 Preface 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 Greg Bowman. No Name by Wilkie Collins. Preface. The main purpose of this story is to appeal to the reader's interest in a subject which has been the theme of some of the greatest writers living and dead, but which has never been and can never be exhausted, because it is a subject eternally interesting to all mankind. Here is one more book that depicts the struggle of a human creature under those opposing influences of good and evil, which we have all felt, which we have all known. It has been my aim to make the character of Magdalene which personifies this struggle a pathetic character. Even in its perversity and its error. And I have tried hard to attain this result by the least obtrusive and the least artificial of all means, by a resolute adherence throughout to the truth as it is in nature. This design was no easy one to accomplish, and it has been a great encouragement to me during the publication of my story in its periodical form to know on the authority of many readers that the object which I had proposed to myself, I might in some degree consider as an object achieved. Round the central figure in the narrative, other characters will be found grouped in sharp contrast, contrast for the most part in which I have endeavored to make the element of humor mainly predominant. I have sought to impart this relief to the more serious passages in the book. Not only because I believe myself to be justified in doing so by the loss of art, but because experience has taught me, what the experience of my readers will doubt was confirmed, that there is no such moral phenomenon as unmixed tragedy to be found in the world around us. Look where we may, the dark threads in the light, cross each other perpetually in the texture of human life. To pass from the characters to the story, it will be seen that the narrative related in these pages has been constructed on a plan which differs from the plan followed in my last novel and in some other of my works published at an earlier date. The only secret contained in this book is revealed midway in the first volume. From that point, all the main events of the story are purposely foreshadowed before they take place, my present design being to rouse the reader's interest in following the train of circumstances by which these foreseen events are brought about, and trying this new ground, I am not turning my back in doubt on the ground which I have passed over already. My one object in following a new course is to enlarge the range of my studies in the art of writing fiction and to vary the form in which I make my appeal to the reader as attractively as I can. There is no need for me to add more to these few prefatory words than is here written. What I might otherwise have wished to say in this place, I have endeavored to make the book itself save for me. To Francis Carr Beard, fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in remembrance of the time when the closing scenes of this story were written. End of preface, recording by Greg Bauman. The first scene, 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. No Name by Wilkie Collins. The first scene, Chapter 1. The hands on the hall-clock pointed to half past six in the morning. The house was a country residence in West Somersetshire, called Coom Raven. The day was the Fourth of March, and the year was 1846. No sounds but the steady ticking of the clock and the lumpish snoring of a large dog stretched on a mat outside the dining-room door disturbed the mysterious morning stillness of hall and staircase, who were the sleepers hidden in the upper regions, let the house reveal its own secrets, and, one by one, as they descend the stairs from their beds, at the sleepers disclose themselves. As the clock pointed to a quarter to seven, the dog woke and shook himself. After waiting in vain for the footman, who was accustomed to let him out, the animal wandered breastlessly from one closed door to another on the ground floor, and returning to his mat in great perplexity, appealed to the sleeping family with a long and melancholy howl. Before the last notes of the dog's remonstrance had died away, the okon stares in the higher regions of the house creaked under slowly descending footsteps. In a minute more, the first of the female servants made her appearance, with a dingy woollen shawl over her shoulders. For the March morning was bleak, and rheumatism and the cook were old acquaintances. Leaving the dog's first cordial advances with the worst possible grace, the cook slowly opened the whole door and let the animal out. It was a wild morning. Over a spacious lawn and behind a black plantation of furs, the rising sun rent its way upward through piles of ragged gray cloud. Heavy drops of rain fell few and far between. The March wind shuddered round the corners of the house, and the wet trees swayed wearily. Seven o'clock struck, and the signs of domestic life began to show themselves in more rapid succession. The housemaid came down, tall and slim, with the state of the spring temperature written redly on her nose. The ladies' maid followed, young, smart, plump, and sleepy. The kitchen maid came next, afflicted with the face ache and making no secret of her sufferings. Last of all the footman appeared, yawning disconsolently, the living picture of a man who felt that he had been defrauded of his fair night's rest. The conversation of the servants when they assembled before the slowly lighting kitchen fire referred to a recent family event, and turned at starting on this question. Had Thomas, the footman, seen anything of the concert at Clifton at which his master and the two young ladies had been present on the previous night? Yes, Thomas had heard the concert. He had been paid for to go in at the back. It was a loud concert. It was a hot concert. It was described at the top of the bill as grand. Whether it was worth travelling sixteen miles to hear by railway, with the additional hardship of going back nineteen miles by road, at half past one in the morning, was a question which he would leave his master and the young ladies to decide. His own opinion, in the meantime, being unhesitatingly, no. Further inquiries on the part of all the female servants in succession elicited no additional information of any sort. Thomas could hum none of the songs and could describe none of the ladies' dresses. His audience, accordingly, gave him up in despair, and the kitchen small talk flowed back into its ordinary channels, until the clock struck eight and startled the assembled servants into separating for their morning's work. A quarter past eight, and nothing happened. Half past, and more signs of life appeared from the bedroom regions. The next member of the family who came downstairs was Mr. Andrew Vanstone, the master of the house. Tall, stout, and upright, with bright blue eyes and healthy florid complexion, his brown plush shooting-jacket carelessly buttoned a rye, his vixenish little scotch terrier barking unrebuked at his heels, one hand thrust into his waistcoat pocket, and the other smacking the banisters cheerfully as he came downstairs humming a tune. Mr. Vanstone showed his character on the surface of him freely to all men. An easy, hearty, handsome, good-humored gentleman who walked on the sunny side of the way of life, and who asked nothing better than to meet all his fellow-passengers in this world on the sunny side, too. Estimating him by years, he had turned fifty. Judging him by lightness of heart, strength of constitution, and capacity for enjoyment, he was no older than most men who have only turned thirty. Thomas! cried Mr. Vanstone, taking up his old felt hat and his thick walking stick from the hall-table, breakfast this morning at ten. The young ladies are not likely to be down earlier after the concert last night. By the by, how did you like the concert yourself, eh? You thought it was grand? Quite bright, so it was. Nothing but crash-bang! Varied now and then by bang-crash! All the women dressed within an inch of their lives, smothering heats, blazing gas, had no room for anybody. Yes, yes, Thomas, grand's the word for it, and comfortable isn't. With that expression of opinion, Mr. Vanstone whistled to his vixenish terrier, flourished his stick at the hall-door in cheerful defiance of the rain, and set off through wind and weather for his morning walk. The hands, stealing their steady way round the dial of the clock, pointed to ten minutes to nine. Another member of the family appeared on the stairs. Miss Garth, the governess. No observant eyes could have surveyed Miss Garth without seeing at once that she was a North Country woman. Her hard-featured face, her masculine readiness and decision of movement, her obstinate honesty of look and manner, all proclaimed her border birth and border training. Though little more than forty years of age, her hair was quite gray, and she wore over it the plain cap of an old woman. Neither hair nor headdress was out of harmony with her face. It looked older than her years. The hard handwriting of trouble had scored it heavily at some past time. The self-possession of her progress downstairs, and the air of habitual authority with which she looked about her, spoke well for her position in Mr. Vanstone's family. This was evidently not one of the forlorn, persecuted, piteously dependent order of governesses. Here was a woman who lived on ascertained and honourable terms with her employers. A woman who looked capable of sending any parents in England to the right about, if they failed to rate her at her proper value. Breakfast at ten, repeated Miss Garth, when the footman had answered the bell and had mentioned his master's orders. Ha! I thought what would come of that concert last night. And people who live in the country patronise public amusements, public amusements return the compliment by upsetting the family afterward for days together. You're upset, Thomas. I can see your eyes as red as a ferret, and your cravat looks as if you had slept in it. Bring the kettle at a quarter to ten, and if you don't get better in the course of the day, come to me, and I'll give you a dose of physics. That's a well-meaning lad if you only let him alone, continued Miss Garth in soliloquy when Thomas had retired. But he's not strong enough for concerts twenty miles off. They wanted me to go with them last night. Yes, catch me. Nine o'clock struck, and the minute hand stole on to twenty minutes past the hour before any more footsteps were heard on the stairs. At the end of that time two ladies appeared, descending to the breakfast-room together, Mrs. Vanstone and her eldest daughter. If the personal attractions of Mrs. Vanstone at an earlier period of life had depended solely on her native English charms of complexion and freshness, she must have long since lost the last relics of her fairer self. But her beauty as a young woman had passed beyond the average national limits, and she still preserved the advantage of her more exceptional personal gifts. Although she was now in her forty-fourth year, although she had been tried in bygone times by the premature loss of more than one of her children, and by long attacks of illness which had followed those bereavements of former years, she still preserved the fair proportion and subtle delicacy of feature once associated with the all-adorning brightness and freshness of beauty which had left her never to return. Her eldest child, now descending the stairs by her side, was the mirror in which she could look back and see again the reflection of her own youth. There, folded thick on the daughter's head, lay the massive dark hair which, on the mother's, was fast turning gray. There, in the daughter's cheek, glowed the lovely dusky red which had faded from the mother's to bloom again no more. Mrs. Vanstone had already reached the first maturity of womanhood. She had completed her sixth and twentieth year. Inheriting the dark majestic character of her mother's beauty, she had yet hardly inherited all its charms. Though the shape of her face was the same, the features were scarcely so delicate, their proportion was scarcely so true. She was not so tall. She had the dark brown eyes of her mother, full and soft with the steady luster in them which Mrs. Vanstone's eyes had lost, and yet there was less interest, less refinement and depth of feeling in her expression. It was