Man and Wife

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MAN AND WIFE

by Wilkie Collins




PROLOGUE.--THE IRISH MARRIAGE.



Part the First.



THE VILLA AT HAMPSTEAD.

I.

ON a summer's morning, between thirty and forty years ago, two girls
were crying bitterly in the cabin of an East Indian passenger ship,
bound outward, from Gravesend to Bombay.

They were both of the same age--eighteen. They had both, from childhood
upward, been close and dear friends at the same school. They were now
parting for the first time--and parting, it might be, for life.

The name of one was Blanche. The name of the other was Anne.

Both were the children of poor parents, both had been pupil-teachers at
the school; and both were destined to earn their own bread. Personally
speaking, and socially speaking, these were the only points of
resemblance between them.

Blanche was passably attractive and passably intelligent, and no more.
Anne was rarely beautiful and rarely endowed. Blanche's parents
were worthy people, whose first consideration was to secure, at any
sacrifice, the future well-being of their child. Anne's parents were
heartless and depraved. Their one idea, in connection with their
daughter, was to speculate on her beauty, and to turn her abilities to
profitable account.

The girls were starting in life under widely different conditions.
Blanche was going to India, to be governess in the household of a Judge,
under care of the Judge's wife. Anne was to wait at home until the
first opportunity offered of sending her cheaply to Milan. There, among
strangers, she was to be perfected in the actress's and the singer's
art; then to return to England, and make the fortune of her family on
the lyric stage.

Such were the prospects of the two as they sat together in the cabin of
the Indiaman locked fast in each other's arms, and crying bitterly.
The whispered farewell talk exchanged between them--exaggerated and
impulsive as girls' talk is apt to be--came honestly, in each case,
straight from the heart.

"Blanche! you may be married in India. Make your husband bring you back
to England."

"Anne! you may take a dislike to the stage. Come out to India if you
do."

"In England or out of England, married or not married, we will meet,
darling--if it's years hence--with all the old love between us; friends
who help each other, sisters who trust each other, for life! Vow it,
Blanche!"

"I vow it, Anne!"

"With all your heart and soul?"

"With all my heart and soul!"

The sails were spread to the wind, and the ship began to move in the
water. It was necessary to appeal to the captain's authority before the
girls could be parted. The captain interfered gently and firmly. "Come,
my dear," he said, putting his arm round Anne; "you won't mind _me!_
I have got a daughter of my own." Anne's head fell on the sailor's
shoulder. He put her, with his own hands, into the shore-boat alongside.
In five minutes more the ship had gathered way; the boat was at the
landing-stage--and the girls had seen the last of each other for many a
long year to come.

This was in the summer of eighteen hundred and thirty-one.

II.

Twenty-four years later--in the summer of eighteen hundred and
fifty-five--there was a villa at Hampstead to be let, furnished.

The house was still occupied by the persons who desired to let it. On
the evening on which this scene opens a lady and two gentlemen were
seated at the dinner-table. The lady had reached the mature age of
forty-two. She was still a rarely beautiful woman. Her husband, some
years younger than herself, faced her at the table, sitting silent and
constrained, and never, even by accident, looking at his wife. The third
person was a guest. The husband's name was Vanborough. The guest's name
was Kendrew.

It was the end of the dinner. The fruit and the wine were on the table.
Mr. Vanborough pushed the bottles in silence to Mr. Kendrew. The lady of
the house looked round at the servant who was waiting, and said, "Tell
the children to come in."

The door opened, and a girl twelve years old entered, lending by the
hand a younger girl of five. They were both prettily dressed in white,
with sashes of the same shade of light blue. But there was no family
resemblance between them. The elder girl was frail and delicate, with a
pale, sensitive face. The younger was light and florid, with round red
cheeks and bright, saucy eyes--a charming little picture of happiness
and health.

Mr. Kendrew looked inquiringly at the youngest of the two girls.

"Here is a young lady," he said, "who is a total stranger to me."

"If you had not been a total stranger yourself for a whole year past,"
answered Mrs. Vanborough, "you would never have made that confession.
This is little Blanche--the only child of the dearest friend I have.
When Blanche's mother and I last saw each other we were two poor
school-girls beginning the world. My friend went to India, and married
there late in life. You may have heard of her husband--the famous Indian
officer, Sir Thomas Lundie? Yes: 'the rich Sir Thomas,' as you call him.
Lady Lundie is now on her way back to England, for the first time since
she left it--I am afraid to say how many years since. I expected her
yesterday; I expect her to-day--she may come at any moment. We exchanged
promises to meet, in the ship that took her to India--'vows' we called
them in the dear old times. Imagine how changed we shall find each other
when we _do_ meet again at last!"

