the agreement to marry has one peculiarity which distinguishes it
from contracts for the sale of goods of the value of ten pounds or
upwards—it need not be in writing, even though the damages claimed
may be ten thousand pounds or more. An infant may—by his next
friend—maintain an action against an adult for breach of promise;
but an adult cannot succeed in such an action against an infant,
infancy being a good defence. This distinction is founded upon the
principle that an infant can only be bound by his contracts if they
are beneficial to him. Actions for breaches of promise, with their
reams of ridiculous correspondence, and their exposure of the secrets
of both parties, are generally considered amusing reading; and yet the
subject has its melancholy side; and we cannot envy the feelings of the
plaintiff when exposed to a severe and protracted cross-examination.
The House of Commons, at the instance of Sir F. Herschell, now
Solicitor-general, a few years ago expressed an opinion adverse to
the action in question. Whether that opinion will be followed by
legislation on the subject, is probably only a question of time.
TWO DAYS IN A LIFETIME.
A STORY IN EIGHT CHAPTERS.
CHAPTER VII.
When he entered the room, Estelle looked up lazily from her
cushions. ‘How much longer have we to stay here, _caro mio_?’ she
asked with a yawn.
‘The carriage will be round in half an hour.’ He sat down a little
wearily near the window, and turned his eyes on the pleasant scene
outside. There was nothing more to be done till the carriage should
arrive.
‘_Bien._ We shall just have time for a little _tête-à-tête_.’
She re-arranged the pillows of the couch to her liking, and smoothed
down the skirts of her dress complacently. Suddenly her eye was caught
by the glistening of the wedding-ring on her finger. She gave a little
start, and glanced round with the air of one who has lost something.
‘Where can I have mislaid them?’ she asked herself under her breath. ‘I
must have left them either in the dining-room or up-stairs. _Quelle
bêtise!_’ Then after a moment: ‘Ah, bah! what does it matter? He
suspects nothing.’ Addressing her husband, she said abruptly: ‘Listen
to me, Oscar Boyd. A little while ago, I offered to relieve you of my
presence for ever on condition that you paid me two thousand pounds.
You foolishly refused. Well, I will not be hard on you. You tell me
that you are a poor man, and I will not dispute the fact. I am willing
to reduce my terms. Give me one thousand pounds, and you shall never
see me again after to-day.’
‘I will give you nothing, and I will never see you after to-morrow.’
‘I am your wife, and you are compelled to keep me.’
‘But not to see you.’
‘It would be better for you to give me the thousand down and get rid of
me for ever.’
‘You know my decision.’
‘Ah, you don’t know what you are rejecting. You will repent your folly
to the last day of your life.’
His only answer was to look at his watch.
‘This, then, is your programme,’ she resumed. ‘We shall reach London
to-night, and part at the terminus?’
‘That is so.’
‘And I shall meet you at noon to-morrow at a certain address, when you
will be prepared to inform me what my future income will be?’
He inclined his head gravely.
‘To that meeting I shall bring with me a lawyer, in order to make sure
that my interests are properly represented. As your wife, I am entitled
to a certain definite proportion of your income. It will be my lawyer’s
business to ascertain in the first place the amount of your income; and
in the second, to what share of it I am entitled.’
‘As you please.’
There was silence for a few moments, then she said: ‘Oscar Boyd, have
you asked yourself why I have come so many thousands of miles, and put
myself to so much trouble and expense, in order to find you?’
‘You wanted money, and you had been told that I was a rich man.’
She clapped her hands, and laughed shrilly. ‘_Vous avez raison,
Monsieur._ I compliment you on your penetration. You were not so
simple-minded as to believe that it was love—love for yourself alone,
_cher_ Oscar—that induced me to cross that horrible ocean?’
‘No; I was not so simple-minded as to believe that.’
‘But what a disappointment for poor me to find you changed from a rich
man into a poor one! And yet, hard-hearted one that you are, I don’t
believe you pity me a bit. Still, life may be endurable without pity;
and when you grow to be a rich man again, which you will do in a few
years, you will not forget that you have a wife who will want to share
your good fortune.’
