Chapter 18

"Yaas, he is very objectionable. But you are referring to the poet. He was referring to the jurist. The jurist wrote a very fine book. Let me quote a passage from it. 'It is the present and perfect consent the which alone maketh matrimony, without either solemnisation or'--here, Dunwoodie, skipping the frank old English, substituted--'or anything else, for neither the one nor the other is the essence of matrimony, but consent only. Consensus non concubitus facit matrimoniam.' Hum! Ha! In other words, whether marriage is or is not contracted in facie ecclesiæ, it is consent alone that constitutes its validity. You understand Latin?"

Cassy laughed. "I dream in it."

Dunwoodie laughed too. "Pleasant dreams to you always. But what I have quoted was the common law, and so remained until altered by the Revised Statutes, with which no doubt you are equally familiar."

Cassy smoothed her frock. "I was brought up on them."

"I don't need to tell you then that when adopted here they provided that marriage should be a civil contract. In so providing, they merely reaffirmed the existing common law. Subsequently, the law was changed. The legislature enacted that a marriage must be solemnised by certain persons--ecclesiastic, judicial or municipal--or else, that it should be entered into by written contract, which contract was to be filed in the office of the town clerk. Coincidentally the legislature prohibited any marriage contracted otherwise than in the manner then prescribed."

That morning Cassy had been to an agent, a saponacious person with a fabulous nose. At the moment the nose was before her. She was wondering whether it would scent out for her an engagement.

"However," Dunwoodie, twisting the edge of his towel, continued, "various amendments were afterward adopted and certain sections repealed. Among the latter was the one containing the prohibition which I have cited. In my opinion, it was not the intention of the legislature to repeal it. Yet, however that may be, repealed it was. Since then, or, more exactly, a few weeks ago, the enactments regarding the manner in which marriage must be solemnised were held to be not mandatory but directory, the result being that the law originally prevailing has now come again into operation, common-law marriages are as valid as before and----"

Here Dunwoodie flaunted the towel.

"And you are Mrs. Paliser."

Of the entire exposition, Cassy heard but that. It ousted the agent and his fabulous nose. She bristled.

"I can't be. I don't want to be. You don't seem to see that the clergyman was not a clergyman at all. He was one of the help there. I thought I told you. Why, there was not even a license! That man said he had one. It was only another of the whimsicalities that took me in."

Dunwoodie repocketing the towel, showed his yellow teeth. "A young gentlewoman who dreams in Latin, and who was brought up on the Revised Statutes, must be familiar with Byron. 'Men were deceivers ever.' Not long ago, a Lovelace whose history is given in the New York Reports conducted himself in a manner that would be precisely analogous to that of your late husband, were it not that, instead of dying, he did what was less judicious, he married again--and was sent up for bigamy. He too had omitted to secure a license. He also entertained a lady with a fancy-ball. None the less, the Supreme Court decided that he had legally tied the matrimonial noose about him and that decision the Court of Appeals affirmed."

Cassy shook her pretty self. "Well, even so, I don't see what difference it makes, now at any rate. He is dead and that is the end of it."

"Hum! Not entirely. As widow you are entitled to a share in such property as your late husband possessed. How much, or how little, he did possess I cannot say. But I assume that such share of it as may accrue, will be--ha!--adequate for you."

"But he hadn't anything. He told me so."

"He didn't always tell you the truth though, did he? In any event it is probable that he left enough to provide for your maintenance."

Cassy threw up her hands. "Never in the world."

Dunwoodie again ran his eyes over the severity of her costume. "You think it would be inadequate?"

But Cassy was angry. "I don't think anything about it. Whether it would or would not be adequate, does not make the slightest difference. I won't take it."

"Ha! And why not?"

Cassy fumed. "Why not? But isn't it evident? That man had no intention of marrying me, no intention whatever of leaving me a cent."

"As it happens, he did both."

Cassy clenched her small fist. "No matter. He did not intend to and don't you see if I were to accept a ha'penny of his wretched money, I would be benefiting by a crime for which may God forgive my poor, dear father."

There was a point which the legislature had not considered, which not one of all the New York Reports construed, a point not of law but of conscience, a point for a tribunal other than that which sits in banco. It floored Dunwoodie.

