Armadale — Book the fourth- chapter III, pt 2

“At the moment when I left my chair there was a sharp double knock at the street door.

Mrs. Oldershaw evidently recognized it.

She rose in a violent hurry, and rang the bell.

‘I am too unwell to see anybody,’ she said, when the servant appeared.

‘Wait a moment, if you please,’ she added, turning sharply on me, when the woman had left us to answer the door.

“It was small, very small, spitefulness on my part, I know; but the satisfaction of thwarting Mother Jezebel, even in a trifle, was not to be resisted.

‘I can’t wait,’ I said; ‘you reminded me just now that I ought to be at church.

’ Before she could answer I was out of the room.

“As I put my foot on the first stair the street door was opened, and a man’s voice inquired whether Mrs. Oldershaw was at home.

“I instantly recognized the voice.

Doctor Downward!

“The doctor repeated the servant’s message in a tone which betrayed unmistakable irritation at finding himself admitted no further than the door.

“‘Your mistress is not well enough to see visitors?

Give her that card,’ said the doctor, ‘and say I expect her, the next time I call, to be well enough to see _me_.

’ “If his voice had not told me plainly that he felt in no friendly mood toward Mrs. Oldershaw, I dare say I should have let him go without claiming his acquaintance; but, as things were, I felt an impulse to speak to him or to anybody who had a grudge against Mother Jezebel.

There was more of my small spitefulness in this, I suppose.

Anyway, I slipped downstairs; and, following the doctor out quietly, overtook him in the street.

“I had recognized his voice, and I recognized his back as I walked behind him.

But when I called him by his name, and when he turned round with a start and confronted me, I followed his example, and started on my side.

The doctor’s face was transformed into the face of a perfect stranger!

His baldness had hidden itself under an artfully grizzled wig.

He had allowed his whiskers to grow, and had dyed them to match his new head of hair.

Hideous circular spectacles bestrode his nose in place of the neat double eyeglass that he used to carry in his hand; and a black neckerchief, surmounted by immense shirt-collars, appeared as the unworthy successor of the clerical white cravat of former times.

Nothing remained of the man I once knew but the comfortable plumpness of his figure, and the confidential courtesy and smoothness of his manner and his voice.

“‘Charmed to see you again,’ said the doctor, looking about him a little anxiously, and producing his card-case in a very precipitate manner.

‘But, my dear Miss Gwilt, permit me to rectify a slight mistake on your part.

Doctor Downward of Pimlico is dead and buried; and you will infinitely oblige me if you will never, on any consideration, mention him again!

’ “I took the card he offered me, and discovered that I was now supposed to be speaking to ‘Doctor Le Doux, of the Sanitarium, Fairweather Vale, Hampstead!

’ “‘You seem to have found it necessary,’ I said, ‘to change a great many things since I last saw you?

Your name, your residence, your personal appearance--?

’ “‘And my branch of practice,’ interposed the doctor.

‘I have purchased of the original possessor (a person of feeble enterprise and no resources) a name, a diploma, and a partially completed sanitarium for the reception of nervous invalids.

We are open already to the inspection of a few privileged friends--come and see us.

Are you walking my way?

Pray take my arm, and tell me to what happy chance I am indebted for the pleasure of seeing you again?

’ “I told him the circumstances exactly as they had happened, and I added (with a view to making sure of his relations with his former ally at Pimlico) that I had been greatly surprised to hear Mrs. Oldershaw’s door shut on such an old friend as himself.

Cautious as he was, the doctor’s manner of receiving my remark satisfied me at once that my suspicions of an estrangement were well founded.

His smile vanished, and he settled his hideous spectacles irritably on the bridge of his nose.

“‘Pardon me if I leave you to draw your own conclusions,’ he said.

‘The subject of Mrs. Oldershaw is, I regret to say, far from agreeable to me under existing circumstances--a business difficulty connected with our late partnership at Pimlico, entirely without interest for a young and brilliant woman like yourself.

Tell me your news!

Have you left your situation at Thorpe Ambrose?

Are you residing in London?

Is there anything, professional or otherwise, that I can do for you?

