Man and Wife, Wilkie Collins [best ebook reader android .TXT] 📗

a family emergency, is never mortally offended⁠—she is only deeply grieved. Lady Lundie took a dignified attitude. “I well know,” wrote this estimable and Christian woman, “that I have been all along regarded in the light of an intruder by the family connections of my late beloved husband. But I was hardly prepared to find myself entirely shut out from all domestic confidence, at a time when some serious domestic catastrophe has but too evidently taken place. I have no desire, dear Sir Patrick, to intrude. Feeling it, however, to be quite inconsistent with a due regard for my own position⁠—after what has happened⁠—to correspond with Blanche, I address myself to the head of the family, purely in the interests of propriety. Permit me to ask whether⁠—under circumstances which appear to be serious enough to require the recall of my stepdaughter and her husband from their wedding tour⁠—you think it decent to keep the widow of the late Sir Thomas Lundie entirely in the dark? Pray consider this⁠—not at all out of regard for me!⁠—but out of regard for your own position with society. Curiosity is, as you know, foreign to my nature. But when this dreadful scandal (whatever it may be) comes out⁠—which, dear Sir Patrick, it cannot fail to do⁠—what will the world think, when it asks for Lady Lundie’s, opinion, and hears that Lady Lundie knew nothing about it? Whichever way you may decide I shall take no offense. I may possibly be wounded⁠—but that won’t matter. My little round of duties will find me still earnest, still cheerful. And even if you shut me out, my best wishes will find their way, nevertheless, to Ham Farm. May I add⁠—without encountering a sneer⁠—that the prayers of a lonely woman are offered for the welfare of all?”

“Well?” said Blanche.

Sir Patrick folded up the letter, and put it in his pocket.

“You have your stepmother’s best wishes, my dear.” Having answered in those terms, he bowed to his niece with his best grace, and walked out of the room.

“Do I think it decent,” he repeated to himself, as he closed the door, “to leave the widow of the late Sir Thomas Lundie in the dark? When a lady’s temper is a little ruffled, I think it more than decent, I think it absolutely desirable, to let that lady have the last word.” He went into the library, and dropped his sister-in-law’s remonstrance into a box, labeled “Unanswered Letters.” Having got rid of it in that way, he hummed his favorite little Scotch air⁠—and put on his hat, and went out to sun himself in the garden.

Meanwhile, Blanche was not quite satisfied with Sir Patrick’s reply. She appealed to her husband. “There is something wrong,” she said⁠—“and my uncle is hiding it from me.”

Arnold could have desired no better opportunity than she had offered to him, in those words, for making the long-deferred disclosure to her of the truth. He lifted his eyes to Blanche’s face. By an unhappy fatality she was looking charmingly that morning. How would she look if he told her the story of the hiding at the inn? Arnold was still in love with her⁠—and Arnold said nothing.

The next day’s post brought not only the anticipated letter from Mr. Crum, but an unexpected Glasgow newspaper as well.

This time Blanche had no reason to complain that her uncle kept his correspondence a secret from her. After reading the lawyer’s letter, with an interest and agitation which showed that the contents had taken him by surprise, he handed it to Arnold and his niece. “Bad news there,” he said. “We must share it together.”

After acknowledging the receipt of Sir Patrick’s letter of inquiry, Mr. Crum began by stating all that he knew of Miss Silvester’s movements⁠—dating from the time when she had left the Sheep’s Head Hotel. About a fortnight since he had received a letter from her informing him that she had found a suitable place of residence in a village near Glasgow. Feeling a strong interest in Miss Silvester, Mr. Crum had visited her some few days afterward. He had satisfied himself that she was lodging with respectable people, and was as comfortably situated as circumstances would permit. For a week more he had heard nothing from the lady. At the expiration of that time he had received a letter from her, telling him that she had read something in a Glasgow newspaper, of that day’s date, which seriously concerned herself, and which would oblige her to travel northward immediately as fast as her strength would permit. At a later period, when she would be more certain of her own movements, she engaged to write again, and let Mr. Crum know where he might communicate with her if necessary. In the meantime, she could only thank him for his kindness, and beg him to take care of any letters or messages which might be left for her. Since the receipt of this communication the lawyer had heard nothing further. He had waited for the morning’s post in the hope of being able to report that he had received some further intelligence. The hope had not been realized. He had now stated all that he knew himself thus far⁠—and he had forwarded a copy of the newspaper alluded to by Miss Silvester, on the chance that an examination of it by Sir Patrick might possibly lead to further discoveries. In conclusion, he pledged himself to write again the moment he had any information to send.

Blanche snatched up the newspaper, and opened it. “Let me look!” she said. “I can find what Anne saw here if anybody can!”

She ran her eye eagerly over column after column and page after page⁠—and dropped the newspaper on her lap with a gesture of despair.

“Nothing!” she exclaimed. “Nothing anywhere, that I can see, to interest Anne. Nothing to interest anybody⁠—except Lady Lundie,” she went on, brushing the newspaper off her lap. “It turns out to be all true, Arnold, at Swanhaven. Geoffrey Delamayn is going to marry