Damnation, she's splendid, he decided as, mentally, he picked himself up. But it would never do to say so and he turned on her his famous look.

"Madam, once your marriage is established, the money becomes rightfully and legally yours, unless----"

With that look he was frowning at this handsome girl who took law and order with such a high hand. But behind the frown was a desire, which he restrained, to hug her.

Frowning still he looked from Cassy to the door and there at a boy, who was poking through it a nose on which freckles were strewn thick as bran.

"Mr. Rymple, sir, says he has an appointment."

The old ruffian, rising, turned to Cassy. "One moment, if you please."

The door, caught in a draught, slammed after him, though less violently than other doors that were slamming still. Would they never stop? Cassy wondered. Would they slam forever? Were there no rooms in life where she might enter and find the silence that is peace? Surely, some time, somewhere that silence might be hers.

She turned. Jones, looking extremely disagreeable, was walking in.

Cassy, closing her ears to those doors, exclaimed at him. "Here's a pretty how d'ye do. Mr. Dunwoodie says I am Mrs. Paliser."

"That afternoon, when you sent your love to my cat, I could have told you that. In fact I did."

From Jones' air and manner you would have said that he was willing and able to bite a ten-penny nail.

Cassy did not notice. "It appears, too, that I am entitled to some of his wretched money."

"It is unfortunate I did not know that also."

"I believe you did. But I sha'n't take it."

Jones drew a chair. Hatefully he looked her up and down.

"You are quite right. Sixty years ago there was but one millionaire in the country. The plutocrat had not appeared in the street, he had not even appeared in the dictionary. The breed was unknown. To-day there are herds of such creatures. I was reading the statistics recently and they depressed me beyond words. It is always depressing to know how much money other people have. You are quite right not to suffer poor devils to be depressed by you."

Mrs. Yallum! thought Cassy, who said as much; "I don't know what you are talking about."

"You are very intelligent. I am talking small change."

Cassy gave a shrug. "Mr. Dunwoodie said I would have enough to live on. I can do as well as that myself, thank you."

"No doubt," Jones snarled. "I am even sure you could do worse. It is extraordinary how much one can accomplish in refusing a dollar or two that might save another man's life. To hell with everybody! That is the noble attitude. I admire your spirit. A handful of bank-notes are crying at you: 'I'm yours, take me, give me to the wounded, to the starving!' Not a bit of it. The Viscountess of Casa-Evora is too proud. That's superb."

Cassy turned on him. "See here, young man----"

"Don't you young man me," Jones irritably cut in. "In the rotunda out there, Dunwoodie gave me a foretaste of your swank and I can tell you I relished it. You won't look at a penny of this money because, if you did, you would be benefiting by an act committed by your father, who, as sure as you live, was impelled by the powers invisible to rid the earth of Paliser and to rid it of him for no other reason than that this money might serve a world in flames. Refused by you it will only revert to an old rounder who never did a good deed in his life; whereas, instead, it could call down blessings on your father's grave. But no, perish the thought! All that is leather and prunella to a young woman who regards herself as the arbiter of destiny. By God, you are prodigious!"

"I think you are horrid."

"So are you. You are the heiress to millions and millions. No wonder you put on airs."

Occasionally, to exceptional beings, a hand issuing from nowhere offers a cup brimming with madness, filled to the top with follies and dreams.

At that cup Cassy stared. It was unreal. If she tried to touch it, it would vanish.

"It is impossible!" she cried.

Jones looked about. "Where is my harp?"

Cassy did not know, she could not tell him. She had not even heard. A crater in the Wall Street sky had opened and from it, in an enchanted shower, fell sequins, opals, perfumes and stars.

But Jones must have found his harp. To that shower he was strumming an accompaniment.

"In to-day's paper there is a Red Cross appeal which says that what we give is gone. It is incredible, but educated people believe it. The ignorance of educated people is affecting. By reason of their education, which now and then includes mythology, they believe that happiness is the greatest of all the gifts that the gods can bestow. Being mortal, they try to obtain it. Being ignorant, they fail. Ignorance confounds pleasure with happiness. Pleasure comes from without, happiness from within. People may be very gay and profoundly miserable, really rich and terribly poor. In either case their condition is due to the fact that the happiness which they sought, they sought for themselves. Their error would be stupid were it not pathetic. In seeking happiness for themselves they fail to find it, but when they succeed in securing it for others, they find that on them also it has been bestowed. The money we give is not gone. It comes back to us. It returns in happiness and all the happiness that the richest, the poorest, the wisest, the stupidest can ever possess, is precisely that happiness which they have given away."

