Miss Arnott's Marriage
Copyright© 2024 by Richard Marsh
Chapter 8: The Lady Wanders
That was the beginning of a very bad time for Mrs Plummer.
She was sitting peacefully reading--she was not one of those ladies who indulge in “fancy work,” and was always ready to confess that never, under any circumstances, if she could help it, would she have a needle in her hand--when Miss Arnott came rushing into the room in a condition which would have been mildly described as dishevelled. She was a young lady who was a little given to vigorous entrances and exits, and was not generally, as regards her appearance, a disciple of what has been spoken of as “the bandbox brigade.” But on that occasion she moved Mrs Plummer, who was not easily moved in that direction, to an exhibition of surprise.
“My dear child! what have you been doing to yourself, and where have you been?”
“I’ve been to the woods. Mrs Plummer, I’ve come to tell you that we’re going abroad.”
“Going abroad? Isn’t that rather a sudden resolution? I thought you had arranged--”
“Never mind what I’ve arranged. We’re going abroad to-morrow, if we can’t get away to-night.”
“To-morrow? To-night? My child, are you in earnest?”
“Very much so. That is, I don’t wish to put any constraint on you. You, of course, are at liberty to go or stay, exactly as you please. I merely wish to say that I am going abroad, whether you come with me or whether you don’t; and that I intend to start either to-night or to-morrow morning.”
They left the next morning. The packing was done that night. At an early hour they went up to town; at eleven o’clock they started for the Continent. That evening they dined in Paris. Mrs Plummer would have liked to remonstrate--and did remonstrate so far as she dared; but it needed less sagacity than she possessed to enable her to see that, in Miss Arnott’s present mood, the limits of daring might easily be passed. When she ventured to suggest that before their departure Mr Stacey should be consulted, the young lady favoured her with a little plain speaking.
“Why should I consult Mr Stacey? He is only my servant.”
“Your servant? My dear!”
“He renders me certain services, for which I pay him. Doesn’t that mean that, in a certain sense, he’s my servant? I have authority over him, but he has none over me--not one iota. He was my trustee; but, as I understand it, his trusteeship ceased when I entered into actual possession of my uncle’s property. He does as I tell him, that’s all. I shouldn’t dream of consulting him as to my personal movements--nor anyone. As, in the future, my movements may appear to you to be erratic, please, Mrs Plummer, let us understand each other now. You are my companion--good! I have no objection. When we first met, you told me that my liberty would be more complete with you than without you. I assure you, on my part, that I do not intend to allow you to interfere with my perfect freedom of action in the least degree. I mean to go where I please, when I please, how I please, and I want no criticism. You can do exactly as you choose; I shall do as I choose. I don’t intend to allow you, in any way whatever, to be a clog upon my movements. The sooner we understand each other perfectly on that point the better it will be for both sides. Don’t you think so?”
Mrs Plummer had to think so.
“I’m sure that if you told me you meant to start in ten minutes for the North Pole, you’d find me willing; that is, if you’d be willing to take me with you.”
“Oh, I’d be willing to take you, so long as you don’t even hint at a disinclination to be taken.”
They stayed in Paris for two days. Then they wandered hither and thither in Switzerland. Everywhere, it seemed, there were too many people.
“I want to be alone,” declared Miss Arnott. “Where there isn’t a soul to speak to except you and Evans,”-- Evans was her maid--”you two don’t count. But I can’t get away from the crowds; they’re even on the tops of the mountains. I hate them.”
Mrs Plummer sighed; being careful, however, to conceal the sigh from Miss Arnott. It seemed to her that the young lady had an incomprehensible objection to everything that appealed to anyone else. She avoided hotels where the cooking was decent, because other people patronised them. She eschewed places where there was something to be obtained in the way of amusement, because other reasonable creatures showed a desire to be amused. She shunned beauty spots, merely because she was not the only person in the world who liked to look upon the beauties of nature. Having hit upon an apparently inaccessible retreat, from the ordinary tourist point of view, in the upper Engadine, where, according to Mrs Plummer, the hotel was horrible, and there was nothing to do, and nowhere to go, there not being a level hundred yards within miles, the roads being mere tracks on the mountain sides, she did show some disposition to rest awhile. Indeed, she showed an inclination to stay much longer than either Mrs Plummer or Evans desired. Those two were far from happy.
“What a young lady in her position can see in a place like this beats me altogether. The food isn’t fit for a Christian, and look at the room we have to eat it in; it isn’t even decently furnished. There’s not a soul to speak to, and nothing to do except climb up and down the side of a wall. She’ll be brought in one day--if they ever find her--nothing but a bag of bones; you see if she isn’t!”
In that strain Evans frequently eased her mind, or tried to.
To this remote hamlet, however, in course of time, other people began to come. They not only filled the hotel, which was easy, since Miss Arnott already had most of it, and would have had all, if the landlord, who was a character, had not insisted on keeping certain rooms for other guests; but they also overflowed into the neighbouring houses. These newcomers filled Miss Arnott with dark suspicions. When indulging in her solitary expeditions one young man in particular, named Blenkinsop, developed an extraordinary knack of turning up when she least expected him.
“I believe I’m indebted to you for these people coming here.”
This charge she levelled at Mrs Plummer, who was amazed.
“To me! Why, they’re all complete strangers to me; I never saw one of them before, and haven’t the faintest notion where they come from or who they are.
“All the same, I believe I am; to you or to Evans; probably to both.”
“My dear, what do you mean? The things you say!”
“It’s the things you say, that’s what I mean. You and Evans have been talking to the people here; you have been telling them who I am, and a great many things you have no right to tell them. They’ve been telling people down in the valley, and the thing has spread; how the rich Arnott girl, who has so much money she herself doesn’t know how much, is stopping up here all alone. I know. These creatures have come up in consequence. That man Blenkinsop as good as told me this afternoon that he only came because he heard that I was here.”
“My dear, what can you expect? You can’t hide your light under a bushel. You would have much more real solitude in a crowd than in a place like this.”
“Should I? We shall see. If this sort of thing occurs again I shall send you and Evans home. I shall drop my own name, and take a pseudonym; and I shall go into lodgings, and live on fifty francs a week--then we’ll see if I sha’n’t be left alone.”
When Mrs Plummer retailed these remarks to Evans, the lady’s maid--who had already been the recipient of a few observations on her own account--expressed herself with considerable frankness on the subject of her mistress.
“I believe she’s mad--I do really. I don’t mean that she’s bad enough for a lunatic asylum or anything like that; but that she has a screw loose, and that there’s something wrong with her, I’m pretty nearly sure. Look at the fits of depression she has--with her quite young and everything to make her all the other way. Look how she broods. She might be like the party in the play who’d murdered sleep, the way she keeps awake of nights. I know she reads till goodness knows what time; and often and often I don’t believe she has a wink of sleep all night It isn’t natural--I know I shouldn’t like it if it was me. She might have done some dreadful crime, and be haunted by it, the way that she goes on-- she might really.”
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.