If I give myself till to-night, I may hesitate again. I"m weary of the torture of hesitating. I must and will have relief in the present, cost what it may in the future. My letter to Midwinter will drive me mad if I see it staring and staring at me in my desk any longer. I can post it in ten minutes" time--and I will!
"It is done. The first of the three steps that lead me to the end is a step taken. My mind is quieter--the letter is in the post.
"By to-morrow Midwinter will receive it. Before the end of the week Armadale must be publicly seen to leave Thorpe Ambrose; and I must be publicly seen to leave with him.
"Have I looked at the consequences of my marriage to Midwinter? No! Do I know how to meet the obstacle of my husband, when the time comes which transforms me from the living Armadale"s wife to the dead Armadale"s widow?
"No! When the time comes, I must meet the obstacle as I best may. I am going blindfold, then--so far as Midwinter is concerned--into this frightful risk? Yes; blindfold. Am I out of my senses? Very likely. Or am I a little too fond of him to look the thing in the face? I dare say.
Who cares?
"I won"t, I won"t, I won"t think of it! Haven"t I a will of my own? And can"t I think, if I like, of something else?
"Here is Mother Jezebel"s cringing letter. _That_ is something else to think of. I"ll answer it. I am in a fine humor for writing to Mother Jezebel."
_Conclusion of Miss Gwilt"s Letter to Mrs. Oldershaw_.
"...I told you, when I broke off, that I would wait before I finished this, and ask my Diary if I could safely tell you what I have now got it in my mind to do. Well, I have asked; and my Diary says, "Don"t tell her!" Under these circ.u.mstances I close my letter--with my best excuses for leaving you in the dark.
"I shall probably be in London before long--and I may tell you by word of mouth what I don"t think it safe to write here. Mind, I make no promise! It all depends on how I feel toward you at the time. I don"t doubt your discretion; but (under certain circ.u.mstances) I am not so sure of your courage. L. G."
"P. S.--My best thanks for your permission to renew the bill. I decline profiting by the proposal. The money will be ready when the money is due. I have a friend now in London who will pay it if I ask him. Do you wonder who the friend is? You will wonder at one or two other things, Mrs. Oldershaw, before many weeks more are over your head and mine."
XI. LOVE AND LAW.
On the morning of Monday, the 28th of July, Miss Gwilt--once more on the watch for Allan and Neelie--reached her customary post of observation in the park, by the usual roundabout way.
She was a little surprised to find Neelie alone at the place of meeting.
She was more seriously astonished, when the tardy Allan made his appearance ten minutes later, to see him mounting the side of the dell, with a large volume under his arm, and to hear him say, as an apology for being late, that "he had muddled away his time in hunting for the Books; and that he had only found one, after all, which seemed in the least likely to repay either Neelie or himself for the trouble of looking into it."
If Miss Gwilt had waited long enough in the park, on the previous Sat.u.r.day, to hear the lovers" parting words on that occasion, she would have been at no loss to explain the mystery of the volume under Allan"s arm, and she would have understood the apology which he now offered for being late as readily as Neelie herself.
There is a certain exceptional occasion in life--the occasion of marriage--on which even girls in their teens sometimes become capable (more or less hysterically) of looking at consequences. At the farewell moment of the interview on Sat.u.r.day, Neelie"s mind had suddenly precipitated itself into the future; and she had utterly confounded Allan by inquiring whether the contemplated elopement was an offense punishable by the Law? Her memory satisfied her that she had certainly read somewhere, at some former period, in some book or other (possibly a novel), of an elopement with a dreadful end--of a bride dragged home in hysterics--and of a bridegroom sentenced to languish in prison, with all his beautiful hair cut off, by Act of Parliament, close to his head. Supposing she could bring herself to consent to the elopement at all--which she positively declined to promise--she must first insist on discovering whether there was any fear of the police being concerned in her marriage as well as the parson and the clerk. Allan, being a man, ought to know; and to Allan she looked for information--with this preliminary a.s.surance to a.s.sist him in laying down the law, that she would die of a broken heart a thousand times over, rather than be the innocent means of sending him to languish in prison, and of cutting his hair off, by Act of Parliament, close to his head. "It"s no laughing matter," said Neelie, resolutely, in conclusion; "I decline even to think of our marriage till my mind is made easy first on the subject of the Law."
"But I don"t know anything about the law, not even as much as you do,"
said Allan. "Hang the law! I don"t mind my head being cropped. Let"s risk it."
