Kitabı oku: «Laid up in Lavender», sayfa 16

For one hour the Dean remained shut up in his study. At the end of that time he put on his hat and walked across the Close. He knocked at Mr. Swainson's door, and, upon its being opened, went in, and did not come out again for an hour and five minutes by Mrs. Canon Rowcliffe's watch. I have not the slightest idea of what passed between them. More than two score different and distinct accounts of the interview were current next day in Bicester, but no one, and I have examined them all with care, seems to me to account for the undoubted results. First the disappearance next day from Mr. Swainson's plot of the famous hoarding, which was not replaced even by the old iron railing. Secondly, the marriage six weeks later of King Pepin and Sweet Clive.

FAMILY PORTRAITS

On a certain morning in last June I was stooping to fasten a shoe-lace, having taken advantage for that purpose of the step of a corner house in St. James's Square, when a man passing behind me stopped.

"Well!" said he, after a short pause during which I wondered-I could not see him-what he was doing, "the meanness of these rich folk is disgusting! Not a coat of paint for a twelvemonth! I should be ashamed to own a house and leave it like that!"

The man was a stranger to me, and his words seemed as uncalled for as they were ill-natured. But being thus challenged I looked at the house. It was a great stone mansion with a balustrade atop, with many windows and a long stretch of area railings. And certainly it was shabby. I turned from it to the critic. He was shabby too-a little red-nosed man wearing a bad hat. "It is just possible," I suggested, "that the owner may be a poor man and unable to keep it in order."

"Ugh! What has that to do with it?" my new friend answered contemptuously. "He ought to think of the public."

"And your hat?" I asked with winning politeness. "It strikes me, an unprejudiced observer, as a bad hat. Why do you not get a new one?"

"Cannot afford it!" he snapped out, his dull eyes sparkling with rage.

"Cannot afford it? But my good man, you ought to think of the public."

"You tom-cat! What have you to do with my hat? Smother you!" was his kindly answer; and he went on his way muttering things uncomplimentary.

I was about to go mine, but was first falling back to gain a better view of the house in question, when a chuckle close to me betrayed the presence of a listener; a thin, grey-haired man, who, hidden by a pillar of the porch, must have heard our discussion. His hands were engaged with a white tablecloth, from which he had been shaking the crumbs. He had the air of an upper servant of the best class. As our eyes met he spoke.

"Neatly put, sir, if I may take the liberty of saying so," he observed, with a quiet dignity it was a pleasure to witness, "and we are very much obliged to you. The man was a snob, sir."

"I am afraid he was," I answered; "and a fool too."

"And a fool, sir. Answer a fool after his folly. You did that, and he was nowhere; nowhere at all, except in the swearing line. Now, might I ask," he continued, "if you are an American, sir?"

"No, I am not," I answered; "but I have spent some time in the States."

I could have fancied that he sighed.

"I thought-but never mind, sir," he began. "I was wrong. It is curious how much alike gentlemen, that are real gentlemen, speak. Now I dare swear, sir, that you have a taste for pictures."

I was inclined to humour the old fellow's mood. "I like a good picture, I admit," I said.

"Then perhaps you would not be offended," he suggested timidly, "if I asked you to step inside and look at one or two. I would not take the liberty, sir, but there are some Van Dycks and a Rubens in the dining-room that cost a mint of money in their day, I have heard; and there is no one in the house but my wife and myself."

It was a strange invitation, strangely brought about. But I saw no reason why I should not accept it, and I followed him into the hall. It was spacious, but sparely furnished. The matted floor had a cold look, and so had the gaunt stand which seemed to be a fixture, and boasted but one umbrella, one sunshade, and one dog-whip. As I passed a half-open door I caught a glimpse of a small room well furnished with prints and water-colours on the walls. But these were of a common order. A dozen replicas of each and all might be seen in a walk through Bond Street. So that even this oasis of taste and comfort told the same story as had the bare hall and dreary exterior; and laid, as it were, a finger on one's heart. I trod softly as I followed my guide along the strip of matting towards the rear of the house.

He opened a door at the inner end of the hall, and led me into a large and lofty room, built out at the back, as a state dining-room or ball-room. At present it resembled the latter, for it was without furniture. "Now," said the old man, turning and respectfully touching my sleeve to gain my attention, "now you will not consider your labour lost in coming to see that, sir. It is a portrait of the second Lord Wetherby by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, and is judged to be one of the finest specimens of his style in existence."

