Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1863 page)

“Pardon me, madam,” Mr. Troy interposed. “Before you say any more about Lady Lydiard, I really must beg leave to observe — ”

“Pardon
me
,” Miss Pink rejoined. “I never form a hasty judgment. Lady Lydiard’s conduct is beyond the reach of any defense, no matter how ingenious it may be. You may not be aware, sir, that in receiving my niece under her roof her Ladyship was receiving a gentlewoman by birth as well as by education. My late lamented sister was the daughter of a clergyman of the Church of England. I need hardly remind you that, as such, she was a born lady. Under favoring circumstances, Isabel’s maternal grandfather might have been Archbishop of Canterbury, and have taken precedence of the whole House of Peers, the Princes of the blood Royal alone excepted. I am not prepared to say that my niece is equally well connected on her father’s side. My sister surprised — I will not add shocked — us when she married a chemist. At the same time, a chemist is not a tradesman. He is a gentleman at one end of the profession of Medicine, and a titled physician is a gentleman at the other end. That is all. In inviting Isabel to reside with her, Lady Lydiard, I repeat, was bound to remember that she was associating herself with a young gentlewoman. She has
not
remembered this, which is one insult; and she has suspected my niece of theft, which is another.”

Miss Pink paused to take breath. Mr. Troy made a second attempt to get a hearing.

“Will you kindly permit me, madam, to say a few words?”

“No!” said Miss Pink, asserting the most immovable obstinacy under the blandest politeness of manner. “Your time, Mr. Troy, is really too valuable! Not even your trained intellect can excuse conduct which is manifestly
in
excusable on the face of it. Now you know my opinion of Lady Lydiard, you will not be surprised to hear that I decline to trust her Ladyship. She may, or she may not, cause the necessary inquiries to be made for the vindication of my niece’s character. In a matter so serious as this — I may say, in a duty which I owe to the memories of my sister and my parents — I will not leave the responsibility to Lady Lydiard. I will take it on myself. Let me add that I am able to pay the necessary expenses. The earlier years of my life, Mr. Troy, have been passed in the tuition of young ladies. I have been happy in meriting the confidence of parents; and I have been strict in observing the golden rules of economy. On my retirement, I have been able to invest a modest, a very modest, little fortune in the Funds. A portion of it is at the service of my niece for the recovery of her good name; and I desire to place the necessary investigation confidentially in your hands. You are acquainted with the case, and the case naturally goes to you. I could not prevail on myself — I really could not prevail on myself — to mention it to a stranger. That is the business on which I wished to consult you. Please say nothing more about Lady Lydiard — the subject is inexpressibly disagreeable to me. I will only trespass on your kindness to tell me if I have succeeded in making myself understood.”

Miss Pink leaned back in her chair, at the exact angle permitted by the laws of propriety; rested her left elbow on the palm of her right hand, and lightly supported her cheek with her forefinger and thumb. In this position she waited Mr. Troy’s answer — the living picture of human obstinacy in its most respectable form.

If Mr. Troy had not been a lawyer — in other words, if he had not been professionally capable of persisting in his own course, in the face of every conceivable difficulty and discouragement — Miss Pink might have remained in undisturbed possession of her own opinions. As it was, Mr. Troy had got his hearing at last; and no matter how obstinately she might close her eyes to it, Miss Pink was now destined to have the other side of the case presented to her view.

“I am sincerely obliged to you, madam, for the expression of your confidence in me,” Mr. Troy began; “at the same time, I must beg you to excuse me if I decline to accept your proposal.”

Miss Pink had not expected to receive such an answer as this. The lawyer’s brief refusal surprised and annoyed her.

“Why do you decline to assist me?” she asked.

“Because,” answered Mr. Troy, “my services are already engaged, in Miss Isabel’s interest, by a client whom I have served for more than twenty years. My client is — ”

Miss Pink anticipated the coming disclosure. “You need not trouble yourself, sir, to mention your client’s name,” she said.

“My client,” persisted Mr. Troy, “loves Miss Isabel dearly — ”

“That is a matter of opinion,” Miss Pink interposed.

