CHAPTER XXXI

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.