"You will not surrender her then?"
"To judicial process only: of that be assured. I have little doubt that,
when I am placed in full possession of all the facts of the case, I shall
be quite able to justify my conduct." He did not reply, and I continued:
"If you choose to wait here till I have heard Edith's statement, I will
at once frankly acquaint you with my final determination."
"Be it so: and please to recollect, sir, that you have to deal with a man
not easily baffled or entrapped by legal subtlety or cunning."
I reascended to the drawing-room; and finding Edith--thanks to the
ministrations, medicinal and oral, of my bustling and indignant
lady--much calmer, and thoroughly satisfied that nobody could or should
wrest her from us, begged her to relate unreservedly the cause or causes
which had led to her present position. She falteringly complied; and I
listened with throbbing pulse and burning cheeks to the sad story of her
wedded wretchedness, dating from within two or three months of the
marriage; and finally consummated by a disclosure that, if provable,
might consign Harlowe to the hulks. The tears, the agony, the despair of
the unhappy lady, excited in me a savageness of feeling, an eager thirst
for vengeance, which I had believed foreign to my nature. Edith divined
my thoughts, and taking my hand, said, "Never, sir, never will I appear
against him: the father of my little Helen shall never be publicly
accused by me."
"You err, Edith," I rejoined; "it is a positive duty to bring so
consummate a villain to justice. He has evidently calculated on your
gentleness of disposition, and must be disappointed."
I soon, however, found it was impossible to shake her resolution on
this point; and I returned with a heart full of grief and bitterness to
Mr. Harlowe.
"You will oblige me, sir," I exclaimed as I entered the room, "by
leaving this house immediately: I would hold no further converse with so
vile a person."
"How! Do you know to whom you presume to speak in this manner?"
"Perfectly. You are one Harlowe, who, after a few months' residence with
a beautiful and amiable girl, had extinguished the passion which induced
him to offer her marriage, showered on her every species of insult and
indignity of which a cowardly and malignant nature is capable; and who,
finding that did not kill her, at length consummated, or revealed, I do
not yet know which term is most applicable, his utter baseness by causing
her to be informed that his first wife was still living."
"Upon my honor, sir, I believed, when I married Miss Willoughby, that I
was a widower."
"Your _honor!_ But except to prove that I _do_ thoroughly know and
appreciate the person I am addressing, I will not bandy words with you.
After that terrible disclosure--if, indeed, it be a disclosure, not an
invention--Ah, you start at that"
"At your insolence, sir; not at your senseless surmises."
"Time and the law will show. After, I repeat, this terrible disclosure or
invention, you, not content with obtaining from your victim's generosity
a positive promise that she would not send you to the hulks"--
"Sir, have a care."
"Pooh! I say, not content with exacting this promise from your victim,
you, with your wife, or accomplice, threatened not only to take her child
from her, but to lock her up in a madhouse, unless she subscribed a
paper, confessing that she knew, when you espoused her, that you were a
married man. Now, sir, do I, or do I not, thoroughly know who and what
the man is I am addressing?"
"Sir," returned Harlowe, recovering his audacity somewhat. "Spite of all
your hectoring and abuse, I defy you to obtain proof--legal
proof--whether what Edith has heard is true or false. The affair may
perhaps be arranged; let her return with me."
"You know she would die first; but it is quite useless to prolong this
conversation; and I again request you to leave this house."
"If Miss Willoughby would accept an allowance"--
The cool audacity of this proposal to make me an instrument in
compromising a felony exasperated me beyond all bounds. I rang the bell
violently, and desired the servant who answered it to show Mr. Harlowe
out of the house. Finding further persistence useless, the baffled
villain snatched up his hat, and with a look and gesture of rage and
contempt, hurried out of the apartment.
The profession of a barrister necessarily begets habits of coolness and
reflection under the most exciting circumstances; but, I confess, that in
this instance my ordinary equanimity was so much disturbed, that it was
some time before I could command sufficient composure to reason calmly
upon the strange revelations made to me by Edith, and the nature of the
measures necessary to adopt in order to clear up the mystery attaching to
them. She persisted in her refusal to have recourse to legal measures
with a view to the punishment of Harlowe; and I finally determined--after
a conference with Mr. Ferret, who, having acted for the first Mrs.
Harlowe, I naturally conjectured must know something of her history and
connections--to take for the present no ostensible steps in the matter.
