Man and Wife by Wilkie Collins (easy novels to read txt) 📕

The distinction here was far too fine to be appreciated by Geoffrey’s mind. He frowned heavily, in bewilderment and disgust.

“Not married!” he exclaimed, “when they said they were man and wife, before witnesses?”

“That is a common popular error,” said Sir Patrick. “As I have already told you, witnesses are not legally necessary to make a marriage in Scotland. They are only valuable—as in this case—to help, at some future time, in proving a marriage that is in dispute.”

Geoffrey caught at the last words.

“The landlady and the waiter might make it out to be a marriage, then?” he said.

“Yes. And, remember, if you choose to apply to one of my professional colleagues, he might possibly tell you they were married already. A state of the law which allows the interchange of matrimonial consent to be proved by inference leaves a wide door open to conjecture. Your friend refers to a certain lady, in so many words, as his wife. The lady refers to your friend, in so many words, as her husband. In the rooms which they have taken, as man and wife, they remain, as man and wife, till the next morning. Your friend goes away, without undeceiving any body. The lady stays at the inn, for some days after, in the character of his wife. And all these circumstances take place in the presence o f competent witnesses. Logically—if not legally—there is apparently an inference of the interchange of matrimonial consent here. I stick to my own opinion, nevertheless. Evidence in proof of a marriage (I say)—nothing more.”

While Sir Patrick had been speaking, Geoffrey had been considering with himself. By dint of hard thinking he had found his way to a decisive question on his side.

“Look here!” he said, dropping his heavy hand down on the table.” I want to bring you to book, Sir! Suppose my friend had another lady in his eye?”

“Yes?”

“As things are now—would you advise him to marry her?”

“As things are now—certainly not!”

Geoffrey got briskly on his legs, and closed the interview.

“That will do,” he said, “for him and for me.”

With those words he walked back, without ceremony, into the main thoroughfare of the room.

“I don’t know who your friend is,” thought Sir Patrick, looking after him. “But if your interest in the question of his marriage is an honest and a harmless interest, I know no more of human nature than the babe unborn!”

Immediately on leaving Sir Patrick, Geoffrey was encountered by one of the servants in search of him.

“I beg your pardon, Sir,” began the man. “The groom from the Honorable Mr. Delamayn’s—”

“Yes? The fellow who brought me a note from my brother this morning?”

“He’s expected back, Sir—he’s afraid he mustn’t wait any longer.”

“Come here, and I’ll give you the answer for him.”

He led the way to the writing-table, and referred to Julius’s letter again. He ran his eye carelessly over it, until he reached the final lines: “Come to-morrow, and help us to receive Mrs. Glenarm.” For a while he paused, with his eye fixed on that sentence; and with the happiness of three people—of Anne, who had loved him; of Arnold, who had served him; of Blanche, guiltless of injuring him—resting on the decision that guided his movements for the next day. After what had passed that morning between Arnold and Blanche, if he remained at Lady Lundie’s, he had no alternative but to perform his promise to Anne. If he returned to his brother’s house, he had no alternative but to desert Anne, on the infamous pretext that she was Arnold’s wife.

He suddenly tossed the letter away from him on the table, and snatched a sheet of note-paper out of the writing-case. “Here goes for Mrs. Glenarm!” he said to himself; and wrote back to his brother, in one line: “Dear Julius, Expect me to-morrow. G. D.” The impassible man-servant stood by while he wrote, looking at his magnificent breadth of chest, and thinking what a glorious “staying-power” was there for the last terrible mile of the coming race.

“There you are!” he said, and handed his note to the man.

“All right, Geoffrey?” asked a friendly voice behind him.

He turned—and saw Arnold, anxious for news of the consultation with Sir Patrick.

“Yes,” he said. “All right.”

------------ NOTE.—There are certain readers who feel a disposition to doubt Facts, when they meet with them in a work of fiction. Persons of this way of thinking may be profitably referred to the book which first suggested to me the idea of writing the present Novel. The book is the Report of the Royal Commissioners on The Laws of Marriage. Published by the Queen’s Printers For her Majesty’s Stationery Office. (London, 1868.) What Sir Patrick says professionally of Scotch Marriages in this chapter is taken from this high authority. What the lawyer (in the Prologue) says professionally of Irish Marriages is also derived from the same source. It is needless to encumber these pages with quotations. But as a means of satisfying my readers that they may depend on me, I subjoin an extract from my list of references to the Report of the Marriage Commission, which any persons who may be so inclined can verify for themselves.

Irish Marriages (In the Prologue).—See Report, pages XII., XIII., XXIV.

