Chapter 43

Both Sir Patrick and Anne bowed in silence to the persons assembled. Lady Lundie ceremoniously returned her brother-in-law’s salute--and pointedly abstained from noticing Anne’s presence in the room. Blanche never looked up. Arnold advanced to her, with his hand held out. Lady Lundie rose, and motioned him back. “Not _yet,_ Mr. Brinkworth!” she said, in her most quietly merciless manner. Arnold stood, heedless of her, looking at his wife. His wife lifted her eyes to his; the tears rose in them on the instant. Arnold’s dark complexion turned ashy pale under the effort that it cost him to command himself. “I won’t distress you,” he said, gently--and turned back again to the table at which Sir Patrick and Anne were seated together apart from the rest. Sir Patrick took his hand, and pressed it in silent approval.

The one person who took no part, even as spectator, in the events that followed the appearance of Sir Patrick and his companions in the room--was Geoffrey. The only change visible in him was a change in the handling of his walking-stick. Instead of tracing patterns on the carpet, it beat a tattoo. For the rest, there he sat with his heavy head on his breast and his brawny arms on his knees--weary of it by anticipation before it had begun.

Sir Patrick broke the silence. He addressed himself to his sister-in-law.

“Lady Lundie, are all the persons present whom you expected to see here to-day?”

The gathered venom in Lady Lundie seized the opportunity of planting its first sting.

“All whom I expected are here,” she answered. “And more than I expected,” she added, with a look at Anne.

The look was not returned--was not even seen. From the moment when she had taken her place by Sir Patrick, Anne’s eyes had rested on Blanche. They never moved--they never for an instant lost their tender sadness--when the woman who hated her spoke. All that was beautiful and true in that noble nature seemed to find its one sufficient encouragement in Blanche. As she looked once more at the sister of the unforgotten days of old, its native beauty of expression shone out again in her worn and weary face. Every man in the room (but Geoffrey) looked at her; and every man (but Geoffrey) felt for her.

Sir Patrick addressed a second question to his sister-in-law.

“Is there any one here to represent the interests of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?” he asked.

Lady Lundie referred Sir Patrick to Geoffrey himself. Without looking up, Geoffrey motioned with his big brown hand to Mr. Moy, sitting by his side.

Mr. Moy (holding the legal rank in Scotland which corresponds to the rank held by solicitors in England) rose and bowed to Sir Patrick, with the courtesy due to a man eminent in his time at the Scottish Bar.

“I represent Mr. Delamayn,” he said. “I congratulate myself, Sir Patrick, on having your ability and experience to appeal to in the conduct of the pending inquiry.”

Sir Patrick returned the compliment as well as the bow.

“It is I who should learn from you,” he answered. “_I_ have had time, Mr. Moy, to forget what I once knew.”

Lady Lundie looked from one to the other with unconcealed impatience as these formal courtesies were exchanged between the lawyers. “Allow me to remind you, gentlemen, of the suspense that we are suffering at this end of the room,” she said. “And permit me to ask when you propose to begin?”

Sir Patrick looked invitingly at Mr. Moy. Mr. Moy looked invitingly at Sir Patrick. More formal courtesies! a polite contest this time as to which of the two learned gentlemen should permit the other to speak first! Mr. Moy’s modesty proving to be quite immovable, Sir Patrick ended it by opening the proceedings.

“I am here,” he said, “to act on behalf of my friend, Mr. Arnold Brinkworth. I beg to present him to you, Mr. Moy as the husband of my niece--to whom he was lawfully married on the seventh of September last, at the Church of Saint Margaret, in the parish of Hawley, Kent. I have a copy of the marriage certificate here--if you wish to look at it.”

Mr. Moy’s modesty declined to look at it.

“Quite needless, Sir Patrick! I admit that a marriage ceremony took place on the date named, between the persons named; but I contend that it was not a valid marriage. I say, on behalf of my client here present (Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn), that Arnold Brinkworth was married at a date prior to the seventh of September last--namely, on the fourteenth of August in this year, and at a place called Craig Fernie, in Scotland--to a lady named Anne Silvester, now living, and present among us (as I understand) at this moment.”

