The week passed.
Repeating her visit, Mrs. Westerfield found him still seated at his desk, still surrounded by his books, still careless of the polite attentions that he owed to a lady.
“Well?” she asked, “have you earned your money?”
“I have found the clew.”
“What is it?” she burst out. “Tell me the substance. I can’t wait to read.”
He went on impenetrably with what he had to say. “But there are some minor combinations, which I have still to discover to my own satisfaction. I want a few days more.”
She positively refused to comply with this request. “Write down the substance of it,” she repeated, “and tell me what I owe you.”
He handed her back her cipher for the third time.
The woman who could have kept her temper, under such provocation as this, may be found when the mathematician is found who can square the circle, or the inventor who can discover perpetual motion. With a furious look, Mrs. Westerfield expressed her opinion of the philosopher in two words: “You brute!” She failed to produce the slightest impression on him.
“My work,” he proceeded, “must be well done or not done at all. This is Saturday, eleventh of the month. We will say the evening of Wednesday next.”
Mrs. Westerfield sufficiently controlled herself to be able to review her engagements for the coming week. On Thursday, the delay exacted by the marriage license would expire, and the wedding might take place. On Friday, the express train conveyed passengers to Liverpool, to be in time for the departure of the steamer for New York on Saturday morning. Having made these calculations, she asked, with sulky submission, if she was expected to call again on the Wednesday evening.
“No. Leave me your name and address. I will send you the cipher, interpreted, at eight o’clock.”
Mrs. Westerfield laid one of her visiting cards on his desk, and left him.
8.—The Diamonds.
The new week was essentially a week of events.
On the Monday morning, Mrs. Westerfield and her faithful James had their first quarrel. She took the liberty of reminding him that it was time to give notice of the marriage at the church, and to secure berths in the steamer for herself and her son. Instead of answering one way or another, James asked how the Expert was getting on.
“Has your old man found out where the diamonds are?”
“Not yet.”
“Then we’ll wait till he does.”
“Do you believe my word?” Mrs. Westerfield asked curtly.
James Bellbridge answered, with Roman brevity, “No.”
This was an insult; Mrs. Westerfield expressed her sense of it. She rose, and pointed to the door. “Go back to America, as soon as you please,” she said; “and find the money you want—if you can.”
As a proof that she was in earnest she took her copy of the cipher out of the bosom of her dress, and threw it into the fire. “The original is safe in my old man’s keeping,” she added. “Leave the room.”
James rose with suspicious docility, and walked out, having his own private ends in view.
Half an hour later, Mrs. Westerfield’s old man was interrupted over his work by a person of bulky and blackguard appearance, whom he had never seen before.
The stranger introduced himself as a gentleman who was engaged to marry Mrs. Westerfield: he requested (not at all politely) to be permitted to look at the cipher. He was asked if he had brought a written order to that effect, signed by the lady herself. Mr. Bellbridge, resting his fists on the writing-table, answered that he had come to look at the cipher on his own sole responsibility, and that he insisted on seeing it immediately. “Allow me to show you something else first,” was the reply he received to this assertion of his will and pleasure. “Do you know a loaded pistol, sir, when you see it?” The barrel of the pistol approached within three inches of the barman’s big head as he leaned over the writing-table. For once in his life he was taken by surprise. It had never occurred to him that a professed interpreter of ciphers might sometimes be trusted with secrets which placed him in a position of danger, and might therefore have wisely taken measures to protect himself. No power of persuasion is comparable to the power possessed by a loaded pistol. James left the room; and expressed his sentiments in language which has not yet found its way into any English Dictionary.
But he had two merits, when his temper was in a state of repose. He knew when he was beaten; and he thoroughly appreciated the value of the diamonds. When Mrs. Westerfield saw him again, on the next day, he appeared with undeniable claims on her mercy. Notice of the marriage had been received at the church; and a cabin had been secured for her on board the steamer.
Her prospects being thus settled, to her own satisfaction, Mrs. Westerfield was at liberty to make her arrangements for the desertion of poor little Syd.
The person on whose assistance she could rely was an unmarried elder sister, distinguished as proprietor of a cheap girls’ school in one of the suburbs of London. This lady—known to local fame as Miss Wigger—had already proposed to take Syd into training as a pupil teacher. “I’ll force the child on,” Miss Wigger promised, “till she can earn her board and lodging by taking my lowest class. When she gets older she will replace my regular governess, and I shall save the salary.”