gentle and feminine, but clouded by a certain quiet reserve from which her mother's face was free. If we dare to look closely enough, may we not observe that the moral force of character and the higher intellectual capabilities in parents seem often to wear out mysteriously in the course of transmission to children. In these days of insidious nervous exhaustion and subtly spreading nervous malady, is it not possible that the same rule may apply less barely than we are willing to admit to the bodily gifts as well? The mother and daughter slowly descended the stairs together, the first dressed in dark brown with an Indian shawl thrown over her shoulders. The second more simply attired in black with a plain collar and cuffs and a dark orange-colored ribbon over the bosom of her dress. As they crossed the hall and entered the breakfast-room, Miss Vanstone was full of the all-absorbing subject of the last night's concert. I am so sorry, mama, you were not with us, she said. You have been so strong and so well ever since last summer. You have felt so many years younger, as you said yourself, that I am sure the exertion would not have been too much for you. Perhaps my love, but it was as well to keep on the safe side. Quite as well, remarked Miss Garth, appearing at the breakfast-room door. Look at Nora. Good morning, my dear. Look, I say, at Nora. A perfect wreck. A living proof of your wisdom and mine in staying at home. The vile gas, the foul air, the late hours? What can you expect? She's not made of iron, and she suffers accordingly. No, my dear, you needn't deny it. I see you've got a headache. Nora's dark, handsome face brightened into a smile, then lightly clouded again with its accustomed quiet reserve. A very little headache, not half enough to make me regret the concert, she said, and walked away by herself to the window. On the far side of a garden and paddock, the view overlooked a stream, some farm-buildings which lay beyond, and the opening of a wooded rocky pass called, in summerceture, a coom, which here cleft its way through the hills that closed the prospect. A winding strip of road was visible, at no great distance, amid the undulations of the open ground, and along this strip the stalwart figure of Mr. Van Stone was now easily recognizable, returning to the house after his morning walk. He flourished his stick gaily as he observed his eldest daughter at the window. She nodded and waved her hand in return, very gracefully and prettily, but with something of an old-fashioned formality in her manner, which looked strangely and so young a woman, and which seemed out of harmony with a salutation addressed to her father. The hall-clock struck the adjourned breakfast hour. When the minute hand had recorded the lapse of five minutes more, a door banged in the bedroom regions. A clear young voice was heard singing blithely. Light, rapid footsteps patted on the upper stairs, descended with a jump to the landing, and patted again, faster than ever, down the lower flight. In another moment, the youngest of Mr. Van Stone's two daughters, and two only surviving children, dashed into view on the dingy old oaken stairs with the suddenness of a flash of light, and clearing the last three steps into the hall at a jump, presented herself breathless in the breakfast-room to make the family circle complete. By one of those strange caprices of nature, which science leaves still unexplained, the youngest of Mr. Van Stone's children presented no recognizable resemblance to either of her parents. How had she come by her hair? How had she come by her eyes? Even her father and mother had asked themselves those questions as she grew up to girlhood, and had been sorely perplexed to answer them. Her hair was of that purely light-brown hue, unmixed with flaxen or yellow or red, which is often seen on the plumage of a bird than on the head of a human being. Her hair was soft and plentiful, and waved downward from her low forehead in regular folds, but to some tastes it was dull and dead in its absolute want of glossiness, in its monotonous purity of plain light color. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were just a shade darker than her hair, and seemed made expressly for those violet-blue eyes which assert their most irresistible charm when associated with a fair complexion. Here exactly that the promise of her face failed of performance in the most startling manner. The eyes, which should have been dark, were incomprehensibly and discordantly light. They were of that nearly colorless gray, which, though little attractive in itself, possesses the rare compensating merit of interpreting the finest gradations of thought, the gentlest changes of feeling, the deepest trouble of passion, with a subtle transparency of expression which no darker eyes can rival. Thus squintly self-contradictory in the upper part of her face, she was hardly less at variance with established ideas of harmony in the lower. Her lips had the true feminine delicacy of form, her cheeks the lovely brownness and smoothness of youth, but the mouth was too large and firm, the chin too square and massive for her sex and age. Her complexion partook of the pure monotony of tint which characterized her hair. It was the same soft, warm, creamy fairness all over, without a tinge of color in the cheeks, except on occasions of unusual bodily exertion or sudden mental disturbance. The whole countenance, so remarkable in its strongly opposed characteristics, was rendered additionally striking by its extraordinary mobility. The large electric light-gray eyes were hardly ever in repose. All varieties of expression followed each other over the plastic, ever-changing face with a giddy rapidity which left sober analysis far behind in the race. The girl's exuberant vitality asserted itself all over her, from head to foot. Her figure, taller than her sister's, taller than the average of woman's height. Instinct with such a seductive serpentine suppleness, so lightly and playfully graceful that its movements suggested not unnaturally the movements of a young cat. Her figure was so perfectly developed already that no one who saw her could have supposed that she was only eighteen. She bloomed in the full physical maturity of twenty years or more, bloomed naturally and irresistibly in rites of her matchless health and strength. Here, in truth, lay the mainspring of this strangely constituted organization. Her headlong course down the house stairs, the brisk activity of all her movements, the incessant sparkle of expression in her face, the enticing gaiety which took the hearts of the quietest people by storm, even the reckless delight in bright colors which showed itself in her brilliantly striped morning dress, in her fluttering ribbons, in the large scarlet rosettes on her smart little shoes, all sprang alike from the same source, from the overflowing physical health which strengthened every muscle, braced every nerve, and set the warm young blood tingling through her veins like the blood of a growing child. On her entry into the breakfast-room she was saluted with the customary remonstrance which her flighty disregard of all punctuality habitually evoked from the long-suffering household authorities. In Miss Garth's favorite phrase, Magdalen was born with all the senses except a sense of order. Magdalen. It was a strange name to have given her, strange indeed, and yet chosen under no extraordinary circumstances. The name had been born by one of Mr. Vanstown's sisters, who had died in early youth, and in affectionate remembrance of her he had called his second daughter by it, just as he had called his eldest daughter Nora for his wife's sake. Magdalen, surely the grand old Bible name, suggestive of a sad and somber dignity, recalling in its first association mournful ideas of penance and seclusion, had been here as events had turned out inappropriately bestowed. Surely this self-contradictory girl had perversely accomplished one contradiction more, by developing into a character which was out of all harmony with her own Christian name. "'Late again,' said Mrs. Vanstown, as Magdalen breathlessly kissed her. "'Late again,' chimed in Miss Garth, when Magdalen came her way next. "'Well,' she went on, taking the girl's chin, familiarly in her hand, with a half satirical, half fond attention, which betrayed that the youngest daughter, with all her faults, was the governor's favorite. "'Well, and what has the concert done for you? What form of suffering has dissipation inflicted on your system this morning?' "'Suffering,' repeated Magdalen, recovering her breath and the use of her tongue with it. "'I don't know the meaning of the word. If there's anything to matter with me, I'm too well. Suffering. I'm ready for another concert tonight, and a ball to-morrow, and a play the day after.' "'Oh,' cried Magdalen, dropping into a chair and crossing her hands rapturously on the table. "'How I do like pleasure!' "'Come! That's explicit at any rate,' said Miss Garth. "'I think Pope must have had you in his mind when he wrote his famous lines. Men, some to business, some to pleasure take, but every woman is at heart a rake.' "'The deuce she is!' cried Mr. Vanstone, entering the room while Miss Garth was making her quotation, with the dogs at his heels. "'Well, live and learn. If you're all rakes, Miss Garth, the sexes are turned topsy-turvy with a vengeance, and the men will have nothing left for it but to stop at home and darn the stockings. Let's have some breakfast.' "'How do you do, Papa?' said Magdalen, taking Mr. Vanstone as boisterously around the neck as if he belonged to some larger order of Newfoundland dog, and was made to be romped with at his daughter's convenience. I'm the rake Miss Garth means, and I want to go to another concert, or a play if you like, or a ball if you prefer it, or anything else in the way of amusement that puts me into a new dress, and plunges me into a crowd of people, and illuminates me with plenty of light, and sets me in a tingle of excitement all over from head to foot. Anything will do, as long as it doesn't send us to bed at eleven o'clock.' Mr. Vanstone sat down composably under his daughter's flow of language, like a man who was well used to verbal inundation from that quarter. If I am to be allowed my choice of amusements next time, said the worthy gentleman, I think a play will suit me better than a concert. The girls enjoyed themselves amazingly, my dear,' he continued, addressing his wife, more than I did, I must say. It was all together above my mark. They played one piece of music which lasted forty minutes. It stopped three times, by the way, and we all thought it was done each time and clapped our hands, rejoiced to be rid of it, but on it went again to our great surprise and mortification, till we gave it up and despair, and all wished ourselves at Jericho. Nara, my dear, when we had crashed bang for forty minutes, with three stoppages, by the way, what did they call it? A symphony, papa,' replied Nara. Yes, you darling old goff, a symphony by the great Beethoven, added Magdalen. How can you say you were not amused? Have you forgotten the yellow-looking forward woman with the unpronounceable name? Don't you remember the faces she made when she sang, and the way she curtsied and curtsied till she cheated the foolish people into crying encore? Look here, mama, look here, Miss Garth. She snatched up an empty plate from the table to represent a sheet of music, held it before her in the established concert room position, and produced an imitation of the unfortunate singer's grimaces and curtsyings, so accurately and quaintly true to the original that her father roared with laughter, and even the footman, who came in at that moment with the post-bag, rushed out of the room again, and committed the indecorum of echoing his master audibly on the other side of the door. Letters, papa, I want the key," said Magdalen, passing from the imitation at the breakfast-table to the post-bag on the sideboard with the easy abruptness which characterized all her actions. Mr. Van Stone searched his pockets and shook his head. Though his youngest daughter might resemble him in nothing else, it was easy to see where Magdalen's un-mythological habits came from. I dare say I have left it in the library, along with my other keys," said Mr. Van Stone. Go and look for it, my dear. You really should check, Magdalen, pleaded Mrs. Van