Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (584 page)

Mr. Bashwood looked aside quickly out of the cab window. “Where could she turn for refuge next?” he said, not to his son, but to himself. “What, in Heaven’s name, could she do?”

“Judging by my experience of women,” remarked Bashwood the younger, overhearing him, “I should say she probably tried to drown herself. But that’s only guess-work again: it’s all guess-work at this part of her story. You catch me at the end of my evidence, dad, when you come to Miss Gwilt’s proceedings in the spring and summer of the present year. She might, or she might not, have been desperate enough to attempt suicide; and she might, or she might not, have been at the bottom of those inquiries that I made for Mrs. Oldershaw. I dare say you’ll see her this morning; and perhaps, if you use your influence, you may be able to make her finish her own story herself.”

Mr. Bashwood, still looking out of the cab window, suddenly laid his hand on his son’s arm.

“Hush! hush!” he exclaimed, in violent agitation. “We have got there at last. Oh, Jemmy, feel how my heart beats! Here is the hotel.”

“Bother your heart,” said Bashwood the younger. “Wait here while I make the inquiries.”

“I’ll come with you!” cried his father. “I can’t wait! I tell you, I can’t wait!”

They went into the hotel together, and asked for “Mr. Armadale.”

The answer, after some little hesitation and delay, was that Mr. Armadale had gone away six days since. A second waiter added that Mr. Armadale’s friend — Mr. Midwinter — had only left that morning. Where had Mr. Armadale gone? Somewhere into the country. Where had Mr. Midwinter gone? Nobody knew.

Mr. Bashwood looked at his son in speechless and helpless dismay.

“Stuff and nonsense!” said Bashwood the younger, pushing his father back roughly into the cab. “He’s safe enough. We shall find him at Miss Gwilt’s.”

The old man took his son’s hand and kissed it. “Thank you, my dear,” he said, gratefully. “Thank you for comforting me.”

The cab was driven next to the second lodging which Miss Gwilt had occupied, in the neighbourhood of Tottenham Court Road.

“Stop here,” said the spy, getting out, and shutting his father into the cab. “I mean to manage this part of the business myself.”

He knocked at the house door. “I have got a note for Miss Gwilt,” he said, walking into the passage, the moment the door was opened.

“She’s gone,” answered the servant. “She went away last night.”

Bashwood the younger wasted no more words with the servant. He insisted on seeing the mistress. The mistress confirmed the announcement of Miss Gwilt’s departure on the previous evening. Where had she gone to? The woman couldn’t say. How had she left? On foot. At what hour? Between nine and ten. What had she done with her luggage? She had no luggage. Had a gentleman been to see her on the previous day? Not a soul, gentle or simple, had come to the house to see Miss Gwilt.

The father’s face, pale and wild, was looking out of the cab window as the son descended the house steps. “Isn’t she there, Jemmy?” he asked, faintly — ”isn’t she there?”

“Hold your tongue,” cried the spy, with the native coarseness of his nature rising to the surface at last. “I’m not at the end of my inquiries yet.”

He crossed the road, and entered a coffee-shop situated exactly opposite the house he had just left.

In the box nearest the window two men were sitting talking together anxiously.

“Which of you was on duty yesterday evening, between nine and ten o’clock?” asked Bashwood the younger, suddenly joining them, and putting his question in a quick, peremptory whisper.

“I was, sir,” said one of the men, unwillingly.

“Did you lose sight of the house? — Yes! I see you did.”

“Only for a minute, sir. An infernal blackguard of a soldier came in — ”

“That will do,” said Bashwood the younger. “I know what the soldier did, and who sent him to do it. She has given us the slip again. You are the greatest ass living. Consider yourself dismissed.” With those words, and with an oath to emphasize them, he left the coffee-shop and returned to the cab.

“She’s gone!” cried his father. “Oh, Jemmy, Jemmy, I see it in your face!” He fell back into his own corner of the cab, with a faint, wailing cry. “They’re married,” he moaned to himself; his hands falling helplessly on his knees; his hat falling unregarded from his head. “Stop them!” he exclaimed, suddenly rousing himself, and seizing his son in a frenzy by the collar of the coat.

“Go back to the hotel,” shouted Bashwood the younger to the cabman. “Hold your noise!” he added, turning fiercely on his father. “I want to think.”

The varnish of smoothness was all off him by this time. His temper was roused. His pride — even such a man has his pride! — was wounded to the quick. Twice had he matched his wits against a woman’s; and twice the woman had baffled him.

He got out, on reaching the hotel for the second time, and privately tried the servants with the offer of money. The result of the experiment satisfied him that they had, in this instance, really and truly no information to sell. After a moment’s reflection, he stopped, before leaving the hotel, to ask the way to the parish church. “The chance may be worth trying,” he thought to himself, as he gave the address to the driver. “Faster!” he called out, looking first at his watch, and then at his father. “The minutes are precious this morning; and the old one is beginning to give in.”

It was true. Still capable of hearing and of understanding, Mr. Bashwood was past speaking by this time. He clung with both hands to his son’s grudging arm, and let his head fall helplessly on his son’s averted shoulder.

The parish church stood back from the street, protected by gates and railings, and surrounded by a space of open ground. Shaking off his father’s hold, Bashwood the younger made straight for the vestry. The clerk, putting away the books, and the clerk’s assistant, hanging up a surplice, were the only persons in the room when he entered it and asked leave to look at the marriage register for the day.