With this proposal waiting for a reply, Mrs. Westerfield had only to inform her sister that it was accepted. “Come here,” she wrote, “on Friday next, at any time before two o’clock, and Syd shall be ready for you. P.S.—I am to be married again on Thursday, and start for America with my husband and my boy by next Saturday’s steamer.”
The letter was posted; and the mother’s anxious mind was, to use her own phrase, relieved of another worry.
As the hour of eight drew near on Wednesday evening, Mrs. Westerfield’s anxiety forced her to find relief in action of some kind. She opened the door of her sitting-room and listened on the stairs. It still wanted for a few minutes to eight o’clock, when there was a ring at the house-bell. She ran down to open the door. The servant happened to be in the hall, and answered the bell. The next moment, the door was suddenly closed again.
“Anybody there?” Mrs. Westerfield asked.
“No, ma’am.”
This seemed strange. Had the old wretch deceived her, after all? “Look in the letter-box,” she called out. The servant obeyed, and found a letter. Mrs. Westerfield tore it open, standing on the stairs. It contained half a sheet of common note-paper. The interpretation of the cipher was written on it in these words:
“Remember Number 12, Purbeck Road, St. John’s Wood. Go to the summer-house in the back garden. Count to the fourth plank in the floor, reckoning from the side wall on the right as you enter the summer-house. Prize up the plank. Look under the mould and rubbish. Find the diamonds.”
Not a word of explanation accompanied these lines. Neither had the original cipher been returned. The strange old man had earned his money, and had not attended to receive it—had not even sent word where or how it might be paid! Had he delivered his letter himself? He (or his messenger) had gone before the house-door could be opened!
A sudden suspicion of him turned her cold. Had he stolen the diamonds? She was on the point of sending for a cab, and driving it to his lodgings, when James came in, eager to know if the interpretation had arrived.
Keeping her suspicions to herself, she merely informed him that the interpretation was in her hands. He at once asked to see it. She refused to show it to him until he had made her his wife. “Put a chisel in your pocket, when we go to church, to-morrow morning,” was the one hint she gave him. As thoroughly worthy of each other as ever, the betrothed lovers distrusted each other to the last.
At eleven o’clock the next morning they were united in the bonds of wedlock; the landlord and the landlady of the public-house in which they had both served being the only witnesses present. The children were not permitted to see the ceremony. On leaving the church door, the married pair began their honeymoon by driving to St. John’s Wood.
A dirty printed notice, in a broken window, announced that the House was To Let; and a sour-tempered woman informed them that they were free to look at the rooms.
The bride was in the best of humors. She set the bridegroom the example of keeping up appearances by examining the dilapidated house first. This done, she said sweetly to the person in charge, “May we look at the garden?”
The woman made a strange answer to this request. “That’s curious,” she said.
James interfered for the first time. “What’s curious?” he asked roughly.
“Among all the idle people who have come here, at one time or another, to see this house,” the woman said, “only two have wanted to look at the garden.”
James turned on his heel, and made for the summer-house, leaving it to his wife to pursue the subject or not as she pleased. She did pursue the subject.
“I am one of the persons, of course,” she said. “Who is the other?”
“An old man came on Monday.”
The bride’s pleasant smile vanished.
“What sort of person was he?” she asked.
The sour-tempered woman became sourer than ever.
“Oh, how can I tell! A brute. There!”
“A brute!” The very words which the new Mrs. Bellbridge had herself used when the Expert had irritated her. With serious misgivings, she, too, turned her steps in the direction of the garden.
James had already followed her instructions and used his chisel. The plank lay loose on the floor. With both his big hands he rapidly cleared away the mould and the rubbish. In a few minutes the hiding-place was laid bare.
They looked into it. They looked at each other. There was the empty hole, telling its own story. The diamonds were gone.
9.—The Mother.
Mrs. Bellbridge eyed her husband, prepared for a furious outbreak of rage. He stood silent, staring stupidly straight before him. The shock that had fallen on his dull brain had stunned it. For the time, he was a big idiot—speechless, harmless, helpless.
She put back the rubbish, and replaced the plank, and picked up the chisel. “Come, James,” she said; “pull yourself together.” It was useless to speak to him. She took his arm and led him out to the cab that was waiting at the door.
