"My Castalio!" she screamed. "My Beaugard!" [Footnote: I never saw the rascal act, thank Heaven, since in that event, report assures me, I might conceivably have accredited him with the possession of some meritorious qualities, however trivial; but, it appears, these two above-mentioned roles were the especial puppetry in which Mr. Vanringham was most successful in wringing tears and laughter from the injudicious.—F.A.] She ran to him, and with disjointed talk and quavering utterance disclosed the present lamentable posture of affairs.
And I found the tableau they presented singular. My wife had been a toast, they tell me, in Queen Anne's time, and even now the lean and restless gentlewoman showed as the abandoned house of youth and wit and beauty, with here and there a trace of the old occupancy; always her furtive eyes shone with a cold and shifting glitter, as though a frightened imp peeped through a mask of Hecuba; and in every movement there was an ineffable touch of something loosely hinged and fantastic. In a word, the Marchioness was not unconscionably sane, and was known far and wide as a gallant woman resolutely oblivious to the batterings of time, and so avid of flattery that she was ready to smile on any man who durst give the lie to her looking-glass. Demented landlady of her heart, she would sublet that antiquated chamber to the first adventurer who came prepared to pay his scot in the false coin of compliment; and 'twas not difficult to comprehend how this young Thespian had acquired its tenancy.
But now the face of Mr. Vanringham was attenuated by her revelations, and the wried mouth of Mr. Vanringham suggested that the party be seated, in order to consider more at ease the unfortunate contretemps. Fresh lights were kindled, as one and all were past fear of discovery by this; and we four assembled about a table which occupied the centre of the apartment.
IV
"The situation," Mr. Vanringham, began, "may reasonably be described as desperate. Here we sit, four ruined beings. For Dr. Quarmby has betrayed an unoffending couple into involuntary matrimony, an act of which his Bishop can scarcely fail to take official notice; Captain Audaine and the Marchioness are entrapped into a loveless marriage, than which there mayn't be a greater misery in life; and my own future, I needn't add, is irrevocably blighted by the loss of my respected Dorothy, without whom continued animation must necessarily be a hideous and hollow mockery. Yet there occurs to me a panacea for these disasters."
"Then, indeed, Mr. Vanringham," said I, "there is one of us who will be uncommonly glad to know the name of it."
He faced me with a kind of compassion in his wide-set brown eyes, "You, sir, have caused a sweet and innocent lady to marry you against her will—Oho, beyond doubt, your intentions were immaculate; but the outcome remains in its stark enormity, and the hand of an inquisitive child is not ordinarily salved by its previous ignorance as to the corrosive properties of fire. You have betrayed confiding womanhood, an act abhorrent to all notions of gentility. There is but one conclusive proof of your repentance.—Need I mention that I allude to self-destruction?"
"O Lord, sir," I observed, "suicide is a deadly sin, and I would not willingly insult any gentlewoman by evincing so marked a desire for the devil's company in preference to hers."
"Your argument is sophistry," he returned, "since 'tis your death alone that can endear you to your bride. Death is the ultimate and skilled assayer of alloyed humanity: and by his art our gross constituents—our foibles, our pettinesses, nay, our very crimes—are precipitated into the coffin, the while that his crucible sets free the volatile pure essence, and shows as undefiled by all life's accidents that part of divinity which harbors in the vilest bosom. This only is remembered: this only mounts, like an ethereal spirit, to hallow the finished-with blunderer's renown, and reverently to enshrine his body's resting-place. Ah, no, Captain Audaine! death alone may canonize the husband. Once you're dead, your wife will adore you; once you're dead, your wife and I have before us an open road to connubial felicity, a road which, living, you sadly encumber; and only when he has delivered your funeral oration may Dr. Quarmby be exempt from apprehension lest his part in your marriage ceremony bring about his defrockment. I urge the greatest good for the greatest number, Captain; living, you plunge all four of us into suffering; whereas the nobility of an immediate felo-de-se will in common decency exalt your soul to Heaven accompanied and endorsed by the fervent prayers of three grateful hearts."
"And by the Lord Harry," says the Parson, "while no clergyman extant has a more cordial aversion to suicide, I cannot understand why a prolonged existence should tempt you. You love Miss Dorothy Allonby, as all Tunbridge knows; and to a person of sensibility, what can be more awkward than to have thrust upon him grandfathership of the adored one? You must in this position necessarily be exposed to the committal of a thousand gaucheries; and if you insist upon your irreligious project of procuring a divorce, what, I ask, can be your standing with the lady? Can she smile upon the suit of an individual who has publicly cast aside the sworn love and obedience of the being to whom she owes her very existence? or will any clergyman in England participate in the union of a woman to her ex-grandfather? Nay, believe me, sir, 'tis less the selfishness than the folly of your clinging to this vale of tears which I deplore. And I protest that this rope"—he fished up a coil from the corner—"appears to have been deposited here by a benign and all-seeing Providence to Suggest the manifold advantages of hanging yourself as compared with the untidy operation of cutting one's throat."
"And conceive, sir," says my wife, "what must be the universal grief for the bridegroom so untimelily taken off in the primal crescence of his honeymoon! Your funeral will be unparalleled both for sympathy and splendor; all Tunbridge will attend in tears; and 'twill afford me a melancholy but sincere pleasure to extend to you the hospitality of the Allonby mausoleum, which many connoisseurs have accounted the finest in the three kingdoms."
"I must venture," said I, "to terminate this very singular conversation. You have, one and all, set forth the advantages of my immediate demise; your logic is unassailable and has proven suicide my plain duty; and my rebuttal is confined to the statement that I will see every one of you damned before I'll do it."
Mr. Francis Vanringham rose with a little bow. "You have insulted both womanhood and the Established Church by the spitting out of that ribald oath; and me you have with equal levity wronged by the theft of my affianced bride. I am only a play-actor, but in inflicting an insult a gentleman must either lift his inferior to his own station or else forfeit his gentility. I wear a sword, Captain Audaine. Heyho, will you grant me the usual satisfaction?"
"My fascinating comedian," said I, "if 'tis a fight you are desirous of, I can assure you that in my present state I would cross swords with a costermonger, or the devil, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, with equal impartiality. But scarcely in the view of a lady, and, therefore, as you boast the greater influence in that quarter, will you kindly advise the withdrawal of yonder unexpected addition to my family?"
"There's an inner room," says he, pointing to the door behind me; and I held it open as my wife swept through.
"You are the epitome of selfishness," she flung out, in passing; "for had you possessed an ounce of gallantry, you would long ago have freed me from this odious marriage."