Two days later the papers were full of the news of the reappearance of Marcus Blaydon.
Jack Wingfield had been very impatient of the delay. Every morning that he opened the newspapers, and drew them blank, he swore at the man. What the mischief was he waiting for? Was he such an idiot as to fancy that he, Jack Wingfield, was likely to give a more promising reply to his demands than he had already given him? Did he hope to gain anything by merely menacing him in regard to the publication of his story?
Priscilla was clever enough to see that the man had hoped much from the visit which her father had paid her, and perhaps even more from that of the Vicar of Athalsdean. She felt sure that she saw what was the sort of game he meant to play when he returned to England. He had meant to try the familiar game of blackmail in the first instance, being idiot enough to think that Priscilla would jump at the chance of being allowed to pay over some thousands of pounds for his promise to clear out of the country and tell no human being that he was her husband. Failing, however, to convince her or Wingfield that their position would be to any extent improved by the acceptance of his terms, he had gone to her father, knowing that he had a sheet-anchor in the enormous respectability of Farmer Wadhurst. He did not want Priscilla—if he had wanted her he would have hurried to her the moment he found himself free, if only to tell her that he meant to start life afresh, in order that he might win her love and redeem the past—no; he did not want her; but he was well aware of the fact that her father was a moderately wealthy man, and that Priscilla was his only child. These were the possibilities that appealed to him. Perhaps the father might show his readiness to pay a respectable price for the preservation untarnished of the respectability of the family; but failing that, he might still be able to make a good thing out of the connection, for his father-in-law would stand by him, could he be made to see that it would be for the good of the family to stand by him. But her father’s mission and the mission of the Reverend Osney Possnett having failed, the man had no further reason for delay in making public the romantic incidents in which he had taken a prominent part.
These represented the surmises of Priscilla and Jack, and they were not erroneous in substance, though in some particulars not absolutely accurate, as they afterwards found out.
What Jack confessed his inability to account for was the flight of the man across the Atlantic, when he had such good prospects opening before him as the husband of Priscilla, the daughter of that prosperous agriculturist, Mr. Wadhurst. To be sure, it was just on this point that he had allowed his imagination some play when he had that conversation with Marcus Blaydon. He had suggested that the fellow had gone across the Atlantic in order to be with some woman whom he had known before; but Jack was scarcely inclined to give the man credit for a disinterested attachment such as this, when he had such good prospects at home as the lawful husband of a beautiful young woman, whose society (post-nuptial) he had had but a very restricted opportunity of enjoying.
That was a matter which, he saw, required some explanation; but he felt sure that the explanation would come in good time; and it would be his, Jack Wingfield’s, aim to expedite its arrival; and he knew that the success of the nullity suit depended on his finding out all about that unaccountable attachment which had forced a mercenary trickster into an unaccountable position.
But here were the newspapers at last containing the information that Marcus Blaydon, who had been placed in the early part of the summer in the forefront of the rank of maritime heroes—by far the most picturesque of all heroic phalanxes—had returned to England, none the less a hero because he had by a miracle (described in detail) escaped the consequences of his heroism; and engaged—also without prejudice to the claims made on his behalf when his name was last before the eyes of the public—in the discharge of a duty so painful as to cause him to feel that it would have been better if he had perished among the rocks where he had lain insensible for many hours after doing his best to rescue his messmates from a watery grave, than to have survived that terrible night.
That is what the announcements in some of the newspapers came to. But they had the tone of the preliminary announcements of a matter which is supposed to contain certain elements of interest to the public later on, if the public will only have the kindness to keep an eye upon the papers. Some of the phrases—including that important one about the “watery grave,” appeared in all the accounts of the matter; but in a few cases the news did not occupy a greater space than an ordinary paragraph, while in others the attention of casual readers was drawn to it by the adventitious aid of some startling headlines—two of these introducing the name of Enoch Arden. Not once, however, in any newspaper, was the name of Mr. Wingfield introduced.