I was lost in astonishment; amazed, almost appalled! My companion stood by my side, his face wearing a placid smile of satisfaction, his hand pointing slightly upwards to the blank wall before us. The blank wall! Of any picture, there or elsewhere in the room, there was no sign. I turned to him and then from him, and I felt very sick at heart. The poor old fellow was-must be-mad. I gazed blankly at the blank wall. "By Van Dyck?" I repeated mechanically.

"Yes, sir, by Van Dyck," he replied, in the most matter-of-fact tone imaginable. "So, too, is this one;" he moved as he spoke a few feet to his left. "The second peer's first wife in the costume of a lady-in-waiting. This portrait and the last are in as good a state of preservation as on the day they were painted."

Oh, certainly mad! And yet so graphic was his manner, so crisp and realistic were his words, that I rubbed my eyes; and looked and looked again, and almost fancied that Walter, Lord Wetherby, and Anne, his wife, grew into shape before me on the wall. Almost, but not quite; and it was with a heart full of wonder and pity that I accompanied the old man, in whose manner there was no trace of wildness or excitement, round the walls; visiting in turn the Cuyp which my lord bought in Holland, the Rubens, the four Lawrences, and the Philips-a very Barmecide feast of art. I could not doubt that the old man saw the pictures; but I saw only bare walls.

"Now I think you have seen them, family portraits and all," he concluded, as we came to the doorway again; stating the fact, which was no fact, with complacent pride. "They are fine pictures, sir. They, at least, are left, though the house is not what it was."

"Very fine pictures," I remarked. I was minded to learn if he were sane on other points. "Lord Wetherby," I said, "I suppose that he is not in London?"

"I do not know, sir, one way or the other," the servant answered with a new air of reserve. "This is not his lordship's house. Mrs. Wigram, my late lord's daughter-in-law, lives here."

"But this is the Wetherby's town house," I persisted. I knew so much.

"It was my late lord's house. At his son's marriage it was settled upon Mrs. Wigram; and little enough besides, God knows!" he exclaimed querulously. "It was Mr. Alfred's wish that some land should be settled upon his wife, but there was none out of the entail, and my lord, who did not like the match, though he lived to be fond enough of the mistress afterwards, said, 'Settle the house in town!' in a bitter kind of joke like. So the house was settled, and five hundred pounds a year. Mr. Alfred died abroad, as you may know, sir, and my lord was not long in following him."

He was closing the shutters of one window after another as he spoke. The room had sunk into deep gloom. I could imagine now that the pictures were really where he fancied them. "And Lord Wetherby, the late peer?" I asked after a pause, "did he leave his daughter-in-law nothing?"

"My lord died suddenly, leaving no will," he replied sadly. "That is how it is. And the present peer, who was only a second cousin-well, I say nothing about him." A reticence which was calculated to consign his lordship to the lowest deep.

"He did not help?" I asked.

"Devil a bit, begging your pardon, sir. But there, it is not my place to talk of these things. I doubt I have wearied you with talk about the family. It is not my way," he added, as if wondering at himself, "only something in what you said seemed to touch a chord like."

By this time we were outside the room, standing at the inner end of the hall, while he fumbled with the lock of the door. Short passages ending in swing doors ran out right and left from this point, and through one of these a tidy, middle-aged woman wearing an apron suddenly emerged. At sight of me she looked much astonished. "I have been showing the gentleman the pictures," said my guide, who was still occupied with the door.

A flash of pain altered and hardened the woman's face. "I have been very much interested, madam," I said softly.

Her gaze left me to dwell upon the old man with infinite affection. "John had no right to bring you in, sir," she said primly. "I have never known him do such a thing before, and-Lord a mercy! there is the mistress's knock. Go, John, and let her in; and this gentleman," with an inquisitive look at me, "will not mind stepping a bit aside, while her ladyship goes upstairs."

"Certainly not," I answered. I hastened to retire into one of the side passages, into the darkest corner of it, and there stood leaning against the cool panels, my hat in my hand.

In the short pause which ensued before John opened the door she whispered to me, "You have not told him, sir?"

"About the pictures?"

"Yes, sir. He is blind, you see."

"Blind?" I exclaimed.