As before, his only answer was to look at his watch.
‘Oh, pray be careful that we do not lose our train,’ she said with a
contemptuous laugh. Then her mood changed. She got up and began to pace
the room with her hands behind her back. ‘O yes, I love you, Oscar
Boyd,’ she exclaimed with passionate vehemence; ‘just as dearly as you
love me—no more, and no less! It was well that you did not attempt to
kiss me when we met, or even to put your arm round my waist. Had you
done so, I should have struck you. I hate you, _voyez vous_, as
you hate me; but I have one consolation which will never leave me: I
have separated you from the woman you love—from the woman who loves
you! Oh, it is sweet, sweet!—Is there no champagne to be had in this
house?’
It was an odd climax to her passionate outburst. But before another
word could be said, there came a tap at the door, and a servant entered
with a note on a salver, which he presented to Mr Boyd.
‘Who is this from?’ asked the latter as he took the note.
‘Don’t know, sir. I was told to give it you at once;’ and with that,
exit the servant.
Oscar tore open the note, and not knowing the writing, the first thing
he did was to look for the signature. But there was none. Then he took
the note to the window to read.
Estelle, who had not stirred since the servant came in, watched him
with quick-glancing, suspicious eyes.
‘He is surprised,’ she muttered to herself. ‘He cannot believe what he
reads. He reads it for the second time—for the third! What can it be
about? Who can it be from?’
For full five minutes Oscar Boyd stood facing the window without
stirring or speaking; then he crushed the note between his fingers,
put it into his pocket, and turned and confronted his wife. She was
standing with one hand resting on the table, as she had been standing
since the servant came in. His eyes traversed her face with a cold,
critical, scrutinising glance that made her tremble in spite of
herself. There was a strange mysterious change in his expression. What
could it portend? He came a few steps nearer to her.
‘You tell me that you were saved from the wreck of the _Ocean
Bride_. Why have you allowed all these years to elapse before making
me aware of that fact?’
‘Because I knew that you no longer cared for me. Because I knew that
the news of my death would be good news to you. Because I found friends
who would not let me want.’
‘You used not to study my happiness so much.’
She gave a little shrug. ‘You never understood me—you never read me
aright from the first.’
‘It seemed to me that there was little left to understand after that
night in the garden.’
‘That night in the garden!’
‘When’——
‘Yes—when’——
‘I overheard’——
‘Overheard what?’
‘Is it possible that you can have forgotten?’
She was gazing at him with bewildered eyes. She evidently knew nothing
of what her questioner referred to.
‘The letter _must_ be true!’ he said to himself, with his eyes
still fixed searchingly on her.
She recovered herself with an effort. ‘Why recall these painful
recollections?’ she asked.
‘Why, indeed? It is folly to do so.’ On the occasional table at her
elbow was a tiny gold-stoppered smelling-bottle, which she had placed
there, together with her handkerchief, on entering the room. He went a
step nearer and picked it up. ‘This is yours?’ he said interrogatively,
as he opened the stopper and sniffed for a moment at the contents.
‘Yes, mine. Did you think it was _milady’s_?’ she asked, with
a touch of her old bravado. She put out her hand, as if to take the
bottle from Oscar; but next moment her hand itself was grasped by his
sinewy fingers. She tried to draw it away, but could not.
‘And is this the hand, Estelle, that once on a time I used to vow was
the prettiest hand in the world?’
A strangely frightened look had leapt all at once into her eyes. ‘And
is it not a pretty hand still?’
‘It _is_ a pretty hand. And is this the same ring that I slipped
on your finger one sunny morning—ah! so many years ago?’
‘Of course it is the same ring, Oscar. As if I should ever wear
another!’ It was all her trembling lips could do to syllable the words.
‘Ah, well, I suppose there is a great sameness about such articles.’
