Armadale (55 page)

‘I suppose you don't approve of it?' he said, after waiting a little.

There was no answer.

‘It's too late to make objections,' proceeded Allan. ‘I really mean it when I tell you I'm in love with her.'

‘A fortnight since you were in love with Miss Milroy,' said the other in quiet, measured tones.

‘Pooh! a mere flirtation. It's different this time. I'm in earnest about Miss Gwilt.'

He looked round as he spoke. Midwinter turned his face aside on the instant, and bent it over a book.

‘I see you don't approve of the thing,' Allan went on. ‘Do you object to her being only a governess? You can't do that, I'm sure. If you were in my place, her being only a governess wouldn't stand in the way with
you?
'

‘No,' said Midwinter; ‘I can't honestly say it would stand in the way
with me.' He gave the answer reluctantly, and pushed his chair back out of the light of the lamp.

‘A governess is a lady who is not rich,' said Allan, in an oracular manner; ‘and a duchess is a lady who is not poor. And that's all the difference I acknowledge between them. Miss Gwilt is older than I am – I don't deny that. What age do you guess her at, Midwinter? I say, seven or eight and twenty. What do you say?'

‘Nothing. I agree with you.'

‘Do you think seven or eight and twenty is too old for me? If you were in love with a woman yourself, you wouldn't think seven or eight and twenty too old – would you?'

‘I can't say I should think it too old, if—'

‘If you were really fond of her?'

Once more there was no answer.

‘Well,' resumed Allan, ‘if there's no harm in her being only a governess, and no harm in her being a little older than I am, what's the objection to Miss Gwilt?'

‘I have made no objection.'

‘I don't say you have. But you don't seem to like the notion of it, for all that.'

There was another pause. Midwinter was the first to break the silence this time.

‘Are you sure of yourself, Allan?' he asked, with his face bent once more over the book; ‘are you really attached to this lady? Have you thought seriously already of asking her to be your wife?'

‘I am thinking seriously of it at this moment,' said Allan. ‘I can't be happy – I can't live without her. Upon my soul, I worship the very ground she treads on.'

‘How long—?' His voice faltered, and he stopped. ‘How long,' he reiterated, ‘have you worshipped the very ground she treads on?'

‘Longer than you think for. I know I can trust you with all my secrets—'

‘Don't trust me!'

‘Nonsense! I
will
trust you. There is a little difficulty in the way, which I haven't mentioned yet. It's a matter of some delicacy, and I want to consult you about it. Between ourselves, I have had private opportunities with Miss Gwilt—'

Midwinter suddenly started to his feet, and opened the door.

‘We'll talk of this to-morrow,' he said. ‘Good-night.'

Allan looked round in astonishment. The door was closed again, and he was alone in the room.

‘He has never shaken hands with me!' exclaimed Allan, looking bewildered at the empty chair.

As the words passed his lips the door opened, and Midwinter appeared again.

‘We haven't shaken hands,' he said, abruptly. ‘God bless you, Allan! We'll talk of it to-morrow. Good-night.'

Allan stood alone at the window, looking out at the pouring rain. He felt ill at ease, without knowing why.
²
‘Midwinter's ways get stranger and stranger,' he thought. ‘What can he mean by putting me off till tomorrow, when I wanted to speak to him to-night?' He took up his bedroom candle a little impatiently – put it down again – and, walking back to the open window, stood looking out in the direction of the cottage. ‘I wonder if she's thinking of me?' he said to himself softly.

She
was
thinking of him. She had just opened her desk to write to Mrs Oldershaw; and her pen had that moment traced the opening line: ‘Make your mind easy. I have got him!'

It rained all through the night; and when the morning came, it was raining still.

Contrary to his ordinary habit, Midwinter was waiting in the breakfast-room when Allan entered it. He looked worn and weary, but his smile was gentler, and his manner more composed than usual. To Allan's surprise he approached the subject of the previous night's conversation of his own accord as soon as the servant was out of the room.

