 Book 3, Chapter 5 of Armadale. After waiting to hold a preliminary consultation with his son, Mr. Pedgift, the elder, set forth alone for his interview with Alan at the Great House. Allowing for the difference in their ages, the son was, in this instance, so accurately the reflection of the father, that an acquaintance with either of the two Pedgifts was almost equivalent to an acquaintance with both. Add some little height and size to the figure of Pedgift, Jr., give more breath and boldness to his humor, and some additional solidity and composure to his confidence in himself, and the presence and character of Pedgift, Sr., stood, for all general purposes, revealed before you. The lawyer's conveyance to Thorpe Ambrose was his own smart gig, drawn by his famous fast-trotting mare. It was his habit to drive himself, and it was one among the trifling external peculiarities in which he and his son differed a little. It perfected something of the sporting character in his dress. The drab trousers of Pedgift, Yelder, fitted close to his legs. His boots, in dry weather and wet alike, were equally thick in the sole. His coat pockets overlapped his hips, and his favorite summer cravat was of light-spotted muslin, tied in the neatest and smallest of bows. He used tobacco like his son, but in a different form. While the younger man smote, the elder took snuff copiously, and it was noticed among his intimates that he always held his pinch in his state of suspense between his box and his nose when he was going to clinch a good bargain or to say a good thing. The art of diplomacy enters largely into the practice of all successful men in a lower branch of the law. Mr. Pedgift's form of diplomatic practice had been the same throughout his life, on every occasion when he found his arts of persuasion required at an interview with another man. He invariably kept his strongest argument, or his boldest proposal, to the last, and invariably remembered it at the door after previously taking his leave, as if it was a purely accidental consideration which had that instant occurred to him. Jocular friends acquainted by previous experience with this form of proceeding had given it the name of Pedgift's Postscript. There were few people in Thorpe Ambrose who did not know what it meant when the lawyer suddenly checked his exit at the open door, came back softly to his chair with his pinch of snuff suspended between his box and his nose, said, By the by there is a point occurs to me, and settled the question offhand after having given it up in despair not a minute before. This was the man whom the march of events at Thorpe Ambrose had now thrust capriciously into a foremost place. This was the one friend at hand to whom Alan, in his social isolation, could turn for council in the hour of need. Good evening, Mr. Armadale. Many thanks for your prompt attention to my very disagreeable letter, said Pedgift's partner, opening the conversation cheerfully the moment he entered his client's house. I hope you understand, sir, that I had really no choice under the circumstances but to write as I did. I have very few friends, Mr. Pedgift, return to Alan simply, and I am sure you are one of the few. Much obliged, Mr. Armadale, I have always tried to deserve your good opinion, and I mean, if I can, to deserve it now. You found yourself comfortable, I hope, sir, at the hotel in London? We call it our hotel. Some railroad wine in the cellar, which I should have introduced to you a notice if I had had the honour of being with you. My son, unfortunately, knows nothing about wine. Alan felt his false position in the neighbourhood far too acutely to be capable of talking of anything but the main business of the evening. His lawyers politely round about method of approaching the painful subject to be discussed between them, rather irritated than composed him. He came at once to the point, in his own bluntly straightforward way. The hotel was very comfortable, Mr. Pedgift, and your son was very kind to me. But we are not in London now, and I want to talk to you about how I am to meet the lies that are being told to me in this place. You point me out, any one man, cried Alan, with a rising voice and a mounting colour. Any one man who says I am afraid to show my face in the neighbourhood, and I'll horsewhip him publicly, before another day is over his head. Pedgift senior helped himself to a pinch of snuff, and held it calmly in suspense, midway between his box and his nose. You can't horsewhip a man, sir, but you can't horsewhip a neighbourhood, said the lawyer. In his politely, epigrammatic manner, we will fight our battle, if you please, without borrowing our weapons of the coachmen yet a while, at any rate. But how are we to begin, asked Alan, impatiently? How might I contradict the infamous things they say of me? There are two ways of stepping out of your present awkward position, sir. A short way and a long way, replied Pedgift senior. The short way, which is always the best, has occurred to me since I have heard of your proceedings in London from my son. I understand that you permitted him, after you received my letter, to take me into your confidence. I have drawn various conclusions from what he has told me, which I may find it necessary to trouble you with presently. In the meantime, I should be glad to know under what circumstances you went to London to make these unfortunate inquiries about Miss Guilt. Was it your own notion to pay that visit to Mrs. Mandeville, or were you acting under the influence of some other person? Alan hesitated. I can't honestly tell you it was my own notion, he replied, and said no more. I thought as much, remarked Pedgift senior, in high triumph. The short way out of our present difficulty, Mr. Armadale, lies straight through that other person, under whose influence you acted. That other person must be presented forthwith to public notice, and must stand in that other person's proper place. The name if you please, sir, to begin with. We'll come to the circumstances directly. I am sorry to say, Mr. Pedgift, that we must try the longest way, if you have no objection. Reply, Alan, quietly. The short way happens to be a way I can't take on this occasion. The men who rise in the law are the men who decline to take no for an answer. Mr. Pedgift, the elder, had risen in the law, and Mr. Pedgift, the elder, now decline to take no for an answer. But all pertinacity, even professional pertinacity included, sooner or later finds its limits. And the lawyer, doubly fortified as he was by long experience and copious pinches of snuff, found his limits at the very outset of the interview. It wasn't possible that Alan could respect the confidence which Mrs. Mulroy had treacherously affected to place in him. But he had an honest man's regard for his own pledged word, the regard which looked straightforward at the fact, and which never glanced inside long at the circumstances, and yet most persistency of Pedgift Sr. failed to move him a hair-breath from the position which he had taken up. No is the strongest word in the English language, in the mouth of any man who has the courage to repeat it often enough, and Alan had the courage to repeat it often enough on this occasion. Very good, sir, said the lawyer, accepting his defeat without the slightest loss of temper. The choice rests with you, and you have chosen. You will go the long way. It starts, allow me to inform you, from my office, and it leads, as I strongly suspect, through a very, my re-road, to misquilt. Alan looked at his legal advisory in speechless astonishment. If you want to expose the person who is responsible in the first instance, sir, for the inquiries to which you unfortunately let yourself, proceeded Mr. Pedgift the elder. The only other alternative in your present position is to justify the inquiries themselves. And how was that to be done? Inquired Alan. By proving to the whole neighborhood, Mr. Armadale, what I firmly believed to be the truth, that the pet object of the public protection is an adventurous of the worst class, an undeniably worthless and dangerous woman. In plainer English still, sir, by employing time enough and money enough to discover the truth about misquilt. Before Alan could say a wording answer, there was an interruption at the door. After the usual preliminary knock, one of the servants came in. I told you I was not to be interrupted, said Alan, irritably. Good heavens, am I never to have done with them? Another letter. Yes, sir, said the man, holding it out. And, he added, speaking words of evil omen in his raster's ears, the person waits for an answer. Alan looked at the address of the letter, with a natural expectation of encountering the handwriting of the major's wife. The anticipation was not realized. His correspondent was plainly a lady, but the lady was not Mrs. Milroy. Who can it be, he said, looking mechanically at pet gift senior as he opened the envelope. Pet gift senior gently tapped his snuffbox and said, without a moment's hesitation, misquilt. Alan opened the letter, the first two words in it were the echo of the two words the lawyer had just pronounced. It was misquilt. Once more, Alan looked at his legal advisor in speechless astonishment. I have known a good many of them in my time, sir, explained pet gift senior with a modesty equally rare and coming in a man of his age. Not as handsome as misquilt, I admit. But quite as bad, I daresay. Read your letter, Mr. Armadale. Read your letter. Alan read these lines. Misquilt presents her compliments to Mr. Armadale and begs to know if it will be convenient to him to favor her with an interview, either this evening or tomorrow morning. Misquilt offers no apology for making her present request. She believes Mr. Armadale will grant it as an act of justice toward a friendless woman whom he has been innocently the means of injuring and who is earnestly desirous to set herself right in his estimation. Alan handed