When the ladies left London, Dick Cavendish had felt himself something
like a wreck upon the shore. The season was very near its end, and
invitations no longer came in dozens. To be sure there were a great many
other wrecks whose society made life tolerable; but he felt himself out
of heart, out of temper, seized by that sudden disgust with life in
general which is often the result of the departure of one person who has
given it a special interest. It was a strong effect to be produced by
Chatty's unpretending personality, but it affected him more than if she
had been in herself a more striking personage. For it was not so much
that her presence made a blank in any of the gay scenes that still
remained, but that she suggested another kind of scene altogether. He
felt that to say it was a bore to go out was no longer that easy fiction
which it usually is. It _was_ a bore to go out into those aimless
assemblies where not to go was a social mistake, yet to go was weariness
of the flesh and spirit. In the midst of them his thoughts would turn
to the little group in Half Moon Street which had made the commonplace
drawing-room of the lodging-house into a home. Chatty over her muslin
work--he laughed to himself when he thought of it. It was not lovely;
there was no poetry about it; the little scissors and sharp pointed
blade that made the little holes; the patient labour that sewed them
round. So far as he was aware there was not much use in the work, and no
prettiness at all; a lover might linger over an embroidery frame, and
rave of seeing the flowers grow under her hand; but the little checkered
pattern of holes--there was nothing at all delightful in that. Yet he
thought of it, which was amazing, and laughed at himself, then thought
of it again. He was not what could be called of the domestic order of
man. He had "knocked about," he had seen all sorts of things and people,
and to think that his heart should be caught by Chatty and her muslin
work! He was himself astonished and amused, but so it was. He could not
take kindly to anything now that she was gone, and even in the rapidity
of the last expiring efforts of the season, he felt himself yawn and
think of quite another scene: of a little house to go home to, and say
what a bore it was, while Chatty took out her muslin work. He was so far
gone that he scrawled patterns for that muslin work over his blotting
books, arrangements of little holes, in squares, in rounds, in diagonal
formations, in the shape of primitive leaf and berry, at which he would
laugh all by himself and blush, and fling them into the fire--which did
not, however, by any means, withdraw the significance from these simple
attempts at ornamental art.
This would have been simple indeed had it been all. All the Cavendishes,
small and great, even the highest divinities of the name, would have
stooped from their high estate to express their pleasure that Dick had
found the "nice girl" who was to settle him and make him everything a
Cavendish should be. Ah, had that been but all! Dick was no coxcomb;
but he had read so much in Chatty's modest eyes as warranted him in
believing that he would not woo in vain. Though he could still laugh,
being of that nature of man, his heart, in fact, was overwhelmed with a
weight of trouble such as might have made the strongest cry out. But
crying out was not in his constitution. He went about his occupations,
his work, which, now that Chatty was gone, had few interruptions, chewing
the cud of the bitterest fancy and the most painful thought. He walked
about the streets, turning it over and over in his mind. He thought of
it even when he made the patterns of the holes and laughed at them,
tossing them into the fire. Underneath all his lightest as well as his
most serious occupations ran this dark and stern current. The arrival
of Mrs. Warrender's note made it still darker and more urgent, carrying
him away upon its tide. It was not the first letter he had received from
her. He had insisted upon hearing whether their journey home had been a
pleasant one, how they had liked their new house, and many other trivial
things, and he had asked for that invitation from Saturday to Monday,
which now was reversed and turned into an almost-week, from Monday to
Saturday. He did not know whether he meant or not to go: but anyhow the
invitation, the power of going if he pleased, was sweet to him. He kept
it by him as an anticipation, a sweetmeat which took the bitter taste of
life out of his mouth.