"Yes, sir, this year and more; and when the pictures were taken away-by the present earl-that he had known all his life, and been so proud to show to people just the same as if they had been his own, why it seemed a shame to tell him. I have never had the heart to do it, and he thinks they are there to this day."

Blind! I had never thought of that; and while I was grasping the idea, and fitting it to the facts, a light footstep sounded in the hall and a woman's voice on the stairs; such a voice and such a footstep, that, it seemed to me, a man, if nothing else were left, might find home in them. "Your mistress," I said presently, when the sounds had died away upon the floor above, "has a sweet voice; but has not something annoyed her?"

"Well, I never should have thought that you would have noticed that!" exclaimed the housekeeper; who was, I daresay, many other things besides housekeeper. "You have a sharp ear, sir; that I will say. Yes, there is a something has gone wrong; but to think that an American gentleman should notice it!"

"I am not American," I said, perhaps testily.

"Oh, indeed, sir. I beg your pardon, I am sure. It was just your way of speaking made me think it," she replied. And then there came a second louder rap at the door, as John, who had gone upstairs with his mistress, came down in a leisurely fashion.

"That is Lord Wetherby, drat him!" he said, on his wife calling to him in a low voice; he was ignorant, I think, of my presence. "He is to be shown into the library, and the mistress will see him in five minutes; and you are to go to her room. Oh, rap away!" he added, turning towards the door, and shaking his fist at it. "There is many a better man than you has waited longer at that door."

"Hush, John. Do you not see the gentleman?" his wife interposed, with the simplicity of habit. "He will show you out," she added rapidly to me, "as soon as his lordship has gone in, if you do not mind waiting another minute."

"Not at all," I said, drawing back into the corner as they went on their errands. But though I said, "Not at all," mine was an odd position. The way in which I had come into the house, and my present situation in a kind of hiding, would have made most men only anxious to extricate themselves. But I, while I listened to John parleying with some one at the door, conceived a strange desire, or a desire which would have been strange in another man, to see this thing to the end-conceived it and acted upon it.

The library? That was the room on the right of the hall, opposite to Mrs. Wigrams's sitting-room. Probably, nay I was certain, it had another door opening on the passage in which I stood. It would cost me but a step to confirm my opinion. When John ushered in the visitor by one door I had already, by way of the other, ensconced myself behind a screen, which I seemed to know would mask it. I was going to listen. Perhaps I had my reasons. Perhaps-but there, what matter? As a fact, I listened.

The room was spacious but sombre, wainscoted and vaulted with oak. Its only visible occupant was a thin, dark man of middle size, with a narrow face, and a stubborn feather of black hair rising above his forehead; a man of Welsh type. He was standing with his back to the light, a roll of papers in one hand. The fingers of the other, drumming upon the table, betrayed that he was both out of temper and ill at ease. While I was still scanning him stealthily-I had never seen him before-the door opened, and Mrs. Wigram came in. I sank back behind the screen. I think some words passed, some greeting of the most formal; but, though the room was still, I failed to hear it, and when I recovered myself he was speaking.

"I am here at your wish, Mrs. Wigram, and your service, too," he said, with an effort at gallantry which sat ill upon him. "Although I think it would have been better if we had left the matter to our solicitors."

"Indeed."

"Yes. I thought you were aware of my opinion."

"I was; and I perfectly understand, Lord Wetherby," she replied, with a coldness which did not hide her dislike for him, "your preference for that course. You naturally shrink from telling me your terms face to face."

"Now, Mrs. Wigram! Now, Mrs. Wigram! Is not this a tone to be deprecated?" he answered, lifting his hands. "I come to you as a man of business upon business."

"Business!" she retorted. "Does that mean wringing advantage from my weakness?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I do deprecate this tone," he repeated. "I come in plain English to make you an offer; one which you can accept or refuse as you please. I offer you five hundred a-year for this house. It is immensely too large for your needs, and too expensive for your income, and yet you have in strictness no power to let it. Very well, I, who can release you from that restriction, offer you five hundred a-year for the house. What can be more fair?"

"Fair? In plain English, Lord Wetherby, you are the only possible purchaser, and you fix the price. Is that fair? The house would let easily for fifteen hundred."

"Possibly," he retorted, "if it were in the open market. But it is not."