Mr. Ferret, like myself, was persuaded that the sham resuscitation of his
first wife was a mere trick, to enable Harlowe to rid himself of the
presence of a woman he no longer cared for. "I will take an opportunity,"
said Mr. Ferret, "of quietly questioning Richards: he must have known the
first wife; Eleanor Wickham, I remember, was her maiden name; and if not
bought over by Harlowe--a by-no-means impossible purchase--can set us
right at once. I did not understand that the said Eleanor was at all
celebrated for beauty and accomplishments, such as you say Miss
Willoughby--Mrs. Harlowe, I mean--describes. She was a native of
Dorsetshire too, I remember; and the foreign Italian accent you mention,
is rarely, I fancy, picked up in that charming county. Some flashy
opera-dancer, depend upon it, whom he has contracted a passing fancy for:
a slippery gentleman certainly; but, with a little caution, we shall not
fail to trip his heels up, clever as he may be."
A stronger wrestler than either of us was upon the track of the unhappy
man. Edith had not been with us above three weeks, when one of Mr.
Harlowe's servants called at my chambers to say that his master, in
consequence of a wound he had inflicted on his foot with an axe, whilst
amusing himself with cutting or pruning some trees in the grounds at
Fairdown, was seriously ill, and had expressed a wish to see me. I
could not leave town; but as it was important Mr. Harlowe should be
seen, I requested Mr. Ferret to proceed to Fairdown House. He did so,
and late in the evening returned with the startling intelligence that
Mr. Harlowe was dead!
"Dead!" I exclaimed, much shocked. "Are you serious?" "As a judge. He
expired, about an hour after I reached the house, of tetanus, commonly
called locked-jaw. His body, by the contraction of the muscles, was bent
like a bow, and rested on his heels and the back part of his head. He was
incapable of speech long before I saw him; but there was a world of
agonized expression in his eyes!"
"Dreadful! Your journey was useless then?"
"Not precisely. I saw the pretended former wife: a splendid woman, and as
much Eleanor Wickham of Dorsetshire as I am. They mean, however, to show
fight, I think; for, as I left the place, I observed that delightful
knave Richards enter the house. I took the liberty of placing seals upon
the desks and cabinets, and directed the butler and other servants to see
that nothing was disturbed or removed till Mrs. Harlowe's--the true Mrs.
Harlowe's--arrival."
The funeral was to take place on the following Wednesday; and it was
finally arranged that both of us would accompany Edith to Fairdown on the
day after it had taken place, and adopt such measures as circumstances
might render necessary. Mr. Ferret wrote to this effect to all parties
concerned.
On arriving at the house, I, Ferret, and Mrs. Harlowe, proceeded at once
to the drawing-room, where we found the pretended wife seated in great
state, supported on one side by Mr. Richards, and on the other by Mr.
Quillet the eminent proctor. Edith was dreadfully agitated, and clung
frightened and trembling to my arm. I conducted her to a seat, and placed
myself beside her, leaving Mr. Ferret--whom so tremendous an array of law
and learning, evincing a determination to fight the matter out _à
l'outrance_, filled with exuberant glee--to open the conference.
"Good-morning, madam," cried he, the moment he entered the room, and
quite unaffected by the lady's scornful and haughty stare: "good-morning;
I am delighted to see you in such excellent company. You do not, I hope,
forget that I once had the honor of transacting business for you?"
"You had transactions of my business!" said the lady, "When, I pray you?"
"God bless me!" cried Ferret, addressing Richards, "what a charming
Italian accent; and out of Dorsetshire too!"
"Dorsetshire, sir?" exclaimed the lady.
"Ay, Dorsetshire, to be sure. Why, Mr. Richards, our respected client
appears to have forgotten her place of birth! How very extraordinary!"
Mr. Richards now interfered, to say that Mr. Ferret was apparently
laboring under a strange misapprehension. "This lady," continued he, "is
Madame Giulletta Corelli."
"Whe--e--e--w!" rejoined Ferret, thrown for an instant off his balance by
the suddenness of the confession, and perhaps a little disappointed at so
placable a termination of the dispute--"Giulletta Corelli! What is the
meaning of this array then?"
"I am glad, madam," said I, interposing for the first time in the
conversation, "for your own sake, that you have been advised not to
persist in the senseless as well as iniquitous scheme devised by the late
Mr. Harlowe; but this being the case, I am greatly at a loss to know why
either you or these legal gentlemen are here?"
The brilliant eyes of the Italian flashed with triumphant scorn, and a
smile of contemptuous irony curled her beautiful lip as she
replied--"These legal gentlemen will not have much difficulty in
explaining my right to remain in my own house."
"_Your_ house?"
"Precisely, sir," replied Mr. Quillet. "This mansion, together with all
other property, real and personal, of which the deceased Henry Harlowe
died possessed, is bequeathed by will--dated about a month since--to this
lady, Giulletta Corelli."
