Man and Wife

W >> Wilkie Collins >> Man and Wife


"An infamous law!" said Mr. Kendrew.

"It _is_ the law," returned Mr. Delamayn, as a sufficient answer to him.

Thus far not a word had escaped the master of the house. He sat with his
lips fast closed and his eyes riveted on the table, thinking.

Mr. Kendrew turned to him, and broke the silence.

"Am I to understand," he asked, "that the advice you wanted from me
related to _this?_"

"Yes."

"You mean to tell me that, foreseeing the present interview and the
result to which it might lead, you felt any doubt as to the course you
were bound to take? Am I really to understand that you hesitate to set
this dreadful mistake right, and to make the woman who is your wife in
the sight of Heaven your wife in the sight of the law?"

"If you choose to put it in that light," said Mr. Vanborough; "if you
won't consider--"

"I want a plain answer to my question--'yes, or no.'"

"Let me speak, will you! A man has a right to explain himself, I
suppose?"

Mr. Kendrew stopped him by a gesture of disgust.

"I won't trouble you to explain yourself," he said. "I prefer to leave
the house. You have given me a lesson, Sir, which I shall not forget.
I find that one man may have known another from the days when they were
both boys, and may have seen nothing but the false surface of him in
all that time. I am ashamed of having ever been your friend. You are a
stranger to me from this moment."

With those words he left the room.

"That is a curiously hot-headed man," remarked Mr. Delamayn. "If you
will allow me, I think I'll change my mind. I'll have a glass of wine."

Mr. Vanborough rose to his feet without replying, and took a turn in
the room impatiently. Scoundrel as he was--in intention, if not yet in
act--the loss of the oldest friend he had in the world staggered him for
the moment.

"This is an awkward business, Delamayn," he said. "What would you advise
me to do?"

Mr. Delamayn shook his head, and sipped his claret.

"I decline to advise you," he answered. "I take no responsibility,
beyond the responsibility of stating the law as it stands, in your
case."

Mr. Vanborough sat down again at the table, to consider the alternative
of asserting or not asserting his freedom from the marriage tie. He had
not had much time thus far for turning the matter over in his mind.
But for his residence on the Continent the question of the flaw in his
marriage might no doubt have been raised long since. As things were,
the question had only taken its rise in a chance conversation with Mr.
Delamayn in the summer of that year.

For some minutes the lawyer sat silent, sipping his wine, and the
husband sat silent, thinking his own thoughts. The first change that
came over the scene was produced by the appearance of a servant in the
dining-room.

Mr. Vanborough looked up at the man with a sudden outbreak of anger.

"What do you want here?"

The man was a well-bred English servant. In other words, a human
machine, doing its duty impenetrably when it was once wound up. He had
his words to speak, and he spoke them.

"There is a lady at the door, Sir, who wishes to see the house."

"The house is not to be seen at this time of the evening."

The machine had a message to deliver, and delivered it.

"The lady desired me to present her apologies, Sir. I was to tell you
she was much pressed for time. This was the last house on the house
agent's list, and her coachman is stupid about finding his way in
strange places."

"Hold your tongue, and tell the lady to go to the devil!"

Mr. Delamayn interfered--partly in the interests of his client, partly
in the interests of propriety.

"You attach some importance, I think, to letting this house as soon as
possible?" he said.

"Of course I do!"

"Is it wise--on account of a momentary annoyance--to lose an opportunity
of laying your hand on a tenant?"

"Wise or not, it's an infernal nuisance to be disturbed by a stranger."

"Just as you please. I don't wish to interfere. I only wish to say--in
case you are thinking of my convenience as your guest--that it will be
no nuisance to _me._"

The servant impenetrably waited. Mr. Vanborough impatiently gave way.

"Very well. Let her in. Mind, if she comes here, she's only to look into
the room, and go out again. If she wants to ask questions, she must go
to the agent."

Mr. Delamayn interfered once more, in the interests, this time, of the
lady of the house.

