Little Novels. Уилки Коллинз
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has evidently spoken to my father; I am not trusted with any invitation cards. Bear it patiently, dear, as I do, and let me hear if you have succeeded in finding a lodging near us.”
Not submitting to this first disappointment very patiently, Cosway sent his reply to the post-office, addressed to A. R.—the initials of Adela Restall. The next day the impatient lover applied for another letter. It was waiting for him, but it was not directed in Adela’s handwriting. Had their correspondence been discovered? He opened the letter in the street; and read, with amazement, these lines:
“Dear Mr. Cosway, my heart sympathizes with two faithful lovers, in spite of my age and my duty. I inclose an invitation to the party tomorrow. Pray don’t betray me, and don’t pay too marked attention to Adela. Discretion is easy. There will be twelve hundred guests. Your friend, in spite of appearances, Louisa Margery.”
How infamously they had all misjudged this excellent woman! Cosway went to the party a grateful, as well as a happy man. The first persons known to him, whom he discovered among the crowd of strangers, were the Athertons. They looked, as well they might, astonished to see him. Fidelity to Mrs. Margery forbade him to enter into any explanations. Where was that best and truest friend? With some difficulty he succeeded in finding her. Was there any impropriety in seizing her hand and cordially pressing it? The result of this expression of gratitude was, to say the least of it, perplexing.
Mrs. Margery behaved like the Athertons! She looked astonished to see him and she put precisely the same question: “How did you get here?” Cosway could only conclude that she was joking. “Who should know that, dear lady, better than yourself?” he rejoined. “I don’t understand you,” Mrs. Margery answered, sharply. After a moment’s reflection, Cosway hit on another solution of the mystery. Visitors were near them; and Mrs. Margery had made her own private use of one of Mr. Restall’s invitation cards. She might have serious reasons for pushing caution to its last extreme. Cosway looked at her significantly. “The least I can do is not to be indiscreet,” he whispered—and left her.
He turned into a side walk; and there he met Adela at last!
It seemed like a fatality. She looked astonished; and she said: “How did you get here?” No intrusive visitors were within hearing, this time. “My dear!” Cosway remonstrated, “Mrs. Margery must have told you, when she sent me my invitation.” Adela turned pale. “Mrs. Margery?” she repeated. “Mrs. Margery has said nothing to me; Mrs. Margery detests you. We must have this cleared up. No; not now—I must attend to our guests. Expect a letter; and, for heaven’s sake, Edwin, keep out of my father’s way. One of our visitors whom he particularly wished to see has sent an excuse—and he is dreadfully angry about it.”
She left him before Cosway could explain that he and Mr. Restall had thus far never seen each other.
He wandered away toward the extremity of the grounds, troubled by vague suspicions; hurt at Adela’s cold reception of him. Entering a shrubbery, which seemed intended to screen the grounds, at this point, from a lane outside, he suddenly discovered a pretty little summer-house among the trees. A stout gentleman, of mature years, was seated alone in this retreat. He looked up with a frown. Cosway apologized for disturbing him, and entered into conversation as an act of politeness.
“A brilliant assembly to-day, sir.”
The stout gentleman replied by an inarticulate sound—something between a grunt and a cough.
“And a splendid house and grounds,” Cosway continued.
The stout gentleman repeated the inarticulate sound.
Cosway began to feel amused. Was this curious old man deaf and dumb?
“Excuse my entering into conversation,” he persisted. “I feel like a stranger here. There are so many people whom I don’t know.”
The stout gentleman suddenly burst into speech. Cosway had touched a sympathetic fiber at last.
“There are a good many people here whom I don’t know,” he said, gruffly. “You are one of them. What’s your name?”
“My name is Cosway, sir. What’s yours?”
The stout gentleman rose with fury in his looks. He burst out with an oath; and added the in tolerable question, already three times repeated by others: “How did you get here?” The tone was even more offensive than the oath. “Your age protects you, sir,” said Cosway, with the loftiest composure. “I’m sorry I gave my name to so rude a person.”
“Rude?” shouted the old gentleman. “You want my name in return, I suppose? You young puppy, you shall have it! My name is Restall.”
He turned his back and walked off. Cosway took the only course now open to him. He returned to his lodgings.
The next day no letter reached him from Adela. He went to the postoffice. No letter was there. The day wore on to evening—and, with the evening, there appeared a woman who was a stranger to him. She looked like a servant; and she was the bearer of a mysterious message.
“Please be at the garden-door that opens on the lane, at ten o’clock to-morrow morning. Knock three times at the door—and then say ‘Adela.’ Some one who wishes you well will be alone in the shrubbery, and will let you in. No, sir! I am not to take anything; and I am not to say a word more.” She spoke—and vanished.
Cosway was punctual to his appointment. He knocked three times; he pronounced Miss Restall’s Christian name. Nothing happened. He waited a while, and tried again. This time Adela’s voice answered strangely from the shrubbery in tones of surprise: “Edwin, is it really you?”
“Did you expect any one else?” Cosway asked. “My darling, your message said ten o’clock—and here I am.”
The door was suddenly unlocked.
“I sent no message,” said Adela, as they confronted each other on the threshold.
In the silence of utter bewilderment they went together into the summer-house. At Adela’s request, Cosway repeated the message that he had received, and described the woman who had delivered it. The description applied to no person known to Miss Restall. “Mrs. Margery never sent you the invitation; and I repeat, I never sent you the message. This meeting has been arranged by some one who knows that I always walk in the shrubbery after breakfast. There is some underhand work going on—”
Still mentally in search of the enemy who had betrayed them, she checked herself, and considered a little. “Is it possible—?” she began, and paused again. Her eyes filled with tears. “My mind is so completely upset,” she said, “that I can’t think clearly of anything. Oh, Edwin, we have had a happy dream, and it has come to an end. My father knows more than we think for. Some friends of ours are going abroad tomorrow—and I am to go with them. Nothing I can say has the least effect upon my father. He means to part us forever—and this is his cruel way of doing it!”
She put her arm round Cosway’s neck and lovingly laid her head on his shoulder. With tenderest kisses they reiterated their vows of eternal fidelity until their voices faltered and failed them. Cosway filled up the pause by the only useful suggestion which it was now in his power to make—he proposed an elopement.
Adela received this bold solution of the difficulty in which they were placed exactly as thousands of other young ladies have received similar proposals before her time, and after.
She first said positively No. Cosway persisted. She began to cry, and asked if he had no respect for her. Cosway declared that his respect was equal to any sacrifice except the sacrifice of parting with her forever. He could, and would, if she preferred it, die for her, but while he was alive he must refuse to give her up. Upon this she shifted her ground. Did he expect her to go away with him alone? Certainly not. Her maid could go with her, or, if her maid was not to be trusted, he would apply to his landlady, and engage “a respectable elderly person” to attend on her until the day of their marriage. Would she have some mercy on him, and just consider it? No: she was afraid to consider