“I mentioned that a point had occurred to me, sir,” remarked Pedgift Senior.
“You did,” said Allan.
“Would you like to hear what it is, Mr. Armadale?”
“If you please,” said Allan.
“With all my heart, sir! This is the point. I attach considerable importance — if nothing else can be done — to having Miss Gwilt privately1 looked after, as long as she stops at Thorpe Ambrose. It struck me just now at the door, Mr. Armadale, that what you are not willing to do for your own security, you might be willing to do for the security of another person.”
“What other person?” inquired Allan.
“A young lady who is a near neighbor of yours, sir. Shall I mention the name in confidence? Miss Milroy.”
Allan started, and changed color.
“Miss Milroy!” he repeated. “Can she be concerned in this miserable2 business? I hope not, Mr. Pedgift; I sincerely hope not.”
“I paid a visit, in your interests, sir, at the cottage this morning,” proceeded Pedgift Senior. “You shall hear what happened there, and judge for yourself. Major Milroy has been expressing his opinion of you pretty freely; and I thought it highly desirable to give him a caution. It’s always the way with those quiet addle-headed men: when they do once wake up, there’s no reasoning with their obstinacy3, and no quieting their violence. Well, sir, this morning I went to the cottage. The major and Miss Neelie were both in the parlor4 — miss not looking so pretty as usual; pale, I thought, pale, and worn, and anxious. Up jumps the addle-headed major (I wouldn’t give that , Mr. Armadale, for the brains of a man who can occupy himself for half his lifetime n making a clock!)— up jumps the addle-headed major, in the loftiest manner, and actually tries to look me down. Ha! ha! the idea of anybody looking me down, at my time of life. I behaved like a Christian5; I nodded kindly6 to old What’s-o’clock ‘Fine morning, major,’ says I. ‘Have you any business with me?’ says he. ‘Just a word,’ says I. Miss Neelie, like the sensible girl she is, gets up to leave the room; and what does her ridiculous father do? He stops her. ‘You needn’t go, my dear, I have nothing to say to Mr. Pedgift,’ says this old military idiot, and turns my way, and tries to look me down again. ‘You are Mr. Armadale’s lawyer,’ says he; ‘if you come on any business relating to Mr. Armadale, I refer you to my solicitor7.’ (His solicitor is Darch; and Darch has had enough of me in business, I can tell you!) ‘My errand here, major, does certainly relate to Mr. Armadale,’ says I; ‘but it doesn’t concern your lawyer — at any rate, just yet. I wish to caution you to suspend your opinion of my client, or, if you won’t do that, to be careful how you express it in public. I warn you that our turn is to come, and that you are not at the end yet of this scandal about Miss Gwilt.’ It struck me as likely that he would lose his temper when he found himself tackled in that way, and he amply fulfilled my expectations. He was quite violent in his language — the poor weak creature — actually violent with me ! I behaved like a Christian again; I nodded kindly, and wished him good-morning. When I looked round to wish Miss Neelie good-morning, too, she was gone. You seem restless, Mr. Armadale,” remarked Pedgift Senior, as Allan, feeling the sting of old recollections, suddenly started out of his chair, and began pacing up and down the room. “I won’t try your patience much longer, sir; I am coming to the point.”
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Pedgift,” said Allan, returning to his seat, and trying to look composedly at the lawyer through the intervening image of Neelie which the lawyer had called up.
“Well, sir, I left the cottage,” resumed Pedgift Senior. “Just as I turned the corner from the garden into the park, whom should I stumble on but Miss Neelie herself, evidently on the lookout8 for me. ‘I want to speak to you for one moment, Mr. Pedgift!’ says she. ‘Does Mr. Armadale think me mixed up in this matter?’ She was violently agitated9 — tears in her eyes, sir, of the sort which my legal experience has not accustomed me to see. I quite forgot myself; I actually gave her my arm, and led her away gently among the trees. (A nice position to find me in, if any of the scandal-mongers of the town had happened to be walking in that direction!) ‘My dear Miss Milroy,’ says I, ‘why should Mr. Armadale think you mixed up in it?’ ”
“You ought to have told her at once that I thought nothing of the kind!” exclaimed Allan, indignantly. “Why did you leave her a moment in doubt about it?”
“Because I am a lawyer, Mr. Armadale,” rejoined Pedgift Senior, dryly. “Even in moments of sentiment, under convenient trees, with a pretty girl on my arm, I can’t entirely10 divest11 myself of my professional caution. Don’t look distressed13, sir, pray! I set things right in due course of time. Before I left Miss Milroy, I told her, in the plainest terms, no such idea had ever entered your head.”