"A will!" exclaimed Mr. Ferret with an explosive shout, and turning to
me, whilst his sharp gray eyes danced with irrepressible mirth--"Did I
not tell you so?"
"Your usual sagacity, Mr. Ferret, has not in this instance failed you.
Perhaps you will permit me to read the will? But before I do so,"
continued Mr. Quillet, as he drew his gold-rimmed spectacles from their
morocco sheath--"you will allow me, if you please, to state that the
legatee, delicately appreciating the position of the widow, will allow
her any reasonable annuity--say five hundred pounds per annum for life."
"Will she really though?" cried Mr. Ferret, boiling over with ecstacy.
"Madam, let me beg of you to confirm this gracious promise."
"Certainly I do."
"Capital!--glorious!" rejoined Ferret; and I thought he was about to
perform a salutatory movement, that must have brought his cranium into
damaging contact with the chandelier under which he was standing. "Is
it not delightful? How every one--especially an attorney--loves a
generous giver!"
Mr. Richards appeared to be rendered somewhat uneasy by these strange
demonstrations. He knew Ferret well, and evidently suspected that
something was wrong somewhere. "Perhaps, Mr. Quillet," said he, "you had
better read the will at once."
This was done: the instrument devised in legal and minute form all the
property, real and personal, to Giulletta Corelli--a natural-born subject
of his majesty, it appeared, though of foreign parentage, and of
partially foreign education.
"Allow me to say," broke in Mr. Ferret, interrupting me as I was about to
speak--"allow me to say, Mr. Richards, that that will does you credit: it
is, I should say, a first-rate affair, for a country practitioner
especially. But of course you submitted the draught to counsel?"
"Certainly I did," said Richards tartly.
"No doubt--no doubt. Clearness and precision like that could only have
proceeded from a master's hand. I shall take a copy of that will,
Richards, for future guidance, you may depend, the instant it is
registered in Doctors' Commons."
"Come, come, Mr. Ferret," said I; "this jesting is all very well; but it
is quite time the farce should end."
"Farce!" exclaimed Mr. Richards.
"Farce!" growled doubtful Mr. Quillet.
"Farce!" murmured the beautiful Giulletta.
"Farce!" cried Mr. Ferret. "My dear sir, it is about one of the most
charming and genteel comedies ever enacted on any stage, and the
principal part, too, by one of the most charming of prima donnas. Allow
me, sir--don't interrupt me! it is too delicious to be shared; it is,
indeed. Mr. Richards, and you, Mr. Quillet, will you permit me to observe
that this admirable will has _one_ slight defect?"
"A defect!--where--how?"
"It is really heart-breaking that so much skill and ingenuity should be
thrown away; but the fact is, gentlemen, that the excellent person who
signed it had no property to bequeath!"
"How?"
"Not a shilling's worth. Allow me, sir, if you please. This piece of
parchment, gentlemen, is, I have the pleasure to inform you, a marriage
settlement."
"A marriage settlement!" exclaimed both the men of law in a breath.
"A marriage settlement, by which, in the event of Mr. Harlowe's decease,
his entire property passes to his wife, in trust for the children, if
any; and if not, absolutely to herself." Ferret threw the deed on the
table, and then giving way to convulsive mirth, threw himself upon the
sofa, and fairly shouted with glee.
Mr. Quillet seized the document, and, with Richards, eagerly perused it.
The proctor then rose, and bowing gravely to his astonished client, said,
"The will, madam, is waste paper. You have been deceived." He then left
the apartment.
The consternation of the lady and her attorney may be conceived. Madam
Corelli, giving way to her fiery passions, vented her disappointment in
passionate reproaches of the deceased; the only effect of which was to
lay bare still more clearly than before her own cupidity and folly, and
to increase Edith's painful agitation. I led her down stairs to my wife,
who, I omitted to mention, had accompanied us from town, and remained in
the library with the children during our conference. In a very short
time afterwards Mr. Ferret had cleared the house of its intrusive guests,
and we had leisure to offer our condolences and congratulations to our
grateful and interesting client. It was long before Edith recovered her
former gaiety and health; and I doubt if she would ever have thoroughly
regained her old cheerfulness and elasticity of mind, had it not been for
her labor of love in superintending and directing the education of her
daughter Helen, a charming girl, who fortunately inherited nothing from
her father but his wealth. The last time I remember to have danced was at
Helen's wedding. She married a distinguished Irish gentleman, with whom,
and her mother, I perceive by the newspapers, she appeared at Queen
Victoria's court in Dublin, one, I am sure, of the brightest stars which
glittered in that galaxy of beauty and fashion.