hope. Mrs. Noel Vanstone is perfectly justified in the view she takes of her position. Neither you nor I can assert the smallest right to control her. I have already taken the necessary measures for putting an end to our useless inquiries. In a few days I will write to Miss Vanstone, and will do my best to tranquilize her mind on the subject of her sister. If I can find no sufficient excuse to satisfy her, it will be better she should think we have discovered nothing than that she should know the truth. Believe me, most truly yours, William Pendrill. Six. From Mr. Loscomb to Mrs. Noel Vanstone. Lincoln's in November the 15th. Dear Madam, in compliance with your request I now proceed to communicate to you in writing, what but for the calamity which has so recently befallen you, I should have preferred communicating by word of mouth. Be pleased to consider this letter as strictly confidential between yourself and me. I enclose, as you desire, a copy of the will executed by your late husband on the third of this month. There can be no question of the genuineness of the original document. I protested as a matter of form against Admiral Bartram's solicitor, assuming a position of authority at Balliol Cottage. But he took the position, nevertheless, acting as legal representative of the sole executor under the second will. I am bound to say I should have done the same myself in his place. The serious question follows, what can we do for the best in your interest? The will executed under my professional superintendence on the 30th of September last is at present superseded and revoked by the second and later will executed on the third of November. Can we dispute this document? I doubt the possibility of disputing the new will on the face of it. It is no doubt irregularly expressed, but it is dated, signed and witnessed as the Lord directs, and the perfectly simple and straightforward provisions that it contains are in no respect that I can see technically open to attack. This being the case, can we dispute the will on the ground that it has been executed when the testator was not in a fit state to dispose of his own property, or when the testator was subjected to undue and improper influence? In the first of these cases, the medical evidence would put an obstacle in our way. We cannot assert that previous illness had weakened the testator's mind. It is clear that he died suddenly, as the doctors had all along declared he would die of disease of the heart. He was out walking in his garden as usual on the day of his death. He ate a hearty dinner. None of the persons in his service noticed any change in him. He was a little more irritable with them than usual, but that was all. It is impossible to attack the state of his faculties. There is no case to go into court with so far. Can we declare that he acted under undue influence or in plainer terms under the influence of Mrs. LeCount? There are serious difficulties again in the way of taking this course. We cannot assert, for example, that Mrs. LeCount has assumed a place in the will which she has no fair claim to occupy. She has cunningly limited her own legacy, not only to what is fairly due her, but to what the late Mr. Michael Van Stone himself had the intention of leaving her. If I were examined on the subject, I should be compelled to acknowledge that I had heard him express this intention myself. It is only the truth to say that I have heard him express it more than once. There is no point of attack in Mrs. LeCount's legacy, and there is no point of attack in your late husband's choice of an executor. He has made the wise choice, and the natural choice, of the oldest and trustiest friend he had in the world. One more consideration remains, the most important which I have yet approached, and therefore the consideration which I have reserved to the last. On the 30th of September, the testator executes a will, leaving his widow Soul Executrix, with a legacy of £80,000. On the 3rd of November following, he expressly revokes this will and leaves another in its stead, in which his widow is never once mentioned, and in which the whole residue of his estate, after payment of one comparatively trifling legacy, is left to a friend. It rests entirely with you to say whether any valid reason can or cannot be produced to explain such an extraordinary proceeding as this. If no reason can be assigned, and I know of none myself, I think we have a point here which deserves our careful consideration, for it may be a point which is open to attack. Pray understand that I am now appealing to you solely as a lawyer, who is obliged to look all possible eventualities in the face. I have no wish to intrude on your private affairs. I have no wish to write a word which could be construed into any indirect reflection on yourself. If you tell me that so far as you know, your husband capriciously struck you out of his will, without assignable reason or motive for doing so, and without other obvious explanation of his conduct than that he acted in this matter entirely under the influence of Mrs. LeCount, I will immediately take counsel's opinion, touching the propriety of disputing the will on this ground. If, on the other hand, you tell me that there are reasons known to yourself, though unknown to me, for not taking the course I propose, I will accept that intimation without troubling you, unless you wish it to explain yourself further. In this letter event I will write to you again, for I shall then have something more to say, which may greatly surprise you, on the subject of the will. Faithfully yours, John Loscomb. 7. From Mrs. Noel Vance down to Mr. Loscomb. November the 16th. Dear Sir, accept my best thanks for the kindness and consideration with which you have treated me, and let the anxieties under which I am now suffering plead my excuse if I reply to your letter without ceremony in the fewest possible words. I have my own reasons for not hesitating to answer your question in the negative. It is impossible for us to go to law as you propose on the subject of the will. Believe me, dear Sir, yours gratefully, Magdalen Vanstone. 