The Law and the Lady

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The question was plain. Benjamin met it with a plain answer.

"I think I should find my way, my dear, to some intimate friend
of your husband's," he said, "and make a few discreet inquiries
in that quarter first."

Some intimate friend of my husband's? I considered with myself.
There was but one friend of his whom I knew of--my uncle's
correspondent, Major Fitz-David. My heart beat fast as the name
recurred to my memory. Suppose I followed Benjamin's advice?
Suppose I applied to Major Fitz-David? Even if he, too, refused
to answer my questions, my position would not be more helpless
than it was now. I determined to make the attempt. The only
difficulty in the way, so far, was to discover the Major's
address. I had given back his letter to Doctor Starkweather, at
my uncle's own request. I remembered that the address from which
the Major wrote was somewhere in London--and I remembered no
more.

"Thank you, old friend; you have given me an idea already," I
said to Benjamin. "Have you got a Directory in your house?"

"No, my dear," he rejoined, looking very much puzzled. "But I can
easily send out and borrow one."

We returned to the villa. The servant was sent at once to the
nearest stationer's to borrow a Directory. She returned with the
book just as we sat down to dinner. Searching for the Major's
name under the letter F, I was startled by a new discovery.

"Benjamin!" I said. "This is a strange coincidence. Look here!"

He looked where I pointed. Major Fitz-David's address was Number
Sixteen Vivian Place--the very house which I had seen my husband
leaving as we passed in the carriage!

CHAPTER VII.

ON THE WAY TO THE MAJOR.

"YES, said Benjamin. "It _is_ a coincidence certainly. Still--"

He stopped and looked at me. He seemed a little doubtful how I
might receive what he had it in his mind to say to me next.

"Go on," I said.

"Still, my dear, I see nothing suspicious in what has happened,"
he resumed. "To my mind it is quite natural that your husband,
being in London, should pay a visit to one of his friends. And
it's equally natural that we should pass through Vivian Place on
our way back here. This seems to be the reasonable view. What do
_you_ say?"

"I have told you already that my mind is in a bad way about
Eustace," I answered. "_I_ say there is some motive at the bottom
of his visit to Major Fitz-David. It is not an ordinary call. I
am firmly convinced it is not an ordinary call!"

"Suppose we get on with our dinner?" said Benjamin, resignedly.
"Here is a loin of mutton, my dear--an ordinary loin of mutton.
Is there anything suspicious in _that?_ Very well, then. Show me
you have confidence in the mutton; please eat. There's the wine,
again. No mystery, Valeria, in that claret--I'll take my oath
it's nothing but innocent juice of the grape. If we can't believe
in anything else, let's believe in juice of the grape. Your good
health, my dear."

I adapted myself to the old man's genial humor as readily as I
could. We ate and we drank, and we talked of by-gone days. For a
little while I was almost happy in the company of my fatherly old
friend. Why was I not old too? Why had I not done with love, with
its certain miseries, its transient delights, its cruel losses,
its bitterly doubtful gains? The last autumn flowers in the
window basked brightly in the last of the autumn sunlight.
Benjamin's little dog digested his dinner in perfect comfort on
the hearth. The parrot in the next house screeched his vocal
accomplishments cheerfully. I don't doubt that it is a great
privilege to be a human being. But may it not be the happier
destiny to be an animal or a plant?

The brief respite was soon over; all my anxieties came back. I
was once more a doubting, discontented, depressed creature when I
rose to say good-by.

"Promise, my dear, you will do nothing rash, "said Benjamin, as
he opened the door for me.

"Is it rash to go to Major Fitz-David?" I asked.

"Yes--if you go by yourself. You don't know what sort of man he
is; you don't know how he may receive you. Let me try first, and
pave the way, as the saying is. Trust my experience, my dear. In
matters of this sort there is nothing like paving the way."

I considered a moment. It was due to my good friend to consider
before I said No.

Reflection decided me on taking the responsibility, whatever it
might be, upon my own shoulders. Good or bad, compassionate or
cruel, the Major was a man. A woman's influence was the safest
influence to trust with him, where the end to be gained was such
an end as I had in view. It was not easy to say this to Benjamin
without the danger of mortifying him. I made an appointment with
the old man to call on me the next morning at the hotel, and talk
the matter over again. Is it very disgraceful to me to add that I
privately determined (if the thing could be accomplished) to see
Major Fitz-David in the interval?

