Chapter IX: Bigamy

From the drawing-room window Melville watched Sir Ross prancing down the garden path, and then he turned to Mrs. Sinclair as she came in holding his flowers. He would have assumed a penitent demeanour if the situation had seemed to require it, but a glance at his aunt's face reassured him. The laughter in her eyes was infectious, and Melville laughed in response.

"Sir Ross looks a little put out," he said tentatively.

"He's in an abominable temper," Mrs. Sinclair answered. "You have a great deal to answer for, Melville. You are the cause of quite a serious quarrel between that excellent little man and myself."

"I'm sorry if you're sorry," Melville said. "He doesn't like me, I know, but I wonder why?"

"Is it so surprising?" she enquired.

"Well," said Melville candidly, "most people do like me, you know--barring the very good ones."

"I see," said Mrs. Sinclair. "The fact is Sir Ross thinks you are too attentive to me."

"So he told me," Melville answered. "He left me in no doubt as to what he wanted; he regards me as a sort of trespasser, and desired me to clear out and not come back."

"What did you say?"

"Oh! I suggested that perhaps it was rather your affair than his, and then he said that one of us had got to go, and we played a sort of nursery game--'twasn't me and 'twas you, don't you know--I didn't go, so he did. Am I really compromising you--aunt?"

"Of course you're not," she said laughing. "There's a perfect explanation of your coming here in our relationship, but I don't choose to produce the family pedigree on demand. In plain English, Sir Ross is jealous of you, and jealous people are capable of anything."

"So it appears," Melville said. "From the way Sir Ross waltzed down to the gate I thought the gravel must be red-hot. Only a very angry man could prance as he did. By the way, he asked me how I was related to you."

"Did you tell him?" she asked a little anxiously.

"Not I," said Melville. "I saw he didn't know, and inferred you hadn't told him, so I explained that we were related by marriage, and eased him off a point or two."

"That was quite right," Mrs. Sinclair said approvingly. "You should never gratify idle curiosity."

Melville assented, but decided mentally that his own desire for information was different from the idle curiosity of Sir Ross Buchanan, and resolved that it should be satisfied.

"It was unfortunate," Mrs. Sinclair went on, "that Lucille should have shown you both into the same room, but it must have been very funny to see you glaring at each other."

Melville expostulated.

"I didn't glare. I purred--positively purred, but it was no good. Sir Ross meant to lose his temper and he lost it. He doesn't believe in our relationship a little bit. He said he knew the late Mr. Sinclair intimately, and never heard of any relations of his named Ashley."

"That's quite true," Mrs. Sinclair said simply; "he did know him, but he doesn't know that I was married to Sir Geoffrey Holt."

Melville looked at her sharply. He could tell from her voice and from the way she spoke that she had no idea of the sequence of thoughts passing in his mind. Once more fortune was smiling on him. Sir Ross Buchanan's casual remark had opened his eyes to a possible fact. Mrs. Sinclair herself could corroborate it, and once more knowledge would give him power. His marvellous faculty of reading faces stood him in good stead. Criminal or fool, whichever she might be, this woman did not suspect him now of cross-examining her from any sinister motive. She assumed that he knew something which he did not know, but which, if he were careful, she would let him know.

"Mr. Sinclair died on Jubilee Day, didn't he?" he said, and Mrs. Sinclair nodded. For once in his life Melville was really puzzled, and puzzled because in his cool, calculating way of doing wrong he made no allowance for possible ignorance of the wrong. But it was evident that the woman in front of him scented no danger, and he played a bold game.

"Forgive me, Lavender, for putting things so bluntly, but tell me--was there really any Mr. Sinclair at all?"

"Of course there was," she answered, quite surprised.

"When did you marry him?"

"Five years before; that is, in ninety-two."

"But Sir Geoffrey Holt is living."

"Yes," said Mrs. Sinclair.

"And you were legally married to him, weren't you?"

"Most certainly I was," she said indignantly.

"Well, my dear lady," Melville said, raising his brows so that the eye-glass dropped from his eye into his hand outstretched to catch it, "I don't care as a rule for calling a spade a spade, but it's the simple fact that you have committed bigamy."

