The Law and the Lady

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Major Fitz-David lifted his eyebrows (dyed to match his whiskers)
in polite surprise.

"Already!" he exclaimed. "What can Eustace be made of? Has he no
appreciation of beauty and grace? Is he the most insensible of
living beings?"

"He is the best and dearest of men," I answered. "But there is
some dreadful mystery in his past life--"

I could get no further; Major Fitz-David deliberately stopped me.
He did it with the smoothest politeness, on the surface. But I
saw a look in his bright little eyes which said, plainly, "If you
_will_ venture on delicate ground, madam, don't ask me to
accompany you."

"My charming friend!" he exclaimed. "May I call you my charming
friend? You have--among a thousand other delightful qualities
which I can see already--a vivid imagination. Don't let it get
the upper hand. Take an old fellow's advice; don't let it get the
upper hand! What can I offer you, dear Mrs. Woodville? A cup of
tea?"

"Call me by my right name, sir," I answered, boldly. "I have made
a discovery. I know as well as you do that my name is Macallan."

The Major started, and looked at me very attentively. His manner
became grave, his tone changed completely, when he spoke next.

"May I ask," he said, "if you have communicated to your husband
the discovery which you have just mentioned to me?"

"Certainly!" I answered. "I consider that my husband owes me an
explanation. I have asked him to tell me what his extraordinary
conduct means--and he has refused, in language that frightens me.
I have appealed to his mother--and _she_ has refused to explain,
in language that humiliates me. Dear Major Fitz-David, I have no
friends to take my part: I have nobody to come to but you! Do me
the greatest of all favors--tell me why your friend Eustace has
married me under a false name!"

"Do _me_ the greatest of all favors;" answered the Major. "Don't
ask me to say a word about it."

He looked, in spite of his unsatisfactory reply, as if he really
felt for me. I determined to try my utmost powers of persuasion;
I resolved not to be beaten at the first repulse.

"I _must_ ask you," I said. "Think of my position. How can I
live, knowing what I know--and knowing no more? I would rather
hear the most horrible thing you can tell me than be condemned
(as I am now) to perpetual misgiving and perpetual suspense. I
love my husband with all my heart; but I cannot live with him on
these terms: the misery of it would drive me mad. I am only a
woman, Major. I can only throw myself on your kindness.
Don't--pray, pray don't keep me in the dark!"

I could say no more. In the reckless impulse of the moment I
snatched up his hand and raised it to my lips. The gallant old
gentleman started as if I had given him an electric shock.

"My dear, dear lady!" he exclaimed, "I can't tell you how I feel
for you! You charm me, you overwhelm me, you touch me to the
heart. What can I say? What can I do? I can only imitate your
admirable frankness, your fearless candor. You have told me what
your position is. Let me tell you, in my turn, how I am placed.
Compose yourself--pray compose yourself! I have a smelling-bottle
here at the service of the ladies. Permit me to offer it."

He brought me the smelling-bottle; he put a little stool under my
feet; he entreated me to take time enough to compose myself.
"Infernal fool!" I heard him say to himself, as he considerately
turned away from me for a few moments. "If _I_ had been her
husband, come what might of it, I would have told her the truth!"

Was he referring to Eustace? And was he going to do what he would
have done in my husband's place?--was he really going to tell me
the truth?

The idea had barely crossed my mind when I was startled by a loud
and peremptory knocking at the street door. The Major stopped and
listened attentively. In a few moments the door was opened, and
the rustling of a woman's dress was plainly audible in the hall.
The Major hurried to the door of the room with the activity of a
young man. He was too late. The door was violently opened from
the outer side, just as he got to it. The lady of the rustling
dress burst into the room.

CHAPTER IX.

THE DEFEAT OF THE MAJOR.

MAJOR FITZ-DAVID'S visitor proved to be a plump, round-eyed
overdressed girl, with a florid complexion and straw colored
hair. After first fixing on me a broad stare of astonishment, she
pointedly addressed her apologies for intruding on us to the
Major alone. The creature evidently believed me to be the last
new object of the old gentleman's idolatry; and she took no pains
to disguise her jealous resentment on discovering us together.
Major Fitz-David set matters right in his own irresistible way.
He kissed the hand of the overdressed girl as devotedly as he had
kissed mine; he told her she was looking charmingly. Then he led
her, with his happy mixture of admiration and respect, back to
the door by which she had entered--a second door communicating
directly with the hall.

