is a possession of the devil. Fetch the chloroform.' "
Chloroform, applied in the capacity of an exorcism, was entirely
new to Sir Patrick. He preserved his gravity with considerable
difficulty. Lady Lundie went on:
"Hopkins is an excellent person--but Hopkins has a tongue. She
met our distinguished medical guest in the corridor, and told
him. He was so good as to come to the door. I was shocked to
trouble him to act in his professional capacity while he was a
visitor, an honored visitor, in my house. Besides, I considered
it more a case for a clergyman than for a medical man. However,
there was no help for it after Hopkins's tongue. I requested our
eminent friend to favor us with--I think the exact scientific
term is--a Prognosis. He took the purely material view which was
only to be expected from a person in his profession. He
prognosed--_am_ I right? Did he prognose? or did he diagnose? A
habit of speaking correctly is _so_ important, Sir Patrick! and I
should be _so_ grieved to mislead you!"
"Never mind, Lady Lundie! I have heard the medical report. Don't
trouble yourself to repeat it."
"Don't trouble myself to repeat it?" echoed Lady Lundie--with her
dignity up in arms at the bare prospect of finding her remarks
abridged. "Ah, Sir Patrick! that little constitutional impatience
of yours!--Oh, dear me! how often you must have given way to it,
and how often you must have regretted it, in your time!"
"My dear lady! if you wish to repeat the report, why not say so,
in plain words? Don't let me hurry you. Let us have the
prognosis, by all means."
Lady Lundie shook her head compassionately, and smiled with
angelic sadness. "Our little besetting sins!" she said. "What
slaves we are to our little besetting sins! Take a turn in the
room--do!"
Any ordinary man would have lost his temper. But the law (as Sir
Patrick had told his niece) has a special temper of its own.
Without exhibiting the smallest irritation, Sir Patrick
dextrously applied his sister-in-law's blister to his
sister-in-law herself.
"What an eye you have!" he said. "I was impatient. I _am_
impatient. I am dying to know what Blanche said to you when she
got better?"
The British Matron froze up into a matron of stone on the spot.
"Nothing!" answered her ladyship, with a vicious snap of her
teeth, as if she had tried to bite the word before it escaped
her.
"Nothing!" exclaimed Sir Patrick.
"Nothing," repeated Lady Lundie, with her most formidable
emphasis of look and tone. "I applied all the remedies with my
own hands; I cut her laces with my own scissors, I completely
wetted her head through with cold water; I remained with her
until she was quite exhausted- I took her in my arms, and folded
her to my bosom; I sent every body out of the room; I said, 'Dear
child, confide in me.' And how were my advances--my motherly
advances--met? I have already told you. By heartless secrecy. By
undutiful silence."
Sir Patrick pressed the blister a little closer to the skin. "She
was probably afraid to speak," he said.
"Afraid? Oh!" cried Lady Lundie, distrusting the evidence of her
own senses. "You can't have said that? I have evidently
misapprehended you. You didn't really say, afraid?"
"I said she was probably afraid--"
"Stop! I can't be told to my face that I have failed to do my
duty by Blanche. No, Sir Patrick! I can bear a great deal; but I
can't bear that. After having been more than a mother to your
dear brother's child; after having been an elder sister to
Blanche; after having toiled--I say _toiled,_ Sir Patrick!--to
cultivate her intelligence (with the sweet lines of the poet ever
present to my memory: 'Delightful task to rear the tender mind,
and teach the young idea how to shoot!'); after having done all I
have done--a place in the carriage only yesterday, and a visit to
the most interesting relic of feudal times in Perthshire--after
having sacrificed all I have sacrificed, to be told that I have
behaved in such a manner to Blanche as to frighten her when I ask
her to confide in me, is a little too cruel. I have a
sensitive--an unduly sensitive nature, dear Sir Patrick. Forgive
me for wincing when I am wounded. Forgive me for feeling it when
the wound is dealt me by a person whom I revere."
