"It was their reproach from the beginning...."
"Yes—yes! But suppose this Act would, but for me, have conferred legitimacy retrospectively...."
"How 'but for you'?"
"Why—clearly! It might include in its retrospective action only such marriages as were held valid by one or other party at the date of the passing of the Bill. Mumps and Chobbles might be legitimate or no, according to my attitude towards their mother about our separation. It seems to me that my having refused to acknowledge it might make all the difference...." Challis paused awkwardly. For he had suddenly become aware that he was adducing reasons in plenty why he should not marry Judith at all. He had not meant his argument to go that length. He was only showing one form the Nemesis of Repentance might take in the event of the immediate passing of the Act. He was losing sight of the fact that if the Bill was thrown out, all his reasonings would apply just as much to a more leisurely union during the twelvemonth of respite.
The fact is he wanted to eat his cake and have it too—to get the advantage of the Act for his children and to avoid the guillotine himself. If he and Judith were not married in time, either their project would be made impossible, or at best the problem of justice or injustice to the children would stand over sine die, with all its present difficulties unsolved. If, on the other hand, they got married, the Act could only benefit his children by affirming his marriage with their mother a lawful one, and declaring Judith the second wife of a bigamist. Unless, indeed, a dexterous special clause in it gave his rupture with Marianne the validity of a divorce. Not a very likely provision of legal ingenuity!
How little idea the old lady gathering sticks must have had of what the gentleman was talking—talking—talking about to the lady, whose undisturbed beauty seemed to make no response, or barely a word now and then! Her centenarian mind probably thought it was only the usual thing—the use of eighty odd years agone, when she first knew of it; and so till now, except folk were changed since then.
But the gentleman would have done well to say less. None of his earnestness, none of his perturbation—none of his Law, none of his Logic—made matters a bit better. In one way they made it worse. A sense of a painful contingency crept in that had hardly had sufficient consideration. How if in the labyrinth of possibilities that sheer Legalism can construct over the grave of Fair Play there was really hidden a possible indictment for bigamy? If Challis married Judith, his first wife being still alive, with the reservation that the latter wasn't his wife at all, how then? Could he even obtain a Special Licence at Doctors' Commons? He would have to declare that no legal impediment existed, and to satisfy the Archbishop of Canterbury that his reasons for wanting it were sound. Perhaps his Grace would be crusty, and refuse it, to spite him for marrying his Deceased Wife's Sister. However, the idea of a piqued Prelate hitting below the belt in this way relieved a growing tension, and brought a smile into the matter.
Challis was glad to shift away from a perplexity. After a pause of silence he said: "Do you remember how we walked here—more than a year ago—and you told me you had given up the idea of Estrild?"
Judith replaced the hand she had taken away. "Oh, so well!" said she. "I was so sorry. But it seems to me that if my dearly-beloved family are going to quarrel with me about my marriage, I deserve to play Estrild as a set-off. I shall think about it."
They came to the coppice-wood, and the half-shade of its light and shadow-chequered path was grateful; for the sun was mounting, and his heat beginning to tell. Saladin brushed roughly past them, to see—at a guess—that all the tree-stems were in order. Judith leaned a little more on the arm she held.