"Yes. I haven't done wrong--have I? As I understood it, there was
no alternative. Geoffrey told me you had settled with him to
present yourself here as a married lady, whose husband was coming
to join her."
"I thought of _him_ when I said that. I never thought of _you."_
"Natural enough. Still, it comes to the same thing (doesn't it?)
with the people of this house."
"I don't understand you. "
"I will try and explain myself a little better. Geoffrey said
your position here depended on my asking for you at the door (as
_he_ would have asked for you if he had come) in the character of
your husband."
"He had no right to say that."
"No right? After what you have told me of the landlady, just
think what might have happened if he had _not_ said it! I haven't
had much experience myself of these things. But--allow me to
ask--wouldn't it have been a little awkward (at my age) if I had
come here and inquired for you as a friend? Don't you think, in
that case, the landlady might have made some additional
difficulty about letting you have the rooms?"
It was beyond dispute that the landlady would have refused to let
the rooms at all. It was equally plain that the deception which
Arnold had practiced on the people of the inn was a deception
which Anne had herself rendered necessary, in her own interests.
She was not to blame; it was clearly impossible for her to have
foreseen such an event as Geoffrey's departure for London. Still,
she felt an uneasy sense of responsibility--a vague dread of what
might happen next. She sat nervously twisting her handkerchief in
her lap, and made no answer.
"Don't suppose I object to this little stratagem," Arnold went
on. "I am serving my old friend, and I am helping the lady who is
soon to be his wife."
Anne rose abruptly to her feet, and amazed him by a very
unexpected question.
"Mr. Brinkworth," she said, "forgive me the rudeness of something
I am about to say to you. When are you going away?"
Arnold burst out laughing.
"When I am quite sure I can do nothing more to assist you," he
answered.
"Pray don't think of _me_ any longer."
"In your situation! who else am I to think of?"
Anne laid her hand earnestly on his arm, and answered:
"Blanche!"
"Blanche?" repeated Arnold, utterly at a loss to understand her.
"Yes--Blanche. She found time to tell me what had passed between
you this morning before I left Windygates. I know you have made
her an offer: I know you are engaged to be married to her."
Arnold was delighted to hear it. He had been merely unwilling to
leave her thus far. He was absolutely determined to stay with her
now.
"Don't expect me to go after that!" he said. "Come and sit down
again, and let's talk about Blanche."
Anne declined impatiently, by a gesture. Arnold was too deeply
interested in the new topic to take any notice of it.
"You know all about her habits and her tastes," he went on, "and
what she likes, and what she dislikes. It's most important that I
should talk to you about her. When we are husband and wife,
Blanche is to have all her own way in every thing. That's my idea
of the Whole Duty of Man--when Man is married. You are still
standing? Let me give you a chair."
It was cruel--under other circumstances it would have been
impossible--to disappoint him. But the vague fear of consequences
which had taken possession of Anne was not to be trifled with.
She had no clear conception of the risk (and it is to be added,
in justice to Geoffrey, that _he_ had no clear conception of the
risk) on which Arnold had unconsciously ventured, in undertaking
his errand to the inn. Neither of them had any adequate idea (few
people have) of the infamous absence of all needful warning, of
all decent precaution and restraint, which makes the marriage law
of Scotland a trap to catch unmarried men and women, to this day.
But, while Geoffrey's mind was incapable of looking beyond the
present emergency, Anne's finer intelligence told her that a
country which offered such facilities for private marriage as the
facilities of which she had proposed to take advantage in her own
case, was not a country in which a man could act as Arnold had
acted, without danger of some serious embarrassment following as
the possible result. With this motive to animate her, she
resolutely declined to take the offered chair, or to enter into
the proposed conversation.
"Whatever we have to say about Blanche, Mr. Brinkworth, must be
said at some fitter time. I beg you will leave me."
"Leave you!"
"Yes. Leave me to the solitude that is best for me, and to the
sorrow that I have deserved. Thank you--and good-by."