"Do nothing rash, my dear. In your own interests, do nothing
rash!"

Those were Benjamin's last words when we parted for the day.

I found Eustace waiting for me in our sitting-room at the hotel.
His spirits seemed to have revived since I had seen him last. He
advanced to meet me cheerfully, with an open sheet of paper in
his hand.

"My business is settled, Valeria, sooner than I had expected," he
began, gayly. "Are your purchases all completed, fair lady? Are
_you_ free too?"

I had learned already (God help me!) to distrust his fits of
gayety. I asked, cautiously,

"Do you mean free for to-day?"

"Free for to-day, and to-morrow, and next week, and next
month--and next year too, for all I know to the contrary," he
answered, putting his arm boisterously round my waist. "Look
here!"

He lifted the open sheet of paper which I had noticed in his
hand, and held it for me to read. It was a telegram to the
sailing-m aster of the yacht, informing him that we had arranged
to return to Ramsgate that evening, and that we should be ready
to sail for the Mediterranean with the next tide.

"I only waited for your return," said Eustace, "to send the
telegram to the office."

He crossed the room as he spoke to ring the bell. I stopped him.

"I am afraid I can't go to Ramsgate to-day," I said.

"Why not?" he asked, suddenly changing his tone, and speaking
sharply.

I dare say it will seem ridiculous to some people, but it is
really true that he shook my resolution to go to Major Fitz-David
when he put his arm round me. Even a mere passing caress from
_him_ stole away my heart, and softly tempted me to yield. But
the ominous alteration in his tone made another woman of me. I
felt once more, and felt more strongly than ever, that in my
critical position it was useless to stand still, and worse than
useless to draw back.

"I am sorry to disappoint you," I answered. It is impossible for
me (as I told you at Ramsgate) to be ready to sail at a moment's
notice. I want time."

"What for?"

Not only his tone, but his look, when he put that second
question, jarred on every nerve in me. He roused in my mind--I
can't tell how or why--an angry sense of the indignity that he
had put upon his wife in marrying her under a false name. Fearing
that I should answer rashly, that I should say something which my
better sense might regret, if I spoke at that moment, I said
nothing. Women alone can estimate what it cost me to be silent.
And men alone can understand how irritating my silence must have
been to my husband.

"You want time?" he repeated. "I ask you again--what for?"

My self-control, pushed to its extremest limits, failed me. The
rash reply flew out of my lips, like a bird set free from a cage.

"I want time," I said, "to accustom myself to my right name."

He suddenly stepped up to me with a dark look.

"What do you mean by your 'right name?'"

"Surely you know," I answered. "I once thought I was Mrs.
Woodville. I have now discovered that I am Mrs. Macallan."

He started back at the sound of his own name as if I had struck
him--he started back, and turned so deadly pale that I feared he
was going to drop at my feet in a swoon. Oh, my tongue! my
tongue! Why had I not controlled my miserable, mischievous
woman's tongue!

"I didn't mean to alarm you, Eustace," I said. "I spoke at
random. Pray forgive me."

He waved his hand impatiently, as if my penitent words were
tangible things--ruffling, worrying things, like flies in
summer--which he was putting away from him.

"What else have you discovered?" he asked, in low, stern tones.

"Nothing, Eustace."

"Nothing?" He paused as he repeated the word, and passed his hand
over his forehead in a weary way. "Nothing, of course," he
resumed, speaking to himself, "or she would not be here." He
paused once more, and looked at me searchingly. "Don't say again
what you said just now," he went on. "For your own sake, Valeria,
as well as for mine." He dropped into the nearest chair, and said
no more.

I certainly heard the warning; but the only words which really
produced an impression on my mind were the words preceding it,
which he had spoken to himself. He had said: "Nothing, of course,
_or she could not be here."_ If I had found out some other truth
besides the truth about the name, would it have prevented me from
ever returning to my husband? Was that what he meant? Did the
sort of discovery that he contemplated mean something so dreadful
that it would have parted us at once and forever? I stood by his
chair in silence, and tried to find the answer to those terrible
questions in his face. It used to speak to me so eloquently when
it spoke of his love. It told me nothing now.

He sat for some time without looking at me, lost in his own
thoughts. Then he rose on a sudden and took his hat.

"The friend who lent me the yacht is in town," he said. "I
suppose I had better see him, and say our plans are changed." He
tore up the telegram with an air of sullen resignation as he
spoke. "You are evidently determined not to go to sea with me,"
he resumed. "We had better give it up. I don't see what else is
to be done. Do you?"