8. From Mr. Loscomb to Mrs. Noel Vanstone. Lincoln's in November the 17th. Dear Madam, I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, answering my proposal in the negative, for reasons of your own. Under these circumstances, on which I offer no comment, I beg to perform my promise of again communicating with you on the subject of your late husband's will. Be so kind as to look at your copy of the document. You will find that the clause which devises the whole residue of your husband's estate to Admiral Bartram ends in these terms. To be by him applied to such uses as he may think fit. Simple as these may seem to you, they have very remarkable words. In the first place, no practical lawyer would have used them in drawing a husband's will. In the second place, they are utterly useless to serve any plain straightforward purpose. The legacy is left unconditionally to the admiral, and in the same breath he is told that he may do what he likes with it. The phrase points clearly to one of two conclusions. It has either dropped from the brightest pen in pure ignorance, or it has been carefully set where it appears to serve the purpose of a snare. I am firmly persuaded that the latter explanation is the right one. The words are expressly intended to mislead some person, yourself in all probability, and the cunning which has put them to that use is a cunning which, as constantly happens when uninstructed persons meddle with law, has overreached itself. My thirty years experience reads those words in a sense exactly opposite to the sense which they are intended to convey. I say that Admiral Bartram is not free to apply his legacy to such purposes as he may think fit. I believe he is privately controlled by a supplementary document in the shape of a secret trust. I can easily explain to you what I mean by secret trust. It is usually contained in the form of a letter from a test-stater to his executors, privately informing them of testamentary intentions on his part which he has not thought proper openly to a knowledge in his will. I leave you a hundred pounds, and I have write a private letter in joining you on taking the legacy not to devote it to your own purposes, but to give it to some third person whose name I have my own reasons for not mentioning in my will. That is a secret trust. If I am right in my own persuasion that such a document as I here describe is at this moment in Admiral Bartram's possession, a persuasion based in the first instance on the extraordinary words that I have quoted to you, and in the second instance on purely legal considerations with which it is needless to encumber my letter, if I am right in this opinion, the discovery of the secret trust would be in all probability a most important discovery to your interests. I will not trouble you with technical reasons, or with references to my experience in these matter which only a professional man could understand. I will merely say that I don't give up your course as utterly lost until the conviction now impressed on my mind has proved to be wrong. I can add no more while this important question still remains involved in doubt, neither can I suggest any means of solving that doubt. If the existence of the trust was proved, and if the nature of the stipulations contained in it was made known to me, I could then say positively what the legal chances were of you being able to set up a case on the strength of it, and I could also tell you whether I should or should not feel justified in personally undertaking that case under a private arrangement with yourself. As things are, I can make no arrangement and offer no advice. I can only put you confidentially in possession of my private opinion, leaving you entirely free to draw your own inferences from it and regretting that I cannot write more confidently and more definitely than I have written here, or that I can't conscientiously say on this very difficult and delicate subject I have said. Believe me, dear madam, faithfully yours, John Loscope. P.S. I omitted one consideration in my last letter which I may mention here in order to show you that no point in connection with the case has escaped me. If it had been possible to show that Mr. Van Ston was domiciled in Scotland at the time of his death, we might have asserted your interests by means of the Scotch Law, which does not allow a husband the power of absolutely disinheriting his wife. But it is impossible to assert that Mr. Van Ston was legally domiciled in Scotland. He came there as a visitor only, he occupied a furnished house for the season, and he never expressed, either by word or deed, the slightest intention of settling permanently on the North. 9. From Mrs. Noel Van Ston to Mr. Loscope Dear sir, I have read your letter more than once with the deepest interest and attention, and they often are read it, the more firmly I believe that there is really such a letter as you mentioned in Admiral Bartram's hand. It is my interest that the discovery should be made, and I had once a knowledge to you that I am determined to find the means of secretly and certainly making it. My resolution rests on other motives than the motives which you might naturally suppose would influence me. I only tell you this, in case you are feeling inclined to remonstrate. There is good reason for what I say when I assure you that remonstrance will be useless. I ask for no assistance in this matter. I will trouble nobody for advice. You shall not be involved in any rash proceedings on my part. Whatever danger there may be, I will risk it. Whatever delays may happen, I will bear them patiently. I am lonely and friendless and truly troubled in mind, but I am strong enough to win my way through worse trials than these. My spirits will rise again, and my time will come. If that secret trust is in Admiral Bartram's possession, when you next see me, you shall see me with it in my own hands. Yours gratefully, Magdalen Vanstone. End of Between The Scenes Scene 6 Chapter 1 Of No Name This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Vipka Muller. No Name by Wilkie Collins. The Sixth Scene St. John's Wood. Chapter 1 It wanted little more than a fortnight to Christmas, but the weather showed no signs yet of the frost and snow conventionally associated with the coming season. The atmosphere was unnaturally warm, and the old year was dying feebly and sepping rain and innovating mist. Toward the close of the December