The Law and the Lady

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"Send the man to New York by the next steamer," I said. "There is
my decision, Mr. Playmore, without keeping you waiting for it!"

He shook his head, in grave disapproval of my impetuosity. In my
former interview with him we had never once touched on the
question of money. I was now, for the first time, to make
acquaintance with Mr. Playmore on the purely Scotch side of his
character.

"Why, you don't even know what it will cost you!" he exclaimed,
taking out his pocket-book with the air of a man who was equally
startled and scandalized. "Wait till I tot it up," he said, "in
English and American money."

"I can't wait! I want to make more discoveries!"

He took no notice of my interruption; he went on impenetrably
with his calculations.

"The man will go second-class, and will take a return-ticket.
Very well. His ticket includes his food; and (being, thank God, a
teetotaler) he won't waste your money in buying liquor on board.
Arrived at New York, he will go to a cheap German house, where he
will, as I am credibly informed, be boarded and lodged at the
rate--"

By this time (my patience being completely worn out) I had taken
my check-book from the table-drawer, had signed my name, and had
handed the blank check across the table to my legal adviser.

"Fill it in with whatever the man wants," I said. "And for
Heaven's sake let us get back to Dexter!"

Mr. Playmore fell back in his chair, and lifted his hands and
eyes to the ceiling. I was not in the least impressed by that
solemn appeal to the unseen powers of arithmetic and money. I
insisted positively on being fed with more information.

"Listen to this," I went on, reading from Benjamin's notes. "What
did Dexter mean when he said, 'Number Nine, Caldershaws. Ask for
Dandie. You shan't have the Diary. A secret in your ear. The
Diary will hang him?' How came Dexter to know what was in my
husband's Diary? And what does he mean by 'Number Nine,
Caldershaws,' and the rest of it? Facts again?"

"Facts again!" Mr. Playmore answered, "muddled up together, as
you may say--but positive facts for all that. Caldershaws, you
must know, is one of the most disreputable districts in
Edinburgh. One of my clerks (whom I am in the habit of employing
confidentially) volunteered to inquire for 'Dandie' at 'Number
Nine.' It was a ticklish business in every way; and my man wisely
took a person with him who was known in the neighborhood. 'Number
Nine' turned out to be (ostensibly) a shop for the sale of rags
and old iron; and 'Dandie' was suspected of trading now and then,
additionally, as a receiver of stolen goods. Thanks to the
influence of his companion, backed by a bank-note (which can be
repaid, by the way, out of the fund for the American expenses),
my clerk succeeded is making the fellow speak. Not to trouble you
with needless details, the result in substance was this: A
fortnight or more before the date of Mrs. Eustace's death,
'Dandie' made two keys from wax models supplied to him by a new
customer. The mystery observed in the matter by the agent who
managed it excited Dandie's distrust. He had the man privately
watched before he delivered the keys; and he ended in discovering
that his customer was--Miserrimus Dexter. Wait a little! I have
not done yet. Add to this information Dexter's incomprehensible
knowledge of the contents of your husband's diary, and the
product is--that the wax models sent to the old-iron shop in
Caldershaws were models taken by theft from the key of the Diary
and the key of the table-drawer in which it was kept. I have my
own idea of the revelations that are still to come if this matter
is properly followed up. Never mind going into that at present.
Dexter (I tell you again) is answerable for the late Mrs.
Eustace's death. _How_ he is answerable I believe you are in a
fair way of finding out. And, more than that, I say now, what I
could not venture to say before--it is a duty toward Justice, as
well as a duty toward your husband, to bring the truth to light.
As for the difficulties to be encountered, I don't think they
need daunt you. The greatest difficulties give way in the end,
when they are attacked by the united alliance of patience
resolution--_and_ economy."

With a strong emphasis on the last words, my worthy adviser,
mindful of the flight of time and the claims of business, rose to
take his leave.

"One word more," I said, as he held out his hand. "Can you manage
to s ee Miserrimus Dexter before you go back to Edinburgh? From
what the gardener told me, his brother must be with him by this
time. It would be a relief to me to hear the latest news of him,
and to hear it from you."