Her ladyship put her handkerchief to her eyes. Any other man
would have taken off the blister. Sir Patrick pressed it harder
than ever.
"You quite mistake me," he replied. "I meant that Blanche was
afraid to tell you the true cause of her illness. The true cause
is anxiety about Miss Silvester."
Lady Lundie emitted another scream--a loud scream this time--and
closed her eyes in horror.
"I can run out of the house," cried her ladyship, wildly. "I can
fly to the uttermost corners of the earth; but I can _not_ hear
that person's name mentioned! No, Sir Patrick! not in my pre
sence! not in my room! not while I am mistress at Windygates
House!"
"I am sorry to say any thing that is disagreeable to you, Lady
Lundie. But the nature of my errand here obliges me to touch--as
lightly as possible--on something which has happened in your
house without your knowledge."
Lady Lundie suddenly opened her eyes, and became the picture of
attention. A casual observer might have supposed her ladyship to
be not wholly inaccessible to the vulgar emotion of curiosity.
"A visitor came to Windygates yesterday, while we were all at
lunch," proceeded Sir Patrick. "She--"
Lady Lundie seized the scarlet memorandum-book, and stopped her
brother-in-law, before he could get any further. Her ladyship's
next words escaped her lips spasmodically, like words let at
intervals out of a trap.
"I undertake--as a woman accustomed to self-restraint, Sir
Patrick--I undertake to control myself, on one condition. I won't
have the name mentioned. I won't have the sex mentioned. Say,
'The Person,' if you please. 'The Person,' " continued Lady
Lundie, opening her memorandum-book and taking up her pen,
"committed an audacious invasion of my premises yesterday?"
Sir Patrick bowed. Her ladyship made a note--a fiercely-penned
note that scratched the paper viciously--and then proceeded to
examine her brother-in-law, in the capacity of witness.
"What part of my house did 'The Person' invade? Be very careful,
Sir Patrick! I propose to place myself under the protection of a
justice of the peace; and this is a memorandum of my statement.
The library--did I understand you to say? Just so--the library."
"Add," said Sir Patrick, with another pressure on the blister,
"that The Person had an interview with Blanche in the library."
Lady Lundie's pen suddenly stuck in the paper, and scattered a
little shower of ink-drops all round it. "The library," repeated
her ladyship, in a voice suggestive of approaching suffocation.
"I undertake t
o control myself, Sir Patrick! Any thing missing
from the library?"
"Nothing missing, Lady Lundie, but The Person herself. She--"
"No, Sir Patrick! I won't have it! In the name of my own sex, I
won't have it!"
"Pray pardon me--I forgot that 'she' was a prohibited pronoun on
the present occasion. The Person has written a farewell letter to
Blanche, and has gone nobody knows where. The distress produced
by these events is alone answerable for what has happened to
Blanche this morning. If you bear that in mind--and if you
remember what your own opinion is of Miss Silvester--you will
understand why Blanche hesitated to admit you into her
confidence."
There he waited for a reply. Lady Lundie was too deeply absorbed
in completing her memorandum to be conscious of his presence in
the room.
" 'Carriage to be at the door at two-thirty,' " said Lady Lundie,
repeating the final words of the memorandum while she wrote them.
" 'Inquire for the nearest justice of the peace, and place the
privacy of Windygates under the protection of the law.'--I beg
your pardon!" exclaimed her ladyship, becoming conscious again of
Sir Patrick's presence. "Have I missed any thing particularly
painful? Pray mention it if I have!"
"You have missed nothing of the slightest importance," returned
Sir Patrick. "I have placed you in possession of facts which you
had a right to know; and we have now only to return to our
medical friend's report on Blanche's health. You were about to
favor me, I think, with the Prognosis?"
"Diagnosis!" said her ladyship, spitefully. "I had forgotten at
the time--I remember now. Prognosis is entirely wrong."
"I sit corrected, Lady Lundie. Diagnosis."