“They read like a rangefinder,” remarked Mr. Wingfield, when he had gone through every line of the paragraphs. “That is what the fellow is doing—he is trying to find out our position.”
But there was no need for the invention of such a theory to account for the guarded omissions in the paragraphs, the truth being simply that the professional correspondent of the Press agency who had handled the item understood his business. He had no wish to drag the name of a member of Parliament into a piece of news offered to him by a man whose trial for embezzlement he had attended professionally the previous year. In addition, he perceived how it was possible for him to nurse the information, if it stood the test of enquiry, until it should yield to him a small fortune. He understood his business, and his business was to understand the palate of newspaper readers.
And that was how it came that Mr. Wingfield was waited on by a well-dressed and very polite literary gentleman that same day, and invited to make any statement which he would have no objection to read in print the next morning on the subject of the return of the heroic Marcus Blaydon.
“The man told you, I suppose, that his trying mission to England was to claim the lady from whom he was parted at the church door after their marriage, and whom I married a short time ago,” said Mr. Wingfield, M.P.
“That is the substance of the statement which he made to me yesterday, sir,” said his visitor. “I hesitated to transmit it to my agency at London, not wishing, on the authority of a man of his antecedents, even though endorsed by Mr. Wadhurst, to publish a single line that might possibly—possibly——”
“Be made the subject of a libel action—is that what is on your mind?” said Mr. Wingfield.
“Of course—but in the back of my mind, Mr. Wingfield,” replied the other. “What I was really anxious to avoid was saying anything calculated to give pain to——”
“I appreciate your consideration,” said Jack pleasantly; “but I know that omelettes cannot be made without breaking eggs.”
“Yes, sir; but I should like to avoid a bad egg.”
“Then you would do well to avoid Marcus Blaydon.”
The gentleman laughed, and shook his head.
“A bad egg, beyond doubt, Mr. Wingfield; but good enough for some culinary operations,” said the skilful paragraphist. “It is true, then, that he was really married to the lady whom you subsequently—” Jack saw the word “espoused” trembling on his lips, and he hastened to save him from the remorse which he would be certain to feel when he should awaken at nights, and remember that he had employed that word solely to save his repeating the word “married.”
“I believe that to be the truth,” he said at once. “The man came here and claimed the lady as his wife, but she declined to admit his claim, pending the result of her appeal to the proper quarter for the annulment of her marriage with him.”
The gentleman whipped out his note-book in a moment, and made with the rapidity of lightning some hundreds of outline drawings of gulls flying, and miniature arches, and many-toed crabs, and trophies of antlers, interspersed with dots and monkeys’ tails, variously twisted, and Imperial moustaches similarly treated.
“Mrs.—Wingfield—” the gentleman had infinite tact and taste—“Mrs. Wingfield is making such an application? Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb, I suppose?”
“Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb.”
“With Sir Edward retained, of course?”
“With Sir Edward. You seem pretty well acquainted with the procedure.”
The gentleman smiled.
“I have been connected with the Press for fifteen years, sir,” he said. “May I ask one more question, Mr. Wingfield? Is it the intention of the—of Mrs. Wingfield to remain at the Manor House pending the result of the litigation?”
“You may take it from me that she will run no risks,” said Jack. “She will not change her present domicile for any other, so long as Marcus Blaydon remains out of gaol.”
The visitor made some more lightning drawings in outline, and then became thoughtful.
“May I venture to express the hope that Mrs. Wingfield is in good health, sir?” he said—“in good health, and confident of the result of her application for a pronouncement of nullity?” he added, after a hesitating moment.
“She is in excellent health and spirits, thank you,” replied Jack. “Of course, in matters of law one must always expect delay, and in such a point as that upon which we await a decision, it is natural that one should become impatient. However, we know that there is nothing for it but to sit tight for a month or two.”