Stone addressing her husband when her daughter had left the room. Those habits of mimicry are growing on her, and she speaks to you with a levity which it is positively shocking to hear. Exactly what I have said myself till I am tired of repeating it, remarked Miss Garth, she treats Mr. Van Stone as if he was a kind of younger brother of hers. You are kind to us in everything else, papa, and you make kind allowances from Magdalen's high spirits, don't you?" said the quiet Nora, taking her father's part and her sisters with so little show of resolution on the surface that few observers would have been sharp enough to detect the genuine substance beneath it. Thank you, my dear," said good-natured Mr. Van Stone. Thank you for a very pretty speech. As for Magdalen, he continued addressing his wife and Miss Garth, she's an unbroken filly. Let her caper and kick in the paddock to her heart's content. Time enough to break her to harness when she gets a little older. The door opened and Magdalen returned with the key. She unlocked the post-bag at the side-board and poured out the letters in a heap. Sorting them gaily in less than a minute, she approached the breakfast table with both hands full and delivered the letters all round with the businesslike rapidity of a London postman. Two for Nora, she announced, beginning with her sister, three for Miss Garth, none for Mama, one for me, and the other six all for papa. You lazy old darling, you hate answering letters, don't you? pursued Magdalen dropping the postman's character and assuming the daughter's. How you will grumble and fidget in the study, and how you will wish there were no such things as letters in the world, and how red your nice old bald head will get at the top with the wary of writing the answers, and how many of the answers you will leave until tomorrow after all. The Bristol Theatre's open papa, she whispered slyly and suddenly in her father's ear. I saw it in the newspaper when I went to the library to get the key. Let's go tomorrow night. While his daughter was chattering, Mr. Vanstone was mechanically sorting his letters. He turned over the first four in succession and looked carelessly at the addresses. When he came to the fifth, his attention, which had hitherto wandered toward Magdalen, suddenly became fixed on the postmark of the letter. Stooping over him with her head on his shoulder, Magdalen could see the postmark as plainly as her father saw it. New Orleans. An American letter, papa, she said. Who do you know at New Orleans? Mrs. Vanstone started and looked eagerly at her husband the moment Magdalen spoke those words. Mr. Vanstone said nothing. He quietly removed his daughter's arm from his neck as if he wished to be free from all interruption. She returned accordingly to her place at the breakfast-table. Her father, with the letter in his hand, waited a little before he opened it. Her mother, looking at him the while, with an eager expected attention which attracted Miss Garth's notice and Nora's as well as Magdalen's. After a minute or more of hesitation, Mr. Vanstone opened the letter. His face changed color the instant he read the first lines, his cheeks fading to a dull, yellow-brown hue which would have been ashy paleness in a less floored man, and his expression becoming saddened and overcrowded in a moment. Nora and Magdalen, watching anxiously, saw nothing but the change that had passed over their father. Miss Garth alone observed the effect which changed produced on the attentive mistress of the house. It was not the effect which she or anyone could have anticipated. Mrs. Vanstone looked excited rather than alarmed. A faint flush rose on her cheeks. Her eyes brightened. She stirred the tea round and round in her cup in a restless, impatient manner which was not natural to her. Magdalen, in her capacity of spoiled child, was as usual the first to break the silence. What is the matter, Papa? she asked. Nothing, said Mr. Vanstone sharply, without looking up at her. I'm sure there must be something, persisted Magdalen. I'm sure there is bad news, Papa, in that American letter. There is nothing in the letter that concerns you, said Mr. Vanstone. It was the first direct rebuff that Magdalen had ever received from her father. She looked at him with an incredulous surprise which would have been irresistibly absurd under less serious circumstances. Nothing more was said. For the first time perhaps in their lives the family sat around the breakfast-table in painful silence. Mr. Vanstone's hearty morning appetite, like his hearty morning spirits, was gone. He absently broke off some morsels of dry toast from the rack near him, absently finished his first cup of tea, then asked for a second, which he left before him, untouched. Nora, he said, after an interval, you needn't wait for me. Magdalen, my dear, you can go when you like. His daughters rose immediately, and Miss Garth considerably followed their example. When an easy-tempered man does assert himself in his family, the rarity of the administration invariably has its effect, and the will of that easy-tempered man is law. What can have happened? whispered Nora as they closed the breakfast room door and crossed the hall. What does Papa mean by being cross with me? exclaimed Magdalen, chafing under a sense of her own injuries. May I ask, what right you had to pry into your father's private affairs? retorted Miss Garth. Right? repeated Magdalen, I have no secrets from Papa. What business has Papa to have secrets from me? I consider myself insulted. If you considered yourself properly reprude for not minding your own business, said the plain-spoken Miss Garth, you would be a trifle nearer the truth. Ah, you are like the rest of the girls in the present day, not one in a hundred of you knows which end of hers uppermost. The three ladies entered the morning room, and Magdalen acknowledged Miss Garth's reproof by banging the door. Half an hour passed, and neither Mr. Vanstow nor his wife left the breakfast room. The servant, ignorant of what had happened, went in to clear the table, found his master and mistress seated close together in deep consultation, and immediately went out again. Another quarter of an hour elapsed before the breakfast room door was opened, and the private conference of the husband and wife came to an end. I hear Mama in the hall, said Nora. Perhaps she is coming to tell us something. Mrs. Vanstow entered the morning room as her daughter spoke. The collar was deeper on her cheeks, and the brightness of half-dried tears glistened in her eyes. Her step was more hasty. All her movements were quicker than usual. I bring news, my dears, which will surprise you," she said, addressing her daughters. Your father and I are going to London tomorrow. Magdalen caught her mother by the arm in speechless astonishment. Miss Garth dropped her work on her lap. Even the sedate Nora started to her feet and amazingly repeated the words, going to London? Without us, added Magdalen. Your father and I are going alone, said Mrs. Vanstown. Perhaps for as long as three weeks, but no longer. We are going," she hesitated. We are going on important family business. Don't hold me, Magdalen. This is a sudden necessity. I have a great deal to do today. Many things to set in order before tomorrow. They're there, my love. Let me go." She drew her arm away, hastily kissed her youngest daughter on the forehead, and at once left the room again. Even Magdalen saw that her mother was not to be coaxed into hearing or answering any more questions. The morning wore on, and nothing was seen of Mr. Vanstown. With the reckless curiosity of her age and character, Magdalen, in defiance of Miss Garth's prohibition and her sister's remonstrances, determined to go to the study and look for her father there. When she tried the door, it was locked on the inside. She said, It's only me, Papa, and waited for the answer. I'm busy now, my dear, was the answer. Don't disturb me. Mrs. Vanstown was, in another way, equally inaccessible. She remained in her own room, with the female servants about her, immersed in endless preparations for the approaching departure. The servants, little used in that family to sudden resolutions and unexpected orders, were awkward and confused in obeying directions. They ran from room to room unnecessarily, and lost time and patience in jostling each other on the stairs. If a stranger had entered the house that day, he might have imagined that an unexpected disaster had happened in it instead of an unexpected necessity for a journey to London. Nothing proceeded in its ordinary routine. Magdalene, who was accustomed to pass the morning at the piano, wandered breastlessly about the staircases and passages, and in and out of doors where there were glimpses of fine weather. Nora, whose fondness for reading had passed into a family proverb, took up book after book from table and shelf and laid them down again in despair of fixing her attention. Even Miss Garth felt the all-pervading influence of the household disorganization, and sat alone by the morning-room fire, with her head shaking ominously, and her work laid aside. Family affairs, thought Miss Garth, pondering over Mrs. Vanstone's vague explanatory words, I have lived twelve years at Coomeraven, and these are the first family affairs which have gotten between the parents and the children in all my experience. What does it mean? Change? I suppose I'm getting old. I don't like change. End of Scene 1, Chapter 1 The first scene, Chapter 2 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. The first scene, Chapter 2 of No Name by Wilkie Collins. At ten o'clock the next morning, Nora and Magdalene stood alone in the hall at Coomeraven, watching the departure of the carriage which took their father and mother to the London train. Up to the last moment both the sisters had hoped for some explanation of that mysterious family business to which Mrs. Vanstone had so briefly alluded on the previous day. No such explanation had been offered, even the agitation of the leave-taking, under circumstances entirely new in the home experience of the parents and children, had not shaken the resolute discretion of Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone. They had gone with the warmest testimonies of affection, with farewell embraces fervently reiterated again and again, but without dropping one word from first to last of the nature of their errand. As the grating sound of the carriage wheels ceased suddenly at a turn in the road, the sisters looked one another in the face, each feeling and each betraying in her own way the dreary sense that she was openly excluded for the first time from the confidence of her parents. Nora's customary reserve strengthened into sullen silence. She sat down in one of the hall chairs and looked out frowningly through the open-house door. Magdalene, as usual when her temper was ruffled, expressed her dissatisfaction in the plainest terms. I don't care who knows it, I think we are both of us shamefully ill-used. With those words the young lady followed her sister's example by seating herself on a hall chair and looking aimlessly out through the open-house door. Almost at the same moment Miss Garth entered the hall from the morning room. Her quick observation showed her the necessity for interfering to some practical purpose, and her ready good sense at once pointed the way. Look up, both of you, if you please, and listen to me, said Miss Garth. If we are all three to be comfortable and happy together, now we are alone, we must stick to our usual habits and go on in our regular way. There is the state of things in plain words, except the situation, as the French say. Here am I to set you the example. I have just ordered an excellent dinner at the customary hour. I am going to the medicine chest next to visit the kitchen maid, an unwholesome girl whose face ache is all stomach. In the meantime, Nora, my dear, you will find your work and your books as usual in the library. Magdalen, suppose you leave off tying your handkerchief into knots and use your fingers on the keys of the piano instead. We'll lunch at one and take the dogs out afterward. Be as brisk and cheerful both of you as I am. Come, rouse up directly. If I see those gloomy faces any longer, as sure as my name's Garth, I'll give your mother written warning and go back to my friends by the mixed train at twelve forty. Concluding her