you know, Sir Patrick, what I was thinking of a moment since? Only of
old times, when I was a little girl. I saw the sad side of life sooner
than most children see it. My mother was cruelly deserted. The hard
marriage laws of this country were harder on her than on me. She died
broken-hearted. But one friend comforted her at the last moment, and
promised to be a mother to her child. I can’t remember one unhappy day
in all the after-time when I lived with that faithful woman and her
little daughter--till the day that parted us. She went away with her
husband; and I and the little daughter were left behind. She said her
last words to me. Her heart was sinking under the dread of coming death.
‘I promised your mother that you should be like my own child to me,
and it quieted her mind. Quiet _my_ mind, Anne, before I go. Whatever
happens in years to come--promise me to be always what you are now, a
sister to Blanche.’ Where is the false excitement, Sir Patrick, in old
remembrances like these? And how can there be a sacrifice in any thing
that I do for Blanche?”
She rose, and offered him her hand. Sir Patrick lifted it to his lips in
silence.
“Come!” she said. “For both our sakes, let us not prolong this.”
He turned aside his head. It was no moment to let her see that she had
completely unmanned him. She waited for him, with her hand on the lock.
He rallied his courage--he forced himself to face the horror of the
situation calmly. She opened the door, and led the way back into the
other room.
Not a word was spoken by any of the persons present, as the two returned
to their places. The noise of a carriage passing in the street was
painfully audible. The chance banging of a door in the lower regions of
the house made every one start.
Anne’s sweet voice broke the dreary silence.
“Must I speak for myself, Sir Patrick? Or will you (I ask it as a last
and greatest favor) speak for me?”
“You insist on appealing to the letter in your hand?”
“I am resolved to appeal to it.”
“Will nothing induce you to defer the close of this inquiry--so far as
you are concerned--for four-and-twenty hours?”
“Either you or I, Sir Patrick, must say what is to be said, and do what
is to be done, before we leave this room.”
“Give me the letter.”
She gave it to him. Mr. Moy whispered to his client, “Do you know what
that is?” Geoffrey shook his head. “Do you really remember nothing about
it?” Geoffrey answered in one surly word, “Nothing!”
Sir Patrick addressed himself to the assembled company.
“I have to ask your pardon,” he said, “for abruptly leaving the room,
and for obliging Miss Silvester to leave it with me. Every body present,
except that man” (he pointed to Geoffrey), “will, I believe, understand
and forgive me, now that I am forced to make my conduct the subject
of the plainest and the fullest explanation. I shall address that
explanation, for reasons which will presently appear, to my niece.”
Blanche started. “To me!” she exclaimed.
“To you,” Sir Patrick answered.
Blanche turned toward Arnold, daunted by a vague sense of something
serious to come. The letter that she had received from her husband on
her departure from Ham Farm had necessarily alluded to relations between
Geoffrey and Anne, of which Blanche had been previously ignorant. Was
any reference coming to those relations? Was there something yet to be
disclosed which Arnold’s letter had not prepared her to hear?
Sir Patrick resumed.
“A short time since,” he said to Blanche, “I proposed to you to return
to your husband’s protection--and to leave the termination of this
matter in my hands. You have refused to go back to him until you are
first certainly assured that you are his wife. Thanks to a sacrifice
to your interests and your happiness, on Miss Silvester’s part--which I
tell you frankly I have done my utmost to prevent--I am in a position to
prove positively that Arnold Brinkworth was a single man when he married
you from my house in Kent.”
Mr. Moy’s experience forewarned him of what was coming. He pointed to
the letter in Sir Patrick’s hand.
“Do you claim on a promise of marriage?” he asked.
Sir Patrick rejoined by putting a question on his side.
“Do you remember the famous decision at Doctors’ Commons, which
established the marriage of Captain Dalrymple and Miss Gordon?”
Mr. Moy was answered. “I understand you, Sir Patrick,” he said. After
a moment’s pause, he addressed his next words to Anne. “And from the
bottom of my heart, madam, I respect _you._”
It was said with a fervent sincerity of tone which wrought the interest
of the other persons, who were still waiting for enlightenment, to the
highest pitch. Lady Lundie and Captain Newenden whispered to each other
anxiously. Arnold turned pale. Blanche burst into tears.
Sir Patrick turned once more to his niece.
“Some little time since,” he said, “I had occasion to speak to you of
the scandalous uncertainty of the marriage laws of Scotland. But for
that uncertainty (entirely without parallel in any other civilized
country in Europe), Arnold Brinkworth would never have occupied the
position in which he stands here to-day--and these proceedings
would never have taken place. Bear that fact in mind. It is not only
answerable for the mischief that has been already done, but for the far
more serious evil which is still to come.”