"No apology is necessary, my dear," he said. "This lady is with
me on a matter of business. You will find your singing-master
waiting for you upstairs. Begin your lesson; and I will join you
in a few minutes. _Au revoir_, my charming pupil--_au revoir._"

The young lady answered this polite little speech in a
whisper--with her round eyes fixed distrustfully on me while she
spoke. The door closed on her. Major Fitz-David was a t liberty
to set matters right with me, in my turn.

"I call that young person one of my happy discoveries;" said the
old gentleman, complacently. "She possesses, I don't hesitate to
say, the finest soprano voice in Europe. Would you believe it, I
met with her at the railway station. She was behind the counter
in a refreshment-room, poor innocent, rinsing wine-glasses, and
singing over her work. Good Heavens, such singing! Her upper
notes electrified me. I said to myself; 'Here is a born prima
donna--I will bring her out!' She is the third I have brought out
in my time. I shall take her to Italy when her education is
sufficiently advanced, and perfect her at Milan. In that
unsophisticated girl, my dear lady, you see one of the future
Queens of Song. Listen! She is beginning her scales. What a
voice! Brava! Brava! Bravissima!"

The high soprano notes of the future Queen of Song rang through
the house as he spoke. Of the loudness of the young lady's voice
there could be no sort of doubt. The sweetness and the purity of
it admitted, in my opinion, of considerable dispute.

Having said the polite words which the occasion rendered
necessary, I ventured to recall Major Fitz-David to the subject
in discussion between us when his visitor had entered the room.
The Major was very unwilling to return to the perilous topic on
which we had just touched when the interruption occurred. He beat
time with his forefinger to the singing upstairs; he asked me
about _my_ voice, and whether I sang; he remarked that life would
be intolerable to him without Love and Art. A man in my place
would have lost all patience, and would have given up the
struggle in disgust. Being a woman, and having my end in view, my
resolution was invincible. I fairly wore out the Major's
resistance, and compelled him to surrender at discretion. It is
only justice to add that, when he did make up his mind to speak
to me again of Eustace, he spoke frankly, and spoke to the point.

"I have known your husband," he began, "since the time when he
was a boy. At a certain period of his past life a terrible
misfortune fell upon him. The secret of that misfortune is known
to his friends, and is religiously kept by his friends. It is the
secret that he is keeping from You. He will never tell it to you
as long as he lives. And he has bound _me_ not to tell it, under
a promise given on my word of honor. You wished, dear Mrs.
Woodville, to be made acquainted with my position toward Eustace.
There it is!"

"You persist in calling me Mrs. Woodville," I said.

"Your husband wishes me to persist," the Major answered. "He
assumed the name of Woodville, fearing to give his own name, when
he first called at your uncle's house. He will now acknowledge no
other. Remonstrance is useless. You must do what we do--you must
give way to an unreasonable man. The best fellow in the world in
other respects: in this one matter as obstinate and self-willed
as he can be. If you ask me my opinion, I tell you honestly that
I think he was wrong in courting and marrying you under his false
name. He trusted his honor and his happiness to your keeping in
making you his--wife. Why should he not trust the story of his
troubles to you as well? His mother quite shares my opinion in
this matter. You must not blame her for refusing to admit you
into her confidence after your marriage: it was then too late.
Before your marriage she did all she could do--without betraying
secrets which, as a good mother, she was bound to respect--to
induce her son to act justly toward you. I commit no indiscretion
when I tell you that she refused to sanction your marriage mainly
for the reason that Eustace refused to follow her advice, and to
tell you what his position really was. On my part I did all I
could to support Mrs. Macallan in the course that she took. When
Eustace wrote to tell me that he had engaged himself to marry a
niece of my good friend Doctor Starkweather, and that he had
mentioned me as his reference, I wrote back to warn him that I
would have nothing to do with the affair unless he revealed the
whole truth about himself to his future wife. He refused to
listen to me, as he had refused to listen to his mother; and he
held me at the same time to my promise to keep his secret. When
Starkweather wrote to me, I had no choice but to involve myself
in a deception of which I thoroughly disapproved, or to answer in
a tone so guarded and so brief as to stop the correspondence at
the outset. I chose the last alternative; and I fear I have
offended my good old friend. You now see the painful position in
which I am placed. To add to the difficulties of that situation,
Eustace came here this very day to warn me to be on my guard, in
case of your addressing to me the very request which you have
just made! He told me that you had met with his mother, by an
unlucky accident, and that you had discovered the family name. He
declared that he had traveled to London for the express purpose
of speaking to me personally on this serious subject. 'I know
your weakness,' he said, 'where women are concerned. Valeria is
aware that you are my old friend. She will certainly write to
you; she may even be bold enough to make her way into your house.
Renew your promise to keep the great calamity of my life a
secret, on your honor and on your oath. 'Those were his words, as
nearly as I can remember them. I tried to treat the thing
lightly; I ridiculed the absurdly theatrical notion of 'renewing
my promise,' and all the rest of it. Quite useless! He refused to
leave me; he reminded me of his unmerited sufferings, poor
fellow, in the past time. It ended in his bursting into tears.
You love him, and so do I. Can you wonder that I let him have his
way? The result is that I am doubly bound to tell you nothing, by
the most sacred promise that a man can give. My dear lady, I
cordially side with you in this matter; I long to relieve your
anxieties. But what can I do?"