address of expostulation in those terms, Miss Garth led Nora to the library door, pushed Magdalen into the morning room, and went on her own way sternly to the regions of the medicine chest. In this half-gesting, half- earnest manner, she was accustomed to maintain a sort of friendly authority over Mr. Vanstone's daughters, after her proper functions as governess had necessarily come to an end. Nora, it is needless to say, had long since ceased to be her pupil, and Magdalen had by this time completed her education. But Miss Garth had lived too long and too intimately under Mr. Vanstone's roof to be parted with for any purely formal considerations, and the first hint of going away which she had thought at her duty to drop was dismissed with such affectionate warmth of protest that she never repeated it again except in jest. The entire management of the household was, from that time forth, left in her hands, and to those duties she was free to add what companionable assistance she could render to Nora's reading, and what friendly superintendents she could still exercise over Magdalen's music. Such were the terms on which Miss Garth was now a resident in Mr. Vanstone's family. Toward the afternoon the weather improved, and half past one the sun was shining brightly, and the ladies left the house, accompanied by the dogs, to set forth on their walk. They crossed the stream and ascended by the little rocky pass to the hills beyond, then diverged to the left and returned by a cross-road which led through the village with whom Raven. As they came inside of the first cottages they passed a man hanging about the road who looked attentively, first at Magdalen, then at Nora. They merely observed that he was short, that he was dressed in black, and that he was a total stranger to them, and continued their homeward walk without thinking more about the Lordering foot passenger whom they had met on their way back. After they had left the village and had entered the road which led straight to the house Magdalen surprised Miss Garth by announcing that the stranger in black had turned after they had passed him and was now following them. He keeps on Nora's side of the road, she said mischievously, I'm not the attraction, don't blame me. Whether the man was really following them or not made little difference for they were now close to the house. As they passed through the lodge gates Miss Garth looked round and saw that the stranger was quickening his pace, apparently with the purpose of entering into conversation. Seeing this she had once directed the young ladies to go on to the house with the dogs, while she herself waited for events at the gate. There was just time to complete this discreet arrangement before the stranger reached the lodge. He took off his hat to Miss Garth politely as she turned round. What did he look like on the face of him? He looked like a clergyman in culties. Taking his portrait from top to toe, the picture of him began with a tall hat, broadly encircled by a mourning band of crumpled crepe. Below the hat was a lean, long, shallow face, deeply pitted with smallpox, and characterized very remarkably by eyes of two different colors, one billious green, one billious brown, both sharply intelligent. His hair was iron gray, carefully brushed round at the temples, his cheeks and chin were in the bluest bloom of smooth shaving, his nose was short Roman, his lips long, thin, and supple, curled up at the corners with a mildly humorous smile. His white cravat was high, stiff, and dingy. The collar, higher stiffer and dingier, projected its rigid points on either side beyond his chin. Lower down, the lithe little figure of the man was arrayed throughout in sober shabby black. His frock coat was button tight around the waist and left to bulge open majestically at the chest. His hands were covered with black cotton gloves neatly darned at the fingers, his umbrella, worn down at the ferrule to the last quarter of an inch, was carefully preserved nevertheless in an oil skin case. The front view of him was the view in which he looked oldest. Meeting him face to face, he might have been estimated at fifty or more. Walking behind him, his back and shoulders were almost young enough to have passed for five and thirty. His manners were distinguished by a grave serenity. When he opened his lips he spoke in a rich bass voice, with an easy flow of language and a strict attention to the elocutionary claims of words in more than one syllable. Persuasion distilled from his mildly curling lips and shabby as he was perennial flowers of courtesy bloomed all over him from head to foot. This is the residence of Mr. Van Stone, I believe. He began with a circular wave of his hand in the direction of the house. Have I the honor of addressing a member of Mr. Van Stone's family? Yes, said the plain spoken Miss Garth, you are addressing Mr. Van Stone's governess. The persuasive man fell back a step, admired Mr. Van Stone's governess, advanced to step again and continue the conversation. And the two young ladies, he went on, the two young ladies who were walking with you are doubtless Mr. Van Stone's daughters. I recognized the darker of the two and the elder as I apprehend by her likeness to her handsome mother, the younger lady. You are acquainted with Mrs. Van Stone, I suppose? said Miss Garth, interrupting the stranger's flow of language, which all things considered was beginning, in her opinion, to flow rather freely. The stranger acknowledged the interruption by one of his polite bows and submerged Miss Garth in his next sentence as if nothing had happened. The younger lady, he proceeded, takes after her father, I presume. I assure you her face struck me, looking at it with my friendly interest in the family, I thought it very remarkable, I said to myself, charming, characteristic, memorable, not like her mother, no doubt the image of her father? Once more Miss Garth attempted to stem the man's flow of words. It was plain that he did not know Mr. Van Stone even by sight, otherwise he would never have committed the error of supposing that Magdalen took after her father. Did he know Mrs. Van Stone any better? He had left Miss Garth's question on the point unanswered. In the name of wonder, who was he? Powers of impudence, what did he want? You may be a friend of the family, though I don't remember your face, said Miss Garth. What may your commands be, if you please? Did you come here to pay Mrs. Van Stone a visit? I had anticipated the pleasure of communicating with Mrs. Van Stone, answered this inveterately evasive and inveterately civil man. How is she? Much as usual, said Miss Garth, feeling her resources of politeness fast failing her. Is she at home? No. Out for long? Gone to London with Mr. Van Stone. The man's long face suddenly grew longer, his billious brown eye looked disconcerted, and his billious green eye followed its example. His manner became palpably anxious, and his choice of words was more carefully selected than ever. His Mrs. Van Stone's absence seemed to extend over very lengthened period, he inquired. It will extend over three weeks, replied Miss Garth. I think you have now asked me questions enough," she went on, beginning to let her temper get the better of her at last. Be so good, if you please, as to mention your business and your name. If you have any message to leave for Mrs. Van Stone, I shall be writing to her by tonight's post, and I can take charge of it. A thousand thanks, a most valuable suggestion. Permit me to take advantage of it immediately. He was not in the least affected by the severity of Miss Garth's looks and language. He was simply relieved by her proposal, and he showed it with the most engaging sincerity. This time his billious green eye took the initiative and set his billious brown eye the example of recovered serenity. His curling lips took a new twist upward, he tucked his umbrella briskly under his arm, and produced from the breast of his coat a large, old-fashioned black pocketbook. From this he took a pencil and a card, hesitated and considered for a moment, wrote rapidly on the card, and placed it with the politest alacrity in Miss Garth's hand. I shall feel personally obliged, if you will honour me, by enclosing that card in your letter. He said, there is no necessity for my troubling you additionally with a message. My name will be quite sufficient to recall a little family matter to Mrs. Vanstone, which has no doubt escaped her memory. Except my best thanks, this has been a day of agreeable surprises to me. I have found the country hereabouts remarkably pretty. I have seen Mrs. Vanstone's two charming daughters. I have become acquainted with an honoured preceptress in Mr. Vanstone's family. I congratulate myself. I apologize for occupying your valuable time. I beg my renewed acknowledgments. I wish you good morning. He raised his tall hat, his brown eye twinkled, his green eye twinkled, his curly lips smiled sweetly. In a moment he turned on his heel. His youthful back appeared to the best advantage. His active little legs took him away trippingly in the direction of the village. One, two, three. And he reached the turn in the road. Four, five, six. And he was gone. Miss Garth looked down at the cart in her hand and looked up in blank astonishment. The name and address of the clerical-looking stranger, both written in pencil, ran as follows. Captain Rag, Post Office, Bristol. When she got back to the house, Miss Garth made no attempt to conceal her unfavourable opinion of the stranger in black. His object was no doubt to obtain pecuniary assistance from Mrs. Vanstone. What the nature of his claim on her might be seemed less intelligible, unless it was the claim of a poor relation. Had Mrs. Vanstone ever mentioned in the presence of her daughters the name of Captain Rag? Neither of them recollected to have heard it before. Had Mrs. Vanstone ever referred to any poor relations who were dependent on her? On the contrary, she had mentioned of late years that she doubted having any relations at all who were still living. And yet Captain Rag had plainly declared that the name on his card would recall a family matter to Mrs. Vanstone's memory. What did it mean? A false statement on the stranger's part without any intelligible reason for making it? Or a second mystery following close on the heels of the mysterious journey to London? All the probabilities seemed to point to some hidden connection between the family affairs which had taken Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone so suddenly from home, and the family matter associated with the name of Captain Rag. Miss Garth's doubts thronged back irresistibly on her mind as she sealed her letter to Mrs. Vanstone with the Captain's card added by way of enclosure. By return of post the answer arrived. Always the earliest riser among the ladies in the house, Miss Garth was alone in the breakfast room when the letter was brought in. Her first glance at its contents convinced her of the necessity of reading it carefully through in retirement before any embarrassing questions could be put to her. Leaving a message with the servant requesting Nora to make the tea that morning, she went upstairs at once to the solitude and security of her own room. Mrs. Vanstone's letter extended to some length. The first part of it referred to Captain Rag and entered unreservedly into all necessary explanations related to the man himself and to the motive which had brought him to Coombe Raven. It appeared from Mrs. Vanstone's statement that her mother had been twice married. Her mother's first husband had been a certain Dr. Rag, a widower with young children, and one of those children was now the un-military-looking Captain whose address was Post Office Bristol. Mrs. Rag had left no family by her first husband and had afterward married Mrs. Vanstone's father. Of that second marriage Mrs. Vanstone herself was the only issue. She had lost both her parents while she was still a young woman and in course of years her mother's family connections who were then her nearest surviving relatives had been one after another removed by death. She was left at the present writing without a relation in the world accepting, perhaps, certain cousins whom she had never seen and of whose existence even at the present moment she possessed no positive knowledge. Under these circumstances what family claim had Captain Rag on Mrs. Vanstone? None