the letter to his lawyer in silent perplexity and distress. The face of Mr. Petgiftyelder expressed but one feeling when he had read the letter in his turn and had handed it back, a feeling of profound admiration. What a lawyer she would have made, he exclaimed fervently, if she had only been a man. I can't treat this as lightly as you do, Mr. Petgift, said Alan. It's dreadfully distressing to me. I was so fond of her, he added, in a lower tone. I was so fond of her once. Mr. Petgift Sr. suddenly became serious on his side. Do you mean to say, sir, that you actually contemplate seeing Miss Quilt, he asked, with an expression of genuine dismay? I can't treat her cruelly, returned Alan. I have been the means of injuring her. Without intending it, God knows. I can't treat her cruelly after that. Mr. Armadale, said the lawyer, you've did me the honor a little while since to say that you considered me your friend. May I presume, on that position, to ask you a question or two before you go straight to your own ruin? Any questions you like, said Alan, looking back at the letter, the only letter he had ever received from Miss Quilt. You have had one trap set for you already, sir, and you have fallen into it. Do you want to fall into another? You know the answer to that question, Mr. Petgift, as well as I do. I'll try again, Mr. Armadale. Many lawyers are not easily discouraged. Do you think that any statement Miss Quilt might make to you, if you do see her, would be a statement to be relied on, after what you and my son discovered in London? She might explain what we discovered in London, suggested Alan, still looking at the writing and thinking of the hand that had traced it. Might explain it. My dear sir, she is quite certain to explain it. I will do her justice. I believe she would make out a case without a single flaw in it from beginning to end. That last answer forced Alan's attention away from the letter. The lawyer's pitiless common sense showed him no mercy. If you see that woman again, sir, preceded Petgift, you will commit the rashest act of folly I ever heard of in all my experience. She can have but one object in coming here to practice on your weakness for her. Nobody can say into what false step she may not lead you, if you once give her the opportunity. You admit yourself that you have been fond of her. Your attentions to her have been the subject of general remark. If you haven't actually offered her the chance of becoming Mrs. Armadale, you have done the next thing to it. And knowing all this, you propose to see her, and to let her work on you with her devilish beauty and her devilish cleverness. The character of your interesting victim. You who are one of the best matches in England. You who are the natural prey of all the hungry single women in the community. I never heard the like of it. I never, in all my professional experience, heard the like of it. If you must positively put yourself in a dangerous position Mrs. Armadale, concluded Petgift, the elder, with the everlasting pinch of snuff, held in suspense between his box and his nose. There's a wild beast show coming to our town next week. Letting the tiger, sir, don't let him, Miss Guilt. For the third time, Allen looked at his lawyer. And for the third time, his lawyer looked back at him, quite unabashed. You seem to have a very bad opinion of Miss Guilt, said Allen. The worst possible opinion, Mr. Armadale, retorted Petgift senior, Cooley. We will return to that when we have sent the lady's messenger about his business. Will you take my advice? Will you decline to see her? I would willingly decline. It would be so dreadfully distressing to both of us, said Allen. I would willingly decline if only I knew how. Bless my soul, Mr. Armadale. It's easy enough. Don't commit you, yourself, in writing. Send out to the messenger, and say there's no answer. The short course, thus suggested, was a course which Allen positively declined to take. It's treating her brutally, he said. I can't, and won't do it. Once more, the pertinacity of Petgift, the elder, found its limits. And once more, that wise man yielded gracefully to a compromise. I'm receiving his client's promise not to see Miss Guilt. He consented to Allen's committing himself in writing under his lawyer's dictation. The letter, thus produced, was modeled in Allen's own style. It began and ended in one sentence. Mr. Armadale presents his compliments to Miss Guilt, and regrets that he cannot have the pleasure of seeing her at Thorpe Ambrose. Allen had pleaded hard for a second sentence, explaining that he only declined Miss Guilt's request from a conviction that an interview would be needlessly distressing on both sides. But his legal advisor firmly rejected the proposed addition to the letter. When you say no to a woman, sir, remarked Petgift, senior, always say it in one word. If you give her your reasons, she invariably believes that you mean yes. Producing that little gem of wisdom from the rich mind of his professional experience, Mr. Petgift the Elder sent out the answer to Miss Guilt's messenger and recommended the servant to see the fellow, whoever he was, well clear of the house. Now, sir, said the lawyer, we will come back, if you like, to my opinion of Miss Guilt. It doesn't at all agree with yours, I'm afraid. You think her an object of pity, quite natural at your age. I think her an object for the inside of a prison, quite natural at mine. You shall hear the grounds on which I inform my opinion directly. Let me show you that I am in earnest by putting the opinion itself, in the first place, to a practical test. Do you think Miss Guilt is likely to persist in paying you a visit, Mr. Armadale, after the answer you have just sent to her? Quite impossible, cried Alan one. Miss Guilt is a lady. After the letter I have sent to her, she will never come near me again. There we join issue, sir, cried pet-gifts in here. I say she will snap her fingers at your letter, which was one of the reasons why abducted to your writing it. I say she is in all probability, waiting her messengers return, in or near your grounds at this moment. I say she will try to force her way in here, before four and twenty hours more are over in your head. E'gad, sir, cried Mr. Petgift, looking at his watch. It's only seven o'clock now. She's bold enough and clever enough to catch you unawares this very evening. Permit me to ring forth a servant. Permit me to request that you will give him orders immediately to say you are not at home. You needn't hesitate, Mr. Armadale. If you're right about Miss Guilt, it's a mere formality. If I'm right, it's a wise precaution. Back your opinion, sir, said Mr. Petgift, bringing the bell, I back mine. The callon was sufficiently nettle'd when the bell rang to feel ready to give the order. But when the servant came in, past remembrances got the better of him and the words stuck in his throat. You give the order, he said to Mr. Petgift, and walked away abruptly to the window. You're a good fellow, thought the old lawyer, looking after him, and penetrating his motive on the instant. The claws of that she double shan't scratch you if I can help it. The servant waited inexorably for his orders. If Miss Guilt calls here, either this evening or at any other time, said Petgift senior, Mr. Armadale is not at home. Wait, if she asked when Mr. Armadale will be back, you don't know. Wait, if she proposes coming in and sitting down, you have a general order that nobody is to come in and sit down, unless they have a previous appointment with Mr. Armadale. Come, cried old Petgift, rubbing his hands cheerfully when the servant had left the room. I've stopped her out now at any rate. The orders are all given, Mr. Armadale. We may go on with our conversation. Alan came back from the window. The conversation is not a very pleasant one, he said. No offense to you, but I wish it was over. We will get it over as soon as possible, sir, said Petgift senior, still persisting, as only lawyers and women can persist, enforcing his way little by little, nearer and nearer to his own object. Let us go back, if you please, to the practical suggestion which I offered you when the servant came in with Miss Guilt's note. There is, I repeat, only one way left for you, Mr. Armadale, out of your present awkward position. You must pursue your inquiries about this woman to an end, on a chance, which I consider next to a certainty, that the end will justify you in the estimation of the neighborhood. I wish to God I had never made any inquiries at all, said Alan. Nothing will induce me, Mr. Petgift, to make any more. Why? asked the lawyer. Can you ask me why? retorted Alan, hotly, after your son has told you what we found out in London. Even if I had less cause to be, to be sorry for Miss Guilt than I have, even if it was some other woman, do you think I would inquire any further into the secret of a poor betrayed creature, much less exposed to the neighborhood? I should think myself as great a scoundrel as the man who has cast her out, helpless on the world, if I did anything of the kind. I wonder you can ask me the question. Upon my soul, I wonder you can ask me the question. Give me your hand, Mr. Armadale, cried Petgift senior, warmly. I honor you for being so angry with me. The neighborhood may say what it pleases. You're a gentleman, sir, in the best sense of the word. Now, pursued the lawyer, dropping Alan's hand lapsing back instantly from sentiment to business. Just hear what I have got to say in my own defense. Suppose Miss Guilt's real position happens to be nothing like what you are generously determined to believe it to be. We have no reason to suppose that, said Alan, resolutely. Such is your opinion, sir, persisted Petgift. Mine, founded on what is publicly known of Miss Guilt's proceedings here and on what I have seen of Miss Guilt herself, is that she is as far as I am from being the sentimental victim. You are inclined to make