Arnold made no attempt to disguise his disappointment and
surprise.
"If I must go, I must," he said, "But why are you in such a
hurry?"
"I don't want you to call me your wife again before the people of
this inn."
"Is _that_ all? What on earth are you afraid of?"
She was unable fully to realize her own apprehensions. She was
doubly unable to express them in words. In her anxiety to produce
some reason which might prevail on him to go, she drifted back
into that very conversation about Blanche into which she had
declined to enter but the moment before.
"I have reasons for being afraid," she said. "One that I can't
give; and one that I can. Suppose Blanche heard of what you have
done? The longer you stay here--the more people you see--the more
chance there is that she _might_ hear of it."
"And what if she did?" asked Arnold, in his own straightforward
way. "Do you think she would be angry with me for making myself
useful to _you?_"
"Yes," rejoined Anne, sharply, "if she was jealous of me."
Arnold's unlimited belief in Blanche expressed itself, without
the slightest compromise, in two words:
"That's impossible!"
Anxious as she was, miserable as she was, a faint smile flitted
over Anne's face.
"Sir Patrick would tell you, Mr. Brinkworth, that nothing is
impossible where women are concerned." She dropped her momentary
lightness of tone, and went on as earnestly as ever. "You can't
put yourself in Blanche's place--I can. Once more, I beg you to
go. I don't like your coming here, in this way! I don't like it
at all!"
She held out her hand to take leave. At the same moment there was
a loud knock at the door of the room.
Anne sank into the chair at her side, and uttered a faint cry of
alarm. Arnold, perfectly impenetrable to all sense of his
position, asked what there was to frighten her--and answered the
knock in the two customary words:
"Come in!"
CHAPTER THE TENTH.
MR. BISHOPRIGGS.
THE knock at the door was repeated--a louder knock than before.
"Are you deaf?" shouted Arnold.
&
nbsp; The door opened, little by little, an inch at a time. Mr.
Bishopriggs appeared mysteriously, with the cloth for dinner over
his arm, and with his second in c ommand behind him, bearing "the
furnishing of the table" (as it was called at Craig Fernie) on a
tray.
"What the deuce were you waiting for?" asked Arnold. "I told you
to come in."
"And _I_ tauld _you,_" answered Mr. Bishopriggs, "that I wadna
come in without knocking first. Eh, man!" he went on, dismissing
his second in command, and laying the cloth with his own
venerable hands, "d'ye think I've lived in this hottle in blinded
eegnorance of hoo young married couples pass the time when
they're left to themselves? Twa knocks at the door--and an unco
trouble in opening it, after that--is joost the least ye can do
for them! Whar' do ye think, noo, I'll set the places for you and
your leddy there?"
Anne walked away to the window, in undisguised disgust. Arnold
found Mr. Bishopriggs to be quite irresistible. He answered,
humoring the joke,
"One at the top and one at the bottom of the table, I suppose ?"
"One at tap and one at bottom?" repeated Mr. Bishopriggs, in high
disdain. "De'il a bit of it! Baith yer chairs as close together
as chairs can be. Hech! hech!--haven't I caught 'em, after
goodness knows hoo many preleeminary knocks at the door, dining
on their husbands' knees, and steemulating a man's appetite by
feeding him at the fork's end like a child? Eh!" sighed the sage
of Craig Fernie, "it's a short life wi' that nuptial business,
and a merry one! A mouth for yer billin' and cooin'; and a' the
rest o' yer days for wondering ye were ever such a fule, and
wishing it was a' to be done ower again.--Ye'll be for a bottle
o' sherry wine, nae doot? and a drap toddy afterwards, to do yer
digestin' on?"
Arnold nodded--and then, in obedience to a signal from Anne,
joined her at the window. Mr. Bishopriggs looked after them
attentively--observed that they were talking in whispers--and
approved of that proceeding, as representing another of the
established customs of young married couples at inns, in the
presence of third persons appointed to wait on them.