"Might it not be desirable," he suggested, "to consult Mrs. Vanborough
before you quite decide?"

"Where's your mistress?"

"In the garden, or the paddock, Sir--I am not sure which."

"We can't send all over the grounds in search of her. Tell the
house-maid, and show the lady in."

The servant withdrew. Mr. Delamayn helped himself to a second glass of
wine.

"Excellent claret," he said. "Do you get it direct from Bordeaux?"

There was no answer. Mr. Vanborough had returned to the contemplation of
the alternative between freeing himself or not freeing himself from the
marriage tie. One of his elbows was on the table, he bit fiercely at his
finger-nails. He muttered between his teeth, "What am I to do?"

A sound of rustling silk made itself gently audible in the passage
outside. The door opened, and the lady who had come to see the house
appeared in the dining-room.

IV.

She was tall and elegant; beautifully dressed, in the happiest
combination of simplicity and splendor. A light summer veil hung over
her face. She lifted it, and made her apologies for disturbing the
gentlemen over their wine, with the unaffected ease and grace of a
highly-bred woman.

"Pray accept my excuses for this intrusion. I am ashamed to disturb you.
One look at the room will be quite enough."

Thus far she had addressed Mr. Delamayn, who happened to be nearest to
her. Looking round the room her eye fell on Mr. Vanborough. She started,
with a loud exclamation of astonishment. _"You!"_ she said. "Good
Heavens! who would have thought of meeting _you_ here?"

Mr. Vanborough, on his side, stood petrified.

"Lady Jane!" he exclaimed. "Is it possible?"

He barely looked at her while she spoke. His eyes wandered guiltily
toward the window which led into the garden. The situation was a
terrible one--equally terrible if his wife discovered Lady Jane, or if
Lady Jane discovered his wife. For the moment nobody was visible on the
lawn. There was time, if the chance only offered--there was time for
him to get the visitor out of the house. The visitor, innocent of all
knowledge of the truth, gayly offered him her hand.

"I believe in mesmerism for the first time," she said. "This is an
instance of magnetic sympathy, Mr. Vanborough. An invalid friend of mine
wants a furnished house at Hampstead. I undertake to find one for her,
and the day _I_ select to make the discovery is the day _you_ select for
dining with a friend. A last house at Hampstead is left on my list--and
in that house I meet you. Astonishing!" She turned to Mr. Delamayn. "I
presume I am addressing the owner of the house?" Before a word could
be said by either of the gentlemen she noticed the garden. "What pretty
grounds! Do I see a lady in the garden? I hope I have not driven her
away." She looked round, and appealed to Mr. Vanborough. "Your friend's
wife?" she asked, and, on this occasion, waited for a reply.

In Mr. Vanborough's situation what reply was possible?

Mrs. Vanborough was not only visible--but audible--in the garden; giving
her orders to one of the out-of-door servants with the tone and manner
which proclaimed the mistress of the house. Suppose he said, "She is
_not_ my friend's wife?" Female curiosity would inevitably put the
next question, "Who is she?" Suppose he invented an explanation? The
explanation would take time, and time would give his wife an opportunity
of discovering Lady Jane. Seeing all these considerations in one
breathless moment, Mr. Vanborough took the shortest and the boldest
way out of the difficulty. He answered silently by an affirmative
inclination of the head, which dextrously turned Mrs. Vanborough into to
Mrs. Delamayn without allowing Mr. Delamayn the opportunity of hearing
it.

But the lawyer's eye was habitually watchful, and the lawyer saw him.

Mastering in a moment his first natural astonishment at the liberty
taken with him, Mr. Delamayn drew the inevitable conclusion that there
was something wrong, and that there was an attempt (not to be permitted
for a moment) to mix him up in it. He advanced, resolute to contradict
his client, to his client's own face.

The voluble Lady Jane interrupted him before he could open his lips.

