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

her hand. Anne held it as if she was drowning, as if her life depended on not letting it go.

“Will you always love me, Blanche, as you love me now?”

“How can you ask me!”

“I said yes just now. You say yes too.”

Blanche said it. Anne’s eyes fastened on her face, with one long, yearning look, and then Anne’s hand suddenly dropped hers.

She ran out of the room, more agitated, more uneasy, than she liked to confess to herself. Never had she felt so certain of the urgent necessity of appealing to Sir Patrick’s advice as she felt at that moment.

The guests were still safe at the luncheon-table when Blanche entered the dining-room.

Lady Lundie expressed the necessary surprise, in the properly graduated tone of reproof, at her stepdaughter’s want of punctuality. Blanche made her apologies with the most exemplary humility. She glided into her chair by her uncle’s side, and took the first thing that was offered to her. Sir Patrick looked at his niece, and found himself in the company of a model young English Miss⁠—and marveled inwardly what it might mean.

The talk, interrupted for the moment (topics, politics and sport⁠—and then, when a change was wanted, sport and politics), was resumed again all round the table. Under cover of the conversation, and in the intervals of receiving the attentions of the gentlemen, Blanche whispered to Sir Patrick, “Don’t start, uncle. Anne is in the library.” (Polite Mr. Smith offered some ham. Gratefully declined.) “Pray, pray, pray go to her; she is waiting to see you⁠—she is in dreadful trouble.” (Gallant Mr. Jones proposed fruit tart and cream. Accepted with thanks.) “Take her to the summerhouse: I’ll follow you when I get the chance. And manage it at once, uncle, if you love me, or you will be too late.”

Before Sir Patrick could whisper back a word in reply, Lady Lundie, cutting a cake of the richest Scottish composition, at the other end of the table, publicly proclaimed it to be her “own cake,” and, as such, offered her brother-in-law a slice. The slice exhibited an eruption of plums and sweetmeats, overlaid by a perspiration of butter. It has been said that Sir Patrick had reached the age of seventy⁠—it is, therefore, needless to add that he politely declined to commit an unprovoked outrage on his own stomach.

“My cake!” persisted Lady Lundie, elevating the horrible composition on a fork. “Won’t that tempt you?”

Sir Patrick saw his way to slipping out of the room under cover of a compliment to his sister-in-law. He summoned his courtly smile, and laid his hand on his heart.

“A fallible mortal,” he said, “is met by a temptation which he cannot possibly resist. If he is a wise mortal, also, what does he do?”

“He eats some of my cake,” said the prosaic Lady Lundie.

“No!” said Sir Patrick, with a look of unutterable devotion directed at his sister-in-law.

“He flies temptation, dear lady⁠—as I do now.” He bowed, and escaped, unsuspected, from the room.

Lady Lundie cast down her eyes, with an expression of virtuous indulgence for human frailty, and divided Sir Patrick’s compliment modestly between herself and her cake.

Well aware that his own departure from the table would be followed in a few minutes by the rising of the lady of the house, Sir Patrick hurried to the library as fast as his lame foot would let him. Now that he was alone, his manner became anxious, and his face looked grave. He entered the room.

Not a sign of Anne Silvester was to be seen anywhere. The library was a perfect solitude.

“Gone!” said Sir Patrick. “This looks bad.”

After a moment’s reflection he went back into the hall to get his hat. It was possible that she might have been afraid of discovery if she stayed in the library, and that she might have gone on to the summerhouse by herself.

If she was not to be found in the summerhouse, the quieting of Blanche’s mind and the clearing up of her uncle’s suspicions alike depended on discovering the place in which Miss Silvester had taken refuge. In this case time would be of importance, and the capacity of making the most of it would be a precious capacity at starting. Arriving rapidly at these conclusions, Sir Patrick rang the bell in the hall which communicated with the servants’ offices, and summoned his own valet⁠—a person of tried discretion and fidelity, nearly as old as himself.

“Get your hat, Duncan,” he said, when the valet appeared, “and come out with me.”

Master and servant set forth together silently on their way through the grounds. Arrived within sight of the summerhouse, Sir Patrick ordered Duncan to wait, and went on by himself.

There was not the least need for the precaution that he had taken. The summerhouse was as empty as the library. He stepped out again and looked about him. Not a living creature was visible. Sir Patrick summoned his servant to join him.

“Go back to the stables, Duncan,” he said, “and say that Miss Lundie lends me her pony-carriage today. Let it be got ready at once and kept in the stable-yard. I want to attract as little notice as possible. You are to go with me, and nobody else. Provide yourself with a railway timetable. Have you got any money?”

“Yes, Sir Patrick.”

“Did you happen to see the governess (Miss Silvester) on the day when we came here⁠—the day of the lawn-party?”

“I did, Sir Patrick.”

“Should you know her again?”

“I thought her a very distinguished-looking person, Sir Patrick. I should certainly know her again.”

“Have you any reason to think she noticed you?”

“She never even looked at me, Sir Patrick.”

“Very good. Put a change of linen into your bag, Duncan⁠—I may possibly want you to take a journey by railway. Wait for me in the stable-yard. This is a matter in which everything is trusted to my discretion, and to yours.”

“Thank you, Sir Patrick.”

With that acknowledgment of the compliment which had been just paid to him, Duncan gravely went his way to the stables; and Duncan’s