But this letter was more formal, more business-like, than anything that
had gone before. To go to see the woman whom you think of most in the
world, that is a vague thing which other engagements may push aside;
but an invitation to go for the partridges is business and has to be
answered. Dick got it at his club, where he was lingering though it was
September, making little runs into the country, but avoiding his home,
where he knew many questions would be put to him about what he was going
to do. It is a sad thing when there is nobody who cares what you are
going to do--but this is not the view of the matter most apparent to
young men. Dick very much disliked the question. It was not one to which
he could give any reply. He was going to do--nothing, unless life and
feeling should be too much for him and he should be driven into doing
what would be a villainy--yes a villainy, though probably no harm would
ever come of it; most probably, almost certainly, no harm would come of
it--and yet it would be a villainy. These were the thoughts that were
with him wherever he went or came. And after he got Mrs. Warrender's
letter they grew harder and harder, more and more urgent. It was this
which took him one day to the rooms of an old gentleman who had not
Dick's reasons for staying in town, but others which were perhaps as
weighty, which were that he was fond of his corner in the club, and not
of much else. His corner in the club, his walk along the streets, his
cosy rooms, and the few old fogies, like himself, sharp as so many
needles, giving their old opinions upon the events of the time with a
humour sharpened by many an experience of the past: who counted every
day only half a day when it was spent out of town. This old gentleman
was a lawyer of very high repute, though he had retired from all active
practice. He was a man who was supposed to know every case that had ever
been on the registers of justice. He had refused the Bench, and he
might even have been, if he would, Attorney-General, but to all these
responsibilities he preferred freedom and his corner at the club. To him
Dick went with a countenance fresh and fair, which contrasted with the
parchment of the old lawyer's face, but a heart like a piece of lead
lying in his breast, weighing down every impulse, which also contrasted
strongly, though no one could see it, with the tough piece of mechanism
screwed up to a very level pitch and now seldom out of order, which
fulfilled the same organic functions under the old gentleman's coat.
"What, Dick! what ill wind--it must be an ill wind--sends you here in
September? You ought to be among the partridges, my boy."
"It is an ill wind," said Dick.
"No need to tell me that: but judging by your complexion nothing of a
tremendous character. Money? or love?"
"Well, sir, it is not really my own business at all. As for my complexion,
that don't matter. I don't show outside."
"Some men don't," said the old lawyer laconically; "but if the trouble
is not your own that is easy to understand."
At this Dick gave a short laugh. He wanted it to be believed that the
trouble was not his own, and yet he did not quite care to be supposed
indifferent to it.
"It's an old story," he said. "It is something that happened to--Tom
Wyld, an old crony of mine out on the other side."
"I suppose you mean in America. No more slang than you can help, please.
It's admirably expressive sometimes, I allow: but not being used to it
in my youth I have some difficulty in following. Well, about Tom Wyld--one
of the old judge's sons or grandsons, I suppose."
Dick's complexion heightened a little.
"Oh, not any one you ever heard of--a fellow I picked up--out there."
"Oh, a fellow you picked up out there?"
"It was in one of the new States far West; not the sort of place for
nicety of any sort, sir, to tell the truth. Judge Lynch and not much
else, in the way of law."
"Works very well I don't doubt--simplifies business immensely," said the
old lawyer, nodding his head.
"Makes business, too--lots of it. Well, sir, my friend met with a girl
there." Dick seemed to have great difficulty in getting this out. He
stammered and his healthy complexion grew now pale, now red.
"Most likely--they generally do, both in novels and out of them," the
old gentleman said. "You had better tell me your story straight off. I
shall interrupt you no more."
"Well, sir, the girl was very young, very pretty, I might say
beautiful--not like anything he had ever met before. Without training,
but he thought at her pliable age it was so easy to remedy that." (The
old lawyer shook his head with a groan but said nothing.) "She had never
seen anything but the rough people about, and knew only their manners
and ways. Everything went on well enough for a little while after they
were married."
"Good Lord, they were married!"
"What else?" said Dick, turning scarlet. "He respected her as every man
must respect the woman he--the woman he--thinks he loves."
"I am glad you have the sense to see that he only thought he----Well,
and what was the end of it, Mr. Dick?"