The clerk gravely opened the book, and stood aside from the desk on which it lay.

The day’s register comprised three marriages solemnized that morning; and the first two signatures on the page were “Allan Armadale” and “Lydia Gwilt!”

Even the spy — ignorant as he was of the truth, unsuspicious as he was of the terrible future consequences to which the act of that morning might lead — even the spy started, when his eye first fell on the page. It was done! Come what might of it, it was done now. There, in black and white, was the registered evidence of the marriage, which was at once a truth in itself, and a lie in the conclusion to which it led! There — through the fatal similarity in the names — there, in Midwinter’s own signature, was the proof to persuade everybody that, not Midwinter, but Allan, was the husband of Miss Gwilt!

Bashwood the younger closed the book, and returned it to the clerk. He descended the vestry steps, with his hands thrust doggedly into his pockets, and with a serious shock inflicted on his professional self-esteem.

The beadle met him under the church wall. He considered for a moment whether it was worth while to spend a shilling in questioning the man, and decided in the affirmative. If they could be traced and overtaken, there might be a chance of seeing the colour of Mr. Armadale’s money even yet.

“How long is it,” he asked, “since the first couple married here this morning left the church?”

“About an hour,” said the beadle.

“How did they go away?”

The beadle deferred answering that second question until he had first pocketed his fee.

“You won’t trace them from here, sir,” he said, when he had got his shilling. “They went away on foot.”

“And that is all you know about it?”

“That, sir, is all I know about it.”

Left by himself, even the Detective of the Private Inquiry Office paused for a moment before he returned to his father at the gate. He was roused from his hesitation by the sudden appearance, within the church inclosure, of the driver of the cab.

“I’m afraid the old gentleman is going to be taken ill, sir,” said the man.

Bashwood the younger frowned angrily, and walked back to the cab. As he opened the door and looked in, his father leaned forward and confronted him, with lips that moved speechlessly, and with a white stillness over all the rest of his face.

“She’s done us,” said the spy. “They were married here this morning.”

The old man’s body swayed for a moment from one side to the other. The instant after, his eyes closed and his head fell forward toward the front seat of the cab. “Drive to the hospital!” cried his son. “He’s in a fit. This is what comes of putting myself out of my way to please my father,” he muttered, sullenly raising Mr. Bashwood’s head, and loosening his cravat. “A nice morning’s work. Upon my soul, a nice morning’s work!”

The hospital was near, and the house surgeon was at his post.

“Will he come out of it?” asked Bashwood the younger, roughly.

“Who are
you
?” asked the surgeon, sharply, on his side.

“I am his son.”

“I shouldn’t have thought it,” rejoined the surgeon, taking the restoratives that were handed to him by the nurse, and turning from the son to the father with an air of relief which he was at no pains to conceal. “Yes,” he added, after a minute or two; “your father will come out of it this time.”

“When can he be moved away from here?”

“He can be moved from the hospital in an hour or two.”

The spy laid a card on the table. “I’ll come back for him or send for him,” he said. “I suppose I can go now, if I leave my name and address?” With those words, he put on his hat, and walked out.

“He’s a brute!” said the nurse.

“No,” said the surgeon, quietly. “He’s a man.”

* * * * * * *

Between nine and ten o’clock that night, Mr. Bashwood awoke in his bed at the inn in the Borough. He had slept for some hours since he had been brought back from the hospital; and his mind and body were now slowly recovering together.

A light was burning on the bedside table, and a letter lay on it, waiting for him till he was awake. It was in his son’s handwriting, and it contained these words:

“MY DEAR DAD — Having seen you safe out of the hospital, and back at your hotel, I think I may fairly claim to have done my duty by you, and may consider myself free to look after my own affairs. Business will prevent me from seeing you to-night; and I don’t think it at all likely I shall be in your neighbourhood to-morrow morning. My advice to you is to go back to Thorpe Ambrose, and to stick to your employment in the steward’s office. Wherever Mr. Armadale may be, he must, sooner or later, write to you on business. I wash my hands of the whole matter, mind, so far as I am concerned, from this time forth. But if
you
like to go on with it, my professional opinion is (though you couldn’t hinder his marriage), you may part him from his wife.

“Pray take care of yourself.

“Your affectionate son,

“JAMES BASHWOOD.”

The letter dropped from the old man’s feeble hands. “I wish Jemmy could have come to see me to-night,” he thought. “But it’s very kind of him to advise me, all the same.”

He turned wearily on the pillow, and read the letter a second time. “Yes,” he said, “there’s nothing left for me but to go back. I’m too poor and too old to hunt after them all by myself.” He closed his eyes: the tears trickled slowly over his wrinkled cheeks. “I’ve been a trouble to Jemmy,” he murmured, faintly; “I’ve been a sad trouble, I’m afraid, to poor Jemmy!” In a minute more his weakness overpowered him, and he fell asleep again.

The clock of the neighbouring church struck. It was ten. As the bell tolled the hour, the tidal train — with Midwinter and his wife among the passengers — was speeding nearer and nearer to Paris. As the bell tolled the hour, the watch on board Allan’s outward-bound yacht had sighted the light-house off the Land’s End, and had set the course of the vessel for Ushant and Finisterre.