“I’m extremely obliged to you for this interview, Mr. Wingfield,” said the gentleman, turning over a new leaf of his note-book, and looking up with his pencil ready. “Now, if there is anything whatever that you would like to be made public in this connection——”
“I don’t know that I have anything in my mind beyond what I have just told you,” said Mr. Wingfield. “Of course, you can easily understand that we would greatly prefer that nothing should appear in the newspapers about us or our lawsuits until they are actually before the courts, but we know that that would be to expect too much.”
“If I am not taking too great a liberty, sir, I would say that, unpleasant though it may appear from some standpoints to have the particulars published, you will find that in the long run it will be advantageous to you. Public sympathy is better to have with one than against one.”
“I suppose it is second only to having the law on one’s side.”
“Public sympathy is superior to the law, Mr. Wingfield; and they are beginning to find that out on the other side of the Atlantic. This case is certain to attract a large amount of attention. You see, we are just entering on the month of August. Upon my word, I shouldn’t wonder if it became the Topic of the Autumn—I shouldn’t indeed, Mr. Wingfield. Well, I’m extremely obliged to you, sir; and I won’t take up any more of your time. Good morning.”
“Good morning. Any time that you want any information that you think I can give you, don’t hesitate to come to me.”
“You are very kind, sir. I should be sorry to intrude.”
So the representative of the Press went his ways, congratulating himself on having, after a Diogenes-search lasting, for several years, come upon a sensible man and a straightforward man, devoid of frills. Most men who had attained, by the exertions of their forefathers, to the position of landed proprietors, he had found to be not easy to approach on matters which they called private matters, but which newspaper men called public matters. Mr. Wingfield, however, so far from resenting an interview on a subject which required to be handled with extreme delicacy, had actually given him encouragement to repeat his visit.
He was determined that Mr. Wingfield and the cause which he had at heart should not suffer by his display of a most unusual courtesy.
The next day all England was discussing the case of the new Enoch Arden. They would have discussed the case throughout the length and breadth of the land simply on account of the romantic elements that it contained, even if the lady who played so important a part in it had been an ordinary young person; but as she was a lady whose achievements during the last byelection had been directly under the eye of the public, the interest in the romance was immeasurably increased. The representative of the Press agency who had the handling of the story from the first, had not found it necessary to embellish in any way the account of his interview with Marcus Blaydon in the morning or with Mr. Wingfield in the afternoon. After alluding to the mystery suggested by Mr. Blaydon’s remark, published in connection with his reappearance in the land of the living the previous day, he described how he had waited upon Mr. Blaydon to try to convince him that the painful matters which had necessitated his making a voyage to England could scarcely fail to be of interest to newspaper readers; and how he had succeeded in convincing Mr. Blaydon of the correctness of his contention. Mr. Blaydon had then described the incidents associated with his escape from destruction; how he had been cast upon the rocks in his attempt to carry a line ashore, and how he had lain there for some days, with practically nothing to eat, and apparently suffering from such internal injuries as prevented him from reaching the house where those of his messmates who had survived the terrible night were being so hospitably treated.
Then, according to his own account, it occurred to Mr. Blaydon that the chance of his life had come—such a chance as comes but too rarely to an unfortunate man who has acted foolishly, but is anxious to redeem the past—the chance of beginning life over again. He was well aware, he said, that he would be reported as dead, and that was just what he wished for: to be dead to all the world, so that he might have another chance of succeeding in life without being handicapped by his unhappy past.
So Mr. Blaydon’s story went on, telling how he had just made a start in this new life of his, when by chance he came upon an English newspaper, referring to the fact that the gentleman who had agreed to contest the Nuttingford division of Nethershire at the by-election had just married the daughter of Mr. Wadhurst of Athalsdean Farm. Then, and only then, did he, the narrator, perceive that he would have acted more wisely if he had written to the lady who believed herself to be his widow, apprising her of the fact of his being alive, and endeavouring to make for himself a name that she might bear without a blush. (Mr. Blaydon was well acquainted, it appeared, with the phraseology of the repentant sinner of the Drury Lane autumn drama.)