afternoon, Magdalen sat alone, in the lodging which he had occupied since her arrival in London. The fire burned sluggishly and the narrow little grate, the view of the wet houses and soaking gardens opposite was darkening fast, and the bell of the suburban muffin boy tinkled in the distance drearyly. Sitting close over the fire, with a little money lying loose in her lap, Magdalen absently shifted the coins to and fro on the smooth surface of her dress, incessantly altering their positions toward each other, as if there were pieces of a child's puzzle which she was trying to put together. The dim firelight flaming up on her faintly from time to time showed changes which would have told their own tales sadly to friends of former days. Her dress had become loose through the wasting of her figure, but she had not cared to alter it. The old restlessness in her movement, the old mobility in her expression appeared no more. Her face passively maintained its haggard composure, its changeless unnatural calm. Mr. Pendrell might have softened his heart's sentence on her if he had seen her now, and Mrs. LeCount, in the plenitude of her triumph, might have pitied her fallen enemy at last. Hardly four months had passed since the wedding day at Alteborough, and the penalty for that day was paid already. Paid an unavailing remorse and hopeless isolation in irredeemable defeat. Let this be said for her. Let the truth which has been told of her fault be told of her expiation as well. Let it be recorded of her that she enjoyed no secret triumph on the day of her success. The horror of herself with which her own act had inspired her had risen to its climax when the design of her marriage was achieved. She had never suffered in secret, as she suffered when the kumbraven money was left to her in her husband's will. She had never felt the means taken to accomplish her end so unutterably degrading to herself, as she felt them on the day when the end was reached. Out of that feeling had grown the remorse which had hurried her to seek pardon and consolation in her sister's love. Never since it had first entered her heart, never since she had first felt at sacred to her at her father's grave, had the purpose to which she had bowed herself so nearly lost its hold on her as at this time, never might nor as influence had achieved such good as on the day when that influence was lost, the day when the fatal words were overheard at Miss Garth's, the day when the fatal letter from Scotland told of Mrs. Lacan's revenge. The harm was done, the chance was gone. Time and hope alike had both passed her by. Faintly and more faintly the inner voice is now pleaded with her to pause on the downward way. The discovery which had poisoned her heart with its first distrust of her sister, the tidings which had followed it of her husband's death, the sting of Mrs. Lacan's triumph fell through all, had done their work. The remorse which had embittered her married life was deadened now to a dull despair. It was too late to make the atonement of confession, too late to lay bare to the miserable husband, the deeper secrets that had once lurked in the heart of the miserable wife. Innocent of all thought of the hideous treachery which Mrs. Lacan had imputed to her, she was guilty of knowing how his health was broken when she married him, guilty of knowing when he left her the coon-braven money that the accident of a moment, harmless to other men, might place his life in jeopardy and affect her release. His death had held her this, had held her plainly what she had shrunk in his lifetime from openly acknowledging to herself, from the dull torment of that reproach, from the dreary wretchedness of doubting everybody, even to Nora herself, from the bitter sense of her defeated schemes, from the blank solitude of a friendless life. What refuge was left? But one refuge now. She turned to the relentless purpose which was hurrying her to her ruin and cried to it with the daring of her despair. Drive me on. For days and days together she had bent her mind on the one object which occupied it since she had received the lawyer's letter. For days and days together she had toiled to meet the first necessity of her position, to find a means of discovering the secret trust. There was no hate this time of assistance from Captain Drag. Long practice had made the old militiamen an adept in the art of vanishing. The plough of the moral agriculturalist left no furrows. Not a trace of him was to be found. Mr. Loscombe was too cautious to commit himself to an active cause of any kind. He passively maintained his opinions and left the rest to his client. He desired to know nothing until the trust was placed in his hands. Magdalene's interests were now in Magdalene's own sole care. Risk or no risk what she did next she must do by herself. The prospect had not daunted her. Alone she had calculated the chances that might be tried. Alone she was no determined to make the attempt. The time has come, she said to herself, as she said over the fire. I must sound Luisa first. She collected the scattered coins in her lap and placed them in a little heap on the table, then rose and rang the bell. The landlady answered it. It's my servant downstairs, inquired Magdalene. Yes, ma'am, she's having her tea. When she has done say I want her up here. Wait a moment. You will find your money on the table, the money I owe you for last week. Can you find it, or would you like to have a candle? It's rather dark, ma'am. Magdalene had a candle. What notice must I give you? She asked as she put the candle on the table, before I leave. A week is the usual notice, ma'am. I hope you have no objection to make to the house. None whatever. I only asked the question because I may be obliged to leave these lodgings rather sooner than I anticipated. Is the money right? Quite right, ma'am. Here's your receipt. Thank you. Don't forget to send Luisa to me as soon as she has done her tea. The landlady withdrew. As soon as she was alone again, Magdalene extinguished the candle and drew an empty chair close to her own chair on the hoof. This done, she resumed her former place and waited until Luisa appeared. There was doubt in her face as she sat looking mechanically into the fire. A poor chance, she thought to