He stopped, and waited--gravely waited--to hear my reply.

I had listened from beginning to end without interrupting him.
The extraordinary change in his manner, and in his way of
expressing himself, while he was speaking of Eustace, alarmed me
as nothing had alarmed me yet. How terrible (I thought to myself)
must this untold story be, if the mere act of referring to it
makes light-hearted Major Fitz-David speak seriously and sadly,
never smiling, never paying me a compliment, never even noticing
the singing upstairs! My heart sank in me as I drew that
startling conclusion. For the first time since I had entered the
house I was at the end of my resources; I knew neither what to
say nor what to do next.

And yet I kept my seat. Never had the resolution to discover what
my husband was hiding from me been more firmly rooted in my mind
than it was at that moment! I cannot account for the
extraordinary inconsistency in my character which this confession
implies. I can only describe the facts as they really were.

The singing went on upstairs. Major Fitz-David still waited
impenetrably to hear what I had to say--to know what I resolved
on doing next.

Before I had decided what to say or what to do, another domestic
incident happened. In plain words, another knocking announced a
new visitor at the house door. On this occasion there was no
rustling of a woman's dress in the hall. On this occasion only
the old servant entered the room, carrying a magnificent nosegay
in his hand. "With Lady Clarinda's kind regards. To remind Major
Fitz-David of his appointment." Another lady! This time a lady
with a title. A great lady who sent her flowers and her messages
without condescending to concealment. The Major--first
apologizing to me--wrote a few lines of acknowledgment, and sent
them out to the messenger. When the door was closed again he
carefully selected one of the choicest flowers in the nosegay.
"May I ask," he said, presenting the flower to me with his best
grace, "whether you now understand the delicate position in which
I am placed between your husband and yourself?"

The little interruption caused by the appearance of the nosegay
had given a new impulse to my thoughts, and had thus helped, in
some degree, to r estore me to myself. I was able at last to
satisfy Major Fitz-David that his considerate and courteous
explanation had not been thrown away upon me.

"I thank you, most sincerely, Major," I said "You have convinced
me that I must not ask you to forget, on my account, the promise
which you have given to my husband. It is a sacred promise, which
I too am bound to respect--I quite understand that."

The Major drew a long breath of relief, and patted me on the
shoulder in high approval of what I had said to him.

"Admirably expressed!" he rejoined, recovering his light-hearted
looks and his lover-like ways all in a moment. "My dear lady, you
have the gift of sympathy; you see exactly how I am situated. Do
you know, you remind me of my charming Lady Clarinda. _She_ has
the gift of sympathy, and sees exactly how I am situated. I
should so enjoy introducing you to each other," said the Major,
plunging his long nose ecstatically into Lady Clarinda's flowers.

I had my end still to gain; and, being (as you will have
discovered by this time) the most obstinate of living women, I
still kept that end in view.

"I shall be delighted to meet Lady Clarinda," I replied. "In the
meantime--"

"I will get up a little dinner," proceeded the Major, with a
burst of enthusiasm. "You and I and Lady Clarinda. Our young
prima donna shall come in the evening, and sing to us. Suppose we
draw out the _menu?_ My sweet friend, what is your favorite
autumn soup?"

"In the meantime," I persisted, "to return to what we were
speaking of just now--"

The Major's smile vanished; the Major's hand dropped the pen
destined to immortalize the name of my favorite autumn soup.

