CHAPTER XXIX

Jack gave what he considered to be an adequate account to Priscilla of his interview with Mr. Liscomb. He did not, however, think it necessary to tell her what that gentleman had said respecting the wisdom of their separating until the case or cases should be heard, nor did he do more than hint at the difficulties, which Mr. Liscomb had rather more than hinted at, in the way of proving the profligacy of Marcus Blaydon. But he thought it well to prepare her for the inevitable law’s delay; and he was gratified at the sensible way she received the information that three months would probably elapse before the case could come on for hearing.

“It seems a long time, Jack,” she said. “But I don’t think that it would be possible for us to have everything ready to go before the judge much sooner. I have been thinking over the whole matter while you have been away, and I see clearly, I think, that we shall have trouble in proving that he went away straight from the gaol to that woman of your surmise. How are we to get hold of Captain Lyman? and when we do get in touch with him, how are we to get him to tell us all that he knows?”

“Yes, all that will take time,” said Jack. “The evidence on this point may help us in the nullity suit, and in the divorce suit it would, of course, be absolutely indispensable.”

There was a pause before she said doubtfully:

“I wonder if Mr. Liscomb suggested that our marrying in such haste—within a few months of the news reaching me—would prejudice a judge.”

“Of course he did; it was stupid of me to forget that,” replied Jack; “very stupid, considering that I was thinking of it in the train on my way home. He made a remark about the haste—indecent haste, he called it.”

“And he gave it its right name,” said she. “That was a mistake on my part, Jack; but don’t think that I’m sorry for it, or that I wouldn’t do it again. Where should I be to-day if I had waited?”

“Would your father have insisted on your going to that man?”

“He would have tried to compel me—I am sure of that. In his eyes a marriage is a marriage—for worse as well as better—it makes no difference.”

“I’m glad that you think so. It lets me know that I did not make a mistake in what I said to Liscomb on that point. But with reference to the indecent haste point, surely any judge that is worth his salt will see that nowadays and in certain circumstances three months are as long as a year was in the old days—the Prayer-book days! It was in the fellow’s power to send you a cablegram letting you know that he was safe long before you had a chance of seeing a newspaper with the account of the wreck and his heroic conduct. ‘Heroic conduct’ was in the heading, I remember.”

“Yes; he’ll have to reply to the judge on that point. By the time Sir Edward has done with him he’ll have to make a good many replies. Well, we shall wait for the next move. But three months—if the people are nasty to us it will seem a long time, Jack; you are right there.”

“You’ll not find that the law errs on the side of indecent haste. We shall soon see how the people behave.”

He was quite right. The next day he glanced at the local paper, thinking that it was quite possible the man might have gone without the delay of an hour to make his statement public; but the paper contained no such interesting item of news. The man was plainly still in consultation with his solicitor.

In the course of the afternoon the road to the Manor was crowded with vehicles bearing card-leavers for Mrs. Jack Wingfield. The two livery stables at Framsby found the strain on their resources so severe as to necessitate their collecting the fragments of their most ancient vehicles and glueing them together in haste to respond to the demand for carriages from people who had never been otherwise than impolite, if not actually insolent, to Miss Wadhurst, but who now had a feeling that Mrs. Jack Wingfield would make her husband’s money fly in fêtes. It would never do for them to miss invitations to whatever festivities were in the air through neglect on their part to take every reasonable precaution to secure their being invited.

But when the footman had the same answer for all—namely, that Mrs. Jack Wingfield was “not at home,” the feeling was very general that it was rather too soon for Mrs. Jack Wingfield to give herself airs, though it seemed that airs were to be looked for from her as inevitably as in an opera by Balfe.

Another day brought the newspapers, but there was still no news, in even the most enterprising of them all, bearing upon the incident which had caused Mrs. Jack Wingfield to think that for some time at least she would do well to be “not at home” to any visitors.

But on the afternoon of the third day a visitor called to whom she did not deny herself. Her father was admitted and found himself awaiting her coming in the library. She did not keep him waiting for long.

“Well, father, is not this a shocking business?” she said, before he had even greeted her.

“A shocking business! A shocking business to find you still here, Priscilla,” he said.

“Where should I be if not with my husband?” she said.

“Your husband! Your husband isn’t here; you know that well, my girl.”

“The only husband I have ever known is here. Please do not fancy that I recognize as my husband that contemptible fraud to whom you gave me.”

“However badly he treated you, however grossly I was taken in by him, he is still your lawful husband. Marriage according to the rites of the Church is a sacred bond. It is not in the power of man to sever it. You swore ‘for better for worse.’”

“I did not swear at all. That is one of the fictions of the Church like the ‘Love, honour, and obey’ paragraph. Do you tell me that I must honour a felon, love a trickster, and obey a blackguard?”

“It is God’s holy ordinance; you cannot deny that, however blasphemous you may become in your words.”