"In the mean time," said Mr. Kendrew, "your friend appears to have sent
you her little daughter to represent her? It's a long journey for so
young a traveler."

"A journey ordered by the doctors in India a year since," rejoined Mrs.
Vanborough. "They said Blanche's health required English air. Sir Thomas
was ill at the time, and his wife couldn't leave him. She had to send
the child to England, and who should she send her to but me? Look at her
now, and say if the English air hasn't agreed with her! We two mothers,
Mr. Kendrew, seem literally to live again in our children. I have an
only child. My friend has an only child. My daughter is little Anne--as
_I_ was. My friend's daughter is little Blanche--as _she_ was. And, to
crown it all, those two girls have taken the same fancy to each other
which we took to each other in the by-gone days at school. One has often
heard of hereditary hatred. Is there such a thing as hereditary love as
well?"

Before the guest could answer, his attention was claimed by the master
of the house.

"Kendrew," said Mr. Vanborough, "when you have had enough of domestic
sentiment, suppose you take a glass of wine?"

The words were spoken with undisguised contempt of tone and manner.
Mrs. Vanborough's color rose. She waited, and controlled the momentary
irritation. When she spoke to her husband it was evidently with a wish
to soothe and conciliate him.

"I am afraid, my dear, you are not well this evening?"

"I shall be better when those children have done clattering with their
knives and forks."

The girls were peeling fruit. The younger one went on. The elder
stopped, and looked at her mother. Mrs. Vanborough beckoned to Blanche
to come to her, and pointed toward the French window opening to the
floor.

"Would you like to eat your fruit in the garden, Blanche?"

"Yes," said Blanche, "if Anne will go with me."

Anne rose at once, and the two girls went away together into the garden,
hand in hand. On their departure Mr. Kendrew wisely started a new
subject. He referred to the letting of the house.

"The loss of the garden will be a sad loss to those two young ladies,"
he said. "It really seems to be a pity that you should be giving up this
pretty place."

"Leaving the house is not the worst of the sacrifice," answered Mrs.
Vanborough. "If John finds Hampstead too far for him from London,
of course we must move. The only hardship that I complain of is the
hardship of having the house to let."

Mr. Vanborough looked across the table, as ungraciously as possible, at
his wife.

"What have _you_ to do with it?" he asked.

Mrs. Vanborough tried to clear the conjugal horizon b y a smile.

"My dear John," she said, gently, "you forget that, while you are at
business, I am here all day. I can't help seeing the people who come to
look at the house. Such people!" she continued, turning to Mr. Kendrew.
"They distrust every thing, from the scraper at the door to the chimneys
on the roof. They force their way in at all hours. They ask all sorts
of impudent questions--and they show you plainly that they don't mean to
believe your answers, before you have time to make them. Some wretch
of a woman says, 'Do you think the drains are right?'--and sniffs
suspiciously, before I can say Yes. Some brute of a man asks, 'Are you
quite sure this house is solidly built, ma'am?'--and jumps on the floor
at the full stretch of his legs, without waiting for me to reply. Nobody
believes in our gravel soil and our south aspect. Nobody wants any of
our improvements. The moment they hear of John's Artesian well, they
look as if they never drank water. And, if they happen to pass my
poultry-yard, they instantly lose all appreciation of the merits of a
fresh egg!"

Mr. Kendrew laughed. "I have been through it all in my time," he said.
"The people who want to take a house are the born enemies of the people
who want to let a house. Odd--isn't it, Vanborough?"

Mr. Vanborough's sullen humor resisted his friend as obstinately as it
had resisted his wife.

"I dare say," he answered. "I wasn't listening."

This time the tone was almost brutal. Mrs. Vanborough looked at her
husband with unconcealed surprise and distress.

"John!" she said. "What _can_ be the matter with you? Are you in pain?"

"A man may be anxious and worried, I suppose, without being actually in
pain."

"I am sorry to hear you are worried. Is it business?"

"Yes--business."

"Consult Mr. Kendrew."

"I am waiting to consult him."

Mrs. Vanborough rose immediately. "Ring, dear," she said, "when you
want coffee." As she passed her husband she stopped and laid her hand
tenderly on his forehead. "I wish I could smooth out that frown!" she
whispered. Mr. Vanborough impatiently shook his head. Mrs. Vanborough
sighed as she turned to the door. Her husband called to her before she
could leave the room.