her out. Gently, Mr. Armadale, remember that I have put my opinion to a practical test and wait to condemn it offhand until the vents have justified you. Let me put my points, sir. Make allowances for me as a lawyer and let me put my points. You and my son are young men, and I don't deny that the circumstances on the surface appear to justify the interpretation which, as young men, you have placed on them. I am an old man. I know that circumstances are not always to be taken as they appear on the surface. And I possess the great advantage, in the present case, of having had years of professional experience among some of the wickedest women who ever walked this earth. Alan opened his lips to protest and checked himself in despair, producing the slightest effect. Pettgift Sr. bowed in polite acknowledgment of his client's self-restraint and took instant advantage of it to go on. All Miss Guilt's proceedings, he resumed, since your unfortunate correspondence with the major, show me that she is an old hand at deceit. The moment she is threatened with exposure, exposure of some kind, there can be no doubt after what you've discovered in London. She turned your honorable silence to the best possible account and leaves the major's service in the character of a martyr. Once out of the house, what does she do next? She boldly stops in the neighborhood and serves three excellent purposes by doing so. In the first place, she shows everybody that she is not afraid of facing another attack on her reputation. In the second place, she is close at hand to twist you round her little finger and to become Mrs. Armadale in spite of circumstances if you and I allow her the opportunity. In the third place, if you and I are wise enough to distrust her, she is equally wise on her side and doesn't give us the first great chance of following her to London and associating her with her accomplices. Is this the conduct of an unhappy woman who has lost her character in a moment of weakness and who has been driven unwillingly into a deception to get it back again? You put it cleverly, said Allen, answering with marked reluctance. I can't deny that you put it cleverly. Your own common sense, Mrs. Armadale, is beginning to tell you that I put it justly, said Pedagive Senior. I don't presume to say yet what this woman's connection may be with those people at Pimlico. All I assert is that it is not the connection you suppose. Having stated the fact so far, I am willing to add my own personal impression of this world. I won't shock you if I can help it. I'll try if I can't put it cleverly again. She came to my office as I told you in my letter. No doubt to make friends with your lawyer if she could. She came to tell me in the most forgiving and Christian manner that she didn't blame you. Do you ever believe anybody, Mr. Pedgift? Interposed, Allen. Sometimes, Mr. Armadale returned Pedgift the elder as unabashed as ever. I believe as often as a lawyer can. To precede her, when I was in the criminal branch of practice, it fell to my lot to take instructions for the defense of women committed for trial from the women's own lips. Whatever other difference there might be among them, I got in time to notice among those who were particularly wicked and unquestionably guilty, one point in which they all resembled each other. Tall and short, old and young, handsome and ugly, they all had a secret self-possession that nothing could shake. On the surface, they were as different as possible. Some of them were in a state of indignation. Some of them were drowned in tears. Some of them were full of pious confidence and some of them were resolved to commit suicide before the night was out. But only put your finger suddenly on the weak point in the story told by any one of them and there was an end of her rage or her tears or her piety or her despair. And out came the genuine woman in full possession of all her resources with a neat little lie that exactly suited the circumstances of the case. Miss Guilt was in tears, sir, becoming tears that didn't make her nose red and I put my finger suddenly on the weak point in her story. Down dropped her pathetic pocket handkerchief from her beautiful blue eyes and out came the genuine woman with the neat little lie that exactly suited these circumstances. I felt 20 years younger, Mr. Armadale, on the spot. I declare I thought I was in Newgate again with my notebook in my hand, taking my instructions for the defense. The next thing you'll say, Mr. Pettgift, cried Alan angrily, is that Miss Guilt has been in prison. Pettgift senior calmly wrapped his stock box and had his answer ready at a moment's notice. She may have originally deserved to see the inside of a prison, Mr. Armadale, but in the age we live in, that is one excellent reason for her never having been near any place of the kind. A prison in the present tender state of public feeling for a charming woman like Miss Guilt. My dear sir, if she had attempted to murder you or me and if an inhuman judge and jury had decided on sending her to prison, the first object of modern society would be to prevent her going into it. And if that couldn't be done, the next object would be to let her out again as soon as possible. Read your newspaper, Mr. Armadale, and you'll find we live in piping times for the black sheep of the community if they are only black enough. I insist on asserting, sir, that we have got one of the blackest of a lot to deal with in this case. I insist on asserting that you have had the rare luck in these unfortunate inquiries. To pitch on a woman who happens to be a fit object for inquiry in the interests of the public protection. Different with me as strongly as you please, but don't make up your mind finally about Miss Guilt and tell events have put those two opposite opinions of ours to the test that I have proposed. A fairest test there can't be. I agree with you that no lady worthy of the name could attempt to force her way in here after receiving your letter. But I deny that Miss Guilt is worthy of the name, and I say she will try to force her way in here in spite of you. And I say she won't, retorted Alan firmly. Pettgift Sr. leaned back in his chair and smiled. There was a momentary silence, and in that silence the doorbell rang. The lawyer and the client both looked expectantly in the direction of the hall. No, cried Alan, more angrily than ever. Yes, cried Pettgift Sr., contradicting him with the utmost politeness. They waited the event. The opening of the house door was audible, but the room was too far from it for the sound of voices to reach the ear as well. After a long interval of expectation, the closing of the door was heard at last. Alan rose impetuously and rang the bell. Mr. Pettgift, the elder, sat sublimely calm and enjoyed, with a gentle zest, the largest pinch of snuff he had taken yet. Anybody for me, asked Alan, when the servant came in. The man looked at Pettgift Sr., with an expression of unutterable reverence, and answered, Miss Guilt. I don't want to crow over you, sir, said Mr. Pettgift, the elder, when the servant had withdrawn. But what do you think of Miss Guilt, now? Alan shook his head in silent discouragement and distress. Time is of importance, Miss Darmadale. After what has just happened, do you still object to taking the course I have had the honor of suggesting to you? I can't, Mr. Pettgift, said Alan. I can't be the means of disgracing her in the neighborhood. I would rather be disgraced myself, as I am. Let me put it in another way, sir. Excuse my persisting. You've been very kind to me and my family, and I have a personal interest, as well as a professional interest in you. If you can't prevail on yourself to show this woman's character in its true light, will you take common precautions to prevent her doing any more harm? Will you consent to having her privately watched as long as she remains in this neighborhood? For the second time, Alan shook his head. Is that your final resolution, sir? It is, Mr. Pettgift. But I am much obliged to you for your advice, all the same. Pettgift senior rose in the state of gentle resignation and took up his hat. Good evening, sir, he said, and made sorrowfully for the door. Alan rose on his side, innocently supposing that the interview was at an end. Persons better acquainted with the diplomatic habits of his legal advisor would have recommended him to keep his seat. The time was ripe for Pettgift's postscript, and the lawyer's indicative snuff box was at that moment in one of his hands as he opened the door with the other. Good evening, sir, Alan. Pettgift senior opened the door, stopped, considered, closed the door again, came back mysteriously with his pinch of snuff in suspense between his box and his nose, and repeating his invariable formula. By the by, there's a point occurs to me. Quietly resumed possession of his empty chair. Alan, wondering, took the seat in his term, which he had just left. Lawyer and client looked at each other once more, and the aim-exhaustible interview began again. End of chapter five. Book the third, chapter six of Armadale. 