The ever-ready Wragge
penetrated her intention sooner than she had anticipated, and interposed
immediately. "You're coming to Vauxhall Walk, ma'am," thought the
captain; "I'll get there before you."
He entered at once into a purely fictitious description of the various
quarters of London in which he had himself resided; and, adroitly
mentioning Vauxhall Walk as one of them, saved Magdalen from the sudden
question relating to that very locality with which Mrs. Lecount had
proposed startling her, to begin with. From his residences he passed
smoothly to himself, and poured his whole family history (in the
character of Mr. Bygrave) into the housekeeper's ears--not forgetting
his brother's grave in Honduras, with the monument by the self-taught
negro artist, and his brother's hugely corpulent widow, on the
ground-floor of the boarding-house at Cheltenham. As a means of giving
Magdalen time to compose herself, this outburst of autobiographical
information attained its object, but it answered no other purpose. Mrs.
Lecount listened, without being imposed on by a single word the captain
said to her. He merely confirmed her conviction of the hopelessness of
taking Noel Vanstone into her confidence before she had facts to help
her against Captain Wragge's otherwise unassailable position in the
identity which he had assumed.
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