herself. But poor as it is, a chance that I must try. In ten minutes more Luisa's meek knock was softly audible outside. She was surprised on entering the room to find no other light in it than the light of the fire. Will you have the candles, ma'am? she inquired respectfully. We will have candles if you wish for them yourself, replied Magdalene. Not otherwise. I have something to say to you. When I have said it, you shall decide whether we sit together in the dark or in the light. Luisa waited near the door and listened to those strange words in silent astonishment. Come here, said Magdalene, pointing to the empty chair. Come here and sit down. Luisa advanced and timidly removed the chair from its position at her mistress's side. Magdalene instantly drew it back again. No, she said. Come closer. Come close by me. After a moment's hesitation Luisa obeyed. I ask you to sit near me, pursued Magdalene, because I wish to speak to you on equal terms. Whatever distinctions there might once have been between us are now at an end. I am a lonely woman thrown helpless on my own resources, without rank or place in the world. I may or may not keep you as my friend. As mistress and maid, the connection between us must come to an end. Oh, ma'am, don't, don't say that! pleaded Luisa faintly. Magdalene sorrowfully and steadily went on. When you first came to me, she resumed, I thought I should not like you. I have learned to like you. I have learned to be grateful to you. From first to last you have been faithful and good to me. The least I can do in return is not to stand on the way of your future prospects. Don't send me away, ma'am, said Luisa imploringly. If you can only help me with a little money now and then, I'll wait for my wages. I will indeed. Magdalene took her hand and went on, as sorrowfully and as steadily as before. My future life is all darkness, all uncertainty, she said. The next step I may take may lead me to prosperity or may lead me to my ruin. Can I ask you to share such a prospect as this? If your future was as uncertain as mine is. If you, too, were a friendless woman thrown on the world, my conscience might be easy in letting you cast your lot with mine. I might accept your attachment, for I might feel I was not wronging you. How can I feel this in your case? You have a future to look to. You are an excellent servant. You can get another place, a far better place than mine. You can refer to me, and if the character I give is not considered sufficient, you can refer to the mistress you served before me. At the instant when that reference to the girl's last employer escaped Magdalene's lips, Louisa snatched her hand away and started up affrightedly from her chair. There was a moment's silence. Both mistress and maid were equally taken by surprise. Magdalene was the first to recover herself. Is it getting too dark? She asked significantly. Are you going to light the candles, after all? Louisa drew back into the dimmest corner of the room. You suspect me, ma'am? She answered out of the darkness in a breathless whisper. Who's told you? How did you find out? She stopped and burst into tears. I deserve your suspicion, she said, struggling to compose herself. I can't deny it to you. You've treated me so kindly. You've made me so fond of you. Forgive me, Mrs. Van Stone. I'm a wretch. I have deceived you. Come here and sit down by me again, said Magdalene. Come, or I will get up myself and bring you back. Louisa slowly returned to her place. Dim as the firelight was, she seemed to fear it. She held her handkerchief over her face and shrank from her mistress as she seated herself again in the chair. You are wrong in thinking that anyone has betrayed you to me, said Magdalene. All that I know of you is what your own looks and ways have told me. You've had some secret trouble weighing on your mind ever since you have been in my service. I confess I have spoken with the wish to find out more of you and your past life than I have found out yet, not because I'm curious, but because I have my secret troubles, too. Are you an unhappy woman, like me? If you are, I will take you into my confidence. If you have nothing to tell me, if you choose to keep your secret, I don't blame you. I only say let us part. I won't ask how you have deceived me. I will only remember that you have been an honest and faithful and competent servant while I have employed you, and I will say as much in your favour to any new mistress you like to send to me. She waited for the reply. For a moment, and only for a moment, Louisa hesitated. The girl's nature was weak, but not depraved. She was honestly attached to her mistress, and she spoke with the courage which Magdalene had not expected from her. If you send me away, ma'am, she said, I won't take my character from you till I have told you the truth. I won't return your kindness by deceiving you a second time. Did my master ever tell you how he engaged me? No, I never asked him, and he never told me. He engaged me, ma'am, with a written character. Yes, the character was a false one. Magdalene drew back an amazement. The confession she heard was not the confession she had anticipated. Did your mistress refuse to give you a character? She asked. Why? Louisa dropped on her knees and hit her face in her mistress's lap. Don't ask me, she said. I am a miserable, degraded creature. I'm not fit to be in the same room with you. Magdalene bent over her and whispered a question in her ear. Louisa whispered back the one sad word of reply. Has he deserted you, asked Magdalene, after waiting a moment and thinking first? No. Do you love him? Dearly. The remembrance of her own loveless marriage stung Magdalene to the quick. For God's sake, don't kneel to me, she cried passionately. If there is a degraded woman in this room, I am the woman, not you. She raised the girl by main force from her knees and put her back in the chair. They both waited a little in silence. Keeping her hand on Louisa's shoulder, Magdalene seated herself again and looked with unutterable bitterness of sorrow into the dying fire. Oh! she thought. What happy women there are in the world. Wives who love their husbands, mothers who are not ashamed to own their children. Are you quieter? she asked, gently addressing Louisa once more. Can you