"_Must_ we return to that?" he asked, piteously.

"Only for a moment," I said.

"You remind me," pursued Major Fitz-David, shaking his head
sadly, "of another charming friend of mine--a French
friend--Madame Mirliflore. You are a person of prodigious
tenacity of purpose. Madame Mirliflore is a person of prodigious
tenacity of purpose. She happens to be in London. Shall we have
her at our little dinner?" The Major brightened at the idea, and
took up the pen again. "Do tell me," he said, "what _is_ your
favorite autumn soup?"

"Pardon me," I began, "we were speaking just now--"

"Oh, dear me!" cried Major Fitz-David. "Is this the other
subject?"

"Yes--this is the other subject."

The Major put down his pen for the second time, and regretfully
dismissed from his mind Madame Mirliflore and the autumn soup.

"Yes?" he said, with a patient bow and a submissive smile. "You
were going to say--"

"I was going to say," I rejoined, "that your promise only pledges
you not to tell the secret which my husband is keeping from me.
You have given no promise not to answer me if I venture to ask
you one or two questions."

Major Fitz-David held up his hand warningly, and cast a sly look
at me out of his bright little gray eyes.

"Stop!" he said. "My sweet friend, stop there! I know where your
questions will lead me, and what the result will be if I once
begin to answer them. When your husband was here to-day he took
occasion to remind me that I was as weak as water in the hands of
a pretty woman. He is quite right. I _am_ as weak as water; I can
refuse nothing to a pretty woman. Dear and admirable lady, don't
abuse your influence! don't make an old soldier false to his word
of honor!"

I tried to say something here in defense of my motives. The Major
clasped his hands entreatingly, and looked at me with a pleading
simplicity wonderful to see.

"Why press it?" he asked. "I offer no resistance. I am a
lamb--why sacrifice me? I acknowledge your power; I throw myself
on your mercy. All the misfortunes of my youth and my manhood
have come to me through women. I am not a bit better in my age--I
am just as fond of the women and just as ready to be misled by
them as ever, with one foot in the grave. Shocking, isn't it? But
how true! Look at this mark!" He lifted a curl of his beautiful
brown wig, and showed me a terrible scar at the side of his head.
"That wound (supposed to be mortal at the time) was made by a
pistol bullet," he proceeded. "Not received in the service of my
country--oh dear, no! Received in the service of a much-injured
lady, at the hands of her scoundrel of a husband, in a duel
abroad. Well, she was worth it." He kissed his hand
affectionately to the memory of the dead or absent lady, and
pointed to a water-color drawing of a pretty country-house
hanging on the opposite wall. "That fine estate," he proceeded,
"once belonged to me. It was sold years and years since. And who
had the money? The women--God bless them all!--the women. I don't
regret it. If I had another estate, I have no doubt it would go
the same way. Your adorable sex has made its pretty playthings of
my life, my time, and my money--and welcome! The one thing I have
kept to myself is my honor. And now _that_ is in danger. Yes, if
you put your clever little questions, with those lovely eyes and
with that gentle voice, I know what will happen. You will deprive
me of the last and best of all my possessions. Have I deserved to
be treated in that way, and by you, my charming friend?--by you,
of all people in the world? Oh, fie! fie!"

He paused and looked at me as before--the picture of artless
entreaty, with his head a little on one side. I made another
attempt to speak of the matter in dispute between us, from my own
point of view. Major Fitz-David instantly threw himself prostrate
on my mercy more innocently than ever.

"Ask of me anything else in the wide world," he said; "but don't
ask me to be false to my friend. Spare me _that_--and there is
nothing I will not do to satisfy you. I mean what I say, mind!"
he went on, bending closer to me, and speaking more seriously
than he had spoken yet "I think you are very hardly used. It is
monstrous to expect that a woman, placed in your situation, will
consent to be left for the rest of her life in the dark. No! no!
if I saw you, at this moment, on the point of finding out for
yourself what Eustace persists in hiding from you, I should
remember that my promise, like all other promises, has its limits
and reserves. I should consider myself bound in honor not to help
you--but I would not lift a finger to prevent you from
discovering the truth for yourself."

At last he was speaking in good earnest: he laid a strong
emphasis on his closing words. I laid a stronger emphasis on them
still by suddenly leaving my chair. The impulse to spring to my
feet was irresistible. Major Fitz-David had started a new idea in
my mind.

