Man and Wife Page 56

it no longer. Consider! in your own interests, consider--before

  you drive the miserable woman who has trusted you to despair. You

  have promised me marriage by all that is sacred. I claim your

  promise. I insist on nothing less than to be what you vowed I

  should be--what I have waited all this weary time to be--what I

  _am,_ in the sight of Heaven, your wedded wife. Lady Lundie gives

  a lawn-party here on the 14th. I know you have been asked. I

  expect you to accept her invitation. If I don't see you, I won't

  answer for what may happen. My mind is made up to endure this

  suspense no longer. Oh, Geoffrey, remember the past! Be

  faithful--be just--to your loving wife,

  "ANNE SILVESTER."

  2. _From Geoffrey Delamayn to Anne Silvester._

  "DEAR ANNE,--Just called to London to my father. They have

  telegraphed him in a bad way. Stop where you are, and I will

  write you. Trust the bearer. Upon my soul, I'll keep my promise.

  Your loving husband that is to be,

  "GEOFFREY DELAMAYN.

  WINDYGATES HOUSE _Augt._ 14, 4 P. M.

  "In a mortal hurry. The train starts 4.30."

  Sir Patrick read the correspondence with breathless attention to

  the end. At the last lines of the last letter he did what he had

  not done for twenty years past--he sprang to his feet at a bound,

  and he crossed a room without the help of his ivory cane.

  Anne started; and turning round from the window, looked at him in

  silent surprise. He was under the influence of strong emotion;

  his face, his voice, his manner, all showed it.

  "How long had you been in Scotland, when you wrote this?" He

  pointed to Anne's letter as he asked the question, put ting it so

  eagerly that he stammered over the first words. "More than three

  weeks?" he added, with his bright black eyes fixed in absorbing

  interest on her face.

  "Yes."

  "Are you sure of that?"

  "I am certain of it."

  "You can refer to persons who have seen you?"

  "Easily."

  He turned the sheet of note-paper, and pointed to Geoffrey's

  penciled letter on the fourth page.

  "How long had _he_ been in Scotland, when _he_ wrote this? More

  than three weeks, too?"

  Anne considered for a moment.

  "For God's sake, be careful!" said Sir Patrick. "You don't know

  what depends on this, If your memory is not clear about it, say

  so."

  "My memory was confused for a moment. It is clear again now. He

  had been at his brother's in Perthshire three weeks before he

  wrote that. And before he went to Swanhaven, he spent three or

  four days in the valley of the Esk."

  "Are you sure again?"

  "Quite sure!"

  "Do you know of any one who saw him in the valley of the Esk?"

  "I know of a person who took a note to him, from me."

  "A person easily found?"

  "Quite easily."

  Sir Patrick laid aside the letter, and seized in ungovernable

  agitation on both her hands.

  "Listen to me," he said. "The whole conspiracy against Arnold

  Brinkworth and you falls to the ground before that

  correspondence. When you and he met at the inn--"

  He paused, and looked at her. Her hands were beginning to tremble

  in his.

  "When you and Arnold Brinkworth met at the inn," he resumed, "the

  law of Scotland had made you a married woman. On the day, and at

  the hour, when he wrote those lines at the back of your letter to

  him, you were _Geoffrey Delamayn's wedded wife!_"

  He stopped, and looked at her again.

  Without a word in reply, without the slightest movement in her

  from head to foot, she looked back at him. The blank stillness of

  horror was in her face. The deadly cold of horror was in her

  hands.

  In silence, on his side, Sir Patrick drew back a step, with a

  faint reflection of _her_ dismay in his face. Married--to the

  villain who had not hesitated to calumniate the woman whom he had

  ruined, and then to cast her helpless on the world. Married--to

  the traitor who had not shrunk from betraying Arnold's trust in

  him, and desolating Arnold's home. Married--to the ruffian who

  would have struck her that morning, if the hands of his own

  friends had not held him back. And Sir Patrick had never thought

  of it! Absorbed in the one idea of Blanche's future, he had never

  thought of it, till that horror-stricken face looked at him, and

  said, Think of _my_ future, too!