’ “That last question was a more important one than he supposed.

Before I answered it, I felt the necessity of parting company with him and of getting a little time to think.

“‘You have kindly asked me, doctor, to pay you a visit,’ I said.

‘In your quiet house at Hampstead, I may possibly have something to say to you which I can’t say in this noisy street.

When are you at home at the Sanitarium?

Should I find you there later in the day?

’ “The doctor assured me that he was then on his way back, and begged that I would name my own hour.

I said, ‘Toward the afternoon;’ and, pleading an engagement, hailed the first omnibus that passed us.

‘Don’t forget the address,’ said the doctor, as he handed me in.

‘I have got your card,’ I answered, and so we parted.

“I returned to the hotel, and went up into my room, and thought over it very anxiously.

“The serious obstacle of the signature on the marriage register still stood in my way as unmanageably as ever.

All hope of getting assistance from Mrs. Oldershaw was at an end.

I could only regard her henceforth as an enemy hidden in the dark--the enemy, beyond all doubt now, who had had me followed and watched when I was last in London.

To what other counselor could I turn for the advice which my unlucky ignorance of law and business obliged me to seek from some one more experienced than myself?

Could I go to the lawyer whom I consulted when I was about to marry Midwinter in my maiden name?

Impossible!

To say nothing of his cold reception of me when I had last seen him, the advice I wanted this time related (disguise the facts as I might) to commission of a Fraud--a fraud of the sort that no prosperous lawyer would consent to assist if he had a character to lose.

Was there any other competent person I could think of?

There was one, and one only--the doctor who had died at Pimlico, and had revived again at Hampstead.

“I knew him to be entirely without scruples; to have the business experience that I wanted myself; and to be as cunning, as clever, and as far-seeing a man as could be found in all London.

Beyond this, I had made two important discoveries in connection with him that morning.

In the first place, he was on bad terms with Mrs. Oldershaw, which would protect me from all danger of the two leaguing together against me if I trusted him.

In the second place, circumstances still obliged him to keep his identity carefully disguised, which gave me a hold over him in no respect inferior to any hold that _I_ might give him over _me_.

In every way he was the right man, the only man, for my purpose; and yet I hesitated at going to him--hesitated for a full hour and more, without knowing why!

“It was two o’clock before I finally decided on paying the doctor a visit.

Having, after this, occupied nearly another hour in determining to a hair-breadth how far I should take him into my confidence, I sent for a cab at last, and set off toward three in the afternoon for Hampstead.

“I found the Sanitarium with some little difficulty.

“Fairweather Vale proved to be a new neighborhood, situated below the high ground of Hampstead, on the southern side.

The day was overcast, and the place looked very dreary.

We approached it by a new road running between trees, which might once have been the park avenue of a country house.

At the end we came upon a wilderness of open ground, with half-finished villas dotted about, and a hideous litter of boards, wheelbarrows, and building materials of all sorts scattered in every direction.

At one corner of this scene of desolation, stood a great overgrown dismal house, plastered with drab-colored stucco, and surrounded by a naked, unfinished garden, without a shrub or a flower in it, frightful to behold.

On the open iron gate that led into this inclosure was a new brass plate, with ‘Sanitarium’ inscribed on it in great black letters.

The bell, when the cabman rang it, pealed through the empty house like a knell; and the pallid, withered old man-servant in black who answered the door looked as if he had stepped up out of his grave to perform that service.

He let out on me a smell of damp plaster and new varnish; and he let in with me a chilling draft of the damp November air.

I didn’t notice it at the time, but, writing of it now, I remember that I shivered as I crossed the threshold.

“I gave my name to the servant as ‘Mrs. Armadale,’ and was shown into the waiting-room.

The very fire itself was dying of damp in the grate.

The only books on the table were the doctor’s Works, in sober drab covers; and the only object that ornamented the walls was the foreign Diploma (handsomely framed and glazed), of which the doctor had possessed himself by purchase, along with the foreign name.

“After a moment or two, the proprietor of the Sanitarium came in, and held up his hands in cheerful astonishment at the sight of me.