“Did she seem relieved?” asked Allan.
“She was able to dispense14 with the use of my arm, sir,” replied old Pedgift, as dryly as ever, “and to pledge me to inviolable secrecy15 on the subject of our interview. She was particularly desirous that you should hear nothing about it. If you are at all anxious on your side to know why I am now betraying her confidence, I beg to inform you that her confidence related to no less a person than the lady who favored you with a call just now — Miss Gwilt.”
Allan, who had been once more restlessly pacing the room, stopped, and returned to his chair.
“Is this serious?” he asked.
“Most serious, sir,” returned Pedgift Senior. “I am betraying Miss Neelie’s secret, in Miss Neelie’s own interest. Let us go back to that cautious question I put to her. She found some little difficulty in answering it, for the reply involved her in a narrative16 of the parting interview between her governess and herself. This is the substance of it. The two were alone when Miss Gwilt took leave of her pupil; and the words she used (as reported to me by Miss Neelie) were these. She said, ‘Your mother has declined to allow me to take leave of her. Do you decline too?’ Miss Neelie’s answer was a remarkably17 sensible one for a girl of her age. ‘We have not been good friends,’ she said, ‘and I believe we are equally glad to part with each other. But I have no wish to decline taking leave of you.’ Saying that, she held out her hand. Miss Gwilt stood looking at her steadily18, without taking it, and addressed her in these words: ‘You are not Mrs. Armadale yet .’ Gently, sir! Keep your temper. It’s not at all wonderful that a woman, conscious of having her own mercenary designs on you, should attribute similar designs to a young lady who happens to be your near neighbor. Let me go on. Miss Neelie, by her own confession19 (and quite naturally, I think), was excessively indignant. She owns to having answered, ‘You shameless creature, how dare you say that to me!’ Miss Gwilt’s rejoinder was rather a remarkable20 one — the anger, on her side, appears to have been of the cool, still, venomous kind. ‘Nobody ever yet injured me, Miss Milroy,’ she said, ‘without sooner or later bitterly repenting22 it. You will bitterly repent21 it.’ She stood looking at her pupil for a moment in dead silence, and then left the room. Miss Neelie appears to have felt the imputation23 fastened on her, in connection with you, far more sensitively than she felt the threat. She had previously24 known, as everybody had known in the house, that some unacknowledged proceedings25 of yours in London had led to Miss Gwilt’s voluntary withdrawal26 from her situation. And she now inferred, from the language addressed to her, that she was actually believed by Miss Gwilt to have set those proceedings on foot, to advance herself, and to injure her governess, in your estimation. Gently, sir, gently! I haven’t quite done yet. As soon as Miss Neelie had recovered herself, she went upstairs to speak to Mrs. Milroy. Miss Gwilt’s abominable27 imputation had taken her by surprise; and she went to her mother first for enlightenment and advice. She got neither the one nor the other. Mrs. Milroy declared she was too ill to enter on the subject, and she has remained too ill to enter on it ever since. Miss Neelie applied28 next to her father. The major stopped her the moment your name passed her lips: he declared he would never hear you mentioned again by any member of his family. She has been left in the dark from that time to this, not knowing how she might have been misrepresented by Miss Gwilt, or what falsehoods you might have been led to believe of her. At my age and in my profession, I don’t profess12 to have any extraordinary softness of heart. But I do think, Mr. Armadale, that Miss Neelie’s position deserves our sympathy.”
“I’ll do anything to help her!” cried Allan, impulsively29. “You don’t know, Mr. Pedgift, what reason I have —” He checked himself, and confusedly repeated his first words. “I’ll do anything,” he reiterated30 earnestly —“anything in the world to help her!”
“Do you really mean that, Mr. Armadale? Excuse my asking; but you can very materially help Miss Neelie, if you choose!”
“How?” asked Allan. “Only tell me how!”
“By giving me your authority, sir, to protect her from Miss Gwilt.”
Having fired that shot pointblank at his client, the wise lawyer waited a little to let it take its effect before he said any more.
Allan’s face clouded, and he shifted uneasily from side to side of his chair.
“Your son is hard enough to deal with, Mr. Pedgift,” he said, “and you are harder than your son.”