  He came back to her. He took her cold hand once more in his.

  "Forgive me," he said, "for thinking first of Blanche."

  Blanche's name seemed to rouse her. The life came back to her

  face; the tender brightness began to shine again in her eyes. He

  saw that he might venture to speak more plainly still: he went

  on.

  "I see the dreadful sacrifice as _you_ see it. I ask myself, have

  I any right, has Blanche any right--"

  She stopped him by a faint pressure of his hand.

  "Yes," she said, softly, "if Blanche's happiness depends on it."

  THIRTEENTH SCENE.--FULHAM.

  CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIFTH.

  THE FOOT-RACE.

  A SOLITARY foreigner, drifting about London, drifted toward

  Fulham on the day of the Foot-Race.

  Little by little, he found himself involved in the current of a

  throng of impetuous English people, all flowing together toward

  one given point, and all decorated alike with colors of two

  prevailing hues--pink and yellow. He drifted along with the

  stream of passengers on the pavement (accompanied by a stream of

  carriages in the road) until they stopped with one accord at a

  gate--and paid admission money to a man in office--and poured

  into a great open space of ground which looked like an

  uncultivated garden.

  Arrived here, the foreign visitor opened his eyes in wonder at

  the scene revealed to view. He observed thousands of people

  assembled, composed almost exclusively of the middle and upper

  classes of society. They were congregated round a vast inclosure;

  they were elevated on amphitheatrical wooden stands, and they

  were perched on the roofs of horseless carriages, drawn up in

  rows. From this congregation there rose such a roar of eager

  voices as he had never heard yet from any assembled multitude in

  these islands. Predominating among the cries, he detected one

  everlasting question. It began with, "Who backs--?" and it ended

  in the alternate pronouncing of two British names unintelligible

  to foreign ears. Seeing these extraordinary sights, and hearing

  these stirring sounds, he applied to a policeman on duty; and

  said, in his best producible English, "If you please, Sir, what

  is this?"

  The policeman answered, " North against South--Sports."

  The foreigner was informed, but not satisfied. He pointed all

  round the assembly with a circular sweep of his hand; and said,

  "Why?"

  The policeman declined to waste words on a man who could ask such

  a question as that. He lifted a large purple forefinger, with a

  broad white nail at the end of it, and pointed gr
avely to a

  printed Bill, posted on the wall behind him. The drifting

  foreigner drifted to the Bill.

  After reading it carefully, from top to bottom, he consulted a

  polite private individual near at hand, who proved to be far more

  communicative than the policeman. The result on his mind, as a

  person not thoroughly awakened to the enormous national

  importance of Athletic Sports, was much as follows:

  The color of North is pink. The color of South is yellow. North

  produces fourteen pink men, and South produces thirteen yellow

  men. The meeting of pink and yellow is a solemnity. The solemnity

  takes its rise in an indomitable national passion for hardening

  the arms and legs, by throwing hammers and cricket-balls with the

  first, and running and jumping with the second. The object in

  view is to do this in public rivalry. The ends arrived at are

  (physically) an excessive development of the muscles, purchased

  at the expense of an excessive strain on the heart and the

  lungs--(morally), glory; conferred at the moment by the public

  applause; confirmed the next day by a report in the newspapers.

  Any person who presumes to see any physical evil involved in

  these exercises to the men who practice them, or any moral

  obstruction in the exhibition itself to those civilizing

  influences on which the true greatness of all nations depends, is

  a person without a biceps, who is simply incomprehensible.

  Muscular England develops itself, and takes no notice of him.

  The foreigner mixed with the assembly, and looked more closely at

  the social spectacle around him.

