"My dear madam," I cried excitedly, "I haven"t the slightest notion of your name. To the best of my knowledge, I"ve never had the pleasure of meeting you before this moment. Yet you have the boldness to a.s.sert that you are my wife! The thing is absolutely preposterous!" I laughed cynically.
"You must be mad to talk like this!" the woman answered with some asperity.
"I tell you that I"m not mad, madam," I protested, "and further, I declare that I have never married."
"What rubbish you talk!" she said. "This accident to your head has evidently affected your intellect. You must rest, as Doctor Britten has ordered."
"The doddering old idiot thinks, like yourself, that I"m not quite responsible for my actions," I laughed. "Well, we shall see."
"If you were in your right senses you would never deny that I am your wife," answered the overdressed woman. "The thing"s too absurd."
"My dear madam," I cried, growing angry, "your allegations are utterly ridiculous, to say the least. All this is either some confounded conspiracy, or else you mistake me for somebody else. I tell you that I am Wilford Heaton, of Ess.e.x Street, Strand, a bachelor who has neither thought nor inclination of marrying."
"And I tell you that you are Wilford Heaton, my husband, and owner of this house," she answered, her face growing redder with excitement.
The situation was certainly stranger than any other in which a man could possibly be placed. That it was no dream, but a stern reality, was entirely plain. I glanced around the comfortable library, and saw there evidences of wealth and refinement, while through the window beyond my gaze fell upon the wide park sloping away to a large lake glistening in the sunshine, and through the trees beyond could be seen a distant glimpse of the blue waters of the English Channel.
I stood utterly nonplussed by the startling declaration of this artificial-looking person, who aped youth so ridiculously, and yet spoke with such an air of confidence and determination.
"And you actually expect me to believe this absurd story of yours, that I am your husband, when only last night I dined at The Boltons, and was then a bachelor? Besides, madam," I added with a touch of sarcasm, for I confess that my anger was now thoroughly aroused, "I think the--well, the difference in our ages is sufficient to convince any one that--"
"No, no," she hastened to interrupt me, as though that point were very distasteful to her. "Age is entirely out of the question. Am I to understand that you distinctly deny having made me your wife?"
"I do, most decidedly," I laughed, for the very idea was really too ridiculous to entertain.
She exchanged a pitying look with Gedge, who stood at a little distance, watching in silence.
"Poor Wilford! poor Wilford?" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in a tone of sympathy, and, addressing the man who called himself my secretary, said, "It seems quite true what the doctor has declared; the blow has upset the balance of his mind."
"Madam," I cried very determinedly, "you will oblige me by not adding further insult to your attempted imposture--for such sympathy is insulting to me."
She clasped her hands, turned her eyes upwards, and sighed in the manner of the elderly.
"You believe that I"m mad. Therefore you are trying to impose upon me!"
I went on furiously. "But I tell you, my dear madam, that I am just as sane as yourself, and am fully prepared to prove that I am not your husband."
"Ask Mr Gedge whether I speak the truth or not," she said, turning to the secretary.
"Certainly," answered the man addressed, looking straight into my face.
"I have no hesitation whatever in bearing out Mrs Heaton"s statement."
"It"s all humbug!" I cried, turning savagely upon him. "I don"t know this woman from Adam!"
"Well," he laughed cynically, "you ought to know her pretty well, at any rate."
It was apparent from his tone that he had no very high opinion of her.
"I"m pleased to say that until this present moment we have been strangers," I said, for I was not in a humour to mince words.
"You are extremely complimentary, Wilford," she observed resentfully.
"It appears to me that compliments are entirely unnecessary in this affair," I said. "You are endeavouring to thrust yourself upon me as my wife, in order, I suppose, to achieve some object you have in view. But I tell you once and for all, madam, that any such attempt will be futile. To speak plainly, I don"t know you, neither have I any desire to add you to my list of acquaintances."
"Well," she cried; "of all the stories I"ve ever heard, this is the most extraordinary!"
"I think, madam, I may say the same," I remarked coldly. "Your story is the wildest and most incredible that I"ve ever heard. Last night, as a bachelor, I dined with friends in Kensington, and left at a late hour, calling at a house in Chelsea on my way home to Ess.e.x Street. To-day I awake to be told that I am the owner of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice; master of this house--in Devonshire, I believe, isn"t it; and your lawful husband. Now, if you think me capable of swallowing such a pack of palpable fictions as these, you must certainly consider me absolutely insane, for none but a madman would give credence to such a tissue of lies."
"Doctor Britten considers that your brain is unbalanced, because you do not know the truth," she said calmly. "I quite agree with him."
"He"s a fool--a drivelling idiot," I cried, forgetting myself in the heat of the moment, and using an unwriteable word. Mention of that pottering old fossil"s name was to me as a red rag to a bull. "I surely know who and what I am!" I cried.
"No, my dear Wilford, that"s just it. You don"t know who you are," the woman answered with a smile.
"Oh!" I exclaimed. "Then perhaps you"ll kindly inform me. All this may be very amusing to you, but I a.s.sure you that to me it"s the very reverse."
"I can only tell you who you are as I know you to be," answered the powdered-faced, doll-like old lady, whose attempts at juvenile coquetry sickened me.
"Go on," I said, preparing myself for more attempts to befool me.
"I ask you first whether you are not Wilford Heaton, of Heaton Manor, near Tewkesbury?"
"Certainly."
"And you were once stricken by blindness?"
"That is so, unfortunately."
"And you are now carrying on business as a financier in the City of London?"
"I know nothing of finance," I answered. "This Mr Gedge--or whatever his name is--has told me some absurd fairy tale about my position in London, but knowing myself, as I do, to be an arrant duffer at figures, I"m quite positive that the story is all bunk.u.m."
"Then how do you account for these memorandum forms?" inquired Gedge, taking some from the table, "and for these letters? Are they not in your handwriting?"
I glanced at the letters he held. They referred to some huge financial transaction, and were certainly in a hand that appeared wonderfully like my own.
"Some one has been imposing upon you, I tell you. This is a case of mistaken ident.i.ty--it must be, my dear sir."
"But I tell you it isn"t," protested Gedge. "All that your wife has said is the absolute truth."
"My wife!" I cried angrily. "I have no wife--thank Heaven!"
"No, no," whined the painted old woman, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief, very lightly, however, so as not to disturb their artificiality. "No, don"t say that, my dear Wilfred, don"t say that!
You know that you are my husband--you know you are!"
"I know, my dear madam, quite well that I do not occupy that distinguished position," I responded very firmly.
"But I can prove it--I can prove it!" she cried, with a futile effort at tears.