"You have informed me, Sir Patrick, that you were already
acquainted with the Diagnosis. It is quite needless for me to
repeat it now."
"I was anxious to correct my own impression, my dear lady, by
comparing it with yours."
"You are very good. You are a learned man. I am only a poor
correcting by mine."
"My impression, Lady Lundie, was that our so friend recommended
moral, rather than medical, treatment for Blanche. If we can turn
her thoughts from the painful subject on which they are now
dwelling, we shall do all that is needful. Those were his own
words, as I remember them. Do you confirm me?"
"Can _I_ presume to dispute with you, Sir Patrick? You are a
master of refined irony, I know. I am afraid it's all thrown away
on poor me."
(The law kept its wonderful temper! The law met the most
exasperating of living women with a counter-power of defensive
aggravation all its own!)
"I take that as confirming me, Lady Lundie. Thank you. Now, as to
the method of carrying out our friend's advice. The method seems
plain. All we can do to divert Blanche's mind is to turn
Blanche's attention to some other subject of reflection less
painful than the subject which occupies her now. Do you agree, so
far?"
"Why place the whole responsibility on my shoulders?" inquired
Lady Lundie.
"Out of profound deference for your opinion," answered Sir
Patrick. "Strictly speaking, no doubt, any serious responsibility
rests with me. I am Blanche's guardian--"
"Thank God!" cried Lady Lundie, with a perfect explosion of pious
fervor.
"I hear an outburst of devout thankfulness," remarked Sir
Patrick. "Am I to take it as expressing--let me say--some little
doubt, on your part, as to the prospect of managing Blanche
successfully, under present circumstances?"
Lady Lundie's temper began to give way again--exactly as her
brother-in-law had anticipated.
"You are to take it," she said, "as expressing my conviction that
I saddled myself with the charge of an incorrigibly heartless,
obstinate and perverse girl, when I undertook the care of
Blanche."
"Did you say 'incorrigibly?' "
"I said 'incorrigibly.' "
"If the case is as hopeless as that, my dear Madam--as Blanche's
guardian, I ought to find means to relieve you of the charge of
Blanche."
"Nobody shall relieve _me_ of a duty that I have once
undertaken!" retorted Lady Lundie. "Not if I die at my post!"
"Suppose it was consistent with your duty," pleaded Sir Patrick,
"to be relieved at your post? Suppose it was in harmony with that
'self-sacrifice' which is 'the motto of women?' "
"I don't understand you, Sir Patrick. Be so good as to explain
yourself."
Sir Patrick assumed a new character--the character of a
hesitating man. He cast a look of respectful inquiry at his
sister-in-law, sighed, and shook his head.
"No!" he said. "It would be asking too much. Even with your high
standard of duty, it would be asking too much."
"Nothing which you can ask me in the name of duty is too much."
"No! no! Let me remind you. Human nature has its limits."
"A Christian gentlewoman's sense of duty knows no limits."
"Oh, surely yes!"
"Sir Patrick! after what I have just said your perseverance in
doubting me amounts to something like an insult!"
"Don't say that! Let me put a case. Let's suppose the future
interests of another person depend on your saying, Yes--when all
your own most cherished ideas and opinions urge you to say, No.
Do you really mean to tell me that you could trample your own
convictions under foot, if it could be shown that the purely
abstract consideration of duty was involved in the sacrifice?"
"Yes!" cried Lady Lundie, mounting the pedestal of her virtue on
the spot. "Yes--without a moment's hesitation!"
"I sit corrected, Lady Lundie. You embolden me to proceed. Allow
me to ask (after what I just heard)--whether it is not your duty
to act on advice given for Blanche's benefit, by one the highest
medical authorities in England?" Her ladyship admitted that it
was her duty; pending a more favorable opportunity for
contradicting her brother-in-law.
