Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by Google Books
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
http://books.google.com/books?id=NTQPAAAAQAAJ.
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
Miss Arnott's
Marriage
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| BY THE SAME AUTHOR |
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| * * * |
| |
| CURIOS |
| ADA VERNHAM, ACTRESS |
| MRS MUSGRAVE AND HER HUSBAND |
| THE MAGNETIC GIRL |
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| * * * |
| |
| John Long, Publisher, London |
|_______________________________|
Miss Arnott's Marriage
By
Richard Marsh
Author of "The Beetle," etc.
London
John Long
13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket
1904
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. ROBERT CHAMPION'S WIFE.
II. THE WOMAN ON THE PAVEMENT.
III. THE HEIRESS ENTERS INTO HER OWN.
IV. THE EARL OF PECKHAM'S PROPOSAL.
V. TRESPASSING.
VI. AN AUTHORITY ON THE LAW OF MARRIAGE.
VII. MR MORICE PRESUMES.
VIII. THE LADY WANDERS.
IX. THE BEECH TREE.
X. THE TALE WHICH WAS TOLD.
XI. THE MAN ON THE FENCE.
XII. WHAT SHE HEARD, SAW AND FOUND.
XIII. AFTERWARDS.
XIV. ON THE HIGH ROAD.
XV. COOPER'S SPINNEY.
XVI. JIM BAKER.
XVII. INJURED INNOCENCE.
XVIII. AT THE FOUR CROSS ROADS.
XIX. THE BUTTONS OFF THE FOILS.
XX. THE SOLICITOR'S CLERK.
XXI. THE "NOTE".
XXII. ERNEST GILBERT.
XXIII. THE TWO MEN.
XXIV. THE SOMNAMBULIST.
XXV. HUGH MORICE EXPLAINS.
XXVI. THE TWO MAIDS.
XXVII. A CONFIDANT.
XXVIII. MRS DARCY SUTHERLAND.
XXIX. SOME PASSAGES OF ARMS.
XXX. MISS ARNOTT IS EXAMINED.
XXXI. THE TWO POLICEMEN.
XXXII. THE HOUSEMAID'S TALE.
XXXIII. ON HIS OWN CONFESSION.
XXXIV. MR DAY WALKS HOME.
XXXV. IN THE LADY'S CHAMBER.
XXXVI. OUT OF SLEEP.
XXXVII. WHAT WAS WRITTEN.
XXXVIII. MISS ARNOTT'S MARRIAGE.
Miss Arnott's Marriage
CHAPTER I
ROBERT CHAMPION'S WIFE
"Robert Champion, you are sentenced to twelve months' hard labour."
As the chairman of the Sessions Court pronounced the words, the
prisoner turned right round in the dock, and glanced towards where he
knew his wife was standing. He caught her eye, and smiled. What
meaning, if any, the smile conveyed, he perhaps knew. She could only
guess. It was possibly intended to be a more careless, a more
light-hearted smile than it in reality appeared. Robert Champion had
probably not such complete control over his facial muscles as he would
have desired. There was a hunted, anxious look about the eyes, a
suggestion of uncomfortable pallor about the whole countenance which
rather detracted from the impression which she had no doubt that he had
intended to make. She knew the man well enough to be aware that nothing
would please him better than that she should suppose that he regarded
the whole proceedings with gay bravado, with complete indifference,
both for the powers that were and for the punishment which they had
meted out to him. But even if the expression on his face had not shown
that the cur in the man had, for the moment, the upper hand, the
unceremonious fashion in which the warders bundled him down the
staircase, and out of sight, would have been sufficient to prevent any
impression being left behind that he had departed from the scene in a
halo of dignity.
As regards his wife, the effect made upon her by the whole proceedings
was an overwhelming consciousness of unbearable shame. When the man
with the cheap good looks was hustled away, as if he were some inferior
thing, the realisation that this was indeed her husband, was more than
she could endure. She reached out with her hand, as if in search of
some support, and, finding none, sank to the floor of the court in a
swoon.
"Poor dear!" said a woman, standing near. "I expect she's something to
do with that scamp of a fellow--maybe she's his wife."
"This sort of thing often is hardest on those who are left behind,"
chimed in a man. "Sometimes it isn't those who are in prison who suffer
most; it's those who are outside."
When, having regained some of her senses, Violet Champion found herself
in the street, she was inclined to call herself hard names for having
gone near the court at all. She had only gone because she feared that
if she stayed away she might not have learned how the thing had ended.
This crime of which Robert Champion had been guilty was such a petty,
such a paltry thing, that, so far as she knew, the earlier stages of
the case had not been reported at all. One or other of the few score
journals which London issues might have noticed it at some time,
somewhere. If so, it had escaped her observation. Her knowledge of
London papers was limited. They contained little which was likely to be
of interest to her. She hardly knew where to look for such comments.
The idea was not to be borne that she should be left in ignorance as to
how the case had gone, as to what had become of Robert Champion.
Anything rather than that. Her want of knowledge would have been to her
as a perpetual nightmare. She would have scarcely dared to show herself
in the streets for fear of encountering him.
