She would meet him outside a hall, then disappear for months, to turn up again and publicly claim him as her husband before a crowd of people.
The woman died some years ago in a workhouse infirmary. In her last illness she said who she was, and the great music-hall star was communicated with. He bought a grave for her, and on the tombstone above it he had these words placed:
"Sacred to the memory of ——— —————-, wife of ————— —————-."
Dead, he could acknowledge her. Living, his haunting terror was that he might meet her, and she might call him husband.
In France, when the family fortune and the family honour are being imperilled by a member, a family council can be called, and can invoke the aid of the law to limit the powers of the offending individual. Here no such system exists. A man who has lost all moral control over himself may squander his substance and leave his children beggars. A young man succeeding to a considerable estate may get rid of it in insane extravagance in a year or two. A widow left with the control of her dead husband's fortune may embark on foolish speculations or become the dupe of swindlers and leave the sons and daughters of her dead husband without a farthing in the world.
Mr. B————, who had a high financial position in the City, died and left a widow and four children, all girls. Fortunately, he settled a small sum on each of the girls, but the bulk of his fortune went to the widow.
She was forty-two when her husband died; the eldest girl was nineteen and the youngest fourteen.
Soon after her widowhood Mrs. B———— took to drink. Now began a purgatory for the daughters. The mother would go out every morning and be absent all day. At night she would return staggering, helpless, hopelessly intoxicated.
Sometimes she would be brought home by a policeman. One night a constable found her just before midnight lying on her own doorstep with a black bag in her hand. The black bag, which was half open, contained £700 in notes and gold. The unhappy woman had been to the bank in the afternoon and cashed a cheque for £800. A hundred pounds was missing. What had become of it she herself when she became sober was unable to say. She couldn't remember.
So things went on for two years. Night after night these young girls sat in their home listening to every footstep, waiting for their mother to return.