"Coercion or no," said the Rector, "it comes to the same thing. No retrospective clause could declare valid a marriage that had been voided by one of the parties yielding to a coercion quite within the rights of the other to impose. Not that I'm sure there isn't a sort of general legal usage, that no one can claim legal advantage from the illegality of his own action."
"I see," said Challis. "Heads, deceased sister's husband wins. Tails, deceased wife's sister loses! But how would such an interpretation of retrospective action affect me and Judith?"
"Why, clearly! If the Bill passed ever so, your marriage with Marianne would remain void. It would class with any other contract, illegal at the time, whose illegality had been subsequently acknowledged and acted on. I heard once of a curious case in point. Two young people had got married, knowing nothing of a consanguinity between them, owing to an old family quarrel. The girl was really a very much junior aunt of the young man; their respective mothers, daughters of the same father, having been born forty years apart. Of course, the children of this atrocious marriage were illegitimate."
"Did they part when they found it out?"
"Oh dear no! They brazened it out—said the meaning of the term 'aunt' was clear. Aunts had fronts, and so forth. The gentleman calls his wife aunty to this day, I believe. Perhaps you've seen the people? They've a large property in the South Riding of Yorkshire."
But Challis hadn't, and didn't know their name when mentioned. He seemed more interested in his own affairs. "If I understand you," said he, "your advice is—not to marry, in view of the possibility of this new enactment not acting retrospectively in cases of couples disunited by mutual consent, at a time when law held that no union existed. Let's pretend my consent was given, this time, for argument's sake."
"You have stated the case admirably. That is my advice. Wait!"
"You have a beautiful confidence, Yorick, in Acts of Parliament—before they are made! Would it be reinforced or weakened, I wonder, by a perusal of the Statutes at Large? Doesn't an element of hopefulness come in?"
"Hm—well—perhaps! That's my advice, anyhow. And that's the advice I shall give to Judith Arkroyd, if she comes to consult me. I shan't volunteer anything."
"I wish I could think as you do—about the effect of the Act. I mean." Challis's manner was to the last degree fitful and uneasy. "I mean I wish I could be sure it would leave the question open."