“And believes in Miss Isabel’s innocence,” proceeded the irrepressible lawyer, “as firmly as you believe in it yourself.”

Miss Pink (being human) had a temper; and Mr. Troy had found his way to it.

“If Lady Lydiard believes in my niece’s innocence,” said Miss Pink, suddenly sitting bolt upright in her chair, “why has my niece been compelled, in justice to herself, to leave Lady Lydiard’s house?”

“You will admit, madam,” Mr. Troy answered cautiously, “that we are all of us liable, in this wicked world, to be the victims of appearances. Your niece is a victim — an innocent victim. She wisely withdraws from Lady Lydiard’s house until appearances are proved to be false and her position is cleared up.”

Miss Pink had her reply ready. “That is simply acknowledging, in other words, that my niece is suspected. I am only a woman, Mr. Troy — but it is not quite so easy to mislead me as you seem to suppose.”

Mr. Troy’s temper was admirably trained. But it began to acknowledge that Miss Pink’s powers of irritation could sting to some purpose.

“No intention of misleading you, madam, has ever crossed my mind,” he rejoined warmly. “As for your niece, I can tell you this. In all my experience of Lady Lydiard, I never saw her so distressed as she was when Miss Isabel left the house!”

“Indeed!” said Miss Pink, with an incredulous smile. “In my rank of life, when we feel distressed about a person, we do our best to comfort that person by a kind letter or an early visit. But then I am not a lady of title.”

“Lady Lydiard engaged herself to call on Miss Isabel in my hearing,” said Mr. Troy. “Lady Lydiard is the most generous woman living!”

“Lady Lydiard is here!” cried a joyful voice on the other side of the door.

At the same moment, Isabel burst into the room in a state of excitement which actually ignored the formidable presence of Miss Pink. “I beg your pardon, aunt! I was upstairs at the window, and I saw the carriage stop at the gate. And Tommie has come, too! The darling saw me at the window!” cried the poor girl, her eyes sparkling with delight as a perfect explosion of barking made itself heard over the tramp of horses’ feet and the crash of carriage wheels outside.

Miss Pink rose slowly, with a dignity that looked capable of adequately receiving — not one noble lady only, but the whole peerage of England.

“Control yourself, dear Isabel,” she said. “No well-bred young lady permits herself to become unduly excited. Stand by my side — a little behind me.”

Isabel obeyed. Mr. Troy kept his place, and privately enjoyed his triumph over Miss Pink. If Lady Lydiard had been actually in league with him, she could not have chosen a more opportune time for her visit. A momentary interval passed. The carriage drew up at the door; the horses trampled on the gravel; the bell rung madly; the uproar of Tommie, released from the carriage and clamoring to be let in, redoubled its fury. Never before had such an unruly burst of noises invaded the tranquility of Miss Pink’s villa!

CHAPTER XI.

THE trim little maid-servant ran upstairs from her modest little kitchen, trembling at the terrible prospect of having to open the door. Miss Pink, deafened by the barking, had just time to say, “What a very ill-behaved dog!” when a sound of small objects overthrown in the hall, and a scurrying of furious claws across the oil-cloth, announced that Tommie had invaded the house. As the servant appeared, introducing Lady Lydiard, the dog ran in. He made one frantic leap at Isabel, which would certainly have knocked her down but for the chair that happened to be standing behind her. Received on her lap, the faithful creature half smothered her with his caresses. He barked, he shrieked, in his joy at seeing her again. He jumped off her lap and tore round and round the room at the top of his speed; and every time he passed Miss Pink he showed the whole range of his teeth and snarled ferociously at her ankles. Having at last exhausted his superfluous energy, he leaped back again on Isabel’s lap, with his tongue quivering in his open mouth — his tail wagging softly, and his eye on Miss Pink, inquiring how she liked a dog in her drawing-room!

“I hope my dog has not disturbed you, ma’am?” said Lady Lydiard, advancing from the mat at the doorway, on which she had patiently waited until the raptures of Tommie subsided into repose.

