The Late Mrs. Null

by Frank R. Stockton

"That is true," said Lawrence. "It is not by any means an easy piece of business. But we might as well look it square in the face, and determine what is to be done about it."

"It is simple enough, just as we look at it," said Annie. "All we have to do, is to say that, knowing that Aunt Keswick had written to my father that she was determined to make a match between cousin Junius and me, I was afraid to come down here without putting up some insurmountable obstacle between me and a man that I had not seen since I was a little girl. Of course I would say, very decidedly, that I wouldn't have married him if I hadn't wanted to; but then, considering Aunt Keswick's very open way of carrying out her plans, it would have been very unpleasant, and indeed impossible for me to be in the house with him unless she saw that there was no hope of a marriage between us; and for this reason I took the name of Mrs Null, or Mrs Nothing; and came down here, secure under the protection of a husband who never existed. And then, we could say that you and I were a good deal together, and that, although you had supposed, when you came here, that you were in love with Miss March, you had discovered that this was a mistake, and that afterwards we fell in love with each other, and are now engaged. That would be a straightforward statement of everything, just as it happened; but the great trouble is: How are we going to tell it to Aunt Keswick?"

"You are right," said Lawrence. "How are we going to tell it?"

"It need not be told!" thundered a strong voice close to their ears. And then there was a noise of breaking lattice-work and cracking vines, and through the back part of the arbor came an old woman wearing a purple sun-bonnet, and beating down all obstacles before her with a great purple umbrella. "You needn't tell it!" cried Mrs Keswick, standing in the middle of the arbor, her eyes glistening, her form trembling, and her umbrella quivering in the air. "You needn't tell it! It's told!"

Graphic and vivid descriptions have been written of those furious storms of devastating wind and deluging rain, which suddenly sweep away the beauty of some fair tropical scene; and we have read, too, of dreadful cyclones and tornadoes, which rush, in mad rage, over land and sea, burying great ships in a vast tumult of frenzied waves, or crushing to the earth forests, buildings, everything that may lie in their awful paths; but no description could be written which could give an adequate idea of the storm which now burst upon Lawrence and Annie. The old lady had seen these two standing together in the yard, conversing most earnestly. She had then seen Annie read a letter that Lawrence gave her; and then she had perceived the two, in close converse, enter the arbor, and sit down together without the slightest regard for the rights of Mr Null.

Mrs Keswick looked upon all this as somewhat more out-of-the-way than the usual proceedings of these young people, and there came into her mind a curiosity to know what they were saying to each other. So she immediately repaired to the large garden, and quietly made her way to the back of the arbor, in which advantageous position she heard the whole of Lawrence's story of his love-affair with Miss March; Annie's remarks upon the same, and the facts of this young lady's proposed confession in regard to her marriage with Mr Null, and her engagement to Mr Croft.

Then she burst in upon them; the tornado and the cyclone raged; the thunder rolled and crashed; and the white lightning of her wrath flashed upon the two, as if it would scathe and annihilate them, as they stood before her. Neither of them had ever known or imagined anything like this. It had been long since Mrs Keswick had had an opportunity of exercising that power of vituperative torment, which had driven a husband to the refuge of a reverted pistol; which had banished, for life, relatives and friends; and which, in the shape of a promissory curse, had held apart those who would have been husband and wife; and now, like the long stored up venom of a serpent, it burst out with the direful force given by concentration and retention.

At the first outburst, Annie had turned pale and shrunk back, but now she clung to the side of Lawrence, who, although his face was somewhat blanched and his form trembled a little with excitement, still stood up bravely, and endeavored, but ineffectually, to force upon the old lady's attention a denial of her bitter accusations. With face almost as purple as the bonnet she wore, or the umbrella she shook in the air, the old lady first addressed her niece. With scorn and condemnation she spoke of the deceit which the young girl had practised upon her. But this part of the exercises was soon over. She seemed to think that although nothing could be viler than Annie's conduct towards her, still the fact that Mr Null no longer existed, put Annie again within her grasp and control, and made it unnecessary to say much to her on this occasion. It was upon Lawrence that the main cataract of her fury poured. It would be wrong to say that she could not find words to express her ire towards him. She found plenty of them, and used them all. He had deceived her most abominably; he had come there, the expressed and avowed lover of Miss March; he had connived with her niece in her deceit; he had taken advantage of all the opportunities she gave him to attain the legitimate object of his visit, to inveigle into his snares this silly and absurd young woman; and he had dared to interfere with the plans, which, by day and by night, she had been maturing for years. In vain did Lawrence endeavor to answer or explain. She stopped not, nor listened to one word.

"And you need not imagine," she screamed at him, "that you are going to turn round, when you like, and marry anybody you please. You are engaged, body and soul, to Roberta March, and have no right, by laws of man or heaven, to marry anybody else. If you breathe a word of love to any other woman it makes you a vile criminal in the eyes of the law, and renders you liable to prosecution, sir. Your affianced bride knows nothing of what her double-faced snake of a lover is doing here, but she shall know speedily. That is a matter which I take into my own hands. Out of my way, both of you!"

And with these words she charged by them, and rushed out of the arbor, and into the house.