The driver, helping him to get in, noticed a piece of paper lying on the front seat. Advertisements, seeking publicity under all possible circumstances, are occasionally sent flying into the open windows of vehicles. The driver was about to throw the paper away, when Mrs. Bellbridge (seeing it on the other side) took it out of his hand. “It isn’t print,” she said; “it’s writing.” A closer examination showed that the writing was addressed to herself. Her correspondent must have followed her to the church, as well as to the house in St. John’s Wood. He distinguished her by the name which she had changed that morning, under the sanction of the clergy and the law.
This was what she read: “Don’t trouble yourself, madam, about the diamonds. You have made a mistake—you have employed the wrong man.”
Those words—and no more. Enough, surely, to justify the conclusion that he had stolen the diamonds. Was it worth while to drive to his lodgings? They tried the experiment. The Expert had gone away on business—nobody knew where.
The newspaper came as usual on Friday morning. To Mrs. Bellbridge’s amazement it set the question of the theft at rest, on the highest authority. An article appeared, in a conspicuous position, thus expressed:
“Another of the many proofs that truth is stranger than fiction has just occurred at Liverpool. A highly respected firm of shipwreckers in that city received a strange letter at the beginning of the present week. Premising that he had some remarkable circumstances to communicate, the writer of the letter entered abruptly on the narrative which follows: A friend of his—connected with literature—had, it appeared, noticed a lady’s visiting card on his desk, and had been reminded by it (in what way it was not necessary to explain) of a criminal case which had excited considerable public interest at the time; viz., the trial of Captain Westerfield for willfully casting away a ship under his command. Never having heard of the trial, the writer, at his friend’s suggestion, consulted a file of newspapers—discovered the report—and became aware, for the first time, that a collection of Brazilian diamonds, consigned to the Liverpool firm, was missing from the wrecked vessel when she had been boarded by the salvage party, and had not been found since. Events, which it was impossible for him to mention (seeing that doing so would involve a breach of confidence placed in him in his professional capacity), had revealed to his knowledge a hiding-place in which these same diamonds, in all probability, were concealed. This circumstance had left him no alternative, as an honest man, but to be beforehand with the persons, who (as he believed) contemplated stealing the precious stones. He had, accordingly, taken them under his protection, until they were identified and claimed by the rightful owners. In now appealing to these gentlemen, he stipulated that the claim should be set forth in writing, addressed to him under initials at a post-office in London. If the lost property was identified to his satisfaction, he would meet—at a specified place and on a certain day and hour—a person accredited by the firm and would personally restore the diamonds, without claiming (or consenting to receive) a reward. The conditions being complied with, this remarkable interview took place; the writer of the letter, described as an infirm old man very poorly dressed, fulfilled his engagement, took his receipt, and walked away without even waiting to be thanked. It is only an act of justice to add that the diamonds were afterward counted, and not one of them was missing.”
Miserable, deservedly-miserable married pair. The stolen fortune, on which they had counted, had slipped through their fingers. The berths in the steamer for New York had been taken and paid for. James had married a woman with nothing besides herself to bestow on him, except an incumbrance in the shape of a boy.
Late on the fatal wedding-day his first idea, when he was himself again after the discovery in the summer-house, was to get back his passage-money, to abandon his wife and his stepson, and to escape to America in a French steamer. He went to the office of the English company, and offered the places which he had taken for sale. The season of the year was against him; the passenger-traffic to America was at its lowest ebb, and profits depended upon freights alone.
If he still contemplated deserting his wife, he must also submit to sacrifice his money. The other alternative was (as he expressed it himself) to “have his pennyworth for his penny, and to turn his family to good account in New York.” He had not quite decided what to do when he got home again on the evening of his marriage.
At that critical moment in her life the bride was equal to the demand on her resources.
If she was foolish enough to allow James to act on his natural impulses, there were probably two prospects before her. In one state of his temper, he might knock her down. In another state of his temper, he might leave her behind him. Her only hope of protecting herself, in either case, was to tame the bridegroom. In his absence, she wisely armed herself with the most irresistible fascinations of her sex. Never yet had he seen her dressed as she was dressed when he came home. Never yet had her magnificent eyes looked at him as they looked now. Emotions for which he was not prepared overcame this much injured man; he stared at the bride in helpless surprise. That inestimable moment of weakness was all Mrs. Bellbridge asked for. Bewildered by his own transformation, James found himself reading the newspaper the next morning sentimentally, with his arm round his wife’s waist.