"The end of it was--what you have foreseen, sir," said Dick, bowing his
head. "The fellow is my friend, that's to say Tom did all he could. I
don't think he was without patience with her. After, when she left him
for good, or rather for bad, bad as could be, he did everything he could
to help her. He offered, not to take her back, that was not possible,
but to provide for her and--and all that. She had all the savage virtues
as well as faults. She was honourable in her way. She would take nothing
from him. She even made out what she called a paper, poor thing, to set
him free. She would not take her freedom herself and leave him bound,
she said. And then she disappeared."
"Leaving him the paper?"
"Yes," said Dick, with a faint smile, "leaving him the paper. He found
it on his table. That is six years ago. He has never seen her since. He
came home soon, feeling--I can't tell you how he felt."
"As if life were not much worth living, according to the slang of the
day."
"Well, sir," said Dick, "he's a droll sort of a fellow. He--seemed to
get over it somehow. It took a vast deal out of him, but yet he got over
it in a kind of a way. He came back among his own people; and what have
they been doing since ever he came back but imploring him to marry! It
would settle him they all said, if he could get some nice girl: and they
have done nothing but throw nice girls in his way--some of the nicest
girls in England, I believe,--one----"
"Good Lord!" said the old man, "you don't mean to say this unlucky young
fellow has fallen in love again?"
Dick shook his head with a rueful air, in which it was impossible not to
see a touch of the comic, notwithstanding his despair. "This is precisely
why he wants your opinion, that is, some one's opinion--for of course he
has not the honour of knowing you."
"Hasn't he? Ah! I began to think I remembered something about your
Tom--or was it Dick--Wyld? Tom Wyld--I think I have heard the name."
"If you should meet him in society," cried Dick, growing very red,
"don't for heaven's sake make any allusion to this. I ought not to have
mentioned his name."
"Well, get on with the story," said the old man. "He thinks, perhaps,
he is free to make love to the other girl and marry--because of that
precious paper."
"He is not such a fool as that: I, even," said Dick, faltering, "know
law enough to warn him that would be folly. But you know, sir, in some
of the wild States, like the one he lived in, divorce is the easiest
thing in the world."
"Well: and he thinks he can get a divorce? He had better do it then
without more ado. I suppose the evidence--is sufficient?"
Dick gave vent to a hoarse, nervous laugh. "Sufficient--for twenty
divorces," he said, then he added quickly: "But that's not the
question."
"Why, what is the question then? He should be very thankful to be able
to manage it so easily instead of being dragged through the mud for
everybody to gloat over in London. What does the fellow want?" said the
old man peevishly. "Many a man would be glad to find so easy a way."
Dick's embarrassment was great, he changed colour, he could not keep
still, his voice grew husky and broken. "I don't say that I agree with
him, but this is what he thinks. It's easy enough: but he would have to
summon her by the newspapers to answer for herself, which she wouldn't
do. And who can tell what hands that newspaper might fall into? He says
that nobody knows anything about it here; no one has the slightest
suspicion that he ever was married or had any entanglement. And she,
poor soul, to do her justice, would never put forth a claim. She never
would molest him, of that he is sure. He thinks----"
"You take a great deal of interest in your friend's cause, Dick!" For
Dick had paused with parted lips, unable to say any more.
"I do. It's a case that has been very interesting to me. He asks why he
should take any notice of it at all--a thing done when he was scarcely of
age, thousands of miles away, a mistake--an utter failure--a--ah!"--Dick
had been speaking very rapidly against time to get out what he had to
say before he was interrupted--"you don't see it in that point of view."
"Do you mean to say, sir," said the old gentleman, "that you contemplate
betraying a woman by a fictitious marriage, making her children
illegitimate and herself a--I can't suppose that you have any real
intention of that."
Dick, who had got up in his excitement, here sat down suddenly as if his
strength had failed him, with an exclamation of horror and alarm.
"You don't see that? Why, what else would it be? so long as there is a
Mrs.--what do you call her?--living--living and undivorced, the union
of that woman's husband with another woman could be nothing but a
fictitious marriage. There is a still uglier word by which it could be
called."