His tone was almost a tone of contempt. I was too depressed about
myself, too alarmed about _him,_ to resent it.

"Decide as you think best, Eustace," I said, sadly. "Every way,
the prospect seems a hopeless one. As long as I am shut out from
your confidence, it matters little whether we live on land or at
sea--we cannot live happily."

"If you could control your curiosity." he answered, sternly, "we
might live happily enough. I thought I had married a woman who
was superior to the vulgar failings of her sex. A good wife
should know better than to pry into affairs of her husband's with
which she had no concern."

Surely it was hard to bear this? However, I bore it.

"Is it no concern of mine?" I asked, gently, "when I find that my
husband has not married me under his family name? Is it no
concern of mine when I hear your mother say, in so many words,
that she pities your wife? It is hard, Eustace, to accuse me of
curiosity because I cannot accept the unendurable position in
which you have placed me. Your cruel silence is a blight on my
happiness and a threat to my future. Your cruel silence is
estranging us from each other at the beginning of our married
life. And you blame me for feeling this? You tell me I am prying
into affairs which are yours only? They are _not_ yours only: I
have my interest in them too. Oh, my darling, why do you trifle
with our love and our confidence in each other? Why do you keep
me in the dark?"

He answered with a stern and pitiless brevity,

"For your own good."

I turned away from him in silence. He was treating me like a
child.

He followed me. Putting one hand heavily on my shoulder, he
forced me to face him once more.

"Listen to this," he said. "What I am now going to say to you I
say for the first and last time. Valeria! if you ever discover
what I am now keeping from your knowledge--from that moment you
live a life of torture; your tranquillity is gone. Your days will
be days of terror; your nights will be full of horrid
dreams--through no fault of mine, mind! through no fault of mine!
Every day of your life you will feel some new distrust, some
growing fear of me, and you will be doing me the vilest injustice
all the time. On my faith as a Christian, on my honor as a man,
if you stir a step further in this matter, there is an end to
your happiness for the rest of your life! Think seriously of what
I have said to you; you will have time to reflect. I am going to
tell my friend that our plans for the Mediterranean are given up.
I shall not be back before the evening." He sighed, and looked at
me with unutterable sadness. "I love you, Valeria," he said. "In
spite of all that has passed, as God is my witness, I love you
more dearly than ever."

So he spoke. So he left me.

I must write the truth about myself, however strange it may
appear. I don't pretend to be able to analyze my own motives; I
don't pretend even to guess how other women might have acted in
my place. It is true of me, that my husband's terrible
warning--all the more terrible in its mystery and its
vagueness--produced no deterrent effect on my mind: it only
stimulated my resolution to discover what he was hiding from me.
He had not been gone two minutes before I rang the bell and
ordered the carriage, to take me to Major Fitz-David's house in
Vivian Place.

Walking to and fro while I was waiting--I was in such a fever of
excitement that it was impossible for me to sit still--I
accidentally caught sight of myself in the glass.

My own face startled me, it looked so haggard and so wild. Could
I present myself to a stranger, could I hope to produce the
necessary impression in my favor, looking as I looked at that
moment? For all I knew to the contrary, my whole future might
depend upon the effect which I produced on Major Fitz-David at
first sight. I rang the bell again, and sent a message to one of
the chambermaids to follow me to my room.

I had no maid of my own with me: the stewardess of the yacht
would have acted as my
attendant if we had held to our first arrangement. It mattered
little, so long as I had a woman to help me. The chambermaid
appeared. I can give no better idea of the disordered and
desperate condition of my mind at that time than by owning that I
actually consulted this perfect stranger on the question of my
personal appearance. She was a middle-aged woman, with a large
experience of the world and its wickedness written legibly on her
manner and on her face. I put money into the woman's hand, enough
of it to surprise her. She thanked me with a cynical smile,
evidently placing her own evil interpretation on my motive for
bribing her.

"What can I do for you, ma'am?" she asked, in a confidential
whisper. "Don't speak loud! there is somebody in the next room."

"I want to look my best," I said, "and I have sent for you to
help me."

"I understand, ma'am."

"What do you understand?"

