Armadale II

ARMADALE II

maid was so ugly a woman as to render it next to a certainty that he had some underhand purpose to serve in making himself agreeable to her; and that he has not as yet been seen again in the neighborhood since the day of her dismissal. So much for the one servant who has been turned out at Thorpe Ambrose. I can only hope there is no trouble for Allan brewing in that quarter. As for the other servants who remain, Mrs. Blanchard describes them, both men and women, as perfectly trustworthy, and they will all, no doubt, continue to occupy their present places.

“Having now done with Mrs. Blanchard’s letter, my next duty is to beg you, in Allan’s name and with Allan’s love, to come here and stay with him at the earliest moment when you can leave Somersetshire. Although I cannot presume to think that my own wishes will have any special infl uence in determining you to accept this invitation, I must nevertheless acknowledge that I have a reason of my own for earnestly desiring to see you here. Allan has innocently caused me a new anxiety about my future relations with him, and I sorely need your advice to show me the right way of setting that anxiety at rest.

“The diffi culty which now perplexes me relates to the steward’s place at Thorpe Ambrose. Before to-day I only knew that Allan had hit on some plan of his own for dealing with this matter, rather strangely involving, among other results, the letting of the cottage which was the old steward’s place of abode, in consequence of the new steward’s contemplated residence in the great house. A chance word in our conversation on the journey here led Allan

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into speaking out more plainly than he had spoken yet, and I heard to my unutterable astonishment that the person who was at the bottom of the whole arrangement about the steward was no other than myself!

“It is needless to tell you how I felt this new instance of Allan’s kindness. The fi rst pleasure of hearing from his own lips that I had deserved the strongest proof he could give of his confi dence in me was soon dashed by the pain which mixes itself with all pleasure – at least, with all that I have ever known. Never has my past life seemed so dreary to look back on as it seems now, when I feel how entirely it has unfi tted me to take the place of all others that I should have liked to occupy in my friend’s service. I mustered courage to tell him that I had none of the business knowledge and business experience which his steward ought to possess. He generously met the objection by telling me that I could learn; and he has promised to send to London for the person who has already been employed for the time being in the steward’s offi ce, and who will, therefore, be perfectly competent to teach me.

“Do you, too, think I can learn? If you do, I will work day and night to instruct myself. But if (as I am afraid) the steward’s duties are of far too serious a kind to be learned off-hand by a man so young and so inexperienced as I am, then pray hasten your journey to Thorpe Ambrose, and exert your infl uence over Allan personally. Nothing less will induce him to pass me over, and to employ a steward who is really fi t to take the place. Pray, pray act in this matter as

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ARMADALE II

you think best for Allan’s interests. Whatever disappointment I may feel, he shall not see it.

“Believe me, dear Mr. Brock, “Gratefuly yours,

“OZIAS MIDWINTER.

“P.S. – I open the envelope again to add one word more. If you have heard or seen anything since your return to Somersetshire of the woman in the black dress and the red shawl, I hope you will not forget, when you write, to let me know it.

“O. M.”

2.From Mrs. Oldershaw to Miss Gwilt.

“Ladies’ Toilet Repository, Diana Street, Pimlico, “Wednesday.

“MY DEAR LYDIA – To save the post, I write to you,

after a long day’s worry at my place of business, on the business letter-paper, having news since we last met which it seems advisable to send you at the earliest opportunity.

“To begin at the beginning. After carefully considering the thing, I am quite sure you will do wisely with young Armadale if you hold your tongue about Madeira and all that happened there. Your position was, no doubt, a very strong one with his mother. You had privately helped her in playing a trick on her own father; you had been ungratefully dismissed, at a pitiably tender age, as soon as you had served her purpose; and, when you came upon her suddenly, after a separation of more than twenty years, you found her in failing health, with a grown-up son, whom

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she had kept in total ignorance of the true story of her marriage.

“Have you any such advantages as these with the young gentleman who has survived her? If he is not a born idiot he will decline to believe your shocking aspersions on the memory of his mother; and – seeing that you have no proofs at this distance of time to meet him with – there is an end of your money-grubbing in the golden Armadale diggings. Mind, I don’t dispute that the old lady’s heavy debt of obligation, after what you did for her in Madeira, is not paid yet; and that the son is the next person to settle with you, now the mother has slipped through your fi ngers. Only squeeze him the right way, my dear, that’s what I venture to suggest – squeeze him the right way.