"Might I ask one question? Is the aspect south? Of course it is! I ought
to see by the sun that the aspect is south. These and the other two
are, I suppose, the only rooms on the ground-floor? And is it quiet? Of
course it's quiet! A charming house. Far more likely to suit my friend
than any I have seen yet. Will you give me the refusal of it till
to-morrow?" There she stopped for breath, and gave Mr. Delamayn his
first opportunity of speaking to her.

"I beg your ladyship's pardon," he began. "I really can't--"

Mr. Vanborough--passing close behind him and whispering as he
passed--stopped the lawyer before he could say a word more.

"For God's sake, don't contradict me! My wife is coming this way!"

At the same moment (still supposing that Mr. Delamayn was the master of
the house) Lady Jane returned to the charge.

"You appear to feel some hesitation," she said. "Do you want a
reference?" She smiled satirically, and summoned her friend to her aid.
"Mr. Vanborough!"

Mr. Vanborough, stealing step by step nearer to the window--intent, come
what might of it, on keeping his wife out of the room--neither heeded
nor heard her. Lady Jane followed him, and tapped him briskly on the
shoulder with her parasol.

At that moment Mrs. Vanborough appeared on the garden side of the
window.

"Am I in the way?" she asked, addressing her husband, after one steady
look at Lady Jane. "This lady appears to be an old friend of yours."
There was a tone of sarcasm in that allusion to the parasol, which might
develop into a tone of jealousy at a moment's notice.

Lady Jane was not in the least disconcerted. She had her double
privilege of familiarity with the men whom she liked--her privilege as
a woman of high rank, and her privilege as a young widow. She bowed to
Mrs. Vanborough, with all the highly-finished politeness of the order to
which she belonged.

"The lady of the house, I presume?" she said, with a gracious smile.

Mrs. Vanborough returned the bow coldly--entered the room first--and
then answered, "Yes."

Lady Jane turned to Mr. Vanborough.

"Present me!" she said, submitting resignedly to the formalities of the
middle classes.

Mr. Vanborough obeyed, without looking at his wife, and without
mentioning his wife's name.

"Lady Jane Parnell," he said, passing over the introduction as rapidly
as possible. "Let me see you to your carriage," he added, offering his
arm. "I will take care that you have the refusal of the house. You may
trust it all to me."

No! Lady Jane was accustomed to leave a favorable impression behind her
wherever she went. It was a habit with her to be charming (in widely
different ways) to both sexes. The social experience of the upper
classes is, in England, an experience of universal welcome. Lady Jane
declined to leave until she had thawed the icy reception of the lady of
the house.

"I must repeat my apologies," she said to Mrs. Vanborough, "for coming
at this inconvenient time. My intrusion appears to have sadly disturbed
the two gentlemen. Mr. Vanborough looks as if he wished me a hundred
miles away. And as for your husband--" She stopped and glanced toward
Mr. Delamayn. "Pardon me for speaking in that familiar way. I have not
the pleasure of knowing your husband's name."

In speechless amazement Mrs. Vanborough's eyes followed the direction of
Lady Jane's eyes--and rested on the lawyer, personally a total stranger
to her.

Mr. Delamayn, resolutely waiting his opportunity to speak, seized it
once more--and held it this time.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "There is some misapprehension here, for
which I am in no way responsible. I am _not_ that lady's husband."

It was Lady Jane's turn to be astonished. She looked at the lawyer.
Useless! Mr. Delamayn had set himself right--Mr. Delamayn declined to
interfere further. He silently took a chair at the other end of the
room. Lady Jane addressed Mr. Vanborough.

"Whatever the mistake may be," she said, "you are responsible for it.
You certainly told me this lady was your friend's wife."

"What!!!" cried Mrs. Vanborough--loudly, sternly, incredulously.

The inbred pride of the great lady began to appear behind the thin outer
veil of politeness that covered it.

"I will speak louder if you wish it," she said. "Mr. Vanborough told me
you were that gentleman's wife."

