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

heard of her since her husband’s death is suggestive to my mind of serious mischief to come. In her situation, and with her temper, the quieter she is now, the more inveterately I, for one, distrust her in the future. It is impossible to say to what violent measures her present extremity may not drive her. It is impossible to feel sure that she may not be the cause of some public scandal this time, which may affect her innocent sister as well as herself.

“I know you will not misinterpret the motive which has led me to write these lines; I know you will not think that I am inconsiderate enough to cause you unnecessary alarm. My sincere anxiety to see that happy prospect realized to which your letter alludes has caused me to write far less reservedly than I might otherwise have written. I strongly urge you to use your influence, on every occasion when you can fairly exert it, to strengthen that growing attachment, and to place it beyond the reach of any coming disasters, while you have the opportunity of doing so. When I tell you that the fortune of which Mrs. Noel Vanstone has been deprived is entirely bequeathed to Admiral Bartram; and when I add that Mr. George Bartram is generally understood to be his uncle’s heir⁠—you will, I think, acknowledge that I am not warning you without a cause.

“Yours most truly,

“William Pendril.”

III From Admiral Bartram to Mrs. Drake (Housekeeper at St. Crux)

“St. Crux, January 10th, 1848.

“Mrs. Drake⁠—I have received your letter from London, stating that you have found me a new parlormaid at last, and that the girl is ready to return with you to St. Crux when your other errands in town allow you to come back.

“This arrangement must be altered immediately, for a reason which I am heartily sorry to have to write.

“The illness of my niece, Mrs. Girdlestone⁠—which appeared to be so slight as to alarm none of us, doctors included⁠—has ended fatally. I received this morning the shocking news of her death. Her husband is said to be quite frantic with grief. Mr. George has already gone to his brother-in-law’s, to superintend the last melancholy duties and I must follow him before the funeral takes place. We propose to take Mr. Girdlestone away afterward, and to try the effect on him of change of place and new scenes. Under these sad circumstances, I may be absent from St. Crux a month or six weeks at least; the house will be shut up, and the new servant will not be wanted until my return.

“You will therefore tell the girl, on receiving this letter, that a death in the family has caused a temporary change in our arrangements. If she is willing to wait, you may safely engage her to come here in six weeks’ time; I shall be back then, if Mr. George is not. If she refuses, pay her what compensation is right, and so have done with her.

“Yours,

“Arthur Bartram.”

IV From Mrs. Drake to Admiral Bartram

“January 11th.

“Honored Sir⁠—I hope to get my errands done, and to return to St. Crux tomorrow, but write to save you anxiety, in case of delay.

“The young woman whom I have engaged (Louisa by name) is willing to wait your time; and her present mistress, taking an interest in her welfare, will provide for her during the interval. She understands that she is to enter on her new service in six weeks from the present date⁠—namely, on the twenty-fifth of February next.

“Begging you will accept my respectful sympathy under the sad bereavement which has befallen the family,

“I remain, honored sir, your humble servant,

“Sophia Drake.”

The Seventh Scene

St. Crux-in-the-Marsh.

I

“This is where you are to sleep. Put yourself tidy, and then come down again to my room. The admiral has returned, and you will have to begin by waiting on him at dinner today.”

With those words, Mrs. Drake, the housekeeper, closed the door; and the new parlormaid was left alone in her bedchamber at St. Crux.

That day was the eventful twenty-fifth of February. In barely four months from the time when Mrs. Lecount had placed her master’s private instructions in his executor’s hands, the one combination of circumstances against which it had been her first and foremost object to provide was exactly the combination which had now taken place. Mr. Noel Vanstone’s widow and Admiral Bartram’s secret trust were together in the same house.

Thus far, events had declared themselves without an exception in Magdalen’s favor. Thus far, the path which had led her to St. Crux had been a path without an obstacle: Louisa, whose name she had now taken, had sailed three days since for Australia, with her husband and her child; she was the only living creature whom Magdalen had trusted with her secret, and she was by this time out of sight of the English land. The girl had been careful, reliable and faithfully devoted to her mistress’s interests to the last. She had passed the ordeal of her interview with the housekeeper, and had forgotten none of the instructions by which she had been prepared to meet it. She had herself proposed to turn the six weeks’ delay, caused by the death in the admiral’s family, to good account, by continuing the all-important practice of those domestic lessons, on the perfect acquirement of which her mistress’s daring stratagem depended for its success. Thanks to the time thus gained, when Louisa’s marriage was over, and the day of parting had come, Magdalen had learned and mastered, in the nicest detail, everything that her former servant could teach her. On the day when she passed the doors of St. Crux she entered on her desperate venture, strong in the ready presence of mind under emergencies which her later life had taught her, stronger still in the trained capacity that she possessed for the assumption of a character not her own,