Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (432 page)

However, it was now too late for these lugubrious thoughts; and, bracing herself, she began to frame the new reply to Bishop Helmsdale — the plain, unvarnished tale that was to supplant the undivulging answer first written.  She was engaged on this difficult problem till daylight faded in the west, and the broad-faced moon edged upwards, like a plate of old gold, over the elms towards the village.  By that time Swithin had reached Greenwich; her brother had gone she knew not whither; and she and loneliness dwelt solely, as before, within the walls of Welland House.

At this hour of sunset and moonrise the new parlourmaid entered, to inform her that Mr. Cecil’s head clerk, from Warborne, particularly wished to see her.

Mr. Cecil was her solicitor, and she knew of nothing whatever that required his intervention just at present.  But he would not have sent at this time of day without excellent reasons, and she directed that the young man might be shown in where she was.  On his entry the first thing she noticed was that in his hand he carried a newspaper.

‘In case you should not have seen this evening’s paper, Lady Constantine, Mr. Cecil has directed me to bring it to you at once, on account of what appears there in relation to your ladyship.  He has only just seen it himself.’

‘What is it?  How does it concern me?’

‘I will point it out.’

‘Read it yourself to me.  Though I am afraid there’s not enough light.’

‘I can see very well here,’ said the lawyer’s clerk stepping to the window.  Folding back the paper he read: —

‘“NEWS FROM SOUTH AFRICA.

‘“Cape Town,
May
17 (
viâ
Plymouth). — A correspondent of the
Cape Chronicle
states that he has interviewed an Englishman just arrived from the interior, and learns from him that a considerable misapprehension exists in England concerning the death of the traveller and hunter, Sir Blount Constantine — ”‘

‘O, he’s living!  My husband is alive,’ she cried, sinking down in nearly a fainting condition.

‘No, my lady.  Sir Blount is dead enough, I am sorry to say.’

‘Dead, did you say?’

‘Certainly, Lady Constantine; there is no doubt of it.’

She sat up, and her intense relief almost made itself perceptible like a fresh atmosphere in the room.  ‘Yes.  Then what did you come for?’ she asked calmly.

‘That Sir Blount has died is unquestionable,’ replied the lawyer’s clerk gently.  ‘But there has been some mistake about the date of his death.’

‘He died of malarious fever on the banks of the Zouga, October 24, 18 — .’

‘No; he only lay ill there a long time it seems.  It was a companion who died at that date.  But I’ll read the account to your ladyship, with your permission: —

‘“The decease of this somewhat eccentric wanderer did not occur at the time hitherto supposed, but only in last December.  The following is the account of the Englishman alluded to, given as nearly as possible in his own words: During the illness of Sir Blount and his friend by the Zouga, three of the servants went away, taking with them a portion of his clothing and effects; and it must be they who spread the report of his death at this time.  After his companion’s death he mended, and when he was strong enough he and I travelled on to a healthier district.  I urged him not to delay his return to England; but he was much against going back there again, and became so rough in his manner towards me that we parted company at the first opportunity I could find.  I joined a party of white traders returning to the West Coast.  I stayed here among the Portuguese for many months.  I then found that an English travelling party were going to explore a district adjoining that which I had formerly traversed with Sir Blount.  They said they would be glad of my services, and I joined them.  When we had crossed the territory to the South of Ulunda, and drew near to Marzambo, I heard tidings of a man living there whom I suspected to be Sir Blount, although he was not known by that name.  Being so near I was induced to seek him out, and found that he was indeed the same.  He had dropped his old name altogether, and had married a native princess — ”‘

‘Married a native princess!’ said Lady Constantine.