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 Michael Anthony Petronic. Chapter six, Pettgift's postscript. I mentioned that a point had occurred to me, Sir, remarked Pettgift senior. You did, said Alan. Would you like to hear what it is, Mr. Armadale? If you please, said Alan. With all my heart, sir, this is the point. I attach considerable importance, if nothing else can be done, to having this quilt privately looked after as long as she stops at the Thorpe Ambrose. It struck me just now at the door, Mr. Armadale, that what you are not willing to do for your own security, you might be willing to do for the security of another person. What other person, inquired Alan. A young lady who is a near neighbor of yours, Sir, shall I mention the name and confidence? Miss Millroy. Alan started and changed color. Miss Millroy, he repeated. Can she be concerned in this miserable business? I hope not, Mr. Pettgift. I sincerely hope not. I paid a visit in your interest, Sir, at the cottage this morning, when the preceded Pettgift's senior. You shall hear what happened there and judge for yourself. Major Millroy has been expressing his opinion of you pretty freely, and I thought it highly desirable to give him a caution. It's always the way with those quiet, idle-headed men. When they do once wake up, there's no reasoning with their obstinacy and no quieting their violence. Well, Sir, this morning I went to the cottage. The major and Miss Neely were both in the parlor. Miss, not looking so pretty as usual, pale, I thought pale and worn and anxious. Up jumps the idle-headed major. I wouldn't give that, Mr. Armadale, for the brains of a man who can occupy himself for half his lifetime in making a clock. Up jumps the idle-headed major. In the loftiest of manner, he actually tries to look me down. Ha, ha, ha! The ideal of anybody looking me down at my time of life. I behaved like a Christian. I nodded, kindly tooled, what's o'clock. Fine morning, major, says I. Have you any business with me, says he. Just a word, says I. Miss Neely, like the sensible girl she is, gets up to leave the room. And what does her ridiculous father do? He stops her. You didn't go, my dear. I have nothing to say to Mr. Petgift, says this old military idiot, and turns my way and tries to look me down again. You are Mr. Armadale's lawyer, says he. If you come on any business relating to Mr. Armadale, I refer you to my solicitor. His solicitor is dark, and dark has had enough of me in business I can tell you. My errand here, major, does certainly relate to Mr. Armadale, says I. But it doesn't concern your lawyer at any rate just yet. I wish to caution you to suspend your opinion of my client, or if you won't do that, to be careful how you express it in public. I warn you that our turn is to come, and that you are not at the end yet of the scandal about Miss Guilt. It struck me as likely that he would lose his temper when he found himself tackled in that way. And he amply fulfilled my expectations. He was quite violent in his language, the poor, weak creature, actually violent with me. I behaved like a Christian again. I nodded kindly and wished him good morning. When I looked round to wish Miss Neely good morning too, as she was gone. You seem restless, Mr. Armadale, remarked, pedgif senior, as Alan, feeling the sting of old recollections, suddenly started out of his chair and began pacing up and down the room. I won't try your patience much longer, sir. I am coming to the point. I beg your pardon, Mr. Pedgif, said Alan, returning to his seat and trying to look compositely at the lawyer through the intervening image of Neely which the lawyer had called up. Well, sir, I left the cottage, resumed the pedgift senior. Just as I turned the corner from the garden into the park, whom should I stumble upon, but Miss Neely herself? Evidently, on the lookout for me. I want to speak to you for one moment, Mr. Pedgif, says she. Does Mr. Armadale think me mixed up in this matter? She was violently agitated, tears in her eyes, sir, of the sort which my legal experience has not accustomed me to see. I quite forgot myself. I actually gave her my arm and let her away gently among the trees. A nice position to find me in, if any of the scandal-mongers of the town had happened to be walking in that direction. My dear Miss Milroy, says I, why should Mr. Armadale think you mixed up in it? You ought to have told her at once that I thought nothing of the kind, exclaimed Alan indignantly. Why did you leave her a moment in doubt about it? Because I am a lawyer, Mr. Armadale, rejoined Pedgif senior dryly, even in moments of sentiment under convenient trees with a pretty girl on my arm. I can't entirely divest myself of my professional caution. Don't look distressed, sir, I pray. I set things right in due course of time. Before I left Miss Milroy, I told her in the plainest terms, no such idea had ever entered your head. Did she seem relieved? Asked Alan. She was able to dispense with the use of my arm, replied old Pedgif as dryly as ever, and to pledge me to inviolable secrecy on the subject of our interview. She was particularly desirous that you should hear nothing about it. If you are at all anxious on your side to know why I am now betraying her confidence, I beg to inform you that her confidence related to no less a person than the lady who favored you with a call just now, Miss Wilt. Alan, who had been once more restlessly pacing the room, stopped and returned to his chair. Is this serious, he asked? Most serious, sir, return Pedgif senior, I am betraying Miss Neely's secret in Miss Neely's own interest. Let us go back to that cautious question I put to her. She found some little difficulty in answering it, for the reply involved her in a narrative of the parting interview between her governess and herself. This is the substance of it. The tour alone when Miss Wilt took leave of her pupil and the words she used as reported to me by Miss Neely were these, she said. Your mother has declined to allow me to take leave of her. Do you decline too? Miss Neely's answer was a remarkably sensible one for a girl of her age. We have not been good friends, said she. And I believe we are equally glad to part with each other. But I have no wish to decline taking leave of you, saying that she held on her hand. Miss Wilt stood looking at her steadily without taking it and addressed her in these words. You are not Mrs. Armadale yet. Gently, sir, keep your temper. It's not at all wonderful that a woman conscious of having her own mercenary designs on you should attribute similar designs to a young lady who happens to be your near neighbor. Let me go on, please. Miss Neely, by her own confession and quite naturally, I think, was excessively indignant. She owns two of having answered. You shameless creature, how dare you say that to me? Miss Wilt's rejoinder was a rather a remarkable one. The anger on her side appears to have been of the cool, still a venomous kind. Nobody ever injured me, Miss Milroy, she said, without sooner or later bitterly repenting it. You will bitterly repent it. She stood looking at her pupil for a moment in dead silence and then left the room. Miss Neely appears to have felt the imputation fastened on her in connection with you far more sensitively than she felt the threat. She had previously known, as everybody had known in the house, that some unacknowledged proceedings of yours in London had led to Miss Wilt's voluntary withdrawal from her situation. And she now inferred, from the language addressed to her, that she was actually believed by Miss Wilt to have set those proceedings on foot to advance herself and to injure her governess in your estimation. Gently, sir, gently, I haven't quite done yet. As soon as Miss Neely had recovered herself, she went upstairs to speak to Mrs. Milroy. Miss Wilt's abominable imputation had taken her by surprise and she went to her mother first for enlightenment and advice. She got neither the one nor the other. Mrs. Milroy declared she was too ill to enter on the subject and she has remained too ill to enter on it ever since. Miss Neely applied next to her father. The major stopped her the moment your name passed her lips. He declared he would never hear you mentioned again by any member of his family. She has been left in the dark from that time to this, not knowing how she might have been misrepresented by Miss Wilt or what falsehoods you might have been led to believe of her. At my age and in my profession, I don't profess to have any extraordinary softness of heart. But I do think, Mr. Armadillo, that Miss Neely's position deserves our sympathy. I'll do anything to help her, cried Alan impulsively. You don't know, Mr. Pedgif, what reason I have. He checked himself and confusedly repeated his first words. I'll do anything, he reiterated earnestly. Anything in the world to help her. Uh, do you really mean that, Mr. Armadillo? Excuse my asking, but you can very materially help Miss Neely if you choose. How, asked Alan, only tell me how. By giving me your authority, sir, to protect her from Miss Wilt. Having fired that shot point blank at his client, the wise lawyer waited a little to let it take its effect before he said any more. Alan's face clouded and he shifted uneasily from side to side of his chair. Your son is hard enough to deal with, Mr. Pedgift, he said, and you are harder than your son. Thank you, sir, rejoined the ready Pedgift. In my son's name and my own, for a handsome compliment to the firm. If you wish to be of assistance to Miss Neely, he went on more seriously, I have shown you the way. You can do nothing to quiet her anxiety, which I have not done already. As soon as I assured her that no misconception of her conduct existed in your mind, she went away satisfied. Her governess's parting threat doesn't seem to have dwelt on her memory. I can tell you, Mr. Armadale, it dwells on mine. You know my opinion of Miss Wilt and you know what Miss Wilt herself has done this very evening to justify that opinion even in your eyes. May I ask, after all that has passed, whether you think she's a sort of woman who can be trusted to confine herself to empty threats? The question was a formidable one to answer, forced steadily back from the position which she had occupied at the outset of the interview by the irresistible pressure of plain facts, Alan began for the first time to show symptoms of yielding on the subject of Miss Wilt. Is there no other way of protecting Miss Milroy but the way you have mentioned, he asked uneasily? Do you think the major would listen to you, sir, if you spoke to him, as pet gifts senior sarcastically? I'm rather afraid he wouldn't honor me with his attention or perhaps he would prefer alarming Miss Neely by telling her in plain words that we both think her in