Yet, now that it was all over, and she knew the worst--or best--her
disposition was to blame herself for having strayed within the tainted
purlieus of that crime-haunted court. She felt as if the atmosphere of
the place had infected her with some loathsome bacillus. She also
thought it possible that he might have misconstrued the meaning of her
presence. He was in error if he had supposed that it was intended as a
mark of sympathy. In her complete ignorance of such matters she had no
notion as to the nature of the punishment to which he had rendered
himself liable. If he were sentenced to a long term of penal servitude
she simply wished to know it, that was all. In such a situation any
sort of certainty was better than none. But sympathy! If he had been
sentenced to be hung, her dominant sensation would have been one of
relief. The gallows would have been a way of escape.
No one seeing the tall, handsome girl strolling listlessly along the
street would have connected her with such a sordid tragedy. But it
seemed to her that the stigma of Robert Champion's shame was branded
large all over her, that passers-by had only to glance at her to
perceive at once the depths into which she had fallen.
And they were depths. Only just turned twenty-one; still a girl, and
already a wife who was no wife. For what sort of wife can she be called
who is mated to a convicted felon? And Robert Champion was one of
nature's felons; a rogue who preferred to be a rogue, who loved crooked
ways because of their crookedness, who would not run straight though
the chance were offered him. He was a man who, to the end of his life,
though he might manage to keep his carcase out of the actual hands of
the law, would render himself continually liable to its penalties.
Twelve months ago he was still a stranger. The next twelve months he
was to spend in gaol. When his term of imprisonment was completed would
their acquaintance be recommenced?
At the thought of such a prospect the dizziness which had prostrated
her in court returned. At present she dared not dwell on it.
She came at last to the house in Percy Street in which she had hired a
lodging. A single room, at the top of the house, the rent of which,
little though it was, was already proving a severe drain on her limited
resources. From the moment in which, at an early hour in the morning,
her husband had been dragged out of bed by policemen, she had
relinquished his name. There was nothing else of his she could
relinquish. The rent for the rooms they occupied was in arrears;
debts were due on every side. Broadly speaking, they owed for
everything--always had done since the day they were married. There were
a few articles of dress, and of personal adornment, which she felt that
she was reasonably justified in considering her own. Most of these she
had turned into cash, and had been living--or starving--on the proceeds
ever since. The occupant of the "top floor back" was known as Miss
Arnott. She had returned to her maiden name. She paid six shillings a
week for the accommodation she received, which consisted of the bare
lodging, and what--ironically--was called "attendance." Her rent had
been settled up to yesterday, and she was still in possession of
twenty-seven shillings.
When she reached her room she became conscious that she was
hungry--which was not strange, since she had eaten nothing since breakfast,
which had consisted of a cup of tea and some bread and butter. But of
late she had been nearly always hungry. Exhausted, mentally and bodily,
she sank on to the side of the bed, which made a more comfortable seat
than the only chair which the room contained; and thought and thought
and thought. If only certain puzzles could be solved by dint of sheer
hard thinking! But her brain was in such a state of chaos that she
could only think confusedly, in a vicious circle, from which her
mind was incapable of escaping. To only one conclusion could she
arrive--that it would be a very good thing if she might be permitted to
lie down on the bed, just as she was, and stay there till she was dead.
For her life was at an end already at twenty-one. She had put a period
to it when she had suffered herself to become that man's wife.
She was still vaguely wondering if it might not be possible for her to
take advantage of some such means of escape when she was startled by a
sudden knocking at the door. Taken unawares, she sprang up from the
bed, and, without pausing to consider who might be there, she cried,--
"Come in!"
Her invitation was accepted just as she was beginning to realise that
it had been precipitately made. The door was opened; a voice--a
masculine voice--inquired,--
"May I see Miss Arnott?"
The speaker remained on the other side of the open door, in such a
position that, from where she was, he was still invisible.
"What do you want? Who are you?" she demanded.
"My name is Gardner--Edward Gardner. I occupy the dining-room. If you
will allow me to come in I will explain the reason of my intrusion. I
think you will find my explanation a sufficient one."
She hesitated. The fact that the speaker was a man made her at once
distrustful. Since her marriage day she had been developing a
continually increasing distaste for everything masculine--seeing in
every male creature a possible replica of her husband. The moment, too,
was unpropitious. Yet, since the stranger was already partly in the
room, she saw no alternative to letting him come a little farther.
"Come in," she repeated.
There entered an undersized, sparely-built man, probably between forty
and fifty years of age. He was clean-shaven, nearly bald--what little
hair he had was iron grey--and was plainly but neatly dressed in black.
He spoke with an air of nervous deprecation, as if conscious that he
was taking what might be regarded as a liberty, and was anxious to show
cause why it should not be resented.
"As I said just now, I occupy the dining-rooms and my name is Gardner.
I am a solicitor's clerk. My employers are Messrs Stacey, Morris &
Binns, of Bedford Row. Perhaps you are acquainted with the firm?"