"You forget," said Dick, "that Mrs. Wyld--neither bears that name nor
lays any claim to it. She put it aside long ago when she went upon her
own course. It was nothing to her. She is not of the kind that try to
keep up appearances or--anything of that sort. I'll do her that justice,
she never meant to give the--the--unfortunate fellow any trouble. She
didn't even want to stand in his way. She told him he should neither
hear of her nor see her again. She is honest, though she is---- She has
been to him as if she did not exist for years."
"Why does that matter," cried the old gentleman, "so long as she does
exist? There are women who are mad and never can be otherwise--but that
does not give their husbands a right to marry again. Divorce her, since
you are sure you can do so, and be thankful you have that remedy. I
suppose this woman is--not a lady."
"No." Dick spoke in a very low voice. He was quite cowed and subdued,
looking at his old friend with furtive looks of trouble. Though he
spoke carefully as if the case were not his own, yet he did not attempt
to correct the elder man who at once assumed it to be so. He was so
blanched and tremulous, nothing but the red of his lips showing out of
his colourless face, and all the lines drawn with inward suffering, that
he too might have been an old man. He added in the same low tones: "A
man who is divorced would be a sort of monster to them. They would never
permit--she would never listen."
"You mean--the other? well, that is possible. There is a prejudice, and
a just prejudice. So you think on the whole that to do a young lady--for
I suppose the second is in your own class--a real, an unspeakable injury
would be better than to shock her prejudices? If that is how you of the
new generation confuse what's right and wrong----"
Dick made no reply. He was not capable of self-defence, or even of
understanding the indignation he had called forth. He continued as if
only half conscious. "It need never be known. There is not a creature
who knows of it. She sent me her marriage lines. She has nothing to
prove that there ever was anything--and she would not want to prove
anything. She is as if she were dead."
"Come, sir," said the lawyer, "rouse yourself, Dick; she is not dead,
and for every honourable man that must be enough. Don't bewilder yourself
with sophistries. Why should you want to marry--again? You have had
enough of it, I should think; or else divorce her, since you can. You
may be able to do that secretly as well as the marriage. Why not?"
Dick said nothing, but shook his head. He was so completely cast down
that he had not a word to say for himself. How he could have supposed
that a dispassionate man could have taken his side and seen with his
eyes in such a matter, it is hard to say. He had thought of it so much
that all the lines had got blurred to him, and right and wrong had come
to seem relative terms. "What harm would it do?" he said to himself,
scarcely aware he was speaking aloud. "No one would be wronged, and they
would never know. How could they know? it would be impossible. Whereas,
on the other side, there must be a great scandal and raking up of
everything, and betrayal--to every one." He shuddered as he spoke.
"Whereas, on the other side," said the old lawyer, "there would be a
betrayal--very much more serious. Suppose you were to die, and that then
it were to be found out (in the long run everything is found out) that
your wife was not your wife, and her children---- Come, Dick, you never
can have contemplated a blackguard act like that to an unsuspecting
girl!"
"Sir!" cried Dick, starting to his feet. But he could not maintain that
resentful attitude. He sank down in the chair again, and said with a
groan, "What am I to do?"
"There is only one thing for you to do: but it is very clear. Either
explain the real circumstances to the young lady or her friends--or
without any explanation give up seeing her. In any case it is evident
that the connection must be cut at once. Of course if she knows the true
state of the case, and that you are a married man, she will do that. And
if you shrink from explanations, _you_ must do it without an hour's
delay."
Dick made no reply. He sat for a time with his head in his hands: and
then rose up with a dazed look, as if he scarcely knew what he was
about. "Good-bye," he said, "and thank you. I'll--tell Tom--what you
said."
"Do," said the old lawyer, getting up. He took Dick's hand and wrung it
in his own with a pressure that, though the thin old fingers had but
little force, was painful in its energy. "You don't ask my silence,
but I'll promise it you--except in one contingency," and here he wrung
Dick's hand again. "Should I hear of any marriage--after what you have
said, I shall certainly think it my duty to interfere."
When Dick came out the day seemed to have grown dark to him; the sky was
all covered with threads of black; he could scarcely see his way.