danger or suppose you send me to Miss Wilt with instructions to inform her that she has done her pupil a cruel injustice. Women are so proverbially ready to listen to reason and they are so universally disposed to alter their opinions of each other on application, especially when one woman thinks that the other woman has destroyed her prospect of making a good marriage. Don't mind me, Mr. Armadale, I'm only a lawyer and I can sit waterproof under another shower of Miss Wilt's tears. Dammit, Mr. Pedgiff, tell me in plain words what you want me to do. Cried Alan, losing his temper at last. In plain words, Mr. Armadale, I want to keep Miss Wilt's proceedings privately under view as long as she stops in this neighborhood. I answer for finding a person who will look after her delicately and discreetly and I agree to discontinue even this harmless superintendents of her actions if there isn't good reason shown for continuing it to your entire satisfaction in a week's time. I make that moderate proposal, sir, in what I sincerely believe to be Miss Milroy's interest. And I wait for your answer, yes or no. Can't I have time to consider, asked Alan, driven to the last helpless expedient of taking refuge and delay. I'm certainly Mr. Armadale, but don't forget while you are considering that Miss Milroy is in the habit of walking out alone in your park, innocent of all apprehension of danger and that Miss Wilt is perfectly free to take any advantage of that circumstance that Miss Wilt pleases. Do as you like, explained Alan in despair and for God's sakes, don't torment me any longer. Popular prejudice may deny it, but the profession of the law is a practically Christian profession in one respect at least. Of all the large collection of ready answers lying in wait for mankind on a lawyer's lips, none is kept in better working order than the soft answer which turneth away wrath. Pedgif senior rose with the alacrity of youth in his legs and the wise moderation of age on his tongue. Many thanks, sir, he said. For the attention you have bestowed on me, I congratulate you on your decision and I wish you good evening. This time his indicative snuff box was not in his hand when he opened the door and he actually disappeared without coming back for a second post-trip. Alan's head sank on his breast when he was finally left alone. If it was only the end of the week, he thought longingly, if I only had midwinter back again. As that aspiration escaped the client's lips, the lawyer got gaily into his gig. Hi, away, old girl, cried Pedgif senior, patting the fast-trotting mare with the end of his whip. I never keep a lady waiting and I've got business tonight with one of your own sex. End of Chapter 6 Recording by Michael Anthony Petronic www.voiceoftemptation.biz Book III. Chapter VII of Armadale 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 Greg Bowman Armadale by Wilkie Columns Book III. Chapter VII The Martyrdom of Miss Guilt The outskirts of the little town of Thorpe Ambrose, on the side nearest to the Great House, have earned some local celebrity as exhibiting the prettiest suburb of the kind to be found in East Norfolk. Here, the villas and the gardens are for the most part built and laid out in excellent taste. The trees are in the prime of their growth and the healthy common beyond the houses rises and falls and picturesque and delightful variety of broken ground. The rank, fashion and beauty of the town make this place their evening promenade. And when a stranger goes out for a drive, if he leaves it to the coachman, the coachman starts by way of the common, as a matter of course. On the opposite side, that is to say, on the side furthest from the Great House, the suburbs in the year 1851 were universally regarded as a sore subject by all persons zealous for the reputation of the town. Here, nature was uninviting, man was poor, and social progress as exhibited under the form of building, halted miserably. The streets dwindled feebly as they receded from the center of town into smaller and smaller houses and died away on the barren open ground into an atrophy of skeleton cottages. Builders here about appeared to have universally abandoned their work in the first stage of its creation. Landholders set up poles on lost patches of ground and plaintively advertising that they were to let four building raised sickly little crops meanwhile in despair of finding a purchaser to deal with them. All the waste paper of the town seemed to float congenially to this neglected spot. And all the fretful children came and cried here in charge of all the slatteringly nurses who disgraced the place. If there was any intention in Thorpe Ambrose of sending a worn out horse to the knackers, that horse was sure to be found waiting his doom in a field on this side of the town. No growth flourished in these desert regions but the arid growth of rubbish. And no creatures rejoiced but the creatures of the night. The vermin here and there in their beds and the cats everywhere on the tiles. The sun had set and the summer twilight was darkening. The fretful children were crying in their cradles. The horse destined for the knacker dozed forlorn in the field of his imprisonment. The cats waited stealthily in corners for the coming night. But one living figure appeared in the lonely suburb, the figure of Mr. Bashwood. But one faint sound disturbed the dreadful silence, the sound of Mr. Bashwood's softly stepping feet. Moving slowly past the heaps of bricks, rising at intervals along the road, coasting carefully around the old iron and the broken tiles scattered here and there in his bath, Mr. Bashwood advanced from the direction of the country toward one of the unfinished streets of the suburb. His personal appearance had been apparently made the object of some special attention. His false teeth were brilliantly white. His wig was carefully brushed. His morning garnements, renewed throughout, gleamed with the hideous and slimy gloss of cheap black cloth. He moved with a nervous jauntiness and looked about him with a vacant smile. Having reached the first of the skeleton cottages, his watery eyes settled steadily for the first time on the view of the street before him. The next instant he started. His breath quickened. He leaned, trembling and flushing against the unfinished wall at his side. A lady, still at some distance, was advancing toward him down the length of the street. She's coming, he whispered, with a strange mixture of rapture and fear. Of alternating color and paleness, showing itself in his haggard face. I wish I was the ground she treads on. I wish I was the glove she's got on her hand. He burst ecstatically into those extravagant words with a concentrated intensity of delight in uttering them that actually shook his feeble figure from head to foot. Smoothly and gracefully, the lady glided nearer and nearer until she revealed to Mr. Bashwood's eyes what Mr. Bashwood's instincts had recognized in the first instance, the face of Miss Gwilt. She was dressed with an exquisitely expressive economy of outlay, the plainest straw bonnet procurable, trimmed sparingly with the cheapest white ribbon was on her head. Modest and tasteful poverty expressed itself in the speckless cleanliness and the modestly proportioned skirts of her light print gown. And in the scanty little mantilla of cheap black silk, which she wore over it, edged with a simple frilling of the same material, the luster of her terrible red hair showed itself unshrinkingly in the plated coronet above her forehead and escaped in one vagrant love lock, perfectly curled, that dropped over her left shoulder. Her gloves, fitting her like a second skin, were of the sober brown hue, which is slowest to show signs of use. One hand lifted her dress daintily above the impurities of the road. The other held a little nosegay of the commonest garden flowers. Noiselessly and smoothly she came on with a gentle and regular undulation of the print gown. With the love lock softly lifted from moment to moment in the evening breeze, with her head a little drooped and her eyes on the ground, in walk and look and manner, in every casual movement that escaped her, expressing that subtle mixture of the voluptuous and the modest, which of the many attractive extremes that meet in women is in a man's eyes the most irresistible of all. Mr. Bashwood, she exclaimed, in loud, clear tones indicative of the utmost astonishment, what a surprise to find you here. I thought none but the wretched inhabitants ever ventured near this side of the town. Hush, she added quickly in a whisper. You heard right when you heard that Mr. Armadale was going to have me followed and watched. There's a man behind one of the houses. We must talk out loud of indifferent things and look as if we had met by accident. Ask me what I am doing out loud, directly. You shall never see me again if you don't instantly leave off trembling and do what I tell you. She spoke with a merciless tyranny of eye and voice, with a merciless use of her power over the feeble creature whom she addressed. Mr. Bashwood obeyed her in tones that quavered with agitation and with eyes that devoured her beauty in a strange fascination of terror and delight. I'm trying to earn a little money by teaching music, she said, in the voice intended to reach the spies' ears. If you are able to recommend me any students, Mr. Bashwood, your good word will oblige me. Have you been in the grounds today? She went on, dropping her voice again in a whisper. Has Mr. Armadale been near the cottage? Has Ms. Milroy been out of the garden? No, are you sure? Look out for them tomorrow and next day and next day. They are certain to meet and make it up again, and I must, and I will know of it. Hush, ask me my terms for teaching music. What are you frightened about? It's me the man's after, not you. Louder than when you asked me what I was doing just now. Louder, or I won't trust you anymore, I'll go to someone