‘You hurt me, Oscar. You are cruel.’ She was trying her utmost, in a
quiet way, to withdraw her hand; but she was like a child in his grasp.
‘I have no wish to be cruel, Estelle; but why do you struggle to
withdraw your hand? Why do you keep it so tightly shut? What have you
hidden inside it?’
‘Hidden! Nothing. What should I have to hide?’
‘That is precisely what I am desirous of ascertaining for myself,’ he
said drily.
With her right hand she was now trying with all her strength to loosen
his grasp on the one that he still held. ‘Wretch!’ she half screamed,
with a stamp of her foot. ‘Don’t I tell you that you are hurting me!’
There was a brief struggle, not lasting longer than a few moments.
Oscar’s second hand was now engaged as well as his first. Slowly but
irresistibly the clenched fingers were forced open till the palm of
the hand was fully exposed to view. One glance at it sufficed for his
purpose. He relaxed his hold.
Estelle started back with a cry; then, with a quick instinctive
movement, she hid her hands behind her. ‘So!’ she said, drawing a
long deep breath. ‘You know all.’ She was glaring at him like some
wild creature brought to bay, her eyes flashing with mingled fury and
defiance.
‘Yes, all. Give me your hand.’
‘Never!’
‘Give me your hand, or I will ring this bell, and expose your infamy
before every soul in the house.’ Then, without giving her time for any
further refusal, he strode forward, and grasping her by the left wrist,
he drew forth her arm to its full length. ‘Here are the letters D.
R. burnt indelibly into your palm,’ he said. ‘What is the meaning of
them?—You do not answer. I will answer for you.’ He let her hand drop
with a gesture of contempt.
‘You are not Estelle Duplessis, the woman I made my wife at New
Orleans. You are her _twin-sister_, of whom I remember having
heard her speak, but whom I never saw till to-day. You are Catarina
Riaz, the wife, or widow, of Don Diego Riaz, a gentleman who bred
cattle in Mexico. When angered, Don Diego was not a courteous man to
the ladies; at such times he treated them much after the fashion in
which he treated his cattle. As an instance, when you ran away from
home on a certain occasion, and were found and brought back by his
servants, he caused you to be branded on the palm of your hand with the
initials of his name, so that, should you ever run away again, all the
world might know you were his property. Here the letters are to this
day, never to be effaced. Catarina Riaz, you are a vile impostor!—I
hear the noise of wheels. The carriage is at the door. Go!’
* * * * *
It was morning—the morning of the day following that on which the
events related took place. The weather was hot and sunny, and on such
a forenoon the lawn at Rosemount was a very pleasant place. In the
veranda, in an ample easy-chair, sat Captain Bowood, spectacles on
nose, deep in the _Times_. On the lawn itself, under the pleasant
shade of an ancient elm, sat Mrs Bowood and Sir Frederick, the former
busy with her crewels, the latter lazily cutting the pages of a review
and skimming a paragraph here and there. To the extreme left, some
distance from the others, and hidden from them by a thick clump of
evergreens, sat Lady Dimsdale, making-believe to be repairing sundry
rents in the frock of a large doll, which she held on her knee, but far
more occupied with her own thoughts than with the work she had in hand.
Close to her, and seated on a swing, suspended from a stout limb of a
tree, was Master Tommy, a bright boy of nine, profoundly immersed in a
new book of fairy tales, which Lady Dimsdale had that morning made him
a present of.
‘Just listen to this, Aunty Laura,’ he said. She was always ‘Aunty
Laura’ to the children.
‘“When the brave knight, Sir Tristram, entered the dungeon in which the
unhappy Princess had been shut up for so long a time, he was about to
spring forward and embrace her, when all at once the wicked magician
stood before them, and with his wand drew a magic line across the
floor. Then, although Sir Tristram and the Princess could see each
other, neither of them could step over the magic line, which was like
an invisible wall between them.”’ Here Tommy looked up from his book.
‘Have you ever seen a wicked magician, Aunty Laura?’
