No Name Wilkie Collins (e book reader android TXT) 📖

While Mrs. Lecount was providing for her master’s future security at Sea View, events were in full progress at North Shingles.

As soon as Captain Wragge recovered his astonishment at the housekeeper’s appearance on his own premises, he hurried into the house, and, guided by his own forebodings of the disaster that had happened, made straight for his wife’s room.

Never, in all her former experience, had poor Mrs. Wragge felt the full weight of the captain’s indignation as she felt it now. All the little intelligence she naturally possessed vanished at once in the whirlwind of her husband’s rage. The only plain facts which he could extract from her were two in number. In the first place, Magdalen’s rash desertion of her post proved to have no better reason to excuse it than Magdalen’s incorrigible impatience: she had passed a sleepless night; she had risen feverish and wretched; and she had gone out, reckless of all consequences, to cool her burning head in the fresh air. In the second place, Mrs. Wragge had, on her own confession, seen Mrs. Lecount, had talked with Mrs. Lecount, and had ended by telling Mrs. Lecount the story of the ghost. Having made these discoveries, Captain Wragge wasted no time in contending with his wife’s terror and confusion. He withdrew at once to a window which commanded an uninterrupted prospect of Noel Vanstone’s house, and there established himself on the watch for events at Sea View, precisely as Mrs. Lecount had established herself on the watch for events at North Shingles.

Not a word of comment on the disaster of the morning escaped him when Magdalen returned and found him at his post. His flow of language seemed at last to have run dry. “I told you what Mrs. Wragge would do,” he said, “and Mrs. Wragge has done it.” He sat unflinchingly at the window with a patience which Mrs. Lecount herself could not have surpassed. The one active proceeding in which he seemed to think it necessary to engage was performed by deputy. He sent the servant to the inn to hire a chaise and a fast horse, and to say that he would call himself before noon that day and tell the hostler when the vehicle would be wanted. Not a sign of impatience escaped him until the time drew near for the departure of the early coach. Then the captain’s curly lips began to twitch with anxiety, and the captain’s restless fingers beat the devil’s tattoo unremittingly on the windowpane.

The coach appeared at last, and drew up at Sea View. In a minute more, Captain Wragge’s own observation informed him that one among the passengers who left Aldborough that morning was⁠—Mrs. Lecount.

The main uncertainty disposed of, a serious question⁠—suggested by the events of the morning⁠—still remained to be solved. Which was the destined end of Mrs. Lecount’s journey⁠—Zurich or St. Crux? That she would certainly inform her master of Mrs. Wragge’s ghost story, and of every other disclosure in relation to names and places which might have escaped Mrs. Wragge’s lips, was beyond all doubt. But of the two ways at her disposal of doing the mischief⁠—either personally or by letter⁠—it was vitally important to the captain to know which she had chosen. If she had gone to the admiral’s, no choice would be left him but to follow the coach, to catch the train by which she traveled, and to outstrip her afterward on the drive from the station in Essex to St. Crux. If, on the contrary, she had been contented with writing to her master, it would only be necessary to devise measures for intercepting the letter. The captain decided on going to the post-office, in the first place. Assuming that the housekeeper had written, she would not have left the letter at the mercy of the servant⁠—she would have seen it safely in the letter-box before leaving Aldborough.

“Good morning,” said the captain, cheerfully addressing the postmaster. “I am Mr. Bygrave of North Shingles. I think you have a letter in the box, addressed to Mr.⁠—?”

The postmaster was a short man, and consequently a man with a proper idea of his own importance. He solemnly checked Captain Wragge in full career.

“When a letter is once posted, sir,” he said, “nobody out of the office has any business with it until it reaches its address.”

The captain was not a man to be daunted, even by a postmaster. A bright idea struck him. He took out his pocketbook, in which Admiral Bartram’s address was written, and returned to the charge.

“Suppose a letter has been wrongly directed by mistake?” he began. “And suppose the writer wants to correct the error after the letter is put into the box?”

“When a letter is once posted, sir,” reiterated the impenetrable local authority, “nobody out of the office touches it on any pretense whatever.”

“Granted, with all my heart,” persisted the captain. “I don’t want to touch it⁠—I only want to explain myself. A lady has posted a letter here, addressed to ‘Noel Vanstone, Esq., Admiral Bartram’s, St. Crux-in-the-Marsh, Essex.’ She wrote in a great hurry, and she is not quite certain whether she added the name of the post-town, ‘Ossory.’ It is of the last importance that the delivery of the letter should not be delayed. What is to hinder your facilitating the post-office work, and obliging a lady, by adding the name of the post-town (if it happens to be left out), with your own hand? I put it to you as a zealous officer, what possible objection can there be to granting my request?”

The postmaster was compelled to acknowledge that there could be no objection, provided nothing but a necessary line was added to the address, provided nobody touched the letter but himself, and provided the precious time of the post-office was not suffered to run to waste. As there happened to be nothing particular to do at that moment, he would readily oblige the lady at Mr. Bygrave’s request.

Captain Wragge watched the postmaster’s hands, as they sorted the letters in the box, with breathless eagerness. Was