“And which is the right way? That question brings me to my news.

“Have you thought again of that other notion of yours of trying your hand on this lucky young gentleman, with nothing but your own good looks and your own quick wits to help you? The idea hung on my mind so strangely after you were gone that it ended in my sending a little note to my lawyer, to have the will under which young Armadale has got his fortune examined at Doctor’s Commons. The result turns out to be something infi nitely more encouraging than either you or I could possibly have hoped for. After the lawyer’s report to me, there cannot be a moment’s doubt of what you ought to do. In two words, Lydia, take the bull by the horns – and marry him!

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ARMADALE II

“I am quite serious. He is much better worth the venture than you suppose. Only persuade him to make you Mrs. Armadale, and you may set all after-discoveries at fl at defi ance. As long as he lives, you can make your own terms with him; and, if he dies, the will entitles you, in spite of anything he can say or do – with children or without them – to an income chargeable on his estate of twelve hundred a year for life. There is no doubt about this; the lawyer himself has looked at the will. Of course, Mr. Blanchard had his son and his son’s widow in his eye when he made the provision. But, as it is not limited to any one heir by name, and not revoked anywhere, it now holds as good with young Armadale as it would have held under other circumstances with Mr. Blanchard’s son. What a chance for you, after all the miseries and the dangers you have gone through, to be mistress of Thorpe Ambrose, if he lives; to have an income for life, if he dies! Hook him, my poor dear; hook him at any sacrifi ce.

“I dare say you will make the same objection when you read this which you made when we were talking about it the other day; I mean the objection of your age.

“Now, my good creature, just listen to me. The question is – not whether you were fi ve-and-thirty last birthday; we will own the dreadful truth, and say you were – but whether you do look, or don’t look, your real age. My opinion on this matter ought to be, and is, one of the best opinions in London. I have had twenty years experience among our charming sex in making up battered old faces and wornout old fi gures to look like new, and I say posi-

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tively you don’t look a day over thirty, if as much. If you will follow my advice about dressing, and use one or two of my applications privately, I guarantee to put you back three years more. I will forfeit all the money I shall have to advance for you in this matter, if, when I have ground you young again in my wonderful mill, you look more than seven-and-twenty in any man’s eyes living – except, of course, when you wake anxious in the small hours of the morning; and then, my dear, you will be old and ugly in the retirement of your own room, and it won’t matter.

“’But,’ you may say, ‘supposing all this, here I am, even with your art to help me, looking a good six years older than he is; and that is against me at starting.’ Is it? Just think again. Surely, your own experience must have shown you that the commonest of all common weaknesses, in young fellows of this Armadale’s age, is to fall in love with women older than themselves. Who are the men who really appreciate us in the bloom of our youth (I’m sure I have cause to speak well of the bloom of youth; I made fi fty guineas to-day by putting it on the spotted shoulders of a woman old enough to be your mother) – who are the men, I say, who are ready to worship us when we are mere babies of seventeen? The gay young gentlemen in the bloom of their own youth? No! The cunning old wretches who are on the wrong side of forty.

“And what is the moral of this, as the story-books say?

“The moral is that the chances, with such a head as you have got on your shoulders, are all in your favor. If

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you feel your present forlorn position, as I believe you do; if you know what a charming woman (in the men’s eyes) you can still be when you please; and if all your resolution has really come back, after that shocking outbreak of desperation on board the steamer (natural enough, I own, under the dreadful provocation laid on you), you will want no further persuasion from me to try this experiment. Only to think of how things turn out! If the other young booby had not jumped into the river after you, this young booby would never have had the estate. It really looks as if fate had determined that you were to be Mrs. Armadale, of Thorpe Ambrose; and who can control his fate, as the poet says?

“Send me one line to say Yes or No; and believe me your attached old friend,

“MARIA OLDERSHAW.”

3.From Miss Gwilt to Mrs. Oldershaw.

Richmond, Thursday.

‘YOU OLD WRETCH – I won’t say Yes or No till I have

had a long, long look at my glass fi rst. If you had any real regard for anybody but your wicked old self, you would know that the bare idea of marrying again (after what I have gone through) is an idea that makes my fl esh creep.