“Thank you, sir,” rejoined the ready Pedgift, “in my son’s name and my own, for a handsome compliment to the firm. If you really wish to be of assistance to Miss Neelie,” he went on, more seriously, “I have shown you the way. You can do nothing to quiet her anxiety which I have not done already. As soon as I had assured her that no misconception of her conduct existed in your mind, she went away satisfied. Her governess’s parting threat doesn’t seem to have dwelt on her memory. I can tell you, Mr. Armadale, it dwells on mine! You know my opinion of Miss Gwilt; and you know what Miss Gwilt herself has done this very evening to justify31 that opinion even in your eyes. May I ask, after all that has passed, whether you think she is the sort of woman who can be trusted to confine herself to empty threats?”
The question was a formidable one to answer. Forced steadily back from the position which he had occupied at the outset of the interview, by the irresistible32 pressure of plain facts, Allan began for the first time to show symptoms of yielding on the subject of Miss Gwilt. “Is there no other way of protecting Miss Milroy but the way you have mentioned?” he asked, uneasily.
“Do you think the major would listen to you, sir, if you spoke33 to him?” asked Pedgift Senior, sarcastically34. “I’m rather afraid he wouldn’t honor me with his attention. Or perhaps you would prefer alarming Miss Neelie by telling her in plain words that we both think her in danger? Or, suppose you send me to Miss Gwilt, with instructions to inform her that she has done her pupil a cruel injustice35? Women are so proverbially ready to listen to reason; and they are so universally disposed to alter their opinions of each other on application — especially when one woman thinks that another woman has destroyed her prospect36 of making a good marriage. Don’t mind me , Mr. Armadale; I’m only a lawyer, and I can sit waterproof37 under another shower of Miss Gwilt’s tears!”
“Damn it, Mr. Pedgift, tell me in plain words what you want to do!” cried Allan, losing his temper at last.
“In plain words, Mr. Armadale, I want to keep Miss Gwilt’s proceedings privately under view, as long as she stops in this neighborhood. I answer for finding a person who will look after her delicately and discreetly38. And I agree to discontinue even this harmless superintendence of her actions, if there isn’t good reasons shown for continuing it, to your entire satisfaction, in a week’s time. I make that moderate proposal, sir, in what I sincerely believe to be Miss Milroy’s interest, and I wait your answer, Yes or No.”
“Can’t I have time to consider?” asked Allan, driven to the last helpless expedient39 of taking refuge in delay.
“Certainly, Mr. Armadale. But don’t forget, while you are considering, that Miss Milroy is in the habit of walking out alone in your park, innocent of all apprehension40 of danger, and that Miss Gwilt is perfectly41 free to take any advantage of that circumstance that Miss Gwilt pleases.”
“Do as you like!” exclaimed Allan, in despair. “And, for God’s sake, don’t torment42 me any longer!”
Popular prejudice may deny it, but the profession of the law is a practically Christian profession in one respect at least. Of all the large collection of ready answers lying in wait for mankind on a lawyer’s lips, none is kept in better working order than “the soft answer which turneth away wrath43.” Pedgift Senior rose with the alacrity44 of youth in his legs, and the wise moderation of age on his tongue. “Many thanks, sir,” he said, “for the attention you have bestowed45 on me. I congratulate you on your decision, and I wish you good-evening.” This time his indicative snuff-box was not in his hand when he opened the door, and he actually disappeared without coming back for a second postscript46.
Allan’s head sank on his breast when he was left alone. “If it was only the end of the week!” he thought, longingly47. “If I only had Midwinter back again!”
As that aspiration48 escaped the client’s lips, the lawyer got gayly into his gig. “Hie away, old girl!” cried Pedgift Senior, patting the fast-trotting mare49 with the end of his whip. “I never keep a lady waiting — and I’ve got business to-night with one of your own sex!”
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1
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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solicitor
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| n.初级律师，事务律师 | |
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lookout
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| n.注意，前途，瞭望台 | |
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agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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divest
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| v.脱去，剥除 | |
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profess
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| v.声称，冒称，以...为业，正式接受入教，表明信仰 | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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dispense
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| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
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secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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repent
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| v.悔悟，悔改，忏悔，后悔 | |
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repenting
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| 对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的现在分词 ) | |
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imputation
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| n.归罪，责难 | |
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previously
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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withdrawal
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| n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销 | |
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abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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impulsively
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| adv.冲动地 | |
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reiterated
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| 反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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sarcastically
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| adv.挖苦地，讽刺地 | |
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injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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waterproof
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| n.防水材料；adj.防水的；v.使...能防水 | |
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discreetly
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| ad.(言行)审慎地，慎重地 | |
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expedient
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| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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alacrity
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| n.敏捷，轻快，乐意 | |
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45
bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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postscript
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| n.附言，又及；(正文后的)补充说明 | |
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longingly
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| adv. 渴望地 热望地 | |
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aspiration
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| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
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mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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