at Craig Fernie, and bent on clearing up the suspicion which
pointed to Bishopriggs as the person who was trying to turn the
correspondence to pecuniary account. The inquiries made for him,
at Anne's request, as soon as she arrived in the town, openly
described his name, and his former position as headwaiter at
Craig Fernie--and thu s led easily to the discovery of him, in
his publicly avowed character of Thomas Pennyquick's devoted
friend. Toward evening, on the day after she reached Perth, the
news came to Anne that Bishopriggs was in service at the inn
known as the Harp of Scotland. The landlord of the hotel at which
she was staying inquired whether he should send a message for
her. She answered, "No, I will take my message myself. All I want
is a person to show me the way to the inn."
Secluded in the solitude of the head-waiter's pantry, Bishopriggs
sat peacefully melting the sugar in his whisky-punch.
It was the hour of the evening at which a period of tranquillity
generally occurred before what was called "the night-business" of
the house began. Bishopriggs was accustomed to drink and meditate
daily in this interval of repose. He tasted the punch, and smiled
contentedly as he set down his glass. The prospect before him
looked fairly enough. He had outwitted the lawyers in the
preliminary negotiations thus far. All that was needful now was
to wait till the terror of a public scandal (sustained by
occasional letters from her "Friend in the Dark") had its due
effect on Mrs. Glenarm, and hurried her into paying the
purchase-money for the correspondence with her own hand. "Let it
breed in the brain," he thought, "and the siller will soon come
out o' the purse."
His reflections were interrupted by the appearance of a slovenly
maid-servant, with a cotton handkerchief tied round her head, and
an uncleaned sauce-pan in her hand.
"Eh, Maister Bishopriggs," cried the girl, "here's a braw young
leddy speerin' for ye by yer ain name at the door."
"A leddy?" repeated Bishopriggs, with a look of virtuous disgust.
"Ye donnert ne'er-do-weel, do you come to a decent, 'sponsible
man like me, wi' sic a Cyprian overture as that? What d'ye tak'
me for? Mark Antony that lost the world for love (the mair fule
he!)? or Don Jovanny that counted his concubines by hundreds,
like the blessed Solomon himself? Awa' wi' ye to yer pots and
pans; and bid the wandering Venus that sent ye go spin!"
Before the girl could answer she was gently pulled aside from the
doorway, and Bishopriggs, thunder-struck, saw Anne Silvester
standing in her place.
"You had better tell the servant I am no stranger to you," said
Anne, looking toward the kitchen-maid, who stood in the passage
staring at her in stolid amazement.
"My ain sister's child!" cried Bishopriggs, lying with his
customary readiness. "Go yer ways, Maggie. The bonny lassie's my
ain kith and kin. The tongue o' scandal, I trow, has naething to
say against that.--Lord save us and guide us!" he added In
another tone, as the girl closed the door on them, "what brings
ye here?"
"I have something to say to you. I am not very well; I must wait
a little first. Give me a chair."
Bishopriggs obeyed in silence. His one available eye rested on
Anne, as he produced the chair, with an uneasy and suspicious
attention. "I'm wanting to know one thing," he said. "By what
meeraiculous means, young madam, do ye happen to ha' fund yer way
to this inn?"
Anne told him how her inquiries had been made and what the result
had been, plainly and frankly. The clouded face of Bishopriggs
began to clear again.
"Hech! hech!" he exclaimed, recovering all his native impudence,
"I hae had occasion to remark already, to anither leddy than
yersel', that it's seemply mairvelous hoo a man's ain gude deeds
find him oot in this lower warld o' ours. I hae dune a gude deed
by pure Tammy Pennyquick, and here's a' Pairth ringing wi the
report o' it; and Sawmuel Bishopriggs sae weel known that ony
stranger has only to ask, and find him. Understand, I beseech ye,
that it's no hand o' mine that pets this new feather in my cap.