answer me if I ask you something else? Where is the child? The child is out at nurse. Does the father help to support it? He does all he can, ma'am. What is he? Is he in service? Is he in a trade? His father is a master carpenter. He works in his father's yard. If he has got work, why has he not married you? It is his father's fault, ma'am, not his. His father has no pity on us. He would be turned out of house and home if he married me. Can he get no work elsewhere? It is hard to get good work in London, ma'am. There are so many in London, they take the bread out of each other's mouths. If we had only had the money to emigrate, he would have married me long since. Would he marry you if you had the money now? I am sure he would, ma'am. He could get plenty of work in Australia, and double and travel the wages he gets here. He is trying hard, and I am trying hard to save a little toward it. I put by all I can spare from my child. But it is so little. If we live for years to come, there seems no hope for us. I know I have done wrong every way. I know I don't deserve to be happy. But how could I let my child suffer? I was obliged to go to service. My mistress was hard on me, and my health broke down in trying to live by my needle. I would never have deceived anybody by a false character if there had been another chance for me. I was alone and helpless, ma'am, and I can only ask you to forgive me. Ask better women than I am, said Magdalen, sadly. I am only fit to feel for you, and I do feel for you, with all my heart. In your place I should have gone into service with a false character, too. Say no more of the past. You don't know how you hurt me in speaking of it. Talk of the future. I think I can help you, and do you no harm. I think you can help me, and do me the greatest of all services in return. Wait, and you shall hear what I mean. Suppose you were married. How much would it cost for you and your husband to emigrate? Louisa mentioned the cost of a steerage passage to Australia for a man and his wife. She spoke in low, hopeless tones. Moderate as the sum was, it looked like unattainable wealth in her eyes. Magdalen started in her chair and took the girl's hand once more. Louisa, she said earnestly, if I gave you the money, what would you do for me in return? The proposal seemed to strike Louisa speechless with astonishment. She trembled violently and said nothing. Magdalen repeated her words. Oh, ma'am, do you mean it? said the girl. Do you really mean it? Yes, replied Magdalen. I really mean it. What would you do for me in return? Do, repeated Louisa. Oh, what is there I would not do? She tried to kiss her mistress's hand, but Magdalen would not permit it. She resolutely, almost roughly, drew her hand away. I am laying you under no obligation, she said. We are serving each other, that is all. Sit quiet and let me think. For the next ten minutes there was silence in the room. At the end of that time Magdalen took out her watch and held it close to the grate. There was just firelight enough to show her the hour. It was close on six o'clock. Are you composed enough to go downstairs and deliver a message? She asked, rising from her chair she spoke to Louisa again. It is a very simple message. It is only to tell the boy that I want a cab as soon as he can get me one. I must go out immediately. You shall know why later in the evening. I have much more to say to you, but there is no time to say it now. When I am gone, bring your work up here and wait for my return. I shall be back before bedtime. Without another word of explanation she hurriedly let a candle and with drew into the bedroom to put on her bonnet and shawl. Chapter 2 Between nine and ten o'clock the same evening, Louisa, waiting anxiously, heard the long expected knock at the house door. She ran downstairs at once and let her mistress in. Magdalen's face was flushed. She showed far more agitation on returning to the house than she had shown on leaving it. Keep your place at the table, she said to Louisa impatiently, but lay aside your work. I want you to attend carefully to what I am going to say. Louisa obeyed. Magdalen seated herself at the opposite side of the table and moved the candles, so as to obtain a clear and uninterrupted view of her servant's face. Have you noticed a respectable elderly woman, she began abruptly, who has been here once or twice in the last fortnight to pay me a visit? Yes ma'am, I think I let her in the second time she came, an elderly person named Mrs Attwood. That is the person I mean. Mrs Attwood is Mr Loscombe's housekeeper. Not the housekeeper at his private residence, but the housekeeper at his offices in Lincoln's inn. I promise to go and drink tea with her some evening this week, and I have been tonight. It is strange of me, is it not, to be on these familiar terms with a woman in Mrs Attwood's situation. Louisa made no answer in words, her face spoke for her, she could hardly avoid thinking it strange. I had a motive for making friends with Mrs Attwood, Magdalen went on, she is a widow with a large family of daughters, her daughters are all in service. One of them is an under housemaid in the service of Admiral Bartram at St. Crookes in the Marsh. I found that out from Mrs Attwood's master, and as soon as I arrived at the discovery, I privately determined to make Mrs Attwood's acquaintance. Stranger still, is it not? Louisa began to look a little uneasy, her mistresses manner was a variance with her mistresses words, it was plainly suggestive of something startling to come. What attraction Mrs Attwood finds in my society, Magdalen continued, I cannot presume to say. I can only tell you, she has seen better days. She is an educated person, and she may like my society on that account. At any rate she has readily met my advances toward her. What attraction I find in this good woman on my side is soon told. I have a great curiosity, an unaccountable curiosity, you will think, about the present course of affairs at St. Crookes in the Marsh. Mrs Attwood's daughter is a good girl, and constantly writes to her mother. Her mother is proud of the letters and proud of the girl, and is ready enough to talk about her daughter and her daughter's place. That is Mrs Attwood's attraction to me. You understand so far? Yes, Louisa