“But there can be no harm in your sending me a little more information while I am making up my mind. You have got twenty pounds of mine still left out of those things you sold for me; send ten pounds here for my expenses, in a post-offi ce order, and use the other ten for making

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private inquiries at Thorpe Ambrose. I want to know when the two Blanchard women go away, and when young Armadale stirs up the dead ashes in the family fi re-place. Are you quite sure he will turn out as easy to manage as you think? If he takes after his hypocrite of a mother, I can tell you this: Judas Iscariot has come to life again.

“I am very comfortable in this lodging. There are lovely fl owers in the garden, and the birds wake me in the morning delightfully. I have hired a reasonably good piano. The only man I care two straws about – don’t be alarmed; he was laid in his grave many a long year ago, under the name of BEETHOVEN – keeps me company, in my lonely hours. The landlady would keep me company, too, if I would only let her. I hate women. The new curate paid a visit to the other lodger yesterday, and passed me on the lawn as he came out. My eyes have lost nothing yet, at any rate, though I am fi ve-and-thirty; the poor man actually blushed when I looked at him! What sort of color do you think he would have turned, if one of the little birds in the garden had whispered in his ear, and told him the true story of the charming Miss Gwilt?

“Good-by, Mother Oldershaw. I rather doubt whether I am yours, or anybody’s, affectionately; but we all tell lies at the bottoms of our letters, don’t we? If you are my attached old friend, I must, of course, be yours affectionately.

“LYDIA GWILT.

“P.S. – Keep your odious powders and paints and washes for the spotted shoulders of your customers; not

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one of them shall touch my skin, I promise you. If you really want to be useful, try and fi nd out some quieting draught to keep me from grinding my teeth in my sleep. I shall break them one of these nights; and then what will become of my beauty, I wonder?”

4.From Mrs. Oldershaw to Miss Gwilt.

“Ladies’ Toilet Repository, Tuesday.

“MY DEAR LYDIA – It is a thousand pities your letter

was not addressed to Mr. Armadale; your graceful audacity would have charmed him. It doesn’t affect me; I am so well used to audacity in my way of life, you know. Why waste your sparkling wit, my love, on your own impenetrable Oldershaw? It only splutters and goes out. Will you try and be serious this next time? I have news for you from Thorpe Ambrose, which is beyond a joke, and which must not be trifl ed with.

“An hour after I got your letter I set the inquiries on foot. Not knowing what consequences they might lead to, I thought it safest to begin in the dark. Instead of employing any of the people whom I have at my own disposal (who know you and know me), I went to the Private Inquiry Of- fi ce in Shadyside Place, and put the matter in the inspector’s hands, in the character of a perfect stranger, and without mentioning you at all. This was not the cheapest way of going to work, I own; but it was the safest way, which is of much greater consequence.

“The inspector and I understood each other in ten minutes; and the right person for the purpose – the most

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harmless looking young man you ever saw in your life – was produced immediately. He left for Thorpe Ambrose an hour after I saw him. I arranged to call at the offi ce on the afternoons of Saturday, Monday, and to-day for news. There was no news till to-day; and there I found our con- fi dential agent just returned to town, and waiting to favor me with a full account of his trip to Norfolk.

“First of all, let me quiet your mind about those two questions of yours; I have got answers to both the one and the other. The Blanchard women go away to foreign parts on the thirteenth, and young Armadale is at this moment cruising somewhere at sea in his yacht. There is talk at Thorpe Ambrose of giving him a public reception, and of calling a meeting of the local grandees to settle it all. The speechifying and fuss on these occasions generally wastes plenty of time, and the public reception is not thought likely to meet the new squire much before the end of the month.

“If our messenger had done no more for us than this, I think he would have earned his money. But the harmless young man is a regular Jesuit at a private inquiry, with this great advantage over all the Popish priests I have ever seen, that he has not got his slyness written in his face.

“Having to get his information through the female servants in the usual way, he addressed himself, with admirable discretion, to the ugliest woman in the house. ‘When they are nice-looking, and can pick and choose,’ as he neatly expressed it to me, ‘they waste a great deal of valuable time in deciding on a sweetheart. When they are ugly, and haven’t got the ghost of a chance of choosing,

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