As a gude Calvinist, my saul's clear o' the smallest figment o'
belief in Warks. When I look at my ain celeebrity I joost ask, as
the Psawmist asked before me, 'Why do the heathen rage, and the
people imagine a vain thing?' It seems ye've something to say to
me," he added, suddenly reverting to the object of Anne's visit.
"Is it humanly possible that ye can ha' come a' the way to Pairth
for naething but that?"
face. Concealing as she best might the disgust that he inspired
in her, Anne stated her errand in the most direct manner, and in
the fewest possible words.
"I have come here to ask you for something," she said.
"Ay? ay? What may it be ye're wanting of me?"
"I want the letter I lost at Craig Fernie."
Even the solidly-founded self-possession of Bishopriggs himself
was shaken by the startling directness of that attack on it. His
glib tongue was paralyzed for the moment. "I dinna ken what ye're
drivin' at," he said, after an interval, with a sullen
consciousness that he had been all but tricked into betraying
himself.
The change in his manner convinced Anne that she had found in
Bishopriggs the person of whom she was in search.
"You have got my letter," she said, sternly insisting on the
truth. "And you are trying to turn it to a disgraceful use. I
won't allow you to make a market of my private affairs. You have
offered a letter of mine for sale to a stranger. I insist on your
restoring it to me before I leave this room!"
Bishopriggs hesitated again. His first suspicion that Anne had
been privately instructed by Mrs. Glenarm's lawyers returned to
his mind as a suspicion confirmed. He felt the vast importance of
making a cautious reply.
"I'll no' waste precious time," he said, after a moment's
consideration with himself, "in brushing awa' the fawse breath o'
scandal, when it passes my way. It blaws to nae purpose, my young
leddy, when it blaws on an honest man like me. Fie for shame on
ye for saying what ye've joost said--to me that was a fether to
ye at Craig Fernie! Wha' set ye on to it? Will it be man or woman
that's misca'ed me behind my back?"
Anne took the Glasgow newspaper from the pocket of her traveling
cloak, and placed it before him, open at the paragraph which
described the act of extortion attempted on Mrs. Glenarm.
"I have found there," she said, "all that I want to know."
"May a' the tribe o' editors, preenters, paper-makers,
news-vendors, and the like, bleeze together in the pit o'
Tophet!" With this devout aspiration--internally felt, not openly
uttered--Bishopriggs put on his spectacles, and read the passage
pointed out to him. "I see naething here touching the name o'
Sawm
uel Bishopriggs, or the matter o' ony loss ye may or may not
ha' had at Craig Fernie," he said, when he had done; still
defending his position, with a resolution worthy of a better
cause.
Anne's pride recoiled at the prospect of prolonging the
discussion with him. She rose to her feet, and said her last
words.
"I have learned enough by this time," she answered, "to know that
the one argument that prevails with you is the argument of money.
If money will spare me the hateful necessity of disputing with
you--poor as I am, money you shall have. Be silent, if you
please. You are personally interested in what I have to say
next."
She opened her purse, and took a five-pound note from it.
"If you choose to own the truth, and produce the letter," she
resumed, "I will give you this, as your reward for finding, and
restoring to me, something that I had lost. If you persist in
your present prevarication, I can, and will, make that sheet of
note-paper you have stolen from me nothing but waste paper in
your hands. You have threatened Mrs. Glenarm with my
interference. Suppose I go to Mrs. Glenarm? Suppose I interfere
before the week is out? Suppose I have other letters of Mr.
Delamayn's in my possession, and produce them to speak for me?
What has Mrs. Glenarm to purchase of you _then?_ Answer me that!"
The color rose on her pale face. Her eyes, dim and weary when she
entered the room, looked him brightly through and through in
immeasurable contempt. "Answer me that!" she repeated, with a
burst of her old energy which revealed the fire and passion of
the woman's nature, not quenched even yet!
If Bishopriggs had a merit, it was a rare merit, as men go, of
knowing when he was beaten. If he had an accomplis hment, it was
the accomplishment of retiring defeated, with all the honors of
war.
"Mercy presairve us!" he exclaimed, in the most innocent manner.
