The Law and the Lady

'I didn't mean to alarm you, Eustace,' I said. 'I spoke at random. Pray forgive me.'

He waved his hand impatiently, as if my penitent words were tangible things—ruffling, worrying things, like flies in summer—which he was putting away from him.

'What else have you discovered?' he asked, in low, stern tones.

'Nothing, Eustace.'

'Nothing?' He paused as he repeated the word, and passed his hand over his forehead in a weary way. 'Nothing, of course,' he resumed, speaking to himself, 'or she would not be here.' He paused once more, and looked at me searchingly. 'Don't say again what you said just now,' he went on. 'For your own sake, Valeria, as well as for mine.' He dropped into the nearest chair, and said no more.

I certainly heard the warning; but the only words which really produced an impression on my mind were the words preceding it, which he had spoken to himself. He had said: 'Nothing, of course, or she could not be here.' If I had found out some other truth besides the truth about the name, would it have prevented me from ever returning to my husband? Was that what he meant? Did the sort of discovery that he contemplated mean something so dreadful that it would have parted us at once and forever? I stood by his chair in silence, and tried to find the answer to those terrible questions in his face. It used to speak to me so eloquently when it spoke of his love. It told me nothing now.

He sat for some time without looking at me, lost in his own thoughts. Then he rose on a sudden and took his hat.

'The friend who lent me the yacht is in town,' he said. 'I suppose I had better see him, and say our plans are changed.' He tore up the telegram with an air of sullen resignation as he spoke. 'You are evidently determined not to go to sea with me,' he resumed. 'We had better give it up. I don't see what else is to be done. Do you?'

His tone was almost a tone of contempt. I was too depressed about myself, too alarmed about him, to resent it.

'Decide as you think best, Eustace,' I said, sadly. 'Every way, the prospect seems a hopeless one. As long as I am shut out from your confidence, it matters little whether we live on land or at sea—we cannot live happily.'

'If you could control your curiosity,' he answered, sternly, 'we might live happily enough. I thought I had married a woman who was superior to the vulgar failings of her sex. A good wife should know better than to pry into affairs of her husband's with which she had no concern.'

Surely it was hard to bear this? However, I bore it.

'Is it no concern of mine?' I asked, gently, 'when I find that my husband has not married me under his family name? Is it no concern of mine when I hear your mother say, in so many words, that she pities your wife? It is hard, Eustace, to accuse me of curiosity because I cannot accept the unendurable position in which you have placed me. Your cruel silence is a blight on my happiness and a threat to my future. Your cruel silence is estranging us from each other at the beginning of our married life. And you blame me for feeling this? You tell me I am prying into affairs which are yours only? They are not yours only: I have my interest in them too. Oh, my darling, why do you trifle with our love and our confidence in each other? Why do you keep me in the dark?'

He answered with a stern and pitiless brevity,

'For your own good.'

I turned away from him in silence. He was treating me like a child.

He followed me. Putting one hand heavily on my shoulder, he forced me to face him once more.

'Listen to this,' he said. 'What I am now going to say to you I say for the first and last time. Valeria! if you ever discover what I am now keeping from your knowledge—from that moment you live a life of torture; your tranquillity is gone. Your days will be days of terror; your nights will be full of horrid dreams—through no fault of mine, mind! through no fault of mine! Every day of your life you will feel some new distrust, some growing fear of me, and you will be doing me the vilest injustice all the time. On my faith as a Christian, on my honor as a man, if you stir a step further in this matter, there is an end to your happiness for the rest of your life! Think seriously of what I have said to you; you will have time to reflect. I am going to tell my friend that our plans for the Mediterranean are given up. I shall not be back before the evening.' He sighed, and looked at me with unutterable sadness. 'I love you, Valeria,' he said. 'In spite of all that has passed, as God is my witness, I love you more dearly than ever.'

So he spoke. So he left me.

I must write the truth about myself, however strange it may appear. I don't pretend to be able to analyze my own motives; I don't pretend even to guess how other women might have acted in my place. It is true of me, that my husband's terrible warning—all the more terrible in its mystery and its vagueness—produced no deterrent effect on my mind: it only stimulated my resolution to discover what he was hiding from me. He had not been gone two minutes before I rang the bell and ordered the carriage, to take me to Major Fitz-David's house in Vivian Place.

Walking to and fro while I was waiting—I was in such a fever of excitement that it was impossible for me to sit still—I accidentally caught sight of myself in the glass.

My own face startled me, it looked so haggard and so wild. Could I present myself to a stranger, could I hope to produce the necessary impression in my favor, looking as I looked at that moment? For all I knew to the contrary, my whole future might depend upon the effect which I produced on Major Fitz-David at first sight. I rang the bell again, and sent a message to one of the chambermaids to follow me to my room.

I had no maid of my own with me: the stewardess of the yacht would have acted as my attendant if we had held to our first arrangement. It mattered little, so long as I had a woman to help me. The chambermaid appeared. I can give no better idea of the disordered and desperate condition of my mind at that time than by owning that I actually consulted this perfect stranger on the question of my personal appearance. She was a middle-aged woman, with a large experience of the world and its wickedness written legibly on her manner and on her face. I put money into the woman's hand, enough of it to surprise her. She thanked me with a cynical smile, evidently placing her own evil interpretation on my motive for bribing her.

'What can I do for you, ma'am?' she asked, in a confidential whisper. 'Don't speak loud! there is somebody in the next room.'

'I want to look my best,' I said, 'and I have sent for you to help me.'

'I understand, ma'am.'

'What do you understand?'