by-gones--and that sort of thing. I wasn’t guilty of any intentional
disrespect toward you. Forgive and forget. Not half a bad motto,
Sir--eh?”
It was clumsily expressed--but still it was an apology. Not even
Geoffrey could appeal to Sir Patrick’s courtesy and Sir Patrick’s
consideration in vain.
“Not a word more, Mr. Delamayn!” said the polite old man. “Accept my
excuses for any thing which I may have said too sharply, on my side; and
let us by all means forget the rest.”
Having met the advance made to him, in those terms, he paused,
expecting Geoffrey to leave him free to return to the Decameron. To
his unutterable astonishment, Geoffrey suddenly stooped over him, and
whispered in his ear, “I want a word in private with you.”
Sir Patrick started back, as if Geoffrey had tried to bite him.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Delamayn--what did you say?”
“Could you give me a word in private?”
Sir Patrick put back the Decameron; and bowed in freezing silence. The
confidence of the Honorable Geoffrey Delamayn was the last confidence in
the world into which he desired to be drawn. “This is the secret of the
apology!” he thought. “What can he possibly want with Me?”
“It’s about a friend of mine,” pursued Geoffrey; leading the way toward
one of the windows. “He’s in a scrape, my friend is. And I want to ask
your advice. It’s strictly private, you know.” There he came to a full
stop--and looked to see what impression he had produced, so far.
Sir Patrick declined, either by word or gesture, to exhibit the
slightest anxiety to hear a word more.
“Would you mind taking a turn in the garden?” asked Geoffrey.
Sir Patrick pointed to his lame foot. “I have had my allowance of
walking this morning,” he said. “Let my infirmity excuse me.”
Geoffrey looked about him for a substitute for the garden, and led the
way back again toward one of the convenient curtained recesses opening
out of the inner wall of the library. “We shall be private enough here,”
he said.
Sir Patrick made a final effort to escape the proposed conference--an
undisguised effort, this time.
“Pray forgive me, Mr. Delamayn. Are you quite sure that you apply to the
right person, in applying to _me?_”
“You’re a Scotch lawyer, ain’t you?”
“Certainly.”
“And you understand about Scotch marriages--eh?”
Sir Patrick’s manner suddenly altered.
“Is _that_ the subject you wish to consult me on?” he asked.
“It’s not me. It’s my friend.”
“Your friend, then?”
“Yes. It’s a scrape with a woman. Here in Scotland. My friend don’t know
whether he’s married to her or not.”
“I am at your service, Mr. Delamayn.”
To Geoffrey’s relief--by no means unmixed with surprise--Sir Patrick not
only showed no further reluctance to be consulted by him, but actually
advanced to meet his wishes, by leading the way to the recess that was
nearest to them. The quick brain of the old lawyer had put Geoffrey’s
application to him for assistance, and Blanche’s application to him for
assistance, together; and had built its own theory on the basis thus
obtained. “Do I see a connection between the present position of
Blanche’s governess, and the present position of Mr. Delamayn’s
‘friend?’” thought Sir Patrick. “Stranger extremes than _that_ have met
me in my experience. Something may come out of this.”
The two strangely-assorted companions seated themselves, one on each
side of a little table in the recess. Arnold and the other guests had
idled out again on to the lawn. The surgeon with his prints, and the
ladies with their invitations, were safely absorbed in a distant part
of the library. The conference between the two men, so trifling in
appearance, so terrible in its destined influence, not over Anne’s
future only, but over the future of Arnold and Blanche, was, to all
practical purposes, a conference with closed doors.
“Now,” said Sir Patrick, “what is the question?”
“The question,” said Geoffrey, “is whether my friend is married to her
or not?”
“Did he mean to marry her?”
“No.”
“He being a single man, and she being a single woman, at the time? And
both in Scotland?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Now tell me the circumstances.”
Geoffrey hesitated. The art of stating circumstances implies the
cultivation of a very rare gift--the gift of arranging ideas. No one
was better acquainted with this truth than Sir Patrick. He was purposely
puzzling Geoffrey at starting, under the firm conviction that his
client had something to conceal from him. The one process that could be
depended on for extracting the truth, under those circumstances, was
the process of interrogation. If Geoffrey was submitted to it, at the
outset, his cunning might take the alarm. Sir Patrick’s object was
to make the man himself invite interrogation. Geoffrey invited it
forthwith, by attempting to state the circumstances, and by involving
them in the usual confusion. Sir Patrick waited until he had thoroughly
lost the thread of his narrative--and then played for the winning trick.