else. Once more, Mr. Bashwood obeyed. Don't be angry with me, he murmured, faintly when he had spoken the necessary words. My heart beats so you'll kill me. You poor old deer, she whispered back, with a sudden change in her manner, with an easy satirical's tenderness. What business have you with a heart at your age? Be here tomorrow at the same time and tell me what you have seen in the grounds. My terms are only five shillings of lessons she went on in her louder tone. I'm sure that's not much, Mr. Bashwood. I give such long lessons and I get all my pupil's music half price. She suddenly dropped her voice again and looked him brightly into instant subjection. Don't let Mr. Armadale out of your sight tomorrow. If that girl manages to speak to him, and if I don't hear of it, I'll frighten you to death. If I do hear of it, I'll kiss you. Hush, wish me good night and go on onto the town and leave me to go the other way. I don't want you, I'm not afraid of the man behind the houses. I can deal with him by myself. Say good night and I'll let you shake hands. Say it louder and I'll give you one of my flowers if you'll promise not to fall in love with it. She raised her voice again. Good night, Mr. Bashwood. Don't forget my terms. Five shillings a lesson and the lessons last an hour at a time. And I get all my pupil's music half price, which is an immense advantage, isn't it? She slipped a flower into his hand, frowned him into obedience and smiled to reward him for a bag. At the same moment, lifted her dress again above the impurities of the road and went on her way with a dainty and indolent deliberation as a cat goes on her way when she has exhausted the enjoyment of frightening a mouse. Left alone, Mr. Bashwood turned to the low cottage wall near which he had been standing and resting himself on it, wearily looked at the flower in his hand. His past existence had disciplined him to bear disaster and insult as few happier men could have borne them. But it had not prepared him to feel the master passion of humanity for the first time at the dreary end of his life in the hopeless decay of a manhood that had withered under the double blight of conjugal disappointment and parental sorrow. Oh, if I was only young again, murmured the poor wretch, resting his arms on the wall and touching the flower with his dry fevered lips in a stealthy rapture of tenderness, she might have liked me when I was 20. He suddenly started back into an erect position and stared about him in vacant bewilderment and terror. She told me to go home, he said with a startled look. Why am I stopping here? He turned and hurried on to the town in such dread of her anger, if she looked round and saw him that he never so much as ventured a backward glance at the road by which she had retired and never detected the spy dogging her footsteps under the cover of the empty houses and the brick heaps by the roadside. Smoothly and gracefully, carefully preserving the speckless integrity of her dress, never hastening her pace and never looking aside to the right hand or the left, Ms. Guilt pursued her way toward the open country. The suburban road branched off at its end in two directions. On the left, the path wound through a ragged little compass to the grazing grounds of a neighboring farm. On the right, it led across a hillock of wasteland to the high road. Stopping a moment to consider but not showing the spy that she suspected him by glancing behind her while there was a hiding place within his reach, Ms. Guilt took the path across the hillock. I'll catch him there, she said to herself, looking up quietly at the long straight line of the empty high road. Once on the ground that she had chosen for her purpose, she met the difficulties of the position with perfect tact and self-possession. After walking some 30 yards along the road, she let her nose gay drop. Half turned around in stooping to pick it up, saw the man stopping at the same moment behind her and instantly went on again, quickening her pace little by little until she was walking at the top of her speed. The spy fell into the snare laid for him. Seeing the night coming and fearing that he might lose sight of her in the darkness, he rapidly lessened the distance between them. Ms. Guilt went on faster and faster till she plainly heard his footstep behind her then stopped, turned and met the man face to face the next moment. My compliments to Mr. Armadale, she said, and tell him I've caught you watching me. I'm not watching you, Miss, retorted the spy, thrown off his guard by the daring playness of the language in which she had spoken to him. Ms. Guilt's eyes measured him contemptuously from head to foot. He was a weakly undersized man. She was the taller and quite possibly the stronger of the two. Take off your hat. You blackguard, when you speak to a lady, she said and tossed his hat in an instant across a ditch by which they were standing into a pool on the other side. This time the spy was on his guard. He knew as well as Ms. Guilt knew the use which might be made of the precious minutes if he turned his back on her and crossed the ditch to recover his hat. It's well for you, you're a woman, he said standing scowling at her bare-headed in the vast darkening light. Ms. Guilt glanced side long down the onward vista of the road and saw through the gathering obscurity the solitary figure of a man rapidly advancing toward her. Some women would have noticed the approach of a stranger at that hour and in that lonely place with a certain anxiety. Ms. Guilt was too confident in her own powers of persuasion not to count on the man's assistance beforehand, whoever he might be, because he was a man. She looked back at the spy with a redoubled confidence in herself and measured him contemptuously from head to foot for the second time. I wonder whether I'm strong enough to throw you after your hat, she said. I'll take a turn and consider it. She sauntered on a few steps toward the figure advancing along the road. The spy followed her close. Try it, he said brutally. You're a fine woman, you're welcome to put your arms around me if you like. As the words escaped him, he too saw the stranger for the first time. He drew back a step and waited. Ms. Guilt on her side advanced a step and waited too. The stranger came on with the lie of the light step of a practiced walker, swinging a stick in his hand and carrying a knapsack on his shoulders. A few paces nearer and his face became visible. He was a dark man. His black hair was powdered with dust and his black eyes were looking steadfastly forward along the road before him. Ms. Guilt advanced with the first signs of agitation she had shown yet. Is it possible, she said softly? Can it really be you? It was midwinter on his way back to Thorpe Ambrose after his fortnight among the Yorkshire Moors. He stopped and looked at her in breathless surprise. The image of the woman had been in his thoughts at the moment when the woman herself spoke to him. Ms. Guilt, he exclaimed, and mechanically held out his hand. She took it and pressed it gently. I should have been glad to see you at any time, she said. You don't know how glad I am to see you now. May I trouble you to speak to that man? He's been following me and annoying me all the way from the town. Midwinter stepped past her without uttering a word. Faint as the light was, the spy saw what was coming in his face and turned instantly, leap the ditch by the roadside. Before midwinter could follow, Ms. Guilt's hand was on his shoulder. No, she said, you don't know who his employer is. Midwinter stopped and looked at her. Strange things have happened since you left us, she went on. I have been forced to give up my situation and I am followed and watched by a paid spy. Don't ask who forced me out of my situation and who pays the spy, at least not just yet. I can't make up my mind to tell you till I am a little more composed. Let the wretch go. Do you mind seeing me safe back to my lodging? It's in your way home. May I ask for the support of your arm? My little stock of courage is quite exhausted. She took his arm and clung close to it. The woman who had tyrannized over Mr. Bashwood was gone and the woman who had tossed the spy's hat into the pool was gone. A timid, shrinking, interesting creature filled the fair skin and trembled on the symmetrical limbs of Ms. Guilt. She put her handkerchief to her eyes. They say necessity has no law, she murmured faintly. I'm treating you like an old friend. God knows I want one. They went on toward the town. She recovered herself with a touching fortitude. She put her handkerchief back in her pocket and persisted in turning the conversation on midwinter's walking tour. It is bad enough to be a burden on you, she said, gently pressing on his arm as she spoke. I mustn't distress you as well. Tell me where have you been and what have you seen? Interest me in your journey. Help me to escape from myself. They reached the modest little lodging in the miserable little suburb. Ms. Guilt sighed and removed her glove before she took midwinter's hand. I have taken refuge here, she said simply. It is clean and quiet. I'm too poor to want or expect more. We must say goodbye, I suppose, unless. She hesitated modestly and satisfied herself by a quick look around that they were unobserved. Unless you would like to come in and rest a little. I feel so gratefully toward you, Mr. Midwinter. Is there any harm, do you think, in my offering you a cup of tea? The magnetic influence of her touch was thrilling through him while she spoke. Change and absence to which he had trusted to weaken her hold on him had treacherously strengthened it instead. A man exceptionally sensitive, a man exceptionally pure in his past life, he stood hand in hand in the tempting secrecy of the night with the first woman who had exercised over him the all-absorbing influence of her sex. At his age and in his position, who could have left her? The man, with a