“Do you tell me that it is God’s holy ordinance that I should worship with my body a swindler—a man who only wanted to get me into his power to prevent his swindling from sending him to the gaol that he deserved? Do you think that it would be in keeping with the holy ordinance of God for me to live with a wretch who made his scurrilous joke about the ring he had just put on my finger a few minutes before the handcuffs were put on his wrists?—a blackguard who went straight from the gaol to a woman in America—who allowed the report of his heroic death—oh, how you laid stress upon that heroic death of his, and called me indecent because I was sincere enough to thank God for having delivered me from him!—he allowed the report of his death to be published in order that he might have a chance of blackmailing my husband.”

“Your husband! Your—I tell you, girl, that Marcus Blaydon is your husband, and that so long as you remain under this roof John Wingfield is your paramour. I warned you of him long ago. I did my duty as a father by you in warning you that he did not mean to wed you; and didn’t my words come true?”

Her face was scarlet and her eyes were blazing. She took a couple of rapid steps toward the door; but when about to fling it open, she managed to restrain herself. She stood there, breathing in short gasps, looking at him but unable to speak for indignation.

“You are my father,” she managed to say at last; “I do not wish to turn you out of this house; but if you utter such an accusation again in my hearing, out of this house you will go—straight—straight! You have made some horrible—some vile accusations against me—me, your daughter, whom you placed in the power of that wretch, though I told you that I never could love him—that I almost loathed him; but instead of showing my poor mother the cruelty of which she was guilty, you backed her up and compelled me to utter lies—-lies that you knew were lies—in the church. He uttered lies too; and yet, knowing all that you know, you are still not afraid to call this duet of Ananias and Sapphira God’s holy ordinance! I don’t know what your ideas of blasphemy are, but I know that you have provided me with a very good example of what I should call blasphemy.”

He gazed at her as he had never before gazed even when she had also amazed him by the ease with which she got the better of him. He gazed at her for some minutes, and then his head fell till his chin was on his breast.

“Oh, God, my God! how have I sinned that my girl should turn out like this?” he said in a firm voice, as if uttering a challenge to his God to lay a finger upon a single weakness in his life that demanded so drastic a punishment.

She watched him, and she had a great pity for him, knowing him to be sincere in his belief in his own integrity and in the infallibility of the ordinances of the Church.

“Father,” she said, “have you not read in the Bible that those who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind? I do not profess to know much about the ways of God toward men—there are people who, while they tell me one minute that His ways are past finding out, will, the next, interpret with absolute confidence the most incomprehensible of His acts. But I have taken note of some things that I have seen, and that is one of them—the whirlwind harvest. Here we are to-day in this horrible position—why? Because you compelled me to go to the church and make promises, and utter falsehoods by the side of that man for whom I had no feeling of love. If I had ever loved him, would the fact of his going to gaol have made any difference to me? Not the least. It would only have made me love him more dearly, knowing that my love would mitigate his suffering. If I had loved him, would I not have been by his side the moment he got his freedom? If I had loved him, would I have been capable of loving someone else and of marrying that one within three months of his death? The seed was sown, and this is the harvest. I feel for you with all my heart; but I see the justice of it all—I even see that, like every other woman, I have to pay dearly for my one hour of weakness—for my one hour of falsehood to myself.”

He had not raised his head all the time that she was speaking, nor did he do so until several moments had passed. He seemed to be considering her words and to be finding that there was something in them, after all. But when he looked up there was not much sign of contrition in his face.

“Whatever you may say, there’s no blinking facts, and you know as well as I do what are the facts that face you to-day,” he said, shaking a vehement fist, not as if threatening her, but only to give emphasis to his words. “The facts are, first, that you are the lawful wife of Marcus Blaydon, and secondly, that you are not the lawful wife of John Wingfield, and that if you persist in living with him you are his mistress.”

She opened the door this time, but not vehemently.

“Go away,” she said, “go away. I might as well have kept silent. I shall work out my own salvation in the face of your opposition and the opposition of the world.”

“Your salvation? Woman, it is your own damnation that you are working out in this house—this house of sin!”

He took a few steps toward the door and then wheeled round.

“One more chance I give you,” he said. “Come with me now, and you will only be asked to resume your former life. I will not insist on your joining your husband—only come away from this house.”

“Go away, go away,” she said, without so much as glancing at him.

Only one moment longer did he stay—just long enough to say:

“May God forgive you, Priscilla.”

He contrived, as so many pious people can in saying those words, to utter them as if they were a curse. They sounded in her ears exactly as a curse would have sounded.

And then he tramped away.

Jack came to her shortly afterwards.

“You have no news for me, I suppose?” he said.

“No news, indeed. The old story.”

“You knew what to expect. I think that the best thing we can do is to clear off from this neighbourhood as soon as we can. Until the matter is settled one way or another we should feel more comfortable among strangers.”

“I am perfectly happy here, my dear Jack,” she said. “I am so confident that we are doing what is right, I do not mind what people may say. Perhaps we should do well to go when your mother is strong enough to learn what has happened. That is the only thing that I dread—telling her the story.”

He shook his head sadly.

“That will be the worst moment of all,” he said slowly. “Thank heaven there is no possibility of our having to tell her anything for some time. She is far from well to-day.”