“Would it be easier to you if I asked a few questions?” he inquired,
innocently.
“Much easier.”
“I am quite at your service. Suppose we clear the ground to begin with?
Are you at liberty to mention names?”
“No.”
“Places?”
“No.”
“Dates?”
“Do you want me to be particular?”
“Be as particular as you can.”
“Will it do, if I say the present year?”
“Yes. Were your friend and the lady--at some time in the present
year--traveling together in Scotland?”
“No.”
“Living together in Scotland?”
“No.”
“What _were_ they doing together in Scotland?”
“Well--they were meeting each other at an inn.”
“Oh? They were meeting each other at an inn. Which was first at the
rendezvous?”
“The woman was first. Stop a bit! We are getting to it now.” He produced
from his pocket the written memorandum of Arnold’s proceedings at Craig
Fernie, which he had taken down from Arnold’s own lips. “I’ve got a bit
of note here,” he went on. “Perhaps you’d like to have a look at it?”
Sir Patrick took the note--read it rapidly through to himself--then
re-read it, sentence by sentence, to Geoffrey; using it as a text to
speak from, in making further inquiries.
“‘He asked for her by the name of his wife, at the door,’” read
Sir Patrick. “Meaning, I presume, the door of the inn? Had the lady
previously given herself out as a married woman to the people of the
inn?”
“Yes.”
“How long had she been at the inn before the gentleman joined her?”
“Only an hour or so.”
“Did she give a name?”
“I can’t be quite sure--I should say not.”
“Did the gentleman give a name?”
“No. I’m certain _he_ didn’t.”
Sir Patrick returned to the memorandum.
“‘He said at dinner, before the landlady and the waiter, I take these
rooms for my wife. He made _her_ say he was her husband, at the same
time.’ Was that done jocosely, Mr. Delamayn--either by the lady or the
gentleman?”
“No. It was done in downright earnest.”
“You mean it was done to look like earnest, and so to deceive the
landlady and the waiter?”
“Yes.”
Sir Patrick returned to the memorandum.
“‘After that, he stopped all night.’ Stopped in the rooms he had taken
for himself and his wife?”
“Yes.”
“And what happened the next day?”
“He went away. Wait a bit! Said he had business for an excuse.”
“That is to say, he kept up the deception with the people of the inn?
and left the lady behind him, in the character of his wife?”
“That’s it.”
“Did he go back to the inn?”
“No.”
“How long did the lady stay there, after he had gone?”
“She staid--well, she staid a few days.”
“And your friend has not seen her since?”
“No.”
“Are your friend and the lady English or Scotch?”
“Both English.”
“At the time when they met at the inn, had they either of them arrived
in Scotland, from the place in which they were previously living, within
a period of less than twenty-one days?”
Geoffrey hesitated. There could be no difficulty in answering for Anne.
Lady Lundie and her domestic circle had occupied Windygates for a much
longer period than three weeks before the date of the lawn-party. The
question, as it affected Arnold, was the only question that required
reflection. After searching his memory for details of the conversation
which had taken place between them, when he and Arnold had met at the
lawn-party, Geoffrey recalled a certain reference on the part of his
friend to a performance at the Edinburgh theatre, which at once decided
the question of time. Arnold had been necessarily detained in Edinburgh,
before his arrival at Windygates, by legal business connected with his
inheritance; and he, like Anne, had certainly been in Scotland, before
they met at Craig Fernie, for a longer period than a period of three
weeks He accordingly informed Sir Patrick that the lady and gentleman
had been in Scotland for more than twenty-one days--and then added a
question on his own behalf: “Don’t let me hurry you, Sir--but, shall you
soon have done?”
“I shall have done, after two more questions,” answered Sir Patrick.
“Am I to understand that the lady claims, on the strength of the
circumstances which you have mentioned to me, to be your friend’s wife?”
Geoffrey made an affirmative reply. The readiest means of obtaining Sir
Patrick’s opinion was, in this case, to answer, Yes. In other words,
to represent Anne (in the character of “the lady”) as claiming to be
married to Arnold (in the character of “his friend”).
