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

“You believe what Arnold Brinkworth has said; you believe what Miss Silvester has said. You know that not even the thought of marriage was in the mind of either of them, at the inn. You know—whatever else may happen in the future—that there is not the most remote possibility of either of them consenting to acknowledge that they ever have been, or ever can be, Man and Wife. Is that enough for you? Are you willing, before this inquiry proceeds any farther to take your husband’s hand; to return to your husband’s protection; and to leave the rest to me—satisfied with my assurance that, on the facts as they happened, not even the Scotch Law can prove the monstrous assertion of the marriage at Craig Fernie to be true?”

Lady Lundie rose. Both the lawyers rose. Arnold sat lost in astonishment. Geoffrey himself—brutishly careless thus far of all that had passed—lifted his head with a sudden start. In the midst of the profound impression thus produced, Blanche, on whose decision the whole future course of the inquiry now turned, answered in these words:

“I hope you will not think me ungrateful, uncle. I am sure that Arnold has not, knowingly, done me any wrong. But I can’t go back to him until I am first certain that I am his wife.”

Lady Lundie embraced her step-daughter with a sudden outburst of affection. “My dear child!” exclaimed her ladyship, fervently. “Well done, my own dear child!”

Sir Patrick’s head dropped on his breast. “Oh, Blanche! Blanche!” Arnold heard him whisper to himself; “if you only knew what you are forcing me to!”

Mr. Moy put in his word, on Blanche’s side of the question.

“I must most respectfully express my approval also of the course which the young lady has taken,” he said. “A more dangerous compromise than the compromise which we have just heard suggested it is difficult to imagine. With all deference to Sir Patrick Lundie, his opinion of the impossibility of proving the marriage at Craig Fernie remains to be confirmed as the right one. My own professional opinion is opposed to it. The opinion of another Scottish lawyer (in Glasgow) is, to my certain knowledge, opposed to it. If the young lady had not acted with a wisdom and courage which do her honor, she might have lived to see the day when her reputation would have been destroyed, and her children declared illegitimate. Who is to say that circumstances may not h appen in the future which may force Mr. Brinkworth or Miss Silvester—one or the other—to assert the very marriage which they repudiate now? Who is to say that interested relatives (property being concerned here) may not in the lapse of years, discover motives of their own for questioning the asserted marriage in Kent? I acknowledge that I envy the immense self-confidence which emboldens Sir Patrick to venture, what he is willing to venture upon his own individual opinion on an undecided point of law.”

He sat down amidst a murmur of approval, and cast a slyly-expectant look at his defeated adversary. “If that doesn’t irritate him into showing his hand,” thought Mr. Moy, “nothing will!”

Sir Patrick slowly raised his head. There was no irritation—there was only distress in his face—when he spoke next.

“I don’t propose, Mr. Moy, to argue the point with you,” he said, gently. “I can understand that my conduct must necessarily appear strange and even blameworthy, not in your eyes only, but in the eyes of others. My young friend here will tell you” (he looked toward Arnold) “that the view which you express as to the future peril involved in this case was once the view in my mind too, and that in what I have done thus far I have acted in direct contradiction to advice which I myself gave at no very distant period. Excuse me, if you please, from entering (for the present at least) into the motive which has influenced me from the time when I entered this room. My position is one of unexampled responsibility and of indescribable distress. May I appeal to that statement to stand as my excuse, if I plead for a last extension of indulgence toward the last irregularity of which I shall be guilty, in connection with these proceedings?”

Lady Lundie alone resisted the unaffected and touching dignity with which those words were spoken.

“We have had enough of irregularity,” she said. sternly. “I, for one, object to more.”

Sir Patrick waited patiently for Mr. Moy’s reply. The Scotch lawyer and the English lawyer looked at each other—and understood each other. Mr. Moy answered for both.

“We don’t presume to restrain you, Sir Patrick, by other limits than those which, as a gentleman, you impose on yourself. Subject,” added the cautious Scotchman, “to the right of objection which we have already reserved.”

“Do you object to my speaking to your client?” asked Sir Patrick.

“To Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?”

“Yes.”

All eyes turned on Geoffrey. He was sitting half asleep, as it seemed—with his heavy hands hanging listlessly over his knees, and his chin resting on the hooked handle of his stick.

Looking toward Anne, when Sir Patrick pronounced Geoffrey’s name, Mr. Moy saw a change in her. She withdrew her hands from her face, and turned suddenly toward her legal adviser. Was she in the secret of the carefully concealed object at which his opponent had been aiming from the first? Mr. Moy decided to put that doubt to the test. He invited Sir Patrick, by a gesture, to proceed. Sir Patrick addressed himself to Geoffrey.

“You are seriously interested in this inquiry,” he said; “and you have taken no part in it yet. Take a part in it now. Look at this lady.”

Geoffrey never moved.

“I’ve seen enough of her already,” he said, brutally.