That same evening Jack received from Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb a copy of the opinion of the astute Sir Edward on their case. It was not voluminous, but it was very much to the point. It was in favour of an application for a decree of nullity in respect of the marriage with Blaydon, on the grounds, first, that the man had made false representations (ante-nuptial); secondly, that he had deserted his wife, making no attempt to see her after his release from gaol; and, thirdly, that he had taken no step to contradict the report, so widely circulated, of his death, thereby making her believe that she was at liberty to enter into a second contract of marriage. Failing success to have the marriage nullified, there were some grounds for trying for a divorce. In this case it would of course be necessary to prove misconduct.

On the whole, Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb were inclined to think that the court would consider favourably the application for a nullity decree on the ground that the man and the woman had never lived together—the lawyers made use of a legal phrase—and that the latter had good reason to believe, owing to the default of the former, that she was a widow when she contracted her second marriage. Of course the misrepresentations (ante-nuptial) of the man, though of no weight in an ordinary case of divorce or separation, might in a petition for a nullity decree be worth bringing forward. They also thought that the fact of the man’s being convicted of a crime against property (always looked on seriously by a judge and jury), and of his being arrested practically in the church porch after the marriage ceremony, would influence a court favourably in respect of the petitioner.

“They have never misled a client by an over-sanguine opinion, I should say,” remarked Jack when he had read to her the letter of Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb.

“And I am sure that they have found that plan to be the wisest,” said she. “But I think that they rather incline to the belief that we shall succeed.”

“From all that I have heard respecting them I feel that they have in this case expressed what they would consider to be an extraordinarily roseate opinion of our prospects,” said he. “I wonder what move the other side will make next, and I wonder also if his advisers will take a sanguine view of his prospects. Did you gather from anything your father said that the fellow had been with him?”

“He said nothing definite on that point; but how should my father know anything of what has happened unless he had seen Marcus Blaydon?” said Priscilla. “He is, as we knew he would be, on the side of Blaydon. Just think of it! He is on the side of the wretch who did his best to wreck my life—who shortened my mother’s life and made its last months to be months of misery instead of happiness—who allowed that false report of his death to go about uncontradicted so that I should run the chance of finding myself in the midst of the trouble that has come to me now—my father takes the side of that man against us, simply because of his superstition as to the sanctity of the marriage service according to the Church of England! He does not consider for a moment that the sacredness of marriage is to be found only in the spirit in which the marriage is entered into. He does not ask himself how there can be any element of a holy ordinance in a fraud.”

Jack Wingfield was a man. He had been wise enough to refrain from considering the question of marriage either from the standpoint of a sacrament—the standpoint assumed by the Church of Rome—or from the standpoint of a symbol of the mystical union of Christ and the Church—the standpoint assumed by the Church of England. He had, as a matter of fact, never thought about marriage as a mystery, or the symbol of a mystery. It had only occurred to him that these assumptions, though professed by the Church within the Church, were ignored by the Church outside the Church. The Church of Rome refused to recognize divorce; but had frequently permitted it. It called marriage between an uncle and a niece incest, but sanctified it in the case of a royal personage. The Church of England, with its reiteration about every marriage being indissoluble by man, having been made by God, smiled amiably at the Divorce Court and petted divorces. The Church did not attempt to assign a mystic symbolism to divorce; and though it had for years affirmed that the marriage of a man with the sister of his deceased wife was incest, yet Parliament and every sensible person had assured the Church that this view was wrong, and the Church, after a little mumbling, like giants Pope and Pagan at the mouth of their cave, had submitted to be put in the wrong.

Jack Wingfield being a student—a newspaper student—of contemporary history, was aware of the numerous standpoints from which marriage is discussed, with well-assumed seriousness, by people whom he suspected of having their tongues in their cheeks all the time; but, as has just been stated, he had never himself given a thought to the mysticism of marriage or the symbolism of a wedding. He felt that it was enough for him to know that when his time came to fall in love with a girl and to desire to make her his wife, if the girl consented, he would marry her according to the law of the land, and she would be his wife.

Well, this had all come about; he had fallen in love and he had married the girl according to the law of the land; and was there anyone to say that she was not his wife or that he was not her husband? Of course he knew that there were quite a number of people who would say so; but what was their opinion worth? If she was the wife of someone else, she should, in the opinion of these people, leave him and go to someone else—yes, go to live with that swindling scoundrel—go to be the perpetual companion of a felon and a trickster who had shown his indifference to her and to all that she had suffered as his victim. What was the value of the opinion of people who should, with eyes turned up, assert the doctrine of the sacredness of marriage, and the necessity of acting in the case of himself and Priscilla in sympathy with their doctrines? These were the people who regard the conduct of Enoch Arden with abhorrence. Was he not actually allowing his wife to “live in sin” with the man who had supplanted him?

No; Priscilla and he had married in good faith, and they should be regarded by all sensible and unprejudiced people as man and wife. There was no man living, worthy of the name of a man, who would not call him a cur if he took any other view of the matter than this.

The idea of his handing over that girl to be dealt with by a felon according to his will, simply because the rascal had succeeded in getting the better of her father and mother...

Jack Wingfield laughed.

“Let him come and take her,” he said to himself.