Having made this concession to circumstances, he was, at the same time,
quite cunning enough to see that it was of vital importance to the
purpose which he had in view, to confine himself strictly to this one
perversion of the truth. There could be plainly no depending on the
lawyer’s opinion, unless that opinion was given on the facts exactly a
s they had occurred at the inn. To the facts he had, thus far, carefully
adhered; and to the facts (with the one inevitable departure from them
which had been just forced on him) he determined to adhere to the end.
“Did no letters pass between the lady and gentleman?” pursued Sir
Patrick.
“None that I know of,” answered Geoffrey, steadily returning to the
truth.
“I have done, Mr. Delamayn.”
“Well? and what’s your opinion?”
“Before I give my opinion I am bound to preface it by a personal
statement which you are not to take, if you please, as a statement of
the law. You ask me to decide--on the facts with which you have supplied
me--whether your friend is, according to the law of Scotland, married or
not?”
Geoffrey nodded. “That’s it!” he said, eagerly.
“My experience, Mr. Delamayn, is that any single man, in Scotland, may
marry any single woman, at any time, and under any circumstances. In
short, after thirty years’ practice as a lawyer, I don’t know what is
_not_ a marriage in Scotland.”
“In plain English,” said Geoffrey, “you mean she’s his wife?”
In spite of his cunning; in spite of his self-command, his eyes
brightened as he said those words. And the tone in which he
spoke--though too carefully guarded to be a tone of triumph--was, to a
fine ear, unmistakably a tone of relief.
Neither the look nor the tone was lost on Sir Patrick.
His first suspicion, when he sat down to the conference, had been
the obvious suspicion that, in speaking of “his friend,” Geoffrey was
speaking of himself. But, like all lawyers, he habitually distrusted
first impressions, his own included. His object, thus far, had been
to solve the problem of Geoffrey’s true position and Geoffrey’s real
motive. He had set the snare accordingly, and had caught his bird.
It was now plain to his mind--first, that this man who was consulting
him, was, in all probability, really speaking of the case of another
person: secondly, that he had an interest (of what nature it was
impossible yet to say) in satisfying his own mind that “his friend” was,
by the law of Scotland, indisputably a married man. Having penetrated
to that extent the secret which Geoffrey was concealing from him,
he abandoned the hope of making any further advance at that present
sitting. The next question to clear up in the investigation, was the
question of who the anonymous “lady” might be. And the next discovery
to make was, whether “the lady” could, or could not, be identified with
Anne Silvester. Pending the inevitable delay in reaching that result,
the straight course was (in Sir Patrick’s present state of uncertainty)
the only course to follow in laying down the law. He at once took the
question of the marriage in hand--with no concealment whatever, as to
the legal bearings of it, from the client who was consulting him.
“Don’t rush to conclusions, Mr. Delamayn,” he said. “I have only told
you what my general experience is thus far. My professional opinion on
the special case of your friend has not been given yet.”
Geoffrey’s face clouded again. Sir Patrick carefully noted the new
change in it.
“The law of Scotland,” he went on, “so far as it relates to Irregular
Marriages, is an outrage on common decency and common-sense. If you
think my language in thus describing it too strong--I can refer you
to the language of a judicial authority. Lord Deas delivered a recent
judgment of marriage in Scotland, from the bench, in these words:
‘Consent makes marriage. No form or ceremony, civil or religious; no
notice before, or publication after; no cohabitation, no writing, no
witnesses even, are essential to the constitution of this, the most
important contract which two persons can enter into.’--There is a Scotch
judge’s own statement of the law that he administers! Observe, at the
same time, if you please, that we make full legal provision in Scotland
for contracts affecting the sale of houses and lands, horses and dogs.
The only contract which we leave without safeguards or precautions of
any sort is the contract that unites a man and a woman for life. As
for the authority of parents, and the innocence of children, our law
recognizes no claim on it either in the one case or in the other. A
girl of twelve and a boy of fourteen have nothing to do but to cross the
Border, and to be married--without the interposition of the slightest
delay or restraint, and without the slightest attempt to inform their
parents on the part of the Scotch law. As to the marriages of men and
women, even the mere interchange of consent which, as you have just
heard, makes them man and wife, is not required to be directly proved:
it may be proved by inference. And, more even than that, whatever the
law for its consistency may presume, men and women are, in point of
fact, held to be married in Scotland where consent has never been
interchanged, and where the parties do not even know that they are
legally held to be married persons. Are you sufficiently confused about
the law of Irregular Marriages in Scotland by this time, Mr. Delamayn?
