[CHAPTER XXII]
THE EXACT STORY OF CHALLIS'S FIRST WIFE'S FIRST MARRIAGE. HOW HE AND MARIANNE MISSED THEIR EXPLANATION. CHARLOTTE THE DETECTIVE. CHALLIS'S SECOND COURTSHIP, IN A NUTSHELL
If there had been no cause of irritation between Alfred Challis and his wife about his relations with Grosvenor Square, it would have mattered much less what he kept back from her of his previous history. And if he had taken her fully into his confidence about the story of his early marriage with her sister, his relations with Grosvenor Square would have been much less capable of embitterment and misinterpretation. But his palpable concealment of Heaven-knew-what from one who conceived she had of all others the fullest right to know it, played the part, in this domestic misunderstanding, of poor Desdemona's bad faith towards her father. "She has deceived her father, and may thee," said Brabantio.
Could Marianne have known what Heaven knew, she would probably have held her husband blameless, if ill-judging; though she might have felt very little leniency towards her sister for contracting a marriage unknown to her family. But the ground was not in order for the sowing of a crop of explanation, to be reaped as a harvest of reconciliation. It was cumbered with the clover her husband was supposed to be enjoying at the Acropolis Club and elsewhere, and choked with a creeping weed of Jealousy unacknowledged. And as the trivial things of life are always the ones that play the biggest parts, so that unfortunate resolution not to disturb his wife, when Alfred Challis came home from the Club dinner, had to answer for quite ten times its fair share of the events that followed. No doubt her silence was a little vindictive—it would have been so easy to give a hint that she was awake—but the truth is it had very little to do with the matter. What had a great deal to do with it was the fact that Mr. Challis had not been enjoying himself. Had it been otherwise, he would have felt apologetic; the monitor he would not admit was his conscience would have prescribed amends to Marianne for contriving to be so jolly without her. But she had no guess that her Grosvenor Square enemy was laid up with a sprained ankle, any more than he had that the new cook had been the means of bringing to light a great deal—the worst half in disjointed fragments—of a story his good if mistaken intentions had concealed. For, needless to say, the actual story was still very obscure to her; and Mrs. Eldridge, though clever enough, was a biassed assistant in its elucidation.
Lest it should still be equally obscure to the reader, let him note its broad facts as follows: Edward Keith Horne married, or went through a marriage ceremony, with Kate Verrall, a governess at the house of a coal-merchant named Hallock. Six weeks later he went away to New York, promising an early return; there was some pretence of winding up a relative's affairs. He repudiated his wife shortly after; as she became convinced, and as Challis, his friend, also believed, on legally good grounds. As we have already said, Challis may have met conviction half-way, being in love with the girl himself. Of course, it was he whose name Mrs. Steptoe had remembered wrongly as Harris. And, equally of course, the miserable reprobate of Athelstan Taylor's painful experience at St. Brides was Horne, who succeeded with what was left of his mouth in nearly articulating his true name rightly. "Kay Thorne" was close to the truth, considering the circumstances. This story is fortunate in having very little to do with this man; as his young wife, or victim, may also have been in having for her only adviser a youth with a strong interest in urging her passive acceptance of her position. If only half the betrayed girls in the world could have such an adviser ready to hand! Alas!—how seldom is one found with the courage to say, "Think yourself at least in luck, silly girl, that you are not fettered for life to this lout or devil! Hug to your heart this one consolation, that though you have bought your experience of him, and what he calls love, dear, you have escaped scot-free of the blessed sacrament of marriage!" Too often the poor thing finds herself alone in the desert—the desert where correct expressions grow—sin, and shame, and penitence, and so on—and where marriage-lines and marriage-settlements make oases, from which she is excluded, for the Grundy family to breed in.
Perhaps Challis had a concealed motive for his decision when, at the time he married Kate's sister, he made up his mind to treat the whole story as a sealed book. But, even with none, was he wrong, knowing that his wife elect was quite convinced that no belonging of hers had ever set foot outside her particular Grundy oasis? Remember, too, that he was only pursuing the course he would have held it a point of honour to pursue if he had never married Marianne at all. Why should his marriage with her make it incumbent on him to dig up a story that his wife had already passed years in ignorance of, without any living creature being perceptibly the worse? No doubt Mrs. Eldridge would have said, with a portentous gush of deep conviction, "She ought to have been told." But why?
At least, the story shows that Challis himself had nothing disgraceful to conceal, and that all his actions were dictated by consideration for others. It is more than likely that an explanation, had the position favoured it, would have ended—if not by placing him in the position of a hero—at least by a discharge with a first-class certificate from the high court of Morality. But the atmosphere teemed with suggestions of malpractice undefined, and the master-hand of Mrs. Eldridge made the most of them.
No explanation took place between Challis and Marianne at the only time when it was easily possible—on the morning after we saw them last. Explanations are like strawberries—bottled up, they spoil. Now, whatever chance there would have been of Challis hearing of the photograph mystery and Mrs. Steptoe's memories was cancelled by the malign arrival on the scene of Mrs. Eldridge and her John, bound for his daily toil at St. Martin's-le-Grand. So, you see, it was early in the morning.
Charlotte had been so uneasy about dear Marianne that she felt she must come over to find out. It was so entirely unexpected. She had been laughing and joking the minute before. So Charlotte thought fit to say, and Challis, to whom it was said privately, detected a flavour of an unasked-for assurance that Marianne was cheerful in his absence. "It" had come quite suddenly, when Marianne went away to speak to Martha. Challis had no means of guessing what "it" had been, except Mrs. Eldridge's note, and a certain demeanour of his wife's, which no doubt had to answer for an expression of Master Bob's, in secret conclave with his sister Cat. According to him, his mater was savage, if you liked, this morning. Challis had gone to his wife's room to ask about "it" as soon as he heard that the servant had abated; and had been told, coldly, that nothing had been the matter that Marianne knew of. His production of Mrs. Eldridge's note was met by, "That's just like Charlotte!" He waited a few moments for counter-inquiry about himself, rather anxious to tell what a failure the Acropolis had turned out; but no curiosity was shown, and he went back to his own room to dress, saying nothing further. Had he been wise, he would have sat on the bed in his pyjamas, and said he meant to stop there until the mystery was accounted for.
Matters got definitely worse when Mrs. Eldridge, whose invasion occurred just at the end of breakfast, took advantage of a chance exit of Marianne's, in connection with housekeeping matters, to follow her and contrive a sympathetic interview within hearing of the two gentlemen. Not that a word was audible, but anyone with the slightest knowledge of human nature would have discerned that one of the speakers, the tone of whose voice was mellow with the opposite sexes of the persons she was speaking of, was recognizing the patience and forbearance of the other under trials, and exhorting her to renewed efforts in the same direction.