  He had met with these people before. He had seen them (for

  instance) at the theatre, and observed their manners and customs

  with considerable curiosity and surprise. When the curtain was

  down, they were so little interested in what they had come to

  see, that they had hardly spirit enough to speak to each other

  between the acts. When the curtain was up, if the play made any

  appeal to their sympathy with any of the higher and nobler

  emotions of humanity, they received it as something wearisome, or

  sneered at it as something absurd. The public feeling of the

  countrymen of Shakespeare, so far as they represented it,

  recognized but two duties in the dramatist--the duty of making

  them laugh, and the duty of getting it over soon. The two great

  merits of a stage proprietor, in England (judging by the rare

  applause of his cultivated customers), consisted in spending

  plenty of money on his scenery, and in hiring plenty of

  brazen-faced women to exhibit their bosoms and their legs. Not at

  theatres only; but among other gatherings, in other places, the

  foreigner had noticed the same stolid languor where any effort

  was exacted from genteel English brains, and the same stupid

  contempt where any appeal was made to genteel English hearts.

  Preserve us from enjoying any thing but jokes and scandal!

  Preserve us from respecting any thing but rank and money! There

  were the social aspirations of these insular ladies and

  gentlemen, as expressed under other circumstances, and as

  betrayed amidst other scenes. Here, all was changed. Here was the

  strong feeling, the breathless interest, the hearty enthus iasm,

  not visible elsewhere. Here were the superb gentlemen who were

  too weary to speak, when an Art was addressing them, shouting

  themselves hoarse with burst on burst of genuine applause. Here

  were the fine ladies who yawned behind their fans, at the bare

  idea of being called on to think or to feel, waving their

  handkerchiefs in honest delight, and actually flushing with

  excitement through their powder and their paint. And all for

  what? All for running and jumping--all for throwing hammers and

  balls.

  The foreigner looked at it, and tried, as a citizen of a

  civilized country, to understand it. He was still trying--when

  there occurred a pause in the performances.

  Certain hurdles, which had served to exhibit the present

  satisfactory state of civilization (in jumping) among the upper

  classes, were removed. The privileged persons who had duties to

  perform within the inclosure, looked all round it; and

  disappeared one after another. A great hush of expectation

  pervaded the whole assembly. Something of no common interest and

  importance was evidently about to take place. On a sudden, the

  silence was broken by a roar of cheering from the mob in the road

  outside the grounds. People looked at each other excitedly, and

  said, "One of them has come." The silence prevailed again--and

  was a second time broken by another roar of applause. People

  nodded to each other with an air of relief and said, "Both of

  them have come." Then the great hush fell on the crowd once more,

  and all eyes looked toward one particular point of the ground,

  occupied by a little wooden pavilion, with the blinds down over

  the open windows, and the door closed.

  The foreigner was deeply impressed by the silent expectation of

  the great throng about him. He felt his own sympathies stirred,

  without knowing why. He believed himself to be on the point of

  understanding the English people.

  Some ceremony of grave importance was evidently in preparation.

  Was a great orator going to address the assembly? Was a glorious

  anniversary to be commemorated? Was a religious service to be

  performed? He looked round him to apply for information once

  more. Two gentlemen--who contrasted favorably, so far as

  refinement of manner was concerned, with most of the spectators

  present--were slowly making their way, at that moment, through

  the crowd near him. He respectfully asked what national solemnity

  was now about to take place. They informed him that a pair of

  strong young men were going to run round the inclosure for a

  given number of turns, with the object of ascertaining which

  could run the fastest of the two.

  The foreigner lifted his hands and eyes to heaven. Oh,

  multifarious Providence! who would have suspected that the

  infinite diversities of thy creation included such beings as

  these! With that aspiration, he turned his back on the

  race-course, and left the place.

  On his way out of the grounds he had occasion to use his

  handkerchief, and found that it was gone. He felt next for his

  purse. His purse was missing too. When he was back again in his

  own country, intelligent inquiries were addressed to him on the

  subject of England. He had but one reply to give. "The whole

  nation is a mystery to me. Of all the English people I only

  understand the English thieves!"