And have I said enough to justify the strong language I used when I
undertook to describe it to you?”
“Who’s that ‘authority’ you talked of just now?” inquired Geoffrey.
“Couldn’t I ask _him?_”
“You might find him flatly contradicted, if you did ask him by another
authority equally learned and equally eminent,” answered Sir Patrick.
“I am not joking--I am only stating facts. Have you heard of the Queen’s
Commission?”
“No.”
“Then listen to this. In March, ‘sixty-five, the Queen appointed a
Commission to inquire into the Marriage-Laws of the United Kingdom. The
Report of that Commission is published in London; and is accessible to
any body who chooses to pay the price of two or three shillings for
it. One of the results of the inquiry was, the discovery that high
authorities were of entirely contrary opinions on one of the vital
questions of Scottish marriage-law. And the Commissioners, in announcing
that fact, add that the question of which opinion is right is still
disputed, and has never been made the subject of legal decision.
Authorities are every where at variance throughout the Report. A haze of
doubt and uncertainty hangs in Scotland over the most important contract
of civilized life. If no other reason existed for reforming the Scotch
marriage-law, there would be reason enough afforded by that one fact. An
uncertain marriage-law is a national calamity.”
“You can tell me what you think yourself about my friend’s case--can’t
you?” said Geoffrey, still holding obstinately to the end that he had in
view.
“Certainly. Now that I have given you due warning of the danger of
implicitly relying on any individual opinion, I may give my opinion with
a clear conscience. I say that there has not been a positive marriage in
this case. There has been evidence in favor of possibly establishing a
marriage--nothing more.”
The distinction here was far too fine to be appreciated by Geoffrey’s
mind. He frowned heavily, in bewilderment and disgust.
“Not married!” he exclaimed, “when they said they were man and wife,
before witnesses?”
“That is a common popular error,” said Sir Patrick. “As I have already
told you, witnesses are not legally necessary to make a marriage in
Scotland. They are only valuable--as in this case--to help, at some
future time, in proving a marriage that is in dispute.”
Geoffrey caught at the last words.
“The landlady and the waiter _might_ make it out to be a marriage,
then?” he said.
“Yes. And, remember, if you choose to apply to one of my professional
colleagues, he might possibly tell you they were married already. A
state of the law which allows the interchange of matrimonial consent
to be proved by inference leaves a wide door open to conjecture. Your
friend refers to a certain lady, in so many words, as his wife. The lady
refers to your friend, in so many words, as her husband. In the rooms
which they have taken, as man and wife, they remain, as man and wife,
till the next morning. Your friend goes away, without undeceiving any
body. The lady stays at the inn, for some days after, in the character
of his wife. And all these circumstances take place in the presence o f
competent witnesses. Logically--if not legally--there is apparently an
inference of the interchange of matrimonial consent here. I stick to
my own opinion, nevertheless. Evidence in proof of a marriage (I
say)--nothing more.”
While Sir Patrick had been speaking, Geoffrey had been considering with
himself. By dint of hard thinking he had found his way to a decisive
question on his side.
“Look here!” he said, dropping his heavy hand down on the table. “I want
to bring you to book, Sir! Suppose my friend had another lady in his
eye?”
“Yes?”
“As things are now--would you advise him to marry her?”
“As things are now--certainly not!”
Geoffrey got briskly on his legs, and closed the interview.
“That will do,” he said, “for him and for me.”
With those words he walked back, without ceremony, into the main
thoroughfare of the room.
“I don’t know who your friend is,” thought Sir Patrick, looking after
him. “But if your interest in the question of his marriage is an honest
and a harmless interest, I know no more of human nature than the babe
unborn!”
Immediately on leaving Sir Patrick, Geoffrey was encountered by one of
the servants in search of him.
“I beg your pardon, Sir,” began the man. “The groom from the Honorable
Mr. Delamayn’s--”
“Yes? The fellow who brought me a note from my brother this morning?”
“He’s expected back, Sir--he’s afraid he mustn’t wait any longer.”
“Come here, and I’ll give you the answer for him.”