“What was my duty when I heard that my wife had gone through the ceremony of marriage with another man?” That was the question which perplexed Mr. Blaydon, as a conscientious man anxious not to diverge a hair’s breadth from the line of Duty—strict duty. Well, perhaps some people might blame him; but he confessed that the thought of his dear wife—the girl whom he had wooed and won very little more than a year before—going to another man and living with him believing herself to be his wife, was too much for him. He made up his mind that so shocking a situation could not be allowed to continue, and he had made his way back to her side, only, alas! to be repulsed and turned out of her house with contempt, though the fact that her father had received him with the open arms of a father in welcoming the return of the prodigal, proved that even in these days, etc., etc.
Stripped of all emotional verbiage, Mr. Blaydon’s statements simply amounted to a declaration of his intention to apply to the court to make an order to restore to him his conjugal rights in respect of the lady who was incontestably his lawful wife.
Following this was the account of an interview with Mr. Wingfield, M.P., who, it appeared, had already taken action in the matter on behalf of the lady referred to by Mr. Blaydon. The interviewer succeeded in conveying to a reader something of what he termed the “breezy colloquial style” of Mr. Wingfield, in the latter’s references to the Enoch Ardenism of Mr. Blaydon; but very little appeared in the account of the interview that had not actually taken place at the interview itself. Readers of the newspapers were made fully acquainted with the fact that Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb had already made a move in the case, and that the invaluable services of Sir Edward had been retained for the lady, and also that the lady was living at Overdean Manor House, which chanced to be the residence of Mr. Wingfield, M.P., and that it was her intention to remain there for a period that was not defined by the writer. He refrained from even the suggestion that the period might be “till the case is decided by the court.”
The remainder of the column was occupied by a pleasant description of Overdean Manor Park in early August, with a quotation from the “Highways and Byways” series, and a brief account of the Wingfield family.
Of course, in addition to these particulars which appeared in most of the newspapers, the illustrated dailies contained a reproduction of the recently-used “blocks” of Mr. and Mrs. Wingfield on their now celebrated election campaign, as well as some entirely new photographs of the Manor House, and Athalsdean Farm, the birthplace of “Mrs. Wingfield”—nearly all the newspapers referred to Priscilla as Mrs. Wingfield, inside quotation marks; but three or four omitted the quotation marks, and an equal number, who were sticklers for strict accuracy, called her Mrs. Blaydon, though one of them half apologised for its accuracy by adding “as we suppose we must call the unfortunate lady.”
The comments on the romantic features of the case which were to be read in different type in the columns devoted to the leading articles, were all of that character which is usually described as “guarded.” The writers excused their want of definiteness on the ground that it would be grossly improper for anyone to offer such a comment as might tend to prejudice a judge or jury in the suits which would occupy the attention of the law courts during the Michaelmas sittings. It was quite enough for the writers to point out some of the remarkable features of the whole romance, beginning with the arrest of Marcus Blaydon when in the act of leaving the church where the wedding had taken place—most of the articles dealt very tenderly with this episode—and going on to refer to the impression produced on the court by the appeal for mercy to the judge made by Marcus Blay-don’s counsel on the ground of his recent marriage to a charming and accomplished girl to whom he was devoted, and who would certainly suffer far more than the prisoner himself by his incarceration—an appeal which the judge admitted had influenced him in pronouncing his very mild sentence of imprisonment.
These were some of the nasty bits of publicity which Jack Wingfield had foreseen. Priscilla had reddened a good deal reading them, but she had not shrunk from their perusal. She accepted everything as part of the ordeal which she had to face. She even smiled when, a few days later, there appeared in one of the papers a letter signed “A Dissatisfied Elector,” affirming that, as the election for the Nuttingford division had to all intents and purposes been won for Mr. John Wingfield by a lady who was not his lawful wife, the seat should be declared vacant.
Jack also smiled—after an interval—and threw the paper into the basket reserved for such rubbish.
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 theentourageof 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.”