understood, Magdalen went on. Thanks to Mrs Attwood and Mrs Attwood's daughter, she said, I know some curious particulars already of the household at St Crookes. Servants' tongues and servants' letters, as I need not tell you, are often occupied with their masters and mistresses, than their masters and mistresses suppose. The only mistress at St Crookes is the housekeeper, but there is a master, Admiral Bartram. He appears to be a strange old man, whose whims and fancies amuse his servants as well as his friends. One of his fancies, the only one we need trouble ourselves to notice, is that he had men enough about him when he was living at sea, and that now he is living on shore he will be waited on by women's servants alone. The one man in the house is an old sailor, who has been all his life with his master. He is a kind of pensioner at St Crookes, and has little or nothing to do with the housework. The other servants indoors are all women, and instead of a footman to wait on him at dinner, the Admiral has a parlor maid. The parlor maid now at St Crookes is engaged to be married, and as soon as her master can suit himself, she is going away. These discoveries I made some days since. But when I saw Mrs Atwood tonight, she had received another letter from her daughter in the interval, and that letter has helped me to find out something more. The housekeeper is at her wit's end to find a new servant. Her master insists on youth and good looks. He leaves everything else to the housekeeper, but he will have that. All the inquiries made in the neighbourhood have failed to produce the sort of parlor maid whom the Admiral wants. If nothing can be done in the next fortnight, or three weeks, the housekeeper will advertise in the times, and will come to London herself to see the applicants, and to make strict personal inquiry into their characters. Louisa looked at her mistress more attentively than ever. The expression of perplexity left her face, and a shade of disappointment appeared there in its stead. Bear in mind what I have said, pursued Magdalen, and wait a minute more while I ask you some questions. Don't think you understand me yet. I can assure you you don't understand me. Have you always lived in service as a lady's maid? No, ma'am. Have you ever lived as parlor maid? Only in one place, ma'am, and not for long there. I suppose you lived long enough to learn your duties? Yes, ma'am. What were your duties, besides waiting at table? I had to show visitors in. Yes, and what else? I had the plate and the glass to look after, and the table linen was all under my care. I had to answer all the bells, except in the bedrooms. There were other little odds and ends sometimes to do. But your regular duties were the duties you have just mentioned? Yes, ma'am. How long ago is it, since you lived in service as a parlor maid? A little better than two years, ma'am. I suppose you have not forgotten how to wait at table and clean plate and the rest of it in that time. At this question Louisa's attention, which had been wandering more and more during the progress of Magdalene's inquiries, wandered away altogether. Her gathering anxieties got the better of her discretion and even of her timidity. Instead of answering her mistress, she suddenly and confusedly ventured on a question of her own. I do beg your pardon, ma'am, she said. Did you mean me to offer for the parlor maid's place at St Crooks? You, replied Magdalene, certainly not. Have you forgotten what I said to you in this room before I went out? I mean you to be married, and go to Australia with your husband and your child. You have not waited, as I told you to hear me explain myself. You have drawn your own conclusions, and you have drawn them wrong. I asked a question just now which you have not answered. I asked if you had forgotten your parlor maid's duties. Oh no, ma'am. Louisa had replied rather unwillingly thus far. She answered readily and confidently now. Could you teach the duties to another servant? asked Magdalene. Yes, ma'am, easily, if she was quick and attentive. Could you teach the duties to me? Louisa started and changed colour. You, ma'am, she exclaimed, half in incredulity, half in alarm. Yes, said Magdalene. Could you qualify me to take the parlor maid's place at St Crooks? Plain as these words were, the bewilderment which they produced in Louisa's mind seemed to render her incapable of comprehending her mistress's proposal. You, ma'am, she repeated vacantly. I shall perhaps help you to understand this extraordinary project of mine, said Magdalene, if I tell you plainly what the object of it is. Do you remember what I said to you about Mr Van Stone's will, when you came here from Scotland to join me? Yes, ma'am, you told me you had been left out of the will altogether. I'm sure my fellow servant would never have been one of the witnesses if she had known. Never mind that now, I don't blame your fellow servant. I blame nobody but Mrs LeCount. Let me go on with what I was saying. It is not at all certain that Mrs LeCount can do me the mischief which Mrs LeCount intended. There is a chance that my lawyer, Mr Loscombe, may be able to gain me what is fairly my due in spite of the will. The chance turns on my discovering a letter which Mr Loscombe believes, and which I believe, to be kept privately in Admiral Barton's possession. I have not the least hope of getting at that letter if I make the attempt in my own person. Mrs LeCount has poisoned the Admiral's mind against me, and Mr Van Stone has given him a secret to keep from me. If I wrote to him, he would not answer my letter. If I went to his house, the door would be closed in my face. I must find my way into St Crookes as a stranger. I must be in a position to look about the house unsuspected. I must be there with plenty of time on my hands. All the circumstances are in my favour if I am received into the house as a servant, and as a servant I mean to go. But you are a lady, ma'am, objected Louisa in the greatest perplexity. The servants at St Crookes would find you out. I am not at all afraid of their finding me out, said Magdalen. I know how to disguise myself in other people's characters more cleverly than you suppose. Leave me to face the chances of discovery. That is my risk. Let us talk