  In the mean time the two gentlemen, making their way through the

  crowd, reached a wicket-gate in the fence which surrounded the

  inclosure.

  Presenting a written order to the policeman in charge of the

  gate, they were forthwith admitted within the sacred precincts

  The closely packed spectators, regarding them with mixed feelings

  of envy and curiosity, wondered who they might be. Were they
/>
  referees appointed to act at the coming race? or reporters for

  the newspapers? or commissioners of police? They were neither the

  one nor the other. They were only Mr. Speedwell, the surgeon, and

  Sir Patrick Lundie.

  The two gentlemen walked into the centre of the inclosure, and

  looked round them.

  The grass on which they were standing was girdled by a broad

  smooth path, composed of finely-sifted ashes and sand--and this

  again was surrounded by the fence and by the spectators ranked

  behind it. Above the lines thus formed rose on one side the

  amphitheatres with their tiers of crowded benches, and on the

  other the long rows of carriages with the sight-seers inside and

  out. The evening sun was shining brightly, the light and shade

  lay together in grand masses, the varied colors of objects

  blended softly one with the other. It was a splendid and an

  inspiriting scene.

  Sir Patrick turned from the rows of eager faces all round him to

  his friend the surgeon.

  "Is there one person to be found in this vast crowd," he asked,

  "who has come to see the race with the doubt in his mind which

  has brought _us_ to see it?"

  Mr. Speedwell shook his head. "Not one of them knows or cares

  what the struggle may cost the men who engage in it."

  Sir Patrick looked round him again. "I almost wish I had not come

  to see it," he said. "If this wretched man--"

  The surgeon interposed. "Don't dwell needlessly, Sir Patrick, on

  the gloomy view," he rejoined. "The opinion I have formed has,

  thus far, no positive grounds to rest on. I am guessing rightly,

  as I believe, but at the same time I am guessing in the dark.

  Appearances _may_ have misled me. There may be reserves of vital

  force in Mr. Delamayn's constitution which I don't suspect. I am

  here to learn a lesson--not to see a prediction fulfilled. I know

  his health is broken, and I believe he is going to run this race

  at his own proper peril. Don't feel too sure beforehand of the

  event. The event may prove me to be wrong."

  For the moment Sir Patrick dropped the subject. He was not in his

  usual spirits.

  Since his interview with Anne had satisfied him that she was

  Geoffrey's lawful wife, the conviction had inevitably forced

  itself on his mind that the one possible chance for her in the

  future, was the chance of Geoffrey's death. Horrible as it was to

  him, he had been possessed by that one idea--go where he might,

  do what he might, struggle as he might to force his thoughts in

  other directions. He looked round the broad ashen path on which

  the race was to be run, conscious that he had a secret interest

  in it which it was unutterably repugnant to him to feel. He tried

  to resume the conversation with his friend, and to lead it to

  other topics. The effort was useless. In despite of himself, he

  returned to the one fatal subject of the struggle that was now

  close at hand.

  "How many times must they go round this inclosure," he inquired,

  "before the race is ended?"

  Mr. Speedwell turned toward a gentleman who was approaching them

  at the moment. "Here is somebody coming who can tell us," he

  said.

  "You know him?"

  "He is one of my patients."

  "Who is he?"

  "After the two runners he is the most important personage on the

  ground. He is the final authority--the umpire of the race."

  The person thus described was a middle-aged man, with a

  prematurely wrinkled face, with prematurely white hair and with

  something of a military look about him--brief in speech, and

  quick in manner.

  "The path measures four hundred and forty yards round," he said,

  when the surgeon had repeated Sir Patrick's question to him. "In

  plainer words, and not to put you to your arithmetic once round

  it is a quarter of a mile. Each round is called a 'Lap.' The men

  must run sixteen Laps to finish the race. Not to put you to your