"It is part of my business in London to see him," said Mr.
Playmore. "But mind! I have no hope of his recovery; I only wish
to satisfy myself that his brother is able and willing to take
care of him. So far as _we_ are concerned, Mrs. Eustace, that
unhappy man has said his last words."

He opened the door--stopped--considered--and come back to me.

"With regard to that matter of sending the agent to America," he
resumed--"I propose to have the honor of submitting to you a
brief abstract--"

"Oh, Mr. Playmore!"

"A brief abstract in writing, Mrs. Eustace, of the estimated
expenses of the whole proceeding. You will be good enough
maturely to consider the same, making any remarks on it, tending
to economy, which may suggest themselves to your mind at the
time. And you will further oblige me, if you approve of the
abstract, by yourself filling in the blank space on your check
with the needful amount in words and figures. No, madam! I really
cannot justify it to my conscience to carry about my person any
such loose and reckless document as a blank check. There's a
total disregard of the first claims of prudence and economy
implied in this small slip of paper which is nothing less than a
flat contradiction of the principles that have governed my whole
life. I can't submit to flat contradiction. Good-morning, Mrs.
Eustace--good-morning."

He laid my check on the table with a low bow, and left me. Among
the curious developments of human stupidity which occasionally
present themselves to view, surely the least excusable is the
stupidity which, to this day, persists in wondering why the
Scotch succeed so well in life!

CHAPTER XLII.

MORE SURPRISES.

The same evening I received my "abstract" by the hands of a
clerk.

It was an intensely characteristic document. My expenses were
remorselessly calculated downward to shillings and even to pence;
and our unfortunate messenger's instructions in respect to his
expenditure were reduced to a nicety which must have made his
life in America nothing less than a burden to him. In mercy to
the man, I took the liberty, when I wrote back to Mr. Playmore,
of slightly increasing the indicated amount of the figures which
were to appear on the check. I ought to have better known the
correspondent whom I had to deal with. Mr. Playmore's reply
(informing me that our emissary had started on his voyage)
returned a receipt in due form, and the whole of the surplus
money, to the last farthing!

A few hurried lines accompanied the "abstract," and stated the
result of the lawyer's visit to Miserrimus Dexter.

There was no change for the better--there was no change at all.
Mr. Dexter, the brother, had arrived at the house accompanied by
a medical man accustomed to the charge of the insane. The new
doctor declined to give any definite opinion on the case until he
had studied it carefully with plenty of time at his disposal. It
had been accordingly arranged that he should remove Miserrimus
Dexter to the asylum of which he was the proprietor as soon as
the preparations for receiving the patient could be completed.
The one difficulty that still remained to be met related to the
disposal of the faithful creature who had never left her master,
night or day, since the catastrophe had happened. Ariel had no
friends and no money. The proprietor of the asylum could not be
expected to receive her without the customary payment; and Mr.
Dexter's brother "regretted to say that he was not rich enough to
find the money." A forcible separation from the one human being
whom she loved, and a removal in the character of a pauper to a
public asylum--such was the prospect which awaited the
unfortunate creature unless some one interfered in her favor
before the end of the week.

Under these sad circumstances, good Mr. Playmore--passing over
the claims of economy in favor of the claims of
humanity--suggested that we should privately start a
subscription, and offered to head the list liberally himself.

I must have written all these pages to very little purpose if it
is necessary for me to add that I instantly sent a letter to Mr.
Dexter, the brother, undertaking to be answerable for whatever
money was to be required while the subscriptions were being
collected, and only stipulating that when Miserrimus Dexter was
removed to the asylum, Ariel should accompany him. This was
readily conceded. But serious objections were raised when I
further requested that she might be permitted to attend on her
master in the asylum as she had attended on him in the house. The
rules of the establishment forbade it, and the universal practice
in such cases forbade it, and so on, and so on. However, by dint
of perseverance and persuasion, I so far carried my point as to
gain a reasonable concession. During certain hours in the day,
and under certain wise restrictions, Ariel was to be allowed the
privilege of waiting on the Master in his room, as well as of
accompanying him when he was brought out in his chair to take the
air in the garden. For the honor of humanity, let me add that the
liability which I had undertaken made no very serious demands on
my resources. Placed in Benjamin's charge, our subscription-list
prospered. Friends, and even strangers sometimes, opened their
hearts and their purses when they heard Ariel's melancholy story.