By a refinement of cruelty, not one word had been said to prepare little Syd for the dreary change that was now close at hand in her young life. The poor child had seen the preparations for departure, and had tried to imitate her mother in packing up. She had collected her few morsels of darned and ragged clothing, and had gone upstairs to put them into one of the dilapidated old trunks in the garret play ground, when the servant was sent to bring her back to the sitting-room. There, enthroned in an easy-chair, sat a strange lady; and there, hiding behind the chair in undisguised dislike of the visitor, was her little brother Roderick. Syd looked timidly at her mother; and her mother said:
“Here is your aunt.”
The personal appearance of Miss Wigger might have suggested a modest distrust of his own abilities to Lavater, when that self-sufficient man wrote his famous work on Physiognomy. Whatever betrayal of her inner self her face might have presented, in the distant time when she was young, was now completely overlaid by a surface of a flabby fat which, assisted by green spectacles, kept the virtues (or vices) of this woman’s nature a profound secret until she opened her lips. When she used her voice, she let out the truth. Nobody could hear her speak, and doubt for a moment that she was an inveterately ill-natured woman.
“Make your curtsey, child!” said Miss Wigger. Nature had so toned her voice as to make it worthy of the terrors of her face. But for her petticoats, it would have been certainly taken for the voice of a man.
The child obeyed, trembling.
“You are to go away with me,” the school-mistress proceeded, “and to be taught to make yourself useful under my roof.”
Syd seemed to be incapable of understanding the fate that was in store for her. She sheltered herself behind her merciless mother. “I’m going away with you, mamma,” she said—"with you and Rick.”
Her mother took her by the shoulders, and pushed her across the room to her aunt.
The child looked at the formidable female creature with the man’s voice and the green spectacles.
“You belong to me,” said Miss Wigger, by way of encouragement, “and I have come to take you away.” At those dreadful words, terror shook little Syd from head to foot. She fell on her knees with a cry of misery that might have melted the heart of a savage. “Oh, mamma, mamma, don’t leave me behind! What have I done to deserve it? Oh, pray, pray, pray have some pity on me!”
Her mother was as selfish and as cruel a woman as ever lived. But even her hard heart felt faintly the influence of the most intimate and most sacred of all human relationships. Her florid cheeks turned pale. She hesitated.
Miss Wigger marked (through her own green medium) that moment of maternal indecision—and saw that it was time to assert her experience as an instructress of youth.
“Leave it to me,” she said to her sister. “You never did know, and you never will know, how to manage children.”
She advanced. The child threw herself shrieking on the floor. Miss Wigger’s long arms caught her up—held her—shook her. “Be quiet, you imp!” It was needless to tell her to be quiet. Syd’s little curly head sank on the schoolmistress’s shoulder. She was carried into exile without a word or a cry—she had fainted.
10.—The School.
Time’s march moves slowly, where weary lives languish in dull places.
Dating from one unkempt and unacknowledged birthday to another, Sydney Westerfield had attained the sixth year of her martyrdom at School. In that long interval no news of her mother, her brother, or her stepfather had reached England; she had received no letter, she had not even heard a report. Without friends, and without prospects, Roderick Westerfield’s daughter was, in the saddest sense of the word, alone in the world.
The hands of the ugly old clock in the school-room were approaching the time when the studies of the morning would come to an end. Wearily waiting for their release, the scholars saw an event happen which was a novelty in their domestic experience. The maid-of-all-work audaciously put her head in at the door, and interrupted Miss Wigger conducting the education of the first-class.
“If you please, miss, there’s a gentleman—”
Having uttered these introductory words, she was reduced to silence by the tremendous voice of her mistress.
“Haven’t I forbidden you to come here in school hours? Go away directly!”
Hardened by a life of drudgery, under conditions of perpetual scolding, the servant stood her ground, and recovered the use of her tongue.
“There’s a gentleman in the drawing-room,” she persisted. Miss Wigger tried to interrupt her again. “And here’s his card!” she shouted, in a voice that was the louder of the two.
Being a mortal creature, the schoolmistress was accessible to the promptings of curiosity. She snatched the card out of the girl’s hand.
Mr. Herbert Linley, Mount Morven, Perthshire.“I don’t know this person,” Miss Wigger declared. “You wretch, have you let a thief into the house?”
“A gentleman, if ever I see one yet,” the servant asserted.
“Hold your tongue! Did he ask for me? Do you hear?”
“You told me to hold my tongue. No; he didn’t ask for you.”
“Then who did he want to see?”
“It’s on his card.”
Miss Wigger referred to the card again, and discovered (faintly traced in pencil) these words: “To see Miss S.W.”