Where now where those doors? Cassy, the cascade of flowers and stars about her, looked at the harper. In listening to him, the doors had ceased to slam. About them there was peace. But her eyes had filled.

Jones was still at it.

"The greatest happiness is the cessation of pain. That pagan aphorism the Red Cross might put on its banners. Spiritually it is defective, but practically it is sound and some relief the Red Cross supplies. Give to it. You can put your money to no fairer use. It will hallow the grave where your father lies."

From beyond, from the adjacent Curb, came the shouts of brokers.

Jones, abandoning his harp, looked over at the girl. "What are you crying about?"

"I am not crying," spluttered Cassy, who was blubbering like a baby. "I never cry. It is disgusting of you to say so."

"You are crying."

"I am not crying," Cassy, indignantly sniffing and sobbing, snapped at him. Fiercely she rubbed her eyes. "It is none of your business, anyhow." Pausing, she choked, recovered and blearily added: "And, anyway, if the money is mine, really mine, honestly mine, I will give it away, all of it, every p--penny."

"No, no, not all of it," Jones hastily threw in, for now the door was opening and Dunwoodie appeared. "Keep a pear for your thirst, put a little million aside."

He turned to the lawyer. "Mrs. Paliser accepts her responsibilities."

"Hum! Ha!" The great man sat down and looked at Cassy. He looked many things but he said very few. "My dear young lady, familiar as you are with Latin, with law and with literature, who am I to remind you that chickens should first be hatched? Your rights may be contested. The Paliser Case, as it will be called, may----"

"The Paliser Case!" interjected Jones, who could see the headline from where he sat. "Shade of Blackstone! It will be famous! It will be filmed! The eminent jurist here will be screened and you, too, my lady."

Balefully Dunwoodie shot a glance at the inkbeast and another at Cassy.

"It may last some time. I have no doubt of the result. None whatever. But in spite of your legal knowledge I suggest that you have associate counsel. Now, permit me to ask, would you care to retain me or would you prefer some one else?"

Cassy, who had dried her eyes, looked at him and it was remarkable how pretty she looked.

"Why, no, Mr. Dunwoodie, I would much rather have you, only----" Uncertainly she paused.

The eminent jurist took it up. "Only what?"

"Well, all I know about law is that it is very expensive and I have nothing except my grandfather's portrait."

Dunwoodie touched a button. "Ha! One moment."

A thin young man, with a pasty face and a slight stoop, opened the door.

The old ruffian raised a stubby finger. "Purdy, a cheque for a thousand dollars, to the order of Bianca Paliser, is to be mailed to this lady to-night."

"But, Mr. Dunwoodie!" Cassy exclaimed.

"You must allow me to be your banker," he told her, and turned again to the clerk. "Get Mr. Jeroloman. Say, with my compliments, I shall be obliged if he will look in here. And, Purdy, see to it that that cheque is attended to. Mrs. Paliser will give you her address."

"But, Mr. Dunwoodie!" Cassy exclaimed again, as the sallow youth went out.

To distract her attention, instantly Jones improvised a limerick. "There was a young man named Purdy, who was not what you'd call very sturdy. To be more of a sport, he drank gin by the quart, and danced on a hurdy-gurdy."

"You're insane," announced Cassy, who was a trifle demented herself.

Dunwoodie extracted his towel. "Jeroloman is the attorney for the other side. He will want to meet Mrs. Paliser, but that honour will not be his to-day."

Cassy stood up. "I should hope not. He would be the last camel on the straw--I mean the last straw on the camel."

Dunwoodie, rising also, gave her his fine bow and to Jones a hand.

Then as the two made for the door, from over her shoulder she smiled back at him.

"My grandmother could not have been nicer."

"What do you mean by that?" Jones absently inquired.

