On the thirteenth day after the flight from Capri, Edward Spence, leaving the villa for his afternoon walk, encountered the postman and received from him three letters. One was addressed to Ross Mallard, Esq., care of Edward Spence, Esq.; another, to Mrs. Spence; the third, to Mrs. Baske. As he reascended the stairs, somewhat more quickly than his wont, Spence gave narrow attention to the handwriting on the envelopes. He found Eleanor where he had left her a few minutes before, at the piano, busy with a difficult passage of Brahms. She looked round in surprise, and on seeing the letters started up eagerly.
"Do you know Elgar's hand?" Spence asked. "These two from London are his, I should imagine. This for you is from Mrs. Lessingham, isn't it?"
"Yes; I think this is the news, at last," said Eleanor, inspecting Mrs. Baske's letter, not without feminine emotion. "I'll take it to her. Shall you go over with the other?"
"He'll be here after dinner; the likelihood is that I shouldn't find him."
"Occasionally—very occasionally—you lack tact, my husband. He would hardly care to open this and read it in our presence."
"More than occasionally, my dear girl, you remind me of the woman whose price is above rubies. I'll go over and leave it for him at once. Just to show the male superiority, however, I shall be careful to make my walk a few minutes longer than usual—a thing of which you would be quite incapable whilst the contents of Miriam's letter were unknown to you."
Alone again, Eleanor sent the letter to Miriam's room by a servant, and with uncertain fingers broke the envelope of that addressed to herself. Already she had heard once from Mrs. Lessingham, who ten days ago left Naples to join certain friends in Rome; the first hurried glance over the present missive showed that it contained no intelligence. She had scarcely begun to read it attentively, when the door opened and Miriam came in.
Her face was pale with agitation, and her eyes had the strangest light in them; to one who knew nothing of the circumstances, she would have appeared exultant. Eleanor could not but gaze at her intently.
"From Reuben!"
"Yes." Miriam suppressed her voice, and held out the sheet of note-paper, which fluttered. "Read it."
The body of the letter was as follows:—
"I hope we have caused you no anxiety; from the first moment when our departure was known, you must have understood that we had resolved to put an end to useless delay. We travelled to London as brother and sister, and to-day have become man and wife. The above will be our address for a short time; we have not yet decided where we shall ultimately live.
"By this same post I write to Mallard, addressed to him at the villa. I hope he has had the good sense to wait quietly for news.
"Cecily sends her love to you—though she half fears that you will reject it. I cannot see why you should. We have done the only sensible thing, and of course in a month or two it will be just the same, to everybody concerned, as if we had been married in the most foolish way that respectability can contrive. Let us hear from you very soon, dear sister. We talk much of you, and hope to have many a bright day with you yet—more genuinely happy than that we spent in tracking out old Tiberius."
Eleanor looked up, and again was struck with the singular light in her cousin's eyes.
"Well, it only tells us what we anticipated. Of course he made false declarations. If Mr. Mallard were really as grim as he sometimes looks, the result to both of them might be unpleasant."
"But the marriage could not be undone?" Miriam asked quickly.
"Oh no. Scarcely desirable that it should be."
Miriam took the letter, and in a few minutes went back again to her room.
At nine o'clock in the evening, the Spences, who sat alone, received the foreseen visit from Mallard. They welcomed him silently. As he sat down, he had a smile on his face; he drew a letter deliberately from his pocket, and, without preface, began to read it aloud, still in a deliberate manner.
"Let me first of all make a formal announcement. We have this morning been married by registrar's licence. We intend to live for a few weeks at this present address, where we have taken some furnished rooms until better arrangements can be made. I lose no time in writing to you, for of course there is business between us that you will desire to transact as soon as may be.
"In obtaining the licence, I naturally gave false information regarding Cecily's age; this was an inevitable consequence of the step we had taken. You know my opinions on laws and customs: for the multitude they are necessary, and an infraction of them by the average man is, logically enough, called a sin against society; for Cecily and myself, in relation to such a matter as our becoming man and wife, the law is idle form. Personally, I could have wished to dispense with the absurdity altogether, but, as things are, this involves an injustice to a woman. I told my falsehoods placidly, for they were meaningless in my eyes. I have the satisfaction of knowing that you cannot, without inconsistency, find fault with me.
