|Fairchild became a frequent visitor at our house, and an ever-welcome
one. His good looks, his good sense, his droll humour, his honesty, his
high spirits, made him an extremely pleasant companion. We all liked him
cordially; we were always glad to see him. I told him that if pot-luck
had no terrors for him, he must feel at liberty to drop in and dine with
us whenever his inclination prompted and his leisure would permit. He
took me at my word, as I meant he should; and from that time forth he
broke bread with us never seldomer than one evening out of the seven.
At the end of a month, or perhaps six weeks, Josephine said to me, “Do
you think it well, Leonard, that two young people of opposite sexes
should be thrown together as frequently and as closely as Mr. Fairchild
and Miriam are?”
“Why not?” questioned I.
“The reasons are obvious. How would you be pleased if they should fall
in love?”
“The Lord forbid! But I see no danger of their doing so.”
“There is always danger when a beautiful young girl and a spirited young
man see too much of each other.”
“But Fairchild pays no more attention to Miriam than he does to you
or to me. They are never left alone together. They are simply good
friends.”
“As yet, perhaps, yes. But time can change friendship into love.
He begins, you must remember, with the liveliest and most profound
admiration for her; she, with the deepest sense of gratitude towards
him. True, as you say, they are never left alone together--not exactly
alone, that is. But are they not virtually alone when you and I are
seated here in the library over our backgammon-board, and he and she are
therein the drawing-room at the piano?”
“But, my dear sister, the two rooms are as one. The folding doors are
never closed.”
“True again: we are all within sight and hearing of one another. But
as a matter of fact, you and I give no heed to them, nor do they to us.
There are certain laws of nature which should not be ignored.”
“Well, what do you want me to do?” I enquired rather testily. “Shall
I forbid Fairchild the house? Forbid my house to the man who saved my
life?”
“Oh, no, of course not. You know I could not wish such a thing as that.
Mr. Fairchild's claims upon our gratitude must never be forgotten.
And besides, I like him, and I enjoy his visits as heartily as you do.
Only----”
“Only what? If I don't forbid him the house, how can I prevent him and
Miriam meeting? Shall I direct her to keep her room whenever he comes?”
“I do think, brother, it would be well if she were not always present
when he comes. If you wish to hear my honest opinion, I believe it is
to see her that he comes so often, and not to see a couple of sober,
elderly folk like you and me. I cannot think that you and I are so
irresistibly attractive as to draw him to our house as frequently as
once or twice a week. However, I only wished to call your attention to
the matter. It is for you now to act as your best judgment dictates.”
“Well, then, my good Josephine, I shall not act at all. There is no
occasion for my acting. I should be most unjust and unreasonable to
prevent these two young people getting what innocent pleasure they can
from each other's friendship and society, simply because in the abstract
it is true that they are not incapable of falling in love. I might, as
reasonably enjoin Miriam against ever going out of doors, because it is
possible that in the street she might be run over; against ever drinking
a glass of water, because it is possible that the water might contain a
disease-germ. You have conjured up a chimera. Your fears are those of
a too imaginative woman. When I perceive the first symptom of anything
sentimental existing between them, it will be time enough to act.”
“Perhaps then, Leonard, it will be too late,” retorted Josephine, and
with that she dropped the subject.
*****
Well, of course, as the reader has foreseen, that very complication
which my sister feared and warned me of, and which I refused to
consider--of course that very complication came to pass. Fairchild fell
in love with Miriam, and Miriam reciprocated his unfortunate passion.
Otherwise his name would never have been introduced into this narrative;
or, rather, there would have been no such narrative for me to recite.
In June, 1888, Josephine, Miriam, and I went down to the little village
of Ogunquit, on the coast of Wade, there to rusticate until the autumn.
Toward the end of July, Fairchild joined us there, pursuant to an
arrangement made before we left town; and it was on the evening of the
15th of August that he requested a few minutes' private talk with me,
and then informed me of the condition of affairs.
“I love your niece with all my heart and soul, Dr. Benary. Indeed, I
have loved her from the day I first became acquainted with her--the day
of that blessed Blizzard. I should like to know, who could help loving
her: she is so good and so intelligent, to say nothing of her beauty.
To-day I emptied my heart out to her, and she has made me the happiest
man in Christendom by signifying her willingness to become my wife. So,
now, it only remains for you to give us your approval and benediction. I
have an income sufficient to keep the wolf from the door, over and above
my earnings; and for the rest, you know me well enough to judge of my
eligibility for yourself.”
What answer could I give him?
Putting aside altogether, as I was bound to do, the selfish
consideration that her marriage would deprive us of the treasure and the
blessing of our old age, and leave our home desolate and forsaken--could
I in honour, could I in justice to the man, permit him to make Miriam
Benary his wife, without first imparting to him so much as I myself knew
concerning Louise Massarte?