"Very good," pursued Sir Patrick. "Assuming that Blanche is like
most other human beings, and has some prospect of happiness to
contemplate, if she could only be made to see it--are we not
bound to make her see it, by our moral obligation to act on the
medical advice?" He cast a courteously-persuasive look at her
If Lady Lundie had not been bent--thanks to the irritation
fomented by her brother-in-law--on disputing the ground with him,
inch by inch, she must have seen signs, by this time, of the
snare that was being set for her. As it was, she saw nothing but
the opportunity of disparaging Blanche and contradicting Sir
Patrick.
"If my step-daughter had any such prospect as you describe," she
answered, "I should of course say, Yes. But Blanche's is an
ill-regulated mind. An ill-regulated mind has no prospect of
happiness."
"Pardon me," said Sir Patrick. "Blanche _has_ a prospect of
happiness. In other words, Blanche has a prospect of being
married. And what is more, Arnold Brinkworth is ready to marry
her as soon as the settlements can be prepared."
Lady Lundie started in her chair--turned crimson with rage--and
opened her lips to speak. Sir Patrick rose to his feet, and went
on before she could utter a word.
"I beg to relieve you, Lady Lundie--by means which you have just
acknowledged it to be your duty to accept--of all further charge
of an incorrigible girl. As Blanche's guardian, I have the honor
of proposing that her marriage be advanced to a day to be
hereafter named in the first fortnight of the ensuing month."
In those words he closed the trap which he had set for his
sister-in-law, and waited to see what came of it.
A thoroughly spiteful woman, thoroughly roused, is capable of
subordinating every other consideration to the one imperative
necessity of gratifying her spite. There was but one way now of
turning the tables on Sir Patrick--and Lady Lundie took it. She
hated him, at that moment, so intensely, that not even the
assertion of her own obstinate will promised her more than a tame
satisfaction, by comparison with the priceless enjoyment of
beating her brother-in-law with his own weapons.
"My dear Sir Patrick!" she said, with a little silvery laugh,
"you have wasted much precious time and many eloquent words in
trying to entrap me into giving my consent, when you might have
had it for the asking. I think the idea of hastening Blanche's
marriage an excellent one. I am charmed to transfer the charge of
such a person as my step-daughter to the unfortunate young man
who is willing to take her off my hands. The less he sees of
Blanche's character the more satisfied I shall feel of his
performing his engagement to marry her. Pray hurry the lawyers,
Sir Patrick, and let it be a week sooner rather than a week
later, if you wish to please Me."
Her ladyship rose in her grandest proportions, and made a
courtesy which was nothing less than a triumph of polite satire
in dumb show. Sir Patrick answered by a profound bow and a smile
which said, eloquently, "I believe every word of that charming
answer. Admirable woman--adieu!"
So the one person in the family circle, whose opposition might
have forced Sir Patrick to submit to a timely delay, was silenced
by adroit management of the vices of her own character. So, in
despite of herself, Lady Lundie was won over to the project for
hurrying the marriage of Arnold and Blanche.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH.
STIFLED.
IT is the nature of Truth to struggle to the light. In more than
one direction, the truth strove to pierce the overlying darkness,
and to reveal itself to view, during the interval between the
date of Sir Patrick's victory and the date of the wedding-day.
Signs of perturbation under the surface, suggestive of some
hidden influence at work, were not wanting, as the time passed
on. The one thing missing was the prophetic faculty that could
read those signs aright at Windygates House.
On the very day when Sir Patrick's dextrous treatment of his
sister-in-law had smoothed the way to the hastening of the
marriage, an obstacle was raised to the new arrangement by no
less a person than Blanche herself. She had sufficiently
recovered, toward noon, to be able to receive Arnold in her own
little sitting-room. It proved to be a very brief interview. A
quarter of an hour later, Arnold appeared before Sir
Patrick--while the old gentleman was sunning himself in the
garden--with a face of blank despair. Blanche had indignantly
declined even to think of such a thing as her marriage, at a time
when she was heart-broken by the discovery that Anne had left her