The day which followed the day of Mr. Playmore's visit brought
me news from Spain, in a letter from my mother-in-law. To
describe what I felt when I broke the seal and read the first
lines is simply impossible. Let Mrs. Macallan be heard on this
occasion in my place.

Thus she wrote:

"Prepare yourself, my dearest Valeria, for a delightful
surprise. Eustace has justified my confidence in him. When he
returns to England, he returns--if you will let him--to his wife.

"This resolution, let me hasten to assure you, has not been
brought about by any persuasions of mine. It is the natural
outgrowth of your husband's gratitude and your husband's love.
The first words he said to me, when he was able to speak, were
these: 'If I live to return to England, and if I go to Valeria,
do you think she will forgive me?' We can only leave it to you,
my dear, to give the answer. If you love us, answer us by return
of post.

"Having now told you what he said when I first informed him that
you had been his nurse--and remember, if it seem very little,
that he is still too weak to speak except with difficulty--I
shall purposely keep my letter back for a few days. My object is
to give him time to think, and to frankly tell you of it if the
interval produce any change in his resolution.

"Three days have passed, and there is no change. He has but one
feeling now--he longs for the day which is to unite him again to
his wife.

"But there is something else connected with Eustace that you
ought to know, and that I ought to tell you.

"Greatly as time and suffering have altered him in many respects,
there is no change, Valeria, in the aversion--the horror I may
even say--with which he views your idea of inquiring anew into
the circumstances which attended the lamentable death of his
first wife. It makes no difference to him that you are only
animated by a desire to serve his interests. 'Has she given up
that idea? Are you positively sure she has given up that idea?'
Over and over again he has put these questions to me. I have
answered--what else could I do in the miserably feeble state in
which he still lies?--I have answered in such a manner as to
soothe and satisfy him. I have said, 'Relieve your mind of all
anxiety on that subject: Valeria has no choice but to give up the
idea; the obstacles in her way have proved to be
insurmountable--the obstacles have conquered her.' This, if you
remember, was what I really believed would happen when you and I
spoke of that painful topic; and I have heard nothing from you
since which has tended to shake my opinion in the smallest
degree. If I am right (as I pray God I may be) in the view that I
take, you h ave only to confirm me in your reply, and all will be
well. In the other event--that is to say, if you are still
determined to persevere in your hopeless project--then make up
your mind to face the result. Set Eustace's prejudices at
defiance in this particular, and you lose your hold on his
gratitude, his penitence, and his love--you will, in my belief,
never see him again.

"I express myself strongly, in your own interests, my dear, and
for your own sake. When you reply, write a few lines to Eustace,
inclosed in your letter to me.

"As for the date of our departure, it is still impossible for me
to give you any definite information. Eustace recovers very
slowly; the doctor has not yet allowed him to leave his bed; and
when we do travel we must journey by easy stages. It will be at
least six weeks, at the earliest, before we can hope to be back
again in dear Old England.

"Affectionately yours,

"CATHERINE MACALLAN."

I laid down the letter, and did my best (vainly enough for some
time) to compose my spirits. To understand the position in which
I now found myself, it is only necessary to remember one
circumstance: the messenger to whom we had committed our
inquiries was at that moment crossing the Atlantic on his way to
New York.

What was to be done?

I hesitated. Shocking as it may seem to some people, I hesitated.
There was really no need to hurry my decision. I had the whole
day before me.

I went out and took a wretched, lonely walk, and turned the
matter over in my mind. I came home again, and turned the matter
over once more by the fireside. To offend and repel my darling
when he was returning to me, penitently returning of his own free
will, was what no woman in my position, and feeling as I did,
could under any earthly circumstances have brought herself to do.
And yet. on the other hand, how in Heaven's name could I give up
my grand enterprise at the very time when even wise and prudent
Mr. Playmore saw such a prospect of succeeding in it that he had
actually volunteered to help me? Placed between those two cruel
alternatives, which could I choose? Think of your own frailties,
and have some mercy on mine. I turned my back on both the
alternatives. Those two agreeable fiends, Prevarication and
Deceit, took me, as it were, softly by the hand: "Don't commit
yourself either way, my dear," they said, in their most
persuasive manner. "Write just enough to compose your
mother-in-law and to satisfy your husband. You have got time
before you. Wait and see if Time doesn't stand your friend, and
get you out of the difficulty."