Mr. Moy took a note. Sir Patrick went on.
“Loose and reckless as the Scotch law is, there happens, however, to be
one case in which the action of it has been confirmed and settled by the
English Courts. A written promise of marriage exchanged between a man
and woman, in Scotland, marries that man and woman by Scotch law. An
English Court of Justice (sitting in judgment on the ease I have just
mentioned to Mr. Moy) has pronounced that law to be good--and the
decision has since been confirmed by the supreme authority of the House
of Lords. Where the persons therefore--living in Scotland at the
time--have promised each other marriage in writing, there is now no
longer any doubt they are certainly, and lawfully, Man and Wife.” He
turned from his niece, and appealed to Mr. Moy. “Am I right?”
“Quite right, Sir Patrick, as to the facts. I own, however, that your
commentary on them surprises me. I have the highest opinion of our
Scottish marriage law. A man who has betrayed a woman under a promise of
marriage is forced by that law (in the interests of public morality) to
acknowledge her as his wife.”
“The persons here present, Mr. Moy, are now about to see the moral merit
of the Scotch law of marriage (as approved by England) practically in
operation before their own eyes. They will judge for themselves of the
morality (Scotch or English) which first forces a deserted woman back on
the villain who has betrayed her, and then virtuously leaves her to bear
the consequences.”
With that answer, he turned to Anne, and showed her the letter, open in
his hand.
“For the last time,” he said, “do you insist on my appealing to this?”
She rose, and bowed her head gravely.
“It is my distressing duty,” said Sir Patrick, “to declare, in this
lady’s name, and on the faith of written promises of marriage exchanged
between the parties, then residing in Scotland, that she claims to
be now--and to have been on the afternoon of the fourteenth of August
last--Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn’s wedded wife.”
A cry of horror from Blanche, a low murmur of dismay from the rest,
followed the utterance of those words.
There was a pause of an instant.
Then Geoffrey rose slowly to his feet, and fixed his eyes on the wife
who had claimed him.
The spectators of the terrible scene turned with one accord toward the
sacrificed woman. The look which Geoffrey had cast on her--the words
which Geoffrey had spoken to her--were present to all their minds. She
stood, waiting by Sir Patrick’s side--her soft gray eyes resting sadly
and tenderly on Blanche’s face. To see that matchless courage and
resignation was to doubt the reality of what had happened. They were
forced to look back at the man to possess their minds with the truth.
The triumph of law and morality over him was complete. He never uttered
a word. His furious temper was perfectly and fearfully calm. With the
promise of merciless vengeance written in the Devil s writing on his
Devil-possessed face, he kept his eyes fixed on the hated woman whom he
had ruined--on the hated woman who was fastened to him as his wife.
His lawyer went over to the table at which Sir Patrick sat. Sir Patrick
handed him the sheet of note-paper.
He read the two letters contained in it with absorbed and deliberate
attention. The moments that passed before he lifted his head from his
reading seemed like hours. “Can you prove the handwritings?” he asked.
“And prove the residence?”
Sir Patrick took up a second morsel of paper lying ready under his hand.
“There are the names of persons who can prove the writing, and prove
the residence,” he replied. “One of your two witnesses below stairs
(otherwise useless) can speak to the hour at which Mr. Brinkworth
arrived at the inn, and so can prove that the lady for whom he asked
was, at that moment, Mrs. Geoffrey Delamayn. The indorsement on the back
of the note-paper, also referring to the question of time, is in the
handwriting of the same witness--to whom I refer you, when it suits your
convenience to question him.”
“I will verify the references, Sir Patrick, as matter of form. In the
mean time, not to interpose needless and vexatious delay, I am bound to
say that I can not resist the evidence of the marriage.”
Having replied in those terms he addressed himself, with marked respect
and sympathy, to Anne.
“On the faith of the written promise of marriage exchanged between
you in Scotland,” he said, “you claim Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn as your
husband?”
She steadily repented the words after him.
“I claim Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn as my husband.”
Mr. Moy appealed to his client. Geoffrey broke silence at last.
“Is it settled?” he asked.
“To all practical purposes, it is settled.”
He went on, still looking at nobody but Anne.
“Has the law of Scotland made her my wife?”
“The law of Scotland has made her your wife.”
He asked a third and last question.
“Does the law tell her to go where her husband goes?”
“Yes.”