"Is it even You Yersel' that writ the letter to the man ca'ed
Jaffray Delamayn, and got the wee bit answer in pencil on the
letter ye were after when ye cam' in here? Did ye ever tell me ye
were Anne Silvester, at the hottle? Never ance! Was the puir
feckless husband-creature ye had wi' ye at the inn, Jaffray
Delamayn? Jaffray wad mak' twa o' him, as my ain eyes ha' seen.
Gi' ye back yer letter? My certie! noo I know it is yer letter,
I'll gi' it back wi' a' the pleasure in life!"
He opened his pocket-book, and took it out, with an alacrity
worthy of the honestest man in Christendom--and (more wonderful
still) he looked with a perfectly assumed expression of
indifference at the five-pound note in Anne's hand.
"Hoot! toot!" he said, "I'm no' that clear in my mind that I'm
free to tak' yer money. Eh, weel! weel! I'll een receive it, if
ye like, as a bit Memento o' the time when I was o' some sma'
sairvice to ye at the hottle. Ye'll no' mind," he added, suddenly
returning to business, "writin' me joost a line--in the way o'
receipt, ye ken--to clear me o' ony future suspicion in the
matter o' the letter?"
Anne threw down the bank-note on the table near which they were
standing, and snatched the letter from him.
"You need no receipt," she answered. "There shall be no letter to
bear witness against you!"
She lifted her other hand to tear it in pieces. Bishopriggs
caught her by both wrists, at the same moment, and held her fast.
"Bide a wee!" he said. "Ye don't get the letter, young madam,
without the receipt. It may be a' the same to _you,_ now ye've
married the other man, whether Jaffray Delamayn ance promised ye
fair in the by-gone time, or no. But, my certie! it's a matter o'
some moment to _me,_ that ye've chairged wi' stealin' the letter,
and making a market o't, and Lord knows what besides, that I suld
hae yer ain acknowledgment for it in black and white. Gi' me my
bit receipt--and een do as ye will with yer letter after that!"
Anne's hold of the letter relaxed. She let Bishopriggs repossess
himself of it as it dropped on the floor between them, without
making an effort to prevent him.
"It may be a' the same to _you,_ now ye've married the other man,
whether Jaffray Delamayn ance promised ye fair in the by-gone
time, or no." Those words presented Anne's position before her in
a light in which she had not seen it yet. She had truly expressed
the loathing that Geoffrey now inspired in her, when she had
declared, in her letter to Arnold, that, even if he offered her
marriage, in atonement for the past, she would rather be what she
was than be his wife. It had never occurred to her, until this
moment, that others would misinterpret the sensitive pride which
had prompted the abandonment of her claim on the man who had
ruined her. It had never been brought home to her until now, that
if she left him contemptuously to go his own way, and sell
himself to the first woman who had money enough to buy him, her
conduct would sanction the false conclusion that she was
powerless to interfere, because she was married already to
another man. The color that had risen in her face vanished, and
left it deadly pale again. She began to see that the purpose of
her journey to the north was not completed yet.
"I will give you your receipt," she said. "Tell me what to write,
and it shall be written."
Bishopriggs dictated the receipt. She wrote and signed it. He put
it in his pocket-book with the five-pound note, and handed her
the letter in exchange.
"Tear it if ye will," he said. "It matters naething to _me._"
For a moment she hesitated. A sudden shuddering shook her from
head to foot--the forewarning, it might be, of the influence
which that letter, saved from destruction by a hair's-breadth,
was destined to exercise on her life to come. She recovered
herself, and folded her cloak closer to her, as if she had felt a
passing chill.
"No," she said; "I will keep the letter."
She folded it and put it in the pocket of her dress. Then turned
to go--and stopped at the door.
"One thing more," she added. "Do you know Mrs. Glenarm's present
address?"
"Ye're no' reely going to Mistress Glenarm?"
"That is no concern of yours. You can answer my question or not,
as you please."
