Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (405 page)

“Pardon me,” replied the incorrigible Wragge. “You want a little instruction; and I am the man to give it you.”

With that answer, he placed a chair for her, and proceeded to explain himself.

She sat down in silence. A sullen indifference began to show itself in her manner; her cheeks turned pale again; and her eyes looked wearily vacant at the wall before her. Captain Wragge noticed these signs of heart-sickness and discontent with herself, after the effort she had made, and saw the importance of rousing her by speaking, for once, plainly and directly to the point. She had set a new value on herself in his mercenary eyes. She had suggested to him a speculation in her youth, her beauty, and her marked ability for the stage, which had never entered his mind until he saw her act. The old militia-man was quick at his shifts. He and his plans had both turned right about together when Magdalen sat down to hear what he had to say.

“Mr. Huxtable’s opinion is my opinion,” he began. “You are a born actress. But you must be trained before you can do anything on the stage. I am disengaged — I am competent — I have trained others — I can train you. Don’t trust my word: trust my eye to my own interests. I’ll make it my interest to take pains with you, and to be quick about it. You shall pay me for my instructions from your profits on the stage. Half your salary for the first year; a third of your salary for the second year; and half the sum you clear by your first benefit in a London theater. What do you say to that? Have I made it my interest to push you, or have I not?”

So far as appearances went, and so far as the stage went, it was plain that he had linked his interests and Magdalen’s together. She briefly told him so, and waited to hear more.

“A month or six weeks’ study,” continued the captain, “will give me a reasonable idea of what you can do best. All ability runs in grooves; and your groove remains to be found. We can’t find it here — for we can’t keep you a close prisoner for weeks together in Rosemary Lane. A quiet country place, secure from all interference and interruption, is the place we want for a month certain. Trust my knowledge of Yorkshire, and consider the place found. I see no difficulties anywhere, except the difficulty of beating our retreat to-morrow.”

“I thought your arrangements were made last night?” said Magdalen.

“Quite right,” rejoined the captain. “They were made last night; and here they are. We can’t leave by railway, because the lawyer’s clerk is sure to be on the lookout for you at the York terminus. Very good; we take to the road instead, and leave in our own carriage. Where the deuce do we get it? We get it from the landlady’s brother, who has a horse and chaise which he lets out for hire. That chaise comes to the end of Rosemary Lane at an early hour to-morrow morning. I take my wife and my niece out to show them the beauties of the neighbourhood. We have a picnic hamper with us, which marks our purpose in the public eye. You disfigure yourself in a shawl, bonnet, and veil of Mrs. Wragge’s; we turn our backs on York; and away we drive on a pleasure trip for the day — you and I on the front seat, Mrs. Wragge and the hamper behind. Good again. Once on the highroad, what do we do? Drive to the first station beyond York, northward, southward, or eastward, as may be hereafter determined. No lawyer’s clerk is waiting for you there. You and Mrs. Wragge get out — first opening the hamper at a convenient opportunity. Instead of containing chickens and Champagne, it contains a carpet-bag, with the things you want for the night. You take your tickets for a place previously determined on, and I take the chaise back to York. Arrived once more in this house, I collect the luggage left behind, and send for the woman downstairs. ‘Ladies so charmed with such and such a place (wrong place of course), that they have determined to stop there. Pray accept the customary week’s rent, in place of a week’s warning. Good day.’ Is the clerk looking for me at the York terminus? Not he. I take my ticket under his very nose; I follow you with the luggage along your line of railway — and where is the trace left of your departure? Nowhere. The fairy has vanished; and the legal authorities are left in the lurch.”

“Why do you talk of difficulties?” asked Magdalen. “The difficulties seem to be provided for.”

“All but ONE,” said Captain Wragge, with an ominous emphasis on the last word. “The Grand Difficulty of humanity from the cradle to the grave — Money.” He slowly winked his green eye; sighed with deep feeling; and buried his insolvent hands in his unproductive pockets.

“What is the money wanted for?” inquired Magdalen.

“To pay my bills,” replied the captain, with a touching simplicity. “Pray understand! I never was — and never shall be — personally desirous of paying a single farthing to any human creature on the habitable globe. I am speaking in your interest, not in mine.”

“My interest?”

“Certainly. You can’t get safely away from York to-morrow without the chaise. And I can’t get the chaise without money. The landlady’s brother will lend it if he sees his sister’s bill receipted, and if he gets his day’s hire beforehand — not otherwise. Allow me to put the transaction in a business light. We have agreed that I am to be remunerated for my course of dramatic instruction out of your future earnings on the stage. Very good. I merely draw on my future prospects; and you, on whom those prospects depend, are naturally my banker. For mere argument’s sake, estimate my share in your first year’s salary at the totally inadequate value of a hundred pounds. Halve that sum; quarter that sum — ”

“How much do you want?” said Magdalen, impatiently.