"Ay! ay!" he said, looking over his shoulder at Arnold, "gae to
your deerie! gae to your deerie! and leave a' the solid business
o' life to Me. Ye've Screepture warrant for it. A man maun leave
fether and mother (I'm yer fether), and cleave to his wife. My
certie! 'cleave' is a strong word--there's nae sort o' doot aboot
it, when it comes to 'cleaving!' " He wagged his head
thoughtfully, and walked to the side-table in a corner, to cut
the bread.
As he took up the knife, his one wary eye detected a morsel of
crumpled paper, lying lost between the table and the wall. It was
the letter from Geoffrey, which Anne had flung from her, in the
first indignation of reading it--and which neither she nor Arnold
had thought of since.
"What's that I see yonder?" muttered Mr. Bishopriggs, under his
breath. "Mair litter in the room, after I've doosted and tidied
it wi' my ain hands!"
He picked up the crumpled paper, and partly opened it. "Eh!
what's here? Writing on it in ink? and writing on it in pencil?
Who may this belong to?" He looked round cautiously toward Arnold
and Anne. They were both still talking in whispers, and both
standing with their backs to him, looking out of the window.
"Here it is, clean forgotten and dune with!" thought Mr.
Bishopriggs. "Noo what would a fule do, if he fund this? A fule
wad light his pipe wi' it, and then wonder whether he wadna ha'
dune better to read it first. And what wad a wise man do, in a
seemilar position?" He practically answered that question by
putting the letter into his pocket. It might be worth keeping, or
it might not; five minutes' private examination of it would
decide the alternative, at the first convenient opportunity. "Am
gaun' to breeng the dinner in!" he called out to Arnold. "And,
mind ye, there's nae knocking at the door possible, when I've got
the tray in baith my hands, and mairs the pity, the gout in baith
my feet." With that friendly warning, Mr. Bishopriggs went his
way to the regions of the kitchen.
Arnold continued his conversation with Anne in terms which showed
that the question of his leaving the inn had been the question
once more discussed between them while they were standing at the
window.
"You see we can't help it," he said. "The waiter has gone to
bring the dinner in. What will they think in the house, if I go
away already, and leave 'my wife' to dine alone?"
It was so plainly necessary to keep up appearances for the
present, that there was nothing more to be said. Arnold was
committing a serious imprudence--and yet, on this occasion,
Arnold was right. Anne's annoyance at feeling that conclusion
forced on her produced the first betrayal of impatience which she
had shown yet. She left Arnold at the window, and flung herself
on the sofa. "A curse seems to follow me!" she thought, bitterly.
"This will end ill--and I shall be answerable for it!"
In the mean time Mr. Bishopriggs had found the dinner in the
kitchen, ready, and waiting for him. Instead of at once taking
the tray on which it was placed into the sitting-room, he
conveyed it privately into his own pantry, and shut the door.
"Lie ye there, my freend, till the spare moment comes--and I'll
look at ye again," he said, putting the letter away carefully in
the dresser-drawer. "Noo aboot the dinner o' they twa
turtle-doves in the parlor?" he continued, directing his
attention to the dinner tray. "I maun joost see that the
cook's;'s dune her duty--the creatures are no' capable o'
decidin' that knotty point for their ain selves." He took off one
of the covers, and picked bits, here and there, out of the dish
with the fork " Eh! eh! the collops are no' that bad!" He took
off another cover, and shook his head in solemn doubt. "Here's
the green meat. I doot green meat's windy diet for a man at my
time o' life!" He put the cover on again, and tried the next
dish. "The fesh? What the de'il does the woman fry the trout for?
Boil it next time, ye betch, wi' a pinch o' saut and a spunefu'
o' vinegar." He drew the cork from a bottle of sherry, and
decanted the wine. "The sherry wine?" he said, in tones of deep
feeling, holding the decanter up to the light. "Hoo do I know but
what it may be corkit? I maun taste and try. It's on my
conscience, as an honest man, to taste and try." He forthwith
relieved his conscience--copiously. There was a vacant space, of
no inconsiderable dimensions, left in the decanter. Mr.
