In the vestry Chatty began to fail a little. She relinquished Dick’s arm, and stood trembling, supporting herself by the table. “I want him,” she said, faltering a little, “mamma, to tell me—what it means. There is something—to find out. Dick,” with a tremulous smile, “you have concealed something. It is not that I don’t trust you—but tell me”—Then, still smiling, she murmured, “Lizzie—and that—that poor—girl.”
Dick had collected himself “My darling,” he said, “I have done wrong. I have concealed what you ought to have known. Warrender, stop before you speak. I married when I was a boy. I declare upon my soul that I had every assurance the woman was dead. My clerk saw her buried, he brought me the certificate, and her portrait, and her ring. I had no reason, no reason at all, to doubt, I have no reason now,” he said, with a sudden recovery of courage, “except what this girl says—who has no way of knowing, while my information is sure. It is sure—quite sure. Chatty! can you think I would have brought you here to—to—The woman is dead.”
“Mr. Cavendish!” cried Lizzie loudly. “You saw her—as well as I.”
He looked at her for a moment, his face grew once more gray as ashes, he trembled where he stood. “It must have been—an illusion,” he said.
Here Warrender caught Lizzie somewhat roughly by the arm. “If this woman is here, find her,” he cried peremptorily, pushing her to the door before him. The church was still full of excited spectators whom the vergers were endeavouring to get rid of. In the aisle stood Geoff with someone veiled and muffled to the eyes. The boy was standing in front of her, like a little dog who has been set to watch. She could not move a step without a movement on his part. He gave to Warrender a sort of invitation with a nod of his little head. “I’ve got her here,” he said; then whispering, “It is the lady—the lady that ran you over, that picked me up—the lady at the Elms.”
“At the Elms!” There rushed over Theo’s mind a recollection of Dick’s visit to the village, of his hurried departure, of agitation unnoticed at the time. “I must ask you to step into the vestry,” he said.
“Oh, Mr. Warrender, I know you, though you don’t know me; don’t ask me to do that. What, among all those nicely dressed people, and me so!—oh no, please do not ask me, please don’t ask me! What good could I do? It seems to me I’ve done harm, but I meant none. I thought I’d just come and have a peep after hearing so much about you all, and knowing him so long.”
“Will you tell me who you are, and what is your connection with Cavendish? Come, and let us know before his face.”
“Oh, my connection with—Dear, dear! is it necessary to go into that—a thing of an age ago? Oh, Lord, Lizzie, let me alone, will you! it’s all your doing. Why couldn’t you let things alone?”
“Whatever you have to say, it had better be said before us all,” said Warrender sternly, for various members of the bridal party had straggled out, and were listening from the vestry door. He took her by the arm and led her into the room. “What is your relation to that man?” he said, keeping his hand upon her arm.
The wedding guests made a circle round, the clergyman in his white surplice among the ladies’ gay dresses, the white figure of Chatty leaning with her hand on the table, her mother’s anxious face close behind her. Poor Dick in his spruce wedding clothes, with his ghostly face, stood drawing back a little, staring with eyes that seemed to sink deeper in their sockets as he gazed. He had never looked upon that face since he parted with her in utter disgust and misery six years before. She came in, almost forced into the enclosure of all those fine people gazing at her, with all her meretricious graces, not an imposing sinner, a creature ready to cry and falter, yet trying to set up against the stare of the ladies the piteous impudence of her kind.
“What are you to that man?” Theo asked.
“Oh—what should I be to him? a gentleman doesn’t ask such questions. I—I—have been the same to him as I’ve been—you know well enough,” she added, with a horrible little laugh that echoed all about, and made a stir among the people round.
“Are you his wife?”
She shuddered, and began to cry. “I—I’m nobody’s wife. I’ve been—a number of things. I like my freedom—I—” She stopped hysterical, overcome by the extraordinary circumstances, and the audience which listened and looked at her with hungry ears and eyes.
Dick put out his arms as if to wave the crowd away. What were all these spectators doing here, looking on at his agony? He spoke in a hoarse and husky voice. “Why did you deceive me? why did you pretend you were dead, and lead me to this?”
“Because I’ve nothing to do with you, and I don’t want nothing to do with you,” she cried; “because I’ve been dead to you these long years; because I’m not a bad, cruel woman. I wanted to leave you free. He’s free for me,” she said, turning to Warrender. “It’s not I that wants to bind him. If I made believe it was me that died, where was the wrong? I wanted to set him free. That’s not deceiving him, it was for his good, that he might feel he was free.”
“Answer, woman. Are you his wife?”
“What right have you to call me a woman? His wife? How can you tell whether I wasn’t married before ever I set eyes upon him?” she cried, with a hysterical laugh. “They don’t think so much of that where I came from. There!