‘One or two, dear,’ she replied with a faint smile. ‘Only, nowadays,
one doesn’t always know them when one sees them.’
‘Don’t you think, aunty’—this in a whisper full of mystery—‘that if
Sir Frederick had a long robe and a wand, he would look something like
a magician?’
Lady Dimsdale shook her head and held up a warning finger; and Tommy
went on with his book.
‘It was really very kind of you, Sir Frederick, to agree to stay with
us for the rest of the week,’ remarked Mrs Bowood.
‘Madam, the pleasure is all on my side,’ replied the Baronet with his
most courtly air.
It would appear that in the course of conversation the previous evening
the Baronet had let out the fact that his own house was in the hands
of the painters and whitewashers, and that he was rendered miserable
thereby. Accordingly, very little persuasion had been needed to induce
him to take up his quarters at Rosemount for the next few days. There
may possibly have been other reasons also which made him not displeased
to be on the spot.
‘We have very few visitors just now, as you are aware,’ resumed Mrs
Bowood, ‘so that you must not expect to find us very lively.’
‘My dear madam, I abhor liveliness. Had your house been full of
company, nothing would have induced me to stay. When in Arcady, I like
to feel that I am an Arcadian. I like to feel that I am among cows, and
buttercups, and spring chickens—and—and home-cured bacon, and not
among a mob of fine people from town. Hum, hum.’
Mrs Bowood smiled down at her work. Never was there a greater piece of
artificiality in human form than the Baronet.
‘Confound the flies!’ exclaimed Captain Bowood irascibly to no one in
particular, as he gave his bald head a sounding smack. ‘Eh now?’ he
quoth inquiringly as he looked at the palm of his hand. ‘No.’
‘I wonder what can have become of Mr Boyd?’ went on Mrs Bowood. ‘He
left the house early this morning, and has not been seen since.’
The movements of Mr Boyd in nowise interested Sir Frederick, but
politeness demanded that he should say something. ‘Gone for an early
ramble, probably, before the day gets too warm.’
‘I am dying to find out the writer of that anonymous letter.’
The Baronet coughed, and cut another page of his review.
‘Aunty Laura, what is the matter with you?’
The question came so suddenly that Lady Dimsdale could not repress a
slight start. ‘The matter, dear?’ she asked inconsequentially.
‘You stop in the middle of a stitch, and then you put a finger to your
lips, and then for a minute you seem as if you saw nothing. And you
look _so_ sad. Have you got the toothache, aunty?’
‘Yes, dear, as you say—the toothache.’
‘I am so sorry!’
‘Or the heartache,’ said Lady Dimsdale under her breath. ‘Does it
matter which?’
The Baronet deliberately shut up his review, and looking steadily at
his hostess, said in a low voice: ‘It was I who wrote the anonymous
letter, Mrs Bowood.’
For once in a way, Mrs Bowood nearly pricked her finger. ‘You, Sir
Frederick!’
The Baronet inclined his head gravely. ‘Only, I don’t want the
circumstance to be generally known.’
‘I won’t mention it for the world. But you do surprise me.’
‘The facts are very simple. I met the real Mrs Boyd in New Orleans
soon after her marriage. Later on, I found myself in Mexico. At a ball
one evening, I saw among the crowd a lady whom I should certainly
have addressed as Mrs Boyd, had not the friend with whom I was told
me that she was that lady’s twin-sister. The likeness between them
was certainly a very remarkable one. The lady in question was married
to a certain Don Diego Riaz, the owner of a large cattle-ranche a few
miles away. The matter probably would have escaped my memory, but for
a letter received by me a few months later, in which my friend made
mention of a recent scandal in the household of Don Riaz. It seems that
the señora suddenly disappeared. When found at the end of two days, and
taken back home, her husband caused her to be branded on the palm of
the left hand with the initials of his name.’
Mrs Bowood shuddered. ‘How thankful I am that I don’t live in Mexico!’
‘Horray!’ shouted Master Tommy. ‘Brave Sir Tristram has chopped off the
wizard’s head.’