‘That’s what it says, my lady, — ”married a native princess according to the rites of the tribe, and was living very happily with her.  He told me he should never return to England again.  He also told me that having seen this princess just after I had left him, he had been attracted by her, and had thereupon decided to reside with her in that country, as being a land which afforded him greater happiness than he could hope to attain elsewhere.  He asked me to stay with him, instead of going on with my party, and not reveal his real title to any of them.  After some hesitation I did stay, and was not uncomfortable at first.  But I soon found that Sir Blount drank much harder now than when I had known him, and that he was at times very greatly depressed in mind at his position.  One morning in the middle of December last I heard a shot from his dwelling.  His wife rushed frantically past me as I hastened to the spot, and when I entered I found that he had put an end to himself with his revolver.  His princess was broken-hearted all that day.  When we had buried him I discovered in his house a little box directed to his solicitors at Warborne, in England, and a note for myself, saying that I had better get the first chance of returning that offered, and requesting me to take the box with me.  It is supposed to contain papers and articles for friends in England who have deemed him dead for some time.”‘

The clerk stopped his reading, and there was a silence.  ‘The middle of last December,’ she at length said, in a whisper.  ‘Has the box arrived yet?’

‘Not yet, my lady.  We have no further proof of anything.  As soon as the package comes to hand you shall know of it immediately.’

Such was the clerk’s mission; and, leaving the paper with her, he withdrew.  The intelligence amounted to thus much: that, Sir Blount having been alive till at least six weeks after her marriage with Swithin St. Cleeve, Swithin St. Cleeve was not her husband in the eye of the law; that she would have to consider how her marriage with the latter might be instantly repeated, to establish herself legally as that young man’s wife.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Next morning Viviette received a visit from Mr. Cecil himself.  He informed her that the box spoken of by the servant had arrived quite unexpectedly just after the departure of his clerk on the previous evening.  There had not been sufficient time for him to thoroughly examine it as yet, but he had seen enough to enable him to state that it contained letters, dated memoranda in Sir Blount’s handwriting, notes referring to events which had happened later than his supposed death, and other irrefragable proofs that the account in the newspapers was correct as to the main fact — the comparatively recent date of Sir Blount’s decease.

She looked up, and spoke with the irresponsible helplessness of a child.

‘On reviewing the circumstances, I cannot think how I could have allowed myself to believe the first tidings!’ she said.

‘Everybody else believed them, and why should you not have done so?’ said the lawyer.

‘How came the will to be permitted to be proved, as there could, after all, have been no complete evidence?’ she asked.  ‘If I had been the executrix I would not have attempted it!  As I was not, I know very little about how the business was pushed through.  In a very unseemly way, I think.’

‘Well, no,’ said Mr. Cecil, feeling himself morally called upon to defend legal procedure from such imputations.  ‘It was done in the usual way in all cases where the proof of death is only presumptive.  The evidence, such as it was, was laid before the court by the applicants, your husband’s cousins; and the servants who had been with him deposed to his death with a particularity that was deemed sufficient.  Their error was, not that somebody died — for somebody did die at the time affirmed — but that they mistook one person for another; the person who died being not Sir Blount Constantine.  The court was of opinion that the evidence led up to a reasonable inference that the deceased was actually Sir Blount, and probate was granted on the strength of it.  As there was a doubt about the exact day of the month, the applicants were allowed to swear that he died on or after the date last given of his existence — which, in spite of their error then, has really come true, now, of course.’

‘They little think what they have done to me by being so ready to swear!’ she murmured.

Mr. Cecil, supposing her to allude only to the pecuniary straits in which she had been prematurely placed by the will taking effect a year before its due time, said, ‘True.  It has been to your ladyship’s loss, and to their gain.  But they will make ample restitution, no doubt: and all will be wound up satisfactorily.’

Lady Constantine was far from explaining that this was not her meaning; and, after some further conversation of a purely technical nature, Mr. Cecil left her presence.

When she was again unencumbered with the necessity of exhibiting a proper bearing, the sense that she had greatly suffered in pocket by the undue haste of the executors weighed upon her mind with a pressure quite inappreciable beside the greater gravity of her personal position.  What was her position as legatee to her situation as a woman?  Her face crimsoned with a flush which she was almost ashamed to show to the daylight, as she hastily penned the following note to Swithin at Greenwich — certainly one of the most informal documents she had ever written.