If Melville expected his hostess to recoil with the dismay not unnatural in a criminal suddenly unmasked, he was disappointed. For a moment Mrs. Sinclair looked at him in blank astonishment, colouring slightly, it is true, but from indignation, not from shame, and when she spoke again it was with the same obvious ignorance of guilt that she had made the statement which so much surprised Melville.

"Don't be preposterous," she remarked at length. "Bigamy? Absurd!"

"It's anything but absurd," Melville retorted. "It's an uncommonly serious matter."

"But I had left Sir Geoffrey ages before," Mrs. Sinclair argued, "and hadn't heard of him or from him for years and years. I didn't even know he was alive."

"Did you try to find out?" Melville asked curtly.

"Yes," said Mrs. Sinclair; "but I didn't succeed, and I never connected my husband with the baronet in possession of Fairbridge. Anyhow, I had heard nothing of him for ages, and everybody knows that if you lose sight of your husband or your wife for seven years, you can marry again."

Melville considered. Evidently Mrs. Sinclair was an ignorant sort of woman, and, as a rule, it is only ignorant people who can be influenced by fear. At any rate, he could try to frighten her into telling him the facts, and it would be his own fault only if he could not turn them to his own advantage. His part as accessory after the fact could be explained easily enough if the occasion should ever arise.

"I know there are people who labour under that delusion," he said, "but it is a delusion. Marriage once contracted is binding until it is dissolved by death or decree, and while Sir Geoffrey could, doubtless, get a decree now in the Divorce Court, it could only be after your conviction at the Old Bailey."

He spoke icily and deliberately, and his words had the desired effect. Mrs. Sinclair's eyes dilated, and, although she retained her self-command, her bosom rose and fell quickly, betraying the emotion within her, and the emotion was fear. Melville was satisfied. He turned to her with a pleasant, sympathetic smile which might have inspired confidence in the heart of the most suspicious.

"Tell me all about it, Lavender," he said gently. "Naked truth is always a little bit shocking. I suppose that is why you only get it in savage countries. But it is the naked truth that you have committed bigamy, and it looks to me uncommonly as if you contemplated doing it again. Tell me all about it. I don't suppose you have one disinterested adviser among all the people you know, and this is certainly a case where two heads are better than one. I won't give you away. What are the facts?"

His frankness completely took her in, as completely as his definition of her offence had satisfied her. She sat down in a chair, nervously beating a tattoo upon its arms with her plump fingers, and every now and then stealing a glance at Melville from underneath her lashes.

"I can't believe you are right," she said, "but perhaps I may as well tell you what did happen. I know I can trust you if--if I was wrong."

"Implicitly," Melville murmured.

"Well," she said hesitatingly, punctuating her story with little pauses as if in doubt how much detail to fill in. "I was very young and--and pretty, and desperately poor when I met your uncle, and he was--rather old, and well-to-do and very kind. And I married him. I thought everything would be comfortable, don't you know. But I couldn't stand it. He wanted to have me educated, and I wanted to go about and see life. It was like trying to boil a tea-kettle over a volcano. We had most frightful quarrels, and very soon I made up my mind to leave him. And one day I just walked out of the house and never went back."

The way she summarised what must have been a tragedy was pathetic, and Melville was able to imagine what that home must have been like when it was the theatre of such a conflict between passionate youth and determined middle age.

"Where did you go to?" he asked.

"A girl I knew had lately married, and I went to her. Her husband was manager of an old-fashioned hotel on the South Coast, and they gave me a home. I was useful to them, so there was no obligation on either side. I stayed there a long time, and it was there that I met Mr. Sinclair."

"Did you never hear of Sir Geoffrey?"

"Never. After I marched out of his house that morning I was frightened, and at least two years went by before I dared to ask anything about him. He had left the house we lived in and disappeared too. He may have tried to trace me, but a child is very easily lost, and I was only a child. Anyhow, he never found me. And when a long time afterwards Mr. Sinclair asked me to marry him, I thought that I was free, and finally I consented. I knew I had no claim upon Sir Geoffrey, and I honestly believed he had none on me. Are you sure I was not free?"

"Quite sure," Melville answered. "Tell me the rest."

"We were married, and got along all right, and he died," she replied. "It was just like hundreds of other marriages, I suppose. I don't know that I loved him particularly, but I was a pretty good wife, and he left me comfortably provided for, and--and that is the end of the story."