The schoolmistress instantly looked at Miss Westerfield. Miss Westerfield rose from her place at the head of her class.
The pupils, astonished at this daring act, all looked at the teacher—their natural enemy, appointed to supply them with undesired information derived from hated books. They saw one of Mother Nature’s favorite daughters; designed to be the darling of her family, and the conqueror of hearts among men of all tastes and ages. But Sydney Westerfield had lived for six weary years in the place of earthly torment, kept by Miss Wigger under the name of a school. Every budding beauty, except the unassailable beauty of her eyes and her hair, had been nipped under the frosty superintendence of her maternal aunt. Her cheeks were hollow, her delicate lips were pale; her shabby dress lay flat over her bosom. Observant people, meeting her when she was out walking with the girls, were struck by her darkly gentle eyes, and by the patient sadness of her expression. “What a pity!” they said to each other. “She would be a pretty girl, if she didn’t look so wretched and so thin.”
At a loss to understand the audacity of her teacher in rising before the class was dismissed, Miss Wigger began by asserting her authority. She did in two words: “Sit down!”
“I wish to explain, ma’am.”
“Sit down.”
“I beg, Miss Wigger, that you will allow me to explain.”
“Sydney Westerfield, you are setting the worst possible example to your class. I shall see this man myself.Willyou sit down?”
Pale already, Sydney turned paler still. She obeyed the word of command—to the delight of the girls of her class. It was then within ten minutes of the half hour after twelve—when the pupils were dismissed to the playground while the cloth was laid for dinner. What use would the teacher make of that half hour of freedom?
In the meanwhile Miss Wigger had entered her drawing-room. With the slightest possible inclination of her head, she eyed the stranger through her green spectacles. Even under that disadvantage his appearance spoke for itself. The servant’s estimate of him was beyond dispute. Mr. Herbert Linley’s good breeding was even capable of suppressing all outward expression of the dismay that he felt, on finding himself face to face with the formidable person who had received him.
“What is your business, if you please?” Miss Wigger began.
Men, animals, and buildings wear out with years, and submit to their hard lot. Time only meets with flat contradiction when he ventures to tell a woman that she is growing old. Herbert Linley had rashly anticipated that the “young lady,” whom it was the object of his visit to see, would prove to be young in the literal sense of the word. When he and Miss Wigger stood face to face, if the door had been set open for him, he would have left the house with the greatest pleasure.
“I have taken the liberty of calling,” he said, “in answer to an advertisement. May I ask"—he paused, and took out a newspaper from the pocket of his overcoat—"If I have the honor of speaking to the lady who is mentioned here?”
He opened the newspaper, and pointed to the advertisement.
Miss Wigger’s eyes rested—not on the passage indicated, but on the visitor’s glove. It fitted him to such perfection that it suggested the enviable position in life which has gloves made to order. He politely pointed again. Still inaccessible to the newspaper, Miss Wigger turned her spectacles next to the front window of the room, and discovered a handsome carriage waiting at the door. (Money evidently in the pockets of those beautiful trousers, worthy of the gloves!) As patiently as ever, Linley pointed for the third time, and drew Miss Wigger’s attention in the right direction at last. She read the advertisement.
“A Young Lady wishes to be employed in the education of a little girl. Possessing but few accomplishments, and having been only a junior teacher at a school, she offers her services on trial, leaving it to her employer to pay whatever salary she may be considered to deserve, if she obtains a permanent engagement. Apply by letter, to S.W., 14, Delta Gardens, N.E.”
“Most impertinent,” said Miss Wigger.
Mr. Linley looked astonished.
“I say, most impertinent!” Miss Wigger repeated.
Mr. Linley attempted to pacify this terrible woman. “It’s very stupid of me,” he said; “I am afraid I don’t quite understand you.”
“One of my teachers has issued an advertisement, and has referred to My address, without first consulting Me. Have I made myself understood, sir?” She looked at the carriage again, when she called him “sir.”
Not even Linley’s capacity for self-restraint could repress the expression of relief, visible in his brightening face, when he discovered that the lady of the advertisement and the lady who terrified him were two different persons.
“Have I made myself understood?” Miss Wigger repeated.
“Perfectly, madam. At the same time, I am afraid I must own that the advertisement has produced a favorable impression on me.”
“I fail entirely to see why,” Miss Wigger remarked.
“There is surely,” Linley repeated, “something straightforward—I might almost say, something innocent—in the manner in which the writer expresses herself. She seems to be singularly modest on the subject of her own attainments, and unusually considerate of the interests of others. I hope you will permit me—?”