whatever. As the son of her mother's first husband by that husband's first wife not even the widest stretch of courtesy could have included him at any time in the list of Mrs. Vanstone's most distant relations. Well, knowing this the letter proceeded to say he had nevertheless persisted in forcing himself upon her as a species of family connection and she had weekly sanctioned the intrusion solely from the dread that he would otherwise introduce himself to Mr. Vanstone's notice and take unblushing advantage of Mr. Vanstone's generosity. Shrinking naturally from allowing her husband to be annoyed and probably cheated as well by any person who claimed however preposterously a family connection with herself it had been her practice for many years past to assist the Captain from her own purse on the condition that he should never come near the house and that he should not presume to make any application whatever to Mr. Vanstone. Readily admitting the imprudence of this course Mrs. Vanstone further explained that she had perhaps been the more inclined to adopt it through having always been accustomed for many days to see the Captain living now upon one member and now upon another of her mother's family. Possessed of abilities which might have raised him to distinction in almost any career that he could have chosen he had nevertheless from his youth upward been a disgrace to all his relatives. He had been expelled from the militia regiment in which he once held a commission. He had tried one employment after another and had discreditably failed in all. He lived on his wits in the lowest and basest meaning of the phrase. He had married a poor ignorant woman who had served as a waitress at some low-eating house who had unexpectedly come into a little money and whose small inheritance he had mercilessly squandered to the last farthing. In plain terms he was an incorrigible scoundrel and he had now added one more to the list of his many misdemeanors by impudently breaking the conditions on which Mrs. Vanstone had hitherto assisted him. She had written at once to the address indicated on his card in such terms and to such purpose as would prevent him, she hoped unbelieved, from ever venturing near the house again. Such were the terms in which Mrs. Vanstone concluded that first part of her letter which referred exclusively to Captain Rag. Although the statement thus presented implied a weakness in Mrs. Vanstone's character, which Ms. Garth, after many years of intimate experience, had never detected, she accepted the explanation as a matter of course, receiving it all the more readily and as much as it might, without impropriety, be communicated in substance to appease the irritated curiosity of the two young ladies. For this reason, especially, she perused the first half of the letter with an agreeable sense of relief. Far different was the impression produced on her when she advanced to the second half and when she had read it to the end. The second part of the letter was devoted to the subject of the journey to London. Mrs. Vanstone began by referring to the long and intimate friendship which had existed between Ms. Garth and herself. She now felt it due to that friendship to explain confidentially the motive which had induced her to leave home with her husband. Ms. Garth had delicately reframed from showing it, but she must naturally have felt and must still be feeling great surprise at the mystery in which their departure had been involved and she must doubtless have asked herself why Mrs. Vanstone should have associated with family affairs which, in her independent position as two relatives, must necessarily concern Mr. Vanstone alone. Without touching on those affairs which it was neither desirable nor necessary to do, Mrs. Vanstone then proceeded to say that she would at once set all Ms. Garth's doubts at rest so far as they related to herself by one plain acknowledgment. Her object in accompanying her husband to London was to see a certain celebrated physician and to consult him privately on a very delicate and anxious matter connected with the state of her health. In plainer terms still, this anxious matter meant nothing less than the possibility that she might again become a mother. When the doubt had first suggested itself she had treated it as a mere delusion, the long interval that had elapsed since the birth of her last child, the serious illness which had afflicted her after the death of that child in infancy, the time of life at which she had now arrived, all inclined her to dismiss the idea as soon as it arose in her mind. It had returned again and again in spite of her. She had felt the necessity of consulting the highest medical authority and had shrunk at the same time from alarming her daughters by summoning a London physician to the house. The medical opinion sought under the circumstances already mentioned had now been obtained. Her doubt was confirmed as a certainty. And the result, which might be expected to take place toward the end of the summer, was, at her age and with her constitutional peculiarities, a subject for serious future anxiety to say the least of it. The physician had done his best to encourage her, but she had understood the drift of his questions more clearly than he supposed, and she knew that he looked to the future with more than ordinary doubt. Having disclosed these particulars, Mrs. Vanstone requested that they might be kept a secret between her correspondent and herself. She had felt unwilling to mention her suspicions to Miss Garth until those suspicions had been confirmed, and she now recoiled with even greater reluctance from allowing her daughters to be in any way alarmed about her. It would be best to dismiss the subject for the present and to wait hopefully till the summer came. In the meantime they would all, she trusted, be happily reunited on the twenty-third of the month, which Mr. Vanstone had fixed for the day for their return. With this intimation and with the customary messages the letter abruptly and confusedly came to an end. For the first few minutes a natural sympathy for Mrs. Vanstone was the only feeling of which Miss Garth was conscious after she had laid the letter down. Air long, however, there rose obscurely in her mind a doubt which perplexed and distressed her, was the explanation which she had just read as satisfactory and as complete as it professed to be, testing it plainly by facts, surely not. On the morning of her departure Mrs. Vanstone had unquestionably left the house in good spirits. In her age and in her state of health were good spirits compatible with such an errand to a physician as the errand on which she was bent? Then again had that letter from New Orleans which had necessitated Mr. Vanstone's departure no share in occasioning his wife's departure as well? Why otherwise had she looked up so eagerly the moment her daughter mentioned the postmark? Granting the avowed motive for her journey did not her manner on the morning when the letter was opened and again on the morning of departure suggest the existence of some other motive which her letter kept concealed. If it was so the conclusion that followed was a very distressing one. Mrs. Vanstone, feeling what was due to her long friendship with Miss Garth, had apparently placed the fullest confidence in her on one subject by way of unsuspiciously maintaining the strictest reserve toward her on another. Naturally frank and straightforward in all her own dealings Miss Garth shrank from plainly pursuing her doubts to this result. A want of loyalty toward her tried and valued friend seemed implied in the mere dawning of it in her mind. She locked up the letter in her disk, roused herself resolutely to attend to the passing interests of the day, and went downstairs again to the breakfast room. Amid many uncertainties, this at least was clear, Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone were coming back on the 23rd of the month. Who could say what new revelations might not come back with them? End of Chapter 3. Recording by Linda McDaniel, August 2009. Scene 1. Chapter 4 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 Philip Griffiths. No Name by Wilkie Collins. Scene 1. Chapter 4. No new revelations came back with them. No anticipations associated with their return were realized. On the one forbidden subject of their errand in London, there was no moving either the master or the mistress of the house. Whatever their object might have been, they had, to all appearance, successfully accomplished it, for they both returned in perfect possession of their everyday looks and manners. Mrs. Vanstone's spirits have subsided to their natural quiet level. Mr. Vanstone's imperturbable cheerfulness sat as easily and indolently on him as usual. This was the one noticeable result of their journey. This and no more. Had the household revolution run its course already? Was the secret thus far hidden impenetrably hidden forever? Nothing in this world is hidden forever. The gold which is lain for centuries unsuspected in the ground reveals itself one day on the surface. Sand turns traitor and betrays the footsteps that has passed over it. Water gives back to the telltale surface the body that has been drowned. Fire itself leaves the confession, in ashes, of the substance consumed in it. Hate breaks its prison secrecy in the thoughts through the doorway of the eyes. God finds the Judas who betrays it by a kiss. Look where we will, the inevitable law of revelation is one of the laws of nature. The lasting preservation of a secret is a miracle which the world has never yet seen. How was the secret now hidden in the household at Coombe Raven doomed to disclose itself? Through what coming event in the daily lives of the father, the mother, and the daughters was the law of revelation destined to break the fatal way to discovery. The way opened unseen by the parents and unsuspected by the children through the first event that happened after Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone's return. An event which presented on the surface of it no interest of greater importance than the trivial social ceremony of a morning call. Three days after the master and mistress of Coombe Raven had come back the female members of the family happened to be assembled together in the morning room. The view from the windows looked over the flower garden and shrubbery. This last, being protected at its outward extremity by a fence and approached from the lane beyond by a wicked gate. During an interval in the conversation the attention of the ladies was suddenly attracted to this gate by the sharp sound of the iron latch falling in its socket. Someone had entered the shrubbery from the lane and Magdalen at once placed herself at the window to catch the first sight of the visitor through the trees. After a few minutes the figure of a gentleman became visible at the point where the shrubbery path joined the winding garden walk which led to the house. Magdalen looked at him attentively without appearing at first to know who he was. As he came nearer however she started in astonishment and turning quickly to her mother and sister proclaimed the gentleman in the garden to be no other than Mr. Francis Clare. The visitor thus announced was the son of Mr. Vanstone's oldest associate and nearest neighbour. Mr. Clare the Elder inhabited an unpretending little cottage situated just outside the shrubbery fence which marked the limit of the Coombe Raven grounds. Belonging to the younger branch of a family of great antiquity the one inheritance of importance that he had derived from his ancestors was the possession of a magnificent library which not only filled all the rooms in his modest little dwelling but lined the staircases and passages as well. Mr. Clare's books represented the one important interest of Mr. Clare's life. He had been a widower for many years past and made no secret of his philosophical resignation to the loss of his wife. As a father he regarded his family of three sons in the light of a necessary domestic evil which perpetually threatened the sanctity of his study and the safety of his books. When the boys went to school Mr. Clare said goodbye to them and thank God to himself. As for his small income and his still smaller domestic establishment he looked at them both from the same satirically indifferent point of view. He called himself a pauper with a pedigree. He