man's temperament, doesn't live who could have left her. Midwinter went in. Stupid sleepy lad opened the house door. Even he, being a male creature, brightened under the influence of Miss Gwilt. The urn, John, she said kindly, and another cup and saucer. I'll borrow your candle to light my candles upstairs then I won't trouble you any more tonight. John was waitful and active in an instant. No trouble, Miss, he said, with an awkward civility. Miss Gwilt took his candle with a smile. How good people are to me, she whispered innocently to Midwinter as she led the way upstairs to the little drawing room on the first floor. She lit the candles and turning quickly on her guest, stopped him at the first attempt he made to remove the knapsack from his shoulders. No, she said gently. In the good old times there were occasions when the ladies unarmed their knights. I claim the privilege of unarming my knight. Her dexterous fingers intercepted his at the straps and buckles, and she had the dusty knapsack off before he could protest against her touching it. They sat down at the one little table in the room. It was very poorly furnished, but there was something of the dainty neatness of the woman who inhabited it in the arrangement of the few poor ornaments on the chimney piece in the one or two prettily bound volumes on the chiffoniere, in the flowers on the table, and the modest little work basket in the window. Women are not all coquettes, she said, as she took off her bonnet and mantilla, and laid them carefully on a chair. I won't go on into my room and look in my glass and make myself smart. You shall take me just as I am. Her hands moved about among the tea things with a smooth, noiseless activity. Her magnificent hair flashed crimson in the candlelight as she turned her head hither and thither, searching with an easy grace for the things she wanted in the tray. Exercise has heightened, had heightened the brilliancy of her complexion, and had quickened the rapid alternations of expression in her eyes, the delicious languor that stole over them when she was listening or thinking, the bright intelligence that flashed from them softly when she spoke. In the lightest words, she said, in the least things she did, there was something that gently solicited the heart of the man who sat with her. Perfectly modest in her manner, possessed to perfection of all the graceful restraints and refinements of a lady, she had all the allurements that feast the eye, all the siren invitations that seduced the sense, a subtle suggestiveness in her silence, and a sexual sorcery in her smile. Should I be wrong, she asked, suddenly suspending the conversation which she had thus far persistently restricted to the subject of midwinners walking to her. If I guessed that you have something on your mind, something which neither my teen or my talk can charm away, or men as curious as women, is this something me? Midwinners struggled against the fascination of looking at her and listening to her. I am very anxious to hear what has happened since I've been away, he said, but I am still more anxious, Miss Gwilt, not to distress you by speaking of a painful subject. She looked at him gratefully. It is for your sake that I have avoided the painful subject, she said, toying with her spoon among the dregs in her empty cup, but you will hear about it from others if you don't hear about it from me. And you want to know why you've found me in that strange situation, and why you see me here. Pray remember one thing to begin with. I don't blame your friend, Mr. Armadale. I blame the people whose instrument he is. Midwinners started. Is it possible, he began, that Alan can be in any way answerable? He stopped and looked at Miss Gwilt and silent astonishment. She gently laid her hand on his. Don't be angry with me for only telling the truth, she said. Your friend is answerable for everything that has happened to me. Innocently answerable, Mr. Midwinner, I firmly believe. We are both victims. He is the victim of his position as the richest single man in the neighborhood, and I am the victim of Miss Milroy's determination to marry him. Miss Milroy, repeated Midwinner, more and more astonished. Why, Alan himself told me, he stopped again. He told you that I was the object of his admiration? Poor fellow, he admires everybody. His head is almost as empty as this, said Miss Gwilt, smiling indicatively into the hollow of her cup. She dropped the spoon's side and became serious again. I am guilty of the vanity of having let him admire me, she went on penitently, without the excuse of being able, on my side, to reciprocate even the passing interest that he felt in me. I don't undervalue his many admirable qualities or the excellent position he can offer to his wife. But a woman's heart is not to be commanded. No, Mr. Midwinner. Not even by the fortunate master of Thorpe Ambrose, who commands everything else. She looked him full in the face as she uttered that magnanimous sentiment. His eyes dropped before hers, and his dark color deepened. He had felt his heart leap in him at the declaration of her indifference to Alan. For the first time since they had known each other, his interest now stood self-revealed before him as openly adverse to the interests of his friend. I have been guilty of the vanity of letting Mr. Armadale admire me, and I have suffered for it, resumed in this quilt. If there had been any confidence between my pupil and me, I might have easily satisfied her that she might become Mr. Armadale, if she could, without having any rivalry to fear on my part. But Miss Milroy disliked and distressed me from the first. She took her own jealous view, no doubt, of Mr. Armadale's thoughtless attentions to me. It was her interest to destroy the position, such as it was, that I held in his estimation, and it is quite likely her mother assisted her. Mrs. Milroy had her motive also, which I am really ashamed to mention, for wishing to drive me out of the house. Anyhow, the conspiracy has succeeded. I have been forced with Mr. Armadale's help to leave the major service. Don't be angry, Mr. Midwinner. Don't form a hasty opinion. I dare say Miss Milroy has some good qualities, though I have not found them out, and I assure you again and again that I don't blame Mr. Armadale. I only blame the people whose instrument he is. How is he their instrument? How can he be the instrument of any enemy of yours? Asked Mr. Midwinner. Pray excuse my anxiety, Miss Guilt. Allen's good name is as dear to me as my own. Miss Guilt's eyes turned full on him again, and Miss Guilt's heart abandoned itself innocently to an outburst of enthusiasm. How I admire your earnestness, she said. How I like your anxiety for your friend. Oh, if women could only form such friendships. Oh, you happy, happy men. Her voice faltered and her convenient teacup absorbed her for the third time. I would give all the little beauty I possessed, she said. If I could only find such a friend as Mr. Armadale has found in you. I never shall, Mr. Midwinner. I never shall. Let us go back to what we were talking about. I can only tell you how your friend is concerned in my misfortune by telling you something first about myself. I am like many other governesses. I am the victim of sad domestic circumstances. It may be weak of me, but I have a horror of alluding to them among strangers. My silence about my family and my friends exposes me to misinterpretation in my dependent position. Does it do me any harm, Mr. Midwinner, in your estimation? God forbid, said Midwinner, fervently. There is no man living, he went on, thinking of his own family story, who has better reason to understand and respect your silence than I have. Ms. Guilt seized his hand impulsively. Oh, she said, I knew it. The first moment I saw you. I knew that you two had suffered, that you two had sorrows which you kept sacred. Strange, strange sympathy. I believe in mesmerism to you. She suddenly recollected herself and shuddered. Oh, what have I done? What must you think of me? She exclaimed as he yielded to the magnetic fascination of her touch and forgetting everything but the hand that lay warm in his own, bent over it and kissed it. Spare me, she said faintly as she felt the burning touch of his lips. I am so friendless. I am so completely at your mercy. He turned away from her and hid his face in his hands. He was trembling and she saw it. She looked at him while his face was hidden from her. She looked at him with a furtive interest and surprise. How that man loves me, she thought. I wonder whether there was a time when I might have loved him. The silence between them remained unbroken for some minutes. He had felt her appeal to his consideration as she had never expected or intended him to feel it. He shrank from looking at her or from speaking to her again. Shall I go on with my story? She asked. Shall we forget and forgive on both sides? A woman's inveterate indulgence for every expression of a man's admiration which keeps within the limits of personal respect curved her lips gently into a charming smile. She looked down meditatively at her dress and brushed a chrome off her lap with a little flattering sigh. I was telling you she went on of my reluctance to speak to strangers of my sad family story. It was in that way as I afterward found out that I laid myself open to Ms. Milroy's malice and Ms. Milroy's suspicion. Private inquiries about me were addressed to the lady who was my reference at Ms. Milroy's suggestion in the first instance I have no doubt. I'm sorry to say this was not the worst of it. By some underhand means of which I'm quite ignorant, Mr. Armadale's simplicity was imposed on. And when application was made secretly to my reference in London, it was made, Mr. Midwinter, through your friend. Midwinter suddenly rose from his chair and looked at her. The fascination that she exercised over him, powerful as it was, became a suspended influence. Now that the plain