“‘I hadn’t an idea who “Mrs. Armadale” was!

’ he said.

‘My dear lady, have _you_ changed your name too?

How sly of you not to tell me when we met this morning!

Come into my private snuggery--I can’t think of keeping an old and dear friend like you in the patients’ waiting-room.

’ “The doctor’s private snuggery was at the back of the house, looking out on fields and trees, doomed but not yet destroyed by the builder.

Horrible objects in brass and leather and glass, twisted and turned as if they were sentient things writhing in agonies of pain, filled up one end of the room.

A great book-case with glass doors extended over the whole of the opposite wall, and exhibited on its shelves long rows of glass jars, in which shapeless dead creatures of a dull white color floated in yellow liquid.

Above the fireplace hung a collection of photographic portraits of men and women, inclosed in two large frames hanging side by side with a space between them.

The left-hand frame illustrated the effects of nervous suffering as seen in the face; the right-hand frame exhibited the ravages of insanity from the same point of view; while the space between was occupied by an elegantly illuminated scroll, bearing inscribed on it the time-honored motto, ‘Prevention is better than Cure.

’ “‘Here I am, with my galvanic apparatus, and my preserved specimens, and all the rest of it,’ said the doctor, placing me in a chair by the fireside.

‘And there is my System mutely addressing you just above your head, under a form of exposition which I venture to describe as frankness itself.

This is no mad-house, my dear lady.

Let other men treat insanity, if they like--_I_ stop it!

No patients in the house as yet.

But we live in an age when nervous derangement (parent of insanity) is steadily on the increase; and in due time the sufferers will come.

I

can wait as Harvey waited, as Jenner waited.

And now do put your feet up on the fender, and tell me about yourself.

You are married, of course?

And what a pretty name!

Accept my best and most heart-felt congratulations.

You have the two greatest blessings that can fall to a woman’s lot; the two capital H’s, as I call them--Husband and Home.

’ “I interrupted the genial flow of the doctor’s congratulations at the first opportunity.

“‘I am married; but the circumstances are by no means of the ordinary kind,’ I said, seriously.

My present position includes none of the blessings that are usually supposed to fall to a woman’s lot.

I am already in a situation of very serious difficulty; and before long I may be in a situation of very serious danger as well.

’ “The doctor drew his chair a little nearer to me, and fell at once into his old professional manner and his old confidential tone.

“‘If you wish to consult me,’ he said, softly, ‘you know that I have kept some dangerous secrets in my time, and you also know that I possess two valuable qualities as an adviser.

I am not easily shocked; and I can be implicitly trusted.

’ “I hesitated even now, at the eleventh hour, sitting alone with him in his own room.

It was so strange to me to be trusting to anybody but myself!

And yet, how could I help trusting another person in a difficulty which turned on a matter of law?

“‘Just as you please, you know,’ added the doctor.

‘I never invite confidences.

I merely receive them.

’ “There was no help for it; I had come there not to hesitate, but to speak.

I risked it, and spoke.

“‘The matter on which I wish to consult you,’ I said, ‘is not (as you seem to think) within your experience as a professional man.

But I believe you may be of assistance to me, if I trust myself to your larger experience as a man of the world.

I warn you beforehand that I shall certainly surprise, and possibly alarm, you before I have done.

’ “With that preface I entered on my story, telling him what I had settled to tell him, and no more.

“I made no secret, at the outset, of my intention to personate Armadale’s widow; and I mentioned without reserve (knowing that the doctor could go to the office and examine the will for himself) the handsome income that would be settled on me in the event of my success.

Some of the circumstances that followed next in succession I thought it desirable to alter or conceal.

I showed him the newspaper account of the loss of the yacht, but I said nothing about events at Naples.

I informed him of the exact similarity of the two names; leaving him to imagine that it was accidental.

I told him, as an important element in the matter, that my husband had kept his real name a profound secret from everybody but myself; but (to prevent any communication between them) I carefully concealed from the doctor what the assumed name under which Midwinter had lived all his life really was.