"Mind we are not interrupted!"

"I will do my best, John." She looked at Mr. Kendrew, holding the door
open for her; and resumed, with an effort, her former lightness of tone.
"But don't forget our 'born enemies!' Somebody may come, even at this
hour of the evening, who wants to see the house."

The two gentlemen were left alone over their wine. There was a strong
personal contrast between them. Mr. Vanborough was tall and dark--a
dashing, handsome man; with an energy in his face which all the world
saw; with an inbred falseness under it which only a special observer
could detect. Mr. Kendrew was short and light--slow and awkward in
manner, except when something happened to rouse him. Looking in _his_
face, the world saw an ugly and undemonstrative little man. The special
observer, penetrating under the surface, found a fine nature beneath,
resting on a steady foundation of honor and truth.

Mr. Vanborough opened the conversation.

"If you ever marry," he said, "don't be such a fool, Kendrew, as I have
been. Don't take a wife from the stage."

"If I could get such a wife as yours," replied the other, "I would take
her from the stage to-morrow. A beautiful woman, a clever woman, a woman
of unblemished character, and a woman who truly loves you. Man alive!
what do you want more?"

"I want a great deal more. I want a woman highly connected and highly
bred--a woman who can receive the best society in England, and open her
husband's way to a position in the world."

"A position in the world!" cried Mr. Kendrew. "Here is a man whose
father has left him half a million of money--with the one condition
annexed to it of taking his father's place at the head of one of the
greatest mercantile houses in England. And he talks about a position,
as if he was a junior clerk in his own office! What on earth does your
ambition see, beyond what your ambition has already got?"

Mr. Vanborough finished his glass of wine, and looked his friend
steadily in the face.

"My ambition," he said, "sees a Parliamentary career, with a Peerage at
the end of it--and with no obstacle in the way but my estimable wife."

Mr. Kendrew lifted his hand warningly. "Don't talk in that way,"
he said. "If you're joking--it's a joke I don't see. If you're in
earnest--you force a suspicion on me which I would rather not feel. Let
us change the subject."

"No! Let us have it out at once. What do you suspect?"

"I suspect you are getting tired of your wife."

"She is forty-two, and I am thirty-five; and I have been married to her
for thirteen years. You know all that--and you only suspect I am tired
of her. Bless your innocence! Have you any thing more to say?"

"If you force me to it, I take the freedom of an old friend, and I say
you are not treating her fairly. It's nearly two years since you broke
up your establishment abroad, and came to England on your father's
death. With the exception of myself, and one or two other friends of
former days, you have presented your wife to nobody. Your new position
has smoothed the way for you into the best society. You never take your
wife with you. You go out as if you were a single man. I have reason to
know that you are actually believed to be a single man, among these
new acquaintances of yours, in more than one quarter. Forgive me for
speaking my mind bluntly--I say what I think. It's unworthy of you to
keep your wife buried here, as if you were ashamed of her."

"I _am_ ashamed of her."

"Vanborough!"

"Wait a little! you are not to have it all your own way, my good fellow.
What are the facts? Thirteen years ago I fell in love with a handsome
public singer, and married her. My father was angry with me; and I had
to go and live with her abroad. It didn't matter, abroad. My father
forgave me on his death-bed, and I had to bring her home again. It does
matter, at home. I find myself, with a great career opening before me,
tied to a woman whose relations are (as you well know) the lowest of
the low. A woman without the slightest distinction of manner, or the
slightest aspiration beyond her nursery and her kitchen, her piano
and her books. Is _that_ a wife who can help me to make my place in
society?--who can smooth my way through social obstacles and political
obstacles, to the House of Lords? By Jupiter! if ever there was a woman
to be 'buried' (as you call it), that woman is my wife. And, what's
more, if you want the truth, it's because I _can't_ bury her here that
I'm going to leave this house. She has got a cursed knack of making
acquaintances wherever she goes. She'll have a circle of friends
about her if I leave her in this neighborhood much longer. Friends
who remember her as the famous opera-singer. Friends who will see her
swindling scoundrel of a father (when my back is turned) coming drunk to
the door to borrow money of her! I tell you, my marriage has wrecked
my prospects. It's no use talking to me of my wife's virtues. She is a
millstone round my neck, with all her virtues. If I had not been a born
idiot I should have waited, and married a woman who would have been of
some use to me; a woman with high connections--"

Mr. Kendrew touched his host's arm, and suddenly interrupted him.

