first ungrateful impulse was to get rid of the two cumbersome ladies who had offered to be my companions. It was needless to call upon my invention for an excuse; the truth, as I gladly perceived, would serve my purpose. I had only to tell them that I had arranged to walk to the farm.
Lean, wiry, and impetuous, Miss Jillgall received my excuse with the sincerest approval of it, as a new idea. “Nothing could be more agreeable to me,” she declared; “I have been a wonderful walker all my life.” She turned to her friend. “We will go with him, my dear, won’t we?”
Mrs. Tenbruggen’s reception of this proposal inspired me with hope; she asked how far it was to the farm. “Five miles!” she repeated. “And five miles back again, unless the farmer lends us a cart. My dear Selina, you might as well ask me to walk to the North Pole. You have got rid of one of us, Mr. Governor,” she added, pleasantly; “and the other, if you only walk fast enough, you will leave behind you on the road. If I believed in luck—which I don’t—I should call you a fortunate man.”
But companionable Selina would not hear of a separation. She asked, in her most irresistible manner, if I objected to driving instead of walking. Her heart’s dearest wish, she said, was to make her bosom friend and myself better acquainted with each other. To conclude, she reminded me that there was a cab-stand in the next street.
Perhaps I might have been influenced by my distrust of Mrs. Tenbruggen, or perhaps by my anxiety to protect Eunice. It struck me that I might warn the defenceless girl to be on her guard with Mrs. Tenbruggen to better purpose, if Eunice was in a position to recognize her in any future emergency that might occur. To my mind, this dangerous woman was doubly formidable—and for a good reason; she was the bosom friend of that innocent and unwary person, Miss Jillgall.
So I amiably consented to forego my walk, yielding to the superior attraction of Mrs. Tenbruggen’s company. On that day the sunshine was tempered by a delightful breeze. If we had been in the biggest and worst-governed city on the civilised earth, we should have found no public vehicle, open to the air, which could offer accommodation to three people. Being only in a country town, we had a light four-wheeled chaise at our disposal, as a matter of course.
No wise man expects to be mercifully treated, when he is shut into a carriage with a mature single lady, inflamed by curiosity. I was not unprepared for Miss Jillgall when she alluded, for the second time, to the sad events which had happened in the house on the previous day—and especially to the destruction by Mr. Gracedieu of the portrait of his wife.
“Why didn’t he destroy something else?” she pleaded, piteously. “It is such a disappointment to Me. I never liked that picture myself. Of course I ought to have admired the portrait of the wife of my benefactor. But no—that disagreeable painted face was too much for me. I should have felt inexpressibly relieved, if I could have shown it to Elizabeth, and heard her say that she agreed with me.”
“Perhaps I saw it when I called on you,” Mrs. Tenbruggen suggested. “Where did the picture hang?”
“My dear! I received you in the dining-room, and the portrait hung in Mr. Gracedieu’s study.”
What they said to each other next escaped my attention. Quite unconsciously, Miss Jillgall had revealed to me a danger which neither the Minister nor I had discovered, though it had conspicuously threatened us both on the wall of the study. The act of mad destruction which, if I had possessed the means of safely interfering, I should certainly have endeavoured to prevent, now assumed a new and startling aspect. If Mrs. Tenbruggen really had some motive of her own for endeavouring to identify the adopted child, the preservation of the picture must have led her straight to the end in view. The most casual opportunity of comparing Helena with the portrait of Mrs. Gracedieu would have revealed the likeness between mother and daughter—and, that result attained, the identification of Eunice with the infant whom the “Miss Chance” of those days had brought to the prison must inevitably have followed. It was perhaps natural that Mr. Gracedieu’s infatuated devotion to the memory of his wife should have blinded him to the betrayal of Helena’s parentage, which met his eyes every time he entered his study. But that I should have been too stupid to discover what he had failed to see, was a wound dealt to my self-esteem which I was vain enough to feel acutely.
Mrs. Tenbruggen’s voice, cheery and humorous, broke in on my reflections, with an odd question:
“Mr. Governor, do you ever condescend to read novels?”