Mr. Vanborough whispered fiercely to his wife through his clenched
teeth.

"The whole thing is a mistake. Go into the garden again!"

Mrs. Vanborough's indignation was suspended for the moment in dread, as
she saw the passion and the terror struggling in her husband's face.

"How you look at me!" she said. "How you speak to me!"

He only repeated, "Go into the garden!"

Lady Jane began to perceive, what the lawyer had discovered some minutes
previously--that there was something wrong in the villa at Hampstead.
The lady of the house was a lady in an anomalous position of some
kind. And as the house, to all appearance, belonged to Mr. Vanborough's
friend, Mr. Vanborough's friend must (in spite of his recent disclaimer)
be in some way responsible for it. Arriving, naturally enough, at this
erroneous conclusion, Lady Jane's eyes rested for an instant on Mrs.
Vanborough with a finely contemptuous expression of inquiry which would
have roused the spirit of the tamest woman in existence. The implied
insult stung the wife's sensitive nature to the quick. She turned once
more to her husband--this time without flinching.

"Who is that woman?" she asked.

Lady Jane was equal to the emergency. The manner in which she wrapped
herself up in her own virtue, without the slightest pretension on the
one hand, and without the slightest compromise on the other, was a sight
to see.

"Mr. Vanborough," she said, "you offered to take me to my carriage just
now. I begin to understand that I had better have accepted the offer at
once. Give me your arm."

"Stop!" said Mrs. Vanborough, "your ladyship's looks are looks of
contempt; your ladyship's words can bear but one interpretation. I am
innocently involved in some vile deception which I don't understand.
But this I do know--I won't submit to be insulted in my own house. After
what you have just said I forbid my husband to give you his arm."

Her husband!

Lady Jane looked at Mr. Vanborough--at Mr. Vanborough, whom she
loved; whom she had honestly believed to be a single man; whom she had
suspected, up to that moment, of nothing worse than of trying to screen
the frailties of his friend. She dropped her highly-bred tone; she lost
her highly-bred manners. The sense of her injury (if this was true), the
pang of her jealousy (if that woman was his wife), stripped the human
nature in her bare of all disguises, raised the angry color in her
cheeks, and struck the angry fire out of her eyes.

"If you can tell the truth, Sir," she said, haughtily, "be so good as
to tell it now. Have you been falsely presenting yourself to the
world--falsely presenting yourself to _me_--in the character and with
the aspirations of a single man? Is that lady your wife?"

"Do you hear her? do you see her?" cried Mrs. Vanborough, appealing to
her husband, in her turn. She suddenly drew back from him, shuddering
from head to foot. "He hesitates!" she said to herself, faintly. "Good
God! he hesitates!"

Lady Jane sternly repeated her question.

"Is that lady your wife?"

He roused his scoundrel-courage, and said the fatal word:

"No!"

Mrs. Vanborough staggered back. She caught at the white curtains of the
window to save herself from falling, and tore them. She looked at her
husband, with the torn curtain clenched fast in her hand. She asked
herself, "Am I mad? or is he?"

Lady Jane drew a deep breath of relief. He was not married! He was
only a profligate single man. A profligate single man is shocking--but
reclaimable. It is possible to blame him severely, and to insist on his
reformation in the most uncompromising terms. It is also possible to
forgive him, and marry him. Lady Jane took the necessary position
under the circumstances with perfect tact. She inflicted reproof in the
present without excluding hope in the future.

"I have made a very painful discovery," she said, gravely, to
Mr. Vanborough. "It rests with _you_ to persuade me to forget it!
Good-evening!"

She accompanied the last words by a farewell look which aroused Mrs.
Vanborough to frenzy. She sprang forward and prevented Lady Jane from
leaving the room.

"No!" she said. "You don't go yet!"

