"My dear Wilford!" exclaimed the thin-faced, angular woman. "I really
think you must have taken leave of your senses."
"My dear madam," I cried excitedly, "I haven't the slightest notion of
your name. To the best of my knowledge, I've never had the pleasure of
meeting you before this moment. Yet you have the boldness to assert
that you are my wife! The thing is absolutely preposterous!" I laughed
cynically.
"You must be mad to talk like this!" the woman answered with some
asperity.
"I tell you that I'm not mad, madam," I protested, "and further, I
declare that I have never married."
"What rubbish you talk!" she said. "This accident to your head has
evidently affected your intellect. You must rest, as Doctor Britten has
ordered."
"The doddering old idiot thinks, like yourself, that I'm not quite
responsible for my actions," I laughed. "Well, we shall see."
"If you were in your right senses you would never deny that I am your
wife," answered the overdressed woman. "The thing's too absurd."
"My dear madam," I cried, growing angry, "your allegations are utterly
ridiculous, to say the least. All this is either some confounded
conspiracy, or else you mistake me for somebody else. I tell you that I
am Wilford Heaton, of Essex Street, Strand, a bachelor who has neither
thought nor inclination of marrying."
"And I tell you that you are Wilford Heaton, my husband, and owner of
this house," she answered, her face growing redder with excitement.
The situation was certainly stranger than any other in which a man could
possibly be placed. That it was no dream, but a stern reality, was
entirely plain. I glanced around the comfortable library, and saw there
evidences of wealth and refinement, while through the window beyond my
gaze fell upon the wide park sloping away to a large lake glistening in
the sunshine, and through the trees beyond could be seen a distant
glimpse of the blue waters of the English Channel.
I stood utterly nonplussed by the startling declaration of this
artificial-looking person, who aped youth so ridiculously, and yet spoke
with such an air of confidence and determination.
"And you actually expect me to believe this absurd story of yours, that
I am your husband, when only last night I dined at The Boltons, and was
then a bachelor? Besides, madam," I added with a touch of sarcasm, for
I confess that my anger was now thoroughly aroused, "I think the--well,
the difference in our ages is sufficient to convince any one that--"
"No, no," she hastened to interrupt me, as though that point were very
distasteful to her. "Age is entirely out of the question. Am I to
understand that you distinctly deny having made me your wife?"
"I do, most decidedly," I laughed, for the very idea was really too
ridiculous to entertain.
She exchanged a pitying look with Gedge, who stood at a little distance,
watching in silence.
"Poor Wilford! poor Wilford?" she ejaculated in a tone of sympathy, and,
addressing the man who called himself my secretary, said, "It seems
quite true what the doctor has declared; the blow has upset the balance
of his mind."
"Madam," I cried very determinedly, "you will oblige me by not adding
further insult to your attempted imposture--for such sympathy is
insulting to me."
She clasped her hands, turned her eyes upwards, and sighed in the manner
of the elderly.
"You believe that I'm mad. Therefore you are trying to impose upon me!"
I went on furiously. "But I tell you, my dear madam, that I am just as
sane as yourself, and am fully prepared to prove that I am not your
husband."
"Ask Mr Gedge whether I speak the truth or not," she said, turning to
the secretary.
"Certainly," answered the man addressed, looking straight into my face.
"I have no hesitation whatever in bearing out Mrs Heaton's statement."
"It's all humbug!" I cried, turning savagely upon him. "I don't know
this woman from Adam!"
"Well," he laughed cynically, "you ought to know her pretty well, at any
rate."
It was apparent from his tone that he had no very high opinion of her.
"I'm pleased to say that until this present moment we have been
strangers," I said, for I was not in a humour to mince words.
"You are extremely complimentary, Wilford," she observed resentfully.
"It appears to me that compliments are entirely unnecessary in this
affair," I said. "You are endeavouring to thrust yourself upon me as my
wife, in order, I suppose, to achieve some object you have in view. But
I tell you once and for all, madam, that any such attempt will be
futile. To speak plainly, I don't know you, neither have I any desire
to add you to my list of acquaintances."
"Well," she cried; "of all the stories I've ever heard, this is the most
extraordinary!"
"I think, madam, I may say the same," I remarked coldly. "Your story is
the wildest and most incredible that I've ever heard. Last night, as a
bachelor, I dined with friends in Kensington, and left at a late hour,
calling at a house in Chelsea on my way home to Essex Street. To-day I
awake to be told that I am the owner of wealth beyond the dreams of
avarice; master of this house--in Devonshire, I believe, isn't it; and
your lawful husband. Now, if you think me capable of swallowing such a
pack of palpable fictions as these, you must certainly consider me
absolutely insane, for none but a madman would give credence to such a
tissue of lies."
"Doctor Britten considers that your brain is unbalanced, because you do
not know the truth," she said calmly. "I quite agree with him."
"He's a fool--a drivelling idiot," I cried, forgetting myself in the
heat of the moment, and using an unwriteable word. Mention of that
pottering old fossil's name was to me as a red rag to a bull. "I surely
know who and what I am!" I cried.