‘I am afraid you thought me very impatient and very abrupt with you last night,' he said. ‘I will try to make amends for it this morning. I will hear everything you wish to say to me on the subject of Miss Gwilt.'

‘I hardly like to worry you,' said Allan. ‘You look as if you had had a bad night's rest.'

‘I have not slept well for some time past,' replied Midwinter quietly. ‘Something has been wrong with me. But I believe I have found out the way to put myself right again without troubling the doctors. Later in the morning I shall have something to say to you about this. Let us get
back first to what you were talking of last night. You were speaking of some difficulty—' He hesitated, and finished the sentence in a tone so low that Allan failed to hear him. ‘Perhaps it would be better,' he went on, ‘if, instead of speaking to me, you spoke to Mr Brock?'

‘I would rather speak to
you
,' said Allan. ‘But tell me first, was I right or wrong last night in thinking you disapproved of my falling in love with Miss Gwilt?'

Midwinter's lean nervous fingers began to crumble the bread in his plate. His eyes looked away from Allan for the first time.

‘If you have any objection,' persisted Allan, ‘I should like to hear it.'

Midwinter suddenly looked up again, his cheeks turning ashy pale, and his glittering black eyes fixed full on Allan's face.

‘You love her,' he said. ‘Does
she
love
you
?'

‘You won't think me vain?' returned Allan. ‘I told you yesterday I had had private opportunities with her—'

Midwinter's eyes dropped again to the crumbs on his plate. ‘I understand,' he interposed quickly. ‘You were wrong last night. I had no objections to make.'

‘Don't you congratulate me?' asked Allan, a little uneasily. ‘Such a beautiful woman! such a clever woman!'

Midwinter held out his hand. ‘I owe you more than mere congratulations,' he said. ‘In anything which is for your happiness I owe you help.' He took Allan's hand, and wrung it hard. ‘Can I help you?' he asked, growing paler and paler as he spoke.

‘My dear fellow!' exclaimed Allan, ‘what
is
the matter with you? Your hand is as cold as ice.'

Midwinter smiled faintly. ‘I am always in extremes,' he said; ‘my hand was as hot as fire the first time you took it at the old West-country inn. Come to that difficulty which you have not come to yet. You are young, rich, your own master – and she loves you. What difficulty can there be?'

Allan hesitated. ‘I hardly know how to put it,' he replied. ‘As you said just now, I love her, and she loves me – and yet there is a sort of strangeness between us. One talks a good deal about one's self, when one is in love – at least, I do. I've told her all about myself, and my mother, and how I came in for this place, and the rest of it. Well – though it doesn't strike me when we are together – it comes across me now and then, when I'm away from her, that she doesn't say much on her side. In fact, I know no more about her than you do.'

‘Do you mean that you know nothing about Miss Gwilt's family and friends?'

‘That's it, exactly.'

‘Have you never asked her about them?'

‘I said something of the sort the other day,' returned Allan; ‘and I'm afraid, as usual, I said it in the wrong way. She looked – I can't quite tell you how; not exactly displeased, but – oh, what things words are! I'd give the world, Midwinter, if I could only find the right word when I want it, as well as you do.'

‘Did Miss Gwilt say anything to you in the way of a reply?'

‘That's just what I was coming to. She said, “I shall have a melancholy story to tell you one of these days, Mr Armadale, about myself and my family; but you look so happy, and the circumstances are so distressing, that I have hardly the heart to speak of it now.” Ah,
she
can express herself – with the tears in her eyes, my dear fellow, with the tears in her eyes! Of course I changed the subject directly. And now the difficulty is how to get back to it, delicately, without making her cry again. We
must
get back to it, you know. Not on my account; I am quite content to marry her first and hear of her family misfortunes, poor thing, afterwards. But I know Mr Brock. If I can't satisfy him about her family when I write to tell him of this (which of course I must do), he will be dead against the whole thing. I'm my own master of course, and I can do as I like about it. But dear old Brock was such a good friend to my poor mother, and he has been such a good friend to me – you see what I mean, don't you?'