of nothing now but what concerns you. Don't decide yet whether you will or will not give me the help I want. Wait and hear first what the help is. You are quick and clever at your needle. Can you make me the sort of gown which it is proper for a servant to wear? And can you alter one of my best silk dresses so as to make it fit yourself in a week's time? I think I could get them done in a week, ma'am, but why am I to wear… Wait a little, and you will see. I shall give the landlady her week's notice tomorrow. In the interval, while you are making the dresses, I can be learning the parlor maid's duties. When the house servant here has bought up the dinner, and when you and I are alone in the room, instead of you are waiting on me as usual, I will wait on you. I am quite serious. Don't interrupt me. Whatever I can learn besides without hindering you, I will practice carefully at every opportunity. When the week is over and the dresses are done, we will leave this place and go into other lodgings. You as the mistress and I as the maid. I should be found out, ma'am, interposed Louisa, trembling at the prospect before her. I am not a lady. And I am, said Magdalen bitterly. Shall I tell you what a lady is? A lady is a woman who wears a silk gown and has a sense of her own importance. I shall put the gown on your back and the scents in your head. You speak good English, you are naturally quiet and self-restrained. If you can only conquer your timidity, I have not the least fear of you. There will be time enough in the new lodging for you to practice your character and for me to practice mine. There will be time enough to make some more dresses, another gown for me and your wedding dress, which I mean to give you, for yourself. I shall have the newspaper sent every day. When the advertisement appears, I shall answer it, in any name I can take on the spur of the moment, in your name, if you like to lend it to me. And when the housekeeper asks me for my character, I shall refer her to you. She will see you in the position of mistress and me in the position of maid. No suspicion can possibly enter her mind unless you put it there. If you only have the courage to follow my instructions and to say what I shall tell you to say, the interview will be over in ten minutes. You frighten me, ma'am, said Louisa, still trembling. You take my breath away with surprise. Courage, where shall I find courage? Where I keep it for you, said Magdalen, in the passage money to Australia. Look at the new prospect which gives you a husband and restores you to your child, and you will find your courage there. Louisa's sad face brightened. Louisa's faint heart beat quick. A spark of her mistress's spirit flew up into her eyes as she thought of the golden future. If you accept my proposal, pursued Magdalen, you can be asked in church at once if you like. I promise you the money on the day when the advertisement appears in the newspaper. The risk of the housekeepers rejecting me is my risk, not yours. My good looks have sadly gone off I know, but I think I can still hold my place against the other servants. I think I can still look the parlor maid whom Admiral Bartram wants. There is nothing for you to fear in this matter. I should not have mentioned it if there had been. The only danger is the danger of my being discovered at St Crookes, and that falls entirely on me. By the time I am in the Admiral's house, you will be married and the ship will be taking you to your new life. Louisa's face, now brightening with hope, now clouding again with fear, showed plain signs of the struggle which had cost her to decide. She tried to gain time. She attempted, confusedly, to speak a few words of gratitude, but her mistress silenced her. You owe me no thanks, said Magdalen. I tell you again, we are only helping each other. I have very little money, but it is enough for your purpose, and I give it to you freely. I have led a wretched life. I have made others wretched about me. I can't even make you happy, except by tempting you to a new deceit. There, there, it's not your fault. Worse women than you are will help me, if you refuse. Decide as you like, but don't be afraid of taking the money. If I succeed, I shall not want it. If I fail—she stopped, rose abruptly from her chair, and hid her face from Louisa by walking away to the fireplace. If I fail, she resumed, warming her foot carelessly at the fender. All the money in the world would be of no use to me. Never mind why. Never mind me. Think of yourself. I won't take advantage of the confession you have made to me. I won't influence you against your will. Do as you yourself think best, but remember one thing. My mind is made up. Nothing you can say or do will change it. Her sudden removal from the table, the altered tones of her voice as she spoke the last words, appeared to renew Louisa's hesitation. She clasped her hands together in her lap and rung them hard. This has come on me very suddenly, ma'am, said the girl. I am sorely tempted to say yes, and yet I am almost afraid. Take the night to consider it, interposed Magdalene, keeping her face persistently turned toward the fire, and tell me what you have decided to do when you come into my room tomorrow morning. I shall want no help tonight. I can undress myself. You are not so strong as I am. You are tired, I dare say. Don't sit up on my account. Good night, Louisa, and pleasant dreams. Her voice sank lower and lower as she spoke these kind words. She sighed heavily, and, leaning her arm on the mantelpiece, laid her head on it, with a reckless weariness miserable to see. Louisa had not left the room as she supposed. Louisa came softly to her side and kissed her hand. Magdalene started, but she made no attempt this time to draw her hand away. The scents of her own horrible isolation subdued her at the touch of the servant's lips. Her proud heart melted, her eyes filled with burning tears. Don't distress me, she said faintly. The time for kindness has gone by. It only overpowers me now. Good night. When the morning came, the affirmative answer which Magdalene had anticipated was the answer given. On that day the landlady received her week's notice to quit, and Louisa's needle flew fast through the stitches of the parlour maid's dresses. The end of