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

sooner Windygates was turned into a Penitentiary, on the silent system, the fitter the house would be for the people who inhabited it. Under these circumstances, Arnold suggested that Blanche would do well to make her excuses as soon as possible at headquarters, and accept the seat in the carriage which her stepmother wished her to take. “We are in for the feudal antiquities, Blanche; and we must help each other through as well as we can. If you will go in the carriage, I’ll go too.”

Blanche shook her head.

“There are serious reasons for my keeping up appearances,” she said. “I shall go in the carriage. You mustn’t go at all.”

Arnold naturally looked a little surprised, and asked to be favored with an explanation.

Blanche took his arm and hugged it close. Now that Anne was lost, Arnold was more precious to her than ever. She literally hungered to hear at that moment, from his own lips, how fond he was of her. It mattered nothing that she was already perfectly satisfied on this point. It was so nice (after he had said it five hundred times already) to make him say it once more!

“Suppose I had no explanation to give?” she said. “Would you stay behind by yourself to please me?”

“I would do anything to please you!”

“Do you really love me as much as that?”

They were still in the yard; and the only witnesses present were the dogs. Arnold answered in the language without words⁠—which is nevertheless the most expressive language in use, between men and women, all over the world.

“This is not doing my duty,” said Blanche, penitently. “But, oh Arnold, I am so anxious and so miserable! And it is such a consolation to know that you won’t turn your back on me too!”

With that preface she told him what had happened in the library. Even Blanche’s estimate of her lover’s capacity for sympathizing with her was more than realized by the effect which her narrative produced on Arnold. He was not merely surprised and sorry for her. His face showed plainly that he felt genuine concern and distress. He had never stood higher in Blanche’s opinion than he stood at that moment.

“What is to be done?” he asked. “How does Sir Patrick propose to find her?”

Blanche repeated Sir Patrick’s instructions relating to the crossroads, and also to the serious necessity of pursuing the investigation in the strictest privacy. Arnold (relieved from all fear of being sent back to Craig Fernie) undertook to do everything that was asked of him, and promised to keep the secret from everybody.

They went back to the house, and met with an icy welcome from Lady Lundie. Her ladyship repeated her remark on the subject of turning Windygates into a Penitentiary for Blanche’s benefit. She received Arnold’s petition to be excused from going to see the castle with the barest civility. “Oh, take your walk by all means! You may meet your friend, Mr. Delamayn⁠—who appears to have such a passion for walking that he can’t even wait till luncheon is over. As for Sir Patrick⁠—Oh! Sir Patrick has borrowed the pony-carriage? and gone out driving by himself?⁠—I’m sure I never meant to offend my brother-in-law when I offered him a slice of my poor little cake. Don’t let me offend anybody else. Dispose of your afternoon, Blanche, without the slightest reference to me. Nobody seems inclined to visit the ruins⁠—the most interesting relic of feudal times in Perthshire, Mr. Brinkworth. It doesn’t matter⁠—oh, dear me, it doesn’t matter! I can’t force my guests to feel an intelligent curiosity on the subject of Scottish antiquities. No! no! my dear Blanche!⁠—it won’t be the first time, or the last, that I have driven out alone. I don’t at all object to being alone. ‘My mind to me a kingdom is,’ as the poet says.” So Lady Lundie’s outraged self-importance asserted its violated claims on human respect, until her distinguished medical guest came to the rescue and smoothed his hostess’s ruffled plumes. The surgeon (he privately detested ruins) begged to go. Blanche begged to go. Smith and Jones (profoundly interested in feudal antiquities) said they would sit behind, in the “rumble”⁠—rather than miss this unexpected treat. One, Two, and Three caught the infection, and volunteered to be the escort on horseback. Lady Lundie’s celebrated “smile” (warranted to remain unaltered on her face for hours together) made its appearance once more. She issued her orders with the most charming amiability. “We’ll take the guidebook,” said her ladyship, with the eye to mean economy, which is only to be met with in very rich people, “and save a shilling to the man who shows the ruins.” With that she went upstairs to array herself for the drive, and looked in the glass; and saw a perfectly virtuous, fascinating, and accomplished woman, facing her irresistibly in a new French bonnet!

At a private signal from Blanche, Arnold slipped out and repaired to his post, where the roads crossed the road that led to the railway.

There was a space of open heath on one side of him, and the stonewall and gates of a farmhouse inclosure on the other. Arnold sat down on the soft heather⁠—and lit a cigar⁠—and tried to see his way through the double mystery of Anne’s appearance and Anne’s flight.

He had interpreted his friend’s absence exactly as his friend had anticipated: he could only assume that Geoffrey had gone to keep a private appointment with Anne. Miss Silvester’s appearance at Windygates alone, and Miss Silvester’s anxiety to hear the names of the gentlemen who were staying in the house, seemed, under these circumstances, to point to the plain conclusion that the two had, in some way, unfortunately missed each other. But what could be the motive of her flight? Whether she knew of some other place in which she might meet Geoffrey? or whether she had gone back to the inn? or whether she had acted under some sudden impulse of despair?⁠—were questions which Arnold was necessarily quite