Bishopriggs gravely filled it up from the water-bottle. "Eh !
it's joost addin' ten years to the age o' the wine. The
turtle-doves will be nane the waur--and I mysel' am a glass o'
sherry the better. Praise Providence for a' its maircies!" Having
relieved
himself of that devout aspiration, he took up the tray
again, and decided on letting the turtle-doves have their dinner.
The conversation in the parlor (dropped for the moment) had been
renewed, in the absence of Mr. Bishopriggs. Too restless to
remain long in one place, Anne had risen again from the sofa, and
had rejoined Arnold at the window.
"Where do your friends at Lady Lundie's believe you to be now?"
she asked, abruptly.
"I am believed," replied Arnold, "to be meeting my tenants, and
taking possession of my estate."
"How are you to get to your estate to-night?"
"By railway, I suppose. By-the-by, what excuse am I to make for
going away after dinner? We are sure to have the landlady in here
before long. What will she say to my going off by myself to the
train, and leaving 'my wife' behind me?"
"Mr. Brinkworth! that joke--if it _is_ a joke--is worn out!"
"I beg your pardon," said Arnold.
"You may leave your excuse to me," pursued Anne. "Do you go by
the up train, or the down?"
"By the up train."
The door opened suddenly; and Mr. Bishopriggs appeared with the
dinner. Anne nervously separated herself from Arnold. The one
available eye of Mr. Bishopriggs followed her reproachfully, as
he put the dishes on the table.
"I warned ye baith, it was a clean impossibility to knock at the
door this time. Don't blame me, young madam--don't blame _me!"_
"Where will you sit?" asked Arnold, by way of diverting Anne's
attention from the familiarities of Father Bishopriggs.
"Any where!" she answered, impatiently; snatchi ng up a chair,
and placing it at the bottom of the table.
Mr. Bishopriggs politely, but firmly, put the chair back again in
its place.
"Lord's sake! what are ye doin'? It's clean contrary to a' the
laws and customs o' the honey-mune, to sit as far away from your
husband as that!"
He waved his persuasive napkin to one of the two chairs placed
close together at the table.
Arnold interfered once more, and prevented another outbreak of
impatience from Anne.
"What does it matter?" he said. "Let the man have his way."
"Get it over as soon as you can," she returned. "I can't, and
won't, bear it much longer."
They took their places at the table, with Father Bishopriggs
behind them, in the mixed character of major domo and guardian
angel.
"Here's the trout!" he cried, taking the cover off with a
flourish. "Half an hour since, he was loupin' in the water. There
he lies noo, fried in the dish. An emblem o' human life for ye!
When ye can spare any leisure time from yer twa selves, meditate
on that."
Arnold took up the spoon, to give Anne one of the trout. Mr.
Bishopriggs clapped the cover on the dish again, with a
countenance expressive of devout horror.
"Is there naebody gaun' to say grace?" he asked.
"Come! come!" said Arnold. "The fish is getting cold."
Mr. Bishopriggs piously closed his available eye, and held the
cover firmly on the dish. "For what ye're gaun' to receive, may
ye baith be truly thankful!" He opened his available eye, and
whipped the cover off again. "My conscience is easy noo. Fall to!
Fall to!"
"Send him away!" said Anne. "His familiarity is beyond all
endurance."
"You needn't wait," said Arnold.
"Eh! but I'm here to wait," objected Mr. Bishopriggs. "What's the
use o' my gaun' away, when ye'll want me anon to change the
plates for ye?" He considered for a moment (privately consulting
his experience) and arrived at a satisfactory conclusion as to
Arnold's motive for wanting to get rid of him. "Tak' her on yer
knee," he whispered in Arnold's ear, "as soon as ye like! Feed
him at the fork's end," he added to Anne, "whenever ye please!
I'll think of something else, and look out at the proaspect." He
winked--and went to the window.