Man and Wife by Wilkie Collins (easy novels to read txt) 📕

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, and been owertaken in the storm?”

Anne was speechless. Arnold put the question: “Who is it?”

“Wha is’t?” repeated Mrs. Inchbare. “It’s joost the bonny young leddy—Miss Blanche hersel’.”

An irrepressible cry of horror burst from Anne. The landlady set it down to the lightning, which flashed into the room again at the same moment.

“Eh, mistress! ye’ll find Miss Blanche a bit baulder than to skirl at a flash o’ lightning, that gait! Here she is, the bonny birdie!” exclaimed Mrs. Inchbare, deferentially backing out into the passage again.

Blanche’s voice reached them, calling for Anne.

Anne caught Arnold by the hand and wrung it hard. “Go!” she whispered. The next instant she was at the mantle-piece, and had blown out both the candles.

Another flash of lightning came through the darkness, and showed Blanche’s figure standing at the door.

CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH.

BLANCHE.

MRS. INCHBARE was the first person who acted in the emergency. She called for lights; and sternly rebuked the house-maid, who brought them, for not having closed the house door. “Ye feckless ne’er-do-weel!” cried the landlady; “the wind’s blawn the candles oot.”

The woman declared (with perfect truth) that the door had been closed. An awkward dispute might have ensued if Blanche had not diverted Mrs. Inchbare’s attention to herself. The appearance of the lights disclosed her, wet through with her arms round Anne’s neck. Mrs. Inchbare digressed at once to the pressing question of changing the young lady’s clothes, and gave Anne the opportunity of looking round her, unobserved. Arnold had made his escape before the candles had been brought in.

In the mean time Blanche’s attention was absorbed in her own dripping skirts.

“Good gracious! I’m absolutely distilling rain from every part of me. And I’m making you, Anne, as wet as I am! Lend me some dry things. You can’t? Mrs. Inchbare, what does your experience suggest? Which had I better do? Go to bed while my clothes are being dried? or borrow from your wardrobe—though you are a head and shoulders taller than I am?”

Mrs. Inchbare instantly bustled out to fetch the choicest garments that her wardrobe could produce. The moment the door had closed on her Blanche looked round the room in her turn.

The rights of affection having been already asserted, the claims of curiosity naturally pressed for satisfaction next.

“Somebody passed me in the dark,” she whispered. “Was it your husband? I’m dying to be introduced to him. And, oh my dear! what is your married name?”

Anne answered, coldly, “Wait a little. I can’t speak about it yet.”

“Are you ill?” asked Blanche.

“I am a little nervous.”

“Has any thing unpleasant happened between you and my uncle? You have seen him, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Did he give you my message?”

“He gave me your message.—Blanche! you promised him to stay at Windygates. Why, in the name of heaven, did you come here to-night?”

“If you were half as fond of me as I am of you,” returned Blanche, “you wouldn’t ask that. I tried hard to keep my promise, but I couldn’t do it. It was all very well, while my uncle was laying down the law—with Lady Lundie in a rage, and the dogs barking, and the doors banging, and all that. The excitement kept me up. But when my uncle had gone, and the dreadful gray, quiet, rainy evening came, and it had all calmed down again, there was no bearing it. The house—without you—was like a tomb. If I had had Arnold with me I might have done very well. But I was all by myself. Think of that! Not a soul to speak to! There wasn’t a horrible thing that could possibly happen to you that I didn’t fancy was going to happen. I went into your empty room and looked at your things. That settled it, my darling! I rushed down stairs—carried away, positively carried away, by an Impulse beyond human resistance. How could I help it? I ask any reasonable person how could I help it? I ran to the stables and found Jacob. Impulse—all impulse! I said, ‘Get the pony-chaise—I must have a drive—I don’t care if it rains—you come with me.’ All in a breath, and all impulse! Jacob behaved like an angel. He said, ‘All right, miss.’ I am perfectly certain Jacob would die for me if I asked him. He is drinking hot grog at this moment, to prevent him from catching cold, by my express orders. He had the pony-chaise out in two minutes; and off we went. Lady Lundie, my dear, prostrate in her own room—too much sal volatile. I hate her. The rain got worse. I didn’t mind it. Jacob didn’t mind it. The pony didn’t mind it. They had both caught my impulse—especially the pony. It didn’t come on to thunder till some time afterward; and then we were nearer Craig Fernie than Windygates—to say nothing of your being at one place and not at the other. The lightning was quite awful on the moor. If I had had one of the horses, he would have been frightened. The pony shook his darling little head, and dashed through it. He is to have beer. A mash with beer in it—by my express orders. When he has done we’ll borrow a lantern, and go into the stable, and kiss him. In the mean time, my dear, here I am—wet through in a thunderstorm, which doesn’t in the least matter—and determined to satisfy my own mind about you, which matters a great deal, and must and shall be done before I rest to-night! ”