"No, my dear Wilford, that's just it. You don't know who you are," the
woman answered with a smile.
"Oh!" I exclaimed. "Then perhaps you'll kindly inform me. All this
may be very amusing to you, but I assure you that to me it's the very
reverse."
"I can only tell you who you are as I know you to be," answered the
powdered-faced, doll-like old lady, whose attempts at juvenile coquetry
sickened me.
"Go on," I said, preparing myself for more attempts to befool me.
"I ask you first whether you are not Wilford Heaton, of Heaton Manor,
near Tewkesbury?"
"Certainly."
"And you were once stricken by blindness?"
"That is so, unfortunately."
"And you are now carrying on business as a financier in the City of
London?"
"I know nothing of finance," I answered. "This Mr Gedge--or whatever
his name is--has told me some absurd fairy tale about my position in
London, but knowing myself, as I do, to be an arrant duffer at figures,
I'm quite positive that the story is all bunkum."
"Then how do you account for these memorandum forms?" inquired Gedge,
taking some from the table, "and for these letters? Are they not in
your handwriting?"
I glanced at the letters he held. They referred to some huge financial
transaction, and were certainly in a hand that appeared wonderfully like
my own.
"Some one has been imposing upon you, I tell you. This is a case of
mistaken identity--it must be, my dear sir."
"But I tell you it isn't," protested Gedge. "All that your wife has
said is the absolute truth."
"My wife!" I cried angrily. "I have no wife--thank Heaven!"
"No, no," whined the painted old woman, dabbing her eyes with her
handkerchief, very lightly, however, so as not to disturb their
artificiality. "No, don't say that, my dear Wilfred, don't say that!
You know that you are my husband--you know you are!"
"I know, my dear madam, quite well that I do not occupy that
distinguished position," I responded very firmly.
"But I can prove it--I can prove it!" she cried, with a futile effort at
tears.
"Then I shall be most interested to see this extraordinary fiction
proved," I said. "Perhaps we shall then get down to facts."
"The facts are as already stated," Gedge remarked.
"Then let me see proof. There must be a certificate or official entry
somewhere if what this lady says is really correct. Where is it?"
"My certificate was stolen when my jewel-case was rifled in the train
between Waterloo and Exeter," she answered. "But, of course, a copy can
easily be obtained. Your solicitor in London can get a copy at once
from Somerset House."
"Certificate stolen!" I cried. "A most ingenious excuse. I quite
anticipated it, although it, unfortunately, exhibits no originality.
Thieves don't usually steal marriage certificates. They can't pawn
them, you know."
The woman before me glanced around the room with an air of bewilderment,
and I then knew that I had cornered her.
"And where did this extraordinary marriage between us take place, pray?"
I inquired, not without some bitter irony.
"At St Andrew's, Wells Street."
"Wells Street, in London?"
"Yes. You surely remember it, don't you? The church is close by Oxford
Circus."
"I know the church quite well," I answered. "But I most firmly and
distinctly deny ever having been inside it in my life."
"If you examine the marriage register there you'll find your signature,
together with that of your wife," Gedge observed, with a confidence that
rather surprised me.
"I shall certainly take no trouble in such a matter," I declared. "It
is alleged that I am the husband of this lady, therefore it is for her
to bring proof--not for me to seek it."
"Very well, then," cried the woman who called herself Mrs Heaton.
"Within three days a copy of the certificate shall be placed in your
hands."
"I'm not very partial to copies of documents," I observed very
dubiously. "I always prefer originals."
"The original is, unfortunately, lost."
"Stolen, or strayed away of its own accord--eh?" I added with a
doubtful laugh.
"Are you content to wait until the certificate can be obtained from
Somerset House?" she inquired.
"No," I responded. "If you are actually my wife as you allege, madam,
perhaps you will kindly explain the mystery of my presence here, in a
house that until an hour ago I had never seen in all my life."
The woman and the secretary again exchanged glances. I saw they
considered me an utterly irresponsible agent. They believed me to be
demented.
"None of us can explain it," Gedge answered. "There is some mystery,
but what it is we can't yet fathom."
"Mystery!" I echoed. "I should think there was some mystery--and
devilishly complicated it must be too, when I find myself in this
amazing position. Why, it's sufficient to turn the brain of any man to
be told of one's marriage to a--to a woman one has never set eyes upon
before, and--well, old enough to be his own mother!"
"Hush, hush!" said the secretary, who apparently wished to avoid a
scene. He evidently knew that this angular woman, notwithstanding her
affected juvenility, possessed a fiendish temper. I had detected it by
the keen look in her eyes and the twitchings of her thin, hard lips.
"If I'm in my own house," I cried wrathfully, "I am surely permitted to
say what I like. Am I master here, or not?"
"Certainly you are, sir," he responded, instantly humbled.
"Then listen," I said. "Until the arrival of the certificate from
London I have no wish to meet this lady who alleges that she is my
wife."