But the latter was a thing which, I was persuaded, I had no manner of
right to do. The secret of her connection with Louise Massarte, Miriam
herself was ignorant of. Surely, no other human being had the shadow
of a claim to learn it Miriam Benary had never even heard of Louise
Massarte. Louise Massarte was dead and abolished utterly. Therefore, to
saddle Miriam, in her youth and her innocence, with that dead woman's
name and history, to put upon her the burden of the dead woman's sin
and shame, it would be to do her not only a most grievous, but a most
unwarrantable, wrong.
No, I could not, I would not, I must not, tell Fairchild the story of
Louise Massarte's annihilation, and the consequent existence of Miriam
Benary. Yet how could I say, “Yes, you may marry her,” and keep that
story to myself? What excuse could I invent wherewith to ease my
conscience, if I should practise such deceit upon him in an issue
that involved his dearest and most vital interests? _Suppressio veri,
suggestio falsi_. I should be as bad as any liar if I gave my consent
to their marriage, while allowing him to remain in error respecting
the truth about his bride--truth which, if made known to him, might
radically modify his intentions.
But furthermore, and on the other hand, suppose I should say in reply
to his demand, “No, you cannot marry her”--what right had I to say
that? What reason could I allege in justification of my refusal? Not the
actual reason; for that would be to tell him the very story which, I
had made up my mind, I must not and should not tell. And if I alleged a
fictitious reason, I should simply escape the devil to plunge into the
deep sea--I should simply exchange a lie for a falsehood. These young
people loved each other. Therefore, to set up impediments to their
union, would be to impose upon each of them endless unmerited pain. What
right had I to do that? It was a vexed and difficult quandary. There
were strong arguments for and strong arguments against either course out
of it.
“Well, Dr. Benary, you do not answer me,” Fairchild said.
“I can't answer you. You must give me time--time to consider, to consult
my sister, to make up my mind.”
We had been strolling together, he and I, up and down the sands. Now
we returned to the inn. Josephine was seated on the verandah, near the
entrance.
“Ah, Leonard, at last!” she exclaimed, starting up the moment she caught
sight of me. “I have been waiting for you.”
I accompanied her to her room.
“Well,” she began, as soon as the door was closed behind us, “the worst
has happened, as I suppose you know. Mr. Fairchild has spoken to you,
has he not?”
“Ah! Then you, too, know about it?” queried I.
“Miriam has just told me the whole story.”
“What does she say?”
“That Mr. Fairchild has asked her to be his wife; that she loves him,
and has accepted him--conditionally, that is, upon your approval.”
“She says she loves him?”
“She says she loves him with all her heart. She says she is as happy
as the day is long. She doesn't dream that you will have any hesitation
about consenting.”
For a little while we were silent. At last, “Well, what are you going to
do?” my sister asked.
“That is what I wish to advise with you about.”
“Have you given any answer to Mr. Fair-child?”
“I have said to him that I must take time for reflection, and for
consultation with you.”
“Well?”
“Well, it is a most difficult dilemma.”
“But you have got to make up your mind, one way or the other; and that
speedily. It is cruel to keep them in suspense.”
“I know that, my dear sister.”
“Do you mean to say yes or no?”
“That's just it. That's just the difficulty, isn't it?”
“But it is a difficulty which must be solved. You will have to say one
of the two.”
“How dare I say yes?”
“They love each other.”
“What right have I to say no?”
“It is their life-happiness which is at stake.”
“Exactly, exactly; therefore, if I say no, it will be to condemn
them both to great misery, and misery which they have done nothing to
deserve.”
“It certainly will--it will break Miriam's heart. And what reason
can you give them for saying no? It will seem all the harder to them,
because it will seem so unreasonable and unnecessary, so unjustifiable
and wanton. They will feel that it is an act of wilful cruelty, on the
part of a selfish, tyrannical old man.”
“I know it, I know it,” I groaned. “And yet, on the other hand, if I say
yes----”
“If you say yes, you will assure to them the greatest happiness their
hearts can desire.”
“But how dare I say yes without sharing with Fairchild the secret of
Miriam's origin? Without telling him the story of Louise Massarte?”
“Surely, you cannot purpose doing that! You cannot mean to confide to
another knowledge affecting her which she herself is unaware of!”
“No, of course not. But there's just the rub. How, without doing that,
how can I honourably permit him to make her his wife?”
“It is a choice of evils: to break their hearts or to suppress certain
facts. You must choose the lesser evil of the two.”
“That is very easily said. But the trouble is to determine which of the
two evils _is_ the lesser. Deceit or cruelty?”
“Forgive me, my dear brother, for reminding you of it: but if you had
listened to my warning in the first place, this painful alternative
would never have come about.”
“What could I do? You yourself agreed with me that I couldn't forbid
Fairchild the house. And so long as he had the run of the house, how
could I prevent him and Miriam meeting? And meeting as frequently as
they did, I suppose it was inevitable that they should come to love each
other. There's no use reproaching me--no use regretting the past. What
was bound to happen has happened. That's the whole truth of it.”
“I did not intend to reproach you, Leonard. I merely wished to say that,
since, in a manner, you have been responsible for the state of things
which has come to pass--since, in other words, you neglected to take
such measures as would have prevented that state of things from coming
to pass--it seems as if now you were under a sort of moral obligation
not to stand between them and their happiness. The time for action
was the outset. You did not act then. It seems as if you had thereby
forfeited your right to act. Since you have allowed things to go so far,
it seems as if you had no right to forbid their going farther.”
“That is to say, you counsel me to consent.”
“_I_ do not see how you can do otherwise now. It is too late for you to
step in and separate them.”
“And the point of honour? I am to suppress the truth? I am to stand
still and suffer Fair-child to make Miriam his wife, in ignorance of
certain facts which, if he were aware of them, might totally change his
feeling? How can I do that? It would lie for ever on my conscience.”
“So far from totally changing his feeling I do not believe those facts,
if Fairchild knew them, would weigh with him so much as one hair's
weight. They would not, if his love for Miriam is love in any vital
sense of the word. He would agree with us in looking upon her as an
entirely different person from Louise Massarte. However, he must not
know, he must not even dream those facts. Therefore, as I said before,
it is a choice of evils. The negative evil of suppressing the truth
does not seem to me so great as the positive evil of inflicting pain.
Besides, after all, is it not Miriam's prerogative to decide this matter
for herself? What right have you or I to do anything but stand aside,
with hands off, and let her choose her husband without constraint or
interference? She is of full age and sound mind; and our relationship
with her, which would give us our pretence for interfering, is, as you
know, only a fiction She could not wish for a better husband than Mr.
Fairchild. No woman could.”
“What you say, my dear Josephine, and what you suggest, are Jesuitry,
pure and simple.”
“There come emergencies in which Jesuitry is the only feasible policy.”
A long silence followed. In the end, “Where is Miriam now?” I asked.
“She was in her room when I left her.”
“Will you find her, and send her to me? Or rather, bring her. You must
be present, too, to lend me countenance--to give me moral support in
the grossly immoral action which I am going to perpetrate. I feel like a
pickpocket. I need the encouragement of my accomplice.”
Josephine went off. In three minutes she returned, leading Miriam by the
hand.
Miriam's cheeks and throat turned crimson as she saw me; and she dropped
her eyes, and stood still, waiting.
“My dear----” I called, holding out my hands.
She came to me, and put her arms around my neck, and buried her face
upon my shoulder.
“So this young rascal of a sculptor has asked you to be his wife?” I
began.
“Yes,” she murmured, scarcely louder than a whisper.
“And so--the double-faced rogue!--it was not, as we had supposed,
because of his great fondness for your aunt and uncle, that he became
a frequenter of our camp, but because he had covetous designs upon our
chief treasure!”
“Oh! but he is very fond of my aunt and uncle, too,” she protested.
“Is he, indeed! Well, what answer have you given him?”
“I said--I said I--I said I liked him.”
“Ah! I see. You said you liked him. That was rather irrelevant, wasn't
it?--a little evasive? He asked you to become his wife, and you said you
liked him. Did you give him no more categorical an answer than that?”
“I said he must ask you.”
“Ask me? Ask me what? It isn't I that he wants to marry. And I wouldn't
have him, anyhow. Why should he ask me?”
“You know what I mean. I told him I could not marry without your
consent.”
“And suppose I should withhold my consent?”
“I should be very unhappy.”
“But I don't really see what my consent matters. It's for you to decide.
You're of full age. I have no right to forbid you. Now, then, what are
you going to do?”
“I said I would be his wife, unless you wished otherwise.”
“Well, I suppose you must keep your word. The poor fellow is waiting on
the anxious seat to learn his fate. I really think, instead of tarrying
here, you ought to seek him out, and put an end to his suspense.”
She hugged me and kissed me, and said some very jubilant and some very
complimentary things; and then she began to cry, and then she laughed
through her tears; and at last she went off to find her lover, and to
convey to him the joyful tidings.
* * * * *
They were married on the 15th day of December, and that same afternoon
they set sail for Havre aboard the steamship _La Touraine_, to pass six
months abroad. Anxiously did Josephine and I count the days that must
elapse before the post would bring us their first letter; and little did
we dream what ominous news that letter would contain.