abandoned the entire direction of his household to the slatterly old woman who was his only servant on the condition that she was never to venture near his books with a duster in her hand from one year's end to the other. His favourite poets were Horace and Pope his chosen philosophers Hobbes and Voltaire. He took his exercise and his fresh air under protest and always walked the same distance to a yard on the ugliest high road in the neighbourhood. He was crooked of back and quick of temper. He could digest radishes and sleep after green tea. His views of human nature were the views of diogenes tempered by Roshford Coe. His personal habits were slovenly in the last degree and his favourite boast was that he had outlived all human prejudices. Such was this singular man in his more superficial aspects. What nobler qualities he might possess below the surface no one had ever discovered. Mr Vanstone, it is true, stately asserted that Mr Clare's worst side was his outside but in this expression of opinion he stood alone among his neighbours. The association between these two widely dissimilar men had lasted for many years and was almost close enough to be called a friendship. They had acquired a habit of meeting to smoke together on certain evenings in the week in the cynic philosopher's study and of their disputing on every imaginable subject Mr Vanstone flourishing the stout cudgles of assertion and Mr Clare meeting him with the keen-edge tools of sophistry. They generally quarreled at night and met on the neutral ground of the shrubbery and consiled together the next morning. The bond of intercourse thus curiously established between them was strengthened on Mr Vanstone's side by a hearty interest in his neighbour's three sons an interest by which those sons benefitted all the more importantly seeing that one of the prejudices which their father had outlived was a prejudice in favour of his own children. I look at those boys the philosopher was accustomed to say with a perfectly impartial eye I dismiss the unimportant accident of their birth from all consideration and I find them below the average in every respect. Fortunately for the boys Mr Vanstone's views were still fast imprisoned in the ordinary prejudices. At his intercession and through his influence Frank, Cecil and Arthur were received on the foundation of a well-reputed grammar school. In holiday time they were mercifully allowed the run of Mr Vanstone's paddock and were humanised and refined by association indoors with Mrs Vanstone and her daughters. On these occasions Mr Clare used sometimes to walk across from his cottage in his dressing gown and slippers and look at the boys disparagingly through the window or over the fence as if they were three wild animals whom his neighbour was attempting to tame. You and your wife are excellent people he used to say to Mr Vanstone I respect your honest prejudices in favour of those boys of mine with all my heart but you are so wrong about them you are indeed. I wish to give no offence I speak quite impartially but to mark my words Vanstone they're all three turn out ill in spite of everything you can do to prevent it. In later years when Frank had reached the age of seventeen the same curious shifting of the relative positions of parent and friend between the two neighbours was exemplified more absurdly than ever. A civil engineer in the north of England who owned certain obligations to Mr Vanstone expressed his willingness to take Frank under superintendence on terms of the most favourable kind. When this proposal was received Mr Clare, as usual first shifted his own character as Frank's father on Mr Vanstone's shoulders and then moderated his neighbour's parental enthusiasm from the point of view of an impartial spectator. It's the finest chance for Frank that could possibly have happened cried Mr Vanstone in a glow of fatherly enthusiasm. My good fellow he won't take it retorted Mr Clare with the icy composure of a disinterested friend but he shall take it persisted Mr Vanstone say he shall have a mathematical head rejoined Mr Clare say he shall possess industry, ambition and firmness of purpose poo poo you don't look at him with my impartial eyes I say no mathematics no industry no ambition no firmness of purpose Frank is a compound of negatives and there they are hang your negatives shouted Mr Vanstone I don't care a rush for negatives or affirmatives either Frank shall have this splendid chance and I'll lay you any wager you like he makes the best of it I'm not rich enough to lay wagers usually replied Mr Clare but I think I've got a guinea about the house somewhere and I'll lay you that guinea that comes back on our hands like a bad shilling done said Mr Vanstone no stop a minute I won't do the lads character the injustice of backing it at even money I'll lay you five to one Frank turns up trumps in this business you ought to be ashamed of yourself for talking of him as you do what sort of hocus pocus you bring it about by I don't pretend to know but you always end in making me take his part I was his father instead of you ah yes give you time and you'll defend yourself I won't give you time I won't have any of your special pleading blacks white according to you I don't care is black for all that you may talk 19 to the dozen I shall write to my friend and say yes in Frank's interests by today's post such were the circumstances under which Mr Francis Clare departed for the north of England at the age of 17 to start in life as a civil engineer from time to time Mr Vanstone's friend communicated with him on the subject of the new pupil Frank was praised as a quiet gentleman like interesting lad but he was also reported to be rather slow at acquiring the rudiments of engineering science other letters later in date described him as a little too ready to despond about himself as having been sent away on that account to some new railway works to see if change of scene would rouse him and as having benefited in every respect by the experiment except perhaps in regard to his professional studies which still advanced but slowly subsequent communications announced his departure under care of a trustworthy foreman for some public works in Belgium touched on the general benefit he appeared to derive from this new change praised his excellent manners and address which were of great assistance in facilitating business communications with the foreigners and passed over in ominous silence the main question of his actual progress in the acquirement of knowledge these reports and many others which resembled them were all presented by Frank's friend to the attention of Frank's father on each occasion Mr. Clare exalted over Mr. Vanstone a Mr. Vanstone quarrel with Mr. Clare one of these days you wish you hadn't laid that wager said the cynic philosopher one of these days I shall have the blessed satisfaction of pocketing your guinea cried the sanguine friend two years had then passed since Frank's departure one year more results asserted themselves and settled the question two days after Mr. Vanstone's return from London he was called away from the breakfast table before he had found time enough to look over his letters delivered by the morning's post thrusting them into one of the pockets of his shooting jacket he took the letters out again at one grasp to read them when the occasion served later in the day the grasp included the whole correspondence with one exception that exception being a final report from the civil engineer which notified the termination of the connection between his pupil and himself and the immediate return of Frank to his father's house while this important announcement lay unsuspected in Mr. Vanstone's pocket the object of it was travelling home as fast as railways could take him at half past ten at night while Mr. Clare was sitting in studious solitude over his books and his green tea with his favourite black cats to keep him company he heard footsteps in the passage the door opened and Frank stood before him ordinary men would have been astonished but the philosopher's composure was not to be shaken by any such trifle as the unexpected return of his eldest son he could not have looked up more calmly from his learned volume if Frank had been absent for three minutes instead of three years exactly what I predicted said Mr. Clare don't interrupt me by making explanations and don't frighten the cat if there is anything to eat in the kitchen get it and go to bed you can walk over to Coombe Raven tomorrow and give this message from me to Mr. Vanstone father's compliments sir check upon your hands like a bad shilling as he always said I should he keeps his own guinea and takes your five and he hopes your mind what he says to you another time that is the message shut the door after you good night under these unfavourable auspices Mr. Francis Clare made his appearance the next morning in the grounds at Coombe Raven and something doubtful the reception that might await him slowly approached the precincts of the house it was not wonderful that Magdalen should have failed to recognise him when he first appeared in view he had gone away a backward lad of seventeen he returned a young man of twenty his slim figure had now acquired strength and grace and had increased in stature to the medium height the small regular features which he was supposed to have inherited from his mother were rounded and filled out without having lost their remarkable delicacy of form his beard was still in its infancy and nascent lines of whisker traced their modest way sparingly down his cheeks his gentle wandering brown eyes would have looked to better advantage in a woman's face they wanted spirit and firmness to fit them for the face of a man his hands had the same wandering habit as his eyes they were constantly changing from one position to another constantly twisting and turning any little stray thing they could pick up he was undeniably handsome graceful, well bred but no close observer could look at him without suspecting that the stout old family stock had begun to wear out in the latest generations and that Mr. Francis Clair had more in him of the shadow of his ancestors than of the substance when the astonishment caused by his appearance had partially subsided a search was instituted for the missing report it was found in the remotest recesses of Mr. Van Stone's capacious pocket and was read by that gentleman on the spot the plain facts as stated by the engineer were briefly these Frank was not possessed of the necessary abilities to fit him for his new calling and it was useless to waste time by keeping him any longer in an employment for which he had no vocation this after three years trial being the conviction on both sides the master had thought it the most straightforward course for the pupil to go home and candidly place the results before his father and his friends in some pursuit for which he was more fit and in which he could feel an interest in the industry and perseverance which he had been too much discouraged to practice in the profession that he had now abandoned personally he was liked by all who knew him and his future prosperity was heartily desired by the many friends whom he had made in the north such was the substance of the report and so it came to an end many men would have thought the engineer's statement rather too carefully worded and suspecting him of trying to make the best of a bad case would have entertained serious doubts on the subject of Frank's future Mr. Van Sten was too easy tempered and sanguine and too anxious as well not to yield his old antagonist an inch more ground than he could help to look at the letter from any such unfavorable point of view was it Frank's fault if he had not got the stuff in him that engineers were made of young men ever begin life with a false start plenty began in that way and got over it and did wonders afterwards with these commentaries on the letter the kind-hearted gentleman patted Frank on the shoulder cheer up my lad said Mr. Van Sten we will be even with your father one of these days though he has won the wager this time the example thus set by the master of the house was followed at once by the family with the solitary exception of Nora whose incurable formality and reserve expressed themselves not too graciously in her distant manner toward the visitor the rest led by Magdalen who had been Frank's favourite playfellow in