Before he could add, “to see the young lady,” the door was opened: a young lady entered the room.
Was she the writer of the advertisement? He felt sure of it, for no better reason than this: the moment he looked at her she interested him. It was an interest new to Linley, in his experience of himself. There was nothing to appeal to his admiration (by way of his senses) in the pale, worn young creature who stood near the door, resigned beforehand to whatever reception she might meet with. The poor teacher made him think of his happy young wife at home—of his pretty little girl, the spoiled child of the household. He looked at Sydney Westerfield with a heartfelt compassion which did honor to them both.
“What do you mean by coming here?” Miss Wigger inquired.
She answered gently, but not timidly. The tone in which the mistress had spoken had evidently not shaken her resolution, so far.
“I wish to know,” she said, “if this gentleman desires to see me on the subject of my advertisement?”
“Your advertisement?” Miss Wigger repeated. “Miss Westerfield! how dare you beg for employment in a newspaper, without asking my leave?”
“I only waited to tell you what I had done, till I knew whether my advertisement would be answered or not.”
She spoke as calmly as before, still submitting to the insolent authority of the schoolmistress with a steady fortitude very remarkable in any girl—and especially in a girl whose face revealed a sensitive nature. Linley approached her, and said his few kind words before Miss Wigger could assert herself for the third time.
“I am afraid I have taken a liberty in answering you personally, when I ought to have answered by letter. My only excuse is that I have no time to arrange for an interview, in London, by correspondence. I live in Scotland, and I am obliged to return by the mail to-night.”
He paused. She was looking at him. Did she understand him?
She understood him only too well. For the first time, poor soul, in the miserable years of her school life, she saw eyes that rested on her with the sympathy that is too truly felt to be uttered in words. The admirable resignation which had learned its first hard lesson under her mother’s neglect—which had endured, in after-years, the daily persecution that heartless companionship so well knows how to inflict—failed to sustain her, when one kind look from a stranger poured its balm into the girl’s sore heart. Her head sank; her wasted figure trembled; a few tears dropped slowly on the bosom of her shabby dress. She tried, desperately tried, to control herself. “I beg your pardon, sir,” was all she could say; “I am not very well.”
Miss Wigger tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the door. “Are you well enough to see your way out?” she asked.
Linley turned on the wretch with a mind divided between wonder and disgust. “Good God, what has she done to deserve being treated in that way?” he asked.
Miss Wigger’s mouth widened; Miss Wigger’s forehead developed new wrinkles. To own it plainly, the schoolmistress smiled.
When it is of serious importance to a man to become acquainted with a woman’s true nature—say, when he contemplates marriage—his one poor chance of arriving at a right conclusion is to find himself provoked by exasperating circumstances, and to fly into a passion. If the lady flies into a passion on her side, he may rely on it that her faults are more than balanced by her good qualities. If, on the other hand, she exhibits the most admirable self-control, and sets him an example which ought to make him ashamed of himself, he has seen a bad sign, and he will do well to remember it.
Miss Wigger’s self-control put Herbert Linley in the wrong, before she took the trouble of noticing what he had said.
“If you were not out of temper,” she replied, “I might have told you that I don’t allow my house to be made an office for the engagement of governesses. As it is, I merely remind you that your carriage is at the door.”
He took the only course that was open to him; he took his hat.
Sydney turned away to leave the room. Linley opened the door for her. “Don’t be discouraged,” he whispered as she passed him; “you shall hear from me.” Having said this, he made his parting bow to the schoolmistress. Miss Wigger held up a peremptory forefinger, and stopped him on his way out. He waited, wondering what she would do next. She rang the bell.
“You are in the house of a gentlewoman,” Miss Wigger explained. “My servant attends visitors, when they leave me.” A faint smell of soap made itself felt in the room; the maid appeared, wiping her smoking arms on her apron. “Door. I wish you good-morning"—were the last words of Miss Wigger.
Leaving the house, Linley slipped a bribe into the servant’s hand. “I am going to write to Miss Westerfield,” he said. “Will you see that she gets my letter?”
“That I will!”
He was surprised by the fervor with which the girl answered him. Absolutely without vanity, he had no suspicion of the value which his winning manner, his kind brown eyes, and his sunny smile had conferred on his little gift of money. A handsome man was an eighth wonder of the world, at Miss Wigger’s school.
At the first stationer’s shop that he passed, he stopped the carriage and wrote his letter.