But, in the rotunda now, Mr. Purdy was asking her address. If he had dared he would have followed her there. Fortune favouring, he would have followed her to the ends of the earth. It was what one of our allies calls the thunderbolt. Never before had he beheld such a face. Earnestly he prayed that he might behold it again. Allah is great. The prayer was granted.

In the cañon below, Jones, as he piloted her to the subway, pulled at his gloves.

"If I had the ability, I would write an opera, call it 'Danaë' and offer you the title-rôle."

Cassy, her thoughts on her grandmother, repeated it. "Danaë?"

"Yes, the lady disconnected by marriage with Jupiter who tubbed her in gold--gold ink, I suppose. But as I am not a composer I shall put you between the sheets--of a novel I mean. Fiction has its consolations."

But now, leaving the cañon, they entered a cavern which a tunnel fluted. There Cassy looked up at the inkbeast. "How is Mr. Lennox? Do you see him?"

"I find it very difficult not to. Unattached people are sticky as flies. When Lennox was engaged, he was invisible. Now he is all over the place."

From the tunnel a train erupted. It came with the belch of a monstrous beetle, red-eyed and menacing, hastening terribly to some horrible task.

Jones, shoving the girl into its bowels, added: "I was happier when he was jugged."

A corner beckoned. There, as the beetle resumed its flight, the novelist spread his wings.

"I would have wagered a red pippin that you couldn't say Jack Robinson before he and that young woman were convoluting joyously. I even planned to be best man. Saw my tailor about it. Whether it were on that account or not the Lords of Karma only know, but he told Miss Austen to go to hell."

Cassy started. From before her everything was receding.

Jones noting the movement, interpreted it naturally and therefore stupidly. He apologised.

"Forgive me. I picture you as Our Lady of the Immaculate Conversation. Forgive me, then. Besides, what Lennox did say, he said with less elegance. He said: 'I'm through.' Yes and asked me to repeat it to her. I studiously omitted to, but as Proteus--Mr. Blount in private life--somewhere expressed it, 'Hell has no more fixed or absolute decree.'"

Because of the crashing beetle Jones had to shout it. He shouted it in Cassy's ear. It was a lovely ear and Jones was aware of it. But only professionally. Since that night in Naples when, by way of keepsake, he got a dagger in his back, he had entertained the belief that a novelist should have everything, even to sex, in his brain. Such theories are very safe. Jones' admirations were not therefore carnal. To Balzac, a pretty woman was a plot. Cassy was a plot to Jones, who continued to shout.

"If Lennox and Margaret Austen moved and had their being in a novel of mine, the wedding-bells would now be ringing at a cradle in the last chapter. Commercially it would be my duty to supply that happy and always unexpected touch. I even made a bet about it, which shows how iniquitous gambling is. What's more, it shows that I must have an unsuspected talent for picture-plays. As it was in heaven, so it is now in the movies. It is there that marriages are made. But forgive me again. I am talking shop."

The renewed apology was needless. Though Jones shouted, Cassy did not hear. It was not the clattering beetle that interfered. To that also Cassy was deaf. She heard nothing. The echo of noisy millions had gone. The slamming doors were silent. But her face was pale as running water when, the beetle at last abandoned, she thanked Jones for seeing her all the way.

All the way to where? God, if she only knew!

XXXV

Later that day, Jeroloman, the attorney for the other side, who at the time had no idea that there was another side, or any side at all, entered the rotunda and asked for Dunwoodie.

In asking, he removed his hat, glanced at its glisten, put it on again. The hat was silk. It topped iron grey hair, steel-blue eyes, a turn-under nose, a thin-lipped mouth, a pointed chin, a stand-up collar, a dark neckcloth, a morning coat, grey gloves, grey trousers, drab spats and patent-leather boots. These attributes gave him an air that was intensely respectable, equally tiresome. One pitied his wife.

"This way, sir."

In the inner and airy office, Dunwoodie nodded, motioned at a chair.

"Ha! Very good of you to trouble."

Jeroloman, seating himself, again removed his hat. Before he could dispose of it, Dunwoodie was at him.

"Young Paliser's estate. In round figures what does it amount to?"

Jeroloman, selecting a safe place on the table, put the hat on it and answered, not sparringly, there was nothing to spar about, but with civil indifference: "Interested professionally?"

"His widow is my client."