He laughed softly to himself, and beckoned to her to cross the room to
the place at which he was standing.
She obeyed. At the moment when she took the first step to approach him,
Sir Patrick caught her hand, and whispered to her, “Rely on me!” She
gently pressed his hand in token that she understood him, and advanced
to Geoffrey. At the same moment, Blanche rushed between them, and flung
her arms around Anne’s neck.
“Oh, Anne! Anne!”
An hysterical passion of tears choked her utterance. Anne gently unwound
the arms that clung round her--gently lifted the head that lay helpless
on her bosom.
“Happier days are coming, my love,” she said. “Don’t think of _me._”
She kissed her--looked at her--kissed her again--and placed her in her
husband’s arms. Arnold remembered her parting words at Craig Fernie,
when they had wished each other good-night. “You have not befriended an
ungrateful woman. The day may yet come when I shall prove it.” Gratitude
and admiration struggled in him which should utter itself first, and
held him speechless.
She bent her head gently in token that she understood him. Then she went
on, and stood before Geoffrey.
“I am here,” she said to him. “What do you wish me to do?”
A hideous smile parted his heavy lips. He offered her his arm.
“Mrs. Geoffrey Delamayn,” he said. “Come home.”
The picture of the lonely house, isolated amidst its high walls; the
ill-omened figure of the dumb woman with the stony eyes and the savage
ways--the whole scene, as Anne had pictured it to him but two days
since, rose vivid as reality before Sir Patrick’s mind. “No!” he cried
out, carried away by the generous impulse of the moment. “It shall _not_
be!”
Geoffrey stood impenetrable--waiting with his offered arm. Pale and
resolute, she lifted her noble head--called back the courage which had
faltered for a moment--and took his arm. He led her to the door. “Don’t
let Blanche fret about me,” she said, simply, to Arnold as they went by.
They passed Sir Patrick next. Once more his sympathy for her set
every other consideration at defiance. He started up to bar the way to
Geoffrey. Geoffrey paused, and looked at Sir Patrick for the first time.
“The law tells her to go with her husband,” he said. “The law forbids
you to part Man and Wife.”
True. Absolutely, undeniably true. The law sanctioned the sacrifice of
her as unanswerably as it had sanctioned the sacrifice of her mother
before her. In the name of Morality, let him take her! In the interests
of Virtue, let her get out of it if she can!
Her husband opened the door. Mr. Moy laid his hand on Sir Patrick’s arm.
Lady Lundie, Captain Newenden, the London lawyer, all left their places,
influenced, for once, by the same interest; feeling, for once, the same
suspense. Arnold followed them, supporting his wife. For one memorable
instant Anne looked back at them all. Then she and her husband crossed
the threshold. They descended the stairs together. The opening and
closing of the house door was heard. They were gone.
Done, in the name of Morality. Done, in the interests of Virtue. Done,
in an age of progress, and under the most perfect government on the face
of the earth.
FIFTEENTH SCENE.--HOLCHESTER HOUSE.
CHAPTER THE FORTY-SEVENTH.
THE LAST CHANCE.
“HIS lordship is dangerously ill, Sir. Her ladyship can receive no
visitors.”
“Be so good as to take that card to Lady Holchester. It is absolutely
necessary that your mistress should be made acquainted--in the interests
of her younger son--with something which I can only mention to her
ladyship herself.”
The two persons speaking were Lord Holchester’s head servant and Sir
Patrick Lundie. At that time barely half an hour had passed since the
close of the proceedings at Portland Place.
The servant still hesitated with the card in his hand. “I shall forfeit
my situation,” he said, “if I do it.”
“You will most assuredly forfeit your situation if you _don’t_ do it,”
returned Sir Patrick. “I warn you plainly, this is too serious a matter
to be trifled with.”
The tone in which those words were spoken had its effect. The man went
up stairs with his message.
Sir Patrick waited in the hall. Even the momentary delay of entering
one of the reception-rooms was more than he could endure at that moment.
Anne’s happiness was hopelessly sacrificed already. The preservation
of her personal safety--which Sir Patrick firmly believed to be in
danger--was the one service which it was possible to render to her
now. The perilous position in which she stood toward her husband--as
an immovable obstacle, while she lived, between Geoffrey and Mrs.
Glenarm--was beyond the reach of remedy. But it was still possible to
prevent her from becoming the innocent cause of Geoffrey’s pecuniary
ruin, by standing in the way of a reconciliation between father and son.