"No," she answered rapidly. "And you, having the forty thousand a year which, had my husband lived, would have been his and mine; you who, a poor man, have stepped into this inheritance-you offer me five hundred for the family house! For shame, my lord! for shame!"

"We are not acting a play," he answered doggedly, but I could see that her words stung him. "The law is the law. I ask for nothing but my rights, and one of those I am willing to waive in your favour. You have my offer."

"And if I refuse it? If I let the house? You will not dare to enforce the restriction."

"Try me," he rejoined, drumming with his fingers upon the table. "Try me, and you will see."

"If my husband had lived-"

"But he did not live," he broke in, losing patience, "and that makes all the difference. Now, for Heaven's sake, Mrs. Wigram, do not make a scene! Do you accept my offer?"

For a moment she seemed about to break down, but, her pride coming to the rescue, she recovered herself with wonderful quickness.

"I have no choice," she said with dignity.

"I am glad you accept," he answered, so much relieved that he gave way to an absurd burst of generosity. "Come!" he cried, "we will say guineas instead of pounds, and have done with it!"

She looked at him in wonder. "No, Lord Wetherby," she said, "I accepted your terms. I prefer to keep to them. You said that you would bring the necessary papers with you. If you have done so I will sign them now, and my servants can witness them."

"I have the draft, and the lawyer's clerk is doubtless in the house," he answered. "I left directions for him to be here at eleven."

"I do not think that he is in the house," the lady answered. "I should know if he were here."

"Not here!" he answered angrily. "Why not, I wonder! But I have the skeleton lease; it is very short, and to save delay I will fill in the particulars, names, and so forth myself, if you will permit me to do so. It will not take twenty minutes."

"As you please. You will find a pen and ink on the table. If you will ring the bell when you are ready, I will come and bring the servants."

"Thank you. You are very good," he said smoothly, adding, when she had left the room, "and the devil take your impudence, madam! As for your cursed pride-well, it has saved me twenty-five pounds a-year, and so you are welcome to it. I was a fool to make the offer." With that, now grumbling at the absence of the lawyer's clerk, and now congratulating himself on the saving of a lawyer's fee, my lord sat down to his task.

A hansom cab, on its way to the East India Club rattled through the square, and, under cover of the noise, I stole out from behind the screen, and stood in the middle of the room, looking down at the unconscious worker. If for a minute I felt the desire to raise my hand and give his lordship such a surprise as he had never in his life experienced, any other man might have felt the same; and as it was I put it away and only looked quietly about me. Some rays of sunshine, piercing the corner pane of a dulled window, fell on the Wetherby coat of arms blazoned over the wide fireplace, and so created the one bright spot in the bare, dismantled room; which had once, unless the tiers of empty shelves and the lingering odour of Russia lied, been lined from floor to ceiling with books. My lord had taken the furniture; my lord had taken the books; my lord had taken-nothing but his rights.

Retreating softly to the door by which I had entered, and rattling the handle, I advanced afresh into the room. "Will your lordship allow me?" I said, after I had in vain coughed to gain his attention.

He turned hastily and looked at me with a face full of suspicion. Some surprise on finding another person in the room was natural; but possibly also there was something in the atmosphere of that house which threw his nerves off their balance. "Who are you?" he cried in a tone which matched his face.

"You left orders, my lord," I explained, "with Messrs. Duggan and Poole that a clerk should attend here at eleven. I very much regret that some delay has been caused."

"Oh, you are the clerk!" he replied ungraciously. "You do not look much like a lawyer's clerk."

Involuntarily I glanced aside, and saw in a mirror the reflection of a tall man with a thick beard and moustaches, grey eyes, and an ugly scar seaming the face from nose to ear. "Yet I hope to give you satisfaction, my lord," I murmured, dropping my eyes. "It was understood that you needed a confidential clerk."

"Well, well, sir, to your work!" he replied irritably. "Better late than never; and after all it may be better that you should be here and see it executed. Only you will not forget," he continued, with a glance at the papers, "that I have myself copied four-well, three-three full folios, for which an allowance must be made. But there! Get on with your work. The handwriting will speak for itself."

I obeyed, and wrote on steadily, while the earl walked up and down the room, or stood at a window. Upstairs sat Mrs. Wigram, schooling herself, I dare swear, to take this one favour that was no favour from the man who had dealt out to her such hard measure. Outside a casual passer through the square glanced up at the great house, and seeing the bent head of the secretary and the figure of his companion, saw as he thought nothing unusual; nor had any presentiment-how should he? – of the strange scene which the room with the dingy windows was about to witness.