Captain Wragge was sorely tempted to take the Reward at the top of the handbills as his basis of calculation. But he felt the vast future importance of present moderation; and actually wanting some twelve or thirteen pounds, he merely doubled the amount, and said, “Five-and-twenty.”

Magdalen took the little bag from her bosom, and gave him the money, with a contemptuous wonder at the number of words which he had wasted on her for the purpose of cheating on so small a scale. In the old days at Combe-Raven, five-and-twenty pounds flowed from a stroke of her father’s pen into the hands of any one in the house who chose to ask for it.

Captain Wragge’s eyes dwelt on the little bag as the eyes of lovers dwell on their mistresses. “Happy bag!” he murmured, as she put it back in her bosom. He rose; dived into a corner of the room; produced his neat dispatch-box; and solemnly unlocked it on the table between Magdalen and himself.

“The nature of the man, my dear girl — the nature of the man,” he said, opening one of his plump little books bound in calf and vellum. “A transaction has taken place between us. I must have it down in black and white.” He opened the book at a blank page, and wrote at the top, in a fine mercantile hand:
“Miss Vanstone, the Younger: In account with Horatio Wragge, late of the Royal Militia. Dr. — Cr. Sept. 24th, 1846. Dr.: To estimated value of H. Wragge’s interest in Miss V.’s first year’s salary — say — 200 pounds. Cr. By paid on account, 25 pounds.”
Having completed the entry — and having also shown, by doubling his original estimate on the Debtor side, that Magdalen’s easy compliance with his demand on her had not been thrown away on him — the captain pressed his blotting-paper over the wet ink, and put away the book with the air of a man who had done a virtuous action, and who was above boasting about it.

“Excuse me for leaving you abruptly,” he said. “Time is of importance; I must make sure of the chaise. If Mrs. Wragge comes in, tell her nothing — she is not sharp enough to be trusted. If she presumes to ask questions, extinguish her immediately. You have only to be loud. Pray take my authority into your own hands, and be as loud with Mrs. Wragge as I am!” He snatched up his tall hat, bowed, smiled, and tripped out of the room.

Sensible of little else but of the relief of being alone; feeling no more distinct impression than the vague sense of some serious change having taken place in herself and her position, Magdalen let the events of the morning come and go like shadows on her mind, and waited wearily for what the day might bring forth. After the lapse of some time, the door opened softly. The giant figure of Mrs. Wragge stalked into the room, and stopped opposite Magdalen in solemn astonishment.

“Where are your Things?” asked Mrs. Wragge, with a burst of incontrollable anxiety. “I’ve been upstairs looking in your drawers. Where are your night-gowns and night-caps? and your petticoats and stockings? and your hair-pins and bear’s grease, and all the rest of it?”

“My luggage is left at the railway station,” said Magdalen.

Mrs. Wragge’s moon-face brightened dimly. The ineradicable female instinct of Curiosity tried to sparkle in her faded blue eyes — flickered piteously — and died out.

“How much luggage?” she asked, confidentially. “The captain’s gone out. Let’s go and get it!”

“Mrs. Wragge!” cried a terrible voice at the door.

For the first time in Magdalen’s experience, Mrs. Wragge was deaf to the customary stimulant. She actually ventured on a feeble remonstrance in the presence of her husband.

“Oh, do let her have her Things!” pleaded Mrs. Wragge. “Oh, poor soul, do let her have her Things!”

The captain’s inexorable forefinger pointed to a corner of the room — dropped slowly as his wife retired before it — and suddenly stopped at the region of her shoes.

“Do I hear a clapping on the floor!” exclaimed Captain Wragge, with an expression of horror. “Yes; I do. Down at heel again! The left shoe this time. Pull it up, Mrs. Wragge! pull it up! — The chaise will be here to-morrow morning at nine o’clock,” he continued, addressing Magdalen. “We can’t possibly venture on claiming your box. There is note-paper. Write down a list of the necessaries you want. I will take it myself to the shop, pay the bill for you, and bring back the parcel. We must sacrifice the box — we must, indeed.”

While her husband was addressing Magdalen, Mrs. Wragge had stolen out again from her corner, and had ventured near enough to the captain to hear the words “shop” and “parcel.” She clapped her great hands together in ungovernable excitement, and lost all control over herself immediately.

“Oh, if it’s shopping, let me do it!” cried Mrs. Wragge. “She’s going out to buy her Things! Oh, let me go with her — please let me go with her!”

“Sit down!” shouted the captain. “Straight! more to the right — more still. Stop where you are!”

Mrs. Wragge crossed her helpless hands on her lap, and melted meekly into tears.

“I do so like shopping,” pleaded the poor creature; “and I get so little of it now!”

Magdalen completed her list; and Captain Wragge at once left the room with it. “Don’t let my wife bore you,” he said, pleasantly, as he went out. “Cut her short, poor soul — cut her short!”

“Don’t cry,” said Magdalen, trying to comfort Mrs. Wragge by patting her on the shoulder. “When the parcel comes back you shall open it.”