FORTUNATELY for me, the landlord did not open the door when Irang. A stupid maid-of-all-work, who never thought of asking me for my name, let me in. Mrs. Macallan was at home, and had no visitors with her. Giving me this information, the maid led the way upstairs, and showed me into the drawing-room without a word of announcement.
My mother-in-law was sitting alone, near a work-table, knitting.
The moment I appeared in the doorway she laid aside her work, and, rising, signed to me with a commanding gesture of her hand to let her speak first.
"I know what you have come here for," she said. "You have come here to ask questions. Spare yourself, and spare me. I warn you beforehand that I will not answer any questions relating to my son."It was firmly, but not harshly said. I spoke firmly in my turn.
"I have not come here, madam, to ask questions about your son," Ianswered. "I have come, if you will excuse me, to ask you a question about yourself."She started, and looked at me keenly over her spectacles. I had evidently taken her by surprise.
"What is the question?" she inquired.
"I now know for the first time, madam, that your name is Macallan," I said. "Your son has married me under the name of Woodville. The only honorable explanation of this circumstance, so far as I know, is that my husband is your son by a first marriage. The happiness of my life is at stake. Will you kindly consider my position? Will you let me ask you if you have been twice married, and if the name of your first husband was Woodville?"She considered a little before she replied.
"The question is a perfectly natural one in your position," she said. "But I think I had better not answer it.""May I as k why?"
"Certainly. If I answered you, I should only lead to other questions, and I should be obliged to decline replying to them. Iam sorry to disappoint you. I repeat what I said on the beach--Ihave no other feeling than a feeling of sympathy toward _you._ If you had consulted me before your marriage, I should willingly have admitted you to my fullest confidence. It is now too late.
You are married. I recommend you to make the best of your position, and to rest satisfied with things as they are.""Pardon me, madam," I remonstrated. "As things are, I don't know that I _am_ married. All I know, unless you enlighten me, is that your son has married me under a name that is not his own. How can I be sure whether I am or am not his lawful wife?""I believe there can be no doubt that you are lawfully my son's wife," Mrs. Macallan answered. "At any rate it is easy to take a legal opinion on the subject. If the opinion is that you are _not_ lawfully married, my son (whatever his faults and failings may be) is a gentleman. He is incapable of willfully deceiving a woman who loves and trusts him. He will do you justice. On my side, I will do you justice, too. If the legal opinion is adverse to your rightful claims, I will promise to answer any questions which you may choose to put to me. As it is, I believe you to be lawfully my son's wife; and I say again, make the best of your position. Be satisfied with your husband's affectionate devotion to you. If you value your peace of mind and the happiness of your life to come, abstain from attempting to know more than you know now."She sat down again with the air of a woman who had said her last word.
Further remonstrance would be useless; I could see it in her face; I could hear it in her voice. I turned round to open the drawing-room door.
"You are hard on me, madam," I said at parting. "I am at your mercy, and I must submit."She suddenly looked up, and answered me with a flush on her kind and handsome old face.
"As God is my witness, child, I pity you from the bottom of my heart!"After that extraordinary outburst of feeling, she took up her work with one hand, and signed to me with the other to leave her.
I bowed to her in silence, and went out.
I had entered the house far from feeling sure of the course Iought to take in the future. I left the house positively resolved, come what might of it, to discover the secret which the mother and son were hiding from me. As to the question of the name, I saw it now in the light in which I ought to have seen it from the first. If Mrs. Macallan _had_ been twice married (as Ihad rashly chosen to suppose), she would certainly have shown some signs of recognition when she heard me addressed by her first husband's name. Where all else was mystery, there was no mystery here. Whatever his reasons might be, Eustace had assuredly married me under an assumed name.
Approaching the door of our lodgings, I saw my husband walking backward and forward before it, evidently waiting for my return.
If he asked me the question, I decided to tell him frankly where I had been, and what had passed between his mother and myself.
He hurried to meet me with signs of disturbance in his face and manner.
"I have a favor to ask of you, Valeria," he said. "Do you mind returning with me to London by the next train?"I looked at him. In the popular phrase, I could hardly believe my own ears.
"It's a matter of business," he went on, "of no interest to any one but myself, and it requires my presence in London. You don't wish to sail just yet, as I understand? I can't leave you here by yourself. Have you any objection to going to London for a day or two?"I made no objection. I too was eager to go back.
In London I could obtain the legal opinion which would tell me whether I were lawfully married to Eustace or not. In London Ishould be within reach of the help and advice of my father's faithful old clerk. I could confide in Benjamin as I could confide in no one else. Dearly as I loved my uncle Starkweather, I shrank from communicating with him in my present need. His wife had told me that I made a bad beginning when I signed the wrong name in the marriage register. Shall I own it? My pride shrank from acknowledging, before the honeymoon was over, that his wife was right.