I had been writing for five minutes when Lord Wetherby stopped in his passage behind me and looked over my shoulder. With a jerk his eyeglasses fell, touching my shoulder.

"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed, "I have seen your handwriting somewhere! And lately, too. Where, I wonder?"

"Probably among the family papers, my lord," I answered. "I have several times been engaged in the family business in the time of the late Lord Wetherby."

"Indeed." There was both curiosity and suspicion in his utterance of the word. "You knew him?"

"Yes, my lord. I have written for him in this very room, and he has walked up and down, and dictated to me, as you might be doing now."

His lordship stopped his pacing to and fro, and on the instant retreated to the window. But I could see that he was interested, and I was not surprised when he continued with transparent carelessness. "A strange coincidence. And may I ask what it was upon which you were engaged?"

"At that time?" I answered, looking him full in the face. "Upon a will, my lord."

He started and frowned, and abruptly resumed his walk up and down. But I saw that he had a better conscience than I had given him credit for possessing. My shot had not struck where I had looked to place it; and, finding this was so, I turned the thing over afresh, while I pursued my copying. When I had finished, I asked him-I think he was busy at the time cursing the absence of tact in the lower orders-if he would go through the instrument. And he took my seat.

Where I stood behind him, I was not far from the fireplace. While he muttered to himself the legal jargon in which he was as well versed as a lawyer bred in an office, I moved to it; and; neither missed nor suspected, stood looking from his bent figure to the blazoned shield, which formed part of the mantelpiece. If I wavered, my hesitation lasted but a few seconds. Then, raising my voice, I called sharply, "My lord, there used to be here-"

He turned swiftly, and saw where I was. "What the deuce are you doing there, sir?" he cried in astonishment, rising to his feet and coming towards me, the pen in his hand and his face aflame with anger. "You forget-"

"A safe-a concealed safe for papers," I continued, cutting him short in my turn. "I have seen the late Lord Wetherby place papers in it more than once. The spring worked from here. You touch this knob."

"Leave it alone, sir!" he cried furiously.

He spoke too late. The shield had swung outwards on a hinge, door-fashion; and where it had been, gaped a small open safe lined with cement. The rays of sunshine, that a few minutes before had picked out the gaudy quarterings, now fell on a large envelope which lay apart on a shelf. It was as clean as if it had been put there that morning. No doubt the safe was air-tight. I laid my hand upon it. "My lord!" I cried, turning to look at him with ill-concealed exultation, "here is a paper-I think, a will!"

A moment before the veins of his forehead had been swollen, his face had been dark with the rush of blood. But his anger died down at sight of the packet. He regained his self-control, and a moment saw him pale and calm, all show of resentment confined to a wicked gleam in his eye. "A will?" he repeated, with a certain kind of dignity, though the hand he stretched out to take the envelope shook. "Indeed, then it is my place to examine it. I am the heir-at-law, and I am within my rights, sir."

I feared that he was going to put the parcel into his pocket and dismiss me, and I was considering what course I should take, when instead he carried the envelope to the table by the window, and tore off the cover without ceremony. "It is not in your handwriting?" were his first words. And he looked at me with a distrust that was almost superstitious. No doubt my sudden entrance, my ominous talk, and my discovery seemed to him to savour of the devil.

"No," I replied unmoved. "I told your lordship that I had written a will at the late Lord Wetherby's dictation. I did not say-for how could I know? – that it was this one."

"Ah!" He hastily smoothed the sheets, and ran his eyes over their contents. When he reached the last page there was a dark scowl on his face, and he stood awhile staring at the signatures; not now reading, I think, but collecting his thoughts. "You know the provisions of this?" he presently burst forth, dashing the back of his hand against the paper. "I say, sir, you know the provisions of this?"

"I do not, my lord," I answered. Nor did I.

"The unjust provisions of this will?" he repeated, passing over my negative as if it had not been uttered.

"Fifty thousand pounds to a woman who had not a penny when she married his son! And the interest on another fifty thousand for her life! Why, it is a prodigious income, an abnormal income-for a woman! And out of whose pocket? Out of mine, every stiver of it! It is monstrous! I say it is! How am I to support the title on the income left to me, I should like to know?"

