"I am quite serious. He is much better worth the venture than you suppose. Only persuade him to make you Mrs. Armadale, and you may set all after-discoveries at flat defiance. As long as he lives, you can make your own terms with him; and, if he dies, the will entitles you, in spite of anything he can say or do--with children or without them--to an income chargeable on his estate of _twelve hundred a year for life._ There is no doubt about this; the lawyer himself has looked at the will. Of course, Mr.
Blanchard had his son and his son's widow in his eye when he made the provision. But, as it is not limited to any one heir by name, and not revoked anywhere, it now holds as good with young Armadale as it would have held under other circumstances with Mr.
Blanchard's son. W hat a chance for you, after all the miseries and the dangers you have gone through, to be mistress of Thorpe Ambrose, if he lives; to have an income for life, if he dies!
Hook him, my poor dear; hook him at any sacrifice.
"I dare say you will make the same objection when you read this which you made when we were talking about it the other day; Imean the objection of your age.
"Now, my good creature, just listen to me. The question is--not whether you were five-and-thirty last birthday; we will own the dreadful truth, and say you were--but whether you do look, or don't look, your real age. My opinion on this matter ought to be, and is, one of the best opinions in London. I have had twenty years experience among our charming sex in making up battered old faces and wornout old figures to look like new, and I say positively you don't look a day over thirty, if as much. If you will follow my advice about dressing, and use one or two of my applications privately, I guarantee to put you back three years more. I will forfeit all the money I shall have to advance for you in this matter, if, when I have ground you young again in my wonderful mill, you look more than seven-and-twenty in any man's eyes living--except, of course, when you wake anxious in the small hours of the morning; and then, my dear, you will be old and ugly in the retirement of your own room, and it won't matter.
" 'But,' you may say, 'supposing all this, here I am, even with your art to help me, looking a good six years older than he is;and that is against me at starting.' Is it? Just think again.
Surely, your own experience must have shown you that the commonest of all common weaknesses, in young fellows of this Armadale's age, is to fall in love with women older than themselves. Who are the men who really appreciate us in the bloom of our youth (I'm sure I have cause to speak well of the bloom of youth; I made fifty guineas to-day by putting it on the spotted shoulders of a woman old enough to be your mother)--who are the men, I say, who are ready to worship us when we are mere babies of seventeen? The gay young gentlemen in the bloom of their own youth? No! The cunning old wretches who are on the wrong side of forty.
"And what is the moral of this, as the story-books say?
"The moral is that the chances, with such a head as you have got on your shoulders, are all in your favor. If you feel your present forlorn position, as I believe you do; if you know what a charming woman (in the men's eyes) you can still be when you please; and if all your resolution has really come back, after that shocking outbreak of desperation on board the steamer (natural enough, I own, under the dreadful provocation laid on you), you will want no further persuasion from me to try this experiment. Only to think of how things turn out! If the other young booby had not jumped into the river after you, _this_ young booby would never have had the estate. It really looks as if fate had determined that you were to be Mrs. Armadale, of Thorpe Ambrose; and who can control his fate, as the poet says?
"Send me one line to say Yes or No; and believe me your attached old friend, "MARIA OLDERSHAW."3. _From Miss Gwilt to Mrs. Oldershaw._
Richmond, Thursday.
'YOU OLD WRETCH--I won't say Yes or No till I have had a long, long look at my glass first. If you had any real regard for anybody but your wicked old self, you would know that the bare idea of marrying again (after what I have gone through) is an idea that makes my flesh creep.
"But there can be no harm in your sending me a little more information while I am making up my mind. You have got twenty pounds of mine still left out of those things you sold for me;send ten pounds here for my expenses, in a post-office order, and use the other ten for making private inquiries at Thorpe Ambrose.
I want to know when the two Blanchard women go away, and when young Armadale stirs up the dead ashes in the family fire-place.
Are you quite sure he will turn out as easy to manage as you think? If he takes after his hypocrite of a mother, I can tell you this--Judas Iscariot has come to life again.
"I am very comfortable in this lodging. There are lovely flowers in the garden, and the birds wake me in the morning delightfully.
I have hired a reasonably good piano. The only man I care two straws about--don't be alarmed; he was laid in his grave many a long year ago, under the name of BEETHOVEN--keeps me company, in my lonely hours. The landlady would keep me company, too, if Iwould only let her. I hate women. The new curate paid a visit to the other lodger yesterday, and passed me on the lawn as he came out. My eyes have lost nothing yet, at any rate, though I _am_five-and-thirty; the poor man actually blushed when I looked at him! What sort of color do you think he would have turned, if one of the little birds in the garden had whispered in his ear, and told him the true story of the charming Miss Gwilt?
"Good-by, Mother Oldershaw. I rather doubt whether I am yours, or anybody's, affectionately; but we all tell lies at the bottoms of our letters, don't we? If you are my attached old friend, I must, of course, be yours affectionately.
"LYDIA GWILT.