The flies were still pestering Captain Bowood. ‘Another of ’em!’
he exclaimed as he slapped his forehead for the second time. Then
he looked at his hand. ‘What—what? No,’ he said in a tone of
disappointment.
Sir Frederick resumed the equable flow of his narrative. ‘A few
months later, Don Diego was found dead under somewhat mysterious
circumstances. Such things do happen in Mexico now and then. There was
a dim suspicion in my mind, I hardly know why, that one sister might
be trying to pass herself off as the other, when I sought an interview
with the supposed Mrs Boyd yesterday. That suspicion was strengthened
by her answers to some of my questions, and was reduced to a certainty
when I got sufficiently near to her to perceive the tiny brown mole
under her chin, which I remembered having been told was the one
distinctive mark between the two sisters; and further, when I noticed
how—although she had her gloves on at the time I spoke to her—she had
got into the way of keeping her left hand tightly shut, as though she
held something inside it which she was unwilling that any one should
see. It was the certainty thus arrived at which induced me to write as
I did to Mr Boyd.’
‘A romance in real life! I presume that Mr Boyd had never seen the
twin-sister before?’
‘Never, so far as I am aware.’
‘She was certainly a very strange person, Sir Frederick, and I am not
sorry that she is gone. I trust there is no likelihood of her coming
back?’
‘I don’t think you have much to fear on that score,’ responded the
Baronet drily.
Master Tommy shut up his book with a bang. ‘And now Sir Tristram and
the Princess are married, and are going to live happy ever after. The
brave knight and the forlorn Princess always do get married; don’t
they, aunty?’
‘Not always, dear. Sometimes the spells of the wicked wizard are too
strong for them.’
‘Oh, I say! that is a shame.—What a pretty butterfly!’ His perch on
the swing was vacated next moment, and, cap in hand, he was off in
pursuit.
‘A boy all over,’ murmured Lady Dimsdale. ‘Something to chase,
something to crush!’
‘Laura, whatever are you about?’ said Mrs Bowood with a little
elevation of her ordinary tones. ‘You might favour us with your company
during the short time longer you have to stay.’
‘I’ve got the shadiest seat in the garden,’ was the answer that came
back from behind the evergreens; ‘and just now I’m engaged on an
intricate detail of millinery, and must on no account be disturbed.’
Sir Frederick had pricked up his ears. ‘Is Lady Dimsdale going away?’
he asked.
‘Did you not know? She had letters this morning—so she says—which
necessitate her immediate return home. I am quite angry with her.’
‘Ah, ah! nearly had you that time,’ exclaimed the Captain, after
another abortive attempt to slaughter one of his tormentors.
Sir Frederick rose and crossed to where Lady Dimsdale was sitting. ‘You
are busy this morning, Lady Dimsdale,’ he said.
‘Extremely so. This young person was no longer fit for decent society,
so I have taken her in hand, and am trying to make her presentable. But
you don’t understand millinery, Sir Frederick.’
‘My misfortune.’
‘It is a pity. But, as a rule, your sex are very ignorant.’
‘You are about to leave us, Mrs Bowood tells me.’
‘Yes; the three o’clock express will carry me away to “fresh woods and
pastures new.”’
‘I am grieved to hear that.’
‘Is Sir Frederick Pinkerton ever really grieved about anything?’ There
was a certain scornful ring in her voice as she asked this question.
Sir Frederick bit his lip. His sallow cheeks flushed a little.
At this moment, there came an interruption. Miss Lucy ran up with red
face and dishevelled hair, swinging her straw hat by its ribbons. ‘I’ve
been such a long way, aunty, and I’m so tired!’
Lady Dimsdale was examining her fingers and pinafore with serious face.
‘O Lucy!’ was all she said.
‘I couldn’t help it—really, I couldn’t. Strawberries and cream—such a
lot!—with Mr Boyd at the Meadow Farm.’