Miss Pink, trembling between terror and indignation, acknowledged Lady Lydiard’s polite inquiry by a ceremonious bow, and an answer which administered by implication a dignified reproof. “Your Ladyship’s dog does not appear to be a very well-trained animal,” the ex-schoolmistress remarked.

“Well trained?” Lady Lydiard repeated, as if the expression was perfectly unintelligible to her. “I don’t think you have had much experience of dogs, ma’am.” She turned to Isabel, and embraced her tenderly. “Give me a kiss, my dear — you don’t know how wretched I have been since you left me.” She looked back again at Miss Pink. “You are not, perhaps, aware, ma’am, that my dog is devotedly attached to your niece. A dog’s love has been considered by many great men (whose names at the moment escape me) as the most touching and disinterested of all earthly affections.” She looked the other way, and discovered the lawyer. “How do you do, Mr. Troy? It’s a pleasant surprise to find you here The house was so dull without Isabel that I really couldn’t put off seeing her any longer. When you are more used to Tommie, Miss Pink, you will understand and admire him.
You
understand and admire him, Isabel — don’t you? My child! you are not looking well. I shall take you back with me, when the horses have had their rest. We shall never be happy away from each other.”

Having expressed her sentiments, distributed her greetings, and defended her dog — all, as it were, in one breath — Lady Lydiard sat down by Isabel’s side, and opened a large green fan that hung at her girdle. “You have no idea, Miss Pink, how fat people suffer in hot weather,” said the old lady, using her fan vigorously.

Miss Pink’s eyes dropped modestly to the ground — ”fat” was such a coarse word to use, if a lady
must
speak of her own superfluous flesh! “May I offer some refreshment?” Miss Pink asked, mincingly. “A cup of tea?”

Lady Lydiard shook her head.

“A glass of water?”

Lady Lydiard declined this last hospitable proposal with an exclamation of disgust. “Have you got any beer?” she inquired.

“I beg your Ladyship’s pardon,” said Miss Pink, doubting the evidence of her own ears. “Did you say — beer?”

Lady Lydiard gesticulated vehemently with her fan. “Yes, to be sure! Beer! beer!”

Miss Pink rose, with a countenance expressive of genteel disgust, and rang the bell. “I think you have beer downstairs, Susan?” she said, when the maid appeared at the door.

“Yes, miss.”

“A glass of beer for Lady Lydiard,” said Miss Pink — under protest.

“Bring it in a jug,” shouted her Ladyship, as the maid left the room. “I like to froth it up for myself,” she continued, addressing Miss Pink. “Isabel sometimes does it for me, when she is at home — don’t you, my dear?”

Miss Pink had been waiting her opportunity to assert her own claim to the possession of her own niece, from the time when Lady Lydiard had coolly declared her intention of taking Isabel back with her. The opportunity now presented itself.

“Your Ladyship will pardon me,” she said, “if I remark that my niece’s home is under my humble roof. I am properly sensible, I hope, of your kindness to Isabel, but while she remains the object of a disgraceful suspicion she remains with me.”

Lady Lydiard closed her fan with an angry snap.

“You are completely mistaken, Miss Pink. You may not mean it — but you speak most unjustly if you say that your niece is an object of suspicion to me, or to anybody in my house.”

Mr. Troy, quietly listening up to this point now interposed to stop the discussion before it could degenerate into a personal quarrel. His keen observation, aided by his accurate knowledge of his client’s character, had plainly revealed to him what was passing in Lady Lydiard’s mind. She had entered the house, feeling (perhaps unconsciously) a jealousy of Miss Pink, as her predecessor in Isabel’s affections, and as the natural protectress of the girl under existing circumstances. Miss Pink’s reception of her dog had additionally irritated the old lady. She had taken a malicious pleasure in shocking the schoolmistress’s sense of propriety — and she was now only too ready to proceed to further extremities on the delicate question of Isabel’s justification for leaving her house. For Isabel’s own sake, therefore — to say nothing of other reasons — it was urgently desirable to keep the peace between the two ladies. With this excellent object in view, Mr. Troy seized his opportunity of striking into the conversation for the first time.