Sir Patrick presented Anne. “This is the lady, Mr. Moy.”

Mr. Moy bowed, and made a suggestion. “To save needless formalities, Sir Patrick, shall we take the question of identity as established on both sides?”

Sir Patrick agreed with his learned friend. Lad y Lundie opened and shut her fan in undisguised impatience. The London solicitor was deeply interested. Captain Newenden, taking out his handkerchief, and using it as a screen, yawned behind it to his heart’s content. Sir Patrick resumed.

“You assert the prior marriage,” he said to his colleague. “It rests with you to begin.”

Mr. Moy cast a preliminary look round him at the persons assembled.

“The object of our meeting here,” he said, “is, if I am not mistaken, of a twofold nature. In the first place, it is thought desirable, by a person who has a special interest in the issue of this inquiry” (he glanced at the captain--the captain suddenly became attentive), “to put my client’s assertion, relating to Mr. Brinkworth’s marriage, to the proof. In the second place, we are all equally desirous--whatever difference of opinion may otherwise exist--to make this informal inquiry a means, if possible, of avoiding the painful publicity which would result from an appeal to a Court of Law.”

At those words the gathered venom in Lady Lundie planted its second sting--under cover of a protest addressed to Mr. Moy.

“I beg to inform you, Sir, on behalf of my step-daughter,” she said, “that we have nothing to dread from the widest publicity. We consent to be present at, what you call, ‘this informal inquiry,’ reserving our right to carry the matter beyond the four walls of this room. I am not referring now to Mr. Brinkworth’s chance of clearing himself from an odious suspicion which rests upon him, and upon another Person present. That is an after-matter. The object immediately before us--so far as a woman can pretend to understand it--is to establish my step-daughter’s right to call Mr. Brinkworth to account in the character of his wife. If the result, so far, fails to satisfy us in that particular, we shall not hesitate to appeal to a Court of Law.” She leaned back in her chair, and opened her fan, and looked round her with the air of a woman who called society to witness that she had done her duty.

An expression of pain crossed Blanche’s face while her step-mother was speaking. Lady Lundie took her hand for the second time. Blanche resolutely and pointedly withdrew it--Sir Patrick noticing the action with special interest. Before Mr. Moy could say a word in answer, Arnold centred the general attention on himself by suddenly interfering in the proceedings. Blanche looked at him. A bright flash of color appeared on her face--and left it again. Sir Patrick noted the change of color--and observed her more attentively than ever. Arnold’s letter to his wife, with time to help it, had plainly shaken her ladyship’s influence over Blanche.

“After what Lady Lundie has said, in my wife’s presence,” Arnold burst out, in his straightforward, boyish way, “I think I ought to be allowed to say a word on my side. I only want to explain how it was I came to go to Craig Fernie at all--and I challenge Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn to deny it, if he can.”

His voice rose at the last words, and his eyes brightened with indignation as he looked at Geoffrey.

Mr. Moy appealed to his learned friend.

“With submission, Sir Patrick, to your better judgment,” he said, “this young gentleman’s proposal seems to be a little out of place at the present stage of the proceedings.”

“Pardon me,” answered Sir Patrick. “You have yourself described the proceedings as representing an informal inquiry. An informal proposal--with submission to _your_ better judgment, Mr. Moy--is hardly out of place, under those circumstances, is it?”

Mr. Moy’s inexhaustible modesty gave way, without a struggle. The answer which he received had the effect of puzzling him at the outset of the investigation. A man of Sir Patrick’s experience must have known that Arnold’s mere assertion of his own innocence could be productive of nothing but useless delay in the proceedings. And yet he sanctioned that delay. Was he privately on the watch for any accidental circumstance which might help him to better a case that he knew to be a bad one?

Permitted to speak, Arnold spoke. The unmistakable accent of truth was in every word that he uttered. He gave a fairly coherent account of events, from the time when Geoffrey had claimed his assistance at the lawn-party to the time when he found himself at the door of the inn at Craig Fernie. There Sir Patrick interfered, and closed his lips. He asked leave to appeal to Geoffrey to confirm him. Sir Patrick amazed Mr. Moy by sanctioning this irregularity also. Arnold sternly addressed himself to Geoffrey.

