Armadale (79 page)

Five o'clock?
⁸
– 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 turned up in the course of 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 on 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 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 cottage, 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. I am 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 – would 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 I always 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.

It is close on ten o'clock – I have been dawdling over my diary longer than I supposed. No words can describe how weary and languid I feel. Why don't I take my sleeping drops and go to bed? There is no meeting between Armadale and Miss Milroy to force me into early rising tomorrow morning. Am I trying, for the hundredth time, to see my way clearly into the future – trying, in my present state of fatigue, to be the quick-witted woman I once was, before all these anxieties came together and overpowered me? or am I perversely afraid of my bed when I want it most? I don't know – I am tired and miserable; I am looking wretchedly haggard and old. With a little encouragement, I might be fool enough to burst out crying. Luckily, there is no one to encourage me. What sort of night is it, I wonder?

A cloudy night, with the moon showing at intervals, and the wind rising. I can just hear it moaning among the ins and outs of the unfinished cottages at the end of the street. My nerves must be a little shaken, I think. I was startled just now by a shadow on the wall. It was only after a moment or two that I mustered sense enough to notice where the candle was, and to see that the shadow was my own.

Shadows remind me of Midwinter – or, if the shadows don't, something else does. I must have another look at his letter, and then I will positively go to bed.

I shall end in getting fond of him. If I remain much longer in this lonely uncertain state – so irresolute, so unlike my usual self – I shall end in
getting fond of him. What madness! As if
I
could ever be really fond of a man again!

Suppose I took one of my sudden resolutions, and married him. Poor as he is, he would give me a name and a position, if I became his wife. Let me see how the name – his own name – would look, if I really did consent to take it for mine.

‘Mrs Armadale!' Pretty.

‘Mrs Allan Armadale!' Prettier still.

My nerves
must
be shaken. Here is my own handwriting startling me now! It is so strange – it is enough to startle anybody. The similarity in the two names never struck me in this light before. Marry which of the two I might, my name would of course be the same. I should have been Mrs Armadale, if I had married the light-haired Allan at the great house. And I can be Mrs Armadale still, if I marry the dark-haired Allan in London. It's almost maddening to write it down – to feel that something ought to come of it – and to find nothing come.

How
can
anything come of it? If I did go to London, and marry him (as of course I must marry him) under his real name, would he let me be known by it afterwards? With all his reasons for concealing his real name, he would insist – no, he is too fond of me to do that – he would entreat me to take the name which he has assumed. Mrs Midwinter. Hideous! Ozias, too, when I wanted to address him familiarly as his wife should. Worse than hideous!

And yet, there would be some reason for humouring him in this, if he asked me. Suppose the brute at the great house happened to leave this neighbourhood as a single man; and suppose, in his absence, any of the people who know him heard of a Mrs Allan Armadale, they would set her down at once as his wife. Even if they actually saw me – if I actually came among them with that name, and if he was not present to contradict it – his own servants would be the first to say, ‘We knew she would marry him after all!' And my lady-patronesses, who will be ready to believe anything of me now we have quarrelled, would join the chorus
sotto voce:
‘Only think, my dear, the report that so shocked us, actually turns out to be true!' No. If I marry Midwinter, I must either be perpetually putting my husband and myself in a false position – or I must leave his real name, his pretty, romantic name, behind me at the church door.

My husband! As if I was really going to marry him! I am
not
going to marry him, and there's an end of it.

Half-past ten
. – Oh dear! oh dear! how my temples throb, and how hot my weary eyes feel! There is the moon looking at me through the
window. How fast the little scattered clouds are flying before the wind! Now they let the moon in; and now they shut the moon out. What strange shapes the patches of yellow light take, and lose again, all in a moment! No peace and quiet for me, look where I may. The candle keeps flickering, and the very sky itself is restless to-night.

‘To bed! to bed!' as Lady Macbeth says. I wonder by-the-by what Lady Macbeth would have done in my position? She would have killed somebody when her difficulties first began. Probably Armadale.

Friday morning
. – A night's rest, thanks again to my Drops. I went to breakfast in better spirits, and received a morning welcome in the shape of a letter from Mrs Oldershaw.

My silence has produced its effect on Mother Jezebel. She attributes it to the right cause, and she shows her claws at last. If I am not in a position to pay my note-of-hand for thirty pounds, which is due on Tuesday next, her lawyer is instructed to ‘take the usual course'.
If
I am not in a position to pay it! Why, when I have settled to-day with my landlord, I shall have barely five pounds left! There is not the shadow of a prospect between now and Tuesday of my earning any money; and I don't possess a friend in this place who would trust me with sixpence. The difficulties that are swarming round me wanted but one more to complete them, and that one has come.