‘Welland,
Thursday
.

‘O Swithin, my dear Swithin, what I have to tell you is so sad and so humiliating that I can hardly write it — and yet I must.  Though we are dearer to each other than all the world besides, and as firmly united as if we were one, I am not legally your wife!  Sir Blount did not die till some time after we in England supposed.  The service must be repeated instantly.  I have not been able to sleep all night.  I feel so frightened and ashamed that I can scarcely arrange my thoughts.  The newspapers sent with this will explain, if you have not seen particulars.  Do come to me as soon as you can, that we may consult on what to do.  Burn this at once.

‘Your Viviette.’

When the note was despatched she remembered that there was another hardly less important question to be answered — the proposal of the Bishop for her hand.  His communication had sunk into nothingness beside the momentous news that had so greatly distressed her.  The two replies lay before her — the one she had first written, simply declining to become Dr. Helmsdale’s wife, without giving reasons; the second, which she had elabourated with so much care on the previous day, relating in confidential detail the history of her love for Swithin, their secret marriage, and their hopes for the future; asking his advice on what their procedure should be to escape the strictures of a censorious world.  It was the letter she had barely finished writing when Mr. Cecil’s clerk announced news tantamount to a declaration that she was no wife at all.

This epistle she now destroyed — and with the less reluctance in knowing that Swithin had been somewhat averse to the confession as soon as he found that Bishop Helmsdale was also a victim to tender sentiment concerning her.  The first, in which, at the time of writing, the
suppressio veri
was too strong for her conscience, had now become an honest letter, and sadly folding it she sent the missive on its way.

The sense of her undefinable position kept her from much repose on the second night also; but the following morning brought an unexpected letter from Swithin, written about the same hour as hers to him, and it comforted her much.

He had seen the account in the papers almost as soon as it had come to her knowledge, and sent this line to reassure her in the perturbation she must naturally feel.  She was not to be alarmed at all.  They two were husband and wife in moral intent and antecedent belief, and the legal flaw which accident had so curiously uncovered could be mended in half-an-hour.  He would return on Saturday night at latest, but as the hour would probably be far advanced, he would ask her to meet him by slipping out of the house to the tower any time during service on Sunday morning, when there would be few persons about likely to observe them.  Meanwhile he might provisionally state that their best course in the emergency would be, instead of confessing to anybody that there had already been a solemnization of marriage between them, to arrange their re-marriage in as open a manner as possible — as if it were the just-reached climax of a sudden affection, instead of a harking back to an old departure — prefacing it by a public announcement in the usual way.

This plan of approaching their second union with all the show and circumstance of a new thing, recommended itself to her strongly, but for one objection — that by such a course the wedding could not, without appearing like an act of unseemly haste, take place so quickly as she desired for her own moral satisfaction.  It might take place somewhat early, say in the course of a month or two, without bringing down upon her the charge of levity; for Sir Blount, a notoriously unkind husband, had been out of her sight four years, and in his grave nearly one.  But what she naturally desired was that there should be no more delay than was positively necessary for obtaining a new license — two or three days at longest; and in view of this celerity it was next to impossible to make due preparation for a wedding of ordinary publicity, performed in her own church, from her own house, with a feast and amusements for the villagers, a tea for the school children, a bonfire, and other of those proclamatory accessories which, by meeting wonder half-way, deprive it of much of its intensity.  It must be admitted, too, that she even now shrank from the shock of surprise that would inevitably be caused by her openly taking for husband such a mere youth of no position as Swithin still appeared, notwithstanding that in years he was by this time within a trifle of one-and-twenty.

The straightforward course had, nevertheless, so much to recommend it, so well avoided the disadvantage of future revelation which a private repetition of the ceremony would entail, that assuming she could depend upon Swithin, as she knew she could do, good sense counselled its serious consideration.