I acknowledged that I had left my husband behind me on the Continent; but when the doctor put the question, I allowed him to conclude--I couldn’t, with all my resolution, tell him positively!

--that Midwinter knew of the contemplated Fraud, and that he was staying away purposely, so as not to compromise me by his presence.

This difficulty smoothed over--or, as I feel it now, this baseness committed--I reverted to myself, and came back again to the truth.

One after another I mentioned all the circumstances connected with my private marriage, and with the movements of Armadale and Midwinter, which rendered any discovery of the false personation (through the evidence of other people) a downright impossibility.

‘So much,’ I said, in conclusion, ‘for the object in view.

The next thing is to tell you plainly of a very serious obstacle that stands in my way.

’ “The doctor, who had listened thus far without interrupting me, begged permission here to say a few words on his side before I went on.

“The ‘few words’ proved to be all questions--clever, searching, suspicious questions--which I was, however, able to answer with little or no reserve, for they related, in almost every instance, to the circumstances under which I had been married, and to the chances for and against my lawful husband if he chose to assert his claim to me at any future time.

“My replies informed the doctor, in the first place, that I had so managed matters at Thorpe Ambrose as to produce a general impression that Armadale intended to marry me; in the second place, that my husband’s early life had not been of a kind to exhibit him favorably in the eyes of the world; in the third place, that we had been married, without any witnesses present who knew us, at a large parish church in which two other couples had been married the same morning, to say nothing of the dozens on dozens of other couples (confusing all remembrance of us in the minds of the officiating people) who had been married since.

When I had put the doctor in possession of these facts--and when he had further ascertained that Midwinter and I had gone abroad among strangers immediately after leaving the church; and that the men employed on board the yacht in which Armadale had sailed from Somersetshire (before my marriage) were now away in ships voyaging to the other end of the world--his confidence in my prospects showed itself plainly in his face.

‘So far as I can see,’ he said, ‘your husband’s claim to you (after you have stepped into the place of the dead Mr. Armadale’s widow) would rest on nothing but his own bare assertion.

And _that_ I think you may safely set at defiance.

Excuse my apparent distrust of the gentleman.

But there might be a misunderstanding between you in the future, and it is highly desirable to ascertain beforehand exactly what he could or could not do under those circumstances.

And now that we have done with the main obstacle that _I_ see in the way of your success, let us by all means come to the obstacle that _you_ see next!

’ “I was willing enough to come to it.

The tone in which he spoke of Midwinter, though I myself was responsible for it, jarred on me horribly, and roused for the moment some of the old folly of feeling which I fancied I had laid asleep forever.

I rushed at the chance of changing the subject, and mentioned the discrepancy in the register between the hand in which Midwinter had signed the name of Allan Armadale, and the hand in which Armadale of Thorpe Ambrose had been accustomed to write his name, with an eagerness which it quite diverted the doctor to see.

“‘Is _that_ all?

’ he asked, to my infinite surprise and relief, when I had done.

‘My dear lady, pray set your mind at ease!

If the late Mr. Armadale’s lawyers want a proof of your marriage, they won’t go to the church-register for it, I can promise you!

’ “‘What!

’ I exclaimed, in astonishment.

‘Do you mean to say that the entry in the register is not a proof of my marriage?

’ “‘It is a proof,’ said the doctor, ‘that you have been married to somebody.

But it is no proof that you have been married to Mr. Armadale of Thorpe Ambrose.

Jack Nokes or Tom Styles (excuse the homeliness of the illustration!

) might have got the license, and gone to the church to be married to you under Mr. Armadale’s name; and the register (how could it do otherwise?

) must in that case have innocently assisted the deception.

I see I surprise you.

My dear madam, when you opened this interesting business you surprised _me_--I may own it now--by laying so much stress on the curious similarity between the two names.

You might have entered on the very daring and romantic enterprise in which you are now engaged, without necessarily marrying your present husband.

Any other man would have done just as well, provided he was willing to take Mr. Armadale’s name for the purpose.

’ “I felt my temper going at this.

‘Any other man would _not_ have done just as well,’ I rejoined, instantly.

‘But for the similarity of the names, I should never have thought of the enterprise at all.

’ “The doctor admitted that he had spoken too hastily.

‘That personal view of the subject had, I confess, escaped me,’ he said.

‘However, let us get back to the matter in hand.

In the course of what I may term an adventurous medical life, I have been brought more than once into contact with the gentlemen of the law, and have had opportunities of observing their proceedings in cases of, let us say, Domestic Jurisprudence.

I am quite sure I am correct in informing you that the proof which will be required by Mr. Armadale’s representatives will be the evidence of a witness present at the marriage who can speak to the identity of the bride and bridegroom from his own personal knowledge.

’ “‘But I have already told you,’ I said, ‘that there was no such person present.

’ “‘Precisely,’ rejoined the doctor.

‘In that case, what you now want, before you can safely stir a step in the matter, is--if you will pardon me the expression--a ready-made witness, possessed of rare moral and personal resources, who can be trusted to assume the necessary character, and to make the necessary Declaration before a magistrate.

Do you know of any such person?

’ asked the doctor, throwing himself back in his chair, and looking at me with the utmost innocence.

“‘I only know you,’ I said.

“The doctor laughed softly.

‘So like a woman!

’ he remarked, with the most exasperating good humor.

‘The moment she sees her object, she dashes at it headlong the nearest way.

Oh, the sex!

the sex!

’ “‘Never mind the sex!

’ I broke out, impatiently.

‘I want a serious answer--Yes or No?

’ “The doctor rose, and waved his hand with great gravity and dignity all round the room.

‘You see this vast establishment,’ he began; ‘you can possibly estimate to some extent the immense stake I have in its prosperity and success.

Your excellent natural sense will tell you that the Principal of this Sanitarium must be a man of the most unblemished character--’ “‘Why waste so many words,’ I said, ‘when one word will do?

You mean No!

’ “The Principal of the Sanitarium suddenly relapsed into the character of my confidential friend.

“‘My dear lady,’ he said, ‘it isn’t Yes, and it isn’t No, at a moment’s notice.

Give me till to-morrow afternoon.

By that time I engage to be ready to do one of two things--either to withdraw myself from this business at once, or to go into it with you heart and soul.

Do you agree to that?

Very good; we may drop the subject, then, till to-morrow.

Where can I call on you when I have decided what to do?

’ “There was no objection to my trusting him with my address at the hotel.

I had taken care to present myself there as ‘Mrs. Armadale’; and I had given Midwinter an address at the neighboring post-office to write to when he answered my letters.

We settled the hour at which the doctor was to call on me; and, that matter arranged, I rose to go, resisting all offers of refreshment, and all proposals to show me over the house.

His smooth persistence in keeping up appearances after we had thoroughly understood each other disgusted me.

I got away from him as soon as I could, and came back to my diary and my own room.

“We shall see how it ends to-morrow.

My own idea is that my confidential friend will say Yes.

” “November 24th.

--The doctor has said Yes, as I supposed; but on terms which I never anticipated.

The condition on which I have secured his services amounts to nothing less than the payment to him, on my stepping into the place of Armadale’s widow, of half my first year’s income--in other words, six hundred pounds!

“I protested against this extortionate demand in every way I could think of.

All to no purpose.

The doctor met me with the most engaging frankness.

Nothing, he said, but the accidental embarrassment of his position at the present time would have induced him to mix himself up in the matter at all.

He would honestly confess that he had exhausted his own resources, and the resources of other persons whom he described as his ‘backers,’ in the purchase and completion of the Sanitarium.

Under those circumstances, six hundred pounds in prospect was an object to him.

For that sum he would run the serious risk of advising and assisting me.

Not a farthing less would tempt him; and there he left it, with his best and friendliest wishes, in my hands!

“It ended in the only way in which it could end.

I had no choice but to accept the terms, and to let the doctor settle things on the spot as he pleased.

The arrangement once made between us, I must do him the justice to say that he showed no disposition to let the grass grow under his feet.

He called briskly for pen, ink and paper, and suggested opening the campaign at Thorpe Ambrose by to-night’s post.