“I shall be glad indeed if I can offer you a happier life than the life you are leading now. It rests with you to help me do this. Will you send me the address of your parents, if they are in London, or the name of any friend with whom I can arrange to give you a trial as governess to my little girl? I am waiting your answer in the neighborhood. If any hinderance should prevent you from replying at once, I add the name of the hotel at which I am staying—so that you may telegraph to me, before I leave London to-night.”
The stationer’s boy, inspired by a private view of half-a-crown, set off at a run—and returned at a run with a reply.
“I have neither parents nor friends, and I have just been dismissed from my employment at the school. Without references to speak for me, I must not take advantage of your generous offer. Will you help me to bear my disappointment, permitting me to see you, for a few minutes only, at your hotel? Indeed, indeed, sir, I am not forgetful of what I owe to my respect for you, and my respect for myself. I only ask leave to satisfy you that I am not quite unworthy of the interest which you have been pleased to feel in—S.W.”
In those sad words, Sydney Westerfield announced that she had completed her education.
NOT far from the source of the famous river, which rises in the mountains between Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond, and divides the Highlands and the Lowlands of Scotland, travelers arrive at the venerable gray walls of Mount Morven; and, after consulting their guide books, ask permission to see the house.
What would be called, in a modern place of residence, the first floor, is reserved for the occupation of the family. The great hall of entrance, and its quaint old fireplace; the ancient rooms on the same level opening out of it, are freely shown to strangers. Cultivated travelers express various opinions relating to the family portraits, and the elaborately carved ceilings. The uninstructed public declines to trouble itself with criticism. It looks up at the towers and the loopholes, the battlements and the rusty old guns, which still bear witness to the perils of past times when the place was a fortress—it enters the gloomy hall, walks through the stone-paved rooms, stares at the faded pictures, and wonders at the lofty chimney-pieces hopelessly out of reach. Sometimes it sits on chairs which are as cold and as hard as iron, or timidly feels the legs of immovable tables which might be legs of elephants so far as size is concerned. When these marvels have been duly admired, and the guide books are shut up, the emancipated tourists, emerging into the light and air, all find the same social problem presented by a visit to Mount Morven: “How can the family live in such a place as that?”
If these strangers on their travels had been permitted to ascend to the first floor, and had been invited (for example) to say good-night to Mrs. Linley’s pretty little daughter, they would have seen the stone walls of Kitty’s bed-chamber snugly covered with velvet hangings which kept out the cold; they would have trod on a doubly-laid carpet, which set the chilly influences of the pavement beneath it at defiance; they would have looked at a bright little bed, of the last new pattern, worthy of a child’s delicious sleep; and they would only have discovered that the room was three hundred years old when they had drawn aside the window curtains, and had revealed the adamantine solidity of the outer walls. Or, if they had been allowed to pursue their investigations a little further, and had found their way next into Mrs. Linley’s sitting room, here again a transformation scene would have revealed more modern luxury, presented in the perfection which implies restraint within the limits of good taste. But on this occasion, instead of seeing the head of a lively little child on the pillow, side by side with the head of her doll, they would have encountered an elderly lady of considerable size, fast asleep and snoring in a vast armchair, with a book on her lap. The married men among the tourists would have recognized a mother-in-law, and would have set an excellent example to the rest; that is to say, the example of leaving the room.
The lady composed under the soporific influence of literature was a person of importance in the house—holding rank as Mrs. Linley’s mother; and being otherwise noticeable for having married two husbands, and survived them both.
The first of these gentlemen—the Right Honorable Joseph Norman—had been a member of Parliament, and had taken office under Government. Mrs. Linley was his one surviving child. He died at an advanced age; leaving his handsome widow (young enough, as she was always ready to mention, to be his daughter) well provided for, and an object of matrimonial aspiration to single gentlemen who admired size in a woman, set off by money. After hesitating for some little time, Mrs. Norman accepted the proposal of the ugliest and dullest man among the ranks of her admirers. Why she became the wife of Mr. Presty (known in commercial circles as a merchant enriched by the sale of vinegar) she was never able to explain. Why she lamented him, with tears of sincere sorrow, when he died after two years of married life, was a mystery which puzzled her nearest and dearest friends. And why when she indulged (a little too frequently) in recollections of her married life, she persisted in putting obscure Mr. Presty on a level with distinguished Mr. Norman, was a secret which this remarkable woman had never been known to reveal. Presented by their widow with the strictest impartiality to the general view, the characters of these two husbands combined, by force of contrast, the ideal of manly perfection. That is to say, the vices of Mr. Norman were the virtues of Mr. Presty; and the vices of Mr. Presty were the virtues of Mr. Norman.