"And now I speak as one who would gladly be on terms of kindness with you. You know me, Mallard; you must be aware how impossible it was for me to wait two years. As for Cecily, her one word, again and again repeated on the journey, was, 'How unkind I shall seem to them!' and I know that it was the seeming disrespect to you which most of all distressed her. For her sake, I make it my petition that you will let the past be past. She cannot yet write to you, but is sad in the thought of having incurred your displeasure. Whatever you say to me, let it be said privately; do not hurt Cecily. I mentioned 'business; the word and the thing are equally hateful to me. I most sincerely wish Cecily had nothing, that the vile question of money might never arise. Herein, at all events, you will do me justice; I am no fortune-hunter.
"If you come to London, send a line and appoint a place of meeting. But could not everything be done through lawyers? You must judge; but, again I ask it, do not give Cecily more pain."
The listeners were smiling gravely. After a silence, the letter was discussed, especially its second paragraph. Mallard was informed of the note which Miriam had received.
"I shall go to-morrow," he said, "and 'transact my business.' On the whole, it might as well be done through lawyers, but I had better be in London."
"And then?" asked Eleanor.
"I shall perhaps go and spend a week with the people at Sowerby Bridge. But you shall hear from me."
"Will you speak to Mrs. Baske?"
"I don't think it is necessary. She has expressed no wish that I should?"
"No; but she might like to be assured that her brother won't be prosecuted for perjury."
"Oh, set her mind at ease!"
"Show Mallard the letter from Mrs. Lessingham," said Spence, with a twinkle of the eyes.
"I will read it to him."
She did so. And the letter ran thus:
"Still no news? I am uneasy, though there can be no rational doubt as to what form the news will take when it comes. The material interests in question are enough to relieve us from anxiety. But I wish they would be quick and communicate with us.
"One reconciles one's self to the inevitable, and, for my own part, the result of my own reflections is that I am something more than acquiescent. After all, granted that these two must make choice of each other, was it not in the fitness of things that they should act as they have done? For us comfortable folk, life is too humdrum; ought we not to be grateful to those who supply us with a strong emotion, and who remind us that there is yet poetry in the world? I should apologize for addressing such thoughts to you, dear Eleanor, for you have still the blessing of a young heart, and certainly do not lack poetry. I speak for myself, and after all I am much disposed to praise these young people for their unconventional behaviour.
"What if our darkest anticipations were fulfilled? Beyond all doubt they are now sincerely devoted to each other, and will remain so for at least twelve months. Those twelve months will be worth a life-time of level satisfaction. We shall be poor creatures in comparison when we utter our 'Didn't I tell you so?'
"Whilst in a confessing mood, I will admit that I had formed rather a different idea of Cecily; I was disposed to think of her as the modern woman who has put unreasoning passion under her feet, and therefore this revelation was at first a little annoying to me. But I see now that my view of her failed by incompleteness. The modern woman need by no means be a mere embodied intellect; she will choose to enjoy as well as to understand, and to enjoy greatly she will sacrifice all sorts of things that women have regarded as supremely important. Indeed, I cannot say that I am disappointed in Cecily; rightly seen, she has justified the system on which I educated her. My object was to teach her to think for herself, to be self-reliant. The jeune fille, according to society's pattern, is my abhorrence: an ignorant, deceitful, vain, immoral creature. Cecily is as unlike that as possible; she has behaved independently and with sincerity. I really admire her very much, and hope that her life may not fall below its beginning.
"Let me hear as soon as a word reaches you. I am with charming people, and yet I think longingly of the delightful evenings at Villa Sannazaro, your music and your talk. You and your husband have a great place in my heart; you are of the salt of the earth. Spare me a little affection, for I am again a lonely woman."
This letter also was discussed, and its philosophy appreciated. Mallard spoke little; he had clasped his hands behind his head, and listened musingly.
There was no effusion in the leave-taking, though it might be for a long time. Warm clasping of hands, but little said.
"A good-bye for me to Mrs. Baske," was Mallard's last word.
And his haggard but composed face turned from Villa Sannazaro.
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