No Name, Wilkie Collins [reading the story of the TXT] 📗

Louisa waited near the door, and listened to those strange words in silent astonishment.

“Come here,” said Magdalen, pointing to the empty chair; “come here and sit down.”

Louisa advanced, and timidly removed the chair from its position at her mistress’s side. Magdalen instantly drew it back again. “No!” she said. “Come closer⁠—come close by me.” After a moment’s hesitation, Louisa obeyed.

“I ask you to sit near me,” pursued Magdalen, “because I wish to speak to you on equal terms. Whatever distinctions there might once have been between us are now at an end. I am a lonely woman thrown helpless on my own resources, without rank or place in the world. I may or may not keep you as my friend. As mistress and maid the connection between us must come to an end.”

“Oh, ma’am, don’t, don’t say that!” pleaded Louisa, faintly.

Magdalen sorrowfully and steadily went on.

“When you first came to me,” she resumed, “I thought I should not like you. I have learned to like you⁠—I have learned to be grateful to you. From first to last you have been faithful and good to me. The least I can do in return is not to stand in the way of your future prospects.”

“Don’t send me away, ma’am!” said Louisa, imploringly. “If you can only help me with a little money now and then, I’ll wait for my wages⁠—I will, indeed.”

Magdalen took her hand and went on, as sorrowfully and as steadily as before.

“My future life is all darkness, all uncertainty,” she said. “The next step I may take may lead me to my prosperity or may lead me to my ruin. Can I ask you to share such a prospect as this? If your future was as uncertain as mine is⁠—if you, too, were a friendless woman thrown on the world⁠—my conscience might be easy in letting you cast your lot with mine. I might accept your attachment, for I might feel I was not wronging you. How can I feel this in your case? You have a future to look to. You are an excellent servant; you can get another place⁠—a far better place than mine. You can refer to me; and if the character I give is not considered sufficient, you can refer to the mistress you served before me⁠—”

At the instant when that reference to the girl’s last employer escaped Magdalen’s lips, Louisa snatched her hand away and started up affrightedly from her chair. There was a moment’s silence. Both mistress and maid were equally taken by surprise.

Magdalen was the first to recover herself.

“Is it getting too dark?” she asked, significantly. “Are you going to light the candles, after all?”

Louisa drew back into the dimmest corner of the room.

“You suspect me, ma’am!” she answered out of the darkness, in a breathless whisper. “Who has told you? How did you find out⁠—?” She stopped, and burst into tears. “I deserve your suspicion,” she said, struggling to compose herself. “I can’t deny it to you. You have treated me so kindly; you have made me so fond of you! Forgive me, Mrs. Vanstone⁠—I am a wretch; I have deceived you.”

“Come here and sit down by me again,” said Magdalen. “Come⁠—or I will get up myself and bring you back.”

Louisa slowly returned to her place. Dim as the firelight was, she seemed to fear it. She held her handkerchief over her face, and shrank from her mistress as she seated herself again in the chair.

“You are wrong in thinking that anyone has betrayed you to me,” said Magdalen. “All that I know of you is, what your own looks and ways have told me. You have had some secret trouble weighing on your mind ever since you have been in my service. I confess I have spoken with the wish to find out more of you and your past life than I have found out yet⁠—not because I am curious, but because I have my secret troubles too. Are you an unhappy woman, like me? If you are, I will take you into my confidence. If you have nothing to tell me⁠—if you choose to keep your secret⁠—I don’t blame you; I only say, Let us part. I won’t ask how you have deceived me. I will only remember that you have been an honest and faithful and competent servant while I have employed you; and I will say as much in your favor to any new mistress you like to send to me.”

She waited for the reply. For a moment, and only for a moment, Louisa hesitated. The girl’s nature was weak, but not depraved. She was honestly attached to her mistress; and she spoke with a courage which Magdalen had not expected from her.

“If you send me away, ma’am,” she said, “I won’t take my character from you till I have told you the truth; I won’t return your kindness by deceiving you a second time. Did my master ever tell you how he engaged me?”

“No. I never asked him, and he never told me.”

“He engaged me, ma’am, with a written character⁠—”

“Yes?”

“The character was a false one.”

Magdalen drew back in amazement. The confession she heard was not the confession she had anticipated.

“Did your mistress refuse to give you a character?” she asked. “Why?”

Louisa dropped on her knees and hid her face in her mistress’s lap. “Don’t ask me!” she said. “I’m a miserable, degraded creature; I’m not fit to be in the same room with you!” Magdalen bent over her, and whispered a question in her ear. Louisa whispered back the one sad word of reply.

“Has he deserted you?” asked Magdalen, after waiting a moment, and thinking first.

“No.”

“Do you love him?”

“Dearly.”

The remembrance of her own loveless marriage stung Magdalen to the quick.

“For God’s sake, don’t kneel to me!” she cried, passionately. “If there is a degraded woman in this room, I am the woman⁠—not you!”

She raised the girl by main force from her knees, and put her back in the chair. They both waited a little in silence.