‘With Mr Boyd!’ said Lady Dimsdale in a low voice.
‘Yes. I met him in the garden ever so early, and he said he was going
for a walk, and would I go with him. So I went, and it was ever so
jolly. But’—with a yawn—‘I’m so hot and tired!’
Lady Dimsdale gave her the doll.
‘O you beauty! How smart Aunt Laura has made you!’ she cried in an
ecstasy of admiration. Then she sat down on a low stool close to Lady
Dimsdale, and forgot for a little while that she was either hot or
tired.
‘I have fulfilled my promise, Lady Dimsdale,’ said the Baronet in a
low voice. ‘That woman will never trouble Mr Boyd again.’ He looked
meaningly at her as he spoke.
It was a look which she understood. ‘Sir Frederick Pinkerton need be
under no apprehension,’ she replied, gazing steadily into his eyes. ‘I
have not forgotten my part of the bargain. That which I have promised I
will perform.’
The Baronet bowed a little stiffly, and strolled slowly back towards
Mrs Bowood.
‘Don’t you think, Aunt Laura,’ said Lucy, ‘now that Dolly is so smart,
I might take her to church with me? If it’s good for me to go to
church, it must be good for Dolly.’
But Lady Dimsdale heard her not. ‘My promise! Yes, whatever it may cost
me, I must not forget that.’ She kept repeating the words to herself
again and again.
Lucy, for once, finding her chatter unheeded, made a pillow of one
arm for her doll, laid her head against Lady Dimsdale’s knee, and two
minutes later was fast asleep.
Along one of the winding pathways came Oscar Boyd, dusty with the
dust of country roads, but bright and happy-looking as the day.
‘Good-morning, Mrs Bowood.—Good-morning, Sir Frederick.—Any news,
Captain?’
‘We thought that some one had run away with you,’ said his hostess, as
she extended her hand. ‘What have you been doing with yourself all this
time?’
‘We have been over the hills and far away, Miss Lucy and I. Our object
was strawberries and cream at the Meadow Farm.’ He gave a quiet glance
round. ‘Laura not here?’ he said to himself.
‘Strawberries and cream. Humph!’ remarked the Captain. ‘S. and B. far
better on a morning like this. Come now.’
Oscar had discovered Lady Dimsdale’s whereabouts by this time, and
crossed towards her.
‘Now for the scene!’ said Sir Frederick to himself as he watched him
go. Then turning to Mrs Bowood, he said: ‘With your permission, I will
go and smoke a cigarette on the terrace.’
‘You will find it very hot on that side of the house.’
‘The heat suits me, madam. If I may be allowed such an expression—I
revel in it.’ Then as he walked away, he said to himself: ‘How will she
break the news?’
Mrs Bowood had not failed to note in what direction Mr Boyd had
vanished. ‘After all, they may perhaps make a match of it,’ was the
thought in her mind. ‘I do hope he will propose before Laura goes.’
‘Here you are! I was just wondering what had become of you,’
said Oscar, as he drew up a garden-chair and sat down near Lady
Dimsdale.—‘My little sweetheart and asleep?’ he added with a smiling
glance at the unconscious Lucy.
‘She was tired with the long walk.’
Something in Lady Dimsdale’s voice struck him. He looked fixedly at
her. Probably he expected to see in her some traces of the same change
that he felt in himself—the change from despair to gladness, from a
midnight of blackest gloom to a dawn of radiant hopes, rich with the
sweet promise of happy years to come. But no such traces were visible
in the woman who sat before him with pallid, long-drawn face, with
downcast eyes, round which the dark circles left by sleeplessness or
tears—perhaps by both—were plainly to be seen, and with thin white
hands that visibly trembled as, clasped in each other, they lay idly on
her lap. It was unaccountable.
‘You have heard of all that happened yesterday?’ he presently remarked.
‘You know that that woman was an impostor?’
‘Yes; I have heard.’
‘Her likeness to her sister was extraordinary. I was completely
deceived.’
‘She will not trouble you again?’