“Do you deny that what I have said is true?” he asked.

Mr. Moy did his duty by his client. “You are not bound to answer,” he said, “unless you wish it yourself.”

Geoffrey slowly lifted his heavy head, and confronted the man whom he had betrayed.

“I deny every word of it,” he answered--with a stolid defiance of tone and manner.

“Have we had enough of assertion and counter-assertion, Sir Patrick, by this time?” asked Mr. Moy, with undiminished politeness.

After first forcing Arnold--with some little difficulty--to control himself, Sir Patrick raised Mr. Moy’s astonishment to the culminating point. For reasons of his own, he determined to strengthen the favorable impression which Arnold’s statement had plainly produced on his wife before the inquiry proceeded a step farther.

“I must throw myself on your indulgence, Mr. Moy,” he said. “I have not had enough of assertion and counter-assertion, even yet.”

Mr. Moy leaned back in his chair, with a mixed expression of bewilderment and resignation. Either his colleague’s intellect was in a failing state--or his colleague had some purpose in view which had not openly asserted itself yet. He began to suspect that the right reading of the riddle was involved in the latter of those two alternatives. Instead of entering any fresh protest, he wisely waited and watched.

Sir Patrick went on unblushingly from one irregularity to another.

“I request Mr. Moy’s permission to revert to the alleged marriage, on the fourteenth of August, at Craig Fernie,” he said. “Arnold Brinkworth! answer for yourself, in the presence of the persons here assembled. In all that you said, and all that you did, while you were at the inn, were you not solely influenced by the wish to make Miss Silvester’s position as little painful to her as possible, and by anxiety to carry out the instructions given to you by Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn? Is that the whole truth?”

“That is the whole truth, Sir Patrick.”

“On the day when you went to Craig Fernie, had you not, a few hours previously, applied for my permission to marry my niece?”

“I applied for your permission, Sir Patrick; and you gave it me.”

“From the moment when you entered the inn to the moment when you left it, were you absolutely innocent of the slightest intention to marry Miss Silvester?”

“No such thing as the thought of marrying Miss Silvester ever entered my head.”

“And this you say, on your word of honor as a gentleman?”

“On my word of honor as a gentleman.”

Sir Patrick turned to Anne.

“Was it a matter of necessity, Miss Silvester, that you should appear in the assumed character of a married woman--on the fourteenth of August last, at the Craig Fernie inn?”

Anne looked away from Blanche for the first time. She replied to Sir Patrick quietly, readily, firmly--Blanche looking at her, and listening to her with eager interest.

“I went to the inn alone, Sir Patrick. The landlady refused, in the plainest terms, to let me stay there, unless she was first satisfied that I was a married woman.”

“Which of the two gentlemen did you expect to join you at the inn--Mr. Arnold Brinkworth, or Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?”

“Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn.”

“When Mr. Arnold Brinkworth came in his place and said what was necessary to satisfy the scruples of the landlady, you understood that he was acting in your interests, from motives of kindness only, and under the instructions of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?”

“I understood that; and I objected as strongly as I could to Mr. Brinkworth placing himself in a false position on my account.”

“Did your objection proceed from any knowledge of the Scottish law of marriage, and of the position in which the peculiarities of that law might place Mr. Brinkworth?”

“I had no knowledge of the Scottish law. I had a vague dislike and dread of the deception which Mr. Brinkworth was practicing on the people of the inn. And I feared that it might lead to some possible misinterpretation of me on the part of a person whom I dearly loved.”

“That person being my niece?”

“Yes.”

“You appealed to Mr. Brinkworth (knowing of his attachment to my niece), in her name, and for her sake, to leave you to shift for yourself?”

“I did.”

“As a gentleman who had given his promise to help and protect a lady, in the absence of the person whom she had depended on to join her, he refused to leave you to shift by yourself?”

“Unhappily, he refused on that account.”

“From first to last, you were absolutely innocent of the slightest intention to marry Mr. Brinkworth?”

“I answer, Sir Patrick, as Mr. Brinkworth has answered. No such thing as the thought of marrying him ever entered my head.”