I marvelled. I remembered how rich he was. I could not refrain from suggesting that he had remaining all the real property. "And," I added, "I understood, my lord, that the testator's personalty was sworn under four hundred thousand pounds."

"You talk nonsense!" he snarled. "Look at the legacies! Five thousand here, and a thousand there, and hundreds like berries on a bush! It is a fortune, a decent fortune, clean frittered away! A barren title is all that will be left to me!"

What was he going to do? His face was gloomy, his hands were twitching. "Who are the witnesses, my lord?" I asked in a low voice.

So low-for under certain conditions a tone conveys much-that he shot a stealthy glance towards the door before he answered, "John Williams."

"Blind," I replied in the same low tone.

"William Williams."

"He is dead. He was Mr. Wigram's valet. I remember reading in the newspaper that he was with his master, and was killed by the Indians at the same time."

"True. I fancy that that was the case," he answered huskily. "And the handwriting is Lord Wetherby's."

I assented.

Then for fully a minute we were silent, while he bent over the will, and I stood behind him looking down at him with thoughts in my mind which he could no more fathom than the senseless wood upon which I leaned. Yet I mistook him. I thought him, to be plain, a scoundrel; and-so he was-but a mean one. "What is to be done?" he muttered at length, speaking rather to himself than to me.

I answered softly, "I am a poor man, my lord," while inwardly I was quoting "quem Deus vult perdere."

My words startled him. He answered hurriedly, "Just so! just so! So shall I be when this cursed paper takes effect. A very poor man! A hundred and fifty thousand gone at a blow! But there, she shall have it! She shall have every penny of it; only," he concluded slowly, "I do not see what difference one more day will make."

I followed his downcast eyes, which moved from the will before him to the agreement for the lease of the house; and I did see what difference a day would make. I saw and understood and wondered. He had not the courage to suppress the will; but if he could gain a slight advantage by withholding it for a few hours, he had the mind to do that. Mrs. Wigram, a rich woman, would no longer let the house; she would not need to do so; and my lord would lose a cheap residence as well as his hundred and fifty thousand pounds. To the latter loss he had resigned himself; but he could not bear to forego the petty gain for which he had schemed. "I think I understand, my lord," I replied.

"Of course," he resumed nervously, "you must be rewarded for making this discovery. I will see that it is so. You may depend upon me. I will mention the case to Mrs. Wigram, and-and, in fact, my friend, you may depend upon me."

"That will not do," I said firmly. "If that be all, I had better go to Mrs. Wigram at once, and claim my reward a day earlier."

He grew very red in the face at receiving this check. "You will not in that event get my good word," he said.

"Which has no weight with the lady," I answered.

"How dare you speak so to me?" his lordship cried. "You are an impertinent fellow! But there! How much do you want?"

"A hundred pounds."

"A hundred pounds for a mere day's delay? Which will do no one any harm?"

"Except Mrs. Wigram," I retorted drily. "Come, Lord Wetherby, this lease is worth a thousand a year to you. Mrs. Wigram, as you know, will not voluntarily let the house to you. If you would have Wetherby House you must pay me. That is the long and the short of it."

"You are an impertinent fellow!" he cried.

"So you have said before, my lord."

I expected him to burst into a furious passion, but I suppose there was a hint of power in my tone, beyond the defiance which the words expressed; for, instead of doing so, he eyed me with a thoughtful gaze, and paused to consider. "You are at Poole and Duggan's," he said slowly. "How was it that they did not search this cupboard, with which you were acquainted?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I have not been in the house since Lord Wetherby died," I said. "My employers did not consult me when the papers he left were examined."

"You are not a member of the firm?"

"No, I am not," I answered. I was thinking that, if I knew those respectable gentlemen, no one of them would have helped my lord in this for ten times a hundred pounds.

He seemed satisfied, and taking out a note-case laid on the table a little pile of notes. "There is your money," he said, counting them over with reluctant fingers. "Be good enough to put the will and envelope back into the cupboard. To-morrow you will oblige me by rediscovering it-you can manage that, no doubt-and giving information at once to Messrs. Duggan and Poole, or to Mrs. Wigram, as you please. Now," he continued, when I had obeyed him, "will you be good enough to ask the servants to tell Mrs. Wigram that I am waiting?"