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

He mixed himself a second glass of toddy, as an aid to reflection, and sat sipping the liquor, and twisting and turning the letter in his gouty fingers. It was not easy to see his way to the true connection between the lady and gentleman in the parlor and the two letters now in his own possession. They might be themselves the writers of the letters, or they might be only friends of the writers. Who was to decide?

In the first case, the lady’s object would appear to have been as good as gained; for the two had certainly asserted themselves to be man and wife, in his own presence, and in the presence of the landlady. In the second case, the correspondence so carelessly thrown aside might, for all a stranger knew to the contrary, prove to be of some importance in the future. Acting on this latter view, Mr. Bishopriggs⁠—whose past experience as “a bit clerk body,” in Sir Patrick’s chambers, had made a man of business of him⁠—produced his pen and ink, and endorsed the letter with a brief dated statement of the circumstances under which he had found it. “I’ll do weel to keep the Doecument,” he thought to himself. “Wha knows but there’ll be a reward offered for it ane o’ these days? Eh! eh! there may be the warth o’ a fi’ pun’ note in this, to a puir lad like me!”

With that comforting reflection, he drew out a battered tin cashbox from the inner recesses of the drawer, and locked up the stolen correspondence to bide its time.

The storm rose higher and higher as the evening advanced.

In the sitting-room, the state of affairs, perpetually changing, now presented itself under another new aspect.

Arnold had finished his dinner, and had sent it away. He had next drawn a side-table up to the sofa on which Anne lay⁠—had shuffled the pack of cards⁠—and was now using all his powers of persuasion to induce her to try one game at Écarté with him, by way of diverting her attention from the tumult of the storm. In sheer weariness, she gave up contesting the matter; and, raising herself languidly on the sofa, said she would try to play. “Nothing can make matters worse than they are,” she thought, despairingly, as Arnold dealt the cards for her. “Nothing can justify my inflicting my own wretchedness on this kindhearted boy!”

Two worse players never probably sat down to a game. Anne’s attention perpetually wandered; and Anne’s companion was, in all human probability, the most incapable card-player in Europe.

Anne turned up the trump⁠—the nine of Diamonds. Arnold looked at his hand⁠—and “proposed.” Anne declined to change the cards. Arnold announced, with undiminished good-humor, that he saw his way clearly, now, to losing the game, and then played his first card⁠—the Queen of Trumps!

Anne took it with the King, and forgot to declare the King. She played the ten of Trumps.

Arnold unexpectedly discovered the eight of Trumps in his hand. “What a pity!” he said, as he played it. “Hullo! you haven’t marked the King! I’ll do it for you. That’s two⁠—no, three⁠—to you. I said I should lose the game. Couldn’t be expected to do anything (could I?) with such a hand as mine. I’ve lost everything now I’ve lost my trumps. You to play.”

Anne looked at her hand. At the same moment the lightning flashed into the room through the ill-closed shutters; the roar of the thunder burst over the house, and shook it to its foundation. The screaming of some hysterical female tourist, and the barking of a dog, rose shrill from the upper floor of the inn. Anne’s nerves could support it no longer. She flung her cards on the table, and sprang to her feet.

“I can play no more,” she said. “Forgive me⁠—I am quite unequal to it. My head burns! my heart stifles me!”

She began to pace the room again. Aggravated by the effect of the storm on her nerves, her first vague distrust of the false position into which she and Arnold had allowed themselves to drift had strengthened, by this time, into a downright horror of their situation which was not to be endured. Nothing could justify such a risk as the risk they were now running! They had dined together like married people⁠—and there they were, at that moment, shut in together, and passing the evening like man and wife!

“Oh, Mr. Brinkworth!” she pleaded. “Think⁠—for Blanche’s sake, think⁠—is there no way out of this?”

Arnold was quietly collecting the scattered cards.

“Blanche, again?” he said, with the most exasperating composure. “I wonder how she feels, in this storm?”

In Anne’s excited state, the reply almost maddened her. She turned from Arnold, and hurried to the door.

“I don’t care!” she cried, wildly. “I won’t let this deception go on. I’ll do what I ought to have done before. Come what may of it, I’ll tell the landlady the truth!”

She had opened the door, and was on the point of stepping into the passage⁠—when she stopped, and started violently. Was it possible, in that dreadful weather, that she had actually heard the sound of carriage wheels on the strip of paved road outside the inn?

Yes! others had heard the sound too. The hobbling figure of Mr. Bishopriggs passed her in the passage, making for the house door. The hard voice of the landlady rang through the inn, ejaculating astonishment in broad Scotch. Anne closed the sitting-room door again, and turned to Arnold⁠—who had risen, in surprise, to his feet.

“Travelers!” she exclaimed. “At this time!”

“And in this weather!” added Arnold.

“Can it be Geoffrey?” she asked⁠—going back to the old vain delusion that he might yet feel for her, and return.

Arnold shook his head. “Not Geoffrey. Whoever else it may be⁠—not Geoffrey!”

Mrs. Inchbare suddenly entered the room⁠—with her cap-ribb ons flying, her eyes staring, and her bones looking harder than ever.

“Eh, mistress!” she said to Anne. “Wha do ye think has driven here to see ye, from Windygates Hoose,