Bygrave. Bygrave, ha, ha! that name begins to be as natural to me as if I had never had another, and yet I have owned it only a month, only the one month that we have been at Aldborough. Mr. and Mrs. Bygrave, and their niece, Miss Bygrave, who arrived at North Shingles cottage just one fortnight after Mr. Vanstone had taken up his abode at Sea View, opposite. That name is one of the skins that I keep by me ready to jump into. The designation of individuals who have retired from this mortal scene, and with whose families and circumstances I have made myself acquainted. Some I have tried on, some remain to try; this of the departed Mr. Bygrave fits me without a wrinkle. Miss Vanstone slipped with great ease into that of the late Miss Bygrave; and when we had pushed Mrs. Wragge almost headforemost into Mrs. B.'s, the transformation was complete; our only chance of betrayal is by that simpleton, my wife, whom I have instructed in her new relationship almost a dozen times a day, and yet----
MRS. WRAGGE comes from the house. MRS. WRAGGE. Oh, please, dear, Miss Vanstone wishes to know----
CAPT. W. Vanstone!
MRS. W. Oh, no dear--no--I meant----
CAPT. W. Why, this is infamous; don't know her name yet, after all I have told you! Do you know your own?
MRS. W. Yes, dear; Matilda!
CAPT. W. Nothing of the sort. How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name's Julia. Who am I?
MRS. W. I--I don't know, dear!
CAPT. W. You don't know?
MRS. W. Well, dear--I----
CAPT. W. Stand straight. Don't know the skin I am in; nor the skin you are in yourself; don't know that you are dead and buried in London, and that you have risen like a phoenix from the ashes of Mrs. Wragge? This is perfectly disgraceful! (crosses to R., and returns.)
MRS. W. Well, dear, I'm very sorry--but----
CAPT. W. Sit down; more to the right, more still. (MRS. WRAGGE takes seat, R.) Didn't I tell you that my brother, Mr. John Bygrave, was in the mahogany and logwood trade at Belize, Honduras, where he died and was buried on the south-west side of the local cemetery, and has a neat monument of native wood, carved by a self-taught negro artist; and that nineteen months afterwards his wife died at Cheltenham, died of apoplexy at a boarding-house, in consequence of her corpulence, being supposed to be the most corpulent woman in all England, and that her daughter, who is the image of her in everything but corpulence, has been under our care ever since?
MRS. W. Ye--yes, dear.
CAPT. W. Then don't let me hear you say, "You don't know who we are," again. Now look at me; more to the left, more still. Who am? Mr. Bygrave, Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? Mrs. Bygrave Christian name, Julia. Who is the young lady who is with us? That young lady is Miss Bygrave, Christian name, Susan. I am her clever uncle, Tom, and you are her addle-headed aunt, Julia. Say it all over to me in an instant, say it like the catechism.
MRS. W. Oh, my poor head! The buzzing's come again.
CAPT. W. Sit straight, will you, and say it?
MAGDALEN enters from R. house. MAGDALEN. Don't distress her, she'll learn it all in time. She'll go into the house and think it over.
MRS. W. Oh, the buzzing. [Exit, R. house.MAGDALEN takes seat, L.
CAPT. W. Precautions, my dear Miss Vanstone, proper precautions with that woman, or----
CAPTAIN KIRKE enters, R. U. E., and seeing MAGDALEN, pauses an instant surveying her. KIRKE (aside). It is herself. I am again so fortunate as to see her, to see her if but for an instant; and if, also, for the last time---- (MAGDALEN, seeing KIRKE, rises indignantly. KIRKE bows respectfully and goes off L. H.)
MAG. Who is that man that follows me so impertinently--that a second time has presumed to stare at me in that manner?
CAPT. W. My dear Miss Vanstone, you really must be a little tolerant when you afford him so much excuse. A person of your appearance is not seen ordinarily at Aldborough. I inquired who was this person when he followed and stared at you before, and I find he is a son of Neptune, a rough and simple, but worthy sailor, the captain of an East Indiaman, on a visit here to his brother-in-law, the rector. Sailors, you know, are just like children; if they see anything grand or beautiful they stare at it as a matter of course, without any notion of giving offence. (MAGDALEN resumes her seat.)
MAG. The people here are boors. (pausing) Do you find me changed?
CAPT. W. Changed?
MAG. I have lost all care for myself. There are things I would have died rather than do at one time; things it would have turned we cold to think of.
CAPT. W. Very true, but----
CAPT. W. I don't care now whether I do such things or not. I am nothing to myself; no more to myself than that tuft of grass I see before me. I suppose I have lost something. What is it, heart--conscience? I don't know, do you? What nonsense I am talking. Who cares what I have lost--it's gone, and there's an end of it. (hangs her head.)
CAPT. W. (aside). The blow has gone deeper than I thought; she can't get over her desertion by her lover, that young Clare.
MAG. How soft that turf looks, how soft and friendly--that wouldn't cast me off! Mother Earth! the only mother I have left.
CAPT. W. Ahem! Am I to infer, then, from this language that you want courage for your task ?
MAG. Want courage! when I care for nothing?
CAPT. W. Exactly, so I fancied; and as the case in respect of Mr. Vanstone is, that he is in possession of your property, as his father was before him, and is just as resolved to keep it----
MAG. He is.
CAPT. W. Whilst you are just as helpless to get it by persuasion, just as helpless to get it by law, and yet are just as resolved to get it by some means or other.
MAG. But not for the money's sake, remember that; for the sake of the right, sir, of the right.
CAPT. W. Precisely, for the right; and as, after due consideration, you have seen there is no other way to realize your aim, you have made up your mind to----
MAG. (hangs her head). To marry him.
CAPT. W. To marry him! he having evinced his admiration for you the very first moment you met, having joined us in our daily ramble, and having paid you such attention as justifies your thinking he is on the point of making a proposal.