She turned Anne, by main force, as she spoke, toward the light of the candles.

Her tone changed the moment she looked at Anne’s face.

“I knew it!” she said. “You would never have kept the most interesting event in your life a secret from me—you would never have written me such a cold formal letter as the letter you left in your room—if there had not been something wrong. I said so at the time. I know it now! Why has your husband forced you to leave Windygates at a moment’s notice? Why does he slip out of the room in the dark, as if he was afraid of being seen? Anne! Anne! what has come to you? Why do you receive me in this way?”

At that critical moment Mrs. Inchbare reappeared, with the choicest selection of wearing apparel which her wardrobe could furnish. Anne hailed the welcome interruption. She took the candles, and led the way into the bedroom immediately.

“Change your wet clothes first,” she said. “We can talk after that.”

The bedroom door had hardly been closed a minute before there was a tap at it. Signing to Mrs. Inchbare not to interrupt the services she was rendering to Blanche, Anne passed quickly into the sitting-room, and closed the door behind her. To her infinite relief, she only found herself face to face with the discreet Mr. Bishopriggs.

“What do you want?” she asked.

The eye of Mr. Bishopriggs announced, by a wink, that his mission was of a confidential nature. The hand of Mr. Bishopriggs wavered; the breath of Mr. Bishopriggs exhaled a spirituous fume. He slowly produced a slip of paper, with some lines of writing on it.

“From ye ken who,” he explained, jocosely. “A bit love-letter, I trow, from him that’s dear to ye. Eh! he’s an awfu’ reprobate is him that’s dear to ye. Miss, in the bedchamber there, will nae doot be the one he’s jilted for you? I see it all—ye can’t blind Me—I ha’ been a frail person my ain self, in my time. Hech! he’s safe and sound, is the reprobate. I ha’ lookit after a’ his little creature-comforts—I’m joost a fether to him, as well as a fether to you. Trust Bishopriggs—when puir human nature wants a bit pat on the back, trust Bishopriggs.”

While the sage was speaking these comfortable words, Anne was reading the lines traced on the paper. They were signed by Arnold; and they ran thus:

“I am in the smoking-room of the inn. It rests with you to say whether I must stop there. I don’t believe Blanche would be jealous. If I knew how to explain my being at the inn without betraying the confidence which you and Geoffrey have placed in me, I wouldn’t be away from her another moment. It does grate on me so! At the same time, I don’t want to make your position harder than it is. Think of yourself f irst. I leave it in your hands. You have only to say, Wait, by the bearer—and I shall understand that I am to stay where I am till I hear from you again.”

Anne looked up from the message.

“Ask him to wait,” she said; “and I will send word to him again.”

“Wi’ mony loves and kisses,” suggested Mr. Bishopriggs, as a necessary supplement to the message.” Eh! it comes as easy as A. B. C. to a man o’ my experience. Ye can ha’ nae better gae-between than yer puir servant to command, Sawmuel Bishopriggs. I understand ye baith pairfeckly.” He laid his forefinger along his flaming nose, and withdrew.

Without allowing herself to hesitate for an instant, Anne opened the bedroom door—with the resolution of relieving Arnold from the new sacrifice imposed on him by owning the truth.

“Is that you?” asked Blanche.

At the sound of her voice, Anne started back guiltily. “I’ll