CHAPTER THE FORTY-FOURTH.
THE LAW OF MARRIAGE.
One of my first proceedings, after my return, was to ascertain how the English law stood with regard to Olivia's position. Fortunately for me, one of Dr. Senior's oldest friends was a lawyer of great repute, and he discussed the question with me after a dinner at his house at Fulham.
"There seems to be no proof against the husband of any kind," he said, after I had told him all.
"Why!" I exclaimed, "here you have a girl, brought up in luxury and wealth, willing to brave any poverty rather than continue to live with him."
"A girl's whim," he said; "mania, perhaps. Is there insanity in her family?"
"She is as sane as I am," I answered. "Is there no law to protect a wife against the companionship of such a woman as this second Mrs. Foster?"
"The husband introduces her as his cousin," he rejoined, "and places her in some little authority on the plea that his wife is too young to be left alone safely in Continental hotels. There is no reasonable objection to be taken to that."
"Then Foster could compel her to return to him?" I said.
"As far as I see into the case, he certainly could," was the answer, which drove me nearly frantic.
"But there is this second marriage," I objected.
"There lies the kernel of the case," he said, daintily peeling his walnuts. "You tell me there are papers, which you believe to be forgeries, purporting to be the medical certificate, with corroborative proof of her death. Now, if the wife be guilty of framing these, the husband will bring them against her as the grounds on which he felt free to contract his second marriage. She has done a very foolish and a very wicked thing there."
"You think she did it?" I asked.
He smiled significantly, but without saying any thing.
"I cannot!" I cried.
"Ah! you are blind," he replied, with the same maddening smile; "but let me return. On the other hand, if the husband has forged these papers, it would go far with me as strong presumptive evidence against him, upon which we might go in for a divorce, not a separation merely. If the young lady had remained with him till she had collected proof of his unfaithfulness to her, this, with his subsequent marriage to the same person during her lifetime, would probably have set her absolutely free."
"Divorced from him?" I said.
"Divorce," he repeated.
"But what can be done now?" I asked.
"All you can do," he answered, "is to establish your influence over this fellow, and go cautiously to work with him. As long as the lady is in France, if she be alive, and he is too ill to go after her, she is safe. You may convince him by degrees that it is to his interest to come to some terms with her. A formal deed of separation might be agreed upon, and drawn up; but even that will not perfectly secure her in the future."
I was compelled to remain satisfied with this opinion. Yet how could I be satisfied, while Olivia, if she was still living, was wandering about homeless, and, as I feared, destitute, in a foreign country?
I made my first call upon Foster the next evening. Mrs. Foster had been to Brook Street every day since her return, to inquire for me, and to leave an urgent message that I should go to Bellringer Street as soon as I was again in town. The lodging-house looked almost as wretched as the forsaken dwelling down at Noireau, where Olivia had perhaps been living; and the stifling, musty air inside it almost made me gasp for breath.
"So you are come back!" was Foster's greeting, as I entered the dingy room.
"Yes." I replied.
"I need not ask what success you've had," he said, sneering, 'Why so pale and wan, fond lover?' Your trip has not agreed with you, that is plain enough. It did not agree with Carry, either, for she came back swearing she would never go on such a wild-goose chase again. You know I was quite opposed to her going?"
"No," I said, incredulously. The diamond ring had disappeared from his finger, and it was easy to guess how the funds had been raised for the journey.
"Altogether opposed," he repeated. "I believe Olivia is dead. I am quite sure she has never been under this roof with me, as Miss Ellen Martineau has been. I should have known it as surely as ever a tiger scented its prey. Do you suppose I have no sense keen enough to tell me she was in the very house where I was?"
"Nonsense!" I answered. His eyes glistened cruelly, and made me almost ready to spring upon him. I could have seized him by the throat and shaken him to death, in my sudden passion of loathing against him; but I sat quiet, and ejaculated "Nonsense!" Such power has the spirit of the nineteenth century among civilized classes.
"Olivia is dead," he said, in a solemn tone. "I am convinced of that from another reason: through all the misery of our marriage, I never knew her guilty of an untruth, not the smallest. She was as true as the Gospel. Do you think you or Carry could make me believe that she would trifle with such an awful subject as her own death? No. I would take my oath that Olivia would never have had that letter sent, or write to me those few lines of farewell, but to let me know that she was really dead."
His voice faltered a little, as though even he were moved by the thought of her early death. Mrs. Foster glanced at him jealously, and he looked back at her with a provoking curve about his lips. For the moment there was more hatred than love in the regards exchanged between them. I saw it was useless to pursue the subject.
"Well," I said, "I came to arrange a time for Dr. Lowry to visit you with me, for the purpose of a thorough examination. It is possible that Dr. Senior may be induced to join us, though he has retired from practice. I am anxious for his opinion as well as Lowry's." "You really wish to cure me?" he answered, raising his eyebrows.
"To be sure," I replied. "I can have no other object in undertaking your case. Do you imagine it is a pleasure to me? It is possible that your death would be a greater benefit to the world than your life, but that is no question for me to decide. Neither is it for me to consider whether you are my friend or my enemy. There is simply a life to be saved if possible; whose, is not my business. Do you understand me?"
"I think so," he said. "I am nothing except material for you to exercise your craft upon."
"Precisely," I answered; "that and nothing more. As some writer says, 'It is a mere matter of instinct with me. I attend you just as a Newfoundland dog saves a drowning man.'"
I went from him to Hanover Street, where I found Captain Carey, who met me with the embarrassment and shamefacedness of a young girl. I had not yet seen them since my return from Normandy. There was much to tell them, though they already knew that my expedition had failed, and that it was still doubtful whether Ellen Martineau and Olivia were the same person.
Captain Carey walked along the street with me toward home. He had taken my arm in his most confidential manner, but he did not open his lips till we reached Brook Street.
"Martin," he said, "I've turned it over in my own mind, and I agree with Tardif. Olivia is no more dead than you or me. We shall find out all about it in August, if not before. Cheer up, my boy! I tell you what: Julia and I will wait till we are sure about Olivia."
"No, no," I interrupted; "you and Julia have nothing to do with it. When is your wedding to be?"
"If you have no objection," he answered—"have you the least shadow of an objection?"
"Not a shadow of a shadow," I said.
"Well, then," he resumed, bashfully, "what do you think of August? It is a pleasant month, and would give us time for that trip to Switzerland, you know. Not any sooner, because of your poor mother; and later, if you like that better."
"Not a day later," I said; "my father has been married again these four months."
Yet I felt a little sore for my mother's memory. How quickly it was fading away from every heart but mine! If I could but go to her now, and pour out all my troubled thoughts into her listening, indulgent ear! Not even Olivia herself, who could never be to me more than she was at this moment, could fill her place.