She nodded her head significantly, and whispered to me again.
"Lord bless you, I'm used to this!" she said. "There is a
gentleman in the case. Don't mind me, ma'am. It's a way I have. I
mean no harm." She stopped, and looked at me critically. "I
wouldn't change my dress if I were you," she went on. "The color
becomes you."

It was too late to resent the woman's impertinence. There was no
help for it but to make use of her. Besides, she was right about
the dress. It was of a delicate maize-color, prettily trimmed
with lace. I could wear nothing which suited me better. My hair,
however, stood in need of some skilled attention. The chambermaid
rearranged it with a ready hand which showed that she was no
beginner in the art of dressing hair. She laid down the combs and
brushes, and looked at me; then looked at the toilet-table,
searching for something which she apparently failed to find.

"Where do you keep it?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Look at your complexion, ma'am. You will frighten him if he sees
you like that. A touch of color you _must_ have. Where do you
keep it? What! you haven't got it? you never use it? Dear, dear,
dear me!"

For a moment surprise fairly deprived her of her self-possession.
Recovering herself, she begged permission to leave me for a
minute. I let her go, knowing what her errand was. She came back
with a box of paint and powders; and I said nothing to check her.
I saw, in the glass, my skin take a false fairness, my cheeks a
false color, my eyes a false brightness--and I never shrank from
it. No! I let the odious conceit go on; I even admired the
extraordinary delicacy and dexterity with which it was all done.
"Anything" (I thought to myself, in the madness of that miserable
time) "so long as it helps me to win the Major's confidence!
Anything, so long as I discover what those last words of my
husband's really mean!"

The transformation of my face was accomplished. The chambermaid
pointed with her wicked forefinger in the direction of the glass.

"Bear in mind, ma'am, what you looked like when you sent for me,"
she said. "And just see for yourself how you look now. You're the
prettiest woman (of your style) in London. Ah what a thing
pearl-powder is, when one knows how to use it!"

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FRIEND OF THE WOMEN.

I FIND it impossible to describe my sensations while the
carriage was taking me to Major Fitz-David's house. I doubt,
indeed, if I really felt or thought at all, in the true sense of
those words.

From the moment when I had resigned myself into the hands of the
chambermaid I seemed in some strange way to have lost my ordinary
identity--to have stepped out of my own character. At other times
my temperament was of the nervous and anxious sort, and my
tendency was to exaggerate any difficulties that might place
themselves in my way. At other times, having before me the
prospect of a critical interview with a stranger, I should have
considered with myself what it might be wise to pass over, and
what it might be wise to say. Now I never gave my coming
interview with the Major a thought; I felt an unreasoning
confidence in myself, and a blind faith in _him_. Now neither the
past nor the future troubled me; I lived unreflectingly in the
present. I looked at the shops as we drove by them, and at the
other carriages as they passed mine. I noticed--yes, and
enjoyed--the glances of admiration which chance foot-passengers
on the pavement cast on me. I said to myself, "This looks well
for my prospect of making a friend of the Major!" When we drew up
at the door in Vivian Place, it is no exaggeration to say that I
had but one anxiety--anxiety to find the Major at home.

The door was opened by a servant out of livery, an old man who
looked as if he might have been a soldier in his earlier days. He
eyed me with a grave attention, which relaxed little by little
into sly approval. I asked for Major Fitz-David. The answer was
not altogether encouraging: the man was not sure whether his
master were at home or not.

I gave him my card. My cards, being part of my wedding outfit,
necessarily had the false name printed on them--_Mrs. Eustace
Woodville_. The servant showed me into a front room on the
ground-floor, and disappeared with my card in his hand.

Looking about me, I noticed a door in the wall opposite the
window, communicating with some inner room. The door was not of
the ordinary kind. It fitted into the thickness of the partition
wall, and worked in grooves. Looking a little nearer, I saw that
it had not been pulled out so as completely to close the doorway.
Only the merest chink was left; but it was enough to convey to my
ears all that passed in the next room.

"What did you say, Oliver, when she asked for me?" inquired a
man's voice, pitched cautiously in a low key.

"I said I was not sure you were at home, sir," answered the voice
of the servant who had let me in.

There was a pause. The first speaker was evidently Major
Fitz-David himself. I waited to hear more.

"I think I had better not see her, Oliver," the Major's voice
resumed.

"Very good, sir."

"Say I have gone out, and you don't know when I shall be back
again. Beg the lady to write, if she has any business with me."

"Yes, sir."

"Stop, Oliver!"