Jeroloman's eyes fastened themselves on Dunwoodie, who he knew was incapable of anything that savoured, however remotely, of shysterism. But it was a year and a day since he had been closeted with him. In the interim, time had told. Diverting those eyes, he displayed a smile that was chill and dental.

"Well, well! We all make mistakes. There is no such person." He paused, awaiting the possible protest. None came and he added: "The morning after the murder, his father told me that the young man contemplated marriage with a lady who had his entire approval. Unfortunately----"

"Yaas," Dunwoodie broke in. "Unfortunately, as you say. The morning after was the 26th. On the 21st, a gardener, who pretended to be a clergyman, officiated at his marriage to my client."

Dryly but involuntarily Jeroloman laughed. Dunwoodie was getting on, getting old. In his day he had been remarkably able. That day had gone.

"Well, well! Even admitting that such a thing could have happened, it must have been only by way of a lark."

Dunwoodie whipped out his towel. "You don't say so!"

Carelessly Jeroloman surveyed him. He was certainly senile, yet, because of his laurels, entitled to all the honours of war.

"Look here, Mr. Dunwoodie. You are not by any chance serious, are you?"

"Oh, I'm looking. While I was about it, I looked into the case. Per verba de præsenti, my client consented to be young Paliser's wife. Now she is his widow."

Jeroloman weighed it. The weighing took but an instant. Dunwoodie was living in the past, but there was no use in beating about the bush and he said as much.

"You are thinking of the common law, sir."

Absently Dunwoodie creased his towel. "Now you mention it, I believe I am."

Jeroloman glanced at his watch. It was getting late. His residence was five miles away. He was to dress, dine early and take his wife to the theatre. He would have to hurry and he reached for his hat.

"The common law was abrogated long ago."

Dunwoodie rumpled the towel. "Why, so it was!"

Jeroloman took the hat and with a gloved finger rubbed at the brim. "Even otherwise, the term common-law wife is not legally recognised. The law looks with no favour on the connection indicated by it. The term is synonymous for a woman who, having lived illicitly with a man, seeks to assume the relationship of wife after his death and thereby share in the proceeds of his property."

From under beetling brows, Dunwoodie looked at him. "Thanks for the lecture, Jeroloman. My client has no such desire. In this office, an hour ago, she refused them."

Jeroloman stood up. "Very sensible of her, I'm sure." He twirled the hat. "Who is she?"

"I thought I told you. She is Mrs. Paliser."

Jeroloman waved that hat. "Well, well! I thought I told you. As it is, if you will take the trouble to look at the laws of 1901, you will find that common-law marriages are inhibited."

"Hum! Ha! And if you will trouble to look at the Laws of 1907, you will find they are inhibited no longer."

Jeroloman stared. "I have yet to learn of it."

Dunwoodie repocketed his towel. "Is it possible? Then when the opportunity occurs you might inform yourself. At the same time let me recommend the Court of Appeals for March. You may find there additional instruction. But I see you are going. Don't let me detain you."

Jeroloman sat down. "What case are you referring to?"

"The Matter of Ziegler."

Uncertainly Jeroloman's steel-blue eyes shifted. "It seems to me I read the syllabus."

"Then your powers of concealment are admirable."

"But just what does it hold?"

"Can it be that you don't remember? Well, well!--to borrow your own agreeable mode of expression--it holds that common-law marriages that were valid before and until the enactments which you were good enough to cite, were again made valid by their appeal in Chapter 742 of the Laws of 1907."

"But," Jeroloman began and paused. "But----" He paused again.

Comfortably Dunwoodie helped him. "Yes?"

"You say that marriages valid before and until the Laws of 1901 are, by virtue of a repeal, now valid again?"

"That is what I say, Jeroloman. Merely that and nothing more. In addition to the Ziegler case, let me commend to you 'The Raven.'"

"Let's get down to facts, sir. From your account of it, this alleged marriage never could have been valid."

Dunwoodie wiped his mouth. "Dear me! I had no idea that my account of it could lead to such interesting views. You do surprise me."

"Mr. Dunwoodie, you said the ceremony was performed by a gardener who pretended to be a clergyman. Those were your very words."

"Yaas. Let the cat out of the bag, didn't I?"