He led the way to the writing-table, and referred to Julius’s letter
again. He ran his eye carelessly over it, until he reached the final
lines: “Come to-morrow, and help us to receive Mrs. Glenarm.” For a
while he paused, with his eye fixed on that sentence; and with the
happiness of three people--of Anne, who had loved him; of Arnold, who
had served him; of Blanche, guiltless of injuring him--resting on the
decision that guided his movements for the next day. After what had
passed that morning between Arnold and Blanche, if he remained at Lady
Lundie’s, he had no alternative but to perform his promise to Anne. If
he returned to his brother’s house, he had no alternative but to desert
Anne, on the infamous pretext that she was Arnold’s wife.
He suddenly tossed the letter away from him on the table, and snatched
a sheet of note-paper out of the writing-case. “Here goes for Mrs.
Glenarm!” he said to himself; and wrote back to his brother, in
one line: “Dear Julius, Expect me to-morrow. G. D.” The impassible
man-servant stood by while he wrote, looking at his magnificent breadth
of chest, and thinking what a glorious “staying-power” was there for the
last terrible mile of the coming race.
“There you are!” he said, and handed his note to the man.
“All right, Geoffrey?” asked a friendly voice behind him.
He turned--and saw Arnold, anxious for news of the consultation with Sir
Patrick.
“Yes,” he said. “All right.”
------------ NOTE.--There are certain readers who feel a
disposition to doubt Facts, when they meet with them in a work of
fiction. Persons of this way of thinking may be profitably
referred to the book which first suggested to me the idea of
writing the present Novel. The book is the Report of the Royal
Commissioners on The Laws of Marriage. Published by the Queen’s
Printers For her Majesty’s Stationery Office. (London, 1868.)
What Sir Patrick says professionally of Scotch Marriages in this
chapter is taken from this high authority. What the lawyer (in
the Prologue) says professionally of Irish Marriages is also
derived from the same source. It is needless to encumber these
pages with quotations. But as a means of satisfying my readers
that they may depend on me, I subjoin an extract from my list of
references to the Report of the Marriage Commission, which any
persons who may be so inclined can verify for themselves.
_Irish Marriages_ (In the Prologue).--See Report, pages XII.,
XIII., XXIV.
_Irregular Marriages in Scotland._--Statement of the law by Lord
Deas. Report, page XVI.--Marriages of children of tender years.
Examination of Mr. Muirhead by Lord Chelmsford (Question
689).--Interchange of consent, established by inference.
Examination of Mr. Muirhead by the Lord Justice Clerk (Question
654)--Marriage where consent has never been interchanged.
Observations of Lord Deas. Report, page XIX.--Contradiction of
opinions between authorities. Report, pages XIX., XX.--Legal
provision for the sale of horses and dogs. No legal provision for
the marriage of men and women. Mr. Seeton’s Remarks. Report, page
XXX.--Conclusion of the Commissioners. In spite of the arguments
advanced before them in favor of not interfering with Irregular
Marriages in Scotland, the Commissioners declare their opinion
that “Such marriages ought not to continue.” (Report, page
XXXIV.)
In reference to the arguments (alluded to above) in favor of
allowing the present disgraceful state of things to continue, I
find them resting mainly on these grounds: That Scotland doesn’t
like being interfered with by England (!). That Irregular
Marriages cost nothing (!!). That they are diminishing in number,
and may therefore be trusted, in course of time, to exhaust
themselves (!!!). That they act, on certain occasions, in the
capacity of a moral trap to catch a profligate man (!!!!). Such
is the elevated point of view from which the Institution of
Marriage is regarded by some of the most pious and learned men in
Scotland. A legal enactment providing for the sale of your wife,
when you have done with her, or of your husband; when you “really
can’t put up with him any longer,” appears to be all that is
wanting to render this North British estimate of the “Estate of
Matrimony” practically complete. It is only fair to add that, of
the witnesses giving evidence--oral and written--before the
Commissioners, fully one-half regard the Irregular Marriages of
Scotland from the Christian and the civilized point of view, and
entirely agree with the authoritative conclusion already
cited--that such marriages ought to be abolished.
W. C.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.
DONE!
ARNOLD was a little surprised by the curt manner in which Geoffrey
answered him.
“Has Sir Patrick said any thing unpleasant?” he asked.
“Sir Patrick has said just what I wanted him to say.”
“No difficulty about the marriage?”
“None.”
“No fear of Blanche--”