Man and Wife. Уилки Коллинз

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ cards to Arnold by his second in command, closed the pantry door, and carefully smoothed out the crumpled sheet of paper on which the two letters were written. This done, he trimmed his candle, and began with the letter in ink, which occupied the first three pages of the sheet of note-paper.

      It ran thus:

      “WINDYGATES HOUSE, August 12, 1868.

      “GEOFFREY DELAMAYN—I have waited in the hope that you would ride over from your brother’s place, and see me—and I have waited in vain. Your conduct to me is cruelty itself; I will bear it no longer. Consider! in your own interests, consider—before you drive the miserable woman who has trusted you to despair. You have promised me marriage by all that is sacred. I claim your promise. I insist on nothing less than to be what you vowed I should be—what I have waited all this weary time to be—what I am, in the sight of Heaven, your wedded wife. Lady Lundie gives a lawn-party here on the 14th. I know you have been asked. I expect you to accept her invitation. If I don’t see you, I won’t answer for what may happen. My mind is made up to endure this suspense no longer. Oh, Geoffrey, remember the past! Be faithful—be just—to your loving wife,

      “ANNE SILVESTER.”

      Mr. Bishopriggs paused. His commentary on the correspondence, so far, was simple enough. “Hot words (in ink) from the leddy to the gentleman!” He ran his eye over the second letter, on the fourth page of the paper, and added, cynically, “A trifle caulder (in pencil) from the gentleman to the leddy! The way o’ the warld, Sirs! From the time o’ Adam downwards, the way o’ the warld!”

      The second letter ran thus:

      “DEAR ANNE—Just called to London to my father. They have telegraphed him in a bad way. Stop where you are, and I will write you. Trust the bearer. Upon my soul, I’ll keep my promise. Your loving husband that is to be,

      “GEOFFREY DELAMAYN.”

      WINDYGATES HOUSE, Augt. 14, 4 P. M.

      “In a mortal hurry. Train starts at 4.30.”

      There it ended!

      “Who are the pairties in the parlor? Is ane o’ them ‘Silvester?’ and t’other ‘Delamayn?’ ” pondered Mr. Bishopriggs, slowly folding the letter up again in its original form. “Hech, Sirs! what, being intairpreted, may a’ this mean?”

      He mixed himself a second glass of toddy, as an aid to reflection, and sat sipping the liquor, and twisting and turning the letter in his gouty fingers. It was not easy to see his way to the true connection between the lady and gentleman in the parlor and the two letters now in his own possession. They might be themselves the writers of the letters, or they might be only friends of the writers. Who was to decide?

      In the first case, the lady’s object would appear to have been as good as gained; for the two had certainly asserted themselves to be man and wife, in his own presence, and in the presence of the landlady. In the second case, the correspondence so carelessly thrown aside might, for all a stranger knew to the contrary, prove to be of some importance in the future. Acting on this latter view, Mr. Bishopriggs—whose past experience as “a bit clerk body,” in Sir Patrick’s chambers, had made a man of business of him—produced his pen and ink, and indorsed the letter with a brief dated statement of the circumstances under which he had found it. “I’ll do weel to keep the Doecument,” he thought to himself. “Wha knows but there’ll be a reward offered for it ane o’ these days? Eh! eh! there may be the warth o’ a fi’ pun’ note in this, to a puir lad like me!”

      With that comforting reflection, he drew out a battered tin cash-box from the inner recesses of the drawer, and locked up the stolen correspondence to bide its time.

      The storm rose higher and higher as the evening advanced.

      In the sitting-room, the state of affairs, perpetually changing, now presented itself under another new aspect.

      Arnold had finished his dinner, and had sent it away. He had next drawn a side-table up to the sofa on which Anne lay—had shuffled the pack of cards—and was now using all his powers of persuasion to induce her to try one game at Ecarte with him, by way of diverting her attention from the tumult of the storm. In sheer weariness, she gave up contesting the matter; and, raising herself languidly on the sofa, said she would try to play. “Nothing can make matters worse than they are,” she thought, despairingly, as Arnold dealt the cards for her. “Nothing can justify my inflicting my own wretchedness on this kind-hearted boy!”

      Two worse players never probably sat down to a game. Anne’s attention perpetually wandered; and Anne’s companion was, in all human probability, the most incapable card-player in Europe.

      Anne turned up the trump—the nine of Diamonds. Arnold looked at his hand—and “proposed.” Anne declined to change the cards. Arnold announced, with undiminished good-humor, that he saw his way clearly, now, to losing the game, and then played his first card—the Queen of Trumps!

      Anne took it with the King, and forgot to declare the King. She played the ten of Trumps.

      Arnold unexpectedly discovered the eight of Trumps in his hand. “What a pity!” he said, as he played it. “Hullo! you haven’t marked the King! I’ll do it for you. That’s two—no, three—to you. I said I should lose the game. Couldn’t be expected to do any thing (could I?) with such a hand as mine. I’ve lost every thing now I’ve lost my trumps. You to play.”

      Anne looked at her hand. At the same moment the lightning flashed into the room through the ill-closed shutters; the roar of the thunder burst over the house, and shook it to its foundation. The screaming of some hysterical female tourist, and the barking of a dog, rose shrill from the upper floor of the inn. Anne’s nerves could support it no longer. She flung her cards on the table, and sprang to her feet.

      “I can play no more,” she said. “Forgive me—I am quite unequal to it. My head burns! my heart stifles me!”

      She began to pace the room again. Aggravated by the effect of the storm on her nerves, her first vague distrust of the false position into which she and Arnold had allowed themselves to drift had strengthened, by this time, into a downright horror of their situation which was not to be endured. Nothing could justify such a risk as the risk they were now running! They had dined together like married people—and there they were, at that moment, shut in together, and passing the evening like man and wife!

      “Oh, Mr. Brinkworth!” she pleaded. “Think—for Blanche’s sake, think—is there no way out of this?”

      Arnold was quietly collecting the scattered cards.

      “Blanche, again?” he said, with the most exasperating composure. “I wonder how she feels, in this storm?”

      In Anne’s excited state, the reply almost maddened her. She turned from Arnold, and hurried to the door.

      “I don’t care!” she cried, wildly. “I won’t let this deception go on. I’ll do what I ought to have done before. Come what may of it, I’ll tell the landlady the truth!”

      She had opened the door, and was on the point of stepping into the passage—when she stopped, and started violently. Was it possible, in that dreadful weather, that she had actually heard the sound of carriage wheels on the strip of paved road outside the inn?

      Yes! others had heard the sound too. The hobbling СКАЧАТЬ