"Risk it?" repeated Neelie, indignantly. "Have you no consideration for me? I won"t risk it! Where there"s a will, there"s a way. We must find out the law for ourselves."
"With all my heart," said Allan. "How?"
"Out of books, to be sure! There must be quant.i.ties of information in that enormous library of yours at the great house. If you really love me, you won"t mind going over the backs of a few thousand books, for my sake!"
"I"ll go over the backs of ten thousand!" cried Allan, warmly. "Would you mind telling me what I"m to look for?"
"For "Law," to be sure! When it says "Law" on the back, open it, and look inside for Marriage--read every word of it--and then come here and explain it to me. What! you don"t think your head is to be trusted to do such a simple thing as that?"
"I"m certain it isn"t," said Allan. "Can"t you help me?"
"Of course I can, if you can"t manage without me! Law may be hard, but it can"t be harder than music; and I must, and will, satisfy my mind. Bring me all the books you can find, on Monday morning--in a wheelbarrow, if there are a good many of them, and if you can"t manage it in any other way."
The result of this conversation was Allan"s appearance in the park, with a volume of Blackstone"s Commentaries under his arm, on the fatal Monday morning, when Miss Gwilt"s written engagement of marriage was placed in Midwinter"s hands. Here again, in this, as in all other human instances, the widely discordant elements of the grotesque and the terrible were forced together by that subtle law of contrast which is one of the laws of mortal life. Amid all the thickening complications now impending over their heads--with the shadow of meditated murder stealing toward one of them already from the lurking-place that hid Miss Gwilt--the two sat down, unconscious of the future, with the book between them; and applied themselves to the study of the law of marriage, with a grave resolution to understand it, which, in two such students, was nothing less than a burlesque in itself!
"Find the place," said Neelie, as soon as they were comfortably established. "We must manage this by what they call a division of labor.
You shall read, and I"ll take notes."
She produced forthwith a smart little pocket-book and pencil, and opened the book in the middle, where there was a blank page on the right hand and the left. At the top of the right-hand page she wrote the word _Good_. At the top of the left-hand page she wrote the word _Bad_.
""Good" means where the law is on our side," she explained; "and "Bad" means where the law is against us. We will have "Good" and "Bad"
opposite each other, all down the two pages; and when we get to the bottom, we"ll add them up, and act accordingly. They say girls have no heads for business. Haven"t they! Don"t look at me--look at Blackstone, and begin."
"Would you mind giving one a kiss first?" asked Allan.
"I should mind it very much. In our serious situation, when we have both got to exert our intellects, I wonder you can ask for such a thing!"
"That"s why I asked for it," said the unblushing Allan. "I feel as if it would clear my head."
"Oh, if it would clear your head, that"s quite another thing! I must clear your head, of course, at any sacrifice. Only one, mind," she whispered, coquettishly; "and pray be careful of Blackstone, or you"ll lose the place."
There was a pause in the conversation. Blackstone and the pocket-book both rolled on the ground together.
"If this happens again," said Neelie, picking up the pocket-book, with her eyes and her complexion at their brightest and best, "I shall sit with my back to you for the rest of the morning. _Will_ you go on?"
Allan found his place for the second time, and fell headlong into the bottomless abyss of the English Law.
"Page 280," he began. "Law of husband and wife. Here"s a bit I don"t understand, to begin with: "It may be observed generally that the law considers marriage in the light of a Contract." What does that mean?
I thought a contract was the sort of a thing a builder signs when he promises to have the workmen out of the house in a given time, and when the time comes (as my poor mother used to say) the workmen never go."
"Is there nothing about Love?" asked Neelie. "Look a little lower down."
"Not a word. He sticks to his confounded "Contract" all the way through."
"Then he"s a brute! Go on to something else that"s more in our way."
"Here"s a bit that"s more in our way: "Incapacities. If any persons under legal incapacities come together, it is a meretricious, and not a matrimonial union." (Blackstone"s a good one at long words, isn"t he?
I wonder what he means by meretricious?) "The first of these legal disabilities is a prior marriage, and having another husband or wife living--""
"Stop!" said Neelie; "I must make a note of that." She gravely made her first entry on the page headed "Good," as follows: "I have no husband, and Allan has no wife. We are both entirely unmarried at the present time."
"All right, so far," remarked Allan, looking over her shoulder.
"Go on," said Neelie. "What next?"
""The next disability,"" proceeded Allan, ""is want of age. The age for consent to matrimony is, fourteen in males, and twelve in females."
Come!" cried Allan, cheerfully, "Blackstone begins early enough, at any rate!"