past times glided back into their old easy habits with him without an effort he was frank with all of them but Nora who persisted in addressing him as Mr. Clare even the account he was now encouraged to give of the reception accorded to him by his father on the previous night failed to disturb Nora's gravity she sat with her dark handsome face steadily averted her eyes cast down and the rich colour in her cheeks warmer and deeper than usual all the rest Miss Garth included found old Mr. Clare's speech of welcome to his son quite irresistible the noise and merriment were at their height when the servant came in and struck the whole party dumb by the announcement of visitors in the drawing room Mr. Marrable Mrs. Marrable and Miss Marrable Evergreen Lodge Clifton Nora rose as readily as if the new arrivals had been a relief to her mind Mrs. Vanstone was the next to leave her chair these two went away first to receive the visitors Magdalen who preferred the society and Frank pleaded hard to be left behind but Miss Garth after granting five minutes grace took her into custody and marched her out of the room Frank rose to take his leave no no said Mr. Vanstone detaining him don't go these people won't stop long Mr. Marrable's a merchant of Bristol I've met him once or twice when the girls forced me to take them to parties at Clifton mere acquaintances nothing more come and smoke a cigar in the greenhouse hang all visitors they worry one's life out I'll appear at the last moment with an apology and you shall follow me at a safe distance and be a proof that I was really engaged proposing this ingenious stratagem in a confidential whisper Mr. Vanstone took Frank's arm and led him round the house by the back way the first ten minutes of seclusion in the conservatory passed without events of any kind at the end of that time a flying figure in bright garments flashed upon the two gentlemen through the glass the door was flung open flowerpots fell in homage to passing petticoats and Mr. Vanstone's youngest daughter ran up to him at headlong speed with every external appearance of having suddenly taken leave of her senses Papa the dream of my whole life is realized she said as soon as she could speak I shall fly through the roof of the greenhouse if somebody doesn't hold me down the marables have come here with an invitation guess you darling guess what they're going to give at Evergreen Lodge a ball said Mr. Vanstone without a moment's hesitation private theater calls cried Magdalene her clear young voice ringing through the conservatory like a bell her loose sleeves falling back showing her round white arms to the dimpled elbows as she clapped her hands ecstatically in the air the rivals is the play papa the rivals by the famous what's his name and they want me to act the one thing in the whole universe that I long to do most it all depends on you mama shakes her head and miss garth looks daggers and gnaws as sulky as usual but if you say yes I must all three give way and let me do as I like say yes she pleaded nestling softly up to her father and pressing her lips with a fond gentleness to his ear as she whispered the next words say yes and I'll be a good girl for the rest of my life a good girl repeated Mr. Vanstone a mad girl I think you must mean hang these people and their theatricals I shall have to go indoors and see about this matter you needn't throw away your cigar frank you're well out of the business and you can stop here no he can't said Magdalen he's in the business too Mr. Francis Clare had hitherto remained modestly in the background he now came forward with a face expressive a speech less amazement yes continued Magdalen answering his blank look of inquiry with perfect composure you are to act and we settled it all in five minutes there are two parts in the play left to be filled one is Lucy the waiting maid which is the character I have undertaken with papa's permission she added slightly pinching her father's arm and he won't say no will he first because he's a darling secondly because I love him and he loves me and thirdly because there is never any difference of opinion between us is there fourthly because I give him a kiss which naturally stops his mouth and settles the whole question dear me I'm wondering where was I just now oh yes explaining myself to Frank I beg your pardon began Frank attempting at this point to enter his protest the second character in the play pursued Magdalen without taking the smallest notice of the protest is Falkland a jealous lover with a fine flow of language Miss Marable and I discussed Falkland privately on the window seat while the rest were talking she is a delightful girl so impulsive so sensible so entirely unaffected she confided in me she said one of our miseries is that we can't find a gentleman who will grapple with the hideous difficulties of Falkland of course I soothed her of course I said I've got the gentleman and he shall grapple greatly oh heavens who is he Mr. Francis Clare and where is he in the house at this moment will you be so very charming Miss Vanstone as to fetch him I'll fetch him Miss Marable with the greatest pleasure I left the window seat I rushed into the morning room I smelled cigars I followed the smell and here I am it's a compliment I know she asked to act said Frank in great embarrassment but I hope you and Miss Marable will excuse me certainly not Miss Marable and I are both remarkable for the firmness of our characters when we say Mr. So-and-So is positively to act the part of Falkland we positively mean it come in and be introduced but I never tried to act I don't know how not of the slightest consequence if you don't know how come to me and I'll teach you you exclaimed Mr. Vanstone what do you know about it pray papa be serious I have the strongest internal conviction that I could act every character in the play Falkland included don't let me have to speak a second time Frank come and be introduced she took her father's arm and moved on with him to the door of the greenhouse at the steps she turned and looked round to see if Frank was following her it was only the action of a moment but in that moment her natural firmness of will rallied all its resources strengthened itself with the influence of her beauty commanded and conquered she looks lovely the flush was tenderly bright in her cheeks the radiant pleasure shone and sparkled in her eyes the position of her figure turned suddenly from the waist upward disclosed its delicate strength its supple firmness its seductive serpentine grace come she said with a cocketish beckoning action of her head come Frank few men of 40 would have resisted her at that moment Frank was 20 last birthday in other words he threw aside his cigar and followed her out of the greenhouse as he turned and closed the door in the instant when he lost sight of her his disinclination to be associated with the private theatricals revived at the foot of the house steps he stopped again plucked a twig from a plant near him broke it in his hand and looked about him uneasily on this side and on that the path to the left led back to his father's cottage the way of escape lay open why not take it while he still hesitated Mr. Vanstone and his daughter reached the top of the steps once more Magdalene looked round looked with her resistless beauty with her all-conquering smile she beckoned again and again he followed her up the steps and over the threshold the door closed on them so with the trifling gesture of invitation on one side with the trifling act of compliance on the other so with no knowledge in his mind with no thought in hers of the secret still hidden under the journey to London they took the way which led to that secret's discovery through many a darker winding that was yet to come End of Chapter 4 The First Scene First Scene Chapter 5 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 Dylan Stiles No Name by Wilkie Collins First Scene Chapter 5 Mr. Vanstone's inquiries into the proposed theatrical entertainment at Evergreen Lodge were answered by a narrative of dramatic disasters Ms. Marible impersonated the innocent cause in which her father and mother played the parts of chief victims Ms. Marible was that hardest of all born tyrants an only child she had never granted a constitutional privilege to her oppressed father and mother since the time when she cut her first tooth Her 17th birthday was now near at hand she had decided on celebrating it by playing had issued her orders accordingly and had been obeyed by her docile parents as implicitly as usual Ms. Marible gave up the drawing room to be laid waste for a stage and a theater Mr. Marible secured the services of a respectable professional person to drill a young ladies and gentlemen and to accept all the other responsibilities incidental to creating a dramatic world out of a domestic chaos having further accustomed themselves to the breaking of furniture and the standing of walls to thumping, tumbling, hammering and screaming to doors always banging and to footsteps perpetually running up and down the stairs the nominal master and mistress of the house fondly believed that their chief troubles were over innocent and fatal delusion it is one thing in private society to set up the stage and choose the play it is another thing all together to find the actors hitherto only a small preliminary annoyances proper to the occasion had shown themselves at evergreen lodge the sound and serious troubles were all to come the rivals having been chosen as the play Ms. Marible as a matter of course had appropriated to herself the part of Lydia Languish one of her favorite swings next secured to caps and absolute and another laid violent hands on Sir Lucius O. Trigger these two were followed by an accommodating spinster relative who accepted the heavy dramatic responsibility of Ms. Malaprop and there the theatrical proceedings came to a pause nine more speaking characters were left to be fitted with representatives and with that unavoidable necessity the serious troubles began all the friends of the family suddenly became unreliable people for the first time in their lives after encouraging the idea of the play they declined the personal sacrifice of acting in it or they accepted characters and then broke down in the effort to study them or they volunteered to take the parts which they knew were already engaged and decline the parts which were waiting to be acted or they were afflicted with weak constitutions and mischievously fell ill when they were wanted at rehearsal or they had Puritan relatives in the background and after slipping into their parts cheerfully at the week's beginning oozed out of them pentatently under serious family pressure at the week's end now the carpenters hammered and the scenes rose miss marable whose temperament was sensitive became hysterical under the strain of perpetual anxiety the family doctor declined to answer for the nervous consequences if something was not done renewed efforts were made in every direction actors and actresses were sought with a desperate disregard of all considerations of personal fitness necessity which knows no law either in the drama or out of it accepted a lad of 18 as the representative of Sir Anthony Absolute the stage manager undertaking to supply the necessary wrinkles from the imitable resources of theatrical art a lady whose age was unknown and whose personal appearance was stout but whose heart was in the right place volunteered to act the part of the sentimental Julia sought with her the dramatic qualification of habitually wearing a wig in private life thanks to these vigorous measures the play was at last supplied with representatives always accepting the two unmanageable characters of Lucy, the waiting maid and Falkland Julia's jealous lover gentlemen came, saw Julia at rehearsal, observed her stoutness and her wig and her heart was in the right place quailed at the prospect apologized and retired ladies read the part of Lucy remarked that she appeared to great advantage in the first half of the play and faded out of it altogether in a latter half objected to pass from the notice of the audience in that manner when all the rest had a chance of distinguishing themselves to the end shut up the book, apologized retired in eight days more at the night of the performance would arrive a phalanx of social martyrs 200 strong had been convened to witness it three full rehearsals