Irregular Marriages in Scotland.—Statement of the law by Lord Deas. Report, page XVI.—Marriages of children of tender years. Examination of Mr. Muirhead by Lord Chelmsford (Question 689).—Interchange of consent, established by inference. Examination of Mr. Muirhead by the Lord Justice Clerk (Question 654)—Marriage where consent has never been interchanged. Observations of Lord Deas. Report, page XIX.—Contradiction of opinions between authorities. Report, pages XIX., XX.—Legal provision for the sale of horses and dogs. No legal provision for the marriage of men and women. Mr. Seeton’s Remarks. Report, page XXX.—Conclusion of the Commissioners. In spite of the arguments advanced before them in favor of not interfering with Irregular Marriages in Scotland, the Commissioners declare their opinion that “Such marriages ought not to continue.” (Report, page XXXIV.)

In reference to the arguments (alluded to above) in favor of allowing the present disgraceful state of things to continue, I find them resting mainly on these grounds: That Scotland doesn’t like being interfered with by England (!). That Irregular Marriages cost nothing (!!). That they are diminishing in number, and may therefore be trusted, in course of time, to exhaust themselves (!!!). That they act, on certain occasions, in the capacity of a moral trap to catch a profligate man (!!!!). Such is the elevated point of view from which the Institution of Marriage is regarded by some of the most pious and learned men in Scotland. A legal enactment providing for the sale of your wife, when you have done with her, or of your husband; when you “really can’t put up with him any longer,” appears to be all that is wanting to render this North British estimate of the “Estate of Matrimony” practically complete. It is only fair to add that, of the witnesses giving evidence—oral and written—before the Commissioners, fully one-half regard the Irregular Marriages of Scotland from the Christian and the civilized point of view, and entirely agree with the authoritative conclusion already cited—that such marriages ought to be abolished.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.

DONE!

ARNOLD was a little surprised by the curt manner in which Geoffrey answered him.

“Has Sir Patrick said any thing unpleasant?” he asked.

“Sir Patrick has said just what I wanted him to say.”

“No difficulty about the marriage?”

“None.”

“No fear of Blanche—”

“She won’t ask you to go to Craig Fernie—I’ll answer for that!” He said the words with a strong emphasis on them, took his brother’s letter from the table, snatched up his hat, and went out.

His friends, idling on the lawn, hailed him. He passed by them quickly without answering, without so much as a glance at them over his shoulder. Arriving at the rose-garden, he stopped and took out his pipe; then suddenly changed his mind, and turned back again by another path. There was no certainty, at that hour of the day, of his being left alone in the rose-garden. He had a fierce and hungry longing to be by himself; he felt as if he could have been the death of any body who came and spoke to him at that moment. With his head down and his brows knit heavily, he followed the path to see what it ended in. It ended in a wicket-gate which led into a kitchen-garden. Here he was well out of the way of interruption: there was nothing to attract visitors in the kitchen-garden. He went on to a walnut-tree planted in the middle of the inclosure, with a wooden bench and a broad strip of turf running round it. After first looking about him, he seated himself and lit his pipe.

“I wish it was done!” he said.

He sat, with his elbows on his knees, smoking and thinking. Before long the restlessness that had got possession of him forced him to his feet again. He rose, and paced round and round the strip of greensward under the walnut-tree, like a wild beast in a cage.

What was the meaning of this disturbance in the inner man? Now that he had committed himself to the betrayal of the friend who had trusted and served him, was he torn by remorse?

He was no more torn by remorse than you are while your eye is passing over this sentence. He was simply in a raging fever of impatience to see himself safely la nded at the end which he had in view.

Why should he feel remorse? All remorse springs, more or less directly, from the action of two sentiments, which are neither of them inbred in the natural man. The first of these sentiments is the product of the respect which we learn to feel for ourselves. The second is the product of the respect which we learn to feel for others. In their highest manifestations, these two feelings exalt themselves, until the first he comes the love of God, and the second the love of Man. I have injured you, and I repent of it when it is done. Why should I repent of it if I have gained something by it for my own self and if you can’t make me feel it by injuring Me? I repent of it because there has been a sense put into me which tells me that I have sinned against Myself, and sinned against You. No such sense as that exists among the instincts of the natural man. And no such feelings as these troubled Geoffrey Delamayn; for Geoffrey Delamayn was the natural man.

When the idea of his scheme had sprung to life in his mind, the novelty of it had startled him—the enormous daring of it, suddenly self-revealed, had daunted him. The signs of emotion which he had betrayed at the writing-table in the library were the signs of mere mental perturbation, and of nothing more.

That first vivid impression past, the idea had made itself familiar to him. He had become composed enough to see such difficulties as it involved,