“And this you say, on your oath as a Christian woman?”

“On my oath as a Christian woman.”

Sir Patrick looked round at Blanche. Her face was hidden in her hands. Her step-mother was vainly appealing to her to compose herself.

In the moment of silence that followed, Mr. Moy interfered in the interests of his client.

“I waive my claim, Sir Patrick, to put any questions on my side. I merely desire to remind you, and to remind the company present, that all that we have just heard is mere assertion--on the part of two persons strongly interested in extricating themselves from a position which fatally compromises them both. The marriage which they deny I am now waiting to prove--not by assertion, on my side, but by appeal to competent witnesses.”

After a brief consultation with her own solicitor, Lady Lundie followed Mr. Moy, in stronger language still.

“I wish you to understand, Sir Patrick, before you proceed any farther, that I shall remove my step-daughter from the room if any more attempts are made to harrow her feelings and mislead her judgment. I want words to express my sense of this most cruel and unfair way of conducting the inquiry.”

The London lawyer followed, stating his professional approval of his client’s view. “As her ladyship’s legal adviser,” he said, “I support the protest which her ladyship has just made.”

Even Captain Newenden agreed in the general disapproval of Sir Patrick’s conduct. “Hear, hear!” said the captain, when the lawyer had spoken. “Quite right. I must say, quite right.”

Apparently impenetrable to all due sense of his position, Sir Patrick addressed himself to Mr. Moy, as if nothing had happened.

“Do you wish to produce your witnesses at once?” he asked. “I have not the least objection to meet your views--on the understanding that I am permitted to return to the proceedings as interrupted at this point.”

Mr. Moy considered. The adversary (there could be no doubt of it by this time) had something in reserve--and the adversary had not yet shown his hand. It was more immediately important to lead him into doing this than to insist on rights and privileges of the purely formal sort. Nothing could shake the strength of the position which Mr. Moy occupied. The longer Sir Patrick’s irregularities delayed the proceedings, the more irresistibly the plain facts of the case would assert themselves--with all the force of contrast--out of the mouths of the witnesses who were in attendance down stairs. He determined to wait.

“Reserving my right of objection, Sir Patrick,” he answered, “I beg you to go on.”

To the surprise of every body, Sir Patrick addressed himself directly to Blanche--quoting the language in which Lady Lundie had spoken to him, with perfect composure of tone and manner.

“You know me well enough, my dear,” he said, “to be assured that I am incapable of willingly harrowing your feelings or misleading your judgment. I have a question to ask you, which you can answer or not, entirely as you please.”

Before he could put the question there was a momentary contest between Lady Lundie and her legal adviser. Silencing her ladyship (not without difficulty), the London lawyer interposed. He also begged leave to reserve the right of objection, so far as _his_ client was concerned.

Sir Patrick assented by a sign, and proceeded to put his question to Blanche.

“You have heard what Arnold Brinkworth has said, and what Miss Silvester has said,” he resumed. “The husband who loves you, and the sisterly friend who loves you, have each made a solemn declaration. Recall your past experience of both of them; remember what they have just said; and now tell me--do you believe they have spoken falsely?”

Blanche answered on the instant.

“I believe, uncle, they have spoken the truth!”

Both the lawyers registered their objections. Lady Lundie made another attempt to speak, and was stopped once more--this time by Mr. Moy as well as by her own adviser. Sir Patrick went on.

“Do you feel any doubt as to the entire propriety of your husband’s conduct and your friend’s conduct, now you have seen them and heard them, face to face?”

Blanche answered again, with the same absence of reserve.

“I ask them to forgive me,” she said. “I believe I have done them both a great wrong.”

She looked at her husband first--then at Anne. Arnold attempted to leave his chair. Sir Patrick firmly restrained him. “Wait!” he whispered. “You don’t know what is coming.” Having said that, he turned toward Anne. Blanche’s look had gone to the heart of the faithful woman who loved her. Anne’s face was turned away--the tears were forcing themselves through the worn weak hands that tried vainly to hide them.

The formal objections of the lawyers were registered once more. Sir Patrick addressed himself to his niece for the last time.

“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 happen 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.