Resolute to leave no means untried of serving Anne’s interests, Sir
Patrick had allowed Arnold and Blanche to go to his own residence in
London, alone, and had not even waited to say a farewell word to any of
the persons who had taken part in the inquiry. “Her life may depend on
what I can do for her at Holchester House!” With that conviction in him,
he had left Portland Place. With that conviction in him, he had sent his
message to Lady Holchester, and was now waiting for the reply.
The servant appeared again on the stairs. Sir Patrick went up to meet
him.
“Her ladyship will see you, Sir, for a few minutes.”
The door of an upper room was opened; and Sir Patrick found himself in
the presence of Geoffrey’s mother. There was only time to observe that
she possessed the remains of rare personal beauty, and that she
received her visitor with a grace and courtesy which implied (under the
circumstances) a considerate regard for _his_ position at the expense of
her own.
“You have something to say to me, Sir Patrick, on the subject of my
second son. I am in great affliction. If you bring me bad news, I will
do my best to bear it. May I trust to your kindness not to keep me in
suspense?”
“It will help me to make my intrusion as little painful as possible
to your ladyship,” replied Sir Patrick, “if I am permitted to ask a
question. Have you heard of any obstacle to the contemplated marriage of
Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn and Mrs. Glenarm?”
Even that distant reference to Anne produced an ominous change for the
worse in Lady Holchester’s manner.
“I have heard of the obstacle to which you allude,” she said. “Mrs.
Glenarm is an intimate friend of mine. She has informed me that a person
named Silvester, an impudent adventuress--”
“I beg your ladyship’s pardon. You are doing a cruel wrong to the
noblest woman I have ever met with.”
“I can not undertake, Sir Patrick, to enter into your reasons for
admiring her. Her conduct toward my son has, I repeat, been the conduct
of an impudent adventuress.”
Those words showed Sir Patrick the utter hopelessness of shaking
her prejudice against Anne. He decided on proceeding at once to the
disclosure of the truth.
“I entreat you so say no more,” he answered. “Your ladyship is speaking
of your son’s wife.”
“My son has married Miss Silvester?”
“Yes.”
She turned deadly pale. It appeared, for an instant, as if the shock had
completely overwhelmed her. But the mother’s weakness was only momentary
The virtuous indignation of the great lady had taken its place before
Sir Patrick could speak again. She rose to terminate the interview.
“I presume,” she said, “that your errand here is as an end.”
Sir Patrick rose, on his side, resolute to do the duty which had brought
him to the house.
“I am compelled to trespass on your ladyship’s attention for a few
minutes more,” he answered. “The circumstances attending the marriage of
Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn are of no common importance. I beg permission (in
the interests of his family) to state, very briefly, what they are.”
In a few clear sentences he narrated what had happened, that afternoon,
in Portland Place. Lady Holchester listened with the steadiest and
coldest attention. So far as outward appearances were concerned, no
impression was produced upon her.
“Do you expect me,” she asked, “to espouse the interests of a person who
has prevented my son from marrying the lady of his choice, and of mine?”
“Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn, unhappily, has that reason for resenting his
wife’s innocent interference with interests of considerable, importance
to him,” returned Sir Patrick. “I request your ladyship to consider
whether it is desirable--in view of your son’s conduct in the future--to
allow his wife to stand in the doubly perilous relation toward him of
being also a cause of estrangement between his father and himself.”
He had put it with scrupulous caution. But Lady Holchester understood
what he had refrained from saving as well as what he had actually said.
She had hitherto remained standing--she now sat down again. There was a
visible impression produced on her at last.
“In Lord Holchester’s critical state of health,” she answered, “I
decline to take the responsibility of telling him what you have just
told me. My own influence has been uniformly exerted in my son’s
favor--as long as my interference could be productive of any good
result. The time for my interference has passed. Lord Holchester has
altered his will this morning. I was not present; and I have not yet
been informed of what has been done. Even if I knew--”
“Your ladyship would naturally decline,” said Sir Patrick, “to
communicate the information to a stranger.”
“Certainly. At the same time, after what you have said, I do not feel
justified in deciding on this matter entirely by myself. One of Lord
Holchester’s executors is now in the house. There can be no impropriety
in your seeing him--if you wish it. You are at liberty to say, from me,
that I leave it entirely to his discretion to decide what ought to be
done.”
“I gladly accept your ladyship’s proposal.”
Lady Holchester rang the bell at her side.
“Take Sir Patrick Lundie to Mr. Marchwood,” she said to the servant.
Sir Patrick started. The name was familiar to him, as the name of a
friend.
“Mr. Marchwood of Hurlbeck?” he asked.
“The same.”