Mr. Vanborough came forward to interfere. His wife eyed him with a
terrible look, and turned from him with a terrible contempt. "That man
has lied!" she said. "In justice to myself, I insist on proving it!"
She struck a bell on a table near her. The servant came in. "Fetch my
writing-desk out of the next room." She waited--with her back turned on
her husband, with her eyes fixed on Lady Jane. Defenseless and alone
she stood on the wreck of her married life, superior to the husband's
treachery, the lawyer's indifference, and her rival's contempt. At
that dreadful moment her beauty shone out again with a gleam of its old
glory. The grand woman, who in the old stage days had held thousands
breathless over the mimic woes of the scene, stood there grander than
ever, in her own woe, and held the three people who looked at her
breathless till she spoke again.

The servant came in with the desk. She took out a paper and handed it to
Lady Jane.

"I was a singer on the stage," she said, "when I was a single woman. The
slander to which such women are exposed doubted my marriage. I provided
myself with the paper in your hand. It speaks for itself. Even the
highest society, madam, respects _that!_"

Lady Jane examined the paper. It was a marriage-certificate. She turned
deadly pale, and beckoned to Mr. Vanborough. "Are you deceiving me?" she
asked.

Mr. Vanborough looked back into the far corner of the room, in which the
lawyer sat, impenetrably waiting for events. "Oblige me by coming here
for a moment," he said.

Mr. Delamayn rose and complied with the request. Mr. Vanborough
addressed himself to Lady Jane.

"I beg to refer you to my man of business. _He_ is not interested in
deceiving you."

"Am I required simply to speak to the fact?" asked Mr. Delamayn. "I
decline to do more."

"You are not wanted to do more."

Listening intently to that interchange of question and answer, Mrs.
Vanborough advanced a step in silence. The high courage that had
sustained her against outrage which had openly declared itself shrank
under the sense of something coming which she had not foreseen. A
nameless dread throbbed at her heart and crept among the roots of her
hair.

Lady Jane handed the certificate to the lawyer.

"In two words, Sir," she said, impatiently, "what is this?"

"In two words, madam," answered Mr. Delamayn; "waste paper."

"He is _not_ married?"

"He is _not_ married."

After a moment's hesitation Lady Jane looked round at Mrs. Vanborough,
standing silent at her side--looked, and started back in terror. "Take
me away!" she cried, shrinking from the ghastly face that confronted her
with the fixed stare of agony in the great, glittering eyes. "Take me
away! That woman will murder me!"

Mr. Vanborough gave her his arm and led her to the door. There was dead
silence in the room as he did it. Step by step the wife's eyes followed
them with the same dreadful stare, till the door closed and shut them
out. The lawyer, left alone with the disowned and deserted woman, put
the useless certificate silently on the table. She looked from him to
the paper, and dropped, without a cry to warn him, without an effort to
save herself, senseless at his feet.

He lifted her from the floor and placed her on the sofa, and waited
to see if Mr. Vanborough would come back. Looking at the beautiful
face--still beautiful, even in the swoon--he owned it was hard on her.
Yes! in his own impenetrable way, the rising lawyer owned it was hard on
her.

But the law justified it. There was no doubt in this case. The law
justified it.

The trampling of horses and the grating of wheels sounded outside. Lady
Jane's carriage was driving away. Would the husband come back? (See what
a thing habit is! Even Mr. Delamayn still mechanically thought of him as
the husband--in the face of the law! in the face of the facts!)

No. Then minutes passed. And no sign of the husband coming back.

It was not wise to make a scandal in the house. It was not desirable (on
his own sole responsibility) to let the servants see what had happened.
Still, there she lay senseless. The cool evening air came in through
the open window and lifted the light ribbons in her lace cap, lifted
the little lock of hair that had broken loose and drooped over her neck.
Still, there she lay--the wife who had loved him, the mother of his
child--there she lay.

He stretched out his hand to ring the bell and summon help.

At the same moment the quiet of the summer evening was once more
disturbed. He held his hand suspended over the bell. The noise outside
came nearer. It was again the trampling of horses and the grating of
wheels. Advancing--rapidly advancing--stopping at the house.