disclosure came plainly at last from her lips, he looked at her, sat down again like a man bewildered without uttering a word. Remember how weak he is, pleaded Ms. Guelt gently, and make allowances for him as I do. The trifling accident of his failing to find my reference at the address given him seems, I can't imagine why, to have excited Mr. Armadale's suspicion. At any rate, he remained in London. What he did there it is impossible for me to say. I was quite in the dark, I knew nothing. I distrusted nobody. I was as happy in my little round of duties as I could be with a pupil whose affections I had failed to win. When one morning to my indescribable astonishment, Major Milroy showed me a correspondence between Mr. Armadale and himself. He spoke to me in his wife's presence. Poor creature, I make no complaint of her, such affliction as she suffers excuses everything. I wish I could give you some idea of the letters between Major Milroy and Mr. Armadale. But my head is only a woman's head and I was so confused and distressed at the time. All I can tell you is that Mr. Armadale chose to preserve silence about his proceedings in London, under circumstances which made that silence a reflection on my character. The Major was most kind. His confidence in me remained unshaken. But could his confidence protect me against his wife's prejudice and his daughter's ill will? Oh, the hardness of women to each other. Oh, the humiliation if men only knew some of us as we really are. What could I do? I couldn't defend myself against mere imputations and I couldn't remain in my position in my situation after a slur had been cast on me. My pride, heaven help me, I was brought up like a gentle woman and I have sensibilities that are not blended even yet. My pride got the better of me and I left my place. Don't let it distress you, Mr. Midwinter. There's a bright side to the picture. The ladies in the neighborhood have overwhelmed me with kindness. I have the prospect of getting pupils to teach. I've spared the mortification of going back to be a burden on my friends. The only complaint I have to make is, I think, a just one. Mr. Armadale has been back at Thorpe Ambrose for some days. I have entreated him by letter to grant me an interview. To tell me what dreadful suspicions he has of me and to let me set myself right in his estimation. Would you believe it? He has declined to see me under the influence of others, not of his own free will, I'm sure. Cruel, isn't it? But he has even used me more cruelly still. He persists in suspecting me. It is he who's having me watched. Oh, Mr. Midwinter, don't hate me for telling you what you must know. The man you found persecuting me and frightening me tonight was only earning his money after all, as Mr. Armadale's spy. Once more Midwinter started to his feet, and this time the thoughts that were in him found their way into words. I can't believe it. I won't believe it, he exclaimed indignantly. If the man told you that, the man lied. I beg your pardon, Ms. Guilt. I beg your pardon from the bottom of my heart. Don't, pray don't think I doubt you. I only say there is some dreadful mistake. I'm not sure that I understand as I ought all that you have told me, but this last infamous meanness of which you think Alan Guilty, I do understand. I swear to you, he is incapable of it. Some scoundrel has been taking advantage of him. Some scoundrel has been using his name. I'll prove it to you if you will only give me time. Let me go and clear it up at once. I can't rest. I can't bear to think of it. I can't even enjoy the pleasure of being here. Oh, he burst out desperately. I'm sure you feel for me after what you have said. I feel so for you. He stopped in confusion. Ms. Guilt's eyes were looking at him again, and Ms. Guilt's hand had found its way once more into his own. You are the most generous of living men, she said softly. I will believe what you tell me to believe. Go, she added in a whisper, suddenly releasing his hand and turning away from him. For both our sakes, go. His heart beat fast. He looked at her as she dropped into a chair and put her handkerchief to her eyes. For one moment he hesitated. The next, he snatched up his knapsack from the floor and left her precipitately without looking, without a backward look or a parting word. She rose when the door closed on him. Change came over the instant she was alone. The color faded out of her cheeks. The beauty died out of her eyes. Her face hardened horribly with a silent despair. It's even baser work than I bargained for, she said to deceive him. After pacing to and fro in the room for some minutes, she stopped weirdly before the glass over the fireplace. You strange creature, she murmured, leaning her elbows on the mantlepiece and languidly addressing the reflection of herself in the glass. Have you got any conscience left? And has that man roused it? The reflection of her face changed slowly. The color returned to her cheeks. The delicious linger began to suffuse her eyes again. Her lips parted gently and her quickening breath began to dim the surface of the glass. She drew back from it. After a moment's absorption in her own thoughts with the start of terror. What am I doing? She asked herself in a sudden panic of astonishment. Am I mad enough to be thinking of him in that way? She burst into a mocking laugh and opened her desk on the table recklessly with a bang. It's high time I had some talk with Mother Jezebel, she said, and sat down to write to Mrs. Oldershaw. I have met with Mr. Midwinter, she began, under very lucky circumstances, and I have made the most of my opportunity. He has just left me for his friend Armadale, and one of two good things will happen tomorrow. If they don't quarrel, the doors of Thorpe Ambrose will be open to me again at Mr. Midwinter's intercession. If they do quarrel, I shall be the unhappy cause of it, and I shall find my way in for myself, on the purely Christian errand of reconciling them. She hesitated at the next sentence, wrote the first few words of it, scratched them out again, and petulantly tore the letter into fragments, and threw the pen to the other side of the room. Turning quickly on her chair, she looked at the seat which Midwinter had occupied, her foot restlessly tapping the floor, and her handkerchief thrust like a gag between her clenched teeth. Young as she was, she thought, with her mind reviving the image of him in the empty chair. There has been something out of the common in your life, and I must, and I will know it. The house clock struck the hour and roused her. She sighed, and walking back to the glass, warily loosened the fastenings of her dress, warily removed the studs from the chemisette beneath it, and put them on the chimney piece. She looked indolently at the reflected beauties of her neck and bosom as she unplayed her hair and threw it back in one great mass over her shoulders. Fancy, she thought, if he saw me now. She turned back to the table and sighed against again as she extinguished one of the candles and took the other in her hand. Midwinter, she said as she passed it through the folding doors of the room to her bedchamber. I don't believe in his name to begin with. The night had advanced by more than an hour before Midwinter was back again at the great house. Twice, well as the homeward way was known to him, he had strayed out of the ride-road. The events of the evening, the interview with Miss Guilt herself, after his fortnight solitary thinking of her, the extraordinary change that had taken place in her position since he had seen her last, and the startling assertion of Allen's connection with it had all conspired to throw his mind into a state of ungovernable confusion. The darkness of the cloudy night added to his bewilderment. Even the familiar gates of Thorpe Ambrose seems strange to him. When he tried to think of it, it was a mystery to him how he had reached the place. The front of the house was dark and closed for the night. Midwinter went around to the back. The sound of men's voices as he advanced caught his ear. They were soon distinguishable as the voices of the first and second footmen. The subject of the conversation between them was their master. I'll let you in even half-crown. He's driven out of the neighborhood before the week is over his head, said the first footman. Done, said the second. He isn't as easy driven as you think. Isn't he, retorted the other. He'll be mobbed if he stops here. I tell you again, he's not satisfied with the mess he's gotten into already. I know it for certain. He's having the governess watched. At those words, Midwinter mechanically checked himself before he turned the corner of the house. His first doubt of the result of his meditated appeal to Allen ran through him like a sudden chill. The influence exercised by the voice of public scandal is a force which acts in opposition to the ordinary law of mechanics. It is strongest, not by concentration, but by distribution. To the primary sound we may shut our ears, but the reverberation of it in echoes is irresistible. On his way back, Midwinter's one desire had been to find Allen up and to speak with him immediately. His one hope now was to gain time to contend with the new doubts and to silence the new misgivings. His one present anxiety was to hear that Allen had gone to bed. He turned the corner of the house and presented himself before the men smoking their pipes in the back garden. As soon as their astonishment allowed them to speak, they offered to rouse their master. Allen had given his friend up for that night and had gone to bed about a half an hour since. It was my master's particular order, sir, said the head footman, that he was to be told of it if you came back. It is my particular request, returned Midwinter, that you won't disturb him. The men looked at each other, wonderingly as he took his candle and left them. End of book the third, chapter seven, recording by Greg Bowman.