"To come to the point," he said--"a woman like Lady Jane Parnell."

Mr. Vanborough started. His eyes fell, for the first time, before the
eyes of his friend.

"What do you know about Lady Jane?" he asked.

"Nothing. I don't move in Lady Jane's world--but I do go sometimes to
the opera. I saw you with her last night in her box; and I heard what
was said in the stalls near me. You were openly spoken of as the favored
man who was singled out from the rest by Lady Jane. Imagine what would
happen if your wife heard that! You are wrong, Vanborough--you are in
every way wrong. You alarm, you distress, you disappoint me. I never
sought this explanation--but now it has come, I won't shrink from it.
Reconsider your conduct; reconsider what you have said to me--or you
count me no longer among your friends. No! I want no farther talk about
it now. We are both getting hot--we may end in saying what had better
have been left unsaid. Once more, let us change the subject. You wrote
me word that you wanted me here to-day, because you needed my advice on
a matter of some importance. What is it?"

Silence followed that question. Mr. Vanborough's face betrayed signs of
embarrassment. He poured himself out another glass of wine, and drank it
at a draught before he replied.

"It's not so easy to tell you what I want," he said, "after the tone you
have taken with me about my wife."

Mr. Kendrew looked surprised.

"Is Mrs. Vanborough concerned in the matter?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Does she know about it?"

"No."

"Have you kept the thing a secret out of regard for _her?_"

"Yes."

"Have I any right to advise on it?"

"You have the right of an old friend."

"Then, why not tell me frankly what it is?"

There was another moment of embarrassment on Mr. Vanborough's part.

"It will come better," he answered, "from a third person, whom I expect
here every minute. He is in possession of all the facts--and he is
better able to state them than I am."

"Who is the person?"

"My friend, Delamayn."

"Your lawyer?"

"Yes--the junior partner in the firm of Delamayn, Hawke, and Delamayn.
Do you know him?"

"I am acquainted with him. His wife's family were friends of mine before
he married. I don't like him."

"You're rather hard to please to-day! Delamayn is a rising man, if ever
there was one yet. A man with a career before him, and with courage
enough to pursue it. He is going to leave the Firm, and try his luck at
the Bar. Every body says he will do great things. What's your objection
to him?"

"I have no objection whatever. We meet with people occasionally whom
we dislike without knowing why. Without knowing why, I dislike Mr.
Delamayn."

"Whatever you do you must put up with him this evening. He will be here
directly."

He was there at that moment. The servant opened the door, and
announced--"Mr. Delamayn."

III.

Externally speaking, the rising solicitor, who was going to try his
luck at the Bar, looked like a man who was going to succeed. His hard,
hairless face, his watchful gray eyes, his thin, resolute lips, said
plainly, in so many words, "I mean to get on in the world; and, if
you are in my way, I mean to get on at your expense." Mr. Delamayn was
habitually polite to every body--but he had never been known to say one
unnecessary word to his dearest friend. A man of rare ability; a man of
unblemished honor (as the code of the world goes); but not a man to be
taken familiarly by the hand. You would never have borrowed money
of him--but you would have trusted him with untold gold. Involved in
private and personal troubles, you would have hesitated at asking him
to help you. Involved in public and producible troubles, you would have
said, Here is my man. Sure to push his way--nobody could look at him and
doubt it--sure to push his way.

"Kendrew is an old friend of mine," said Mr. Vanborough, addressing
himself to the lawyer. "Whatever you have to say to _me_ you may say
before _him._ Will you have some wine?"

"No--thank you."

"Have you brought any news?"

"Yes."

"Have you got the written opinions of the two barristers?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"'Because nothing of the sort is necessary. If the facts of the case are
correctly stated there is not the slightest doubt about the law."

With that reply Mr. Delamayn took a written paper from his pocket, and
spread it out on the table before him.

"What is that?" asked Mr. Vanborough.

"The case relating to your marriage."

Mr. Kendrew started, and showed the first tokens of interest in the
proceedings which had escaped him yet. Mr. Delamayn looked at him for a
moment, and went on.

"The case," he resumed, "as originally stated by you, and taken down in
writing by our head-clerk."

Mr. Vanborough's temper began to show itself again.

"What have we got to do with that now?" he asked. "You have made your
inquiries to prove the correctness of my statement--haven't you?"

