No Name by Wilkie Collins (good books for 7th graders TXT) 📕

turned it yet. The bare doubt whether the housekeeper might not have seen her already under too strong a light shook her self-possession for the moment. She gave herself time to recover it, and merely answered by a bow.

“Accept my excuses, ma’am, for the place in which I am compelled to receive you,” proceeded Mrs. Lecount in fluent English, spoken with a foreign accent. “Mr. Vanstone is only here for a temporary purpose. We leave for the seaside tomorrow afternoon, and it has not been thought worth while to set the house in proper order. Will you take a seat, and oblige me by mentioning the object of your visit?”

She glided imperceptibly a step or two nearer to Magdalen, and placed a chair for her exactly opposite the light from the window. “Pray sit down,” said Mrs. Lecount, looking with the tenderest interest at the visitor’s inflamed eyes through the visitor’s net veil.

“I am suffering, as you see, from a complaint in the eyes,” replied Magdalen, steadily keeping her profile toward the window, and carefully pitching her voice to the tone of Miss Garth’s. “I must beg your permission to wear my veil down, and to sit away from the light.” She said those words, feeling mistress of herself again. With perfect composure she drew the chair back into the corner of the room beyond the window and seated herself, keeping the shadow of her bonnet well over her face. Mrs. Lecount’s persuasive lips murmured a polite expression of sympathy; Mrs. Lecount’s amiable black eyes looked more interested in the strange lady than ever. She placed a chair for herself exactly on a line with Magdalen’s, and sat so close to the wall as to force her visitor either to turn her head a little further round toward the window, or to fail in politeness by not looking at the person whom she addressed. “Yes,” said Mrs. Lecount, with a confidential little cough. “And to what circumstances am I indebted for the honor of this visit?”

“May I inquire, first, if my name happens to be familiar to you?” said Magdalen, turning toward her as a matter of necessity, but coolly holding up her handkerchief at the same time between her face and the light.

“No,” answered Mrs. Lecount, with another little cough, rather harsher than the first. “The name of Miss Garth is not familiar to me.”

“In that case,” pursued Magdalen, “I shall best explain the object that causes me to intrude on you by mentioning who I am. I lived for many years as governess in the family of the late Mr. Andrew Vanstone, of Combe-Raven, and I come here in the interest of his orphan daughters.”

Mrs. Lecount’s hands, which had been smoothly sliding one over the other up to this time, suddenly stopped; and Mrs. Lecount’s lips, self-forgetfully shutting up, owned they were too thin at the very outset of the interview.

“I am surprised you can bear the light out-of-doors without a green shade,” she quietly remarked; leaving the false Miss Garth’s announcement of herself as completely unnoticed as it she had not spoken at all.

“I find a shade over my eyes keeps them too hot at this time of the year,” rejoined Magdalen, steadily matching the housekeeper’s composure. “May I ask whether you heard what I said just now on the subject of my errand in this house?”

“May I inquire on my side, ma’am, in what way that errand can possibly concern me?” retorted Mrs. Lecount.

“Certainly,” said Magdalen. “I come to you because Mr. Noel Vanstone’s intentions toward the two young ladies were made known to them in the form of a letter from yourself.”

That plain answer had its effect. It warned Mrs. Lecount that the strange lady was better informed than she had at first suspected, and that it might hardly be wise, under the circumstances, to dismiss her unheard.

“Pray pardon me,” said the housekeeper, “I scarcely understood before; I perfectly understand now. You are mistaken, ma’am, in supposing that I am of any importance, or that I exercise any influence in this painful matter. I am the mouthpiece of Mr. Noel Vanstone; the pen he holds, if you will excuse the expression⁠—nothing more. He is an invalid, and like other invalids, he has his bad days and his good. It was his bad day when that answer was written to the young person⁠—shall I call her Miss Vanstone? I will, with pleasure, poor girl; for who am I to make distinctions, and what is it to me whether her parents were married or not? As I was saying, it was one of Mr. Noel Vanstone’s bad days when that answer was sent, and therefore I had to write it; simply as his secretary, for want of a better. If you wish to speak on the subject of these young ladies⁠—shall I call them young ladies, as you did just now? no, poor things, I will call them the Misses Vanstone.⁠—If you wish to speak on the subject of these Misses Vanstone, I will mention your name, and your object in favoring me with this call, to Mr. Noel Vanstone. He is alone in the parlor, and this is one of his good days. I have the influence of an old servant over him, and I will use that influence with pleasure in your behalf. Shall I go at once?” asked Mrs. Lecount, rising, with the friendliest anxiety to make herself useful.

“If you please,” replied Magdalen; “and if I am not taking any undue advantage of your kindness.”

“On the contrary,” rejoined Mrs. Lecount, “you are laying me under an obligation⁠—you are permitting me, in my very limited way, to assist the performance of a benevolent action.” She bowed, smiled, and glided out of the room.

Left by herself, Magdalen allowed the anger which she had suppressed in Mrs. Lecount’s presence to break free from her. For want of a nobler object to attack, it took the direction of the toad. The sight of the hideous little reptile sitting placid on his rock throne, with his bright eyes staring impenetrably into vacancy, irritated every nerve in her body.