“You may well be ashamed to look at her,” said Sir Patrick, quietly. “But you might have acknowledged it in fitter words. Carry your memory back to the fourteenth of August. Do you deny that you promised to many Miss Silvester privately at the Craig Fernie inn?”

“I object to that question,” said Mr. Moy. “My client is under no sort of obligation to answer it.”

Geoffrey’s rising temper—ready to resent any thing—resented his adviser’s interference. “I shall answer if I like,” he retorted, insolently. He looked up for a moment at Sir Patrick, without moving his chin from the hook of his stick. Then he looked down again. “I do deny it,” he said.

“You deny that you have promised to marry Miss Silvester?”

“Yes.”

“I asked you just now to look at her—”

“And I told you I had seen enough of her already.”

“Look at me. In my presence, and in the presence of the other persons here, do you deny that you owe this lady, by your own solemn engagement, the reparation of marriage?”

He suddenly lifted his head. His eyes, after resting for an instant only on Sir Patrick, turned, little by little; and, brightening slowly, fixed themselves with a hideous, tigerish glare on Anne’s face. “I know what I owe her,” he said.

The devouring hatred of his look was matched by the ferocious vindictiveness of his tone, as he spoke those words. It was horrible to see him; it was horrible to hear him. Mr. Moy said to him, in a whisper, “Control yourself, or I will throw up your case.”

Without answering—without even listening—he lifted one of his hands, and looked at it vacantly. He whispered something to himself; and counted out what he was whispering slowly; in divisions of his own, on three of his fingers in succession. He fixed his eyes again on Anne with the same devouring hatred in their look, and spoke (this time directly addressing himself to her) with the same ferocious vindictiveness in his tone. “But for you, I should be married to Mrs. Glenarm. But for you, I should be friends with my father. But for you, I should have won the race. I know what I owe you.” His loosely hanging hands stealthily clenched themselves. His head sank again on his broad breast. He said no more.

Not a soul moved—not a word was spoken. The same common horror held them all speechless. Anne’s eyes turned once more on Blanche. Anne’s courage upheld her, even at that moment.

Sir Patrick rose. The strong emotion which he had suppressed thus far, showed itself plainly in his face—uttered itself plainly in his voice.

“Come into the next room,” he said to Anne. “I must speak to you instantly!”

Without noticing the astonishment that he caused; without paying the smallest attention to the remonstrances addressed to him by his sister-in-law and by the Scotch lawyer, he took Anne by the arm, opened the folding-doors at one end of the room—entered the room beyond with her—and closed the doors again.

Lady Lundie appealed to her legal adviser. Blanche rose—advanced a few steps—and stood in breathless suspense, looking at the folding-doors. Arnold advanced a step, to speak to his wife. The captain approached Mr. Moy.

“What does this mean?” he asked.

Mr. Moy answered, in strong agitation on his side.

“It means that I have not been properly instructed. Sir Patrick Lundie has some evidence in his possession that seriously compromises Mr. Delamayn’s case. He has shrunk from producing it hitherto—he finds himself forced to produce it now. How is it,” asked the lawyer, turning sternly on his client, “that you have left me in the dark?”

“I know nothing about it,” answered Geoffrey, without lifting his head.

Lady Lundie signed to Blanche to stand aside, and advanced toward the folding-doors. Mr. Moy stopped her.

“I advise your ladyship to be patient. Interference is useless there.”

“Am I not to interfere, Sir, in my own house?”

“Unless I am entirely mistaken, madam, the end of the proceedings in your house is at hand. You will damage your own interests by interfering. Let us know what we are about at last. Let the end come.”

Lady Lundie yielded, and returned to her place. They all waited in silence for the opening of the doors.

Sir Patrick Lundie and Anne Silvester were alone in the room.

He took from the breast-pocket of his coat the sheet of note-paper which contained Anne’s letter, and Geoffrey’s reply. His hand trembled as he held it; his voice faltered as he spoke.

“I have done all that can be done,” he said. “I have left nothing untried, to prevent the necessity of producing this.”

“I feel your kindness gratefully, Sir Patrick. You must produce it now.”

The woman’s calmness presented a strange and touching contrast to the man’s emotion. There was no shrinking in her face, there was no unsteadiness in her voice as she answered him. He took her hand. Twice he attempted to speak; and twice his own agitation overpowered him. He offered the letter to her i n silence.

In silence, on her side, she put the letter away from her, wondering what he meant.

“Take it back,” he said. “I can’t produce it! I daren’t produce it! After what my own eyes have seen, after what my own ears have heard, in the next room—as God is my witness, I daren’t ask you to declare yourself Geoffrey Delamayn’s wife!”

She answered him in one word.

“Blanche!”

He shook his head impatiently. “Not even in Blanche’s interests! Not even for Blanche’s sake! If there is any risk, it is a risk I am ready to run. I hold to my own opinion. I believe my own view to be right. Let it come to an appeal to the