‘Certainly, Allan; Mr Brock has been your second father. Any disagreement between you about such a serious matter as this, would be the saddest thing that could happen. You ought to satisfy him that Miss Gwilt is (what I am sure Miss Gwilt will prove to be) worthy, in every way worthy—' His voice sank in spite of him, and he left the sentence unfinished.

‘Just my feeling in the matter!' Allan struck in glibly. ‘Now we can come to what I particularly wanted to consult you about. If this was your case, Midwinter, you would be able to say the right words to her – you would put it delicately, even though you were putting it quite in the dark. I can't do that. I'm a blundering sort of fellow; and I'm horribly afraid, if I can't get some hint at the truth to help me at starting, of saying something to distress her. Family misfortunes are such tender subjects to touch on – especially with such a refined woman, such a tender-hearted woman, as Miss Gwilt. There may have been some dreadful death in the family – some relation who has disgraced himself – some infernal cruelty which has forced the poor thing out on the world as a governess. Well, turning it over in my mind,
it struck me that the major might be able to put me on the right tack. It is quite possible that he might have been informed of Miss Gwilt's family circumstances before he engaged her – isn't it?'

‘It is possible, Allan, certainly.'

‘Just my feeling again! My notion is, to speak to the major. If I could only get the story from him first, I should know so much better how to speak to Miss Gwilt about it afterwards. You advise me to try the major, don't you?'

There was a pause before Midwinter replied. When he did answer it was a little reluctantly.

‘I hardly know how to advise you, Allan,' he said. ‘This is a very delicate matter.'

‘I believe you would try the major, if you were in my place,' returned Allan reverting to his inveterately personal way of putting the question.

‘Perhaps I might,' said Midwinter, more and more unwillingly.

‘But if I did speak to the major, I should be very careful, in your place, not to put myself in a false position – I should be very careful to let no one suspect me of the meanness of prying into a woman's secrets behind her back.'

Allan's face flushed. ‘Good heavens, Midwinter,' he exclaimed, ‘who could suspect me of that?'

‘Nobody, Allan, who really knows you.'

‘The major knows me. The major is the last man in the world to misunderstand me. All I want him to do, is to help me (if he can) to speak about a delicate subject to Miss Gwilt, without hurting her feelings. Can anything be simpler between two gentlemen?'

Instead of replying, Midwinter, still speaking as constrainedly as ever, asked a question on his side. ‘Do you mean to tell Major Milroy,' he said, ‘what your intentions really are towards Miss Gwilt?'

Allan's manner altered. He hesitated and looked confused.

‘I have been thinking of that,' he replied; ‘and I mean to feel my way first, and then tell him or not afterwards, as matters turn out.'

A proceeding so cautious as this, was too strikingly inconsistent with Allan's character not to surprise any one who knew him. Midwinter showed his surprise plainly.

‘You forget that foolish flirtation of mine with Miss Milroy,' Allan went on, more and more confusedly. ‘The major may have noticed it, and may have thought I meant—well, what I didn't mean. It might be rather awkward, mightn't it, to propose to his face for his governess instead of his daughter?'

He waited for a word of answer, but none came. Midwinter opened
his lips to speak, and suddenly checked himself. Allan, uneasy at his silence, doubly uneasy under certain recollections of the major's daughter which the conversation had called up, rose from the table, and shortened the interview a little impatiently.

‘Come! come!' he said, ‘don't sit there looking unutterable things – don't make mountains out of molehills. You have such an old, old head, Midwinter, on those young shoulders of yours. Let's have done with all these pros and cons. Do you mean to tell me in plain words, that it won't do to speak to the major?'

‘I can't take the responsibility, Allan, of telling you that. To be plainer still, I can't feel confident of the soundness of any advice I may give you, in – in our present position towards each other. All I am sure of is, that I cannot possibly be wrong in entreating you to do two things.'

‘What are they?'

‘If you speak to Major Milroy, pray remember the caution I have given you! Pray think of what you say, before you say it!'

‘I'll think – never fear! What next?'