He paused as if for a reply. She was still wondering more and more what
the man could possibly be wanting; oppressed by the foreboding, as he
mentioned that he was a solicitor's clerk, that he was a harbinger of
further trouble. With her law and trouble were synonyms. He went on,
his nervousness visibly increasing. He was rendered uneasy by the
statuesque immobility of her attitude, by the strange fashion in which
she kept her eyes fixed on his face. It was also almost with a sense of
shock that he perceived how young she was, and how beautiful.
"It is only within the last few minutes that I learned, from the
landlady, that your name was Arnott. It is a somewhat unusual name;
and, as my employers have been for some time searching for a person
bearing it, I beg that you will allow me to ask you one or two
questions. Of course, I understand that my errand will quite probably
prove to be a futile one; but, at the same time, let me assure you that
any information you may give will only be used for your advantage; and
should you, by a strange coincidence, turn out to be a member of the
family for whom search has been made, you will benefit by the discovery
of the fact. May I ask if, to your knowledge, you ever had a relation
named Septimus Arnott?"
"He was my uncle. My father's name was Sextus Arnott. My grandfather
had seven sons and no daughters. He was an eccentric man, I believe--I
never saw him; and he called them all by Latin numerals. My father was
the sixth son, Sextus; the brother to whom you refer, the seventh and
youngest, Septimus."
"Dear, dear! how extraordinary! almost wonderful!"
"I don't know why you should call it wonderful. It was perhaps curious;
but, in this world, people do curious things."
"Quite so!--exactly!--not a doubt of it! It was the coincidence which I
was speaking of as almost wonderful, not your grandfather's method of
naming his sons; I should not presume so far. And where, may I further
be allowed to ask, is your father now, and his brothers?"
"They are all dead."
"All dead! Dear! dear!"
"My father's brothers all died when they were young men. My father
himself died three years ago--at Scarsdale, in Cumberland. My mother
died twelve months afterwards. I am their only child."
"Their only child! You must suffer me to say, Miss Arnott, that it
almost seems as if the hand of God had brought you to this house and
moved me to intrude myself upon you. I take it that you can furnish
proofs of the correctness of what you say?"
"Of course I can prove who I am, and who my father was, and his
father."
"Just so; that is precisely what I mean--exactly. Miss Arnott, Mr
Stacey, the senior partner in our firm, resides in Pembridge Gardens,
Bayswater. I have reason to believe that, if I go at once, I shall find
him at home. When I tell him what I have learnt I am sure that he will
come to you at once. May I ask you to await his arrival? I think I can
assure you that you shall not be kept waiting more than an hour."
"What can the person of whom you speak have to say to me?"
"As I have told you, I am only a servant. It is not for me to betray my
employer's confidence; but so much I may tell you--if you are the niece
of the Septimus Arnott for whom we are acting you are a very fortunate
young lady. And, in any case, I do assure you that you will not regret
affording Mr Stacey an opportunity of an immediate interview."
Mr Gardner went; the girl consented to await his return. Almost as soon
as he was gone the landlady--Mrs Sayers--paid her a visit. It soon
appeared that she had been prompted by the solicitor's clerk.
"I understand, Miss Arnott, from Mr Gardner, who has had my dining-room
now going on for five years, that his chief governor, Mr Stacey, is
coming to call on you, as it were, at any moment. If you'd like to
receive him in my sitting-room, I'm sure you're very welcome; and you
shall be as private as you please."
The girl eyed the speaker. Hitherto civility had not been her strongest
point. Her sudden friendly impulse could only have been induced by some
very sufficient reason of her own. The girl declined her offer. Mrs
Sayers became effusive, almost insistent.
"I am sure, my dear, that you will see for yourself that it's not quite
the thing for a young lady to receive a gentleman, and maybe two, in a
room like this, which she uses for sleeping. You're perfectly welcome
to my little sitting-room for half an hour, or even more, where you'll
be most snug and comfortable; and as for making you a charge, or
anything of that sort, I shouldn't think of it, so don't let yourself
be influenced by any fears of that kind."
But the girl would have nothing to do with Mrs Sayers' sitting-room.
This woman had regarded her askance ever since she had entered the
house, had treated her with something worse than incivility. Miss
Arnott was not disposed, even in so trifling a matter, to place herself
under an obligation to her now. Mrs Sayers was difficult to convince;
but the girl was rid of her at last, and was alone to ask herself what
this new turn of fortune's wheel might portend. On this already
sufficiently eventful day, of what new experiment was she to be made
the subject? What was this stranger coming to tell her about Septimus
Arnott--the uncle from whom her father had differed, as he himself was
wont to phrase it, on eleven points out of ten? She was, it appeared,
to be asked certain questions. Good; she would be prepared to answer
them, up to a certain point. But where, exactly, was that point? And
what would happen after it was reached?
She was ready and willing to give a full and detailed account of all
that had ever happened to her--up to the time of her coming to London.
And how much afterwards? She did not, at present, know how it could be
done; but if, by any means whatever, the thing were possible, she meant
to conceal--from the whole world!--the shameful fact that she was
Robert Champion's wife. Nothing, save the direst unescapable pressure,
should ever induce her to even admit that she had known the man. That
entire episode should be erased from her life, as if it had never been,
if it were feasible. And she would make it feasible.
The matter she had at present to consider was, how much--or how
little--she should tell her coming visitors.