"Yes."

"And you have found out that I am right?"

"I have found out that you are right--if the case is right. I wish to be
sure that no mistake has occurred between you and the clerk. This is a
very important matter. I am going to take the responsibility of giving
an opinion which may be followed by serious consequences; and I mean to
assure myself that the opinion is given on a sound basis, first. I have
some questions to ask you. Don't be impatient, if you please. They won't
take long."

He referred to the manuscript, and put the first question.

"You were married at Inchmallock, in Ireland, Mr. Vanborough, thirteen
years since?"

"Yes."

"Your wife--then Miss Anne Silvester--was a Roman Catholic?"

"Yes."

"Her father and mother were Roman Catholics?"

"They were."

"_Your_ father and mother were Protestants? and _you_ were baptized and
brought up in the Church of England?"

"All right!"

"Miss Anne Silvester felt, and expressed, a strong repugnance to
marrying you, because you and she belonged to different religious
communities?"

"She did."

"You got over her objection by consenting to become a Roman Catholic,
like herself?"

"It was the shortest way with her and it didn't matter to _me_."

"You were formally received into the Roman Catholic Church?"

"I went through the whole ceremony."

"Abroad or at home?"

"Abroad."

"How long was it before the date of your marriage?"

"Six weeks before I was married."

Referring perpetually to the paper in his hand, Mr. Delamayn was
especially careful in comparing that last answer with the answer given
to the head-clerk.

"Quite right," he said, and went on with his questions.

"The priest who married you was one Ambrose Redman--a young man recently
appointed to his clerical duties?"

"Yes."

"Did he ask if you were both Roman Catholics?"

"Yes."

"Did he ask any thing more?"

"No."

"Are you sure he never inquired whether you had both been Catholics _for
more than one year before you came to him to be married?_"

"I am certain of it."

"He must have forgotten that part of his duty--or being only a beginner,
he may well have been ignorant of it altogether. Did neither you nor the
lady think of informing him on the point?"

"Neither I nor the lady knew there was any necessity for informing him."

Mr. Delamayn folded up the manuscript, and put it back in his pocket.

"Right," he said, "in every particular."

Mr. Vanborough's swarthy complexion slowly turned pale. He cast one
furtive glance at Mr. Kendrew, and turned away again.

"Well," he said to the lawyer, "now for your opinion! What is the law?"

"The law," answered Mr. Delamayn, "is beyond all doubt or dispute. Your
marriage with Miss Anne Silvester is no marriage at all."

Mr. Kendrew started to his feet.

"What do you mean?" he asked, sternly.

The rising solicitor lifted his eyebrows in polite surprise. If Mr.
Kendrew wanted information, why should Mr. Kendrew ask for it in that
way? "Do you wish me to go into the law of the case?" he inquired.

"I do."

Mr. Delamayn stated the law, as that law still stands--to the disgrace
of the English Legislature and the English Nation.

"By the Irish Statute of George the Second," he said, "every marriage
celebrated by a Popish priest between two Protestants, or between a
Papist and any person who has been a Protestant within twelve months
before the marriage, is declared null and void. And by two other Acts
of the same reign such a celebration of marriage is made a felony on
the part of the priest. The clergy in Ireland of other religious
denominations have been relieved from this law. But it still remains in
force so far as the Roman Catholic priesthood is concerned."

"Is such a state of things possible in the age we live in!" exclaimed
Mr. Kendrew.

Mr. Delamayn smiled. He had outgrown the customary illusions as to the
age we live in.

"There are other instances in which the Irish marriage-law presents some
curious anomalies of its own," he went on. "It is felony, as I have just
told you, for a Roman Catholic priest to celebrate a marriage which may
be lawfully celebrated by a parochial clergyman, a Presbyterian mini
ster, and a Non-conformist minister. It is also felony (by another law)
on the part of a parochial clergyman to celebrate a marriage that may be
lawfully celebrated by a Roman Catholic priest. And it is again felony
(by yet another law) for a Presbyterian minister and a Non-conformist
minister to celebrate a marriage which may be lawfully celebrated by a
clergyman of the Established Church. An odd state of things. Foreigners
might possibly think it a scandalous state of things. In this country
we don't appear to mind it. Returning to the present case, the results
stand thus: Mr. Vanborough is a single man; Mrs. Vanborough is a single
woman; their child is illegitimate, and the priest, Ambrose Redman, is
liable to be tried, and punished, as a felon, for marrying them."