With that brief answer, Lady Holchester dismissed her visitor. Following
the servant to the other end of the corridor, Sir Patrick was conducted
into a small room--the ante-chamber to the bedroom in which Lord
Holchester lay. The door of communication was closed. A gentleman sat
writing at a table near the window. He rose, and held out his hand, with
a look of surprise, when the servant announced Sir Patrick’s name. This
was Mr. Marchwood.
After the first explanations had been given, Sir Patrick patiently
reverted to the object of his visit to Holchester House. On the first
occasion when he mentioned Anne’s name he observed that Mr. Marchwood
became, from that moment, specially interested in what he was saying.
“Do you happen to be acquainted with the lady?” he asked
“I only know her as the cause of a very strange proceeding, this
morning, in that room.” He pointed to Lord Holchester’s bedroom as he
spoke.
“Are you at liberty to mention what the proceeding was?”
“Hardly--even to an old friend like you--unless I felt it a matter of
duty, on my part, to state the circumstances. Pray go on with what you
were saying to me. You were on the point of telling me what brought you
to this house.”
Without a word more of preface, Sir Patrick told him the news of
Geoffrey’s marriage to Anne.
“Married!” cried Mr. Marchwood. “Are you sure of what you say?”
“I am one of the witnesses of the marriage.”
“Good Heavens! And Lord Holchester’s lawyer has left the house!”
“Can I replace him? Have I, by any chance justified you in telling me
what happened this morning in the next room?”
“Justified me? You have left me no other alternative. The doctors are
all agreed in dreading apoplexy--his lordship may die at any moment.
In the lawyer’s absence, I must take it on myself. Here are the facts.
There is the codicil to Lord Holchester’s Will which is still unsigned.”
“Relating to his second son?”
“Relating to Geoffrey Delamayn, and giving him (when it is once
executed) a liberal provision for life.”
“What is the object in the way of his executing it?”
“The lady whom you have just mentioned to me.”
“Anne Silvester!”
“Anne Silvester--now (as you tell me) Mrs. Geoffrey Delamayn. I can
only explain the thing very imperfectly. There are certain painful
circumstances associated in his lordship’s memory with this lady,
or with some member of her family. We can only gather that he did
something--in the early part of his professional career--which was
strictly within the limits of his duty, but which apparently led to very
sad results. Some days since he unfortunately heard (either through Mrs.
Glenarm or through Mrs. Julius Delamayn) of Miss Silvester’s appearance
at Swanhaven Lodge. No remark on the subject escaped him at the time.
It was only this morning, when the codicil giving the legacy to Geoffrey
was waiting to be executed, that his real feeling in the matter came
out. To our astonishment, he refused to sign it. ‘Find Anne Silvester’
(was the only answer we could get from him); ‘and bring her to my
bedside. You all say my son is guiltless of injuring her. I am lying on
my death-bed. I have serious reasons of my own--I owe it to the memory
of the dead--to assure myself of the truth. If Anne Silvester herself
acquits him of having wronged her, I will provide for Geoffrey. Not
otherwise.’ We went the length of reminding him that he might die before
Miss Silvester could be found. Our interference had but one result.
He desired the lawyer to add a second codicil to the Will--which he
executed on the spot. It directs his executors to inquire into the
relations that have actually existed between Anne Silvester and his
younger son. If we find reason to conclude that Geoffrey has gravely
wronged her, we are directed to pay her a legacy--provided that she is a
single woman at the time.”
“And her marriage violates the provision!” exclaimed Sir Patrick.
“Yes. The codicil actually executed is now worthless. And the other
codicil remains unsigned until the lawyer can produce Miss Silvester. He
has left the house to apply to Geoffrey at Fulham, as the only means at
our disposal of finding the lady. Some hours have passed--and he has not
yet returned.”
“It is useless to wait for him,” said Sir Patrick. “While the lawyer was
on his way to Fulham, Lord Holchester’s son was on his way to Portland
Place. This is even more serious than you suppose. Tell me, what under
less pressing circumstances I should have no right to ask. Apart from
the unexecuted codicil what is Geoffrey Delamayn’s position in the
will?”
“He is not even mentioned in it.”
“Have you got the will?”
Mr. Marchwood unlocked a drawer, and took it out.
Sir Patrick instantly rose from his chair. “No waiting for the lawyer!”
he repeated, vehemently. “This is a matter of life and death. Lady
Holchester bitterly resents her son’s marriage. She speaks and feels as
a friend of Mrs. Glenarm. Do you think Lord Holchester would take the
same view if he knew of it?”