Infamous advice! And yet I took it--I, who had been well brought
up, and who ought to have known better. You who read this
shameful confession would have known better, I am sure. _You_ are
not included, in the Prayer-book category, among the "miserable
sinners."

Well! well! let me have virtue enough to tell the truth. In
writing to my mother-in-law, I informed her that it had been
found necessary to remove Miserrimus Dexter to an asylum--and I
left her to draw her own conclusions from that fact,
unenlightened by so much as one word of additional information.
In the same way, I told my husband a part of the truth, and no
more. I said I forgave him with all my heart--and I did! I said
he had only to come to me, and I would receive him with open
arms--and so I would! As for the rest, let me say with
Hamlet--"The rest is silence."

Having dispatched my unworthy letters, I found myself growing
restless, and feeling the want of a change. It would be necessary
to wait at least eight or nine days before we could hope to hear
by telegraph from New York. I bade farewell for a time to my dear
and admirable Benjamin, and betook myself to my old home in the
North, at the vicarage of my uncle Starkweather. My journey to
Spain to nurse Eustace had made my peace with my worthy
relatives; we had exchanged friendly letters; and I had promised
to be their guest as soon as it was possible for me to leave
London.

I passed a quiet and (all things considered) a happy time among
the old scenes. I visited once more the bank by the river-side,
where Eustace and I had first met. I walked again on the lawn and
loitered through the shrubbery--those favorite haunts in which we
had so often talked over our troubles, and so often forgotten
them in a kiss. How sadly and strangely had our lives been parted
since that time! How uncertain still was the fortune which the
future had in store for us!

The associations amid which I was now living had their softening
effect on my heart, their elevating influence over my mind. I
reproached myself, bitterly reproached myself, for not having
written more fully and frankly to Eustace. Why had I hesitated to
sacrifice to him my hopes and my interests in the coming
investigation? _He_ had not hesitated, poor fellow--_his_ first
thought was the thought of his wife!

I had passed a fortnight with my uncle and aunt before I heard
again from Mr. Playmore. When a letter from him arrived at last,
it disappointed me indescribably. A telegram from our messenger
informed us that the lodge-keeper's daughter and her husband had
left New York, and that he was still in search of a trace of
them.

There was nothing to be done but to wait as patiently as we
could, on the chance of hearing better news. I remained in the
North, by Mr. Playmore's advice, so as to be within an easy
journey to Edinburgh--in case it might be necessary for me to
consult him personally. Three more weeks of weary expectation
passed before a second letter reached me. This time it was
impossible to say whether the news were good or bad. It might
have been either--it was simply bewildering. Even Mr. Playmore
himself was taken by surprise. These were the last wonderful
words--limited of course by considerations of economy--which
reached us (by telegram) from our agent in America:

"Open the dust-heap at Gleninch."

CHAPTER XLIII.

AT LAST!

MY letter from Mr. Playmore, inclosing the agent's extraordinary
telegram, was not inspired by the sanguine view of our prospects
which he had expressed to me when we met at Benjamin's house.

"If the telegram mean anything," he wrote, "it means that the
fragments of the torn letter have been cast into the housemaid's
bucket (along with the dust, the ashes, and the rest of the
litter in the room), and have been emptied on the dust-heap at
Gleninch. Since this was done, the accumulated refuse collected
from the periodical cleansings of the house, during a term of
nearly three years--including, of course, the ashes from the
fires kept burning, for the greater part of the year, in the
library and the picture-gallery--have been poured upon the heap,
and have buried the precious morsels of paper deeper and deeper,
day by day. Even if we have a fair chance of finding these
fragments, what hope can we feel, at this distance of time, of
recovering them with the writing in a state of preservation? I
shall be glad to hear, by return of post if possible, how the
matter strikes you. If you could make it convenient to consult
with me personally in Edinburgh, we should save time, when time
may be of serious importance to us. While you are at Doctor
Starkweather's you are within easy reach of this place. Please
think of it."

I thought of it seriously enough. The foremost question which I
had to consider was the question of my husband.

