第202章

It sickens me to think of it.

"I coaxed and comforted the miserable old creature till the tears stood in his eyes, and he quite blushed with pleasure. He undertakes to look after the Pedgifts with the utmost alacrity.

Pedgift the elder he described, when once roused, as the most obstinate man livin g; nothing will induce him to give way, unless Armadale gives way also on his side. Pedgift the younger is much the more likely of the two to make attempts at a reconciliation. Such, at least, is Bashwood's opinion. It is of very little consequence now what happens either way. The only important thing is to tie my elderly admirer safely again to my apron-string. And this is done.

"The post is late this morning. It has only just come in, and has brought me a letter from Midwinter.

"It is a charming letter; it flatters me and flutters me as if Iwas a young girl again. No reproaches for my never having written to him; no hateful hurrying of me, in plain words, to marry him.

He only writes to tell me a piece of news. He has obtained, through his lawyers, a prospect of being employed as occasional correspondent to a newspaper which is about to be started in London. The employment will require him to leave England for the Continent, which would exactly meet his own wishes for the future, but he cannot consider the proposal seriously until he has first ascertained whether it would meet my wishes too. He knows no will but mine, and he leaves me to decide, after first mentioning the time allowed him before his answer must be sent in. It is the time, of course (if I agree to his going abroad), in which I must marry him. But there is not a word about this in his letter. He asks for nothing but a sight of my handwriting to help him through the interval while we are separated from each other.

"That is the letter; not very long, but so prettily expressed.

"I think I can penetrate the secret of his fancy for going abroad. That wild idea of putting the mountains and the seas between Armadale and himself is still in his mind. As if either he or I could escape doing what we are fated to do--supposing we really are fated--by putting a few hundred or a few thousand miles between Armadale and ourselves! What strange absurdity and inconsistency! And yet how I like him for being absurd and inconsistent; for don't I see plainly that I am at the bottom of it all? Who leads this clever man astray in spite of himself? Who makes him too blind to see the contradiction in his own conduct, which he would see plainly in the conduct of another person? How interested I do feel in him! How dangerously near I am to shutting my eyes on the past, and letting myself love him! Was Eve fonder of Adam than ever, I wonder, after she had coaxed him into eating the apple? I should have quite doted on him if I had been in her place. (Memorandum: To write Midwinter a charming little letter on my side, with a kiss in it; and as time is allowed him before he sends in his answer, to ask for time, too, before I tell him whether I will or will not go abroad.)"Five o'clock.--A tiresome visit from my landlady; eager for a little gossip, and full of news which she thinks will interest me.

"She is acquainted, I find, with Mrs. Milroy's late nurse; and she has been seeing her friend off at the station this afternoon.

They talked, of course, of affairs at the cottage, and my name found its way into the conversation. I am quite wrong, it seems, if the nurse's authority is to be trusted, in believing Miss Milroy to be responsible for sending Mr. Armadale to my reference in London. Miss Milroy really knew nothing about it, and it all originated in her mother's mad jealousy of me. The present wretched state of things at the cottage is due entirely to the same cause. Mrs. Milroy is firmly persuaded that my remaining at Thorpe Ambrose is referable to my having some private means of communicating with the major which it is impossible for her to discover. With this conviction in her mind, she has become so unmanageable that no person, with any chance of bettering herself, could possibly remain in attendance an her; and sooner or later, the major, object to it as he may, will be obliged to place her under proper medical care.

"That is the sum and substance of what the wearisome landlady, had to tell me. Unnecessary to say that I was not in the least interested by it. Even if the nurse's s assertion is to be depended on--which I persist in doubting--it is of no importance now. I know that Miss Milroy, and nobody but Miss Milroy has utterly ruined my prospect of becoming Mrs. Armadale of Thorpe Ambrose, and I care to know nothing more. If her mother was really alone in the attempt to expose my false reference, her mother seems to be suffering for it, at any rate. And so good-by to Mrs. Milroy; and Heaven defend me from any more last glimpses at the cottages seen through the medium of my landlady's spectacles!

"Nine o'clock.--Bashwood has just left me, having come with news from the great house. Pedgift the younger has made his attempt at bringing about a reconciliation this very day, and has failed. Iam the sole cause of the failure. Armadale is quite willing to be reconciled if Pedgift the elder will avoid all future occasion of disagreement between them by never recurring to the subject of Miss Gwilt. This, however, happens to be exactly the condition which Pedgift's father--with his opinion of me and my doings--should consider it his duty to Armadale _not_ to accept.

So lawyer and client remain as far apart as ever, and the obstacle of the Pedgifts is cleared out of my way.

"It might have been a very awkward obstacle, so far as Pedgift the elder is concerned, if one of his suggestions had been carried out; I mean, if an officer of the London police had been brought down here to look at me. It is a question, even now, whether I had better not take to the thick veil again, which Ialways wear in London and other large places. The only difficulty is that it would excite remark in this inquisitive little town to see me wearing a thick veil, for the first time, in the summer weather.