Was Lady Jane coming back?

Was the husband coming back?

There was a loud ring at the bell--a quick opening of the house-door--a
rustling of a woman's dress in the passage. The door of the room opened,
and the woman appeared--alone. Not Lady Jane. A stranger--older, years
older, than Lady Jane. A plain woman, perhaps, at other times. A woman
almost beautiful now, with the eager happiness that beamed in her face.

She saw the figure on the sofa. She ran to it with a cry--a cry of
recognition and a cry of terror in one. She dropped on her knees--and
laid that helpless head on her bosom, and kissed, with a sister's
kisses, that cold, white cheek.

"Oh, my darling!" she said. "Is it thus we meet again?"

Yes! After all the years that had passed since the parting in the cabin
of the ship, it was thus the two school-friends met again.


Part the Second.


THE MARCH OF TIME.

V.

ADVANCING from time past to time present, the Prologue leaves the date
last attained (the summer of eighteen hundred and fifty-five), and
travels on through an interval of twelve years--tells who lived, who
died, who prospered, and who failed among the persons concerned in the
tragedy at the Hampstead villa--and, this done, leaves the reader at the
opening of THE STORY in the spring of eighteen hundred and sixty-eight.

The record begins with a marriage--the marriage of Mr. Vanborough and
Lady Jane Parnell.

In three months from the memorable day when his solicitor had informed
him that he was a free man, Mr. Vanborough possessed the wife he
desired, to grace the head of his table and to push his fortunes in the
world--the Legislature of Great Britain being the humble servant of his
treachery, and the respectable accomplice of his crime.

He entered Parliament. He gave (thanks to his wife) six of the grandest
dinners, and two of the most crowded balls of the season. He made a
successful first speech in the House of Commons. He endowed a church in
a poor neighborhood. He wrote an article which attracted attention in a
quarterly review. He discovered, denounced, and remedied a crying abuse
in the administration of a public charity. He received (thanks once
more to his wife) a member of the Royal family among the visitors at his
country house in the autumn recess. These were his triumphs, and this
his rate of progress on the way to the peerage, during the first year of
his life as the husband of Lady Jane.

There was but one more favor that Fortune could confer on her spoiled
child--and Fortune bestowed it. There was a spot on Mr. Vanborough's
past life as long as the woman lived whom he had disowned and deserted.
At the end of the first year Death took her--and the spot was rubbed
out.

She had met the merciless injury inflicted on her with a rare patience,
with an admirable courage. It is due to Mr. Vanborough to admit that he
broke her heart, with the strictest attention to propriety. He offered
(through his lawyer ) a handsome provision for her and for her child.
It was rejected, without an instant's hesitation. She repudiated his
money--she repudiated his name. By the name which she had borne in her
maiden days--the name which she had made illustrious in her Art--the
mother and daughter were known to all who cared to inquire after them
when they had sunk in the world.

There was no false pride in the resolute attitude which she thus assumed
after her husband had forsaken her. Mrs. Silvester (as she was now
called) gratefully accepted for herself, and for Miss Silvester,
the assistance of the dear old friend who had found her again in her
affliction, and who remained faithful to her to the end. They lived with
Lady Lundie until the mother was strong enough to carry out the plan of
life which she had arranged for the future, and to earn her bread as a
teacher of singing. To all appearance she rallied, and became herself
again, in a few months' time. She was making her way; she was winning
sympathy, confidence, and respect every where--when she sank suddenly
at the opening of her new life. Nobody could account for it. The doctors
themselves were divided in opinion. Scientifically speaking, there was
no reason why she should die. It was a mere figure of speech--in no
degree satisfactory to any reasonable mind--to say, as Lady Lundie said,
that she had got her death-blow on the day when her husband deserted
her. The one thing certain was the fact--account for it as you might.
In spite of science (which meant little), in spite of her own courage
(which meant much), the woman dropped at her post and died.