the sixth scene. No Name by Wilkie Collins Between the Scenes Progress of the Story through the Post 1. From Miss Scarf to Mr. Pendrell Westmoreland House, January 3, 1848 Dear Mr. Pendrell, I write, as you kindly requested, to report how Nora is going on and to tell you what changes I see for the better in the state of her mind on the subject of her sister. I cannot say that she is becoming resigned to Magdalene's continued silence. I know her faithful nature too well to say it. I can only tell you that she is beginning to find relief from the heavy pressure of sorrow and suspense in new thoughts and new hopes. I doubt if she has yet realized this is in her own mind. But I see the result, although she is not conscious of it herself. I see her heart opening to the consolation of another interest and another love. She has not said a word to me on the subject, nor have I said a word to her. But as certainly as I know that Mr. George Bartram's visits have lately grown more and more frequent to the family at Portland Place, so certainly I can assure you that Nora is finding a relief under her suspense, which is not of my bringing, and a hope in the future, which I have not taught her to feel. It is needless for me to say that I tell you this in the strictest confidence. God knows whether the happy prospect, which seems to me to be just donning, will grow brighter or not as time goes on. The oftener I see Mr. George Bartram, and he has called on me more than once, the stronger my liking for him grows. To my poor judgment he seems to be a gentleman in the highest and truest sense of the word. If I could live to see Nora his wife, I should almost feel that I had lived long enough. But who can discern the future? We have suffered so much that I am afraid to hope. Have you heard anything of Magdalene? I don't know why or how it is, but since I have known of her husband's death, my old tenderness for her seems to cling to me more obstinately than ever. Always yours truly, Harriet Garth. 2. From Mr. Pendrel to Miss Garth. Cell Street, January 4th, 1848. Dear Miss Garth, of Mrs. Noel Venstone herself I have heard nothing, but I have learned, since I saw you, that the report of the position in which she is left by the death of her husband may be depended upon as the truth. No legacy of any kind is bequeathed to her. Her name is not once mentioned in her husband's will. Knowing what we know, it is not to be concealed that this circumstance threatens us with more embarrassment and perhaps with more distress. Mrs. Noel Venstone is not the woman to submit, without a desperate resistance, to the total overthrow of all her schemes and all her hopes. The mere fact that nothing whatever has been heard of her since her husband's death is suggestive to my mind of serious mischief to come. In her situation and with her temper, the quieter she is now, the more inveterately I, for one, distrust her in the future. It is impossible to say to what violent measures her present extremity may not drive her. It is impossible to feel sure that she may not be the cause of some public scandal this time, which may affect her innocent sister as well as herself. I know you will not misinterpret the motive which has led me to write these lines. I know you will not think that I am inconsiderate enough to cause your unnecessary alarm. My sincere anxiety to see that happy prospect realized to which your letter alludes has caused me to write far less reservedly than I might otherwise have written. I strongly urge you to use your influence, on every occasion when you can fairly exert it, to strengthen that growing attachment and to place it beyond the reach of any coming disasters, while you have the opportunity of doing so. When I tell you that the fortune of which Mrs. Norvandstone has been deprived is entirely bequeath to Admiral Bertram, and when I add that Mr. George Bertram is generally understood to be his uncle's heir, you will, I think, acknowledge that I am not warning you without a cause. Yours most truly, William Pendrell. 3. From Admiral Bertram to Mrs. Drake, Housekeeper at St. Crox. St. Crox, January 10th, 1848. Mrs. Drake, I have received your letter from London, stating that you have found me a new partner made at last, and that the girl is ready to return with you to St. Crox when your other errands in town allow you to come back. This arrangement must be altered immediately, for a reason which I am heartily sorry to have to write. The illness of my niece, Mrs. Gerdelstone, which appeared to be so slight as to alarm none of us, doctors included, has ended fatally. I received this morning the shocking news of her death. Her husband is said to be quite frantic with grief. Mr. George has already gone to his brother-in-law's to superintend the last melancholy duties, and I must follow him before the funeral takes place. We propose to take Mr. Gerdelstone away afterward, and to try the effect on him of change of place and new scenes. Under these sad circumstances I may be absent from St. Crox a month, or six weeks at least. The house will be shut up, and the new servant will not be wanted until my return. You will therefore tell the girl on receiving this letter, that a death in the family has caused a temporary change in our arrangements. If she is willing to wait, you may safely engage her to come here in six weeks' time. I shall be back then, if Mr. George is not. If she refuses, pay her what compensation is right, and so have done with her. Yours, Arthur Bartram. Four, from Mrs. Drake to Admiral Bartram. Generally eleventh. Honoured sir, I hope to get my errands done, and to return to St. Crox tomorrow, but right to save you anxiety in case of delay. The young woman whom I have engaged, Louisa by name, is willing to wait your time, and her present mistress, taking an interest in her welfare, will provide for her during the interval. She understands that she is to enter on her new service in six weeks from the present date, namely on the 25th of February next. Beggin you will accept my respectful sympathy under the sad bereavement which has been fallen the family, I remain honoured sir, your humble servant, Sophia Drake, end of chapter. Recording by Nadine Godwule in September 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark.