No Name

The hands on the hall-clock pointed to half-past six in the morning. The house was a country residence in West Somersetshire, called Combe-Raven. The day was the fourth of March, and the year was eighteen hundred and forty-six.

No sounds but the steady ticking of the clock, and the lumpish snoring of a large dog stretched on a mat outside the dining-room door, disturbed the mysterious morning stillness of hall and staircase. Who were the sleepers hidden in the upper regions? Let the house reveal its own secrets; and, one by one, as they descend the stairs from their beds, let the sleepers disclose themselves.

As the clock pointed to a quarter to seven, the dog woke and shook himself. After waiting in vain for the footman, who was accustomed to let him out, the animal wandered restlessly from one closed door to another on the ground-floor; and, returning to his mat in great perplexity, appealed to the sleeping family with a long and melancholy howl.

Before the last notes of the dog’s remonstrance had died away, the oaken stairs in the higher regions of the house creaked under slowly-descending footsteps. In a minute more the first of the female servants made her appearance, with a dingy woolen shawl over her shoulders⁠—for the March morning was bleak; and rheumatism and the cook were old acquaintances.

Receiving the dog’s first cordial advances with the worst possible grace, the cook slowly opened the hall door and let the animal out. It was a wild morning.

After they had left the village, and had entered the road which led straight to the house, Magdalen surprised Miss Garth by announcing that the stranger in black had turned, after they had passed him, and was now following them. “He keeps on Norah’s side of the road,” she said, mischievously. “I’m not the attraction⁠—don’t blame me.”

Whether the man was really following them, or not, made little difference, for they were now close to the house. As they passed through the lodge-gates, Miss Garth looked round, and saw that the stranger was quickening his pace, apparently with the purpose of entering into conversation. Seeing this, she at once directed the young ladies to go on to the house with the dogs, while she herself waited for events at the gate.

There was just time to complete this discreet arrangement, before the stranger reached the lodge. He took off his hat to Miss Garth politely, as she turned round. What did he look like, on the face of him? He looked like a clergyman in difficulties.

Taking his portrait, from top to toe, the picture of him began with a tall hat, broadly encircled by a mourning band of crumpled crape. Below the hat was a lean, long, sallow face, deeply pitted with the smallpox, and characterized, very remarkably, by eyes of two different colors⁠—one bilious green, one bilious brown, both sharply intelligent. His hair was iron-gray, carefully brushed round at the temples. His cheeks and chin were in the bluest bloom of smooth shaving; his nose was short Roman; his lips long, thin, and supple, curled up at the corners with a mildly-humorous smile.

“Papa! the dream of my whole life is realized,” she said, as soon as she could speak. “I shall fly through the roof of the greenhouse if somebody doesn’t hold me down. The Marrables have come here with an invitation. Guess, you darling⁠—guess what they’re going to give at Evergreen Lodge!”

“A ball!” said Mr. Vanstone, without a moment’s hesitation.

“Private Theatricals!!!” cried Magdalen, her clear young voice ringing through the conservatory like a bell; her loose sleeves falling back and showing her round white arms to the dimpled elbows, as she clapped her hands ecstatically in the air. “The Rivals is the play, papa⁠—The Rivals, by the famous what’s-his-name⁠—and they want me to act! The one thing in the whole universe that I long to do most. It all depends on you. Mamma shakes her head; and Miss Garth looks daggers; and Norah’s as sulky as usual⁠—but if you say yes, they must all three give way and let me do as I like. Say yes,” she pleaded, nestling softly up to her father, and pressing her lips with a fond gentleness to his ear, as she whispered the next words. “Say yes, and I’ll be a good girl for the rest of my life.”

“A good girl?” repeated Mr. Vanstone⁠—“a mad girl, I think you must mean. Hang these people and their theatricals! I shall have to go indoors and see about this matter. You needn’t throw away your cigar, Frank. You’re well out of the business, and you can stop here.”

“No, he can’t,” said Magdalen. “He’s in the business, too.”

“Papa,” she said, “I want to speak to you this morning⁠—in private.”

“Ay! ay!” returned Mr. Vanstone. “What about, my dear!”

“About⁠—” Magdalen hesitated, searching for a satisfactory form of expression, and found it. “About business, papa,” she said.

Mr. Vanstone took his garden hat from the hall table⁠—opened his eyes in mute perplexity⁠—attempted to associate in his mind the two extravagantly dissimilar ideas of Magdalen and “business”⁠—failed⁠—and led the way resignedly into the garden.

His daughter took his arm, and walked with him to a shady seat at a convenient distance from the house. She dusted the seat with her smart silk apron before her father occupied it. Mr. Vanstone was not accustomed to such an extraordinary act of attention as this. He sat down, looking more puzzled than ever. Magdalen immediately placed herself on his knee, and rested her head comfortably on his shoulder.

“Am I heavy, papa?” she asked.

“Yes, my dear, you are,” said Mr. Vanstone⁠—“but not too heavy for me. Stop on your perch, if you like it. Well? And what may this business happen to be?”

“It begins with a question.”

“Ah, indeed? That doesn’t surprise me. Business with your sex, my dear, always begins with questions. Go on.”

“Papa! do you ever intend allowing me to be married?”

Mr. Vanstone’s eyes opened wider and wider. The question, to use his own phrase, completely staggered him.

“This is business with a vengeance!” he said. “Why, Magdalen! what have you got in that harum-scarum head of yours now?”

“I don’t exactly know, papa. Will you answer my question?”

She looked round at him for the first time⁠—looked him straight and steadily in the face.

“I will tell you what I mean,” she said. “I mean to marry him.”

Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment.

“Remember what I told you,” said Magdalen, looking away from him again. “I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it⁠—and die⁠—the better. If⁠—” She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight⁠—“if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him.”

“Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?” said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. “Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?”

“As your niece, Miss Bygrave.”

“And after the marriage⁠—?” His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished.

“After the marriage,” she said, “I shall stand in no further need of your assistance.”