It Never Can Happen Again

by William De Morgan

This was not the end of the conversation. But the story sees that it was to blame for not telling some more of the antecedent circumstances that had made it possible, and now hastens to make good the deficit. The Rector can wait.

Bishop Barham had been as good as his word. He allowed a reasonable time to elapse after the passing of the Act legalizing marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister, and then towards Christmas addressed a letter of paternal remonstrance to the Rector of Royd, "pointing out" some contingent effects of the Act which it was his duty, as that reverend gentleman's Diocesan, to lay stress upon in the interests of public decorum, as the slightest laxity in such a matter might have an injurious influence on the morality of clergy and laity alike. He was not suggesting for one moment that any infraction of moral law whatever was contemplated, or was even conceivable, in the present case. But a well-defined rule of life had to be observed by persons on whose part the slightest deviation from the strict observance of an enjoined conformity may act injuriously on the community. Here the prelude ended, and the Bishop came to the scratch. He could not shut his eyes to the fact that the Rev. Athelstan's household consisted only—children apart—of himself and a lady, the sister of his deceased wife. Since the recent lamentable decision of the Legislature to remove all legal restriction on marriages of persons so related, thus placing the Canon Law of the Church at variance with the Law of the Land, there would be no doubt that Mr. Taylor's domestic arrangements laid him open to censure, and might easily give rise to a serious public scandal. There was no doubt they transgressed the general rule which decides that persons marriageable but not married shall not be domiciled alone together, however circumspect their conduct may be. The Bishop contrived to hint that it was impossible to say where youth and susceptibility ended, and a grouty and untempting elderliness began, and that on this account especially his remarks applied in this case. Aunt Bessy was palpably neither Lalage nor Doris, but the principle held good all the same. He therefore, et cetera.

The Rev. Athelstan bit his lip and flushed angrily as he read the gratuitous insult to Aunt Bessy, who, although prim and intensely conservative, was not yet thirty-eight—for the two things are compatible—and immediately wrote as follows in answer to the Bishop:

"My Lord,

"I can only interpret your letter as enjoining upon me one of two courses. Either my sister-in-law must reside elsewhere or become my wife. But I understand that the Canon Law of the Church still discountenances marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister; and, further, that by a special clause of the recent Act nothing therein relieves a clergyman from any ecclesiastical censure to which he would have been liable previously for contracting such a marriage.

"If your Lordship will guarantee me against ecclesiastical censure for so doing, I will (having first ascertained Miss Caldecott's views on the subject) make arrangements for our marriage at an early date, with a view to removing the scandal you complain of.

"If your Lordship can be prevailed on to officiate at the wedding, I shall regard your doing so as the best security I can have against ecclesiastical censure hereafter."

To which the Bishop's reply was:

"Dear Mr. Taylor,

"It is my Episcopal duty to point out to you that such a marriage as you indicate, though legal, would be now, as always, contrary to the Canon Law of the Church, and in my opinion repugnant to every feeling of Christian morality. I refrain from using the adjective I am tempted to apply to it.

"But as I hold it to be consistent with my conscience as a Churchman to defer to public opinion when it coincides with my own, I am inclined to accept as well-grounded the view that households such as your present one may become the subjects of unfavourable comment, as a consequence (although the least pernicious one) of the recent Act of Parliament. I trust I have expressed clearly what I conceive to be your obvious duty alike as a Christian pastor and a member of Society.

"With regard to the concluding paragraph of your letter, I make no reply, except that in my opinion it calls for an apology.

"I am, etc.,

"Faithfully yours,

"Ignatius Nox."

The Rev. Athelstan showed both these letters of the Bishop to Adeline Fossett, his adviser in difficulties from boyhood, when that lady came to pay a visit to the Rectory a week before Christmas, when she could not come, because of leaving her mother alone. Families cohere at Christmas, as long as they are plural, and can. The cohesion of a unit is involuntary and continuous.

Now, Miss Fossett's opinions had been much modified when the debate in the Peers enlightened her about the views of the Roman Church, which—she inferred—is quite willing to marry all the sisters of the largest families successively to any bona fide widower. Possibly the Sacrament of Marriage might be refused to a man who had murdered his last wife in connection with his suit for her sister's hand. But Amor omnia vincit. Could the solemn rite be refused to him if he brought the ring in his pocket to the scaffold, and the Registrar was in attendance?

However, that has nothing to do with Adeline Fossett. She, to be brief, laughed at the Bishop's letters. The story has told how delighted she would have been to unite in marriage her two friends, whom she had long ago destined for one another, only the well-laid scheme ganged agee. And here she had the Pope and the Duke of Norfolk to back her, if consanguinity cropped up again! Clearly Yorick's destiny was to marry Aunt Bessy, and be happy. Unless he hated her, of course!

The Rector laughed his big laugh. "Oh no, I don't hate Bess!" said he. "I'm very fond of Bess—I am." And then he laughed again, and seemed immensely amused.