Returning to the sitting-room after bidding Kitty goodnight, Mrs. Linley discovered the old lady asleep, and saw that the book on her mother’s lap was sliding off. Before she could check the downward movement, the book fell on the floor, and Mrs. Presty woke.
“Oh, mamma, I am so sorry! I was just too late to catch it.”
“It doesn’t matter, my dear. I daresay I should go to sleep again, if I went on with my novel.”
“Is it really as dull as that?”
“Dull?” Mrs. Presty repeated. “You are evidently not aware of what the new school of novel writing is doing. The new school provides the public with soothing fiction.”
“Are you speaking seriously, mamma?”
“Seriously, Catherine—and gratefully. These new writers are so good to old women. No story to excite our poor nerves; no improper characters to cheat us out of our sympathies, no dramatic situations to frighten us; exquisite management of details (as the reviews say), and a masterly anatomy of human motives which—I know what I mean, my dear, but I can’t explain it.”
“I think I understand, mamma. A masterly anatomy of human motives which is in itself a motive of human sleep. No; I won’t borrow your novel just now. I don’t want to go to sleep; I am thinking of Herbert in London.”
Mrs. Presty consulted her watch.
“Your husband is no longer in London,” she announced; “he has begun his journey home. Give me the railway guide, and I’ll tell you when he will be here tomorrow. You may trust me, Catherine, to make no mistakes. Mr. Presty’s wonderful knowledge of figures has been of the greatest use to me in later life. Thanks to his instructions, I am the only person in the house who can grapple with the intricacies of our railway system. Your poor father, Mr. Norman, could never understand time-tables and never attempted to conceal his deficiencies. He had none of the vanity (harmless vanity, perhaps) which led poor Mr. Presty to express positive opinions on matters of which he knew nothing, such as pictures and music. What do you want, Malcolm?”
The servant to whom this question was addressed answered: “A telegram, ma’am, for the mistress.”
Mrs. Linley recoiled from the message when the man offered it to her. Not usually a very demonstrative person, the feeling of alarm which had seized on her only expressed itself in a sudden change of color. “An accident!” she said faintly. “An accident on the railway!”
Mrs. Presty opened the telegram.
“If you had been the wife of a Cabinet Minister,” she said to her daughter, “you would have been too well used to telegrams to let them frighten you. Mr. Presty (who received his telegrams at his office) was not quite just to the memory of my first husband. He used to blame Mr. Norman for letting me see his telegrams. But Mr. Presty’s nature had all the poetry in which Mr. Norman’s nature was deficient. He saw the angelic side of women—and thought telegrams and business, and all that sort of thing, unworthy of our mission. I don’t exactly understand what our mission is—”
“Mamma! mamma! is Herbert hurt?”
“Stuff and nonsense! Nobody is hurt; there has been no accident.”
“They why does he telegraph to me?”
Hitherto, Mrs. Presty had only looked at the message. She now read it through attentively to the end. Her face assumed an expression of stern distrust. She shook her head.
“Read it yourself,” she answered; “and remember what I told you, when you trusted your husband to find a governess for my grandchild. I said: ‘You do not know men as I do.’ I hope you may not live to repent it.”
Mrs. Linley was too fond of her husband to let this pass. “Why shouldn’t I trust him?” she asked. “He was going to London on business—and it was an excellent opportunity.”
Mrs. Presty disposed of this weak defense of her daughter’s conduct by waving her hand. “Read your telegram,” she repeated with dignity, “and judge for yourself.”
Mrs. Linley read:
“I have engaged a governess. She will travel in the same train with me. I think I ought to prepare you to receive a person whom you may be surprised to see. She is very young, and very inexperienced; quite unlike the ordinary run of governesses. When you hear how cruelly the poor girl has been used, I am sure you will sympathize with her as I do.”
Mrs. Linley laid down the message, with a smile.
“Poor dear Herbert!” she said tenderly. “After we have been eight years married, is he really afraid that I shall be jealous? Mamma! Why are you looking so serious?”
Mrs. Presty took the telegram from her daughter and read extracts from it with indignant emphasis of voice and manner.
“Travels in the same train with him. Very young, and very inexperienced. And he sympathizes with her. Ha! I know the men, Catherine—I know the men!”