The departure of the mother and son from Spain had been so long
delayed, by the surgeon's orders, that the travelers had only
advanced on their homeward journey as far as Bordeaux, when I had
last heard from Mrs. Macallan three or four days since. Allowing
for an interval of repose at Bordeaux, and for the slow rate at
which they would be compelled to move afterward, I might still
expect them to arrive in England some time before a letter from
the agent in America could reach Mr. Playmore. How, in this
position of affairs, I could contrive to join the lawyer in
Edinburgh, after meeting my husband in London, it was not easy to
see. The wise and the right way, as I thought, was to tell Mr.
Playmore frankly that I was not mistress of my
Own movements, and that he had better address his next letter to
me at Benjamin's house.

Writing to my legal adviser in this sense, I had a word of my own
to add on the subject of the torn letter.

In the last years of my father's life I had traveled with him in
Italy, and I had seen in the Museum at Naples the wonderful
relics of a bygone time discovered among the ruins of Pompeii. By
way of encouraging Mr. Playmore, I now reminded him that the
eruption which had overwhelmed the town had preserved, for more
than sixteen hundred years, such perishable things as the straw
in which pottery had been packed; the paintings on house walls;
the dresses worn by the inhabitants; and (most noticeable of all,
in our case) a piece of ancient paper, still attached to the
volcanic ashes which had fallen over it. If these discoveries had
been made after a lapse of sixteen centuries, under a layer of
dust and ashes on a large scale, surely we might hope to meet
with similar cases of preservation, after a lapse of three or
four years only, under a layer of dust and ashes on a small
scale. Taking for granted (what was perhaps doubtful enough) that
the fragments of the letter could be recovered, my own conviction
was that the writing on them, though it might be faded, would
certainly still be legible. The very accumulations which Mr.
Playmore deplored would be the means of preserving them from the
rain and the damp. With these modest hints I closed my letter;
and thus for once, thanks to my Continental experience, I was
able to instruct my lawyer!

Another day passed; and I heard nothing of the travelers.

I began to feel anxious. I made my preparations for my journey
southward overnight; and I resolved to start for London the next
day--unless I heard of some change in Mrs. Macallan's traveling
arrangements in the interval.

The post of the next morning decided my course of action. It
brought me a letter from my mother-in-law, which added one more
to the memorable dates in my domestic calendar.

Eustace and his mother had advanced as far as Paris on their
homeward journey, when a cruel disaster had befallen them. The
fatigues of traveling, and the excitement of his anticipated
meeting with me, had proved together to be too much for my
husband. He had held out as far as Paris with the greatest
difficulty; and he was now confined to his bed again, struck down
by a relapse. The doctors, this time, had no fear for his life,
provided that his patience would support him through a lengthened
period of the most absolute repose.

"It now rests with you, Valeria," Mrs. Macallan wrote, "to
fortify and comfort Eustace under this new calamity. Do not
suppose that he has ever blamed or thought of blaming you for
leaving him with me in Spain, as soon as he was declared to be
out of danger. 'It was _I_ who left _her,_' he said to me, when
we first talked about it; 'and it is my wife's right to expect
that I should go back to her.' Those were his words, my dear; and
he has done all he can to abide by them. Helpless in his bed, he
now asks you to take the will for the deed, and to join him in
Paris. I think I know you well enough, my child, to be sure that
you will do this; and I need only add one word of caution, before
I close my letter. Avoid all reference, not only to the Trial
(you will do that of your own accord), but even to our house at
Gleninch. You will understand how he feels, in his present state
of nervous depression, when I tell you that I should never have
ventured on asking you to join him here, if your letter had not
informed me that your visits to Dexter were at an end. Would you
believe it?--his horror of anything which recalls our past
troubles is still so vivid that he has actually asked me to give
my consent to selling Gleninch!"

So Eustace's mother wrote of him. But she had not trusted
entirely to her own powers of persuasion. A slip of paper was
inclosed in her letter, containing these two lines, traced in
pencil--oh, so feebly and so wearily!--by my poor darling
himself:

"I am too weak to travel any further, Valeria. Will you come to
me and forgive me?" A few pencil-marks followed; but they were
illegible. The writing of those two short sentences had exhausted
him.

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