She gave vent to a defiant little laugh, and looked at Melville.

"Those are the facts," she said. "Now, if you are right and I was wrong, tell me the position."

"Honestly, it's a very unpleasant one," Melville answered. "You see, Sir Geoffrey being alive at the time, your marriage with Mr. Sinclair was quite invalid. Sir Geoffrey could divorce you on the facts and you would have no claim on him for alimony; and, on the other hand, you would forfeit all the income you derive from Mr. Sinclair's estate as his widow, which legally, of course, you are not."

There was an interval, during which the minds of both worked quickly.

"What am I to do about Sir Ross?" Mrs. Sinclair asked presently. "I suppose I shall have to say that, for reasons that have just come to my knowledge, I can't marry him, or something of the sort. But he is dreadfully inquisitive; and, besides, any man would want something more definite than that."

"What more definite reason can you give?" Melville enquired.

"I shall have to tell him about Sir Geoffrey," she answered.

Melville immediately foresaw the objection to this. Sir Ross Buchanan would almost certainly do his best to get to the bottom of the whole thing; he would go to Fairbridge, with the result that Sir Geoffrey would learn where his wife was living and in what comfort; the funds he had been giving to Melville for her assistance would be withdrawn, and Melville would thus be thrown upon his own resources once again.

"That will not do at all," he said decisively; "it would be most dangerous. Sir Ross must remain in ignorance of the whole affair. Why, just think! If this reached Sir Geoffrey's ears he would prosecute you for bigamy at once and obtain a divorce; you would lose the whole of your present income, and Sir Ross would certainly never make you his wife. No; this must remain a secret between you and me."

"I don't want to tell him," Lavender admitted. "He knew Mr. Sinclair personally, but even if Sir Geoffrey were dead I should not care for him to know that I'd been married twice already. That is why I've never explained how you are related to me, not because I thought there was any harm in what I'd done. Can we really keep it to ourselves, Melville?"

"Certainly," he answered. "You've proved that you can keep a secret, which is more than most women can do, and you may rely upon me. I am as safe as the bank."

"Sir Ross is so jealous of you," Mrs. Sinclair said. "He told me to-day that I must choose between you, and went off in a huff because I would not order you out of the house."

"I daresay it's just as well," Melville said indifferently; "you may be glad of a day or two to think things over in. There's no blinking the fact that this is serious. When Sir Ross turns up again let me know, and don't do anything without consulting me."

"I think you are right," Mrs. Sinclair said. "For the present I will say nothing to him about it, and if any difficulty arises--I mean, if he presses me to marry him at once, or anything of that sort--I will come to you for advice."

"We will leave it like that," Melville assented. "For the present things can go on as they are. Above all, don't get frightened and lose your head."

"I'm very grateful to you, Melville," Mrs. Sinclair murmured; her words were at once an expression of gratitude and an appeal, for, in sober truth, she was very frightened already. It was as if the solid ground had suddenly opened, and as if a bottomless pit were yawning before her feet.

Melville took her hands in his.

"That's all right," he said, smiling kindly at her. "Show your gratitude by playing the game like a sportsman. If there is any way out of the mess I'll find it for you. Keep a stout heart. Good-bye."

He walked away from the house apparently absorbed in thought, but when he was out of sight he fairly rubbed his hands.

"It's like a bally game of chess," he said with glee, "and the chess-board's like Tom Tiddler's ground; there's gold and silver for me on every bally square simply waiting to be picked up. Just now it's Sir Geoffrey sending me to the assistance of the queen, who's in a tight place: starving, if you please, on about a thousand a year; and if for any reason that source of revenue dries up, the queen can be driven into the arms of Sir Ross. More bigamy, unless Sir Geoffrey is translated to another sphere, and if he is it won't matter very much to me. If my polygamous aunt marries Sir Ross Buchanan at all I shall be able to draw a very respectable percentage of her annual income. Oh, these knights and ladies!"

But indoors, Lavender Sinclair, with a very white face, sat thinking, thinking, thinking, and the only thought which was really clear before her mind was how fortunate it was that she had met Melville Ashley when she did. In him, at any rate, she possessed one loyal friend on whom she could rely.