Midwinter would assist me, of course, if I could bring myself to ask him for assistance. But
that
means marrying him. Am I really desperate enough and helpless enough to end it in that way? No; not yet.

My head feels heavy; I must get out into the fresh air, and think about it.

Two o'clock
. – I believe I have caught the infection of Midwinter's superstition. I begin to think that events are forcing me nearer and nearer to some end which I don't see yet, but which I am firmly persuaded is now not far off.

I have been insulted – deliberately insulted before witnesses – by Miss Milroy.

After walking, as usual, in the most unfrequented place I could pick out, and after trying not very successfully to think to some good purpose of what I am to do next, I remembered that I needed some note-paper and pens, and went back to the town, to the stationer's shop. It might have been wiser to have sent for what I wanted. But I was weary of myself, and weary of my lonely rooms; and I did my own errand, for no better reason than that it was something to do.

I had just got into the shop, and was asking for what I wanted, when another customer came in. We both looked up, and recognized each other at the same moment: Miss Milroy.

A woman and a lad were behind the counter, besides the man who was serving me. The woman civilly addressed the new customer. ‘What can we have the pleasure of doing for you, Miss?' After pointing it first, by looking me straight in the face, she answered, ‘Nothing, thank you, at present. I'll come back when the shop is empty.'

She went out. The three people in the shop looked at me in silence. In silence, on my side, I paid for my purchases, and left the place. I don't know how I might have felt if I had been in my usual spirits. In the anxious unsettled state I am in now, I can't deny it, the girl stung me.

In the weakness of the moment (for it was nothing else) I was on the point of matching her petty spitefulness by spitefulness quite as petty on my side. I had actually got as far as the whole length of the street, on my way to the major's cottage, bent on telling him the secret of his daughter's morning walks, before my better sense came back to me. When I did cool down, I turned round at once, and took the way home. No, no, Miss Milroy: mere temporary mischief-making at the cottage, which would only end in your father forgiving you, and in Armadale profiting by his indulgence, will nothing like pay the debt I owe you. I don't forget that your heart is set on Armadale; and that the major, however he may talk, has always ended hitherto in giving you your own way. My head
may
be getting duller and duller, but it has not quite failed me yet.

In the meantime, there is Mother Oldershaw's letter waiting obstinately to be answered; and here am I, not knowing what to do about it yet. Shall I answer it or not? It doesn't matter for the present; there are some hours still to spare before the post goes out.

Suppose I asked Armadale to lend me the money? I should enjoy getting
something
out of him; and I believe, in his present situation with Miss Milroy, he would do anything to be rid of me. Mean enough this, on my part. Pooh! When you hate and despise a man, as I hate and despise Armadale, who cares for looking mean in
his
eyes?

And yet my pride – or my something else, I don't know what – shrinks from it.

Half-past two – only half-past two. Oh, the dreadful weariness of these long summer days! I can't keep thinking and thinking any longer; I must do something to relieve my mind. Can I go to my piano? No; I'm not fit for it. Work? No; I shall get thinking again, if I take to my
needle. A man, in my place, would find refuge in drink. I'm not a man, and I can't drink. I'll dawdle over my dresses, and put my things tidy.

Has an hour passed? More than an hour. It seems like a minute.

I can't look back through these leaves, but I know I wrote the words somewhere. I know I felt myself getting nearer and nearer to some end that was still hidden from me. The end is hidden no longer. The cloud is off my mind, the blindness has gone from my eyes. I see it! I see it!
⁹

It came to me – I never sought it. If I was lying on my death-bed, I could swear, with a safe conscience, I never sought it.

I was only looking over my things; I was as idly and as frivolously employed as the most idle and most frivolous woman living. I went through my dresses and my linen. What could be more innocent? Children go through their dresses and their linen.

It was such a long summer day, and I was so tired of myself. I went to my boxes next. I looked over the large box first, which I usually leave open; and then I tried the small box, which I always keep locked.

From one thing to the other, I came at last to the bundle of letters at the bottom – the letters of the man for whom I once sacrificed and suffered everything; the man who has made me what I am. A hundred times I have determined to burn his letters; but I have never burnt them. This time, all I said was, ‘I won't read his letters!' And I did read them.

The villain – the false, cowardly, heartless villain – what have I to do with his letters now? Oh, the misery of being a woman! Oh, the meanness that our memory of a man can tempt us to, when our love for him is dead and gone! I read the letters – I was so lonely and so miserable, I read the letters.
¹⁰

I came to the last – the letter he wrote to encourage me, when I hesitated as the terrible time came nearer and nearer; the letter that revived me when my resolution failed at the eleventh hour. I read on, line after line, till I came to these words: