And then began the persecution which everyone must expect who is
unfortunate enough to attain to a position of fame or its modern
equivalent, notoriety.
The month was August, and no war worth the salary of a special
correspondent was going on, so the newspapers were only too pleased to
open their columns to the communications of the usual autumnal faddists,
and the greatest of these is the marriage faddist. “The Curious
Case” formed the comprehensive heading to a daily page in one paper,
containing letter after letter, from “A Spinster,” “One Who Was
Deceived,” “Once Bitten Twice Shy,” “True Marriage,” “I Forbid the
Banns,” and the rest of them. Without actually commenting on the case,
these distinguished writers pointed out day by day how the various
points in the curious case of Marcus Blaydon and Priscilla Wadhurst bore
out the various contentions of the various faddists. Now this would not
have mattered so much but for the fact that it was the most ridiculous
of these letters which, after a column’s advocacy of the principles
of free love or some other form of profligacy, such as the “Spiritual
Union,” or the “Soul to Soul” wedding, invariably wound up by a
declaration that “all honour should be given to that brave little woman,
who has thrown in her lot with the man she loves, to stand or fall by
the principles which she has so fearlessly advocated”--these principles
being, of course, the very principles whose enunciation formed the
foundation of the ridiculous letter.
The most senseless of all these letters was signed “Two Souls with but
a Single Thought;” and the superscription seemed an appropriate one,
for the writers did not seem to have more than a single thought between
them, and this one was erroneous.
Of course, after a time Priscilla became almost reconciled to the
position of being the Topic of the holiday season, though earlier
she found it very hard to bear. At first she had boldly faced the
newspapers; but soon she found that the thought of what she had read
during the day was interfering with her rest at night. She quickly
became aware of the fact that persecution is hydra-headed, and every
heading is in large capitals. She made up her mind that she would never
open another newspaper, and it was as well that she adhered to this
resolution; for after some days the American organs, as yellow as
jaundice and as nasty, began to arrive, and Jack saw that they were
quite dreadful. They commented freely upon the “case,” being outside
the jurisdiction of the English courts, and they commented largely upon
incidents which they themselves had invented to bear out their own very
frankly expressed views regarding the shameless profligacy of the landed
gentry of England, and the steadily increasing immorality of the English
House of Commons. On the showing of these newspapers, Mr. John Wingfield
was typical of both; he had succeeded in combining the profligacy of
the one with the immorality of the other; and he certainly could not but
admit that the stories of his life which they invented and offered to
their readers, fully bore out their contention, that, if the public life
of the States was a whirlpool, that of England was a cesspool.
It was only natural that the accredited representative of so much
old-world iniquity should feel rather acutely the responsibilities
of the position to which he was assigned; but he had been through the
States more than once and he had also been in the Malay Archipelago,
and had found how closely assimilated were the offensive elements in
the weapons of the two countries. The stinkpot of the Malays had its
equivalent in the Yellow Press of the United States; but neither of the
two did much actual harm to the person against whom they were directed.
If a man has only enough strength of mind to disregard the stinkpot
he does not find himself greatly demoralised by his experience of its
nastiness, and if he only ignores the “pus” of the Yellow Press no one
else will pay any attention to its discharges.
He burned the papers, having taken care that Priscilla never had a
chance of looking at any one of the batch. He was in no way sensitive;
but now and again he felt tempted to rush off with Priscilla to some
place where they could escape for ever from this horror of publicity
which was besetting them. He did not mind being made the subject of
leading articles, if it was his incapacity as an orator or his ignorance
of the political standpoint that was being assailed; but this intrusion
upon his private life was as distasteful to him as it would be for
anyone to see one’s dressing-room operations made the subject of a
cinematograph display.
How could he feel otherwise, when almost daily he could espy
strangers--men with knapsacks and women with veils (mostly green),
all of them carrying walking sticks--coming halfway up the avenue and
exchanging opinions as to the best point from which the house could be
snapshotted? Such strangers were no more infrequent than the visits of
men on motors--all sorts of motors, from the obsolete tri-car to the 60
h.p. F.I.A.T. He was obliged to give orders at the lodge gates that on
no pretence was a motor to be allowed to pass on to the avenue, and that
bicycling strangers, as well as pedestrians with kodaks, were also to be
excluded. But in spite of these orders, scarcely a day went by without
bringing a contingent of outsiders to the park; he believed that
excursion trains were run to Framsby solely to give the curious a chance
of catching a glimpse of the lady who figured as the heroine of “The
Curious Case” column of the great daily paper.
But as far as Framsby itself was concerned, it did not contribute
largely to the material of the nuisance. The truth was that the “sets”
of Framsby, who had for some days made the road to the Manor suggest a
picture of the retreat of the French from Moscow, owing to their
anxiety to leave cards upon the young couple, now stood aghast at the
information conveyed to them by the newspapers that Mrs. Jack Wingfield
was not really Mrs. Jack Wingfield. They stood aghast, and held up
their hands as if they were obeying the imperative order of a highwayman
rather than the righteous impulse of outraged propriety. Some of them,
who, through the strain put upon the livery stables, had been compelled
to postpone their visit until a more convenient season, now affirmed
that they had had their doubts respecting the marriage all along. There
was some consultation among the “sets” as to the possibility of having
their visits cancelled, as now and again a presentation at Court was
cancelled. Would it not be possible to get back their cards? they
wondered. The baser sort had thoughts of sending in the livery stables
bill to Mr. Jack Wingfield.
But before a fortnight had passed it became plain to Jack and Priscilla
that they were not going to remain without sympathetic visitors.
Priscilla got a letter from Mrs. Bowlby-Sutherst--a vivacious letter,
and a delightfully worldly one into the bargain. The writer stated her
intention of coming to lunch at the Manor House the next day, and of
bringing a fire escape with her to allow of her getting in by one of the
windows if she were refused admission by the door. And when she came and
was admitted without the need for the display of any ingenuity on her
part, she proved a most amusing visitor, showing no reticence whatever
in regard to the “case,” and ridiculing the claims of Marcus Blaydon to
conjugal rights, after the way he had behaved. Of course everyone with
any sense acknowledged, she affirmed, that the marriage was between Jack
and Priscilla.
When she had gone away Priscilla wondered if there was anything in what
she had said on this point; and Jack replied that he was afraid that
Mrs. Bowlby-Sutherst was too notorious as a patron of notoriety for her
opinion to have much weight. But as things turned out, that was
just where he was wrong, for within the week several other ladies of
considerable importance--county importance--called at the Manor, and
were admitted. These were people who owned London houses and had a
premonition that next season Mrs. Wingfield--they were sure that
she would be Mrs. Wingfield by then--would be looked on as the most
interesting figure in the world of drawing-rooms; and Priscilla found
them very nice indeed, referring to her “case” as if it were one of the
most amusing jests of the autumn season. They showed no reluctance in
talking about its funniest features--its funniest features were just
those which a rigid disciplinarian would have called its most serious
features--and they promised faithfully that when she should appear in
the court they would be present to offer her their support--their moral
support. They seemed quite downhearted when she explained to them how
it was her hope that the arbitrament of the Divorce Division would be
avoided by a decree of a judge on the question of nullity. They had
quite set their hearts on the Divorce Court, and had in their eye
a toilet scheme which they felt sure would be in sympathy with the
_entourage_ of that apartment, and to which they thought they might be
trusted to do justice.
But as the social position of these visitors was among the highest in
the county, Priscilla began to feel that there was no chance of her
becoming isolated even at the Manor House. The reasonableness of her
attitude appealed, she saw, to some reasonable people. She had great
hopes that it would appeal as well to one or more of His Majesty’s
judges when the time came.
And she was not neglected by her dear friend Rosa Cafifyn; but this
young woman came to her unaccompanied by her mother. The Caffyn
household was divided against itself on this vexed subject of
Priscilla’s attitude. Mrs. Caffyn, who had never encouraged her
daughter’s friendship for Priscilla Wadhurst, was aghast at the
publicity which her daughter’s friend had achieved.
“She was always getting herself talked about,” she remarked. “First
there was that affair with the prince; everyone was talking about her
speaking to him in French--in French, mind--for more than an hour.”
(Mrs. Caffyn seemed to have acquired the impression that a conversation
in French could scarcely fail to possess some of the elements of the
dialogue in a French vaudeville, and she had heard enough about that
form of composition to make her distrustful of its improving qualities.)
“And then,” she went on, “there came all that horrid business about her
marriage--the arrest of the man, you know, and all that. The next thing
was the trial, where her name was mentioned in the hearing of all the
common people--witnesses and people of that class--in the court. Later
on there was the heroic drowning of the man, and then her marriage to
Mr. Wingfield within a few months, and the electioneering business--I
really think that she should have been more discreet than to get herself
talked about so frequently. As for her present escapade, I can only say
that it seems to me to be the crowning indiscretion of her life.”
But the Reverend Mr. Caffyn, who had been talking to his patroness, Mrs.
Bowlby-Sutherst, about Priscilla, was disposed to take the view of an
easy-going looker-on at the world and its ways from a lesser altitude
than that of his pulpit; and he smiled at Priscilla’s resolution to
remain at the Manor. He did not think that it mattered much just then.
Had she not married young Wingfield in good faith, and had they not been
going about together ever since? he asked. He had in his mind, though
his wife did not know it, the saying of the wicked witty Frenchwoman
who had accepted the legend of the King’s making quite a promenade when
deprived of his head, on the plea that, after all “_c’est le premier pas
qui coûte_.” And so his daughter had no hesitation in paying her visit to
the Manor.
It was when she was going through the gates that she recollected how
Priscilla had talked to her upon that morning long ago at this same
place. What had she said? Was it not that if she were to love a man
truly she would not allow any considerations of morality or any other
convention to keep her apart from him?
Rosa wondered if there really was anything in the theory which was held
by some people, to the effect that sometimes a judgment followed
hard upon the utterance of a thoughtless phrase. She wondered if the
publicity in which Priscilla was now moving had been sent to her as a
punishment for her impulsive words.
Perhaps it was the atmospheric envelope, so to speak, of this thought
which remained hanging about her in the house and prevented her visit
to her dear friend from being all that she expected it to be. It was of
course a delightful reunion; but somehow Priscilla did not seem to be
just the same as she had been long ago.
With these variations of visitors and with plenty to occupy her mind and
her hands Priscilla found the weeks to go by rapidly enough. She took
care to be constantly occupied, by undertaking the reorganization of
the dairy in connection with the home farm, and she had no difficulty
in reviving Jack’s interest in the scheme for introducing electric
power for the lighting of the house and for the lightening of labour in
whatever department of the household labour was employed. An expert on
dynamos was summoned from Manchester, and his opinion bore out all that
Priscilla had said to Jack on this interesting enterprise; and before a
fortnight had passed the details of the scheme had been decided on and
estimates were being prepared for the carrying out of the work.
In addition to her obvious duties Priscilla was making herself
indispensable to Jack’s mother in her long and tedious illness, reading
to her and sitting with her for hours every day. It was, however, when
Jack was alone with his mother one evening that she laid her hand on
his, saying:
“My dear boy, I had my fears at one time for the step you were taking;
but now I can only thank you with all my heart for having given me a
daughter after my own heart. I have, as you know, always longed for a
daughter, and my longing is now fulfilled with a completeness that I
never looked for. She is the best woman in the world, Jack--the best
woman for you.”
“I hope that I shall be able to make her as happy as she has made me,”
said he.
“Ah, that is the very point on which I wished to speak to you,” said the
mother. “I wonder if you have noticed---if you have thought that she is
quite as happy as we could wish her to be. A shadow--no, not quite so
much as a shadow, but still something--have I been alone in noticing
it?--something like a shadow upon her now and then.”
Jack was slightly startled. He had taken good care that no newspaper
containing an allusion to the “curious case” which was exciting the
attention of all England and calling for immediate attention on the
other side of the Atlantic as well, should get into his mother’s hands;
but now that she was approaching convalescence, he knew that however
vigilant he might be in this respect, an unlucky chance would make her
aware of all that had happened since the beginning of the attack that
had prostrated her. He had been living in dread of such a catastrophe
all the previous week, and now he perceived that it was imminent.
Priscilla had not been able to play her part so perfectly as to prevent
the quick feeling--the motherly apprehension--of the elder lady from
suggesting something to her.
“It would be the worst day of my life if any cloud were to come over her
path,” he said. “I hope that if anything of the sort were to happen,
it would only be a temporary thing--something that we should look back
upon, wondering that it should ever have disturbed our peace.”
“What!” she cried. “You have noticed it?--there is something!--you know
what it is?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, with an affectation of carelessness “there has
been something--a trifle really--nothing of the nature of a difference
between Priscilla and myself, but----”
“I am glad you can assure me of that--that it is not the result of any
difference between you,” said she. “I know that the first few months of
married life are usually the most trying to both the man and the woman;
but you can assure me that it is not----”
“I can give you such an assurance,” he replied. “There has not been
so much as a suspicion of difference between us in thought since she
entered this house--in fact, since she became my wife.”
“What is the matter, then? May I not know, Jack? Don’t tell me if it is
anything which concerns Priscilla and you only.”
“Dearest mother, there is nothing that can concern us without being a
matter of concern to you. Still, this one thing--of course you must know
it; but what I am afraid of is that you will attach too much importance
to it--that you will not see how it may be easily cleared away.”
“You will tell me all about it, Jack, and I promise you not to think of
it except in the way you say I should.”
“It really is quite a simple thing--five minutes should clear it away
for ever; and so far from its standing between Priscilla and myself, it
will, I am sure, only draw us closer to each other.”
He was not an adept in the art of “breaking it gently”; he had never had
need to practise it. He felt that this, his first attempt, was but an
indifferent success; he could see that so far from soothing her, his
preliminary ambling around the subject was exciting her. And yet he
feared to come out with a bare statement of the facts. He was snipping
the end off a cigar; somehow he was clumsy over the operation; he could
not understand why until he found that he was trying to force into the
chamfered cutter the wrong end.
And his mother was noticing his confusion and becoming unduly excited.
Fortunately at this moment Priscilla entered the room--it was Mrs.
Wingfield’s boudoir, a pretty apartment for an invalid, the windows
overlooking a garden of roses. Never did Jack so welcome her approach.
The moment she passed the door she knew what was before her.
“Oh, by the way, Priscilla,” said he, “you may as well tell mother just
now all there is to be told about this disagreeable business. I have
said that it is unlikely to take up more than a few minutes of the
judge’s time. You can best do it alone, I know.”
He bolted.
His mother smiled, and Priscilla laughed outright; it was so like a
man--each knew that that was just what the other was thinking--“so like
a man!”
The elder lady’s smile was still on her face when Priscilla said:
“There’s really very little to be told about this disagreeable affair;
but it must be faced. The fact is that we are applying to a judge to
have my first marriage--that shocking mockery of a marriage--annulled,
and everybody says that there will be no difficulty whatever about it.”
“I don’t suppose that there should be any difficulty, my dear,” said
Mrs. Wingfield. “But what would be the good of it?”
“Something has happened which makes it absolutely necessary,” replied
Priscilla. “But it is really the case that what has happened will make
it very much easier for the judge. The wretch who, with a charge of
fraud hanging over him, did not hesitate to make the attempt to involve
me in his ruin, went straight from the gaol to America.”
Mrs. Wingfield nodded.
“Don’t trouble yourself, dear,” she said. “I know all the story; it is
not all squalid; you must not forget that he died trying to save the
others.”
“That was his lie,” cried Priscilla. “He managed to get safely to the
shore and he turned up here trying to get money out of us to buy him
off. Jack showed him the door pretty quickly; so now you can understand
how necessary it is that we should have the marriage nullified. A judge
can do it in five minutes. Jack has been to Liscomb and Liscomb, and
they told him so.” (She was not now giving evidence in a court of law.)
“Oh, yes; they had the opinion of Sir Edward upon it--five minutes! But
in the meantime----”
“That’s it--in the meantime,” said Mrs. Wingfield slowly. She seemed
trying to think out some point of great difficulty which had presented
itself to her mind.
“In the meantime,” she repeated. “Am I right, Priscilla, in the meantime
you--you----”
“In the meantime, my dearest mother, if Jack were to die, and in his
will refer to me as his wife, the judge of the Probate Court would
decide that I should get whatever that will left to me. Is there anyone
who will say that I am not Jack’s wife? You will not say it, and you are
Jack’s mother.”
“I certainly will not say it, Priscilla; but still--there are some who
would say it, and--in the meantime--oh, it is terrible! my poor child;
it is no wonder that there was a shadow cast upon your life. What you
must have suffered--what you must still suffer! and how bravely you bore
your burden in front of me!”
Priscilla had flung herself on her knees beside the sofa, and put her
face down to the cushion on which the mother’s head was resting; but her
tears were not bitter, and her sobs were soft.
So she lay, her right arm about the shoulders of the other, for a long
time, in complete silence.
At last she raised her head from the cushion, and then bowed it down to
the pale face that was there until their tears mingled.
“I know what you are thinking, dearest,” she whispered. “You are
thinking that in the meantime I should not be in this house. Is not
that so? Oh, I knew that that was your thought; but it will not be your
thought when I tell you that....”
Her whisper dwindled away into nothing--it was not louder than the
breathing of a baby when asleep.
But the elder woman caught every word. She gave a little cry of
happiness, and held Jack’s wife close to her, kissing her again and
again.
“Dearest,” she said, “you are right; your place is here--here--in the
meantime.”