"Eh, my leddy! yer temper's no' what it used to be in the auld
times at the hottle. Aweel! aweel! ye ha' gi'en me yer money, and
I'll een gi' ye back gude measure for it, on my side. Mistress
Glenarm's awa' in private--incog, as they say--to Jaffray
Delamayn's brither at Swanhaven Lodge. Ye may rely on the
information, and it's no' that easy to come at either. They've
keepit it a secret as they think from a' the warld. Hech! hech!
Tammy Pennyquick's youngest but twa is page-boy at the hoose
where the leddy's been veesitin', on the outskirts o' Pairth.
Keep a secret if ye can frae the pawky ears o'
yer domestics in
the servants' hall!--Eh! she's aff, without a word at parting!"
he exclaimed, as Anne left him without ceremony in the middle of
his dissertation on secrets and servants' halls. "I trow I ha'
gaen out for wool, and come back shorn," he added, reflecting
grimly on the disastrous overthrow of the promising speculation
on which he had embarked. "My certie! there was naething left
for't, when madam's fingers had grippit me, but to slip through
them as cannily as I could. What's Jaffray's marrying, or no'
marrying, to do wi' _her?_" he wondered, reverting to the
question which Anne had put to him at parting. "And whar's the
sense o' her errand, if she's reely bent on finding her way to
Mistress Glenarm?"
Whatever the sense of her errand might be, Anne's next proceeding
proved that she was really bent on it. After resting two days,
she left Perth by the first train in the morning, for Swanhaven
Lodge.
NINTH SCENE.--THE MUSIC-ROOM.
CHAPTER THE FORTIETH.
JULIUS MAKES MISCHIEF.
JULIUS DELAMAYN was alone, idly sauntering to and fro, with his
violin in his hand, on the terrace at Swanhaven Lodge.
The first mellow light of evening was in the sky. It was the
close of the day on which Anne Silvester had left Perth.
Some hours earlier, Julius had sacrificed himself to the duties
of his political position--as made for him by his father. He had
submitted to the dire necessity of delivering an oration to the
electors, at a public meeting in the neighboring town of
Kirkandrew. A detestable atmosphere to breathe; a disorderly
audience to address; insolent opposition to conciliate; imbecile
inquiries to answer; brutish interruptions to endure; greedy
petitioners to pacify; and dirty hands to shake: these are the
stages by which the aspiring English gentleman is compelled to
travel on the journey which leads him from the modest obscurity
of private life to the glorious publicity of the House of
Commons. Julius paid the preliminary penalties of a political
first appearance, as exacted by free institutions, with the
necessary patience; and returned to the welcome shelter of home,
more indifferent, if possible, to the attractions of
Parliamentary distinction than when he set out. The discord of
the roaring "people" (still echoing in his ears) had sharpened
his customary sensibility to the poetry of sound, as composed by
Mozart, and as interpreted by piano and violin. Possessing
himself of his beloved instrument, he had gone out on the terrace
to cool himself in the evening air, pending the arrival of the
servant whom he had summoned by the music-room bell. The man
appeared at the glass door which led into the room; and reported,
in answer to his master's inquiry, that Mrs. Julius Delamayn was
out paying visits, and was not expected to return for another
hour at least.
Julius groaned in spirit. The finest music which Mozart has
written for the violin associates that instrument with the piano.
Without the wife to help him, the husband was mute. After an
instant's consideration, Julius hit on an idea which promised, in
some degree, to remedy the disaster of Mrs. Delamayn's absence
from home.
"Has Mrs. Glenarm gone out, too?" he asked.
"No, Sir."
"My compliments. If Mrs. Glenarm has nothing else to do, will she
be so kind as to come to me in the music-room?"
The servant went away with his message. Julius seated himself on
one of the terrace-benches, and began to tune his violin.
Mrs. Glenarm--rightly reported by Bishopriggs as having privately
taken refuge from her anonymous correspondent at Swanhaven
Lodge--was, musically speaking, far from being an efficient
substitute for Mrs. Delamayn. Julius possessed, in his wife, one
of the few players on the piano-forte under whose subtle touch
that shallow and soulless instrument becomes inspired with