Armadale

For the third time Allan looked at his lawyer. And for the third time his lawyer looked back at him quite unabashed.

'You seem to have a very bad opinion of Miss Gwilt,' said Allan.

'The worst possible opinion, Mr. Armadale,' retorted Pedgift Senior, coolly. 'We will return to that when we have sent the lady's messenger about his business. Will you take my advice? Will you decline to see her?'

'I would willingly decline—it would be so dreadfully distressing to both of us,' said Allan. 'I would willingly decline, if I only knew how.'

'Bless my soul, Mr. Armadale, it's easy enough! Don't commit you yourself in writing. Send out to the messenger, and say there's no answer.'

The short course thus suggested was a course which Allan positively declined to take. 'It's treating her brutally,' he said; 'I can't and won't do it.'

Once more the pertinacity of Pedgift the elder found its limits, and once more that wise man yielded gracefully to a compromise. On receiving his client's promise not to see Miss Gwilt, he consented to Allan's committing himself in writing under his lawyer's dictation. The letter thus produced was modeled in Allan's own style; it began and ended in one sentence. 'Mr. Armadale presents his compliments to Miss Gwilt, and regrets that he cannot have the pleasure of seeing her at Thorpe Ambrose.' Allan had pleaded hard for a second sentence, explaining that he only declined Miss Gwilt's request from a conviction that an interview would be needlessly distressing on both sides. But his legal adviser firmly rejected the proposed addition to the letter. 'When you say No to a woman, sir,' remarked Pedgift Senior, 'always say it in one word. If you give her your reasons, she invariably believes that you mean Yes.'

Producing that little gem of wisdom from the rich mine of his professional experience, Mr. Pedgift the elder sent out the answer to Miss Gwilt's messenger, and recommended the servant to 'see the fellow, whoever he was, well clear of the house.'

'Now, sir,' said the lawyer, 'we will come back, if you like, to my opinion of Miss Gwilt. It doesn't at all agree with yours, I'm afraid. You think her an object of pity—quite natural at your age. I think her an object for the inside of a prison—quite natural at mine. You shall hear the grounds on which I have formed my opinion directly. Let me show you that I am in earnest by putting the opinion itself, in the first place, to a practical test. Do you think Miss Gwilt is likely to persist in paying you a visit, Mr. Armadale, after the answer you have just sent to her?'

'Quite impossible!' cried Allan, warmly. 'Miss Gwilt is a lady; after the letter I have sent to her, she will never come near me again.'

'There we join issue, sir,' cried Pedgift Senior. 'I say she will snap her fingers at your letter (which was one of the reasons why I objected to your writing it). I say, she is in all probability waiting her messenger's return, in or near your grounds at this moment. I say, she will try to force her way in here, before four-and-twenty hours more are over your head. Egad, sir!' cried Mr. Pedgift, looking at his watch, 'it's only seven o'clock now. She's bold enough and clever enough to catch you unawares this very evening. Permit me to ring for the servant—permit me to request that you will give him orders immediately to say you are not at home. You needn't hesitate, Mr. Armadale! If you're right about Miss Gwilt, it's a mere formality. If I'm right, it's a wise precaution. Back your opinion, sir,' said Mr. Pedgift, ringing the bell; 'I back mine!'

Allan was sufficiently nettled when the bell rang to feel ready to give the order. But when the servant came in, past remembrances got the better of him, and the words stuck in his throat. 'You give the order,' he said to Mr. Pedgift, and walked away abruptly to the window. 'You're a good fellow!' thought the old lawyer, looking after him, and penetrating his motive on the instant. 'The claws of that she-devil shan't scratch you if I can help it.'

The servant waited inexorably for his orders.

'If Miss Gwilt calls here, either this evening, or at any other time,' said Pedgift Senior, 'Mr. Armadale is not at home. Wait! If she asks when Mr. Armadale will be back, you don't know. Wait! If she proposes coming in and sitting down, you have a general order that nobody is to come in and sit down unless they have a previous appointment with Mr. Armadale. Come!' cried old Pedgift, rubbing his hands cheerfully when the servant had left the room, 'I've stopped her out now, at any rate! The orders are all given, Mr. Armadale. We may go on with our conversation.'

Allan came back from the window. 'The conversation is not a very pleasant one,' he said. 'No offense to you, but I wish it was over.'

'We will get it over as soon as possible, sir,' said Pedgift Senior, still persisting, as only lawyers and women can persist, in forcing his way little by little nearer and nearer to his own object. 'Let us go back, if you please, to the practical suggestion which I offered to you when the servant came in with Miss Gwilt's note. There is, I repeat, only one way left for you, Mr. Armadale, out of your present awkward position. You must pursue your inquiries about this woman to an end—on the chance (which I consider next to a certainty) that the end will justify you in the estimation of the neighborhood.'

'I wish to God I had never made any inquiries at all!' said Allan. 'Nothing will induce me, Mr. Pedgift, to make any more.'

'Why?' asked the lawyer.

'Can you ask me why,' retorted Allan, hotly, 'after your son has told you what we found out in London? Even if I had less cause to be—to be sorry for Miss Gwilt than I have; even if it was some other woman, do you think I would inquire any further into the secret of a poor betrayed creature—much less expose it to the neighborhood? I should think myself as great a scoundrel as the man who has cast her out helpless on the world, if I did anything of the kind. I wonder you can ask me the question—upon my soul, I wonder you can ask me the question!'

'Give me your hand, Mr. Armadale!' cried Pedgift Senior, warmly; 'I honor you for being so angry with me. The neighborhood may say what it pleases; you're a gentleman, sir, in the best sense of the word. Now,' pursued the lawyer, dropping Allan's hand, and lapsing back instantly from sentiment to business, 'just hear what I have got to say in my own defense. Suppose Miss Gwilt's real position happens to be nothing like what you are generously determined to believe it to be?'

'We have no reason to suppose that,' said Allan, resolutely.

'Such is your opinion, sir,' persisted Pedgift. 'Mine, founded on what is publicly known of Miss Gwilt's proceedings here, and on what I have seen of Miss Gwilt herself, is that she is as far as I am from being the sentimental victim you are inclined to make her out. Gently, Mr. Armadale! remember that I have put my opinion to a practical test, and wait to condemn it off-hand until events have justified you. Let me put my points, sir—make allowances for me as a lawyer—and let me put my points. You and my son are young men; and I don't deny that the circumstances, on the surface, appear to justify the interpretation which, as young men, you have placed on