"Now we understand each other!" I said. "I will accept your own
terms, Major. I will ask nothing of you but what you have just
offered to me of your own accord."

"What have I offered?" he inquired, looking a little alarmed.

"Nothing that you need repent of," I answered; "nothing which is
not easy for you to grant. May I ask a bold question? Suppose
this house was mine instead of yours?"

"Consider it yours," cried the gallant old gentleman. "From the
garret to the kitchen, consider it yours!"

"A thousand thanks, Major; I will consider it mine for the
moment. You know--everybody knows--that one of a woman's many
weaknesses is curiosity. Suppose my curiosity led me to examine
everything in my new house?"

"Yes?"

"Suppose I went from room to room, and searched everything, and
peeped in everywhere? Do you think there would be any chance--"

The quick-witted Major anticipated the nature of my question. He
followed my example; he too started to his feet, with a new idea
in his mind.

"Would there be any chance," I went on, "of my finding my own way
to my husband's secret in this house? One word of reply, Major
Fitz-David! Only one word--Yes or No?"

"Don't excite yourself!" cried the Major.

"Yes or No?" I repeated, more vehemently than ever.

"Yes," said the Major, after a moment's consideration.

It was the reply I had asked for; but it was not explicit enough,
now I had got it, to satisfy me. I felt the necessity of leading
him (if possible) into details.

"Does 'Yes' mean that there is some sort of clew to the mystery?"
I asked. "Something, for instance, which my eyes might see and my
hands mig ht touch if I could only find it?"

He considered again. I saw that I had succeeded in interesting
him in some way unknown to myself; and I waited patiently until
he was prepared to answer me.

"The thing you mention," he said, "the clew (as you call it),
might be seen and might be touched--supposing you could find it."

"In this house?" I asked.

The Major advanced a step nearer to me, and answered--

"In this room."

My head began to swim; my heart throbbed violently. I tried to
speak; it was in vain; the effort almost choked me. In the
silence I could hear the music-lesson still going on in the room
above. The future prima donna had done practicing her scales, and
was trying her voice now in selections from Italian operas. At
the moment when I first heard her she was singing the beautiful
air from the _Somnambula,_ "Come per me sereno." I never hear
that delicious melody, to this day, without being instantly
transported in imagination to the fatal back-room in Vivian
Place.

The Major--strongly affected himself by this time--was the first
to break the silence.

"Sit down again," he said; "and pray take the easy-chair. You are
very much agitated; you want rest."

He was right. I could stand no longer; I dropped into the chair.
Major Fitz-David rang the bell, and spoke a few words to the
servant at the door.

"I have been here a long time," I said, faintly. "Tell me if I am
in the way."

"In the way?" he repeated, with his irresistible smile. "You
forget that you are in your own house!"

The servant returned to us, bringing with him a tiny bottle of
champagne and a plateful of delicate little sugared biscuits.

"I have had this wine bottled expressly for the ladies," said the
Major. "The biscuits came to me direct from Paris. As a favor to
_me,_ you must take some refreshment. And then--" He stopped and
looked at me very attentively. "And then," he resumed, "shall I
go to my young prima donna upstairs and leave you here alone?"

It was impossible to hint more delicately at the one request
which I now had it in my mind to make to him. I took his hand and
pressed it gratefully.

"The tranquillity of my whole life to come is at stake," I said.
"When I am left here by myself, does your generous sympathy
permit me to examine everything in the room?"

He signed to me to drink the champagne and eat a biscuit before
he gave his answer.

"This is serious," he said. "I wish you to be in perfect
possession of yourself . Restore your strength--and then I will
speak to you."

I did as he bade me. In a minute from the time when I drank it
the delicious sparkling wine had begun to revive me.

"Is it your express wish," he resumed, "that I should leave you
here by yourself to search the room?"

"It is my express wish," I answered.

"I take a heavy responsibility on myself in granting your
request. But I grant it for all that, because I sincerely
believe--as you believe--that the tranquillity of your life to
come depends on your discovering the truth." Saying those words,
he took two keys from his pocket. "You will naturally feel a
suspicion," he went on, "of any locked doors that you may find
here. The only locked places in the room are the doors of the
cupboards under the long book-case, and the door of the Italian
cabinet in that corner. The small key opens the book-case
cupboards; the long key opens the cabinet door."

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