were absolutely necessary and two characters in the play were not yet filled with this lamentable story and with the humblest apologies for presuming on a slight acquaintance the marables appeared at Raven to appeal to the young ladies for a Lucy and to the universe for a Falkland with the mendicant per tenacity of a family in despair this statement of circumstances addressed to an audience which included a father of Mr. Van Stone's disposition and a daughter of Madeline's temperament produced the result which might have been anticipated from the first either misinterpreting or disregarding the ominous silence preserved by his wife and Miss Garth Mr. Van Stone not only gave Madeline permission to assist the forlorn dramatic company but accepted an invitation to witness the performance for Nora and himself Mrs. Van Stone declined accompanying them on account of her health and Miss Garth only engaged to make one among the audience conditionally a not being wanted at home the parts of Lucy and Falkland which distressed late family carried about them everywhere like incidental maladies were handed to their representatives on the spot Frank's faint remonstrances were rejected without a hearing the days and hours of rehearsal were carefully noted down on the covers of the parts and the marables took their leave with a perfect explosion of thanks father, mother and daughter sowing their expressions of gratitude broadcast from the drawing room door to the garden gates as soon as the carriage had driven away Madeline presented herself to the general observation under an entirely new aspect if any more visitors called today she said with the profound discravity of look and manner I am not home this is a far more serious matter than any of you suppose go anywhere by yourself Frank and read over your part and don't let your attention wander if you can possibly help it I shall not be acceptable before the evening if you will come here with papa's permission after tea my views on the subject of Falkland will be at your disposal Thomas whatever else the gardener does he is not to make any Florida cultural noises under my window for the rest of the afternoon I shall be immersed in study and the quieter the house is the more obliged I shall feel to everybody before Miss Garth's battery of reproof could open fire before the first outburst of Mr. Van Stone's hearty laughter could escape his lips she bowed to them with imperturbable gravity ascended the house steps for the first time in her life instead of a run and retired then and there to the bedroom regions Frank's helpless astonishment at her disappearance added a new element of absurdity to the scene he stood first on one leg and then on the other rolling and unrolling his part and looking piteously in the faces of the friends about him I know I can't do it he said and here Madeline's views thank you I look in at about eight don't tell my father about this acting please I should never hear the last of it those were the only words he had spirit enough to utter he drifted away aimlessly in the direction of the shrubbery with the part hanging open in his hand the most incapable of Falklands and the most of mankind Frank's departure left the family by themselves and was the signal accordingly for an attack on Mr. Vanstone's inveterate carelessness in the exercise of his paternal authority what could you possibly be thinking of Andrew when you gave your consent asked Mrs. Vanstone surely my silence was a sufficient warning to you I know a mistake Mr. Vanstone chimed in misgarth made with the best intentions but a mistake for all that it may be a mistake said Nora taking her father's part as usual but I really don't see how papa or anyone else could have declined under the circumstances quite right my dear observed Mr. Vanstone the circumstances as you say were dead against me here were these unfortunate people in a scrape on one side and Madeleine on the other mad to act I couldn't say I had methodical objections I have nothing methodical about me what other excuse could I make the marables are respectable people and keep the best company in Clifton what harm can she get in their house some to prudence and that sort of thing why shouldn't Madeleine do what Miss Marible does there there let the poor things act and amuse themselves we who were their age once and it's no use making a fuss and that's all I've got to say about it with that characteristic defense of his own conduct Mr. Vanstone sauntered back to the greenhouse to smoke another cigar I didn't say so to Papa said Nora taking her mother's arm on the way back to the house but the bad result of the acting in my opinion will be the familiarity it is sure to encourage between Madeleine and Francis Clare you are prejudiced against Frank my love said Miss Vanstone Nora's soft secret hazel eyes sank to the ground she said no more her opinions were unchangeable but she never disputed with anybody she had the great failing of a reserved nature the failing of obstinacy and the great merit the merit of silence what is your head running on now thought Miss Garth casting a sharp look at Nora's dark down cost face you're one of the impenetrable sort give me Madeleine with all her perversities you can see daylight through her you're as dark as nuh the hours of the afternoon passed away and still Madeleine remained shut up in her own room no restless footsteps patterned on the stairs no nimble tongue was heard chattering here, there, and everywhere from the garret to the kitchen the house seemed hardly like itself with the one ever disturbing element in the family's serenity suddenly withdrawn from it anxious to witness with her own eyes the reality of a transformation in which past experience still inclined her to disbelieve Miss Garth ascended to Madeleine's room knocked twice at the door received no answer opened it and looked in there sat Madeleine in an armchair before the long looking glass with all her hair let down over her shoulders absorbed in the study of her part and comfortably arrayed in her morning wrapper until it was time to dress for dinner and there behind her sat the ladies made solely combing out the long heavy locks of her young mistress's hair with the sleepy resignation of a woman who had been engaged in that employment for some hours passed the sun was shining and the green shutters outside the window were closed the dim light fell tenderly on the two quiet seated figures on the little white bed with knots of rose colored ribbon which looped up its curtains and the bright dress for dinner laid ready across it on the gaily painted bath with its pure lining of white enamel on the toilet table with its sparkling trinkets its crystal bottles its silver bell with cupid for a handle its litter of little luxuries that adorn the shrine of a woman's bed chamber the luxurious tranquility of the scene the cool fragrance of flowers and perfumes in the atmosphere the wrapped attitude of Magdalene absorbed over her reading the monotonous regularity of movement in the maid's hand and arm as she drew the comb smoothly through and through her mistress's hair all conveyed the same soothing impression of drowsy delicious quiet on one side of the door were the broad daylight and the familiar realities of life on the other was the dreamland of Elysian serenity the sanctuary of unruffled repose Miss Garth paused on the threshold and looked into the room in silence Magdalene's curious fancy for having her hair combed at all times and seasons the peculiarities of her character which were notorious to everybody in the house it was one of her father's favorite jokes that she reminded him on such occasions of a cat having her back stroked and that he always expected if the combing were only continued long enough to hear her purr extravagant as it may seem the comparison was not altogether inappropriate Geryl's fervid temperament intensified the essentially feminine pleasure that most women feel in the passage of the comb through their hair to a luxury of sensation which absorbed her in enjoyment so serenely self-demonstrative so drowsily deep that it did irresistibly suggest a pet cat's enjoyment under a caressing hand intimately as Miss Garth with this peculiarity in her pupil she now saw it asserting itself for the first time in association with mental exertion of any kind on Magdalene's part feeling therefore some curiosity to know how long the combing and studying had gone on together she ventured on putting the question first to the mistress and receiving no answer in that quarter secondly to the maid by noon Miss, off and on was the weird answer Miss Magdalene says it soothes her feelings and clears her mind knowing by experience that interference would be hopeless under these circumstances Miss Garth turned sharply and left the room she smiled when she was outside on the landing the female mind does occasionally though not often project itself into the future Miss Garth was prophetically pitting Magdalene's unfortunate husband dinner time presented the fair student to the family I in the same mentally absorbed aspect on all ordinary occasions Magdalene's appetite would have terrified those feeble sentimentalists who affect to ignore the all important influence which female feeding exerts in the production of female beauty on this occasion one dish after another with a resolution which implied the rarest of all modern martyrdoms gastric martyrdom I have conceived the part of Lucy she observed with the demurus gravity the next difficulty is to make Frank conceive the part of Falkland I see nothing to laugh at you wouldn't all be serious enough if you had my responsibilities no papa, no wine today thank you keep my intelligence clear water Thomas and a little more jelly I think before you take it away when Frank presented himself in the evening ignorant of the first elements of his part she took him in hand as a middle age school mistress might have taken in hand a backward little boy the few attempts he made to vary the sternly practical nature of the evening's occupation by slipping in compliments side long she put away from her with contemptuous self-possession of a woman of twice her age she literally forced him into his part her father fell asleep in his chair Mrs. Vanstone and Miss Garth lost their interest in the proceedings retired to the further end of the room and spoke together in whispers it grew later and later and still Magdalene never flinched from her task she had no perseverance nor a who had been on the watch all through the evening kept on the watch to the end the distrust darkened and darkened on her face as she looked at her sister and Frank as she saw how closely they sat together devoted to the same interest and working it to the same end the clock on the mantelpiece pointed to half past eleven before Lucy the Resolute permitted to shut up his task book for the night she's wonderfully clever isn't she said Frank taking leave of Mr. Vanstone at the hall door I'm to come tomorrow and hear more of her views if you have no objection I shall never do it don't tell her I said so as fast as she teaches me one speech the other goes out my head discouraging isn't it good night the next day was the day of the first full rehearsal on the previous evening Mr. Vanstone's spirits had been sadly depressed at a private interview with Miss Garth she had referred again of her own accord to the subject of her letter from London had spoken self-approachfully of her weakness in admitting Captain Ragh's impudent claim to a family with her and had then reverted to the state of her health and to the doubtful prospect that awaited her in the coming summer in a tone of despondency which was very distressing to hear anxious to cheer her spirits Miss Garth had changed the conversation as soon as possible had referred to the approaching theatrical performance and had relieved Mr. Vanstone's mind of all anxiety in that direction by announcing her intention of accompanying Magdalen to each rehearsal and of not losing sight of her until she was safely back in her father's house accordingly when Frank presented himself at Cone Braven on the eventful morning there stood Miss Garth prepared in the interpolated character of Argus to accompany Lucy and Falkland to the scene of trial The railway conveyed the three in excellent time to Evergreen Lodge and at one o'clock the rehearsal began End of Chapter 5 First Scene