Oliver stopped. There was another and longer pause. Then the
master resumed the examination of the man.

"Is she young, Oliver?"

"Yes, sir."

"And--pretty?"

"Better than pretty, sir, to my thinking."

"Aye? aye? What you call a fine woman--eh, Oliver?"

"Certainly, sir."

"Tall?"

"Nearly as tall as I am, Major."

"Aye? aye? aye? A good figure?"

"As slim as a sapling, sir, and as upright as a dart."

"On second thoughts, I am at home, Oliver. Show her in! show her
in!"

So far, one thing at least seemed to be clear. I had done well in
sending for the chambermaid. What would Oliver's report of me
have been if I had presented myself to him with my colorless
cheeks and my ill-dressed hair?

The servant reappeared, and conducted me to the inner room. Major
Fitz-David advanced to welcome me. What was the Major like?

Well, he was like a well-preserved old gentleman of, say, sixty
years old, little and lean, and chiefly remarkable by the
extraordinary length of his nose. After this feature, I noticed
next his beautiful brown wig; his sparkling little gray eyes; his
rosy complexion; his short military whisker, dyed to match his
wig; his white teeth and his winning smile; his smart blue
frock-coat, with a camellia in the button-hole; and his splendid
ring, a ruby, flashing on his little finger as he courteously
signed to me to take a chair.

"Dear Mrs. Woodville, how very kind of you this is! I have been
longing to have the happiness of knowing you. Eustace is an old
friend of mine. I congratulated him when I heard of his marriage.
May I make a confession?--I envy him now I have seen his wife."

The future of my life was perhaps in this man's hands. I studied
him attentively: I tried to read his character in his face.

The Major's sparkling little gray eyes softened as they looked at
me; the Major's strong and sturdy voice dropped to its lowest and
tenderest tones when he spoke to me; the Major's manner
expressed, from the moment when I entered the room, a happy
mixture of admiration and respect. He drew his chair close to
mine, as if it were a privilege to be near me. He took my hand
and lifted my glove to his lips, as if that glove were the most
delicious luxury the world could produce. "Dear Mrs. Woodville,"
he said, as he softly laid my hand back on my lap, "bear with an
old fellow who worships your enchanting sex. You really brighten
this dull house. It is _such_ a pleasure to see you!"

There was no need for the old gentleman to make his little
confession. Women, children, and dogs proverbially know by
instinct who the people are who really like them. The women had a
warm friend--perhaps at one time a dangerously warm friend--in
Major Fitz-David. I knew as much of him as that before I had
settled myself in my chair and opened my lips to answer him.

"Thank you, Major, for your kind reception and your pretty
compliment," I said, matching my host's easy tone as closely as
the necessary restraints on my side would permit. "You have made
your confession. May I make mine?"

Major Fitz-David lifted my hand again from my lap and drew his
chair as close as possible to mine. I looked at him gravely and
tried to release my hand. Major Fitz-David declined to let go of
it, and proceeded to tell me why.

"I have just heard you speak for the first time," he said. "I am
under the charm of your voice. Dear Mrs. Woodville, bear with an
old fellow who is under the charm! Don't grudge me my innocent
little pleasures. Lend me--I wish I could say _give_ me--this
pretty hand. I am such an admirer of pretty hands! I can listen
so much better with a pretty hand in mine. The ladies indulge my
weakness. Please indulge me too. Yes? And what were you going to
say?"

"I was going to say, Major, that I felt particularly sensible of
your kind welcome because, as it happens, I have a favor to ask
of you."

I was conscious, while I spoke, that I was approaching the object
of my visit a little too abruptly. But Major Fitz-David's
admiration rose from one climax to another with such alarming
rapidity that I felt the importance of administering a practical
check to it. I trusted to those ominous words, "a favor to ask of
you," to administer the check, and I did not trust in vain. My
aged admirer gently dropped my hand, and, with all possible
politeness, changed the subject.

"The favor is granted, of course!" he said. "And now, tell me,
how is our dear Eustace?"

"Anxious and out of spirits." I answered.

"Anxious and out of spirits!" repeated the Major. "The enviable
man who is married to You anxious and out of spirits? Monstrous!
Eustace fairly disgusts me. I shall take him off the list of my
friends."

"In that case, take me off the list with him, Major. I am in
wretched spirits too. You are my husband's old friend. I may
acknowledge to _you_ that our married life is just now not quite
a happy one."

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